Slashdot Mirror
SGI Compares Linux & System V Source Code
mrgoatCEO writes "It seems SGI has finished up their test comparing SCO's Unix System V code and that of the Linux Kernel, according to ITWorld. SGI found that any similarities between the systems (amounting to only about 200 lines of code) have been removed in Linux Kernel 2.4.22, and added that the similarities were 'trivial in amount.'" This follows moves by SCO to terminate SGI's Unix license.
The top dogs are set to make a fortune off of this whole fiasco. I sure hope that SOMEBODY in the SEC is watching.
I'm on a chair.
I am really starting to believe the theory put out earlier that this is a a real pump and dump scheme. In Darl's contract, it states that he is in for a big payday if there are four consecutive quarters of profitability. The four quarters are over in February which conveniently is the time the IBM countersuit is supposed to get going again after the continuance.
As much as this whole fiasco sucks, you have to give Darl credit for being a master at pump and dump here if this is the case. Come February, I would not be surprised in the least bit if there is a sudden resignation by him and he relocates to somewhere in the south Pacific or Carribean.
No trees were harmed in the composition of this; however, numerous electrons were inconvenienced.
They don't want to tip their entire hand too quickly, and they don't want it biting their stock price (if they still have one) in the ass by inferring that the code is infringing as opposed to is conceivably infringing, making the entire debacle a mea culpa for SGI.
Interesting quesiton. Let's say you do push the list of infringing lines out .... then the world knows that sco has lines of code that in some sense match those on the list. Thus, the listing of the line numbers is about the same as publishing SCO's code. Kind of like passing a pointer to a private variable is a no-no.
That's the point, Darl McBride and Co. don't care about what happens after they lose the case, because they'll have already walked away after dumping their stock. They are driving what used to be a decent player in the market into a litigation based enterprise for their own short term gain. I'd have expected the SEC to at least look into this by now, but if it pans out the way it looks, they will either get off scott free, no questions asked, or will be spending some quality time with bubba in an 8x10 cell.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that yours is stupid.
When I was younger and running my own buisness, my role models for conducting myself were my hard working immigrant parents.
They were courteous, fair, always did the right thing by the customer, even if it meant being honest and not recommending work that they didn't need.
The funny thing is, neither was a high school graduate, coming from the farmlands of Greece, nor were they world-cultured, but they were honest.
It's becoming increasingly difficult to find people in buisness who earn honestly and don't have that "I have to gouge out your eyes before you screw me" buisness deal mentality.
Makes 'ya kinda sad; well me anyways.
DeCSS is only ~240 lines of code.
SGI wants it to be blatantly obvious that they have done nothing to deserve the wrath of SCO. Their approach is differnt than IBM - IBM says "Make my day, SCO. Mess with IBM and feel the hurt!!!". SGI says, "Very sorry, but we don't know what you're talking about. Now please go away?"
Since SCO is refusing to release that data, SGI does not see any need to - they have clearly washed their hands of the problem, and don't intend to provoke SCO any more than they have to.
Personally, I am very impressed with SGI's attitude in this whole ordeal - they stay out of it until SCO says something stupid, and then they very matter of factly point out that SCO is wrong, and carry on.
Schrodinger's cat is either dead or really pissed off...
The best way to evaluate anything is to put it up against real honest competition. Why do you think football teams do real hitting in practice? Why risk having someone get injured when it doesn't count? Because it's the only way to really evaluate how a player is likely to do on the field on Sunday when the games count.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
The 200 lines part refers only to SGI's contribution to the Linux kernel. A full (though automatic) comparison found several additional matches, though they decline to specify where and say they haven't investigated the origins of the code snippets to see if any are there illegally. It's understandable that SGI's immediate priority is to defend themselves, and not Linux as a whole.
Bank robbers nowdays, if they manage to get out of the bank with some money, almost always get caught.
I always think, "Wow! Who would be stupid enough to try to rob a bank anymore?"
Darl and his gang are simply pulling the stock market equivalent to robbing a bank. They'll make off with some money, but shortly afterward they'll get reeled in.
SCOX will get slammed once the clue hits the fan for the public here in a few months. Unlike Darl's Ikon lawsuit, which was an altogether different theft than this one, this robbery is right out in public view, and it's not going to go unnoticed.
Once the party is over and the SCOX investor dupes have lost their money, there will be shareholder suits against Darl and other executive and members of the board. There will be SEC investigations (that should have already begun, but public outcry haven't forced yet).
The good news for Darl, I guess, is that he'll manage to stash some of the loot for safe keeping, and the business world will forgive him so he can pull another stunt someday in the future.
We can only hope that he's barred from becoming an executive or board member of a publicly traded company in the future.
.sigs are for post^Hers.
Thanks for the old news. The Linux community has known for quite some time that there's no infringing code in Linux.
Those who invest in SCO haven't.
Why does SGI then release open letters addressed to the Linux community while SCO keeps spewing out financial press reports that are actually read by investors?
I would imagine that SGI had the resources to actually publish a press release while they are at it, but even after exhaustive thinking (I pondered for 37 seconds!) I couldn't come up with a reason why they are not bringing this to the knowledge of people who hold strings in their hands.
you have to give Darl credit for being a master at pump and dump here if this is the case
That's like giving credit to Hannibal Lecter for disposing of his victims in a most elegant manner that had anyting to do with fava beans.
