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SCO Gets More Desperate; Sends More Letters
isn't my name writes "The New York Times is reporting that SCO has sent new letters to Linux-using businesses with specific examples of infringement. SCO has its fiscal earnings call scheduled tomorrow at 11am. In all probability, these letters are designed to get analyst/reporter interest focused on their claims instead of the numerous fundamental problems with their case. So, slashdotters, we need to find a copy of the letter and tear it apart with specificity before tomorrow morning in the US East Coast, so that any analysts/reporters will not be distracted."
SCO Sends Second Warning Letter to Linux Users
By STEVE LOHR
Published: December 22, 2003
he SCO Group plans to announce today that it is escalating its campaign to collect license fees from corporations using the Linux operating system, with warning letters to the companies. Supporters of Linux, including I.B.M. and other companies, say that SCO's interpretation of its claim over Linux is exaggerated.
The letters, dated Friday, are the second round that SCO has sent to corporate users of Linux. SCO sent letters to 1,500 companies in May, warning them that it contended that Linux had violated its intellectual property rights. SCO owns the rights to the Unix operating system. The company asserts that Linux, a variant of Unix that is distributed free, violates SCO's license and copyright.
The new letters, signed by Ryan E. Tibbitts, SCO's general counsel, name more than 65 programming files that "have been copied verbatim from our copyrighted Unix code base and contributed to Linux."
The letters focus on application binary interfaces, the programming hooks by which a software application gains access to the underlying operating system. "We believe these violations are serious, and we will take appropriate actions to protect our rights," the letters state.
Letters asserting copyright violations in Linux are being sent to several hundred of its corporate users. SCO, based in Lindon, Utah, is also sending letters to many of its 6,000 Unix licensees requiring them to certify in writing that they are complying with SCO licenses, a company executive said. SCO's Unix licensees are asked to certify that none of their employees or contractors have contributed any Unix code to Linux.
The warning letters come after David A. Boies, a lawyer representing SCO, said on Nov. 18 that the company intended to single out and sue a large corporate user of Linux within three months.
The letters include an olive branch as well as a threat. "Once you have reviewed our position," the Linux letter said, "we will be happy to further discuss your options and work with you to remedy this problem."
SCO began its Linux campaign last March, when it sued I.B.M., the leading corporate champion of Linux. SCO, seeking $1 billion in damages, has accused I.B.M. of illegally contributing Unix code to Linux. I.B.M. has denied the charges.
On Dec. 5, a federal district judge in Utah ordered that within 30 days, SCO had to show the court and I.B.M. the Linux code to which SCO claims it has rights and where I.B.M. has infringed upon it.
What ? Me, worry ?
Registration-free link
Because SCO already said that they're going after BSD next.
---- It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again. It does this whenever it's told.
Can't wait to see if this will be the first case of slashdotting a phone call.
To hear the SCO call:
"Please join us by dialing: 1.800.289.0436 -or- 1.913.981.5507 Confirmation Code: 510065"
11:00 AM Eastern Time Monday
Michael, couldn't you just show an ounce of journalistic integrity and not accept stories with this much spin? Stating your opinion in something that's not an editorial doesn't help your credibility, either.
Pffft, Slashdot is not a news site. Slashdot links to news sites. They do no research of their own, and don't even bother verifying the validity of any of the articles. Indeed, all they have is editorial power. Remember, you're just posting a reply to a message about a news article.
In the long run, we're all dead.
"IANAL, IANEAP" = "I am not a lawyer, I am not even a paralegal"
IF SCO goes belly up the assets don't disappear. Someone will buy them, and then they would have the right to pursue any litigation. More likely, though, is that whoever bought them would try to make peace and announce the claims were unfounded.
That said, SCO does not ever want to go to court. They are making their money now, and a trial could only hurt them. So if they don't go belly up they will drag things out as long as possible, and the problem will continue.
You do realize that stocktrading doesn't work like this, don't you? For every put at an "inflated" price there has to be a call at the same price. Otherwise the stock price falls before you can sell all your stock. When the stock price is at x dollars, it doesn't mean you can sell arbitrary numbers of shares at that price.
- Copyright is a statement of
ownership - The fact that code that is copyright SCO is in Linux
means nothing. They own that source code which is copyrighted by
SCO, and it has nothing to do with whether or not it is linked into
Linux, and SCO's rights to control Linux.
- License is a statement of
permission to use - It is nothing more than permission given to
you by the copyright owner, and the ways you can use the code.
