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FSF Subpoenaed by SCO
An anonymous reader writes "Bradley M. Kuhn on the FSF website: Late last year, we were subpoenaed by SCO as part of the ongoing dispute
between SCO and IBM. Today, we made that
subpoena available on our website. This is a broad subpoena that
effectively asks for every single document about the GPL and enforcement
of the GPL since 1999. They also demand every document and email that we
have exchanged with Linus Torvalds, IBM, and other players in the
community. In many cases, they are asking for information that is
confidential communication between us and our lawyers, or between us and
our contributors."
> In many cases, they are asking for information that is confidential communication
> between us and our lawyers, or between us and our contributors."
See JYA at Cryptome for how to deal with this sort of thing.
At least they got a check for $30 out of it!
Will RMS testify in his St. Ignucius costume.
Why didn't they ask for internet histories and newsgroup postings made as well? This sounds like they're grasping for straws when they don't even know what straw to look for. It sounds like harassment more than a subpoena.
The Blaster Master Fighting for Truth, Justice, and Evil Pie since 1979
I say you should download every mail list, usenet archive, and online discussion group, then print it all out on 10,000 pages. Throw in RFCs and source code to bulk it up a bit.
_______
2B1ASK1
So lawyers are petitioning for confidential information from other lawyers, knowing it is confidential?
Why, preytell, have there been no petitions to have SCOs lawyers disbarred yet?
Feed the need: Digitaladdiction.net
IANAL, but is this legal? Don't they have to somehow prove that the documents they're asking for have some relevance to their argument?
Furthermore, what exactly is their argument? Is it still that Linux contains SCO code? How would documents about "enforcement of the GPL" prove existence of SCO code?
OMG! Wau!
SCO seems to be getting desperate and going after any thing and any one who may (or may not) have had any thing to do with Unix. I just keep wondering how long before they finally run out of gas. Give me a break -- FSF -- yeah right. Their stocks sure have fallen lately -- at least there's something good in that!
Assure them that you have the documents they, and also that you have undeniable proof of the documents. Refuse to provide them, on ground that it would violate agreements you have with certain parties (don't mention who these parties are).
If all else fails, claim that you cannot provide the documents because it is a matter of national security.
2003 was a very good year for learning new stonewalling techniques...
$8.95/mo web hosting
5 months past the deadline and FSF is just posting this? Seems as if there is some agenda here...
sPh
Related docs which could make the subpoena irrelevant: Defendant/Counterclaim Plaintoff IBM's Memorandum In Support of its Cross-Motion for Partial Summary Judgement on its claim for Declaratory Judgment of Non-Infringement (phew).
Time to warm up the paper shredder Mr Stallman.
"Documents? - What documents? Oh, you mean the ones I threw out in my yearly spring cleaning?'
Old coffee machine grinds, the stack of tech magazines in the bathrooms, and RMS's love letters from numerous female admirers (the last was handwritten in on the legal document by RMS).
SCO is making a last grasp for anything.
The subpoena was filed last year. It's not a sudden "Hail Mary".
btw, fp!
At least you don't fail that.
Trolling is a art,
IANAL, but that's my take from reading the subpoena. It looks to me like Darl & company may be trying to assert that the GPL is void because it's not being enforced. And, its use against SCO is a special case.
Its apparently for copies or something. They should ask for more. Perhaps they should ask for $699 to cover the licensing fees for the postal service.
Its pretty obvious what SCO's trying to do here. This had one of two objectives:
Why would communication between FSF and its contributors be confidential?
Evan Prodromou | evan@prodromou.name | http://evan.prodromou.name/
Now is the time to support the FSF, so they can fight this thing. It'd be awful if they had to give out private emails and other communication.
Become a member of the FSF and support them financially. (I am already a member). You can also send anonymous donations, or buy something from GNU Press.
If FSF has nothing to hide, why don't they just bring out the evidence SCO asks for and then countersue the hell out of them?
The subpoena is pretty concerning in itself, but the fact that they were legally banned from talking about it until now is totally scary. It's totally like the PATRIOT Act, but it's imposed by a corrupt software company instead of the FBI. Da fuck?
I'm selling my K5 account "James A C Joyce" on eBay.
The law firm misspelled their own name in the subpoena: "Boise Schiller & Flexner".
"In many cases, they are asking for information that is confidential communication between us and our lawyers, or between us and our contributors." Where subpeonas are concerned, you may have confidentiality with your attorney, but certainly not with your contributors.
VBJonC
Turnabout's fair play.
(Wonderful old saying. A little archaic, but with no real modern equivalent.)
Shoot, they nearly asked for everything but the birth certificates of FSF members.
They are essentially asking for *anything* that might be related to the GPL, the companies that use it, people that write under it, enforcement, etc, including written communications, memo, documentation, etc.
No sig
I can't wait to hear Karl Popper's retort on this. ...Or are philosophy jokes not permitted on /.?
"If you have any questions regarding this mater"?
Don't high price lawyers have proof-readers or spell checkers? Or is this firm a kindred soul of Leonard "J." Crabs?
Subpoenas seem to be a rather intrusive lot. They pretty much throw any confidentiality aside in favor of "justice" or whatnot.