Let's just call him a common criminal and call it a day.
Thanks
You know, in certain circles, this is intolerably rude. This guy flew halfway around the world to meet with a long-time partner, and their response was to blow him off? At least SCO should have offered him the courtesy of a polite "thanks for coming, but our business is concluded" type of face-to-face response. But instead, they've burned yet another bridge.
You'd think that with so few "friends", SCO would at least want to keep from turning such people into enemies.
Of course, there's always one other possible reason -- SCO's headquarters are empty. No one resides there, and in fact, The SCO Group is the shill for The Canopy Group that we all believe it to be. That would explain why no one came to greet him -- no one was there.
Anyone in Utah care to help out a do a little legwork for us?
Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
Some people still don't get it.
What SGI found makes no difference. In the end it doesn't matter one bit if the Sys V code is the KJV of the holy bible and the Linux code is actually a Monty Python script in chinese.
None of this matters.
Why?
Get it thru your heads people, this is all about stock prices and what the executives can liquidate and move out of the country. They don't give a rats arse about collateral damage and the facts don't have a role in this game.
I've lived thru this before with Gulf Resources and the Bunker Hill Superfund.....believe me this is no different. It's all about a few people taking the money and laughing their way to some off shore bank.
Please do not let facts like this SGI thing distract you from the truth. Believe me, SCO isn't.
. Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.
It probably depends on what SGI's license contract says and if there was a single one-time lump sum payment or if its a continual trickle of royalties. It it was a one-time lump sum, then SCO (or should I say SCO's predecessors Novell or Tarantula) already has the money and no extra revenue is coming in. This way, SCO can terminate the old license (for which they are not getting any more money anyway) and force SGI to re-license under a more lucrative scheme.
Ahem, and that's because FreeBSD has the corporate backing it has, compared to linux, heh?
GPL is all about corporations cooperating (sic!), without fearing to be burned that way.
Take your MAC OS X = BSD+Darwin+Cococa (no nitpicking about that formula, please).
Do you really think IBM would feel compelled to contribute something important to Darwin under the BSD license, with the effect to make OS X a better performing server, but without in turn profiting from Apples additions?
The effect of the BSD license and apples adoption of BSD technology is precisely that from now on no potential competitor of apple will add something to this technology under a free license, if he thinks it might be valuable to apple.
Oh, and btw. the handful of people being caught by microsofts GPL-is-viral-fud are lost cases anyway.
When reviewing the SCO vs. Open Source situation, several elements need to be kept clear. Here are some simple rules:
1. Classify SCO news as rhetoric or legal. Most press is rhetoric only, very little actual changes to legal situation.
a. If rhetoric, compare against previous statements to see if new claim or re-hash / forking of previous rhetoric.
b. If re-hash / forking, compare if clarifies previous rhetoric or obfuscates rhetoric on a subject.
2. If legal, ask if purpose is to resolve dispute or lengthen proceedings.
a. If lengthens proceedings, determine if validity vs. delay factor.
SCO had only nebulous contract claims to derivative works on the thinnest of definitions in its lawsuit. SCO repeatedly blathers on and on over other issues that it has not yet added to the litigation. IBM raised the level of litigation with copyright and patent issues. IBM also raised the General Public License issue.
SCO has a long history of contentious statements about the GPL while continuing to use it to this very day. SCO showed a detailed knowledge of the GPL. SCO based their IPO on the GPL. SCO released several of their applications under the GPL. SCO still ships a large amount of GPL applications to improve the usability of their UNIX product. SCO cannot separate the validity of the GPL when legally disputing Linux and releasing Samba or any of several GNU applications. SCO cannot re-write their history before a court. Their SEC filings are public record, with the GPL included. It seems impossible for SCO to repudiate the GPL given they still have it as a core part of their business strategy. The actual filing of any attempt to invalidate the GPL would place SCO in direct conflict with all the filings that they made to the SEC. Even a win on a contractual basis would not invalidate the GPL, and SCO cannot hope to mount an effective legal challenge against the GPL.
SCO will attempt to stay in a high public profile and convert that into stock value for as long as they can. Possibly a buyout offer will come in to end the charade.
SGI has cleared everything up, but has confirmed that there is System V code in Linux.
No, SGI has shown that there is common code between the two. There is still a question of ownership. SCO says they own it, SGI says it might be in the public domain.
Viv
Gmail invites for ip
For the even more lazy, since June 20 it looks like some have bought shares for a total amount of $2,747,819 ;)
Heck, the GPL is the best thing Microsoft has in its arsenal against Free Software, since BSD-ish licenses and the public domain simply lack the kind of "viral" qualities inherent in the GPL. As long as people are releasing code with a "viral" license, MS can propagate FUD about the license.
Sure but if all GPL software switched to a BSD style license tommorow then by the next day MS would be spreading BSD FUD. They'd be saying to companies "Do you want to contribute to BSD projects only to have your competitors freeload off your hard work?". Rember FUD doesn't have to stand up to facts or critical reasoning to be effective.
It seems that in America, we have some law whereby insider trading is OK, as long as you've planned it well in advance and all the transactions are automatic.
Litigious bastards