Big Blue denies SCO Group’s allegations that it misappropriated Unix trade secrets, but it isn’t giving hints about what its eventual strategy will be for battling the lawsuit.
IBM Denies Charges of Unix theft
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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of course they would deny it. I believe they didnt, but even if they did, first stance would be to deny all.
Big Blue, if it isn’t too outrageous a sum, will settle. This will get SCO off their back and embolden SCO to go after the smaller linux players like SuSE.
Think about the business decision. Which is more money:
1) the amount of a settlement
2) the gained revenue of customers fleeing SCO rapidly attacking and killing weaker linux vendors
If #1 then expect a fight, if #2 expect a settlement.
what a bunch of b*tches… this isn’t the only company they are suing. they should be ashamed and just go out of business with some diginity. absolutly pathatic
I am with you in sentiment, but…
Given that the people calling the shots at SCO these
days are Venture Capitalists, I would think that ” what a bunch of b@stards ..” would be more accurate.
Especially since their basic stance is that Unix is their B!tch.
Maybe they have been listening to too much rap from the
90’s.
Of course IBM didnt do anything wrong. SCO wants money to keep their sinking boat afloat. SCO is going bankrupt and wants to take down as many people as they can. McBride better like Big Macs because after this whole ordeal is over and done with, McDonalds will be the only place him and Sontag will ever be able to get a job at. But then again he may try to sue Burger King by saying, ” You stole trade secrets, we are the only ones who can put the tomato on top of the lettuce, we were the first ” and then it will be ” Yep we believe Wendys and Sonic Burgers stole our idea too, there will be a day of reckoning for those two once we get done with Burger King “
>> Big Blue, if it isn’t too outrageous a sum, will settle. This will get SCO off their back and embolden SCO to go after the smaller linux players like SuSE.
>>
Such a strategy would, with such an outcome, will only anger many in the OSS community. I believe they are not guilty, but if IBM is indeed guilty, cleaning off their ass and going leaving SCO to have its day with other distros would be the most selfish self-serving strategy. If they are settling, then they have to settle in a way that clearly precludes SCO going after anybody else. But hey, I don’t see that happening, SCO would be the one running on this one.
>> Big Blue, if it isn’t too outrageous a sum, will settle. This will get SCO off their back and embolden SCO to go after the smaller linux players like SuSE.
>>
>>>Such a strategy would, with such an outcome, will only anger many in the OSS community. I believe they are not guilty, but if IBM is indeed guilty, cleaning off their ass and going leaving SCO to have its day with other distros would be the most selfish self-serving strategy. If they are settling, then they have to settle in a way that clearly precludes SCO going after anybody else. But hey, I don’t see that happening, SCO would be the one running on this one. >>>
No – under any circumstance it would not be in IBM’s interest to settle and leave SCO to go after other targets. If SCO goes after the distro companies it still threatens IBM’s Linux strategy – they use the disto’s and SUSE is almost an extension of IBM in Germany.
They might buy SCO (a peanuts company) to eliminate the problem. They have to do that or fight them in court – they are clearly in the right (that does not always win in court) an they can afford to spend a lot more money on lawyers than SCO (that usually wins in court).
I look forward to the day when this OS is declared ILLEGAL. Not only do they steal technology developed by SCO and Microsoft, but they’re trying to put programmers out of bussiness with the GPL. If you’re installing Linux servers at your company, berware — some zealot might force you to give up your IP, just because you used GPL’s code in your web services! Someone give me ONE reason why I’d choose Linux over Windows 2003 Server.
>Someone give me ONE reason why I’d choose Linux over Windows >2003 Server.
You wouldn’t. I would. Different strokes for different folks!
Okay, the metaphor is not at all appropriate in terms of scale but it’s fun and self-indulgent, and I’m in a self-indulgent mood: Dealing with SCO by settling out of court has the same problem that placating terrorists or meeting the demands of bank robbers or hostage takers does. Or negotiating with Hitler. (Okay, not Hitler, but I figured if I was going to go outlandish, I better bring Hitler into it. This is the internet, and what’s emotional outrage without going all Godwin when’ere the opportunity arises.)
Seriously though, take a small sum like 5 million bucks – not much to IBM in the scheme of things, but enough to keep a smaller company afloat for another year in many cases. If they were to give in to this sort of thing, I’m sure it would just invite that many more lawsuits from smaller companies trying to litigate themselves into the black, especially given the increasing fad of extending and strengthening intellectual property, copyright, and patent protections.
I imagine, in fact, that IBM will try to make this very protracted and expensive for SCO to discourage future (presumably frivolous) lawsuits. If I were a lawyer, I’d be thinking about the ramifications of this lawsuit, and how it relates to open source software and intellectual property in general.
Of course, my own bias is against SCO, and I want to see them suffer like the fascists (OK, not fascists, sorry, Godwin again. Damn damn damn.) that they are, but I’d probably feel different if I was a SCO investor – especially if there is some merit in their allegations. I’ve seen the merit of their allegations debated a lot online, but most of it is speculation.
Frankly, a decisive win by IBM could potentially relax the lawyers at corporations that won’t use open source software based on IP fears and uncertainties. If IBM loses, it could ruin adoption of open source software for the same reasons.
