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SCO Code to be Protected in Closed Court
An anonymous reader writes "SCO public relations director Blake Stowell today said that the company had secured permission to present the code alleged to have found its way into Linux to a closed court. Once again SCO is refusing to tell Linux users just what code they claim is infringing on their IP rights, while still threatening to sue corporations running Linux."
The question, of course, is whether the claim is true or not -- it is coming from SCO, after all. There's a good chance it could be true, though, because a big part of SCO's claim is for trade secret violations -- which require the alleged secret to, well, remain secret (disclosure does not effect copyright, but it does trade secrets). It only makes sense for them to seek a protective order, and it does not really effect the case from the judge's and lawyers' standpoint. But that doesn't make it suck any less for the rest of us who want to see the code for ourselves.
When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.
Mark Twain
They're going to show it to IBM as well. Not to worry, IBM's army of blue-suited LawDrones will tear it apart line by line.
Trolling is a art,
My thoughts exactly... although I don't see where this is 'bad for linux' exactly... just makes sure that the case is longer and more drawn out because IBM and Co. will not have the benifit of the OS community to do leg work to find the credit for contributed code. SCO learned the last time they publicly showed any code how quickly the OS community could find the true roots of the shown code.
Judge Wells seems to have shown some contempt directed at SCO. She specifically commented about their providing the SysV code to IBM in a useless printed paper format. When Kevin explained that they knew IBM did something wrong based on IBM's public statements (and therefore needed all the code to figure out exactly what), she replied that IBM wasn't the only party making statements to the press!
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
For those of you that need a constant SCO fix ... it seems the place to be is on the Yahoo finance boards
General consensus is that the stock will tank any day now , I'm looking forward to seeing the blood run freely.
OpenOffice tips:richhillsoftware.com
For the court to release SCO's source code into the public realm would be absurd. Now we all know it's not their code, but this hasn't been proven in court yet. What if Microsoft stole your code and you had to publicize it in order to prove your point? I think IBM will be able to pull the resources together to refute SCO's claims.
In other words, this is typical SCO FUD and misrepresentation of the facts, and in this case, facts that are already old and well known to those following the case. SCO has not won any victory here; quite the contrary. The alleged code (if it exists at all) will almost certainly be available after some very standard legal procedures.
There is truly nothing to see here; zdnet got suckered by a SCO press release. Regrettable, as they should have known better by now, but aside from allowing Darl et. al. to defraud some day traders and invenstors for another few days, it really doesn't amount to anything at all.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
The executive board of SCO consists of:
Darl C. McBride
Chris Sontag
Robert K. Bench
Reg Broughton
Sean Wilson
Larry Gasparro
Jeff Hunsaker
Ralph J. Yarro III
Steve Cakebread
Edward E. Iacobucci
R. Duff Thompson
Darcy Mott
K. Fred Skousen
Thomas P. Raimondi, Jr
If you see any of these people in years following the implosion of SCO, do not give them a job. Do not enter into contracts with them. Do not loan them your car. They have proven themselves incapable of planning for the future of a company and incapable of behaving like mature partners in the sphere of business. At a time when SCO desperately needs to be investing in research and development, these people are plunging the company into bankruptcy. They're taking a tremendous gamble with their shareholders money, a gamble which even if successful would only mean residuals on existing Linux implementations in the US, and a painful migration for everyone else to OpenBSD. They're betting everyone else's money on a long shot, and should be held accountable for their irresponsible actions.
Once again, those names are
Darl C. McBride
Chris Sontag
Robert K. Bench
Reg Broughton
Sean Wilson
Larry Gasparro
Jeff Hunsaker
Ralph J. Yarro III
Steve Cakebread
Edward E. Iacobucci
R. Duff Thompson
Darcy Mott
K. Fred Skousen
Thomas P. Raimondi, Jr
The ______ Agenda
Japan police arrest two P2P users
There are around a quarter of a million users of the supposedly anonymous file-trading network, called Winny, which rides on the more well-known Freenet network.
I don't know why everybody is making such a big deal over this. If you want to see the infringing code get it from sco. They will make it available (provided you sign a NDA).
Taken directly from the SCO Linux IP License FAQ.
15. Is SCO willing to show any examples of source-code violations to Linux users?
SCO has been showing examples of direct line-by-line copying of UNIX code into Linux to hundreds of industry analysts, reporters, customers, partners, and industry influencers since June of this year. To view this code, interested parties have had to sign a non-disclosure agreement verifying that they would keep this code in confidence. SCO continues to identify and show this code to parties willing to sign a non-disclosure agreement.
There you go, talk with SCO, sign the NDA and start grep'ing the source tree, then lets really see if SCO has anything.
Yes, go read the stories on Groklaw. IBM does indeed have a right to see the evidence against it; that was the core of the recent ruling that went against SCO. SCO said they didn't want to show any code until IBM gave them about ten billion things (e.g. the source code for every version ever of AIX). IBM argued that SCO needed to show some evidence, since they are the plaintiffs and all. The judge ruled completely for IBM, and SCO has 30 days to cough up specific evidence (which must include specific lines of Linux, no more of this "here's a few hundred source files; you figure out which lines infringe" they already tried). Also, IBM doesn't have to provide any evidence during the 30 days; all discovery is on hold until SCO provides the evidence.
All of the above is bad for SCO, good for IBM. As FreeUser insightfully observed above, this is an attempt by SCO to spin a FUD web since they desperately wish for some good news.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Ah, another victim of SCO's dishonesty.
Look back over the case that SCO filed against IBM. SCO is not claiming that IBM ripped off code SCO wrote or already owned.
I want to say that again because it's the crux of SCO's lies: SCO is not claiming that IBM ripped off code that SCO wrote or already owned.
