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."

Comments

Hmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

Re:Hmm...

[DugzDC]

Alright, not ontopic, but something I just thought of...
Is there anything you can put in a license that would stop SCO (and any related cos) using the mass of OS software they employ in their products? I know they already have what they have, but future releases?
I don't know much about the GPL, but I think I remember that you can't tag on additional clauses to it, so maybe this isn't possible.
A while a go, I remember some talk about gcc dropping support for the SCO OSes. What happened there? Anyways, that seems like a nice approach - starve the fuckers of what they depend on. But, as I said above, maybe the GPL doesn't allow it. Don't want to be as bad as them, after all.
BTW, someone on here once asked me if I was a DC fan (cos of the DC in the /. name). Well, yep. I was... Want to know what's worse? I had tickets to this year's French GP.

Re:Hmm...

[Neon Spiral Injector]

Indeed, the GPL prohibits additional restrictions placed on the uses of the software. That is to say you can't deny that the software you have released under the GPL to be used by what ever group of people we are supposed to dislike this week.

But what has happened with GCC, is the authors just aren't going to put any effort into maintaining the port to SCO's OSes. So they aren't saying it can't be used under SCO, they just won't put the work into making it compile and function correctly. If someone at SCO wishes to do that, they may go right ahead. But of course they have to release their changes back to the public.

Re:Hmm...

[tiger99]

They can, but it will cost them, in terms of programmer's hours, and they are unlikely to get the degree of expertise which exists within the gcc team. So McBride has shot himself in the foot again.

What does stop GPL software including gcc dead in its tracks is if it has been illegally comingled with non-free software, and I think the area which almost certainly violates the GPL is the "Linux Personality Module". That needs very close examination, it may be that there is a substantial violation, maybe even sufficient to get an injunction against SCO. It could even result in SCO having to publish their kernel source. Now that would be a nice end to McBride's main source of revenue, other than stock market fraud, and Bill's petty cash, of course.

the actual letter

[Anonymous Coward]

can be found here.

The one line that says it all...

[ghideon]

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.

Yeah, that just smacks of credability....

Re:The one line that says it all...

[3riol]

Well, the thing is that SCO wants to create a parallel between Free and Open Source Software supporters and pirates in the minds of lawmakers and magistrates...

They do this by capitalizing on the fact that FOSS is often distributed free of charge (these people don't want to pay for things!), the fact that FOSS is in some ways a threat on the usual, exploitative way of doing business (they care about other things than profit => they are dangerous / dirty communists / hoping to undermine Capitalism|America|Freedom to squeeze megabucks out of credulous customers), the negative mass-culture image of the word "Hacker", and other things yet... but most of all, ignorance.

Re:The one line that says it all...

[aweraw]

The post this responds to shows in utter clarity how eaten up with socialist thought slashdot and its moderators are.

Thats not necessarily a bad thing... Linux is based on socialist concepts. Not only Linux, but public schools and hospitals... and to decry these things as 'evil', simply because they are socialist in theory, is to overlook their true worth.

(note: I'm not saying you said these things were evil... just pointing out that socialism is not as bad/evil as it is made out to be. Totalitarianism on the other hand...)

Re:The one line that says it all...

[3riol]

>the leftwing element of slashdot
Heh. :-) That's amusing if nothing else. But lower your rifle for now.

Seriously, I am not a communist, though my political stance is *entirely irrelevant* to the issue, just as it is with most FOSS advocates -- contrarily to what SCO would like to have public opinion believe.
As for lack of sources : I seem to recall reading Darl McBride mention communism in this respect in a recent interview to a newsmagazine (The Economist I think), or at the very least, hint not-so-subtly towards most Americans' (though unfortunately you come across that elsewhere as well) paranoid fear of communism in the hopes that it will lower public respect of Free Software.
For myself I am not -emphatically not- "describing business/economics" here - merely emitting a partial and personal opinion on the way it is most often done in today's software market ; a market I choose to act in (this is one of the bases of capitalism, and not endangered by FOSS ideas) by not contributing to the omnipresence of proprietary software (the business model of which explicitly seeks to bind customers to a certain vendor by numerous varieties of coercion, e.g. standard setting by virtue of a quasi-monopoly, please refer to Halloween Documents for examples [1]), but supporting Free initiatives.

As for "eaten up with socialist thought"... Do you miss the easy manichean days of the Cold War, or...?
Slashdot never seemed politically biased to me, unless it was in favor of democracy and the liberties gained since the French Revolution; nothing to be afraid of (as if Socialism was).

[1]http://opensource.org/halloween/halloween1.ph p

Re:The one line that says it all...

[sevensharpnine]

I wouldn't get too worked up over the "socialist thought" on Slashdot. There are wonderful debates over the merits of profit-driven, collectivist, and command economies, but you'll rarely find them here. Many of the self-styled "socialists" among us are just kids who thinks it's cool to rub against the grain of mainstream America and its authority figures. There are certainly some intelligent and thoughtful leftwingers here, but the post you're responding to is just more cookie-cutter drivel attacking an imaginary opponent.

Re:The one line that says it all...

[Trepalium]

You are quite right. He's never explicitly said the word communist. In fact, there's only one article that ever links him to that word, and it's not even a direct quote of anything. He does, however, like to wrap his entire lawsuit in the American flag. He likes to claim that Free and Open Source Software will destroy the American economy (I'm getting real tired of that complaint from everyone who has a problem with new technology), and millions of jobs. Everyone will be poor, and all IT jobs will be exported to India, China, and other foreign countries (Darl needs a reality check on this -- it's happening NOW). His retoric is that FOSS developers are communists or socialists, but explicitly avoids saying it because it would be a little too hard to take it seriously. The entire "GPL preempted by the constitution" and "they're violating export control laws" in their legal claims exist for no other reason than to make these developers look like very bad people who are trying to subvert the USA into something bad.

Re:The one line that says it all...

[Trepalium]

Ack. I was wrong (kinda).

"...what they don't see is that we're trying to defend the rights of capitalism for the silent majority. Linux leaders pound the table about a community-driven model where everything is free, and that's the flip side of capitalism. This country was founded on capitalism, the right to make a profit for what you own, not give it away for free." [November 18 2003]

I spent all that time looking for the words "communism", "unamerican", etc, that I forgot to look for the obvious, "captialism". In that comment, he didn't use the 'C'-word, but otherwise he did say that they were communists.

