The Score is IBM - 700,000 / SCO - 326

The Peanut Gallery writes "After years of litigation to discover what, exactly, SCO was suing about, IBM has finally discovered that SCO's 'mountain of code' is only 326 scattered lines. Worse, most of what is allegedly infringing are comments and simple header files (like errno.h). These probably aren't copyrightable for being unoriginal and dictated by externalities and aren't owned by SCO in any event. Above and beyond that, IBM has at least five separate licenses for these elements, including the GPL, even if SCO actually owned those lines of code. In contrast IBM is able to point out 700,000 lines of code, which they have properly registered copyrights for, which SCO is infringing upon if the Court rules that it repudiated the GPL."

Comments

Linus says he wrote errno.h himself

[stratjakt]

At least the wikipedia article says so.

Is he lying or not? If the original unix comments are in there verbatim, it sounds unlikely that it was completely original.

I'm not saying it should be copyrightable or affect the suit at all, but it certainly bears on Linus' credibility, if he copy/pasted a header file then claimed it was a product of his genious.

Re:Linus says he wrote errno.h himself

[AltGrendel]

Umm, maybe he typed it himself.

Re:Linus says he wrote errno.h himself

[Salsaman]

Don't forget Linus had the Minix code to refer to when starting Linux. SCO claimed that this was one way Linux was an illegal derivative of Unix. However, as was pointed out by IBM and others, a simple list of #defines cannot be copyrighted.

Re:Linus says he wrote errno.h himself

[stratjakt]

No, I could see him writing "#DEFINE FALSE 0, #DEFINE TRUE !(FALSE)" and believe it.

But comments are written in human language, and it's unlikely that two people phrase a complex thought th same way. If you're grading programming assignments in university, and see the exact same comments in two student's works - it pretty much tips you off to cheating.

I don't know what Linus actually said - whether he copied from Minix, the wiki article says "Linus Torvalds, the creator and trademark holder of Linux, has denied SCO's claim, saying he wrote the code himself."

If he copied it from Minix, he didn't write it himself.

I'm not talking about IBM, SCO, or anything else. Is Linus a liar, or is the wikipedia article misrepresenting what he said?

Re:Linus says he wrote errno.h himself

[tomknight]

http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0312 .2/1241.html

From: Linus Torvalds
Date: Mon Dec 22 2003 - 16:36:47 EST
[snip]
"errno.h/signal.h/ioctl.h (and they are apparently the 2.4.x versions, before we moved some common constants into "asm-generic/errno.h"), and while I haven't analyzed them, I know for a fact that
- the original errno.h used different error numbers than "original UNIX"
I know this because I cursed it later when it meant that doing things like binary emulation wasn't as trivial - you had to translate the error numbers.
- same goes for "signal.h": while a lot of the standard signals are well documented (ie "SIGKILL is 9"), historically we had lots of confusion (ie I think "real UNIX" has SIGBUS at 10, while Linux didn't originally have any SIGBUS at all, and later put it at 7 which was originally SIGUNUSED.

So to me it looks like
- yes, Linux obviously has the same signal names and error number names that UNIX has (so the files certainly have a lot of the same identifiers)
- but equally clearly they weren't copied from any "real UNIX"."
[snip]

Re:Linus says he wrote errno.h himself

['nother poster]

Only if Linus is the one who copied it. error.h and signal.h now are not the same as they were, say 10 years ago, and there are a lot more people than Linus who have maintained and writen kernel code since Linux was first created. If someone did copy and paste some code, shame on them, but unless you are comparing the original linux header files I don't see how a copied comment in the 2.4 trees header files can be directly attributed to Linus without seeing who checked the code in.

Re:Linus says he wrote errno.h himself

[corran__horn]

Not exactly, an example from errno.h:

#define ENOSTR 60 /* Device not a stream */

Also, how would you describe ENOSTR? The IBM argument (which is valid) is that you would most likely describe it exactly that way. Also remember that Linus stated that some of the file was copied, but some was written. Even if the comments match, if the numbers are different then it is highly unlikely that it was a pure copy, as it would be far better not to change the numbers. (For example, if you redifined SIGKILL to 1, think of the annoyance you would cause to someone who accidentally hardcoded the number, or wanted to use kill -9)

As a sidenote: there isn't a whole lot of creativity in the comment, in fact it is probably uncopyrightable. Just the same way that "Jill sits on a chair" would be. There is creativity in code, but comments are not by themselves creative (this is why 2+2=4 cannot be copyrighted).

Re:Linus says he wrote errno.h himself

[Wateshay]

If you read TFA, you'll find that it doesn't say anything about comments in errno.h being copied. In fact, it doesn't even mention errno.h. Unless I missed something, the only reference to errno.h is in talking about the #define for EPERM. There aren't many ways to #define EPERM, so if there is similarity between the definition that SCO claims to own and the version that exists in errno.h, I think any reasonable person could understand how that could happen without Linus having copy-pasted the file.

I don't see anything here that implies Linus Torvald's credibility has been in the least bit impugned, and I think more people need to stand up and say that. This is exactly how rumors get started that can seriously impact an honest person's credibility, and all because of a poorly worded Slashdot description (that itself doesn't even question Linus' credibility).

Re:Linus says he wrote errno.h himself

[sconeu]

Linus reaffirmed that in a story on Groklaw.

Re:Linus says he wrote errno.h himself

[morgan_greywolf]

Okay, stratjakt, you obviously haven't been following this all that closely and there's a bunch of confusion. Here's the deal.

1. errno.h/signal.h and so forth were different in earlier kernels than they are today.
2. The code in question in the suit is actually from the 2.2-series kernels and may some early 2.4-series kernels -- mostly because the suit started that long ago. These kernels have the OLD errno.h, not the current one.
3. Yes, Linus wrote the original errno.h. Some of errno.h, including comments, was copied from the Lions Book. But the numbers themselves were -- much to Linus' chagrin -- picked arbitrarily and the numbers were erroneous as compared to POSIX.1. Linux has since been re-written and restructured to use the POSIX.1-compliant errno.h, and the numbers now match (for the most part), the POSIX.1 document.

Basically, yes, Linus wrote errno.h, but no, he didn't write the current errno.h, which is mostly cut-and-paste from the Single UNIX Specification.

Re:Linus says he wrote errno.h himself

[idontgno]

You missed the #define before that:

#define DEFINE define

Someone stop me...Can't help myself...

[FlatCatInASlatVat]

IBM: All your code base are belong to us. You have no chance to survive make your time.

Re:Someone stop me...Can't help myself...

[funfail]

For great justice at the court.

Re:Someone stop me...Can't help myself...

[daeg]

What SCO thought would happen:

In AD 2003, War was beginning.
IBM: What happen!
IBM Lawyer: Some set us up the lawsuit! We get signal.
IBM: Main screen turn on! It's you!
SCO: How are you gentlemen. All your code are belong to us. You are on the way to destruction.
IBM: What you say?!
SCO: You have no chance to survive make your time. Ha ha ha.

What really is happening:

IBM: All your stock are belong to us.

copyrighted code!

[TinBromide]

i have the following code copyrighted, get out your wallets and pay up or i will sue!

If (x){

Now that you have seen my copyrighted code, anyone who uses the above code in their programs must pay me a nickel!!!

Hold on, I just got a whisper from my patent lawyer, apparently some firm has trademarked the bracket ({) and my copyright is invalid. Carry on.

Re:copyrighted code!

[Vexorian]

Noo! I don't want to use python all the time!

Re:copyrighted code!

[noidentity]

I would just like to offer an open-source alternative to your patented algorithm. Let's get updating our source immediately:

if (x != 0) {

Just in case that's patented, here are a few more alternatives:

if (x != (1-1)) {
if (x != (x != x)) {
if (!!x) {

Re:SCO stock

[acidrain]

I wonder how much sco.com will be sold for. Somebody should make it point to kernel.org, just as a lesson to the patent trolls.

Damn font

[Demona]

Looked like "emo.h". Which would be more than appropriate.

Bad for SCO ok for MS

[hhawk]

SCO was funded to do this "legal dance."

While this maybe bad for SCO, those paying the the dance have more than got their money's worth.

They got some really big FUD going, plus the value of major distraction slowing down anyone following the play by play.

Clearly the long term play of MS is to get part or all of there free OS to be illegal. Illegal because they are TOOLS for ripping off copyright(s), or because they don't support legally mandated DRM, or because they they allow DRM to be by-passed, etc, etc., etc.

The only way around this is if more and more people use it and if the big box companies like Dell and Gateway ship boxes with Linux, etc.

Re:Bad for SCO ok for MS

[Stumbles]

Well, barring for the moment McBride is a hugely bigger idiot than all of us can possibly imagine I really cannot shake the notion the SCO strings were and have been pulled by Microsoft. I know the theory about conspiracies but without Uncle Bills fingers in the pie, none of this really makes any sense.

It's already known McBride tried to, um persuade Novell to join this little legal foray and they told SCO to get lost. It's already known SCO was told this is not a can of worms you want to open, again IIRC by Mr. Love of Novell. There is at least one of their own employees that have said SCO KNOWINGLY contributed code to Linux and the list goes on. So either McBride is a complete boob to ignore some really sound advise or he had other motivations.

So yeah, I know it's a bit tinfoilish to think Microsoft is simply manipulating another company via proxy but to me, right now it's the only thing that really makes much sense.

Re:Just 1 function.....

[bl8n8r]

> It doesn't matter if it is only 1 function that IBM has copied in there.

RTFA. They are talking about function prototypes, not functions. Big difference. Without actually seeing what the beef is, SCO's claims could be as ridiculous as "int foo (void);"

> Just the fact that SCO has not been lying is vindication enough for me.

Where does it say SCO has not been lying? RBC, Microsoft, SCO and Baystar capital* have been in on this pump-n-dump since day one. As far as I'm concerned, they are all crooks and should be brought to court and tried as such. It's no different than Enron and the other MegaCorp swindlers.

[*] http://news.com.com/Fact+and+fiction+in+the+Micros oft-SCO+relationship+-+page+2/2100-7344_3-5450515- 2.html
http://www.newsforge.com/comments.pl?cid=87796&sid =36545

Re:SCO stock

[stratjakt]

100 lines, 12000000 lines, 10 lines, SCO wasn't flat out lying. They found something. That something might be enough to win the suit (maybe not a billion).

It would be interesting to watch SCOs stock. If it starts rising, it means investors are seeing it from their side, and seeing them as the winner here. Investors are detached emotionally, and will probably make a better call than any slashbotter.

Search results

[Anonymous Coward]

Google
["It doesn't matter if it is only"] returned 45 results.

Google
["Even a simple one"] returns 15400

Google
["is vindication enough for me"] returns 6 results.

I accuse you sir of copyright violation! Even if those are only fragments of your text. It doesn't matter if it is only a few lines, or one, even a simple one is vindication enough for me.

Here are some of the lines:

[Rik Sweeney]

1. if
2. else
3. {
4. }
5. return;
6. continue;
7. break;
8. do
9. /*
10. */

Looks like SCO has the upper hand on IBM...

Re:Here are some of the lines:

[timeOday]

Just for grins here's the code to find the most common lines in *your* code, and what I found.  It seems the empty string is quite popular!

perl -e 'while(<>){++$l{$_}} map { print "$l{$_}:\t$_" } sort {$l{$a}<=>$l{$b}} keys %l' *.h *.cc | tail

59:     #endif
77:     private:
95:           }
98:     public:
105:    };
105:
178:        }
289:      }
346:    }
2075:

Re:SCO stock

[dattaway]

SCO already had its last breath. Novell is now on the attack.

Re:SCO stock

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

It'll be interesting to watch SCOs share price now...

It's been under a dollar a share for a few days now. If it continues, it could lead to delisting. Look for SCOX if you want to track it on a ticker. However, in the past SCO did a reverse split and they could always do another one and convert 2 or 3 shares to 1 and get back over a dollar a share to avoid delisting. Then again, Wall Street has frankly been insane in supporting this stock and I wouldn't be surprised at all by Monday or even today (early trends are actually up for the stock today) for it to be worth over a dollar a share again. I'm hoping for a delisting as that would hurt SCO immensely, but I'm not holding my breath. A stock market that has believed against all rational thought for years that SCO has some value is unlikely to be smart enough to realize by now that the game is almost over and start getting out while they can.

Re:Just 1 function.....

[Guaranteed]

Parent should RTFA, or maybe just the GPL.

From TFA: "The GPL, of course, grants IBM legal permission to copy, distribute and modify the software. Finally, SCO was a Linux company that distributed this code for years and encouraged the world and its dog to copy, modify, distribute, sublicense, whatever, this code, so they are estopped from suing IBM for doing what the GPL license SCO distributed under said IBM could freely do."

Re:SCO stock

[sogoodsofarsowhat]

Man...are you a shill for SCOX?

Surely you are kidding that SCOX might win. The 326 lines of codes:

#1 they dont hold Copyright on at ALL
#2 are in public domain
#3 are not even CODE!

Where as the 700,000 lines of code IBM is counter suing over ARE owned by IBM, ARE registered to them, and pretty much IBM has them by the short hairs.

As does Novell.

This is emotional to a lot of people yes. But we are also highly intelligent people who know quite a bit about this and how this came to be. While we may be emotional doesnt mean we are wrong!

Where as SCOX from day one has been wrong.

Go shill on the Yahoo board you will find no safe harbor here.

Re:SCO stock

[badasscat]

100 lines, 12000000 lines, 10 lines, SCO wasn't flat out lying. They found something. That something might be enough to win the suit (maybe not a billion).

They only win the suit if they can somehow convince the judge that none of IBM's licenses apply, including the GPL. And if they convince the judge that the GPL doesn't apply, then they are now liable for the 700,000 lines of IBM code that SCO has appropriated.

So, no, they can't win.

Re:SCO stock

[p3d0]

Investors are detached emotionally, and will probably make a better call than any slashbotter. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Ha ha ha. Ha. Oh man, that's a good one.

Funny if it were fiction

[Applekid]

I'm having visions of future SCO moves prompted by their crack legal team:

1) Admitting an IBM model-M keyboard as evidence to the case.
2) Calling a monkey to the stand.
3) Yelling "objection" at random moments, even during recess.
4) Showing the court on the doll where IBM touched them.

Can we just throw out the case and stop with the wasting of money already?

Re:Funny if it were fiction

[analog_line]

You forgot the Chewbacca defense.

"If Chewbacca lives on Endor, IBM must pay us lots of money!"

Alphabetic order...

[mengel]

As the IBM guy points out in the hearing (online over at Groklaw, of course) the error values are in alphabetic order with increasing integer values.

Exactly what most people would do in building such a list of #defines...

Re:SCO stock

[nege]

I wonder how much sco.com will be sold for. Somebody should make it point to kernel.org, just as a lesson to the patent trolls.

The internet version of severed head on a pike. I like it!

Re:SCO stock

[KokorHekkus]

...It's been under a dollar a share for a few days now. If it continues, it could lead to delisting. Look for SCOX if you want to track it on a ticker. However, in the past SCO did a reverse split and they could always do another one and convert 2 or 3 shares to 1 and get back over a dollar a share to avoid delisting... ...I'm hoping for a delisting as that would hurt SCO immensely, but I'm not holding my breath

As you suspect there isn't much hope for delisting. The stock has to be under $1 for 30 trading days for the company to get a warning. They then get 90 days to remedy the situation (for example, doing a 2-1 reverse split on the stock you suggested). It would be harder for SCOX to avoid a delisting if they slid under the other delisting criteria: having a market capitalization under $10 million (currently it is about $20.4 million). But as you, I'm not holding my breath for either one.

You're obviously not a coder, are you?

[multipartmixed]

Okay, the errno.h file is a list of errors.

POSIX.1, the specification, says you need to support X list of errors, and these are their names.

POSIX.1 compliance was a goal of Linux. If you RTFA carefully (or TFS) you'll note that Linus used different values for those same constants. Which, BTW, is a bone-headed move in terms of compatibility with UNIX but still within the letter of the specification. So clearly he wasn't using one as a crib sheet for the other.

This is basically like, Linus wanted to bake some cookies, so he looked at the recipe for his Mom's cookies and made a grocery list. Now his Aunt Martha has her panties in a knot because she thinks Linus stole her grocery list, because it has the same ingredients in it, because Linus' grandmother is the one who taught both his mom and his aunt how to bake chocolate chip cookies. And this is before Martha even bothers to notice that Linux is buying butterscotch chips and way too much baking soda.

Re:You're obviously not a coder, are you?

[Speare]

And this is before Martha even bothers to notice that Linux is buying butterscotch chips and way too much baking soda.

Wow, nice analogy. Three points:

• Since when does Linux run on butterscotch chips? Does it have drivers for the butterscotch duo?
• When did Martha Stewart get started in developing software? Is that a Good Thing?
• This is Slashdot. We prefer automotive analogies here.

Premier case for a "Loser Pays" court system

[kad77]

SCO is another poster child for the US Civil Court system to adopt a "Loser Pays" rule to interrupt the flow of ridiculous lawsuits.

I would assume that this may conflict heavily with the current "Lawyers Always Win" effect we have now though.

Your post is just silly

[paladinwannabe2]

Point 1.
SCO was flat out lying. If I run a file comparison utility over several million lines of code, and I find 326 identical lines (most of which are things like #include ) and then say that IBM stole thousands of lines of code, I'm lying my @$$ off. It's similar to me saying you owe me a million dollars because you borrowed $5 for lunch one day. Or calling you a gay prostitute because your wife dragged you to see Brokeback Mountain. Or saying I have proof Jedi are real after watching the 'Star Wars Kid' video. (Do I really need to continue? How is gross exaggeration NOT flat out lying?)

Point 2.
It is interesting to watch SCO stock. My bet is that it goes down a notch, and it seems to be doing that so far today (but just barely). Investors tend to be just as stupid and emotionally attached to things as anyone else. (Succesful investors are less so, just like some of the better /. posts are emotionally detached).

Re:Your post is just silly

[spun]

Investors tend to be just as stupid and emotionally attached to things as anyone else. (Succesful investors are less so, just like some of the better /. posts are emotionally detached).

/. posts detached? I don't think that's the word you are looking for. Close, but the word you want is unhinged, not detached.

Re:SCO stock

[arth1]

In the case of Novell, the enemy of my enemy is NOT my friend.

Novell needs every penny they can get, and it wouldn't surprise me if they sell whatever rights they still have to their new bed partner, Microsoft, who is then free to go after anyone (except Novell) for allegedly copying code from both Unix and DOS/Windows to Linux.

Re:Strange headline

[Marauder2]

It's not saying there are 700k lines of code that is not being infringed upon, rather IBM is claiming that THEY own the copyright to 700k lines of code in Linux (things like JFS) that SCO is infringing upon.

FTA:

"Worse, SCO claims control over code copyrighted by IBM, such as JFS, and others. SCO's own experts said SCO has no copyright infringement claim over those."

"Now, on the IBM motion and SCO cross motion regarding IBM's copyright claims, the GPL matters, in contrast to SCO's alleged 326 lines of infringed code, IBM owns about 700,000 lines of code that SCO has infringed, Marriott states."

Re:SCO stock

[kad77]

The market is one big lemming run. Some understand this and can win, and some deny this and will lose, but most folks are simply unaware and just run with the herd.

That is a pretty elitist statement. Given 3% correction in US markets a few weeks ago, and the subsequent actions of investors, you would be dead wrong in your analysis. bzzzzt, thanks for playing.

In case you were wondering my SCO stance: SCOX is scum and their board members, along with anyone else involved on their side from other organizations, should be criminally charged where possible in regards to this lawsuit.

Obligatory "300" quote...

[Captain Sarcastic]

So you are commenting without having seen the actual code? If so, how can you even so boldly assert anything without potentially deceiving yourself?

Because this... is... SLASHDOT!

Re:SCO stock

[richdun]

That "correction" was a one day spike brought on by a bad day in Shanghai (which also spawned bad days elsewhere). It wasn't sustained or even broad enough to be a real correction. GP's point was proven by this more than anything - most investors just started selling cause they saw the Chinese selling. I guarantee there were people who watched the Shanghai markets closely that day and made money off the downturn, then more money the next day when it swung back up 1.5-2%.

Holly crap!

[roman_mir]

I started reading that article, that is linked from the story without checking the url and as my eyes were just openning wider and wider with each false claim and each line of FUD I finally reached the point where I had to know who the hell wrote it and so I look up into the address bar and I see www.sco.com

Pheew! Geez whiz, so as my blood pressure normalizes I just wanted to ask /. staff: PLEASE mark the SCO articles in a more visible manner, it's dangerous for health to read such tripe. Also can't we sue SCO for libel or something?

I mean this is actually false information, they are knowingly lying to everyone with each breath they take.

Just read this:

However, there is a group of software developers in the United States, and other parts of the world, that do not believe in the approach to copyright protection mandated by Congress. ...
The software license adopted by the GPL is called "copy left " by its authors. This is because the GPL has the effect of requiring free and open access to Linux (and other) software code and prohibits any proprietary use thereof. ...
This stance against intellectual property laws has been adopted by several companies in the software industry, most notably Red Hat. Red Hat's position is that current U.S. intellectual property law "impedes innovation in software development" and that "software patents are inconsistent with open source/free software." Red Hat has aggressively lobbied Congress to eliminate software patents and copyrights. (see http://www.redhat.com/legal/patent_policy.html ).

I mean can't Red Hat for example sue them for libel? SCO is constantly insisting that GPL is anti-copyright, while GPL is only possible because of copyright law. They are misstating what GPL is about too by insisting that GPL does not allow any proprietary use (GPL requires that a distributor of GPLed code, follows GPL procedures, this is not about use.)

The Better posts

[paladinwannabe2]

Note that I'm talking about the better posts being detatched (though the non-detached ones can be a great read). /. is a great place for everyone who thinks he's a genius to rant.

Re:The Better posts

[RobertM1968]

/. is a great place for everyone who thinks he's a genius to rant.

Hey, I know I think I am a genius!!! ;-)

Re:SCO stock

[philippic]

My favourite graph.

Re:SCO stock

[rbanffy]

Since it's not possible Darl and his minions didn't knew that the lines in question were that many and of that significance, it's quite sure they exaggerated their position to create a positive image - they lied in bad faith. Any one who bought SCOX because of this could and should sue them.

Too bad the people who invested most in this circus won't really sue them because they knew full well this was only an effort to smear the reputation of Linux and other free software. The fact they won't sue is enough evidence of a conspiracy.

As for Darl, I would offer him a deal to walk free if he could produce enough evidence for the government to go after Microsoft's top execs. There is little gain in making him pay, but having enough evidence to do a couple arrests the top ranks at MS would be well worth it.

We must only be careful not to hit him from too many directions, but hit him very hard from a few. Unless he has a hope of walking free, he won't lead us to his bosses. It must be possible to offer him a deal.

Things like these should never be repeated. The people behind this must be stopped.

Msft and scox have already won

[walterbyrd]

IMO: anybody who thinks otherwise does not understand the scam.

Want to gloat about scox's share price being down, about scox not doing well financially? Fine, but remember this: scox's market cap is about twice as high now, as it was before the scam. And scox was as good as dead before the scam. Look at the financials, scox would have dead two years ago if not for this scam. Furthermore, darl and kevin mcbride are making out like bandits - each has made about two million since the scam started - not bad for small time Utah scammers. And remember, scox was a canopy company - not a real company. Canopy plays shell games with dozens of make-believe companies.

Msft financed the scam lawsuit, and msft got a great ROI out of the deal. The scam cost msft about as much as the cost to produce one TV commercial, and msft got a ton of grade-A FUD. The scox scam is nothing but about 1% of msft's continuing FUD campaign against Linux. Msft wants potential Linux users to know that Linux is a legal mine field. Msft also wants potential linux comtributers to know that they are risking a msft sponsered bogo-suit. Remember: just because the lawsuit is bogus doesn't mean the lawsuit won't cost over $50M in legal fees - and who wants that? Wouldn't it be cheaper and easier to just not contribute to linux?

Re:Msft and scox have already won

[walterbyrd]

In 2003 msft bought $17M worth of scox Unix licenses. Licenses that msft already has, and does not use. Also in 2003 msft arranged another $50 million worth of financing through a company called Baystar. Msft tried hard to keep of those financing deals secret, but msft's involvement has been exposed. On Halloween, 2003, a internal memo was revealed that specified msft's involvement with baystar in financing scox. When scox hit financial hard times, another mysterious $10 million "investment" came out of nowhere.

I especially like this quote...

[msauve]

from the transcript of the hearing:

"THE COURT: Where does this illustration come from in 46? This cup with all this money?

MR. MARRIOTT: Someone on our team made that up, Your Honor."

Re:SCO stock

[BierGuzzl]

Ya.. and those 700,000 lines of code copyrighted by IBM are mostly comments and header files anyways, and therefore unoriginal. IBM doesn't stand a chance.

Re:Forgot #4, #5 & #6

[Technician]

Surely you are kidding that SCOX might win. The 326 lines of codes:

#1 they dont hold Copyright on at ALL
#2 are in public domain
#3 are not even CODE!

#4 which IBM has 5 licenses to including redistribution of the code.
#5 the license from SCO to IBM includes warranty against lawsuit
SCO included all the lines in their GPL'ed Linux products

They damn themselves

[Minuous]

Looking at SCO's statement at http://www.sco.com/copyright/ I note that: * they are supporters of the DMCA * they believe freeware should be made illegal, ie. programmers have no right to give away software that they themselves write * they think growth of the US economy between 1976-1986 was due purely to changes in copyright laws * freeware developers are trying to circumvent laws * it's OK for them to impose license conditions but noone else * they don't give a damn about anything except their own profits etc. I mean, we all knew this, but it's funny to see them so baldly admitting it.

Re:SCO stock

[MightyMartian]

Relax. It's days are numbered, no matter what. What I find sad is that I doubt the SEC will really go after these guys for their pump-and-dump scam. In a just and proper world, McBride would be sitting in a jail cell and SCO's lawyers would be facing disbarrment.

As to Wall Street's attitude, it's pretty clear that it has been wishful thinking all along. They despise open source, and Linux in particular, and despite every sign of a stock scam, they chose to back SCO on a course which can only lead to the bottom of the sewer. The investment community had been warned from the very start by the experts that SCO didn't have a case, and for Christ's sake, what kind of investment community backs a company whose sole business plan is extorting licensing fees based on highly dubious copyright claims that hadn't even be tested in court?

Re:Just 1 function.....

[SnowZero]

Well, from the court document, here you go:

#define EPERM 1

That's PRETTY FUCKING AMAZING code.

Waaay OT, but...

[Spaceman40]

...isn't it interesting the lines that are most common?

I can tell that you're coding in C++ because of the private/public and the }/}; (that inconsistency has always bothered me: is it a statement or not?).

I ran this* on the Python files of the Django project, and got some interesting results:

11185:
2314: """
1205: else:
1063: try:
288: pass
269: ...
235: Traceback (most recent call last):
226: from django.conf import settings
185: }
164: )
148: def __str__(self):

Interesting comments:

• Yes, that's right, 11,185 empty lines. We programmers sure like our whitespace.
• """ is the delimiter for Python-friendly documentation. (Think javadocs.) If they documented each method and class, you could grep for def and class and get an estimate of how documented the project is.
• pass basically marks an abstract/unimplemented method. I'm running straight from Subversion, so that may have something to do with it.
• While Python doesn't use {} for methods, it does use them for dictionaries. The convention for multi-line dictionaries is to have the closing bracket on its own line.
• __str__(self) is Python's analog to Java's toString or Ruby's to_s.

Interesting stuff. I wonder what it would look like in Haskell, or Lisp...

* I wrote a modified version in Python that walked the directory tree and stripped lines of whitespace, otherwise it was pretty much the same: Simple statistics. Yes, I know it's somewhat messy. I tried to clean it up a bit before putting it up. A few simple modifications would make it work with any extension.

Re:SCO stock

[devnulljapan]

This is emotional to a lot of people yes. But we are also highly intelligent people who know quite a bit about this and how this came to be. While we may be emotional doesnt mean we are wrong!
Intelligent, yes. But one of us is having a hard time understanding sarcasm...

Re:SCO stock

[idontgno]

Let's talk about investor rationality and that "3% correction" you speak of.

What prompted that correction? Was it a well-reasoned analysis of market exposure, followed by an orderly transfer of assets from the stock market to another form of investment?

No. The stampede in Shanghai was caused by "a rumor about capital gains tax." Apparently, an unfounded rumor.

The dive in the Chinese market prompted a corresponding selloff in the U.S., the large volume of which prompted a technical "glitch" in the NYSE's messaging system. That glitch caused an apparent instant freefall in the DJIA (apparently, backlogged trade messages from over an hour's worth of trading processed suddenly in 3 minutes)--which prompted panic selling.

So, no, I see very little to commend the cool nerves and clear thinking of the investing community.

The markets are fueled, first and foremost, on the tension between greed and fear. Never forget that.

Re:Premier case for a "Loser Pays" court system

[TheoMurpse]

SCO is another poster child for the US Civil Court system to adopt a "Loser Pays" rule to interrupt the flow of ridiculous lawsuits.

"Loser pays" is a horrible system. Small companies and individuals would never sue big corporations for fear of losing (even if their suit was valid) unless the case was a slam dunk. Furthermore, big corporations could sue whomever they want, and the defendants would settle really fast, for fear of going to court and losing and having to pay the corporation's immense, million-plus dollar legal fees.

We already have a system where, if the lawsuit is frivolous or malicious, the instigator has to pay. You just don't hear about that because the media only reports on failings of our court system.

I would assume that this may conflict heavily with the current "Lawyers Always Win" effect we have now though.

If you change the system, lawyers will still win, because their skills are needed in court battles. I tell you what: next time you go into court, since you hate lawyers so much, don't hire one. We'll see how far that gets you.

Sorry, no, this is bad news for MS

[SmallFurryCreature]

They funded this and it backfired. In essence this is a trial by fire for linux and the GPL and so far it seems to have stood up with flying colors.

FUD stands for Fear, uncertainty and denial. What MS absolutly does NOT want is for uncertainty about the legit nature of Linux to go away. Anymore then they want it to be made certain that the GPL is a legal license that can hold its own in court.

In the Netherlands by a place called Oudewater was a "waag" a large scale, a person acused of witchcraft could be weighed there and if the measured weight was in correspondce with their build they would be a given a certificate that they were not a witch. The unique thing about this one is that it was not fixed. Hence nobody ever was denied a certificate for obvious reasons.

Witchhunters HATED it, they rely on FUD since the facts offcourse are that witches do not exist. A unbiased scale that ALWAYS reports the persons true weight therefore is the enemy of their FUD.

And the same with SCO now, they called Linux a witch and Linux has been weighed and been given a certificate. Anyone else who now calls linux a witch is going to look extremely silly and some people might well start to ask how it comes that not a single person who has been accused and weighed has been found guilty and start to question NOT the people accused but the accusers as to their true motives.

But things don't happen fast, sucks if you are about to be burned to the stake but nowadays we don't just round up people because somebody with dubious motives tells us too. Right US of A? Right EU countries that gave the CIA free access? Right?

We're all geniuses here

[paladinwannabe2]

If you don't believe it, just ask us!

Re:SCO stock

[TheViffer]

Wonder how deep Microsoft's wallet will go on this ...

Re:SCO stock

[OriginalArlen]

If ever there was a case for cruel and unusual punishment, Darl is it. I say we make him spend the rest of his days as a Java programmer.

Re:SCO stock

[cvos]

It seems that SCO and groups that backed them (Microsoft) achieved their objective. Much like a war in someone else's country, you don't have to 'win' to achieve your goals. The goal of SCO was to delay implementation of Linux by installing the fear of massive litigation into potential Linux IT purchases. For SCO/MS to win, all they needed to do was stall. The business world must move forward, even if Linux is tied up in courts.

SCO put enough fear into huge corporations such as SUN, HP and major web hosting companies such as ev1 that Linux adoption was hobbled for a time. As in war, the pawns (SCO) have finally been taken out, and the Queen (Microsoft) is still in a safe position.

Re:BLAH, BLAH, BLAH

[Curtman]

There you go. If you have no real response, go for the personal attack.