SCO Invokes DMCA, Names Headers, Novell Steps In

Sparky writes "We've already heard that SCO have invoked the DMCA via 'letters sent to select Fortune 1000 Linux end users.' The specifics come via a copy of the letter reprinted at LWN.net - they've decided that they own the copyright to about 65 header files contained in Linux - largely errno.h, signal.h and ioctl.h." balloonpup also notes "CNet News has reported that SCO has reported a fourth quarter loss of $1.6 million, owing mostly to hefty legal fees in its war against Linux. SCO said they would have reported $7.4 million in earnings, if not for the $9 million payout to their lawyers. Way to go, SCO!" Many readers also point out a Groklaw article indicating Novell has registered for the copyrights on multiple versions of Unix with the U.S. Copyright Office, so that "both the SCO Group and Novell have registered for UNIX System V copyrights for the same code."

Comments

Copyrighted Errors

[unixbum]

so does this mean that my errors are copyrighted matierial?

That's what usually happens

[eln]

As with most lawsuits, especially ones that drag out like this, the only people that really win are the lawyers.

Re:That's what usually happens

[PunXX0r]

Hrm.

I doubt that I will feel that "only the Lawyers won" when SCO is a distant, unpleasant memory thanks to the IBM countersuit. In fact, I think that there will be enough win to go around for every person interested-in, contributing-to, or using FOSS.

I agree that it is much easier to over-simplify this, but let's be honest... even if it takes lawyers to crush SCO, it will be a win for everyone when they are gone.

Re:That's what usually happens

[Deagol]

Tell me about it. I have on my desk two checks from Citibank: $0.24 and $0.35. They are the results of some lawsuit against Citibank and AT&T Universal Card.

I don't know how much I really got screwed (hell, I didn't even know there was a lawsuit -- I wonder how they even found my current adddress!). The letter states it was "not practical to provide individual caculations" for the refunds. Yeah, right!

I know sure as shit that the lawyers got a hell of a lot more than two checks totalling less than a dollar!

Re:That's what usually happens

[msobkow]

A lot of those delays stem from the simple fact that legal staff usually haven't got the vaguest understanding of how software is architected or compiled. They don't know that half the headers mentioned are part of ANSI and ISO C/C++ standards.

They don't know that every single platform with a C compiler since the early '80s has had an "errno.h" header file.

It's about time some limits were imposed in US courts, as in:

You have 12 months to prepare your case, unless the defending party opts to extend. Under no circumstances may the preparation extend beyond 24 months. Should your claims prove false, you will be responsible for all legal costs and damages direct and incidental, not only for the defendant, but for any business in the court's jurisdiction whose financial performance can reasonably be presumed to be affected by the accusations.

Then maybe the world can get back to doing business instead of letting these useless "IP companies" affect billions of dollars of purchase and deployment decisions, without fear of repercussions for their fraud.

Re:That's what usually happens

[roomisigloomis]

Two farmers are fighting over a cow. One grabs the cow's tail and pulls while the other farmer grabs the cow's head and pulls. This last for a long time. While all this pulling is going on, the two farmers' lawyers sit in the middle and milk it.

Re:That's what usually happens

[kelnos]

A lot of those delays stem from the simple fact that legal staff usually haven't got the vaguest understanding of how software is architected or compiled. They don't know that half the headers mentioned are part of ANSI and ISO C/C++ standards.

that is, unfortunately, irrelevant. if the file was blatantly copied from someone else's copyrighted implementation, then that does indeed constitute infringement. i don't think this is the case, i'm just playing devil's advocate.

They don't know that every single platform with a C compiler since the early '80s has had an "errno.h" header file.

i think you're confusing the compiler-supplied /usr/include/errno.h with the file that SCO is claiming is infringing. this file is a part of the kernel source, and would usually live at /usr/src/linux/include/asm-*/errno.h. (same or similar goes for the other allegedly-infringing files.)

now, the compiler-supplied errno.h in /usr/include contains a prominent copyright notice by the free software foundation. somehow i doubt they falsified that, and, even if they did, SCO would/should be going after the FSF and glibc and not linus torvalds and linux.

looking at the errno.h included with kernel source, it looks like a relatively boilerplate file. just a bunch of #defines for error codes. the only way you could really infer copyright infringement is from the comments on each line that says what the error code means. however, i would think that all these are documented somewhere, so even if SCO's file is identical, it's still arguable that in both cases the comments were copied verbatim from some specification document (where copying is possibly allowed).

looking through the files listed, it seems like all of them fall under this general premise - boilerplate kernel constants and macros for very basic stuff that's really hard and silly to try to implement any other way.

blah, SCO can bite me.

Big Red takes aim

[Crashmarik]

This is just novells first step.

The next step will be their own series of letters to SCO reminding them of their contractual obligations to Novell.

If you don't have a product sue!

[mpost4]

I doubt that they are lossing money only over the lawsuit. Also the info for erron could be derived by other methodes, it would be considered comman knolage for all unix programmers, so if they had to implement a compatablity layer, they could do it from memory.

also with Novel's Copyright on it, it seams to me that Novel's came first, so SCO could be a nice target if (big IF) they win this case, it has seamed to me that Novel does not want to see this case go though.

SCO is a dead company that just wants to be bought out, and they did not get IBM to buy them out liked they hoped.

Re:If you don't have a product sue!

[willtsmith]

SCO just keeps getting funnier every day. I've stopped being angry and have chalked it all up to entertainment.

The fact that they are now claiming copyrights on HEADER FILES is the ultimate testament to the weakness of their cases.

I mean, how could one re-engineer APIs without replicating headers. If Linux is in violation, than BSD must be in violation as well. They should be suing Apple.

Re:If you don't have a product sue!

[mpost4]

Well in one of the articals they clame that there is a deal that BSD is alowed to use them but not linux. But you are still right it is BS

clue me in....

[Anonymous Coward]

arent the headers (especially some of those, like errno.h) published publically as ISO/ANSI C and/or UNIX Definition documents? Hence, if they look similar, it's because they're defined standards from various standards committees? Perhaps someone should point out the document name and number and page numbers.

Re:clue me in....

[Maul]

This letter is designed for PHB's who will look at it and then look at Linux and say "Crap! errno.h IS in Linux," not people who look at it and think of defined standards and realize that SCO is stooping to the lowest levels in order to keep their schemes going.

Re:clue me in....

[msgmonkey]

Generally all those C/Unix headers come under general umbrella of POSIX compliance. I think what they are saying is that the files are directly lifted from BSD and that the settlement with BSD forbode redistribution.

This is strange in that 1) the full outcome of the settlement was sealed AFAIK and 2) the headers in question are licensed under the BSD license which would have been known of in 1.

Like has been mentioned earlier by many people here, maybe SCO want to re-open the BSD case as this seems to be there only line of defense.

Re:clue me in....

[Anonymous Coward]

SCO is a member of the Open Group and participated in the development of those standards. The FTC has sued Rambus for doing the same thing with JEDEC DRAM standards-- you can't participate in standards development if you're later going to claim ownership of the technologies involved!

Re:clue me in....

[jenkin sear]

Or, they have a common ancestor, under a legitimate license, that both were derived from.

Re:clue me in....

[Anonymous Coward]

Heres the freebsd version of errno.h.

#define EPERM 1 /* Operation not permitted */
#define ENOENT 2 /* No such file or directory */
#define ESRCH 3 /* No such process */
#define EINTR 4 /* Interrupted system call */
#define EIO 5 /* Input/output error */
#define ENXIO 6 /* Device not configured */
#define E2BIG 7 /* Argument list too long */

Re:clue me in....

[minkwe]

These comments are directly from the POSIX standard:

http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/007904975/ba se defs/errno.h.html#tag_13_10

Re:clue me in....

[gonar]

if you read page 33 (section 2.4) and later of the POSIX 1996 standard, all those comment strings are direct quotes from the description in the standard.

examples:
(p33):
[E2BIG] Arg list too long
The sum of the number of bytes used by....
(p36):
[EPERM] Operation not permitted
An attempt was made to...

Re:You people called it upon yourselves

[Anonymous Coward]

Darl?

Law is Hard

[moehoward]

This stuff is too complicated for me to understand. Why didn't a slashdot editor add a quirky, sarcastic, biased comment so I would know how to think?

I don't want to read all those links. Is there any way that I can make fun of Microsoft based on any of this? That would make it easier. TIA

Re:Law is Hard

[Robotron2084]

Hopefully this can help you understand the situation:

Penguin Blood Ninja Fiasco!!

Shameless self plug....

Pull troops out of Iraq...

[Genghis9]

...and deploy them to SCO headquarters. There are WMD's (weenies of mass dumbness) in that building and they have to go, NOW!

A more fun (accurate?) version of this posting...

[coupland]

"We've already heard that SCO have invoked the winged minions of hell via 'voodoo dools shaped like the CEOs of Fortune 1000 companies.' The specifics come via a photo of a doll made to look like Samuel J. Palmisano of IBM - they've decided that they own the souls of about 65 CEOs running Linux - largely IBM, HP and Ford." balloonpup also notes "CNet News has reported that SCO has reported a fourth quarter loss of $1.6 million, owing mostly to hefty witchdoctor and soothsayer fees in its war against Linux. SCO said they would have reported $7.4 million in earnings, if not for the $9 million payout to the Prince of Darkness. Way to go, SCO!" Many readers also point out a Groklaw article indicating Novell has been praying for the souls of CEOs running Linux with the Holy Catholic Church, so that "both the SCO Group and Novell have claimed the souls of the same people."

Re:DMCA Must gooo! its gayer than the YMCA

[bethane]

The DMCA was created in the spirit that new forms of electronic media were not safe from potential copyright violations, and the act did what it set out to do. Yet it also did a great deal more as special interests and corporate schmoozers managed to get their paws on the bill and turn it into more of a "dominant market player protection act" than anything else. We all agree that the amount of innovation stifled using the DMCA as justification is staggering. Yet electronic media should also be protected from the loopholes the bill originally solved. Here are a few potential solutions:

1) Remove the current DMCA and amend it such that only specific uses of media are prohibited. Allow for the use of back-engineering tools with HARSH punishments for people who knowingly use them to break copyrighted material with intent to distribute. This leaves the burden of proof with a prosecutors instead of the "guilty-til-proven- innocent" tactics of the RIAA et. al.

2) Make a specific statement for "loser pays": anyone suing under using this legislation who loses the case pays for the legal costs of both parties. Settlements don't count, and this will outright favor the bigger players, but in the American climate of "legal attrition" as a business strategy I see no other effective means of trying to relieve this aspect of the DMCA problem.

3) Allow publications on computer security to be done freely and thoroughly if tied to legitimate academic or corporate entities. Hold computer manufacturers liable if one of their components has a security flaw that causes eggregious commercial/monetary damage but which could have been fixed by repair of one of these published flaws.

4) Ensure that American laws apply only to American citizens with the express wording that products purchased in other parts of the world which belong to the consumer are theirs to do with as they please. A clause allowing rightful action to take whatever steps necessary to use that product would be nice (mod chips et. al)

Pointing fingers makes us feel good, but unless we propose alternatives and compromises, are we really doing anything but venting? Does anyone else have potential solutions/thoughts on how to resolve this issue?

I feel so dirty but...

[nocomment]

GO NOVELL! GO IBM! :-) It may seem strange, but I really am feeling some sort of loyalty to these two companies. I am way more likely to use them in future than I think I would have before the whole SCO debacle. Although I'd still never ever in the coldest darkest hour in hell use netware or AIX again(blech).

9 million?

[westcourt_monk]

I love it... 9 million to lawyers, -1.6 to report to it's investors and they are no where. If they win I imagine they stand to make 10x whatever they pay for lawyers but how much do they have to put out before it is not longer worth the risk?

The investors must be getting worried.

login.h

[mios]

I think I'm going to file a claim that I own a copyright to login.h ... this way, everytime anyone logs into their system I should be entitled to some roylaties ... this should work ...

checking out insider holdings

[greechneb]

Larry Gasparro is the last to cash out with nearly $500k in December - Look at the latest holdings of the insider roster

BENCH, ROBERT K.
Chief Investment Officer
8-Oct-03 214,243 Shares Left

BROUGHTON, REGINALD CHARLES
Senior Vice President
17-Sep-03 95,000 Shares left

GASPARRO, LARRY
Vice President
10-Dec-03 0 Shares Left

HUNSAKER, JEFF F.
Vice President
13-Aug-03 20,494 Shares Left

OLSON, MICHAEL P
Vice President
11-Nov-03 47,330 Shares Left

WILSON, MICHAEL
Senior Vice President
14-Jul-03 0 Shares Left

WILSON, MICHAEL SEAN
Senior Vice President
15-Jul-03 0 Shares Left

Notice How little the insiders still actually own (Aside from Robert Bench)? Smells fishy to me

Re:checking out insider holdings

[eln]

I've been practicing to be a psychic so let's see how I'm doing so far...

I see these men having big problems with the SEC in the future.

Re:checking out insider holdings

[Anonymous Coward]

Note: this is to the replies, not to the parent.

I have a little reality check for you people who think SCO is gonna get shit for this little pump and dump:

-Our esteemed Commander and Cheif pumped and dumped his little oil company and sold all his shares 2 days before it went bankrupt. The appropriate investigative organizations where politely told to bug off.

-The above's best friend and cheif campain supporter via donations was the CEO of Enron. Need I say more?

-Worldcom went bankrupt over executive fraud and now has a cushy contract in Iraq.

-Microsoft pretty much got let off the hook as soon as someone they "donated" money to got the presidency.

-Our Vice President is busy riding a gigantic $100,000 a month retirement golden parachute from his company, Halburton, with strangely enough is getting the most, best, and highest paying government contracts.

What makes you guys think that ANYTHING bad will happen to SCO because of what they are doing? Wake up.

This is all of course assuming memory serves me correctly.

Ruckus and tomfoolery, indeed!

[FunWithHeadlines]

Poor SCO, no one takes them seriously any more. "We own Linux-- er, UNIX, um I mean, some of it, or do we Novell? And we're going to sue everybody in existence for theft-- uh, copyright violations of this code-- oops, not that code, don't look at the man behind the curtain, we mean this code over here -- what? not that code either? OK, I mean these header files -- um, you can't copyright ideas, you have to patent them, and we have plenty of patents -- we don't? Well, we'll be threaten-- um, sending letters to our partners (aren't you happy to be doing business with SCO?) telling to to keep their noses clean and line up for a nose inspection -- what, Novell just copyrighted the same stuff we claim to have copyrighted? Don't tell the judge that! Yikes! What's our stock doing now?! Quick read this press release about, um, yeah, that's it: we just got DDoSed, um, Again! Yeah, that'll work....what's that you say? How much are we paying our lawyers for this nonsense? It's contingency, people, don't worry. Contingency all the way...except for the huge fees we pay along the way...and 20% of the company...but otherwise not much -- and yes, that just wiped out any chance of profits in this quarter, but don't worry, next quarter the legal fees go up and we still don't have any licensees yet. But step right up with $699 and you can be the first on the block to say you got rooked--, uh squared yourself with the law-- um, not really the law, with our lawyers, yeah, that's it."

not just Linux...

[TheSHAD0W]

SCO has now asserted ownership over not just Linux, but every single C/C++ compiler out there, and every OS based on C, including the BSD variants and all the other versions of Unix out there.

Re:not just Linux...

[kalidasa]

Next, they'll be asserting ownership over stdio.h and Hello,World.

#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
printf("Hello, Darl\n");
return (0);
}

Hey, did I just violate a SCO license?

Re:not just Linux...

[EricTheGreen]

This is just step #2 in their master plan. The final claim will be ownership of the '\n' character.

Re:not just Linux...

[pclminion]

I'm sure he realizes it isn't a function. Using parentheses around a return expression is a matter of convention. Some people do it, some people don't.

For that matter, I could also say:

(printf("Hello, world!\n"));

The parens may be superflous, but they certainly don't hurt anything, and in fact they can allow you to play some cool tricks, such as redefining return:

#define return(x) {printf("Returning from %s:%d\n", __FILE__, __LINE__);return x;}

Re:not just Linux...

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop! Stop!! You're violating the SCO license!

Re: Re:not just Linux...

[frostman]

Dear EricTheGreen,

Your recent Slashdot post, titled "Re:not just Linux..." and currently moderated at +4/Funny, is in violation of the DMCA.

As you are probably aware, we have granted the general public a limited license to the character '\n' and this license does not include its representation in "escaped" format ('\n').

We hereby order you to remove the comment or to change it so that the copyrighted character in question is displayed in its properly licensed format, namely:

Be advised that this also applies to any posts you may make in the future, regardless of how they are moderated, and that similar restrictions apply to the character '\r' to which we own the copyright jointly with the Microsoft Corporation.

Failure to comply will result in legal fees.

Sincerely,

Dewey, Cheatham & Howe, on behalf of SCO.

Re:DMCA Must gooo! its gayer than the YMCA

[turbod]

The gun industry is trying to get that point across as well. I honestly hope they succeed. Almost every device on the planet can be used in a nefarious manner, but it seems some opportunistic folks in the world think they should get paid by the device's creators when someone actually does something with the device that it was not intended to do.

I would disagree with you on your subject title though... not all YMCAs are plagued with moral improprieties.

TurboD

What an odd business model

[Anonymous Coward]

SCO said they would have reported $7.4 million in earnings, if not for the $9 million payout to their lawyers.

So SCO has changed from a technology company to an employment agency for lawyers? I'd be interest to see what the step was just before "Profit!"

Re:What an odd business model

[RetroGeek]

I'd be interest to see what the step was just before "Profit!"

??
Profit!

Re:SCO v. Novell

[pizzaman100]

Jeez, how many more companies and people are SCO trying to piss off... I wonder wtf is driving them to cause all this trouble

SCO knows that without the lawsuits they have a losing business model. If you can't beat 'em, sue 'em, and hope that 1)One of the charges stick, or 2)Somebody buys you out.

This isn't the first time that someone has tried this.

With great power...

[Quixadhal]

...comes great responsibility.

If SCO wants to claim ownership of things in errno.h, then I want monetary compensation for each and every segfault, since they are now SCO's responsibility, not mine!

Boy, no more having to double-check pointers in my code, whoo hoo!

Re:With great power...

[taniwha]

yeah one guy at work remarked this morning "cool now I don't have to check error returns ..."

DMCA vs Godwin's Law

[NialScorva]

There needs to be some equivalent to Godwin's Law for the DMCA. How does "Given enough time, all legal battles in the tech industry will invoke the DMCA. This generally means that all constructive arguments have ended."

Re:DMCA vs Godwin's Law

[demigod]

Hence forth this shall be know as NialScorva's Law.

Hrm? Facinating

[downix]

SCO is claiming that those headers were retrieved from BSDi. Well, there are folk out here that know more about headers than I, where did they come from?

Also, someone told me once that the BSD and GPL licenses were not in-exclusion, but that they could co-inhabit the same code. BSD has one set of limits, namely giving of copyright notice while GPL has other limits tied to it, but they were not mutually exclusive.

Even better news from SCO SEC filing

[zzabur]

Revenue from SCOsource licenses is expected to be minimal in the first quarter as the Company finalizes license agreements with vendors and continues to implement its intellectual property license initiative...

...Operating expenses relating to the Company's UNIX business are anticipated to remain flat during fiscal 2004. Expenses associated with SCOsource initiatives are expected to increase in fiscal 2004 as the Company pursues and expands the scope of its legal strategy to enforce and protect its UNIX intellectual property...

If the above information is correct, SCO revenue in Q1/2004 will be around 15 M$ and net loss could be >5-10 M$. It seems they don't get more money soon, they will be out of business before summer.

SCO admitted ABI code was GPL

[cmcguffin]

In this interview from February, SCO themselves claimed the ABI code was GPLd:

MozillaQuest Magazine: Regarding binfmt_coff, abi-util, lcall7, abi-svr4, abi-sco; are any of these modules SCO IP?

Blake Stowell: No, none of the code in the Linux ABI modules contains SCO IP. This code is under the GPL and it re-implements publicly documented interfaces. We do not have an issue with the Linux ABI modules. The IP that we are licensing is all in the shared libraries - these libraries are needed by many OpenServer applications *in addition* to the Linux ABI.

I listened to the call

[El_Smack]

After seeing the number posted on /., I dialed it up and listened. I have to say that, even though I know what they are doing is messed up, they put some very posive spin on thier situation, albiet that is the purpose of this conference call.
One of the first questions in the Q and A period was "If I pay the $699, do I have rights to use the source and continue to run Linux?" Darl very neatly sidestepped half the question and answered "Yes, you can continue to run the binary (emphasis mine) within the agreement."

From that, I take it that if you pay, you can run the kernel, but they won't say you can play with it.

Is it enough to change the comments at the top?

[BerntB]

SCO's only argument is that free distribution of errno.h (etc) is allowed -- but not with a GNU copyright header?!

It should then be enough to copy the BSD comments in the beginning and replace the copyright on errno.h, signal.h, etc.

Or?

(As another user noted, errno.h et al are also parts of ANSI standards for C...)

Otherwise -- thanks, SCO -- finally I might get a kick on my backside to take the trouble to install and try OpenBSD! :-)

Re:Is it enough to change the comments at the top?

[Edward Scissorhands]

NO. You cannot slap another license or copyright header on BSD code. I do not know how this rumour got started, but the BSD license is very clear. You must retain the BSD copyright notice in the source code, and, in the case of binary redistribution, you must have the software display the BSD license. If you read the copyright information for MS Windows, for example, either on the Windows installation CD, or, IIRC, at the bottom of the EULA flashed during installation, the BSD copyright notice is there.

If a Linux kernel programmer took some header files from FreeBSD or 4.4BSD, for example, but removed the BSD copyright notice, that is a violation of the BSD license terms. HOWEVER, that does not mean that SCO was wronged. The only party that could sue for violation of the BSD license is, of course, the Regents of the University of California. AFAIK, but IANAL.

Dear Santa

[neurojab]

Dear Santa,

My christmas wish is for the SCO stockholders to wake up and realize they're being taken for a ride. That way the rest of the world could get on with their lives without worrying about being bitten in the ankles by Daryl McBride. For Daryl, I wish a long stay in the relaxing resort for his kind of folk known as Utah State Prison. I wish for him a large roommate named Bubba.

Peace.
An ordinary Linux user.

The smear continues

[crimethinker]

Can't you just feel the love?

The company has not made available for export, directly or indirectly, any part of UNIX covered by their agreement to any country that is currently prohibited from receiving supercomputing technology, including Syria, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, and any other such country, through a distribution under the General Public License (GPL) for Linux, or otherwise.

That's right, boys and girls, the GPL is a tool for TERRORISTS and COMMUNISTS!

Every day I see SCO's stock price and I mutter to myself, "it's just not fair."

-paul

Could I use that excuse?

[UnknowingFool]

SCO said they would have reported $7.4 million in earnings, if not for the $9 million payout to their lawyers.

Damn, can I use that excuse? I would have been in the black this month if I had not had to pay my bills. But seriously, this really tells a great deal of SCO's financial picture. Their money is running out. Their legal bills are mounting. This letter is nothing more than it appears: Desperation to get any last revenue that they can get.

On another note, has anybody looked at the headers that SCO has mentioned. I'm willing to bet that some of them are legacy to BSD not SCO.

drinking game:

[gotem]

take a sip everytime the letter says "copyright"

The FreeBSD file says:

[Anonymous Coward]

From /usr/include/sys/ipc.h

* Copyright (c) 1988 University of Utah.
* Copyright (c) 1990, 1993
* The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
* (c) UNIX System Laboratories, Inc.
* All or some portions of this file are derived from material licensed
* to the University of California by American Telephone and Telegraph
* Co. or Unix System Laboratories, Inc. and are reproduced herein with
* the permission of UNIX System Laboratories, Inc.
*
* This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by
* the Systems Programming Group of the University of Utah Computer
* Science Department.
*
* Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
* modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
* are met:
* 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
* notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.

The Linux code I just looked at is lacking the copyright notice like the above.

If taken from BSD or SYSV, it is a licence violation because of clause #1.

Re:The FreeBSD file says:

[Crispy Critters]

"The Linux code I just looked at is lacking the copyright notice like the above."

Accept hypothetically that some Linux coder got a little too happy with his cut and paste from BSD code and left out some copyrights. Then all that needs to be done is add the copyright notices back in.

Now the important question: How has SCO been monetarily damaged by the lack of BSD copyright notices in a few header files? About 37 cents? 'Cause all they can do is ask for damages and that the copyright notices be fixed.

Re:The FreeBSD file says:

[plj]

Accept hypothetically that some Linux coder got a little too happy with his cut and paste from BSD code and left out some copyrights.

It's not like that. The coder could well have been Linus himself, and the reason is below (verbatim copy of a comment posted to LWN, emphasis mine):

(Posted Dec 22, 2003 18:03 UTC (Mon) by doitroygsbre) (Post reply)

IANAL

Ok, I read an article on groklaw (I think) that made a pretty good guess as to what SCO's claim is. They are claiming that the settlement reached between BSD and novell required that certain files in BSD have copyright notices added. The files that SCO is complaining about were added to linux before the settlement was reached and since the settlement was only made known to Novell and the BSD developers (sorry, can't quite remember exactly who was involved in the settlement) no one knew to add the copyright notices to linux. Now that SCO has possibly inherited the Novell side of the settlement, they're trying to claim copyright infringement because linux has these files without the notices. Even though they were released under the BSD license without the notices before the settlement.

Oh well, I'm starting to wonder if I'll live long enough to see this whole mess sorted

Re:The FreeBSD file says:

[RealAlaskan]

>>Accept hypothetically that some Linux coder got a little too happy with his cut and paste from BSD code and left out some copyrights.

>In Linux 2.0.36 kernel there is a networking headder file where the BSD licence is gone and the coder admits that they took the code from FreeBSD.

>So you say 'coder got a little too happy' I say 'thief' and Darl has to have lawyers convince a judge that is was a theft.

Copyright violations aren't theft, they're (follow this closely, it's tricky) copyright violations. They are not called theft because they're different. Different act, different name. Told you it was tricky.

Where does Darl come in? It's BSD's copyright; did BSD make Darl their agent? I don't think so. If there was a screwup (which remains to be shown), the quarrel is between BSD and Linux, with no room at all in there for SCO.

>>Then all that needs to be done is add the copyright notices back in.

>Gee, what about actual PUNISHMENT for breaking the law?

The usual, when there's a GPL violation, is that the violation cease, at least when the FSF is enforcing the terms of the agreement. I suspect that it would take some pretty egregious bad behavior, and some serious profits involved, to get a court to actually see monetary damages as being in any way appropriate.

I worry it could be worse

[Dr. Spork]

Novell might be thinking: "Hey, if the millions of legal fees actually produce some settlements for SCO, we can ride their gravy train with no investment at all; If a judge rules that someone owes SCO money, we will be owed that very same money. That would be money for nuthin, who can turn that down?"

So, I hope Novell has their heart in the right place. But really, this depends on the judges. To sue over header files is so damn crazy, the real winners are obviously the people who ran off with $9 million in legal fees. What did the lawyers tell SCO that made them think this is a good investment when the case is so absurdly flimsy? That must have been a home-run sales pitch!

Re:I worry it could be worse

[psychoid]

Think about it:
Novell is a company who used to be REALLY BIG then got spanked by the Great Beast in Redmond because of their marketing-department-that-couldn't. They had the best enterprise products, but nobody wanted to write apps on the NetWare platform. They've been in steady decline since '96.

NetWare is dying and Novell needs a new platform. Linux is perfect because people are writing applications for it. So, in Novell's thinking, if they can deploy the NetWare services like file/print/Directory/Web Svcs on a Linux kernel, they have the best of both worlds.

The one thing that they have to be conscious of, and I believe they have, is their perception in the OSS community. Novell knows that they need community approval in order to be successful. If the community dislikes what they're doing, people won't buy their products and they will become irrelevant.

So, I re-iterate that Novell has to be one of the "good guys" or they will just end up screwing themselves.

Novell can now sue SCO!

[codepunk]

Now isn't this funny, Novell can sue SCO former Caldera for copyright and contract breach. Caldera placed the old SYS V code under a open source license and made it available for download. So what gave Caldera the right's to do this if the code is Novell's?

Makes for Interesting Thought!

Re:AIX (ot)

[finkployd]

Same here, but I would contend that AIX really shines in huge enterprise settings, which most people have never come in contact with and do not really see the benefits of it.

Finkployd

System 7 and ancient code

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder how many of these headers are from System 7 and the ancient code that SCO itself made available?

Look at the monkey!

[Zelatrix]

Claiming copyright on this list of files is so nonsensical, it must be a distraction tactic.

After all, SCO have already stated that 2.2 does not infringe.

So what are we supposed to not be looking at at the moment? Oh look, the quarterly financial statement just got published. And even booking revunue on shipment rather than payment (along with other dodgy accounting practices) couldn't stop a net loss.

Something crooked is going on here. This letter is an irrelevance.

Re:DMCA Must gooo! its gayer than the YMCA

[Anonymous Coward]

The solution is easy.

Get rid of the law.
Replace it with nothing.

Circumventing copyright protection should not be illegal. US copyright law grants the enduser the right to make a backup copy of any copyrighted material he owns. Also anyone is free to make copies of uncopyrighted material. The DMCA clearly violates established consumers rights.

What it amounts to is a law saying that it is illegal to pick locks. Well then what do you do if you are locked out of your house or car?

The DMCA does nothing to stop copyright infringement. Copyright infringement is illegal to begin with. Making it 'more' illegal isn't going to stop anyone who was going to commite the crime in the first place.

Say a thief is going to break into your home to steal your tv. Making it illegal to pick locks isnt really going to deter him. All it will lead to is poorly designed locks.

In short there is no reason to make a law to protect something that is already protected by law.

Breakdown

[chaoticset]

Profit for SCO's lawyers: 9 million
Earnings for SCO: -1.6 million
Watching SCO die and set a precedent for anybody who tries stupid legal things with Linux: Priceless

A few .h files?

[panZ]

Gee, my company's error.h and types.h are similar. Oh wait, every god-damn company I've ever worked for has similar .h files because this is basic, common interface shit.
Its like saying "we patented the play, pause, record and rewind buttons on our model of VCR, the rest of you fuckers with tape, CD and DVD players on the market better pay us for this inovative interface!"
I don't know whether to laugh or cry over this.

Re:A few .h files?

[panZ]

I'm sure this will be posted a billion times on /. but here is what Linux said in response. http:/ /marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=107212899 108511
hehe

What happened to '4 quarters of profitabiity'? ...

[compactable]

... previous pump-n-dump speculation mentioned that there needed to be 4 quarters of profitabliy before Darl got a big bonus kick-in - this appears not to have happened. Am I missing something obvious, was this 100% fabrication, or did Darl get nailed here?

Thanks for clarifying, if possible

Listen to their conference call here

[ssheth]

SCO Group Fourth Quarter 2003 Webcast and Conference Call

False economy

[base_chakra]

SCO said they would have reported $7.4 million in earnings, if not for the $9 million payout to their lawyers.

Of course, if they hadn't paid a team of lawyers $9 million, then they wouldn't have had any net earnings to report (again).

Re:DMCA Must gooo! its gayer than the YMCA

[Jerf]

How about instead of patching the law with new special cases for electronic media, we recognize that the law is fundamentally broken and come up with coherent answers for the general case?

We've passed the point where the law can be patched back into usefulness; it's time to rethink on a more fundamental level.

The Q and A part of the call

[El_Smack]

After Darl and Co. had finished, but before most of the FUD could settle, was a Q and A period.
One of the most interesting questions was "Of the really large Linux users, how many have licenced from you?" The answer was "We haven't had anyone over the 5000 CPU amount buy a licence, but a couple of them are thinking about it."

Or, in other words: "No one big is buying our BS, cause they have a legal team that knows we are full of it. Or at least is willing to wait it out and see where the chips fall, rather than believing our hype."
To me, that speaks volumes about their case.

No substance

[RDPIII]

So they're claiming they own the copyright on errno.h. This is insane. Even if there are substantial similarities between Linux's various errno.h-s and SCO's version, how many ways are there to implement errno.h? It's a bunch of friggin' macro definitions with more or less standard names and more or less standard values. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought one could only copyright original works, but what's original about a bunch of #define-s?

trump cards

[thoolihan]

Novell should have a pretty powerful position in this. Having formerly possessed the code, they could site a lot of examples of exposing the code to various companies and members of the public. Thus negating the strength of SCO's claims that these things are trade secrets or other types of information that *in legal eyes* deserves special protection. But, with as many companies as there are involved, who knows how this will shake down.

-t

At first glance...

[jd]

I wasn't reading clearly, or something. I could have sworn the title read "SCO invokes Devil, Hades steps in".

On second thought, maybe that wasn't so inaccurate.

The important question, I think

[mcc]

By sending out these clearly fraudulent DMCA notices-- which at best claim copyright over something which is uncopyrightable, and at worst is an attempt by a third party to claim that it is illegal for people to use the materials owned by the BSD raegents under the BSD license in the manner in which the BSD raegents intended the BSD license to be used-- has SCO opened itself up to legal action?

SCO has in the past managed to sidestep most allegations of fraud by being horrendously vague. They said that they were owned money but never sent any invoices, sidestepping mail fraud. They tried to present things as if you needed an SCO license to use linux, but if you tried to talk to talk to them, they were actually selling UnixWare licenses and not in the process actually distributing linux to you, sidestepping GPL violations. However, this is entirely non-vague. It seems to me that SCO has stepped over some sort of line here and this is actionable.

I know that the DMCA does not seem to have many consequences for people who send out bad takedown notices, but surely there must be something preventing company A from finding lists of competitor B's customers and sending them takedown notices for using some portion of competitor B's product that company A does not, in fact, own.

At the least, can this be added to the lanham act/ restraint of trade/ libel or whatever countersuits that Redhat and IBM have going? What are the options from here, and what will actually happen?

errno.h and signal.h are from POSIX

[minkwe]

http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/007904975/base defs/errno.h.html#tag_13_10

Do these guys have any brains at all?

Re:errno.h and signal.h are from POSIX

[Kevinv]

Your url has an extra space in it. Run the base defs into one word and it'll work.

http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/007904975/base defs/errno.h.html#tag_13_10

Screw this

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pulling out my Commodore 64, so I don't have to put up with all this BS. Oh. Wait. It runs Microsoft Basic.... damnit, there is no escape!!!

Headers

[tiny69]

So SCO is claiming ownership of a bunch of #define, #ifdef, #ifndef, and struct statements. What happened to the millions of lines of code that Linux was infringing on? Even IF (big if) they can prove ownership of those files, about all they can claim is Copyright infringement. I don't see how trade secrets, methods, or know-how (SCO's words since they can't claim anything stronger) can be found in header files.

The lawsuit against IBM is still a contract dispute. Even though SCO claimed they would be adding Copyright infringement claims against IBM, they have yet to do so. My guess is they haven't made any Copyright infringement claims yet because even they are not 100% sure if they really own any of the code. And making false claims in court would kill their lawsuit.

When Caldera first obtained the old UNIX source code, they wanted to release ALL of it under an Open Source license. But they were not able to because to many other people and companies still have rights via Copyright to the code the other parties added.

The letter that SCO is sending out is just one more thing that will come back to haunt them.

Re:SCO v. Novell

[cyberconte]

Great. Now if Novell gets any patents *they* will be able to sue and try to claim ownership of linux.

Just what we need...

Re:DMCA Must gooo! its gayer than the YMCA

[Simonetta]

The writer above has lots of good ideas for reforming the American DMCA law, but it goes against the current American political climate for any positive changes to take place.

The trend of the Americans to start using their vast police and military internal forces to enforce the whims of corporate copyright laws will multiply the effect of the parallel trend of outsourcing their technological corporate infrastructure to the third world. They are inducing a massive shift of their technological industry to the third world, without any thought given to the long-term consequences of such a strategy.
By the time that they realize how much these two trends are reinforcing each, their positive-feedback loop of technological suicide will be too far advanced to retard or reverse.

In another generation or two, America will be the new Argentina. Or even worse off considering that they created so much global hatred toward themselves in their schitzo period (1980-2010; when their mounting arrogance and delusional-self congratuation inversely paralleled their financial global decline) that the rest of the world will have no interest in revitalizing them.

In 2004 the smart young Americans are beginning to question the alternatives to being so closely tied to this declining empire, even if they rarely publicly acknowledge their doubts. Which is probably just as well, given the jingoistic politcal climate there.

An excellent overview of this trend is found in the book "The Sovereign Individual" by James Dale Davidson and Lord Rees-Mogg. They missed the revolution that technology is creating in corporate copyright, but they foresaw everything else.

Re:DMCA Must gooo! its gayer than the YMCA

[shaitand]

"The DMCA was created in the spirit that new forms of electronic media were not safe from potential copyright violations, and the act did what it set out to do."

Except that existing copyright law already made copyright violations illegal whether on a fancy new media or not. The DMCA was never needed to begin with. Being on digital media doesn't invalidate copyright on material under the laws that have been around since 1976.

"Pointing fingers makes us feel good, but unless we propose alternatives and compromises, are we really doing anything but venting? Does anyone else have potential solutions/thoughts on how to resolve this issue?"

What compromise? This law never had a purpose to begin with except to enact additional restrictions on certain types of copyrighted media. Why on earth do people feel that every few years the same issues of corporate interest need to be raised again and that the people should "compromise" a little further. We compromised when we created copyright, we compromised again in 1976, they compromised DESPITE US in 2000. Exactly how far do you feel we should compromise before we draw the line and say we won't give another inch, in fact we are taking back a few we shouldn't have ever given in the first place?

If you start with harsh restrictions on a subject, then compromise, the end result is more harsh than what you had to start with EVERY time. Now you do it on the same subject every few years over and over again and you have a pattern that results in giving more and more ground until you look back and realize that there isn't anymore ground to give and their just making up new bullshit ways to screw you now.

Re:DMCA Must gooo! its gayer than the YMCA

[Hornsby]

The DMCA is unconstitutional, anti-competitive, anti-innovative, and anti-american; however, after a careful perusal, I can't find anything inherently homosexual or happy about the law. Maybe you can enlighten me.

(Score:-1, Homophobic)

Nobody's mentioned yet...

[rograndom]

Most of all this hubbub from Darl was that if managed to get four straight profitable quarters then he would get a fat bonus. A loss this quarter is a major, major setback.

just explain this:

[gotem]

what is the diference between those headers and the ones in the 2.2 series? suposedly 2.2 kernels are "clean"
Every open letter from SCO should come with a default +1 Funny modifier

Re:Vote bush out of office

[CashCarSTAR]

The problem isn't "Democrats" or "Republicans", it's the public at large has absolutly no respect for freedom.

The thing is, freedom is often seen in the US as a means to an end, and not as an end in itself. Freedom is seen as something you are given, not as something you give. Notice that pretty much everybody will completely trample any reasonable concept of freedom, as long as they get what they want.

The answer is not in politics, but in cultural change. American politicians, for the most part, are either too patriotic, or too pandering to say..yes, we are very flawed, and we can be better than this.

And frankly, Libertarians are the worst. For all their talking about freedom, they still would tear down enviromental and private privacy law that probably does the most to protect our freedom.

actual link

[gumbi west]

The parent link is not correct. But This is

That's What I Figured All Along

[Inode Jones]

A few months ago I took a guess as to what the misappropriated IP was, and the only thing I could come up with is errno.h, signal.h and syscall.h.

Linux was/is a derivative of Minix. There is no real Minix code left in Linux, but back in the 0.9x days, Linux was still evolving. You can still download Minix from here.

Now, here's the key point: although the NAMES of the various system calls, IOCTLs, error numbers and signals are part of the POSIX standard, their numeric assignments are not. The implementor is left to define them. Not all implementations define these the same way - take a look at the Linux/FreeBSD/SYSV emulation code in NetBSD to see the kinds of translations that need to be done to provide cross-platform compatibility.

Now compare the Minix include files with those of Linux and FreeBSD. You will notice very much the same error code and signal numbers. The Linux code dates from 1991 and is pre-ATT/BSDI settlement. It's likely that Tannenbaum is also in violation of AT&T's IP, and Linux has just inherited it. Of course, there's no money in SCO suing Tannenbaum.

Does this damage SCO? Not really. Is it worth US$699/seat? Definitely not. Can SCO collect damages? Probably, knowing the U.S. legal system.

Re:That's What I Figured All Along

[schon]

Can SCO collect damages?

Probably not. In order to assess damages, you determine how much damage was caused (in this case, ~$0). Then you look at how quickly the plaintiff addressed the issue (more than two years, in this case.) Then you look at how quickly the plaintiff notified the infringer, and attempted settlement. In this case - well, we're still waiting on that (Linus, Eben Moglen, and others have contacted SCO attempting to find out the specifics of their claims - all were rebuffed. SCO released this "evidence" to third parties, they never once sent it to the actual alleged infringers.)

SCO can't collect damages because they have declared (through their actions) that they value the alleged stolen code at $0.

Re:That's What I Figured All Along

[tiny69]

http://minnie.tuhs.org/UnixTree/V7/usr/include/err no.h.html
http://minnie.tuhs.org/VSTa/srctree/newsrc/include /errno.h.html
http://minnie.tuhs.org/FreeBSD-srctree/newsrc/sys/ errno.h.html

The some of the numbers in the above are identical, others are not. SCO claimed in court that there are no trade secrets in UNIX, only in the Unixware that SCO sells. So unless the different errno.h files in Linux are identical to what is found in Unixware, SCO doesn't have anything to stand on. The above files are from the same archive that contained a copy of malloc.c that SCO tried to use as proof that code was copied into Linux. It was later shown that the malloc.c code in question was released under a BSD style license at least twice and was probably in the public domain as well. So that can't make any Copyright claims.

Even if the headers are located in Unixware, SCO already acknowledged that some of the header files in question came from BSD. Much of the code from the AT&T-BSD settlement was placed in the public domain. http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1028217/posts

AT&T claimed this code, among other portions of its Unix OS, as infringed by the University of California in the BSD litigation, and was denied a preliminary injunction on the ground that it could not show a likelihood of success on its copyright claim, because it had published the code without copyright notices and therefore, under pre-1976 US copyright law, had put the code in the public domain.

In SCO's letter that they recently sent, they are claiming Copyright to everything from the settlement.

The settlement agreement between USL and BSDI addressed conditions upon which BSDI could continue to distribute its version of UNIX, BSD Lite 4.4, or any successor versions, including certain "UNIX Derived Files" which include the ABI Code. A complete listing of the UNIX Derived Files is attached. The ABI Code identified above is part of the UNIX Derived Files and, as such, must carry USL / SCO copyright notices and may not be used in any GPL distribution, inasmuch as the affirmative consent of the copyright holder has not been obtained, and will not be obtained, for such a distribution under the GPL.

They seem to have forgotten that Caldera was founded on selling Linux under the GPL. SCO is trying to obscure that fact, in the media and in court, that they changed their name from Caldera.

SCO also seems to forget that they can't place their Copyrights on stuff that has been placed in the public domain. Some of the code that SGI added to Linux turned out to be from SCO who had wrongly placed Copyright notices on the files.

De minimis non curat lex!

[Tsu Dho Nimh]

"Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought one could only copyright original works, but what's original about a bunch of #define-s? "

Nothing ... if it's the only way, or one of a very limited ways to implement the standard, it's not copyrightable. I believe the format and switches are specified by the POSIX standard, which means you have no choice/originality involved. Do it their way or it doesn't work.

Leaving the copyright notice off, even on a one-liner, is wrong, but it's not a fatal error. Tracking down who may have stripped a 20-line notice from a 1-line header for an OS that's been around since the 1970s is not going to be an easy task, and a judge would probably say "screw this, de minimis non curat lex* applies" and tell them to shove off. (*the law does not concern itself with trifles, nothing to do with Lex Luthor)

Re:Vote bush out of office

[derF024]

Still, what you CAN do is research the candidates on the major 2 platforms and pick out the ones who side with Libertarian beliefs.

Sounds like what you really need is a system like Instant Runoff voting where you don't have to worry that you're "throwing your vote away" on a third party candidate. Then you (and everyone else) could vote for that Libertarian candidate without worrying about the bad guy winning.

Re:DMCA Must gooo! its gayer than the YMCA

[ameoba]

Personally, I think the DMCA should stand. What we need to do is get the STFU passed into law so we can have headlines like:

SCO, "DMCA"; FSF, "STFU"

Re:DMCA Must gooo! its gayer than the YMCA

[Pionar]

What it amounts to is a law saying that it is illegal to pick locks. Well then what do you do if you are locked out of your house or car?

Close, but not quite. A better analogy would be to make it illegal to make a hairpin, as it could be used to pick a lock. It's the instrument that the DMCA bans, not the action. The action (of breaking a lock that wasn't yours) was already illegal. Piracy has always been illegal, it just wasn't illegal to make the tools until the DMCA.

Re:not just Linux... use do-while loop

[dmeranda]

This is off topic, but your macro itself has problems. It permits its use without a statement-terminating semicolon. It is always best to define multi-statement macro blocks with a do-while loop as:

#define return(x) do{ ..... }while(0)

Notice no semicolon after the "while(0)". This makes it an error to omit the semicolon after the macro's use, and thus behaves more like an actual function in syntax. Oh, and this is one case where you really DO want the parenthesis around the return "value" x inside the macro, since "x" is not a variable but a macro argument which could contain a semicolon.

Re:DMCA Must gooo! its gayer than the YMCA

[Lumpy]

Allow for the use of back-engineering tools with HARSH punishments for people who knowingly use them to break copyrighted material with intent to distribute.

I call bullshit. only a person that is so seperated from reality would say such a thing.

PROPER punishment for illegal use. Sorry but someone violating the DMCA should get 1/10th the punishment than a mass murderer. Currently under US laws if you violate the DMCA, you will get a lighter sentence if you grab a shotgun and kill a few officers when they come to get you.

Copyright violation is a very very VERY MINOR offense and needs to be treated as such with only MONETARY damages.

sending anyone to prison for anything as silly as a stupid copyright violation is absolute stupidity.

you know this, and until this is how it is written I violently oppose any such legislation and those that support it.

ABI vs API code

[nzkoz]

Now forgive me if I'm being stupid here. SCO's letter states that:

Certain copyrighted application binary interfaces ("ABI Code") have been copied verbatim from our copyrighted UNIX code base and contributed to Linux for distribution under the General Public License ("GPL") without proper authorization and without copyright attribution.

Now all these header files that they've named, are just that, header files. Which relate to the POSIX|UNIX API. These are two different things right?

Re:ABI vs API code

[igomaniac]

I believe the ABI part means they are claiming copyright of the specific numbers assigned to each of these standard (API) defines. They can't claim copyright on the defined names since they are ANSI/ISO standardized, but the standards do not mandate which numbers are assigned so this is (or at least can be interpreted as) original work.

There is no copyright issue

[Rayban]

From:

http://finance.messages.yahoo.com/bbs?.mm=FN&act io n=m&board=1600684464&tid=cald&sid=1600684464&mid=7 4550

To All Licensees, Distributors of Any Version of BSD:

As you know, certain of the Berkeley Software Distribution ("BSD") source code files require that further distributions of products containing all or portions of the software, acknowledge within their advertising materials that such products contain software developed by UC Berkeley and its contributors.

Specifically, the provision reads:

" * 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software
* must display the following acknowledgement:
* This product includes software developed by the University of
* California, Berkeley and its contributors."

Effective immediately, licensees and distributors are no longer required to include the acknowledgement within advertising materials. Accordingly, the foregoing paragraph of those BSD Unix files containing it is hereby deleted in its entirety.

William Hoskins
Director, Office of Technology Licensing
University of California, Berkeley

Re:DMCA Must gooo! its gayer than the YMCA

[GrenDel Fuego]

I disagree.

The DMCA also makes it illegal to "pick the lock" as well, not just the creation of the tool to pick the lock. And it doesn't distinguish between locks you own and locks you don't own.

Forgive me, I'm forced to use SCO at work..

[avij]

Oh, but SCO uses different errno.h files depending on the situation. I tried hard to include a fragment of the errno.h but the lameness filter totally prevented me from doing that. It complained about too many junk characters, but how can I be responsible for the junk in SCO header files? Some logic from errno.h:

"old, crufty environment" -> oldstyle/errno.h
"Xpg4v2 environment" -> xpgv2/errno.h
"Xpg4 environment" -> xpg4/errno.h
"Posix environment" -> posix/errno.h
"Pure Ansi/ISO environment" -> ansi/errno.h
"Old, Tbird compatible environment" -> ods_30_compat/errno.h
"Normal, default environment" -> just the standard errno.h file

Some of the comments, dated 94/12/04:

Portions Copyright (C) 1983-1995 The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.

The information in this file is provided for the exclusive use of the licensees of The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc. Such users have the right to use, modify, and incorporate this code into other products for purposes authorized by the license agreement provided they include this notice and the associated copyright notice with any such product. The information in this file is provided "AS IS" without warranty.

Portions Copyright (c) 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993 UNIX System Laboratories, Inc. Portions Copyright (c) 1979 - 1990 AT&T All Rights Reserved
THIS IS UNPUBLISHED PROPRIETARY SOURCE CODE OF UNIX System Laboratories, Inc. The copyright notice above does not evidence any actual or intended publication of such source code.

Here are the comments from an older version of the same file, specifically 91/06/06. I wonder why they've dropped Microsoft from the copyrights list?

UNIX is a registered trademark of AT&T
Portions Copyright 1976-1990 AT&T
Portions Copyright 1980-1989 Microsoft Corporation
Portions Copyright (C) 1983-1991 The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc. All Rights Reserved
The information in this file is provided for the exclusive use of the licensees of The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc. Such users have the right to use, modify, and incorporate this code into other products for purposes authorized by the license agreement provided they include this notice and the associated copyright notice with any such product. The information in this file is provided "AS IS" without warranty.
Copyright (c) 1984, 1986, 1987, 1988 AT&T
All Rights Reserved

THIS IS UNPUBLISHED PROPRIETARY SOURCE CODE OF AT&T
The copyright notice above does not evidence any
actual or intended publication of such source code.

Re:Forgive me, I'm forced to use SCO at work..

[gabe]

SCO Bought Xenix (a UNIX system) from Microsoft at some point. So I imagine after that point, Microsoft no longer owned the copyright on that material.

Re:Vote bush out of office

[pyros]

Louis Black highlighted the differences between Democrats and Republicnas best when he said "A Democrat sucks, a Republican blows. A democrat won't let me keep my money, but a Republican won't let me spend it on drugs and hookers, so what am I supposed to do with it?"

"Loser pays" only benefits corporations

[gillbates]

Smithers: Did you hear? "Loser Pays" has now become law; if we sue someone and lose, we'll have to pay their legal fees!

CEO: Perfect.

Smithers: WHAT?! Do you know what this means?

CEO: I know EXACTLY what it means. It means we'll hire the most expensive lawyers we can find. It means that no one will risk paying a million dollars in legal fees if they lose their ten grand lawsuit against us. It means when we sue people, they'll settle because the cost of losing just got higher. It means that we can rip off the customer even more! We'll have the best lawyers in the country - we're bound to win, and we'll make our victims pick up the tab! Yessss, this is EXACTLY what we wanted....

This is just too good to be true

[Kjella]

Linux header:
#define EPERM 1 /* Operation not permitted */
#define ENOENT 2 /* No such file or directory */
#define ESRCH 3 /* No such process */
#define EINTR 4 /* Interrupted system call */
#define EIO 5 /* I/O error */
#define ENXIO 6 /* No such device or address */
#define E2BIG 7 /* Arg list too long */

And the POSIX standard says:
The [errno.h] header shall provide a declaration for errno and give positive values for the following symbolic constants. Their values shall be unique except as noted below.
[EPERM]
Operation not permitted.
[ENOENT]
No such file or directory.
[ESRCH]
No such process.
[EINTR]
Interrupted function.
[EIO]
I/O error.
[ENXIO]
No such device or address.
[E2BIG]
Argument list too long.

Conclusion:
This is hogwash. Complete and utter hogwash. Even the descriptions are specified in the standard. You see some minor differences (Argument vs Arg, function vs system call) but it is simply trivial. If this is the "infringing" stuff, the replacement with completely non-infringing comments would be ready in about 30 seconds directly from the standard. I can volunteer to do a cleanroom implementation without neither SCO nor BSD code :p.

Kjella

Two questions...

[emil]

1. McBride was supposed to get a bonus for several consecutive quarters of profitable earnings. The bonus is trashed now, correct?
2. The Linux 2.2 kernel is supposed to be free of infringing code. Aren't the errno.h, signal.h, and ioctl.h unchanged or very similar since 2.2?

Re:DMCA Must gooo! its gayer than the YMCA

[andman42]

>> What it amounts to is a law saying that it is illegal to pick locks. Well then what do you do if you are locked out of your house or car?

> A better analogy would be to make it illegal to make a hairpin, as it could be used to pick a lock

Stop, you're both right. The DMCA bans both circumventing copyright protections (picking the lock) and tools for performing this circumvention (the hairpin).

How dare you...

[terminal.dk]

post copyrigthed code here ?

They will soon come and close slashdot down.

Darl's brother is hard at work

[Platinum Dragon]

Someone at Groklaw pointed out that the MS Word version, hosted at LWN, still has the good ol' properties saved. Kevin McBride apparently created the document, with the last modification being made by "bstowell"--presumably, Blake Stowell.

Nice to see that $9 million in legal fees is going to great use.

Re:SIG Must gooo! its the gay GOATSE.CX guy

[Tackhead]

> Didn't your Momma tell you not to click on strange sigs?!
>
> Long ago I quit clicking on slashdot sig links. *Especially* when it has goat in the link text :P

This is a SCO thread. Pictures of Darl McBride may be repulsive, but they're definitely on topic.

Re:DMCA Must gooo! its gayer than the YMCA

[Pitawg]

Make an original file, program, or image, run it trough a one-time-hash using the DMCA text. Have a friend post on some site how to crack your file using the DMCA text. Would it not reuire the DMCA to be banned?

Re:Vote bush out of office

[cyberformer]

I'd vote for anyone who isn't Bush, which of course means a Democrat. But even someone who hates both major parties should still vote, because independent or third-party votes do make a difference.

If the major parties see a substantial portion of votes going to a single-issue candidate, they'll see that people feel strongly about that issue and try to adjust their platform to attract those voters. When people don't vote at all, politicians just assume that nobody cares what they do.

I dislike the libertarians because (like Bush) they often seem to be more interested in the rights of corporations than of human beings, but the principle still stands.

Re:DMCA Must gooo! its gayer than the YMCA

[SirWhoopass]

Well, this is an obvious troll but it seems the mods bit.

Let's pretend all your arguments are correct. The United States is going to collapse. Even still, the US is a massive country with a huge wealth of natural resources within its borders. It also has a powerful military to defend those borders. Argentina was never like the US.

If you want to pursue an analogy, then the US is headed to being another Russia. Russia may not be what it was at the height of the Soviet Union, but Russia is nothing like Argentina.

Re:DMCA Must gooo! its gayer than the YMCA

[shane_rimmer]

Not to mention the fact that they would both be guilty of sharing the information on how to use said hairpin to circumvent said home security device.

Re:DMCA Must gooo! its gayer than the YMCA

[Deagol]

Even if you want to make sure that hunting stays legal, is it so unreasonable to make sure that it is hard to make the gun automatic, that the clip has fewer than 8 rounds in it?

Yeah, if that DC Sniper didn't have full-auto capability, he wouldn't have been able to take down so many people. Oh, wait a minute...

You see, if I walked into a random schoolyard and started shooting, does it fundamentally matter if I'm using a single-shot muzzle-loader rifle or a modified full-auto AR-15 with a 30-round clip? I'm still a monster, right?

Sure, in practical matters, there may be more dead bodies to clean up if I had a full- (or even semi-) auto, but the fact remains that I am a disturbed person who broke the law. If all guns vanished today, if I were that disturbed, I'd simply walk into the school yard with a 3-iron and start whackin' heads on the kindergarten jungle-gym. Are you going to argue that golf club makers should make their clubs less useful for clubbing someone to death?

And I don't buy the argument that guns are specifically designed to kill/injure people. They're designed to hurl small chunks of metal, accurately, for long distances, and at very high velocities. What people choose to do with them is their own business -- until they break the law.

Yes, this is a rather morbib way to make my point, but I hate it when people still insist on blaming the instrument of crime, rather than the criminal.

Re:Vote bush out of office

[kin_korn_karn]

Nope.

The corporation is its own entity. That's the whole point of a corporation - the business' liabilities are incurred by the corporation, not by its owners, so that if it fails, the owners don't lose their asses.

When you attack a corporation, you attack a business entity. The owners (shareholders) have nothing to do with it; in fact shareholders have a right to anonymity. Why do you think nobody goes to jail when Exxon destroys hundreds of miles of Alaskan coastline, but if you take your dirty oil and dump it in the storm drain and get caughty you get fined and maybe thrown in jail? It's because the shareholders aren't personally liable for the actions of the corporation. Again. That's the whole point of the corporation.

This takes a leap of one level of abstraction to get, so I can see why a lot of people don't comprehend this. Libertarians and conservatives tend to be concrete-reasoning keep-it-simple-stupid types that can't recognize a non-corporeal entity - unless it's a middle eastern diety that's been pounded into their head from birth.

Re:Vote bush out of office

[Stray7Xi]

Ya that'd be great, a system where voting for someone can CAUSE them to lose.

7 votes for A, B, C
6 votes for B, A, C
5 votes for C, B, A
3 votes for D, C, B

D gets dropped, then B gets dropped, and finally A wins (A:13 vs C:8).

But if the last three voters instead voted A, D, C, B then A loses BECAUSE they voted for A:

7 votes for A, B, C
6 votes for B, A, C
5 votes for C, B, A
3 votes for A, D, C, B

D gets dropped, then C gets dropped, and finally B wins (B:11 vs A:10)

In instant RunOff Voting there are the following problems:
-Raising your vote for someone can cause them to lose (Monotonicity Criterion)
-Lowering your vote for someone can cause them to win (Monotonicity Criterion)
-A one on one comparison between the winner and any other candidate should show the winner being preferred in every pair. IRV doesn't do this. (Condorcet Criterion)
-Doesn't scale at all. The possible votes are basically a factorial. Sorry if its hard to describe the formulaes. But the number of possibilites without truncation is N! with truncation its the summation of permutations. sPn (where s=1 to n-1) xPy = x!/(x-y)!

California's recall would of just not scaled with IRV. Suppose 100 candidates then the number of possible votes is 100! + 100!/2! + 100!/3! + ... + 100!/98! + 100!/99!

-It's not easy to understand by the common guy (not /. ) imagine the news trying to explain HOW a candidate won.

For detailed explanation of these problems:
http://electionmethods.org/evaluation.htm

A condorcet method would be a more sound election method, because basically the voter ranks the candidates. Then the method sees which candidates are preferred by one-on-one comparisons. Joe Shmoe can understand this because when the news comes on, it just shows the comparison of the winner to every other candidate.

Re:DMCA Must gooo! its gayer than the YMCA

[mpe]

The DMCA does nothing to stop copyright infringement. Copyright infringement is illegal to begin with. Making it 'more' illegal isn't going to stop anyone who was going to commite the crime in the first place.

It's more to make those who are passing the laws feel they are doing their job.

Say a thief is going to break into your home to steal your tv. Making it illegal to pick locks isnt really going to deter him. All it will lead to is poorly designed locks.

It can lead to all sorts of other issues. Especially if picking locks viewed as a more serious crime than burglary.

Bill Hicks on political parties in America

[Overly Critical Guy]

Bill Hicks on the two-party system:

I'll show you politics in America: "I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs." "I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking." "Wait, there's one guy holding up both puppets!" "Shut up! Go back to bed America. Your government is in control. Here's Love Connection, watch this and get fat and stupid. By the way, keep drinking beer, you fucking morons!"

Good thing Microsoft bought a license

[zjbs14]

From the VC++ 6.0 errno.h header:

/* Error Codes */

#define EPERM 1
#define ENOENT 2
#define ESRCH 3
#define EINTR 4
#define EIO 5
#define ENXIO 6
#define E2BIG 7

They could have been in BIG trouble.

"Novell is desperate" says Darl

[Belegothmog]

"Finally, McBride responded to a report that Novell Inc. was still pursuing its own copyright claims on Unix. "Novell is desperate," McBride said. "SCO has produced documents that say we own the Unix copyrights. Let me be real clear: SCO acquired all rights for Unix and UnixWare, includes copyrights. We see this as a fraudulent notice." McBride added that SCO sees Novell as being "all hat, no cattle." from eweek

Well, if that's not the pot calling the kettle black... They really are a joke.

I have a serious problem with this...

[jasonrfink]

SCO is asserting that because a BSD/USL agreement was somehow not honored that SCO is entitled to recompense. Here is the problem, SCO therfore implies that it was making an eanest effort to improve the core operating system, SCO UNIX, during said time.

I know for a fact that SCOs system has bugs in it that other systems and projects fixed years ago, instead, SCO was busy making up, for the most part, utterly useless, products. Their userland is horrible, the kernel clunky, and the system is riddled with bugs that should have been fixed.

SCO claims, "they did their best" but the world owes them something.

Sorry, you can't make money for being incompetent and then blaming someone else's good fortune.

Copyright status of UNIX headers

[epmos]

#include

I am not a lawyer. I am not a paralegal. I do not offer legal advice to anyone, ever.
As someone who uses Linux and BSD every day, I do have an interest in this case, and in the history of UNIX.

Remember, copyright law has changed since UNIX was written. Be careful not to make incorrect assumptions based on what the law says today .

I have one question: are the BSD header files subject to copyright ? I really tought that these files were declared as "no copyrightables" in 1973

Not quite. IIRC they were not "declared 'no copyrightables'" in 1973 but in 1993 the court found that 32V may have entered the public domain due to AT&T's not following copyright rules in effect between 1978 and 1986.

Please read this document, esp. the section titled "1. Copyright Infringement".
http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/bsdi/930303. ruling.txt
Please note that this is a ruling denying an injunction that would have prevented distribution of BSD, not a dismissal of the entire case. So it's not as strong as we might like.

There is a lot of information about the BSD case on the web, start here . Of course, the settlement itself is sealed, so it's hard to say exactly what it contains. However, such a settlement would restrict USL, BSDI and the Regents of the University of California, not the Linux developers or IBM.

And the general feeling is that USL asked for the seal because they had their ass handed to them, not because the wanted to spare the Regents a public humiliation.

<grin>

Does this help clear things up?

Mac OSX, *BSD as well

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting as AC as I already modded here

I just took a look in the Mac OSX errno.h file (/usr/include/sys/errno.h) and the error definitions are all there, with the same attributed numbers as in the Linux and *BSD ones. Someone further down claimed that SCO was claiming ownership of the actual numbers, since the defined names are an ANSI/ISO standard and therefore can't be claimed.

What this means, I think, is that SCO is indeed attempting to roll open the BSD/LSI case again. I would be amazed if they were able to get away with this. I'm pretty sure a competent lawyer will be able to clam this one up in court.

Not only that but SCO is opening themselves up to truly massive claims of extortion and fraud if this is not legal, which although IANAL I really cannot see it being from their pretty wild claim in their letter. They simply claim they own these files, yet make NO mention of showing how that is so.

I am really interested as to who is going to sue SCO next.

Re:1 dead == 15 dead?

[psykocrime]

Why should we not have laws preventing someone from getting the tool necessary to commit a massacre?

It's called the 2nd Amendment.

Is there some legitimate reason that someone would need a fully-automatic weapon with a 50 round clip?

Yes. The main reason that comes to mind is an armed revolution against the existing government, should it ever become tyranical / dictatorial / etc.

It may sound unlikely, it may even BE unlikely... but fundamentally the 2nd Amendment is all about making sure that the ultimate power lies in the hands of "the people" where it belongs.

Also, you might be interested to know that legally owned / properly licensed fully automatic weapons are almost NEVER used in the commission of armed crimes. I don't have a direct link handy, but that's from the FBI's own crime statistics.

Re:What happened to '4 quarters of profitabiity'?

[Error27]

previous pump-n-dump speculation mentioned that there needed to be 4 quarters of profitabliy before Darl got a big bonus kick-in

That wasn't really speculation... That part of Darl's contract was documented in one of SCO's SEC filings. If he made SCO made a profit for four consecutive quarters then Darl would get 150,000 stock options.

If you read the article though, he still gets a ton of options regardless of the four quarters of profitability... It will be interesting to watch when they start to vest.

Re:Vote bush out of office

[jazuki]

Not quite right. While the shareholders of a corporation are not liable in case of corporate wrongdoing, its officers and board are. And they can be individually prosecuted if they were party to criminal activities, either in terms of making decisions or in terms of intentional execution. And they can go to jail as a result.

In the case of Enron, for example, Andrew Fastow is being criminally prosecuted.

However, many argue he's just a fall guy, since people that high up in a corporation often as far as they can to maintain plausible deniability. Like Ken Lay for example. But, this happens in politics, too. Say, Reagan and Iran-Contra.

Comparing SCO Openserver errno.h to Linux errno.h

[DDumitru]

I just pulled up /usr/include/asm/errno.h from a SCO OpenServer V system I have access to (which has a legal license). I compared this with /usr/src/linux-2.4.22/include/asm-i386/errno.h

I will not post the file here, but a couple of points are obvious.

1. The comments between the two versions are different. Even specific error message comments vary, such as:

SYMBOL - Linux - SCO

EPERM - Operation Not Permitted - Not Owner
E2BIG - Argument list too long - Arg list too long
EDOM - Math argument out of domain - Argument out of domain

and on and on.

2. There are a bunch of defines in Linux that don't exist in SCO.

3. Some of the defines are completely for different things:

SCO - EBADE 50 /* Bad Exchange Descriptor */
Linux - ENOCSI 50 /* No CSI structure available */

4. The SCO file has a bunch of errors for things like TCP errors that aren't in the Linux file at all.

5. The formatting of comments is very different.

In general, there is no way that the Linux code is a simple cut and paste of the SCO code, at least at this level.

Maybe the code started out closer, but all that is left is symbols and numbers. The numbers are arbitrary and vary from target to target. The symbols are a part of the POSIX spec. The files are available under a BSD license. Just how is this infringing on SCO's copyright and even if it were, just what are the damages.

Where SCO comes in...

[Kjella]

Where does Darl come in? It's BSD's copyright; did BSD make Darl their agent? I don't think so. If there was a screwup (which remains to be shown), the quarrel is between BSD and Linux, with no room at all in there for SCO.

I think it's part of the BSD settlement, which basicly goes like this AT&T licences to BSD, BSD licences to AT&T. Because they'd both been using eachother's work. Any code that should be attributed to both AT&T and Berkley, is SCOs business since SCO now owns the Unix code of AT&T. So their claims to a copyright notice is not without merit, the silly part is laying claims to the definitions of the POSIX standard.

Kjella

SCO Better Sue Microsoft, Too.

[lophophore]

I found 4 different copies of errno.h on my Windows XP box!

Two were from Cygwin, but the other two were Microsoft's.

For instance, c:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\Vc7\include\errno.h says it is copyright Microsoft. This file includes preprocessor directives that seem strangely familiar

/* Error Codes */

#define EPERM 1
#define ENOENT 2
#define ESRCH 3
#define EINTR 4
#define EIO 5
etc.

Which look sufficiently like what SCO is claiming is their copyrighted code!

This is fun!

Re:DMCA Must gooo! its gayer than the YMCA

[Ancil]

What do you do if you are locked out of your house or car?

Buy a new house or car, of course. The law was written by the people who make houses and cars; what would you expect?

Linus proves he wrote errno.h and ctype.h

[close_wait]

Groklaw has just posted an email from Linus where he shows how he wrote errno.h and ctype.h for the original 0.01 release of Linux. So it's not from SCO and it's not even from BSD.

Can SCO really be that incompetent?

Re:1 dead == 15 dead?

[ces]

Also, you might be interested to know that legally owned / properly licensed fully automatic weapons are almost NEVER used in the commission of armed crimes. I don't have a direct link handy, but that's from the FBI's own crime statistics.

That statistic applies to most legally owned and properly licensed firearms. Not just fully automatic weapons. Even legally owned and properly licensed handguns are rarely used in the commission of crime, even in states that permit concealed carry. While the numbers aren't quite as low as they are for fully automatic weapons and other similarly licensed arms they are still quite low.

The essential truth is few law abiding firearms owners ever commit armed crimes. On the other hand plenty of crimes are prevented by legally owned civilian firearms every day.

2.3.50 v 2.6.0 -- Diff anyone?

[utlemming]

Linus commented that he himself remembers writing those files. Well, thanks to Kernel.org and a little too much time on my hands, I did a little exploring.

Kernel 2.6.0 has errno.h in two files. To make my life a little easier, I combined the two files, errno.h and errno-base.h. In Kernel 2.3.50 it is one file.

Well, as we know, SCO is claiming that 2.4.21 is the kernel that started with the problems. If that is the case, assuming that SCO actually has a case then we have a problem.

But the thing is that the errno.h and errno-base.h in 2.6.0 and the errno.h in 2.3.50 have only one difference other than being split up and the appropriate location indicators. THe only difference is:

#define E2BIG 7 /*Argument list too long*/
#define E2BIG 7 /*Arg list too long*/

So if you buy SCO's argument they are saying that a comment is to blame on this. Again, this is an SCO FUD campaign, but come on.

Thanks to diff for the comparision.