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| Ancient UNIX Released Under What Terms? |
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Saturday, August 23 2003 @ 12:02 PM EDT
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On the issue of whether Caldera released the Ancient UNIX code under an
open source license or "only for noncommercial use", and only for 16-bit, as Sontag and
Stowell say, let's look at the evidence. There may be a reason for them to be confused on the first point, but no justification in the history for claiming 16-bit only.
First, here is what is being said:
"Blake Stowell, Director of Public
Relations for The SCO Group, said this week that SCO's 2002 letter that
released old UNIX versions did not offer free, open-source terms but
included a non-commercial use restriction. The company then was called
Caldera.
"'I do not dispute that this letter was distributed
and that Caldera at the time allowed 16-bit, non-UNIX System V code to
be contributed to Linux for non-commercial use', Stowell wrote in an
e-mail interview.
"The text of the letter, sent January 23,
2002 by Bill Broderick, Director of Licensing Services for Caldera, in
fact makes no mention of 'non-commercial use' restrictions, does not
include the words 'non-commercial use' anywhere and specifically
mentions '32-bit 32V Unix' as well as the 16-bit versions.
"When asked for clarification on the 'non-commercial'
assertion, Stowell replied by e-mail, 'That is what I was told by Chris
Sontag.'"
Now I know for sure that SCO isn't reading
Groklaw in detail, or they'd know better than to claim only 16-bit and
only noncommercial. I wrote about this on July 14, so they could have
saved themselves some embarrassment, had they read what I wrote about
this very subject.
They did release it under a noncommerical use license, and they also later released it under a BSD-like license, as we saw in the letter. Neither license was restricted to 16-bit only. I found proof on this subject, which I sent to Dennis Ritchie back in July,
because he had a broken link on his UNIX history page, which my
research made it possible to fix, despite SCO having removed some
historical materials about the Ancient UNIX release, and despite the
material no longer being available through Google or Wayback.
I think it's worth repeating my research now, because it is
dispositive, in my opinion, and because I expect SCO to try to produce some "evidence"
of their contention, and it is possible to have the complete picture,
despite all the disappeared material on their site so as to be able to
answer them fully if they do. Not every detail may be helpful to the good guys, and I can't evaluate that not knowing for sure all the details of where the code came from, but truth is truth, so here goes.
First, you might like to read
this material, from "Why Caldera Released Unix: A Brief History" by
Ian F. Darwin, 03/01/2002:
"Our strangest dreams sometimes
take on a reality of their own. In January, Caldera, the latest owners
of the "official" Unix source code, decided to release some of the
older versions (up to "V7" and "32V") under an open source license.
While not as significant as it would have been, say, ten years ago, it
is nice that everyone now has access to the code that first made Unix
popular, and that led to the development of the 4BSD system that
underlies FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and Apple's Darwin (which in turn
underlies Mac OS X). Since I was active in the computer field through
almost all the years of Unix's development, I'd like to comment briefly
on the Caldera announcement in its full context. . . .
"Things
do tend to come full circle. It was Caldera that, on January 23 of this
year, disencumbered the entire source code of Unix, up to and including
the Seventh Edition (1979) and its VAX port "32V" from which BSD had
started the development that led to 4.0BSD. (32V is basically V7, minus
some bits that were written in the PDP-11 assembly language, and the
remainder was adapted to work on the VAX.) This seems to mean that BSD
Unix is, at last, fully disencumbered, even the few parts that couldn't
be used in the various BSD systems over the years due to residual AT&T
copyrights."
Next, here
is Mr. Ritchie's web site on UNIX history. And here is a
paragraph from the April 18, 2000 press release from Caldera that
mentions the noncommercial use, which is what SCO was relying on, thinking perhaps that the later letter had disappeared, or perhaps they didn't know about it, ha ha:
"SCO is releasing additional source code for reference use in an effort to improve industry standard Open Source tools and technologies. These technologies will be available to download in the next few weeks. Additionally, SCO has simplified its 'Ancient' UNIX program and waived the $100 processing
fee. Anyone will be able to log onto the SCO web site and download historically preserved UNIX code for educational and non-commercial use."
