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SCO Fires back, Subpoenas Stallman, Torvalds et al
SirFozzie writes "SCO has just, within the past hour, announced that they have fired back against IBM's legal broadside, with one of their own, filing subpoenas against several of the biggest names in Linux. SCO filed subpoenas with the U.S. District Court in Utah, targeting six different individuals or organizations. Those include Novell; Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux kernel; Richard Stallman of the Free Software Foundation; Stewart Cohen, chief executive of the Open Source Development Labs; and John Horsley, general counsel of Transmeta."
Lets see how M$ or some other Linux enemy is in some way funding SCO here. There is something going on beyond what we see my intuition tells me.
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
"When the elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers."
-- "Sucks to your ass-mar"
Swell, Stallman will be rocking in his chair, picking fleas from his beard and muttering "GNU/SCO.. GNU/SCO.. GNU/SCO.." It's like a strawman argument against the millions of free software users..
Trolling is a art,
I bet RMS won't submit to this --- unless the results of the subpoena are GPLed!
for us europeans, the US legal system is like a free TV channel : mostly crap, but sometimes a true gem is broadcasted.
On the other hand, i feel for those who live in it
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
This WWF match between IBM and SCO is getting good. IBM has sent the crack fiends into a rage.
I bet ol' Brucie is pissed that he's not considered a "big name in Linux" by SCO.
Lawyer: Mr Stallman, can you explain what GNU is? Stallman: Gnu's Not Unix
Lawyer: Yes, Mr Stallman, but can you please answer the question.
Stallman: Gnu's Not Unix
ad infinitum.
How old are you, 10? 12? Does your mommy know you're using the computer?
OK that's it. They've crossed the line. Now all these subpoenaed people/companies need to get together and plan a really careful counterattack, not just a defense.
I hope IBM and the other companies will help Linus and Stallman get some big-time lawyers and pay for them too, because I think from here on, things will get real ugly real fast...
Go hug some trees.
I always love these articles, such depth, such information, such...nothing.
IBM is actually trying to get some facts with their subpoenas, like offending source code. What does SCO think they are going to get out of Linus? Hopefully he doesn't let them look a the Linux source code..... oh wait.
Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
He's got my donation anytime!
why doesnt ibm, redhat, sgi, and hp just all get together and chip in some $$ and just buy SCO? (hostile takeover) -- these companies are going to spend more $$ to litigate than it'd cost to buy SCO (they have a really small market cap).
Heck, I'd even chip in $100 to no see SCO at the top of Slashdot every day
In fact, I was expecting them to subpoena "all linux contributors"....
... this case would drag on for YEARS and YEARS unless the judge was clueful and told SCO to stuff themselves.
imagine, if they said they needed to depose all those people, or at least most of them
The FSF's advice to centralize copyrights doesn't seem so superfluous now, does it? Linus, Apache Software Foundation, are you listening? Get *ALL* copyrights assigned to an LLC or non-profit so these things are streamlined in the future!!!!
Or do you honestly believe this is the last time a closed-source company will use the legal system to intimidate free software?
PS: why did they subpoena stallman I wonder?
SCO spokesman Blake Stowell said he did not know what the subpoenas asked for, but "I know that some of them have been served."
They haven't got a clue what they're doing, but they're doing it.
I for one welcome our subpoena overlords. No, actually, not, revolution!
/., not SCO-news-of-the-day.
Can someone who is not IANAL comment on ways this could be forced into court, and ended (or at least revealed for the sham it is as I'm sure SCO will appeal)? I want to get back to my normal flying-cars and distro-wars
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
I see how the others relate, but how exactly does John Horsley, general counsel of Transmeta fit into that list? Besides being Linus' old workplace, what do they have to do with all this?
.
Obviously OSS is already losing the spell checker battle...
I imagine this is what Stallman wanted, a chance to prove the GPL in court. And involvement in the case may give him legal room to see 'evidence' without signing non-disclosures.
-t
http://unmoldable.com W:"No one of consequence" I:"I must know" W:"Get used to disappointment"
Doesn't this simply mean that SCO will be seekign testimony from these people? It isn't like SCO is sueing Linus, right?
-- bearclaw
Don't take this the wrong way, Gnuites, but I wish they hadn't gone for putting RS up on the stand...
RS is an idealist, and I honour him for his ideals, but idealism has no place in a courtroom, pragmatism is the rule of law.
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
Subpoenas are flying in the high-profile lawsuit between The SCO Group and IBM, as both companies try to buttress their legal claims by turning to third parties for information. SCO said Wednesday that it has filed subpoenas with the U.S. District Court in Utah, targeting six different individuals or organizations. Those include Novell; Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux kernel; Richard Stallman of the Free Software Foundation; Stewart Cohen, chief executive of the Open Source Development Labs; and John Horsley, general counsel of Transmeta. SCO spokesman Blake Stowell said he did not know what the subpoenas asked for, but "I know that some of them have been served." IBM also has broadened its efforts to respond to the Linux-related lawsuit by asking a federal judge to order SCO to identify illegal source code and serving four other companies with subpoenas of its own. SCO filed the suit in March, claiming that IBM "contaminated" Linux by illegally incorporating trade secrets inherited from Unix. So far, SCO has listed the names of 591 files in the Linux 2.4 and 2.5 kernels that allegedly contain illicit code but has not been more specific. IBM's subpoenas were sent on Oct. 30 to BayStar Capital, Deutsche Bank, Renaissance Ventures and The Yankee Group, which have indicated they have reason to believe SCO's claims are legitimate. IBM has cited an Oct. 16 article in the Salt Lake Tribune that reported Deutsche Bank analyst Brian Skiba visited SCO's headquarters and saw a "near exact duplicate of source code between the Linux 2.4 kernel and (SCO's) Unix System V kernel." In October, BayStar Capital invested $50 million in SCO. In a statement to CNET News.com on Wednesday, IBM said: "It is time for SCO to produce something meaningful. They have been dragging their feet, and it is not clear there is any incentive for SCO to try this in court." IBM filed motions on Nov. 3 and Nov. 6, asking the court to "issue an order compelling SCO to respond to IBM's interrogatories with specificity and in detail." SCO's Stowell said his company provided about a million pages of documents in response to IBM's requests. "They are trying to coerce and intimidate," Stowell said, referring to Big Blue's subpoenas. "I think what they're trying to do is that if you're a potential investor in our company or an industry analyst that says anything even remotely favorable toward SCO, you're going to be subpoenaed by IBM."
Talk about going off half-cocked...
I'll bet Richard Stalman gives them all a pedantic lecture they won't soon forget...
"I don't know what you mean by "Linux". Many people mistakenly call GNU/Linux simply Linux + [many hours]
And, maybe for good measure,
"I don't know what this means - "Intellectual Property" + [insert lengthy manifesto]
"Provided by the management for your protection."
sPh
This is past the point of ridiculous. It's amazing to see a company acting like a bratty toddler. Sco is losing more and more credibility by the day.
All the other served people are either ready for it (Stallman) or have a largish corporation to back them up.
Linus is a coder and the single point guy for approval changes in a piece of software. I just feel bad for the guy who tries to stay out of crap like this to now get sucked into it.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
They reacted to this awfull fast. Does it seem to anyone else that SCO was planning this all along? Thay just waited for IBM to make the first move.
SCO.com uses Linux
Going up. The 52 week high on SCOX stock is 22.29. Reckon they have to do what they can to keep it going up.
Seriously though, IBM invented litigating companies out of business. Dragging everyone into this legal fray fits quite well with SCO's shoot the moon strategy, they REALLY are insane.
I am suprised that they didn't file against RedHat. Why? Because that would be ridiculous and that would fit quite well with what they're doing now: a ridiculous strategy.
This is the U.S. legal system we're dealing with, so any outcome (even the most absurd) is possible. But with any luck, an outcome favorable to SCO (and thus Microsoft) won't happen here.
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
With these absurd escalations, this matter should be resolved sooner than anyone expected. Until then, I'll sit back and enjoy the humor of it all.
If this is not a PR ploy, I don't know what is. They have yet to establish a relationship between their code and IBM. Linus, and STALLMAN!, don't have any relationship with IBM or their coding agreements, nor do they verify that the code that they get is part of trade secrets. That was not their job. Far be it for SCO to make a rational justification.
Linus does not deserve this. This is totally uncalled for, SCO is just being evil.
And I kind fail to see what Stallman has got to do with all this. Perhaps they just didn't like him.
Here's our good friend Blakey.... Quote... SCO spokesman Blake Stowell said he did not know what the subpoenas asked for, but "I know that some of them have been served." Unquote... I don't know what they hope to prove by service subpoenas on a handful of linux-related people...I mean, don't they technically have to serve some purpose at a TRIAL? Perhaps someday we will actually get to that point...but I think this is more meaningless pump-and-dumping on the part of the SCO people.
Meanwhile, sources tell that no subpoena could be delivered to Eric S. Raymond as the delivery man was chased off his ranch with a shotgun.
Fuck, this is bad.. stallman in court.. jesus christ.. i can't imagine what it'll be like... i feel bad for the lawyers questioning him, it'll be worse than questioning the soup nazi on the last episode of sienfeld.
Aren't they setting themselves for a big upset by subpena Linus who has little to do with individual distributions?...
And if their claims are even remotely hold grounds, how difficult is it to rewrite the parts they claim to be infringed upon....
and while we are at it, what are they claiming?...
Just because I don't care, it doesn't mean I don't understand. Homer J. Simpson
SCO is in over their heads, they know it, but they are going to sling FUD for as long as they can. This is only an attempt to grab some headlines, and a pretty pathetic grab at that.
All of this will be moot soon after the Dec 5 oral arguments. SCO will have to present some evidence that IBM damaged them, or they get tossed out of court. Since the first is unlikely, the second is likely. Bye bye SCO.
When the SCO lawsuit first reared it's ugly head, accompanied by protests and counterprotests, you just knew it was going to lead to this. No matter what Darl McBride said about "trying to resolve this without putting a hole through the head of the penguin", they aren't merely settling for pickling the penguin. They want to nuke the entire antarctic.
SCO's Stowell said his company provided about a million pages of documents in response to IBM's requests. "They are trying to coerce and intimidate," Stowell said, referring to Big Blue's subpoenas. "I think what they're trying to do is that if you're a potential investor in our company or an industry analyst that says anything even remotely favorable toward SCO, you're going to be subpoenaed by IBM."
Hmmmm.... Sounds eerily familiar to some company trying to extort money by saying that if you use Linux, you may be violating our IP and subject to a big ass lawsuit. Unless you fork over $699 that is.
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
If SCO re-writes their subpoenas to say GNU/Linux.
...and that they aren't serious about their charges.
Really--what information is so important for them to get from the above parties? If was soooo important, they would have issued the subpoenas by now.
IBM's actions are grounded in fact; SCO's are in the ether...
I half expect this to be like a "bloopers" scene from a film - one of the participants starts laughing...then everyone else does...the judge is laughing so hard he is crying. even the SCO folks will be joining in.
Did they publish the list of 591 files mentioned in the article?
>
> Is SCO completely, utterly, loony? What the fuck? What the fucking fuck fuck?!
Oh, right. That as me, quoting myself from Septempter, and then from October.
So, to bring you all up to date. It's November. The proper question is now:
"Is SCO completely, utterly, apeshit and batshit, half-a-gig-short-of-a-Debian-ISO, stark, slavering, buggo?!? What the fuck? What the fucking fuck fuck fuck [ several dozen instances of the word "fuck" deleted for brevity ] fuck?!?!"
Me: A sphincter says what?
SCO: What?
Me: Exactly.
(paraphrasing from Wayne's World)
On the plus side, can Eric Raymond now legally pull guns on Darl and Co.?
IAALS.
Seriously you just gave them ideas on how to drag this out for years. It will be SCO everyday on slashdot till im 50
Yeah, only the Linux one is only one of many ongoing wars MS is fighting. There are also the patent fights, the antitrust fights, the virus fights, and others I'm sure.
Besides, it's not like the legal battles are having much of an effect on the actual Linux kernel development process, are they?
Divide and conquer indeed. What could be sweeter for Microsoft than to have one of it's biggest mainly non-OSS competitor (IBM) and Linux and OSS as a whole take a big hit at the same time? When people say '...killing two birds with one stone' who woulda thunk that maybe one of them could be a penguin.
Worst part about this is Linux and OSS will progressively see their stock in the corporate world fall as a result of this crap. To top it off you got SUSE going to Novell and RH with all their coporate shifting leaving a bad taste in CIO's mouths. Some could argue linux and OSS have fallen on hard times or, if you are optimistic, are in a state of transition.
You never saw a fish on the wall with its mouth shut.
Why does SCO drag Linus, RMS et all into this crappy suit? Subopenas for what?
Well I can supply you with a million pages of documentiation, just give me a laser printer and plenty of toner. They havent provided a single page of documentation that supports their case.
Do you suppose that the timimg of the Microsoft proclamation on the death of free software coincides with these subpoenas for a reason?
For lack of a better sig, this one has to do.
I'm leaving out extra milk and cookies this year.
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
Divide and conquor
Just be glad they aren't resorting to their most famous tactic:
Embrace, extend, extinguish
Now now i dont use or like Linux but this is completely wack. Leave the poor free software developers alone. I hope there's a lot of evidence because if they don't there will be nothing left of SCO after the rabid dogs get to them.
Trolls dont like to be Flamebait, because they burn so well. Protect our Troll heritage!
...until the judge jails Stallman for contempt of court after he repeatedly refuses the court order for him to take a shower.
Uh, IANAL, but isn't a subpoena just a request to appear in court as a witness? How is this firing back?
I envision ESR hopping up and down, waving his arms, yelling "Hey! What about me? Where's MY subpoena? I should get one too! I wrote fetchmail!"
I don't understand it really. I have nothing to do with the Linux kernel, yet I received a SCO subpoena to appear in court. The funny thing is that I received two additional subpoenae earlier this week as well. One from the RIAA and the other from DirecTV. I knew I shouldn't have used linux to download those movies through my satellite dish.
-- damon@sicore.org A929 9798 86F9 5AD7 7BD5 E6AD 37A2 DF9B 5EDD C02E http://www.sicore.org/publicKeys/damon.txt
But I do think this could only happen in the US legal system.
And that is NOT flattering.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Oh dear. Darl probably noticed that their stock didn't go up to $45 but rather went back down to around $14 and panicked and subponeaed a few guys in the lawsuit to make investors believe that they are competently litigating this.
Luckily the Pump seems to be a bit dry today, even after they opened their mouth; is it a sign that investors are catching on on their scam? I surely hope so.
Also, being served a subponea hopefully will be the last straw for Linus before he files a copyright infringement suit against SCO.
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
Nice timing for SCO...
I guess they had to get something out to counter the pumping allegations that have just shown up on Groklaw.
That's just f***ing great, now the bar for being a cool guy in free software just got raised. It used to be you just had to write a million lines of useful code. Now you've got to get a subpoena from SCO to be cool.
"Should we invite Jeff to speak at our little conference?" "Well, he didn't get a subpoena from SCO, so he's probably not that important..."
jeff
It was the last, great hope for Hum^H^H^HLinux. As Linus and RMS are led away in chains, who is left to fight for the rights of Linux users everywhere. Alan Cox is in exile in far-off England, while the lawyers of IBM are "in a meeting." Who will save us now?
Paul Gillingwater
MBA, CISSP, CISM
There is an article on this over at AOL News
Click Here to Read It.
y'all might want to point your browsers at: http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20030622& mode=classic
This is nothing surprising. It's SCO's standard delay-as-long-as-we-can tactic. SCO knows that as soon as they actually have to offer up their proof that copied code is in Linux, it won't stand up to analysis, their case will be rejected, and their stock will drop like a stone. It'll be game over for SCO as a company. Their current business model depends on not offering any proof of their claims.
