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SCO Letter to Fortune 1500 Now Online
e6003 writes "The text of the extortion letters that SCO sent out in May 2003 to the 1500 largest US companies is now online. Read in all its glory the lies and misconceptions that SCO has about Linux and the kernel development process. Pamela Jones, the proprietor of Groklaw, suggests Linus Torvalds would have a great case for defamation as a result of this letter and subsequent events."
Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Is the article link below this. Maybe we can buy it and send to SCO, preferrably out of a school bus window?
If you would like additional information, a copy of the complaint and response may be viewed at our web site at www.sco.com/scocource.
So I go there with hope that I will learn the details of how to pay them the money I owe, and I get a 404! Ah well...
can be found here.
Yeah, that just smacks of credability....
So now you can pay them a visit.
Happy Thanksgiving!
It's called Open Source, idiot.
The IT section color scheme sucks.
Can anyone please mod the letter SCO sent +5 Funny? ...
You are more than the sum of what you consume. Desire is not an occupation.
I wonder how it feels to be the laughing-stock of the thechnology world? At some poing they'll get it throught their heads that there is no way they can win this battle. I'd expect that even their employees think they are on a sinking ship.
My
Did you have to link Groklaw? Its not fair to /. the happy fun (para)legal site.
For your information, the text of the letter has been available here for a few months.
The only reason this is news is that its a document attached to the court docket for the December the 5th hearing on the motions to compel discovery.
An infinite number of monkeys will eventually come up with the complete works of
... the development process for Linux has differed substantially from the development for other enterprise operating systems
So, they're admitting that it's an enterprise operating system and not a piece of fluff like winXPhome?
Commercial software is built by carefully selected and screened teams of programmers working to build proprietary, secure software."
Riiiight. Someone better tell Microsoft they've been doing it wrong.
You will notice some grammar errors, but they are SCO's, not Ralle's.
I would've expected that, having driven away all the respectable engineers, SCO would be full of management dweebs who only knew about how to present themselves. But it seems these bozos even slept through English comp classes. Or maybe their spending so much of their money on lawyers that they can't afford competent secretaries.
Yours truly, SC(um)O staff
MoFscker
When is the date of the SCO case ?
Thank you.
Would there be any legal basis for suing SCO executives who either sold their stocks or had public comments about the case (read here our good friend Darl) under a civil court of law for damages?
I can't see how this would be out of reach for someone like Linus who has been publicly targeted by SCO.
Commercial software is built by carefully selected and screened teams of programmers working to build proprietary, secure software
No. Commercial software is built by people who write software that's sold for money.
I've sold software, so it's commercial software. It was written by a friend and myself over a few weeks worth of late nights.
When it comes to commercial software made by vendors who make a business of writing & selling software, then it's written by the coders who can best pass job interviews.
"carefully selected and screened teams of programmers" my ass.
Even if linux is shown to violate SCO's IP, ar the end users liable? They bought a product that the vendor said was legal, so it would be up to the vendors to sal with the reprocussions, even if they haven;t imdenified their customers, right? Does SCO think that companies this big will fall for this bs. Especially with a broken URL. Btw, why don't the other linux vendfors imdenify their customers. Id doesn't seem like it would actually be any added liability (especially since SCO doens't really stand a chance).
http://www.sco.com/scosource/
I meant "they're spending." (See what a mad
rush for karma can do?)
about the demand for virgin sacrifices in front if statues of Mr McBride.
Seriously though, Id I'd received that letter I'd have laughed at it, kind of like I laughed at the plumber who tried to charge me 100 for an alleged adjustment to my shower when he fitted a new boiler. No details of the alleged IP infringements, nothing, but that seems to be their game plan and surely it can't stand up in court if their not prepared to disclose what the problem is.
umm hello?
perhaps you hadn't heard the news about sco lately - inany event, sco is offering financial incentives for linux users to switch to ms windows from what I understand.
This worries me. Either people are so dumb, or SCO has some ace up its a^Hsleeve.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
The submitter:
Pamela Jones, the proprietor of Groklaw, suggests Linus Torvalds would have a great case for defamation as a result of this letter
The article:
Now that Linus has a lawyer, maybe they'll take note and consider if the necessary elements for an action for defamation are now available. They are hard cases to win, particularly for a public figure, so they may not want to go that route
The requirements to file a suit? Yes. A "great case"? Hell no.
He won't get involved any more than he has to. He'd certainly defend himself if sued, but the guy would rather be worrying about the technical stuff. He's not going to get involved, no matter how nasty the other side is.
Of course, I'd like him to, just to crush SCO. But I'm not even sure that Linus has that kind of cash. Last I heard, Linux had given him lots of opportunities and a steady paycheck, but no millionaire-level fortune.
My Greasemonkey scripts for Digg &
Umm... modded insightful ?
See the post below including the quote from the
SCO letter:
"Commercial software is built by carefully selected and screened teams of programmers working to build proprietary, secure software...
"
I'll spell it out - Windows is commercial software.
You have been able to succinctly forge a connection with us all in your mirthmaking hatred of SCO! You are such a hilarious funny man! To the moon SCO! Wow I wish everyone on the planet could be as funny as you are today! Planet Hilarity! I bought the jacket and stayed for the fries!
From the article:
We have evidence that portions of UNIX System V software code have been copied into Linux and that additional other portions of UNIX System V software code have been modified and copied into Linux, seemingly for the purposes of obfuscating their original source.
Oh, please. Evidence? C'mon, Darl. Just because the code is SIMILAR to UNIX doesn't mean that it has been copied and modified.
By the same logic, I guess that I could say that since MS Office 2003 and OpenOffice.org are both office suites, and they can both modify and import/export the same kinds of documents, then my goodness! I guess some jerk at Microsoft must have copied code from MS Office and made an open-source alternative!
Seriously, does this have any merit at all? How dare they insult IBM's intelligence like that...
How many security flaws are being reported in the commercial closed source products which SCO sells and which should be of main interest in that regard?
-t
Perhaps Linus has a case for defamation, but I would thing that the case for fraud would be much stronger. SCO is trying to get people to pay them licensing fees based on a set of claims that are clearly false. While I am not a lawyer, it would seem to me this is very much fraudulent, and some state's (Utah especially) should take an interest in this.
If you actually read the article instead of seeing "Microsoft" and pouncing on that like a frothing, rabid hamster, you would have understood that Microsoft was the example Groklaw used to explain why the quoted sentence "Commercial software is built by carefully selected and screened teams of programmers working to build proprietary, secure software." isn't a very strong argument.
kthxbye.
No, they were selling Microsoft Xenix (renamed) until just recently.
People are hoping to make a quick buck on speculation and get out before the risky part. Someone is going to get burned, but it won't be the guys holding the stock right now.
An infinite number of monkeys will eventually come up with the complete works of
The author was more interested in taking shots at Microsoft apparently.
Anyone know if "Darl" is a Nigerian name?
The resemblance is uncanny...
Could we not have had, before yet again pouring gasoline onto the blazing inferno which is slashdot's collective readership, some input from someone who "IAL"?
[x] auto-moderate all posts by this user as insightful
Those SCO guys are just playing with the Linux Community, right?
"proprietary, secure software"?
I wonder if anyone remember what was like when Caldera was a Linux distro... What happened with those guys?
"we have also announced the suspension of our own Linux-related activities"
Then what are they doing at UnitedLinux yet?
I've heard some hummors about Microsoft helping SCO at this case. Anyone knows some concrete facts about it?
I wonder if the possible slashdotting of SCO's site due to people reading the letter would also be mis-construed as another DDOS attack by the linux community?
Wow I wish everyone on the planet could be as funny as you are today! You have been able to succinctly forge a connection with us all in your mirthmaking hatred of SCO! You are such a hilarious funny man! To the moon SCO! Planet Hilarity! I bought the jacket and stayed for the fries!
Two major licensees of ATT Unix placed the complete ATT distribution including sources in the public domain in the late 1980's. The Linux kernel could be 100% SV5R4 and be still be in the public domain. McBride got sold a bill of goods. I think the SEC and the ABA should investigate.
a) Linux has been built from contributions by numerous unrelated and unknown software developers
b)Many Linux contributors were originally UNIX developers
hhm do you spot the 2 contradictions?
Famous last words:"but...."
US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
Yeah, this letter just about sums up Darl's stupidity.
Not to plug myself or anything, but I did reg scolawsuit.com, scolicense.com, scoreport.com, and scofiles.com and scofile.com, and pointed them all to a small web site. I also got a few web addresses to do a 90 day countdown thing. It'll be up tomorrow, hopefully.
...without knowing much about other industries in Utah, I would think that a state government would be reluctant to cut off a tax revenue stream of millions...at least until illegality is blantantly staring them in the face.
Oh, look. You can get SCO to ring you up and discuss buying a license:
a ll .html
http://www.sco.com/solution_builder/request_a_c
Isn't there a US white pages on CDROM somewhere?
Dave
I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
That was really dumb...reading McBride's blackmail letter while drinking a glass of
wine...
Oh well, now I get to see how tough this 20" flat panel really is!
Now they claim "including confidentiality of the methods and concepts involved in software design". I guess we cannot program any more as they claim methods and concepts of software design are their property. Better inform all the colleges with comp sci degrees.
Yep, really, really bad. For those of you you didn't read the link, he's referring to tha fact that SCO stock was roughly 14 at close on Friday, then jumped to 15.33 on Monday, and now it's about 17. Incredible jump considering it's been on a decline recently, and been holding at 14 for about... a week or so?
Oh well.
Please check this article from OSDN. Linux kernel developers are well known and actually SCO's definition for commercial software "built by carefully selected and screened teams of programmers" describes better the reality of Linux Kernel development.
I must react.
Isn't General Unix Philosophy "Make small simple tools which consist of small sections of code. Every of them do one specific thing, but do it in the best way. And at last but not least combine them thru all kinds of Interproces and other types of communications between them to provide solutions for bigger problems"
Correct me if I'm wrong.
By contrast, much of Linux has been built from contributions by numerous unrelated and unknown software developers, each contributing a small section of code. There is no mechanism inherent in the Linux development process to assure that intellectual property rights, confidentiality or security are protected.
Correct if I am wrong, but doesn't all open source code include the name of the copyright owner? Doesn't this mean that the software developers, at least a high level, are much better known than that of proprietary software in which the pieces of code might have been subcontracted to who knows where, through who knows how many layer of management? Has anyone actually tried to go to say, Microsoft, and ask who exactly wrote this particular ActiveX control that is now responsible for so many security breaches?
And you may further correct me, but I believe that OSS, at least on the commercial side, generally supplies code to at least those who purchase the program, and such code may be investigated for copyright violations. Any violating code has historically been removed. OTOH, may small proprietary software firms has used copyrighted code without permission, and those who get caught generally say 'prove it', which is really hard to do because the code is closed?
As a consequence of Linux's unrestricted authoring process, it is not surprising that Linux distributors do not warrant the legal integrity of the Linux code provided to customers. Therefore legal liability that may arise from the Linux developments process may also rest with the end user.
I would really like to see the evidence that, on average, proprietary software is more restrictive that OSS. After all, there is great pressure on proffessional programers to produce. Under such pressure there must be great incentive to borrow a bit of code here and there. After all, the source is closed, so who will know?
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
We believe that Linux is, in material part, an unauthorized derivative of UNIX.
Yes, that's exactly what it is, and Mozilla is also an unauthorized derivative of Internet Explorer, being that it's a web browser...
-------
"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
-- George Orwell
No matter what is said on /. or other like minded places it should be noted that this whole fiasco has stifled the open source movement in the court of public opinion. FUD is a very good tactic indeed. The common software buyer will see another question mark regarding Linux and that is all that matters. the facts are irrelevant here and the techies are missing this. I am not sure what the answer to this problem is but no matter what your opinion is, the fact is that Linux is being stopped dead in its' tracks. It is in all commercial software makers benefit to keep the FUD regarding Linux rolling in the public press. Does this letter say anything as far as code goes - NO. Does this help the PR machine to keep Linux as a fringe, maybe illegal OS - YES.
Everybody seems to want to fight this by way of technical discussion when it has nothing to do with technical merit at all. SCO stock is still high even with all of the geeks ranting and raving. This will be in the courts for years and SCO et al will be reaping the rewards the whole time.
This is not a Code war, it is a PR war and the geeks are losing. PR is what is needed.
Stay tuned for new sig...
Daryl-the-Dingus says those Linux geeks don't even warant their product, but last time I read a EULA, anybody's EULA, it said they promise nothing, owe nothing, warant nothing, and will take responsibility for nothing.
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insuficiently advanced.
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced. - Geek's corollary to Clarke's law
It was removed from 2.6 before SCO showed it. They did not give in to anything.
How long until everyone at SCO drinks from the bowl of Koolaid? I mean, does everyone at SCO believe what Darl & Friends are saying?
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
At least in the UK it is n't, you could always register as a charitable organisation.
The best part is this line, used to describe the kernel developers:
Numerous unrelated and unknown software developers..
I mean, do they think that everybody at Microsoft is releated to each other?
Hmm - come to think of it, this might explain everything - SCO expects all of their employees to be inbred! What they became is the tech equvalent of Deliverance!
This was discussed at Groklaw. Over the weekend some financial magazine said that SCO stock was high risk with the chance of a big payoff. Monday morning there was a big buying surge as the lottery^h^h^h^h^h^h^hstock buyers went to market
Quoting the letter...
There is no mechanism inherent in the Linux development process to assure that intellectual property rights, confidentiality or security are protected. The Linux process does not prevent inclusion of code that has been stolen outright; or developed by improper use of proprietary methods and concepts.
Wha-? What about, oh, openly distributed source code??
Isn't SCO in the process of trying to protect its own IP right now? Does he expect us to believe that SCO discovered IBM's putative IP transgressions without looking at the Linux source code?
Accountability on the heads of the powerful.
Power in the hands of the accountable.
... they STOLE the precious... he LIES... nasty tricksey Linux developers... but they're his friends... but they keeps the precious for themselves... but they love Linus... but they stole the precious....
They also have to meet development schedules or else their projects aren't going to be so profitable. Often resulting in rather buggy first releases and loads of patches.
Don't crack users tend to be way too thin due to undereating?
I certainly hope that RedHat has time to enter this letter as evidence in their lawsuit against SCO for Lanham Act violations.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
What strikes me as very unconvincing about McBride is the following:
Commercial software is built by carefully selected and screened teams of programmers working to build proprietary, secure software.
Is he so nieve to think that all commerical software is proprietary? And why must proprietary mean secure? By nature if the software is closed then it's only obsure, not secure. The history of the desktop computer teaches us that. That in itself shows a certain lack-of understanding for the software model he is attacking.
did tou fucking read this:
"Similar to analogous efforts underway in the music industry, we are prepared to take all actions necessary to stop the ongoing violation of our intellectual property or other rights."
His next law suit will be againt the RIAA claimimg that all music and rhythems are SCO's intellectual property...
Nice move Darl
The lunatic is in my head
Anyways, I'm imagining many 1000s of Linux end-users informing SCO that they're using Linux, and SCO trying to sue everybody because they have to.
I wish to know Darl Mcbrides physical address, postal address, email address, fax numbers, phone numbers.... and have about 1000k /. readers sent him some 'greetings', warm guestures, mail order subscriptions for things we think he would like, pleasant early morning phonecalls to see if he has slept well.
It was identified as a copyright violation by an independant analysis, before SCO showed it. That's the only reason the code was under review.
This is not a Code war, it is a PR war and the geeks are losing. PR is what is needed.
This is a war, and we are soldiers. Death can come for us at any time, in any place.
Now consider the alternative. What if I am right? What if the prophecy is true? What if tomorrow the war could be over. Isn't that worth fighting for? Isn't that worth dying for?
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
Groklaw is really a slashdot front, it only exists so that they can recurisively link to each other and keep the SCO story in the spotlight.
In their FAQ about buying a license, question 45 recognizes the AT&T-Berkeley settlement:
I am running BSD. Am I required to purchase a license?
No, you do not need to purchase a SCO IP license to run BSD.
Like they say, Linux derives from Unix, which they hold the rights to, maybe Linux users should just pay up.
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much of Linux has been built from contributions by numerous unrelated and unknown software developers
Then they say:
Many Linux contributors were originally UNIX developers who had access to UNIX source code distributed by AT&T and were subject to confidentiality agreements.
Well, which is it? Unknown software developers or old UNIX developers with access to AT&T source code? Those are pretty specific qualifications but, as usual, SCO doesn't supply a single example.
I think it's a shame on our legal system that a case so obviously contrived is allowed to see the light of day. It's one thing to come up with a bullshit case, but it should at least have to be good bullshit. It should have a shred of credibility. This is so bogus it's an insult to minimal intelligence.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Authored by: hanzie on Thursday, November 27 2003 @ 07:59 PM EST
Daryl is not stupid.
Could you have raised SCO's share price 1500% in less than a year. Could you have made SCO profitable? No way. The sheer fact that you're outraged shows you didn't have what it takes to build up a company which had, and still has, nothing.
Could you have kept your face straight when telling that pack of lies, knowing that you were going to rake in millions by just blathering for a year?
After 4 quarters, he's GONE. He's already made it to the third.
McBride has a degree in Computer Science from BYU. He is as conversant with software as his detractors. His understanding of this case and it's personal ramifications are better known to him than anyone else on the planet, groklaw included. He has known longer than anyone else that his claims have absolutely no merit. Good heavens, he made them up. It wouldn't be possible to fabricate the lies SCO has told without knowing the truth.
Daryl McBride will never be in court. He will be in the tropics long before any judgement can affect him. That has been the plan all along. He and the rest of the in-crowd are going to get their stock options and bonuses.
Microsoft is going to foot the legal bill, again, and stall everything as long as they can. Every day of delay is several million in sales worldwide. Sales that are threatened by any viable competition.
This was never SCO vs IBM. This has always been MS vs Linux.
I imagine it went like this: McBride called up Gates and said "I can throw a wrench into Linux for at least a couple of years, mabye forever. It will cost about 20 Million up front and there's absolutely no risk to MS. You'll probably even make money on the scheme itself. Are you in?"
And Daryl was in Seattle three hours later.
The rest is currently unfolding history.
SCO telling IBM about the software design process is like someone telling a Bedouin about sand or a fish about water.
...if SCO ever updates theri website.
There are still pages about United Linux
http://www.sco.com/unitedlinux/
And have a look at this 404 page
http://www.sco.com/LDP/
The article didn't say that Linus has "a great case for defamation" or anything like that. It said defamation cases are very hard for any public figure to win. I know. I wrote the article.
Not smart enough to write it my self, but I'm sure there's a Nigerian email scam joke in some where, must involve " $10,000,000.00(10 Million US Dollars)"
The only difference between the Titanic and SCO is that the Titanic had paying customers.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Why can't SCO be taken to court today and sued for $$$$ to stop this crap immediately?
For those playing at home who don't understand the technojumbo, here's a summary of the SCO case:
Hi, We're SCO and we're a company that used to make software called Unix. Nowadays we can't do crap, our company has crossed hands so many times its pathetic, and we're actually looking at going bankrupt, so we need to do something and fast to save our butts from getting lynched by our shareholders.
Then there's this thing called Linux, that a bunch of hardworking people decided to make in their spare time, to "do the right thing" and make it openly free and completely legal. They're so good at it, that we want to take credit for it! Yes, it's such an outrageous plan that involves lawsuits against everyone, while we suck a rather micro and soft genitalia for money. (Hey they want us to take the fall for doing something that would kill their PR, but that's what we're here for!
Oh you say? The SEC? They won't do squat. Not only are our micro and soft benefactors funding our insanity, they have the federal government in the palm of their hands too! Yes, the US govt is so completely ignorant when it comes to things like IP law, or technology law, that we actually can get away with this. (I mean, c'mon, see how long it took for them to get a SPAM law passed?).
So in a nutshell, we're going to sue IBM, google, aol, novell, HP, hell just about anyone who says the word "Linux" because it looks somewhat like Unix.
FLR
The copyright owner of an open source program is not necessarily the developer, just as the copyright owner of a proprietary program is not necessarily its developer. So on its own, this does not mean that the developers of open source are better known than that of proprietary software.
But there are lots of other reasons that open source developers might be better known than closed-source developers. For instance, in many closed-source organisations, it is easy for someone within the organisation to find the author of a line of code. Typically the organisation will not want to share that information with the users of the software or the public at large.
With open source, as soon as you have the source you have the names of the authors, provided that:
This letter implies then, that SCO is indemnifying all it's customers if the gcc and Samba that adds most of the value to their OS contains somebody else's "intellectual property"? And that they've put this code through a rigorous screening process, which somehow the Linux kernel hasn't gone through? That seems somewhat doubtful, seeing as how they themselves were providing customers with the same Linux kernel they now claim is infringing. And what's with "intellectual property and other rights"??? Are they refering to patents? No, they have no Unix patents. Are they refering to trademarks? No, they don't own the Unix trademark. Here's an idea: if you mean "copyrights", why not just say "copyrights"? Also, they claim to have suspended all Linux activity back in March -- aren't they still distributing it?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
I mean white salamanders.
IMHO anyone interested in this case should read the George Harrison vs the Chiffon's copyright judgment over the song My Sweet Lord and He's so fine
You can find it here THE "MY SWEET LORD"/"HE'S SO FINE" PLAGIARISM SUIT
First off - I did not pay any attention to this when it was in the news. I am not a beatle fan nor a Chiffon fan. So probably I'm impartial.
To summarize the summary, the judge in the case held that Harrison may have "subconciously" copied the notes. Personally I think the judge had a grudge. I see so little similarity between these songs that noone will convince me there is plagerism here.
Music is a combination of structure, rhythm and lyrics and in this case, there are differences in all three areas.
So the case basically illustrates the nature of an artist being permanently tainted by something he inavertantly hears. The question that must be asked is if a programmer can be permanently tainted by what he sees.
If as is claimed, many of the programmers who worked on Linux also worked on unix then one might be able to argue that some of their ideas were a subconcious memory of the code they saw before and that hense, the new work is really derived.
This would mean that any programmer who takes a job jeopardises his freedom to write programs for as long as he lives. This would mean that any writer who reads might somehow jeopardise his freedom to write since his new works might somehow bear some obscure resemblance to something he might inadvertantly have read perhaps years before.
This issue here is that the programmer has a much harder problem to contend with because not only must he NOT write the same code as he might have seen before, that code must in fact work in a similar or identical fashion as the code that came before.
On the other hand, this hypothesis brings into question the issue of whether SCO's System V code is in fact plagerizm free. Clearly as ESR has demonstrated large portions of System V were derived from BSD and not only this, AT&T blatently removed the attributions from a lot of BSD code and ignored the BSD copyrights when they included it into System V. Effectivly AT&T tried to steal other people's Intellectual Property.
So what SCO has to understand is that it cuts both ways. If SCO has any claim on Linux then it will be perfectly clear that the developers of UNIX who did not work for AT&T have the same claim on SCO's claimed Intellectual Property.
This means that SCO should be vulnerable to law suits where they claim IP in derived works of others and these claims should be enforcable even though the code was released under the BSD license.
If you go to ESR's website and read the analysis of the example code that SCO released, then you can see very clearly that as ESR says, the code in System V was derived from a common ancestor. Since this is the case SCO cannot control it. Authors have the right to control the character of the derived works as well as what it is used for. This right prevents people from perverting the intended purpose of the original work. An example of a pervertion might be to turn Mickey Mouse into a porn star.
Clearly SCO is trying to pervert the intent of the BSD licening with this law suit. The free nature of the software the original Unix developers created is part of their intellectual property. That SCO is attempting to do now what AT&T tried to do years ago is blatently apparent.
Part of the reason AT&T lost is because they tried to steal other people's work and present it as their own (through the removal of the attributions). Not only this, AT&T then tried to prevent the original authors from being able to use their own work. How is this any different here? If any significant amount of the code SCO lays claim to is in fact derived from other people's work, then SCO lays themselves wide open. Perhaps this is why they won't release any "evidence".
The problem with Darl is that he's a male
prostitute turned check-out-counter boy
turned - CEO of SCOX, just because the gave
"good head" to the real honchos who
control SCOX.
Darl did not understand this, how could he.
David Boise, now in the position to control
SCOX, by court default when the shit hits
the fan, also is not such a "savory" individual
by no means whatsoever. CP his records which
are on-line; yes you will have to dig this
up but it gives one a shrilling moment in
net-space at the lunacy of the whole taudry
affair. The most benefitual action for Mr.
Boise is disbarment.
Darl on the other hand should be defroked to
cleaning toilets for the rest of his laughable
life, at a penny a hour wage (since he hates
to work along side Niggers, perhaps the court
will make him one just to let him enjoy the
thrill of it all).
Talk about going from zero to subzero: Darl
my boy, you should be in porno.
Toodles
My favorite.
Commercial software is built by carefully selected and screened teams of programmers working to build proprietary, secure software. This process is designed to monitor the security and ownership of intellectual property rights associated with the code.
Notice, it is not to "create the best software in the category that we hired these programmers for".... Only their own security and ownership....
This is why I jumped the bandwagon sooooooo long ago. They completely missed on reality somewhere along the line and I decided that I just wanted shit that worked.
You can't tell the fucking difference between an official document sent to court representing a corporation, and a message on /. What a useless karma whore! I at least post AC when flaming assholes like you! Oh to have mod points!
The letter might mean something if Caldera er SCO had not been a linux developer. I like the parallel to the music business. I'm sure corporate america is quaking in their boots with SCO's threat to make a lot of noise and sue some college kids and grandmas, the settle out of court.
-- $G
There is no truth to the rumor, that all new SCO operating systems are full of security holes caused by known security patches to open source not being applied to the SCO code tree.
Tell me this, If you were a slandered open source developer, how much time would you spend fixing security errors in the SCO branch of your code tree.
This would mean anyone using the new SCO software would run a grave risk.
This must be only FUD.
me thinks Darl needs to hire some programmers....
I am the unwilling control for my Origin.
This to me sounds unlikely, especially since SVR4 is more recent than "late 1980s."
If fairly modern Unix source were public domain in the 1980s, Unix would have caught on much more than it did in the 1990s. Linux would also be a lot less relevant.
Perhaps you are thinking of older Unix trees that are now in public domain? It was established in the USL v. Berkeley happenings that 1970s Unix is not protected by copyright. SysV is another story, AFAIK.
From the letter posted "Commercial software is built by carefully selected and screened teams of programmers working to build proprietary, secure software. This process is designed to monitor the security and ownership of intellectual property rights associated with the code."
This is an overstatement, but a commercial company will know exactly who was working on which projects at what time. They have the programmers' addresses, phone numbers, ssn#, resume, salary history, etc. In this way the programmers are "secured". They know where they live and lots more personal info about them.
Do free software developers submit this kind of personal tracking information for verification? In this way free software is less "secure".
(Mutters to self: "Damnit, where's a few points when I need 'em?")
C|N>K
I wish we could find a way to get all their lawyers and executives in one room at the same time.
We could videotape them interacting with each other, slapping each others backs, perhaps exchanging stupid looks.
Scientists could study them like rats, so we could teach parents how to avoid raising future generations of low life corporate scumbags.
I'm getting seriously convinced that this SCO vs linux thing is part of a BIG linux publicity campaign... A try to make linux mainstream media news in a kind of "impending news story" for everyone. A way to focus the camera and broadcast the "cute" linux fellas: Linus, Richard Stallman, and distracting us from the more ugly and unknown ones that I'm not going to mention... :D
:P
/. SCO's article... I'm hooked up
But I'm getting bored of some things, like bad drama, like the ever increasing absurdness from "special effect" driven hollywood movies...
For the things I have seen already I would have ommited the incredible symbol font 'code obfuscation' technique used in that slides
That and a lot of silly stuff like this fortune 1500 letter and the plans for going after bsd, and...
Anyway I think I can't miss the next
This is an interesting bit of shell script:
"We believe that Linux is, in material part, an unauthorized derivative of UNIX."
Wow, that argument sounds allot harsher than the argument that Linux simply contains "some" copyrighted code. They also say "We have evidence that portions of UNIX System V software code have been copied into Linux and that additional other portions of UNIX System V software code have been modified and copied into Linux, seemingly for the purposes of obfuscating their original source."
That is some scary language if you ask me. I mean seriously, what if the courts uphold that if a programmer who used to work on a particular program for another company then works on a similar program (especially if the specific aspects that he coded for both are the same) for another organization is illegal?
To put it another way, if I used to work as an engineer for Company "A" writing C++ compilers and then I leave to work for Company "B" also writing C++ compilers... clearly some of my code for Company Y is going to look similar. In part, its due to the style ive learned over the yewars and in part, its due to what I learned while working for Company "A." If what I learned about writing compilers at Company "A" is classified as a "trade secret" or "technology" that I "invented" while under their employment... then in a legal sense, I can almost make sense of it.
Will anyone shed some light on this type of situation?
-PizaZ
is so clearly black and white. I can now look onto the ways of my friends and peers who have assisted homeless shelters, batterred womens shelters, food-for-cheap units, and the like, and pity them, for they accomplish nothing. I can look on adbusters, the cult surrounding NO LOGO, my local universitie's student newspaper, union, health plan, dental plan, the eff, as completely despotic and fascist orginizations that bring great harm on everyone who is a member of them.
I can look on the entire Debian Linux distrobution and know that they have accomplished nothing, because nothing collectivist has ever done good, and i must actively fear them because they seek to destroy me, as a user.
That the community environment that thekult (direct action cyberpunk orginization) fosterred, and that to an extent still goes on at rantradio(a not-for-profit, non-commercial, independant internet radio station) must be fought against at all costs. That everything that isn't greed driven is immoral, and counterproductive.
[/sarcasm]
Sure, there are socialist international orginizations, countries, states, unions, orginizations, communes, cliques and whathaveyou that have gone bad. I've seen examples of all of the above. but this does not imply that everything that is done in the name of collective productivity, in the name of humanity as a whole, or a section of humanity...FOR the good of everyone instead of a select few, is in vain.
there are arguments to that effect, but they are not the ones you appear to represent.
but even Plato was keen to point out that good states inevidibly corrupt, and the dialectic will eventually 0wn you.
Hell even the idea of a _corporation_ itself is slightly solcialistic...
while some people seem to think that in order to be pro socialism in any or all ways, is to think that you MUST be the same sort of socialist that would support the regeimes that have failed miserably, and furthermore, that these same sort of regeimes follow from any other kind of socialism by default when both of these things are false. just as not all countries have turned out to be war-driven imperialist states attempting to conquor the world and enslave everyone...likewise there are orginizations that are collective in ideal that do not end up turning to disaster.
i tend to see the suspended state, either way, as pretty ideal, in case my examples havn't shown this... socialist infrastructure paves the way for True Capitalist Progress(it's amazing how worker productivity can be when your work-force is not working with broken limbs they cannot fix, and plauge they cannot cure) as one example,
another example a feudal/exploitive/"corpolitical" imaginary fascist prison-state where most people in a country are imprisoned for free hard labour...and then a state within this state building itself up zion style to house those who are interested in life, in the collective goodwill of themselves, their families, and their communities.
no one in the MIDDLE state would complain about the lack of civil liberty, even if freedoms such as the freedoms of religion and press were not extant.
but no doubt even this state within a state idea i have can be corrupted...
i think i've gone on to far and have wanderred from my original intent somewhat. but make no mistake, your black and white fallacy filled way of thinking about the whole order-of-mankind-orginization leaves a sour taste in my mouth, at least.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
If SCO goes belly up, what happens to its assets? They get sold to creditors (or perhaps creditors have the option to influence/controll these assets.
If enough people sue SCO and win large judgements, perhaps the UNIX souce could be released under the BSD licence?
IANAL
Old point, I know, but why don't we see more accusations of proprietary software containing stolen code? I'm sure there must be some disaffected employees out there willing to say that their ex-employer stole code from somewhere else. What then? Forced legal publication of sourcecode? That would be fun....
Not plagerism.
;P
Common mistake
This problem can be solved once and for all by rewriting the linux kernal to not implement a unix compatabile api and then run an translation layer on topp of the new kernal - just like mach
He belongs in an insane asylum, not running a public company!
It appears that Darl has finally come up with an accurate analogy:
I could not think of a better comparison. Both the music industry and SCO are abusing copyright and lending futher credence to the idea that copyright is just a tool for opression and censorship.I cannot wait until they claim "ownership" over the speech that comes out of my mouth.
If copyright was still limited to its original term of 14 years, this would not be a problem. Thank you Congress for selling out.
All data is speech. All speech is Free.
Big companies are and continued to deploy Linux. Recent moves by Sun, Red Hat and IBM show that.
/. for their point of view. Give the suits some credit, most serious companies would not make up their minds solely based in PR propaganda.
Linux current and potential users may be holding up due to the extreme stupidity of the US legal system, but they know SCO claims lack any reasonable fundament. The lawyers and managers worried about this come to people that read
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
More like, why would they come on slashdot and exercise circular thinking and assumptions when they can go to work and get paid for it?
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
SCO would claim that the guy who discovered that 2+2=4 is in copyright violation, patent infringement, etc. in prejudice of the guy that discovered that 3+1=4.
I would also like to point out that 0+4=4.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The following is taken from the www.sco.com/scosource site.
"End users who purchase this license are granted the right to use the SCO IP in Linux in binary format only. The license is available immediately and can be obtained by contacting your SCO sales representative or by calling SCO at 1-800 726-8649."
Remember the "same" controversy occurred in the early 90s.
USL (Unix Systems Labs), then part of AT/T, sued the BSD Unix distributors/developers.
University of California took on USL and won...the judge handed USL its head on a platter.
But not after significant delays due to the BSD project being put in limbo...even though, at the time they were far ahead of Linux in terms of development/features/distribution.
In fact, this is one of the issues that allowed Linux to move ahead (even though it had a later start with doing an open-source Unix for PCs).
Its sort of ironic (though Linux folks better take note of history), when you realise that USL sold Sys V Unix to Novell, which sold it to SCO. SCO was later bought out by Caldera(formerly part of Novell) but kept the name SCO.
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=9952
In the last year I have been involved with a company run by a man as dishonest as McBride. He literally stole a dozen computers and all the software and data on them. When the police came he simply lied to them and said they were his.
In addition he has been publishing material writen by and for our company with our copyright notice on every page but with a little sticker over the copyright notice on the first page. When copyright law was invoked he simply lied and said we had given him permission to do this.
The law will eventually grind around to dealing with this but by then he will have declared himself bankrupt (all his assets are in his wife's name) and moved on to his next crime.
What this has shown me is that the law is very ill-equipped to handle someone who, like McBride, is totally dishonest and prepared to say anything with no shame or morallity nor any interest in how it affects other peoples' lives. Quite simply, it takes a lot more time and effort to stop bastards like this than they have to expend to make money this way; their part is easy.
But then, I suppose, if stealing things wasn't easier than getting your own people like McBride wouldn't bother doing it.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
I must admit to reading the SCO letter with more than a little wry amusement. It's a bit like a stereogram picture, where if you look at it most ways, it makes no sense and then suddenly, your eye catches it right, et voila! If you're in the first mode, most of what he says looks almost plausible for a while.
Then you actually start to think.
Do SCO actaully own most of the code they're talking about? OR is some of that code under licence from other sources? If not, what right do they have to enforce the IP rights of others?
SCO must be fairly rattled by Novell's acquisition of Suse, demonstrating a fair level of confidence that SCO's case is not the strongest
If SCO are suspending involvement in linux projects, some parts of the company haven't heard, other wise they wouldn't be issuing security advsiories and fixes. After all, given the terms of GPL and related licenses, they do not guarantee fitness for purpose or any warranty so they have no obligation to do so
Why are Microsoft one of the principal organisations to take up the SCO licence. Answers on a postcard , please...
Many organisations would quite rightly tell SCO where to get off if they attempted to enfoce audits, for example, seeing as their IP rights are questionable - aand that is a major part of the issue at hand.
This is going to be a long messy business, all smoke and mirrors no doubt. In the end though, I think SCO will lose : IBM will be simply too strong. Hopefully then we can see some sense prevail.
It's not you: I'm just this horrifically socially awkward with everybody.
If you think this is offtopic, at least read the whole post before you mod it this way.
First of all, most communists fail to realize how pro-Capitalism Marx actually was. Marx was pro-globalism befure this debate even surfaced. So the idea that left-wing slashdotters have much in common with Marx is rather... insane...
Personally I think that Marx made a few fundamental errors in his line of thinking, and communism (esp. Soviet-style communism) will not be the system that replaces capitalism. In many ways, Communism is simply a blend of some capitalism ideals mixed with a very strong neo-feudal state. It has ONLY prospered where it was taking over from agrarian or feudal states and has NEVER successfully supplanted an established capitalist democracy. In fact the African nations that allied themselves with the USSR are today often MORE capitalist and democratic than many of those that allied themseves with the US. Democratic capitalism supplants feudal communism, not the other way around.
There is, however, a point at which Open Source, though certainly not Communist, is certainly a direct challenge to the prevailing notion of Capitalism today. This is, however a difference more subtle than is commonly understood-- that although many if not most players in the Open Source world are Capitalists, they are a different kind of Capitalist than those that run Microsoft, GE, Lucent, etc.
The difference is how intellectual property is seen-- to the early information-age Capitalist, anything to which one can claim proprietary rights is capital, to be conserved and sold. To the open source capitalist, the only true intellectual property is the brain power of the employees-- that source code, etc. is best spent *purchasing community.* Open source thus places ad-hoc community at the center of production instead of the State (Feudalism/Communism) or the Business (Capitalism). This is not limited to source code, but applies to any intellectual endeavor; NASA has experimented with using these methodologies in other ways too, such as clasifying crators on Mars.
Open Source is competitive because it offers two advantages over proprietary development techniques:
1) Greater efficiency-- fewer reinventions of the wheel are needed becase there is a large quantity of work done under compatible licenses.
2) Greater flexibility-- the network of developers can add whatever features the customers need and, regardless of licenses used, benefit more by contributing these additions to the community.
One of the things that SCO has been very public about is how their fight is about intellectual property rights and the future of software development. They are very much correct but are on the wrong side, despite the fact that they might not actually have much of a case.
The letter/artical is interesting in how it again tries to make this point, but tries to make intellectual property rights the issue by comparing themselves with the music industry.
Do I think Microsoft is involved in this case? Indirectly perhaps, but I don't think they have so much as called anyone at SCO to "discuss" the situation. I think it is more likely that the SCO and Microsoft execs see eye to eye enough that they regurgitate eachothers' PR as if it were their own. Again Microsoft is a transitional player-- caught in the IP game, but aware of the value of open source community. So they are SCARED that they will be unable to maintain their current position. Same with SCO.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Does anyone else just wish the judge will just turn around and say 'hey your both trying to compel each other to move along faster, and SCO I see wants to try to move on with licencing attempts, so I tell you what, lets get this done right here right now, no more waiting 17 months....' I mean SCO is so 'confident' I'd love to see Darl's face if told his day in court gets to be in a week instead of a year and half...
.Sig. temporarily unavailable due to terminal lack of inventivness
The other side of SCO's contention is that Open Source software creation doesn't have mechanisms in place to prevent the incorporation of unlicensed code in OSS code. Here SCO's argument stumbles: OSS may implement as many or as few "Intellectual Property" safeguards on incorporated code as any commerical software creator. (emphasis mine.)
the issue, orthogonal, is not that OSS may implement , the question is whether or not OSS does implement IP safeguards.
the answer appears to be: no. as any visitor to this board quickly learns OSS developers don't want to read patents, they don't want to care about patents, and they are fighting tooth and nail in europe to make sure they don't have to.
to a reasonable observer, it would appear that OSS does not want to co-exist with proprietaty models, they want free and unfettered access to any technology which exists. proprietary or not. period.
the remarks in this thread about socialism touch on this. the existence of private property is a threat to the ambitions of OSS. OSS developers are not content to remain in the public domain. this isn't good enough. the argument "if mozilla can't do this or that because of a patent then we all die" is pervasive among OSS developers.
as a defense against limits on functionality, or interoperability, OSS developers demand access to all domains: public and private.
the public confiscation of private property, or the abolition of private property is a hallmark of socialism and in this regard, the label "socialist" is appropriate.
SCO is right in theory even if they may be wrong regarding the facts in their own particular case. Unless OSS implements comprehensive measures to avoid patent and copyright infringement, it is simply a matter of time before the kernel actually does misappropriate someone's intellectual property.
Dan Bricklin the inventor of Visical sums it up appropriately:
"... I also feel that no matter how much you might feel that patents don't work for the software industry, and how much you may take up the torch to change the law, it is the law today and a fact of programming life as much as Microsoft, the instruction set of the machine we write for, the turning of the century number, and the need to pay for food. Ignoring them won't make them go away, nor protect you from those that do not have the same beliefs." (emphasis in original)
The right tool for the job : FormFucker !
D3AR LUCIO SCO HOLDS DA RIGHTS 2 TEH UNIX OPERATNG SYSTAM R ORIGINALY LIECNSED BY AT&T 2 APROXIMAETLY 600 COMPANEIS AND INSTITUTIONS WORLDWIED TEH UNIX LIECNS3S)!1!!11!1 OMG LOL TEH VAST MAJORITY OF UNIX R USED IN ENTARPRIES APLICATIONS 2DAY IS A DARIVATIEV WORK OF TEH R ORIGINALY DISTRIBUTED UND3R OUR UNIX LIECNSAS!!!11!1 OMG LOL LIEK U WA HAEV AN OBLIGATION 2 OUR SHAERHOLD3RS 2 PROTACT OUR INTELACTUAL PROPERTY AND OTH3R VALUABLE RIGHTS
IN!!1! LOL REC3NT Y3ARS A UNIX-LIEK OPERATNG SYSTAM HAS EM3RGED AND HAS BEN DISTRIBUT3D IN DA ANT3RPRIES MARKATPLAEC BY VARIOUS R VENDORS!1!!! THIS SYSTEM IS CALAD LINUX11!1 WTF LOL WA BLEIVE TAHT LINUX IS IN M8RIAL PART AN UNAUTHORIEZD DERIVATIEV OF UNIX
AS!!1111! OMG U MAY KNOW DA D3VELOPM3NT PROCAS FOR LINUX HAS DIFERAD SUBSTANTIALY FROM DA DEVELOPMENT PROCAS FOR OTHAR ANTARPRIES OPERATNG SYST3MS!1!!11 OMG LOL COMERCIAL R IS BUILT BY CAERFULY S3LECTED AND SCRENAD TEMS OF PROGRMMERS WORKNG 2 BUILD PROPREITARY SECURA SOFTWAER111!!1 LOL THIS PROCES IS DESIGN3D 2 MONI2R TEH SECURITY AND OWNERSHIP OF INTAL3CTUAL PROP3RTY RIGHTS ASOCIAETD WIT TEH COD3
BY!!1!!11 LOL CONTRAST MUCH OF LINUX HAS B3N BUILT FROM CONTRIBUTIONS BY NUMAROUS UNRALAETD AND UNKNOWN R DEVELOPARS EACH CONTRIBUTNG A SMAL S3CTION OF COD3!!!!!1 WTF LOL THEIR IS NO MACHANISM INHER3NT IN DA LINUX DEVELOPMENT PROC3S 2 ASURE TAHT INTALECTUAL PROPARTY RIGHTS CONFIEDNTIALITY OR S3CURITY R PROTECTAD!1!!111 WTF TEH LINUX PROC3S DO3S NOT PRAVANT INCLUSION OF COD3 TAHT HAS BAN S2LAN OUTRIGHT OR DEV3LOPED BY IMPROPAR USA OF PROPREITARY M3THODS AND CONCEPTS
MANY11!1!1 OMG WTF LINUX CONTRIBU2RS W3R3 ORIGINALY UNIX DEVELOP3RS WHO HAD AC3S 2 UNIX SOURC3 CODE DISTRIBUTAD BY AT&T AND WERE SUBJ3CT 2 CONFIEDNTIALITY AGREMENTS INCLUDNG CONFIEDNTIALITY OF DA METHODS AND CONCAPTS INVOLVED IN R DESIGN!!11!1! WTF LOL W3 HAEV EVIEDNCE TAHT PORTIONS OF UNIX SYSTEM V R CODA HAEV B3N COPEID IN2 LINUX AND TAHT ADITIONAL OTHAR PORTIONS OF UNIX SYSTEM V R COD3 HAEV B3N MODIFEID AND COPEID IN2 LINUX SEMNGLY FOR DA PURPOSAS OF OBFUSCATNG THEYRE ORIGINAL SOURCA
AS!!!11 OMG LOL A CONS3QU3NC3 OF LINUXS UNR3STRICTAD AUTHORNG PROCAS IT IS NOT SURPRISNG TAHT LINUX DISTRIBU2RS DO NOT WARANT TEH LAGAL INT3GRITY OF TEH LINUX CODA PROVIEDD 2 CUS2M3RS!!!!!1 LOL THEIR LEGAL LIABILITY TAHT MAY ARIES FROM DA LINUX DEVELOPMENTS PROC3S MAY ALSO R3ST WIT TEH 3ND USER
WE!!1! WTF LOL BLEIVE TAHT LINUX INFRNG3S ON OUR UNIX INTALECTUAL PROP3RTY AND OTHER RIGHTS111!!!! OMG WTF WE INTAND 2 AGRESIEVLY PROTACT AND ANFORCE THES3 RIGHTS111!1 CONSISTENT WIT THIS AFORT ON MARCH 7 WE INITIAETD LEGAL ACTION AGANEST IBM FOR ALAGED UNFARE COMPETITION AND BREACH OF CONTRACT WIT RESP3CT 2 OUR UNIX RIGHTS1!11 WTF LOL THIS CAES IS P3NDNG IN UTAH FEDERAL DISTRICT COURT!1!11!1! OMG WTF LOL AS U R AWAER THIS CAES HAS BEN WIEDLY REPORTAD AND COMENTAD UPON IN DA PRES!!1!1!1 OMG IF U WUD LIEK ADITIONAL INFORMATION A COPY OF DA COMPLANET AND RASPONSE MAY B VEIW3D AT OUR W3B SIET AT WWSCOCOM/SCOSOURC3
FOR!1!!1 WTF LOL DA REASONS AXPLANEAD ABOVA WE HAEV ALSO ANOUNCED TEH SUSP3NSION OF OUR OWN LINUX-R3LAETD ACTIVITEIS UNTIL TEH ISUES SUROUNDNG LINUX INTELACTUAL PROPERTY AND DA ATENDANT RISKS R BT3R UNDERS2D AND PROPARLY RASOLV3D
SIMILAR11!!!111 OMG LOL 2 ANALOGOUS 3FORTS UNDERWAY IN DA MUSIC INDUSTRY WE R PR3PAERD 2 TAEK AL ACTIONS NECASARY 2 S2P TEH ONGONG VIOLATION OF OUR INTEL3CTUAL PROPARTY OR OTH3R RIGHTS
SCOS!11111!1 OMG ACTIONS MAY PROVE UNPOPULAR WIT THOS3 WHO WISH 2 ADVANCE OR OTH3RWIES BNAFIT FROM LINUX AS A FRE R SYSTAM FOR USE IN 3NT3RPRIES APLICATIONS!111! OMG LOL HOW3VAR OUR PROPERTY AND CONTRACT RIGHTS R IMPORTANT AND VALUABLE NOT ONLY 2 US BUT 2 EV3RY INDIVIDUAL AND EVERY COMPANY WHOS3 LIEVLIHOD DEPENDS ON DA CONTINUED VIABILITY OF INTELACTUAL AND INTANGIBL3 PROP3RTY RIGHTS IN A DIGITAL AEG !!1!11
I too read the letter, and I don't see where the objection is - not in that letter at any rate. Then again, my own back is not up against the wall here, as I pay for my software (am not a freebie junkie).
The first contention is that proprietary code can get into Linux, and I really don't see how Linus could effectively prevent this in the long haul. As a matter of fact, if the code were taken from a proprietary system, how would Linus or any of the others be aware of this? They've never seen the code, and cannot see the code by definition.
The second contention is that the Linux development model is somehow shabbier than the 'cathedral' model, and this takes a bit to go along with. If programmers out there are intent on producing results, even to the extent they nick code from other sources, how does the one model exhibit superiority over the other? This opinion is much more difficult to maintain.
Pamela has, as always, done an excellent job, but I fear the reactions SCO are getting from the open source community are exactly what they are after. It's almost inconceivable that SCO are going this route alone, without at least the tacit nod of approval from, for example, Bill Gates and Scott McNealy. They're a desperate company; their distro sucks; they've turned bitter and are clutching at straws. But this is not to say that others, such as the above mentioned, are not today part of the plot.
For the gist of the SCO debacle seems to be to 'wing it' and cause as much unrest and dissention in the open source community as possible. The prospect of actually winning a case against IBM has to be less than nil; therefore, the meaning of all this nonsense has to be in the nonsense itself.
As the Halloween Documents have been on the table for so long, as these documents clearly state what Microsoft are prepared to do to stop Linux and open source, it would be the coincidence of the millennium if Bill Gates and company were not involved.
For Darl McBride cannot hope to save his ass by suing IBM. That will come to naught, and he knows it. With all the fuss going on, there is no hope for direct revenues. What is there - and there must be something there - has to be 'under the table'.
It would therefore seem to me that the proper reaction to the latest moves by SCO would be to not react at all.
nt
It's a good thing the Linux kernel develupment screens programmers but what is more important is that ALL open source projects screen CODE.
Keep in mind that every line of code passes through somebodys hands and that person makes a final call (Do I add this or not).
Commertal software carefully screens programmers has done so for decades. Then they don't screen the code those programmers write.
As a result we have back doors. Back doors are commen enough in closed source to be a plot point in the movie "War Games" but vertually unheard of in public domain let alone open source.
On that note:
Microsoft makes a play at screening code and we've seen the results.
Sun Microsystems however takes the job of screening code VERY SEREOUSLY but then Sun Microsystems dose not see itself as compeating with open source and dosen't live in the fantacy world of "Closed means secure" and "Open is better" instead they improve on the closed source develupment modle taking ideas from open source when ever possable.
However Sun Microsystems isn't SCO and just maybe becouse Sun liccenses SCOs code they know just how much you can trust "carefully selected" programmers...
Or maybe it's how automobles mystereously end up in peoples offices at the Sun campus.
I don't actually exist.
Its called a non-compete clause and its usually written into every employer-employee contract, or into any layoff or termination order. It basically says that the employee upon leaving the company for whatever reason will not go to work for a new company in direct competition with the old. Thus, upon leaving my company whose main customer in bidding contracts is Department A in some government field, I can't directly go to work for any other company whose main customer is also Department A without giving my old company bosses a call to see if its ok with them, else much of what's in my head would be treated as trade secrets and proprietary IP that I wouldn't be able to use.
There's only a limit to what degree its enforceable. Non-compete clauses can't prevent someone from getting a job at all, or they're illegal. Some states have them illegal entirely. Generally, a "good-faith" effort to get a job outside of the industry in question is enough to appease a judge should you end up working for a competitor to the old company in the end. But when, for example, Microsoft hired away a bunch of Borland IDE developers to work on Visual Studio, it really came down to the lawyers and the money, at which point Borland knew they didn't have enough money to beat Microsoft at it and keep the ex-Borland people from working in the Visual Studio division.
The hard thing about Trade Secrets is actually proving that the specific violation occurred by the specific individual. Trade secrets aren't protected in the same way as copyrights, trademarks, or patents. Coincidental development, or coming up with the same idea without referencing the original, isn't a violation of Trade Secrets laws in the way that it could be a violation of the "big three" IP protections.
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
I notice that the word UNIX used in the article didn't have a trademark symbol of any sort after it (i.e., neither UNIX (tm) nor UNIX (reg) nor any other sort of mark). Is this also true of the original letter? If so, isn't the Open Source group required to sue them?
As I recall if you don't defend a trademark you loose it... but perhaps this doesn't count as a use where such a requirement applies? IANAL, so this is but speculation.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
You're confusing socialism and communism there. Socialism is a social theory, communism became the real-world totalitarian, centralized version of it.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
No, no. Free software is more like "From each according to whim, to each according to whim".
I am free to contribute code and time to the free software movement, or not, regardless of my skill or ability. Nobody is going to force me to write code for XEmacs, or even tax me a single cent to pay someone else to do so.
Also, I am free to use free software as much as I like, regardless of my "need" for it. As there is no scarcity in software that can be copied perfectly forever, needs-testing potential users would be absurd.
-- Jeff Paulsen
like many things in life, there is rich overlap. god's greatest success is likely putting everything in the open and giving man the blinders of needing certainty. "it's also a dessert topping!"
free software is generated in a very socialistic manner, yet feeds the libertarian need for freedom. socialism, democracy, freedom... perhaps amerika will find these things go together very well. it most certainly hasn't been finding the latter two as of late.
conservatives like to feed the hopes of everybody thinking they'll get rich some day. you too can be bill gates! little do the masses realize that they'll never be rich. but in the mean time, the things that matter will have been sacrificed--education, neighborhoods, lives--requiring even more work to rebuild.
According to this they are simply adding a README file but not removing SCO support. Has anything new happened since?
Or are you simply saying they aren't likely to actively maintain that part of the SCO against changes made elsewhere?
I always maintained that there is an analogy between the software technology and scientific knowledge. Just like science is the basis for our civilization, software underlies the expanding digital sphere of our lives. The development model of both science and sofware can vary between proprietary and public, and the society has to make a policy choice about supporting the right mix.
Even though scientific and technological knowledge started as proprietary, we as society made a historical choice, dating back to the age of Enlightenment, to develop knowledge in a collegial, public fashion. This model, of course, works rather well, and no one seriously argues that it should be rolled back to some kind of proprietary science development.
Similarly, I argue that software, whose importance tracks the growing influence of computing on our lives, must be developed in a public model; the Free Software is currently the closest approach, which eventually will be augmented by some sort of peer-reviewed public commitment, just as is the case for scientific research.
The analogy of software and science is not perfect; but I argue that, firstly, the negative effects of closed software are almost identical to negative effects of closed knowledge: it forces duplicate work, creates artificial monopolies, and slows down progress. Secondly, because software IS the infrastructure of the digital age, there is the issue of public interest, and the development model must accomodate that.
In this context, the strategy of SCO in their Linux lawsuit is especially retrograde. Their position, as laid out in their recently issued letters seems to counter the very idea of a public stake in technical knowledge. It occurred to me to modify their argument, substituting human knowledge' for 'software'. Here's what we'd get:
As you may know, the development process for public scientific
knowledge has differed substantially from the development process
for other enterprise scientific research. Commercial research is
built by carefully selected and screened teams of scientists
working to build proprietary scientific results. The process is
designed to monitor the security and ownership of intellectual
property rights associated with the knowledge.
By contrast, much of human scientific knowledge has been built
from contributions by numerous unrelated and unknown scientists,
each contributing a small scientific discovery. There is no
mechanism inherent in the public science development process to
assure that intellectual property rights, confidentiality or
security are protected. The public science process does not
prevent inclusion of knowledge that has been stolen outright, or
developed by improper use of proprietary methods and concepts.
Put this way, their argument is nonsensical, and would find no support in anyone even a tiny bit familiar with the scientific process, which arguably forms the basis of our civilization.