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Unsealed SCO Email Reveals Linux Code is Clean
rm69990 writes "In a recently unsealed email in the SCO vs. IBM case, it appears that an outside consultant, hired by SCO in 2002, failed to find copyright violations in the Linux Kernel. This was right around the time Darl McBride, who has before been hired by litigious companies as CEO, was hired. It appears that before SCO even began its investigation, they were hoping to find a smoking gun, not believing that Linux could possibly not contain Unix code. Apparently, they ignored the advice of this consultant."
It shouldn't be. We've known since almost the beginning that SCO, whose business was drying up, had invented the whole thing in the hopes that IBM would either simply buy them out or settle the case. They didn't seem to realize that Big Blue had decided that Linux was such a major part of their strategy that they'd be willing to say "See you in court". Hopefully this can all be ended so that we can watch the SEC investigation. Maybe McBride can become good buddies with Ebbers, and Ebbers can give him tips on how to have a "serious heart condition" right about the time sentencing begins.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
As SCO continues to desintigrate, it is import to keep an eye those responsible who worked there as they try to find their way back into the respectable computing world.
No one should be able to participate in a sickeningly slezy shakedown like SCO tried to pull off and just wash their hands and pretend it never happended.
Of course not everyone associated with SCO is guilty of sleaze but keeping an eye out for key SCO people and either making sure they don't get hired or at least making it known to companies that would think of hiring the scumbags it isn't worth the bad press/karma.
Bwahahaha! Hopefully this revelation will lead to a bunch of lawsuits against the directors and officers of SCO for willful malfeasance. This may be the opening that allows them to pierce the corporate veil and go after them personally. Darl is not the only one richly deserving of jail time.
Now that it looks like their case is beyond salvation, and suppose they were to lose their lawsuit and become financially void, what would happen to the UnixWare and OpenServer codebases? Would they be transferred to one of TSG's debitors?
Indeed, if IBM did happen to acquire the rights to UnixWare and OpenServer via such means, then it would be very helpful to the community if they released the source code to both products. Of course, Novell's involvement may sticky things up a bit. But it would be great to have the systems available to the community.
Being a former sysadmin of SCO systems, I remember them fondly from the late 1980s and early 1990s. With some community-based work, they could easily be made useful again today. On older systems they would fly, thus making obsolete hardware usable again.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
What is news is that this is evidence that SCO knew a long time ago there was no copyright violations.
I talked at length with that guy from the Toqueville institute. I tried and tried to explain that Linux is just a kernel, only a small part of an OS, and that anyone with a decent CS education is taught everything they need to know to develop a kernel as simple as the first Linux kernel that Linus wrote. I explained that Linux is a social phenomenon more than a technical achievement, because, conceptually, kernels just aren't such a big deal (although debugging them is a hassle, well handled by the 'many eyes' of the community).
No matter what I said, he was not able to grasp it. He just could not believe that one guy could write an OS kernel. But he really didn't understand what a kernel is either, so that was a bit of a barrier also. The fact that various CS professors had come out and said the same thing didn't faze him.
Darl McBride is just another non-technical businessman who thinks that operating systems are black magic that only huge teams of people can write. His reasoning leads him to believe that if "one guy" did it, but one guy really couldn't have done it, then he must have copied it. Pure, simple, logical, but unsound in that it completely doesn't account for just how simple or complex a kernel is.
Just like how some people can't possibly understand how a piston engine works, some people aren't cut out to grok OS kernels. Darl just doesn't have the brains for it. (Plus, his primary motivation is to make money, not actually UNDERSTAND anything.)
Notice the forwarded email from Michael Davidson to Reg Broughton contains the email header
X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.6 [en] (Win98; I).
That is very interesting, indeed. Why would SCO be using Windows 98 machines internally? Indeed, one would expect them to be using SCO UnixWare.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Because it was printed off and scanned into a computer (and no, it is not fake).
The document was submitted in printed form as part of the discovery process. The clerk of the court then took the document and scanned it in as a PDF, allowing an image of the original (as opposed to an OCR'ed copy) to be stored electronically. This version of the document is the one released to the public on demand. Doing it this way is
than trying to photocopy originals of all of these documents.
Karma: Chameleon - mostly influenced by bad '80s New Wave music
I encouraged them to try to get a similar audit of Windows from one of Microsoft's competitors before we include Windows in or bundle Windows with any of our future products.
I served. I vote. And I don't agree with the parent because that's not how our government works. It sure as hell isn't the government I served to protect.
I have to wonder what branch of Service you came from. In the Air Force, my professional military education covered the concept of the "lawfull order" multiple times. Maybe your branch of service doesn't teach about the Nuremberg Trials? This alone introduces the concept that one does not blindly follow orders. Hardly the unthinking zombie military you imply.
It might also be worth stressing that during my career, I was encouraged to be involved in the political process. But at the same time, there was no direction as to what that involvement should be or what political interests should be supported. My education also included stressing a seperation between the uniform and individual political activity.
It's a shame your outfit wasn't of the same calibre... or you ignored some valuable lessons.
Word up. How can anybody prove that?
Still, I do think Windows is probably fairly clean.
I believe the BSD license is the way. If you talk about market forces, I think in general those that produce sweet-ass code under BSD licenses will be employed anyway. If you demand that the user open their own source, you're essentially asking, "If you use our code, and close it up, We'll squash you in court?" Good idea, but how do you prove it? You've already ensured that violaters are fairly difficult to find. The answer might be easy for us developers, but its way to complicated for the courts. You wanna push open source? Eat em from the inside, where they can use your code on their terms, but you can close off the 'innovation' valve at any point. Then you just point out that everybody knows how to build a fucking motor; we all just build motors with different purposes and strengths. The concept itself shouldn't be limited to one company; what we're trying to reward in a market is being able to deliver the solution in a way that people like. Competition *stems* from others being on relatively equal ground.
"Old man yells at systemd"
So now that you know a little more about me, please keep it in mind the next time that you feel the need to jerk that knee and label me a "fringe partisan."
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
I was in the Army, and was an officer. I am well versed in the concept of a legal order. An order can be both legal and dumb.
I don't think it is healthy for the citizens of a free country to be beaten into submission as is done to people in basic training. Yes, we need people, good people, in our armed forces. We also need people in our society that have nothing to do with the military.
BTW, my outfit was the United States Military Academy at West Point. Class of 1993. And I'll be damned if I agree with anyone that says that unit is of lower calibre (I like your British spelling) than any unit in the Military.
Open Source Identity Management: FreeIPA.org
As everyone knows, SCO is really Caldera, they just took over SCOs name when they bought the rights to UNIX.
It's a bummer, my real first heavy use of Linux was with Caldera. I remember visiting threir booth at a Comdex in the late 90's
What seems weird to me is how such a small startup could buy UNIX, you think someone ike IBM would pay 10 times as much to get a hold of it and lock it away.
In the end I think McBride should be brought up on criminal charges as this was totally a stunt to juck up stock prices.
I predict that after this si all over the rights to UNIX will be bought to someone and then releae free into the world, just like those groups that get together and buy up empty land just to keep it empty. I do not know how long it will take but I will refer back to this when it does.
Uh, given that Microsoft has been cought Illegally copying code for inclusion in thier OS multiple times, I don't know how you can assume that they are clean now. The first biggie I remember was when they copied Stacker code into DOS 6. They didn't even bother to remove Stackers name from the code.
I do. In the US, passenger cars have to have a certain mileage level, or else taxes are applied. IIRC, this is an average, so that while most cars fall into the higher range, the high-powered, less-efficient cars like Corvettes can still be made and sold without significant penalty.
For a very long time, light trucks made up only a small segment of auto sales, and so were exempt because they were very often used commercially, and the benefits of commerce outweighed their smaller contribution to pollution. (Just about every Little League baseball team also seemed to have a team mom with a Suburban, and it was cool having all twelve kids pile in for the after-game pizza party.)
With the introduction of the traditional SUV (built on truck frames and so regulated as such), and the improved handling of trucks, they became far more popular, but political pressure has left them exempt from mileage requirements. They make up something near to half of all auto sales now, though, so they really should fall within the the same limits, at least in spirit, as autos. I understand that they will not catch up with the mileage of smaller cars for the most part, but some things can be done. I'm just not sure whether forcing the issue is the best idea.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
Your right. The following link is a story about how Microsoft stole the NT kernel from Digital. http://www.windowsitpro.com/Articles/Print.cfm?Art icleID=4494
Does anybody else find it ironic that Microsoft that stole a kernel is touting that Linux isn't clean? The best part is that VMS and NT are so simular that even some of the terminology is the same. Maybe Darl took lessons from Microsoft, except SCO is claiming to be the victem.
The views expressed are mine own and do not express the views of my employer.