SCO's Real Motive... A Buyout? 451
psykocrime writes "Acccording to this article in ComputerWorld, CEO Darl McBride of SCO has finally discussed the possibility of a buyout by IBM in public. Among other things, McBride says:
"I'm not trying to screw up the Linux business," he said. "I'm trying to take care of the shareholders, employees and people who have been having their rights trampled on." and
"If there's a way of resolving this that is positive, then we can get back out to business and everybody is good to go, then I'm fine with that," McBride said today in an interview with Computerworld. "If that's one of the outcomes of this, then so be it."
Also, yet another computerworld article indicates that most of the press and analysts who have been invited to take part in SCO's "public review of the infringing code" have declined... apparently due primarily to concerns over the terms of the non-disclosure agreement SCO is asking them to agree to. Linus in particular has said "no way" to signing their NDA to look at the code."
Hang one a second... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Hang one a second... (Score:4, Informative)
Note that this is not making any claim about who owns the copyrights to the Unix code, just what the SCO 10k statement means.
Re:Hang one a second... (Score:3, Informative)
teh ir0ny (Score:5, Funny)
Re:teh ir0ny (Score:4, Interesting)
Torvalds in an e-mail interview compared the fight between SCO, IBM and Novell Inc. to bad TV. "Quite frankly, I found it mostly interesting in a Jerry Springer kind of way. White trash battling it out in public, throwing chairs at each other. SCO crying about IBM's other women.
Pass me the popcorn.
On a more serious note is the statement that;
[Micheal] Overly said a review of the code by anyone other than a judge "means absolutely, positively nothing" in determining the merit of SCO's claims.
So basically, the word from a legal expert is 'lets get this to court, shall we?'
Bring it on Darl!
Re:teh ir0ny (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, though, has anyone ever sat in on a case where something technical was involved? I sat on a jury where some scientific evidence was presented, and I know the entire presentation went right over the heads of almost everyone on the jury. Fortunately someone on the jury knew enough to get the judge to ask a question about some aspect of the evidence; the answer of the expert witness pretty much demonstrated that he was misrepresenting some of the results of his tests. I always worry about there not being a clueful person involved in technical cases, because people can make really irrational decisions when they're swamped with stuff they don't understand.
Hopefully the fair use of and/or similarity between two works of literature provides a good model for the judge to use to make a decision. I would hate to see something like this get screwed up because it was presided over by a judge that can't set the timer on his/her VCR, let alone make sense of kernel code.
Re:teh ir0ny (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd quite like to have a look at exactly what is being asked of the experts.
Re:teh ir0ny (Score:4, Funny)
Linus, would you please scan in the NDA and post it for us to review?
Thanks,
Slashdotters
Re:teh ir0ny (Score:3, Funny)
Unfortunately the experts had to sign an NDA to read the NDA they were being asked to sign.
Re:teh ir0ny (Score:5, Interesting)
While SCO alleges that part of the Linux sources are copied from their OS, it's not like SCO's UNIX is Linux.
(It'll still be interesting to see SCO trying to prove that somehow someone copied the source of closed-source software to use it an a GPLd piece of SW. After all, they'd also have to disprove the far more likely alternative that one of their developers illegally copied Linux freely available GPLd code to use in their closed-source kernel.)
The Plot Thickens... (Score:5, Interesting)
UnitedLinux anyone? (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, this was almost certainly an exit stragegy. If you look at there stock price [yahoo.com] before and after their filing the complaint, its very obvious they wanted to use this to bump up the cost of the company long enough to get bought by IBM to make them go away. Unfortunatly for them, comp
Re:UnitedLinux anyone? (Score:5, Informative)
This is absolutely correct, and in turn opens up SCO for lawsuits from the other UnitedLinux partners.
Re:The Plot Thickens... (Score:3, Interesting)
W> Seems like you imply this is fishy.. which it is, but is there anything that doesn't allow this?
Let me connect the dots for you - the claim is not just that there is SCO code in Linux - it's that IBM violated a contract with SCO by putting it there Now he seems to be saying that someone other than IBM was doing it all along. This not only makes it difficult to prove that IBM was doing it, but it puts
Re:teh ir0ny (Score:5, Insightful)
No (Score:4, Insightful)
The same reason that sco hasn't told us what code is infringing. If we put aside the fact that SCO's unix products are all the worst crap I've ever had to use, and that it's extremely doubtful they had any secrets, and just assume they DID have some secret method in there that had some value...
They can't just say "They stole our scheduler code!, on lines 12345 to 12500 of the 2.4.15 kernel!" Because... then everyone would KNOW The secret, and it would not be a secret anymore.
Re:No (Score:4, Insightful)
"Hey, you copied 100 lines out of our code!"
"Uh... those 100 lines define POSIX standard XYZ, and there really is no other way to write them"
"But you still copied our code!"
(end cynicism)
No other way / statistical evidence (Score:4, Interesting)
Dollars to doughnuts something like that's the case with every single one of their 10-to-15-line "violations".
It's like in biology everyone got excited when Stanley Miller made some racemised amino acids from crude chemicals plus electricity in a cunningly arranged apparatus. He got amino acids because that's the way chemistry works. You won't get proteins the same way because that's not how chemistry works.
Through a similar process, I would expect to see many dozen-line chunks of near identical code in any two large code bases addressing the same problem. Or even addressing different problems.
There's also a lesson to take home from statistics. One common trick pulled by statistics tutors is to split a class into two, and get half the class to toss a coin 100 times and write down the results, and the other half to "toss coins" in their heads and write out the results. The tutor can pick out the fake coin tosses because they are too even, there are no runs of five or six of the same side.
The complete absence of similarities would be strong evidence that someone had seen both SCO and Linux code and deliberately removed the similarities. The brain-breaker for the judge would be: does this negative evidence of awareness of SCO's code constitute misappropriation of trade secrets or abuse of contract? (-:
Re:Linux is the ultimate of UNIX bastardization (Score:5, Interesting)
Take away their publicity (Score:5, Insightful)
Without publicity, they'll wither and die more quickly, so why don't we choke off their oxygen feed by ignoring them?
Re:Take away their publicity (Score:5, Insightful)
I think publicity here helps, because I'm sure that many readers here will be in a position to influence opinion regarding SCO and their so-called claims on Linux IP.
Re:Take away their publicity (Score:4, Insightful)
Take my advice for all it's worth and make SCO an example to the rest of the world. Kick the ever-living crap out of SCO so hard and so bad now so nobody tries this ever again.
Re:Take away their publicity (Score:5, Insightful)
Normally I would agree with you, but in the insanity of the US court system and its lottery mentality, you almost have to deal with them. The risk of losing is so enormous, the pressure to simply do a deal is overwhelming. I'm not saying it is right, just that it is reality.
SCO literally has nothing to lose here. And that is the problem. If the CEO and the other executive officers of SCO faced some personally liability for filing bad claims (i.e. they could end up paying a $100,000 or more fine) they would more carefully wiegh the risks of going to court. And other companies would be more willing to fight these extortion lawsuits if the court system afforded them more protection.
Re:Take away their publicity (Score:3, Funny)
what will stop the next company from doing the same thing
Normally I would agree with you, but in the insanity of the US court system and its lottery mentality, you almost have to deal with them.
I have an idea... why not have the entire of the SCO management killed?
No-one has to go to court, and no-one tries the same thing again. There's no risk* - Everybody** wins!
Just my $0.02,
Michael
*assuming hired killers escape capture
**except SCO
Re:Take away their publicity (Score:3)
Further, they can, as individuals, be held personally liable for their actions in the form of civil suits by IBM and the vario
Re:Take away their publicity (Score:3, Insightful)
If a story is reported in Computerworld, or MSNBC, or Info Week, or Washington Post, it's already news. Cutting off the discussion on Slashdot doesn't stop that fact.
Re:Take away their publicity (Score:5, Funny)
You are forgetting that this mess is being driven by lawyers. Since lawyers are a form of anaerobic bacteria, cutting off their oxygen won't help...
On behalf of anaerobic bacteria everywhere.... (Score:5, Funny)
They would threaten to sue, but that would be too low for them.
Re:Take away their publicity (Score:3, Insightful)
Guess that would work as well.
Re:Take away their publicity (Score:3, Insightful)
In typical fashion, mainstream media are confused as hell about technology and the players in it, and are reporting utter crap essentially on the strength of SCO's press releases alone. My local media outlet ran a story recently on how longtime Linux competitor SCO, one of the biggest players in the IT market, may finally have found
Re:Take away their publicity (Score:5, Insightful)
The weird thing to me is that if SCO had approached IBM quietly and said: "hey, it looks like we have some IP problems here - why don't you buy us out and resolve those problems" then there is a good chance IBM might have considered it. Shareholders happy, golden parachutes for everyone, IBM looks like a hero to the Linux world: the proverbial win-win compromise. But instead SCO took a confrontational approach knowing that IBM would counterattack. Wonder why.
sPh
Fun! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Fun! (Score:5, Insightful)
Any chance? IBM's lawyers are among the most dangerous people on the planet. They have a huge stockpile of Patents of Mass Infringement, and a budget that would make the Special Forces weep. Companies like IBM and Xerox (and others) quietly do huge amounts of research, and patent it all. Most infringements they don't care about, because they simply cross-license IP from their allies. Most of the them exist for one reason: so that if anyone sues IBM for anything, they can respond with total disaster, a big smoking crater where your NASDAQ listing used to be. "Yeah, we infringed one of your patents, sorry about that, oh but you infringed about a hundred of ours, you have 20 seconds to come out with your hands up and your pants down."
The one threat that IBM faces here is setting a precedent by buying SCO outright. They won't want to do that unless backed into a corner because it might encourage others. It's more likely that they'd buy Novell.
Re:Fun! (Score:5, Informative)
You misunderstand the point of RICO. It was designed to take down corrupt organizations that were structured to insulate those in charge from the individual crimes committed by their henchmen. Prior to RICO, it couldn't be proved under existing rules that (for instance) some Mafia boss knew who pumped sixty bullets into Salvatore "The Cleaver" Luchese, or that he'd ordered the hit himself. Under RICO, it became possible to bust him by demonstrating a "preponderance of evidence", showing that there was no way he couldn't have known. Thus Giuliani and others used RICO to nearly demolish the Mafia by accumulating many smaller cases.
RICO has also been applied to fringe religious groups in recent years; I was just reading an article about suing the entire Hare Krishna organization for child abuse. Violent anti-abortion groups have been targeted in a similar way. And though it's too politically explosive to pull off, mention has been made of the Catholic Church. (I'm not sure I like this idea, but the church leadership hasn't helped its case much.)
RICO really isn't applicable to SCO at all. On the other hand, they would be a ripe target for a stockholder suit, if it turns out they lied (and/or gambled the existence of the company on a lawsuit against one of the most aggressive in the business). Someone else mentioned the term "barratry" in an earlier thread, which I believe means the frivolous filing of lawsuits. The 1500 letters could also be actionable if SCO was lying. Finally, it's possible that the SEC could get involved.
Re:Fun! (Score:4, Informative)
Short: No.
Re:Fun! (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe not a RICO case, but certainly clear-cut extortion. SCO has effectively said "You're infringing on something we think we own, and the only way we're going to give you the information you need to stop that infringment is to sign this restrictive contract with us, or else we'll sue you."
I wonder if someone threatened with a lawsuit could sign the NDA, disclose everything, then have the NDA thrown out in court as it was signed under duress.
Rewite (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Rewite (Score:3, Informative)
Scenarios (Score:4, Interesting)
There are several ways this can go.
IF this comes down to patents, which is unlikely, then every copy of linux using the patented method would be in violation, and SCO could force everyone to stop using that method (in theory, anyway). This is highly unlikely, and they haven't mentioned patents yet. Furthermore, if it was about patents, there would be no reason to keep it secret before trial.. as their methods would be protected no matter what.
If it comes down to Copyright, IBM would pay damages, but the rest of the world would not be guilty of anything; pretend for a minute it's not Linux, but some version of OS/2. Would everyone who IBM sold OS/2 to have to stop using it or face legal action? Hardly. OF course, linux being free, it's a bit different.. but fundamentally, it's the same. And I'm sure the community would happily re-write the offending section, or find some code that pre-dates it and work from that, to be fair.
What is most likely, and what SCO seems to be saying, is this is trade-secret stuff. The thing about trade secret is, it only applies to secrets. That's what the NDAs and other contracts are for... so if IBM leaked proprietary methods (NOT patents... just thigns where two parties agree to keep it a secret) into the linux kernel, then they violated a contract... and they will pay damages. However, again, the rest of the community faces no threat. Trade secret laws are NOT patent laws, they don't afford you protection of something indefinately.. they only let you keep somethign a secret. If it's in the linux kernel, it's just not a secret anymore. If you leak a trade secret, say the formula for Coca-Cola, to usenet, you are gonna be in deep shit, trade secret laws will down on you, but coke has no way to stop the world from knowing about their formula now, and can't prevent someone from using it.. that's why they KEEP IT A SECRET... made in parts by separate companies, mixed at the factory, with the forumla only known to a couple people, and the files locked in some super secret vault guarded by alligators.
Re:Rewite (Score:5, Insightful)
That's why you can't see the code without a draconian NDA and why they will not show you all of the code. They want the code to STAY IN LINUX so they can license their Unix IP to Linux users.
If your software sucks... (Score:3, Interesting)
... try getting money other ways, I guess. SCO Unix sucks the butt. If it didnt, and if it were actually a market contender, I can't imagine they'd be grasping at these straws. The buy-out seems like a sensible motive, and sure as heck doesn't consume me with dread the way that a "sco unix is the only unix" world does.
S.C.O= (Score:3, Funny)
Of course they want a buyout. IBM is one of the biggest companies in the world. The execs line their pockets with money, and everone else gets laid offor quits. And if they take down linux, more money flows from the backdoor that, if you folow it, leads to Microsoft.
Re:S.C.O= (Score:3, Interesting)
Last time I looked SCO's market capitalization was only $40M or so, which reflects the market's judgement that SCO's management is not going to make good use of the cash windfall, so its value when tied up in SCO is a lot less than the cash value.
Unless Novell is getting 95% of the payment Microsoft made? Which would explain why the share price is so low, and deflate conspiracy theories about
Better outcome - IBM buys Novell (Score:5, Interesting)
IBM should flip SCO off buy buying Novell and releasing Unix under the GPL. SCOs legal case (or bluff) would instantly disolve.
Re:Better outcome - IBM buys Novell (Score:5, Insightful)
As I have said before, changing or destroying evidence doesn't change the fact that a crime was committed.
The only code in question is recent SCO-IBM code (Score:5, Insightful)
However, since Lindows has a license and they are distributing Linux Kernal 2.4 under GPL,it seems that SCO has already lost the battle due to their own actions. So it may not even be necessary to remove the code, since even SCO distributed it under GPL!
Re:The only code in question is recent SCO-IBM cod (Score:4, Informative)
thumbs down (Score:3, Interesting)
Investors should have known better than to back an obvious loser so if you've got SCO shares at this point you've got to be pretty daft.
Ideally, this time next year, SCO is just a bad memory.
"no way" ??? (Score:5, Funny)
I think they dropped a word out of the middle of the Linus quote.
Anyone who buys SCO (Score:5, Interesting)
If IBM buys SCO, and I hope they don't, they should gut SCO for their customers base, engineers, and products, and can everyone else working there.
Even if this results in a massive win for SCO, I see them getting no new business in the future due to the trouble they have caused. Linux code will be rewritten in a week or so, and SCO will be left with perpetually declining sales.
I always said that Red Hat should have bought SCO with inflated stock shortly after Red Hat's IPO several years ago. We could have had all of SCO's customers on Open Source by now and there would be no IP disputes.
Re:Anyone who buys SCO (Score:3, Funny)
no (Score:5, Funny)
A positive outcome of this would be the complete and utter bankrupt of SCO. It would be shame if that kind of shitty behavior is rewarded.
If I belived in hell I would wish them there... On the other hand, they would probably be thrown a "welcome back" party.
Re:no (Score:3, Insightful)
SCO UnixWare (Score:5, Insightful)
I have worked with this piece of **** OS and I can say one thing. Datacorruption.
Real case:
SCO UnixWare with veritas filesystem runs Oracle.
Box crashes --> Oracle data corruption.
These boxes crashed a lot (several times a week)
We called SCO support who blamed Oracle
Oracle desperatly tried to find the problem. It was a known bug, in guess what? SCO UnixWare.
SCO did not allow Oracle Server to open the files with directIO, that is circumvent the filecache in the OS. By design it should but in this case it did not, it was a bug in the Operating System.
SCO did not even bother to check their bug database and blamed Oracle who, thank god, found the problem.
I guess that SCO is desperate to make money. Wait who has the money? IBM is rich let's sue em
Mole hill into a mountain? (Score:3, Insightful)
Its not supposed to matter how big you are in court - unfortunately it does matter.
IBM may well buy SCO (Score:4, Interesting)
Expect IBM to make an offer for SCO, to publically announce that it has now "bought the rights to Linux", and it will start to assert control over it.
Sleep with an elephant at your own risk.
Re: Only if ... (Score:3, Informative)
They (IBM, of course) are complete and utter morons. Which I see no evidence of.
Expect IBM to make an offer for SCO, to publically announce that it has now "bought the rights to Linux", and it will start to assert control over it.
Yeah, right, FUD themselves in the foot, they will.
Screwing Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
Among other things, McBride says: "I'm not trying to screw up the Linux business,"
Oh really? Then could Mr. McBride please explain why I hear things like, "SCO to Linux Users: Cease and Desist" [esj.com] and "SCO delivers a warning" [com.com]?
Sounds to me like Mr. McBride is trying to make up for the self-hurt caused by his company's own arrogance. What better way to ruin your competitor than by scaring the shit out of their users?
Big Blue as OSS Mega-Hero? (Score:5, Funny)
If they make this gift to the community, then be careful in the future to not piss us off, IBM could make billions more than they already make.
"IBM, Savior of Linux", wow. That may be enough to get RMS to take a bath.
Re:Big Blue as OSS Mega-Hero? (Score:5, Funny)
He'll never open the spigots unless it's "IBM, Savior of GNU/Linux."
a desperate act (Score:5, Insightful)
I hope they get ridiculed and made an example of... let this be a lesson to other companies that it's unacceptable to behave this way.
This is just all so laughable.
YALBS (Yet Another Lie By SCO) (Score:4, Insightful)
Then why did SOC send threatening letters to 1500 corporations telling them their were IP issues in Linux when:
- SCO doesn't own the IP and
- The lawsuit is a contract issue that can ONLY apply to IBM, especially once the offending code (if any actually exists) is revealed and written out of Linux.
The letter was nothing short of blackmail - give us money or we'll keep throwing turds into the punchbowl."Having their rights trampled on?!" (Score:5, Interesting)
I've heard a lot from them over the last week. With Caldera/SCO's current action, they've ended up as pawns in a game to attack Linux -- not at all the reason they invested their dollars in the beginning. They have decided to sell out as a result of the SCO action, and have lost significant money in the process on Caldera/SCO shares alone. But they also realize that the dollars they had invested this company have supported action which may eventually reduce the value of their larger holdings in other Linux companies. I can understand the frustration that they must feel.
I'd venture to say a lot of Caldera investors may be in the same position. So what's this about "rights" of the shareholders?
Re:"Having their rights trampled on?!" (Score:3, Insightful)
Far back in the mists of time I was playing a game of Rifts. Our set of merceneries' mission was to destroy a company's board by breaking into the building during the AGM and destroying things. To do this, we got a big budget from our hirers to buy weapons with.
I didn't use the budget for weapons. I used it to buy shares. No infiltration necessary - jus
Better yet ..... (Score:3, Interesting)
Everyone uses Roberts Rules of Order .... which are great - simply move something that requires a vote "I move a motion of no confidence in the chair under the 1906 senility act" o
What of the reputation? (Score:3, Interesting)
They've become notorious lately. So much so, in fact, that I'd bet even if they won a court case and were proven correct, that they still wouldn't be able to recover from pissing the world off. How many people avoid Microsoft because of what they stand for and not just because they believe other software is superior? Uh-huh. See?
american legal system (Score:4, Funny)
SCO-IBM Vs Timeline Inc-Microsoft : GPL Wins (Score:5, Interesting)
If you are concerned over the treat of lawsuits over intellectual property then you are actually in a better legal position using GPL'ed Linux than using Microsoft's products.
While SCO has yet to provide any publicly available substantial evidence in their case against IBM and Linux, Timeline Inc has already won a US Washington Court of Appeal judgment against Microsoft [tmln.com] in another contract dispute.
Unlike companies like Oracle Corporation and others, Microsoft chose a cheaper option when licensing Timeline Inc's Data base technology. That license puts developers and users of Microsoft SQL Server,Office and other Microsoft product at risk of being sued by Timeline Inc for violation of Timeline Inc patents [theregister.co.uk].
Microsoft's products do not provide users and developers an absolute safe haven from the threat from lawsuits based on violations of intellectual property. Microsoft's EULA provide the developer and end user with no protection against threat from current or future intellectual property lawsuits.
However, since the SCO Group has knowingly sold and distributed the GPL licensed Linux kernel and other components, it must by the terms of the GPL license [gnu.org], provide all those who receive the code from them an implicit license to use any intellectual property, patents or trade secrets which SCO owns and is used by the GPL'ed source code. That implicit license to that SCO intellectual property is also granted to anybody who subsequently receives the GPL source.
The GPL only grants the right, for reasons of intellectual property infringement or contractual obligations, to stop distributing the GPL'e binaries and source code if the conditions are imposed upon you by a third party. Since SCO claims ownership the intellectual property in question, it must grant all subsequent recipients of the GPL licensed source code SCO has distributed and any GPL'ed derivative, the same implicit licence and right to SCO's intellectual property the code imposes upon.
SCO has acknowledged deals with Suse and Lindows to distribute SCO's intellectual property in GPL'ed Linux, but the GPL license does not grant anyone or any organization the right to append extra terms and conditions upon the recipients of the GPL licensed source code.
It is very easy to effectively fold the current development branches of the Linux kernel and any other GPL'ed code back into SCO's distributed GPL'ed sources. This would grant the same implicit license for the infringed SCO intellectual property to the all the current development.
You are in a better legal position using the GPL'ed Linux platform and other GPL'ed software, than you are using Microsoft's or any other closed source software.
Linux steamrolling SCO (Score:3, Insightful)
It is simply a bluff, nothing more. Darl baby almost wetting himself with joy at the prospect that SCO get bought out because, "I'm looking after the sharholders".
His NDA making it impossible to actually comment on what is in the code, and analysts refusing to take the bait, must make him worry very very much.
This is what is going to happen: IBM and the rest of the Linux world will simply call his bluff and wait until the court discovery phase roll's around, where Darl and co will not be able to hinder anyone takng a look at the code. He is probably crapping himself at the thought of this scenario, because I don't think it will be at all possible for him to prove ONE SINGLE INFRINGEMENT.
The result will be that the case will get thrown out of court and SCO will have to file for chapter 11 almost immediately, and Darl will have to join the ranks of the unemployed...
That is, unless he takes MS up on that job offer to work in MS marketing.
Open mouth, insert foot... (Score:5, Insightful)
SCO (which is to say, McBride) should learn to shut up before they ingest their entire leg.
Asked why SCO has suddenly started looking at these issues now, after years of declining revenues at his company and the increasing popularity of Linux, McBride said SCO had few options in the late 1990s as Linux began surfacing in the business computing world. "Even if you potentially had a problem [with concerns about Unix code in Linux back then], what are you going to do?" McBride asked. "Sue Linus Torvalds? And get what?"
You would get the infringing code, which SCO has previously claimed is what enabled Linux to succeed in the market, out of Linux. SCO, of course, according to its previous statements, would then succeed because it contained all the *cough* enterprise characteristics that were required to succeed.
So which is it, McBride? If Linux would have been unable to succeed without the alleged SCO IP, then action in 1999 would have allowed SCO to succeed on its *cough* merits. If Linux was able to succeed without the alleged SCO IP, then you have just contradicted the statements in your court filing (not that that was a very accurate document, now was it?)
If I was a shareholder, I'd be mightily concerned about the total inability of SCO management to stick to a single, credible story.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
the SCO comedy goes on (Score:5, Interesting)
So in other words, he's going to let people examine their "evidence", and allow them to come to their "own conclusions", but prevent them from disclosing any proof to the public of the validity of their conclusions. In other words, we're back at square one -- a whole lot of unsubstantiated allegations, no proof. Btw, even if there are "hundreds of lines" of shared code, that does not prove that they were copied into Linux from SCO. It's much more likely to be the other way around.
Btw, can't Linux just sign the NDA and then -- if he finds anything -- remove it from Linux?
It's sort of like somebody stealing your car, and you hunt them down and you find them, and they say you can have your car back, but there's no penalty for that
Except Linux (nor GNU/Linux) has stolen nothing, nor has IBM, from SCO. Even if that allegation were true, the fault would lie with IBM, not the FOSS community.
Giga Information Group Inc. analyst Stacey Quandt said she has discussed SCO's offer with her legal counsel, and if she signs an NDA, it may hinder her ability to write about it.
In other words, SCO has stacked the deck. People can review their code under these terms, but can't write in any convincing manner to the public about their findings.
[Giga Information's Stacey Quandt] has advised clients of Cambridge, Mass.-based Giga to continue with their Linux adoption.
In other words, SCO's absurd allegations aren't driving people away from GNU/Linux.
They don't want to tell; they want to sue. -- Linux
That just about sums it up. Except that IF their claims are valid, they gain nothing by with-holding the evidence. They cannot claim before a court of law that they should get continued damages when they could have allowed the FOSS community to remedy the situation.
[Stamford's George Weiss] said SCO is making its case based on "vague inferences" and is asking analysts to do the same
It appears the experts agree with me.
[Framingham's Dan Kusnetzky said, "I'm not sure that showing us the code would prove anything to me, because I don't know where it came from"
As I said before, it will be difficult if not impossible for SCO to prove where their code came from, the dates on it, etc; whereas proving those things will be easy for FOSS.
Even if there is similar code, that doesn't mean there is infringement, especially under copyright law "fair use" provisions, said Overly. "If I take a piece of code that someone has written, take it verbatim but expand on it and use it for a completely different work, that may or not be copyright infringement"
Another problem for SCO's absurd case.
a review of the code by anyone other than a judge "means absolutely, positively nothing" in determining the merit of SCO's claims.
A review by people other than lawyers will give you the real truth on the matter. Though a judge can give a legal ruling, it will invariably be false, as judges understand about as much about computer code as I understand hieroglyphics.
legal experts said Linux users have to pay attention to the fight. "The fact that you ignored it could potentially cause your damages to increase substantially"
Actually, GNU/Linux users can ignore this all-together. The user faces no liability what-so-ever. Nor, in fact, can anyone be said to be liable other than IBM, for they are the only ones who were in a position to know what was and was not proprietary SCO code. No-one else, not the FOSS community, not GNU/Linux users, nor GNU/Linux companies, were in any position to have any possibility of knowing that (because SCO's code is closed).
Mitigate damages (Score:4, Informative)
As pointed out earlier (Here [varlinux.org],Here [slashdot.org]by a few people you can't do that. PERIOD.
You have a DUTY to mitigate damages. Failing that you will collect ZIP.
Re:the SCO comedy goes on (Score:3, Insightful)
One thing not being mentioned is that removal of the code by the Linux community would help their case. That removal would pretty much show to a court that the Linux hackers themselves believed it to be infringing. It would work even better if some stuff was protested as not infringing and SCO says "that's ok" while other stuff was removed. To a judge this would look pretty much like proof that SCO's claims were correct. So it is 100% in SCO's interest to reveal t
Re:the SCO comedy goes on (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly. Is anyone left wondering why we're (in my case technology journalists) not lining up to sign the NDA?
Steven
Re:the SCO comedy goes on (Score:3, Interesting)
It seems to me that SCO must be capable of producing the source that was originally transferred to IBM. I would expect that they should also be able to produce other engineering documents - meeting notes, presentations, status reports - whatever - that lead up to the release of the "offending" software.
My understanding is that thes
What if this is all backwards?? (Score:3, Interesting)
The buyout theory was valid from day one (Score:3, Insightful)
I find it intersting that companies with more to sell than just an OS (Apple,HP,IBM,Sun) are working on peaceful coexistance with Linux, while the pure software players (SCO,M$) are at DEFCON-1.
As soon as tried my first Linux install (remember SLS?) I knew SCO was in trouble. The fact that it took this long for SCO to deploy an exit strategy is a monument to their executive leadership. The fact that they have the stock flying on vapor is interesting, but it would have been a whole lot smarter to do all of this back in 2000 when their stock was >$80/share and the handwriting was on the wall.
Impartial computer analysis of code is possible (Score:4, Interesting)
Why don't they load a database for an installation of this software with code that is indisputably "clean" like the BSD code, code that is clean because it was released in the GPL'd Caldrea releases, the Lindows code they used with SCO's blessings, etc. Put in all the legitimate sources Linux developers could have used as inspiration, then load the current distro OS source, run a comparison and see how much came from "legitimate" origins. The remainder is original work OR possibly bastard code stolen from a illegitimate source.
Do the same with SCO's code, rev by rev, and see if there is any overlap. If there is stolen code, there will be identical text. If something is the same in Linux and SCO's UNIX ... check the dates to see who wrote it first.
With this method, NO ONE has to see the source code but the people running the software that does the analysis, and even they just load it into the database. They need not be programmers because they just do a "pedigree" check on the code. In fact they should not be programmers ... anyone can ifentify a string of matching ASCII text. They would not be hindered by an NDA, and would be EXPECTED to testify about the results.
Re:Impartial computer analysis of code is possible (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure it finds *similar* code but there are several interesting problems software has trouble solving
1. Code that comes from a common description. I'd bet Linus and Unixware have very similar spinlock code, maybe intstruction identical - because thats how Intel tell you how to write the thing
2. Code from a common source. Linux and Unixware are going to have similar code in bits of drivers/* submitted legitimately to both SCO and Linux (and BSD and Windoows and everywhere else) by the hardware vendor who wrote it. The same will be true of stuff from Standards documents. Gee our struct stat is like their struct stat - because its a standards defined item
3. The birthday paradox. Given two large chunks of code and doing arbitary comparisons statistics shows that very unintuitively to humans matches are actually rather likely. Code can't identify these, it takes human analysis and statistical modelling.
4. Code legitimately added to Linux by SCO/Caldera employees employed to work on SCO / Linux compatibility that was done with Caldera blessing and who unfortunately for SCO have the contract paperwork to prove it...
SCO btw have another problem. Their NDA can't forbid redistribution of the GPL code. If they distribute Linux code under their NDA they are violating the license so committing an offence themselves 8)
"The Linux business"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Linux isn't a business. IBM is a business, RedHat is a business, Slackware and Debian have a business aspect. But Linux is a code.
This dosen't mean anything malicous in itself. I've just noticed often people will say "The company that makes Linux" or "The Linux industry".
There is in fact a Linux industry but that industry dosen't reflect the whole of Linux. There isn't a "company that makes Linux" there are companys involved in the creation of Linux but there has never been a single company responsable for the whole ball of wax.
Not Like Microsoft for Windows, Apple for MacOs or AT&T for Unix.
What it means is that the person is thinking only in terms of business as if everyone has a proffit motive for anything they say or do.
I submit (and I'm going to say this is sand not cement that I have for the foundation of my clame..) that SCO is looking at Linux as a compeditor and simply desided that there is stolen code in Linux.
SCO need not so much "prove it" to us but the least they could do is tell us what code is stolen. We could replace it quickly enough and it'd be over.
And he said it right... SCO is out to protect it's shareholders. Not SCO's intelectual property.
They have NOT proven anything yet they keep seeking payment from Linux users.
I don't think SCO knows it's clames are bogus. I think they actually believe thies clames are valid. But they don't know what code is stolen and if they'd check I think deep down they know they won't find any stolen code.
SCO has presented us with an argument that is simply "Linux now has features found in SCO Unix. The only way this could happen is if Linux got code from us."
That's not true.
SCO expects us to accept that alone as proof. But it's not any more proof than to say:
A Zigu Di rock fan steals donuts from a 7-11
Jack Du is a Zigu Di fan... he must be the crook.
There is more than one way to solve a given problem and more than one person who can find a solution.
SCO won't put it's money where it's mouth is.
They won't point out the offending code.
What's to stop SCO from pointing at some random code and saying "Thats it.. thats ours"?
Easy...
SCO: "See this thats ours..."
Linus: "Ummm no I wrote that myself."
SCO: "Oh right.. well that's ours"
ESR: "Thats BSD code..."
SCO: "Oh sorry... THAT..."
RedHat: "Is covered in RedHat patent xxxxxxxx. We liccesned it for open source use only. Your using it you said so your villating our IP fork it over...."
SCO: "I mean this..."
IBM: "We wrote that in 1933 to solve a defect in 'Mega 1+1=2 delux' it was taking more than an hour to add 1+1..."
SCO: "Umm this?"
Ghost of Lovelace: "Sorry thats MY code.."
SCO: "Well THIS is deffinetly ours."
CmdrTaco: "I wrote that."
SCO clames the code came from IBM. But if they finger code randomly they'll likely find code that IBM never touched.
SCO is seeking to discredit Linux and boost sales for it's failing product.
If I were forced I'd switch to BSD.. not SCO.
Or if a commertal Unix I'd use Solarus.
Re:"The Linux business"? (Score:3, Insightful)
1) As a distributor of linux I would have to have at some point a conflict of interest in my company since I also have a Proprietary product targeting the same platform (x86).
2) I am a tiny operation who can hardly afford to have a development team, so I can NOT afford to i
Does SCO study Linux kernel internals? (Score:3, Interesting)
Innocent until proven guilty. (Score:3, Interesting)
The good - someone like IBM buys them out and M$ can (snicker) "license" all they want from IBM. Or they fade away because of the clout of the Linux (GNU/OSS/FSF) community.
The bad - everything stays as is right now and we all ride the FUDtrain (or at least the ones who believe it.)
The ugly - M$ does some silly stupid crap to keep this thing going.
Two pronged approach (Score:5, Interesting)
Let a few rumour slip to the press that the $10M is the price they estimate the court case will cost and thet they think they will be unable to collect the expected Damages against SCO they court will impose.
That would make their stock price crash to around $2 for a Capitalization of around $15M, then have a RedHat led consortium offer $20M or so, that will likely be accepted.
IBM can then buy some of the SCO contracts from RH and a later date.
That way there will be no impression left that IBM gave in to Blackmail.
Re:Two pronged approach (Score:4, Funny)
That's a good idea. Hey, while we're on the topic, I was looking through the Linux source code last week and found some stuff that was *exactly* like code I'd posted to Usenet back in the late 80's. I can't say what it was cuz it's my intellectual property, but I'm getting ready to sue anyone I can find who's invested in Linux. If anyone from IBM is reading this, I can be bought out for $10 million dollars.
PS. My brother-in-law Bob says he has some IP in the kernal too. $10 million for him too.
Thnx!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Easy Solution -Novell (Score:3, Funny)
What about the LINUX code (Score:4, Interesting)
Here's an idea... (Score:3, Interesting)
Regardless of Outcome, Has SCO Cast Doubt? (Score:3, Insightful)
This isn't a matter of trust and faith in the people who wrote that code. It's a matter of perception in the eyes of those who, in the absence of evidence one way or the other, will always wonder if SCO was right.
Sad to say, the damage SCO has already done may be worse than any fallout from proof they're right.
Re:What If Court Says GPL Isn't Binding? (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyway, a while back there was someone arguing that the GPL *won't* hold up as a license, but that it will perhaps be accepted as an industry practice.
The courts that supported shrinkwrap EULAs didn't establish a new legal principle that you could give someone an a
Dealing with IP Terrorism (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is SCO's action "IP terrorism"? Because its fundamental purpose is to destroy the remarkable social capital that the GNU license and Linux have created--the trust and co-operation of a global collaboration.
The fact SCO claims economic motives rather than ideological ones or corporate bloodlust or something doesn't matter. They are *trying* to make people suspicisous of sharing source. (AOL is doing the same thing with Nullsoft).
We will see increasing attempts to make people suspicious of "counterfeit GPLs" because terrorism pays right now.
In the long run, the social capital and trust our community has invested in Linux and GNU will have to be divided up in order to survive this sort of attack. Information may want to be free, but having a critical amount of it invested in one place invites attack. Like Napster.
The correct communal resopnse on *our* part (not to this particular attack, which is bogus, but to the swarm of them we will now get) is a more defensive posture in which the "web of trust" established.
Think of Linux and the GPL as the "gold standard" of the free software community (the thing everyone trusts). SCO and AOL are trying to panic us into thinking it is counterfeit, and engineer a corporate "bank panic" so they can mop up. They won't succeed, but they *will* decrease peoples trust in gold and drive its price down a little bit.
One response--the wrong one--would be to create a central repository of "valid GNU software" with a central agency, which would indemnify users of free software. This is the wrong approach because it makes free software quasi-proprietary--takes out the viral component of the model.
Another wrong solution is to try to make code use traceable by requiring the developer to publish deltas, not just source. This is wrong because it creates a high transaction cost (not viral, because it is not free).
The right response is to create numerous, smaller, "webs of trust" so that the whole interlocking structure is harder to attack. This is what modular kernels like the GNU/Hurd or Flux project do. Distributions will have many components, mixed and matched, pulling from the same communal pool. By spreading the IP over many projects and users, we can create the same P2P defence that is being used for the same problem in the music arena. There is no central server or even large server (Linus, IBM) to attack.
One way to solve the problem of counterfeit money is to eliminate the central authority. If everyone prints money (it's all counterfeit), then there is no one to attack. In the long run, the answer to terrorism is diversity (along with a solid defence of the "big" communal targets like Linux and the GPL).
This pushes the question of how you can trust money (software licenses) into the P2P area. You build small webs of trust that leverage the "gold standard" but in the long run do not depend on it at all. Probably, we will go through a "Bretton-Woods" stage of managed trust, before going for the free-for-all.
But. We *must* get to the free-for-all stage, or in the long run we will be hostages.
Hundreds of line of code - not enought! (Score:3, Insightful)
Where's the insider perspective? (Score:3, Interesting)
What do employees think of this stuff? Do they feel there is some basis for the claims? Are they fighting against this internally?
It's sort of like somebody stealing your car (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, it's exactly like someone stealing your car. Except that you still have your car, so nobody actually stole anything from you except revolutionary ideas such as including tires, windows, doors, and a bumper. It's actually much more like me building a car in my garage using GM parts, that GM was currently offering for free, then suing me becuase I made a better Sunfire than they could, after they're technicians donated the tools and parts I built mine with.
One possible way it could play out... (Score:4, Funny)
I can just see the closed-doors conference now.
IBM Guy: Well, Mr. McBride. You claimed that you had an offer to make, of a way to settle this amicably.
Darl McBride: That's true, and that's what I've wanted from the beginning. I've always hoped that we could find a way to resolve this peacefully and positively.
IBM Guy: Which is why your first attempt to 'resolve' this matter was to make loud, splashy public allegations.
Darl: What? Oh. Well, yeah, I suppose that maybe this meeting might have gone smoother if I hadn't done that. I'm sorry, it was a heat-of-the-moment sort of thing --
IBM: And why you further upped the ante by mailing those same allegations to our corporate customers, telling them that they could be sued if they continued to use a product which, at that time, you were still selling yourself.
Darl: Um... Well, yes. ... the heat of several moments? No. Ah, well, you see, it was just that I was mad that no one was taking me seriously, after all the time and care I put into manufact-- er, documenting the grievous wrongs done to my company.
IBM: Which company? The one that sold goods and services or the one that exists to extort money through allegations that your 'intellectual property' has been violated?
Darl: Ah... that would be the latter.
IBM: Yes. I've read your "documented" complaints. Very intriguing, I must say.
Darl: Why, thank you, I --
IBM: I especially like the part where you lied.
Darl: Excuse me?
IBM: Where you claimed that Linux could only have gotten so good if IBM took secrets that we learned from you and illegally shared them with the Linux developers. For instance, the secret of making the operating system run on 32 processors at a time.
Darl: Oh, well. That.
IBM: When in fact Linux was doing that back before you were working with us on Project Monterey, and before we began supporting Linux.
Darl: Um. Well, yes, but that's not exactly a lie, you see. Cause, um... well, our low opinion of the ability of anyone who isn't employed by SCO is just positive proof that anything good must have been ripped off from us!
IBM: Like 32-way scaling?
Darl: Yes! Like that!
IBM: Even though your own products don't have that?
Darl: ... Um.
IBM: But nevertheless, you're pressing ahead with the court case.
Darl: Well, not unless we have to; you know we've always wanted to settle this amicably --
IBM: Insults on the competence of Linux developers and the ethics of IBM?
Darl: Well, not "amicably", maybe, more like "peacefully" --
IBM: Not to mention that it's also an insult to IBM's practicality. We are still one of the biggest and oldest computer companies in the world. We have a huge intellectual property portfolio ourselves, and millions in yearly revenue. We can afford to hire the best people to create whatever intellectual property we need to stay competitive, but you instead claim we lowered ourselves -- and endangered ourselves -- by stealing from you. It's like accusing a millionaire of stealing a wooden nickel from a beggar.
Darl: Hey! Are you comparing SCO's intellectual property to a wooden nickel?
IBM: Yes.
Darl: Oh. ... well, that's not very nice.
IBM: Is it inaccurate?
Darl: Well, making it a wooden nickel implies ... I dunno, some sort of doubt that our claims are genuine.
IBM: Which is why you refused to clarify them, claiming that if you identified which code it was that was stolen from you, the Linux community could "launder" away the evidence?
Darl: Well, they could!
IBM: The evidence is available to anyone with an Internet connection from a few hundred different commercial vendors and academic institutions and non-profit foundations. Th
Re:scosucks.com (Score:3, Interesting)
So, anyone out there bought the domain? We'll all help with content
Re:Back to Friday's Press Conference... (Score:5, Informative)
I make a movie with my buds. We spend $100K of money hyped from friends and family and shoot a cool low budget western. Miramax sees it and likes it, they want to sign it. So, they contract a deal with me and my buds giving them exclusive license to our low budget western for the next twenty years.
Now, I still own the copyright. It's my movie: all Miramax bought were the US distribution rights. Does that mean I can't sell those rights to someone in Mexico? Maybe - maybe not; depends on the contract. But if they bought exclusive US rights then one thing is sure: I can't sell those exclusive rights to any other US distributor. And if Sony decides to stick it on DVDs and they haven't cleared it with Miramax, those will be the entities going to court; so long as I didn't break my end of the deal (by trying to sell the same rights twice) then it ain't my battle - it's up to Miramax and Sony.
SCO claimed at first they owned... Then, when put in their place by Novell they changed it to we own the rights... It's entirely possible they own (via licensing) exclusive rights to something that is actually owned by another entity.
That's the entire point of copyright and patent protection: to allow you to hold an exclusive property that can be traded and sold through contract. SCO may or may not have a case, but it's not a stretch to believe they (at least) honestly believe they own exclusive rights to a property owned by Novell.
Re:Interesting... (Score:3, Interesting)
2. The SCO/Novell contract doesn't allow SCO to grant distribution sub-rights to others. In