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What SCO Really Wants |
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Monday, August 18 2003 @ 04:04 PM EDT
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eWeek did an interview with McBride Sunday. Here's the latest from SCO in Wonderland: . . .there are some 2.5 million servers running Linux and . . . SCO has "identified by name those companies running many of them."
"We are in the process of contacting them about coming into compliance and taking a UnixWare license from us. If they refuse to do so, we will sue them directly and see them in court," he said.
When asked by eWEEK if SCO intended to first sue a large Linux user like a Wall Street financial firm or an enterprise-level Linux customer, McBride said that would probably be the case as smaller companies tend to settle when faced with litigation. . . .
"In a nutshell, this litigation is essentially about the GNU General Public License and all it stands for. That license has not yet been challenged or tested in court, but it is now going to be. We are also firmly and aggressively challenging the notion that Linux is a free operating system," McBride said.
One thing I like about this guy: he's too aggressively hormonal to be able to be subtle, so now he's spilled the beans, and we know who they are and what they're after. He doesn't want a settlement, he says. He wants to challenge the GPL and all that it stands for. Think a judge will like those words at trial? Heh heh.
Courts provide relief for wrongs suffered, not an opportunity to use the judicial system to make a point. At least, that's the way it's supposed to work. And that their motive is to attack Linux is precisely what IBM and Red Hat accused them of in their legal documents. How smart is it to make a public statement confirming their accusation? Boies must be out on a ledge somewhere, threatening to jump.
If they really expected to go to trial, I do think their attorneys would be advising him to be quiet. What normally happens in a trial is the parties speak to the press for the most part only through their attorneys. Seen a lot of interviews with Martha Stewart lately?
If, on the other hand, you have PR goals as opposed to legal objectives... say...their stock didn't start going down again, by any chance, did it? Let's see. August 1, it was $13.24. August 15, it was $10.30. Right now, as the week gets started, at 3:48 PM EDT, it's at $10.50, up 1.94% from an opening $10.27. Woops. Now, it's 4 PM, and it's $10.60, up 2.91%.
What a coincidence. It's interesting to follow the ups and down, every time a new threat comes from SCOland. It's probably infinitely more interesting if you are a shareholder. I'm definitely learning a lot about the stock market, I must say.
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 02:11 PM EDT |
The monday talk is here:
http://www.eweek.com/
article2/0,3959,1224274,00.asp
Thew reporter is not very critical, but ther is a lot of interesting quotations
from SCO people.
Boies didnt seem to show up, Heise did.
It is confusing, they are talkin with several tounges at the same time:
-The very DNA of Linux is coming from Unix
-the question underpinning SCO's actions is whether software should be free
-open-source community is a "good idea ...
They drop the attack on GPL as a valid license and
-SCO did not put a copyright into the GPL and authorized the usage of that code
in Linux," Heise said.
There is much more in this, or its just a load of crap. But meethinks everytime
they open their pretty mouths a frog drops out that helps the opposition, US
. Magnus Lundin[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 02:22 PM EDT |
I am absolutely disgusted at E-Week, just as I've been with the rest of the IT
media. Once again, they report Darl McBride and his cronies, without including
any opposing or balancing viewpoints.
If SCO thinks that they can make the GPL go away, they are going to get a rude
shock in court. But until the case goes to court, SCO is been giving free rein
by the press to slander the FLOSS community at every turn. This is simply
unacceptable. Someone needs to get a preliminary injunction against SCO making
any more comments in the press, and get it SOON. Philip Stephens[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 02:23 PM EDT |
Math Challenge part 2, seems grow by a factor of ten over one weekend.
This Heise who is he ??? everytime he opens his moth it seems to turn into
disaster.
Another report from the event:
http://www.itworld.com/Man
/2681/030818scocase/
Sontag and Heise, who is a partner with Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP, argued
that 1,549 files and over a million lines of this derivative source code had
been inappropriately contributed by IBM to Linux.
How many files are there in Linux ??
(that are different from 2.2 to 2.4 ) Magnus Lundin[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 02:24 PM EDT |
One can bet that RedHat's lawyers are collecting every word... D.[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 02:30 PM EDT |
They must be fast coders at IBM, the total is now up to "1,549 files and over a
million lines of this derivative source code had been inappropriately
contributed by IBM to Linux"
Both links are the same IDG article
http://www.itworld.com/Man
/2681/030818scocase/
http://www.in
foworld.com/article/03/08/18/HNscoforum_1.html
Reading Heise's comments in that eWeek article, I'd love to know how you go
about assigning your copyright to a licnse - I always thought it had to be to
either a person or an organisation such as a company, not a piece of paper. Adam
Baker[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 02:31 PM EDT |
I have been trying to find an early story that led me to believe that sco's goal
isnt to win so much as to gain control of linux.like a guardianship role.maybe
to show that the linux developers werent showing themselves to be responsible if
their was sco code in linux.this would be the way they could just steal then
dole out what they felt was fair to all contributors and since unix is the most
important well then they would be the natural one to be guardian.prolly am not
making sense and i dont know law but i have seen cases where judges appoint
guardians for some insane reasons so i wonder if this is possible.
br3n brenda banks[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 02:33 PM EDT |
Very curious.
Does Boies want to kill his own case? Heise in person, at one of McBrides dog
and pony shows.
Very curious, indeed... D.[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 02:33 PM EDT |
find /usr/src/src-linux-2.4.21 -type f | wc
11637 11637 341684
Eleven thousand six hundred thirty-seven files
(find ./ -type f | xargs cat ) | wc
5059020 18232418 150508689
five million lines of code (TOTAL, including blank lines, comments, documentary
files etc...) Sanjeev[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 02:36 PM EDT |
There are 6136 C source files, 7951 header files and 667 assembler source files
in linux-2.6.0-test2.
I guess that Sontag counts every file where an IBM employee added a bug fix
once as 100% infringing. Common interpretation of copyright law is slightly
different. MathFox[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 02:40 PM EDT |
If David Boies left this case based on his moral convictions it would be the
miracle that rekindled my faith in the him and the law. Hmmmmm. What do you
think the probability is that he will do just that????? Pookie[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 02:44 PM EDT |
Brenda Banks, there was someone on the Yahoo boards a while ago who suggested
the same thing, that SCO was angling to set itself up as a custodian / steward /
copyright watchdog. Part of his argument was SCO's "political connections" and
Senator Hatch's "let RIAA blow up your computer" initiative.
I think we can roundly refute that any such grand plan ever occurred to SCO
executives. It's far too subtle to have come out of Linden/Darl's mouth.
To make that work you would need the trust of all parties.
SCO has no-one's trust. (No, Ms Didio does not count for this
discussion).
>> but i have seen cases where judges appoint guardians for some insane reasons
so i wonder if this is possible.
This would be tantamount to giving SCO a monopoly.
I REALLY, REALLY doubt that any judge that read of SCO's actions would give SCO
any stewardship/guardianship role over anything to do with a 'public trust'. Sanjeev[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 02:48 PM EDT |
>>> We are also firmly and aggressively challenging the notion that Linux is a
free operating system,' McBride said."[emphasis added]
<<<
This puts the lie to McBride's promise that SCO will never come after
end-users.
And that SCO never intended to sue the Linux vendors. Sanjeev[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 02:52 PM EDT |
Legal guardians to an international semi-informal free and open cooperatve work
??
They could appoint guardians to Redhat, and others, operating in US and pressure
the world to follow.
They could put guardians on FSF, but open source/free software have some strong
support in very
influential academic circles connected to military research if it comes to this
showdown, remember DARPA/MIT/Berkley ...
Linux could move back to Finland and the rest of the world could go on enhancing
Linux with well known principles of OS design. This is what happened when RSA
encryption got a patent in US but not Europe.
Strong encryption is not leagal to export from US but we got all of it in our
textbooks and some of it
was originally developed over here.
NO I AN NOT TRYING TO START AN US VS. EU AND THE WORLD FIGHT !!!
But as things stand this is really larger than just the US courts and legal
system. Magnus Lundin[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 02:59 PM EDT |
story below says they've "displayed the code"... I want to see it...:
SCO puts disputed code in the spotlight
http://ww
w.businessweek.com/technology/cnet/stories/5065286.htm
Technology launches take second place at SCO's confab to a defense of
the legal battles against Linux, as the company displays the lines of code it
says were copied from its Unix. joe[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 03:09 PM EDT |
http://www.eweek.com/
article2/0,3959,1224274,00.asp
More Darl... now with 20% more B.S.! Z[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 03:10 PM EDT |
Oops, Magnus already posted the link. Z[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 03:15 PM EDT |
According to this
businessweek article, SCO announced the new version of OpenServer will feature
better windows connectivity by including Samba, which is a GPL'd piece of
software. Putting aside the fact that they already distributed Linux under the
GPL, how can they *simultaneously* claim the GPL is invalid while openly
shipping GPL'd product? Or are they planning on raping the Samba group
next... Trent[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 03:26 PM EDT |
Microsoft has never really liked Samba that allows Linux and Unix servers
to replace Windows servers, and users not running Windows to talk to windows
servers.
Thjus taking away sales ofd MS products, a hole they would love to close.
The new hot Samba3 is not yet out, release candidate 1 was announced saturday
(16'th)
so this is not very uniqe to OpenServer, everybody is allowed to use it and will
have it
on final release.
Note that GPL only puts conditions on redistribution, not on download and
usage.
So even SCO (if found noncompliant) must by GPL be allowed to use the
software. Magnus Lundin[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 03:32 PM EDT |
Yes, everyone is free to use Samba, even SCO people. But using and
distributing are two different beasts under the GPL, and my question is how do
you distribute software under a license that you claim is not only invalid, but
bad for the industry. SCO has some 'splainin' to do. Trent[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 03:40 PM EDT |
Quotes, more Sontag, and Heise's legal theories on GPL
http://www.eweek.com/
article2/0,3959,1224322,00.asp
Last year the company also brought the SCO brand back and got the message out
that SCO equaled Unix, McBride added.
http://www.eweek.com/
article2/0,3959,1224321,00.asp quatermass[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 03:42 PM EDT |
Oh I noticed SCO claimed some more stuff according to the itworld link already
posted quatermass[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 03:42 PM EDT |
Oh I noticed SCO claimed some more stuff according to the itworld link already
posted quatermass[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 03:48 PM EDT |
From businessweek link: "It said, for example, that more than 829,000 lines of
SMP code had been duplicated in Linux."
Q. Does that sound right to any Linux coders? It just sounds like way too high
to implement SMP to me?
From http://www.eweek.com/
article2/0,3959,1224322,00.asp
In terms of obfuscating code, Sontag said SCO has gone through millions of lines
of code and developed methods to find similarities. "We have rocket scientists
who have applied their spectral recognition and pattern analysis to software,
which has yielded amazing results. We have found needles in the Mount
Everest-sized haystack," Sontag said.
