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SCO Lists Specific Code-Infringement Claims
mugnyte writes "Those tireless folks at groklaw have transcribed and published the documents from the latest IBM/SCO hearing. In it, the exact lines of the supposed Dynix / AIX / Linux logic are given. SCO claimed that Linux's read copy update, journaling file system, enterprise volume management system, AIO (Asynchronous I/O), and "scatter gather" I/O code had been derived from either AIX or Dynix/ptx. Now we can take a look at what SCO thinks makes Linux an enterprise-ready platform started at 2.4, stealing away their market share. However, IBM released these things under the GPL ... so what license did IBM really have from SCO to do this? Which raises the question, What license did SCO have from Novell to disallow this?"
When you're too lazy to do your homework, what do you do? You cheat. And that's exactly what SCO's trying to do. Rather than do their homework and realize they have no case, they're trying to make others do it for them, and in a sense cheating. Case in point is this article which seems to pretty much clearly show that SCO is full of their own crap. There's a saying that if you tell a lie long enough, you'll start to believe it. And that's exactly what SCO is doing. They're trying to push the lies so that people will believe them. In reality, its organizations like IBM, Novell, AT&T, and groklaw that are doing all of SCO's homework for them. Heck, SCO even tried to compel IBM to show source code for AIX and Dynix which would effectively cause IBM to make SCO's case for them. This is turning into nothing more than sensationalism for SCO. Any bets on how much SCO stock is sold off tomorrow?
The only thing necessary for Micro$oft to triumph is for a few good programmers to do nothing". North County Computers
See, you can copy lines of code, but the original remains. But when you steal market share, it has to be subtracted somewhere. You can steal money and bananas. You cannot steal music and movies.
-I am an elective eunuch.
Once again.. If we do change these "offending" code blocks, we would be admitting to our "guilt".
The kernel hackers should not even think about changi anything until these lawsuits are resolved..
Why give your enemy more ammunition? He'll just come back and attack you again...
Karma: Bad (but who really cares anyway?)
Well, it's apparent now that SCO is not claiming that there has been any "direct copying" of code from System V into Linux. Instead, they're arguing that IBM and Sequent's licenses to use System V source code prohibited them from making publicly available any portion of the source code of their "derivative work," that is to say, code that they developed based on System V.
The problem with SCO's reasoning is that the RCU code is completely separate from System V. It doesn't contain any System V code at all. As such, it isn't a derivative work. Despite this, SCO is claiming that any code at all that IBM or Sequent developed for their respective System V derivatives (AIX and Dynix/ptx) is either owned by SCO or is to be treated under the same terms as the System V source code itself.
It's actually kind of ironic, considering that SCO has been claiming all this time that the GPL is bad because it's "viral." It sounds to me that the System V licensing agreement, as construed by SCO, is far worse! However, given the side letter AT&T issued to IBM in 1985 telling IBM that IBM's own non-derivative source code belonged to, well, IBM, I doubt SCO's claims will bear up in court.
How is it (or am I dumb and reading things wrong) that a single line of code winds up being infringing. Am I infringing if I write 'for (x=1; x 10; x++) {}? It's like sawing I'm infringing if I write... 'The other day I was talking to my 1 year old about my friend Dick. This is what I said. See Dick.' Am I crazy, or simply misguided?
Developing Retail Point-of-Sale Software
I'm not fond of any of these legal actions, etc. I can't say I have much faith in the justice system when it comes to corporations and the like. Especially after the MSFT wrist slap.
:)
What we folks believe to be obviously false can often be bounced back and forth in the courts then spit out as true. Call it cynicism...but enough optimism to hope that IBM/Novell stomps SCO down.
As far as changing/rewriting the code specified here, let's put that off until some sort of verdict. Unless of course you want to do it as a learning experience -- or maybe help out the HURD or something.
Now it's not clear if they're claiming it's the implementation that's infringing (it's not exactly a hard function to code), or the interface.
If it's the latter, they're clearly in the wrong since that interface dates back to 4.2 BSD. Much of their evidence seems rather circuitous, relying on things like individual contributors having worked on Dynix in the past. Also, for relatively simple stuff, there's only one optimal algorithm, so unless they can demonstrate things like identical variable names (above a certain length), they don't have a case (in an ideal world..).
"The slave who knows his master's will and does not get ready...will be be beaten with many blows."Luke 12:47-48
Every time we have an SCO story this is brought up.
Postal fraud requires intent. Your going to have to prove that SCO knowingly and intentionally attempted to defraud those 1500 recipients. I don't beleive that's the case, and you'll have a very difficult time PROVING it.
I think SCO beleives their claims (at least at the higher levels). I beleive that they THINK that they own this code and that the Linux kernel infringes on it. All of that is HEAVILY debatable, quite possibly laughable.. but attempting to enforce your perceived IP rights is not postal fraud. It's stupid, it's a waste of time, but it's not illegal.
Turn s60 photos into awesome videos with mScrapbook for all S60 3rd edition phones!
Actually none of this code is SCO's... This is all IBM code. The question is whether or not The code came from AIX or Dynix (both owned by IBM), but whether (a) did it originally come from AIX or Dynix (quite possibly not) and if it did (b) did IBM have th right to release in their licensce with SCO/Novell. Perhaps you should follow the story closer next time...
The truly laughable part is that SCO appears to be going for a sort of bad-faith breach of contract approach. Which is funny in many ways, but primarily because it appears like IBM was essentially hedging it's bets (standard practice at big blue actually) and covering as many angles as they could.
Turn s60 photos into awesome videos with mScrapbook for all S60 3rd edition phones!
I think you had better grep the linked Groklaw article for "2.6"...
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
No they can change them without an issue.
SCO can claim damages, but without giving the chance to mitigate those damages, the chances of their succeeding is weakened.
The record is still there, whether or not the files are changed.
SCO's case does not hinge on proving that AIX/Dynix code appears in Linux.
SCO's case hinges on proving that IBM does not own the code it contributed. Which, according to the terms of the UNIX license from AT&T, IBM does have full ownership rights to derivative works.
SCO is deliberately misinterpreting a clause in the original agreement and spinning it as hard as possible.
Previous owners of UNIX rights have clarified the terms to be more in the UNIX licensee's favor in subsequent communications as well. It would be madness for a judge to overlook all of this if they did decide the clause was vague and needed to speculate on the spirit of the agreement.
The million dollar question here is what the hell is David Boies doing backing these con artists? Not having an answer to that question is the only thing stopping me from shorting SCO's stock.
derived from either AIX or Dynix/ptx If they can't determine specifically which operating system the alleged infringement came from, then what are the grounds for their law suit in the first place? It's more like a fishing expedition. This is analagous to Joe open source coder filing a lawsuit against Microsoft because "we beleive Windows may contain GPL licensed code."
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
"None the less, the FTC was interested when I sent in a complain and I sent the orignal to them."
And did anything come of it? Or was it just a very interesting item, as in just what they needed to fill up that empty part of the filing cabinet?
--- Hindsight is 20/20, but walking backwards is not the answer.
It is not possible to lie without knowing it. A lie is a knowingly untruthful statement made with the intent of deceiving.
So ... if Darl is an unconcious liar, perhaps it is because somebody just hit him on the head with a clue-stick? Or perhaps he just got side-swiped by SCOX's falling share price?
SCO lacks standing to sue over something that happened in 1999. Caldera bought the Unix rights from Santa Cruz Operation in 2001. Any injury that supposedly occurred would have happened to the company now known as Tarantella. IBM pulled out of Monterey shortly after Caldera agreed to buy the rights from Santa Cruz Operation, but well before the deal was closed. Caldera knew IBM had pulled out long before they closed the deal. They have no grounds to make accusations against IBM.
To quote John Grisham "It ain't sexy, but it's got teeth".
Good luck making that stick. As long as they show that they THOUGHT they were right, then they're clear. But I don't think they would have to, I would think it would be the up to the complainants to show that they DIDN'T think they were right. Have fun with that.
I like music
First, SCO needs to show infringing lines of
code. The court directed SCO to provide to IBM what
IBM requested in discovery and one item, the main
item, were lines of code from original Unix that are
in Linux by means of IBM. SCO only responded with
code not in original UNIX, but programs wholely
written by (at the time) Sequent and IBM. SCO's
contention is that since they touched UNIX they are
UNIX is a *##&*$&)$#@
+++ATH
OK
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
If the GPL author can demand that an entire codebase be opened upon the inclusion of even a small amount of GPL'd code, then SCO is well within their rights to demand the same in their licenses and expect the same adherence from the licensee.
Nonsense. The GPL is an affirmative grant of expanded copyright privileges. If I create some code and incorporate some GPL'ed stuff into it, it is not the case that my code is suddenly tainted and becomes GPL'ed. It's just that if I distribute the combined work under terms incompatible with the GPL, I am illegally distributing that (GPL'ed) portion of the combined work whose copyright does not belong to me. GPL'ing my own software is NOT mandatory.. neither the FSF nor Linus Torvalds, no anyone else has the right to force me to GPL my code. But they can stop me from distributing _their_ code.. and if my code is totally useless without that GPL'ed software, well, too bad.
The AT&T contract that SCO is basing their entire case on (although they've been screaming bloody murder to distract people from this fact in the press) states that derived works shall be treated in similar fashion to AT&T's unmodified works for the purposes of the IBM/Sequent/SGI contracts. That is, you can't modify AT&T's code and then give it away.
That says nothing about RCU or JFS or XFS, which are original code created by IBM and SGI, respectively. That code is not derivative of AT&T's code merely because it was commingled into AIX and IRIX. AT&T/Novell/SCO/Caldera/SCOX did not have anything to do with the creation of RCU, JFS, or XFS. SCO is making a very persuasive case that RCU, JFS, and XFS were contributed to Linux by IBM and SGI, here. And that's great. But they haven't shown in the slightest degree that, against all common sense or case law, IBM and SGI's original works become 'derivative' of AT&T's code because they were at one point commingled into a product that contained AT&T code.
The GPL doesn't work that way. The AT&T license didn't work that way, judging from AT&T's own comments in the 1985 $echo newsletter cited at GROKLAW. And you know what? Copyright doesn't work that way, either.
IANALTG.
- jon
Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX
Postal fraud requires intent. Your going to have to prove that SCO knowingly and intentionally attempted to defraud those 1500 recipients. I don't beleive that's the case, and you'll have a very difficult time PROVING it.
It's software piracy and copyright infringement. Intent has nothing to do with it.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke
Here's a thought for counter-suit.
IBM should put together some diff scripts and take a selection of random works from the last 1000 years or two.
I'm sure with even with minimal translation they could come up with some extremely popular pieces of literature that have the same %-age of similar sentances as SCO has shown exist in their code comparisons.
In fact I wouldn't be surprised if there was a great deal of literature that shows a much higher percentage of alikeness(?). Maybe it would also help show a non-technical courtroom the actual (non)-importance and lack of proof that finding a few thousand matching lines (minus header files) out of millions truly is, especially when the subjects are extremely similar (ie, a similar interface to a specific subset of hardware) written in the same language(s), by people trained by a similar school of thought and experience (covers learning by example).
Darnit, I used the letter 'i' as a counter in a loop, descriptive variable names, and half a million other things I learned from C better sue me for copying your code....even if I haven't written C in years...
Whee signature.
"Your going to have to prove that SCO knowingly and intentionally attempted to defraud those 1500 recipients."
They have no right to sell things they do not own. That is called fruad. Did they know they did not own it. YES that is why they are in court. They had no right to send those letters out while the case is on-going.
But I would suspect they would have used a private carrier to avoid such things.
2 key points in rebuttal:
1 72505119. This article on Groklaw contains references and a much more detailed explanation that back up the above points.
1) When Novell gave SCO in effect the exclusive license for Unix, there were clauses to protect Novell's existing licensees (for example, IBM) from SCO changing the licensing agreement.
2) Regarding the question about IBM and other licensees owning derivative works, the answer is no. AT&T sent out a docment specifically stating this.
Check out http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20040210
What??? Let's examine the term. Original Code. Implication : the original author decided to release it under GPL. Subsequent modification of this code (i.e., derivitave work, lay term: modification, update, bug-fix, etc.) must be released as well. To imply that code written which leverages the code (e.g., accessing a DLL) is derivative is simply stupid. Is SCO under obligation to disclose all networking code because they leverage samba in their distro? Obviously not. If they modify samba to fix something for their distro's quirks, then do they have to release the code. Likely, but this is more interesting question. GPL basics. If you want to use my code and improve on it or make it do something additional, you have to release your source, too. If you don't want to do this. Write all of the code YOURSELF. You cannot decide ex post facto to dictate your licensing terms. Terms are explicit (or implied) when you distribute. Are you an Anonymous Coward from the sco.com domain. Your comments are so obtuse that I need an asprin.
Developing Retail Point-of-Sale Software
I have a fair idea that if I look at some of the user documentation I wrote 20+ years ago I could find phrases if not sentences that Darl has stolen to use in his documentation.
The phrases..
- press any key
- turn to page....
etc. etc. spring to mind.
How DO I file a lawsuit....
Actually people lie for a third reason, to GENERATE conflict. Michael Robertson (more info in the link in my sig) lies to generate publicity surrounding his company. Darl lies because it will artificially inflate his stock price, by getting him noticed. Robertson lies because it gets him sympathy if he says his company is being beat up by Microsoft. Darl didn't DARE sue Linus or Linux (in any concrete form), he went after IBM, which has deep pockets.
Anyway, just wanted to clarify that some people lie to GENERATE conflict.
Lindows Steals Copyrighted Art and Promotes Porn
AT&T said in 1985 that additions to UNIX were not considered derivative works, only modifications to the actual code.
IBM's license reiterates that IBM owns their contributions, and is perpetual and irrevocable.
Novell backs up IBM's claims, and offers proof that SCO does not own UNIX.
There was no written transfer of copyrights from Novell to SCO. SCO (old SCO, not Caldera/SCO) bought the UNIX business, not the UNIX copyrights.
SCO failed under a court order to identify any code of "theirs" in Linux that IBM didn't write.
They did identify hundreds of lines in Linux that IBM wrote, and own, far short of the millions of lines of UNIX code they claim were illegally copied in violation of SCO's copyrights.
SCO does not even have a copy of the "derivative" AIX source code they claim to own.
SCO has violated thousands of copyrights and broken many laws.
SCO still offered the code in question under the GPL far into the discpute, and it's even digitally signed with their key.
Etc. Groklaw explains it all.
What a load of crap. Sounds like you work for SCO.
Most of the people I've worked with -- the vast majority, above and below me, including presidents, vice-presidents, general managers, directors, managers, and individual contributors, across 10 or more companies I've worked at -- were ethical. There have been some exceptions, but they number at most a half dozen over my 20+ years in the software business.
Actually people deliberatly lie for one reason: to get what they want. If I'm lying to avoid conflict or generate conflict, I'm still lying to get what I want.
Well, well, well, SCO finally lays its cards on the table and what do you know? All jokers, at least all the claims about IBM's contributions to Linux. However, they do make various allegations having to do with IBM's supposed unathorized use of library code developed by SCO:
:-)
Upon information and belief, AutoZone's new Linux based software implemented by IBM featured SCO's shared libraries which had been stripped out of SCO's UNIX based OpenServer by IBM and embedded inside AutoZone's Linux implementation in order to continue to allow the continued operation of AutoZone's legacy applications. The basis for SCO's belief is the precision and efficiency with which the migration to Linux occurred, which suggests the use of shared libraries to run legacy applications on Linux. Among other things, this was a breach of the AutoZone OpenServer License Agreement for use of SCO software beyond the scope of the license.
Hmm, evidence seems a little thin there, actually "suspicion" would be a better word that evidence. Personally, I think SCO is just blowing hot air once again, and that IBM will simply show that and code conversions done in their contract work were done without the help of shared libraries owned by SCO, or if the customer did continue using them, that they had every right to. This should be rather cut and dried has nothing to do with SCO's ownership claims in Linux. It's just another amusing sideshow brought to us courtesy of the clowns at SCO.
The central point of this filing of course is SCO's rejection as "overly broad and unduly burdensome" IBM's question about what specific source code in Linux they think they own rights too. If their goal is to obtain a mistrial by causing the judge to burst an artery laughing, they just might do it
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
It's actually kind of ironic, considering that SCO has been claiming all this time that the GPL is bad because it's "viral." It sounds to me that the System V licensing agreement, as construed by SCO, is far worse!
An excellent point, and worth re-reading.
Weaselmancer
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
If I was running IBM, I'd put her in my legal team.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
Congrats, you're the first one in the thread to say "froze", which is the first reference to a season in any of the haiku from the other gaijin.
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
I have implied this in previous posts, There's no one left at SCO that can read or interpret their code or anyone else's for that matter.
Just a bunch of "Suits" and Attorneys "stroking" each other into believing that they know what they are talking about when it comes to deciphering "OUR Source Code".
Like hiring your local butcher to do brain surgery! "The operation was a success,the patient died." RIP SCO!
Maybe if you worked in a small or a medium sized business that neve really made a lot of money that's true. Even then I really doubt that people especially at the president and VP level did not lie a dozen times a day as a matter or routine. Did they ever lie to vendors? clients? employees? each other? The answer is "constantly".
It's impossible to do business without lying. Sorry to break the news to you.
Did a boss ever ask you how things were going? Did you lie them? Did anybody lie to a client about delivery dates? About the status of bugs? Did anybody ever lie to vendor in order to get a better deal? Did anybody lie to an employee who was about to be fired?
War is necrophilia.
That's just not funny anymore. If I see someone post that again, and especially see it rated "+5, Informative" I'm going to throw up.
No, I think it's just you.
Eg. Ethics may require you to consider the public good, so you might decide that your lie is 'for the public good'.
Ultimately, it comes down to ethics allow the 'end to justify the means', but morals do not.
Since 100% of their claims are related to AIX and Dynix code, and they DIDN"T show that the code in question is derived from SysV, 100% of their claims are already disproven. All they've shown is that IBM contributed IBM code to Linux. Everyone already knew that. 10 Seconds.
Hear me out... There are some questions that need to be decided by a court (not withstanding the particulars of SCO v IBM). 1) What constitutes a derivative work with regards to software? and 2) Exactly how enforcable is the GPL? I think the first question is difficult to discuss, but the second should be pretty quick and easy.
It'll be good IMHO to get a court to say that the GPL is just fine and perfectly enforcible, and to put down a real, legal test for derivative software.
Any disagreement?
Developing Retail Point-of-Sale Software
Similarity dude, but you still rock. Unfortunatly the coders being similar is part of the problem. If SCO found out it's unix programmers went off and started working on Linux, (especially making money off it) using code that they owned they would have extra rights to be pissed. I'm not saying they'd be all the way right but stealing from the company is not justifiable.
Now we can get into endless Paycheck or Snow Crash refrences but I've said my bit.
If I say the word mod does that give me 4 extra points? Just wondering.
Unfortunately, I have worked with people who routinely lie and are incredibly dishonest. They've often gotten ahead. The worst are those who are self righteous...which leads them into an even deeper level of deception.
However, in most cases these political drones have cost the companies I worked for tens of millions of dollars. I worked with one company that can point to a pile of dead bodies caused by a self righteous business drone who falsified reports. He went to jail. I hope he is still there.
Anyway, most people who produce quality work tend to be honest and hard working. The US used to have a very strong competitive edge because Americans used to have better ethics.
BTW, not disclosing information you know is not a lie, unless it is in a circumstance where you are expected to disclose the information. For example, my not posting the source code for my employer's product is not a lie. Not telling a customer the percent of commission on a sale is not a lie either.
A CEO should know the quarterly sales figure several days before the quarterly report. His refusal to tell people this figure is not only not a lie, the CEO would be in big legal trouble for disclosing the information early.
A good part of good business is developing channels so that the information is released in a sane and informative manner.
