SCO Code to be Protected in Closed Court

An anonymous reader writes "SCO public relations director Blake Stowell today said that the company had secured permission to present the code alleged to have found its way into Linux to a closed court. Once again SCO is refusing to tell Linux users just what code they claim is infringing on their IP rights, while still threatening to sue corporations running Linux."

This protects the court

[AtariAmarok]

This protects the court, because if the code itself became part of the court records, SCO would have to sue the court itself for violation of SCO intellectual property.

"We find this Court to be in contempt of SCO!!!"

S.C.O.=

[Anonymous Coward]

S.C.O.=Secret Code Obfuscators

Oh well...

[Dot.Com.CEO]

I'm pretty sure SCO and the US Federal courts will be relieved to know where "liquilpele" stands on the subject. I, for one, am relieved to hear your opinion does not clash with the slashdot concensus.

Closed/Open Court...

[MosesJones]

Well if they'd released it into Open Court they'd have had to sue the US Judicial System, so maybe the Judges just got scared ?

I can imagine it now

Darl McBride : "By forcing our code to be shown in open court the US Judicial system has infringed on our copyright and we demand a royalty from every sentence now uttered in court which is a derivative of ours... which is all of them"

Next week SCO sue the Department of Defense for using SCO infringing software in the conquest of Iraq.... and demand Iraq as payment.

Darl McBride leader of Iraq...

Re:Yeah, that would be a good idea

[iMMersE]

You mustn't use Linux then ... :)

Re: Oh well...

[scotch]

First Slashborg post - nice work!

It's the penguin

[MountainMan101]

The secrecy comes from the fact that Darl McBride claims to have drawn Tux when he was a small child. The picture is so embarressing that he does not want anyone to see it.

Re:Closed/Open Court...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, he's already shown he can do the job as information minister.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:This protects the court

[Glock27]

"We find this Court to be in contempt of SCO!!!"

Well, the court may or may not be, but the entire Open Source community sure is...

Nice business model... :-P

infringing SCO code now public

[mabu]

/*
String Copy PLUS(tm)
(c) AT&T,SCO
*/
char *sppy(const char *s2) {
static char s[100];
strncpy(s,s2,200);
return(s);
}

Re:The problem with this is that it's already been

[Robotech_Master]

I have trouble believing Blake Stowell's clams...

Then don't listen to the man's clams. What do mollusks know about jurisprudence anyway?

SCO=CoS!

[CaptainAlbert]

It's official! The Santa Cruz Organisation (SCO, $CO) have been taking lessons from their close acronymical relatives the Church of Scientology (CoS, Co$). Don't believe me? The evidence is quite compelling:

Extortion

• CoS: Tell you that in order to be a happy and successful person, you must pay them a lot of money, because they are the sole owners of the only mental health "technology" that can save you from psychiatry;
• SCO: Tell you that in order to be a happy and successful Linux user, you must pay them a lot of money, because they are the sole owners of the only operating system technology that can save you from Microsoft;

Spurious Copyright Lawsuits

• CoS: Bring expensive lawsuits against organisations who publish details of their courses, doctrines, rituals and modes of operation, in an attempt to spread fear, uncertainly and doubt and to silence their critics;
• SCO: Bring expensive lawsuits against organisations who publish what they claim is "their" intellectual property, in an attempt to spread fear, uncertainly and doubt and to inflate their share price;

Unwarranted Secrecy

• CoS: Refuse to release details of what goes on inside their organisation behind their razor-wire fences, even though they claim to be a peaceful and benign religion with right on their side;
• SCO: Refuse to release details of which parts of Linux souce code they believe are infringing on their copyright, even though they claim to be a good and responsible company with right on their side;

Playing to the media

• CoS: Issue gushing press releases about how their cause is misunderstood and misrepresented; claim that in the face of (alleged) intellectual property misappropriation, their lawsuits are the only proper course of action;
• SCO: Issue gushing press releases about how their cause is misunderstood and misrepresented; claim that in the face of (alleged) intellectual property misappropriation, their lawsuits are the only proper course of action;

Paranoia

• CoS: Act as if the whole world is conspiring to destroy their organisation, publish invented and overblown claims of harrasment and threats towards their members in order to portray their opponents as criminals;
• SCO: Act as if the whole world is conspiring to destroy their organisation; publish invented and overblown claims of denial-of-service attacks on their servers in order to portray their opponents as criminals;

Dead-agenting

• CoS: Identify that most of the hostility towards them comes from particular groups and individuals, then seek to discredit those people by publicly accusing them of being violent, sexually immoral, drug addicts or anything else they can dream up.
• SCO: Identify that most of the hostility towards them comes from particular groups and individuals, then seek to discredit those people by publicly accusing them of being communists, hippies, deadbeat college students or anything else they can dream up.

Yup, it's only a matter of time before SCO declares itself a religion, McBride declares himself God, and the staff are made to buy e-meters, exorcise their body thetans and start work on a remake of Battlefield: Earth... remember - SCOentology, you heard it here first, people. :)

The First Rule of Open Source Fight Club

[MisterMook]

1. You do not talk about Open Source Fight Club.

Ahh, but ...

[A nonymous Coward]

... it all depends on how bribable our legal system is, either directly or indirectly. SCO got a lot of clams from investors recently ...

The Court of Slashdot

[Graabein]

> it is going to be determined in a Court of Law, not the Court of Slashdot.

"The Court of Slashdot", I like it...

Judge: "Mr. ForeGeek of the Jury, have you reached a verdict?"
FGOTJ: "Yes, Your Honor"
Judge: "What say you?"
FGOTJ: "We find the defendant guilty of Trolling in the first degree"
Judge: "I sentence the defendant to -1, Flamebait!"

That should teach 'em! Or not...

Re:Scepticism is still called for

[Anonymous Coward]

and Commander Taco fixes the slashdot code to warn editors of imminent dupes.

The first time I read this, I thought it said "dopes".

What will happen

[red floyd]

10 SCO says "X is confidential"
20 IBM appeals to the judge
30 The court rules on whether X is not
40 GOTO 10

Re:Ahh, but ...

[cHALiTO]

I knew the church of scientology was behind this!

If this were the sports world

[sdcharle]

The news would be something along the lines of: The Orlando Magic ban audiences from attending games because 'we can't make baskets when people are looking'.

SCO Information Minister...

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Reno, NV (AP)

SCO has announced the hiring of Mr. Mohammed Sahhaf to the position of Press Relations. Mr. Sahhaf, known in the US as "Badgad Bob", had a few things to say during the announcement:

In regards to the outcome of the case he replied "Allah willing, we will be feasting on the penguin blubber of IBM!"

I regards to the recurring Denial of Service attacks on SCO's network: "They are committing suicide at the gateways!"

In regards to the present setback in court he replied: "We have them surrounded with caselaw."

Re:The problem with this is that it's already been

[Odin's Raven]

I have trouble believing Blake Stowell's clams...

Tonight on BBC 4: Clamofibophobia -- are bivalve mollusks lying to you?

As a public service to the /. community, let me review the relative truthfulness of various members of the animal kingdom.

• Clams - Generally trustworthy, renowned for keeping their mouths shut. However the so-called Blake Stowell clam ("Musculius SCOlegalitus") can be deceiving, often posing as an oyster to trick its prey into thinking it contains a pearl.
• Penguins - C'mon, it's cute. You can trust penguins.
• Daemons - Technically not an animal, but also cute. You can trust daemons. (Warning: do not confuse daemons with demons. If it wants to rip your entrails out and place them on an altar, it's a demon. Run.)
• Butterflies - Do not trust butterflies. Even minor changes in a butterfly's flight configuration can introduce world-wide climactic changes with destructive consequences. Butterflies have also been linked to the spread of numerous viruses.

Re:Oh, calm down.

[JeanPaulBob]

Hey, this is Slashdot. You expect me to check facts before I submit?

Re:SCO=CoS!

[Servo]

LOL!

But you forgot one fact. Unix is already a religion. :)

Why was that again?

[rumblin'rabbit]

SCO refuses to make public code that they claim has already been made public because, ummmmm, why was that again?

If there's a rational here, I would (seriously) appreciate an explanation.

Re:The Court of Slashdot

[obergeist666]

Judge: "What say you?"

This should be:

Judge: "What you say!!"

Re:Someone needs to explain to the judge...

[geekoid]

Funny, I understand Judges love to be told the law,
And UNIX gurus love to be told how to use grep.
Also, doctors love to be told how do practice medicine.

Re:Stop making shit up

[ngoy]

I just have one of my kids hit the keyboard. I don't agree to anything. It isn't like a car, where you have responsbility for the driver since you have control over the vehicle. The next thing I am going to do is setup a secondary keyboard or something on the floor and just put a dog snack on there when I need to click on a EULA. "I'm sorry your honor, I did not agree to the terms and conditions, I did not read them and do not know the contents. Fido may though."

Re:Ahh, but ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Scientology, Church Of. It's a Tom Cruz Operation.

SCO Unixware is dying!!

[Billly Gates]

It is official; Netcraft confirms: SCO is dying

One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered SCO UnixWare community when IDC confirmed that SCO market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that SCO UnixWare has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. SCO is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.

You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict SCO's future. The hand writing is on the wall: SCO faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for SCO UnixWare because SCO is dying. Things are looking very bad for SCO. As many of us are already aware, SCO UnixWare continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.

SCO has lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time UnixWare developers L. Ron Hubbard and Joseph Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: SCO is dying.

All major surveys show that UnixWare has steadily declined in market share. SCO is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If SCO is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. SCO continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, SCO is dead.

Fact: SCO is dying