Kind of like the way the RIAA subpoenas IP addresses and other bits of information from ISPs in their quest to shake down some junior high kid who not only gets the heat for downloading music but also has to suffer humiliation as his peers find out he's downloading Backstreet Boys songs.
Litigation is the name of the game, and SCO seems to be trying to posture for higher stakes even when everyone's calling their bluff. Can't SCO dig up details of the GPL and its enforcement on its own? Oh yeah, more delay tactics. Cute. But that was a few months ago. The playing field is a bit different now. A bit more leveled. As in SCO is getting leveled.
SCO -- you have no chance to survive make your time.
We knew there was a subpeona many months ago; this is simply a copy of the subpeona.
I'm convinced SCO will win this thing just because of the disorganization and lack of best practices in the Open Source community.
Care to document any of this? Oh, right. You can't.
The mail and the RFCs are OK, but whatever you do, don't give them the source code!!!
according the doc, they don't have to give the docs over, if they send some one to the deposition. So they can just send some one, and now SCO has to ask questions to get the info they want and not just go on a fishing exposition.
I was recently mentioned to an old friend that I automatically save a copy of all incoming and outgoing email.
His response: "I can tell you've never been subpoenaed."
In fact, judges routinely value very broad discovery over
the sensitivities of people being subpoenaed.
You have been warned.
Last I checked, the burden of proof was with the accuser. If SCO doesn't already have sufficient evidence of a violation of their intellectual property, then they shouldn't be allowed to subpeona anyone. If they do have sufficient evidence, then this shouldn't be necessary. Someone's stalling. The question is: Why?
Couple of things,
Why is the subpoena just now being posted when it is dated from Nov. 5 2003?
(keep in mind, IANAL) Basically the document is saying it wants everything relating to communications between FSF and IBM relating to UNIX, Aix, Dynix, Linux and any other UNIX based OS.
Same for FSF and SCO.
Also, i find one of the definitions particularly interesting:
IE: (2) The term "communication" shall mean any transmittal of information, whether oral or written, including correspondence, electronic mail and other Internet transmissions, web pages, Internet relay chat logs, facsimile transmissions, telecopies, recordings in any medium of oral communications, telephone and message logs, and notes or memoranda relating to written or oral communications.
"I'm convinced SCO will win this thing "
Yeah, based on their track record so far, they've got about 2 toes left. And I'm being generous.
The documents are just getting posted, but IBM has just filed a "Cross-motion for partial summary judgment on claim for declaratory judgment of non-infringement." They are asking for summary judgment on IBM's "Tenth Counterclaim." This is the counterclaim in question:
IBM is entitled to a declaratory judgment pursuant to 28 U. C. 9 2201 that IBM does not infringe, induce the infringement of, or contribute to the infringement of any SCO copyright through its Linux activities, including its use, reproduction and improvement of Linux, and that some or all of SCO' s purported copyrights in UNIX are invalid and unenforceable.
The docs are just starting to get up but you can follow the discussion on the Yahoo SCOX message board.
infested with jello like fishes no melotron wishes
SCO subpoenaed a contract that I executed with the FSF for a project that had nothing whatsoever to do with their case against IBM. Yes, they demanded a copy of a contract between two parties not involved in their lawsuit concerning an unrelated project.
Because SCO has made public statements indicating that they consider the GPL to be invalid, and since that is the only license under which I permit some of my work to be used, and since they have involved me in this fray, I want to be perfectly clear about this. SCO is to discontinue use of any intellectual property I have licensed under the GPL unless and until they execute a signed copy of the GPL with me to indicate their acceptance of it. They may at that time resume use of my intellectual property. Until that time, they are to remove that intellectual property completely. They are not authorized to have a copy of it in their possession, or distribute it. They are not permitted to use it, directly or indirectly through any third party or agent.
Mr. Kuhn brings up a very good point. He notes, "We are grateful for SCO's tactical error of attacking one of the deepest pockets on earth, IBM, who has the checkbook needed to efficiently fight such a nuisance lawsuit."
Why was SCO so foolish? Was it just raw arrogance, a chance at a single payout, good press/bad press/any press?
Also out is Memorandum in opposition of SCO's delaying tactics.
"Originals" available here. Multi-Page TIFFs. You can install libtiff-tools to get tiff2pdf and tiff2ps.
Server logs, sources of everything on sourceforge or any member site of OSDN, complete gnu.org, sources of the GNU operating system (with Linux kernel ;) - just make sure that's not in the insecure electronic form - print it all.
Then let their lawyers really earn their money by digging through the stuff.
Of course, it could be a reference to AYBABTU.
Big Dig-ing until the money is gone...
Dear FSF,
All your documents are belong to us. Here's 30 bucks to cover your copying costs (in case you didn't get that this is a big "fuck you", let us clarify that for you - "FUCK YOU"). Toodle-oo!
Yours truly,
Your buddies at Dewey, Stickham and Howe
is there any way to avoid, get around, circumvent, ignore a federal subpeona.
just for future reference...
As opposed to the methodical way SCO's lawyers have conducted their case?
Quote: Frankly, I'm convinced SCO will win this thing just because of the disorganization and lack of best practices in the Open Source community.
It kinda reminds me an alleged exchange between Dick Wolf (the producer of Law and Order), and Michael Moriarty (the guy who played the EADA before the guy who plays the EADA now). Someone was suing them over something or other, and Moriarty said to Wolf something to the effect of "Well, we'll just have to get another lawyer to deal with it," to which Wolf replied "Mike, you know you aren't really a lawyer, right?"
The point is:
There are a number of legal privileges, including between spouses, lawyers and clients, medical doctors and patients, and a few others, but there's no such thing as "geek-project" privilege.
It doesn't matter if we are right. Bill Gates bet on the Republicans winning the last Prez election and got John Ashcroft (some clown who lost his last election to a dead man) to essentially dismiss the anti-trust case. SCO/Microsoft/deTocquville /ITAA etc. can appeal this mess all the way to friendly territory : the Republican dominated Supreme Court. No telling what twisted concepts of property Scalia and Rehnquist have.
SCO is screwed by their own admission
Quote
SCO has advised the court that it has provided complete and detailed responses to the Court's orders. If that is true, then summary judgement is appropriate because SCO has no evidence of IBM's alledged infringement (as SCO has adduced none). If it is not true, then summary judgement is appropriate because SCO has not only defied two orders of the Court, but it has also falsely certified that it has provided complete, detailed and thorough answers to IBM's interrogatories and the Court's orders. Either way, the Court should forthwith enter summary judgment in favor of IBM.
Help fight continental drift.
"lack of best practices in the Open Source community."
The ONLY organization who follows best practices as I can tell, proprietary or open-source, is GNU.
I mean, honestly, in how many businesses do you think lawyers review code written by internal employees to verify that the code they include is original. How might one validate that, anyway? If someone is copying from a private archive, it would be impossible to tell, because it's private.
Anyway, open-source in general is the best about this, because the source code is available for third-party examination. So, if you feel someone might be infringeing on you, no need for lawyers or subpeonas, just check the code from the website!
With proprietary software, if someone is infringing, you have to subpoena the source code just to verify it, and you wind up with significant amounts of egg on your face if you are wrong.
Engineering and the Ultimate
The Pacer docket (available free, due to high public interest) has the documents as TIFF files. Good luck on opening them (my pre-2.0 Gimp failed on some unknown tag.)
This is not entirely unexpected though, IBM already mentioned in a filing that they intended to move for summary judgement.
NEW YORK WASHINGTON DC FLORIDA CALIFORNIA .....NEW HAMPSIRE?
No offense to NH residents, but it's funny to see New Hampshire included in that list.
If you can read this sig - the bitch fell off.
It's weird, i don't understand...
Why nobody (producers/script-makers) make a script and sell the whole story to Warner channel? It's better than "Friends".
Don't tell me:
"They are waitng the end"
EVERYBODY knows the end of this story...
SCO talk, talk, talk...
FSF, present some proofs
And OF COURSE, theres no story without SEX, so at the end of the movie Linus and RMS, FUCK Darl McBride.
(Linus and RMS, culd be drunk for this part, becouse McBride is REALLY DISGUSTING)
Rock and Roll
Aha. GNU Halifax did the job wonderfully. I actually hadn't used it before. Another reason to love the plethora of software you get with Linux distros.
Where is this from?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Can someone legally harrass a third party in this matter?
For many individuals and companies the cost of complying to such a demand is excessive, the threat of such might be enough to settle a case.
Note that while FSF, IBM, Torvalds and all the attacked side's defense is relatively inexpensive, SCO spends a fortune on their lawyers every day. Just watch the stock quotes and delight on SCO running out of money and out of time :)
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# apt-get install libtiff-tools
# man tiffsplit ; man tiff2pdf
you QUASH a subpoena; you don't squash it.
The FSF just published a license, which Linus just happened to adopt for Linux. What do they have to do with the SCO lawsuit?
the first line baxically invalidates the entire thing.
It asks for documentation concering UNIX based systems. Isn't Linux a UNIX like system.
SCO's firm seems to have misspelled their own name in the body of the cover letter...
In their story at
http://www.computerweekly.com/articles/articl
I'm really interested to see the agendas show up in the way these things are reported. The author of the Computerweekly page seems to subtly slander the FSF and characterize SCO's agenda as the moral champion.
My own thought is that sticking to your legal rights and requirements is only good sense. Considering the aims of the FSF I find it refreshing that its sharing some of the legal papers with the developer world it supports.
I wasn't surprised when any of the subpoenas were by any party were challenged & defined. Considerring how much back pedalling SCO has done I don't doubt they have a whole new round of enquiry justification based on their new claims.
All of the SCO talk of conspiracy only hightens my sense that there is a corporate rats nest for which SCO is only a poor lacky.
I will never do business with anyone associated with the Canopy group.
At the hearing: "Your honor, it was addressed to whom it may concern. None of us were particularly concerned, so we trashed it."
As an alternative, they could just send backup tapes of the hard drives off of every server which FSF earns, and let Boies and company figure out how to extract the data. Extra points for using an obscure/obsolete tape format.
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
I hope they cashed the check and bought some brews.
Slashdot Subpoenaed by SCO
SCO demands that "all stories and discussions refering to SCO, Linux, the GPL, IBM, Redhat, SuSE, the FSF, or hot grits, including all information on all websites linked to in the aformentioned material" be turned over to Boies, Schiller & Flexner.
If God had had a computer it would have taken him 7 months to create the earth...if he even bothered to do it at all.
Are they going to subpoena the whole Internet, asking for any paperwork related to enforcing the GPL, and any email from anyone to anyone else? Perhaps they should rephrase their request to, "Please give us anything that will help us look less like total idiots."
By the way, the representitive for thewholeinternet(.com) is apparently R. Wilson of Orange, CA so please contact him regarding any subpoena type stuff.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
I do believe the article heading should have read, "Your Rights Online: FSF Subpoenaed by Microsoft Puppet SCO"
AC
See this thread..
This is a very sad day for the Shareware movement. It just breaks my heart to see fine people like Rick Stahlmann and the Electronic Frontier Foundation being hauled into court for minor violations. I mean, seeing as how all this NU GLP software is only for hobbyists anyways, how much could they really have stolen? I fear this will distract them from more important things, like the fine work they've been doing on the eMac.
I'm sure I'm not the only one hoping it will all blow over soon.
Thank you for your support.
>In many cases, they are asking for information that is confidential communication between us and our lawyers, or between us and our contributors."
....oh yeah
I thought FSF wanted everything open?
Sorry couldn't resist.
ummmm
I hate SCO! and...and M$ and... the RIAA!
SCO demands that "all stories and discussions refering to SCO ... including all information on all websites linked to in the aformentioned material"
Wait til those lawyers see the goatse guy!
Read the document, it's data November 2003
This is online as a historical document, not as a new summons. Complience with it is now a moot point (unless there was something really freaky going on that we're not aware of), given they were due by 21st Nov 2003.
Umm... That subpoena was signed on Nov 5, 2003. It's more than half a year old by now. This is news?
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
-- I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it. - John Kerry
Don't you mean:
-- I actually used my brain before I decided not to
?
"...will reimburse you for all reasonable duplication costs."
Going off a standard schedule for copy costs and associated labor ("reasonable") would still be an awful lot of money since we're talking likely hundreds of thousands of documents here, but probably more money than FSF would actually need to produce the documents. If an accounting is required of billable hours for those getting the docs together, hire OSS programmers who could use some extra cash. Therefore, this could in the end be a large donation by SCO to the FSF and OSS programmers.
These documents are highly readable. Don't be afraid to dive in, it's fun!
(my emphasis, my transcription from the PDF)
every defendent files for summary judgement. 99% of them are denied. BFD.
GPL does not allow for revocation, nor for additional clauses to be added at a later date [0].
Now, if SCO are in breach of the liscence, then that's one thing, and then the copyright holder is entiled to seek relief. However, until and unless they break the liscence (or the law), they can continue to use the software.
This was intentional in the design of the the GPL. It doesn't allow for picking and choosing of who can benefit. That's the breaks for choosing Free software. If it could be revoked, then it's not Free.
[0] There is the question of the 'or later version' clause, but that's at the option of the liscence, I believe. And that has to be a version that the FSF publishes, presumably on the understanding they wouldn't endanger the Freedoms granted in the liscence.
"sue [a-z]*"
That would work fine since I have a patent on "sue *", not on the regexp [a-z]*
Evolution of Language Through The Ages: 6000 BC : ungh, grrf, booga 2000 AD : grep, awk, sed
It wasn't available to the public until yesterday.
Just give them all the documents in LaTeX format. Or some other format that only hard-core people use.
Yeah, I guess it's the typical help forum approach.
SCO: PLEEZ SenD MEE a11 1Nf0 YOU HAvE ON C I waNT to HAXXOR
FSF: RTFM, STFW, FU, HAND.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Kinda like how SCO can't show which code is infringing upon there IP?
It seems like SCO had no problem doing BS like this. How come they can't do the same?
-asoap
Treat me like a marketing stat, and I'll treat your movie like a series of ones and zeros
...the correct response is:
"These are not the documents you're looking for. Move along."
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
I contributed, becoming a member =)
I'm no expert, but isn't labeling a court case using v. instead of vs. reserved for supreme court cases (from the first page of the document)? I suppose it's nit-picking, but it seems that SCO regularly overstate their importance in the world.
- Russ
They could always give SCO every scrap or paper and email that they ask for... but put every piece of electronic communication into a single document in openoffice writer, and then print out every single page, using all caps and 32 or 48pt fonts.
Just for kicks, vary the font every couple pages or so. Then truck the entire thing over. And since they are being reimbursed by SCO for the cost of duplication, and it didnt say what format to turn the emails over in, FSF should print every page from a color inkjet, using both color and B/W ink, then charge them for time, paper, and the refil cartriges (which are already sold an unholy high prices).
"Our funds have never taken part in toxic or death spiral convertible financings of any sort" -BayStar's managing partne
Given their delaying tactics they might love to be given too much data.
Aside from the question of who eventually will get that data ie invisible backers, they seem to be abusing the trial as a way to get press not justice.
Whatever intelligence they can collect for their backers is probably gravy, and if they can gain a delay based on its volume that must suit them fine.
Besides when you know there won't be proof you can use its easy to disregard stacks of paper.
Perhaps they could hire the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution to make grand pronouncements without the burden of the facts.
I propose, apropos of RMS's GNU/Linux, that SCO be hereafter referred to as MSFT/SCO to reflect the true source of the FUD.
ehem.
MSFT/SCO Sucks! etc.
(not an endorsement of GNU/Linux nomenclature)
Synergies are basically awesome, and they're even better when you leverage them. -PA
Dear SCO, I am respectfully contacting you confidentialy for your information assistence. My father, the late Prime Minister of Free Trade Software Foundation, was assinated and left me with 32,000,000 GPL related documents {THIRTY-TWO MILIONS). To get access to these documents I need access to a foreign company. For your assistance I will reimburse you 15% (FIVE MILIONS U.S. DOCUMENTS). If you are willing to help me, please sent me a supeena with your name, address, and contact on it. I hope this reaches you with respect, my sick mother needs the documents quickly before her illness takes her to heaven.
If you join, you can get a spiffy little GNU/Linux distro on a business card sized CD with your membership details on :o)
I tried posting this early this morning.
it's still pending.
wtf?
This is one of the things which separates Europeans from Americans.
I spent quite a bit of time in Ireland, for example. The reason why European countries tend to have fewer civil liberties is because their citizens honestly believe they don't need them. Americans were taught from the founding of their country to be suspicious of authority.
+++ATH0
Now I understand why they were so anal retentive following the breakin of savannah.gnu.org.
Make them click through an outrageous license agreement before they can view any of the data.
In any case, Congress also has the power to subpeona and there is presently an appeal to a subpeona that requested documents from Dick Cheney's energy task force. That case is, I believe, pending in the US Supreme Court. So you definetly can appeal.
Go Badgers! -- #include "std/disclaimer.h"
Their stock price is just about the same level as when this whole thing got started.
Well, maybe. Depends on how you look at it.
Here's a table of SCOX stock price, sampled once per month. It starts with Caldera (the former company name) going public during the height of the NASDAQ bubble in March 2000.
SCOX: Historical Prices for SCO Group, Inc.
Some key dates and prices:
2002-07 $1.04 Darl McBride joins SCO
2003-01 $1.35 SCO makes anti-Linux noises
2003-03 $2.88 SCO files lawsuit against IBM
2003-10 $22.29 SCOX hits high
2004-05 $4.78 SCOX right now, 2004-05-20
So SCOX is still up a bunch from when McBride started the anti-Linux strategy. I consider the base price to be $1.50, and SCOX is still trading at 300% of that base price.
In my opinion, the products-and-services side of SCO is worthless, and their only viable business is this lawsuit. And the lawsuit is getting less viable every month.
I can't believe nobody has mentioned this yet, but this document has a trivial typo "matter" is spelt "mater".
Now remind me how much lawyers get paid by the hour?
Frankly I'm appalled .. I know that my spelling sucks, but I don't get most of my incoming from being able to read and write threatening letters.
If I did .. I'd do it correctly.
I feel sorry for David Prowse, he has some real competition now.
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
Then neither am I. I had the priviledge of seeing Eben Moglen speak during OSConf at University of Toronto, and after that display, I feel it's safe to say that the FSF does not need any legal advice from the outside, much less IANALs from Slashdot getting the issue hopelessly confused.
Other lawyers who are ignorant of the law, seem to irritate him somewhat. I don't blame him. But given that tidbit of knowledge, just imagine how he feels about the garbage SCO is throwing around.
I am sure that if it has not done so already, the FSF will respond decisively in an ethical and legal manner, and certainly nothing substantial will ever come of SCO's whining.
Random and weird software I've written.
I strongly suspect that Boies, Schiller, & Flexner want hardcopy of these documents, where hardcopy is either paper or fax. I wonder whether it would be acceptable for people who wish to support the FSF could make copies for them, where FSF publishes 100 page segments end user submits them via post to the FSF to then be turned over to Boies, Schiller & Flexner.
Users pay for consumbables but agree that the fee for the copy be paid to the FSF?
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
Well
If he took the Red pill AND the Blue pill it would be the equivalent of having taken the Purple pill.
The obvious effect would have been to alleviate symptoms of Acid Reflux for up to 24 hours, while helping to repair any damage to his esophagus.
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
Worse yet, all your code base are belong to us.
Free Trade Software Foudation?! What's this?
How often can you see this kind of sloppiness in court documents?
If FSF has nothing to hide
That mentality really pisses me off. Just because YOU don't value privacy, and just because YOU don't value the confidentiality of business communications, doesn't mean NOBODY does.
Should nudists pass laws requiring everyone to be naked when the weather is nice?
Laws protecting privacy were created to benefit those of us who DO value it. If you don't value privacy, you can post all your information on the web for all I care. But don't expect me to.
What's the 'Free Trade Software Foundation' in item 7? Is that like NAFTA?
My favorite part of the FSF letter:
In addition to answering and/or disputing the subpoena, we must also educate the community about why it is that Linux was attacked and GNU was not. For more than a decade, FSF has urged projects to build a process whereby the legal assembly of the software is as sound as the software development itself. Many Free Software developers saw the copyright assignment process used for most GNU components as a nuisance, but we arduously designed and redesigned the process to remove the onerousness. Now the SCO fiasco has shown the community the resilience and complete certainty that a good legal assembly process can create. (SCO, after all, eventually dropped their claims against GNU as a whole and focused on the Linux project which, for all its wonderful technical achievements, has a rather loose legal assembly process.)
SCO has finally gone fishing nuts.
... time ... time ... will the FSF Foundation ever get reimbursed for all the time spent from a company that will just file bankruptcy when needed.
... over months and years. That guy at SCO he ain't smart enough for such tactical/strategic thought ... I wonder who the real software boss is?
....
... $30 for everything copied and shipped ... sounds like they may want to know exactly which trash-dump FSF's trash was tossed in for the past decade. Then, maybe, next year SCO will ask FSF and RMS to deliver the trash dump to SCO.
Just me, from when I started my archives in 1987, for email and personal/work files (with some whoops redundancy).... I have a little over 10G [lots of pictures, some text, a few corrupt files, and I know there must be a couple ancient MS-DOS and/or CP/M viruses entombed for posterity].
If they want everything from FSF/GNU/RMS/EmployeeA-z/ContactA-Z/.... They could be fishing for years, and catch a few interesting zip-null files for all their efforts. Those folks at SCO must be getting sustenance from a deep-pockets source for these fishing expeditions, because they are wasting everyone's time
Maybe that is it, they are trying to bankrupt the FSF foundation by having everyone working at the FSF for nothing and costing time and money
I will continue to make ($20-$200) donations to FSF and others, but I will continue to keep it all hand2hand without receipts or tax benefits. I don't got time or money for SCO to get me or maybe the US software Gestapo that went after that nice Georgia Cracker lady that protects the USA Constitution, Democracy, and voting
I may be paranoid, but I can see it coming
"Reality is a self-induced hallucination." [Anyone know who owns this line?]
OldHawk777
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
If it makes you feel any better, FSF don't pay RMS and never have - he's a volunteer.
Please help publicise swpat.org - the software patents wiki
In Soviet Russia, FSF subpoenas you!
What if it doesn't eliminate you as a suspect? What if there is something that makes you even more suspicious - and yet, you are still completely unrelated to the crime - and you are taken to prison and, say, raped by an inmate?
We are paranoid about our government because it commands enormous resources that are under the purview of individuals that are sometimes not entirely trustworthy (compare to your concern about people being responsible enough to carry loaded guns). Our goverment hides and outright falsifies information about a myriad of things that could be enormously beneficial to its citizens and the world at large because it is beneficial to its somewhat shady, ill-defined, perhaps amoral goals.
Do you honestly believe any governmental system can be much different?
+++ATH0
This is correct, but the standard is very broad. This action is in Federal Court, and is therefore governed by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP). FRCP Rule 26(b)(1) provides:
FRCP Rule 26(b)(1) (emphasis added). The portion of FRCP 26(b)(1) emphasized above is very important. The requested information need not be admissible; it only has to be "reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence."
Further, under Rule 401 of the Federal Rules of Evidence, "relevant evidence" is defined very broadly as follows:
FRE Rule 401 (emphasis added).
Only Women Bleed (Sex, Sharia remix)
Oh come on! If this isn't a fishing expedition, then I don't know what is. What the hell does FSF have to do with contracts between SCO/IBM or SCO/Novell?
Fred
"A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
-RMS
I see a movie before me called Return of a Jedi. You might have heard of it, it is really cool! SPOILER ALERT: in the end of the movie the Executor, the flagship of the enemy, collapses on the Death Star taking many innocent engineers with them into death...
[The Death Star was Evil which means the anology is flawed, but Stallman was fighting Gates on the Death Star, really]
Collateral damage this is. It costs the FSF loads of time, which afaik has to be paid (time == money) by themselves. Time the FSF (ie. Lessig, Moglen) could invest in writing GPLv3 and more useful things.
It's neither wrong nor insane to suggest that litigants are entitled to subpoena information relevant to the action at hand. Now, as the FSF never stops spouting, GNU/FSF tools are so essential to Linux (both in terms of development and implementation) that there's a credible case to be made that there's no such thing as Linux without the GNU toolchain (see Stallman's gasbag arguments over why it should be called GNU, or, as a compromise GNU/Linux). So correspondance relating to the development of FSF/GNU software seems to meet a minimal relevance test, since the case turns in part on the open-source development model.
But that's neither here nor there really -- my original point was more limited, and since you missed it I'll make it more explicit: there is no peremptory privilege that attaches itself to contact between a developer and a project with which they participate that runs parallel to the solicitor-client privelege, contrary to the FSF's implication in the post at the top.
SCO is over, and they know it.
I guess I knew this already, but looking at this subpoena and accompanying article, it really struck me: SCO doesn't ever expect to sell a product to anyone ever again. They've completely given up trying to compete fairly, and are nothing but a corpse being propped up by Microsoft as an undead attack dog.
That's actually kind of sad. I'd have a moment of silence for Caldera's OpenLinux, if I wasn't still bitter about it smoking my hard drive about 6 or 7 years ago, causing me to switch to RedHat instantly.
I'm not normally an irrational zealous dickhead, but I figure "When in Rome..."
By now, anyone who has spent a couple hours looking at the lawsuit knows it doesn't have any merit.
But most everyone here is missing the lager point he was trying to make: IBM can weather this thing either way. Could the guys at Apache? WINE? Samba? What would happen to RedHat or SuSe or Mandrake if they had to defend something like this?
As pointless or hopeless as you may think it is to keep track of IP in your source, we need to be able to deter opportunists from shutting down the "little guy" before it happens, because these days, just the legal accusation can take you out.
They want "all documents" eh ? why not - all possible documents that you may have - including software manuals - printouts of code - everything possible and hopefully the FSF should be able to manage something around a million pages - if u cant make it - just printout a page with IBM written on it and copy it a hundred thousand times - and of course bill them for it - say a reasonable 10c a page - and along with shipping and let them sort through what they want - mebbe next time, they'll make more reasonable requests.
...before you'll show them any of your code or docs.
Alright, this subpoena was sent November 5th 2003. They are releasing it to the public May 20th 2004.
Does anyone realize the half-year time difference here. I want to know what FSF actually did in response to this subpoena.
Regardless of what kind of image SCO tried to paint in their press releases, the lawsuit against AutoZone appeared to be about AutoZone using other software actually belonging to SCO on a Linux host, not about AutoZone using Linux. If so, the outcome in the IBM case will have no effect on the AutoZone case, although SCO may decide to drop also the AutoZone lawsuit for other reasons (such as lack of sustained funding combined with losing the media campaign).
I spent quite a bit of time in Ireland, for example. The reason why European countries tend to have fewer civil liberties is because their citizens honestly believe they don't need them.
...being less anal in exercising them. The purpose of rights isn't to stop the police in solving crimes and being an ass, it's to stop harrasment and fishing expeditions. As long as I feel that they're doing their job, I don't mind cooperating above and beyond what I'm required by law. In the US, there seems to be an innate hostility towards authority. If it's not required by law, it's almost "forbidden" to accomodate them anyway. The world will not end, your rights will not cease to exist, 1984 will not become true if you do.
Besides, the Patriot Act and the whole Guantanamo Bay thing makes me doubt your rights are that good, should you try to exercise them. Of course, rights don't apply to people that we suspect the rights don't apply to. Try figuring that one out. And after seeing the recent events in Iraq, ths US should shut the fuck up about their civil liberties(*). Or maybe you really don't understand how that looks to the rest of the world?
(*) not applicable to Iraqis, foreigners in general, allies, non-US citizens, muslims, suspected terrorists et al. Any more you want to piss off?
In the Cold War, we needed the US. 9/11 could have brought us together. But I dare say that I don't think the US and Europe has ever stood further apart since WWII. On a political level, it hasn't come about yet. Ask the people.
Ask them about how they feel about the US, about going to war over WMDs that don't exist (The EU thought so too, but we didn't start a war over a belief). Ask the people of your allies if they're proud to have helped you conquer Iraq so you can torture your prisoners like Saddam did.
The US is coming across as a "holier than thou" nation, that in the end is just another thug (admittingly, like most other nations...) Keep it up, and you'll come off looking as the bitch in "Cruel Intentions". I haven't seen a fraction of the humility I'd expect after getting caught with your pants down.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Like an idiot, I moderated this one down when I intended to moderate it up. Hope someone else comes by and fixes it. I guess by posting this I will undo the moderation and fix it. :)
Dear Boinker Shill & Fuxner,
Which operating system are you refering to, Linux or Emacs?
Thank You,
Richard M. Stallman
FSF
Table-ized A.I.
All your Documents are belong to us?
According to talks by Eben, the FSF has a long history of settling GPL violation cases out of court. Very rarely do they publicize cases. In fact the FSF routinely offers to an out of court settlement that includes a gag order to keep the FSF from talking about the case. This costs the FSF little and saves the company a lot of face.
So the FSF winds up with a contract binding the FSF to not communicate the details of the case or the settlement to outside parties.
Now SCO comes along and wishes access to this information. Would you be inclined to give it to them or trust them to keep it confidential?
Do you honestly believe any governmental system can be much different?
Do you honestly believe all governmental systems are the same?
So you are saying that all governmental systems are the same? So the US and its poodles have replaced one "shady", "perhaps amoral" government in IRAQ with another one, that's no better?
Next you'll be saying that the torture and rape perpetrated by Sadam's thugs is being continued by the US.
You'll be saying that the US govt is the same as the Nazis with it's concentration camp in Guantanamo Bay - come on get with it, concentration camps are so last century.- ok I'm making your point here.
BUT just because the US is run by xenophobic, oil funded, religious extremists, doesn't mean the whole world is.
There are better forms of government than the system that the US (+poodles) is trying to force on the rest of the world. Many European democracies are more democratic and less ruled by money than the Land of the Free. Our governments still lie and we do have the odd bent copper, but in general we live in far less of a police state than the US.
I've had several dealings with the police and they've always been very friendly and polite even when I've been unloading computers from the back of a car at 3am. This is in stark contrast to what I hear about the US police who seem to aggressively harass people for such subversive activities as walking. Jay walking, wtf is that? If I want to cross the street and it looks safe I cross, seriously I don't understand. I've even heard of several accounts of Europeans being harassed by US police for walking on pavements in residential areas - you need a permit or a car or something.
So yes I do believe governmental systems can be different and furthermore they should be different.
I don't think this will be difficult to produce, given that there is no such entity as "The Free Trade Software Foundation".
You're right - and they said confidential, not privileged. Basically, they mean that SCO's fishing, and that anything you don't publish is confidential to random third parties until they show that it's actually relevant to a case. Much of the subpoena submitted (yep, I read it as well as IBM's recent motion) definitely falls outside the realm of relevant. Fortunately, not many judges are likely to allow that.
SCO is fishing. They have a suit with IBM, and they're going after the FSF's dealings with contributors to random OSS projects? In other words, conversations between two parties NOT involved with the suit? They'll need a damned good reason for that to fly.
And no, to substantiate your argument - I'm not a lawyer.
I think there's a degree of trying to have it both ways in the way that "the community" is responding to SCO here. This case is huge, not just in its implications for Linux, but in its scope, covering the GPL and open-source development models. And given (1) Linux's dependence on the GNU toolchain, both for development and use of Linux, (2) the fact that the FSF/GNU is the home for most of the thinking/writing on the technicalities of open-source development and licensing, there's at least a case that they have documents of some relevance to the case.
And, to substantiate my own theory, I'm not a lawyer either, but my understanding of the way these things work is that parties subpoena more than they expect to be allowed to see, and make the judge earn her salary by figuring the mess out. And yeah, I hope that the judge is sensible enough to construe "relevant" narrowly.
http://finance.messages.yahoo.com/bbs?.mm=FN&actio n=m&board=1600684464&tid=cald&sid=1600684464&mid=1 35855&thr=135840&cur=135840&dir=d
Can you call it slashdotting when the referrer is'nt Slashdot?
Don't forget the greek font!
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
Church of Emacs.
The implications may be there, but it's not something relevant to the case. SCO's public FUD, yes, but the GPL is completely irrelevant to anythign they've done in a case. It *might* be relevant to their suit with Red Hat if they completely screw every other chance and try to play that card, but it isn't relevant at all to the IBM case.
And given (1) Linux's dependence on the GNU toolchain, both for development and use of Linux,
Tools they use aren't relevant either. The developers also drive cars, but for some reason Ford was left off the subpoena list.
(2) the fact that the FSF/GNU is the home for most of the thinking/writing on the technicalities of open-source development and licensing,
First, you give the FSF too much credit. Second, that might be a reason for the FSF to be called as an expert witness, not to be subpoenaed for everything they've ever made.
there's at least a case that they have documents of some relevance to the case.
That's the definition of fishing, right there.
parties subpoena more than they expect to be allowed to see, and make the judge earn her salary by figuring the mess out. And yeah, I hope that the judge is sensible enough to construe "relevant" narrowly.
You try to make the judge "earn" her salary in that manner and you'll have one pissed off judge. Not a good idea. You do generally want to ask for more than you ultimately want, but not by that much, and you should have an idea of what you're going to find. Saying you want all documents related to the writing of computer software won't cut it when subpoenaing a software organization. Might as well go into court with a rod and reel, it's just as obvious.
"BUT just because the US is run by xenophobic, oil funded, religious extremists, doesn't mean the whole world is."
No, just us and the Middle East, unfortunately.
The nice thing about the democratic republic system of government is that we can (and almost certainly will) vote out the people whom we feel are doing a poor job... some of them. It's too bad we can't vote for FBI, CIA, NSA and other executive-branch members too.
+++ATH0
Besides, the documentation is all documented in TeXiNfO [IMG of the head of a GNU](no GIFs due to patent problems) so they can read it themselves, and the history's in CVS or its predecessors, or in RMS's and Len's memory, and if they're not willing to RTFM, well, they've asked for the ENTIRE history, so that means that they'll need to have RMS show them EXACTLY what was done and when and how, because they asked for EVERYTHING, which means he first needs to teach them TECO, because that's pretty close to first chronologically and they really need it as a background for learning EMACS, and looking at the evolution of features in TECO and their later implementation in EMACS is a good way to get a deep understanding of the Hacker Ethic which is critical to the philosophy behind GNU. Eventually they'll work their way up to 1980 or so.
I'm not saying any of this to criicize RMS. He does rant sometimes, but they're essentially asking for an explanation of every software-related rant that he's ever been a part of, and every piece of intellectual content (note that I very specifically didn't say "intellectual property") that he or his followers have worked on.
And if you want to bring up National Security, well, a decade or so into this discussion ESR becomes part of the scene, and now you're dealing with philosophical differences of opinion about software licensing, which they need to listen to also, and also about the national security effects of having an armed citizenry as opposed to the armed tax collectors that socialists tend to forget they're depending on... You need to keep the lawyers in the room to hear that part too :-)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks