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SCO Changes Tune, Again: Linux Now Just a Riff on Unix
dr3vil writes "eWeek publishes an interview with SCO's Darl McBride and Chris Sontag about the IBM lawsuit. SCO now claim that Linux is a 'nonliteral implementation' of Unix, and compare their claim to those involving Harry Potter rip-offs and Vanilla Ice versus David Bowie and Queen." And ronaldb64 writes "Yahoo Business has a nice summary of the last couple of months of stock movement of SCO, and the reasons why. It contains quotes from business analysts ('Win or lose, the outcome is at least a couple of years away' - 'In the interim, we know the company is going to burn through its cash balance.'), the lack of interest in SCO licenses, the effect the license purchase of EveryOne Ltd. had, and its continuing battle with Novell. The explanation given by pro- and contra-SCO activists is interesting: the pro-SCO group (in the form of SCO CFO Robert Bench) says it is because SCO has been laying low lately, the contra-SCO group (in the form of Eben Moglen) says it is because investors are beginning to understand how weak SCO's case is."
"In the interim, we know the company is going to burn through its cash balance.",
The saddest part is that this money goes to lawyers and only lawyers, who'll just opt for the luxury version of their next car or shop for the more expensive waterfont summer property. Think if that money went anywhere else--charities, disaster funds, education, investment, open source funding--you name it. Dozens of
G-Force music visualization
Q: Why do you think SCO can win?
McBride: When I look at our case, I think anyone who has a rational mind would come down to the same conclusions I do.
You mean, just like IBM, and the FOSS movement in general?
Sorry no more responses allowed after this, or else I'll sue you for non-literal illiterate literation.
EMail: 0110001101100010010000000110001101110010 0110000101111010011011100110000101110010 0010111001100011011011110110
King Feature Syndicates claims Star Wars is "nonliteral implementation" of Flash Gordon, sues Lucasfilm for $10 billion.
compare their claim to those involving Harry Potter rip-offs and Vanilla Ice versus David Bowie and Queen.
This means nothing to me.... who wants to enlighten me and karma whore?
I've got more mod points and GMail invi
"Free words of wisdom baby. Drop that zero, and get with the hero."
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101615/quotes
Investors are simply beginning to understand how weak SCO's case is.
Then why is Microsoft still invested... Oh, wait a minute...
I noticed Sim-SCO was one of the first to die off.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1404303,00.as p
Yet the Arse of Lindon continues to distribute (unsupported) Apache as well as other F/OSS products which adhere to the GPL.
Need we any other evidence of the duplicity of these scumbags?
Someone, please shut his piehole. I am sick and tired of listening to the lies and FUD and blastant misrepresentations made by this company and its executives and lawyers (same thing?).
SCO marketeers must have just relized that their lawsuit is in effect telling the public, and in particular the business public, that Linux is Unix for free. Otherwise, why sue?
He is right : everyone with a rational mind would understand SCO initial claims were so silly that it was worth for Darl McBride to change his strategy.
-----
. . . the witch is dead, which old witch. The McBride Witch.
May he rot.
Anger management starts Monday
SCOX definately should be sorted.
That company no longer has the ability to sustain itself from day to day operations.
Or Maybe it's better to buy 1 share of SCOX, wipe my ass with it, and mail it back to Darl McBride. It's just too hard to say what gives me more pleasure.
This means 4 distinkt lawsuites against the same company (IBM), Each one filed after the 1st was shown to be completly baseless.
:)
This last one hasn't a ghost of a chance but SCO can always fantasize.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
As I type I am (should be) working on a simple login function. It works pretty much the same as every other one ever written... including a unix login... wonder if I'm next to be sued.
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
It seems to me that SCO is going after companies that are more likely to pay up than go to court to fight them, taking a bit of a path of least resistance. We don't know how many private license deals they did in the first quarter of 2004... they'll have to release the total revenues in a few months, but it's not out yet.
SCO might be making more deals than we know with companies less likely to fight back because they know they will lose the IBM fight... so they're profiting while they can.
In other words, both the critics and the supporters are telling the truth. Their main points don't contradict...
Don't forget to pay
You cock-smoking teabaggers
Your Licensing Fee
There are different standards for software than there is for a work of fiction - in a work of fiction, if you have the same characters or the same plot, it looks like plagiarism; but software is about applications (in the generic sense of "things you do"), and one can pretty easily see that a certain amount of workalike implementation would be necessary for competition to be possible. IANAL, but if I were at the business end of this lawsuit, I'd ask my lawyer if the whole MS vs. Apple "look and feel" decision didn't set a damning (to SCO's position) precedent in this area.
Technically all Linux ever was (at the start) was an imitation of Unix by admirers thereof. Why people like to claim that Linux coders are "creative" or whatever is beyond me. They may have put in some innovations--the same no doubt that have appeared in many OSes since Unix--but they are really just copying something they like. They didn't move beyond that, as Apple has. And the latest ideas in OS research have been mostly ignored because of the momentum of the Linux hive. Really the Linux kernel deserves to be replaced by something better, and the middle finger be given to all the corporate advocates of Linux who want to make it the next Big Brother OS. But at any rate, unless SCO has software patents for Unix then I think their present claims are just more crapola.
they do
main(0)
It seems like a lawsuit like this would take years and SCO doesn't have that much money. The big question is, "Did they raise enough hell for Microsoft to purchase 'additional licenses' that extend the time SCO can keep suing everything Linux?"
I don't think so, but MS has a lot of money to burn...
When he loses, or if he wins, the downslide in the stock price will probably start off a class action lawsuit - more lawyers getting rich.
The silver lining - McBride gets sued and maybe there's an SEC investigation.
I can dream. Now, I'm going to listen to the Infinite Mind on NPR. Tonight's show is on depression - how appropriate.
I didn't know that SCO were the original authors of 'hello world'. How kind of them to be licensing it for free.
Decode these
The lawsuits by SCO gives companies which compete with FOSS products more time to defend themselves.
5 0615).
It seems that this strategy works and is delaying 'progress' at least a bit (see e.g. a recent post here: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=102728&cid=87
I'm no fan of conspiracy theories at all, but in this case it should be rather easy for, lets say, MS to put some money into SCO anonymously to delay and hamper linux deployment.
So, who else has MS given a cash infusion to recently that has a vested interest in linux going down?
*blinks* oooooo-boy. this could get nasty.
This is absolutely true. Lawyers are about the only profession that cause more harm to society than benefit. Just imagine how much better the world would be if lawyers like this had to give their ill-gotten gains to charity.
I too am amazed that these lawyers are able to go home to their families without a bit of shame.
Now that lawyers are jumpin'
Billy Gates' cash in, and my analysts pumpin'
Insider trades, all the sales I'm makin'
Cooking short sellers like a pound of bacon
Burning them - if they're not quick and nimble
I go crazy when I see the symbol
of my high stock - S-C-O-X tempo,
I'm on a roll, it's time to go solo
(Rollin!) In shareholder dough,
Press releasin' now, up my stock will go,
Pamela's on standby, tryin' just to ask "why"?
(Did you stop?) No! I just drove by,
Kept on - I'm filin' to the next suit,
Judge busts me down, so I gotta try a new truth, -
That truth was dead, yo, so I continued to,
(IBM) - Lawsuit avenue!
Darl and Chris, wearing less than bikinis,
*** VIEWER PROTECTION FAULT - CORE DUMPED ***
Although I'll bet Daryl and company wish it were so.
/. feel like compiling a list of SCO quotes that they have made in the past year for a good 'comedy of errors' read?
Look at todays comment.
SCO now claim that Linux is a 'nonliteral implementation' of Unix,
If it's 'nonliteral' why did they even bother with a copyright suit in the first place? Still looking for the "millions of lines" of infringing code, Daryl.
Anybody on
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. -Frederick Douglass
So now Linux is Bad because it's Similar to UNIX.
Did Darl ever bother to explain under which portions of copyright law, exactly, it is legal or a civil infringement for Linux to be Similar to UNIX?
Just checking.
Dat gedonder met SCO moet maar eens afgelopen zijn.
Wie gaat McBride eens mee naar de hoeren nemen, het lijkt erop, ik zeg niet dat het zo is, het lijkt erop dat die "kerel" het eens nodig heeft.
Je kunt wel lief blijven, sommige mensen verdienen het!
Bah bah Bah, bij mij in de familie heet al een toilet --> McBride en de keutel die weggespoeld wordt een Sontag.
Dankejewel SCO voor de nodige humor, jullie hebben goed jullie best gedaan.
PLZ translate it to your language.
> Yet the Arse of Lindon continues to distribute (unsupported) Apache as well as other F/OSS products which adhere to the GPL.
Hello,
Apache is not GPL'd. I leave it to your superior research skills to determine its license.
