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Randall Davis: IBM Has No SCO Code
Mick Ohrberg writes "As reported by Groklaw, Randall Davis, renowned professor of Computer Science at MIT has after an extensive search found no evidence of SCO's claims that IBM has incorporated parts of the Unix System V code. Davis says "Accordingly, the IBM Code cannot be said, in my opinion, to be a modification or a derivative work based on the Unix System V Code." Surprised, anyone?"
One thing was pointed out on Groklaw that I think was relevant. Although I think SCO has no case, I'm sure they will jump on the fact that the expert didn't provide an example of a true derivative work run through the same procedure.
It surely wouldn't have been hard to take some, say, early and "in the clear" code that has been reused and modified over time to show both that it can be identified and to show how code that has evolved can still leave the fingerprint of the original code. Without that counter example the failure to find matches would seem underwhelming. (The closest the testimony came to this was showing a positive result that was generated and showing how it was a commonly repeated pattern in all software written in C, not something specific to these two programs).
Perhaps elsewhere in IBMs testimony there was reference to this same procedure being successfully?
Sig under construction since 1998.
After that, who will have the copyright of Unix? Open Group? or IBM? or Novel?
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
Only the code SCO CURRENTLY says is infringing was tested. According to the document on Groklaw, this was not a line by line comparison.. so if SCO sneaks new code into discovery at some later point, this'll have to be done all over again.
Why? 6 million lines of code compared against 6 million (or more) will take a exponentially more time than 27000 vs 6 million.
They're not quite dead yet. But keep a good thought!
The courts have their thorough processes to run through. SCO will get umpteen chances to submit memorandums, emergency memorandums, memorandums in opposition to motions, memorandums in support of motions, motions to support memorandums in support of motions for summary judgement, no wait, theres more...
It's making me ill to watch how easily the process is to abuse. But thank God, unless a MS steps in and ponies up the cash, it will eventually be over.
Wow. That was a quick read, and you know what? Assuming that this guy's completely on the level (and considering his pro-IP stance, I'm willing to do that), SCO really has fuck-all. Up until now, I was ready to give them a chance, mostly due to their sabre rattling about protecting the little guy from the cloning behavior inherent in OSS. But Davis' observations, if substantiated, prove exactly what the OSS community was talking about: the code similarities are largely trivial, and SCO's "code theft" claims are bunkum.
Whether they still have any patents or copyrights on the functionality of UNIX remains to be seen, and such a case wouldn't necessarily NEED code theft to go forward. Any idiot can see that Linux is a UNIX clone -- the question at that point would be the legality of the cloning process and the layers of licensing that surround it.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Exactly. This is some of the most convincing anti-SCO evidence I've seen. This man has been an expert witness in court in the past and is indisputably an expert in this kind of analysis. Look at the (badly scanned...bleh!) table in the pdf. Line after line after line of code identified by SCO as being stolen, and Davis found absolutely nothing.
That's a final word as far as I'm concerned, and I'd venture so far as to say if IBM wants to make it so it's the final word as far as the law is concerned.
ACs are modded -6. I don't read you, I don't mod you, I don't see you. Don't like it? Don't be a coward.
I love this part:
"I have also been retained by the Department of Justice in its investigation of the INSLAW matter. In 1992 (and later in 1995) my task in that engagement was to investigate alleged copyright theft and subsequent cover-up by the Federal Bureau of Investigations, the National Security Agency, the Drug Enforcement Agency, the United States Customs Service, and the Defense Intelligence Agency."
Holy rat shit Batman!
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Yes, as a matter of fact, it *did* feel good to
see my work used in this comparison. Extremely good.
>>esr>>
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'm more interested in the Abstraction and Comparision aspect. Forget the Filtration aspect as they seem only to pertain to non-Copyright (mostly patentable objects).
Now, for Comparision... What are the wiggle room concepts introduced? I know of the most commonly used one such as "Upper-lowercase, multiple whitespaces"
And for the Abstraction, ones I know of are: inverse logic (a gt b) vs. (b lt a) and inverted or flipped loops.
I know in for Abstraction, one can evade the copyright in this manner. But for Comparision....?
Way back in April McBride admitted there were no "line-by-line, exact copies" of code taken from Unix and placed in Linux. He stated that it was a merely a "nonliteral" copy.
. as p
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1561611,00
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
As a matter of fact SCO did show the evidence. This was enumerated in Sandeep Gupta's deposition. The pointed to pdf file has a table of all the files aledged to be copied from Unix sources, and this deposition specifically states he looked at those also (since his automatic detection program failed to find it) and the evidence of copying failed to apply the normal legal standards (also outlined in the deposition). This is very interesting reading indeed.
If Davis sees no common code, then what did Laura Didio see?
d =9
http://www.groklaw.net/quotes/showperson.phtml?pi
"My impression is that [SCO's claim] is credible," says Laura DiDio, a Yankee Group analyst who was shown the evidence by SCO Group earlier this week. "It appears to be the same" code.-- Laura DiDio, 2003-06-05
At $550 per hour, I would've used something like a 386 processor with 8MB of RAM.
There's a reason some people get paid that much; some people know how to do their jobs well and efficiently.
Why pay someone for 100 hours at $55/hour and wait 3 weeks when you can pay this guy $550/hour and have your results the next day?
American justice was formulated by rationalists at the beginning of the Enlightenment, modeled on science (and including one of the great scientists, Ben Franklin, as a founder). Its dependence on evidence, actions and even its structure which finds defendants only "guilty" or "not guilty", but not "innocent", is an artifact of its scientific approach, which cannot prove a negative proposition, merely fail to prove a positive one. But science was young, and the culture of American lawyers was developed by people who explicitly avoided the culture of science, math and engineering. As it has diverged into mere persuasion, now wallowing in the depths of theories of "intent", it has become a joke.
Unfortunately, all the talk of "tort reform", channeling distrust of "trial lawyers" will go in the other direction from clearly engineered justice procedures. It will unimpeachably establish corporate primacy in rights in law, severely curtail humans' rights to sue, and generate an edifice for injustice on the ruins of the old, flawed system. The barbarians are at the gate, and all that stands between them and us is an association of lawyers. We're doomed.
--
make install -not war
We see that now that you are engaged in an ass kicking contents with an entity that has 20 legs and no ass, you're loosing!
Not to mention the fact that you have no case!! Never had one, never will have one!! Do you sleep well at night, Darl? Do your employees welcome you to the office when you show up for work? Or do they jeer at the man whose cost them any future they could ever have had in the IT industry in the hope that they might "get rich quick" by trying to bust up Linux?
Caldera (let's call it what it is...) was one of the Linux leaders and you've turned this once Linux company into a litigation machine just like you're famous for. Well this time, the joke's on you pal. You've come up against two things you didn't count on. One, that a mega corporation like IBM might actually fight you instead of just paying you off and two, the tenacity of the Linux community and our unique ability to find the facts about a given situation. *This* is how it works here, we police each other with the very same eye we've used to scrutinize this farce of yours.
We have come out on top, and we will always come out on top. We've stared you in your ugly face and we've not flinched.
Screw you, Darl McBride.
Sincerely, Gregory Casamento.
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep