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| Linus and Darl Tell Different Stories: Who Is Telling the Truth? |
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Friday, April 02 2004 @ 06:26 PM EST
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I'll bet you thought the article yesterday by eWeek's Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols was an April Fool's joke, didn't you? Especially the part where in his interview with McBride and Sontag, McBride said that Linus didn't want to see the allegedly infringing code because he was afraid of becoming "tainted": "McBride: I talked to Linus [Torvalds] in an e-mail exchange last summer, and I told him I was willing to show him the code. But he said he didn't want to see it because he didn't want to be tainted by it. So, there's this attitude of we want to show it, but we don't see it." Today, Linus states unequivocably that he did want to see the code, but they required an onerous NDA: "'Real life happens to be different,' Torvalds said. 'My e-mail to Darl on May 30 of last year states: "I would also like to know exactly what it is you allege is problematic in the kernel, but judging by the press reports I don't think you'll answer me on that. Maybe you _can_ answer the confusion about me personally, though."
"To which, according to Torvalds, Darl answered: 'I understand your unwillingness to go under NDA on the code side of things, so I guess that side will just have to play itself out.'
"'In other words,' Torvalds said, 'there is no code taint that I'd be afraid of, since no such tainted code exists in the kernel. There is only the issue of SCO's NDA. And, at least back then, Darl was aware of the issue, so this is not a question of misunderstanding. It's a question of Darl knowingly misrepresenting the truth.'"
Once again, it's SCO telling one story and the free/open source world telling another. Who is telling the truth?
Linus is, silly. How can we be sure? All I had to do was visit Groklaw's Quote Database, search the "Person List" for McBride, then search for keyword "NDA" and up pops this Paula Rooney article from last June, entitled "Torvalds Says SCO Won't Give Him Peek At Code Without NDA" and here is what it reported: "The SCO Group has shown off a few hundred lines of Linux code that allegedly violates its rights to Unix but won't allow Linus Torvalds--the father of Linux--to take a peek without signing a non-disclosure agreement.
"In an e-mail response to CRN, Torvalds, the founder of Linux and top engineer on the open-source project, said he asked SCO's top executive about viewing the code but was not granted absolution from a legal agreement that would prevent him talking publicly about it.
"'I've not seen the code, and clearly I can't sign an NDA for it,' said Torvalds. 'I did ask [SCO CEO] Darl McBride to show it to me but didn't expect them to make it available. They didn't.'" Are you surprised that Linus is telling the truth here and McBride isn't? Then you need to read Groklaw more often. Just last week, we brought to your attention that Linus told Information Week that open source keeps you honest. We could use a few more volunteers to keep the QDB up-to-date. I'm thinking it might come in handy for IBM and Red Hat and everyone at trial, when certain folks are on the stand telling stories.
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 07:06 PM EST |
hear, hear
the statements are getting weaker and weaker though. that one'll hardly register
on the fudometer, meaning stock prices etc hopefully won't be affected, unless
adversly of course ;)[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 07:10 PM EST |
Linus said in the past that programmers shouldn't try to research patents that
may conflict with the code they write, because U.S. law imposes higher fines to
patent violators who knew about the patents. Therefore, it's better not to
know that patents exist if you get sued later on. Linus may have used the word
"tainted" in this context.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: JustFree on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 07:17 PM EST |
No! I have been following these events, since SCO claimed that Linux contains
Unix code. As a programmer I find it hard to concieve that an excellent
operating system suchs as Linux would need to borrow code from Unix to survive.
There can be similar concepts in the two operation system, but line by line
copying that is impossible (technically hard to accomplish).
Reading everything that Daryl has to say relating Unix and Linux constantly puts
doubt in my mind about the honest of Daryl McBrides statements.
Various executives at SCOG have repeatively changed what is common knowledge in
computer science ecosystem to suit their claims. This is just one of many
examples.
---
as in free speech get it.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: droth on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 07:28 PM EST |
It was good to hear from McBride and Sontag again - it's been a while.
A couple
of things with the interview struck me as very interesting. Since the IBM
lawsuit was filed, SCO has stated public on several occasions that they believe
that the GPL may be in violation of the US Constitution, and hence invalid. But
in this interview, they seem to completely ditch that concept, because they
claim to be covered by it. McBride specifically says:
We
think we have protection under both the GPL and copyright
law.
And I hope the judge reads what Sontag says in response
to the interviewer's query about why SCO hasn't shown all the allegedly
infringing code:
Sontag: We've shown the SGI code and a number of
other things. The preponderance of stuff that we'll be showing, other than the
IBM derivative work, is still forthcoming.
So they plan to
present the preponderance of the alleged violations after discovery is over or
something? What are these guys, hobbit lawyers who are looking forward to
"second discovery"?
Finally, SCO contends that "sequence [and] organization"
are copyright-protecable. IANAL, but I thought that business methods were
patentable, not copyrightable. Operating system sequence and
organization would seem to me to be a business method-type thing. So shouldn't
they have tried to protect that with a patent rather than a copyright? Perhaps
someone more knowledgable in these areas could disabuse me of my error? [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 07:28 PM EST |
| This is a new thread I posted 'cause the latter was ignored, or not Seen at
all...
Please read this Yahoo news, and Watch the Sun...
The Sun is
Burning The Road to Linux
Sun loves Microsoft
I think this is not an april's fool
Watch
the Sun... Please PJ, just don't be blinded!!
Thanks
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 07:30 PM EST |
Looking at the broader picture: doubtless Darl is a fundamentally deceptive man
(and, BTW, a grotesguely greedy man), but I don't think this is evidence of
either.
No, much as I despise his greed and the wormtongue it has made of his soul, I
think this time Darl was coming as close as he could come to telling the truth.
My assumption here, which I think is shared by every programmer on the planet,
is that Darl's mind is, um, technically-challenged. He focuses on the big
picture, and he talks to big-picture people, because he simply cannot understand
technical details. He has, I suspect, never even entered a classroom where
programming instruction might have been given. He really doesn't know the
difference in a statement, a macro, and a comment. He really doesn't understand
the difference between specifications, documentation, and implementations. And
so how could he understand the difference between what is copyrightable and what
is patentable -- which hinge on those very technical distinctions? That's not
his thing: his God is NOT in the Details.
And note well, Darl did not say anything about "tainted" code. He
talked about "tainting" Linus. In his mind (or whatever passes for a
substitute) "tainting" is what happens to anyone or anything who is
exposed to his viral IP.
