SCO SCO SCO! 687
Still more links on SCO's assorted allegations of copyright infringement. They say they're going to sue Novell. Software analysts refuse to be part of the hoax - also some good quotes from Linus here. SCO and UNIX: a Comedy of Errors. Salon has a story on SCO too, but sadly it's not available to read freely. And Wired has an old story which I think sums up the SCO claims pretty well.
SCO still packs a punch? (Score:5, Interesting)
Would the team at SCO really keep pushing a lie, even though they know that by doing so they will face unspeakable countersuits after the trial(s)? I think that SCO is cleverly hiding an ace-in-the-hole, and it's going to hurt Linux and IBM badly. This is unprecedented: no company would ever commit suicide so blatantly and openly. I fear the worst is yet to come.
HAHA, yea right. Had ya going there, didn't I? SCOX stocks plummet some more.......
PS: fist post fools
Re:SCO still packs a punch? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:SCO still packs a punch? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:SCO still packs a punch? (Score:5, Interesting)
Interestingly enough, Sco is suing Novell just about the same time that Novell is about to release netware 6, complete with open source integration.
I'm going to the store to buy lots of tinfoil, who wants a hat?
Don't forget their new NCP move to Linux (Score:5, Informative)
Re:SCO still packs a punch? (Score:5, Funny)
Why don't we(slashdot readers) kick in and pull a blender on SCO? Damn, that would be great, if everybody that reads slashdot could kick in as much as they could, 10, 100, 1000 bucks, whatever, we could buy SCO.
Once we buy them we release all code into the public domain, not even GPL, I'm talking Jingle Bells type licensing here. Then we dissolve the company, just let 'er go.
Disclaimer: I have no idea how the business world works.
Re:SCO still packs a punch? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:SCO still packs a punch? (Score:3, Insightful)
Which is cheaper, buying SCO or kicking their butt in the courtroom?
Would buying SCO just to shut them up set a bad example for any company looking to get bought that has a wooden spoon and a pot to bang on?
BTW, on the subject of the hat, would running Tinfoil Hat Linux [shmoo.com] be an acceptable alternative?
Re:SCO still packs a punch? (Score:4, Informative)
Buying them out is exactly what they want.
The most satisfying outcome, by far, will be to watch them jump up and down crying blue murder until their day in court, at which point they are told to go fuck themselves, and their share price drops off the scale.
Anything else is better than what they deserve.
By the way, if you want to tell the managing director of SCO Australia what you think of him, his mobile number is: 0419 660 016 SCO
Re:SCO still packs a punch? (Score:5, Interesting)
Who's with me?
Re:SCO still packs a punch? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:SCO still packs a punch? (Score:3, Funny)
If Microsoft buys SCO though, they could throw all teh money into legal funds and "prove" that unix is theres and shut down all the free(speech)ware on suspicion that they contain illegal code.
luckly i have a patent pending on this method of pissing off slashdot and am incorporating it into an off-off-off-broadway musical, so any attempt to replicate these actions will result in me crying to the RIAA about how i'm not being treated fair
Re:SCO still packs a punch? (Score:5, Funny)
I will use their products, reccommend their products, and defend their products to the best of my abilities.
But you won't buy their products?
Re:SCO still packs a punch? (Score:5, Insightful)
Caldera (now SCO) will not exist two years from now when the lawsuit with IBM comes to trial unless something can be done to stop the onslaught of Linux on their proprietary UNIX marketshare. In short, SCO has very little to lose.
In fact, SCO's current scheme is sheer genius. They field lie after lie and watch their stock price shoot through the roof. Even after the colossal smackdown that Novell put on SCO SCOX stock is still priced at over $6.00 a share. That's basically a five-fold increase over where the stock was before they declared the lawsuit against IBM. Even better SCO management has managed to keep their story in the spotlight with their wide array of wacky allegations. This not only helps keep their stock price high, but it probably is even helping their commercial UNIX business. I would bet that several SCO customers that were looking at a migration to Linux will now choose to stay pat with UnixWare or OpenServer.
Don't be fooled. SCO isn't trying to win a court case. If they were, they would be using the same tactics that IBM is currently using. Their legal counsel is pretty sharp. He undoubtedly has told the SCO management team that their responses to the press are evidence. If SCO really thought that they had a chance at winning their court case they wouldn't be giving press conferences every five minutes.
SCO's management almost certainly plans to hype the stock to the moon, and then quietly sell their stake in SCOX. Since they have several years before their case goes to court, they have plenty of time to slowly get rid of their holdings.
Re:SCO still packs a punch? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it stretching the imagination too much to suppose that SCO are simply pissing people off in order to get themselves bought out in a settlement?
Re:SCO still packs a punch? (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyone remember a company called Ashton-Tate and a product called Dbase III? Dbase was a not-too-horribly-bad database design package for DOS PC's ages ago, sadly, rather than put decent effort into revamping their increasingly encumbering software they elected to sue the hell out of those who took the same ideas and gave them fresh blood. The rest, as they say, is history.
Re:SCO still packs a punch? (Score:5, Informative)
But dBase IV was the buggiest piece of shit of the times, and by the time they got it straight it was 1990. Since dBase III was from 1985, that meant that for FIVE YEARS Ashton Tate was standing still. If dBase IV had been usable from the start, they might have had a chance. But in the meantime, a little company called Fox Software came out with FoxPro which was compatible and had many more features than dBase III. Ashton Tate couldn't survive and they were gobbled up by Borland.
The interesting and ironic part of all of this:
1988 (September) Ashton-Tate sues Fox Software. In december 1990 the suit filed by Ashton-Tate against Fox Software and Santa Cruz Operations for alleged copyright infringement of the dBASE language is dismissed in court.
I recognize the strategy... (Score:5, Funny)
Kjella
Re:SCO still packs a punch? (Score:5, Funny)
It's all they have.
even though they know that by doing so they will face unspeakable countersuits after the trial(s)?
They have nothing left to lose. They've been dead for years. Linux and *BSD make them irrelevant. They have nothing left, except the outside chance that they'll be acquired and/or temporary inflation of stock. The desire to be acquired is why they are making threatening noises to Linux users, (blackmail to encouage IBM to shutSCO up by purchase) which were entirely undermined by Novell's staetments about copyright ownership.
HAHA, yea right. Had ya going there, didn't I?
FUCK! SHIT! FUCK! Why don't I read the WHOLE post before starting these long involved replies?
Re:SCO still packs a punch? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:SCO still packs a punch? (Score:5, Funny)
Confucius say: Hey, I don't talk like Yoda. Give me some credit.
Supernovae (Score:4, Funny)
shareholders.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:shareholders.. (Score:5, Insightful)
This possible SCO "suicide" is happening in real time over the last few days and I'm sure the shareholder suits will duly follow.
Re:shareholders.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:shareholders.. (Score:3, Interesting)
First of all, inflation is not out of control. On the contrary, many economists are worried about deflation [forbes.com] now.
And what on earth makes you think that people making money on the stock market leads to high inflation? Even during the height of the
Re:shareholders.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:shareholders.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Ok, the how imcompetent is the management of a company that goes from $300 to $.60 a share?
That is what happened to VA Linux/Research/Systems... the company that owns slashdot, the company that had ESR on the board of directors.
Score: -1, can't handle the truth.
Re:Why up in December of 2001? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:shareholders.. (Score:5, Informative)
I'll go put my tin hat on and go to bed in my padded room...
Re:shareholders.. (Score:5, Funny)
This thing is practically writing itself.
Shareholders have lost already, the Jackals feed. (Score:3, Insightful)
Trying to prove which code SCO actually wrote and which was from some free third party source will take years.
The Lawyer's know this and are egging SCO on towards their doom. They even got M$ to guarantee their fees...
Perhaps if these "Dark Lords" had a public face, they may feel a little more shy...
Re:shareholders.. (Score:3, Funny)
2. Announce revenues are up as the result of threatening letters to companies who use Linux.
3. Publicly announce that MSFT bought a licence (I think MS is involved in this somehow, BWT).
4. McBride fodders the market with rumors that they are looking to be bought by IBM. Nothing makes a stock price jump like rumors that small company X may be bought out by huge company Y.
Surely there's a patentable b
Re:shareholders.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Rather than spending their time trying to sue directors, now would be a very good time for SCO shareholders to become not-shareholders. They can still get in on the directors' pump-and-dump scheme.
-1, stolen (Score:4, Interesting)
If you ask Chris Sontag, a vice president at the SCO Group, how his tiny software firm decided to launch a billion-dollar lawsuit against IBM and became, in the process, the most reviled name in the open-source programming world, he'll tell you that the whole thing started rather innocently. Sontag says that SCO did not go looking for trouble with fans of free software; instead, trouble found SCO. In January the company, which makes most of its money from the sale of Unix and Linux operating system software, embarked on a routine review of its business holdings. And during the review, "we identified some concerns we had in terms of our intellectual property."
Specifically, the company determined that some source code in Linux had a lot in common with code in Unix -- and SCO says that in 1995, it purchased rights to all the original Unix source code from the software firm Novell. In other words, SCO believes that Linux, an OS that can be freely copied and modified by anyone, is illegal. Linux is, SCO says, "an unauthorized derivative of Unix." If SCO's accusations are affirmed in court, the millions of companies and individual users who have increasingly built their lives around Linux over the last decade might have to start scrambling for an alternative or face costly penalties.
But that was not all. During its examination of Linux source code, SCO says it found that it could trace what it believes was Unix code in Linux to one of its longtime partners in the Unix business: IBM. Sontag says that SCO immediately tried to notify IBM of copyright violations in Linux, but "we effectively got no response." So on March 7, SCO filed suit against IBM, alleging "misappropriation of trade secrets, tortious interference, unfair competition and breach of contract." In its complaint, SCO claims that IBM took parts of SCO's Unix code and illegally inserted the code into Linux. Last month, to warn end users about its findings, SCO sent about 1,500 corporate Linux customers a letter [sco.com] saying they could be in legal hot water if they continued to use Linux, which SCO told them was "developed by improper use of proprietary methods and concepts."
SCO's war on Linux has become a hot topic in open-source circles, inspiring heated discussions on developer listservs and almost daily posts on Slashdot. [slashdot.org] Opinion in these forums, as well as among more dispassionate industry observers, runs about 99 percent anti-SCO. Nobody believes Sontag's story, and it's not hard to see why. SCO's version of the history of Unix and Linux -- as the company has explained it to reporters and as it outlines in its legal complaint against IBM -- comes off as a one-sided and self-serving account. Critics say the company misstates and exaggerates its own contributions to Unix, and SCO has yet to provide a single example of infringing code it says it has found in Linux.
Industry watchers have attributed SCO's actions to economic desperation. The firm's products have not been doing well recently; the company lost about $25 million last year. SCO now has a stated goal of trying to make money by selling licenses to its Unix intellectual property, and critics see the IBM suit as perhaps only the first of many litigious efforts SCO will attempt. IBM intends to fight the case, but SCO may hope that escalating its rhetoric will make business for Linux companies so difficult that they'll cave in -- either by paying SCO licensing fees or buying the firm out.
The strategy is not entirely illogical, and SCO's efforts have met with some initial success. In mid-May, Microsoft, which considers Linux its main software rival, made headlines when it decided to purchase a Unix license from SCO. The sum Microsoft paid for the license was not disclosed but is thought to be around $10 million -- pocket c
SCO (Score:5, Funny)
For Immediate Release
June 3, 2003
Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
The SCO Group is based in Salt Lake City, Utah and has done nothing of interest for many years.
This will be resolved in the courts (Score:3, Insightful)
Anything we say here is irrelevent. What is there to discuss except to say that having 'many cooks' increases the chance that any one of them may have tossed in a poison pill unwittingly?
Re:This will be resolved in the courts (Score:5, Insightful)
Now whose ideas did you use, and more importantly, who cares? Sure stealing is wrong, it says so in our lawbooks. But what exactly have you stolen? Does AIX not have a LVM because you used some ideas from it in Linux? Should a Ford not have Antilock brakes because GM put them on their cars before Ford?
We have broken the system to the point where it is illegal to learn anything, because somebody learned it before us. We are not stealing somebody's hard work. We are expanding on it, and with Linux, they can do the same thing back to their own product. Has there been a lawsuit because Microsoft has taken on some of the same projects that Linux has? Used ideas from one and placed them into the other? No, and by rights there shouldn't be. If Linus had compiled SCO and called it Linux, then there would be a case. If Linus used the knowledge he learned in university that the original Unix guys learned, should he be crucified? No.
and oh yeah, fuck SCO. You can sue me too you worthless piles of festering pestilence.
you *can* read the salon story freely... (Score:5, Informative)
It so happens that this "Free Day Pass" is, today, sponsored by Microsoft.
Re:you *can* read the salon story freely... (Score:5, Informative)
Bingo, free salon story, no ads.
It's a comedy (Score:5, Interesting)
SCO sues IBM
SCO threatens sue Linus
SCO threatens to sue Novell
The whole unix world is in some kind of uproar now thanks to this crappy company over IP thats so old that it should have lost most of it's value anyways. Theoretically, the concepts and whatnot in the unix world can also be in Cisco and everywhere else.
What really blows my mind is that they don't own any of it, they are a sub licensee of Novell. Maybe Novell can revoke the contract with SCO and then they can no longer sue because they no longer can enforce the copyrights? I don't know, IANAL.
sri
hah (Score:4, Insightful)
How do you take someone seriously that says stuff like this. I'm sure he thinks he's being tough and serious.. but it just comes off like a bad joke.
Re:hah (Score:5, Funny)
then after that, it's time for a nap.
Bollocks (Score:5, Interesting)
"Right now the Linux kernel does not support all the capabilities of AIX. We've been working on AIX for 20 years. Linux is still young. We're helping Linux kernel up to that level. We understand where the kernel is. We have a lot of people working now as part of the kernel team. At the end of the day, the customer makes the choice, whether we write for AIX or for Linux.
"We're willing to open source any part of AIX that the Linux community considers valuable. We have open-sourced the journal filesystem, print driver for the Omniprint. AIX is 1.5 million lines of code. If we dump that on the open source community then are people going to understand it? You're better off taking bits and pieces and the expertise that we bring along with it. We have made a conscious decision to keep contributing."
On the surface, those comments seem fairly damning, but let's think outside the box for a moment, something Bruce Perens is used to doing. "IBM is smart enough not to open source other people's intellectual property," he says. "Maybe the comment about being willing to open source any part of AIX that the Linux community considers valuable simply means that there is no portion of AIX that would be considered valuable by the Linux community."
NDA is FUD (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:NDA is FUD (Score:5, Insightful)
However, your point is valid. There's no point in a NDA when the disputed code is already on dozens of mirrors worldwide and on CDs pressed by many distros over the last N years.
Let's face it -- SCO probably wants the NDA to keep the reviewers from announcing that they found stolen Linux and/or *BSD code in SCO's source tree. ;^)
Salon (Score:5, Informative)
Salon [salon.com] gives you a "Free Day Pass" that allows access to all of the content if you are willing to sit through a 15-second ad.
Re:Salon (Score:3, Funny)
I suppose that Michael is in a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't situation here. If he watches the ad, he opens himself up to harassment for it (unclean! unclean!). If he doesn't watch the ad, he looks a little incompetent.
Not that I am saying that you shouldn't harass Michael...now that would just be silly.
For the sake of clarity - a different perspective (Score:5, Funny)
I found it quite helpful
Prescient comment from BSD judge (Score:5, Informative)
---US District Judge Dickinson R. Debevoise ruling in the AT&T/BSD lawsuit [bell-labs.com]
All this talk? (Score:3, Funny)
Oh please... (Score:5, Funny)
Got bandwidth? Mad at SCO? Download a 5mb file from here [sco.com] or launch an unspecified number of wget processes:
wget http://www.sco.com/images/pdf/eserver/eserver_sys
This way, you'll know how to administrate their linux server which they discontinued.
Re:Oh please... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Oh please... (Score:4, Informative)
NOBODY has mentioned SCO being shutdown in Germany (Score:5, Informative)
The german branch of SCO has taken down its web site. Hans Bayer, SCO's executive director in Gemany confirmed that this measure was taken as a consequence of Friday's injunction of a German court against SCO
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/odi-02.06.0
SCO wasn't able to support their claims that Linux has infriging SCO IP in it. Isn't this kind of important? It pretty much proves that SCO cannot support their claims.
I submitted this story already. Can a few other people do it as well?
NOBODY in the US media has picked up on this.
Re:NOBODY has mentioned SCO being shutdown in Germ (Score:5, Informative)
Judge to do code review! (Score:3, Funny)
Read: a review of the code by *anyone* "means absolutely, positively nothing".
Set the /. Wayback Machine for 2000 (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyone wanna take bets? My guess is Bruce and Eric.
Who has not? I expect more BullShit (TM). (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyone working on free code should be highly suspicious of NDAs and other agreements that limit free speech and co-opt IP. There's no reason to sign a NDA to look at Linux source code. You have to wonder what SCO has that they don't want you to talk about.
Chances are SCO are going to make some realy stupid terms. They would love for only their clueless dupes to si
So let me get this straight... (Score:5, Interesting)
2) You'll show me the secret code in question IFF I sign an NDA.
3) The code for Linux is freely available.
What's in the secret code that I can't see by looking the kernel source?
Are they the super secret comment statements that surround the code?
Is the secret code surrounded by super-double-secret code ?
What's next? I have to sign and NDA and wear a tin foil hat so Linus can't suck the super-double-secret code directly from my head and add it to the source?
Sounds like someone was sniffing glue and listening to the M$ FUD about the GPL over at SCO...
=tkk
Re:So let me get this straight... (Score:5, Informative)
2) You'll show me the secret code in question IFF I sign an NDA.
3) The code for Linux is freely available.
What's in the secret code that I can't see by looking the kernel source?
From what I see, the purpose of the NDA is so that you can't tell other people what the offending lines are, because then they could fix them and SCO wouldn't have a case.
All you're allowed to do is look at their allegations and tell the public "yes, I agree that SCO has a case" or "no, I don't believe them".
Re:So let me get this straight... (Score:4, Insightful)
Now that's a gotcha.
oh ... it's much more kafka .... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:So let me get this straight... (Score:5, Interesting)
Not to take SCO's side, but their NDA requirement is not unreasonable.
If there's a file, say feature.c, that Linux ripped off illegally, SCO proves nothing by showing you a copy of feature.c. They obviously could've downloaded it from kernel.org five minutes ago, and changed a couple of comments. The theft of feature.c would only make sense in the context of the entire SCO source tree. That is, let's say they shipped version 3.1415 in 1995, and they show you a source tree with feature.c included, that compiles exactly to v3.1415's dated binaries. You are therefore convinced that feature.c was SCO property and a meaningful part of SCO products circa 1995, not just added in two months ago so they could sue Linux. If feature.c later turned up in Linux, then somebody might have stolen it.
Basically, SCO needs to prove that the code does belong to SCO, and that it predates the "copied" code in Linux. Both require the context of the rest of SCO's source tree.
Therefore, it's unreasonable to ask them to let competitors such as Linus Torvalds look all over their source tree, just to allege that Linux may have received illegal code contributions.
salon article (Score:5, Informative)
A software company launches a billion-dollar suit against the open-source operating system's biggest backer, IBM -- and only succeeds in underscoring Linux's strength.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Farhad Manjoo
June 3, 2003 | If you ask Chris Sontag, a vice president at the SCO Group, how his tiny software firm decided to launch a billion-dollar lawsuit against IBM and became, in the process, the most reviled name in the open-source programming world, he'll tell you that the whole thing started rather innocently. Sontag says that SCO did not go looking for trouble with fans of free software; instead, trouble found SCO. In January the company, which makes most of its money from the sale of Unix and Linux operating system software, embarked on a routine review of its business holdings. And during the review, "we identified some concerns we had in terms of our intellectual property."
Specifically, the company determined that some source code in Linux had a lot in common with code in Unix -- and SCO says that in 1995, it purchased rights to all the original Unix source code from the software firm Novell. In other words, SCO believes that Linux, an OS that can be freely copied and modified by anyone, is illegal. Linux is, SCO says, "an unauthorized derivative of Unix." If SCO's accusations are affirmed in court, the millions of companies and individual users who have increasingly built their lives around Linux over the last decade might have to start scrambling for an alternative or face costly penalties.
But that was not all. During its examination of Linux source code, SCO says it found that it could trace what it believes was Unix code in Linux to one of its longtime partners in the Unix business: IBM. Sontag says that SCO immediately tried to notify IBM of copyright violations in Linux, but "we effectively got no response." So on March 7, SCO filed suit against IBM, alleging "misappropriation of trade secrets, tortious interference, unfair competition and breach of contract." In its complaint, SCO claims that IBM took parts of SCO's Unix code and illegally inserted the code into Linux. Last month, to warn end users about its findings, SCO sent about 1,500 corporate Linux customers a letter saying they could be in legal hot water if they continued to use Linux, which SCO told them was "developed by improper use of proprietary methods and concepts."
SCO's war on Linux has become a hot topic in open-source circles, inspiring heated discussions on developer listservs and almost daily posts on Slashdot. Opinion in these forums, as well as among more dispassionate industry observers, runs about 99 percent anti-SCO. Nobody believes Sontag's story, and it's not hard to see why. SCO's version of the history of Unix and Linux -- as the company has explained it to reporters and as it outlines in its legal complaint against IBM -- comes off as a one-sided and self-serving account. Critics say the company misstates and exaggerates its own contributions to Unix, and SCO has yet to provide a single example of infringing code it says it has found in Linux.
Daypass sponsored by
Microsoft
Industry watchers have attributed SCO's actions to economic desperation. The firm's products have not been doing well recently; the company lost about $25 million last year. SCO now has a stated goal of trying to make money by selling licenses to its Unix intellectual property, and critics see the IBM suit as perhaps only the first of many litigious efforts SCO will attempt. IBM intends to fight the case, but SCO may hope that escalating its rhetoric will make business for Linux companies so difficult that they'll cave in -- either by paying SCO licensing fees or buying the firm out.
The strategy is not entirely illogical, and SCO's efforts have met with some initial success. In mid-May, Microsoft, which considers Linux its main software rival, made headlines when it decided to purchase a Unix license from SCO. The sum Microsoft paid for the license was not disc
SCO's lawyer (Score:5, Funny)
Re:salon article (Score:4, Funny)
The Language of Shakespeare in danger (Score:5, Interesting)
Even Slashdot posting could be next.
Pretty much the best write-up of this farce so far.
Nah, this one's better. (Score:4, Informative)
Dvorak Predicts Death of Linux (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't shoot the messenger...
Killing Linux by John Dvorak [pcmag.com]
Sensationalism bullshit at it's very worst, IMO.
Who are the lawyers for SCO? Who's funding this? (Score:3, Interesting)
Lets think about this. If you look at the history of that last major UNIX legal battle ( I highly recommend reading http://opensource.org/sco-vs-ibm.html )
it's quite obvious this is going to be a very long drawn out ugly deal. How is SCO going to pay for it? This could honestly take years. Who's helping them? Are the lawyers employees or are they hired? Are they just working on the chance of a big payout?
This is the worlds biggest and most expensive poker game. Someone is bankrolling the players, and I don't think it's just Microsoft.
Conundrum with open source? (Score:5, Interesting)
However, it seems to me that the incentives are totally analogous. Programmers in the open source world code (mainly) to help others, or show off their skills (for prestige or a better job). If they are caught cheating then they obviously are not helping, and plus they lose a lot prestige.
Similarly, the people who manage open source projects clearly want their project to be successful and popular. If they accept infringing contributions then they jeopardise this, so they have an incentive not to. There may not be a direct economic incentive, but that doesn't mean the incentive isn't just as strong. The only conundrum is the familiar one that, in the free software world, people do things for reasons other than money.
Judges reviewing code? (Score:5, Insightful)
Overly said a review of the code by anyone other than a judge "means absolutely, positively nothing" in determining the merit of SCO's claims.
Is it just me, or is there something scary about a judge, who may or may not use his/her computer for anything other than e-mail and word processing, trying to interpret two snippets of source code to determine if one uses the other in an illegal way?
Re:Judges reviewing code? (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought the same thing, but I just got done looking at the some of the legal documents from the Original AT&T/BSD case [bell-labs.com].
In particular, the final opinion [bell-labs.com] in that case shows that the judge did take the time to understand everything.
I also find it rather enlightening to see just how poorly a copyright/trade secret suit was to prove when it was AT&T funding the fight. Makes me believe even less in SCO's chances.
Pot to Kettle... (Score:5, Funny)
Pot to Kettle, come in Kettle, are you there?
German website down (Score:3, Informative)
Oh, and a German artice about this can be found here [heise.de]
SCO is acting like they have no case (Score:5, Interesting)
Any litigator knows that you don't want to go to trial--you want to force a settlement. If you hae a halfway decent case, you'll show your evidence up front, so the other side sees that it's going to lose. On the other hand, if you have no case, then you try to keep everything under your hat and stretch out the legal proceedings until the other side pays just to make you go away.
Which of these sounds like SCO? I think that they have squat and I think that SCO and their lawyers know it.
BTW, if SCO doesn't produce evidence, IBM can file a motion to compel discovery and demand to get it. If they still stonewall, IBM can move for dismissal and get the whole case thrown out.
"second blow"? (Score:5, Funny)
I think "blow" is the wrong metaphor. A "blow" implies strength, power, and the ability to inflict pain and damage. None of those apply to SCO.
SCO is making a lot of noise and releasing a lot of hot air, something that should be embarrassing to SCO and is somewhat annoying but generally harmless to the bystanders. That kind of event is more accurately described as a "fart", not a "blow".
So, using this more accurate metaphor, the reporter should probably change the article to read:
GOLDEN BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY (Score:5, Funny)
She (MRS. M. GOTCHA), has as a result of the trust and confidence she has in me mandated that I search for a reliable and trustworthy foreign partner, who will help receive some UNIX source code which she has totaling Five Million United States LOC into a personal, company or any reliable foreign Unix-like system for safe keeping for a short period of time, since her family computer accounts within and outside the country have all been frozen by the authorities.
This source code in question has however, been carefully kept in defaced form and deposited with a security company that has branches in Europe and America. You may therefore be required to travel to any of the branches to collect the source code on behalf of my client for safe keeping.
I shall let you into a complete picture of this mutually beneficial transaction when I have received your anticipated positive reply. This matter should be treated as urgent and confidential. This is very important.
PS, it's very important that you maintain your current good relationship with Dr. Linus. Only he has the keys to the vault in which we must deposit our Five Million United States LOC. When added to the Millions of LOC already there, we will all become very rich.
Best Regards,
Dr.Darl McBloodsukr
Goodbye and good riddance SCO (Score:5, Interesting)
I also got sick of people insisting that SCO was commercial quality UNIX while blowing off Linux, while I knew darn well that Linux was more trustworthy and stable, and the only way to get decent productivity out of a SCO box was to install tons of free software on it that was often better then the software you licensed out the nose for from SCO - they even licensed TCP/IP for chrisake. Anyhow, sometimes I still do SCO work, because I'm one of the few that know how to nowdays - but none the less I am so thankfull that this next generation will never need to deal with them. And I am so thankfull that many of the businesses that toiled under SCO now have the freedom to be productive with their computers.
I am also thankfull that people no longer need to suffer under their lies, lies about quality, lies about stability, lies about being for the enterprise, and most of all lies that they were better than free software. They are so full of it. At home I tell my 4yr old daughter no-no, and in the enterprise I tell business men sco-no.
Goodbye and good-riddance SCO, I should have known you'd sue IBM. You maximized damage and harm to the computing industry for years, it only makes sense you'd do it on your death bed too. Goodbye and good riddance.
The Real Outcome of This Fiasco (Score:4, Interesting)
Linux is free and available. Provided SCO wins anything, they will HAVE TO come clean about what parts are offending code and which are clear. As soon as that's done, SCO will have a field day with IBM, RH, and other Linux vendors.
However, within a few weeks/months, the Linunx community will rally to replace all offending parts of the kernel/GNU utilities/whatever with something equal if not better, it will be tested, and deployed within a year. Linux will suffer a setback, but Linux will NOT die.
It's been said that open source projects never die, they just cease to be developed. Linux ain't going anywhere. There's no imaginable way that hackers around the world will simulaneously abandon Linux and move to FreeBSD or some other alternative. If, by some miracle, there's something to all this, we'll have it behind us within a few months.
Has SCO got anything right so far ? (Score:4, Interesting)
The real issue (Score:4, Interesting)
Just as it was a remarkably convenient time for Microsoft to license technology it already owns from SCO, this lawsuit is probaly happening during a bidding process for a massive contract.
Microsoft recently gave some very serious discounts and other carrots to get a 750,000 user Exchange implementation in the face of stiff competition from IBM running Linux mainframes in a large northeastern state government. I imagine larger federal contracts would justify more "agressive marketing".
having read the links.. (Score:3, Informative)
I love what Linus was quoted as saying..
As for what he thinks of SCO's actions, Torvalds in an e-mail interview compared the fight between SCO, IBM and Novell Inc. to bad TV. "Quite frankly, I found it mostly interesting in a Jerry Springer kind of way. White trash battling it out in public, throwing chairs at each other. SCO crying about IBM's other women.
Now there is a man with his eye on the ball
SCO as a swear word? (Score:3, Funny)
Maybe?
Does Linux have legal vulnerabilities? (Score:5, Interesting)
Consider the following scenario:
Imagine that the Linux kernel developers are having trouble designing a driver for some new hardware device: a winmodem, a video card, a hard drive or whatever. The manufacturer, ACME INC, has released a Windows-only (binary) driver, but doesn't appear willing to cooperate with the development of an open source driver. Furthermore, ACME's minimal published specs for the device seem to be wrong in significant ways.
The Linux driver is buggy and giving users trouble. A volunteer - Mr. Smith - presents himself to the Linux kernel mailing list. He says he has the device in question and he would like to try to help with improvements to the Linux code. Taking the existing driver code as a start, he makes a series of important contributions over a few weeks that resolve the difficulties. His changes are incorporated into the kernel source and released as part of kernel 2.6.30.
A few weeks after the release of 2.6.30, Linus Torvalds and Alan Cox receive an angry letter from ACME Inc. ACME claim that large portions of ACME's original (proprietary) driver code have been incorporated into the Linux driver code. Furthermore, they are incensed that the kernel developers accepted contributions from Mr. Smith, who, it turns out, is an ex-employee of ACME, dismissed for serious financial improprieties. ACME is convinced that Mr. Smith has stolen their code and released it under the gpl in order to harm ACME's competitive position in the market. (ACME says that a careful reading of the Linux driver code clearly reveals that Mr. Smith made use of ACME's trade secrets.)
The company decides to sue Linus Torvalds and the kernel developers. The suit does not allege that the kernel developers knowingly tried to harm ACME Inc. Rather, the claim is that the kernel developers didn't exercise "due diligence" in vetting Mr. Smith and his contributions. In effect, ACME says that someone in a position of responsibility should have asked Mr. Smith where he worked previously, and an effort should have been made to contact Mr. Smith's previous employer. Furthermore, the kernel developers should have asked ACME to review the Linux driver code before it was released.
During a news conference, ACME's CEO says:
"Every computer company in American does a at least some background checking before they hire someone to work on an important project. Where did the employee get their education? Where were they employed previously? Did they have any significant problems at their previous place of employment? In the Linux world such questions are rarely asked or followed-up on, even though Linux advocates claim that millions of people rely on the Linux operating system. In failing to ask such questions of Mr. Smith, the Linux kernel developers made themselves legally liable for the harm that resulted when he exploited the open source development process for nefarious ends."
My question is: Is this a plausible scenario? What safeguards are in place to prevent such a scenario from coming true? Are these safeguards adequate?
Re:Does Linux have legal vulnerabilities? (Score:4, Interesting)
What safeguards are in place to prevent such a scenario from coming true in a closed-source system? Infact, would ACME even know if their code had been stolen in a closed-source system? How would they know this if they don't have the code to look at? It seems that in a closed-source system your IP can be stolen without you even knowing. That can't be good, and you're always left wondering if ex-employee is using methods and code at the new company; of course no NDA, peer review or anything else will catch the code thief in that situation because who's to say he didn't just think the stuff up him/herself?
With that, it's pretty obvious that opensource allows a company to prove IP theft extremely easily. The employee or code thief in question should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and thats one less thief to worry about.
If the company in question harmed financially or competitively they need to take proactive steps to reclaim any loss ground via the thief and to also have a "debriefing" process where the programmer(s) they hire that are leaving are aware they can't divulge or use X ip anywhere else. As said by many people before, if someone is going to throw a brick through your window, attempt a robbery of your car, steal your code, attempt at burning your house down or simply attempting the bombing of an airplane. They are going to do so regardless, and people are responsible for their own actions. You can only mitigate the attack and prepare for the worst.
Basically, this example is typical stuff and it again shows that opensource is the crowd I'd rather play in.. Especially in regards to business and Intellectual Property. Not knowing if that last programmer you fired is now working for the competition and is stealing your IP must really make it difficult to sleep at night. That is; if you run on a closed-source system.
Re:Does Linux have legal vulnerabilities? (Score:4, Insightful)
never been in management have you....
#1, asking the previous employer... ALL they can reveal legally is that they did in fact work there... NOTHING ELSE. so your "did they have trouble at their last job?" is impossible to find out legally. Yes there are some bosses that put their company at risk by passing along info on a bad egg...but they put their company at risk by saying anything... good or bad.
#2 a background check does not reveal your work history. It reveals if you have been arrested or other legal trouble.
so doing any of that which "every company" does.. would reveal nothing to uncover a disgruntled person.
For all the "NDAers". (Score:3, Interesting)
IANAL, but let's talk trade secret law for a bit.
If you have something you're going to claim to be a trade secret, you have to exercise "reasonable precaution" and "due diligence" to prevent the secret from being revealed to the public, or you lose your trade secret status.
How do the courts decide if something is a trade secret? Generally, you sue somebody for trade secret infingement, or somebody sues you claiming that you don't really have a trade secret.
One of the big things the courts look for is consistancy in keeping your trade secret a secret. If you don't require everybody (and I mean everybody) to sign NDA's, the court can rule that you have allowed your secret to pass into the public knowledge, and is no longer a trade secret.
If, however, I sign an NDA with you to not disclose your trade secret information, and then I give it to a competitor, the courts can rule that I violated the NDA, so I owe you money for damaages, the company I gave the secret to may be liable for damages (that would probably need another lawsuit), and that the trade secret is still a secret even though there are now "umpteen" people who know it.
If, however, I give you access to my source code without requiring you to sign an NDA, even though the material is in millions of archives all over the planet, I'm basically saying "it's not a trade secret anymore", and the courts will (hopefully, I don't know about US courts anymore) rule that you no longer have a trade secret due to your actions.
Courts have, however, ruled that once a trade secret has reached enough people, regardless of the method, that trade secret status is lost. So, if I found out the formula for Coca-Cola (either by signing an NDA, breaking and entering, torturing one of the people who knows it, whatever), and posted it all over the internet, the courts could rule that even Coca-Cola maintained due diligence in attempting to retain their trade secret, it has lost that status.
Whether or not people should be signing NDA's is something they'll have to take up with somebody who can provide competent legal advice (in other words, not me), and will depend on lots of factors.
Maybe SCO is infringing? (Score:4, Insightful)
Another reason all intelligent societies should reject any software patents.
One line of code (Score:5, Interesting)
Then again, he never said they were going to show offending code. For all we know, Mr. McBride could show us "Hello World!".
More SCO News (Score:4, Interesting)
Lawyers representing LinuxTag, the German Linux group, told SCO on May 23 that the Lindon, Utah-based company was engaging in unfair competitive practices when it sent to 1,500 large companies letters that said using Linux could pose legal problems because SCO proprietary Unix source code had been copied into Linux, according to a statement from the group.
"SCO must not be allowed to damage its competitors by unsubstantiated claims, to intimidate their customers and to inflict lasting damage on the reputation of GNU/Linux as an open platform," LinuxTag's Michael Kleinhenz said in the statement. LinuxTag demanded SCO make its evidence public by May 30 or retract its claims.
SCO removed copies of that letter from its Web sites as a result, but later, LinuxTag succeeded in obtaining a temporary restraining order against SCO, said Ryan Tibbitts, SCO's newly appointed chief legal counsel. Because SCO hasn't been able to see the actual contents of the order, the company ordered the entire site shut down to be on the safe side, he said.
Line count percentages (Score:5, Interesting)
Ok so we've got our hypothetical 5000 lines of offending code. Now lets count the number of lines in every .c file in linux-2.4.20.tar.bz2 ...
TMPFILE=`mktemp /tmp/$0.XXXXXXX`
for i in $(for i in $(for i in $(find ./|grep "\.c"|grep -v Documentation);do cat $i|wc -l;done);do echo $i;done);do echo -n $i+>>${TMPFILE};done;echo "0">>${TMPFILE};echo quit>>${TMPFILE};bc -q ${TMPFILE};rm ${TMPFILE}
Which gives us 3332935 (including comments but hey we're lazy).
And this seems reasonable give that according to this link [geocrawler.com] which shows ~1.8 million for a 2.2 kernel so yeah hey what's another 1.5 million between friends? (think of all the new hardware support)
Ok so we've got our probably bogus number of ~3.3 million lines of code. Remember N? Come on you can do the next step its fun!
5000 / 3332935 == 0.0015% and lets be super generous and assume comments make up 40% of our line count...
5000 / 1999761 == 0.0025%
I wonder what the statistical liklihood of having similiar blocks of code of some signifigant size that happen to be the same (excluding format and variable differences). I mean there's only so many ways one can _intelligently_ code a given function
Given those kind of percentages I doubt a judge or jury could be convinced of any copyright infringement of any signifigance. It'd be kind like trying to sue a competing encyclopedia company for swiping that one entry in the "P" volume on "Petards" ("hoisting", "petard", look it up) from you and demanding millions of dollars in compensation for this plagerism (ok so this analogy sucks but I had petards on my mind so...)
BOMBSHELL: Is Boies no longer representing SCO!?! (Score:4, Interesting)
"SCO previously hired outside attorneys to serve as its chief legal counsel, but about 10 days ago hired Tibbitts, who has experience in litigation."
I'm not sure that means Boies is no longer representing SCO at all or if it means Tibbitts is now going to court and Boies is doing other legal stuff. Sure seems like Boies is gone though..
Having said that I want to say this.
I know a little about Boies. Boies takes cases he believes in. That is why he took on MS, why he represented Gore and Napster. The man doesn't need $. Also, Boies has a photographic memory.
BUT: Boies takes cases that he often has little background in. Because he has such a good memory though, this doesn't impede him. Recall how he embarrassed Microsoft several times. This is a man that previously had never used email.
If Boies is no longer working on the SCO case, it's probably because he realizes just now that SCO lied to him. If you read the filing that was made against IBM as if you BELIEVED EVERY WORD - would you think IBM deserved to be sued?
I think Boies thought that every accusation made in that filing was correct and factual. I think Boies believed that SCO had an enterprise Unix and a significant marketshare. I think Sontag and McBride who, let's face it, have no regard for the truth, lied to Boies.
Boies is a fairly ethical man and he doesn't take cases for money. If Boies isn't working for SCO, I'd bet money he quit because he was lied to from the start. There is no POSSIBLE way SCO fired Boies either. If Boies is gone, he quit.
If McBride and Sontag lied to Boies, they're going to jail because they have absolutely no case and they have lied to their stockholders. This might be a little embarassing for Boies but this is the end for McBride and Sontag. You don't hire a lawyer of Boies stature and lie to them and expect to do anything besides burger flipping for the rest of your life.
I think Sontag and McBride really are stupid as hell. If this entire theory is correct, it explains everything. I couldn't figure out why Boies, I mean BOIES, would take this case and allow his clients to make these statements, unless he didn't realize the statements were false. Boies is a respectable man and he deserves the respect he gets. I think he's been played for a fool.
IBM's perspective (Score:4, Insightful)
As I see it, there are three possibilities.
A. IBM screwed up. They released stuff from their SCO license into Linux. Oops.
B. IBM didn't screw up. They have all the evidence (remember, they have BOTH SCO's source, and Linux's source). They don't care what SCO says, because they already HAVE all the evidence. They can't release the evidence, because that would then violate their licensing agreement with SCO, but they can sure as hell prepare they legal briefs now.
C. IBM didn't screw up. They are in cahoots with SCO, and are doing this to screw linux.
Given IBM's investment in Linux, and its contribution to the kernel, and other software, I'm guessing that C is highly unlikely.
I dunno, A seems unlikely to me too. If A were the case, an IBM had a big problem on their hands, I think that as soon as SCO threaten them, they would have rapidly been able to determine that SCO's claim has some legitimacy, and bought them out immediately. After all, they have plenty of cash.
That leaves B. Someone in the IBM legal department is of the opinion that they have a REALLY strong case. Someone on the board of directors decided it would be better for their credibility if they blow SCO out of the water.
Remember, IBM can see both sides of the table here. They hold all the cards. They don't need to get SCO to show them the evidence, so they didn't even have to ask.
They knew they would win from day one. You can't bluff when the other guy sees your cards.
My e-mail response from SCO (Score:4, Funny)
From: Darl McBride
Sent: Saturday, May 31, 2003 12:05 PM
Subject: URGENT AND CONFIDENTIAL
ATTN: MANAGING DIRECTOR/C.E.O
LINDON, UTAH
REQUEST FOR URGENT BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP
First, I must solicit your strictest confidence in this transaction. This by virtue of its nature as being utterly confidential and 'top secret'. You have been recommended by an associate who assured me in confidence of your ability and reliability to prosecute a transaction of great magnitude involving a pending business transaction requiring maximum confidence.
We are top officials of SCO Group (formerly Caldera International -- Nasdaq: SCOX) who are interested in obtaining your services. We are presently in negotiations in a business deal we feel will be quite lucrative. Since we may leave the country quietly in the middle of the night, in order to commence this business transaction, we solicit your assistance to enable us to transfer a large sum of money into your account to hold until further arrangements can be made.
The source of this fund is as follows: We have leveraged IP that we originally thought belonged to our company in order to solicit a rather large monetary investment by the company Microsoft. We have in turn sued IBM for contractual violations and IP violations, as well as sending out thousands of threatening letters to various corporations and Linux vendors, in a move carefully designed to drive up our stock and put us in a position for our company to be purchased simultaneously. You see, this is a carefully executed plan modeled after what some might call, "a house of cards." We hope very much that we will collect from all parties involved, sell our stock before it tanks, and head for some fun in the sun, IF all goes as planned.
However, by virtue of our position as members of the SCO Group, we cannot acquire this money in our names.I have therefore, been delegated as a matter of trust by my colleagues of the panel to look for an overseas partner into whose account we would transfer the sum of US $21,500,000.00 (Twenty One Million, Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars) Hence we are writing you this letter.
We have agreed to share the money thus:
1. 20% for the Account owner (you)
2. 70% for us (The officials)
3. 10% to be used in settling taxation and all local
and foreign expenses.
It is from the 70% that we wish to commence the importation business.
Please, note that this transaction is 100% safe and we hope to commence the transfer latest seven (7)banking days from the date of the receipt of the following information below
(a)company name and Beneficiary of account (b) Your Personal TeL. Number and Fax Number
(c) Bank account/Sort/ABA/Routing numbers were the funds will be transferred to
(d) Your Bankers Address, Telephone and Fax Number.
The above information will enable us write letters of claim and job description respectively. This way we will use your company's name to cover our paper trail. We are looking forward to doing this business with you and solicit your confidentiality in this transaction.Please acknowledge the receipt of this letter using the above tel/fax number. I will bring you into the complete picture of this pending project when I have heard from you.
Your faithfully,
Darl McBride
they must be lawyers (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, the problem is that the lawyers don't understand what the underlying issue is, and have made a real mess of themselves.
But, if it works out in their favor, they will have future clients for the next 20 years.
Re:You can read it for "free" (Score:4, Funny)
Re:geez (Score:3, Funny)
I seem to remember a case where some guy's house was destroyed by a tornado... so he sued the church. Supposedly, the church represented God, and God controlled the weather (act of nature and all that), so it must have been the church's fault.
The guy won the lawsuit.
Re:Killing Linux (Score:5, Informative)
To quote Dvorak:
Then IBM (or SCO, or somebody) will have to define what those "certain aspects of the kernel" are, and they will be replaced by code written by people who have never worked for IBM or SCO. If IBM wants to maintain a "SCO-Fork" of the kernel, more power to them.
Ask me a difficult one next time.