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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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.

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?

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?

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.

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: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: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...

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.

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: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.

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: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: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: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.

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.

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...

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.