I read the contract yesterday. I'm no legal expert, but it seems from the wording of it that IBM has to "designate" where the code is used, and how it's used. As long as it's under license, ANY license, (including gpl) they should be okay.
The problem is that the damn thing is paradoxically worded. And parts of it are crossed off and pencilled in. It's a real mess.
On top of that, It was signed in 1985 by AT&T and IBM. System V isn't even mentioned in it. Hell, they mention West Germany as a viable country to sell dirivitive code in!
SCO is listing it as evendence. But I don't see how it's even applicable considering that the origenal code that it was made in reference to has fallen into the public domain.
It seems to me that they are trying to set themselves up to be the RIAA of theUnix world. They've already compared themselves to the music industry and likened linux to Napster on more than one occasion. Let us not forget, the music industry destroyed Napster, and then turned on itself and any college student with a computer.
I think the metephor is stupid. But this is seriously how they seem to see themselves. I hope to hell that IBM isn't having an off day when this gets to court and that the judge has a half way decent understanding of the technological issues at hand.
Looks like you read right. I got pretty much the same thing out of it.
But if their case is as strong as they say it is, then why bother going through the trouble of removing the dates from 46(?) pages of source?
And if they have gone through that level of effort to remove the dates, who is to say they didn't forge the code?
Who is to say that they didn't borrow code from linux, and conviniently forget about it? Wouldn't it be funny if the current system V turned out be a linux distro that they mislicensed?
And who is to say that the code base that is system V now, is actually system V at all? If SCO is proven untrustworthy, as I'm sure they might, how do we know? Surely Novell has some record of what the actual system V code looked like?
Didn't he point out the scheduler as the biggest point of contention?
Re:Nice turnabout for SCO, but...
on
Settling SCOres
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Funny you should mention that.
My sits on the board of a major corporation. He called me the other night to ask about Linux, and the legal issues involved in using it.
It took a few minutes to explain the decentralized nature of Linux and the history (much of which he already knew) of this case so far. Then he told me, "Sounds like a publicity stunt."
Anyway the thing I found interesting about this conversation was that my father, an extremely well educated man, and familiar with the business of software had trouble understanding the nature of open source software.
I suspect that there are many others in this type of position that have no idea how open source software works. They've been inundated with proprietary software for so long, that they seem to be stuck in that mind set.
Question is, How do we educate the corporate world so they can make informed decisions for Linux, and other open source software?
Call it a hunch, but AIX is so far ahread of system V that I would bet that there isn't much Unix left in it. I wonder how hard it would be for IBM to get rid of the remianing Unix code and get rid of the need for a license all together.
Hah hah!
And then I will... Revoke your license until you beg for mercy! HaA! And then I will indulge my ego giving you just enough time to figure out where the big red button is that when pressed will cause my fortress of evil to explode, and me with it as you narrowly get away... hahahaha
I think Apple should pay the $100,000 for use of the term unix. Seriously. It would require that they adhere to a set of standards guiding the over all unix body. It certainly wouldn't hurt anything.
As aragant as Apple has been about protecting their IP over the years, this whole stance they're taking seems ill concieved and childish.
It only costs $100,000 and a test battery. What are they so afraid of?
I think as Americans we have enough unfair taxation to deal with as it is.
How could they possibly expect to enforce any foreign taxes? Should we expect to start getting letters from the EU tax authority?
It seems incredibly unlikely without some kind of help from the government here.
Could you possibly imagine charging eu citizens VAT for physical goods from a physical store outside the eu? Sounds silly doesn't it. Then why does it make any more sense to do it online?
The author of this article
seems to think that anyone who owns a copy of Linux can sue SCO under the same
laws that it is trying to employ under IBM. I for one would be more than happy
to litigate these cock suckers into oblivion. Does anyone know anything about
filing class action law suits?
That's a real shame.
I thought the zip specification was open to anyone who wanted to use it?
I stopped using Zips about three months ago in favor of the 7zip format.
7zips are smaller and more secure. The best part about 7z's is that it's an open source format.
Fully documented, and entirely free. They also tend to be a lot smaller than standard.zip archives. Just an opinion.
Well, many of the provisions of this law are already in practice in various forms. The most important parts of it have already been passed in other forms.
Windows Update has already started hijacking suspected pirated copies of office, and Adobe rutinely kills suspected illegal acrobat instalations. Personally, I think that software companies should be held responsible for damages such action causes, regardless as to the legality of the software running. And users need to stand up at let it be known that they won't take this sort of crap anymore.
There was an interesting article (having nothing to do with linux) where this kind of practice is mentioned.
But this mentality seems flawed to me. The tide towards linux on the desktop has started. Trying to stop it is like the guy standing in the ocean shaking a stick at the waves.
They might be able to stop Lindows in one place at one isolated point in time. But there are thousands of potential Linux distros that could gain momentum in the retail market.
The whole thing I'm not getting, is how is this good for the music industry?
