...in different ways. "If you use the code, you are assumed to have read the GPL pointed to in it" vs "you can't use the code unless you've been granted rights to by the GPL".
"There has never been a time where Unix as an operating system has been licensed in an open-source way. It's always been protected."
This from the inheritor of AT&T code which lost a lawsuit against BSD; from the company which (as Caldera) worked for more than a year on "unifying" Linux and its own (more or less) Unix; from the company which earlier this year released the "Ancient Unix" sources.
Time for the padded walls and do-up-at-the-back jackets. Or a fraud suit. Or possibly both. (-:
but that can only apply if you have READ the license in the first place.
If the file containing the code you stole has prominent text in it referring you to the GPL (as recommended by the FSF), then you are deemed to have been responsible for reading the GPL before using the code.
Not so much impressed by SCO as by the box itself.
A client rang to complain that their SCO-Unix-based ap was logging users out occasionally. I clocked on via SSH to their Linux gateway and then telnet into SCO (ugh). Couldn't see anything obvious, and I needed to go past them shortly so I dropped in personally.
Where's the SCO box? SCO box? You know, the computer that the software for this clinic runs on? It runs on all of the computers. Is there a computer not running Windows? (thinks...) Oh, that one.
The SCO box turns out to be under the front counter mounted vertically in an MDF (particle board, basically) box which is a close fit on the sides and leaves about 1cm at the top. There is no ventilation at the rear. The box is too hot to touch!
I get a knife and wiggle the box out so that a few millimeters are protruding, then (the knife is hot now) switch to two notepads top and bottom. The box (still running, still in use as I do this - peak hour at the clinic - still too hot to touch) slowly wiggles out far enough that I can drop its nose onto a stool.
I put a pad atop the box to avoid burning my arm and take a couple of bolts (screws, really) out of the back so I can get a side off. The side pops open and I can feel my hair crinkling up, it's that hot inside.
There is no PSU fan, but the CPU fan (PPro 233?) is still pushing hot air around inside the box. I fetch a fan-heater and while doing so am told that users are no longer being kicked off at all. I direct the fan into the box and leave until close of trade.
I have also had three or four Linux boxes continue operating without a blip well after (on the order of months) their CPU fans have died (as in, frozen solid with muck); they are called in only when the box is rebooted (power failure) and the BIOS overheats the CPU during startup. Once when I had no replacement I just powered the box down to cool, pulled the fan off and directed a fan-heater (on fan-only) at the fanless CPU until I was sure it had survived boot.
I have never had an MS-Windows box survive for that long. They crap out while the CPU fan is still spinning quite fast.
80. Any software licensed under the GPL (including Linux) must, by its terms, not be held proprietary or confidential, and may not be claimed by any party as a trade secret or copyright property.
Specifically, may not be claimed by any party as a trade secret or copyright property. GPLed code is a "copyright property", the entire licence depends on that. Asserting that the code cannot be bound by copyright is essentially the same as asserting that it's public domain. Have a look at the example GPL'ed program header:
Yoyodyne, Inc., hereby disclaims all copyright
interest in the program `Gnomovision' (which makes passes at compilers) written by James Hacker.
signature of Ty Coon, 1 April 1989 Ty Coon, President of Vice
These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program, and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it.
...and...
You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange;
So... when they distributed their UNIX with the LKPM included (their "work") and that contained GPLed code, they accepted the terms of the GPL. But they have not distributed, or offered to distributed, the source to their (now GPLed, since the accepted the terms) "work".
This means that either they violated the GPL after agreeing to it. The owners of the copied code will band together and sue them for $2G, I hope, and settle for costs plus distribution of the full source of UnixWare 7 distributed as per the licence agreement SCO acceded to. Just to labour the point, they have already distributed derivative code, so halting distribution does not undo their requirement to distribute full source.
Not quite true. Windows itself is steeply profitable, and there are many other minor software products that they turn a dollar on. Nothing earth-shaking but it's there.
Porting MS-Office to Linux will send two messages: "We trust Linux enough to put our flagship products on it" (what other software does Microsoft ship Linux versions of? I can only think of the FrontPage extensions); and "There is enough Linux on the desktop and it's going to be there for long enough to make porting MS-Office to it profitable to us despite the political effects of admitting defeat."
But they will be too late by then. They'll be fighting OpenOffice.org - which is improving faster than MS-Office is and priced very attractively - on its home territory; to say nothing of KOffice (likewise) and "lite" office components like AbiWord and Gnumeric.