This affects a lot of bottom lines – I don’t see IBM backing out of this by settling out of court. I hope they fight it and win. If they simply buy or take over SCO, it will simply delay the inevitable court battles which will, at some point, arise over these kinds of issues.
The anthem of modern American clife — We came, We saw, We litigated. Look at how a completely dopey lawsuit against gun manufacturers for violent crime led to multiple others. Once the cash cow starts giving milk, everyone wants a chance at the teat.
But that’s just my opinion. I’m not a lawyer. Like most of the people who have an opinion on this subject. So, uh, generically, down with the man, up with the people, Linux rules, and all that stuff, yadda yadda yadda.
your post is a ridiculously obvious troll.
psst. don’t stand out in the sun waving all that red meat
around. It will start to smell bad pretty quick.
Bzzzt.
Hmm,
Reason 1 – $2000 + user licenses for Windows 2003 server; $80 for a professional copy of redhat
Reason 2 – Security – windows patches are released when microsoft decides they are important; Linux – I can patch it myself, if someone hasn’t already beat me to it
Reason 3 – Trustworthy computing – Microsoft “trust our software – but you can’t see it”; Linux: “Trust our software – read every line if you please”
Reason 4 – Flexibility – I can turn my Linux box into a firewall, a file server, a dns server, a print server, email server, proxy server, etc; AND cut it down to just that. Unlike windows which has more bloat.
There are plenty of reasons why I use linux over microsoft.
I would like to know how linux steals technology developed by Microsoft?
Linuks is bullshit.
Anybody knows that except the idiots eating it.
There are plenty of reasons why I use linux over microsoft.
You zealots make me laugh. Windows 2003 server is here to stay, and web services are the future.
” Linuks is bullshit.
Anybody knows that except the idiots eating it. ”
hmmmm, Troll.
” I look forward to the day when this OS is declared ILLEGAL. Not only do they steal technology developed by SCO and Microsoft, but they’re trying to put programmers out of bussiness with the GPL. If you’re installing Linux servers at your company, berware — some zealot might force you to give up your IP, just because you used GPL’s code in your web services! Someone give me ONE reason why I’d choose Linux over Windows 2003 Server ”
Microsoft steals from their competitiors more, and I wouldnt call Linux stealing, its trying to stay compatible. I know several programmers who make alot of money off of open source software. I think you need to actually read the GPL intead of taking Ballmer and Gates translation of it. Why would I indulge you with the benefits of Linux, you are abviously clueless.
Looks to me like SCO took a page from the PanIP playbook, except that they forgot to sue the small targets first (who are more likely to settle). IBM will bury them.
This might be off-topic, but I think the comment system needs some kind of moderation.
This might be off-topic, but I think the comment system needs some kind of moderation.
Why? Are you a zealot who can’t face the truth?
“This might be off-topic, but I think the comment system needs some kind of moderation.”
Why? Are you a zealot who can’t face the truth?
No, because trolls like you are just a PITA. And I’m saying that as somebody who does not like Linux.
Lets see, windows 2003 has two applications that run on it.
A copy of sql 2000 ( patched ) and the new IIS. thats all…. just basic I/O
It makes me laff, how everyone is talking so bold about 2003, wait I have heard this record before 3.1 95 98 2k xp anyone?
I use windows for things windows is good for ( sales people’s laptops ) and linux for serious mission crit apps.
my two bits.
>> I look forward to the day when this OS is declared ILLEGAL. Not only do they steal technology developed by SCO and Microsoft, but they’re trying to put programmers out of bussiness with the GPL. If you’re installing Linux servers at your company, berware — some zealot might force you to give up your IP, just because you used GPL’s code in your web services! Someone give me ONE reason why I’d choose Linux over Windows 2003 Server.
Duh!
That “zealot” isn’t going to give you his/her IP for free so you can claim as your own… (Don’t like the GPL, don’t use it).
And there are some closed source products using GPL’ed software (Corel PhotoPaint and Corel WordPerfect comes to mind…).
Acording to the GPL you are not required to give free your code based on GPL’ed code if you don’t do any changes to this Software.
GPL enforces IP as (or more than) other commercial licenses.
SCO didn’t Unix (they bought it from AT&T) and they earned much money by license it to others (IBM included).
As for the “Someone give me ONE reason why I’d choose Linux over Windows 2003 Server” I don’t even bother to answer that.
>> You zealots make me laugh. Windows 2003 server is here to stay, and web services are the future.
Again, Web Services aren’t Windows’s only.
Have you haver bother to try Linux/Unix/Java and search for projects on that particular area?
Anyway, Web Services… I don’t buy it.
You’re arguing with an anonymous posting troll.
Quoting ubiquitin (user #28396) on Slashdot:
“For those concerned about the virality of the GPL, a suggestion: Write Your Own Damn Code.”
>Windows 2003 server is here to stay, and web services are the future.
-with buffer overflows included……
Really funny those comments above mine’s.
Thanks! I really needed that!
Yes, it’s true, Linux is illegal and steals from SCO and Microsoft. And Windows is the most secure operating system in the world. And my daddy’s a police man and he can beat up your daddy. And people who sit around trolling anonymously on internet news sites really are interesting, successful, intelligent people. And you know it’s all true ’cause you read it right here on the internet.
Come on, people. Grow up.
If you use a GPLed library in your software you must give away your source code and your software under the GPL if you want to sell it. That is why they made the LGPL. For all the companies like Microsoft that like taking code from the masses to cut costs and save time so they can release their closed source product without needing to contribute anything to anyone else. Most capitalists are not honorable enough to give money to the original authors, which is why they promote systems like copyright and patents which allow them to steal IP legally and call it their own. But the GPL, in a way, prevents that sort of greed. It forces companies to cooperate since no one can gain an advantage bringing about fair competition to your horribly corrupt capitalist market. The whole time the consumer wins. They get more choice, better prices and a huge push of information and technology directly into their hands asking them to learn it, use it, fix it, and build it.
Compare the GPL and the LGPL. You’d be amazed at the difference a few lines of logic can make. The GPL I think is an algorithm to basicly implement communism and the free flow of information on top of a capitalist market. Unfortunately this will not work for anything but IP, but the concepts make you wonder what would happen if it did somehow manage to spread to manufacturing and industry.
Can you imagine what would happen if we built free schools for people and automated factories and spread the information on how they worked out among the population. If society worked to create the proper environment for people to work in instead of working to make money.. If that happened I bet they’d be a lot more productive than a typical capitalists society where everyone only works for themselves.
Which I think is why the GPL has so much support today.
Simply put, it is more productive than closed-source capitalism.
Simply put, it is more productive than closed-source capitalism.
Sorry bud, but communism lost. Go to the workers paradise north korea with your crappy gpl softs, while we deploy advanced e-business applications on windows 2003 server.
“”For those concerned about the virality of the GPL, a suggestion: Write Your Own Damn Code.””
I agree with this sentiment 100%. Over-recycling of code and ideas are a detriment to originality. Why redesign the wheel? Well maybe, just maybe, you actually need a skid.
Problem is how can you defend it as solely being your code? Where does the line between it being similar to a GPL application’s code and an original implementation that merely does the same thing get drawn? Did you ever look at the source of a GPL app that does the same thing as your app does? Can you prove you didn’t look at it (Good luck proving a negative)?
Now that sounds like nit-picking (Those points are not specific to the GPL btw, I’m just using it as an example). However, these are basically some of the arguments SCO is putting forward.
I think it would be an excellent idea for IBM to fight SCO all the way. Not for any anti-SCO reason, but simply to clarify some of the murkier areas of IP ownership for the benefit of all. I guess the greater good isn’t a real motivating factor in Big Blue’s book, but let’s consider all the IP/patents IBM has. Either they stand up to the plate and influence the setting of legal precedent now, or someone else will do it for them in the near future (Quite probably to their detriment).
Look at what IBM has done for the Linux system.
In the open source field:
1) They gave us the NG scheduluer (rejected by Linus)
2) They gave us some drivers for IBM hardware.
3) They gave us ports for running Linux on IBM hardware.
4) Eclipse development IDE
5) The JFS(?) file system (from OS/2 and not Unix).
In the closed source field:
1) Ported Websphere
2) Ported DB2
3) Ported some miscellanous admin tools
I don’t see anything major that IBM gave Linux that could have belonged to SCO. If something found to belong to SCO in the Linux system, then SCO will have to prove that IBM added it; I don’t see this happening.
There may be SCO IP in Linux; I can’t see how it can’t be. Unix is an old system and a lot of documentation has been printed about how it works. The Linux people developed a system to work the same way. To prove IP theft, SCO will need to prove that someone took a little know implementation detail and purposely put it into Linux; however because they sued IBM for doing this, they now have to prove that IBM did this.
I think SCO is correct in stating that because Linux will run SCO binaries, you should pay SCO if you use their libraries on your Linux box. If you don’t want to pay for them, then you need to reverse engineer them from the documentation only using programers that have never worked with the source code from the orginials. Please note that reverse engineering is alowed and bypasses IP laws to some extent. Also, note that Linux is mostly just one big reverse engineering project; however, they do a lot of work to make things better where the applicaions running on top wont notice.
People here: One thing.
Do you know what SCO’s Unix IP is?
It’s from Xenix. Not AT&T.
Do you know what Xenix is?
Microsoft Unix. It was the first Unix to run on x86 hardware. This was before DOS existed.
Methinks MS infected SCO with the “IP Lawsuit Disease”… :~)
Watch the water glass on your dashboard folks. That low rumble you hear is a giant dino comming to stomp!
Most of the original System V Unix patents should be just about expired by now. SCO paid a lot of money for a lame duck! There’s just too much documentation out there about the system to try to call it “trade secret”. SCO is playing a dangerous legal game–I wouldn’t be surprised if the ‘others’ [sun, hp, etc] get sick of this threat to their little ‘club’ and just let IBM squish SCO. After all, if IBM wins they can countersue for all their legal fees! I’m sure they’ve already ‘paid’ their lawyers more money than SCO will ever have. They court will just let SCO go bankrupt and IBM have the company as the biggest creditor. IBM’s been pretty cool to OSS lately, maybe they’d just dispense with the whole Unix thing altogether. They would almost have to divest themselves in a hurry because the FTC wouldn’t let them keep that kind of power over the industry for very long.