So he meant by "tainting", whatever Linus did henceforthward would be
owned (or if not owned, then "controlled") by Darl -- which is what
the NDA says. Linus was unwilling to accept that taint: which is Darlspeak for
"Linus wouldn't sign the NDA." And when Darl originally talked about
Linus unwilling to be tainted, I automatically assumed that's what he meant. Now
Linus confirms it.
There is confusion here between "code tainting" and "person
tainting." In Darl's mind, there's no confusion: the Big Picture is that,
like the old farmer, he "isn't greedy, he just wants to own all the land
that adjoins his," and knowing that eventually everything will have
adjoined him, he's willing to be patient.
No, Darl didn't lie this time. Put it on the calendar: It was April 1; it was
fitting that Darl choose that day to speak a truth, and he tried his best.[ Reply to This | # ]
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- Linus and Darl Tell Different Stories: Who Is Telling the Truth? - Authored by: greyhat on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 07:58 PM EST
- Linus and Darl Tell Different Stories: Who Is Telling the Truth? - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 08:02 PM EST
- Linus and Darl Tell Different Stories: Who Is Telling the Truth? - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 08:33 PM EST
- Poor assumption - Authored by: Ed L. on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 08:49 PM EST
- Poor assumption - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 09:20 PM EST
- You are a case of the Copenhagen Syndrome - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 08:54 PM EST
- Linus and Darl Tell Different Stories: Who Is Telling the Truth? - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 11:04 PM EST
- The SCOG prevaricator - Authored by: turbopro on Saturday, April 03 2004 @ 12:07 AM EST
- Linus and Darl Tell Different Stories: Who Is Telling the Truth? - Authored by: fb on Saturday, April 03 2004 @ 12:39 AM EST
- Linus and Darl Tell Different Stories: Who Is Telling the Truth? - Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, April 03 2004 @ 10:00 AM EST
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 07:45 PM EST |
> I'll bet you thought the article yesterday by eWeek's Steven J.
Vaughan-Nichols was an April Fool's joke, didn't you? Especially the part
where in his interview with McBride and Sontag, McBride said that Linus didn't
want to see the allegedly infringing code because he was afraid of becoming
"tainted" . . .
This is as good a place as any to say: long experience as a magazine editor has
convinced me that extended humor pieces are _dangerous_.
Every time, some readers take the joke seriously. You don't want that. What's
more, when they catch on, or are corrected, they're embarrassed & resentful.
You don't want that, either.
Alas, April 1 brings wannabe humorists out of the woods. They should stay
home.
I'd better add, quickly, that Pamela's wit is invariably apt -- short, to the
point, & unmistakable. Then she gets on with the facs & analysis that
bring readers to her Web site.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 07:46 PM EST |
Despite their efforts to show the code under a draconian NDA, SCO will still be
found guilty of failing to mitigate. What plausible reason can SCO give for not
documenting and proving the allegedly infringing code for the kernel maintainers
and the Linux ditro companies? There are no trade secrets in System V. All the
Linux kernel source code is viewable by anyone in the world with Internet
access.
I think we can conclude the possible reasons why.
1. There is little or no infringing code and they are bluffing.
2. They are afraid of being discredited and publicly humiliated by people who
track down the true, legal origin of the code.
3. They don't want the code removed and the injury to stop. In fact, I doubt
they really believe they've been injured. They just want billions of dollars
for free. They have the impossible fantasy of forcing the code to be left in the
Linux kernel and receiving perpetual royalties for all future sales of Linux.
The GPL makes this legally impossible.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: mobrien_12 on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 07:50 PM EST |
McBride: I saw it, it was published, so the cows are out of the
barn. The analogy I like to use is Vanilla Ice's "Ice Ice Baby" versus David
Bowie and Queen's "Under Pressure." If you just look at the words, I don't see a
copyright violation, but if you listen to the riffs, you can hear where they're
the same.
Editor's Note: Vanilla Ice settled out of court presumably
because his song included riffs that had been taken from Bowie and Queen's work.
See Copyright Website LLC for more on the issue.
McBride: When
everything is said and done, when everything is on the table in the court case,
there will be an argument when the Linux guys come in and say, 'Guys, the words
are entirely different, how can you say that's a copyright
violation?'
But there are two parts to this. There are the words that
are in the source code, and there's the music underneath. The actual code that
drives these ABI files is structurally and sequentially the
same.
More garbage spewed out from Darl's mouth. Songs
consist of music and sometimes lyrics. "Ice Ice Baby" had different lyrics, but
copied a part of the "under pressure" music, changing only one note of the "dum
dum dum duhdud dih duh" sequence.
Huey Lewis and the News had a
similar beef over the "Ghostbusters" theme song.
Software doesn't
consist of lyrics and music. It's code. One thing. So Darl, shut your FUD
making orfice.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: martimus on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 07:52 PM EST |
I have thought all along that TSCOG's hype and FUD was designed to
extract
the maximum amount of money out of their stock sales, either
through a buyout
or the pump and dump that their scheme (as IBM put it)
turned into.
But this
story (as in fairy tale) shows that Mcbride and Sontag are either
ridiculous
liars or so deluded as to need to be locked up for their own
protection. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 07:57 PM EST |
| "The nation had to choose between shame and war. We have chosen shame. We shall
get the war as well." - Winston Churchill, in reply to British Prime Minister
Chamberlain "Peace in our time"
First of all the Ne
w Sun-Microsoft Pact must be put in perspective tothe IBM and Novell
Alliance under the Linux flag. Understandably both Sun and Microsoft feel
threatened by the formidable progress Novell has made integrating Linux, Gnome
and OpenOffice.org with Novell's desktop services. Both Novell and IBM are
shifting many of their own internal desktops over to Linux, and Novell CEO has
stated at Braintrust that almost all of the desktops used within Novell will be
Linux based by early 2005. It must irk both Sun and Microsoft that IBM and
Novell are doing so using technology that both had a part in developing, in
Sun's case GNOME and OpenOffice and Microsoft's case Mono.
Windows
Certification for Sun Server is the equivalent of hosting hostile enemy bases on
your own territory. Sun, like Apple, relies on a separate identity from
Microsoft to position itself in the server Market. Windows Certification for Sun
hardware is an oxymoron, as it is possible to host Microsoft's OS on more stock
standard and cheaper Dell, HP and whitebox hardware, withoutany significant loss
of performance or quality. At least with Solaris and Linux, Sun is able to
completely hack, recompile to tune the kernels and libraries to take advantage
of any Sun specific hardware.
Of the legal settlements, where Sun that states
that "the agreements announced today satisfy the objectives it was pursuing
in the EU actions pending against Microsoft", is the reason why the monetary
payoff to Sun was so large. Sun was one ofthe companies that complained to the
EU over Microsoft's licensing of CIFS information in a manner incompatible to
SAMBA's GPL license.
When the EU Competition Commission initiated the latest
investigation against Microsoft in 2001, they included the following in their press
release. The Commission believes that Microsoft may have withheld
from vendors of alternative server software key interoperability information
that they need to enable their products to 'talk' with Microsoft's dominant PC
and server software products. Microsoft may have done this through a combination
of refusing to reveal the relevant technical information, and by engaging in a
policy of discriminatory and selective disclosure on the basis of a
"friend-enemy" scheme. The last statement is very important, since
the CIFS file and print services software that the protocol complaint was based
on is the GPL'ed SAMBA. I don't believe that without Sun's outright acceptance
of the Microsoft Protocol agreement, Mario Monti, Competition Commissioner,would
accept any Licensing from Microsoft for the required information that would be a
"friend-enemy" scheme incompatible with the same GPL.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 08:05 PM EST |
So TSG is now claiming that Linux is infringing because it is a non-literal
copy? If this is the case then couldn't Xerox sue Apple and Microsoft for the
GUI? What about DR-Dos? Isn't DR-Dos a non-literal copy of MS-DOS? This brings
me to my next question, wouldn't Linux Kernel Personality be a non-literal copy
of the Linux ABIs (if its not a literal copy...)? Any one up for litigation?[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 08:06 PM EST |
They really are fixated on the RIAA, and now music analogies. Nice to notice
that Darl's knowledge of music copyright is as poor as his knowledge of source
code copyright.
Someone pointed out that the SCOG brief talks about operating systems and
multiple programs. Looks to me like SCOG's lawyers aren't far from Darl's level
of technical knowledge. The IBM lawyers are gonna have a tough time keeping
straight faces in the court room.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: kb8rln on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 08:07 PM EST |
Daryl said: "There are the words that are in the source code, and
there's the music underneath. The actual code that drives these ABI files is
structurally and sequentially the same."
Well let take this to
the next step. If Linux is music and the music sound the same my be 2livecrew
using the same music from Pretty Women and winning under fair use. Maybe Linux
can do the same thing.
PJ can you get more information on this
case.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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- Parody - Authored by: dmscvc123 on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 08:48 PM EST
- Parody - Authored by: Darkside on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 09:45 PM EST
- Parody - Authored by: dmscvc123 on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 10:27 PM EST
- Parody - Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, April 03 2004 @ 01:28 AM EST
- Parody - Authored by: MathFox on Saturday, April 03 2004 @ 03:27 AM EST
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 08:07 PM EST |
I don't know why, but this reminded me of a bit from a
Dead Kennedys song entitled "Gone with my wind" - the
song's about a former US president, but I think it fits
(the current one and) Darl McBride just fine as well:
[...]
He says "I'm finished, so what the hell?
My life is ruined, what matters now?
I've always itched for that last great thrill...
If I die all of you should too."
[...]
My bombs will rain down on D.C.
We'll nuke our enemies while they're asleep
We'll be safe in the ground below
And laugh and drink till the cows come home
So c'mon John, whadya say?
It's been dancing in my head for years
What'll happen if I push this button...
Let's start World War III for fun
[...]
Well, they certainly are about to die, and they more or
less started WW III in the software business...
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: belzecue on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 08:08 PM EST |
PJ, the problem with the QDB, as I see it, is interactivity. Right now, to
submit a quote 1) you need to email somebody -- I'm assuming this because there
is no mention in the QDB front page of HOW to submit a quote! 2) the QDB person
verifies the quote, 3) then checks the QDB for an existing entry, 4) then
finally adds and categorises the quote.
Not much can be done to improve items two through four, apart from add more
people to the process, i.e. delegate more QDB admins, but for item one — the
submission of quotes — how about this:
Create an article to hold quote submissions. Link it from right next to the
'Quote Database' link on the Groklaw frontpage and on the QDB pages. Then, QDB
admins can monitor the article and anyone can submit a quote. Once a new quote
is submitted, anyone can comment on the quote, flag duplicates, etc. In other
words, turn the quoting process into more of a collaborative effort.
An alternative would be to switch to a collaborative editor for the QDB, ala
twiki style, but that may be overkill when one geeklog article can handle it.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 08:15 PM EST |
What are the chances we'll get to see Darl testify in this? Seriously, is it
likely that he will? I'd pay good money for a transcript of that.
It'd be even better if PJ moderated a special Groklaw session in real time, and
the IBM people had internet access from somewhere near the court.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: darkonc on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 08:19 PM EST |
| Read McBrides words v e r y c a r e f u l l y .
It
could be said that Linus didn't want to be tainted by the onerous NDA (Why look
if you can't talk about it?). Darl didn't say WHAT Linus didn't want to be
tainted by. Most of what Darl says is lies by misdirection.
---
Powerful,
committed communication. Touching the jewel within each person and bringing it
to life.. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: snorlax on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 08:28 PM EST |
| This story at Yahoo!
finance analyzes the movement of SCOX stock over the last year. It lists quotes
from anti-SCO (Eben Moglen) and pro-SCO (SCO CFO Robert Bench) about their take
on the reasons for the recent SCOX stock slide. ---
Long Live F/OSS [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 08:29 PM EST |
Several contibutors have suggested they'd like Darl and Co. to stop mouthing
off.. I disagree. Yes he's infuriating, but he's also the best comic relief in
this SCOap opera. Plus, the man can't help himself and he just make's SCOG's
situation worse, every time he speaks. While we're waiting for the wheels of
justice to finally run SCO over, he fills in the gaps. I've missed him these
past weeks, since somebody clamped down on him.
So I say, let's do our best to encourage him. Send him emails telling him to
fight harder. Get more media interviews, where he gets really excited. Set up
some more public appearances.
he's clearly SCOG's biggest liability. GO Darl!
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: BrianW on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 08:29 PM EST |
I missed my April 1st deadline for getting this to alpha test, but today I've
finally put the finishing touches on my Artificial Intransigence program (aka,
RoboDarl). And in the spirit of celebrating quotes most appropriate for this
(belated) holiday (as it were), I decided to test it out by feeding it all of
Darl's quotes from the Quote Database.
According to the program, here are some interview snippets and sound bites that
we can expect Darl to utter in the next few years to come. (Disclaimer: The
Artificial Intransigence program is still in alpha testing, so these future
quotes should be considered pure speculation at best. Use of these quotes
beyond entertainment value is not recommended. And, to be fair, I sprinkled in
a few quotes from Blake Stowell, just to "perk up" the initial
conditions, so it would be more accurate to say that these future quotes are the
words of an "amalgam intransigent.")
So here are the future quotes RoboDarl has predicted:
"The fact that it was SCO, and not IBM, who ended up going bankrupt was
essentially decided by a coin toss."
"To demonstrate the viral nature of the GPL and how it undermines our
national security, I filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act to
obtain the National Security Administration's entire database. Since the NSA
runs Linux, its database is required to be available under the GPL. I haven't
heard back from them, but I expect to very soon."
"Just because the court has auctioned off all our tangible assets doesn't
mean there's nothing left of SCO. After another deep dive into the UNIX code,
we discovered that our IP is even more far reaching that we originally thought.
Structures, methods, and constructs are just the beginning. We'll soon be
announcing plans to sue several companies for misappropriating our mojo,
rad-ness, chez smoke, and phat."
"The support we're receiving is phenomenal. Our customers and our
investors see our transition from civil to criminal court as a bold step that is
sure to pay off big time in the ongoing enforcement of our intellectual
property."
"You know? It's funny. Bill said he'd be there for me, but you know what?
He wasn't."
"Just because six federal judges say that our lawsuits against TiVo
customers was going way too far doesn't mean I have to agree."
"Christmas cheer? Or how about goodwill? Laughter, frivolity, and even
romance itself! Peace on Earth is another good one! Don't you see? My new
career is just beginning! The list of things that can be monetized is
endless!"
"No, I'm no longer permitted to carry a gun."
"Someone signed my name to an online petition to make the GPL an amendment
to the Constitution? Oh, that is SO not funny!"
"Now that it's all over, I'm finding out that I had tons of support within
the Linux community all along. They continue to express their support and some
even send gifts. Here's my favorite. One Linux supporter was nice enough to
send me this T-shirt that says, 'I'm living proof that there is no free lunch.'
It's good to know that there are members of the Linux community who agree with
my message. It's too bad they didn't speak up sooner."
"Since the SCO debacle, I've been making a pretty good living on the
lecture circuit. I've been doing especially well as the lead-in speaker for a
gentleman by the name of Rob Becker. And please don't ask me if I find that
ironic, because I don't know what everyone means by that."
"I really don't think it's fair that MS Word meta-data can be used as
evidence. If you backspace over it, then it never existed, you know? I mean,
come on, how can a judge possibly take a 'meta-data threat' seriously?"
"Oh, and here's another great T-shirt that says, 'No, YOU'RE
unconstitutional!' That one is Kevin's favorite."
"On the contrary. If it hadn't been for the silent majority constantly
cheering us on to aggressively protect our intellectual property, we never would
have embarked on such a risky endeavor."
"You know the thing that gets me? I mean, the thing that REALLY gets me?
As if it weren't enough to lose all those lawsuits, as if it weren't enough to
be investigated by the SEC, FTC, and several Attorneys General, as if it weren't
enough to be the lone pariah of an entire industry - I just found out that this
monitoring device strapped to my ankle runs embedded Linux!"
"David never told me I couldn't amend my court claims after a guilty
verdict. So I'm in the process of amending my old SEC filings to make the
evidence less incriminating for the appeal."
"It was, like, you rob a bank, and your stupid brother is supposed to wait
outside the bank in the stupid car with the stupid engine running, and you run
out of the bank carrying all this loot, and you find your stupid brother under
the stupid hood CHANGING THE STUPID SPARK PLUGS!"
"I've learned my lesson. I'll never, ever try another stunt like that
again. I'm very sorry for the pain and suffering I've caused, and I'll never,
ever again try to hijack an entire industry for my own personal gain. And
that's why I think I should be paroled."
And finally:
"...and I would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn't been for those
pesky kids!"
:-)
---
//Brian
#define IANAL[ Reply to This | # ]
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- When it's all over: Future Quotes as predicted by RoboDarl - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 09:01 PM EST
- When it's all over: Future Quotes as predicted by RoboDarl - Authored by: Darkside on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 09:16 PM EST
- Darl Is The Disease and You Have the Medicine - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 09:25 PM EST
- Wonderful... is it open source? - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 09:26 PM EST
- When it's all over: Future Quotes as predicted by RoboDarl - Authored by: chaz_paw on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 10:26 PM EST
- When it's all over: Future Quotes as predicted by RoboDarl - Authored by: red floyd on Saturday, April 03 2004 @ 02:08 AM EST
- When it's all over: Future Quotes as predicted by RoboDarl - Authored by: bcomber on Saturday, April 03 2004 @ 02:13 AM EST
- Gee, Thanks! - Authored by: BrianW on Saturday, April 03 2004 @ 01:43 PM EST
- When it's all over: Future Quotes as predicted by RoboDarl - Authored by: frk3 on Wednesday, April 07 2004 @ 02:37 PM EDT
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| Authored by: mobrien_12 on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 08:30 PM EST |
McBride: "This has more to do with sequence, organization, which is
copyright-protectable."
Is there any precendent to this? Sounds like Darl fantasy to me. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: stevenj on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 08:47 PM EST |
When asked whether the fact that they had distributed the code in question
under the GPL affected them, Sontag responded:
We don't have to
knock out the GPL for us to succeed on the copyright issue. The GPL itself
supports, in a lot of ways, our positions. Section 0 of the GPL states that the
legit copyright holder has to place a notice assigning the copyright over to the
GPL.
All these contributions of our IP did not have an assignment by SCO
saying here, 'We assign these copyrights to the GPL.' The fact that we
participated with Linux does not mean that we inadvertently contributed our code
to the GPL. You can't contribute inadvertently to Linux. We feel we have a very
strong position based on the GPL.
For reference, I think he is
referring to the following quote from section 0 of the GPL:
This
License applies to any program or other work which contains a notice placed
by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed under the terms of
this General Public License. [emphasis added]
The basic
argument would seem to be that it doesn't matter who distributed it, since the
proper copyright holder (SCO, in their view) didn't place a permission notice in
the code. This seems somewhat more reasonable to me than their previous claims
that the GPL is "invalid" or even "unconstitutional".
(They still seem a
little confused in that you don't "assign your copyrights" to the GPL, but there
may still be a germ of sense in there.) [ Reply to This | # ]
|
- The point, of course... - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 08:58 PM EST
- What do you think of their GPL defense? - Authored by: dmscvc123 on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 09:00 PM EST
- From the Movie "Big Trouble" - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 09:30 PM EST
- What do you think of their GPL defense? - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 09:48 PM EST
- What do you think of their GPL defense? - Authored by: Darkside on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 10:00 PM EST
- What do you think of their GPL defense? - Authored by: blacklight on Saturday, April 03 2004 @ 12:26 AM EST
- assigning copyrights to the GPL - Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, April 03 2004 @ 05:52 AM EST
- They still seem a little confused... - Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, April 03 2004 @ 05:57 AM EST
- I think arrant nonsense is a charitable description - Authored by: codswallop on Saturday, April 03 2004 @ 07:31 AM EST
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 08:51 PM EST |
Everyone at trial? I would be shocked to see any of these cases actually come
to trial.
Some (maybe most?) of SCO's pleadings are going to get laughed out of court long
before a trial date. Even if some of SCO's nonsense does reach a trial date,
SCO will be forced to settle because it won't have enough money to fight these
suits.
SCO is continuing to lose money, with no reversal in sight. And I don't expect
MS to send any more money to SCO, even if it's thoroughly laundered. SCO is
disposable and has already served about as much of MS' purposes as it can.[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 08:52 PM EST |
The closest thing I could find Linus quote wise about not wanted to be tainted
by anything..... was...
"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.'”
::chuckle::
-JH[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: captainhaddock on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 08:54 PM EST |
Remember when Linus said he didn't want anything to do with Darl, because he
didn't want any "Darlness" to rub off on him? That's the taint Darl's
talking about. :)
Just saying "hi" to Darl would make me feel dirty.[ Reply to This | # ]
|
- Tainted - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, April 04 2004 @ 03:45 AM EDT
| |
| Authored by: dlk on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 09:13 PM EST |
The issue of truthfullness would be unequivocally resolved if Linus was willing
to make the email exchange between McBride and himself public. As PJ points out,
there is too much evidence currently available that shows that McBride is
engaging in some imaginative spin-doctoring and that he hopes to lead us down a
rabbit hole to his own private Wonderland.
I imagine that it though that the releasing of the email-trail would be the last
thing that Darl's lawyers would want to happen because such an exchange from an
officer of SCOG would serve to support the IBM's ninth affirmative defence.[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 09:33 PM EST |
You know, I worked for a good half hour trying to think of a good angle by which
to troll this, and I just can't even come up with the flimsiest of arguments on
which to base a troll. Ah. it was fun while it lasted. [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Paul Shirley on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 10:24 PM EST |
Its pretty clear that Darl thinks the principles that apply to fiction and music
in plagiarism cases can be applied to software. In some ways a return to the
look&feel cases brought in the 80s but with a lower burden of proof.
Thanks to the USA's insane policy on software patents the judge could decide
that patent law supercedes any plagiarism law for software without artistic
content and destroy their theory upfront. If not things could get very messy.
This is as big a threat as software patents themselves and we need to set
precedents to prevent this sort of abuse. It directly attacks many of the
accepted ways we develop software, by borrowing and extending existing
algorithms, by sharing API & ABI's and data interoperability.
Groklaw has dug up a lot of potential evidence for established patterns of
software development recently and SCOG recently started attacking groklaw.
Coincidence?[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Glenn on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 10:28 PM EST |
He is really amazing, and defies the law of statistics. The only thing that
he has gotten right so far is his name. Statisticly, even a pathological liar
would stumble and say something correct on occasion. How Darl can change his
story so often and still manage to keep from telling anything that resembles the
truth is truly a remarkable (in a morbid sense) accomplishment.
Glenn[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 11:09 PM EST |
It is feasable that the referal to being tainted is Darl's interpretation of
Linus' refusal to sign an NDA. Having been in this position myself, you don't
want to sign an NDA because once you see whatever is cover by the NDA you are
'tainted' - you can't use anything you see under the NDA. So if you were
developing something similar you'd have to drop it or possibly be sued.
Reminds me of a joke: What the difference between a used car salesman and a
computer salesman?
A: A used car salesman knows when he is lying.
I think everyone should be careful not to jump to conclusions on this one - Darl
is probably going on the impression he got during the conversation with Linus.
He probably doesn't have copies of the emails either.
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
- What is truth ? - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, April 06 2004 @ 11:17 AM EDT
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 11:09 PM EST |
Hasn't Linus heard the one about never arguing with an idiot? (that they drag
you down to their level and then beat you with experience).
It's faintly embarrasing every time he responds.
Linus, I know you're a figurehead and all, but this is beneath you. Let IBM
stomp on them while you go write some code or have a beer or something.[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: chrisbrown on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 11:36 PM EST |
SCO to Novell: See
you in court,
30 May 2003, By David Becker, Staff Writer, CNET News.com
"The month of
June is
show-and-tell time," McBride said. "Everybody's been clamoring for
the
code...and we're going to show hundreds of lines of code."
Why
SCO decided to take IBM
to court,
16 June 2003, By David Becker, Staff Writer, CNET News.com
We're talking
about line-by-line code copying. That includes not just the function but the
exact, word-for-word lines of code. And the developer
comments are exactly, 100
percent the same. The developer comments really get to the DNA of the code. It's
one thing to have something look the same, but when the developer comments are
exactly the same, that tells
you everything you need to know that this is in
fact lifted, that it has been copied and pasted from Unix into
Linux.
McBride
blames IBM for "majority" of Linux
infringements, 11 September
2003, By Graeme Burton,
Staff Writer, Infoconomy
"What we found
was that the infringements went way beyond
just IBM's
involvement and that other
parties had contributed things
improperly...in going through the process, we
counted over a million
lines of code that
we allege are infringed in the Linux
kernel today out of a total code
base of five million," added McBride.
Nevertheless, IBM was the source of most of that allegedly tainted
code, said
McBride: "The vast majority of that did, in fact, come from
IBM and when we say
IBM, the majority of that actually came from IBM's
acquisition of
Sequent."
Why SCO Thinks It
Can Win, 1
April 2004, By Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, Staff Writer,
eWeek
Steven
J.
Vaughan-Nichols: You
still haven't shown this code, though, that you say
IBM
has taken from Unix and placed into Linux.
Darl McBride: A lot
of code that you'll be seeing coming on
in these copyright cases is not going to
be line-by-line code. It will
be
more along the lines of nonliteral copying,
which has more to do with
infringement. This has more to do with sequence,
organization, which is
copyright-protectable. It's interesting when you go down
this path that
everyone wants to go to the exact lines of code, but most
copyright
cases…are not line-by-line, exact copies. It's too
obvious. Most
copyright infringement cases come from these nonliteral
implementations of the
same code or literary work.
Marmion, Canto VI.
Stanza 17, By Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832), Scottish Author and
Novelist
Yet Clare's sharp questions must I shun,
Must
separate Constance from the nun—
Oh! what a tangled web we
weave
When first we practise to deceive!
A Palmer too!— no wonder
why
I felt rebuked beneath his eye; [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, April 02 2004 @ 11:57 PM EST |
Sontag: We feel very covered under the GPL itself, and second, U.S.
and international copyright law does not allow for inadvertent assignments of
copyrighted material; the copyright holder must make an explicit assignment,
typically in writing, in a contract. If that's the strongest argument that's out
there that SCO has a big problem here, that's a molehill as far as we're
concerned.
Hmm, if handing someone the sourcecode and saying it's
GPL'd isn't explicit enough to have it fall under the GPL license (I know
they're confused about the difference between assigning a copyright vs.
licensing it here) Then it seems odd that they would think that Novell saying
they would assign copyrights that were required for them to enforce thier rights
as being explicit enough to transfer ownership of specific copyrighted
material.
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: kb8rln on Saturday, April 03 2004 @ 12:06 AM EST |
OK lets quote Daryl again.
A lot of code that you'll be seeing
coming on in these copyright cases is not going to be line-by-line code. It will
be more along the lines of nonliteral copying, which has more to do with
infringement. This has more to do with sequence, organization, which is
copyright-protectable. It's interesting when you go down this path that everyone
wants to go to the exact lines of code, but most copyright
cases…
I beleive Daryl is talking about look and feel
copyright law. Remember Lotus 123 and Microsoft: Copyright protection for user
interfaces.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First
Circuit focused on the question of whether a computer menu command hierarchy is
copyrightable and, specifically, whether the Lotus command hierarchy is
copyrightable subject matter. The court found that the Lotus menu command
hierarchy is not copyrightable because it is a "method of operation" which is
foreclosed from copyright protection under 17 U.S.C. §
102(b).
I know that are talking about a user interface can
this be use for OS interface spec. also?
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: mini on Saturday, April 03 2004 @ 01:00 AM EST |
In all these interviews, noone seems to be able to ask this fundamental
question: "What if you're right?"
I'm reminded of the old saying: "Be careful what you wish for - it might
come true". Let's imagine what would happen if there was SCO "IP"
in the kernel, and it couldn't be easily removed:
1. Noone would be able to distribute Linux, not even SCO, because of the GPL.
2. SCO's licencing offer would therefore only be interesting to existing Linux
users (there would be no new users).
3. Linux would need to start over from 2.2
This leads me to conclude that there are only three possibilities. Either:
1. SCO does not understand GPL, *at all*. It seriously does not understand that
they will leave Linux undistributable if they are right.
or
2. SCO does not want to win. They know they can't make money off Linux. It's all
a FUD campaign or similar.
or
3. They don't care for the money, they only want to kill Linux.
I see no other options. Which one is it, do you think?
/Mikael[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, April 03 2004 @ 01:58 AM EST |
Reading the article, it appears that SCO is saying, "No, there isn't any
code, but the methods are the same, and thats where the violation is."
If this is the case, since when was a method of doing something was
copywritable.[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, April 03 2004 @ 02:31 AM EST |
| Disclaimer: I'm not a native English speaker and it is (still) early in the
morning.
I fail to understand your proof: there is a clear controversy
between Linus and McBride about the showing the code and the NDA. To prove that
Linus is right you extract and article stating "Linus said he was asked to
sign and NDA".
In my mind this does not prove that Linus tells the
truth but that he is consistent (something that McBride is not good
at). Given the public record of McBride and TSCOG, I still expect that Linus is
telling the truth (and McBride is lying by omission), but I see no real proof of
it.
Comments?
Loïc [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Wesley_Parish on Saturday, April 03 2004 @ 05:26 AM EST |
Maybe he's getting his little head - I say little
advisedly, because
apparently Zippy the Pinhead in 1981
"Perfectly Abnormal", gave details about
a Pinhead town in
that part of Utah - confused because of a little joke I
played on the computer world, way back when there was an
osopinion.com.
I always used to put in my bio tag, this sort of
thing:
"And now know the gods' dimensions' impor.one had a
market square, or
piazzation! I love the straight - I
wise fool setter. I was born. But I
have been
miscarried."
Excerpt from "Election Speeches Your Mother
Warned You
Against", copyright Meta-X Dissociated Press, emacs
Appreciation
Society, 2000.
"Please includicate I can't. I must've looked at
him,
he's just pretendings erupted, is there enough. I look
abruptly hungup
at her, making a short, swift, i.e.,
opinion."
Excerpt from "Election
Speeches Your Mother Warned You
Against", copyright Meta-X Dissociated Press,
emacs
Appreciation Society, 2000.
"Experts started jumping
uppermost, passionate of the
still, knowing on it, although in my horruction
of a rail
net financial I was accepting timely former wage slaves,
all
furrying on the sky, or screaming. I would have
spread the pleasure. Head as
my ears? A leash too long?
The months started weeping again."
Excerpt
from "Election Speeches Your Mother Warned You
Against", copyright Meta-X
Dissociated Press, emacs
Appreciation Society, 2000.
"Network to
me, I Jaws, masted slightly. Tax Net
prowl. And you with your hands in
forklifts. Do you have
anything set aside? My slaves suck - I am a chartered
scum in their world. The months wed to anot me."
Excerpt from "Election
Speeches Your Mother Warned You
Against", copyright Meta-X Dissociated Press,
emacs
Appreciation Society, 2000.
Excuse me if I'm wrong,
off-Topic, and all the rest,
but don't those few sentences, taken from the
election
speeches of someone even more deranged than certain people
we could
mention, have a certain Daryl-tanga, a definite
Darlness, an obvious Darlitude
in them. (I generated them
with the meta-x dissociated-press command; which
is of
course why I felt free to "copyright" them to the command.
I also
felt certain that only those who knew a little bit
of the vi-vs-emacs "holy
wars" would be able to understand
the joke.) ---
finagement: The
Vampire's veins and Pacific torturers stretching back through his own season.
Well, cutting like a child on one of these states of view, I duck [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: drh on Saturday, April 03 2004 @ 05:41 AM EST |
Lets have a look at this music analogy...
If we liken music to code, we could describe a song as
program consisting of the subroutines drums(), bass(),
guitar(), and vocals(). Each of these subroutines would
have the instructions (notes) for playing each part. Some
of these parts would play largely unaltered throughout the
duration of song() like a program loop. Some parts would
vary quite a lot, or only occur once, separate routines.
When you create song(), by accident or design you include
bass(notes) from somebody else's song() but you use a
different instrument. When the other person discovers that
their bass(notes) is in your song(), they file for
copyright infringement. Should they win, they can receive
damages proportionate to the amount of infringement,
lawyers fees, some other damages perhaps, and even have
their name put into the credits on your song(). They
cannot claim your song() as their song(). They cannot have
your song() removed from the market unless the copying is
substantial. They cannot force you to use the instrument
originally specified the the bass() file. I do not believe
they can force the removal of the infringing bass(notes)
part. They cannot control how your song() is released,
recorded, transcribed, or otherwise used (again unless the
copy is substantial).
But here is where the analogy falls apart. In music, there
are no defined rules on what order song() can be
programmed in. In fact, the only "rule" that exists is:
"does it sound good?". By re-arranging the song() code,
you might just discover a new musical style.
If you rearrange a computer program, it stops functioning.
Why? Because a computer has defined rules on how they
operate and these rules are not flexible. You must have
data before you can operate on it. You cannot read a byte
from a file unless you first move the drive head then find
the disk sector. You cannot print a record unless you
first retreive it from the database.
Darl's argument about copying the logical sequence will
not hold up because there are certain functions that have
to be performed in a certain order or the program will
fail. However, programmers are free to perform other
operations within that sequence, or perform manipulation
on the data between sequence steps, and these account for
the differences between programs. Modern hardware and
operating systems also allow for more flexibility in the
sequence, hence more flexibility in your program, but it
is nowhere near as freeform as music.
So, if Darl wishes to use music as the comparison, he will
also discover that he is not entitled to the remedies he
seeks.
---
Just another day...[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: drh on Saturday, April 03 2004 @ 05:48 AM EST |
Related to my comment above and somewhat to Darl's claims,
I have a question regarding copyright protection in code.
This question arose from an article I read about the
performance of the .NET architecture and how programs
compile and run under it. .NET can be programmed in a
variety of languages and coding styles. According to the
article, the compiler then takes the source code,
translates it to a common internal language, then creates
object code from that intermediate language. I do not know
if this is actually true, but it is theoretically
possible, and even a bit practical. The article mentions
that code from C# and Pascal compiled to extremely similar
code blocks in the internal intermediate language, and the
object code was largely identical, thus the performance
across languages was also nearly identical.
So, here is the question. I write a section of code in
Pascal, you write a section of code in Fortran. Both
sections of code do essentially the same task. However,
since mine is in Pascal, it can be copyrighted, as can
yours in Fortran. Since the object code under .NET is
identical, does infringement actually occur?
Darl appears to be making a similar argument about the
process and sequence being the same even if the code is
not. Linux/Unixware does not have the same structure
as .NET so his argument is weaker, but is this still a
consideration for the future?
---
Just another day...[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: joeblakesley on Saturday, April 03 2004 @ 07:14 AM EST |
| I'm not going to even try and make sense of Darl's statements so here's some
funny things from other articles.
Did anyone notice in the follow-up E-week
article, Linus did
want to see SCO's code, it says at the end "This story was updated to
clarify a quote from McBride"? -- hmmm...don't know what the update was but it
sounds like E-week attempting the impossible there.
Also, has anyone noticed
the Linux-Insider
article (dated April 1st) about the DOJ banning Linux after the IBM and TSG
agreed to settle the dispute with an arm wrestle between Darl & Linus which
Linus lost. It is very funny particularly the bit at the end:
Gates
and Stallman were last seen "partying" at a local Los Angeles drinking
establishment. ...
"This love affair can't possibly last," said Enderle.
"Stallman is sure to bring up the word 'free,' and Gates will drop him faster
than Microsoft Bob." ...
---
Joe Llywelyn Griffith
Blakesley [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, April 03 2004 @ 07:18 AM EST |
| I apologise if this has been posted already.
Sontag: Section 0 of the GPL
states that the legit copyright holder has to place a notice assigning the
copyright over to the GPL. Here is section 0 of the GPL, from the
gnu.org site:
0. This License applies to any program or other
work which contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be
distributed under the terms of this General Public License. The "Program",
below, refers to any such program or work, and a "work based on the Program"
means either the Program or any derivative work under copyright law: that is to
say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it, either verbatim or with
modifications and/or translated into another language. (Hereinafter, translation
is included without limitation in the term "modification".) Each licensee is
addressed as "you".
Activities other than copying, distribution and
modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The
act of running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program is
covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the Program (independent
of having been made by running the Program). Whether that is true depends on
what the Program does.
I don't see anything about signing copyrights to
the GPL. Perhaps he means signing (joint) copyrights with the FSF, which is an
option that GPL developers have. And I believe in that case the FSF
requires you to certify that all the code is original work.
PJ here is
a suggestion, how about an article on the GPL, looking at how it works, what
each section says, etc. Maybe you have already done something like this, in
which case I apologise. [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: rharris1 on Saturday, April 03 2004 @ 08:09 AM EST |
There was a quote from Chris/Darl to the effect that "anyone with a
rational mind" would see that they have a case. From what I have seen from
this article, they have decided to take something with a long and storied
history (UNIX) and equate it to Ice, Ice, Baby. Since neither of these gentlemen
can possibly comment on the technical aspects of the very deep hole that they
have gotten their company into, they take the problem to a simple-minded
extreme.
I think Chris/Darl should have stated that "for anyone to think we have a
case, they need to have a very simple mind."
No matter the question, though, the answers were simply - "well, we believe
we can win". None of those answers deserved to be placed in print.
Cheers
Ray [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, April 03 2004 @ 09:03 AM EST |
Sontag: We don't have to knock out the GPL for us to succeed on the
copyright issue. The GPL itself supports, in a lot of ways, our positions.
Section 0 of the GPL states that the legit copyright holder has to place a
notice assigning the copyright over to the GPL.
All these contributions of our IP did not have an assignment by SCO saying
here, 'We assign these copyrights to the GPL.' The fact that we participated
with Linux does not mean that we inadvertently contributed our code to the GPL.
You can't contribute inadvertently to Linux. We feel we have a very strong
position based on the GPL.
I mean, that is a dead giveaway, right? Nobody ever claimed that SCO signed
over their copyrights (and in fact, Linux development is notorious for people
keeping their copyrights, as opposed to what the FSF prefers for its core
products).
Of course, the copyright of SCO contributions still lies with SCO. They have
every right in the world to licence their own stuff whatever they came up with
under whatever licence they desire.
But that does not change that they licenced their contributions to the kernel
under the GPL. They distributed the kernel under the GPL with their
modification and with the licence files and notices in place.
Nobody else can claim ownership to the code from SCO (aka Caldera etc). But
they have no control over the licence terms of other contributors. They can
either distribute Linux including their contributions under the GPL, or not at
all. That is the choice they have. Their code remains theirs, but as long as
they distribute it integrated into the code of others, they have to heed the
licence of those others, too.
If somebody breaks the GPL on those code parts SCO contributed, SCO can sue for
compliance. They have not signed away their rights.
But they are not allowed to licence Linux under different terms. Their Linux
licence program is plain and simple fraud.
And the stuff with "we assign this copyright to the GPL" is so utterly
ridiculous that I can only see this as an April 1 article. Even in the light of
the usual insanities uttered by SCO, this is too ridiculous.[ Reply to This | # ]
|
- April joke. - Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, April 03 2004 @ 12:49 PM EST
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, April 03 2004 @ 09:05 AM EST |
Darl is saying that if he tells Linus which of the *publically available* Linux
code he purports to own, then Linus can't tell anyone else what it is?
Is that not the definition of bad faith?[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: dmscvc123 on Saturday, April 03 2004 @ 09:46 AM EST |
Assuming that everything Darl said was true and that Linux was evil wicked mean
and nasty because it shares a common structure with Unix and so Unix should have
control. However, that argument could just as well be used against SCO since
it's not like SCO came out of nowhere with no outside influences. Looking at the
history of Unix, it was written by a group of people who had been working on
Multics, which Multics had sprung from other computing projects at MIT. Bell
Labs had withdrawn from the Multics project, but the knowledge from that
persisted, so MIT could just as well claim they own Unix as a derived work of
Multics and make a big stink about how Bell Labs stole Multics by withdrawing
from Project MAC (a group of companies that worked on Multics somewhat
reminscent of Project Monterey) and creating Unix (Unix's name is even meant to
be a joke taking after the Multics name). So Darl's claims taken at face value
would show that SCO was entering into this with unclean hands and as such owners
of OSes that preceded Unix could claim rights to Unix based on non-literal
copying and derived works.[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, April 03 2004 @ 01:04 PM EST |
I see that TSG is lying. Why do some want to serve as TSG appologists?
People are rationalizing TSG behavior. People are explaining TSG nonsense
statements. I observed similar behavior with Scientology and other cults
at conflict. After TSG has trashed F/LOSS and threatened many livelihoods,
some willfully contort the facts and logic in attempts to validate TSG's lies.
TSG changes their statements monthly like the Pigs in Animal Farm. TSG
contradicts themselves regularly. TSG misdirects and disinforms: this
is FUD. TSG lawyers are trying to avoid indictments.
TSG does not want to say anything useful. TSG knows the truth, but some
Groklaw posters are enamored of TSG lies. TSG is toying with their victims.
Stop to understand the risks and the enemy.
Darl most definitely is not the stupid one here. The poor Darl posters...[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, April 03 2004 @ 01:28 PM EST |
| We could use a few more volunteers to keep the QDB
up-to-date. I'm thinking
it might come in handy for IBM
and Red Hat and everyone at trial, when certain
folks are
on the stand telling stories.
I think the quotes are
great, and can help with the
depositions.
A good lawyer at trial
never asks a question to
which he does not already know how the witness
should answer. How do you know how they should
answer? You have their
deposition.
The quote database could be a big help in asking the right
questions at a deposition. Even to the point of letting
McBride answer in
deposition one way, when knowing there
are quotes out there that are to the
contrary. After tall
the best thing that can happen is if the other parties
witness purgers themself.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, April 03 2004 @ 04:38 PM EST |
I am not really annoyed by Darl anymore. His type is so common in the world that
there's no point in getting upset.
But the willingness of this country's legal system to tolerate Darl's behavior
is extremely troubling.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, April 03 2004 @ 07:02 PM EST |
I think we've all missed the single most important quote in the Darl
propaganda:
McBride: Would you buy an operating system without the
source-code copyright? If you don't have copyright, they can turn around the
next day and screw you.
His plan for world domination is
revealed:
1. Purchase source-code copyright.
2. Screw people
3.
Profit!!![ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, April 04 2004 @ 03:26 AM EDT |
Sontag appears to believe there is an issue with the fact that both SVR4 and
Linux use the ELF format for shared libraries. The ELF format is an industry
standard maintained by the TIS Committee. The standard can be found at --
http://x86.ddj.com/ftp/manuals/tools/elf.pdf
Note this section from the disclaimers --
"The TIS Committee grants you a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free
license to use the information disclosed in this Specification
to make your software TIS-compliant; no other license, express or implied, is
granted or intended hereby."
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: aaron_tx on Monday, April 05 2004 @ 12:04 PM EDT |
I read an anlysis of the NDA last year that stated the main problem with the NDA
is it almost prohibits anyone who signs it from any future *NIX development
without that work being attributed to SCO. I think the only people who would
sign it would be journos such as Ms. Didio(t) who don't do any real work anyway.
Darl was trying to trap Linus in the proverbial tarpit, but isn't anywhere near
smart enough to fool someone like LT...[ Reply to This | # ]
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