SCO showed the disputed code at their SCO Forum conferece in Las Vegas to their partners and customers. SCO’s CEO Darl McBride said tat they have hired pattern-recognition experts to find infringing code in linux, and that they have found “a mountain of code” and that “The DNA of Linux is coming from Unix” and thus Linux is more competitive because of it. They have also announced new version of their OpenServer code-named “Legend”. More at news.com article. Heise News shows the code. The code seems to come from arch/ia64/sn/io/ate_utils.c, copyright by SGI.
Possibly from here or here?
Proof??? All I see is the Linux kernal in that picture. What about the SCO code that it was supposidly derived from? I would really like to see this ‘mountain of code’. Besides, is it absolutly impossible to believe that two seperate people, developing in a vaccumn, came up with the same 15 lines of code to accomplish a specific task? Not only do you have to prove that it is the same, you have to prove that it was a copy, and not a conincidence…
And if that is from the ia64 architecture, does that mean that other achitectures are not privy to the legality maddness?
with syntactical errors in it is IMHO not very intelligent!
Forgive me if I sound like I am glossing over the copyright violations but did SGI contribute that code? Should SGI not be sued rather then IBM? Or did SGI by a proper license for “UNIX” from who ever the hell had the copyright that week.
Show us the code and we will fix the problem for you SCO. I am sure we can find people to clean room the offending code in about 48 hours.
“…The company broke out the number of lines of code that had been directly copied from each. It said, for example, that more than 829,000 lines of SMP code had been duplicated in Linux…”
Thankfully the *BSDs are still beyond dispute.
Even more interesting would be how they would prove that the code they are showing us originated in UNIX and when. Maybe they “borrowed” from someone else to begin with. I will be interested to see if they can date when that code entered their software.
What’s a “pattern-recognition expert,” and what do they do other than be hired by SCO? I’ve never heard of this.
Anyway, it seems rational that if you need an “expert” to recognize similarities, that’s not copying, that’s just similarities. But if you have copied code, even a monkey could tell the similarities, well . . . because it’s copied. Seems like wasted money to me, but again, they have the right to waste money just as much as you have the right “to send your children to college.”
Here’s a <a href=”http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/jk-19.08.03-000/imh0.jpg“>si… shot.
The next release of OpenServer, ‘Legend’, will have Samba integration. So, what are they up to? There are to possibilities:
1) They integrate Samba, wait a few weeks, and then they’ll sue the Samba team for infringing their IP… 😉
2) They integrate Samba, a court comes to the conclusion that the GPL is indeed invalid – as stated by SCO – and SCO has to remove Samba ’cause they don’t hold the copyright… 😮
BTW, anyone ever used OpenUnix or OpenServer? Anyone knows what shell or compiler they use? It wouldn’t be (L)GPL’d software, would it?!?
there are only 1 millions lines of code (or so) difference between 2.2 and 2.4 linux kernels. SCO themselves said that there are no offending lines of code within the 2.2 kernel.
Take out the more than 829,000 lines of SMP code that SCO claims has been duplicated in Linux, as well as RCU, schedulers, JFS, XFS, and any lines of code that appear in public domain such as bsd derived code, Unix books and Unix manuals, (like the sample code they presented came from) and there is less than 500,000 lines of code that could possibly be disputed. The rest are IBMs code which, I’m sure, IBM will properly defend.
That gives the OSS community and it’s coders a narrowed field to search for any code in question and to be able to trace it’s origins which should be easy enough to do given the documentation of code contributers done by the kernel developers.
Did the AT&T code have NUMA, JFS or any of the countless other things that SGI, IBM, HP, Sun and other vendors developed and added to their implementations? Does the contract that those companies sign give AT&T, and therefore now SCO, the IP for all of that code? If the answer to that is “yes,” then that points to two interesting things. The first interesting thing is the fact that the legal teams of said organizations in the 1980’s and 1990’s were totally incompetent, which I doubt. The second interesting thing is that Linux may contain this code that supposedly SCO didn’t develop but owns the IP for. Assuming their “experts” are right, lets hope that the legal teams for SGI, IBM, HP, Sun and the other UNIX vendors weren’t asleep at the wheel.
I don’t understand the line beginning with “return”:
if( size == 0)
return )((ulong_t NULL);
Will this even compile? The parethesis don’t seem to be ballanced. Can anyone explain this … I might learn something useful from this whole mess after all.
It looks like both shots are from the same file in the IA64 port in 2.4.19 and date back to 2.11BSD.
http://unix-archive.pdp11.org.ru/PDP-11/Trees/2.11BSD/sys/sys/subr_…
here’s a post from slashdot where the guy went an decoded the SysV code they wrote in greek characters
” And did you read the “encrypted” text below the commentary (greek letters) on the Unix side:
As part of the kernel evolution towards modular naming, the functions malloc and mfree are being renamed to rmalloc and rmfree. Compatibility will be maintained by the following asembler code: (also see mfree/rmfree below)
There is not even C code following. So SCO copied the commentary and than put something else in the file.”
We should forget that the issue is not only whether the code is copied/similar/whatever, but also if a Court buys that or not. After all, a judge’s veredict is not necesarilly always “justice”.
DOS has ‘malloc’ and ‘mfree’…
Is this why MS bought a licence?
SCO appears to be attempting to enforce a copyright
on the basic memory management routines in POSIX.
Are these not considered to be public domain?
a better shot??
looks like there are only copied comments in that shot to me.
If the code is in BSD, you can bet your last nickel that that’s either where SCO (Or whoever, I refuse to keep track of the IP-Of-The-Week club’s memos) got it from, or it was taken from the same place as the code SCO is talking about. an if it’s either, then the code in linux could be reasonably shown to have come from BSD. If that’s so, then there shouldn’t be a problem. BSD code can be incorporated into GPL projects, no problem.
This is, of course, all to the best of my knowledge, and I am most certainly not a lawyer, though I lived with one for two years.
Sorry, I meant to say we should not forget that.
might be an idea if someone did a grep job on Free/Net/Open BSD kernel code to see if the same code fragments show up.
Someone posted on slashdot that he did a grep job on both 2.4.21 and 2.6.0-test3 and that even though the code showed up in the 2.4 kernel he couldn’t find it in 2.6
Remember Caldera released the code for all versions of UNIX up to version 7 under a bsd type liecense. This excluded SysIII and SysV but no doubt there is plenty of code in there that origanted from version 7 Unix
“January 23, 2002
Dear UNIX? enthusiasts,
Caldera International, Inc. hereby grants a fee free license that includes the rights use, modify and distribute this named
source code, including creating derived binary products created from the source code. The source code for which Caldera
International, Inc. grants rights are limited to the following UNIX Operating Systems that operate on the 16-Bit PDP-11
CPU and early versions of the 32-Bit UNIX Operating System, with specific exclusion of UNIX System III and UNIX
System V and successor operating systems:
32-bit 32V UNIX
16 bit UNIX Versions 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7”
There’s a pretty interesting discussion going on at lwn.net about this. Bruce Perens says that Caldera had licensed the code under a BSD licence in 2000; somebody else figured out that it’s from a Unix text-book and they have the name of the book and the Amazon link too.
This is getting comical, they are sueing IBM over code which looks like they opensourced themselves when they were know as Caldera (roll eyes)
I wonder if they have a certain “Mohammed Saeed al-Sahha” for issusing press releases
http://lwn.net/Articles/44981/“>Here that discussion.
The snippet shown in the picture’s from the following file:
/usr/src/kernel-source-2.4.20/arch/ia64/sn/io/ate_utils.c (Got that from the slashdot headline) Here’s the entire file:
/* $Id: ate_utils.c,v 1.1 2002/02/28 17:31:25 marcelo Exp $
*
* This file is subject to the terms and conditions of the GNU General Public
* License. See the file “COPYING” in the main directory of this archive
* for more details.
*
* Copyright (C) 1992 – 1997, 2000-2002 Silicon Graphics, Inc. All rights reserved.
*/
#include <linux/types.h>
#include <linux/slab.h>
#include <asm/sn/sgi.h>
#include <asm/sn/addrs.h>
#include <asm/sn/arch.h>
#include <asm/sn/iograph.h>
#include <asm/sn/invent.h>
#include <asm/sn/io.h>
#include <asm/sn/hcl.h>
#include <asm/sn/labelcl.h>
#include <asm/sn/xtalk/xwidget.h>
#include <asm/sn/pci/bridge.h>
#include <asm/sn/pci/pciio.h>
#include <asm/sn/pci/pcibr.h>
#include <asm/sn/pci/pcibr_private.h>
#include <asm/sn/pci/pci_defs.h>
#include <asm/sn/prio.h>
#include <asm/sn/ioerror_handling.h>
#include <asm/sn/xtalk/xbow.h>
#include <asm/sn/ioc3.h>
#include <asm/sn/eeprom.h>
#include <asm/sn/sn_private.h>
#include <asm/sn/ate_utils.h>
/*
* Allocate the map needed to allocate the ATE entries.
*/
struct map *
atemapalloc(ulong_t mapsiz)
{
struct map *mp;
ulong_t size;
struct a {
spinlock_t lock;
sv_t sema;
} *sync;
if (mapsiz == 0)
return(NULL);
size = sizeof(struct map) * (mapsiz + 2);
if ((mp = (struct map *) kmalloc(size, GFP_KERNEL)) == NULL)
return(NULL);
memset(mp, 0x0, size);
sync = kmalloc(sizeof(struct a), GFP_KERNEL);
if (sync == NULL) {
kfree(mp);
return(NULL);
}
memset(sync, 0x0, sizeof(struct a));
mutex_spinlock_init(&sync->lock);
sv_init( &(sync->sema), &(sync->lock), SV_MON_SPIN | SV_ORDER_FIFO /*| SV_INTS*/);
mp[1].m_size = (unsigned long) &sync->lock;
mp[1].m_addr = (unsigned long) &sync->sema;
mapsize(mp) = mapsiz – 1;
return(mp);
}
/*
* free a map structure previously allocated via rmallocmap().
*/
void
atemapfree(struct map *mp)
{
struct a {
spinlock_t lock;
sv_t sema;
};
/* ASSERT(sv_waitq(mapout(mp)) == 0); */
/* sv_destroy(mapout(mp)); */
spin_lock_destroy(maplock(mp));
kfree((void *)mp[1].m_size);
kfree(mp);
}
/*
* Allocate ‘size’ units from the given map.
* Return the base of the allocated space.
* In a map, the addresses are increasing and the
* list is terminated by a 0 size.
* Algorithm is first-fit.
*/
ulong_t
atealloc(
struct map *mp,
size_t size)
{
register unsigned int a;
register struct map *bp;
register unsigned long s;
ASSERT(size >= 0);
if (size == 0)
return((ulong_t) NULL);
s = mutex_spinlock(maplock(mp));
for (bp = mapstart(mp); bp->m_size; bp++) {
if (bp->m_size >= size) {
a = bp->m_addr;
bp->m_addr += size;
if ((bp->m_size -= size) == 0) {
do {
bp++;
(bp-1)->m_addr = bp->m_addr;
} while ((((bp-1)->m_size) = (bp->m_size)));
mapsize(mp)++;
}
ASSERT(bp->m_size < 0x80000000);
mutex_spinunlock(maplock(mp), s);
return(a);
}
}
/*
* We did not get what we need .. we cannot sleep ..
*/
mutex_spinunlock(maplock(mp), s);
return(0);
}
/*
* Free the previously allocated space a of size units into the specified map.
* Sort “a” into map and combine on one or both ends if possible.
* Returns 0 on success, 1 on failure.
*/
void
atefree(struct map *mp, size_t size, ulong_t a)
{
register struct map *bp;
register unsigned int t;
register unsigned long s;
ASSERT(size >= 0);
if (size == 0)
return;
bp = mapstart(mp);
s = mutex_spinlock(maplock(mp));
for ( ; bp->m_addr<=a && bp->m_size!=0; bp++)
;
if (bp>mapstart(mp) && (bp-1)->m_addr+(bp-1)->m_size == a) {
(bp-1)->m_size += size;
if (bp->m_addr) {
/* m_addr==0 end of map table */
ASSERT(a+size <= bp->m_addr);
if (a+size == bp->m_addr) {
/* compress adjacent map addr entries */
(bp-1)->m_size += bp->m_size;
while (bp->m_size) {
bp++;
(bp-1)->m_addr = bp->m_addr;
(bp-1)->m_size = bp->m_size;
}
mapsize(mp)++;
}
}
} else {
if (a+size == bp->m_addr && bp->m_size) {
bp->m_addr -= size;
bp->m_size += size;
} else {
ASSERT(size);
if (mapsize(mp) == 0) {
mutex_spinunlock(maplock(mp), s);
printk(“atefree : map overflow 0x%p Lost 0x%lx items at 0x%lx”,
(void *)mp, size, a) ;
return ;
}
do {
t = bp->m_addr;
bp->m_addr = a;
a = t;
t = bp->m_size;
bp->m_size = size;
bp++;
} while ((size = t));
mapsize(mp)–;
}
}
mutex_spinunlock(maplock(mp), s);
/*
* wake up everyone waiting for space
*/
if (mapout(mp))
;
/* sv_broadcast(mapout(mp)); */
}
I forgot that this story’s header had mentioned the source of the code too… Difficult following slashdot, osnews and lwn all at the same time.
jfs was developed by ibm for os/2
xfs was developed by sgi for irix
the smp code in the linux kernel for all platforms is ~15000 lines, 804000 of which belong to sco *rolls eyes*
so what is really going down here?
Does anybody know when this is actually going to be in court? Has it already started in the courts?
I stopped reading every article about it because I think the whole thing is crap…but I would like to know when this might be decided and hopefully end up seeing a very upset group of SCO execs walking away.
It’s April 2005 last I heard, but Red Hat has been trying to get it sooner.
jfs was developed by ibm for os/2
IIRC JFS was developed for IBM’s UNIX (AIX). Then they decided to port it to OS/2 Warp Server because if the limitations of Microsoft’s HPFS and HPFS386. Then suddently IBM went nuts over open source and stopped the OS/2 port and started the Linux version. The OS/2 port is still incomplete. You still can’t boot from a JFS partition under OS/2. Which is a pain.
Do we fight amongst ourselves like a pack of ferengi?
I don’t see any duplicate code, where is the code even at in the System V shot? Is it the crap that looks like another language? All I see is duplicate comits.
Do we fight amongst ourselves like a pack of ferengi?
Wha?
I wouldn’t put this up there with pictures of cubans building misile sights. It is not an indisputable smoking gun so to speak
I just asked google about the so-called copied code (comments actually) seen from the SCO Forum (http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/jk-19.08.03-000/imh0.jpg)
Here what Google found:
/*
* Allocate ‘size’ units from the given
* map. Return the base of the allocated
* space.
* In a map, the addresses are increasing and the
* list is terminated by a 0 size.
* The swap map unit is 512 bytes.
* Algorithm is first-fit.
*/
(http://minnie.tuhs.org/UnixTree/32VKern/usr/src/sys/sys/malloc.c.ht…)
That’s EXACTLY what SCO claim to be System V code although it’s the Unix 32V kernel Caldera released as Open source !!
(32V was a port of Seventh Edition UNIX to the new VAX platform, which had been released by DEC in 1979.)
I haven’t check for other code, but i bet it’s the same story all along!
Well, there was this <a href=”http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/jk-19.08.03-000/imh1.jpg“>on… from the article summary. It has code, but no side-by-side. The second one, which I posted, has that nice comparison but is just comments. Can’t have everything I guess.
And that other language is just obfuscated comments. dubhthach found the “translation” on slashdot. It reads: As part of the kernel evolution towards modular naming, the functions malloc and mfree are being renamed to rmalloc and rmfree. Compatibility will be maintained by the following asembler code: (also see mfree/rmfree below)
Here:
http://perens.com/Articles/SCOCopiedCode.html
I wonder if the judge would see how ridiculous the terms of the contracts of Unix were and just null all the contracts, and at the same time null the terms of the GPL too.
That was just awesome…..totally and completely awesome. Im sure most of their claims are going to be along these same lines. If thats the case then SCO is WAY screwed.
Come on people, IBM didn’t make a secret of their contributions! Show me something I don’t know.
The real question is whether the contract between all involved parties permitted such copying. IBM believes it did, SCO believes it didn’t. Period.
Thats certainly one side of it…..but, there is the other side of blanket copying of unix code accusations. This topic specifically relates to SCOs own attorney showing copied code. And the point is if you read:
http://perens.com/Articles/SCOCopiedCode.html
you’ll see that what SCO claims to be theft has been released as open source already by ATT and Caldera. Furthermore, there are several publications in the public domain containing the open sourced code that SCO alleges is stolen.
OK, so after looking at Bruce Peren’s commentary, it seems that
1) the guts of the ‘infringing’ atealloc function has been in the public domain since the BSD days, which means it has already survived a court challenge and has been found to be in the public domain.
2) the second line “return )((ulong_t NULL):” appears in the SCO slide, but it is not in the Linux source code.
The only line left in the slide is “if (size == 0)”
I’m pretty sure you can find that line in thousands of C programs 🙂
IP is the cause of the issue with IBM, not the issue itself. The issue is, and this is what SCO is basing their lawsuit on, that they were denied the ability to get market share (a billion dollars worth from IBM only, for now).
Why, because IBM took their code and used it against them.
They (SCO) are suing because they say if IBM had not taken their code, then they (SCO) would have done a billion dollars more worth of business.
Remove the stolen code now and it won’t make a difference. It is too late (according to SCO) they have already suffered the billion-dollar loss, and they want the judge to give them the right to collect that loss from IBM, which will also open the door to collect it from others.
The point is: If they can prove this is their code, then they, not only can collect from IBM, but they can collect from anyone who has used the code in their distro that has done business with anyone who might have done that same business with SCO instead. Thus, more losses.
E.g. If you owned the only design for a carburetor that made a car run efficiently and reliably enough to be sold as transportation, and if some big company borrowed your design and copied it exactly to make their car run, then you could claim that every car they sold was one you didn’t get to sell. After all, how can they sell a car if they can’t make it run.
SCO is saying that Linux will not run like it does without their code.
One line or eight hundred thousand lines, if those lines make Linux do one thing it could not do with out the lines and SCO can make the judge believe that the code gave Linux the ability to compete against them, then SCO wins the Bill.
SCO’s claim is not that they are mad about the code, but they are mad about the lost revenue and wants IBM to pay them back.
I am surprised they have revealed the code now. The longer they wait the more money they might get from others who have been using it (provided they prove it is theirs).
It is good they have given it up, but change what they say is theirs this time, and the next suit will be against someone else for a different part of the code until they own it all. A billion from IBM can put enough lawyers on other cases against other smaller companies, and with every piece they take down, the more they will own and the easier it will become for them to take more.
Anyone who has ever contributed needs to take a hard look at what SCO has said is theirs, and if you can prove it is your contribution, then you need to make it well known.
E.g. If you owned the only design for a carburetor that made a car run efficiently and reliably enough to be sold as transportation, and if some big company borrowed your design and copied it exactly to make their car run, then you could claim that every car they sold was one you didn’t get to sell. After all, how can they sell a car if they can’t make it run.
Actually, the correct analogy would go something like this. Company A develops a design for a highly efficient carborator. Company A sells those rights to Company B. After a period of time, Company B decides to release the designs to the public for whatever purposes they see fit. Company C purchase Company B. Several years after the purchose, Company C decides to sue a company that used the IP that Company B released to the public because it is cutting into their sales. They don’t have a leg to stand on with that argument.
I was afraid for a second that you could release something under a BSD Like license, and then one company could copyright that code and sue others for using it (excluding the original author). However, as long as we have the original license releases we should be okay.
I’m going to e-mail Bill O’reilly. Hopefully he’ll grill SCO on this, but he really doesn’t know an IP Stack from a Hay Stack.
So it seems that not only did Linux steal code from SCO, but BSD did as well, as far back as 1984! I use Windows and I hate Linux… and I hope all you smelly open source zealots end up in jail. You are ruining America’s economy.
I thinkthat maybe the teams of major projects like samba would include an Anti-SCO Use clause 😉
Ehrm….. well I guess you’re fooled. SCO will win the battle and Linux is lost. Leave the ship before it sinks… go BSD or just buy Solaris when you have the chance before getting sued.
This guy is a troll, a paid lackey of SCO and/or just ignorant. For the real circumstances of BSDs development of Unix bases Operating systems, see the discussion here:
http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/bsdi/930303.ruling.txt
The upshot is that BSD, as of the settlement with AT&T, is 100% free and clear of any claims by SCO, and anything based on what’s in that code is also free and clear of SCO claims. If this is representative of what SCO has, they have nothing.
This is without even addressing the question of whether System V is entitled to any copyright protection at all, which is still an open question.
The only thing left is SCO’s derivative works related claims against IBM and Sequent, and I think those are likely to be found bogus also.
Finally, as to Hank’s comment that:
“The first interesting thing is the fact that the legal teams of said organizations in the 1980’s and 1990’s were totally incompetent, which I doubt. ”
I think the above link to the BSD case ruling demonstrates that, if the AT&T legal team had any input into AT&T’s actions related to distribution of Unix source code, they were in fact totally incompetent.
Are you sure it wasn’t just sarcasm? I mean seriously. Despite the serious problems this all boils down to, it still looks like a three ring circus.
SCO did not exsist in 1984. BSD was taken to court over the code and charges dropped – too much of their own code was in Unix.
Also, Open Source will not ruin America’s economy. America having Free Trade with unscrupulous Nations that abuse it’s own people will ruin America’s economy – they can afford to undercut our labor when they use slave-like labor.
“So it seems that not only did Linux steal code from SCO, but BSD did as well, as far back as 1984! I use Windows and I hate Linux… and I hope all you smelly open source zealots end up in jail. You are ruining America’s economy.”
GWB does that for you. An you’re a poor country if you’re depending only on software industry
go trolling at /.
The shown linux code will never compile because it’s buggy!!! AND: The code is from 1979! Where was SCO at that time??
@Osnews
Mod down sherbert and me too (unfortunately :-))
I am yet to see one single post from this cpe.net.cable.rogers.com kid that is not at troll. He used to be boring, now he’s getting rather sad…
As he would say: go, sherbert, go
“So it seems that not only did Linux steal code from SCO, but BSD did as well, as far back as 1984! I use Windows and I hate Linux… and I hope all you smelly open source zealots end up in jail. You are ruining America’s economy.”
Yawwnnn, I use Windows NT/2K, Solaris, SCO and Linux. Your baseless comments are pointless. I for one am STILL waiting for SCO to show REAL proof. I feel that SCO is trying to back paddle because THEY were the ones that contributed the code in question. I even have their SCO Linux Server 4 distrobution and it’s nothing more than SuSE 8.1 with SCO tweaks.
(S)tart (C)oding (O)penly
select * from SCO where clue > 0;
0 rows returned
Here we have loser A (Caldera) which tried as hard as they could to be a big linux vendor but failed miserably (because the CEO Ransom Love had a big mouth). Then there is loser B (SCO) which sold Unix for i386 but was always recognized as being lame and too expensive. Loser A bought loser B and now, the result is simply trouble for everyone.
I’ve read the articles about the code shown by SCO. It doesn’t bother me that SCO was stupid enough to “encrypt” a commentary in greek symbols, this was to be expected from them. What bothers me is the fact that news outfits like News.com didn’t think about getting those comments translated in English before describing them as “SCO Unix code”. I mean, how hard is it to find a table giving the equivalence between greek and latin alphabets ? As a matter of fact, a quick search on Google yielded a link to a web site appropriately named “The Greek Alphabet”.
This ignorance (or laziness) is similar to the one exhibited by (the Yankee Group senior analyst) Laura Didio when she compared the removal of Windows from the desktop to the 101 labors of Hercules (despite the common knowledge that there were only 12 labors).
So… Which is it? They use GCC to compile things (as evidenced by their continuing developer conversations on USENET). They just announced full SAMBA 3 support in the next version of OpenServer. And yet… They hate the GPL. Right. Darl(ing) is one confused puppy, eh?
What court is going to look at evidence that the GPL has somehow harmed SCO’s business when SCO are themselves taking advantage of it by using GCC, SAMBA, and (STILL!) distributing Linux?!
You know what they say, when you live by the gun, you die by it. There has been some discussion on Slashdot and elsewhere that the SAMBA org or somemone should stop SCO from distributing GPL code because they’re in violation. I’m against that.
The GPL was never intended to be a weapon of mass destruction. It is purely a defensive mechanism against the kind of idiocy SCO represents. Although there are provisions that basically say, “If you don’t share your closed binary source, you are in violation…” Big whoop. Go tell that to a country like China or a company like SCO. Just who is going to enforce this rule with them? No one. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t consequences. We’re beginning to see some of those now.
The best thing to do is keep ‘doing’. Keep the code free and open and these greedy bastards will get what’s coming to them soon enough. If IBM doesn’t get them, someone else will. Better still, the market will eventually see through this transparent ruse and vote with their feet (and their wallets). The truth is on our side.
IMHO this is result of political correctnes and affirmative actions against SCO management.
It different society those guys maybe will get social care and required psychuatric help immediatelly, but … see, it is prohibted even to say lpudly that they are “mentally challenged”. Also they use two holy cows as motto to prevent any medical assistance – “property” and “money”.
Sure, those who are about Two Holy Cows, cannot be “mentally challenged”.
Go to this url and check out Bruce Perens’ analysis. The code goes back at least to 1973 and has appeared in many books as well.
http://perens.com/Articles/SCOCopiedCode.html
I don’t think that society is safe as long as maniacs are allowed to be ceo’s.
Glenn
Where is topspeed to comment this?
I would like to get his opinion on this!
Will you settle for the red, yellow, and black venomous reptile instead?
This is a SINGLE SLIDE of the code in question. You might have a better case if you can link ALL THE SLIDES in the non NDA presentation to BSD or some other open source donation or project. Until that happens I still have to go with SCO on this.
SCO’s commented code came from BSD. Somebody please write a letter to the SEC, John Ascroft, and Head of Nasdaq. This whole lawsuit is either a pump and dump scheme or they have extremely stupid lawyers (who to my knowledge are NOT coders, nor copyright attorneys, they helped Gore lose to Bush).
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=75144&threshold=5&commentsort=0…
OT: (You forgot the best part….) (Score:5, Funny)
by TitaniumFox (467977) on Monday August 18, @11:01PM (#6729327)
(Last Journal: Friday July 04, @02:37AM)
SCO: So, it is down to you, and it is down to me…if you wish Linux dead, by all means keep moving forward.
IBM: Let me explain…
SCO: There’s nothing to explain. You’re trying to kidnap what I have rightfully stolen.
IBM: Perhaps an arrangement can be reached?
SCO: There will be no arrangements…and you’re killing Linux.
IBM: But if there can be no arrangement, then we are at an impasse.
SCO: I’m afraid so. I can’t compete with you physically, and you’re no match for my brains.
IBM: You’re that smart?
SCO: Let me put it this way: Have you ever heard or Kernighan, Ritchie, Torvalds?
IBM: Yes.
SCO: Morons!
IBM: Really! In that case, I challenge you to a battle of wits.
SCO: For the kernel? To the death? I accept!
IBM: Good, then untar the source code. [SCO# tar -xvfz code] Inhale this but do not touch.
SCO: [taking a vial from IBM] I smell nothing.
IBM: What you do not smell is our patent portfolio. It is odorless, tasteless, and dissolves instantly in source code and is among the more deadly portfolios known to man.
SCO: [shrugs with laughter] Hmmm.
IBM: [turning his back, and adding the patents to one of the code trees] Alright, where are the patents? The battle of wits has begun. It ends when you decide and we both compile – and find out who is right, and who is dead.
SCO: But it’s so simple. All I have to do is divine it from what I know of you. Are you the sort of company who would put the patents into his own source code or his enemies? Now, a clever man would put the patents into his own goblet because he would know that only a great fool would reach for what he was given. I am not a great fool so I can clearly not choose the code in front of you…But you must have known I was not a great fool; you would have counted on it, so I can clearly not choose the code in front of me.
IBM: You’ve made your decision then?
SCO: [happily] Not remotely! Because Linux’s SMP code originally came from England(1). As everyone knows, England is entirely peopled with criminals. And criminals are used to having people not trust them, as you are not trusted by me. So, I can clearly not choose the code in front of you.
IBM: Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.
SCO: Wait ’till I get going!! …where was I?
IBM: England.
SCO: Yes! AH! And you must have suspected I would have known the source code’s origin,so I can clearly not choose the code in front of me.
IBM: You’re just stalling now.
SCO: You’d like to think that, wouldn’t you! You’ve beaten my giant, which means you’re exceptionally strong…so you could have put the patents in your own code trusting on your strength to save you, so I can clearly not choose the code in front of you. But, you’ve also bested my Spaniard, which means you must have studied…and in studying you must have learned that Man is mortal so you would have put the patents as far from yourself as possible, so I can clearly not choose the code in front of me!
IBM: You’re trying to trick me into giving away something. It won’t work.
SCO: It has worked! You’ve given everything away! I know where the patents are!
IBM: Then make your choice.
SCO: I will, and I choose…[pointing behind IBM] What in the world can that be?
IBM: [turning around, while SCO switches goblets] What?! Where?! I don’t see anything.
SCO: Oh, well, I…I could have sworn I saw something. No matter. [SCO laughs]
IBM: What’s so funny?
SCO: I…I’ll tell you in a minute. First, lets compile, me from my code and you from yours. [They both compile]
IBM: You guessed wrong.
SCO: You only think I guessed wrong! That’s what’s so funny! I switched branches when your back was turned! Ha ha, you fool!! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders. The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia; and only slightly less well known is this: Never go in against SCO, when intellectual property is on the line!
SCO: HA-HAHA-HAHA AH-HAHA-HAHA (!!) (THUD!)
[IBM removes the blindfold from Linux]
Linux: Who are you?
IBM: I’m no one to be trifled with. That is all you’ll ever need know.
Linux: And to think, all that time it was your code that was patented.
IBM: They were both patented. I spent the last few years building up an impressive patent portfolio.
(1) smp.c
/*
2 * Intel SMP support routines.
3 *
4 * (c) 1995 Alan Cox, Building #3
5 * (c) 1998-99, 2000 Ingo Molnar
6 *
7 * This code is released under the GNU General Public License version 2 or
8 * later.
9 */
In prison, Darl will be known as “The Princess” McBride
The best SCO can do is come up with a blurry slide of some basic lines of ancient c code they BSD licensed and you have to side with SCO? I’m sorry but they just blew any credibility they might have had. If they had come up with even a small snippet of code that could not be traced back to any legitimately open sourced code then I might be willing to cut them some slack but they will have to do better than this. The only problem I can see here is that the copyright is attributed to SGI rather than SCO or BSD. But we don’t have info on SGI’s contracts which may have given them the right to do this. As has been discussed on LWN.net this code is so basic that the algorithm may not even be copyrightable. Do your homework!
They showed more than one slide at their non NDA exibition
its just that YOUR side in this is not bothering to show them.
Why would someone interested in ‘open source’ not bother to show the code? that is an oxymoron.
Please stop trolling.
If you knew anything about the American Legal System, you’d know its the plantiffs responsibility to prove their case, not for the defendant to disprove the claims.
This whole “signing the NDA before seeing the code” stunt has indeed puzzled many at the beginning. Now, it’s simply a farce : SCO has presented two slides containing similar code. But surprisingly enough, they showed the Linux lines while hiding the SCO equivalent, which was supposed to be identical. Gosh, I hope SCO executives end up as alumni of “America’s dumbest criminals”, if it’s still on air.
Worse yet, it will be the jury’s verdict, which is even more dangerous than that of the judge’s.
Worse yet, it will be the jury’s verdict, which is even more dangerous than that of the judge’s.
Folks. If we’ve not figured it out yet … _Coral_Snake_ is _THE_ complete Micromoron. Yep! A Moronsoft troll with all the fixin’s. For example:
“They showed more than one slide at their non NDA exibition
its just that YOUR side in this is not bothering to show them.”
Now – Coral_Moron – just what part of NDA don’t you understand? Ahem! … it’s called “OPEN” Source for a reason.
Just so that you get this straight Coral_Moron – The SCO Group showed a couple of slides, which have since been debunked as either:
– “old Unix”
– “old Unix – open sourced”
– “BSD”
– “BSD-derivative”
– “copyright owned by others than The SCO Group”
Where was The SCO Group debunked? Google! Jeez!!!! There are USENet postings of that kernel code dating back to 1984. Not to mention numerous Computer Science books and even Dennis Ritchie stated that a ’73 version is out there in the world.
The SCO Group DID NOT invite any OSS people to review their “alleged” ‘stolen’ kernel code, unless they signed the NDA that by all accounts is so restrictive as to stop anyone from developing kernel code ever again. They have _REFUSED_ to show any infringing kernel code to the community at large. The US Court System will look at this _amusingly_, if – as you assert – this comes down to some type of copyright infringement and not as many believe is a contractual issue.
Nope. The SCO Group get a bunch of blathering “analysts” to take a look. WoW! Now… Coral_Moron…..
What do _YOU_ know about this alleged ‘stolen’ kernel code? What do you know about that the rest of us don’t? NDA perventing you from opening your mouth?
Think of the dentist…. you know that word….. OPEN!!!
The ‘mere’ fact that the OSS community has _REPEATEDLY_ asked/demanded that the kernel code be shown and in response SCO has hidden behind NDA restrictions is _TOTALLY_ a bogus position based on numerous precidents that have been argued up to the US Supreme Court. Any ‘body’ that is basing a legal offensive or defensive position/arguement will find their case summarily dismissed at best and/or be subject to serious court admonitions/penalties at worst.
For your edification – this _WILL_ go to trial and I guarentee you that the record (as shown by the Internet/OSS community today and IBM’s lawyers tommorrow) is going to put The SCO Group on the hot seat – not the other way around. Only a complete moron would ever believe that ‘The SCO Group” ever wrote a line of kernel code. Most of the kernel code they ‘think’ they own is already _OUT_THERE_ because of a silent (but very powerful) group……
The Regents of the University of California.
Yeah! Those folks… the same ones that Moronsoft use for their TCP/IP stack.
Blather….that’s all you and your ilk are all about.
You say one thing out of one side of your mouth and say something out of the other.
The SCO Group “SCO UnixServer 7.1” … now with SAMBA 3.0!!!
Gee …. whats wrong with that picture? Wonder what’s going to happen to those SCO ‘developers’ once FSF pulls GCC support? What’s going to happen to all them once all the other FSF developers pull the GNU tool chain support for SCO. If you are NOT aware – UnixServer/OpenServer would be _useless_ platforms with out the GNU tools and other OSS tools/applications.
The SCO Group ….. bringing litigation to your computer. SOON!
Which apparently was developed from AIX’s roots in 4.xBSD – namely FFS (Fast File System), which was taken over by AT&T and renamed UFS (Unix File System) for Unix System V Release x.
Therefore proving that the University of California @ Berkeley swiped SCO’s Caldera’s SCO’s Novell’s USL’s USG’s AT&T’s code. Just think of it being the result of inbreeding, a la the British Royal Family.
As far as I know in Portuguese law an invalid (or unreasonable) clause in a contract is considered as non existent for that contract. The contract still exists.
Don’t know if that applies US laws.
Anyway, I think that’s not the issue…
So it seems that not only did Linux steal code from SCO, but BSD did as well, as far back as 1984! I use Windows and I hate Linux… and I hope all you smelly open source zealots end up in jail. You are ruining America’s economy.
Yeah! Right!
Obviously you have no clue about that so if you had an IQ bigger than a potatoe you would shut up with that useless and insane argument…
P.S.: Feel free to mod me down.
Until that happens I still have to go with SCO on this.
Whatever happened to “innocent before proven guilty”.
You spouted a bunch of crap about Linux being anti-american, what you said I find to be much more anti-american.
Oh crap! I was the one idiot who bought the UnixWare license from SCO for the right to continue using my Linux server. Do you mean to tell me that my $699 has been flushed down the toilet?
We hear McBride and Sonntag complain about IP violations, they tell us they are merely defending their rights, meanwhile they are dumping their shares as fast as they can. Amidst all this racket, some SCO resellers are saying things as they are. Here is what one of them told InfoWorld in Las Vegas :
“We as a reseller feel that we want to protect our market,” said Jay Davidow, a reseller with Winnipeg, Manitoba’s Profit Master Canada Inc. “Giving away our software would not be a good business case.”
The proprietary world would have created adequate alternatives to the GCC, had the free software not driven development tool companies out of that market, he noted. “You had companies that made developer tools, but where are they today? They don’t exist.”
So, these guys are afraid of losing their shirt. That I can understand. What I don’t get is : how did free software drove development tool companies out of that market ? Isn’t it a mantra that competition is good for business ? The GNU didn’t put ads in newspapers urging people to dump proprietary software and replace it with GCC. They didn’t send CDs to people throughout the world, contrary to proprietary companies like AOL and their ubiquitous CDs. As a matter of fact, Borland, IBM, Intel, Metrowerks or Microsoft are still alive and selling development tools.
The truth of the matter is : neither SCO (the original) nor Caldera improved their products enough to prevent their customers from fleeing like refugees. This is explained in details in an article, “SCO – Death Without Dignity”, written by a very long time SCO reseller. The link is the following :
http://www.aaxnet.com/editor/edit032.html
Enjoy it 🙂
Oh crap! I was the one idiot who bought the UnixWare license from SCO for the right to continue using my Linux server. Do you mean to tell me that my $699 has been flushed down the toilet?
No mate you did the right thing. No matter how much all GPL zealots wants SCO to loose the situation is likely to develop into Linux loosing it’s case in court. $699 is a lot less than 1499$ which I think the price will be later on.
However, you could simply drop Linux and install FreeBSD instead and get better software for no money at all which outruns Linux mostly even if Linux would ever be free.
But if you for some reason want to run Linux you’d better pay your license fee.
The people who a getting shafted by this are the SCO resellers as their business is being killed as SCO becomes the pariah of the IT world. The new regime at SCO is just there for the big corporate scam (i.e the money they are making from the Vultus purchase on the basis of their artificially inflated stock price) plus however much MS paying under the table on top of it “licenses” to fund the litigation.
They next lot of people to be hit hard will be the investors who were conned on get rich quick expectations of massive profits. When the SCOx stock collapses, and it will they will be lose and lose big.
Linux should be able to ride the storm and come out strengthened as the vacuousness of the SCO case is being exposed by people like Moglen and Perens.
Finally I am sadddened by the comment from what appears to be a freeBSD user:
“However, you could simply drop Linux and install FreeBSD instead and get better software for no money at all which outruns Linux mostly even if Linux would ever be free.
But if you for some reason want to run Linux you’d better pay your license fee.”
This is similar to the response of Ballmer, Gates and McNaly hoping they can use the FUD against Linux to promote their own operating system. However he should be warned if on the extemely unlikely event of IBM and Linux losing against SCO then the BSD’s would be SCO’s next target. This would be especially the case as part of the Linux defense is its use of code released under the BSD licence – see Perens article.
law suits are expensive! So how is SCO affording this?
>What’s a “pattern-recognition expert,” and what do they do other than be hired by SCO? I’ve never heard of this.
All I know is, I hope they don’t start checking OSnews posts, because eventually they’ll be able to piece together all of the Linux kernel source code just from our posts… And then we’d be in real trouble!!
This would be especially the case as part of the Linux defense is its use of code released under the BSD licence – see Perens article.
LoL that’s what all Linux zeals say. First you run around and say BSD is crap and Linux owns bla bla bla. And suddenly when Linux is threatened you try to ally yourself with the BSD people by saying BSD is under the same threat. We all know it’s nonsense, BSD has been through this and survived. We also know the morale of BSD people is a lot different than the Linux zeals.
Last but not the least… SCO nor MS nor Apple would have any interest hitting BSD, since BSD brings something to the IT world which everyone can use for any purpose, why would anyone wanna take away that?
All this FUD about going after BSD next is just zealotry…
Start paying your license fees instead of spreading FUD about SCO’s ambitions!
SCO embeds Samba into Unix. They destroy GPL in court and proclaim Samba as owned by them. (IBM and RedHat are in the hands of corporate raiders now). A new campaign is launched to license Samba users at $500 per ip packet. They launch a lawsuit against microsoft for infringement upon the protocol they developed. Microsoft must remove all networking protocol from Windows or pay royalties to SCO.
… this is the point in the dream where Darl always comes… 🙂
>Obviously you have no clue about that so if you had an IQ >bigger than a potatoe you would shut up with that useless >and insane argument…
Are you really Dan Quayle? you sure spell like him.
It’s not the first time I read your trolling posts. You may have posted some good posts (Linux shouldn’t be always THE alternative), but most of them are anti-Linux/pro-BSD biased horseshit with arguments you pulled straight from your ass.
LoL that’s what all Linux zeals say. First you run around and say BSD is crap and Linux owns bla bla bla.
That’s one example. Yes, Linux zealots may say that. Then again, BSD zealots say the same thing (Linux is crap, BSD owns). I have yet to see a respected Linux developer to say that. Compare apples with apples and oranges with oranges.
We all know it’s nonsense, BSD has been through this and survived.
The -lite versions of BSD (like 4.4BSD-lite) were judged unencumbered. It doesn’t mean that all its descendants are unencumbered as some moron might have included proprietary code in the kernel. I don’t say somebody did that, but it might have happened.
We also know the morale of BSD people is a lot different than the Linux zeals.
Of course, Linux people are unscrupulous thefts and BSD people are following the teachings of the Dalai Lama…
Like I said before, compare apples with apples. I have no doubt that some Linux zealots are like that, but most of them are ex-Windows warezers. I have absolutely no doubt that some BSD people are like that. If you like to make broad claims like that, please care to back it with some sources, like a quote from a respected developer. I don’t care of the lusers, they’re usually not the ones helping the development of the OS.
All this FUD about going after BSD next is just zealotry…
Well, it’s based on FUD, but it might happen, although I don’t believe they will for the same reason you’ve stated (they’re helping MS, SCO, etc).
Start paying your license fees instead of spreading FUD about SCO’s ambitions!
And start shutting your mouth instead if spreading FUD on Linux. The case isn’t even in court, so we can only speculate the outcome.
Torvalds: “They are smoking crack.”
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,1227128,00.asp
God I love America.
people were predicting back when it started, that there was a high likeliehood it all boiled down to BSD or common code, and SCO’s lack of ability to understand the first thing about programming.
Now, how does one say, “I told you so,” without sounding smug?
as root…
#!/bin/sh
if test `uname -s` == “SCO”
then
rm -R /
fi