SCO Tells Courts What IBM Did Wrong

linumax writes "It took more than two and a half years, but the SCO Group finally has disclosed a list of areas it believes IBM violated its Unix contract, allegedly by moving proprietary Unix technology into open-source Linux. In a five-page document filed Friday, SCO attorneys say they identify 217 areas in which it believes IBM or Sequent, a Unix server company IBM acquired, violated contracts under which SCO and its predecessors licensed the Unix operating system. However, the curious won't be able to see for themselves the details of SCO's claims: The full list of alleged abuses were filed in a separate document under court seal. The Lindon, Utah-based company did provide some information about what it believes IBM moved improperly to Linux, though."

Comments

What Next?

[eln]

So they've gone from saying Linux lifted huge chunks of code from Unix wholesale to saying that IBM shared "methods and concepts," oh and a little code too?

What's next, they'll say some IBM employees might have had coffee with Linux developers? This still just looks like a fishing expedition by SCO.

Re:What Next?

[judas6000]

This is probably just going to be more of the same crap we're heard so often before coming from SCO. Another plug at theft of ideas but with very little actual evidence to back it up. It's just another example of SCO trying hopelessly to save themselves

Re:What Next?

[Lord_Slepnir]

IBM shared "methods and concepts,"

such concepts as:

for( int i = 0; i < someValue; i++ ) {

and let us not forget the rampent use of:

while(1) {

that's in the linux kernel

Re:What Next?

[bedroll]

So they've gone from saying Linux lifted huge chunks of code from Unix wholesale to saying that IBM shared "methods and concepts," oh and a little code too?

Well, you have to read what the intro says, the story says, and some history about the case. As I understand it, SCO is finally saying the ways that IBM abused it's contract with SCO. Notice the lack of Copyright claims in this statement. That's because the original case, regardless of what Darl liked to spew to the public, was about a contract violation. Whether that's still what the case is about eludes me right now, I thought they dropped the contract claims to focus on Copyright.

It's been reported that IBM's contract with SCO stated that they weren't allowed to put technologies from their Unix into any other OS. This is not exclusive to those that weren't put there by IBM. That means that IBM could not use their "IP" in any other OS without consent from SCO. Many think that, if this stipulation were in IBM's contracts with SCO that SCO had a decent case against IBM.

Then SCO started with all of the Copyright junk.

If I'm reading this right, then this still would seem secondary and SCO still hasn't provided any evidence of Copyright infringement. They've just strengthened a case that few contested, and they've declared as less important.

Re:What Next?

[$RANDOMLUSER]

Are you forgetting where they claimed that errno.h got lifted wholesale?

Re:What Next?

[Iriel]

This still just looks like a fishing expedition by SCO.

You obviously can't spell phishing. You forget that SCO is trying to pass themselves off to the courts as a reasonable group.
</toungeincheek>

Re:What Next?

[IGoChopYourDollars]

What's next, they'll say some IBM employees might have had coffee with Linux developers?

It sounds stupid, but when large corporations have to put up "firewalls" between projects to deal with sensitive issues such as IP leakage, that's *exactly* one of the things they have to worry about.

IBM knows all about the procedures that are necessary in these situations, which is what makes SCO's charges so brazen. But when you have teams of hundreds of Linux developers under tight deadlines and under pressure to get their bonus or an acceptable job performance rating, along with intense corporate pressure to deliver results, it wouldn't be surprising if one or two didn't decide to take a shortcut and help themselves to a little AIX code.

Re:What Next?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm, I don't see them with a lawsuit against Microsoft for releasing Microsoft's own software called "services for Unix" that runs under Windows... I never thought that was of any use, but it might have some very interesting legal ramifications.

Re:What Next?

[nine-times]

Um... are "concepts" protected by copyrights? Like, "Star Wars" is a copyrighted work, yes? I can't use characters from them, or specific artwork, etc. But can they sue me for using a concept similar to "the force" in my own story? The concept of a lowly farmboy becoming a hero? The concept of, I don't know, the villain turning out to be the hero's father? Does the copyright protect methods such as plot devices? Like the cliff-hanger, the surprise twist, or character development?

If the court rules that concepts and methods are protected by copyrights, then I think we've really hit a point where IP laws need to be reevaluated, because it would mean the end of free production of any kind of software/movies/music/etc. It would be all the bad things of software patents, but without even the patent application process.

Re:What Next?

[EnronHaliburton2004]

while(1) {

Well then, this is a good thing. Maybe SCO should realize that their kernel shouldn't contain an endless while(true) loop-- that explains many problems.

Re:What Next?

[schon]

It's been reported that IBM's contract with SCO stated that they weren't allowed to put technologies from their Unix into any other OS.

It's also been reported that a fat guy in a red suit flies around the earth once a year in a reindeer-powered sleigh.

What you miss in that is that *everyone* who was directly involved in the contract (which was with AT&T, not SCO, or SCOX) has said that it does not mean what SCOX says it means. This includes the $echo newsletter, in which AT&T explicitly clarified that the clause only refers to AT&T's code, not code owned by the customer.

Re:What Next?

[GiMP]

Linux is written in C, not C++. You cannot declare a variable within the for loop.

int i;
int someValue;
/* where someValue is initalized sometime before the following... */
for( i = 0; i &lt; someValue; i++ ) {

Besides, I think they will have more problems from the rampant use of:

return(0);
 
/* and */
 
return(1);

Re:What Next?

[peragrin]

JFS, RCU, NUMA, aren't "unix" in anyway shape or form are they Unix or Unix technology.

JFS was developed for OS/2 warp. Then ported to AIX and later Linux.

RCU & NUMA though developed intially AIX have been ported to other OS's. The concepts have enhanced SMP operations.

Concepts designed and developed by IBM. Concepts that don't require UNIX to work or any Unix code.

So once again Where's the Beef?

Re:What Next?

[orasio]

        for( int i = 0; i someValue; i++ ) {

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

        for( int i = someValue-1; i !=0; i-- ) {

You defend yourself agains SCO and, and you might even end up with fewer ASM instructions.

Re:What Next?

[menkhaura]

Actually, one of the novelties brought by C99 was the possibility of declaring variables anywhere in the code, just like C++; therefore,


for (int i = 0; i < something; i++)


is perfectly valid C (according to the latest standard).

Re:What Next?

[pyrrhonist]

You cannot declare a variable within the for loop.

That's perfectly cromulent in ANSI C99.

Re:What Next?

[morgan_greywolf]

No, the parent is right. You can declare the variable in the for loop, but only if you are using the C99 standard.

The following compiles just fine without errors or warnings with gcc -std=c99


include <stdio.h>
int main() {
                for (int i=0; i < 10; i++) {
                                printf("%d\n",i);
                }
                return 0;
}

Re:What Next?

[avidday]

Actually JFS started out as an AIX filesystem. It was then clean room reimplemented for OS/2 because the original AIX version was too closely tied to the AIX kernel memory manager to permit a port. The OS/2 codebase was later ported to Linux and to AIX, replacing the original AIX implementation.

RCU and NUMA were, to the best of my knowledge, developed by Sequent for Dynix and later ported to Linux.

Re:What Next?

[RealProgrammer]

It's been reported that IBM's contract with SCO stated that they weren't allowed to put technologies from their Unix into any other OS. This is not exclusive to those that weren't put there by IBM. That means that IBM could not use their "IP" in any other OS without consent from SCO. Many think that, if this stipulation were in IBM's contracts with SCO that SCO had a decent case against IBM.

Those reports are incorrect. IBM, like every other UNIX licensee, always had the right to use their own code however they saw fit. It was only the AT&T code that they were not allowed to use. SCO's interpretation of the contracts flies in the face of the history of the UNIX source code licenses, of the side agreement (PDF here) between IBM and AT&T, and common sense.

2. Regarding Section 2.01, we agree that modifications and derivative works prepared by or for you are owned by you. However, ownership of any portion or portions of SOFTWARE PRODUCTS included in any such modification or derivative work remains with us.

Who would enter into a development license saying that any work they developed became the sole, secret property of the other party? That would be the Anti-GPL, and the answer is that no one ever did.

Re:What Next?

[grahamlee]

for(int i=someValue; --i; ) still lets the loop execute with i equal to every value between someValue-1 and 0 inclusive. You don't have to do a meaningless subtract at the beginning, you don't have to separate the test and the update into different instructions. However, if your loop depends on the order in which i takes on the values, you need to be careful. Besides which a sensible optimising compiler would take these sorts of things into account.

Re:What Next?

[Eric Damron]

"It's been reported that IBM's contract with SCO stated that they weren't allowed to put technologies from their Unix into any other OS."

This is what SCO is trying to imply by twisting the meaning of the contract. IBM and the OSS world is on to their little scam however.

What SCO would like the court to rule is that any code that IBM included in any of the products covered by the original contract become derivative works and therefore is under the control of SCO.

This is not what the authors of the contract intended and they have testified proving that it was not their intention or understanding that IBM would lose control of its own code if it added it to the products covered under the contracts.

SCO has no real case.

Re:What Next?

[AviLazar]

What's next, they'll say some IBM employees might have had coffee with Linux developers?

Sure, go ahead, blame a good cup of Java why don't you.

Re:What Next?

[Mr Bill]

Um... are "concepts" protected by copyrights?

That is not what SCO is claiming. They seem to think that their contract with IBM gives them this control over methods and concepts. So it is not Copyright law that is at issue, it is Contract law. So this doesn't affect Linux, since it is a contract dispute between IBM and SCO.

Of course AT&T (who was actually a party to the contract negotiations to which SCO claims it is a successor in interest) has already stated that the contract does not say what SCO thinks it says.

Re:What Next?

[oni]

an endless while(true) loop

well, it's not *good* coding practice, but I have seen people do that on purpose. They use break to get out of the loop. Personally, I would never do it. I like to imagine that chic track or whatever where jesus is looking over the guy's shoulder while he's on the computer, only in my case I imagine that Knuth is looking over my shoulder and would slap me on the back of the head if I wrote while(1)

Re:What Next?

[grahamlee]

erm, oops...see what happens when you can't read the words "submit" and "preview" distinctly? I meant

for(int i=someValue; 1+i--; )

Re:What Next?

[Fulcrum of Evil]

well, it's not *good* coding practice, but I have seen people do that on purpose.

Why not? It's perfectly reasonable when doing windows GUI programming - it can be cleaner too, especially if you have multiple break conditions.

Re:What Next?

[someone1234]

Hmm, you said endless loop? Like in: while(true) { litigate(); }

Re:What Next?

[Capt James McCarthy]

The code resides within SCO: While($CASH_TO_BE_HAD) { threatentosue(); } threatentosue() { createfalsepsudoclaims(); makeamountenoughtobecheapertosettleoutofcourt(); return cash; }

Re:What Next?

[Guitarzan]

While the comment is pretty funny, you should try this:

cd /usr/src/linux
find . -name *.c | xargs grep -n for\(\;\;

for(;;) seems to be the typical kernel version of while(1).

Re:What Next?

[MBGMorden]

It's cleaner to list the break conditions up front (that's what or operators are for); then anybody looking over the code won't have to dig through the loop to find out what terminates it.

I'll admit that there are situations when it seems like having breaks within the loop are unavoidable, but these situations usually can be avoided if the program is carefully planned out. It's all a matter of thinking. I've seen some BASIC programmers who found it impossible to code without GOTO's (which can virtually always be eliminated in favor of a loop).

Re:What Next?

[Iffy Bonzoolie]

I'm pretty sure you had it right before.

Assuming you are iterating over an array of size n:

int i = n;
while (i--)
{
// etc
}

Since you are post-decrementing, the first test is while(n), but in the body of the loop, i has the value n-1, which is the last value in the array.
The next test is while(n-1), but in the body, I has the value n-2.
In the final iteration, the test is while(1), but i has the value 0 in the body.
The final test is while(0), which is the terminating condition.

If your condition is (1 + i--), then you will perform an extra iteration with i = -1.

Re:What Next?

[Anonymous Coward]

I propose a change:

#define EVER (;;)

forEVER { /* code */ }

Re:What Next?

[grahamlee]

I think I had it wrong both times as I had --i the first time. That would have caused i to be decremented then compared to 0, causing the loop to stop at i=1...i-- is indeed correct and my loop should read:

for(i=someNumber;i--;)
{ //...
}

Re:What Next?

[Citizen of Earth]

for (int i = 0; i

In the 64-bit era, you need to be make that 'int' is really big enough. You also need to be careful with refugees from the 16-bit era.

Re:What Next?

[truedfx]

Actually, one of the novelties brought by C99 was the possibility of declaring variables anywhere in the code, just like C++

There are some catches. Valid (though pointless) C++:

int main() {
    if(int a=0)
    while(int b=0)
    switch(int c=0)
    default: int d=0;
}

All four declarations are invalid in C, because only the special support for 'for' was copied to C, and labels must be followed by a statement, but declarations aren't statements in C.

Re:What Next?

[Citizen of Earth]

And in the XML era, you really need to watch those angle brackets.

Re:What Next?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are situations where the loop is never meant to end until the object or entire program is terminated (finite state machines that you see in game AI come to mind, as well as event handlers).

Re:What Next?

[rcw-work]

I imagine that Knuth is looking over my shoulder

I'm glad you have an imagination, because unfortunately Knuth probably isn't. The Daily WTF could be, however it might be a while before they get around to you.

Re:What Next?

[just_another_sean]

What you miss in that is that *everyone* who was directly involved in the contract (which was with AT&T, not SCO, or SCOX)

I have a deep loathing for SCO and can not wait until they finish falling off the cliff they ran over. But this is not about IBM's contract with AT&T, its about the project Monteray contract. I don't really beleive for a minute that IBM signed a contract with SCO (or oldSCO as they probably should be called when talking about that contract) that said IBM could not put it's own code in other OS's but after the AT&T original contract theory of Darl's was thouroughly debunked they shifted back to the original claim of the case and that was about Project Monteray.
I guess what I'm trying to say is I read Groklaw way too much :)

Re:What Next?

[Anonymous Coward]

So does this mean SCO's gonna give back the $700 I paid for a Linux "license"?

Re:What Next?

[Jeff Molby]

I can't imagine "intentions" carry much legal weight.

Re:What Next?

[inertiatic]

Umm, this all started when MS bought a license from SCO.

Re:What Next?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps IBM ought to consider disconnecting itself from SCOs contracts by just getting rid of all of the SCO code in its operating systems. They could just replace it with code from an open source *BSD OS. This might hopefully void their contract with SCO. This would unentangle perhaps IBM from obligations and restrictions placed on it by messy SCO contracts.

Re:What Next?

[Red Alastor]

Well then, this is a good thing. Maybe SCO should realize that their kernel shouldn't contain an endless while(true) loop-- that explains many problems.

But not in Linux ! It does infinite loops in five seconds.

Re:What Next?

[SatanicPuppy]

I can understand listing the break conditions in a comment upfront, but certain types of event listeners and daemons pretty much run all the time in a while(true){} loop.

Combine that with some threading so it doesn't weigh down your operating system, and you're good to go. That's pretty much the whole principle behind inetd and web services in Linux.

Re:What Next?

[John Miles]

It's cleaner to list the break conditions up front

No, actually, it isn't.

It's much cleaner to break out of a loop at the instant the termination condition becomes true. This occurs at the loop-control statement only in trivial loops, and only by coincidence. Coincidences don't make good code.

Another way of looking at the question: if it's better to begin a variable's scope where it's first used, which most C++ users agree is the case, it's also better to explicitly end that scope when it's potentially obsolete. The only ways you can do that in C/C++ are with break, continue, and goto. Goto obscures scoping altogether, so it's not much help, but loops constructed with while (1) and explicit breaks can be considerably easier to understand.

Re:What Next?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Well then, this is a good thing. Maybe SCO should realize that their kernel shouldn't contain an endless while(true) loop-- that explains many problems."

Well, you fail to take into consideration that the fabrics of space will be altered inside this loop. Upon altering reality, 1 will become not true (but 0 may not become true, so the check is valid). This loop will ensure that reality has been circumvented. Pretty slick piece of code.

Re:What Next?

[mcc]

Have you ever read errno.h? It's, like, about a page and a half of numbers. And I'm pretty sure SCO never claimed the file was copied line for line (like, comments and whitespace and all), they claimed they owned the ABI. That's like a phone book company suing another phone book company because the second phone book company listed some of the same phone numbers the first one.

And didn't the UNIX copyright holder specifically lose rights to errno.h in the USL/BSD settlment anyway?

Re:What Next?

[BigBuckHunter]

What you miss in that is that *everyone* who was directly involved in the contract has said that it does not mean what SCOX says it means.

Inconceivable!