Q. What is he talking about? How do they plain to present this in court? What
copyright theory is he working on? Sorry, this just makes no sense at all to
me, quatermass[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 03:51 PM EDT |
http://infoworld.
com/article/03/08/18/HNscoforum_1.html
...650 developers and channel partners... In a two-and-a-half-hour keynote
address, SCO executives sought to portray their struggles with IBM and the Linux
community as a fight for the future of proprietary software itself, an argument
that seemed to play well with the audience, which cheered McBride on at
points.
Who are these people? I have a hard time even imagining that there are 650
UnixWare developers. It must be more like an employee retreat.
The article also mentions XFS filesystem. But, XFS only runs on Irix and Linux.
It is from SGI, and is not even in kernel 2.4.x. So I don't see how they are
relating this to IBM.
From http://oss.sgi.com/pro
jects/xfs/faq.html#whatisxfs :
XFS is a journalling filesystem developed by SGI and used in SGI's IRIX
operating system. It is now also available under GPL for linux. nexex[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 03:59 PM EDT |
Trent:
It seems to me the have dropped the notion that GPL is invalid, today they only
states thah it does'nt apply to SCO controlled code in Linux. ( How can they
keep Heise after that foulup, and why are so few questions asked)
Back to Samba, so they do agree that GPL is legally valid (but destructive to
software industry and USA and my possibility of buying a second house ... ).
Since Samba is not part of OpenServer but runs on top of it, they can distribute
it. Here we still have the very real, unansvered and difficult questions if
linking to GPL kernels,
or calling GPL kernels is a part of the GPL work. But it seems that it is
generally agreed that it is possible to run GPL programs on non GPL OS'es, so
Samba is OK. Magnus Lundin[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 04:00 PM EDT |
nexex - I think that SCO's theory of derivative works, seems to be that if
something ever touched Unix, it can't be added to Linux without their
permission. I get the impression this extends to things which did not even begin
life on Unix (JFS), let alone their version of Unix (XFS).
BTW: This post has number of lines of code kernel.org (I don't know if these are
correct). If correct accorind to SCO 829,000 for SMP, all inappropriately added,
= 20% of Linux. That just doesn't sound feasible to me, anybody want to check it
out?
http://finance.messages.yahoo.com/bbs?.mm=FN&act
ion=m&board=1600684464&tid=cald&sid=1600684464&mid=29303 quatermass[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 04:03 PM EDT |
If you ever wondered what the purpose of SCO forum was, here's more FUD to wade
through:
http://news.com.c
om/2100-1016_3-5065286.html?tag=fd_top MajorLeePissed[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 04:06 PM EDT |
SCO Blasts IBM, Red Hat Counterclaims
http://www.crn.com/sections/BreakingNews/dailyarchives.asp?ArticleID=43982
Selected quotes:
IBM's attempt to apply the General Public License in its counterclaim against
SCO won't work because federal copyright law supercedes the GPL, SCO CEO Darl
McBride and other SCO attorneys maintained at SCO Forum 2003, which opened
Monday in Las Vegas.
The SCO CEO also dubbed IBM's attempts to apply patent law against SCO as part
of Big Blue's typical legal "playbook" for delaying court decisions, adding that
he found it "very, very interesting" for IBM -- a company that holds so many
patents -- to go after one trying to protect its own intellectual property (IP).
McBride lashed out at Novell and Red Hat, saying efforts by those companies to
cast doubt on its legal case against IBM are unfounded and said he has evidence
of IBM successfully enlisting ISV partners to smear SCO's name.
During his keynote, for example, McBride claimed that Novell CEO Jack Messman
did not know about an amendment to the Unix System V contract Novell sold to SCO
before making public claims that Novell owned Linux copyrights. The amendment,
McBride said, rendered fully Unix System V copyrights to SCO and ultimately
quieted Novell.
He also questioned the seriousness of Red Hat's counterclaim, noting the Raleigh
N.C., Linux software company did not seek an injunction.
-- My comment: pot, kettle, black
SCO claimed that much of the core code of Linux including Non-Uniform Memory
Access, the Read Copy Update for high-end database scalability, Journaling File
System, XFS, Schedulers, Linux PPC 32 and 64-bit support and enterprise volume
management is covered by SCO's Unix System V contracts and copyrights.
For example, 110,000 lines of Unix System V code for read copy update, 55,000
lines of NUMA code and more than 750,000 lines of symmetric multi-processing
code from Unix System V has made its way into Linux, attorneys and SCO
executives claimed.
"We're fighting for a right in the industry to make a living selling software,"
McBride said. "The whole notion that software should be free is something SCO
doesn't stand for. We have drawn the line. We're supposed to be excited about
that and we're not." quatermass[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 04:11 PM EDT |
Counting files again:
If kernel 2.2 is not infringing and 2.4 has 1500 files infringing then they are
(must be) totally wrong.
I dont know the number of files that has any change from 2.2 to 2.4 and neither
the number of
files related to the disputed technologies (note that scheduling has been added,
I havn't seen that one before)
and the number of files with one line changes (optional) to accomodate RCXU,
NUMA etc.
But I am willing to bet a very nice dinner (everyting included) at my hometowns
best resturant that this last number
is nowhere near 1500 files.
Of course I might be wrong. Magnus Lundin[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 04:12 PM EDT |
Something is not adding up. From the eweek article:
"Citing the background to the lawsuit SCO filed against IBM in March, McBride
said that when SCO started charging for its Unix class libraries earlier this
year, Big Blue was vocally opposed to this and threatened to stop working with
SCO and to get its partners and customers to stop supporting SCO if it proceeded
with that plan.
As soon as SCO announced that class library intellectual property initiative,
"IBM stopped working with us and cut us off. We were thus backed into a corner
and decided to fight back," he said. "
So let me get this straight. McBride claims that the idea to sue IBM came when
IBM "backed" SCO into a corner, and this event happened when IBM stopped working
with SCO after SCO started charging for its Unix class libraries. McBride said
this all happened earlier this year, and obviously before March. That doesn't
leave much time. So according to McBride, sometime from Jan - early March of
this year all this happened, and only then did it occur to SCO to sue IBM, being
backed into a corner and all.
But didn't we already have a page full of Groklaw links showing their growling
about IP rights back in January? Didn't we already see an intent to take legal
action back in January?
So how can McBride now be saying that the idea for suing IBM came after this,
and only because they were backed into a corner and thus were forced to take
this action? The timing seems wrong, he said innocently. Nick[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 04:16 PM EDT |
Good points Magnus Nick, if this was Slashdot, and fortunately it's not, I'd say
mod up parent, hopefully PJ will pick up those for the main article!
Magnus: I'm wondering if you add up all the lines (in SMP there seems to be
100,000 or so discrepency between two articles) it will eventually add up to
more than entire Linux, let alone difference between 2.2 and 2.4 quatermass[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 04:17 PM EDT |
Some US organization needs to get up the balls to go and get a preliminary
injuction slapped on that SCO bitch and quick. Those a**holes are going to
continue to use every avenue to brainwash naive managers and do as much damage
as possible.
TEMPORARY INJUNCTION NOW!!!!!!!!!!!! QUIT STALLING!!! SHEESH! MajorLeePissed[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 04:23 PM EDT |
I don't get it. When a complaint was filed against SCO in Germany, it didn't
take the court long to issue an order to tell SCO to either put up or shut up.
SCO chose to shut up. When Red Hat and IBM filed the complaints against SCO, why
didn't we see a similar court order to have SCO put up or shut up?
Just curious. Quan[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 04:25 PM EDT |
If they think the GPL meant nothings, then they are knowingly violating the
copyright of the Samba group. However I believe they have implied that they
believe the GPL is invalid but placing the GPL on source automatically puts it
into the Public Domain.
Although they have also said that you can only reliquish your copyright in
writing. So I don't think that they understand what they think they know.
SCO really are either inept or crooked. idlethought[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 04:26 PM EDT |
Magnus: They are talking about bundling Samba with the next release of
OpenServer. You, Me, and probably everyone on this thread probably understands
why they can do this, *we* have no problems understanding the GPL. Then there's
SCO on the other hand. At the very least, it is the utmost in hypocricy to
openly disparage the GPL while simultaneously using GPL code to enhance your own
products. At the worst (for SCO), it undermines their arguments that (1)the GPL
has a shaky legal foundation, and (2) that the GPL is bad for the industry,
since it is apparently good enough for SCO to use in their products (still!).
style="height: 2px; width: 20%; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: auto;">Trent[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 04:28 PM EDT |
Quan, it's because Red Hat and IBM are seeking permanent injunctions. Those
aren't awarded till after the trial, which is too f*cking far off!
The German request was for a preliminary injunction. Something we desperately
need now!
If no US organization has the balls to seek it a preliminary injuction, I wonder
if us Groklaw readers could possible ban together to get one.
We're up to our eyeballs in FUD, and it needs to end. MajorLeePissed[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 04:37 PM EDT |
MajorLeePissed: I am in complete agreement with you on a preliminary injuction.
Considering all the outrageous statements SCO made against opensource community,
the GPL, etc., I think we have enough reasons to file for a preliminary
injuction of some sort to shut them up. Quan[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 04:38 PM EDT |
Quan,
Germany works under a diffent set of rules than we do here in the US.
We allow much more aggressive actions in a business context than is allowed in
the EU, for example.
I have no doubt that the legal teams for both IBM and RedHat are takeing good
notes, and will use this material when it fits their strategy and tactics.
While Darl rants and raves the rest of the world is rolling out the GNU/Linux
deployments. D.[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 04:48 PM EDT |
This is so .... weird. "Over the top" does not BEGIN to describe the latest
claims.
How can anyone who knows ANYTHING about Linux, who has ever done any programming
take this stuff seriously?
I remember reading a book on negotiating, and the author basically said, 'act
stupid to the point of annoying the opposition. NEVER let on that you know
exactly what's going on, and that in fact, you're in control.'
Can anyone here think of some theory that would make these claims and conduct
valid? Please read below and suggest alternatives.
____
My take on this from the beginning has been
1. SCO tried to take IBM for some money.
2. that didn't work. SCO went to court, hoping for a quick settlement.
2a. Ask the court for an outrageous amount to get an outrageous settlement.
4. Spread as much FUD as humanly possible, hoping to get IBM to settle.
4a. the start of the entire Linux FUD engine is predicated on this one point,
trying to stall Linux adoptions, hoping enlist IBM customers and a gullible
press to force IBM to settle. The intent is to settle while never showing the
offending code
4b. The intent was to use the IBM settlement money and the IBM settlement itself
as a precedent to go after the rest of the Linux world (Linux vendors, HP, SGI,
embedded vendors, the whole shooting match). Full of IBM's cash to use for
lawsuits, SCO could have blusterd and threatened their way to control of Linux,
without ever showing the 'offending' code.
