The SCO Trial Through A New Lens

An anonymous reader writes "On Yahoo! News they've got an article by Paul Murphy entitled, SCO, IBM and Outcomes-Based Circular Reasoning. Murphy claims to be 'a 20-year veteran of the I.T. consulting industry, specializing in Unix and Unix-related management issues'. He writes, 'By itself this was a straightforward contractual dispute that could, and should, have been settled quickly and easily.' And that, 'Although SCO hasn't formulated its complaint in this way, I believe it could meet these, or similar, requirements quite easily and therefore has every reason to be confident that the court will eventually enforce its stop-use order against IBM.' He also goes on to insult Linux advocates by stating that, 'the position being run up the flagpole by what Stalin famously called "useful idiots" is first that the lawsuit itself is no longer a real issue and secondly that its consequences have been generally positive.'"

Comments

Could SCO have a chance after all?

[bmw]

OK, so this guy might have a valid point that SCO does not need to provide a line-by-line code comparison in order to prove their case but, if this is really the situation, how come they have failed so miserably to provide anything substantial in their favor? All of their claims seem so utterly ridiculous that I can't imagine them ever getting anywhere with this in court. The outcomes so far support this view. They seem to get bitch slapped out of court every time they actually bring something in front of a judge. Does anyone know of ANYTHING real that SCO has shown to prove their case? So far it just seems like they're spreading a bunch of BS and trying to scare people into buying licenses from them. Is it possible they still have an ace up their sleave?

Something else I found interesting in the article...

To some, the fact that SCO sees Linux as a Unix clone not only makes holding that view morally wrong but requires the immediate repudiation of nonbelievers and indeed the remarketing of Linux as "not Unix" -- a move that would replace the academic and open-source heritage powering its development with a lie and thus destroy it.

Re:Could SCO have a chance after all?

[zerocool^]

I know it's a hard concept for the non-techie to grasp, but it goes like this:

UNIX is a trademarked word. UNIX is also a POSIX compliant operating system. In order to be a posix compliant operating system, an operating system must follow X, Y, and Z criteria. Linux follows X, Y, and Z criteria. Linux is a POSIX compliant operating system. The Linux code has been built from scratch with the aim of being POSIX compliant. Since the POSIX standard is based on the UNIX operating system, Linux is a relative of, but not a derivitive of, UNIX.

That's not exactly it, but it's close enough, and simple enough, that a reporter can digest it.

So, in some ways, you could say "Linux is a UNIX clone". In the same ways, you could say "Margarine is a Butter clone". Margarine was built from scratch, using entirely different ingrediants than butter, but with the aim of looking, smelling, and tasting like butter. But, margarine is not butter. However, I don't think anyone who went around calling margarine "Not Butter" is going to kill either industry.

So, I'm not even sure I know what this guy is trying to say. It sounds like he thinks that we are mad that SCO says linux is a unix clone. I don't know a linux user that would be bothered by this statement. All we (as linux users) are saying is "Linux contains no stolen copyrighted code from Unix", and "Linux is not Unix". And maybe a "Linux is similar enough in function to Unix that they share a computing standard".

~Will

From the article...

[Future Man 3000]

The problem here is that the underlying assumptions about the lawsuit being both over and baseless are unfounded. The claim that a failure to find copied code today proves that previous processes were uncontaminated is fallacious. And the presumptive consequence about due diligence having been widely rendered is unsupported wishful thinking.

The crux of the matter is this: IBM does not have to prove previous processes were uncontaminated to win the case -- rather, the burden is on SCO to prove that they were, and they don't appear to have come up with anything substantial. Perhaps this is a wake-up call to open source developers to vet submitted code carefully, but I don't believe the wishful thinking is coming from the Linux camp.

Third Paragraph Says It All

[canfirman]

It's interesting the author states, "By itself this was a straightforward contractual dispute that could, and should, have been settled quickly and easily." If it was so straightforward and should have "been settled quickly and easily", then the judge should have seen that too. So, the fact that the case is still going on shows that it's definitely not a "straightforward" case. (However, as we all know with SCO, that it's never straightforward, or quick and easy.)

If you read the beginning of the article, it sounds like the author assumes that SCO is in the right, but that has yet to be proven. I thought that's what courts were for.

Where does he get this stuff?

[bigtallmofo]

Software reverse engineering requires two teams

Says you. I can see how an entity might be on firmer legal ground if they adopt the procedure you've outlined. However, to say that legal reverse engineering "requires" two teams is a total fabrication.

What a troll article.

Re:Bad argument

[wfberg]

As an aside, reverse engineering was never necessary to understand or duplicate a unix kernel and is therefore his mention of it is a complete red herring.

Not only that, it proves a vital misunderstanding of what UNIX was and is; from the start it was an operating system that had its inner workings laid completely bare and published, at least to all who asked - and later it became a specification (POSIX and the OpenGroup's UNIX trademark).

Why isn't SCOX taking on Microsoft? Windows NT 4.0 was POSIX compliant (at least in name), therefore it was cloned, and since it wasn't reverse-engineered (rather, tacked on to a VMS-kernel rip-off), Microsoft MUST have stolen SCOX' precious code, since every UNIX clone MUST be stolen, right? Right?

His other works and his forum.

[wan-fu]

He's getting destroyed by readers on his very own forum.. Also, from his website, are a bunch of his other writings on the SCO case.

Re:Bad argument

[jd]

Some fallacies? You're being a little kind. I didn't see much in the entire article I could agree with.

Let's start with his argument that Linux didn't spring from nothing, which is the same bit you talk about. Uhhh, nobody claimed it did and by claiming that it didn't, he is being disenginious as to what it is people are claiming. Contradict something often enough, and you'll convince people that the thing you're contradicting must exist for it to be contradicted in the first place.

You're correct that there is a difference between UNIX the API (now defined by the POSIX and Unix98 standards), and UNIX the AT&T Operating System. APIs cannot be copyrighted, trademarked or patented, although they CAN be considered trade secrets. (This is why BSD can be clean of AT&T code, but yet implement a 100% AT&T-compatiable API, and why Microsoft won't publish a complete API for Windows.)

An API is merely a specification. A description of what goes into routines and what comes out. Nothing more. It does not define HOW things are done, nor how things are organized. The former can be patented, the latter can be copyrighted. As neither apply in this case, it is a fallacy to argue that IP is material.

When you look at his book, you begin to understand the guy better. He has zero understanding of the industry, but is excellent at producing technobabble. The Unix Guide to Defenestration is likely to be the No. #1 worst technical book of this decade.

He brags about his 20 years as an IT consultant. Well, I like to brag too. I have 25 years, as consultant, programmer, administrator, network architect, researcher, .... In other words, I'm not impressed by his resume/CV. Beside, his photo makes him look a bit like Bill Gates, and how can anyone take someone like that seriously?