Groklaw Debunks SCO's ELF Heist

Xenographic writes "Following SCO's earlier claims that ELF really belonged to them, in this Groklaw article, we find enough proof to show that SCO does not and never could have owned ELF or any part of it. Moreover, it shows that their real motive in this is to desperately raise new issues to stave off IBM's motion for summary judgement on IBM's 10th counterclaim. For those who don't remember, that's the one where IBM asked for certification that their Linux activities did not violate any of SCO's copyrights, and SCO replied (with forked tongue) that the case against IBM wasn't about copyrights... Let the "Santa Claus Organization" jokes commence."

Comments

Chewbacka plantiff?

[afidel]

I mean we have the Chewbacka defense, is SCO modeling a new plantiff strategy, the Chewbacka complaint?

The Media

[Bob McCown]

Is any of this getting press in the media, besides these odd articles at non-mainstream news sites? Or investiment news sites? I can't imagine all this SCO news exists in a vacumn.

Slashdot mirror

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, SCO, SCO, SCO. This latest prank... Where to begin to unravel the latest brainstorm, the claim that ELF belongs to them, that Linux is using it illegally, and that it's the mortar holding the entire kernel together? I am smiling just typing this.

Here is what the ELF story is about, according to a Linuxworld article by Maureen O'Gara:

"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."

OK. ELF. Here we go. After all the research we have done, here are the conclusions I reach. First, ELF isn't mortar. It's not even in the kernel. It's interface stuff. It's not the only interface one might use, and in fact it replaced a prior interface, so it isn't essential for Linux to keep breathing and life to go on. It'd be annoying but not at all impossible to replace it.

Second, if TISC overstepped its authority, that is between SCO and SCO, because oldSCO was involved, oldSCO being a member of TISC.

Third, I don't believe they own it.

Fourth, Linux is not unique in using ELF.

Fifth, this is getting silly.

Let me explain, please, how I reached those conclusions.

Here's what the TISC document [PDF], regarding ELF version 1.2, told the world they were intending and what the world could do with ELF:

"This Executable and Linking Format Specification, Version 1.2, is the result of the work of the Tool Interface Standards (TIS) Committee--an association of members of the microcomputer industry formed to work toward standardization of the software interfaces visible to development tools for 32-bit Intel Architecture operating environments.

"Such interfaces include object module formats, executable file formats, and debug record information and formats. The goal of the committee is to help streamline the software development process throughout the microcomputer industry, currently concentrating on 32-bit operating environments. To that end, the committee has developed specifications--some for file formats that are portable across leading industry operating systems, and others describing formats for 32-bit Windows * operating systems. Originally distributed collectively as the TIS Portable Formats Specifications Version 1.1, these specifications are now separated and distributed individually.

"TIS Committee members include representatives from Absoft, Autodesk, Borland International Corporation, IBM Corporation, Intel Corporation, Lahey, Lotus Corporation, MetaWare Corporation, Microtec Research, Microsoft Corporation, Novell Corporation, The Santa Cruz Operation, and WATCOM International Corporation. PharLap Software Incorporated and Symantec Corporation also participated in the specification definition efforts. This specification like the others in the TIS collection of specifications is based on existing, proven formats in keeping with the TIS Committee's goal to adopt, and when necessary, extend existing standards rather than invent new ones.

"About ELF: Executable and Linking Format The Executable and Linking Format was originally developed and published by UNIX System Laboratories (USL) as part of the Application Binary Interface (ABI). The Tool Interface Standards committee (TIS) has selected the evolving ELF standard as a portable ob

Re:This whole SCO thing goes to show....

[Lonath]

...what stupid people can do with a lot of money

Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greed. They want you to misunderestimate them.

Summary

[MojoRilla]

SCO says the ELF format was improperly released by the TISC.

But SCO was on the TISC. And so was Novell. And the TISC released ELF before assets were sold.

Plus, any format endorsed by the TISC is property of that committee. And anyone who joins the committee and donates standards must grant the TISC rights.

Finally, the ELF format is an interchange format, and not copywritable.

"Santa Claus Organization"

[WormholeFiend]

Well, for one thing, even if SCO stood for "Santa Claus Organization", they could not claim Santa Claus, or even the North Pole, very easily, as this matter is already in dispute between several parties:

1) The Danes, who claim to own the North Pole because the Lomonsov Ridge, which passes under the ice cap, is an extension of Greenland, which is part of the Danemark Kingdom. (Controversially, however, Santa (Jule manden) is already a Dane because he lives "in the capital of Greenland, Nuuk. So giving the North Pole to Greenland does not change his status, even if he has an extra factory there. He stays a Danish citizen.)

2) The Russians, who claim to own the North Pole because the Lomonsov Ridge is an extension of Russia.

3) The Turks, because St Nicholas, on whom Santa Claus is modelled, is buried on Gemiler, a tiny island off Turkey.

Another issue is that the USA wants to divide the Arctic sea by sectors, as is the case with Antarctica, because the north coast of Alaska is the southernmost border of the Arctic ocean, so by sharing the Arctic in this way, the USA gets a larger share.

Finally, on behalf of all my fellow Canadians, I claim Santa Claus, because he proudly wears the colors of our National Flag, and we own land up there too.

coming down the pipe from IBM

[dAzED1]

IBM doesn't seem content to beat SCO, they seem to want to *destroy* their linux case against anyone.

That makes me think that there are things waiting in the wings with IBM. Looking Glass is cool, but I bet there are things much cooler from IBM that they're not disclosing until all this clears up. I bet IBM has some really good linux, and even OSS, products that will be coming out as soon as this goes away.

I still wish IBM would just buy Sun. Sun has a lot of very valuable IP, but they're not mass-producing enough processors to be competitive. If IBM bought Sun they could get a lot of Sun's chip-to-chip stuff, their new smart threading cores, etc - and just put it on their own power chips. Then those could be used in Sun servers and IBM servers alike.

Need more linux stores

[zogger]

We need more whitebox shops in towns all over to start selling linux or installing it. Put up a big sign "windows viruses eliminated forever!" that would be enough to get a lot of people inside the store at least. Then if they saw a few machines setup running some good different distros with all the apps that come with them, a lot of folks would think about it. Let people play with it a little, then they can see there's enough similarities to be comfortable with it, and enough installed apps that they probably wouldn't need much more. For what people pay for their semi monthly windows debugging at the shop, they could get a shiny new distro installed and have a bit of handholding in the store to show them how to use it.

Personally, I just am not going to worry about ANYTHING that might come from the SCO issues. Initially I thought they might have something, but now it's obvious they have less than squat.

If I could figure out a way to be two people I would do the linux whitebox shop myself, but I got a job now.....

Wow.. The BayStar/SCO Fight just got uglier..

[SirFozzie]

(Just saw this yahoo press release from SCO)

LINDON, Utah, July 23 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The SCO Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: SCOX - News) announced today that the SEC has declared effective, as of July 21, 2004, SCO's registration statement relating to the resale of shares of common stock issuable to BayStar Capital II, L.P. This fulfills the only condition to closing the repurchase transaction under the stock repurchase agreement between SCO and BayStar dated May 31, 2004, which was previously announced on June 1, 2004. Accordingly, SCO has informed BayStar that it considers the repurchase transaction to be closed as of July 21, 2004.

BayStar has notified SCO that it is BayStar's position that the repurchase transaction has not closed, pending resolution of claims by BayStar that SCO's recent public statements regarding SCOsource licensing opportunities are inconsistent with statements previously made by SCO to representatives of BayStar. SCO takes such questions very seriously and reaffirms the accuracy of its public disclosures concerning its SCOsource business and confirms its belief that such disclosures are not inconsistent with any confidential statements previously made to BayStar. As SCO previously has cautioned in its public disclosures, it has limited experience with its SCOsource licensing initiative, and projecting SCOsource revenue is difficult and subject to numerous risks and uncertainties.

BayStar has also claimed that it will not consider the repurchase transaction closed until SCO provides BayStar with confidential information supporting the accuracy of SCO's recent public disclosures regarding its SCOsource business. SCO has declined to provide the SCOsource information requested by BayStar in order to protect the confidential and proprietary nature of the information and the names of the companies engaged in SCOsource licensing discussions and to avoid fostering speculation regarding its SCOsource business.

SCO believes that the stock repurchase agreement with BayStar is effective and binding, and observes that the issues raised by BayStar are neither conditions to closing nor the subject of any representations, warranties or other terms of that agreement. In connection with the closing, SCO has sent to BayStar a stock certificate representing 2,105,263 shares of SCO common stock and notified BayStar that is ready to deliver $13,000,000 in cash, constituting the balance of the repurchase consideration, upon receipt from BayStar of its wire transfer instructions.

SCO has requested BayStar to fulfill its obligations under the stock repurchase agreement to deliver to SCO the certificates for the 40,000 shares of SCO Series A-1 Convertible Preferred Stock upon closing, and has informed BayStar that SCO will, in any case, consider all such Series A-1 stock cancelled and no longer issued and outstanding, effective as of the closing on July 21, 2004.

What's the motive?

[bannerman]

I'm still convinced that not everyone over at SCOG is mentally retarded. They've got some intelligent folks over there. All the same, it took a volunteer paralegal 24 hours to come up with overwhelming evidence against their latest claims. Certainly they could have at least come up with something more substantial, or in lieu of that, more vague.. to base their claims on.

So what are they trying to pull? There's more involved here, and I think that it might be really important to understand what it is before they show their hand.

Re:This whole SCO thing goes to show....

[MrNemesis]

make menuconfig?!

Holy shit! We've been using make config up until now, and it was taking us ages to figure out what all those scrappy little options were! This is gonna make my lawsuits SO much easier! Thank you!

Yours, Darl