IBM's services division knows trade secrets about a lot of very large companies... lots of trade secrets. IBM makes a LOT of money because they have a reputation for honoring NDAs and respecting confidential data. They are like the Swiss banks of old... they don't talk.
When SCO charged IBM with violating a confidentiality agreement and leaking trade secrets into Linux, that was more than a contract spat going to court. It was a direct attack on IBM's major business line, the data services business. Any buy out or settlement, even if just for a penny, would be seen as a tacit admission that SCO's charges were truthful and that IBM had indeed divulged SCO's trade secrets. IBM would lose clients because of it, they would lose billions in revenue because of it.
They will insist on airing the whole affair in court, and force SCO to prove their allegations because any other course would be business suicide. They have a reputation to protect.
Desperation probably. Caldera's Linux business never got off the ground, they pissed away $70 MILLION of the IPO, the stock had been declining steadily since the IPO, buying UNIX was not the financial bonanza it was supposed to be (SCO Unix is apparently not very good), and the Trillium project fell apart... the company was headed for oblivion.... so they brought in new management. He spotted some dusty old licenses and decided to rattle some cages to see if he could shake revenue loose. The cage rattling apparently got nothing but yawns.
... and then they noticed all those similar bits of code and because McBride wasn't around for most of Caldera's involvement with Linux development he doesn't believe it might have come from Caldera. Being pissed at IBM for its support of Linux, SCO decided that the only way Linux could have improved so fast is if IBM gave trade secrets to Linux. So they sued, probably hoping for a fast settlement they could wave at other UNIX companies to shake more money loose. Unfortunately for them, they accused IBM of leaking trade secrets. IBM can't afford to have their reputation besmirched... settling with SCO for as little as a penny would be an admission that they misused had been caught playing fast and loose with information belonging to other companies. That would cost them billions in business... whereas lawyers only cost a few millions, and they already have them on staff.
Now, with only the continued hysterical chest-pounding from Utah propping up the stock price, McBride has to keep up the steady stream of pronouncments, and escalate his demands.
"Unclear is why SCO thinks they have the rights to RCU, since the technology was originally developed by Sequent in the early 1990s."
Apparently they think that they have the rights to ALL improvements made to any UNIX branch by any company anywhere in the universe since the dawn of time... that's not how copyright law works, but they don't seem to realize it.
SCO's allegation is that IBM violated a NDA and stole trade secrets, which they leaked to or inserted into Linux.
IBM is closely involved in many businesses with all kinds of trade secrets. To settle, even for a penny, is to say "yes, we were careless with SCO's trade secrets". What would happen to IBM's lucrative services business if they settled? How many businesses would start worrying about what IBM might leak to a competitor or appropriate for their own benefit?
They have to be like Caesar's wife: absolutely above suspicion.
If they didn't mandate it, the "mordida" culture of Brazil would take over, and software vendors could just bribe the heads of agencies to buy non-OSS software.
"They fired just about everyone else the day after the Christmas party"
One employer I had laid off half their technical writers by making the announcements during a whole-office staff meeting just before the Christmas lunch party... after spending several thousands on each of us to train us in some expensive publishing software. When the economy dragged istelf out of the gutter, they couldn't hire anyone back. I wonder why.
To make your point, try following EVERY RULE the corporation has that governs your work to the letter. It should constipate them completely.
Do not do anything until requests are submitted through official channels, signed by the appropriate managers, with all the forms filled out. If there are contradictory rules, do nothing. If someone wants you to override a procedure, ask them for permission to do so, in writing, signed by theur manager.
I'm expecting IBM to walk into court Friday or first thing Monday with a request for a TRO to be in effect until the conclusion of the suit, based on the unliklihood of SCO being able to prevail in their case against IBM.
"he two blocks of software, they said, contained as many as 80 lines of identical code, along with identical developers' comments."
But, with no evidence that the code went from SCO Unix => Linux and not independently from "X" => SCO and "X" => Linux independently, that's stretching it.
And they expected anything different from a "one-armed bandit" (American slang for slot machine) or "tragamonedas" ("coin-gobbler", Mexican slang for a slot machine? The odds are set by the house, to favor the house. Period.
BTW, I used to travel to Las Vegas to work several times a month, and often chatted with a "slot mechanic" who lived in Phoenix. He fixed the machines, set the odds, and was absolutely forbidden to set foot in a casino in Nevada except in the company of a casino official (they usually brought the slots to him, except in cases of a huge payout). He told me which machines to play... the ones at the ends of the aisles along both sides of the route leading from the front door to the check-in desk are usually set to pay off small and often. The casino wants incoming guests to see winners. For bigger, but far less frequent payoffs, it's the machines in the middle of the rows.
"The company on Friday [March 21] said that Hotmail subscribers are now limited to sending only 100 messages a day. It is "an effort to prevent spammers from using Hotmail to spread spam," said Lisa Gurry, MSN lead product manager."
They would have to SHOW THE CODE to someone, all the code, and all the previous revisions of both Linux and BSD and AIX too... not just the "infringing" snippets they are willing to let people sign their NDA to see.
They would have to convincingly show that the dates of appearance of "their" code are earlier than it's appearance in the "other guy's" code, and that no employee of theirs was ever in a position to be able to contribute "their code" to the "other guy's" project.
This is a large undertaking, and one they porobably don't want to do.
egeorge -
Doesn't it make things easier when you have OSS to modify? A previous employer of mine had a lot of heavily customized GPL/OSS utilities and other software running the internal networks. They also sent bug patches and improvements (those that did not reveal sensitive corporate information) back to the project to prevent having to re-invent the patches every time there was an upgrade.
"The four primary business cases mentioned by OS proponents are "Selling Support", "Loss Leader", "Widget Frosting" and "Accessorizing.""
You forgot a couple:
1. Making sure of a good supply of poker chips. A healthy OSS movement is a good bargaining tool in contract negotiations with proprietary vendors.
2. Never having to start from scratch... it's easier/cheaper/faster to take an OSS program that is almost what you need and customize it then to start from scratch and write virginal proprietary code.
It is very hard to convince qualified engineers that they should do such boring and unglamorous work without any sort of financial reward. You are oblivious of the large numbers of well-paid programmers who work on OSS projects as a part of their regular employment, and those that specialize in customizing OSS for their clients. It's financially as rewarding as coding proprietary software.
"1. (snip)RECIPIENT acknowledges that it will receive access only to a portion of information relevant to these issues.
7. No Obligation to Disclose. SCO has no obligation under this Agreement to disclose to RECIPIENT any Confidential Information which SCO elects to withhold."
No way! They want a sock puppet, not an honest analysis of the problems.
"Their gripe is with Monsterpatterns putting pictures of the patterns on the website. You know: reproducing (as in making a COPY of) the copyrighted art/photographs on the cover of the patterns."
Except that using an image of an otherwise copyrighted image for the purpose of selling the product is one of the uses specifically allowed by the USA copyright laws. No one can prevent you from taking your own pictures of their copyrighted item/design for the purpose of selling that item.
McCalls LOST control of the patterns the instant they sold them. The copyright holder DOES NOT have any say in the fate of that object beyond the right to sue if it is copied. "Doctrine of first sale" rules.
Remember the hassle over used records an dthe stores that sold them? That's what McCall's is trying to do - prevent resale in order to keep profits up.
With few exceptions, once the item has "entered into the stream of commerce", the holder of copyright can not prevent further sale.
See: USA Copyright law
And it's backed up by a Supreme Court decision from 1905 or so.
The doctrine allows the legitimate owner of a particular lawful copy of a work to "sell or otherwise dispose of the possession of that copy" without the permission of the copyright owner, and produce images of it for purpose of aiding the sale. It does not permit copying the item in its entirety.
If the city codes allow dumpster diving and if they declare that the contents are "abandoned property", then the divers ARE the legal owners of the patterns and can tell McCall's to take a flying leap.
This issue comes up frequently on eBay. One $$$ fabric maker was invoking the DMCA to get auctions for items made of their fabric shut down. Their claim was that the photos showed their copyrighted fabric designs. It only took a few sellers ordering eBay to restore the content and to tell the fabric company that it was fair use (citing chapter, verse and Supreme Copurt decision number) and to go ahead and file to convince them they were out of line.
I can see where mail to corporations and large buildings could be faster if it had the mail stop and floor. AFAIK, the USPS requires bulk mail to be pre-sorted by mail route (ZIP+4) and bundled. No discount, but the alternative is first class.
"Why not let them keep their coding schemes and append a country code to the front."
It's already appended to the end. If I'm sending something to Japan, I use the usual Japanese addressing method and can even use Japanese characters. I print "JAPAN" under the address. That gives the local postal clerks all they need to know... they throw it in the bag marked "International, not Canada or Mexico" and off it goes. At a larger station it gets sorted into a bag for JAPAN. When it reaches Japan, they sort by their rules.
Slashdot Mirror
When SCO charged IBM with violating a confidentiality agreement and leaking trade secrets into Linux, that was more than a contract spat going to court. It was a direct attack on IBM's major business line, the data services business. Any buy out or settlement, even if just for a penny, would be seen as a tacit admission that SCO's charges were truthful and that IBM had indeed divulged SCO's trade secrets. IBM would lose clients because of it, they would lose billions in revenue because of it.
They will insist on airing the whole affair in court, and force SCO to prove their allegations because any other course would be business suicide. They have a reputation to protect.
Desperation probably. Caldera's Linux business never got off the ground, they pissed away $70 MILLION of the IPO, the stock had been declining steadily since the IPO, buying UNIX was not the financial bonanza it was supposed to be (SCO Unix is apparently not very good), and the Trillium project fell apart ... the company was headed for oblivion. ... so they brought in new management. He spotted some dusty old licenses and decided to rattle some cages to see if he could shake revenue loose. The cage rattling apparently got nothing but yawns.
Now, with only the continued hysterical chest-pounding from Utah propping up the stock price, McBride has to keep up the steady stream of pronouncments, and escalate his demands.
"Unclear is why SCO thinks they have the rights to RCU, since the technology was originally developed by Sequent in the early 1990s." Apparently they think that they have the rights to ALL improvements made to any UNIX branch by any company anywhere in the universe since the dawn of time ... that's not how copyright law works, but they don't seem to realize it.
IBM obviously prefers to save their words fo where it really counts ... in fornt of the judge, not the press.
Announcing that they are voiding licenses that were bought in good faith, bought at a time when SCO and IBM were partners, boggles the mind.
IBM is closely involved in many businesses with all kinds of trade secrets. To settle, even for a penny, is to say "yes, we were careless with SCO's trade secrets". What would happen to IBM's lucrative services business if they settled? How many businesses would start worrying about what IBM might leak to a competitor or appropriate for their own benefit?
They have to be like Caesar's wife: absolutely above suspicion.
If they didn't mandate it, the "mordida" culture of Brazil would take over, and software vendors could just bribe the heads of agencies to buy non-OSS software.
One employer I had laid off half their technical writers by making the announcements during a whole-office staff meeting just before the Christmas lunch party ... after spending several thousands on each of us to train us in some expensive publishing software. When the economy dragged istelf out of the gutter, they couldn't hire anyone back. I wonder why.
Do not do anything until requests are submitted through official channels, signed by the appropriate managers, with all the forms filled out. If there are contradictory rules, do nothing. If someone wants you to override a procedure, ask them for permission to do so, in writing, signed by theur manager.
I'm expecting IBM to walk into court Friday or first thing Monday with a request for a TRO to be in effect until the conclusion of the suit, based on the unliklihood of SCO being able to prevail in their case against IBM.
But, with no evidence that the code went from SCO Unix => Linux and not independently from "X" => SCO and "X" => Linux independently, that's stretching it.
BTW, I used to travel to Las Vegas to work several times a month, and often chatted with a "slot mechanic" who lived in Phoenix. He fixed the machines, set the odds, and was absolutely forbidden to set foot in a casino in Nevada except in the company of a casino official (they usually brought the slots to him, except in cases of a huge payout). He told me which machines to play ... the ones at the ends of the aisles along both sides of the route leading from the front door to the check-in desk are usually set to pay off small and often. The casino wants incoming guests to see winners. For bigger, but far less frequent payoffs, it's the machines in the middle of the rows.
Old News Here
"The company on Friday [March 21] said that Hotmail subscribers are now limited to sending only 100 messages a day. It is "an effort to prevent spammers from using Hotmail to spread spam," said Lisa Gurry, MSN lead product manager."
They would have to convincingly show that the dates of appearance of "their" code are earlier than it's appearance in the "other guy's" code, and that no employee of theirs was ever in a position to be able to contribute "their code" to the "other guy's" project.
This is a large undertaking, and one they porobably don't want to do.
egeorge - Doesn't it make things easier when you have OSS to modify? A previous employer of mine had a lot of heavily customized GPL/OSS utilities and other software running the internal networks. They also sent bug patches and improvements (those that did not reveal sensitive corporate information) back to the project to prevent having to re-invent the patches every time there was an upgrade.
You forgot a couple:
1. Making sure of a good supply of poker chips. A healthy OSS movement is a good bargaining tool in contract negotiations with proprietary vendors.
2. Never having to start from scratch ... it's easier/cheaper/faster to take an OSS program that is almost what you need and customize it then to start from scratch and write virginal proprietary code.
It is very hard to convince qualified engineers that they should do such boring and unglamorous work without any sort of financial reward. You are oblivious of the large numbers of well-paid programmers who work on OSS projects as a part of their regular employment, and those that specialize in customizing OSS for their clients. It's financially as rewarding as coding proprietary software.
According to the GPL, if you are distributing the modifications outside your company, you have to make the modified source code available.
7. No Obligation to Disclose. SCO has no obligation under this Agreement to disclose to RECIPIENT any Confidential Information which SCO elects to withhold."
No way! They want a sock puppet, not an honest analysis of the problems.
Except that using an image of an otherwise copyrighted image for the purpose of selling the product is one of the uses specifically allowed by the USA copyright laws. No one can prevent you from taking your own pictures of their copyrighted item/design for the purpose of selling that item.
Remember the hassle over used records an dthe stores that sold them? That's what McCall's is trying to do - prevent resale in order to keep profits up.
With few exceptions, once the item has "entered into the stream of commerce", the holder of copyright can not prevent further sale. See: USA Copyright law And it's backed up by a Supreme Court decision from 1905 or so.
The doctrine allows the legitimate owner of a particular lawful copy of a work to "sell or otherwise dispose of the possession of that copy" without the permission of the copyright owner, and produce images of it for purpose of aiding the sale. It does not permit copying the item in its entirety.
If the city codes allow dumpster diving and if they declare that the contents are "abandoned property", then the divers ARE the legal owners of the patterns and can tell McCall's to take a flying leap.
This issue comes up frequently on eBay. One $$$ fabric maker was invoking the DMCA to get auctions for items made of their fabric shut down. Their claim was that the photos showed their copyrighted fabric designs. It only took a few sellers ordering eBay to restore the content and to tell the fabric company that it was fair use (citing chapter, verse and Supreme Copurt decision number) and to go ahead and file to convince them they were out of line.
If you think you dialed the number for Mr. Jones and got Ms. Smith instead, you say "Excuse me, I must have misdialed." and hang up.
I can see where mail to corporations and large buildings could be faster if it had the mail stop and floor. AFAIK, the USPS requires bulk mail to be pre-sorted by mail route (ZIP+4) and bundled. No discount, but the alternative is first class.
It's already appended to the end. If I'm sending something to Japan, I use the usual Japanese addressing method and can even use Japanese characters. I print "JAPAN" under the address. That gives the local postal clerks all they need to know ... they throw it in the bag marked "International, not Canada or Mexico" and off it goes. At a larger station it gets sorted into a bag for JAPAN. When it reaches Japan, they sort by their rules.
So why do I have to send mail to an APO/FPO in New York instead of just using the 10-figure grid reference where the serviceman is?