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One Company's Response to SCO

Posted by michael on from the seven-up-yours dept.

Great_Jehovah writes "The CIO of Just Sports USA received an extortion letter from SCO, started a thread about it on the pgsql-general and then posted his response letter after weighing the various pieces of advice and info he received. Here's hoping that most of SCO's intended victims do the same." An anonymous reader submits a story in a Utah paper about SCO: "The Salt Lake City Weekly paper is running a front page article on the SCO shenanigans. The reporter interviewed Darl, Linus, Bruce Perens and others for the article with new choice quotes from them all." Also, IBM at Linuxworld claims it will win against SCO (miscellaneous plug: CmdrTaco will be speaking at Linuxworld later today).

8 of 705 comments (clear)

  1. Here's what I'm wondering... by neilcSD · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Why is it that no one has taken SCO to court to get an injunction filed against them, barring them from collecting money or sending 'extortion' letters until their case is proved in court? It makes no sense to me that they can send out these letters, making threats, on a legal matter that is nowhere close to being decided. How about if SCO loses? Do they have to refund everyone who was coerced into buying licenses? It's ridiculous that no one has tried to prevent them from talking out their asses yet. It makes sense to me, am I missing something?

  2. Salt Lake Article by Dark+Paladin · · Score: 5, Interesting

    That has to be the best damned article I've read on the "SCO" case. Granted, it was slanted against SCO - but it provided logical, point-by-point facts about the history of the case. No new arguments for the geek crowd - but that's one I'll print out and show to the non-geeks I work with who haven't understood what the big deal is.

    While we're at it, Mr. Johnson's article should be printed out and mailed to every member of Congress, the Senate, and to Mr. Bush to stop any of the "anti-Open Source" lobbyists dead in their tracks.

    I used to live in Salt Lake and remember how good the "City Weekly" was, but I had forgotten that every so often, those bastards could really write.

    --
    52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
  3. They can't find the code by LehiNephi · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Here's the way I see it:

    SCO can't find any code from SysV in Linux. If there were any SysV code in Linux, they would have been able to find it, since they have the source code to both. There would have been no need to ask IBM for Sequent/Dynix code, since they would have found 'their' (SCO's) code in both SysV and Linux.

    In other words, no SysV code in Linux

    So they asked IBM for all the code that IBM has written, trying to find out exactly what code from IBM made it into both Unix and Linux. This leads me to the conclusion that they consider all code written by IBM for Unix to belong to SCO as a 'derivative work'. However, they (and we) don't know whether IBM developed the code specifically for Unix (and later contributed it to Linux), or whether IBM wrote it for both Unix and Linux at the same time.

    If IBM originally wrote the code for both, I can't see how SCO can claim ownership/copyright/patent/IP rights/whatever. However, even if IBM did write it for Unix and later contributed it to Linux, SCO still have to prove that the code IBM wrote belongs to them(SCO). I find that doubtful at best.

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  4. Re:RICO act Remedy? by enjo13 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    IANAL:)

    However, this has been brought up with our lawyers in response to SCO. According to our counsel, to really have any chance of winning we'd need to be able to show that SCO has direct knowledge that their claims are false. At this point, SCO is attempting to assert rights and claims that it BELEIVES it has (apparently). As such, until the courts decide one way or the other they can pretty much get away with this.

    What would be gold would be a company memo, high ranking employee, or anything that could clearly show that this is all made up or based on very thin evidence.... which is pretty unlikely to turn up.

    --
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  5. The "infringing" code by Aumaden · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I've followed most of the SCO nonsense over the past year, but somehow in all of that I missed something....

    In SCO's letter it is talking about the Unix ABIs. I had always assumed the issue involved actual code (e.g., the buffer management code). But they're talking about ABIs here.

    For those that haven't dealt directly with ABIs, here's the skinny...

    When you want to open a file you issue a command like:

    int fd = open("/etc/motd", O_RDONLY);
    if (fd == -1 && errno == ENOENT) {
    printf("File does not exist\n");
    }

    The ABI defines the value of O_RDONLY (0) and the value of ENOENT (2). Without an ABI, one vendor (vendorA) might use the values 0 and 2 while another (vendorB) might use the values 1 and 3. Thus while you would have source compatability (code using the macros O_RDONLY and ENOENT will compile anywhere), you would not have binary compatability (code compiled with vendorA's headers will not run in vendorB's environment).

    What all this means is: SCO is basing their case on the values of #defines!

  6. Re:Save us from ourselves.... by TwinkieStix · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Don't forget the most "capitalistic" of them all:
    I need a feature, so I'll pay somebody to do it (or if I can code do it myself).
    In the long run, I can see this being the most popular way new featured are added. It's almost as if we cut out the middle man (sales, marketing, useless features to make a 2004 version of the 2003 version for extra cash flow, lawyers, CEOs) and software is directly created by companies and users, or people paid directly by them.

    An additional side effect will be small consulting firms for companies to get specialized software. These firms will be local and supply only domestic work.

  7. linus's comment. by sg_oneill · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I note in the rather excelent salt lake article that Linus was asked if he wanted to pass on a message to Darl, which he declined.

    I would of loved that oportunity. I'd ask Darl a question. Sorta like this;-
    I'd ask "Darl, Are you happy? I mean *REALLY* happy?. Are you happy that you have made one of the most well loved unix brands into an almost universal object of loathing amongst IT professionals. Happy you are planning to capture and destroy the work of thousands of passionate individuals worth millions of manhours. Happy you are building an enterprise on a foundation of litigation of lies."
    I'd ask "Darl. If indeed you are happy then, tell me, would you in all conscience recomend to your children that they act as you do?"
    And finally I'd ask "Darl. Men live in this world only a short time. When your day of reckoning comes, just what *WILL* you say to your creator when he asks you if your prescence on this planet has made the world a better place."

    Cos sure as heck, I'd like to know.

    --
    Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
  8. To the Sports Company. !!!Please Read!!! by eadint · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Now that you have an actual Letter from SCO Please contact the SEC with this letter, inform them that SCO is attemting to extort money from you, send them a copy of this letter and also report this to the DA in your state This should be covered under the RICO act.

    If any other company has recieved a letter like this plese report this to the SEC the DA and consider a class action suit against SCO for Extortion and Defamation.

    What this means to you.
    IF you win against SCO you can MAKE money from the law suit. a class action suit for 100M$ would not be too much for this kind of offence.
    IANAL