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| Why SCO Wants All Versions of AIX and Some Novell News |
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Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 04:21 AM EST
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Here is what SCO wants IBM to provide in discovery, and why, according to Chris Sontag, as reported in What PC? by Peter Williams: "All the versions of AIX, so we can carefully analyse all the history of where AIX has gone, to compare with [IBM's] contributions made to Linux.
"[When] we have the code snapshot of the whole of AIX, [we will] with 100 per cent assurance be able to say: 'Yes this did come directly from AIX without some intermediate modification.'
"We do have a number of snapshots of some pieces of what IBM has contributed that we definitely can tell came from AIX inappropriately in violation of their contract with us." This interview was published January 20.
Sontag, in answer to the question as to whether SCO would sue Novell, said: "It certainly is an option. We may or may not take action against Novell. But Novell has taken on itself a significant amount of liability in a number of ways.
"It has acquired SuSE, which is in violation of the licence-back we have with Novell, [under which] we licence back to Novell intellectual property for them to use in a limited way in their core network business, as long as it did not compete with the business that Novell sold to SCO - Unix." "It is an option." Indeed. How forthcoming and straightforward. However, my purpose in quoting it is simply to point out that they did not go after Novell for an alleged violation of a noncompete clause when they sued them the following day, the 21st. After a discussion of HP's and Novell's indemnification programs, which Sontag claims cost $700 a year, he has these significant words: "It is unfortunate that end users bear the burden for liability related to Linux. It's because of the GPL. I don't think most companies realised what they were signing up for when they started making significant deployments of Linux. They are aware of it now.
"The end user bears all the burden, and it's not quite as free as it used to be. Red Hat, Novell and the major providers of Linux now are charging more for Linux than SCO charges for its high-end commercial versions of Unix. So the benefits of Linux have largely gone away." I find these words significant because my opinion from day one was that they were harping on the indemnification issue precisely because they wanted Linux to be "not quite as free as it used to be" so that "the benefits of Linux" would largely go away. The lawsuit may have the same purpose. They must know the licensing program is not going to work out for them financially, and in fact he acknowledges not many have signed up. He says "tens" have. We have heard that before, that some were signing up, but I never see any confirmation in the SEC filings. He also claims they will be suing several end users, not just one. But then this is the same guy who just said with a straight face they might or might not sue Novell the day before they did. It is conceivable the interview was done earlier than that, but considering how long it takes to prepare legal documents to initiate a lawsuit, I feel confident he knew they would be suing Novell when he gave this answer. He also has some ideas on why he thinks open source isn't as secure as proprietary software, but it's too silly, in my opinion, to reproduce. Meanwhile, Novell announced something security related: For those to whom security is paramount, Novell announced that in partnership with IBM, it had achieved Controlled Access Protection Profile compliance under The Common Criteria for Information Security Evaluation (CC), commonly referred to as CAPP/EAL3+ for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 8 with Service Pack 3 on IBM eServers.
Novell representatives also said that the documentation for Novell-SUSE's security workup will be made open source so that other Linux and hardware vendors can quickly achieve their own security certifications. Novell CEO Jack Messman, at his Wednesday press conference, said that SCO's campaign against Linux is failing: "This lawsuit illustrates SCO's campaign against enterprise adoption of Linux is foundering," said Jack Messman, Novell's chairman and chief executive, at a press conference at the LinuxWorld conference here. "It seems litigation has become SCO's principal line of business."
"We took a license and it gives us the right to use Unix ourselves and to allow our customers to use Unix," Messman said. "Any Unix that is in Linux we have the right to use and we will provide that right to our customers." He also said being sued by SCO means, "We're in good company with IBM and Red Hat." You can listen to the entire press conference by going to this page and clicking on the appropriate link. Because of attending the GPL seminar, I didn't explain one very important thing about IBM. The Novell-SCO slander to title lawsuit won't impact at all on IBM's lawsuit. By that I mean this: As I mentioned, it's a contract case without copyright claims against IBM. I didn't mention that IBM's counterclaims are not affected either. IBM has accused SCO of violating the GPL and copyright and patent infringement. SCO, if guilty, isn't protected if it were to prove it owns the copyright to Unix. You don't need to be a copyright holder to violate the GPL and holding the copyright to Unix doesn't protect you if you violate the terms of the GPL and are then guilty of copyright infringement of someone else's copyright. This IBM counterclaim has nothing to do with who owns the copyrights to Unix. It's a question of IBM having their own copyright on certain code released under the GPL and their accusation that SCO violated the terms of the GPL and then became guilty of copyright infringement in relation to that IBM-copyrighted code. So as far as IBM's counterclaims go, it doesn't matter if Novell owns the copyright to Unix or if SCO does. Ditto for their patent claims. Even if SCO were to prevail over Novell and get all Unix copyrights transferred to them, it wouldn't aid them one bit in their law suit with IBM.
Salt Lake City Weekly has some juicy quotes in an article on the SCO mess. The author interviewed not only Darl, but Linus and Bruce Perens and others affected by the SCO saga. First Linus: When asked if he had any questions to pass along to McBride, Linus Torvalds chose to err on the side of caution. "The less I have to do with Darl McBride, the better off I am ... I don’t want for that 'Darlness' to rub off on me.” He also speaks to the issue of economics and denies that open source is a detriment to the economy: Not mentioning the fact that SCO used the GPL to its advantage for years, Torvalds notes that U.S. copyright law explicitly regards "financial gain" to include the exchange of other copyright works -- the share and share alike principle. As for the notion that Linux undermines business interests, Torvalds argues just the opposite.
“The GPL makes money by making infrastructure available and having an open competition in that infrastructure space," he said. "I would liken the Linux kernel to the roadway system. It’s not necessarily generating money in itself. But everybody wants to maintain good roads, because having good roads is really important to having a flourishing business.
“So everybody is willing to chip in a bit. And the GPL . . .works on that principle, that if you have a lot of people willing to chip in a bit to the end result, it’s going to be much, much bigger than any of the individual contributors could have done alone.”
The Salt Lake City Weekly is naturally most interested in local reaction, and they interviewed a local businessman, the CEO of Guru Labs: If SCO’s posturing is merely a campaign to spread FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) within the software world, Dax Kelson would be its target demographic. But the co-founder and president of Guru Labs, a Linux training provider, doesn’t seem too worried.
“I don’t think anyone in the IT world is sympathetic with SCO until they actually cough up some evidence,” he said. . . .
“Just because one restaurant goes out of business, that doesn’t mean the restaurant industry as a whole is doomed, or that there is some problem with the restaurant business model," he said.
Before starting Guru Labs, Kelson launched his own Internet service provider in 1996. The whole operation ran on open-source systems, without which, Kelson says, he never could have gotten the business off the ground. The now 28-year-old entrepreneur sold the startup in 1999 for $2 million. Not bad for a college dropout.
I have also heard that SCO has joined the German equivalent of the BSA, the German Multimedia Union or DMMV. According to heise.de SCO plans to use the
organization to pursue its goals on IP and "bring IP to people's
attention". It's in German, but your computer translator is no doubt up to the task. Here's Sherlock's translation: SCO joins German Multimediaverband
Because it obstructs, by an omission assertion, its position to
the international sales represented by IP licenses for Linux
installations in Germany not offensively knows, the SCO Group the
German Multimediaverband (dmmv), specialized group software industry
joined. Since today she is welcomed there as a new member.
With the entry the SCO Group would like to sensitize the
Multimediabereich for IP questions, since this uses frequently Linux.
Additionally one hopes, over which federation appoints itself outside
hearing to find and thereby to the statute of the specialized group
software industry, in which it means over their function: "public and
compile politics critical topics bring you close and statements to
current questions. To provide and it with their daily working
processes by practical assistance support, likewise the contact
maintenance belongs to the members hearing to external institutions
and organizations to the functions like the promotion of the
Networking among themselves as well as."
A statement of the federation still pends, because the responsible
person Munich office is in the middle "in a removal", as dmmv
Presseassistenz Arenz indicated.
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 12:36 PM EST |
PJ did you see the letters to and from Just Sports USA in the last discussion
(the one about SCO's letters to congress)
It seems to me that might be something that you want to take a look at, and
maybe even write about.[ Reply to This | # ]
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- PJ, Did you see? - Authored by: rand on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 12:47 PM EST
- Hmmm - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 01:04 PM EST
- Hmmm - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 01:16 PM EST
- PJ, Did you see? - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 01:06 PM EST
- PJ, Did you see? - Authored by: ihawk on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 03:49 PM EST
- PJ, Did you see? - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 05:39 PM EST
- PJ, Did you see? - Authored by: Weeble on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 07:49 PM EST
- PJ, Did you see? - Authored by: seeks2know on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 01:28 PM EST
- PJ, Did you see? - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 02:12 PM EST
- PJ, Did you see? - Authored by: PhilTR on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 02:23 PM EST
- Slashdot, Bruce Perens - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 03:41 PM EST
- PJ, Did you see? - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 04:17 PM EST
- PJ, Did you see? - Suspicious - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 04:43 PM EST
- PJ, Did you see? - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, January 23 2004 @ 02:03 PM EST
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| Authored by: rand on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 12:36 PM EST |
It's refreshing to see an article this cynical coming out of salt Lake City.
The better journalists are starting to take notice.
---
The Wright brothers were not the first to fly an aircraft...they were the first
to LAND an aircraft. (IANAL and whatever)[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: kberrien on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 12:42 PM EST |
>Novell announced that in partnership with IBM, it had
>achieved Controlled Access Protection Profile compliance
It appears that the whole SCO fiasco is bringing to light the strategies of the
Windows outsiders, as they all rally behind linux and together to take away
Microsoft's dominance in the market.
Microsoft is surely not happy with this trend, and it appears the SCO situation
is just accelerating it and giving it tons of press. Notice nobody talks about
Microsoft much anymore?
As for AIX code, hopefully we'll learn more were that is heading (it appears
IBM will fight to keep it out of the scope) tomarrow in court.
