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SCO Complaint Filed -- Including Code Samples
btempleton writes "The folks at Groklaw have posted a story including a preliminary copy of Caldera/SCO's amended complaint, including lines of code they allege were improperly included in Linux. The PDF can be found at this story The file lists unix filenames with line numbers and filenames and line numbers from the Linux 2.2 and 2.4 kernels, so folks can now go into real depth."
This announcement is like a cool refreshing glass of lemonade. We'll finally be able to explain in agonising detail exactly why SCO is just blowing smoke out of their arse.
FloodMT: crapflood Movab
Either way.. goodbye, case!
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Does this mean we can now replace those lines and let the air out of the SCO tires?
Temperature in Hell== 31 F and falling. . .
You are not the customer.
In a press release issued Friday, a SCO spokesperson asserts there is no order or value in human life or in the universe.
or anybody else has read "SCO complaint failed"?
Wonder what Linus will have to say about all of this, or did he do the NDA thing to see his own code?
drunk chemists
The "Definitely untouchable 100% SCO free edition"...
"To any truly impartial person, it would be obvious that I am right."
Looks like they're pointing out the JFS, EVMA and RCU stuff which everyone knows IBM contributed and probably did modify from IBM's/Dynix's own code. The dispute is about whether SCO has any rights to that code in the first place.
I thought 2.2 was safe. Then again, we thought they were not going after copyright infringement. I'm guessing that is a typo.
Since SCO has still not actually complied with previous discovery motions, submitted millions of lines of code to IBM in paper form (real class act, they are) and keeps changing their case, my guess is we will see the end of this case, perhaps this year.
UNLESS, of course, the Novell vs. SCO suit sidetracks the IBM suit until we can figure out who actually owns Unix...
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
Fast mirror here... not that Groklaw would need :D or not ?
Carefully crafted sig.
Patches for every single Linux distribution by the end of the week.
And it will include commented lines "*uck you, SCO"
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
Now that the cats tail is out of the bag, you can clean the kernel. Removing the offending lines will help to foil the case.
Lets see 2.4.25 and 2.6.3 with these lines eliminated.
Here's a sample of the actual code:
Select All (*Linux.Users*)
Repeat
Daryls.Bankacct = Daryls.Bankacct + Linux.User.Acct(x)
until total(Linux.Users) = 0
set displaymode = gloat
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
SCO still doesn't have the right to subsume all copyrights to the work that everyone has done on Linux to date, If this is correct, I don't know what the ramifications would be, but linux would survive. Isn't this how BSD ended up? All proprietary code was systematically replaced over time, and the result is still free.
I'm not sending anyone a check for $699.
for using parts of the sco's code.
I've mirrored the PDF file here. At 2.5MB a pop, this mirror is subject to disappear at any time, but perhaps it'll alleviate the load on Groklaw for the time being. Please post other mirrors here.
:)
Thanks PJ for all you do
"BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.
The code lines correspond to blank lines. SCO has obviously copyrighted blank lines.
Now people who are really qualified can do a "Deep Dive". Not just some imaginary mathmaticians from MIT.
DIVE! DIVE!
Now WE can sink their Battleship!
100. The contribution of the Journaling File System ("JFS") was done in a series of "drops" of AIX code identified as "reference files" inside Linux. The first such drop occurred on or about February 2000, with multiple additions and significant follow-up work by IBM since that time to adapt AIX/JFS for enterprise use inside Linux. These drops of reference files do not necessarily become part of the source code in the Linux kernel, but rather are public displays of the Protected Materials so that anyone has access to them and can use them to construct similar file in Linux. The first drop contains (a) a partially functioning port, or transfer, of JFS from AIX to Linux; (b) a set of reference directories (named ref/) which contain the AIX reference version of AIX/JFS; (c) AIX/JFS-related utility files used to maintain and upkeep AIX/JFS; and (d) a set of directories (named directory ref_utils/) which contain the AIX reference version of utilities. Copies of AIX/JFS files into Linux are shown in Table A, below. Table A compares a 1999 version of AIX and shows the following similarities, demonstrating copying of code, structures and/or sequences.
Table A
AIX 9922A_43NIA File Line #s Linux 2.2.12 ref/File Line #s
usr/include/jsf/inode.h 16-37 include/linux/jfs/ref/jfs_inode.h 84-95,
126-138
kernel/sys/vnode.h 109-133 include/linux/jfs/ref/jfs_inode.h 96-122
usr/include/jsf/inode.h 39-40 include/linux/jfs/ref/jfs_inode.h 189-90
usr/include/jsf/inode.h 161-166 include/linux/jfs/ref/jfs_inode.h 414-421
usr/include/jsf/inode.h 172-180 include/linux/jfs/ref/jfs_inode.h 37-48
usr/include/jsf/inode.h 199-205 include/linux/jfs/ref/jfs_inode.h 52-59
usr/include/jsf/inode.h 62-66 include/linux/jfs/ref/jfs_inode.h 286-290
usr/include/jsf/inode.h 72-76 include/linux/jfs/ref/jfs_inode.h 295-302
usr/include/jsf/inode.h 83-158 include/linux/jfs/ref/jfs_inode.h 322-411
These transfers of AIX/JFS to Linux are in violation of the IBM Related Agreements, and are an improper use of AIX for adaptation to a general operating system.
101. IBM has also improperly transferred a UNIX/AIX-based enterprise volume management system ("AIX/EVMS") to Linux. Again, this was done by IBM to transfer enterprise-class capabilities from AIX to Linux, and was a violation of the IBM Related Agreements and IBM's promise not to adapt AIX as a general operating system for a non-IBM company. The purpose of AIX/EVMS is to allow the management of disk storage in terms of logical 'volumes' in a large enterprise environment. Tools with this level of sophistication and performance were entirely unavailable and unknown to the open source development community prior to IBM's improper transfer to Linux. The actual transfer "patch" by IBM can be found at http://www.sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?g roup_id=25076&package_id=17436. The first code drop of AIX/EVMS by IBM was v0.0.1, which occurred on 03/21/2001. The first major release of AIX/EVMS by Linux was v1.0.0, in Linux 2.4, which occurred on 03/27/2003. The latest Linux release version of AIX/EVMS is v2.2.1, which occurred on 12/20/2003. The following table, Table B, identifies the AIX/EVMA "patches" of source code improperly transferred by IBM to the Linux 2.4 version.
Table B
AIX MERCED/9922A_43NIA Line #s EVMS 1.0.0 patches to Linux 2.4.x Line #s
kernel/sys/IA64/bootrecord.h 64-170 include/linux/evms/evms_aix.h 157-263
usr/include/liblvm.h 234-250 include/linux/evms/evms_aix.h 311-327
usr/include/liblvm.h 252-272
289-307 include/linux/evms/evms_aix.h 329-349
usr/include/liblvm.h 316-363 include/linux/evms/evms_aix.h 352-400
usr/include/lvmrec.h 24-92 include/linux/evms/evms_aix.h 266-294
usr/include/lvm.h 26-35 include/linux/evms/evms_aix.h 6-11
kernel/sys/hd_psn.h 32 include/linux/
Line 327 of named file 13 is merely a closing brace.
j/k
That would be an admission of guilt.
Looking at their list, there can't be more than a thousand lines there. Most of the matches are about 5-10 lines each.
And they're ALL written by IBM. And IBM's perpetual license says they own their contributions.
To save you reading the lengthy PDF, here are some of the major similarities noted:
'int main ()' appears repeatedly in both UNIX System V and Linux
'#include ' is also obvious stealing of code, appearing in many Linux source files
Furthermore, 'for (int i = 0; i < ARRAY_LENGTH; i++)' style loops are obviously copied by IBM developers intimately familiar with the original implementations.
SCO's case is strong.
((lambda x ((x))) (lambda x ((x))))
Let's do so math, about 335 lines of code is equivalent to Darl math of 2 million lines of code or so. 2 million /335 = 5970. So if we extend SCO-rithmetic to their $5 billion dollar lawsuit (divide by 5970). Then they are really only suing for $863,557.00.
I say JFS should be completley removed from the 2.4 and 2.6 kernel, and replaced by a clean room implementation by someone from outside IBM. Same goes for all other offending bits.
From SCO's filings: Thus, most versions of UNIX will not operate on Intel-based PC's for desktop computing; and Windows will not operate on RISC-based workstations for enterprise computing.
Perhaps the current versions don't but in the 90s, it DID run on RISC processors, WinNT 3.1, 3.5 and I think even 4.0 ran on MIPS. Since there point was relating to computing "in the 1990s" I would take their point as misleading, at the very least. What they also do not make clear is that the OLD SCO (not Caldera/SCO) was the only proprietary game for x86/unix, but even then Linux and BSD ran x86. Minor, but misleading.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
Very interesting. According to SCO:
- Linux is derived from System V. (75)
- IBM has endeavored to control the open source community. (76)
- IBM plans to destroy UNIX. (77)
- Linus Torvalds can't say who contributed what to Linux. (78)
- A significant amount of UNIX source code is present in Linux 2.4-2.6 kernels. (79)
- Linux developers are incapable of developing enterprise-grade software without stealing from SCO. (80, 81)
- Only IBM's involvement in Linux made Linux viable for enterprise use, and because IBM had access to System V (82), if follows that
- if follows that Linux is a clone of UNIX. (83)
I had no idea SCO owned the rights to #include.. because they claim they do in most of the files they "claim" are stolen. Good job sco.. darl you suck at life.
The claimed lines of code appear to be in jfs (which is from AIX, not Sconix), evms (once again from AIX), and RCU. Total number of lines is about 600, plus a few complete files claimed to have be contributed illegally by sequent. I fail to see how IBM is prevented by their contract from contributing their own enhancements (or hell, compatible implementations of their filesystems). The rest of the document seems to just be complaining that with IBM's help, linux is going to wipe a lot of proprietary unixes off of the map. Which I believe fails under the legal term "toughus-fucking-luckus."
====
Crudely Drawn Games
Heise (SCO) insisted, however, that without IBM's compliance, "it is literally impossible" for SCO to itself provide direct proof of the Unix-to-AIX/Dynix-to-Linux continuum it argues exists.
s /1 36590.asp
"We're at an impasse and we can't be at an impasse and have this case remain at a standstill," Wells (Judge) responded. "You've made your point -- I'm just not certain I agree."
http://www.sltrib.com/2004/Feb/02072004/busines
Just because it's anti-SCO doesn't mean it's in any way funny.
What I do think that should DEFINITELY be done immediately is just for the heck of it, some minimal-- maybe not even well-done, maybe just copying code from 2.0 or whatever these files were like before the submission-- patches that remove all of the allegedly infringing code should EXIST, if not be incorporated into the main linux tree, just as a proof of concept.
So that later if SCO is trying to claim "we've been damaged by this", people can respond with "bullshit, those files were nonessential to Linux, look how quickly the community was able to provide replacements and it wasn't even something they had to or had reason to do".
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
I initially read that headline as
;) That woulda been pretty sweet though.
"SCO Complaint Failed -- Including Code Samples"
I guess I'm looking just a little further ahead
-kidlinux.
Of course the code will be quickly replaced whether it can be proved it belongs to SCO or not. We always knew this and surely SCO did as well. So what is SCO up to, exactly? Is this what the copyright suit is meant to address? Are they trying to make sure they still have some way to sue Big Blue?
"It's spelled SCOX and pronounced to rhyme with _cocks_."
"Will future ages believe that such stupid bigotry ever existed!" -- Ivanhoe
They are still flogging JFS, in spite of the widely known reports that both the current AIX and Linux versions were developed from the IBM OS/2 version of JFS.
Any code in common is probably easily found in the OS/2 sources.
The above text was blatently stolen from a groklaw comment.
i guess that means it is better to give a *.pdf than to recive a *.pdf
I'm still getting into Linux and BSD, running machines and making the switch. What I'm wondering is if and when will we see distros that feature kernel 2.6 and SCO-free libraries.
BTW, Is BSD suceptible to this SCO complaint?
Obviously you haven't even looked at this PDF document. The text is very large and easy to read. Just like HTML pages, not all PDFs are the same as far as text size.
Even literacy is not for everyone.
It makes perfect sense from the universe that SCOX/Caldera is living in. If you even heard the word UNIX, everything you write are now their property, subject to their copyright/trade secret control.
87. By making the Linux operating system free to end users, IBM could undermine and destroy the ability of any of its competitors to charge a fee for distribution of UNIX software in the enterprise market. Thus, IBM, with its army of Global Services integrators who earn money by selling services, would gain a tremendous advantage over all its competitors who earn money by selling UNIX licenses.
Seems like someone's sore because IBM has a better business model.
"Break out the gin, and the small violin, I'm a raging success as a failure." --Firewater
I keep thinking of him as Daryl, since Darl is a female name.
To make matters worse, he's a McBride and not a McGroom.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
"21. By way of example, in the personal computing market, Microsoft Windows is the best known operating system. The Windows operating system was designed to operate on computer processors ("chips") built by Intel. Thus, Windows serves as the link between Intel-based processors and the various software application that run on personal computers."
I count at least 3 major logical errors in that section, and find it's existence in this document unjustified.
1. Windows is not an operating system, but a family of them - Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows NT are the operating systems.
2. They were not all designed with Intel as the only manufacturer of systems that the OS should work on.
3. The OS does much more than work with processor "chips".
It seems unlikely to me that lawyers proefficient with modern computer systems worked on this document.
Most telling is that none of the code listed is from TSG, OpenServer or UnixWare, it's all IBM-authored code and the entire gambit rests on the breach-of-contract details.
Cue "Funeral March for a Marionette"...
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Even if we ignore what the term IBM PC means, even if we ignore iRMS, even if we ignore OS2 this still leaves AIX/386 which as far as I recall used to run a considerable part of NATO radar infrastructure. OK, IBM insisted on it being useable only on boards with 1M L2 cache, but I it happily ran on much less then that.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
"54. At this point in time, IBM's UNIX expertise was centered on its own Power PC processor. IBM had little or no expertise on Intel processors."
I find this statement using the truth freely.
The Singularity is closer than you think
Quant
IBM has violated 2.01 of the Software Agreement by, inter alia, using and assisting others to use the Software Products (including System V source code, derivative works, documentation rrelated thereto and methods based thereon) for external purposes that are different from, and broader than, IBM's own internal business purposes. By actively supporting, assisting and promoting the transfer of UNIX technology to Linux, and using its access to UNIX technology to accomplish this objective, IBM is (a) using the Software Product for external business purposes, which include use for the benefit of Linus Torvalds, the general Linux community and IBM's Linux distribution partners, Red Hat, Inc., Novell, Inc., SuSE Linux AG and their respective subsidiaries; and is (b) directly and indirectly preparing unauthorized derivative works based on the Software Products and unauthorized modifications thereto in violation of 2.01 of the Software Agreement.
Notice that SysV code is not listed amongst the files in the complaint. The above claim is only true in the case that SCO's Idea of a derivative work is valid.
IMHO, this is actually a reasonable leagal document, where there may be an actual dispute over the idea of a derivative work. However, SCO should not be allowed to change its tack in the middle of discovery, until now this case has been about a claim of copying of sysV code and breach of contract, but now they are claiming here that there was no copying and IBM breached its contract by contributing code that IBM owns into Linux. SCO no longer claims, as they did in there initial filing, that IBM improperly contributed sysV code into Linux. This should not be allowed on the grounds that until now, SCO has been using improper contributions of sysV code attempt to persuade people to pay license fees. This also means that SCO has once again lied publicly about the ammount severity of the copying. In fact the Linux community would not be a party to the dispute if JFS, RCU, and NUMA were removed from the kernel. (These documents do not explain how SMP is affected accept by NUMA.) In that case the court cannot ignore what SCO has stated in public, while allowing them to state something substantivly different in court, its one or the other SCO, not both.
In any case Linux is indemnified by the fact that they asked IBM if all of there technologies were contributed in good faith, IBM said yes, and the Kernel development community had no reason not to belive them.
I still think that SCO has a lot of explaining to do when this is all said and done.
Did Glenn Beck rape and kill a girl in 1990? gb1990.com
When the case is in front of a judge or jury and the timeline for how quickly code is replaced is presented the judge might just dismiss the case right then and there. Simply put in infringement cases you need to have damages. If all they had to do was release the lines of code they claim are infringing and it's replaced by the end of the week that goes to show how valuble that code really was. The most they could possibly get, if the judge found the code non trivial, is about $10,000 to $20,000 dollars just as a penalty. That's why I think a judge could dismiss the case as SCO couldn't pay their lawyers with that.
But chances are the case is too political and the defence would protest to get the code judged as infringing or not. It's a landmark case as to the methodology to determing what is infringing and what is not when it comes to code.
To me at least it takes a signifigant amout of code, tens of kilobites worth that couldn't be replaced within a month. Damages would have to exceed a quarter million dollars just to judtify taking the case to court. When code can be replaced so easily where is it's value?
I suspect that IBM has been paying close attention to the 'subversive' activities at Groklaw, but I wonder if they'll ever get any direct credit for it. There's been a great deal of
PJ and her legal elves certainly deserve our thanks.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
It'll be called "Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at SCO."
It'll be out soon in hardback.
http://yetanotherpoliticalrant.blogspot.com
NT 4.0 ran on MIPS, Alpha, and (true fact) PowerPC. I'm pretty sure there was also a SPARC port at one time, although it may never have made it out of the lab.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
If you look at the list, you'll notice that most of the files are header files. These header files are probably available in the off-the-shelf releases of these OS'es. They have then probably does some compare and came up with the resulting list.
If they get all sources from IBM, they probably will perform the exact same comparison, but on all the new files they got.
However, we shouldn't be so worried about this. According to one post on groklaw, the contents of these files are mostly #include's anyway.
The last line of the complaint is: "SCO demands trial by jury on all issues so triable."
The issues are so complicated and convoluted that, sadly, this trial may come down to "He said, she said."
The patient on directories in an operating system and I want money for it. I should sue somebody over HTTP as I also own the idea of hypertext. Oh wait hasent that already happened and failed?
Got hosting
If you are hunting, be aware that their line numbers refer to versions after the application of e.g. a rcu patch. It makes it tricky to find the actual lines, since the patches change the numbering from that in the pristeen distribution.
This would not be admission of guilt; it would simply be limiting liability. It is the smart thing to do.
If linux does not change the code, and SCO wins the case on the grounds that the law is technically moronic, linux will lose huge credibility.
If linux does change the code and SCO loses its case, no harm done.
I just noticed that the first lawyer listed on this SCO document is "Brent O. Hatch", the son of Utah Senator Orrin Hatch.
"78. However, as is widely reported and as IBM executives knew, or should have known, a significant flaw of Linux is the inability and/or unwillingness of the Linux process manager, Linus Torvalds, to identify the intellectual property origins of contributed source code that comes in from those many different software developers. If source code is code copied from protected UNIX code, there is no way for Linus Torvalds to identify that fact."
Um. If source code was copied from protected UNIX code, how the @#$@%@# would Linus know about it? He doesn't have access to the protected source code - it's protected! The only way to know is if the owners of the protected source code make the claim and are able to back it up! How can Torvalds be faulted for not being clarvoyant? Do they mean identify it after the fact? AFAIK no one can say yet that the origins of code X can't be identified. SCO hasn't even let us TRY - they won't tell us what they want identified!
If what they are actually saying is that open source shouldn't be allowed to proceed simply because it doesn't have massive paperwork assigning every bit of code to some source, they've been hitting the crack again. Email archives, content management back trails anyone? And we can go further than that if we are really forced to - the FSF has been getting copyrights assigned to it for years just in case things come to that pass, and if it becomes utterly necessary that might become common practice.
What I'm hoping will come out of all this is a way that open source projects can set themselves up so that no one can sue them without them actually having done something wrong. (OK, OK - I know anyone can still bring the lawsuit. I mean create a situation where the project dispose of the suit in such a way that it doesn't cost the project or developers much of anything and discourages idiots like SCO from attempting it.) That would be useful, and if SCO is the start of a trend may become very necessary.
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
reading slashdot story... free
trying to follow the story links... painful but free
reading the comments... free
finding someone who posted a mirror... free
downloading the pdf from the mirror at 150Kb/s half an hour after the mirror was posted even though its modded to 5... priceless
dude, where the fuck do you get that bandwidth? hook a brother up with a shell and some webspace?
Well from what I can see about 60% of it is just header files which well Duh are gonna be similar
of which 50% is JFS's inode.h, and the other is todo with EVMS
then the rest of it looks like clock stuff, and i386 stuff, and unless im missing somthing thats the general gist of it!
I'd say 1 week max til it's all gone or shown not to actualy belong to SCO
SCOX stock price, meet Mr Floor?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Such a move wouldn't be very smart, even if it was technically possible. SCO could easily argue that "those evil linux people removed it because they knew it was infringing code".
It's much better to leave it in, and show a little patience for the legal system. Believe it or not, the Linux community really isn't getting hurt all that much in the corporate marketplace according to surveys I've seen...and the non-corporate linux user base certainly couldn't give a hoot.
I still say this would be a whole lot easier if kernel developers stood up for their work and reputations by doing whatever they can in their respective legal systems(imagine, lawsuits in 30 countries. The RIAA would be proud). So far, all we've seen is a lot of (amusing, but pointless in a court of law) hot air from Linus.
Please help metamoderate.
Here's the issue as best as can be broken down from the whole case Paragraph "IBM's Scheme"...section 91)
AIX's confidential and propriatery UNIX source code extends only to the code that IBM got from SCO originally to start development from.As an author of add-in modules and enhancements, IBM can distribute under MULTIPLE licenses...It can choose dual license if it wishes....OSS and AIX/SCO.
SCO must now show where their original license stipulates "..all your base..." Failing that, IBM can do whatever it wants to do with it's own creations.
The file lists unix filenames with line numbers and filenames and line numbers
Um... what a sentence.
From Table D:
Dynix Line #s Linux Line #s
kernel/i386/trap.c 2054 init/main.c 30-33,609-616
How could a single line from Dynix (number 2054) occur at lines 30-33 and
609-616?
I thought if you were cutting and pasting lines from one file to another you
would get the same number of lines.
it is only after a long journey that you know the strength of the horse.
Kelvin! You get to freeze your beehive off at 273 degrees!
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
In this document SCO identify three groups of what they regard as "infringing" code. They readily admit that the number of examples they can provide is somewhat limited due to the fact that they don't possess themselves enough evidence to prove it. "Damn it, I know they stole it from us - if only I could get the evidence to prove it!".
...
The first set (Table A) is JVS code. As we all know JFS is an IBM/AIX creation, so with this SCO will be focussing on their "derived work" argument.
The second set (Table B) is EVMS code. Again, this is a less-mentioned contribution from IBM AIX into Linux. Again, this will be SCO's "derived work" according to their skewed worldview.
The third and fourth sets are the most interesting (Table C and D). They identify stuff allegedly lifted from Dynix (Sequent) code. I could not find the rclock.* or the kmemdef.* files in 2.4.18 or in 2.4.1 (the version they've named), I presume they were removed at some point - Torvalds or someone else could probably identify when.
In Table D, the code they've highlighted in the 2.4.1 apic.c file consists of #include lines, some comments, and a very basic "if" statement in the middle of some SMP related code for handling timer interrupts, it seems. It's the same in timer.c, they're also complaining about lines which refer to Alpha or IA64, rather odd since they never wrote code concerning those CPUs.
The entry.S reference they've made, going by the code comments, refers to code which switches an i386 back into user mode following a system call. (guess mode - the set of assembly mnemonics to put an i386 into user mode is likely to be very standard; the default code was probably provided free of charge by Intel years and years ago, and probably found it's way into every i386 memory-protected OS written!).
The same seems true of traps.c. The main.c lines are just some includes and some static declarations.
I also did some casual Google searches to see if any of the alleged infringing lines of code showed up anywhere. In all the cases I checked, the lines show only in Linux kernels, and not anywhere else. If this code did appear elsewhere then it isn't immediately obvious where it came from.
So I really don't think that SCO has much of a leg to stand on here
What's so ironic about the suit to me is that when IBM entered the Unix market with AIX in 1990, they were the *first* Unix vendor to introduce their own journal filesystems and volume management tools integrated into the OS.
These now-common approaches to improving the reliability and flexibility of Unix were part of IBM's value-add to Unix... a bit of heritage from their mainframe and minicomputer perspective. It wasn't enough in the marketplace to overcome IBM's late-ness to Unix and the odd uniquenesses of its registry-based configuration, but it did help somewhat in enterprise environments.
Anyway, after 10 years in the Unix market, IBM decides that having had minimal/modest success in the commercial Unix marketplace, perhaps they would have better luck in the free Unix marketplace (making money selling services,) particularly if they can catch this wave early rather than spending a decade worrying about cannibalization of their own product line. So they take the AIX 'crown jewels' and share them with the free Unix community.
And SCO claims that they are derivatives of SCO's original Unix work?!
If any version of AT&T Unix/Unixware that shipped to people like IBM included journal filesystems or volume management or NUMA SMP, then maybe I could buy it, but given the dictionary definitions of "derived" I just can't.
(dictionary.com entry for
"derive": "to obtain or receive from a source".
"derivative": "copied or adapted from others")
--LP
Can someone provide a mirror or mirrors of groklaw.net please? I never can seem to get through because its overwhelmed or ./ all the time.
Thanks in advance,
Daniel
IBM Develops some technology for OS/2
IBM adds it to AIX
SCO (claiming to own copyrights to Un*x) says anything derivative of Unix (AIX in this case) becomes their IP
SCO Sues IBM for copyright infringement
IBM demonstrates this technology existed prior and was given to both operatings systems as an add-on
SCO loses
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I haven't got through the whole thing yet, but it sounds to me that the motivation behind it is that SCO is whining that IBM is making money off of services now, and they're not.
Darl: Things change, adapt your business, or fuck off.
I downloaded linux kernel 2.4.1 and most of the files they mention don't even exist in the source tree.. Are they comparing things to one of THEIR source trees with THEIR code patches in there or something STUPID like that?
...as in, when "I get out of jail, I'm gunna be on the d'ohl for life".
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
By making the Linux operating system free to end users
How exactly does SCO claim that IBM made linux free to end users? I thought that was Linus and the GPL? Maybe I'm an idiot though.
Isn't JFS express property of IBM and NOT SCO so SCO is making bs claims here?
If you cannot keep politics out of your moderation remove yourself from the Mod Lottery.. NOW!
It's not all from AIX. Some of it came from Dynix/ptx, which apparently came from Sequent. (p.29 of PDF)
SCO seem to be saying IBM knowingly contributed code to Linux knowing it would help linux succeed over traditional Unix flavours...
So let me get this right IBM gave code from their expensive product to a free product...
Hmmm.... why???
SCO should be made to demonstrate what motivation IBM had in acting this way -- other than IBM knowing they could sell services better than OS's...
--- Users are like bacteria -> Each one causing a thousand tiny crises until the host finally gives up and dies.
Change the code as quickly as possible. This will give more credence to open source's commitment to their customers than making snarky comments about how the code does not infinge.
"Customers" want to know the community is looking out for their best interests, and that means limiting liability in the event that SCO wins their case. And they can win: this is the law, not logic.
SCO dries up and blows away
/. eventually removes old SCO icon
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Wow, a collection of header files that have similar function declarations!!! Unreal! Those IBM bastards!
Correct me if I am wrong, but POSIX compliance does not require a license from SCO. Defining these functions similarly to the SysV style is not a breach of IP. It's the code that these functions represent that may be in breach, but SCO does not outline any of this.
Also, the JFS file system is IBM's own work. Yes, if IBM makes a change to the actually system v code base by adding jfs, then those changes are only usable by the licensees. But there is no indication that the implementation of JFS made any impact on that SYSV standard. Its a code base that is external to the licensed system v code and is therefore not under any of SCO's jurisdiction.
In conlusion, their case is null and void. I hope their board of directors spend a few years behind bars for this spectacular abuse of the US legal system. Maybe IBM can pay off some inmates to make Darl someones bitch.
What code? Comparing their line numbers to the 2.4.1 kernel source of the files that actually DID exist in the distribution (several that they claim to infringe don't even exist in the official linux source). And all that comes up is.. a comment here.. some assigments there, a print statment about a APIC bug. a simple if statemnt. (if (info) call_this_func; else call_other_func();.. /dev/console for STDOUT.
The biggest "chunk" was around a function that closed STDIN, STDOUT, and STDERR, and then opened the
Hey wait someone came to the same conclusion as me, and put the same comment. I am sueing cause it looks like mine, and sence no one else has ever tried the same thing it has to be a copy!!
IANAL, but I do read Groklaw.
SCO's theory seems to be (as far as I understand it) that Linux is only Enterprise-ready (e.g. multiprocessor support/journalled filesys etc.) because of IBM's contributions to the kernel, and that IBM's code comes directly from AIX which is a derivative of System V. SCO's claim is that IBM's license with SCO and their contract to work together on Project Monterey permitted IBM to include this code in AIX and Dynix, but not into Linux. IBM having done so makes Linux a derivative of System V.
