1994 BSD/Unix Settlement Released On Groklaw

davidwr writes "Groklaw has the newly-released-previously-secret 1994 Berkeley/UNIX Systems Laboratories settlement which gave rise to BSD4.4(Lite) (as pdf and text with commentary). This may have an impact on the SCO vs. Linux war."

Comments

War?

[gatorflux]

Is it really a war if one side never wins a battle?

Re:War?

[John Allsup]

It is quite possible to win the war having never won a battle. One side may win every battle, but be forced to concede defeat due to unforseen circumstances (vacuously, this may happen in the case where no overt battles are actually fought, as in the cold war.) [For more details, see Sun Tzu's 'The Art of War']

Re:War?

[DJTodd242]

I dunno. How is that war on Drugs, and the war on terrah going for you guys? :)

Re:War?

[bergeron76]

Interestingly, we're losing them both.

Perhaps it's because neither of them are 'conventional' wars, and we're not used to winning wars with anything other than bombs.

Re:War?

[swillden]

How is that war on Drugs, and the war on terrah going for you guys?

I thought that was the "War on Terra".

You know, a shorthand description of Bush's environmental policies.

Re:War?

[swillden]

Insightful?

Hmmm. I think this is the first time I've been annoyed by a *positive* moderation of one of my posts.

Re:War?

[RenQuanta]

It is quite possible to win the war having never won a battle.
Actually, there is a good example of this in the American war For independence - Gen. Green, an American leader in the fight for the South,lost every battle he fought, and yet he won the South. He did this by forcing the British to chase his forces deep inland, away from the coastal areas where the British troops were easily restocked or supplies by the Britist Navy. This forced the British forces to turn to the American populace for supplies, which the British often took by force. the British actions turned the majority of Southerners against the British cause, when at the start of their campaign, only a few Americans were dead set against the British.

Re:War?

[craw]

While General Greene was not present, his subordinate General Morgan overwhelmingly won the battle of Cowpens. Morgan then retreated on his own towards Virginia and was pursued by Cornwallis; this pursuit was futile.

Greene did "lose" at Guilford, however, the British suffered sufficient casualties to force them to return to their safer coastal areas.

British brutality towards those favorable to the rebels (who they considered traitors) probably did gain them many new friends in the South. Indeed, they did briefly carry out a reign of terror killing many of these "traitors." OTOH, the British did attempt to recruit tories to their cause. This was somewhat successful, except that these forces were somewhat unreliable. Finally, part of Greene's campaign in the south was to try to prevent the recruitment of these tories.

Great to read

[ShawnX]

It's pretty interesting to read. A lot of files are mentioned in the settlement.

Re:Great to read

[zaktheduck]

The person I feel sorry for is the poor so and so who had to list all the entries in the 17 pages comprising Exhibit C. That guy/gal should get a medal.

Right, but...

[adun]

...does any of this in any way impact the slew of child BSD's out there? I would think Open/Net/Free have more to lose from some "revelation" due to this document than Linux.

history

[northcat]

a little history

Re:history

[Ingolfke]

additional history

pay the cost to be the boss

[Doc Ruby]

These corporations take their feuds into the courts, where we pay taxes for them to produce justice. Then they settle, because the actual trial completion costs too much and is too risky for their own investment in justice. So we get no return on our investment in justice, but the corporations do, without the full cost or risk. They should have to at least register their settlement terms, especially since they'll next expect our courts to enforce them. The judge should decide whether they can keep the settlement secret, and for how long, so we can at least get some contribution to the justice we're funding. Otherwise, we're just funding expensive corporate negotiations.

Re:pay the cost to be the boss

[ScrewMaster]

Depends upon the relative size and heft of the combatants. Between a Microsoft and a one-man garage software shop the law is a blunt instrument used to beat someone to a bloody pulp. But that doesn't usually cost much court time (Burst not withstanding.) Between two more evenly-matched players ... you're pretty much dead on.