Will we have a few people on the ground as last time. Perhaps PJ should create
a story for reports to be posted, and discussion to begin - while she does her
"real" job during the day.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: SkArcher on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 12:42 PM EST |
<a
href="http://www.cbronline.com/latestnews/7d72fdd00acd592180256e23003b10ad
">Here</a><br><br><blockquote>yesterday,
Messman laid out the case for open source and its inevitability in his
address.</blockquote><br>Anyone have any additional news source on
things happening at LinuxWorld on this subject?
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 12:45 PM EST |
"Any Unix that is in Linux we have the right to use and we will provide
that right to our customers."
What I really want to know, even if SCO dídn't provide a single line of proof,
is why this sentence was mentioned.
Does Novell/IBM knows something we don't, or was it stated just to make the
doubters in the IT business to be aware that both Linux and Unix are a save
harbour within Novells realm.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 12:45 PM EST |
It's not "in the middle of removal", they're in the middle of
moving their offices.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 12:48 PM EST |
| Hope this wasn't already covered somewhere else, but here's a possibly relevant
article on Forbes: IBM,
SuSE receive Linux government certification. Quote: "The SuSE version of
Linux running on IBM's computer servers based on microprocessors from Intel
Corp. meets the government's security requirements". Good to see one front SCO
is, apparently, losing on. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 12:48 PM EST |
Perhaps we should all take a hint from Linus, "...'The less I have to do
with Darl McBride, the better off I am ... I don’t want for that
"Darlness" to rub off on me.'”
and if the main stream media will take a hint from people like the a local
businessman, the CEO of Guru Labs:
“I don’t think anyone in the IT world is sympathetic with SCO until they
actually cough up some evidence,” [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Jude on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 12:51 PM EST |
| Get a load of the list of attendees at this meeting:
SIIA Announces First
Enterprise Software Summit
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: oscarh on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 12:53 PM EST |
Salt Lake City Weekly is running an article on all this, I'm sure we've all
seen it, just wanted to put my favorite quote from it here:
"I've been pounding the table here for a year or so saying there's no
free lunch, and there is going to be a day of reckoning for every company that
thinks they are going to try and sell a free model." That's Darl McBride,
president and CEO of the SCO Group, a perennial loser at selling UNIX and, until
recently, Linux operating systems.
"Perennial loser" - that just about sums it up.
---
OK,
oscarh[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: rsmith on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 12:53 PM EST |
That’s Darl McBride, president and CEO of the SCO Group, a perennial
loser at selling UNIX and, until recently, Linux operating
systems.
Says it all, really. :-) ---
Never ascribe to
malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: PJP on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 12:56 PM EST |
"[When] we have the code snapshot of the whole of AIX, [we will] with
100 per cent assurance be able to say: 'Yes this did come directly from AIX
without some intermediate modification."
So we are back to their
old theory of derivative works. So what if code came from AIX?, if it doesn't
include licensed code from Unix, it belongs to IBM to do what they want
with.
No way should IBM ever consider given any more AIX code unless SCO can
get a court to accept this ludicrous derived work theory, and then weasle
their way around the license ammendments which specifically exclude derivative
works. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 12:58 PM EST |
This is just a cycnical way of subverting a court order. Unable to talk anymore
themselves in Germany about their "copyrights" supposedly hidden in
Linux they now attempt to turn this association into mouthpieces for them.
Good luck!
PJ, this is the first time I comment on this site, but I am following it now for
a number of weeks. Keep up the good work. I am really impressed. I will try and
register in the next few days.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 01:00 PM EST |
MY favorite line from the article is:
“He’s no
geek,” says Benjamin Choate, a self-trained Linux user living in Logan. “His
tan’s too good.”
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: vonbrand on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 01:05 PM EST |
It is unfortunate that end users bear the burden for liability
related to Linux. It's because of the GPL. I don't think most companies realised
what they were signing up for when they started making significant deployments
of Linux. They are aware of it now.
This is rich... because
of GPL now the end user is liable for any "stolen property" in Linux.
Not whoever put it there, not who distributed it. And all this due to nasty,
illegal, unsconstitutional GPL. Against everything the copyright law says
(copying and distribution are infringements, not
use).
Plus Novell is liable because:
It has
acquired SuSE, which is in violation of the licence-back we have with Novell,
[under which] we licence back to Novell intellectual property for them to use in
a limited way in their core network business, as long as it did not compete with
the business that Novell sold to SCO - Unix.
Not a hint of
this ridiculous nonsense (there is no "no-compete" clause between Caldera and
Novell as there was with SCO that I can see) in their lawsuit...
Yet again,
shooting their mouth off for the press. They fully well know nothing of their PR
claims has any chance to hold water. Just read them for their entertainment
value, and move on.
IANAL, and all that anyway. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 01:05 PM EST |
There is ONE reason that they want access to AIX: They want to see IBM code so
that they can incorporate IBM's ideas into their own sorry product without
having to do any research of their own. They like the idea of other's doing
their research for them, but the GPL must die since it competes with our sorry
product.
