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SCO Found No Source Code In 2004
doperative writes "A consultant hired by SCO in 2004 to compare UNIX and Linux, with the thought he could be used as an expert at trial, says that, after days and days, his comparison tool found 'very little correlation'. When he told that to SCO, it paid him and he never heard from SCO again."
I ahd hoped we were done. Espcially with SCO nonstories.
Company hires guy to looks for something.
He doesn't find it,
SCO pays as agreed.
sheesh.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
It's probably due to some contract thing - but imagine how many fewer annoying articles about SCO and Darl would have been avoided had this guy gone public years ago.
I'm shocked. SHOCKED.
No real surprise there, just verification. SCO got itself in a tight spot financially and was looking for a scapegoat, with many SCO contributors moving to linux at the time linux made it convenient to blame, the backing of big companies contributing to Linux made them perfect target to get money. Their entire case was based on the theory that if people who used to work on SCO were now working on Linux then they must copied code...it sounded feasible to them and I assume their hope was that it would be seen feasible enough to slip through without much investigation.
Groklaw still alive.
We all knew that SCO had no real claims years ago when we started hearing things from them like "look at errno.h - they are teh same!". It was obvious to anybody paying any attention at all that it was a shakedown from the get-go - their one mistake was picking IBM to shake down, whose policy has always been "millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute", and who has a larger legal department than the US government. The fact that it took as long as it did for the inevitable outcome just shows how broken the US legal system (and IP law in particular) really is.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Just like how 'borked', or 'bork' has become.
sco term itself, will probably be anonymous with blatant greed, bastardry, skulduggery, more and relentless bastardry.
there are few other contenders to the title actually. however, one of them has a very common name as their name, and the other is hard to use as a term.
Read radical news here
He said he worked with a sample of both sections of code, supplied by SCO. Presumably SCO thought there was copying between the two, but unless the 'sample' he worked on was the entire code base all it shows is that one test didn't see copied code in that small subset.
So, his test may or may not have been convincing, even in that small sample, and certainly doesn't prove anything over the whole codeset.
'Sensible' is a curse word.
DAYS? Really?
I worked for a company that wrote basis path testing and coverage tools, and would generate various metrics like cyclomatic complexity, module cohesion metrics, what not.
As a baseline we used Linux kernel sources. Also FreeBSD.
A full report took about 10 hours IIRC, this was in 1999.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
It was so borked it gave the word 'bork' a whole new borkness. To have compared the old 'bork' with the new, would've been insultingly borking to the word 'bork.'
The fact that it took as long as it did for the inevitable outcome just shows how broken the US legal system (and IP law in particular) really is.
It doesn't help that the judges in the highest court in the land can be verifiably bought and seemingly, no repercussions whatsoever.
The US legal system is horribly, horribly broken...and every indication is its by intent. This has happened before. Part of the solution for Congress was to fire massive numbers of judges. This absolutely must be done again.
To raise that undead?
Just asking, in case Jack Thompson wants to know.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
A "security analyst" wanted to make the big time by writing a program that would help out the SCO case. He sold SCO on this idea, but due to the lameness of his program it never produced the expected results. As such, SCO paid him off and moved on
There! No need for conspiracy theories at all.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Now, how many "revelations" have you read recently that made you go "duh!" at best? At worst, you didn't even care enough to read them in full.
It's not what you say or what a bunch of people say. Especially if they're the "adversary" in the legal battle. How long has everyone with a hint of knowledge questioned the alleged losses of the music industry due to P2P? How long has everyone who ever played a computer game questioned their influence on school shootings?
It doesn't count 'til someone from the other side has to admit that yes, their position was wrong.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It doesn't help that the judges in the highest court in the land can be verifiably bought and seemingly, no repercussions whatsoever.
Please provide some support for this wild allegation. Something other than the fact that two of the Justices spoke at a conference sponsored by people you don't like who were (much) later involved peripherally in a case where you don't like how the Court ruled.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
This has happened before. Part of the solution for Congress was to fire massive numbers of judges.
when? who?
Imagine if you weren't allowed to use roads because a bus company complained about your driving 3 times. --skunkpussy
You have to know what the accusation is before you can accuse someone.
Didn't you work that one out on your own?
Read this part to understand why it is still relevent (there are, after all, still cases pending):
So, my head is spinning, because what I'm thinking is: does this demonstrate that SCO knew there was no basis for their copyright infringement claims...
It does not.
"Argument from ignorance, also known as argumentum ad ignorantiam or appeal to ignorance, is an informal logical fallacy. It asserts that a proposition is necessarily true because it has not been proven false (or vice versa). This represents a type of false dichotomy in that it excludes a third option, which is: there is insufficient investigation and therefore insufficient information to "prove" the proposition to be either true or false. Nor does it allow the admission that the choices may in fact not be two (true or false), but may be as many as four; with (3) being unknown between true or false; and (4) being unknowable (among the first three). And finally, any action taken, based upon such a pseudo "proof" is fallaciously valid, that is, it is being asserted to be valid based upon a fallacy.[1] In debates, appeals to ignorance are sometimes used to shift the burden of proof."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance
You mean the stories and undeclared income. Employment for family members shortly before a decision was given. So on and so on. Perhaps you should stay up on fairly recent news events.
News that someone was unable to find stolen SCO code in Linux is almost as surprising as the news that Charlie Sheen had his kids taken away from him! I certainly never saw that coming!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Tried to quickly find a link. I honestly didn't spend much time on it. IIRC, it was during the later part of the 1800s.
The deal was, far too many judges were known to be corrupt and not following laws, like the US Constitution. Much like we see today. Congress said we'll fire you. The judges said that's not legal and we'll provide for an extremely protracted battle to ensure it never happens. Congress said fine. Congress then dissolved all the courts in which the judges in question presided. They then created new courts and then hired new judges for those courts. So technically they weren't fired - rather their courts simply went away.
This has been publicly known since 2005: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO-Linux_controversies#The_Michael_Davidson_E-Mail
>>>the judges in the highest court in the land can be verifiably bought
Still waiting for a citation.
Eh.
Maybe you heard this on Faux news, and have no evidence. Seems likely.
FREE magazine : http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/prior/
poor use of hyperbole without any supporting references. sorry.
Does this mean it's safe to use Linux again? ;)
He could have just made shit up that favored SCO, much like Marc Rochkind did, to keep the gravy train rolling; that way, he could have at least made enough for a couple of luxury watches...
P.S. Fuck you, Darl McBride. How's life in a cardboard box going for you? :-)
Fool me once, shame on you, as my aunt always told me. Where do I apply for a refund?
It seems mighty obvious that SCO's lawsuits aimed to drain Open Source company and community resources, and to spread FUD about the IP status of Open Source code. SCO knew all along that there was no way it could win, as even their own experts were telling them so, yet they went on for years and years fighting a fight that couldn't be won. That goes against the basic formula of a copyright/patent troll, because in those cases the driving motivator is profit, and lack thereof means there's no point to keep going.
As SCO's first lawsuit was against Microsoft, who immediately settled for millions, my tinfoil headgear is picking up some very suspicious signals...
With all of the if, include and print statements I think Linux has copied my code too. I use the same ASCII characters too.
Just a nitpick, but if Congress did find a way to fire all those judges, it would be the President who would appoint new ones for Congress to confirm.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
You can't give a verifiable example.
[citation needed]
I think that happened in Star Wars, not US History.
Care to offer a shred of a citation to the events you're relating?
What a bunch of words. You can't file a lawsuit resting on accusations substantiated only by your own inability to falsify them! IMHO, logical fallicies are usually useless as applied to real world arguments. Would you like to hear all about why I think "no true Scotsman" is being inappropriately applied more often than not? Oh, bummer, I thought sure you would.
Here are some more words you may like: "Ignoratio elenchi (also known as irrelevant conclusion[1] or irrelevant thesis) is the informal fallacy of presenting an argument that may in itself be valid, but does not address the issue in question." ;-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignoratio_elenchi
Note that in this discussion the issue would be:
(1) One consultant says he did not find anything.
(2) One poster wondered if this proved that SCO knew there was nothing.
(3) I argued "no", that (1) was insufficient information regarding what SCO knew.
Fuck you you fucking asshole!
Valid nit. I was just trying to fill in the back story. In doing so, my verbiage was not entirely accurate. More correctly, new judges were then appointed.
Yes, because making someone's job go away is so completely different than firing them. Dip shit. What is obvious, is why you posted anonymously. Sorry.
This guy was hired as an expert by the SCO attorneys on behalf of SCO. He was paid a generous retainer. The attorneys MUST have included confidentiality language in the expert's contract.
Isn't this guy breaching his contract with SCO and/or SCO's attorneys?
Why would anybody hire a guy as an expert if he's the kind of guy who is going to turn on them later?
Something is not computing here? Maybe its as simple as this guy just can't keep is mouth shut, but maybe there's more to the story.
Parent post is nonsense. Absolute nonsense.
“By granting district court judges the discretion to refer Title 11 cases to the bankruptcy courts and the authority to withdraw the reference once made, Congress ensures that ‘the judicial power of the United States will be ultimately exercised by an Article III Court.’ In re Parklane/Atlanta Joint Venture, 927 F.2d 532, 538 (11th Cir. 1991). This means that any judge who is going to exercise federal power must be an "Article III judge."
Article III judges have lifetime tenure. Const. Art. III.
Congress can't do tricky stuff to create courts with judges with expiring terms to replace Article III judges. Congress tried, and failed, to do so with bankruptcy judges a few years ago. See Northern Pipeline Construction Co. v. Marathon Pipe Line Co., 458 U.S. 50, 76 (1982).
Just how and why are we hearing about this at all?
I'm quite hostile to SCO, but they still deserve all legal rights and priviliges. Otherwise, a trial means nothing.
This sort of consultancy would be done by SCO's attornies, and protected under attorney-work-product privilige. Justified by the reasonable assumption that different experts might well have different methods, tools and opinions.
"SCO got itself in a tight spot financially and was looking for a scapegoat"
No, SCO got itself in a tightspot, and Microsoft used their weakness, paying them to harrass Linux.
Congress absolutely does have the power to create and dissolve courts. So where does a judge go when he has no court? Seems your nonsense is just that.
BTW, your citations actually validate the account given above.
Really sad that slashdot users go out of their way to troll moderate based on their own ignorance...like wise, sad that posts like yours are posted when posts such as yours actually confirm the account. But hey, if people want to knowingly remain stupid and ignorant, who am I to stand in their way.
Sad.
This guy didn't find proof of anything because he wasn't very good at what he was doing. Him and fifty other guys that SCO might have hired and had sign an NDA to look for incriminating evidence. One guy comes up with a false positive and the game's over as far as SCO's concerned. SCO has all the proof they need and has their expert witness and testimony. What are the other fifty guys going to do? They've signed an NDA and even if they break it, the stock response is, "That guy wasn't very good and/or negligent."
The biggest mistake SCO made, aside from starting this nonsense in the first place, was messing with IBM's legal department. Everyone knows you don't fuck with IBM lawyer's.
I can't believe we're still talking about this nonsense.
This is called expert witness shopping. The guy performed ethically and SCO did a very standard thing. Most people who do expert witness work avoid being a "hired gun." A hired gun is an expert who can be told what to testify. Obviously having such a reputation will make it easy for opposing counsel to rip your credibility to shreds. So when a legal team needs a particular opinion, they hire several experts, none of whom are hired guns, and ask each of them to look at the issues and render an opinion. One of those opinions might be more helpful to the case that the others. That will be the expert that they put on the stand. This guy was hired, his opinion wasn't helpful, they paid him and moved on.
/.'s formatting? Lots of posts today are double spaced, including this one!
The key thing to remember here is that different experts legitimately have different opinions and there is nothing inherently unethical about this process.
BTW what is up with
-- QED
The Yaro McBride drug cartell was more interestened in cocaine, booze and boy-toys for Darl the Bou Vie Bou.
-308
Generally like many school assignments, write the thesis and the conclusion, then find material that fist with your conclusion.
To get some claim of legitimacy hire experts to find your facts. The use the facts that fit with your conclusion.
What new is there in this?
The real beast here is the NDA, which is generally misused, not just here but in many areas. And is, like copyright and patents, a construct build to protect big corporations from annoying individuals and smaller companies.
ha!
Again, citations please? Not all of us live in the US.