SCO Sues IBM for Sharing Secrets with Unix and Linux 914
bstadil writes "The information is still sparse but the expected lawsuits from SCO over Unix/Linux patent infringements has been filed."
SCO is asking for a billion dollars. News.com and Forbes are also covering the story.
it was bound to happen... (Score:2, Insightful)
They lowered the boom (Score:5, Insightful)
Way to go, SCO! (Score:3, Insightful)
If they had an idea about things, they would donate said IP to Linux/GNU, and reap many billions of Dollars of good will and karma, and I would go out and buy their distro to support them if that is what they had did.
When companies litigate instead of innovate, you know they are probably not long for this world.
ttyl
Farrell
Re:This should do wonders for United Linux sales.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Illuminata Analyst should be ashamed (Score:5, Insightful)
(this was from the news.com article)
If IBM lacked it, which I doubt, I guess we can all be thankful that Linus had the expertise needed to create a Unix on Intel processors. What an idiot.
If Caldera is using their Patents in their GPL OS (Score:5, Insightful)
7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues), conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.
Good one Caldera.
Wearing my tin foil hat... (Score:3, Insightful)
Back in reality I think this is SCO's attempt at getting bought at a premium. Lets face facts, IBM can probably bitch slap them with their own IP, but I bet SCO thinks that buying out SCO is cheaper/easier than the time and effort (not to mention the FUD damage to IBM's linux/AIX biz) IBM would have defending this.
Freaking me out. (Score:5, Insightful)
Linux's rapid maturity--for example, growing up to work on large multiprocessor servers--is evidence of the presence of Unix intellectual property, the SCO suit said. "It is not possible for Linux to rapidly reach Unix performance standards for complete enterprise functionality without the misappropriation of Unix code, methods or concepts to achieve such performance, and coordination by a larger developer, such as IBM," the suit said.
- cool. I guess these allegations have only to do with what IBM has been adding to the GNU/Linux code. Will it be possible to prove that there was no contamination, especially if the former AIX team was working on Linux software? I remember, maybe a year and a half ago, there was an interview on
Re:Way to go, SCO! (Score:4, Insightful)
The edict of running a public company is to make money. The executives are dutybound to squeeze every last dollar out of what they can before they go under, and rest assured, go under they will.
Unfortuantely, what will happen is that in the liquidation, the IP will be sold off to another company and they, too, will see what sort of money they can squeeze out of it. I bet it's PanIP that buys the IP... any takers?
Re:billion dollars? (Score:2, Insightful)
Caldera's OpenLinux wouldn't install on newer hardware, I can understand that because it's pretty dated. So then I try the new SCO Linux (based on United Linux) and it wouldn't install on the older hardware that I had OpenLinux on.
Re:Who's Next? (Score:3, Insightful)
If they can still afford it after losing this round.
Only a moron brings a patent suit against IBM (Score:3, Insightful)
Underestimating the Open Source Community? (Score:2, Insightful)
First thought that came to mind while reading the article: SCO has seriously underestimated the brain pool of tens of thousands (at least) of open source porgrammers. Unix advanced to where it did technologically because some really smart people knew what they're doing. Isn't it possible that Linux got to where it did because a helluva lot more really smart people knew what they were doing?
Intellectual property lawsuits booming
Intellectual property litigation appears to be on the rise in the high-tech industry and for good reason: The settlements or verdicts are often quite lucrative.
Intergraph, which once made workstations but now specializes in software, got $450 million from Intel in two separate suits in the past year and could receive $150 million more from the Santa Clara, Calif.-based chipmaker in an appeal on one of the actions. Intergraph's income from operations in 2002 was $10 million, but net income including legal settlements came to $378 million.
Perhaps I'm not paying attention to the news enough, but didn't it seem like these business-to-business lawsuits started cropping up en masse when the economy tanked? "We can't earn an honest dollar, so let's sue somebody and take theirs."
Monterey was about Itanium (Score:5, Insightful)
Project Monterey had nothing to do with x86. So what if IBM is pushing Linux on x86.
Now if IBM produced its own Linux distribution for Itanium, and SCO saw some of its Monterey source in the distro, SCO might have a claim.
Re:One question.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Your second sentence answers the first.
SCO's claims don't pass the sniff test (Score:5, Insightful)
When AIX came out in 1990 or so, it was so different from SVR4 that competitors cried "AIX isn't UNIX". IBM really did a huge amount of kernel work and had all sorts of administrative features borrowed conceptually from the mainframe that were lacking in UNIX at the time. Journalling filesystems, logical volume management, etc. just for starters. The toolset for managing AIX was (and still is, to some extent) quite different from other UNIXes. I think IBM kept the SVR3/4 APIs but re-wrote
most of the code below it back in the late 80s.
You know you have a weak argument when you start seeing claims like this:
Added Sontag [SCO SVP], "When they (IBM) started utilizing the same engineers that worked on the Unix System V source code and the ultimate derivative of it in the form of AIX, they have
effectively been applying our methods and concepts, even if there isn't a single explicit line of code" that shows up in Linux.
Believe me, there are a lot of methods and concepts that UNIX (System V/VII,SVR4) stole from predecessors, and continues to steal! Where's the suit from the MULTICS guys against AT&T? Citing executive's handwavings generalizations about leveraging UNIX expertise makes for a pretty weak legal case (and PR case imho). Monterey always had too much hand-waving for me to get enthusiastic about.
However, the issue of IBM allegedly re-creating versions of SCO libraries using SCO's actual code sounds interesting. SCO binary compatibility is actually something somewhat valuable that SCO should fully defend if it was unlawfully infringed upon via trade secret leakage rather than cleanroom reverse engineering. Still, if I remember correctly, most of the SCO/Linux binary compatibility stuff was done by some guy at SCO (Avi Tevananian or something like that? I'm butchering his name, sorry.) SCO was working on Linux binary compatibility before IBM even knew Linux existed. So to speak.
As far as infringing on how to run Linux on Intel, clearly Linus managed that without anyone's help. Now running Linux on IA-64, or perhaps some particular acceleration technique used by SCO might be grounds for a decent case depending on the particular evidences involved. I guess we'll see.
With revenues less than Red Hat, and a business model going nowhere, a legal approach makes sense for SCO. IBM can afford the lawsuit and probably route around it better than, say, Intel could route around Clipper chip infringements in existing products. If it lays clearer guidelines for Linux IP, so much the better. I guess that's what I'm hoping for. As a betting man though, I wouldn't bet on SCO for this case. Unless there are more rabbits in that hat.
--LP
Here's the problem: (Score:2, Insightful)
Why buy them out when there's a simpler solution: IBM simply pulls out their massive patent portfolio and massive lawyer box, countersues for infringement and barratry, and demands $26 million in damages. Or maybe not even demand damages, but make sure the lawsuits drag out such as to keep SCO alive long enough to bleed money through lawyer payments and the fact they just alienated all their customers... until SCO goes bankrupt.
This way, the assholes at SCO don't get an ounce of money, as opposed to one hundred million dollars they did nothing to deserve. Instead, they can't get jobs anymore, since who wants to hire the ex-CFO of SCO, the company that failed at everything it tried, even its last-ditch, exit-strategy attempt at being a submarine patent warehouse (which is probably the most boneheadedly easy business to succeed at, so long as you follow the simple strategy of DON'T SUE IBM)?
Re:The solution is very very simple. (Score:3, Insightful)
But perhaps it's just a ploy by the executives to bring about just that outcome: after all, they must hold lots of nearly worthless stock and stock options. If IBM tries to buy them, it drives up the price and gives them a buyer, and they make at least some money.
Re:Hmmm.... (Score:2, Insightful)
No contradiction here. Just good solid reasoning.
Re:If Caldera is using their Patents in their GPL (Score:2, Insightful)
Linux's rapid maturity--for example, growing up to work on large multiprocessor servers--is evidence of the presence of Unix intellectual property, the SCO suit said. "It is not possible for Linux to rapidly reach Unix performance standards for complete enterprise functionality without the misappropriation of Unix code, methods or concepts to achieve such performance, and coordination by a larger developer, such as IBM," the suit said.
Firstly, it appears as though they are referencing the 2.5 development tree. If this is the case, they do not distribute a development kernel that I am aware of. It is possible that I'm wrong. Second, whatever happened to different means to a similar end? Or rather, "There's more than one way to skin a cat." Could it be that perhaps the IBM developers know what they're doing?
Excerpt from the Bloomberg article:
Caldera's business has been hurt by the free Linux software that IBM has been supporting, Dow Jones said, citing Darl McBride, Caldera's chief executive. Linux is a variant of Unix and isn't copyrighted.
I guess they were fooled by the "Copyleft". Hmm, maybe if they caught on that GNU is Not Unix.
Re:not necessarily patent infringement (Score:2, Insightful)
Whether it is wheelbarrows full of patents or money to drag it out forever, IBM probably has what it needs to 'win' this case.
HOWEVER, I suppose it may also turn out that IBM looks at it and says, well it doesn't look too good, it's worth $X million to just settle. Then where does that leave SCO? With a 'win' to back their next battle? Only vaguely, as surely IBM won't settle out of court AND admit guilt...
I type this every time.
Re:The solution is very very simple. (Score:4, Insightful)
The line needs to be drawn.
Re:Hmmm.... (Score:2, Insightful)
No contradiction here. Just good solid reasoning.
Way to sarcasically ignore the point. The IP laws are stupid and wrong, in the cases of both Noorda and SCO. Yes, many here cheered Noorda and many here now vilify SCO. Using a stupid, wrong law for a 'good' cause as opposed to a 'bad' one doesn't make it any more or less stupid or wrong.
But then again, I suspect that IH just BT, and IH probably L.
Re:it was bound to happen... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Biting off more than they can chew (Score:5, Insightful)
Suing Red Hat may have been the one way to get Slashdot geeks off their ass and actually physically protesting somewhere. A giant PR disaster is not a good way to cash out on a dying company. Suing a megacorp in hopes of winning a modest settlement is. A company like IBM has money, but suing them for 1 billion is really throwing down the gauntlet. They could've settled for a couple of million, but IBM will make an example of Caldera for this insolence.
Re:This is the end of SCO, for sure. (Score:5, Insightful)
Bruce
Where are the filings? (Score:3, Insightful)
Thanks
Bruce
Entanglement... (Score:3, Insightful)
My feeling is that this is an MS-inspired shot over the bows to scare VCs and IT chiefs away from Linux. In one case it really doesn;t matter whether SCO/Caldera wins or loses, it just hast to leave a suspicion in these people's minds.
This mean's that not only must IBM win, but they should win 'loudly', i.e., so those people who may be worried about Linux realise that they shouldn't be.
Re:This is the end of SCO, for sure. (Score:3, Insightful)
I feel sorry for the poor Troll Tech folks, they have had enough pain from yours truly, and they fixed all of the problems I was complaining about, in good faith. Maybe they can fix this one too.
Bruce
Re:This is the end of SCO, for sure. (Score:3, Insightful)
Is SCO even worth one billion dollars? (Score:2, Insightful)
It doesn't even matter anymore whether or not they actually have a valid claim... asking for one billion dollars just makes you a money whore and shows just how greedy and desperate for money you are. If nothing else, they've lost my support because of all of this. I honestly think they are overstepping their bounds with this one. One billion dollars....
Re:All IP is conflict of interest (Score:5, Insightful)
You might have had a point in the day when the cost of manufacturing a product vastly outweighed the cost of designing it. In the beginning, car designs were very simple, but it didn't matter, because no-one without vast amounts of capital could afford to build a factory, so the design was safe.
Nowadays, the cost of designing a product - be it a piece of software or a new drug - vastly outweights the cost of manufacturing it. Software in particular can be duplicated very cheaply. Therefore we need a structure that makes it possible to obtain a return on investment - and note that I said "possible" not "certain" - in development of a new product. That's what the patent system was designed to do.
But there is an attitude among free software people that can be summarized as "I freely choose to make no money from my software work, therefore everyone else must be denied the right to make money from software". That's the thinking behind the GPL. It might work from the ivory tower of a MacArthur Foundation grant at MIT, but it isn't viable in the real world.
Remember, IBM makes it's money on hardware. It doesn't care about Linux on ideological grounds, it merely wants to cut the cost of shipping hardware.
Re:Interesting (Score:3, Insightful)
Sun can play both sides of the street. Since they paid some ungodly sum to buy full rights to Unix SVR4, they're out of SCO's reach. Even if SCO gets its way (which I doubt, but assume it for the sake of argument), Sun's Linux offering would be unaffected by SCO's suit (but see next paragraph). I know who I'd bet on in a matchup between Sun and SCO...
Of course, SCO's claims are completely incompatible with the GPL, so if they win, Linux would be stopped dead in its tracks until it can be somehow be made "untainted" by SCO's IP. And that's the real danger here. BSD was stopped dead in its tracks by a similar legal situation in the early 1990's; it almost certainly would have been stronger competition against commercial Unixes if that hadn't happened. SCO might even be attempting to duplicate this, and slow Linux down under a legal cloud for a few years even if they ultimately fail in court.
Of course, I hope IBM hits them like a load of bricks (and I expect they will). But don't expect it to blow over very quickly.
They're not suing over closed code... (Score:4, Insightful)
And, they have the unmitigated GALL to say that Linux systems purchased from them have no issues because they have the license bundled in with their distribution licenses. That is a GPL violation, pure and simple. Either there ISN'T a patent issue or there is- if there is, then the patented stuff has to go bye-bye or have a GPL compatible license. SCO's not claiming to have licensed the alleged tech that way in their press releases.
No, this is SCO commiting corporate suicide in the most public, painful way possible. Picking an IP fight with IBM is not one of the wiser things to do- and to set the stakes so that IBM HAS to do something about it rather than settle simply and easily is downright insane. IBM is all about IP and is pretty much anal about IP handling- with theirs and their partners'. If they don't countersue with their own infringement suit (thus getting the whole mess dropped- SCO can't afford a legal battle on two fronts...) they'll prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that there's nothing to SCO's claims. And that's just the lawsuit part of this whole mess- the bad blood they just earned with the community just torpedoed themselves, UnitedLinux, and anyone that associates themselves too closely with SCO.
Anyone here considered that SCO might be right? (Score:5, Insightful)
I for one hope that whoever is truly at fault gets nailed, be it IBM or SCO. I believe that agreements should be honored. That's something that corporate America cares little about, especially if a buck can be made by ignoring an agreement. If IBM truly blew off a legitimate agreement, then they should fry. If IBM really believes SCO has no rightful claim to the intellectual property in question, then they should not have signed an agreement with SCO. It could well be that SCO is lying/embellishing/hallucinating, but maybe they're not.
On an aside, back in the 80's and early 90's, I worked on a port of SCO Unix to a proprietary platform. What people have been saying here about SCO's "quality" is true. Their OS was crap. I can't count how many bugs in the kernel we had to fix. We even had to completely rearchitect whole subsystems. When we were done with it, it was fairly passable, but it took man years. The most appalling thing about their code was the third party SMP implementation they bought from some other company. It was truly horrendous. I believe it did improve over the years as the product matured, but obviously not enough to keep them alive.
SCO - first major victim of Linux (Score:4, Insightful)
Suddenly (about 1995): they announced that they wanted to float on the stock market, all sorts of reasons given but one side effect was that it meant that the major shareholders (the directors) would be able to 'cash in' on their shareholding by selling to Joe Shareholder. Quite unfortunately for the new share holders, Linux started to bite into SCO profits soon after float and it never really recovered.
I have no doubt that the SCO directors had no idea that this ''new phenomenon called Linux'' would have any effect on the SCO sales & thus share price; they were only involved in that sector of the market and so would never have heard of Linux, and even if they had they would not have been able to predict the future effect on the SCO share price; it is quite coincidental that they sold their shares to the general public just before the value started to crumble.
Re:This is the end of SCO, for sure. (Score:5, Insightful)
OK, fine, this means the end of SCO. Nevertheless, I am worried by this.
I'm not worried that IBM will lose this lawsuit. I'm not worried that any other lawsuits (against Red Hat, or SuSE, or anyone else) have much chance of success. I'm worried that the press attention this lawsuit (and any future ones) will receive, the stunning dollar figure sought, etc., will provide MS with a nice piece of FUD weaponry to deploy with potential enterprise Linux adoptees.
I can see the MS sales reps now, telling their (current and potential) customers stuff like "You're considering Linux? Well, I certainly wouldn't consider that wise, given that it looks like Linux is going to implode from within in a haze of IP lawsuits. The future existence of Linux, and corporate Linux support, is looking pretty doubtful. I'd recommend sticking with us. Windows isn't going anywhere." Crap like that is what has me worried.
Re:All IP is conflict of interest (Score:5, Insightful)
You are falling into the false premise that the way things are today is the way things were back then, when cars weren't made in factories but by a few skilled men in barns. Kind of like Apple was in the early days.
For the most part things take millions to develop and thousands of man hours these days not because it actually takes that, but because the men and dollars are available, so they get spent. If these men and dollars were *not* available pretty much the same work would get done. The main difference is that it would get done faster and cheaper by a few skilled men instead of the hundreds of mediocre ones, and the attendent layer upon layer of middle managment sucking out most of the dollars of any project.
Eli Whitney's cotton gin was "stolen" and in production by copycat companies before Eli had even gotten it out of the demo phase.
Eli never patented anything again in his life, believing that some ideas were simply "to valuable to be owned."
He was right.
KFG
SCO Exit Strategy (Score:5, Insightful)
sPh
Re:All IP is conflict of interest (Score:4, Insightful)
Do you work with many programmers? All of them think they can do a better job, and all of them will try to reinvent the wheel from scratch on every project, if you let them. I remember we once left a programmer alone for too long, he invented a whole new language to script his bit of the application! Now he could have embedded TCL (which is what TCL was designed for), he could have exposed a COM interface and used VBA, he could've reused something else, but he didn't.
Re:This is the end of SCO, for sure. (Score:3, Insightful)
Probably the best example is Sony Corp - which owns both Sony Electronics and Sony Music. At the same time Sony Music are asking for stronger protections in consumer electronics due to alleged piracy, Sony Electronics is fighting against any additional protection measures due to increased cost and reduced consumer satisfaction.
As Mr. Perens states, if IBM takes this really personally and decides to cut business with the holding corp as a whole then they just drop the contract with TT. And encourage their partners to do the same. Which is a whole lot of partners.
Re:All IP is conflict of interest (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, Stalin thought so too - the collectivization of Soviet farms actually resulted in mass starvation. Same thing happened to Mao in China, and again in North Korea and it's happening right now in Zimbabwe.
Remember, everyone who writes open source has got to eat, live somewhere, pay bills, etc. How many open source developers support themselves wholly through open source? 1%? Less? I'm not counting the IBM types who are really in the business of selling hardware.
Let's see how many "volunteers" you get to work in the fields so some geeks can sit in air conditioned offices all day. Let's see if you can get your groceries for free because you wrote a device driver in the web server back in the company's head office. Let's see if you can hack code on your landlord's PC instead of paying the rent.
Open source works because it's funded by people's day jobs. If those day jobs don't pay, Open source will simply disappear.
Re:I agree . The patent laws are another example. (Score:2, Insightful)
Anything I say about IP being bad doesn't go over well with business people, especially the attorneys I work for, but after the 'revolution' comes and the world is freed from the oppresive groups in society... sure, thatll happn... it will be a perfectly acceptable view for anyone to take, just like modern day views on salvery.
People are used to certain ways and won't think twice about it unless they are forced to. Laziness, that's the American way.
Re:All IP is conflict of interest (Score:3, Insightful)
There are many companies that hire OSS developers these days. To start with you have the distros then you have several embedded companies. Intel and AMD both have staff dedicated to open source.
Apache was and still is developed by people who needed a better webserver do do their job.
That %1 may be accurate but only because of the huge number of minor projects people do because they feel like it. The only project I either work on or monitor where I'm not outnumbered by developers payed to work on the software is Acidblood and that's only because it's a hobby project with no buisness use whatsoever.
Re:This is the end of SCO, for sure. (Score:2, Insightful)
You've left out something...
If the rest of your assessment is correct (and I believe it largely is), then SCO is screwing not just us, but two other rather major groups: their customers and their resellers. In particular, if I were a SCO reseller, I'd be looking to diversify if I hadn't already.
This is Going to be Ugly. (Score:2, Insightful)
I am a lawyer. It is a fundamental breach of legal ethics* for a lawyer to sue a client.
SCO's lawyer, David Boies was IBM's lawyer [slashdot.org] for many years.
IBM will go after Boies on this point hammer and tongs. They will move to disqualify him, and I assume they will complain to the New York Supreme Court, where he is registered. Boies can try to use the "that was in another country, and besides the wench is dead" defense, but it will be an uphill battle.
Beyond the legal issues involved, he will get hometowned in Utah, where there is no love for New Yorkers or prominent Democrats (remember Bush v Gore).
*Please do not laugh. There really is such a thing.
Re:SCO Exit Strategy (Score:3, Insightful)
The thing is that I am sure IBM (for a few million) can pay lawyers to win this case and get rid of SCO permanently. SCO is dying. IBM won't want them because they would be "dead weight". Your scenario is a "pipe dream".
You're mistaking product for idea (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, Amazon could very easily protect and license their overall software package that is used to support their one-click check out. They could sell as many shrink wrapped licenses as they want and use Copyright to protect their "IP" from misappropriation.
The problem is when they try to claim ownership to the very idea that they're implementing. Especially when it's not a terribly innovative one. Now it doesn't matter how you implement the idea, you have to go to Amazon for a license.
You then go on to horribly mischaracterize the GPL. The GPL is not "no one is going to make any money off of software" the GPL is about creating a strong commons that everyone can build off of. Being able to get Apache and Tomcat for free doesn't mean that you can't make money building e-commerce sites for people. It just means that you have access to high quality tools for very reasonable rates. In addition you can even improve those tools and thus return them back for the other programmers to use in even better condition.
Finally, IBM makes its money on SERVICE, not hardware. Sure it doesn't fully embrace all of the principles of the GPL, but they don't embrace all of the principles of proprietary software either. They embrace the principles of "let's get the customer's job done."
Wrong point of view (Score:2, Insightful)
They don't care. They aren't in the business of selling software.
SCO is owned by Caldera. Caldera bought Dr. Dos from Novell so it could carry on the law suit against Microsoft. Caldera reportedly settled the suit for north of a billion dollars.
Next thing you know Caldera buys sco,renames itself sco, makes a couple of half hearted attempts to revive the product and then goes back to suing.
Caldera/SCO is not in the software business its in the lawsuit business. You can be very sure there will be more of the same from these people.
Crash
Re:All IP is conflict of interest (Score:3, Insightful)
Linux also unifies pretty much all of IBM's hardware. It demonstrates much of what Java promised... write once, (compile and) run on any hardware platform.
So a small shop can develop a web commerce site on a $500 Linux machine and cleanly scale it up to an AS/400 without redeveloping.
TCO is a bizzare figure in this arena, the costs of the services are better compared to the cost of downtime and the track record at stuff like reliability, failover, disaster recovery etc.
Re:IBM -- cross-license or die (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe when you're dead, the prospect of being buried doesn't look so bad.
-- this is not a
Re:All IP is conflict of interest (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes.
All of them think they can do a better job,
Untrue. That statement works as a punchline for a comic strip [userfriendly.org], nothing more.
Sure, everyone occasionally feels he could do a better job than the implementer of some library he's using. The more "Freedom" he has to see and modify that library, the greater the chance that he'll either learn he was mistaken, or incrementally improve that library, rather than rebuilding it entirely.
if you let them.
That is a more specific problem- management that is insufficiently engaged, or insufficiently informed.
Back when that guy was proposing his idea, his boss should've made him explain why it was better than each of those alternatives.
However, had he been forced to justify the cost of a reinvention, his case would've been doubly strengthened because of the prevalence of proprietary software:
A) "We can't use those things, they are owned." Whether or not that's true in a particular case, people make those assumptions, and think less about reuse than the might. Even the TCL webpage [www.tcl.tk] doesn't explain that it's free to use on the first 2 layers of links.
B) "We shouldn't use those things, because then we wouldn't own our changes." "Hey boss, a proprietary scripting language, all our own- won't that be an asset for the corporation?". Many organizations put too much weight on the value of restricting their code. (And even if that is beneficial for those corporations, it might not be the best for the world at large)
innacuracies possibly purjury (Score:5, Insightful)
For example they make a great deal out of the fact that Linux = Linux + Unix; to show that the intent was to steal Unix intellectual property. As a side note Linux is a pun on Linix which was an abreviation for Linus' Minix and SCO owns no Minix intellectual property.
They refer to Stallman as a former MIT professor.
Where it is not just factually untrue they often are highly misleading. For example they talk about SCO intellectual property as part of the Monterey project and then have quotes from IBM indicating the version of JFS in Linux is from Monterey project. The clear intent is to leave the reader with the impression that JFS came from SCO and was stolen by IBM.
Unlike the other two mistakes (which might just show negligance is preparing a court filing) this one is clearly an attempt to mislead the court.
Similarly they have multiple sections outlining the fact that the probability of someone randomly creating libraries compatable with the SCO OpenServer Shared Libraries are close to 0; which hints but never states that Linux is compatable with the SCO OpenServer Shared Libraries.
I think a very good case can be made for summary dismissal. As for IBM winning in court there won't be a problem. If this is the best claim Caldera has they really are in deep trouble.
Re:You're mistaking product for idea (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, you aren't supposed to be able to patent an idea, only the implementation of an idea. People who are patenting nebulous ideas are abusing the patent system, and the patent system is lax in letting them get away with it.
Now, Amazon could very easily protect and license their overall software package that is used to support their one-click check out. They could sell as many shrink wrapped licenses as they want and use Copyright to protect their "IP" from misappropriation.
Agreed.
Finally, IBM makes its money on SERVICE, not hardware. Sure it doesn't fully embrace all of the principles of the GPL, but they don't embrace all of the principles of proprietary software either. They embrace the principles of "let's get the customer's job done."
A few people have said that, but they're missing the point: whether it's hardware or services, IBM aren't making their money from software or operating systems.
You're being unreasonable (Score:5, Insightful)
Trolltech is a privately held company, but they likely took this investment prior to SCO's decision.
As a previous poster mentioned, Canopy owns 5.8% of Trolltech. You're going to attack the other 94.2% of Trolltech shareholders because of an unrelated business's actions happens to have as an investor someone that owns 5.8% of their company?
I have a lot of respect for you as one of the leading intellectuals in this movement. However, as a small business owner, I'm terrified of what you are saying.
My company has small holdings in several of our clients. They OFTEN take courses of actions that I don't like. If you were to attack another of my clients because of what one of them did, because I was a shareholder in both? I don't think that you are being at ALL fair.
If you believe that the Canopy Group is behind this behavior, than I would suggest an announcement that ANY privately held company that takes investment capital from them (from this point, not retroactively), will be shunned. However, Trolltech did NOTHING wrong, other than take an investment from a company whose other investment did something that you don't like.
I have a third party with an ownership stake in my company. The relationship had been rocky, but quite frankly, I couldn't afford to buy them out, even if they were willing to sell. If you organized a boycott of me because of something they did, I'd be floored.
Unless you are prepared to coordinate the fundraising to buy the Canopy Group out of Trolltech (and any other company that you are prepared to boycott in your crusade against this venture capital firm), back off. You're being extremely unfair to Trolltech, who has done nothing but provide amazing software to their commercial clients (of which we are one, albeit for only one developer) and FREE software to the open source community.
Your imagination about Canopy attacking GNOME is fascinating, but they are a MINORITY shareholder. They cannot cooerce Trolltech management. Deal with Trolltech based upon Trolltech's actions, not the actions of a third party.
Imagine if you were being held personally accountable for the actions of a second cousin through marriage? I don't imagine you'd like that. Same for Trolltech and SCO.
Alex
Re:This is the end of SCO, for sure. (Score:1, Insightful)
You settle out of court
The settlement includes cross-licensing of both companies' IP
Because IBM is providing far more cross-licensed IP than you can, You end up paying royalties to THEM!
Re:This is the end of SCO, for sure. (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's not practice guilt by association.
Re:This is the end of SCO, for sure. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:QT is more free than GNOME (Score:1, Insightful)
The LGPL allows linking of commercial, closed
source applications, where you cannot do that
with the GPL. Read before you post.
Re:This is the end of SCO, for sure. (Score:3, Insightful)
There is no "safe" choice any longer.
This is the idiocy brought about by the current IP law climate.
Therefore, the obvious choice becomes "whichever CEO golfed with you CEO most recently."
Every venture firm does... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not disputing the Canopy is pulling the strings here, but I wouldn't be certain. SCO Managment is responsible. I can't figure out how to cut through their BS and figure out how much Canopy holds... Remember, SCO is a public company, anyone can buy shares of SCO...
I really can't tell how much Canopy owns of SCO. My guess is that they funded Caldera, and would likely have had between 20% and 50% of Caldera, and diluted down with the merger. However, they are likely the largest (or one of the largest) shareholders.
I would suggest that before you attack companies that took capital from Canopy Group before it became "blood money" (which we still don't know, who knows who pulled the trigger).
I think that Canopy may or may not be involved, but we should find out what happens before we open fire one anyone that took their investment. I think that with your stature, you should come out and take a stand in defense of Trolltech, given that their are idiots in the thread that saw a few mentions and are screaming and yelling about Trolltech.
Otherwise, you're going to hurt a LOT of innocent bystanders by this mistaken belief that companies can simply buy out investors because they don't like the actions of other companies.
Alex
Re:You're ABSOLUTELY nuts! (Score:2, Insightful)
A privately held company, if their corporate council had an ounce of brains in preparing the legal agreements that allowed them to sell equity, does have the option to demand the return of shares at a fair market value if the holder of those shares is taking actions the company believes is not in its own best interests. To do otherwise is the insane action - just as they had the choice of deciding who those shareholders were in the first place.
Canopy is taking an action that irritates, and if they are legally successful, will damange the ability for Linux to advance. Every company that is involved with Linux in any fashion needs to recognize this and assess the impact to themselves. Those companies that are involved with Canopy in some fashion are the ones that will be especially sensitive to any damage this suit may do, as their other shareholders realize that this suit poisions the well their customers visit. NO CUSTOMERS MEANS NO COMPANY.
Don't believe me - talk to your corporate counsel.
Re:This is the end of SCO, for sure. (Score:3, Insightful)
Two points:
First, they don't want to limit themselves to specifics in the complaint itself. That's what they are supposed to do in the court case in order to prove their point. They want to leave themselves as much lattitude as possible, and not tie to specific points. One of the major reasons the DoJ case against MS failed was because they defined it so narrowly that, once they lost on that one point, the whole case collapsed.
Second, they are saying that it was ideas, not necessarily lines of code that were stolen. It is too easy to prove that there are no duplicate sections of code. Proving that "ideas" were copied is a lot more fuzzy. Again, they are trying to construct the case in such a way that they have the greatest cance of bamboozling the judge and/or jury into believing them
Re:All IP is conflict of interest (Score:1, Insightful)
If you let someone use your land, you are losing USE of that land for that purpose. In the example of letting someone walk on it that use is very minor since you are only losing the ablity to occupy the same space that that person is currently in (but let's use renting as an example). If you rent your property, you are giving up some of your use of that property. The laws of physics enforce that, if nothing else. If I tell you one of my ideas, I do not lose the ability to use that idea in any way. If I wish to enforce restrictions on your use of my idea, some sort of regulation is required, it does not happen automatically.
But look at IP from a profit point of view. With a few favorable laws on my side, I may make money off of one of my ideas FOREVER without any additional investment, risk or loss of use on my part. No other means of making money works like this. I'm not saying it's not justified, but it is entirely different from the nature of everything else, and acting like it's just like everything else is a huge mistake.
Re:About the lawyer (Score:3, Insightful)
-Rusty
Re:This is the end of SCO, for sure. (Score:3, Insightful)
I firmly agree with you in most of the aspects you have presented here; however, I must disagree with your assessment of the Canopy Group (which is a little hard for me to do since I have worshipped you from afar for so long).
I work for Altiris, which is one of the companies associated with the Canopy Group. We have our own CEO and our own direction. To the best of my knowledge, the Canopy Group does not interfere with our company. They only provide internet services, security services, building maintenance, etc. Of course they are investors, but they don't come in and tell us what to do (any more than investors of other companies do anyway).
I worked with somebody from Caldera for a while, and it was very evident that their actions were their own; not those of the Canopy Group.
I work across the parking lot from Caldera/SCO and have watched them over the years. In my opinion, SCO has been a constant disappointment; from the replacement of all their internal OpenLinux servers with Windows 2000 servers, to this lawsuit.
I have not seen such destructive behavior in any of the other Canopy Group companies. This seems to be a trait of Caldera/SCO alone.
I am responding to your post because another person has used the information outlined in your post to suggest an attack against all Canopy Group companies in order to harm the source of the lawsuit we are discussing. This would be inappropriate since the rest of us had nothing to do with this lawsuit.
I find the actions taken by Caldera/SCO appaling. They are the works of a reprobate (or more likely several of them), and I hope IBM disposes of them quickly. I understand people's feelings of anger and injustice, as well as their desire for revenge; however, to attack or blame other Canopy Group companies, who are entirely innocent in this matter, would also be an injustice.
Thanks for your time.