Re:The one line that says it all...

[Artifakt]

Worries that Open Source is being painted as communist are generally overblown. Tell the average politican that anything not for profit is socialist, and his first thought is, "My wife is on the board of two not-for-profit hospital funds, I just took a speaking fee from a not-for-profit organization, and it sounds like this niblick thinks I'm some kind of commie.".
Most politicians have heard someone fussing about communism since they started, as for example: "If this city doesn't put up the christmas lights two weeks earlier this year then they're not supporting local retailers and so they're a buncha communists!". Politicians get used to this very early in their careers.
Say, aren't chambers-of-commerce organizations non-profit? And credit unions? And state universities? Didn't the banks claim credit unions were communistic? Did the politicians listen?

Re:The one line that says it all...

[gmack]

Since the end of the cold war the word "communist" doesn't hold the fear and loathing it used to.

The new trick is to refer to one's political enemies as "spporting terrorists" Unfortunatly that's much more effective and the sad thing is we see that accusation used to justify all sorts of mistreatment that used to be reserved for communists.

We see this in grand form as SCO has pointed out the GPL doesn't exempt the release of source code requirement to embargoed countries. (never mind that it's irrelevent since you can't relase the binaries there in the first place)

Re:The one line that says it all...

[Avihson]

Or maybe you are enlightened enough to realize that Capitalism and Communism are considered diametrically opposed in the average person's mind. And their experiences show that the other economic models rarely scale well above the village level.

Re:The one line that says it all...

[Courageous]

Thats not necessarily a bad thing... Linux is based on socialist concepts.

Even I, who categorize myself into the category of people that believe that most communists should probably be summarily shot, acknowledge that free software is actually a working example of functioning and effective socialism. Really. This sort of thing is good for you. :)

C//

Re:The one line that says it all...

[aweraw]

I don't know about where YOU come from

That'd be Australia. We have this great thing called Medicare, which is a public healthcare system. Well it was good, until the current government started to disassemble it, and is currently in the process of converting the Australian medical system to be more like the American one... from all accounts, the old way (socialist) was much better.

Re:The one line that says it all...

[mako]

Is this agitprop? Seriously, there is nothing socialist about free software.

• First, and most importantly, no person is compelled to make use of, contribute to, or distribute free software. Folks make the choice to get involved with these projects. Contributors typically demand recognition for their work which can then be parlayed into resume fodder, or in some cases, actual jobs.

• Second, there is typically not a central body which controls the production and distribution of said software. The whole point of F.S. is that any person may distribute as long as they follow the stipulations in the license. These stipulations denote socialism no more than any other contract.

These are important distinctions to make. Claiming free software is socialist is akin to claiming that a traditional family unit is communist.

Re:The one line that says it all...

[blancolioni]

Seriously, there is nothing socialist about free software.

From each according to their worth, to each according to their need. It's classic socialism, in its best and most effective sense.

The compulsions and central bodies you speak of are aspects of socialism as it is often implemented. This doesn't imply that things which don't have these features are not socialism.

Re:The one line that says it all...

[Anonymous Coward]

What you're describing is communism. Socialism isn't about forcing people to work for a common good. In fact forcing people to do anything AGAINST their will is one of the things socialism is against.

Mainly, socialism consists of making sure
1) Those who work for an employer can't be abused (e.g. summarily dismissed, locked out, paid different rates - trades unions stuff)

2) Ensuring the better off in society take care of those at the lower end of the scale.

The most successfully socialist countries are in Scandanavia where taxes are huge (up to 75%) but things like dental care and hosptials are free for all, drugs are subsidised by the government, there are adult education schemes, the whole lot of it. And while people are being gouged in terms of tax, their standard of living is nonetheless increased as it all gets returned to them in kind.

This is the big difference between socialism and capitalism, socialism you give up significant funds to better society, which will in turn better your life. In capitalism you make and hold onto as much money as possible, so you can afford to better your life, as society won't do it for you.

By and large the core policy of socialism is donating to society for the benefit of all. In one sense it's a form of charity, except more reasoned, and engineered so you get something back from your donation.

It is has nothing to do with communism (which incidentally has nothing to do with the totalitarian regimes practised in China, Cuba and formerly (presently?!) the USSR).

Re:The one line that says it all...

[neillewis]

So often open software gets beaten over the head for being communistic. It is communitarian, but it is closer to free market libertarianism than communism.

The marginal cost of the production of software is now zero. It really is economic to give it away.

Adam Smith would have welcomed free software with open arms. This is hopefully the 'invisible hand' that will dismantle Microsoft's monopoly.

Re:The one line that says it all...

[Glock27]

Business is about nothing if not profit, and as far as I am aware, no one is forced to buy anything. There is no exploitation, nor extortion (another popular term used by the leftwing element of slashdot) in business in any negative sense, unless you want to use the lexicon of communism.

/me searches for cluebat...

OK, where to start. I guess with my political leanings. I've essentially decided to go with my own particular flavor of Libertarianism. Now, before you freak out and start calling me a "liberal" because of the first part of that word, in almost every area that affects the citizenry at large, Libertarians are quite a bit right of Bush. My brand of Libertarianism differs from "standard" Libertarianism in the sense that I feel that the world is not ready for minimal military forces, so I advocate a strong military within an otherwise Libertarian society. There's a nice dynamic tension there anyhow. ;-)

The "Libert(y)" part in Libertarianism comes from the idea that people should be free to pursue happiness in an unrestricted way unless their actions clearly infringe on another person's happiness. Thus all sex and drug laws go out the window, per se. If this were to be done, America would be much closer to a truly "free" country than it is now, with less Gulag-like imprisonment of otherwise productive citizens, and a commensurately lower tax burden. There would also be an enormous savings in law enforcement expenses.

Libertarians also argue for free markets, and I agree with that in general. There are examples, though, where it's hard to see how government intervention can be avoided *cough* Microsoft *cough*. (Actually, if consumers actually educated themselves, and/or we get 25% or so of the population doing software engineering, the free market would likely solve the problem).

I am also vehemently pro-gun (as you might guess from my handle;) and pro-personal-responsibility. Those two go hand in hand.

BTW, on the subject of business "exploitation", that happens regularly. It can either be legitimate exploitation (exploiting newly discovered oil reserves) or illegitimate exploitation (Nike paying 10 year old kids 7 dollars for a 12 hour factory day [this is an example, I'm not sure of any of these numbers]). So, don't get fooled again. ;-)

Now that we've established my right-wing bona fides, you must be thinking that I hate the evil "socialist" Linux.

But no. In fact, I'm using it right now. I no more hate the authors of Linux than I hate church volunteers. Do you label church volunteers "socialists"? The Linux developers have voluntarily done a tremendous amount of work for the common good, with very little or no economic incentive. They should be commended for their efforts! It is telling that Linux is the only free market force that's seriously affecting Microsoft's illegal dominance of a critical industry.

The post this responds to shows in utter clarity how eaten up with socialist thought slashdot and its moderators are.

Oh and by the way, despite openly being a hawk and very much "right of center" (though I think the left/right labels are counterproductive) my karma maxxed out a long time ago, and has never really wavered since. Go figure.

Re:The one line that says it all...

[mako]

The compulsions and central bodies you speak of are aspects of socialism as it is often implemented. This doesn't imply that things which don't have these features are not socialism.

Yes, it does. Socialism is defined by its central planning. Otherwise you still basically have a free market. Besides all of this is moot in that we are not talking about government here. We are talking about people developing software for individual reasons. Governments have a monopoly on violence, the FSF does not.

Re:The one line that says it all...

[usurper_ii]

I have always said that if monks or Native Americans wanted to live together in a commune to share resources and help each other out, it was just fine, and indeed, that is a form of voluntary "communism." However, if someone puts a gun to your head and makes you join a group of people against your will, well that is a whole new ball game.

One of the arguments for socialism is that the early Christians were socialist. Well, there is a huge difference between someone being kind-hearted and sharing...and the government stealing from you and forcing you to give to things you would not necessarily give to if you had been given a real choice.

You know what the difference is between theft at gun point and theft by taxes? In the former they send you to prison. In the latter, they send you to Congress!

Usurper_ii

ever heard of it?

[Dreadlord]

From the letter:

Commercial software is built by carefully selected and screened teams of programmers working to build proprietary, secure software...
By contrast, much of Linux has been built from contributions by numerous unrelated and unknown software developers, each contributing a small section of code...

It's called Open Source, idiot.

Re:ever heard of it?

[nettdata]

Commercial software is built by carefully selected and screened teams of programmers working to build proprietary, secure software... By contrast, much of Linux has been built from contributions by numerous unrelated and unknown software developers, each contributing a small section of code...

Hmmm.... he's obviously never met MY commercial product development team!

Oh.... wait...

SCO's letter

[Neurotoxic666]

Can anyone please mod the letter SCO sent +5 Funny? ...

Re:SCO's letter

[Anonymous Coward]

Knock yourself out:

***
May 12. 2003

Mr. Lucio A. Noto
Audit Committee Chair
International Business Machines Corporation
New Orchard Road
Armonk, NY 10504

Dear Lucio:

SCO holds the rights to the UNIX operating system software originally licensed by AT&T to approximately 6,000 companies and institutions worldwide (the "UNIX Licenses"). The vast majority of UNIX software used in enterprise applications today is a derivative work of the software originally distributed under our UNIX Licenses. Like you, we have an obligation to our shareholders to protect our intellectual property and other valuable rights.

In recent years, a UNIX-like operating system has emerged and has been distributed in the enterprise marketplace by various software vendors. This system is called Linux. We believe that Linux is, in material part, an unauthorized derivative of UNIX.

As you may know, the development process for Linux has differed substantially from the development process for other enterprise operating systems. 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.

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. The Linux process does not prevent inclusion of code that has been stolen outright; or developed by improper use of proprietary methods and concepts.

Many Linux contributors were originally UNIX developers who had access to UNIX source code distributed by AT&T and were subject to confidentiality agreements, including confidentiality of the methods and concepts involved in software design. 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.

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.

We believe that Linux infringes on our UNIX intellectual property and other rights. We intend to aggressively protect and enforce these rights. Consistent with this effort, on March 7, we initiated legal action against IBM for alleged unfair competition and breach of contract with respect to our UNIX rights. This case is pending in Utah Federal District Court. As you are aware, this case has been widely reported and commented upon in the press. If you would like additional information, a copy of the complaint and response may be viewed at our web site at www.sco.com/scosource.

For the reasons explained above, we have also announced the suspension of our own Linux-related activities until the issues surrounding Linux intellectual property and the attendant risks are better understood and properly resolved.

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.

SCO's actions may prove unpopular with those who wish to advance or otherwise benefit from Linux as a free software system for use in enterprise applications. However, our property and contract rights are important and valuable: not only to us, but to every individual and every company whose livelihood depends on the continued viability of intellectual and intangible property rights in a digital age.

Yours truly,

THE SCO GROUP

By: Darl McBride
President and CEO

Re:SCO's letter

[TiggsPanther]

There is one sentence which worries me a little.

However, our property and contract rights are important and valuable: not only to us, but to every individual and every company whose livelihood depends on the continued viability of intellectual and intangible property rights in a digital age.

I'm not sure I necessarily subscribe to the oft-mentioned ideas that "Intellectual/Intangible Property Rights are Inherantly Evil" school of thought.
But the idea that just because someone came up with the best/only way of doing something automatically excludes anyone else from ever doing things that way (without paying a shitload of money) just seems wrong to me.

On the other hand, I understand that if you put a lot of work into something you should have the right to profit from it, at least for a short while (measured maybe in years, certainly not in decades), if you so choose. Patents and Copyrights working the way they should, to protect someone's costs for a while, but then allowing other people to use/develop the ideas, makes sense to me.
But then allowing the information into the wild afterwards is only a good thing. It stops people from merely resting on their laurels. After all, surely innovation is increased if after a while you're forced to compete with your own ideas - if no-one else's.

That all said, SCO are just acting moronic. The idea that you can "buy an idea" from someone else just seems a bit off to me. And then SCO going off on one because they think (rightly or wrongly) that someone is profitting from an idea that they didn't even come up with in the first place?
I dunno. Just seems a bit OTT to me.

Tiggs

Bad battle....

[CptTripps]

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.

Re:Bad battle....

[TWX]

"The thing is, it's too late for them to back down. IBM is not going to settle and is not going to drop its counterclaims no matter what SCO does."

There are conceivable things that SCO could do in order to get IBM to drop it's claims, but that stuff isn't legal in Utah, only in Nevada...

Really

[SkArcher]

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.

Re:Really

[eric76]

It was also been included in its entirity in a number of news stories about that time.

I was rather suprised to see it surface again almost as a fresh issue.

I love the letter!

[Anonymous Coward]

... 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.

Grammatical errors

[Prof. Pi]

From the article:

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.

Re:Grammatical errors

[gl4ss]

"i see you are writing a letter to sue ibm, would you also like to extort every fortune 1500 company there is?"

"i see you are trying to buy crack online, may i suggest that you order it by phone instead?"

hmm maybe clippy was first on them that was using crack... let that be a warning for using cracked software!

.

Re:Grammatical errors

[whereiswaldo]

"i see you are trying to buy crack online, may i suggest that you order it by phone instead?"

He knows too much! Throw Clippy in the trunk, boys!

Re:Grammatical errors

[fishbowl]

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.

Pot, meet kettle.

Could Linus sue SCO execs directly?

[WarDancer]

I don't know much about US law, but assuming SCO folds after this whole fiasco and nothing is to be gained from actually suing SCO itself...

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.

Re:Could Linus sue SCO execs directly?

[Prof. Pi]

IANALSIHAC (...since I have a conscience), but it's usually possible to charge execs directly (preventing them from hiding behind the skirts of the corporation) only when they knowing commit crimes, such as polluters who deliberately dump something in direct violation of the law.

Execs have been successfully sued for bleeding a company dry (e.g., granting themselves huge bonuses while the company is clearly going bankrupt). Such conduct is illegal, though hard to prove except when it is egregiously obvious. Usually it's the ripped-off investors who sue. There have been cases of investors successfully going after the personal assets of execs when it can be showed that they did something specifically illegal, such as making false statements to investors.

I suspect, though, that a clear case may be harder to make this time. Hopefully, the best that will happen is that lots of screwed investors will realize they were duped by their "advisors," and will take their business elsewhere.

Suing for libel would be difficult in any case, as it's hard to sue for libel in general (at least in the US).

Re:Could Linus sue SCO execs directly?

[Avihson]

Linus, Redhat, SuSE et al have a good libel cases against Darl and the other officers who made the unfounded written allegations. They also have slander cases for his trash talking at "news briefings". Some tests have to be met first, they have to be false, stated as facts (not opinions), and made with malice.
SCO and their parent Canopy Group could be held responsible for all of the official statements that prove to be false and made with malice.

The "with malice" clause is the rough part to prove. Well in most cases it is. In this one, it looks like prima facie malice with forethought.

This is one jury duty I would not try to dodge!

Carefully screened?

[Amiga Lover]

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.

Re:Carefully screened?

[Anonymous Coward]

exactly, they're playing with words.

commercial software is software sold for money. it may or may not be proprietary or secure

proprietary software is proprietary software. it may or may not be commercial or secure

secure software is secure. it may or may not be commercial or proprietary.

sco is using newspeak type crap, attempting to link 3 separate ideas as one when they are not by definition linked.

Re:Carefully screened?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Commercial software is built by carefully selected and
> screened teams of programmers working to build
> proprietary, secure software

Heh. Diebold.

Re:Carefully screened?

[orthogonal]

Taking advantage of the popular conception that commercial softare is somehow more reliable or more completley audited than free/shareware (in my experience, there's no particular correlation) means that McBride is the one who's playing semantic games.

You're right about McBride playing semantic games, but it's a different game than you -- and Groklaw -- think.

When the SCO letter says (emphasis mine) that

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.

McBride doesn't mean the security of the executable, in terms of exploiting its bad code to crack the machine that code is running on.

McBride is talking about the security of the source and the commerical software company's rights to any "Intellectual Property" and any financial gain arising from that source. He's not talking about the end-user's or purchaser's security, he's talking about the proprietary trade secrets, copyrights, and patents of the owner of the source code.

It's the same semantic shift used by advocates of Digital Rights Management -- the rights being managed and secured are those of the producer/owner, not those of the consumer/purchaser. which is why it's often more honest to call it Digital Restrictions Management.

When SCO writes about "carefully selected and screened teams of programmers", that doesn't mean screened to exclude bad coders who make the software vulnerable to viruses; it means screened to exclude programmers who might reveal company "secrets", or "pollute" the company with "viral licensing", i.e. any GPL'd code.

Now, of course, SCO is half right. Hang on, before you decide to smite me. SCO is right: by definition Open Source software does not try to protect proprietary rights; it does attempt to protect copyright, but under the GPL allows the copyright to be licensed under extremly generous terms, terms that also make it impossible to keep the source code secret. So 2 out of 3 for SCO on this point.

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. A commerical house might, wittingly or nor, plagiarize code; we've certainly seen commerical appropriations of GPL'd code. What SCO wants to imply is that commercial software houses have a greater interest in these safeguards, because they don't want their copyrights to be challenged; but as I mentioned above, GPL'd software is copyrighted too, and OSS software creators have a real and non-trivial interest in retaining their copyrights. So on this half of the argument, SCO is dead wrong.

So all SCO is doing in this letter is saying that commercial software creators try harder to keep their source code secret, because they want to make money selling executables (except that since it's his secret he wants to keep from you, McBride spells "secret" "s-e-c-u-r-e") and that Open Source software creators don't keep source code secret. All they are doing is stating a tautology: surprise, surprise, Open Source software produces source that is -- wait for it -- open.

Now as to why this should matter to end users, it's all in OSS's favor: would you, end-user, prefer code "secured" so that you can't review the source, or "open" so that, if you need to, you can? Closed source software only benefits closed source crreators.

But Darl can't write a letter saying, "It's better for me and worse for you, Fortune 1500, for you to pay me for closed software you can't review or change, rather than using free software. Well, he could, but it wouldn't convice many people. So the need to employ the semantic shift from "secret" to "secured" to "secure".

Are end users liable at all?

[Unregistered]

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).

Re:Are end users liable at all?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you take the word "Linux" and replace it with "Microsoft Windows" in SCO's claims, you will see how ridiculous their claims are about end users being liable for copyright infringment.

Imagine if Microsoft added some copyrighted code to Windows and they didn't license the use of that code from the owner. Would the code owner be able to sue end users of Windows for license payments?