Despite my sympathies, I have never actually installed Linux for use on my home computer (sorry). I'm about half way through this document of SCO's and my read is that they are saying "UNIX kicks ass so much that it is used for everything important, but Linux is better and is going to destroy our business."
Of course they are establishing this only to claim that it could not be so good without stealing code from UNIX. Once that is disproven (I hope), all that will be left is a powerful arguement that Linux will and should replace UNIX and is more reliable than Windows.
Nice job SCO!
But I thought the defendant and judge are the only people who can demand trial by jury?
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
the story goes something like this:
1) dave cutler's VAX/VMS team gets bored (funding cut)
2) microsoft hires dave and his team (6 people).
3) they code 200,000 lines per year EACH for 5 years, exclusively in c.
4) paul leach (of apollo and NCS 1.0 which became DCE/RPC fame) recommends DCE/RPC for NT Domain services.
5) bill gates orders from-on-high that NT must have a windows interface.
6) dave's team add a windows subsystem to placate bill: they have to port the win16 subsystem to 32-bit (hence the win32 subsystem).
[7) ibm somehow gets involved: nt also has an OS/2 subsystem. someone gets terribly embarrassed that NT uses ibm's OS/2 "HPFS" and orders that NT must have its own file system (esp. because HPFS doesn't support VAX/VMS security model) hence NTFS.]
8) DEC cottons on to what dave cutler is up to, especially when the VAX/VMS security model's interface turns up pretty much function-for-function in NT, and gets integrated properly into the NT Domain Services.
9) DEC gets paid $50m and mysteriously NT 3.51 gets ported to the DEC Alpha.
that's why NT runs on those lovely RISC processors: it was written in c and so was dead-easy to add other OSes.
not bad doing 2 weeks work and getting paid $50m.
Can someone explain why SCO sends people like Weiss & Dal's little brother to the plate when they're clinging to life? These people are wet farts. I would rather be defended by my grandmother in court, and she thinks she's a horse. Really. They just gave Boies millions & a stake in the company - where the uckfa is he?
And yes, I now this is not 100% on-topic. However I think the disappearance of a key figure is noteworthy (I would argue more so that SCO claiming ownership of IBMs work, as they are here).
Huh. Just how much of, say, Sun or HP sales are attributed to sales of their Unix? Can you argue that buying their hardware is driven by the desire to run their version of OS? And what about the services linked to the sales of that hardware?
Now - how does this argument hash out against HP's Linux business? And Sun's rather cautious approuch towards Linux?
It seems that all the players involved are in the same market. They're just attacking that market in different ways; variations of a theme.
Some of the files they mention were written by Torvalds 1991-1992; like linux/arch/i386/entry.S and linux/arch/i386/traps.c.
Daryl you suck. Not one line of SCO code is held up in evidence. Everything comes from AIX and Sequent code, and there's not much of it either. It seems that SCO thinks they own AIX as well as Linux. The free software revolution of GNU, Linux and BSD was not a plot to keep SCO from being able to sell an operating system. Microsoft proves every day that you can sell inferior code to the ignorant so long as you market it and provide anything at all. SCO is dying because it has been taken over by a bunch of morons that and the fact that free software is much much better at doing the job.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
If I were the CEO of all Linux development, I would see two choices here once the allegedly offending lines of code are known.
1. Leave the code as-is and litigation continues.
2. A few routines are rewritten, tested, debugged, and optimized, and litigation ends or becomes insignificant.
Option #2 is the obvious choice. The possible disadvantage is that this makes the community somewhat vulnerable to future potential litigants in that we would be presumed to go and rewrite 10,000 subroutines if they were alleged to infringe. But it doesn't make the community any more vulnerable to actual lawsuits because litigants pursue litigation if they are going to get something -- getting us to rewrite routines doesn't gain them anything.
Since the amount of work looks small, I'd rewrite it all to reduce risk to GNU/Linux users.
SCO's filing was 80% fluff and was filled with a lot of mistruth concerning the os marketplace. Looks like it comes down to one question: does SCO or IBM own JFS. The answer there is obvious. Regardless, SCOs bantering about wanting $600 per processor and the like are silly - most linux users don't use JFS anyway. At the end of the day we can expect more suits like this as Linux erodes the value of intellectual property. And it's important to remember that an idea is only valuable if it is a comparitively good idea... Had SCO continued to innovate, and adapt to the market there would be no reason to sue. Linux exists because Unix vendors screwed users for far too many years.
-- $G
However, they have thereby limited their current claims to these sections. And five beeeellion dollars.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Mc means son-of..
He's a son of a.... alright!
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
How does this make me a zealot?
I use FreeBSD, Windows, and OS X in addition to Linux.
If the many people who said Linux is not in violation and SCO is incorrect are right, then why should the kernel be patched? Legally, this can be used to bolster their argument against Linux.
Yeah, but SCO's way is the most innovative. Don't you think?
'2 points for being logged in
+1 karma bonus (can't seem to shake that no matter how abusive I get)
+1 runner-up "furriest post"
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
From the article, they are seeking:
"11. For all other legal and equitable relief deemed just and proper by this Court."
For wasting all of our (and the court's) time, maybe we'll get to see Darl roasting on a spit, with the fires licking his bum. Chris's punishment will be to stand by and baste him.
For people who commit such barratry, It would be ideal if the court could prescribe some sort of "litigious castration", sort of like we do with sex offenders, taking away your ability to sue anyone ever again.
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
In case you were wondering what kernel version 2.4.1-01 is and why the files/line numbers shown in the complaint are not there/all bogus: apply the RCU patch found here, bottom of page, to kernel 2.4.1.
Alex
Heisenberg may have been here
When we're done with the SCO, their language will only be spoken in Hell.
Humor from a Genetically Molested Mind
i have no access to the aix or dynix code, but let's take a look at some of these lines. i don't have the ibm patches and am too lazy to download them, but they are all header files of things you would expect to be exactly the same (like inode structures and such). but looking at the code below (and others i didn't bother to paste), i am hardly impressed with sco's claims.
[ cpu]);
sco claim:
dynix kernel/os/kern_clock.c 2028-2059
linux 2.4.1 arch/i386/kernel/apic.c 25-28, 662-664, 676-684
25-28:
#include <asm/smp.h>
#include <asm/mtrr.h>
#include <asm/mpspec.h>
662-664:
* useful with a profiling multiplier != 1
*/
if (!user)
676-684:
prof_counter[cpu] = prof_multiplier[cpu];
if (prof_counter[cpu] != prof_old_multiplier[cpu]) {
__setup_APIC_LVTT(calibration_result/prof_counter
prof_old_multiplier[cpu] = prof_counter[cpu];
}
#ifdef CONFIG_SMP
update_process_times(user);
#endif
Unless you count it being available from SCO's web and/or ftp site.
Somewhere at Groklaw (in this thread, IIRC) someone mentions that this code was indeed available from SCO under the GPL.
Wouldn't that just suck? ;-)
Furthermore, SCO has no copyrights to IBM's code (they only own copyright to their own code, that's why they can't force IBM to give it to them). Quoting copyright law: According to SCO: So perhaps it is possible that IBM violated the contract by not keeping any contributed source within the license scope, although did they not meet this condition by keeping the AIX derivative work to themselves? (The materials being the final derivative work that is AIX.) They are free to use their own copyrighted code wherever they please. Of course IANAL, so judge for yourself.
From SECOND AMENDED COMPLAINT
Blaming the demise of SCO on Linux is stupid. They were not moving forward. What really killed the horse drawn carriage was the motor vehicle changing the whole business. SCO blaming Linux for loss of biz is really having a big scratch through the garbage can. Linux is part of a *nix renesance that SCO is not contributing to, and IMHO, has no rights to.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Oh yeah, they're doomed. Bet all their execs are dumping stock right now. The IBM lawyers are just shaking in their boots.
So by my count, SCO's claimed has gone from millions of lines of code that Linux could absolutely not function without and would take years to replace to 456 lines of code? Are you kidding me? The $3 billion SCO is asking for over equates to over $6.5 million per line...
It is plain-as-day that IBM's adoption of Linux is yet another thrust/counter-thrust in the decades old struggle against Microsoft, especially now that they threaten the Enterprise market with increasingly robust NT 5.0 based system software (laugh if you want, but that's how you need to see it when painting the Big Picture).
By pushing the free OS, Big Blue can use it to sell consultancy, support and best of all, the leases on their fantastically expensive hardware, while at the same time undermining win2k based systems and harnessing the power of volunteering and crazed idealogue hobbyist developers.
It's a masterstroke strategy, where the payoffs easilly make up for the $Billion Dollar outlay and there are beau-coup bucks more to be saved by phasing out the proprietary UNIX development.
And quite apart from that, IBM *made* x86 processors. Remember the "Blue Lightning"?
Anyone care to find out what Darl's name means? Click here.
I think his parents might be behind this!
Uh - I just look at some of the "similarity". They look like declaration
;) ;) :) :)
Hey, I'm going to copyright a few of my wild and crazy decl tomorrow
In fact, anyone worried about SCO's claims on Linux would merely be acting in "good faith" by removing allegedly infringing lines from the kernel. Courts assume that anyone acting to mitigate damages (whether real or imagined) is acting in good faith and scores bonus points.
Parties (including plaintiffs) that do not try to mitigate damages are generally held in disdain. Just remember: the judicial system is lazy and doesn't *really* want to hear your case. They want you to work it out. If you can't work it out, they are even too lazy to determine fault and usually just split the difference ('equity' law).
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
how exactly are they competitors, if one sells product and the other sells service?
When a post becomes too insightful, it often becomes funny.
IBM with big cigars!
SCO who can't think!
The lawyers who won't leave this alone!
Patch then CVS re-sync!
---
Burning some karma but I don't care...
"Bah!" - Dogbert
Head on over to GrokLaw
They are converting all the documents to HTML and searchable text as we speak.
Save a Life. Donate Blood. Please.
isnt that what they're calling perjery in the US now?
.. might describe how wrong darl et al are here...
:)
SCO Lawyer: "Hello, what is your experience with computers, sir?"
Prospective Juror: "Well, I have a masters in Computer Engineering..."
SCO Lawyer: "...Sorry, sir, thankyou for your time. Goodbuy."
SCO Lawyer: "Hello, what is your experience with computers, maam?"
Prospective Juror: "Well, I am in charge of keeping the office server running..."
SCO Lawyer: "...Sorry, maam, thankyou for your time. Goodbuy."
SCO Lawyer: "Hello, what is your experience with computers, maam?"
Prospective Juror: "Well, I use one to create reports..."
SCO Lawyer: "...Sorry, maam, thankyou for your time. Goodbuy."
SCO Lawyer: "Hello, what is your experience with computers, sir?"
Prospective Juror: "Camputersh? Oh, you mean the Gateway? I guess their ok. That Mine Sweeper game sure is fun!"
SCO Lawyer: "Thankyou sir, one more question: What is your experience with the web?"
Prospective Juror: "Wha... Oh, you mean Internet Explorer (TM)? Don't use it much 'cause I got AOL (TM). I guess it's ok. I got this eeh-mail from this nice Nigerian man the other day..."
SCO Lawyer: "*DING*DING*DING* We have a winner!"
Two lines here, five lines there.... at this rate SCO/Caldera could claim that any software anywhere is "derived from UNIX" if this is the basis of their claims.
I'm relieved that they finally relented and showed the code, now the process can begin either way.
Without seeing Dynix's or AIX's code base you can't be sure if they mean that the code has similar function or is an exact copy since in some cases they map 1 line of Dynix code to 5 or more Linux lines of code.
As an experienced professional, I'm sure anyone can agree that similar function sometimes dictates similar structure in the code.
This just shows how desperate they really were at the outset.
GJC
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
I am still surprised no one has started a fork of the Linux kernel from a safe version. Just think, "SCO Free Since '93!"
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
You say that in jest, but Daniel Lyons of Forbes has been known to quote random people from blogs as sources for his stories.
Honestly, were I his editor, I would have fired him after that. Investigative journalism it was not. This gives me very serious misgivings about trusting anything Forbes says, because I cannot imagine how that story could have slipped past even the most minimal editorial review...
It seemed rather apropos, yet disturbing, that that article was meant to be an attack on the credibility of Groklaw, after PJ of Groklaw chided him for accepting SCO's statements without any apparent research, as he had not done even the most minimal fact-checking.
I would be willing to bet that he is glad that I am not his boss... To anyone from Forbes reading this: I value research more than oppinion. And yes, I do mention your failures to anyone I know who might even think of subscribing.
Worst reporter ever. (Maybe seeing his face on Google image search for that would make his day?)
"Litigous Bastards"
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
Is SCO guilty of knowingly makinging false claims (ie. that they were being violated by IBM) in order to prop up their stock price?
Martha Stewart's case is based exactly on this (that she made false claims that she didn't engage in insider trading so that her own company's stock, Martha Stewart, wouldn't go down).
I'm aware of Veritas and it's fair to mention it. I tried to avoid complicating my argument by explicitly bringing it up, since it's not relevant.
What I meant by the sentence I said, "If any version of AT&T Unix/Unixware that shipped to people like IBM included journal filesystems or volume management"... was that the AT&T System V Release 3/4/5 licensees (like IBM) didn't get (journalling/volume management/etc) as part of their SVR license.
I should have said "SVR licensees" rather than "people like IBM." (In that sense "every version of UnixWare has " *not* "shipped with Veritas," right?) Anyway, I recognize what you mean, and I hope you recognize what I meant, at least now that I've clarified it.
Related to this, think about what SCO is claiming... if IBM's JFS is a derivative work, then so is Veritas... and if SCO owns or controls the Veritas copyright, why is SCO paying Veritas for the privelege?
It's crazy logic.
--LP
# replace } with ??> which is the ansi c trigraph equivalent /usr/src/kernel -type f -exec perl -p -i~ -e 's.}.??>.g' {} \;
find
[
This is actual useful information compared to the crap that points to official released linux source.
Should the code be replaced? Could replacing the code be seen as an admission of guilt or at least evidence in that direction?
Yes, they are sore. Very sore.
This entire suit might make more sense if you realize that it is based on revenge. Yes, money is a factor (they have to cover their respective behinds!) but they have long been mad at IBM over that Monteray project...
Looking at it that way, some of their actions make a bit more sense. Well, as much sense as can be expected from a company like SCO, at least...
Official court transcript, as transcribed by an IM-addled 14-year-old script kiddie:
IBM: WTF?
SCO: All ur L1nux r b3long 2 us!
IBM: No f'n way!
SCO: Hearz the sh*t.
IBM: No way, d00dz. That code iz old-skool.
Jugde: SC0, 6et the fsck outta hear!
"In a 32-bit world, you're a 2-bit user. You've got your own newsgroup, alt.total.loser." -Weird Al
The SCO filing says something like "here's these couple dozen short patches of directly copied code, and discovery on IBM's AIX codebase will show millions more". This filing isn't trying to prove there's enough infringement that damages can be collected. All it's trying to show is that there's the faintest glimmer of evidence that even the slightest infringement occurred, in order to get further discovery and delay the case some more. IOW it's yet another attempt to circumvent the judge's order to show with specificity where all the infringement is.
Header files are not copyright-able,
they are just interfaces.
I worked for MS, and I know that.
SCO can not claim POSIX because IEEE came up with it
Somebody should tell Darl about Google.
SCO's ftp site was distributing 2.4.13, last time I checked - and the allegedly infringing code is in
2.2.12, 2.4.1-01, and "2.4.x". So the
2.2.12 and 2.4.1-01 sections are covered by the GPL because they distributed it that way, and "2.4.x" might be, depending on which values of X are 13.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Wow, its amazing to see what total crap people can spout off and get modded up
If you are trying to argue to a judge that your code does not contain any stolen code, then SCO points out the alleged lines of stolen code and then as a result, you go changing it, you will have some serious explaining to do to the judge.
I don't mean to be arrogant here, but I'm a lawyer and you do not appear to be, so please don't go around giving legal advice to people who might think its correct.
This sounds all too eerily similiar to Microsoft's Linux FUD from a few years ago.
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
It all makes sense now. Read the transcript, and SCO details how if it wasn't for those pesky Linux kids snooping around that the SCO Project Monterey would have been the premiere Unix on Intel hardware. So, they find a patsy (IBM) to blame that Linux somehow unfairly ate their lunch.
Well SCO, goes to show...sometimes you don't win the prize, and whining about it isn't going to help.
Contrary to popular belief, life is not a bitch. It is far far worse.
given any thought to what a useful resource all of your collective analysis might be to those who submitted the latest arguments- Such insight has already generated some new ideas for the team.
I am pounding Darls head on the table, saying
"The concept of 'no free lunch' only applies to scarce resources, not to truly abundant ones like computer software!".
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
n/t
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
Okay as I sit here and contemplate the effects of this development an urge to tell you all about my experience with the penguin develops.
At first it was innocent enough. I had heard the rumors and decided to try out Linux. This was during the heady, economically rewarding period of the mid 1990's. I has heard all the rumors. You know like "you invite the penguins over and they never leave." That kind of thing, but I thought I knew it all. I thought I was a big shot. With smug self-assuredness I turned the penguins loose. I set them free. My mighty Celeron screamed in anticipation of processor cycle efficiency and its dreams of speed increases were not denied. I became one with the Penguista and was instantly and effectively addicted. I tried to statisfy my addiction with new kernels. Upgrades. New flavours. Soon work suffered as did my sex life. Like an adle-brained heroine junkie my minds pleasure receptors were spoiled by the taste of the true good stuff. No longer satisfied by binaries and closed source I became a slave of the very thing that set me free. Lately insolent, addicited and enslaved, I realize that I am a shell of the man I once was. I have lost my freedom. The Penguista have commandeered my fate. Darl. Simply so you will understand. I want my soul back. I want my freedom back Darl. Darl, the Unix doesnt like you and the Penguista frankly think you are undeserving their respect. I need help Darl. I need help now Darl. Darl, for once do some good and plead with Penguista for mercy. They can offer judicialjurisprudence in certain situations as I am sure you know. But i will say one thing Mr. McBride, if you win and get your billions I am gonna sue you for the damages Linux has casued me!
"36 ...
All documents sufficient to show IBM's organizational and personnel
structure, including but not limited to organizational charts, flow charts and
personnel directories.
40
All documents concerning IBM's use of Intel processors prior to January 1,
1998.
41
All documents concerning IBM's use of Intel processors after January 1,
1998. "
If 36 isn't enough paperwork to kill the rest of the trees on the planet (no timeframes), 40 & 41 should do it.
The Singularity is closer than you think
Quant
(I guess
(everybody
(has to) (switch to)
LISP))
I laughed out loud when I read that - not because Zero Wing is funny anymore, but because people assume that everyone understands this phrase now and even use it in a serious discussion.
It always amazes me how quickly the Internet can change things - even the language we speak!
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
If they are free to use their own copyrighted code wherever they please, as is a derivitive of the original, then anyway who makes derivitives of GPL code with their own contributions are free to do the same.
I'm only playing devils advocate here. Not trolling.
Thanks,
Shawn
Any code can be replaced.
If MS opened up its source to their kernel and fiel system, and user32 and such, I'll be you, if enough people wanted to implement it differently, it wouldn't take but a week to completely replace all that code, also (supposing enough people were involved that are involved in the Linux kernel development process).
How then is the MS code valuable?
You see, even DirectX, OpenGL, Crystal Space, PostGRE SQL, or OpenOffice can be re-written from scratch or from within if all we are doing is changing specific code for a specific reason.
The point is that all code *is* valuable to its owner. Even everything that Linus wrote can be replaced in a week if it was necessary. Does that make their code non-valuable? Nope.
It just means that once that cat is out of the bag and something needs to be changed, there are enough people that can do so. Whether the code is important or not. But it doesn't prove that the code isn't valuable just because of that. It just proves that someone else knows how to write that piece of code differently and quickly, even if they have never done so before.
Not trolling. Just playing devils advocate.
Thanks,
Me.
...I hope IBM sues the morons for all costs + a pound of flesh.
non-sequitor point but...
You know how all those JW's, SDAs and other fundamentalist "christians" think that 144,000 of them are being taken up in the "rapture" and the rest of us are being left being in "tribulation" or "hell"???
Well...
Everybody should spend a few moments messing around with Sumerian and Babylonian base 60 math.
6*6*6 == 216
144,000 / 216 == 666.66666...
144,000 / 666 == 216.216216216...
height of great pyramid 280 cubits
base of great pyramid 440 cubits
280 in base 60 == 440
LCD of 60 and 365 is 4380.
4380 in base 60 is 01 13 00
hum-dee-dum-dee-dum
teenage boys 5000 years ago new more than most of these game-boy playing "hackers" will ever know in a life time. So sad.
tin-foil-hat boy
Sincerely yours,
JSMS III
p.s.
if you think the above is all nonsense then, oh well, too bad, so sad, abandon all hope...
p.p.s
dig a little harder. google for "plimpton 322" and "ybc 7289"
Its also a false predication in that IBM is supposedly responsible for making Linux free. Because it couldn't be possible that IBM recognized a "successful" development community and positioned itself to gain financially by becoming an early adopter. Of course it's only slightly more amusing that SCO themselves tried to capitalize on "free" software... but failed.
The entire court filing is full of this type of crap.
-- No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats, approximately one billion Chinese couldn't care less.
I know that stuff, just the wording of that paragraph in the ammended complaint seems to imply that without IBMs contributions linux somehow wouldn't be free.. that they (IBM) made it free the way MS made Internet Explorer free. just to destroy a market.
No, they are free to use their own copyrighted code wherever they please, subject to the terms of a contract that they signed prior to writing that code in which they agreed to limitations on those uses. The contract appears to allow them to use the code in binary form in any of their own products. But it also says that they can't reveal the methods (eg, source code) without AT&T's (now SCO's) permission. There's an addendum to the contract that appears to provide them with a way out of that part of the agreement. One interesting part of the case will be those bits that came from Dynix; they were developed under a contract like the one IBM signed, but without the addendum; when IBM bought those bits, they probably can't bring them under the IBM addendum.
IBM really needs to have this case play out all the way, in order to establish once and for all what portions of their work the contract applies to. SCO's betting a real long shot here, and there's no way IBM can be found liable for $5B in damages to SCO, but it needs to get settled.
This isn't actually what they are claiming to be infringing. Because they are claiming the infringement is 2.4.1-01, this is in reference to the RCU patch against 2.4.1. Available here http://lse.sourceforge.net/locking/rcu/patches/rcl ock-2.4.1-01.patch
/*
/*
diff -u --recursive --new-file 2.4.1/arch/i386/kernel/apic.c v2.4.1-rc/arch/i386/kernel/apic.c
--- 2.4.1/arch/i386/kernel/apic.c Wed Dec 6 02:13:48 2000
+++ v2.4.1-rc/arch/i386/kernel/apic.c Tue Feb 20 16:46:33 2001
@@ -22,6 +22,11 @@
#include <linux/interrupt.h>
#include <linux/mc146818rtc.h>
#include <linux/kernel_stat.h>
+#ifdef CONFIG_RCLOCK
+#include <linux/sched.h>
+#include <linux/rclock.h>
+#endif
+
#include <asm/smp.h>
#include <asm/mtrr.h>
@@ -654,6 +659,10 @@
{
int user = user_mode(regs);
int cpu = smp_processor_id();
+#ifdef CONFIG_RCLOCK
+ int cpunum = cpu_number_map(cpu);
+#endif
+
* The profiling function is SMP safe. (nothing can mess
@@ -663,6 +672,17 @@
*/
if (!user)
x86_do_profile(regs->eip);
+
+#ifdef CONFIG_RCLOCK
+ if (((RC_PLOCAL_rclockcurlist(cpunum) != NULL) &&
+ RC_GEN_LT(RC_PLOCAL_rclockgen(cpunum), rc_ctrlblk.curgen)) ||
+ (RC_PLOCAL_rclockcurlist(cpunum) == NULL &&
+ RC_PLOCAL_rclocknxtlist(cpunum) != NULL) ||
+ test_bit(cpunum, &rc_ctrlblk.needctxtmask) ||
+ ((jiffies - rc_ctrlblk.clock) > RCLOCK_STALL_WARN))
+ rc_chk_callbacks(user || (current == init_tasks[cpunum]));
+#endif
+
if (--prof_counter[cpu] <= 0) {
Don't forget Daniel Lyons' (Forbes Magazine) big bold prediction (from here):
SCO Group will settle its lawsuit against IBM. Both sides will declare victory. The Linux community will turn on IBM.
The only surprise here is that someone (Forbes) pays Dan to write this stuff (apparently the New York Times's fantasy journalism team was all filled up). Dan goes on to point out that Linux and VoIP technologies are no different than Pets.com and other marketing fluff:
technologies like Linux and voiceover-IP still involves this crazy notion that companies can make money by giving things away.
This is like Dan calling electricity a "crazy notion" because he listened to some fly-by-night business scheme involving electrical current. Looks like Forbes is got some fat to trim.
*scoove*
In order to understand SCOs theories, one must first understand the theory of cooties. Cooties are invisible ickies that can be transmitted, usually by touch, but often by mere association.
Under the Cootie theory of copyright and trade secret law, Linux looks like Unix, so now Linux has cooties. IBM touched Unix, thus giving cooties to AIX. JFS acquired cooties when it was ported to AIX, even though JFS didn't have cooties when it was originally developed. Thus, Linux has cooties because it has AIX's cooties which AIX got from staring cross-eyed at Unix. Linux has the same header lines as Unix, therefore Linux has Unix cooties. In conclusion, anyone touching Linux will get cooties and owe a cootie tax to SCO, which will soon have more money than Scrooge McDuck.
For more information, see "Everything I needed to know about intellectual property law I learned on the elementary school playground.", by Darl McBride.
If I understand you correctly, I would rephrase it like this:
All GPL developers maintain the copyright to their own code, and they are free to re-release it under any other license that they will. Of course once their code is in the (GPL'd) source, they can't revoke what they have put under the GPL, although they still maintain their original copyright, and can do whatever else they would like with it.
So, it's down to breach of contract with IBM, also a dubious claim. How about all that other hoopla? How about threatening to extract fees from Linux users? If these barrators go unpunished, I think we need a list of all the perpetrators, so we can remind potential employers that these are not the kind of senior management you want in your company.
Fred
"A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
-RMS
hmm. guess i should've used a sarcasm tag when posting that.
All you that had your jobs shipped out from under you to India, Forbes thinks you're dead wood. Talk about kicking someone when they're down.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Lewis A. Mettler, Esq. sums up SCO's legal adventure as:
This crap borders on legal malpractice. It is certainly bad practice.
Well put I would say, who says lawyers are obtuse.
78. However, as is widely reported and as IBM executives knew, or should have known, a significant flaw of Linux is the inability and/or unwillingness of the Linux process manager, Linus Torvalds, to identify the intellectual property origins of contributed source code that comes in from those many different software developers. If source code is code copied from protected UNIX code, there is no way for Linus Torvalds to identify that fact.
I think the whole thing is about to come into a big pissing match. I can't wait to watch the stock prices on Monday. Good thing I work late and can watch the stocks live for a bit before leaving for work.
harryk
think before you write, it'll save me moderator points.
Lines 30-33:
/* /* CONFIG_RCLOCK */
#ifdef CONFIG_RCLOCK
#include <linux/rclock.h>
#include <linux/kmemdef.h>
#endif
Lines 609-616:
#ifdef CONFIG_RCLOCK
* RCLOCK subsystem is initialized right after SMP initialization.
* This allows RC to use online cpu maps and other SMP info.
*/
rc_init();
kmemd_init();
#endif
That's right, 2 function calls, 2 #includes, 2 #ifdef's, and 4 lines of comments.
Oh my god, the rampant theft of code.
This is from the Linux Scalability Project from sourceforge.net. The code appears to have completely been redone in 2.6.x.
Also, I was browsing some of the RCU links, and discovered this interesting stuff from IBM: http://www.research.ibm.com/K42/#open_source.
One of the guidelines when determining copyright infringment is how essential the copied works are to the alleged infringing work - if it's a minor detail, for example, and can be removed without changing the nature of the work or (in the case of software) without unduly affecting the operation then it's much harder to claim any sort of damages or compensation for the infringment, and much easier to make a claim of fair use. The speed and ease with which the code could be replaced might very well influence the judges opinion - note that SCO attempted to address this when it listed the files, saying that the code couldn't be easily removed or altered even though the actual number of lines was small (less than 1% of the kernel even by a very generous estimate).
I had thought about that. But ya know - SCO isn't after the same market. They don't sell hardware. They don't sell service. And it seems that they've all but given up on selling an OS. Heck. I'm not sure they actually DO sell anything.
