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SCO Claims Linux Lifted ELF
fymidos writes "SCO has finally spoken. According to this linuxworld article, they claim that linux illegally uses the ELF binary format, the JFS filesystem, the init code and some more 'copyrighted Unix header and interfaces'. Finally SCO makes its move. The JFS part was expected of course, but according to the article, as far as the ELF format is concerned 'the Tool Interface Standard Committee (TISC) came up with a ELF 1.2 standard' and 'granted users a "non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license" to the stuff'. Oh, and of course 'both Novell and the old SCO - as well as Microsoft, IBM and Intel - were on the committee'."
Not sure what SCO has to do with Elf. Wait, nevermind. They've got truth elves, working from dusk till dawn, griding down the logic and confusing the masses with their cute looking elf outfits and fairy dust. My guess is that Santa Claus himself is somehow behind this latest SCO claim. It just seems like the more they open their traps, the lower their stock gets, so I'm all for many more of these kinds of press releases.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
I am not sure what this ends up meaning, legally:
SCO also claims "substantial similarity" between the Read-Copy-Update (RCU) routine in Linux 2.6.5 and Linux patches and SCO's copyrighted work, specifically SVR4.2 MP.
Similarity can be a slippery slope and SCO will slide as far down as need be, I suppose. And how about something that "may" be an infringement:
It also says the journaled file system (JFS) module from later versions of AIX, which SCO believes may derive from the JFS Unix, is in Linux 2.6
The folks at SCO probably look like adults, they are adult-sized and wear nice clothes. However, they act like elementary school kids arguing over a ball on the playground. Whoever yells loud enough, pushes hard enough, and hold their breath the longest wins.
Cheers!
Erick
http://www.busyweather.com/
I'm wondering how this accusation would effect linux compatibility mode in FreeBSD.
-SD
Make binary compatibility easier with Darwin, anyway.
This affects everyone, including the BSD's. And, of course, they're full of shit, once again. ELF is not the mortar that binds the OS together. Linux started with a.out, and can probably function just fine with some other binary format.
Man, we had so long without a SCO article that I thought I missed one about a small implosion in Utah.
Then you had to go ruin my blissful existance...
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Make a claim that [insert feature] was stolen by Linux
Sue people/companies
Hopefully Profit!
Later on ...
Shareholders file a class action lawsuit against SCO.... I can dream, can't I?
From the article:
"In 1995, the year Novell sold Unix to the Santa Cruz Operation, an industry group calling itself the Tool Interface Standard Committee (TISC) came up with a ELF 1.2 standard and to popularize it and streamline PC software development granted users a "non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license" to the stuff, effectively putting it in the public domain, SCO says.
SCOsource chief Chris Sontag, the SCO VP in charge of the company's hate-inducing IP push, claims TISC, which folded immediately after the spec was published, exceeded its rights even though both Novell and the old SCO - as well as Microsoft, IBM and Intel - were on the committee."
So if SCO had a problem with ELF way back in 1995, why didn't they stop this back then? Obviously they had the choice to -- they clearly knew what TISC was doing. So why did it take SCO until 2003-2004 to point fingers at TISC?
I'm sorry, but this reeks of a last-ditch money-grab by SCO...even more than it did before. The release of ELF into the public domain happened nine years ago. IMHO, SCO should not be allowed to pull this into court because their business model is hurting now. Ridiculous.
Simpli - Your source for San Jose dedicated servers and colocation!
: [i]The JFS part was expected of course[/i] Am I right when I guess JFS means Journaling File System? Why would it "of course" be mentioned by SCO? Could someone give us its history?
SCO has gotten into the nasty habit of claiming ownership (and inventership) to damn near every obvious computer science practice known to man. They're like the software vendor's version of Kim Il Jong of North Korea. The guy claims to have invented the Internet, the television, radar, automobiles, and any other technology the country has.
Now, if SCO starts killing triplets...
The ELF bit is a weak arguement, but what can they do? They have a medium-sized pile of money and a dead-end product line. They can litigate, piss the money away trying to outdevelop both the open-source community and Microsoft in the OS space, or give up and find a new business to try and develop. Given the source of their pot of money, it makes sense to take their shot a the IBM lottery...
Of course, understanding their position doesn't make the decision a smart one.
Ahh, that's funny, I've been been keeping an eye on SCOX on my Yahoo stock watchlist, and I did notice they've been going down the past few days. Even down 3.6% today on an otherwise up market.
