Slashdot Mirror
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 . . . . .
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
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
So wait, you're trying to say they are EXACTLY THE SAME?
Never confuse volume with power.
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.
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?
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.
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 |
< IBMcode
< IBMcode
< IBMcode
===
> SCOliarscode
> SCOliarscode
> SCOliarscode
> SCOliarscode
Either that, or nedit couldn't open such a large file and wound up with a (null) when it tried to malloc the entire SCO code base and IBM code base.
(Over-analysing jokes - it's not just for pendants any more!)
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
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
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.
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.
he $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).
1. Ideas can't be copyrighted (but they can be patented).
2. Purposes can't be copyrighted.
3. Procedures can't be copyrighted (but they can be patented).
4. Processes can't be copyrighted (but they can be patented).
5. Systems can't be copyrighted (but they can be patented).
6. Methods of operation can't be copyrighted (but they can be patented).
7. Facts can't be copyrighted.
8. Unoriginal elements can't be copyrighted.
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
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.
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.
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...
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
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.
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.
...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.
...without the Smoke & Mirrors.
Xenon, where's my money? -Borno
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.
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.
HA HA!
"It takes many nails to build a crib, but one screw to fill it."
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
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.
There is still some money left.
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
Actually, didn't Prof Davis also just prove that SCO's source doesn't include Linux code?? If SCO had stolen anything and included it in their code, it would have shown up in the comparator test, wouldn't it?? The comparison just shows common code, it doesn't distinguish which is the original and which is the copy.