BBH

Re:What Next?

[psyon1]

Sorry, you forgot an exclamation point.

while(!true) { litigate(); }

Re:What Next?

[Locke2005]

Some programmers use
for ( ; ; ) {statements if (condition) break; statements}
It's not a bug.

Re:What Next?

[jedidiah]

Then you know even less about the law then an L1, or even
someone who was/is merely the significant other of one.

          The precedents in this area are very old (dating back to
old England) and quite memorable.

Re:What Next?

[PaulBu]

The only ways you can do that in C/C++ are with break, continue, and goto.

Not that I disagree with your reasoning, actually I totally agree with it, but in the interest of completeness I should mention that you totally forgot the mother of all lexical scoping constructs in C/C++: plain block, as in { ... }. Of course it is more useful in C
and goes contrary to C++ permission to declare variables when needed,
not at the beginning of the block, but still...

Paul B.

Re:What Next?

[oni]

It's much cleaner to break out of a loop at the instant the termination condition becomes true.

Which, if you did your job right, would be the bottom of the loop, so it would break out the instant the termination condition becomes true.

Re:What Next?

[try_anything]

I agree with your point that while(1) can be the most elegant way to express a loop, but you left out the best and simplest way to limit the scope of a C++ variable. Here's an example (sorry, preview shows the indentation being lost, and I can't figure out how to fix it):

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

class Messager {
private:
const string _name;
public:
Messager(const string& name)
: _name(name) {
cout << "Creating " << name << endl;
}
~Messager() {
cout << "Destroying " << _name << endl;
}
};

int main()
{
Messager first("first");
{
Messager second("second");
}
Messager third("third");
}

Output:

Creating first
Creating second
Destroying second
Creating third
Destroying third
Destroying first

When adding debug or trace code into an enormous function that you don't understand, enclosing the code in { } prevents compile failures from twice-defined variables. (It won't stop you from accidentally twiddling variables from the enclosing scope, so be careful!)

The most common use is to limit the scope of objects that manage resources using RAII, such as mutex locks and database connections. Personally, I try to avoid functions large enough to need this, except in the case of mutex locks and other concurrency mechanisms, whose scope should always be as limited as clarity allows.

Re:What Next?

[nathanh]

Well then, this is a good thing. Maybe SCO should realize that their kernel shouldn't contain an endless while(true) loop-- that explains many problems.

No, that's OK, Linux is so fast it does infinite loops in 5 seconds. SCO just needs to use the same techniques and metho... oh, hang on.

Re:What Next?

[try_anything]

Oops, my comment below is mostly redundant to yours.... I disagree that the plain block is more useful in C than in C++, however. When using the "resource acquisition is initialization" (RAII) idiom, you have to pay attention to when destructors are called, since the destructor of a resource-controlling object release that resource. Although you would prefer to write small enough functions that it isn't necessary, sometimes you have to write:

{
MutexLock lock(non_threaded_library_mutex);
x = non_threaded_library_foo(y);
x = non_threaded_library_twiddle(x);
}

This ensures that the mutex is released as quickly as possible, which decreases contention if the rest of the function body takes any significant time.

Re:What Next?

[rm69990]

No, this case has little to do with Monteray. SCO tried to bring in a third ammended complaint to do with Monteray, and the Judge said no. Just to let you know. All relevant info can be found on Groklaw.

Re:What Next?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't believe you read groklaw I say this is about Monteray. It's not. They tried to make it about Monteray and the Judge said no... So there you go.

Re:What Next?

[$RANDOMLUSER]

> Have you ever read errno.h?

Yup, I suggest you RTFAs connected to this.

Re:What Next?

[multipartmixed]

> Which, if you did your job right, would be the bottom
> of the loop, so it would break out the instant the
> termination condition becomes true.

Ever noticed that most people writing absolute statements on Slashdot tend to be those with little relevant experience?

Endless loops are a legitimate construct, and can be very beneficial when used correctly!

They are especially useful for job schedulers, event managers, etc., although I suspect at least one popular scheduler has been written in the form of do..while(screen_not_blue);

for(;;)
{
  do_work();
  if (poll_event_one())
    break;
 
  do_more_work();
  if (poll_event_two())
    break;
 
  do_even_more_work();
  if (poll_event_three())
    break;
 
  cleanup();
}

Please rewrite this code to put all three terminal conditions at the bottom of the loop, without changing the semantics of the program. Then evaluate which version of the program is easier to read.

Re:What Next?

[geoswan]

You mean like Feist v. Rural.

As of 1991 the US Supreme Court ruled that a list of "fact" could not be copyright.

When Feist, was compiling a phone book they contacted the dozen of so companies that had compiled phone books for areas contained within the area for which Feist was preparing their phone book. Eleven companies agreed to liscence their data, Rural didn't. Feist copied 4,000 names from Rural's book. Rural sued. And they lost.

A list of "facts" could be copyright, if it was assembled in a creative order. But, in that case, changing the order would free it from copyright protection.

Re:What Next?

[Fafnir43]

Which, if you did your job right, would be the bottom of the loop, so it would break out the instant the termination condition becomes true.

And if there are multiple termination conditions which occur at different points in the loop and preclude further execution of the loop? I'd say it's cleaner to break out than add if(!termination_condition) statements encapsulating the rest of the loop at each potential breakpoint. Even if they don't preclude further execution, breaking seems cleaner than setting a bool, letting the loop run to completion and then checking the bool's state in the termination condition.

If I'm missing something here, please tell me - I'm an amateur programmer and I don't really like breaking out of loops either.

Re:What Next?

[oni]

No problem. But first can you define this for me: without changing the semantics of the program. because I suspect you're going to waste my time and move the goalposts on me.

people writing absolute statements on Slashdot tend to be those with little relevant experience?

oh? Please detail for the audience what my experience is. You don't know? Then what are you talking about? Just because you don't like my opinion, that doesn't mean my opinion is wrong.

Re:What Next?

[bani]

so SCO deliberately misrepresented their position when they endorsed errno.h in FIPS 151-2?

standard MAY !=free :But participants must declare

Re:What Next?

[oni]

I just want to make sure that I'm clear here. You can do whatever you want. I'm not going to have to read your code so I don't care. But Alan Turing managed to produce a mathematical proof stating that any algorithm can be represented with only sequence, selection, an iteration. In other words, it is a fact that goto and break are not required - they are optional. My argument is that, given the fact that you don't have to use break, I feel it is bad practice to do so because it makes the code less readable. My opinion is that it is easier on the person reading and maintaining your code if, when they come to a loop, they can determine immediately what the conditions are that keep that loop running. They don't have to hunt around inside perhaps hundreds of lines of code looking for random breaks. You say it's cleaner to use breaks. That's cool. I just disagree. When you've spent as many years as I have looking at poorly written code, you come to value people who make that little extra effort to make it readable.

And if there are multiple termination conditions which occur at different points in the loop and preclude further execution of the loop?

generally this occurs when you want to handle errors cleanly. Typically, the way this is done is as follows (in sudo code):

while (data_left_to_process) {
preamble = read_preamble() //you might imagine this is an xml begin tag
if (valid_preamble(preamble)) data = read_data()
if (valud_data(data)) {close = read_close(); add_data_to_some_data_structure(data)}

data_left_to_process = check_for_more_data()
}

the point is just that you can look at just the first line of that and know that at the end of that loop, there is no more data to process.

but hey, you can do whatever you like.

Re:What Next?

[ProfFalcon]

Um. This won't run. The point is funnier with the "not true" thing and all but it kinda loses something when you lose the whole litigate(); procedure.

Re:What Next?

[PaulBu]

Agreed completely, but your example takes us a bit further away from the GP point about lexical scoping for aestetical reasons into C++ realm of constructor/destructor calling rules, to use which you do want to add explicit blocks which your example perfectly demonstrates...

Oh, the joy of programming -- have not been doing it for a while... ;-)

Paul B.

Re:What Next?

[Dolda2000]

It's cleaner to list the break conditions up front (that's what or operators are for); then anybody looking over the code won't have to dig through the loop to find out what terminates it.

That's certainly not an absolute truth. In some situations, it prevents code redundancy. I use it in particular in certain parsing situations, like this:

while(1)
{
while((p2 = strchr(p, ' ')) == p)
p++;
wv[wc++] = p;
if(p2 == NULL)
{
break;
} else {
*p2 = 0;
p = p2 + 1;
}
}

(Don't blame me -- Slashcode doesn't preserve indentation)

As you can see, if I didn't break out of the loop after I did the work on the current "part", I'd have to repeat that part of the code after the while loop. This is much more effective and maintainable.

Re:What Next?

[hackstraw]

for (int i = 0; i

interesting, never heard of that. Personally, I don't like it, but I know some people prefer it. Its not that big of a deal because it does have to be declared with a type.

Out of curiosity, does C99 or has C++ ever figured out the scope of a variable declared inside of a for statement like that?

To me, it should be in the current calling scope, so it is available after the bracket (if used) after the for loop. But some interpretations only make it available within the loop.

Offsubject, but relevant I guess.

Re:What Next?

[bobv-pillars-net]

profit=0; while (!profit){ litigate(); }

Or more traditionally,

for( profit=0; litigate(); !profit );

Re:What Next?

[MBGMorden]

Unless I'm missing something, this should produce this same result and avoids the infinite loop. It also avoids a boatload of function calls to strchr().

p2 = p - 1;
do
{
        p2++;
        if (p2 != ' ') {
                wv[wc++] = p2;
                *p2 = NULL;
                p = p2 + 1;
        }
} while (p2 != NULL);

Re:What Next?

[fymidos]

it's not that i disagree with you or anything, but i just can't resist :)

  work();
  if (cond){
    work_more()
      if (cond2) {
        work_more()

etc...
It is hard to read without ident, i know, but it's ok in reality

Re:What Next?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Please rewrite this code to put all three terminal conditions at the bottom of the loop, without changing the semantics of the program. Then evaluate which version of the program is easier to read.

Crikey! Did you skip most of your structured programming class? You do know what the "else" keyword is for, don't you?

Re:What Next?

[fymidos]

It's ok to break from loops, they don't have to be infinite loops though. At least one condition will always be at the end of the loop. You can break in hundreds other conditions as well.

Re:What Next?

[PSVMOrnot]

*shudders* In my opinion Break ranks up there with goto. It go against some of the base concepts of good code (strong cohesion and weak coupling), and have you ever tried to formally prove the correctness of an algorithm containing multiple exit while loops?

Re:What Next?

[Dun Malg]

The Daily WTF could be, however it might be a while before they get around to you.

My god, that "switched loop" is the Worst Code Ever. It definitely would make the Baby Savior of your choice cry.

Re:What Next?

[Dolda2000]

OK, I guess there is a slight preference of mine. I had thought of that way of doing it, and although there isn't really anything wrong with it, I quite much despise having to put pointers outside of their defined range (such as in p2 = p - 1;).

According to ISO C, pointers are defined at values 0 (NULL), the range of the object that it points to, and exactly one record following that range. In the first and last cases, dereferencing the pointer invokes undefined behavior, but it least it's allowed to put the pointer there, as long as no dereferencing takes place.

While it's true that I don't have any such hypothetical portability issues to deal with, it is allowed for C implementations to crash if the pointer is only so much as pointed before the first record in its object (such a thing could theoretically happen on a hypothetical architecture with strict address register bounds checking).

Re:What Next?

[fymidos]

We sign a contract, saying that i sell you a gnu linux license for $100 plus a 20% overhead with a 30% extra supply
I sell my linux-license-selling business to another person who adds it up and asks you for $150.
However it was understood by you that the extra applied to the overhead, not the license, so the price is actually $126.

This is a dispute that can be solved by the other contractor (me). If i testify that my understanding (intention) was the same as yours, you are clear. If not the problem remains.

In the SCO case, the original contractors (AT&T and IBM) and the people who actually signed the contracts agree on their original intentions, so SCO doesn't have a case here.

Re:What Next?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is hard to read without ident, i know, but it's ok in reality

No, it's not. Nesting three or four if/else conditions is a great deal less readable than a single layer with appropriately placed 'break' statements. Sure, the five line example you've given is easy enough to read, but once you start adding some comments, a few more functions called in the same blocks, etc, keeping track of the levels of nesting becomes more effort than it's worth.

Re:What Next?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Um. This won't run. The point is funnier with the "not true" thing and all but it kinda loses something when you lose the whole litigate(); procedure.

Of course it will run! you just have to preprocess it properly...

#define true false

Re:What Next?

[cs]

Didn't the DMCA or something introduce a protection for databases / collections? I forget the exactly legislation, but I'm pretty sure it postdates 1991 and I'm sure it's to let people play dog in the manger for exactly this kind of thing.

Re:What Next?

[tricorn]

So you moved the condition that you're actually checking to the end of the loop (and you forgot to initialize "data_left_to_process", but let's assume it is set to "true" to begin with - but what if it isn't true?). So wouldn't it make more sense to use an explicit do {} while (check_for_more_data())? Except that would reveal the major bug you've introduced which is that it will fail if there's no data at the beginning.

In addition, you haven't indicated what happens if "valid_preamble()" returns false - how does "valid_data()" handle an uninitialized "data" variable? Or are you omitting a bunch of nested if conditions? How is that more clear?

If you're holding that up as an example of not "poorly written code", you've failed. I can embed exit conditions in variables that get set in hundreds of lines of code just as easily as I can embed breaks and continues, you'll still have to search for it. The problem is a loop that covers hundreds of lines of code, not where in the loop the exit condition is determined. You're going to have to read the code anyway if you want to know what it does, knowing the loop exit conditions at the beginning of the loop is the least of your worries (unless the loop exit condition can actually BE determined at the beginning of the loop, in which case it probably IS a simple loop). What you're doing is making it more complicated in the name of simplifying it. If it is a complicated loop, it will have complicated exit conditions.

Using break and continue and return appropriately is in no way "poor coding technique", and if you think that you shouldn't use break because "it can be proven that it isn't absolutely necessary", I suggest you start doing all your coding in Brainfuck or some other Turing tarpit.

I consider for (;;) to be slightly more aesthetic than while (1) (as even the trivial logical expression "1" doesn't have to be optimized away).

Re:What Next?

[Bush Pig]

I always thought that an outer

while (TRUE) { /* operating system code goes here */ }

loop was exactly what you wanted for an operating system. After all, you only want it to halt under truly exceptional circumstances.

Re:What Next?

[Bush Pig]

Formally proving the correctness of _any_ non-trivial algorithmm is close to impossible.

And before you violently disagree, I've produced proofs of the correctness of binary search, etc. That isn't what I'm talking about.

Re:What Next?

[deblau]

Maybe SCO should realize that their kernel shouldn't contain an endless while(true) loop

Read lines 44 through 46 of init/calibrate.c.

Re:What Next?

[PSVMOrnot]

Point taken, and yes, I agree it's incredibly difficult. However, my point about breaks abusing the poor defenceless concept of single-entry single-exit coding stands (until someone comes and knocks it over).

Re:What Next?

[mink]

The version of OS/2 JFS that made it to Linux was also ported to AIX as JFS2 AFAIK.

Re:What Next?

[Eric Damron]

Actually the "intention" of the agreement is everything. I believe that IBM entered into additional talks with AT&T over this very issue to make the "intentions" of the agreement clear.

The hell?

[rincebrain]

So they finally release a list of what they think was put in Linux illegally, and we can't see it to rewrite the code to have a "legal" OS?

How entertaining.

Re:The hell?

[supun]

It because of the big throbbing brain of the OSS community. They release that information and the OSS community will pick their violations apart like they did in the past. It's like IBM has a free legal reasearch team.

Re:The hell?

[yfkar]

"However, the curious won't be able to see for themselves the details of SCO's claims: The full list of alleged abuses were filed in a separate document under court seal."

I don't think you can really even call that "releasing". They're probably^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H too afraid that the claims would be disproved right away if the public saw them.

Re:The hell?

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

legally speaking, couldn't someone just re-type the code? :)

Re:The hell?

[LeonGeeste]

Well, this paradox arises in other areas too. Say you take nude photos of someone without their consent and without their face in it and publish them. The victim sues you. Then you say "How do you know they were photos of your body? We have to compare." Then someone would complain that this comparison was not made public.

Re:The hell?

[dgatwood]

That analogy only works if the girl was already a famous swimsuit model and the comparison is between two sets of publicly available photos. Operating systems concepts aren't some big secret. They are highly published in textbooks, research papers, etc. This applies triply for any systems research done by IBM.

There can be no valid reason for the courts to block publilcation of a list of operating systems concepts that a company has been accused of making available in an improper way to the general public. The information is public, the techniques are almost certainly public in papers by IBM, Bell Labs, etc. Thus, the only thing being kept secret is the comparison itself between those papers and code in Linux.

Re:The hell?

[DigiShaman]

You should have the right to face you accuser and the evidence brought forth. If sco will not provide the later, then they should outright SHOVE IT!

Re:The hell?

[Reliant-1864]

IBM is the one being accused in court, and they have full access to the list. If you get sued personally by SCO, then you'll have the right to face your accuser and see the evidence. I'm sure we'll be seeing a reply by IBM soon going into detail about how wrong SCO is. Hopefully IBM will also try and get the list unsealed, so they can have the help of the entire community in this

Re:The hell?

[JPriest]

That is what I was thinking, and a very good point. I would imagine SCO would not openly admit that though, their reasoning for requesting the document be sealed is likely that the information in it is proprietary.

Re:The hell?

[Anonymous Coward]

They've said this before, they have no intention of letting the Linux community know what they need to replace. Their business plan relies on being able to charge license fees for every Linux user.

Re:The hell?

[shotfeel]

I kind of see that point. OTOH isn't the lawsuit about IBM supposedly making this proprietary (secret) knowledge, public? If its in Linux souce code, its already public information. Thus there's no reason for SCO to keep it sealed. Are they trying to say that the knowledge of what code isn't supposed to be there is a secret?

I just don't get it.

Re:The hell?

[StevisF]

One word ... FUD. The main purpose of this entire ordeal is to legally encumber Linux and OSS. What better way to do this than to say general things and hide the specifics (which probably have no merit)?

Re:The hell?

[Creedo]

It because of the big throbbing brain of the OSS community.

Fetch daddy's blue fright wig. I must be handsome when I unleash my rage.

Re:The hell?

[SpeedBump0619]

It seems to me, that in a reasonable world there would be a way for a lawyer or law enforcement officer to gain access to this information in an effort to halt ongoing distribution of stolen works.

The question should really be: now that this information is in the court record, what are the ways in which it can be made public?

Re:The hell?

[dokhebi]

And what't the problem with that? There is no law that says legal aid has to cost anything.

That is the beauty of a free market economy. Not only is the market free to adjust to the demands of buyer and seller, but product and/or services can be free if the buyer and seller agree on it...

Only Bill Gates (plus his puppets) and the LibDems are afraid of a free marke economy.

Just my $0.02 worth.

Re:The hell?

[SillySlashdotName]

TSCOG (The SCO Group - NOT SCO, even though TSCOG is claiming to be the reincarnation of SCO) is claiming that IBM signed a contract prohibiting the release of information, then released that information anyway and doing so broke the contract, so TSCOG should be paid 5 (pinky to mounth) BILLION dollars.

So you are partly correct -

isn't the lawsuit about IBM supposedly making this proprietary (secret) knowledge, public?

except that the propriatary or secret part actually has nothing to do with it.

Copyright law says that by creating a work, I own a copyright on that work. Contract law says I can agree to give up the rights given me by Copyright law on that work if I want to. TSCOG seems to be saying that IBM gave up their rights in writing, then broke the contract and should be punished.

As far as keeping it sealed, TSCOG may not have a choice.

Some of the AIX code was provided to TSCOGs lawyers by IBM under the condition it would not be provided to TSCOG programmers. If the lawyers released the code in such a way that TSCOG programmers COULD get at it, they could be in violation of court orders. By providing it to the court sealed they could be meeting the requirements of the court on several different levels.

Now, if that is the case, IBM can unseal the code.

Re:The hell?

[SillySlashdotName]

I have to disagree.

AIX is propriatary to IBM, and they have not released it to the general public.

Linux is available to the general public.

If I said "some part of Linux is also in AIX, and some parts or concepts from AIX are in Linux" you have gained little useful knowledge. But if I said "This specific routine is in both Linux and also AIX" you may have gained quite a bit of helpful reverse engineering knowledge.

IBM was required by the court to provide source code for their propriatary AIX product to TSCOG, but did so under provisions that limited the ability of TSCOG to release it to the public (and to TSCOG, competitors to IBMs Unix OS, AIX). For TSCOG to now say "This code is in both AIX and Linux" is probably covered under the provisions that limited the release of information and could open TSCOG to court sanctions if NOT sealed.

That analogy only works if the girl was already a famous swimsuit model and the comparison is between two sets of publicly available photos.

No, the point is that one of the sets of photos is NOT public (IBMs AIX). The original analogy is more correct. In fact, in the case of nude photos, by proving guilt (authenticating that the photos are of the person bringing suit) the harm done is increased - instead of thinking MAYBE it is nude photos of that person now we KNOW it is nude photos of them) - exactly the reason for sealing portions of the record.

Re:The hell?

[fymidos]

Somehow, i don't think thats the reason the filling is sealed.

q1: since everybody knows that numa, jfs, etc have been ported by ibm to linux, what possible reason would ibm have to keep those parts secret ?
q2: What about all the sco code (sco not ibm) that supposedly has been copied to linux ?
q3: if sco doesn't actually claim to be the copyright owner of any of this code, where did SCO find the millions of line of code they started this lawsuit before "IBM was required by the court to provide source code"?

Re:The hell?

[dbIII]

release a list of what they think was put in Linux illegally

Ten million lines of code printed out in legible form and placed in this magic briefcase that can be carried in one hand onto a plane in Germany!

For some reason no single page of that has turned up before the courts, making it in my opinion a confidence trick on SCOX and the stock market with IBM and linux being used to make it look plausable. It would be interesting to see what Darl's brother is earning in legal fees on this.

Hopefully

[stoolpigeon]

Well hopefully this will help us get to the point where the court tells IBM what SCO did wrong.

Re:Hopefully

[LordLucless]

We don' t have the time to listen to all of that.

Jay Leno

[/ASCII]

This sounds like a good candidate for 'Tonights Top-Ten list'.

Aaaaand the number one Copyright infringement made by IBM is.... /* Copyright 1979, 1980, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994 The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. */

The crowd goes wild!

Re:Jay Leno

[Anonymous Coward]

It's Letterman who does the Top Ten, not Leno.

Re:Jay Leno

[zootm]

It's Letterman who does the Top Ten, not Leno..

In the context of copyright infringement, perhaps it was supposed to be ironic.

Re:Jay Leno

[MrByte420]

Yes, and Letterman opens the bit as "Tonight's top ten list"

this is still going on?

[twiggy]

Oh. This is still going on?

I thought they had given a bunch of supposed code a long time ago that was supposedly "lifted" from them, and it was pretty much proven on all counts that prior art existed, etc etc...

Won't SCO just keel over and die already?

Re:this is still going on?

[hey!]

Oh. This is still going on?

Sure. Probably means the SCO management team hasn't had a good year and needs to liquidate some stock. Guys gotta live, and A penny dumped is a penny earned.

Re:this is still going on?

[garcia]

Won't SCO just keel over and die already?

They already did. Now they're just running around without a head.

Re:this is still going on?

[slavemowgli]

Not as long as Microsoft is funding them. Think of it as "FUD dollars at work"...

The sad thing about this is that SCO as such, which actually used to be a respectable company (remember Caldera's OpenLinux?) is the only party involved on that side that doesn't get anything out of this - MS does, of course (FUD against Linux for a nominal fee), Darl and his buddies do (money), the lawyers do (money), but SCO (and its actual shareholders) don't: they're being exploited by a CEO who is actually just looking at his own monetary gain and willing to sacrifice the company for the money he gets.

Once you realise this, it also becomes clear why this is still going on: SCO (that is, its management) is not actually interested in closing the case. They know perfectly well they'll lose, and did so right from the start; for that matter, so does Microsoft, but they still push the case further, as it's still a good way to spread FUD against Linux, prevent adoption, and get more windows sales. It won't last forever, of course, but for the money they have to invest, it's probably a good return nevertheless.

And the FUD works because while people (even CEOs of companies who don't know a thing about computers really but still want to make all the decisions themselves, or at least the "important" ones) have learned not to trust Microsoft when it comes to evaluating Linux, they will still take into consideration a lawsuit brought by a company that's seemingly unrelated to Microsoft.

Linux/Unix

[SpaceAdmiral]

I notice the words Linux and Unix share many of the same letters. Guilty!

Re:Linux/Unix

[Anonymous Monkey]

linux/unix = li/u

li=lithium

u=you

we are talking about SCO

SCO = U

SCO needs to be on Lithium?!

Re:Linux/Unix

[Nivag064]

But L inux comes before U nix - THEREFORE Sco's Unix code must all be under the GPL! -)

Re:Linux/Unix

[igny]

But Linux Is Not UniX

Five pages, 217 violations?

[floppy ears]

In a five-page document filed Friday, SCO attorneys say they have identified 217 areas .... A secret five page filing supposedly detailing 217 contract violations? Guess they didn't get into too much detail, eh?

Re:Five pages, 217 violations?

[conJunk]

Not quite. There were two filings. One was five pages. The other, the one that's sealed, includes the 217 "violations" and is of unknown length.

Why?

[rancmeat]

Why does this asinine trial drag on?

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does it drag on? Because SCO thought they had a slam-dunk FUD case and believed that IBM knew they had done wrong and would give in, so SCO didn't need to bother with providing actual proof. But IBM told them where to stick it, and so it's taken this long to get where we are at. The funny thing is that the trial is still in the initial discovery period where the two parties get information from one another. SCO has constantly filed for repeated continuations and extensions because they claim IBM was holding out on them, and SCO tried to get hundreds of depositions from IBM (of which about 30% of the depositions they were granted they actually followed through on).

To put it simply, SCO looks like they knew they messed up a long time ago and now they are trying to delay their death as long as possible while they try to get an actual business model up and running. That explains why they are partnering with MySQL and some others and hyping their ironically named OpenServer.

Re:Why?

[hrvatska]

Because SCO paid a big name law firm tens of millions of dollars in advance to represent them to the bitter end. SCO is betting everything on this lawsuit. A popular theory is that SCO thought IBM would settle early on for a large sum just to make SCO go away. I don't think SCO ever expected this to drag on this long.

Re:Why?

[AKAImBatman]

To put it simply, SCO looks like they knew they messed up a long time ago and now they are trying to delay their death as long as possible while they try to get an actual business model up and running. That explains why they are partnering with MySQL and some others and hyping their ironically named OpenServer.

If SCO was smart, they'd cut their losses and run. All they need to do is cooperate with the court, have the court decide that IBM isn't infringing, take their lumps in a settlement, then apologize profusely to their customers and save a little face by stating that they believed their case to be real. SCO would then announce that they are accepting the court's decision and that they have decided to work with the Linux community by sharing some of their highly valuable IP. Then they promote the old versions of Unix they already open sourced, and get some free press while they work on an actual business model.

Step 6. ???
Step 7. Profit!

The biggest advantage to simply getting it over with is that SCO can finally dump all those highly paid lawyers they've been using, not to mention the fact that they can try to establish good relations with the developer community BEFORE their funds run dry.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does this asinine trial drag on?

Because Microsoft wants it to. And because Microsoft provided a big chunk-o-change (about $50 mill worth, IIRC) to allow it to. Otherwise, SCO would have gone belly-up a while ago.

Re:Why?

[Todd Knarr]

Except that SCO can't feasibly cut and run. First, there's IBM's counterclaims. Their admission that they didn't have a case won't dismiss those counterclaims, but it will make IBM's proving them a slam-dunk and the penalties there are more than SCO's got in available assets. Then there's the RedHat case, and if SCO admits to not having any case in the IBM case they virtually guarantee RedHat a win. Again, RedHat's claims would be ruinous. And then there's the AutoZone case, and if SCO abandons the IBM case AutoZone's sure to demand costs in their case. In short, SCO's currently backed into a corner where the only option that lets them survive at all as a company is to fight to the bitter end and pray for a miracle. It's pretty clear right now that the only way they'll win is if a large chunk of the judiciary suddenly goes insane, but that's still a better chance for survival than any of the other options so SCO's taking it.

Re:Why?

[AKAImBatman]

Their admission that they didn't have a case won't dismiss those counterclaims, but it will make IBM's proving them a slam-dunk and the penalties there are more than SCO's got in available assets.

I didn't suggest that they admit anything. I suggested that they take their lumps from the judge, then come to a settlement with IBM. If they play their cards right, they may get out of the whole affair without having to deal with the counterclaims.

RedHat ... AutoZone ... Etc.

They're screwed one way or another. If they don't take their lumps now, they'll just hurt that much more, later.

Re:Why?

[Todd Knarr]

At this point, though, IBM's not interested in any settlement that doesn't include an admission by SCO that they never had any evidence. IBM does too much business in the government and financial sectors to allow any hint of a question to exist about whether they'll honor their contracts. Plus, some of SCO's accusations touch on ages-old bits of IBM's mainframe core, and again IBM can't permit any hint of a question about their ownership of that because it's just too central to their business.

Re:Why?

[AKAImBatman]

At this point, though, IBM's not interested in any settlement that doesn't include an admission by SCO that they never had any evidence.

If a judge states that there's no infringement, then the point is moot. Legally, there is no infringement. If SCO pursues a settlement, then IBM would most likely make an full acceptance of the court's ruling a part of the settlement (i.e. No appeals) and ask for a set of specific concessions. (A bit like the concessions made at the end of the USL vs. BSD case.) Thus there would be no question over who has the rights to the code. I sincerely doubt that IBM would force SCO to admit to wrong-doing, as that could cause SCO to face criminal charges.

Re:Why?

[Todd Knarr]

Your last sentence is the catch, though. All that's needed to make IBM's counterclaims and RedHat's claims (the Lanham Act onesin particular) a slam dunk is an admission by SCO that they didn't have evidence at the very start. Nothing less will clear IBM's reputation sufficiently (as far as IBM's concerned), and SCO can't make that admission without leaving themselves defenseless to the claims against them. Even if it never gets to the point of criminal charges, the civil judgements alone will bankrupt the company (and open the executives including McBride to shareholder/investor lawsuits).

The main thing to remember is that at this point merely a ruling that IBM has all rights to the code isn't enough for IBM. They want/need a ruling that there was never any question at any point that they had all rights to the code. That's what their PSJ motion asked for, it's what they're virtually guaranteed to get once discovery's over, and I don't think they'll settle for less at this point.

Re:Why?

[2old2rockNroll]

Because SCO paid a big name law firm tens of millions of dollars in advance to represent them to the bitter end. SCO is betting everything on this lawsuit.

Let's hope the end truly is bitter. I'll bet those big name lawyers lose a little more interest in the case every day they aren't being paid. They'll be doing the minimum required to avoid being sued themselves.

Re:Why?

[gnasher719]

>> At this point, though, IBM's not interested in any settlement that doesn't include an admission by SCO that they never had any evidence.

At this point, IBM's not interested in any settlement that doesn't include a smoking crater in the exact location where the SCO headquarters used to be.

Re:Why?

[codemachine]

I think if IBM was looking to settle, it would've been done a long time ago.

Short of giving UNIX entirely to IBM (which would destory their busiiness), I'm not sure what they could offer at this point that IBM would want.

I think IBM wants them dead, and wants to follow the money trail to get at the people who funded this farce. They will pursue the legal side until the judge's final ruling.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because as yet no one has capped Darl...

Re:Why?

[mink]

Thats because no one is asking to download him on P2P networks.

The list...

[laptop006]

The character 'a'
The character 'b'
The character 'c' ...
The character 'A' ...
The character '{'

You get the idea.

But seriously, most of them sound very dodgy, and the JFS issue has already been looked over by people better then SCO.

Re:The list...

[bani]

But seriously, most of them sound very dodgy, and the JFS issue has already been looked over by people better then SCO.

That's not hard. anyone is better than SCO.

Apple should just buy out SCO

[Anonymous Coward]

Somebody's got to own Unix, why not Apple and Steve Jobs? Jobs' number one priority is serving the customer.

Re:Apple should just buy out SCO

[gabebear]

From a long time Apple user .... "HA!!!"

Personally I'd like to see someone buy the UNIX trademark and then donate it to Linus for safe keeping.

Re:Apple should just buy out SCO

[laffer1]

Good idea, but what would apple do with sco? Another issue is what will happen to apple's image if they buy sco? I already get made fun of for using a mac at my university both in and out of the cs department.

Now if apple (or anyone) bought sco and then if they actually own UNIX then release it to the open source community that would be amazing. Think about how linux, *bsd, or solaris could benefit from the development on a completely free OSS UNIX.

Re:Apple should just buy out SCO

[c0l0]

It somewhat hurts me to disappoint you, but even Apple the Company and Steve Jobs as its CEO are after one thing, and one thing only in the end:
  3. Profit!
 
And form my point of view, there's nothing to get out of buying SCO except you're a bit of a masochist and like getting 0wned rigorously in front of a court over years, because of your own bold but impressively stupid and uneducated moves based on wild guesswork and thrive for a quick and massive buck earned.

Re:Apple should just buy out SCO

[JonJ]

Because the opengroup owns the UNIX name, and the copyright is held by Novell.(Not SCO, since SCO has asked Novell to transfer the copyrights to them.), and I feel a lot better with Novell owning the copyrights, and OpenGroup taking care of the Unix name. Imagine, iUnix, *shudders*. They are of course welcome to try to buy the names and copyright, however, I think Unix clone or Unix derivative would suffice to show what kind of operatingsystem it is, or even BSD derived.

Re:Apple should just buy out SCO

[eln]

Steve Jobs's number one priority is providing wealth for his shareholders, which is the job of all CEOs. He chooses to do so in a way that you like, but that doesn't mean what you like about it is the number one priority.

Re:Apple should just buy out SCO

[Anonymous Coward]

Well if Apple wants to "own Unix" then they shouldn't buy out SCO, because SCO doesn't own Unix... duh?

Re:Apple should just buy out SCO

[aurelian]

The UNIX trademark is owned by The Open Group, and they do a pretty good job of defending it - better than Linus has done with Linux, some might say.

What would really be good would be if the rest of the material relating to Unix, copyrights et al, were put into the public domain, once and for all. Then we could all read the Lyons book again!

Re:Apple should just buy out SCO

[kingj02]

Somebody's got to own Unix, why not Apple and Steve Jobs? Jobs' number one priority is serving the customer.

I think that's what SCO was hoping--that IBM would just buy them out instead of going to trial. Unfortuanatly for them, they have nothing IBM wants.

Re:Apple should just buy out SCO

[Anonymous Coward]

They republished the Lions book, finally after a few decades. I got a copy, it's very good reading. Amazing how compact and easy to understand the original code was.

Re:Apple should just buy out SCO

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but SCO's #1 priority is making sure their own customers get "served".

Re:Apple should just buy out SCO

[jonadab]

> Somebody's got to own Unix

I was under the impression that the Open Group owned Unix in every sense that matters these days. They're the ones who get to decide whether any given system is even allowed to be called "Unix", for instance. I don't see any need for anyone to buy out SCO; Apple doesn't have any reason to do so, certainly.

They just don't know when to quit, do they?

[DrLlama]

"The numerosity and substantiality of the disclosures" - Look out, they're languaging again!

All kidding aside, I continue to find it astonishing that given everything that has gone on before SCO is still persuing this. I'd dearly love to see the 217 ways they've been wronged.

It's getting downright pathetic....

Re:They just don't know when to quit, do they?

[booch]

I thought "numerosity" was a made-up word, too. But I checked Google, and it turns out to have an actually legal meaning. (I suppose that means that the legal profession made it up; but at least SCO's lawyers did not.)

Re:They just don't know when to quit, do they?

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to commute from Oakland CA to San Jose. Somewhere in the middle of that long drive was a big sign that said "Stop casting porosity". I never understood what that meant. Maybe it's related to numerosity.

Off topic, but....

[Anonymous Coward]

Utah IS the home of more fraud than any other US State...perhaps it has to do with their history?

Re:Off topic, but....

[Anonymous Coward]

or perhas not. Perhaps your outlook on their history is due to ignorance - this IS more likely.

Why..

[MrEcho.net]

hide it from the public? Is it that bad?
Tired of getting laugh at?
They keep changing their story... just drop it guys.

I wonder

[ndansmith]

Some of these wrongful disclosures include areas such as an entire file management system . . .

Does file management system mean file-system, or the actual names and structures (i.e. folder tree) of the files?

. . . others are communications by IBM personnel working on Linux that resulted in enhancing Linux functionality by disclosing a method or concept from Unix technology.

Metod or concept? I would sure like to see the technical list, cause these generalities are putting ants in my pants.

Re:I wonder

[johnkoer]

Does file management system mean file-system, or the actual names and structures (i.e. folder tree) of the files?

I think they meant Betty from accounting, who left SCO to work for IBM. She used to handle all of their filing processes.

Re:I wonder

[Col. Klink (retired)]

File Management System means JFS, which IBM developed for OS/2 and later ported to AIX and Linux. Note that the Linux port was from the original OS/2 implementation and not from AIX. However, SCO's theory is that once something touched AIX, SCO's property rights to Unix infect it and travel back up the tree and down any other branches.

And they call the GPL viral...

Re:I wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

They are talking about JFS, a filesystem from IBM's AIX which was ported to Linux. Good for you that you haven't been folowing this case, I can't imagine what ants would have done to your underwear and more in 2 years time.

Re:I wonder

[hackwrench]

My guess is that it is referring to VFS, the overreaching file namespace manager that all File System drivers get mapped into.

From Kerneltrap:
VFS Documentation
Reiser4 and VFS Issues

Re:I wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

JFS was originally developed for AIX, but it was so dependent on the kernel that it was cleanroom-implemented for OS/2, and then ported to AIX, replacing the old version of JFS.

Re:I wonder

[mink]

I thought the OS/2 version of JFS did not replace JFS on AIX but became JFS2 on AIX.

Took them long enough!

[olegm]

But they are afraid that after all this waiting it will be looked over and scrutinized very carefully by the entire community (go figure). So they hide it from us. The truth will come out, and when it does I suspect that SCO will have even more egg on their face.

First Time For Everything...

[Tackhead]

> SCO Tells Courts What IBM Did Wrong

What you are witnessing is real. The participants are not actors. They are actual litigants with a case pending in a U.S. District court. Both parties have agreed to dismiss their court cases and have their disputes settled here! In our forum! The People's Court!

Judge Yakov Smirnoff (Ret.) presiding.

Re:First Time For Everything...

[TheSpoom]

I would watch that on pay per view.

But only if it was, like, $10 or less. Cause I'm cheap like that.

Merry Christmas

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

"SCO, whose Unix business continues to struggle, said it will file a final report on the alleged abuses on Dec. 22."

This is a clear sign that SCO itself doesn't believe their list is worth the paper its printed on. There isn't a time of the year when people are paying less attention. It's like they're saying "Details at Christmas - in the meantime, enjoy your FUD."

Re:Merry Christmas

[venicebeach]

No, they didn't pick that date, the court did. This friday was the "interim deadline" for "Parties to Disclose with Specificity All Allegedly Misused Material Identified to Date and to Update Interrogatory Responses Accordingly". December 22 is set as the final deadline.

Quick check...

[Anonymous Coward]

Two and a half years to put together a case... Guilt by association... Undisclosed charges...? For a minute I thought this was an article about Guantanamo Bay.

Attorney Conversation

[thebdj]

SCO Attorney 1: You know this is a waste of time right?
SCO Attorney 2: Yeah but those idiots are still paying us.
SCO Attorney 1: How much longer can they pay us to do this?
SCO Attorney 2: Maybe another year or two.
SCO Attorney 1: What then?
SCO Attorney 2: Well we will either win the case and be filthy rich while they are still broke, or we'll just apply for jobs with Microsoft and repeat the process with someone else.
SCO Attorney 1: BRILLIANT!

Re:Attorney Conversation

[Amouth]

that comment works sooooo well with your sig

Re:Attorney Conversation

[Rolan]

While somewhat amusing, it's not at all accurate. The SCO lawyers stopped getting paid a while back. They, foolishly perhaps, agreed to a cap on legal fees which has been reached.

Re:Attorney Conversation

[idesofmarch]

Actually I think there is some kind of contingency fee in effect, or Boies is taking a certain percentage of the firm's stock, which amounts to the same thing.

Re:Attorney Conversation

[jambarama]

Close, but not quite right. SCO was paying millions in lawyer fees, millions and millions. Their stock was going to the toilet for no reason other than lawyer fees.

So they offered the current legal team $30 million lump instead of by the hour or case or page. So this team is now stuck litigating until the cows come home, without getting more money. How long until even they get apathetic?

Re:Attorney Conversation

[Anonymous Coward]

SCO's legal fees are capped through the appeals process by an arrangement between the company and the BSF law firm. There is clear evidence that this is already resulting in lower quality legal work, presumably an effort by the firm to cut costs since they are already guaranteed* a fixed fee.

*Well, not really guaranteed. Since SCO is paying out chunks of the total amount (around 8 million) over time, there is the possibility that lawyers may not get all their money due to a motion by Novell to set aside more of SCO's money than exists in order to pay Novell 95% of the $50 million they received from BayStar/Microsoft for SCOSource Licenses.

Re:Attorney Conversation

[mellonhead]

The lawyers HAVE NOT stopped getting paid. There are still two more quarters of payments due. 30+ million for their "service" is a nice chunk of change.

Re:Attorney Conversation

[Antique Geekmeister]

My betting money says that the lawyers for SCO are being funded the same means as SCO these days: "partnerships" brokered by Microsoft for their other, not very good but useful if Microsoft sweetens the deal, services.

What me worry ??

[DangerSteel]

One day my linux license from SCO will be worth it's weight in gold ! actually I never really bought one, I only look that stupid....

Re:What me worry ??

[drxenos]

Do you suppose that the people who actually buy a license will have a case against SCO when it is proven they did not have the right to sell them?

Re:What me worry ??

[MightyMartian]

Well of course they will have a case. They will also be out of luck.

Re:What me worry ??

[drxenos]

Ah, because SCO will be broke! Good point.

Re:What me worry ??

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you suppose that the people who actually buy a license will have a case against SCO when it is proven they did not have the right to sell them?

Yes, but you can get neither blood nor $699.95 from a turnip.

Re:What me worry ??

[SillySlashdotName]

No.

What they were buying was a document that said TSCOG would not sue them for using their IP in Linux.

When it is proven there is not TSCOG IP in Linux, they now have TWO assurances of not being sued - the 'license' they bought and the court decision that there is no TSCOG IP in Linux.

The only way they could have a case against TSCOG is if they buy a "license" that says TSCOG won't sue them for using TSCOGs IP by using Linux, then TSCOG DOES sue them.

In much the same way, I can't sell you the title to the Golden Gate Bridge (I don't own the Golden Gate Bridge), but I CAN sell you "all my rights to the Golden Gate Bridge" for whatever we decide between us is a fair price. The fact that you are buying something that doesn't exist is inmaterial.

Given this, can we trust SCO involvement in MySQL

[Anonymous Coward]

According to SCO's press release on the deal with MySQL, the finances and assistance SCO is providing to MySQL should only benefit the commercial version of the product.

http://ir.sco.com/ReleaseDetail.cfm?ReleaseID=1720 37

Wonder if they are betting MySQL gets super popular, more than it is currenltly, so they can do a similar lawsuit. That is, claim SCO's knowledge etc. was used to improve he GPL version. With MySQL refusing to protect users from liabilities arising from the SCO deal (specifically a lawsuit from SCO resulting DIRECTLY from this deal .. nobody would expect them to protect users from other frivolous lawsuits obviously).

Big Blue Marbles

[Doc Ruby]

I don't understand why behemoth IBM can't squash SCO, even after years of SCO BS. Is it the influence of Senate Judiciary chair Orrin Hatch (R-UT-dumbest-person-in-the-Senate)? Or is IBM playing cat & mouse to get SCO to legally document the boundaries of business operations under open source, especially as OSS IP relates to parallel proprietary IP? Both smart Armonkers and dumb Salt Lakers might play their parts in that legal game. But do IBM's boundaries coincide with those of the OSS community?

Re:Big Blue Marbles

[mykepredko]

I used to wonder about that as well - but:

1. They are getting a lot of good geek press/word of mouth. Fighting for Reasonable IP could be good business for them.

2. They may want to make sure anybody else that tries a frivolous lawsuit to see what happens - not only will you loose, but you will be bled dry in the process.

3. It may be a message to Gates to fight his own battles and not through proxies.

4. Somebody is really pissed at Darl and want to see that the only job he is able to get after this is hired hand on a dirt farm.

myke

Re:Big Blue Marbles

[Doc Ruby]

Well, that underscores my skepticism of the simple appearance of the longevity of this case. Because if IBM slammed SCO's apparently totally worthless claims into dust immediately, and publicly, all of those would have happened. Except #1, keeping the "lesson" in the buzz for years. But lack of closure also keeps SCO's "tenacity", "resilience", or other spin of "David" vs IBM's "Goliath" as a credit to SCO, in the lesson - for years. Which killing SCO after 6 months would not. Puzzling. I still think IBM is trying to torture this case into something it otherwise would not be, for IBM's benefit - and likely no one else's.

Re:Big Blue Marbles

[Doc Ruby]

You might not like Kennedy, Anonymous Coward, but he's not so dumb. Certainly not as dumb as Denny-boy Hastert, the Speaker of the House, or Rick Man/Dog Santorum.

Re:Big Blue Marbles

[Doktor Memory]

IBM has its own history of antitrust entanglement, and I believe still operates under some of the consent decrees from that era. Launching a hostile takeover bid against a company that is current suing them for breach of contract would almost certainly invite a lot of the wrong kind of regulatory and legislative scrutiny.

Also: IBM has more money than god: as of their most recent financial statements, they maintain a cash balance of $8,250,000,000 (That's billion with a B, folks.) While the expense of fighting off SCO might seem insane to you or me, and would bankrupt a smaller company, it's literally pocket change to IBM, and it is very likely that their board of directors consider making an example of SCO to be a worthwhile investment.

Credibility in business contracts is a very important thing, and SCO is making a direct claim that IBM entered into a contract with them and proceeded to rob them blind. That's not a charge that any CEO is going to take lying down, and if they have to spend a few million dollars and a few years to have a judge authoritatively dismiss SCO's claim, it's probably worth it.

Re:Big Blue Marbles

[Anonymous Coward]

IBM knows they have to fight this battle at least once. They want to make sure they have to fight people like SCO as few times as possible. The best way to do that is to allow SCO to wrap itself tighter and tighter in the bindings of its own actions and statements to the court. Once SCO's so tightly bound by what it's said and done that it has no chance to dodge, IBM will bring down the hammer and make an example of SCO, so they don't have to deal with any copycats.

Any wiggle room, any place where SCO can try to claim "We weren't given our full rights ... we want an appeal!" could start this whole mess over again just when we think it's finished. It's better to take the time to get SCO in a corner and finish them once and for all than to let them have a second chance.

Re:Big Blue Marbles

[Doc Ruby]

Where did I say that IBM should buy out SCO or anything crazy like that?

I also don't see how IBM's riches and power mean it should take 2-3+ years to defend against a meritless suit about such core principles of integrity. I'd expect IBM to quickly demonstrate the illegitimate extortion/touting strategy. Taking 3 years to authoritatively dismiss is a lot worse than taking 6 months to dismiss. Though, dare I say it, it's a lot better than taking 3 years or 6 months for IBM to lose, which it seems is possible only if IBM actually did break their contract with SCO by publishing secret, proprietary source.

Re:Big Blue Marbles

[Doktor Memory]

Ah, okay, I misread your post.

As far as the speed of the trial: this isn't, really, moving slowly at all. Unless one side caves and settles, or unless the judge grants summary judgement, it's not at all unusual for corporate contract disputes like this to stretch on for years.

The big problem is that before the court can make a finding of fact, the court has to determine what the facts are. This means something called "discovery", wherein the plaintiff and defendent both subpeona every single document, email, and backup tape that they think could be releavent, and depose (interview) every single person who could possibly have any insight into what happened. This part alone can take years. Then you have to present all of that evidence to the judge, complete with expert witnesses, cross-examination, and motions from both sides.

Just because the facts of this case appear "obvious" to you and me does not mean that a judge can or will decide the same. A big case (like the aforementioned IBM antitrust action) can take decades. Apple Computer and Apple Records have been suing each other on and off for nearly twenty years now.

Three years is nothing.

Re:Big Blue Marbles

[Doc Ruby]

It just doesn't seem like it should take IBM 3+ years to do that. Maybe a year or so. Something else has to be a factor.

Re:Big Blue Marbles

[Anonymous Coward]

they probably found that line of copied code and don't wan't to lose a case like this because of one line and are just letting sco bleed to death

Re:Big Blue Marbles

[Anonymous Coward]

The line of copied code? You mean:

while (TRUE){

or

for (i=0; i5; i++){

or

return(0);

When you are writing programs the majority of your individual lines of code are not going to be the first time that line of code was ever written. In fact, many of your lines of code will have been written millions of times by other people. This is not infringing.

In fact, I would go as far as saying that several lines of code could be the same between two programs and that is fine. Entire functions can duplicate functionality in a very similar way, if what that code is doing is the same thing, or the two people who wrote the code were trained by the same people or used the same text books to learn how to program. This is not infringing either.

The only way to infringe is to take a large portion, more than 1% of someones code and incorporate it wholesale into your own code. This is infringing.

This never happened with Linux code. Because that code is open and everyone knows that . Nobody is willing to ruin their entire reputation and destroy their computer carreer to cut and paste other peoples code into Linux, because they know they would be caught.

Proprietary code is much more likely to have other peoples code incorporated into it, because there is no check for that and nobody is watching, and the deadline is coming up fast. Many companies have been caught stealing code over the years and having to pay huge court settlements because of that. MS most famous event of this nature was when they blatently stold stackers disk compression code.

Re:Big Blue Marbles

[Kaenneth]

It's absolutly a worthwhile investment.

SCO's mistake was to let it become a public case, if IBM could have paid 'em off without anyone knowing, it would have been an option. At this point, if IBM bought out SCO, it would start a landslide of copycats hoping to cash in.

The most sensible thing for IBM at this point is to totally crush SCO, Darl, the lawyers, any press that were on SCO's side, etc. etc. Not just financially, but to get Darl and etc. in prison for perjury/fraud if possible, get the laywers sanctioned for a friviolus case, and so forth.

Just like the Vegas casinos, if you get caught faking a slip-and-fall to sue the casino, you not only lose the case, you go to prison for fraud. (which isn't as bad as the old way of ending up dead in the middle of the desert)

Re:Big Blue Marbles

[Ohreally_factor]

It bears mentioning that SCO has engaged in a delay strategy, although for what purpose other than to put off the inevitable it is not clear. As some have theorized, the longer they can avoid the unavoidable, the more opportunities there will be for stock manipulation.

At any rate, the court cannot dismiss these delays out of hand; without sound reasons for denying a delaying motion, the court opens itself up to appeals. Judges don't like to have their decisions reversed on appeal. It screws with their experience points or something. However, judges do have their limits, and SCO seems to have reached Judge Kimball's limit.

So all things considered, Doktor Memory is right. This case is proceeding at a reasonable pace.

Re:Big Blue Marbles

[Anonymous Coward]

You might not like Kennedy, Anonymous Coward, but he's not so dumb.

Nope, Kennedy isn't dumb. He managed to avoid a manslaughter rap and only pleaded to a much lesser charge.

He's truly a role model for convicted felons everywhere, who wish they had his political influence to keep themselves out of jail, too.

Re:Big Blue Marbles

[Doc Ruby]

I'm really amazed at the rightwingnuts who've got nothing on Kennedy but his teenage car accident with its dubious conclusions about leaving a passenger to die while he rescued himself. In the forty years since then, has the "politically connected murderer" done anything in Congress to show you he's a monster? And exactly how do you feel, Anonymous denial Coward, about Laura Bush actually ramming her ex-boyfriend to death in her car, then getting off because of her political connections? How smart is Laura that she can kill someone, and leaves the media free from its obsession merely by being "unable to talk about it to this day"?

Sucky lawyers...

[jskline]

This smells so much like the lawyers are involved under the exclusivity of keeping it financially tough on IBM. Keep em' spending loads and loads of cash and get them to eventually dwindle the coffers.

Re:Sucky lawyers...

[iocat]

Wait... you're saying that SCO is trying to drain IBM's coffers? I mean, I know IBM is a scrappy little underdog and SCO is a major, public, corporation, but I'm guessing IBM will be able to hang in there a little longer...

Re:Sucky lawyers...

[ClickOnThis]

This trial is alot tougher financially on SCO than on IBM. For SCO, this is a "hail mary" with perhaps a stock "pump-and-dump" thrown in. For IBM, this is a mosquito bothering an elephant.

Re:Sucky lawyers...

[Bradee-oh!]

On a slightly different note, can anyone give me a semi-valid reason I could personally sue Microsoft? I want to take them on myself, and represent myself in the suit to avoid nasty legal fees. But I need the basis for the suit to be valid enough that I can string the trial out as long as possible. My strategy:

1 - Draw out a lawsuit against M$ so long that I drain their coffers

2 - ???

3 - Profit!

Seriously, bud, get a little perspective.

Re:Sucky lawyers...

[mojotunes]

I think that SCO is realizing (too late) that this elephant CAN dance...

question that has to be asked

[scronline]

WHO THE HELL CARES ANYMORE?!?! It's obvious that Darl McBride is a litigious bastard and that's how he...well, pretty much earns his living is taking people/companies to court. It's already been all but proven that SCO has no grounds and it's just dragging on now. Plain and simply, this whole move was NOTHING but a stock manipulation for corperate gain. It's also very probable that they were paid to do this by Microsoft and then left out to hang on their own when MS decided to sell off it's preferred stock because MS didn't like the way McBride was handling the situation. Hell, for all we know he approached MS saying "this is what we got, you want to help me fund it?"

Either rate, the effects are all still the same. McBride sued IBM without any proof of wrongdoing. SCO has seriously opened itself up for a plethora of lawsuits with this action and once it's proven in court that there was nothing going on.

Re:question that has to be asked

[Vortran]

Let me crystallize this a bit more.

Microsoft got a very big speed bump in the road to corporate adoption of GNU-LINUX and got rid of SCO for, what to them is, a little scratch. This was just the opening they needed to inject XP and Windows 2003 Server into corporate America.

With the priceless FUD that was generated and the quiet handshaking between nouveau bedfellow, Sun Systems, Microsoft is in a much better position to foster hegemony in the corporate server marketplace which is their ardent desire. Microsoft got all this for chump change, and good ol' Darl was the chump. Microsoft tossed him out like used toilet paper when they were done with him. Darl's ship didn't go down instantly so he got to hang on to his job for a little while longer and prepare for a quiet departure into retirement.

SCO used to be so damned cool, too. I remember when they had to send out memos to the staff to wear shoes adn be fully clothed when they were going to have an outsider visitor.

Vortran out

Re:question that has to be asked

[jambarama]

No way were they funded my M$. No way.

SCO came from Caldera, remember them? They won millions from M$ in the DRDOS anti-trust case. Why would M$ partner with them? M$ knows them for the litigous parasites they are, this company's bread and butter has been litigation since they were spun off from Novell (who did own DRDOS but spun off Caldera because they didn't want to be in the OS market).

Re:question that has to be asked

[scronline]

I guess things like this really had nothing to do with it....

http://www.practical-tech.com/business/b05212003.h tm

http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=microsoft+sco+sto ck&sm=Yahoo!+Search&fr=FP-tab-web-t&toggle=1&cop=& ei=UTF-8

will turn up lots of interesting results. The fact is that MS poured money into SCO to let them be the "bad guy" in the linux bashing since they already learned that bashing linux directly only hurt them more and brought more attention to linux that otherwise wouldn't have been realized. So they used someone else to do the dirty deed.

Not that I don't believe the proper tool for the proper job, sometimes Windows IS better for a person's needs, but that doesn't change the fact that MS will do anything to attempt to destroy, discredit, dismantle linux because it is the only true threat they face due to their size.

Re:question that has to be asked

[mtaht]

>SCO used to be so damned cool, too. I remember when >they had to send out memos to the staff to wear shoes >and be fully clothed when they were going to have an >outsider visitor. Those were the good ole days... when the suits (in 91) moved engineering away from its hot tub, everybody started getting tense, until now we have this situation.

Re:question that has to be asked

[phliar]

SCO used to be so damned cool, too.

This sounds pedantic, but I think it's important: Darl's SCO is not the same company as the "old" SCO that used to do Unix stuff. That Santa Cruz Ops -- "old" SCO -- changed its name to Tarantella (which was recently absorbed by Sun) and what used to be Caldera changed its name to "SCO".

It's not even Noorda's Caldera any more -- the Noorda family has long washed its hands of McBride and Co.

Darl McBride's SCO has nothing left in it from any technical company that may have existed at any time.

bigger issue at hand.

[CDPatten]

This really could be a road block for Linux. Well, a temp. road block until it gets re-written. However it really brings into light a larger issue with OSS. Closed source software maybe subject to this, but by its very nature, its very difficult to prove. OSS, could easily expose a large organization that decides to integrate community code.

There is no real check and balances to prevent a small author from stealing code, and then publishing it under one of the OSS licenses. At that point a larger company (red hat maybe?) picks it up and integrates it into their distro. They sell a million, and then a million violators. The author fades a away, and red hat gets stuck with the bad press and a big bill.

What are the ways to avoid this when you use community code? Is it to only use the big developers code (kinda defeats the purpose)? Anyways, what do you guys think about this...

Re:bigger issue at hand.

[Anonymous Coward]

What you describe is exactly what has NOT happened.
How do I know? Because said code is OUT THERE IN PUBLIC
and no private company except SCO has claimed such a thing.

There are all kinds of checks and balances to forbid just this thing from happening in the Linux kernel. And they have worked.
The sky is NOT falling.

The OPPOSITE case of stealing public code for private use
has been documented repeatedly, and caught without access to
the hidden private code.

What do I think? I think you have not examined the issue at any
depth at all.

Call back when you find a documented case of it happening.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Where is yours?

Re:bigger issue at hand.

[dwandy]

IANAL, but I think that generally infringement suits are preceded with cease-and-desist orders.
This would be the moment where (say RedHat) would be able to review the code, determine if they thought the claim was legit, and (if necessary) desist as per the cease-and desist. Once the code is removed/replaced, the cease-and-desist is met, and there is no further action (i.e. no damages sought, since they complied)
...if on the other hand RedHat thought there was nothing to substantiate the claim, they can go to court and take the financial responsibility (if any) that goes along with legal actions....

Re:bigger issue at hand.

[mrchaotica]

I think this issue has come up before. The best solution I heard was to have the contributor legally vouch for the code, asserting that he was authorized to contribute it. This, of course, means that to contribute, you'd have to provide enough contact information so that someone could go after you if you were caught lying...

I'm not sure, but I think the Linux kernel is moving towards this kind of policy.

Re:bigger issue at hand.

[Goeland86]

The easy way out is one that no company making closed software wants to hear:
NO SOFTWARE PATENTS!

Of course, only communist Europe and the developping natiosn we haven't paid off enough will actually have it that way...

Seriously, there's too many problems with the legal system here.
I'll steal one from bash.org:
"why don't we take the safety labels off everything and let the problem solve itself?"

This really is an issue in a system where courts can decide of the lives of so many people and corporations too.

I mean, to mean concepts and methods are NOT TO BE PATENTED: it's information. Sure, you can patent a particular implementation of an algorithm, but you can't prevent someone from using that same one later on. That's called KILLING COMPETITION!

Our senators don't understand it because they've got no clue what an algorithm is, or what software patents really prevent.

Find someone to voice that out loud and clear and comprehensibly to Congress, and I can guarantee there'll be a hot debate about it everywhere. Especially find ties to all the other industries besides the software industry... Then you've got more chances.
For instance, find proof that no software patents would benefit the oil industry, and you might get a clash of lobbies that would end up destroying the strength of both at the same time.

I'm a European grown American, and I come from a continent where lobbying is in 99% of the cases ILLEGAL, so imagine my reaction to the whole BS in this country!

256

[MrEcho.net]

Well they only listed 217 "things".
Looks like they over looked a few "things".

Re:256

[mopslik]

> Looks like they over looked a few "things"

Well, let's see now...

a-z: 26 chars
A-Z: 26 chars
1-0: 10 chars
!-): 10 chars
~, `, -, _, +, =, |, \, /, ?, <, >, :, ;, ", ', ., ,: 18 chars
{, }, [, ]: 4 chars
Tab, CR, LF, space: 4 chars

TOTAL: 98 chars

Unless there's some wonky Unicode comments in the kernel, I'd have to say that SCO accused them twice, and then some.

Re:256

[Anonymous Coward]

!-): 10 chars

Robocop?

Re:256

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh, I knew that someone would see a smiley.

Re:256

[MrEcho.net]

good point

Re:256

[mink]

More like old-school cylon. ! is a motion blur of the eye light thingy. I think for Robocop (Or Jordi LaForge) you need |-)

Two things:

[schon]

1. Considering that *everyone* who was involved with the Unix source licensing agreements has said that the licenses doesn't mean what SCOX claims it means (including AT&T publishing this in their $echo newsletter), how the hell does SCOX think they can push this past a judge?

2. Even if SCOX were correct in this, and it was against the contract for IBM to give *THEIR OWN SOURCE CODE AWAY*, why does this mean I owe them $699 per CPU? If (as in SCOX's insane world) IBM did something wrong, and IBM has to pay them Five Brazillion Dollars, doesn't that mean that SCOX has already been paid, and they can't go after someone else for the same thing?

Re:Two things:

[Anonymous Coward]

Five Brazillion Dollars

Wow, IBM should just pay up then. That's only about $2.21 US!

Re:Two things:

[TheSpoom]

...doesn't that mean that SCOX has already been paid, and they can't go after someone else for the same thing?

Unfortunately, no. If SCO wins the case, they could (and almost certainly would) then argue that Linux was improperly licensed under the GPL, having the effect of REVOKING its use from everyone. They would then license it exclusively to those who had paid up. Anyone else would be infringing on their copyright, because they would be using an invalid license.

Re:Two things:

[buckhead_buddy]

schon wrote:

If (as in SCOX's insane world) IBM did something wrong, and IBM has to pay them Five Brazillion Dollars

Actually, Brazil uses the Real as their currency and five Brazilian reais would be about $2.25 American bucks.

Jokes aside. This court case doesn't seem to be about money at all from IBM's side. They could have settled. They could have paid extortion fees. They could have gotten out of this mess much earlier and cheaper by just covering their own AIXsses. They have done much more for the state of Linux and the legal strength of open source by pursuing this as far as they have.

Corporations of course don't do things out of kindness or morality, but the results of this case show that IBM's open source speak and Linux efforts are really integrated into its profitability plans and not just marketing speak. That's probably one of the most re-assuring things that I've gotten out of this case and it has very little to do with the outcome of the SCO trial itself.

Re:Two things:

[schon]

they could (and almost certainly would) then argue that Linux was improperly licensed under the GPL

How? The only person who could (possibly) revoke the right to something is the copyright owner. That's IBM.

Unless you're arguing that SCOX *OWNS* the code (which they have just admitted they don't) then there's nothing they can do. I have it *WITH PERMISSION* from the copyright holder - if the copyright holder had other obligations that should have prevented them from giving it to me, then they can go after the copyright holder, but they have no basis for trying to stop me.

(This is beside the fact that SCOX distributed the code *themselves*.)

Anyone else would be infringing on their copyright

BULLSHIT. As SCOX IS NOT the copyright holder (we've already established this), then nobody would be infringing on their copyright.

Re:Two things:

[kinthalas]

So then, it's safe to say you don't read bash.org?

Re:Two things:

[Anonymous Coward]

IBM has to pay them Five Brazillion Dollars

Is $5 Brazillian worth more or less than $5 US?

Re:Two things:

[JordanL]

Five Brazillion Dollars

You know, with the current conversion rate, 5 brazilian dollars is only 2.22916 USD....

Re:Two things:

[Reliant-1864]

IBM isn't fighting this to protect Linux and Open Source. IBM is fighting this for IBM. IBM is known as a company that doesn't settle. They fight hard. They make it expensive. This is so IBM doesn't become a target for nuisance suits like SCO. On top of that, SCO sullied IBM's good name, and they need to win in court in order to clean it. If they settle, their name will always be tarnished. You'll have Darl shouting "See? We were right" while SCO stock goes through the roof.

SCO's first mistake was picking an opponent that doesn't like to settle. Their 2nd mistake was shouting about it in the press, making it so IBM couldn't settle without hurting themselves. For a corporation that thinks in terms of decades, a little money spent now saves a hundredfold down the line.

If you want a company known for settling, look at Microsoft. They are settling lawsuits left and right, and they just keep getting more. When there's blood spilled in the ocean, the sharks will come

Re:Two things:

[greenegg77]

It's because a Brazillion Dollar isn't worth a whole bunch, and that's what IBM's entire bank account it in. So they need to get some real dough, preferably American Dollars (they'll take Euros as well). That's where you come in.

Please head over to Sco's web page and click on their pay-pal link...

Re:Two things:

[TheSpoom]

Sorry, hard for me to keep track of this case. I thought they were arguing that they owned the parts of the code in question, which would allow them to say that said code could not be distributed unless licensed.

Anyway, calm down, I'm not arguing in any sense of the word that SCO is right.

Re:Two things:

[Anonymous Coward]

See first entry here.

Re:Two things:

[schon]

Sorry, hard for me to keep track of this case.

Ahh, OK. Yes, considering that SCOX keeps changing what they claim, I can understand that.

calm down

OK, now it's my turn to sorry :o)

I'm not arguing in any sense of the word that SCO is right.

Yes, I see that now.

Re:Two things:

[Anonymous Coward]

http://qdb.us/50484

Re:Two things:

[SillySlashdotName]

1) Never underestimate the power of wishful thinking and stupidity.

2a) You don't, as TSCOG released THE EXACT SAME CODE under the GPL.

2b) Any fine IBM would be assessed (the 5 (pinky to mount) BILLION dollars) would be a legal punishment, not a fee to license. Under your scenerio (not the actuality) TSCOG would still own the IP they started with, plus the $5B, and the right to license their IP any way they want to. Of course, here in the real world where TSCOG didn't have any IP in the first place...

Re:Two things:

[schon]

Any fine IBM would be assessed (the 5 (pinky to mount) BILLION dollars) would be a legal punishment, not a fee to license

Umm, fee to license what!?!?! Why would I pay SCOX a fee to license IBM's code, when IBM has already given me a license?

Under your scenerio (not the actuality) TSCOG would still own the IP they started with, plus the $5B, and the right to license their IP any way they want to.

I say again - WHAT IP? In the SCOX alternate universe I described, SCOX doesn't have any IP either - and that's the problem.

SCOX has accused IBM of contributing IBM's OWN CODE to Linux. Not SCOX code, but code that IBM wrote and is the sole copyright holder.

Re:Two things:

[SillySlashdotName]

Ah, I think I see now.

Why would I pay SCOX a fee to license IBM's code, when IBM has already given me a license?

TSCOG is claiming that IBM signed a contract giving control of the code to both IBM and TSCOG (many, MANY legal problems with this theory, but it seems to be what they are claiming), so IBM could not legally let you have a license, so you are using the code illegally if you don't also have TSCOGs permission which you can have for the low, low price of $699 - BUT WAIT!! call in the next 10 minutes and get this Ginsu knife ABSOLUTELY FREE!!

SCOX has accused IBM of contributing IBM's OWN CODE to Linux. Not SCOX code, but code that IBM wrote and is the sole copyright holder.

Except that TSCOG is claiming that IBM signed a contract giving control of the release of the code to both IBM and TSCOG. So, although the code was developed by IBM, TSCOG is claiming a legal veto on the release, claiming the contract gives them that right.

TSCOG is saying IBM did something they shouldn't have, namely releasing code that they signed a contract NOT to release. As punishment, TSCOG is asking for BILLIONS AND BILLIONS BWAAHAAAAHAAA...

And for just $699, they promise not to sue YOU as well for using the code IBM released that TSCOG has control over based on the contract (that does not say what TSCOG says it says, at least according to AT&T, et al).

This is/was a straight out extortion attemt - pay us now, or we will sue everyone for outrageous sums later. The 'license' was a 'get out of jail cheap' card, not an actual license for what belonged to IBM but was, according to TSCOGs novel legal theory, controlled by TSCOG.

I even think if their underlying (pun?) contention was true - that IBM signed over the rights TSCOG is claiming they did - then the remainder of their argument might have some merit. As TSCOG has not proven ANYTHING yet and seems not to be able to prove anything going forward, I really don't have any fears I will be needing to shell out the $$$.

I can't wait for IBM's response

[Canonical AC]

IBM's lawyers should put this to rest pretty quickly...

I assume that "an entire file management system" refers to JFS, which IBM wrote. I recall SCO claiming that anything written for UNIX somehow belonged to them, so that little argument should be entertaining to watch them lose.

And, of course, as others have pointed out, "methods and concepts" are not code. I wonder where people (and I'm looking at you Larry McVoy) got the idea that copying functionality was the same as copying code. Seeing a spell-check in another product and adding it as a feature in your own product is not infringing on anything. (I've seen posts by Larry where he's threatened Subversion if he saw features from Bitkeeper in Subversion).

Re:I can't wait for IBM's response

[Anonymous Coward]

Seeing a spell-check in another product and adding it as a feature in your own product is not infringing on anything.

Unless you've managed to patent "spell checking".

With the current patent fracas, I would not be surprised.

Groklaw got a story ...

[linumax]

and part of that story says:

Yeah? We'll see. Or maybe only the parties and the judge will, but if they had found infringing literal code, there is absolutely no reason not to show it without seal, because if it's literal, it's out there in the public already. All Linux code is freely viewable by anyone on Planet Earth. The astronauts can look at it too. SCO may be afraid the Linux community will pull the rug out from under them before they can get to trial, if they tell us publicly what they think they have. Every time they tell us what they think is infringing, somebody proves they are mistaken. At best.

A Large Ball of Light...

[lax-goalie]

...was reported in the sky over Virginia last night.

Astronomers initially believed it was a meteor, but it was later determined to be SCO's case against IBM cratering spectacularly...

Five pages, 217 "areas of infringement"

[StevenMaurer]

By my count, that's 43 "areas" per page. Each "area" is one or two lines.
Not much specificity in there, methinks.

They probably filed it under seal to keep the whole OSS community from howling in laughter.

How much did they pay this lawyer?

[Red Flayer]

FTA: "The numerosity and substantiality of the disclosures reflects the pervasive extent and sustained degree as to which IBM disclosed methods, concepts, and in many places, literal code, from Unix-derived technologies in order to enhance the ability of Linux to be used as a scalable and reliable operating system for business and as an alternative to proprietary Unix systems such as those licensed by SCO and others." -- attributed to SCO

Commenting on a disclosure in big words doesn't make the complaint any more valid. I mean, sure, I've a propensity to bloviate without regard to efficient communications strategies and verbal deployments utilizing synergistic vocabularistic qualities to increase comprehension.

But, why can't they say "IBM broke our contract by using our proprietary ideas to make their software work as well as ours. They did it so much that it was obviously intentional and illegal." (note: I am not accepting this as fact)

Re:How much did they pay this lawyer?

[Hellboy0101]

I read a saying once that sums this up best. It goes, "Suing IBM is like kicking a Pit Bull. No matter how it ends up, you're gonna be a mess.". I can't remeber who said it, but truer words have never been spoken.

Re:How much did they pay this lawyer?

[ProfFalcon]

OK, that almost made me fall off my chair. I thought I was the only one able to pare down this extremely long sentence to less than half the words with the exact same meaning.

I guess they think that if everyone falls into a drooling coma reading his statements, he wins by default.

Re:How much did they pay this lawyer?

[Anonymous Coward]

How much did they pay this lawyer? By the word, evidently.

Cheers, Phil

Re:How much did they pay this lawyer?

[Obsi]

SCO's using marketing lingo in their legal documents?
Then again, they ARE trying to sell their 20 pounds of bullshit to the judge.

In reply to a previous poster, I got exactly what ya meant. Give their bullshit back, have them eat off the lead plates using arsenic-laced forks, and bury them in the coffin. =)

The important thing (actually, not)

[ZachPruckowski]

Where do I mail the check for $699? Or more precisely, where do I mail $699 in Monopoly money? I was considering $699 in pennies, but then I thought about the shipping costs...

Never thought I'd be saying GO IBM!!, but this is getting ridiculous.

Re:The important thing (actually, not)

[Nf1nk]

>>I was considering $699 in pennies, but then I thought about the shipping costs...

Well you could start some corispondance with them perhaps they will send you a business reply envelope that you could put 69,900 pennies in. You know kind of like the fun stuff you can stuff in credit card offer envelopes. like tuna....

Re:The important thing (actually, not)

[ZachPruckowski]

Once it reaches like 10 ounces or something, I can't stick it in the mailbox, I have to go to the post office. but the idea of getting them to pay the shipping is tempting. Very tempting, actually. But do they get a bill for those envelopes you have to stamp, or do they pay up front? Because if they pay up front, I have to pay beyond the first or second ounce.

Re:The important thing (actually, not)

[Senzei]

You could always convince them that they need to send a fedex guy out to pick it up from your house. At that point you could ship pretty much any weight item.

I, personally, would ship them $699 worth of gold brick... pre philosopher-stone-transformation, which by my (probably incorrect) calculations means:

• 20 pounds of bull excrement
• 2 sets of lead-based plateware, and arsenic-coated flatware
• 1 pine box, jumbo sized

• • Hopefully someone else reads this and gets that.

Re:how many???

[Anonymous Coward]

your right, at 12 pt font, they could only get about 250 lines on standard (non legal)US letter paper. That includes introduction, conclusions, all accusations, letterhead, and all of the re: and cc: stuff. each accusation could take only 1 line. This assumes NO whitespace at all.

The documents are under SEAL

[HavokDevNull]

According to http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200511010 0443634 the Docs are under seal, and as PJ puts it "there is absolutely no reason not to show it without seal, because if it's literal, it's out there in the public already." and "SCO may be afraid the Linux community will pull the rug out from under them before they can get to trial, if they tell us publicly what they think they have. Every time they tell us what they think is infringing, somebody proves they are mistaken. At best."

IMHO SCO is just blowing smoke again, and trying to pump up the stock.

Re:The documents are under SEAL

[Vortran]

...stack. Pump up the stack.

MOD PARENT UP (Re:Five pages, 217 violations?)

[TeXMaster]

Parent is Informative.

Re:MOD PARENT UP (Re:Five pages, 217 violations?)

[shotfeel]

That's what I keep telling my kids!

But they keep modding me -1 Redundant (or worse).

NOVELL owns UNIX, not SCO

[Anonymous Coward]

And I've no idea what Apple has to do with it.

The beginning of the end for SCO

[Viol8]

Once this has been thrown out and SCO have to cough up to pay
all the lawyers (again) , no one will want to touch their products
with a rose scented bargepole. Not that SCO unix is exactly flying
off the shelves anyway. This is a last gasp of a company dying very
publically, though I'm not sure that even the fat lady will
bother to sing for them now.

Re:The beginning of the end for SCO

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe the fat lady will hurl on SCO, instead!

Re:The beginning of the end for SCO

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah... it has been the beginning of the end since the beginning.

Letterman

[everphilski]

Which proves some of us are true nerds and dont get out much...

-everphilski-

I have some inside information...

[nicholaides]

I don't know if I'm supposed to be posting this on /. but I have some inside information. I had the priviledge of seeing some of the code that SCO says Linux stole, and I believe SCO has a very strong case. There were many instances where Linux took SCO's code almost verbatim. Many instances looked like this:

for (i=0; i<size; ++i)
{
/*... omitted for vagueness ...*/
}

and often times:

if ( /*... some condition ...*/ ) {
/*... do something ...*/
}

Often times variable names, such would be changed, and the code in the middle was alwaysn altered to have different functionality, no doubt in an attempt to cover their tracks.

I think if you saw the code SCO provided, you would see that Linux blatantly stole huge chunks of code almost verbatim.

Re:I have some inside information...

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is the actual offending code:

/* hello.c - demo code
  *
  * This code, and all code derived from this code, including
  * translations into any other language, are the property of
  * the SCO Group.
  *
  * This code and everything derived from it is
  * Copyright (c) SCO Group. All Rights Reserved
  */

#include

int main (int argc, char **argv)
{
          printf("Hello, World!\n");
}

Since the famous 'Hello World' program or some variation thereof is the first program written by nearly every programmer regardless of the language, ALL programs in every computer language infringe on SCOs IP.

Re:I have some inside information...

[Eli Gottlieb]

Wow, SCO declares their loop counter variables outside of the for statement itself? Dumbasses.

Re:I have some inside information...

[Anonymous Coward]

A bigger dumbass would be someone not knowing the difference between C and C++.

Re:I have some inside information...

[planetoid]

You would have to in pre-C99 C code.

Re:I have some inside information...

[Eli Gottlieb]

Actually, current C (C99 standard, at the very least) allows declaring loop counters in the for statement.

So, yes, it would seem SCO is dumb enough to use antiquated C.

Re:I have some inside information...

[lcam]

I think it would have been better for SCO to publish a book on C programming. Call it "Learn C in 23 hours" or something. Besides the actual copywrite they might patent the paper it's written on, the method of turning pages in the book and the method to scan over the glyphs from left to right while reading.

Just so their patent is original they can optionally consider binding the book on the right side.

They then send a free copy to every software developer in their DB, especially the ones who work for known software companies like Borland. (They may not realize Borland no longer exists)

They then would have laid the framework to claim copywrite on all software written since 1960. Their book is the proof; anyone who read their book with their patented reading technology, has had their mind tainted. Whatever code they will write or had written belongs to SCO. As proof to the court they will present the sample code snippets scanned from their book.

Re:I have some inside information...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ummm... The *Bible* on its original language is binded on the right side. Hardly original.

WTF

[kurbchekt]

So this means that the operating system I went to, to free myself from using stolen software, is possibly stolen itself? Aaaahhh, delicious irony.

Nightmare if SCO folds with case unresolved?

[dpbsmith]

What happens if SCO goes bankrupt and nobody wants to go on paying their lawyers? Does the simply get abandoned, unresolved, leaving LINUX with a legal cloud over it? And the DiDios of the world warning businesses that if they use LINUX someday the acquirer of SCO's assets might successfully finish the suit?

Re:Nightmare if SCO folds with case unresolved?

[e6003]

No. If SCO was to declare bankruptcy then an administrator would be appointed to manage the assets, in place of the current team (McBride, Sontag et al). One of his first acts would be to settle the lawsuit SCO started with IBM and he'd have pretty much no choice but to do it on IBM's terms - such as a full and public admission that SCO never had a case, they were just blowing smoke etc. No-one will buy SCO because of IBM's counter-claims against them and also Red Hat's claims. If SCO lose or settle, then the trade libel claims Red Hat and IBM have made against them (for claiming they have found millions of lines of Unix code, that Red Hat's continued selling Linux is "painting a big liability target on their customers' backs" etc.) would be a slam-dunk. Anyone who bought SCO would inherit these legal liabilities and the massive fines that go with them.

I expect IBM to refile its motions for summary judgement early in 2006 because from the evidence apparently filed here, SCO is still doing the same old dance about JFS, RCU and NUMA which no-one in their right mind believes are either copyright or contract infringing.

Re:Nightmare if SCO folds with case unresolved?

[Anonymous Coward]

Somebody in a previous post has stated that SCO paid a $30 million lumpsum to the lawyers. If that's true, I am sure SCO can stay alive just enough to keep the lawsuit going.

Re:Nightmare if SCO folds with case unresolved?

[Random BedHead Ed]

Yes. This is why I really hope the case is resolved soon. And IBM seems to have the same idea, judging from the fact that they dropped their patent counterclaims. Those were always meant to bleed SCO dry, but now that SCO is faltering under decreased revenue, IBM clearly sees that winning the core case is important for the whole Linux community.

Linux's purpose

[Eli Gottlieb]

disclosing a method or concept from Unix technology

Wow, so I suppose Linux really shouldn't be a Unix workalike after all. Let us march joyously back to the drawing board!

Re:Linux's purpose

[Anonymous Coward]

Shit we will just change / to \ ... and ifconfig to ipconfig, and leave just about everything else the same. Sorry my mistake, someone else already did, along with some concepts from Digital, 'cept they left the friggin' barn door open! All we have to do is rename the variables in the function statements and bingo we can create Squindows, a secure operating system that uses squid like secure internet functionality! What a concept.

Re:Linux's purpose

[steve_l]

yeah, lets make it Multics derivative instead. oh, wait a minute, it probably is already.

Actually, having used OS/360 in the distant past, I am grateful that IBM didnt port all ther mainframe world into Linux. A world where you wouldnt use a pipe to feed stuff to programs, but instead use virtual card punches and virtual card readers is not one I want to be part of.

Re:Linux's purpose

[Eli Gottlieb]

Actually, it isn't. Unix was a cut-down (ie: neutered) Multics, which means that Linux is the Open Source derivative of a neutered, cut down operating system. Funny thing is, we now have all the processing power and hardware needed to make Multics itself worth reserructing, but nobody does it.

Will list of violations to be unsealed?

[Mostly a lurker]

The court has already asked that documents in this case not be sealed arbitrarily without valid reasons. I cannot fathom what reasons tSCOg could have for needing the list of supposed violations sealed. I hope IBM asks (at a minimum) for a redacted version to be made public.

If not, I suspect the final list of supposed transgressions (in December if the schedule does not slip) and the battle over IBM's motions for summary judgments to be mostly sealed. We can then expect some spectacular media grandstanding from tSCOg, trumpeting the strength of their sealed case, before they finally go down in flames.

Re:Will list of violations to be unsealed?

[randyflood]

Actually, the big thing that was stolen was

#include

There are a bunch of lines like this that were copied literally right from UNIX into Linux.

Re:Will list of violations to be unsealed?

[Eli Gottlieb]

Who owns the rights to the C language?

Re:Linux/Unix opengroup TM

[free2]

I notice the words Linux and Unix share many of the same letters. Guilty!
That's why I bought a lot of SCO stock at 100$ each !
Oups, it appears Unix is a trademark from the OpenGroup... http://opengroup.org/certification/unix-home.html
I'm selling... at 4$ :(

One big problem for SCO AKA Caldera is..

[the_rajah]

that they released, as in GPL, their own Linux distro a while back. Once you release the code under the GPL, there's no taking it back. It's out there and available for anyone to use under the terms of the GPL. I am at a loss as to why this hasn't been hammered on to put an end to this sham/scam that SCO is trying so desperately to pull off. This release of the source code as Caldera eliminated in my opinion, lets IBM off the hook in that regard.

Then, of course, there's that nasty little detail wherein SCO/Caldera never owned the copyrights anyway.

Re:One big problem for SCO AKA Caldera is..

[DrSkwid]

If the code if infringing, you can't relicense it.

If IBM were not entitled to include the code in Linux then it was never under the GPL.

Or else I could just slap the GPL on the leaked Windows Source Code and say "ha, well it's GPL now"

Re:One big problem for SCO AKA Caldera is..

[schon]

If the code if infringing, you can't relicense it.

Why not?

If IBM were not entitled to include the code in Linux then it was never under the GPL.

Yes, it was. IBM explicitly said so.

I could just slap the GPL on the leaked Windows Source Code and say "ha, well it's GPL now"

Only if you own the copyright to the source code.

Re:One big problem for SCO AKA Caldera is..

[Darth]

If IBM were not entitled to include the code in Linux then it was never under the GPL.

until SCO released it under the GPL, you are correct.

Or else I could just slap the GPL on the leaked Windows Source Code and say "ha, well it's GPL now"

the issue the grandparent was pointing out is that SCO distributed a GPL'd linux kernel containing the code they claim to own. As the (supposed) owners, they certainly would have the legal right to relicense that code and by releasing it as part of the linux kernel under the GPL, they have relicensed it.

The only defense they could have is that they didn't know it was in there and shouldn't be forced to "accidentally" GPL code via an act of copyright violation. This doesn't fly, however, because they continued to distribute the linux kernel, and the code they claim is infringing in it, under the GPL for a year after they initially madethe claims. It's hard to say you didnt know it was in there when you've filed a lawsuit specifically about it.

Re:One big problem for SCO AKA Caldera is..

[Ossifer]

Darth is absolutely correct, however this has no bearing on the lawsuit. If (and it's a big "if") IBM did release SCO code in violation of the contract, it's irrelevant if SCO even voluntarily GPLs the code at some later date--IBM still broke the contract. Releasing the code doesn't undo history.

Re:One big problem for SCO AKA Caldera is..

[mce]

Yes, IBM did break their contract in that case. But that in turn does not affect Linux. SCO has itself released the code under GPL and has for over a year not revoked those releases as having happened "only because of IBM's misbehaviour". This makes the entire case irrelevant. No matter the outcome of the contractual dispute, Linux is not legally affected in any way.

Re:One big problem for SCO AKA Caldera is..

[Grishnakh]

Or else I could just slap the GPL on the leaked Windows Source Code and say "ha, well it's GPL now"

Apples and oranges.

If Microsoft released the Windows source code under the GPL and distributed it on their website, they can't turn around and claim that it's illegal for you to use that code.

This is what SCO has done by releasing their own version of Linux (named Caldera Linux).

Re:One big problem for SCO AKA Caldera is..

[cbreaker]

There's no difference between re-distribution of and releasing code?

Re:One big problem for SCO AKA Caldera is..

[Anonymous Coward]

You mis the point. SCO THEMSELVES released their own linux distribution with this code in it. That means they knowingly distributed their alleged IP under GPL. That they can't take back now. If they had never released it themselves you could have had a point. But they did.

Re:One big problem for SCO AKA Caldera is..

[bani]

Or else I could just slap the GPL on the leaked Windows Source Code and say "ha, well it's GPL now"

What actually happened is more like Microsoft themselves officially releasing Windows Source Code as GPL and making it available for download from www.microsoft.com. Then four years later suddenly going "oops, we didn't mean it".

Re:One big problem for SCO AKA Caldera is..

[Mistshadow2k4]

A very good point. But what I want to know is this:

SCO threatened comapnies, saying pay us a licensing fee or face a lawsuit for using the products such as Linux that were made with our stolen code, which was legally never stolen in the first place. Microsoft is one of the few companies that did pay up ($14 million, if I recall corretly, but naturally that's pocket change to MS). So.... why isn't anyone suing SCO for extortion? That is what they did, both legally and morally. If they'd threatned my software/site/whatever on that claim, that's what I'd be doing. Or is SCO in legal trouble for extortion? If they are, we need links.

Oh Really...

[eno2001]

This is just as ridiculous as the Count from Sesame Street claiming that he has a list of IP violations in Linux in the SCO case. I can hear it now:

"One! One IP violation!!! Hahahahahah! Two!! Two IP violations!!!! Ahahahahaha!!!!"...

Maybe it's time

[rbanffy]

Maybe it's time to start collecting donations via a darlbehindbars.org website.

Breach of contract was late to the party

[brokeninside]

SCO's original complaint was dominated by trade secret and copyright claims. Breach of contract was added relatively late into the party.

For a good overview, look at Groklaw's summary which has the original and ammended complaints in chronological order.

They're asking for a smack upside the head

[Anonymous Coward]

Judge K. has asked that documents not be sealed unless necessary. They will probably have to show that this actually is necessary. My guess is that IBM will move to have the document unsealed. Sealing it unnecessarily probably isn't contempt of court but I'm also guessing that it will be mentioned from the bench.

Re: Moriarty, where are you?

[rkhalloran]

Actually, given the plaintiff involved, it might be time to drag Jeff Meyer out of pseudo-retirement and revive STUPID PEOPLE'S COURT!

What if it's just a smear job?

[Anonymous Coward]

What if the years of stupid claims were simply to get lots of press attention, to be followed by a valid case on the merits of contract breach? Then, if IBM loses, it will be perceived by the public at large as "That big copyright case that IBM lost", instead of having anything to do with the merits of the case. Bingo! Nobody will want to touch Linux because of all the copyright issues they don't even try to understand. You can fight it with facts, but the fact remains that fighting a dead issue is a waste of time.

Remind me

[Rogerborg]

Where in the GPL version 2 does it say "irrevocable and in perpetuity"?

Re:Remind me

[honkycat]

Once it's "out there" it's out there unless no one else has a copy of it -- SCO would be free to stop distributing it under the GPL at any time. However, if someone else got a copy under the GPL they've already been licensed to give you a copy of it under the GPL, so it's still available. Once I've got a license to make a copy under particular terms that don't specify an end date, it's gonna be hard to revoke that license.

Really? No percentage of the damages?

[jpellino]

Not that it's a good bet, but when lawyers agree to a cap on complex litigation, there's usually a 1/3 award fee at the other end...

Did'nt you know what LINUX stands for?

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux
Is
Not
UniX

duh people!
see, its not unix! no way any of SCO's unix code could have made it in!!
its like saying some sco code found its way into a GNU project

eesh

In all seriousness, I find it amusing that many of the linux advocates I used to know who argued sooooo long with the BSD crowd that linux was infact "another unix" are now arguing sooooo hard about how there isnt any unix in linux ;-)

-GenTimJS

This Fall's Blockbuster Hit!

[RoffleTheWaffle]

LINUX LAWSUIT 2: RETURN OF THE SCO

Coming to a courthouse near you!

Where do I mail the check for $699?

[Anonymous Coward]

Where do I mail the check for $699?

That would be here:

http://slashdot.org/~sco$699feetroll

SCO's complaint boils down to this ...

[linuxguy]

IBM stole its own code and put it in Linux. Now they owe us money for doing this.

"The numerosity and substantiality of the disclosures reflects the pervasive extent and sustained degree as to which IBM disclosed methods, concepts, and in many places, literal code, from Unix-derived technologies ..."

The last part "Unix-derived technologies" is where they give it away. According to their "understanding" if IBM wrote any code for IBM's AIX (based on sys V) that code became toxic the moment it touched the AIX system. All hope is lost for IBM to wish their own code as they please from that point on.

Re:SCO's complaint boils down to this ...

[rkhalloran]

Of course

a) AT&T's lawyers have said for the record the restriction only applied if SysV code was incorporated into the vendor's product, not for independent code added to the baseline (such as JFS, NUMA, etc).

b) Novell's said the same.

c) There's still the case between SCO & Novell whether the copyrights went with the code, or Santa Cruz simply became a licensor who sold those rights to Caldera. SCO may have no standing to begin with.

Re: Don't mess with the Nazgul

[rkhalloran]

a) IBM's been accused of breaking a contract and stealing a business partner's IP. Given the amount of money IBM makes from services, that's a Very Bad Thing to be accused of.

b) IBM has sunk buckets o' money into Linux. They don't want to have to dole some of it out to somebody else.

c) IBM has enough cash on hand and legal staff to drown SCO in lawyers until Doomsday.

d) SCO launched a nuisance suit expecting to get a quick, quiet payoff to go away. If every vendor that ever dealt with IBM and is now in financial trouble did the same and expected a payout, IBM would be bleeding money. Making an object lesson of SCO's to-date-laughable claims solves the problem.

e) Big Bad Blue has received much geek cred for their stand.

f) SCO has successfully pulled IBM, Novell and Red Hat down on them; we may *finally* resolve ownership of whatever copyrights still exist on UNIX and what should become of them, and the enforceability of the GPL.

Contract Disputes Can't Be Made In Utah.

[taj]

SCOX may well have contract disputes but they will have to file new claims in New York if they have not expired. I doubt they can still file in even New York.

If this is about contract disputes in Utah, laugh politely as you look at how little cash SCOX has at this point. Contract disputes also do not translate to end user liability.

Linux users should not care about this on multiple levels.

Thank god.

[schon]

I'm glad at least one person gets topical humor. :o)

The SCO Business Model

[scruffylooking]

Sue a really big company and if we win, we get a boatload of cash! If we lose, we go our merry way to bankruptcy court and then out of business! Funny, either way the SCO customer does not seem to be in their mindset. Thus, the mass exodus of customers moving away from SCO. They could learn a lesson from Google. Create a great product that people love and the financial reward will come.

"violated contracts"

[raidient]

"In a five-page document filed Friday, SCO attorneys say they have identified 217 areas in which the company believes IBM or Sequent, a Unix server company IBM acquired, violated contracts under which SCO and its predecessors licensed the Unix operating system."

No copyright infringement claims made by SCOG. What were those Linux licences they were selling for, exactly?

OSS replies to SCO

[Anonymous Coward]

"We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight! We're going to live on! We're going to survive! Today we celebrate our (OSS) Day!"

Not their choice

[rewt66]

The December 22 deadline was set by court order. SCO's desire for maximum publicity has nothing to do with it. (Though it occurs to me that the court might have factored that in when choosing the exact schedule...)

Re:Really? No percentage of the damages?

[booch]

They not only get a percentage of the award (if SCO wins), but they also get a big pay-off if SCO gets bought out.

Re: Don't mess with the Nazgul

[Doc Ruby]

Those are the established strategic results of this litigation. But why is it taking 3+ years to do all that? All those goals would be better achieved in a year or so, rather than leave unresolved risk hanging over Linux - and all of IBM - for years.

SCO has no value to buy

[It doesn't come easy]

If any company bought SCO, they would have to make a decision right away. They would have to decide what to do about the lawsuit. If they decided SCO didn't have a case, they would still have to deal with all of the damage SCO has caused to other companies (if you buy a company, you buy everything, including liabilities). Very expensive. Plus, by deciding SCO did not have a case the purchasing company would effectively be giving up any purported value to whatever SCO actually does own of UNIX (which is not much if anything). If purchasing company decided to continue the lawsuit, they would inherit the same lack of evidence that SCO is contending with and end up with the same losing case and still have to face the consequences of SCO's actions. From a business perspective, the only thing SCO has that might be worth anything is their UNIX server software for small businesses (which is rapidly being superceded by Linux) and their customer good will (which SCO has pretty much destroyed). In other words, SCO as it stands today is already dead as a company. The only question is: What will they do as a response, liquidate or reform in a different business? Whatever that new business could be is anyone's guess -- but I would bet it could have something to do with Me, Inc.

Re:Topic

[rincebrain]

We'd love to, if only they'd tell us what code.

And tonight's lead off new story......

[Halvard]

The Emperor's New Clothes. I'm sure they are very nice but I just wish I could see them!

Court Picked Date

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

OK, you're right. Everyone else, read this: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/25102005/221/evidence-dea dline-approaches-sco-versus-ibm.html

These dates were set in July. From the article...

"The December 22 final deadline for evidence will give both SCO and IBM an opportunity to update their evidence based on any newly uncovered evidence before the close of fact discovery on January 27, 2006, and any other discovery matters on March 17, 2006. That will be followed by a series of expert reports, and dispositive motions, before a special attorney conference and settlement conference on January 30, 2007. The five-week jury trial is scheduled to begin on February 26, 2007."

Re:Topic

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, just tell us what is stolen, and we will gladly rewrite it.

Numerosity

[SlightlyOldGuy]

numerosity and substantiality

I'll give them one thing, they're expanding our vocabularies. Those words are indeed in the dictionary. But the problem is, I cannot imagine ever using them in a non-BS context.

Re:Numerosity

[Krach42]

Yeah, me and a roommate commented once about ad-words. They're real words, but no one uses them except for ad companies. As the prime example: hearty.

I mean, put "hearty" into a sentence, and you take a reasonable sentence and make it sound like you pulled it out of a commercial.

Countersuits would have to be addressed

[rkhalloran]

IBM has a countersuit that would have to be answered, probably one of the reasons they didn't go for the quick kill. There's also the Red Hat case with Lanham Act violations. Whoever gets the debris of SCO would *still* have to answer those charges, which would make it hard to unload on someone. A bankruptcy trustee would likely be very interested in settling all claims to clear the deck for a liquidation sale.

Re:What Next? The First TRUTH Revealed

[Maow]

while(1) {

Well then, this is a good thing. Maybe SCO should realize that their kernel shouldn't contain an endless while(true) loop-- that explains many problems.

That explains where they keep the truth at SCO methinks.

Nope

[rewt66]

Then SCO would be under new management (a trustee). The new management has to decide whether to continue the case or not. The new management cannot decide whether to dismiss IBM's counterclaims or not; only IBM can decide that. So if the trustee wants the suit to go away, he/she has to settle with IBM. Given the lack of urgency IBM has shown so far toward settling, any settlement would have to be on IBM's terms. This would probably include, at a minimum, SCO publicly stating that the entire case has been BS from the beginning, that IBM and Linux are both totally clear of any wrongdoing or infringement.

I'm not sure even that would be enough to satisfy IBM, but if it was, it wouldn't be so bad...

Redundant? MODS on crack

[StevenMaurer]

Listen up, moron mods: something isn't "Redundant" if its posted within a few minutes of another identical "Insightful" comment. All that means is that two people didn't see that observation already in the record, started at the same time, and one of them was a tiny bit faster in the typing, spellcheck, and submit.

My rule when I Metamod is that any marking of "Redundant" had better come at least 20 minutes behind the comment it's supposed to copy. Otherwise you get Meta-modded DOWN.

Commenting on Slashdot shouldn't be a race to get your comment in the quickest. The last thing this blog needs is quick, trite, misspelled, one-liners.

Re:Topic

[rewt66]

Um... mind if we, before we rush to agree with you, ask for a little proof, or some such?

Or should I just label you as a troll and ignore you?

Re:Topic

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah yeah.

It might be the case, but if they dont show it, we cannot fix it.

MSdirection of attention

[couch_warrior]

The grand scheme here is that Microsoft developers were busy copying the kernel of Linux to create the "all new, more stable" kernel of Longhorn.

But there was no company to buy to safegaurd their piracy.

So the SCO vs IBM case is an attempt to back-door establish that SCO owns the copyright to Linux.

Then MS can buy SCO, own the copyrights to the Longhorn kernel, and Darl goes home a wealthy scoundrel.

SCO stock

[rodgster]

looks like baystar has been dumping stock for the last year+. Guess they have to get back some money before bankruptcy and de-listing.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/it?s=SCOX

Re:Scam

[kolobcreek]

Several years ago I was at Budget rent a car in Provo, Ut. While waiting in the lobby I saw a gentleman wearing a Caldera T-Shirt. I started a conversation with him and asked him if he worked for Caldera. He replied that he didn't but was a PR Consultant for them. Curious about the local tech company I asked them how business was going. He said business was going well and that they just had a record quarter. I asked him what made what this quarter so good. He replied that Caldera had just settled law suit with Microsoft Concerning DR DOS. After a few more questions about the company's future it didn't seem as though they had a clear strategy for making money. Looks like they have one now. Why sell software when you can buy a the right to sue the tech world at large? Its all about free money.... free money

Re:Redundant? MODS on crack

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah, I think your absollutely right

What a Country!

