Their business failed because they never placed a high value on community good-will. The Linux developers and enthusiasts, who were the Linux experts already resident in their companies when those companies decided to investigate Linux, recommended Red Hat instead of Caldera because of the difference in good-will.
Bruce
What do we really have to ask those turkeys?
on
SCO Group Lawsuit Q&A
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Maybe we should ask SCO "Are you stupid, or just crazy?". There isn't a third
alternative - the rebuttal on the Opensource.org site makes that abundantly clear.
SCO also gets tremenous points for being vindictive - a failed
Linux business doing its best to sink the ship on their way out. It's fortunate
for us that their best isn't enough.
Yes, I think he needs a re-think. There are a few points that I want to respond to.
The purpose of Free Software is not to replace Microsoft Windows. Individuals and companies that are involved in Free Software may have that goal, even me, but not the developers of the niche software he criticizes. There is no point in his telling them not to work on another editor. They want to make editors, not MS Windows killers. They are motivated to do for free what they want to do, not what he wants them to do.
Our diversity is our strength, not our weakness. Free Software's strategic marketing paradigm is a massively parallel drunkard's walk filtered by a Darwinistic process. We make gains because we can bypass the failures of a more narrow strategic marketing directon, which would have us work on only one solution to any problem. The problem with one solution is that marketing has no crystal ball, strategic marketers are no more accurate in general than stock-pickers. Their chosen direction is rarely the best. It's better to let coders control their own multiple directions. One of them will get it right.
He also gets into the dreadfully common error of considering window managers to be GUI desktops.
No, it's not a copyright or patent case. SCO's filing is on their web site. It's a trade-secret case. And we know that Unix has been available to college students in source form since the early '70's, and there were shelves of books on it in any technical bookstore, and a government standard (POSIX) that defined how it would work. So, the trade secret argument is specious.
I don't think it's in IBM's interest to actually win the case, because that would poison any chance of IBM's bringing similar claims against other companies. It's better for them to buy the company and leave the case unresolved.
But then, I'm Machivellian. Most corporations are too. But are we the same Machievellian?:-)
It's not that the corporations have control over who buys their stock. It's that the people who buy the stock have control over the corporations. They are the corporation.
In a public-stock company (SCOX on NASDAQ) the ownership is always a matter of public record.
Now that we know that Canopy holds less than 6% of Troll, I agree that Troll isn't a target. I still think that Canopy is the real force behind this suit. They have a "distributed management" policy, in which they act as management for the companies they invest in.
I don't want to hurt Troll Tech. If they really only have the small investment from Canopy that has been reported, I'd be very relieved. Can we get hard data on that?
I do think that Canopy is the real force behind this lawsuit, and I think they need to get a very strong message.
You've got everything backwards. Caldera was a Noorda holding from the start, and was founded by Novell folks. Caldera bought SCO. This suit is Canopy's exit strategy from both Caldera and SCO.
I don't think it would be cause for the suit to be dismissed. But it might be cause for IBM to suggest that Troll take a hike, if IBM wants to play it that way.
Yes, those folks should get some feedback. It would help to spread the above message around, community members!
I feel sorry for the poor Troll Tech folks, they have had enough pain from yours truly, and they fixed all of the problems I was complaining about, in good faith. Maybe they can fix this one too.
But we have already had the ATT vs. University of California court case, back in the early 90's, and thus we know this claim doesn't apply to the BSD code base as of the end of that trial.
Can someone help me get on top of this case? Where are the filings? What court? Just reply here, that way you'll see if someone else has already given me that info.
We should give Troll some very strong feedback that Canopy Group is not a desirable partner. Imagine if Canopy was able to make them pull this same sort of guff against GNOME, claiming that it duplicates Qt art. The poor Troll folks have gotten enough pain from us on other issues - and responded to them fully in time. They are unfortunately caught in the middle again. Maybe they will tell us about the size of the investment, and whether they can divest Canopy Group.
And they think the free software community's run by even bigger idiots, too. It took IBM looking at Unix to help us make Linux run on the i386?
When I created the Open Source Definition and the Debian Social Contract that it came from, one of the explicit purposes of that work was to make guidelines that kept the IP that SCO is talking about out of our systems. Red Hat and Debian have followed those guidelines. SCO seems to believe we've never thought about this stuff.
On the NDA issue: ATT licensed the source code of Unix to colleges from the early 1970's through the late 1980's, and I think this practice has been continued until the present. The source was available for perusal by software researchers at universities, and to very many students.
SCO is the thief who puts a gun to his own head and says give me
your money or I'll shoot.
I haven't read the filings yet, but it sounds as if SCO's main claim is that
IBM (and perhaps others) violated their non-disclosure agreements by allowing
employees who had seen the Unix source code to work on Linux. However, Linux
was developed first on the Intel i386 processor family, way back in 1991,
at least five years before IBM took an interest in it. Linux follows MINIX, an even earlier published-source-code system that very clearly
isn't derived from Unix - its architecture was very different.
SCO claims that Linux could not have become ready for the enterprise so
quickly without use of art originating in Unix. They seem to ignore the
fact that hundreds of thousands of people have been educated in operating
systems programming, and that very healthy communities of scientific
research exist for systems design, and that most of the
enterprise-ready features originated in research operating systems
and only later were ported to Unix.
They claim that the Linux libraries could not have been produced
without input from Unix. But these libraries are written to a printed
specification called POSIX, published by the U.S. government and available
to the general public. The GNU
C library, and many other Linux libraries, existed long before IBM's
involvement. We also had printed "man pages" for Unix available in bookstores
without restrictions on implementation of the documented facilities,
and shelves of published documentation on Unix in every technical bookstore.
So, I think the claims I've heard are specious, and not enforcible
in court.
Why, then, is SCO doing this? They want to be purchased. This is the exit strategy for their investors, Canopy Group. IBM can buy them just
to shut them up. Or Microsoft can buy them to use them to FUD Linux.
And Canopy Group management figures they'll play
the two against each other to drive up the price. But IBM management is
smart enough to poison this particular well, by bringing counter-claims
against SCO.
SCO is also party to the GPL, which invalidates their patent
portfolio for any of their patents that happen to have been used in a
Linux system that they distributed. Under the GPL terms, if you distribute
your patented practice in GPL software, you must grant a license to everyone
to make use of that patent in any GPL software, for any field of use.
This is why SCO's initial claim seems to be focusing on an NDA rather than
patents. And of course, the fundamental patents that apply to Unix would
have expired some 15 years ago.
SCO can't claim that IBM (or anyone else) was hiding the Linux development from them, since Linux source is available and is part of SCO's own Linux product. They have been distributing the source code that they claim violates their own NDA as Caldera's main product for years. So, they are going to have a very small chance of making this case work.
We in the Free Software developer community must make it clear that we will
not tolerate specious intellectual property claims on our software,
even if those claims are directed to a user or industrial partner rather than
an individual developer. The obvious first step that would occurr to any
of us would be to shun SCO - not to do business with them, not to recommend
them in our jobs, etc. SCO must have known that they'd be shunned for
these shenanigans, and they went ahead with them anyway. This means they're
writing off their entire software and operating systems business. SCO is
owned by Canopy Group, I guess those folks are writing off their other
software businesses, too.
I look forward to getting a look at the court papers, and being a witness
for the defense or amicus curae in these cases. I'm sure I'll be joined by
a lot of you. In addition, we may have our own infringement claims to make,
if the SCO filing violates the GPL terms. I doubt there will be much left
of SCO at the end of this.
These folks could have been good partners. Other people in industry
were, and beat Caldera and SCO in the market. Canopy Group, their venture firm,
were the real managers of SCO and Caldera. Front-men like Ransom Love were not
the ones making real decisions. Their business failed, and others flourished,
because Canopy Group never understood how to be our partners. They've chosen
to screw us one last time on the way out the door. Let's do our best to turn
it back on them.
Bruce
Ozone + Grain = Explosion!
on
Ozone As Pesticide
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Ozone is a superoxydizer. That's how it kills bacteria and insects. Grain silos already have explosion problems with normal atmospheres - the suspended grain dust tends to form an explosive mixture. Put a superoxydizer in there, and and it might get worse.
There are health issues - though probably not that big - perhaps more free radicals in the air to give you lung cancer, and whatever you get when the ozone recombines with other gases, etc. Maybe nitrous oxides?
Slashdot Mirror
Bruce
Bruce
SCO also gets tremenous points for being vindictive - a failed Linux business doing its best to sink the ship on their way out. It's fortunate for us that their best isn't enough.
The purpose of Free Software is not to replace Microsoft Windows. Individuals and companies that are involved in Free Software may have that goal, even me, but not the developers of the niche software he criticizes. There is no point in his telling them not to work on another editor. They want to make editors, not MS Windows killers. They are motivated to do for free what they want to do, not what he wants them to do.
Our diversity is our strength, not our weakness. Free Software's strategic marketing paradigm is a massively parallel drunkard's walk filtered by a Darwinistic process. We make gains because we can bypass the failures of a more narrow strategic marketing directon, which would have us work on only one solution to any problem. The problem with one solution is that marketing has no crystal ball, strategic marketers are no more accurate in general than stock-pickers. Their chosen direction is rarely the best. It's better to let coders control their own multiple directions. One of them will get it right.
He also gets into the dreadfully common error of considering window managers to be GUI desktops.
Bruce
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce
But then, I'm Machivellian. Most corporations are too. But are we the same Machievellian? :-)
Bruce
In a public-stock company (SCOX on NASDAQ) the ownership is always a matter of public record.
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce
I do think that Canopy is the real force behind this lawsuit, and I think they need to get a very strong message.
Bruce
Bruce
I have no desire to make problems for Troll, just for Canopy. Troll will probably give them the message.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce
I feel sorry for the poor Troll Tech folks, they have had enough pain from yours truly, and they fixed all of the problems I was complaining about, in good faith. Maybe they can fix this one too.
Bruce
Bruce
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce
When I created the Open Source Definition and the Debian Social Contract that it came from, one of the explicit purposes of that work was to make guidelines that kept the IP that SCO is talking about out of our systems. Red Hat and Debian have followed those guidelines. SCO seems to believe we've never thought about this stuff.
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce
I haven't read the filings yet, but it sounds as if SCO's main claim is that IBM (and perhaps others) violated their non-disclosure agreements by allowing employees who had seen the Unix source code to work on Linux. However, Linux was developed first on the Intel i386 processor family, way back in 1991, at least five years before IBM took an interest in it. Linux follows MINIX, an even earlier published-source-code system that very clearly isn't derived from Unix - its architecture was very different.
SCO claims that Linux could not have become ready for the enterprise so quickly without use of art originating in Unix. They seem to ignore the fact that hundreds of thousands of people have been educated in operating systems programming, and that very healthy communities of scientific research exist for systems design, and that most of the enterprise-ready features originated in research operating systems and only later were ported to Unix.
They claim that the Linux libraries could not have been produced without input from Unix. But these libraries are written to a printed specification called POSIX, published by the U.S. government and available to the general public. The GNU C library, and many other Linux libraries, existed long before IBM's involvement. We also had printed "man pages" for Unix available in bookstores without restrictions on implementation of the documented facilities, and shelves of published documentation on Unix in every technical bookstore.
So, I think the claims I've heard are specious, and not enforcible in court. Why, then, is SCO doing this? They want to be purchased. This is the exit strategy for their investors, Canopy Group. IBM can buy them just to shut them up. Or Microsoft can buy them to use them to FUD Linux. And Canopy Group management figures they'll play the two against each other to drive up the price. But IBM management is smart enough to poison this particular well, by bringing counter-claims against SCO.
SCO is also party to the GPL, which invalidates their patent portfolio for any of their patents that happen to have been used in a Linux system that they distributed. Under the GPL terms, if you distribute your patented practice in GPL software, you must grant a license to everyone to make use of that patent in any GPL software, for any field of use. This is why SCO's initial claim seems to be focusing on an NDA rather than patents. And of course, the fundamental patents that apply to Unix would have expired some 15 years ago.
SCO can't claim that IBM (or anyone else) was hiding the Linux development from them, since Linux source is available and is part of SCO's own Linux product. They have been distributing the source code that they claim violates their own NDA as Caldera's main product for years. So, they are going to have a very small chance of making this case work.
We in the Free Software developer community must make it clear that we will not tolerate specious intellectual property claims on our software, even if those claims are directed to a user or industrial partner rather than an individual developer. The obvious first step that would occurr to any of us would be to shun SCO - not to do business with them, not to recommend them in our jobs, etc. SCO must have known that they'd be shunned for these shenanigans, and they went ahead with them anyway. This means they're writing off their entire software and operating systems business. SCO is owned by Canopy Group, I guess those folks are writing off their other software businesses, too.
I look forward to getting a look at the court papers, and being a witness for the defense or amicus curae in these cases. I'm sure I'll be joined by a lot of you. In addition, we may have our own infringement claims to make, if the SCO filing violates the GPL terms. I doubt there will be much left of SCO at the end of this.
These folks could have been good partners. Other people in industry were, and beat Caldera and SCO in the market. Canopy Group, their venture firm, were the real managers of SCO and Caldera. Front-men like Ransom Love were not the ones making real decisions. Their business failed, and others flourished, because Canopy Group never understood how to be our partners. They've chosen to screw us one last time on the way out the door. Let's do our best to turn it back on them.
Bruce
There are health issues - though probably not that big - perhaps more free radicals in the air to give you lung cancer, and whatever you get when the ozone recombines with other gases, etc. Maybe nitrous oxides?
Bruce