Settling SCOres 460
Israel Pattison writes "The Inquirer is reporting that someone in Germany is claiming to have viewed the SCO-alleged infringing Linux source code without having to sign a NDA. The person gives details about the code that was presented, but the translation-by-software is difficult to follow." The story also includes a link to a human translation; maybe some Slashdot reader can do better. Also in the news is a story about a kernel developer getting uppity with SCO, as well he might.
As previously seen on Slashdot... (Score:5, Informative)
The translation is quite okay. (Score:5, Informative)
The Trillian Project : Proof of SCO's actions (Score:5, Informative)
The Trillian Project : Proof of SCO's actions
(#36053 by NZheretic in response to Did SCO open Unix source code? (ZDNet).)
So, how did Linux become so capable of scaling beyond the heights of the
old UNIXs. More importantly, who helped put what where?
As with the marketing of cars and TVs, it is the vendor's high end
leading edge models which sells the standard models, from which most of
the sales and profit is made. For the enterprise server market today,
that high end is multi-headed 64bit SMP ( shared memory multiprocessor
) systems, never mind the fact that single 32bit processors provide more
than enough power to do most jobs. For all intensive purposes, it is the
ability of the core OS to scale on 64Bit SMP systems that defines
"enterprise scalability". Other enterprise feature are effectively just
addons, which in the case of Linux, have been freely contributed from
many vendors and developers.
Since version 2.0, Linux was more than just a 32bit x86 operating
system. With the insistence and assistance of John "Maddog" Hall, Linux
was already ported to the 64Bit Alpha processor, which delivered great
performance and stability. Just like the traditional AT&T UNIX source
base, the ownership of the Alpha chipset passed though many hands,
suffering the same fate of a thousand cutbacks. Even Alpha's "native"
OS, VMS, has been ported to Itanium by HP/Compaq.
Since 1997 Intel has been promoting the Itanium line as the inevitable
successor for every other server processor on the market. Despite the
early vaporware status, Intel has been very successful, at least in
terms of marketing. With the exception of it's mainframes systems, even
IBM ships Itanium systems that directly compete with their own Power
processors.
For what The SCO Group has to offer with SCO Unixware 7,the Itanium line
is the only 64Bit option. The problem for The SCO Group is that modern
Linux can compete so well in that same market, that the value of
Unixware is rapid deteriorating to a historical curiosity. I suspect
that The SCO Group ( at that time called Caldera ) executives were well
aware of this before they acquired the server part of Old SCO in August
2000, or they would have known, if they spoken to the right executives
and technical staff.
So how did Linux get scale on Itanium? The SCO Group would have you
believe it was all IBM's doing, which isn't as interesting as the real
story. The web of history weaves to encircle and entangle a much more
diverse group of conspirators, including many of The SCO Group, Caldera
and old SCO own former executives and other employees.
In October 1998, IBM, Old SCO and Sequent teamed up to
collectively develop parts of Unixware and AIX into scalable 64bit ready
ports for IBM's Power processors and Intel's AI64, or Itanium, under the
banner of Project Monterey. But by then, it was already too late.
In February 1998, well before even the first prototype IA-64 chips were
available, a skunkworks team at HP, with some assistance from Intel,
began the work toward porting Linux to IA-64. By October 1998,around the
same time that IBM, Old SCO and Sequent had finished negotiations, HP
had completed the build toolchain. By January 1999, the Linux kernel was
booting on an IA-64 processor simulator, months before the actual
Itanium processor was available. In March 1999, at Intel, Linux was
booting on the actual Intel Itanium processor. In April 1999, CERN
joined the projects for the port of the Gnu C library and VA Linux
Systems joined the project and rapidly improved the stability and
performance.
In May 1999, the Trillian Project is foundered and HP, VA Linux and
Intel collectively provided their source patches to the Linux kernel for
the Itanium port under the GPL license.
A bootable kernel alone however does not make an OS make. HP supplied
Re:Linus' stuff? (Score:5, Informative)
fud.msnbc.com (Score:3, Informative)
Are Linux terrorists and hippies worse than Windows terrorists and hippies? I don't get it.
Microsoft co-owns a cable TV news channel [msnbc.com]. Linux.org doesn't. Microsoft reserves the right to misrepresent anything related to Linux on MSNBC so far as it doesn't cross the line of slander.
Novell's claim? (Score:2, Informative)
Does anyone know what to make of this? Does it bolster SCO's case? Those documents that the paralegal 'found' couldn't be forged, right?
Summary (Score:5, Informative)
-2 sections of code looked very similar
-The rest was mostly copied comments, including jokes that were copied.
-Observer found it curious that the source code near the copied comments was completely different.
Re:You can see the code too ! (Score:2, Informative)
(Usual disclaimer applies; IANAL and my law-classes were a while ago).
Re:SCO code =Bad chop job? (Score:5, Informative)
> which are not part of the actual operating code,
> form a more significant part of the source than
> the actual code?
The judge in the USL-BSD case ruled that similar or identical comments don't count since they are not functional. That precedent will count against SCO.
Re:please (Score:5, Informative)
> SCO vs. IBM. SCO wants to revoke IBM's UNIX
> license because they claim IBM copied UNIX code
> into Linux.
So far as I know SCO has not yet formally alleged copyright infringement in their complaint against IBM. I believe that the complaint just alleges that IBM breached its contract with SCO by revealing SCO's trade secrets.
Re:SCO claiming another's kernel code (Score:2, Informative)
He doesn't know any more than any of us here about what was copied - he's saying he only licensed his code (which is probably totally seperate from any SCO "copied" code) for use under the GPL.
The GPL can't link to non-GPL code.
OpenLinux is(/was?) being distributed by SCO. OpenLinux has their (supposed) un-GPL'd code. Hence, he is asking for a cease-and-decist on them distributing his code and violating the license
English translation (by hand) (Score:5, Informative)
THIS IS ONLY A WORKING TRANSLATION; I DO NOT TAKE RESPONSIBILITY AS TO POSSIBLE MISTAKES OR ERRORS. I WILL NOT TAKE ANY RESPONSIBILITY CONCERNING THE CONTENT OF THE ORIGINAL TEXT.
Today, I had the possibility to have a look at the incriminating code passages.
Due to a mistake on the part of the representing lawyer's office, my colleague and I - as opposed to the 7 other representatives that were allowed to look at things today - did not have to sign a Non Disclosure Agreement. This was in full contrast to the examiners of Microsoft corp., who apparently had to maintain silence even towards their own superiors and may only give notice to the internal company audit department.
Now for the code itself:
Under the supervision of a notary public, 46 pages were shown, each containing, by one half, code from Linux (for the most part, print-outs of posts taken directly from the Linux-Kernel-Mailing List) and, by the other half, listings of SCO. Whether these are indeed sources of SysV is not comprehensible that way, as they are taken out of their context. Another interesting thing is that all date and time details have been removed from both, even from the comments. The comments themselves are really identical here and there, even some jokes are the same on both sides. It is, however, conspicuous that in the places that correspond most, the source code that can be found in front of the comments is quite dissimilar after all. The fundamental construction of the queried functions is similar; however, the concrete implementation is quite different. Variables and names of functions are different, loops are structured differently, conditions work via chain queries (?) (Kettenabfrage) or bit patterns (?) (Bitmuster). All in all, only one thing can be said for certain: The functions offered by the respective code passages are often equal, which, however, was to be expected from the start anyway.
In the concrete implementation, there are, however, so many differences, that a proof of the origin being the same will be difficult, even though certainly not impossible.
The crunch, however, is a function of the scheduler, which is, over a length of about 60 lines, indeed identical except for slight differences. In this section, there is also a whole lot of corresponding comments.
Comparable similarity can only be found in one routine of the memory management, which is, however, only in the Linux version accompanied by comments.
Whether a competent proof can be made out of these two correspondences can only be estimated with certainty by a lawyer. I consider the vague similarities in other passages to be insufficient, as the same standards were the basis for both and therefore, a certain correspondence is to be expected.
Concerning the same comments to different source passages, I can see no rhyme or reason in it. This would in any case have to be investigated in again meticulously, in particular with the date and time details provided. Because only with these could a breach of copyright be proved at all.
Concerning the discussion about the part of Linux sold under the GPL by SCO/Caldera, it must be stated that up to the present, no court has had to decide on the legal validity of the GPL. Should this, however, be ascertained, which is not certain, SCO can use only those parts of Linux by way of comparison that were not published by SCO and in the development or co-development SCO did not take part. I consider this, too, a difficulty in the proceedings to come.
As the original, unpatched Linux-sources were not touched but only modifications that had been inserted by different distributors, it has to be clarified in any case whether these might have rights to the queried passages, be it directly or indirectly, e.g. through company mergers, take-overs, "all-inclusive"-deals etc. The chances for proceedings to open are not especially good, as in most comparable
Re:Linus' stuff? (Score:1, Informative)
Ingo Molnar works for RedHat
Re:Line numbers please? (Score:3, Informative)
Exactly. That's why its important to know which portion of the code base is at issue. But more important than learning whether the claim is true is fixing it so that even if its true today it ceases to be true tomorrow. That's why its important to track the exact code at issue back to its source -- something I've zero confidence that SCO has accomplished.
I've nothing against SCO until such time as I can determine for myself whether or not they have a case, or if they are just trying it on.
I vehemently disagree with you there. Regardless of the merits of SCO's case, they're treating the entire Linux community as if we're some sort of villians. Worse, they've gone out of their way to prevent us from halting the very infringement they allege exists. That's horribly wrongheaded, and I hope they rot for it.
Re:Did you read the same link I did? (Score:1, Informative)
Actually, he is telling SCO that they must cease and desist distributing source and binary versions of the kernel. His point is valid and SCO should have ceased all distribution when they filed suit.
It does put them in an unfortunate situation if there is a security update but they have to adhere to the GPL if they want to distribute the copyrighted code. Nothing of course prevents them from pointing their customers to the stock kernel s available on kernel.org and elsewhere.
Re:You can see the code too ! (Score:3, Informative)
Someone else pointed out that a serious developer will not jeopardize his/her career by signing an NDA. Well said. Nevertheless there is another post where the idea that the NDE is rather meaningless is put forth. This is simply not true. When anyone signs an NDA they open them up to litigation. It is quite trivial to accuse someone of infringment by virtue of the fact that they signed an NDA.
As a developer I would urge any other developer follow two rules: (1) DON'T EVER SIGN AN NDA and (2) If someone tells you they have a secret or a good idea you might be interested in - tell them to KEEP IT TO THEMSELVES. Really, you do not want to know!
Re:Punctuation (Score:3, Informative)
As I understand it, ``SCO'' is no longer an acronym meaning S anta C ruz O peration but a made-up word -- like ``Agilent'' and others, I guess -- that's pronounced ``skoe''. That would explain the lack of periods. I heard that they initially fought the pronunciation thing but eventually decided to quit while they were ahead. (Pity they can't see the light in this lawsuit, eh?)
Re:Linus' stuff? (Score:4, Informative)
Linus used Maurice J. Bach's "The Design of the UNIX Operating System." Perhaps the comments and functions were taken from that book?
Re:Translation (Score:1, Informative)