5. This is a high-payoff, high-risk gamble. SCO decides to start playing some
side-bets in case the one big gamble does not pay off.
5a. this includes the Vultus thing
5b. this includes the outrageous claims of IP ownership and rights to
collect.
6. The RedHat suit and Darl's responding letter, which indicated that SCO was
playing a stalling tactic against RedHat (perhaps that's why RedHat did not file
suit for so long?) indicate that the licensing scheme is a last-ditch, desperate
attempt to squeeze money out of the ongoing FUD situation. The speed of it, the
huge escalation of FUD indicates SCO had been preparing to do this, and the RH
suit just moved up their schedule.
7. That's where we are today. SCO's play 4 is a long way from happening, so
they are milking 5a and 5b for all they're worth.
This is a scenario that best comports to what I've seen. All the FUD, the
outrageous claims, everything supports this thesis, along with the initial fact
that SCO was going to go out of business, and are a litigious bunch, so were
predisposed to these acts.
But I'm just left scratching my head at the most recent statements. Have I
missed something? They're sounding altogether WAY too stupid to ever be taken
seriously by anyone with a clue. Anybody have another plausible scenario that
would account for the extreme escalation we're seeing, or does my scenario
account for it?
I know Didio will probably buy SCO's new assertions, and those SCO resellers who
applauded McBride (even though all SCO products will be dead soon, killed by
IBM's patent claims)
Sanjeev[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 04:49 PM EDT |
Couple of thoughts on quotes (already posted)
1. The SCO CEO also dubbed IBM's attempts to apply patent law against SCO as
part of Big Blue's typical legal "playbook" for delaying court decisions, adding
that he found it "very, very interesting" for IBM -- a company that holds so
many patents -- to go after one trying to protect its own intellectual property
(IP).
My comment: Isn't IBM defending its patent rights, also defending it's IP? Pot,
kettle, black. I think he just doesn't get it.
2. IBM's attempt to apply the General Public License in its counterclaim against
SCO won't work because federal copyright law supercedes the GPL, SCO CEO Darl
McBride and other SCO attorneys maintained at SCO Forum 2003, which opened
Monday in Las Vegas.
My comment: GPL = invalid on the Heise theory (the one Eben of FSF calls
"frivilous" and "moonshine") appears to still be on the agenda.
Yes, and I think the hypocrisy of not only using GPL in the past, but using it
now (Skunkworks, etc) and in future, sticks out in my mind. It seems like SCO
really says "GPL is invalid when it suits us, and valid when that suits us."
3. I don't want anybody to miss this quote:
From http://www.eweek.com/
article2/0,3959,1224322,00.asp In terms of obfuscating code, Sontag said SCO
has gone through millions of lines of code and developed methods to find
similarities. "We have rocket scientists who have applied their spectral
recognition and pattern analysis to software, which has yielded amazing results.
We have found needles in the Mount Everest-sized haystack," Sontag said.
Sorry, can't find it now, but there's a brief McBride quote in one of the links
along the same lines.
I'm sorry, but I've re-read this a few times, and the more I read it, the more,
to me, it just sounds like techno-babble (or more accurately techno-BS). Is
there really some bizarre copyright-theory that this works under? quatermass[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 04:49 PM EDT |
More from FSF: http://www.fsf.org/
philosophy/sco/sco-preemption.html
"This argument is frivolous, by which I mean that it would be a violation of
professional obligation for Mr Heise or any other lawyer to submit it to a
court." Heh. Paul[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 04:49 PM EDT |
Couple of thoughts on quotes (already posted)
1. The SCO CEO also dubbed IBM's attempts to apply patent law against SCO as
part of Big Blue's typical legal "playbook" for delaying court decisions, adding
that he found it "very, very interesting" for IBM -- a company that holds so
many patents -- to go after one trying to protect its own intellectual property
(IP).
My comment: Isn't IBM defending its patent rights, also defending it's IP? Pot,
kettle, black. I think he just doesn't get it.
2. IBM's attempt to apply the General Public License in its counterclaim against
SCO won't work because federal copyright law supercedes the GPL, SCO CEO Darl
McBride and other SCO attorneys maintained at SCO Forum 2003, which opened
Monday in Las Vegas.
My comment: GPL = invalid on the Heise theory (the one Eben of FSF calls
"frivilous" and "moonshine") appears to still be on the agenda.
Yes, and I think the hypocrisy of not only using GPL in the past, but using it
now (Skunkworks, etc) and in future, sticks out in my mind. It seems like SCO
really says "GPL is invalid when it suits us, and valid when that suits us."
3. I don't want anybody to miss this quote:
From http://www.eweek.com/
article2/0,3959,1224322,00.asp In terms of obfuscating code, Sontag said SCO
has gone through millions of lines of code and developed methods to find
similarities. "We have rocket scientists who have applied their spectral
recognition and pattern analysis to software, which has yielded amazing results.
We have found needles in the Mount Everest-sized haystack," Sontag said.
Sorry, can't find it now, but there's a brief McBride quote in one of the links
along the same lines.
I'm sorry, but I've re-read this a few times, and the more I read it, the more,
to me, it just sounds like techno-babble (or more accurately techno-BS). Is
there really some bizarre copyright-theory that this works under? quatermass[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 04:50 PM EDT |
sorry for the dupe (last post) quatermass[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 04:53 PM EDT |
nexex:
The lines of code for the SMP implementation is far less than 829,000.
In linux-2.4.21:
(find arch/i386 -name '*smp*' -exec cat true ;)| wc -l
1858
(find include/linux -name '*smp*' -exec cat true ;)| wc -l
111
(find include/asm-i386 -name '*smp*' -exec cat true ;)| wc -l
317
for a total of 2,286 lines, including all headers.
In linux-2.6.0-test3:
(find arch/i386 -name '*smp*' -exec cat true ;)| wc -l
3766
(find include/linux -name '*smp*' -exec cat true ;)| wc -l
185
(find include/asm-i386 -type f -name '*smp*' -exec cat true ;)| wc -l
233
for a total of 4,184 lines.
Most of the code (about 60%) is in the boot up processing, which detects and
initializes the processors.
The original code was written by Alan Cox in 1995 using a grant of hardware from
Caldera; the maintenance of the code was then picked up by Ingo Molnar.
Even if you count the calls to the SMP code from the scheduler, you couldn't
come close to McBride's number.
Maybe the water supply in the Canopy Group's building is contaminated with
peyote - supernatural visions seem to be in over-supply there. Dick Gingras - SCO
caro mortuum erit![ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 04:54 PM EDT |
Trent:
I totally argree, I also have the unproved suspicion that they have incorporated
GPL code from Linux
and other open source projects into OpenServer. Specifically all the new drivers
for USB etc.
Since this is difficult to prove without acess to the source code, court order,
and the simularities of
capabilities and behaviour reported the other day is legally not proof we must
wait for discovery in the ReadHat
or IBM cases or some new suit from SCO on an end user.
The discovery of facts, and AIX audits, that SCO talked so much about in june
might (I hope) turn into their
worst nightmare where all their arguments are voided and they are forced to
reveal publicly their claims to
Liunux kernel sources. Then a real debate can start. Magnus Lundin[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 04:55 PM EDT |
Sanjeev - Darl's comment about getting some "traction" in the conference call,
the say after Red Hat filed, is I think a clue of what's going on, and perhaps
more revealing than intended.
As no negotiations (AFAIK), and no litigation between SCO and Red Hat, had
occurred at that point - any "traction" must have resulted from something other
than either of these two causes - and I presume Darl meant the "traction" came
from the press coverage. quatermass[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 04:59 PM EDT |
Magnus, you might also want to look over articles from when SCO's LKP was
released. Stowell made some comments one day, and the next day issued a very
quick retraction to part of his comments, saying he had mis-spoke or some
such.
There have also been other reports (I think eweek?) of possible incorporation of
GPL code into Unixware.
Like you, I am not in a position to make any judgements about whether there is
in fact GPL code copied into Unixware, or not. quatermass[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 05:00 PM EDT |
Quartermass - >>>> In terms of obfuscating code, Sontag said SCO has gone
through millions of lines of code and developed methods to find similarities.
"We have rocket scientists who have applied their spectral recognition and
pattern analysis to software, which has yielded amazing results. <<<
We used to play word salad games like this.
Sontag, didja run a fft with a notch-filtered laplacian transform on that
specral analysis?
And after that, what about appliying Dr. Phuhje's Heaviside lowpass algorithms
along with some perturbation analyses of the fractal dimensions? That would go
a long way towards helping with the dimensional freedom analysis, too.
Didja check the alternator? I bet it's the alternator.
I've read that when the Star Trek writers need some techno-mumbo-jumbo in their
scripts they just insert the words <techspeak> in the script. Sanjeev[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 05:12 PM EDT |
SCO's is approaching the copyrigh issue broadly. They're using 'very' broad
terms like "ideas, concepts, methods, approaches, and the like in their law suit
against IBM (chuck a lot of crap and see what sticks approach, after all the
judge just might be an idiot.) The DMCA invites this nonsense and if you go over
the recent history of copyright cases you'll see judges catering to the idiocy.
(After all who enables them to get their message out come election time?.)
Starting back with the Chiffons v
Beatles<a/> nonsense over "He's So Fine" v "My Sweet Lord," identical
harmonies, blah, blah, blah. (Doing a 'find' on Beatles will get you to the
relevant section 5, infringment part) Since then the courts have gone nuts givng
their okay to some of the most ludicrours claims to copyright and even patent
infringement.
The folks at RIAA and MPAA have a full head of steam and they're going to try to
ram crap through the court system until someone stops them cold. Unfortunately
they'll destroy a lot of good folks before they're stopped.
Oh, by the way, this site is pretty cool relative to cyber law and such. PhilTR[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 05:17 PM EDT |
Quartermass,
There's a grand total of 676 lines of NUMA code in the 2.6.0-test3 kernel and
402 lines of RCU code.
I'm assuming that the designers follow standard practice and modularize their
code into just a few source files.
In my distant past, I have designed and implemented operating systems and know a
fair bit about the subject. There is no possible way it would take 750,000 lines
of code to do SMP or 110,000 lines to do NUMA, much less 55,000 to implement
something as simple and elegant as RCU.
SCO's claims are utter nonsense, obviously aimed at the ignorant. Dick
Gingras - SCO caro mortuum erit![ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 05:18 PM EDT |
Heheh...never realized I could cause such havoc by not putting the slash in the
right place!! PhilTR[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 05:20 PM EDT |
Open-Source Community Approaches SCO
http://www.eweek.com/
article2/0,3959,1224877,00.asp
"We challenge SCO to specify exactly what code it believes to be
infringing….only with that disclosure can we begin the process of remedying any
breach that may exist….if SCO is willing to take the honest, cooperative path
forward, so are we. If it is not, let the record show that we tried before
resorting to more confrontational means of defending our community against
predation," the e-mail said.
At that Q&A session, SCO Senior Vice President Chris Sontag said there are
millions of lines of offending code involved and that it's highly unlikely the
matter could be resolved by removing that code. <--- My comment: N.B. Note
this - they won't say what infringes, won't allow it removed, and even if
removed somehow, that won't be sufficient for them
Mark Heise, a partner at Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP, the primary law firm
representing SCO, said that he found it interesting that with all its patents,
IBM was arguing for open source. "We believe that any GPL claim by IBM is
pre-empted by Federal Copyright law and are very comfortable with our position
on that," he said. quatermass[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 05:22 PM EDT |
Continued http://www.eweek.com/
article2/0,3959,1224879,00.asp
McBride: No intention to go after Sun or HP. quatermass[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 05:25 PM EDT |
From 5.20:42PM post: "If it is not, let the record show that we tried before
resorting to more confrontational means of defending our community against
predation"
Could this be a hint of another law suit? quatermass[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 05:25 PM EDT |
So basically, SCO is playing the Ned Ludd role here. Their business model is
threatened by the emergence of a new, more efficent, way of doing business, and
SCO is responding by trying to destroy this new competition before it destroys
SCO. However, in this 21st Century iteration, the purportedly injured party is
entirely cynical. Unlike the Luddites, SCO (Caldera) is merely the receiver of a
business that was already failing when they picked it up in a fire sale --
McBride and his crew have no blood, sweat and/or tears invested in Unix per se
-- only money, and other people's money at that. It is really, really hard for
me to imagine that Caldera didn't know that the business of selling Unix
licenses was in sorry shape when they made that transaction. They cannot
possibly have been surprised earlier this year to find that Linux -- or, more
precisely as we see now, the GPL -- was damaging their ability to make money off
of Unixware; after all, they had until recently been one of the companies
participating in that very damage. It's as if Ned Ludd and his followers had
worked for several years helping to build those new-fangled factories before
they realized that, as a consequence, they were never going to be able to go
back to the old ways. McBride insists that the GPL is interfering with the
industry's right to make a living selling software; the Luddites were angry
because the new factories were interfering with their right to make a living
from their skills. Someone needs to explain to him that there is a difference
between having a right to profit from one's work and the world being obligated
to make one's work profitable. bob[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 06:08 PM EDT |
McBride interview
http://www.crn.com/sections/BreakingNews/dailyarchives.asp?ArticleID=43984
Choice comments:
McBride: We tried to move this along, but IBM kept asking for delays. Now with
the counterclaim and patent infringement, it could go even longer. IBM can put
this on a slow track [with additional legal moves]. But IBM might be throwing
hard balls to [get ready] for the soft pitch [to settle].
McBride: They're putting this on a [slow, legal] path. But customers have been
putting pressure on IBM to get this resolved. This is not a case IBM can get
knocked out on -they'd be filing motions to dismiss the case [if they thought
they could win]. Our case is up to $3 billion- they'd have to come up from a few
hundred million dollars to settle. Every month, we keep finding more and more
[Linux code that violates out Unix System contract]. We'd want a settlement and
royalty [on Linux] going forward. quatermass[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 06:32 PM EDT |
McBride and company are well past FUD. It seems that most of the companies that
were planning to roll out Linux are still going ahead with their plans. There
are some week kneed people who may hesitate, and they will regret it because
their competition will be that much more ahead of them when the dust settles.
SCO/caldera is playing the gullible portions of the press for all they can.
Their math does not add up, but it seems that no one is asking them any hard
queations. Maybe it is that they will not allow anyone to ask any hard
questions. They carefully control any media events in which they are
participating. And their public pronouncements are more and more contradictive
and ludicrous. Will anyone dare to hire Boises' lawfirm after this fiasco has
played out to its bitter end?
Aren't those public pronouncements supposed to have at least a kernel of
truth for them not to be actionable in court? Everything that they have said and
will be saying is/will be public record and can be played back in court.
Have they even filed to start the discovery process with IBM?
They are either crazy or liars with criminal intent. Either case, they should
be put away for the safety of the "silent majority" who do not seem to like them
either.
Also, to PJ. Thanks for all of your research and commentary. It is a breath
of fresh air in the SCO smog.
Glenn Glenn Thigpen[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 06:49 PM EDT |
One thing to rember, todays dog and pony show was tailored for an audience
who have a very good living reselling old SCOs products for many years. And
they have seen strong competion from the likes of RedHat on one side and
Microsoft on the other.
And many, over the past few years, have moved on.
McBride has to convience the diehards that were right to stay with the sinking
ship.
Hence the hyperbole.
D.
M D.[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 06:51 PM EDT |
Penultimate sentence should read:
McBride has to convience the diehards that they were right to stay with the
sinking ship. D.[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 07:27 PM EDT |
Guys, if you come up with an agreed-upon figure for lines of code, and everyone
agrees, I'll run it as a story. All I ask is that you be truly careful, check
the math, and send it to me by email. You can post too if you want, but email
always flies before my eyes, and comments later. Just a time thing. I really
love the comments. Except, Major, please remember our bargain: no legal advice
unless you are a lawyer. Thanks. pj[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 07:53 PM EDT |
Let's take SCO's silliness to its logical conclusion.
A programmer writes source code for a commercial operating system. That same
programmer then writes a new "hobbyist" operating system that incorporates some
of the ideas he developed working on the previous OS. According to SCO, the
second OS is "tainted" and "derivative" code which should rightfully be owned by
the company that owns the original OS. Unfortunately for SCO, the "derivative"
OS is UNIX. Ken Anderson and Dennis Ritchie used their experience from the
MULTICS project when they created UNIX in order to run a space travel program.
So SCO should turn over any claims they have on UNIX to the owner of MULTICS -
probably still AT&T, since I don't believe that it was ever released.
But why stop there? The MULTICS team was obviously familiar with GCOS, an
operating system that shows a family resemblence to UNIX. There is even a "GCOS
field" in the UNIX /etc/passwd file - certainly strong enough evidence to meet
SCO's standards. GCOS passed from General Electric to Honeywell to Bull (a
French Computer company). Bull is still selling GCOS! Maybe they are the true
owners of UNIX-which-is-really-MULTICS-which-is-really-GCOS.
I don't know the history of GCOS, but we could probably continue this all the
way back to Babbage.
A good popular account on the history of UNIX is LIFE WITH UNIX by Don Libes and
Sandy Ressler (Prentis-Hall, 1989 ISBN 0-13-536657-7). Written before Linux
existed, it documents how, during the first two decades of UNIX, many
programmers contributed to it, and the source code became one of the world's
worst kept secrets. It also documents that completely AT&T-free UNIX-like
operating systems (MINIX, XINU) were readily available even at that time. Sue[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 08:04 PM EDT |
http://www.eweek.com/a
rticle2/0,3959,1224839,00.as p
At that Q&A session, SCO Senior Vice President Chris Sontag said there are
millions of lines of offending code involved
My comment: "millions of lines", must = 2 million or more, otherwise wouldn't be
"millions". What are we talking about half of Linux? Is there really that much
difference between 2.2 and 2.4, i.e. millions of lines different or added?
Q. Are SCO really going to claim that they didn't notice for 2 years that a huge
fraction of Linux was "tainted"? quatermass[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 08:47 PM EDT |
quartermass,
With all due respect, with Lindon crowd the phrase "millions of lines" can mean
>2.
Their mis-statements are legion. D.[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 09:03 PM EDT |
"We have rocket scientists who have applied their spectral recognition and
pattern analysis to software, which has yielded amazing results. We have found
needles in the Mount Everest-sized haystack,"
Wow! They're right! I just found common code!
i++;
It's ALL THROUGH the kernel!! This obvious infringement MUST be punished!!
:^}
God, how stupid are these people? They should be sterilized for the good of
humanity. J.F.[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 09:21 PM EDT |
"spectral recognition", presumably has something to do with recognizing the
different frequencies [or possibly some other attribute of a spectrum] present
in a spectrum of light or sound?
I was unclear what, if anything, spectra would have to do with comparing source
code or other text. Let alone spectral recognition, would have to do with
it.
So I looked up "spectral recognition" in google
I have found references to usinh this technique in
1. metallurgy, chemistry/pharma (like using light or infra-red to detect
chemicals or defects in a material, etc.)
2. audio recognition (detecting different sound frequencies)
So none the wiser... I'm STILL unclear what, if anything, spectra would have to
do with comparing source code or other text. Let alone spectral recognition,
would have to do with it.
Next I tried looking up "spectral recognition" and "source code" in google.
I found a page!
Oh, dear, it's just an explanation of some open source program for recognizing
audio fragments.
So in summary:
- I have no idea why or how spectral recognition could remotely have anything to
do with comparing source code (i.e. text)
- There does not seem to be any reference on the Internet - at least in google
-(prior to today's SCO news), about using spectral recognition to compare source
code. quatermass[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 09:56 PM EDT |
>... I'm STILL unclear what, if anything, spectra would have to do with
comparing source code or other text...
Actually this *does* make some sense.
Using the Fourier Transform for fast cross-correlation is a time-honored
technique by now. It has been successfully applied to problems in text and
approximate-pattern search for years. The only real technical challenge to
performing a *naive* search is finding a good way to transform discrete
quantities like ASCII text or executable binary bytes to real numbers -- the
obvious conversions don't always pan out the way you'd like, so you have to do
something a little less direct.
That doesn't mean for a second that there's a shred of credibility to what SCO
is claiming, however. For one thing, a truly reliable test of this kind, one
that's not a naive stab, is probabilistic and relies on a formidable Markov
model of the data to be searched, and a pretty thorough understanding of
Bayesian methods. About the only places you find the kind of expertise to really
do this properly on such a scale is NSA, or...IBM. And I doubt either of those
institutions is giving SCO much technical help right now. Frank Brickle[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 18 2003 @ 10:12 PM EDT |
I've also been thinking a lot about the "millions of lines"
That's a lot right, like half of Linux?
I wonder if they are they counting BSD code?
In any case, did about half of Linux change between 2.2 which they say is
totally okay, and 2.4 which they say is tainted? I know there's upgrades and
stuff, but did it change _that_ much? quatermass[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, August 19 2003 @ 06:37 AM EDT |
Major: Perhaps we're not seeing motions for temporary injunctions from the
"major players" because business isn't hurting (yet, anyways) and it's cheaper
to let McB&Co self destruct in public by shooting their mouths off.
We're the ones getting the most stressed out by this, I'm afraid... -r[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, August 19 2003 @ 10:40 AM EDT |
quartermass,
Each new .<even nuber> version from Linus means that major changes have been
made to the kernel.
2.2 meant a major revison from 2.0. Likewise for 2.4 over 2.2 and 2.6 over
2.4.
Minor revisions and bugfixes are in minor revision numbers, like 2.4.1, 2.4.9
and 2.4.23 etc.
2 D.[ Reply to This | # ]
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