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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[Citizen of Earth]

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

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?

[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.

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.

Hopefully

[stoolpigeon]

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

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?

Linux/Unix

[SpaceAdmiral]

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

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.

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....

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

[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]

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.

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: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.

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."

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

[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.

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:Jay Leno

[Anonymous Coward]

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

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?

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...

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)

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.

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.

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..

[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.

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!!!!"...

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: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: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: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: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).

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.