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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."
Registration-free link
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.
- 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.
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.
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.
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.