So I was expecting some "good news" from them.
Come on SCO - as part of my operating systems course in college we loaded ELF binaries (which we also had to create) and RAN them. They have got to be stretching a long way on that one - that is for sure. Not to mention many other OSs (such as the BSDs) can use ELF binaries....
.... boy. Here comes this crap again. What on earth are they sticking in headers to copyright? #define ONE 1;??? Sounds like I might have a case myself.
The JFS claims, that seems like an awful stretch as well, It does make more sense in targetting IBM though as I believe they had heavy involvement in JFS. Honestly I am not nearly as familiar with the ins and outs of it, but unless they are claiming something ridiculous like memcopy() or something...
Which brings us to number three, 'copyrighted unix headers and interfaces'
Now the interfaces, which could perhaps be interpreted as API... there is some chance that could have some fuzzy ground I imagine. But how on earth can the judge/court even take them seriously at this point?
... and not the last. Anyone remember some little company named Rambus sitting in on industry standard-setting and then running down to the patent office? This seems to be happening more and more often these days, and until we see these IP bullies get their noses bloodied in grand fashion, it's just going to keep on happening.
There is a difference between "insightful" and "inciteful" other than spelling.
...skeptically. Which is nice.
The Army reading list
This is not the end,
It's not even the beginning of the end,
It might, however, be the end of the beginnning.
Cisco IOS post 11.2 is ELF. So is nearly every format out there except HPUX. This includes BSDs, embedded systems, so on so fourth.
So they have just got themselves into the aiming calculations of the entire computer industry including the other big Blue, not just IBM.
Anyway, do not see a problem even if they win this one. While I want to puke just at the thought of ECOFF, it is if IIRC (C) intel and HP and all it will take to get linux to use them will be one big rebuild and a rewrite of libdl. That is if Intel and HP do not decide to put the dl for ECOFF into the public domain.
In, btw, this is something on which Cisco can buy them just to shut them up (if everyone agrees to go home and stop the lawsuits).
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
do they propose to have copyrighted a binary file format? Infringement would require that the "copied" files be "substantially similar" to the ones SCOX has copyrighted. Sounds a lot more like their usual squishy-"IP" claim: they hold the copyright on a book describing Unix utilities, so any implementation of grep violates their "IP."
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
The charge was made by SCO VP of engineering Sandeep Gupta in a declaration that is currently under seal, but is quoted, albeit tersely, in the new filings.
Any relation to Dr Samir Gupta?
I was starting to have withdrawals. No SCO story in days. I didn't have my SCO fix. I thought no SCO story could only mean one thing: "SCO had figured out how to take over the world." At last, you fulfilled my deepest cravings for more SCO news and I can go on living in my beautiful world of FUD.
Thank you slashdot. Without my SCO updates, I don't think I could go on. My life would be in even more shambles than it already is. Even my dog would not speak to me (now, as for the wife, that might be a good thing).
Long Live SCO and FUD . Better than comics!
If anyone did intentionally lift SCO code for 2.6 after the lawsuits they would have had to have been monumentally stupid, though hillariously spiteful. One would think it would be easy enough to find the authors of the suspect code and ask them before filing a lawsuit.
The Complete Story of Caldera/SCOX, as told by Yahoo.
"...as far as the ELF format is concerned 'the Tool Interface Standard Committee (TISC) came up with a ELF 1.2 standard' and 'granted users a "non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license" to the stuff'. Oh, and of course 'both Novell and the old SCO - as well as Microsoft, IBM and Intel - were on the committee'."
The patient is suffering from paranoid delusions. His accustation of persecution ("theft") despite having previously personally approved of the situation represent a psychotic dissocation from reality and should be construed as a negative hallucination. As such, the patient should be provisionally diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenia, and should be admitted for stabilization and observation, lest he become dangerous to himself or others.
Seriously, if SCO were a person acting this way towards other people in public, by now it'd be better than even money they'd have been put in hospital.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Of course they have to file something--the stock's fallen below $5, and the end-of-day painters can't bring it up again.
(Being below $5 is a bad thing(tm), because many mutual funds cannot own stocks priced that low. Also since one cannot easily sell short a stock on Nasdaq priced below $5, it dries up the pool of short-sellers to be squeezed with price manipulations)
Since the seller sold the copyright with the explicit understanding that ELF was in the public domain, NewSCO can not claim anything.
If someone "exceeded" their authority it's a matter for the parties involved at the time.
Help fight continental drift.
Readable Description of the ELF standard
Help from SCO on ELF compatability in SCO OpenServer
Summary of a.out, COFF and ELF from a FreeBSD pov
Nice descriptions of various BFFs (binary file format) including ELF
Just when I thought I had that herpes problem licked...
IANAL, but I've seen actors play them on TV
SCO in the same breath as Edsel,
You misspelt Enron..................^
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
The mainstream press is buying into SCO's claims just (AFAICT) based on the weight of how often they repeat them and the fact that they have an easy contact point, whereas there is no general "Linux" contact person.
... well, to give an equivalent example, if an author of a book included some infringing content, it's like holding every person that read the book liable. Eben Moglen's shot this down, it's been raked through the coals on Slashdot and Groklaw ... but because SCO does a better job of managing the press than the "Linux community, as a whole", nasty disinformation about open source is rapidly spreading around the world and seeping into end users' heads.
Take a look at today's CNN.com article, in which the reporter says:
"The communal aspects of open source can lead to thorny legal questions, particularly when a company claims its proprietary code has seeped into a project. Because developers typically don't offer warranties, end users could be held liable for infringements."
Wow. It's like saying that all code under the GPL is held to a legal standard that's as harsh as
Sad. And probably not fixable.
May we never see th
Yes, but at least most of those B movies had a random naked woman tossed in for variety.
This sig is the express property of someone.
IANAL, but I don't belive you can copyright a format- you could patent it, but that's not what's alleged here. Note that the FAT implementation that Microsoft is waving around like a big stick is due to their patent, not a copyright claim.
Unless the code to implement ELF is identical in Linux, I don't see anything like a case here. And if SCOX had a patent on ELF, we'd know it by now.
What a strange bird is the pelican, his beak can hold more than his belly can.
The ELF Standard says:
"The TIS Committee grants you a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to use the information disclosed in this Specification to make your software TIS-compliant; no other license, express or implied, is granted or intended hereby."
Now that's pretty damn clear indication that anyone is allowed to use this license.
So how does SCO own this again? Oh, right, unlike IBM, Microsoft, Intel and the other members of the TIS committee, their business model is to sue! Ok, sorry, my fault.
Anyone remember some little company named Rambus sitting in on industry standard-setting and then running down to the patent office?
Yeah, they're the same, except that the 'little company' didn't exist when the standard was written, don't have clear title to the format, waited *NINE YEARS* to bring it up, and doesn't have a patent, and thinks that this is a *copyright* issue.
But yeah, except for all those differences, it's totally the same.
Can't use ELF? No prob, we have a few others to choose from ...
;)
* a.out (Unix / Linux)
* COFF (Unix / Linux)
* XCOFF (AIX)
* ECOFF (Mips)
* SOM (HP)
* Mach-O (NeXT, Mac OS X)
* NLM
* OMF
* PEF (Macintosh)
According to http://www.dvorak.org/scotimeline/, the SCO suit was launched on March 6, 2003.
According to http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Timeline %20of%20Linux%20development
Linux Kernel 2.4 was released on January 4, 2001 so it would follow that the code for 2.5 would be under development until the release of 2.6 on December 18, 2003.
So it's possible that SCO code was incorporated into 2.5 at the time of the lawsuit, but if they had actually seen that happening when they filed the suit you'd think they might have mentioned it. Afterall, they would have been able to make a reasonable argument for an injunction.
So, I'm reading the shaky claims from SCO, and I'm remembering that Linux used a.out format.
I think that the worst case scenario is that SCO get a tempory injunction blocking the use of ELF (nevermind that no judge would actually agree that to not issue on would cause irreprable harm, given that it's 9 years old). Therefore, there is some merit in ensureing that it is possible to build a modern Linux system on a.out format binaries. Additionally, it torpeados thier claim that ELF is the 'magic pixie dust that they stole to make Linux work'.
This sounds like a case for a source based distribution. Gentoo, being the most used source based distro sounds like a place that might be able to do that. Alas, I'm not familiar enough with Gentoo to comment - so can anyone who is give a definiative answear on whether Gentoo can be used to give a system without ELF binaries. I undertand that there will likely be a bootstrap step (I remember the a.out -> elf shift in the first place, after all).
It's not just (not even, I should say) fear of SCO, but there is significant meaning in being able to switch executable formats - that's a lot of flexability for the future.
So, a.out Gentoo, anyone?
The problem we see here and throughout the SCO case is that copyright was never designed with software in mind. The nature of software licensing is such that there's frequent cases of derrived works from different sources, which is rarely the case in books.
If you write a book, it's unlikely that somebody's going to excerpt part of your book for their own use. It's even more unlikely that the excerpt they do make will get used by somebody else in their book. This is a standard practice in software.
Linux uses Elf. SCO claims that the committee that opened up that standard didn't have the authority to do so. Well, it's now years later, and there are countless works derived off of that original standard, and now SCO wants to undo it.
Basically this has the effect of destroying copyright in software. How can anybody feel legally safe using any software product at any time when the history of every piece of code isn't out there for our perusal? How many times do we here of code that's out there, gets implemented countless times, and then somebody comes along and claims patent or copyright on some ancestor. The GIF patents are a perfect example of this.
I'm aware of no good solution to this problem. Every year, more code is written like this, and more copyright issues and patent issues arise. This will lead to legal fights, and overall increase the cost of developing software exponentially over time. Keep in mind that the code were dealing with don't date back much further than 1970, so it's only going to get worse.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
No, you're the one who's wrong about dates. It was filed nine months before 2.6.0 came out.
Lawsuit filed against IBM: March 2003
Release of 2.6.0: Decemeber 2003
People said that I was crazy for keeping all of my programs in "a.out" format . . . WHO'S CRAZY NOW?
MOUNT TAPE U1439 ON B3, NO RING
I need to know, as I am conflicted.
On one hand, a good punch in the nose may do him good.
On the other hand, hasn't he suffered enough? Why add injury to insult?
hmm. Perhaps punching him in the nose until he is sad is the answer...
Decisions, decisions.
Actually, even HP/UX 11.00 on PA-RISC uses ELF on 64 bit binaries:
/stand/vmunix /stand/vmunix: ELF-64 executable object file - PA-RISC 2.0 (LP64)
HP-UX ***** B.11.00 U 9000/800 675309372 unlimited-user license
> file
Oh, another little point that the article messes up, and that is somewhat amusing.
:-)
ELF is not "similar to Microsoft DLLs", or that's badly worded. It's similar to Microsoft PE format.
ELF is derived from COFF. It was mostly a rewrite of COFF with some bad assumptions and nn-portabilities fixed. It so happens that Microsoft's PE (PE-COFF) format is also derived from COFF and is very similar to ELF. If the format was somehow "protected" (which wouldn't be via copyright as pointed out elsewhere), then Microsoft are also guilty of copying. If SCO really own the copyrights to Unix (they don't), and if copyright applied here (it doesn't), then MS are in the same boat with everybody else. Lucky for them that SCO don't have a leg to stand on
Tim
These guys ought to be tried and convicted for barratry, regardless of whether their legal counsel is this stupid or not.
Actually, if they're stupid enough to actually think that they're right, they wouldn't be guilty of barratry.
I look forward to a future case involving SCO with Darl trying to prove conclusively that he was too stupid to realize that his lawsuit was a load of BS.
May we never see th
TIS, UNIX International, and ELF 1.1
That's a handy reference document for SCO, the version 1.2 of the specification. Too bad it wasn't the first published version:
Google for "pfmt11.pdf"; here is the most interesting and damning excerpt:
-
"Some of the major reasons for selecting this format are the public nature of the specification and the fact that the PLSIG and ABICC standardization committees can enhance its formats."
-
This version came out of USL and UNIX International, who are jointly credited with the creation of the ELF 1.1 standard. Even if USL could argue rights, the current SCO can't. This standard, along with the DWARF standard, TET, ETET, and the last draft of Specification 1170 (the original Single UNIX Specification) were published on the UNIX International FTP server. UNIX International was a legal agent for USL at the time of publication.
If you want to check into anything, check into the contractual agreements between USL and UI with regard to what rights UI did or did not have. You will find that they had full rights to publish the standard on behalf of their member USL.
In the interests of full disclosure, I was a Novell/USG ("UNIX Systems Group") employee at the time. Novell/USG was comprised of the NWU ("NetWare for UNIX"), NUC ("NetWare UNIX Client"), and the former USL. I'm one of the people who rescued the public content of the UNIX International FTP server and found it a new home at various other corporate sites when UNIX International effectively disolved in 1994. One of the documents rescued was this very document.
-- Terry
...but when Winston Churchill managed to make it sound profound.
Will there EVER really be an end though? SCO will probably lawyer themselves out of existence, but what is stopping some other greedy little twerp from pulling the same stunt with copyright claim or perhaps a software patent? (OK, I'll be fair, McBride isn't a little person)
It seems that even very obvious or simple ideas can be patented these days, which gives the patent holder a pretty effective legal weapon. Even without patents (after all, the central argument by SCO doesn't involve patent issues) the most flimsy and ridiculous claims can be brought before court, wasting everyone's time and money.
As long as there are lawyers without ethics or scruples (and the majority lack both) there will be no real end. Unfortunately, lawysers are quite resilient. If the bomb were ever to destroy civilisation, only cockroaches and lawyers would survive--and I'm sure one lawyer would sue another for millions and order him to exterminate the cockroaches at his expense.
* PE (Windows)
Hey, it stands for "portable executable", we might as well port it...
From: Sandeep Gupta
Date: Tuesday, july 20, 2004 12:53 AM
Subject: TRANSFER
Sandeep Gupta
Dear Sir/Madam,
I am fine today and how are you? I hope this letter will find you in the best of health. I am Sandeep Gupta, the VP of "Engineering", of the "Santa Cruz Operation (SCOX)", a subsidiary of the SCO Group (SCOX).
SCOSource (SCOX) was set up by SCOsource chief Chris Sontag, to manage the excess FUD accruing from Intellectual Property Claims and its allied products as a domestic increase in the Copyright products to develop the litigation in the Linux Lawsuit producing areas. The estimated annual revenue for 1999 was $45 Billion US Dollars Ref. FMF A26 Unit 3B Paragraph "D" of the Auditor General of the Federal Republic of Nigeria Report of Nov. 1999 on estimated revenue.
No, I can't do any more, it's too much like making fun of the mentally deficient.
There's some weird errors in the article, especially since it comes from a Linux magazine:
"ELF is sorta like Microsoft's DLLs and was developed by AT&T's Unix System Labs as part of the Unix Application Binary Interface (ABI) before Unix was sold to Novell in 1993."
ELF is not like Microsoft's DLLs. ELF is a binary executable format, and is comparable to Microsoft's PE executable format (am i correct on that?) used in their EXE files. Unix shared libraries are comparable to Windows DLLs. Also, that's the first time I've ever seen the word "sorta" in an article. hmmm....
They also don't mention that almost every Unix OS uses the ELF format (as far as I've seen).
"The Free Software Foundation is also the creator of the GPL, the viral license that makes Linux so provocative."
Is this a statement from the Linuxworld author or SCO? SCO claimed the GPL was a "viral" license, but if that is coming from Linuxworld then something's wrong.
"It also says the journaled file system (JFS) module from later versions of AIX, which SCO believes may derive from the JFS Unix, is in Linux 2.6. - MOG"
what's "the JFS Unix"?
Anyway, SCO is going insane and should hopefully die soon. But the author of that article needs to learn more about Linux first lol (especially since it's a Linux magazine).
-eventhorizon
#Secret Windows Source Code, in MS C% - if (uptime >= "24 hours") then bsod() else print "Windows License Violation!"
In addition to its usual bullshit and bluster, SCO finds it necessary to occasionally perform a tactical release of an especially stinky pile of festering, dripping wet feces. I believe we owe this particulary pungent release to the Wednesday morning meeting where Mr Broderick's affidavit will more or less be shitcanned. A somewhat embarassing turn of events for SCO, to say the least. These guys must have huge arms from shovelling so much shit.
The fact that this had to happen is scary enough.
u me nts/dojinterrogationmemo20020801.pdf
The torture policy from August 2001 can be found here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/doc
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Please do not post links to thefreedictionary.com - they are a dodgy site which repackages Wikipedia content whilst stretching the GFDL as far as they possibly can.
Look at that link you posted - you'll see a credit to Wikipedia at the bottom. Now disable javascript in your browser and refresh - ooh, the credit is gone! They insert it in with javascript rather than putting it in the body of the page to ensure that Google doesn't pick it up. Why? Because a link to Wikipedia's article would help lift Wikipedia's pagerank above that of freedictionary.com.
Just say no, and if you want to read Wikipedia's timeline of Linux development, read the original.
Just as the share price is slipping below they release this. I cant imagine this being a coincidence. In court they have said nothing about this at all. They have been ordered to provide proof of what specifically linux infringes on, not only the IBM stuff, and has brought nothing but "the dog ate my homework". This despite two court orders to bring forward specifications like this.
The board is surely behind this and i suspect the SCO laywers are furious. Now they have to explain to the court why this was so damn hard to bring forward in a court with two orders hanging around their neck while it was this easy to tell the media.
Share price up tomorrow and then as theese unfounded allegations get shot down it will fall again.
HTTP/1.1 400
What is the *real* motivation?
I used to think that way too, before "I made $10 million bucks and all I got was this crummy t-shirt."
Seriously. Built an early ISP. Sold it for a ton of money. Raised an additional $20 million to chase UUNET and PSI's coat-tails. Had a neutral broker in the whole deal steal the money and the company. His attorneys stalled everyone out long enough to get money to offshore banks. We all won the suits, and never saw a dime. Company was long dead by the time the court system got done.
What I didn't understand at the time was that people like this know how to make money going down. Study what they call penny stock companies (ala bulletin board stocks/pink sheets). You can run one of these that does absolutely nothing, never files SEC documents, and make a nice income. Here's the middle item of the underwear gnomes strategy:
1. Incorporate a dummy privately trading C corporation which you and your friends own.
2. Use your public bulletin board company to acquire the dummy company. Claim the dummy company has some mystical super secret technology, or better yet, a patent claim against someone like Amazon.com, Priceline, Ebay, etc. When you buy it, it not only loads you and your friends up with more shares of stock (you buy it with the public company stock, and if you're smart, you do much of this w/ registered stock you can immediately dump), but it puts a bunch of press releases out about the event and gets half of the stock buying market going in a feeding frenzy buying your public stock.
3. Dump a bunch of your newly accumulated shares. Ride the stock price down to $0.001.
Repeat steps 1-3 over and over. Oh, when creditors come, make sure you drive the price to zero again (this makes it worthless for them to come after you and even keeps them from pushing involuntary bankruptcy which would take over your company). Claim you were an innocent investor who lost millions too. If pressed on where financial documents are, make sure you had hired some stupid kids and promoted them to CEO by promosing them multi million dollar paychecks. Have them sign all the IRS and state revenue department documents, but don't ever let them actually have control of the bank accounts. This sends the IRS and SEC after them and will stick them with tax obligations for decades. During this lying low time, acquire a few of your dummy companies and load back up on stock.
Sound far fetched? It happens every single day. The SEC told us it could not do anything about these and could only worry about the big Worldcom sized matters because they were "underfunded and overworked." The rest of the story is that it takes financial and political clout to get the SEC to investigate. Common folks don't matter.
So is there any wonder that the names behind SCO include power hitters from both parties and much of Utah's power base? Just another way of taking money from the lower classes...
I was working with CBIS (Cincinnati Bell Information Systems) in the early '80s when Sequent S81 was running Dynix/ptx with SVR and BSD interface flavours.
The technical sales reps were very hot on RCU and how it worked with NUMA to scale the system. 32 way SMP of 386's might not seem much now, but it was significant back then.
Their plans were to have multiple OS flavours under Dynix, relying on RCU to provide scalability to AIX, SunOS/Solaris, and other operating systems that would sit on top of the monolithic ptx core.
From day one, RCU and NUMA were marketted by Sequent as seperate products targetted at many operating systems and vendors, not as just a part of Dynix.
I'm tired of watching SCO's insanity. The industry did not develop in a vaccuum -- there are hundreds if not thousands of us who are witness to how the systems were really developed, despite some IP vulture corp's claims otherwise.
It's a disgrace that SCO's legal team and IP trolls haven't been arrested for fraud and locked up by now. They have no legal case, they never did, and they never will. It's time for them to be spanked and sent to sit in a jail-cell corner for 20 years each.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Finally, we found those millions of lines of code. We just thought they were talking about source code and they were talking about compiled code. It all makes sense now...
The views expressed are mine own and do not express the views of my employer.
Is lifting elves anything like tossing dwarves?
Hello, this is Darl McBride,
i ll.shtml
I'm sorry to inform you, but this Winston Churchill quote has been acquired by SCO through a series of acquisitions and mergers. As with the linux operating system, we require that you license this quote from us for the low price of $699 a post.
Thank you, and "History will be kind to me for I intend to write it!"
http://www.workinghumor.com/quotes/winston_church
I am still waiting for MS to let SCO completely self destruct, then buy their "IP" at a bargain
I've been wondering about this as well, though really see the SCO deal as more of a trial balloon and not the actual mother of all battles for open source.
It really doesn't seem like Microsoft's approach (remember how many billions they have and the pride that comes with the wealth and dominance). A proxy battle is more interesting as a means of testing the waters and seeing how the open source world responds. Where are they resiliant, and where are they weak? Toss pathetic little SCO and their delusionary CEO at them (much in the manner Hillary Clinton is 'endorsing' Kerry/Edwards). How often have they acquired a weak product and threw it in the competitive pool prematurely, fully knowing it wouldn't swim - only to come back in version 3 or 4 and destroy the competition (after having learned all they needed).
In this respect, the more interesting game is the one not being played - the game of omissions, unmoved pieces, etc. Where is F/OSS weak and scrambling? You can bet Microsoft is designating many millions to carefully observing this battle - their dominance depends on it.
Microsoft does not play to lose. They won't let SCO hit the real IP issues - rather have them throw items like ELF, JFS and header similarities that you know will fail. This is textbook Art of War.
*scoove*
I guess that they really are Sauron.
"One OS to rule them all and in the darkness bind them."
"Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."
You can't talk about the ELF format without mentioning this gem. You learn a lot about the format when you push it to its limits.
SCO stock's inside trading record shows five automatic sell orders and only two regular sells in recent History (Going back to Sept. of last year). No inside trades have been reported since April 7th. There are no buys or automatic buys (0).
Largest number of transactions (by far) and largest total value (by a smaller ratio) is Director Thomas P. Raimondi.
Gasparro, Larry (VP), Broughton, Reginald (SR VP), and Bench, Robert K. (CFO) all appear on the list. Bench owns (or owned by the most recent record) roughly 2.4 times as much stock as the next largest investor on the list.
Hunsaker, Jeff F. is the only person appearing on the list who is not shown with a position in the company described to explain why he is an insider, but other sources confirm he was a SR VP.
Interestingly, Darl's name does not appear at all on the inside trading list.
Who is John Cabal?
Actually while he was an ordinary MP Churchill spent a lot of time on copyright matters. He made sure he kept the copyright on all his speeches. The BBC have to pay a substantial fee every time they use them. Its probably at leas 500 quid by now.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
...from the grassy knoll. You're point is??
-- Lifted this SIG from Linus himself. --
INSERT INTO comment VALUE('Doh!') WHERE user='you';
That man could read "Green Eggs and Ham" and it would sound profound.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
The burden of proof is indeed a preponderance of evidence. I don't like the description of "51%" because it isn't that meaningful to me. I prefer saying that proving something by a preponderance of evidence means showing that it is more likely than not. (Including the defense's evidence of course.) Barron's law dictionary has the quote "Evidence preponderates where it is more convincing to the trier [of fact] than the opposing evidence."
Clear and convincing evidence is sometimes used for affirmative defenses, such as insanity. (Usually it's a preponderance of the evidence.) In these cases, the defense must show by clear and convincing evidence that the defense was met. If during deliberation the jury finds that the burden was met, and the prosecution failed to disprove the defense by a 'beyond a reasonable doubt' burden, they must acquit.
This is, by turns, misleading and plain wrong.
I understand, but that breaks down even worse in SCO's favor. The litmus test is this:
1. Is the code EXACTLY the same?
This is not the litmus test. Copyrighted material need not be copied exactly for infringement. See that part on "substantial similarity" above. While the exact breadth of copyright protection is not nailed down, it is certainly not "exact" by any stretch of the imagination or caselaw.
2. Can SCO prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the code was explicitly copied, was disguised, did not diverge and was not re-implemented.
Uh, what? First, SCO only has to show that it was more likely than not copied. Reasonable doubt is only for criminal trials. Second, again, it need not be copied exactly. Third, it need not be disguised. In fact, copyright is a strict-liability statute. Intent is completely irrelevant. Even if you are influenced subconsciously, you are liable. Independent creation is a complete defense, but not realistic here, I don't think. Fourth, I don't understand what you mean by divergence and re-implementation. It sounds like similarity or derivative works. In either case, your standard of exact copying is wrong. Derivative works are entitled to the same protection as the original.
3. Can SCO show a trade secret that was stolen?
Trade secrets have absolutely nothing to do with copyright law.
We pretty much know that #1 is false
First, your #1 isn't the right test. Second, you know nothing until a jury tells you. It's a crapshoot like no other.
and that #2 is damn near impossible to prove.
Well, you have a strawman. You constructed an impossibly narrow and inaccurate test. Of course it's impossible to prove.
#3 is useless to them because TISC revealed the secret. They can sue TISC for that (if they have a leg to stand on), but they can't sue anyone else.
Again, nothing to do with copyright, which, with contract breach, is the heart of SCO's claims. I feel you might not be well-versed on these points.
Thus SCO is still performing barratry and they know it.
Barratry. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
1 : the purchase or sale of office or preferment in church or state
2 : an unlawful act or fraudulent breach of duty on the part of a master of a ship or of the mariners to the injury of the owner of the ship or cargo
3 : the persistent incitement of litigation
[from http://www.m-w.com/]
They're not inciting litigation. They're instigating it. Furthermore, they haven't done it persistently, just one big, long case.
IANAL, but I have taken copyright and contract law classes. I am not Just Guessing here.
I thought we were waiting for them to stop speaking.
Only in the changelogs. Real source don't have all those comments (nor you need them - you _have_ the changelog, the BK changelog, you can see who wrote x line in $foobar file and see the patch which changed it)
/me stands back and waits for Sony to crush SCO like a bullant that's just bitten them.
There are three ways of 'owning' a standard:
The first is patents. For example, something about Betamax tapes were patented, and thus people had to license the standard from the owner, Sony. SCO has no patents, so can't possibly have one over ELF, so let's move on.
The second is trademarks. For example, Firewire is trademarked by Apple. This doesn't stop anyone from making Firewire ports on their laptop, but it does stop them from calling them Firewire ports, without paying a fee. Likewise, anyone can impliment ISO-9001, but you have to get certified if you want to call yourself that. (Technically, I don't think these are trademarks, they're 'seal of approval' marks, but they're under trademark law somewhere.)
The third is ownership of the copyright of the standards document. Quite a few standards organizations make their money this way.
While I know SCO does not have a trademark on ELF, and I doubt they somehow have copyright on the standards document that someone else released into the public domain before they were born, the important thing to remember is that only patents can stop someone from implimenting a standard.
I can sit here without having pay any money to Phillips for their standards documentation or their trademark and build a CD player. I can't call it a 'CD' player without getting their approval, and I'll have a hell of a time building it without looking at their documenation, but as all patents on basic CD players obviously expired already (Yeah, it's been 20 years.), I can build one, and even sell it.
As there never were any ELF patents, there has never been anything to prevent anyone else from implimenting it, period. Even if TISC trademarked 'ELF' and sold the standards documentation, it's still perfectly legal for someone to use that document, or in fact any way of figuring out the format they want, and impliment a system that uses ELF, even if they have to call it 'HOBBIT' or something. (Remember, reverse engineering for compatiblity reasons is still legal.)
(For everyone still paying attention, there is standard information in the format, and I can just hear everyone thinking 'what about copyright on those bytes?'. Well, no go. It's been explicitly ruled that, since copyright is only on creative works, and as information required by a standard is not 'creative', but 'factual', thus, you can't copyright it.)
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
As of today, how much is SCO worth on paper? Even if we all know SCO on the mid-term (I'm thinking more like ... very short-term) is worth NOTHING.
How much money / Linux users do we need to make a hostile takeover of SCO? Once we have the control, we can shutdown SCO by using their own code... "init 5" !!!
This comment is (C)2004 under the GNU LGPL license. SCO, feel free to re-distribute this information to your shareholder assets -- Don't forget to keep the license part of this comment, otherwise we'll sue you!Rollin' rollin' rollin'
Claim your code is stolen,
Keep them lawsuits rollin'
mcbride!
There's no evidence for your case
Just lie with a straight face
We're spreadin' our FUD far and wide
Whine and pout, make it up
Make it up, drag it on,
Whine and pout, make it up
mcbride
Lie and shout, fud and spin,
fud and spin, lie and shout
Lie and shout, fud and spin,
mcbride!