This garbage mindset where we try to turn good business practice into a call for machiavellian maneuvering is absurd. Unfortunately, the poor logical education that we get in the US has our president seeing WMD where there are none, and is lowering our defenses against the political wolves who continually run US businesses down.
I would make that more general since a lie can be an implied untruth in a conversation. So, I'd simplify that definition to be this:
A lie is an act of communication that is intended to deceive someone.
For example, let's say that Ainsley Hayes just received a hurtful boquet from a couple coworkers. The boquet came with a card that has only the "B" word on it. Let's also say that you (another coworker in the West Wing) know who hand-delivered the boquet. Someone has just asked you, "Do you know who sent this boquet?" One possible lie would be: "No, I have no idea." (A direct, untrue statement.) Another more subtle lie would be to make a statement of truth that implies a lie: "I didn't see a name on the card." This answer to the question implies the statement: "No, I don't know who sent it, though I did check the card to see if I could find out." I consider both of these options to be lies because they were both made with the intent to bring about the same act of deception.
Of course, it's not a lie if someone "reads between the lines" and assumes something untrue that you didn't intend to convey. That would be a mistaken communication rather than a lie.
..wayne..
So they don't have to remember every lie they ever told - which they have to do in order to avoid being sprung, and TSG hasn't been doing so well at this recently.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
That is entirely the wrong question. IBM wrote the code. IBM owns the code. IBM contributed the code. SCO is *claiming* that doing so violates some contract IBM has with them. The burden of proof lies on them. The question is NOT what "licence" IBM has from SCO to release their own stuff under the GPL. (you don't need a "license" to do what you please with stuff you wrote yourself.) The question is, what evidence does SCO have that IBM is, infact, violating some agreement with them by doing as it does.
While we're arguing about this, I'd like to remind people that they might want to check if their mutual funds are any of the ones listed below - because you'll be taking a bath soon enough: My intreptation of the financial stats.
Top mutual funds with [bad] holdings of SCOX:
Bjurman, Barry Micro-Cap Growth Fund
ING Inv Tr-Ing/Capital Guardian Small Cap Port
Royce Technology Value Fund
Oberweis Micro-Cap Portfolio
Top SCO institutional stock holders:
Capital Guardian Trust Company
Royce & Associates, Inc.
Integral Capital Management Vi, LLC
Bjurman, Barry & Associates
Empire Capital Partners LP
Vanguard Group, Inc. (The)
In the two months, it appears two more large scale insider stock dumps have been perpetrated (in addition to the previous months HUGE insider stock dumps):
VP GASPARRO, LARRY 5,259 shares
Director RAIMONDI, THOMAS P., JR. 11,841 shares (exercised option @$1.12/share - nice dump) $210,000 pocket change!
Most obnoxious co-conspirator to the stock scam:
Deutsche Securities - issuing an analyst recommendation "buy" on SCOX - they are probably also helping to launder money that's feeding the SCO legal campaign I bet.
Even people who are "mostly" honest and hardworking lie.
did you ever come in late and lied about it? Did you ever lie to get off work early one day? Did you ever lie to a co-worker?
Of course you did. You just don't see the lies as being harmful so you do it. You probably lie every day at least once if not a dozen times. They may be small lies but they are lies anyway.
As you go up in an organization lies get bigger and bigger and yet people still don't see it as harmful so they do it. They of course also do it to save their assess, to make themselves look better or to make other people look bad, or maybe just to shift the blame from themselves. The dog ate my homework I swear!.
It's a fact of life. Everybody lies every day. CIOs and politicians lie thousand times a day and about bigger things.
War is necrophilia.
Repeat after me:
/evil laugh! 8-)
"I have no _informed_ opinion."
"I don't care who is at fault here, lets all blame it on me and then fix it." (used liberally when things are *not* your fault will buy you lots of credits for when something finally *is* your fault.)
"I was just wasting time, malingering, you know, 'leaning on my shovel'..." (A certian amount of this is expected in any job, it's just human nature. Never try to hide it. People stop trying to catch you out if you don't hide it. Done right, you can out-malinger everybody else at the company with impunity. Of course, then it gets to easy, even boring, and you end up out working everybody else becase excessive slacking sucks.)
"Your question presumes facts not in evidence." (always phrased exactly this way, this is the only answer to the "when did you stop beating your wife?" backhand accusation.)
"I blew the time/cost esitmate."
"I am not at liberty to say."
"May I direct you to sales/the VP of development/etc."
"Sorry, I must be an idiot, I didn't mean to infer (whatever)."
"We have decided the best course is (whatever)." (even when you disagree completely, if the collective has spoken, own your place as mouth-piece.)
and finally, on occasion: "Is this the part where I list all the reasons that this is supurbly a bad idea?"
There is virtually no professional condition that requires one to tell a lie. People lie to squirm from the uncomfortable. A well placed and disarming truth is almost invariably more effective. So is keeping your trap shut (as skill The Daryl seems to lack 8-).
Moreso, a proactive truth can prevent the lie-inducing circumstance. Walk into your boss' office and say "I just lost two days because I stupidly copied the backup over the new work instead of the other way around. Damn I feel like an idiot."
There is only one lie that some meaningless jobs require you to tell, namely: "I'd be happy to assist you sir."
Besides, if you get a reputation for never lying, when you finally need to lie it is that much easier...
Seriously, the first one, "I have no informed opinion," is the most useful. This is the phrase to pull out when someone is trying to "manuver you" into making statements you know are incorrect. It has many variants but the core meaning that must be carried is that guessing now, and then being held to that guess, is not a circumstance you care to enter into. It can be followed by a "if you need me to make a total guess, then I can, but following that guess as cannon would probably be ruinous."
In point of fact, once you present yourself as a "dificult target" you will be spared virtually all of the political games at work. Then, somehow, you become "the nutral party" as if by magic, and you suddenly become privy to all manner of things.
Finally, don't _spread_ gossip... rant publically if necessary, but always be known as the guy who will say to the face anything he would say to a backside. Listen to the gosip of others when necessary, but take it with a grain of salt. The answer to "did X say Y to you?" is (unless "Y" is a promise of felonious activity) "X and I rant to one another about all sorts of things."
And so on.
As long as you are never cruel or bitter (beyond need 8-) you really never need to lie.
We *remember* being lied to because we remember catching out the lie. That alone is proof that the lying is unsustainable.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
"Actually people deliberatly lie for one reason: to get what they want."
Actually, people do all things for only one reason: to get what they want. It's kind of a non-argument. Even behavior one would consider self-destructive or sacrificial serves some kind of internal need/desire (or is made in ignorance, with the belief that it serves a need or desire).
For example, if a guy pushes someone out of the way of a bus so that he gets hit instead - a pretty selfless act - he either thought he could save the person without getting hit, or he preferred to get hit over the other person. Or, more accurately, there was some risk, and the reward of feeling good about himself, being exhalted as a hero, or any number of things outweighed the perceived risk.
So, either people deliberately lie for one sort-of-meaningless reason (to get what they want), or for one or more of an innumerable list of reasons at the level above that (increase wealth, avoid blame, make one's self look good, avoid conflict, generate conflict, ad infinitum...).
-If
Addendum: I suppose things get fuzzier when you talk about brainwashing. Someone can be made to want things that they originally didn't want through all sorts of various manipulations. It doesn't really change the above, people still always act to get what they want, but what they want can be manipulated.
Run a pencil-and-paper RPG campaign with your far-off friends: Gametable!
This document does not indicate SCO-owned source code that has been copied into Linux. This document is SCO outlining IBM-owned source code that we all knew they had donated to Linux. That IBM's RCU and XFS were existing technologies is well known.
This lawsuit is not about whether the copying took place - it did. It is about whether IBM has the right to use code they developed internally (or purchased from those who developed internally) from thier own version of UNIX into whatever they want. SCO's claim is that anything that was used with UNIX in the past is somehow a UNIX derivative.
None of this is about SCO claiming to own this code (yet, anyway) - they claim the right to prevent it's use in Linux, because it was first used with UNIX. This is the "hook" of the lawsuit that anyone who would find for SCO would have to swallow. Historic AT&T, Modern Novell and just about everyone who has looked at the facts understand that using two things together doesn't make one derived from the other, and presumably a judge will be able to understand this as well.
Darl went after IBM because it was the most outrageous thing to do.
Every move SCO has made has been made to be more outrageous than the one before. They're stirring the pot. They want dissension in the open source camp. They want distraction. They want to rattle people. The more preposterous the claims, the better. They want to kill open source - destroy Linux and Linus both. This is straight by the book Halloween Documents. It's so bloody obvious.
And they're doing it because somebody's told them to. They have absolutely nothing to lose, and a promise that if they keep it up just a little bit longer...
Somebody is already planning their early retirement...
Dude, telling lies to raise your stocks isn't a performative act. A major point of Austin's speech act theory is that illocutionary acts are inherently actions, as distinct from constative statements that may simply provoke a desired response. Chapter Ten of How to do Things with Words[1] is entitled "In saying..." v. "By saying..." and makes the distinction pretty clear. It is not correct to say that "in telling lies, Darl raised the stock price of SCO," though it would be fine to say "in telling lies, Darl forwent the moral high ground." It is correct to say that "by telling lies, Darl raised the stock price of SCO," but that doesn't describe an illocutionary act any more than "by reading Austin carefully I came to understand the difference between perlocution and illocution."
:)
Sorry, am I taking this a bit too seriously?
[1] J.L. Austin, How to do Things with Words (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1975) 121-32.
If lying is a part of your job, it's time to quit and find something else.
It's impossible to do business without lying.
Thanks, I'll take care not to do business with you.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
It is still a tragedy of greed, not despair. Or why does Darl and his people need to be multimillionaires instead of simple, honest-to-God millionaires?
Does it take a spine to lie for power and profit, surrounded by sycophants?
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
So they can sleep at night.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
SCO didn't buy anything from Novell.
SCO claims to have bought some rights from 'Santa Cruz Operations' (a.k.a. Tarantella). [In their press releases they *pretend* to be the same company, but they are *not*).