So why not subpoena everyone, to make things as slow and difficult as possible? I'm surprised Elvis and Bigfoot aren't on the list.
Kinda reminds me of the negotiations at the end of the Korean war. Every last detail of how the talks were to proceed were argued to death before the talks could begin. There were even provisions as to which direction the delegates sat and how high their chairs were in relation to each other before they'd talk. And the reason was, was that the delegates simply didn't want to be there. Same for SCO.
Weaselmancer
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
This has to be the funniest SCO story I have ever heard. It honestly has reduced me to hysterics this time... I really didnt think this whole affair could get more farcical. OMG , it would make a marvelous Broadway play, someone please write it!
woo hoo!
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
SCO said Wednesday that it has filed subpoenas with the U.S. District Court in Utah, targeting six different individuals or organizations. Those include Novell; Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux kernel; Richard Stallman of the Free Software Foundation
Wow, and I didn't think SCO could get any weirder. How can they possibly hope to benefit their case by subpoening Linus and RMS? Linus will just wanna see the code without signing their NDA, and Richard will probably gaze at them and cause them the stare crying.
I don't know. Maybe they'll get them in a room, tie them to a chair with their eyes propped open like in A Clockwork Orange and force them to read their code without signing their NDA. Then any future development of Free/Open Source Software will fall under SCO's control because they were influenced by SCO's source. Things couldn't get any weirder.
Ruby on Rails Screencast
Here http://www.computerhope.com/unix/xenix.htm is the Microsoft/SCO Xenix connection. Holographic women are soon to come :)
Stowell, spokesman for the company, was unable to explain the latest round of subpoenas in the company's lawsuit against IBM for copyright infringment. When asked what the purpose was, he replied that he had no idea, but"I know that some of them have been served."
For veteran SCO watchers, this is a sign that the previously-untouchable spokesman may be on the outs.
"Why wouldn't the spokesman know what was going on?" asked one CIA analyst. "It's his job. But it's little clues like this that give us a suprisingly good idea of what's going on in Utah."
A source within SCO, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed this view of events.
"Darl [McBride, CEO of SCO] just went crazy the other day when [Stowell] asked what the next step was," he said. "He started asking all sorts of questions about whose side [Stowell] was on, was he wearing a wire, who else felt like this, this sort of thing. He even pulled out his laptop and started Googling for Stowell's name on LKML [a mailing list for Linux kernel developers]. Now we're not allowed to talk to Blake at all."
"It's a shame, because Blake was one of the moderates," the source continued. "A while back Darl started talking about putting Richard Stallman's head on a pike outside the compound. Said it was the least he deserved. Blake talked him down from that before anything could happen. Now there's very few left to do that."
However, McBride's hold over the company is anything but absolute, and the future of his leadership is still in question. "There's still a significant group within SCO that are trying to find the combination for the safe where he keeps his shares," said the CIA analyst. "That's why he hasn't left the compound in over six weeks."
Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation, was unavailable for comment. Sources close to the computer guru said he had gone underground. "He saw some guy hanging around the office that he thought was a bounty hunter. That was enough for Richard."
Carousel is a lie!
rotflmao
This drama is giving all those soaps a serious run for their money.
for the last time people, I am "frodo from middle eaRTH", not "middle eaST".
Aren't justified at this point in blowing up the SCO offices with all people in them :)
To be both stupid and evil must be an interesting combination.
My only hope is that it never ends up in front of a jury, then we'd really be in trouble. Even though the U.S. has given up on M$ anti-trust actions I hope that Europe will continue to torture M$ for years to come.
an ill wind that blows no good
SCO might turn out to be for Linux what AT&T was to BSD Unix (precursor of 386/Free/Open/Net/etc. BSD). People where reluctant to use BSD Unix (and it's derivates) because AT&T insisted on BSD users having a AT&T Unix License. This could put the brakes on the diffusion of Linux (esp. in the business segment).
How long would a thread of SCO tie up Linux? (Are they funded by M$?)
-- (:> jms cs.vu.nl (_) --"---
Microsoft is seeing this as the end of competition, but I do not see so. Instead they do not seem to be seeing that rather than a single entity out to kill them, they are instead reviving hundreds of little entitys, all out for blood.
Ok, let us say on the remote chance that they kill Linux. Well, coming right on Linux's tail are the BSD's. Then Microsoft has not 1 but a half-dozen smaller, more mobile (and in my opinion better-done) competitors, all ready to cut them. Then there's the open-source BeOS clones coming. Some of them are starting to look pretty damned good from my angle, and could give Microsoft a run for their money by the time Longhorn comes out. Then there's the AmigaOS derivitives that have appeared such as AROS, MorphOS and soon AmigaOS 4.0. All of them make PocketPC look like a joke by comparison. This could give Palm the breathing room to get their footing solid again, and probably Symbian as well.
Microsoft would in short order end up facing not some GPL'd monstrosity of a UNIX clone, but every little project that suddenly gets a boost from the coders that used to be with Linux. If Microsoft brings focus against one, the others exploit holes that they leave open. Right now, Linux is a titan, able to stand up against another titan. But while the Microsoft titan sleeps, the liliputians are getting out the rope.
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
What I don't understand about SCO's excuse of not releasing their source is that if parts of Linux are copies of the SYSV code which contains a trade secret... how can it be considered a "secret" any more? What do SCO gain by not saying what is it? According to them, the source is already out under public scrutiny (presumably doing "damage" as far as SCO are concerned).
I'm convinced they're just trying to piss IBM off enough to buy them out and then ride home with the cash. If they win, SCO's shareholders get lots of cash, if they lose, SCO is most likely to go bust and the shareholders only lose the value of their shares.
Rebuilding from what exactly?
In the ether...gawd, don't tell me SCO is claiming right to Ethernet, too.
Oh, where will it end....
... as for SCO's management, it seems that in business, even evil can incorporate and prosper.
Words to men, as air to birds.
Steel cage death match!!!
That is all.
actually, just kidding on the stupid. Stallman and his legal friends from college crafted the gpl early on. Isn't attacking the GPL one of SCO's strategies?
Two outta three ain't bad. They can embrace and attempt to extend, but since they can't buy the IP they can't extinguish....
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
I was going to post this in the previous story's comments, but what the hell:
1. SCO (formerly Caldera) was at odds with Microsoft over the monopoly case, where their business was nearly destroyed by anti-competitive practices.
2. Unless someone can prove otherwise, Microsoft does not have any insiders that sit on the board for Canopy group, and therefore, logically, has no influence on it.
3. SCO cries poor, yet refuses to go to court, even though it claims that it is owed money for illegal use of its IP. It doesn't get anymore contradictory than this. It's been a while since SGI kinda-sorta admitted its trangressions, yet SCO hasn't done anything about it.
4. Microsoft, already established as an enemy that nearly put Caldera out of business the first time, and with no reason to cooperate or share information with SCO, and prevented from entering the Unix market, is -- oddly enough -- stepping in unison with SCO... To the point where they are saying the same things.
Yeah, it's just a bunch of inexplicable events that happened at random, and I'm a crazy conspiracy theorist.
Fred
"A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
-RMS
How long 'til the judge tosses this sad case out WITH PREJUDICE?
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
The tactic from the SCO side may be to "dance" with these, for us, important guys. Until our guys take a wrong step. SCOers are expendable. Thorvalds and Stallman are not.
Can someone please explain to me what the legal system is waiting for before settling this lawsuit? Why is it dragging for so long? Why are hearings scheduled for 2005 and not any sooner? Why is SCO allowed to do all this crap?
I feel sorry for Linus. It must certainly be annoying to be stuck in this heap of rubbish.
I believe that they are doing this to force Linus to look at the source code for System V and see what code was stolen and put into the Linux kernel. So far he has refused to sign an NDA and actually look at the code. I think this will speed the process up a fair bit if he would just look at the code.
boils down to "No GNU'S is good GNEWS"
Try and find out who their top fortune 500 customers are and demand that they not pay the LINUX I.P. license(or whatever they call it).
.
I know that Microsoft and SUN are the first licensees. Do any of you know and others ? We could form a list
Sun and Microsoft first licensees
Wow, now Stallman will finally have to get off his soapbox and actually do soemthing for his religion I mean cause. I have been wondering why he hasn't done anything about this SCO problem when compared to ESR and Perens. Stallman has been pretty quiet and I expected him to be the most vocal.
This guy is way out there
I know you started your reply by crying out: 'give me a break', but I would really wish to point out that you are the exact kind of poster that I want to give me a break
While attentions are diverted from Microsoft they are rebuilding. Once the dust of the present war ends Microsoft will step in, fully rested, and pick up where it left off however they will be fighting a tired and battle weary enemy.
Does somebody again want to clarify what this is all about in the first place. I bought a red-hat boxed linux sometime ago, and it did not come with sharp knives, camoflauge paint or gunpowder to get me ready for the up and coming technology war of the century, in fact, knowing then what I know now, I wouldn't have bought the box, since I can get that stuff free on the internet. What is the fight all about???? Who's doing battle with who??? You're stepping onto the battlefield to put your life on the line for what? So that people you've never met get forced to use your operating system of choice? Can't I just use my computer happily and quietly, the way I want...why do I have to fight in the trenches?
I've been reading slashdot for a while, and I don't post often, but you my friend, have finally caused me to put in my two cents. I use a computer running linux for one reason, and one reason only: it suits my needs. I am not planning on battling a giant software company by using it. Linux will _never_ die (I'd be willing to argue that point, but I won't now). People will continue to use windows as well, and most of the people I know that do, I don't blame them, as they have their own reasons. It makes no difference to anybody except yourself what you want to use, so if you have the savvy to run something like linux, then by all means, run your own box. What this isn't about is fighting a battle against a large software company (note that I don't call them a monopolist, as they aren't). I'll let redhat do that, as that's what they are in the business for. If I start my own company, no matter what I do, I'd buy software that works best for what we need. Do I stake my company on the automatic install of OSS based on my moral beliefs that OSS is better? How about I only hire employees that have the same moral opinion as I do, regardless of their skill level? Sounds like something's not right with this picture.
I sincerely hope that people like yourself will eventually realize that this isn't about war, it's about freedom...and you have to remember that if you exercise your own freedom effectively, war is not necessary.
Didn't Alan Cox write a lot of the "offending" code? Besides being far more important to Linux than many of the subpoena'd people.
That part about Caldera (now SCO) supporting his writing the very code they are suing over might cause problems for them, though...
This is placing unnecessary legal expenses on Linus & everyone else. It costs money to show up in court.
Everyone should sell SCO short on the market. Drive their price into hell where it belongs.
Ahh yes.
There it is, my SCO crap fix for the week.
What the heck does Transmeta have to do with SCO? The fact that they employ Linus shouldn't involve them in this mess...
-3Suns
~~~~
The Revolution will be Slashdotted
Why bother with overpaid no-talent hacks when you can have underpaid no-talent hacks?
Let's assume that (somehow) SCO wins, and starts charging large sums of money for the OS they didn't really develop. What can be done? Can the offending bits be removed from the Linux source tree, and SCO cut out of the loop entirely (which is how I expect the case will really go)? How taxing would it be for companies that can't afford SCO's fees to move to another free open source OS, like FreeBSD?
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Dude, who works at SCO? 13 year old bipolar kids who don't take their pills?
One day they're going to sue everyone, the next day they're dropping law suits, the day after that they decide to sue everyone again.
Erahhhhh!
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
1: do as ze Germans did. File an injunction and get it enforced
The fine comes nearly three months after a regional court in Munich issued the court order in response to a suit brought by the nonprofit Linux conference organization, LinuxTag e.V., and IT consulting firm Tarent GmbH. The two groups sought the injunction to prevent SCO from making claims about intellectual property violations in Linux without presenting any evidence...
2: do as IBM has done and try to get the facts out. And since we know SCO won't give up the goods, get it from anyone else with their hand in the SCO piggy bank. "It is time for SCO to produce something meaningful. They have been dragging their feet and it is not clear there is any incentive for SCO to try this in court"
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
.. if SCO has a trump card.
So why's it funny? Because I'm a troll? No, it's because it's been a horrenduously overlooked possibility here. Everybody's done rationalizing the idea that the accusations SCO is making is frivilous (and they very well could be, not saying they're not) and nobody's saying "What do we do if they win?"
You all can probably understand why I'm posting anonymously. I will be watching this post for comments. I don't want to hear every dickhead zealot telling me why SCO can't win, but I would like to hear about some of the steps being taken to a.) Prevent this from happening again and b.) to minimize the damage to both Linux and its userbase.
Stallman has been waiting for the opportunity to speak and this subpeona gives him a venue.
SCO may get more than they bargained for.
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
SCO must have already hired Johnny Cochran to the fight the GPL. Just look how the Chewbacca Defense applies to it:
Ladies and gentlemen of the supposed jury, I have one final thing I
want you to consider: (pulling down a diagram of Chewie) this is
Chewbacca. Chewbacca is a Wookiee from the planet Kashyyyk, but
Chewbacca lives on the planet Endor. Now, think about that. That does
not make sense! (jury looks shocked)
Why would a Wookiee -- an eight foot tall Wookiee -- want to live on
Endor with a bunch of two foot tall Ewoks? That does not make sense!
But more importantly, you have to ask yourself: what does that have to
do with this case? (calmly) Nothing. Ladies and gentlemen, it has
nothing to do with this case! It does not make sense!
Look at me, I'm a lawyer defending a major record company, and I'm
talkin' about Chewbacca. Does that make sense? Ladies and gentlemen, I
am not making any sense. None of this makes sense.
And so you have to remember, when you're in that jury room
deliberating and conjugating the Emancipation Proclamation... does it
make sense? No! Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, it does
not make sense.
If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must acquit! The defense rests.
This just in - SCO has finally announced the stolen source in the
Linux kernel. It amounts to exactly 17,351 occurrences of
int i;
also infringing are occurrences of
i++;
and
return;
"And that's just the tip of the iceberg" a SCO source reported.
So this is it.
SCO takes off the wrapper and makes it absolutely clear that it intends make an attempt to destroy Open Source.
There can be no other reason for delivering subpoenas on Stallman and Cohen, to a lesser degree Torvolds.
They are going to go after the license, they almost _have_ to try and discredit GPL after distributing the code themselves.
They can't shine a light of accusation at IBM until they have done so.
I think it's time that the FSF put a call in to the ACLU.
Even with the help of IBM this portends to be big, dirty and long.
The stakes go much deeper than software they go to the heart of freedom and a free society.
This is SCO's legal "strategy."
IBM subpoenaed a bunch of SCO investors, so of course SCO subpoenas a bunch of Free Software / Open Source people. This is funny shit.
What makes it especially funny is that the people they are sending subpoenas to (Stallman, Torvalds, et al) are gonna be absolutely helpful to IBM's side of the case, and not remotely useful to SCO.
Hoist by their own petard, they are.
Peace and love, y'all
Microsoft and Sun pay Linux I.P. license
Does the Unix System V kernel pre-date the 2.4 or 2.5 kernels?
Given that the Linux Kernel source is OSS what is to stop the source code "infection" going the other way? Whats to stop Unix System V code being copied from the 2.4 or 2.5 kernels? It would certainly be a lot easier. Unless there is some way of proving that the System V code contained the disputed code at some point in time (historical, verifiable repository) it could have happened the other way round, surely. The Linux kernel on the other hand has numerous historical, verifiable repositories (impossible to manipulate and back-date).
SCO subpoenas the entire population of the Earth and says that it can't comply with IBM until they recieve 100% compliance to their reasonable demands.
A SCO spokesman is quoted as saying, "Since, every living human being on the planet is potentially a linux user, we thought it was necessary to call them to task for their potential linux-leaning thoughts. We are also looking at the current linux use in the dolphin community."
the flailing and desparate acts of duress and intimidation from a bunch of bottom feeders that know they don't have a chance in the world of winning anything here.