With the considerable history of this suit, SCO just keeps double and triple and quadruple talking on all the points. Is there no doubt to anyone (not just in Linux circles) that SCO will probably loose, one of several ways.
Seriously, because hate is such a self-destructive thing I really try to reserve it as much as I can. But I think that Darl McStupid really deserves the full wait of my humble bit of hate. I don't know how that effects his or my karma, but I really don't care at this point.
The only thing that is gonna suck when SCO finally looses is that some poor saps will loose a lot of money on SCO stock, and a few SCO employees (like all of them) will loose their jobs.
Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
Sounds to me like they've got a non-literal case then.
But everyone knows it's not SCO's cash flow they'll be burning through. One way or another, the cash will come from sugar-daddy Gates.
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
The eWeek article has some interesting quotes by Sontag, indicating that he has no clue what the GPL is, what copyright is, and what a license in general is. Sad really.
Sontag: We don't have to knock out the GPL for us to succeed on the copyright issue. The GPL itself supports, in a lot of ways, our positions. Section 0 of the GPL states that the legit copyright holder has to place a notice assigning the copyright over to the GPL. All these contributions of our IP did not have an assignment by SCO saying here, 'We assign these copyrights to the GPL.' The fact that we participated with Linux does not mean that we inadvertently contributed our code to the GPL. You can't contribute inadvertently to Linux. We feel we have a very strong position based on the GPL.
The GPL is a license under which copyrighted material can be used by others, it is not an entity to which copyright can be assigned (transferred). Sontag seems to think that the GPL == the FSF, or something along those lines.
It is perfectly possible to "inadvertently" license your copyrighted material to someone else under conditions you don't approve of. The solution is to create a new license to distribute your works under to new people, not to pretend you never did it in the first place.
I also love this part:
Sontag: We feel very covered under the GPL itself, and second, U.S. and international copyright law does not allow for inadvertent assignments of copyrighted material; the copyright holder must make an explicit assignment, typically in writing, in a contract. If that's the strongest argument that's out there that SCO has a big problem here, that's a molehill as far as we're concerned.
This crap is right out of Novell's Motion to Dismiss and Notice of Removal. Novell argues that US Copyright law requires very strict wording to assign copyright, and it does. Unfortunately for this gang of thieves, the GPL is not an entity copyright can be assigned to.
Pierre
Well, this is an interesting point. 10 or 15 years ago, CS was the hot thing to study in school. The Internet was new, the money was fantastic , now it's changed to law. All the kids will be going to law school, because it is now the hot thing, and the money was fantastic .
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
I thought that the hello world example referenced in the article was trivial, so lets consider a non trivial application:
If someone writes a game that plays the same as Tetris, but hasn't ever looked at Tetris' code, can the copyright holder of Tetris sue even if the implementation is completely different?
Now what about older games like Chess or Go? Does the first programmer who writes an implementation of the game get the copyright, and thus the ability to stop everyone else from writing an implementation of said same?
Is it content or implementation that can be copywritten or patented?
Happy Trails!
Erick
http://www.busyweather.com/
boy...and I was just thinking - "hey, it's been awhile since I've seen a SCO story on /. - I wonder what's up". Guess it's time to reset the counter.
(and yes, I know I could ignore the stories if I wanted).
RTFA
"In other words," Torvalds said, "there is no code taint that I'd be afraid of, since no such tainted code exists in the kernel. There is only the issue of SCO's NDA. And, at least back then, Darl was aware of the issue, so this is not a question of misunderstanding. It's a question of Darl knowingly misrepresenting the truth."
like his code, his words are to the point and clear.
Fuck Darl, he's a kockbite.
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
Since Microsoft has been partially funding SCO (through fees or licenses or other alleged funding activities), does their deal with Sun (which has some relatively significant Linux/open source interests, but not as much as IBM and HP) mean that Microsoft backs off from SCO's defense?
It seems like some footnote in the $1.7 billion cash deal and partnership announcement should be that Sun has Microsoft's contractual assurance that they won't threaten Sun's Linux business through supporting SCO.
Freelance tech journalist for the Economist, MIT Technology Review, Macworld, and others
While it may do things somewhat differently, owing to the black-box copying, it does effectively the same things, which I believe was the poster's point.
SCO isn't satan; merely funded by him.
This is what SCO license demand letters were meant for.
Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
is finally starting to get it. I see more and more articles that are critical of SCO (therefore tell the truth, less SCO's FUD). It only goes to show that once you peel away the layers of bullshit, there can only be one outcome.
;-)
The statement about the IBM v. Microsoft "war by proxy" I beleive is accurate. It has been a long time coming. Unfortunately, I don't think it will go as far as it should (IBM buying/crushing Microsoft). One can still hope, though
bash: rtfm: command not found
But don't think just because lawyers get the money that it stops there. People... real people, have to build those cars lawyers buy, and fix them and gas them up. Someone has to build and sell them those nice homes, and those waterfalls and pools, and whatever else those lawyers buy. A lot of people have a bias against those who are well off. It's not like rich people sit on thier money. The money goes around. If you don't think you get your fair share, then go get it.
What about the argument that, given the nature of the language and the design goals, that of course you'd end up with similar structures. I mean, how many efficient ways are there to write 'hello world' [the canonical beginner's program]?
[...]
Sontag: Sure, there may be some of that, but look at dynamic shared libraries; different operating systems implement these very differently. But in Linux and System V, they're implemented in exactly the same way. They could have been done very differently and still accomplish the same thing.
Of course, there are many ways to program the same thing. But very often, only one is both elegant and efficient. Unix is has been programmed by very talented hackers, and so has been Linux ; so, it's not surprising at all if Linux hackers find the same solutions that Unix hackers did decades ago.
Go away, SCO. You obviously don't have the point.
----
to show me just where I said Apache used the GPL?
Get a nick...
Once again, as one who followed scox stock for a long time, the SCO CFO is correct, and Eben Moglen is wrong.
This stock *never* had a reason to be high. So its lowness is clearly a function of its manipulators, err investors, laying low. Not a function of sudden wisdom.
I have never met anyone investing in SCOX that did not understand exactly what the nature of SCOX was. Have you?
What I have been saying ever since SCOX burned a hole in my pocket is that SCO is a very bad software company but a very good marketing company. Ask yourself what the major supporters of SCO (Microsoft, Sun) receive in return. It ain't software.
Linux is a kernel. It copies POSIX specs, if anything. If anything, GNU are the ones who "copied" UNIX, and did so over a decades ago, but even that is a false argument.
At the heart, we have to ask 'what is UNIX?' Is it the core userspace tools? Then "copying" UNIX has already been shown to be OK, as BSD "copied" (read that "replaced") UNIX bit-by-bit while AT&T had it available to the schools.
Is it a kernel? If so, then SCO's claim of Linux 'copying' UNIX is meritless, as all it does is impliment POSIX calls so UNIX programs can compile and run on it. Behind the scenes they differ immensly, hammered home by the fact that SCO talked of adding a Linux compatibility layer to their UNIX product a few years back, but dropped it because it just would have been too difficult to impliment IIRC.
If UNIX is everything that runs on the 'UNIX' kernel, then there's never been a UNIX. Ever. Because each 'UNIX'(AIX, HP-UX, Solaris, Sun OS) has been so drastically different that it has been the major reason UNIX never hit it big until someone came who didn't trying to block other vendors out and prevented others from using it to in turn block other vendors. (Namely, GNU/Linux) Had HURD pushed forward and been the default GNU kernel, perhaps they would have some theoretical merit, but HURD is also drastically different, being a mircokernel design and all the spiffy stuff that comes with that.
To say "Linux copies UNIX" is to say "Timex copies sundials." They have a common ancestory, serve similar roles, but vary greatly in implimentation.
This has more to do with sequence, organization, which is copyright-protectable.
And most cars have doors, windows and 4 tires. Perhaps all of the auto companies should sue each other for making similiar items.
If this is the best they can do they have a hard road ahead.
Got Code?
a nonliteral implementation of Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces
http://www.castlebooks.com/star-wars-myth.htm
"... watch me pull a lawsuit out of my butt!"
"Again?! That trick never works."
"Hey presto!"
(Screams and splattered blood as Darlwinkle is torn asunder by the defence legal team.)
Uh, how would it be karma whoring to drive the conversation further off topic? Isn't the article about SCO's recent actions? Or are you trolling for offtopic posts and flames like this. In that case it's pretty cool - trolling for negative-modded folloups - a new /. game.
Has anyone ever heard of "POSIX compliance"?
for pete's sake...
sigh
Under pressure
another one bites the dust
we are the champions
fat bottomed girls.
Good luck with that last one, Darl.
...It's the terror of knowing
What these lawsuits are about.
SCO investors screaming
Let me out.
Press-release tommorow - get the stock high, High, Hiiiiiiiiiiiiggh
Pressure on SCO - SCO on the brink.
Under pressure.
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. -Frederick Douglass
He never said Apache was GPL'd. He said it adhered to the GPL. I leave it to your superior intellect to determine the difference.
McBride: ...anyone who has a rational mind would come down to the same conclusions I do.
Yesterday ??? Over ??? Oh, sorry I thought I was just getting some bad lag.
--Tsiangkun
------- Novell "McBride: Would you buy an operating system without the source-code copyright? If you don't have copyright, they can turn around the next day and screw you." If you 'Bought' an operating system, then why are you still paying Novell royalties, sounds more like 'managing' it for them, similar to property management companies [which don't own the property]. o Novell Shows Its Hand in the SCO Correspondence http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200401141 1254734&mode=print ------- IBM "Another issue, where I think you can win, is in your contract dispute with IBM. I know Caldera Inc. [SCO's earlier name] bought SCO's Unix properties in the first place with the expectation that IBM would continue to work with Caldera/SCO on bringing AIX/5L to Intel processors, Project Monterey. IBM, in the event, terminated Monterey only weeks after Caldera closed the deal." You can get information regarding the agreement here: http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200403071 1323697 In this agreement since Caldera purchased SCO, it clearly states that IBM had the right to terminate the agreement: "Notwithstanding Section 15.1, IBM shall have the right to terminate this Agreement immediately upon the occurrence of a Change of Control of SCO" ------- GPL As for the issue of GPL, this is taken from GPL License: 2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion of it, thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1 above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions: * a) You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices stating that you changed the files and the date of any change. * b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License. I wish to ask SCO this, in the license it states that if you modify code, and SUBMIT IT FOR PUBLIC USE [ outside of your own personal use ], then it MUST BE under the conditions of the GPL, why did you allow such a breach to occur? Then your first lawsuit should of been against your employee who submitted the code and disciplining your legal department for not having a proper policy in place. This places you in a position very similar to a retail store setting a wrong price on an item, and then having to honour it, or at least publicly announce what EXACT code was placed that wasn't authorized and ask for it to be removed... ------- Derivative Work "Sontag: We've shown the SGI code and a number of other things. The preponderance of stuff that we'll be showing, other than the IBM derivative work, is still forthcoming." $ echo 8/85 -- AT&T Made No Claim to Derivatives, Only to Software Developed by AT&T http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200402121 54324447 -------- ABI "There are things out there that help people understand how to program to System V application binary interfaces [ABIs], to help them hook up to the OS. It was out there to help people write applications. It wasn't published to help someone knock off the OS and create a free version of System V." Analysis of the ABI files: SCO's Former VP Said The ABI Files Could Be Used in Linux Freely http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200403050 7394870 The ABI Files: More on Errno.h -- by Warren Toomey, UNIX Heritage Society http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200402211 92536920 Signal.h -- Part 2 of Warren Toomey's look at the ABI Files http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200402292 3000172 The BSD Smokescreen by Dr Stupid http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200402181 95403210 -------- Dynamic Shared Libraries [MORE ABI] "Sontag: Sure, there may be some of that, but look at dynamic shared libraries; different operating systems imple
I thought you guys liked to say how MacOS X was based on Unix? If so, doesn't that mean Apple "just" copied Unix as well? Or do you think userspace innovation counts? And if you do, why discount KDE, GNOME, Mozilla, etc.? I certainly don't remember Unix having any of those.
Why do you think SCO will *win*???
Anyone, what exactly isn't clear in Darl's answer??? Should he start with : "I think SCO will win because..." or can we at least accept he's gone past 1st grade???
1. No sig. 2. ???? 3. Profit!!!
Ignore for a moment that SCO is SCO and we all at Slashdot hate them for various reasons.
Lots of companies big and small engage in lawsuits everyday as part of doing business. Breach of contract, patent infringement, etc. These things can take years to come to some sort of end, with the parties working something out or a judge making a ruling.
But business should continue to go on. You can't simply put everything on hold due to ONE lawsuit. But that's what SCO is doing. It seems to me that their entire focus has shifted to this ONE lawsuit. And regardless of whether or not you believe in the merits of their case or the ethics of a company whose business model is nothing but lawsuits... they are putting way too much weight into the potential revenue it might generate. And that is quite risky.
This is ONE lawsuit. By putting all their time and energy into this one lawsuit it has dwarfed everything else about the company and its real products. This to me is a bad business practice, and is the real reason that SCO is losing investors.
Yet the Arse of Lindon continues to distribute (unsupported) Apache as well as other F/OSS products which adhere to the GPL.
I don't get it. Why aren't they being sued by hundreds of GPL developers? SCO's obviously SELLING their software (how many software packages?) without a license.
you know that really sounds like a great idea for a game!
If you look through old Groklaw stories there are dozens of cases where SCO took quotes out of the previous-days coverage of the case (usually from the other side) and started spouting it as if they thought of it.
The funny thing is they don't understand the issues well enough to copy correctly. For example, copyright assignment is giving your copyright to another person or company. Copyright licensing (i.e. using the GPL) is providing permission for someone to use your copyright. They are completely separate things. But SCO doesn't understand that and thus they look like idiots in interviews to anyone who pays the least bit of attention.
If linux is a 'non-literal implementation' of Unix, then Windows is a 'non-literal implementation' of Mac OS, and the lawsuit from the learly 90's should be revisited.
Hey... isn't Brittany Spears a non-literal reimplementation of Debbie Gibson?
Everything old is new again.
-db
No, nonliteral implementation is not the same as orthogonal projection. Orthogonal projection is like when someone transforms rectangular coordinate bears into polar bears. Nonliteral implementation is lawyerese for "I know copyright is supposed to protect the expression and not the underlieing ideas, but I can't win with that rule, so please let it cover the ideas this time".
(If I've timed it just right, this comment will make perfect sense as he comes down).
Who is John Cabal?
"Come not between the Nazgul and his prey! Or he will not slay thee in thy turn. He will bear thee away to the houses of lamentation, beyond all darkness, where thy flesh shall be devoured, and thy shrivelled mind be left naked to the Lidless Eye."
Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est
There is no such thing in Copyright law which says this. Unless you have a line-by-line copy of a significant amount of code, you're chances at proving infringement are remote, at best. If you'll notice SCO has progressively backed down it's case again and again.
:)
:)
We've gone from "full blown copying of 1M+ lines" to "no copying, but those are our derived works" to "we claim these header files" to "Linux is a riff on UNIX". Oh, please.
Come on, Darl, you mean to tell me you think that someone can't write something *similar* to something else without infringing?
What about Free DOS and the myriad of other OSes out there. Hell, according to this logic, Windows would infringe. Why don't you go sue MS? Oh wait, that would be biting the hand that feeds you.
GJC
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
I need to get well, man, it's been days since my last SCO story, I'm freakin' out! You don't mind if I just slam it right here, do you?
All this source code I've looked at, there's MUSIC that goes along with it? MUSIC? I missed the MUSIC!!!! No wonder I can't understand it, just looking at the words and not hearing the MUSIC!
The kicker is that if Linux is a "nonliteral" derivative of SysV, then SCO's Linux Kernel Personality must be "nonliterally" infringing on Linux and the GPL.
-m
--- Learn XForms today: http://xformsinstitute.com
from the article: ... Boies will get 400,000 shares from SCO."
... Boies will get 400,000 shares from SCO."
"The stock plunge won't affect star lawyer David Boies' compensation.
Is that statement just plain wrong ?
Shouldn't that read:
"The stock plunge will affect star lawyer David Boies' compensation.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
"I think SCO just may be SATAN"
Hmm, and just having seen a particular Southpark episode, I then must conclude that SCO is gay, and not a mormon!
"some poor saps will loose a lot of money on SCO stock"
Nope. Those same poor saps have had over a year now to pull out. People buying SCOX are supporting them and therefore are equally evil as SCO...
No, it doesn't. :)
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
Yes, and that technically gives Darl McBride and the rest of SCO crowd the status of "minions". Generally speaking, a minion is not a good thing to be, since Satan tends to use them up like popcorn.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I think the biggest success of Linux is as a viable platform for the development of Open Source software. There's nothing stopping you running X11 on another OS, or GNOME or KDE or Bash, or whatever. Just look at Cygwin.
:)
If a better kernel comes along in the future, then it shouldn't be too hard to get X11 running on top of it. Likewise, you don't necessarily need X11 to run KDE, as KDE is based directly on Qt. Everything's layered nicely; a refreshing change from Microsoft's inability to seperate apps from the OS.
The key thing is that the interface ties between of X, GNU, KDE, GNOME, and a lot of other Free software, are very thin indeed.
Which is good
they come up with are interesting to me.
