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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."
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.
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.
It's only an insult if it's not true.
Well hopefully this will help us get to the point where the court tells IBM what SCO did wrong.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
This sounds like a good candidate for 'Tonights Top-Ten list'.
/* Copyright 1979, 1980, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994 The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. */
Aaaaand the number one Copyright infringement made by IBM is....
The crowd goes wild!
Try out fish, the friendly interactive shell.
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?
http://www.babysmasher.com
http://www.openingbands.com
I notice the words Linux and Unix share many of the same letters. Guilty!
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?
"If I could live to be several hundred
I could take a walk and really wander, really wonder."
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.
/* FUCK - The F-word is here so that you can grep for it */
Somebody's got to own Unix, why not Apple and Steve Jobs? Jobs' number one priority is serving the customer.
"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....
Who, me?
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.
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.
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."
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!
"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb."
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....
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.
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?
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.
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.
...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...
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)
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
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...
Dude, I think I can see my house from here.
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.
Sig
I think if you saw the code SCO provided, you would see that Linux blatantly stole huge chunks of code almost verbatim.
http://ablegray.com
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?
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
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
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
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.
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.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
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!!!!"...
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
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.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
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.
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...
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
LINUX LAWSUIT 2: RETURN OF THE SCO
Coming to a courthouse near you!
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.
"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.
I'm not sure even that would be enough to satisfy IBM, but if it was, it wouldn't be so bad...
That's what I keep telling my kids!
But they keep modding me -1 Redundant (or worse).
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.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
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.
Best Buy can have you arrested
- AMW