Samba Team Points Out SCO's Hypocrisy 612
An anonymous reader noted an article talking about the Samba
Team's Statement to SCO. While Darl McBride blasts the GPL, his company simultaneously announces the use of Samba 3 in their OpenServer product. I'm not sure if it breaks my heart or boils my blood to read this stuff. Probably a little of both.
Nice response (Score:5, Insightful)
SCO has no strategy (Score:5, Insightful)
They need to figure out if they will agree to the GPL, or fight it. They can't do both, or if they do someone has to get the cat to chase its tail.
This has been discussed repeatedly in the other SCO posts.
A good start (Score:5, Insightful)
Now all we need is for the Apache, X11 and all the *BSD groups to call SCO's bluff, thus drowning out the FUD.
Every time we mention SCO (Score:5, Insightful)
A fairy dies, and another pointy haired idiot buys some SCOX shares at an inflated price, using the psuedo-logic that if there's nothing there to refute, why do we keep refuting it?
Enough already. They're little yapping dogs. Don't give them the attention they crave. There's no story here until and if they detail every last line of code and document why they think it's theirs.
Shush. Shush now.
They can't have it both ways... (Score:5, Insightful)
At least for a little while I suppose. Darl(ing) can keep shooting his mouth off all he wants, it'll just make the court case that much more interesting.
All this flap about how SCO hates the GPL is pure BS since they don't seem to have an problem using GCC and SAMBA. But when this all comes to court, they'll really have to decide which way it is - is the GPL legal or not? Because it's going to affect the future (if there is one) of their 'product'.
Of course, I'm still cynical enough to believe that this whole thing is an exercise in legality. SCO isn't looking to the future, well unless you're an exec dreaming about tropical climates.
Which is worse? (Score:3, Insightful)
(Allegedly) taking source from someone elses commercial product and appropriating it in your public domain product?
-or-
Taking a product from the public domain and appropriating it for your own commercial purposes?
-or-
Taking source from the public domain, incorporating large bits of it in your commercial product, claiming suddenly you own it and threatening to sue everybody who took advantage of the same PD source because both your code looks similar?
Re:samba team... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:SCO Resellers - no friends of free software (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Samba team should... (Score:4, Insightful)
Fuck EM! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: SCO has no strategy (Score:5, Insightful)
> SCO is simply lacking a good corporate strategy.
Actually they've adopted a consistent strategy of "say whatever sounds best at the moment", without the least concern for internal consistency. This is a common symptom among the advocates of pseudoscience, and IMO is the most revealing evidence we have that their case is entirely bogus. If they had a leg to stand on they'd stand on it.
Of course they have a strategy (Score:5, Insightful)
The final components, "Sink face first in rancid dung in pit of hell. Writhe for all eternity." are an unintended consequence.
Re:Nice response (Score:2, Insightful)
Here, here. I have to agree that their stance does the Linux community and other GPL adopters a service, if only from a public relations point of view. Much more restraint than I would be able to muster.
If I ran the Samba team, I'd be pointing people to \\samba.org for all their SCO kernel source needs.
Re:Heh, this can get funny (Score:5, Insightful)
This seems to add some weight to my conjecture.
Soko
Yes... (Score:3, Insightful)
For instance, it appears that China is using GPL'd software but not giving back the source on their custom binaries. What are you going to do about it? Right, nothing. There's nothing you can do about it.
But that's not the point of Free software. Free is free as in freedom, like freedom of speech. It means we must tolerate those who will abuse it. That doesn't mean we can't be pissed about it. And it doesn't mean we can't boycott, protest, or otherwise demonstrate (vote with out wallets) our displeasure with people like SCO.
That's what SAMBA is saying, and they're right. There's simply nothing else they can do but bitch. AFter a while, this will be a pretty big embarrassment to SCO I should think.
Re:SCO has no strategy (Score:5, Insightful)
They need to figure out if they will agree to the GPL, or fight it. They can't do both, or if they do someone has to get the cat to chase its tail.
Actually having things both ways is a good corporate strategy. Remember, corporations are defined as selfish. If they can benefit from the GPL in some areas and attack it were it does not benefit them they win in the short run.