I believe SCO would only be able to go after users if they owned patents on the code and the users were actually using features in the software that used the patented code. Even then, Microsoft, the distributor of Windows, has been sued multiple times for patent infringement (Timeline, EOLAS, InterTrust), so even in patent cases, the distributor tends to be sued, not the users.

If you also compare SCO's claims to other types of copyright infringment, such as plagiarism in a book, magazine or newspaper, or illegal sound samples in a music CD, it is very clear that copyright infringment liability for users doesn't exist. The people who are benefiting financially from the illegal code, the distributors, should be liable.

Even if users were somehow liable, they are guilty of unintentional infringement, which means SCO cannot get punitive damages or attorney fees. And SCO will have a very difficult time proving significant actual damages.

A lawsuit against most Linux-using companies, even if successful, would almost certainly be a net loss for them. I hope most of the companies that SCO is thinking of targeting are smart enough to see this and decide to fight them in court instead of rolling over and paying the protection money.

Re:Are end users liable at all?

[16K Ram Pack]

Is it also significant that SCO have not revealed the details of the code?

ISTM that if you want someone to stop using something, you tell them exactly what the infringement is in order for them to cease doing so, and then seek redress on monies lost.

Re:Are end users liable at all?

[Tremanhil]

Agreed, if this farce continues though it's likely that a letter like this will go out at some point, where they replace Linux with Mac OS X.

----->

Sometime in the Future

Mr. Steve Jobs
Apple
1 Infinite Loop
Cupertino, CA 95014
USA

Dear Steve:

SCO holds the rights to the UNIX operating system software originally licensed by AT&T to approximately 6,000 companies and institutions worldwide (the "UNIX Licenses"). The vast majority of UNIX software used in enterprise applications today is a derivative work of the software originally distributed under our UNIX Licenses. Like you, we have an obligation to our shareholders to protect our intellectual property and other valuable rights.

In recent years, a UNIX-like operating system has emerged and has been distributed in the enterprise marketplace by various software vendors. This system is called Mac OS X. We believe that Mac OS X is, in material part, an unauthorized derivative of UNIX.

As you may know, the development process for Mac OS X has differed substantially from the development process for other enterprise operating systems. 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.

By contrast, much of Mac OS X 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 Mac OS X development process to assure that intellectual property rights, confidentiality or security are protected. The Mac OS X process does not prevent inclusion of code that has been stolen outright; or developed by improper use of proprietary methods and concepts.

Many Mac OS X contributors were originally UNIX developers who had access to UNIX source code distributed by AT&T and were subject to confidentiality agreements, including confidentiality of the methods and concepts involved in software design. We have evidence that portions of UNIX System V software code have been copied into Mac OS X and that additional other portions of UNIX System V software code have been modified and copied into Mac OS X, seemingly for the purposes of obfuscating their original source.

As a consequence of Mac OS X's unrestricted authoring process, it is not surprising that Mac OS X distributors do not warrant the legal integrity of the Mac OS X code provided to customers. Therefore legal liability that may arise from the Mac OS X developments process may also rest with the end user.

We believe that Mac OS X infringes on our UNIX intellectual property and other rights. We intend to aggressively protect and enforce these rights. Consistent with this effort, on INSERT FUTURE DATE HERE, we initiated legal action against Apple for alleged unfair competition and breach of contract with respect to our UNIX rights. This case is pending in Utah Federal District Court. As you are aware, this case has been widely reported and commented upon in the press. If you would like additional information, a copy of the complaint and response may be viewed at our web site at www.sco.com/scosource.

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.

SCO's actions may prove unpopular with those who wish to advance or otherwise benefit from Mac OS X as a system for use in enterprise applications. However, our property and contract rights are important and valuable: not only to us, but to every individual and every company whose livelihood depends on the continued viability of intellectual and intangible property rights in a digital age.

Yours truly,

THAT SCO COMPANY

By: Some Raving Lunatic
President and CEO

Re: Are end users liable at all?

[schon]

your example: what if you made money with that book (by whatever means), that violates the original author's IP? would the original author be entitled to make you stop or sue you for damages, etc.? My guess (again IANAL) is yes.

Yes, but irrelevant.

We're talking about USING, not selling/leasing/renting/making money.

more realistically, what if i sold you the rights to a patent i didn't own

Also irrelevant. Patents are not copyrights, and are governed by a completely different set of rules.

a contract is based on unlawful circumstances (ie. IP-violation) is plain void.

No - there is no such thing as "IP-violation." There is patent violation, trademark violation, and copyright violation. Each is governed by different laws, and you can't point to one and claim that it's rules affect the others.

There is no 'contract'. As long as the software is bought in good faith (the buyer believed that the seller was licensed to produce the copy) then that's all that matters.

that the original owner of that IP still has some rights

Again, define 'IP' (copyright, trademark, or patent), and what are the circumstances?

Re:Are end users liable at all?

[Wolfier]

>Imagine if Microsoft added some copyrighted code
>to Windows and they didn't license the use of
>that code from the owner. Would the code owner
>be able to sue end users of Windows for license
>payments?

It cannot happen. If MS added some copyrighted code it'll buy the other entity up. :)

Re:I tried to give them my money...

[Haeleth]

Spell it correctly and it works.
http://www.sco.com/scosource/

They must have deleted the part....

[gsdali]

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.

Re:They must have deleted the part....

[sunwukong]

about the demand for virgin sacrifices in front if statues of Mr McBride.

I believe that's covered when half of /. keels over laughing and the other half chokes on its own bile.

Re:error in the groklaw article

[sloanster]

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.

Stock.

[SharpFang]

This worries me. Either people are so dumb, or SCO has some ace up its a^Hsleeve.

Re:Stock.

[Zocalo]

This is probably just in response to rumours about SCO going after Google. Nothing like a few rumours to hitch a stock price up a few notches, if you expand the time scale of the chart a bit you can see similar surges and falls, and even match them up to Slashdot stories if you are so inclined.

It does appear that people are finally catching on to the scam though; the one year chart seems to show signs of the stock starting to show the end of its upward trend from March through November. I really can't see thing getting to court somehow, which is a shame, because it would have been a fairly good test case for Linux and the GPL.

Re:Stock.

[silentbozo]

It's called the technique of the "Big Lie". You tell a lie so enormous and outrageous, people believe you actually have credibility, because no reasonable, right-thinking person would make such an incredible claim without some kind of truth to back them up.

This is what allows con men to get away with what they do - they act as though they're 100% in the right, and in the absence of any cohesive resistance, people are swayed because, hey, who wants to be wrong? (ie, who wants to be embarassed.)

The current situation has troubled me because SCO has dominated the market share of the press via press releases (just as the lawmakers have dominated the press with the passage of their "anti-spam" bill.) It doesn't matter that 99.99% of what they say is utter bullshit that will eventually land them in court for libel, fraud, and stock manipulation. In the absence of somebody releasing a big fat claim to the contrary, people are inclined to belive what the mainstream press tell them, and the mainstream press isn't exactly doing investigative reporting of SCO (that I know of.)

RTFA. The Submitter didn't.

[EmCeeHawking]

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.

Linus is like Switzerland

[Anthony Boyd]

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.

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.

Re:Linus is like Switzerland

[Frostalicious]

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.

He's not going to get involved, no matter how nasty the other side is.

Besides, after IBM et al. get through with SCO, there's going to be nothing left but bones. Linus won't be able to collect anything.

Re:Linus is like Switzerland

[Rumagent]

"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."

Should it come to that, I don't think that money would be an issue. I mean, who wouldn't donate to see Darl and his SCOundrels crushed?

Re:Linus is like Switzerland

[Idarubicin]

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.

Maybe IBM could lend him one of their lawyers.

Heck, there are probably a number of lawyers who would take the case pro bono just for the publicity. You can't get a much more sympathetic plaintiff.

He also needn't file a multimillion dollar suit. He could choose to ask for one dollar, plus costs, and an injunction against further libellous statements. He doesn't look greedy, and SCO still faces a court declaration that their remarks are defamatory.

Still, it would probably end up soaking up a good bit of his time, and he has better things to do...

Re:Linus is like Switzerland

[big_groo]

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.

Interesting article in Wired about Linus. I think he's doing quite well...

These guys have no "evidence"

[Qweezle]

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...

Fraudulent

[the eric conspiracy]

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.

error in your ability to RTFA

[thentil]

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.

Re:error in your ability to RTFA

[aweraw]

Thats because most of SCO's products contain alot of OSS... Windows, on the other hand, is completly proprietary, and has a huge installed base, and therefore the best yardstick to measure this statment by.

Answer

[SkArcher]

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.

Wrong security

[MrWa]

The overview got it wrong (while making a swipe at Microsoft, so it must be okay.) The security that is mentioned in the letter from SCO is not system security - SCO isn't concerned with that. The security that the letter refers to is security of the IP used in creation of the OS. The next sentence clarifies this:

This process is designed to monitor the security and ownership of intellectual property rights associated with the code.

The author was more interested in taking shots at Microsoft apparently.

This letter looks like another I've seen

[darnok]

Anyone know if "Darl" is a Nigerian name?

The resemblance is uncanny...

Re:This letter looks like another I've seen

[shrubya]

I think you're referring to this one:

DEAR SIR/MADAM:

I AM MR. DARL MCBRIDE CURRENTLY SERVING AS THE PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER OF THE SCO GROUP, FORMERLY KNOWN AS CALDERA SYSTEMS INTERNATIONAL, IN LINDON, UTAH, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. I KNOW THIS LETTER MIGHT SURPRISE YOUR BECAUSE WE HAVE HAD NO PREVIOUS COMMUNICATIONS OR BUSINESS DEALINGS BEFORE NOW.

MY ASSOCIATES HAVE RECENTLY MADE CLAIM TO COMPUTER SOFTWARES WORTH AN ESTIMATED $1 BILLION U.S. DOLLARS. I AM WRITING TO YOU IN CONFIDENCE BECAUSE WE URGENTLY REQUIRE YOUR ASSISTANCE TO OBTAIN THESE FUNDS.

IN THE EARLY 1970S THE AMERICAN TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH CORPORATION DEVELOPED AT GREAT EXPENSE THE COMPUTER OPERATING SYSTEM SOFTWARE KNOWN AS UNIX. UNFORTUNATELY THE LAWS OF MY COUNTRY PROHIBITED THEM FROM SELLING THESE SOFTWARES AND SO THEIR VALUABLE SOURCE CODES REMAINED PRIVATELY HELD. UNDER A SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT SOME PROGRAMMERS FROM THE CALIFORNIA UNIVERSITY OF BERKELEY DID ADD MORE CODES TO THIS OPERATING SYSTEM, INCREASING ITS VALUE, BUT NOT IN ANY WAY TO DILUTE OR DISPARAGE OUR FULL AND RIGHTFUL OWNERSHIP OF THESE CODES, DESPITE ANY AGREEMENT BETWEEN AMERICAN TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH AND THE CALIFORNIA UNIVERSITY OF BERKELEY, WHICH AGREEMENT WE DENY AND DISAVOW.

IN THE YEAR 1984 A CHANGE OF REGIME IN MY COUNTRY ALLOWED THE AMERICAN TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH CORPORATION TO MAKE PROFITS FROM THESE SOFTWARES. IN THE YEAR 1990 OWNERSHIP OF THESE SOFTWARES WAS TRANSFERRED TO THE CORPORATION UNIX SYSTEM LABORATORIES. IN THE YEAR 1993 THIS CORPORATION WAS SOLD TO THE CORPORATION NOVELL. IN THE YEAR 1994 SOME EMPLOYEES OF NOVELL FORMED THE CORPORATION CALDERA SYSTEMS INTERNATIONAL, WHICH BEGAN TO DISTRIBUTE AN UPSTART OPERATING SYSTEM KNOWN AS LINUX. IN THE YEAR 1995 NOVELL SOLD THE UNIX SOFTWARE CODES TO SCO. IN THE YEAR 2001 OCCURRED A SEPARATION OF SCO, AND THE SCO BRAND NAME AND UNIX CODES WERE ACQUIRED BY THE CALDERA SYSTEMS INTERNATIONAL, AND IN THE FOLLOWING YEAR THE CALDERA SYSTEMS INTERNATIONAL WAS RENAMED SCO GROUP, OF WHICH I CURRENTLY SERVE AS CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER.

MY ASSOCIATES AND I OF THE SCO GROUP ARE THEREFORE THE FULL AND RIGHTFUL OWNERS OF THE OPERATING SYSTEM SOFTWARES KNOWN AS UNIX. OUR ENGINEERS HAVE DISCOVERED THAT NO FEWER THAN SEVENTY (70) LINES OF OUR VALUABLE AND PROPRIETARY SOURCE CODES HAVE APPEARED IN THE UPSTART OPERATING SYSTEM LINUX. AS YOU CAN PLAINLY SEE, THIS GIVES US A CLAIM ON THE MILLIONS OF LINES OF VALUABLE SOFTWARE CODES WHICH COMPRISE THIS LINUX AND WHICH HAS BEEN SOLD AT GREAT PROFIT TO VERY MANY BUSINESS ENTERPRISES. OUR LEGAL EXPERTS HAVE ADVISED US THAT OUR CONTRIBUTION TO THESE CODES IS WORTH AN ESTIMATED ONE (1) BILLION U.S. DOLLARS.

UNFORTUNATELY WE ARE HAVING DIFFICULTY EXTRACTING OUR FUNDS FROM THESE COMPUTER SOFTWARES. TO THIS EFFECT I HAVE BEEN GIVEN THE MANDATE BY MY COLLEAGUES TO CONTACT YOU AND ASK FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE. WE ARE PREPARED TO SELL YOU A SHARE IN THIS ENTERPRISE, WHICH WILL SOON BE VERY PROFITABLE, THAT WILL GRANT YOU THE RIGHTS TO USE THESE VALUABLE SOFTWARES IN YOUR BUSINESS ENTERPRISE. UNFORTUNATELY WE ARE NOT ABLE AT THIS TIME TO SET A PRICE ON THESE RIGHTS. THEREFORE IT IS OUR RESPECTFUL SUGGESTION, THAT YOU MAY BE IMMEDIATELY A PARTY TO THIS ENTERPRISE, BEFORE OTHERS ACCEPT THESE LUCRATIVE TERMS, THAT YOU SEND US THE NUMBER OF A BANKING ACCOUNT WHERE WE CAN WITHDRAW FUNDS OF A SUITABLE AMOUNT TO GUARANTEE YOUR PARTICIPATION IN THIS ENTERPRISE. AS AN ALTERNATIVE YOU MAY SEND US THE NUMBER AND EXPIRATION DATE OF YOUR MAJOR CREDIT CARD, OR YOU MAY SEND TO US A SIGNED CHECK FROM YOUR BANKING ACCOUNT PAYABLE TO "SCO GROUP" AND WITH THE AMOUNT LEFT BLANK FOR US TO CONVENIENTLY SUPPLY.

KINDLY TREAT THIS REQUEST AS VERY IMPORTANT AND STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL. I HONESTLY ASSURE YOU THAT THIS TRANSACTION IS 100% LEGAL AND RISK-FREE.

Inevitable slashdotting

[Dav3K]

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?

Hmmm..contradiction

[kirthn]

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?

Re:Hmmm..contradiction

[Tack]

a) Linux has been built from contributions by numerous unrelated and unknown software developers
b)Many Linux contributors were originally UNIX developers

It's certainly misleading, but it's not a contradiction.

He didn't say Linux was built entirely by unrelated and unknown developers. He said numerous. Therefore this allows for many Linux contributors to be UNIX developers.

Of course, the letter certainly is riddled with errors and outright lies, but this particular one is not a (logical) contradiction.

Jason.

Re:RTFA. The Submitter didn't.

[BrynM]

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"?

"IAL"s aren't slashdotters. Our circular thinking and assumptions based on little data are even too much for them. ;)

Bastards....

[herrvinny]

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.

Re:Need some info gentlemen.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's scheduled for April 11, 2005. It will be amazing if SCO can make it long enough to see even the beginning of the IBM and Red Hat trials.

Would somebody please script this?

[WasterDave]

Oh, look. You can get SCO to ring you up and discuss buying a license:

http://www.sco.com/solution_builder/request_a_ca ll .html

Isn't there a US white pages on CDROM somewhere?

Dave

Re:Would somebody please script this?

[davidstrauss]

Isn't there a US white pages on CDROM somewhere?

Why use the white pages when you can use the national do not call list?

Nooo!!!!!!

[mikehunt]

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!

NOT

[villoks]

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.

General Unix Philosophy?

[tesloni]

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.

OSS less restrictive?

[fermion]

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.
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?

This is interesting...

[miketang16]

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...

Very effective letter

[IamGarageGuy 2]

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.

Re:Very effective letter

[bstadil]

This is not a Code war, it is a PR war and the geeks are losing

First lets see who wins the war, you can win most of the battles and still lose the war, Think Vietnam.

That being said the PR war is being won by OpenSource. The reason being that the more fluffy technical press like eweek et al, have started to cover this issue in some details and they have started to see that SCO is blowin smoke. In the process a lot of the people that matters is getting more informed.

What some wallstreet speculators thinks and how that effects the price of SCO's shares is of no direct consequense for the uptake of FOOS.

Lastly the more it infromation about Microsofts involvement (if any) that leaks the better.

Nothing, I mean Nothng will help Linux more that a general understanding among the technical inclined that they are running scared.

And the EULA says...

[PSaltyDS]

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.

My favourite!

[schon]

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!

Re:My favourite!

[Yebyen]

SCO expects all of their employees to be inbred! What they became is the tech equvalent of Deliverance!

Haven't you met Darl, his brother Darl, his brother Darl, and his other brother Darl?

Re:My favourite!

[m00nun1t]

It is Utah.

Re:My favourite!

[mwa]

I know how to establish a relationship among all those unknown software developers. Get them all to sign their names on a lawsuit against SCO for copyright infringement in violation of their chosen license agreement.

Then they'll all be known and have a relationship and SCO will be satisfied. (If I only had 1 line accepted into the kernel, I'd be suing SCO for a percentage of all their Linux earnings to date.)

No protection of IP?!

[DeadVulcan]

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?

Re:No protection of IP?!

[GSloop]

Not only that, but they were duped into distributing the "stolen" code themselves. Oops!

"Damn," Darl is saying ..."where were the lawyers then. They should have warned us that distributing our own source code under the GPL might have some unintended consequenses!"

"We weren't really expected to know what that source code was, were we?"

"I never read contracts either - I'm not supposed to right?"

Sheesh!

Re:Where's the koolaid?

[lurking]

A re-enactment of Jonestown? That would be just too perfect. ;)

They STOLE it...

[Anonymous Coward]

... 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....

Clippy on crack?

[Prof. Pi]

hmm maybe clippy was first on them that was using crack...

Don't crack users tend to be way too thin due to undereating?

Well then, that's convenient.

[mcc]

I certainly hope that RedHat has time to enter this letter as evidence in their lawsuit against SCO for Lanham Act violations.

Re:Where's the koolaid?

[PSaltyDS]

You make an interesting allusion...

- Jim Jones prepped his people with paranoid tales of how the heathen were coming to get them. Daryl preaches that OSS programmers are unwashed commies out to destroy honest proprietary programmer's families.

- The murders at Jones-towne were triggered by an ivestigation from a Congressman who was about to make Jones' abuses public. So we should expect the sweet, cherry-berry flavored goodbye at SCO when the SEC announces their pump-and-dump investigation of Daryl and Co.

- Jim Jones whole career was based on a self-destructive pack of lies. Daryl... well, you get the idea!

Any technology distinguisable from magic is insufficiently advanced.

Re:Piece of the Moon for Sale

[falcon5768]

why would you EVER want to spend money on SCO, no thank you common schoolyard grade rocks are perfectly fine for putting nasty bumps and gashes on those assholes heads.

SCO is getting one thing right

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Anyone read hanzie's response on Groklaw?

[Anonymous Coward]

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 software design

[theolein]

SCO telling IBM about the software design process is like someone telling a Bedouin about sand or a fish about water.

Re:suing end-users

[Anonymous Coward]

would they HAVE to sue me? Because if they don't - they aren't enforcing protection of their IP, and therefore ... relinquish it or something. Kind of like it's the responsibility of a Trademark holder to enforce their ownership of the trademark, or it becomes public domain, or something.

No. If a trademark owner doesn't enforce their rights, it is possible for the trademark to become public domain. This does not apply to copyright and patents (SCO doesn't even own the UNIX(TM) trademark, the Open Group does).

You don't lose your copyrights and patents if you don't prosecute violators. Copyright lasts until it expires (a long time, due to Disney's legislation), and patents last 20 years.

(obviously I don't really understand the issues I'm asking about)

That's ok... at least you ask, unlike many slashdotters :)

Speaking of sinking ship

[geekoid]

The only difference between the Titanic and SCO is that the Titanic had paying customers.

Re:Where's the koolaid?

[dmaxwell]

"Reverend Darl, is it really too late? What about Microsoft? What about over at Sun?"

"It's too late my daughter. Even Microsoft and Sun have turned their backs on us. It's too late. This is a cruel and unjust world. We are surrounded by host of hippies. They are all against us. There is not much time my corrupt children. Form orderly lines and drink the potion. We will extort freely in the next world......"

Open source is BAD... except when we ship it!

[El]

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?

Read the George Harrison copyright case

[cdn-programmer]

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".

Re:Read the George Harrison copyright case

[Ath]

I do not think this is a real problem. In the Harrison vs. Chiffons case, it was addressing a specific combination of musical notes. Copyright is limited to the expression and not the result.

SCO is not suing anyone for copyright infringement, despite the stupidity of Darl McBride's letter and his numerous other ramblings. The obfuscation and derivative arguments from SCO are not copyright arguments. They are arguments about potential contractual violations from IBM. It is the contract between IBM and AT&T (now SCO) that has the derivative works restriction.

The fact is, you can create duplications of software all day long and you won't violate any copyrights if you are creating your own source code. You may violate other things like trademarks or contractual restrictions you had from the original company, but you won't violate a copyright.

The Harrison case, therefore, is completely inapplicable to the original SCO vs. IBM case. As I understand it, IBM did counterclaim that SCO had violated IBM copyrights by taking copyrighted code and incorporating it into SCO's Unix distribution and/or Caldera's Linux distribution.

SCO's underlying problem is that they sued IBM for one thing and then have a PR program in place complaining about an entirely different thing. Now the two things have gotten jumbled together.

Re:Commercial != Proprietary

[Tsali]

Well, I was carefully selected and screened and build propietary, secure software.

I can't program for shit compared to Linus and Co.

Re:SCO security

[Feyr]

i can't tell if you're a troll, or if you seriously believe that.

if you follow bugtraq and full-disclosure, you'll see a constant stream of security fixes from the sco security team. for roughly the same packages as redhat/debian/suse/etc.. (where applicable)

so no sco isn't "behind" in security fixes. most projects are "code once, modify slightly" anyway (hell, if debian can make their own patch, im sure sco can too)

DERIVATIVE? Sounds harsher than "infringement"

[Pizaz]

"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

i'm certianly glad the world

[themusicgod1]

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.

may be good to sue bankrupt company

[maxwells_deamon]

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

McBride is not Unique

[nagora]

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

Capitalism, Communism, and Open Souce

[einhverfr]

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.

Re:Capitalism, Communism, and Open Souce

[HiThere]

I feel that Marx made a great many foolish mistakes in his understanding of human nature. And also that no "communist" government was very marxist.

This isn't surprising. Governments tend to be run by people who worship power politics. And Marx didn't realise just how vulnerable his idealistic system was to such folk. Nice rhetoric, but about as relevant as that of most large organizations. They say what they think they can get people to believe, if it's true, so much the better. (Marx was basically a Christian theologist disguising himself as an economist and a historian. But the theologist determined the arguments that the economist and the historian would recognize. I have a friend who called Marxism a [Roman Catholic] Christian heresy, and I think he had a point.)

I'm not trusting enough of people to believe in socialism of any sort. Most people are honorable, but it only takes a few bad apples at the wrong places ... But the same is true for capitalism. (Can anyone say Enron or Monsanto?) FOSS (well, FSS anyway) is an attempt to apply the current system to achieve good results for those who create the goods. Because of the nature of those goods, there isn't much need to worry about others getting copies. It's not socialism, because it allows everyone to grab greedily at all the code they want. In this sense a rapaciously insatiable appetite is allowed, because the cost of allowing it is trivial. One wing of the FSS groups (GPL) says "but if you use any of this stuff, I get the code back as the price I charge for contributing my stuff" where the other wing (BSD) says "it doesn't cost me anything to share this, so take it if you want, and use it as you will". Neither of these points of view have much in common with EITHER capitalism OR socialism, which are both organized around the idea of scarcity and zero sum distribution models that don't apply to information (at least not unless they are artificially imposed).

Motion to get the hell on with it....

[A1tha1us]

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...