Groklaw Outlines More SCO Linux Contributions 258
An anonymous reader writes "Groklaw today reported that they have discovered another SCO programmer, Tigran Aivazian, who has committed code to the Linux kernel. According to the latest story Mr. Aivazian contributed a microcode update feature, a testing program, and made contributions to SMP and vmalloc. This new story adds weight to earlier stories about Caldera coder Chris Hellwig's additions to XFS, SMP and JFS. " Also on the SCO front, an anonymous reader writes "SCO's last Open Letter has drawn two new responses, one from Red Hat cofounder Bob Young, and the other from Jon 'maddog' Hall. 'maddog' makes a carefully reasoned rebuttal that defends the GPL and includes observations like 'How could the founding fathers or the early legislators have foreseen the Web, or even computers?' Young curtly offers McBride the following advice: 'Be less vocal' - making him the King Canute of Linux, perhaps, because it ain't gonna happen anytime soon."
Oh come on... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Oh come on... (Score:5, Informative)
question... (Score:4, Interesting)
as far as i can tell, the SCO is upset with linux because several of its programmers contributed to the linux kernel, and so SCO feels that it deserves some sort of monetary kickback, right?
but, if you contribute to something that you KNOW is open-source, don't you, like, forfeit any ability to request monetary compensation for your effort? or am i missing something big here?
Totally wrong (Score:5, Informative)
This article is interesting because it shows that some of the code allegedly added by IBM was in fact added by SCO itself.
Re:Totally wrong (Score:2)
You are talking out your ass. (Score:2, Flamebait)
Please, if you don't know what you are talking about, don't present it as fact.
Would it have killed you to have added the words I think somewhere in that sentence?
Re:You are talking out your ass. (Score:2)
Re:You are talking out your ass. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:You are talking out your ass. (Score:2)
"Please, if you don't know what you are talking about, don't present it as fact."
Don't be so ready to act like a jerk. I think it was a typo.
Didn't know the PA was Zionist. (Score:2)
Re:Didn't know the PA was Zionist. (Score:3, Insightful)
I am all for it. I also believe that Sharon should be tried for war crimes. Let's do both. Let's arrest and try both Arafat and Sharon. Let's crack down on hamas, kill and arrest their leaders and at the same time let's dismantle all the settlements, tear down the fence, and give the palestenian people the freedom they deserve.
You are the one that's one
Re:You are talking out your ass. (Score:2)
Re:You are talking out your ass. (Score:2)
Re:Totally wrong (Score:5, Informative)
From the article:
The same goes for microcode, in fact, he mentions SCO's implementation as an example for a different implementation from the one we find in linux.
I'm not sure about SMP - the article doesn't say whether it derived from SCO's implementation, or it is an entirely separate work...
Re:Totally wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
> Aivazian submitted might have nothing to do with
> SCO's source.
No one is forgetting that. The point is that work that SCO contends could only have been done by IBM was in fact done by SCO employees with SCO's knowledge and approval.
> Most of the comments I have read so far speak of
> A's contributions as being SCO's contributions:
> "This article is interesting because it shows
> that some of the code allegedly added by IBM was
> in fact added by SCO itself."
Correct, if A was acting in his capacity as an SCO employee when he wrote the code.
Re:Totally wrong (Score:2)
Whew! (Score:5, Funny)
Though it would be fun for everyone who reads Slashdot to send SCO a letter in complaint of their business practices, especially if they were all sent within the same week. Would they try to call receiving a million pieces of mail in six days an 'attack' too?
Re:Whew! (Score:3, Funny)
[CONSPIRACY]Every time there is bad news in the media for SCO, sco.com goes down, then they issuse a press release of being DDOSed.[/CONSPIRACY]
Mad Dog (Score:5, Funny)
Well, it's more Biff Tannen, but it's a descendant of Mad Dog.
Other Mad Dog quotes:
"We have ourselves a new court house, high time we had a hanging!"
"What's wrong dude, you yellow?"
And perhaps the most appropriate:
"I hate manure!"
Groklaw? (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously, this is not a troll:
Being as
Re:Groklaw? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Groklaw? (Score:2)
I think that would still be preferred by most site authors to DoSing, though.
Read The FAQ! (Score:5, Insightful)
Its been thought of. And more or less refuted in general. And while I cant find the link, I remember a groklaw admin specificly stating that being slashdotted wasent an issue; they could handle it.
Re:Read The FAQ! (Score:2)
like a robots.txt.. so that you could give permission and express your wish to be cached, and the least to not get slashdotted into oblivion.
i'm pretty sure this has been thought of tho, and just deemed so that you'd never think you're doing anything cool/nerdy enough to get slashed.
Re:Groklaw? (Score:2)
Re:Groklaw? (Score:5, Informative)
Groklaw has a paypal donation button. Give them a few bucks for all the good work.
Re:Groklaw? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Groklaw? (Score:5, Informative)
Please come to the site; we should be able to handle the Slashdot crowd.
Slashdot.org: (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Slashdot.org: (Score:5, Funny)
About time Slashdot mirrored Groklaw's articles linked to.
Re:Bluesnews.com (Score:2)
Conspiracy Theory (Score:5, Interesting)
1. The technological world moves fast, this is its nature. To slow any portion of it down is to kill it. If you force a technology to wait on slower social systems like justice the world moves on without it.
2. We saw this with Netscape. Sure they won the case, Mircrosoft was held to be in violation of the law, but by the time the issue was resolved the browser wars were old news.
3. Is this what we're seeing with SCO? Freeze up the linux community just long enough and the world will pass them by. Are the same actors involved? Does SCO get money from Microsoft? Bill's a smart man, why not loose a battle to win the war?
** Insert popular political comment here.**
Re:Conspiracy Theory (Score:2, Interesting)
Time and again a delaying action by a large party has had the effect of destroying a smaller and possibly viable (and even legally in the right) opponent. This is becoming more and more of a viable business tactic as opposed to competition with every time that it succeeds. Wished there was a way to ditch all lawyers, lawmakers and patent attorneys and start afresh. jacque
Re:Conspiracy Theory (Score:5, Interesting)
Now I know it's trollish to root for MS in any case, and I truly don't but think about it... In any other society this wouldn't have happened. Look at what Russia did to their Yukos oil tycoon [google.com] when he got too big for his own good... Not to say it's a good thing, but how can those in law turn a blind eye to MS' actions... Paying for the FAT system? Shit I thought the cost would have been included on purchase... Thats like buying a car now to have the dealer come back later and say "Oh by the way we will now charge you for using the engine in your car."
Re:Conspiracy Theory (Score:5, Insightful)
Especially here where the MS fanboys and astro turfers will mod you up like crazy.
It does take a special kind of troll to suggest that MS actions and sleazeball tactics had zero effect on the demise of netscape though. Congratulations.
Go teach your children that crime does pay. Teach them that it's ok to break the law, to throw all their moral and ethical lessons out the windows and do anything they want to as long as they "win" and "laugh all the way to the bank".
No wonder kids flip out in school. The cognitive dissonance must be too much to bear. Their parents tell them to be nice and share, their churches tell them to be moral and ethical but the law and society tells them that it's OK lie, cheat and steal as long as you make lots of money.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Conspiracy Theory (Score:2)
The recent exploits via rsync caused some lost time certainly.
Re:Conspiracy Theory (Score:2)
...SCO hacked rsync so they could implant a worm on all Linux systems to SYN-flood them and blame it on those "red commie open source bastards"?
I dont' see how the slowdown from the rsync exploits has had anything to do with SCO...
Different situation (Score:3, Interesting)
If I were really cynical I might suspect the timing...just before MS was making a big push to roll out 2003, as the IT industry was coming out of a 2 1/2 year stretch where many companies were not buying much of anything, just as NT is getting near the end of its life cycle. You have to admit that questions arising about Linux IP purity and a potential liability scare right at this particular tim
Re:Conspiracy Theory (Score:3, Insightful)
3. Is this what we're seeing with SCO? Freeze up the linux community just long enough and the world will pass them by. Are the same actors involved? Does SCO get money from Microsoft? Bill's a smart man, why not loose a battle to win the war?
This only works in commercial models, ie. when you need sale
Bob Young (Score:5, Interesting)
If only more execs were like him, we would have a much better business atmosphere here in the U.S. of A.
Thanks Mr. Young, I've always had the utmost respect for you.
Re:Bob Young (Score:5, Funny)
We see the flaw is SCO's defense (Score:5, Insightful)
SCO programmer adding code means?? (Score:5, Interesting)
My take is that if a SCO programmer contributed code, then of course SCO wanted the code contributed and it then falls under the GPL. This seems reasonable. The idea that worries me is that SCO may claim that the programmer(s) was/were rogue and made the contributions against their "corporate policy". Then what do you do? The genie is out of the bottle, you can't take it back and who does SCO go after - the programer or the Linux community?
AngryPeopleRule [angrypeoplerule.com]
If you'll read the article (Score:5, Informative)
We always knew that Mr. Aivazian contributed to Linux; the new thing that Groklaw has unveiled here is that he can be proven to have been acting as an authorized agent of SCO.
-- Super Ugly Ultraman
I read the article BUT (Score:2)
That doesn't mean that SCO won't claim otherwise, or claim that the person that authorized such contributions didn't have the authority to do so. Lets face it, it's not like telling a falsehood is a problem for SCO. That is my point from the first post albeit not well made. I assumed everyone had read the article and would infer that I was impying that SCO would lie about the compani
Re:SCO programmer adding code means?? (Score:5, Insightful)
The second point is that this is not a case where copyrighted material has escaped, been used by a competing company, and the competing company is claiming that because the copyrighted material is now in public view, it is no longer under copyright protection.
This is a case where the accused party is perfectly willing to discuss specific instances of copyright violation, and, if proved valid, remove the code.
The things that complicate this is whether IBM was under the standard or modified UNIX agreement, and whether anyone who ever worked in UNIX can be considered to have stolen IP from UNIX.
And this is why most of the discussion on this topic is irrelevant. The suite against IBM is probably a valid question, and maybe even justifiable due to the previous action of IBM. If the laws are followed, it will only affect IBM, at least until another battle is fought to prove the code in Linux is substantially similar. At which point the code will simply be removed and life will go on.
This is why they are trying to attack on the second front, essentially saying that Linux stole everything from Unix. There is no reason to show specific code, because all the code in effect breaks copyright because it was all done by people who saw Unix code. Saying that a programmer here and there legally contributed little pieces of code does not mean that overall product is does not break Unix copyright. Many would say this is a silly argument. But this is not something that will be won in courts. This will be won in the marketplace. And even thought the OSS software has no more risk than closed software, people may begin to believe that it does. And by fight SCO on the battlefield it selects, with articles such as this, we play into their strategy.
There are only two things that matter. First, the real battle is between IBM and SCO. That is the lawsuit that is filed. That is the only battle SCO needs to actively defend. If SCO wins, Linux will adjust the code. I think everyone has said this. Until a judgment is handed down, nothing needs to be done.
The second is the assumption that Linux breaks copyrights from Unix. SCO is not putting anything substantial into this fight. It is merely a distraction to make the OS community waste time. The only reasonable response is to sumarily state that there is no legal basis to find that Linux is derived from Unix and no known copyright infringement exists. If any are found, they will be corrected, as in the past. If asked why this is true, all one needs to do is ask why SCO has not filed suit to defend their point. At this point it is all words.
OSS can and should define the battlefield, and not just respond to SCO. I am sure that people will correct me or mod me down if they disagree.
Re:SCO programmer adding code means?? (Score:2)
The problem is that SCO accuses everyone in the press, but refuses to show proof. We wait "with bated breath" what SCO will provide as answer to Judge Well's order to state what the basis for their lawsuit against IBM is.
Re:SCO programmer adding code means?? (Score:5, Insightful)
That doesn't mean that SCO won't claim otherwise, or claim that the person that authorized such contributions didn't have the authority to do so. Lets face it, it's not like telling a falsehood is a problem for SCO. That is my point from the first post albeit not well made. I assumed everyone had read the article and would infer that I was impying that SCO would lie about the companies past contributions
While your analysis is interesting, I think there is enough legal history in the BSD case to make it hard for SCO to pursue that "all of linux is in violation".
AngryPeopleRule [angrypeoplerule.com]
Re:SCO programmer adding code means?? (Score:2)
If you honestly think that the actual kernel development has slowed down even a bit because of this, then maybe you should ponder if a devoted kernel developer such as the people contributing to the Linux kernel would choose to reduce any precious time spent kernel coding because of this...