About the GPL…
Back in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s there wasn’t the need for software ‘IP’. Nobody working on it considered it anything other than academic. Billy G even admits to ‘borrowing’ code from dumpsters! One day someone came along and called all the code they had “theirs” [after borrowing/sharing with everyone else, it didn’t matter.] and ruined the whole thing. The GPL is in direct retialition to those people! It’s designed to sabotage the system so that what happened in the 70’s & 80’s doesn’t ever happen again. The whole point of the GPL is that the vast majority of programmers will generally get nothing for their efforts. Why not band together against the large corps and at the same time prevent “them” from making money off the work of thousands of little people. Bill G even made a statement to that effect publicly, that MS should have a developer community and gleen ideas from it into their products. The GPL does nothing except enforce the copyrights of programmers that choose to use it by creating a standard contract that many people can use! That’s the real reason corps like MS hate it so much, the ‘sheep’ have banded together!
Why would IBM settle for any amount of money or buy SCO?
Its not like SCO has vast amounts of compelling technologies that IBM wants or needs to acquire. IBM also has internal corporate counsels so its costing SCO a lot to take IBM to court, not the other way around.
IBM is gonna bleed them dry in court and then bleed them some more.
IANAL
First off, we haven’t the slightest idea what IP SCO is claiming that IBM used improperly. And IBMs response doesn’t help.
Only IBM is privvy to the details of the case against them, and it is up to them to choose whether they desire to make it public, until the trial. SCO is under no obligation to release the details of their claims to the public. Perhaps it helps their case in some way to wait for trial. Either way, the public isn’t going to hear of it until either SCO or IBM speak up, and their only scheduled event for that is the actual trial.
SCO owns USL which was spun off from AT&T. EVERY modern UNIX(tm)(r)(reg.us.pat.off) is sourced back to SCO today. HP, IBM, Sun, Data General, NextStep, Sequent, Sequoia, Bull, Ridge, etc. etc. etc.
The modern BSDs have a Get Out Of Jail Free card because of the earlier AT&T law suit. Whether Apple decided to start fresh with a new BSD license, or continue with the license they acquired when they purchased Next for use in Mac OS X is a question I can not answer, I guess you could look at the include files and see if they have something like this:
/* Copyright (c) 1988 AT&T */
/* All Rights Reserved */
/* THIS IS UNPUBLISHED PROPRIETARY SOURCE CODE OF AT&T */
/* The copyright notice above does not evidence any */
/* actual or intended publication of such source code. */
THAT is from a Solaris 8 system /usr/include/stdio.h.
THAT is SCO IP. Licensed by Sun. Sun (as stated by SCO) does not have any licensing issues with SCO today. They’re caught up, in compliance, etc. Whether they bought a one time license or whether they still pay license fees to SCO is irrelevant.
The issue with IBM and SCO is NOT a pure source code issue. The BSD/AT&T issue ended up boiling down to source code, and was inevitably resolved with a black and white test.
The issue with IBM is that they released code that was, for lack of a better word, “inspired” by SCO IP.
It’s a kind of clean room argument.
This is why SCO is NOT going after RedHat et al. RedHat didn’t have a license to breach with SCO, IBM did. If it was an “ex-SCO” employee under NDA, or whatever, then SCO would go after them. Until SCO has this resolved with IBM, they really can’t go after RedHat. About all they can do is go to a judge and say “XYZ produced by IBM is our stuff, and until this issue is settled, we’d like an injunction against RedHat to stop distributing it”.
They’re not doing that at the moment.
If you look at the MP3 issue, RedHat would quickly roll over pretty much any such “reasonably valid” request and pull the code, because that’s simply not their business.
IF IBM “settles” with SCO, and simply “pays them off”, then that means that IBM is cleared and “licensed” for whatever it is they’ve done, and SCO would not have grounds against other Linux companies. IBM at that point would have a “proper license”, and could do whatever they wanted (because SCO knows what they want to do and would agree to let it happen, otherwise settling doesn’t work).
If IBM is to be found liable, then it would have to identify the offending IP, pull it, and notify everyone else that it has done so. They’d also have to pay damages to SCO. At that point SCO, would be in a better position to file injunctions against the Linux vendors, whose only real recourse would be to follow IBMs lead and pull the code.
If the Linux vendors “knowingly” violated SCOs rights, which at this point I don’t think they do because we don’t even know what SCO is crying about, then SCO may be able to collect damages. But without that kind of violation, I think the vendors only obligation is to pull the code (or, of course, license it from SCO).
So, it may all be bullshit on SCO’s part. It may not. They’re not showing their hand yet, so we don’t know anything. And IBM isn’t cooperating with the media either, save decrying “SCO is full of it”, but without details.
IBM is choosing to not fight this in public, shredding SCOs case in OpEds and Blogs across the planet.
So, it’s not as cut and dried as everyone says. Not yet.
I find that VERY interesting.
The soap opera continues…
“Back in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s there wasn’t the need for software ‘IP’. Nobody working on it considered it anything other than academic.”
