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."

Comments

Don't forget...

[SCO$699FeeTroll]

...to pay your $699 licensing fee you cock-smoking teabaggers.

Reveals Darl McBride is Dirty

[nokilli]

Quoting Darl McBride:

"We're finding...cases where there is line-by-line code in the Linux kernel that is matching up to our UnixWare code... we're finding code that looks likes it's been obfuscated to make it look like it wasn't UnixWare code--but it was."

Quoting George Bush:

"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

I want to pre-answer the next "Ask Slashdot" question: How do you build a bullshit detector? Well, you get a cardboard box, and you get a magic marker. You use the magic marker to draw a dial on the box where one end is labeled TRUE and the other end is labeled BULLSHIT.

Then you draw a needle on the dial that points to BULLSHIT.

Then whenever you hear anybody on the TV who has the word 'CHIEF' or 'EXECUTIVE' or 'OFFICER' in their title, you point the box at the TV and there's your answer.

(also works with radio, newspapers and the Internet. Patent Pending of course.)

Re:Reveals Darl McBride is Dirty

[nokilli]

It isn't unrelated. Why do you think people like Darl McBride feel that they can get away with shit like this?

Because that's the example that's been set at the top.

Re:Reveals Darl McBride is Dirty

[Shag]

Wait... does this mean McBride and Bush aren't the same person? Has anyone seen them together?

Re:Reveals Darl McBride is Dirty

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy crap it works, you should patent it.

Re:Reveals Darl McBride is Dirty

[rocker_wannabe]

Get real! It's not all BULLSHIT! Some of it is just plain lies!

Re:Reveals Darl McBride is Dirty

[jarich]

Get real! It's not all BULLSHIT! Some of it is just plain lies!

That's right.. like "I did not have sexual relations with that woman"

Re:Reveals Darl McBride is Dirty

[Martin Blank]

I trust that you are unfamiliar with my political positions, and have incorrectly expanded upon one point to extrapolate my entire ideology. Please allow me to clarify:

• I supported the removal of Saddam Hussein, but I have since the first Gulf War. I don't feel that this was the best timing, as a lot of those soldiers should have been in Afghanistan looking for senior al Qaeda operatives. At the very least, waiting until it was possible to end the war going into cooler months would have led to fewer Iraqis mad at the beginning about not being able to get air conditioning in the summer.
  
  
• I feel that if Karl Rove knew what he was doing, and I suspect he was, that he should be fired and prosecuted to the full extent of the law, including fines and prison. If somehow it comes around that the leak was traceable to President Bush, then I feel he should be impeached and removed from office. You don't mess with the lives of covert operatives, whether or not they're in the field at the time.
  
  
• I voted for Perot in 92 and 96, and wrote in McCain in 2000. I did not vote for Bush in 2004, though to be honest, I could not vote for anyone on the list in 2004, because I could not support any of them in good conscience. I did, however, vote on almost everything else on the ballot, with the possible exception of a water commissioner.
  
  
• I support the right to choose, and I detest the Patriot Act.
  
  
• I support wholesale overhaul of copyright legislation to bring it back down to a reasonable time limit of, say, 30 years or so.
  
  
• I support tightening of requirements for issuing a patent.
  
  
• I am leaning towards support of reviews of prices charged on prescription medications in the United States. Haven't quite made up my mind on that one, though.
  
  
• I have no desire to be in a union, but I have no problem with people forming them, just so long as I have the right to opt out of them, or at least to choose how my union dues are spent.
  
  
• I support the right to bear arms as an individual right, but I support background checks to help ensure that felons have less chance to get them. I also support full prosecution of those felons that try to purchase them.
  
  
• I support raising the mileage requirements on light trucks and SUVs.
  
  
• I am skeptical of global warming claims, but I also choose to play it safe and support the development of alternative energy forms, particularly nuclear energy. If global warming is found to be true, then we're moving ahead on reducing sources. If it's found to be false, then we still have cleaner air.
  
  
• I don't like liars in the White House, whoever they are. There's a difference between hiding secret operations vital to national security (even if they're in a gray area legally) and lying about things happening that should not be. I was too young to be bothered much by Iran-Contra, though I probably would have been in retrospect. There were things in the Bush '88 administration that began to bother me. Clinton was sleazy and everyone knew it, but he was also as teflon-coated as Reagan was. I'm still not convinced that there wasn't more going on there that we really should know about. I'm sure we'll find out in the next 25-75 years.

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." :)

Re:Reveals Darl McBride is Dirty

[anagama]

That's right.. like "I did not have sexual relations with that woman"

I long for the days of a president who got a bit of nookie on the side. It's a far better situation than a president who fucks us over, fucks others over, and generates piles of dead bodies. On the other hand, my fossil fuel stocks have been kickin' ass -- even with today's hit on speculation China will not consume as much oil as it has been. Anyway ... if Bush spent more time getting laid instead of boosting profits for his oil cronies, the world would be a better place (and my portfolio worth less -- some cognitive dissonance here but not much -- I'd prefer lower profits and more peace).

Re:Reveals Darl McBride is Dirty

[brandido]

Sorry to get off topic here, but I cannot let such a pathetic comparison stand.

Are you seriously saying that since Clinton lied about getting a blowjob, it is OK that the Bush administration lied about intelligence to justify going to war? Don't forget, Clinton got impeached for his lie by the House, but not convicted by the Senate. Given the fact that the repurcussions of Bush's lie is so much greater (we are at fucking war and there was no uranium purchased from Africa, no WMDs, no connection to 9/11), shouldn't the consequences be greater? Maybe Impeachment, Conviction and Jail time? I would say one day for each death that has occurred during the Iraq war - that should work out to between 30 to 300 years.

Sorry to not have much of a sense of humor about this, but the repurcussions of this lie are just too tragic and painful.

Re:Reveals Darl McBride is Dirty

[Martin Blank]

Part of it was matters of scale. I don't think anything in the legal industry right now -- SCO, Adelphia, Enron, or WorldCom -- scales to a war, and as such, I think such comparisons are inappropriate and designed mostly to garner karma from the anti-conservative Slashdot crowd.

Aside from that, the same crowd that lambasts Bush for 'allowing' the various scandals that erupted after he took office (including the three I mentioned) all really built up during the Clinton administration, something they seem to ignore. For that matter, Ebbers was driving companies into the ground back when Reagan was in office, so there's something to say about the government's (in)ability to keep track of this no matter who is in office. If they're going to blame the Bush administration for allowing deception to become acceptable because it's "the example that's been set at the top," they need to keep in mind that the example is not new to the current occupants of the White House.

I will admit that I was unclear in things. While my intentions were not trolling as I see them, such posts are often seen as trolls by much of the mainstream Slashdot crowd. But sometimes one man's intentions to provoke thought are another man's begging food for the troll.

I also commend you greatly for keeping an open mind, and being mature enough to be able to bring up a rational conversation after your initial response. I took no offense at it, primarily because my political thoughts are all over the place as demonstrated above, and as such I am routinely chased by conservatives and liberals wielding devices intended to induce mass conflagrations upon my person. I simply clarify my views, and hope that others understand me better later on. I am pleased to find another one. People such as you are rare. In fact, I think I shall add you as a friend -- my first one ever. :)

Re:Reveals Darl McBride is Dirty

[Martin Blank]

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.

Re:Reveals Darl McBride is Dirty

[brandido]

You do bring up an interesting point - it is possible that Bush and his administration believed that Saddam possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction. However, there are many problems with this:

• Bush had indicated previously that he wanted to attack Iraq.
• The Neo-cons had previously indicated that they wanted to attack Iraq.
• Bush had previously indicated that he wanted to be a war president
• There was a ton of information available that Saddam did not have WMDs, but this information, and the people who presented this information, was ignored and attacked by the administration.

Also, I didn't believe that Saddam had WMDs - I believed that he wanted them, but I thought it was extremely unlikely that he would be able to hide the WMDs and the infrastructure necessary to produce them from a dedicated multi-year search. Afterall, if the Bush administration had such clear intelligence that Saddam had the WMDs, why couldn't they share that information with the Weapon inspectors?

Re:Reveals Darl McBride is Dirty

[DikSeaCup]

Basically you're saying that *someone's* going to get fucked by the President ... better it be an intern than the rest of us?

I think I can agree with that.

Interesting

[BWJones]

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."