So far, it seems to back up what SCO is saying. But if you read this discussion thread, you find folks, including Dennis Ritchie,
recalling and someone eventually producing a private email from Caldera about this BSD-like release, but the worry was that a private email might not be enough to prove they really did release Ancient UNIX under the BSD-like license, and some anticipated that SCO might deny it, which they did just try to do. Greg Lehey, who had a copy of the original license, not the later, BSD one, posted some of the terms of the original license
here, which I reproduce in part:
"2.1 (a) CALDERA
INTERNATIONAL, INC. grants to LICENSEE a personal, nontransferable and
nonexclusive right to use, in the AUTHORIZED COUNTRY, each SOURCE CODE
PRODUCT identified in Section 3 of this AGREEMENT, solely for personal
use (as restricted in Section 2.1(b)) and solely on or in conjunction
with DESIGNATED CPUs, and/or Networks of CPUs, licensed by LICENSEE
through this SPECIAL SOFTWARE LICENSE AGREEMENT for such SOURCE CODE
PRODUCT. Such right to use includes the right to modify such SOURCE
CODE PRODUCT and to prepare DERIVED BINARY PRODUCT based on such SOURCE
CODE PRODUCT, provided that any such modification or DERIVED BINARY
PRODUCT that contains any part of a SOURCE CODE PRODUCT subject to this
AGREEMENT is treated hereunder the same as such SOURCE CODE PRODUCT.
CALDERA INTERNATIONAL, INC. claims no ownership interest in any portion
of such a modification or DERIVED BINARY PRODUCT that is not part of a
SOURCE CODE PRODUCT."[emphasis added]
That last is an
interesting tidbit, don't you think? Despite this being the more
restrictive of the two licenses, no ownership interest in derivative code
is claimed. There is such a disconnect between old SCO and now SCO.
It's all very 1984.
In any case, they later rereleased under
the BSD-like license, which is even looser in its terms, as you saw in the
letter that flustered Mr. Stowell, and, if you haven't already, you can read it here. It's
a pdf.
Now, on the 16-bit versus 32-bit issue, according this TUHS
thread, the old license, which you can read here, said
this:
"The SOURCE CODE PRODUCTS to which SCO grants rights
under this Agreement are restricted to the following UNIX Operating
Systems, including SUCCESSOR OPERATING SYSTEMs, that operate on the
16-Bit PDP-11 CPU and early versions of the 32-Bit UNIX Operating
System with specific exclusion of UNIX System V and successor
operating systems:
"16-Bit UNIX Editions 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
"32-bit 32V"[emphasis added]
In this license, only System V was excluded. As was pointed out
in the online conversation, "This implies that System III on the PDP11
is covered by this license, as SCO has the legal rights to System III
and it is a SUCCESSOR OPERATING SYSTEM." The later BSD license had
this clause, in contrast:
"The source code for which Caldera
International, Inc. grants rights are limited to the following UNIX
Operating Systems that operate on the 16-Bit PDP-11 CPU and early
versions of the 32-Bit UNIX Operating System, with specific exclusion
of UNIX System III and UNIX System V and successor operating
systems:
"32-bit 32V UNIX
"16 bit UNIX Versions 1, 2, 3, 4,
5, 6, 7"[emphasis added]
Here, System III is excluded. Neither license was for 16-bit only. Another discovery of note, Warren Toomey on
this page mentions that despite the earlier, more restrictive
license, you could easily access System III source code directly anyway, with
no click-through license, on Caldera's web site, at www2. caldera.com/offers/ancient001/sysIII/ , not that he recommended it.
That was in March of 2003.
Catch that date? March of 2003, the same month the lawsuit was filed, you could access, without any click-through license, System III, according to him. The link no longer works, and I am listing it here so as to make the history complete.
This would seem to speak to the trade secrets issue, evidence that SCO
was careless in protecting their "trade secret" on System III,
regardless of the license. And that their elaborate hide-the-code-because-of-contract-confidentiality-clause cloak and dagger behavior was, well, silly and unnecessary at best. Toomey here
says that he had emailed SCO about it "many months ago" (this was
written in March of this year) "but they haven't fixed it yet."
Someone else on the thread posted
this link, where you find the book "Open Sources: Voices from the
Open Source Revolution", including this chapter, "Twenty Years of
Berkeley Unix --From AT&T-Owned to Freely Redistributable" by Marshall
Kirk McKusick, who was involved in the BSDI lawsuit, which briefly
covers the early history of UNIX, including the lawsuit. If you read it, you'll see that if SCO is planning on retrying that case, they will likely lose.
So,
that's the explanation for the conflicting stories. If SCO is trying
to erase uncomfortable history, they will find it a losing battle.
There are too many people who care and too many still alive who helped
write UNIX and remember everything. A lot of them have material handy
on old computers down in the basement and in paper files in the attic,
as well as in their memories. And then there's people like me, who
just keep digging and digging, like a patient little mole, despite disappearing evidence, with the help of the internet, which doesn't forget, so that after SCO
speaks, we can tell the world the truth.
