McBride Interview from Utah SCO Protest

Andrew McNabb writes "Some of you may remember the protest we had in June in front of the SCO offices in Lindon, UT. Afterwards we had an interview with Darl McBride, where he said some very interesting things. More on the scoop, including a transcript and ogg of the discussion is available at Groklaw."

Comments

groklaw = quickly slashdotted

[Anonymous Coward]

or at least it was last time. mirror of article

Boies fatal error

[Dav3K]

The biggest mistake Boies made was to continue letting McBride et al to continue to speak publicly. So much of what they have said is now coming back to haunt them, especially in the Red Hat case.

It seems pretty obvious that McBride can stall this through his 4 quarters of profit, but his big payoff comes one year after that - I wonder what tricks he has up his sleeve to hang on that long?

Re:Spanked

[dimator]

They asked McBride (more than once) why it wasn't just OK for the linux guys to remove the infringing code. He didn't answer the question at all, and instead danced around it. In fact, I can hardly find any question where he did answer in a straight-forward manner.

It would be cool if he just answered "Greed." to every question, because that's what we're all thinking anyway.

FUD follows FUD

[drinkypoo]

Note how Darl never, ever addresses the GPL issue directly. He never says, "in regards to the allegations of copyright violation in regards to distribution of the Linux kernel, which is protected by the GPL, from our server all this time..." or anything similar. Here's the only time he seems to address the issue of the GPL, though again he does not mention the GPL:

Darl: We obviously have problems. Now one issue here is a distribution is not the same as a donation, right? Somebody donated code that is protected by us through other agreements in there. When it goes in, it doesn't say "this was SCO protected code." We only found out about this a couple months ago. That's when we said "we've gotta stop this until we get this figured out."

It seems that the phrase a distribution is not the same as a donation is an allusion to the fact that they are still distributing linux, but they don't seem to think that distributing the code under the GPL is the same as donating it.

Well, in a sense, Darl is correct. It's not donating it; it is making the code available for all to use under the terms of the GNU Public License which states some things quite clearly which demonstrate that SCO itself is releasing this code to us under the terms of the GPL, for such use as we see fit, so long as we accept the license.

4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance.

(WHEREIN SCO cannot terminate our right to use their source code which they have themselves distributed under the GPL, within the linux kernel, even if SCO themselves does not follow the terms of the GPL...)

5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying the Program or works based on it.

(WHEREIN SCO has agreed to the terms of the GPL, which as per the prior paragraph they cannot revoke, by distributing the code under the GPL...)

6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein. You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to this License.

(WHEREIN SCO grants a further license for distribution to anyone and everyone, under the terms of the GPL...)

7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues), conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent license would not perm

So here's the part that jumped out at me...

[Ironica]

Let me paraphrase one section of this exchange:

"So, show us where Linux is in violation."

"No, we can't do that, because then we'd be revealing protected code, and then there would be a problem."

"So there's not a problem?"

"No, there is a problem, which is that there's SCO protected code in Linux."

"So if there's a problem, just tell us which code, and we can fix it."

"No, I can't do that, it would cause a problem."

This sounds like one of those loops that those AIs get into when talking to each other...