Gee, that sounds familiar. Seems to be a popular strategy in both business and *cough*cough*cough, government these days. Seriously though, this is a model that does appear to have some traction in a variety of fields in that if you press your case hard enough, and you convince enough of the right people, there is ground to be gained from simply sticking to your guns no matter what the reality happens to be. In my business, when you have a theory, you design an experiment to test it and collect data in an attempt to disprove that theory. When the data supports the theory, then you are golden. The way NOT to run business, science (or government) is to come up with a theory (or a desire) and then try to fit the evidence to support what you want. This of course is exactly what has happened with the SCO case, a couple of other business debacles in the news recently and interestingly, in the hunt for WMD in Iraq.

Re:Interesting

[the_mighty_$]

this is a model that does appear to have some traction in a variety of fields in that if you press your case hard enough, and you convince enough of the right people, there is ground to be gained from simply sticking to your guns no matter what the reality happens to be

Important note: whenever a business/government tries this horrible tactic, they always fail. SCO's case is (has) colapsed, people all around the world view the US government as untrustworthy, etc. Sometimes it takes a while, but they always lose in the end.

News stories like this are just a nice reminder to everyone not to try tactics like this.

Re:Interesting

[adamy]

I served. I vote.

I don't agree with that saying though. People who server in the military learn to take orders, perhaps really dumb orders. I don't want a society filled with those people; I am afraid we may have just that anyway.

Re:Interesting

[_Sprocket_]

I don't agree with that saying though. People who server in the military learn to take orders, perhaps really dumb orders. I don't want a society filled with those people; I am afraid we may have just that anyway.

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.

Re:Interesting

[Charles W Griswold]

Of all the bumper stickers I have ever seen, the one on my truck annoys the most people.
It simply says "If you didn't serve, don't vote"
I am tired of these namby pamby arm chair quarterbacks talking tough but scared to put on a uniform

You served in the military, I take it. If so, then you must have sworn an oath to protect the constitution. Yet, here you are telling people they don't have a right to vote when the constitution clearly says that they do. Nice, real nice. Ever heard of the word "hypocrit"?

Yeah, here you are talking tough, but you're too scared say who you are, you Anonymous Coward.

Re:Interesting

[adamy]

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.

No Linux copyright violation, film at 11

[Toby The Economist]

Is this really still news?

--
Toby

Re:No Linux copyright violation, film at 11

[MightyMartian]

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.

Re:No Linux copyright violation, film at 11

[Gogo Dodo]

What is news is that this is evidence that SCO knew a long time ago there was no copyright violations.

The nail in the coffin?

[bhsx]

Probably not. This whole thing is still going to take another year or so to play out. Not the SCO has a snowball's chance; but they'll keep going at least until their "prepaid" lawyers run out on them. Hopefully that'll happen before they get to court. Actually, hopefully not, as if they were to quit halfway through the court procedings the judge would probably ask the bar association to investigate them. F*cking lawyers, er rather, THESE f*cking lawyers.

Re:The nail in the coffin?

[MightyMartian]

No, you had it right the first time, it's "F*cking lawyers"..

Christ Almighty! You mean we're letting them breed???? Have we learned nothing from the Black Death?

Yet more proof

[WilliamSChips]

Yet more proof that the Googlebomb calling SCO "litigious bastards" is correct.

Maybe now the case will be dismissed...

Re:Yet more proof

[Rei]

The funny thing is, the campaign didn't just googlebomb the phrase "litigious bastards" - it even bombed the word litigious by itself. :)

Re:Yet more proof

[zippthorne]

Wait.. are you trying to re-googlebomb the phrase litigious bastards to associated with the google search for the phrase litigious bastards?

Woah. Meta.

Making Sure The Guilty Pay Their Price

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Making Sure The Guilty Pay Their Price

[MightyMartian]

I'm eagerly awaiting the outcry from the severely handicapped investors who thought it was a real good idea to invest in a company whose business plan was "we're going to threaten potential customers with spurious claims and sue IBM". These investors deserve to lose their shirts. Perhaps we can parade them around with name tags like "Joe Smoe - SCO Investor and Moron" or "Janet Doe - Bought SCO Stock and Now Lives in a Cardboard Box Next to the Dumpster".

Re:Making Sure The Guilty Pay Their Price

[Valiss]

Some of the players to watch:

Chairman
Ralph J. Yarro III

President, CEO, and Director
Darl C. McBride

CFO
Bert Young

Re:Making Sure The Guilty Pay Their Price

[stor]

You forgot:

- Microsoft
- Sun Microsystems

Cheers
Stor

Re:Making Sure The Guilty Pay Their Price

[gad_zuki!]

Also, their legal team should be forced to testify to reveal if they knew about this consultant, and if so why they continued these lawsuits with this information. If there's going to be a chilling effect on this madness, the lawyers should not get a free ride. They do not belong in the Bar association if they were doing McBride's bidding the whole time.

This country needs to be cleaned out. Its starting. We got Ebbers on the finacial front, along with Arther Anderson. Soon we'll have Rove or someone from the WH on the political front. Now McBride on the tech front and his lawyers on the legal front.

So much corruption, but at least some opportunities are opening and making an example out of these people goes a long way towards justice and keeping others from doing the same.

Shareholder SUits

[PingXao]

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.

What would happen to UnixWare and OpenServer?

[CyricZ]

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.

Re:What would happen to UnixWare and OpenServer?

[MightyMartian]

2003 SCO sues IBM for breech of contract.
2004 It is revealed that SCO is getting money from Microsoft through indirect means.
2005 A memo reveals that SCO knew all along that there was no copyrighted code in Linux.
2006 Case against IBM dismissed, SCO files for bankruptcy, split up. Unix rights bought by OSC.
2007 OSC sues IBM for breach of contract.
2008 It is revealed that OSC is getting money from Microsoft through indirect means.
2009 A memo reveals that OSC knew all along that there was no copyrighted code in Linux.
2010 Case against IBM dismissed, OSC files for bankruptcy, split up. Unix rights bought COS.
2011 COS sues IBM for breach of contract.
2012 It is revealed that COS is getting money from Microsoft through indirect means.
2013 A memo reveals that COS knew all along that there was no copyrighted code in Linux.
2014 Case against IBM dismissed, COS files for bankruptcy, split up. Unix rights bought by CSO.

Re:What would happen to UnixWare and OpenServer?

[TedTschopp]

Unix rights bought COS

The Church of Scientology buys the rights to Unix. Ok, Stop the ride, where do I get off.

Hardly unlikely.

[A nonymous Coward]

But not unpossible.

Don't get your hopes up...

[James A. D. Joyce]

...as much as I'd love for SCO to get their arses handed to them, I wouldn't get excited until their suit is actually thrown out of court.

advice to McBride....

[The Lynxpro]

Tune in the news and pay attention to the video images of Bernie Edwards going to jail for 25 years. Now, go down to your local "adult" store and buy some lube in preparation for your own date with justice.

Re:advice to McBride....

[CyricZ]

Err, you mean Bernie Ebbers. But the real question is: will he actually spend 25 years in jail? That's doubtful. It wouldn't be surprising if he was actually out within 2 or 3 years, and back at the helm of some corporation within half a decade from now. CEOs are never held truly accountable for their actions. It won't happen with Ebbers, and it won't happen with McBridge. That is just a flaw with the system.

Re:advice to McBride....

[paulbd]

the jury found him guilty of, in essence, destroying the livelihoods not to mention the pensions of thousands of people. ebbers has caused more misery than most serial killers will ever manage to. i don't know what a suitable sentence really is, but it sure as hell isn't a couple of years.

SCO lies....

[Rick Zeman]

...and in other news, kitten naps.....

Operating systems are Black Magic, Toqueville says

[Theovon]

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.)

Re:So we like consultants now?

[gsfprez]

this was ORIGINALLY a lawsuit about the derivative works from a company working with a Unix license that IBM bought.

what are you talking about? In their first filing,

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200407041 70212250

their first cause of action was "Linux is full of UNIX, which belongs to us"

First cause of action - (Misappropriation of Trade Secrets--Utah Code Ann. 13-24-1 et seq.)

this is in reference to their placing UNIX code in linux... read the previous 103 statements to see what they are alleging.

in their second (and current) complaint, they keep it up!

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200402070 22922296

3. A variant or clone of UNIX currently exists in the computer marketplace called "Linux." Linux is, in material part, based upon UNIX source code and methods.

4. The UNIX software distribution vendors, such as IBM, are contractually and legally prohibited from giving away or disclosing proprietary UNIX source code and methods for external business purposes, such as contributions to Linux, or from otherwise using UNIX for the benefit of others. This prohibition extends to derivative work products that are modifications of, or derivative works based on, UNIX System V source code or technology. IBM is violating this prohibition, en masse, as though no prohibition or proprietary restrictions exist at all with respect to the UNIX technology. As a result of IBM's wholesale disregard of its contractual and legal obligations to SCO, Linux 2.4.x and 2.6.x and the development Linux kernel, 2.5.x, are replete with protected technology. As such, the Linux 2.4.x and Linux 2.5.x and 2.6.x kernels are unauthorized derivatives of UNIX System V.

the are, have, and continue to claim that Linux is full of Unix, and that its a derivative because IBM put UNIX code in Linux.

