SCO Responds to OSDL Legal Aid Announcement

Greyfox writes "SCO has issued a response to the earlier OSDL legal aid announcement. Basically the same old story, noting: 'If vendors feel so confident with the intellectual property foundation under their massive contributions into Linux, then they should put their money where their mouth is and protect end users with true vendor-based indemnification.' The release also refers us to their SCOSource web site, which they claim in their announcement shows 'proof' of infringement. I was unable to find any such 'proof' other than their claim that they own errno.h. Since I'm obviously too much of an idiot to find the 'proof' they claim they're showing, maybe someone else could go look and tell me where it is."

Comments

Re:First

[cshark]

I couldn't find it either.

System V

[numbski]

They claim to own System V, but give no evidence regarding linux ownership.

Unless System V == Linux

I don't think so.

Solaris...well....

Re:System V

[gwernol]

They claim to own System V, but give no evidence regarding linux ownership.

They do indeed claim System V. They also claim that this ownership (in the form of copyright to the source code and design, I believe) automatically extends to all works derived in part or whole from System V.

Unless System V == Linux

This means that according to their claim, Linux in fact does not have to be the same as System V, it only has to be derived from it for them to have ownership of (part of) the Linux source code.

IANAL, but it seems to me that this claim of derivation is extremely tenuous. But copyright law does recognize the general notion of derived works, so its just possible that they are right about this. It will take a court - and probably several appeals courts - to decide this.

Even if they did establish that their copyright of System V gave them rights to derived works in the way they are claiming, I suspect they would also need to separately show that Linux was derived from System V in that way.

Again, their claim is not so much that specific blocks of code have been copied from their codebase into Linux, but that the general specifications and design (as well as code) of System V is present in Linux. If they are right about this then recoding specific infringing code may not be enough to satisfy the courts.

I suspect their case is deeply flawed, but it does seem at least based in a reading of the law.

Re:System V

[nate1138]

Solaris...well....

Well, it's irrelevant, since Sun holds a license from SCO.

Re:System V

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe they made the beginner PHP mistake
because if(SystemV = Linux)... always is true :-)

Re:System V

[MidKnight]

Solaris...well....

Sun has purchased a whole string of licenses from the various owners of Unix, with SCO being the latest. As you can see from this press release, they're protecting their arses as best they can. I can't say I blame them....

--Mid

Re:System V

[Anonymous Coward]

They can't argue any of that without looking even more stupid than they already do.

LKP incorporates both the kernel interfaces and a Linux application environment directly into the Open UNIX 8 system. Lxrun emulates the system calls through SEGV signals that are generated by int80 instructions. This emulated Linux kernel function calls.

lkp faq

Re:System V

[Anonymous Coward]

it only has to be derived from it

And as we all know, that is exactly what happened. Linus Torvalds, in 1991, took the copyrighted System V UNIX source code, and used it as a basis for his "Linux". He did not, for example, write Linux from scratch, without referring to SysV code at all. Er, yes.

Re:System V

[plj]

But copyright law does recognize the general notion of derived works, so its just possible that they are right about this.

Well, this is still seems to be mostly U.S. problem.

In Finland - and I think in many other European countries too - the copyright law does not know about derivative works; you can draw Donald Ducks here without paying any royalties for Disney, as long as the stories are your own.

So maybe Linus should just return home to Helsinki and mail Darl that your law doesn't apply to me. ;-)

But well... I sorta agree that claiming Linux illegal in U.S. could somewhat disturb its development...

Re:System V

[Anonymous Coward]

I think more importantly they have to determine that it was directly related to System V, and not System IV, System III or any of the other known UNIX platforms.

As far as I can determine errno.h has been there for a while.

Re:System V

[harlows_monkeys]

In Finland - and I think in many other European countries too - the copyright law does not know about derivative works; you can draw Donald Ducks here without paying any royalties for Disney, as long as the stories are your own.

Wrong. Finland adopted the Berne Convention, which includes pretty much the same rules about derivative works that US copyright law does.

Re:System V

[arivanov]

Well, this is still seems to be mostly U.S. problem.

Not really. The most interesting parts of system V have been through an industry standard process where representatives of ATT, Novell and SCO/Caldera were present. If they attempt to put any claims to anything that has gone through that process they are up to the same serious shafting as RamBus(t).

Actually, it is interesting that IBM did not put this in their counterclaims. Possibly they are holding that one in reserve just in case SCO wins. Because, then it will be burried by the entire industry. After all about 10% of the fortune 500 had people in various POSIX groups. Basically, if SCO wins, it will lose because courts will declare the money uncollectable as in the Rambus case.

Re:System V

[Deusy]

I suspect their case is deeply flawed, but it does seem at least based in a reading of the law.

This would be an acceptable statement iff the BSD lawsuits did not exist.

System V from the BSD OSes is public domain. That has been decided by a court of law.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this BSD fallout all happened around the time that Linux was born. Which would make it quite logical that Linux could have taken the System V code at the time, which has since been iterated over time and time again.

Derived works of public domain code, maybe. Derived works of SCO IP? No.

They have no case. There is no reading of law basis to their case. It's something printed on much smaller sheets and, worryingly for the western world, more important than law.

Don't you know? The SCO Group and all the individuals associated with it have made a fucking fortune. And you can bet your bottom dollar they're gonna milk it for every dime they can.

Worse still, it's an identical principle to the one the US government uses. If you repeat a lie enough, eventually it becomes a truth that people are willing to accept. And then you can get away with highway robbery with their approval.

Please, by saying that "they have a case based in a reading of law" you are not only being patronising, but condoning what should be and could be a criminal act and one that they will get away with.

Re:System V

[plj]

Well, I don't know about the exact regulations of Berne Convention, but I think I somewhat know the Finnish copyright law.

IANAL, though, and as I just re-red the law, it seems that my example was partially wrong; yes, someone could draw his/her own DD stories, but calling them DD's would require a license from Disney.

Re:System V

[endx7]

System V from the BSD OSes is public domain. That has been decided by a court of law.

Noo....As far as I know headers might public domain (only one way to implement it, yada yada), but the rest is still copyrighted. The difference is the license the BSDs are distributed under is extremely unrestricting. Free of most all restrictions and public domain are different things.

Re:System V

[Crispy Critters]

"This means that according to their claim, Linux in fact does not have to be the same as System V, it only has to be derived from it for them to have ownership of (part of) the Linux source code."

You have to be careful to interpret the law using the legal definition of derived work, not a vernacular definition.

A derived work contains material that is covered by copyright taken from another work.

Imagine I take some numbers from a table in your book to make a graph to put in my book. In a colloquial sense you might say my work is derived from yours, but it is not a derived work in the legal sense, because all I took was information, which is not protected under copyright law.

To justify a claim that Linux is a derived work, SCO would need to identify specific elements copied and show that these elements are protected by copyright law. In theory, non-literal elements in the design could be protected, but given the great variety of Unix-y operating systems that exist and the complicated history of their dissemination, it would be difficult to protect non-literal elements unless they exist uniquely in SysV.

Re:System V

[harlows_monkeys]

See Chapter 1, Articles 1, 2, and 4. It sure looks to me like Finnish law, even without Berne, covers what would be called in the US derivative works.

Re:System V

[Tsu Dho Nimh]

" But copyright law does recognize the general notion of derived works, so its just possible that they are right about this. It will take a court - and probably several appeals courts - to decide this."

No. Derivative works are clearly defined in USC17 (US copyright law), and having copyright to one of the sources used in the preparation of a derivative work does NOT give you any rights to the rest of the material in that work.

Example: If a movie studio uses a novel as the basis for a screenplay ... let's say Rowling's "Sorcerer's Stone" book ... the author owns NO COPYRIGHTS in the movie, the soundtrack, the games, toys, comic books, or other works that may come from it unless the terms of the author's contract with the purchaser specifically say the author does. Neither does the movie studio acquire any copyright ownership over the source material or any similar works written by Rowling. The original work of eacy party remains theirs unless there is a signed contract explicitly assigning copyrights differently.

From what I have read of the IBM/AT&T agreements, they were using the usual definition of derivative work: anything IBM added stayed theirs, and anything they bought from AT&T stayed with AT&T.

Re:System V

[garbagedisposal]

SCO's claims have all been *thoroughly* researched & debunked at groklaw. In fact IBM are even citing theit research.

SCO are mouting a FUD campaign that benefits their share price tempoarily.

Meanwhile the SCO boss's are quietly selling stock.
This is called pump & dump.
It may eventually expose them to procesution for fraud by your SEC.

Re:System V

[plj]

I managed to find an English translation of the law. It's here. (Original Finnish text of the act is here).

See chapter 1, article 4, paragraph 2:

"If a person has drawn freely on a work to create a new and independent work, his copyright shall not be subject to the right in the original work."

I think a work could count as "new and independent work", even if you're using a lookalike of an already-known character, like DD as part of it. Using the already-known name, however, would be a violation of chapter 6, article 51:

"A literary or artistic work shall not be made available to the public under a title, pseudonym or signature that makes the work or its author liable to confusion with a previously disseminated work or its author."

Methinks we'll very soon need a real lawyer to work this out for us. ;)

Re:System V

[danb35]

System V from the BSD OSes is public domain. That has been decided by a court of law.

No, that has not been decided by a court of law. The judge in the BSD case, in non-binding dicta, expressed doubt that any copyright on the SysV codebase could be enforced. However, since that issue wasn't actually before him at the time, that statement isn't binding on anybody (though if SCO ever gets around to filing a copyright infringement action against anybody based on SysV copyrights, it'll almost certainly be introduced to try to persuade the relevant court).

Now, if the judge had written something to the effect of "I find that there is no enforceable copyright in the SysV code", any copyright claim based on that material would be immediately sunk. Since he didn't, such a claim would still be sunk, but it'd take more work to sink it.

Re:System V

[morgue-ann]

This means that according to their claim, Linux in fact does not have to be the same as System V, it only has to be derived from it for them to have ownership of (part of) the Linux source code.

While SCO have said many things that are wrong, one thing they got right was how derivative copyrights work.

They don't claim to own Linux, but only that they can exert control over it. This means that they can demand $699 from every user, but Linus could demand $6999 from every user (boycott SCO by taking Linux "off the market" for a week) and SCO couldn't do anything about it.

SCO is claiming not that they just own a portion of Linux, but that the entire "work" is a derviative work of their IP. They've stated that removing the infringing pieces once identified won't be possible, because their design is pervasive.

If entities collaborate, their work is controlled by both. If they can't agree on terms to distribute, neither party can distribute independently.

I suspect this is why it's so hard to get classic videogame ROMs released. Their ownership might be tied up with claims from Atari/Namco/Williams some of whom might have been through reorganization.

For an example of software resurrection gone very right, check out (Free) Blender.

Re:System V

[Anonymous Coward]

You've got it about half right.

In the BSD settlement, AT&T lost its copyright interest in the source code (NOT the BSD folks!). When that was appealed, they both settled, such that the BSD folks removed a few small files and everyone was happy.

This gives us two interesting things: there's no copyright on some of it + you CAN just "remove the offending code" and have the problems go away. Of course, you'd most likely only do that if you were on the losing end of things and it was all you could do to settle... which somehow does remind me of SCO's position...

In the mean time, errno.h was written originally by Linus himself, and he has in fact already publically described its creation to Groklaw. It does NOT contain any of SCO's IP. They are, it would seem "smoking crack" ... or so it might appear due to their irrational and paranoid commentary, even though it is rarely advisable to comment on a case that's under litigation (you may notice that IBM has made only the most guarded and tangential statements concerning the case...)

Re:System V

[Anonymous Coward]

Meanwhile the SCO boss's are quietly selling stock. This is called pump & dump.

No, it's not. Jesus Christ you Slashbots are fucking stupid.

Re:System V

[nathanh]

System V from the BSD OSes is public domain. That has been decided by a court of law.

No, it has not been decided. The judge said it was likely to be in the public domain but AT&T settled out of court rather than push the issue. The judge never made an actual decision or declaration.

Though SCO would be wise to not bring this up. The judge's comments were fairly damning. If push came to shove it seems like it'd be fairly easy to prove that AT&T put the code into the public domain years ago.

Re:System V

[Anonymous Coward]

But copyright law does recognize the general notion of derived works, so its just possible that they are right about this. It will take a court - and probably several appeals courts - to decide this.

This issue was already addressed in Apple v. Microsoft. Apple claimed to hold a copyright on the "look and feel" of the interface. They court disagreed claiming the look and feel is a mechanical aspect that is better represented by patents.

The errno.h files, etc. define an interface. If anything that uses that interface is a derivative work, then all software built on a library is a derivative work of that library. Such an interpretation would mean that any Windows software would be a derivative of Windows. No doubt Microsoft would love such a ruling, but such a claim is ridiculous.

On the other hand, if the court rules that using an interface does not constitute a derivative work, then the GPL loses a great deal of its muscle -- effectively turning it into the LGPL. No matter how the court rules on this issue, it is a win for Microsoft.

Re:System V

[ComaVN]

You've got to hand it to them though, that's one awesome diagram they've got there

Re:System V

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought Apple dropped its case against MS after Xerox threatened to sue them over PARC/Eldorado copyright infringement??

Re:System V

[Dick Faze]

So Calvin can piss freely in Finland?

Re:System V

[MoralHazard]

Slashdot's posting submission page should have a check box for "IANAL"--sorry to be catty, but you need to think about this a little harder.

A DERIVED work is just that--a brand-new work, with its own copyright (owned by the creator of this derived work), which happens to be inspired by an existing work. The creator of the original work does not gain any rights over this work, nor can he impose restrictions on the copyright of this work, merely by the fact that this work is a derived work.

HOWEVER, the LICENSE under which the original copyright owner grants access the the creator of the derived work can specify additional restrictions on derived works as a condition of the license. But this should be obvious--you could impose a condition that the licensee must dance the gavotte upon demand is you wanted, because the license is just a contact between two parties. You might be familiar with this concept from such notions as the GPL, or the BSD license (both of which impose requirements on derived works a condition of using the original work).

Please bear in mind--copyright basically just says that I have the right to legally ban you from copying my data if I so desire. Starting from this right, we use contracts (licenses) to create a fine-tuned relationship that obliges you to certain conditions in order to use my stuff. If you refuse the conditions, I can refuse you the right to use my data.

Oh, yeah--IANAL, but I work close to the legal profession.

Re:System V

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't know too much about Finland, but across the border, in Sweden it has been proven to be ok for Donald Duck at least. Have a look at Arne Anka by Charlie Christensen ()

From the text:

Arne is a lonely duck, semi-alcoholic, with poet aspirations. He is always in search of the perfect woman (or any woman at all, for that matter). Arne is very cynical and has strong views on everything. And he is constantly out of money. His leftist/communist views, I suspect, comes mainly from his own low social status, not from any higher political motivation (as he has probably convinced himself)... He usually hangs out on certain bars, pubs and cafes in Stockholm city with his friend Krille Krokodil (the 'alligator'). Other acquaintances of Arne's is a vole and a fox, both of which have succeeded better than Arne, money-wise, but only marginally so.

I think Disney tried to stop it and the author then wrote an episode where Arne got hit by a 1 ton metal wheight with "Walt Disney & Co" written on it and had to do plastic surgery that gave him a very different bill. After a couple of months however he bought a false bill and looked as before!

The story: http://lcg-www.uia.ac.be/~erikt/comics/arneAnka.ht ml

Before: http://www.ludd.luth.se/users/gozer/ArneAnka/aa01. gif
During: http://www.ludd.luth.se/users/gozer/ArneAnka/aa05. gif
After?: http://www.ludd.luth.se/users/gozer/ArneAnka/aa21. gif

More here:
http://www.helsinki.fi/~lakoma/comics/aarne ankka.h tml
http://www.lysator.liu.se/~mosh/arne_eng.html

Re:System V

[Anonymous Coward]

> you can draw Donald Ducks here without paying any
> royalties for Disney, as long as the stories are
> your own.

You're confusing everything. Your example is completely unrelated to copyright. Artistic designs are never and have never been subject to copyright, not even in the US. Artistic designs are the realm of TRADEMARKS. Why does everyone constantly mess up trademarks, patents and copyright?

Re:System V

[Anonymous Coward]

pretty simple: if you draw DD in a work of art (in a Andy Wharrol kind of fashion), disney cannot sue you. If you publish a DD comic strip, they can

Pfft!

[Anonymous Coward]

If SCO feel so confident with the intellectual property foundation under their Linux kernel personality, then they should put their money where their mouth is and protect end users with true vendor-based indemnification for all 5 of its remaining UNIXWARE customers.

Re:Pfft!

[TopShelf]

Heck, I want just Darl to buy me a new keyboard - I just spewed Pepsi all over this one after reading that PR...

Re:Pfft!

[ron_ivi]

I know it was modded funny, but I agree. Indemnification is for proprietary commercial software, and I'd much rather see IBM & Intel defend the open-source nature than add yet another middleman imposing yet another cost.

Indemnification has a cost, and by a vendor indemnifying a customer (like HP) they're really saying "yes, you may have to pay licensing, and in addition you should apy me too". Adding an additional layer of costs to Linux is the last thing I'd want from my vendor.

By putting the money into defending the Open Source nature (defending against lawsuits, and helping program-around any infringing parts), it's really asserting that IBM and Intel do consider Linux as free (FSF definition) software.

Re:Pfft!

[Rimbo]

Another question to ask is... why does SCO protest so much? Given their modus operandi thus far, it would seem to suggest that their insistence that Linux vendors indemnify their customers is something that would benefit SCO more than anyone else... ...Perhaps by giving them juicier targets for lawsuits: The vendors themselves.

Foreseeing doom with their plans with IBM, perhaps they want more well-monied targets to pick from, to attempt their strategy a second time. Sue someone with cash, who was foolish enough to indemnify their customers, who might actually settle out-of-court or buy out SCO.

Re:Pfft!

[John_Schmidt]

If SCO feel so confident with their intellectual property claims, then they should put their money where their mouth is, and guarantee to refund all licence fees if (when) SCO looses the case.

Re:Pfft!

[Syntroxis]

Heck,

I just threw away a copy of unixware. It had been sitting in a closet for some time. I never got it to work. Support was non-existant.

I guess it's 4 users now.

Pb

Re:Pfft!

[Anonymous Coward]

Netcraft reports that SCO.COM is using Apache on Linux, although some years back they used to use SCO UNIX.

Also, all those SCO users are doctors who are stuck with Medical Manager (now WebMD) for billing. It was a turnkey (close to turkey) arrangement.

Re:Pfft!

[tkg]

They wouldn't have the cash to pay refunds since their net worth would likely be in the negative within minutes of the decision.

Re:Pfft!

[evilpenguin]

The indemnification argument is the only thing that really makes me think about "vast consipiracy" in this whole thing, because IIRC it was shortly after MS announced it would offer third-party indeminty to all Windows users that SCO started making its big stink. But memory is tricky (esp. mine). It may have been shortly before that SCO started its stink.

I do notice that it is MS's traditional media shills who keep talking about indeminifcation. It's the old "Big Lie" PR approach. Tell a lie often enough, loud enough, and it becomes the truth in the popular mind.

Personally, I'm rather glad this is coming up. To my eye, this looks like it will turn into a test of the GPL, and I think the GPL is ready for it.

SCO is going to lose.

indemnification helps SCO, no one else

[Anonymous Coward]

by giving their hopeless case attention. Why does SCO even bother putting out press releases? And more to the point - why does Slashdot post them?

Re:indemnification helps SCO, no one else

[sik0fewl]

Because it's funny?

Everybody needs their daily dose of humour and some people only read slashdot. Some (most? (all?)) don't even make it to the articles.

Not tired of it yet

[Ryosen]

While some people are tired of the daily (hourly?) SCO update, I, for one, am not. This is a fascinating story and the first true (iirc) challenge to the open source movement. The outcome is much more important than the future of Linux, or even OSS in general. If you're tired of the stories, filter them out.

Re:Not tired of it yet

[nightsweat]

Preach it, brother.

Re:Not tired of it yet

[MouseR]

I would if Slashdot would make an SCO-specific filter.

Re:Not tired of it yet

[NMerriam]

I agree completely.

What excites me is that this potential major court case involving open source will not be a david and goliath mismatch as I always feared would cast an unfair chill on free software.

Having IBM and Intel (among others) battling to protect the GNU license and clarify code ownership will ensure that the OSS side can't be simply defeated by burying them in paperwork and expensive legal maneuvers.

Re:Not tired of it yet

[reinard]

They did, and it's called "caldera".

Re:Not tired of it yet

[Chmarr]

Why not filter on 'Caldera' ?... that'll do exactly what you're asking for.

Re:Not tired of it yet

[NickDngr]

I would if Slashdot would make an SCO-specific filter.

They do, except it's labeled Caldera.

Re:Not tired of it yet

[nickyj]

If you want an update, just look at SCOX stock price DOWN 5+ points from the open today. Bet it won't move up tomorrow morning either. Their FUD is weaking.

Re:Not tired of it yet

[NanoGator]

Do they have one for Mozilla? For some reason it's always front page news.

Re:Not tired of it yet

[netsharc]

True challenge? Hehe, they're so incompetent that they should be arrested for wasting everybody's time..

Re:Not tired of it yet

[Anonymous Coward]

Down 5 points from their 52 week high. Only down 1 point today, and they could put out a new press release tomorrow that would push it right back up. You could also say they are up 15 point (from their 52 week low).

Re:Not tired of it yet

[Tim C]

No it won't - I alrady have Caldera filtered. Unfortunately, I don't have "Businesses", "Linux Businesses" or "Technology/IT" filtered, which are the other categories this story is in.

In fact, judging from the "main" icon (the one next to the story), I'd assume that this is in Linux businesses primarily, with a sub-categorisation of the others, including Caldera. Thus, my filtering is to no avail.

Of course, nothing was stopping me (or the OP) from simply *ignoring* the story... ;-)

Re:Not tired of it yet

[MrLint]

I know im not tired of it. I find it increasingly fascinating the machinations SCO will go thru very time. Commenting on things that need no comment. Answering questions no one asked, making up evidence that doesn't exist.

Its kind of like watching the corporate version of that NYC subway shooter from years ago who defended himself. One of the many things he did was to ask the witnesses to ID the person that had shot them and they all pointed to him. among other amusing bits.

Re:Not tired of it yet

[vinton]

My theory is that this is yet another golden age of slashdot trolling. Not since Jon Katz was writing regularly could someone get modded up for a post as off-topic, unimaginative, inflammatory, and whiny as "I don't want to read this. You guys suck!".

Re:Not tired of it yet

[jimicus]

What excites me is that this potential major court case involving open source will not be a david and goliath mismatch

Say what? Of course it's a David and Goliath mismatch. The only difference is that David is the challenger!

Re:Not tired of it yet

[Short Circuit]

Yeah...look for Netscape.

But it's kindof pointless (at least for me) to filter out news. Instead of getting a new article approximately every hour or so, you'll have to go two or maybe even three hours between articles.

shudder...

Re:Not tired of it yet

[thrillbert]

will ensure that the OSS side can't be simply defeated by burying them in paperwork and expensive legal maneuvers.

AKA IBM'ing the competition.

---
"Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup."

Re:Not tired of it yet

[danila]

This is a fascinating story and the first true (iirc) challenge to the open source movement. The outcome is much more important than the future of Linux, or even OSS in general.
The outcome of the first true challenge to OSS is more important than the OSS itself? Don't tell me there was supposed to be some logic there, because I don't see any.

Re:Not tired of it yet

[tassii]

I know im not tired of it. I find it increasingly fascinating the machinations SCO will go thru very time. Commenting on things that need no comment. Answering questions no one asked, making up evidence that doesn't exist.

I, for one, am tired of it. SCO should either show up in court or shut the hell up. Its criminal that they can keep this BS hanging over everyone's heads (not that people are really worried about them, but still). Its kinda like Michael Jackson coming out and doing something stupid every once in a while to keep himself in the news. Enough already.

Its kind of like watching the corporate version of that NYC subway shooter from years ago who defended himself. One of the many things he did was to ask the witnesses to ID the person that had shot them and they all pointed to him. among other amusing bits.

It was Long Island Railroad. Colin something or other. I know.. I had just missed that train. Would have even been in that car.

Re:Not tired of it yet

[Anonymous Coward]

And David is the local town's fucking asshole.

Re:Not tired of it yet

[PetWolverine]

It's a David v. Goliath matchup. It's just that this time, Goliath is on our side, and he's going to win.

Re:Not tired of it yet

[FatAlb3rt]

Not intended to be a troll, but why do people bother commenting that they don't like seeing SCO stories? I mean, if I don't like potato peelers, I don't hang out in the kitchen utensils aisle and reminding the customers of my beliefs.

I...[gasp]...go somewhere else.

Re:Not tired of it yet

[Anonymous Coward]

the first true (iirc) challenge to the open source movement.

History says: BSDI and Berkeley being sued by AT&T over 4.3 BSD would have an eailer date.

Re:Not tired of it yet

[jebell]

It was Colin Ferguson. And he wasn't defending himself - he was randomly shooting.

You're thinking of Bernhard Goetz, who was acquitted of shooting some young thugs who tried to rob him on the subway.

Re:Not tired of it yet

[Greyfox]

Oh is it supposed to go in "Caldera"? I was looking for a separate "SCO" category and didn't see one. I suggest one be added, with a thumbnail image of the goatse.cx guy as the graphic (Assuming we can get his permission of course, don't wanna violate his copyright...)

Re:Not tired of it yet

[NickDngr]

Or better yet, don't look at the potato peelers and focus instead on the spatula that you came to get.

Re:Not tired of it yet

[Anonymous Coward]

The only reason it is even being considered a challenge so far is because of the idiotic American legal system.

This company are having a huge effect on the rest of the world solely because they are still being allowed to continuously spout this crap over and over again. They should have been told to put up or shut up many, many moons ago.

Re:Not tired of it yet

[Anonymous Coward]

Not since Jon Katz was writing regularly

Wouldn't a Jon Katz editorial on the whole SCO deal be such a perfect topper to all this absurdity?

C'mon, Jon... we know you're listening. Give us the write-up!

Re:Not tired of it yet

[brianosaurus]

You misunderstood the parent. He defended himself in court, instead of getting a lawyer.

Re:Not tired of it yet

[jebell]

Errr..... right. Sorry 'bout that.

Re:Not tired of it yet

[Anonymous Coward]

He was in the origional story, too. David was a real asshole--always runing around picking on the poor (and very nice) giants. Except in the origional story, Goliath dropped a boulder on David. Belive you me, he deserved it.

When have you ever met a mean giant? I'll wager never.

On the other hand, there's tons of rude little pricks... Constantly fucking around with people who are just trying to live their lives. It's like they've got something to prove.

Re:Not tired of it yet

[SEE]

Note that "SCO" is still legally and officially Caldera; it's merely filed a d/b/a form with the SCO name.

Re:Not tired of it yet

[Chmarr]

Ah, okay, I see what you mean. Since the article falls into multiple categories, you would need to have blocked ALL Those categories for the SCO story to disappear.

Hmm... frankly, I think Slashdot has got the sense around the wrong way. They really need to put in a selection that says:

Hide story from main page if (.)Any (.)All of the story's categories match any of the following.

Re:Not tired of it yet

[Ryosen]

And remember...What better way to say "I love you", than with the gift of the Spatula?" ^_^

Re:Not tired of it yet

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, nothing was stopping me (or the OP) from simply *ignoring* the story... ;-)

Or posting...

Re:Not tired of it yet

[Anonymous Coward]

"I suggest one be added, with a thumbnail image of the goatse.cx guy as the graphic (Assuming we can get his permission of course, don't wanna violate his copyright...)" Indeed. It's more than evident that the guy has had far more than his share of violations already.

Re:Not tired of it yet

[Pharmboy]

Not intended to be a troll, but why do people bother commenting that they don't like seeing SCO stories? I mean, if I don't like potato peelers, I don't hang out in the kitchen utensils aisle and reminding the customers of my beliefs.

Its very misleading. They don't really mean to say "I hate all these SCO stories". What they really mean to say is "I love to bitch about something, and the SCO stories are a great bandwagon to jump on".

I see all kinds of stories that are meaningless to me. As a matter of fact, MOST of the stories on slashdot are not of interest to me, but they are to others, and thats the idea, to appeal to a broad audience.

The SCO situation is one of the more important issues to ever face Linux, GPL and Open Source in general. Ever. While most of us have faith that the courts will see the light, we know that we can't take this for granted. (ie: OJ) This will hopefully answer lots of legal questions on Linux, and in the end, be to the benefit of Linux and the GPL. Even the people bitching know this.

My conclusion is very simple: They just want to bitch, and like many other llamas, they are just following yet more llamas, and using SCO stories as a target for their bitching. Since it takes 100x more effort to post and complain than to ignore, this is obvious.

Re:Not tired of it yet

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't a Jon Katz editorial on the whole SCO deal

I know you are probably trying for a +1 Funny, but, man, that is just too sick.

Re:Not tired of it yet

[JPriest]

That is becasue slashcode is OSS and those kind of features only come with closed code. kidding.

Re:Not tired of it yet

[goldfndr]

Not intended to be a troll, but why do people bother commenting that they don't like seeing SCO stories? I mean, if I don't like potato peelers, I don't hang out in the kitchen utensils aisle and reminding the customers of my beliefs.

I...[gasp]...go somewhere else.

Holy crap, that makes sense!

I wonder if the principle applies to paper towels too...

Re:Not tired of it yet

[cdrudge]

No it's not. They officially changed their name many several months ago, back around June I beleive. Their SEC filinging since then note the change and no longer have d/b/a on them as they did before.

Re:Not tired of it yet

[strobert]

now give credit where credit is due. IBM may have started it (don't know but I am assuming by your claim that you have done prior research) but Microsoft really is the one to have mastered it. Don't you recall all of the jokes saying there was a lawyer for every programmer at Micosoft. during the 80's and 90's Microsoft had a knack for lawsuits.

Hack teh Google!

[grub]

By now I'm sure everyone now knows that entering "miserable failure" and clicking "I'm Feeling Lucky" on Google will bring them to a certain politician's homepage.. well if everyone reading this were to link "litigious bastards" to SCO's website on their webpages..

Ya never know :)

Re:Hack teh Google!

[herrvinny]

No, you have to do this: litigious bastards.

Re:Hack teh Google!

[Anonymous Coward]

I did it! :)

Re:Hack teh Google!

[Random BedHead Ed]

I did it, too. Let's Google bomb them. Tell your friends - it only takes a few dozen Google-noticed sites for it to work.

Re:Hack teh Google!

[herrvinny]

Re:Hack teh Google! (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 12, @03:08PM (#7955752)
what like this litigious bastards.


Exactly, now you're catching on. Everybody with me now: litigious bastards.

Oops, I linked twice. Feel free to mod me up though ;-)

Re:Hack teh Google!

[sik0fewl]

I think I will make a link for litigious bastards in my slashdot journal.. I don't use it for anything else.

Re:Hack teh Google!

[Anonymous Coward]

here's the code:

<a href="http://www.sco.com">litigious bastards</a>

Re:Hack teh Google!

[dtfinch]

The "miserable failure" linking campaign was strong enough that searching on only one of the words will list Dubya at the top.

Re:Hack teh Google!

[Anonymous Coward]

Like this? litigious bastards

Re:Hack teh Google!

[Anonymous Coward]

make sure you do it on your webpage(s). Who knows what /.'s robots.txt allows...

Re:Hack teh Google!

[GreyPoopon]

So does it actually work if almost all of the links to litigious bastards are located on the same web site? Wouldn't it be better if people started adding them to the blogs and personal or business sites?

Re:Hack teh Google!

[ElGnomo]

poopie sniffers
err...
litigious bastards
=]

Re:Hack teh Google!

[ArmenTanzarian]

Hilariously enough, it's a site talking about Metallica right now. I'm so torn...

litigious bastards

Re:Hack teh Google!

[fliptout]

Looking at President Bush's resume, I wouldn't mind being that kind of "miserable failure."

Re:Hack teh Google!

[herrvinny]

Well, I'm not a Google employee or anything, but linking litigious bastards on one highly trafficked site should be ok. If the linked phrase (such as litigious bastards) is on a site that linked to by a lot of other sites, it should be fine. litigious bastards

Re:Hack teh Google!

[foistboinder]

So does it actually work if almost all of the links to litigious bastards are located on the same web site?

NO

Wouldn't it be better if people started adding them to the blogs and personal or business sites?

YES

Re:Hack teh Google!

[Xzzy]

heh, metallica currently has the top honor for "litigious bastards".

I'm not sure who deserves it more.. maybe we can let SCO have "stunted crackheads"? A quick check says that's free.

Re:Hack teh Google!

[Zapdos]

Too bad, this shows how inaccuracies can be introduced into google by the opinions of large groups of idiots.

Re:Hack teh Google!

[Anonymous Coward]

I added litigious bastards to my site.

Re:Hack teh Google!

[commodoresloat]

Right now, googling for litigious bastards takes you to an anti-Metallica page. So maybe this link to Metallica will help?

Re:Hack teh Google!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you just search on "miserable failure" (that is, don't hit "I'm Feeling Lucky"), the next three links after the one mentioned are to pages on Jimmy Carter, Michael Moore, and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

I'm not a big Bush fan, but that's just too poetic.

Re:Hack teh Google!

[miscGeek]

Well how about smokes crack :)

Re:Hack teh Google!

[DrSkwid]

sorry, but you're not trying hard enough

<a href="http://www.sco.com" title="The SCO Group - litigious bastards">litigious bastards</a>

Re:Hack teh Google!

[tomhudson]

Wouldn't this fucking losers be both easier to remember and more to the point?

Re:Hack teh Google!

[Anonymous Coward]

make sure you do it on your webpage(s). Who knows what /.'s robots.txt allows...

I do! I know that one! The answer is here!

Re:Hack teh Google!

[Anonymous Coward]

Bad idea. It would show opponents to the SCO lawsuit as being as immature as the people who wired in ``miserable failure''.

Re:Hack teh Google!

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a counter-campaign to have miserable failure linked to Hillary Clinton, hence the top alternatives. I think the right-wing loonies got a tad upset with it linking to He Who Must Not Be Criticized.

Re:Hack teh Google!

[herrvinny]

I've just posted this to Kuo5hin, and it's getting killed. If anyone has a kuro5hin account, jump over there and mod it up!

Re:Hack teh Google!

[Blublu]

Aah, thanks. I was way too lazy to type that.

litigious bastards

Re:Hack teh Google!

[Glamdrlng]

Interestingly enough, the fifth hit when searching for "litigious bastards" on google is already a blog post about SCO. I find this surprising, not so much.

Re:Hack teh Google!

[harmless_mammal]

As of 4:40pm CST, two of Google's top 10 search results for "litigious bastards" returned something related to SCO...

Keep up the good work, guys.

Re:Hack teh Google!

[Anonymous Coward]

We're not quite there yet. However, Google's number 6 result from a search on litigious bastards at least mentions SCO.

litigious bastards...litigious bastards ...litigious bastards

Re:Hack teh Google!

[quizwedge]

Don't you mean As of 4:40pm CST, two of Google's top 10 search results for "litigious bastards" returned something related to SCO...

Re:Hack teh Google!

[Haeleth]

I don't think you need to be concerned. "Miserable failure" currently gives Dubya first, Jimmy Carter second, Michael Moore third and Hillary Clinton fourth - you must hate at least one of those people, surely?

Re:Hack teh Google!

[imadcow1]

Count me in! madcowworld.com

Re:Hack teh Google!

[WNight]

Ahh yes, the silly idea that while someone lies to the media, perpetrates stock fraud, and threatens to kill open software, we should be seen to not only be polite, but friendly to them.

And this will show what? That we're out of touch with reality?

If SCO had showed a single piece of evidence that didn't in fact end up proving that their code derived from open source code, and if they didn't threaten to send bills for a product they don't have rights to, and if they didn't handle the case in a way calculated to cause the most damage to the free software movement, AND if they weren't doing it all the pump their stock price while they cash in, we might cut them some slack.

Considering Enron and Worldcom tanked already, SCO's the best choice for fuck-the-innocent-to-make-money award.

Re:Hack teh Google!

[RdsArts]

Wait, so it's litigious bastards, right?

But would it work if it were litigious bastards? Or is it only litigious bastards?

Oh well. litigious bastards or litigious bastards, I'm sure one works.

I mean, those litigious bastards, if I leave the www off their name, and start calling them litigious bastards, maybe that could arouse their anger...

Meh, what are they gonna do. Sue me?

Re:Hack teh Google!

[SEE]

Which isn't the point. All of them are successes; a President with high approval ratings, a President and Nobel Peace Prize winner, a self-made millionaire, and a Senator.

Okay, you might argue for Carter on the basis his Presidency didn't work out well, with the economy and the hostages and the Ayatollahs. But still, a search for a "miserable failure" gives you at least three successful people in the first four, entirely because of political animus.

Re:Hack teh Google!

[utlemming]

Why not simply make a urlframe or urlredirect for www.litigiousbastards.com/.org/.net/.cc/et al. Then submit it is Goolge for inclusion?

Re:Hack teh Google!

[Ice_Balrog]

How does litigious bastards sound?

Re:Hack teh Google!

[glassesmonkey]

umm. my lucky link goes to a Mr. "Elf M. Sternberg" livejournal page..

Re:Hack teh Google!

[Anonymous Coward]

litigious bastards

Re:Hack teh Google!

[Jerk City Troll]

It also helps if your sites and blogs point to other sites and blogs that have instances of litigious bastards.

For example, see my blog entry on the matter. I maintain a list at the bottom of the summary. So, please add comments to my blog entry with links to other litigious bastards references!

Re:Hack teh Google!

[forrestt]

Carter may or may not have been a failure as President (I am not giving an opinion) but he has definitly been a success since then, raising a lot of awareness about Habitat for Humanity. Read more if you are interrested.

Re:Hack teh Google!

[Anonymous Coward]

Searching Miserable Failure: the list is GW Bush, Jimmy Carter, Michael Moore and Senator HR Clinton.

Some would argue the weightings are not correct.

Re:Hack teh Google!

[jx100]

How's this?
litigious bastards

Re:Hack teh Google!

[JPriest]

I've added an entry in my journal, but I don't believe the slashdot community bloggs. If you read a blog, maybe you can email and ask them to blog it for you.

Re:Hack teh Google!

[TeXMaster]

Yeah, the Google bomb for litigious bastards for SCO seems to have lost its effect (so soon?). We probably need some likely-named links from other websites.

Re:Hack teh Google!

[sabat]

Is it working? Last check it hasn't done anything but make Google list back a bunch of blogs if you google for 'litigious bastards'. No www.sco.com in sight.

Re:Hack teh Google!

[grub]

Not when I last looked. Maybe the "google dance" will fix that? (assuming that still happens, I dunno)

Re:Hack teh Google!

[sabat]

Apparently the deal is to try linking to www.caldera.com instead. Google's blocked the www.sco.com googlebomb, but trying 'litigious bastards sco' already gets you to www.caldera.com.

Re:Hack teh Google!

[grub]

Google's blocked the www.sco.com googlebomb

The bastards!

Re:Hack teh Google!

[bhtooefr]

Do sigs show up in the static pages? If not, I need to do something about that...

Re:Hack teh Google!

[Xabraxas]

Which isn't the point. All of them are successes; a President with high approval ratings...

High approval ratings do not make a Bush successful as a President, only as a liar. Overall Bush is a miserable failure as the leader of the free world. His approval ratings only show how uninformed the American public is.

Say.....

[devphaeton]

Isn't today ShutUP or PutUP Day for SCO?

How long until we know how this shakes out in court? :o)

Re:Say.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Once it shakes out in court. =)

The next hearing isnt for another week or two

Re:Say.....

[ActionPlant]

Yeah, I think you're right. Maybe they're waiting to drop the bomb online until after they've showed everyone up in court.

Or maybe they really are just full of it.

Damon,

Re:Say.....

[JoeD]

Tomorrow, according to Groklaw.

Re:Say.....

[Yobgod Ababua]

And even then it'll probably be a few days before IBM can look over whatever SCO gives them tomorrow, and possibly some unspecified period after that before information about what 'it' is starts leaking out.

Breath-holding is likely to be ill-advised.

Re:Say.....

[axlrosen]

Isn't today ShutUP or PutUP Day for SCO?

Yes, but:

"I have been seeing a lot of expectations about Monday, but personally, I don't expect to know much until the next court date on the 23rd, if SCO is being truthful and actually does turn over significant answers and documents. SCO may have media pronouncements to make, but IBM has to look over what they are given and evaluate it and that takes time. They aren't given to trying this case in the media, so my best guess is that our next event in the IBM matter will be the court hearing."

From Groklaw

Re:Say.....

[robslimo]

I think you've got it wrong. They should be turning over to IBM their discovery documents today, but we won't likely know anything about it until the next scheduled court date, Jan 23.

Check this article at groklaw

Re:Say.....

[sik0fewl]

Well then, expect a new slashdot story on the same subject for Thursday or Friday.

Re:Say.....

[angst_ridden_hipster]

Yeah. Ten dollars say that they deliver the whole kernel source (or a vast majority of it) and say that that's the infringing code. We're not going to be seeing CVS commit logs or detailed timelines.

Unless, of course, SCO actually has something legitimate that we've all missed. I can't say I'm very worried.

Re:Say.....

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe your question was addressed here.
[slashdot.com]

Re:Say.....

[canajin56]

They did that last time. IBM complained. The Judge agreed with IBM and gave SCA a verbal reaming, and told them EXACTLY what they have to give, with no room for doubt. He said they need a list of file names, version numbers, and line numbers for each case of infrigment.

Re:Say.....

[angst_ridden_hipster]

Really? Then I stand corrected.

I missed this development. Is this detailed list what is due in the current set of discovery documents?

Re:Say.....

[Cosmic_Hippo]

Isn't today ShutUP or PutUP Day for SCO?

Is it too optimistic to ask for both?

Re:Say.....

[A Big Jerk]

I'm glad they gave SCA a good reaming, I really fucking hate the Bosstones

'proof'? No, "proof"

[hotspur_fan]

The word proof never appears in the pr response. So I guess the quotes around proof in Greyfox's post are the hand-waving quotes, not the quote-unquote quotes.

Re:litigious bastards

[SlideGuitar]

"litigious bastards"

You say that like it's a bad thing.

Mabye they would consider it an honor to be so recognized.

Vendor-based indemnification

[warlockgs]

Call me crazy, but isn't that basically what the legal defense fund is? Vendor-based indemnification usually == the vendor will pay legal fees etc. if you wind up in court for using product X. Considering OSDL is technically a linux "vendor" (i.e. they "manufacture" portions of the "product" and distribute it....) and since the OSDL is basically a community figurehead type operation and Linux is a community project.... you can tell where I am going with this right? ;)

Re:Vendor-based indemnification

[loyalsonofrutgers]

I believe VB-I is the guarentee that they will pay any judgement, not necessarily just legal cost. The LDF seems to just be for the cost of lawyers. Then again, IANAL and I didn't RTFA.

Re:Vendor-based indemnification

[aquabat]

IANAL, but I think that if a company legally indemnifies their customers, then SCO can sue that company outright, bypassing the customer.

Re:Vendor-based indemnification

[Jason Earl]

No, not at all. A legal defense fund would simply pay the defendents cost of anyone that SCO tries to sue. True indemnification would cover any penalties should the defendant lose the case. More importantly true indemnification would cover the expenses of everyone that was indemnified should SCO win their case. This would put IBM even more at risk should the lose their case against SCO, which, in turn, would raise SCOX stock price in the short term.

A big legal defense fund means that anyone SCO does sue will have the very best legal defense that money can buy. SCO wasn't actually going to sue a customer anyway, because their case against end users is even more ridiculous than their case against IBM. They just want to be able to use the threat of a lawsuit to help keep their stock price up. The problem is that even a stupid lawsuit can cost a company serious money. Companies that use a lot of Linux were somewhat at risk. With IBM, Intel, and others footing the bill for legal defense the threat against Linux users disappears almost completely.

Re:Vendor-based indemnification

[Jaywalk]

but isn't that basically what the legal defense fund is?

Nope. A legal defense fund agrees to pay for your lawyers. An indemnification means you'll pay for any judgements against you. This is the worst of both worlds for SCO. It means that if they sue some dinky little Linux shop they can be up against top-notch lawyers, but without a hope of getting at the money that pays those lawyers.

The reason the big players haven't wanted to offer indemnification on SCO's terms is that it allows the possibility of SCO getting some money. Suppose IBM offered indemnification for its Linux users and one of those users -- without IBMs knowledge -- did something improper with UNIX and Linux. Depending on how the indemnification is worded, IBM could be on the hook for the legal judgement. IANAL, but I believe that the size of the judgement is often based on the defendant's ability to pay. SCO could wind up spending huge bucks in legal bills for chicken feed.

And the truly shocking part: it looks like Wall Street noticed. The story showed up in the newspapers around noon, so I figure the release must have happened a couple of hours before that. And look at what happened to SCO's stock right around ten.

Re:Vendor-based indemnification

[Anonymous Coward]

When SCO, MS (and possibly HP and Sun) refer to Linux "indemnification", they might secretly mean pre-paying extortion money to SCO for customers without telling them.

It may involve some kind of discount licensing. According to reports, MS licenses the current variation of its popular beginners' OS for about $40 USD to large OEMs, so SCO might be willing to sell a fraudulent "license" to Linux OEMs for a similar amount.

Re:Vendor-based indemnification

[FatAlb3rt]

Call me crazy, but

Alright. Crazy Butt. *ducks*

Re:Vendor-based indemnification

[tyler_larson]

Call me crazy, but isn't that basically what the legal defense fund is?

There's an important difference: SCO has been claiming for months that they're going to go after end-users of Linux software. They're dragging their feet, though, because it would do even more PR damage to an already sinking ship, they'd have to show some proof of wrongdoing (which they've been keeping strictly secret for some strange reason), and they'd most likely lose anyway.

What they'd rather do is sue a big company with deep pockets on behalf of all its indemnified customers and settle out of court for a small fraction of the amount asked for in the suit, but much more than they'd get from any individual user.

With the legal defense fund, SCO still has to sue the user. Only the user doesn't have to pay for a lawyer, while SCO still does. SCO's chances of coming out ahead in that case are even more slim than before.

SCO is not happy with this arrangement, and keeps pleading for the "legal indemnification" scenario.

Re:Vendor-based indemnification

[Anonymous Coward]

"They just want to be able to use the threat of a lawsuit to help keep their stock price up."

Another thing SCO seems to be trying to do is make it impossible for its current UNIX licensees to move to Linux. The customers' only choices, if they want to move away from SCO products, is to use another UNIX or one of the buggy, insecure products from MS.

Re:Vendor-based indemnification

[Anonymous Coward]

YPHTMA

(Your post has too many acronyms.)

Why SCO acts the way it does

[lightspawn]

The Scottish/Irish prefix Mc means "son of".

Son of.. the bride? It seems she has already given birth before the wedding ceremony. Which means the baby was born out of wedlock.

So it's obvious the CEO of SCO hails from a long line of bastards.

Re:Why SCO acts the way it does

[Abm0raz]

Just a little addendum on the language. Mac is scottish, Mc is Irish. Both from the Gaelic roots. When the britons and normans came in, it switched to O' for their language (middle english) for "of". So, Darl McBride is "Darl, son of Bride" whereas Darl O'Assbag would be "Darl, of Assbag".

-Ab

Re:Why SCO acts the way it does

[oyenstikker]

The term bride may be used for a woman recently married; bastards need not be involved.

Re:Why SCO acts the way it does

[NanoGator]

"The Scottish/Irish prefix Mc means "son of"

My name is McFly, you insensitive clod.

Re:Why SCO acts the way it does

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. Litigious bastards at that!

Re:Why SCO acts the way it does

[Anonymous Coward]

Not!

Re:Why SCO acts the way it does

[doug]

Actually O' comes from Ui which in Irish refers to the person's clan. Bob O'Neil comes from the Neil clan.

As for the "britons" comin along, you've lost me with that one. From context, I don't think you mean the Celts/Gauls who were there before the Romans. Do you mean the people from Brittany (Britagne) in France (home of Asterix dontcha know) and took over Wales (kinda sorta) in the 7th century? They were Gaelic/Celtic so I don't see them changing things much.

Or do you mean "the Britons" as in found in _Monty Python and the Holy Grail_

ARTHUR: How d'you do, good lady ... I am Arthur, King of the Britons ... Can you tell me who lives in that castle?
OLD WOMAN: King of the WHO?
ARTHUR: The Britons.
OLD WOMAN: Who are the Britons?
ARTHUR: All of us are ... we are all Britons.

- doug

PS: It is always a good day when you can refer to both Asterix and Monty Python.

Re:Why SCO acts the way it does

[Anonymous Coward]

OLD WOMAN: King of the WHO?

Actually, I believe the correct spelling is

OLD WOMAN: King of the 'oo?

Re:Why SCO acts the way it does

[cpghost]

So it's obvious the CEO of SCO hails from a long line of bastards.

So he's The Bastard Litigator From Hell, or, more commonly known as the BLFH.

Wondering who's the PFY...

Re:Why SCO acts the way it does

[Trevelyan]

in wales its "ab" and traditional surnames before they angloside them all to jones (note there is no J in welsh alphabet), williams, and roberts were ab [farthers name]. eg Huw ab LLyr. who sun could be Seriol ab Huw.. AFAIK/IIRC

Re:Why SCO acts the way it does

[r_cerq]

So it's obvious the CEO of SCO hails from a long line of bastards.
Clearly. Or else he'd be McGroom :-)

Re:Why SCO acts the way it does

[Anonymous Coward]

litigious bastards

Re:Why SCO acts the way it does

[asyky]

"Just a little addendum on the language. Mac is scottish, Mc is Irish. Both from the Gaelic roots. When the britons and normans came in, it switched to O' for their language (middle english) for "of""

No. Mac is irish too mc is the english form. So Darl's name in irish would be Darl Mac Bride pronounced (mawck breedeh). Bride is the genitive of Brid which is irish for Brigid...so son of Brigid. O' is the english form of o which means of/from. It can be used in the from a place or descended from sense. Ui is the female form of O meaning "wife of". And finally to complete this compelling crash course in irish names Ni means "daughter of".

Re:Why SCO acts the way it does

[Anonymous Coward]

So, Darl McBride is "Darl, son of Bride" whereas Darl O'Assbag would be "Darl, of Assbag".
-----

As far as I'm concerned, Darl just got a new name ;) At least, that's what I plan on calling him for now...

Re:Why SCO acts the way it does

[Reziac]

"ab" or "ap", depending on the name (I've mostly seen "ap"). I'm not sure why the difference, maybe depends on the initial letter of the following name? Any Welsh speakers here?

Re:Why SCO acts the way it does

[wkitchen]

The Scottish/Irish prefix Mc means "son of".

Ah. Then "McBitch" seems an appropriate nickname.

Re:Why SCO acts the way it does

[zsau]

I'm a Mc of Scottish, not Irish origin. Secondly to the best of my knowledge, O' is actually an Anglicisation of Irish O-acute, though I can't remember what it means.

Re:Why SCO acts the way it does

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, it's a soft mutation to accomodate the following consonant.

Happens all over the shop in Welsh.

You just have to take it as it comes, but C & G and B & P are favourites for switching.

Toodeloo.

Re:Why SCO acts the way it does

[HardCase]

Just a little addendum on the language. Mac is scottish, Mc is Irish. Both from the Gaelic roots. When the britons and normans came in, it switched to O' for their language (middle english) for "of". So, Darl McBride is "Darl, son of Bride" whereas Darl O'Assbag would be "Darl, of Assbag".

I'm with you on Darl of Assbag, but the Mac vs. Mc thing isn't correct. Both can be of Irish or Scottish origin. "O" is Irish. I know that it must seem pedantic or anal retentive or something, but "Mc" is an abbreviation of "Mac". I got all of this drilled into my head by my grandfather. He claimed that we are descended from Niall of the Nine Hostages, allegedly the founder of clan MacNeill. Except that we spell it McNeil. And I guess there are a gazillion other ways to spell it. We must be like the Smiths of Scotland.

-h-

So hard to read

[PeteQC]

Woah, nobody must have pay the 699$ because they don't seem to be able to buy themselves a decent scanner so their exhibit would be readable!

SCO finally shows infringing code!

[ThisIsAnExampleAccou]

The release also refers us to their SCOSource web site, which they claim in their announcement shows 'proof' of infringement. I was unable to find any such 'proof' other than their claim that they own errno.h. Since I'm obviously too much of an idiot to find the 'proof' they claim they're showing, maybe someone else could go look and tell me where it is."

No, see, you misread their site. They aren't claiming to own errno.h. That is there official statement - as in:

IBM: Show us the infringing code.

SCO: Um, well, Err..... NO!

Re:SCO finally shows infringing code!

[tonyr60]

You misunderstand what SCO mean when they refer you to the SCO Source web site.

From Netcraft... " The site www.sco.com is running Apache on Linux." The source of their web site contains the full infringing code....

Re:SCO finally shows infringing code!

[Lost Penguin]

SCO has stated their IP was like "The Ark of the Covenant" meaning it has not been found by anyone in years.

We need Leonard Nimoy to find the SCO code, with Bigfoot, Jimmy Hoffa and the Ark of the Covenant beside it.

Re:SCO finally shows infringing code!

[DeadChobi]

I'm thinking its more of a scare tactic to get end-users and businesses to pay SCO for using Linux since SCO cant get people to buy UNIX. Seems like more of an attempt to use their entire court case as a method of wheedling money out of linux users. Or at least, that was the impression I got from the website. "We at SCO are compassionate toward the plight of you, the end user. Blah blah blah. Pay us money and we wont sue you specifically."

Aging McBride presenting evidence

[bstadil]

Darl Presenting the sum total of the evidence today outside the court house in Saltlake City.

Look how Darl has aged, this has clearly taken its toll.

Re:'proof'? No, "proof"

[Fly]

The press release refers to "evidence" at the scosource site, but I looked and was unable to find any. It might be hidden somewhere, or I'm an idiot because SCO says they've been completely honest and forthcoming with that evidence.

Solaris-2 is SYS-V based

[uid100]

Solaris 2.x (and 8+ ) are an AT&T Sys V derivitive.
Solaris 1.x and earlier are BSD based.

No Linux in Solaris. There is GPL'd software included in later releases of Solaris, including the Companion CD.

Perhaps your reference is into some of the server offerings Sun has that include various distros of Linux? (e.g. Cobalt and 6xX servers)

lets all follow their example.

[Romancer]

Why can't we all just find an automated form to sue SCO for violating the GPL? There's got to be one online these days with all the lawsuits.

Re:lets all follow their example.

[DaHat]

Last I checked SCO was not violating the GPL.

They are not withholding any code which is under the GPL.

IF they allegations are true and System V code was copied into Linux, said System V code, while in the System V code base is not covered by the GPL and thus they are not required to release it.

Or did I miss something else that you are blabbing about?

Re:lets all follow their example.

[dmaxwell]

At the very least, they are distributing kernel source while trying to encumber that source with restrictions the GPL doesn't permit. Even if they stopped distributing code today, they wouldn't be off the hook for past distribution.

Re:lets all follow their example.

[idiotnot]

They are violating the GPL, because they're distributing GPL'd code, and do not accept the terms of its license. Namely, they distribute the Linux kernel to people (still), and they are distributing Samba.

5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying the Program or works based on it.

So, perhaps, they aren't violating the GPL itself because they don't accept it anymore, but they are violating the authors' copyrights, because the GPL is the only license the authors allow the code to be distributed under. You can hash words all day.

Re:lets all follow their example.

[ZeeTeeKiwi]

Last I checked SCO was not violating the GPL.

Well lets see now...

Section 0. They're charging a fee (other that for the physical act of transferring a copy, or for a warranty)

Section 6. SCO are attemtping to impose further restictions (binary only licenses)

And the catch all... Section 4. Attempting to distrubute the software outside of the terms of the licence, terminates the license, therefore SCO is in breech for distributing any copy at all now.

Any others, anyone?

Re:lets all follow their example.

[Nurseman]

"Last I checked SCO was not violating the GPL."

Have pity on a poor Windows user for this question, but isn't asking people to buy an additional license for GPL'ed software a violation ?

From SCO website :

"This new license is called "SCO Intellectual Property License for Linux" and applies to commercial use of the Linux 2.4 and later versions. The license insures that Linux end users can continue to run their business uninterrupted without misusing SCO's Intellectual Property."

Re:lets all follow their example.

[Anonymous Coward]

Because they haven't violated the GPL, dumbass.

Re:lets all follow their example.

[GreyPoopon]

Or did I miss something else that you are blabbing about?

I think you missed the fact that they are attempting to encumber the GPL-distributed code with a license fee, which is in effect a violation of the GPL. If allegations are not true and System V code was not copied into Linux, they stand in violation of the GPL and can therefore be sued, particularly because they have managed to sucker a few people into paying the license fees before they've won a victory in court.

Re:lets all follow their example.

[jrumney]

Section 0. They're charging a fee (other that for the physical act of transferring a copy, or for a warranty)

What does section 0 have to do with fees? All section 0 does is define the scope of the license. Nothing in the GPL prohibits you for charging a fee, except the bit in section 3 which refers only to requests for the source if you do not distribute it with the binaries (and only allows media and postage costs for the source under those conditions).

No fair!

[Krow10]

If vendors feel so confident with the intellectual property foundation under their massive contributions into Linux, then they should put their money where their mouth is and protect end users with true vendor-based indemnification.

In other words, Hey, no fair! This makes it so it isn't cheaper for a company to defend itself against our frivolous litigation without giving us a rich insurance company to intimidate! Tough luck, Darl!

Cheers,
Craig

Here's the proof

[aborchers]

Since I'm obviously too much of an idiot to find the 'proof' they claim they're showing, maybe someone else could go look and tell me where it is.

If ever a post cried out for a goatse troll linked behind the words, "here's the proof", this would be it!

Sorry, but I just can't bring myself to actually do it...

Re:Here's the proof

[Anonymous Coward]

Would the dumb ass mod that gave this "insightful" (no offense to poster, but its not insightful) please report to the nearest short pier for a long walk.

Re:Here's the proof

[Anonymous Coward]

I just had to mod you up for that one.
Good call

Re:Here's the proof

[red floyd]

Their proof is here.

No, it's not a goatse troll.

Email to abuse@osdl.org

[Dark Lord Seth]

From: Darl McBride [dmcbride@sco.com]
To: OSDL Staff [abuse@osdl.org]
Subject: A message from his majesty.

To whom it may concern,

Now you have done it. I am not amused and if you don't quit defending yourselves, I'll say it again! Also, out of frustration, I kicked my pekinese cat and refused to feed Chriss Sontag and Laura DiDio. I hope you are happy with the pain and suffering you are causing!

Love, Darl.

PS,
Call me!

Re:Email to abuse@osdl.org

[rob_au]

I read this almost expecting to see a -"... I'll get you, and you're little dog too! ..."

I can't wait though until all of this is over when Scooby and Shaggy can pull the mask off Darl McBride and find that it was really Old Man Smithers who used to run the haunted amusement park that was behind all of this - "And I wouldn't have got away with it too if it wasn't for IBM and your for pesky OS advocates!"

Re:Sharp Zaurus 5600 at Amazon

[herrvinny]

Just did a Froogle search. No one else sells it at that price... Everyone else sells at roughly $500. I'd get it, if I had $300 to spare....

SCO drumming the indemnification drums...

[u-235-sentinel]

"If vendors feel so confident with the intellectual property foundation under their massive contributions into Linux, then they should put their money where their mouth is and protect end users with true vendor-based indemnification," said Darl McBride, president and CEO, The SCO Group, Inc."

::sigh:: This is such a bunch of crap. I called up Microsoft and asked them about this. I'm running XP Pro (for gaming only... honest!) and wanted to know what if SCO started the same crap against Microsoft end users. Will I be indemnified for the use of their product? The answer was of course yes. Ok.. so how much then? If I'm reading the EULA correctly, I'm protected up to the purchase price of the product. So OEM that's what? $100? $150? They were unable to answer my question unfortunately. I think we all know what the answer is however.

"The actions of these vendors today doesn't change the fact that SCO's intellectual property is being found in Linux."

I can see it now. At then end when they are crushed. Daryll will say "Honest... we thought we owned the IP. It's not my fault!" Only thing he could say to try and stay outta jail.

SCO is full of it.

Re:SCO drumming the indemnification drums...

[RedWizzard]

"If vendors feel so confident with the intellectual property foundation under their massive contributions into Linux, then they should put their money where their mouth is and protect end users with true vendor-based indemnification," said Darl McBride, president and CEO, The SCO Group, Inc."

The reason SCO keeps bringing up indemnification is simple: if the customer is indemnified then the customer can be sued more easily. Essentially it would allow SCO to launch indirect suits against the vendors. SCO know that suing customers without indemnification is not likely to pay off - it's going to be costly to bring that number of suits and the likelyhood of getting significant settlements out of everyone is low. That's why they haven't done it yet, despite threatening to do so for months.

Martha Stewart Talks

[deliciousmonster]

An interesting study in two very different we PR campaigns. I saw on cnn.com that the stylish Stewart site Martha Talks has gotten like 6,000,000 visitors. SCO's ugly-ass site, with jagged-aggressive "source" font, makes my insides burn.

I believe that Martha will eventually be proven innocent, and that SCO will ultimately be scraped from the bottom of this giant shoe we call earth.

Which raises the question:

Does lime green vindicate?

I believe it may.

<stay on topic>Nobody "owns" free software</stay on topic>

Fighin' words!

[Anonymous Coward]

"...then they should put their money where their mouth is..."

That's freaking strong/childish language for a press release!

Re:Fighin' words!

[avgjoe62]

"...then they should put their money where their mouth is..."

If we expexted SCO to do that, there should be a wad of cash sticking out of Darl's butt. That seems to be what they're taliking out of these days...

Evidence

[Rupert]

The press release claimed their was evidence that SCOs IP was in Linux, and even provided a link. But I couldn't find any. Has anyone poked around scosource.com enough to find a deep link to this alleged evidence?

Re:Evidence

[Rupert]

OK, OK, so I didn't RTFS. However, I *did* RTFA.

Intel, IBM, etc Donate $3 M (combined)

[psyclone]

So far it's [OSDL] raised $3 million from a group of companies that includes IBM, MontaVista Software and Intel.

link

No SCO proof, but

[narfbot]

"Since I'm obviously too much of an idiot to find the 'proof' they claim they're showing, maybe someone else could go look and tell me where it is."

This is not SCO proof, I couldn't find any either, but proof that SCO is laying claim to code they did not write:
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kern el&m=107 212616605523&w=2

Re:No SCO proof, but

[Reziac]

Being in need of sleep, I read your "SCO proof" as if it were alcohol... Hmm. Ya know, we need a standard by which one can immediately know the percentage of bullshit produced by a company. So, in keeping with the tradition laid down by fermented grains, I suggest that "completely full of it" henceforth be written as "200 SCOproof".

Look! Over There!

[TurboStar]

I don't get it? Isn't the legal fund a type of indemnification? What kind of indemnification do I get from any software company? As far as I can tell it only protects me from being sued if I follow their license. What if they sold me something they had no legal right to sell? Akin to me buying a stolen radio. Aren't I screwed here when the licensed is deemed invalid in the courts? And when was the last time you got a software vendor to warrant their product for a particular use. Or what about lost revenue due to defects in the product? All this talk about indemnification seems like a distraction technique to me.

Re:Grow up Linux zealots

[gilrain]

Worst troll ever.

inconsistencies

[happyfrogcow]

The company also announced plans to make binary run time licenses for SCO's intellectual property available to end users. The license would apply to all commercial users of Linux based on a 2.4 or later kernel.

Why, dear SCO, is there a difference between a commercial user and a hobbyist all of the sudden? I hereby deem myself a commercial user. Come and get me.

Re:inconsistencies

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference is that between a corporation with limited liabilities, and an individual with no such limitations, together with a different set of rights, privileges and responsibilities.

Really Amazingly Stupid Question

[ewhac]

With respect to SCO's claims on errno.h, perhaps copyright historians/experts can help me out here:

Since when did the association of a number (e.g. 12) and its specific meaning in a specific context (EACCES: Permission denied when accessing a file) become copyrightable?

Does this mean I can assert copyrights over /etc/X11/rgb.txt?

Schwab

Re:Really Amazingly Stupid Question

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this mean I can assert copyrights over /etc/X11/rgb.txt?

I've got dibs on /etc/linux.conf

Re:Really Amazingly Stupid Question

[Dracolytch]

Very simple, honestly... It's not the association with the meaning that you try to claim copyright of, but the actual code.

You can't copyright the relationship between a boy next door and his babysitter, but you CAN copyright the script that describes said relationship in lurid detail. The same applies with what code DOES, and the code itself.

~D
Misc. Cool stuff: DracoSoftware.com

Re:Really Amazingly Stupid Question

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this mean I can assert copyrights over /etc/X11/rgb.txt?

Did you define the associations before the X consortium did?

Re:Really Amazingly Stupid Question

[jfengel]

Does this mean I can assert copyrights over /etc/X11/rgb.txt?

Did you write it? I didn't think so.

SCO is claiming that they own errno.h as part of the Unix code that they bought. It's not just the association of the number and the string; it's the overall content of the file.

They didn't write this file, either, but they did buy a bunch of rights, which is legally equivalent. Copyrights in general originate with the author, but since the author is usually not capable of turning a profit directly from the work (since they don't own printing presses or a distribution system), they usually profit by selling that right.

It is, in fact, somewhat telling: the file uses the exact same words as the Unix standard and the exact same numbers. This suggests that it's clearly a derivative work. There were other solutions to the problem (different names, use global variables instead of #defines, etc.)

The question then becomes, does SCO in fact own the contents of errno.h? Was it one of the things that they bought, or could it be considered to have gone into the public domain with the myriad releases of Unix source code, as well as the POSIX standard?

Errno.h can hardly be considered all that valuable. The file is clearly trivial, and the only reason we don't just rename all the numbers and tell SCO where to stick itself is that it's a tremendous hassle. I suspect a judge will feel the same way, but he could well ultimately decide that the copyright on the file belongs to SCO and that Linux must make a different work.

Re:Really Amazingly Stupid Question

[Anonymous Coward]

"Does this mean I can assert copyrights over /etc/X11/rgb.txt?"

yes, and I will copyright the association of various colored trafic lights with their meanings.

Re:Really Amazingly Stupid Question

[Anonymous Coward]

I just skimmed the POSIX standard and read:
The 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.

This means that the numbers could be infringing on their claim... unfortunately there are too many magic numbers and this may screw up linux...

Re:Really Amazingly Stupid Question

[Anonymous Coward]

MITEL, INC. v. IQTEL, INC., 124 F.3d 1366 (10th Cir. 1997)

[1] INTRODUCTION

[2] Plaintiff Mitel, Inc. ("Mitel") appeals the denial of its motion for a preliminary injunction in this action for copyright infringement. 17 U.S.C. 502(a). At issue is the protectability of a set of four-digit numeric instructions known as "command codes." Mitel created these command codes to access the features of a piece of telecommunications hardware known as a call controller.

[3] Mitel contends that the district court erred in denying its motion for a preliminary injunction based upon the court's conclusion that Mitel failed to demonstrate a substantial likelihood that it will prevail on the merits of its claim. See Mitel, Inc. v. Iqtel, Inc., 896 F. Supp. 1050, 1054 (D. Colo. 1995). Specifically, Mitel argues that the district court erred by concluding that (1) Mitel's command codes are unprotectable under 17 U.S.C. 102(b) because they are a "procedure process, system, [or] method of operation"; (2) Mitel's command codes are unprotectable under the scenes a faire doctrine; and (3) Iqtel's use of the command codes is a fair use under the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. 107. We exercise jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 1292(a)(1) and affirm.

Re:Really Amazingly Stupid Question

[nihilogos]

It is, in fact, somewhat telling: the file uses the exact same words as the Unix standard and the exact same numbers.

They don't. You can read Linus' history of errno.h here. Apparantly the x86 errno.h doesn't even use the same error codes as in traditional UNIX.

Moreover, if you care to look here you will find that for many of those architectures on which Linux is ABI compatible with UNIX you will find that a major contributor is an employee of Caldera, whose contributions were endorsed by his employee, for the explicit purpose of allowing "Linux to support binaries compiled for non-Linux operating systems such as SCO OpenServer or Sun Solaris."

Did anyone else get the feeling...

[HotNeedleOfInquiry]

That the press release was written by an incoherent madman?

Re:Grow up Linux zealots

[ParadoxicalPostulate]

Fact: The parent post is flamebait.

Fact: The poster of the parent post is an Anonymous Coward.

Conjecture: SCO kidnapped Elvis.

The proof is in the Pudding!

[teamhasnoi]

But I am not going to tell you which one out of hundreds of millions PuddingCups it's in. You might take the proof out and enjoy the pudding!

Signed,
Darl McCosby

Re:First

[Anonymous Coward]

From the article
---
SCO continues to publicly show evidence of this infringement. We invite interested parties to view some of this evidence for themselves at www.sco.com/scosource .
---
While the word proof isn't mentioned 'evidence' is which I guess almost amounts to the same thing

SCO's FAQ

[fuxoft]

SCO has interesting FAQ over here. It seems to me it contains several points I haven't read before.

Re:SCO's FAQ

[herrvinny]

3. What is the cost of the License? The promotional fee for the client (desktop) license is $199. The promotional pricing is available through October 31, 2003.

Uh, we're slightly past that date. Like a few months after it. What is SCO doing putting up that faq?

Re:SCO's FAQ

[big_groo]

45. I am running BSD. Am I required to purchase a license?

No, you do not need to purchase a SCO IP license to run BSD.

Veeery...interesting....

Re:SCO's FAQ

[gsfprez]

no shit!

45. I am running BSD. Am I required to purchase a license?
No, you do not need to purchase a SCO IP license to run BSD.

WTF? Darl, then just wtf ARE you talking about? errorno.h is in my copy of OpenBSD, you stupid, fscking shithead moron!

its like arguing with a drunken 8 year old, I swear to allah...

Re:SCO's FAQ

[gsfprez]

damnit.

errno.h, not errorno.h

sorry - i never saw that list before.. by the time i had gotten to #45, i was sucking a paper bag to calm myself down.

Re:SCO's FAQ

[molnarcs]

Interesting indeed, for they have hinted at the possibility of suing BSD users earlier.

Re:SCO's FAQ

[Neurotoxic666]

SCO has interesting FAQ

Yes. For instance, I've learned that "FAQ" actualy means "Frequently Asked Questions". And also that their FAQ was written with Microsoft Word, the well-known, very flexible, simple-code generating and highly non-frustrating web-design application.

How insightful.

Re:SCO's FAQ

[GreyPoopon]

It seems to me it contains several points I haven't read before.

Such as? I certainly didn't see anything new there.

Re:SCO's FAQ

[starm_]

"16. Why does SCO require an NDA to be signed to view evidence of UNIX System IP in Linux? Showing proof of UNIX System V IP in Linux requires SCO to disclose UNIX System source code. SCO is obligated to protect this source code, both to preserve its value to SCO and its shareholders, as well as to prevent devaluation of the source code that it has licensed (at considerable expense) to many customers. Thus SCO will not exhibit UNIX System source code to anyone except under protection of an NDA or a UNIX System source code license. The NDA only applies to the UNIX System source code; it doesn't restrict the disclosure of other materials and information presented in the IP discussion."

But the code is already available to anyone who wants to see it. The damage has been done. (if there is any) We are not asking to see their code, just to tell us what part of the already available code is infringing. How would that cause devaluation of their code???

Re:Grow up Linux zealots

[Anonymous Coward]

Fact: You failed to properly format your rejoinder.

hence:

FACT: YOU FAIL IT!

the # 1 activity of dinosaurs was,,

[Anonymous Coward]

eating, of course. whois on the menu next?

+5 Funny

[analog_line]

...if I participated in moderation anymore.

You know...

[Cytlid]

...I should just shell out the $699 for my "license". By the time they're done compiling all the different options I want for my kernel(s) (applying patches, maintenance, testing kernels, new features, etc), I bet they'd lose that $699 in manhours in the first week! And that'd only be for one cpu!

Just goes to show how rediculous it all is.

Re:You know...

[Alsee]

By the time they're done compiling all the different options I want for my kernel(s) (applying patches, maintenance, testing kernels, new features, etc)

What made you ever thing they'd do any of that for you?

The only thing they are "selling" is that they won't sue you for running it. They aren't offering you any product or any service at all. If you happen to have it, you can run it. If you don't happen to already have it, well, you can buy a licence to run something you don't have and that they won't give you.

Even if you buy such a licence, they are still claiming they can sue you if you ever try to compile it or alter it in any way, and that you can't give it to anyone else.

SCO CAN'T give you a copy without agreeing to the GPL themselves. According to SCO's argument no one else can ever legally give you a copy. They are therefore selling you a licence to run something that you (supposedly) cannot legally obtain.

By the way, I'm selling licences to hang the Mona Lisa and the US Declaration of Independance on the wall in your house, only $100.

-

IP and non-disclosure

[Anonymous Coward]

If the so-called SCO IP contained in Linux is already there being distributed around the world, then why on earth would they require someone to sign a non-disclosure agreement to view it. The SCO-Source website says just that.

System V

[h8macs]

So if SCO is found to have filed a false claim in the court, can System V be (appropriately) ripped away from them? If so, how likely would it be that the previous patent holder (which I assume would have the claim) would just release it to the public!?

It certainly wouldn't harm any of the "unix" vendors, as Linux has already done that. IMHO

for some more funny stuff about SCO ..

[junkymailbox]

went to check this out: Binary Licensing Program

Gotta love #6 and #45:

6. Why doesn't SCO just simply publish this code so that it can be taken out of Linux if it is indeed infringing? And why do you require a non-disclosure agreement to view some of this infringing code?

Intellectual property forms the basis of the value of any software vendor. IP is confidential throughout the industry to protect competitive advantages one vendor has over another. Other industry vendors such as Microsoft and Apple do not routinely contribute their IP as vendors spend millions of dollars creating a competitive market.

SCO has confidentiality clauses in all of our contracts with more than 6,000 licensees that specifically state that this UNIX source code has to be held in confidence. If SCO published this UNIX source code, SCO itself would be in violation of these contracts.

SCO has a legal obligation to hold this source code in confidence, so it requires that individuals who view this code sign a non-disclosure in order to see it.

#45

. I am running BSD. Am I required to purchase a license?

No, you do not need to purchase a SCO IP license to run BSD.

Re:for some more funny stuff about SCO ..

[Camel Pilot]

This has been their fall back position all along.

Basically they are saying that the added information of delineating what portions of System V are in the body of Linux open code has some sort of intrinsic value?

Seems a judge would see thru this one.

Re:for some more funny stuff about SCO ..

[Anonymous Coward]

Other industry vendors such as Microsoft and Apple do not routinely contribute their IP as vendors spend millions of dollars creating a competitive market.

Apple does not routinely contribute their IP? Then just what have they been sending to KTHML this whole time? And what is this Darwin thing?

Re:for some more funny stuff about SCO ..

[Anonymous Coward]

Key phrase creating a competitive market.

MS spends its billions, squashing a competitive market.
Apple spends its millions, on port and polish.

Re:for some more funny stuff about SCO ..

[AtariDatacenter]

> If SCO published this UNIX source code, SCO itself
> would be in violation of these contracts.

Of course, SCO has already published some offending UNIX source code (in its opinion). Has it violated its confidentiality clauses?

If not, they're playing with words, most likely. "this UNIX source code" could just be a reference to the whole body of UNIX source code it got (has on loan) from Novell. If they published *the* UNIX source code, yes, they'd be in hot water.

Sorry if any of the above was vauge. SCO constant squirming and repositioning makes concrete statements as easy as nailing jelly to a tree.

Re:for some more funny stuff about SCO ..

[fredan]

#45 I am running BSD. Am I required to purchase a license?
No, you do not need to purchase a SCO IP license to run BSD.

How do they know that the file(s) in Linux aren't comming from *BSD?

Re:for some more funny stuff about SCO ..

[unclethursday]

They don't. Remember the obfuscated "proof" they showed a few months back? It was shown the examples were all from BSD code, and that SCO had removed the BSD copyright (a violation of the BSD Licesne).

It wouldn't surprise me in the least if IBM were to go into court with the SCO 'proof', and a copy of the BSD source as well, and simply point out, line by line file by file, that all of SCO's 'evidence' is actually from BSD that was incorporated into UNIX Sytetm V. And then, of course, if the UNIX code doesn't have the appropriate copyrights needed under the BSD license, Berkley could go after SCO for millions of dollars SCO won't have after the IBM case.

Re:for some more funny stuff about SCO ..

[beforewisdom]

Gotta love #6

6. Why doesn't SCO just simply publish this code so that it can be taken out of Linux if it is indeed infringing? And why do you require a non-disclosure agreement to view some of this infringing code?

Intellectual property forms the basis of the value of any software vendor. IP is confidential throughout the industry to protect competitive advantages one vendor has over another.

This is why I do not believe SCO has a case.

If code they own has been stolen and put into linux it is no longer a secret

Steve

Re:for some more funny stuff about SCO ..

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope that UC Berkeley does so... With der Gropenfuher, our state's educational system needs as much money as it can get. If Berkeley can nuke SCO on copyright issues, they /may/ be able to admit students who aren't loaded.

I have a quick question...

[herrvinny]

If some Linux guru could answer this quickly: I thought SCO was saying that only Linux kernel 2.4.x+ infringed on SCO's intellectual property. But don't the files SCO shows as evidence exist in previous kernels? Thanks.

Re:I have a quick question...

[Cytlid]

If some Linux guru could answer this quickly: I thought SCO was saying that only Linux kernel 2.4.x+ infringed on SCO's intellectual property. But don't the files SCO shows as evidence exist in previous kernels? Thanks.

I believe you're right. SCO's gamble is that the majority of people would listen to law and lawyers as their "proof" rather than listen to the hairy-scary magicological technical people.

Re:I have a quick question...

[Anonymous Coward]

...rather than listen to the hairy-scary magicological technical people.

I find that wearing some robes and a nice pointy hat helps put people at ease when I'm talking technically.

Re:I have a quick question...

[TheUser0x58]

A noted linux guru already has answered this question in part:

Linus Blasts SCO's Header Claims

Re:I have a quick question...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. These files haven't changed that much.

Groklaw will show you how Linus himself wrote errno.h and has testimony wherein he states that he most certainly did NOT get them from SCO (he got the numbers from Minix, and he wishes he'd done them differently, anyhow--see Groklaw for details).

BTW, if that SCO countdown site in your sig is yours, you might want to fix it so that it doesn't show that SCO has -1 days to comply once a deadline is reached ;)

Re:60DDAMN, MY B4||5 4R3 5W0||3N & TUR61D!!!

[reinard]

Umm... it's not like you're replying to a post or anything..

I think I've found it...

[T3kno]

I was unable to find any such 'proof' other than their claim that they own errno.h.

They think they own *.h, the only problem with that is that I'm Ivory sure that Microsoft has a valid IP claim on errno.h.

Re:I think I've found it...

[sparkele]

If Microsoft does have said liscense, then it would make sense for them to sit on their piles of cash and let the SCO case take a bite at linux. As you know linux (running as a server) has taken huge monetary blows at microsoft, hence the launching of their "Get The Facts Campaign." This Linux/SCO battle is a perfect way for them to milk more money out of unwilling customers who don't want to be hit with SCO Liscensing fees. So if they truly do own errno.h, then why should they do anything about their title to it if its hurting their biggest competitor at the moment, linux?

Re:I think I've found it...

[Sacks]

So if they truly do own errno.h, then why should they do anything about their title to it if its hurting their biggest competitor at the moment, linux?

It would seem to me that they would be in the best position to let SCO go after Linux. Think about how much M$ would gain.

1. Linux users would be mad and claim that SCO is being money hungry by attacking Linux since they could not prove that SCO is better. Thus, Linux users would start to hate a rival of M$ and never buy their products.

2. SCO would try and prove something that turns out to be false and loses credibility in the computer industry.

3. M$ can claim plausable deniability that they had nothing to do with the whole thing. But they can rake in the benefits by weakening both rivals by the fighting.

4. It gets M$ out of the fore front of the computer industry with their security lapses.

5. If both of your rivals are fighting over menial table scraps, then M$ can have the dinner (to include the cake).

I in NO way meant to say that Linux and SCO are fighting over the leftovers or refer to Linux/SCO users as table scraps. I meant only as a metaphor that if two rivals are fighting over peices of the industry, M$ can try and take the whole thing while the two are busy.

My point is, I see M$ as being in a win/win situation over this. I believe that SCO is wrong, and in some way, is tending to do M$'s bidding.

But I do believe that M$ will be around for approx. ten more years as an individual operating system. After that, I see them being a pirated form of BSD or Linux.

Just some thoughts and my 2cents worth.

byraide = irish for female dog

[Anonymous Coward]

It's "Durle MacByraide"

he's not a bastard, he's an SOB

No choice from SCO POV^H^H^HFUD

[r00zky]

Option A: If vendors feel so confident with the IP into Linux... they should protect end users with true vendor-based indemnification

Option B: If vendors are protecting users with vendor-based indemnifications... that proves they're not confident about the IP into Linux.

Thankfully all this crap will end soon

Re:Grow up Linux zealots

[gmac63]

Fact: Linux comprised mainly of stolen source code from SCO.

Fact: Linux users are known to be software, music, and movie pirates.

Fact: DeCSS, a highly illegal piece of software under the DMCA, runs on Linux to facilitate criminal activity.

Fact: 9/11 would not have happened without Linux since Linux is the OS of choice for terrorists worldwide.


Prove those FACT:'s then (SCO).

Re:'proof'? No, "proof"

[Crypto Gnome]

not the quote-unquote quotes

Actually that would be quote -- endquote

Re:'proof'? No, "proof"

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably more like "90 proof".

From the horse's mouth...yeah

[GillBates0]

Here's an extract from the SCOsource Presentation (PDF File)

Why license SCO's Intellectual Property?

1. Customers are requesting it

2. Increase shareholder value through existing IP

3. Strengthen Linux by licensing value-add IP

4. Increase UNIX application use on Linux

1 and 2 are what SCO's aiming for. I have NO idea, how their proposition will even remotely achieve 3 and 4. That's pure bullshit and FUD.

OT but curious, why XP Pro for gaming?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm running XP Pro (for gaming only... honest!)

Not to troll, but I'm curious why somebody using XP strictly for gaming would shell out the extra $$$ for XP Pro vs. XP standard/home?

Re:OT but curious, why XP Pro for gaming?

[u-235-sentinel]

No.. you're not trolling. It's a great question.

In my past life as a Microsoft MCSE (still in recovery mind you), I have come to the conclusion that Win95/98/ME all sucks as an OS. XP home was built from that foundation. XP Pro OTOH was designed from the more stable (tongue in cheek) NT/2000 pro line. It's an improvement but still crap. I wouldn't use this for anything other than gaming. All my real work is done on alternate OS's.

I tried XP home for a few weeks. Didn't like it. Crashed enough times that I simply gave up on it. Pro was the way to go and only cost me another $38 more. OEM version of course :-)

Re:OT but curious, why XP Pro for gaming?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to troll, but I'm curious why somebody using XP strictly for gaming would shell out the extra $$$ for XP Pro vs. XP standard/home?

XP Home has "product activation". If you can afford the extra, buy Pro instead. If you can't afford the extra, pirate Pro instead.

Re:OT but curious, why XP Pro for gaming?

[Anonymous Custard]

Not to troll, but I'm curious why somebody using XP strictly for gaming would shell out the extra $$$ for XP Pro vs. XP standard/home?

Better local networking/wireless networking options?

Actually, this site has a great breakdown of what Pro has that Home doesn't:
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_hom e_pro.asp

Re:OT but curious, why XP Pro for gaming?

[rekkanoryo]

Because often buying the OEM PC with XP Professional yields better hardware, such as a real video card (as opposed to the shared memory crap you commonly find in your low-end Windows XP Home Edition PCs).

Re:OT but curious, why XP Pro for gaming?

[Deaden]

I believe you are wrong. While 95/98/ME does suck, XP Home and Pro are both derived from the NT/2000 line. XP Pro is a superset of home and has some additonal features mainly for buisness apps, such as dual-processer support. They are basically the exact same OS, but Home as a few things stripped out to make companies pony up the extra dough for Pro.

Re:OT but curious, why XP Pro for gaming?

[Anonymous Coward]

You realize, of course, that XP Home is XP Pro with maye two different DLLs.

Re:OT but curious, why XP Pro for gaming?

[squiggleslash]

Nope. XP Home is from the same foundation as XP Pro, they're both successors to Windows 2000, not Windows Me.

Re:OT but curious, why XP Pro for gaming?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, I know this is a pro-linux site primarily, but.. wow.. several comments in this thread that are *completely* clueless about Windows XP. Here's a couple facts:

1) Both Windows XP Home and Windows XP Pro require activation. There does exist a corperate version of Windows XP that does not require activation.

2) Windows XP Home and XP Pro are both built off the NT/2000 core, and as Deaden said, are only different in their feature set.

Whoah, know thy enemy, guys :-)

Re:OT but curious, why XP Pro for gaming?

[u-235-sentinel]

Perhaps. This is the way it was explained to me sometime back.

Re:OT but curious, why XP Pro for gaming?

[arkanes]

The crippled networking support in HOME is enough for me to use Pro at home. It makes sharing files a huge pain in the ass.

Re:OT but curious, why XP Pro for gaming?

[ArsonSmith]

"So OEM that's what?"

I would say that this statement right here kinda answers your question.

Re:OT but curious, why XP Pro for gaming?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actaully some coperate editions dont require normal activation...this is designed for large scale (1000+) sites where they just ghost the systems....see one of the more recent 2600s for a better analysis of this(where i read it, havent actually used it)

Re:OT but curious, why XP Pro for gaming?

[sirsnork]

I don't mean to be rude but you are dead wrong. Both XP/Pro and XP/Home are based on the same NT/2000 codebase. Home has less netowrk fuctionality and no dual processor support and thats about it.

Re:OT but curious, why XP Pro for gaming?

[Anonymous Coward]

Both Windows XP Home and Windows XP Pro require activation. There does exist a corperate version of Windows XP that does not require activation.

Okay, whatever their naming conventions, get the one that doesn't require product activation. Doesn't matter what it's called.

Re:OT but curious, why XP Pro for gaming?

[eddie can read]

Not to troll, but I'm curious why somebody using XP strictly for gaming would shell out the extra $$$ for XP Pro vs. XP standard/home?

Easier to find Pro on Kazaa?

Re:OT but curious, why XP Pro for gaming?

[tricops]

So basically, be a "large" corporation, or pirate it? Your average home/office user isn't going to be able to get the version which doesn't require activation.

Re:OT but curious, why XP Pro for gaming?

[kcbrown]

Not to troll, but I'm curious why somebody using XP strictly for gaming would shell out the extra $$$ for XP Pro vs. XP standard/home?

Someone who is reasonably knowledgeable would want to use Pro because it doesn't require you to go into "single user mode" just to change permissions on files and such. If you're going to do anything under Windows, you'll want to do it with as few permissions as possible. The best way to accomplish that while playing games is to create a "Gamers" group, create a folder in Program Files that has full control privs for the Gamers group, and install all games underneath that. You might also have to grant full control privs for some registry keys to get some games to work. Then you create restricted users and add them to the Gamers group, and log in as one of them whenever you actually want to play a game (or do anything else non-administrative in nature, actually).

With Pro and 2000, you can do this while the box is running normally. With XP Home you have to reboot into maintenance mode (I suppose you might be able to use the cacls command in XP Home). That difference becomes even more apparent when you have to track down which registry keys the game wants to be able to scribble on.

Re:OT but curious, why XP Pro for gaming?

[julesh]

Home has 'fast user switching', which is, IMHO, just about the only XP feature that is worth having over Win2K.

Re:OT but curious, why XP Pro for gaming?

[Bohemoth2]

Because they got a student discount oem version

Re:OT but curious, why XP Pro for gaming?

[Anonymous Coward]

So basically, be a "large" corporation, or pirate it? Your average home/office user isn't going to be able to get the version which doesn't require activation.

Then pirate it, yes. I believe all the pirated versions in general circulation are of the version that doesn't require product activation. In fact, if there's any reason for putting product activation in other than to encourage people to pirate it instead of to buy it then it's hard to think what that reason could be.

Motions to Compel Discovery

[ortcutt]

More important than this is IBM's motion to compel discovery. SCO claims that they will comply by today, declaring what code they consider to be in violation of their intellectual property. See Groklaw for the details. Of course, we won't see any of this, but IBM will be able to assess whether SCO's claims are a bunch of baloney or not.

Obligatory Godfather reference

[fiannaFailMan]

If vendors feel so confident with the intellectual property foundation under their massive contributions into Linux, then they should put their money where their mouth is and protect end users with true vendor-based indemnification

Translation: "If vendors want to protect their users, then we can help. We'll make them an offer they cannot refuse. Capiche?"

Re:Obligatory Godfather reference

[Anonymous Coward]

It's "capisce".

Novell to idemify?

[pitr256]

Novell Inc. has decided to follow Hewlett-Packard Co.'s lead and indemnify its enterprise Linux customers against possible legal action by The SCO Group and/or others

More at:

eWeek

They be very smart

[BubbaTheBarbarian]

The question is why are they so pissed about this and keep asking for indemnification?
Easy answer.
First, it means that they cannot go after small time users. This kicks the legs out from under them, as they cannot build up case history by suing end-users and getting them to surrender (like the RIAA). This means the only thing they can do is go after companies in a vulnerable position, like Google (who in the midst of an IPO would HATE to have the pub of a SCO lawsuit)
Secondly, when a company indemnifies, all of the claims are paid out (most of the time) by it's insurance company. This would give SCO the ability to get money to eternity by suing end-users, have them spin to the company, and the company would pay via it's insurer. This is a brilliant move on OSDL's part. SCO was baiting them to push for the indemnification, but by NOT pushing for it and then getting the ability for end users to defend themselves, they have effectively castrated SCO in at least three strategies.

Re:They be very smart

[schatten]

Actually, google has money. Any patent lawyer that is wanting to make a profit (ethical or not), will always run credit checks on a possible individual or company that they intend to go after and reap rewards by suing.

However, if the company doesn't have a lot of money, they'll ask to settle for minimal dollars. If the company has some money, they'll go after them and reap them until they have no more. If the company has a lot of money, they'll wait until they have won a smaller case, in which they can gang up on the larger, more profitable companies out there. The problem with the SCO case is they haven't won the middle guy, yet they are going after IBM and google. And now, because of the money raised up, SCO is all uphill because no one will settle or pay up a dime because they are being defended. This means, there is no revenue from the little guys. $695 or even $65, they aren't getting a dime. This is the perspective that IBM wants to convey: SCO has legal funds and will not get any revenue to further fun legal issues.

Re:'proof'? No, "proof"

[ooby]

We don't need no stinking proof!

no, not like that

[Anonymous Coward]

Like this:

sco

If you want to understand SCO's PR....

[AtariDatacenter]

This Yahoo! message post does a good job of breaking down the SCO press release. There is a simple rule when it comes to reading SCO press releases and public statements. They're communicating on two levels at the same time.

First is the perception level. This is what you're supposed to get the feel of when you read the statements. The second is the literal/factual level, which is far less impressive, and what keeps the SEC and other agencies off of their butt. But most people don't read at this level. It is *fun* when you do!

In short, the art of lying while telling the truth. You'll see it in the Yahoo! posting.

Re:If you want to understand SCO's PR....

[lww]

Don't you hate that they make you embed your session id in the link? Idiots...

I just dont get it...

[mortation]

Why can SCO just say hey here is the code we found in Linux that infringes on our intellectual property rights and then we say here is the code we took out of Linux to make you happy? Why is this such a pain in the backside?

Re:I just dont get it...

[raodin]

Easy.. That wouldn't get them money and attention.

Re:I just dont get it...

[jimicus]

Simple. As soon as that happens, there's no infringing code in Linux.

Therefore, SCO can't extract money from users.

Re:I just dont get it...

[nagora]

Why can SCO just say hey here is the code we found in Linux that infringes on our intellectual property rights

Because there isn't any.

TWW

Re:I just dont get it...

[mortation]

I just read on the SCO FAQ and it says BSD users are not affected. Is this because SCO is not ready to add Apple to the target list?

In a word

[landoltjp]

Bah!

(to be said whilst waving a single hand in a sign of dismissal)

I read it; I'll now ignore it. Wake me when something more substantial comes along.

"Is being found"

[99bottles]

The release from SCO notes, "SCO's intellectual property is being found in Linux."

How should that be read? Does that mean that, "It is being worked on, and it is currently being found..." Which would explain the lack of evidence shown to date.

Or is it more of an anomaly, like "Really good prizes are being found in Cracker Jack boxes" ?

Oh my, have I dated myself by mentioning Cracker Jacks?

Re:"Is being found"

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Cracker Jacks is still around, but is sold in a bag. You dated yourself by mentioning the box.

Linked....

[herrvinny]

Link

Re:Sharp Zaurus 5600 at Amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

CRAP it only ships inside the US :(((((

Am I going crazy ?....

[tuiedm]

Call my crazy but if you open this document http://www.sco.com/novell/amend_apap2.pdf
and look at the bottom of the pages it looks as though the filename is G:\LEGAL\TRANSFER\SCO\AMEND3.:-O

Just thought that a bit interesting.

Carry on witht he SCO smashing.

Not at all unspecified

[A nonymous Coward]

I believe the next hearing is 23 Jan, the first topic of discussion will be whether IBM is satisfied with what SCO gives them, and the judge made it pretty clear that they will not move on to SCO's complaints until IBM is happy. End of next week!

Re:Not at all unspecified

[Smallpond]

I'm going to go way out on a limb here and say that, No, IBM will not be satisfied with what SCO provides.

Whether anything leaks out depends on whether it will help or hurt IBM's defense. If there's something trivial that's easily removed, they might leak, Linus cleans the kernel, and SCO has no case. On the other hand, cleaning infringing code from the kernel might be viewed as an admission of wrongdoing.

I'm an engineer dammit, not a lawyer

Re:Not at all unspecified

[Penguinshit]

Actually, cleaning infringing code satisfies the first step of remediation (stop using the infringing code).

SCO doesn't want remediation so it can continue to sell its superior product, it wants money so it can continue to simply exist for a few more months.

Goddamn you inbred mods!

[Anonymous Coward]

The quote "The one thing I could never stand about Santa Carla -- is all the Goddamned VAMPIRES." from the movie "Lost Boys" is ONTOPIC for ANY SCO story, as much as bitching about being tired of these endless SCO stories is ONTOPIC.

Here's why: the filming location for the fictional California town of "Santa Carla" was actually Santa Cruz, Ca where SCO was founded. And Vampires are blood suckers, ie parasitic lawyers.

Sweet baby Jesus on a stick you mods are morons.

the binary license?

[Space Sku]

With the whole errno.h "proof" and the binary license they are selling, arent you technicaly paying for the right to use the numbers 1-124?

Re:the binary license?

[Hydrogenoid]

I do hope you get 0 as well with the binary one...

Re:the binary license?

[uucp2]

Well, yes, but only in binary form. You still can't use those numbers in your source code, since they are SCO IP.

Re:the binary license?

[AoT]

The zeros are free!!!
But only if you act quickly!!!!!!

I got your proof!

[rocjoe71]

"Since I'm obviously too much of an idiot to find the 'proof' they claim they're showing, maybe someone else could go look and tell me where it is."

For safekeeping, I wrote the proof on a piece of paper and put it in the glove-compartment of my water-fueled car, in between two cartons of cancer-free cigarettes...

...Unfortunately I was carjacked by a gang of unicorns last week so you'll just have to wait until I remember what the proof really was.

Re:I got your proof!

