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SCO is Still Distributing ELF, Part 4 and..um STREAMS M & C's too
Wednesday, August 09 2006 @ 11:05 AM EDT

I know. This is ridiculous. But I'm hearing that SCO is still distributing ELF. Here's the latest that was sent to me:
SCO is distributing GDB 4.12 at ftp://ftp2.sco.com/pub/Skunk1/CD-ROM/src/Tools/gdb-4.12.tar.Z, which contains bfd, including ELF reading code. The code is not an exact replica of that in binutils but they appear to share a common ancestry.

So, more evidence gobbling ahead for SCO, methinks. In case you are interested in Skunkware, by the way, there's an interesting presentation about it, titled "Open Source and SCO" at SCO's FTP site here: ftp://ftp2.sco.com/pub/skunkware/intro/index.html. The presentation was given at an earlier SCOForum by Ronald Joe Record, Open Source Program Architect, The Santa Cruz Operation. Here's the COPYING file, the good old GPL. I thought I'd list some highlights, since the poor presentation probably isn't long for this world. As soon as Groklaw publishes these addresses, SCO sweeps them off the Internet.

Speaking of which, I'm told SCO is distributing STREAMS methods and concepts, some source code that demonstrates how to write a STREAMS driver on ftp://ftp2.caldera.com/pub/Skunk96/UnixWare/FreeBird/hints/Development/Sample_Source .

A whole lot of methods and concepts going on there. [Cf. Groklaw's recent article on STREAMS.] By the way, there is some SCO documentation with a very helpful page on STREAMS. Knowledge made freely available is a wonderful thing, don't you think?

Here's just some of the contents in the Ron Record presentation, just for the record:

Advantages of Open Source ...

Customer Advantages

Survive vendor collapse
Not at the mercy of unfixed bugs
Not tied to vendor's strategy or support
Open Source Projects at SCO
... UDI - Uniform Driver Interface
SCO Skunkware
Open SAR
Lxrun - Linux Emulation...

What is SCO Skunkware?

Open Source, Freeware and Shareware
Precompiled for SCO platforms

Release History

1983 - First SCO Xenix Games Diskette
1993 - Skunkware (SCO UNIX 3.2)
1994 - Skunkware 2.0 (OpenDesktop)
1995 - Skunkware 5 (OpenServer 5)
1996 - Skunkware 96 (OpenServer 5) (*Update to Skunkware 5)
1997 - Skunkware 97 (OSR5 + UW2)
1998 - Skunkware 7 & Skunkware 98 (*Skunkware 99 is an update to both 7.1 and 98)

How Do I Get SCO Skunkware?

Included with UnixWare 7 and OpenServer 5
Order online at http://www.sco.com/offers/
... Download via Http or FTP
http://www.sco.com/skunkware
ftp://ftp.sco.com/skunkware

Installing SCO Skunkware

Any SCO Platform
Mount CD and fun /mnt/INSTALL
Open Server 5
Software Manager (/etc/custom) with CD-ROM...
UnixWare 7
Mount CD and run /mnt/INSTALL

Who Made SCO Skunkware?

Thousands of programmers around the world
Ron Record, Skunkware Technical Lead
... http://www.sco.com/skunkware/credits.html

What's New in Skunkware 99 (OpenServer)

...GCC 2.95 Lxrun

What's New in Skunkware 99 (UnixWare 7)

GCC
Lxrun
What's In SCO Skunkware
Database Mgmt
Shells/Shell Utilities
Multimedia Tools
Graphics Tools
File Managers
System Administration
Window Managers
Mail & News
Networking
Development Tools
Text Processing
Java Classes/Apps
X11 Applications
Interpreters/Scripting
Emulators
Games
Editors
InterNetworking

Development Tools

Integrated GNU Compilation System
C, C++, Objective C and Fortran 77 support
GNU Source Level Debugger
GNU Development Tools (make, bison, flex, rcs, cvs, indent, patch, autoconf...)
Graphics Libraries ...
Posix Threads for OpenServer
...InfoDock Integrated Development Environment
Erlang Programming Languages
Standard Template Library
SCO Packaging Front-ends...

Emulators

Linux Emulation System (lxrun )

References

Project UDI
http://www.sco.com/udi/

Open SAR
http://www.starnix.com/osar/

Linux Emulation
http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~steven/lxrun

Linux, Open Source & Network Computing

http://www.sco.com/linux/
This Presentation
http://www.sco.com/forum1999/conference/develop/d4/

SCO has SCO OpenServer Documentation, called DocView still up on the Internet here. There is a page on GNU development tools, and lookee here: binutils. I guess they can't say they didn't know what binutils was, that it came in the GNUtools package, and that it included ELF. The copyright on the documentation is 2003 Caldera International, Inc. (SCO OpenServer Release 5.0.7 -- 11 February 2003). That's a month before Caldera, now SCO, sued IBM. And they provide a helpful link to GNU.org, so they certainly know it's all GPL.

But just in case they try to say they didn't know, here's a 2004 presentation from SCOforum in which the slides show binutils in GNUtools. [Update: As is their wont, SCO has removed the slides from that link. However, you can still find the slides here.] It's listed clear as a bell on the slide titled Open Source Components in OpenServer gnutools package, binutils 2.15.90. You can find it listed also in the slide titled Open Source Components in UnixWare OSTools Package, which lists both Gcc and binutils 2.10.1.

Why is SCO so careless? The first rule of story telling, if one is so inclined, is to make sure you aren't caught in the truth. Linus said once that the Open Source method encourages truthfulness. I believe we have just demonstrated that in our ELF series, which by the way isn't finished. SCO forgot about all those Open Source eyeballs. It's a tremendous advantage to Open Source, and it's the fuel of Groklaw.

SCO told the court some stories but it neglected to clean up all the contrary evidence. Why? One can only speculate, but I think it's because they made a big mistake thinking that Linux folks were no longer needed. They trimmed the engineers and there is nobody there to warn them, or nobody motivated to do so. And now, should this pile of inanity ever reach a jury, I don't think the jury will like what it hears. Judges either.

And what about SCO's experts, who backed SCO up on this inanity about ELF and STREAMS, etc.? Whatever do you think the judge and jury will think of them now? Probably the same thing you are thinking.


  


SCO is Still Distributing ELF, Part 4 and..um STREAMS M & C's too | 490 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Corrections here
Authored by: MathFox on Wednesday, August 09 2006 @ 11:08 AM EDT
Pamela usually is right, but just in case...
Corrections in this thread.

---
If an axiomatic system can be proven to be consistent and complete from within
itself, then it is inconsistent.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Off Topic
Authored by: MathFox on Wednesday, August 09 2006 @ 11:12 AM EDT
This place is for non SCO, non STREAMS, non ELF, Open Source and/or Legal
issues.

---
If an axiomatic system can be proven to be consistent and complete from within
itself, then it is inconsistent.

[ Reply to This | # ]

How prescient of SCO...
Authored by: hardmath on Wednesday, August 09 2006 @ 11:12 AM EDT

During this dry spell in which arbitration must be silently consuming so much of
SCO's attention, they'd laid up a store of Easter eggs for PJ to amuse us with.

--hm


---
Please be honest with us as trust is our watchword in this transaction. (a
Senior Credit Officer, sharing vast sums of money owed to a deceased client)

[ Reply to This | # ]

Correction (not really)
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, August 09 2006 @ 11:37 AM EDT
Shouldn't that be:

Here's just some of the contents in the Ron Record presentation, just for the
record:

Advantages of Open Source ...

Customer Advantages

Survive SCO collapse

Or is it just me?

[ Reply to This | # ]

SCO is Still Distributing ELF, Part 4 and..um STREAMS too
Authored by: skip on Wednesday, August 09 2006 @ 11:52 AM EDT
If these pages are linked on groklaw and get deleted, can they still be used in
court?

I'm puzzled as to why IBM haven't mentioned/found these things themselves if
it's so important.

Or is it that ELF isn't part of the case proper because it was added too late?

It's definatelly embaressing for SCO, but can this information actually harm
their case?

Basically, this is puzzling me.

[ Reply to This | # ]

My dream
Authored by: ExcludedMiddle on Wednesday, August 09 2006 @ 12:09 PM EDT
There are a myriad of reasons why the Judge could rule in favor of IBM PSJs. It
could be because Novell waived SCO's rights, as its contract with SCO allows it
to do. It could be because the Novell suit establishes that SCO doesn't have
standing at all. Or it could be the filtration standard. The list goes on and on
from here.

But my dream is for a double victory in the PSJ phase of this lawsuit. First,
that the judge finds for IBM on all of the issues. There are certainly enough
good reasons for each. Secondly, that amongst those findings, the judge find
that the GPL is a valid license. Let's face it, before we had read a single
brief of this case, our first reaction was: "They released Linux under the
GPL themselves. What possible case could they have after they already licensed
this?"

This lawsuit has become mostly a private dispute between IBM and SCO. But for
the less informed public, and especially the business communities, we could use
a public victory to prove that if a copyright holder licenses code under the
GPL, they can use it in freedom.

Just think, this case could have gone like this:

SCO: "You stole our code!"
IBM: "Accually, you released it under the GPL. The world thanks you for
your contributions."
SCO: "Drat."

Much as I appreciate that the Judge was trying to be careful and give the
plaintiff the benefit of the doubt during discovery, the PSJs really should have
been successful based on that alone. One would think that this nonsense could
have ended long ago based on the plain text of the license.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Perhaps not as good as previous findings
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, August 09 2006 @ 12:13 PM EDT
The STREAMS documentation that was posted in this article is not so relevant.
It's just the developers documentation on how to write code that works with
STREAMS.

Microsoft releases documentation on how to write a Windows device driver. That
doesn't mean that Windows is open sourced all of a sudden.

We all know that SCO has distributed ELF implementations as source code as part
of the binutils package. This was a good observation. The STREAMS case, however,
is different in that it's just programmers documentation. It reveals just about
the same amount of internation information as the Windows device driver
documentation.

[ Reply to This | # ]

SCO is Still Distributing ELF, Part 4 and..um STREAMS too
Authored by: jazzyjoe on Wednesday, August 09 2006 @ 12:35 PM EDT
<impersonate target="SCO">
Enough, enough already! Can't a person bring a decent lawsuit without that
*&^%$# Groklaw stomping all over our case?
Everytime we enter a new claim, that meddling PJ goes off tearing it to shreds.
Next time we file a claim, we'll do so under seal. With an NDA clause. That
should stop them!!
</impersonate>

He, he :)

[ Reply to This | # ]

Mercy, PJ, mercy!
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, August 09 2006 @ 12:48 PM EDT
At some point, you're just holding SCO down so that IBM can pummel them. I'm
not saying they didn't ask for it, but, you know, consider showing a little
charity.

This really feels like a one sided bar fight now. SCO are the little strutting
popinjay who's called out the biggest guy in the bar, the popular gentle giant
with all the friends. But like most small (minded) tough-talkers, their pride
won't let them stay down, even when it's obvious to everyone that they're beat.

The choice is really with you now. Keep giving them their licks until they
crawl out through the open door, or start pulling your punches because - even
though they started it and won't let it stop - holding back is what makes us
different from them.

How about this: the next bunch of stuff that you find, you notify SCO and IBM,
but you hold off from humiliating SCO any further in public. Let's see if they
have enough lingering shreds of common decency to thank you for that, and to
come back from the brink.

And if they don't, well... then whale away with a will.

[ Reply to This | # ]

SCO is Still Distributing ELF, Part 4 and..um STREAMS M & C's too
Authored by: MrCharon on Wednesday, August 09 2006 @ 12:50 PM EDT
Should we just mirror their ftp site and contract some guys from
MIT............. :)

---
MrCharon
~~~~

[ Reply to This | # ]

SCO is Still Distributing ELF, Part 4 and..um STREAMS M & C's too
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, August 09 2006 @ 01:24 PM EDT

It seems clear that SCO will go down fighting.
They probably knew they were going down one way
or another, so they chose this way. With a little
help from their "friends".

Markonhawthorne

[ Reply to This | # ]

SCO published into public domain, too
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, August 09 2006 @ 01:33 PM EDT
From lxrun's homepage at archive.org:

"Lxrun is a user-space program that allows users of SCO(r) OpenServer(tm), UnixWare(tm), and Sun(r) Solaris(tm) x86 operating systems to run ELF and a.out format Linux binaries. It was originally written by Mike Davidson of SCO. In 1997, he released the source code into the public domain. It is now maintained as an open-development effort."


What, not in GPL this time?!




----------------------------
IMANAL (I'M Absolutely Not A Lawyer) - Just didn't login

[ Reply to This | # ]

Methinks that they're distributing IBM code, there.
Authored by: darkonc on Wednesday, August 09 2006 @ 01:44 PM EDT
I have some serious questions about just where they got this sample code from. It looks like it came from somebody's courseware page, and I see no acknowledgement of just who's it is or where it came from. This implies to me that they never bothered to deal with persnickity permission issues.

More interesting, though, is that, if you grab the tar file and extract it and look in UW312.examples/again/dd_dlm, it looks like part of the source code to "the IBM token ring driver."

Now, I admit, that they may have IBM's explicit permission to distribute this code (or it may not even be IBM code), but -- even if you accept their viral UNIX license claims in this lawsuit, it only requires IBM to keep the code quiet. It doesn't give SCO permission to publish it to every Tom, Dick and Harry on the 'net. In other words, if it is IBM source code, SCO just ate a couple of extra toes.

---
Powerful, committed communication. Touching the jewel within each person and bringing it to life..

[ Reply to This | # ]

Both embarrassing and telling.
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, August 10 2006 @ 03:26 AM EDT
Seems like it needs more than lawyers to run an IT company.

Embarrassing and telling that at SCO, nobody seems to be left
who could make an effort to identify and remove all instances
of ELF.

They have to check Groklaw daily to find another one,
and I guess this little game can continue for some more days.

[ Reply to This | # ]

trimmed engineers
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, August 10 2006 @ 04:08 AM EDT
> ... they made a big mistake thinking that Linux folks
> were no longer needed. They trimmed the engineers ...

In all the 3-4 years of litigation I have seen very little reporting on SCO developers, next to nothing actually. How many developers do they have under employment? And how many developers do they have as contractors?

And what do these developers think of the litigation initiatives of their employer/contract partner? How is it possible that in so many years none of them came out to profess a sincere opinion?

[ Reply to This | # ]

SCO is Still Distributing ELF, Part "N"
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, August 10 2006 @ 10:22 AM EDT
PJ,

I have to admit, I having a lot of fun watching you slowly snipe items off of
their ftp servers.

*blam* *ping*.

*blam* *ping*.

*blam* *ping*.

*blam* *ping*. (Another file bites the dust!)

(... and another one's gone and another one's gone, another file bites the
dust!)

So, how do you resist the temptation of just saying, "SCO is still
distributing XYZ, but I'm not going to tell them where, just like they have
refused to tell IBM 'where'." I am sure that the irony would be lost upon
them, alas.

[ Reply to This | # ]

SCO is Still Distributing ELF, Part 4 and..um STREAMS M & C's too
Authored by: Fractalman on Thursday, August 10 2006 @ 12:39 PM EDT

About an hour or two ago I viewed the SCO, skunkware/intro/index.html, and still have it up on my browser. Then, shortly after, I tried to view one of the slides. Alas, not found. If fact, the whole slide show was gone. Tested it in another browser and - - gone there too.

So I've screen captured to first view, still on the browser, and will read it at my leisure. Interesting, getting what may be the last public view of the charts. :)

[ Reply to This | # ]

Streams....
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, August 11 2006 @ 12:13 AM EDT
We laready know that Stremas never made it into the normal kernels because they
don't perform well. Did anyone OTHER than SCO ever distribute them?

[ Reply to This | # ]
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