That's the basics of their case, in a few words... they are hiding that contention behind their contracts with IBM. But how did they breach contract with SCO? - SCO alleges that they put UNIX in Linux.

If there is no illegal UNIX in Linux, then they've not breached any contracts, have they? To have breached contract, they would have had to have infringed on SCO's "UNIX copyrights"

Rhetorical question? Practical answer

[twilight30]

'And why did Darl tell the world, and Congress, that because Linux was written by volunteers, there was no way to know if it was clean code, that it was a "free-for-all", that "there's not a policeman to check in the code at the Linux kernel level to ensure that there are not violations", when they already knew that it presented very clear evidence of purity?'

Because Darl is a lying cunt, that's why.

so what would be good punishment for Darl?

[ChipMonk]

Maybe, having to put "Sank Sunbeam and The SCO Group through excessive litigation" on his resume, and a special "Ambulance Chaser" license plate on his car.

Hmmmm...

[frank_adrian314159]

Should I be happy because someone ignored a consultant or sad that they caused so much trouble by doing so? Decisions, decisions...

Re:Jail time

[bigberk]

possibility that they deliberately inflated the stock price with their claims

Of course they did! That's how it's done in the stock market. You have to understand this before you ever touch a stock trading screen. Even if an executive knows that their business is dead, as long as they can prop up public perception (lawsuits, advertising, stunts) they can prop up the stock price. Then the insiders exit either directly or indirectly, and once that is done it no longer happens what happens to the corporation because those in the know have saved their butts. When SCOX was reaching new highs I kept telling people this was a short opportunity from heaven; it was classic pump-and-dump and all you needed was a little computer knowledge to be able to tell fact from fiction. I doubt McBride ever thought linux licensing was sane and I doubt he thought he would get away with the lawsuits. BUT the news tricked the public into buying SCOX shares, which was all that was needed

SCO doesn't use SCO products within SCO?

[CyricZ]

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.

Re:Perhaps more interesting than the email itself.

[ValentineMSmith]

I've got mod points today, but I think I'll reply rather than modding you down to the oblivion you deserve. The reason that it looks like it was printed off and scanned into a computer is...

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

• more economical
• more environmentally conscious
• easier to distribute

than trying to photocopy originals of all of these documents.

Insurance

[Locke2005]

There was, at one stage, the idea that we would sell licenses to corporate customers who were using Linux as a kind of "insurance policy" in case it turned out that they were using code which infringed our copyright...

Yeah, I got a friend named Guido who sells "insurance policies" too... his catch phrase is "Nice place you've got here... be a shame if anything should happen to it!"

Am I misreading the law, or does this actually qualify as extortion?

Wait!!!!!

[Laura_DilDio]

But what about all the journalists (some call me that..but basically I'm a paid MonkeySoft shill) that SCO invited to see examples of infringing code. I know we had to sign a non-disclosure agreement, so I can't talk about what I saw, but believe me there was lots of powerpoint slides!!!

...relax and enjoy

[jfengel]

Dude, you're too focused on ends. Enjoy the process.

Each day brings a new humilation to Darl McBride. Treasure this moment, because all too soon the case will be thrown out of court and then you won't have Darl to kick around any more.

So just relax and enoy, and don't be so focused on the final result. (No, your girlfriend didn't pay me to say that.)

Re:Perhaps more interesting than the email itself.

[mabinogi]

if you read the article properly, you'd see that they actually _say_ it was scanned in.

This is a paper exhibit, which Frank Sorenson obtained from the court, scanned for us, and did the HTML. There are misspellings in the original. Thank you, Frank.

Just because you have no case

[WillAffleckUW]

doesn't mean you can't start a war of destruction against an innocent party.

Especially if you have lots of lawyers and elitists who care nothing for truth and honor.

Linux is CLEAN! How about Windows.

[team99parody]

I forwarded this to our corporate risk group that Linux's source has been audited and proven clean.

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.

Re:Operating systems are Black Magic, Toqueville s

[EvilMagnus]

Let us Quote from the Book of Dilbert, Chapter 12, Verse 3:

And lo, the PHB did say: "Anything I do not understand is simple."

Amen.

In this case, the 'simple' bit is a simple idea - only teams of programmers can make a kernel. It doesn't matter that it's incorrect, just that it's what the PHB believes. It is their dogma. All evidence presented to them is filtered through this belief, or just plain ignored.

Here endeth the lesson.

Too Little Too Late.

[team99parody]

Why do you think people like Darl McBride feel that they can get away with shit like this?

Darl & his MSFT frineds DID get away with it.

My CEO's already convinced that Linux is dirty thanks to lots of Enderle reports that our microsoft rep among others seem to have refered him to.

My bet is that Darl's backers are already praising him and preparing a job for him in much the same way that Rick Belluzzo got rewarded for defeating SGI and HP.

Copy of the actual email.

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the text of the email, courtesy of Groklaw.

Groklaw is intermittantly slow for me (database problems or whatever) and so I want to make sure this can be read by all.

I'd have to say this looks pretty damning, all said--it shows they found nothing and persisted anyway... Lovely.

From: Reg Broughton
Sent: Tuesday, August 13, 2002 10:05 PM
To: Darl McBride
Subject: Fwd: Re: Patents and IP Investigation

DARL

we can probably track down Bob Swartz if you want to dig further. Based on our last conversation, this summary of the code investigation probably closes that discussion.

This of course does not invalidate any of your statements on Caldera owning the central IP, and being the core provider of key technology and IP over the years into the UNIX and Linux communities.

REG

Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2002 13:26:51 -0700
From: Michael Davidson
Organization: Caldera International
X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.6 [en] (Win98; I)
X-Accept-Language: en
To: Reg Broughton
Subject: Re: Patents and IP Investigation

The actual investigation itself was done by an outside consultant (Bob Swartz) hired by SCO. I worked with him and reviewed his findings.

My recollection is that Bob produced an initial proposal for the project which outlined the methodology to be used, and he *may* have also provided a final report, but I don't have copies of either.

The project was a result of SCO's executive management refusing to believe that it was possible for Linux and much of the GNU software to have come into existance without *someone* *somewhere* having copied pieces of proprietary UNIX source code to which SCO owned the copyright. The hope was that we would find a "smoking gun" somwhere in code that was being used by Red Hat and/or the other Linux companies that would give us some leverage. (There was, at one stage, the idea that we would sell licenses to corporate customers who were using Linux as a kind of "insurance policy" in case it turned out that they were using code which infringed our copyright).

Note that the scope of the project was limited to looking for evidence of copyright infringement (we didn't consider patents because SCO didn't own the rights to any patents, and more general IP issues were just too vague - besides SCO was *sure* that it was going to find evidence of copyright violations which are comparatively straightforward to prove once you have found them)

An outside consultant was brought in bacause I had alrady voiced the opinion (based on very detailed knowledge of our own source code and a reasonably broad exposure to Linux and other open source projects) that it was a waste of time and that we were not going to find anything.

Bob worked on the project for (I think) 4 to 6 months during which time he looked at the Linux kernel, and a large number of libraries and utilities and compared them with several different vesrions of AT&T UNIX source code. (Most of this work was automated using tools which were designed to to fuzzy matching and ignore trivial differences in formatting and spelling)

At the end, we had found absolutely *nothing*. ie no evidence of any copyright infringement whatsoever.

There is, indeed, a lot of code that is common between UNIX and Linux (all of the X Windows system, for example) but invariably it turned out that the common code was something that both we (SCO) and the Linux community had obtained (legitimately) from some third party.

md

Re:Linux is CLEAN! How about Windows.

[SirSlud]

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.

McBride is free and clear

[typical]

No, he really isn't.

Ebbers (not Edwards) is one of a very rare elite -- wealthy white-collar criminals who are getting the book thrown at them. There are very few prosecutions in this arena. It's expensive, you are facing hordes of lawyers, and people wonder why you aren't hauling off murderers.

Ebbers is getting screwed specifically because he was involved in one of a handlful of financial cases that were so egregious that they caught the attention of the popular media, and hence the mind of the public. If you are a politician, and you represent a public outraged over some criminal, you do what you can to have the book thrown at that criminal.

