Today's SCO News 741
landoltjp writes "SCO (Nasdaq: SCOX) are hosting a teleconference today in order to clear the air (*snort*) regarding "Novell's baseless UNIX ownership assertions" and other bits of hubbub and nonesense that's in the news today. Should be fun." And SCO has apparently been enjoined from making some of its claims by a German court (also here.) Cringely has an editorial on the whole mess.
The headline says it all... (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, the Novell bit really hurt them, and now they're getting a bit desperate. If they had any dignity they'd just give up now, but we know they don't.
This Should Clear Things Up (Score:5, Insightful)
NOT!!!!!
This is not going away. I suspect this will linger for a good year or more. That is, unless SCO shareholders make a stand. Which is just not going to happen. The lawyers are running the show. SCO is no longer a technology company. They are one of these new fangled IP companies, like Rambus. The really funny thing is that it's not even their own IP.
I'm sure they think that they're on to something. But the courts have a way (albeit lengthy) of asserting common sense when the horse is already out of the barn.
I STRONGLY urge the slashdot editors to consider a weekly update, rather than hourly update, on this story from now until next year.
German Courts (Score:5, Insightful)
It's hypocritcal to trash them when strange laws work against you, then cheer them when similarly strange laws work in your favor.
Re:This Should Clear Things Up (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean like in Microsoft's antitrust trial or how about OJ? Anything can happen in court.
Questions I'd like the experts to answer (Score:5, Insightful)
Where is the code?
SCO has said that for legal reasons, they won't identify the exact code. But it would be useful to know if the code is in the kernel, or in user space. If the kernel, at least what directory, or section of the kernel is it in?
If it is a header file, in the include directory, similarities are to be expected. For example, the Linux system call numbers are the some as many other OSes. These number are well known, and and have been for decades, and can't possibly be a trade secret. POSIX defines a zillion well-known constants which will show up in most every POSIX compliant OS, and similarities are also to be expected here. Again, this doesn't mean that Linux copied from SCO, rather, that they both copied from POSIX.
If the code is in a device driver, it is very possible that both the SCO code and the Linux code share a common ancestor -- many device drivers are written by the device manufacturers, and given to the OS vendors to include in their system.
If the code is in the CPU-specific part of the kernel, is it something that there is only one way to do. Intel publishes specs on how to manipulate low-level registers to do specfic tasks (start second CPUs, enable memory protection, etc.), and there just aren't that many different ways to do them.
Is the code is *BSD, or elsewhere on the net?
If this alledgedly infringing code is in *BSD, or on other places on the net, this would again point to a non-SCO ancestor. For example, Intel publishes Application Notes on how to use features of their processors. It wouldn't surprise me to find this code in many different OSes which use Intel processors, or Intel-compatible processors. Also, there is some Unix(tm) code which has been given to the public domain, in the interest of portability. I believe that cpio is one of these programs.
Both SCO and Linux use the X window system, which came from the X consortium -- I'm sure there's a ton of common X related code in both, but again, that doesn't mean that Linux copied from SCO.
The last Unix lawsuit resulted in marking all of the BSD code as "clean", so if this infringing code is also in one of the BSDs, that would help to indicate that it is also clean.
When did the code first originate?
As many people have pointed out, even if there is similar code in both Unix and in Linux, that doesn't indicate which direction the code moved. If such similarities can be found, the origination dates would need to be proved as well. Apparently, SCO ships Samba, GCC, and other open source code today, and marks it as such. Perhaps there's more code like this that slipped into the kernel.
Re:Cringley, Linus, and Christoph Hellwig (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft will never abandon Windows for a *NIX base like Apple did, because Microsoft knows they will never compete in the marketplace on the merits of their products. No sane IT person trusts them on any front, from general customer relations (Licensing 6.0), security (Outlook), stability (all products) to having a stable upgrade path (VB.NET). Without their monopoly they are out of business. If they even ported Office it would only hurt them. The only people buying Office for Linux would be buying it in the context of migrating OFF of Windows and using Office for Linux as a temporary bridge product, meaning a one-time sale instead of a revenue stream.
Nevertheless, the monopoly will be broken and they will fade into history. Too large to be allowed to completely fail, but settling into has-been status as one of those big mega-corps that nobody can really figure out what they do anymore, but still they exist.
Cringely's Article (Score:2, Insightful)
"At stake is certainly Linux and perhaps FreeBSD, NetBSD, and any other Unix that doesn't come with an SCO license."
Which (non-SCO) Unixes come with a SCO license? As I understood it The Open Group permit products to be called "Unix".
"What matters is the approaching June 13th deadline, which is when SCO can yank IBM's Unix license, making any subsequent copies of AIX not Unix."
Again, which license?
- Brian.
Re:The headline says it all... (Score:5, Insightful)
I figure they're using that spotlight to make money.
SCO's stock is way up in the past month or so (from ~$1.50 a share to ~$6 a share). Stock prices are related to the perceived value of the company. People are willing to pay more for the stock of a company which looks like it has the potential to make money.
By claiming that they have the power to extract license fees from Linux users/companies (due to "stolen code", copyrights, or whatever) SCO has just invented a potential revenue stream out of thin air. Enough people think this revenue stream is real and sustainable (probably because of all the press that it's getting!) that the stock price has gone up. That real profit they made this quarter (thanks to MS?) probably didn't hurt either. Of course, that revenue stream almost certainly is not real or sustainable. I'm guessing that a lot of long-term SCO investors know this and have just sold their stock, which was probably the plan all along.
Your CIO is a dumbass. (Score:1, Insightful)
250,000 Euros (Score:4, Insightful)
So, who is going to make them say it in the conference call?
Re:How the conference will go . . . (Score:2, Insightful)
"La, La, La, La, we're not listening, we can't hear you, La, La, La!"
Re:What to do if MS bites into Linux (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:This Should Clear Things Up (Score:5, Insightful)
However, I agree with you: This ain't going away. SCO is preparing to drag some poor courtroom through every keystroke of tools in the Linux distro - for however many versions.
But remember, this is a constractual infringement, not a copyright issue. This means IBM broke its contract (if proven) and must pay damages. The code itself is still GPL or whatever.
I sure hope the judge and jury understand that as a member of the Linux Group and (up until a few weeks ago) a working distro source, SCO had the onus to check its code for proprietary or copyrighted information. Otherwise, they simply prove the point that NO parties (except IBM's contract for releasing the code) can be liable. In other words, you check the distro you are pushing to be clean, or you say "buyer beware" and deliver the whole works.
So, focusing on IBM contract for releasing the code, two things come to mind:
[1] Novell's move is part of a different suit and will not have to be settled first; this SCO/IBM this is basically honoring the contract, not about code content (which is just an exhibit in this case).
[2] If IBM put pieces of the code from System V/AIX/SCOunix into Linux, it can defend through either saying the code and algorithms presented were defacto optimal solutions obvious to anyone educated, and thus it is unprovable they themselves leaked it. Or, by saying these were other non-proprietary sources (again, from the instructional or OSS world). If IBM can prove that the design of such algorithms are already in the public domain, they could show the implementation would be a simple next step. IF the code is a letter-for-letter match, as SCO surely feels, IBM has a tough time explaining that. They will then focus on the letter of the contract, the position SCO had at the time supporting Linux development, and any other implied agreements regarding IP in Linux.
Lastly, as for damages, SCO has stated they have lost market share due to the Linux movement (like MS, the hand working SCO's strings at the moment). But in their (quite public) participation in the Linux growth stage over recent years, they prove that no one party is responsible for this expansion. IBM's code release, even if proven, may or may not have affected the adoption of Linux into the mainstream. SCO will have a hard time proving that without it's alledged IP in the kernel, Linux would have flopped. So, IBM will probably not be responsible for much in terms of SCO's loss of market share. Especially since this means analyzing business environments with so many other changes going on.
SCO itself has alienated everyone with favorable association to Linux. Hance MS's partnering to license their code ("as part of a long-standing Windows/Unix interoperability project") - like anyone believes that.
Win or lose, Linux haters are happy to see FUD spread amoung the pointy-haired CTOs of the world. MS can now drop a slide into its hardly-effective PPS file for showing how "risky" Linux is regarding IP. Yawn. Any proprietary code will be quickly replaced in months.
comments welcome
mug
If Microsoft is smart... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:German Courts (Score:5, Insightful)
Listening to the conference call (Score:3, Insightful)
SCO: "copyright issues not important to our enforcement actions"
SCO: "next week ... will be showing ... direct lines of code from our LinuxWorks ... in the Linux kernel".
SCO: "since we have started down this path ... business great"
Re:SCO is the villain, not MS (Score:3, Insightful)
2.4 kernel? (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's take a moment... (Score:5, Insightful)
Dennis [bell-labs.com]
Brian [bell-labs.com]
Ken [bell-labs.com]
Rob [bell-labs.com]
et. al.
"Unix, Live Free or Die"
Maybe not so bad (Score:5, Insightful)
That being said this might not be so bad for FOOS.
From the attitude of your CIO it looks like there is Zero undertanding and Zero willingness to give anything back, so why should your company benefit from FOOS.
The impact to FOOS of them not using any open source software is zip to the community as a whole, and your employeer puts themselves at a competitive disadvantage which is richly deserved.
FOOS is a long term Quid pro Quo and not a one way street, at least in spirit.
Re:The headline says it all... (Score:1, Insightful)
Hot tip: Sell now, before everyone realizes that the CEO isn't wearing any clothes.
Re:On the phone with SCO (Take 2) (Score:3, Insightful)
Translation Pages Please? (Score:2, Insightful)
I still wonder how many people have read this [opensource.org] by Eric Raymond.
Re:From Yahoo!... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:info from the conference call (Score:4, Insightful)
They don't own the UNIX trademark. It would be funny if The Open Group revoked SCO's right to it.
Also, SCO would have to put up a pretty solid argument to claim ownership of BSD-derived UNIX. How long has the Berkeley-sanctioned BSD licensing scheme been around? Over a decade, now? Why didn't SCO make a fuss about 386BSD or NetBSD, or OpenBSD, or FreeBSD, or Mac OS X?
A poster above brought up another good point: What about those old versions of UNIX released as Open Source a while back by Caldera?
Additionally, there are other POSIX systems that SCO can't touch, limiting SCO's future benefits of their kiddie rants. For example, GNU.
Re:now that you mention it [netcraft] (Score:4, Insightful)
Its entirely possible that Netcraft is wrong - any of the following is possible:
- Netcraft have no profile for SCO, and so it guesses that unknown Unix = Linux
- Netcraft has an ID for SCO, but SCO run a heavily modded server which looks more like Linux for some reason
- SCO is actually running linux on their website
Can anyone confirm any of these points? Anyone know of a website that actually runs on SCO that we can use as a baseline for comparison?
Russ %-)
Re:Cringely's Article (Score:2, Insightful)
The article you referenced goes on to quote SCO's VP, who notes that the contract in question goes on to say, "Notwithstanding the above, the irrevocable nature of the above rights will in no way be construed to limit...SCO's rights to enjoin or otherwise prohibit IBM from violating...SCO's rights under this amendment."
So, SCO can still "enjoin or otherwise prohibit" IBM in some fashion, I guess, even if they can't revoke the license, although I don't know how exactly they would do the enjoinging or otherwise prohibiting, and I'm not convinced they have a case to begin with. I don't know. IANAL. Etc.
What were they expecting (Score:3, Insightful)
This is where I can't understand who is running this strategy - Darl or the VERY expensive lawyers they're supposedly paying. Because it seems pretty easy to predict. First, they claimed property they do not own - property actually owned by the Open Group and Novell. These organizations then bitchslaped SCO in public.
Did they not think the "bitchslap" step would occur? Because it looked pretty obvious to me. Did they think Novell wouldn't tell the world that they were begging for Unix copyrights? Did they think Novell would actually give it to them? That's pretty damaging to your case there, guys.
Fools.
backslashes and compatability (Score:3, Insightful)
However, all modern Win32 platforms support forward slashes as directory separators. There are only a few places left (e.g. the standard file dialog) where you still have to use backslashes.
NTFS also supports case-sensitive filenames, though it's not turned on by default for compatibility reasons.
Re:If they really believed.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Here's the theory. The company executives convince themselves that they have been wronged and find a lawyer who willingly agrees. What they don't have (and why I originally titled it "Negative Feedback") is someone pointing out their errors. In other words, they don't have any negative feedback internally for their claim. I have no doubts that their attorney knows its a non starter. Saying its a non starter, though, means no more gravy train of legal fees. So he goes ahead and prosecutes the percieved injustice as strongly as ever.
Now, for the lawyer to keep billing the case has to be kept going. The more FUD spread, the longer it goes, and the less tangible the claims made, the easier it will be to pursue the case. Once SCO gets pinned down to the nitty gritty of their case, it will probably be game over. Discovery will force SCO to disclose the exact nature of their claim to IBM. Once that happens, IBM can subpoena Novell, and maybe even Lindows from what I have seen from some of the comments, for their documents related to ownership and can review the work that IBM put into the Linux kernal. IBM can then move for Summary Judgment based on the fact that a) the code in question is not owned by SCO (and hence has no standing) b) that the code was not incorporated into the Linux kernal (and hence the case is moot) and possibly even c) that SCO GPL'd it through Lindows (and is, again, mooted).
It is in the Discovery process that SCO will drag out the case. There will be constant objections, motions to compel, motions for protective orders and every last line is going to be contested. SCO's lawyer will probably be able to extend the discovery process for years. Even longer if a Special Master is appointed.
Throughout this process the SCO atty is going to be reinforcing to SCO how wronged SCO is and how everything that IBM is doing is merely a trick to continue to steal from SCO. Again there will be a distinct lack of opposing voices. At the end of the day IBM will have won, Linux will be vindicated (but not without serious sales disruption), MS will point to the whole 2+ year debacle as further evidence of OS unreliability, SCO will be bankrupt, and their lawyer will own a couple new houses, boats and cars.
At least that's my take on it (and I am only a cynical paralegal- not a lawyer!), though the reality is I know less about it than a lot of the other posters here. SO be sure and add some NaCl before ingesting;-)
Also ticking off their user base (Score:2, Insightful)
Now, as you can see from that page, it will be retired on June 16th and replaced with a new database. Unfortunately, the new database won't have all the same information available unless you are a reseller partner or have paid for support. There's a thread at comp.unix.sco.misc discussing this, and as you can imagine, even those who would still like to find some reason to feel good about SCO are more than annoyed.
In the interests of total honesty, at the moment at least it is easy and free to become a SCO partner and get full access to the database. But as SCO insiders have specifically said that the purpose of this is to generate more support income for resellers, how long will that last?
Also, if you are battling a problem at 2:00 am and google a link to the ta that would solve your problem, will you enjoy having to sign up as a partner to find out why the stupid thing won't boot? I doubt it. My bet is your next move would be to install Linux right over it..
Re:Can IBM afford to buy ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe not buy Novell, but perhaps buy the patent and IP rights for Unix from them. That would make this lawsuit laughable at best.
Mystery of IBM's silence (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This Should Clear Things Up (Score:3, Insightful)
Assuming IBM is a rational actor, only two things make sense:
(1) IBM knows that there is, in fact, some teeth to SCO's case. They're walking quietly because of this.
(2) IBM is pulling a judo-like move, where they're going to let SCO run and build up momentum, and then flip them over and send them flying into lunar orbit.
Dumbass or not (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh and ixnay on shutting down the company, as one poster suggested, work from within, inform people, educate them, trust me, you'll get farther that way.
Re:Mystery of IBM's silence (Score:2, Insightful)
What I don't understand is how SCO can think it has some rights that extend through to people that they have no contract with.
Re:Mystery of IBM's silence (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Cringley, Linus, and Christoph Hellwig (Score:1, Insightful)
I think you should tone down your rhetoric until we know more facts. And while you are at it, learn how to spell "Microsoft".
or IBM... (Score:3, Insightful)
methinks that wasn't an appropriate saying for slashdot......
oh well
Re:What I think MS was up to... (Score:2, Insightful)
IBM has addressed this (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, IBM has moved that this lawsuit be tried in federal court. Both the court & IBM are waiting for the SCO Group's reponse. Evidentally, the SCO Group is too busy talking to the press, rather than talking to the judge.
In any case, MacBride & his ilk have to deal with this motion before it can go to trial. No telling how much it will cost them in legal fees to respond; obviously less for them than IBM.
Geoff
German courts, good laws (Score:5, Insightful)
Germany has the advantage of a 20th Century legal system that in many aspects -- though certainly not all -- is vastly superiour the 18th Century hack that the U.S. is hobbled by (for the record: I'm an American). This starts with the basic philosophy: The American system is adversarial, which means that you don't even pretend to care about what really happened, you just let both parties slug it out and declare one side a winner at the end. In constrast, the German system at least pretends to be interested in the truth. This means for example that procecutors are required by law to list all the evidence they think shows that the accused is innocent.
Also: The court calls the scientific experts, which means that German cases are almost completely free of the junk science that makes the U.S. legal system so bizarre. Lawyers are paid the same (by fixed rates) if they win or lose and law students do not aspire to become millionaires. The guy with the most money doesn't automatically win -- while most Americans will not even consider going to court against entities with deep pockets anymore. All judges are appointed, not elected, and then they are basically untouchable; note the U.S. only uses this system for a few elite positions like the Supreme Court.
More differences: Laws are written down in books, not make up as you go along by creative interpretations of older rulings. This provides Germany with Rechtssicherheit ("legal security"), so the legal environment has a certain degree of stability, a very, very alien concept to the U.S., where anybody can sue anybody else for anything at any time, stupid or not. As a result, there is basically no such thing as a "tactical lawsuit" in Germany. You don't get "laughed out of court" -- they don't let the clowns in in the first place.
Like in any modern legal system, the lottery of trial-by-jury has been replaced by a panel of professional judges who know what DNA is and don't show up in Star Trek uniforms when considering a murder case -- remember OJ? People are assumed to be of average intelligence, not morons like in the U.S., and so you can't sue McDonald's if you are such a dumb fuck that you burn you tongue on their coffee (the mentally handicapped are treated on a case-by-case basis).
The German legal system has also proven itself to be fiercely independant of government influence (compared to the Microsoft trial in the U.S., for example). German judges ruled flat out that Libya was behind the bombings in Berlin that killed U.S. soldiers at the same time the German administration was kissing up to Ghaddafi for economic reasons.
There are, of course, disadvantages, like a tendency to give murders 20 years and then let them out after 15. However, the German system on the whole is far, far more sane than the American one, and so it doesn't surprise me one bit that SCO is not getting away with this crap in Germany.