What SCO is claiming is that code that IBM wrote for SCO was also included in Linux, allegedly contrary to IBM's license.
Essentially, SCO is claiming IBM had a "no compete" clause somewhere in that license. I don't know if they did or not. Even if they did, I don't know if they contributed code to Linux in contravention of the clause.
But please let's not let SCO distort the question of fact: they have never claimed that pre-existing code owned by SCO was added to Linux. They have claimed that code was simultaneously added to Linux and (I think; somebody correct me here) AIX in violation of IBM's license with SCO.
All's true that is mistrusted
You're thinking of criminal law, this is a civil case. But even in criminal cases, the public can be excluded from certain evidence and testimony. Only a defendant has the right to see all of it.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Actually, there is some good reading over on Yahoo's finance pages. Several insiders have been selling off their stock continuously since SCO sued. While that isn't evidence of a pump-and-dump scam in itself, it is information that no serious investor can ignore. The insiders don't have any confidence that they can keep the share price this high. Let's review the numbers, shall we? (I've eliminated "Planned Sales" from my totals because they are generally reflected in the actual sales the same day, or a couple of days later.)
The grand totals are: 34,140 shares purchased through the exercise of options for $42,690.00. No purchases other than through options were reported. 184,440 shares were sold for a total of $2,468,103.00. That's sixe insiders who have been selling off their shares throughout the past few months. And according to the record of insider holdings, these guys between them only owned about 380,000 shares as of the dates of their most recent transactions. They are getting their money out. To me, this smells very bad.
Revenge Of The Nerds
Daniel Lyons, 12.16.03, 12:30 PM ET
NEW YORK - In the real world, Brenda Banks is a 54-year-old grandmother in Greer, S.C., a former warehouse supervisor who teaches rubber-stamping arts and crafts classes. But online she transforms into "br3n," a passionate user of Linux software who cruises Web sites posting smash-mouth messages about SCO Group. So far Banks has posted more than 1,500 messages on SCO's Yahoo! message board alone--including five on Thanksgiving.
"I feel very strongly about it," says Banks, who runs Linux on a six-year-old Acer home computer. "They want to come and stab Linux. It's just not right."
Banks has joined thousands of others in a rag-tag Linux army dedicated to the destruction of SCO (nasdaq: SCOX - news - people ), the Lindon, Utah, company that last March sued IBM (nyse: IBM - news - people ), claiming IBM put code from Unix, for which SCO holds some copyrights, into Linux, which is distributed for free. SCO also aims to collect license fees from companies that use Linux. IBM denies SCO's charges and has countersued. SCO also has been sued by Red Hat (nasdaq: RHAT - news - people ), a Linux distributor.
Linux crusaders insist SCO's claims have no merit and that SCO's evil managers will all end up in jail. They write to government agencies complaining about SCO, and some have even threatened to boycott the Royal Bank of Canada (nyse: RY - news - people ), one of SCO's investors. SCO's management has hired bodyguards after receiving death threats. Robert Enderle, an analyst who believes SCO's claims might be legitimate, says he and others also have been threatened, and says this "techno-insanity" verges on terrorism.
How do people get so emotionally involved with a piece of office equipment? "People are seeing something going on that they really consider evil," says Bruce Perens, a well-known Linux developer and independent consultant. "These people are just showing moral outrage."
Linux was developed collaboratively by thousands of people around the world, all working for free. Now some of those folks are becoming amateur legal researchers and financial sleuths too. Banks says she has complained about SCO to the Securities and Exchange Commission. "There's after-hours trading going on," she says. Isn't this common? "Not that I'm aware of." Moreover, sometimes SCO shares drop during the day, then rise in after-hours trading. "That raises alarm bells," she says. "Maybe there are some preference trades going on." And what are preference trades? "I don't know," she says.
Much of the rhetoric is ordinary cheerleading: "we will WIN. sco is TOAST," Banks wrote recently on Yahoo! (nasdaq: YHOO - news - people ). But sometimes it gets ugly, as when Banks and others refer to Laura DiDio, a market research analyst who is unpopular among Linux fans, as "Dildio." Says Banks: "I don't associate 'Dildio' with anything bad, and I think someone's mind has to be in the gutter to associate it with that. No offense."
Says DiDio of her tormentors, who swamp her with hateful email and "report" her to her supervisors at Boston-based Yankee Group: "Welcome to the wonderful world of Linux. These people are living in an alternative reality."
One poster, "korbomite," on SCO's Yahoo! message board has posted more than 3,100 messages to the board and says he is "single-mindedly working to destroy this company," though he won't give his real name. Another frequent poster, who requested anonymity, says he has stored evidence against SCO on CDs and stashed them in safe-deposit boxes scattered around his state "just in case." He says he has shared his evidence with the SEC and other government agencies.
Some in this camp are so angry that in December, when SCO said hackers had attacked its Web site, Linux zealots suggested SCO was staging the attacks itself. "If there is an attack, where is the proof? Did SCO...attack itself?" wrote Pamela Jones, a White Plains, N.Y. paralegal who runs a Web site called Groklaw which is d
Moderating 101
"The creator of Freenet, Ian Clarke, has cast doubt on whether Winny uses Freenet's full identity-cloaking features or its cryptography, according to a report in New Scientist."
The supreme court of the US has not ruled on EULA's specifially to my knowledge, I'd love to see evidence to the contrary.
Here's a decision where a particular EULA was upheld, and also ruled that EULAs can, in general, be legal (generally) so long as the buyer has recourse to refuse the additional terms.
Again, EULA's can be legal, though it doesn't mean that every EULA is legal.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
AT&T vs BSD was settled, not tried. The settlement was confidential by the agreement of both parties. In the SCO-IBM case, it sounds like SCO wants it confidential, IBM wants it open, and the court took SCO's side. That's stupid of the court.