SCO's Open Letter to Open Source Community

joefish_only_1 writes "SCO CEO has posted an open letter to the open source community. There's some things Mr McBride mentions that I hadn't heard of yet, like an admission by Bruce Perens that "UNIX System V code is, in fact, in Linux, and it shouldn't be there."" A slashdot reader posted a comment recently that breaks it down quite well.

An open letter to Darl McBride

[Anonymous Coward]

You can have $699 for my SCO Intellectual Property for Linux License when you pry it from my cold, empty wallet.

Sincerely,

Anonymous Coward

Re:An open letter to Darl McBride

[Compact Dick]

Make sure you die before 15 October, else you will have to pony up double that figure.

Re:An open letter to Darl McBride

[Trigun]

I'd like to see Darl pry cash from an empty wallet. Oh wait, He already has. It's called a Pump-and-Dump.

an open leter

[rokka]

Sure this letter is really open? No strings? Will I be sued if I don't include parts of this letter into my own?

Re:an open leter

[questamor]

It's "open" in a Darl McBride sense... ie subjhect to change at any time, in any way

The only real explanation for the crap in this letter is that Darl McBride's Reality Distortion Field has just outgrown Steve Jobs'

Re:an open leter

[digitalunity]

At least Steve Jobs has a *product*!

It's just rediculous. SCO stated in their latest SEC filing that if they don't receive any money from their lawsuits, they may end up laying people off because their revenue is down so much. Hmmphh. -snickers to himself- :)

Don't Read the letter!!

[grofty]

Don't be fooled by this "open" letter! We've all heard that word used before and now it is costing us $699 per proc!!!

perens

[linuxislandsucks]

Bruce stated that removing teh rog copyright notice from bsd code that sgi submitted was not right.. now my opinion but that a submission of the same code with copyright notice intact is legal to do fro Linux kernel

Once again McBride is lying..

remember folks some BSd code was org System V code defined as opensourced as part of an out of court settlement between at&t and a cl university..

Re:perens

[mj01nir]

Darl sez: The second development was an admission by Open Source leader Bruce Perens that UNIX System V code (owned by SCO) is, in fact, in Linux, and it shouldn't be there. Mr Perens stated that there is "an error in the Linux developer's process" which allowed Unix System V code that "didn't belong in Linux" to end up in the Linux kernel (source: ComputerWire, August 25, 2003). Mr Perens continued with a string of arguments to justify the "error in the Linux developer's process."

But Bruce actually said: In this case, there was an error in the Linux developer's process (at SGI), and we lucked out that it wasn't worse. It turns out that we have a legal right to use the code in question, but it doesn't belong in Linux and has been removed. [perens.org]

And at the top of Bruce's slide show analysis: You may re-publish this material. You may excerpt it, reformat it and translate it as necessary for your presentation. You may not edit it to deliberately misrepresent my opinion.

Get 'em Bruce!

Re:perens

[amcguinn]

What you say might be true, but it's far from clear. The code was also present in the 32V version of Unix, and if SGI copied from that, the lack of AT&T copyright notice would be explained by the fact that it was never there in the first place!

Since the code was clearly modified after being extracted from whatever version of Unix (it contains Linux-specific locking calls), it will probably be impossible to tell whether it was improperly copied from System V or properly copied from 32V.

Re:perens

[jedidiah]

People are quibbling about the wrong details here.

The fact remains that a proprietary software development organization "screwed up". SCO is attempting to claim a standard of due diligence that doesn't exist. He is trying to damn Free Software by using an example where PROPRIETARY software development erred.

Of course, he is also glossing over the fact that the intellectual property of most companies is not visible enough to "protect". You can't avoid assimilating that which you by definition cannot recognize. There is no reasonable process that could be carried out to ensure that an arbitrary piece of code isn't come companies proprietary source.

Free Software exposes this potential problem. However, it is still the least likely to be effected.

It is far easier to plagarize TO a an unpublished work than to plagarize FROM it.

Re:perens

[Snags]

...the intellectual property of most companies is not visible enough to "protect". You can't avoid assimilating that which you by definition cannot recognize.

I wish I had mod points left. Very insightful. Of course, this problem isn't open-source specific. It's just easier to *catch* the open source violators because you can see what they have. It probably happens in proprietary software all the time without anyone being the wiser, as no one (who would expose it) has access to the current and potentially copied source codes.

Logical flaws, galore.

[rcs1000]

There is something rather disgusting about this letter from SCO, and the following passage highlights it rather well:

"There is no question about the affiliation of the attacker - Open Source leader Eric Raymond was quoted as saying that he was contacted by the perpetrator and that "he's one of us." To Mr Raymond's partial credit, he asked the attacker to stop. However, he has yet to disclose the identity of the perpetrator so that justice can be done.

No one can tolerate DDoS attacks and other kinds of attacks in this Information Age economy that relies so heavily on the Internet. Mr Raymond and the entire Open Source community need to aggressively help the industry police these types of crimes. If they fail to do so it casts a shadow over the entire Open Source movement."

Now, substitute the phrases "black people", "black person", and "black community" for "Open Source"...

That the DDoS attackers were "members of the open source community" is irrelevent. It is like saying they had red hair, and therefore ALL red-haired people should bear responsibility. No. No. No. No.

You cannot generalise from a person, or even several people, to an entire community. That is wrong. Indeed, the whole letter is full of generalisations from (often inaccurate) specifics.

Down with SCO!

Re:Logical flaws, galore.

[otisaardvark]

Please don't get me wrong; I agree with your point. But also note it is easier to generalise about the open source "community" than (eg) the black "community" because people choose to be open source developers. Unless you take the Michael Jackson route, skin colour isn't something you can alter with your actions - being an open source proponent is.

At the risk of falling into the correlation/causation trap, it is far more likely that open source devs share more community characteristics than black people.

Re:Logical flaws, galore.

[Bistronaut]

That is true, but it still doesn't mean that guilt of one "open source community member" = guilt of all.

Re:Logical flaws, galore.

[ichimunki]

No, but when someone like ESR decides to make it sound as though the Open Source community both claims this person as a member and then takes no steps to bring this person to justice for an obvious criminal act, that reflects negatively on the Open Source community as a whole. But then I absolutely rejected ESR as a "leader" some time ago, myself.

Personally I'm waiting for Darl to write an open letter to those of us in the Free Software movement-- one where he recognizes the philosophical underpinnings behind the movement as valid desires and stays away from the distracting nonsense about business models.

And anyway... has SCO specifically accused any software of being infringing other than the Linux kernel itself? If only Linux is (allegedly) infringing that would make all this talk about development models (in addition to all the business model garbage) a lot of hot air (i.e. BS). Have they mentioned that any of the BSDs may be infringing? How about the HURD? How about the larger GNU system? Perl? Ruby? Apache? MySQL or PostgreSQL? KDE? Well, SCO? When are you going to stop with the unsupported vague assertions and give us actionable information?

Re:Logical flaws, galore.

[benzapp]

That doesn't change the fact what we have here is the logical fallacy of "Dicto simpliciter".

Even if we were talking about the damn marine corps, simply because one individual chooses to act in discordance with the group's stated goals doesn't at all reflect on the group.

Any attempt at making that claim is NOT an argument, but perhaps an explanation...

Re:Logical flaws, galore.

[Gerv]

You cannot generalise from a person, or even several people, to an entire community.

Agreed. But are you arguing that ESR shouldn't inform the proper authorities about the crime he knows has been committed?

That would, IMO, be the right thing to do - stop the activities of someone whose actions harm the community and its reputation, and demonstrate (if demonstration is needed) that we have respect for the law. On this point, Mr McBride is right.

Gerv

Re:Logical flaws, galore.

[de Selby]

Agreed. But are you arguing that ESR shouldn't inform the proper authorities about the crime he knows has been committed?

He doesn't know who it was, so how is he going to inform any authorities?

Re:Logical flaws, galore.

[Zocalo]

Technically, if ESR knew the identity of the perpetrator and was issued a subpeona, then he'd be guilty of aiding and abetting at the very least if he refused to reveal the perp's ID. You can bet that SCO has taken this to the authorities, especially since it was all so public and there was no way SCO could hide the fact. So, given that ESR has quite likely been contacted by the authorites, why is Darl able to make a claim that ESR is obstructing justice by withholding the name?

The simple answer is here [newsforge.com]. ESR doesn't know the identity of the DDoSer, having only dealt with a cut-out, only that (s)he is "an experienced Internet engineer". I find it incredibly crass of Darl to intimate that someone of ESR's standing in the community is obstructing the course of justice like that, and wonder if ESR might have some grounds for a libel case.

Re:Logical flaws, galore.

[Gerv]

ESR doesn't know the identity of the DDoSer

Silly me. I automatically believed something Darl McBride said was the truth, and the whole truth, without checking the real facts. I won't make that mistake again.

Gerv

Re:Logical flaws, galore.

[DickBreath]

But are you arguing that ESR shouldn't inform the proper authorities about the crime he knows has been committed?

ESR stated in public....

...that the attack is happening. So the authorities know this. I'm sure SCO has also made sure they know.

...that he wanted the attacks to stop. So the authorities know this. Not that ESR has any control over the attackers, other than perhaps some respect in their eyes.

...that he did not know the identities, and did not want to know the identities of the attackers. So the authorities know this.

To make sure the authorities are fully informed, ESR, or anyone else, can forward ESR's public remarks to the authorities. I have a difficult time imagining that with SCO involved, the authorities have not already contacted ESR and interviewed him to obtain the facts I just described.


That would, IMO, be the right thing to do - stop the activities of someone whose actions harm the community and its reputation, and demonstrate (if demonstration is needed) that we have respect for the law. On this point, Mr McBride is right.

McBride is wrong in so many ways.

As to your other points, how do you stop the activities of someone you do not control, or even know the identity of?

Hey, I've got an idea! If you want to demonstrate your respect for the law, why don't YOU cooperate with the authorities in stopping all terrorist attacks!

Re:Logical flaws, galore.

[jeavis]

McBride speaks about things which he knows little about. He has no way of knowing that ESR hasn't informed the proper authorities. Rather, McBride is simply resorting to speculation because ESR didn't inform him.

I've worked at an ISP for seven years, and in that time have seen my fair share of abusive and illegal online activity. In cases where legal action is sought, the proper authorities often don't want you to say anything to anyone, including the victim(s). I've received subpoenas for evidence from various state and federal entities over the years, and most contained some provision for maintaining confidentiality of both the evidence and the subpoena itself. They do not want to tip off the alleged perpetrator and give them an opportunity to try to elude investigators or destroy evidence.

Re:Logical flaws, galore.

[shaka999]

Your comparison of being a black person to being a member of the open source community is mildly offensive. Contrary to how many open source developers and advocates present themselves you are not born being an "open source". This is a choice you have made.

The open source community is just that, a community. What one person or sub-group does inside this community does reflect on the group as a whole. Instead of comparing it to a minority group you should be comparing it to a company or club. If one person in a company/organizaton does something of questionable ethics it does reflect on everyone else. It is therefore in that organizations best interest to police itself.

I believe the same is true for the open source community. By sticking to a set of values and admonishing those that don't the open source movement will gain more acceptance.

Re:Logical flaws, galore.

[thing12]

Your comparison of being a black person to being a member of the open source community is mildly offensive. Contrary to how many open source developers and advocates present themselves you are not born being an "open source". This is a choice you have made. ... Instead of comparing it to a minority group you should be comparing it to a company or club.

Not really - it would be better to compare it to a religion than a company since the 'Open Source Movement' is more of an ideology than anything else. So since, SCO's from Utah why not substitute "mormons" for "open source": you're not born a mormon, you either become one by choice or are indoctrinated into the community by your parents just as parents indoctrinate their open source ideology onto their children. But just because there are mormons out there kidnapping young girls, it doesn't mean they're all guilty by association.

Re:Logical flaws, galore.

[JCCyC]

So since, SCO's from Utah why not substitute "mormons" for "open source": you're not born a mormon, you either become one by choice or are indoctrinated into the community by your parents just as parents indoctrinate their open source ideology onto their children.

By the way, McBride himself is a mormon [economist.com], which explains a hell of a lot of things.

Re:Mormon implies scoundrel?

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Wrong.

"What comes of litigation? Poverty and degradation to any community that will encourage it. Will it build cities, open farms, build railroads, erect telegraph lines and improve a country? It will not; but it will bring any community to ruin." -Brigham Young, JD 11:259.

All the tech-aware mormons I know are just as outraged about the SCOurge of McBride and his cronies as you are.

Re:Logical flaws, galore.

[otisaardvark]

But just because there are mormons out there kidnapping young girls, it doesn't mean they're all guilty by association.

It doesn't imply universal guilt; however it might be indicative of institutional "guilt", be it wilful or negligent (cf Catholic priests).

Can you apply the same logic to open source? I don't know, I still haven't graduated from the famous Slashdot School of Analogy.

Re:Logical flaws, galore.

[pudge]

That reminds me of a quote from Sports Night. Isaac, the executive producer, who is black, says, "I love you, Danny, and because I love you I can say this: no rich young white kid ever got anywhere with me comparing himself to Rosa Parks." It doesn't even matter if the comparison is reasonable (not that I think yours is), it just won't get you anywhere ...

'improper contribution'.

[Channard]

The article doesn't offer as much insight into SCO's thinking with this apparently suicidal (PR wise anyway) move, but one thing does stand out, the use of the words 'improper contribution'. Not 'improper use' or This for me shows just how empty SCO's talk is. How exactly does someone improperly contribute something? If you contribute something, you do so. If something is stolen or copied from you, it's stolen. SCO didn't even have the guts to accuse anyone of stealing, they just came up with this nonsensical phrase. Kind of telling.

Must... control... fist... of... death...

[Bistronaut]

So much to comment on... so little time. Well, the first thing that I see that stands out is this quote by McBride:

The second development was an admission by Open Source leader Bruce Perens that UNIX System V code (owned by SCO) is, in fact, in Linux, and it shouldn't be there. Mr Perens stated that there is "an error in the Linux developer's process" which allowed Unix System V code that "didn't belong in Linux" to end up in the Linux kernel (source: ComputerWire, August 25, 2003).

Here is the original quote from the referenced ComputerWire article [yahoo.com]:

The other SCO code snippet Perens walks through had to do with memory allocation functions in Unix System V and Linux. He says there was, in fact, "an error in the Linux developer's process," specifically a programmer at SGI, and he says while the Linux community had the legal right to this code, it didn't belong in Linux and was therefore removed.

Talk about out of context! The assertion that the code is owned by SCO is made only by Mr. McBride, who neglected to mention that it has already been found and removed.

Re:Must... control... fist... of... death...

[adrianbye]

Talk about out of context! The assertion that the code is owned by SCO is made only by Mr. McBride, who neglected to mention that it has already been found and removed.

Actually this is a good thing. When they're resorting to exaggerations like this, it shows how little SCO really has.

To be totally accurate...

[RevMike]

The assertion that the code is owned by SCO is made only by Mr. McBride...

McBride is technically correct, although misleading. According to Perens (via the second link in the slashdot blurb) "It is included in code copyrighed by AT&T and released as Open Source under the BSD license by Caldera, the company that now calls itself SCO."

To sum up, the code in question is owned by SCO, but using said code in Linux is permissable under the license terms by which the code was released. The "crime" here was that the SGI developer stripped the copyright notice.

Remember that under virtually all open source license agreements, the code continues to be owned by the copyright holder, but a nearly unlimited license to use, distribute, and create derivative works is granted to the public.

Re:To be totally accurate...

[jimsum]

SCO also seems to have missed a little irony here as well. The infringer was working for a company; he wasn't a commie hacker working on open source in the basement of his parent's house. This code was "developed" under the watchful eye of responsible capitalists, yet copyright infringement happened anyway. I wonder what copyright infringements there might be in SGI's (or even SCO's) proprietary code, and why SCO doesn't seem too worried about that.

Re:Must... control... fist... of... death...

[955301]

And to top it off, the Jackass suggests that the open source community needs a "sustainable business model". What a unbelievable case of tunnel vision.

I'm considering writing a video driver for my notebook computer's built in computer camera. Why? So I can sell the driver? Uhm, no. Simply because I want to get it to work on Linux. And if some company tries to sell a driver, that doesn't mean I'm only doing it to compete with them. It doesn't mean I have to start charging for it, or make a "sustainable business model".

This guy really is in his own world. And it's obvious there is no oxygen on it.

Re:Must... control... fist... of... death...

[DickBreath]

This guy [Darl McBride] really is in his own world. And it's obvious there is no oxygen on it.

It's the necktie. No, really.

Re:Must... control... fist... of... death...

[sbuckhopper]

Funny, the way I read the OpenLetter from SCO, Darl seems to be in favor of OpenSource. Now that he's dumping all of his SCO stock maybe he doesn't care anymore. Or maybe he's realized that there is not case...

Here is quotes from the letter that support my statement:

"This ""Open Source software is healthy and beneficial. It offers long-term benefits to the industry by addressing a new business model in advance of wide-scale adoption by customers."

"My company, the SCO Group, became a focus of this controversy when we ""fought ""to ""cast...""a shadow over the ""Open Source movement ""by ""alleging ""that UNIX System V code"" in fact"" proprietary software code""."

"Linux ""is a ""authorized ""work ""not ""derivative ""of ""the ""UNIX System V code""."

"No one can tolerate ""SCO's ""business model that is ""built only on ""a lawsuit against IBM"". ""Finally, it is clear that the ""SCO Group is ""increasingly alienated from anyone associated ""with ""software ""and ""community."

"I will continue to ""sue... ""everyone ""...as... ""CEO""."

Check the letter, every quoted word is in there in some context or another. I see this as just as valid of an interpretation of his letter as he does Bruce Peren's letter and ESR's statements.

Dear all,

[arvindn]

I have written an open letter to the open source community. Unfortunately, I am not in a position to reveal its contents since that would mean compromising our trade secrets. However, I welcome you to license a copy of my open letter by signing a Non-Disclosure Agreement and payment of $699.
Yours affectionately,
Darl McBride
CEO, SCO Inc.

Pointing the finger in the wrong direction

[Anonymous Coward]

I read the Letter earlier, and it struck me that as with so much SCO posturing, this one gets it wrong too. Darl points the finger at the Open Source development process and Linus as the problem.

Instead it is clear to anyone involved in Open Source development that it is the responsibility of the submitter to submit only code they are legally entitiled too. If an SGI developer did strip SCO copyrights from code and was allowed to submit this code to Linus for inclussion, then it is SGI who have the problem. It has long been understood that the very process of submitting code to an Open Source project was an implicit decleration of ownership of that code. The same rules apply in business; unless you're SCO you can only sell something that you own yourself.

I've yet to see a good rebutal of Darls Open Letter, but I suspect ESR or Bruce is typing one up as we speak..

Re:Pointing the finger in the wrong direction

[Zak3056]

I've yet to see a good rebutal of Darls Open Letter, but I suspect ESR or Bruce is typing one up as we speak..

The previous SCO story included this comment [slashdot.org] which, I believe, is exactly what you're looking for.

It addresses the McBride letter point by point, and is well written.

flamebait?

[jtilak]

Mr. McBride is a troll. don't feed.

How does he know we are intentionally causing

[The Analog Kid]

DDoS attacks, maybe your getting DDoS because everyone's trying to get to your site to buy a Linux license from you.

"talk is cheap"

[mOoZik]

There's all this unsubstantiated talk. If SCO wants the Open Source community to take them seriously, they should publicly release the code which they claim to be in Linux, and furthermore, provide proof that that code did not exist legally before SCO made it "theirs."

Re:"talk is cheap"

[jeti]

If SCO wants the Open Source community to take them seriously, they should publicly release the code which they claim to be in Linux...

Perhaps they can't reveal the code because they actually don't have it? SCO seems to assume that AIX and SunOS belong to them. Perhaps they don't even have the code? Perhaps the 'trade secrets' Darl is talking about aren't the trade secrets of SCO?

Re:"talk is cheap"

[Badgerman]

There's all this unsubstantiated talk. If SCO wants the Open Source community to take them seriously, they should publicly release the code which they claim to be in Linux, and furthermore, provide proof that that code did not exist legally before SCO made it "theirs."

I don't think SCO cares to be taken seriously by the Open Source community. They'd never have taken this course of action if they'd desired that.

IBM has subpoened the Canopy Group

[Anonymous Coward]

IBM filed a discovery subpoena against the Canopy Group, a major SCO investor. Details about it are on the groklaw site [weblogs.com] although I worry that the groklaw board will get slashdotted if too many people look. The article therefore is reproduced here. (I hope I'm doing groklaw a favor, check out the original link when things calm down a bit please).

The subpoena sets September 10th as the date for a deposition, at Snell & Wilmer's law offices in Salt Lake City, and instructs that these are the documents Canopy Group's representative, whoever they choose to get deposed on behalf of Canopy, must produce on that date:

1. All documents concerning this lawsuit, plaintiff's claims or IBM's defenses or counterclaims.

2. All documents concerning any communications regarding this lawsuit, plaintiff's claims or IBM's defenses or counterclaims.

3. All documents concerning plaintiff's rights relating to UNIX or Linux.

4. All documents concerning any strategy, plan, effort, or action (actual or contemplated) to use or enforce (or to threaten to use or enforce) rights to UNIX or Linux.

5. All documents concerning any open-source license, including the GNU General Public License.

6. All documents concerning any lawsuit other than this lawsuit (actual or contemplated) involving plaintiff and relating to UNIX or Linux.

7. All documents concerning any agreement, understanding or communication with Microsoft, Sun, Computer Associates, Tarantella, AT&T, USL, HP or Novell, relating to UNIX or Linux.

8. All documents concerning plaintiff's efforts to license UNIX or Linux.

9. All documents concerning plaintiff's alleged evidence of UNIX in Linux.

10. All documents concerning plaintiff's alleged evidence of misconduct or breaches of duty by IBM.

11. All documents concerning plaintiff's UNIX or Linux business.

12. Documents sufficient to show the organizational structure or personnel of The Canopy Group.

13. All documents relating to the ownership of plaintiff.

14. All documents relating to purchases or sales of plaintiff's stock since January 1, 2003.

15. All documents in the possession, custody, or control of Ralph Yarrow, Jan Newman, Darcy Mott, Raymond J. Noorda, Lewena Noorda, Joyce Wiley, Mark Cusick, or Dan L. Baker relating to UNIX, Linux, or this lawsuit.

16. All documents provided to plaintiff by The Canopy Group or provided to The Canopy Group by plaintiff relating to UNIX, Linux, or this lawsuit.

17. All documents concerning the decision to commence or pursue this lawsuit or other lawsuits relating to plaintiff's alleged rights relating to UNIX or Linux.

18. All documents concerning the decision to suspend distribution of plaintiff's Linux products or code.

19. All documents concerning any analysis of any IBM conduct related to Unix or Linux.

20. All documents concerning any UNIX source code, derivative works, modification. or methods contributed to Linux or to the open source community by AT&T, USL, Novell, Tarantella, or plaintiff.

21. All documents concerning the relationship between plaintiff and The Canopy Group.

22. All documents concerning any statements, declaration, affidavit, analysis, assessment, or opinion rrelating to plaintiff's rights to UNIX or Linux.

23. All documents concerning any statement, affidavit, declaration, analysis, assessment, or opinion relating to this litigation.

24. All documents concerning the nature, calculation, and basis of any damages or injuries plaintiff claims in this matter.

Re:IBM has subpoened the Canopy Group

[Zocalo]

And SCO's going to deliver all this in what, a freight train? Maybe IBM's discovered SCO uses HP printers and is trying to drive them into bancruptcy through the sheer cost of non-refillable toner cartridges. ;)

I bet the IBM lawyers were laughing their collective asses off while they compiled *that* list... "Ooh, Ooh, I've got a good one! Let's ask for any documents that mention the GPL! Bwaaahaahaahaa!". I love the way the points about "any documents relating to Microsoft" and "sales of stock" that slipped in there too. Now where do you suppose *that's* going? ;)

Subpoena has many outs for Canopy

[gvc]

The full text of the subpoena [byu.edu] contains several provisions whereby Canopy may apply to withold documents. These provisions include the protection of privelege, litigation strategy, and trade secrets. I expect Canopy's lawyers to avail themselves of these provisions.

Pot calling the kettle...

[Thomas M Hughes]

By providing Open Source software without a warranty, these largest vendors avoid significant costs while increasing their services revenue.

I was under the impression that most Proprietary software is offered without a warranty, and often without real support (unless you pay for additional support). Why is what's good for the goose not good for the gander?

Bald faced lying

[BenjyD]

"... was an admission by Open Source leader Bruce Perens that UNIX System V code (owned by SCO) is, in fact, in Linux, and it shouldn't be there"

There is absolutely no way for SCO to spin this. This is a simple lie. Not a twist on a truth, not a half-truth, not something that they could ever show even the most tenuous evidence for. It's a straight lie.

It'll be interesting to see how Darl gets out of that one when the SEC knock on his door.

Re:Bald faced lying

[Hittite Creosote]

> It'll be interesting to see how Darl gets out of that one when the SEC knock on his door.

Plead insanity of course...

Does SCO check their code?

[nuggz]

Does SCO check to ensure the code their programmers submit is legal? Or do they just accept that it is?

Not just attacking GPL anymore?

[Bistronaut]

This quote sounds like he's trying to "take back" the BSDs:

"Fair use" applies to educational, public service and related applications and does not justify commercial misappropriation. Books and Internet sites intended and authorized for the purpose of teaching and other non-commercial use cannot be copied for commercial use. We believe that some of the SCO software code that has ended up in the Linux operating system got there through this route. This violates our intellectual property rights.

Re:Not just attacking GPL anymore?

[ulmanms]

I think this is the most interesting part of the letter, and indicates a change in focus for them, or at least another case of "we're going make every argument we can think of, regardless of the validity"
This could be read to mean that they claim the BSD release of 'ancient unix' isn't valid for commercial purposes even though it was licensed under a BSD license.
We're beyond stripped-out copyright attributions (which was Mr. Peren's problem with the SGI code) if that's the case, but I don't think there's anyway to justify this argument. IANAL, maybe someone else is.

SCO depend on BSD code

[ananiasanom]

'ancient unix' isn't valid for commercial purposes even though it was licensed under a BSD license.

Oops, SCO OpenUnix or whatever they call it this week just lost the X Window system, developed by MIT and released under a BSD-like license. Darn, the TCP/IP support written at Berkely and released under a BSD license isn't valid for commercial purposes either.

There seems to be more of this open source stuff around than SCO are aware of...

Apologies to Comic Book Guy...

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Best. Troll. Ever.

Feedback Comment

[Richardsonke1]

I like the feedback comment at the bottom. I was thinking the same thing before i noticed it was down there. It's so true that it was/is near impposible to check if code was taken out of Unix. Would SCO like to give us a copy of their code? No, so they should just complain whenever they see a problem, and then the Linux community will take it out. It's that simple. No liscensing deals necessary. Here's the quote:

Nathan Hand commented ... "Secondly, no-one seems to have answered the perfectly legitimate question about the open source development process - just how DO you ensure that code submitted by a developer HASN'T been ripped off, just because the developer claims that it hasn't? McBride IS right when he says that Open Source is still maturing and we DO need to look at, and answer these questions."

How do you ensure it in any project, open source or closed sourced? You ask the author. You assume they tell the truth. How else could you do it? There's no magic marker on code that says "this is owned by foo". There's no central code repository where you can check ownership of a fragment. If there's no attribution in the comments or the README then there's practically nothing you can do. It's not like the Linux developers have access to SCO's source code so they can check every submission, looking for violations. SCO keeps their code secret. The best that the Linux developers can do is assume the author is telling the truth.

But this is true for ALL projects. I've worked on commercial projects and I know full well that violations occur. I've seen BSD code dropped into proprietary products with the BSD attributions stripped out. SCO put a slide up at SCOForum... it was code stolen from BSD! SCO thinks it's theirs but the history of the code is well known and it most definitely has gone from BSD to SCO. A SCO developer stole it and assumed nobody would ever know. Why isn't SCO "respecting the IP" of BSD developers?

The reality is, Linux is far more "IP accountable" than any closed source product. If a company developing a closed source product copied code from SCO, would SCO ever know? Of course not. But any company can look at Linux source code to determine if violations occur. The Linux model encourages transparency and "no secrets". The result is that violations are infrequent (in fact, SCO is the first claimant ever and their case looks VERY weak).

It's the closed source model where the vast majority of IP violations occur but most of them go by unnoticed.

There is nothing "immature" about the Linux model. It is following best practises of the industry and then some. SCO is trying to paint a picture of "immaturity" because they want to win this case in the court of public opinion, but I have every confidence that they will never win this case in a court of law.

Re:Feedback Comment

[mydigitalself]

there is obviously the flip-side to this in that has any single rogue (whatever, etc...) employee at SCO ever "stolen" code from an open source project?

i mean code is code. lets take all these DHTML libraries you can download on the net. i've seen bloody functions to change an image onmouseover with copyright notices saying that if you use this code blah blah blah. i mean - a mouseover routine is a mouseover routine is a mouseover routine. maybe there are three different ways to do it - but all with the sa

People need to be careful what they say

[digitaltraveller]

I remember after everyone analysed the SCOForum code prominent people saying things like that (eg. Open Source coders violated SCO's license because they didn't include the BSD attribution statement) and I knew right away they made a huge mistake. I'm sorry to see it's been confirmed.
Anyone who purports to speak for this community should realise the stakes involved and wise up.
In the efforts of Messrs Perens and Raymond to be balanced and reasonable they have given the enemy (Daryl McBeezlebub) significant ammunition. Quoting people out of context is part of lawsuit public relations 101. SCO will hammer away and keep repeating this like an autistic child and unfortunately some weak minded people will be swayed by this argument. If you ever watch television talk shows this is the most common technique for winning arguments.
I think Linux is still winning the public relations war but really, please don't accept collective guilt unless you personally fucked up. Because for all we know SGI has legitimate rights to that code.

Here's My "Rant", Mr. McBribe

[tds67]

It is easier for some in the Open Source community to fire off a "rant" than to sit across a negotiation table.

Negotiate with who? Why? For what? If you're referring to the alleged infringing code, reveal what it is so it can be confirmed and replaced. Otherwise, shut your trap, sell your stock and go out of business like the market demands.

IP Violation on Darl's part?

[Smiling_Jack]

Didn't Bruce say the following in his SCO code rebuttal?:

• You may re-publish this material. You may excerpt it, reformat it and translate it as necessary for your presentation. You may not edit it to deliberately misrepresent my opinion.

Isn't Darl taking Bruce's words out of context and misrepresenting them? Copyright violation, anyone?....

Re:IP Violation on Darl's part?

[Rogerborg]

Let me quote you:

"I ra pe d Bruce in te h as s"

Does that make it any clearer?

Re:IP Violation on Darl's part?

[Rogerborg]

Ah, but I'll be sober in the morning, and you'll still be a humourless asshat.

Copy rights assignment policy

[leandrod]

Even if you take SCO's 'facts' at face value, all it would amount to is a vindication of FSF's copy rights assignment policy, created exactly to prevent such claims.

BTW, I write copy rights intentionally.

Who has a "Best Current Practices" document?

[bizcoach]

I'm interested in "Best Current Practices" documents that gives advice on how to best preceed in a Free Software project in order to avoid becoming vulnerable to problems with copyright or other legal issues. Of course the GNU project has some pretty good policies, but asking people to so something just because it's a GNU policy will often just make them complain about "GNU fanatics" instead of them taking the matter serious.

Therefore, it would be very helpful to have insights and policy recommendations from other sources as well.

Greetings,
Norbert.

Re:Who has a "Best Current Practices" document?

[Rogerborg]

• Buy some ancient code from the dawn of time that's already been published in a dozen textbooks and released under a slew of open and free licenses.
• Embrace and evangelise linux and the GPL, and sell GPL'd code along with your ancient crapware.
• Get bitten by a rabid bat.
• Sack all of your developers, replace them with Lionel Hutz, Attorney at Law.
• Claim that you own all non-Microsoft source (and maybe even that), and sue IBM for $3 billion.
• Cash in your stock and fly to Brazil for a face change operation two

Good for the goose

[ebh]

SCO says: We cannot have a situation in which companies fear they may be next to suffer computer attacks if they take a business or legal position that angers the Open Source community.

Likewise, we cannot have a situation in which computer users fear they may be next to suffer ruinous litigation if they take a business or legal position that angers SCO.

Where does it say that?

[realnowhereman]

"Fair use" applies to educational, public service and related applications and does not justify commercial misappropriation. Books and Internet sites intended and authorized for the purpose of teaching and other non-commercial use cannot be copied for commercial use.

This is a sneaky bit of double speak. While it is true that books cannot be copied verbatim (regardless of whether they are for commercial use or not) the knowledge contained in them most certainly can. If I read a maths book, I am entitled to use what I learned in any way I choose and do not owe the author anything other than perhaps a thank you.

The Rules of Law

[imadork]

You guys have done a pretty good job at slashdotting the linked story... this is lifted from news.com. The passages in quotes are, I assume, from the letter:

"If the open-source community wants its products to be accepted by enterprise companies, the community itself must follow the rules and procedures that govern mainstream society," he said. "This is what global corporations will require. And it is these customers who will determine the ultimate fate of open source--not SCO, not IBM, and not open-source leaders."

Open-source advocates have disparaged SCO's evidence and cast the legal case as a Microsoft-backed ploy to discourage corporate adoption of Linux. McBride said such arguments ignore the real issues.
"Rather than ignore or challenge copyright laws, open-source developers will advance their cause by respecting the rules of law that built our society into what it is today," he said. "This is the primary path towards giving enterprise companies the assurance they need to accept open-source products at the core of their business infrastructure. Customers need to know that open source is legal and stable."

This is quite a well-crafted piece of FUD: it perpetuates the notion that Linux is being developed by a bunck of pimply-faced hackers in their parents' basements, and that the developers don't care about IP rights at all. In fact, he is making the hidden accusation that the current open source development model does not "respect the rules of law"

However, the Open-Source Development Model is the most thought-out software development model that I know of, as far as a legal sense goes. Let's face it: who actually reads and follows those shrink-wrapped software licenses? I'm willing to bet that the only people who take them seriously are the open-source developers and users, because the license is the only legal right they have to open-source code. (They're also possibly the only ones anal enough to read the entire click-through license on commercial software). I've always held that if more people actually read what was in those commercial software licenses, there would be a lot more people swearing off commercial software for good.

The GPL and BSD licenses are well-crafted legal documents, and the transparency of the development process should put to rest all patent and copyright infringement concerns: if something infringes, the proof is there for everyone to see, and the maintainers are responsible for removing it, because it never should have been there in the first place. When Microsoft or SCO violates a source-code patent, there's no way of knowing because you can't see the code!

Given many recent statements by people related to SCO (including the Perens quote that others here have said is taken out of context, and SCO's blanket assertion of rights over BSD code that looks to be included in the AT&T settlemnent) that have turned out to be, at best, exaggerations, and at worst, outright lies and mischaracterizations, one has to wonder which side has more respect for the rules of law.

What Bruce said. Watch the qutation marks!!!!

[narrowhouse]

Bruce said:
"The other SCO code snippet Perens walks through had to do with memory allocation functions in Unix System V and Linux. He says there was, in fact, "an error in the Linux developer's process," specifically a programmer at SGI, and he says while the Linux community had the legal right to this code, it didn't belong in Linux and was therefore removed."

Was twisted by SCO into:
"an admission by Open Source leader Bruce Perens that UNIX System V code (owned by SCO) is, in fact, in Linux, and it shouldn't be there. Mr Perens stated that there is "an error in the Linux developer's process" which allowed Unix System V code that "didn't belong in Linux" to end up in the Linux kernel"

So by saying it was REMOVED (we will say it slow so you can follow along Darl), Bruce Perens admitted that it ended up in the Linux kernel? Can SCO tell the truth at all, or do they all just live on Bizarro world?

McBrides new troll

[spektr]

May I suggest that we just ignore this new troll from McBride?

It add nothing substantially new to the discussion.

The only thing McBride hopes to accomplish with this letter is to discredit the community once again. It makes no sense to dissect the letter and refute every false claim, because this will either be ignored or countered with more lies. Can we just stay calm and think of ways to get through to the few uninformed decision makers who believe the libel.

This letter has a purpose...

[entrager]

...and it's *not* meant as an "open letter to the open source community." This letter was written as a PR move, plain and simple. It's riddled with half-truths and full-on lies. McBride knew damn well that the open source community would be able to debunk almost everything he says, but he also know that the media wouldn't. Mr. Reporter reading this letter will simply take everything in it as fact and report it, which is exactly what SCO wants. After all, why would this letter contain lies? So far the media has barely touched SCO's opposition, but take a look at the list of headlines that simply discuss SCO's claims.

Last week someone made a comment that noted that SCO releases something like this right before some of the executives stock is scheduled to sell. The comment closed with something along the lines of "look for more FUD on Monday." Hmmm... is Tuesday close enough?

Re:This letter has a purpose...

[theonetruekeebler]

Absolutely correct.

This letter is not written to us. I don't care who it's addressed to, where it appears, who is cited in it, it is not written to us.

The intended audience of any open letter is third parties, and in this case the third parties are those who don't have the time, the inside knowledge, or the resources to check the facts and see for themselves that the bullshit quotient went asymptotic by the end of the first paragraph.

The intended audience is the business commmunity. The intended audience is investors.

The intended audience is the idiots who are driving SCO's stock [yahoo.com] up, and up, and up.

The code in question is BSD Licensed

[Zapdos]

The developer at SGI stripped BSD copyright information. The code without the proper copyright information does not belong in the Linux Kernel. The code with the copyright information is fine.

Please note: This has nothing to do with Darth McBride.

Open letter to Darl McBride

[Simon Brooke]

Sir

You are a liar, a fraud, and a thief.

You are a liar (if in nothing else) in deliberately misquoting Bruce Perens' analysis of the memory allocation routines which SGI contributed to Linux. Bruce Perens clearly did not say (as you claim he did) that we had allowed '...Unix System V code that "didn't belong in Linux" to end up in the Linux kernel' (my emphasis). He nowhere agreed that this was System V code.

You are a fraud in that you you claim that these routines are your company's property. They are not property, and they are not yours. They aren't yours, they weren't SGI's, they weren't AT&T's. You cannot inherit from others that which they do not own.

Algorithms for allocating memory have been developed over a period of over half a century by software developers studying and improving on one another's code. No implementation of these algorithms exists in isolation; none is fresh hewn from virgin intellectual territory. Improvements are incremental and have largely developed in an open and collegiate environment. Linux may, indeed, have learned some things from UNIX[tm [opengroup.org]]; but UNIX in its turn got the algorithms from MULTICS [multicians.org], TRIPOS [wikipedia.org], CPL [wikipedia.org] and others lost even further in the mists of time. You cannot simply stop this process at an arbitrary point and say 'now this is property'. It is not property, it's a commons, a commons tilled and tended by many hands, to bring it to the state it is today.

And so, Sir, lastly, I say you are a thief. You are a thief in that you seek to enclose commons, to deprive the community of the rightful fruits of its labours over many decades, to make property what is not, never was, and never could be property. To steal our work and sell it back to us.

Sincerely

Simon Brooke

Changing my mind on Copyright Assignment

[ChaoticCoyote]

When I first started working on an OpenMP extension to gcc [nongnu.org], I bristled at the FSF copyright assignment process.

I was wrong. I now see the value in FSF copyright assignments, which create a paper trail for documenting contributions to free software.

While the SCO attack dogs are extortionists, their greedy actions have shown weaknesses in the free-wheeling process of Linux development.

The "free" and "open" software communities can argue, until they are blue in the face, about the validity of copyrights, patents, trademarks, and other forms of owning ideas. Under existing law and practice, however, those concepts do exist, with the weight of law and tradition behind them -- and ignoring that reality is foolhardy.

Think of copyright assignment as akin to virus protection. I shouldn't have to protect myself against malicious software, but I am wise to do so. By the same principle, tracking contributions to the kernel is excellent protection from the desperate shakedown tactics of a company like SCO.

The article is almost not worth reading...

[dmayle]

It contains such juicy tidbits like:

In the long term, the financial stability of software vendors and the legality of their software products are more important to enterprise customers than free software.

I think the enterprises customers can speak for themselves on this matter, and they clearly have spoken...

In enterprise installations, it is customary for the customer to be charged an additional 15% of whatever they payed for the software each year for maintenance. (which ends up being about 13% of the total).

Let's take a theoretical enterprise customer who owns 12,428 computers (you'll see the reason for the oddball number in a moment). Now, if they just spent $700 per client on software, plus an additional 15% on maintenance, they've spent about 10 million in total. Now let's assume that the client software was free, but the maintenance stays the same, then the company has gone from spending 10 million, to ~1.3 million. Now let's suppose that someone at this company likes round numbers, so they take an additional .7 million and hire 10 people (at a nice $70k/position). The company has just saved 8 million dollars (!!!), and now has an additional team of 10 developers whose sole job is to make sure that the client software works best in their environments... The customer doesn't have to re-release this code, because they're not selling it, so no liability for them. And even if they decide to (which we hope they will), it's not part of their product line, so they're not directly helping their competitors...

Face it, McBride, enterprise customers are the ones for whom it makes the most sense to go to free software, and to not put all of their eggs in one basket (software company).

The reason the Darl McBride's of the world don't like Open Source is it takes large amounts of money that went to a single company, where it could be nicely controlled and funneled to the top of the hierarchy (CEOs and the like), and instead distributes it in smaller amounts, spread out, and only to the people who can get the work done.

The large corporations of the world are spending this money anyway, and Open Source is just a way for the doers (developers, admins, e.g. instead of deciders/managers) to take a share.

I know it sounds awfully corny, but in a society that's doing it's best to recreate nobility and privilege, open source is way of taking some power back for the people. The cathedral creates centralization of power and wealth, which lead to class hierarchies. The bazaar distributes power, which leads to an educated and informed participant, and higher standards of living for the majority.

The Economics of Open Source

[jimsum]

I think the CEOs of software companies are hoping the software business will become just like the music business, where the creators and consumers get shafted and all the profits go to the middleman.

Fortunately, I don't think the software industry will necessarily go that way. Software is valuable to its creator in and of itself; it doesn't need to be sold to create value (although it can be sold to create additional value). A CD is of less use to a musician; it must be sold before the creator gets much value from it. This difference will ensure that there will always be open source software.

There is another factor at play in this as well. A lot of companies that create proprietary software are outsourcing their development to India and other cheap countries. Pretty soon, the only development done in the U.S. will be open source. We should support American programmers, and use only open source software! In fact, if open source software were in wider use, there would be more demand for American programmers. With open source, there is plenty of generic code lying around and all that has to be done is customization for a particular business need. Outsourcing is really only good for the mechanical programming tasks, which are already done for you with open source development.

I got an open letter from Darl in my email today

[gripdamage]

SCO Grows Your Business
An Open Letter from Darl McBride

"Want a BIG Business? Experience the results you've always wanted with a MASSIVE scientific breakthrough: SCO Will Actually Expand, Lengthen And Enlarge Your Business. 100% GUARANTEED! Best of all... There Are NO Agonizing Hanging Weights, NO Tough Exercises, NO Painful And Hard-To-Use Pumps, And There Is NO Dangerous Surgery Involved. WE GUARANTEE GENUINE LASTING RESULTS! SCO WILL WORK FOR YOU 100%, OR YOU GET 100% OF YOUR MONEY BACK! If YOU want to massively enlarge your business and experience big gains in only weeks,this may be the most important email you'll ever read. Here's why:

SCO has helped 1000's of men cope with and conquer serious business dysfunction issues. These painful problems include small business size and poor self-image, as well as lack of potency and premature authentication. To help these men our dedicated team of researchers has developed an amazing formula called SCO. SCO has carefully tested this unique new product so that it is fully doctor-approved. And, it is 100% guaranteed to work. It has been described as a true 'miracle cure', and we are now offering SCO in easy pill form to men everywhere. The SCO research team invites you now to experience this miracle for yourself. Now You Can Forget Forever the Pain,
Effort and Expense of Having a Large, Manly Business! Imagine for a moment how you will feel:

You'll radiate confidence and success whenever you enter a meeting, and other men will look at you with real envy.

But the best part is when you reveal your business in all your glory to the woman in your life. When she sees how massive and manly, how truly long and hard your business is, she will surrender and give you everything you have always wanted. The feeling of power is sensational, and the transactions are unbelievable!

As you show her your business she'll gasp as you dominate her. And the intense satisfaction you give her will be the BEST transaction she has ever had. I promise you, she will not be able to keep her hands off you when you give her everything she needs from a business. YOU Are In Total Command!

SCO will make you long-lasting and rock hard. You will never worry or be concerned about losing your connectivity or reaching authentication too fast. With SCO these problems are completely eliminated.

How SCO Works, and Exactly How it Will MASSIVELY ENLARGE YOUR BUSINESS

On either side of your business, you have two spongy areas called the firewalls. Authentication happens when you become excited, and the natural flow of data fills these servers. SCO has been scientifically developed to expand these servers and make them much larger. As it does this the transactions can hold more data than ever before.

The result? A MUCH larger business in thickness and length, and a rock solid authentication.

And all you have to do to experience these massive results is take SCO pills. That's it.

There is - No exercise required No surgery required No pumping required No painful stretching required

With SCO, it all happens easily and gently in just a few weeks. How BIG Can You Get? Realistically, you can grow up to 3 FULL INCHES IN LENGTH. This growth is so remarkable that it has been described by many as a real 'miracle'.

If you are ready to experience this amazing miracle for yourself, [you can make it happen with SCO, GUARANTEED]. Do YOU Want To Be Better Than 'Average'? According to medical records, the average business length is 6 inches. This is not based on where you are from, your race or nationality. This is true all over the world.

So if 6 inches is all you want to be or for some reason you want to be even smaller than this, please don't read any further.

But IF you want to be a lot better than average - UP TO 3 FULL INCHES BETTER - we can help. Remember, SCO is completely safe and completely private. It

FUD at its finest here folks...

[gaijin99]

Finally, it is clear that the Open Source community needs a business model that is sustainable, if it is to grow beyond a part-time avocation into an enterprise-trusted development model. Free Open Source software primarily benefits large vendors, which sell hardware and expensive services that support Linux, but not Linux itself.

By providing Open Source software without a warranty, these largest vendors avoid significant costs while increasing their services revenue

Emphasis mine. Notice the deft way he manages to imply, without ever saying so openly, that propriatary software does have warranties. In fact if you look at any propriatary software package it contains a disclaimer of warranty, meaning that they are explicitly denying that any warranty exists.

By prefacing his "no warranty" line with a patronizing "Open Source must become more mature" statement he gets two for one. We, of course, recognize this to be yet another of the blatiantly false bits of tripe that McBride has come to be known for. Despite its misleading "Open letter to the Open Source Community" title we are not the target audience for this; the target audience is the managers who make the financial decisions, but don't actually know what is going on. His careful implication that propriatary software is warranted may be effective with them...

Finally, we have his implication, again never explicitly stated, that Open Source is nothing more than a bunch of neo-hippies. Since most managerial types are politically conservative, and old enough to remember and dislike hippies, this implication is intended to strike at the average manager's prejudices. If he can get "Open Source == Damn Hippies" into many people's heads he believes, possibly rightly, that this will create a more hostile environment towards Open Source (much like the current "Open Souce == Communist" line of BS).

On a related note, I'll also point out a bit of his tripe that is aimed at us. His repeated implications that the Open Source concept were fine as long as we were working with toy systems, but now that we want to be grown ups we must adapt to the prevailing (propriatary) business model. This is intended specifically to cause doubt and fear in the Open Source community. Those who haven't given the isssue much thought may agree with this. It is nonesense. The Open Source model is a competitor to the Propriatary model. It is not inferior, and it may be superior. When Henry Ford invented the assembly line he did not think to himself "Well, I guess the Assembly Line was OK as a toy system, but now that I want to be a big boy I'd better switch over to the way everyone else does it." So too, must we refuse to be tricked into believing that the Open Source development model is for children. It is not. It is new, it is different, and it must compete in order to prove its superiority.

Building up a head of steam

[panurge]

McBride is no fool. He is actually exploiting weaknesses in the US media, business structure and investment industries, in order to massage the SCO share price. I say "he" but I guess a significant part of the Canopy Group budget must be going on copywriters to think the stuff up, and lawyers to decide how close to the wind it can go.

The weaknesses are to do with "free speech" and the spreading of disinformation. In Europe regulation tends to be tighter, the constraints on expression of views by parties in litigation are much tighter, and the silencing of anyone making unsubstantiated allegations that adversely affect another business tends to be a fast track process. Hence the non-action in Germany.

McBride is also pushing carefully selected buttons by trying to show that (a) he has the force of a large legal firm behind him and (b) that his opponents are somehow liberal, pinko, anti-business, unpatriotic, you name it. He knows that his large opponents won't behave like that because they are too staid (IBM) or because they want to maintain an image of reliable business practice and stability (Red Hat, SuSE), while his small opponents won't get quoted in the business press. And knows that the story is too boring for 99% of the population, so investigative journalists on big papers won't be interested.

My suggestion? Make it worth someone's while. Someone with access to the necessary resources start a fund. Hire a decent PR company. There has got to be at least one that is perhaps not already working for large software companies and would like some real exposure. Place a one off full pager in the Wall Street Journal, or whatever the PR company recommends. No mention of Eric Raymond or other well known figures, just originating from an independent coming together of developers and systems implementers. See where it goes from there. Perhaps the ad could mention the number of contributors, ranked by size of company, at the bottom.

I would certainly put a few $ into such a scheme. Would anybody else?

The Industry's Dirty Little Secret

[Greyfox]

Anyone can be "one of us." It's so easy to become an open source developer that tens of thousands of people have. As with anywhere else, that represents a wide spectrum of people.

From what I can see, SCO did no work on UNIX. Leastwise the goddamn thing hadn't changed noticably from the first time I used it in the late '80's and the last time I used it in the late '90's. Ok, none is an exaggeration but they (And the other commercial UNIX vendors, I might add) did such an embarassing job with their "Professional Developers" and their millions of dollars in R&D funds that a bunch of amaateurs working on cast off hardware blew by them and advanced the technology to about where it should be in 5 short years.

And now those companies want to steal that work via a quirk in the legal process? It's not just SCO either. IBM's acting like Linux is their baby. Sun's acting like Mad Hatter was entirely their idea. I bet when it comes out it looks exactly like Gnome. Just like Ximan's "product." What? Evolution? X-Emacs VM's a better mail client. And let's not forget that Microsoft has also benefitted from the original open source process; I've seen a lot of BSD copyrights in things like their TCP/IP stack in days gone by, and they claimed (afterwards) to have "invented" the Internet. Them and Al Gore...

And it seems to me that if any problems are arising in our process, it's from that "professional" sector. Developers from IBM and SGI stripping copyright notices and inserting the code in the code base? What, exactly, the fuck is up with that? And the UNIX family tree is already twistier than the ones you find in Podunk, Alabama. There's been so much inbreeding now that any judge trying to sort out the copyright issues is likely to have a stroke from the complexity of it all.

So that's the Industry's dirty little secret. All that shiny technology that they like to show everyone... was either directly stolen from or was built on top the work of a bunch of "amateurs" who were largely working on home made computers they built in their garages. All those millions in R&D funds, all those "professional" programmers with their "degrees" and their "certifications"... can do great things... once the amateurs have done their work for them.

I guarantee you that if SCO wins their case and the judge grants them rights to all the code developed to date by the open source community, that code would not change noticably ever again. It'd still be Gnome, 2 decades from now, while Microsoft is busy working on their spiffy neuro-synaptic user interfaces that they stole from the MIT Wearable Computers lab.

Yeah, maybe "stole" was too strong a word too, but they take the work and say "look over there!" (more or less) while the copyright notices show. It's not like they draw attention to them, or thank the original authors. A lot of people in the community do it for the recognition, and a lot of companies try to minimize the amount of recognition they award because that would expose the Industry's dirty little secret.

That's how it seems to me.

A reply to the madness

[PierceLabs]

After reading through much of what is out there I have some interesting comments to make. In some respects, SCO boy is correct. The Linux community should do some due diligence to ensure that code committed to the kernel is IP free to avoid these issues in the future.

The mountains of code which SCO speaks of as being theres however are somewhat ambiguous so outside of anything that SCO can prove as being genuinely 'SCO IP', they should be countersued by both Linux vendors and users as is appropriate and allowable under the law. I do not doubt that SCO has some evidence which supports their case - and no Linux supporter should blanketly dismiss what they have said because they haven't seen any evidence. Whether or not that evidence is as compelling as the SCO Group thinks - well that's up to the judges and justices of the judicial system.

Unfortunately Mr. SCO, some of the other things you've said are slanderous and border on libel. Unless you can prove that the person who performed a DDoS on you was an Open Source supporter that was a representative of the Open Source community - then I suggest you offer an apology to the Linux community for accusing them of something you cannot prove. In addition, even if it was someone who supports open source - your gripe is with them, not the remaining hundreds of thousands who took no action against you. You cannot argue from the specific to the general - to even suggest that is a high level of ignorance on your part.

Finally it is insulting the way you want people to respect a contract with SCO yet you want to shrug off the GPL license which you used to distribute Caldera for many years. As an owner of several copies of Caldera Linux I have clearly seen that you have distributed software under this license. If your legal counsel was stupid enough to let you attach a contractual agreement to software which you sold and distributed with your express consent - then you need to find a new legal group as you have been misled. You agreed to the terms of the GPL by attaching your software into a codebase which you clearly knew was GPL, which you sold knowing it was GPL, and which removed a great many of the rights (though not all) that you had to the IP you associated with UNIX, Linux, whatever. This is just like chess, this is a move that you cannot take back and you will have to live with it.

While I certainly understand that you want to protect your IP, the Linux community and Open Source communities have a right to protect theirs. Anything you've comitted to theirs is now open and that is the nature of the contractual agreement you accepted when you started putting Linux on the shelf. Now you have several choices - to work with the Linux community to get this resolved or take this to court at which time you may find yourself sued through your own admission of contract violation with respect to the GPL and shipping copies of Caldera.

All you have done is awaken a powerful enemy - and fill it with terrible resolve. If Microsoft fears the Linux community and Open Source and its several thousand times your size - perhaps you should reevaluate who your friends and enemies are as without a doubt even if Linux has to be totally engineered to not use anything resembling any of your IP - no self respecting user, administrator, or evaluator will consider using anything associated with your brand as you have threatened them in the past and acted in bad faith. Your brand is now dead - and 'geeks' are reknown for having long memories and vendettas.

billy

[golgotha007]

funny, Darl's letter sort of reminds me of this letter from Bill Gates:

AN OPEN LETTER TO HOBBYISTS

By William Henry Gates III

February 3, 1976

An Open Letter to Hobbyists

To me, the most critical thing in the hobby market right now is the lack of good software courses, books and software itself. Without good software and an owner who understands
programming, a hobby computer is wasted. Will quality software be written for the hobby market?

Almost a year ago, Paul Allen and myself, expecting the hobby market to expand, hired Monte Davidoff and developed Altair BASIC. Though the initial work took only two
months, the three of us have spent most of the last year documenting, improving and adding features to BASIC. Now we have 4K, 8K, EXTENDED, ROM and DISK BASIC.
The value of the computer time we have used exceeds $40,000.

The feedback we have gotten from the hundreds of people who say they are using BASIC has all been positive. Two surprising things are apparent, however, 1) Most of these
"users" never bought BASIC (less than 10% of all Altair owners have bought BASIC), and 2) The amount of royalties we have received from sales to hobbyists makes the time
spent on Altair BASIC worth less than $2 an hour.

Why is this? As the majority of hobbyists must be aware, most of you steal your software. Hardware must be paid for, but software is something to share. Who cares if the people
who worked on it get paid?

Is this fair? One thing you don't do by stealing software is get back at MITS for some problem you may have had. MITS doesn't make money selling software. The royalty paid to
us, the manual, the tape and the overhead make it a break-even operation. One thing you do do is prevent good software from being written. Who can afford to do professional
work for nothing? What hobbyist can put 3-man years into programming, finding all bugs, documenting his product and distribute for free? The fact is, no one besides us has
invested a lot of money in hobby software. We have written 6800 BASIC, and are writing 8080 APL and 6800 APL, but there is very little incentive to make this software
available to hobbyists. Most directly, the thing you do is theft.

What about the guys who re-sell Altair BASIC, aren't they making money on hobby software? Yes, but those who have been reported to us may lose in the end. They are the
ones who give hobbyists a bad name, and should be kicked out of any club meeting they show up at.

I would appreciate letters from any one who wants to pay up, or has a suggestion or comment. Just write to me at 1180 Alvarado SE, #114, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 87108.
Nothing would please me more than being able to hire ten programmers and deluge the hobby market with good software. Bill Gates General Partner, Micro-Soft

An Open Response to Darl McBride's Open Letter

[MuParadigm]

I posted this in the previous SCO thread, but am reposting it here where it is more appropriate. Most of the typo's have been cleaned up too. You can also see the full text in my journal [slashdot.org].

An Open Response to Darl McBride's Open Letter to the Open Source Community
(First Draft)

Dear Mr. McBride,

First, let me introduce myself. My name is John Gabriel. I have been working in the technical field for 15 years, as a Network Administrator, Applications Manager, Network Manager, Sr. Networking Engineer, and now, Freelance Consultant. And, yes, I'm an MCSE.

My first experiences with Unix occurred in the late 1970's, during school field trips to local colleges. I also did Unix technical support for students while taking a class in Pascal in the late 1980's. My first experience with Linux dates to 1994, when I downloaded whatever Linux kernel was available at that time.

While I did install it successfully, on a Compaq Deskpro 386/25, I quickly abandoned it as the system didn't have enough memory to support X Windows. Several years later, in 1998, I became a Caldera customer, with a purchase of Caldera OpenLinux Base ver. 1.22, with Linux kernel 2.0.33. I ran into similar problems again.

About a year ago, I became interested again Linux, and now run Linux on my home workstation in a dual-boot configuration with Windows XP.

About 4-5 months ago, I began following the SCO v. IBM story. I was at first inclined to be open-minded towards SCO's claims. It wouldn't be the first time a small company has had its copyrights violated by a larger vendor, though the violator is usually, in my experience, Microsoft, as exemplified by Caldera's history with DR-DOS.

However, the more I researched the story and SCO's claims, the more convinced I became that SCO's claims were, well, baseless. Being the type that usually likes to "root for the underdog", I was surprised by my conclusions.

Anyway, that's enough introduction. What follows is an Open Response to your Open Letter to the Open Source Community. I grant everyone, including you, permission to re-publish it, or quote from it, without restriction, except that my comments be properly attributed to myself. Consider it under a "BSD-style" license if you like.

1) The most controversial issue in the information technology industry today is the ongoing battle over software copyrights and intellectual property. This battle is being fought largely between vendors who create and sell proprietary software, and the Open Source community. My company, the SCO Group, became a focus of this controversy when we filed a lawsuit against IBM alleging that SCO's proprietary Unix code has been illegally copied into the free Linux operating system. In doing this we angered some in the Open Source community by pointing out obvious intellectual property problems that exist in the current Linux software development model.

Mr. McBride,

Response to Paragraph 1 of your "Open Letter":

This is very difficult to respond to, because your analysis of the issues and of the reasons for the Open Source community's anger is, in the words of the great physicist Wolfgang Pauli, "so bad it's not even wrong."

For instance, your own lawsuit against IBM does not allege that "SCO's proprietary Unix code has been illegally copied into Linux" -- it alleges that code *owned* by IBM but under contractual "control" rights to SCO has been copied into Linux. Surely, you don't dispute that IBM owns the relevant copyrights and patents to NUMA, JFS, and RCU?

Or do you dispute Section 2 of Exhibit C on your web site, the ATT-IBM sideletter agreement, which states in part, "we (ATT) agree that modifications and derivative works prepared by or for you (IBM) are owned by you"?

The truth is there are many reasons the Open source community is angered with you and the actions of The SCO Group and The Canopy Group, none of which have to do with "intellectual

Re:An Open Response to Darl McBride's Open Letter

[Trigun]

Strip the intro, put it up on the web where we can just dump our e-mail address in and fire it off to SCO.

As soon as I find a good e-mail address, my copy goes.

Thanks!

Re:An Open Response to Darl McBride's Open Letter

[Eunuchswear]

"Nothing can change the fact that a Linux developer on the payroll of Silicon Graphics stripped copyright attributions from copyrighted System V code..."

Nothing, except, inconveniently, that it is not a fact. The fact is that SGI did extensive due diligence before contributing any code to Linux, and the code in question long precedes the development of Unix System V.

If SGI did extensive due diligence then why did they strip the original copyright notice from this code?

Quotes from Perens [perens.com]:

The oldest version of this code we've found so far is in Donald Knuth's The Art of Computer Programming, published in 1968.

So the code can't have been legaly copied from there (it's copyright).

The implementation shown in the slides was written by Dennis M. Ritchie or Ken Thompson at AT&T, in 1973. You can see the 1973 version of the function in this file, originally called dmr/malloc.c. The code is from Unix version 3, the oldest known version of Unix that still exists in machine-readable form. The complete source for that system can be found here on the net. In 2002, Caldera released this code as Open Source,

under this license. [tribug.org]

But the license pointed to says:

Redistributions of source code and documentation must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.

So the code can't have been legaly copied from there as the copyright notice has been removed.

And finaly Perens argues:

AT&T was actually found to have

lost its copyright to the code in question during the lawsuit, because the code was published without a proper copyright notice.

Consequently, I find that Plaintiff has failed to demonstrate a likelihood that it can successfully defend its copyright in [Unix version] 32V.

The result is that between the judge's finding and 1996, when there were additional changes to the Berne copyright convention that would have made the AT&T code copyrightable, the code was essentially in the public domain.

But, so what? That's talking about Unix 32V, and Perens goes on to say:

the version that was included in Linux seems to be from System V.

Which has never been released under any kind of open source license or been put in the public domain.

So, yes, SGI could have copied the 32V code, but they didn't.

Or they could have copied the Unix Version 3 code, if they'd included the copyright and license notices, but they didn't.

But they had no right to copy the System V code at all.

Perens is right:

In this case, there was an error in the Linux developer's process (at SGI),

but this is just wrong:

It turns out that we have a legal right to use the code in question

as even Perens admits the code was copied from SysV.

Re:An Open Response to Darl McBride's Open Letter

[miraclemax]

Perens also says of the same code that it was released under open source license by caldera and that's why linux had the right to have it.

These slides have several C syntax errors and would never compile. So, they don't quite represent any source code in Linux. But we've found the code they refer to. It is included in code copyrighed by AT&T and released as Open Source under the BSD license by Caldera, the company that now calls itself SCO. The Linux developers have a legal right to make use of the code under that license. No violation of SCO's copyright or trade secrets is taking place.

This is why partial quotes are dangerous. You get to see one line but not the part that came before it, so that makes it look completely different. Please everyone, before you post your opinion on one of these quotes, read the Original Post [slashdot.org] referred to, or better yet the original article [yahoo.com]. If you're going to include a quote, make sure it includes the entirity of the idea or else people will get confused.

Knuth

[jefu]

Quotes from Perens [perens.com]:
The oldest version of this code we've found so far is in Donald Knuth's The Art of Computer Programming, published in 1968.
So the code can't have been legaly copied from there (it's copyright).

In this case Knuth has the deciding vote on how legal the use is. Has anyone asked him?

Even more, the code from "TAOCP" is likely written in pseudocode or MIX and while the pseudocode is likely to be protected by copyright, I'm not sure if a translation of it into C would be - as the algorithm may be the same, but the expression of it very, very different. Enough so that I suspect a patent might cover it, but copyright would not.

Re:An Open Response to Darl McBride's Open Letter

[Ripplet]

Mr. McBride, the only way to defend this in court is to tell the judge that you are a complete fucking idiot

This is in the business plan, right before "No.2363 - Profit!"

Re:Typo-IMPORTANT

[MuParadigm]

No, "unreasonable" is the correct word, however you're right in that the meaning of the sentence would be clearer if the phrase "unreasonable licensing obligations" were changed to "unreasonable proprietary licensing obligations".

Feel free to make this change if you forward/post it anywhere else.

Re:An Open Response to Darl McBride's Open Letter

[MuParadigm]

Depends on the publication. The Village Voice, for one example, has never had any qualms about printing letters to the editor with the word "fuck" in it. As for business correspondence, yes, you're right. But this isn't business correspondence, it's a *heartfelt* response to Mr. McBride's open letter. The words "complete" and "fucking" as adjectivial modifications to the noun "idiot" were the strongest way to drive the point home.

And it was *heartfelt*.

a paraphrased interpretation of his letter

[CrudPuppy]

----
a paragraph-by-paragraph interpretation
of what he really meant to say
----

blah blah blah opening fluff

what we're doing is beneficial for us and for our secret
backer in Redmond because we want to spread as much fear about Linux
as possible before 90% of the people realize it is a superior product
to Windows for a cheaper price

whine whine whine, our website got DoS'd

keep attacking us and your company will fire you when they
find out that you're a Linux advocate because they will
just associate you with other open source "outlaws"

now I'm going to talk about how we paid people to put
System V code into Linux. normally these people would
be fired and sued, but we would rather go after Linux.

now I want to talk about why the Linux model can never
succeed because nobody can possibly ever be sure that
people with access to System V source won't sneakily
inject more into Linux. The Catch-22 here is that the
people auditing Linux code most likely don't have access
to AIX, IRIX, Solaris, etc source code. "Hey Bill, isn't
this great!! we're gonna make a fortune on this lawsuit!"

Now I'm going to spend 10 paragraphs explaining copyright
laws, but I will conveniently omit the reasons why we are
persuing the *product* of a crime rather than the people
that perpetrated the crime itself. Remember how I mentioned
the SGI programmer and how we know plenty more like him?
Well we're letting him off the hook because his criminal
acts have been the best thing that ever happened to SCO
and SCO's Redmond backer.

Finally I would like to end by justifying SCO's behavior
on the whole. Why should we go around suing the living daylights
out of everyone and spreading FUD about a platform
that was the result of countless volunteer hours and
philantropic contributions? Because we can! Isn't this great?
We live in a world where this behavior is not only allowed,
but also encouraged!! Now just wait until Bill^H^H^H we
pay off a few judges and lawmakers and have Linux officially
owned by SCO so at long last Windows^H^H^H we can prevail!

Sincerely,
Jerkoff McBride

Re:Well... as lousy as their approach is...

[fatbofh]

OSS leaves just as much to "chance" as a closed source model.

How does a closed-source shop know that one of their developers hasn't cut'n'pasted something from glib? Same was as OSS: ask the developer, and assume that they're not out to screw you.

Finally, your solution would be expensive - who would pay for it?

Re:Well... as lousy as their approach is...

[MeNeXT]

Please explain which IP rights are being infringed upon. I have been following this now since the begining and I cannot refference any document in which SCO identifies the infringing code...It's like saying that authors should not allow people to read their books unless they sign a EULA to protect their IP 'cause someone may steal it...

If SCO had a case they would identify the IP infringements and collect their royalties and be done with it. There is no infringment therefore SCO cannot produce the code, so

Re:Well... as lousy as their approach is...

[Aardpig]

...or maybe they should just release in countries like Europe until we fix some of the absurdities in our patent system?

Yeah, Europe, that well-known country...

Sheesh!

Re:All that sticky icky icky...

[BJZQ8]

I can take things out of context too! "The most controversial issue" with having sex with cows "in the information technology industry today is the ongoing battle over software copyrights and intellectual property." ALSO "This battle is being fought largely between" various warring factions in my rectum, and "vendors who create and sell proprietary software, and the Open Source community." AND "My company, the SCO Group, became a focus of this controversy when we filed a lawsuit against IBM alleging that" we would really like to have repeated sex with cows, and "SCO's proprietary Unix code has been illegally copied into the free Linux operating system."

Re:same old

[Vengie]

No one is going to claim responsibility for X. Not even sco.

.....

Remove/re-write? hmm....
*rimshot*

Re:GNU Hurd

[dipipanone]

Yes, I know you're trolling

Ah, yet another conversation between Mr. Pot and Mrs. Kettle regarding relative colour intensity.

Re:True: a weakness in the Open Source method

[Hamfist]

Not completely weak. The contributions are maintained by contributor. If a section of code is incorrectly contributed and the real copyright holder complains, the code is removed. That is part of the design of the GPL. That is how copyright works. The infringer is the contributor, not the end product or the end user; this being true even if the infringing code is NOT removed.

It is a weakness in the US legal system that a**holes like SCO can just say "Our code is in there", not show it, and cause all t