Ptraci writes "Over at Groklaw they have been doing some digging and have found evidence that old SCO and Caldera did in fact contribute those files that they now want to charge us for."
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...was under GPL. They will have to disprove that first, which IMHO is he kernel of the case (other than a last-ditch effort to get bought out which seems to have failed).
The brilliant thing is that Caldera PGP signed the files that they released. So it is going to be extremely hard for SCO to argue that someone else released them, or that they were released by a rogue employee without permission.
that's what experts are for. the "average" judge doesn't know ballistics either but ballistics is still a science that judges use daily to convict murderers. because a judge doesn't know about a certain type of proof doesn't make it invalid.
remember the judge wont be deciding anything. its the jury
But the judge WILL decide if it's admissable, and the jury is instructed to ignore it (or shielded from even hearing about it) if it's not.
Fortunately, digital signatures were explicitly designed for proving authorship in the digital world of generally untracable bits, and governments, including both the executive (by regs) and legislative (by law) branches of the Fed, are moving to make them legal proof. (See SEAL, E-SIGN, Millennium Digital Commerce Act, etc.) They're already recognized by Utah (not that it matters in a federal court...)
Since this is a civil case, where the standard is a "preponderance of evidence", and the signatures are being introduced by the defense, I'd be surprised if the judge excludes such evidence. (Think about it - what non-digital evidence is there of ANYTHING related to the case?)
If there is no direction from law or precedent, I'd expect him to let it in and let the experts from both sides argue the difficulties of forgery.
(IANAL, your mileage may vary, take this with a grain of salt, etc.)
You can't really expect some PGP thing to hold up in court. Your average judge or juror won't even know what PGP is.
If you can clicking 'agree' is enough to enter into a license, surely a PGP signature will do. Equate the two in court and watch MS legal's heads explode as they side with Linux against SCO:-)
Actually you can. Quick google will bring up US makes digital signatures legally binding [silicon.com] from Silicon.com in November 1999. Even assuming that the judge is an utter bonehead over four years behind the law, this would be brought up in court.
Their contribution was under GPL. They will have to disprove that first, which IMHO is he kernel of the case
After all these months and hot air, I'm *still* unclear on that point. Some days the case is just a contract dispute between IBM and SCO, other days Daryl is ranting about how the GPL is unconstitutional and we're all commies bent on wrecking capitalism.
Personally I think SCO's ownership and their backers believe the latter, but could only trump up a quasi-case for the former.
Their contribution was under GPL. They will have to disprove that first, which IMHO is he kernel of the case
After all these months and hot air, I'm *still* unclear on that point.
This particular point goes specifically to the claims made in this letter to Unix Licensees [lwn.net] that SCOX sent out a little over a month ago. If SCOX released those into linux under the GPL (and they did,) then they cannot go after *anyone* (including Unix licensees) for using a version of linux with those files without violating the GPL. Additionally, if *they* distribute a version of linux which contains those files (and they do) they are in violation of the copyright of every other contributer to any such linux distribution that they are distributing. Thus, pretty much any recipient of the above linked letter has a pretty good case for telling SCOX to pound sand (after consulting a lawyer to be sure) and IBM has a damned good case in their copyright countersuit. By pointing to the letter, and to the GPL ABI release by SCOX and then pointing to any linux distribution from SCOX's site in the recent past (and there have been plenty right up until 1/25 -- but oddly various locations keep disappearing with each DDoS) IBM can show good evidence that SCOX tried to sublicense linux (the letter) for containing something that they themselves released as GPL into linux (PGP signed files) and that, since they are in violation of the GPL terms, they do not have permission to distribute linux, which they are doing (get someone who's recently downloaded the kernel from the SCOX site to testify.) SCOX is SCOrewed.
Cheers,
Craig
I don't think it's possible to wreck capitalism. You could destroy the value of money, but substitutes would be rapidly found. For example, in World War II prison camps, cigarettes were used as money.
I don't think there's any circumstance where society would be so degraded that people would not want to exchange goods in one form or another. Money is just a medium that makes that more flexible. If I offer my labor in exchange for a new PowerMac, it might
While Groklaw's research in this matter is comendable, the comparatively recent allegation of purloined header files was never central to the dispute.
It started with RCU and JFS.
Most of the drama has been behind the scenes, as Novell has revealed how little of Unix SCO may actually own.
Indeed, Novell may be entitled to 95% of the money from Microsoft and Sun that has funded this suit thusfar.
Maybe that's why Darl's campaigning so hard to get the GPL declared unconstitutional...
Speaking of SCO, they recently filed their 10-K Report. [yahoo.com] Maybe that's why their stock prices is depressed. Go and read for the sweet, sweet death throes.
IANAL, or an open source guru, or a techie of any kind, but I find it hard to believe SCO could enter into deal under the GPL and then have any chance of convincing the courts that it's invalid. Did they not READ it the first time? And considering the kinds of lincenses that ARE easily enforced, it seems rediculous to think something like the GPL could be genuinely challenged. I've read it, and it basically says, "Use this however you like, do whatever you want with it, just be sure that once you're done wi
To what end? The GPL is just the permission slip Linus gives you to use and copy Linux, not ownership of Linux (for example - this applies to all GPL'd code). If the GPL is ruled invalid by a court, all that means is that the license you hold for Linux is invalid. It doesn't invalidate Linus' copyright on the Linux code. Linus would remain free to re-license his code as he sees fit -- this would not grant Microsoft or anyone else the right to use Linus' code without his permission.
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Saturday January 31, 2004 @12:34PM (#8143987)
Fair question: What's to prevent any other contributor from pulling a future SCO? Especially when you have a codebse that has such a large number of contributors. And a large variety of licenses.
"If you'll look out the left side of the bus you'll see the smoking Caldera that used to be SCO Group...remember this sight well if ever you contemplate screwing with Open Source..."
The smart ones will realize that it doesn't matter what happens to the corporate name, as long as all the corporate insiders [yahoo.com] can make millions of dollars along the way. The only way future would-be SCO's will be deterred is if all the people who have been lying and dissembling [anerispress.com] to pump up their stock are fined well in excess of their profits and/or do prison time for their fraud. You can bet this won't happen.
No. It doesn't matter if the insiders laugh all the way to the bank (presumably in the Cayman Islands). What matters is SCOX investors losing money and the company utterly ruined.
The only reason Darl and crew are able to take this stupid strategy is they've managed to convince some investors there is a chance they can pull it off. When it turns out to be a dismal, money losing failure for all investors, future greedy unscrupulous CEOs just won't have the backing to persue such a folly.
The only reason Darl and crew are able to take this stupid strategy is they've managed to convince some investors there is a chance they can pull it off. When it turns out to be a dismal, money losing failure for all investors, future greedy unscrupulous CEOs just won't have the backing to persue such a folly.
If AT&T's failed anti-open-source lawsuit didn't convince investors that the SCO lawsuit (which is far more clear cut) is unwinnable, what makes you think the SCO lawsuit will convince anyone tha
This is exactly the reason why the FSF requires you to assign your copyright to them when you contribute code to GNU projects. Likewise the Apache Software Foundation and their projects. Someone should always have clear legal title to the entire project. Otherwise nobody may have legal status to defend it in court or to file suit against infringers.
The other side of this is that the ownership of all contributions need to be vetted by the person/group that receives ownership. Some groups ask new contributors for a written document asserting that they own what they're contributing, especially if the contributor works for a software company. That changes the legal situation - if The TDP Group sues the XYZ Foundation for stealing their code, the XYZ Foundation has a clear defense:
"Your Honor, we were told by Joe Coder that he had legal ownership of the code in question and he assigned that ownership to us. Naturally, if you determine otherwise, we'll comply with your order to remove it. However we believe that any damages
etc. are a matter between the plaintiff and Mr. Coder"
Now the last thing I want is for The TDP Group to sue me for code I put into XYZ, but if they find out I did it what will likely happen anyway.
I appreciate they are doing a very worthy work (and getting the slashdot crowd to a more informed talk about SCO, something necessary because the old jokes are starting to become _really_ old).
I sure would like them to go on when this SCO fiasto bluffs down. The free software world really needs an army of lawyers and paralawyers, if we want to stay long. I only can say "Kudos to you, groklawyers! Go on!"
There's the IBM vs. SCO countersuit, the Redhat vs. SCO suit, and the SCO vs. Novell suit, for starters. After SCO turns into a smoking caldera there's still Microsoft, and there will probably be other interesting cases to cover. Groklaw will never be short for material.
What I wonder is what will happen when Groklaw starts to follow a case where the issues don't appear to be as overwhelmingly in favor of one side as this one. That could get very interesting.
I'm not sure if it's been done, or if plans are in the works, but Groklaw has been a tremendous boon to the Open Source community. Everybody involved with making that site, especially Pamela Jones, has done an enormous amount of expensive work, pro bono, on our (the Open Source community's) behalf. The evidence is out there, and thanks to Groklaw it is being found and the world is being informed.
I'd like to point everybody to the little paypal button on the groklaw sidebar. They deserve credit for their work. Are there any plans for some kind of big party at a linux conference for Pam Jones et al.? Maybe after the case is settled.
Webster now says:
Extort: to obtain from a person by force, intimidation, or undue or illegal power
Scam: a fraudulent or deceptive act or operation
Liar: one that tells lies
Indian giver: a person who gives something to another and then takes it back or expects an equivalent in return
Revised:
Extort: What SCO is trying to do to the Linux community through questionable and possible illegal acts.
Scam: SCO press releases
Liar: Daryl McBride
Indian giver: = SCO + Caldera
Indian giver: a person who gives something to another and then takes it back or expects an equivalent in return.
The term "indian giver" is the result of a misunderstanding of the property law of an east-coast tribe, early in the settlement of former Europeans in North America.
Short form: The colonists thought they were buying the land. The Indians thought they were leasing it, with anual rent payments and lease renewals.
Needless to say, this led to considerable confusion and indignation when the india
According to this article [enciclopediavirus.com], the FBI has visited SCO, seized a server and several workstations, and arrested several programmers and bosses.
I don't buy it. The site says they got their information from IBM. That runs totally counter to IMB's don't-talk-to-the-press rule. It looks to me like an attempt to spread bad information, pin the blame on IBM, and tarnish them.
I'd love to be wrong, though. The idea of SCO writing a virus against itself for PR purposes is almost too funny. I'd imagine a company or two might sue SCO to cover wages spent doing MyDoom cleanup. Ha ha. That would make my heart feel soooo good.
The claim is (if I read the fish babble correctly) that they were turned on to SCO by tracking the initial spread of the virus to SCO as an early focus.
Others are already suggesting that the DoS on SCO is a red herring by the spammers - playing a game of "let's you and him fight" between two of their enemies: The anti-virus people (mainly commercial and law enforcement) and the anti-spammers (expert users and sysadmins, high cross-membership with the ope
It would mean SCO is stupid enough to launch the virus from their machines and in such a clear way that the FBI could find it in a few days. I doubt it. Some joker typed up something that sounded official enough that this site (which looks legit) posted the article without checking anything.
There are also rumors that the virus "doesn't work" in that it never calls the DDOS code. This sounds like it is trivial to confirm or disprove, so does anybody know what's up with that?
> Captured the culprit of the Mydoom? 30-01-2004 According to some agencies inform into the news, the FBI would have made some haltings that could be related to the presumed author of the worm of greater propagation of history, and for the surprise of all, it would be in the offices of one of his "victims".
The information, says that the FBI stopped several programmers and in charge of the company SCO, at the same time which other searches and investigations were made in the central offices of the sa
Step 1: Contribute to Opensource.
Step 2: Forget you did it.
Step 3: Sue everyone else in hopes that one of the companies will decide it's cheaper to buy you then to fight.
Step 4: Watch the stock price go through the roof [yahoo.com].
Step 5: Profit!
This is OT but Netcraft has an amusing article [netcraft.com] about what options SCO, the litigious bastards [caldera.com], are not using to avoid being DOSed by Mydoom tomarrow.
I liked option #5 in the article [netcraft.com] you linked to:
Solution 5: SCO Execs point www.sco.com at the loopback address 127.0.0.1, end lawsuits, dismiss lawyers, and invest remaining corporate cash reserves in call options in Dell & Microsoft stock.
Consequences: No denial of service traffic whatsoever seen on the Internet. Millions of Windows users notice that their computer is running extremely slowly. Many buy new machines, which fixes the problem. Dell & Microsoft stock rises. Everyone lives happily
Look at the SCO pattern. They have made claims ranging from contract dispute with IBM to every OS in existance owing SCO IP money. They have nothing whatsoever to lose. They will merely pursue any interpretation of events which results in people owing them money. I don't know how they'll twist this yet, but since logic doesn't seem to have much to do with it they might say they were an unauthorized release and try to make some specific employee the goat, claim that the ABIs are an insignificant part of their total IP in Linux, or other things I'm not warped enough to think of. They aren't going to shut up for anything.
Even if after everything we've heard from them to date falls through, they may try to make the claim in court that every OS in existance is derived from SCO IP, and that being the case Linux users STILL owe SCO money, regardless of code. Nonsense yes, but when has that ever stopped them before?
Folks, the individual details of this don't matter at all. That's not what this is about. This is about SCO looking for a way - any way - to get Linux users to pay them. Knocking down a given specific detail won't phase them in the least. Until SCO in its current form is gone, we will never hear the end of this. Remember, they apparently even sent that letter to Congress saying open/free software was a threat to the US software industry! Their only concern is to come out on top, period. How is of no consequence.
Yes, this news could be useful to the likes of IBM (I can't see Groklaw so it's hard to say;-) But remember this isn't a war about details. This is about defining a goal, and getting there any way possible. We are in the way of SCO's using our code for commercial purposes. Therefore we are the enemy to be destroyed, and trying to reason with them has thus far been about as effective as talking a laser guided missle out of striking the target. I don't expect that trend to change any time soon, wherever the ABIs came from.
"Even if after everything we've heard from them to date falls through, they may try to make the claim in court that every OS in existence is derived from SCO IP, and that being the case Linux users STILL owe SCO money, regardless of code."
Not gonna happen.
"Folks, the individual details of this don't matter at all. That's not what this is about."
No actually the details do matter. They matter in the court of law. Contrary to popular belief you can't just buy your way into winning every lawsuit.
"We are in the way of SCO's using our code for commercial purposes. Therefore we are the enemy to be destroyed, "
Yea, so what? MS wants linux destroyed as well and you how well that's worked for them.
Look, your just acting a bit hysterical here. Facts and law do matter. And contrary to your sky is falling ideas Linux isn't going to be destroyed by anyone. If it turns out that Caldera released the code under the GPL 5 years ago or whatever then this is hugely damaging to the case. This IS helpful. You can't just dismiss that and say "well SCO will just think of some angle to spin this." My advice to you is relax a bit and ease off the coffee. This case will resolve itself and there is no indication from any repudiable legal counsel or expert that SCO will be the end of Linux.
Oh, have no fear, if this ever gets into real, juicy discovery (rather than this "give us some shred of an idea of what you might be accusing us of" phase we're in now), Ransom Love will be deposed, as will all of the developers at Caldera who contributed code to the kernel. It's not a matter of being pissed off enough to go along with it; they won't have any choice. They'll be subpoenaed and under oath.
SCO claims that if they distributed Linux with their own proprietary code included inadvertently and without their knowledge, then they are not culpable for that inclusion because they never agreed to the license.
I guess a simple analogy would be someone buying a container in a grocery store but before getting to the checkout, stuffs in a box of cookies. If the clerk sells the person that box without knowing there were cookies inside, then it is still theft. If the clerk then happens to notice the box post-sale and says, "Hey, I didn't sell you those cookies!" then the thief cannot rightfully say that they were sold to him.
I should add in BIG CAPITAL LETTERS that I do not necessarily buy SCO's argument as being legitimate, but only that the theory the claim rests upon seems rational.
It's closer to a store clerk inadvertantly putting cookies in boxes, and passing out the boxes for free, then accusing the recipients of stealing the cookies.
It's more like someone (SCO) takes a box of stuff to the Goodwill. (Goodwill is a charitable organization that sells donated stuff) Then they wait 6 months and say "Goodwill stole our stuff and we want a cut from everything Goodwill has sold from the time we made our donation for all eternity."
Once the truth comes out they did they did indeed make a donation they backpedal and say "well we didn't mean to donate all that stuff but we're not going to tell you which items we want back and we still want
What was known before would be more like:
A random person stuffs boxes of cookies into containers. The checkout clerks fail to notice boxes of cookies in containers and many people buy the containers with boxes of cookies in them but only pay for the container. The supermarket then tries to track down anyone who bought these and make them pay for the cookies.
Now things seem even worse for SCO. It seems they contributed the code. That's like some supermarket employee is told by their boss to stick the boxes of cookies into the containers and then label the items as "container with free box of cookies included". Surely they can't make people pay for the cookies now.
t_allardyce writes: Actually is more like the sales clerk stuffing the cookies in there themselves when the shopper isnt looking and then shouting "thief"
Wrong.
I was very clear that I was not attempting to make a statement about the truthfulness of SCO's claim but merely what it was, precisely, that they claimed.
What they are claiming is that whoever included certain bits of code into Linux did so without their knowledge and therefore even if they did distribute their own code under the GPL, they did so
Because it would put them directly in the hot seat. The SEC would come sniffing around again if they bought SCO, because it would be an obvious attempt to destroy competition and illegally extend their monopoly. But, by quietly purchasing "licences" to fund SCO's warchest, they can fight a proxy war against Linux, and keep their hands clean from any anti-trust investigations. After all, they were just in good faith paying fair licencing costs to SCO, like any good corporate citizen should do, right? Nev
It would be the FTC or the DOJ that would be looking at Microsoft, not the SEC. The SEC would be involved only if there were concerns about the reporting of either of the companies, or share price manipulation.
Microsoft can funnel money to SCO via 'licenses'
to fuel the SCO FUD machine. But in the end,
Microsoft won't be liable for any counter-suits.
At some point (likely when Intel and MS are ready
with Longhorn), SCO will be allowed to die, making
the countersuits moot.
SCO is just a soldier in the war, totally expendable.
Don't forget that IBM is suing SCO for patent infringement on SCOs entire product line. If Microsoft were to purchase SCO, and IBM were to prevail in their patent suit, Microsoft would be facing millions of dollars in potential damages.
The last thing M$ wants to do is buy a bunch of pending lawsuits, especially with IBM. It's fairly likely that M$ is violating a few patents of IBM's (everyone else is, why not them) so why should M$ want to take the risk?
What would M$ have to gain by buying SCO? They don't really have to do anything right now, the world's attention is focused on SCO's fallacious claims, all M$ has to do is sit back and laugh with the rest of us. If there's anything to buy in a couple of years, M$ could pick them up for
SCO has recently sent a series of increasingly threatening letters to various Unix and Linux customers. In these letters, SCO approaches, and perhaps puts its toe over the line, between legal browbeating and illegal extortion.
These letters threaten the companies over exactly this ABI issue. In the days before the internet and sites like Groklaw, people had to decide on their own, or with their lawyers, what to do about these letters. Each of the victims might attempt to do the kind of research done by Frank Sorenson and Pamely Jones here, but as the victims are probably not intellectual property experts and have their own businesses to run, they might be tempted to pay off the extortionists.
But, now they each one of the victims has the benefit of this research, and can make a much more informed decision. The Groklaw article also provides links to the original source for each of their assertions, so that the recipients of the letters can look at the actual underlying data.
All that said, the article is reminds me of the opening to Get Smart, where Maxwell Smart goes through an almost interminable series of doors to get to his destination. Sorenson and Jones, and their helpers, have found any number of different ways that the code in question is available for use. SCO is screwed on the basis of any one of those.
I find it amazing that a story like this can garner over 100 posts about SCO, yet as far as I can determine nobody is able to view the story. What are you all blathering about?
This is an HTML w/o style tags mirror of the article itself (no posted comments).
Thanks Pamela et.al. Great Article http://sd-mirror.dumitru.com/gl.htm [dumitru.com]
It appears that in addition to all bugs being shallow with enough eyes, that all complicated legal problems are also shallow with enough eyes. How many people have helped Pamela Jones in this by locating references? It appears that open source methodology may be an advantage in legal cases as well as software development!
I've always enjoyed the material Groklaw provides. It may really help though if they put a press/business friendly bullet point summary of the article. The open source position is very easy to understand:
* SCO claims Linux infringes on their UNIX copyrights.
* Linux was written by thousands of programmers all over the world led by Linus Torvalds.
* SCO has not disclosed all of the parts of UNIX that they beleive are being infringed.
* SCO has disclosed some of the alleged infringements. In each of these cases, it was found that the parts in question were already in the public domain or had been released to the public as free GPL software.
Care should be taken to avoid terms like "code" "ABI" and "header files" they are too technical. This is a Brooklyn Bridge scam. Call it that.
I love Groklaw and can't wait for each new installment. But I wish some of the heavyweight contributors there could get the hang of putting an "Executive Summary" at the beginning of the long detailed rants. Not just a short list of the conclusions (equally important), but a summary of the key facts as well.
This article is a perfect example. I understood it just fine, but, as much as I like minutiae, I stopped reading in detail and started skimming after about 75% through -- it became much-of-a-muchness. T
SCO's claims are a little like a woman falsely claiming rape after she willingly consented to sexual relations. Worse, from their standpoint. The evidence of the GPL distribution is there for the world to see, so it's not a He Said, She Said situation where you might have at least a 50% chance of being believed.
SCO's claims are more like if Paris Hilton had claimed rape after the videotape emerged.
Um, Ransom, you seemed to be enjoying yourself with Linux...
It seems like the most damning evidence and contradictions [caldera.com] about SCO comes from their own website. Perhaps this is why they want to appear to be DOS'd.
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Saturday January 31, 2004 @12:37PM (#8144010)
Why is the parent moded as flamebait? Isnt that the truth that Groklaw are probably biased against SCO? Groklaw has probably uncovered quite a lot of dirt on SCO that is correct, and I doubt that they lie about anything. But if one has taken sides on an issue, can we trust that the person wont turn a blind eye on some facts? Will he present facts that might not go down to well with his own version and side? I think it is only a fair comment. SCO are probably a bunch of liars, but underestimating and brushing aside an opponent as "nothing" WILL in most cases come back and bite you in the *ss.
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Saturday January 31, 2004 @12:43PM (#8144041)
Actually, it would suffice to say that Groklaw is more interested in finding information that would benefit SCO.
In fact, the entire Linux community is more concerned with finding facts that could help SCO.
Well, alteast they WERE. The simple fact is, SCO has lied and been caught soooo many times over the last few months... all we can do now is wait for them to lie again so we can disprove it.
It's simple, SCO has lied and it's a known fact. They've lied a LOT, made a LOT of false allegations, etc al..
If you bite into a terd, it's going to taste like shit. No amount of suger and spice is going to make it otherwise.
It's not a problem that Groklaw might or might not be biased in their research. EVERYONE IS BIASED! Why is it that so many people, whether critizing slashdot's "anti-microsoft bias" or now Groklaw's "anti-sco bias" seem to be scouring the world searching for someone to write an article or produce a site on a topic totally neutral on every possible opinion on the subject. Groklaw thinks SCO is full of shit. Therefore they are biased. Groklaw's arguments and evidence seem to substantiate their claims. Therefore they are also probably CORRECT.
Dealing with bias is why you have a brain. Read the articles, judge their evidence, and come to your own conclusion. If you disagree provide a detailed analysis, and prove your point. Enough with the goddamned bias mania.
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Saturday January 31, 2004 @12:47PM (#8144072)
This guy brings up a great point. I'm an IT manager at a Fortune 500, and we are considering the ramifications of this case everyday at work.
Techies - if you want to convince your manager that SCO has no case, stop being so emotional about it. We in management have a hard time trusting your opinion when you seem to have so much invested in this emotionally.
This is not some battle of good v. evil - you aren't Bilbo fighting that evil eye at the top of the tower (forgot his name, evil wizard guy).
Since when was PJ being so emotional about it? (She's not a techie anyway, she's a paralegal). You clearly have never read groklaw or you would not state so positively that this guy brings up a great point. PJ has stated on numerous occasions that she would welcome contributions from a pro-SCO point of view, but so far SCO has come up with zero genuine evidence that has not been thoroughly refuted by Linus, Perens and others before PJ gets a chance to post it to her site.
She seems genuinely after the truth. This sort of reduces the probability that you'll see pro-SCO posts. It's not like Groklaw is accessing information that isn't publicly available for the most part. If there were references to "Hey, we were there behind closed doors with no witnesses and they said blah blah" then it would be fair to question Groklaw's fairness. When everything said can be double checked with comparative ease, would anyone (other than SCO) ignore or distort evidence? The readers there have proven they're willing to dig up every bit of arcane fact - I'm sure distortion would be discovered rather quickly. Note, for example, the "This couldnt be a DOS against SCO!" thread. Plenty of posts were spent contradicting that...
"Plus, it's blatantly obvious that PJ's whole rationale for spending dozens of hours a week doing Groklaw is to defeat SCO in the public relations war. Chip on her shoulder?"
Not at all. Groklaw is stated to be an anti-FUD site. That is what PJ does, she fights FUD. Guess where most of the FUD has been coming from in this case? So what else would you WANT her to do? Just ignore it?
'Not that there's anything wrong with all that, but you aren't going to convince any outsiders of Groklaw's 'level headed objectivity'. Looks like any bunch of Linux kooks from here."
No it doesn't. Groklaw has been cited in many news articles, is read by CEOs and lawyers and reporters, and has been included in the court case by being cited by IBM. You don't get that level of respect by authorities if you are viewed as "a bunch of Linux kooks." Sorry, go spread your FUD elsewhere, it doesn't apply to Groklaw.
Legal advocates are never fair and unbiased. They are not supposed to be. That is the function of a judge.
However, if legal research finds a picture of Darl wearing a pair of shoes he says he never owned, well, than that's what they did. Bias doesn't even come into it.
Then it would be up to Darl to try to explain away the picture by saying it was Christmas and his cat DDOSed his regular shoes so he demanded that IBM loan him those, or some such nonesense.
And if it goes to trial Darl will have to try to put the glove on IBM.
Groklaw is biased against SCO already. Can we trust them to be fair and unbiased in their "research"?
Bias doesn't automatically indicate dishonesty. Are they biased against SCO? Sure. Does this mean they're looking primarily at SCO rather than the OSS community for evidence of malfeasance? Sure does. Does this mean that evidence they find is worthless? Nope (it's PGP signed by Caldera fer gosh sakes). Just because Groklaw isn't also out looking for "the real killers" deosn't mean they're lying about SCO. You have to judge the honesty of an organization separately. Just because some people lie to support their biases doesn't mean all biased people are liars.
Considering they covered both sides of the Novell's original "Wait, we own those Unix copyrights", SCO's "No you don't, here's an amendment to our agreement" response, and Novell's "Hmm, we don't have a copy of that, but it looks legitimate..." reply with equal weight, I have no worries about Groklaw's ability to give both sides fair treatment.
Remember, Groklaw (and everyone else watching the lawsuit) wants SCO to give us the evidence they claim(ed) to have. If there's an appearance of anti-SCO bias, then
Can we trust them to be fair and unbiased in their "research"?
When a mistake is made in an article, is it analyzed and corrected? (Yes.)
Are the sources for background facts reliable? (Yes. Most of it comes from court documents and SEC filings, and an occasional question posed to directly to Linus or another expert.)
If anyone, even one of SCOG's lawyers, can come up with a single fact supporting their allegations or a consistent legal argument for their highly original interpretation of copyright law, Groklaw would happily publish it. The truth is that the only way to discuss the current and potential lawsuits is either 1) live in a fantasy world where the law and the facts have no effect or 2) talk badly about SCO. There is no third choice.
What can be done is to try to always tie arguments and opinions to the proveable facts as closely as possible, and this is what the Groklaw stories do.
Can we trust them to be fair and unbiased in their "research"?
Does it matter?
In any legal situation (a trial, contract dispute, or whatever) both sides try to find evidence which supports their case. Neither side is "fair" or "unbiased". Yet legal disputes get resolved all the time. What's the magical secret? The judge and jury get to see all of the evidence, then they make up their minds based on all of the evidence which they have seen.
Groklaw may well be biased against SCO, but all they're doing is presenting more evidence. That's exactly what both sides are supposed to do (and what SCO has been criticized for not doing).
See, you seem to want us to ignore "biased" sources of evidence. "Groklaw is biased, so they can't be trusted" is a decent summary of what you wrote. You've got to think about this on a higher level. Very few unbiased groups will ever get involved in a legal dispute. That's the nature of legal disputes, or even disputes in general -- if you don't care, you don't get involved! So the trick is to focus on evidence and solid, logical arguments rather than rhetoric. Focus on what each side can prove rather than merely what they say. That's the way to deal with situations in which interested parties are involves (which includes almost all legal disputes, and many other situations as well). Simply ignoring any biased opinion (is there any other kind of opinion?) will leave you ignorant.
It's misleading to say that Groklaw is "biased" against SCO. Bias, or prejudice, occurs when someone pre-judges a matter -- when pre-existing opinions lead one to a conclusion that does not respect the evidence at hand, or miscolor one's experience of a situation. It does not occur when someone draws an unpleasant conclusion, or one you don't like, on the basis of actual evidence at hand.
It is not biased to dislike something on the basis of experience, or to distrust someone who has been proven to lie. To accuse someone of bias in this regard is to suggest that having discovered unpleasant truths somehow worsens rather than improves one's ability to draw true conclusions about the world. It is to praise ignorance and naivete' over experience, on the grounds that unpleasant experiences can cause you to think ill of those responsible for the unpleasantness.
Ms. Jones and the others at Groklaw are not biased against SCO. They have come to their conclusions about SCO's dishonesty on the basis of facts, not merely prejudices. People do not simply call SCO liars and scoundrels because they want SCO's claims to be false and self-contradictory, but because SCO's claims have been demonstrated publicly to be false and self-contradictory. That's not bias; it's reasoning.
In fact, just about everything that they have claimed gets disproved rather quickly via groklaw. While there are a few things left, it only requires for SCO to submit the evidence so that groklaw can look at it.
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Saturday January 31, 2004 @01:16PM (#8144258)
This article is the result of a group research project, compiled and
primarily written by Frank Sorenson with Pamela Jones. The special
footnoted article explaining some of the terms for nonprogrammers was
written by Nick Richards. The research group was primarily composed of
Frank Sorenson, Dr. Stupid, Harlan Wilkerson, Rand McNatt, Roland
Buresund, and Pamela Jones, all of whom contributed both research and
writing, with input from some Linux kernel contributors. Everyone
worked on editing, including an invited group of Groklaw regulars.
However, Frank carried the load more than anyone else, so his name is
on the finished article.
We are now publishing the article and welcome Groklaw readers'
further
contributions, corrections, improvements, and comments. This is an
ongoing project. This article is the first in a series where we'll
discuss the System V UNIX ABI, or Application Binary Interface. We
approached the research as, What if Linus Torvalds had not already claimed
paternity [groklaw.net] of most of the header files? Then what?
The article will first explain what the ABI is and what it
does, then
discuss whether the code was released under the GPL and if so whether
management at SCO knew and approved, and finally show how the Linux
files that pertain to this do not appear to be infringing files that
SCO can claim.
For those who are not programmers, such as
myself, there is a footnoted section to explain in greater detail and
in plain English what ABIs and APIs and shared libraries are and how
they work. If you read it first, it will clarify the terminology for
you and you will be able to follow the thread in the article more
easily. At least, it helped me tremendously.
I think you will see from this article alone that if SCO is
planning to sue anyone over the ABI files, unless there are facts we
haven't unearthed, they seem to be leaning on a rickety bamboo reed.
GROKLAW TAKES A CLOSER LOOK AT THE ABI FILES
~by Frank Sorenson et al
Back in January 2003, word leaked out [linuxbusinessweek.com]
that SCO was planning to charge Linux users for "System V Intellectual
Property" in Linux. SCO created a new business division called SCOSource [sco.com] to come up with new
ways to make money from this "intellectual property". The original SCOSource
Presentation [caldera.com] (PowerPoint
version [caldera.com]) talks of licensing SCO's shared UNIX Libraries from
OpenServer and UnixWare for use in Linux.
A Little Background: What Are ABI Files? [1]
As background information, shared libraries are files
containing
information to be loaded when an application is run. They usually
implement common routines, and their inclusion simplifies programming,
reduces file size, and standardizes interfaces. A simple example of
this would be the "copy file" and "move file" commands: both commands
check file permissions and manipulate the file system. When
applications have a great deal of functionality in common, this
functionality is often placed into shared libraries.
Shared libraries are architecture, operating-system, and
version specific. Executables for different systems follow various
standard formats, such as a.out, ELF, and COFF. To load an application,
the system must do several things: the system interprets the format of
the executable (or binary), loads any shared libraries referenced, and
begins executing the code found in the binary.
If the executable is in a different format from those the
system supports, or if the library files are for the wrong architecture
or operating system version, the binary normally will not run. In 1991,
Intel announced [google.com]
the availability of the iBCS-2 (Intel Binary Compatibility
The ABI files being discussed here are some files that it was considered quite likely SCO owns, and were never included in Linux although they were added by some third parties to installations to port their software from SCO to Linux. They duplicate the SCO ABI which is different than the Linux ABI. It is a lot like Wine being used to run Windows programs, though a lot easier.
In fact these files probably contain code to patch over the differences between the Linux errno.h and the Unix one, so it certainly is not the Linus header files.
The header file stuff is a joke anyways, as Daryl clearly said many times that only Linux after 2.4 is infringing. The header files did not change between 2.2 and 2.4.
Obviously the same problem applies to putting code in the public domain, or the BSD license, or even giving closed source under NDA to another party, and every other method of releasing copyrighted information. You can always claim it was inadvertent and try to retrieve the rights you gave away.
Trying to say this is a "problem with the GPL" is pure FUD. It is like saying auto accidents are proof that there is a problem with the Lincoln Continental.
it's pretty much a given that SCO's own rendering of this code as GPL was inadvertent
Since groklaw has been well and truly slashdotted since this article appeared, I can't blame you for not RTFA, but the evidence they have collected pretty much destroys any claim that SCO might make about the release of this code being inadvertent. The evidence includes code released by Caldera under the GPL and PGP signed by Caldera's release key. It includes public statements by the former CEO of Caldera concerning the
Have you considered the possibility that before Slash and Burn McBride was brought aboard that Caldera/SCO was actually a willfully contributing member of the Linux community? The company willfully contributed this code to improve Linux. Now that those people are most likely gone the idiots that have taken over want to put the cat back in the bag.
All this proves is that companies should be careful about what they release under the GPL and that projects that accept contributions should keep careful track
"IMO, of course, a company inadvertently putting its own proprietary code into a GPL'd work is pretty much the same as if a company had inadvertently divulged its own trade secrets, which in every case is the company's own damn fault for being careless."
Don't spread FUD about "viral"-ness of the GPL.
Imagine a janitor somewhere takes a bunch of secret documents and sets them out on the curb as trash, and someone else finds them and reads them. If there were any trade secrets in there, they are not trade
When the facts are on one side, the other side can't do much except resort to innuendo and FUD. Thus the rise in 'Groklaw is biased' whispers I've seen over the past few months. Well, against SCO, who could NOT be biased at this point unless you are ignorant of the facts of the case? The more you learn about SCO's claims, the more you realize they have nothing. That is why the mainstream press has been slowly but steadily turning against SCO too. They have realized what Groklaw saw early on.
If a guy wants to mug you, guess what? You are biased against his claims against your money.
No, they would own licenses to resell and sublicense certain specific versions of the original Unix that is to a large extent irellevant outside SCO's fantasy world.
No, because SCOldera doesn't have a clear, uncontested title to "Unix". First of all, the Open Group [opengroup.org] owns the trademark "UNIX(tm)," secondly, Novell has a competing claim to the code, and finally, large parts of the code are owned by others - most notably the Regents of the University of California.
Caldera/SCO is also the target of more lawsuits than they've filed. They've already lost a suit in Germany, and been additionally fined for violating a court order, and they're under investigation by the Austr
In my experience, ABI is a relatively recent term.
In 'the olden days' the single term 'API' was used, and it covered the entire range of entry points, calling parameters, communication protocols, error handlers, return codes, and anything else a programmer would need to use the interface in question. This usage dates at least back to the early '70's and probably earlier.
While I like the precision of ABI and other neologisms, this does lead to confusion when we recast an old term like 'API' under a more restrictive definition.
In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
Dissenting (Score:5, Funny)
The Rover's was of the opinion that the sky had a brownish tint.
Re:Dissenting (Score:3, Funny)
-
Re:OT: you never been to iceland? (Score:4, Funny)
Their contribution... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Their contribution... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Their contribution... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Their contribution... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Their contribution... (Score:5, Insightful)
But the judge WILL decide if it's admissable. (Score:5, Insightful)
But the judge WILL decide if it's admissable, and the jury is instructed to ignore it (or shielded from even hearing about it) if it's not.
Fortunately, digital signatures were explicitly designed for proving authorship in the digital world of generally untracable bits, and governments, including both the executive (by regs) and legislative (by law) branches of the Fed, are moving to make them legal proof. (See SEAL, E-SIGN, Millennium Digital Commerce Act, etc.) They're already recognized by Utah (not that it matters in a federal court...)
Since this is a civil case, where the standard is a "preponderance of evidence", and the signatures are being introduced by the defense, I'd be surprised if the judge excludes such evidence. (Think about it - what non-digital evidence is there of ANYTHING related to the case?)
If there is no direction from law or precedent, I'd expect him to let it in and let the experts from both sides argue the difficulties of forgery.
(IANAL, your mileage may vary, take this with a grain of salt, etc.)
Re:Their contribution... (Score:5, Funny)
You can't really expect some PGP thing to hold up in court. Your average judge or juror won't even know what PGP is.
If you can clicking 'agree' is enough to enter into a license, surely a PGP signature will do. Equate the two in court and watch MS legal's heads explode as they side with Linux against SCO :-)
Re:Their contribution... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Their contribution... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Technology is Politics (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally I think SCO's ownership and their backers believe the latter, but could only trump up a quasi-case for the former.
Re:Technology is Politics (Score:3, Interesting)
They are probably also in big trouble if their public statements get brought into court, but that's another story.
Re:Technology is Politics (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Technology is Politics (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think it's possible to wreck capitalism. You could destroy the value of money, but substitutes would be rapidly found. For example, in World War II prison camps, cigarettes were used as money.
I don't think there's any circumstance where society would be so degraded that people would not want to exchange goods in one form or another. Money is just a medium that makes that more flexible. If I offer my labor in exchange for a new PowerMac, it might
Re:Their contribution... (Score:3, Informative)
While Groklaw's research in this matter is comendable, the comparatively recent allegation of purloined header files was never central to the dispute. It started with RCU and JFS.
Most of the drama has been behind the scenes, as Novell has revealed how little of Unix SCO may actually own. Indeed, Novell may be entitled to 95% of the money from Microsoft and Sun that has funded this suit thusfar.
Re:Their contribution... (Score:3, Interesting)
Speaking of SCO, they recently filed their 10-K Report. [yahoo.com] Maybe that's why their stock prices is depressed. Go and read for the sweet, sweet death throes.
Re:Their contribution... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Their contribution... (Score:5, Interesting)
Imagine a beowulf cluster... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Imagine a beowulf cluster... (Score:4, Funny)
Someone needs to get GrokLaw a Beowulf cluster...
some advice (Score:4, Funny)
Future SCO's (Score:4, Insightful)
What's to prevent any other contributor from pulling a future SCO? Especially when you have a codebse that has such a large number of contributors. And a large variety of licenses.
Re:Future SCO's (Score:5, Insightful)
That'll stop the stupid crooks (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:That'll stop the stupid crooks (Score:5, Insightful)
The only reason Darl and crew are able to take this stupid strategy is they've managed to convince some investors there is a chance they can pull it off. When it turns out to be a dismal, money losing failure for all investors, future greedy unscrupulous CEOs just won't have the backing to persue such a folly.
Re:That'll stop the stupid crooks (Score:3, Insightful)
If AT&T's failed anti-open-source lawsuit didn't convince investors that the SCO lawsuit (which is far more clear cut) is unwinnable, what makes you think the SCO lawsuit will convince anyone tha
Assignment of copyrights and carefull vetting (Score:5, Informative)
This is exactly the reason why the FSF requires you to assign your copyright to them when you contribute code to GNU projects. Likewise the Apache Software Foundation and their projects. Someone should always have clear legal title to the entire project. Otherwise nobody may have legal status to defend it in court or to file suit against infringers.
The other side of this is that the ownership of all contributions need to be vetted by the person/group that receives ownership. Some groups ask new contributors for a written document asserting that they own what they're contributing, especially if the contributor works for a software company. That changes the legal situation - if The TDP Group sues the XYZ Foundation for stealing their code, the XYZ Foundation has a clear defense:
Now the last thing I want is for The TDP Group to sue me for code I put into XYZ, but if they find out I did it what will likely happen anyway.Re:Future SCO's (Score:3, Funny)
Scruples?
I knew it. (Score:5, Funny)
This is going to be FUN...
Where will Groklaw head... (Score:5, Insightful)
I appreciate they are doing a very worthy work (and getting the slashdot crowd to a more informed talk about SCO, something necessary because the old jokes are starting to become _really_ old).
I sure would like them to go on when this SCO fiasto bluffs down. The free software world really needs an army of lawyers and paralawyers, if we want to stay long. I only can say "Kudos to you, groklawyers! Go on!"
Re:Where will Groklaw head... (Score:4, Interesting)
What I wonder is what will happen when Groklaw starts to follow a case where the issues don't appear to be as overwhelmingly in favor of one side as this one. That could get very interesting.
Public thanks for Groklaw (Score:5, Informative)
I'd like to point everybody to the little paypal button on the groklaw sidebar. They deserve credit for their work. Are there any plans for some kind of big party at a linux conference for Pam Jones et al.? Maybe after the case is settled.
A couple of changes soon to be added to webster (Score:3, Funny)
(An FYI aside re: indian giver.) (Score:3, Informative)
The term "indian giver" is the result of a misunderstanding of the property law of an east-coast tribe, early in the settlement of former Europeans in North America.
Short form: The colonists thought they were buying the land. The Indians thought they were leasing it, with anual rent payments and lease renewals.
Needless to say, this led to considerable confusion and indignation when the india
SCO vs RIAA (Score:5, Funny)
From the Groklaw website: (Score:3, Funny)
Funny, I think even this error describes SCO in numerous, subtle, and surprisingly accurate ways.
FBI investigates SCO as author of MyDoom virus!!! (Score:4, Informative)
Can anybody confirm this?
Re:FBI investigates SCO as author of MyDoom virus! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:FBI investigates SCO as author of MyDoom virus! (Score:5, Informative)
I don't buy it. The site says they got their information from IBM. That runs totally counter to IMB's don't-talk-to-the-press rule. It looks to me like an attempt to spread bad information, pin the blame on IBM, and tarnish them.
I'd love to be wrong, though. The idea of SCO writing a virus against itself for PR purposes is almost too funny. I'd imagine a company or two might sue SCO to cover wages spent doing MyDoom cleanup. Ha ha. That would make my heart feel soooo good.
Re:FBI investigates SCO as author of MyDoom virus! (Score:3, Insightful)
Same here, for a different reason:
The claim is (if I read the fish babble correctly) that they were turned on to SCO by tracking the initial spread of the virus to SCO as an early focus.
Others are already suggesting that the DoS on SCO is a red herring by the spammers - playing a game of "let's you and him fight" between two of their enemies: The anti-virus people (mainly commercial and law enforcement) and the anti-spammers (expert users and sysadmins, high cross-membership with the ope
Seems pretty unlikely to me (Score:3, Interesting)
There are also rumors that the virus "doesn't work" in that it never calls the DDOS code. This sounds like it is trivial to confirm or disprove, so does anybody know what's up with that?
ARTICLE TEXT, ripped from the fish (Score:3, Informative)
How to make money off of a failing company (Score:5, Funny)
Step 2: Forget you did it.
Step 3: Sue everyone else in hopes that one of the companies will decide it's cheaper to buy you then to fight.
Step 4: Watch the stock price go through the roof [yahoo.com].
Step 5: Profit!
Looks like at least a few figured it out [yahoo.com].
Regarding Groklaw's Slashdotting (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe a few $ here and there from slashdot readers, and they can get a more robust setup, and survive the next slashdot link.
No pressure. Just a thought. I've given a little twice. Groklaw is a tremendous resource for those following the SCO/IBM/Redhat/Novell saga. PJ rocks!
netcraft article (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:netcraft article (Score:3, Funny)
I liked option #5 in the article [netcraft.com] you linked to:
Solution 5: SCO Execs point www.sco.com at the loopback address 127.0.0.1, end lawsuits, dismiss lawyers, and invest remaining corporate cash reserves in call options in Dell & Microsoft stock.
Consequences: No denial of service traffic whatsoever seen on the Internet. Millions of Windows users notice that their computer is running extremely slowly. Many buy new machines, which fixes the problem. Dell & Microsoft stock rises. Everyone lives happily
Hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Look at the SCO pattern. They have made claims ranging from contract dispute with IBM to every OS in existance owing SCO IP money. They have nothing whatsoever to lose. They will merely pursue any interpretation of events which results in people owing them money. I don't know how they'll twist this yet, but since logic doesn't seem to have much to do with it they might say they were an unauthorized release and try to make some specific employee the goat, claim that the ABIs are an insignificant part of their total IP in Linux, or other things I'm not warped enough to think of. They aren't going to shut up for anything.
Even if after everything we've heard from them to date falls through, they may try to make the claim in court that every OS in existance is derived from SCO IP, and that being the case Linux users STILL owe SCO money, regardless of code. Nonsense yes, but when has that ever stopped them before?
Folks, the individual details of this don't matter at all. That's not what this is about. This is about SCO looking for a way - any way - to get Linux users to pay them. Knocking down a given specific detail won't phase them in the least. Until SCO in its current form is gone, we will never hear the end of this. Remember, they apparently even sent that letter to Congress saying open/free software was a threat to the US software industry! Their only concern is to come out on top, period. How is of no consequence.
Yes, this news could be useful to the likes of IBM (I can't see Groklaw so it's hard to say
Chill pill dude (Score:5, Insightful)
"Even if after everything we've heard from them to date falls through, they may try to make the claim in court that every OS in existence is derived from SCO IP, and that being the case Linux users STILL owe SCO money, regardless of code."
Not gonna happen.
"Folks, the individual details of this don't matter at all. That's not what this is about."
No actually the details do matter. They matter in the court of law. Contrary to popular belief you can't just buy your way into winning every lawsuit.
"We are in the way of SCO's using our code for commercial purposes. Therefore we are the enemy to be destroyed, "
Yea, so what? MS wants linux destroyed as well and you how well that's worked for them.
Look, your just acting a bit hysterical here. Facts and law do matter. And contrary to your sky is falling ideas Linux isn't going to be destroyed by anyone. If it turns out that Caldera released the code under the GPL 5 years ago or whatever then this is hugely damaging to the case. This IS helpful. You can't just dismiss that and say "well SCO will just think of some angle to spin this." My advice to you is relax a bit and ease off the coffee. This case will resolve itself and there is no indication from any repudiable legal counsel or expert that SCO will be the end of Linux.
Re:Hmm (Score:4, Insightful)
(as usual, IANAL; IAALS)
Code and Cookies (Score:3, Interesting)
I guess a simple analogy would be someone buying a container in a grocery store but before getting to the checkout, stuffs in a box of cookies. If the clerk sells the person that box without knowing there were cookies inside, then it is still theft. If the clerk then happens to notice the box post-sale and says, "Hey, I didn't sell you those cookies!" then the thief cannot rightfully say that they were sold to him.
I should add in BIG CAPITAL LETTERS that I do not necessarily buy SCO's argument as being legitimate, but only that the theory the claim rests upon seems rational.
Re:Code and Cookies (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Code and Cookies (Score:3, Interesting)
It's more like someone (SCO) takes a box of stuff to the Goodwill. (Goodwill is a charitable organization that sells donated stuff) Then they wait 6 months and say "Goodwill stole our stuff and we want a cut from everything Goodwill has sold from the time we made our donation for all eternity."
Once the truth comes out they did they did indeed make a donation they backpedal and say "well we didn't mean to donate all that stuff but we're not going to tell you which items we want back and we still want
Re:Code and Cookies (Score:4, Insightful)
Now things seem even worse for SCO. It seems they contributed the code. That's like some supermarket employee is told by their boss to stick the boxes of cookies into the containers and then label the items as "container with free box of cookies included". Surely they can't make people pay for the cookies now.
Re:Code and Cookies (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually is more like the sales clerk stuffing the cookies in there themselves when the shopper isnt looking and then shouting "thief"
Wrong.
I was very clear that I was not attempting to make a statement about the truthfulness of SCO's claim but merely what it was, precisely, that they claimed.
What they are claiming is that whoever included certain bits of code into Linux did so without their knowledge and therefore even if they did distribute their own code under the GPL, they did so
Simple Question (Score:4, Interesting)
So why have they not simply bought SCO and used it to their advantage?
Simple Answer (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Simple Answer (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Simple Question (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsoft can funnel money to SCO via 'licenses' to fuel the SCO FUD machine. But in the end, Microsoft won't be liable for any counter-suits. At some point (likely when Intel and MS are ready with Longhorn), SCO will be allowed to die, making the countersuits moot.
SCO is just a soldier in the war, totally expendable.
Re:Simple Question (Score:4, Interesting)
Don't forget that IBM is suing SCO for patent infringement on SCOs entire product line. If Microsoft were to purchase SCO, and IBM were to prevail in their patent suit, Microsoft would be facing millions of dollars in potential damages.
Re:Simple Question (Score:3, Insightful)
What would M$ have to gain by buying SCO? They don't really have to do anything right now, the world's attention is focused on SCO's fallacious claims, all M$ has to do is sit back and laugh with the rest of us. If there's anything to buy in a couple of years, M$ could pick them up for
This is important to stop SCO's current attack (Score:5, Insightful)
These letters threaten the companies over exactly this ABI issue. In the days before the internet and sites like Groklaw, people had to decide on their own, or with their lawyers, what to do about these letters. Each of the victims might attempt to do the kind of research done by Frank Sorenson and Pamely Jones here, but as the victims are probably not intellectual property experts and have their own businesses to run, they might be tempted to pay off the extortionists.
But, now they each one of the victims has the benefit of this research, and can make a much more informed decision. The Groklaw article also provides links to the original source for each of their assertions, so that the recipients of the letters can look at the actual underlying data.
All that said, the article is reminds me of the opening to Get Smart, where Maxwell Smart goes through an almost interminable series of doors to get to his destination. Sorenson and Jones, and their helpers, have found any number of different ways that the code in question is available for use. SCO is screwed on the basis of any one of those.
Thad Beier
The Emperor Has No Clothes! (Score:3, Troll)
Groklaw /.'ed - Mirror of article here (Score:4, Informative)
Thanks Pamela et.al. Great Article
http://sd-mirror.dumitru.com/gl.htm [dumitru.com]
Validation of the open source model (Score:5, Insightful)
Outstanding Work (Score:4, Interesting)
* SCO claims Linux infringes on their UNIX copyrights.
* Linux was written by thousands of programmers all over the world led by Linus Torvalds.
* SCO has not disclosed all of the parts of UNIX that they beleive are being infringed.
* SCO has disclosed some of the alleged infringements. In each of these cases, it was found that the parts in question were already in the public domain or had been released to the public as free GPL software.
Care should be taken to avoid terms like "code" "ABI" and "header files" they are too technical. This is a Brooklyn Bridge scam. Call it that.
Totally agree (Score:3, Insightful)
This article is a perfect example. I understood it just fine, but, as much as I like minutiae, I stopped reading in detail and started skimming after about 75% through -- it became much-of-a-muchness. T
Claiming rape (Score:3, Funny)
SCO's claims are more like if Paris Hilton had claimed rape after the videotape emerged.
Um, Ransom, you seemed to be enjoying yourself with Linux
Their own worst enemies (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Groklaw is biased against SCO already (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Groklaw is biased against SCO already (Score:5, Insightful)
Isnt that the truth that Groklaw are probably biased against SCO?
Groklaw has probably uncovered quite a lot of dirt on SCO that is correct, and I doubt that they lie about anything.
But if one has taken sides on an issue, can we trust that the person wont turn a blind eye on some facts? Will he present facts that might not go down to well with his own version and side?
I think it is only a fair comment.
SCO are probably a bunch of liars, but underestimating and brushing aside an opponent as "nothing" WILL in most cases come back and bite you in the *ss.
Re:Groklaw is biased against SCO already (Score:5, Interesting)
In fact, the entire Linux community is more concerned with finding facts that could help SCO.
Well, alteast they WERE. The simple fact is, SCO has lied and been caught soooo many times over the last few months... all we can do now is wait for them to lie again so we can disprove it.
It's simple, SCO has lied and it's a known fact. They've lied a LOT, made a LOT of false allegations, etc al..
If you bite into a terd, it's going to taste like shit. No amount of suger and spice is going to make it otherwise.
Re:Groklaw is biased against SCO already (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not a problem that Groklaw might or might not be biased in their research. EVERYONE IS BIASED! Why is it that so many people, whether critizing slashdot's "anti-microsoft bias" or now Groklaw's "anti-sco bias" seem to be scouring the world searching for someone to write an article or produce a site on a topic totally neutral on every possible opinion on the subject. Groklaw thinks SCO is full of shit. Therefore they are biased. Groklaw's arguments and evidence seem to substantiate their claims. Therefore they are also probably CORRECT.
Dealing with bias is why you have a brain. Read the articles, judge their evidence, and come to your own conclusion. If you disagree provide a detailed analysis, and prove your point. Enough with the goddamned bias mania.
Re:Groklaw is biased against SCO already (Score:3, Insightful)
I think it isn't until it's proven Groklaw withheld damaging information. Until then it's negative supposition and therefore bias.
Re:Groklaw is biased against SCO already (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Groklaw is biased against SCO already (Score:5, Funny)
Can we trust them to be fair and unbiased in their "research"?
*boggle*
Someone on Slashdot is worried about whether Groklaw is being fair against SCO.
What next, FoxNews worried about the humane treatment of Saddam Hussein?
Re:Groklaw is biased against SCO already (Score:5, Interesting)
Techies - if you want to convince your manager that SCO has no case, stop being so emotional about it. We in management have a hard time trusting your opinion when you seem to have so much invested in this emotionally.
This is not some battle of good v. evil - you aren't Bilbo fighting that evil eye at the top of the tower (forgot his name, evil wizard guy).
Re:Groklaw is biased against SCO already (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Groklaw is biased against SCO already (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Groklaw is biased against SCO already (Score:5, Insightful)
Not at all. Groklaw is stated to be an anti-FUD site. That is what PJ does, she fights FUD. Guess where most of the FUD has been coming from in this case? So what else would you WANT her to do? Just ignore it?
'Not that there's anything wrong with all that, but you aren't going to convince any outsiders of Groklaw's 'level headed objectivity'. Looks like any bunch of Linux kooks from here."
No it doesn't. Groklaw has been cited in many news articles, is read by CEOs and lawyers and reporters, and has been included in the court case by being cited by IBM. You don't get that level of respect by authorities if you are viewed as "a bunch of Linux kooks." Sorry, go spread your FUD elsewhere, it doesn't apply to Groklaw.
Re:Groklaw is biased against SCO already (Score:5, Insightful)
However, if legal research finds a picture of Darl wearing a pair of shoes he says he never owned, well, than that's what they did. Bias doesn't even come into it.
Then it would be up to Darl to try to explain away the picture by saying it was Christmas and his cat DDOSed his regular shoes so he demanded that IBM loan him those, or some such nonesense.
And if it goes to trial Darl will have to try to put the glove on IBM.
KFG
Re:Groklaw is biased against SCO already (Score:5, Insightful)
Bias doesn't automatically indicate dishonesty. Are they biased against SCO? Sure. Does this mean they're looking primarily at SCO rather than the OSS community for evidence of malfeasance? Sure does. Does this mean that evidence they find is worthless? Nope (it's PGP signed by Caldera fer gosh sakes). Just because Groklaw isn't also out looking for "the real killers" deosn't mean they're lying about SCO. You have to judge the honesty of an organization separately. Just because some people lie to support their biases doesn't mean all biased people are liars.
Groklaw is presenting all of the information (Score:3, Informative)
Remember, Groklaw (and everyone else watching the lawsuit) wants SCO to give us the evidence they claim(ed) to have. If there's an appearance of anti-SCO bias, then
Re:Groklaw is biased against SCO already (Score:5, Insightful)
When a mistake is made in an article, is it analyzed and corrected? (Yes.)
Are the sources for background facts reliable? (Yes. Most of it comes from court documents and SEC filings, and an occasional question posed to directly to Linus or another expert.)
If anyone, even one of SCOG's lawyers, can come up with a single fact supporting their allegations or a consistent legal argument for their highly original interpretation of copyright law, Groklaw would happily publish it. The truth is that the only way to discuss the current and potential lawsuits is either 1) live in a fantasy world where the law and the facts have no effect or 2) talk badly about SCO. There is no third choice.
What can be done is to try to always tie arguments and opinions to the proveable facts as closely as possible, and this is what the Groklaw stories do.
Re:Groklaw is biased against SCO already (Score:5, Insightful)
Does it matter?
In any legal situation (a trial, contract dispute, or whatever) both sides try to find evidence which supports their case. Neither side is "fair" or "unbiased". Yet legal disputes get resolved all the time. What's the magical secret? The judge and jury get to see all of the evidence, then they make up their minds based on all of the evidence which they have seen.
Groklaw may well be biased against SCO, but all they're doing is presenting more evidence. That's exactly what both sides are supposed to do (and what SCO has been criticized for not doing).
See, you seem to want us to ignore "biased" sources of evidence. "Groklaw is biased, so they can't be trusted" is a decent summary of what you wrote. You've got to think about this on a higher level. Very few unbiased groups will ever get involved in a legal dispute. That's the nature of legal disputes, or even disputes in general -- if you don't care, you don't get involved! So the trick is to focus on evidence and solid, logical arguments rather than rhetoric. Focus on what each side can prove rather than merely what they say. That's the way to deal with situations in which interested parties are involves (which includes almost all legal disputes, and many other situations as well). Simply ignoring any biased opinion (is there any other kind of opinion?) will leave you ignorant.
Re:Groklaw is biased against SCO already (Score:4, Insightful)
It is not biased to dislike something on the basis of experience, or to distrust someone who has been proven to lie. To accuse someone of bias in this regard is to suggest that having discovered unpleasant truths somehow worsens rather than improves one's ability to draw true conclusions about the world. It is to praise ignorance and naivete' over experience, on the grounds that unpleasant experiences can cause you to think ill of those responsible for the unpleasantness.
Ms. Jones and the others at Groklaw are not biased against SCO. They have come to their conclusions about SCO's dishonesty on the basis of facts, not merely prejudices. People do not simply call SCO liars and scoundrels because they want SCO's claims to be false and self-contradictory, but because SCO's claims have been demonstrated publicly to be false and self-contradictory. That's not bias; it's reasoning.
Re:but of course (Score:5, Informative)
In fact, just about everything that they have claimed gets disproved rather quickly via groklaw. While there are a few things left, it only requires for SCO to submit the evidence so that groklaw can look at it.
Re:Mirror please. (Score:5, Informative)
Full Article Text (Score:5, Informative)
We are now publishing the article and welcome Groklaw readers' further contributions, corrections, improvements, and comments. This is an ongoing project. This article is the first in a series where we'll discuss the System V UNIX ABI, or Application Binary Interface. We approached the research as, What if Linus Torvalds had not already claimed paternity [groklaw.net] of most of the header files? Then what?
The article will first explain what the ABI is and what it does, then discuss whether the code was released under the GPL and if so whether management at SCO knew and approved, and finally show how the Linux files that pertain to this do not appear to be infringing files that SCO can claim.
For those who are not programmers, such as myself, there is a footnoted section to explain in greater detail and in plain English what ABIs and APIs and shared libraries are and how they work. If you read it first, it will clarify the terminology for you and you will be able to follow the thread in the article more easily. At least, it helped me tremendously.
I think you will see from this article alone that if SCO is planning to sue anyone over the ABI files, unless there are facts we haven't unearthed, they seem to be leaning on a rickety bamboo reed.
GROKLAW TAKES A CLOSER LOOK AT THE ABI FILES
~by Frank Sorenson et al
Back in January 2003, word leaked out [linuxbusinessweek.com] that SCO was planning to charge Linux users for "System V Intellectual Property" in Linux. SCO created a new business division called SCOSource [sco.com] to come up with new ways to make money from this "intellectual property". The original SCOSource Presentation [caldera.com] (PowerPoint version [caldera.com]) talks of licensing SCO's shared UNIX Libraries from OpenServer and UnixWare for use in Linux.
A Little Background: What Are ABI Files? [1]
As background information, shared libraries are files containing information to be loaded when an application is run. They usually implement common routines, and their inclusion simplifies programming, reduces file size, and standardizes interfaces. A simple example of this would be the "copy file" and "move file" commands: both commands check file permissions and manipulate the file system. When applications have a great deal of functionality in common, this functionality is often placed into shared libraries.
Shared libraries are architecture, operating-system, and version specific. Executables for different systems follow various standard formats, such as a.out, ELF, and COFF. To load an application, the system must do several things: the system interprets the format of the executable (or binary), loads any shared libraries referenced, and begins executing the code found in the binary.
If the executable is in a different format from those the system supports, or if the library files are for the wrong architecture or operating system version, the binary normally will not run. In 1991, Intel announced [google.com] the availability of the iBCS-2 (Intel Binary Compatibility
Re:But didn't Linus say he wrote those? (Score:5, Informative)
The ABI files being discussed here are some files that it was considered quite likely SCO owns, and were never included in Linux although they were added by some third parties to installations to port their software from SCO to Linux. They duplicate the SCO ABI which is different than the Linux ABI. It is a lot like Wine being used to run Windows programs, though a lot easier.
In fact these files probably contain code to patch over the differences between the Linux errno.h and the Unix one, so it certainly is not the Linus header files.
The header file stuff is a joke anyways, as Daryl clearly said many times that only Linux after 2.4 is infringing. The header files did not change between 2.2 and 2.4.
Not a GPL-only problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Trying to say this is a "problem with the GPL" is pure FUD. It is like saying auto accidents are proof that there is a problem with the Lincoln Continental.
Re:Uhm... this could be a bad thing. (Score:3, Insightful)
Since groklaw has been well and truly slashdotted since this article appeared, I can't blame you for not RTFA, but the evidence they have collected pretty much destroys any claim that SCO might make about the release of this code being inadvertent. The evidence includes code released by Caldera under the GPL and PGP signed by Caldera's release key. It includes public statements by the former CEO of Caldera concerning the
Uhm... you could be wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
All this proves is that companies should be careful about what they release under the GPL and that projects that accept contributions should keep careful track
Re:Uhm... this could be a bad thing. (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't spread FUD about "viral"-ness of the GPL.
Imagine a janitor somewhere takes a bunch of secret documents and sets them out on the curb as trash, and someone else finds them and reads them. If there were any trade secrets in there, they are not trade
Quite right (Score:5, Insightful)
If a guy wants to mug you, guess what? You are biased against his claims against your money.
Re:If Microsoft bought SCO (Score:3, Informative)
Re:If Microsoft bought SCO (Score:3, Insightful)
Caldera/SCO is also the target of more lawsuits than they've filed. They've already lost a suit in Germany, and been additionally fined for violating a court order, and they're under investigation by the Austr
Re:ABI vs API (Score:4, Informative)
In 'the olden days' the single term 'API' was used, and it covered the entire range of entry points, calling parameters, communication protocols, error handlers, return codes, and anything else a programmer would need to use the interface in question. This usage dates at least back to the early '70's and probably earlier.
While I like the precision of ABI and other neologisms, this does lead to confusion when we recast an old term like 'API' under a more restrictive definition.