More Damning SCO Evidence At Groklaw 404
An anonymous reader writes "There's a very interesting story up at Groklaw right now. PJ reports on new evidence that Chris Hellwig, a SCO employee, contributed code to SMP, XFS, and JFS and did so with the knowledge of his supervisor." Groklaw is thorough, and this is another good example of just quite how thorough.
what!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
After all this, I can't believe that this has come out, it doesn't surprise me in this day and age of sleazy business tactics, but this is really low. They should be ashamed of themselves.
I hope the FBI, DoJ and Stock Exachange Commission get involved now as it looks like pumpndump, Fraud, extortion, and slander to me.
Re:Conspiricy theory (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think I'm the only person thinking this: what if SCO planted their code in Linux? Maybe they were planning this all along.
Occam's Razor for conspiracy theorists suggests that one should never ascribe to conspiracy what can be ascribed to incompetence. SCO/Caldera submtted a bunch of code to the Linux kernel. Much later, Darl and company come along, see code in the Linux kernel that matches code they have copyright, and without a clue about what they are doing, thing that they've found a goldmine.
Assuredly SCO has given ample evidece of being blindingly incompetent in the past, such that sheer incompetence is hands-down the most plausible explanation here.
-Rob
Re:Old news (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Internet archive (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Old news (Score:5, Insightful)
Any judge who believes a company that suddenly claims ignorance after years of marketing Linux under the GPL, unlimited access to Linux source-code, and now proof of Linux code submissions, should have his financials investigated just to be sure his rulings don't return a profit.
= 9J =
Re:Fingertips to fingertips, I begin the movement (Score:1, Insightful)
So he's going to take a little heat from the press, then retire to Bora Bora with his ill-gotten millions?
Re:i really can't wait until all of this is over . (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't really think they had much of a chance to begin with, but because of economic downturns they decided they wouldn't be going down without a fight, or at least a gasping, death-throw-like struggle... like waving your arms and legs when you're falling off a cliff. It won't help you at all, but hey- why not? Unfortunatley, they decided to fight the bad fight.
Despite all this, I agree with your position of our survival wholeheartedly. Because of the diversity of contributors, Open Source is like sand- they can try to scoop it up all they want, but it'll just slip through their fingers.
Re:i really can't wait until all of this is over . (Score:5, Insightful)
Overall Picture (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, there is lot of evidence against SCO and they will lose their case. But the fact is, even they know it. This whole SCO suit is all about keeping Linux from rapid adoption using FUD and legal tactics. With this strategy, Microsoft and allies have found a way to keep Linux away from the mainstream adopters. What's to stop Micosoft from using another puppet after SCO has lost it's case ? They've got enough money to throw around and huge incentive to do it.
SCO losing the case won't change anything. It's quite easy to bring up another entirely different legal issue concerning Linux and use FUD and media to publicize it. It takes at least 2 years to resolve such a case and Linux adoption will be affected for that period. Whoever said Microsoft has no answer to the Linux movement is merely ignorant, IMHO. Microsoft has laid out the tactics and played the first move. They are taking advantage of the weaknesses in the judicial system to keep legal issues concerning Linux afloat for a long time. What shoud the community do against these dirty tricks ?
Redhat's fund towards fighting future legal challenges is a step in the right direction. What we need is some way to certify Linux as free from copyright infringements and patent issues. A consortium (a division of OSDL, may be) can be formed to exclusively monitor the legal aspects of Linux Development process. A request for copyrights of all the code gone into the Linux kernel can pre-empt further copyright infringement lawsuits. I am not sure about the practicality of these steps, but we need to develop a sense of trust in the minds of mainstream adopters about the linux development process and other legal issues. Feel free to toss in your ideas.
Supervisor = permission? (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless you get specific permission from the actual 'company', the actions of any individual can still be considered improper. ( excluding the board, or CEO
Re:Leave SCO alone you communists. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll bite
You are forgetting the fact that these patents were not enforced until SCO picked the fight. Also SCO never asked for clarification, they just filed suit. IBM probly has some hideous patents hidden in its massive fortress of leagal solitude. I feel no remose for the kid punces the 800lb gorilla in the face, and then claims to be the victm when he gets his ass kicked.
