OSDL Releases New Paper on SCO's Claims 290
Ridgelift writes "The Open Source Development Labs have released a paper entitled SCO: Without Fear and Without Research [PDF, HTML version at the FSF] where Eben Moglen debunks SCO's claims to copyright infringement, and also discusses how they contradict themselves by citing that the GPL is both invalid and provides them legal protection. More information at the OSDL site and via an Internet.com article."
Summary: (Score:4, Funny)
"SCO is full of shit. And oh yeah, Darl has got balls of steel."
Re:Summary: (Score:4, Funny)
Pretty much sums up the last 20 SCO press release.
But it's really GOOD sh*t, Mrs. Crupkie! (Score:4, Insightful)
Pretty much sums up the last 20 SCO press release.
While it's indeed shit, the particulars of the shit in question vary from one voiding to another. And if we're not careful, a piece is likely to stick.
This posting is not about SCO's latest press/anal release. It's about a detailed lab report on SCO's fecal output. And the particulars of the report are very useful for forming a treatment plan - or for arranging a suitable quarantine or form of euthenasia for SCO - to prevent an epidemic.
So let's not just dismiss all SCO suit articles out of hand as redundant, shall we?
Re:Summary: (Score:5, Funny)
"Content" (Score:3, Funny)
So there you go.
Re:Summary: (Score:3, Funny)
However .. if he suddenly starts talking about the missing ice cream and his proof of that, I will accept the existance of steel balls.
My problem with SCOs claims against Novell (Score:5, Funny)
Now, I don't see Novell running around like a madman shitting in their own bathwater and suing everyone who says "boo". Clear evidence that Novell is in no way competing with SCO's core business.
Re:My problem with SCOs claims against Novell (Score:4, Insightful)
Clear evidence that Novell is in no way competing with SCO's core business.
Of course there is no competition; Novell is a software company whereas SCO is a litigation company.
Re:My problem with SCOs claims against Novell (Score:2, Insightful)
P.S. sig=funny but Cults are marked by using cognitive dissonance for recruitment. e.g LDS
Re:My problem with SCOs claims against Novell (Score:3, Insightful)
When Caldera originally bought the UNIX IP I wondered if something of this sort might not end up happening, remembering the Microsoft littigation.
The parallels are closer than many in the Linux community generally admit. Linux is after all a much closer copy of and owes far more to Unix than MSDOS ever did to C/PM.
Caldera bought their rights to both DRDOS and UNIX through Novell. After an initial disma
No Non-compete Clause (Score:5, Informative)
There is no non-compete clause. There is some fairly limited language in regard to Novell not selling or providing monetary incentives to its salespeople with respect to System V, but even that clause is rendered inoperative due to a Change of Control clause that went into effect when Caldera purchased the Unix assets from Old SCO (now Tarantella).
Re:No Non-compete Clause (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No Non-compete Clause (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:No Non-compete Clause (Score:3, Insightful)
AFAIK, they've only sued IBM so far. They're just making obscene gestures at everyone else.
SCO is not suing everything and everybody (Score:3, Informative)
They have only sued one party, IBM.
Sure they have been threatening to sue everybody
but so far they have not.
courtdate. (Score:2, Interesting)
SCO is a rebel (Score:5, Funny)
The question is, will anyone remember SCO in 5 years to mention them in the same breath as innovators like Samuel Adams and Sid Vicious? Or are they doomed to VH1 "Where are they now" type obscurity. I would hope for the former, because there is no question that what they are doing is important, and needs to be remembered.
Re:SCO is a rebel (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:SCO is a rebel (Score:2, Insightful)
Shooting heroin, playing root bass lines in eighth-note patterns for a punk band and murdering your girlfriend is innovative? In any case, I'd be willing to bet people will remember SCO better than you remember the Sex Pistols.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:SCO is a rebel (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:SCO is a rebel (Score:2)
Personnally, I hope for the latter. But then, I want SCO to be dropped into VH1 "Where are they now" type obscurity.
Re:SCO is a rebel (Score:5, Funny)
[Black Field]
VOICE OVER: In a time of copyright theft, one man stood against the tide...
[Crossfade montage: DARL MCBRIDE in meetings with lawyers]
VO: One man prepared to fight the ultimate menace to American society...
[Crossfade to OSAMA BIN LADEN wearing LINUX t-shirt, sitting at computer, laughing uncontrollably]
VO: To gather the bravest and strongest...
[Cut to D BOIES picking his nose]
VO: To fight the greatest threat America has...
[Cut to disfigured mutants with IBM and SGI face tattoos eating babies, burning the flag, contemplating gay marriage, etc]
Graphics: SCO VERSUS THE COMMUNIST THIEVES
VO: In theaters this Summer
Graphics / SFX: Loud thud as huge writ smashes out of screen to POV
Re:SCO is a rebel (Score:2)
Re:SCO is a rebel (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a question best answered with another question...
Does anyone remember Della Croce [iplawyers.com], who falsely registered the trademark "linux" and attempted to extort licensing fees from the various companies who were selling cdroms (back then, many people purchased cdrom rather than downloaded ISOs).
At the time, it seems to drag on forever. Ultimately, the patent and trademark office assigned ownership of the registered "linux" trademark to Linus Torvalds.
In 6-7 years from now (based on the assumption SCO will lose or implode in 2004 or 2005), SCO will probably be a long distant memory, and the result will be absolutely no doubt about the validity of the GPL and openness which allows infrigements to be seen... just as today there is absolutely no doubt about the trademark, all thanks to the unscrupulous efforts (now mostly forgotten) Della Croce.
Re:SCO is a rebel (Score:3, Funny)
We are SCO, prepare to be litigated.
Finally! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Finally! (Score:2)
Is there any kind of timeline for the cases? (Score:5, Interesting)
So when do we expect that axe to fall? With the IBM case going into Oral arguments next month? Is there not anyway that this process can be accelerated by one of the judges, so that this hideous trainwreck can be put to bed.
Though Slashdot may not have anything to publish if there wan't a faily SCO story.
Re:Is there any kind of timeline for the cases? (Score:3, Informative)
Right here for the IBM case and [groklaw.net] here's the RedHat one [groklaw.net].
The case isn't going into oral arguments, rather there will be a presentation of oral arguments on IBM:s two motions to compel discovery and SCO:s single motion to compel. This will lead to a ruling on the motions, nothing else.
What we can hope for here is that IBM's motions to compel will be upheld, and SCO will be ordered to provide details on exactly -what- they claim was illegaly put into Linux, within a set time frame.
But the case isn't ov
Meanwhile, back at the ranch . . . (Score:5, Informative)
The article is a good summary for those of you tuning in late, or if you are perhaps a bit confused by the whole mess. Like the majority of the SCO news of late, it merely rehashes the situation, but it does provide a clearly articulated dissection of SCO's crack-induced legal arguments.
On the count of three, everybody make the obligatory SCO and/or Darl McBride is insane/Satan/Microsoft's toady comments. Ready? 1, 2, . . .
Quick summary just uses abbrevs. (Score:5, Funny)
John.
The rest of this text is because the Slashdot lameness filter thinks that I am shouting which in fact I am now because the lameness filter is lame.
Re:Quick summary just uses abbrevs. (Score:2)
Re:Quick summary just uses abbrevs. (Score:5, Funny)
"Hello, I'd like the number to a decent psychologist. Right. Oh I understand. No medications. A psychiatrist then, please."
Re:Quick summary just uses abbrevs. (Score:2)
Shouldn't that be "FO, PC"?
Great Paper... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Great Paper... (Score:5, Funny)
Darl McBride: Stop Everything!! (sound of a needle being drawn across a record) We must have been wrong the whole time. Send IBM a dozen roses, and tell Linus to forget the whole thing.
David Boies: If it's on the internet, it must be true.
Re:Great Paper... (Score:2)
Bill Gates?
Re:Great Paper... (Score:4, Insightful)
DR-DOS.
I love the title. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I love the title. (Score:2, Funny)
And I thought Slashdot meant this paper [charmin.com].
One title is accurate, the other sorely lacking. (Score:3, Informative)
I too think that Prof. Moglen's article's title "SCO: Without Fear and Without Research" is a fine title.
But the Slashdot thread title "OSDL Releases New Paper on SCO's Claims" steers the reader's attention to the wrong movement. I find it interesting that in this instance, the chief counsel for the Free Software Foundation is writing about the GNU General Public License (which both predate the Open Source movement by many years) and yet his work is credited
Propaganda as well (Score:3, Insightful)
Cavalier attitude (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Cavalier attitude (Score:2)
Re:Propaganda as well (Score:3, Insightful)
"But on the one occasion when SCO has publicly shown what it claimed were examples of code from Linux taken from Unix Sys V, its demonstration backfired, showing instead SCO's cavalier attitude toward copyright law and its even greater sloppiness at factual research."
SCO claimed those code fragments as legal proof of the veracity of the claims. They were found to be ridiculuously trivial to counter. How more cavalier can they be?
Biased Reporting? (Score:4, Insightful)
If the SCO releases a report saying the exact opposite, you'd use it as toilet paper. I'm not sayin the OSDL report is bad, its probably pretty accurate, but... what we need is a good 3rd party to anaylze this issue!
Re:Biased Reporting? (Score:5, Informative)
How about Gartner [gartner.com]:
Quoting, so in case you don't want to follow that link and leave the comfort of slashdot:
Admittedly, Garner does recommend delaying new high-performance deployments for a few months to see what happens with SCO.
Or how about IDC's August 2003 survey [idc.com]. Again, quoting:
Or perhaps you want to know what IDC really thinks [idc.com] rather than just a survey result. Well, quoting once more (though you could easily follow the link to see this same text):
Notice that this was written only last month. Apparantly they don't think SCO's going to have much impact. Saddly, there any many other IDC documents where you have to pay to even find out their opinion... the abstracts are so generic you don't even get a hint until you pay. But I suppose that's how the stay in business.
Re:Biased Reporting? (Score:2)
other SCO news ???? (Score:3, Informative)
towit:"Lawsuit Drops 'Nuclear Bomb' on Software Industry".
The article needs a bit a research, to bad the author didn't.
A good example of write first, find out later.
Non-Whoring(tm) Article Text (Score:5, Informative)
Eben Moglen
Monday 24 November 2003
There's a traditional definition of a shyster: a lawyer who, when the law is against him, pounds on the facts; when the facts are against him, pounds on the law; and when both the facts and the law are against him, pounds on the table. The SCO Group's continuing attempts to increase its market value at the expense of free software developers, distributors and users through outlandish legal theories and unsubstantiated factual claims show that the old saying hasn't lost its relevance.
Just The Facts
SCO continues to claim in public statements about its lawsuit against IBM that it can show infringement of its copyrights in Unix Sys V source code by the free software operating system kernel called Linux. But on the one occasion when SCO has publicly shown what it claimed were examples of code from Linux taken from Unix Sys V, its demonstration backfired, showing instead SCO's cavalier attitude toward copyright law and its even greater sloppiness at factual research.
On August 18, 2003, SCO's CEO, Darl McBride, offered a slide presentation of supposed examples of infringing literal copying from Sys V to Linux at a public speech in Las Vegas. Within hours the free software and open source communities had analyzed SCO's supposed best evidence, and the results were not encouraging for those investors and others who hope SCO knows what it is talking about.[1]
In Las Vegas Mr. McBride offered two examples of code from the Linux program that were supposedly copied from Sys V. The first implements the "Berkeley Packet Filter" (BPF) firewall. Indeed, the Linux kernel program contains a BPF implementation, but it is the original work of Linux developer Jay Schulist. Nor did SCO ever hold an ownership interest in the original BPF implementation, which as the very name shows was originally part of BSD Unix, and which was copied, perfectly legally, into SCO's Sys V Unix from BSD. Because the BPF implementations in Sys V and Linux have a common intellectual ancestor and perform the same function, SCO's "pattern-matching" search of the two code bases turned up an apparent example of copying. But SCO didn't do enough research to realize that the work they were claiming was infringed wasn't their own (probably because they had "carelessly" removed the original copyright notice).
Mr. McBride's second example was only slightly less unconvincing. Mr McBride showed several dozen lines of memory allocation code from "Linux," which was identical to code from Sys V. Once again, however, it turned out that SCO had relied on "pattern-matching" in the source code without ascertaining the actual history and copyright status of the work as to which it claimed ownership and infringement. The C code shown in the slides was first incorporated in Unix Version 3, and was written in 1973; it descends from an earlier version published by Donald Knuth in his classic The Art of Computer Programming in 1968. AT&T claimed this code, among other portions of its Unix OS, as infringed by the University of California in the BSD litigation, and was denied a preliminary injunction on the ground that it could not show a likelihood of success on its copyright claim, because it had published the code without copyright notices and therefore, under pre-1976 US copyright law, had put the code in the public domain. In 2002, SCO's predecessor Caldera released this code again under a license that permitted free copying and redistribution. Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI) then used the code in the variant of the Linux program for "Trillium" 64-bit architecture computers it was planning to sell but never shipped. In incorporating the code, SGI violated the terms of Caldera's license by erroneously removing Caldera's (incorrect) copyright notice.
Thus SCO's second example was of supposedly impermissible copying of code that was in the public domain to begin with, and which SCO itself had released under a free software license after erroneou
SCO in Court (Score:2, Insightful)
SCO is preparing for its harrassment suit (Score:2)
A very good read, actually (Score:4, Insightful)
I hope that when a judge actually sits down and bangs his gavel, he'll take one look at SCO's case and throw it out. At this point there's almost no possible way that SCO could produce anything that would make their case believable, IMO.
Re:A very good read, actually (Score:5, Insightful)
I think in the beginning, SCO looked at code, at what they owned (or thought they did) and saw many similarities and indeed identical parts with the next most popular OS, Linux. Instantly the idea of litigation entered their heads, and they proceeded without checking much further
Now, piece by piece their case has crumbled, and THEY KNOW IT. they can't NOT know it. They can't look at code they said was indicative of copying by linux but was proven to all be open and not know it. They can't look back at their own release of Linux under GPL and not know it. They can't look back at their release of older UNIX code under a BSD license and not know it. These are adults, they're not complete morons in that manner. They thought they had a case they could win, and they went ahead with pursuing it.
Oh they know for sure that their claim to code in Linux is tenuous, they're smart enough to know that. What they're failing to see is that there is a point, when you're losing, that you decide to call it a day, stop, see your mistakes and move on from them having learnt something.
Pressing ahead without fear indeed.
Curiously, what was Darl McBride and co up to BEFORE all this happened? what was his job? what kind of risks/payoffs did he work with before? perhaps that could give insight as to why they're not going "Oh fuck we're screwed, let's stop", but instead going "Oh fuck we're screwed, may as well dig deeper!"
Re:A very good read, actually (Score:5, Insightful)
Darl McBride, Vice President and General Manager of Novell's Extended Networks Group, is responsible for engineering, development, and marketing at the company's Monterey, California site. Since 1988, McBride has held numerous senior management positions within Novell;
other industry experience includes assignments with Texas Instruments' Information Systems Group.
He was involved with selling UNIX IP away from Novell when he was with them. He then shifted piece by piece into a prime position at SCO, and suddenly he has control over IP he's worked with for decades. McBride isn't just a newcomer to all of this who saw a quick buck to be made, I believe he's been planning this for a long, long time. 10 years or more. He's sticking with it because to him it's personal.
Re:A very good read, actually (Score:5, Insightful)
In this case, SCO's execs have a very clear reason for pushing on, regardless of the apparently diminishing likelihood of a win in court. SCO's share price has gone from about $1 to about $15 (at present), and the SCO execs (a) have a bunch of stock on their hands that's now worth 15x what it was (as others have said, they've been dumping it but they still hold quite a bit), and (b) have employment arrangements in place whereby they get paid a huge bonus if SCO's stock price continues to rise over 4 consecutive quarters. They're now well into their 3rd quarter of rises, so all they have to do is continue pushing for the next 4-5 months and they get their big bonuses. I'd expect the FUD to keep going, possibly getting wilder and sillier, until those bonuses get paid.
If those bonuses are paid in SCO stock, you can bet they'll be dumped fast and the share price will get smashed as a result. All the patsies left holding SCO stock will wonder what's happened...
*That's* the apparent and obvious motivation here, not a desire to do what's "good for the company".
Re:A very good read, actually (Score:5, Informative)
Mindless activity on SCO's part... (Score:5, Interesting)
They've kept the Open Source world on the defensive. They experience consistent gains in the stock every time they announce a new initiative in their war on Free Software. They've been able to keep this going for far longer than I would have thought possible, and if this gets to trial the potential is there that they will prevail.
Who would have thought litigation was a way of making a living off of Free Software? I don't like what they're doing, but I have to confess my opinion of their strategy has changed. Fortunately, the rabid response they no doubt expected to provoke from the Open Source community hasn't manifested itself; I've been quite impressed with the professionalism and quality of the response as well. Keep posting these stories... we just can't get enough SCO.
FSF Proves SCO's Claims Overstated (Score:5, Funny)
is this argument conclusive? (Score:4, Interesting)
I am not sure I follow this argument: Is it obvious (or known) that the code that SCO has distributed contains everything that, say, a RHAT distribution contains? Or could it (in principle) be that SCO's distro (old and unkempt as it is ;-) does not contain the "infringing" pieces while other distributions do?
Thanks.Similarly, has SCO distributed all of IBM's contributions to Linux (thus necessarily including the alleged trade secrets)?
Re:is this argument conclusive? (Score:2)
Prof. Moglen's article demonstrates that the only two code segments that SCO has been specific about are not copyright infringements at all, so it makes no difference whether SCO's Linux kernel contained them or not.
Re:is this argument conclusive? (Score:2)
Yes. The kernel source 2.4.13) was identical.
Re:is this argument conclusive? (Score:2)
What happened during the weekend? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What happened during the weekend? (Score:5, Informative)
SCO, Merge and the GPL. (Score:4, Informative)
This is the only company I could see SCO sue, the developers from NetTraverse [netraverse.com] used to work at SCO.
BTW, the article is a rehash. Every lawyer says the GPL is enforceable.
Re:SCO, Merge and the GPL. (Score:2)
-dvnull
Turning around to bite them in the ass (Score:5, Interesting)
a valid form of permission, and that it has never violated that permission's
terms, it loses the counterclaim, and should be answerable in damages not
only to IBM but to all kernel contributors."
Could this eventually be used to force SCO to pay kernel contributors because SCO was in fact infringing on their GPL'ed code?
Great paper, but misses THE vitial point. (Score:2, Insightful)
So what's their game? (Score:4, Interesting)
So what's his plan? Personally I think (2) is the answer, and he's sticking around for the money. He must be hoping there will be a buyout, perhaps by Microsoft or someone else of worth, which would raise the value of the stock he's been given.
Re:So what's their game? (Score:2)
Re:So what's their game? (Score:2)
> trying to accomplish?
David Boies = Patron Saint of big, losing US IT legal cases
I'm guessing he wants to get a lot of money. Regardless of the legal outcome, the lawyers involved will be getting a lot of income out of this.
The SCO shares he got for coming aboard alone will save him having to buy toilet paper for the next several years.
Re:So what's their game? (Score:2, Informative)
Option number two. Boies can sell off his SCOX stock in March 2004 (IIRC). That's all the longer he's got to keep up the farce of having a real case.
Re:So what's their game? (Score:2, Interesting)
If so all of these open letters and such would just be coming back to bite the OpenSource Community. Just a thought on a late monday.
Re:So what's their game? (Score:4, Informative)
Groklaw (Score:5, Informative)
Where's the shareholder suit? (Score:2)
Re:Where's the shareholder suit? (Score:5, Insightful)
You then have to assume the SCO execs are going to be living somewhere from which the US government can extradite them. My betting is that places like Nth Korea, Niugini, the Dominican Republic and Cuba might be the subject of future travel plans for these guys.
How I wish... (Score:2)
People would take notice if Jay Leno (as much as I hate him) were making jokes about SCO.
I hope this doesnt get resolved out of court. (Score:5, Insightful)
The money trail into SCO needs to be resolved since there are some suspicious trails leading back towards Redmond.
Even if this is almost thinfoil-hat material Microsoft has pulled worse stunts than this before and under much less pressure than right now. They have a busuness modell that demands increased revenues each year and if the revenue drops even a bit they are down the tube. Id really like to know just how much stock is inside Microsoft and how fast people would sell if it stops gaining value in current pace.
By this i conclude that they dont have to loose any significant portion of the market to be toast. All it takes is a slowdown in their growth.
Wirh longhorn so far ahead and the impossibility for them to release yet another crappy OS again they have to slow linux implementation down until Longhorn is ready. If linux gains to much momentum now it will be almost impossible to stop, almost exactly like when Win95 was introduced and OS/2 came in too late.
Re:I hope this doesnt get resolved out of court. (Score:3, Interesting)
You may have missed the following product they call "Microsoft Windows Services for UNIX"... LINK [microsoft.com]
From their 'Product Overview':
Re:I hope this doesnt get resolved out of court. (Score:2)
That or they have a hidden agenda and the need for an excuse to add more to SCO's warchest until Longorn makes it out.
Linux and Longhorn (Score:2)
I expect Linux momentum to accelerate even more once Longhorn is released. The whole DRM focus will just make the OS more difficult to use, and no one really wants it except for some lawyers and publishers. Once word gets out that the next version of Windows will feature more vendor lock-in and more difficulty of use via DRM, both corporations and individual users will be taking more of a look at Linux.
It really is close to a no-brainer.
Re:I hope this doesnt get resolved out of court. (Score:4, Interesting)
Windows Server 2003 does have some "Unix" type technologies in it, including NUMA and LPR/LPD. Their event scheduler is based on AT.
Then, if you want even more Unix type technologies, there is always the addon package called "Unix Services for Windows".
Re:I hope this doesnt get resolved out of court. (Score:3, Interesting)
Windows Services For Unix. I have briefly played with it. It includes an NFS server, NIS integration, a bunch of GNU tools, ActivePerl (a version of Perl ported to NT) and some stuff from Mortice-Kern (now that brings back memories). I suspect the NFS and NIS stuff is what required a SYSV license.
It's actually a non-shallow attempt by Microsoft to offer UNIX services on Windows.
Mainstream media oblivious- why? (Score:5, Interesting)
So, to the average investor, SCO's claim that they matched 1 out of 5 million lines of code in Linux is pretty damning evidence.. whereas domain experts like us can easily see through these lies. Hopefully this comes to light in the courts, 'cause people like us are certainly screaming in a vacuum right now!
I'm thinking that the the financial/business media is leaning towards SCO side since SCO represents a more conventional corporate america, and Linux / GPL threatens that model?
Wrong, wrong, wrong! (Score:4, Insightful)
This is wrong. If Linux contains any formerly trade secreted code at all, that status has been forfeited not because of the GPL, but because it was published in the first place without their permission, and SCO would actually legitimately be entitled to compensation for damages (assuming that their IP was misappopriated in the first place, which I doubt).
What SCO does not have the authority to do is insist that their formerly trade-secret code remain inside of Linux while they want to continue to charge a license fee for it (SCO's obvious strategy being that by not revealing where the infringing code is, the likelihood of it getting removed is almost nil). The GPL expressly prohibits this, and SCO can't do a thing about this matter as long as the GPL remains a legal way of giving copyright permission.
Now the question becomes *WHY* shouldn't the GPL be a valid form of copyright permission? Just because it enforces derivative works to be subject to the same license is not a valid excuse by itself because derivative works would still contain some or all of the original work.
Put in the context of what is more commonly seen as normal copyright, if a person were to want to publish a book containing a portion of another work that was copyrighted by someone else, the second author would still need permission from the first author to publish his own book. The only way he can avoid needing permission is to simply not include the material copyrighted by another.
Bottom line. SCO is out of luck.
Re:Wrong, wrong, wrong! (Score:3, Interesting)
This is to assume that Caldera or the previous SCO didn't willfully put it into THEIR distribution of Linux. Since SCO had to both review the code in q
Re:Wrong, wrong, wrong! (Score:3, Interesting)
The key is that it is being published with their permision. No one is forcing them to distribute the kernel a year after they discoverred the "violations."
Another interesting perspective (Score:3, Informative)
Repeditive, but necessary (Score:4, Interesting)
Scox stock price up another 14.5% today (Score:4, Informative)
Of course, it's just a stock scam. Scox is making this stuff up as they go along. And why not? It works, it works like all hell.
Only one person from the Enron scandle was sentanced to do any time. And Enron hurt a lot more people than scox.
The SEC, FTC, DOJ, or any Attorney General could shut scox down in a heart-beat. Just like Germany did, Germany put an end to scox's scam over there months ago. But the US justice system would rather look the other way while scox insiders laugh at them. Scox insiders are laughing all the way to the bank. And there is nothing the US justice system will do.
Next big event, December 5, 2003. (Score:3, Informative)
SCO is getting close to the first "put up or shut up" point. .
PR (Score:4, Interesting)
He stated that M$'s "donation" to SCO was merely a PR investment by M$ to bash Linux.
You know its bad news when someone in the PR industry knows whats up.
Throw enough mud... (Score:2)
Sometimes with all the rapid developments in this case, it's easy to forget their past deeds. Seeing it in full context should set a few more alarms off. Maybe. At least no one can say they weren't warned.
Personally, I think this is all just a money game for the execs and brokers. Care to guess who the losers will be?
Re:I support SCO, and so should YOU. (Score:3, Insightful)
I have thought about it, and I think that the coming era of commoditized operating system software will be at least as big a boon programmers as the coming of commodity hardware was 15-20 years ago.
I'm thinking about how Apple decided to go with a "closed" hardware platform and MS decided to go with the "open" one. Apple released the first
Re:I support SCO, and so should YOU. (Score:3, Interesting)
I support open-source software, and so should YOU. (Score:4, Interesting)
I spent 35 years of my life making money as a programmer (before returning to the "Hard(ware) side of the Force").
And before that I studied under Bernie Galler. In the same issue of CACM as Djikstra's "GOTO considered Harmful" letter, Bernie lamented the choice of some programmers to charge more than reasonable media, copying, and shipping costs for a copy of some source they wrote. His lament predicted the entire commercialization of software and its resulting inhibitory effects on the advancement of the art.
As an author of custom software applications for clients, my main problem was not competition from free software vendors. It was the lack of freely-reusable source code, which forced me to spend extra time re-inventing a plethora of wheels before "assembling the wagons".
If I had had access to the current results of the open-source movement, I could have been far more valueable to my clients - by completing things more rapidly or building more capable software. Thus I could have charged each customer more and moved to new customers more quickly, establishing a better reputation for productivity.
It is only the commercial software market that has any need to adjust its business models due to "competition" from open-source. This market employs a very small subset of programmers. And they're primarily employed by a few, large companies where most of the profit goes to administrators and investors rather than individual contributors.
Re:I support open-source software, and so should Y (Score:3, Insightful)
So what was he saying? That code redistributors should give away their hard work for free out of the goodness of their hearts forever and always?
Bernie was a professor. I presume that his viewpoint was that of an academic, treating software development as research for publication, not a consumable commodity.
How exactly, do you suppose, our civilization