[Zerbs]

In this country, you can copyright methods and thoughts... In Soviet Union, government tells you what methods and thoughts to have!.

Re:Redundant? MODS on crack

[Anonymous Coward]

Get a life. It's only a post.

Not quite

[TheConfusedOne]

Your example fails on one point. In this case the person who claims to own said code was the one who released it under the GPL.

Now they can try to claim that they didn't realize that they were licensing their own code but that's a hard sell especially when they didn't yank the code immediately off their site when they made the claim. You could download Linux from SCO's site for at least a year after their initial claim.

Remember: Today's SCO isn't the old SCO

[callipygian-showsyst]

I'm saddened by what's happened to SCO's brand. SCO used to be a cool company. The name stood for the Santa Cruz Operation, and it was a smallish company of some very bright people who brought Unix to Intel Architecture: first 80286 and then 80386 architecure and beyond.

It was that got me involved in Un*x, back in 1988. I had decided it was time to move from the Long Island defense industry, and make a move to Silicon Valley. I started with Andy's "MINIX" and then paid the $1200 bucks or so for SCO Xenix, installed it on my 80386 PC (with an American Megatrends/Mylex motherboard!) and learned Unix (especially low-level matters like writing device drivers.) Shortly after, I was able to get a job with Olivetti Advanced Technology Lab in Cupertino.

My job involved close interaction with the engineering staff at SCO--folks like Mike Patnode (whose name sounds like a Unix command) and others who knew SysV inside and out.

The company is completely different now. The same in name only. They're not in Santa Cruz anymore (a hippy beach resort in Central California)--instead they're in Utah.

Re:Remember: Today's SCO isn't the old SCO

[ashridah]

The company you're looking for is now called tarentella, aka, [old]SCO. They aren't quite as sharp however, and they did sell some parts of their licenses to [new]SCO.

[new]SCO are the people currently involved in this amusement park sideshow.

Re:Remember: Today's SCO isn't the old SCO

[narcc]

[new]SCO .. So then why isn't Tarentella called SCO Classic ?

Re:Remember: Today's SCO isn't the old SCO

[narcc]

[new]SCO ... So why isn't Tarentella called 'SCO Classic'?

Re:Remember: Today's SCO isn't the old SCO

[scottennis]

They're not in Santa Cruz anymore (a hippy beach resort in Central California)--instead they're in Utah.

Lindon, Utah! (A hippy beach resort in Central Utah) Aw, forget it. I got nothin'.

Come to think of it, except for SCO, Lindon's got nothin' either.

Hard, yes

[Rogerborg]

You'd need many millions of dollars and to have an agenda based more on discrediting the GPL than on protecting any particular copyrighted work. Know anyone who fits that Bill?

Re:Hard, yes

[honkycat]

Very hard. I think it would be *extremely* difficult to make a case even plausible enough to be useful as a bullying tool if your claim is simply that someone continued distributing software that you had licensed to them under the GPL. I've never heard of such a case even being considered or threatened.

Most GPL-related news I've seen is a company *not* distributing code they should under the GPL. SCO is a complicated mess, but doesn't and hasn't ever boiled down to this. And I don't know that 'Bill' or anyone in his employ has ever distributed anything under the GPL or would even find it worth his time to bother with such an attempt.

Methods and Concepts

[Locke2005]

Explain to me again how you can build a POSIX-compliant operating system without out using any of the "methods and concepts", as well as the APIs, inherent in Unix? Does Microsoft's purported POSIX interface or other parts of their OS also use these methods and concepts (e.g. Vista using symlinks)? Does SCO honestly beleive that a license from SCO is required to be POSIX-compliant? Also, you can't copyright "methods and concepts", you can only patent them... how many patents does SCO hold on Unix "methods and concepts"??? None, last time I counted. Can anybody cite any section in any contract IBM or Sequent signed where they explicitly agreed not to implement any Unix-like functionality in any other operating system? Too bad this is a court sealed document, or we could all have a good laugh.

Sealed lists and damages

[Locke2005]

Isn't one of the major counterarguments against a damages claim the claim that the complainant failed to take measures to mitigate the damages? Won't the court see the failure to enumerate the actual comlaint for 2.5 years as failure to take action to mitigate damages? I seriously doubt if SCO is going to collect the full (touches pinky to mouth) ONE BILLION DOLLARS in damages they are claiming if the refuse to tell anybody what they did wrong so that they can take steps to fix the problem...

Re:Sealed lists and damages

[crusher-1]

The contention you've mentioned is focused on "due diligence". It goes back a lot further than the 2.5 years of the tort filing/court proceedings. In actuality it started when SCO started down the linux path - one they bought out from Caldera. Much of the work done for Linux that SCO/Caldera was started in the Ransom Love days. Many of the key developers were SCO/Caldera devs and openly and knowingly developed the Linux kernel.

The real contention is that they're claim IBM covertly folded in proprietary SCO nix code into the kernel without SCO's knowledge. This is essentially hogwash because the SCO nix devs were well aware of what they were doing and did so with the blessing of the upper management - such as Ransom Love. Now Darl is claiming they gave no permission or had no knowledge that this was occurring. The real things is that while the former Caldera (and SCO) devs were contributing to the kernel development they did so in a way that adhered to the GPL. Furthermore, Darl is in a position to admit to the point that this was going on for sometime after he assumed the helm and replaced Ransom Love.

Remember, Caldera was a principle member of "United Linux". I beleive that included SuSE (the principle player), Connectiva, Turbo Linux, and Caldera. After Darl took over at SCO they continued to partner with United Linux. So, this obviously begs the question - When did Darl decide that something wrong was happening? I'd say right about the time he realized that SCO was tanking and decided to scream foul. But one might ask what about all the time before this when SCO/Caldera devs were actively contributing to the kernel - was Darl asleep at the wheel? This is the root of the "due diligence" argument. All that time before filing the tort against IBM Darls own devs were making Linux kernel code. So, why didn't he try to do something about it during all that time before the tort filing and the inevitable SCO tank in the market?

The law states (and IMNAL) that in order to claim a violation of IP and other proprietary matters it must be shown that all "reasonable" efforts were taken to protect it and keep it secure - neither of which Darl and Co did.

Lastly, It still remains to be seen if SCO really has any legal legs to stand on because Novell claims SCO was never given the rights to the code in the extent that SCO claims and therefore can't claim a violation of something they never gained the rights to in that sense in the first place.

But lets give credit where credit is due. Darl may not know jack about software and the associated market (let alone F/OSS). But he seems adept at doing the Wall Street 2 step and playing the courts for all it's worth.

Re:Sealed lists and damages

[Locke2005]

Yes, those are all valid legal theories. The point I was trying to make was that if your intent is to collect legal damages from somebody you have a contract with, then failure to inform the other party in a timely manner exactly what they were doing that allegedly violated the contract will be held against you when the time comes to set the dollar amount of damages. Sealing the list of infringements and effectively preventing any measures to fix the alleged problems then seems to indicate that they have no expectation of actually collecting any punitive damages.

Interesting

[mcc]

So does this mean, once this document is unsealed, that Redhat will FINALLY be able to proceed with its restraint of trade case? This looks like exactly the sort of thing that the Redhat case has been blocking on.

Xenix sucked back then

[JoeF]

In 1993, I tried to get gcc compiled on a SCO Xenix installation we had bought. It was a nightmare. They had a bunch of ideosyncracies that resulted in lots of problems. They were just not in the same league as HP-UX or SunOS (Sun only changed the name to Solaris with SunOS5.)
Then I heard of Linux, installed version 0.12, and it already had gcc. I never went back.

Re:Xenix sucked back then

[callipygian-showsyst]

1988 != 1993. A lot changed by then.

However, if you're using Linux and have never tried a production quality Un*x operating system (like Solaris or FreeBSD), you're missing out!

For most of our high-end server/network applications, we simply can't run Linux.

Re:Xenix sucked back then

[Bruj0]

>For most of our high-end server/network applications, we simply can't run Linux.

Yes you can, you just need to know *how* ;) And that knowleadge is not free as in beer or as anything it has a very real $ number.

Incredible shrinking claims

[Kelson]

It's like the "What did the Romans ever do for us!" scene in The Life of Brian. Every time SCO comes out with some big claim, someone else pipes in with "what about...?" Every time, the case gets less and less credible.

It's possible it might eventually boil down to some viable claim, in which case you have to wonder why they didn't start there in the first place instead of burning through time and cash -- but I think it'll end up about as valid as "IBM looked at us funny."

Re: Don't mess with the Nazgul

[Ken D]

It is not IBM's fault that it is taking so long. It is the overloaded judicial system and SCO that are stretching it out.

Court dates are like appointments to see medical specialists. If SCO's lawyers show up and tell the judge they need more time, and the judge grants them more time, it is months before they can get another court date. Years go by very quickly when you are in court only every 4 months or so.

The judge has been very easygoing with SCO, granting them extra time very liberally. See Groklaw. The judge is giving them plenty of rope. They won't be able to appeal.

Idiotic lawsuits

[Moggie68]

This illuminates another entry in the long list of American idiocies. Anybody can sue someone else for any ridiculous reason. The case can drag on for years without the plaintiff actually presenting any evidence whatsoever. What happened to the concept of a frivolous lawsuit?

Re:Idiotic lawsuits

[schon]

What happened to the concept of a frivolous lawsuit?

Nothing! It's still alive and well, as evidenced by this case.

Haven't you been paying attention? :o)

Tired

[PacketScan]

Our Tax Dollars had at work..

When SCO looses i want the government to go after them for the costs of this legal battle.
Or else who fits the bill? Thats right the american tax payers. Then When it becomes so obvious theat they only did this because the company was failing, should give the government enough to go after the Board members and employee's who have been RACKing up the Dough while other loose their shirts.

It took them this long, and still they are hiding the facts.

Why? Because educated people will be able to see through their vail of distort.

cheap laughs

[pyrrho]

I can tell you know better, but I approve your urge to go for the quick laugh even though the geeky explanation is trivial to guess!

probably those other replies point out your error but to me you are a warrior for laughter... go for it I say!

Re:cheap laughs

[EnronHaliburton2004]

I had 30 responses to this post. It's a dream made (true)!

Thank you for the encouragement ;)

Might fly just fine.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

The only defense they could have is that they didn't know it was in there and shouldn't be forced to "accidentally" GPL code via an act of copyright violation. This doesn't fly, however, because they continued to distribute the linux kernel, and the code they claim is infringing in it, under the GPL for a year after they initially made the claims. It's hard to say you didnt know it was in there when you've filed a lawsuit specifically about it.

Actually, it may fly just fine. When they released the code they took on an additional obligation to continue to provide the source of what they had released for a certain time period - both under the GPL and likely in contract obligations to their customers.

Stopping the distribution immediately upon (allegecd) discovery that some of their stuff was included somewhere in the mass would be a violation of these additional obligations. In particular, it would violate the GPL (by stopping the distribution of the parts that DIDN'T include "their" code), which would jepoardize their ability to ever use GPLed code again. Meanhwile, the cat was now out of the bag on any proprietary techniques in the code in question.

So they can easily argue that their continued distribution of the code that "others had contaminated" was the minimum damage-to-them (and also to others) way to proceed, and that the GPL was void to the extent that it claims their continued distribution (when others are already distributing the same code) constitutes placing the allegedly proprietary code under the GPL terms.

If they stop the distribution, that damages others. (Especially if it turns out they were mistaken in their claims on even one piece of the code.) Meanwhile, leaving the code up on their distribution site while broadcasting a warning about their claims doesn't cause extra damage to them, because people can get the same code from other sources anyhow. So better for all (including them) to leave it up and sort it out after the dust settles in court. Caught in a lose-lose situation they minimize loss, and that meets the requirement to attempt to protect their own copyright DESPITE their continued publication of the code under circumstances that appear to waive their rights.

The court might find this argument compelling - especailly since it might be the most reasonable thing they've done in the whole debacle. B-)

Also: Case law saying that, by continuing to it distribute after discovering the problem, you don't claims to code that someone ELSE incorporated into a GPLed package without your permission (despite terms to the contrary), might actually be GOOD for the GPL code base. It would eliminate a perceived boobytrap, encouraging more use and support of GPLed products by major software vendors.

Re:Might fly just fine.

[Darth]

I disagree with your position. They are under no obligation to continue distributing source code unless they continue to distribute the linux kernel. They are also under no obligation at any time to make that source code available to anyone who didn't acquire a copy of the linux kernel from them.
They were distributing the source to people they had no contractual relationship with and to whom they had no obligation under the GPL to provide the source code.

As soon as they believe they own a copyright on code in the kernel and decide that code shouldnt be GPLd, they have an obligation to stop distributing the linux kernel. The only license that allows them to distribute the code in the kernel that they don't claim ownership of is the GPL. If they choose to not distribute the code they claim under the GPL, it is their responsibility to either strip it out before continuing distribution, or cease distributing the code they do not assert ownership of.

To do anything else would have to imply consent for the code to be released under the GPL or be a premeditated willful infringement of the copyrights of the owners of the rest of the kernel code.

I doubt a court is going to allow a company to infringe many people's copyrights because it would be harmful to the company to take the effort to properly defend the copyright it claims on elements of a codebase.

Re:Might fly just fine.

[RevMike]

My God! Someone with a grasp of the law! On Slashdot! In other news, Hell freezes over.

While SCO accuses IBM

[AnalogDiehard]

...they have yet to provide to the court specific proof of the Linux code they claim IBM is infringing and IBM is demanding this proof.

This move is a distraction from their weak claims - "pay no attention to that man behind the curtain"

Re:Really? No percentage of the damages?

[Rolan]

Not that it's a good bet, but when lawyers agree to a cap on complex litigation, there's usually a 1/3 award fee at the other end...

As I said....the SCO lawyers stopped getting paid a while back. ;)

Is that all?

[Indiana Joe]

...and IBM has to pay them Five Brazillion Dollars...
Brazil uses the real, not the dollar. Right now, the Brazilian real is about $0.443 US. IBM would owe SCO... $2.62.
Heck, I'll cover it, if it'll end this.

Re:Is that all?

[Anonymous Coward]

Brazil uses the real, not the dollar

In case you're wondering, that *whooshing* noise you heard three and a half hours ago was the joke going over your head.

Might not be a bad idea, actually

[infolib]

If you get a hardcopy license it could become a real collectors item - imagine it in a montre at some future "History of Open Source Museum".

GPL is fungal.

[Anonymous Coward]

As a fungus, it can actually bring water to the site and continue breaking down the elements of resource it had attached to.

A virus is non-living. A fungus is a sporadicly appearing fungus; can grow in light or day, under dead debris, and some types of fungus are known to sap entire wooden floors and walls of houses quicker than termites. What's that about cancer?

I take that back... GPL is like the finest hops and barley, fermented by...fungus! It is proven! Linux, GPL; fungus! It all fits together symbiotically! That Ballmer balding chemo-therapy patient doesn't know what he's talking about.

Re:Redundant? MODS on crack

[SillySlashdotName]

Speaking of redundant...

"moron mods" -- redundant

Also, for speed, most skip the spellchech - I do, anyawy.

Hey! Maybe you could sell it as a novelty

[HighOrbit]

I think the world's one and only existant SCO Linux license might be worth something as a novelty/history-of-computer item on ebay. So maybe the license fee (what was it? like $700?) would be an investment.

What?

[Anonymous Coward]

What would happen if at the end of all the trials and all the appeals there was no money in the coffers to pay IBM (assuming their victory.)

Would there be some intent to get hold of anything SCO still holds a patent on? IBM might not get its hands on it even then. Perhaps forcing their sale would be a target?

What are we not being told in this never ending story?

No the real question is

[Anonymous Coward]

Why haven't the courts keelhauled SCO and let it die already?

Interesting development

[KwKSilver]

IBM has subpoened KPMG, SCO's accounting firm, story at Groklaw. KPMG was SCO's accounting firm till recently and had "difficulty" signing off on some of SCO's stuff. This should be rich.

SCO used to be so damned cool, too -- nude hot tub

[Anonymous Coward]

My office in the original hospital clinc building faced onto the court yard with the hot tub, that at times was clothing optional, and dang hard to work at those times :)

The downside, is that this environment created a money tree of sexual harrasment suits once the company was successful.