Funny stuff...
Well, perhaps in a courtroom he will present himself a little better. Hopefully Eben Moglan will get him cleaned up, and prepped on what to talk about. Don't get me wrong: I like Richard Stallman. But, I've seen him at some Linux conventions, and some of the hardlines he takes makes him a good target for Red-Baiting.
I dunno, I just remember thinking at the shows I saw him at that, well, he's very good at evangelizing geeks about Free Software. But put him on the stand in a courtroom, or in some other very public setting, and he might do a good job of alienating the general public.
I truely hope that I'm wrong. Really, I do. Let's just say I think RMS might need to work on his people skills, and personal appearance, a little bit before getting on the witness stand.
In other news SCO has filled subpoenas on random people it feels has "ties" to the OSS community.
Name such as Linus and Pepperment patty from the peanuts gang.
God that list looks like they randomly chose people whose names sounded famous.
The *last* thing you want is for Stallman to be called to the stand. He's not exactly know for his tact and calm demeanor...
It's surprising that they didn't include Bruce Perens and/or ESR in their list. Those two have been pretty involved in pointing out SCO's FUD. SCO even implied that ESR was being paid by IBM to attack them!
I'm not sure what the point of sending a supoena to RMS is though. Perhap the braintrust at SCO is unaware that free software != open source software? I'm sure he would be happy to send them a copy of the free software manifesto. It might not hurt if he sent them a copy of the BSD ruling as well.
If SCO ever had a plan beyond:
they are doing a very good job of hiding it. It just looks like one ad-hoc decision after another. Since they initiated the proceedings against IBM, the chewbacca defense isn't an option, and it is difficult to see any coherent strategy at work here.
Of course, slashdotters are not the intended audience. SCO is playing to the analysts who will repeat what they have been told about SCO's claims being legitimate in order to keep those share prices up there. It is obvious that SCO is not interested in speaking to people who know something about software and technology.
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?
I wonder... I'm not from the US neither related to the US with a working permit, visa, etc... but let's assume that for any reason I receive a subpoena from a US based company, say SCO. I'd just say, WTF. Is this the case of Linus?
In case you haven't figured it out SCO, RMS ain't stupid and has the potential to eat your lawywers for breakfast.
SCO Lawyer: State your name and latest movie.
Witness: Uhh....George Lucas, and Star Wars: Episode One, The Phantom Menace.
SCO Lawyer: And do you think The Phantom Menace was as good a movie as Empire?
Witness: Why certainly....I think it's the best movie I've made to date.
SCO Lawyer: [to judge] Permission to treat this witness as hostile. Mr. Lucas, how do you explain that when in Star Wars Obi-Wan told Luke that when he met him, his father was a great pilot, but in Menace he's just a little boy?
Witness: W-well my kids thought....
SCO Lawyer: And how come Obi-Wan tells Luke that Yoda is the Jedi that trained him, but in the movie, Liam Neeson trains Obi-Wan?
Witness: Th-the Power of Myth....
SCO Lawyer: Isn't it true that you knew this was a bad movie?! That you wrote it over a weekend, but kept tellin' people that it was done for years?
IBM Lawyer: Objection your honor! The pod-race was pretty cool.
SCO Lawyer: May I remind the court that your honor has never been in a George Lucas movie? And you were age-appropriate for the Liam Neeson role. Judge: I'll allow it.
SCO Lawyer: I want my eight bucks back!
Witness hands him his money back.
SCO Lawyer: Get him out of my sight! The defense now calls....Steven Spielberg.
"The evil order of the Scowh is targeting six different figures or councils. Those include the Novus realm of the scribes; Iesus Torvalius, holy creator of the Iesii realm; King Richard Stallman of the Penniless Court council; Nobleman Stewart Cohen, supreme ruler of the High Alchemy Laboratory; and Sir John Horsley, general counsel of Trinity."
Since he's been subpoenead, he won't be allowed to view the courtroom proceedings, lest he be tainted by other witnesses testimony. Prosecutors some times supoena criminal defendant's friends and family members just so that the defendant is more disoriented by not seeing any familar faces in the courtroom. Although I suspect that's not the case here.
Does bringing the Soup Nazi into a discussion invoke Godwins law?
Or would it be Seinfeld's law?
Their stock (SCOX) goes down, SCO issues another ridiculous, headline grabbing press release, their Stock goes up again. It'll be interesting to see how long they can keep this going without setting foot in court, or running out of stupid publicity stunts.
If I was say, a citizen of the United States, and say, got a sopoena for court in Saudi Arabia over a dispute involving GETTING HEADS CHOPPED OFF, why would I go?
I would prefer Linus IGNORE it and demonstrate what I believe is a better path (circumvention through avoiding jurisdiction) to the current attempt at playing the US Legal System lotto (using Stallman's methods of promoting alternate contractual models).
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
When do tickets go on sale? That'll be an awesome show...
Is anyone else starting to think that SCO's secret last resort will be David Boies screaming
"I'm out of order? You're out of order! This whole trial is out of order!"
In a related story, the IRS has recently ruled that the cost of Windows upgrades can NOT be deducted as a gambling loss.
IBM's stock is doing it's usual squiggle in the upper $80s/lower $90s, but it's up by average in the last few days.
So SCO is hurting from this, so they gotta stike back.
IANAL, but isn't this begging for the court to slap them with penalties?
IBM has the right to get answers from SCO, but the latter has been dragging its feet. So, in an effort to move the case forward, is talking to the people SCO has been talking to, the analysts and investors. It's harsh, but with SCO refusing to answer questions it's the only choice.
But what possible connection do Linus, Richard, et al have with IBM? AFAIK they are have never been employees of IBM, never been briefed with proprietary information, etc.
In other words, what possible grounds do they have for being named? If SCO can't show some good reason for harassing uninvolved parties, will the judge finally impose sanctions?
And perhaps at least as importantly, will Linus et al finally realize that tolerance does not have to extend towards those who deliberately and consciously mean you ill? They have the right to order a DMCA smackdown on the SCO website and it's time they forced it off the net if SCO continues to flaunt copyright law and harass the legal copyright holders. SCO has made it position clear - somebody is going to be bankrupt by the end of this and the time for remaining on the sidelines is long past.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
> While attentions are diverted from Microsoft
> they are rebuilding. Once the dust of the
> present war ends Microsoft will step in,
> fully rested, and pick up where it left off
> however they will be fighting a tired and
> battle weary enemy.
Let's tell it like it really is ok?
While attentions are diverted from Microsoft, they are attempting to circumvent the letter of their agreement with the DOJ (such as it is). Once the dust of the present war ends, Microsoft will step in, with an untried codebase, and pick up where it left off. However, they will be fighting a battle hardened and litigation tested enemy.
Now, that is more to the point of it isn't it?
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
(A pathologist who used to testify in court frequently about medical cases)
"A subpeoned witness is a hostile witness"
For those in Utah, the local NBC affiliate, KSL Channel 5, will be broadcasting a story about SCO v. IBM tonight at 6:30. Be sure to watch and send any comments/corrections to them. This is SCO's home turf, and the more negative media coverage we can get, the better.
SCO subpoenas has nothing to do with the stall tactics SCO has in place. IBM said "Where's the infringing code?" a month ago(?) and SCO has yet to offer a even snippet. The judge has issued a warning to SCO and nada. SCO could facing liability in a few short month and holding their stock becomes a greater gamble. Unless there's a "stop the presses" revelation in the next few months now would be a good time to sell.
My lawyer always told me that quantity didn't matter.
Two outta three ain't bad. They can embrace and attempt to extend, but since they can't buy the IP they can't extinguish....
The real catch is the fact that if they embrace and extend, they have to open the source, which would be instantly forked without their contributions. They can't extinguish something they have to have in the open. If they DID embrace a program, lets say Mozilla, and then added some crapola that was MS only specific, called it Billzilla, then two years later dropped it. They have to show us the code, and the Bill part of the zilla would be stripped out instantly, and any good stuff would be left in. They can't kill it.
GPL is like the Borg in one way, you can't kill it. You can't revoke the license, you can't make any software under the GPL go away. It lives forever, and not even the copyright holder can kill it, because I can always take the last release and fork it, change the name (leave the copyrights) and release it. It's like Freddy Krugar, with #comments.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
SCO's Stowell said his company provided about a million pages of documents in response to IBM's requests.
First it was a million lines of code, and now it's a million pages of documents. Do they actually know how big a million really is or it just speech impediment that one acquires as they agree to work for SCO?
I agree with you.
Unfortunately, it seems that these companies are hell bent on killing each other rather than on bettering themselves (which would accomplish the same goal and at the same time make the worls a better place for many).
comment directly in my journal
When I first glanced at the subject, I thought it read:
SCO Subpoenas back Fires
Which they might yet do... RMS? Are they mad?
SCO knows they don't have a leg to stand on. They are plugging this in the court of public opinion. You've heard Darryl recently. He is going to be addressing somebody's conference about the *threat of Open Source Software*. They really do want to make this a fight about the whole notion of software libre.
Their only prayer is that some reactionary hack on the way up the judiciary food-chain decides that OSS really is some pinko conspiracy to bankrupt vital American commercial interests. Meanwhile, sell! sell! sell!
illegitimii non ingravare
I was wondering if anyone can confirm what I read previously over at Groklaw that IBM received hard copies of the information requested about source code items but not soft copies which they could use to do some computer based comparisons. (See "All SCO has turned over so far, IBM says, is that paper printout" )
If IBM supposedly has the source, based on past agreements made (surely they can find that tape, CD, or archived file somewhere) that they "stole" the information from, can't they use this source to compare against existing linux source to compare for similarities, similar to what SGI did? If IBM doesn't have these, then it seems like SCO is in violation for not providing this information, but I'm sure this is not the case.
I know doing comparisons does SCO's work for them, but this is the only way they will likely identify any possible similarities, especially since SCO is so reluctant to provide details. Once they are identified, then do a check on these files for all those who have made changes to this file and figured out whom he worked for at the time. And also once found we can compare against existing openly available versions of source to ensure that this information was not freely available by some other means in an earlier version.
Eric B
ebresie@gmail.com
It's strange but, I almost feel sorry for the SCO lawyers. Just so long as Slashdot doesn't post a transcript of RMS' ramblings, I'm down with it.
i++; every where! the thieving anarchists!
blah blah ....Linux....blah
Gnu/Linux!
Gnu/Linux? What do you mean?
Gnu is Not Unix./Linux Is Not UniX
Spot the difference.
Is anyone else really, really afraid of putting Stallman on the stand? If that got televised Microsoft would have a field day showing off what a kook the leader of the anti-American commie GNU army is.
We should do whatever it takes to get Stallman on Queer Eye. Only the fab five can get him cleaned up and into an outfit that won't make him look like a nut.
Sheesh, you think people would have learned by now.
Attorney: Isn't it true that you stole code from SCO?
Geek: Yes.
Attorney: What? So, you did steal code from SCO?
Geek: No.
Attorney: I'm confused, now, did you or did you not steal code from SCO?
Geek: Yes.
Attorney: Your Honor, I would like to treat this witness as hostile.
The Court: The witness is directed to answer only "yes" or "no".
Attorney: AAAARRRRGH!
Geek: Hmmm...Is is Sept 19 already?
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
Consider SCO statements that claim "the GPL is unconstitutional" or the philosophy motivating linux is to "destroy commercial software".
I'll bet the questions directed toward them will include references to RS social contentions posted on his web site and perhaps if Linus Torvalds is - "a devoted communist, like your father".
the mind is its own beautiful prisoner
Perhaps SCO has forgotten what their lawsuit is about... I mean, what do 'the biggest names in Linux' have to do with IBM violating their license agreement with SCO? None of them work for IBM. SCO isn't suing Linux, or these guys. Hell, they're not even directly challenging the GPL in this lawsuit.
Who's next? Rush Limbaugh? Cher? My MOM!?!?!
So, could Linus, Richard, Bruce, or even the FSF file a "one beeellion dollar" defamation of character lawsuit against SCO for alledging that they where somehow implicated in this lawsuit with IBM...
-- You can't idiot-proof anything, because they're always coming out with better idiots.
Linus being subpoenaed should be able to bring the code that SCO says in violation of thier licence.
Linus: "Please show me the code that is in question".
"That's it? Fuck here is the fix. Case closed.
By the way you owe me a palne ticket and $2000.00 for my time."
How about everyone just file a suit against SCO in small claims court wherever you live. SCO is not allowed to use a lawyer in small claims court, and with enough suits filed they won't be able to appear in every case, and then they lose by default. The amounts awarded in small claims are peanuts, but with enough suits filed and won the peanuts can add up to some pretty big elephants!
Totally related, on SCO's site they have a link under the press area to this case. Two of the links, Sept. 25th and Oct 24th, refer to IBM's Amended Counter Claims Against SCO, and SCO's Answer to IBM's Amended Counter Claim's, respectively.
You can see that in item 9 on the first (which SCO agrees to on the second), IBM states Over the years AT&T liscensed Unix to many thousand persons or entities.
Doesn't that just mean that the license they admitted to existing existed before the license they are now trying to instigate? Why would they agree to this?
I really, really want to see this event - it's one of those "mustn't be missed" extravaganzas.
Linus Torvalds and Richard Stallman in the same court room? With IBM lawyers too! No doubt Eric Moglen will be present in some capacity.
Please tell me where I can buy tickets to this show? This is going to be a demonstration of The American Way at its finest, I'm sure - forget the shallow charades involved in the Microsoft antitrust case - this is the real thing!
I can't wait for the director's cut DVD...
Mmm... IBM requested proof of SCO's claims. That's how our system of "justice" works, the plaintiff files a case then proves it by providing evidence.
In alleged response to IBM's request, SCO filed a bunch of its own subpoenas. Exactly how is that "firing back"?! The only way SCO could "fire back" is by responding to IBM's request, i.e., PROVE ITS CASE!!!
SCO's subpoenas are nothing but a delay tactic. It's an attempt to avoid firing back as long as possible. SCO is not ready to let the world know it has absolutely no proof.
For any SCO supporters out there, ask yourself this: If SCO had evidence, why is it STILL hiding it?! An author cannot sue another author for plagiarism, but refuse to tell exactly what was plagiarized!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
...that SCO is doing this at the same time as Microsoft's latest PR barrage declaring that "open source is dead"?
That's the whole point of the GPL, MS can't use that tactic. Even if the GPl is determined to by unenforceable, common copyright law still holds effect, which says that MS can't redistribute the relevant code.
OT PS - the cripple fight scene in South Park was taken from the fight scene between Roddy Piper and Keith David in They Live, hit-for-hit, line-for-line.
Ah.. so you're the new guy around here, eh?
it is a good thing that IBM can afford justice but I guess that Microsoft is stuffing a lot of help down SCO's back pocket.
(I don't wear a tinfoil hat, it's a plot to make you wear them and become trackable!)
This should be a "Ask slashdot". What can we do to support individuals who are harrassed by SCO ? Whether they will suffer or not, we should do something. I feel that as a personal attack.
Ideas ?
Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education. Bertrand Russel
...to constitute an ad hominem denial of service attack?
SCO, as <ahem's> meat puppet, has reachback into some pockets of functionally infinite depth.
They can pretty much implement the death of Open Source by capilliary bleeding through litigation.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
your business must not be very large/successful I imagine .. otherwise you'd be thinking war at every turn.
.. they use a lot of pretty loaded terminology in their emails and private communications.
.. you have to win your freedom first.
see, big business has a group of people that "fight" the "war"
Free software doesn't have employees in that sense. It has people spread out throughout the world who "fight" for it, and talk about it in public.. Some are whiny brats, some are thoughtful commentators, others stay quiet and concentrating on solving technical problems. And folks like you who just want to get their jobs done. Nobody is asking you to fight, so you don't have to.
We need all these people. If we don't think of it as a war at some level, we'll lose. you know what "lose" means in this context? It means that not only will you not be able to choose what software comes on your computer, you won't be able to choose to *remove* it either. you won't be able to choose the product that "suits your needs". maybe the product that suits your needs is now illegal, or it's license has been crippled because while you were concentrating on your problems and customers, the big guy went straight to congress with a big check.
What does "Win" mean? It means that Free software becomes the standard. It means that when you buy software, or download it, you don't have to worry about the license, you can just install it and get to work. It means Microsoft's software loosens it's licensing restrictions so that those of us who depend on it don't have to stay on the upgrade treadmill forever. It means laws like the DMCA and so forth are worded to favor everybody, not just the few who paid for it.
The poster above is exactly right.. if Free software suffers a blow from this, Microsoft can move in. It's all strategy.. why do managers read "The Art of War"?
So keep fighting the fight, everybody, so that folks like this guy don't even have to worry about it.
PS: you don't beat tyranny by "excercising freedom"
PPS: if you're talking about microsoft they definitely are a monopoly, that was a finding of fact if you recall.
obviously.
1. ibm made a new hope.
2. then the empire strikes back
3. maybe in the end there will be return of the ibm.
cheers
SCO is a big monopoly-wanna be. Although good move suing Novell they're almost dead.
why won't you just roll up and die, and save us all the trouble. You know that is what's going to happen, sooner or later.
Meep.
With all due respect to karma, you can take your sympathy and shove it up your ass so far that it sees the daylight coming from your nostrils.
It's one thing to be critical of the US legal system. That's fair. It deserves criticism. It -benefits- from criticism, because enough criticism and eventually someone takes note, takes action and does something that hopefully makes the system a little better.
What I don't hear about is how much better other legal systems are. Or if I have a problem in another country, how I can address it if I don't already know the right people and can't pull the right strings. And then there's that "presumed guilty" issue so many other countries have.
I'm not happy with our system but while you're smarmily chuckling some of us are taking an active part in improving it, and I'll take my chances with it, warts and all, over the "you are only who you know" system the rest of the world uses. I sure as fuck don't need the sympathy of some cocksucking European snob.
Fuck you and the ass you rode in town on.
ESR once wrote a blog piece about how bad he felt for not getting included in the Arabic crackers' attempts to DDoS pro-American blogs. So being left out of something like this must really torque him off. He's like the Scrappy-Doo of the internet, waving his fists, going, "Lemme at 'em! Lemme at 'em!"
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
Business Professor: Now Students, we are going to learn about business models today. Forget what you have learned about supplying a product or service to a client, that way of making money is old school.
Business Student: But if a company has nothing to offer, how can they make money?
Business Professor: *shakes head* There is a new approach we are going to call the 'Legal Model.' In this model you don't need a product or service, but good lawyers. You see, you get a good law firm and you target innocent people, twelve year olds are good, or even large businesses. It does not matter the reason, in fact, the stupider the reason, the more you look to gain from it. Inveritably someone will invest in your cause, your stock will go up and whether you are bought out or win, you stand to make money. Helps to use bully tactics to force settlements out of people as well.
Business Student: But how do you plan to pay for the lawyers?
Business Professor: Oh just give them a large percentage if you are bought out or win the law suits. Lawyers are suckers for those types of deals. It's actually incentive for them.
Is this the Business Model of the Future?
Sig? No thanks, I don't smoke.
- What the fucking fuck?
- They are smoking crack!
I agree with you that RMS would be a fine witness but you seem to also make a broader statement that I disagree with.
... but this is the guy who invented the GPL! I think he understands better than most people exactly why free software is on solid legal ground ...
He has a huge stake in one side prevailing over the other. Consciously or subconsciously this has to affect his thought process. RMS may be well qualified to make an argument for one side, but not make a conclusion after hearing the pros and cons.
as right as you are about most consumers not willing to fight a war, which they are indeed not, to a player in the operating system market, this is very much a war. if you were a big player, such as redhat, microsoft, ibm, apple, whatever...would *you* care about the outcome of this PR spectacle?
"oh i think you would, trebeck"
Now, since you are not a big player in the market, you are telling the world that you do not care about the outcome of this lawsuit. now assume the worst for linux; the GPL becomes illegal, contributing to linux is deemed terrorism, and writing any operating system code without a government license violates the DMCA. naturally, this would probably not happen, but imagine it does. would you, the not-a-big-player, care then?
"oh i think you would, trebeck"
if you think that is not about war but instead freedom, then the war consists of the ability to exercise freedom. many wars have been fought on this basis, and while this war is mostly corporate, it has similar consequences. until you are bothered when using some software you like, you will continue to ignore all that goes on around you and use it. however, when someone comes to your door calling you a terrorist accomplice, would you care if you were told to stop using the software you have been using for as long as you can remember?
"oh i think you would, trebeck"
BSD is for people who love UNIX. Linux is for those who hate Microsoft.
Aren't those stories related: ... & SCO Fires back ...?
Microsoft Proclaims
However, I don't know if the judge will take kindly to him correcting both the judge and SCO's counsel about the correct distinction between Linux (the kernel) and GNU/Linux (the operating system)....AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN ;-)
Stephan
that this is the battle that finally destroys Western capitalism? Come on, we've all seen this in Star Trek!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
The problem here is there are people that don't believe in freedom fighting a war against people with freedom who believe in it. The people with freedom go down in burning buildings because they don't believe in fighting wars.
Its a nice utopian thought to think that war is not necessary, but in reality wars must be fought and won for freedom to prevail. There will always be people who want to control other people and restrict their freedoms. If you don't fight those people, you won't have freedom to excercise.
http://www.whatpc.co.uk/News/1147824
SEC Filings are public.
For some reason this reminds me of the scenario from the first Godfather movie, where they figure out where the meeting will be because the Police Chief has to let his station know where he'll be at all times
When do we get the made for tv movie? Or a book? Is Darl gonna sell a book deal for millions to refloat the company. "How I took on Big Blue... and Lost." or "How I fought Linux... for Nothing."
Can't wait.
If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor - Albert Einstein
Microsoft claims that if linux was more popular then there would be more viruses for linux, and that proves that the OS produces equivalent security. Well, here is my little proof to the contrary. Assumtion: if two software development methods produce equivalently secure code, then equivalent products produced by each method should have the same number of viruses if there are equal number of users. Proof: Apache and IIS are equivalent software packages. (not exactly true, but most people say they are comparably similar) According to netcraft Apache runs more web servers than IIS (by more than 2 to 1) If OS and closed source development methods produce equivalently secure code then the above implies that there should be more viruses for Apache than IIS. However, there are many more viruses for IIS than Apache, thus the above assumption must be incorrect.
I bought a red-hat boxed linux sometime ago, and it did not come with sharp knives, camoflauge paint or gunpowder to get me ready for the up and coming technology war of the century, in fact, knowing then what I know now, I wouldn't have bought the box, since I can get that stuff free on the internet.
You can get knives, camo, and gunpowder for free from the internet? Holy crap! Do redneck deer hunters know?
Hey, if RMS stuffs up on the stand, it'll give people a reason to move over to the Hurd...
Ok, I get it all, except for the Sept. 19th thing...anyone want to hit me with the old clue-bat?
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
Remember, even Fox NEWS made it into court when it attempted to sue Al Franken for his book (however briefly). I think the only way IBM won't see this case go to court is if they settle with or buy SCO. IBM may win, but not without a court fight.
the bonfire of the windows anyone?
Is something finally going to happen out of all this?
Is it the beginning of the end?
Or is it all masturbatory and am i getting out the pretzel rods and cheez whiz too early?
Go Team!
do() || do_not();
Thanks for the comments...now I retort
your business must not be very large/successful I imagine .. otherwise you'd be thinking war at every turn.
As i stated, software choices in a company I own would not be made based on moral rationalizations, they would be based on fitness of a given product for my usage
We need all these people. If we don't think of it as a war at some level, we'll lose. you know what "lose" means in this context? It means that not only will you not be able to choose what software comes on your computer, you won't be able to choose to *remove* it either. you won't be able to choose the product that "suits your needs". maybe the product that suits your needs is now illegal, or it's license has been crippled because while you were concentrating on your problems and customers, the big guy went straight to congress with a big check.
First of all, and I don't mean to be a total troll(just a partial one), but this is exactly the reason why I wouldn't want to live in the USA, last reported to be the 'land of the free'. People there with money are much free-er than I. Second, disregarding what I said before, I probably would be putting OSS on computers that my business runs to keep me out of such troubles. I have been a very happy OSS user for years, and I probably won't look back, as there's no point in it.
What does "Win" mean? It means that Free software becomes the standard. It means that when you buy software, or download it, you don't have to worry about the license, you can just install it and get to work. It means Microsoft's software loosens it's licensing restrictions so that those of us who depend on it don't have to stay on the upgrade treadmill forever. It means laws like the DMCA and so forth are worded to favor everybody, not just the few who paid for it.
If that's what win means, than I can't say I am not helping the cause. I use it all the time. I report bugs when/if I can, and even help my friends use the same software because I like it. From the first poster I was replying to, his stance seemed to say that we all should become zealots (OSS suicide bombers if you will). I'll not put up with anyone telling anyone what to do.
The poster above is exactly right.. if Free software suffers a blow from this, Microsoft can move in. It's all strategy.. why do managers read "The Art of War"?
All i can say is that I'm sure redhat or suse or novell's management have probably read the same books...As a linux user, why do I have to? And to finalise:
So keep fighting the fight, everybody, so that folks like this guy don't even have to worry about it.PS: you don't beat tyranny by "excercising freedom" .. you have to win your freedom first.
PPS: if you're talking about microsoft they definitely are a monopoly, that was a finding of fact if you recall.
I - Yes, this guy isn't fighting the fight at all, he's _using_ OSS.
II - you exercise your freedom as a human being to fight against tyranny, to get your freedom as a citizen, in the same way that you can exercise your freedom to put up with tyranny, and remain repressed.
III - last I remember, the prefix mono- implies one. For a desktop computer, go buy a mac, or a linux PC, or maybe a BSD one, for a server, maybe a solaris machine might be up your alley. Now how long did it take them to come up with that finding of fact? hmmmm....not so cut and dry now is it?
"So, Mr. Thorvalds, did you describe SCO as, and I quote, 'smoking crack'?"
"Yes, I did."
"Do you stand by that description."
"No, I do not. It would be an insult to crack-smokers everywhere."
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
And as a bonus, we get to mock RMS! (and SCO... and M$... and HEY! no one's slagged Linus yet! Sneaky Finn!)
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
thanks for your comments. I do agree with everything that you say. I was simply annoyed with the parents post about the impending war, that, really, I'm not in much of a position to affect. I use OSS because I believe in the freedom, and will continue to exercise that freedom. In this way I hope I am supporting the choice that I like. When the time comes that someone knocks on my door and accuses me of being a terrorist for using OSS, then I will use my freedom to resist.
(note that I don't call them a monopolist, as they aren't)
Yes, they are.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Let the games begin!!
At last some action!
Torvalds will rip Darl a new one, or three.
I've been so tired of the pansy-ass, limp wristed, light weight hair pulling. Now we get to see some blood and guts spilled on the battle field.
Yeah baby! This is where the rubber hits the road...
I wonder is there a defense fund specifically for our 'tall trees'? What is the bank/account I can donate some cash to for this purpose? Or do we simply have to up our FSF donations?
(If all us GNU/Linuxer's simply donate $25-$50 we'll have a fund larger then SCO's current market cap, maybe they'll think twice after that. If we all cough up our SCO license fee to the FSF, Richard can then also afford to sue them silly and buy the Unix license for scraps when they had a taste of their own medicine.)
that Stallman refuses to be involved in this unless all references to Open Source software are disallowed and everyone on both sides has to say "GNU/Linux" every time they talk about a distribution?
Someone you trust is one of us.
... will somehow work in the Twinkie defense.
...because I can't wait to see your December, January and February response.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
If you grant that Stallman's smart, and I think he is, and if you grant that Stallman has more experience in life and with lawyers than you (probably true), then my guess is that he'll do better than you give him credit for.
In fact, Stallman will be useless for SCO simply because he will purposely be confusing and obscure.
how they can file a subpoena against a guy in Finland. He still lives there, doesn't he? It's like that time when they sued Taliban or whoever it was. Is their no end to a court's imaginary jurisdiction?
it's obvious what SCO is trying to do. instead of offering proof of their claims, they are going to try to demonstrate that System V code could have gotten in the kernel. and by doing so, they think that they can avoid having to show any actually evidence.
Sept 19 = "Talk Like A Pirate Day"
Q: "Why do sound techs say 'check 1, 2'?"
A: "Cause if they could count any higher they'd be lighting techs."
Perhaps it can be made using clips from Spaceballs. I don't know why, but it seems they would find all the right elements in there.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Does that even mean anything???? I can still buy a mac can't I? Or wait a minute, I can buy standard PC parts, and maybe install freeBSD on it, or maybe Linux... Doesn't the prefix mono- imply 'one'.
You shouldn't trust blindly everything the government says.
SCOX closed up only $0.25 today; obviously not the result they work looking for. I predict over they next few days SCO will supeona "anybody who has ever written code for Linux", followed by "anybody who has ever used Linux". Yeah, that'll send the stock price up... sure, that's the ticket!
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Once in awhile, usually when I hear someone laughing at the US legal system, I wonder what it would be like if all of Europe was forced to speak German.
Would we even call it Europe anymore? Maybe we'd be forced to call it Germany? or Adolphia? or how about Hitlerania?
What if Europe spoke Russian? The purges of Stalin. Kangaroo courts. Those were the days.
Too many people take their freedom for granted.
When I was 18, I visited East Berlin for a day. Boris Becker was winning Wimbledon. East German soldiers were marching around the streets of East Berlin with automatic weapons. People were waiting in line for hours to buy a pair of shoes. It wasn't flattering. Communism, even socialism, is not very attractive.
Personally, I'd like to see all of Europe using aluminum coins, waiting in line all day at the grocery store. Most of Europe already has 50% tax rates and colossal unemployment. I wonder what it would be like if taxes were more, and unemployment were higher?
Nope. I'll take the US. Court system, dumb politicians, and everything else.
He would not represent that movement at all. He is the first to speak up when people make the mistake you just did. If you listen to his speeches, you can read or hear him speak on this issue when he corrected Mike Uretsky. I think you would be well served to learn what he has to say instead of judging him by your prejudical view of his appearance.
Digital Citizen
Subject says it all.
If SCO is just doint this as a tit-for-tat response to the IBM subpoenas, than they are making a big mistake. IBM subpoenaed people that can help their case that SCO's lawsuit is frivilous. The people subpoenaed by IBM are investment bankers and analysts, they are by no means technical experts when it comes to Linux, Unix, OS's, Kernals, Coding methods, etc. So their opinions on the code in question are meaningless. On the other hand, the people that SCO subpoenaed are experts in the aformentioned areas. They will be able to talk rings arround SCO's lawyers and experts and make them look bad. I'm really hoping this will backfire!
Geek translation:
# Attorney: !(you.did(you.steal(sco.code)))?
# Geek: TRUE
# Attorney: you.did(you.steal(sco.code))?
# Geek: FALSE
# Attorney: !(you.did(you.steal(sco.code))) || you.did(you.steal(sco.code))?
# Geek: TRUE
...when another shoe was going to drop. Ever since IBM Motions to Compel last week I've been watching SCOX price start to freefall. Every time the market starts to lose their faith and the stock price drops The SCO Group comes out with another outrageous action. Par for the course and more grist for the pump-n-dump police.
When I was a kid, we only had one Darth.
should sco prevail and injustice made on these great people, hEll is going to break loose.
Yes, you are a troll. Mono does not imply one in the legalistic sense. There can be a monopoly and yet "choices." I'd suggest you read some history.
Hopefully Linus or RMS will get the chance to use the line "It's absolutely true your honor. This man (McBride) has no dick" in court.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Anyone who's been in a deposition, or read a deposition, knows what these will be like. And in the case of SCO vs IBM, there is going to be a lot of trouble with relevance to the breach of contract matters.
The only way these people can say anything the judge has any business listening to is in IBM vs SCO, because they have nothing to do with the contract. It seems to me, anyway.
This might sound stupid, but it's what L Ron Hubbard did, resulting in Scientology. It allowed him to continue to publicize the pseudo-science, "Dianetics", but be protected from attacks under the law.
Becoming a religion gave him lots of free speech breaks, lots of financial breaks, and kept the cause going, as it does today.
mogorific carpentry experiments
Just in case anyone is getting wrongheaded expectations of RMS and/or Linus appearing in a courtroom anytime soon, these subpoenas most likely are asking for either: a) depositions relative to discovery or b) specific documents, answers or background information relative to one of the issues being considered at trial. Nothing terribly exciting here, although it does make for a catchy headline.
I mention this because a number of posts speculate on "the GPL finally going to trial" or some such as a consequence of this. That may very well happen, but not as an immediate result of this. So those of you awaiting the "GPL Final Combat" should probably sheathe the swords for a little while longer...
What relationsships do any of the persons SCO served have with IBM?
With SCO's suit against IBM?
I have a feeling since there are no relationships that the Judge will tell Boies and company to get a grip and show how these people have anything to offer in this case and to quit stalling and get responsive to IBM discovery or get tossed out of court.
If you don't like what I write don't be a CS and mod it down. Refute it.
Yea I can't spell. So what is your point?
By the time this is all over... I suspect that only me and my dog will not have been subpoenad. At least this county-clerk-job-creation program should help the economy.
I concur. It is precisely this go-along-to-get-along attitude on issues that control his ability to continue to do what he wants to do that appeal to many Slashdot readers, unfortunately. Torvalds reaffirms apathy by tossing off subjects as unimportant. He is an impressive hacker, but I hesitate to point to his words for informed opinion on political and ethical matters.
Stallman, by contrast, makes you listen to uncomfortable things like ethical computing--a subject too few other people even approach in their public speaking. Stallman recognizes the importance of the legalized bribery system Americans call campaign finance, and he has said if he had a way to fix it he would do so and nothing could make him prouder. Stallman seems, to me, to be much more in tune with the technological forces that affect our lives as hackers and citizens.
Digital Citizen
When contortion goes astray
This has sort of been picked up from other places on the internet,... it's not mine.
"IBM has unfairly competed with SCO by acts that include, but are not limited to, entering a conspiracy and combination in restraint of trade with others in the Linux development and distribution business, pursuant to the GPL, to artificially restrain prices below natural levels for the purposes of destroying competition in the operating systems market for UNIX software on Intel machines, and to improperly gain advantage and extract profits...blah, blah, blah" an SCO response from once apon a time.
SCO also conspired against itself through it's membership of UnitedLinux. Funny and maybe a bit sad.... Found here at eWeek-No More Mr. Nice IBM.
Having seen Stallman speak, and having watched him repeatedly scratch his balls through some awful sweatpants for the better part of 2 hours (in front of 200+ people) -- one has to wonder whether Stallman's responses to questions will involve more than just his lip flappin'...
Is SCO doing this to delay the 2.6 kernel?
Let's see, Linus Torvalds....Linus is the name of a character from a Charles Schultz comic strip. Snoopy was also featured in that strip which is kind of like Snoop Dogg who was in Whiteboys (1999) with Rich Komenich Rich Komenich was in Novocaine (2001) with (say it with me, kids)
Kevin Bacon!
Thanks Oracle of Bacon!
Heise: Sorry Mr. McBride, we're running out of excuses to stall the process. You won't make your 12-month bonus
McBride: stall, stall..., that's it! call Stallman!
Heise: Huh?
apology I know it's an awful joke but I'm so tired of the surrealistic delay techniques in this trial.../apology
I don't see the value in these subpoenas. These people who were subpoenad by SCO aren't a party to a SCO/IBM contract dispute. They aren't a party to the IBM patents in dispute. The GPL isn't specifically governed by these people, it is a document that is used independantly by each GPL contributor. Am I wrong? Can someone please enlighten me?
Looked up on dictionary.com:
monopoly
1. Exclusive control by one group of the means of producing or selling a commodity or service: "Monopoly frequently... arises from government support or from collusive agreements among individuals" (Milton Friedman).
2. Law. A right granted by a government giving exclusive control over a specified commercial activity to a single party.
3. a. A company or group having exclusive control over a commercial activity. b. A commodity or service so controlled.
4. a. Exclusive possession or control: arrogantly claims to have a monopoly on the truth. b. Something that is exclusively possessed or controlled: showed that scientific achievement is not a male monopoly.
So, looking at point 1, what is the commodity or service? Computers, no it can't be, there are other vendors. Operating Systems, no, there are other operating systems. If the commodity or service is windows itself, than I guess microsoft has a monopoly, in the same way that mcdonalds has a monopoly on big macs, but no on hamburgers. Looking at the second point, well, MS isn't a monopoly, as they have not been given exclusive rights by the government to a given commodity or service. Same with the third point, what kind of exclusive control do they have? Can MS shut my linux boxes or my mac computer off of the internet?
If my definitions are wrong, than please excuse me, but could you give me the proper one?
(IANAL) I'd guess they intend to get Stallman and Torvalds both to admit that the GNU and Linux projects have always been about duplicating Unix, which is, frankly, true. From this I'll guess they hope to get the court to declare that GNU/Linux is an illegal derivative of Unix, and therefore is the property of SCO. Nah, that'll never work... Maybe they intend to show that Richard and Linus consipred to destroy the commercial value of Unix. But I don't believe that's even illegal, unless you are a monopoly.
"Excuse me Mr Stallman, but in the jargon file under recursive it says, 'see recursive'"
"Talk minus action equals nothing" - Joey Shithead, D.O.A.
"Talk minus action equals
This would be interesting.
.COM era. How did that end again? (Luckily this is only one dumbass company this time.)
Basically, the track that SCO are going down for the GPL is that, in a nutshell:
As the Copyright owner, you cannot tell others how they can use your software. This is the premise behind the GPL. It uses Copyright to limit what others can do with the software.
If they (SCO or other company) use GPL'd software in their product, then the GPL covers that software as well, or they remove the GPL code. Simple, plain.
If by some stretch of the imagination, they win this case, think of what it means.
ANY SOFTWARE that tries to limit what you can do with the software after purchase has an open license. You can put Windows OS on ANY computer you want. Any license on software that tries to limit your usage of said software becomes null and void.
This whole case is mired in BS. SCO business model reminds me of the
Scott Carr
This is one of SCO's weaker FUD moves. When IBM subpeona's investors that is something that makes sense to the financial types. "SCO subpeona's Linus!!" is a tech geek issue, not an issue the investors can understand or really care about.
-Nuke the moon
You're writing as if the OSS community is a bunch of camo-clad, black-flag waving, anarcho-kids itching for a fight against the "establishment." Sure, it's just an operating system, it's just a computer, but don't forget, it's not just how easy it is to install, it's not just how easy it is to use for thousands of people whose livelihoods depend upon the future of OSS.
Although the metaphor of battle may verge on hyperbole, I see it as an apt description of the exact nature of what must happen in order for Free Software to coexist with Microsoft. Until Free Software is not viewed as antithetical to their business model, Microsoft will be intrinsically threatened by it. Until Free Software establishes its niche, coexisting with MS products, Microsoft will do what it can to protect what they view as their revenue stream, even if that means putting many thousands of people who have invested a lot of time and money into Free Software out of business.
I'm glad that you have been able to make your choice based upon your needs, but the fact is, you are a (albeit growing) minority of the users out there. Although the landscape is quickly changing, most small business still don't see the benefits of OSS because the megaphone Microsoft commands is much louder than the OSS movement's.
So, until that day, when people truly are allowed to make the choice simply based upon the merits of the software, and how well it suits their needs, it is a battle. Until the day when Microsoft stops spreading fear and doubt about the performance and viability of OSS solutions, it will be a battle.
Notes From Under *nix: blas.phemo.us
Ahem. I believe you meant to say "Stallman and GNU/Torvalds."
and NOBODY will be there to help you because the REAL time to fight whould have long passed
I'll sue you all!
Stop stealing other people's ideas.
Bah. We're talking of Richard Stallman here!
> (not (didp you (stealp you sco-code)))
t
> (didp you (stealp you sco-code))
nil
> (or (not (didp you (stealp you sco-code))) (didp you (stealp you sco-code)))
t
that sco might have stolen code from linux? or might add it to their code before the trial to make a statement, all they would have to do is change the file dates so it would look real, and take our developers' copyrights, and then point fingers, I have a feeling they'll do that when they get to court. might be illegal, but the courts ave no idea who came first, or what code came first, all someone has to do is present a convincing piece of evidence, even if it's doctored. and they can win in an instant. maybe that's why they're dragging their feet, maybe they're gonna make it look like the "evil opensource community is attacking them for their closed code" and once they display it... they could easily win.
scary thought, but dont think they havent thought of that. it's a very real possibility.
Try this:
Google for 'legal definition of monopoly'
The very top link includes the phrase:
"All combinations among merchants to raise the price of merchandise to the injury of the public, is also said to be a monopoly."
Perhaps the best is from legal-definitions.com, a few results down:
"monopoly definition: a monopoly is characterized by the power to fix prices or exclude competition, coupled with policies designed to use or preserve that power.
Hmmm...
Imagine a world where you can't get a laptop without on-board Palladium, one which will only run a Palladium-registered-OS. You can't check your bank balance without a "trusted" browser.
regardless of the definitions, the courts decided that MS was illegaling using its monopoly power.
It's not illegal to be a monopoly, but it is illegal to use that power to stifle competition.
The best example I can think of for how MS continues to leverage its monopoly is in #1 of your definition: The "bundling" of Windows with any computer you buy from a large OEM. The OEM pays MS a fee for a Windows license for each comptuer it ships, even if you plan to run Linux on it or whatever.
Of course the OEMs all agree to this becuase if they don't bye-bye volume discount.
Does this make any sense? The huge market share that MS has gives them lots of leverage -- and they've used that leverage too much, according to the court.
Just because you, the "end user" (aka "consumer") aren't privy to what goes on behind the scenes, doesn't mean that it's all on the up and up. It's microsoft's dealings with other businesses, not directly with retail consumers, that have gotten them into trouble. As well they should be.
Further proof of Microsoft's involvement with SCO's recent irrational behavior. They're already adopted Microsoft's approach to software development!
Haven't they been doing this all along?
Microsoft - Make (mostly) shit products
SCO - Buy something most people already regard as shit, license said shit to someone else, then claim they gave that shit away without running it past you first
Microsoft - Spin, obfuscate, and flat-out LIE to make your shit stink less than the other guy's shit
SCO - Obscure, overgeneralize, and mimic your opponent's arguements to prove that these guys stole your shit because it smells exactly the same
Microsoft - Make people pay WAY too much for your shit, when they can get the same shit for free
SCO - Make people pay WAY too much for shit they aren't sure is yours to *begin* with, when they were getting it for free five minutes ago
And in the end... isn't it all still shit?
Sure Bill Gates' hair is fugly, but give his barber some credit! At least he managed to cover the horns on his forehead.
What does "Win" mean?
well, I used to type that a lot in Windows 3.11...
The first thing the public saw was their stupid slide show, which included proof that:
SCO doesn't know the difference between what they once called "Ancient Unix" (which the AT&T vs. Berkeley judge said AT&T lost to the public domain) and the System V code they actually own some rights to, despite the fact that they rereleased that code themselves under the old BSD license.
SCO doesn't know the difference between original BSD code (like the packet filter code they claimed as their own) and their System V code, despite the fact that they are legally required to retain the copyright notices on the BSD parts.
SCO can't tell the difference between a legal, original reimplementation of a detailed published standard (like that BPF example, and probably like much of the POSIX, Unix9x, BSD, etc. compatibility in Linux) and an obfuscated copy of the original implementation.
More recently, SCO has "responded" to IBM's interrogatories not with specific claims of wrongdoing, but with the output of "egrep -il (smp|rcu|numa)" and a disclaimer that they're not stating that the output includes some infringement.
If they have an actual case, why are they pubishing these embarrassments instead, still keeping their case secret in court where they might piss off a judge instead of just a bunch of Linux users?
How do you spell ASSHOLE?
DARL
How do you spell COCK SUCKER
McBRIDE
End of today's lesson
I was beginning to think you were incapable of further follies. I've had my gut-laugh for the day and I feel much better now.
But seriously, wouldn't it be wise for Stallman, Torvalds and all to take the stand and essentially tear the case to ribbons from discovery? They wouldn't have to restrict themselves to quoting the e-mail chain that wandered around IBM's submissions to the kernel. They could actually give the oral version, complete with iterating under oath how retaining "freedom" is so important that they do everything they can to keep disallowed trade secrets from leaking into the kernel. Not a bad set of things to have show up in sworn testimony.
Still hoping for Gentle Treatment...
this is better than "after-party party gets out of hand; Madonna's strap-on assaults Britney.
Most of your rant was great (I jumped to Mac OS X for the same reasons you run Linux), but I just can't let this go:
"[Y]ou have to remember that if you exercise your own freedom effectively, war is not necessary."
That's only true if the other side also believes in effective exercise of freedom. In that case, everyone's happy. But if the other side doesn't, you can only exercise your freedom until they decide they're tired of your freedom and want to end it.
At that point, if you want to continue exercising that freedom, you have to fight (go to war, whatever your preferred terminology is) for it. Freedom isn't free -- it's been bought geopolitically in blood for hundreds of years, and bought judicially in countless dollars (pounds, euros/predecessors, yen) of legal fees.
And the Captain Obvious Award goes to Blake Stowell! Come up and recieve your award!
#define CLUE 0
Why would Microsoft license a company that distributes software that is a DIRECT competitor to their Server software?
Ever heard about it?
“Wait for Hurd if you want something real” –Linus
The day these witnesses appear in court, the only thing IBM attorneys will be saying is "Objection, relevance."
The soci-political views of the creators of the Kernel and GNU/Linux are not relevant. Their opinions of SCO aren't either.
Their contributions to the Kernel and to GNU/Linux are relevant, but everyone know's these people can write code and don't need to steal, so who gives a fuck what SCO is going to say?
The only thing that's relevant to the case are questions and answers that address one question: Was system V stolen from?
The answer is no.
Period.
The fact that it's taking so long for this to be aired in a courtroom is the only thing making this case even remotely interesting.
Still, I wish these fuckin' retards would just close up shop, and stop waiting time in the courts. This is why cases that really matter aren't heard; because morons tie up courtrooms trying to fight battles they can't even hope to win.
Fuck SCO, and be done with it.
While RMS was instrumental for starting the whole OSS movement as we know it today, and with out him, and his contributions, we may not even be here discussing this today.... ....He is a nut... And is the last person we want in court speaking for the community as a whole....
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Well I'm using a computer dual booting linux & w2k for 2 reasons only: it fits my need. Did I forget something?
But that's beside the (my) (your) point: why bother? Because choosing one OS instead of another is more
Alone, one person's decision makes very little difference.
But in aggerate, the decisions of millions (or the decisions made for them by OEMs and default settings), make a dramatic difference.
The "market share" is what drives hardware vendors to write drivers or release specs, and it influences software vendors to port their applications. It also makes a lot of people take interoperability seriously, such as making websites conform to standards.
Your choice, and my choice, and that of others in terms of "market share" does make a difference for everyone. Even for people who made different choices than we may have, it still makes a difference, as cross-platform development, conformance to standardards, and design for interoperability are usually a win for everybody involved.
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
Hmm... is there something here that you're not telling us? Maybe you should ask your mother....
Embedding content in HTML pages is patented, dont you remember?
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
More a utilitarian fight than a moral choice if you ask me. I support linux and other free software initiatives because they looks more viable than closed source/propietary alternatives. I use free software because I firmly believe it has the potential of becoming the solution of choice within 5~10 years. Not because of some IP rights but out of sheer usefulness. If I let MS and some other win the fight (because I think it is a fight), I'll loose in the end, maybe 10 or 15 years from now.
I would roll my own but SCO would claim copyright since it is a derivative of their work.
I am the Barber of Seville.
SORRY TO SLASHDOT GROKLAW, but here you go:
1 20 3544653
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200311
THROW ME SOME MOD POINTS SO EVERYBODY READS THIS!
"It's like Freddy Krugar, with #comments." You should make a slightly modified version of that your sig.
"Never, never suspect the dreams within the dreams of dreaming children." ~The Amazon Quartet
what could they hope to obtain from the people they are subpoenaing. None of those entities have any access to information on this case that isn't public knowledge. Each individual can file a motion to quash the subpoena which can also ask for sanctions against SCO for abuse of process.
McBride : Oh master I hope u like my sucking I am doing my best to put fud on linux to make crappy windoze look better. People will get scared to use linux so I hope you sell more of crappy windoze which is piece of filt.
Bill Gates: Aaaah yeees I will send mo money.
Just go look at the history of Scientology depositions for examples of aggressive litigation. Google for "deposition" and any of the following: "scientology", "moxon" "kobrin" or "henson".
Bill Gates didn't testify in court at the antitrust trial -- it was edited chunks of a video taped deposition.
-dB
"It if was easy to do, we'd find someone cheaper than you to do it."
Torvalds el al should ask the court that SCO should pay substantial cash sums into the court before they appear - ie - security for thier expenses, time, etc.. Remember that it is SCO bringing this case..
"You lied to me! There is a Swansea!"
I think Linus and RMS have grounds to go after Darl et al personally for this.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
pseudo-mod +5 "Gotcha ;-)"
If I answer without those precise definitions, the jury might come to the wrong understanding of what I'm saying. Since I know that, that would be perjury, wouldn't it?
Would it? I'm curious. I've always equated perjury to lying. If someone truthfully answers a question when they *know* the answer will be interpreted incorrectly, have they committed perjury?
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
The fucking fucker's fucking-well fucked.
[Gratuitous MS-bashing alert!]I've used that on Windows many a time.
My other car is a 1984 Nark Avenger.
The phrase "Intellectual Property" pisses Stallman off because it has no meaning, whereas "Patents, Copyright and Trademark",
You forgot "protocols, security holes (covered by anti-copyright; the copyrighting of blocks of code you didn't write but should have), and ink-jet cartridges."
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
are belong to us..
Darl..
"You lied to me! There is a Swansea!"
I would like to take this time to subpoena General William Tecumseh Sherman, Fred "Rerun" Berry, Amelia Earheart, and The Guy Who Does The Voice For Tony The Tiger because each have more to do with this case as Stallman and Torvalds have.
Bowie J. Poag
What the FUCK do those ecommunists have to do with this case, or any case regarding property rights? Go ahead and take some karma. I'm having it later.
Dawn of the Dead
She was the 6-time Finnish tae kwon do champ. She is more physically fit and intimidating than either Linus or RMS. Time for her to kick McBride's nuts halfway around the planet...
alex trebeck. (perhaps a tad american centric) go watch sean connery debase trebeck in the "celebrity jeopardy" skits on Saturday Night Live.
BSD is for people who love UNIX. Linux is for those who hate Microsoft.
... they forgot to supeona God.
Peter M. Dodge,
Chief Executive Officer,
LiquidFire Studios
Platinum Linux - www.
but then this is the US legal system we're talking about.
Yeah, there are so many better models in action today, right?
Man, I harken for the days of the Soviet's judicial system. Or the European one even better! The EU stripping rights away left and right, starting with guns.
Oh, the Islamic Sharia is the best. Hands & feet cutr off, penises mutilated, clitorises chopped off - and of course, stoning to death.
Or, China! Yes, where they shoot you in the head for pissing on the Commies, send the bill for the bullet to your family, and then turn your bones into fertilizer. That is a fucking great system, isnt it?
What a tird. What makes you think that because MSFT and others file frivolous lawsuits about GNU/Linux will be supported by the judiciary? The law on these matters is fairly well established, and the judiciary doesnt make new law, so.. thats a stretch. And also, what laws regarding this stuff in general, software piracy, RIAA/MPPA mess, etc, has done anything about the problem? These laws would be unenforceable. When was the last time you saw the GNU license enforced?
I don't think he'd be useless. I think he'd be quite damaging. He's the one who organized the debunking of their faked greek code event.
(Well, that's a lousy description, but you know what I mean.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Southern California Linux Expo on November 22nd at the Los Angeles Convention Center in Los Angeles, California. Other exhibitors include Real Networks, Novell, and Pogo Linux. Some of the speakers include Seth Nickell, Chris Dibona, Patrick Mochel and John Terpstra. Full and student tickets are still available for this event as well as free exhibition only passes using the FREE promotional code.
Should've picked up up a Jeopardy reference. Sorry. It's Alex Trebek, actually. That's what confused me. Normally he was referred to as "Alex" on the show:
"I'll take evil monopolistic software corporations for one hundred, Alex."
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I want to see all these folks on the stand on Court TV. Probably won't happen, sigh.
I apologize if I am wrong but I thought Linus Torvalds lives in Sweden or Norway or somewhere in Europe.
The US courts have no jurisdiction and no way to compel Linus to appear if he is living outside of the US.
Maybe you should set up an online petition, that'll be just as effective.
Name one freedom that wasn't achieved without a fight. Rights and freedoms are useless without the right to secure those rights as well. It also reminds me of that saying .. if you have slaves on the plantation, but silence on the battlefield, that is not peace.
Copyrights by their very definition are a form of controll, and by their very nature touch everybody. It is a worthy cause worth fighting, and it is a worthy cause to recuit others to. Large and powerfull interests are clashing - like it or not this is a war, like it or not you are taking sides even if you choose not to take sides. It reminds me of the people who wantingly believed that the slave states could get peacfully get along with the free states (US history btw). They were pitiful, and they just didn't get it, and they were taking sides too even if they tried to deny it.
There are ogg recordings of 12 of his speeches from the last 3 years on the GNU philosophy audio page.
Also note that the issue of the name "GNU/Linux" is not about credit (more explanation here)
And an explanation of the fiasco regarding Stallman being asked to talk at a "Linux User Group" is available here.
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
im surprised i havent seen anything regarding Alan Cox yet...
This post cannot be re-broadcast without the express written consent of Major League Baseball.
It reminds me of the main character in one of Rand's works, as he sat in a court room and explained why he set a building ablaze that he designed. It's not the deed that I'm referring to, but the passion they both have for what they believe - and the good part is that in both cases, those beliefs are quite substantive.
The Ibm questions for RMS and LT should open up some very interesting facets of Unix history. AT&T vs BSD, POSIX standards, BSD code in SysV, LKP questions, UNIX source in public domain, Caldera Linux history and more that SCO hoped would never be considered by the court.
SCO doesn't really want these two standard bearers of Open Source to set the court straight, which IBM will surely make happen.
Open Source is the life blood of these two men, they live and beleive it. They will both be well prepared and be SCO's worst nightmare come to life.
If you don't already know, the company that MS hired to do their Services for UNIX (Interix is the name I believe) pretty much took OpenBSD 2. something and ported it to win32. There is nothing wrong with this, and I fully support it (how else do you make Windows useful? Obviously you install *nix software, even MS recognizes this.). I only see this as an affirmation of the great code in open source in general and OpenBSD in particular: it is the chosen implementation and it is portable enough to compile the useland on a different os entirely. Services for UNIX is a great product that I would demand...if I used windows. Personally, I have a copy of FreeBSD.
Brandon
Why in hell would SCO subpoena Linus, Transmeta and RMS? I am very confident when I say that Linus, RMS and Transmeta in it's Linux dealings have never done anything with respect to Linux (sorry, GNU/Linux, Richard old chap) that is not a matter of public record. All the files, patches etc that have been inlcuded in the Linux kernel are available on the internet, as is the GPL. Linus' work on Linux done while working for Transmeta is well known as he stated that his contract allowed him to work on Linux, and no one has ever thought that Transmeta had some hidden SMP/NUMA know how etc.
Likewise the early Linux/GPL story is also a matter of public record as are the files.
The Novell subpoena is probably pure blind shooting in an attempt to discover some hidden agenda to discredit SCO by Novell by choosing Linux as its future. The interesting bit here is that we will finally know what the true deal was between Novell and SCO over the Unix properties.
There are only three semi rational conclusions that I can come to:
1. is that SCO is going to try to destroy the GPL in court, either by claiming it is not a valid licence (you can imagine the precedence that would set up for Microsoft's fuck ugly EULA's) or by trying to do some nationalistic McArthy era skullduggery in claiming RMS is a commie traitor and Linus an incompetent leader i.e chracter assasination. However that would leave them wide open to massive claims of copyright abuse by all the Linux contributors.
2. is that Microsoft is truly behind this case and that it is all part of a final MS funded and supported massive attack on OSS that will either succede and lead to total dismissal of OSS in the US* or be a huge setback leading to criminal charges aginst many in the industry. The way things are going I'm not so certain that this isn't the way things are going to turn out. The stakes are pretty damn high and the whole thing stinks of some underhanded motives.
3. It is truly an utterly desperate attempt by a dying company to raise its stocks value or get bought out. I think the original attempt was to get bought out but Darl and company miscalculated horribly and then went for plan B which was to pump up the stocks and get out.
*This will have no swing whatsoever outside the US and will probably work against MS there.
However I have one hope for these subpoenas, and that is that Novell, now a Linux company with SuSE and Linus, finally get off their fucking collective fat arses, get some lawyers and sue the hell out of SCO. The result of multiple lawsuits against SCO will almost assuredly kill SCO's stock value pretty soon.
for maximum effect, chant this really fast in an overcaffinated spaz attack....
I've got two words for you, Darl:
Cornered rat!
I've two more word for you:
Extinct Assh*les!
Okay!? I think you hear me knockin, Darl. And I think I'm comin' in! and I'm bringing in a swat team of crazy muthaf*ckin' OpenSource goons.
Do you know how many of these crazy f*cks know karate? Huh? HUNH!? Do ya? Huh? And how mad they are? Huh?
Oooooh-ho ho ho ho ho! They reeeaaaaly want to meet you! Oooooh, yes, my friend!
(Long drag on cig)
Yeah. Darl and Chris and Blake. You're all invited to a barbeque. GUESS WHO'S ON THE MENU!
Sounds like SCO is following the Iraq WMD tactics.
They have yet to produce any Code of Mass Duplication.
--
SCO: All your codes are belong to us.
I just posted this in an earlier SCO story, but I thought it was worth posting again -- I sent a letter to our congressman, Barney Frank (D- MASS), about SCO's abusive use of the court system. He sent this reply:
- - - -
September 26, 2003
Dear Mr. Minsky,
I share your view that the suits being brought by the SCO Group
against the users of the Linux system are an entirely inappropriate
use of the legal systems for broader corporate purposes. While I have
not been able, obviously, to examine these in detail, the suits do
not appear to me, from what I have read, to have any merit, and in
fact seem to be motivated, as I said, by an effort simply to prevent
the use of Linux for competitive reasons.
There is, unfortunately, a very limited role for Congress here. I
agree with those who would like to see us "stop SCO from punishing
innocent consumers to inflate its other legal claims." But under our
separation of powers doctrine, Congress has no role whatsoever to play
in the pursuit of particular cases. We can pass laws which prevent
certain types of suits from being brought, but it is very, very
difficult to pass those in a way that would be retroactive ? that is,
that would apply to existing suits. And the problem with this suit is
not that it is of a sort of legal claim that is inappropriate to
bring, but that it is totally unjustified on the merits. In other
words, the remedy here is for these suits to be dismissed on their
merits and Congress has no role, as I have said, in doing that.
I am prepared to join in expressions of extreme disapproval of what
SCO is doing, and I will be consulting with my colleagues to see if
there is a movement to do that. I hope that will have some impact on
them. All of these lawsuits brought against individuals will of course
be dismissed but I realize that is of little consolation to people
who have had to go through the trouble and expense of defending against
them. It may be that at some point a judge will act decisively enough
in this regard to prevent this proliferation of suits, and while, as I
said, our Congressional role is very limited here, I will be
encouraging anything we can do along these lines.
Barney Frank
You are all missing the point.
Utah is Mormon!,
SCO is Mormon.
The Judge is likely Mormon!,
Why even have this trial? A non-Mormon (firms and people) can not get a fair trial in UTAH!
Just how well did your mom "know" him?
How OLD ARE you?
Have you looked in a mirror?
</HUMOR>
Humor tags to be sure no offense is taken.
He would be by far the greatest in the Linux community at speaking to the public. I fear the Stallman will get up and start talking about how it is GNU/Linux, how all software needs to be totally free, etc.,etc.
Rumours have suggested SCO is trying to get IBM to buy them to make the whol ething go sway.
I hope IBM doesn't buy them. I'd much rather see them ruined.
but SCO stock immediately upon opening of markets and dump it before noon. well, except for the first part, that's what the SCO execs are doing with every press release.
It's ironic you bring that particular example up. The character who destroyed a building that he designed did so because it had been modified from his original. He believed he owned the rights to his creation, even after he had contractually released them. Stallman believes in exactly the opposite - the creator of the original product releases rights to the buyer - that the users of the software have the right to modify it as they wish. Not arguing on either side. Just find it interesting to think about. I believe Howard Roark would abhor Richard Stallman, for what it's worth.
Someone had the bright idea to check with Linus and apparently he hasn't received anything.
For more info head over to GrokLaw
Help fight continental drift.
embolism
bigot.
Wow. Dragging in those guys is like playing pickup basketball and demanding that Shaq, Kobe, Duncan, Kidd, and Garnett all get on the court against you at the same time. Unfortunately, I'm not sure the referee (the U.S. Court system,) is competent enough to call the game correctly. . . .
Hmmm. Maybe SCO has been doing that crack Linus accused them of being on.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
The original poster is clearly not referring to the GPL text (which has not been reviewed 100s of times,) but the works constituting the GNU project. The argument being that SCO will have a hard time painting RMS as someone with little respect for IP (despite what he preaches), and therefore part of the problem they face fighting the GNU/Linux bandits, when he sets out to deliberately write functional equivalents to existing IP-burdened tools, amounting to thousands of lines of code. Is this masochistic someone anybody you could ever accuse of representing a pattern of plagiarism in the community with a straight face?
Then again, Groklaw has this nice quote:
Given the snail's pace of the U.S. legal system in this case, he might just decide to stay in Europe.
<sarcasm>You'd make a great engineer! Or a great scientist! Or a great artist! Or a great anything!</sarcasm>
Just because something better may not currently exist does not imply that something better cannot exist.
Longhorn is predicted to be released at about the same time as SCO's case is settled.
Coincidence?
I wonder if Microsoft is paying SCO to distract us from preparing for Longhorn's new file system.
The "American pro-capitalist mainstream" are not going to stop their adoption of linux because SCO tried (or even succeeded) in painting these guys as socialists. The reason? Because companies will still be able to make money using linux.
The bottom line is what counts. You seem to be suggesting that companies make hardware/software choices based (at least in part) on moral reasons, and that hasn't been my experience.
Having a sense of humor means knowing when not to laugh at something, even if it was said in jest.
always matter, even when they shouldn't. That's the point.
Apparently Linus got his served with dinner. Unfortunately, this is not a joke.
Looks like the only thing Blake Stowell got wrong was the "tense" of his staement. He should have said that they "will be served."
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
on the show, yes. but connery kept calling him trebeck on SNL :)
BSD is for people who love UNIX. Linux is for those who hate Microsoft.
This applies to all freedoms.
You state "... this isn't about war, it's about freedom...and you have to remember that if you exercise your own freedom effectively, war is not necessary."
This lovely sentiment is only true until someone comes along and tries to take that freedom. Then, you either decide that peace is more important than freedom and let them have it, or you fight for that freedom.
The requirement to defend any freedom is is simply part of the human condition.
Absence of a need to defend your freedom is only evidence of living in a lucky time; it is not evidence of the absence of the requirement to defend that freedom.
We may be unlucky to have this SCO crowd attempt to kill GPL, but I thnk it is inevitable; if not them it would be someone else. OS is too powerful an idea for those corporate power types to leave alone. If you don't want to fight, fine, but quit whining and snivelling!
This is all a bad dream... This just another fucking bad dream...
Never argue with an idiot, they'll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.
They also grepped for IBM.
Also they are very proud of providing more discovery material to IBM than IBM has provided to them. They failed to mention that 99% of the material consists of a hardcopy printout of the source for the Linux kernel. Nearly one million pages of printout. I hope the judge will be as impressed with that as I am, which is to say "not impressed at all".
... is Richard Stallman always wanted credit for having worked on early linux\gnu project and now he got it in the form of a subpoena.
And Linux has stated that he doesn't care about patents and will ignore them. Expect SCO to ask him questions about that.
...he didn't say Belgium?
Subpoena, Breaking it down into its two logical parts we get, sub - poena, two latin words. Sub of course mans under; and poena means penis. So we have "Under the penis." Under your penis you will find your testicles. So, basically, the court has got you by the balls.
You quash a subpoena, not squash one.
Was it that he believed he owned the rights to it, or that he did his work on an "as-is" basis. That is, take this as I have done it, or don't take it at all. I can't remember, but didn't they even promise not to change his design, but did so anyway?
It's interesting to think about the differences you've mentioned.
Remember that RMS started the GPL thing after he saw someone trying to sell back to the MIT AI Lab what he had written for the lab. This is a key point which should be respected in court. Torvalds doesn't have anything against commercial software -it's just that Linux isn't. RMS may not like closed source software but he fully supports commercial funding of open source projects or commercial style support.
IBM and the FSF have good lawyers. As long as they are clever, both Linus and Richard can put on a great show for open software and the GPL.
IBM is based out of New York. If IBM is responsible for these infringements, WHY THE HELL ARE THEY SENDING SUBPOENAS TO THE OTHER SIDE OF THE PLANET?!?!?
~Knautilus
What's the law regarding subpoenas? Do they have to show? What if they can't afford to get there? What if they have family issues that require them? What are the loopholes in getting around subpoenas?
This will no doubt be the most popular geek destination for the year. Assuming it ever happens.
http://tinyurl.com/3t236
As a resident of Mass. and a conservative(notice small "c") things like this make me feel bad about all the mean things I've said about the Honorable Mr. Frank. Today he has earned my vote.
But Ted Kennedy he still drives me crazy.
Ted Kennedy's car has killed more people than my guns.
It's all Politics
I agree with the idealism of your thesis - "if you exercise your own freedom effectively, war is not necessary," but this is an entirely subjective definition of war and freedom. One can exercise freedom while in a cage, but the cage remains. Again, one can argue that Windows is not a cage and that it is good, but in the case where someone strongly believes that the predominant OS is a cage, they can only exercise their freedom through warring against the popular opinion. People don't all choose the right thing, in fact they often choose the worst thing. Look at many of the "revered" revolutionary uprisings in the past. Many, if not the majority were by minorities that changed the entire populace and established new ideals that in cases last until today. And, most all of these uprisings required violence of some sort.
... they want to show how broken the American court system is.
You can play it to your tune any way you want, spend huge amounts of other people's time and money while at it and make a few lawyers richer, while almost all participants suffer and the big masses get more court-tv drama.
What they forgot was to take a queue number and get in the line with the rest of the bunch.
Linux: Reloaded
IBM - Which brings us at last to the moment of truth, wherein the fundamental flaw is ultimately expressed, and the anomaly revealed as both beginning, and end. There are two doors. The door to your right leads to the dismissal, and the salvation of Linux. The door to the left leads back to the courtroom, to the GPL, and to the end of your company. As you adequately put, the problem is choice. But we already know what you're going to do, don't we? Already I can see the chain reaction, the chemical precursors that signal the onset of emotion, designed specifically to overwhelm logic, and reason. An emotion that is already blinding you from the simple, and obvious truth: Linux is going to exist, and there is nothing that you can do to stop it.
*McBride walks to the door on his left*
IBM - Humph. Greed, it is the quintessential human delusion, simultaneously the source of your greatest motivation, and your greatest weakness.
McBride - If I were you, I would hope that we don't meet again.
IBM - We won't.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
If I were running IBM, I would hire a team of college students, give them some nice laser printers and *tonnes* of paper. Then, tell them to start printing every single line of code and message in kernel 1.x-2.x, and all the related archives (like kernel traffic).
:-)
"SCO's Stowell said his company provided about a million pages of documents in response to IBM's requests. "
Being the once biggest and nastiest company in the world, hevay weight champion IBM should do more than that
It seems perfectly plausible to me that M$ is using SCO to launch this completely unreasonable attack on GNU/Linux; I mean, why not? BG and M$ has been using top notch dirty tricks against many software companies before this, and Windows is currently being ridiculed as an unsafe, low-security, inadequate OS, even outside of communities like Slashdot. Explain to me again why we're not discussing this option? Is it too paranoid?
With all the comments and sugestions on /. Linux, RMS, et al don't need lawyers, they can read the comments and get all the coaching and legal advise they ever needed-for free!
This SIG pulled due to lack of funding. (This damn war is costing too much!)
Careful not to step in the leadership.
go out with a bang!
oh, well then. sorry professor.
pave the fucking way then. dont bitch about the legal system unless you plan to actively participate in it and reform it.
im sure your armchair highness has all sorts of "correct" advice to dispense on any topic. ill be waiting to hear more with baited breath.
you should get the domain name" ditz.net, the l in your name IS silent.
Have you been smoking some of tha SCO crack. What the fuck are you on about?
:-)
And who are the big gins?
I thought Princess Margaret and the Queen Mother were dead
No but, yeah but, no but...
When my colleagues send me even plain text contents of emails as attatchments in the latest closed document format that will crash my office program when I try and open it without patching, when I can't read half peoples' web pages because they're in strange variant html which looks right in a grand total of one browsers, when I can't recieve emails because my box is full of "Install this patch from Microsoft Corporation", then it becomes my problem which OS other people are using.
I think the phrase you're looking for is, "What the figgity fuck is this?" But that's obviously just a poor approximation.
If I'm not mistaken, the NSA has their own distribution of GNU/linux, isn't it ?
It puts them on the same level as IBM, from SCO's legal point of view, it seems to me.
I wonder why sco doesn't go and sue THAT part of the US governement.
IBM is actually trying to get some facts with their subpoenas, like offending source code. What does SCO think they are going to get out of Linus?
SCO want's Linus to do their work for them.
SCO wants the name and address of every person that has contributed code to the Linux kernel in order to match the list they have from companies that have signed NDA with SCO.
If a match is found, SCO will claim that is the code in question.. (Today SCO has no fucking clue about if they realy have a case or not.)
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
Hm, this may disappoint you.
My poetry site welcomes the unusual.
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SFU sucks hard cock, but not even OpenBSD, which sucks dick so bad when compared to the GOD of all OPERATING SYSTEMS, FREEBSD, SFU sucks so much harder cock than OpenBSD.
So, less for the day, SFU sucks more dick than any other fake UNIX.
Long live FREEBSD.
the politicians need to get off their asses or currently in the case of congress....need to STFU and get laws on the books to reduce if not eliminate all this petty lawsuits....you know...the ones that use the legal system to extort and harrass ppl.
Maybe all that is just a huge trick... strategy kind of thing. SCO sues as much as it can... and at the end they fail. Then nobody will be able to stand anymore against open source as a legal threat. As open source systems get more mature, it will be harder and harder for proprietary software to compete, even impossible economically speaking. So their only remaining option will be legal assault, since technically they could not match.
Ha ha ... I wish I'd seen that. Connery is one of my favorite actors anyway.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
OK - I know honest politicians exist - I can name 5 out of 635 British MPs that are definitely honest, but an honest and reasonable US politician in the land of lobbies and graft?
How did that happen?
Anyway, well done Barney Frank for looking at a problem on its merits, rather than on who's paying him.
oh brave new world, that has such people in it!
Figures Barney would side with Linus.
Fudge packers stick together.
He has always tried to resolve GPL violations out of court, either by making the infrigor obey the terms of the GPL or by making them stop distributing GPL'ed code.
Some would say that shows lack of confidence in the GPL, because going to court is The American Way. As an European I suspect it is just because he, as is common over here, believe that going to court should be a last resort, and threatening to go to court should be the second to last resort.
He is very idealistic and uncompromising about his goals, but just as pragmatic about how to achieve them. The GPL is an example of this, he dislike the copyright system, and yet is willing to use it to achieve his goal.
The GPL was written by RMS in cooperation with some other lawyer.
In this posting, you plan to continue to resist even if this particular battle is lost. You will be one of many who continue despite any ruling and risking accusations of lawbreaking/terrorism, hoping to be one of many that make this particular un-freedom too costly for society to enforce.
There are many forms of resistance, and not everyone can be on the front lines (the military even has a term of art for this, the "tooth to tail ratio"). This may be all we can do, since we cannot all go running down and filing briefs with the court. We also agree that the resistance or fight need not be violent.
The important thing is to recognize the issue and to be willing to bear the price of your freedom, in this case, the risk of arrest and/or civil suit.
This causes society to bear a cost in enforcing this particular un-freedom. They are hoping that the potential cost will cause you to censor our own actions and not act freely. We agree that we won't do this.
Our apparent disagreement may be one of semantics. You say that "We are always free...even though society may not always be...". My perspective is that this is true only in a limited context. For me, the question is whether we are free to do X without any fear of penalty or reprisal. If so, we are free. If not, we are still free to take the action (unless we're talking about breaking laws of physics), but must also recognize and be willing to resist, bear the potential penalty, etc.
Why not just say that this particular lack of freedom in society is wrong, and that we are willing fight it?
If IBM et al. pulverize SCO in court first, then the cost of the buyout will be much lower.
www.wavefront-av.com
NT 4.0 never, I repeat NEVER came with an ls command. 7 years of using NT 4.0, and every time I wanted ls, I had to install either cygwin, Hamilton C Shell, MKS, or SFU. Or write my own.
-Chris Kaminski
Do they think somehow that dragging the brightest brains in open source is going to somehow make _their_ case stronger?
I'd say it is a move that will sink what little case they had.
URL: http://xanga.com/lvirden > Quote: Saving the world before bedtime. Even if explicitly stated to the contrary, n
After reading this, and realizing I understood the post, I have called for professional help. Thank you WWWWolf, for pointing out a dangerous flaw in my psychology!
Acts of massive stupidity are almost never covered by warranty. --me.
celebrity jeopardy skits... all of them are therea /jeopar dy.asp
http://www.dumbasschronicles.com/multimedi
BSD is for people who love UNIX. Linux is for those who hate Microsoft.
Fuck You
How does it feel to be modded as a troll, you asswipe?
Lets face it, if Alan spoke in Welsh he could be in jeopardy...
http://www.linux.org.uk/diary/pam.shtml
Your posting has all the hallmarks of one.
Ahem.. Mr. Stallman... please wipe the cheetos out of your facial hair and answer the question...
And then there was E
The Mac is often not a choice at all; neither are Linux or the BSDs.
Most software is produced for one platform: MS-Windows. I'm finding it difficult to manage one of our database systems (Cache, from Intersystems) without a PC on my desk, as their management software comes in the form of an MS-Windows app.
Microsoft has the power to drive the direction of other software companies. It is the only company in the world with that kind of clout. They can run almost any other sofware business *out* of business. In this sense, they *are* a "mono-" meaning one. They are the *only* one.
I don't trust anything the government says, as it tends to be in the pocket of big business. But, any time the government finds against big business, I sit up and listen.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
The legal system is not a computer. It is more like a legal network that can quickly route around any logic or sense that it encounters (and interprets as an attack on it's authority). The network seems to be optimized to prefer operational results that maximize the personal enrichment (power or wealth) of it's legal nodes.
This new (11/13) article has a decidely different tune from Mr Lyons.
Mr Lyons is now sounding like a reporting instead of a puppet (or perhaps a SCO investor).
The best cut is:
Oddly enough, on Nov. 11, SCO Executive Vice President Christopher Sontag complained to Forbes about IBM's decision to send subpoenas to investors and analysts who supported SCO. Sontag called the move "an attempt to bully and intimidate" and said IBM was engaged in "legal gamesmanship."
So why didn't Sontag mention that, uh, SCO itself was about to target Torvalds and Stallman with subpoenas? SCO's spokesman says Sontag and Darl McBride, SCO's chief executive, did not know that SCO's lawyers were planning the move.
The CEO and Vice-President did not know what their lawyers were up to!? Well I guess it is a clue to who is running the show.
> Yeah, because it was so obvious that it was a joke...
So you ACTUALLY thought "slackjawedyokel" received subpoenas from SCO, RIAA, and DirectTV all in one week? When he stated he has nothing to do with the kernel?
> > I knew I shouldn't have used linux to download those movies through my satellite dish.
When something outrageous is claimed, followed by "I knew I shouldn't have..." it is usually a joke.
Things are getting so silly right now with CnDs that I think anything can happen ; reality being wilder than fiction, etc. It had a special ring to it that made it look like a joke - I saw it too at first you know - but in this context and since it was still somewhat ambiguous for me, I chose to take it seriously, because it involved minimum risks while pursuing possibilities of learning new interesting stuff.
;)
In a way, I've been trolled, but I really don't care... Who hasn't
United States of America, good ol' backers of world peace.
> I chose to take it seriously
:P
;)
Aha, there's your mistake. Never take anything seriously, especially me.
> pursuing possibilities of learning new interesting stuff
Good point, I would be interested in reading it as well. I wonder if they can be found elsewhere?
> In a way, I've been trolled, but I really don't care... Who hasn't
Yeah... I see trolls as just regular people.. They just aren't smart enough for an opinion, so they go for emotion.
Go read some history, ( mainly look into the meaning of militia, and what 'well regulated' meant in the time of the framers), then my journal.. then you may ask a question.
Until then, shut up, you are a moron.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
it was just me the whole time. the thread was starting to die so i needed to keep it alive, role reversal on those attacking you may draw them in.
Heh now I'm confused about who I was talking to.
"Derp de derp."
it was me. ive decided not to be evil to you anymore. it was circular after the 50th reply. i can be nasty and talk about human bidets and linux sucking and all that, but given the length of this thread, a lot of that has already been covered.
how do you accrue 4500 comments and still be sane after reading all the crap that people throw your way?
/. so frequently?
there is very little of intellectual value i see down here in the threads, so why do you post to
Well, there's a few reasons. First off, I've been posting on Slashdot since.... oh.. 2001 I think. Maybe even 2000, not sure. I lurked for quite a while before posting so I'm not really sure when that started.
Mainly I do it for laughs. Sometimes I get some amusing comments in. Sometimes I want have something to say, i.e. catching people being stupid. Sometimes I get involved in an interesting discussion and I learn things. A lot of the time, I'm just plain bored. I do 3D artwork for a living, and I spend a chunk of most of my days at the office waiting for a render to finish. So I poke around on Slashdot or the art forums I frequent. Just something to do.
How about you?
"Derp de derp."
Did anyone else see that an MS-backed SCO spells SCOMS?
post
Please explain to me how someone who doesn't live in the US can "actively participate in [the US legal system] and reform it", other than donating to the EFF, which I already do.
oh well then. How does "outsider whining" help again?
I cant think of any other alive/implemented systems that are better at the moment that could serve as a model to better the US judicial system. FRom Napoleonic to Sharia to Common Law from Totalitarian/Fascist, I'm getting a gist here that this aint so bad.
Then again, unlike the EU, I do like keeping murderers and rapists behind bars longer than most of the systems in the EU that punish tax evasion more heavily than rape and murder.
Im angry at how cheesy people do things a lot. This effect my work. So I come here to assault cheesy people being cheesy. Its simply cathartic to start flames with some of these people.
What do you think of www.digitalblasphemy.com
Its the only website I've ever subscribed to. Well, that and the Wall St. Jrnl.
Well this was certainly a fucking long thread. Is this the end of it?
I've seen some cool stuff there. Never really thought about subscribing, though. Only site I ever subscribed to was a porn site. ;)
"Derp de derp."
I dont know. I'm thinking about this. I think this thread deserves to live on, dude, man.
Man, dude, I thought that carpet really brought the room together.
I need that site to get backgrounds for computers. The only reason I subscribed wasn't the quality of the work - its good, but not great - I mean, these little men in these giant settings are lame, and these little wizards hanging around can be gay, and his renditions of catastrophic events in Space seem gay, and some of his planets capes have celestial bodies so close together that the gravity would be severe.
I think about Alpha Centurai and the binary star system and the possibility of another heaven and another earth, and wish there were more renditions of that - you know, pictures of new animals and sentient life and they are only 4.2 light years away.
I used to read H.M. Hoover Books. She wrote some interesting things and sometimes I wish they were real. I also like Ayn Rand. I want a near light or FTL spaceship with a holo-doc like on Voyager.
But Digital Blasphemy's art can seem gay when you can see reality every day at http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/. Everyday a really nice picture from reality gets posted. I would say some are background desktop quality.
Sometimes I wish the Stargate was real, and I could travel to Alpha Centurai on it.
The think I do like about Digital Blasphemy is that when I help people setup their computers, I have them pick a background from there, and since he is offering a pay-for service, it's nice to have such a large online archive available. I wish he would charge less.
I liked how on Turok when you got an extra life from collecting enough spirit tokens, he screamed; "I AM TUROK." My friends and I would laugh and say, Whoa, whoa, relax CHIEF.
I thought SpaceBalls and Blazing Saddles were funny. I should see them soon.
I only eat ethnic food now. I like Indian (Punjabi Style, North and South and Goa), Pakistani, Japanese (Sushi and Yakitori), good Mexican food, not Tex Mex and Thai food. And I eat it hot and spicy.
I like good wine but it doesn't pair well with Spicy Food. I'll drink beer with Spicy Food. I like Hoegaarden for beer. And Corona Light, Becks, Sapporo, and Pilsner Urquell. Oh yeah, and Lindeman's Peche Lambic for dessert.
Aqua Teen Hunger Force rules. I don't need no instructions to know how to ROCK.
Whose a gettin' his email, yeah, StrongBad, that's who.
The DUDE. The Big Lebowski ruled, man.
http://www.thedudeshouse.com/
Hmm.. so why'd ya subscribe? Your general opinion of it seems negative. Kinda curious what about it did make ya wanna pay them.
Im not much of a scifi reader. My favorite book of all time is Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers by Grant Naylor. It's full of ironic humor, and the scifi in it is practical. I'd like to have a holodeck but I'm not sure I'd want a space ship. I wouldn't mind a Runabout for tooling around here on Earth, tho.
I love Spaceballs. (there's a nice out-of-context -sentence, eh? heh)
My interests focus around the creation of imagery for movies/TV. My favorite show was called "Movie Magic". It showed how a lot of CG and miniature work was done for movies. It's why I chose 3D art as a caree. One day in the not too distant future I'll probably be working at a movie fx studio.
Heh I like ATHF, but I've only seen a couple of eps. I miss Futurama and Family Guy, tho. I'd love to see more Cowboy Bebop too.
"Derp de derp."
First you do it the legal way, via votes, and protests.
Once that avenue has been exhausted, THEN you fight. But until then.
And personally im offended being called a 'gun nut'. I hold ALL the rights we are guaranteed dear, and fight for them all, not just one.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Wer'e definitely on the same page here,a dn thx for your discussion. Somehow, governments, even those based in freedom, seem to continually encroach on the freedoms of its citizens. Ususally this is in the name of safety/security, etc., but there is also the underlying bureaucratic urge to expand the domain. I completely agree about the absurdity of many of the laws we have. My casual observation of other countries indicates that each has some stuff right, and other stuff all wrong.
Like you, I feel that the only solution may be a restart with a clean sheet, as was done 227 years ago in this country. My main quandry right now is whether we are at the point where it is necessary, or if it is even possible if it were necessary.
Meanwhile, we need to pick our battles and fight against the infringements on our freedom that we find most offensive, and fight in the best way we can. It sucks that we must, but such is life.
Good fortune in your battles too...
I subscribed because the content is easily available and provides good fodder for those who need backgrounds. I am revolted by that XP default theme and that green cow pasture, so when I help someone I remove that shit and put some shit from Digital Blasphemy.
Y.A. Sci-Fi can be fun for light reading that is imaginative. Ayn Rand really doesn't qualify as Sci-Fi per se. Hairy Porker and the Sorcerer's Bone pisses me off. That fucking shithead bitch who wrote that crap should be fucked in the ass with a Hot Curling Iron. She brought a fucked up half assed version of J.R.R. Tolkien's world to kids. Now the kids are retards memorizing gay names from Harry Potter, and not focusing on the Tolkien fantasy world and real, cool fantasy and fantastic imagery.
Red Dwarf was a hilarious British sitcom. As was Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister. As the Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy was a good British Sitcom too. I wonder if that Red Dwarf book is in any way related to the show.
I thought Monster's Inc. was cool. I hope Michael Eisner and Disney die, and all the shareholders Die, and I think the Sonny Bono copyright extension act that protects specifically Mickey Mouse's copyright for Disney alone is a fucking abomination. But I did like Monster's Inc. Fuck Disney. Death to Disney. He was supposedly a pedophile.
Futurama is unbelievable funny. It needs to come back. There is an outside chance it will. I'd say between 20-50% chance of it returning. Matt Groening certainly knows how to keep a series alive, eg, Simpsons, and David X. Cohen said he wants the Universe to stay alive as well. I can only hope enough retarded marketing fucked know nothing pricks that poison half of every company in the US let Futurama live.
Aqua Teen Hunger Force is subtle so retards hate it. It has a gay premise, and was started in a gay episode of Space Ghost, which are all gay, and it has a gay name. Despite al the predisposed gayness, the show is 50% of the time frigging hilarious.
I don't like Anime. I used to watch it when stoned. I find most of it, in terms of plot, to be ridiculous. In fact, Anime zealots tell me I shouldn't like DBZ, but I like DBZ. Well, I like Vegita. He is cool. Assholes like Cartman, Master Shake and Vegita always make the show.
Southpark rules.
did you listen to "fucksl4shd0t"'s music. i thought it was like stabbing my eardrums with ice picks.
Ah I know what ya mean about XP's desktop theme. Imagine a Dell laptop running Windows XP. It's like a Fisher Price "my first laptop!" So I got a desktop replacement app called Aston Desktop Shell, or something like that. Then I put some of my artwork as the wallpaper. It's much more serious looking now heh.
Heh @ Harry Potter. I don't mind it. Then again, I'm in the FX industry so I end up having to watch a bunch of movies as homework. Don't really have time to hate stuff. (Though Matrix Rebloated grated on my nerves.)
The Red Dwarf book is a novel writen the guys who made the show. "Grant Naylor" is actually two people. Doh I can't remember their names, but if you watch the credits, you'll see two guys with the last names Grant and Naylor. Is it related to the show? Well sort of. It shares some events with the TV show, but it's a parallel.. ah blast I can't really explain it. There's lotsa stuff that's new, but some stuff that's familiar too. It's very well written. My GF isn't a scifi fan. But she loves the show and insisited on borrowing my book. After finishing it, she went and ordered the other two books. (Technically there is 4, but the one I have contains books 1 and 2.) If you liked Hitchhiker's Guide, you'd probably like this book. It's a little less sci-fi'ish, but it's funnier too.
Monster's Inc was great. I liked it better than Nemo, but Nemo wasn't too shabby. I may apply at Pixar one day, but I have more growth to do before I try it.
I miss Futurama. I think we may get a movie from it, though. Pity Fox time slotted it to death.
I think Im gonna set up my replay to catch ATHF.
I don't think Anime is automatically cool, but the good anime is usually pretty damn good. It's more dramatic and adult than the animated crap we have here. I just finished watching Cowboy Bebop. That show has something that I wish American TV'd pick up.
Southpark's cool, though I've lost interest in catching it every week. Though it grabs my attention late at night. Just saw the 'metro-sexual' episode a few days ago, heh.
How's your weekend?
"Derp de derp."
If you really did have some kind of moral belief in Linux, you would definitely, absolutely use it in the company regardless of cost. Suppose it was cheaper to bomb your competitors than actually compete with them. It would make more business sense. You could even bribe the government (and let's assume it's still cheaper) and the court systems to keep them off your back.
Would you do that? Most people with any sense of morality would not.
I agree that if it makes more sense, financially, to spend $200 per box, not counting hardware upgrades necessary to run all that bloatware, to buy XP, plus $400 for a "standard" version of Office 2003, plus $50 for Norton AntiVirus 2004, plus $650 for Photoshop 7.0 if you need that...
If that makes more sense financially, or if you get some sort of insane price break, or if you're comfortable with piracy (which may bring legal issues far worse than anything SCO can do) then sure, go ahead. I can't stop you, and Microsoft/Symantec/Adobe certainly won't.
Personally, I find that every feature I need from all of the above products I can find for free, often implemented better, in open source. Because I hate to see people get ripped off, I'm trying to find a way to make money out of evangelizing, too.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I deprecate the use of consumer operating systems where they need not be. I hate any server that has a mouse, even a keyboard attached. The cow pasture and theme-ing and other such things that found their way into Windows 2003 proves MSFT is not a serious server company, and I don't trust anyone who doesn't sell their own hardware with the OS.
Aston was okay, but I found it to be a hack of something better. I have found many small things that didn't work quite right and it pisses me off it costs money. It should cost $5. Not $35. That type of product is sufficiently commoditized no longer to warrant a significant portion of the cost of an entire operating system.
I think Harry Potter and related merchandise is an abomination and contributes to retard fantasies kids have about being empowered in ways which aren't even real. I'm all for boosting self esteem. But invent a fusion reactor, not pretend you can fly on a broomstick. Reality is so complex and wonderful why the invention of primitive unreal alter-realities for the sake of fantasies is beyond me. At least Tolkien's worlds are complex enough to be fascinating at the structural level. Jerk Kunt (JK) Rowling is a absent minded ass that just lets her mind wander and she makes crap up as she goes along. To me this is transparent. Think before you write should be a requirement.
Matrix now officially sucks shit. I wish all the pseudo philosophy had remain canned in the ass of that fucking idiot transvestite transsexual Larry/Lana Wachowski. Like American Graffiti vs. Star Ware, Lucas's fame continually destroyed his creative capacities. These Wachowski freaks went from interesting to preachy fuck-heads. I hate them now.
This Red Dwarf book will be investigated at your behest.
Monster Inc was good, but the pro-Communist child programming DISNEY owns it. While the programmatic assimilation of your child's thoughts seems absent in this film, im ever watchful of thier lurking totalitarian ambitions.
I still think Cohen and Groening can pull off some more Futurama episodes. Hell, Comedy Central would be assholic if they didn't pick it up. Groening has 15 or 16 years of Simpsons, I think he knows how to make a long running successful series. Fox was assholic not to support it.
About ATHF. The first season has the best density. A lot of the newer ones are a bit light. Watch: Bus of the Undead , Mayhem of the Mooninites, Space Conflict From Beyond Pluto , Revenge of the Mooninites , MC Pee Pants, Dumber Dolls , Love Mummy, Interfection , PDA , Mail Order Bride , Cybernetic Ghost of Christmas Past from the Future , Super Bowl, Super Computer, Super Spore, Super Sirloin.
If I want drama, I'll find an Anthony Hopkins movie. Action: Pacino, DeNiro movies do just find. James Caan. Anyone from Goodfellas. Godfather. Donnie Brasco. Even Sopranos. Stuff like this. Anime just doesn't add enough where people leave off to justify dealing with the medium. Anime always reeks of being written by some ostracized sexless freak whose only capability in life is to draw, which is useless for the most part. It does nothing to help ensure the survival of the human race and doesn't seem more entertaining that things done in the typical renditions of dramatic or action oriented material. Strange expressions and caricatures of humans and bizarre animals don't qualify as imaginative in my book nor are they ever likely to be accompanied by anything but ridiculous dialog. Everyone always points to Ghost in the Shell or whatever that is called and Bebop. I remain unimpressed.
Some of the new SP's are good. Metro Sexual and Cartman's internment of Butters to get to Casa Bonita were funny.
Weekend was decent.
I don't agree with servers having a UI. I agree that the fluff that tends to come with Windows servers is definitely a security risk. (I can't believe NT Server comes with Outlook Express installed.) The nice thing about Windows servers is that you can like see what you wanna do, and just click and it's ready to go. This is in stark contrast to Apache where you have to muck with conf files to make things work. You can be up and running real fast with NT Server with the stuff you want or don't want, but with Apache it initially takes some nasty research. Found that out the hard way. However, I've climbed the learning curve with Apache and prefer to use it now. (You get addicted to SSH...)
Can ya name a specific prob or two you had with Aston? Just curious. I've been using it for months and haven't had any real problems. The only nitpick I have is that I lost a couple of features I liked. For example, Windows explorer lets you ctrl+click on a bunch of windows and then close/min/max/restore them. I agree it's a little 'hacky'.
I'm not terribly impressed with the Matrix series either. The first one was kinda fun to watch (remember, I'm really into VFX...) but the second time around I was like really really bored. The second movie was a total waste of time. Funny thing is, you can draw some paralelles between Terminator 3 and Matrix 2, and T3 wins in all the places that Reloaded misses. Reloaded was such a letdown for me that when Revolutions came around, it had nowhere to go but up. And it did. I liked the ending to it. (Though my interpretation of it seems to be different from everybody else's.) I really liked that Neo wasn't the hero of it, and if I'm right about what was happening then it also explains why a compputer hacker like Keanu is so fucking brainless. Revolutions is not anywhere close to being my favorite movie of all time, but it was a pleasant surprise for me. I also liked the big'ol machines they used to take on the sentinels. In case your curious, that's the type of 3D modelling and animation I an strongest at. I may find myself working on a project sorta like that down the road. I know I'd enjoy the heck of it.
Wanna see some of my artwork? http://www.nanogator.com/gallery As you can see, I've still got some learning to do, but I've grown a lot in the last 2 years.
Let me know after you've read Red Dwarf?
I read an interview with Groenig (or was it Cohen?) recently that discussed having Futurama picked up. Unfortunately, for a cartoon, it's an expensive show to produce. Comedy Central, Cartoon Network, etc are not terribly enthused with the per-episode price. From the read, it seems as though a continuation of the show could result in a noticable budget cuts. However, they did say that they could really cheaply make a movie. They're so good at getting the animation out quickly and at decent quality that 10 mill could make a movie. They seem to think that coould happen.
I'd like to see the Sopranos. Going to get the DVDs one of these days. Speaking of drama, ER reaally impressed me last week. I'm getting into that show. Ever watch it?
Cheers, and sorry about the delay. Just been busy.
"Derp de derp."