By having the roadmap of IBM's AIX they will know exactly what IBM did to
improve UNIX. I'd say that less than a year after SCO gets hold of AIX code
watch SCO's products go from being glorified adding machines to being
computers. They will of course say that they can use IBM's code since AIX is a
dirative work of UNIX, and since they OWN UNIX, AIX code belongs to SCO. As to
IBM violations??? Of course they will find them: they will say that X-idea was
copied from AIX, Y-method was used in Linux, Z-code is in fact a derivative work
of UNIX especially since thyey have this rather BROAD definition of
"dirivative work". Based on that alone the judge should prevent SCO
from having a look at AIX since they already claim that LINUX is an
"unauthorized dirivative of UNIX".
Bobcat [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 01:06 PM EST |
If IBM develops new code and contributes it to linux,
is there any reason why IBM cannot use that same code
(the code they developed) in AIX? If this is allowed,
then any AIX versions that appeared after IBM's linux contributions are not
relevent, are they? I havn't seen
any discussion of the timeline of AIX developement and
IBM's contributions to linux. Am I missing something here?
Clueless
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 01:08 PM EST |
| Sun Launches Java for Linux.
Newsfactor Article
And Natch,
NEWSHOUND, Laura dIdIO pipes up with a useless comment... not abrasive,
just useless. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 01:11 PM EST |
I know the issue of the statute of limitations in the US copyright act has
been brought up before, but not being a lawyer (in fact not even being in ths
US), I have to ask this question...
US Code, Title 17, Section 507,
paragraph b states:
No civil action shall be maintained under
the provisions of this title unless it is commenced within three years after the
claim accrued.
Now I am presuming that if someone had a
copyright problem with a piece of code which is in the current version of the
Linux kernel that they would have the right to take legal action over it from
three years since the original infraction occurred. So, if the code is in
kernel version 2.4.24 but it originally appeared first in, say, version 2.2.0,
they would have no right to take action since 2.2.0 was released over three
years ago, right?
I guess what I am asking is, can someone sue over code
that is in a current release of the kernel which has been there for donkey's
years?
If the answer is "no", then I think we have missed a very
important date... Version 2.4.0 of the Linux kernel was released to the world
on 6th January, 2001. That makes it a little over three years old. 2.4.1 will
follow on 30th January. If you cannot sue for code which in the current kernel
but has been there for over three years, that would mean that (according to my
rough estimate) 3.2 million lines of the 4.9 million lines in the kernel are
beyond The SCO Group's reach and that they cannot make copyright claims against
users (or anyone else) over these lines. Also, they have published a number of
lists of files late last year. How many of these files are now beyond the
statute of limitations?
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 01:27 PM EST |
With all of your loud ranting, screeming and crying you have given us
advertising and exposure that no money could ever buy. When the powers that be
finally put an end to your FUD, you would have effectively made Open Souce and
household name..
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: pingdave on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 01:40 PM EST |
Someone posted a link to groklaw with a comment by PJ:
**********************
Authored by: PJ on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 12:21 AM EST
The hearing has been postponed until Feb. 6. I have just updated the article.
*************************
Article entitled: IBM Postpones Hearing?
I can't find the article listed though!
thank you,
Dave
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: shaun on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 01:40 PM EST |
I'm laughing so hard these days I'm crying. SCo has hit the desperation point
and the "brick wall." They have nothing and they always knew it. The
court will not make IBM hand over AIX code without something more sunstatial to
go with. That is a violation of the Constitution, aka the 5th Admendment. No one
will be forced to incrimidate themselves. Not that I believe for a single second
that IBM conducted criminal activities in what code they handed to Linux.
The letters to the US Senate and Congress will line a lot of round filing units.
(The trash can.) The few that don't will be quickly checked into and dismissed
as a matter of course.
Red Hat and SuSE linux have been proven as very secure systems as evidenced by
the certification they both have recieved from our own government. They are
allowed to be used by the US Military. CIA and othe government agencies, Windows
2000 just recently got certified and XP and W2K3 still aren't.
Fact of the matter is we're going to see a flaming crater a lot sooner than we
first believed. (My birthday is February 7th. I would love to have another
reason to celebrate it so I'm cool with the court date being the 6th now.)
--Shaun[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 01:45 PM EST |
'The less I have to do with Darl McBride, the better off I am ... I
don’t want for that "Darlness" to rub off on me.'
Sounds like
Linus try to avoid Darl like a "Darlsease".
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 01:45 PM EST |
'The less I have to do with Darl McBride, the better off I am ... I don’t want
for that "Darlness" to rub off on me.'”
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: mobrien_12 on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 01:47 PM EST |
[When] we have the code snapshot of the whole of AIX, [we will]
with 100 per cent assurance be able to say: 'Yes this did come directly from AIX
without some intermediate modification.'
It doens't matter
if it came directly from AIX so long as it doesn't contain system V code. Is
Sontag an idiot or is he just carefully trying to cloud the issues?
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 02:02 PM EST |
The thing is: IBM didn't contribute any of the AIX code to Linux. IBM's
contributions to Linux were completely independent to AIX. So even under the
tenuous link that SCO may -somehow- own the code to AIX, it doesn't make any
difference.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 02:07 PM EST |
I think you just had a moment of dyslexia.
"lawsuit won't impact at all on IBM's lawsuit" should be
either "lawsuit won't have an impact at all" or "lawsuit
won't at all impact IBM's lawsuit". [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: ChrisP on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 02:08 PM EST |
...To amend pleading and add parties, see docket numbers 42 and 43, 29th. Sep.
SCOG expected to get the code and notes months ago and have time to fish around
in it before Feb 4th., but now their motion to compel won't even be heard until
the 6th. at the earliest. IBM submitted their first motion to compel two days
later (#44 - 1st. Oct). Did they guess then that they could get to the 4th. Feb.
without revealing anything significant?
I expect to see another motion to extend time. If it carries on like this,
discovery won't be complete until years after the trial :-)
---
SCO^WM$^WIBM^W dammit, no-one paid me to say this.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: imjustabigcat on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 02:36 PM EST |
SCOX wants the AIX code for one reason: SCOX wants to be able to appropriate
someone else's hard work to prop up a company that is incapable of producing a
worthwhile product. The Linux code is publicly available; IBM's code has to be
acquired by other means. SCOX is attempting, via the court system, to obtain
finished product that it can sell or from which it has court sanctioned
authority to collect license fees.
That opinion may sound harsh, but it pains me to see comments on message boards
and in the press to the effect that Linux could not have come so far so fast
without wholesale copying of code from UNIX. Apparently, this sentiment must be
shared by most financial analysts that accept whatever bunk SCO feeds them. It
never seems to occur to these people that if SCOX had such technology, it would
have at least appeared in products the company sells.
In fact, why has SCOX not signed reciprocal licensing agreements for the source
to the "derivative works" created by IBM, SGI and others? Not only
is Darl prevaricating and unethical, he's also not real bright. He'd rather
spend millions on risky litigation instead of improving an existing product and
making it appealing to the market. SCOX is a colossal wasted opportunity.
After all, it has an entire sales channel at its disposal (well, until recently)
-- all it needs to do is to provide viable product.
I've had contact in the past with a few of the kernel coders. They are not
college dropouts or wild-eyed radicals. Some of them are now in their sixties
and long ago earned computer science or engineering degrees (many doctorates).
The people maintaining the kernel have no interest in using outdated, buggy,
slow code from SCO as the basis for another operating system -- even if they had
access to that code. Engineers tend to reinvent the wheel if they think they
can get a better wheel, or if they have problems with the existing wheels.
It makes my blood boil when I hear uninformed "experts" and a
certain megalomaniacal CEO with messianic pretentions and a paranoia problem
malign Linux people as long-haired freaks with an agenda to create some
communist vision of computing. Nothing could be further from the truth; the
kernel maintainers simply want to have the same freedoms that generated the
personal computing boom in the first place. If Darl had been running Fairchild,
DG, Univac, Burroughs or Rand, we would never have seen the personal computing
revolution. It would have been buried under litigation -- after all, things
like the 6502 and Z80 microprocessors were "derivative works"
created by engineers that had left other companies.
Darl's abuse of the legal system is both maddening and grieving. No matter
what the claims, the posturing or the content of the press releases, SCOX is
merely perpetrating a high-tech version of a protection racket. IANAL, but I
have filed patents and I'm the author of a software product currently in
production, so I think I'm within my understanding of the law when I say that
Darl is neck-deep in horse pucky when it comes to his dubious legal theories.
I pity any remaining technical employees at SCOX. They may find out the hard
way that no matter who they go work for, SCOX will find a reason to claim that
they've breached a non-compete or an NDA.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Hyrion on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 03:00 PM EST |
There's a current article about Suse and IBM together achieving and aiming for
more security Certifications.
Laura Didio is commented in the article and grudgingly (from my point of view)
mentions a few semi-positive things about Linux.
I get a strong impression that you practically need to stick bamboo shoots up
her fingernails to get her to say positive things.
My only question is: If you can something is good, why is so very difficult to
admit it is?
---
There are many kinds of dreams. All can be reached if a person chooses. - RS[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: blacklight on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 03:10 PM EST |
"We do have a number of snapshots of some pieces of what IBM has
contributed that we definitely can tell came from AIX inappropriately in
violation of their contract with us." Chris Sontag.
If this is true, then it follows that the SCO Group already has all the evidence
it needs to go after IBM without any need for further discovery. End of
argument.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 03:25 PM EST |
Scox: MIT rocket scientists have discovered millions of lines of irrefutable
evidence!!!
IBM: Show us the evidence.
Scox: <delay tactic>
IBM: Show us the evidence.
Scox: <delay tactic>
IBM: Show us the evidence.
Scox: <delay tactic>
IBM: Show us the evidence.
Scox: er, ah . . . well . . . that is . . . we know the evidence is there. We
just haven't found *all* of it quite yet. Yea, that's the ticket.
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
- Ad-hoc? - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 03:32 PM EST
- Ad-hoc? - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 03:58 PM EST
- Ad-hoc? - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 04:42 PM EST
- Ad-hoc? - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 06:29 PM EST
- Shush!!! - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, January 23 2004 @ 07:00 AM EST
- Ad-hoc? - Authored by: TerryL on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 04:40 PM EST
- Ad-hoc? - Authored by: Jude on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 05:18 PM EST
- Ad-hoc? - Authored by: TerryL on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 05:40 PM EST
- Ad-hoc? - Authored by: ra on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 05:56 PM EST
- Ad-hoc? - Authored by: TerryL on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 06:11 PM EST
- Ad-hoc? - Authored by: stend on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 08:30 PM EST
- Ad-hoc? - Authored by: Jude on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 05:29 PM EST
| |
| Authored by: RedBarchetta on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 03:48 PM EST |
Hot off the press... (or shall, fresh from my e-mail
alert)
IBM:
Courts will clear us of SCO's charges
Link
to
article in SearchEnterpriseLinux
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Ted Powell on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 03:53 PM EST |
| According to
Yahoo,
at 2:00pm EST today, some 150,000 shares of SCOX changed
hands
(at about $15.68). Total volume so far today, 192,695.
Is there
any way of finding out more about this spike?
---
Truth is not
determined by majority vote. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 04:12 PM EST |
From http://www.pcpro.co.uk/?news/news_story.php?id=52382
"Sontag is confident of a good reception for the licence outside the US -
possibly a greater than 50 per cent take-up. He told us: 'To date there has
been limited and selected availability with a 30 to 50 per cent adoption rate.
We can't name names at this stage, but would expect this figure to rise now the
licence is available worldwide.'"
Wild. Another one for the quotes database.
--
An interested bystander
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: TobiasBXL on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 04:14 PM EST |
Sometimes I just wonder and begin to think that maybe SCO just initiated this
legal fight in order to regain access to Unix source code they themselves have
lost by mistake and now they are unable to continue development...
cheers,
Tobias[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 04:26 PM EST |
I believe the quote about 'darlness rubbing off' is misattributed. It should
have been attributed to Benjamin Choate, not Linus.
-G[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Stumbles on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 04:27 PM EST |
"[When] we have the code snapshot of the whole of AIX, [we will]
with 100 per cent assurance be able to say: 'Yes this did come
directly from AIX without some intermediate modification.'
What an obtuse way of saying they are on a fishing expidition. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Baldy on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 04:41 PM EST |
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/01/22/infiltration_of_files_seen
_as_extensive/
It appears the replicans have been having a nose in the
democrats servers, and leaking what they found.
From the article
"There
appears to have been no hacking, no stealing, and
no violation of any Senate
rule," Miranda said. "Stealing
assumes a property right and there is no
property right to
a government document. . . . These documents are not
covered
under the Senate disclosure rule because they are
not official business and, to
the extent they were
disclosed, they were disclosed inadvertently by negligent
[Democratic] staff."
Now I'm quite sure that if I was found to be nosing
in
their servers the reaction would be quite different. [ Reply to This | # ]
|
- Here we go! - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 04:48 PM EST
- OT in other news - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, January 23 2004 @ 02:05 PM EST
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 04:43 PM EST |
...hey guys...
Here's my hand at some satire...:)
We
go currently to FOX NEW's live broadcast where SCO CEO and founder of the
McBride Gang, Darl McBride, is giving a speech.
[Enter Darl's image on
TV red-faced and punching the air furiously.]
Darl McBride:
"We're going to sue IBM, Bill O'Reilly, we're going to sue SGI, Red Hat, Google,
Novel, and then 1500 end users! And then we're going to sue Britain, Japan,
Australia! And then wer're going to sue China, Germany, and the United Nations!
And then we're going to Washington, D.C., to sue Congress, the Supreme Court,
and finally the President of the United States! YEAGH!!!
Bill
O'Reilly: But really Darl, how do you think you can possibly get away with
this?
Darl McBride: Stupid Bill! Because SCO owns every OS that
has ever existed!!!
[And with that, Darl McBride, once again releases
his primal scream against the universe.]
YEAGH!!!
...THE
END...
All errors, both grammatical and derivatives, are
copyrighted to me. Anyone who posts anything concerning such errors will,
obviously, be in copyright violation. So to prevent further frivilious
litigation, please keep all nit-picking to yourself...;)
[ Reply to This | # ]
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- Bugger off! - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 04:51 PM EST
| |
| Authored by: grouch on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 05:00 PM EST |
I think Torvalds' comparison of Linux to the road system is a particularly
astute one. It is simple enough for even the most pointy-headed boss to
understand while illustrating the biggest advantage open source has over sales
of secret source.
In the U.S., the early road system was mostly a haphazard network of trails and
privately maintained "turn-pikes". If you paid the toll, the owner
of the road would turn the pike and let you pass. The Eisenhower Interstate
system may have begun as a part of strategic defense, but the economic impact it
had may be incalculable. (BTW, can anyone explain why there is an
"Interstate" highway in Hawaii?)
For a true Information Superhighway, you need the electronic connection plus the
software. The connections are available almost everywhere in the world at prices
that businesses and customers who need that connection can afford. The
connection is now a low-priced commodity, just as public roads have become.
(Yes, I know highways are expensive, but the costs are shared, making the cost
per individual very low).
Free and open source software completes the road system, making it an
Information InterState highway. You don't have to rent a Microsoft car to drive
on it. You don't have to pay Microsoft to turn the pike to allow you on the
road.
Who knows how much of an economic boom this will create? Who could have
predicted the full economic impact of the U.S. Interstate Highway system before
its creation?
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: shaun on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 05:07 PM EST |
I show SCOX dropped 0.301 today. 1.9% loss. Has been dropping slowly all week. I
think people are wising up and pulling out.
--Shaun
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 05:42 PM EST |
Trolltech (of which Canopy is an investor) have joined the OSDL:
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040120/sftu027_1.html
No biggy, but FYI[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: johan on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 05:55 PM EST |
[Quote from Chris Sontag]
This
interview was published January 20.
[...]
He also claims they will be
suing several end users, not just one. But then this is the same guy who just
said with a straight face they might or might not sue Novell the day before they
did.
Just because the article was published on January 20'th
doesn't mean that that was when it occurred. Thus I think it is not justified to
state "sue Novell the day before they did" since (unless you have other
information) it is not clear when he said it.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: smtnet1 on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 06:09 PM EST |
Chris Sontag said
"We've discontinued all our Linux activities
in the company because we identified that there were big problems with
Linux."
Well this is not true, SCO are still distributing
Linux kernel source via their Internet site here
(if you get a dialog click OK) and the rpm file
clearly lists the license as GPL, and has the full GPL text in the COPYING file
detailing the rights SCO are giving to the code in the file.
The GPL License
is the only license that allows them to distribute Linux so if they are claiming
that they are not distributing under the GPL license then they are violating
copyright law.
The real reason why SCO stopped selling Linux was because
they were unable to compete with all of the other Linux companies who were
simply better at it.
SCO have decided instead to stake the company on a
litigation business model.
---
I have a Linux License, the GPL, why
would I want another? [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 06:44 PM EST |
Maybe it's not what you can do, but what the community acting in concert can
do. Someone on Slashdot said, essentially, the letter Gavin wrote would have a
much bigger impact if everyone receiving an invoice from SCO acted similarly.
The hurdle is likely to be that many who will receive such a letter will have no
idea what to do. I'll reveal my bias; if I had to make a guess whether the CIO
at Just Sports was a Slashdotter, I'd have said, prolly not. (Sorry, Gavin)
I think the community ought to try very hard to implement a Google bomb. But do
it well. Plan it. Use your many handy websites to make real,
honest-to-goodness, information bearing links to the websites you read that
spell this mess out.
When one of the great unwashed receives a SCO invoice, it's likely that one of
their first moves will be to Google for context. Make sure that truthful
context is what they find, by the truckload. This may have the added benefit of
helping the paid media to get it right.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 06:47 PM EST |
Gavin, I am glad to see there still US businessmen with some backbone and
integrity left. Thank you.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 06:51 PM EST |
Could somebody please report SCO to VeriSign for violating the WHOIS terms of
use. The address is listed for administrative purposes only and not for some
Utah litigation shop to send legal notices to.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: whoever57 on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 07:25 PM EST |
Has anyone considered the possiblity that Amendment 2 might be a forgery? Is
this too terrible a concept to discuss?
---
-----
For a few laughs, see "Simon's Comic Online Source" at
http://scosource.com/index.html[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 07:25 PM EST |
| oops did I say that? [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Cal on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 07:38 PM EST |
In a breach of contract case, the non-breaching party is expected to mitigate
damages. SCOX would do this by revealing the offending code so that it can be
removed. Are there any legal ramifications if they do not do this?[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 08:44 PM EST |
| "The end user bears all the burden, and it's not quite as free as it used to
be. Red Hat, Novell and the major providers of Linux now are charging more for
Linux than SCO charges for its high-end commercial versions of Unix. So the
benefits of Linux have largely gone away."
I love these guys. First IBM
didn't have any expertise with developing operating systems for PC's with Intel
processors... except of course for PC DOS, OS/2 (JFS), and AIX/386.
IBM
delivered the AIX 5L iA64 edition to SCO a month before the Caldera deal was
approved by the shareholders in April of 2001. Caldera and SCO staged a fake
product release on 23 April, then Caldera laid-off 17 percent of it's workforce
three days later.
Caldera couldn't indemnify, market, or maintain it as a
product even after the sharholders approved the SCO deal on 4 May 2001.
They
promise that (maybe) a 64-bit version of SVR6 Unixware will be available
sometime in 2004 or 2005, while claiming that the benefits of Linux have largely
gone away.
They also fail to mention that Distrowatch still shows more than
a few versions of Linux that offer mature iA64 support today. Many are only a
free download away. Those don't come with any per-seat or per-processor fees,
unless you want that sort of thing.
It's no wonder their Linux business
failed so miserably, the management doesn't seem to know much about
it...;-)
---
"Perhaps the lesson from this is that the first rule when
dealing with the devil is: don't," Dave McCrabb President SCO Server Software
Division
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 08:55 PM EST |
| Why don't they call it intRAstate? [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Stefan on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 11:09 PM EST |
It seems to me that we can see a change of attitude from the press lately. They
are not so willing to accept everything that SCO tells them as before. Maybe we
can use that to our advantage and try to influence them.
Since SCO prefers to fight their battles in the media instead of the courts
maybe it's time to hit where it hurts? They have been talking to the press for
ten months now and never proved anything. If we could put together a
"press kit" that is as un-biased as possible with NO SCO-bashing but
just a complete collection of their claims and the real truth behind those
claims together with links or references to documents that proves the fake
nature of their claims. I'm thinking a couple of A4-pages would be enough. With
material like that already prepared and available on GrokLaw we could send it
to every reporter/news paper/etc that just reproduces SCO:s lies without
checking the facts first. Much of this job is already done, it would just need
to be put together in a professional looking way. With good enough documents the
reporters will feel like SCO is trying to take advantage of them and I don't
think they like being tricked.
If we had something like this we could have sent it to the congress men that got
SCO-mail the other day.
I think this approach would have a more positive effect than 1500 slashdotters
flaming them in a probably quite rude way. By turning the press against SCO we
will maybe even hurt their stock valuation. And I'm sure they are not going to
like THAT![ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Curtman on Friday, January 23 2004 @ 01:16 AM EST |
Anybody else notice that the LinuxWorld presentations from Novell mentioned
above are in SWF for the audio, and PPT for the presentation? Looks like
someone is missing the boat when it comes to free software.
:(
OpenOffice seems to be able to view the powerpoint document, but
wouldn't it have been a nice gesture to at least include a postscript or pdf for
the presentation? And an OGG or an MP3? I can't find an open source player
capable of handling the SWF.
If I wasn't so naiive, to consider that
was an oversight, I'd think this was some kind of sick joke. Lets hope this
isn't a sign of what's to come of SuSE.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, January 23 2004 @ 03:24 AM EST |
OK, German is definetly not Sherlock's strong point. Below is my translation of
that Heise article, with a bit of help from leo.org. Best wishes, Tilo
SCO joins German Mutimedia Federation
As the SCO Group, obstructed by a restraining order, is not able to offensively
take a stand on its position on the international sale of IP licences for Linux
installations in Germany, it has joined the Deutsche Multimediaverband (dmmv,
German Multimedia Federation), Taskgroup Software Industry. It is today welcomed
as a new member.
With its entry, the SCO Group wishes to sensitize the multimedia field to
questions of IP, as here Linux is often employed. Furthermore, it hopes to be
heard outside the federation and to this end is relying on the statute of the
Taskgroup Software Industry, which states with regard to the taskgroup's
objectives: "It conveys critical subjects to the public and to policy
makes and formulates statements on current issues. The task of voicing the
member's interests and to support them in their daily working processes is a
part of its objectives as well as to further mutual networking and public
relations to external institutions and organizations."
A statement of the federation is still pending, as the responsible branch in
Munich is currently moving offices, as dmmv-Press Officer Christian Arenz
indicated.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Turing_Machine on Friday, January 23 2004 @ 12:42 PM EST |
| Everyone download this file (just click OK at
the username/password prompt) and IBM should then be able to prove
continuous and notorious distribution of software that SCO has forfeit their
right to. Wouldn't this be a "dirty hands" kind of situation? I'm a coder, and
have been for many years, so it goes without saying, IANAL, etc., but I vaguely
remember something about "dirty hands" being something that could have this case
thrown out quickly. That being said, I would prefer if this case was decided on
its merits, instead of some sort of technicality. If this case is summarily
dismissed, it leaves the current "cloud of uncertainty" where it is. I think a
decisive judgement is required to really un-encumber the future of Open Source
Software, etc. Still, it would be a nice addition if everyone here, running
Linux or not, was able to download this file, thereby showing bad faith in their
own handling of software licensing. Maybe another counter-suit FROM the
end-users? Some sort of class-action suit? Not that there will be much of Gaul
to divide once IBM is finished, but maybe opening another front for SCO to have
to respond to would hasten their plans, and finally get all the cards on the
table. Again, IANAL, but I am a coder, and I have personal experience with the
benefits of Open Source Software, etc. The whole world needs
to know that their own efforts can not be taken from them based upon FUD,
etc. ---
No, I'm not interested in developing a powerful brain. All I'm
after is just a mediocre brain, something like the President of the AT&T
--Alan Turing [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, January 25 2004 @ 09:49 AM EST |
So, SCO want all AIX source, regardless of whether or not IBM
choose to give sight of their IP.
What a precedent that would be if it were ordered by a court!
Consider where else it might apply ...
For instance, in the 1980s, Sun Microsystems was an innovative
company. Quite a few of the things they developed before the
Suits took over are with us still. Suppose they were to claim
widespread - or even universal - violation of their IP. What would
they want to support their claim?
Complete source to Windows, for example? [ Reply to This | # ]
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