Groklaw Traces Contribution of ABIs back to SCO.

Ptraci writes "Over at Groklaw they have been doing some digging and have found evidence that old SCO and Caldera did in fact contribute those files that they now want to charge us for."

Comments

In other news...

[JoeBaldwin]

Sky reported to be blue after extensive research.

Re:In other news...

[c1ay]

Does this mean SCO will be suing Caldera next?

Hoping and praying Darl doesn't come to his senses before he sues himself...

Their contribution...

[Mod Me God]

...was under GPL. They will have to disprove that first, which IMHO is he kernel of the case (other than a last-ditch effort to get bought out which seems to have failed).

Re:Their contribution...

[themightythor]

which IMHO is he (sic) kernel of the case

*rimshot. He'll be here all week folks.

Re:Their contribution...

[jrumney]

The brilliant thing is that Caldera PGP signed the files that they released. So it is going to be extremely hard for SCO to argue that someone else released them, or that they were released by a rogue employee without permission.

Re:Their contribution...

[77Punker]

You can't really expect some PGP thing to hold up in court. Your average judge or juror won't even know what PGP is.

Re:Their contribution...

[Rick the Red]

To what end? The GPL is just the permission slip Linus gives you to use and copy Linux, not ownership of Linux (for example - this applies to all GPL'd code). If the GPL is ruled invalid by a court, all that means is that the license you hold for Linux is invalid. It doesn't invalidate Linus' copyright on the Linux code. Linus would remain free to re-license his code as he sees fit -- this would not grant Microsoft or anyone else the right to use Linus' code without his permission.

Re:Their contribution...

[Naikrovek]

that's what experts are for. the "average" judge doesn't know ballistics either but ballistics is still a science that judges use daily to convict murderers. because a judge doesn't know about a certain type of proof doesn't make it invalid.

Re:Their contribution...

[beekr]

Ya got yerself a quick draw there, pard'ner.

Re:Their contribution...

[_|()|\|]

which IMHO is he kernel of the case

While Groklaw's research in this matter is comendable, the comparatively recent allegation of purloined header files was never central to the dispute. It started with RCU and JFS.

Most of the drama has been behind the scenes, as Novell has revealed how little of Unix SCO may actually own. Indeed, Novell may be entitled to 95% of the money from Microsoft and Sun that has funded this suit thusfar.

Re:Their contribution...

[Greyfox]

Maybe that's why Darl's campaigning so hard to get the GPL declared unconstitutional...

Speaking of SCO, they recently filed their 10-K Report. Maybe that's why their stock prices is depressed. Go and read for the sweet, sweet death throes.

Re:Their contribution...

[sjames]

You can't really expect some PGP thing to hold up in court. Your average judge or juror won't even know what PGP is.

If you can clicking 'agree' is enough to enter into a license, surely a PGP signature will do. Equate the two in court and watch MS legal's heads explode as they side with Linux against SCO :-)

Re:Their contribution...

[gmhowell]

There would be quite a few lawyers ready to fill out a class action suit against MS on contingency. At some point, having lots of money makes you as much a tempting target as a fearsome opponent.

Case in point: Disney. Who would think that anyone with an ounce of sense would sue Disney? Well, the holders of the copyright on Winnie the Pooh are doing just that. With Johnny Cochran getting a big fat contingency payment if things work out.

Similarly, why would some pissant company like SCO sue IBM? Contingency. Sure, the payout to Boies, et al. isn't exactly a contingency, but the payment (SCO stock, IIRC) is worth just about zero if they don't win.

Re:Their contribution...

[Sarcasmooo!]

IANAL, or an open source guru, or a techie of any kind, but I find it hard to believe SCO could enter into deal under the GPL and then have any chance of convincing the courts that it's invalid. Did they not READ it the first time? And considering the kinds of lincenses that ARE easily enforced, it seems rediculous to think something like the GPL could be genuinely challenged. I've read it, and it basically says, "Use this however you like, do whatever you want with it, just be sure that once you're done with whatever you're doing you let others see what you've done and do whatever they want to do with what you've done. And yes, you can make money from your unique alterations to what we've done."

Re:Their contribution...

[AllUsernamesAreGone]

Actually you can. Quick google will bring up US makes digital signatures legally binding from Silicon.com in November 1999. Even assuming that the judge is an utter bonehead over four years behind the law, this would be brought up in court.

Re:Their contribution...

[HeyLaughingBoy]

Even if it was done by a rogue employee, doesn't matter. They're still responsible for his actions while he's working for them.

Re:Groklaw is biased against SCO already

[acehole]

Does fox have "fair and balanced" reporting?

Imagine a beowulf cluster...

[grayshade]

Imagine a beowulf cluster of... er... I for one welcome our new... uhm... All of your ABI belong... Sh*t!

Re:Imagine a beowulf cluster...

[bwalling]

Imagine a beowulf cluster of... er... I for one welcome our new... uhm... All of your ABI belong... Sh*t!

Someone needs to get GrokLaw a Beowulf cluster...

Re:Groklaw is biased against SCO already

[Anonymous Coward]

echo "Does slashdot have fair and balanced reporting?"

some advice

[trb]

hey sco. go sue yourself.

Future SCO's

[Anonymous Coward]

Fair question:
What's to prevent any other contributor from pulling a future SCO? Especially when you have a codebse that has such a large number of contributors. And a large variety of licenses.

Re:Future SCO's

[rhu]

"If you'll look out the left side of the bus you'll see the smoking Caldera that used to be SCO Group...remember this sight well if ever you contemplate screwing with Open Source..."

Re:Future SCO's

[Seanasy]

What's to prevent any other contributor from pulling a future SCO?

Scruples?

I knew it.

[pair-a-noyd]

And all I can say is that a certain Nancy Sinatra song comes to mind when I think of SCO..

This is going to be FUN...

Where will Groklaw head...

[4lex]

when this SCO thing gets to an end?

I appreciate they are doing a very worthy work (and getting the slashdot crowd to a more informed talk about SCO, something necessary because the old jokes are starting to become _really_ old).

I sure would like them to go on when this SCO fiasto bluffs down. The free software world really needs an army of lawyers and paralawyers, if we want to stay long. I only can say "Kudos to you, groklawyers! Go on!"

Re:Where will Groklaw head...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why wouldn't they go on? SCO didn't make GL, they were here long before this all started.

Most things *exist* long before they are noted on /.

Re:Where will Groklaw head...

[Our Man In Redmond]

There's the IBM vs. SCO countersuit, the Redhat vs. SCO suit, and the SCO vs. Novell suit, for starters. After SCO turns into a smoking caldera there's still Microsoft, and there will probably be other interesting cases to cover. Groklaw will never be short for material.

What I wonder is what will happen when Groklaw starts to follow a case where the issues don't appear to be as overwhelmingly in favor of one side as this one. That could get very interesting.

Re:but of course

[WindBourne]

Not one of TSCOG claims has ever been proven

In fact, just about everything that they have claimed gets disproved rather quickly via groklaw. While there are a few things left, it only requires for SCO to submit the evidence so that groklaw can look at it.

Re:Groklaw is biased against SCO already

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is the parent moded as flamebait?
Isnt that the truth that Groklaw are probably biased against SCO?
Groklaw has probably uncovered quite a lot of dirt on SCO that is correct, and I doubt that they lie about anything.
But if one has taken sides on an issue, can we trust that the person wont turn a blind eye on some facts? Will he present facts that might not go down to well with his own version and side?
I think it is only a fair comment.
SCO are probably a bunch of liars, but underestimating and brushing aside an opponent as "nothing" WILL in most cases come back and bite you in the *ss.

Re:Groklaw is biased against SCO already

[Zebra_X]

Does it matter? Evidence either proves something, or it doesn't.

A couple of changes soon to be added to webster

[cluge]

Webster now says: Extort: to obtain from a person by force, intimidation, or undue or illegal power Scam: a fraudulent or deceptive act or operation Liar: one that tells lies Indian giver: a person who gives something to another and then takes it back or expects an equivalent in return Revised: Extort: What SCO is trying to do to the Linux community through questionable and possible illegal acts. Scam: SCO press releases Liar: Daryl McBride Indian giver: = SCO + Caldera

SCO vs RIAA

[pjwhite]

I heard that the RIAA stole a lot of proprietary code from SCO, and that people at SCO have been illegally downloading a bunch of Metallica MP3s.

Re:Groklaw is biased against SCO already

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it would suffice to say that Groklaw is more interested in finding information that would benefit SCO.

In fact, the entire Linux community is more concerned with finding facts that could help SCO.

Well, alteast they WERE. The simple fact is, SCO has lied and been caught soooo many times over the last few months... all we can do now is wait for them to lie again so we can disprove it.

It's simple, SCO has lied and it's a known fact. They've lied a LOT, made a LOT of false allegations, etc al..

If you bite into a terd, it's going to taste like shit. No amount of suger and spice is going to make it otherwise.

From the Groklaw website:

[vorwerk]

"error selecting database"

Funny, I think even this error describes SCO in numerous, subtle, and surprisingly accurate ways. :)

FBI investigates SCO as author of MyDoom virus!!!

[Cronopios]

According to this article, the FBI has visited SCO, seized a server and several workstations, and arrested several programmers and bosses.

Can anybody confirm this?

Re:Groklaw is biased against SCO already

[azaris]

Can we trust them to be fair and unbiased in their "research"?

*boggle*

Someone on Slashdot is worried about whether Groklaw is being fair against SCO.

What next, FoxNews worried about the humane treatment of Saddam Hussein?

Re:Groklaw is biased against SCO already

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we trust SCO to be fait and unbiased in what they present to the press, public and the court system?

Perhaps a dissenting view is a neccessity. If you want to worry about fair and unbiased, leave that to a judge in a courtroom. Beyond that, people are biased by nature.

Jeez, we're on /. and someone is talking about bias.. We go through this every fourth article for pete's sake ;-)

How to make money off of a failing company

[cunninghammer]

Step 1: Contribute to Opensource.
Step 2: Forget you did it.
Step 3: Sue everyone else in hopes that one of the companies will decide it's cheaper to buy you then to fight.
Step 4: Watch the stock price go through the roof.
Step 5: Profit!

Looks like at least a few figured it out.

Re:Groklaw is biased against SCO already

[Anonymous Coward]

This guy brings up a great point. I'm an IT manager at a Fortune 500, and we are considering the ramifications of this case everyday at work.

Techies - if you want to convince your manager that SCO has no case, stop being so emotional about it. We in management have a hard time trusting your opinion when you seem to have so much invested in this emotionally.

This is not some battle of good v. evil - you aren't Bilbo fighting that evil eye at the top of the tower (forgot his name, evil wizard guy).

Re:Mirror please.

[inode_buddha]

I've put copies in html here, postscript here, and PDF is here.

Regarding Groklaw's Slashdotting

[santiag0]

There is a paypal link for those that wish to contribute a little something on the home page (once you can get it to load).

Maybe a few $ here and there from slashdot readers, and they can get a more robust setup, and survive the next slashdot link.

No pressure. Just a thought. I've given a little twice. Groklaw is a tremendous resource for those following the SCO/IBM/Redhat/Novell saga. PJ rocks!

Re:FBI investigates SCO as author of MyDoom virus!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's gotta be a lie. We know SCO doesn't employ programmers anymore, just lawyers and executives.

Re:Groklaw is biased against SCO already

[jrumney]

Since when was PJ being so emotional about it? (She's not a techie anyway, she's a paralegal). You clearly have never read groklaw or you would not state so positively that this guy brings up a great point. PJ has stated on numerous occasions that she would welcome contributions from a pro-SCO point of view, but so far SCO has come up with zero genuine evidence that has not been thoroughly refuted by Linus, Perens and others before PJ gets a chance to post it to her site.

netcraft article

[elvesRgay]

This is OT but Netcraft has an amusing article about what options SCO, the litigious bastards, are not using to avoid being DOSed by Mydoom tomarrow.

Re:netcraft article

[Jim Hall]

I liked option #5 in the article you linked to:

Solution 5: SCO Execs point www.sco.com at the loopback address 127.0.0.1, end lawsuits, dismiss lawyers, and invest remaining corporate cash reserves in call options in Dell & Microsoft stock.

Consequences: No denial of service traffic whatsoever seen on the Internet. Millions of Windows users notice that their computer is running extremely slowly. Many buy new machines, which fixes the problem. Dell & Microsoft stock rises. Everyone lives happily ever after.

:-)

Seriously, I find it interesting that more news hasn't been made of the apology buried in the MyDoom.B virus: The creator of what anti-virus experts say is the fastest spreading virus ever on the Internet signed Mydoom and Mydoom.B with "andy," and left the following message in the latter version: "I'm just doing my job, nothing personal, sorry."

I really, really wonder if a programmer out there will develop a burning conscience, quit his job and leak his story to the press. Man, I'd really like to know what company was responsible for this.

Hmm

[starseeker]

Good news, yes. Helpful, not really.

Look at the SCO pattern. They have made claims ranging from contract dispute with IBM to every OS in existance owing SCO IP money. They have nothing whatsoever to lose. They will merely pursue any interpretation of events which results in people owing them money. I don't know how they'll twist this yet, but since logic doesn't seem to have much to do with it they might say they were an unauthorized release and try to make some specific employee the goat, claim that the ABIs are an insignificant part of their total IP in Linux, or other things I'm not warped enough to think of. They aren't going to shut up for anything.

Even if after everything we've heard from them to date falls through, they may try to make the claim in court that every OS in existance is derived from SCO IP, and that being the case Linux users STILL owe SCO money, regardless of code. Nonsense yes, but when has that ever stopped them before?

Folks, the individual details of this don't matter at all. That's not what this is about. This is about SCO looking for a way - any way - to get Linux users to pay them. Knocking down a given specific detail won't phase them in the least. Until SCO in its current form is gone, we will never hear the end of this. Remember, they apparently even sent that letter to Congress saying open/free software was a threat to the US software industry! Their only concern is to come out on top, period. How is of no consequence.

Yes, this news could be useful to the likes of IBM (I can't see Groklaw so it's hard to say ;-) But remember this isn't a war about details. This is about defining a goal, and getting there any way possible. We are in the way of SCO's using our code for commercial purposes. Therefore we are the enemy to be destroyed, and trying to reason with them has thus far been about as effective as talking a laser guided missle out of striking the target. I don't expect that trend to change any time soon, wherever the ABIs came from.

Re:Hmm

[dreamword]

Oh, have no fear, if this ever gets into real, juicy discovery (rather than this "give us some shred of an idea of what you might be accusing us of" phase we're in now), Ransom Love will be deposed, as will all of the developers at Caldera who contributed code to the kernel. It's not a matter of being pissed off enough to go along with it; they won't have any choice. They'll be subpoenaed and under oath.

(as usual, IANAL; IAALS)

Re:Technology is Politics

[timeOday]

Their contribution was under GPL. They will have to disprove that first, which IMHO is he kernel of the case

After all these months and hot air, I'm *still* unclear on that point. Some days the case is just a contract dispute between IBM and SCO, other days Daryl is ranting about how the GPL is unconstitutional and we're all commies bent on wrecking capitalism.

Personally I think SCO's ownership and their backers believe the latter, but could only trump up a quasi-case for the former.

Re:Groklaw is biased against SCO already

[kfg]

Legal advocates are never fair and unbiased. They are not supposed to be. That is the function of a judge.

However, if legal research finds a picture of Darl wearing a pair of shoes he says he never owned, well, than that's what they did. Bias doesn't even come into it.

Then it would be up to Darl to try to explain away the picture by saying it was Christmas and his cat DDOSed his regular shoes so he demanded that IBM loan him those, or some such nonesense.

And if it goes to trial Darl will have to try to put the glove on IBM.

KFG

Re:Groklaw is biased against SCO already

[AlterTick]

Groklaw is biased against SCO already. Can we trust them to be fair and unbiased in their "research"?

Bias doesn't automatically indicate dishonesty. Are they biased against SCO? Sure. Does this mean they're looking primarily at SCO rather than the OSS community for evidence of malfeasance? Sure does. Does this mean that evidence they find is worthless? Nope (it's PGP signed by Caldera fer gosh sakes). Just because Groklaw isn't also out looking for "the real killers" deosn't mean they're lying about SCO. You have to judge the honesty of an organization separately. Just because some people lie to support their biases doesn't mean all biased people are liars.

Related Story

[ByteSlicer]

MozillaQuest is running a related story here

Groklaw is presenting all of the information

[TrentC]

Considering they covered both sides of the Novell's original "Wait, we own those Unix copyrights", SCO's "No you don't, here's an amendment to our agreement" response, and Novell's "Hmm, we don't have a copy of that, but it looks legitimate..." reply with equal weight, I have no worries about Groklaw's ability to give both sides fair treatment.

Remember, Groklaw (and everyone else watching the lawsuit) wants SCO to give us the evidence they claim(ed) to have. If there's an appearance of anti-SCO bias, then it's because SCO is giving information that can be quickly (and thoroughly) disproven.

Jay (=

Code and Cookies

[limekiller4]

SCO claims that if they distributed Linux with their own proprietary code included inadvertently and without their knowledge, then they are not culpable for that inclusion because they never agreed to the license.

I guess a simple analogy would be someone buying a container in a grocery store but before getting to the checkout, stuffs in a box of cookies. If the clerk sells the person that box without knowing there were cookies inside, then it is still theft. If the clerk then happens to notice the box post-sale and says, "Hey, I didn't sell you those cookies!" then the thief cannot rightfully say that they were sold to him.

I should add in BIG CAPITAL LETTERS that I do not necessarily buy SCO's argument as being legitimate, but only that the theory the claim rests upon seems rational.

Re:Code and Cookies

[One Louder]

It's closer to a store clerk inadvertantly putting cookies in boxes, and passing out the boxes for free, then accusing the recipients of stealing the cookies.

Re:Code and Cookies

[limekiller4]

t_allardyce writes:
Actually is more like the sales clerk stuffing the cookies in there themselves when the shopper isnt looking and then shouting "thief"

Wrong.

I was very clear that I was not attempting to make a statement about the truthfulness of SCO's claim but merely what it was, precisely, that they claimed.

What they are claiming is that whoever included certain bits of code into Linux did so without their knowledge and therefore even if they did distribute their own code under the GPL, they did so without knowing they were doing so. Since they were not aware -- again, so goes their logic -- then they cannot have agreed to including their proprietary software into the code base.

Your analogy is therefore incorrect and clearly so.

If you want to argue the merits of their argument, go nuts, but I'm not arguing that point.

Re:Code and Cookies

[gregm]

No..

It's more like someone (SCO) takes a box of stuff to the Goodwill. (Goodwill is a charitable organization that sells donated stuff) Then they wait 6 months and say "Goodwill stole our stuff and we want a cut from everything Goodwill has sold from the time we made our donation for all eternity."

Once the truth comes out they did they did indeed make a donation they backpedal and say "well we didn't mean to donate all that stuff but we're not going to tell you which items we want back and we still want a cut of Goodwill's sales for all time."

Re:Code and Cookies

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

No, it's more like the store owner gives you a cookie gratis, after which the store is bought out, and the new owners claim that you stole the cookie. And the recipie.

Or something..

Re:Code and Cookies

[enosys]

What was known before would be more like: A random person stuffs boxes of cookies into containers. The checkout clerks fail to notice boxes of cookies in containers and many people buy the containers with boxes of cookies in them but only pay for the container. The supermarket then tries to track down anyone who bought these and make them pay for the cookies.

Now things seem even worse for SCO. It seems they contributed the code. That's like some supermarket employee is told by their boss to stick the boxes of cookies into the containers and then label the items as "container with free box of cookies included". Surely they can't make people pay for the cookies now.

Assignment of copyrights and carefull vetting

[JohnQPublic]

This is exactly the reason why the FSF requires you to assign your copyright to them when you contribute code to GNU projects. Likewise the Apache Software Foundation and their projects. Someone should always have clear legal title to the entire project. Otherwise nobody may have legal status to defend it in court or to file suit against infringers.

The other side of this is that the ownership of all contributions need to be vetted by the person/group that receives ownership. Some groups ask new contributors for a written document asserting that they own what they're contributing, especially if the contributor works for a software company. That changes the legal situation - if The TDP Group sues the XYZ Foundation for stealing their code, the XYZ Foundation has a clear defense:

"Your Honor, we were told by Joe Coder that he had legal ownership of the code in question and he assigned that ownership to us. Naturally, if you determine otherwise, we'll comply with your order to remove it. However we believe that any damages etc. are a matter between the plaintiff and Mr. Coder"

Now the last thing I want is for The TDP Group to sue me for code I put into XYZ, but if they find out I did it what will likely happen anyway.

Re:FBI investigates SCO as author of MyDoom virus!

[Anthony Boyd]

I don't buy it. The site says they got their information from IBM. That runs totally counter to IMB's don't-talk-to-the-press rule. It looks to me like an attempt to spread bad information, pin the blame on IBM, and tarnish them.

I'd love to be wrong, though. The idea of SCO writing a virus against itself for PR purposes is almost too funny. I'd imagine a company or two might sue SCO to cover wages spent doing MyDoom cleanup. Ha ha. That would make my heart feel soooo good.

ARTICLE TEXT, ripped from the fish

[macdaddy]

> Captured the culprit of the Mydoom? 30-01-2004
According to some agencies inform into the news, the FBI would have made some haltings that could be related to the presumed author of the worm of greater propagation of history, and for the surprise of all, it would be in the offices of one of his "victims".

The information, says that the FBI stopped several programmers and in charge of the company SCO, at the same time which other searches and investigations were made in the central offices of the same one, retiring of them a servant and several workstations.

The details of the operations of the special services were not revealed officially, nevertheless, are known by mouth of a representative of company IBM. According to its words, the operation would be connected directly with the judicial lawsuits between IBM and SCO by the code of Linux.

But most surprising, and in agreement with the existing information, it is that all the haltings also would be connected with the investigation lead by the FBI, in relation to the epidemic carried out by the new worm of Internet, Mydoom (also known like Novarg).

Supposedly, on the basis of the analysis of the map of expansion and the speed of the same one, the FBI would suspect that the origin of the infection has been the own SCO.

This is paradoxical, since the company was the target of the anticipated attacks of refusal on watch of the worm in its two versions. The other white one was Microsoft. Possibly, if this is confirmed, somebody of the personnel of the company would have thought (or it would have done it by indication of some superior one), that the action was a form ready to the public opinion in favor of the judgment of the company against Linux.

SCO takes ahead a irreconciliable legal war on the use of licenses of parts of the code of UNIX in Linux, which means thousands of million dollars.

The own SCO and Microsoft, have offered you compensate of 250,000 dollars each one, by information that take to the capture of the author of the Mydoom.

Simple Question

[WindBourne]

• MS is working with SCO.
• They have seen what SCO has to offer.
• They have invested a small amount of money and a lot of PR.
• They have literally billions in the bank so THEY can afford to buy SCO.

So why have they not simply bought SCO and used it to their advantage?

Re:Simple Question

[SpaceLifeForm]

Simple answer: To stay clean legally.

Microsoft can funnel money to SCO via 'licenses' to fuel the SCO FUD machine. But in the end, Microsoft won't be liable for any counter-suits. At some point (likely when Intel and MS are ready with Longhorn), SCO will be allowed to die, making the countersuits moot.

SCO is just a soldier in the war, totally expendable.

Re:Simple Question

[Tony Hammitt]

The last thing M$ wants to do is buy a bunch of pending lawsuits, especially with IBM. It's fairly likely that M$ is violating a few patents of IBM's (everyone else is, why not them) so why should M$ want to take the risk?

What would M$ have to gain by buying SCO? They don't really have to do anything right now, the world's attention is focused on SCO's fallacious claims, all M$ has to do is sit back and laugh with the rest of us. If there's anything to buy in a couple of years, M$ could pick them up for a song. Until the current suits are settled, they'd just be overpaying for SCO and they know it. They have to answer to their stockholders, you know. Spending money on an overvalued company would be stupid.

Re:Simple Question

[jms]

Simple answer: To stay clean legally.

Don't forget that IBM is suing SCO for patent infringement on SCOs entire product line. If Microsoft were to purchase SCO, and IBM were to prevail in their patent suit, Microsoft would be facing millions of dollars in potential damages.

Dissenting

[bstadil]

In a Spirited scientific debate a set of twins took the Opportunity to dissent.

The Rover's was of the opinion that the sky had a brownish tint.

Re:Dissenting

[Alsee]

Ah! So someone has finally figured out where SCO's legal case is coming from!

-

Re:CmdrTick-Oh XOR Linux

[grub]

Steve "I only stole BSD twice" Jobs'

I know I'm replying to a troll but...
You can hardly call it "stealing" when the code is being used within the scope of the license as drafted. The BSD license specifically allows the use of code in a case like this with no strings about having to give back. Apple, in fact, has given back a lot to the community when they didn't need to.

Re:Groklaw is biased against SCO already

[Crispy Critters]

Can we trust them to be fair and unbiased in their "research"?

When a mistake is made in an article, is it analyzed and corrected? (Yes.)
Are the sources for background facts reliable? (Yes. Most of it comes from court documents and SEC filings, and an occasional question posed to directly to Linus or another expert.)

If anyone, even one of SCOG's lawyers, can come up with a single fact supporting their allegations or a consistent legal argument for their highly original interpretation of copyright law, Groklaw would happily publish it. The truth is that the only way to discuss the current and potential lawsuits is either 1) live in a fantasy world where the law and the facts have no effect or 2) talk badly about SCO. There is no third choice.

What can be done is to try to always tie arguments and opinions to the proveable facts as closely as possible, and this is what the Groklaw stories do.

sco changes to netbsd/openbsd?

[endx7]

This is only vaguely on-topic, but SCO seems to have changed their webserver to openbsd or netbsd. At least, Netcraft says so. Although, that could mean more than one thing (such as they stuck another box in front to take the blunt of the impending attack).

Or wait, does that mean they really plan on going after the *BSDs now?

Re:Groklaw is biased against SCO already

[jofny]

She seems genuinely after the truth. This sort of reduces the probability that you'll see pro-SCO posts. It's not like Groklaw is accessing information that isn't publicly available for the most part. If there were references to "Hey, we were there behind closed doors with no witnesses and they said blah blah" then it would be fair to question Groklaw's fairness. When everything said can be double checked with comparative ease, would anyone (other than SCO) ignore or distort evidence? The readers there have proven they're willing to dig up every bit of arcane fact - I'm sure distortion would be discovered rather quickly. Note, for example, the "This couldnt be a DOS against SCO!" thread. Plenty of posts were spent contradicting that...

Full Article Text

[Anonymous Coward]

This article is the result of a group research project, compiled and primarily written by Frank Sorenson with Pamela Jones. The special footnoted article explaining some of the terms for nonprogrammers was written by Nick Richards. The research group was primarily composed of Frank Sorenson, Dr. Stupid, Harlan Wilkerson, Rand McNatt, Roland Buresund, and Pamela Jones, all of whom contributed both research and writing, with input from some Linux kernel contributors. Everyone worked on editing, including an invited group of Groklaw regulars. However, Frank carried the load more than anyone else, so his name is on the finished article.

We are now publishing the article and welcome Groklaw readers' further contributions, corrections, improvements, and comments. This is an ongoing project. This article is the first in a series where we'll discuss the System V UNIX ABI, or Application Binary Interface. We approached the research as, What if Linus Torvalds had not already claimed paternity of most of the header files? Then what?

The article will first explain what the ABI is and what it does, then discuss whether the code was released under the GPL and if so whether management at SCO knew and approved, and finally show how the Linux files that pertain to this do not appear to be infringing files that SCO can claim.

For those who are not programmers, such as myself, there is a footnoted section to explain in greater detail and in plain English what ABIs and APIs and shared libraries are and how they work. If you read it first, it will clarify the terminology for you and you will be able to follow the thread in the article more easily. At least, it helped me tremendously.

I think you will see from this article alone that if SCO is planning to sue anyone over the ABI files, unless there are facts we haven't unearthed, they seem to be leaning on a rickety bamboo reed.

GROKLAW TAKES A CLOSER LOOK AT THE ABI FILES
~by Frank Sorenson et al

Back in January 2003, word leaked out that SCO was planning to charge Linux users for "System V Intellectual Property" in Linux. SCO created a new business division called SCOSource to come up with new ways to make money from this "intellectual property". The original SCOSource Presentation (PowerPoint version) talks of licensing SCO's shared UNIX Libraries from OpenServer and UnixWare for use in Linux.

A Little Background: What Are ABI Files? [1]

As background information, shared libraries are files containing information to be loaded when an application is run. They usually implement common routines, and their inclusion simplifies programming, reduces file size, and standardizes interfaces. A simple example of this would be the "copy file" and "move file" commands: both commands check file permissions and manipulate the file system. When applications have a great deal of functionality in common, this functionality is often placed into shared libraries.

Shared libraries are architecture, operating-system, and version specific. Executables for different systems follow various standard formats, such as a.out, ELF, and COFF. To load an application, the system must do several things: the system interprets the format of the executable (or binary), loads any shared libraries referenced, and begins executing the code found in the binary.

If the executable is in a different format from those the system supports, or if the library files are for the wrong architecture or operating system version, the binary normally will not run. In 1991, Intel announced the availability of the iBCS-2 (Intel Binary Compatibility

Re:Groklaw is biased against SCO already

[bangular]

It's slashdot. Anything that questions the linux community is modded flamebait/troll.

Seems pretty unlikely to me

[spitzak]

It would mean SCO is stupid enough to launch the virus from their machines and in such a clear way that the FBI could find it in a few days. I doubt it. Some joker typed up something that sounded official enough that this site (which looks legit) posted the article without checking anything.

There are also rumors that the virus "doesn't work" in that it never calls the DDOS code. This sounds like it is trivial to confirm or disprove, so does anybody know what's up with that?

Simple Answer

[TheRealFixer]

Because it would put them directly in the hot seat. The SEC would come sniffing around again if they bought SCO, because it would be an obvious attempt to destroy competition and illegally extend their monopoly. But, by quietly purchasing "licences" to fund SCO's warchest, they can fight a proxy war against Linux, and keep their hands clean from any anti-trust investigations. After all, they were just in good faith paying fair licencing costs to SCO, like any good corporate citizen should do, right? Never mind the vagueness of what exactly Microsoft is "licencing".

Re:Simple Answer

[vidarh]

It would be the FTC or the DOJ that would be looking at Microsoft, not the SEC. The SEC would be involved only if there were concerns about the reporting of either of the companies, or share price manipulation.

Re:Groklaw is biased against SCO already

[MonkeyDluffy]

found technical reasons to remove the infringing code.

Actually, they couldn't find any reason to keep the code, since it was poorly written and not very useful.

-MDL

This is important to stop SCO's current attack

[Thagg]

SCO has recently sent a series of increasingly threatening letters to various Unix and Linux customers. In these letters, SCO approaches, and perhaps puts its toe over the line, between legal browbeating and illegal extortion.

These letters threaten the companies over exactly this ABI issue. In the days before the internet and sites like Groklaw, people had to decide on their own, or with their lawyers, what to do about these letters. Each of the victims might attempt to do the kind of research done by Frank Sorenson and Pamely Jones here, but as the victims are probably not intellectual property experts and have their own businesses to run, they might be tempted to pay off the extortionists.

But, now they each one of the victims has the benefit of this research, and can make a much more informed decision. The Groklaw article also provides links to the original source for each of their assertions, so that the recipients of the letters can look at the actual underlying data.

All that said, the article is reminds me of the opening to Get Smart, where Maxwell Smart goes through an almost interminable series of doors to get to his destination. Sorenson and Jones, and their helpers, have found any number of different ways that the code in question is available for use. SCO is screwed on the basis of any one of those.

Thad Beier

Re:Groklaw is biased against SCO already

[Some Dumbass...]

Can we trust them to be fair and unbiased in their "research"?

Does it matter?

In any legal situation (a trial, contract dispute, or whatever) both sides try to find evidence which supports their case. Neither side is "fair" or "unbiased". Yet legal disputes get resolved all the time. What's the magical secret? The judge and jury get to see all of the evidence, then they make up their minds based on all of the evidence which they have seen.

Groklaw may well be biased against SCO, but all they're doing is presenting more evidence. That's exactly what both sides are supposed to do (and what SCO has been criticized for not doing).

See, you seem to want us to ignore "biased" sources of evidence. "Groklaw is biased, so they can't be trusted" is a decent summary of what you wrote. You've got to think about this on a higher level. Very few unbiased groups will ever get involved in a legal dispute. That's the nature of legal disputes, or even disputes in general -- if you don't care, you don't get involved! So the trick is to focus on evidence and solid, logical arguments rather than rhetoric. Focus on what each side can prove rather than merely what they say. That's the way to deal with situations in which interested parties are involves (which includes almost all legal disputes, and many other situations as well). Simply ignoring any biased opinion (is there any other kind of opinion?) will leave you ignorant.

That'll stop the stupid crooks

[roystgnr]

The smart ones will realize that it doesn't matter what happens to the corporate name, as long as all the corporate insiders can make millions of dollars along the way. The only way future would-be SCO's will be deterred is if all the people who have been lying and dissembling to pump up their stock are fined well in excess of their profits and/or do prison time for their fraud. You can bet this won't happen.

Re:That'll stop the stupid crooks

[pjrc]

No. It doesn't matter if the insiders laugh all the way to the bank (presumably in the Cayman Islands). What matters is SCOX investors losing money and the company utterly ruined.

The only reason Darl and crew are able to take this stupid strategy is they've managed to convince some investors there is a chance they can pull it off. When it turns out to be a dismal, money losing failure for all investors, future greedy unscrupulous CEOs just won't have the backing to persue such a folly.

Re:That'll stop the stupid crooks

[roystgnr]

The only reason Darl and crew are able to take this stupid strategy is they've managed to convince some investors there is a chance they can pull it off. When it turns out to be a dismal, money losing failure for all investors, future greedy unscrupulous CEOs just won't have the backing to persue such a folly.

If AT&T's failed anti-open-source lawsuit didn't convince investors that the SCO lawsuit (which is far more clear cut) is unwinnable, what makes you think the SCO lawsuit will convince anyone that the next desperate company's threats are bunk? There's a potential SCO investor born every minute, you know.

Re:But didn't Linus say he wrote those?

[spitzak]

No this is not errno.h and so on.

The ABI files being discussed here are some files that it was considered quite likely SCO owns, and were never included in Linux although they were added by some third parties to installations to port their software from SCO to Linux. They duplicate the SCO ABI which is different than the Linux ABI. It is a lot like Wine being used to run Windows programs, though a lot easier.

In fact these files probably contain code to patch over the differences between the Linux errno.h and the Unix one, so it certainly is not the Linus header files.

The header file stuff is a joke anyways, as Daryl clearly said many times that only Linux after 2.4 is infringing. The header files did not change between 2.2 and 2.4.

Re:Technology is Politics

[Our Man In Redmond]

Forget what they say in public. Watch what they say to the court. They can get in big trouble if they lie to the court.

They are probably also in big trouble if their public statements get brought into court, but that's another story.

The Emperor Has No Clothes!

[11223]

I find it amazing that a story like this can garner over 100 posts about SCO, yet as far as I can determine nobody is able to view the story. What are you all blathering about?

Uhm... this could be a bad thing.

[mark-t]

It gives further credibility to the perception that the "GPL is viral, contaminating everything it touches". Although this view is moot when one realizes that they shouldn't be copying and distributing other people's copyrighted works in the first place without permission (which in the case of the GPL is fairly easy to obtain), it's pretty much a given that SCO's own rendering of this code as GPL was inadvertent will be brought up as grounds for why the GPL should be considered legally invalid.

IMO, of course, a company inadvertently putting its own proprietary code into a GPL'd work is pretty much the same as if a company had inadvertently divulged its own trade secrets, which in every case is the company's own damn fault for being careless.

This could, however, dissuade companies that perceive they may have something to lose from participating in open source projects in the future for fear of accidentially letting something out they didn't want.

Re:Uhm... this could be a bad thing.

[jrumney]

it's pretty much a given that SCO's own rendering of this code as GPL was inadvertent

Since groklaw has been well and truly slashdotted since this article appeared, I can't blame you for not RTFA, but the evidence they have collected pretty much destroys any claim that SCO might make about the release of this code being inadvertent. The evidence includes code released by Caldera under the GPL and PGP signed by Caldera's release key. It includes public statements by the former CEO of Caldera concerning their intentions in releasing the code. The last shaky fragment of SCO's case against Linux users has gone.

Why the last, you ask? Aside from the fact that this amounts to the bulk of "evidence" that SCO has publically produced, the documents SCO have released as part of their case against Novell show that the System V ABI is the only source code they could conceivably claim as theirs, and even that was an extremely shaky claim, as "System V ABI" appeared amongst a list of what was clearly documentation, and was in an appendix listing the copyrights that Novell owned, which may or may not have been transfered to SCO (my interpretation, and that of many others with more legal knowledge is that without an explicit copyright transfer agreement, none of those copyrights have been transfered).

Re:Uhm... this could be a bad thing.

[Crispy Critters]

"IMO, of course, a company inadvertently putting its own proprietary code into a GPL'd work is pretty much the same as if a company had inadvertently divulged its own trade secrets, which in every case is the company's own damn fault for being careless."

Don't spread FUD about "viral"-ness of the GPL.

Imagine a janitor somewhere takes a bunch of secret documents and sets them out on the curb as trash, and someone else finds them and reads them. If there were any trade secrets in there, they are not trade secrets any longer.

The next night, the same janitor sits down at a terminal, takes the company's proprietary code, slaps the GPL on the front of it, and puts it on a public web site. Is this code now GPLed? No. The janitor had no authority to license the code, so he cannot release it under the GPL.

Programmers generally don't have the authority to relicense the code they are working on, and, if they do not, they can never cause proprietary code to become GPLed. They can violate copyright, though.

Groklaw /.'ed - Mirror of article here

[DDumitru]

This is an HTML w/o style tags mirror of the article itself (no posted comments).
Thanks Pamela et.al. Great Article
http://sd-mirror.dumitru.com/gl.htm

Re:Groklaw is biased against SCO already

[FunWithHeadlines]

"Plus, it's blatantly obvious that PJ's whole rationale for spending dozens of hours a week doing Groklaw is to defeat SCO in the public relations war. Chip on her shoulder?"

Not at all. Groklaw is stated to be an anti-FUD site. That is what PJ does, she fights FUD. Guess where most of the FUD has been coming from in this case? So what else would you WANT her to do? Just ignore it?

'Not that there's anything wrong with all that, but you aren't going to convince any outsiders of Groklaw's 'level headed objectivity'. Looks like any bunch of Linux kooks from here."

No it doesn't. Groklaw has been cited in many news articles, is read by CEOs and lawyers and reporters, and has been included in the court case by being cited by IBM. You don't get that level of respect by authorities if you are viewed as "a bunch of Linux kooks." Sorry, go spread your FUD elsewhere, it doesn't apply to Groklaw.

Re:Groklaw is biased against SCO already

[ComputerSlicer23]

Your kidding right? Tolkein's stories have been widely read, and been considered with high reguard for 40 years (they we're written and published between 1940-1955 if I remember correctly). Tolkein did one of the original translations of Beowulf, and is the one who published papers showing that it should be considered one of the great stories.

Tolkein's one of the most widely published books, and one of the more widely read books world wide. Tolkein wrote it to be a mythology for the British. That is to say, a mythology that the British could say was originally their own. Tolkein from what I've read was always searching for old original stories from Britain. That's how he turned up Beowulf. He wrote a child's story in "The Hobbit", and so many people requested more information about that world, about the time, that he expanded it to be one of the largest and most comprehensive stories of the time. Tolkein is the bench mark that any author would be happy to match.

I've got my original copy of LoTR's. It was one my brother read, that my sister read, that my other sister read. The one that I read, the one that I've loaned to lots of other people. My copy is from the mid 1970's, it's one my brother stole from the High School library, and it sure isn't a first printing. LoTR's was a major book the day it was published. If you didn't know about it in High School, that doesn't well known, or serious literature. Next I suppose you'll tell me about Quantum Mechanics and the Theory of relativity are "new theories", because they didn't teach them to you in your High School science class.

They don't make you read it in High School, but possibly that has something to do with the fact that it's 1500 pages long, and takes a great deal of time to read? Ever notice that most schools never require you to read novels longer then about 250 pages? It's a time commitment issue. No high school I know makes you read "Ulyesses" either (the book that is well over a thousand pages, that covers a single days events during the Civil War era). That doesn't mean it's not considered "serious literature" (as crappy as I hear it is to read).

Kirby

Re:Groklaw is biased against SCO already

[TomV]

OTOH, an IT manager at a Fortune 500 company would very probably have terms in his or her contract which would make it inappropriate to express a view on a case like this one in a public forum without first consulting the legal department, and could very well face disciplinary proceedings for breaching such conditions.

Re:Technology is Politics

[Krow10]

Their contribution was under GPL. They will have to disprove that first, which IMHO is he kernel of the case

After all these months and hot air, I'm *still* unclear on that point.

This particular point goes specifically to the claims made in this letter to Unix Licensees that SCOX sent out a little over a month ago. If SCOX released those into linux under the GPL (and they did,) then they cannot go after *anyone* (including Unix licensees) for using a version of linux with those files without violating the GPL. Additionally, if *they* distribute a version of linux which contains those files (and they do) they are in violation of the copyright of every other contributer to any such linux distribution that they are distributing. Thus, pretty much any recipient of the above linked letter has a pretty good case for telling SCOX to pound sand (after consulting a lawyer to be sure) and IBM has a damned good case in their copyright countersuit. By pointing to the letter, and to the GPL ABI release by SCOX and then pointing to any linux distribution from SCOX's site in the recent past (and there have been plenty right up until 1/25 -- but oddly various locations keep disappearing with each DDoS) IBM can show good evidence that SCOX tried to sublicense linux (the letter) for containing something that they themselves released as GPL into linux (PGP signed files) and that, since they are in violation of the GPL terms, they do not have permission to distribute linux, which they are doing (get someone who's recently downloaded the kernel from the SCOX site to testify.) SCOX is SCOrewed. Cheers, Craig

Re:Groklaw is biased against SCO already

[strider]

Argh!

It's not a problem that Groklaw might or might not be biased in their research. EVERYONE IS BIASED! Why is it that so many people, whether critizing slashdot's "anti-microsoft bias" or now Groklaw's "anti-sco bias" seem to be scouring the world searching for someone to write an article or produce a site on a topic totally neutral on every possible opinion on the subject. Groklaw thinks SCO is full of shit. Therefore they are biased. Groklaw's arguments and evidence seem to substantiate their claims. Therefore they are also probably CORRECT.

Dealing with bias is why you have a brain. Read the articles, judge their evidence, and come to your own conclusion. If you disagree provide a detailed analysis, and prove your point. Enough with the goddamned bias mania.

Chill pill dude

[bogie]

Come on now.

"Even if after everything we've heard from them to date falls through, they may try to make the claim in court that every OS in existence is derived from SCO IP, and that being the case Linux users STILL owe SCO money, regardless of code."

Not gonna happen.

"Folks, the individual details of this don't matter at all. That's not what this is about."

No actually the details do matter. They matter in the court of law. Contrary to popular belief you can't just buy your way into winning every lawsuit.

"We are in the way of SCO's using our code for commercial purposes. Therefore we are the enemy to be destroyed, "

Yea, so what? MS wants linux destroyed as well and you how well that's worked for them.

Look, your just acting a bit hysterical here. Facts and law do matter. And contrary to your sky is falling ideas Linux isn't going to be destroyed by anyone. If it turns out that Caldera released the code under the GPL 5 years ago or whatever then this is hugely damaging to the case. This IS helpful. You can't just dismiss that and say "well SCO will just think of some angle to spin this." My advice to you is relax a bit and ease off the coffee. This case will resolve itself and there is no indication from any repudiable legal counsel or expert that SCO will be the end of Linux.

Not a GPL-only problem

[spitzak]

Obviously the same problem applies to putting code in the public domain, or the BSD license, or even giving closed source under NDA to another party, and every other method of releasing copyrighted information. You can always claim it was inadvertent and try to retrieve the rights you gave away.

Trying to say this is a "problem with the GPL" is pure FUD. It is like saying auto accidents are proof that there is a problem with the Lincoln Continental.

Validation of the open source model

[El]

It appears that in addition to all bugs being shallow with enough eyes, that all complicated legal problems are also shallow with enough eyes. How many people have helped Pamela Jones in this by locating references? It appears that open source methodology may be an advantage in legal cases as well as software development!

But the judge WILL decide if it's admissable.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

remember the judge wont be deciding anything. its the jury

But the judge WILL decide if it's admissable, and the jury is instructed to ignore it (or shielded from even hearing about it) if it's not.

Fortunately, digital signatures were explicitly designed for proving authorship in the digital world of generally untracable bits, and governments, including both the executive (by regs) and legislative (by law) branches of the Fed, are moving to make them legal proof. (See SEAL, E-SIGN, Millennium Digital Commerce Act, etc.) They're already recognized by Utah (not that it matters in a federal court...)

Since this is a civil case, where the standard is a "preponderance of evidence", and the signatures are being introduced by the defense, I'd be surprised if the judge excludes such evidence. (Think about it - what non-digital evidence is there of ANYTHING related to the case?)

If there is no direction from law or precedent, I'd expect him to let it in and let the experts from both sides argue the difficulties of forgery.

(IANAL, your mileage may vary, take this with a grain of salt, etc.)

Quite right

[FunWithHeadlines]

When the facts are on one side, the other side can't do much except resort to innuendo and FUD. Thus the rise in 'Groklaw is biased' whispers I've seen over the past few months. Well, against SCO, who could NOT be biased at this point unless you are ignorant of the facts of the case? The more you learn about SCO's claims, the more you realize they have nothing. That is why the mainstream press has been slowly but steadily turning against SCO too. They have realized what Groklaw saw early on.

If a guy wants to mug you, guess what? You are biased against his claims against your money.

Public thanks for Groklaw

[3Suns]

I'm not sure if it's been done, or if plans are in the works, but Groklaw has been a tremendous boon to the Open Source community. Everybody involved with making that site, especially Pamela Jones, has done an enormous amount of expensive work, pro bono, on our (the Open Source community's) behalf. The evidence is out there, and thanks to Groklaw it is being found and the world is being informed.

I'd like to point everybody to the little paypal button on the groklaw sidebar. They deserve credit for their work. Are there any plans for some kind of big party at a linux conference for Pam Jones et al.? Maybe after the case is settled.

Re:Groklaw is biased against SCO already

[retromingent]

My copy is from the mid 1970's, it's one my brother stole from the High School library, and it sure isn't a first printing.

Maybe the parent poster went to your high school and couldn't find the book because your asshole brother stole it?

(An FYI aside re: indian giver.)

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Indian giver: a person who gives something to another and then takes it back or expects an equivalent in return.

The term "indian giver" is the result of a misunderstanding of the property law of an east-coast tribe, early in the settlement of former Europeans in North America.

Short form: The colonists thought they were buying the land. The Indians thought they were leasing it, with anual rent payments and lease renewals.

Needless to say, this led to considerable confusion and indignation when the indians came back for the next year's lease negotiations.

The colonists won. The winners get to write the history. The authors of the history get to embed their propaganda from the conflict (such as the term "indian giver") in future generation's language.

Uhm... you could be wrong

[John Harrison]

Have you considered the possibility that before Slash and Burn McBride was brought aboard that Caldera/SCO was actually a willfully contributing member of the Linux community? The company willfully contributed this code to improve Linux. Now that those people are most likely gone the idiots that have taken over want to put the cat back in the bag.

All this proves is that companies should be careful about what they release under the GPL and that projects that accept contributions should keep careful track of who they come from.

If nothing else this whole SCO fiasco shows that Linux needs a disciplined approach to keeping track of where things are coming from in order to avoid future problems. I am sure that once this is over things will be run a bit differently.

spin spin spin (the sco spin)

[sparkeyjames]

Lets see SCO spin their way out of this one.
Great research by PJ and the gang.

I also had some free time on my hands with nothing better to do than
rewrite this song to fit the times. I also took a wee little
bit of artistic license with it (so sue me). Enjoy.

Apolgies to the Byrds, Pete Seeger
and Christians everywhere.

--------

Spin Spin Spin (The SCO Spin)
(sung to the tune of Turn Turn Turn by The Byrds)

Our stock price is down (Spin, Spin, Spin)
Even if there's is no reason (Spin, Spin, Spin)
And all hope's gone for profits, this quarter.

A time to buy, a time to sell
A time to deal, a time to steal
A time to evade, a time to deceive
A time to conceal, No time to reveal

We're getting bad press (Spin, Spin, Spin)
The law suit's the reason (Spin, Spin, Spin)
And all hope's gone for profits, this quarter.

A time to build up, a time to shake down
A time to rant, a time to accuse
A time to cast away truth, a time to lie altogether

Linux is kicking our butt (Spin, Spin, Spin)
Our old code is the reason (Spin, Spin, Spin)
And all hope's gone for profits, this quarter.

A time of lies, a time of proof
A time of threats, no time for regret
A time you may extort, a time to refrain from extortion

Darl's raveing again (Spin, Spin, Spin)
IBM is the reason (Spin, Spin, Spin)
And all hope's gone for profits, this quarter.

A time to gain, a time to spend
A time to lose, a time to cash in
A time to tan, a time to smoke crack
A time for peace?, Darl, I swear it's just too late
-
sparkeyjames
If sense were common everyone would have it!

Open Source vs. Closed in the legal Arena

[Anonymous Coward]

I find it very interesting to see that now that the Open source movement is finally being taken to court that they are able to muster the same kind of distributed support en masse as they have in the creation of Linux and other projects. While closed source proprietary porjects can only muster lawyers that they hire, IBM has free legal aid in the form of Groklaw and the support of many thousands of people trying hard to prove SCO wrong to the best of their ability. Here's to a smashing SCO defeat.

Re:FBI investigates SCO as author of MyDoom virus!

[Ungrounded Lightning]

I don't buy it.

Same here, for a different reason:

The claim is (if I read the fish babble correctly) that they were turned on to SCO by tracking the initial spread of the virus to SCO as an early focus.

Others are already suggesting that the DoS on SCO is a red herring by the spammers - playing a game of "let's you and him fight" between two of their enemies: The anti-virus people (mainly commercial and law enforcement) and the anti-spammers (expert users and sysadmins, high cross-membership with the open source community).

The worm's structure is consistent with this. It is a spam-forwarder and backdoor installer, of a similar form to earlier spam tools (including function shutdown dates). And the DoS is relatively low-intensity (one ding per second per zombie), which is consistent with not screwing up the spam forwarder by consuming too many of its resources in a DoS attack.

If the DoS on SCO IS a red-herring, doing an initial release by mailing a few copies to SCO and maybe Microsoft (so it spreads from there and gets them blamed) is also consistent: Further social engineering to escalate the distraction.

If this is true, you'd have to examine SCO's mail logs to find the next step closer to the real source. (And infecting SCO would even let you use the backdoor to plant more inciminating evidence on them.)

Nevertheless, it IS in SCO's interest to be perceived as a target. And it can also give them an excuse to take down systems with evidence weakening their case. So taking a known spam virus and hacking it into this form is also consistent with the "attack yourself and blame your opponent" model. So it will be ineteresting to see if there's anything behind the rumor. B-)

Re:OT: you never been to iceland?

[spacecowboy420]

[embarrassed] I guess when you put it that way, we have all been whaling....

If Microsoft bought SCO

[mh123083]

wouldn't they own unix and be able to completely squash all the competition?

Or is there something is U.S. law that prohibits this, similar to the UKs Monopolies & Mergers Commision?

Re:If Microsoft bought SCO

[vidarh]

No, they would own licenses to resell and sublicense certain specific versions of the original Unix that is to a large extent irellevant outside SCO's fantasy world.

Re:If Microsoft bought SCO

[Xtifr]

No, because SCOldera doesn't have a clear, uncontested title to "Unix". First of all, the Open Group owns the trademark "UNIX(tm)," secondly, Novell has a competing claim to the code, and finally, large parts of the code are owned by others - most notably the Regents of the University of California.

Caldera/SCO is also the target of more lawsuits than they've filed. They've already lost a suit in Germany, and been additionally fined for violating a court order, and they're under investigation by the Australian government. Doesn't make them look like a very tempting aquisition.

But most of all, yes, MS in particular (who might otherwise be willing to overlook some of these obvious problems) would be in a world of trouble due to their monopoly position. The SEC could and probably would forbid such an aquisition. And remember, US law isn't the only thing they have to worry about. MS also does business in the UK and EU, and would have to deal with major repercussions there as well.

And finally, there are change-of-ownership issues in the contract between Novell and oldSCO. NewSCO seems to think they can sidestep this by claiming that they merged with oldSCO's OS division, and thus the ownership didn't actually didn't change. MS would have a much harder time making such an argument.

Re:Groklaw is biased against SCO already

[Frater 219]

It's misleading to say that Groklaw is "biased" against SCO. Bias, or prejudice, occurs when someone pre-judges a matter -- when pre-existing opinions lead one to a conclusion that does not respect the evidence at hand, or miscolor one's experience of a situation. It does not occur when someone draws an unpleasant conclusion, or one you don't like, on the basis of actual evidence at hand.

It is not biased to dislike something on the basis of experience, or to distrust someone who has been proven to lie. To accuse someone of bias in this regard is to suggest that having discovered unpleasant truths somehow worsens rather than improves one's ability to draw true conclusions about the world. It is to praise ignorance and naivete' over experience, on the grounds that unpleasant experiences can cause you to think ill of those responsible for the unpleasantness.

Ms. Jones and the others at Groklaw are not biased against SCO. They have come to their conclusions about SCO's dishonesty on the basis of facts, not merely prejudices. People do not simply call SCO liars and scoundrels because they want SCO's claims to be false and self-contradictory, but because SCO's claims have been demonstrated publicly to be false and self-contradictory. That's not bias; it's reasoning.

Re:Technology is Politics

[daviddennis]

Capitalism is nothing but exchange through money.

I don't think it's possible to wreck capitalism. You could destroy the value of money, but substitutes would be rapidly found. For example, in World War II prison camps, cigarettes were used as money.

I don't think there's any circumstance where society would be so degraded that people would not want to exchange goods in one form or another. Money is just a medium that makes that more flexible. If I offer my labor in exchange for a new PowerMac, it might be a long time before I could find someone who would want to make a direct exchange. But if I exchange my labor for money, and use that to buy the PowerMac, then everyone's a lot happier than they would have been without money.

I think your main complaint about money is simply that you don't have enough of it. Unfortunately, the only non-capitalist economic systems I know of solve the money problem by instituting rationing, so everyone gets the same pathetic set of lousy goods, which make them worse off than the American ghetto-dweller.

If you want to destroy capitalism, first think about what you want to put in its place. So far, I haven't seen anything better.

D

Re:Groklaw is biased against SCO already

[Guido von Guido]

Nah. What you have neglected to point out is that Groklaw has provided evidence to support its claims. SCO, on the other hand, has seemingly gone out of its way to avoid presenting any.

I suspect any bias on the part of Groklaw stems from the fact that PJ has done a lot of research about the case. You know, because she knows what she's talking about.

Evidence suggesting that you don't know what you're talking about is provided by the suggestion that "the whole point of the site" is to provide FUD about SCO. Clearly she's devoted a lot of energy to this prior to the SCO case, but Groklaw was around long before it.

Re:Groklaw is biased against SCO already

[antiMStroll]

I think it is only a fair comment.

I think it isn't until it's proven Groklaw withheld damaging information. Until then it's negative supposition and therefore bias.

Re:ABI vs API

[Spinality]

In my experience, ABI is a relatively recent term.

In 'the olden days' the single term 'API' was used, and it covered the entire range of entry points, calling parameters, communication protocols, error handlers, return codes, and anything else a programmer would need to use the interface in question. This usage dates at least back to the early '70's and probably earlier.

While I like the precision of ABI and other neologisms, this does lead to confusion when we recast an old term like 'API' under a more restrictive definition.

Outstanding Work

[salesgeek]

I've always enjoyed the material Groklaw provides. It may really help though if they put a press/business friendly bullet point summary of the article. The open source position is very easy to understand:

* SCO claims Linux infringes on their UNIX copyrights.

* Linux was written by thousands of programmers all over the world led by Linus Torvalds.

* SCO has not disclosed all of the parts of UNIX that they beleive are being infringed.

* SCO has disclosed some of the alleged infringements. In each of these cases, it was found that the parts in question were already in the public domain or had been released to the public as free GPL software.

Care should be taken to avoid terms like "code" "ABI" and "header files" they are too technical. This is a Brooklyn Bridge scam. Call it that.

Claiming rape

[jms]

SCO's claims are a little like a woman falsely claiming rape after she willingly consented to sexual relations. Worse, from their standpoint. The evidence of the GPL distribution is there for the world to see, so it's not a He Said, She Said situation where you might have at least a 50% chance of being believed.

SCO's claims are more like if Paris Hilton had claimed rape after the videotape emerged.

Um, Ransom, you seemed to be enjoying yourself with Linux ...

Their own worst enemies

[chickenwing]

It seems like the most damning evidence and contradictions about SCO comes from their own website. Perhaps this is why they want to appear to be DOS'd.

Totally agree

[Spinality]

I love Groklaw and can't wait for each new installment. But I wish some of the heavyweight contributors there could get the hang of putting an "Executive Summary" at the beginning of the long detailed rants. Not just a short list of the conclusions (equally important), but a summary of the key facts as well.

This article is a perfect example. I understood it just fine, but, as much as I like minutiae, I stopped reading in detail and started skimming after about 75% through -- it became much-of-a-muchness. There were a bunch of really important points in there, but they were buried, so that only the geeks would read them. And the geeks already understand the situation!

Oh well. As I said, Groklaw rules, and they're doing such fine work...so I mustn't complain, and I don't have the time or the specialized knowledge to step up to the plate myself.

But I keep wishing that somebody active there would grasp The Big Picture a little more vividly -- The Big Picture as seen by an outsider. Many of the postings there seem just to be preaching to the choir.

Well, back to my hymnal.