Carrying it a step further, I'm leaning towards the idea that, once you've filed a lawsuit, an out-of-court settlement should no longer be possible. Why should it? If two companies can't agree before going to court, why should the courts be used to pressure one side or the other to give in? You're right, that's not justice and it is an abuse of the court system. Either you drop the case (and take your lumps) or pursue it to the bitter end and accept what the justice system hands you. If that's not worth the risk, then make a deal before going in.

Re:pay the cost to be the boss

[Doc Ruby]

Even a one-man garage SW shop, with the facts on their side, can offer a very expensive challenge to Microsoft. And they sometimes win - which is a reason they can sometimes raise the money as investment in their victory. But I'm talking about the costs *to taxpayers* like us. If MS and other companies want to fight, and it's expensive, that's their problem. But these corporations are wasting so much of our government budgets on their negotiations that it's a DoS attack on our system, without much cost or risk to them.

Civil suits are ways to remedy damages between citizens, so litigants should be able to "cut their losses" when Justice is going against them. Their active participation is required for our adversarial process of justice to work, but either side might not be in position to continue the process past a certain point, compared with settling. But, as we apparently agree, the public shouldn't be cheated of everything in that case. Their settlements are the only product available, and that should be used for the public benefit as much as is just, as decided by the judge in the case.

Re:pay the cost to be the boss

[bstone]

Worse than that, with sealed settlements and sealed documents filed in the court cases, the rest of the people who are affected by the proceedings have no way of knowing how they were affected. Rulings on the ownership of code and agreements between the various parties to lawsuits leave the rest of the world unable to know how to react.

Can I contribute to BSD code, or does someone else own it who can sue me for derivitive works? Can I legally use various open source software, or has it been decided that the company who allowed me that option has conceded that they really didn't own it in a sealed agreement? Do I owe SCO extortion fees because of something AT&T and BSD decided in a sealed settlement (SCO seems to think so, and somehow they seem to have the documents)? Has SCO, as they have claimed, given the courts proof of their ownership of Linux code in sealed documents? Can I be held liable for not knowing the contents of those documents?

As soon as something affects third parties, whether it's a settlement agreement, a court decision, or documents filed with the courts, it should not be allowed to be sealed and hidden from the other parties who are affected.

Re:pay the cost to be the boss

[Doc Ruby]

Can you think of any other mechanism, other than registering the settlement with the judge, who decides whether it (or parts) can be sealed, for how long? And if sealed, how does someone unseal it to stop someone from violating it? And how do I, a third party, even violate an agreement between the original two parties, to which I am not a party, let alone even seen? How can we combine practical disclosure and the right of private parties to retain commercially useful secrecy?

Re:pay the cost to be the boss

[ScrewMaster]

Well, I was speaking primarily about the person or group filing the lawsuit. If you sue, you should either have to accept whatever justice the system hands you (if you choose to go that far) or simply drop the case. The problem, as I see it, is that the cost of mounting a defense is, in and of itself, a punitive measure regardless of the outcome of a case. I don't know, I'm hardly a lawyer but it just seems to me that a settlement shouldn't be forced just because someone can't afford a protracted defense. And if the entity filing a suit doesn't really believe that the case can be won on its merits but is simply using the expense of a legal defense as a tool to coerce the defendant ... that's a problem.

War is easy when one side is DEAD

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject.

Wow! Earthshatering evidence.

[Ingolfke]

Exhibit G is a death certificate for BSD!

Big Difference

[miyako]

It seems to me that there is a pretty big difference between this case and SCO's case against IBM. It looks like in this case, it was admitted that BSD contained some code that both parties admitted to, but the debate was over whether or not that code was ok to have in there. SCO on the other hand seems to be claiming ownership of code that may not even be there in the first place, or maybe I just missed something.

Re:Big Difference

[sphealey]

hat SCO does not own is the intelectual property or the copyright for Unix, as a matter of fact Novell still owns these according to the APA (Asset Prurchase Agreement)>Ohat SCO does not own is the intelectual property or the copyright for Unix, as a matter of fact Novell still owns these according to the APA (Asset Prurchase Agreement)

Actually, I believe that Novell transferred the trademark UNIX(tm) to The Open Group, and that not even TSG has tried to dispute this.

sPh

Re:Wow! Earthshatering evidence.

[gimpboy]

I think he was joking. The whole BSD is dead thing.

No

[ColourlessGreenIdeas]

The current BSDs are all forks of the version of BSD that was released to comply with this ruling. Which doesn't include the restricted files (those in Exhibit A) We've always known they were clean. We just hadn't previously known what it was about them that made them clean.

Re:No

[that _evil _gleek]

Another thing part of the suit, is the counter suit were Berkeley claimed that AT&T had stolen their code, placing new code from BSD and putting it into AT&T's system, w/o credit. So, If SCO's code turns out to be unix code that really was BSD code in the first place, things could get very interesting.

no

[twitter]

You ask:

does any of this in any way impact the slew of child BSD's out there?

The answer is no. Nobody but SCO has anything to worry about. As Grocklaw astutely notes:

Now we know why SCO keeps telling us the case is "just a contract" case, why it has a penchant for suing only those who are, or were, their licensees, and why it sued IBM instead of Red Hat. USL preserves its rights against licensees under the license agreements. I see no expanded rights against third parties who are not licensees, just the preexisting right to try to sue them, with the same likely outcome that USL experienced when it tried to sue the University and BSDi, using the same lame copyright claims that the judge back then found so unconvincing.

SCO owns nothing useful and never has. They have yet to show any infringement by IBM nor will they ever. The whole thing is FUD, funded by your friends at M$ and a pump and dump scheme, in short fraud and anti-competitive fraud. I hope someone goes to jail for it.

Many overt battles were fought.

[hummassa]

Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Spain, Brasil, Argentina, even in the US during the McArthism days. Lots of people died. Lots of people were deprived of their rights. These were overt battles to me. Ah, you meant overt like "Bam! I am attacking you because you are a communist" and not just "Bam!". Ok.

Re:Big Difference - is your reading comprehension

[Herschel Cohen]

The University of California did not agree with the USL contention of ownership of certain files. Indeed, they were quite obviously dubious of the claim. Instead they said if USL wished to pursue other parties it would play no role in their defense until it came to searching U.C. records.

That's not the difference

[ColourlessGreenIdeas]

SCO may or may not be claiming this is a contract case, not a copyright case. It's a bit hard to follow as their arguments are a bit incoherent. (Read a lot of Groklaw to understand this point, especialy stuff relating to IBM's request for a partial summary judgement on their 10th counterclaim) If it is about copyright, SCO appear to be claiming copyright on IBM's extensions to AIX, some of which probably are in Linux, but everybody except SCO seems to think that SCO has no rights over that code so it's OK. Which is much the same as your summary of the BSD/USL case.

USofA lost both.

[hummassa]

Drugs exist. They won't cease existing. Lost this one.

Terror is something that exists. It won't cease existing. Oops, lost that one too.

You can fight a war against some people; you cannot fight a war against all the people.

Re:USofA lost both.

[CrackedButter]

You lost the war on spelling I see... ;)

Re:USofA lost both.

[seanadams.com]

Drugs exist. They won't cease existing. Lost this one.

No, we (they?) haven't lost this one. This isn't a war that you just "stop fighting" when you've "won". The drugs will keep fighting to exist, so society has to keep fighting the war forever if society chooses not to have drugs everywhere.

I used to not grok the war on drugs. I've done a few "light" drugs myself and never understood what the big deal was. Last April I thought I was getting a great deal on a house until I found out why the seller had priced it $30K below market - the house next door was infested with dealers and users. Guys doing crazy uppers - out shouting at each other every night at the top of their lungs until 4AM, going "MOTHERFUCKER MOTHERFUCKING UP IN MY SHIT SO I CHOKED THE BITCH OUT" and stupid nonsenese so loud it would shake my (closed, heavy 2-pane) windows. Then there were the fights. Then there were were ODs. That's when I learned real quick why we have a war on drugs. BTW this is in Campbell, CA - not the most expensive homes in the bay area, but certainly not the ghetto!