But they're sure trying to peddle something.
Originally, OS/2 was a joint project between M$ and IBM; I still remember the lawsuits and all.
Then NT development started; Seems like the first release after the split was OS/2 2.1 or close to it;
Antone ever see NT 2.xx? I have 3.0, 3.5, and 4, but don't remember anything before that. I beleive that was before the split.
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
From Day One of the SCO legal shenanigans, people have been noticing simularities between Microsoft's anti-Linux FUD and SCO's statements. The obvious conclusion has been that Microsoft was either coaching or directing SCO's campaign ("licensing fees" from Microsoft helped advance this theory). While this is certainly a possibility, I think there is a better explanation.
SCO simply took a cue from Microsoft's playbook. Much of what Microsoft states (and SCO claims) resonates with various IT and business types. These folks either dislike the culture around Linux, are threatened ideologically or financially by the adoption of Linux, or simply do not understand it (or a combination thereof). SCO fits one or more of these.
SCO reads Microsoft's latest marketing. It rings true. Not only does it ring true, but it falls in line with a strategy they (while Caldera) had been working on. Or more accurately - it transforms the strategy from a product offering to an aggressive play for control.
So Darl, worried that IBM is going to put you out of business? I have news for you. The jounaling file system was developed at IBM, for IBM, for use in IBM products. I think you're still pissed off that IBM decided not to finish work on the Monteray project. They felt it would flop in the marketplace, which Itanium has, and decided to pursue more profitable interests that did not include you or your company. I wonder if you have/will go after SGI because they also have a type of journaling file system available on the x86 platform. What about Be, Inc.? Even though they're already a dead company, many of those guys were Unix guys and developed a JFS for both PPC and x86.
One of the main goals in business, even if its not always thought of initially, is to put the competition, you, out of business while trying to make a profit. (And there are far too many example to list.) In case you haven't noticed, business models are subject to change by these things called market forces. You must have fallen asleep that day in Marketing 101 and/or Economics 101. There are only two things in the US that are certain, and this sounds so cliche, death and taxes, but its true. Its unfortunate that under your leadership, your company has become a legal firm and not a computer company. I would wish you luck, but you are a great example of many wrongs in this world. So I hope your company goes belly up, then the Wall Street hounds are released upon you.
Amigori
"The quality of life is determined by its activites."--Aristotle
When we put source code into the Open Source community, the code we are putting in there, we have clearly patent clearence for in the sense we know what we put out in the Open Source community so we don't claim own patents on anyway. Our patents clearence process makes sure we are not infringing the patents of anybody else. We are doing it with our proprietary code, so we are fine.
What is wrong about this distribution, is basically the millions of lines of code that we never have seen. We don't know if there are any patent infringments [in this code] with somebody we don't know. We don't want to take the risk of being sued for a patent infringement. That is why we don't do distributions, and that's why we have distributors. Because distributors are not so much exposed [to being sued] as we are. So that's the basic deal as I understand it.
Karl-Heinz Strassemeyer, IBM
Excerpt from an interview by SSLUG, Denmark
Say I write a device driver for Linux. Thats a kernel module, so it needs to be GPLed as it links to the kernel (assume for the sake of argument that Linus never said binary modules were okay). This device driver is for some funky driver that I make, say a video card. The linux device driver is released under the GPL, as is my obligation under the license on the kernel. However, the copyright on that implementation remains my own, and I can port it to BSD and release it as a binary module under whatever license I want if I feel like it. I can even port it to Windows and package it up with a nice pretty EULA that forbids benchmarking. YES, the implementation of JFS on AIX is part of AIX, and since AIX is a derivitive of SysV they can't give it away [this is actually arguable and depends on a certain legal view of derived works that is by no means guaranteed]. That doesn't mean that JFS can't be ported to Linux (or any other operating sytem) - IBM owns the copyright on AIX.
BTW. I am not Celt, I am Russian. But there are a lot of colorful Gaelic curses - and I wonder that nobody addresses them to Mr. McBride.
God, I am so glad I bought SCOX short. Money money money....MONEY...
cheers- raga
Because McBride is a bad Anglicization of the Gaelic Bridget...another example, my last name in Gaelic is McSamhain...and how they got McGovern (and McGowan, and McGauron, etc.) out of that one Gaelic last name is a wonder to me... Maybe when I learn Gaelic I will have an idea about this...
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
I'd consider myself one of the unwashed hordes...been involved with computers since my first computer, an Apple II....Seen MS do every dirty trick in the book and even invent some new ones....
I pretty much wanna see them finished.....and I think IBM's strategy is pretty good... I'd like to see MS get treated the same way IBM did with OS/2..... Simply, "outmanuvered and under-gunned." The world will not shed any tears for the downfall of MS, don't start playing them as the victim of some "hostile" plot by IBM. All business is "hostile".....
The enemy of MY enemy is my friend.....that's pretty much exactly how I see it right now.... If IBM can destroy MS by contributing to Linux, GOOD!
I think the argument SCO is making is so hard to understand because is it an inverse version of the GPL. GPL: Here is code. Use it for whatever you want to do with it, FOR FREE (as in beer). BUT, if you want to distribute what you have done, you must redistribute under this same license, making a source version available to your licensee. ANTI-GPL: Here is code. Use it for whatever you want to do with it, for A LICENSE FEE. BUT, if you want to distribute what you have done, you must only redistribute it in binary form. Any other methods of distribution are subject to breach of contract.
GPL: Here is code. Use it for whatever you want to do with it, FOR FREE (as in beer). BUT, if you want to distribute what you have done, you must redistribute under this same license, making a source version available to your licensee.
ANTI-GPL: Here is code. Use it for whatever you want to do with it, for A LICENSE FEE. BUT, if you want to distribute what you have done, you must only redistribute it in binary form. Any other methods of distribution are subject to breach of contract.
Damn HTML preview.
After perusing the PDF and looking at their quoted examples of infringement, I noticed something. Practically everything they quote is part of some outside patch, which isn't in the mainline kernel at all. It really seems like they're reaching, if their "examples" are legitimate at all. Even that remains to be seen. I'll be watching intently - hopefully either PJ from Groklaw, or Bruce Perens, or someone will have a good analysis soon of the claimed infringement.
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
At one Science Fiction convention, they listed their head of security as "Ed Gooberman"! Very funny if you have heard the Ta Kwan Leap skit! Rick Green, one of the crazies behind the Red Green show was a member of the Frantics Comedy troop.
Check out The Frantics, the offical web site.
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
That would be F41LUR. Your version says "feightlur".
If it offends you, I can post it as AC next time. It would be kind of appropriate, given that the original was anonymous too.
I didn't do that today because so many whining poor-spirited losers hide behind nonentity and I don't want to encourage any whining, losers or hit-and-run posts.
I don't care about my karma, it's not been under 48 points in several years. I would say "behold, the corrosive effect of a karma cap" except that if the cap wasn't there I'd be uncaring because I'd have several thousand points up and it would again be next to meaningless (except in "karma racing" events). Even if my karma sucked, I wouldn't care unless is made my posts invisible. Perhaps the slashlords might want to take that to heart and rejigger the kerma system so that it remains meaningful?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
they use bitkeeper afaik
...which means that the offending code must have been written in whitespace
Soylent Green is peoplicious!
Regardless of wether or not they develop for fun or profit (or both), it doesn't mean that they don't have access to enterprise-scale equipment and testing facilities. Moreover, the millions of people who use Linux daily make for far better Quality Assurance teams than most commercial QA houses. And IBM didn't need to bring their people into the mix to jumpstart the industry. RedHat (a company with no exposure to proprietary SYS V UNIX code) had already started doing that.
If you consider how many people worked on Linux as a software development team, you have the worlds largest development team. If SCO is trying to make the claim that the world's largest development team can't produce enterprise quality code, then why was SCO selling it as enterprise quality code before they discovered that IBM had added features that IBM had given to AIX?
...its about money & politics.
SCO's case is stronger than the linux community admits. I have seen similar cases with substantially less evidence win. [SCO has agreements and licenses directly and indirectly with IBM, and it has a source base to make claims from].
Judges and juries are not technical and therefore must listen to experts. SCO's experts will do their best because they have a bone to pick, IBMs may not simply because IBM is a huge emotionless corporation. The jury will makes its decision based on the passion and acting ability of the presenters, and so its a coin toss, not a shoe in.
My guess is that what will actually happen is: IBM will settle with SCO, possibly drop out of linux development, and the linux community will take a big black eye.
Is the linux community prepared for this eventuality?
#1: It's "knew", not "new".
#2: WTF is "01 13 00" supposed to be? A date? What's its significance?
#3: What does 144,000 have to do with the pyramids?
#4: What does any of this have to do with anything else in this thread?
for (int c=0;cMAX_BUFF;c++) {
That line was copied DIRECTLY from MY code!
then the rest of it looks like clock stuff
rclock.c has nothing to do with clocks. It implements Read-Copy-update LOCKs, of which there doesn't appear to be any mention in eg. 2.4.23
AIX isn't called Unix for a reason. In the early days at least, it was almost 70% S5 UNIX incompatible being mostly a BSD offshoot, but from the outside at least, having a kernel that looked like none of the above (I never saw kernel source, but saw enough headers to say this was something different). And you are right, AIX started on the PS/2 - an x86 architecture box. PowerPC came much later.
...darl and his droogies doing prison terms on criminal insider trading and stock fraud charges...
01 13 00 is the base 10 representation of three base 60 digits. (Calculating in different bases is pretty interesting stuff, but not the way the parent did it.)
He was just messing with you. Got you to reply too. It wasn't meant to mean anything.
Stuff from the PDF file:
.
"These restrictions on the use and distribution of UNIX are designed
to protect the economic value of UNIX."
"unauthorized derivatives of UNIX System V"
"the Windows operating system was designed to operate on
computer processors "chips") built by Intel."
"Thus, most versions of UNIX will not operate on Intel-based PC's
for desktop computing; and windows will not operate
on RISC-based worksations for enterprise computing."
"Carrier-class"
"India"
"1 billion dollars"
RISC processors versus CISC processor.
okay so the SCO code has a function "print"
and Linux has a function called "print" but the assembler code
for both functions are complitely different since they
run on different kindda processors
so are they talking C-source code or Assembler source code?
which impossibly can be the same ("chip architecture").
no idea. itt just stinks like a ton of
money for something 40 years old.
by the way can somebody explain POSIX to me?
..and here is the prove.
D'ohl wants to bottle and sell Linux the same way others bottle and sell water. What he hasn't figured out is that people buy the bottled water because they perceive it as being better than water falling out of the sky or pumped out of the ground for fifty cents a kilolitre. D'ohl forgot to add any value to his bottling process, so now he wants to fix that by forcing the world to buy either his bottles or someone else's.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
I've seen video footage of you lot kicking aside the ice floes so you can go for a dip. Give me a nice, dry, toasty 300K day - any day. (-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
How on earth could the linux developers know it's stolen if they can't see the original?????
If IBM is guilty THEY SHOULD BE PUNISHED. In the linux community we do work. We don't steal code. If IBM stole code and put it in the linux kernel to seem like a "good company" to the open source world, they suck.
I don't see why we should defend IBM and fight SCO. If that's an IBM vs. SCO thing, may the one who is right win. In this case it's SCO, but it'll probably lose because they can't stand against IBM lawyers.
My brain generated an image of the most bizarre Richard Stallman / Steve Jobs cross when I read that...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
there's no way IBM can be found liable for $5B in damages to SCO
An interesting Groklaw post a while back made the point that SCO is claiming $5B worth of damages from IBM's use of a ~$30M asset, which is what Caldera reportedly purchased the Unix rights for (from the original SCO). Original SCO reportedly purchased the rights from Novell for around $100M.
From a purely financial point of view, one of the following has to be true:
While old SCO is an unknown quantity to financial analysts, and Novell is well known to have made some stupid moves in terms of acquisitions and sales, any reasonable analyst would go for option three since option one is unlikely under the "nobody is *that* stupid" principle, and option two is patently ridiculous.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
There are simple inaccuracies throughout the entire document:
There are two things very wrong with the above. First, SCO implied that Linux is a clone of UNIX, and totally ignored the publicly, and widely known fact that Linus started his work from Minix, another UNIX like operating system developed independent of the AT&T UNIX code base. Second, the use of the phrasing "inability and/or unwillingness" are inflammatory, meant to convey an inept, and possibly hostile, Linus Torvalds image to the reader, to support the claimed predatory action.
Furthermore, they claim that hobbyists could not make Linux into an enterprise operating system without IBM because the hobbyists lacked the hardware necessary to do so. This completely ignores the early involvement of Digital Equipment Corporation who donated workstation and server equipment to Linus Torvalds in order to help grow Linux.
...especially since the vast majority of it didn't go into the mainstream kernel anyway, and if every line of it had, that's what? One sixty-thousandth by weight, or 0.0016%.
This is also disregarding TSG's habit of using one word, or one more or less inevitable process, as evidence of copying everywhere.
The other problem they have is that we don't want to use their code, don't need to use their code, we have a significant aversion to anything involving TSG, so even if it's not theirs (true in every case so far examined) you can expect it to all be replaced within days.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
It's kind of like if some raving street person came up to you and started screaming that you've been stealing their thoughts. The best thing to do is to apologize and promise you will never do it again. Third parties will usually understand that you are doing this to make the street person go away, and not actually admitting to stealing their thoughts.
This is not my sandwich.
Now let us assume that in some form of contract, IBM has agreed to not distribute that code. But that doesn't make it a copyright claim, it makes it a contract claim. In the absence of a contract, there's no doubt that IBM wrote it, and so there is no copyright claim.
The only way SCO could make a copyright claim is if they claim that the Unix licence would assign copyright over JFS, RCU etc. to SCO - as if anything used in a Unix derivate would be considered a work-for-hire for SCO. And while there may be many licencees, there can only be one entity (person, corporation, organization) owning the copyright, as far as I know. So they're claiming IBM doesn't own the copyright.
Under those wonderful terms, you can not even use BSD licenced code together with SCO IP. Because by creating a derivative work of BSD and SCO IP, no licence would suffice - you would have to assign copyright to SCO. Their "viral licence" is like the Black Plague compared to a light cold from the GPL.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Didn't that used to be Caldera's business model?
I imagine an outcome of this litigation would be a GPL specific addendum to copyright law. I find it hard to believe that the Republican Party would not change copyright legislation at the request of the combined efforts of IBM, Sun, Dell, etc. Once they get that open source code allows for greater diversity, and thus, stronger markets, in computer hardware, they will do it. Plus, even though California might go anti-GPL, Texas, Florida, New York, Massachussets (sp?) and Pennsylvania delegations would probably go pro GPL because of either heavy hardware or consulting presences.
There will probably be some text you will be able to mark your IP with, and it will look mostly like the GPL is today, and, there will probably be a federal repository for it.
It might not actually be a bad idea to jump the gun and start lobbying for a federal GPL act.
This is my sig.
Maybe we can use this to our advantage. For example, with MSFT, pay $300 for a kernel worth $300. With linux, pay nothing for a kernel worth $$$$$.
If cost were a function of uptime, windows would be much cheaper than linux.
From my casual following of this, it seems the real claims are about "enterprise" features added to Linux (i.e., SMP and JFS). Certainly, without such features, Linux would not be a real threat in the enterprise. But a threat to who? Microsoft.
Yes, but they didn't make "Intel" processors. Obviously, that is by definition something that only Intel can do. Noticed how in the court filing wherever SCO means "x86" they wrote "Intel" instead?
Sig (appended to the end of comments I post, 54 chars)
Maybe you should rephrase this...
That doesn't seem accurate considering even Linus protects his copyrights around Linux. Otherwise the same would not be copyrighted by him.Albeit Linux wasn't copyrighted at the first. When someone else did copyright the name Linux, that squater's rights to it were challenged and Linus gained rightful controll over the same in which he has so great a stake.
Perhaps it is better to say that Linux is openning intellectual property up to being shared as opposed to being squirreled away solely for individual profit.
Which cases?
A few hundred lines of #include declarations in code that was not in the original code, whinny reclamations of the kind "IBM eat my cheese".
I think your interpretation of the word "stronger" is bizarre to say the least.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Yes, CVS (or bitkeeper in this case) make it possible to know who put it in the kernel tree.
However, this person is not necessarily the one that submitted the code. Only a limited number of people have write access to the bitkeeper server and the other submit patches to them.
And then, the person that submitted the patch is not necessarly the original author of the code.
There is code in Linux that originated at AT&T, became part of BSD, and was later ported to Linux.
So, just knowing who put it in the kernel is far from suffisent to find it's origin and decide if it is infringing or not.
BTW, others have said that all of this code has been submitted by IBM. And this brings us right back to the lawsuite.
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof for my post which this sig is too small to contain.
Quote from the link:
Question:
What is an IBM 486BL2 or 486BL3 (Blue Lightning) processor?
Answer:
It is an IBM-developed derivative of the Intel 486SX chip that comes in two "flavors": the clock-doubling 486BL2 and clock-tripling 486BL3.
An eye for an eye... leaves the whole world blind.
Has anyone in the core development team of Linux checked CVS to find out when and by whom the "offending" code was entered? I know SCO claims it to have been in 2000, but I'm skeptical of anything they say at this point.
Wouldn't it be ironic if some of the code quoted was implemented by someone unrelated to IBM? Or would it be on par with SCO's mishandling of this case (such as when they claimed the header files that Linus wrote)?
It might be interesting to find out exactly who was involved and when.
One thing that has been puzzling me about this whole thing is the trial (pardon the pun) and error procedures this litigation has gone through. It seems to me as if the SCO lawyers were testing the waters to determine what kind of case they could make and under what laws and conditions. Is this normal?
Seppuku: Your solution to my problems!
Caldera releases original unices under BSD license
Considering also that Caldera/SCO was a friggin' Linux distributor, these guys continue to have less and less of any case whatsoever.
LCD of 60 and 365 is 4380.
Either learn a little math (and analytical skills?) or quit quoting idiots with stupid claims.
mefus
In Open Society, GPL Software frees YOU!
Somebody should tell Darl about Google
;)
Someone did... now he's going to sue them for all those Linux boxen...
Had to open your mouth, huh?
---- It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again. It does this whenever it's told.
IBM-authored code is the stuff that I imagine to be easiest to remove JFS, it's utilities and Enterprise Volume Management System. It's also the stuff that is least likely to be part of System V because JFS was also used in OS2 warp as I understand it. Taking out the sequent code on the other hand will seriously hurt SMP, threads, performance on Intel single processors using hyperthreading and athlon-64/opterons.Of course I'm not a kernel developer or a lawyer so mileage may vary
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
The court's findings on details like that are trumped by Novell's instructions to The SCO Group to waive their claims against IBM. Any SCO wailing-and-gesticulation after that is kind of pointless, at least in legal terms.
IBM is free to donate whatever it pleases out of Dynix and AIX to whomever it pleases, as long as that code was not in the original System V codebase.
But... the original System V code is based on code which in the earlier USL-vs-BSD case was in the judge's opinion Public Domain, so even if code was copied from System V, there is still an obligation on SCO to prove that any copied bit wasn't in the Public Domain anyway, and that they didn't release it themselves.
The SCO Group really are seriously up the creek in a barbed-wire nowey sans paddle. And the counterclaims haven't been addressed yet.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing