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."

Comments

So look forward to the next patch

[James_Duncan8181]

The "Definitely untouchable 100% SCO free edition"...

2.2 Kernel?

[Pharmboy]

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...

Re:2.2 Kernel?

[Pharmboy]

For your information, as groklaw.net points out, SCO dropped contract claim and added copyright claim to case

I have read quite a bit of the filing, and it appears contract claims are not fully disappearing.

Quoting Groklaw:

5. This case is not about the debate about the relative merits of proprietary versus open source software. Nor is this case about IBM's right to develop and promote open source software if it decides to do so in furtherance of its independent business objectives, so long as it does so without SCO's proprietary information. This case is, and is only, about the right os SCO not to have its proprietary software misappropriated and misused in violation of its written agreements and well-settled law.

And its not over until its over. I don't know if you live in America, but as someone who worked in a law office doing paralegal and investigation, I can promise you this COULD still last a while, as far as the courts are concerned.

The judge *CAN* decide to wait until it is decided who owns the code (to potentially dismiss with prejudice). The judge can also decide to address that issue in his own court first. This is yet another contract dispute.

I agree that it doesn't look good for SCO, but it never did. They were not trying to win, they were trying to pump and dump, to inflate the stock price, and fight their way toward the door so they can take the money and run. But with the quirkiness of the courts, it still ain't over. I was being optimistic when I said this year...

Re:2.2 Kernel?

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree that it doesn't look good for SCO, but it never did. They were not trying to win, they were trying to pump and dump, to inflate the stock price, and fight their way toward the door so they can take the money and run. But with the quirkiness of the courts, it still ain't over. I was being optimistic when I said this year...

Watch the insiders exercising their options and selling their shares. These folks don't have any confidence in the future of their company. I don't know why only a handful of insiders are selling. It is possible that they are the ones for whom exercising recently vested options is the only way to get their money out. I suspect that Darl's compensation has some clauses in it concerning performance over several quarters. If he sells a pile of shares right now, he opens himself up to allegations of insider trading and the possibility that the share price will nose dive. He probably can't get all his money out by unloading shares a few at a time, so he's not even trying that approach.

Re:2.2 Kernel?

[Pharmboy]

But if SCO do win, now the code in question is known, all that has to happen is that the code is removed, and you can now switch to the new, improved version.

You're really only going to have problems if the code can't easily be re-written, and then, it's only going to affect more enterprise-level mulit-cpu boxes - You're probably still going to be fine.

Ok, to compare: Lets say I come and burn your house down, but I pay your cost for everything inside it. You are out nothing right? Wrong.

You are out the time it takes to recover, repurchase and deal with the problem. The same here. If I have to migrate over to another kernel, or another system, it costs alot of time and money. It is not free. I am not worried that I will not be able to use any OS, its just that it will require thousands of dollars in time to deal with it. So the costs are real.

My time has value. I charge a great deal for it. It is not free if I have to change to BSD, downgrade to kernel 2.2 (which is more than a simple rebuild, since some features require it) and its not free to have to spend time thinking about it either. Since my servers are not little game machines for Counter Strike, but rather are ecommerce and support machines for an enterprize, this costs the company money as well, since they have to spend resources to correct a problem, which also affects my profit sharing and override on sales.

So yes, it affects me quite directly, in spite of so many people trying to explain how it doesn't. Ironic coming from people who don't know me.

I predict

[GoofyBoy]

Patches for every single Linux distribution by the end of the week.

And it will include commented lines "*uck you, SCO"

Re:I predict

[Anonymous Coward]

The mailing list functions as more of a review process. When stuff is merged, it gets mailed directly to Linus. And he apparently can't produce e-mail archives -- they've asked, and he doesn't have them anymore.

Some developers may have used CVS, but Linus doesn't have access to any of that information, it's not "official", and it's probably tangental stuff anyway.

I dunno why this is shocking to you guys -- the "baazar" dev model of Linux is fairly well known. There's no record.

At the very least

[alan_dershowitz]

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.

Re:At the very least

[TrentC]

I'm not sending anyone a check for $699.

Don't worry, you couldn't even if you wanted to.

Jay (=

Say what?

[Pharmboy]

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.

Re:Say what?

[Pharmboy]

Your kernel has module support built in, meaning the actual kernel is less than 640k compressed, and it loads other parts of itself into upper memory. The 640k limit of x86 is still in full force. This is one reason Linux has module support, to allow a kernel larger than 640k when compressed. On all x86 systems, you must be able to load the kernel in the first 640k. after you boot that section, you can move code to any part of ram you want, but at first boot, it can only read the first 640k. Windows, DOS, OS/2, Linux, SCO, doesn't matter: its the hardware that has this limitation (hense the famous quote: 640k should be enough for anyone). Examples are modules for sound cards, video cards, etc. which are not needed at boot time so don't need to be loaded in the first 640k. Once the system initializes and can address memory beyond the first MB, then it can load those drivers/features.

For very specialized (and optimized) machines, I prefer a non modular kernel, with everything built in the primary kernel rather than as a module. Module support is smart for a desktop, and fine for servers, but I prefer a tighter kernel for dedicated tasks. It is a bit overkill perhaps, but my experience with non modular kernels is better than with them.

First, you don't need the code for loading modules in the kernel, which reduces the size of the kernel by itself. Second, everything you need to run the system is loaded at first boot, and you never need to ask the kernel to load or unload anything else, which would seem to me to be a better security model. It is also faster to build the kernel since you don't build any modules for anything else. (not that big a deal, since kernels build relatively fast on a good box anyway).

Its just a preference. When I build a box to be ONLY for DNS, for instance, there is no reason to have modules for USB, sound cards, video cards, etc. All it needs is just enough kernel to recognize the existing hardware and tcp/ip networking. This IS more secure (less likely to be affected by a new kernel bug, so you patch less often). Same reason I don't install X on any server. Just more useless software to patch, more potential security problems. If you don't absolutely need a program/feature on a server, then its a potential security problem that serves no purpose.

Again, it is just a preference.

It's long, but interesting.

[YouHaveSnail]

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)

Re:It's long, but interesting.

[Turmio]

- Linux developers are incapable of developing enterprise-grade software without stealing from SCO. (80, 81)
Yes, very interesting indeed. Perhaps they should take a look at arch/i386/kernel/smpboot.c file of any recent kernel:

/*
* x86 SMP booting functions
*
* (c) 1995 Alan Cox, Building #3 <alan@redhat.com>
* (c) 1998, 1999, 2000 Ingo Molnar <mingo@redhat.com>
*
* Much of the core SMP work is based on previous work by Thomas Radke, to
* whom a great many thanks are extended.
*
* Thanks to Intel for making available several different Pentium,
* Pentium Pro and Pentium-II/Xeon MP machines.
* Original development of Linux SMP code supported by Caldera.
*
* This code is released under the GNU General Public License version 2 or
* later.

Original development of Linux SMP code supported by Caldera. Damn those Linux hippies are outrageous people! First they steal from you and then they have the nerve to thank you. Bastards. Also repeated in an old SMP page by Alan Cox.

The claimed code

[Valar]

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."

MOD PARENT DOWN! NOT AT ALL FUNNY!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because it's anti-SCO doesn't mean it's in any way funny.

Rest Assured... it's all ok

[jeffkjo1]

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.

Which version will this be?

[gorehog]

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?

heh. Check out #87

[the_Speed_Bump]

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.

It is still full of false and fraudulent clames.

[arivanov]

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.

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.

Re:Reading the pdf... Like this line...

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

NT was designed at the start to be cross platform, they felt at the time they wanted not to be tied down to Intel chips. They designed it to a small HAL (hardware abstraction layer) which virtualized the processor and system resources and only more recently have they become x86 only. I forgot the first platform, I'm thinking the (RISC) Intel i960, but I'm not sure. At one time NT ran on ix86, PowerPC, MIPS, and Alpha. I do think #3 is no longer true though, They dropped support for all other chips a whle back; none of the other chips had the volume to justify further NT development.

Connections..

[-tji]

I just noticed that the first lawyer listed on this SCO document is "Brent O. Hatch", the son of Utah Senator Orrin Hatch.

No, very dangerous move

[SuperBanana]

Does this mean we can now replace those lines and let the air out of the SCO tires?

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.

As I AC'd on Groklaw: SCO cannot count

[fireman sam]

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.

A damp squib, again

[bheading]

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 ...

Re:A damp squib, again

[BiggerIsBetter]

EVMS wasn't actually accepted into Linux by Mr Tovalds. About the only place you'd find it was in SCO and United Linux kernels.

How it works...

[ackthpt]

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

So what exactly "IS" kernel 2.4.1-01?

[EMR]

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?

Just a thought and comment on this whole issue.

[Arimus]

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...

Dont be foolish linux-heads! Remove the code!

[rufusdufus]

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.

Re:Remove the code! What Code?

[EMR]

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();..
The biggest "chunk" was around a function that closed STDIN, STDOUT, and STDERR, and then opened the /dev/console for STDOUT.

Actually...

[saodl]

This is one of the most effective endorsements of Linux I have ever read.

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!

NT running on RISC processors: YEP!!!

[lkcl]

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.

What ever happened to David Boies?

[compactable]

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).

Re:Will Groklaw play a direct role?

[paitre]

Groklaw has already been cited as a source in at least one of IBM's briefs to Judge Wells.
So yeah, they're definately getting direct credit, and due :)

A rant of a Summary

[twitter]

They claim the usual stupid stuff. Linus was not able to check that contributor's code did not come from SCO's non published code, and amature coders could not possibly write anything good enough for "the enterprise", therfore all of Linux came from SCO. Never mind that journaling file systems and multi processing were never found in SCO Unix, they were in AIX, you see. They even stole the file names from IBM's AIX, inode.h, the dirty dogs! How dare they steal header files if they did! I count tens of lines of missaproriated deffinitions in table A alone. The shamelessness is amazing! It's like they adopted AIX as a general operating system for a non-IBM company! Every Linux user must pay for their use of AIX and now, damn tit! Tables B, C, and D are even more scandalous, even including a dozzen lines of supposedly infringing source from a real sourc file or two instead of a simple header. Everywhere, the innovative adoption of commonly know software techniques is claimed as more evidence of the gravity of IBM's supposed infractions. The document proves, better than I can, how well free sofware works.

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.

Re:code references in case groklaw get /.ed

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't even think about looking for this code in linux-2.4.x. Not a single line of any of the mentionened patches has been merged into linux-2.4.
You can find the code in these patches provided by IBM:

EVMS evms_aix.h
JFS ref/jfs_inode.h
RCU-2.4.1-01

Something remotely similar to the rcu patch was eventually merged into 2.5.43 and into United Linux. The EVMS header is used by the compatibility module for AIX partitions and is also in United Linux but nowhere in an official linux. The jfs inode header is not used anywhere, because it is the OS/2 file and was provided only for reference.

Good summary from a GrokLaw AC poster

[leonbrooks]

Said AC wrote:

These files and line numbers given are simply the files and lines which implement RCU, NUMA and JFS in Linux. All of them.

Although this APPEARS to be specific. It is of course not any more specific than what SCO already has claimed; I.e. that "RCU, NUMA and JFS are infringing".

SCO has yet to show how these infringe on SysV copyrights.

However, they have thereby limited their current claims to these sections. And five beeeellion dollars.

Re:Good summary from a GrokLaw AC poster

[wass]

However, they have thereby limited their current claims to these sections. And five beeeellion dollars.

Okay, I'm too lazy here on saturday nite. Has anybody done the math to figure out how much the entire linux kernel would be worth in SCO's ridiculous view?

They want $699 for these x number of lines of 'stolen' code. If linux kernel has y lines of code total, then the kernel should be worth (y/x)*699 dollars. What are x and y?

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 $$$$$.

Re:Good summary from a GrokLaw AC poster

[arkanes]

X is roughly 2000. Y is roughly 2,000,000. Therefore, the kernel is worth 699 * 1000 = roughly 700 thousand dollars.

Re:Good summary from a GrokLaw AC poster

[rveety]

Thats $700k per user, as per SCO. counter.li.org guesses there are 18 million Linux users, so the total value of the kernel is roughly $12,600,000,000,000. If Linus collected he could pay off the US national debt and live comfortably with $5 trillion left over!

a quick comparison.

[joe_bruin]

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.

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[ cpu]);
prof_old_multiplier[cpu] = prof_counter[cpu];
}

#ifdef CONFIG_SMP
update_process_times(user);
#endif

Re:Oh... and no more "millions of lines" claims

[Citizen of Earth]

SCOX stock price, meet Mr Floor?

I dunno; SCOX buyers seem to have their heads in an invincible reality-distortion field. The next Slashdot poll should be "What will SCOX close at on Monday?":

* $31.89
* $13.75
* $10.00
* $5.00
* $1.00
* -$666.00

The commenter closest without going over wins 30 karma points.

Millions of lines to 456

[obsid1an]

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...

Re:No "real depth" here...

[coder_carter]

So, it looks like we'll finally get a court to weigh in on whether newly-created code (LVM and JFS, that were created in about 1989 through 1992), is somehow "owned" by the owner of a piece of code it has to interact with.
The block device driver interface (used by the LVM) was documented publicly multiple times (Egan & Texeira in the mid-80s, Sun Device Driver books, the System V docs themselves, etc)
It seems that unless the contracts specifically state that these are considered "modifications" of the original AT&T code and not new works that interact with the AT&T code, then the LVM claim is junk.
The JFS claims are a little murkier. It was not possible to create a UNIX filesystem circa 1990 without the source code to UNIX.
And my recollection of AIX 3 and JFS was that it didn't just "plug in" to a well-defined interface, it needed lots of intimacy with the VM system and other bits of the kernel.
While the LVM was big, I don't think it got close to weighing in at a million lines...

Re:Spoken like a troll.

[GizmoToy]

Actually, it cannot. You are by no means required to leave yourself in a potentially compromising position in order to bolster your defense.

In other words, changing the code in question is not an admission of guilt.

You mean a Forbes "reporter" (e.g. Daniel Lyons)

[Xenographic]

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?)

False claims to prop up stock price?

[Anonymous Coward]

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).

Re:False claims to prop up stock price?

[Maserati]

That's why they retained David Boies. Not for the IBM suit, for the criminal and civil cases coming from the SEC and the stockholders. His specialty isn't IP law, it's securities fraud.

Mostly in SCO-distributed 2.4.13 kernel

[billstewart]

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.

Re:Will Groklaw play a direct role?

[EvilGrin666]

Would be nice if an accountant at IBM clicked that 'donate via paypal' link and dumped a few thousand dollars on PJ though.

You're wrong. (IAAL - I am a lawyer)

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:That's an easy one

[Anonymous Coward]

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, due to the nature of open-source, if they try to do anything funky later, it's pretty easy for a competitor to arise and take their place.

In short, it might just be enough to keep them honest.

Darl, you are liable!

[tetrahedrassface]

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!

Re:Quick summary: nothing special

[Anonymous Coward]

IBM does not want the case dismissed. They are calling SCO's bluff for a reason: They want to see it through and have out in the clear that what SCO is trying is simply not done and make sure the entire world knows that.

Re:No "real depth" here...

[Just Another Perl Ha]

Except that the original JFS was scrapped in favor of a port of the OS/2 JFS to AIX (from a totally separate code base). This is the JFS that was later contributed to Linux.

I'm loath to understand how OS/2 source code could ever be considered a derivative of SysV.

(That is, if SCOX even has a right to enforce the contract with IBM given their relationship with Novel)

Oh what a tangled web SCOX weaves...

Re:Ah, at last!

[jeffasselin]

Don't I remember some company lending a multi-processor system to Alan Cox a few years back so that he could work on scaling SMP code?

Ah yes, I think it was a company called "Caldera" who did that (http://www.linux.org.uk/SMP/title.html). You know, they're called "SCO" now...

Lyon's prediction

[scoove]

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*

Re:Visions of Jury Selection

[FredGray]

Interesting...I was on a jury last week in a simple case (two day trial) involving back injuries following a car accident. One of the qualifying questions was "Do any among you not drive a motor vehicle?" and someone in the jury pool was indeed "thanked and excused" on that basis. I would imagine that they would be looking for people with ordinary familiarity with computers, but not special familiarity.

Forbes is a conservative scandal sheet

[HangingChad]

Would this be the same Forbes that called all the layoffs and shipping jobs overseas little more than shaking out the dead wood?

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.

Re:Forbes is a conservative scandal sheet

[Anonymous Coward]

This is simply understanding their market.

Forbes wants the guys doing the firing to be their subscribers; not the fired.

Anyone axed in those layoffs is _NOT_ the target audience of Forbes, nor of interest to a Forbes advertiser.

One lawyers perspective

[Camel Pilot]

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.

Re:How quickly code is replaced will deflate the c

[arkanes]

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).

My Favorite Quote...

[Amigori]

So I just finished skimming the legal brief, and this is one of the most interesting bits of legal pleading that I've seen in a long while...

IBM has engaged in a course of conduct that is intentionally and foreseeably calculated to undermine and/or destroy the economic value of UNIX anywhere and everywhere in the world, and to undermine and/or destroy the plantiff's rights to fully exploit and benefit from its ownership rights in and to UNIX System V... and their derivatives directly for its own benefit and indirectly for the benefit of its Linux distribution partners."

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

Doing it with our proprietary code, so we are fine

[G3ckoG33k]

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

My favorite argument is...

[Photo_Nut]

Under the section, "The Functional Limitations of Linux Before IBM's Involvement" (emphasis added):

80. The first versions of Linux evolved through bits and pieces of various contributions by numerous software developers using single or dual processor computers. Unlike IBM, virtually none of these software developers and hobbyists had access to enterprise-scale equipment and testing facilities for Linux development. Without access to such equipment, facilities and knowledge of sophisticated development methods learned in many years of UNIX development it would be difficult, if not impossible, for the Linux development community to create a grade of Linux adequate for enterprise use.

Hmm... Well, let's see for a moment. None of these hobbyists had access to enterprise-scale equipment. I don't know about you, but I don't consider Linus Torvalds a "hobbyist". I consider him and all the people who wrote Linux with him to be developers.

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?

Re:My favorite argument is...

[demon]

Also, Caldera (before morphing into the SCO Group) provided higher-end x86 hardware (especially multiprocessor systems) for Linux developers to test the kernel on, for SMP development. So how they can claim Linux developers didn't have access to that kind of hardware is ludicrous, considering they provided the hardware for testing. Ah, more examples of their crack(-smoking) legal team at work...

Warning: SCO can win.

[rufusdufus]

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?

Re:Quick summary: nothing special

[mpe]

IBM does not want the case dismissed. They are calling SCO's bluff for a reason: They want to see it through and have out in the clear that what SCO is trying is simply not done and make sure the entire world knows that.

Effectivly what SCO are arguing is that proprietary Unix contains a licencing "virus" such that anything which has ever been linked to it becomes "infected" and is able to infect anything it is later linked to.
SCO are using this kind of argument to claim that they have control of code with supercedes that of the copyright holder(s) of the code in question.
If SCO are not utterly destroyed the whole issue of copyrights on software will become an utter mess. With all sorts of third parties claiming control over pieces of software...

Re:No "real depth" here...

[Just Another Perl Ha]

Wow... I can't believe you could get it so wrong!!

While it is true that OS/2 was originally developed as a joint projects by MS and IBM, and it is also true that the Santa Cruz Operation's Xenix was originally a MS product... the two projects were over a decade apart at MS and Xenix was written under license from AT&T.

Unix System IV -- and later, System V (ultimately SVR4) -- and Xenix have completely separate lineage. You can check this history diagram for yourself. Of course, there's no mention of OS/2 there.

The current SCO Group (ne Caldera) only has a fleeting and coincidental relationship with OS/2 (via MS and Xenix) through their purchase of the Santa Cruz Operation (which purchased something Unix related from Novell (who really bought Unix from USL (which was born out of AT&T))).

Now that I've clarified all of that... and looking at the mindless drivel that spouts from SCOX... I wouldn't put it past them to make some sort of twisted claim against the JFS from OS/2. But, if they did that... they might as well stake claim to NT and Win2K as well (following the same logic). Of course SCOX's puppet master would never let that happen... now would they.

Re:Oh... and no more "millions of lines" claims

[sjvn]

It will be about the same plus or minus five percent. Most news stories, I'm ashamed to say, have focued on the 'five billion dollars' that SCO is now claiming, without looking at the far more important issue that SCO is essentially trying to rewrite their claims agains IBM at the 11th hour and 59th minute. I doubt that the court will let this fly.

Now, Monday a week from now, if the court rules against SCO's new movements, I honestly wouldn't be surprised to see SCO has dropped like a rock. SCO may end up with nothing more than a breech of contract case and that doesn't have nearly the sex appeal of Massive Trade Secret Claims Worth Billions!

Steven

Re:It is still full of false and fraudulent clames

[j7953]

And quite apart from that, IBM *made* x86 processors.

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?

Re:No "real depth" here...

[Just Another Perl Ha]

Well... this part is correct:

SCO aquired the Xenix from MS

But this part is definately not (or at least confused and misleading):

and later Renamed it to SCO Unix System V

Xenix and System V are completely different beasts. Xenix (1980) is an offshoot of Unix V7 (1979). System V sprang from the USG fork (1977). There was an injection of SysV technology back into the Xenix fork around 1884 and SCO did release a Xenix System V (and later a SCO Unix System V) but these were still under license from AT&T.

The System V that's in question here (the only one that really matters with respect to intellectual property claims) is the true-blue reference System V that was directly owned by AT&T (who beget USL (which was sold to Novell (which made some sort of Unixy relationship with the Santa Cruz Operation (which sold their soul to Caldara (which assumed the identity of SCO (apparently to muddy the waters regarding their IP claims)))))).

When you claim that "SCO renamed it to System IV" [sic] (in reference to their Xenix product) you implied that this is the same as the System V which IBM is accused of infinging upon.

It is not.

IBM is accused of taking pieces of AIX (and also Sequent's Dynix) and contributing them to Linux. AIX is an offshoot of Unix System V Release 2 (forked after the injection of SysV into Xenix by the way) and the relationship between AIX and Xenix is trivial at best.

The fact that the true-blue Unix (System V) was allegedly purchased by SCO and that SCO once had a product which was licensed to use System V technology (Xenix)... is purely coincidental. Your post implied otherwise and was therefor, by definition, wrong.

The fact of the matter is that every unix-like operating system in existance (save a small handful (Linux, the contemporary BSDs, etc...)) are offshoots at one point or another from the real AT&T Unix and exist solely under license from AT&T or their sucessor in interrest (which The SCO Group claims to be). The Santa Cruz Operation's Xenix/Unix System V products owe their very existance to licensing agreements with the rightful owner of the original Unix copyrights.

Finally... since the original SCO Xenix/Unix products now belong to Tarantula and not The SCO Group (ne Caldera) they have zero bearing on the issues currently before the court.