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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 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.
I notice the words Linux and Unix share many of the same letters. Guilty!
"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?
such concepts as:
and let us not forget the rampent use of:
that's in the linux kernel
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.
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."
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?
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
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.
You obviously can't spell phishing. You forget that SCO is trying to pass themselves off to the courts as a reasonable group.
</toungeincheek>
Perfecting Discordia
www.stevenvansickle.com
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...
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
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
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
Knowledge is like ignorance.. too much can be just as bad as not enough.
"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.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!