Darl did not piss off anyone other than the statistically insignificant (if vastly disproportionate in influence in the tech world) members of the open source community. My mother has no idea that Darl exists, and there isn't really any way to pack his crimes into a one-sentence damning sound byte that appeals to the public(Ebbers had to deal with pictures of blue collar workers and the sentence "they lost their retirement money"). Nothing scares the shit out of a voting baby boomer like the concept of someone losing their retirement money.

Darl, IIRC, came off of the whole thing rather well, with no liability and plenty of money. And SCO was in the shitter already, so his rep is more of just a CEO willing to try some long shots when not much remains than the guy who killed SCO. He *did* manage the media rather poorly, getting personally involved instead of having a more competent spokesman involved, but that's really the only black mark against him.

There is no parole in federal prison

[gad_zuki!]

Some groups would like to change this, but if you get 25 years you're probably serving 25 years. H.R. 3072 is a bill to bring back parole, and as much as I hate people like Ebbers, its much needed when non-violent drug offenders spend their lives in prison because of the puritanical drug war.

The upside is that federal prisons tend to be a bit nicer than state prisons.

BSD = legal security

[softweyr]

What other system has been vetted so carefully and scrutinized by so many hostile lawyers and experts?

BSD. Duh.

Re:Operating systems are Black Magic, Toqueville s

[Spoing]

I talked at length with that guy from the Toqueville institute. ...

... Just like how some people can't possibly understand how a piston engine works, some people aren't cut out to grok OS kernels.

The problem was, you didn't listen to him. If you did, you would have heard him clearly say;

"I'm a PR agent. I've been paid to take a position and I am glad to suck up your time as that's what I am paid to do. I get bonus points by looking somewhat reasonable while you loose your composure in an attempt to convince me of something that I have no personal stake in beyond a paycheck."

Sad sad Caldera

[kalislashdot]

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.

Not just the lawsuit

[walterbyrd]

How about:

- it appears that scox's showing of the code to select journalists, who signed an NDA, was a stunt specifically designed to decieve the public. No wonder there was an NDA.

- it appears that scox's showing the code in Las Vegas ScoForum, was not just a mistake, it appears to be another possible deception.

- apparently scox filed the law suit in bad faith, right from the begining.

- scox letters to 1500 businesses, demanding payment for the scox code in linux, appears to be an attempt at outright extortion.

- scox execs enriching themselves by selling scox in the high teens appears a blantant stock scam.

- mcbrides numerous public statements about millions of lines of code, appears to be somewhat less than truthful.

I know what threw them...

[Hosiah]

Of course Linux code copies Unix code in many places. That's lines that look like:

#include

and...

{

and...

}

as for all the other lines that *don't* match - aha! That's the obfuscated part!

Especially especially if you have msft's $$$

[walterbyrd]

behind you.

Scox would not have been able to pull off the scam without lots of help from msft and sunw.

Re:Linux is CLEAN! How about Windows.

[rm69990]

HP never bought insurance from SCO. HP was going to, and then backed out at the last minute and announced indemnification for their customers.

Click here for story

HP probably felt that by paying the insurance instead of offering indemnification, they would be admitting guilt. They probably also have access to the source code and did their own audit of Linux and gave the green light.

Lose?

[StevenMaurer]

Your comment reminds me of the Simpson's episode where the departing Mafia don says "Remember: In the End, Crime Doesn't Pay", and then gets into his fleet of limos.

Face facts, SCO was a company whose stock price was floundering. Then Darl came along, ginned up a lawsuit, and multiplied it manyfold. He also got real revenue for the company from "sales" of "licenses" to Microsoft. He's already a multi-millionaire as a result. And despite how slashdot members feel, it's extremely unlikely he'll ever see any jail time.

Big name spammers are much the same. We may all hate them, but they've done very well by themselves. What's the worst that most have them have seen from their billions of dollars of theft of service? A slap on the wrist.

Same thing for Bush and Rove. Had either been remotely honorable or honest, Bush wouldn't have won reelection. Tell me, how is is losing?

Face facts: evil tactics are often winning strategies. Especially because our collective tolerance for corruption is so high (and going higher).

Re:Linux is CLEAN! How about Windows.

[Mr. Underbridge]

I forwarded this to our corporate risk group that Linux's source has been audited and proven clean. 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.

Nice, that'll get you promoted.

Re:Linux is CLEAN! How about Windows.

[Belial6]

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.

Re:Linux is CLEAN! How about Windows.

[utlemming]

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.