Their analogy of Vanilla Ice vs. David Bowie/Queen does fit a little bit. But the one thing you have to keep in mind as well is that computer code and music might have some superficial similarities, but are vastly different that music still works if some pieces of it are misplaced, or rearranged, even if it sounds bad. Code does not. You change a couple of letters in a piece of code, and the entire program/application could come crashing down completely.
The scary thing is that these kinds of arguments would work pretty well in a courtroom, because people who don't code don't think like coders do, and these arguments would seem compelling and reasonable.
We will of course see how the courts interpret this type of issue in the coming months and years.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d Capitalization really works: i helped my uncle jack off a horse
That is the case. UNIX and Linux are different in the implementation, that was the whole point of creating Linux ...
and logically yes, SCO should be going to M$ if they win the case, but again SCO hasn't shown anything essential (such as proof) in that regard.
Just ask the developers of Doublespace.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
SCO has stated that it has a significant financial connection with Microsoft. In addition, SCO has publiclly stated that Microsoft directly forged the relationship between SCO and the SCO legal team.
So although Microsoft may have not directly hired anyone that SCO has hired, it's simply not true that Microsoft has nothing to do with SCO's case.
Check your facts before you post your claims. You'll look smarter.
The Apache license may be compatible with the GPL, but it does not "adhere" to it. The apache license never says you have to release your modifications if you distribute modified versions of apache. This is something most GPL supporters miss.
The Apache license is NOT the GPL
I'm surprised everyone else hasn't followed suit. Whenever SCO makes a statement, it's usually in one ear, out the other... all I hear is "blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah."
Even though they are viewed as "The enemy" of this community, had they actually ever ONCE said anything factual and worthwhile, I'd listen. But that has yet to happen.
Ever notice how when their media attention dies down, they make another statement just to keep the fire going? They have no case, never had one, they're jerking the legal system and playing it like a lottery, and flat out wasting people's valuable time. They want to throw a little temper tantrum because no one's buying their stuff. I wish the legal system would take their false lawsuits and dismiss them with a grin and a flip of the bird.
Instead, they try to spread their FUD around about how Linux supposedly has their IP included, yet continuously fail to show proof even when asked, which only proves that they are delaying the inevitable point in time when it will be proven to all their investors that they are completely and utterly full of fucking shit. I really hope someone countersues them into oblivion.
I think the best thing people can do at this point in time is just ignore them.
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
Socks should be sorted. SCO is sordid.
Apache doesn't adhere to the GPL. Apache's released under the Apache Software License, available at http://www.apache.org/LICENSE.txt
Human nature is the same everywhere; the modes only are different. -- Earl of Chesterfield
Now that the share price is down...
Also, in an effort to more firmly establish Unix ownership rights, SCO is suing Novell, a big Linux vendor
Not yet.
What if those funds went toward somebody's rent that was working on the luxury car assembly line, or the waterfront property carpentry? Wouldn't that be a noble deed? Wouldn't these people be benefiting from the cash as well?
We may be seeing SCO's announced "stock buyback" program in action. Each day, for the last week or so, there's been a big buy in the hour before the close, which tended to stem the day's decline. (Except for Tuesday, when the stock finished about where it started.) Look at the stock volume charts, and notice the late-day peak. Yesterday, there was a really big transaction just before the close, which pushed the stock up to about where it was at the beginning of the week.
Today, trading volume was way up. Unclear how much of this is the buyback. But until the buyback program was announced, the stock had been sliding down steadily, almost linearly, for weeks.
> The saddest part is that this money goes to lawyers and only lawyers
There are many in the Linux community like myself who could see what was going on and shorted SCO stock when it was in the high teens. Since then SCO stock has come tumbling down and has made us A LOT of money. This money came from people who directly supported the SCO scam by buying their stock. I am going to get extra enjoyment out of spending this cash. I have donated some of my winnings in the SCO lottery to various opensource causes including Groklaw and will do more of that in the future.
There are approximately 2.5m shares of SCO that have been sold short. That is 36% of total shares floating. This is huge. IBM in comparison has 0.8% of its floating shares short.
"McBride: IBM had told Caldera right before the deal closed that were going to keep supporting Monterey. Afterward, the IBM guy who told us [that IBM was no longer supporting Monterey] said, 'Sue us.'"
And if such a clause specifying that Sun can pursue Linux+GNU is *NOT* in existence, then, the Sun has set, they will have gone over to the DarkSide.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
That's what we've doing wrong! lol. Hey, I wonder if you ran it through a Dolby 5.1 decoder you could FEEL the infringement? Surround code. HAHAHAHAHA!
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
If SCO sucessed in their claims and everybody starts developing for GNU/Hurd..
No, it is not. At least not literally. Whatever the outcome of the lawsuit is, David Boies will get the same: A fixed amount of money and a fixed amount of shares. What will be different is the value of the compensation David Boies is entitled to.
We'll agree, that the value of the shares is quite directly connected to the outcome of the lawsuit. The value of the money David Boies gets is determined by such factors like inflation and interest rates, so it is not fixed either.
But there is no contractual "success fee" included into David Boies compensation.
...im surprused they dont wear screw-on pants.
SCO remind me of taggers, a group desperately trying to spread their 'graffiti' anywhere and everywhere in hopes of making people notice them.
Sad.
It's Deborah Gibson these days. Nope, she didn't slut out, she squared up... trying to get herself more marketable either way.
--Rob
The kicker is that if Linux is a "nonliteral" derivative of SysV, then SCO's Linux Kernel Personality must be "nonliterally" infringing on Linux and the GPL.
Not necessarily.
SCO claims that they own Unix, and that Linux is Unix. By that argument they own the code they're adapting to, and the application of GPL to such code is void.
(Interesting world they live in, eh?)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
3/03/04 THOMAS P RAIMONDI Director 11,841 Open Market Sale proceeds of $143,276.10
3/03/04 THOMAS P RAIMONDI Director 11,841 Exercise of Stock Options at cost of $13,261.92
3/03/04 THOMAS P RAIMONDI Director 11,841 Proposed Sale (Form 144) estimated proceeds of $137,237.19
2/04/04 THOMAS P RAIMONDI Director 11,841 Proposed Sale (Form 144) estimated proceeds of $157,958.94
2/04/04 THOMAS P RAIMONDI Director 11,841 Open Market Sale proceeds of $170,510.39
2/04/04 THOMAS P RAIMONDI Director 11,841 Exercise of Stock Options at cost of $13,261.92
1/26/04 LARRY GASPARRO Divisional Officer 5,259 Open Market Sale proceeds of $81,076.50
1/26/04 LARRY GASPARRO Divisional Officer 5,259 Exercise of Stock Options at cost of $47,962.80
1/07/04 THOMAS P RAIMONDI Director 11,841 Open Market Sale proceeds of $210,189.59
1/07/04 THOMAS P RAIMONDI Director 11,841 Exercise of Stock Options at cost of $13,261.92
Jon Katz ditches slashdot for other endeavors
Here is an interesting insider sales graph for past 12 months:
http://partners.thomsonfn.com/stock_gifs/S-Z/SC
The red arrows are sales by insiders and blue are purchases. Notice how there are no blue arrows.
Wrong! He is not a business analyst. The guy is an equity analyst or investment analyst or reserach analyst. A business analyst is a completely different role. The former involves analysing companies and securities with a view to making investments in them, the latter (as far as I understand the term) involves analysing things like workflows with a view to improving them.
There are several points in the Yahoo Finance article that are a bit off..
.... Boies will get 400,000 shares from SCO.
SCO is suing AutoZone and DaimlerChrysler in what could be the first of hundreds of suits against firms that don't pay SCO a $700-per-server license fee.
Those suits were regarding breach of previous license agreements when the companies moved off of SCO and onto Linux. They are not regarding a $699/server license.
Also, in an effort to more firmly establish Unix ownership rights, SCO is suing Novell, a big Linux vendor that sold Unix rights to SCO several years ago.
I don't remember the details of this one.. But, wasn't it a counter-suit, after Novell claimed SCO didn't have ownership rights? The article makes it sound like a proactive move be SCO to show how strong their claim was.
The stock plunge won't affect star lawyer David Boies' compensation
Ummm... if the stock plunges, doesn't that mean that those 400K shares are worth a lot less?? I'd say that affects Mr. Boies. His share price may be fixed, but he has to sell those shares on the open market to get anything from them. He basically has stock options in SCOX, those shares plummetting definitely hurts him.
But, overall the article is very good.. I just found those points odd.
a) you do not "assign" copyrights to GPL. The author retains copyrights, but the code is licenced through the GPL.
b) The required notice is the GPL. Everything in the kernel is covered by that statement and licence. SCO distributed the kernel with the GPL.
Don't trust SCO. Read the GPL yourself.
Just one thing to say, here
We're talking about line-by-line code copying. That includes not just the function but the exact, word-for-word lines of code. And the developer comments are exactly, 100 percent the same. The developer comments really get to the DNA of the code. It's one thing to have something look the same, but when the developer comments are exactly the same, that tells you everything you need to know that this is in fact lifted, that it has been copied and pasted from Unix into Linux.-- Darl McBride, 2003-06-16
A lot of code that you'll be seeing coming on in these copyright cases is not going to be line-by-line code. It will be more along the lines of nonliteral copying, which has more to do with infringement. This has more to do with sequence, organization, which is copyright-protectable. It's interesting when you go down this path that everyone wants to go to the exact lines of code, but most copyright cases
-- McBride, 2004-4-01
Forgive me if this is a redundant question, but I'm not wading through 3 pages of comments to see if this has already been asked.
By constantly changing what they're saying, does this change the strength (or weakness, as it is) of their case at all? I'm just waiting for some judge to look at this and say, "You guys are full of shit and you can't make up your minds. Case closed, you're ordered to be neutered so that you have no chance of ever reproducing ever again".
You can get a degree in hunting?
Infuriate left and right
So McBride says that we are all irrational because we do not agree with his side. Traditionally, legal disputes are fought with the admittance that each side is rational - a sort of gentlemen's approach to the fight. Of course, often legal proceedings come down to screaming that the other side is wrong because he's just crazy.
The article mentions SCO's opinions on the GPL, so it may come off redundant that I mention this here, especially since Slashdot rejected it when I submitted it days ago:
SCO's website lists five reasons for choosing SCO over its competitors. The fifth reason; that SCO UNIX is legally unencumbered, contains some inflamatory statements that hint at litigious behavior to come. In an open letter from Darl McBride, SCO has stated that the GPL license violates the US Constitution and current US Copyright and patent laws. From a legal perspective, it seems that SCO is gearing up for a floodgates argument (the weakest kind) that even if Linux doesn't contain SCO code, the GPL license itself is void such that no software can be distributed under the terms of the GPL. This would leave an opening for SCO to attempt to claim ownership of Linux technologies that have not been implicated in SCO's original lawsuit.
Now, McBride is essentially arguing that the Court will find that it is morally wrong for people to develop free software, or software for free since profit is the engine that blah blah blah:
We do so knowing that the voices of thousands of open source developers who believe 'software should be free' cannot prevail against the U.S. Congress and voices of seven U.S. Supreme Court justices who believe that 'the motive of profit is the engine that ensures the progress of science,'" McBride said.
Okay, admit it guys, if there was ever one company you wish Microsoft would just up and swallow, it's this one!
You've got it all wrong. It is a realistic representation of your manhood.
:) )
And you've got 1/26 the dick of your coworkers...
(anyone who mods this flamebait clearly has no sense of humor
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
Just to let people know that it's not all one-sided.
C|N>K
The Lindon, Utah, software firm wants IBM to pay $5 billion for reneging on a deal to push a version of Unix that runs on PCs, a niche Linux now fills.
How about Solaris, it runs on PCs? Since that is actually UNIX(tm)(r)(c)(etc). Or even SCOpenserver. Seriously if SCO had anything worthy of running a desktop system off of, people would be using it there. Are they just POed over the Tarentella deal? That group was spun off and isn't even part of them any more. Actually Tarentella is actually what we used to know as SCO and SCO is really Caldera + Unix.
The first is the Novell copyright situation. To me, it's not clear who's in the right here.
McBride: Would you buy an operating system without the source-code copyright? If you don't have copyright, they can turn around the next day and screw you.
Sontag: Instead, they waited nine years.
McBride: We have no doubts that our Unix copyright claims are valid.
One must, of course, ask why SCO felt that they had to wait years before notifying Linux folks of their alleged horrific infringements, and then felt that it was necessary to avoid actually *telling* Linux folks what the alleged infringements year until months and multiple court orders forced them to do so.
Sontag: We don't have to knock out the GPL for us to succeed on the copyright issue. The GPL itself supports, in a lot of ways, our positions. Section 0 of the GPL states that the legit copyright holder has to place a notice assigning the copyright over to the GPL.
All these contributions of our IP did not have an assignment by SCO saying here, 'We assign these copyrights to the GPL.' The fact that we participated with Linux does not mean that we inadvertently contributed our code to the GPL. You can't contribute inadvertently to Linux. We feel we have a very strong position based on the GPL.
First, this tidbit:
'We assign these copyrights to the GPL.'
Okay, enough fun has been made of Sontag and McBride's lack of competence when it comes to IP, so I'll avoid the jokes. You don't "assign a copyright to a license" (though GNU contributors are required to assign their copyright to the FSF for a number of reasons, in addition to licensing it under the GPL -- Linux is not a GNU project.)
Uh, huh. The fact that you added them to a file containing a GPL header doesn't count, eh? It's been well understood for many years that one header works for multiple contributions. When it comes to licensing, intent matters, and there was very clearly intent to GPL this code. I can't understand how you could make any kind of a counterargument.
The fact that we participated with Linux does not mean that we inadvertently contributed our code to the GPL.
Well, the alternative you have is that you committed massive infringement of thousands of IP holders that licensed their Linux code under the GPL. It's one or the other, SCO. If you want to go after Linux (and it's a damned weak argument -- I can't see how you'd manage to win it), you're also admitting that you deliberately committed a far worse crime. The potential costs of years of theft of perhaps millions of copies of Linux would easily bankrupt your company. I would expect that a shrewd mediator would find that donation of your code's copyright to the IP holders as a group would be the most acceptable form of restitution (trying to work out monentary damages from a class action lawsuit by a mass of coders with no interest in your money would be hard to resolve), which would put you back at square one, except without your money.
McBride: We will admit the things we've contributed and that we can't claw them back.
Darl, your second-in-command just said otherwise five seconds ago. C'mon, guys. At least maintain a cohesive position.
We think we have protection under both the GPL and copyright law.
This makes no sense. Name one right granted you by the GPL to either your IP or anyone else's IP that would entitle you to "protection" from other people using this code. If your code or other people's code is GPLed, everyone is clearly in the right to use it.
the copyright holder must make an explicit assignment, typically in writing, in a contract.
No. Team-written software is a form of joint authorship, which does not require explicit copyright assignment. While SCO might be able to argue that perhaps they have sole copyright ownership of the patch itself, the patched work is also owned by all the other authors of Linux, who
May we never see th
You obviously don't have to be very smart to head a large company. Any moron can run one down the tubes. Can this endless flow of stupidity just end? It's really sickening that these fools think there is anyway they can win. Even Gates will quit financing this to cut his losses sooner or later.
I could solve it with a small nuke, but I'm nice.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
The day is coming when scox will have to finally disclose the super-secret open-source code.
.. it doesn't *literally* match. But is almost, sorta, kinda, similar, in a way."
IBM will say: "Pfffft, after 15 months, the code doesn't even match"
Scox will reply: "Well .
That way, idiot scox investors will *still* think scox has a case.
"He says many are starting to see that SCO's Linux battle is a war by proxy between IBM and Microsoft."
Thats a good way of looking at it.
From SCO's point of view, they see companies like Red Hat and Suse selling unix and they're not getting their royalty like Sun and HP are paying. that they spent all that money purchasing the rights for. So of course they think they're right. Inertia is on their side.
...relatedly, http://bash.org/?106579
SCO now claim that Linux is a 'nonliteral implementation' of Unix, and compare their claim to those involving Harry Potter rip-offs and Vanilla Ice versus David Bowie and Queen.
To quote Jon Stewart: "Whaaa?!"
Have they heard of something called POSIX?
www.timcoleman.com is a total waste of your time. Never go there.
The term "communist" isn't actually as cut and dried as you make it out to be.
Marxists defined communism as the dissolution of the state, elimination of private property, and the leveling of all class barriers. That idealized goal was not achieved during the Soviet era, obviously, but the term was hijacked by the Communist Party, which for obvious political reasons presented its society as the realization of the communist dream.
The West saw little reason to quibble over terminology, and so bought into this misrepresentation by using the term communism rather than another, more accurate term (such as totalitarian socialism).
So yes, our history books call it communism, but history books simplify presentation of complicated historical material for reasons of clarity, ideology, and so on. Check out Lies My Teacher Told Me to get a glimpse at these simplifications in effect.
For more info about communism, check out this detailed explanation.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
... I'm thinking "smoke on the water" by deep purple
for the remaining capital they burn through on this quiotic litigation quest of theirs.
*Shrug*
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
Of course, Europeans have some 400 years of seriously poor behaviour to live down. The US still has a few million people to kill to reach European levels of achievement. In the process, perhaps Americans will shock themselves into slightly more sophisticated politics and religion.
Your reading comprehension must not be very keen tonight.
...
Of course we all saw that bit. We know that Darl "thinks" he's going to win (I'm not actually convinced of that). The part the granparent noticed is that Darl isn't able to *give any credible theory or evidence or reasoning about how he might win*
Right now, SCO's case is very thinly strung together. They're making totally new arguements (and few if any tried & true ones, and I assure you that they *would* use precident wherever they could), which advocate an inequitable solution (give us all the code IBM made, due to our strained theory of an ancient contract we discovered after sitting on for years).
The thing about the two contending theories is this: SCO's arguement is thin. If any one piece, each of which is built on top of the other, fails, the whole line of arguement fails, and SCO with it. Whereas, if you read IBM's legal filings (and yes, I have... IANAL, but I've learned a hell of a lot by reading all the tons of legal documents from Groklaw), you will notice that IBM has a layered defense. What I mean by that is that, even if one layer fails, they have not just one, but several other claims, where if *any* of them were to prevail, they would be entirely defended on those grounds.
I mean, look at some of the defenses: SCO doesn't have the copyrights (SCO will have to prove that they do vs. Novell, and they've shot themselves in the foot by contradicting themselves in their own legal filing! They claimed that Novell was slandering their title to the copyrights SCO purports to own, yet asked for the court to transfer them from Novell to SCO as a remedy, implying that they do NOT own them!), even if SCO does have the copyrights, IBM asserts that the work-product doctrine (hey! WE made this, not SCO!) and the old $echo publication refute SCO's reading of their contract. And even if both of those go SCO's way, SCO gave Linux out under the GPL (and the onus would be on SCO to prove the nonsense about it being "unconstitutional" here).
So there are three strong layers right there. Pick any two, even if those fail, IBM still has a defense and SCO is up a creek.
In the mean time, I'm wondering about the SCO publicity. Lately, they have been pretty quiet, probably because of the judge's private conference with IBM & SCO a while back after which SCO mysteriously went quiet and even withdrew from some debate or another. There's also that website that put up a fake press release about them buying a SCO license which SCO asked them to take down. Pity the site was not in English, but SCO's fax to them (which they put up) was, for some reason.
Maybe I should investigate the contact listed in that fax? I believe it was press.winkler@sco.com / 1 (801) 932-5800 -- it would be nice if I could find out what exactly they're up to these days...
Seriously, can anyone tell me why a Google for 'bastards' turns up the SCO website at #1 (or #2)?
bastards
The word is obviously not anywhere on the SCO homepage. Funny, but bizarre.
-- a.c.
Once again, a member of anti-slash.org has poisoned the well by copying a previous post verbatim rather than writing something original, and then he goes and brags about it on the front page of anti-slash.org, under "comments that need moderation." Have we become so lazy that we can't even write an original slashdot comment anymore? Please mod this karma-whoring filth down.
It's perhaps worth pointing out that it's almost correct to classify linux as a "riff on unix". In fact, as is clear from studying linux, it's actually a riff on POSIX, which is in turn modelled directly on SYS/V. With AT&T's permission, we might add.
Given this fact, I keep wondering why people aren't asking the obvious question: How can it be illegal to implement an official US government standard? This is really what SCO is accusing the linux gang of doing.
I'd think that having something published as a standard would automatically make it legal to implement it. If not, why bother with the standard in the first place?
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
I've only been using OS X a few months, but I will clarify a bit :-)
;)
It is indeed NeXTSTEP. Just prettied up a little bit to be "like a Mac OS" (like the desktop icons, menu bar on top, Finder, etc.)
The BSD stuff is now synced with FreeBSD 5. The Mach-based kernel is called XNU. It is either a nod to the GNU project ("X is Not Unix!") or it's a reference to the NuKernel of Rhapsody. Maybe someone else knows.
The entire "pure BSD" system, including kernel, boot and init stuff, along with user tools and other UNIX stuff is called Darwin. Darwin is a complete UNIX operating system in its own right. Has been ported to x86, and the IOKit for drivers is kickin' rad
Carbon is the C-based layer that older programs can be recompiled to use. I *think*
Cocoa is Apple's implementation of the OpenSTEP API. It is based on Objective-C, which is a fantastic language. ObjC is a true superset of C, so you can mix your C, C++, and ObjC code all you want, and GCC is fine with it. What's cool is that a lot of ordinary OpenSTEP compliant ObjC code can build against it. There are programs written for GNUStep that will build against the Cocoa framework.
The graphics server is DisplayPDF, exported as OpenGL textures. This is what Quartz Extreme does, allowing all kinds of cool GUI tricks.
The pretty blue gel-cap widgets, along with the nice icons, layout and spacing ideas, general interface guidelines, is called Aqua. Aqua is more of a design model than any actual code.
Second of all, the case they describe as being relevant about the Russian author who basically copied the whole idea of Harry Potter, and ended up getting sued did _NOT_ violate copyright, he was sued on the basis of plagiarism, which is a form of IP theft (usually of copyrighted materials), but is unconnected to the copyright act itself. The copyright act forbids the copying of a work without permission from the author, while plagiarism is the claiming of someone else's work (copyrighted or not) as one's own when attribution should was rightfully warranted. There _IS_ a difference.
Further, it is worthwhile for SCO to note that Ms Rowling having won this case did not entitle her to any monies from people who have purchased the infringing work -- restitution was payable only by the infringer. SCO likewise has no rights to demand payments from distributors of Linux that would have no means to know exactly what property of SCO's they possess which deserves payment, and absolutely no right to demand payment from users of Linux.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I suppose it follows that in a few years, we'll be outsourcing our barratry to Indian law centers that handle our cases for a fraction of the price.
Microsoft Windows is, fittingly, the official Desktop OS of Olig
Brer Rabbit says, "PLEASE don't buy me out..."
(And the moderation button you're reaching for is "Insightful", not "Funny"...)
Microsoft Windows is, fittingly, the official Desktop OS of Olig
SCO now claim that Linux is a 'nonliteral implementation' of Unix, and compare their claim to those involving Harry Potter rip-offs
So he is clamming Unix is a work of fiction?
IANAL however I believe it's been established you can make workalike clones of software.
Anybody know about the time when IBM tried to sue over PC clone bios software?
I don't actually exist.
Mr McBride asserts that there is line-by-line code copied into the Linux Kernel
"When you look in the code base and you see line-by-line copy of our Unix System V code... you see that everything is taken straight across. Everything is exactly the same except they have stripped off the copyright notices and pretended it was just Linux code. There could not be a more straightforward case on the Linux side." - Darl McBride, 6/27/2003
Darl is confident that the SCO case is just and good. It couldn't be any more straightforward. The line-by-line copying is so blatant that SCO will win.
"To date, we claim that more than one million lines of UNIX System V protected code have been contributed to Linux through this model. The flaws inherent in the Linux process must be openly addressed and fixed." - Darl McBride, 9/9/2003
Millions, and millions lines of code have been copied right into the Linux kernel!
"A lot of code that you'll be seeing coming on in these copyright cases is not going to be line-by-line code. It will be more along the lines of nonliteral copying, which has more to do with infringement." - Darl McBride, 4/1/2004
Darl.. what happened? For the last year there has been line-by-line copying from UNIX V to Linux. Now "when the rubber hit's the road" that line-by-line thing isn't happening. It is more along the lines of infringement? I'm so disappointed.
What's most interesting about this case at this point isn't SCO's song and dance. We should be paying more attention to the crooked stock analysts and other media that are insisting SCOX still has any value. I sure hope the SEC is investigating this whole mess.
Darl just doesn't want to believe that Unix is dead while Linux is still alive... he wants GNU to change its name to GIU and pretend nothing ever happened.
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
Note that what Darl is saying is much stronger than what SCO put in their court filings. If they tried to claim what Darl is saying in court, they'd lose, because of the "functional part" rule.
It wasn't a tough climb just for the USA, but most of the countries in the world. To directly comment on your statement:
I have studied the events of the early 1900's and came to the conclusion that events like the Great Depression were used as the vehicle to get things like unemployment and social security inserted into our social and economic fabric, but they were certainly not the only means to affect real and substantial recovery.
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
Do you really want the open source community to develop the true Next Generation operating system? Stop and think about this. If you succeed in killing off all free unix clones, the free developers will have to turn elsewhere. That means, to be safe, a from scratch implimentation of a whole new type of system from the ground up. In other words, implimenting all the computer science research of the last few decades that hasn't been put into practice. The potential of such a system could be revolutionary, and render Unix of any sort yesterday's news. Guess where SCO winds up in such a future.
You can't succeed in hijacking Linux - it's ONLY merit is its freedom. Destroy that and you destroy Linux, and create a new opponent. If you don't believe that the people are determined to create an OS unencumbered by commercial ties, you need to wake up and smell the coffee. The question is - what is your job description? Claim IP for SCO, or hault the spread of free software in business? If it's the latter you have no hope.
...to the bastardized system we have now that don't involve the government controlling every tiny aspect of the economy. Adam Smith never took globalism and the effects of modern communications and transportation systems into account. His system (capitalism) relies on small shop owners who have a stake in seeing thier comunities prosper. What the hell does Bill G. or Darl McBride care if my comunity prospers? They're safe behind their millions/billions with plenty of armed guards to stave off the suffering masses. In short, globalism breaks capitalism.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
You know, McBride and Sontag ought to just cash in their chips and then join up with one of the political campaigns. I mean, with the PR spin that they can put on Linux, they would do a great job on political issues. Imagine Bill Clinton, with McBride as the press secratary.
Press: "How would you explain the stain on Monica's dress?"
McBride: "We're sorry, we cannot talk about the alleged stain. It contains propritory 'code,' and will be revealled in the Ken Starr report."
Press: "What about the allegations of the cigar?"
McBride: "Again, we cannot talk about the alleged cigar. The 'cigar' is a propritory 'development method' of the President."
The views expressed are mine own and do not express the views of my employer.
..and the replacement is....
CSI
Confusion, Stupidity, and Ignorance
RegardselFarto
Both McBride and Sontag still don't seem to understand what the GPL is about, even after over a year of this conflict. Releasing something under the GPL does not do anything to copyright ownership. If SCO released some code under the GPL, they are still the copyright holder, not "the GPL", whomever SCO thinks that is. The GPL is a way for the copyright holder to explicitly grant others the authority to modify and redistribute the code. The copyright holder is still allowed to release it under other licenses if desired. It is "still theirs" in any case, but if it was released under the GPL, they have explicitly authorized redistribution, and cannot retract it.
SCO are still around? And Darl too?
I had a friend just return from the far east, and she says there is a rumour Darl is holding up in a red light district in Macao.
So this is news to me. What are he and SCO going to do this time?
> The only alternative to capitalism is rationing, otherwise known as the government deciding what products you should have, and handing them over.
That's not true at all. Capitalism is just a way of relating to money. Capital is money that you can invest to get more money. You couldn't do that in the USSR because things like speculating were illegal.
You couldn't do that under Feudalism because peasants were bound to the lord and any payment they accepted from anyone else would likely land them in trouble with that lord.
Feudalism != rationing.
You can't do that in most tribal systems for a number of reasons. Chiefly: it's probably dangerous/improper to get wealthier than the chief.
Many tribal systems don't ration.
I don't know enough about other economic systems to comment on them, but capitalism is not about money. It's about money as a means of production.
Because of all that crack.
To think the US of A is the paradise on earth, and their inhabitants are demi-gods walking on our planet. But their govment and their actions in general has made so much more difficult to maintain such point-of-view.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
Must not give him ideas.
Still it took him three weeks to find it.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
It seems like their stock is on the up again, it was down to about 7, but it's now up to 9.5.
Plenty of gullable suckers out there.
...since the Linux kernel isn't a part the end-user sees. Plagiarism mostly deals with "stealing" customers due to the look & feel (e.g. the Star Wars universe as opposed to any other work-a-like sci-fi universe). If you want to protect back-end stuff, that's what patents are for. Except those are expired. Uh oh.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
SCO was tanking already, before the lawsuits. Their market and products were dwindling, R&D behind the times, revenue in a steady decline. Their options were pretty much
a) close up shop
b) sue for one last score
In a), they're worth basicly nothing. Under b), they've been able to
i) secure funds (though most of it smear money from M$)
ii) raise stock price, dump stocks
iii) may still beliece they'll actually win
SCOs value without the lawsuit is far less than a dollar, that was their pre-lawsuit value. The one and only reason anyone would invest or divest stocks in SCO at any rate over that IS the lawsuit.
So it's not that they've put everything into the lawsuit, that was already clear. They're losing investors because the investors have lost faith in the lawsuit, no more, no less.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
What ever happend to Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof?
... I wonder sometimes if I'm actually awake and that this is not all a bad dream.
How can McBride be faulted when our entire thought process in this country says that reality is what you say it is. That reality can be manipulated.
We have patents on clicking the mouse button once.
I hope I'm never infected with their insanity.
While it is not good for someone to die due to lack of concern of his fellow man, violating everyone's rights by forcing them into a health system and taking their money isn't morally superior.
If you really believe all these things, then why not let the penniless masses at the public library read your book (Lies My Teacher Told Me) for free on the internet?
Obviously just another damn hyprocrite.
If we had the same legal system in the early 1900s that we now have can yo imagine how long it would have taken to create the car of the "masses."
Think about it. Every car uses the same "Human Interface," i.e. steering wheel, and pedals.
Killing the lawyers sounds better and better, although my sister is one. She works in a very high growth area -- personal bankruptcy law.
I think this may indicate that Boies isn't really convinced he can win. If he was, he'd have held out for a percentage of the settlement.
The shares will directly reflect the result of the court case. In the highly unlikely event that SCO wins, the value of those 400k shares will skyrocket, thus earning Boies his percentage.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Although I posted a counterargument on Groklaw, this is unlikely to fly, because of legal precedents. The examples I can think of are IBM v Compaq with respect to their clean room BIOS clone, and Apple v Microsoft over "look and feel" issues. In addition, Unix is a POSIX standard to which Linux aims to be compliant; it does not try and be compliant with SCO (or anyone elses) version of Unix.
The technical copyright arena runs a little different from the story writing arena.
Note that although the cases are scheduled to end up in front of a jury, only issues of fact will end up there. If IBM gets various claims made by SCO dismissed on points of law before they end up in front of a jury, a judge will be cleaning SCOs clock before 12 people get to possibly mess it up.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
"Right or wrong, my {continent|country|precinct|office}!"
When we talk about "our" countries, it becomes a matter of defining "us". Exactly who make up this vague collective that is supposed to recognize what that same collective did in the past? In a little more than 100 years, the living population of any country is completely replaced by another of roughly the same size. Even if we are infallible today, it doesn't mean our predecessors were, and I feel no urge to defend them if they acted wrong.
I recall something a fellow student told me back in the 1980's. He was living in a dorm sharing a single telephone, and the residents of that dorm (maybe a dozen people) were expected to split the phone bill among themselves. On occasion, some foreign student would spend hours on that phone calling home, only not to be around when the bill arrived three months later.
Turned out this had happened a bit too often, the remaining students had refused to pay the bill, and the phone company had closed the line. Even years after, when this fellow student moved in, the phone company refused to reopen the line, arguing "that dorm has a bad habit of not paying its bills", in spite of the fact that all of the students who were around when the line was first closed had now left...
If we go back a few hundred years, "Europeans" are responsible for colonizing America too, essentially wiping out the native population in the process. If there is any collective blame here, it's not tied to any particular continent. History is best learned from, not taken either responsibility for or pride in by those who weren't around to make it anyway.
As for SCO and its tactics, the most I can honestly say is "please accept our apologies for the inconvenience".
>SCO now claim that Linux is [like] a Harry Potter rip-off and Vanilla Ice versus David Bowie and Queen."
Sort of like SCO's Unix, huh?
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
I find it somehow reassuring that Darl, in his statement about "seven U.S. Supreme Court justices", has failed to recall basic middle-school civics, let alone all news items regarding the Supreme Court.
The U.S. Supreme Court has 9 [NINE] justices.
What a nitwit.
For those of you so inclined, FindLaw has an excellent page on the U.S. Supreme Court, including a history of the court.
If the Government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law;
Clarification: Apache is distributed under its own licence, which is closer to BSD than GPL.
The main difference is that the BSD licence just permits copying and modification and so boils down to "Sharing is not theft", while the GPL additionally demands that any such modifications be released under a similar licence and boils down more to "Not sharing is theft".
It may be a minor point {and the BSD licence is arguably more permissive than the GPL, but more permissivity isn't always a good thing; a hundred years or so ago, a husband could not be prosecuted for raping his wife because a marriage certificate was seen as consent to S.I. and you're not telling me that was fair.}
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
i say we create a massive worm that will take down sco's website...o wait, nm
I'm a virgo and on Slashdot. Coincidence? Yes.
That's a bit to naive. A country's culture transcends a specific generation. Remember, each generation is around to teach the next. As such, we do have a shared history, and more importantly, we have shared attitudes that tend to influence our actions, causing us to repeat that history.
Consider this: The years of Andrew Jackson and his successors imparted a sort of "wild-west" element to the American psyche. An intensely independent, "pull your self up by your bootstraps", "worship the average man" streak that is a part of American society to this very day. To believe that we are free from the actions of our fathers, and the behaviors that caused them to act as they did, is foolish.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Repeat after me class...
... Dar - l ...
Darl
not Daryl... not Darryl... DARL!
I know, it's a wierd name... nevertheless...
"McBride: I saw it, it was published, so the cows are out of the barn. The analogy I like to use is Vanilla Ice's "Ice Ice Baby" versus David Bowie and Queen's "Under Pressure." If you just look at the words, I don't see a copyright violation, but if you listen to the riffs, you can hear where they're the same."
Anyone that listens to Vanilla Ice, Bowie and Queen is not only flaming, he's a walking forest fire...
We always suspected. Now we know..
The decision was 7-2 in that case (about the consitutionality of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act). Dunno what he thinks of the dissenting judges (Breyer & Stevens) but I can guess :).
Roughly in the order they appear in the interview (not that I believe them, but they are there):
Personally, I don't find it very convincing. But to say they didn't put forth any reason they could win is to neglect all these (rather weak) reasons they mentioned.
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
Jesus says "God is good."
Meaning exclusively.
I think humans are doing well if they can just be humane.
This is in no way capitalism. In true capitalism there is no acceptance of monpolies. And this is what licenses and patents are. Governmentally granted monopolies. However interestingly this way of using copyright and patents is even unconstitutional, since Congress does not even have the power to grant such monopolies for the benefit of viability of a business or greed. Copyright and patents are to be granted only for the advancements of sciences and useful arts. This shows that it is un-American to act like Microsoft and SCO act (at least according to the US Constitution) and kann not be confused with Capitalism but should rather be called neo-feudalism. In the medieval ages the principalities took the monopoly of ownership and enforcement of ownership of land. At that time for the majority of people land was important to feed them. Therefore it was easy to enslave people on the grounds of ownership of land. This was called feudalism and was exactly the system the pilgrims tried to escape from and the founding fathers fought against in the independence war. And wisely the founding fathers put in place a limitation of the right of government in relation to monolpolies into the Constitutuon. Capitalism on the other hand came to follow the system of feudalism in conjuction with the industrial revolution. It is based on the conjecture of unlimited supply and demand which if it is unlimited (or sufficiently high that it appears to be unlimited) will automatically regulate the value and price of goods and/or services. However monopolies (which are granted through copyright in some way, and definately through patents) are doing exactly the opposite than allowing a virtually unlimited supply and demand. One could argue that property rights are part of capitalism. However, while this is an important principle of capitalism, it does not prevail in this situation (IMHO) since it could turn the whole idea of capitalism upside-down and define feudalism as a form of capitalism. In contrast, historically capitalism allowed non-aristrocratic members of society to step out of the feudalistic system and really a replacement of feudalism. Comcluding I disagree with the motion that Microsoft's or SCO's interpretation of their rights to intellectual property rights are truly capitalistic, but are rather fitting in a feudalistic system.
My biggest laugh came with the "Harry Potter" statement. It again makes clear that SCOscum want everyobody to think that "their" UNIX V is the "real thing". Unfortunately for them, they are just another Dmitry Yemets, but going one further and claiming that they now own the student-in-magical-school-flies-around-and-plays-b all-game and everybody needs to worship them while all the while it is the UNIX standard/Posix that is the real Harry Potter/Rawlings!
Look, lawyers don't look at it that way. Everyone has the right to sue (within reason), and lawyers are upholding the legal system by providing people with that ability.
We should be so lucky to live in a legal system in which you can sue the person harrassing you at work, or sue a company you are convinced put your intellectual property into a freeware operating system, and so on.
Lawyers don't go need to home "convincing" themselves that they're good human beings. It's their job to be hired, follow through in the best way they can, and let the judges decide. There's nothing immoral about it. You guys are assigning some sort of immoral motivation to them that doesn't exist. And it's not bad for them to make money either if the client pays them--that's called having a job and making a living.
It's easy for you guys to shit on SCO's lawyers, because you guys are Slashdotters who refresh this site over 10 times a day and use Linux. SCO represents some sort of great evil to you. But the lawyers can't have any sort of bias like that, because their job is to use the law to find a judgment. To the lawyers who got called up, SCO was simply some company wanting to legally pursue copyright infringement claims they believe existed. It's not the lawyer's job to make a judgment on their client, it's their job to take a case that they feel has a chance and pursue as best they can.
I like that your post got +5 Insightful for simply stating "No, you're wrong, it's different. I rest my case."
BSD is considered by most to be the most direct descendent of UNIX, yet it can even run Linux binaries!
All the power of all the coders of the world, and what do we do--create a UNIX clone, then create a Windows clone on top of it.
Any defense against the GPL they could have would require an admission that they were violating the copyrights of many other people (who, I have no doubt, would sue them even out of spite).
:] In the mean time, it's ironic that he's very clearly doing something quite foolish and detrimental to his case. But I see no need to mention what that is, because I understand that he does read comments on Slashdot and elsewhere, and I'm not exactly on his side... :]
Moreover, the rest of those statements have been refuted, both in and out of court...
Oh well. The courts are rational, and I'm sure that they will be able to figure this out...
Whoa now. Take a look at downtowns in our new ...or both
America. There are banks, other financial 'institutions', fancy restaurants, curio shops
with pricey goods exceeded in their ostentation only
by their absolute uselessness........and....
whorehouses and lawyers offices. O the whorehouses
call themselves 'massage parlors' and seem often to
lead legally charmed lives.
Now the money in the pockets of the lawyers does
not obviousely stay there. It gets put to use.
The money spent on the whores goes into the illegal
drug industry as most whores are drug addicts because they have to be stoned out of their minds before agreeing to bed an ugly lawyer of a fat,piggish banker.
This drug industry generates criminals who need
'defending'....new jobs for lawyers. So lawyers
protect prostitutes as a hedge investment for
future potential earnings. The whores help
educate a new generation of doctors studying
the new ways the trollops have found to self
treat themselves with antibiotics and thereby
create drug resistant venereal diseases. This
means more business for doctors and hospitals
to handle the cases and for lawyers to handle
the new divorce cases.
Whores contribute heavily to charities. When
I was a kid growing up in a poor neighborhood right
next to a rich business district, I would walk
past a 'oriental massage parlor' every day. I
could recognize the door easily. It was covered
with stickers representing every charity that ever
held out a hand. Now the hands that took so many
men in hand had become ever more helpful indeed
to so many others in need. And these lawyers and
bankers who go to thier lotion lunches every
day to there friendly local member of the oldest
profession are really participating in the new
economy of a self feeding circle of money. Maybe
they know it......maybe they will find themselves
in the camera sights of Morey Povich's video
vigilante someday....or in Heidi Fleiss's bed..
In reality, capitalism is the best thing for health. Do you know what the biggest, most amazingly life-saving medical invention of the last thousand years has been?
The Jacquard loom. Yes. The textile industry and the Industrial Revolution have saved more lives than all of medical science and antibiotics. Why? Because prior to the Jacquard loom, clothes were a luxury item. You had a shirt, you had trousers, you had shoes, you had underwear, and unless you were wealthy you probably only had one of each. That meant you wore the same clothes every single day--you never changed them--and since you never changed them, you never washed them--and that meant you were infested with ticks, lice and all manner of disease-carrying crawlies.
But with the invention of the Jacquard loom, suddenly clothes became available to the common person. You could have two or three sets of clothes! Amazing! And once clothes became available and commonplace to the masses, the masses did what kings and queens had done with their clothing--namely, took pride in them and wanted them to look their best. That meant washing them. That meant killing lice. That meant... controlling the spread of disease.
Once clothes moved from a you-got-one-pair-of-lousy-ones- just-like-everyone-else to a luxury item, health around the world began to improve.
So what's the biggest health innovation in the last thousand years? My vote is for the Jacquard loom, even moreso than the germ theory of disease.
So yeah. I guess capitalism will never help the poor stay healthy
Actually, Microsoft was the developer of DoubleSpace. I think you're referring to Stac Electronics and their legal proceedings regarding Microsoft's theft of their patented real-time compression technology, and they mostly won that lawsuit (for all the good it did them in the long run.) Stac might have made something out of their invention if hard disk space hadn't gotten so cheap so fast. Oh well.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
We're both right, at least from what I'm reading on the web. After getting sued by Stac Electronics and losing, they released drivespace which was licensed from vertisoft
A quick glance at vertisoft.com gives the impression that they either changed fields, or that the drivespace vertisoft went under.
We do not come out with a sense that those people back then were people just like us; that they made choices that we are seeing the consequences of; and finally that we still have power to make choices that our descendants can ponder. Instead we're given this vision that progress was inevitable, and we can just sit back and do nothing because the magic hand of progress will still be there to take care of our children.
So yes I believe we do see ourselves as infallible. The future will always be brighter no matter what we do.
http://almaz.com/nobel/peace/MLK-jail.html
Martin Luther King's
Letter from Birmingham Jail
April 16, 1963
Such an attitude stems from a tragic misconception of time, from the strangely rational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this 'hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right.
Fight Frist Psoting!
Browse Slashdot with 'Newest First'!
But what goes in must come out... and no-one would want even Microsoft to have to shit SCO out.