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More Damning SCO Evidence At Groklaw
An anonymous reader writes "There's a very interesting story up at Groklaw right now. PJ reports on new evidence that Chris Hellwig, a SCO employee, contributed code to SMP, XFS, and JFS and did so with the knowledge of his supervisor." Groklaw is thorough, and this is another good example of just quite how thorough.
If it is possible to prove conspiracy, it SCO will be left without any recourse in regard to its so called "intellectual property," which Novell still owns... Also, if conspiracy is proven, SCO, and its board, will face criminal, as well as civil penalties.
Viral software licensing is not freedom, it is in fact GNU/Socialism.
"This is a Linux country; On a quiet night, you can hear SCO and its legal case cracking under the weight of its ever mounting lies."
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
If this is true and is proven to be true, heads will roll, namely SCO's.
After all this, I can't believe that this has come out, it doesn't surprise me in this day and age of sleazy business tactics, but this is really low. They should be ashamed of themselves.
I hope the FBI, DoJ and Stock Exachange Commission get involved now as it looks like pumpndump, Fraud, extortion, and slander to me.
"You're on my side and the dark side, like Lando Calrissian?" --Gimpy, Undergrads
He is in the top-ten list of commits to both the Linux 2.4 and Linux 2.5 tree according to the Bitkeeper statistics (which he hasn't faked himself but still should be taken with care).
After a number of smaller network administration and programming contracts he worked for Caldera's German development subsidiary on various kernel and userlevel aspects of the OpenLinux distribution. Last year he joined the fileystem and storage group at SGI and is focussing on XFS for Linux now.
http://www.ukuug.org/bios+profiles/CHellwig.sht
Look here and enjoy SCO's own word on how they supported and contributef to Linux. Year 2000 is the best.
Quote from May 2000
A corporate sponsor of Linux International, SCO has always supported open standards, UNIX Systems and server-based technologies and solutions that benefit business computing. Our engineers have continuously participated in the Open Source movement, providing source code such as lxrun, and the OpenSAR kernel monitoring utility.
Compare this to the legal filing they made here a few days ago telling the Judge that they never contributed Code.
Help fight continental drift.
I don't think I'm the only person thinking this: what if SCO planted their code in Linux? Maybe they were planning this all along.
Occam's Razor for conspiracy theorists suggests that one should never ascribe to conspiracy what can be ascribed to incompetence. SCO/Caldera submtted a bunch of code to the Linux kernel. Much later, Darl and company come along, see code in the Linux kernel that matches code they have copyright, and without a clue about what they are doing, thing that they've found a goldmine.
Assuredly SCO has given ample evidece of being blindingly incompetent in the past, such that sheer incompetence is hands-down the most plausible explanation here.
-Rob
The can hardly do that. They were quite proud of it at the time.
Her efforts in putting together this site, with the participation of so many knowledgeable contributers is fascinating, and I'm sure it's valuable to those who oppose SCO's legal antics. I find the site to be generally "wide and deep" (thanks, Darl), and I'll wager that the people at SCO take very little humor from it. I wonder if the legal teams at IBM and Red Hat find it interesting? It's seems that there's a huge amount of free legal and technical research being undertaken.
Pamala Jones has my early vote for "Linux Booster of the Year for 2003".
Any judge who believes a company that suddenly claims ignorance after years of marketing Linux under the GPL, unlimited access to Linux source-code, and now proof of Linux code submissions, should have his financials investigated just to be sure his rulings don't return a profit.
= 9J =
Cross your heart and hope to die, SCO? Or cross your fingers behind your back? Let's see what the evidence shows.
SCO has specifically mentioned the following four as being code at issue in this case: JFS, NUMA, RCU, and SMP, and while it is conceivable that the "subject code" they are talking about in this response to IBM's interrogatory is referring to some other code, it seems reasonable to look at the code they have mentioned publicly. Actually, it's more than reasonable. It's our only choice, until they tell us exactly what code they are complaining about with specificity. Is it true that they never "authorized, approved or knowingly released" any of this code for inclusion in any Linux kernel or as part of any Linux distribution?
Let's start with JFS. In the case of JFS, they not only distributed Linux with JFS, one of Caldera's employees, Christoph Hellwig, contributed code to JFS, as Groklaw reported on July 18. Here is a snip from that article:
And he is listed on this page of JFS contributors. Here is IBM's page on Who Is Using JFS? and it lists United Linux. So they not only released a distro with JFS in it under the GPL, their employee helped make it h
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
how long does SCO intend to bang its head against this particular wall?
... to me this seems like an underhanded attempt to knock the wind out of our sails, regardless of whether or not our ship sinks. fortunately the open source movement does not seem to attract developers that quit at the first sign of difficulty, so i am optimistic that sco will fail even in this capacity.
... i was raised on a farm ... i rode plenty of horses in my day, let me tell you ... and the one thing i learned from shucking corn and milking cows was ALWAYS to claim that the other guy's ranch was really MY ranch, even though the other guy built his ranch all by himself from the ground up and never asked me for any help."
i suppose this does pose a threat to linux in terms of leaving a bad taste in vendors' mouths concerning but there really is absolutely no way SCO is going to shut us down.
even if SCO gives linux and gnu somewhat of a bad reputation, we already have major players in the industry who are committed to supporting linux (ibm, novell, sun). and by the time all of this bullshit blows over, linux will be even more robust and marketable, and our detractors will soon find themselves knocking down our doors once again to profit from our technology.
really the only thing we have to fear from the whole sco debacle is discouragement
but really the most appalling thing about the situation is sco's utter lack of common sense; it makes me wonder how they thought they were going to win in the first place (see below). how do they expect their argument to hold up in court when they STILL HAVE NOT YET PRODUCED ANY HARD EVIDENCE?!?
darl mcbride: "well
SCO, if you are reading this, pack your bags, go home. to quote eddie murphy (quoting richard pryor): "have a coke and a smile and shut the fuck up."
we all get the point that you don't like us, but unless you are going to actually do something about it, piss off.
You have a point, but I do believe most of the /. community is not so much defending IBM, but damning SCO because they aren't following the rules. In a copyright infringement you are supposed to recieve a "Cease & Desist" order first. Not only did Linux users globally get a "Cease & Desist" order, but SCO has never told any of us what exactly we are supposed to Cease or Desist! You can't tell somebody "Stop that" and not answer the obvious "Stop what?" you will get in response. And insofar as IBM's involvement, we're sticking up for them because they're sticking up for us who can't afford to fight this bullshit.
Kleedrac
Sure we wang, can.
There's a legal premise that would cover that kind of behavior: estoppel. Certain behavior on your part can bar you from later claiming damage in a civil suit. For example, if I told you it was okay to eat my lunch, I could not later sue you for improper consumption of my sandwich.
To the extent that an agent of The SCO Group helped develop and promote these technologies, The SCO Group is barred from making claims against others on that basis. There are lots of other defenses available, and other forms of estoppel than simple promissory estoppel (when you say something is acceptable, either explicitly or implicitly), but the above would apply to many defendants at once.
This has been known for quite a while, and to be honest it doesn't change that much. SCO will simply claim they had no idea where this code originated for at the time and so never sanctioned its official distribution. Their entire case is ridiculous, however it would be ridiculous even if they hadn't ever distributed linux or contributed to the kernel.
I'll dig up the old standby: RTFA. Better yet, RTFPTLTFTA, otherwise known as "read the f'ing post that links to the f'ing article", as it pretty well spells out the difference between what Groklaw discovered and what's been "known for quite a while" - namely that SCO willfully and knowingly not only distributed but also contributed to specific features of the kernel that they specifically claimed never to have touched in their legal filings. As far as I know, this is completely new - and it's not just an allegation, it's proved in the linked article.
In other words, they both modified and distributed the specific code they are claiming to now have been stolen from them and they did it under the GPL. This code did not get "misappropriated" from SCO's Unix into Linux, this code was put into Linux by SCO. This is huge.
IANAL, but it would seem to me that this blows pretty much their entire case out of the water in one fell swoop. This renders any contractual issues (the basis of their case against IBM) moot and leaves them only one fallback - that the GPL is invalid and is trumped by their own copyright. Of course, this is something they've also been saying now for a few months (not since the beginning of their case, though - I think they probably realized their case against IBM was flimsy at best a while back), but to say this news is "old" or doesn't affect their legal standing seems to be a misunderstanding of the facts.
If these are facts (and it seems Groklaw has done their homework to me), then SCO will get laughed out of court on day one. They did something, they lied about it, then they filed a lawsuit based on that lie... and now they've been caught.
In sharp contrast to /.
Jonathan Pearce jonathan@pearce.name
3EAAFB2A http://www.jonathan.pearce.name/
Comment removed based on user account deletion
IANALBIAALS (but I am a law student)
Well, if the programmer had the OK to release this from a higher-up, or if he did so with a reasonable understanding that it was OK, he was acting within the scope of authority. At that point, SCO knew because he *was* SCO in terms of that transaction.
And of course, you all convieniently ignore IBM's counter suit which includes patent violations for stuff the slashdot crowd would ordinarily claim were "obvious".
I'll bite
You are forgetting the fact that these patents were not enforced until SCO picked the fight. Also SCO never asked for clarification, they just filed suit. IBM probly has some hideous patents hidden in its massive fortress of leagal solitude. I feel no remose for the kid punces the 800lb gorilla in the face, and then claims to be the victm when he gets his ass kicked.
As for Communisim, since when is doing your own thing communism, I like, enjoy and profit from open source software. In a way it is the Nash Equilibrium, in which we do not only what is best for us, but also what is best for the group. Now this is decidedly not communistic, its enlightened self intrest. After all its free as in freedom, do you horde your speech?
I am done, so why don't you take your troll energy and post some goatse links.
Did Glenn Beck rape and kill a girl in 1990? gb1990.com
Without a kernel debugger, developing an SMP kernel becomes increasingly difficult. Register at Groklaw, or wait till the article is published for all the nitty-gritty details.
Which is to say, couldn't they conceivably claim issues with JCS, NUMA, RCU, and SMP code that's simply separate from what their boy Hellig was working near?
I realize that either way their argument is crap but it, if they are going to pull something like that, it's crap that they can still, albeit insultingly, disingenuously, and vexatiously, hold onto their claims and simply fail to admit what obvious liars they are?
Just wondering.
Quothe Mr. Hellwig:
"It might be more interesting to look for stolen Linux code in Unixware,
I'd suggest with the support for a very well known Linux fileystem in
the Linux compat addon product for UnixWare.." (sic)
hint hint...
hint hint hint..
HINT HINT HINT HINT HINT!
Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
Any judge who believes a company that suddenly claims ignorance after years of marketing Linux under the GPL, unlimited access to Linux source-code, and now proof of Linux code submissions, should have his financials investigated just to be sure his rulings don't return a profit.
In this I wholeheartedly agree. Not to mention that if this goes to court, which it presumably eventually will, killing as much time as possible so the perps can liquidate as much of their holdings as they think the SEC will ignore.
I hope the judge explains the penalties for perjury very carefully to the members of both legal teams while stareing straight at the SCO side of the table. Including Darl McBride if he has what it takes to show up without dipping his face in liquid nitrogen to keep it straight while he testifies.
Bah, bunch of losers, and I'm damned if I can understand why the VC and market analyst people cannot see that. There must be some kind of a soundproof barrier between reality and the guys bidding this crap on the marketplace floor...
But like P. T. Barnum said, there is one born every minute.
Cheers, Gene
Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. It's called the doctrine of 'apparant authority'. If Hellwig and his supervisor acted on behalf of SCO, presented themselves as being representatives of SCO, and there was no reason for Linus not to believe this, they are acting for SCO.
Now, go back and read the article(s). SCO was advertising (on their own or via UnitedLinux) many of the features they are now suing over. They knew what was going on. They condoned it. They are engaging in barratry.
IANAL; clearly, neither are you.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
I have always thought it a cheap trick when a story creates a character that is so utterly unbelievably evil that all you what to see is them crushed under the grinding wheels of a gravel truck and extruded thru a rock crusher. And then of course they do in the end just to satisfy the primitive parts of your brain. This I believe is the hallmark of an inferior story and the definition of poor literature.
However here we have in real life several characters (that is SCO's upper managerment and new found lawyer buddys) that fit this description neatly. So let hurry this story line along - I will go pop some more popcorn.
...the only thing we have to fear from the whole sco debacle is discouragement...
Let me nominate distraction as the biggest risk. Whenever one has had to circle the wagons, the resumed journey is never the same. A wonderful model of meritocracy may be forever changed into a quasi corporate structure -- at the extreme, leading to a world where Legal has to vet everything before its release.
This needn't be a negative, just acknowledgement that linux must evolve in an unexpected way, in order to survive and prosper in this unexpected New World. Still, I shed a tear.
"Inquiring Minds Want to Know!"
The statutory position (Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) ss 128-30) codifies the common law and allows certain "good faith" assumptions to be made, including that a person held out as an officer or agent is properly exercising the power customarily given to a person in that position. As the person giving away the code is a senior figure in SCO's open source operations it may be held, under Australian law, that the outsiders were entitled to assume that he was authorized to give away code on his corporate employer's behalf.
Again I have no idea of the general US position.