Many people contribute to Linux because it is both fun and an intellectual challenge. Similar to the motives of an artist spending a lot of time and effor
One question. (Score:5, Interesting)
I do not live in America, but shouldnt there be a lot of people reporting SCO to the appropriate governmental Body that oversees frauds in the stockmarket? (SEC)
How is that going, do they have any official stance on that or?
Are they waiting until the hammer falls (most likely) in heavy disfavor to Sco?
Care to enlighten a foreigner?
Re:One question. (Score:2, Flamebait)
For p&d (pump and dump) to actually occur, SCO must be shown to be making false claims for the purpose of increasing their stock. At this point that cannot be determined (legally) since nothing has been proven in a court of law. That doesn't mean the SEC [sec.gov] isn't watching.
The FTC [ftc.gov] might also be watching, since interstate commerce is involved.
Re:One question. (Score:2)
These people are greedy and evil but they are not stupid. They are not going to break the law.
What you have to realize is that in America the laws are written by the corporate class. They allow for all kinds of sleazy things. What SCO is doing (and what Enron, Worldcom etc did) is perfectly legal.
Re:One question. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:One question. (Score:5, Interesting)
One would basically have to prove that Darl & Co. knew they had no case. Ignorance and stupidity are quite excusable in the US, even if the results are the same as if one wielded malice instead. The SCO guys have been doing their idiot dance for the media for almost a year now. They would most certainly plead stupidity -- and win.
I don't think it's likely they will be pursued by the SEC. However, if IBM finds any "Linux Lottery" documents at SCO during discovery, all bets are off.
Re:One question. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:One question. (Score:2)
Coverup? Damned if I know, but it sure smells that way to me.
--
Cheers, Gene
The SEC doesn't care. (Score:2)
From http://www.sipc.org/release4.html
A record payment of $31 million from a special reserve fund authorized by Congress to help investors at bankrupt brokerage firms is being used to restore stocks and cash that 9,738 investors lost due to theft at Sunpoint Securities, a Longview, Texas-base
maddog in the fog (Score:3, Insightful)
maddog isn't careful enough to avoid the irrelevant "author's intent" of the "framers" of the US Constitution. The primary design principle of the Constitution was to model the "natural" rights of people in a document that would guide a just government, mainly by limiting its power. Their primary mechanism for making the model accurate was to enumerate mechanisms for keeping it current, starting immediately with the first 10 amendments (the Bill of Rights). That's why the US government is now the oldest in existence, excepting some ways of looking at China and the Vatican (and some other tiny places). The founders of the USA had insight, more accurate than foresight. Much of that insight was gained through the importance of publishing in the colonies - NB Ben Franklin as publisher, Thomas Paine the leafleteer, and many others.
The self-reinforcing dynamic feedback relationship between the US government structure and the people has shaped both the government and the people, keeping them in relative harmony. maddog can forget about the "founders", as long as he keeps the Constitution (to be read in the present tense) in mind - a living document that really works.
Re:maddog in the fog (Score:5, Informative)
I don't mean to nitpick, but the last "regime change" in Britain occurred during the 1640-1660 civil wars [british-civil-wars.co.uk]. The British Parliament is one of the oldest institutions in Europe, dating from the 1200s. True, the nature of the government has changed over time, but fundamentally it is still a monarchy which governs through a parliament.
Re:maddog in the fog (Score:2)
Re:maddog in the fog (Score:3, Informative)
Re:maddog in the fog (Score:3, Insightful)
The intent of the author of a document isn't relevant? That's clearly bogus. I could take your comment, parse it phrase-by-phrase, and give it a meaning you never intended. After all, you wrote that in the past; I should interpret it according to the present. Put a different way, if the author's intent isn't important, then it's useless to write anything down, since the reader's opinion is t
heh. (Score:2)
Re:maddog in the fog (Score:2)
Then you would have misunderstood the message. Probably my fault, failing to communicate to you. Unless you're hostile, in which case it's probably still my fault, failing to disambiguate.
"if the author's intent isn't important, then it's useless to write anything down, since the reader's opinion is the only one that matters."
Consensus is essential to communication. More perfect communication exists only betw
Re:maddog in the fog (Score:2, Informative)
Italy wasnt a completed nation state until 1870.
Russian government changed several times in 1619 with the election of Michel Romanav as the next czar. 1917 with the creation of the provisional Government under Kerensky and 1917 again with the seizure of power by lenin.
France has gone through a few republics ... not to mention the whole Vichy thing and the Revolution occured in 1789 I believe.
Greece lost and regain its independence severa
Iceland? (Score:2)
Iceland gained independence from Denmark following WW2. Now look at Denmark, [wikipedia.org] The oldest Kingdom in existence and it has always been independent.
Only country in the world, with that record.
Re:maddog in the fog (Score:2)
So what? It's still the same country isn't it? People evolve in their governemnts just like we have evolved in ours. Do you count every constitutional amendment as a new govt? Did the emancipation proclimation somehow create a brand new govt.
That's a really lame argument. By the way the original poster by the ignoramous stated "That's why the US government is now the oldest in existence, excepting some ways of looking at China and the Vati
Re:maddog in the fog (Score:2)
Oh, I didn't realize the last name of the president was Washington [americanpr...series.com]. Silly me thinking it was Bush. Ok it isn't fair to take your words out of context.
But seriously, even in terms of political parties, the US government did change too. For example, the democratic party was founded in 1972 [democrats.org], and the history of the republican party doesn't go back before 1854 [rnc.org]. And the birth of those parties constituted quite a large change in the US government,
s/1972/1792/; (Score:2)
malcontent in the fog (Score:2)
Re:malcontent in the fog (Score:2)
Just because a government has evolved does not make it substantially different.
Re:malcontent in the fog (Score:2)
Re:malcontent in the fog (Score:2)
Re:maddog in the fog (Score:2)
Re:maddog in the fog (Score:2)
When growing up in Iceland I used to think of America's strengths and problems stemming from it being one of the youngest countries around. It was a total shock when I moved here and heard it's citizen's speak of America as the world's oldest democracy. If you put a bunch of caveats on the phrase it can be interpreted as having some truth, but this foolish. America is America because it is a young coun
irony? (Score:5, Interesting)
On the other hand, they failed to cough up any sensible evidence so far, and my guess is that they are clueless about the affairs at 'old' SCO. This relevation might point them to the right direction - they can pinpoint precisely where code exchange between unixware and linux took place. They can either submit this as new evidence (deadline: jan 8?) and loose, or disregard it and
Re:irony? (Score:5, Insightful)
What this further demonstrates is that SCO obviously did not, based on their original lawsuit and all arguments after, perform adequate pre-acquisition due diligence to protect the Intellectual Property they are claiming is infringed.
SCO investors should be extremely interested in this point when the courts rule against SCO. This opens up the possibility of investor lawsuits against Darl and his E-staff personally (regardless of any governmental actions contemplated by the SEC and/or FTC)
.Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of fuckwits.
Open source code is transparent, right? (Score:4, Insightful)
So why did it take four years to notice this?
Re:Open source code is transparent, right? (Score:2, Insightful)
Have you read the whole thing through?
Re:Open source code is transparent, right? (Score:2)
Nothing to see here folks, move on. This case will wend its way to court, IBM's crack lawyers will annihilate SCO's crack-smoking lawyers (many thanks to whoever it was who came up with that!), and then it will be over. This happens every day.
News on SCO's web site. (Score:5, Interesting)
SCO Ranked 75 In Deloitte Technology Fast 500
[sco.com]
The SCO(R) Group (SCO) (Nasdaq: SCOX), a leading provider of business software solutions, today announced its ranking-number 75-on the 2003 Deloitte Technology Fast 500, a ranking of the 500 fastest growing technology companies in North America.
Darl McBride Ranked in Top 25 IT Executives for 2003
[crn.com]
Darl McBride, president and CEO of The SCO Group, was ranked among the top 25 executives in the IT industry, according to CRN. The ranking represents McBride's fight to raise industry awareness of the importance of protecting intellectual property in a digital age"
and then this little troll from SCO in the NEWS
Zealots: The Three Faces of Linux [technewsworld.com]
It's sad to see how people are so misguided.
King Canute (Score:5, Interesting)
I like the second version better. From the linked Wikipedia article:
DISCLAIMER: I'm danish, so of course i prefer the more favourable version. Anyway, the English owe us nearly 900 years of danegeld. (If you pay up now we might even give you a discount for the very handy assistance in WWII!)
Disclaimer.. (Score:2)
Well-meaning response marred by incorrect summary. (Score:5, Interesting)
In an otherwise thoughtful and well-meaning letter, Bob Young incorrectly states opinions that are widely published elsewhere and fails to take Darl McBride's view of theft (versus copyright infringement) to task. Instead, Young reaffirms McBride's conflation of theft and copyright infringement and seriously mistakenly summarizes RMS' ideas.
Consider this part from Young's letter:
Everyone does not agree that "intellectual property [gnu.org]" is a good thing. RMS, for instance, has said that he has no opinions on "intellectual property" except to point out the misleading consequences one arrives at from using the term and how it prejudices one's thinking to treat disparate areas of law like property. RMS has opinions on patents, separate opinions on copyright, and separate opinions on trademark law. RMS does not mix up his ideas into one jumbled whole called "intellectual property".
Furthermore, I have never heard nor read RMS say "it is not a good idea to copyright software" nor does young provide a source for this summary. RMS is against patenting algorithms used in the creation of computer software [gnu.org] and most software programmers I've met are in agreement with him because so-called 'software patents' do such a profound disservice to their work. As RMS points out in his critique of the term "intellectual property", copyright and patents are not the same, in fact they differ more than they are alike. Copyrights and patents aren't acquired in the same way, they don't last for the same length of time, they don't cover the same things, policy concerning these two disparate sets of laws aren't governed by the same office, and defending against copyright infringement is not at all the same as defending against patent infringement. But you can see how someone who believes "[e]veryone agrees intellectual property, from trademark law to copyrights and patents, is a good thing" would arrive at such a mistaken conclusion about RMS' ideas and whether these laws are well received.
With respect to the term of copyright, Young notes that "[t]he Supreme Court case that you [McBride] misrepresent in your latest open letter demonstrates the Justices think too much of a good thing may no longer be so good" but doesn't understand how he is (in the FSF's words) "making an appeal to authority...and misrepresenting what the authority says" by talking about copyright infringement as theft.
If we accept the idea that property and ideas and expression are all one and the same, we allow ourselves to deny that new ideas are built on old ideas (or more generally, the future is built on the past). The limits of copyright law look very wrong and we champion the same goals as the Bonos and we buy into the hypocrisy exhibited by the Disney corporation. Then we lose the argument we are struggling to make with legislators.
I'll tell you what it is (Score:3, Interesting)
And it's exactly the card that SCO is mostly playing, to get trenched in (former) bigshots to dilute the debate -- and that's only the debate on *this* side of the fence, on the other side I'm sure it goes quite differently and with lots of chuckling -- and step by step get more of their reasoning accepted or refuted quickly and then looked over, thus effectively accepted by the journaille.
The devil indeed is in the details. So they tell you to discuss details.
OT? Notice the MS UNIX tools ad (Score:2)
Surely something with chaos theory.
Re:OT? Notice the MS UNIX tools ad (Score:2)
Why not boot a mepis [mepis.org] (debian) live CD, and try again?
Announcing... (Score:5, Funny)
SCO Countdown [scocountdown.com]
Countind Down To The End Of This fiaSCO!
How could our founding fathers forseen this? (Score:3, Interesting)
Did mideval kingdoms have running water, magic lights, gunpowder or even the understanding of this? Could all of our founding fathers known that technology would develope so rapidly in 100 years? Fuck no, but they certainly knew how the egyptians viewed iron swords, how samarai viewed gunpowder and how the indians viewed cities. Because of this, they were wise, and from this wisdom they were able to draft a bill of rights. When a goverment begins to go downhill, it's because these rights have been violated.
It's not hippie rhetoric, it's no fundementalist anarchism or socialism, and it isn't a fools game. Because we have the internet and access to more books and media than ever before, we can become, and some are, smarter than they are. You can view a political debate 2 ways; a logical system much like any router or electrical equipment that must be balanced and mouled to certan rules, or you can view it as 2 gods fighting over a bunch of ants. If you believe the ladder is going on, you are an idiot. If you can understand the former, you have a brain and you use it. There's your litmus paper test.
MadDog mistates... (Score:5, Informative)
In fact, the GPL _does_ allow this. There is no restriction in taking a GPLed piece of code, adding lines of code (or not) and then selling it to someone for $X dollars. (1 Jillion Dollars! finger to corner of mouth). In fact, it's completely allowed so long as the buyer recieves the _same_ GPL rights (and source on demand). Why someone would purchase a GPLed product (sans support or other value added) for such an amount is another question, but in fact, a number of people out there do just such a thing, including with code that the original author has changed license terms on and no longer provides GPLed code themselves. Once a GPLed copy is out there, it's out there. Which is a good thing. Despite SCO's claims.
[Major market players such as Mandrake began by 'adding lines of code' to existing products such as Red Hat.]
Re:MadDog mistates... (Score:2, Insightful)
MadDog understands the issues as well as anyone. When he says "take the software" he is implying violating the intent of the GPL.
Certain companies, for instance, have been caught trying to distribute modified Linux kernels with networking equipment and not offering the source to kernel developers that both purchased the products and developed the original code in question.
In this context, you can not take the code, add a few lines and then sell it to make a huge profit.
Why did SCO let employees contribute to Linux? (Score:5, Insightful)
So...why the heck did SCO allow employees to contribute to Linux? That seems massively stupid.
Re:Why did SCO let employees contribute to Linux? (Score:3, Insightful)
SCOX looking for new director (Score:5, Interesting)
SCO now has the following job openings [sco.com] available...
Now pay attention to the date on that last job opening. That is Monday following SCOX's 5-Dec lame oral arguments.
Why suddenly is this position vacant? Some theories...
So, if you're out of work and qualified, a great career opportunity would be to work at SCO!
Director of Financial Reporting and SEC/GAAP Compliance Requisition# 40238
http://www.sco.com/company/jobs/
Type: Exempt
Posted 08 December, 2003
Location: Lindon, UT
Department:
Reports To: Controller
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Job Description:
Responsible for the financial reporting of quarterly and annual results in accordance with SEC rules and regulations. Responsible for the filing of registration statements and other periodic filings as required. Duties will include the drafting and review of quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, annual reports on Form 10-K, periodic reports on Form 8-K, as well as assist in the preparation of registration and proxy statements and any other filings. Other responsibilities will include the monitoring of the Company's compliance with current SEC, FASB and other regulatory literature that pertains to accounting and financial reporting. This position will also lead the Company's effort on maintaining an effective system of internal control, and ensuring the internal control structure is in compliance with the requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Additional special projects will be given on an "as occurring" basis.
Job Responsibilities:
Financial reporting of quarterly and annual results in accordance with SEC rules and regulations Filing of registration statements and other periodic filings as required Drafting and review of quarterly and annual reports Assist in the preparation of registration and proxy statements and any other filings Monitoring of the Company's compliance with current SEC, FASB and other regulatory literature that pertains to accounting and financial reporting Additional special projects will be given on an "as occurring" basis.
Job Requirements:
Masters degree in accounting and experience as a manager with a public accounting firm and a minimum of 8 years accounting experience. Extensive financial reporting experience
Finally ... some important insight (Score:5, Interesting)
Some very interesting aspects of timing of efforts by Mr. Aivazian that include the following:
"It seems everything Mr. Aivazian does works together. If SMP or vmalloc.c doesn't work, the microcode update feature might fail, so he works on SMP and vmalloc.c. If either SMP or microcode update is crashing, he needs to know why, so he works on the debugger."
First of all I am damn impressed that anyone can over-ride a processor microcode !
The debugger is equally impressive. If you can't find why it breaks, ya can't fix it.
This is very credible and just might sink SCO's claims altogether.
TG
Admiral Yamamoto's words seem relevant (Score:2)
After the successful initial attack on Pearl Harbor Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto uttered this famous line:
"I fear that we have awakened a sleeping giant
and filled him with a terrible resolve"
I'm sure the people at SCO who actually work on the product understand what is happening in the same fashion that Yamamoto understood the value of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Perhaps the stock price of the Imperial Japanese Navy was quite high on December 8th, 1941, but the owners of SCO stock can charter a s
Re:SCO planned this way ahead? (Score:2, Insightful)
... and here I was thinking that I needed a tinfoil hat.
Re:SCO planned this way ahead? (Score:3, Funny)
I say this is a deep-cover infiltration operation.
Re:how on earth does a person misspell "open"? (Score:2)