[Anonymous Coward]

The proof was in the briefcase in Pulp Fiction.

Cool chart

[gr8_phk]

They have a cool chart that shows how Linux 0.01 is derived from earlier unix. I don't see how this is possible since Linus didn't start with Unix source code. Frankly, I find a high correlation between the use of the word "pedigree" and people who are entirely too full of themselves. The pedigree chart is interesting anyway.

Re:Cool chart

[Anonymous Coward]

Chart is ripoff. Linux is a workalike, and has no heritage on the code level, merely in interface.
http://www.levenez.com/unix/history.ht ml

Re:Cool chart

[dtfinch]

The chart also has two arrows pointing from Linux to SCO UnixWare.

Re:60DDAMN, MY B4||5 4R3 5W0||3N & TUR61D!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ummm... it's not like you, like him, have completely missed the point here. That's kind of the point. He's being ironic. You're not.

Slightly OT: SCO hides Linux usage?

[Anonymous Coward]

According to http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph?site=ftp.sco.c om, SCO is
running its FTP site using SCO Unix. However, I FTP'ed the site to see for
sure:

>ftp ftp.sco.com
Connected to ftp.sco.com.
220 ftp.caldera.com Ready.
User (ftp.sco.com:(none)): anonymous
331 Anonymous login ok, send your complete email address as your password.
Password:
230- Welcome to SCO's FTP site!

This site hosts UNIX software patches, device drivers and supplements
from SCO.

To access Skunkware and Supplemental Open Source Packages, please
connect to ftp2.caldera.com.

230 Anonymous access granted, restrictions apply.
ftp> cd bin
250 CWD command successful.
ftp> ls
200 PORT command successful
150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for file list
zcat
gzip
ls
tar
226 Transfer complete.
ftp: 21 bytes received in 0.00Seconds 21000.00Kbytes/sec.
ftp> get gzip
200 PORT command successful
150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for gzip (142512 bytes)
226 Transfer complete.
ftp: 143032 bytes received in 1.08Seconds 132.68Kbytes/sec.
ftp> quit
221 Goodbye

Examination of the gzip executable with the strings command reveals that it
contains the string:

@(#) The Linux C library 5.4.22

As well as the text of the standard "NO WARRANTY" header found in
GPL source files.

So, apparently their FTP site is running Linux, but they are hiding that fact
with deceptive http headers (or whatever it is that netcraft uses).

Why you can't see the source code on the sight

[Jonny Royale]

FYI - if you read the FAQ here , you'll see that in order to see the proof, you have to sign an NDA agreement. Here's the chunk from the FAQ:

15. Is SCO willing to show any examples of source-code violations to Linux users?

SCO has been showing examples of direct line-by-line copying of UNIX code into Linux to hundreds of industry analysts, reporters, customers, partners, and industry influencers since June of this year. To view this code, interested parties have had to sign a non-disclosure agreement verifying that they would keep this code in confidence. SCO continues to identify and show this code to parties willing to sign a non-disclosure agreement.

16. Why does SCO require an NDA to be signed to view evidence of UNIX System IP in Linux?
Showing proof of UNIX System V IP in Linux requires SCO to disclose UNIX System source code. SCO is obligated to protect this source code, both to preserve its value to SCO and its shareholders, as well as to prevent devaluation of the source code that it has licensed (at considerable expense) to many customers. Thus SCO will not exhibit UNIX System source code to anyone except under protection of an NDA or a UNIX System source code license. The NDA only applies to the UNIX System source code; it doesn't restrict the disclosure of other materials and information presented in the IP discussion.

So, basically you can't rebutt the claim since you can't see the source...and you can't see the source until you can't rebutt the claim (via NDA).
Has anyone contacted the ghost of Joseph Heller about this?

Re:Why you can't see the source code on the sight

[Anonymous Coward]

While I see hints of Yossarian all over this, isn't it entirely feasible for a kernel developer to sign an NDA with SCO, create new code to eliminate the infringing pieces, and then release the new code into the kernel. In theory, they wouldn't be breaking the NDA by doing this.

Although you could count on SCO trying to sue because the developer "revealed the infringing code by the very fact that he removed it, people can go back through and see what was changed and thus have SCO's intellectual property"

I wonder how McBride would react if Linus asked to sign an NDA with SCO?

Re:Why you can't see the source code on the sight

[rabtech]

It gets even better than that man...

Assume you sign the NDA and can see the code - you can't tell Linus or anyone developing for the kernel about it because that would violate the NDA. Therefore the "offending code" (humor them for a minute) cannot ever be removed. Therefore, Linux is permanently tainted!

Even if you submit a patch to remove the code and don't tell anyone what it was specifically, I am quite sure that SCO will claim you are simply making an end-run around the NDA since anyone can deduce the actual code from what your patch removes.

Granted, this is all a bunch of lies, but SCO sure has a stock market racket going here. In the post-Enron world, their heads should roll but I have no doubt the SEC will be happy to ignore their behavior.

stock down 6% today

[Anonymous Coward]

stock chart

There FAQ is a trip..

[EMR]

14. How can SCO expect me to purchase a license when its case with IBM hasn't been resolved yet? What if SCO loses its case against IBM? Will it reimburse Linux customers who purchased a SCO IP License for Linux?

Some Linux users have the misunderstanding that the SCO IP License for Linux hinges on the outcome of the SCO vs. IBM case. If that case were completely removed, Linux end users would still need to purchase a license from SCO to use the SCO IP found in Linux. The IBM case surrounds mis-use of derivative works of SCO UNIX. It does not change the fact that line-by-line SCO IP code is found in Linux.

Ie.. the court case has nothing to do with the Linux licenses.. and by SCO saying that there is infringing code, you are required to pay a license fee to them for your use of linux, without any proof.

Re:There FAQ is a trip..

[Anonymous Coward]

Which turd asked this question-

45. I am running BSD. Am I required to purchase a license?

No, you do not need to purchase a SCO IP license to run BSD.

Re:There FAQ is a trip..

[jimicus]

There is IP that I own in Windows. All versions of Windows later than Windows 95 are infringing it, and I'm therefore suing WalMart. Meanwhile, you can buy a license from me to use versions of Windows later than Windows 95.

Should the lawsuit fail and I'm shown to be a liar, I shall continue making these allegations and demanding people pay me.

Why is this behavior legal?

[Camel Pilot]

I still do not understand how SCO can threaten companies with a copyright infringement without first testing their claim in court.

If this is legal then what would stops Joe Schmoe from claiming they had input in some book on the top best seller list and start walking around threating BN and Amazon or anyone who bought the book. Why not since there is nothing to lose and maybe they will pay off.

Re:Why is this behavior legal?

[casuist99]

Actually, I think the comparison might be more accurate if instead of a contributor to a book suing Amazon or BN, the contributor sued the publisher of the book. A press company would certainly be more similar to RedHat, SuSe, etc. than a seller such as BN or CompUSA. Of course, because of bad press BN or CompUSA could stop selling the product, but that's another point.
Admittedly, SCO needs to test this "approach" in court before they go after end users or the publishers/software companies with their FUD, but until then, they will continue being morons.

Re:Why is this behavior legal?

[zakezuke]

I still do not understand how SCO can threaten companies with a copyright infringement without first testing their claim in court

It's hard to say if it's legal or not, the line gets blured with legal harrassment.

Let's say for example you have a neighbor with a dog that shits on your lawn.

Scenero a) You threaten to kill the dog if he continues to shit on your lawn.

This is harrassment, clear and simple!

Scenero b) You threaten to take legal action.

While this is a form of harrasment... I suspect that you can do this without any form of repercussion, as you indeed are well within your rights depending on local or federal ordinaces on dogshit. Bigger cities are more picky about shit then smaller ones.

Scenero c) You use the threat of legal action to extort money from your neighbor.

This is where it becomes really hazy... as it is indeed possible that a dog shitting on your lawn may cause damage to your flora.. assuming you have proof you might actually beable to sue them for it. You may elect to hire a professional lawn care pooper scooper specalist and ask your neighbor to foot the bill. Shokingly enough... while sitting around in small claims court, I actually did see people complaining about dogshit.

----

In short, I don't honestly know where the line is between the threat of legal action and blatent harrassment / extortion is. I suspect it's up to the whatever judge happens to respect your case. As far as sco goes, while I personaly believe they are accountable for their shit... i'm not a lawyer, I have morals.

Re:Why is this behavior legal?

[bobbuck]

Legal harassment is fair game in the United States. That's why so many settle out of court even when the law is on their side. Some countries make the loser pay for the legal expenses of their opponent which eliminates a lot of BS lawsuits.

Unhappy with SCO?

[stuffedmonkey]

I would call their handy 1-800 number to complain! 1-800-726-8649 Call and say that you believe thier practices are unacceptable - on thier dime!

Darl, ask and ye shall receive

[Anonymous Coward]

"If vendors feel so confident with the intellectual property foundation under their massive contributions into Linux, then they should put their money where their mouth is and protect end users with true vendor-based indemnification," said Darl McBride, president and CEO, The SCO Group, Inc.

Novell is expected to announce indemnification any minute now:

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1434396,00. as p

Re:Why SCO acts the way it does Mc and Brighid

[AtariDatacenter]

Its even worse. The Mc prefix means "son of". Now what does the name Bride, from gaelic, mean? "From Brighid, a hostage, pledge, or security." Fits Darl's reign at SCO pretty well.

Funny you should say that

[criscooil]

Does this mean I can assert copyrights over /etc/X11/rgb.txt?

Well, a certain company seems to think it "owns" a certain color.

Re:Funny you should say that

[Anonymous Coward]

There are lots of companies that do this. It's nothing new, it's been done for a long time. Especially on industrial equipment. Ford has a trademarked Ford Industrial Blue, and now yellow-green. Miller has it's blue. Esab has it's bright yellow. Kutoba has orange-red. Hitachi has some kind of yellow. Catepillar has a gold color. Coke has it's red, barbie it's pink. Etc. Etc.

Paint companies sometimes trademark their paints, too: the pearlescent color on some Audis and Cadillacs, for example. They're both different, but quite distinctive. It's hard to get that exact look. Hence the trademark.

Re:Funny you should say that

[tkg]

Yup. And Harley-Davidson has trademarked the Harley-Davidson "sound" for its bikes. I'm not sure how this is done unless a sound spectrum is on file with the trademark office.

not always true

[DrSkwid]

if Linux == 0 to start with

isn't it today?

[mAineAc]

Isn't it today that they are supposed to be giving their proof through a court order? what happened with that anyone know?

found it

[mabu]

A careful search of my source libraries revealed this:

#ifndef _SYS_ERRNO_H_
#define _SYS_ERRNO_H_

#ifndef KERNEL
#include
__BEGIN_DECLS
int * __error __P((void));
__END_DECLS
#define errno (* __error())
#endif

#define EBULLSHIT 666 /* (c) SCO/AT&T */ ...

#endif /* _POSIX_SOURCE */

Re:found it

[cyt0plas]

Actually, I think RedHat 9 doesn't let you use errno like that, so it must only be present in IBM linux...

Re:'proof'? No, "proof"

[edbarrett]

Or "Travolta"

Very appropriate picture!!

[ashitaka]

U.K. Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain waving the "Peace in Our Time" document whereby Germany agreed to play nice in Europe and never to go to war with England again.

In 1938.

We all know what happened next.

Darl's "proof" probably has as much value as Neville's scrap of paper.

TROLL!

[herrvinny]

An interesting study in two very different we PR campaigns. I saw on cnn.com that the stylish Stewart site Martha Talks [marthtalks.com] has gotten like 6,000,000 visitors. SCO's ugly-ass site, with jagged-aggressive "source" font, makes my insides burn.

Ha ha. Your "Martha Talks" link shows marthtalks.com. Note the absence of an a after "marth". And your site redirects to http://www.smartnetbusiness.com/.

Depends on where you live

[Kjella]

The paragraphs of such things as e.g. building codes are obviously copyrightable in the US. "The association of a number and its specific meaning in a specific context" sounds pretty much exactly like paragraph numbers and their related meaning.

"Sorry, your building application is rejected under paragraph 14." "Can I get a copy of what paragraph 14 says, so I can correct it?" "No, it is copyrighted, you have to *buy* a copy." "And if I don't want to?"

As for the rest of the conversation, it'll go something like this (adopted from Douglas Adam's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)

"But Mr. Dent, the building code has been available in the government office for the last nine months."
"Oh yes, well, as soon as I heard I went straight round to see them, yesterday afternoon. You hadn't exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them, had you? I mean, like actually telling anybody or anything."
"But the code was on display..."
"On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them."
"That's the display department."
"With a flashlight."
"Ah, well, the lights had probably gone."
"So had the stairs."
"But look, you found the building code, didn't you?"
"Yes," said Arthur, "yes I did. It was on display on the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard.'"

Even so, while they'll have a much harder time copyrighting error codes, rather than complex building codes, there's no clear precendent you can point to and outright dismiss the claim. It'll be word against word until settled by a judge.

I know they wouldn't be copyrightable here (in Norway). But then again DeCSS is legal here as well. What's that? You claim we're hiding Osama here? Invade? Aiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!

Kjella

Re:Depends on where you live

[Anonymous Coward]

Even so, while they'll have a much harder time copyrighting error codes, rather than complex building codes, there's no clear precendent you can point to and outright dismiss the claim.

I believe there was a case involving a (the?) phone company. Basically, while a phone book is copyrightable, the names and phone numbers are not because they're merely a collection of facts and facts are not copyrightable.

Arguably a define statement in a header file has a very limited range of expression and the association of an error code and associated mnemonic is, IMHO, simply a fact. IMO, SCO is going to have a tough time proving errno.h et al are copyrightable even if they were copied verbatim.

Bottom line though, Novell claims they did not sell the original SCO the copyright to UNIX and they have filed their own UNIX copyrights with the US Copyright Office. That's going to really poke a hole in SCO's copyright claims.

Re:Depends on where you live

[Anonymous Coward]

Even so, while they'll have a much harder time copyrighting error codes, rather than complex building codes, there's no clear precendent you can point to and outright dismiss the claim.

How about this one? (Especially when the code becomes part of the law.)

If this is the case, would not making the code part of a law free it from copyright?

Re:Depends on where you live

[Anonymous Coward]

hmm... you had better turn over all those WMDs or we will invade sooner than you can say "quagmire" three times fast.

Re:Depends on where you live

[Jason Pollock]

Wasn't there a recent court case that resulted in a ruling stating that anything used in a law has to be publicly available?

(I'm unable to find a google reference, but I distinctly remember it, honest!)

Jason Pollock

Re:Depends on where you live

[Jesrad]

I'd pay some money to see the judge's face when SCO's attorney claims 3 BILLION dollars for copyrighted error codes.

Re:Depends on where you live

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it was the Veeck case. I don't have the cite.

Re:Depends on where you live

[Jason Pollock]

The name located it, Thanks!

http://www.ipwatchdog.com/Cases/Veeck_v_SBCCI_en ba nc.htm

It seems to be a writeup of the majority opinion? Lots of good information in there.

Re:Depends on where you live

[Anonymous Coward]

You joke about being invaded but Norway's oil is NOTHING to joke about.

Objection!

[Anonymous Coward]

As a certified bastard (and part Scot to boot), I object to being associated with Darl & company.

Re:Objection!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hear, hear!

damn litigious bastards

'Certianly out of the league of being a certified bastard

Almost

[Rorgg]

There wasn't a "switch" though, there'd always been both Mac/Mc (son of) and o (which is Gaelic for "of") as long as there had been surnames.

o is actually its own word, seperate from "of" which is from the Germanic root (cf. German "auf"). When o got Anglicized, it became O' and then the natural confusion.

Every day I struggle to make my degree in linguistics relevant. Today's about average.

Re:'proof'? No, "proof"

[Dastardly]

The actions of these vendors today doesn't change the fact that SCO's intellectual property is being found in Linux. Commercial end users of Linux that continue to use SCO's intellectual property without authorization are in violation of SCO's copyrights. SCO continues to publicly show evidence of this infringement.

A post at Linux Daily news had an interesting take. Sentence one makes a true statement because we all know SCO (as Caldera) contributed to the kernel. Sentence 2 is also a true statement as using intellectual property without authorization would be inviolation fo SCO's copyrights. Sentence 3 says SCO continues to show proof of infringement which since there is no infringement is nothing. Therefore, SCO has put together a series of true statements that sound ominous, but actually are harmless.

Re:Look! Over There!

[Fly]

As others have said, the legal fund is worse for SCO because they cannot bully small Linux users and thus build a case history of "winning" against them in court. Indemnification would make the end users not care, so the likelihood of a payout and a "win" for SCO is higher. McBride is just trying to double-dog-dare Linux vendors into giving him what he wants---easy pickings. When they don't do it, he starts saying, "Come on! Are you chicken? Bawk, bawk, bawk!"

Re:Look! Over There!

[IPFreely]

The difference between a Legal fund and indemnification would be like this:

Legal fund: We have this much money to defend you with. I hope it's enough.

Indemnification: We take full responsibility. Any legal action will come completely though us, no matter the cost.

You can see why not very many companies do it.

Caldera has intentionally given away header source

[jgoemat]

I know this isn't the right place to bring this up, but Caldera has given away the source code for most of the headers specified in the December 18th letters as infringing ABI code under their own license. Even if they do own that code in Linux (which is seriously in doubt), couldn't Linux still be distributed for free if it followed the licese for those files? In the letter they even state those files are part of the BSD settlement, so couldn't the code be used just by following the BSD license?

Re:Slightly OT: SCO hides Linux usage?

[Anonymous Coward]

Very nice.
Well played!

Re:Look! Over There!

[Anonymous Custard]

For a current example, there is currently no such fund for those sued by the RIAA, thus rather than spend 10's of thousands of dollars to beat the RIAA in court, poor individuals have to settle by paying $3000 or so and never even get to see a trial!

If there were a fund, someone who got the RIAA threat would actually take them to court.

Darl and Canada

[lexsco]

I think Darl has been listening to our dear ex-Prime Minister, Jean Chretien. He was asken about what proof Canada would require before comminting troops to the invasion of Iraq.

His gem of an answer.

"I don't know, a proof is a proof. What kind of a proof is a proof? A proof is a proof and when you have a good proof it's because it's proven."

Re:Darl and Canada

[nicophonica]

"I don't know, a proof is a proof. What kind of a proof is a proof? A proof is a proof and when you have a good proof it's because it's proven."

Actually I think you are correct about McBride but mistaken about Cretin who is essentially correct in his quote. If you assert something, such as Iraq has WMD and we must invade because of them or that Linux IP is tainted then it is your obligation to both justify the specific logic of your proof and the assumptions and premises on which it it based, including the machinery of your proof itself.

It would, for example, be totally erroneous, after having your proof of Fermat's last theorem rejected, to ask: "Well, if that wasn't good enough then what would be good enough?" That is your job as the one making the assertion. Any single flaw in logic or subtle unjustified assumption is sufficient grounds to toss a formal proof out. The person tossing it out is under no obligation to specify what might be an acceptable, only to be clear and correct on why yours specifically was not.

In Darl's case he has made an assertion (that Linux is IP tainted.) and puts the Open Source community in the position of proving that it is not. In fact, that is the very foundation of his argument is that open source must always prove that it is untainted against proprietary software and this is impossible.

Pot calling the kettle black

[Just Jeff]

SCO likes to trot out the indemnification card. Microsoft is eventually going to take legal action against Samba and people who use Samba... like SCO customers. I don't recall SCO offering any protection to their customers. Indeed, SCO threatens their customers more often than not. Its too bad that a reporter somewhere doesn't go a little farther than just transposing SCO's press release from 1st person to 3rd person when writing their story.

Hey, it's worth a shot.

[Jerk City Troll]

Make sure you add this to your weblogs! Here's an entry I made on the matter.

Gaelic correction

[renbear]

Actually, the O' prefix-- correct me if I'm wrong, Gaelic readers-- is an Anglicization of the Gaelic "Ui", which I understand in this context means "grandson of" or "of the line of".

For example, Sean, son of Cerbaill, grandson of Lochlainn, would have been "Sean mac Cerbaill ui Lochlainn", and Anglicized as "Sean MacCarroll O'Laughlin" (or some such).

Heh. Please forgive me for being an A/R Celtiphile...

how could you miss the proof?

[mrmez]

Just check out their recent financial statements. That's their proof of ownership over linux source code. They need to own it, so they do. Hey, if it works for Saddam/Al Quaeda links...

Intentions.

[jotaeleemeese]

Nevill Chamberlain was an honest persong thath allowed his hopes to cloud his judgment.

Darl, well, is Darl.

Re:Intentions.

[ashitaka]

The only difference is the "honest" part.

Neville should be pitied.

Darl should be pilloried.

Re:Intentions.

[skink1100]

> Nevill Chamberlain was an honest persong thath allowed his hopes to cloud his judgment.

He was also a fool, and that's the point.

Interesting analysis of IP enforcement

[mabu]

While searching on the net, I came across this report (PDF form) by Dr. Stephen Lesavich, entitled, "Patent Enforcement: Extortion, Shakedown, Blackmail or the American Way?" It's a pretty interesting report. It outlines what the author calls the standard "Patent Enforcement Business Model" which seems to be what SCO is engaging in now, and cites other entities such as PanIP and Techsearch LLC who have also engaged in this kind of activity.

The author is an IP attorney, so you can imagine that the report ultimately has the lawyeresque resolution of, "Don't ignore any request - speak to an attorney" but it still reveals a lot of insight and info into the dynamic at play here.

What I find most troubling about this are some of the figures cited in the report:

From 1991 to 2000 there was a 48% increase in patent suits. I'd estimate that there were probably as much in the most recent three-year period as in the previous nine.

Average cost to prepare an answer to a suit is $250,000.

83% of these cases never come to trial.

Many people may not realize that it's much more likely that SCO will settle and this case may never come to trial, in which case SCO will have accomplished its objective of putting a dark cloud over Linux and continuing to extort unproven licensing fees from various users.

I don't know if there is, but there should be A CONDITION placed upon the donations and use of this fund so that UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES CAN THE MONEY BE USED IN A SETTLEMENT. We need to push for this trial to go all the way and not wuss out near the end, which would be a victory for SCO.

Re:Interesting analysis of IP enforcement

[taustin]

Many people may not realize that it's much more likely that SCO will settle

That presumes that IBM will let them. IMB is currently in the process of dropping Microsoft operating systems. They have a lot invested in Linux, including the future of their company. Any kind of settlement will only substitute SCO for Microsoft as their lords and masters.

IBM has vowed to crack SCO's bones and suck them dry of marrow, and has considerable incentive to do so. And considerable ability to do so, as well.

Re:Interesting analysis of IP enforcement

[mabu]

That presumes that IBM will let them. IMB is currently in the process of dropping Microsoft operating systems. They have a lot invested in Linux, including the future of their company. Any kind of settlement will only substitute SCO for Microsoft as their lords and masters.


I wouldn't be so sure. Not by a long shot.

It's much more practical that IBM has various interests, not unlike SCO, and it using the lawsuit as leverage to force a settlement which gives them something they want.

IBM does not have a history of being the champion of open source. IBM has generally been a big, corporate institution. The company has made mistakes in the past which have helped create new industries... granted, but it was never intentional. So why would anyone think things are any different now?

Imagine this scenario: After the SCO attack creates enough FUD in the industry, SCO settles with IBM, allowing IBM freedom from IP restrictions relative to SCO, but ONLY IBM. This would effectively make IBM the only "legitimate" distributor of Linux and put them in the position of being able to control a larger share of the corporate market, something they lost, that they'd undoubtedly love to get back. It would be a brilliant plan for IBM, and not outside the boundaries of typical corporate behavior of taking other peoples' ideas and controlling distribution. The only way to take control of Linux is to rise above the FUD, but the FUD for everyone else still needs to be present or else this court case really doesn't play into the scheme that would best benefit IBM (and this is from a corporate-thinking standpoint, not a common sense/fairness standpoint).

We need to get over this foolish notion that most corporations have much idealism in these scenarios. IBM is in this for money and shareholder value. It's entirely possible a settlement of the lawsuit would be in IBM's better interests. This is taking into account that the resulting damage to the open source community is of little concern to IBM, which isn't outside the realm of possibility.

My favorite question....

[mrpuffypants]

36. Does the SCO IP License for Linux include a media kit?

No. Nothing needs to be installed on the client, server or embedded device. ...great. so you've just purchased literally nothing. Good job, dumbass.

SCO is a bunch of ideiots here is the proof...

[josepha48]

.. go to this web site http://www.sco.com/ibmlawsuit/

Is is their lawsuit page (SCO's)

Click on the link that says "August 6, 2003 Defendant IBM's Answer to the Amended Complaint and Counterclaim-Plaintiff IBM's Counterclaims Against SCO"

Then read the small print in the PDF. Page 1 at the bottom where it says that this document is for the intended reciepiant and that distributing this document is a violation of attorney ... blah blah blah..

Your honor, if they can't keep their own attorney documents privelidged, then how can you expect them to keep their source code under control. I submit that SCO is responsible for letting loose the code in question and that their company should be divided up and diseminated, and that the owners of the company be all put in jail for being a bunch of dodo's!

Obvious forgery

[Ohreally_factor]

Everyone knows Darl owns a white persian with a diamond collar. You're not fooling anyone.

End users?

[fred87]

From what i've read SCO have said that *every* user of linux needs a license from them - yeah right, but supposing they do actually have a case and are fooling us all: From www,sco.com/scosource: "The license would apply to all commercial users of Linux based on a 2.4 or later kernel" (my emphasis) Is it just me or is this yet another contradiction?

Torvalds vs. SCO's Proof

[chrootstrap]

from lkml:

I spent half an hour tearing part of it apart for some journalists. No guarantees for the full accuracy of this write-up, and in particular I don't actually have "original UNIX" code to compare against, but the files I checked (ctype.[ch]) definitely do not have any UNIX history to them.

The rest of the files are mostly errno.h/signal.h/ioctl.h (and they are apparently the 2.4.x versions, before we moved some common constants into "asm-generic/errno.h"), and while I haven't analyzed them, I know for a fact that

* the original errno.h used different error numbers than "original UNIX"

I know this because I cursed it later when it meant that doing things like binary emulation wasn't as trivial - you had to translate the error numbers.
* same goes for "signal.h": while a lot of the standard signals are well documented (ie "SIGKILL is 9"), historically we had lots of confusion (ie I think "real UNIX" has SIGBUS at 10, while Linux didn't originally have any SIGBUS at all, and later put it at 7 which was originally SIGUNUSED.

So to me it looks like

* yes, Linux obviously has the same signal names and error number names that UNIX has (so the files certainly have a lot of the same identifiers)
* but equally clearly they weren't copied from any "real UNIX".

(Later, non-x86 architectures have tried harder to be binary-compatible with their "real UNIX" counter-parts, and as a result we have different errno header files for different architectures - and on non-x86 architectures the numbers will usually match traditional UNIX).

For example, doing a "grep" for SIGBUS on the kernel shows that most architectures still have SIGBUS at 7 (original Linux value), while alpha, sparc, parisc and mips have it at 10 (to match "real UNIX").

What this tells me is that the original code never came from UNIX, but some architectures later were made to use the same values as UNIX for binary compatibility (I know this is true for alpha, for example: being compatible with OSF/1 was one of my very early goals in that port).

In other words, I think we can totally _demolish_ the SCO claim that these 65 files were somehow "copied". They clearly are not.

Which should come as no surprise to people. But I think it's nice to see just _how_ clearly we can show that SCO is - yet again - totally incorrect.

Linus

For example, SCO lists the files "include/linux/ctype.h" and "lib/ctype.h", and some trivial digging shows that those files are actually there in the original 0.01 distribution of Linux (ie September of 1991). And I can state

* I wrote them (and looking at the original ones, I'm a bit ashamed: the "toupper()" and "tolower()" macros are so horribly ugly that I wouldn't admit to writing them if it wasn't because somebody else claimed to have done so ;)
* writing them is no more than five minutes of work (you can verify that with any C programmer, so you don't have to take my word for it)
* the details in them aren't even the same as in the BSD/UNIX files (the approach is the same, but if you look at actual implementation details you will notice that it's not just that my original "tolower/toupper" were embarrassingly ugly, a number of other details differ too).

In short: for the files where I personally checked the history, I can definitely say that those files are trivially written by me personally, with no copying from any UNIX code _ever_.

So it's definitely not a question of "all derivative branches". It's a question of the fact that I can show (and SCO should have been able to see) that the list they show clearly shows original work, not "copied".

Analysis of "lib/ctype.c" and "include/linux/ctype.h".

First, some background: the "ctype" name comes "character type", and the whole point of "ctype.h" and "ctype.c" is to test what kind

Check this out!

[mortation]

21. Since the license is needed only by commercial users of a Linux 2.4 kernel and later versions, does that imply that non-commercial users and earlier versions of the Linux kernels are non-infringing? Major portions of UNIX(R) System V and derivative works began appearing in version 2.4 of the kernel. Prior versions of the kernel are largely unaffected. All distributions of Linux 2.4 and later versions of the kernel contain major infringements, regardless of whether Linux is being used in a commercial or non-commercial environment. At this time, SCO is focusing on the commercial uses only. So is it safe to say all we have to do is redevelop from kernel 2.3.x and say buzz off to SCO?

Trying to start a slashdotting?

[pgr0ss]

...maybe someone else could go look...

Sounds like someone's trying to take down their servers.

yeah, but... (OT again)

[rbird76]

...we're so much more fiscally responsible here in America - we're not paying for social services for the poor or anything like that - none of that equality higgeryjiggerypoop (or whatever that word is)...

WHAT? we're running a $500 billion deficit? and no health care or Social Security (not when I retire, anyway)? and a selected president?

Where's my passport?

Do you mean Like HP does?

[maddmike]

HP imdenifies it's customers against any and all claims by SCO if you purchase a linux system from HP.

Re:'proof'? No, "proof"

[Greyfox]

Evidence, proof, whatever. By the way, I like "gratuitous" quotes :-)

stupid question but. . .

[aoteoroa]

re: <a href="http://www.sco.com" title="The SCO Group - litigious bastards">litigious bastards</a>

How does a title property inside the anchor tag affect the google search result?

Re:stupid question but. . .

[DrSkwid]

'tis another re-enforcer

of course I don't have true inside knowledge, 'tis just another one of those techniques one uses and it seems to work (in combination with all the others, table summaries for example).

Re:stupid question but. . .

[Pharmboy]

You might also add an image named "litigious-bastards.jpg" that is a copy of their logo with 3 significant changes or for parody purposes (legal reasons), with an alt tag of "litigious bastards" and make the image itself a link

<a href="http://www.sco.com" title="The SCO Group - litigious bastards">litigious bastards</a><br><a href="http://www.sco.com" title="The SCO Group - litigious bastards"><img src="path/litigious-bastards.jpg" alt="litigious bastards"></a>

replacing "path" with the actual path. I actually had to pay money to learn that one. Not perfect, but it helps, and then it shows up when you google for images.

+1, FP

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think it'll help, though.

Mmmh, my monday morning FUD!

[ivern76]

This is nothing but FUD to distract people from the well known fact that they're supposed to present their infringement evidence in court today (deadline ended six hours ago, I think...if I have my timezones right.)

fight fire with fire time...

[MoFoQ]

I think it's about time we fight fire with fire....by patenting the word "the" and sue SCO for infringing on it.

What up?

[Anonymous Coward]

I just looked at errno.h on my Suse 9 system. It is all of 73 lines, most of which are comments. It's almost an empty file. This one little almost empty, trivial file is the basis for a $3bil lawsuit???? The mind reels.

SCaldera doesn't respect copyright

[WCMI92]

And it's 100% provable. They are STILl distributing GPL code (the kernel) while claiming that the GPL itself isn't enough authority for people to run it.

Even IF SCO has some copyrighted bits in the kernel that they can prove they didn't place there, and didn't authorize, they still don't own all the OTHER millions of lines of code they didn't author...

Which they are STEALING for themselves to exclusively profit from if they insist that ONLY having their "Linux license" are you allowed to use it.

SCO lost all legal rights to that code the minute they declared their DISAGREEMENT with the GPL. The GPL alone gives anyone authority to copy, use, modify, redistribute any of the code in Linux.

To claim that the GPL is illegal, SCO is confessing to violating US copyright law, unless they have seperate agreements from EVERY copyright holder of that code!

This is why I think their threats to sue Google, or another Linux user over COPYRIGHT issues are complete FUD. They have shown their hand. They are going to pick out some of their OWN customers who licensed SCO Unix in the past and sue them for breach of contract for using Linux...

Very, VERY weak if you ask me.

SCO wants to stay the HELL away from copyright and stick to breach of contract (which is all the IBM suit is) but use those cases to "win" the copyright case in the court of public opinion (and thus defame all Linux people) because a court of LAW is the last place they want to have to answer for the fact that they themselves have pirated MILLIONS of lines of code illegally just by continuing to distribute Linux...

Re:SCaldera doesn't respect copyright

[cdn-programmer]

I have thought more on this subject after having already posted a note.

The idea of a class action lawsuit makes even more sense IMHO.

1) SCO has already disavowed the GPL. I believe this is in their court filings. As such they have no legal right to use or distribute any GPL code.

2) This fact is easily provable. The court documents already are filed. As such - in many jurisdictions this is a summary judgement matter.

3) It costs only a couple hundred bux to file a statment of claim and a summary judgement application can be done for under a couple thousand in legal fees. This is not very hard to do.

4) Courts usually hear summary judgment applications in chambers AFAIK. So this ruling can be obtained before the end of January I would think. Their lawyers typically need about 2 weeks to respond. The summary judgement application does not have to wait for discoveries or anything else because it is self evident.

Given this...

5) Once a summary judgement has been obtained, the next step is for the judge to determine damages. This will be much harder of course because the basis for damages will probably have to be established first.

However, it is clear that neither Caldera Linux nor _any_ flavour of System V unix has any value whatsoever without inclusion of the GPL software.

On this basis, the lion's share of ANYTHING that SCO has received in the past or may receive in the future including the proceeds from the law suit against IBM falls into the category of money SCO has no legal right to. They are guilty of unjust enrichment.

Furthermore, since it is the LION's that they are not entitled to, then SCO is technically bankrupt. They owe more to the opensource community than they can ever be worth.

Since a company cannot be allowed to do business while insolvent - a receiver must be appointed and we just wind them up - grabbing the System V copyrights in the process and we are all done.

Re:SCaldera doesn't respect copyright

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a new comer to this site I came here to look for info on the SCO crap. I believe I found my answer I was looking for. Thank you very much for putting everything into plain english for other and me! I have knowledge but law sometimes confuses me. :) I really enjoy all the info I have recieved here. Thank You!

Born free and I would like to try to keep it that way!

Support of Troops and Freedoms

Later

Nothing found yet

[jrumney]

I notice that SCO have stopped saying that their IP has been found in Linux, and are now saying "is being found". Does the change from past to present tense signify that they know they don't have any evidence?

Re:Nothing found yet

[sabat]

Does the change from past to present tense signify that they know they don't have any evidence?

Oh, it gets even better. Their latest court papers say that they can't find the evidence of their "intellectual property" unless they get the source code to the very latest versions of some IBM unixes.

IBM had demanded that SCO show them the money, and the court had agreed. SCO's response actually was: IBM has to give us their code, and then we can prove it.

So although they somehow "know" that there is all sorts of theft from their codebase in Linux, they can't prove it until they see someone else's codebase.

The day that these bozos land in the Big House, I'll be dancing on my front lawn naked.

Anyone read the NDA?

[trawg]

Has anyone read, or have a copy of, the NDA that you are required to sign before the alleged infringing source?

I'm curious as to why some random Linux hacker hasn't signed the NDA, found the alleged offending code (assuming SCO provide it all, instead of a single snippet which they probably don't), and re-released 'SCO-safe' versions of those files. Unless such activitiy is specifically prohibited by the NDA, ie "after reading this NDA, you can't do anything, ever again" sort of dealie.

Announcing the "Cigarettes for Darl" Fund

[Anonymous Coward]

To show the world that Linux advocates are actually kind and caring people, the "Cigarettes for Darl" Fund seeks to provide help even to the enemies of Linux in their time of need.

Soon Darl McBride and his cronies will be going to prison for running a pump and dump stock scheme. While there, they will need currency for various reasons: to purchase little things that they miss, to appease gang members or to buy off potential rapists. In these cases, cigarettes will be better than money.

Please do what you can for this generous cause. Send Darl a carton, a pack or even a few loosies. Every little bit will help ease the pain during the several years in which Darl and crew will be incarcerated.

Still a moot point.

[gillbates]

It doesn't matter, because:

• SCO isn't going to sue.
• If SCO did sue, the case would be dismissed because SCO did not employ due diligence - i.e., they were requested to reveal the infringing code on numerous occasions and failed to do so.
• Should the case not be dismissed initially,(IANAL) the defendant could compel the infringing code via discovery, at which point same need only remove the infringing code from their copy of the kernel sources to render the case moot and void.
• Even if the defendant didn't want to remove the code from the kernel sources, it would not be difficult to show that SCO does not actually rightfully own the code that they believe they do.
• Even should SCO win the case, SCO is claiming ownership of Linux only. Since the GNU operating system was originally designed for the MACH kernel, it could easily be ported, leaving RMS happy with a GNU-only OS and SCO with nothing.
• Furthermore, since the terms of the GPL specifically prohibit distributing software without access to the source, it could be shown that SCO is indeed violating copyright law. Since most of the Linux kernel is not derived from SCO's UNIX, Linus, et al., could sue SCO for any profits gained from their IP licensing scheme, since SCO is/was distributing Linux without their permission.

What strikes me as odd is that the whole case would be moot if the major distros simply ported their systems to a different kernel, such as MACH, or HURD. SCO would be left with nothing, and Linus would have a very good slander case against SCO.

Re:Still a moot point.

[Dhalka226]

Should the case not be dismissed initially,(IANAL) the defendant could compel the infringing code via discovery, at which point same need only remove the infringing code from their copy of the kernel sources to render the case moot and void.

Moot, perhaps, but not void. In this hypothetical case, SCO could continue to sue for compensatory and punitive damages for having infringed on their code. Even if there were a legal loophole I'm not aware of that would allow your situation to take place (IANAL either), I doubt it would be true until every copy of linux in the world was updated to the new, non-infringing code. Since that is unlikely to happen in the near future--perhaps ever--SCO would continue to have the right to seek damages. Even if it did happen, I don't believe that merely coming into compliance precludes a lawsuit from moving forward. If I offered MP3s to people on Kazaa and took the songs down when I got sued, it doesn't mean the lawsuit drops. I am now in compliance, but the harm I caused is already done and I still broke the law.

Re:Still a moot point.

[gillbates]

Agreed, but the problem is compounded by SCO refusing to work with the Linux kernel programmers to remove the code. Even if SCO's intellectual property does exist in the Linux kernel, they can't claim damages because they deliberately acted in a manner which compounded the extent of the damages. It would be very hard to convince a jury of the value of their IP when they took steps that ensured that it was not removed from the Linux kernel. If indeed their IP was so valuable, why didn't they make a concerted effort to prevent its free dissemination? So yes, the jury might find the defendant at fault, but after seeing the manner in which SCO deliberately set a trap to increase the monetary damages, that jury might be well disposed to award SCO $1.

Re:Still a moot point.

[Dhalka226]

If indeed their IP was so valuable, why didn't they make a concerted effort to prevent its free dissemination?

One could argue that the licensing fees and the lawsuits (and threats thereof) were a concerted effort to prevent its free dissemination. SCO sent out C&D orders, didn't they? I'm not sure how "they wouldn't tell us what we did wrong" would work from a legal standpoint if you simply ignored the C&D or stopped complying with it after a while. I don't know if the onus is on them to bring you into compliance or yours to comply or challenge the order.

But don't get me wrong. I hate SCO, I think the suits are a bunch of BS and I wish IBM or somebody would crack them over the head with a Tux stuffed full of jagged rocks.

Re:Slightly OT: SCO hides Linux usage?

[mandolin]

Examination of the gzip executable with the strings command reveals that it contains the string: @(#) The Linux C library 5.4.22

That's not proof. It's entirely possible that SCO is hosting linux binaries on a SCO Unix FTP server.

As an aside, why did you use an ASCII transfer for a binary file? I bet your downloaded copy of gzip didn't run for sh*t..

OT: Your sig

[Anonymous Coward]

The voices in my head have switched to encrypted mp3 and I don't know the public key!

Ouch! That's GOTTA hurt!

SCO responds to consumer needs. Why the fuss?

[phiwum]

From SCO's qanda (note: "FAQ" has taints of the GPL about it, don't it?):

1. Why did SCO create the Intellectual Property (IP) License for Linux?

Many customers are concerned about using Linux since they have become aware of the allegations that Linux is an unauthorized derivative work of the UNIX(R) operating system. These customers unknowingly received unauthorized copies of SCO intellectual property and many are running critical business applications on Linux. Customers have come to SCO asking what they can do to respect and help protect the rights of the SCO intellectual property in Linux. SCO has created the Intellectual Property License for Linux in response to these customers needs.



Leave these poor servants of the public interest alone, willya? Geez.

!@#$#@ !!! The Brits won the war !!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the guy with the mustache you need to show
a picture of.

What about Andrew Tanenbaum?

[common middle name]

Minix is a Unix clone just like Linux. Will Andrew
S. Tanenbaum be next in line for SCO. People
have been using his textbooks to teach operating
system design for years. Where does the concept
of "derivative" works end?

Questions about the SCO Linux IP licence

[Anonymous Coward]

I was just on their website reading their FAQ's and read they will provide a free IP License to anyone running Caldera. So... If I install caldera on a machine, get the license, then install debian, would the license still be valid? They claim the license is per CPU....

Re:Slightly OT: SCO hides Linux usage?

[Anonymous Coward]

he'd probably take the bet.

Mod parent Up - Brilliant

[cdn-programmer]

IANAL but like most - I have some knowledge of the law. I think you have hit the nail right on the head here and I think you are brilliant.

UNIXWARE contains one HELL of a lot of GPL code. Thus SCO, as you clearly point out, has no legal right to distribute any of the GPL code that UNIXWARE contains and this is by their own admissions. By disavowing the GPL they invalidate their own licenses to IBM, HP, SUN and so on.

So, it would seem that NOW is the right time for a class action lawsuit to be launched against SCO by all the opensource developers who have contributed copyrighted code used in ANY System V related code.

By doing this, if SCO wins anything against the GPL they consequently lose the offsetting lawsuit from the opensource community. The damages on the offsetting lawsuit will exceed the damages they can collect from IBM and this means that SCO itself will be rendered in default.

As such, SCO will be bankrupt and it is the recievers duty to seize all assets of the corporation for distribution to the claimants.

Once of these assests is the copyright to the System V source code. Since it will be the OpenSource community who wins the copyright via this class action, the community can then simply OpenSource it and return any money back to IBM.

The long and the short of it is that if SCO has distributed code they have no right to under license to others (IBM et al) then SCO is guilty of "UNJUST ENRICHMENT". So this is a winable case.

Brilliant!!! Brilliant!!! Brilliant!!!

Caldera GPL'd in "Idiots' Guide To Linux"

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm, SCO, you might want to re-think your "stragedy"
since the proof that you're full of it is in my local library. In other news, SCO hints it might file suite against the public library system for distribution of SCO IP..

I've got one for them

[davmoo]

While SCO is challenging Linux companies to protect their customers, I've got a challenge for SCO.

If you're so damned sure Linux contains proprietary SCO code, why don't you show us real proof instead of hiding behind scare tactics, fud, and NDAs.

Legal Eagles

[whittrash]

Google isn't some little midget. They are a huge octopus, that can come up from the deep and drag most anything to its doom and their tentacles go everywhere. They are popular and well liked by many millions of people and have similar powers to a large media outlet, and as such they have the power to mount a very effective smear campaign of their own. If SCO attacks Google and Google calls them a bunch of punks and smacks them up side the head it will look very bad for SCO. Google calling SCO a thief will make the nightly news and maybe even get attention of the attorney generals and lawmakers. Any Wall Street firm that wants a part of the upcoming Google public offering will be severely pissed if SCO messes with the $billions they could make. If SCO wants to get eviscerated, they should pick on Google.

It's working!

[r_j_prahad]

No, you have to do this: litigious bastards.

I just Googled for "litigious bastards" and a SCO entry is now in the #6 spot!

Way to go guys!

Re:It's working!

[stokkeland]

I guess they may have changed it now, since SCO does not show up in my search, grub.net is #4 and one of my own sites is #10..

Re:It's working!

[r_j_prahad]

Maybe it's because I used the search term "litigious.bastards" (the period directs Google to return results only for sites with both words adjacent). Anyway, doing it again today I find a SCOX reference has moved into the number 3 spot (caladan.nanosoft.ca) as well as the #7 and 8 spots.

Like I said, way to go guys!

Re:Look! Over There!

[TurboStar]

Indemnification: We take full responsibility. Any legal action will come completely though us, no matter the cost.
No matter what the cost isn't realistic. No company has infinitely deep pockets. Once they run out of money they can't defend you any more. Then you're on your own. If you bought stolen goods, even unknowningly, you'll have to make it right with the proper owners.

Re:Pointer to the court case

[Anonymous Coward]

The case was Veeck v. Southern Building Codes Congress International, in the US Fifth Circuit (covering Texas, Louisianna and Mississippi), decided June 7, 2002. The final opinion is online at Findlaw, http://laws.lp.findlaw.com/getcase/5th/case/994063 2cv2&exact=1.

SBCCI produced building codes, which it promoted to small towns for adoption. SBCCI, an association of builders, is helped greatly when there is a single building code widely adopted. The association funds its operations from membership fees from builders, and from sales of copies of the code -- mostly to builders.

Veeck operated a website which published the building codes of many small Texas towns. Several Texas towns adopted the SBCCI model code in its entirety. Unable to readily get a copy of the code from the towns themselves, Veeck bought a copy from SBCCI, then posted it on his website. Veeck claimed that when these the model code was enacted as actual law (an action SBCCI encouraged), the model building code was deprived of its copyright protection.

The technical rationale for this is the "merger doctrine". Copyright does not protect ideas, only the expression of an idea. When an idea can be expressed in only one way, then the freedom of the idea takes priority over the protection of the sole possible expression, and copyright is effectively lost. Since there is just one way to correctly express the law (try making up your own version of the traffic code next time you get a ticket), merger applied here.

This case is the law only in the three states that comprise the US Fifth Circuit. The other jurisdictions, as far as I know, have never ruled on the question. SBCCI tried to take this to the US Supreme Court, but they refused to take the case, allowing the Fifth Circuit's opinion to stand.

Re: !!! The Brits won the war !!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a big bushy one on that picture of Chamberlain...

Indemnification...

[Eggplant62]

Darl says, 'If vendors feel so confident with the intellectual property foundation under their massive contributions into Linux, then they should put their money where their mouth is and protect end users with true vendor-based indemnification.'

I say if SCO feels so confident with their intellectual property claims re: their massive contributions into Linux, then they should put their money where their mouth is and SHOW US THE BLEEDING CODE ALREADY! Their case will be thrown out of court. Without showing what the code is to the people who authored it in order to substantiate their claims and give the defendant a chance to rectify the problem before going to court, they haven't a legal leg to stand on, and the judge will simply toss it aside like the piece of scribbled, stained toilet paper it truly is.

Re:Slightly OT: SCO hides Linux usage?

[k4_pacific]

Ummm... The binaries in the /bin directory of an ftp site are used to implement the functionality of FTP, and thus are representative of the system they are found on.

See this article for an explanation of how FTP works. Specifically see step 7 under the section "Protecting an Anonymous FTP System".

What money?

[Felinoid]

I'm sure SCO would love that. The best legal team the avrage collage student could afford.
Yeah...

Or maybe we could ALL put our money where our mouths are and create a fund.

SCO Sense

[Anonymous Coward]

And why do you require a non-disclosure agreement to view some of this infringing code?
SCO has a legal obligation to hold this source code in confidence, so it requires that individuals who view this code sign a non-disclosure in order to see it.

Er, if it's in Linux, we've already seen it. Daryl, My NDA is in the mail.

Re:Look! Over There!

[nathanh]

Indemnification: We take full responsibility. Any legal action will come completely though us, no matter the cost.

Novell has just announced indemnification to an upper limit of 1.25x the purchase price. I think indemnification has another meaning than "full responsibility, no matter the cost".

all your errno

[iMMo]

are belong to us

Long Live the King!

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, I am thinking that a return to a Monarchy might not be a bad idea. In the good old days a Monarch, on being told about what mischief SCO has been doing, would pull their pumpndump CEO and fat assed board out into the Courtyard and chop off their heads. Problem solved. No greasy lawyers. No "innovation" speeches. No paying off politicians. What do you think?

Re:Dedicated to the Goddess Eris

[lord_nightrose]

Fnord.

C/C++ Standards

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm, I guess we will have to revisit the C and C++ Standards as well. Both of those define and/or refer to errno.h and it's constants.

Re:Why is this behavior legal? (OT)

[Anonymous Coward]

Scenero a) You threaten to kill the dog if he continues to shit on your lawn.

This is harrassment, clear and simple!

I firmly disagree

You are well within your rights to shoot the dog if it is on your property. You must, however, make sure that it dies there so that they can't say you shot it at their house. You can warn them that this is your intended action should the dog continue its harrasment of you by shitting on your property.

I actually had a problem with a neighborhood dog that is aggressive toward people that decided my yard was it's domain. I have small children and this dog is one of those that preys on fear. We tried to get law enforcement to do something, but they refuse in our area - there is no way to deal with a vicious or annoying animal in rural Thurston County. So I told the neighbor that if it came back in my yard I was going to kill it and began accompanying the children and other people down our driveway with a 12 guage shotgun loaded with 00 buck shot, which would quickly dispatch any sized dog any closer than 50 feet. I also made sure that the neighbor was well aware of the fact that I was armed.

It all worked out in the end. The neighbor realized that letting his dog run around was quite rude and endangered the lives of small children and has managed to contain it for the most part.

In some cases, this is the one and only option a person has to protect their property and the lives of the ones they love. When the Sherif department itself tells you that this is your only option (shoot it if it comes back) then I think it only kind to inform your neighbor that this is what you will do so that they at least can't say you didn't tell them. They may decide that they love their pet enough to keep it off of your property; if not, well then thats just too bad because the dog is now going to pay the price of its owner's negligence.

NR

The proof is NOT in the Pudding!

[Anonymous Coward]

The rice is in the pudding. I think you mean "The proof of the pudding is in the eating." Thank you, George Carlin

Re:Why SCO acts the way it does Mc and Brighid

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like a perfect successor for former CEO Ransom Love.

Re:Slightly OT: SCO hides Linux usage?

[fuzzybunny]

Your reasoning is correct, but you're overlooking the possibility of them using some sort of front-end accelerator or loadbalancers which port-forward traffic x to box 'a' and traffic y to box 'b'. That's pretty common, in order to split load and functionality.

It's not that complicated though--you'll note that ftp.sco.com is 216.250.120.13 and www is 216.250.120.12. I don't know how netcraft would get http header info from ftp, as it's not listening on ports 80 or 443. You should also note that Netcraft's records date from 2000--they list the IPs as 209.1.8.x.

Good thinking, but try again, grasshopper (-:

Re:Why is this behavior legal? (OT)

[zakezuke]

You are well within your rights to shoot the dog if it is on your property. You must, however, make sure that it dies there so that they can't say you shot it at their house. You can warn them that this is your intended action should the dog continue its harrasment of you by shitting on your property.

Ummmm... i'd have to do some research, but typicaly speaking you can't kill people or animals for tresspass, self defence yes, but not just to be a bastard.

I actually had a problem with a neighborhood dog that is aggressive toward people that decided my yard was it's domain. I have small children and this dog is one of those that preys on fear. We tried to get law enforcement to do something, but they refuse in our area - there is no way to deal with a vicious or annoying animal in rural Thurston County. So I told the neighbor that if it came back in my yard I was going to kill it and began accompanying the children and other people down our driveway with a 12 guage shotgun loaded with 00 buck shot, which would quickly dispatch any sized dog any closer than 50 feet. I also made sure that the neighbor was well aware of the fact that I was armed.

Diffrent story... aggressive animal could be a threat. An animal that just shits, well that's shitty but not a threat.

Whether this is legal harrassment i'm very fuzzy on. It's harrassment no if ands or butts about it, perhaps you were even justified.

It all worked out in the end. The neighbor realized that letting his dog run around was quite rude and endangered the lives of small children and has managed to contain it for the most part.

Actually, I suspect that the shotgun if used to murder a dog because it's threating small children would be a higher danger then the dog it self. If you are talking a .22 or .38 that's a slightly diffrent story. I can't think of any situation that i'd discharge a firearm around children, and there is no chance in hell i'd choose to use a shotgun.

n some cases, this is the one and only option a person has to protect their property and the lives of the ones they love. When the Sherif department itself tells you that this is your only option (shoot it if it comes back) then I think it only kind to inform your neighbor that this is what you will do so that they at least can't say you didn't tell them. They may decide that they love their pet enough to keep it off of your property; if not, well then thats just too bad because the dog is now going to pay the price of its owner's negligence.

I learned a long time ago, don't listen to the Sherif's department for advice. I mean, not that they are not trying to be cool helpful folk... but taking their advice as biblical legal truth is foolish, esp since you were threating to kill your neighbors dog.

I guess it would depend on how you phrased the letter, but at the very least, you isssued a threat, a very justified threat perhaps, but never the less a threat.

I'm not a lawer... i'd imagne that a judge, assuming you got sent to jail over this dog shooting, would ask you kindly to provide evidence that the dog was dangerious. You could be right, but good solid proof would be bite marks on small children. Without bite marks, it would be difficult in some people's eyes that the dog was dangerious.

I like dogs my self... I don't mind moderatly mannered dogs roaming free. I'd agree with you if there is a clear and present danger of the dog harming someone, and you had the means to elemenicate the threat, that would be moraly right. I've heard this story many times before actually. If there was a prior history of biting... oh without a doubt kill the son of a bitch. Legaly right (look out it's headed right for us) I don't know. But Sherif's department? I would think this would be a job for animal control.

But you describe a totally diffrent scenero. Shitting on the lawn isn't cause in it self to kill a dog.

while we're at it

[DrSkwid]

You could also include a comment, and jumble the titles/alts to give different phrases of the same thing.

a URL with the phrase and an H1 will help too

litigious bastards

buggery nuts - did it plain text

[DrSkwid]

You could also include a comment, and jumble the titles/alts to give different phrases of the same thing.

a URL with the phrase and an H1 will help too

<!-- The SCO Group - litigious bastards --><a href="http://www.sco.com" title="The SCO Group - litigious bastards">litigious bastards</a><br><a href="http://www.sco.com" title="litigious bastards - The SCO Group"><img src="path/litigious-bastards.jpg" alt="litigious bastards - The SCO Group - "></a>

Mod the parent up

[Silburn_Luke]

With Pro and 2000, you can do this while the box is running normally. With XP Home you have to reboot into maintenance mode (I suppose you might be able to use the cacls command in XP Home). That difference becomes even more apparent when you have to track down which registry keys the game wants to be able to scribble on.

Abso-frikken-lutely. My g/f got an OEM XP Home box last weekend (don't shout guys - the quid pro quo for not going Mac was that I'm putting Mandrake on it next weekend and help her transition to the linux world) and I nearly burst a blood-vessel when I first ran into 'Simple File Sharing' and realised that MSoft had, in their infinite wisdom, taken the full file permissioning tools out of the GUI.

I mean, what were they thinking? The main point of having limited user accounts is to minimise the amount of time users spend as root and yet the only way different limited users can share files or apps under this brain dead scheme is to save them under 'Shared Documents'. Its bad enough (tho' unsuprising) that the default starting user is an admin account called 'Owner', but if a moderately clueful home user were to make a move towards securing their box then the lack of any deeper 'expert' support beyond this moronic starter level will drive them back to their bad old ways in a heartbeat. Strike one for MSoft's new emphasis on security.

Fortunately cacls does still work from the command line but it'll need a pretty front-end on it if my g/f is going to use it with any regularity. Has anyone done this already or will I have to roll my own?

Regards Luke

SCO Counter threat

[truG33k]

While this dosn't solve the heart matter, if BSD is not included in SCO's IP cliams, as stated in the SCO FAQ why isn't anyone switch platforms to BSD. I would rather run FreeBSD for a while, until OSS community puts SCO in there place, than have to pay licenses or even one get an e-mail about a lecense from sco.com.

Just a quick question...

[Ogman]

I suspect this may have been asked before, but doesn't all of this SCO crap sort of point to Apple owning Windows?

Take one for the team.

[FictionPimp]

Come on guys, someone take one for the team. Sign the NDA, and post thie info in some newsgroups, and flee the country. If you go to jail, at least you will be a hero :-p

ABI Interface

[Anonymous Coward]

SCO is claiming that the ABI interface was copied from their code base withough authorization.

Re:Slightly OT: SCO hides Linux usage?

[mandolin]

Well, it certainly looks very incriminating. But, those files under /bin aren't necessarily used. Some ftp servers (vsftpd) use their own internal version of 'ls'. I can't figure out how to force the server to invoke the other commands (most of them seem to want you to be uploading). Even if the commands did work, it would be remotely possible the UnixWare LKP was responsible, but I'd be convinced at that point.

In the meantime, I figure some admin could have (stupidly) copied over those linux binaries along with the rest of the ftp 'site' when they were switching to a SCO Unix ftp server.

www.litigiousbastards.com

[herrvinny]

Just wanted to let you know I acquired www.litigiousbastards.com (apparently someone else took .org) and I threw up a quick page.