- Contract is an agreement -
A contract is an agreement with enumeration. From what I remember
from business related courses, you must have some form of payment in
order to to make a contract binding.
If copyrighted SCO code was contributed to Linux by SCO employees, and SCO management did not approve, then SCO was damaged by those employees, not Linux users. SCO can request that the code be removed and users running that code may be requested to stop running that code, but this must be done in a reasonable manner. They cannot go back and seek damages from the users, because they are innocent third parties. Damages would be limited to the guilty parties, presumably the SCO employees. If it was IBM instead of SCO employees, and IBM has a license that says the source code cannot be used in whole, or that anything derived from that code cannot be used, then SCO has a case against IBM, not the end user.Licenses that come with commercial software are embodied in a contract, and this is where the confusion usually comes in. You pay, you agree to the terms contained within the contract by some action, such as clicking on button in a dialog or ripping clear plastic off the media, and the contract then grants you a license. What is generally termed a license is really a contract, and this ends up confusing the general public.
There is significant controversy in the media over whether or not GPL is valid, and what it means, but in reality this is simple. GPL is permission given by the licensor, presumably the copyright owner, to the licensee to use the code, how to use it and under what conditions it is permitted. The only problematic area is the redistribution clause in GPL limits how much you can charge for redistributing the code. It mentions money, and therefore tends to pollute the license, so now its terms are no longer black and white, but it is still a license. Presumably, SCO was aware of the license when their code made it into Linux. Since they were distributing the code, including code they owned, in the form of a distribution under their trademark, it is difficult for SCO to argue their case. Most likely, they were aware of the situation, and knowingly distributed the code under the same GPL license. They accepted it, and to now claiming ignorance is questionable, at best. I doubt veracity of recent statements because of this.
If you are an end user and get one of their letters, do nothing, as any action you take may work against you. If you are part of the media, ignore it as it is just another attempt by SCO to manipulate you and have Linux tried in the court of public opinion.
Again, I am not a lawyer, just someone who has had to deal with them in this respect. This is only my opinion. Contact a lawyer for legal advice.
but they are in violation of the GPL. The minute they said "binary only licenses", they violated the GPL and should be drawn and quartered for said actions.
DMCA Notification Letter
SCO has commenced providing notification to selected Fortune 1000 Linux end users outlining additional violations of SCO's copyrights contained in Linux. Certain copyrighted application binary interfaces have been copied verbatim from the UNIX System V code base and contributed to Linux without proper authorization and without copyright attribution. Any part of any Linux file that includes the copyrighted binary interface code must be removed. This ABI code was part of a 1994 settlement agreement involving the University of California at Berkeley and Berkeley Systems Development, Inc., (BSDI).
Their stupidity never ceases to amaze me. Well, if it "must be removed", then tell us what is it that "must be removed", dammit!
Also note that they claim that the ABI code was part of the settlement between UCB and BSDI (and SCO/ATT/Caldera/Novell are neither of those two...) :-)
What SCO are claiming in this case is that IBM have effectively assigned all copyrights to SCO for the code in question, and/or that by licensing the code to SCO for use in Linux, the same code cannot also be Licensed for use in Linux. This is a gross misstatement or misunderstanding of the GPL and copyright law.
Not quite. SCO (in their actual lawsuit against IBM, rather than their press FUD) are claiming that the terms of their license with IBM mean that any code that IBM develops which is a 'derivative work' of Unix can not be redistributed.
In this case, because NUMA et al are so closely bound to Unix, SCO are claiming they count as derivitive works, and are thus covered by the SCO/IBM license agreement, and should not have been included in Linux.
Despite this being a case about breach of contract, ie the Unix license to IBM, SCO are pitching it in the media as a breach of copyright case.
SCO still haven't made a single legal move that directly implies there is actual original SCO code (as opposed to IBM developed derivative code) in Linux, only lots of shouting and FUD. So legally speaking this is all about breach of contract by IBM, not breach of copyright by Linux users.
If SCO go bankrupt before the case gets tested in court it will leave a smear on the good name of linux.
Huh?
SCO is the one leaving a smear on the good name of Linux by making accusations of wholesale copyright infringement and theft. There are indications that SCO is involved in a pump-and-dump scheme, or at least a last-ditch attempt at grabbing as much easy cash as possible before the bottom falls out. If you haven't noticed, SCO hasn't exactly been forthcoming about what they claim Linux coders stole, something which may wipe out their case since it becomes obvious the legal action is not about legitimately correcting an injustice, but extortion.
If SCO ever comes clean with the kernel hackers about what specific code and other IP they claim is infringing, and if the kernel hackers fail to deal with what legitimate issues exist (if any, which at the moment does not appear likely), then it would smear the good name of the Linux community. Until then, the party acting in bad faith here appears to be SCO, while the Linux community, and the companies investing time and money in it, seem to be the ones that want to legitimately deal with copyright concerns--real copyright concerns, not vague claims of infringement that somehow keep turning out to be crap.
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
http://www.nwfusion.com/news/2003/0903scofined.htm l
Q ue stions-and-Answers.html
SCO fined $10,800 for Linux claims, IDG
http://www.tarent.de/html/tarent-vs-sco/030612_
Q & A tarent v. SCO
The Landgericht Munich I has enjoined SCO from claiming and from distributing the assertions in the course of its business activities
1. that the software Linux" contains SCO's intellectual property that has been unlawfully obtained
2. that end users who apply Linux are liable for intellectual property infringements towards SCO,
and / or
3. that LINUX is an unauthorized derivative of UNIX,
as far as such assertions are not proven to be true.
It's only insider trading if you are using some sort of insider information that is not available to the public. Slashdot is by it's own definition, a public forum. If you decide to buy stock, on your own, or as part of a group, why would that be illegal? The selling part might get sticky, but again, with such a loosely organized group, how is anyone to control what an indavidual member of the group does? I would like to see them prove that.
This signature has Super Cow Powers
Fourth quarter revenue from UNIX products and services was $14.0 million. In addition, revenue generated from the Company's SCOsource licensing initiative was $10.3 million, which was derived from licensing agreements reached with Microsoft Corporation and Sun Microsystems, Inc. earlier in fiscal 2003.
For the fourth quarter of 2003, the Company reported a net loss to common stockholders of $1.6 million, or $0.12 per diluted common share. Excluding the previously reported charge of approximately $9.0 million incurred in connection with its October 2003 private placement for compensation paid to law firms engaged to enforce its intellectual property rights, the Company would have reported net income for the fourth quarter of $7.4 million, or $0.44 per diluted common share. The Company reported a net loss to common stockholders of $2.7 million, or $0.26 per diluted common share, in the comparable quarter a year ago. A GAAP reconciliation of net income (loss) and earnings per share for the fourth quarter and fiscal 2003 excluding the above charge is included in the financial tables at the end of this release. ...
Auferre trucidare rapere falsis nominibus imperium, atque ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
It amazes me just how many people don't understand the basic mechanics of the stock market.
/. users planning to buy stock is not collusion. As this is a public forum, it is no more different than a group of users from The Fool discussing investment strategies and all agreeing on a common course of action. Regardless, there is absolutely nothing illegal with the suggestions made here.
A bunch of
Ryosen
One man's "Troll, +1" is another man's "Insightful, +1".
It's riskier than buying stock, in a sense, because the downside is unlimited. When you buy a stock, the worst that can happen is it goes to $0. When you short a stock, it can just keep going up forever.
Actually, in a non-criminal case, the standard is not rasonable doubt (thats criminal) rather the case is preponderance of evience.
You can find it here.
u de/asm-sparc/a.out.h/ mips/boot/ecoff.hl inux/ctype.h
The gist of it seems to be numerous copies of 'errno.h', 'signal.h', and 'ioctl*.h' in the various platform-specific ASM source files, 'bsderrno.h' and 'solerrno.h' in the sparc/sparc64 ASM sources, as well as the following files:
include/linux/ipc.h
include/linux/acct.h
incl
include/linux/a.out.h
arch
include/linux/stat.h
include/
lib/ctype.c
I need to do some code-reading myself, but as far as I'm aware all of those are part of the POSIX standard. I could be wrong, and even if they are in the POSIX standard, the files could be copies, but we'll have to wait and see from an official response from the kernel developers to see where these files come from.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Not quite. SCO (in their actual lawsuit against IBM, rather than their press FUD) are claiming that the terms of their license with IBM mean that any code that IBM develops which is a 'derivative work' of Unix can not be redistributed.
/. and elsewhere, that SCO's case may ultimately hinge on whether IBM's exemption applies to code purchased from, or as part of, other companies, or if they're stuck with the code's original licence. In other words, does IBM's SysV contract override the contract provisions under which code the company purchases was developed? Do Sequent's contracts still exist, or are they now simply historical footnotes? And would IBM's legion of legal attack dogs manage to overlook this minor point, or was it discussed and cleared when the sale took place?
More specifically, IBM managed to score a clause in their contract with AT&T that allows Big Blue to keep copyright and control over any additions to and derivative works it creates from SysV. It has been noted, however, that the technologies in question were created by Sequent, which did not have such a clause in their Unix licence. IBM purchased Sequent, and the dynix/ptx-related SMP code. It was theorized, on
Although this seems like a potential avenue of victory for SCO, their total lack of cooperation so far with the discovery process and the court indicates they may not even have solid footing on these grounds. They could not cough up anything useful for discovery, in a lawsuit they initiated, and still haven't done so. Yet, the company has time to draft threatening letters with a list of filenames, which presumably have code they could present as part of their case.
Barring a surprise twist, I think SCO's shareholders are in for a sick surprise when the execs take the money and run.
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
Linux Weekly News has a copy of the letter. The 65 files don't sound quite as threatening when you discover the first 17 of them are errno.h. Quick, someone go warn the IEEE!
Found in http://lwn.net/Articles/64052/, from http://www.groklaw.com. Unfortunately, I need to add more characters per line to get past the slashdot lameness filter:
o .hr no.he rrno.hs 64/errno.hs m-ppc/errno.h/ asm-s390/errno.hu de/asm-sh/errno.hl ude/asm-sparc64/errno.h. hg nal.h6 /signal.h- m68k/signal.h/ asm-mips64/signal.h
include/asm-ppc/signal.hl .hs ignal.hr c/signal.h/ asm-x86_64/signal.he /linux/ctype.hc tl.h/ ioctl.h8 6/ioctl.hm 68k/ioctl.hm -mips64/ioctl.hl ude/asm-parisc/ioctl.h. hs .hi octls.h9 0x/ioctl.hh /ioctls.h- sparc/ioctls.hu de/asm-sparc64/ioctls.h. hl ude/asm-sparc/a.out.hh /mips/boot/ecoff.h
include/asm-sparc/solerrno.h/ bsderrno.h
include/asm-alpha/errno.h
include/asm-arm/errn
include/asm-cris/errno.h
include/asm-i386/er
include/asm-ia64/errno.h
include/asm-m68k/
include/asm-mips/errno.h
include/asm-mip
include/asm-parisc/errno.h
include/a
include/asm-ppc64/errno.h
include
include/asm-s390x/errno.h
incl
include/asm-sparc/errno.h
inc
include/asm-x86_64/errno
include/asm-alpha/signal.h
include/asm-arm/si
include/asm-cris/signal.h
include/asm-i38
include/asm-ia64/signal.h
include/asm
include/asm-mips/signal.h
include
include/asm-parisc/signal.h
include/asm-ppc64/signa
include/asm-s390/signal.h
include/asm-s390x/
include/asm-sh/signal.h
include/asm-spa
include/asm-sparc64/signal.h
include
include/linux/stat.h
includ
lib/ctype.c
include/asm-alpha/io
include/asm-alpha/ioctls.h
include/asm-arm
include/asm-cris/ioctl.h
include/asm-i3
include/asm-ia64/ioctl.h
include/asm-
include/asm-mips/ioctl.h
include/as
include/asm-mips64/ioctls.h
inc
include/asm-parisc/ioctls
include/asm-ppc/ioctl.h
include/asm-ppc/ioctl
include/asm-ppc64/ioctl.h
include/asm-ppc64/
include/asm-s390/ioctl.h
include/asm-s3
include/asm-sh/ioctl.h
include/asm-s
include/asm-sparc/ioctl.h
include/asm
include/asm-sparc64/ioctl.h
incl
include/asm-x86_64/ioctl
include/linux/ipc.h
include/linux/acct.h
inc
include/linux/a.out.h
arc
include/asm-sparc/bsderrno.h
include/asm-sparc64
include/asm-sparc64/solerrno.h
æeee!
Darl's brother, who represents SCO is a lawyer.
He specializes in securities fraud litigation.
Maybe that's why?
It asserts files like errno.h are infringing. It acknowledges these files were part of the BSDI/USL settlement but says that their use in GPL'ed software was not allowed by the settlement.
Because SCO already said that they're going after BSD next.
That is the LAST can of worms that they would want to open. What would happen if they had to strip ALL UC BSD code from SysV? It would be in pieces, to say the least. Or how about paying a fine for every Sys(III|V) code license distributed that contained UC BSD code? Or...
AT&T/Novell was in violation of the UC copyrights. If it was not for the agreement, they would have started paying out big bucks. Plus, SCO does NOT have a basis to reopen the case.
The *BSDs have nothing to worry about from SCO as far as the agreement goes. New code since then is a different matter; And unlike Linux, the three major BSDs have had ALL of their system code in CVS since day one, it would be VERY easy to see who inserted what and when.
BWP
80 lines of code, and 43 header files the supposedly touch almost every Linux application out there. And they just said a $150,000/per CPU violation of DMCA in using Linux, in their letters. I guess I'm at a few million with my house...
Nice. One investor just asked that if Linux does remove these files, should they be infringing, would SCO remove Samba and other GPL products. They basically said, no, we won't remove them.
So far, so good.
Now, a couple of quibbles:
# Shorting requires collateral
True, but the profit from the sale of the borrowed stock usually provides most of the collateral. I've never tried makeing a short sale the only position in my account, so I don't know how much additional collateral would be required.
There are a limited number of shares of any companies stock that are available for short trading, you certainly can't have all of slashdot shorting SCO, there aren't enough shares for that
Actually, not quite. I can borrow some shares from you and then sell them to party C. You can borrow the same shares from party C and sell them to party C, and so could all of slashdot. There are always enough shares to sell. In fact, one block of shares would be enough to support all the shorts in the world.
The problem comes when it's time (see the next quibble) to cover those short positions. If we've all borrowed the same one-and-only block of shares, and sold it, then when we all have to cover our positions by returning the borrowed stock, we'll all be bidding for that one block of shares. Watch the price go through the roof! This is called a short squeeze, and it can happen whenver the short interest gets bigger than a fraction of a normal day's trading volume. SCO has way more short interest than that. Any time there's a stock price spike, a few shorts get margin calls and have to bid the price up further.
* Shorting includes a set date when you promise to buy back the shorted shares.
I'm pretty sure that this isn't so. To the best of my knowledge, there is no time limit on a short position, though usually people prefer not to leave the ax hanging over their heads too long. If the price of the borrowed shares go up too far, the broker will demand that you deposit more money in your account. This is a margin call. If you cannot or will not meet the margin call, the broker will buy the stock to return what you borrowed, and your position has been closed out at a loss, which you will owe to the broker. You have been ``squeezed out''.
If you know SCO's going down, but guess wrong as to when, and their stock is still elevated when your date comes, you get mauled (hence the requirement for collateral).
This is right, except that even if you are dead on about when, if it goes up before it goes down, you can get squeezed out, and wind up with nothing to show for it but a bill from your broker.
Summary:
If you learned something from this, don't try to short SCO! You aren't nearly experienced enough, and Slashdot isn't the place to get investment advice, except DON'T DO IT!
See what I've been reading.
http://www.tuhs.org/archive_sites.html
Pick your favorite mirror.
Well, I know that COFF & ECOFF are pretty well known by now, COFF having been created for SVR3 to extend and replace a.out and support shared libraries but also having been used and extended by Microsoft since NT. According to this message, the format can be found in the programmer's reference manuals for SVR3. The a.out format debuted with UNIX V7.
Both are extremely well known formats, and SCO's claim pretty much has to be direct copying, because there's no way that a reimplementation could be a violation to two well-known, publicly published formats. Humorously enough, Caldera/SCO itself publishes the definitions of both COFF and ELF.
While I'm pretty sure you can copyright an interface like this, I'm positive that implementing code based on a published description (and not published source code) is not in and of itself a copyright violation, especially due to the importance that recent copyright laws have given to interoperability. Like I said, it's safe to bet that either SCO is either claiming direct copying (which could be shown to be false if it is) or they're once again invoking Chewbacca defense-like logic in defending their case like they have been in their claims about the GPL being against US copyright law.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
SCO have long maintained that their primary gripe is that IBM helped accelerate SMP and some memory management stuff on the x86 platform. They claim that prior to IBM dishing out their code to the Linux camp, SCO was dominant on the x86 platform.
Looking at their list of files now, it seems like they are losing the plot internally. Many of these files have nothing to do with the x86 platform, and SMP and memory management are very different on other platforms. Also, many of these files don't have anything to do with SMP or memory management specifically.
WTF?
SCO Group Fourth Quarter 2003 Webcast and Conference Call
Anyone get the impression that SCO is claiming that lines such as:
time_t time(time_t __timer);
in files such as time.h are violating their 'copyright'?
Nothing so specific. Their claims concerning SMP listed such files that looked, in their entireity, similar to this:
#ifdef SMP
#error SMP not supported on this architecture
#endif
Granted, they may have a claim against SOME code, but this sure doesn't help... And their refusal to mitigate damages... well, I don't need to rehash what's been beaten to death already.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.