Sure, they're bullying college students, who are indecently the target audience for a lot of the stuff they produce. They might make a few grad here and there, but this is the worst possible publicity they could EVER hope for.
In yet another move to demonstrate how woefully behind the times they are, they have beaten yet another college student into submission. That's good. But I would be willing to bet that there are probably a few hundred more college students who will never buy another CD as a result of this.
I think the reason sales of CD's are down is because people are disgusted with the behavior of the Music industry. In particular, the RIAA has acted in a manner that is not only disturbing, but only questionably legal.
Wouldn't it make sense that in a time of slower sales, that they would be focusing their efforts on promotion of their products, R&D product development, cheap sales ploys to get people to.. I don't know... buy stuff? This pre-occupation with internet file sharing is not only in bad taste, but it's a complete waste of resources.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like the events that led up to this went something like this:
1. sco works on linux for two years 2. sco lets developers go to suse to work on united linux. 3. ceo leaves 4. new administration has no idea what's going on, and starts screaming foul.
Wouldn't a simple phone call to members of the origenal development team clarify the situation considerably?
Yeah. I was reading an article at news.com.com where mcbride was saying how they haven't finished assessing the scope of their case yet.
Which seems odd to me bacuase companies usually know what the scope of your complaint is before your go around suing people. I mean, otherwise, how do you know what you're complaining about?
They don't even want to you divuldge file extensions. Wouldn't that keep any programmer from well... programming? It would suck to sign this agreement and then find out you need to switch careers or SCO will SUE you.
"What are you talking about? Corperate America has more damn money than you'll ever imagine... and your worried about them paying $1.. pfft!"
I would tend to agree. The issue that I would be concerned about is that copyrights are almost limiteless as it is. By the time the copyright comes up, how do you know who the owner is?
Do you remember last year when the german news sites were suing the news aggretators for using spiders and grabbing their headlines?
Might not sound like it, but the issue with Miss Vermont is very much the same issue.
I think as a society we need to site up, splash some water on our faces, and ask ourselves how restrictive we want our laws regarding internet content to be.
If we don't then we have this sort of thing to look forward to for years to come. Which could get interesting. Imagine if every ex girl friend I've ever slandered on the web came back to get me... ouch!
Slashdot Mirror
I read the contract yesterday. I'm no legal expert, but it seems from the wording of it that IBM has to "designate" where the code is used, and how it's used. As long as it's under license, ANY license, (including gpl) they should be okay.
The problem is that the damn thing is paradoxically worded. And parts of it are crossed off and pencilled in. It's a real mess.
On top of that, It was signed in 1985 by AT&T and IBM. System V isn't even mentioned in it. Hell, they mention West Germany as a viable country to sell dirivitive code in!
SCO is listing it as evendence. But I don't see how it's even applicable considering that the origenal code that it was made in reference to has fallen into the public domain.
Am I wrong about this?
Please correct me if I am.
It seems to me that they are trying to set themselves up to be the RIAA of theUnix world. They've already compared themselves to the music industry and likened linux to Napster on more than one occasion. Let us not forget, the music industry destroyed Napster, and then turned on itself and any college student with a computer. I think the metephor is stupid. But this is seriously how they seem to see themselves. I hope to hell that IBM isn't having an off day when this gets to court and that the judge has a half way decent understanding of the technological issues at hand.
Looks like you read right. I got pretty much the same thing out of it.
But if their case is as strong as they say it is, then why bother going through the trouble of removing the dates from 46(?) pages of source?
And if they have gone through that level of effort to remove the dates, who is to say they didn't forge the code?
Who is to say that they didn't borrow code from linux, and conviniently forget about it? Wouldn't it be funny if the current system V turned out be a linux distro that they mislicensed?
And who is to say that the code base that is system V now, is actually system V at all? If SCO is proven untrustworthy, as I'm sure they might, how do we know? Surely Novell has some record of what the actual system V code looked like?
Didn't he point out the scheduler as the biggest point of contention?
Funny you should mention that.
My sits on the board of a major corporation. He called me the other night to ask about Linux, and the legal issues involved in using it.
It took a few minutes to explain the decentralized nature of Linux and the history (much of which he already knew) of this case so far. Then he told me, "Sounds like a publicity stunt."
Anyway the thing I found interesting about this conversation was that my father, an extremely well educated man, and familiar with the business of software had trouble understanding the nature of open source software.
I suspect that there are many others in this type of position that have no idea how open source software works. They've been inundated with proprietary software for so long, that they seem to be stuck in that mind set.
Question is,
How do we educate the corporate world so they can make informed decisions for Linux, and other open source software?
Call it a hunch, but AIX is so far ahread of system V that I would bet that there isn't much Unix left in it. I wonder how hard it would be for IBM to get rid of the remianing Unix code and get rid of the need for a license all together.
Hah hah! And then I will... Revoke your license until you beg for mercy! HaA! And then I will indulge my ego giving you just enough time to figure out where the big red button is that when pressed will cause my fortress of evil to explode, and me with it as you narrowly get away... hahahaha
I think Apple should pay the $100,000 for use of the term unix. Seriously. It would require that they adhere to a set of standards guiding the over all unix body. It certainly wouldn't hurt anything.
As aragant as Apple has been about protecting their IP over the years, this whole stance they're taking seems ill concieved and childish.
It only costs $100,000 and a test battery. What are they so afraid of?
You may now flame me...
This is why recusive acronyms are a stupid idea.
I think as Americans we have enough unfair taxation to deal with as it is.
How could they possibly expect to enforce any foreign taxes? Should we expect to start getting letters from the EU tax authority?
It seems incredibly unlikely without some kind of help from the government here.
Could you possibly imagine charging eu citizens VAT for physical goods from a physical store outside the eu? Sounds silly doesn't it. Then why does it make any more sense to do it online?
The author of this article seems to think that anyone who owns a copy of Linux can sue SCO under the same laws that it is trying to employ under IBM. I for one would be more than happy to litigate these cock suckers into oblivion. Does anyone know anything about filing class action law suits?
I wonder if they would let met patent ryhming words. I'll sue doctor suess!
Well I'm sure my patent on patenting predates your patented patent! Please don't proliferate you positive position on patenting per-patented patents.
That's a real shame. I thought the zip specification was open to anyone who wanted to use it? I stopped using Zips about three months ago in favor of the 7zip format. 7zips are smaller and more secure. The best part about 7z's is that it's an open source format. Fully documented, and entirely free. They also tend to be a lot smaller than standard .zip archives. Just an opinion.
Well, many of the provisions of this law are already in practice in various forms. The most important parts of it have already been passed in other forms.
Windows Update has already started hijacking suspected pirated copies of office, and Adobe rutinely kills suspected illegal acrobat instalations. Personally, I think that software companies should be held responsible for damages such action causes, regardless as to the legality of the software running. And users need to stand up at let it be known that they won't take this sort of crap anymore.
But this mentality seems flawed to me. The tide towards linux on the desktop has started. Trying to stop it is like the guy standing in the ocean shaking a stick at the waves.
They might be able to stop Lindows in one place at one isolated point in time. But there are thousands of potential Linux distros that could gain momentum in the retail market.
Why do they keep messing with our industry?
If this goes through, EVERYONE from linux distributors to Microsoft, ORACLE and even some of the smaller vendors will be found to be breaking the law.
Mind you, I think it would be nice if people in the industry had the integrity to accurately promote their products as much as the next guy.
But we work in an industry that is all about hype. If you change that part of it, there may be a scramble to produce quality software.
We don't want that...
My copy of IE 6 freezes or views blank images every time I try to bring up a PNG. But my configuration is odd. This might not be true of everyone.
Okay...
The whole thing I'm not getting, is how is this good for the music industry?
Sure, they're bullying college students, who are indecently the target audience for a lot of the stuff they produce. They might make a few grad here and there, but this is the worst possible publicity they could EVER hope for.
In yet another move to demonstrate how woefully behind the times they are, they have beaten yet another college student into submission. That's good. But I would be willing to bet that there are probably a few hundred more college students who will never buy another CD as a result of this.
I think the reason sales of CD's are down is because people are disgusted with the behavior of the Music industry. In particular, the RIAA has acted in a manner that is not only disturbing, but only questionably legal.
Wouldn't it make sense that in a time of slower sales, that they would be focusing their efforts on promotion of their products, R&D product development, cheap sales ploys to get people to.. I don't know... buy stuff? This pre-occupation with internet file sharing is not only in bad taste, but it's a complete waste of resources.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like the events that led up to this went something like this:
1. sco works on linux for two years
2. sco lets developers go to suse to work on united linux.
3. ceo leaves
4. new administration has no idea what's going on, and starts screaming foul.
Wouldn't a simple phone call to members of the origenal development team clarify the situation considerably?
Yeah. I was reading an article at news.com.com where mcbride was saying how they haven't finished assessing the scope of their case yet. Which seems odd to me bacuase companies usually know what the scope of your complaint is before your go around suing people. I mean, otherwise, how do you know what you're complaining about?
They don't even want to you divuldge file extensions. Wouldn't that keep any programmer from well... programming? It would suck to sign this agreement and then find out you need to switch careers or SCO will SUE you.
"What are you talking about? Corperate America has more damn money than you'll ever imagine... and your worried about them paying $1.. pfft!" I would tend to agree. The issue that I would be concerned about is that copyrights are almost limiteless as it is. By the time the copyright comes up, how do you know who the owner is?
And since when is GPL the only public license?
Do you remember last year when the german news sites were suing the news aggretators for using spiders and grabbing their headlines?
Might not sound like it, but the issue with Miss Vermont is very much the same issue.
I think as a society we need to site up, splash some water on our faces, and ask ourselves how restrictive we want our laws regarding internet content to be.
If we don't then we have this sort of thing to look forward to for years to come. Which could get interesting. Imagine if every ex girl friend I've ever slandered on the web came back to get me... ouch!