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 23 2003 @ 09:52 AM EDT |
PJ, I read, downloaded and printed Eric's The Cathedral and the
Bazar. Your link is but one chapter of the whole story. Great reading I must
say. Thanks god for guys like him who do remember and record and for folks like
you who tirelessly dig and dig. If not for y'all we'd be like so many mushrooms,
kept in the dark and fed cravp!
PhilTR[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 23 2003 @ 10:09 AM EDT |
| A question, actually irrelevant as everything has been released under
the BSD-style license by Caldera anyway but still:
If Caldera says/said:
"The source code for which Caldera International, Inc. grants rights
are limited to the following UNIX Operating Systems that operate on
the 16-Bit PDP-11 CPU and early versions of the 32-Bit UNIX Operating
System"
"32-bit 32V UNIX
"16 bit UNIX Versions 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7"
Then does that mean that I am restricted to running any derived work
of the 16-bit UNIX Versions 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 on a PDP-11 ONLY
but that I can run any derived work of 32-bit 32V UNIX *ANYWHERE*?
Not only on 32-bit processors (VAX, Motorola, Intel etc.) but also
on 64-bit processors or even 16-bit processors? Or does the 32-bit
refer to the processor architecture that Caldera expects to see if
they do a license check?
Think about this:
The 'bitness' is mainly a quality of the binary distribution, not the
source. Some of the source code may depend on the bitmess, of
course, especially if it is operating system code - moving from 16
to 32, you may need new assembly language code snippets, some constants
that express special values may have to change (e.g. 0x8000 ->
0x80000000 or 0xFFFF -> 0xFFFFFFFF), but in principle
the 32-bit version would differ from the 16-bit version only in added
#ifdef / #endif blocks-of-code that get compiled-in depending on what
processor one is.
Notice that the code allegedly illegally copied into Linux is
actually nearly the same than the one written 30 years ago at Bell
Labs. But it was destined for an SGI Linux port to the 64-bit
architecture (the IA64)!
El Tonno[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 23 2003 @ 10:11 AM EDT |
Jeez, what's the deal with newlines in the comment window?
I don't seem to be able to get them right
El Tonno[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 23 2003 @ 10:26 AM EDT |
| Yet another call to arms at the Inquirer
http://www.theinquirer.net/?art
icle=11175
El Tonno[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 23 2003 @ 10:34 AM EDT |
| El Tonno,
To get the format you want use html tags.
D.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 23 2003 @ 10:47 AM EDT |
Has anyone yet commented on the advertising clause in the BSD license? PJ, I'm
surprised you didn't address it in your article.
Dr Drake[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 23 2003 @ 11:11 AM EDT |
Can't get into sco.com today. Is the website down? For good?
sam[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 23 2003 @ 11:32 AM EDT |
| www.sco.com AND ir.sco.com are both down. Okay, that might just be a network
fault, but that doesn't play because www.sco.com and ir.sco.com are on
dispirately located servers (Denver and NYC respectivly, I believe).
Mystery and intregue, mystery and intregue...
Chris Cogdon[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 23 2003 @ 11:34 AM EDT |
Mebby Eric loosed the "harpies" on their ship!?!?!
PhilTR[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 23 2003 @ 11:47 AM EDT |
Regarding advertising clauses, are we in a situation where SCOX does not
advertise their inclusion of BSD code as stipulated in the license AND where
Linux does not advertise its inclusion of Caldera code as stipulated in the
Caldera BSD-like license? Is this like Neo vs. Agent Smith? "You are
empty"..."So are you"...
El Tonno[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 23 2003 @ 11:49 AM EDT |
maybe they got served a dmca subpoena wouldnt that just be tooo funny?
hehehe well i can dream cant i?
brenda banks[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 23 2003 @ 11:50 AM EDT |
| El Tonno,
Emphatically not. SCO *own* that code (or at least this is a plausible claim of
theirs, afaics) so they don't have to abide by any such clause.
In any case, two wrongs don't necessarily make a right, even in the eyes of the
law.
The fact that nobody has come up with a proper defense against the advertising
clause problem worries me. I know there are other levels on which to fight SCO,
but it does us no credit to claim that we are using the code legally because of
a license we do not abide by.
Dr Drake[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 23 2003 @ 11:51 AM EDT |
| El Tonno,
Emphatically not. SCO *own* that code (or at least this is a plausible claim of
theirs, afaics) so they don't have to abide by any such clause.
In any case, two wrongs don't necessarily make a right, even in the eyes of the
law.
The fact that nobody has come up with a proper defense against the advertising
clause problem worries me. I know there are other levels on which to fight SCO,
but it does us no credit to claim that we are using the code legally because of
a license we do not abide by.
Dr Drake[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 23 2003 @ 11:52 AM EDT |
| Damn repost, sorry. The radiocomments.userland site seems pretty flaky.
style="height: 2px; width: 20%; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: auto;">Dr Drake [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 23 2003 @ 11:57 AM EDT |
| "It does us no credit to claim that we are using the code legally because of a
license we do not abide by."
True, true. But how can SCO own the Berkeley
Packet Filter (2nd example at SCOForum). It was
written from scratch by Jay Schulist, allegedly:
http://ww
w.infoworld.com/article/03/08/20/HNscomoreflaws_1.html
How did it end up in SysV?
El Tonno[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 23 2003 @ 12:06 PM EDT |
| El Tonno,
Yes I agree with this point. Hopefully we won't have to fall back on the defense
that Caldera opened the various Unices under the BSD license in 2002.
But we need to get our argument straight and not confuse a good defense (e.g.
the code isn't SCO's) with a weaker one (they licensed it under BSD - weak
because we aren't abiding by the BSD license).
Dr Drake[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 23 2003 @ 02:11 PM EDT |
| Just nosed around, found a nice résumé concerning SCO patents.
'patents'
is a word that has not really shown up yet in this case AFAIK.
http://zgp.org/linux-elitists/20030113104921.A12302@romulus.netgraft.com.ht
ml
El Tonno[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 23 2003 @ 02:16 PM EDT |
Here's another one that popped into my mind (Do I have a tumor? Just joking)
Someone was speaking earlier about the 'UNIX-ness' that SCO wants to 0wnZ.
This reminded me of the look-and-feel wars in the early 90's about the Apple/MS
GUIs, Microsoft File Explorer (now hidden away three levels deep in the start
menu) etc. etc. Would SCO have any chance to cause any trouble from that side?
Linux wants to be a 'Unix replacement'. Can they say "They illegally attempted
to copy our look-and-feel, see Judge, type '<tt>ls</tt>' and you get the
filelist on
both systems. They want to cause customer confusion. OMG Help Us!" Ok, this is
probably
an argument that will go down far better in Germany than in the US, but
nevertheless....
El Tonno[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 23 2003 @ 02:41 PM EDT |
| Dr. Drake,
Although the advertising clause would seem to indicate everything isn't
necessarily tied up neatly, from what I can see it won't make much of a
difference in any lawsuit. Consider:
1) The code in question is very old, and it's almost identical to code in the
public domain. In fact, the differences are cosmetic. The identical code has
been released for public use, and although the terms of use may not have been
followed to the letter, it's very difficult to make an argument that either
trade secrets have been breached or any material harm has been incurred.
2) If SCO wants to bitch about licensing terms, a lot of other people can,
too.
3) The code's already been removed, so it really doesn't matter. Despite the
above, the Linux community has acted in good faith to promptly remove anything
that might come close to infringing.
Perhaps it's my non-legal eye at fault, but I don't see how this is an issue.
Jonathan
Williams[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 23 2003 @ 02:57 PM EDT |
| As far as the memory allocation code and not putting in the advertisement that
Caldera/SCO required. The code in question came from SGI who had their
copyright included. Eric S. Raymond feels that it came from 32V and presents his
analysis as to why he came to such a conclusion, which is not under any
copyright.
As far as the Berkley Packet Filter code, it was developed for Linux by Jay
Schulist in a clean room implementation. For SCO to be clean in this matter
because they did not include the required attribution and copyright notice, they
must be able to demonstrate fairly conclusively that one of their programers did
the same thing. They cannot demonstrate conclusively that they own the code by
inheritance through their Unix copyrights. Either way, their argument about
Linux copying is scuttled legally. They can only continue their bleating in the
hope that enough people that count will begin to believe them. But doing so
requires one to turn off any functioning parts of the brain, which some people
are willing to do as evidenced by the comments of some of their resellers.
Glenn
Glenn Thigpen[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 23 2003 @ 03:05 PM EDT |
El Tonno, concerning the rights on "look&feel" of unix look-alike systems, did
you have a look at <http://www.opengrou
p.org/comm/press/who-owns-unix.htm>?
Gerhard[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 23 2003 @ 03:32 PM EDT |
Don't forget that all the code up to and including system III was published
without a copyright notice on it and was first distributed before 1988 (The
Berne Convention Date). The same may be true of some of the Sys V code but we
don't have copies of that to check.
Adam Baker[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 23 2003 @ 03:45 PM EDT |
| Anyone who hasn't seen this will I'm sure appreciate it - it is useful as a
hostorical archive as well as for comedy value
http://www.welovethescoin
formationminister.org/
Adam Baker[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 23 2003 @ 03:53 PM EDT |
| The following quote from slashdot is apparently translated from the gernman
linked below "It was common practice [at Caldera] and at other companies to
remove the BSD copyright notices from the internally used source code." It looks
to me as though it isn't SCO admitting this but confirmation by a German speaker
would be useful.
http://www.heise.de/
newsticker/data/jk-23.08.03-001/
Adam Baker[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 23 2003 @ 04:23 PM EDT |
Adam, the Heise article claims, "some former programmers from Caldera remember
themselves, that within the [original] SCO-Code-Tree, the Copyright-notes of
[original] BSD code was missing".
I am not sure whether the author got that information from Jay Schulist, who did
the Linux version of BPF during his work for Caldera.
But be cautious: that Heise article is authored by Detlef Borchers, who is not
realy famous for serious journalistic investigations.
The phone calls to Heise he mentions refer to usage at Siemens-Nixdorf.
style="height: 2px; width: 20%; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: auto;">Gerhard[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 23 2003 @ 05:05 PM EDT |
| Dr. Drake: Maybe this will help. Concerning 32V being licensed or the
advertising clause:
If 32V was ever in the public domain, it still is, and Caldera has no valid
copyright. Caldera
and or SCO never registered any copyrights until this summer (2003). As I've
said here before,
the Copyright Office doesn't even validate parking, let alone copyrights.
Everyone with any
knowledge of Unix history KNOWS the story about 32V.
http://cm.be
ll-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/bsdi/930107.amicus.txt
"Under the 1976 Copyright Act, omission of a copyright notice from copies
publicly
distributed by the copyright owner invalidates the copyright in the work unless
(1) notice
has been omitted from a small number of copies[fn22], (2)registration is made
within five
years after publication without notice, or (3) notice was omitted in violation
of an express
requirement in writing. 17 U.S.C. Section 405(a).Here, USL can find no refuge
in any of the
three exceptions under 405(a) because thousands of copies of 32V were publicly
distributed
without copyright notices and registration followed publication by fourteen
years. To the
University's knowledge, no express requirement by Western Electric that notice
be included in
32V was violated. In fact, Western Electric intentionally removed copyright
notices from every
file contained in 32V prior to publication."
Those statements can be objectively verified by sources independent of the
records under seal in USL V BSDI. If computer source code is speech, and this
speech is a work in the public domain, why allow Caldera or SCO to license and
control it?
Harlan[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 23 2003 @ 05:18 PM EDT |
John: Or maybe ESR has someone clever on the case! ;-)
Cambo[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 23 2003 @ 05:23 PM EDT |
Just a bit of off-the-wall thinking here....
Is the router actually a little box running Linux? (I believe Cisco use Linux)
Could someone (with VERY good Linux knowledge) have hacked the router to just
block the Caldera & SCO IPs?
Or is my fevered mind overclocked too high???? ;-)
Cambo[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 23 2003 @ 05:31 PM EDT |
| So now what is missing is to adress the PRESS.
THERE ARE ENOUGH LAW SUITS
As a manager of a small IT company, i belive the better way to deal with it, is
for the PRESS, any PRESS, specialy the one that has some simpaty for Linux/OSS,
to ignore them. Above all in the field of "POSSIBILITIES" of "plagiarism" or any
other "fault".
AFAIK THERE IS NO PLAGIARISM OR INFRINGEMENT EVEN IN SCO VIEW.
This is not pretending otherwise or ignoring problems. It's facing the reality
of FUD as it is. Cold, racionaly, if there were "plagiarism" or "copyright
infingement" SCO would have sued IBM or someone else for that. Not for some
contract breach that implies that "all IBM code is theirs". The clear intention
of this is "NOISE".
So stoping even the slitest mention of possibility of any fault in the
PRESS/Public Exposure; "palgiarism", copyright infringement, or otherever until
it's proved by SCO, is the only way to prevent them from doing damages before
they are dead.
THE OTHER WAY IS WHAT THEY WANT.
Mario Marques[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 23 2003 @ 05:56 PM EDT |
If they took down their website (and ftp server) I think it would be because too
much damaging evidence against their claims has already been found there. Since
they probably don't have a clue about what needs to be removed from where, it's
easier to take it down completely until it's been reviewed.
Ph(i)Nk 0[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 23 2003 @ 06:15 PM EDT |
| > If they took down their website (and ftp server) I think it would be because
too much damaging evidence against their claims has already been found there
Well that's a theory. And may be they do want to clean it up...
...But it would be a waste of time now. IBM and Red Hat have only had 5 1/2
months to print and get notarized copies of it all.
quatermass - SCO delenda
est[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 23 2003 @ 06:19 PM EDT |
| Web site down? I hope SCO don't try and pin blame on Raymond.
No, he is obviously NOT behind it, but you can see how the vague and emotional
tone of his letter could be twisted against him.
quatermass - SCO delenda est[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 23 2003 @ 06:35 PM EDT |
| I also noticed sco.de appears to be down.
From what I understand sco.de was supposed to be already purged of anything to
do with the case, and pretty much anything to do with Linux.
quatermass - SCO
delenda est[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 23 2003 @ 06:47 PM EDT |
| Mario, I disagree.
The problem with the PRESS is that they seem to be (as a general rule) really,
really stupid. I know there are exceptions (Mr. Gomes (WSJ) and Mr. McMillan
(IDG) come to mind), but for the most part they have shown an absolute
unwillingness to make even the most CURSORY examination of the evidence. In
particular, the NY Times coverage has been embarassing (they haven't yet figured
out that "The SCO Group" is not the Santa Cruz Operation, for example). Thus,
we have to counter SCO's loud, blatent lying with our OWN louder facts. We
can't depend on the press to do this for us, we have to do it ourselves.
Paul
Paul Krause[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 23 2003 @ 07:07 PM EDT |
| I think SCO are obviously feeling some pressure from the more pro-Linux press. I
think it's the only explanation behind the vast IBM conspiracy interview.
I think, to get to the rest, you need something simple in one bite from somebody
respectable who isn't assumed to be an automatic Linux advocate. The answer to
me seems obvious, if Dennis Ritchie is both agreeable and able to do it, an
analysis by him in a press-digestable form would be a winner.
quatermass - SCO
delenda est[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 23 2003 @ 07:31 PM EDT |
| <satire>
The next claim you'll hear out of McBride's psychotic lying teeth is "IBM
sanctioned hackers to take down our websites and delete important files that
prove our case. And they sent Pixie Assassins to attack our shoes because we
have the magic fairy dust and they want it but its mine, MINE!"
</satire>
Z[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 23 2003 @ 07:34 PM EDT |
| Blast from the past
September 13, 2001 - http://news.com.com
/2100-1001-272971.html?legacy=cnet
The 51 employees who lost their jobs in the latest round of layoffs at Caldera
International include a programmer who helped lead a key part of the company's
strategy of making its Linux and Unix operating systems work in the same way.
quatermass - SCO delenda est[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 23 2003 @ 07:39 PM EDT |
| John,
Nice bit of work with the traceroutes, my gut reaction was
they had taken the
sites down themseleves. The
traces tend to confirm that suspicion.
Earlier this year, they got slashdotted and as I recall
they were complaining they had been DoSed...
Interesting sidenote on Cisco/Linksys, it took a bit of
pressure from the community to get them to release GPL
source.
D.[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 23 2003 @ 08:00 PM EDT |
Their site was first reported down ~1:40 pm Utah time on Friday. Is it posssible
they had a visit from somebody who shut them down and siezed their computers?
Something like that could happen in Linden, UT and it would be a while before
any reporter found out.
Bob[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 23 2003 @ 08:37 PM EDT |
| John,
I love the irony in what you wrote:
"Anyway, in case i didn't make it clear enough in the first post, one of the
points I was making is that if SCO/Caldera claim that they were DOS'd, they are
probably lying."
Since the end of June, 2002 there has been little but mistatements,
overstatements, non sequeters (sic?) and false statments coming from
SCOG.
Why do I pick June 2002? That's when Darl McBride started as CEO.
Sontag seems to have come on board in September, 2002...
D.[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 23 2003 @ 08:53 PM EDT |
regarding a C&D takedown,
<guessing>
SCOG had two orders in Germany, Bremmen and Hamberg, to stop
the FUD. Could this be result? Or could it be the result of
the Polish case?
DIIK.
</guessing>
D.[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 23 2003 @ 09:23 PM EDT |
| From /. re sco.com:
"The site is down for maintenance as they needed to do a search & replace
operation on all their webpages, to replace the word "customer" with the word
"defendent" "
Greg T Hill[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 23 2003 @ 09:23 PM EDT |
FYI, http://stage.caldera.com is still
responding.
Try e.g. http://w
ww.google.com/search?&q=site:stage.caldera.com+developer (or keyword of your
choice in place of "developer") Some parts of the site are fully functional (at
least as of late Saturday EDT), including a complete skunkware mirror. But some
other stuff (like the /offers page, and all the monterey pages, are coming back
403. Some relative links are working but hard-coded links over to sco.com
aren't. Interestingly, the site seems to be an out of date staging server, so
perhaps there's some old stuff that's been missing on sco.com lately, or
possibly not. Whatever, have fun poking around while it's still up.
bob[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 23 2003 @ 09:32 PM EDT |
| This news story about Sontag is from late October 2002
h
ttp://news.cnet.com/investor/news/newsitem/0-9900-1028-20590914-0.html
As senior VP of SCO's operating systems division, Sontag will be responsible for
directing the marketing and strategy of SCO's operating systems division,
guiding corporate marketing and overseeing the development of SCO's intellectual
property.
quatermass - SCO delenda est[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 23 2003 @ 09:37 PM EDT |
| About ir.sco.com being down....
It's not. It won't come up in a graphical browser because half of its images
are served from www.sco.com (maybe a stylesheet or something is too.) But try
it in lynx or links and it comes right up...
raindog[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 23 2003 @ 09:49 PM EDT |
| bob,
*Nice* find. The current "leaders" are truly Bozos(tm) [used without
permission].
D.[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 23 2003 @ 09:51 PM EDT |
ir.sco.com is on a different system, right?
quatermass - SCO delenda est[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 23 2003 @ 09:55 PM EDT |
| raindog,
Tried ir.sco.com 'bout 3pm PDT. No response. No ping response. Traceroutes died
at what appeared to be the router.
JG hit things on the head.
'Tis SGOG at work "cleaning" (part of) the evidence...
D.[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 23 2003 @ 10:35 PM EDT |
| Typo, in my last resonse meant to write SCOG.
quartermass,
yes, ir.sco.com has a different IP address, this does not mean that the data is
on a different machine.
for the record ir.sco.com responds *slowly* at 22:27 PST.
Perhaps somebody might want to investigate "investor (sic?) relations on the
'net...
D.[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 23 2003 @ 10:48 PM EDT |
| This might be a fine time to do screenshots of whatever is available still, just
in case.
The legal docs are here:
http://twiki.iwethey.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/SCOvsIBM#Legal_Docume
nts_Directly_Pertain
They've made local copies, and I must say, that's a lot of work. Thanks.
pj[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 24 2003 @ 01:02 AM EDT |
Bob: Their site was first reported down ~1:40 pm Utah time on Friday. Is it
posssible they had a visit from somebody who shut them down and siezed their
computers? Something like that could happen in Linden, UT and it would be a
while before any reporter found out.
I'll say. Lindon doesn't even have its own Police Department. When we called
to make sure we were legally protesting, we had to call the Pleasant Grove PD.
I'll try driving past their offices Sunday afternoon. FUD central happens to
be between my house and the freeway onramp. I doubt there will be much to see,
though. I don't recall seeing any smoke over in that direction
recently.
I've been building up a page with copies of many of the legal documents as
well. Feel free to visit that here.
I've also documented all the files on SCO's FTP site (ftp.sco.com) as of just
a few days ago. Information about that is here.
They also have ftp servers at ftp2.caldera.com and stage.caldera.com, but
neither of those is nearly as interesting.
Frank[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 24 2003 @ 01:28 AM EDT |
I checked www.sco.nl and it broke because some images on the page came from
www.sco.com. www.sco.be is reachable too.
MathFox[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 24 2003 @ 01:32 AM EDT |
www.sco.be may be reachable, but it's not SCO:
Licensee:
Name: alain lombard
Language: F
Address: centre commercial erasme BP23
1070 anderlecht erasme
Belgium
Phone: 02-527.58.65
Fax:
Email: alain.lombard@skynet.be
Frank[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 24 2003 @ 03:31 AM EDT |
| As has been pointed out elsewhere, when the Linux Journal claims "Blake Stowell,
Director of Public Relations for The SCO Group, said this week that SCO's 2002
letter that released old UNIX versions did not offer free, open-source terms but
included a non-commercial use restriction", they don't post the full email
interview, which is unfortunate because in the citation given, Blake Stowell
does _not_ use the word "only".
"'I do not dispute that this letter was distributed and that Caldera at the time
allowed 16-bit, non-UNIX System V code to be contributed to Linux for
non-commercial use', Stowell wrote in an e-mail interview."
I think it's quite possible he may just be trying to provoke more anger...
Nils R
Grotnes[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 24 2003 @ 05:38 AM EDT |
| D.: "ir.sco.com has a different IP address, this does not mean that the data is
on a different machine."
According to Netcraft, yes, ir.sco.com is a different machine from www.sco.com,
the former is IIS/Win2K, while the latter is Apache/Linux.
For the record, ir.sco.com is responding to text browsing with Lynx at 8:36 AM
Eastern Standard Time in the US. Response is prompt, not slow at all. Still
can't browse it with Mozilla. (gasp, that's an Open-Source browser... um, I
meant to say Netscape ; no, wait...)
By the way, wanna laugh? According again to Netcraft, the IP address block
containing ir.sco.com is owned by .... drum roll, please ... Sequent Computer
Systems, Inc. !!
This just gets wierder and wierder.
Steve
Martin[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 24 2003 @ 03:49 PM EDT |
| Nils R Grotnes: A lot of people don't understand that the Bern Convention has no
application
in the US except as provided for in TITLE 17. Here for instance is a link that
explains how
Unix 32V would already be in the public domain, while Disney's Mickey Mouse
-which is much
older - might not be:
http://www.copyright.go
v/title17/92chap4.html#405
The University of California had a license from AT&T to derive and distribute
code to
from 32V. They said that AT&T had rendered the copyright invalid. Here is what
they
said:
http://cm.be
ll-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/bsdi/930107.amicus.txt
[fn21] Unlike USL's 32V, post-Berne Convention Implementation Act
works, created after March 1, 1989, are not required to have a
copyright notice. 17 U.S.C. Section 405.
Under the 1976 Copyright Act, omission of a copyright notice from
copies publicly distributed by the copyright owner invalidates the
copyright in the work unless (1) notice has been omitted from a
small number of copies[fn22], (2)registration is made within five
years after publication without notice, or (3) notice was omitted in
violation of an express requirement in writing. 17 U.S.C. Section
405(a).Here, USL can find no refuge in any of the three exceptions
under 405(a) because thousands of copies of 32V were publicly
distributed without copyright notices and registration followed
publication by fourteen years. To the University's knowledge, no
express requirement by Western Electric that notice be included in
32V was violated. In fact, Western Electric intentionally removed
copyright notices from every file contained in 32V prior to
publication. McKusick Decl., at Para. 4.
It's really bad when SCO is claiming to OWN 32V but they are distributing a copy
of the sources obtained from Keith Bostic (of BSD fame) with no copyright
notices in any of the files in /usr/src...:-) There have just been a couple of
files added - including Caldera's license - which isn't actually contained in
any of the original tape archives or .gz files.
If you read section 405(a) at the link I provided above, you'll see nothing at
all has changed. SCO must produce some pre-existing written evidence from
Western Electric or else it's copyright claim on Unix 32V WAS NEVER VALID. This
code was publicly distributed without
any copyright notices for fourteen years. The only copy they have seems to be
one of those with no copyright notices in the sources at all.
Harlan[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 24 2003 @ 04:22 PM EDT |
| SCO will really be in trouble if they are actually scrubbing their servers and
other internet sites (Wayback) to try and remove any material which throws doubt
on their claims and IF they actually ever file against IBM to start the
discovery process. If I understand what I have read following PJ's links, they
can be sanctioned severely and even have their case dismissed for attempting to
remove such evidence (although it would be rather futile as there are so many
other sources for this information now).
I think that SCO has a tiger by the tail and a water pistol (dry) for it
legal gun and it really does not want to go to court. I still have heard nothing
about SCO and IBM starting the discovery process. Is their a time limitation in
which SCO must file to start discovery?
Glenn
Glenn Thigpen[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 24 2003 @ 05:31 PM EDT |
| Harlan: I don't understand why your very interesting post is formed as a reply
to mine, unless I was too unclear the first time?
What I'm saying is that though the statement from Blake Stowell
sounds like he is denying that the source is not free for
everyone to use, in fact in the cited statement he's only insinuating it. If you
look at his words, he is admitting to parts of the truth, without actually
denying the other parts.
Unless the complete text of the interview shows otherwise, I think it's quite
possible that he choose his words with great care, with the intent to make the
other side react angry. Of course, the Linux Journal conclusion seems to rest on
other undisclosed statements, so I might very well be wrong.
Nils R Grotnes[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 24 2003 @ 05:48 PM EDT |
Nils R Grotnes: Because like you I think it's all talk. SCO owns System V, but
it's derived from
BSD4.3 (copyright Berkeley), AT&T 32V (public domain), Xenix (copyright
Microsoft), and SunOS
(copyright SUN).
Harlan[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 25 2003 @ 09:27 AM EDT |
| Re: SCO's web site. It is apparently a Linux-user doing a DOS attack.
http://linuxtoda
y.com/infrastructure/2003082501026NWCYLL
IMHO, ESR is an embarassment to the community. This guy seems to buy into his
"leadership" just a bit too much.
Black Hat[ Reply to This | # ]
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