Lack of IP works, completely, in an academic environment. It does NOT work in a commercial environment. If I write a book, I expect to be able to call it my own work and protect it from someone copying it and calling it their’s. Same if I have a car, a plane or a brand new coathanger design. Commerciality demands IP. Without the means to prevent your competitors simply copying your designs wholesale then you are going to wind up in a price war, and free is always going to come out on top.
No doubt some folks would think that would be a good thing. They would have you believe commerce and capitilism are _always_ a bad thing. Exactly where do you think computing would be without them? In the lab and accounting department, that’s where. People came along, saw an opportunity to make some money and hey presto a few decades later we have affordable computers and applications that most people with a full set of frontal lobes can use.
The desire for profit drives innovation, war does as well of course (Supporting arbitrary wars as a means for furthering technology isn’t an argument even _I_ will try to make :>), whereas academia drives solutions to specific problems which aren’t usually useful to the general public anyhow. Businesses, in general, must innovate to remain competitive.
Now look at GPL, it’s come to represent ‘free’, as in beer. All the moralising, wishful thinking, and patronising sermons from Mount Stallman aren’t going to change that. GPL software is gaining popularity amongst users because it costs nothing, not because it has any greater moral value than proprietary software. If I were to give people the choice between two colas (Anyone remember the old pepsi vs coke challenge :>) that both tasted pretty good and told them one was free, and one would cost a dollar, which would they choose? Do you think they are likely to ask me about the ethics of the company that made the cola before making their choice?
The open source movement tries to make itself out to be some vast panacea, the great saviour of computing that will somehow lead us all to heavenly planes where innovation is rampant and all software works just as we want it all the time. Hogwash, it can’t, and it won’t. Open source just doesn’t innovate very well, there’s no pressure for it to innovate, it simply regurgitates old ideas.
Need an example? Ok, how about WineX. What does it do? Let’s you run windows programs on other platforms. No, I mean what does _IT_ do? I’ve no doubt that WineX is a wonderful engineering solution, and kudos to those that develope it, but in and of itself it produces absolutely nothing, WineX itself cannot innovate. Or how about mplayer? Whose codecs are they using? Or the window manager of your choice? Do you really believe they’ve moved so far from Xerox and Palo Alto? Or Linux? Congratulations, thousands of developers from around the world have come together, laboured hard, and produced…a minor evolution of an OS that’s been around in one form or another for 20-30 years. Where’s the next killer app coming from? I seriously doubt it’s coming from the open source community, although I have NO doubts a clone will be produced shortly after it appears.
It’s not the fault of open source, it’s the fact that there are very, very few people out there that can produce original works and the vast majority are being paid well to produce them for someone else. Don’t think so? Prove me wrong then, code something original for the community. Of course you’re gonna have to deal with that little devil on your shoulder saying things like: “But it’s really original, nobody else can do this, and everyone’s going to want it. Couldn’t I just make a teeny tiny bit of cash from it first? Maybe I’ll just go to the patent office, I can always give it away later…”.
Ok, what’s that got to do with the topic? Well by now you’ve probably figured out that I like IP, that I like the existence of competitive (Note the word competitive, monopolies don’t innovate either) proprietary software manufacturers. What I want is for those IP regulations to be clarified, and this IBM/SCO issue is a perfect situation to allow that to happen.
Apologies for the rant, I *cough* may *cough* have got a little carried away :>.
People seem to be devided into two camps here. The camp that wants SCO destroyed because they threaten the freedom of Linux and the camp that wants Linux destroyed because they think it is poorly made and/or it threatens proprietary software.
I see this completely differently.
If SCO has valid claims to code that Linux is using, they have a right to protect it. If the Linux community doesn’t acknowledge SCO’s right to fight those using their code illegally, how could they (the Linux community) ever enforce the GPL against MS, AAPL, or any other company that might use GPLed code illegally?
Of course, SCO’s claim to the code may be ethically questionable like many patents that are given out on software (Amazon’s 1-click comes to mind).
The problem is that there hasn’t been a lot of discussion about the case other than “SCO s*cks” and “Linux s*cks”. Does anyone actually know what is in dispute here? Is it specific lines of code that SCO developed that Linux used? Is it UNIX programming techniques that Linux followed the guidelines to?
The Linux kernel has already been cleared 100% by SCO. Realistically, that means that none of Linux is in violation since that is all that Linux is. Whether GNU (everything that people usually associate with Linux) is in violation is the real question. But we still haven’t heard exactly what parts of GNU are in dispute.
In the end, it won’t matter. If SCO is successful, GNU/Linux will either remove the conflicting parts (if possible – and depending on what SCO claims is covered by the suit may be easily done) or die. But even the death of Linux will not stop open-source. OSS programmers will simply start/join a new project. Hey, it might even be an oppertunity for OSS. Having a huge team have to start over will give all of them the chance to think about what they would have done differently if they were writing Linux today. Linux is mature, stable and proficient, but it lacks a good VM system like OSX or WinXP among other things. This could be the kick in the pants that makes OSS better than the commercial offerings out there (even for desktop users). Of course, it could also destroy the OSS movement, but I prefer to be optimistic.
Death of Linux from this? This is so far-fetched and as SCO said the official kernel Linus helped make, teh one on kernel.org doe snot contain any of their code and so it would only hurt IBM and a few distributions.
Eitehr way, I hope SCO dies, not because of this case, but because of other crap they did in the past.
This really is a game.
IBM is most likely going through their list of defensive patents searching for IP that SCO might be using. They’ll then counter sue and if SCO has any brains whatsoever, the whole thing will be dropped.
If this thing actually makes it to court, a likely scenario is the Linux community rewrites some code the second the supposed infringements are made public since it sounds like this is a copyright violation rather than a patent violation.
I doubt very much that this will go very far. Copyright violations happen all the time and in some cases, code SCO thinks it might own could have come out of a book, or licensed to a book and made its way into the Linux kernel through various indirect means including a developer who worked at SCO reimplementing a feature from scratch.
SCO are really frustrated because their Linux product are not lessing, their Unix is plagued by compitetion from gaints like IBM, HP.
So they deviced a strategy
1) Bring law suit against IBM – Trashing IBM will indeed remove Unix opponent from business.
2) Do the same thing with Redhat, Suse – These are the only hurdle in SCO’s Linux development
3) Never drag Linus and Linux kernel into this lawsuit or keep it way – Why? Well , you are smart enough to know that!!
According to SCO, this is about Unix System V, and licences that IBM signed with AT&T in the mid-eighties. To view their “evidence,” press releases, and complaint they filed in court, go to:
http://www.sco.com/scosource/ip.html
Hey treat it however it suits you, ‘free as in speech’ or ‘free as in beer’. Just appreciate the fact that you get a free and almost superior alternative to microsoft. why would you wish the end of linux? Sounds too fascistic to further the interest of a corporation over something being developed by a community of people. Even though I have moved from linux to freebsd, I’d never undermine the effort of so many people who have put efforts to the project. Long live linux…….
Ah, OK. I stand corrected.
The exhibits seem to be all various agreements/licenses between SCO and AT&T. I would have thought that was already established and thus had no bearing?
Anonymous1
Someone give me ONE reason why I’d choose Linux over Windows 2003 Server.
Because it’s generally a vastly superior server platform. Next?
Anonymous2
“There are plenty of reasons why I use linux over microsoft.”
You zealots make me laugh.
Yeah, how zealous of someone to do something for a -reason- (let alone several!). Some people… *shakes head*
hmmm
Can you imagine what would happen if we built free schools for people and automated factories and spread the information on how they worked out among the population.
Automated factories yes, but free schooling no — they tried this in Holland, IIRC, and the students just slacked off. Of course, I think that has more to do with late-teen hormone levels than any failing of the post-Victorian tradition of empathy
I know I was thinking of other things when I was that age.
Igapuz
Sorry bud, but communism lost.
Someone needs to remind 1.3 billion Chinese people.
Err
You make some very valid arguments, but I think you go WAY too far in claiming that there is virtually no open source innovation. For example:
-C
-UNIX (okay, only a few hundred thousand lines of it, including the TCP/IP stack)
-NCSA HTTPd and Mosaic
-RAID 5 (more of a spec than software, but still open and innovative)
-PGP
Why aren’t these troll posts getting modded down?
A: The “X s!cks; Y s!cks” thing is childish. And NO, I don’t wash diapers, thank you. Wash your own.
B: The SCO case against IBM is limited to at the most a few unnamed, unmentioned libraries, is what it sounds like; and a breach of contract with SCO over the terms of the license IBM had negotiated with SCO etcetera.
According to the Mozillaquest articles,
http://mozillaquest.com/Linux03/ScoSource-08_Story01.html
IBM is not showing in a particularly good light. It is leaving too much hidden for anyone to say unequivocally that it is in the right. My opinions are known; I think SCO’s stuffing up big time, and personally I think IBM should prove its case then buy SCO up and open-source the Unix source tree under the BSD license. Then the Un*x source code problem could be set completely to rest after how many years…
The case itself has nothing, nada, zero, zip, zilch, to do with the actual Linux kernel as you’ll find on
http://kernel.org
the same with the GNU body of work, as you’ll find on
http://gnu.org
and is not liekly to impact much else beyond that. How it is supposed to bring Linus itself down, is beyond me – I think the ones who said that have been tasting forbidden fruit, weeds and magic mushrooms.
C: The idea that “open source” doesn’t innovate is bull. Open source is basically institutionalizing the free flow of information, and whenever there has been free flow of information, innovation has occured. There have been “innovation hot houses” to the best of my knowledge, but they tend not to last beyond one or two generations. An open and free flow of information tends to last a lot longer than that, though it can be trampled just as surely as an open society.
As an example of open source innovation, try SANOS
http://mozillaquest.com/Linux03/ScoSource-08_Story01.html
I’ve been thinking along those lines for nigh on a decade now – if the network is the computer, why oh why does my server need Solitaire? Is it lonely?
<rant> But then of course, Microsoft has innovated Solitaire out of Win2003, a welcome move, just as they innovated Solitaire into Win3.0, just in time to ease the burden of a thousand bored-out-of-their-puny-skulls CEOs. Go figure.</rant>
<TROLL WARNING>Of course, to those trolls, I must declare I have recently been granted a genuine Norwegian Troll-hunting license, and am due for a Faeroese one soon. My Swedish one has regretfully expired, and the Danes are a bit leery about letting Swedish-trained troll-hunters in Denmark, even if they have a family connection to Seeland people. I can’t afford to get to Iceland – damn shame!</TROLL WARNING>
Thus spake Aitvo the trash king.
Re: SANOS:
http://www.jbox.dk/sanos/
is the correct URL. It’s a bug KDE hasn’t got out of konqueror yet.
“Lack of IP works, completely, in an academic environment. It does NOT work in a commercial environment. If I write a book, I expect to be able to call it my own work and protect it from someone copying it and calling it their’s. Same if I have a car, a plane or a brand new coathanger design. Commerciality demands IP. ”
“If I write a book” Well if you didn’t write the book but plagarized from freely avialible sources slapped a fancy cover on it and moralize like an only child that everything under the sun is your because you say it is. Thats how the “commercial enviornment” works.
Awww, your just jealous.
“This might be off-topic, but I think the comment system needs some kind of moderation.”
It depends on the topic. The Amiga threads are ferociously moderated to either delete or moderate down any posts that might show Amiga Inc in a bad light.
The Linux threads seem to be more free for all.
Heh, that’s the thing, isn’t it? This all *should* have been settled long ago. And the ‘exhibits’ presented by SCO are decades-old news. They prove what?…that IBM was under contractual obligations to AT&T, and thus SCO, since they bought AT&T’s IP. But no one has claimed otherwise, ever. Their ‘evidence’ is a straw man. There is no evidence anywhere in the exhibits they present that IBM actually *violated* those contracts. This is why IBM has responded so non-specifically — because SCO hasn’t actually made any specific accusations. They’ve just waved their hands around vaguely and said “IBM violated our rights, they stole our code.” They haven’t pointed at a single line of stolen code, nor actually specified what parts of Gnu/Linux contain SCO code or are tainted by SCO code. Until they do, IBM can’t provide a more coherent response.
Because SCO hasn’t shown their cards, one can’t be *certain* they don’t have a real claim. But the fact that they’re unwilling to produce a single piece of good evidence is pretty damn suggestive. And if you read the complaint they filed in court…heh, it’s a laugh. It’s full of misinformation and obfuscation. Personally, I think that SCO’s strategy is to rely on the court’s lack of understanding of technology to win a case in which they have no real claim. They’ll point at Unix System V, and then point at Linux, and say “hey, everyone knows Linux is Unix, so IBM violated our IP rights.” Well, it didn’t work with BSD, and I highly doubt it’s going to work here.
“I look forward to the day when this OS is declared ILLEGAL. Not only do they steal technology developed by SCO and Microsoft, but they’re trying to put programmers out of bussiness with the GPL. If you’re installing Linux servers at your company, berware — some zealot might force you to give up your IP, just because you used GPL’s code in your web services! Someone give me ONE reason why I’d choose Linux over Windows 2003 Server.”
I wouldn’t dignify this with any response; besides, this has been gone over, and over, and over.
I will say this; if you’re an accuser, at least have the nerve to identify yourself; otherwise, shut up.
“Reason 4 – Flexibility – I can turn my Linux box into a firewall, a file server, a dns server, a print server, email server, proxy server, etc; AND cut it down to just that. Unlike windows which has more bloat.”
…yep, everything except a desktop.
Wesley:
“As an example of open source innovation, try SANOS”
Ok, I looked, I read, I laughed. They’ve implemented a small kernel (Wow, small OS kernel, there’s an original concept) and hooked the Java Hotspot VM into it. So what we’re actually talking about here is that Java VM is the one doing most of the work, and the Java VM is an assisting technology, it can’t innovate by itself, it relies on innovative applications to be written for it. Besides, it isn’t as though the Java VM is an original concept either, VM/370 was offering virtual machines (Admittedly offering multiple virtual copies of the physical hardware) back in 1979.
Good Grief:
“-C ” – It’s a programming language. C does nothing you can’t do in assembly language, it is just a different flavour of programming not an original concept. Fortran has a much better claim to being the original higher level language. Hell, if you want to get into the real original programming language you’d have to go back to Babbage’s time (Thanks Ada).
“-UNIX (okay, only a few hundred thousand lines of it, including the TCP/IP stack) ” – I’m just not gonna go there, mainly because the *nix weenies would just ruin the thread more with flaming. Suffice it to say that reimplementing a TCP/IP stack in a new and more efficient way might be original, but the core element (ie the fact that it’s a TCP/IP stack) isn’t, from the outside it’s doing precisely the same thing as before only more efficiently. Therefore it’s evolution not innovation.
“-NCSA HTTPd and Mosaic.” A glorified file server and graphical file reader, again evolution not innovation. The innovation here was the WWW concept of Tim Berners-Lee, not tacking graphics onto file reader.
“-RAID 5 (more of a spec than software, but still open and innovative)” – Ok, hardware specs just don’t count, for sooo many reasons.
“-PGP” – You can’t be serious, encryption has been around for centuries. Governments have been using it on computers since…well since they first started using computers. PGP (Which is a thing I applaud) just brought it to the masses, Zimmerman created the specific encryption algorithm, but the concept of encryption isn’t his.
Anonymous:
” Well if you didn’t write the book but plagarized from freely avialible sources slapped a fancy cover on it and moralize like an only child that everything under the sun is your because you say it is. Thats how the “commercial enviornment” works.”
It’s called quoting moron, and so long as you reference your sources and abide by quantity rules it’s perfectly acceptable practice. You can make an entire book filled with nothing but quotes from previous works and it would be perfectly legal. Fact of the matter is it wouldn’t be a very good book.
**
Now I didn’t say open source couldn’t innovate, I said it wasn’t very good at doing it (At least I hope I did, it’s on the other page so I can’t be bothered to check :>). It has innovated in the past, and no doubt will again, but in general I stand by that statement that it generally doesn’t.
“Open source is basically institutionalizing the free flow of information”. Institutionalize Vs Free, if you didn’t figure that one out when you were writing it then perhaps you need to reconsider it now. The two terms are in total contradiction to one another.
News.com has an article up (http://news.com.com/2100-1016_3-999371.html?tag=fd_lede1_hed) where SCO claims that there has been wholesale theft of code into the kernel. Remember the sme kernel that SCO has earlier said was clean. This from the same company that said it wasn’t looking to sue anyone, and then sued IBM.
Some quotes fom the article;
“We’re finding…cases where there is line-by-line code in the Linux kernel that is matching up to our UnixWare code,” McBride said in an interview. In addition, he said, “We’re finding code that looks likes it’s been obfuscated to make it look like it wasn’t UnixWare code–but it was.”
“The Linux community would have me publish it now, (so they can have it) laundered by the time we can get to a court hearing. That’s not the way we’re going to go.”
Bruce Perens remarked;
“He’s saying this stuff exists, but he’s not willing to reveal it. Well, maybe we’ll hear about this in court, but frankly, maybe we won’t, because they’ll try to seal it all,” Perens said. “It sounds like he’s trying to FUD Linux in general.”
“There’s a simpler solution to the issue, Perens said. “They should show us what code they have problems with. We’ll take a look at it or we’ll just replace it. Keeping us in the dark is just silly,” he said.”
Now what?
Good Grief:
“-C ” – It’s a programming language. C does nothing you can’t do in assembly language, it is just a different flavour of programming not an original concept.
And assembly language does nothing you can’t do with a quill and parchment. The -vast- majority of modern computing is based on Boolean mathematics. Boole was made the Chair of Mathematics at Queen’s College, Cork in 1849, teaching mathematics. It doesn’t get much more “open source” than proactively telling other people exactly what you do and how to do it themselves. How far back ya wanna go?
Fortran has a much better claim to being the original higher level language. Hell, if you want to get into the real original programming language you’d have to go back to Babbage’s time (Thanks Ada).
Duly noted. Supplant my “C” example with “Fortran”. Bingo bango bongo.
As for Charles Babbage, one of the reasons he’s so famous is that he was one of the ONLY “closed-source” innovators to have existed between the times of alchemists and the Industrial Age. Fermat doesn’t count — he ran out of hard drive space.
“-UNIX (okay, only a few hundred thousand lines of it, including the TCP/IP stack) ” – I’m just not gonna go there, mainly because the *nix weenies would just ruin the thread more with flaming. Suffice it to say that reimplementing a TCP/IP stack in a new and more efficient way might be original, but the core element (ie the fact that it’s a TCP/IP stack) isn’t, from the outside it’s doing precisely the same thing as before only more efficiently. Therefore it’s evolution not innovation.
And the core element — the fact that it’s a TCP/IP stack — is based on the concept of digital remote communications, invented by Samuel Morse in 1844. This could arguably be said to spring forth from the invention of language, which was the first ever means of conveying information from one entity to another — and also happened to be open-source by very definition. Human verbal and written language can be scientifically shown to be at -least- 7 000 years old, and likely multiple times older.
“-NCSA HTTPd and Mosaic.” A glorified file server and graphical file reader, again evolution not innovation. The innovation here was the WWW concept of Tim Berners-Lee, not tacking graphics onto file reader.
See Morse above. Nothing has been innovative since the use of fire to cook dead mastodont.
“-RAID 5 (more of a spec than software, but still open and innovative)” – Ok, hardware specs just don’t count, for sooo many reasons.
This was meant to retort the prevailing assertion that innovation has to come from closed, jealously-guarded cabals. RAID 5 is not a “hardware spec” either, but fair enough — consider it stricken.
“-PGP” – You can’t be serious, encryption has been around for centuries. Governments have been using it on computers since…well since they first started using computers. PGP (Which is a thing I applaud) just brought it to the masses, Zimmerman created the specific encryption algorithm, but the concept of encryption isn’t his.
Slightly OT, but I found this interesting link:
http://webhome.idirect.com/~jproc/crypto/crypto_hist.html
Speaking of bringing things to the masses — would you say that Henry Ford was not innovative? I think we’re contending here with the definition of “innovative” more than anyting else. We need MS to step up and help us out
Having fun, GG