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Ford Chooses Linux, So Goes the World
Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 12:00 AM EDT

Darl McBride says the Linux community is countercultural. I think he needs to put on his spectacles and take a look around at the modern Linux world. Who make up the open source/free software communities today? For one, Ford, according to this article in the Scotsman, has just decided to join our side by switching from Microsoft to Linux:

"Ford is joining the ranks of governments and local authorities across the world that have switched from Microsoft software to the free open-source alternative Linux.

"The car giant will run its sales operations, human resources, customer relations management and the rest of its infrastructure operations on the upstart technology.


The article doesn't make clear if this is there in Europe only, or worldwide, But either way, those now using Linux include IBM, HP, Merrill Lynch, Verisign, Dell, Amazon, Google, Dreamworks, Ford Motors, the US Air Force, Los Alamos National Laboratory, the US Department of Defense, and, by the way, the town of St. George, Utah-- what a bunch of countercultural radicals, according to Dear Darl. Time to update your FUD, Mr. McBride. Here's a partial list of major companies, governmental agencies, foreign nations, municipalities and law enforcement agencies currently using Linux.

Both Microsoft and UNIX are feeling the heat from Linux, according to this article from India:

"But Linux, free from the institutional greed that killed Unix's chances, has thrived. And it has found some strong backers, such as IBM. To a lesser extent, HP, Dell, and so forth, have also jumped on the Linux bandwagon. . . .The net result is that today one can buy a Linux-based PC for far less money than a Microsoft Windows-based PC. It will, it is pretty much guaranteed, work much better, and be less resource hungry: you don't have to throw away your computer every couple of years just because Microsoft's new OS is a resource hog.

"Linux, with its compelling advantages, has put the brakes on Microsoft's attempts to dominate the server market as much as it dominates the desktop market. . . .

"It is probably a fair assumption that the original Bell Labs code is by now relatively obsolete, and that a lot new innovation has been added by the free software people. Therefore, it is probable that if this comes to a court hearing, SCO will lose."


Institutional greed killed UNIX, the writer says, not open source or the GPL. So institutional greed = a failed business model. I hope you are taking notes, Mr. McBride, since you say you are looking for a successful business model. The one you're backing is killing off UNIX, so the bottom line is this: Linux doesn't need old-fashioned UNIX. You, on the other hand, do need Linux. You might want to put that in your pipe and smoke it a while.


  


Ford Chooses Linux, So Goes the World | 118 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, September 13 2003 @ 09:34 PM EDT
Wait for confirmation. I haven't seen this anywhere else. I searched
reuters.com, news.google.com, and got nothing. This article is curious itself.
No "a source close to the company", and no "Ford spokesperson Mr. Blah said...".
And it just seems odd that Scotsman would be the first to scoop this. style="height: 2px; width: 20%; margin-left: 0px; margin-right:
auto;">jqtechworker

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, September 13 2003 @ 09:35 PM EDT
Just an update for everyone,

The wife is working on a formal letter to our AG's office, I'll post the full thing when she is done should any one else wish to use it to send to theirs. It will Def. be from a business (mine) and attorneys (her) perspective.

Thomas


Thomas LePage

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, September 13 2003 @ 09:40 PM EDT
Just looking at the fortune quote in the Comments of this http: //newsvac.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=03/09/14/0132224&tid=23

"As long as this is seen just as a scuffle between SCO and IBM, that plays to IBM's advantage," says McBride, because IBM can use its size and staying power to wait out SCO in court. The more he can scare IBM's customers, he says, the better for SCO.

If this is an accurate quote (I can hardly believe this guy is so baldly stating what I consider to be such an ugly strategy). Ouch...

IANAL but "scare IBM's customers" doesn't seem quite right, when it seems to me the dispute IS between SCO and IBM

IANAL but "scare IBM's customers" (especially in context) sounds an awful lot like deliberately attempting to damage IBM's business relationships, in an attempt to win, rather than allowing the courts to determine the merits of the SCO's case.

IANAL but "scare IBM's customers"... I guess this could give some insight into SCO's AIX, Dynix and AIX audit thing.

IANAL, but I do have one bit of news for Darl. In my opinion, IBM's customers ain't scared of you, your threats, or your (in my opinion) truly ugly strategy.

One other thing Darl, you present yourself a religious man. Perhaps you ought to think carefully if attempting to deliberately scare people/businesses, just to get leverage that you don't think you'd get thru the courts, is in line with your (or for that matter any) religion's values.


quatermass - SCO delenda est

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, September 13 2003 @ 09:44 PM EDT
Thomas, shall we add your letter to AG as an attachment to our package? If so,
please email me and let me know estimated time of arrival.
pj

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, September 13 2003 @ 09:47 PM EDT
Well totally off topic except maybe the greed part of it. But it seems to me that what the RIAA is doing is spying on citizens. Could this Jane Doe potentially sue them for invading her right to privacy, unreasonable search and seizure, etc. If the amount was high enough (I personally value my privacy at 8.2 billion dollars) would the RIAA stop? I'm just curious why this isn't an approach to their blatant unamerican activities. and as I am not a laweyer nor do I know any I thought we might discuss here. Personally I think copying songs and massivily distributing them is illegal, but not nearly as illegal as spying on citizens.

Again sorry for not staying on topic, but I've been wondering without an outlet for sometime.

Mojo


Mojo Nichols

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, September 13 2003 @ 09:49 PM EDT
PJ, I haven't had any mail from you. Did you get the files I sent you?

If you haven't, please e-mail me to make sure I have your correct address.


Alex Roston

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, September 13 2003 @ 09:53 PM EDT
Darl McBride already knows that the SCO Group cannot survive without Linux, so
we are on the same wavelength on this one. He is starting to feel the pressure
from the IBM and RH lawsuits as well as the estrangement of the SCO Group's
licensees. If his hijack of Linux falls through, then the SCO Group is pretty
much done for. He could mail his "invoices" by Oct. 15 and if he turns that
corner, we will be waiting for him and he knows that. The good news for him is
that he still has options. The nad news for him is that they are all bad. The
olive branch he is offering us is offered by an individual and a company who
have everything to gain by offering it and everything to lose by not offering
it. We will ram his IP claims down his throat.
blacklight

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, September 13 2003 @ 10:04 PM EDT
One further comment on

The more he can scare IBM's customers, he says, the better for SCO.

You know what I'm thinking... (again assuming it's a real quote from fortune).

IANAL, but it seems to me that as he (Darl) is pretty closing to openly admitting to trying to damage IBM's business relationships, business relationships that are probably worth far more than the entire worth of SCO, it's alleged IP, it's alleged damages, etc.... that even if SCO were to win some money for alleged contractual violations by IBM, the IBM counter claims are going to swamp that out.

Opinions?

I hope IBM's lawyers read Fortune... ha ha Darl, I bet they do... and you don't you just know somebody will probably forward them a copy, just in case.


quatermass - SCO delenda est

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, September 13 2003 @ 10:06 PM EDT
"Diplomacy is the art of saying 'nice doggy' while you are looking for a rock."

My view on McBride's olive branch is partially this. Somehow the next step in SCO's strategy isn't working (maybe the invoices don't look very good any more) so he is looking for the next rock.

Mostly though I think that McBride is attempting to play nice so that the open source community looks unreasonable when we counter-attack them.


mec

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, September 13 2003 @ 10:10 PM EDT
Free speech works both ways, you know. I don't like the idea of chasing after Microsoft spokesman on legal grounds just because they say something we don't like. I think it has to get a lot more egregious than that before a lawsuit is justified.

Speaking of interfering with business relations: "if you go down this path, we are going to disengage. we are not going to do any more business with you, and we are going to encourage others not to do any business with you." Do you think that's a legally actionable statement for one businessman to make to another? Because IBM said that to SCO. (business week, may 2003, you can google it, i'm in a text mode browser right now so i can't paste the link easily)


mec

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, September 13 2003 @ 10:13 PM EDT
"Diplomacy is the art of saying 'nice doggy' while you are looking for a rock."

My view on McBride's olive branch is partially this. Somehow the next step in SCO's strategy isn't working (maybe the invoices don't look very good any more) so he is looking for the next rock.

Mostly though I think that McBride is attempting to play nice so that the open source community looks unreasonable when we counter-attack them.


mec

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, September 13 2003 @ 10:14 PM EDT
One other thing on the SGI thing

1. We don't know what's in SGI's contracts, or the history of that fragment. SGI presumably do!

2. We do know with SGI said from an article quote.

3. I believe that when Novell divested itself of UNIX stuff, Open Group got the definition, SCO got the 32 bit version and Unixware, HP got the 64 bit version. I would think that the 32 bit and 64 bit versions are likely to be quite similar - when you port stuff, you tend to change the minimum possible. We don't know if SGI have any contracts with HP on this.

(It also occurs to me if HP were able to place the 64 bit version under a BSD license or public domain, this could solve most future allegations at a stroke)

I'd therefore tend to be inclined to go with what Harlan said about this issue in a previous Comments section, at least until I see evidence to support a contradictory view.


quatermass - SCO delenda est

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, September 13 2003 @ 10:21 PM EDT
Invoices could perhaps also fall under

The more he can scare IBM's customers, he says, the better for SCO.

mec: If the invoices are merely a threat, I'd tend to believe that it's SCO that is being unreasonable. If the invoices are supposed to be real, I'd tend to believe that even more strongly.

I'd also think that rejecting the so-called olive branch would only look unreasonable, if olive branch is not placed in context of current and paste events. Even with the so-called olive branch, what are those outside SCO supposed to do - according to McBride's context (and even some words in the letter) - accepting the olive branch, does require paying up now, and paying up indefinitely into the future, with no possibility of being de-SCOed. In other words, McBride's saying we can get peace, if we accept his terms... I don't think that is the type of offer likely to be accepted or even considered - and I presume that he must know that.


quatermass - SCO delenda est

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, September 13 2003 @ 10:22 PM EDT
Whoops, sorry for my dupe. :(

Now I'll just proceed to antagonize more people. :)

I think "institutional greed" had little to do with the history of Unix. The major force in the history of Unix was fragmentation: everybody got a System 5 license and then added some proprietary doo-dads. This didn't work for most of the companies who tried it, although some, including Sun, HP, and IBM, made a lot of money at it for a long time. Linux is super-resistant to fragmentation because of the GPL. Also, Linux runs on cheap powerful Intel machines. Every previous Unix company wanted to avoid cannibalizing its server market by going for Unix-on-PC. A Microsoft VP (sorry no attribution, maybe someone can chase it down) said a while ago: "it's amazing that no one ever competed against us with Unix on Intel, except for SCO". And a Sun spokesman more recently said: "what customers really want is Unix on Intel" (implication is that customers are not all hot about the open source nature of the software). And we all know that SCO is *pissed* because they thought they owned the Unix-on-Intel market and then we busted their chops good in the marketplace with our Unix-on-Intel. I think there is a lot of truth in those positions. I also think tat "institutional greed" is bad PR. I'm all for greed, and so are many, many other Linux users.


mec

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, September 13 2003 @ 10:33 PM EDT
mec: You're right on target about McBride's olive branch.

As I so succinctly stated in a prior post:

I fully understand the "olive branch" analogy offered by Darl McBride. It's kinda like back-steppin'... cause shortly after you rub turpentine on a tiger's ass, it's the tiger's turn. gumout


gumout

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, September 13 2003 @ 10:43 PM EDT
Unfortunately, it is just a part of Darl's morning chores to put the daily spin on the "Linux IP" controversy.

Unfortunately it is just another day for M$ exec's to say "You do not need to see his identification, they can go about their business" and wave their hands. The press will then gleefully ignore any negative M$ comments and regurgitate what M$ chooses to say.

Unfortunately Linux does not have the inititave and is on the defensive.

Unfortunately this is just another day in the evolution of Linux, GNU, and free software.

May the force be with you.


danonymous2

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, September 13 2003 @ 10:44 PM EDT
"You, on the other hand, do need Linux. You might want to put that in your pipe and smoke it a while."

Unfortunately, that bridge is long since burnt. There is no going back for SCO. They can try and go forward best as they can, but working with the open source community is no longer a possibility.

Frankly, after the first quote from Darl, "Contracts are what you use against those you have relationships with" I don't see how anyone in their right mind would ever deal with him or any company he's ever been associated with ever again. It seems like a bad risk to me.


Jeff Randall

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, September 13 2003 @ 10:54 PM EDT
Mojo, "Could this Jane Doe potentially sue them for invading her right to privacy, unreasonable search and seizure, etc."

IANAL, but there is no such thing as a "right to privacy." Look in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and the amendments and you won't find it. It's a concept drawn by the courts from interpretation of various aspects of the law and all the documents I mentioned. As such, it is open to reinterpretation over time and is constantly in flux. For example, the courts have consistantly held that children have no right to privacy. As they are afforded special protection by the law (child labor laws, etc.), they also give up certain rights afforded to adult citizens. That particular interpretation is what causes students to lose cases concerning dress codes and censorship of school papers. Another example is that the courts routinely allow surveillance cameras in all sorts of places you would consider private.


J.F.

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, September 13 2003 @ 10:59 PM EDT
Here's an interesting URL, titled "SCO Admits to Not Knowing Own Code"

http://www.linuxworld.com/story /34017.htm

Note also this Cnet article. It seems fairly positive.

http://news.com.com/2100-7344- 5071992.html

Alex


Alex Roston

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, September 13 2003 @ 11:08 PM EDT
Ooooh! And here's more!!

REPORTS HAVE SURFACED that SCO might be in violation of the GNU General Public License (GPL). eWEEK broke this story, writing:

"A source close to SCO, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told eWEEK that parts of the Linux kernel code were copied into the Unix System V source tree by former or current SCO employees."

http://theinquirer.net/?article=9952


Alex Roston

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, September 13 2003 @ 11:08 PM EDT
mec, that was Darl reporting what IBM representatives said to him, that was not Business Week quoting an IBM executive saying "we'll do this".

Considering how many lies have come out of Darl, and considering that such an assertion is just a prelude to Darl's current posturing as the little guy being attacked by a worldwide conspiracy, why would you give that any weight whatsoever?

In that same Business Week interview Darl tells the lie that they only decided to go after IBM after hearing the IBM executive Jan 23, after hiring David Boies at least as early as Jan 12.


Sanjeev

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 12:23 AM EDT
Hi everyone. I am a little slow filtering out the comments for me from the
hundreds of posts. Somebody mentioned me living outside the US. That is not the
case. I am not a US citizen, but I do live in the US (Irvine, CA, to be
precise).
AG

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 12:46 AM EDT
Irvine - cool, you can attend the SCO presentation!!

Heh heh. (actually, you live about an hour from me.)

Alex


Alex Roston

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 12:57 AM EDT
I jog by the Irvine Marriott three times a week, so distance is not an issue.
And the event seems to be free. I am just not sure I really want to listen to
some soon-unemployed SCO guys talking about last millenium's UNIX technology
(blast from the past so to say).
AG

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 02:43 AM EDT
My Yahoo Group has gathered 129 links to news articles, reports, opinions and indirectly related material so far on the efforts to stop the SCO FUD. If anyone needs to use a central DB of links to do research you can use it here, as it is open to the public:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ no2sco/links

Thanks to everyone who has posted links through out these comments as I would never have gathered nearly as many on my own.

PJ e-mail me at smarolf@houston.rr.com so that you and I can coordinate our efforts if you choose.

--Shaun


Shaun

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 03:53 AM EDT
Alex -- true, that is Darl claiming that IBM execs told SCO that they would encourage other companies not to do business with SCO.

My question still stands. If a company makes the statement that IBM allegedly made to SCO, do you think that would constitute tortious interference with business practices?

I don't. I am *all for* encouraging SCO's customers to stop doing business with SC, and I think it would be legal to do so.


mec

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 04:34 AM EDT
mec, I can't see why it would? As long as IBM didn't say "we are going to spread false and libelous claims about you all over the IP press, and mail them to your customers". IBM is certainly free to not do business with SCOX because they are sleazy and, well, why would anyone WANT to do businsess with them.

As far as encoraging SCOX's customers not to do business with them, it seems like there are legit ("look at what Darl said about contracts, man!", "they have declaired war on the entiere IT industry, they will be out of business before 2006", "they are clearly idiots! look at their actions") ways and ways that are probably not so legit ("if you do business with SCOX, your not doing business with IBM" seems iffy).

Of course, we all know the law is fairly hostile to common sense, so I don't know. Anyway, it seems like the statement is a far cry from Darl "We would lose in a straight court case, so we're going to make alot of noise to scare IBM's customers" McBride's comments.


Paul Krause

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 04:49 AM EDT
IBM won FoMoCo services contract in Feb/03.

They took it away from EDS.

Is a surprise that IBM would use Linux.


jog

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 05:38 AM EDT
Speaking of interfering with business relations: "if you go down this path, we are going to disengage. we are not going to do any more business with you, and we are going to encourage others not to do any business with you." Do you think that's a legally actionable statement for one businessman to make to another? Because IBM said that to SCO. (business week, may 2003, you can google it, i'm in a text mode browser right now so i can't paste the link easily)

Here is a link:

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/0 30523/244/e0o48.html

Here is the text

We want to protect our rights, but our goal is not to litigate with anybody. In IBM's case, they came back and said, "If you go down this path, we are going to disengage. We are not going to do any more business with you, and we are going to encourage others not to do any more business with you." That was in fact what happened. The impact was immediate and swift. No doubt, we lost some business and some revenue.

As others point out, that is what Darl says IBM said.

We also know that Darl says IBM is behind all the open source attacks on SCO.

However we don't actually know what IBM said. It seems like to me that IBM said very little. We've seen how little they say in the press about SCO, we've seen in their counter claims that they complain that SCO won't specify what the alleged breaches by IBM are, etc., etc.

IANAL, but even if they said it:

1. They don't appear to have said it all over the press. Darl did that.

2. IBM presumably have a right to choose whom they do business with. It is not unusual not to want to do business with people who are suing you.

3. The "others", presumably have a right to choose whom they do business with. It would not seem unusual not to want to do business with people who are threatening to sue you (remember all those 1500 letters, threats to sue Linux customers, etc). I expect that SCO press release about contracts vs copyrights, also helped SCO, er, get more people to sign contracts with them!

4. Even Darl's account doesn't point to IBM allegedly saying something untrue, merely that IBM doesn't like SCO's path.

5. This interviewed is dated 23 May - before SCO amended their complaint. Did SCO add trade libel to their amended complaint?


quatermass - SCO delenda est

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 07:12 AM EDT
Once again I have to be grateful to Dennis Ritchie for his postings of documents not under seal in the ATT/USL debacle. The most recent posting is the most elucidating.

The situation is of the ultimate "evil landlord" scenario. USL had been ascribing huge value to its (dubious, since much of the material was of other parties copyright) property, and by a nebulous clause of its licensing contracts claiming ownership of all improvements. Equate this to the case of an apartment which you have rented where the lessor demands not only free domm from compensation for all improvements you have made (painting, wallpaper, woodwork, etc.) but further has the nerve to lease the same apartment to others allowing them the use of your furniture, kitchen appliances, automobile, (spouse?) with payment for the enjoyment of them due to the "evil landlord." What kind of settlement to this affair can one concieve of being under seal?


Dan O'Mara

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 07:19 AM EDT
It shows your IP, ISP-Domain, your OS and your browser.

Yeah, and that was mine. Behind my proxy I have one Win2k machine, 3 Linux boxes, a Plan 9 box, a Mac G4 with OS X, and a BSD server.....And since most of the important ports are shut down, I would be very surprised if anyone could get anything more than this info out of my system.


wild bill

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 07:43 AM EDT
http://www.eweek .com/print_article/0,3668,a=43186,00.asp

Above is the link the eWeek story. Did SCO Violate the GPL? June 10, 2003 By Peter Galli

Note it is rather old (in Internet Time) and nothing new has surfaced. You may want to use with caution


BigTex

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 08:05 AM EDT
Before AT&T sold to Novell, AFAIK, all their customers got the "your additions and alterations are yours" addendums to their contracts. I have a feeling it was to clean up a lot of the relatoinships to make them more palatable to the potenital buyers, just as a landlord will make sure all the leases are in order before trying to sell a property.

SCO/Caldera, buying in at the tail end of a series of transfers and changes, has to abide by the effects of an entire chain of agreements between their predecessors and the IUNIX users. They appear to have leapt on the original contract terms and ignored the terms that evolved over time. But ANY contract can be amended by agreement of the original parties, and can't be set back unilaterally. Anyone who buys the property had to honor ALL of the previous owners agreements, not just some.

In real estate terms, they have a "heavily encumbered" title to the code because the previous owners granted easements for traffic, handed out life tenancies to the cottages, sold the water and mineral rights ... and a previous owner retained the right to hold a week-long festival every year in the


Tsu Dho Nimh

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 08:43 AM EDT
Jadeclaw, embedding external image urls for the purpose of identifying people on a site, aka web bugs, is an unwelcome intentional invasion of privacy. I see from your site you try to capitalize on this invasion for profit by offering a payware product to block the very act you continually commit on others. I find that to be an offensive and predatory act.

If you really cared about protecting end users privacy you would tell them how to start doing it for free using host files and not encourage others to place your web bugs on other sites. Your domain will join the ranks of other privacy invaders, spyware makers, and spam peddlers that are assigned to localhost oblivion in the host files of the systems I maintain. WTG
Supa

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 08:58 AM EDT
I see looking from at the site one last time before i black-holed it, it probably doesn't belong Jadeclaw. If thats the case Jadeclaw, my bad, I'm sorry for jumping the gun and attributing it to you. But my criticism of the site you referenced and use for your sig still stands.
Supa

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 09:27 AM EDT
Supa, first, I am not connected to the siteowner or the products offered. (I'm in Germany)
Second, according to the siteowner, nothing is recorded there, the data is only used to create the pic, using a php-script.
Third, the point is the last line, i set ten lines promoting Linux, from which 1 is selected randomly and inserted into the pic.
Forth, here is their Privacy statement
You might want to read it. And if you hate that little Sig-pic, you can enter www.danasoft.com into your host file to block it...
Fifth, if you click here you'll see, what your browser sends to every server it contacts, including Groklaw.
(Don't worry, it's only Javascript inside your browser).
And you have seen that little thing down there, that says " (IP address recorded.) " ?
Sixth, the definition of a Webbug: An invisible graphic file, usually 1x1 pixel in size,
which carries a session-id, that makes an individual computer indentifiable on the net.
These webbugs are mostly accompanied by a cookie, carried by the HTML-page containing the bug.
Since this pic is a JPEG, there is no cookie. Aside from that, the filename is identical for all viewers.
I therefor suggest, that you inform yourself about the functional principles, that make the internet work.

With best regards
Jadeclaw.


Jadeclaw

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 09:38 AM EDT
One last thing about why that site riled me up. While this web bug may seem like a harmless infraction of easily obtained knowledge only displayed to yourself, that isnt really the case. There are people who read and comment on Groklaw that would probably like thier anonimity protected and having web bugs on the comments pages may compromise that info to an untrusted third party who can tie image load times to message post times. Now as tempting as the idea of figuring out which one of us might be Darl is and how often he reads ;-), its a double edge sword we best be aware of and discourage it.
Supa

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 10:06 AM EDT
Supa, if you want anonymity, hop over there: Java Anon Project
By routing the data, which is also encrypted, over a number of proxy servers, it is not possible to trace back, who accessed this site.
Each proxy (called mix) sees only the previous and the following proxy.
And the entry-server is in Germany, where privacy is a bit better protected than in the US.
The link gives all instructions, how to setup the thing and also how to become a mix.

Jadeclaw.
Jadeclaw

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 10:18 AM EDT
Jadeclaw, 1x1 pixel, 2x2 pixels, etc... The size of the image is inconsequential, the purpose of the image is what makes a web bug. If you believe all the privacy statements you read on these site, then you are being lulled into a false sense of privacy. I would argue that a companies standard practices make a much better gauge of their integrity then a privacy note written in legalese put on the site to make IE happy it has one. Many a company have gone back on their word about such statements in the past, and this fact is probably self-evident to anyone who has gotten spam from companies they opted out from. In this particular case they are blunt about the invasion and the web bug itself shows some of what its gathering in an attempt to scare users into buying their products. It then invites the victim to perpetuate the scare tactic on other users by making their own flavor.

Beware of large wooden horses bearing privacy notices.
Supa

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 11:03 AM EDT
Jadeclaw,

Perhaps you find it amusing to place an external IP tracking bug on this page, but it is very inappropriate and out of line. Yes, I know how the internet works, and yes, I know that the server hosting this page is loging my functional IP address. But now I also know that some unknown other server is also doing the same thing, with no functional necessity that it do so. Privacy statement are irrelivant and completely meaningless.


Tom Cranbrook

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 11:11 AM EDT
mec: Linux is super-resistant to fragmentation because of the GPL.

Sorry mec, but I'm going to have to disagree with you on this statement. If anything, the GPL makes it super-easy to fragment Linux. Right now there are dozens, if not hundreds, of forks of the Linux source code. If you can't call that fragmented, I don't what else you could.

The reason why this fragmentation isn't bad is because of Linux development community. Be it community spirit, enlighted self-interesting or some other reason, the fragments of Linux don't stand alone. The changes of each Linux fork are send back upstream to the Linux maintainers where they are filters, changed, sent back for revisions, etc. Eventually they may make it up to Linus and included in the "One True Linux" aka the mainstream Linux Kernel.


Stephen Johnson

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 11:21 AM EDT
JadeClaw: There was something about that jpeg image. It kept bugging me. I kept coming back to look at it.

Then it finally hit me. The IP address in the jpeg. It's my laptop's. How, or where, on earth did you get that image?


Stephen Johnson

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 11:22 AM EDT
Ahh, Supa...
It's the session-id, that makes a web-bug usable for tracking. This one has none...
Since I know, what goes out when loading a file, I can be relatively sure, that noones privacy has been compromised.
And it is much easier for SCO to get the identity of a whistleblower by sending a subpoena to the ISP operating the weblog-server than harassing Danasoft.
However, to put everyones mind at ease, I will refrain from inserting images of any sort into my messages using the IMG-Tag in the future.

Jadeclaw.
Jadeclaw

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 11:27 AM EDT
JadeClaw: BTW I'm not alarmed or anger about the image. I'm just wanting to know
for curiosity's sake.
Stephen Johnson

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 11:34 AM EDT
JadeClaw: Nevermind.

/me finally grok'ed it. :)


Stephen Johnson

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 11:39 AM EDT
Stephen: The owner of Danasoft simply threw a php-script together, which takes the data, that your browser sends to that server and converts it into a JPEG.
Your IP-Address is always transferred to the webserver, because it needs it to send the HTML-pages back.
Remember, without a return address, noone can send you anything.
Btw, when you disconnect and reconnect, you get a new IP-address.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Speaking of fragmentation, if the UNIX-Companies had agreed on a maintainer immediately
after the AT&T-Debacle coordinating the development, Microsoft wouldn't be the problem it is today.
And I would possibly never had touched Windows throughout my life...

Jadeclaw
Jadeclaw

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 11:42 AM EDT
"Well, it looks everybody here, including me, supports IBM's right to advocate that SCO's customers not do business with SCO. All I'm pointing out is that SCO has a similar right to advocate that IBM's customers stop doing business with IBM."

Yes, but they can only use truthful, legal methods. Their unsupported assertions about massive IP theft and vague legal threats about end user liability are skating very close to illegality. That's why IBM's counterclaims include violations of the Lanham Act.

JadeClaw - This is not the place for stupid web tricks. danasoft and your little JPG from it have been permanently placed in my blocked list.


Tsu Dho Nimh

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 12:18 PM EDT
"Btw, when you disconnect and reconnect, you get a new IP-address." - Jadeclaw

That is frequently incorrect. In my case that IP address never changes, since it is the permanent address of the bastion firewall attached to the company's DSL line. We pay for a fixed IP address for our servers, and so it must always be unchanged. It usually changes between connects for dialup accounts, and sometimes changes for wideband accounts.

The browser information is indeed always sent to the web site, since it is necessary to allow web sites to customize pages for various browsers. One egregious use of this feature is to set the server to only allow connections from "approved" OS and browser combinations. Konqueror (the native broswer for KDE) allows me to spoof that to say anything I choose.

So the script knows only the IP address (which it must in order to return the requested data), and everything else is subject to misdirection. In any case, it is considered very impolite to insert images (or embedded html links links to images) of any sort into text lists. Please do not do it again, sir.


Marty

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radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 12:26 PM EDT
jadeclaw: I thought it was a pertinent reminder
about what we actually reveal about ourselves
online - albiet a tad off topic...
-r

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 12:56 PM EDT
To be exactly, it was not the intention.
It was the last line, that made it interesting. You can simply place a message there.
In this case, promoting Linux. That it repeats your data, is just an extra.
Btw, you see only your data, as I see only my data.
But as I said before, I will refrain from embedding pics here.

Jadeclaw.
Jadeclaw

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 12:58 PM EDT
Is there already a link to the preliminary injunction of the Bremen court
http://www.univention.de/ uploads/verfuegung.pdf
as referenced from
http://www.univention.de/index.php?face=1063569271x217812013x2x59a103a0a0 at Groklaw?
Gerhard

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 01:03 PM EDT
John: now that I have my graphical environment back, I can quote some pdf's back at you.

On the first point, I think that even the proverbial PHB's understand that SCO licenses Unix source code to IBM, Sun, HP, SGI, and lots of other people; and that IBM AIX, Sun Solaris, HP HP/UNX, and SGI Irix, as well as a lot of other systems like that, are based on SCO's Unix. I don't the term "IBM's AIX license" confusing at all in the context of statements like "SCO revokes IBM's AIX license". I think it's pretty clear what SCO claims to be revoking there. I think your argument that "SCO should say they are revoking IBM's *UNIX* license" will go nowhere in persuading people outside our community that SCO is lying about anything.

As far as the language goes: I am quoting Exhibit A in SCO's lawsuit, the original AT&T contract.

6.03 If LICENSEE fails to fulfill one or more of its obligations under this Agreement, AT&T may, upon its election and in addition to any other remedies that it may have, at any time terminate all the rights granted by it hereunder by not less than (2) month's written notice to LICENSEE specifying any such breach ...

"at its election" looks unilateral to me.

I admit that I didn't check Amendment X to this. Let's look at Amendment X:

1. ... Notwithstanding the above, the irrevocable nature of the above rights will in no way be construed to limit Novell's or SCO's rights to enjoin or otherwise prohibit IBM from violating any and all of Novell's or SCO's rights under this Amendment No. X, the Related Agreements, or under general patent, copyright, or trademark law.

I think you are misreading Amendment X. Amendment X does not say that Novell or SCO must seek to enjoin IBM to enforce their rights. Amendment X says that the irrevocable nature of the licens"otherwise prohibit" IBM from violating Novell's or SCO's rights.e does NOT limit Novell's or SCO's rights to enjoin IBM *or* to


mec

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radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 01:09 PM EDT
Tsu Dho Nimh, my position is probably not very far from yours. I think that
some of SCO's statements are actionable, particularly SCO's claims of illegal
activity by other people. I'm mostly expressing disgust at the idea that SCO is
doing anything wrong by trying to pry IBM's customers away from IBM as a way of
hurting IBM.
mec

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 01:16 PM EDT
mec I agree with the perpetual and irrevocable. I think a jury will have a hard time parsing 2 completely different things.

Why change the previous agreements with these words if 'perpetual and irrevocable' don't alter the older agreements in any substantive way?

Anyway, the part of the amendment I find most interesting which most people seem to miss is paragraph 6.

The second to last sentence of paragraph 9 of the February 1, 1985 amendment to SOFT-00015is modified by deleting the words: "and employees of Licensee shall not refer to the physical documents and materials comprising Software Products subject to this Agreement when they are developing any such products or sevices or providing any such service.


Sanjeev

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 01:19 PM EDT
Mmmm, I'm getting too opinion-y, how about some news and information, cause we won't beat SCO by just refinining our opinions.

A little news.google.com pimping:

http://ww w.businessweek.com/technology/cnet/stories/5071992.htm

Two paragraphs on SCO:

One Linux software company, originally named Caldera and now called SCO Group, failed to make a business of Linux. It acquired much of the Unix intellectual property in 2001 in an attempt to expand its business, but when that didn't work out either, it began a new strategy to profit from that Unix intellectual property. After hiring high-profile attorney David Boies, SCO began arguing that Unix source code and extensions are illegally used in Linux. Its opening salvo in March was ambitious: a lawsuit against IBM alleging that Big Blue violated its Unix contracts with SCO when it moved its own Unix extensions to Linux. Now SCO has begun asking all Linux users to pay it hundreds of dollars each.

SCO's actions haven't been received warmly. IBM countersued SCO in August, bringing four patent infringement claims as well as a vigorous defense of the GPL, and Red Hat sued SCO the same week in an attempt to lay the matter to rest as quickly as possible. Linux advocates have scoffed at SCO's charges, industry analysts have questioned the merits of their arguments, and intellectual property attorneys have advised companies to wait for legal ruling before agreeing to SCO's demands.

===

I am enjoying that last sentence. It's mild compared to the fire-eating stuff from unabashed Linux advocates, but coming from Business Week and CNET, it means we are doing well in the PR war.


mec

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 01:20 PM EDT
(from previous comment section...)

Wild bill, yes, I did in fact send that response to the Arab newspaper which ran the FUD from Microsoft, but it appears that
they either lost it into a black hole, or they simply haven't had time to post it yet (or just aren't going to...). It's not up there yet.


Steve Martin

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 01:34 PM EDT
The sig that Jadeclaw is using is actually a PNG file.

Apparently, the file "jadeclaw.jpg" is a link to a PHP or Perl script that creates the PNG on the fly by inserting the Apache Referer info into a stock PNG file.

It's a cute trick and essentially innocuous - it's just using information that your browser sends to every web site you visit.

Having your browser transparently referred to a site you don't know about isn't unusual; that's how most advertisements work.

The problem is that seeing this information posted in a forum like Groklaw can be disconcerting to those who don't understand the details behind it. If that chases anyone out of the discussions, it's a "bad thing".


Dick Gingras - SCO caro mortuum erit!

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 01:41 PM EDT
OK, here is my first draft. There will be many changes and refinements, but I am posting it so you can share in the process. I normally do about 6 versions before I get it right, but this is the general idea I am working with. Feel free to make suggestions. To Alex and any I haven't had a minute to write back to, I am sorry. I will. I'm struggling with the deadline of trying to get this ready by tomorrow. So, with that intro, here's the draft:

This letter is from the open source/free software community. Because you addressed your letter to us, we thought we should answer you ourselves, particularly because the community isn't organized in an hierarchical structure in the way a corporation is and it therefore really has no CEO or leader in that sense, except Linus Torvalds in the case of the Linux kernel and Richard Stallman in the case of the GNU Project and the Free Software Foundation. All in the community contribute based on our interest and abilities.

Some in our particular group are computer engineers, including some contributors to the Linux kernel. Others are owners of Linux businesses or are executives and employees of Linux businesses. Some are lawyers. One is a paralegal, one is a stockbroker, at least one is a physicist, and one is a retired policeman. Others are in or have been in the military and some have worked in government. We have experienced UNIX programmers in our midst, who personally witnessed the history of UNIX since its inception and know your software well. One of us is a grandmother, who recently tried Linux and fell in love with the software. We are an international group, which is appropriate because GNU/Linux is in worldwide use and the community is global.

Our first purpose in writing to you is to put you on notice that you are in violation of the terms of the General Public License, the GPL, in at least two ways:

1. you continue to distribute Linux from your web site 2. you are selling licenses to software which is incompatible with the requirements of the GPL

With regard to the invoices you say you intend to begin mailing out soon, we thought we should inform you that it is our opinion that any such action on your part will leave you open to civil lawsuits under state consumer protection laws as well as to actions based on copyright claims. For just one example, we suggest that you read New York's General Business Law Sections 349 and 350, which to our reading makes your invoice/licensing scheme illegal. You may be assured that should we receive any such invoices, we will be making use of such statutes wherever we live, as well as immediately notifying our respective states' Attorney Generals, as well as the FTC. Some of us have begun preparing that process, and others have filed complaints against you already with governmental agencies and with legislators in Washington, DC.

Despite the false impression you intend to create in the public's mind that we are a lawless bunch that don't believe in intellectual property, we thought we should warn you that we do believe in copyright laws, because they are the foundation on which the GPL is built. If Linux programmers didn't believe in intellectual property rights, then they would have released their software into the public domain. They chose instead to utilize the current intellectual property laws, copyright being the underpinning on which the GPL is built.

We require that you respect Linux kernel coders' copyright rights, as well as the particular license that the Linux kernel coders have chosen to use, the GPL. You are asking others to respect your copyrights and licenses, while violating the identical rights of the Linux coders.

If your distribution of Linux is being done under the GPL, then you are distributing the very code you claim is both a trade secret and infringing, including at least two of the high-end functions you list in your complaint in the IBM lawsuit. If you are not distributing under the GPL, then you have no right to distribute at all, since that is the only license that permits distribution of that code.

Similarly, if you sell licenses to code that is integrated with GPL code under a conflicting license, you lose the right to distribute at all. Without the GPL, the code reverts to copyright law, which gives you no right legally to copy or to distribute it at all. Consequently, it appears to us that you are violating the copyright rights of the hundreds of programmers who retain their copyright rights in the code they submitted to the kernel. Their use of the GPL license to permit more liberal distribution terms than copyright allows does not affect their copyright rights, rights which they retain.

That brings us to your copyright claims, which are the only ones that can have any impact on our community. You have proven no infringing code. We are aware of none. If you are aware of any, show the code and it will be immediately removed. You know that, because Linus Torvalds and FSF's attorney, Eben Moglen, both told you that the minute you reveal what code you believe is infringing, if in fact it is, it will be removed. Why, then, have you refused for six month to allow the community to remove the code in question?

We believe it is because you don't want the code removed, because you wish to charge for it instead, a kind of perpetual toll. Your UNIX business is waning, and if people won't voluntarily buy your software, perhaps you feel you can compel them to pay for what they did not voluntary choose to buy. Whether your motive is money or a desire to make Linux cost more than it does, or a desire to damage IBM by frightening its potential customers away so as to pressure them to either settle with you or buy your company, that is not normal copyright behavior. The alleged infringer has the right to simply remove the code, if he or she so chooses, and you cannot compel Linux to retain your code for your monetary gain. We don't want your legacy UNIX code. For one thing, ours works better. It would also be a violation of the GPL to accept proprietary code into the kernel, so if it exists, we want it out as badly as you do, perhaps more, because we believe in the GPL.

The claims you have against IBM are between the two of you, being a contractual dispute that we are not a party to. If you have any valid claims, they will air in a court of law, and your remedies will be against IBM and only IBM, not us.

Because our community respects copyrights, we suggest you do the following, which has been our dominant and sustained message to you for six months: show us the code you say is infringing and we will take it out.

For six months, you have claimed there is identical, infringing code in UNIX illegally donated to Linux, but when your examples were shown at SCOForum, it turned out that neither example is code you own. For six months, we have listened to "analysts" opine that the code was, indeed, identical. But what they, and you, forgot to do is find out where the code came from and who it belonged to. There is BSD code in Linux which is legally there and it will, of course, be identical to or similar to code in UNIX to the extent you have BSD code in your software. But it is code that is legally available to anyone to use. However, we must point out that you were in the wrong to remove the copyright notice in the BSD code and pretend it was yours. The other example, the SGI example, was code that is not, in fact, in Linux. It seems hypocritical to complain about removed copyright notices in that context, does it not?

We wish to point out is that it took only about a day or so for the code to be identified by the Linux community. This bears on your other complaint, that we in the community do not police code appropriately. If that were true, why were we able to identify the first example as BSD code and you were not? It's because we keep very clear and exact records of all kernel submissions, which are public, as is the source code itself. You, in contrast, had no idea where that code came from, or you surely would not have used it to prove "infringement" and you surely wouldn't have removed the copyright notice, since you claim to believe so strongly in intellectual property. So the evidence compels the conclusion that it is your system that appears to be broken, not our own.

Any code that is donated to the kernel from corporate owners is, in fact, cleared by the legal departments of those corporations. That is what happened before IBM's submissions were accepted and also with SGI's, according to the evidence that is publicly available. If they represent that they have ownership rights and the right to make the donation, what further do you feel should be done? What further steps do you take? Do you in fact have steps in place to prevent GPL code from being improperly inserted into your proprietary software? Would you be willing to allow us to check for such violations?

Any proprietary software company is able to police its own code by checking the openly available Linux source code. The Linux kernel is open to the public. If you see any code that you believe is yours, you have only to speak up, and it would be immediately removed. That is a superior feature in the open source method, and all you need to do is your own due diligence. If you or other proprietary companies do not identify any such code, we may safely assume there is none such. This is far superior to your system, by which code can be hidden inside proprietary software and no one is in a position to check for it, short of a lawsuit. Anyone even dreaming of sneaking proprietary software code into Linux knows he will be found out and identified by name.

Perhaps that explains why proprietary software companies are regularly sued for IP violations, and sometimes lose such claims, as Microsoft has lost, on more than one occasion, while GNU/Linux has never before been sued for such a claim, despite its beginnings in the mid-80s. That record speaks volumes as to who is better able to police code. Even in this case, you have shown no evidence of infringing code, and the "proof" you did provide was risible.

Speaking of due diligence, your company, and its predecessor, Caldera, worked for years to create UNIX/Linux compatibility. Your LKP project required your programmers to look carefully at Linux kernel code in order to write your own code. During that time period, your staff programmers made regular submissions of code to the Linux kernel, with what appears to be the approval and knowledge of the company, from the evidence we see in the public record. We know the names of two such staff members, and they were specifically contributing code to the high-end features you now complain about. We believe that Linux kernel code may have been placed in your UNIX version by your programmers at that time, and we'd be happy to provide you with the evidence that leads us to this opinion. We note that SCO recently removed code from that very software and we ask that you tell us if, in fact, that code removed was Linux kernel code. You might as well confess if it was, because it will come out at trial anyway.

With regard to your allegations of having experienced a DDoS attack, we surely are not the ones to do police work. There is a legal process for such matters. We have absolutely no knowledge of whether there even was such an attack or whether you simply removed your servers for maintenance, which is what some were told when they called your company. If there was an attack, we surely have no idea who did it, but it surely wasn't any of us or any of our friends, because we don't have any friends who would do such a thing. In fact we abhor such behavior.

If you wish to make public your server logs and upstream server logs, perhaps some among us could help you figure out what happened. We would have thought that a tech company that sells web services, though, would know how to handle a DDoS attack, which companies deal with on a frequent basis without being brought to their knees, and we are glad that you have since found out the technical steps you can take to protect yourself in the future. If you lack technical skill, we are, of course, happy to help out by sharing our knowledge with you.


pj

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 01:55 PM EDT
Jadeclaw, what you did was not acceptable behavior here, and I'm glad you have agreed to stop. Thank you everyone for catching it. For your info, the IP address is recorded, but not retained. I never see it and I don't know your email addresses that you type in either, unless you make them public. Radio says they don't retain all that.

That isn't quite good enough for me though, and we are moving tomorrow. This site will remain here, at least for the time being until the full adjustment is made, but eventually commenting will be only available on the new site. On the new site, it will be possible to block undesirable visitors. I'm not saying anyone here is such, but just letting you know that we will have enhanced capabilities and so will you. The comments section is much better, as you will see tomorrow. You will be able to log in or not, as you desire. There will be cookies if you do, so if you hate cookies as much as I do, avoid logging in. But you won't be able to do as many things without them. There will be a submissions function, so you can let me know what you want covered, and you can place the same info in a comment. In fact, I hope you do, because the comments are a huge part of Groklaw's value. If all goes well, it should be a great improvement.

I'll put up a notice later today with the new address.


pj

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 02:00 PM EDT
bravo superb and i could keep right on
excellent letter PJ
br3n
brenda banks

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 02:01 PM EDT
quatermass - the point about HP is interesting - do you have any references for
that?
I ask because the SGI code was actually submitted by HP so if HP had the rights
to it SGI are doubly off the hook.
Adam Baker

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 02:07 PM EDT
BRAVO, BRAVO pj. Great start but may I suggest adding foot notes or links here and there. Being the first draft though you have eloquently stated things. You should be a diplomat.

--Shaun


Shaun

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 02:22 PM EDT
As nobody objected to my "Univention vs. SCO in Bremen links", here is what Tarent says about their preliminary injunction and the following 10KEUR fee against SCO Group Germany:
http://www.tarent.de/html/tarent-vs-sco/030612_Questions-and-Answers.html, http://www.tarent .de/html/tarent-vs-sco/EV-english.html (Preliminary injunction Munich court), http://www.tarent.de/serv let/is/5709/index.html (Overview, German like the rest), http://www.tarent.de/serv let/is/5767/index.html (suing for repeated infringement), http://www.tarent.de/serv let/is/5809/index.html (History of SCO conflict), http://www.tarent.de/serv let/is/5860/index.html (the 10kEUR fee)
pj: I would like to also vote for some links in your great text.
Gerhard

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 02:33 PM EDT
on the magazine quote where they talk about BMW hadnt they better be careful threatening them? that is a german based company.hehehe

br3n


brenda banks

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 02:37 PM EDT
Sanjeev, your "perpetual and irrevocable" argument makes good PR soundbite, but bad law. (Actually the exact words are "irrevocable, fully paid-up, perpetual").

That sentence in the contract is followed by another sentence in the same paragraph:

"Notwithstanding the above, the irrevocable nature of the above rights will in no way be construed to limit Novell's or SCO's rights to enjoin or otherwise prohibit IBM from violating any and all of Novell's or SCO's rights under this Amendment No. X, the Related Agreements, or under general patent, copyright, or trademark law."

That sentence is in the contract; therefore, it has a meaning. I expect SCO to argue that "otherwise prohibit" includes the "at its election" clause from the original AT&T contract with IBM.

If you disagree with this interpretation, what is your interpretation of that sentence?

BTW I have seen no statement from IBM on this issue either. SCO says they are terminating the license for cause; IBM says that the license is irrevocable.

In any event, my point is that SCO was not lying when they terminated IBM's license agreement. There is definitely language in the contracts which allows for termination. SCO may be wrong, but they aren't lying.

Regarding Paragraph 6 of Amendment X, deleting the line about "no referring to physical documents and materials": I agree with your interpretation. The February 1, 1985 agreement already contains great lines such as "we agree that modifications and derivative works prepared by or for you are owned by you" and "nothing in this agreeement shall prevent LICENSEE from developing or marketing products or services employing ideas, concepts, know-how or techniques relating to data processing embodied in SOFTWAR PRODUCTS subject to this Agreement, provided that ... and ....". The sentence you cite removese one of those "provided that" restrictions, so that just makes IBM's case stronger.

SCO will have a real hard time, legally, with any issue except actual code copying by IBM, and so far, they haven't produced anything which points to code copying by IBM. But PR-wise, we are on the short end of a stick:

SCO: IBM copied code illegally. Us: Nobody copied code illegally. SCO: Look, here's some identical code. Us: IBM didn't copy that. SGI copied that! And SGI did so legally. SCO: Whatever, somebody copied code into Linux.

The law is on our side in that exchange but the PR is on SCO's side.

SCO: IBM copied code Us: No they didn't SCO: Look, here is "non-literal copying" in the BPF Us: WTF? Here is the original author, Jay Schulist. Jay: Hi, I wrote Linux BPF from scratch. Jay: "I used it for helping a local school district in my home town to connect their old Apple Macintosh machines to the Internet". SCO: Uh, we didn't mean this was illegal copying. SCO: We were just demonstrating our leet copy-detection tools!

That was a PR disaster for SCO in the making, but then the ESR "the DDOS'er is one of us" story came out and eclipsed it, damn it.

Hey, PJ, do you think Groklaw could interview Jay Schulist? I hate the media image of "open source hackers sit around trading real men's code on linux.napster.org". I would love to see some counter-meme'ing of "open source hackers are volunteers helping their local schools get on the Net" (as well as many of the other things we are).


mec

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 02:40 PM EDT
BRAVA indeed.

If this is your first draft, your 6th drafts must be..., I'm at a loss for words.

I really have no suggestions for change. I agree with Shaun, though. Footnotes with links would be an excellent addition.

This is the best reply I have seen to date. You did an incredible job of incorporating all of the suggestions that have been made here while also keeping it simple and to the point. I very much like the way you dealt with the DDoS matter.

My favorite part:

You, in contrast, had no idea where that code came from, or you surely would not have used it to prove "infringement" and you surely wouldn't have removed the copyright notice, since you claim to believe so strongly in intellectual property. So the evidence compels the conclusion that it is your system that appears to be broken, not our own.
Thank you very much pj, you just made my day.

Linux: No infringing code.


Harry Clayton

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 03:07 PM EDT
mec - "Hey, PJ, do you think Groklaw could interview Jay Schulist?"

I think that this is an excellent idea. I would like to see a little writeup from Jay describing what he did and why.

I have a question for him - What motivated you to write a GPL'ed version of BPF from the published spec's instead of just porting the BSD licensed code (which would have been legal to do)?

Different topic - On the stripped BSD copyright notices. I don't think that SCO Group stripped any copyright notices. I beleive that was done before they obtained it. It was noted in the USL vs BSDi proceedings that USL misappropriated BSD code (the misappropriation was because the copyright notices had been stripped, in violation of the BSD license).

For completeness, Linux committed the same faux pas at least once. Some device driver code was incorporated with the BSD copyright notice removed. The BSD developers brought it to Linus's attention and the BSD copyright notices were very quickly restored.


Harry Clayton

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 03:08 PM EDT
mec, I agree with you that the fully paid up, irrevocable has been given too much weight by some, since the 'notwithstanding' takes away most of its effect.

What I pointed out was that if this goes to a jury, IBM might say "why add this fully paid up clause if it changes nothing?"

I'm just waiting for Monday. I fear SCO will use every creative means at their disposal to turn the response to the RH complaint into a FUD opportunity.

It does look as if the media is catching on to SCO's games. Verghese's articles and now the business week article, and complete silence from Cooper and Didio's backing away is great stuff.

Hayes has been great all along.


Sanjeev

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 03:10 PM EDT
To clarify, if SCO makes the argument that they lose none of their rights, IBM might say "why add this fully paid up clause if it changes nothing, obviously it takes away some of SCO's rights."

And all of this is moot anyway unless SCO comes up with an amendment that Novell has lost, to the effect that Novell gives up its 1/3 part of the three way deal.


Sanjeev

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 03:14 PM EDT
Thanks, eveyone. On footnotes, are you sure? We will be adding in the letter one last sentence, referring to the second document with the proofs attached. This is a much longer document, and it isn't finished yet. If you have specific urls that you want in this letter as opposed to the supporting document, please be specific.

We also need to decide on an offer I have received. A reporter from the Inquirer contacted me to ask for an exclusive on the second document, the proofs. How does everyone feel about it? The positive is that my bandwidth will be spared. The negative is that the entire world will have to go to the Inquirer to read it instead of here. I'll let you all decide. But I need to give him an answer fairly soon.

I'll post the reporter list next, because we need to flesh it out a bit more, and then the longer doc of supporting info. I may not get that done for hours yet. If any of you wish to help with the longer document, you could please do the following: look through the SCO Archives and maybe SCO Financials and dig out topics and make a list of what is proven on each page. It's kind of done already on those pages, but only the highlights. If we have a list, saying this is proven on this page, with the url, I think it'd be good. And if you want to look in each article for urls to prove points that are in the article, so much the better. I simply don't have time to do that myself. But, for example, the Christoph Hellwig story was our exclusive research and it belongs in the secondary document, I believe. So does the article on derivative code, with a url to Dan Ravicher's paper, that kind of thing. The German story. So, if you can help, please do. I'm swamped.


pj

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 03:20 PM EDT
"Supa, if you want anonymity, hop over there: Java Anon Project ... Jadeclaw • 9/14/03; 10:06:34 AM"

Bad advice to rely on them:

Net anonymity service back-doored http://www.theregister .co.uk/content/55/32450.html

"The popular Java Anonymous Proxy (JAP), used to anonymise one's comings and goings across the Internet, has been back-doored by court order. The service is currently logging access attempts to a particular, and unnamed, Web site and reporting the IP addys of those who attempt to contact it to the German police.

We know this because the JAP operators immediately warned users that their IP traffic might be going straight to Big Brother, right? Wrong. After taking the service down for a few days with the explanation that the interruption was "due to a hardware failure", the operators then required users to install an "upgraded version" (ie. a back-doored version) of the app to continue using the service."

Net anonymity service un-backdoored http://www.theregister. co.uk/content/6/32533.html

"The Java Anonymous Proxy (JAP) service, a collaborative effort of Dresden University of Technology, Free University Berlin and the Independent Centre for Privacy Protection Schleswig-Holstein, Germany (ICPP), has been allowed to suspend its monitoring of users' IP traffic pending a decision on the legality of back-dooring it."

Currently they are not monitoring traffic, but that could change the moment the court makes a decision.

The current monitoring is only for a single site, however, it seems that that could change if someone can get the authorities to intervene.

While they can't change the legal requirement imposed by the authorities, the lack of user notification of the true state of monitoring makes depending on this site a for anonimity a risk.


[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 03:24 PM EDT
One little comment on pj's draft:

"show us the code you say is infringing and we will take it out."

I think that should be reworded either to "prove that code is infringing and we will take it out" or "show us the code you say is infringing and we will verify its legality, removing any that does infringe."

Otherwise we are promising to remove any code he *says* infringes, regardless of proof!


Dr Drake

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 03:24 PM EDT
Outstanding letter. I am not 100% sure that this comment is correct but one of your sentances "read wrong" to me.

Para. 15 (I believe)

READS: For six months, you have claimed there is identical, infringing code in UNIX illegally donated to Linux, but when your examples were shown at SCOForum, it turned out that neither example is code you own.

SHOULD READ: For six months, you have claimed there is identical, infringing UNIX code in Linux 2.4x which has been illegally donated to Linux, but when your examples were shown at SCOForum, it turned out that neither example is code you own.

Just a thought. What a woundeful letter. Calm, percise and accuate. WELL DONE!!!!

BigTex


BigTex

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 03:31 PM EDT
on the interview proposed, I'd be delighted. If anyone knows how to contact
him, ask him to contact me. Not until Tuesday, though. Or, if anyone wants to
do the interview and send it to me, that's fine too.
pj

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 03:34 PM EDT
PJ i have no problem with the inquirer getting exclusive on the 2nd one

br3n


brenda banks

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 03:39 PM EDT
This letter is from the open source/free software community. Because you addressed your letter to us, we thought we should answer you ourselves, particularly because the community isn't organized in an hierarchical structure in the way a corporation is and it therefore really has no CEO or leader in that sense, except Linus Torvalds in the case of the Linux kernel and Richard Stallman in the case of the GNU Project and the Free Software Foundation. All in the community contribute based on our interest and abilities. pj: Some suggested revisions for paragraph one. (Don't let 'em flame me.)

1) You need to open your letter by identifying your addressee. (McBride and SCO) although the audience is the public at large. 2) If you should use a qualifier like "at large" or the open source community will quip "you don't speak for me ! ", 'cause I'm of an independent mind. ---------------------------------------- Dear Mr McBride, This letter is an answer from the Open Source Community, to your "Open Letter to the Open Source Community" published Sept 9, 2003. Since the Open Source Community has no formal hierarchical structure, we have formed an ad hoc collaboration at large to answer your claims. We do not claim to speak for the the Open Source Community in any official capacity. This letter is the result of our faith in the open source philosophy and our willingness to defend our common beliefs.


gumout

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 03:40 PM EDT
Agreed with Dr. Drake.

PJ, please reword the line about us taking out code they say is infringing. We should not be promising to do anything - only to consider the merits of thier requests.


MajorLeePissed

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 03:41 PM EDT
Dear Mr McBride,

This letter is an answer from the Open Source Community, to your "Open Letter to the Open Source Community" published Sept 9, 2003. Since the Open Source Community has no formal hierarchical structure, we have formed an ad hoc collaboration at large to answer your claims. We do not claim to speak for the the Open Source Community in any official capacity. This letter results from our faith in the open source philosophy and our willingness to defend our common beliefs.


gumout

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 03:42 PM EDT
I know this is off topic but I have a theoretical question to throw out. As a LINUX desktop user SCO would say that I owe them $200 now or $400 after 10/15. IANAL but, theoretically, is there anything preventing me from going into my local small claims court and filing suit against SCO asking the court to rule that LINUX contains no SCO IP. SCO would of course be given an opportunity to respond but in doing so they would be giving the LINUX community what it has been asking for since day 1: SCO's proof.

If this is possible, what would stop many LINUX users from doing the same thing all over the country? From what I can see, SCO would have to win every one of those cases if it wanted to preserve their cases against IBM and Red Hat.

If this is theoretically possible, I wonder why no one has tried it yet.


abtm

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 03:42 PM EDT
Sanjeev / mec - the notwithstanding means that the statement about not prohibiting IBMS violations doesn't withstand the statement about the license being irrevocable. i.e. the irrevocable statement overrides the other statement.

pj / BigTex - could we finish that sentence with neither example is code that is in Linux illegally. Although the malloc code is almost certainly public domain by now SCO do still sort of own it.

pj - The last paragraph of your letter discussed the DoS attacks (and to my mind was the weakest paragraph of a very good letter). Many people will read only the first and last pargraphs of our letter so we need to make those the strongest ones. I think we need to finish with a paragraph that says (worded better) "so you see the Linux community do value and respect intellectual property and they demonstarate this respect more than SCO does."


Adam Baker

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 03:44 PM EDT
Fomatting comments on this blog is like try'in to push a nitecrawler across the
table.
gumout

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 03:45 PM EDT
When I read the first draft my reasoning was to create a reference to supporting material. Since you will add a secondary document sans my footnotes and links suggestion.

As far as the Inquirer posting I don't see an issue there, however I feel appropriate and due credit must be given to Groklaw, especially to you pj and anyone you feel was a major contribitor to this response.

BTW can't wait to see what the new site will be like.

--Shaun


Shaun

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 03:53 PM EDT
Left out the qualifier "one" --- bad doggy !

Dear Mr McBride,

This letter is one answer from the Open Source Community, to your "Open Letter to the Open Source Community" published Sept 9, 2003. Since the Open Source Community has no formal hierarchical structure, we have formed an ad hoc collaboration at large to answer your claims. We do not claim to speak for the the Open Source Community in any official capacity. This letter results from our faith in the open source philosophy and our willingness to defend our common beliefs.


gumout

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 03:55 PM EDT
PJ, I strongly recommend against an exclusive deal with the Inquirer, though they are a very good site. You face the prospect of being negatively reported by the other news sites if you side with a single outlet, which would be a shame given all the hard work you and others are putting into this. It would be better to give your letter the widest possible coverage. Try to get the letters caches on Google if you have bandwidth worries.

Ken


Ken

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 03:59 PM EDT
great intro Gumount! How about substitue the work "address" in place of "answer" in the 2nd sentance.

BigTex


BigTex

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 04:00 PM EDT
PJ will our signatures be affixed to the letter?

br3n


brenda banks

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 04:01 PM EDT
pj - Expect to be contacted by The Register next. ;-)

Mike Magee is many things, but I wouldn't count 'fool' among them. I mentioned in a previous post that I was certain that NewsForge, The Reg, and The Inq would all jump at the chance to publish our reply.

I found out about GrokLaw from 'The Inqwell' and I would have no objection to giving them an exclusive.

Lot's of U.S. folks in IT rely on 'The Inq' and 'The Reg' for IT news. It not that they aren't biased, it just that they seem to have a more equal bias against the PR departments of all companies. Since they are supposed to report the 'facts' in IT news, this is as it should be. PR departments are all about propaganda (advertising), not facts. e.g. US trade rags: MS is cheaper than Linux. Here's the Reg's report on Linux on desktop not cost-effective for most, says Gartner. Compare their coverage with equivalent in US trade rags and tell me who you think does a better job of 'reporting'. We've already had a link to an Inq story on the SCO Group case, but I'll repeat it here: All the SCO news print to fit . Follow this link, I find it very interesting that Darl's Open Letter was described in the last sentence as:

And Darl's letter? Well, that's the "news" that doesn't fit today.
Apparently, their bogometer is calibrated as sensitively as mine.

Some people may not like the informal style they use in their reporting. I have never had a problem sorting their 'opinion' from 'facts'. YMMV.


Harry Clayton

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 04:02 PM EDT
BigTex: superb!

Dear Mr McBride,

This letter is one answer from the Open Source Community, to your "Open Letter to the Open Source Community" published Sept 9, 2003. Since the Open Source Community has no formal hierarchical structure, we have formed an ad hoc collaboration at large to address your claims. We do not claim to speak for the the Open Source Community in any official capacity. This letter results from our faith in the open source philosophy and our willingness to defend our common beliefs.


gumout

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 04:06 PM EDT
"claim" is repetitious:

Dear Mr McBride,

This letter is one answer from the Open Source Community, to your "Open Letter to the Open Source Community" published Sept 9, 2003. Since the Open Source Community has no formal hierarchical structure, we have formed an ad hoc collaboration at large to address your claims. We do not purport to speak for the the Open Source Community in any official capacity. This letter results from our faith in the open source philosophy and our willingness to defend our common beliefs.


gumout

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 04:14 PM EDT
Exclusive to the Inquirer...

I don't know about that. They're so firmly in the Linux camp that I suspect some people will find the document's appearence there to be off-putting, but it's still a very good offer. As long as whatever they post will include ALL our web-links I'm fine with it - unless you get a better offer.

The letter was beautiful, but I also think it would be an excellent idea to fill it with links to the releveant portions of our larger document. That way, everyone who clicks on the letter will find their way to the long thing.

PJ, if you want to send more work my way, I've got the evening free.

Alex

Alex


Alex Roston

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 04:21 PM EDT
PJ, Wonderful tone on that letter. I think the text should be posted on the web and released to the media for publication as any other Press Release is sent to them.

To my mind, what the media does with our release will say quite a bit about them and their biases (if any). In short, I think we need to give them the benefit of the doubt and the opportunity to do the right thing.


abtm

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 04:21 PM EDT
"SHOULD READ: For six months, you have claimed there is identical, infringing UNIX code in Linux 2.4x which has been illegally donated to Linux, but when your examples were shown at SCOForum, it turned out that neither example is code you own."

That's not accurate, either. They do own [the copyright on] the code from ate_utils.c, they just happen to have released it under the BSD license.

"The other example, the SGI example, was code that is not, in fact, in Linux. It seems hypocritical to complain about removed copyright notices in that context, does it not?"

PJ, what do you mean by the code not being in Linux? It may not be in 2.6, but it is in 2.4, which is what the most Linux users are currently using. It may also not be in the binary kernel of most Linux users, but it is in the source tree.


Lev

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 04:29 PM EDT
Lev,

How would you correctly re-state this point? "SHOULD READ: For six months, you have claimed there is identical, infringing UNIX code in Linux 2.4x which has been illegally donated to Linux, but when your examples were shown at SCOForum, it turned out that neither example is code you own."

That's not accurate, either. They do own [the copyright on] the code from ate_utils.c, they just happen to have released it under the BSD license.

Would this be accurate? COULD READ: For six months, you have claimed there is identical, infringing UNIX code in Linux 2.4x which has been illegally donated to Linux, but when your examples were shown at SCOForum, it turned out that neither example is code that is not currently released to the general public and therefore free of any encumbrance.


BigTex

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 04:30 PM EDT
Lev,

How would you correctly re-state this point? "SHOULD READ: For six months, you have claimed there is identical, infringing UNIX code in Linux 2.4x which has been illegally donated to Linux, but when your examples were shown at SCOForum, it turned out that neither example is code you own."

That's not accurate, either. They do own [the copyright on] the code from ate_utils.c, they just happen to have released it under the BSD license.

Would this be accurate? COULD READ: For six months, you have claimed there is identical, infringing UNIX code in Linux 2.4x which has been illegally donated to Linux, but when your examples were shown at SCOForum, it turned out that neither example is code that is not currently released to the general public and therefore free of any encumbrance.


BigTex

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 04:31 PM EDT
Lev,

How would you correctly re-state this point? "SHOULD READ: For six months, you have claimed there is identical, infringing UNIX code in Linux 2.4x which has been illegally donated to Linux, but when your examples were shown at SCOForum, it turned out that neither example is code you own."

That's not accurate, either. They do own [the copyright on] the code from ate_utils.c, they just happen to have released it under the BSD license.

Would this be accurate? COULD READ: For six months, you have claimed there is identical, infringing UNIX code in Linux 2.4x which has been illegally donated to Linux, but when your examples were shown at SCOForum, it turned out that neither example is code that is not currently released to the general public and therefore free of any encumbrance.


BigTex

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 04:32 PM EDT
Lev, the SGI code was only in the 64-bit kernel and wasn't introduced until
recently, in version 2.4.19. It was removed in 2.4.22 because the code was
considered to be ugly.
ProgrammerMan

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 04:46 PM EDT
It seems Inquirer only wants exclusive on the research output???
I think is a seperate "news" story in itself.
jog

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 04:53 PM EDT
You have a good start on that letter. IMHO, the first part needs to be a little more concise (first 2 paras). I like the last 2 paras- just wondering if there is any way to put in the fact that SCO told people their servers were "down for maintenance" part of the time that they claimed they were under DOS attack Someone made this suggestion earlier, and I thought it was a good one.

Also, I didn't see any mention of the Linuxtag challenge, and the fact that SCO backed down in Europe. Alot of people still don't know about this- I have even seen it reported that SUSE did the legal challenging. SUSE does have alot of influence on Linuxtag, but it is a separate org. The fact that the German courts have stepped in to muzzle SCO is highly damaging to SCO's case, even here.

Just my 2 cents worth. Is there anywhere we can view the drafts as they appear?


wild bill

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 04:53 PM EDT
Would this be accurate? COULD READ: For six months, you have claimed there is identical, infringing UNIX code in Linux 2.4x which has been illegally donated to Linux, but when your examples were shown at SCOForum, it turned out that neither example is code that is not currently released to the general public and therefore free of any encumbrance

"identical is repetitious"

For six months, you have claimed there is infringing UNIX code in Linux 2.4x which has been illegally donated to Linux, but when your examples were exposed at SCOForum, the results demonstrated that both examples were released under and open source BSD style license and therefore free of any proprietary encumbrance.


gumout

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 04:58 PM EDT
BTW, I think several publications will be reporting this week about SCOs nonexistant invoicing for licenses, and that is a little touchy (wouldn't want to report they won't invoice if they start doing so), so it was probably better left out.

It also sounds like you have a good start on distribution. I agree with the reader that recommended against any exclusive deals with any media outlet- the chance of widespread distribution is much better if exclusivity does not exist. One final thought- this should be e-mailed to SCO also. If no one has Darl's address, then to their PR dept. Should make interesting lunchtime reading for Mr. McBride. Probably wouldn't hurt to mail it to as many SCO VARs as possible, either.


wild bill

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 05:01 PM EDT
BigTex, not sure how best to phrase it. How about, "...it turned out that both examples are code that has been released to the general public under the BSD license, which permits its incorporation into Linux, and one of them is not even code that you own."

ProgrammerMan, you're right, but I think it bears a clarification, like "the most recent version(s)," especially since the major distros are still using 2.4.20.


Lev

[ Reply to This | # ]

radiocomment
Authored by: MathFox on Monday, September 15 2003 @ 10:38 AM EDT
This is a slightly edited variant of Jadeclaw's coment:

I have a different idea to bring the important points over:
[webbug removed]
It shows your IP, ISP-Domain, your OS and your browser.
In addition, it shows 1 randomly chosen tagline out of 10 lines each time it is loaded.
The file can be freely used and is here:
http://www.danasoft.com/sig/jade claw.jpg
If you want to make your own, jump over here:
http://www.danasoft.com/

Jadeclaw

(Hope the HTML works here...)

---
MathFox gets rabid from SCO's actions.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Ford Chooses Linux REFUTED
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, September 16 2003 @ 09:04 AM EDT
I just found this on New sforge, penned by Joe Barr:

"Like any other company, Ford Motor is looking at Linux, primarily in the application space. We presently have an enterprise-wide agreement with Microsoft to handle our collaborative solutions. We aren't contemplating using Linux in this area, and don't contemplate doing that in the foreseeable future."

Unless Suse/Ford announces a deal soon, our letter may have to exclude any references to Ford and Linux.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Ford Chooses Linux, So Goes the World
Authored by: MathFox on Wednesday, September 17 2003 @ 06:17 AM EDT
The whole Ford story seems to be a 'Canard' (a false newspaper article). In NewsForge there is a story where Ford denies the plans for a change. They acknowledge that they are investigating Linux.

---
MathFox gets rabid from SCO's actions.

[ Reply to This | # ]

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