SCO Fires back, Subpoenas Stallman, Torvalds et al

SirFozzie writes "SCO has just, within the past hour, announced that they have fired back against IBM's legal broadside, with one of their own, filing subpoenas against several of the biggest names in Linux. SCO filed subpoenas with the U.S. District Court in Utah, targeting six different individuals or organizations. Those include Novell; Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux kernel; Richard Stallman of the Free Software Foundation; Stewart Cohen, chief executive of the Open Source Development Labs; and John Horsley, general counsel of Transmeta."

How about an investigation

Lets see how M$ or some other Linux enemy is in some way funding SCO here. There is something going on beyond what we see my intuition tells me.

Re:How about an investigation

um MS bought several unix liscences from sco like a year ago. no mysetery really. but the real motive is sco's own greed. it just so happens that it coincides withs MS's goals so they threw some money at it.

Re:How about an investigation

"Lets see how M$ or some other Linux enemy is in some way funding SCO here."

No matter how this case comes out, it can't kill Linux. You think if movie studios are forced to pay $700 per Linux box they're suddenly going to switch to Windows and rewrite all their software? Do you think companies will replace their webservers with IIS? Do you think the offending code won't be removed so infringing machines are immediately fixed?

Why would anybody assume Microsoft funded this? I suppose maybe because it's something Yosemite Sam would do.

Re:How about an investigation

Here are a few nice little story about it: http://www.internetnews.com/ent-news/article.php/2 208691 There have also been reports about Microsoft being in on several Cash investments that SCO has recieved over the last several months.

Re:How about an investigation

The article says Microsoft licensed the Unix code. It doesn't say "Microsoft gave money to SCO in order to destroy Linux." Microsoft has what, 80 million people using Windows? Multiply that by $699.

Re:How about an investigation

Why would Microsoft license a company that distributes software that is a DIRECT competitor to their Server software? Would it be to infuse a poor company with money so they can fight a lengthy legal process? I would be willing to bet the farm.

Re:How about an investigation

Because Windows contains some of that infringing code?

SCO can't even find any real infringements in code they're allowed to read. How on earth would they have found an infringement in code they aren't allowed to read?

They've released lots of info

The first thing the public saw was their stupid slide show, which included proof that:

SCO doesn't know the difference between what they once called "Ancient Unix" (which the AT&T vs. Berkeley judge said AT&T lost to the public domain) and the System V code they actually own some rights to, despite the fact that they rereleased that code themselves under the old BSD license.

SCO doesn't know the difference between original BSD code (like the packet filter code they claimed as their own) and their System V code, despite the fact that they are legally required to retain the copyright notices on the BSD parts.

SCO can't tell the difference between a legal, original reimplementation of a detailed published standard (like that BPF example, and probably like much of the POSIX, Unix9x, BSD, etc. compatibility in Linux) and an obfuscated copy of the original implementation.

More recently, SCO has "responded" to IBM's interrogatories not with specific claims of wrongdoing, but with the output of "egrep -il (smp|rcu|numa)" and a disclaimer that they're not stating that the output includes some infringement.

If they have an actual case, why are they pubishing these embarrassments instead, still keeping their case secret in court where they might piss off a judge instead of just a bunch of Linux users?

Re:How about an investigation

Easy to give their salespeople an advantage.

Ms salesmen can use the words "You could be held liable if you use Linux ... " and that would scare them until buying Windows.

Company Image is big business and being sued and raided can affect your stock price.

I like the saying...

"When the elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers."

Re:I like the saying...

Funny you should mention elephants. The first thing I thought of when I saw this article was "time to queue the Barnum and Bailey music".

Maybe slashdot could play is as a midi in the background of all the SCO articles; that would rock :)

Re:I like the saying...

just play this [wilstar.com] looped while you read thru the story ;)

Oh yay

Swell, Stallman will be rocking in his chair, picking fleas from his beard and muttering "GNU/SCO.. GNU/SCO.. GNU/SCO.." It's like a strawman argument against the millions of free software users..

I don't THINK so

Swell, Stallman will be rocking in his chair, picking fleas from his beard and muttering "GNU/SCO.. GNU/SCO.. GNU/SCO.." It's like a strawman argument against the millions of free software users.

Keep in mind the line from The Firm: "Remember - he's smarter than you.". Stallman will be well-prepared by Moglen. He will probably leave SCO's top-notch lawyers tied up in knots by their own questions.

sPh

Re:I don't THINK so

From what I've heard about Stallman (including that my mother knew him in the late 70s :)), he is not a good public speaker.

I saw him speak in public a couple of years ago. He's not bad. Not dazzling, charismatic or magnetic, but calm, insightfull and intelligent. He is no stranger to public speaking and will be on his home turf. I think (and hope) that he'll do fine.

Re:I don't THINK so

Worried?

From everything I've read since the fiaSCO started, I think the Judge(s) will be very convinced when Linus loses it on the stand and starts calling the SCO people morons.

Linus: YOU MORONS!
SCO Legal Minion: Objection!
Judge: Overruled, statement of fact.

Re:I don't THINK so

I just want to make sure that everyone out there realizes that the part about my mother knowing Stallman was a useless aside - since you've editted out the :) that marked it as something to be taken lightly. And some other posts seem to have missed that point. It was kind of a funny story - my mom was reading something online about this guy called Richard Stallman and she remembered having a class or something with him in Boston in the late 70s, so she sent him an e-mail to find out if it was the same guy and it was. I thought it was kinda neat and am going to exploit it for geek points :)

I should also point out that I'm well aware that your comment about 20 years passing was said in jest too, before someone accuses me of missing your :)

Anyway, back to defend my real point - while he can give very precise arguments, I think he has a tendancy to get side-tracked onto things that matter to him and not the matter at hand. He also seems to be very polarizing in his arguments - either you agree strongly, or you disagree strongly. A good speaker is capable of allowing people to listen to their arguments without forcing them to take a side, while Stallman seems to try and force his ideas on others. This makes it harder to take him seriously, as it almost makes it seem as if his ideas don't carry enough weight by themselves and instead need to be forced on people.

I honestly don't know how he'd do in a court case, but I know plenty of people who can't stand to hear him speak. He's kind of like Michael Moore in that respect - people either like listening to him or can't stand him. I personally can't stand anything Michael Moore says or does, even though I agree with him on several points. (I found Bowling for Columbine to be surprisingly good, though, because Moore was trying to start a debate and not to force his views on others.)

To try and show the parallels more clearly, think of the difference between the following:

I think that what most people call Linux really needs to be called GNU/Linux. The GNU project has provided many important components to what many refer to as the "Linux Operating System" and has received very little credit back in return. This is not right, so most Linux systems use the GNU utilities to run their systems.

Versus

If you don't call yourselves the GNU/Linux Assocation, I won't speak at your site. You also need to change it to "GNU/Linux" on your website.

While Stallman's explanation of GNU/Linux on the FSF webpage is well thought out and closer to the first paragraph, his dealings with reporters and others in public have been much closer to the second. It's this that makes me worry about his public speaking skills - he needs to come off as someone who can make an argument that stands on its own and not solely because it has the backing of the a person with strong convictions.

I hope this explains my position better - I haven't had a chance to listen to Stallman speak recently (he keeps on scheduling his speaches that I am close enough to attend at inopertune times :)), but based on the reactions to things he's said that I've seen or heard, I can only come to the conclusion that he isn't that good a public speaker.

Here's audios of RMS speeches:

There are ogg recordings of 12 of his speeches from the last 3 years on the GNU philosophy audio page [gnu.org].

Also note that the issue of the name "GNU/Linux" is not about credit (more explanation here [gnu.org])

And an explanation of the fiasco regarding Stallman being asked to talk at a "Linux User Group" is available here [gnu.org].

I think....

Stallman has been waiting for the opportunity to speak and this subpeona gives him a venue.

SCO may get more than they bargained for.

Re:sad but fun

Well, we do get our share of laughs making fun of European royal familes, so it probably balances out.

Re:sad but fun

Don't worry, European courts have produced plenty of whoppers of their own -- German lawyers going on trademark jihads concerning trademarks they don't even own (Mobilix); British courts making it illegal to tell anyone that some servant saw Prince Charles and another man doing the nasty (whoops, now Slashdot will have to be banned in the UK!); French courts ruling that Google can't let a competitor use the AdWords feature to attach an ad to a search that mentions a competitor's name -- I could go on and on.

Re:sad but fun

Mmm, a condescending European. How novel.

Re:sad but fun

And your language is very heavily based upon the British langauge ;-)

Bruce Perens

I bet ol' Brucie is pissed that he's not considered a "big name in Linux" by SCO.

Courtroom Drama??

Lawyer: Mr Stallman, can you explain what GNU is? Stallman: Gnu's Not Unix
Lawyer: Yes, Mr Stallman, but can you please answer the question.
Stallman: Gnu's Not Unix
ad infinitum.

Re:Courtroom Drama??

thanks for not making YET ANOTHER STUPID JOKE about GNU/Linux.

so I will:

Lawyer: now, this linux operating system that you wrote...

RMS: excuse me. Linux is a kernel, not an operating system. if you refer to a Linux-based operating system you should call it GNU/Linux. Also, I didn't write it, I wrote a text editor, a make system, part of a C library, and some other programs.

Lawyer: right, the new Linux, is that different than the old one?

RMS: not "new" Linux, GNU/Linux .. Guh-Noo Linn-Ucks. Also, I didn't write the Linux kernel, that guy over there did.

Lawyer: Okay forget that.. Mr Stallman, when is the last time you bathed?

Re:Courtroom Drama??

Prediction:

If Stallman makes it into a courtroom he'll wind up with a contempt of court charge against him. I wonder if he can resist pulling his "I'm sorry, I don't know what you're talking about." or "I won't answer unless you ask the question with my preferred terminology." when an attorney uses "free" and "open-source" interchangeably or refers to the "Linux operating system.

In fact, if I were an SCO lawyer I'd definitely bait him until the judge sanctioned him.

Re:Courtroom Drama??

You are still operating on the asumption that a SCO lawyer will ever see the inside of a court room for anything other than 1) a bankruptcy hearing or 2) a fraud trial. Too bad too. I would kinda like to see RMS defend the GPL...

Re:Courtroom Drama??

Stallman's precision is less than that of most members of the law profession. The legal system is quite used to Stallman's habit of precise definition and preambles of defining semantics before answering. That's how law works, and to a certain extent, is what constitutes law. The phrase "Intellectual Property" pisses Stallman off because it has no meaning, whereas "Patents, Copyright and Trademark", are three seperate concepts. In law, that's so true there are seperate law offices that work for each of the three... and using the phrase "intellectual property" without referring to one of those three in precision will get you laughed out of court.

Re:Courtroom Drama??

I strongly suspect that part of the reason that Stallman has such strong views about precision of terminology is precisely because he's been working on the legal side of things for so long. The GPL is as much about hacking the legal system as Linux (err, GNU/Linux) is about hacking computer systems. To create a hack as elegant as the GPL, it's necessary to be pretty well versed in the medium you're hacking, and it seems that a fair bit has worn off on RMS.