Re:Code belongs to copyright holder, not community
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SCO Roundup
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Democracy: a system where a majority can make decisions binding on a majority. Since you bring it up, I'm not a big fan of democracy. I'm more a Bill of Rights guy. I believe that people have many rights which a majority cannot override.
The USA Patriot Act has majority support my country (don't know what country you're in). That doesn't make it right.
How would you like it if a majority of people in your country voted on what operating system and application programs to use, and everybody had to run the majority choice? It would cut down on the compatibility problems. But I prefer a system where everybody makes their own choice, even though it's very undemocratic of me to run Linux.
The point of the SCO argument... was to nurture the idea that the OSS community is rife with copying and don't believe in IPR...
We agree on that. SCO is making that case, both legally and in their public relations.... but isn't this true?
No. Even RMS respects trademarks. All major OSS groups that I'm aware of (mostly FSF and Linux), respect other people's copyrights. I will accept the point for patents. There are significant OSS groups that are hostile to patents.
As you say, there is no onus on your company to contribute back. Your company makes the choice. Under a leftist software economy, a government agency would make that choice.
To me, it's all about who gets to make the choice. The actual choice that comes out is secondary. Just as it's okay for me to choose whether to spend $200 to buy a copy of Windows, but repugnant to me if the government takes $200 to pay for Windows, the democratic choice, as a public utility.
Re:Code belongs to copyright holder, not community
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SCO Roundup
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· Score: 1
Doesn't the GPL remove choice of licenses for derivative works?
No.
Without the GPL, the author of a derivative work has no right at all to distribute the derivative work. The GPL grants a license with specific terms. Some people find these terms a delight, some people find them onerous.
You've fallen into the intellectual property trap and equated an idea and a limited monopoly on it with something tangible.
Again, no. I support copyrights intentionally, not as a trap. I support it, briefly, because that particular work did not exist before someone created it, therefore it's all theirs, not commons.
I never claimed that bits are "tangible". That's your error -- to think that I do. I support property rights in bits, as well as property rights in atoms, but I don't claim that bits are atoms.
In a system where there isn't money you're fed regardless.
That's a whole another argument, but I will point out that the biggest mass starvations in history have taken place in societies were farmers did not have property rights in their land and their crops.
OSS is far more left than it is right
Sigh, again, no. At least we are back to an on-topic disagreement.:)
Do I have to pay for OSS software, whether I use it or not? Obviously not. For comparison, show me any leftist economic system where I can opt out and not pay taxes for other people's services.
Can other people take software that I write and convert it into any form of OSS without my consent? The GPL says no: see section 0. Linus Torvalds says no: "He who writes the code chooses the license". I can write an entire operating system and it's my choice whether to make it GPL or not. Again, show me a leftist economic system where I can build a factory and then I can choose how to use it and what to do with the output.
OSS is an individualist laissez-faire system. It just happens not to use money. It is a community, like a church -- anyone can join and contribute, and many people do, but no one is forced to. That's the key difference between OSS and a leftist system.
Re:Code belongs to copyright holder, not community
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Fine, instead of "your property", read: "bit patterns that you created". I trust you accept the word "you" as having a meaning?:)
Let's see if we can get past the semantics and get to some actual cases.
Suppose that I copy a Windows CD-ROM and give the copy to a friend. Right or wrong? I think it's wrong.
Suppose that I copy a Linux CD-ROM and give the copy to a friend. Right or wrong? I think it's right.
Suppose that I burn/vmlinux onto a CD-ROM and give the CD-ROM to my friend, without a copy of/usr/src/linux. Right or wrong? I think it's wrong.
I look to the consent of the copyright holder as my moral compass. A Communist looks to a "community" to give consent or not. That's the difference between my moral system and a Communist moral system.
I won't even go into the problem of who decides what the "community" is and who gets to voice the "community's" opinion.
To tie this back to SCO -- part of SCO's FUD campaign is that open source developers routinely copy other people's code without consent of the copyright holder; that Linux developers are like so man Napster users; and our whole enterprise is based on wholesale code copying. This has great resonance with the worldwide business community and the worldwide media. I think that a Communist-based defense is not just morally wrong, but will also damage us on a practical level.
Yes, a lawyer working for SCO has opined in the media that the GPL is invalid under US Copyright Law. (And yes, I too think that he's full of shit, but that's not important).
But, that does not prove that SCO has taken any actions which violate the GPL.
You claim that "SCO does not make the source of the program available". That's a very serious charge. Please point to a program which SCO distributed which contains your copyrighted work and was NOT accompanied by the source code or a written offer to provide the source code.
Because last time I checked, there were big linux source rpm's at ftp.sco.com, which means SCO is complying with the GPL for any linux kernel binaries that they distribute (that are built from that source). One of their lawyers says that the GPL is not legal, but it looks like SCO is abiding by its terms.
Code belongs to copyright holder, not community
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SCO Roundup
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· Score: 1
Communism is a system where it's illegal for me to choose my own license. The essence of communism is that I can take your property whether you ocnsent or not.
The current world of OSS is not at all communist. I can write my code under any license I choose. I respect the right of other people to hold copyright in their creations and to choose their own licenses. And I honor the licenses of all copyrighted materials that I use.
Almost every bit of OSS is legally copyrighted by specific people and corporations and nonprofits, not by a vague community. (Some bits are too small or too constrained to be copyrighted, and a few OSS authors actually do abandon their work to the public domain). I think this is natural and good and right.
To draw an analogy, maybe you don't see a difference between the primary use of Napster -- copying other people's work without their consent -- and the primary use of mp3.com -- copying other people's work with their consent. In both cases, gigabytes of mp3's fly across the wires. But I see a huge difference. So do the copyright laws of almost every nation, per the Berne convention. And so do almost all business users of computers.
It's all about consent.
Re:SCO's business plan
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· Score: 4, Informative
Ummm, yeah, you're the only one who thinks that.:)
SCO's business plan:
1. Sell $12 million of UnixWare and OpenServer, at a cost of $14 million. Loss of $2 million. 2. Sell $8 million of "SCO Source" licenses to Microsoft and Sun, at a cost of $2 million. Gain of $6 million. 3. $4 million profit !
SCO has executed this business plan successfully for two quarters now. Read their quarterly earnings announcements at finance.yahoo.com. It's right there. They are already in stage 3 and have been there for six months.
Now, in Step 2, what are Microsoft and Sun getting for their $8 million per quarter? They are getting anti-Linux FUD. Linux takes sales from Microsoft and Sun, and this is a way for Microsoft and Sun to attack Linux without getting their own hands dirty. That's the value-add of using SCO as a sock puppet.
Darl's bragging about the number of press releases from SCO rather than products and customer wins. Well, in my opinion, future "license payments" from Microsoft and Sun may very well be based on the number of anti-Linux press releases that SCO puts out!
Canopy, the parent company of SCO, also has a business model based on suing other companies: $150 million lawsuit settlement from Microsoft, $40 million lawsuit settlement with Computer Associates.
Too bad I can't fit the whole quote into the subject.
Contrary to the claims in the Client Server News story, SCO has not engaged Mr. Boies to take legal action against our fellow Linux vendors. SCO press release, January 13, 2003
So I don't believe SCO's statements about their future plans. They are practicing the adage: "diplomacy consists of saying 'nice doggy' while you are looking for a rock".
The hosting company is Center 7, which is partially or fully owned by Canopy Group. Canopy Group is the largest shareholder in SCO.
BTW, Center 7 and Canopy sued Computer Associates recently. They settled for $40 million. Those Canopy Group fuckers are sue-happy pricks. "Contracts are what you use against people you do business with", indeed.
The 10-Q itself identifies the second licensee as Microsoft.
The first licensee is Sun.
Sun also got options to buy SCOX stock: 210,000 options at $1.83 per share, as part of their deal.
Obviously Microsoft benefits from Linux FUD. So does Sun. They're not licensing because they are stupid. Sun and Microsoft are using SCO as a sock puppet.
Another possibility would be to remove support for SCO operating systems from FSF products, but leave the license alone. So people would be free to download the FSF source and maintain their own SCO versions of it.
A third possibility would be to change the license to restrict people and companies who act like SCO is acting.
The FSF is currently pursing action #1: including README.SCO files with its products. Personally, I am in favor of action #2: removing the SCO-specific code from FSF products.
In the first movie, when the agents capture Morpheus, they take him to a secure location to interrogate him. Unlike the interrogation room where the agents took Thomas Anderson, the interrogation room for Morpheus has a big glass curtain window.
Why? I mean, shouldn't they stick Morpheus in a windowless concrete cell?
Then, Neo and Trinity storm into the building (killing several people by shooting first but that's a well-known debate). They take an elevator up to the roof and drop some explosives into the lobby. There's a helicopter on the roof, and Trinity tells Tank she needs a program to fly it.
Was the helicopter part of Trinity's plan when she went in?
If it was part of their plan, how come Trinity didn't download the helicopter training program before they set off alarms and had a bunch of people trying to kill them? And if it's not part of their plan, what was their plan when they got to the roof? Were they planning to rappel down the side of the building, maybe?
As I understand it, the Sun-SCO deal was done before SCO went off it's [sic] collective rocker...
Your understanding is wrong.
What date do you think the Sun-SCO deal was done? Let's see your evidence, please. I already posted my evidence, which is a certified financial statement signed by Darl McBride on file with the SEC. That evidence states the deal was done February 2003 or later.
What date do you think that SCO "went off it's [sic] collective rocker"? SCO announced that they hired Boies to investigate Linux in January, 2003. I posted evidence for that, too.
You got any evidence to post? Or just naked assertions?
Sun not only paid money to SCO, they took an equity position in SCO. That was February (or later). And they did this after SCO announced that they hired Boies to investigate Linux. That was January.
I think Sun knew what SCO was planning to do with Boies, especially since SCO and IBM had already held talks by then, and Sun negotiated an equity stake in SCO as part of Sun's deal with SCO.
We'll find out more when SCO files their next 10-Q.
One might argue that Sun is simply making sure it doesn't get sued, rather than actively supporting SCO. I don't believe that, because in addition to whatever license got, Sun also got the rights to buy 210,000 shares of SCOX stock at $1.83 per share.
I wouldn't want to support someone so wishy washy.
There are two effects here. First, as other posters have pointed out, Sun is a large organization with different people controlling different activities. It's quite possible that the Sun executives who decided to finance SCO are different from the Sun executives who decided to invest in Mad Hatter.
Second, Sun is neither for nor against open source, per se. Sun has their own goals. Sun is in favor of making money for Sun. Sun's decided that Mad Hatter will help them make money for Sun, so they will keep developing and marketing it as long as they continue to believe that.
I wouldn't want to support someone so wishy washy.
You don't have to support them, but you do have to think about what kinds of alliances to have with people whose goals are different from you. Because most of the people in the world are like that.
The SCO connection really bothers me, though. It's not like Sun is competing with Linux -- they are funding a legal attack to kill Linux. Why is Sun doing that? I wish the press would, well, press them about that.
A formatted computer is a dead computer (and an un-infected computer when it comes back to service, probably with current anti-virus software). An infected computer is a cracker proxy, a spam relay, a DDOS slave.
Also, for a lot of users, it's more damaging to leak information than to destroy the computer. Think of all the bank, credit card, and brokerage passwords that are available by logging the keystream. And, more relevantly, it's far more profitable to the virus writer to receive leaked information than to know that someone's drive was formatted.
I strongly agree with you. Momentum does cascade in both directions.
I think it's caused by inverted demand curves. Start with a normal demand curve. Normally when demand for something goes up a little, the price goes up a little, demand lessens, there is a new equilibrium at a new price.
Now imagine a situation where demand goes up, the price goes up, and demand is HIGHER at a higher price. Then the price will go up more, and demand will be even higher!
So, yust apply that old micro-economic analysis to a demand curve that increases as price increases. And then consider that momentum traders have an aggregate demand curve where, the more the price goes up, the more they buy (not so much individual traders "averaging up", but more new traders being attracted).
With a demand curve like that, if the price goes down a little, demand drops off, price goes down some more, price goes down some MORE... collapsing bubble.
My personal hope for that "something big happening" is news related to David Boies.
Right, you mention two of the big valuation models for stocks. First there's the model that a stock worth is the current value of its expected future dividend stream -- or som e flavor of that, depending on your philosophy of accounting. According to that model, I think the whole company is worth maybe $10 million to $50 million for its conventional products and services, and perhaps $50 million to $100 million (being generous) as an option on a lawsuit.
The next model is that you try to figure out why other people are buying stock. You try to figure out what is going to be fashionable next month and buy it this month (or figure out what will be disgusting next month and short-sell it this month).
People using the first model are like retail buyers -- end users of stock, almost. People using the second model are like merchants or wholesalers -- they buy the stock because they think someone else will want it a little bit later.
I sorta think that bubbles happen when a lot of people become wholesalers and think they are going to sell to other wholesalers with no clear idea of where the end of the value chain is. Warren Buffett says that he asks this question: "would I buy this stock if the stock market was open only once a year?"
Also, some people are momentum traders -- they buy whatever is going up. The ordinary laws of supply and demand do not apply, because the demand curve actually turns UP with increasing price, and the supply curve turns a little bit DOWN. So the curves do not cross in that beautiful Econ 1 diagram, and the usual negative-feedback loops of micro-economics become damaging positive-feedback loops.
I think that's what's happening to SCOX. Lots of momentum buyers, not enough fundamental buyers (where "fundamental" includes "chances of winning IBM suit" * "value of suit" of course).
That still leaves the question: why were Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday flat, and then big price increases on heavy volume on Thursday, Friday.
Well, actually, the run-up started Thursday morning. Here is a five-day graph. Look at the price and the volume starting on Thursday morning.
I don't know. But here are some guesses:
Somebody is trading on news that hasn't become public yet. Like maybe, Monday, we'll hear that some huge company bought a Linux license for a lot of money. I am disinclined to believe this because news like that generally comes out within 24 hours, and it's been longer than that since Thursday morning. But it could happen.
Or...
Somebody is trading on a really effective rumor that hasn't become public yet. It's hard to prove or disprove this either way.
Or...
Somebody had a big short position and they capitulated (bought a lot of stock back). This happens on Friday afternoons because short-sellers are wary about holding big short positions over the weekend. But this move started Thursday morning!
Or...
Somebody is intentionally buying a lot of stock in order to squeeze the short-sellers. There is no need to invoke an anti-Linux motive here; if they can buy at $11, and sell at $13, that's good money. And it does not take much to set off a stampede in a stock shorted as heavily as this.
Or...
After McBride said "Slide A equals Slide B", the pro-SCO people waited to see if the Linux people would say anything really devastating, such as "Slide B does not appear anywhere in our code, McBride pulled that out of his ass!"
McBride did his show on Monday, and we got all our responses into the media by Tuesday night. So this hypothesis is that the SCOX-ers were waiting to see what we had before they committed, and then it took another day (Wednesday) for the SCOX-ers to convince themselves that we didn't have a crushing reply to McBride.
The trouble with this hypothesis is that a whole day (Wednesday) is too much time for a volatile stock like SCOX. With that hypothesis, I'd expect more of a rally Monday, followed by a dip on Tuesday and Wednesday, with big volume. But that didn't happen. The volume numbers say that McBride's announcement on Monday and the Linux'ers reaction on Tuesday were both not important.
I'm inclined to believe in the "true believer" theory.
Look, I think that SCOX is worth $0.50 to $1.00 per share. I'm sure for the Slashdot crowd, that's a high estimate, and I'll get a bunch of replies saying "no! $0.01 per share! $0.000001 per share! Negative $699 per share!" But face it, reality says that there are people, right now, who are actually paying $13 per share for SCOX.
I have to try to get inside these people's heads, and I have to do it without taking cheap shots, which means that everyone else will take cheap shots at ME, the messenger.
But if you really want to understand...
McBride gets up on stage with "Slide A" and "Slide B". McBride says that Slide A is from SCO Unix. McBride says that Slide B is from Linux. It's obvious to everybody that Slide B looks like Slide A.
Then the Linux community replies and says "We admit that Slide B is from Linux 2.4 Yes, but that code is properly licensed. Yes, but that code doesn't run on desktops or embedded systems. Yes, but that code has already been removed from the 2.6 series".
All of these things are true, and they are all important in a court of law. Especially the bit about proper licensing.
But the SCO-lovers and the Linux-haters aren't interested in "Yes, But". So our message doesn't make it through their filter. They put a lot of weight on "Slide B equals Slide A", and are not listening to an argument that Slide B has every legal right to look like Slide A.
Human beings are like that. They discount arguments and evidence that disagree with them. And once a human being "flips the bozo bit" on another person, or another group of people, it stays flipped.
That's what I think is happening with the stock.
As far as "marketplace efficiency" goes -- whole new topic. I agree that this kind of bubble is inefficient for capital formation. However, it does satisfy the psychological need of people to identify with something that embodies their ideals, just like a sports team. Some people buy SCOX because it fulfills their desire to hate Linux.
I agree with you. On the level of physical acts: pirating MS Office XP is copying bits, just as "phoning home" is copying bits.
The interesting question is what moral judgements we make on the acts. I believe: people do own bits that they create; people can license those bits to other people on mutually agreeable terms; and this makes both piracy and privacy violations wrong, so they should be both be illegal.
In the case of a "license.txt in the INSTALLATION ARCHIVE", I agree that's wrong. When you licensed the software you made a deal with the licensor. The licensor doesn't get to come back later and ask for more, just like the guy at the Farmer's Market doesn't get to follow me homw and say "those are really good peaches, I changed my mind and am going to charge you more for them." A deal is a deal.
Linux has a pretty damn good paper trail, recording who contributed what and when.
You missed the point. The problem is not keeping track of who contributed what when. The problem is verifying that each contributor has the legal right to make the contribution that they are making.
Suppose that Party A writes copyrighted source code and declines to license it under the GPL. Suppose that Party B has a licensed ocpy of this work, on non-GPL terms. Suppose that Party B unlawfully sends a copy to Party L for publication in the Linux kernel. And suppose that Party L publishes this contribution without asking Party B "do you have the right to do this?"
Party B would be guilty of direct infringement. Party L would be guilty of vicarious infringement.
Please point to the mechanism that Linus Torvalds uses for screening contributions so that he is not in the position of Party L here.
I've already pointed to the mechanism that the FSF uses to prevent this problem. The FSF made me sign a contract stating that I wouldn't contribute other people's copyrighted code, and that I would idemnify the FSF if I did. The FSF requires every contributor to sign a similar contract.... that certainly doesn't make it Linus's fault.
Nope. That sounds like a statement from someone who didn't read Ninth Circuit, A&M versus Napster, before commenting.
The Ninth Circuit says that constitutes vicarious infringement. Actual knowledge is not an element of vicarious infringement. If someone runs a service, and they derive financial benefit from it (under a very broad test), and they exercise control over the users of the service (another broad test), they are open to vicarious liability, whether they actually know what their users are doing or not.
I don't know where the line in the law is about how much screening publishers have to do. I'm really interested in that. I suspect that the line is not well established in case law yet, and I'm worried that SCO is going to attack on this front.
I'm pointing to a legal weakness in the Linux development process. But my intent is not to attack Linux, it's to point out where SCO is going to attack Linux. I really think that SCO is going to attack on vicarious liability grounds.
You and I can see ownership and big stock transactions at www.sec.gov. Or you can start at finance.yahoo.com for the more user-friendly version (based on the sec.gov source information).
The SEC has access to much more info and will use it in an investigation, if they investigate. For all we know they are investigating already.
Slashdot Mirror
Democracy: a system where a majority can make decisions binding on a majority. Since you bring it up, I'm not a big fan of democracy. I'm more a Bill of Rights guy. I believe that people have many rights which a majority cannot override.
... was to nurture the idea that the OSS community is rife with copying and don't believe in IPR ...
... but isn't this true?
The USA Patriot Act has majority support my country (don't know what country you're in). That doesn't make it right.
How would you like it if a majority of people in your country voted on what operating system and application programs to use, and everybody had to run the majority choice? It would cut down on the compatibility problems. But I prefer a system where everybody makes their own choice, even though it's very undemocratic of me to run Linux.
The point of the SCO argument
We agree on that. SCO is making that case, both legally and in their public relations.
No. Even RMS respects trademarks. All major OSS groups that I'm aware of (mostly FSF and Linux), respect other people's copyrights. I will accept the point for patents. There are significant OSS groups that are hostile to patents.
As you say, there is no onus on your company to contribute back. Your company makes the choice. Under a leftist software economy, a government agency would make that choice.
To me, it's all about who gets to make the choice. The actual choice that comes out is secondary. Just as it's okay for me to choose whether to spend $200 to buy a copy of Windows, but repugnant to me if the government takes $200 to pay for Windows, the democratic choice, as a public utility.
Doesn't the GPL remove choice of licenses for derivative works?
:)
No.
Without the GPL, the author of a derivative work has no right at all to distribute the derivative work. The GPL grants a license with specific terms. Some people find these terms a delight, some people find them onerous.
You've fallen into the intellectual property trap and equated an idea and a limited monopoly on it with something tangible.
Again, no. I support copyrights intentionally, not as a trap. I support it, briefly, because that particular work did not exist before someone created it, therefore it's all theirs, not commons.
I never claimed that bits are "tangible". That's your error -- to think that I do. I support property rights in bits, as well as property rights in atoms, but I don't claim that bits are atoms.
In a system where there isn't money you're fed regardless.
That's a whole another argument, but I will point out that the biggest mass starvations in history have taken place in societies were farmers did not have property rights in their land and their crops.
OSS is far more left than it is right
Sigh, again, no. At least we are back to an on-topic disagreement.
Do I have to pay for OSS software, whether I use it or not? Obviously not. For comparison, show me any leftist economic system where I can opt out and not pay taxes for other people's services.
Can other people take software that I write and convert it into any form of OSS without my consent? The GPL says no: see section 0. Linus Torvalds says no: "He who writes the code chooses the license". I can write an entire operating system and it's my choice whether to make it GPL or not. Again, show me a leftist economic system where I can build a factory and then I can choose how to use it and what to do with the output.
OSS is an individualist laissez-faire system. It just happens not to use money. It is a community, like a church -- anyone can join and contribute, and many people do, but no one is forced to. That's the key difference between OSS and a leftist system.
Fine, instead of "your property", read: "bit patterns that you created". I trust you accept the word "you" as having a meaning? :)
/vmlinux onto a CD-ROM and give the CD-ROM to my friend, without a copy of /usr/src/linux. Right or wrong? I think it's wrong.
Let's see if we can get past the semantics and get to some actual cases.
Suppose that I copy a Windows CD-ROM and give the copy to a friend. Right or wrong? I think it's wrong.
Suppose that I copy a Linux CD-ROM and give the copy to a friend. Right or wrong? I think it's right.
Suppose that I burn
I look to the consent of the copyright holder as my moral compass. A Communist looks to a "community" to give consent or not. That's the difference between my moral system and a Communist moral system.
I won't even go into the problem of who decides what the "community" is and who gets to voice the "community's" opinion.
To tie this back to SCO -- part of SCO's FUD campaign is that open source developers routinely copy other people's code without consent of the copyright holder; that Linux developers are like so man Napster users; and our whole enterprise is based on wholesale code copying. This has great resonance with the worldwide business community and the worldwide media. I think that a Communist-based defense is not just morally wrong, but will also damage us on a practical level.
There's a lacuna here that kills your case.
Yes, a lawyer working for SCO has opined in the media that the GPL is invalid under US Copyright Law. (And yes, I too think that he's full of shit, but that's not important).
But, that does not prove that SCO has taken any actions which violate the GPL.
You claim that "SCO does not make the source of the program available". That's a very serious charge. Please point to a program which SCO distributed which contains your copyrighted work and was NOT accompanied by the source code or a written offer to provide the source code.
Because last time I checked, there were big linux source rpm's at ftp.sco.com, which means SCO is complying with the GPL for any linux kernel binaries that they distribute (that are built from that source). One of their lawyers says that the GPL is not legal, but it looks like SCO is abiding by its terms.
Communism is a system where it's illegal for me to choose my own license. The essence of communism is that I can take your property whether you ocnsent or not.
The current world of OSS is not at all communist. I can write my code under any license I choose. I respect the right of other people to hold copyright in their creations and to choose their own licenses. And I honor the licenses of all copyrighted materials that I use.
Almost every bit of OSS is legally copyrighted by specific people and corporations and nonprofits, not by a vague community. (Some bits are too small or too constrained to be copyrighted, and a few OSS authors actually do abandon their work to the public domain). I think this is natural and good and right.
To draw an analogy, maybe you don't see a difference between the primary use of Napster -- copying other people's work without their consent -- and the primary use of mp3.com -- copying other people's work with their consent. In both cases, gigabytes of mp3's fly across the wires. But I see a huge difference. So do the copyright laws of almost every nation, per the Berne convention. And so do almost all business users of computers.
It's all about consent.
Ummm, yeah, you're the only one who thinks that. :)
SCO's business plan:
1. Sell $12 million of UnixWare and OpenServer, at a cost of $14 million. Loss of $2 million.
2. Sell $8 million of "SCO Source" licenses to Microsoft and Sun, at a cost of $2 million. Gain of $6 million.
3. $4 million profit !
SCO has executed this business plan successfully for two quarters now. Read their quarterly earnings announcements at finance.yahoo.com. It's right there. They are already in stage 3 and have been there for six months.
Now, in Step 2, what are Microsoft and Sun getting for their $8 million per quarter? They are getting anti-Linux FUD. Linux takes sales from Microsoft and Sun, and this is a way for Microsoft and Sun to attack Linux without getting their own hands dirty. That's the value-add of using SCO as a sock puppet.
Darl's bragging about the number of press releases from SCO rather than products and customer wins. Well, in my opinion, future "license payments" from Microsoft and Sun may very well be based on the number of anti-Linux press releases that SCO puts out!
Canopy, the parent company of SCO, also has a business model based on suing other companies: $150 million lawsuit settlement from Microsoft, $40 million lawsuit settlement with Computer Associates.
Too bad I can't fit the whole quote into the subject.
Contrary to the claims in the Client Server News story, SCO has not engaged Mr. Boies to take legal action against our fellow Linux vendors.
SCO press release, January 13, 2003
SCO says it has made no decision on Unix IP
So I don't believe SCO's statements about their future plans. They are practicing the adage: "diplomacy consists of saying 'nice doggy' while you are looking for a rock".
The hosting company is Center 7, which is partially or fully owned by Canopy Group. Canopy Group is the largest shareholder in SCO.
BTW, Center 7 and Canopy sued Computer Associates recently. They settled for $40 million. Those Canopy Group fuckers are sue-happy pricks. "Contracts are what you use against people you do business with", indeed.
CA says settles Canopy Group, Center 7 litigation
Caldera International bought DR-DOS.
Then Caldera International sued Microsoft for $1.6 billion.
Microsoft settled.
The terms of the settlement for confidential, but estimated at $150 million.
Reference:
Microsoft, Caldera settle long-standing lawsuit
The general public cares as little about computers as "we" do about how our cars operate. We just want to get in them and drive.
Transcripts from the General Motors Help Line
The 10-Q itself identifies the second licensee as Microsoft.
The first licensee is Sun.
Sun also got options to buy SCOX stock: 210,000 options at $1.83 per share, as part of their deal.
Obviously Microsoft benefits from Linux FUD. So does Sun. They're not licensing because they are stupid. Sun and Microsoft are using SCO as a sock puppet.
There are three possibilities here.
One is to issue statements condemning SCO. That's the level where the FSF is at. See README.SCO in gcc 3.3.1 Here's a link.
README.SCO
Another possibility would be to remove support for SCO operating systems from FSF products, but leave the license alone. So people would be free to download the FSF source and maintain their own SCO versions of it.
A third possibility would be to change the license to restrict people and companies who act like SCO is acting.
The FSF is currently pursing action #1: including README.SCO files with its products. Personally, I am in favor of action #2: removing the SCO-specific code from FSF products.
Okay, two questions, and not about batteries.
In the first movie, when the agents capture Morpheus, they take him to a secure location to interrogate him. Unlike the interrogation room where the agents took Thomas Anderson, the interrogation room for Morpheus has a big glass curtain window.
Why? I mean, shouldn't they stick Morpheus in a windowless concrete cell?
Then, Neo and Trinity storm into the building (killing several people by shooting first but that's a well-known debate). They take an elevator up to the roof and drop some explosives into the lobby. There's a helicopter on the roof, and Trinity tells Tank she needs a program to fly it.
Was the helicopter part of Trinity's plan when she went in?
If it was part of their plan, how come Trinity didn't download the helicopter training program before they set off alarms and had a bunch of people trying to kill them? And if it's not part of their plan, what was their plan when they got to the roof? Were they planning to rappel down the side of the building, maybe?
As I understand it, the Sun-SCO deal was done before SCO went off it's [sic] collective rocker ...
Your understanding is wrong.
What date do you think the Sun-SCO deal was done? Let's see your evidence, please. I already posted my evidence, which is a certified financial statement signed by Darl McBride on file with the SEC. That evidence states the deal was done February 2003 or later.
What date do you think that SCO "went off it's [sic] collective rocker"? SCO announced that they hired Boies to investigate Linux in January, 2003. I posted evidence for that, too.
You got any evidence to post? Or just naked assertions?
Sun not only paid money to SCO, they took an equity position in SCO. That was February (or later). And they did this after SCO announced that they hired Boies to investigate Linux. That was January.
February comes after January.
One little problem with your one little issue: Sun paid SCO after SCO publicly announced they hired David Boies.
SCO hired David Boies on or before, January 10, 2003.
SCO Threatens to Press IP Claims on Linux
On January 22, 2003, SCO made their public announcement.
Has SCO Fired Shot to Start Linux War?
Sun closed their deal, paid their money, and received their stock warrant on or after February 1, 2003.
SCO 10-Q
I think Sun knew what SCO was planning to do with Boies, especially since SCO and IBM had already held talks by then, and Sun negotiated an equity stake in SCO as part of Sun's deal with SCO.
We'll find out more when SCO files their next 10-Q.
Sun is one of the two "SCO Source" licensees who are financing SCO's lawsuits.
Sun expands Unix deal with SCO
One might argue that Sun is simply making sure it doesn't get sued, rather than actively supporting SCO. I don't believe that, because in addition to whatever license got, Sun also got the rights to buy 210,000 shares of SCOX stock at $1.83 per share.
I wouldn't want to support someone so wishy washy.
There are two effects here. First, as other posters have pointed out, Sun is a large organization with different people controlling different activities. It's quite possible that the Sun executives who decided to finance SCO are different from the Sun executives who decided to invest in Mad Hatter.
Second, Sun is neither for nor against open source, per se. Sun has their own goals. Sun is in favor of making money for Sun. Sun's decided that Mad Hatter will help them make money for Sun, so they will keep developing and marketing it as long as they continue to believe that.
I wouldn't want to support someone so wishy washy.
You don't have to support them, but you do have to think about what kinds of alliances to have with people whose goals are different from you. Because most of the people in the world are like that.
The SCO connection really bothers me, though. It's not like Sun is competing with Linux -- they are funding a legal attack to kill Linux. Why is Sun doing that? I wish the press would, well, press them about that.
Sun expands Unix deal with SCO
And for gritty deals on the warrant agreement (search for 'warrant agreement')
SCO 10-Q quarter ended 2003-04-30
A formatted computer is a dead computer (and an un-infected computer when it comes back to service, probably with current anti-virus software). An infected computer is a cracker proxy, a spam relay, a DDOS slave.
Also, for a lot of users, it's more damaging to leak information than to destroy the computer. Think of all the bank, credit card, and brokerage passwords that are available by logging the keystream. And, more relevantly, it's far more profitable to the virus writer to receive leaked information than to know that someone's drive was formatted.
I strongly agree with you. Momentum does cascade in both directions.
... collapsing bubble.
I think it's caused by inverted demand curves. Start with a normal demand curve. Normally when demand for something goes up a little, the price goes up a little, demand lessens, there is a new equilibrium at a new price.
Now imagine a situation where demand goes up, the price goes up, and demand is HIGHER at a higher price. Then the price will go up more, and demand will be even higher!
So, yust apply that old micro-economic analysis to a demand curve that increases as price increases. And then consider that momentum traders have an aggregate demand curve where, the more the price goes up, the more they buy (not so much individual traders "averaging up", but more new traders being attracted).
With a demand curve like that, if the price goes down a little, demand drops off, price goes down some more, price goes down some MORE
My personal hope for that "something big happening" is news related to David Boies.
Right, you mention two of the big valuation models for stocks. First there's the model that a stock worth is the current value of its expected future dividend stream -- or som e flavor of that, depending on your philosophy of accounting. According to that model, I think the whole company is worth maybe $10 million to $50 million for its conventional products and services, and perhaps $50 million to $100 million (being generous) as an option on a lawsuit.
The next model is that you try to figure out why other people are buying stock. You try to figure out what is going to be fashionable next month and buy it this month (or figure out what will be disgusting next month and short-sell it this month).
People using the first model are like retail buyers -- end users of stock, almost. People using the second model are like merchants or wholesalers -- they buy the stock because they think someone else will want it a little bit later.
I sorta think that bubbles happen when a lot of people become wholesalers and think they are going to sell to other wholesalers with no clear idea of where the end of the value chain is. Warren Buffett says that he asks this question: "would I buy this stock if the stock market was open only once a year?"
Also, some people are momentum traders -- they buy whatever is going up. The ordinary laws of supply and demand do not apply, because the demand curve actually turns UP with increasing price, and the supply curve turns a little bit DOWN. So the curves do not cross in that beautiful Econ 1 diagram, and the usual negative-feedback loops of micro-economics become damaging positive-feedback loops.
I think that's what's happening to SCOX. Lots of momentum buyers, not enough fundamental buyers (where "fundamental" includes "chances of winning IBM suit" * "value of suit" of course).
That still leaves the question: why were Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday flat, and then big price increases on heavy volume on Thursday, Friday.
Why Friday?
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Well, actually, the run-up started Thursday morning. Here is a five-day graph. Look at the price and the volume starting on Thursday morning.
I don't know. But here are some guesses:
Somebody is trading on news that hasn't become public yet. Like maybe, Monday, we'll hear that some huge company bought a Linux license for a lot of money. I am disinclined to believe this because news like that generally comes out within 24 hours, and it's been longer than that since Thursday morning. But it could happen.
Or
Somebody is trading on a really effective rumor that hasn't become public yet. It's hard to prove or disprove this either way.
Or
Somebody had a big short position and they capitulated (bought a lot of stock back). This happens on Friday afternoons because short-sellers are wary about holding big short positions over the weekend. But this move started Thursday morning!
Or
Somebody is intentionally buying a lot of stock in order to squeeze the short-sellers. There is no need to invoke an anti-Linux motive here; if they can buy at $11, and sell at $13, that's good money. And it does not take much to set off a stampede in a stock shorted as heavily as this.
Or
After McBride said "Slide A equals Slide B", the pro-SCO people waited to see if the Linux people would say anything really devastating, such as "Slide B does not appear anywhere in our code, McBride pulled that out of his ass!"
McBride did his show on Monday, and we got all our responses into the media by Tuesday night. So this hypothesis is that the SCOX-ers were waiting to see what we had before they committed, and then it took another day (Wednesday) for the SCOX-ers to convince themselves that we didn't have a crushing reply to McBride.
The trouble with this hypothesis is that a whole day (Wednesday) is too much time for a volatile stock like SCOX. With that hypothesis, I'd expect more of a rally Monday, followed by a dip on Tuesday and Wednesday, with big volume. But that didn't happen. The volume numbers say that McBride's announcement on Monday and the Linux'ers reaction on Tuesday were both not important.
Summary
I don't like any of these explanations very much.
I'm inclined to believe in the "true believer" theory.
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Look, I think that SCOX is worth $0.50 to $1.00 per share. I'm sure for the Slashdot crowd, that's a high estimate, and I'll get a bunch of replies saying "no! $0.01 per share! $0.000001 per share! Negative $699 per share!" But face it, reality says that there are people, right now, who are actually paying $13 per share for SCOX.
I have to try to get inside these people's heads, and I have to do it without taking cheap shots, which means that everyone else will take cheap shots at ME, the messenger.
But if you really want to understand
McBride gets up on stage with "Slide A" and "Slide B". McBride says that Slide A is from SCO Unix. McBride says that Slide B is from Linux. It's obvious to everybody that Slide B looks like Slide A.
Then the Linux community replies and says "We admit that Slide B is from Linux 2.4 Yes, but that code is properly licensed. Yes, but that code doesn't run on desktops or embedded systems. Yes, but that code has already been removed from the 2.6 series".
All of these things are true, and they are all important in a court of law. Especially the bit about proper licensing.
But the SCO-lovers and the Linux-haters aren't interested in "Yes, But". So our message doesn't make it through their filter. They put a lot of weight on "Slide B equals Slide A", and are not listening to an argument that Slide B has every legal right to look like Slide A.
Human beings are like that. They discount arguments and evidence that disagree with them. And once a human being "flips the bozo bit" on another person, or another group of people, it stays flipped.
That's what I think is happening with the stock.
As far as "marketplace efficiency" goes -- whole new topic. I agree that this kind of bubble is inefficient for capital formation. However, it does satisfy the psychological need of people to identify with something that embodies their ideals, just like a sports team. Some people buy SCOX because it fulfills their desire to hate Linux.
I agree with you. On the level of physical acts: pirating MS Office XP is copying bits, just as "phoning home" is copying bits.
The interesting question is what moral judgements we make on the acts. I believe: people do own bits that they create; people can license those bits to other people on mutually agreeable terms; and this makes both piracy and privacy violations wrong, so they should be both be illegal.
In the case of a "license.txt in the INSTALLATION ARCHIVE", I agree that's wrong. When you licensed the software you made a deal with the licensor. The licensor doesn't get to come back later and ask for more, just like the guy at the Farmer's Market doesn't get to follow me homw and say "those are really good peaches, I changed my mind and am going to charge you more for them." A deal is a deal.
Linux has a pretty damn good paper trail, recording who contributed what and when.
... that certainly doesn't make it Linus's fault.
You missed the point. The problem is not keeping track of who contributed what when. The problem is verifying that each contributor has the legal right to make the contribution that they are making.
Suppose that Party A writes copyrighted source code and declines to license it under the GPL. Suppose that Party B has a licensed ocpy of this work, on non-GPL terms. Suppose that Party B unlawfully sends a copy to Party L for publication in the Linux kernel. And suppose that Party L publishes this contribution without asking Party B "do you have the right to do this?"
Party B would be guilty of direct infringement. Party L would be guilty of vicarious infringement.
Please point to the mechanism that Linus Torvalds uses for screening contributions so that he is not in the position of Party L here.
I've already pointed to the mechanism that the FSF uses to prevent this problem. The FSF made me sign a contract stating that I wouldn't contribute other people's copyrighted code, and that I would idemnify the FSF if I did. The FSF requires every contributor to sign a similar contract.
Nope. That sounds like a statement from someone who didn't read Ninth Circuit, A&M versus Napster, before commenting.
The Ninth Circuit says that constitutes vicarious infringement. Actual knowledge is not an element of vicarious infringement. If someone runs a service, and they derive financial benefit from it (under a very broad test), and they exercise control over the users of the service (another broad test), they are open to vicarious liability, whether they actually know what their users are doing or not.
I don't know where the line in the law is about how much screening publishers have to do. I'm really interested in that. I suspect that the line is not well established in case law yet, and I'm worried that SCO is going to attack on this front.
I'm pointing to a legal weakness in the Linux development process. But my intent is not to attack Linux, it's to point out where SCO is going to attack Linux. I really think that SCO is going to attack on vicarious liability grounds.
You and I can see ownership and big stock transactions at www.sec.gov. Or you can start at finance.yahoo.com for the more user-friendly version (based on the sec.gov source information).
The SEC has access to much more info and will use it in an investigation, if they investigate. For all we know they are investigating already.