SCO Lobbying Congress Against Open Code

An anonymous reader writes "Along with suing Novell - it was announced today that SCO has been lobbying Congress about the horrifying ways that Linux and the rest of open source software saves users money, allows others to use the software anyway they see fit and 'gasp' causes SCO to not make as much money as they would like. Along with all of the usual FUD. OSAIA has the details (as well as a rebuke)." Darl's words will seem pretty transparent, even funny, to anyone aware of the widespread acceptance and use of Free / Open Source software (by individuals, governments, non-profits, and even companies like SCO) -- but you might have to point this out to your servants in Congress.

But ofcourse

[snofla]

SCO doesn't mind using Samba [linuxtoday.com].

Re:But ofcourse

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

The funny thing is, being formerly Caldera, one of the pioneers of truly commercial Linux, they benefitted hugely from other people's work. In fact, they owe their very existence to Linus & gang since 1994, as I somehow doubt they can claim all their revenues since the company was created come from their few non-free bits, such as NetWare for Linux or Wabi.

Darl caught lying in Salt Lake

[gnutechguy]

Here is an interesting article that is in the Salt Lake Weekly:

http://www.slweekly.com/editorial/2004/feat_2004 -0 1-22.cfm

In this article, which is really above average, Darl McBride is quoted making the following interesting statement:

"McBride says SCO revealed the offending code last August at its Las Vegas SCOForum. "Truly, and then they just ignored it," he said."

Now, I must point out Bruce Perens put his analysis of the Las Vegas SCOforum with hours of it ending last August 18th.

Link to Perens analysis:

http://www.perens.org/SCO/SCOSlideShow.html

Also, Darl misquoted Perens' website so Darl knows it exists. Therefore, for Darl McBride to say that the Las Vegas SCOforum's showing of code "was ignored" is to make a lie that can be documented quite easily.

Darl McBride: documented liar

Not just Samba...

[The Fink]

Don't they use Apache (on Linux, no less) [netcraft.com] as well? Uh, can you say "Hypocrite," Darl? I knew you could.

... Sure, Apache != GPL, but still... it's Free Software in both forms.

Oh, I get it now! "We don't like free software, except on our terms - i.e. when we're using it exclusively, it's O.K., but otherwise, get rid of it already!"

Geez. They must really, really want to be disliked...

Re:Fight this with private property arguments

[Little Brother]

Sorry, you're mistaken. Under US law, creators of art and technology do not own their work. They are granted, through authority of the US government a temporary monopoly on the work they produced as an incentive to continue making similiar works. Nowhere in US law is are copyright or patent rights refered to as property. IANAL, but I do know what I'm talking about, or at least so far as the inception of copyright/patent laws go. If I'm wrong, its a recent change in the law and might not even pass constitutional muster.

So I'm sorry, you can't use property rights to fight this, you CAN however use copyright law and patent law.

The day we all accept that IP is, indeed "Property" is the day we have lost to the corperations.

Is Darl McBride insane?

[Cyclometh]

This is a serious question. That document, if it represents the way McBride really thinks, should be considered prima facie evidence that McBride is completely insane. Loopy. Out to fucking lunch. He's one Beagle short of a lander. Asserting the GPL violates the Constitution? I'm no fan of the GPL myself, but holy shit, I wonder what the hell McBride is smoking.

If you're going to write your CongressCritter

[Flower]

Some ideas to include:

1. Our latest encryption standard (AES) was not created in the US.
   
2. SCO is embroiled in multiple litigations and have yet to prove any misappropriations of copyrights that they might not even own.
   
3. Linux and OSS might be free for distribution but multi-billion dollar industries have developed for the deployment and support of these solutions.
   
4. The Copyright Code explictly allows for the trading of copyrighted works as an incentive. The GPL is essentially a license utilizing this incentive.
   
5. Owners of copyright can and do license their code under multiple licenses. GhostScript anyone?
   
6. For a small initial investment of money and greater investment of personal time OSS allows a self-motivated individual the opprotunity to improve their job prospects and station in life without resorting to software piracy - an excellent example of the proverbial American Dream.
   

This is obviously just the tip of the iceburg. Anyone have more?

Re:But ofcourse

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

No, don't think so. After all, Linux isn't the first target Caldera had. They went for Microsoft before now, remember? That whole Dr-Dos case that was settled out of court?

Being close to the DRDOS case, I happen to know it. In fact, Caldera created a spinoff around 1997 that was called Caldera Digital Research, that was later renamed Caldera Thin Clients, then Lineo, then Lineo was swallowed by Metrowerks. The folks who profited from the DRDOS case were the lawyers (of course), a bit Lineo and a lot Canopy. Caldera Systems (the Linux folks) didn't profit from that, or perhaps some execs did but not Caldera as a company, unless I'm mistaken.

At any rate, the settlement was estimated around $155M, which is hardly enough to keep such a company afloat for long, especially now. But would you remember it, OpenLinux was once a popular distro, one that was quite ahead of its time. It sold well at some point.

Re:Lobbying Impact

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

"... for the people by the people" is the rest of the sig, I think.

Re:Fight this with private property arguments

[RevMike]

Sorry, you're mistaken. Under US law, creators of art and technology do not own their work. They are granted, through authority of the US government a temporary monopoly on the work they produced as an incentive to continue making similiar works. Nowhere in US law is are copyright or patent rights refered to as property. IANAL, but I do know what I'm talking about, or at least so far as the inception of copyright/patent laws go. If I'm wrong, its a recent change in the law and might not even pass constitutional muster.

So I'm sorry, you can't use property rights to fight this, you CAN however use copyright law and patent law.

The day we all accept that IP is, indeed "Property" is the day we have lost to the corperations.

Jesus H. Christ! Do we have to get into this pendantry every time the word copyright is mentioned on Slashdot?

Yes, you're right. I am mistaken. Authors don't own their work. They do have an time limited exclusive right to their work. That copyright can be bought, sold, leased, traded, given away, mortgaged, or held. In other words, they have a property interest. They don't own the work, but they do own the time limited exclusive right to the work. That copyright is in fact and in law property.

The Supreme Court of the United States has seen fit to describe a copyright as being property. Note carefully that the copyright is property separate and distinct from the work. One interesting case to look at would be Dowling vs. United States.

Re:Lobbying Impact

[mclove]

The response to this is very simple: Linux is a largely international effort, without US help Linux would still continue on its merry way, and if we want to stay competitive in the global IT market the only option is for our software firms to embrace this movement that we can't stop anyway.

Or failing that, just point them to IBM and the enormous success they've enjoyed with Linux in spite of the fact that it's free. Microsoft and a couple of patent-mongering UNIX firms may be losing money from this, but everybody else is gaining from it.

Write your congressmen

[Rick17JJ]

Apparently SCO sent letters to our congressmen, now we should also do the same. Our side of the story shoud be heard too! On the Electronic Frontier Foundation web page they have an anti-SCO form letter that can be used. It does not specifically refer to the SCO lobbying. But, it does talk about the SCO litigation and their plan to sue Linux users even before the validity of their claims has been established.

The form letter is automatically sent to the the appropriate senator and representatives who represent you in your district. You do not need to bother looking up their e-mail addresses. You can add your own comments before the letter is sent. Here is the link to the anti-SCO form letter:

http://action.eff.org/action/index.asp?step=2&it em =2775

Let congress now we care about our legal rights as Linux users.

Re:In other words?

[divec]

Does anyone remember a leaked internal Microsoft memo about using 'insider' to fight against Linux. [...] Can anyone find that story I mentioned earler ?

You don't mean The Halloween Documents [opensource.org], do you?

Re:Lobbying Congress

[Talonius]

Too true. If a simple letter littered with blatant lies and outrageous claims can be accepted by Congress at face value without any fact checking done then we are in serious trouble.

The most ironic thing is that IBM makes a great deal more money off their hardware and consulting (read: services) division than their Linux division. To quote from their recent SEC filing they "had more than $17 billion in services signing."

Hard numbers from their 4th Quarter: Global Services division produced $11.4 billion (including maintenance). Hardware was at $9.1 billion. Revenues from software were $4.3 billion.

Software is nothing in the grand scheme of technology. Implementing that software through knowledge of hardware and software and the business environment it is being deployed in is everything.

Continuing on that trend and to reiterate a point made in many prior posts: this is a global economy. Software production is being outsourced from the United States regularly; I wouldn't be surprised to hear the same in Germany, France, and the United Kingdom to some extent. Many of us fear for our jobs, ultimately, but customization of open source software is still required in many cases. As well simply having a brain on our shoulders can help us accurately deploy a system - even if the software is designed by someone else.

The end point is again, simple. Software is nothing in the great world of business technology. It used to be a primary revenue creator but that stopped when technology became prominent in all walks of life, and more people became familiar with all of its aspects.

--Brian

Our "Servants" in Congress (and the Senate)

[edward.virtually@pob]

Before anyone wastes their time pointing things out to our "servants" in congress, be sure to read this article [sfgate.com] first. They don't care about your opinon. And note that SCO is now doing the lobbying dirty work for Microsoft. Such a surprise. Not. I'll say it one more time: better burn cd-roms of your favorite Open Source products, because the end of their legality in the US is coming soon and there's nothing you can do to stop it. The resources of IBM, Red Hat, and the OSDL are nothing compared to Microsoft's >$9 billion cash reserves, and they will continue to manage to slip it to SCO and our government "servants" as needed.

Re:Do some research, Darl.

[Anonymous Coward]

You assume the mistakes were accidental ;) Not a safe assumption.

Open Source != GPL

[BitterOak]

Like so many anti-open source people, Mr. McBride is confusing Open Source Software and the GPL. The fact is, there are many open source products released under much less restrictive licenses, such as the BSD license. Also, the "Open Source Community" (whatever that is) does not equal The Free Software Foundation. The FSF has stated as one of its goals the elimination of the commercial software model. There are many programmers who contribute to open source products that do not believe in the goals of the FSF and do believe that commercial and open source software can peacefully coexist.

Constitutionally-protected act

[Anonymous Coward]

The First Amendment [house.gov] to the US Constitution states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Note the phrase "petition the Government..."

Yes, SCO is still full of shit, but they have the right to advertise to Congress that they're full of shit.

Re:Last paragraph on Point #1

[scrote-ma-hote]

Maybe [sco.com]

(Hint: read the top job)

Re:So... VERY OT thread...

[u-235-sentinel]

I don't know about the officers of Novell however if there is a legitimate complaint then it goes to the High Council for the local stake in which the person lives (generally). It's called a "Bishops Court" in which his Bishop presides. It's very much like our legal process (minus the liers .... errrr lawyers I mean). Evidence is presented (should be easy in this case to come up with some) and testimony is taken.

Once all this is completed, the High Council deliberates and renders a decision. Disfellowship, excommunication or some other punishment.

I was involved with helping a bishop years ago as ward clerk and had some involvement in this once. The process is VERY private. The person IMO needs help and this is the beginning of that process. Once this goes to court and when SCO loses, Daryl could end up with a lot more trouble than he bargened for.

Again, this is a private process not designed to freak anyone out. It's designed to put someone on the path of healing.

Re:Lying is only illegal if partisan lines are cro

[LordKazan]

If you are a Democrat and you lie to a Republican congress, you are breaking the law (c.f. "I did not have sex with that woman").

You are yet another one of millions of people who just don't get it. IN COURT they defined 'sexual relations' as COITUS, Bill Clinton DID NOT HAVE COITUS with that women, so he had to say "I did not have sexual relations with that woman" when in court - otherwise he would have actually been commiting perjury.

Right now i'm twenty.. this issue happened in what.. 1997? I would have been what was it... 13 and I understood this at that time.

What postponement?

[Animats]

The official court status listing [uscourts.gov] doesn't show any change. The calendar for that judge [uscourts.gov] is up for Thursday, but Friday's calendar isn't online yet. It looks like the court only posts the calendar a day ahead. So we'll know tomorrow, around the end of the day.

Re:I already asked

[platipusrc]

It seems that anyone that has their code in the Linux kernel version 2.4.13 has been personally harmed by SCO since they are (were? dunno) illegally distributing it because they have recused their ability to distribute that code under the GPL. There is probably a member of the Church of JC of LDS that fits in with that group somewhere.

Who cares? Organisations do not...

[winchester]

When I was consulting for a large international defence organisation, I got a lot of questions on open source software, open source software security, open source legal aspects, but no questions about the current SCO misery. Apparently people (in that specific organisation) just don't care.

Re:So... VERY OT thread...

[Anonymous Coward]

Most religions weren't actually started by conmen. Madmen maybe, but at least they honestly believed they had a hotline to the supreme being. Mormonism and Scientology were started by conmen who saw religion as a way to make money and control vulnerable people, which is why so many people hate them.