As for Communisim, since when is doing your own thing communism, I like, enjoy and profit from open source software. In a way it is the Nash Equilibrium, in which we do not only what is best for us, but also what is best for the group. Now this is decidedly not communistic, its enlightened self intrest. After all its free as in freedom, do you horde your speech?
I am done, so why don't you take your troll energy and post some goatse links.
Re:We still have problems people.....NO. (Score:5, Insightful)
Once the Groklaw site is no longer slashdotted go there and look at the discussion about Mr. Hellwig
He was not a peon and his boss was in charge of a couple of programs that SCO publicly supported. Like LSB.
That being said all the code writes to some extend are peons, but that does not mean SCO managements are not responsible
Lastly they will have an impossible task claiming that their peons are different from IBM's peons.
If SCO is not responsible neither is IBM. If works both ways.
Re:Old news (Score:1, Insightful)
The problems are, though:
- Judges are appointed. For example, the entire panel of judges that appointed Baby Bush the President of the USA when he lost the election were themselves appointed by Big Bush a few years earlier. How will the current system produce judges that are acting in our interests?
- Anyone that decides to investigate the financial relationships between those profiting and
Re:Internet archive (Score:5, Insightful)
> That of course was a different company. The name is the same, but it is otherwise not the same corporate entity.
Yeah, one of the more curious side effects of our IP and corporate laws is that you can buy dead or dying companies and then sue someone as if the damage had been done to you. You can essentially buy the damage; I'm surprised damage isn't being traded in the futures markets.[*]
And it's too bad I can't go down to the retirement home, buy up a bunch of people dying from lung cancer, and then sue the tobacco companies. I need some cash for a new 64-bit computer.
[*] Of course, IMO it's equally odd that you can buy or sell liabilities just as you can damages. When you step back and look at things as they are, it sometimes seems that we live in Bizarro World.
Re: quotes from Chris.. (Score:3, Insightful)
> I wonder why Chris Hellwig himself does not reply.
If he's smart he has a lawyer advising him about that kind of thing right now.
Re:We still have problems people.... (Score:2, Insightful)
And even if your peon thery holds. IBM could use the exact same argument. We didn't know we put code in. It was just one of our peons.
Re:We still have problems people.... (Score:4, Insightful)
BEEP. No Soup for YOU!
Any employee of a company can be an "Authorized Agent", or in common language a representative. This responibility is handed out by giving you:
A phone with direct dial.
A business card.
A paycheck that covers time spent outside the building (and not sick or on vacation.)
Permission to speak to non-employees during business hours.
And many more trivial type things.
Anything a company lets you do is your job and their problem. Thats why corporate manuals are always thick books.
And laywers get rich.
Re:We still have problems people.... (Score:3, Insightful)
if their system sucked so much that it lacked control that's their own goddamn fault.
when you're going bankrupt you can't really start saying that "no, we didn't place those orders for which we are in debt now! you see, it was the summer intern who had only told his boss! the ceo didn't alert the board so they're invalid!!"(of course, special cases apply but for everyday things.. and i'm pretty sure hellwig was properly permitted to contribute, back then they publicly played as if they wanted to contribute.).
well.. having no basis for suing should stop most people from suing, but people do it anyways if they feel they can benefit from it. there's an intresting link to some hellwigs own comments from google groups a little upward from these comments. i know i'm too lazy to pick it up.. and it's 4:20 am and i gotta draw some diagrams.
Re:Conspiricy theory (Score:3, Insightful)
And what we're all waiting to hear, is if they've been criminally incompetent.
Re:what!!! (Score:2, Insightful)
At this rate, there isn't just an ice-cube's chance in hell of it happening. There is n/infinaty chance of it happening for n being a real number. We're talking quantum mechanics applied to earth sized objects probabilities.
It's funny, laugh. No, actually it's quite sad. But, it's kinda funny, too.
At their desks, on the MS campus (Score:1, Insightful)
Cuecat is not the SCO (Score:2, Insightful)
Cue cat may have had alot of money, but they blew it all giving out silly bar code scanners. This was their buisiness model.
The SCO has alot of money, and they are spending it all on litigation. This is the SCO's buisiness model.
There's a substantial diference.
Sangloth
I'd appreciate any comment with a logical basis...it doesn't even have to agree with me.
Re:SCO Supporters (Score:5, Insightful)
great but necessarily sufficient? (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is to say, couldn't they conceivably claim issues with JCS, NUMA, RCU, and SMP code that's simply separate from what their boy Hellig was working near?
I realize that either way their argument is crap but it, if they are going to pull something like that, it's crap that they can still, albeit insultingly, disingenuously, and vexatiously, hold onto their claims and simply fail to admit what obvious liars they are?
Just wondering.
Buying damage (Score:5, Insightful)
You just bought the company, and not only do you get the parts you wanted, you get the other parts, too. Just ask look into buying former/current property used for dry cleaning. Simpler yet, buy property with asbestos insulation.
Perhaps the new SCO bought the old SCOs damage, but they also bought the old SCOs actions wrt Open Source, including Christoph Hellwig's contributions, and all the implications thereof.
My other hope in this current chunk of mess, aside from SCO getting what it deserves, is that Hellwig doesn't suffer for any of this. Not to neglect the rest of the Open Source community, but it may well end up with Hellwig being at the eye of the storm.
Re:Old news (Score:5, Insightful)
Further, given that Caldera's marketing department was touting some of the features (SMP, JFS, etc) in their literature (for their Linux distro), SCOX (nee Caldera) has no way at all to convincingly argue that this was not authorized or not known about.
SCO's toast.
Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Conspiricy theory (Score:3, Insightful)
History is inevitably negociable (Score:1, Insightful)
what liabilities become inherited in a takeover depends entirely on how much "justice" you can buy....
Stil, one man's Holocaust is another man's meal ticket - just ask Prescott Bush..
Read the article and see why you are wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
And if that was the argument being made you might have a point. But the article provides proof that SCO employees, operating under their manager's authority, put the code in question into Linux. This is not merely a distribution, but a contribution.
Re:i really can't wait until all of this is over . (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me nominate distraction as the biggest risk. Whenever one has had to circle the wagons, the resumed journey is never the same. A wonderful model of meritocracy may be forever changed into a quasi corporate structure -- at the extreme, leading to a world where Legal has to vet everything before its release.
This needn't be a negative, just acknowledgement that linux must evolve in an unexpected way, in order to survive and prosper in this unexpected New World. Still, I shed a tear.
The "Contract" is right there (Score:5, Insightful)
Thing the second, the contract is right there for you to read, it is called the "General Public License".
The prima-facia evidence of agreement is, in fact, the act of distribution. The only legal way to distribute a work governed(*) by the GPL is to agree to the GPL.
If it(+) is not evidence of agreement, then it is INSTANTLY and UNARGUABLY prima-facia evidence of copyright infringement. Remember the whole $150,000 each instance penalty and all that?
This isn't rocket science here. Either they had express individual permission to distribute the material from ALL the authors, OR they agreed to the GPL, OR they are copyright thieves. There is no fourth choice with respect to this body of code.
(*) re "governed by the GPL". I can have a body of code (art) and give it to different people with different agreements and understandings attached to each separate transaction. Nothing magically lets one provanance [historical path of possession] jump the curb into another, even if the two pass eachother on the same network adaptor. If SCO *GOT* the material under the GPL, and didn't go back and re-get it under some other more invested agreement with each author (really the holder(s) of copyrights) then they can only distribute it in turn under the rules and restrictions placed on them by the provanance, namely the GPL.
(+) "it" being, "taking the code (art) contributed (and hence, who's copyright is owned/held) by parties other than the distributor".
So if they got it ONLY by GPL they may ONLY pass it on by GPL.
Period.
Re:Internet archive (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Old news (Score:1, Insightful)
To turn around now and claim that, somehow, Linux "sneaked up" on them while they weren't looking. That, somehow, upper management was "unaware" that they were supporting Linux is... I don't know... Hypocrisy is too mild, fraudulent is closer, deceitful, dishonest is too dry. Hmmm.
It was obvious before this... (Score:5, Insightful)
SCO's case was never based on fact, they were using litigation as a business tool. A republican behavior becoming all too popular these days. And what's the downside? DirecTV sues the innocent along with the guilty and who's stopping them? And don't get me started on RIAA. And when it comes to fraud look at Enron, WorldCom and Putman. Millions of people bilked out of billions of dollars and how many have gone to jail? Three or four? McBride's playing the odds that even if the ploy doesn't work...and it's safe to say it's probably not going like they hoped...the company was dead anyway and their chances of facing any serious prison time were slim to none. When government is in the pocket of big business lobbyists, this is the reality. Welcome to Bush World.
Let's not take anything away from the outstanding research from Groklaw, though. That's really good work by someone there.
Re:The "Contract" is right there (finishing up) (Score:5, Insightful)
The details of the contract from the GPL which govern are encompased in the following:
1) That SCO did receive the Linux kernel under the GPL.
2) That SCO did either modify existing code or add additional code to that kernel.
3) That SCO did gather those modifications together, thus creating a derrivative work
4) That SCO did then distribute that derrivative work either:
4a) as a compostite work under the GPL as requrired by their inclusion of the GPLed code they did not create themselves
OR
4b) in direct and deliberate contravention of the governing agreement (the GPL) and thus in violation of US and International copyright law.
5) That SCO did, through the actions of their employee(s), also directly submit many/some/all of those modifictions to the central management facilities of the Linux kernel, with the understanding that accpetance of such submission was prima-facia evidence of agreement to allow others to distribute those changes under the GPL.
In the case of 4a and 5, separately and taken togher, SCO needs must have put at least one chain of provenance of that code under the terms of the GPL
In the case of 4b SCO has spesifically and directly broken the law and may be held liable before a civil (or ciriminal in the DMCA age) court.
In no case is SCO stripped of their ability to separately distribute their WHOLLY ORIGINAL code (art) under any ADDITIONAL terms they wish, establishing a separate entitiy and provanance for such further distribution.
They MAY NOT, however, "take back" the GPLed provanance because they spesifically waived that right when they established that provanance.
They also MAY NOT separately distribute under new/separate/other provinance any elements (art) of their manufacture which are not themselves WHOLLY ORIGINAL.
The last is the fine point that makes some people barf up FUD so easily. If I sit down with a clean editor and make (say) a serial driver module that can be linked to the Linux kernel, I may keep it to myself, distribute it under GPL, or distribute it (separate from the kernel) under any other termis I choose. In fact I may do ALL THREE at the same time. The blank editor (and presuming the absence of significant copying) creates a "new work" with no provanance.
If I start with the *EXISTING* linux kernel serial driver, then I may keep it to myself or distributed it under the GPL, but I *MAY *NOT* distribute it under other terms I choose. The original work retains its provinance, and so its legal standing within my new work.
This is no more different than writing a novel. If you write a novel from scratch it is yours. If you write by simply editing my novel it is still mine even though it is also now kind of yours.
The only grey area comes when you write a new novel on a blank page, by reading all of my work, and then basing "significant" portions of your novel on the characters and situations that you harvested out of my work. [This being why you, for instance, cant write (and expect to publish with impunity) your own "Star Trek" novel without the permission of Paramount, who owns "Star Trek" just now.]
This is not that hard people... 8-)
Re:Overall Picture (Score:3, Insightful)
> and they will lose their case. But the fact is,
> even they know it. This whole SCO suit is all
> about keeping Linux from rapid adoption using FUD
> and legal tactics.
No, the whole SCO suit is about keeping the stock price rising over 4 consecutive quarters.
If McBride et al can manage this, then they qualify for some huge payouts. They're currently midway through their 3rd quarter of rises, so there's somewhere between 4 and 6 months to go.
If/when they manage this, I expect a large amount of the FUD to disappear, and for SCO's stock price to plummet.
The key thing is that SCO has absolutely no interest in going to court over any of these accusations, as that would force the introduction and validation of fact into what is essentially a 100% FUD campaign. As long as they can keep fuelling the FUD fire, they expect SCO's stock price to keep rising; if it stops rising, expect to see more and more extreme FUD emerging.
Unless/until a "pump and dump" is proven, they're doing exactly what they're supposed to do as SCO's execs - pushing the stock price higher is what they're ultimately employed to do, and failing to do so exposes them to potential shareholder litigation.
Consider this, then look back on the sequence of events SCO has gone through over the last 6-8 months and you'll see it all fits in place.
Re:Old news (Score:2, Insightful)
We really are dealing with people that should not be let out without adult supervision.
Can criminal proceedings be started on fraud such as this in the state of Utah?
Re:Old news (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Internet archive (Score:2, Insightful)
I think it's pretty clear that until 2003 SCO (previously called Caldera) was a Linux company because that was what they sold. For example, Ransom Love often mentioned Linux in interviews with the press. He _must_ have been aware that his company sold Linux related software including the Linux operating system.
As a Linux company, SCO hired a number of Linux programmers to work on the Linux kernel. SCO even donated the first SMP hardware to Alan Cox so he could add SMP cababilities to the kernel.
Now they are doing a "grep -w smp
Re:SCO Supporters (Score:3, Insightful)
The Reality Barrier (Score:2, Insightful)
Unfortunately, it's the same one that blocks the mass of computer users from understanding their machines - the mechanisms will mirror and magnify only the actions of those piloting them. When a monkey looks into a trading floor, no Warren Buffett looks out.
Re:SCO Supporters (Score:2, Insightful)
SCO has gone to great pains and lengths to present everything BUT the agreements they have that allow IBM to develop, own and distribute works that they create that do not contain SysV source code and were not created using the man pages as a reference. As if by not offering them to the court the evidence of them already presented by IBM would somehow magically go away or become irrelevant. By claiming that Novell is violating a non-compete agreement by merging with SuSE , which is also pure B[lake] S[towell] as you will be able to see if you look at the SysV sale documents, they are simply attempting to push Novell's stock down in order to keep them out of the legal battle since that kind of work requires lots of $. By announcing that they are doing so well in their legal efforts that they plan on suing a major Linux user within 90 days when they are at the same time trying to get further delays in the RedHat discovery process by saying that two court cases are impeding their process of discovery and are burdensome to the legal system as well, they are attempting to stall further, not release info that could damage their IBM case and make it look like they have something to back up the lies they told stock analysts and outside investors to get the $60 million they have raised recently. The same lies that they say they can't produce in response to IBM and RedHat's motions to compel discovery.
Forget even suggesting that SCO has a contract case with IBM. They have nothing. Their entire strategy is based on delay, distraction and non-responsive production during the discovery process. Their latest round of pseudo-prestidigitation misdirection is to have hired a patent attorney in order to claim that they need more time in order to respond to IBM's counterclaims regarding patents. First, the counterclaim cannot delay their production of information in the discovery process of their contract suit against IBM. Second, they hired an attorney that "may have", one of their constant by-words in this ongoing cotton-candy-as-nutritional-supplement farce, a conflict of interest since he or the firm that he works for potentially represented IBM now or in the past on a patent issue. How did they hire an attorney to represent them against IBM without this coming up in the discussion? This is to keep from having to do oral arguments this Friday which could turn out to be so damaging that they may be exposed beyond any possible recovery no matter what volume of misleading combinations of unrelated statements they string together and spew out to imply things not actually in existence.
Obviously I can't sum up here by using the phrase "in short" because brevity and directness of any type would be the immediate death of this shameful incident. Please mirror Groklaw to save them from the Slashdot effect while at the same time pulling back the curtain from the Wizard's control room so that all of Oz (us) can get a better look at what is going on. (My excuse is that I'm on dialup.)
I realize that I have been fierce, harsh and interminable. Please don't take this as a personal attack on you. It's just 'cause I'm so furious with them. The SCOmbaGs!