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| Is SCO Math-Challenged? |
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Friday, August 15 2003 @ 06:14 AM EDT
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When SCO "terminated" Sequent's
license on August 13, it said:
". . .Sequent-IBM has
nevertheless contributed approximately 148 files of direct Sequent UNIX
code to the Linux 2.4 and 2.5 kernels, containing 168,276 lines of code.
This Sequent code is critical NUMA and RCU multi-processor code
previously lacking in Linux."
I got the following email from
a programmer, in which he challenges those numbers:
". . . NUMA and RCU implementation is at most no more than a dozen or
two files in Linux. Each one is likely 1500 lines on average. So how
does that get to be 148 files and 168276 lines? I think there are 2
possibilities and one of them is very interesting IMHO because they
would have to be saying that they are extending their theory of derived
works to large parts of linux.
"1. They are counting for multiple revision of the files.
"2. They are counting everything that NUMA and RCU _touches_, not just the implementation itself.
"Two other interesting things are the precision with which they state this is clearly bogus. Does that include whitespace? How about comments? Why not 168277 lines? The only way I can see that happening is pick a version (which one? there are over a hundred major releases from Linus alone in 2.4 and 2.5 series), find the RCU and NUMA functions/headers and count every line in every file that includes an RCU/NUMA header or calls an RCU/NUMA function. Anything else would require SCO to have access to the Sequent code (or 3. Just make things up).
". . . Defending these exact numbers is going to be a burden .. ."
I noticed Adam Baker commented on that same 8/13 story, and he did some calculations of his own:
"I've just had a quick grep through the (2.4.19) kernel
source and other than trivia such as calling rcu_init() at startup, RCU
seems to consist of one source file (kernel/rcupdate.c) with a
corresponding header file and NUMA of one architecture independent file,
most of which will be ignored by the compiler in some configurations
because of #ifdef statements and less than 20 architecture specific
source files a few of which would be used in any particular kernel that
supported a specific NUMA machine. Large chunks of this code would also
be Linux specific.
"If you exclude the areas which aren't really
part of the core kernel such as networking, filesystems, device drivers,
SCOs GPLed ABI stuff and sound libraries then the kernel only consists
of 86 architecture independant source files and a further 85 to support
the i386 platform and altogether they only total about 100,000
lines."
I'm not a programmer, so i can't speak to this, but when I get information from two sources I trust, it's time to put it up on Groklaw. Did SCO flunk math, as well as GPL Summer School? Or is this foreshadowing an attempted land grab for "derivative" code?
P.S. I just got an email from Roberto Dohnert. He did the math and he says: "To be exact, Numa and RCU come out to 29 files with 1836 lines of code."
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, August 15 2003 @ 03:59 AM EDT |
| From their legal actions we know that the logic abilities of SCO are flawed. (I
am friendly to them :) ) Math is a branch of logic. So the mathematical
abilities of SCO must be flawed too. QED.
What is happening here is clearly part of SCO's strategy of making big claims
in the press. That these clames are deflated with a minimal amount of research
doesn't seem to care them. It's like screaming "fire" in a crowded restaurant
and pointing at the burning candles when the fire brigade arrives.
I have the feeling that SCO never intended to file its lawsuit with IBM, but
that the whole scam started as a plot to pressure IBM in buying some licenses.
They didn't foresee the "put up or shut up" answer from IBM. IBM gave them
plenty of opportunities to retract their claims, but SCO chose the fight. I
don't know why; were they afraid of damace claims?
MathFox[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, August 15 2003 @ 04:57 AM EDT |
To be exact, I counted 29 files with 1836 lines of code associated to NUMA and
RCU. SCO is trying to inflate the number so they can inflate their stock.
Roberto J. Dohnert[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, August 15 2003 @ 04:59 AM EDT |
| McBride, August 5th, teleconference:
"Some of these companies, like IBM and Sequent, have now had their license
agreements terminated for acting in violation of the terms and agreements."
- notice how he said Sequent.
SCO Press Release, August 13th, they say they give 2 months prior notice, and
the Sequent Dynix license is terminated as of August 13th
http://biz.yahoo.com/prn
ews/030813/law050_1.html
"As a result, IBM no longer has the right to use or license the Sequent UNIX
product known as "Dynix/ptx." Customers may not acquire a license in Dynix/ptx
from today's date forward."
...Is there time keeping off?
quatermass[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, August 15 2003 @ 05:02 AM EDT |
| And what about the difference between Old SCO and New SCO
http://biz.yahoo.com/pr
news/030807/lath091_1.html
"SCO has shipped these products [Unixware, etc] for many years, in some cases
for nearly two decades,"
...Do they remember who they are?
quatermass[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, August 15 2003 @ 05:03 AM EDT |
| And what about the difference between Old SCO and New SCO
http://biz.yahoo.com/pr
news/030807/lath091_1.html
"SCO has shipped these products [Unixware, etc] for many years, in some cases
for nearly two decades,"
...Do they remember who they are?
quatermass[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, August 15 2003 @ 07:07 AM EDT |
After all I've read about this, I still don't understand the lack of a
preliminary injunction. What are the grounds for a preliminary injunction and
why don't they apply now?
Stuart Thayer[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, August 15 2003 @ 08:00 AM EDT |
I wonder about this too. I think RedHat's charges include this. Anybody have
an idea how soon the judge might act?
david l.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, August 15 2003 @ 08:33 AM EDT |
| I don't think the judge will act very quickly with a preliminary injunction in
the Red Hat case, because Red Hat allowed SCO to spread its FUD for months
before Red Hat acted. An action aimed at the licencing plan, filed today, would
have a significant chance of getting a preliminary injunction within a few
weeks.
I am writing this with my knowledge about the Dutch legal system. Things are
likely to work differently in the US. I am a programmer, not a lawyer.
MathFox[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, August 15 2003 @ 08:48 AM EDT |
| Let's try this another way. Instead of trying to make SCO wrong, let's make SCO
right and turn it to our advantage. Let's assume that the "148 files of direct
Sequent UNIX code to the Linux 2.4 and 2.5 kernels, containing 168,276 lines of
code" is, in fact, the total number of files and lines SCO is claiming infringe
in some way or another.
Now that we have those numbers, maybe some bright person out there can write a
program to sift through the files in the 2.4 kernel and find some combination of
148 files which consists of 168,276 lines of code. Granted, this is not a
trivial task, particularly given the number of kernels, patches and
distributions out there, but doing it will probably provide the community with a
list of those files which SCO is complaining about, or prove beyond the shadow
of a doubt that SCO is lying. Even a number which came close to 168,276 lines of
code might give us some hints about which files SCO is claiming infringe as long
as the code the program found involved RCU and NUMA.
Anyone up for this particular task?
Alex Roston[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, August 15 2003 @ 09:32 AM EDT |
| The SD Times has an interview with Linus Thorvalds about copyrights and, off
course, the SCO shit: http://sdtimes.com/news/084/story
14.htm
A quote: More importantly, the thing that makes you susceptible to lawsuits
is not how you do things, but whether there is money to be made. Linux is
getting big commercially, and that is what is driving the suit.
Read Linus's answer on the question: Is there a chance that Unix IP really
did get into Linux?
MathFox[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, August 15 2003 @ 11:09 AM EDT |
| MathFox,
Thanks for finding the interview.
'Twas a breath of fresh air. Instead of the fetid miasma that SCOG belches.
D.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, August 15 2003 @ 11:41 AM EDT |
| If we assume that a programmer can produce two fully debugged lines of code/hour
and that a managble project size would be arout 10 persons. It would take about
two weeks to replace the 1836 lines of code in the NUMA and RCU
implementations.
Assume that you can hire a sufficently skilled programmer for $100/h the
replacement would be finaced if less than 150 companies/persons contributed the
same amount of money that constitutes the SCO extortion fee.
Uno Engborg[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, August 15 2003 @ 12:19 PM EDT |
| Uno, just mention the name SCO to the kernel hackers and tell them what lines to
replace and they will do ten lines/hour for free!
I respect copyrights, the Open Source movement respects copyrights. The offer
"SCO, tell us where your problem is and we'll rip it out." is not withdrawn. The
position of the Open Source movement hasn't changed since January. SCO has
continously changed stories and position.
The only reason I take SCO seriously is because of their fight with Linux.
SCO picked the fight. We shouldn't give in to their empty threats.
MathFox[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, August 15 2003 @ 03:07 PM EDT |
| MathFox,
Hear, hear.
If we knew which files were questioned, the files would be replaced very, very
quickly. There are a *lots* of kernel hacker, world wide, who would help for
free. The new code would be ready, and debugged for all linux platforms in a
very few days.
Then all the arguing would be about liability for infringement, if any.
SCOG has refused to let the community mitigate any possible infringement. And
their complaints about code infringement vary, sometimes greatly, from venue to
venue to venue. At times, the claims which are rather vague, have been about
some code "on the periphery" of the Kernel, not in the kernel itself. At other
times some unspecified libraries were mentioned. At other times some alledged
"cut and paste" was supposed to be the offending code. And that the
code was supposedly from unidentified hardware vender. And now its NuMa and RCU
which supposedly came from either AIX, or Sequent, or?
Enough dodging and weaving to leave one breathless...
#include <standard_disclaimer.h>
D.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, August 15 2003 @ 04:20 PM EDT |
| Some pundits keep telling us that we must take SCO seriously and most of the
news media keep repeating what Darl McBride at all have to say with hardly a
snicker, just the way they hanging on every word that the Iraqi Information
minister kept spewing out.
I was initially concerned somewhat that SCO had asked for a jury trial rather
than have a judge make a determination. After all, Microsoft is now having to
appeal a $520 million judgement against a one man comapny (Eolas) for infringing
patents (using plugins in browsers for one) that certainly seem to have been
patents of prior art, but the jury went for the David. Mirosoft has really done
itself no favors in the pr department for years and this could be some sort of
backlash.
IBM seems to have a better public image than Microsoft and I think that any
jury made up of people of at least average intelligence might have to be excused
for breaking out into uncontrolled laughter after a lawyer finishes educating
them on all the ludicrous, misleading, and contradicting statements that Darl
and company have been making since January.
Glenn
Glenn Thigpen[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, August 15 2003 @ 06:03 PM EDT |
| How will Darl came across on the witness stand when confronted with
uncomfortable statements? I think he might struggle, look at the press releases
when SCO has an uncomfortable day.
How will it look for SCO to assert, based on some source code they got in the
cheap years ago, with a somewhat colorful history, they somehow have rights to
millions (billions?) of dollars of other people's work, including IBM's
How will it look for SCO to make claims about rights from the "Old SCO", and
changing their name to be similar, when they're an entirely different
company?
How will it look for SCO to say they want damages from IBM for whatever and
Linux users to pay them?
How will it look that they started to trying to collect from Linux users long
before it got to trial?
How will all the stock activity look to jurors? I bet IBM will have some nice
graphs correlating the rise in stock price to the various trades. (Remember IBM
have made allegations about that)
How will it look to jurors that SCO after 8 or so years in Linux and GPL,
suddenly turned on what they themselves had been doing, and thought the GPL
invalid?
How will it look to jurors that SCO said they were being generous, by not trying
to sue their own customers for Linux "infringements" in the products that they
previously bought from SCO?
How will it look to jurors when IBM present a stack of UNIX internals books,
including one largely written by "Old SCO", containing what seems like the new
SCO claims is secret?
How will it look to jurors when it emerges UNIX as defined by SCO in their
complaint, is not defined that way by anybody else - including in SCO's press
releases and past actions (by getting UNIX certification)?
How will it look when when SCO says they are unhappy about SMP, JFS etc., and it
emerges they profited (well okay, profit is an overstatement - more like sold)
by and marketed these features in their literature for a couple of years before
complaining? And at least one of their employees was involved in
adding/improving them?
Frankly, I am not worried at all about the jury.
I don't know how much the judge might rule on (issues of law?) prior to the
jury.
IANAL, my only concern is SCO might get off on some or all the patent
infringeents that IBM alleges. If IBM has any more patents that they think ought
to be looked at, I for one, wouldn't shed any tears.
quatermass[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, August 15 2003 @ 09:47 PM EDT |
| quartermass, you cited:
"Some of these companies, like IBM and Sequent, have now had their license
agreements terminated for acting in violation of the terms and agreements."
Thanks for a pure example of overstatement and misdirection.
IBM has owned Sequent for a fair number of years, and Sequent has is not a
"wholely owned subisduary"...
#include <stdio.h>
main (){
printf ("standard disclaimern");
printf ("not a lawyer, not a paralegal, just a codern");
}
D.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 16 2003 @ 06:51 AM EDT |
| correction:
Last sentence should read:
IBM has owned Sequent for a number of years, and Sequent is not a "wholey owned
subsidurary"...
#include <stdio.h>
main (){
printf ("standard disclaimern");
printf ("not a lawyer, not a paralegal, just a codern");
}
D.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 07:54 PM EDT |
| "To be exact, I counted 29 files with 1836 lines of code associated to NUMA and
RCU. SCO is trying to inflate the number so they can inflate their stock."
So it would seem...
http://www.eweek.com/
article2/0,3959,1224877,00.asp
"...At that Q&A session, SCO Senior Vice President Chris Sontag said there are
millions of lines of offending code involved..."
All of a sudden, we're up to "millions" of lines rather than the
hundred-some-odd-thousand originally specified.
Sounds yet again like SCO can't get their story straight.
Steve Martin[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, August 19 2003 @ 09:31 AM EDT |
| Two slides from SCOForum have emerged!
If this is news to you, here's a little
remark I wrote up, to the end of:
http://sco.iwethey.org/
El Tonno[ Reply to This | # ]
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