Just for a bit of mild enjoyment, I decided to ceremonially burn my "SCO SVR4 Support Engineer" certificate that I got about 15 years ago. Ah, that felt good! Removed from my CV too.

Cambo

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I wondered at that time AND when I read Chris Stone's comment "the copyright thing is not over" just who those licensees were.

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Before I did that, it would be good to know if they will give a copy to somebody in person.

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Thanks for the information, I thought that it was referring to the LinuxTag action, but not sure...

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Good Luck.

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Under paragraph 5 labelled "Authority" both Novell and SCO have a seperate paragraph where they both claim to have unrestricted rights and authority to enter into and execute the agreement. Even after reading the SEC filings and listening to both the SCO and Novell press releases I still can't figure out who is misrepresenting their rights to IBM right here in paragraph 5. We know that SCO claimed the right to be paid $10,125,000 dollars from IBM.

What's troubling is that this amendment mentions a previous agreement between SCO and IBM that it replaces. This agreement "Exhibit D" is dated 16 Oct 1996 (the exact date of the mysterious second asset transfer agreement between Novell and SCO). What business did SCO have in an earlier agreement with IBM concerning the AT&T licenses? We do know that Novell still retains the patents which were specifically excluded from both asset transfer documents.

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I guess this explains Novell's "there's more to come on the copyright status" comments.

What it still leaves unclear is what sort of injunction IBM have requested. My understanding is that they would have to have requested a preliminary injunction for it to be ruled on before 11 Apr 05 and we will have to wait for pj to get the IBM papers to know if that is the case. If it is it could ensure that SCOs income stream dries up before this even gets to court - does David Boies do pro bono work?

I had questioned earlier if the FSF would persue this on behalf of kernel developers who had assigned copyright to them. I now realise of course that this would be a waste of time as IBM are a kernel contributor and can justify spending more than the FSF could / would want to afford on developing such a case.

Another thread that had been developing elsewhere is what affect this case would have on software patents. Although the use of patents here could be very helpful to someone who we believe is in the right, it also demonstrates how they can be an unreasonably powerful weapon in any David v Goliath type cases. If SCO don't get their day in court that is wrong, they just shouldn't be allowed to damage Linux while they are waiting.

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This quote, as far as I can tell...

"Dem FFS liegt nun ein Schreiben des [deutschen] SCO-Anwalts vor, das wörtlich versichert, die hiesige SCO-Vertretung hätte mit diesen Forderungen [Lizenzgebühren für Linux] »nichts zu tun«. Die anwaltliche Vertretung von SCO, die auf telefonische Anfrage des FFS auch einräumte, die urheberrechtlichen Ansprüche, die SCO geltend macht, hätten kaum Substanz, versichert in dem Schreiben weiter, SCO täte alles, um sich an jene Gerichtsbeschlüsse, die das Unternehmen zwingen, jede weitere Rufschädigung an Linux und seinen Nutzern zu unterlassen, zu halten." -- From a messageboard which identifies http://www.pro-linux.de/news/ 2003/5802.html

Sounds to me like someone ("FFS") has aquired from SCO's german lawyers, a letter where they (SCO) _promise_ that the latest SCO action and proclamation about licenses does not concern german users. Presumably, SCO's been forced to write such a declaration to no get fined due to the LinuxTag injunction!

Wish I knew german...

Anyway. This is why I hope that someone during the next SCO Conference Call will ask McBride just how much he expect SCO to collect in license fees from the German market. That'd be hilarious.

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Both IBM and RedHat allready have enough ammunition to kill of SCO by themselves. If you want to make fun of SCO, please do so! If you want to start a lawsuit, consult a lawyer first. I expect that SCO will go bankrupt within one or two years; you could win a verdict, but lose the money anyway.

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In another vein, here's Bruce Peren's Open Source "State of the Union" speech. Hope this pasts properly!!

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In another vein, here's Bruce Peren's Open Source "State of the Union" speech. Hope this pastes properly!!

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Another thought re a successful class action suit against SCO. It would give a lot of offended programmers a sense of vendication and possibly, just mebby, hopin, some money too.

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The FFS has a letter from the [German] SCO-lawyer, that literally says that the {hiesige} SCO-Representation has >>nothing to do<< with these claims [License payments for Linux]. The Juridical Representative from SCO, in answering a {question/request} by telephone from the FFS, claimed that the copyright claims that SCO makes are without substance, ensures in writing that SCO does everything to keep in line with the juridical decision that forces the company to refrain from damaging Linux and its users.

If this text is unclear to you; sorry, the original is as unclear.

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Sounds good :-)

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Do you get the picture?

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I wonder if that's possible?

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It depends upon whatever the courts rule that the contracts between Novell and SCO say. Those are not publicly available. It's entirely possible that SCO simply lacks the rights to sublicense the patents, and hence the three-legged race we see going on in Caldera's Exhibit D. There are indications that Novell has retained more than just the rights to the three (USL) patents. What is much more interesting at the moment are IBM's statements about SCO's self-inflicted termination of it's own rights to distribute Linux under the GPL. This also is another way of saying that SCO has been violating the licensing terms of IBM's RCU and NUMA patents.

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"We view IBM's counterclaim filing today as an effort to distract attention from its flawed Linux business model.

There is no chance that they simply want to defend a billion dollar suit against them, no they are more interested in distracting attention.

"It repeats the same unsubstantiated allegations made in Red Hat's filing earlier this week.

Run that part about unsubstantiated allegations by me again.

"If IBM were serious about addressing the real problems with Linux, it would offer full customer indemnification and move away from the GPL license.

Yes please do indemnify, that way we don't have to sue thousands, just the one with the deep pocket.

"As the stakes continue to rise in the Linux battles, it becomes increasingly clear that the core issue is bigger than SCO (Nasdaq: SCOX - News), Red Hat, or even IBM.

How do you spell hysteria?

"The core issue is about the value of intellectual property in an Internet age.

And all this time I thought it was about old fashioned stealing.

"In a strange alliance, IBM and the Free Software Foundation have lined up on the same side of this argument in support of the GPL.

Strange alliance? Hmmmm.... IBM has made $1.5 billion on it's Linux GPL business model and SCO has made ???? on it's model?

"IBM urges its customers to use non- warranted, unprotected software.

Unprotected from whom? You? Is this like the mafia telling local businesses they need protection?

"This software violates SCO's intellectual property rights in UNIX, and fails to give comfort to customers going forward in use of Linux.

Run that part about unsubstantiated allegations by me again. Were Linux users asking for comfort? "If IBM wants customers to accept the GPL risk, it should indemnify them against that risk.

Run that part about the guy with the deep pockets by me again.

"The continuing refusal to provide customer indemnification is IBM's truest measure of belief in its recently filed claims.

Run that part about the guy with the deep pockets by me again.

"Regarding Patent Accusations SCO has shipped these products for many years, in some cases for nearly two decades, and this is the first time that IBM has ever raised an issue about patent infringement in these products.

1. Look in the mirror. 2. So what?

"Furthermore, these claims were not raised in IBM's original answer.

See #2 above.

"SCO reiterates its position that it intends to defend its intellectual property rights.

Playing the victim is soooo cliche.

"SCO will remain on course to require customers to license infringing Linux implementations as a condition of further use.

Hold on to your seats! They really are gonna sue everybody....unless of course, that indemnification thingy.....

"This is the best and clearest course for customers to minimize Linux problems.

Run that part about protection from the mob by me again.

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I have no doubt SCO will attempt this, since they've said as much already, but what I want to know is this: where is the justice if the courts do seal the evidence? Given that the Linux source code is open, how can the courts allow SCO to not reveal which lines of code are theirs (assuming any are)? To do so would make it impossible for the Linux community to remove the offending code, and thus stop infringing on SCO's IP rights (god I hate that term).

It seems to me there must be some legal precedent that could be used to stop the sealing of evidence in this case. I can't imagine that in previous court cases in which one company's code infringed on another company's code that the loser was forced to license the code rather than remove it. Given that Linux is not owned by a company, but is public, surely SCO must be ordered to make the evidence public as well--otherwise SCO will get away with extortion.

I just hope that neither IBM nor Red Hat will choose to settle with SCO. I really do feel that the GPL needs to be tested in court, and upheld, so that no other slimy company can attempt to do the same thing that SCO is. It makes me WANT to be part of a class action lawsuit against SCO in order to get the GPL vindicated once and for all...a settlement will give us nothing, and the executives of SCO will probably walk away with a couple of million dollars in ill-gotten gains.

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If you say the IBM company helps the Axis of Evil (Byte), steals IP, doesn't protect its customers, etc., - you are not likely to get any favors in return.

I know this site is anti-patent, and while I have some sympathy for that view, but the fact is Patents are legally recognized IP, and if IBM is attacked on alleged IP infringements, it is totally appropriate to respond with the IP that IBM owns.

By the way, I believe Linus got a patent grant for RCU from IBM before adding it to Linux, however it may be that IBM granted that patent only for GPL software - not for any use - I don't know.

I'm not a lawyer, but I also can not believe that a court would leave users and multi-billion dollars companies in a position, where they have no choice but to infringe copyrights - which is SCO's position if the infringement is not allowed to be removed.

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"But many remain reluctant to pay up until SCO proves that Linux contains proprietary software code. SCO has offered to show any interested parties its code under a non-disclosure agreement so that Linux can't be modified to remove any incriminating software code."

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SCO's argument that it has provided opportunities to review that code would not hold up in court, because it's NDA trick prevents anyone who sees the alleged infringing code from doing anything with it. Not to mention the fact that it's not showing the code to the people [the Linux community] who could actually correct the so-called infringement.

Basically, the whole SCO fiasco can be summed up as follows: 1. SCO bluffed; 2. LinuxTag, Novell, RedHat, and IBM called their bluff; 3. SCO shits bricks

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It's been remarked on already, but think is interesting is SCO did not disclose the June 12th Novell letter, for example in their June 16th press release, http://biz.yahoo.com/prn ews/030616/lam101_1.html

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I think it only happened, around 1980, because of misunderstanding what software code is and how it relates to the hardware. Once you have patented 1+1 =2, it makes it hard for the next guy to get from point A to point B without a stupid detour around your patent. Eventually, you can't get from point A to point B at all, without paying a toll. In any math, there are only so many ways to travel from point A to point B.

It's also expensive to get a patent, and that is prejudicial to the little guy, IMO. Had patents been allowed for software earlier, GNU/Linux would never have been possible. Extrapolate.

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However, the fact is the IBM company and other large patent holders do not tend to use patents except in self-defense. It's sort of like a nuclear weapon - the ultimate threat. IBM only used their patents against SCO, when SCO just would not shut up, and kept running to the media with claims potentially damaging to IBM's business. SCO put IBM in a position where IBM had to respond, and had to respond with IP they do own.

IBM never sought to enforce these patents against SCO, because IBM's business is based on selling products and services, and they want the computer market, even their competition to grow. But SCO kept poking the IBM company with a pointed stick, so should have expected them to bite back at some point.

The biggest problem I think with the patent system is some little guy software company, being hit on by some company that is largely based on patent enforcement.

I do not believe IBM's, etc., or Microsoft's patent portfolios are a huge problem, unless you go out your way to annoy them. If say MS were to go after Linux for some patent infringement, IBM would go after Windows for the same. Using patents in this scenario is kind of like choosing to destroy Moscow, but accepting loosing New York in return. I just don't think it's good strategy.

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Let's not forget RedHat http://www.s mh.com.au/articles/2003/08/08/1060145840417.html

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The last estimates that I can find place IBM's annual income from patent royalties at over $1 billion dollars. They must feel constantly threatened:) I think it's best to remember the events surrounding the start of of the long running Sun IBM feud. After a team of brilliant Sun lawyers and engineers demolished IBM's patent infringement claims the IBM legal team seemed unmoved: "The blue suits did not even confer among themselves. They just sat there, stonelike. Finally, the chief suit responded. "OK," he said, "maybe you don't infringe these seven patents. But we have 10,000 U.S. patents. Do you really want us to go back to Armonk [IBM headquarters in New York] and find seven patents you do infringe? Or do you want to make this easy and just pay us $20 million?"

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IBM have a massive research arm, much of which isn't to do with software, and some of which is barely related to computers.

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Maybe the various governments like China and South Korea could sue SCO, that would be great.

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I remember reading early in the case, quite possibly on GrokLaw, that you can't use copyright to checkmate someone. So it is indeed inconceivable that a court would deny a copyright infringer the chance to remove infringement. The evidence might still be sealed, though, rather as it was in the BSD case.

A fictious example: Company B steals some code out of file foo.c, written by company A, and puts it (after a little tweaking, but not so much as to stop it being breach of copyright) into bar.c. In order to prove infringement, A will probably have to show the court the whole of foo.c in order to back up its claim of authorship - it might have changelogs, the code in question would fit better stylistically in foo.c, and so forth. So even though when B removes the offending code, it indirectly reveals A's code, it is still beneficial to A to have the evidence sealed.

Now let's suppose that some code owned by my company WibbleCorp was improperly in the Linux kernel. A court might rule as follows: the code must be removed, but as far *as possible* it must be made hard to trace. So there might be an agreement that the code will be rewritten within a certain timeframe, under condition that it is not publicised as being re-written for that reason. In the case of an 80-line routine, this could be readily disguised as a cleanup or optimisation. This does not perfectly preserve WibbleCorp's secret, but then the secret is no longer perfectly secret already.

Lastly, SCO says it cannot reveal the offending code because of contracual obligations. But a court can trump contracts, so this is irrelevant in any settlement.

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Which is only fair - IBM was planning to make money from Linux, and it would be killing the goose that laid the golden egg to make trouble over that issue. So IBM has effectively licensed its patents under the Open Source development model - and since those patents in the Linux kernel are licensed under the GPL, I think there is a lot more to IBM's statement that SCO has violated the GPL and is therefore barred from further distributing the Linux source code.

I think SCO's just gotten word that its Golden Parachute is actually lead, and lead parachutes don't inflate.

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I do not know if IBM have said open source developers can use any IBM patent. I think Perens is requesting that now.

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This is why IBM stays quiet (comments cant be used against them). If the GPL sticks in a court of law as a valid licence then its over for SCO. From the above quote SCO is aware that they are distributing Linux. Oh Oh. The GPL explicitly says you can not add incompatible licenses on top of the GPL. That is if you cant satisfy both the GPL and other obligations the only alternative is not to distribute at all. So they should pull those source files from their ftp server...Oh wait! what about the support CONTRACTS? hmmm...Pull the source and be in breach of the support contracts (could be sued) or leave them on their site and be in breach of the GPL (could be sued by everyone else). What to do , oh what to do ...

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"a few words"

Paste your url between the quotes and the words for your link where I

put the text "a few words"

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lets try it again:

//a few words

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