Corporations need not have an internally consistent value system.
Re:One has nothing to do with the other (Score:2, Insightful)
> compared BSD's "do whatever the fuck you want we dont care" mentality.
SCO isn't just using GPL software, they're *distributing* it, *selling* it as a component of their own OpenServer. Obviously they can't do that if they do think that the GPL is a valid license.
Re:One has nothing to do with the other (Score:3, Insightful)
Though I appreciate your sentiment, I think the main argument is that SCO isn't just using GPL'd software.
They are modifying, re-releasing and selling GPL'd software. All of which is perfectly fine (under the GPL) but which is contradictory to statements made by their CEO.
That is, they support and exploit the GPL as long as it benefits them for their business model. In the case of Samba, to be free of the GPL they'd have to engineer their own SMB solution, and in such a way that it was not "tainted" by the GPL (i.e., they cannot just steal from the Samba team).
Since this is not likey to happen, SCO has made the choice to charge money for a product that includes a great long list of GPL'd software (which supposedly adds a a lot of value to their OpenServer product) and yet their fearless leader claims that the GPL "destroys value".
I'm thinking this is the part that rankles most with the Samba team.
Re:Nice response (Score:5, Insightful)
At SCO's next press conference, someone should ask them if they're willing to indemnify purchasers of OpenServer in the event that Samba is found to have copyright infringing code and someone else begins to ask for a licensing fee.
This isn't funny at all... (Score:2, Insightful)
I suggest any Slashdotters with half a brain who actually do care about science and technology should do the same.
License question (Score:2, Insightful)
SCO does not accept the GPL (they state in public, that the GPL is invalid). But in order to use/distribute SAMBA, they need to accept it (otherwise they are not allowed to use it).
So either they stop complaining about the GPL or they imediately remove SAMBA from their servers.
As long as SCO doesn't accept the GPL as a valid license, the SAMBA team and anybody contibutetd to the project (which holds the copyright on their code) can very well and should demand that SCO removes SAMBA from their products.
IANAL: Equitable Estoppel (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:SCO has no strategy (Score:4, Insightful)
In the case you describe, they would have an internally consistent value system. Whereby, they would simply not be consistent in their respect of the GPL. But they would be internally consistent in regard to their value system of grabbing money by any possible means.
Re:samba team... (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course that is correct, but that is exactly what SCO is doing here. Asking for licensing fees from code that they themselves publish under the GPL.
Every time I hear this bozo of a story I think of stupid investors that would actually hang onto this doomed company's stock. Can we just change the icon for SCO news to a picture of their CEO with a clown nose.
I don't think most people understand... (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole concept of cooperation and sharing is completely off the radar of these people, and if it should happen to appear, it appears as a hideous threat to all that is sacred in their dinosaur minds.
This conflict goes back a long way, and this is just the latest manifestation.
The REALLY interesting thing to me is the collection of corporate entities that have endorsed open source. Or that there even ARE corporate entities that have endorsed/cultivated it.
I fear there will be no resolution soon...
- Steve
Where are the SCO Employees? (Score:2, Insightful)
GPL destroying value (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:text of article (Score:5, Insightful)
I *would* agree that GPL'ed software destroys the business model of larger software companies who have managed to find ways to get people to pay them a lot of money for ideas (programs), that might have been created by someone else, if not by them. The current corporate software market is kind of like:
"Dibs!!! I was here first! Give me a quarter, and I'll let you ride my bike!".
Then when somebody else comes along, doesn't like the looks of things, and decides to donate bike-building instructions to people they say:
"[punch]No way! You can't ride that bike, you have to ride [slap]MINE, and you have to [kick]PAY me, dammit!"
Free software companies won't have the same market cap as Microsoft, that's true. That's because they don't work the same way. Microsoft is in the business of selling software to people who don't know any better (a fairly large population). RedHat is in the business of selling services to people who are too busy to do things that they could otherwise handle themselves. Linux vendors will never have the kind of leverage available to apply to their customers that MS does, because those customers could support themselves if they chose to (in most circumstances).
There's no less value in any of the products that vendors are selling, there's just less ability for them to overcharge for those products.
Re:samba team... (Score:5, Insightful)
Even under the GPL, there is a provision for a modest copying or production fee.
If SCO is distributing Samba, they must obtain a license to use it in some form or another. If SCO disclaims the GPL license, they have no other right to use the software. It is copyrighted code. At their discretion, the Samba team can choose to offer SCO the right to use Samba under a different, for profit license. This defeats the purpose of Open Source ideals in a big way. However, SCO cannot just dismiss the GPL and continue to use Samba.
The GPL is a legally binding license. It is built upon the copyright laws of the United States and most other civilised countries.
Repeat after me:
To say the GPL is invalid is to say all software EULA's are invalid. Without the GPL, Samba is UNLICENCED COPYRIGHTED code.
START INCLUDING STOCK SYMBOLS!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
One question... about the whole case in general (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Two flaws with that arguement. (Score:5, Insightful)
Though they do share some things, they are fundamentally different in how they're structured, enforced, used, and in what they protect.
One can only hope that whatever judge and jury look at this thing can properly weigh each of the issues against the proper area of this "family" of law.
It seems to me - - - (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:NEW ACRONYM ALERT! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:SCO's view: GPL == Public Domain (Score:3, Insightful)
>trying to enforce them"
You are completely wrong about that. You fully misunderstand how copyright works in the US. You seem to have copyright confused with trademark dilution disputes.
You don't lose your copyrights just because you aren't suing people. Although certain corporations would love it if it were so... and they love it that people like you believe it.
Re:Heh, this can get funny (Score:4, Insightful)
Distributing a creative work under a clearly articulated license does not equal surrendering your rights to copyright, or any other rights.
You have articulated a distribution agreement. It is your copyright that secures that agreement.
But the agreement itself is not a surrender of your copyright, and if you want to claim it as such, you will need to arrange a hearing with each and every individual copyright holder to settle the question of law.
If you manage to get a court decision that invalidates the GPL fully and puts all GPL work into the public domain, it would have to be so broadly worded as to threaten anyone else who distributes software or anything else licensed like software.
If copyright cannot back our distribution license, then it cannot back yours either. You think Microsoft would allow this for Media Player? Or Oracle for the database server? They distribute software freely with a license that is backed by copyright as well.
Win-Win Situation for MS (Score:4, Insightful)
If SCO wins case and GPL banished -- General state of disarray and panic in community, MS FUD campaign comes to a head while a new license is created and software stripped of SCO code.
If SCO wins case but GPL upheld -- Microsoft's "We respect IP, Linux is for thiefs" crap is reenforced. Valuable time and market share lost while code is stripped.
Say SCO gets trounced, GPL upheld, victory for Linux and Open Source -- Microsoft points and yells "See, GPL IS viral! SCO released Linux and now that code is GPLed!"
Regardless of the case outcome, MS FUD is the winner.
SCO and GPL Voilations (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe GPL == BSD (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:SCO users depend on GNU (Score:3, Insightful)
There are many features that GCC doesn't implement or doesn't implement well. Auto-parallelization has and probably never will be a supported feature in GCC due to the technical hurdles. Auto-vectorization support is new, but many commercial competing compilers had support for this in the past. Nowdays, though, only hardware-vendor compilers can keep the marketshare needed to support such features. GCC is a weak compiler for RISC chips like the PowerPC compared to IBM and even Apple's Mac OS 9-only MrC compiler. It lags behind Intel's compiler for x86 systems in performance as well. Don't even get me started on g++ and its sundry issues, especially the way that it refuses to play nice with other compilers and follow system ABIs.
Okay, maybe I'm disparaging GCC as a project now, but it's still an amazing achievement. GCC isn't perfect; no software is. However, there were plenty of niches that other vendors could've filled if they weren't competing with GCC's price. The only competing compilers which are still alive are either (a) free or (b) sold by the vendor of the expensive, non-x86 hardware that they work with.
Re:Of course they have a strategy (Score:4, Insightful)
"... Raymond says the open-source community is not willing to sit idly by while SCO asserts proprietary control, and the right to collect license fees, over the entirety of Linux. What do you say to that? Why doesn't SCO just leave Linux customers, partners and developers alone and out of its dispute with IBM?
McBride: That's like if someone comes into your house while you're sleeping, takes your jewels, and as you start chasing them down [to retrieve your property], and now they want to say you're the one doing the bad thing. I have to read [Eric Raymond's letter] and am meeting with [The Linux Show's] Jeff Gerhardt on it later. "
It's more like the "thief" sells copies of the jewels to you. SCO sues the thief and comes after you demanding a royalty fee. You even try to return the jewels, but SCO doesn't want it back and it won't tell you which jewels are theirs. Just pay up!
It's sad, SCO's strategy is to settle the suit for hundreds of millions AND collect a royalty fee for every copy of Linux. I hope IBM doesn't settle just to shut them up.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid
SCO slippery slope (Score:2, Insightful)
So, either they reject the GPL and therefor can't license (use for free) Samba, or they accept the GPL as a license and use Samba but then that aspect of their lawsuit/rhetoric is null n' void.
It seems to me this should be a gotcha for the SCO punks.
Re:Every time we mention SCO (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:samba team... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:SCO's view: GPL == Public Domain (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:samba team... (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry. The 'use' was supposed to be 'distribute'. The GPL has *zero* usage clauses. It only applies to distribution.
Re:text of article (Score:4, Insightful)
But isn't it true? It's undeniable that the GPL and Free Software *does* destroy value, but the key is destroying value FOR WHOM.
You might say that Pepsi Cola is "destroying" the value of Coca-Cola (compared to a monopoly), because they force them to provide it at a competitive price. But I've never seen Coca-Cola sue Pepsi because it's "destroying the value of our product".
It's still not illegal to provide a better product than the competition, thus lowering the value of the competition's product. Yet. The argument is completely hogwash, and SCO is just pissed because they can't steal the work of others and profit off it. That's what they're after when they want GPL'd code to be public domain.
Kjella
Re:samba team... (Score:3, Insightful)
Hasn't SCO said something along the lines of a license not being valid unless it's a physically signed paper document? Then maybe one of Samba's copyright holders could send a nice letter to SCO, pointing out that their recent actions on the one hand indicate that they do not wish to agree to that license, but on the other hand they want to distribute Samba, so the copyright holder could ask SCO for a signed, physical copy of the GPL simply to make sure that they do agree to it with regards to Samba.
I am not a lawyer and I have no idea if, should they refuse to sign the license, this could be interpreted as SCO not accepting the license and thus not being allowed to distribute Samba. On the other hand, if they refuse to sign the license and still distribute Samba, they'd have to claim that signing a paper document is not required. That should weaken their argument about the GPL being invalid.
Even if this didn't result in additional legal trouble for SCO, if done correctly it could at least result in some really bad PR for them. "SCO refuses to sign license agreement for software it distributes" would make a nice headline, wouldn't it?
Same as they ever were... (Score:4, Insightful)
Copyrights do not need to be enforced, though not doing so will severely reduce or completely cancel any damanges you can claim, as for instance the refusal to enable developers to remove any infringing code from Linux, as SCO is doing should they actually have any code in there.
The GPL clearly states that unless you can satisfy all claims of the GPL, the entire licence is null and void, which means that it can not be partially invalidated. Which means that noone (at least in the US) would have a valid licence to distribute anymore, and that the authors as the copyright holders individually would have to release each and every piece of code under a new licence, noone else has the right to.
This whole bullshit about GPL entering public domain, or reverting to public domain is pure FUD from SCO. If an EULA provision by Microsoft is held unenforcable (as has happened in Germany, I know) that doesn't mean that the work enters public domain. It just means that you must change the licence to one that is permitted within the legal framework (or as is likely if it really happened in the US, no valid licence at all. Then the rest of the world will continue to develop Linux, while shaking their heads at the US stupidity).
Kjella
Also note... (Score:5, Insightful)
4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance.
As I read this, SCO has terminated their right to distribute their Linux-based OS (and anything using Samba...) by attempting to sublicense to others under a non-GPL license (i.e., by trying to extort license fees for Linux from all and sundry). However, those who bought from them are in the clear as long as they comply with the GPL. Am I wrong here?
Re:SCO users depend on GNU (Score:3, Insightful)
GCC perhaps wouldn't be an adequate (and sometimes better) alternative if the proprietary world hadn't driven itself out of the market
Re:samba team... (Score:3, Insightful)
If MySQL were LGPL MySQL AB would not have a licensing business.
Dastardly
Re:samba team... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, they've claimed that the GPL isn't worth the paper it's printed on, and it's true that they continue to distribute the Linux code even as they deny anyone the right to redistribute that code. They've even demanded licensing fees in violation of the license under which they distribute the kernel.
The question now is, does this give SAMBA a right to pull their license? I don't believe it does, or that such a rule would be productive. Unless the GPL is written in such a way that violating one piece of GPL'ed software revokes distribution rights of *all* GPL'ed software, Samba cannot revoke the GPL on Samba.
The reason is, they can say whatever they want about the GPL, just as I can stand outside Microsoft's campus with leaflets about why EULAs may not be legally enforceable. What I'm doing isn't violating the EULA of any software I have. By the same reasoning, until SCO actually violates the GPL with regards to Samba software, I think they're legal.
I think that the best thing the Samba team could do would be to draft a letter, asking Darl and Co. to reaffirm their commitment to complying with the terms under which SCO received their intellectual property. Chances are, SCO will ignore it--as I said, I don't think that Samba currently has grounds to revoke the license--but at least it will highlight the hypocrisy of SCO's behavior and provide some good PR for the community.
Re:SCO and GPL Voilations (Score:2, Insightful)
This has been strongly hinted at by Christoph Hedwig (sp?). I think he was a Caldera developer in Germany, and he suggested that support for a certain filesystem in SCO products would be a productive area to look at.
Re:samba team... (Score:5, Insightful)
The real question is whether or not SCO's bluster is sufficient to demonstrate an across-the-board rejection of all GPL obligations. I don't believe that it is in the general case; but the copyright holder of the linux kernel could certainly use the extortion letters as evidence that the terms of the GPL had been rejected by SCO in the specific case of the kernel, and so they are in violation of copyright law if they distribute any kernel which contains non-derivative work. If Linus chose to sue SCO, he would have a very strong case, IMNLO (In my Non-Lawyerly Opinion.)
I like what the samba team has done here -- essentially asked them to clarify their position. I'll take a failure by SCO to negotiate a new license (assuming they still ship a version of samba) as evidence that they consider the GPL valid in general.
-Craig
Re:Fight Back: Short SCOX (Score:5, Insightful)
That same organized campaign with the intent of informing potential investors of a legitmate, profitable investment opportunity is how most financial advisors earn their livings.
The good news here is that this effort actually accomplishes both ends. It simply remains important to place primary focus on the second.
Re:Win-Win Situation for MS (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:SCO has no strategy (Score:3, Insightful)
That wouldn't be acceptable to satisfy their obligations pursuant to the GPL.
The GPL states that where source is provided it must be in the form of "a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code,
So printing it on the back of old telephone books or sending an audio tape of someone reading it off or other funky stuff like that is not acceptable.
Re:SCO's view: GPL == Public Domain (Score:4, Insightful)
Who do you have to pay when you perform one of Shakespeare's plays?
What if Samba 3.0.1 refused to run on SCO? (Score:3, Insightful)
What is there to stop Samba or even GCC from checking to see if they are being run or compiled on a SCO OS and refusing to continue (exit with an error message explaining why)?
This would be fully above board, as it is open source, but SCO would be unable to fix the problem without having to abide by the terms of the GPL that they hate so much.
Anyone see a problem with this?
Re:No Tridge in sight? (Score:1, Insightful)
Should we assume that's for the obvious reasons - the whole IBM-being-sued-and-employees-commenting-would-be-
I got a comment, "No, seriously, I can't comment on that" out of another friend working at IBM. Sounds like the heavies really did come around...