For months I talked to other neighbors who were all too afriad to give their names when the called the police - they were afraid they'd get shot, or their houses burned down if they complained. I'd call the cops but they always said they couldn't go in on a noise complaint, no matter how many.

So I tracked down the local drug enforcement czar, and he told me what to do. Keep a log, write down license plates, call the cops every time it gets out of hand. So I did, and I gave my name every time I called. It didn't help.

Finally I discovered that public records could point me to the owner of the rented property (the police and the occupants had refused to tell me). I started writing letters and telling the owner everything that happened - turned out the owners were the parents of one of the occupants. They'd given up on parenting and bought their son a house because they couldn't keep him under control and they wouldn't throw him out on the street. Great.

I researched the law and learned about the seizure process and how the owners could lsoe everything by letting it continue, and that neighbors could sue for noise. I bluntly informed them of all this, and finally it looks like the creeps are moving out - 8 months of turmoil later. Finally I have peace and safety.

You will not understand the war on drugs until you've had to fight it yourself. Only then will you see why it's a war that we are going to keep fighting forever as long as we as a society decide we don't want to be around the stuff.

Re:USofA lost both.

[cduffy]

Fine, drugs are bad. That doesn't mean it's a war.

A "war" is, generally speaking, a temporary situation which warrants the application of special powers during its (finite) duration.

The "war on drugs" doesn't have a finite duration. As you acknowledge, there is no achievable victory condition where we can all go home. Temporary "war powers" make no sense in this situation. Consequently, it's not a war, just another law-enforcement function, and calling it (thinking of it as) anything else invites bad decision-making.

Linux Popularity a Result of BSD/Unix Suit?

[waldoj]

A little history lesson.

For those of us accustomed to Unix and looking to run it on our desktops in the early 1990s, we found that there were very few options at the time. The popular choice was BSD, but those of us who read Boardwatch and kept up with the choice few Usenet groups knew only that there was some kind of a BSD lawsuit that made it bad to use. The details were fuzzy, but we thought that BSD would be a dead end.

Instead, we used Linux. It was much less popular, and way underpowered (compared to BSD), but it was unencumbered by lawsuits and would let us run all of those /<-rad commands like gopher wiretap.spies.com and zmodem phrack_15.tgz, which is what I and my fellow teenaged geeks were really looking to do. Some of my friends with whom I chose to use Linux, rather than BSD, have gone onto greatness, notably Nat Friedman of Ximian/Novell. (I, however, am an utter fucking nobody, which is fine. :)

I'll wager that, if not for the FUD that came of this lawsuit, BSD would be the OS of choice for geeks today. Instead, Linux is far more popular -- I continue to use it a decade later, with the vague guilt that I would be cooler if I were running BSD. I wonder to what degree the SCO FUD is similarly affecting the choice of Linux today?

-Waldo Jaquith

Re:Linux Popularity a Result of BSD/Unix Suit?

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference is that the USL/BSD "FUD" was a lot more substantial than SCO's fantasyland FUD. Had this case gone forward, there was the real likelyhood that BSD Unix would be removed from the market (or require ridiclous licence fees).

Basically, the BSD case was settled because USL was sold to Novell and Ray Noorda was feeling charitable. At that time BSD4.4 was considered to be ridiclously obsolete ("dying") when compared to SVR4 UnixWare.

The real tragedy in all this is that that Novell didn't sell you a $300 UNIX for your PC and instead basically buried UnixWare.

also no: look at the family tree

[pikine]

If you look at the BSD family tree here, you'd see that at one point in time, all Free/Net/Open BSD changed to use the codebase from 4.4BSD Lite, the unencumbered version.

One wonders

[Anonymous Coward]

What with Solaris's recent still-mysterious "open sourcing", the large amount of cash infused into SCO by Sun Microsystems, the increasingly common yet always vague claims by Sun executives that "intellectual property issues" will become of increasing importance in software development in the near future, and the strange repeated claims by Sun executives that Linux "wouldn't have happened" if Solaris had been "open sourced" five years ago...

One wonders if Sun Microsystems might be hoping that the SCO suit will drive people from Linux to Solaris the same way that the USL suit drove people from BSD to Linux.

FUD in the Literal Sense

[waldoj]

The difference is that the USL/BSD "FUD" was a lot more substantial than SCO's fantasyland FUD.

I'm sure that's true, but I use the term "FUD" not in the pejorative sense, but instead in the literal one: there was fear, uncertainty, and doubt about the wisdom of using BSD, at least in the mind of this then-15-year-old.

-Waldo Jaquith

You tell me.

[twitter]

those of us who read Boardwatch and kept up with the choice few Usenet groups knew only that there was some kind of a BSD lawsuit that made it bad to use. The details were fuzzy, but we thought that BSD would be a dead end. ... Instead, we used Linux. It was much less popular, and way underpowered (compared to BSD), but it was unencumbered by lawsuits ... I'll wager that, if not for the FUD that came of this lawsuit, BSD would be the OS of choice for geeks today.

By what you say, that would be a bad wager. According to you, more people were using BSD despite the lawsuit. Moreover, you do not consider the very real philosophical difference between the BSD and GNU people. Many, such as myself, would rather GPL software than hand their work over to the likes of M$, Sun and SCO for commercial exploitation. They have all shown animosity towards those who have helped them. I'm grateful for all the GPL work that's out there and willingly make my small contribution, such is the nature of all science. I'll wager that many of your peers made the choice based on the philisophical grounds. But you were the man on the spot, you tell me, was it impending abuse and the desire to not aid the abusers as obvious then as it is now?

I wonder to what degree the SCO FUD is similarly affecting the choice of Linux today?

I can answer that as a relatively new Linux user and someone who teaches newbie classes. Zero. SCO is full of shit and anyone with one or two brain cells more than Laura Diddio knows it. More importantly, if M$ can use SCO to steal Linux, it can steal anything, especially BSD. If Linux is somehow hexed by US law, all free software will fall, in the US at least. High school kids could care less. They want the most and coolest features and they find it in Linux. They are out there compiling on any equipment they can get their hands on and nothing has really changed.

Thankfully, you the technology represented by Unix has made information more widely available today. Thanks to the modern web with great and obvious sites like Slashdot and Groklaw we know all the details, so the dorks can't hide behind a cloud of fog to make their FUD work. Thanks to Google, which is universally used, the correct information is the first thing that comes up. All this talk about "echo boxes" is just bullshit. Today information is much easier to find and you can get it from a much greater number of sources. Echo box is something that more describes a world dominated by one news agency, API, and three broadcast networks, because they all said the same thing and there were no alternate sources, much less first hand accounts, to be had.

USofA cited (financed) both.

[asac]

You remember?

...
Sir, my need is sore.
Spirits that I've cited
My commands ignore
...
The Sorcerer's Apprentice - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Perhaps I Was Unclear

[waldoj]

According to you, more people were using BSD despite the lawsuit.

More people were using BSD because Linux barely existed. The Linux kernel hadn't even gone 1.0. It was under 1MB. It wasn't a matter of the lawsuit -- it was that Linux was unknown.

Moreover, you do not consider the very real philosophical difference between the BSD and GNU people.

What you mean is that I did not (past tense) consider the philosophical differences. And you're right -- I was totally uninterested. We didn't have "open source" -- the phrase didn't exist. We had free software. Both BSD and Linux were free. Both had source to edit. What teenager cared about some contract?

I'll wager that many of your peers made the choice based on the philisophical grounds.

My older friends surely chose based on philosophical grounds -- those old enough to be in any way interested in IP and related freedoms. I was writing for 2600 and decompiling and modifying MS-DOS for fun -- wasn't no contract going to stop me from doing whatever I wanted with an OS, or so I figured.

But you were the man on the spot, you tell me, was it impending abuse and the desire to not aid the abusers as obvious then as it is now?

I'm afraid that I'm not sure that I understand your question. But perhaps it would answer your question to restate my premise: we had no idea what the deal was with the lawsuit. Abuse schmabuse -- we figured that BSD might go away (whatever that would constitute), so why bet on a losing horse?

-Waldo Jaquith

Finially?

[MrLint]

(bear with me here please)

"Finially, we have legally obtained the settlement agreement [PDF] between USL and The Regents of the University of California....."

A finial is "2 : a crowning ornament or detail (as a decorative knob)"

The reason I bring this up is most of the time I hear the word finial is that thing at the bottom of a bannister on a staircase on on a fence, and what happens when a burglar impales themselves on one (or more).

So if SCO is the burglar and the settlement papers are a finial.. well let the impaling begin!

Apple & OS X

[xirtam_work]

Sorry to sound like an idiot, but would all this have any affect on Apple with their BSD based OS X?

Re:Apple & OS X

[Anonymous Coward]

OSX is a hybrid with BSD and Mach code infused in. next purchased the appropriate rights to use the code years ago (80s). More recent code comes from the freebsd and netbsd projects which the document says are safe.

Re:Apple & OS X

[Goo.cc]

The only problem currently effecting Apple is its claim that Mac OS X is Unix. It isn't, unless it meets all the specifications of the Open Group, who current owns the Unix trademark.

Apple, of course, is contending that the term Unix has become a generic term and it not longer meets the needs of trademark protection.

Re:Terrorism - going just fine, thanks for asking.

[Phillup]

How many terrorist incidents have there been in the US since 9/11?

Um... about the same number as before 9/11?

Or, do you want to count the killing of Randy Weaver's wife as terrorism too?

How about the killing of all those people in Waco?

Just *how* do you want to *define* terrorism? Because, seriously, I was a hell of a lot better off before my government tried to "help".

Putting the PDF on P2P

[Kalak]

In case Groklaw is asked to take this down, anyone want to post it on their favorite P2P application? I've only used bittorrent to publish, and I don't thing iBiblio/Groklaw needs help with a 1MB file.

I tried to post the full text as an AC, but it's not getting in, since it's probably to big at 119k for the edited text.

Your post is amusing. let's see why.

[hummassa]

First of all, this post is not offtopic. MODERATOR MADNESS applies.

actually the war on terror isn't a loosing battle. There won't always be terror at least on the scale it is today.
Hmmmm. Let me see. when I was 11 (1982) I was all the time scared to hell that Reagan would push the red button. Let's go futher back...
1950's-60's people were scared of the commies
1940's - the war
1930's - the depression
1910's - the war
1890's - the war
1500's-1600's - the Inquisition
-500's - the Romans, Attila, Alexander, the Egyptians, etc. etc. etc.
Yes, I got it pretty much covered. It is -- and has always been -- a blood-covered world. Terror world. It's a lost battle to begin with... unless you make real peace, which we don't have today (like: Israelis out of Palestine, Palestine and Israel get some common ground about what to do to Jerusalem; reunite Koreas; separate Taiwan; separate Euskadi from Spain and a piece of France; figure out something to Africa as a whole; get russians out of Chechenia; get USofAns out of everywhere but the USofA)

The object of the war on terror isn't to make everyone agree and get along. It is to force the terrorist to make changes by piecful means.
Yeah, by bombing the crap out of Fallujah. This one made me LOL.

A group of people that don't reflect the population killing civilians is not a noble thing to do no matter how you try to justify it.
You are right, but this applies equally to the US Armed Forces.

There are alway other options like full blown war were you go after troops and military instead of average joe trying to make a living. No, in most cases full blown war is too expensive except for the US govment. I'm not justifying terrorism, just saying that it *is*, after all, a resource-efficient form of warfare.

You even have countries like spain that cave in and give terrorist legitamicy. Even now there is a push to clean up the U.N. because of it's support for different terrorist or the countries that support it.
I did not understand if you claimed Spain gave legitimacy for terrorists because of Euskadi or because of Iraq (from which they pulled out BTW, by popular force)

What is being said is that they cannot use terror as a weapon to express those differences or try to force policy changes.
And this is the real stupid part: if it comes to a group to get their claims unheard so much that they would resource to terrorism (because of scarcity of means to fight a full-fledged war -- including propaganda means) they will -- always -- use terror as the weapon.
And now, my flamebait (not really, but a lot of people tend to think it is): it's exactly what the USofAn population-backed government does. It's a minority (3% of the world's population) that, by slaughtering civilians and by maintaing other governments "on check", enforces its views on the others.

The war on terror also is fought several different ways. Some ways might include military action while others might make sure those disgressed have a voice in the politics surounding the issue. One thing is certain, once they decide to use terror as a bargaining chip, they won't get the second treatment.
First: the second way you cited is *never* used;
Second: usually, it's the other way around: the people who make use of terror are not listened to until they make use of terror; then they negotiate, then they are heard.

Re:Your post is amusing. let's see why.

[be-fan]

Here is a news flash, most of the remaining insurgents are not iraqi freedom fighters. they are foreign terrorist

Remember the recent US military operation in Fallujah? According to the US general in charge, of the thousand men they captured during that operation, only fifteen were foreigners. The idea that the majority of rebels in Iraq are foreign terrorists is a myth created by the new Iraqi government to make themselves look good to the US, and supported by Americans that don't want to believe that the Iraqis might not want what we're selling.

Re:Your post is amusing. let's see why.

[Archie Steel]

Pulling troops from iraq right after a terrorist attack were they were claiming that no more attack would happen if they did pull out onlyn lends creditability to the terrorists. This is independent of spains intentions to pull the troops anyways.

90% of the spanish population was opposed to the war in Iraq - it's only natural that the new government would follow the will of the people. What you're suggesting, though, is that they should have stayed in Iraq because of the attacks - in other words, let their behavior be dictated by terrorists!

The fact of the matter is that the new Spanish govt. understands that the "war on terror" is a police effort, not a military one, and that there was no Iraq-Al Qaeda link before the invasion. Iraq is a distraction from the war on terror - a costly one at that - and a venture which was not approved by the spanish population. By helping the U.S. in Iraq, Aznar was going against the wishes of the citizens, and they voted accordingly.

Re:Your post is amusing. let's see why.

[Archie Steel]

This would probably include most of the rest of the world.

The "rest of the world" is better informed about what goes on in the world than you think - better informed than people in the U.S., for that matter.

The fact is that the new government had said repeatedly that they would pull their troops out of Iraq if elected. If they hadn't, then it would have looked as if they'd changed their plans due to terror - maybe not to people in the U.S., but their main responsibility is to spaniards, not americans. It's not their responsibility to change the way they act to make sure that their policies are not misinterpreted by americans - it's up to americans to find out what's going on in the rest of the world...

PJ quit the OSRM

[Anonymous Coward]

Another important groklaw article that hasn't seen the light on slashdot is worth mentioning here.

SCO has been having a road show in the UK. As it happens, a Groklaw reader attended, and this individual reported to me that one of the speakers, in a talk about intellectual property risks in Linux and how you shouldn't use it in business as a result, mentioned me by name, and twisted my relationship with OSRM to say that it proved that I believe there are substantial IP risks in Linux.

That is nonsense, of course. It actually means the opposite, if anything. I was never involved in the insurance side of OSRM anyway. But I take it seriously that they are using my work relationship for FUD purposes. There was also the Ballmer FUD to factor in. I have thought about it carefully for a couple of days and brainstormed some. There is a scripture that says the heart is desperate, meaning it wants what it wants and tries to find a way to justify what it wants, and I'm only human. No one likes to separate themselves from an income stream if they don't have to. I tried to justify to myself maintaining the status quo. The FUD is unfair, but it doesn't matter. FUD is always unfair. One must simply deal with it. In analyzing my choices, I kept coming back to the same thing. If my working for OSRM is doing harm by creating FUD possibilities, I need to remove that issue. Money is nice, but integrity is everything.

So, I have resigned.

OSRM were extremely gracious about it. Down the road, when there's nothing left of SCO but an old blues song, perhaps we'll be able to work together again. But for now, I decided to try to find other work.

I have spoken with ibiblio about the UNIX/Linux Ownership History Timeline, and they have kindly agreed to host it. I love ibiblio.

Re:Drug-abusing terrorists?

[Paradise Pete]

the Dalai Lama is out

I think in his case the list would be

1. does not abuse ANY drug.
2. does not tries in any way to impose its will upon others.
3. Prophet!!

Re:Terrorism - going just fine, thanks for asking.

[Anonymous Coward]

I was a hell of a lot better off before my government tried to "help".

I'd have to agree. In fact the War or Terror actually hurt my family significantly. When some idiot said that a company called P-Tech *might* have terrorist ties just because they are middle eastern, some reporter found that my mother's company was doing some work for P-Tech at the time and also helping finance a new Cardinals stadium. From this amalgamation of false accusations and implications, the reporter created a huge story over how "Cardin's Satdium Being Funded By Terrorist!" which susequntly caused my mother's company to go under and has left the whole family in a finanacial mess. So thanks to the War on Terror, we're running out of money with no way of getting more (my mother cannot get a new job due to her bad vision and age, and my mother and [unemployed] father are divorced). So thanks a lot President Bush, I feel really grateful for your protection now.

SCO SUCKS

[rice_burners_suck]

As it turns out, on page 198 you can see that UNIX Systems Laboratories agreed that the named sections could be used by the BSDs because as it turned out they, USL, stole stuff from BSD without permission... As it turned out, both sides had borrowed code from both sides.

In the case of $C0, those peaces of garbage stole code from Linux and misappropriated it into their software. A theft did NOT occur in the opposite direction.

And they're not very confident that they're going to win, those idiots. They just capped the lawyers' payments. THEY ARE GONNA LOSE! Nanny nanny boo boo.

Good point

[davidwr]

There are good legal, financial, and philosophical reasons why a developer may choose one open-source license over another for a given project.

There are projects I have on my "if only I had the time" list that make more sense as a BSD release, some that make more sense as a GPL or LGPL release, and some that are probably best left to the public domain.

The bottom line in each case seems to be "what type of people do I want modifying or selling my code?" and "how many people will use or expand the project if I release it under license X?"

You did not grok then.

[hummassa]

And you do not grok now. No offense inteded.

You made the creeps move out, you did not make them stop. You swept the problem under the rug. And the problem is: making drugs illegal is what causes the situation you lived. If they went to the pharmacy to get their fix, they wouldn't have to gather together in the "place". Believe me, I know. I worked two years as a para in a DA's office. The big drug guys profit huge BECAUSE the stuff is illegal. If pfizer and johnsons sold coke it would be 10 times cheaper and of better quality. The small guys are the ones that go to jail. And the users.

You will not understand the war on drugs until you've had to fight it yourself. Oh, believe me, you only fight a war on drugs if you are an addict. The prohibition of booze in the 1930's generated the Chicago mob. What we have is a prohibition of drugs, not a war on drugs. And it's as stupid as the other one.

Re:Lets not clobber groklaw please:

[sepluv]

Too late to not clobber it.

Groklaw.net is down and says:

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Cannnot connect to DB server