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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?"
you mean that SCO has been lying to us?
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." [Thomas Jefferson]
Well, you thought that SCO's case had to be standing on SOMETHING, right? COlor me surprised! ;)
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.
rocks are hard and water is wet.
More at 11.
Holy s-, it's Jesus!
I thought SCO was telling the truth the whole time. You mean to tell me that those bastardly socialist hackers have done nothing wrong? Impudence!
Only in a Slashdot fantasy can a Slackware install turn into several hours of sex . . . . .
nedit lawsuitammo.txt
(null)
8. I have been retained by counsel for IBM in this lawsuit and am being compensated at a rate of $550 per hour.
20. These comparisons required on the order of 10 hours of computation time on a dual 3 GHz Xeon processor system with 2 GB of RAM. This is a high-end workstation routinely and easily available off the shelf from commercial vendors such as Dell.
At $550 per hour, I would've used something like a 386 processor with 8MB of RAM.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
-So now, after months and months of news about this trial, it's all over now ?
Not quite..
An MIT professor isn't a court, although he could be used as an expert if IBM needs to. This is not that big of news imho. Other studies have already found this.
They are far from bankrupt, and probably won't be for a while either. They've already played down their accusations, perhaps trying to have people forget them. Perhaps people will go about their business as they did before this thing started, personally, I hope IBM takes action and drags their sorry faces into the mud.
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.
What about these snippets? // /*f (...)
*/
while(1)
{
}
return(0);
return(1);
i
elseif (...)
else
And don't forget the white space! That is a clear copy!
The article is a good start but what are the criterias for determining derivatives?
Which method is covered for source code comparisions?
1. two printouts held together and up toward a lighted source?
2. side-by-side subjective eyeball comparision
3. diff (and all derivative comparision tools)
4. diff with some wiggle-room command line options?
5. NSA-grade pattern analysis supercomputer?
I'm slightly guarded here, but these SCO FUD-busting articles seemed very promising...
SCO, don't try and claim that IBM has your code. That's impossible. Instead, realize the truth. There is no SCO code.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
... who wrote the comparator tool which was one of the two tools used in the analysis.
ESR deserves three cheers for 'scratching his itch', making a tool to compare copyrighted code. To have it actually used in the SCO case which was the annoying impetus for its creation (AFAICT) has to be a nice feeling.
I'm not an ESR fanboy, but I'll give him props when I think he deserves it and in this case I think he does.
--LP
Where do I get a gig like that?
He basically had some software look for similarities in the code, and then manually verified the hits.
Wow....$550/hour to do that. I've got a CS degree - I'll volunteer to do it for half that!
Oh yeah, he also explained the significance of return statements so that non-programmer types could understand.
-ted
That's ... that's ... that's because Randall Davis doesn't have the Secret SCO Decoder Ring (tm) (patent pending) (C 2004 SCO). The Decoder Ring ... it ... it detects our IP where no mere mortal could ever hope to find it!
... for a limited time only ... buy SCOSource licenses for 5 or more friends, and SCO will throw in a Secret SCO Decoder Ring (tm) (patent pending) (C 2004 SCO) at no additional charge!
And now
My name is Darl McBride, and I have authorized this message!
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.
In other news... SCO's lawyers have started filing suits with all other unix variants...
He goes into detail.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Hmmm...I wonder if he can prove that COMPARATOR and SIM do not contain any SCO code?
This almost doesn't even count as news.
Everybody knew it . . . even SCO!
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.
Since Dr. Randall Davis is an expert witness for IBM, I am guessing that SCO will say, "ain't so!" and then they will ask for time to refute Randall's findings and perhaps come up with an expert witness of their own that finds thousands of "matches." Hopefully the judge in this case will recognize Randall for the expert that he is and accept his findings. However, that just doesn't seem likely to me. This is just another round in a case that will continue like this ad nauseum.
Erick
http://www.busyweather.com/
1. Get Linux 2.6.8.1
2. Get Linux 2.4.0
3. left out as an exercise for the reader
4. Show positive result
5. Don't profit, but have fun.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
Great! Graduate Phi Beta Cappa (summa cum laude, too), run some AI centers and also have excessive experience in Code copyright infringement cases!
See you in 10 years!
(trans: read the relevant parts of his CV in the PDF- this guy is FOR REAL.)
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
"No SCO code? Shaa...and monkeys might fly out of my butt!"
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
to compare all 26,759 lines of the IBM Code identified by SCO against all 67,797,569 lines in the Unix System V Code
All the SCO bullshit over? Far from it. There are still a few hundred million lines of AIX that haven't been compared.
And even if it's over for IBM, doesn't make it necessarily over for Linux in general.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
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
If I recall correctly, Randy told me that he has served as a special master in several cases.
Fight Spammers!
SCO: b-b-but, you're not supposed to use a COMPUTER SCIENTIST!
IBM: byte us.
stuff |
He bills $550 an hour for his time, not computation time. I doubt he would sit at his desk watching the screen saver during the computation time -- He'd go to the Royal East for lunch.
Fight Spammers!
The $550/hr analyst eliminated the following filtration criterias:
1. ideas
2. purposes
3. procedures
4. processes
5. system
6. method of operations
7. facts
8. unoriginal elements
WOW! Okey Doke. So, now the IBM legal team is really looking for "copy-cat" aspect of which we, the community, are certain there aren't any (save for a few comments).
Looks like a (yet another prolonged drawned out) battleground for SCO legal team to reinstate some of the following bullet items above.
I am guessing that SCO will say, "ain't so!" and then they will ask for time to refute Randall's findings and perhaps come up with an expert witness of their own that finds thousands of "matches.
You forgot the part where they also ask (again!) for every internal iteration of every file used in AIX and Dynix.
The only reason we have the rights we have is that people just like us died to gain those rights. -- Cheerio Boy
This guy is the expert in code comparison, which is why he can get so much. It's like hiring Linus Torvalds as a kernel consultant.
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
Don't forget how they will present it... "Your Honor, our expert witness here found thousands of matches that proves IBM stole our code. However, to preserve our IP, we cannot tell you what they are, but they are there... yes, they are..."
After 3 days without programming, life becomes meaningless
- The Tao of Programming
I'll volunteer to do it for half that!
And there are people in India who will do it for 1% of what Davis got paid for it.
(That's $5.50 per hour for us non-math types)
Get your Unix fortune now!
SCO claims an attack from IBM, using these weapons, is imminent. SCO has 2 carrier battle groups in the area and 250,000 troops on call to go in and find the WMD, pending UN approval. More news to come.....
-Randy
Of course one could only hope that the SCOxpert would be required to actually show which parts he thought matched what -in a very specific manner.
Like I said. One can only hope....
This has been gone over at length on Groklaw. IBM HAS taken action. No matter what SCO does, IBM still has a huge countersuit under something called Lanham Act . Methinks SCO is in a bit of trouble
Save a Life. Donate Blood. Please.
Your honour, when we apply the standard abstraction and filtration phases to any Unix System V file we can clearly see that the resulting 0 byte file is identical to every abstracted and filtered 0 byte file in the latest Linux kernel.
...it's (SCO) Some Company's Other code. How's that for ironic, a SOFTWARE company takes out a lawsuit over SOFTWARE and a computer scientist uses SOFTWARE to prove there is no case. I'm waiting for SCO to claim rights to the comparator concept. How high will the level of ludicrous behaviour will over-paid, executives in companies loosing money get? Has anyone during this entire process given thought that maybe SCO took the code and claims it as their own? How will they ever prove this case is beyond me, since Unix was in existence before SCO was established as a company.
Scientia et Potentia
Whether they still have any patents or copyrights on the functionality of UNIX remains to be seen,...
Ummm, no it doesn't. We already know that SCO doesn't have any patents, and there's no such thing as a copyright on functionality. We copyright code, not functionality.Although your deposition includes a description of your methodology, it does not indicate whether you established a proper baseline for comparison or how you calibrated your filter. I would be interested to know how far, in your direct experience, code can be modified before it fails to match COMPARATOR and SIM respectively. Furthermore, how closely does the point at which these tools fail to detect a match coincide with the legal Abstraction, Filtration, and Comparison test?
I do not fault your analysis; I would like to know more about your methodology, beyond the limited scope of the deposition.
-Hope
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.
They're not quite dead yet.
SCO: I don't want to go on the cart!
Oh, don't be such a baby. You're not fooling anyone, you'll be stone dead in a moment.Suudsu, that stuff is G-E-W-D.
So can I get a refund on my SCO extortio^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H license fee?
Real programmers use "copy con program.exe"
Law is an ass, and there is no way to tell which way this will still come out - on all the arguments.
It only takes a . out of line to sway the legal result, not necessary the correct and right result.
It not over until the fat penguin sings, then we can all rejoice.
Well, it looks like we only have 2 more months until SCOX is back to where it should be.
Will he have to re-run the comparison now that Sims 2 is out?
To strengthen their case, IBM needed to trot out an MIT professor to counteract all of those fictional MIT folks that found this infringement in the first place.
-- dR.fuZZo
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.
Even though what he did may only require a CS degree, if IBM just hired someone with a CS degree to do the same job the SCO lawyers might hire an expert with a better looking resume and be able to convince a non-technical judge/jury that their side was correct.
It's sort of a credentials arms race.
Sure, you expect me to believe that. I willwait for a judges ruling first.
Out of the AFC (Abstraction-Filtration-Comparision), only two were applied.
If the 3rd, Filtration, was ever evoked, then muddy waters ensures.
What a cool legal concept. Open-n-shut case.
Then I guess they're fucked. I checked your facts on copyright.gov (hey, i was interested, not mistrusting) and sure enough, software is only copyrighted as code, making it a literary work.
Oh well. No mo' SCO.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
There are still a few hundred million lines of AIX that haven't been compared.
This has been gone over again and again, basically AT&T, which has the original contracts, told IBM, "What's ours, is ours" "What's yours is yours" Look for a document called addendum 2 (I think), of the original ATT agreements on Groklaw, or any of the dozens of sites with the legal documents. SCO is saying we think you did something wrong, show us where it is !. It dosen't work that way.
To anticapte the standard reply of "Well, if IBM has nothing to hide, why don't they give SCO all of AIX?". Because that is not the way the law works. If this were true, I could say I think you took my money, because I have money that looks similar to your money. I want to come to your house, and search every nook and crany to see if I find any of SCO/MY money. Not sure to many people would go for that
Save a Life. Donate Blood. Please.
SCO has apparently already recruited their expert, apparently it's this guy. SCO Expert
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Since Dr. Randall Davis is an expert witness for IBM, I am guessing that SCO will say, "ain't so!" and then they will ask for time to refute Randall's findings and perhaps come up with an expert witness of their own that finds thousands of "matches." Hopefully the judge in this case will recognize Randall for the expert that he is and accept his findings. However, that just doesn't seem likely to me. This is just another round in a case that will continue like this ad nauseum.
Dr. Davis is the person who first elucidated how you compare code (the "abstraction, filtration, comparison" test - Computer Associates vs. Aitai) to see if it violates copyright. SCO will have a hard time trying to argue that its depositions (which are from non-experts, though they claim 'unnamed' experts performed the work) are from people more qualified than Dr. Davis.
So I guess what I'm saying is that SCO will have a hard time finding an expert witness more qualified than Dr. Davis. (Please note that if they try to present a deposition from one, that will likely be stricken - as SCO has been ordered by the court to present such a deposition, and has not - thus indicating it doesn't have one) And I highly doubt that the court will value any other expert over Dr. Davis anyway.
SCO has two of its own employees (Dr. Davis is not an IBM employee, though he is being retained by IBM). IBM has the expert witness who first defined how you compare code. Hmm, I wonder which the judge will believe...
With this additional information, is it now true that SCO claims that IBM inserted weapons of mass destruction in the Linux Source?? I guess they'll just need IBM's personal e-mails about Microsoft to find it.
That's why , to IBM, he's worth $550 an hour.
That's incorrect. Comparator makes one pass over all the lines of code, computes a hash values for line triplets, sorts that hash value, and then looks for matches in adjacent values of the sorted list.
It is not an n squared algorithm, it's n log n.
By my calculations, looking at 200 times as much SCO code (6M vs 27k) would take less than 3 times as long.
Mike
"Surprised, anyone?"
No. Nobody is surprised. And that includes SCO.
There are no American tanks in Baghdad!
They are nowhere near Baghdad.
Their forces committed suicide by the hundreds.... The battle is very fierce and God made us victorious. The fighting continues.
Ooops, wrong script. (fumbles with papers)
IBM is lying about the lack of stolen code.
We need another delay to find stolen code.
There can be no doubt that Linux contains stolen code.
"A witty saying proves nothing." ~Voltaire
"d'Oh!" ~Homer
If there were such a law, there could be no public defenders or district attorneys. Besides, as cynical as it sounds, the legal system does not really work on the basis of 'truth,' it works on the basis of law. The job of the lawyers is to reveal and even sensationalize as much of the truth that's in their favor as possible, while hiding or downplaying what there is that's against them. It balances out, because he's working against another guy doing exactly the same thing.
In related news, the same researcher has determined that the brown stripe in the BVD briefs of 77-year-old Frank Wilson of Alatoosa, Mississippi does not contain SCO bullshit.
Wilson was subpoenaed on July 3, 2004 for apparently using SCO Unix bullshit in his underwear. SCO lawyers contended that, in addition to all of their other bullshit, this particular stripe of fecal matter in Wilson's BVDs was, in fact, similar the other bullshit that they have spread around since they began their legal actions.
Wilson, a World War II veteran and resident at the Shady Acres Memory Care facility on the western edge of Alatoosa, was not immediately aware of what SCO was in the first place.
"I thought it was the VA -- finally giving me my money for that piece of Kraut shrapnel I took in 1942! Fucking Krauts! Where's my applesauce? Is my wife around?"
Officials at the memory care facility noted that Wilson is an Alzheimers patient who frequently forgets to wipe himself after using the bedpan, hence the source of the stripe in his underwear. They were aware of the legal action again Wilson by SCO, but rather than stir up his angina and blood pressure by witholding the mail that he watches being delivered every day, they let him open the SCO legal letter himself.
"We're just glad he didn't keel over with a stroke," said Frank Johnson, the head nurse of the memory care facility. "He just ranted about the VA and pissed down his leg while asking for his son, who has been dead for 16 years after a car accident. It could've been a lot worse."
The examination of the fecal stripe in the suspect pair of BVDs turned up concrete evidence that, in fact, the shit was Wilson's. In fact, it was not even bullshit and thus not legally open to subpoena by SCO on the grounds that it was more of SCO's bullshit. No countersuit has been filed, as Wilson's surviving family members have apparently never visited him at the facility and only wish to pay the bills for his care.
IronChefMorimoto
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.
This whole saga comes down to SCO being a pawn in a much bigger game played by the big boys. Realistically everyone looses in many cases like this. Because it comes down to a trust issue.
I think SCO is stalling so that they can rewrite their code to match the Linux code...
I think that pretty much sums up this whole case from the beginning.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
Actually, Dr. Davis is already refuting the declaration (currently under seal) of SCO's "expert witness", Sandeep Gupta. Mr. Gupta happens to be the SCO VP of Engineering. Yeah, they searched far and wide to find that expert... :-)
Remember, SCO must present evidence, or have experts present evidence, that there is copying. IBM then just needs to show that SCO is full of it, like they did here...
MIke
...by sco, to testify at length defending it against allegations by sco that the tool is flawed and biased against them (and them alone).
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
Your logic is flawed. If not true, it's unclear whether it's interesting.
Your conclusion would be true if your premise were "interesting if and only if true."
You tell me how "whilst" differs from "while," and I'll stop calling you a pretentious jackass.
Move my bowels.
Check SCO.
Move my bowels.
Check SCO.
Move my bowels.
Check SCO.
Move my bowels.
Check SCO.
Honestly, we all know it's just a matter of time before the entire state of Utah is set afire and salt sewn into the ground. It's getting old hearing about SCO every other day...
...without the Smoke & Mirrors.
Xenon, where's my money? -Borno
5. In 1990 I served as expert to the Court (Eastern District of NY) in Computer Associates v. Altai, a software copyright infringement case that articulated the abstraction, filtration, comparison test for software. I have also been retained by the Department of Justice on 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 Investigation, the National Security Agency, the Drug Enforcement Agency, the United States Customs Service, and the Defense Intelligence Agency.
whoo-hoo-heehee
Dan and CBS is very good at finding documents even when they don't exist so they ought to be able to find code that was "stolen" from SCO.
6F 9E A9 1E 96 9F 74 27 ED B8 81 6D 0C 4E 1E 78
My other Sig is a 229.
Or become a CEO of TSG...
Darl makes over $1,000,000 per year which works out to (1,040,000/2080)= $550/hour - although if you think he punches a clock or works 40 weeks you would probably be wrong.
And the only thing Darl is doing is sucking the life out of the company and riding it into bankruptcy.
Shoot, a BUNCH easier than all that studying and work to actually ACCOMPLISH something!
Acts of massive stupidity are almost never covered by warranty. --me.
Holy fuck, how'd this guy avoid ending up dead in a ditch somewhere?!!!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
He may be qualified in any number of things, but he didn't show any of those qualifications here. He ran some already-written software, manually verified a handful of results, and reported what the software said. Anyone who can operate a computer can do that.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
However, that does not mean that part of the "deal" with the SCO vs IBM lawsuits won't be "And since this matter is settled, you must drop your countersuit."
It's happened lots of times.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
Only try to realize the truth: There is no code.
Then you will see it is not the code that is gone; it is only your head.
Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
While news of no infringing code is hardly a surprise to everyone here, it really explains a lot of SCO's behavior. Everyone believes there probably isn't literal copying in Linux. SCO probaly does too. But SCO is stuck having made so many public statements. What they've been trying to do is sneak in the derivatives, modifications, "methods and concepts" copyright infringements. This explains their steadfast and unbending request for all of AIX and Dynix source code. They know that nobody copied SysV and put it into Linux. But many people at IBM (and others) may have used SysV as a guide to develop their own code. They want to get their hands on anything that looks like somebody at IBM wrote that might be similiar enough to pass off as having some lineage to SysV. Problem for SCO is that current copyright laws do not support this notion.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
It is called 'Discovery'.
TSG has to show their case to IBM, and IBM has to show their case to TSG.
TSG is not doing that, and the pieces they are showing are being disproven to show what TSG claims they show.
Remember TSG said they had "millions of lines" of code, but have not shown EVEN ONE LINE that supports thier case even though they are required to do so by the rules of the court, and by TWO SEPARATE ORDERS by Judge Wells.
You seem to have a wrong idea of what the case is about - if it is about copyright (which is IBMs 10 Counter Claim and what the Summary Judgement motion addresses) then SOMETHING from the copyrighted work THAT IS COVERED BY COPYRIGHT has to be found in the allegedly infringing work.
Take the two piles of software (Unix System V and Linux) and check every line of one against every line of the other. TSG can do that with Linux and the version of Unix they claim rights to, and presumably have done that.
They have not shown any of their claimed software having been copied into Linux which means their claim that IBM put their claimed software there (if there is nothing there, then IBM must have put NOTHING there) is baseless.
Remember that if you can not prove some form of copying, then there is no copyright rights being infringed.
And, by clearing LINUX in general, IBM is also clearing themselves. So if it is over for Linux in general, then it is over for IBM as well.
I think that is the reason for the frantic (and pathetic) emergency motion TSG submitted recently. Basicly "IBM are going to win IF THE COURTS DON'T INTERVENE! HELP US!" If I remember correctly, Judge Wells refused their motion.
Acts of massive stupidity are almost never covered by warranty. --me.
You forgot to ask to see his tax returns for the last 7 years, all bank statements and other documents of financial transactions, and the names of all business and individuals that might have come into contact with the money you claim is yours.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
HA HA!
"It takes many nails to build a crib, but one screw to fill it."
Next, SCO file suit against Dr Randall Davis for defamation of title to their intellectual property in the Unix System.
How the fuck is this flamebait? It was intended to get me modded +3 or 4 insightful, dammit.
Lets see: on the Advisory Board of the US Congressional Office of Technology Assesment on software and I.P., published in 1992.
Check.
Columbia Law Review article on "the Legal protection of Computer Programs". Check.
Software Law journal article on "The Nature of Software and its Consequences for Establishing and Evaluating Similarity. BIG Check.
Court Expert on Software Copyright Infringement. Check.
Retained by the DOJ to investigate copyright theft (and subsequent cover up) by the FBI, NSA, DEA, US Customs, and DIA. Check.
Served as chairman of the National Academy of Sciences study on ip rights and emerging information infrastructure. Check.
Retained as an expert in over 30 cases of ip infringement. Check.
Yeah, I don't care if you aren't impressed with his write up. He's got the skills to pay the bills.
He ran some already-written software, manually verified a handful of results, and reported what the software said. Anyone who can operate a computer can do that.
Actually, its the MANUALLY verified results that "anyone who can operate a computer" CAN'T do. The above C.V. gives gravitas to his methodology, choice of programs, modifications to said programs, and (most importantly) manual verification.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
This is called grad school.
Mod this guy up for the rocking allusion to "all your base"
This
Technical note:
SCO will have a hard time trying to argue that its depositions (which are from non-experts, though they claim 'unnamed' experts performed the work) are from people more qualified than Dr. Davis.
These are declarations, not depositions. Depositions are a completely diffferent thing. They involve being deposed by a lawyer or lawyers, i.e., questioned.
It's interesting to note that SCO has said that their people making declarations are making them as layman, but that they could be experts if they wanted. =)
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
In my opinion-- this is as credible as scos claim--- it goes nowhere.
You're my hero for the day! I prefer the spelling Buncombe, as Mencken spelled it, but no matter.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
For the uninitiated, "CYA Memo Diff" is the comparision of two documents during W's Guard years.
They could essentially compare the code for every sys V with every AIX code mix and match versions and find the lines of code in different places that are the same but does that mean its copying.
The results he verified are so small that they don't need to be verified at all: they could be entered verbatim into the court record, and it'd be pretty obvious those 15 lines of code aren't the infringement SCO is looking for. What the evidence rests on is that the other millions of lines the program *didn't* flag aren't infringements. That means it rests entirely on what the program does, which is something ESR could better attest to, being the one who wrote it.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
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Great! Graduate Phi Beta Cappa (summa cum laude, too), run some AI centers and also have excessive experience in Code copyright infringement cases!
And while you're at it:
Be THE consulting expert in THE case where the legal rule defining what constitutes copyright-infringing copying of, or derivation from, a computer program and how to detect it by comparision, are ORIGINGALLY DEFINED and made into legal precedent.
Oops. Too late. You'll need a time machine, too.
(Looks like, when they were "bringing in the big guns", IBM brought in the biggest gun there is.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Am I the only one that noticed that this study was paid for by IBM? I'm certainly not saying it's incorrect, but it's certainly not a near death blow either.
In fact, it's nothing more than the defendant saying black to the accuser's white.
Before you say I'm full of it, please look at your own opinion of certain studies paid for by Microsoft. Thought so. The fact that they paid for it means a lot.
TW
Darl: I feel happy... I feel happy.
[whop]
IBM: Ah, thanks very much.
Judge: Not at all. See you on Thursday.
nos laetus epulor qui would domito nos
It does make him look more independant which is no bad thing.
sure enough, software is only copyrighted as code, making it a literary work.
Yep. You can't copyright ideas, only a particular expression of ideas. In as much as the code -is- the idea, or implements a standard, it can't be copyrighted (e.g. interfaces). Patents cover ideas, not copyright.
Not that SCO hasn't argued exactly the opposite! They've been saying "UNIX concepts and methods" have been infringed as in the press, and even in the courts. It hasn't flown in court at all. The only examples they have of 'infringement' are exactly the kind of standard interfaces that can't be protected.
So basically their entire court case is based on a false reading of copyright law that, judging by the times on comments, would have taken them about 13 minutes of research to disprove. Pathetic.
The enemies of Democracy are
If US justice required evidence to be registered and certified allowable before claims were filed, the system would shed a lot of its unbearable load. Even the appeals before a judge, of disallowed evidence, would be dealt with in a more efficient manner. It's insane that I'm paying for the legal system that SCO is exploiting to promote its equity, now that its legitimate business has failed, while their travesty hasn't even got any evidence, or demonstrated any basis for their claims. After the years they've pushed this thing through the courts, they should have at least produced some evidence. And they're just the flagship corporate operation lawsuit - billions are spent by my cohort of taxpayers to keep litigious corporations and their lawyers in business. We should nip them in the bud, by simply requiring evidence to make any claims based on it.
--
make install -not war
The point is, this is not IBM paying some front man to do their dirty FUD work and dress it up as an "independent" study. Everybody in the court knows that IBM is paying Dr. Davis as they are expected to. What is telling is that SCO has been unable to offer any counter-testimony from any real experts. They've still got $50 million in the bank. It's not because they can't afford it.
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
There is still some money left.
In a court case like this, the two sides are expected to retain and pay expert witnesses to advise the court.
Yes they are, but juries are also expected to closely examine the testimony and the motivation for giving it. If slashdotters were good jury members they'd be wise to at least take this into account. Why aren't slashdotters questioning the financial relationship? Why aren't the asking to see the modifications the doctor made to the open-source programs he used? Why aren't they asking anything at all?
You want to believe Dr. Davis and I want to believe him, but when a megacorp pays someone to back them up I'm sure as hell going to take a closer look before dancing in the streets.
TW
Whoop de friggin do!!!
IBM has a license to use UNIX in AIX, so if there's UNIX code in AIX, that's just fine.
There's actually no question that there's AIX code ported to Linux (but without any AT&T code in it). I think that that's a given. Even if there is, though, that has nothing to do with Copyright violations... SCO has acknowledged that IBM still owns their AIX code, just that they (SCO) have the right to NIX IBM from revealing it... but that's would be a contract violation question (in the improbability-drive universe where SCO is correct), not copyright, which is what they're arguing about here.
The SCO Contract claims are scheduled to get shot down next month, If I remember correctly.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
You may be thinking of The HardOCP case, there....
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
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
" Surprised, anyone?"
/. ;^)
He must read
I hope IBM takes action and drags their sorry faces into the mud.
I'd rather they (SCO) got their faces drug though feces.
>So now, after months and months of news about this trial, it's all over now ?
Since Dr. Randall Davis is an expert witness for IBM, I am guessing that SCO will say, "ain't so!" and then they will ask for time to refute Randall's findings and perhaps come up with an expert witness of their own that finds thousands of "matches."
Might be a good thing. Then the judge and IBM can ask for this list of "matches".
I am not a sig.
The telling thing here is that, while IBM was able to convince a world-renowned, leading expert on Computer Science to back up their story, SCO was not. Like I said, it's not because they don't have the money. They have $30 million to throw at sub-par lawyers. They could have paid Dr. Davis $550/hr to testify for them, only he wouldn't have done so because they are wrong. They could have paid Brian Kernighan to testify, but he testified for IBM instead. They could afford any of the experts IBM has paid, and with the future of the company riding on this litigation, they should have. The only reasonable explanation for them not having a real expert is that no real expert would set foot in Lindon for all the money in the world. The reason these statements from Dr. Davis are so important is that from a legal standpoint, they are basically uncontested. In the court, it's up to SCO to contest that testimony, which they haven't done in any meaningful way (except to call it "irrelevant" without backing that up, and to offer the inadmissible testimony of two of their own employees posing as experts), which means the judge can pretty much accept them as fact, and be on solid legal ground.
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
"I have also been retained by the Department of Justice on 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 Investigation, the National Security Agency, the Drug Enforcement Agency, the United States Customs Service, and the Defense Intelligence Agency."
Now THAT would be an interesting read.
Anybody got a link to the results?
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
One simple rule for its versus it's
"It balances out, because he's working against another guy doing exactly the same thing."
Correction, please. It SHOULD balance out.
That's theory.
In reality, it never does balance out - except in cases where a major corporation is opposing a local jurisdiction that can't match the legal funding or manpower.
In most other cases, you have one lawyer (or law firm, again depending on funding) opposing a state-funded operation (which might, however, be incompetent, I'll give you that.)
There's a reason the criminal conviction rate in Federal Court exceeds 98% - and it's not that everybody is guilty.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
A wonderful book about the suit brought by some wobourn MA parents whoose children develooped cancer (also a gd movie with j travolta). The point is, both sides had very eminent professors of geology to testify about movement of chemicals thru groundwater; both experts were total BS artists. so just because some guy with a big rep at mit says its so, dont mean its so (sort of lke 80 bucks does not guarantee a good bike lock)
I've got a CS degree
Let me see now, that was Summa Cum Laude/Phi Beta Kappa from an Ivy League school? Right?
Oh, yes and your PhD was from Stanford? MIT? or what equivalent?
And you have been a chaired professor for how many years at what elite university?
Oh, and you have experience in intellectual property cases that have set relevant legal precidents?
And you have served on what national panels/policy making bodies in this field??
Completely offtopic:
I went to a strip joint tonight, and there was this Liz Hurley look-alike stripper that sat with me. After lots of talking, and lots of flirting, we went for a lap dance. During the dance we talked passionately and kissed passionately in the mouth, for long periods of time. Then she told me that she would like to see me again and that we may go out on a date.
From that moment on, I am completely in my own universe, and can't think of anything else but her. Please help a fellow geek! I sat down to write about SCO, but I can't! I know it is completely off-topic, but I need an advice:
What is the possibility that she really likes me? do strippers kiss customers in the mouth? was she faking? if she did, we are talking about a mighty actress here! should I go another day, possibly working day, and ask her out (or get her phone number)?
I am talking seriously here!
Sure, i've got a CS degree - and I don't even write code for a living - I'm a network admin.
RELAX! It was supposed to be a funny post.
Geez....no sense of humor on slashdot today.
-ted
When I saw that in the Groklaw text, I thought it was a funny editorial comment regarding something involving Bill Gates, and a rubber band... I didn't know there was an actual case called that. But would law students call it the Gates Decision, the Rubber Decision, or just Rubber-Bando?
*****
Dear Mary,
I yearn for you tragically,
A.T. Tappman, Chaplain, U.S. Army.
If this happens, will the Free Software Foundation have to change the name of their software from GNU, for "GNU's Not Unix" to GIU, "GNU IS Unix"?
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
A useful exercise would be to run those tests on Windows vs. Linux source, to see if Microsoft violated the GPL anywhere.
I disagree that it balances out, because one powerful or wealthy party can hire whole teams of expensive lawyers to root out heaven-only-knows-what and prance about in the court room until the other, less powerful party runs out of money with which to pay HIS attorneys.
End result: the wealthy can lawfully oppress the poor. There is nothing new under the sun.
As well as the IDM countersuit, there's the very real possibility that the judge would take an extremely dim view of SCO saying "Wups, sorry. Didn't mean it really"... And didn't SCO mention something in SEC filings about the pots of money they expected to get in settlements and licensing when they finally won this case?? If so, they can't really back down without irritating the SEC as well as the judge...
Now there's comparator software out there howabout someone running Open Source against Windows code out there in P2P land .... the results might be **interesting** to say the least
I believe that some of the changes he made are documented in the affidavit. Anyway it would matter because the expert is paid an hourly rate, and it's only fair to minimise the time he spends watching TV while the program does the job for him!
Both programs are open source, so I hope he was a good guy and submitted his performance improvements to the maintainers.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
or those two unprintable guys beginning with B who
have single handedly (?) mutilated star trek.
I find myself saddened that SCO, a company that in
the old days was one of the few who genuinely believed in UNIX like systems has fallen to such lows.
Even if they won, they would lose.
They won't win.
Ironically, in the 80's IBM was considered the evil demon of our industry. The worm sure turned.
I actually *like* IBM now. No, No, it isn't all the substance abuse, it's real...
Someone persuade them to release AmiPro and some other things open source and I'll even enthuse about how nice they are to others (big hint).
C++. You want to Own C++. Good. That will set you
on the path to insanity!
Surely you mean 'imagine a beowulf cluster of Natalie Portmans...'?
J.
You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.
Actually, depending on what you mean by "clone", I'd hesitate to actually call Linux a UNIX clone. In my mind, it's more like meeting two people on the street who look the same.
A clone, in science at least, involves using information (and usually LOTS of it) from the first entity to create the second entity. In this case, the second one was sculpted to look like the first, but there was no copying! - Thank you Dr. Davis!
The more you know, the more you know you don't know.
I am just curious about this but is it possible to incrementally change a substantial amount of code in such a way that the functionality is maintained (or perhaps modified or enhanced) but that after some number of iterative changes, Comparitor and SIM would not find a match?
It seems to me that the argument made would be invalidated if somebody could take the same files identified by SCO, and adapt them such that the two tools used in his analysis do not identify any significant similarities.
Further, if we are talking about sets of c files that are not identical - or nearly identical - at what point do we say that one set is just too disimilar to the other to indicate an adaptation? What I find interesting about this is that it seems intuitive that given two programs that perform the display similar behavior, it should be possible to reduce one program's code to the other program's code. If this is so, just where do we draw the line?