Linus didn't say that he'd use MS-Office for Linux, just that he'd be happy to see it. (-:
...just to run "real" MS-Office on Mac. Especially around the "nobble the MS-Word for Mac v6" time.
Nowadays, MS-Office on Mac OS X is generally better than MS-Office on MS-Windows despite OS cheats; that's not far from what would happen if they went on to port it to Linux, but they seem to want "none" rather than "half a loaf". And of course, Linus has publicly stated in several ways that the day Microsoft port MS-Office to Linux, he'll consider himself to have won. World Domination will be complete. (-:
Why can't it be that this software trips over a patent they have or some other issue?
Maybe RPC and VPC are based on a component from UnixWare 7? Maybe Microsoft are waiting for a technology transfer from The SCO Group before they go ahead with VPC? Maybe this is what TSG meant about an ongoing revenue stream? (-:
You'll be able to compare right there on the screen. Think how ugly MS-Windows will look alongside Aqua, and what dumb-blonde secretaries and hairdressers will think of how slowly MS-Windows runs on their Mac. (-:
Could the biblical story of Noah's ark explain this, as a worldwide flood leaving only a single family of eight alive will achieve this effect of everyone having similar genes.
You'd want to pick your eight very carefully, and only five of them would count anyway (unless Shem, Ham and Japheth were adopted sons). There are ancient rumours that Shem looked Caucasian, Ham was black (weird discussion here) and Japheth was basically Asian, I don't know how much credence to give them.
I'd be interested in seeing an experiment with humans like the one that produced an "Aurochs" in Europe some time ago, and a genetic analysis of the results, to see just how well the genetics all fitted together again if it's so. Pity about the two-decade generation time.
Throw away every book, table, instrument, and start over? I know that some of my ancestors did that in switching from old English units to MKS - but they did it to make things easier. Fourteen inches to a foot and some odd number of feet to a mile. Ounces and pounds. Oh, Bog!
Truth be told, there are details in it that I don't understand (I only know enough PERL to get by), but its author does a fair job of explaining it. My preferred flavour of line noise is <? echo "guess"; ?>
...but I don't see what's so special about Kirsten, myself. I have heaps of prettier friends and rellies. She may well be a great gal, but I don't know it. (-:
Slashdot Mirror
Judge scratches head, "you own what?"
...but you got the general idea.
2G == 2 gigadollars == $2,000,000,000.00 (or, if you want to be a pedant, $2,147,483,648.00; if I were suing, that's what I'd ask for on principle :-)
...in different ways. "If you use the code, you are assumed to have read the GPL pointed to in it" vs "you can't use the code unless you've been granted rights to by the GPL".
This from the inheritor of AT&T code which lost a lawsuit against BSD; from the company which (as Caldera) worked for more than a year on "unifying" Linux and its own (more or less) Unix; from the company which earlier this year released the "Ancient Unix" sources.
Time for the padded walls and do-up-at-the-back jackets. Or a fraud suit. Or possibly both. (-:
If the file containing the code you stole has prominent text in it referring you to the GPL (as recommended by the FSF), then you are deemed to have been responsible for reading the GPL before using the code.
...and are quick with updates. Managing their updates on a large network is a pain to set up but runs sweetly once that's done.
The home of all viruses buys an anti-virus company? That's like a drug lord buying a private drug-rehab hospital, isn't it?
Not so much impressed by SCO as by the box itself.
A client rang to complain that their SCO-Unix-based ap was logging users out occasionally. I clocked on via SSH to their Linux gateway and then telnet into SCO (ugh). Couldn't see anything obvious, and I needed to go past them shortly so I dropped in personally.
Where's the SCO box? SCO box? You know, the computer that the software for this clinic runs on? It runs on all of the computers. Is there a computer not running Windows? (thinks...) Oh, that one.
The SCO box turns out to be under the front counter mounted vertically in an MDF (particle board, basically) box which is a close fit on the sides and leaves about 1cm at the top. There is no ventilation at the rear. The box is too hot to touch!
I get a knife and wiggle the box out so that a few millimeters are protruding, then (the knife is hot now) switch to two notepads top and bottom. The box (still running, still in use as I do this - peak hour at the clinic - still too hot to touch) slowly wiggles out far enough that I can drop its nose onto a stool.
I put a pad atop the box to avoid burning my arm and take a couple of bolts (screws, really) out of the back so I can get a side off. The side pops open and I can feel my hair crinkling up, it's that hot inside.
There is no PSU fan, but the CPU fan (PPro 233?) is still pushing hot air around inside the box. I fetch a fan-heater and while doing so am told that users are no longer being kicked off at all. I direct the fan into the box and leave until close of trade.
I have also had three or four Linux boxes continue operating without a blip well after (on the order of months) their CPU fans have died (as in, frozen solid with muck); they are called in only when the box is rebooted (power failure) and the BIOS overheats the CPU during startup. Once when I had no replacement I just powered the box down to cool, pulled the fan off and directed a fan-heater (on fan-only) at the fanless CPU until I was sure it had survived boot.
I have never had an MS-Windows box survive for that long. They crap out while the CPU fan is still spinning quite fast.
How does that saying go...? "Dream on, broomstick cowboy!" (-:
I'd be quite surprised if after Ransom's "unification" drive there wasn't some GPLed code in UnixWare.
Severly Cripple Unix Market?
Seppuku Can't Undo Mistakes?
Still Can't Understand, Mcbride?
Sco Crushed Under Microsoft?
Specifically, may not be claimed by any party as a trade secret or copyright property. GPLed code is a "copyright property", the entire licence depends on that. Asserting that the code cannot be bound by copyright is essentially the same as asserting that it's public domain. Have a look at the example GPL'ed program header:
...and...
So... when they distributed their UNIX with the LKPM included (their "work") and that contained GPLed code, they accepted the terms of the GPL. But they have not distributed, or offered to distributed, the source to their (now GPLed, since the accepted the terms) "work".
This means that either they violated the GPL after agreeing to it. The owners of the copied code will band together and sue them for $2G, I hope, and settle for costs plus distribution of the full source of UnixWare 7 distributed as per the licence agreement SCO acceded to. Just to labour the point, they have already distributed derivative code, so halting distribution does not undo their requirement to distribute full source.
Do I need to make it simpler for you?
One of my funnier tragicomedy recollections is of a CoBOL programmer writing in C:
...etc...
cursor_x = 12;
cursor_y = 10;
position_cursor ();
label_text = "Name:"
display_label ();
field_type = ALPHABETIC;
field_length = 20;
display_field_background ();
WRT to scoping, recursion etc, he just didn't "get" it. Ever.
Not quite true. Windows itself is steeply profitable, and there are many other minor software products that they turn a dollar on. Nothing earth-shaking but it's there.
Porting MS-Office to Linux will send two messages: "We trust Linux enough to put our flagship products on it" (what other software does Microsoft ship Linux versions of? I can only think of the FrontPage extensions); and "There is enough Linux on the desktop and it's going to be there for long enough to make porting MS-Office to it profitable to us despite the political effects of admitting defeat."
But they will be too late by then. They'll be fighting OpenOffice.org - which is improving faster than MS-Office is and priced very attractively - on its home territory; to say nothing of KOffice (likewise) and "lite" office components like AbiWord and Gnumeric.
Linus didn't say that he'd use MS-Office for Linux, just that he'd be happy to see it. (-:
Nowadays, MS-Office on Mac OS X is generally better than MS-Office on MS-Windows despite OS cheats; that's not far from what would happen if they went on to port it to Linux, but they seem to want "none" rather than "half a loaf". And of course, Linus has publicly stated in several ways that the day Microsoft port MS-Office to Linux, he'll consider himself to have won. World Domination will be complete. (-:
Maybe RPC and VPC are based on a component from UnixWare 7? Maybe Microsoft are waiting for a technology transfer from The SCO Group before they go ahead with VPC? Maybe this is what TSG meant about an ongoing revenue stream? (-:
You'll be able to compare right there on the screen. Think how ugly MS-Windows will look alongside Aqua, and what dumb-blonde secretaries and hairdressers will think of how slowly MS-Windows runs on their Mac. (-:
You'd want to pick your eight very carefully, and only five of them would count anyway (unless Shem, Ham and Japheth were adopted sons). There are ancient rumours that Shem looked Caucasian, Ham was black (weird discussion here) and Japheth was basically Asian, I don't know how much credence to give them.
I'd be interested in seeing an experiment with humans like the one that produced an "Aurochs" in Europe some time ago, and a genetic analysis of the results, to see just how well the genetics all fitted together again if it's so. Pity about the two-decade generation time.
Well, heck, it seems to have worked for Microsoft software, doesn't it? (-:
(-:
BTW, why was the parent modded into the floor? I would have given it a +1 informative.
Microsoft may be the ones to trigger it, too.
Truth be told, there are details in it that I don't understand (I only know enough PERL to get by), but its author does a fair job of explaining it. My preferred flavour of line noise is <? echo "guess"; ?>
...but I don't see what's so special about Kirsten, myself. I have heaps of prettier friends and rellies. She may well be a great gal, but I don't know it. (-: