|
|
| SCO Explains GPL Strategy and SCO Director Bails Out |
 |
|
Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 03:20 PM EST
|
Investor Business Daily has an interview with Darl McBride in which he tries to justify the $3 billion in damages, but what he says about the GPL and their legal strategy, if you could call it a strategy, is even more interesting:
McBride: . . . The Free Software Foundation says it's ludicrous for SCO to be going after an end user. They say it's like a reader going into Barnes & Noble reading a book and telling them they can't read those words or we're going to sue. But it's actually much different than that analogy.
First, when a user gets Linux, they inherit a license agreement called the GPL (General Public License) that says you get this product free of charge, so if you have a problem with it, don't come back to us, you're on your own. The words in the GPL are "as is." It pushes all of the liability to the end user.
The second part where their example breaks down is the fact that the end users are part of the problem - they're making copies themselves. What you'll see SCO coming out with in the next few weeks are examples of copyrighted code of ours that have been put into Linux, and the copyrights have been stripped off.
If a reader goes home with a book, reads it, reproduces it and gives it to 500 friends, they are direct infringers. What we see happening here is nine out of 10 boxes of Linux out in the marketplace aren't paid for at all, even if they'd paid for a support contract. Once they get that Linux in their shop, they're free to reproduce it and send it around to their heart's content. They do, in fact, become copyright infringers. That's why we're going there. He says by mid-February they will file. Their list of victims is now narrowed to 10.
SCO Director Bails Steve Cakebread has left the SCO Board. SCO says it's because he is under time constraints. He says nothing. Cakebread is CFO of Salesforce.com, which I hear is a Linux-based ASP. You think maybe they got one of those letters? Meanwhile, the new SCO board member, Daniel Campbell, is now chairman of the Audit Committee. No doubt he's a very busy man now too. What is encouraging is that on this Yahoo page annoucing the changes is a link to Briefing.com's reference to the NYTimes article on Linus questioning SCO's claims. The word is definitely reaching even the financial community now.
|
|
|
|
| Authored by: OK on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 03:31 PM EST |
I just finished reading that interview on Yahoo, came here - and here it is.
Thank you PJ. It seems like the days are longer for you - I wish I can acomplish
that much every day.[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: vonbrand on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 03:33 PM EST |
| Problem with all this is that they get their side heard. Sure, it is
ridiculous. But you see how farfetched their claims are because grokies have
the requiered background. Do read McBride's remarks (even the quoted ones!)
pretending you don't know about GPL and OSS development. They do sound
reasonable. It comes through as if they are being ripped off right and left. [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: eamacnaghten on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 03:34 PM EST |
It amazes me how someone can intentionally "misunderstand" a
document so much and effectively get away with it.
The "As is" parts of the license refer to the quality and
performance of the program, it does not pass on possible crimes committed or
responsibility of liable actions performed by the distributer.
Yet - there he is claiming it does with a straight face.....[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: phypor on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 03:34 PM EST |
They get a few things wrong.
To lead its case, SCO hired famed
lawyer David Boies. He led Microsoft Corp.'s defense against antitrust
charges
and
SCO owns the copyright for
Unix,
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: tyche on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 03:39 PM EST |
| PJ! You shocked the LIFE out of me. I thought (from the heading) that McBride
had pulled a scarper.
Of course, what actually happened is just about as
good. Any time a company starts shedding officers like cat hair, one should be
concerned about the future of the company. And especially when one of it's
officers keeps hawking up hairballs of
FUD.
Craig
(Tyche) ---
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is
not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."
Stephen Hawking [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 03:39 PM EST |
Darl said:
"The question reasonable minds have to ask themselves is: In the future,
do we want all software to be worth zero, or do we want the projected number to
kick in, where in a few years it's worth $289 billion? When you take that
(projection) down to zero, all kinds of bad things happen to the economy. We
just think being able to develop software, protect it and make money on it is
the capitalist way, and we support that."
As Pam pointed out last week, has anyone bothered to let Red Hat know what they
are doing is physically impossible. Is the universe going to implode as a
result?
-Joshua[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: miss_cleo_psy4u on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 03:40 PM EST |
The interview is a prime example of the convoluted thinking of
Darl.
He says "The godfather of Linux is really IBM, and that's where we
started our claims." He still works to link Linux back to IBM after
all the research posted freely concerning the history Linux. Dang,
and I thought this fellow Linus Torvalds and his band of merry
coders had something to do with it.
He still talks about end-user liability when all IP issues are the
responsibility of coders providing the code. SCO never goes
after the coders, they know too much. SCO only intends to cause
pain to those least able to resist on technical or legal grounds,
and most likely to pay out of fear.
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Trepalium on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 03:41 PM EST |
Reading LKML today is pretty facinating. Already having ripped apart ctypes.h,
today is errno.h. Linus and many others have determined that the errno.h in
Linux was generated by a simple program that used an ancient version of Linux
libc (2.2.2). The comments and the sys_errlist matches up completely. This all
dates back to June 18, 1992. If these files are infringing (and no one really
believes they are), they have been doing do for more than a decade.[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: James on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 03:42 PM EST |
"First, when a user gets Linux, they inherit a license agreement
called the GPL (General Public License) that says you get this product free of
charge, so if you have a problem with it, don't come back to us, you're on your
own. The words in the GPL are "as is." It pushes all of the liability to the end
user.
So does every Miscrosoft EULA ever written (not the
free part of course :). This does not mean that an end user is responsible for
MS putting copyrighted code in their products (as has happened numerous times).
That is governed by copyright law which has been plainly stated on this site
before. The only way an end user would be liable is if they were the ones
putting the copyrighted code in and then distributing it. [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: AllanKim on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 03:44 PM EST |
Note this McBride quote in the final paragraph of the IBD interview:
"But we went from being a $1 billion company to almost being
destroyed."
Which company does he mean?
He can't mean The SCO Group, post-merger, which never had a market cap anywhere
near $1 billion.
I don't think he means the old Santa Cruz Operation, which IIRC had a market
cap which peaked in the lower nine figures.
He must mean the old Caldera Systems, A LINUX VENDOR, which briefly had a
post-IPO market cap of $1.1 billion.
Does this mean proprietary UNIX destroys shareholder value? ;-)
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: snorpus on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 03:49 PM EST |
| There's also a story by Steven Shankland over at C|Net. Some good
quotes from lawyer types:
- "They're starting 3,000 legal fires
here," said Mark Radcliffe, an intellectual property attorney at Gray, Cary,
Ware & Freidenrich.
- However, the license agreements describe
only limited auditing authority, and SCO might have trouble extracting all the
information it wants beyond basics such as how many computers and processors are
running Unix, said Jeffrey Osterman, a partner with Weil, Gotshal &
Manges.
- Novell's moves could throw a wrench into SCO's effort to
sell Unix licenses to Linux users, a plan under which it's asking $699 to
use Linux on a single-processor server, Radcliffe said. "Now basically these
guys have got to go to court and prove they own the copyright. That takes a lot
of the pressure off the Linux users," Radcliffe said.
Darl is
playing pretty fast and loose with a $50 billion server market figure...
according to IDC, the 2003 Q3 server market was $10.8 billion ($43.4
billion annualized), but that figure includes the server hardware and storage
systems, as well as the operating system. ---
73/88 de KQ3T [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 03:50 PM EST |
| Like, he doesn't want to be doing any time. [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 03:51 PM EST |
If IBM blows them out of the water before then, or that judge in Delaware rules,
what happens then ?[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: SkArcher on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 03:53 PM EST |
"First, when a user gets Linux, they inherit a license agreement
called the GPL (General Public License) that says you get this product free of
charge, so if you have a problem with it, don't come back to us, you're on your
own. The words in the GPL are "as is." It pushes all of the liability to the end
user.
No, it doesn't. The original copyright infringement
(if such exists, we have yet to see proof and SCO aren't the type to inspire
confidence) is the fault of whoever put the code into the Linux Kernel. Other
Users of the Kernel, when they accept the license, are doing so in the clear
understanding that anyone who has previously added to the work has done so in
compliance with the license, surely? SCO can require that their copyrighted
works are removed ("...it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or
contest your rights to work written entirely by you; rather, the intent is to
exercise the right to control the distribution of derivative or collective works
based on the Program...", GPL section 2 paragraph 3), but they cannot push
liability claims onto and end users for something which they had a reasonable
assurance was not so. By releasing under the GPL any material copyrighted by
SCO a party who was not authorised to do so would be responsible. The GPL
works with established copyright Law - a person can only contribute code
which they own to a GPL'd project.
"The second part
where their example breaks down is the fact that the end users are part of the
problem - they're making copies themselves. What you'll see SCO coming out with
in the next few weeks are examples of copyrighted code of ours that have been
put into Linux, and the copyrights have been stripped
off.
This is entirely the wrong way around - the copyrights
have been stripped and then it has been released under the GPL. It thence
becomes an issue of copyright law, not the GPL, and SCO would have the right to
have their copyrighted material removed from the Kernel - and yet as yet we have
seen none, correct?
"If a reader goes home with a book,
reads it, reproduces it and gives it to 500 friends, they are direct infringers.
What we see happening here is nine out of 10 boxes of Linux out in the
marketplace aren't paid for at all, even if they'd paid for a support contract.
Once they get that Linux in their shop, they're free to reproduce it and send it
around to their heart's content. They do, in fact, become copyright infringers.
That's why we're going there."
Wrong again. If a writer
writes a book and plagiarises one or more pieces of the text and then publishes
it, who is to blame? The writer of the book, or the readers? If a Kernel
contributor (the writer of the book) has plagiarised (used SCOs copyrighted
code) it is not the liability of the readers (Linux end users). This is not
changed by the fact that Linux can further be modified. If a reader of the
infringing text were to quote - with full acknowledgement - the infringing text
in his or her own book (a fairly common practice in academic circles), he or she
would not be liable for the infringement because they could reasonably claim to
have been misled by the original plagiariser.
There may even by precedent
to that effect in existence - PJ?
SkArcher[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: markhb on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 03:53 PM EST |
It pushes all of the liability to the end user.
So what, then,
is he maintaining is the warranty on a book?
---
IANAL, but
if I were still working in Public Access I would probably bash them on TV. [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: pyrite on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 03:58 PM EST |
"...the end users are part of the problem - they're making
copies themselves..."
Part of the thing you realize
when you start to study programming languages, or languages, period (i.e.
English) is that you define things and the you let those definitions make your
life easier. It's probably not a good idea to write a shell script and name it
"mv" or "du" or "cvs", even if you create a fancy path for yourself. It's just
hopelessly complicates things, and might even make it very hard to use your
system.
The words "end user" imply, the way I read it, anyway, the
person using Linux. "Making copies", implies copyright infringment (like p2p
programs). The way these terms are being used... you would THINK - that if
you're making copies you're not an end user, because an "end user"... " Yeah,
YOU!" - that's what most people think an end user is. Not all "end users" of
Windows make copies of Windows. Not all "end users" of Linux make copies of
Linux.
Overriding the definition many folks might think of as "end user"
with "corporate IT department", which is the only thing that makes sense,
really, is a little overzealous, if you asked me. But that's the "style", I
guess... [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: toolboxnz on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 03:59 PM EST |
I have seen this happen so many times before with the SCOX share price - it
takes a dip at the beginning of the day, more or less levels out across the day
and then goes up a bit again at the end of the day. Why does it go back up
again? Can someone with a good understanding of the stock market explain this?
Surely if people are trying to lose the stock it's going to keep going down,
especially now the poor argument SCO is making seems to be making it into more
mainstream headlines. There's also always a low volume in trade (300k for SCOX
compared to eg RHAT 14m and NOVL 7m). Is this because no one actually wants to
buy the shares? Or doesn't anyone want to sell?[ Reply to This | # ]
|
- OT: Share price - Authored by: James on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 04:06 PM EST
- OT: Share price - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 05:50 PM EST
- What I noticed - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 10:20 PM EST
- hazarding a guess - Authored by: webster on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 04:10 PM EST
- OT: Share price - Authored by: snorpus on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 04:11 PM EST
- OT: Share price - Authored by: PJP on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 04:20 PM EST
- OT: Share price - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 04:57 PM EST
- Volume - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 05:30 PM EST
- OT: Share price - Authored by: DaveAtFraud on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 06:12 PM EST
- OT: Share price - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 07:13 PM EST
| |
| Authored by: dtidrow on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 04:05 PM EST |
Virtually all EULA's have similar "as is" wording - you have to pay extra for
support. Most of the Linux distributors offer support contracts of various
types.
As for copyright violations, first they have to prove that their code
is actually in Linux (they've had no success there yet), then they have to prove
that they actually own the copyright. Novell is apparently asserting that they
didn't sell them the copyrights in the first place - if true, SCO has no legal
right to sue anybody for UNIX copyright infringement.
After looking at the
actual article itself, I'm appalled at the number of inaccurate statements made
in the first few paragraphs. Boies defended MS against antitrust charges??? He
was hired by the DoJ to prosecute MS! They assert that they own
the copyrights for UNIX, but even that is being contested, and the article
didn't mention that little detail at all. People actually use this publication
for investing advice??? [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: hbo on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 04:07 PM EST |
To lead its case, SCO hired famed lawyer David Boies. He led
Microsoft Corp.'s defense against antitrust charges ...
Boies was on the side of the ang^H^H^HGovernment on that
one.
---
"Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if
you just sit there" - Will Rogers [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Ted Powell on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 04:11 PM EST |
The words in the GPL are "as is." It pushes all of the liability
to the end user.
...
Once they get that Linux in their shop, they're
free to reproduce it and send it around to their heart's content. They do, in
fact, become copyright infringers. That's why we're going
there.
But by his own (fallacious) argument, these people are
pushing the liability down another level, to the people they re-distribute to.
Elsewhere, it has been implied that the GPL requires re-distribution—at
this rate, poor Darl is never going to catch up.
---
Truth is not
determined by majority vote. [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 04:13 PM EST |
| Whenever I hear Darl & Co whine about their lost cheese I'm reminded of this
old usenet a
rticle I read a number of years ago about the state of the art in SCO land.
;) This is not the original article (I probably have it archived on my old
computer) but someone has been kind enough to repost it at a later date. As far
as I can remember it's from 1994.
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Thomas Downing on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 04:14 PM EST |
| A little OT:
I've started going through just what is in the SCOx "product".
As part of that, I read the "EULA.TXT" file that ships with the beta. Guess
what?
1. There is no indemnification, you are on your
own.
2. Interesting note, it describes itself as a contract, not a
license.
Very OT:
Some months ago I predicted that Boies et al.
would cease to represent SCO. It hasn't happened yet, but I still like the
predition. I'll add to it: the 'graceful face-saving exit' for Boies will be
something like: "After reviewing our relationship with SCO we feel that there
may be a conflict of interest, therefore the firm of Dewey, Cheatham and Howe
will represent SCO in the future."
---
Thomas Downing
Principal
Member Technical Staff
IPC Information Systems, Inc. [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: kberrien on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 04:16 PM EST |
>Steve Cakebread has left the SCO Board.
Well, if he isn't talking, then he left on bad terms. Was he previously on the
audit committee? Why the other guy is taking over?? If he was really leaving
on good terms, you know he would have made some sort of favorable press release
on his exit. Notice we didn't hear about this yesterday.
I would assume once someone has left, its easier for others to bail as well.
Can he dump all his stock now he's no longer on the board, or does he have to
declaire for a while after his exit?[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Glenn on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 04:18 PM EST |
I am anxiously awaiting that first suit against an end user for infringement.
They are going to have to pick on someone without the monetary resources to
defend themselves to have any hopes of getting anything. If they sue someone
worth suing, i.e. that would have something left to pay in damages after (a
loooong shot) actually being found to be infringing.
I think SCOG just might go after some company whom they think might wilt
under the pressure and settle so that it can claim some kind of symbolic victory
and hold the unfortunate company up as an example of what can happen. SCOG
desperately needs something positive that they can splash over the news wires.
So far they have come up with zilch and the only people who actually give them
any credence are the same types who swallowed the lines from the Iraqi
(Dis)Information Minister. You know, the Rob Enderle's and Laura Didio's of
world.
Glenn[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Ruidh on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 04:35 PM EST |
It's interesting that he thinks that a license can change the statutory
definition of infringement and infringer in the case of Federal Copyright Law.
Hey, I wonder if that kind of argument would fly in a criminal prosecution?
"Your honor, I admit that I did kill the victim with premeditation, but I
maintain that I can not be held responsible for my actions because I committed
the act under a contract with the victim's wife who agreed to accept all legal
liability for my actions."
The GPL is a license from a grantor to a grantee. The grantor can not avoid
legal liability for their acts through a license. Similarly, someone can not
*accept* criminal liability for someone else through a license, contract or any
kind of agreement. Such contracts (or licenses) are said to be "against
public policy" and are legally null to the extent that they purport to do
so.
The question of whether *civil* liability can be thus transferred through a
contract is a little more complicated. An insurance contract or an
indemnification does not relieve one from legal liability. It gives you a claim
against a third party in the event of a judgement going against you. If the
third party can not pay the claim (or contests it), the liability remains with
you. The GPL does not transfer civil liability from one party to another,
because there is no language asserting such a transfer. The terms of the license
bind only the two parties. They do not affect persons who are not parties to the
contract. If I cause an auto accident, the victim sues me, not my insurance
company. Now my insurer will have to defend me up to the policy limits, but they
are free to settle for the policy limits and return the rest of the liability to
me.
As in many things, Darl and Co. have no legal leg to stand on here.
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 04:41 PM EST |
I used to search for 'sco' on Google, and the groklaw website was one of the
first entries - returned on the first page of results.
Now, groklaw is _not_ returned for me... on the first number of pages, even when
I search 'sco legal' or 'sco ibm'. This appears to be a bit fishy. can
someone else confirm this?
I believe google has a SOAP interface where you can track a website's movement
on google search results for certain keywords. I don't have this. Can someone
do a query to track where groklaw shows up now with those keywords -and others
you'd like to add?
Has groklaw been blacklisted? I think we should investigate this to see whether
this claim has any validity or not, and why it may or may not be true. (no
accusations without getting honest facts first, in groklaw tradition).
groklaw is perceived by a threat by some, I think, because it is actually an
investigative reporting site -- unlike so-called 'news' sources which don't
take the time to find out the truth - they just report, the exact PR that
they're handed as 'truth'.
'news' on other sites is often solely PR -- not the checking of that PR to
see what is valid and what is not.
Checking PR for truths and untruths can be highly time-consuming and expensive
to perform. It takes expertise, research, etc. Most news sources today cannot
budget for real investigative reporting - it's not deemed 'cost-effective'.
But investigative reporting, IMHO is a pillar of democracy. We've all seen a
lot of evidence of how our 'news' has been captured by pr.
Anyone have any data on google search results?
nw[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 04:44 PM EST |
1. A SCO Director may not injure a lawyer or, through inaction, allow a
lawyer to come to harm.
2. A SCO Director must obey orders given it
by lawyer except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A SCO Director must protect SCOX's existence as long as such protection
does not conflict with the First or Second Law.[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 04:45 PM EST |
| I'm confused
SCO wants to hide behind the GPL one minute yet claim it's
invalid the next. All too often I've seen comments from SCO such as "as
required by the GPL" inregards to copyright notices.
Here's the
latest:
IBD: But don't people have the right to give away their work through
a GPL if they so choose?
McBride: Absolutely, we don't deny that right at
all. Anybody that wants to develop their work and give it away, God bless
them.
But I thought the GPL was invalid! You won't deny them the right
to give stuff away under such a license you claim is invalid, ilegal and
unconsitutional!?! [ Reply to This | # ]
|
- GPL valid or not? - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 05:39 PM EST
- GPL valid or not? - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 05:46 PM EST
- Schrodinger's GPL - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 07:20 PM EST
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 04:50 PM EST |
The words in the GPL are "as is." It pushes all of the liability to
the end user.
Sounds like EVERY EULA for EVERY piece of NON-GPL software I've ever had
problems with (Microsoft even). [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 04:55 PM EST |
Darl: "If a reader goes home with a book, reads it, reproduces it and
gives it to 500 friends, they are direct infringers."
OK Darl, I am photocopying Shakespeare and giving it to all my friends. Now
what?[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: roadwarrior on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 05:09 PM EST |
Someone PLEASE correct me if I'm wrong (and of course, IANAL), but
didn't Darl just cross the line from making general statements about
infringement to *DIRECTLY* accusing the vast majority of Linux users of
criminal copyright infringement? All of his previous statements have
been very carefully worded to avoid crossing that line, but with this one,
I think he finally stepped over it. Is it possible to sue a person for
slander against an entire group of people (as in a class action lawsuit)? If
so, do any of the lawyers here feel up to the task of drafting the lawsuit?
This seems like a case that the EFF and the FSF would GLADLY back.
An easy way to bankrupt SCO once and for all? Simply sue for $1 on
behalf of EVERY Linux user (or actually every user of any GPL software).
That would very quickly drain their bank accounts.[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 05:11 PM EST |
All hail google:
One "Steve Cakebread" is the CFO of salesforce.com since May 2002;
he was previously CFO of Autodesk, and had held positions at SGI and HP. He
joined the SCO board in July 2000.
Other Steve Cakebreads include an Australian surfer and a video-game developer,
but I doubt those are the one in question.[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 05:13 PM EST |
From recent SEC filings, SCO's Operating Expenses are down 36% from a year
ago.
- Sales and Marketing [-5.2MIL,-21%]
- R&D down
[-6.5MIL,-59%]
- General & Admin [-3.1MIL,-51%]
Steve
Cakebread followed the rest of the walkouts. [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 05:15 PM EST |
From slashdot ...
Who really stands behind their products?
IBM run IBM/Apache on AIX [netcraft.com]
HP run Apache on HP-UX [netcraft.com]
SGI run Netscape Enterprise on Irix [netcraft.com]
Sun run SunONE webserver on Solaris [netcraft.com]
Apple run Apache on MacOS-X [netcraft.com]
FreeBSD run Apache on FreeBSD [netcraft.com]
NetBSD run Apache on Net/OpenBSD [netcraft.com]
OpenBSD runs Apache on Solaris [netcraft.com]? I'm sure thats because a
uni hosts it.
Microsoft got scared at the last worm outbreak and now hide
2003 behind a Linux webcache farm [netcraft.com] ;-)
The one to beat them all.............
SCO run Apache on Linux [netcraft.com][ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: John Goodwin on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 05:22 PM EST |
| New
PDFs at epic.org [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 06:10 PM EST |
Following a discussion on LKML Linus is nearly certian errno.h was autogenerated
from old libc.
http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0312.2/1535.html[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 06:11 PM EST |
I have real problems with these following statements. It is as if McBride is
purposely confusing the role of 'End User' and 'Distributor'.
"..is the fact that the end users are part of the problem - they're
making copies themselves.."
"...Once they get that Linux in their shop, they're free to reproduce it
and send it around to their heart's content"
Cant put my finger on it but this is misleading.
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 06:15 PM EST |
eweek has some new articles...
and a nice editorial on
sco crying wolf yet again..
...
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: njohnsn on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 06:23 PM EST |
Here is a site that allows you to submit press releases to the major wire
services for $99 a shot.
This probably the best way to counter act SCO PR machine.
http://www.eworldwire.com/index2.php
Something Like:
"Major Open Source Software Community Web Site Questions SCO's Claims of
Copyright Infringment by end users of the GNU/Linux Operating system".
-- Description of DMCA letters from SCO
"Analysis of information by participants of the Groklaw web site have
determined the following":
-- Not 40 files but 5 files.
-- That most the header files where written by Linus (include reference to
Linus' quotes) with no prior knowledge of System V source code).
-- Point out the header files are defined as part of the POSIX standard and in
the Public domain.
-- That AT&T donated the IP to the ANSI C standards committee. (Wait for
more positive proof)
-- That it contridicts previous statements by SCO that their where no IP issues
with the Application Binary Interfaces. (Include Sontag quote and reference
source).
Provide Information about the lawsuit including:
-- SCO is unwilling to provide any specfic proof of their allegations untill
forced by judge in SCO vs IBM lawsuit.
-- SCO is threating their own customers with lawsuits.
-- SCO's financial situation (decreased revenue, increased costs due to
litigation) (quote SEC filings, conference call).
-- That SCO is being counter sued by IBM and being sued by Red Hat.
-- That Novell claims that they still retain the copyrights to Unix.
--- Whatever else.
End with a Statement about what/who Groklaw/Pamela Jones is and why it is
relevant.
(i.e. "The Groklaw website has become the de-facto clearing house for,
news, information, and analysis concerning SCO's actions in regards to the
GNU/Linux operating system. Participants include Open Source Software Advocates,
Software developers, and members of the legal profession."
Groklaw as recently Awarded, blah, blah ....)
-- Provide link to website
Just an idea...[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Nivuahc on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 06:25 PM EST |
Perhaps this
article from June 2003 sheds some light on why Steve Cakebread left the SCO
board:
"Salesforce.com is the first software-as-a-service company
to reach the profitability milestone," said Salesforce.com CFO Steve Cakebread.
"Revenues have increased dramatically year over year and we have a solid
pipeline of deferred revenues."
Cakebread also said that the company has
been cash-flow positive for the last year. While company isn't yet profitable
overall, he said that the company has made steady progress since its inception.
"We're in our fourth year. We lost $30 million our first year, $20
million our second year, $9.5 million last year and are profitable in our
first quarter of 2003."
In addition to its first quarter of profitability,
Salesforce.com also announced several alliances and partnerships centered around
its introduction of S3, its newest edition of its CRM service.
Through an
alliance with system manufacturer Dell (Quote, Chart) Salesforce will later this
year offer S3 as an on-demand application on Dell's small business solutions Web
site.
Salesforce.com reports that it has installed more than 40 Dell
PowerEdge servers running Red Hat Linux its data center to run the new service
and support up to 100 million transactions per month..
"Dell Xeon-based
servers running Red Hat Linux are well-suited to our on-demand architecture and
meet our high scalability and reliability demands," said Salesforce.com CIO Jim
Cavalieri.
---
Yeah, I finally created an account. You
might recognise me from my old nickname though: 'Anonymous'. [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Tim Ransom on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 06:33 PM EST |
Apparently Daniel Lyons has managed to extricate his tassled loafers from his
mouth long enough to don the Karnac Hat and contribute some of his vaunted
premonitions to Forbe's Annual Jean Dixon styled roundup of predictions for the
year ahead (ala National Enquirer) called Sneak Peek
2004.
Here's a sample of Dorkwad Dipstick
Droolbucket Diplomatic Dan's eerie augury:
'The end of
"free." Free didn't work for dotcom pet food stores, yet much of the rhetoric
around technologies like Linux and voiceover-IP still involves this crazy notion
that companies can make money by giving things
away.'
and:
'SCO Group will settle its lawsuit against
IBM. Both sides will declare victory. The Linux community will turn on IBM.'
Right. And Elvis will adopt the Bat Faced Baby. I'd like to see the
return address on that envelope you've got pressed against your forehead there,
Dano.
Thanks again,[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: RSC on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 06:54 PM EST |
Is it "devils advocate" or tinfoil hat?
Lets look at the fight from M$ point of view.
Whats the bigest fear for M$?
The loss of the desktop is one of the biggest fears M$ has. How is Linux
threatening this? While the big companies are pushing Linux in the server field
they have not been pushing hard on the desktop front.
The loss of the desktop is coming more and more from the "Home"
field, where People like myself and most of you are convincing freinds and
family to swap to Linux.
As more and more people start using Linux at home they are putting pressure on
the organisations they work for. Becoming advocate in the work place. And I
think this might be scaring the hell out of M$.
So what can M$ do about this. Easy, make the people out there scared of a legal
suit for giving copies of linux to others. Hence this latest FUD from SCO.
Don't forget MS has paid good money for a licence. What exactly are M$ doing
with this Licence? Do you see M$ using UNIX or Linux any where? I am not sure
what sort of UNIX code they are using in their products, but where would they
use it?
Or is the license fee for other services?
Time to take the tinfoil hat off. ;-)
RSC
---
----
An Australian who IS interested.[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 07:11 PM EST |
I dont think the GPL really needs a 'strategy' or a gameplan.
The fact that they never 'meant' to contribute and distribute their IP under
the GPL shows gross incompetence for a so called leading IT company. (this is
laughable).
I beleive they knew full well what they were doing and just regret it. Thus They
are also lying to the court in their submissions. (this is laughable too).
Whatever the infringing code actually is (Header files, interfaces or whatever)
they distributed it along with their contribution.
They claim that they never said 'specifically' that it was under GPL terms. I
say that they never specifically said that it wasnt! Therefore it must count as
per the other submissions they made at that time -> GPL.
If any company or individual has not taken due care to protect their IP interest
(using methods and practices established by copyright law), before mindfully
releasing source code into the open, then they cannot expect protection via the
same copyright laws.
Lets for a moment imagine that instead of releasing 'whatever it was' under
the GPL, SCO actually released it under Public Domain. Then released it again
and again, and repeatedly contributed and actively helped others to do the same
over a period of years. Would any excuse allow them to back-track? Of Course
not, this should be clear even to the uninitiated in the GPL. The GPL is very
different to Public Domain, obviously, but the consequences of unintentional
contribution is exactly the same. i.e. Tough Luck, Learn, Move on.
So the 'Strategy' must be...
1) Dont meddle with things you dont understand.
2) Dont take on the world.
3) Dont bite the hand that feeds you.
4) Dont burn all your bridges.
5) Dont count your chickens until they've hatched.
6) Know when to abandon ship.
7) Know when to admit you were wrong.
8) Know your Bible, Thou Shalt Not Steal; or Lie.
IANAL
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: hmilz on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 07:20 PM EST |
| ... the author of the original article at Yahoo, Ken Spencer Brown, chews SCO's
cud without asking?
"SCO owns the copyright for Unix, a decades-old
operating system used by business. SCO says IBM stole direct lines of Unix code
to help beef up Linux for enterprise systems." he wrote, just one day after
Novell registered their coprights, and months after Novell said they still owned
the copyright anyway? And does it occur to him that IBM, "beefing up" Linux for
enterprise systems from SCO code, potentially spoils their own AIX business???
"Since filing the suit, SCO has faced intense criticism from Linux fans.
Hackers have also launched attacks on its Web site... " clearly suggesting it
was Linux folks, if anything happened at all, which I still doubt. Was that ever
proven at court, anybody sued or sentenced? Or was it just SCO's claim? This is
not journalism, this is manipulating rhethoric.
"Here are the files. Here
are all the program names IBM has contributed into Linux." Does Darl mean the
five or so header files? Is that all he has? An unproven claim over
(essentially) five header files?
Sometime I wonder what stuff people smoke
at work.
The bad news is that half-baked articles like this are read by
analysts and lawyers, and taken at face value. SCO may be correctly assuming all
these folks are stupid after all.
As written on
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/2002/06/03/newscolumn2.html
"KEN
SPENCER BROWN is a member of the Business Journal's technology team. To submit
an idea for a future review, e-mail us at sanjose-newstuff@bizjournals.com."
Another clueless and corrupt business writer, I would think. His e-mail address
appears to be ksbrown@bizjournals.com. Maybe somebody with a cooler temper than
me can write him some lines. [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: mflaster on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 07:38 PM EST |
To be honest, I thought this article was actually decent. I mean, the author
tries to ask him some good questions.
For example, "Why are you going after end users, instead of
distributers?" Darl doesn't really have a good answer for that. In
fact, it forces Darl to mention the Book analogy, and to defend against.
"Why haven't you released the code?"
"Some have accused SCO of using the lawsuit as a ploy to be acquired,
something also hinted at by your agreements with your lawyers."
"But don't people have the right to give away their work through a GPL if
they so choose?"
So he didn't follow up, and really try to contradict Darl after any of these
questions, but I thought they were actually reasonable questions...
Mike
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 07:43 PM EST |
Ive mentioned it before but I really think we should have a list of questions on
here, properly worded, that need answering.
Sort of an invitation to a trial by correspondence. This way Journalists will
have the food they need to understand the crucial differences and know what
answers to push sco on.[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 08:52 PM EST |
That heavily bolded san serif font causes the "i" in
"bails" to resemble the "l". It really had me wondering
briefly just what SCO needed to explain there.
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Blakdelvi on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 08:58 PM EST |
I'm starting to get tired of the way we have to squash SCO's public statements.
As was mentioned in a prior post, a reader of these PRs could justifiably
believe that SCO is the innocent party here, and all linux/fsf people are evil
communists. Anyway, it's promising that the major IT organizations are starting
to pay attention to Groklaw. I just hope this ramps up before SCO's FUD gains
traction.
The book analogy: "the fact that the end users are part
of the problem". Right. So Darl is saying that they have a right to sue
end users because they may redistribute Linux? Should the RIAA
not be suing everyone who buys a CD because they may copy it?
And, Darl
says they are going after end users because the GPL passes liability onto them.
Huh? First, in SCO's happy little world, the GPL doesn't exist. Second, what
Darl is referring to is considered an exculpatory clause - a contract (which the
GPL isn't) that transfers liability from one party to another. Generally
considered illegal AFAIK (IANAL etc...). So, the GPL can't "push all the
liability to the end user". Do you really expect us to believe that if you
filed suit against RH, they would legally be able to defend themselves by saying
"well, yeah we distributed millions of copies of Linux, but you can't sue us
because we passed the liability on to the end users". Right. SCO is smarter
that this - this is obviously a ploy to avoid getting into course with the
companies with the most at stake.
IBD: Why haven't you publicly
revealed the lines of Unix code you say IBM copied into Linux?
McBride:
What we have told people is: "Here are the files. Here are all the program names
IBM has contributed into Linux. These were all developed under our Unix contract
licenses." What we are doing now is breaking that down into a line-by-line
format. So if someone doesn't want to take the time, we will absolutely be
producing that with these next lawsuits.
Doesn't want to take the
time to do what? The program names you've supplied (under court order) are not
exclusively IBM. Are you saying that your claim is to only the IBM code? Would
you shut up and go away if all IBM code was removed from Linux? Other
statements you've made indicate the opposite.
Follow-up questions I'd
like to hear:
1) So, you've explained your rationale for attacking
end-user-distributors, but where is the precedent for suing a non-distributor?
A copyright infringer is a copyright infringer, with or without the
GPL.
2) Can you explain how common commercial licenses (such as
Microsoft's EULA, specifically sections 12, 13, and 15) provide more protection
for the end user than the GPL? Most, if not all, of these licenses include a
"no warrantee" clause.
3) Your first "open letter" indicated a
willingness to form a partnership with the Linux community. You have also been
careful to avoid saying that your goal is the destruction of Linux, although
that's obviously where you're heading. Can you expand on this? Specifically,
how do you see Linux being developed and marketed in the future? Does your
SCOSource license permit upgrading to future versions?
4) Can you
explain your "fingerprints" defense for not releasing the code? How could the
Linux community possibly eradicate all "evidence" from Linux distributions the
world over? Also, shouldn't that be the first course of attack for any
copyright infringement case anyway?
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Scott_Lazar on Tuesday, December 23 2003 @ 09:06 PM EST |
Without getting into Darl's misrepresentations about the GPL in his interview.
there are a couple things I need to comment on. In most of SCO Group's
responses (even in court), they're playing very fast and loose with history, so
I thought I'd look at some of his actual statements, then reaquaint myself with
the FACTS, rather than his revisionist spin:
Statement
McBride: If you go back to the late '90s, this was a billion-dollar business
and growing - right at a point when this burgeoning Intel-Unix market was going
to explode and we were in the leading position in that market.
Facts:
While McBride refers to the "we", he did not join then Caldera until
mid 2002. He might be referring to a colloquial "we" but it's
important to remember he wasn't there for this "burgeoning
market".
The "Dot-com bubble" burst in July 2000. I am highly skeptical that
the "burgeoning market" was indeed "going to explode".
IMPLODE is a more reasonable description. Caldera Systems had it's IPO in
March of that same year. Bad luck, or at least bad timing, for Caldera I'd
say.
Statement
McBride: IBM approached us and said "Let's go together to market."
We did a joint venture upon their request, called Project Monterey. We got the
development work done over a couple of years. Then instead of fulfilling the
marketing requirements of the joint venture, IBM bailed out on us, shifted gears
and moved that intellectual property base into Linux.
Facts:
While it's true that SCO, IBM, Intel, Sequent and others were involved in
Project Monterey, the important thing to remember is that the "SCO"
that was involved was "OLD" SCO, not the "Caldera
Systems/Caldera International/SCO Group" SCO. At the time Project
Monterey was started (October, 1998 through May 2001) Caldera Systems (formed in
1994, IPO March 2000) was still an uninvolved LINUX company. They didn't even
buy the UNIX product lines from SCO until February, 2001, more than two YEARS
after the project started.
Statement
McBride: It's not Microsoft that's suffering right now. Their cash balances
are doing well. But we went from being a $1 billion company to almost being
destroyed.
Facts:
Caldera Systems/Caldera International/SCO Group until this year has never made a
profit. They've still never made a profit based off of their product
offerings.
There's also that inconvenient little problem of a sour economy, not to mention
the decision to buy and subsequently attempt to market proprietary, expensive
(relative to Linux) UNIX product lines in a tech landscape that has seen the
emergence of a much lower cost competitor (Linux).
Caldera itself, at the time it purchased UNIX product lines from SCO, was
already contributing to the destruction of the "burgeoning Intel-Unix
market" by being: "widely regarded as one of the top four Linux
companies, along with Durham, N.C.-based Red Hat; VA Linux Systems, based in
Sunnyvale, California; and SuSE GmbH, based in Germany." (comment
courtesy: http://www.halplotkin.com/cnbcs113.htm).
Conclusion
Other than the fact that SCO is trying to claim actions and involvement of
another company as actions of their own (I wonder how that'll play in court?),
the real postscript to this is that SCO group is in many regards a victim of
their own ineptitude in the marketplace.
Just my two cents,
Scott
---
LINUX - Visibly superior![ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: JMonroy on Wednesday, December 24 2003 @ 02:48 AM EST |
Darl "Loverboy" McBride:
"What we have a major, violent reaction to is
people giving away works we have control rights over. Obviously what (IBM) is
trying to do here is to commoditize the operating system, i.e. the price should
be zero. They think the margins should be in the hardware, middleware and
services [..]"
Hmmmm... RedHat, SuSE and Mandrake are making
"margins" from middleware and services. Why can't SCO accomplish the same?
Could it be incompetence on the part of the executives at SCO? Money is made by
selling software, upgrades, AND technical support. You sell customers the
right to call you when things go wrong. This involves setting up a 24/7/365
support infrastructure with skilled people. Judging by the latest financials,
this isn't happening. (What a shame - an opportunity literally worth hundreds
of millions of $, totally squandered)
"It's not Microsoft that's
suffering right now. Their cash balances are doing well. But we went from
being a $1 billion company to almost being destroyed. When it's our
property that's being violated, absolutely you're going to hear from
us."
No, old SCO used to be a $1 billion company. Your
company, Caldera, used Linux as a front to raise an IPO reaching $70
million, and completely squandered the proceeds, becoming a pariah in the
Linux community. Instead of admitting one's wrongs, fixing the problems, and
moving forward using their legitimate opportunity as a major Linux
player, they decide to burn all bridges and sick their lawyers on anyone with
legs. Huge miscalculation.
Oh, and isn't McBride's statement
about Microsoft somewhat contradictory to his plight? If Microsoft is not
hurting it's because they probably have a decent array of products to offer the
public (I am not a gamer, but tried X-box, and loved it). Microsoft has one
premise right: keep investing in research and development. SCO's latest
financials reveal a company that is not abiding by this important
premise.
==============================================================
====================================
"The word 'genius' isn't applicable in
football. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein." -Joe Theisman, quarterback
and sports analyst
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, December 24 2003 @ 05:11 AM EST |
The "big lie" theory was a great phenomenon of the 20th Century as
put about by all the best dictators and tyrants - if you tell a lie that is so
fantastic and outrageous a certain percentage of the population will believe it,
and in speaking against it you become one of its major victims as those who
believed the original lie now see you as the lier!.
Ain't that just what SCO are doing? They make outrageous statements that are so
fantastic but just might be true and some people actually believe them.
So nothing changes, the big lie still works and no matter how hard we try still
gets some people believing it - very sad.
SIMON (UK) [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, December 24 2003 @ 10:29 AM EST |
| As a licensed user of SCO Openserver 5 and Unixware 7, just what provision of
this license are we supposed to have violated by running Linux in our company as
well?
SCO License [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: eSavior on Friday, December 26 2003 @ 11:51 AM EST |
What we see happening here is nine out of 10 boxes of Linux out in the
marketplace aren't paid for at all...
Could someone explain what
they mean by that statement, it makes my brain hurt?
---
/* Doom */ [ Reply to This | # ]
|
|
|
|
|
