Compiling to a known-published binary is the only way to verify.
This sounds like a digital update to the old "stick it in an envelope and mail it to yourself" idea.
This is why the Copyright Office offers the service of copyright registration. The owner of the copyright sends a copy of the work to the US Copyright Office with an application and a $30 fee. At a later date, the copyright owner can get back a certified copy, where the Copyright Office certifies "this registrant filed these bytes on this date".
I don't know if it applies to copyright law, but in many points of law, my understanding is that it is up to the injured party to try to mitigate damages.
Dale Kimball is the judge assigned to SCO versus IBM.
Judge Kimball ruled on a copyright infringement case in January 2001:
You will also be hard pressed to have a programmer replace those lines of code, under a "clean-room" environment.
Exhibit C of SCO's complaint against IBM is a side letter to the contract between AT&T and IBM. Section 9 of that side letter specifically allows IBM to use methods and concepts from Unix code in their own products and services without operating in a clean-room environment.
So replacing any offending lines would be easy for IBM.
http://www.sco.com/ibmlawsuit
Just hit Exhibit C from there and read it yourself.
Everyone seems to be focusing on "historic" unix and not on the project Monterey, which is pretty much where they've said the violation comes from. All that they would have to show is that IBM took IP from that project that they didn't have the rights to and submitted it into the Linux kernel.
My question:
Did SCO enter into a contract with IBM about the intellectual property rights for Project Monterey?
I'm hoping that somebody is going to ask Darl McBride that question in public, and soon.
If SCO has such a contract, why did they not include a copy of that contract in their complaint against IBM?
They include much older contracts in their exhibits, but they do not show any contract relating to the specific project where they allege that the breeches came from.
Thursday, a day before the conference call, I read through every filing from Novell and SCO at www.sec.gov (Did I mention that I'm short SCOX, and I'm always looking for more information?). There are several references to the Asset Purchase Agreement, but there are no instances of the actual agreement.
By the way, the date is Dec 1995, not Dec 1993. So it should be in the 10-Q filed for that quarter which was filed at the beginning of 1996.
So, okay, maybe I missed something in the search, I'd be ever so grateful for a URL to the Asset Purchase Agreement. That's why I'm personally tweaked at McBride, because he palmed off the question with "SEC filings on the Internet" [his literal words] and I sure didn't see them in my search.
That's no big deal, it's quite possible that SCO filed a Form 8 about the contract, and the SEC didn't computerize it yet. Or my searching is flawed. If anyone wants to post a URL for the APA, I'd be grateful.
The big deal is that SCO has this Asset Purchase Agreement in its possession. They are quoting passages from it! A reporter asked for it, and McBride said, more or less, "go look somewhere else". That's what I'm calling bullshit on.
BTW, I also find it interesting that SCO did not show the Asset Purchase Agreement as an exhibit in their lawsuits. Check out:
http://www.sco.com/ibmlawsuit
There are several documents there that establish a contract between AT&T and IBM, and a document that refers to the Asset Purchase Agreement, but there is no copy of the Asset Purchase Agreement. SCO has skipped a big step in establishing standing to sue IBM.
Comments are not trade secrets!
on
Latest SCO News
·
· Score: 1
Moreover, the nonfunctional elements of the code, such as comments, cannot be trade secrets because these elements are minimal and confer no competitive advantage on Defendants.
That blows a hole in SCO's position that they can't reveal infringing sections because it would damage their trade secret status.
The comments are already *not* trade secret, so how's about showing them to the journalists, Darl?
I'm not picking on your comment in particular because I actually agree with most of it, as far as it goes. I'm just going to use your statement as a starting point.
Bias isn't the point, and expertise isn't the point, either. Due process is the point.
When SCO goes to court, they will their evidence to the judge, the jury, and IBM's lawyers. The court will allow IBM to present IBM's evidence and IBM's evidence. The court will allow IBM to cross-examine SCO's witnesses.
There are also rules against hearsay evidence. It's not legal to introduce evidence that somebody has an opinion about something when the actual something is readily available.
That is, SCO can't just come in and say "Laura Didio looked at our evidence" and then have Laura Didio testify. SCO will have to present the evidence that Laura Didio has to testify about. And they have to make all that evidence available to IBM in advance, so that IBM can see if there is another explanation (SCO copying from Linux, SCO making claims about errno.h, SCO making claims about code that SCO submitted to Linux, whatever).
So my question for SCO is:
Regarding the information that you provided to Laura Didio: have you provided a copy of this information to IBM's counsel?
McBride didn't break any new ground here, just as he didn't in the last conference call. Which leads me to believe that the purpose of these calls is to spin the market, not to inform the market.
The imposter on #4 did not accomplish anything. SCO figured him out even before the real George Weiss exposed him.
SCO dodged questions about their AIX revocation strategy, which I think is legitimate to dodge.
Todd Weiss of Computer World asked for a copy of the Asset Purchase Agreement between Novell and SCO. I think the court is going to want a copy of that, too, and SCO didn't file one with its complaint. McBride dodged that by saying it was available in "SEC filings on the Internet". I think that was a bullshit evasion.
McBride admitted that SCO does not claim ownership of any patents in Unix.
McBride referred to 30,000 contracts which contain language about methods, concepts, and know-how. He didn't say that IBM's specific contract prohibits IBM from re-using any of that. In fact, Exhibit C, paragraph 9 of SCO's complaint contains language which specifically allows IBM to do that. See http://www.sco.com/ibmlawsuit . In fact, could some helpful person post the specific URL's of the complaint and the exhibits?
The strongest SCO point is that they found part of the Novell contract that does grant copyrights to SCO. The weakest SCO point is that they aren't willing to show this contract to reporters.
First my notes from today's SCO conference call. Then I will post my opinions in a follow-up message.
XXX 12:04 est 2003-06-06
Blake Stowell says that Darl McBride and Chris Sontag will be talking today.
XXX 12:05
Darl McBride talks about the Novell announcement of May 28, 2003. "In fact, Novell does not own the copyrights." "SCO is the only rightful owner of the Unix System 5 source code and copyrights." "Portions of the Unix System 5 code were found in Linux." "Linux users need to obtain opinions from their own legal counsel."
XXX 12:07 Question and Answer session
[question #1] Peter Gally, eWeek magazine
Q: share price was up 29% today ahead of announcements of news. What do you attribute that to?
A: "I can't really comment on that."
Q: "Did you or any SCO executives buy or sell any shares yesterday?"
A: "I personally didn't"... not aware of any who did.
[question #2] Hiawatha Bray, Boston Globe
Q: "When Friday the 13th rolls around... what are you going to do?" (regarding AIX license revocation)
A: "We have a number of options at our disposal."
[question #3] Stephen Shankland, CNET
Q: Copyright office does not have an assignment on file [for the Unix copyrights from Novell]. "Is it your understanding that the copyrights have not been registered yet?"
A: "Stephen is correct... [if we need] we will change the assignment of copyright..." [we can do that at any time].
[question #4] "George Weiss", "Gartner Group"
[Note: caller #4 was later exposed as an imposter]
Q: "How long can you continue to deceive investors... if you're not trying to get bought out, what are you trying to do?"
A: "We're trying to protect our IP rights."
[question #5] Todd Weiss, Computer World
Q: "Where can we see the Asset Purchase Agreement?"
A: "We have a lot of documents... 30,000 contracts... in the case of the Asset Purchase Agreement... SEC filings on the Internet."
[question #6] Herbert Jackson, Renaissance Ventures
Q: "Were patents addressed?" [in the Novell-SCO asset purchase agreement]
A: "Ownership of the patents was not something that SCO has ever claimed."
[question #7] Lenny Brecken, Brecken Capital
Q: "Why wasn't amendment [amendment 2 to Novell Asset Purchase Agreement] immediately available?"
A: "[It was available...] inside of four business days."
Q: "[Patent question]... is that relevant?"
A: "This isn't a patent case."
A: "30,000 contracts.. methods, concepts, know-how..." [that is, their 30,000 sub-licensing agreements contain contract language restricting those things]
[question #8] Roger Howerth, IP Week
Q: "Why will you not provide details [of the offending source code]?"
A: "Source code is a little bit different..." [long answer about how revealing source code would damage the trade secret status of their claims]... "confidentiality protection"
[question #9] George Weiss, Gartner Group
[Unlike question #4, this time it's the REAL George Weiss]
Statement: "I didn't ask the earlier question."
A: "We already knew that"... "I appreciate you clarifying that."... suggestion to the fake George Weiss to drop off the call.
Q: "Are you aware of any organized movement... to settle the claims with SCO?"
A: "I can't comment"... "discussions with large players."
[question #10] Lenny Brecken, Brecken Capital
Q: [AIX license revocation] "Are you going to hold a CC on that date [June 13]?"
A: "... on the 16th, we will take the appropriate steps..."
XXX 12:22 Blake Stowell, closing statement
[If you want a replay, or want to followup, contact us
Permission granted to anybody to use this text for any purpose. I would particularly like it if journalists asked these questions of SCO executives.
Questions for SCO 2003-06-05
===
Did SCO sign a contract with IBM for Project Monterey?
(if yes) Will you file that contract as an exhibit in your suit against IBM?
(if no) Why did you undertake a large joint development project with IBM with no contract?
===
Your UNIX contract rights depend on a contract with Novell. Are you going to file your contract with Novell as an exhibit in your suit against IBM? Are you going to make your contract with Novell available to the press?
===
Who has signed your NDA and received copies of confidential materials? If the identities of all the NDA recipients are confidential, can you tell us how many there are?
===
Have you provided legal notice to any person or organization which distributes Linux software of any specific source code lines that you claim infringe on your intellectual property?
FSF has more than a copyright assignment
on
SCO SCO SCO!
·
· Score: 1
Teeny weeny flaw there - if IBMer put code into GNU who will the FSF have copyright assignment from ? - yep, IBM. If SCO is right and it wasn't IBM's code to assign then all RMS has is toilet paper.
Moglen is smarter than that.
The standad FSF assignment form includes an indemnity clause, where the contributor indemnifies FSF against precisely this thing.
IBM has a specially negotiated assignment contract with the FSF, and I don't know what's in it. Still, Moglen has prepared for precisely this issue.
IBM's contract allows reuse of methods, concepts
on
SCO SCO SCO!
·
· Score: 1
Indeed, IBM thought of this back when they bought their Unix license. The contract between AT&T and IBM contains an additional letter of agreement.
I'm having trouble getting to www.sco.com right now, so I can't do better than that URL. Go over to Exhibit C and read it, especially paragraph 2 (I think) and paragraph 9.
Paragraph 2 (I think) says that IBM owns any derivative works created from Unix.
Paragraph 9 says that IBM is entitled to use ideas, methods, concepts, and stuff like that in their own products and services, provided that IBM employees do not refer to the "physical materials" provided by AT&T while they are doing it. This paragraph squarely addresses the issue you raise and explicitly allows IBM engineers to work on a Unix project, learn things, and then work on another IBM project and use what they learned. Direct "copy and paste" is, of course, forbidden.
Oh man, you don't know the first thing about shorting! Let me teach you.
Suppose you start with $10,000 in cash and no SCOX stock. You go to your broker and short-sell 1000 shares of SCOX at $6.70 per share. Now you have $16,700 in cash and -1000 shares. That's right, you have negative shares in your account. I hope that you are comfortable with negative numbers.
Your net worth is $16,700 + (6.70 * -1000) = $10,000.
Now say that IBM opens up the giant can of whoop-ass and SCOX drops to $6.00 per share. You can buy 1000 shares of SCOX for $6000. Now you have $10,700 in cash and 0 shares of SCOX (right where you started). You take your $700 profit and do whatever you want.
But suppose IBM capitulates and buys out SCO for $100 million. SCOX soars, it's up to $9.00 per share. You have -1000 shares of SCOX and $16,700 in cash, for a net worth of $7,700. You relucantly buy the damn stock back, look at the $7,700 in your brokerage account, and go back to your day job.
Your broker won't let you keep a position of -1000 shares forever. Eventually you have to buy back those 1000 shares and "cover" your short position eventually.
If you learn nothing else, learn this: short selling is starting with 0 shares and selling some shares, so now you have negative shares. Apply the laws of negative numbers and take it from there. You can have negative shares in your account (just like you have negative money in your credit card account or your home mortgage), and that's all that a short sale is.
(Yes, all you other investment pros, there's upticks, and margin requirements, and stock calls, and dividends, and hypothecation agreements, and naked shorts, blah blah blah. Those are advanced topics. I just cringe when I see people saying "you don't have to own SCO stock to short it" and I want to illuminate the basic point).
Which group of lawyers representing which part(s) of IBM did he work with...
Boeis worked for Cravath, Swaine and Moore for 30 years. I don't know which part of IBM he worked with.... and are they at all congruent with the group being brought on line now?
IBM's counsel is Cravath, Swaine, and Moore.
Come on, grab your own Google and try "David Boies", "David Boies IBM", and so on.
Dale Kimball is the judge in SCO versus IBM. So what he says about intellectual property matters.
In the above case, an author wrote a fictional book based on the memoirs of a World War II veteran. The interesting part of the judge's decision is:
In his ruling, Kimball said Jacobsen did not "express any disapproval" of the series until 1999, after the third volume had been published.
"Had Jacobsen voiced his disapproval in 1996, Hughes would have had the opportunity to take the offending material out of the books," Kimball wrote. "For Jacobsen to wait until three volumes of the series had been published before voicing his disapproval, when it is clear he had ample opportunity to let Hughes know of his disapproval as early as 1996, results in extreme prejudice to Hughes [sic]."
I can't figure out that last reference to Hughes (the defendant). From the context, I think that the judge really meant extreme prejudice against Jacobsen (the plaintiff).
This looks similar to the situation of SCO versus Torvalds, SCO versus Red Hat, SCO versus SuSE, or SCO versus 1500 Linux end users. SCO sold both Linux and Unix for a long time before they made any claims, and to this day they have not identified the offending code in any Linux product. I suspect that if IBM brings those issues to the case, Judge Kimball will take a dim view of SCO's submarine strategy.
(Disclosure: I am short SCOX, no position in any other companies mentioned).
For $600k each, I could do other things for my kids:
Send them to an excellent school.
Take time off work so that I can be there for them.
Not have a television set (hey, this one is free).
Feed them nutritious food.
Help them play sports (whatever sport they like).
Help them play music (whatever instrument they like).
Buy them a good computer with good software.
Take them to museums.
Take them on interesting vacation trips.
Buy them lots and lots of books.
Pay LOTS and LOTS of attention to them as they grow up.
Most of these are $1k/year items, some of them are $10k/year, some of them cost no money and just take time.
Some parents do these things. And some parents park their children in front of the television, feed them Domino's Pizza and Coke, and never look at their child's homework. This difference in nurturing already exists! In my opinion, this has much more impact on a child's life than Gattaca-style "make them a few percent stronger".
I've got your reality right here . Reality is represented by the uppermost line, the one with dominant market share.
The reality is that millions of people use open source software every day. Once you accept that reality, you can begin to understand the idea of open music.
How about an Internet radio station that broadcasts only music which the artists distribute under some kind of Open Music license?
Marketing: the station-master could plug it on Slashdot, and all of us righteous "information wants to be free" folks would be interested. I run Free Software on principle. I'd like to apply the same principles to my choice of music.
Licensing: no RIAA, no royalty payments. Come up with some kind of meta-license like the Debian Free Software Guidelines, and announce that you'll play any music whose license is compatible with that. Add some meta-format stuff to the streaming format so that a listener can click through to the band's web site easily.
Bandwidth costs: offer a low bit rate stream for free. Offer a high bit rate stream for a few dollars per month.
Redistribution: just like the free software distros do it. Make it easy (legally and technically) for people to make their own mix CD's off the station.
I want to get my music from the musical counterparts of Richard Stallman, Linus Torvalds and Bob Young -- not the musical counterparts of Bill Gates and David LaMacchia!
The last scene of the play showed Alan taking a bite out of the infamous apple as all the lights go out.
Then the lights came up, and the cast came out to take a bow, and then they stuck around to answer questions (it was a small playhouse). All this time, the actor who played Alan was still in costume, and he was taking more bites out of the apple!
So I raised my hand: "would you mind putting that apple down? It's freaking me out to watch you eat it!"
The biggest problem wasn't technical, but rather ESR's refusal to negotiate.
I was the CML1 maintainer for two years, and I had a front-row seat for the CML2 fiasco.
ESR went for a big incompatible rewrite, in a new not-universally-deployed language, with a lot of paradigm shifts. Technically, this was okay. It's good to broom things out every now and then and the existing system is a mess. (The hardest part is dealing with module symbol versions, which are truly bletcherous).
Socially, this made CML2 a big pill to swallow. And ESR didn't help things. In my opinion, he never acknowledged that lots of smart hard-working people were using the existing system to get a lot of work done. He came across as a bad advocate ("your system is stupid, and you are stupid for using it") rather than a good advocate ("this new system will fix the two things that you are bitching about the most").
Also, it hurt a lot that there was a big mismatch between ESR's priorities of caring and the user's priorities of caring. To ESR, it was unimportant that the system was implemented in Python. To most other people, it was very important. To ESR, a correctness prover was very cool. To most other people, it wasn't very important.
One notorious mismatch was between Linus's strong desire to break up the monolithic help text into hundreds of files, and Eric's assessment of that task as minor.
Eventually it turned into a pissing contest, with a lot of people pissing on ESR because he was clueless about making his software work in its social/ecological niche. And when lots of people piss on a guy, of course he pisses back. And then the debacle happens, where no useful software happens, no useful ideas happen, a lot of people waste a lot of time in flame wars and stop listening to each other.
During this time, Alan Cox was one of the few people who stayed calm and looked at CML2 technically, without getting into the ad hominem battles. I respect Alan very much for his ability to do that. Alan had a negative opinion and gave good reasons why he didn't like it -- reasons that ESR should have listened very carefully to, I think.
Perhaps the worst part is that CML2 has lots of cool ideas, but we got into a position where the cool ideas can't even serve as experience for the next generation of people who want to take a crack at the problem, because of the ad hominem poisoning.
If a cable customer is capable of modding their modem to increase the bandwidth, they may have enough visibility into the modem to find government spyware hooks in the modem. Perhaps that is part of the hidden issue. It seems farfetched, though, because I think the government would do something quiet in such a situation (disable some affected modems, get customers to upgrade the firmware).
Remember the NSAKEY controversy, when someone reverse-engineered a windows cryptography module and found a symbol named NSAKEY with unknown purpose?
Ah, and that's why companies have vesting, where the stock doesn't actually accrue to the executive for several years. A typical period is four years, which is plenty of time for a lot of scandals to come out.
Not to mention that "dump their stocks ahead of time" is trading on material non-public information, which is a felony -- a personal felony for an executive doing it, not something that falls under the limited liability of the corporation.
Slashdot Mirror
Compiling to a known-published binary is the only way to verify.
This sounds like a digital update to the old "stick it in an envelope and mail it to yourself" idea.
This is why the Copyright Office offers the service of copyright registration. The owner of the copyright sends a copy of the work to the US Copyright Office with an application and a $30 fee. At a later date, the copyright owner can get back a certified copy, where the Copyright Office certifies "this registrant filed these bytes on this date".
Obtaining Access to and Copies of Copyright Office Records and Deposits
I don't know if it applies to copyright law, but in many points of law, my understanding is that it is up to the injured party to try to mitigate damages.
Dale Kimball is the judge assigned to SCO versus IBM.
Judge Kimball ruled on a copyright infringement case in January 2001:
Judge dismisses lawsuit against author, publisher
Judge Kimball dismissed the case because the plaintiff failed to mitigate damages.
(Disclosure: I am short SCOX).
You will also be hard pressed to have a programmer replace those lines of code, under a "clean-room" environment.
Exhibit C of SCO's complaint against IBM is a side letter to the contract between AT&T and IBM. Section 9 of that side letter specifically allows IBM to use methods and concepts from Unix code in their own products and services without operating in a clean-room environment.
So replacing any offending lines would be easy for IBM.
http://www.sco.com/ibmlawsuit
Just hit Exhibit C from there and read it yourself.
Disclosure: I am short SCOX.
Everyone seems to be focusing on "historic" unix and not on the project Monterey, which is pretty much where they've said the violation comes from. All that they would have to show is that IBM took IP from that project that they didn't have the rights to and submitted it into the Linux kernel.
My question:
Did SCO enter into a contract with IBM about the intellectual property rights for Project Monterey?
I'm hoping that somebody is going to ask Darl McBride that question in public, and soon.
If SCO has such a contract, why did they not include a copy of that contract in their complaint against IBM?
They include much older contracts in their exhibits, but they do not show any contract relating to the specific project where they allege that the breeches came from.
Let me expand a bit ...
Thursday, a day before the conference call, I read through every filing from Novell and SCO at www.sec.gov (Did I mention that I'm short SCOX, and I'm always looking for more information?). There are several references to the Asset Purchase Agreement, but there are no instances of the actual agreement.
By the way, the date is Dec 1995, not Dec 1993. So it should be in the 10-Q filed for that quarter which was filed at the beginning of 1996.
So, okay, maybe I missed something in the search, I'd be ever so grateful for a URL to the Asset Purchase Agreement. That's why I'm personally tweaked at McBride, because he palmed off the question with "SEC filings on the Internet" [his literal words] and I sure didn't see them in my search.
That's no big deal, it's quite possible that SCO filed a Form 8 about the contract, and the SEC didn't computerize it yet. Or my searching is flawed. If anyone wants to post a URL for the APA, I'd be grateful.
The big deal is that SCO has this Asset Purchase Agreement in its possession. They are quoting passages from it! A reporter asked for it, and McBride said, more or less, "go look somewhere else". That's what I'm calling bullshit on.
BTW, I also find it interesting that SCO did not show the Asset Purchase Agreement as an exhibit in their lawsuits. Check out:
http://www.sco.com/ibmlawsuit
There are several documents there that establish a contract between AT&T and IBM, and a document that refers to the Asset Purchase Agreement, but there is no copy of the Asset Purchase Agreement. SCO has skipped a big step in establishing standing to sue IBM.
Moreover, the nonfunctional elements of the code, such as comments, cannot be trade secrets because these elements are minimal and confer no competitive advantage on Defendants.
That blows a hole in SCO's position that they can't reveal infringing sections because it would damage their trade secret status.
The comments are already *not* trade secret, so how's about showing them to the journalists, Darl?
[disclosure: i am short scox]
But bias isn't the point. It is expertise.
I'm not picking on your comment in particular because I actually agree with most of it, as far as it goes. I'm just going to use your statement as a starting point.
Bias isn't the point, and expertise isn't the point, either. Due process is the point.
When SCO goes to court, they will their evidence to the judge, the jury, and IBM's lawyers. The court will allow IBM to present IBM's evidence and IBM's evidence. The court will allow IBM to cross-examine SCO's witnesses.
There are also rules against hearsay evidence. It's not legal to introduce evidence that somebody has an opinion about something when the actual something is readily available.
That is, SCO can't just come in and say "Laura Didio looked at our evidence" and then have Laura Didio testify. SCO will have to present the evidence that Laura Didio has to testify about. And they have to make all that evidence available to IBM in advance, so that IBM can see if there is another explanation (SCO copying from Linux, SCO making claims about errno.h, SCO making claims about code that SCO submitted to Linux, whatever).
So my question for SCO is:
Regarding the information that you provided to Laura Didio: have you provided a copy of this information to IBM's counsel?
And now my opinions ...
First, disclosure: I am short SCOX.
McBride didn't break any new ground here, just as he didn't in the last conference call. Which leads me to believe that the purpose of these calls is to spin the market, not to inform the market.
The imposter on #4 did not accomplish anything. SCO figured him out even before the real George Weiss exposed him.
SCO dodged questions about their AIX revocation strategy, which I think is legitimate to dodge.
Todd Weiss of Computer World asked for a copy of the Asset Purchase Agreement between Novell and SCO. I think the court is going to want a copy of that, too, and SCO didn't file one with its complaint. McBride dodged that by saying it was available in "SEC filings on the Internet". I think that was a bullshit evasion.
McBride admitted that SCO does not claim ownership of any patents in Unix.
McBride referred to 30,000 contracts which contain language about methods, concepts, and know-how. He didn't say that IBM's specific contract prohibits IBM from re-using any of that. In fact, Exhibit C, paragraph 9 of SCO's complaint contains language which specifically allows IBM to do that. See http://www.sco.com/ibmlawsuit . In fact, could some helpful person post the specific URL's of the complaint and the exhibits?
The strongest SCO point is that they found part of the Novell contract that does grant copyrights to SCO. The weakest SCO point is that they aren't willing to show this contract to reporters.
XXX 12:04 est 2003-06-06
Blake Stowell says that Darl McBride and Chris Sontag will be talking today.
XXX 12:05
Darl McBride talks about the Novell announcement of May 28, 2003. "In fact, Novell does not own the copyrights." "SCO is the only rightful owner of the Unix System 5 source code and copyrights." "Portions of the Unix System 5 code were found in Linux." "Linux users need to obtain opinions from their own legal counsel."
XXX 12:07 Question and Answer session
[question #1] Peter Gally, eWeek magazine
Q: share price was up 29% today ahead of announcements of news. What do you attribute that to? A: "I can't really comment on that." Q: "Did you or any SCO executives buy or sell any shares yesterday?" A: "I personally didn't" ... not aware of any who did.
[question #2] Hiawatha Bray, Boston Globe
Q: "When Friday the 13th rolls around ... what are you going to do?" (regarding AIX license revocation)
A: "We have a number of options at our disposal."
[question #3] Stephen Shankland, CNET
Q: Copyright office does not have an assignment on file [for the Unix copyrights from Novell]. "Is it your understanding that the copyrights have not been registered yet?" A: "Stephen is correct ... [if we need] we will change the assignment of copyright ..." [we can do that at any time].
[question #4] "George Weiss", "Gartner Group" [Note: caller #4 was later exposed as an imposter]
Q: "How long can you continue to deceive investors ... if you're not trying to get bought out, what are you trying to do?"
A: "We're trying to protect our IP rights."
[question #5] Todd Weiss, Computer World
Q: "Where can we see the Asset Purchase Agreement?" A: "We have a lot of documents ... 30,000 contracts ... in the case of the Asset Purchase Agreement ... SEC filings on the Internet."
[question #6] Herbert Jackson, Renaissance Ventures
Q: "Were patents addressed?" [in the Novell-SCO asset purchase agreement] A: "Ownership of the patents was not something that SCO has ever claimed."
[question #7] Lenny Brecken, Brecken Capital
Q: "Why wasn't amendment [amendment 2 to Novell Asset Purchase Agreement] immediately available?" A: "[It was available ...] inside of four business days."
Q: "[Patent question] ... is that relevant?"
A: "This isn't a patent case."
A: "30,000 contracts .. methods, concepts, know-how ..." [that is, their 30,000 sub-licensing agreements contain contract language restricting those things]
[question #8] Roger Howerth, IP Week
Q: "Why will you not provide details [of the offending source code]?" A: "Source code is a little bit different ..." [long answer about how revealing source code would damage the trade secret status of their claims] ... "confidentiality protection"
[question #9] George Weiss, Gartner Group [Unlike question #4, this time it's the REAL George Weiss]
Statement: "I didn't ask the earlier question." A: "We already knew that" ... "I appreciate you clarifying that." ... suggestion to the fake George Weiss to drop off the call.
Q: "Are you aware of any organized movement ... to settle the claims with SCO?"
A: "I can't comment" ... "discussions with large players."
[question #10] Lenny Brecken, Brecken Capital
Q: [AIX license revocation] "Are you going to hold a CC on that date [June 13]?" A: "... on the 16th, we will take the appropriate steps ..."
XXX 12:22 Blake Stowell, closing statement
[If you want a replay, or want to followup, contact us
CNET updated the story. SCO has a new in-house lawyer, but they are keeping the current lawyer, Boies, as well.
The new lawyer, Ryan Tibbitts, worked on the Caldera versus Microsoft suit. He's done this kind of work before.
Disclosure: I have a short position in SCOX.
Permission granted to anybody to use this text for any purpose. I would particularly like it if journalists asked these questions of SCO executives.
Questions for SCO
2003-06-05
===
Did SCO sign a contract with IBM for Project Monterey?
(if yes) Will you file that contract as an exhibit in your suit against IBM?
(if no) Why did you undertake a large joint development project with IBM with no contract?
===
Your UNIX contract rights depend on a contract with Novell.
Are you going to file your contract with Novell as an exhibit in your suit against IBM?
Are you going to make your contract with Novell available to the press?
===
Who has signed your NDA and received copies of confidential materials?
If the identities of all the NDA recipients are confidential, can you tell us how many there are?
===
Have you provided legal notice to any person or organization which distributes Linux software of any specific source code lines that you claim infringe on your intellectual property?
Teeny weeny flaw there - if IBMer put code into GNU who will the FSF have copyright assignment from ? - yep, IBM. If SCO is right and it wasn't IBM's code to assign then all RMS has is toilet paper.
Moglen is smarter than that.
The standad FSF assignment form includes an indemnity clause, where the contributor indemnifies FSF against precisely this thing.
IBM has a specially negotiated assignment contract with the FSF, and I don't know what's in it. Still, Moglen has prepared for precisely this issue.
Indeed, IBM thought of this back when they bought their Unix license. The contract between AT&T and IBM contains an additional letter of agreement.
SCO lawsuit documents
I'm having trouble getting to www.sco.com right now, so I can't do better than that URL. Go over to Exhibit C and read it, especially paragraph 2 (I think) and paragraph 9.
Paragraph 2 (I think) says that IBM owns any derivative works created from Unix.
Paragraph 9 says that IBM is entitled to use ideas, methods, concepts, and stuff like that in their own products and services, provided that IBM employees do not refer to the "physical materials" provided by AT&T while they are doing it. This paragraph squarely addresses the issue you raise and explicitly allows IBM engineers to work on a Unix project, learn things, and then work on another IBM project and use what they learned. Direct "copy and paste" is, of course, forbidden.
Oh man, you don't know the first thing about shorting! Let me teach you.
Suppose you start with $10,000 in cash and no SCOX stock. You go to your broker and short-sell 1000 shares of SCOX at $6.70 per share. Now you have $16,700 in cash and -1000 shares. That's right, you have negative shares in your account. I hope that you are comfortable with negative numbers.
Your net worth is $16,700 + (6.70 * -1000) = $10,000.
Now say that IBM opens up the giant can of whoop-ass and SCOX drops to $6.00 per share. You can buy 1000 shares of SCOX for $6000. Now you have $10,700 in cash and 0 shares of SCOX (right where you started). You take your $700 profit and do whatever you want.
But suppose IBM capitulates and buys out SCO for $100 million. SCOX soars, it's up to $9.00 per share. You have -1000 shares of SCOX and $16,700 in cash, for a net worth of $7,700. You relucantly buy the damn stock back, look at the $7,700 in your brokerage account, and go back to your day job.
Your broker won't let you keep a position of -1000 shares forever. Eventually you have to buy back those 1000 shares and "cover" your short position eventually.
If you learn nothing else, learn this: short selling is starting with 0 shares and selling some shares, so now you have negative shares. Apply the laws of negative numbers and take it from there. You can have negative shares in your account (just like you have negative money in your credit card account or your home mortgage), and that's all that a short sale is.
(Yes, all you other investment pros, there's upticks, and margin requirements, and stock calls, and dividends, and hypothecation agreements, and naked shorts, blah blah blah. Those are advanced topics. I just cringe when I see people saying "you don't have to own SCO stock to short it" and I want to illuminate the basic point).
Disclosure: I have a short position in SCOX.
... how long ago was that?
...
... and are they at all congruent with the group being brought on line now?
1970's and early 1980's.
Which group of lawyers representing which part(s) of IBM did he work with
Boeis worked for Cravath, Swaine and Moore for 30 years. I don't know which part of IBM he worked with.
IBM's counsel is Cravath, Swaine, and Moore.
Come on, grab your own Google and try "David Boies", "David Boies IBM", and so on.
Can anyone point me to *any* response byIBM?
Sure.
SCO page on SCO versus IBM
See, in particular, IBM's Amended Answer to the Complaint.
The juiciest information is in the exhibits, which are the actual contracts. I particularly recommend Exhibit C.
Disclosure: I am short SCOX.
... Puget Sound.
Okay, now somebody make the joke about Battleships and Windows NT, please.
Judge dismisses lawsuit against publisher, author
Dale Kimball is the judge in SCO versus IBM. So what he says about intellectual property matters.
In the above case, an author wrote a fictional book based on the memoirs of a World War II veteran. The interesting part of the judge's decision is:
In his ruling, Kimball said Jacobsen did not "express any disapproval" of the series until 1999, after the third volume had been published.
"Had Jacobsen voiced his disapproval in 1996, Hughes would have had the opportunity to take the offending material out of the books," Kimball wrote. "For Jacobsen to wait until three volumes of the series had been published before voicing his disapproval, when it is clear he had ample opportunity to let Hughes know of his disapproval as early as 1996, results in extreme prejudice to Hughes [sic]."
I can't figure out that last reference to Hughes (the defendant). From the context, I think that the judge really meant extreme prejudice against Jacobsen (the plaintiff).
This looks similar to the situation of SCO versus Torvalds, SCO versus Red Hat, SCO versus SuSE, or SCO versus 1500 Linux end users. SCO sold both Linux and Unix for a long time before they made any claims, and to this day they have not identified the offending code in any Linux product. I suspect that if IBM brings those issues to the case, Judge Kimball will take a dim view of SCO's submarine strategy.
(Disclosure: I am short SCOX, no position in any other companies mentioned).
Most of these are $1k/year items, some of them are $10k/year, some of them cost no money and just take time.
Some parents do these things. And some parents park their children in front of the television, feed them Domino's Pizza and Coke, and never look at their child's homework. This difference in nurturing already exists! In my opinion, this has much more impact on a child's life than Gattaca-style "make them a few percent stronger".
I've got your reality right here . Reality is represented by the uppermost line, the one with dominant market share.
The reality is that millions of people use open source software every day. Once you accept that reality, you can begin to understand the idea of open music.
Wake up and smell the source code.
How about an Internet radio station that broadcasts only music which the artists distribute under some kind of Open Music license?
Marketing: the station-master could plug it on Slashdot, and all of us righteous "information wants to be free" folks would be interested. I run Free Software on principle. I'd like to apply the same principles to my choice of music.
Licensing: no RIAA, no royalty payments. Come up with some kind of meta-license like the Debian Free Software Guidelines, and announce that you'll play any music whose license is compatible with that. Add some meta-format stuff to the streaming format so that a listener can click through to the band's web site easily.
Bandwidth costs: offer a low bit rate stream for free. Offer a high bit rate stream for a few dollars per month.
Redistribution: just like the free software distros do it. Make it easy (legally and technically) for people to make their own mix CD's off the station.
I want to get my music from the musical counterparts of Richard Stallman, Linus Torvalds and Bob Young -- not the musical counterparts of Bill Gates and David LaMacchia!
Spoiler follows ...
The last scene of the play showed Alan taking a bite out of the infamous apple as all the lights go out.
Then the lights came up, and the cast came out to take a bow, and then they stuck around to answer questions (it was a small playhouse). All this time, the actor who played Alan was still in costume, and he was taking more bites out of the apple!
So I raised my hand: "would you mind putting that apple down? It's freaking me out to watch you eat it!"
The biggest problem wasn't technical, but rather ESR's refusal to negotiate.
I was the CML1 maintainer for two years, and I had a front-row seat for the CML2 fiasco.
ESR went for a big incompatible rewrite, in a new not-universally-deployed language, with a lot of paradigm shifts. Technically, this was okay. It's good to broom things out every now and then and the existing system is a mess. (The hardest part is dealing with module symbol versions, which are truly bletcherous).
Socially, this made CML2 a big pill to swallow. And ESR didn't help things. In my opinion, he never acknowledged that lots of smart hard-working people were using the existing system to get a lot of work done. He came across as a bad advocate ("your system is stupid, and you are stupid for using it") rather than a good advocate ("this new system will fix the two things that you are bitching about the most").
Also, it hurt a lot that there was a big mismatch between ESR's priorities of caring and the user's priorities of caring. To ESR, it was unimportant that the system was implemented in Python. To most other people, it was very important. To ESR, a correctness prover was very cool. To most other people, it wasn't very important.
One notorious mismatch was between Linus's strong desire to break up the monolithic help text into hundreds of files, and Eric's assessment of that task as minor.
Eventually it turned into a pissing contest, with a lot of people pissing on ESR because he was clueless about making his software work in its social/ecological niche. And when lots of people piss on a guy, of course he pisses back. And then the debacle happens, where no useful software happens, no useful ideas happen, a lot of people waste a lot of time in flame wars and stop listening to each other.
During this time, Alan Cox was one of the few people who stayed calm and looked at CML2 technically, without getting into the ad hominem battles. I respect Alan very much for his ability to do that. Alan had a negative opinion and gave good reasons why he didn't like it -- reasons that ESR should have listened very carefully to, I think.
Perhaps the worst part is that CML2 has lots of cool ideas, but we got into a position where the cool ideas can't even serve as experience for the next generation of people who want to take a crack at the problem, because of the ad hominem poisoning.
If a cable customer is capable of modding their modem to increase the bandwidth, they may have enough visibility into the modem to find government spyware hooks in the modem. Perhaps that is part of the hidden issue. It seems farfetched, though, because I think the government would do something quiet in such a situation (disable some affected modems, get customers to upgrade the firmware).
Remember the NSAKEY controversy, when someone reverse-engineered a windows cryptography module and found a symbol named NSAKEY with unknown purpose?
Not to mention that "dump their stocks ahead of time" is trading on material non-public information, which is a felony -- a personal felony for an executive doing it, not something that falls under the limited liability of the corporation.