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Forbes Examines SCO Subpoenas
z4ce writes "It seems that Daniel Lyons of Forbes just wrote yet another article on the IBM vs. SCO law suit. Now, Daniel seems to seeing SCO for the liars they are. One of the choice quotes include, "What's the point of hassling people who make chips and set-top boxes? Don't ask SCO's top execs. They don't know anything about this stuff, remember?""
They clearly stole the idea of chips from SCO! Unix ran on chips before Linux!
Man, this SCO crap is getting as bad as when Napster first went under attack. How about we just hear about it once a day until either its settled, one of the parties backs out, or the trial starts.
Enough speculation, lets quit getting our panties in a bunch until the real meat of the lawsuit comes to life.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Stallman's GNU/Linux operating system is not the target of SCO's suit. Linux, the program SCO is targeting, is not an operating system, but only the kernel of the GNU/Linux operating system, which could run using a different kernel.
It's refreshing to see mainstream media getting it right.
Trolling is a art,
Stallman says the Boston-based Free Software Foundation, which he founded in 1985, has nothing to do with SCO's lawsuit. "SCO is suing IBM for violating a contract. We don't even know what the contract said. In terms of the resolution of that lawsuit, the Free Software Foundation is entirely uninvolved," he says.
... how come Caldera, a former distributor, can't?
Stallman's GNU/Linux operating system is not the target of SCO's suit. Linux, the program SCO is targeting, is not an operating system, but only the kernel of the GNU/Linux operating system, which could run using a different kernel.
This sums it up. SCO is suing IBM for breach of contract, nothing more, nothing less. What dows Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman et al have to do with this contract? did they sign it?
Even that Forbes reporter could (kind of) tell the difference between GNU/Linux the OS and Linux the kernel
Life isn't like a box of chocolates. It's more like a jar of jalapenos. What you do today, might burn your ass tomorrow.
Jeese I'm tired of hearing about SCO.
I wish Moore's law applied to the speed of lawsuits as well.
Pretty Pictures!
Stallman says the Boston-based Free Software Foundation, which he founded in 1985, has nothing to do with SCO's lawsuit. "SCO is suing IBM for violating a contract. We don't even know what the contract said. In terms of the resolution of that lawsuit, the Free Software Foundation is entirely uninvolved," he says.
Holy shit! RMS talked to a member of the press and DIDN'T come off looking like a smug, reality-disconnected jackass!
Truly amazing.
It would seem to an outside observer that SCO is getting desperate and seeking discovery from anyone they can get their hands on(this is alluded to in the article). Im not sure thats how they are thinking. SCOs logic trail seems to follow two basic paths:
1. We know there is UNIX code in linux, and we need to bring in as many people as possible to show how fragmented and uncontrolled Linux Development is. This will make the court favor us, as we can show a lack of true orginization on the defendants part (the defendant being Linux, not the legal defendant e.g. IBM).
2. We have gone on record disclosing that our revenue model is largely based around SCOSource, which is largely based around people paying us for our IP. Ergo, we have to show people that we can win(otherwise we have no IP to charge people for), and to do this we must undermine Linux's Credibility.
The practical upshot is that the 'buckshot' discovery model is aimed partially at garnering as much information possible (relevant or not) and partially to illustrate to the court that there is no one authoritative 'source' to the problem (thereby undermining the general credibility of linux with the court, making the court more inclined to see it as a dangerous conglomeration of not-necessarily-IP-abiding individuals.)
I know this is supposition, but like many of the other theories about why SCO is doing what they are doing it fits well in the facts.
This thought occurred to me:
SCO goes after Linux as a marketing/gain money tool.
They get hated.
Opposing SCO becomes popular.
SCO has just handed people a new marketing tool - oppose/stand up to SCO, get attention, customers, etc.
Though in reflection, their egregeous approach to an unsubstantiated claim was bound to provoke a backlash. And it was bound to be something that people would take advantage of.
Did SCO even see this? My guess, no. They're up their in their own little world.
IMHO this is a delaying tactic. IBM is asking SCO to put up or shutup. Now SCO can say "wait until our latest round of discovery; then we'll show you." It's consistent with the theory that SCO doesn't want this thing in court.
--- Often in error; never in doubt!
Quite a change in tone !
Maybe his last cheque from Darl & co. bounced..
"I am concerned about long-term entrenched confusions such as referring to a version of our GNU OS as 'Linux' and thinking that our work on free software was motivated by the ideas associated with 'open source.' These confusions lead users away from the basic issue: their freedom. By comparison, the events involving SCO are transitory and almost trivial," Stallman says.
I think RMS is making an excellent point here. Though the Linux kernel itself is not trivial, these issues surrounding SCO will in the long run become trivial. I have no doubt that the GPL and therefore software freedom will be upheld in court, even if worse comes to worst with the Linux kernel (however unlikely that is). Yes, SCO is crazy/dangerous, but in the long run they can't really hurt free and open source software.
we need to bring in as many people as possible to show how fragmented and uncontrolled Linux Development is .. and to that end, we are going to subpoena people who have nothing to do with Linux kernel development.
Of course, if you look at it crosseyed enough, it starts to make a little sense.. by bringing to the stand people who have nothing to do with it, you make them seem even more fragmented and uncontrolled...
"Mr Stallman, let's talk about the Linux kernel code you contributed.."
"I've never made any contributions to the Linux kernel."
"Ahh - so then let's talk about the code that you didn't contribute, then."
"What?!?!"
"Your Honor, see how fragmented and uncontrolled they are!"
If you'll kindly notice, everything SCO has been posted under the "Caldera" icon. So here's how to turn that off, for those that don't want to see any SCO stories anymore.
You're done! Now shut the hell up.
There are only 10 kinds of people in this world... those who understand binary and those who don't
More or less dead on. The true target here was never IBM, the target was Linux, and the only way to start targeting Linux as a whole is to target the kernel. Then you move on from there to the GPL (which they've already done). Id be willing to bet most of the discovery targeted at stallman and other G/L people will deal with undermining the GPL, not the kernel itself. This, if successful serves to blow linux as a whole out of the water.
Lyons is evidently more careful with his facts than most of the reporters we like to count as clueful. Still, it would have been better to credit GNU to the FSF, and not just to Stallman personally.
Press Relaese
Help fight continental drift.
Think for just a minute about how SCO claims IBM breached the contract. Remember, they took SCO's code and put it into Linux? Well, whether they actually did or not, or whether the code in question really "belongs" to SCO (under "derived work") is in debate. But Linus, as the person in charge of changes to the kernel, would be in a unique position to comment on whether IBM actually did this.
As for calling Stallman, it's clearly to deal with the counter-claims re: the GPL, which IBM brought to the table. Certainly Stallman is worth questioning if the GPL is being challenged or used as a point of attack.
-Dan
Dear SCO & Friends,
I understand what you're going through. As an individual, I went through this back in 2001, when the market tanked and I lost my cushy dot-com gig. A lot of companies went through what you're going through, but most of them had the common decency to go quietly and with dignity, rather than hiring lawyers and trying to take a Scorched Earth approach in a last valiant effort to save themselves. Here's a hint: you're not the Soviet Army and Utah isn't Stalingrad.
Let's face it -- your goose is cooked. In an attempt to fill your coffers, you have succeeded in the most perfect execution of Operation: Footbullet since the dying gasps of the dot-coms in 2000-2001. Even if you win, you lose -- you have alienated the one group that you needed to hold on to any sort of market share: the geeks. If, by some stroke of magical luck, bought judge, planetary alignment, or guiding hand of Microsoft, you manage to actually pull this off and have the GPL declared null-and-void and you and your puppeteer, Bill Gates (no doubt, elbow deep in your asses, playing ventriloquist), manage to clean house registering patents and copyrights on works you didn't create, you will have only succeeded in enraging those who are responsible for creating those works. Those creators are people who have a say in what gets purchased at their offices, and I'd be willing to bet that it wouldn't be SCO or M$ (should their complicity in this fiasco be shown to be true and not just educated guesswork).
That said, I'd encourage you to call off the attack dogs. We'll all have a good laugh at your "clever ruse" and share a beer together. Twenty years from now, SCO will be long-gone and irrelevant. God willing, M$ will be gone then, too. And you'll wonder to yourself: what the fuck was I thinking back then?
Think it over. There's more of us than there are of you, ultimately, we, the consumers, control the future of your business. Do you really want to taunt that 800-lb. gorilla? Do you?
blog |
The target is money. Plain and simple. SCO will do whatever it can to make money with this sharpened scheme. Originally, the idea was to get bought out by IBM hence the agreement with Boies' law firm granting them ownership in the event of sale. Then the idea was to force IBM to idemnify its customers so it could get a settlement from IBM's insurance company. Now the idea is to avoid actually complying with disclosure and revealing that they don't actually know what code has supposedly been misappropriated. To stall they are sending subpoenas to everyone remotely connected to Linux so they can supply large amounts of useless information to IBM and claim to the court that they are complying with disclosure requests. IANAL but I know one from TV and his name is Matlock.
Frylock: That's not a toy!
Master Shake: You say that about everything you own. You should own toys. They're fun.
Nope, they're going after Andrew Morton, assigned maintainer of the 2.6 kernel and former(?) Digeo employee.
He's with OSDL now. I'm actually not sure about the "former" part of that statement, as he may be on sabbatical from Digeo.
Notice how they're not going after Alan Cox or Red Hat in the subpoenas? Looks like Red Hat's suit has given them some protection from SCO predation.
Read this statement by Ulrich Drepper, glibc maintainer. Among other things, he says:
So the bottom line is that GNU, like Microsoft, takes credit for a lot of people's work, sometimes with their complete approval, sometimes against their will. In reality, most of the energy in free software came from Linux and people's desire to get Unixy things working on Linux.
Oh, and log in so more people see your posts.
First of all without GNU, there wouldn't have been a GCC and I haven't exactly seen a lot of other choices floating around. There were a *lot* of really crap compilers (every other CS student's undergraduate project) that then seemed to be sold.
GCC worked because of the GPL. Cygnus did a lot of work on it, but they didn't write it. Drepper, if anything, is only talking about the C library which has changed in major ways over the years. RH are doing a lot of work on GCC, but so are very many other people. Without Stallman's development model and his emphasis on portability in the original design, it wouldn't have happened.
I did some hacks on GCC many years ago (early 2.x) to fix some issues with a port and whilst a lot of people had contributed - it was clear that structure came from Stallman.
See my journal, I write things there