In the IBM court filings they say that they *can not find* the papers about what they bought from Santa Cruz Operations.
Because of the similarities of the names of those two companies the press hasn't cought on to the fact that SCO in fact can't show that they are the legitimate owner of any of Novells rights.
Seriously, if you have a job where you have to routinely lie about arriving late or when trying to get time off, you need to look for another job. I have a great boss and saying "Would you mind if I left a little early, I need to run some errands?" is likely to get the answer "sure". I assume you're trying to take time off for that kind of thing, obviously "I need to leave a little early so I can get to my appointment with my dominatrix" isn't going to go down as well, but, well, you avoid putting yourself in that kind of situation. Make the appointment for an hour later ;-)
Bosses are human beings too. They have errands to run. Things they're working on take longer than expected. They have to fight traffic when driving to work. Unless they're complete arseholes, they'll not expect anything different from you.
If they are, if they're expecting you to be perfect, they're not doing their jobs: they need to keep you happy and they need to manage you to perform to the best of your ability, managing the work you get and managing the people needing the work done. Lies have no place in a business environment, and if you're routinely needing to tell them, you need to rethink whether you're working at the right company.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I don't lie, period, even when my wife asks "do I look fat", or "do you like these shoes".
I have always taken responsibility for my failures at work. I don't punch a clock, so being late is not an issue unless there's an important meeting or something, but I still call when I'm running late, even when no one will really care.
Moreover, while I do see people lie all the time, there are a number of people I work with who I trust implicitly - I've never seen them lie. Even going so far as to, on business trips, go back to the hotel while others went to a strip club or something, so that they wouldn't have to lie to their wives (that includes me, BTW).
I've made two or three phenomenal screw ups during my 10 years here, and I've always gone to my supervisor to explain exactly what happened and what I was doing to resolve the problem.
So just because you're surrounded by people who lie all the time, and just because you do it yourself, don't project that onto everyone else.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
sPh
> When you tell Bob you like his pink flannel shirt, are you lying?
> [...] People who don't lie at the right times are called "assholes".
The idea that you have a choice between lying and maliciously making Bob
feel like a loser who can't dress himself is a false dichotomy. It's hard
for geeks, I know, because I have a good deal of trouble with it myself, but
there's this thing called tact: the ability to tell the truth without stirring
up unnecessary trouble. If Bob's new visible-from-space pink-and-orange shirt
makes you want to pulk, telling him you think it's "simply wonderful" is a lie.
Telling him it makes you want to pulk is tactless and needlessly provocative.
Tactful is something along the lines of, "Actually, I rather like the blue
shirt you wore the other day." This is difficult to do on the spot, sometimes,
granted. Especially for people like me who are highly unlikely to have *any*
idea what the person wore yesterday, the day before, or ever. (Heck, I don't
remember what *I* wore yesterday.) Another possible mostly-tactful response
would be, "Oh, Bob, I'm not the one to ask about fashion stuff. I'm no good
at that sort of thing."
I once managed to tell a 40-year-old female coworker who had just had her hair
cut short and asked how we all liked it that I _didn't_ particularly like it,
without hurting her feelings. I told her that I had liked it better the
other way. As it turned out, it just happened that she wasn't really happy
with the cut herself, but with everyone saying how much they liked it she
wasn't going to admit that until someone else said otherwise. Maybe I just
got lucky? Maybe. Or maybe there's something to be said for tact.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
If you want to reduce it to that level, people do everything they do in order to get what they want. Of course, this doesn't provide much insight into motivation, nor does it take a great deal of cleverness to figure it out. It's a singularly uninteresting observation. But it is true.
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
It might be possible for one of the letter's recipients to press the case, but why would they? If they think it's bogus, they could either ignore it or forward it to their Linux vendor (as Lehman Brothers has done). Either option is free. Trying to take action against SCO for the letter is loaded with potential costs -- not the least of which is attracting the attention of the rabidly litigious SCO.
===== Murphy's Law is recursive. =====
Yeah, that's funny. Also most of 'copies' are only on one line! This is like saying you copied a painting because it has a similar blotch of color in the same spot!
use your turn signal! you people act like it's divulging information to the enemy
Anyway, the point you spectacularly failed to get was that I wasn't commenting on just one article, I was talking about that article in the context of the long list of public claims by newSCO, which are currently of great importance due to IBM's Lanham act claims.
Does that answer your question?
J.
You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.
It's not that things get fuzzier but rather your simplistic "theory" doesn't hold up under scrutiny. People frequently do things they don't want and the only way you can make your argument work is through circular definition.
I think it is safe to say, however, that you only do what you want since what one says often refects more about themselves than anything else. In your world, no one is self-conflicted and each lives out their lives entirely in a self-serving manner. Go on living your life of self-interest and believing that everyone thinks just like you. They do not.
Which raises the question, What license did SCO have from Novell to disallow this?"
This is answered in a 1985 issue of AT&T's $ echo publicaction, which specifically says in a derivitive work, the UNIX source remains the property of AT&T, and the licensee's code remains the property of the licensee.
IOW, SCO has nothing to disallow this. Those technologies belong to IBM, period. SCO can't use them in their own product without permission from IBM, and IBM can use them as they see fit.
It is a commonly made argument by people (who tend to be left-leaning) that it is important to understand the circumstances under which someone cheats.
Here that is just stupid. Either Darl & Co. have a legit claim (which I doubt, due to their continuing refusal to actually demonstrate it), or they are trying to extort through misuse of process.
I don't care what circumstances caused them to decide to misuse process. I do care that this is causing a problem for a potentially excellent alternative to windows, a problem that is almost as big as the swamp of licencing XFree is in now.
To claim that it is important to consider motivations and circumstances is a falacy grounded in a twisted ad hominem (feel sorry for me and give me stuff) argument.
And if you want a Literary Reference... try Darl McBride as Peter Keating (The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand) -- a person without the ability to create who continually hijacks the efforts of those who can.
Developing Retail Point-of-Sale Software
Is stock price in dollars the prescribed measure of "shareholder value"? Does the law provide for measures of company reputation, etc. as components of shareholder value?
Actually, it IS true. You even say so yourself.
Before you despise me for the (non-existent) silver spoon in my mouth, perhaps you should take a moment to understand what I actually said and address that instead. Nothing I said denies that choices are often restricted. I merely pointed out the obvious: when forced to choose, people choose the option which they believe will give them the most of what they want.
Note that "what they want" is not always synonmous with happiness or pleasure. It certainly doesn't imply that life is a bed of roses. A mother who goes hungry in order that her children may eat wants to eat herself, but she wants to see her children fed more.
The post that I replied to was moderated as +5, insightful, for pointing out that people lie to get what they want. The whole point of my post was to show that this line of reasoning is essentially a tautology, and isn't insightful at all. You echoed this yourself in your last paragraph. Why you felt the need to take exception to my post when you apparently agree with it is a bit puzzling to me.
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
Your experience with cheating at the university level is totally inconsistent with mine. As an engineering undergrad at a major school, I was a grader for 500-600 students over the course of 4 semesters. What I saw was rampant, pervasive cheating top-to-bottom across all grades and through at least 75% of the population. Honors fraternity members were more likely to cheat than anyone else. Cheating was done in any way possible and at every opportunity. I experinced this as a student as well as a grader.
One would argue that this one led to the cheaters' eventual disadvantage but that is not true. These people frequently have better grades and produced better resumes that contributed to better interviews and better jobs. Once in their jobs, their cheating skills become very handy for career advancement. Just where does executive management come from anyway? Eventually, these people become recruiters and, as such, haven't the skill or motivation to screen out cheaters. Appearance plays as important role as any, and good looks are a form of cheating. Good looking people also find it easier to cheat. I don't recall and honors fraternity members at my school who were ugly. They were elected, after all, and were bigtime cheaters. I graded many of them.
Look around you. People cheat at every opportunity. They approach everything by seeing how much they can get away with. Bad driving, lousy courtesy, petty theft, tax evasion, insider trading, you name it. Cheating is rampant. It's part of the greed that makes capitalism work.
Well, at least it is harder to make it in a stable kernel than in a test kernel.
Replacing 50 000 (number pulled from hat) lines of code on a production server is rather "hairy", even if the interfaces stay the same. The chance that a bug creeps in is high and unacceptable to many of the users.
The type of users that this is unacceptable for happens to coincide with the type of users who have the money to pay for licenses.
The Internet is full. Go Away!!!
Heh, this is starting to move away from SCO, and their motivations, but oh well. Hard to say anything is off-topic when human behavior is a super-topic of pretty much everything involving humans.
Anyway, I didn't mean to imply that every action by everyone is deliberate. As you say, for better or worse, sometimes your subconcious makes decisions for you. But that doesn't mean it doesn't act in your interests.
In general, when a bus comes, and there is no one in danger, you don't instinctively jump out in front of it. In the case that there is someone going to be hit by it, you might be someone that instinctively jumps out to save that person, but there are many that are not. And what you do is still going to depend on your belief and value system, which I include in someone's "wants".
What if it wasn't a human about to be hit, but a wild rabbit? Or your dog, that you love very much? What if it's not a stranger but your mother or wife or child? Your interests are going to change your decision, even if you aren't consciously making it.
To change another variable what if it wasn't someone hit by a bus, but someone who fell off a cliff? Are you instinctively going to jump after them to save them, when you can't do anything? Your instinct makes you act quickly, but there's still some decision-making going on.
People don't always do things for any particular conscious purpose. But there's always a reason. People don't really behave randomly. The reasons are sometimes just so complex that you (as an observer, or even the person acting) can't understand them, or are not aware of them.
-If
Run a pencil-and-paper RPG campaign with your far-off friends: Gametable!
" I don't lie, period,"
You're lying just saying this.
No, seriuosly, telling the truth for everything isn't the way to happiness or enlightenment; Its more important to be ethical than it is to tell your wife that her butt looks fat in those pants.
If you don't see the difference, then you're probably lying without realizing it, and that's worse.