SCO Invokes DMCA, Names Headers, Novell Steps In 770
Sparky writes "We've already heard that SCO have invoked the DMCA via 'letters sent to select Fortune 1000 Linux end users.' The specifics come via a copy of the letter reprinted at LWN.net - they've decided that they own the copyright to about 65 header files contained in Linux - largely errno.h, signal.h and ioctl.h." balloonpup also notes "CNet News has reported that SCO has reported a fourth quarter loss of $1.6 million, owing mostly to hefty legal fees in its war against Linux. SCO said they would have reported $7.4 million in earnings, if not for the $9 million payout to their lawyers. Way to go, SCO!" Many readers also point out a Groklaw article indicating Novell has registered for the copyrights on multiple versions of Unix with the U.S. Copyright Office, so that "both the SCO Group and Novell have registered for UNIX System V copyrights for the same code."
Big Red takes aim (Score:5, Interesting)
The next step will be their own series of letters to SCO reminding them of their contractual obligations to Novell.
I worry it could be worse (Score:5, Interesting)
So, I hope Novell has their heart in the right place. But really, this depends on the judges. To sue over header files is so damn crazy, the real winners are obviously the people who ran off with $9 million in legal fees. What did the lawyers tell SCO that made them think this is a good investment when the case is so absurdly flimsy? That must have been a home-run sales pitch!
Re:I worry it could be worse (Score:5, Insightful)
Novell is a company who used to be REALLY BIG then got spanked by the Great Beast in Redmond because of their marketing-department-that-couldn't. They had the best enterprise products, but nobody wanted to write apps on the NetWare platform. They've been in steady decline since '96.
NetWare is dying and Novell needs a new platform. Linux is perfect because people are writing applications for it. So, in Novell's thinking, if they can deploy the NetWare services like file/print/Directory/Web Svcs on a Linux kernel, they have the best of both worlds.
The one thing that they have to be conscious of, and I believe they have, is their perception in the OSS community. Novell knows that they need community approval in order to be successful. If the community dislikes what they're doing, people won't buy their products and they will become irrelevant.
So, I re-iterate that Novell has to be one of the "good guys" or they will just end up screwing themselves.
clue me in.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:clue me in.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:clue me in.... (Score:5, Interesting)
This is strange in that 1) the full outcome of the settlement was sealed AFAIK and 2) the headers in question are licensed under the BSD license which would have been known of in 1.
Like has been mentioned earlier by many people here, maybe SCO want to re-open the BSD case as this seems to be there only line of defense.
Re:clue me in.... (Score:5, Informative)
Forgive me, I'm forced to use SCO at work.. (Score:5, Informative)
"old, crufty environment" -> oldstyle/errno.h
"Xpg4v2 environment" -> xpgv2/errno.h
"Xpg4 environment" -> xpg4/errno.h
"Posix environment" -> posix/errno.h
"Pure Ansi/ISO environment" -> ansi/errno.h
"Old, Tbird compatible environment" -> ods_30_compat/errno.h
"Normal, default environment" -> just the standard errno.h file
Some of the comments, dated 94/12/04:
Portions Copyright (C) 1983-1995 The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.
The information in this file is provided for the exclusive use of the licensees of The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc. Such users have the right to use, modify, and incorporate this code into other products for purposes authorized by the license agreement provided they include this notice and the associated copyright notice with any such product. The information in this file is provided "AS IS" without warranty.
Portions Copyright (c) 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993 UNIX System Laboratories, Inc. Portions Copyright (c) 1979 - 1990 AT&T All Rights Reserved
THIS IS UNPUBLISHED PROPRIETARY SOURCE CODE OF UNIX System Laboratories, Inc. The copyright notice above does not evidence any actual or intended publication of such source code.
Here are the comments from an older version of the same file, specifically 91/06/06. I wonder why they've dropped Microsoft from the copyrights list?
UNIX is a registered trademark of AT&T
Portions Copyright 1976-1990 AT&T
Portions Copyright 1980-1989 Microsoft Corporation
Portions Copyright (C) 1983-1991 The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc. All Rights Reserved
The information in this file is provided for the exclusive use of the licensees of The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc. Such users have the right to use, modify, and incorporate this code into other products for purposes authorized by the license agreement provided they include this notice and the associated copyright notice with any such product. The information in this file is provided "AS IS" without warranty.
Copyright (c) 1984, 1986, 1987, 1988 AT&T
All Rights Reserved
THIS IS UNPUBLISHED PROPRIETARY SOURCE CODE OF AT&T
The copyright notice above does not evidence any
actual or intended publication of such source code.
Re:clue me in.... (Score:5, Informative)
#define EPERM 1
#define ENOENT 2
#define ESRCH 3
#define EINTR 4
#define EIO 5
#define ENXIO 6
#define E2BIG 7
How dare you... (Score:4, Funny)
They will soon come and close slashdot down.
Re:clue me in.... (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/007904975/b
actual link (Score:5, Informative)
Re:clue me in.... (Score:5, Informative)
examples:
(p33):
[E2BIG] Arg list too long
The sum of the number of bytes used by....
(p36):
[EPERM] Operation not permitted
An attempt was made to...
Re:clue me in.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Law is Hard (Score:5, Funny)
I don't want to read all those links. Is there any way that I can make fun of Microsoft based on any of this? That would make it easier. TIA
A more fun (accurate?) version of this posting... (Score:5, Funny)
"We've already heard that SCO have invoked the winged minions of hell via 'voodoo dools shaped like the CEOs of Fortune 1000 companies.' The specifics come via a photo of a doll made to look like Samuel J. Palmisano of IBM - they've decided that they own the souls of about 65 CEOs running Linux - largely IBM, HP and Ford." balloonpup also notes "CNet News has reported that SCO has reported a fourth quarter loss of $1.6 million, owing mostly to hefty witchdoctor and soothsayer fees in its war against Linux. SCO said they would have reported $7.4 million in earnings, if not for the $9 million payout to the Prince of Darkness. Way to go, SCO!" Many readers also point out a Groklaw article indicating Novell has been praying for the souls of CEOs running Linux with the Holy Catholic Church, so that "both the SCO Group and Novell have claimed the souls of the same people."
I feel so dirty but... (Score:5, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
9 million? (Score:5, Insightful)
The investors must be getting worried.
login.h (Score:5, Funny)
checking out insider holdings (Score:5, Interesting)
BENCH, ROBERT K.
Chief Investment Officer
8-Oct-03 214,243 Shares Left
BROUGHTON, REGINALD CHARLES
Senior Vice President
17-Sep-03 95,000 Shares left
GASPARRO, LARRY
Vice President
10-Dec-03 0 Shares Left
HUNSAKER, JEFF F.
Vice President
13-Aug-03 20,494 Shares Left
OLSON, MICHAEL P
Vice President
11-Nov-03 47,330 Shares Left
WILSON, MICHAEL
Senior Vice President
14-Jul-03 0 Shares Left
WILSON, MICHAEL SEAN
Senior Vice President
15-Jul-03 0 Shares Left
Notice How little the insiders still actually own (Aside from Robert Bench)? Smells fishy to me
Re:checking out insider holdings (Score:5, Funny)
I see these men having big problems with the SEC in the future.
Re:checking out insider holdings (Score:5, Informative)
I have a little reality check for you people who think SCO is gonna get shit for this little pump and dump:
-Our esteemed Commander and Cheif pumped and dumped his little oil company and sold all his shares 2 days before it went bankrupt. The appropriate investigative organizations where politely told to bug off.
-The above's best friend and cheif campain supporter via donations was the CEO of Enron. Need I say more?
-Worldcom went bankrupt over executive fraud and now has a cushy contract in Iraq.
-Microsoft pretty much got let off the hook as soon as someone they "donated" money to got the presidency.
-Our Vice President is busy riding a gigantic $100,000 a month retirement golden parachute from his company, Halburton, with strangely enough is getting the most, best, and highest paying government contracts.
What makes you guys think that ANYTHING bad will happen to SCO because of what they are doing? Wake up.
This is all of course assuming memory serves me correctly.
Ruckus and tomfoolery, indeed! (Score:5, Funny)
not just Linux... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:not just Linux... (Score:4, Funny)
#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
printf("Hello, Darl\n");
return (0);
}
Hey, did I just violate a SCO license?
Re:not just Linux... (Score:4, Informative)
For that matter, I could also say:
(printf("Hello, world!\n"));
The parens may be superflous, but they certainly don't hurt anything, and in fact they can allow you to play some cool tricks, such as redefining return:
#define return(x) {printf("Returning from %s:%d\n", __FILE__, __LINE__);return x;}
Re:not just Linux... use do-while loop (Score:4, Funny)
This is off topic, but your macro itself has problems. It permits its use without a statement-terminating semicolon. It is always best to define multi-statement macro blocks with a do-while loop as:
Notice no semicolon after the "while(0)". This makes it an error to omit the semicolon after the macro's use, and thus behaves more like an actual function in syntax. Oh, and this is one case where you really DO want the parenthesis around the return "value" x inside the macro, since "x" is not a variable but a macro argument which could contain a semicolon.
Re:not just Linux... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: Re:not just Linux... (Score:5, Funny)
Dear EricTheGreen,
Your recent Slashdot post, titled "Re:not just Linux..." and currently moderated at +4/Funny, is in violation of the DMCA.
As you are probably aware, we have granted the general public a limited license to the character '\n' and this license does not include its representation in "escaped" format ('\n').
We hereby order you to remove the comment or to change it so that the copyrighted character in question is displayed in its properly licensed format, namely:
Be advised that this also applies to any posts you may make in the future, regardless of how they are moderated, and that similar restrictions apply to the character '\r' to which we own the copyright jointly with the Microsoft Corporation.
Failure to comply will result in legal fees.
Sincerely,
Dewey, Cheatham & Howe, on behalf of SCO.
What an odd business model (Score:5, Funny)
So SCO has changed from a technology company to an employment agency for lawyers? I'd be interest to see what the step was just before "Profit!"
Re:What an odd business model (Score:5, Funny)
??
Profit!
With great power... (Score:5, Funny)
If SCO wants to claim ownership of things in errno.h, then I want monetary compensation for each and every segfault, since they are now SCO's responsibility, not mine!
Boy, no more having to double-check pointers in my code, whoo hoo!
Re:With great power... (Score:5, Funny)
DMCA vs Godwin's Law (Score:5, Funny)
Re:DMCA vs Godwin's Law (Score:4, Funny)
Hrm? Facinating (Score:4, Interesting)
Also, someone told me once that the BSD and GPL licenses were not in-exclusion, but that they could co-inhabit the same code. BSD has one set of limits, namely giving of copyright notice while GPL has other limits tied to it, but they were not mutually exclusive.
Even better news from SCO SEC filing (Score:5, Informative)
If the above information is correct, SCO revenue in Q1/2004 will be around 15 M$ and net loss could be >5-10 M$. It seems they don't get more money soon, they will be out of business before summer.
SCO admitted ABI code was GPL (Score:5, Interesting)
MozillaQuest Magazine: Regarding binfmt_coff, abi-util, lcall7, abi-svr4, abi-sco; are any of these modules SCO IP?
Blake Stowell: No, none of the code in the Linux ABI modules contains SCO IP. This code is under the GPL and it re-implements publicly documented interfaces. We do not have an issue with the Linux ABI modules. The IP that we are licensing is all in the shared libraries - these libraries are needed by many OpenServer applications *in addition* to the Linux ABI.
I listened to the call (Score:5, Informative)
One of the first questions in the Q and A period was "If I pay the $699, do I have rights to use the source and continue to run Linux?" Darl very neatly sidestepped half the question and answered "Yes, you can continue to run the binary (emphasis mine) within the agreement."
From that, I take it that if you pay, you can run the kernel, but they won't say you can play with it.
Listen to their conference call here (Score:5, Informative)
Is it enough to change the comments at the top? (Score:4, Insightful)
It should then be enough to copy the BSD comments in the beginning and replace the copyright on errno.h, signal.h, etc.
Or?
(As another user noted, errno.h et al are also parts of ANSI standards for C...)
Otherwise -- thanks, SCO -- finally I might get a kick on my backside to take the trouble to install and try OpenBSD! :-)
Re:Is it enough to change the comments at the top? (Score:5, Informative)
If a Linux kernel programmer took some header files from FreeBSD or 4.4BSD, for example, but removed the BSD copyright notice, that is a violation of the BSD license terms. HOWEVER, that does not mean that SCO was wronged. The only party that could sue for violation of the BSD license is, of course, the Regents of the University of California. AFAIK, but IANAL.
Dear Santa (Score:5, Funny)
My christmas wish is for the SCO stockholders to wake up and realize they're being taken for a ride. That way the rest of the world could get on with their lives without worrying about being bitten in the ankles by Daryl McBride. For Daryl, I wish a long stay in the relaxing resort for his kind of folk known as Utah State Prison. I wish for him a large roommate named Bubba.
Peace.
An ordinary Linux user.
The smear continues (Score:4, Interesting)
That's right, boys and girls, the GPL is a tool for TERRORISTS and COMMUNISTS!
Every day I see SCO's stock price and I mutter to myself, "it's just not fair."
-paul
Could I use that excuse? (Score:5, Funny)
Damn, can I use that excuse? I would have been in the black this month if I had not had to pay my bills. But seriously, this really tells a great deal of SCO's financial picture. Their money is running out. Their legal bills are mounting. This letter is nothing more than it appears: Desperation to get any last revenue that they can get.
On another note, has anybody looked at the headers that SCO has mentioned. I'm willing to bet that some of them are legacy to BSD not SCO.
drinking game: (Score:4, Funny)
The FreeBSD file says: (Score:5, Interesting)
* Copyright (c) 1988 University of Utah.
* Copyright (c) 1990, 1993
* The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
* (c) UNIX System Laboratories, Inc.
* All or some portions of this file are derived from material licensed
* to the University of California by American Telephone and Telegraph
* Co. or Unix System Laboratories, Inc. and are reproduced herein with
* the permission of UNIX System Laboratories, Inc.
*
* This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by
* the Systems Programming Group of the University of Utah Computer
* Science Department.
*
* Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
* modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
* are met:
* 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
* notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
The Linux code I just looked at is lacking the copyright notice like the above.
If taken from BSD or SYSV, it is a licence violation because of clause #1.
Re:The FreeBSD file says: (Score:5, Insightful)
Accept hypothetically that some Linux coder got a little too happy with his cut and paste from BSD code and left out some copyrights. Then all that needs to be done is add the copyright notices back in.
Now the important question: How has SCO been monetarily damaged by the lack of BSD copyright notices in a few header files? About 37 cents? 'Cause all they can do is ask for damages and that the copyright notices be fixed.
Re:The FreeBSD file says: (Score:4, Informative)
It's not like that. The coder could well have been Linus himself, and the reason is below (verbatim copy of a comment posted to LWN, emphasis mine):
(Posted Dec 22, 2003 18:03 UTC (Mon) by doitroygsbre) (Post reply)
IANAL
Ok, I read an article on groklaw (I think) that made a pretty good guess as to what SCO's claim is. They are claiming that the settlement reached between BSD and novell required that certain files in BSD have copyright notices added. The files that SCO is complaining about were added to linux before the settlement was reached and since the settlement was only made known to Novell and the BSD developers (sorry, can't quite remember exactly who was involved in the settlement) no one knew to add the copyright notices to linux. Now that SCO has possibly inherited the Novell side of the settlement, they're trying to claim copyright infringement because linux has these files without the notices. Even though they were released under the BSD license without the notices before the settlement.
Oh well, I'm starting to wonder if I'll live long enough to see this whole mess sorted
Re:The FreeBSD file says: (Score:5, Informative)
>In Linux 2.0.36 kernel there is a networking headder file where the BSD licence is gone and the coder admits that they took the code from FreeBSD.
>So you say 'coder got a little too happy' I say 'thief' and Darl has to have lawyers convince a judge that is was a theft.
Copyright violations aren't theft, they're (follow this closely, it's tricky) copyright violations. They are not called theft because they're different. Different act, different name. Told you it was tricky.
Where does Darl come in? It's BSD's copyright; did BSD make Darl their agent? I don't think so. If there was a screwup (which remains to be shown), the quarrel is between BSD and Linux, with no room at all in there for SCO.
>>Then all that needs to be done is add the copyright notices back in.
>Gee, what about actual PUNISHMENT for breaking the law?
The usual, when there's a GPL violation, is that the violation cease, at least when the FSF is enforcing the terms of the agreement. I suspect that it would take some pretty egregious bad behavior, and some serious profits involved, to get a court to actually see monetary damages as being in any way appropriate.
Novell can now sue SCO! (Score:5, Interesting)
Makes for Interesting Thought!
Look at the monkey! (Score:5, Insightful)
After all, SCO have already stated that 2.2 does not infringe.
So what are we supposed to not be looking at at the moment? Oh look, the quarterly financial statement just got published. And even booking revunue on shipment rather than payment (along with other dodgy accounting practices) couldn't stop a net loss.
Something crooked is going on here. This letter is an irrelevance.
Breakdown (Score:5, Funny)
Earnings for SCO: -1.6 million
Watching SCO die and set a precedent for anybody who tries stupid legal things with Linux: Priceless
A few .h files? (Score:5, Insightful)
Its like saying "we patented the play, pause, record and rewind buttons on our model of VCR, the rest of you fuckers with tape, CD and DVD players on the market better pay us for this inovative interface!"
I don't know whether to laugh or cry over this.
What happened to '4 quarters of profitabiity'? ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Thanks for clarifying, if possible
The Q and A part of the call (Score:5, Interesting)
One of the most interesting questions was "Of the really large Linux users, how many have licenced from you?" The answer was "We haven't had anyone over the 5000 CPU amount buy a licence, but a couple of them are thinking about it."
Or, in other words: "No one big is buying our BS, cause they have a legal team that knows we are full of it. Or at least is willing to wait it out and see where the chips fall, rather than believing our hype."
To me, that speaks volumes about their case.
No substance (Score:5, Interesting)
De minimis non curat lex! (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing ... if it's the only way, or one of a very limited ways to implement the standard, it's not copyrightable. I believe the format and switches are specified by the POSIX standard, which means you have no choice/originality involved. Do it their way or it doesn't work.
Leaving the copyright notice off, even on a one-liner, is wrong, but it's not a fatal error. Tracking down who may have stripped a 20-line notice from a 1-line header for an OS that's been around since the 1970s is not going to be an easy task, and a judge would probably say "screw this, de minimis non curat lex* applies" and tell them to shove off. (*the law does not concern itself with trifles, nothing to do with Lex Luthor)
trump cards (Score:4, Interesting)
-t
At first glance... (Score:5, Funny)
On second thought, maybe that wasn't so inaccurate.
The important question, I think (Score:5, Insightful)
SCO has in the past managed to sidestep most allegations of fraud by being horrendously vague. They said that they were owned money but never sent any invoices, sidestepping mail fraud. They tried to present things as if you needed an SCO license to use linux, but if you tried to talk to talk to them, they were actually selling UnixWare licenses and not in the process actually distributing linux to you, sidestepping GPL violations. However, this is entirely non-vague. It seems to me that SCO has stepped over some sort of line here and this is actionable.
I know that the DMCA does not seem to have many consequences for people who send out bad takedown notices, but surely there must be something preventing company A from finding lists of competitor B's customers and sending them takedown notices for using some portion of competitor B's product that company A does not, in fact, own.
At the least, can this be added to the lanham act/ restraint of trade/ libel or whatever countersuits that Redhat and IBM have going? What are the options from here, and what will actually happen?
errno.h and signal.h are from POSIX (Score:5, Informative)
Do these guys have any brains at all?
Re:errno.h and signal.h are from POSIX (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/007904975/bas
Headers (Score:5, Interesting)
The lawsuit against IBM is still a contract dispute. Even though SCO claimed they would be adding Copyright infringement claims against IBM, they have yet to do so. My guess is they haven't made any Copyright infringement claims yet because even they are not 100% sure if they really own any of the code. And making false claims in court would kill their lawsuit.
When Caldera first obtained the old UNIX source code, they wanted to release ALL of it under an Open Source license. But they were not able to because to many other people and companies still have rights via Copyright to the code the other parties added.
The letter that SCO is sending out is just one more thing that will come back to haunt them.
Nobody's mentioned yet... (Score:4, Interesting)
That's What I Figured All Along (Score:5, Interesting)
Linux was/is a derivative of Minix. There is no real Minix code left in Linux, but back in the 0.9x days, Linux was still evolving. You can still download Minix from here. [cs.vu.nl]
Now, here's the key point: although the NAMES of the various system calls, IOCTLs, error numbers and signals are part of the POSIX standard, their numeric assignments are not. The implementor is left to define them. Not all implementations define these the same way - take a look at the Linux/FreeBSD/SYSV emulation code in NetBSD to see the kinds of translations that need to be done to provide cross-platform compatibility.
Now compare the Minix include files with those of Linux and FreeBSD. You will notice very much the same error code and signal numbers. The Linux code dates from 1991 and is pre-ATT/BSDI settlement. It's likely that Tannenbaum is also in violation of AT&T's IP, and Linux has just inherited it. Of course, there's no money in SCO suing Tannenbaum.
Does this damage SCO? Not really. Is it worth US$699/seat? Definitely not. Can SCO collect damages? Probably, knowing the U.S. legal system.
Re:That's What I Figured All Along (Score:4, Interesting)
Probably not. In order to assess damages, you determine how much damage was caused (in this case, ~$0). Then you look at how quickly the plaintiff addressed the issue (more than two years, in this case.) Then you look at how quickly the plaintiff notified the infringer, and attempted settlement. In this case - well, we're still waiting on that (Linus, Eben Moglen, and others have contacted SCO attempting to find out the specifics of their claims - all were rebuffed. SCO released this "evidence" to third parties, they never once sent it to the actual alleged infringers.)
SCO can't collect damages because they have declared (through their actions) that they value the alleged stolen code at $0.
ABI vs API code (Score:4, Interesting)
Certain copyrighted application binary interfaces ("ABI Code") have been copied verbatim from our copyrighted UNIX code base and contributed to Linux for distribution under the General Public License ("GPL") without proper authorization and without copyright attribution.
Now all these header files that they've named, are just that, header files. Which relate to the POSIX|UNIX API. These are two different things right?
There is no copyright issue (Score:5, Informative)
http://finance.messages.yahoo.com/bbs?.mm=FN&ac
To All Licensees, Distributors of Any Version of BSD:
As you know, certain of the Berkeley Software Distribution ("BSD") source code files require that further distributions of products containing all or portions of the software, acknowledge within their advertising materials that such products contain software developed by UC Berkeley and its contributors.
Specifically, the provision reads:
" * 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software
* must display the following acknowledgement:
* This product includes software developed by the University of
* California, Berkeley and its contributors."
Effective immediately, licensees and distributors are no longer required to include the acknowledgement within advertising materials. Accordingly, the foregoing paragraph of those BSD Unix files containing it is hereby deleted in its entirety.
William Hoskins
Director, Office of Technology Licensing
University of California, Berkeley
This is just too good to be true (Score:5, Interesting)
#define EPERM 1
#define ENOENT 2
#define ESRCH 3
#define EINTR 4
#define EIO 5
#define ENXIO 6
#define E2BIG 7
And the POSIX [opengroup.org] standard says:
The [errno.h] header shall provide a declaration for errno and give positive values for the following symbolic constants. Their values shall be unique except as noted below.
[EPERM]
Operation not permitted.
[ENOENT]
No such file or directory.
[ESRCH]
No such process.
[EINTR]
Interrupted function.
[EIO]
I/O error.
[ENXIO]
No such device or address.
[E2BIG]
Argument list too long.
Conclusion:
This is hogwash. Complete and utter hogwash. Even the descriptions are specified in the standard. You see some minor differences (Argument vs Arg, function vs system call) but it is simply trivial. If this is the "infringing" stuff, the replacement with completely non-infringing comments would be ready in about 30 seconds directly from the standard. I can volunteer to do a cleanroom implementation without neither SCO nor BSD code
Kjella
Mac OSX, *BSD as well (Score:5, Insightful)
I just took a look in the Mac OSX errno.h file (/usr/include/sys/errno.h) and the error definitions are all there, with the same attributed numbers as in the Linux and *BSD ones. Someone further down claimed that SCO was claiming ownership of the actual numbers, since the defined names are an ANSI/ISO standard and therefore can't be claimed.
What this means, I think, is that SCO is indeed attempting to roll open the BSD/LSI case again. I would be amazed if they were able to get away with this. I'm pretty sure a competent lawyer will be able to clam this one up in court.
Not only that but SCO is opening themselves up to truly massive claims of extortion and fraud if this is not legal, which although IANAL I really cannot see it being from their pretty wild claim in their letter. They simply claim they own these files, yet make NO mention of showing how that is so.
I am really interested as to who is going to sue SCO next.
Re:DMCA Must gooo! its gayer than the YMCA (Score:4, Interesting)
1) Remove the current DMCA and amend it such that only specific uses of media are prohibited. Allow for the use of back-engineering tools with HARSH punishments for people who knowingly use them to break copyrighted material with intent to distribute. This leaves the burden of proof with a prosecutors instead of the "guilty-til-proven- innocent" tactics of the RIAA et. al.
2) Make a specific statement for "loser pays": anyone suing under using this legislation who loses the case pays for the legal costs of both parties. Settlements don't count, and this will outright favor the bigger players, but in the American climate of "legal attrition" as a business strategy I see no other effective means of trying to relieve this aspect of the DMCA problem.
3) Allow publications on computer security to be done freely and thoroughly if tied to legitimate academic or corporate entities. Hold computer manufacturers liable if one of their components has a security flaw that causes eggregious commercial/monetary damage but which could have been fixed by repair of one of these published flaws.
4) Ensure that American laws apply only to American citizens with the express wording that products purchased in other parts of the world which belong to the consumer are theirs to do with as they please. A clause allowing rightful action to take whatever steps necessary to use that product would be nice (mod chips et. al)
Pointing fingers makes us feel good, but unless we propose alternatives and compromises, are we really doing anything but venting? Does anyone else have potential solutions/thoughts on how to resolve this issue?
Re:DMCA Must gooo! its gayer than the YMCA (Score:5, Insightful)
Get rid of the law.
Replace it with nothing.
Circumventing copyright protection should not be illegal. US copyright law grants the enduser the right to make a backup copy of any copyrighted material he owns. Also anyone is free to make copies of uncopyrighted material. The DMCA clearly violates established consumers rights.
What it amounts to is a law saying that it is illegal to pick locks. Well then what do you do if you are locked out of your house or car?
The DMCA does nothing to stop copyright infringement. Copyright infringement is illegal to begin with. Making it 'more' illegal isn't going to stop anyone who was going to commite the crime in the first place.
Say a thief is going to break into your home to steal your tv. Making it illegal to pick locks isnt really going to deter him. All it will lead to is poorly designed locks.
In short there is no reason to make a law to protect something that is already protected by law.
Re:DMCA Must gooo! its gayer than the YMCA (Score:5, Insightful)
Close, but not quite. A better analogy would be to make it illegal to make a hairpin, as it could be used to pick a lock. It's the instrument that the DMCA bans, not the action. The action (of breaking a lock that wasn't yours) was already illegal. Piracy has always been illegal, it just wasn't illegal to make the tools until the DMCA.
Re:DMCA Must gooo! its gayer than the YMCA (Score:5, Interesting)
The DMCA also makes it illegal to "pick the lock" as well, not just the creation of the tool to pick the lock. And it doesn't distinguish between locks you own and locks you don't own.
Re:DMCA Must gooo! its gayer than the YMCA (Score:5, Funny)
Re:DMCA Must gooo! its gayer than the YMCA (Score:5, Insightful)
It's more to make those who are passing the laws feel they are doing their job.
Say a thief is going to break into your home to steal your tv. Making it illegal to pick locks isnt really going to deter him. All it will lead to is poorly designed locks.
It can lead to all sorts of other issues. Especially if picking locks viewed as a more serious crime than burglary.
Re:DMCA Must gooo! its gayer than the YMCA (Score:5, Interesting)
We've passed the point where the law can be patched back into usefulness; it's time to rethink on a more fundamental level.
Re:DMCA Must gooo! its gayer than the YMCA (Score:5, Insightful)
The trend of the Americans to start using their vast police and military internal forces to enforce the whims of corporate copyright laws will multiply the effect of the parallel trend of outsourcing their technological corporate infrastructure to the third world. They are inducing a massive shift of their technological industry to the third world, without any thought given to the long-term consequences of such a strategy.
By the time that they realize how much these two trends are reinforcing each, their positive-feedback loop of technological suicide will be too far advanced to retard or reverse.
In another generation or two, America will be the new Argentina. Or even worse off considering that they created so much global hatred toward themselves in their schitzo period (1980-2010; when their mounting arrogance and delusional-self congratuation inversely paralleled their financial global decline) that the rest of the world will have no interest in revitalizing them.
In 2004 the smart young Americans are beginning to question the alternatives to being so closely tied to this declining empire, even if they rarely publicly acknowledge their doubts. Which is probably just as well, given the jingoistic politcal climate there.
An excellent overview of this trend is found in the book "The Sovereign Individual" by James Dale Davidson and Lord Rees-Mogg. They missed the revolution that technology is creating in corporate copyright, but they foresaw everything else.
Re:DMCA Must gooo! its gayer than the YMCA (Score:5, Insightful)
Except that existing copyright law already made copyright violations illegal whether on a fancy new media or not. The DMCA was never needed to begin with. Being on digital media doesn't invalidate copyright on material under the laws that have been around since 1976.
"Pointing fingers makes us feel good, but unless we propose alternatives and compromises, are we really doing anything but venting? Does anyone else have potential solutions/thoughts on how to resolve this issue?"
What compromise? This law never had a purpose to begin with except to enact additional restrictions on certain types of copyrighted media. Why on earth do people feel that every few years the same issues of corporate interest need to be raised again and that the people should "compromise" a little further. We compromised when we created copyright, we compromised again in 1976, they compromised DESPITE US in 2000. Exactly how far do you feel we should compromise before we draw the line and say we won't give another inch, in fact we are taking back a few we shouldn't have ever given in the first place?
If you start with harsh restrictions on a subject, then compromise, the end result is more harsh than what you had to start with EVERY time. Now you do it on the same subject every few years over and over again and you have a pattern that results in giving more and more ground until you look back and realize that there isn't anymore ground to give and their just making up new bullshit ways to screw you now.
Re:DMCA Must gooo! its gayer than the YMCA (Score:5, Insightful)
I call bullshit. only a person that is so seperated from reality would say such a thing.
PROPER punishment for illegal use. Sorry but someone violating the DMCA should get 1/10th the punishment than a mass murderer. Currently under US laws if you violate the DMCA, you will get a lighter sentence if you grab a shotgun and kill a few officers when they come to get you.
Copyright violation is a very very VERY MINOR offense and needs to be treated as such with only MONETARY damages.
sending anyone to prison for anything as silly as a stupid copyright violation is absolute stupidity.
you know this, and until this is how it is written I violently oppose any such legislation and those that support it.
"Loser pays" only benefits corporations (Score:5, Funny)
CEO: Perfect.
Smithers: WHAT?! Do you know what this means?
CEO: I know EXACTLY what it means. It means we'll hire the most expensive lawyers we can find. It means that no one will risk paying a million dollars in legal fees if they lose their ten grand lawsuit against us. It means when we sue people, they'll settle because the cost of losing just got higher. It means that we can rip off the customer even more! We'll have the best lawyers in the country - we're bound to win, and we'll make our victims pick up the tab! Yessss, this is EXACTLY what we wanted....
Re:Vote bush out of office (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds like what you really need is a system like Instant Runoff voting [kucinich.us] where you don't have to worry that you're "throwing your vote away" on a third party candidate. Then you (and everyone else) could vote for that Libertarian candidate without worrying about the bad guy winning.
Re:Vote bush out of office (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Vote bush out of office (Score:4, Interesting)
If the major parties see a substantial portion of votes going to a single-issue candidate, they'll see that people feel strongly about that issue and try to adjust their platform to attract those voters. When people don't vote at all, politicians just assume that nobody cares what they do.
I dislike the libertarians because (like Bush) they often seem to be more interested in the rights of corporations than of human beings, but the principle still stands.
Re:Vote bush out of office (Score:5, Informative)
The corporation is its own entity. That's the whole point of a corporation - the business' liabilities are incurred by the corporation, not by its owners, so that if it fails, the owners don't lose their asses.
When you attack a corporation, you attack a business entity. The owners (shareholders) have nothing to do with it; in fact shareholders have a right to anonymity. Why do you think nobody goes to jail when Exxon destroys hundreds of miles of Alaskan coastline, but if you take your dirty oil and dump it in the storm drain and get caughty you get fined and maybe thrown in jail? It's because the shareholders aren't personally liable for the actions of the corporation. Again. That's the whole point of the corporation.
This takes a leap of one level of abstraction to get, so I can see why a lot of people don't comprehend this. Libertarians and conservatives tend to be concrete-reasoning keep-it-simple-stupid types that can't recognize a non-corporeal entity - unless it's a middle eastern diety that's been pounded into their head from birth.
Re:Vote bush out of office (Score:5, Insightful)
In the case of Enron, for example, Andrew Fastow is being criminally prosecuted.
However, many argue he's just a fall guy, since people that high up in a corporation often as far as they can to maintain plausible deniability. Like Ken Lay for example. But, this happens in politics, too. Say, Reagan and Iran-Contra.
Bill Hicks on political parties in America (Score:5, Informative)
I'll show you politics in America: "I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs." "I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking." "Wait, there's one guy holding up both puppets!" "Shut up! Go back to bed America. Your government is in control. Here's Love Connection, watch this and get fat and stupid. By the way, keep drinking beer, you fucking morons!"
Re:DMCA Must gooo! its gayer than the YMCA (Score:5, Interesting)
(Score:-1, Homophobic)
Re:DMCA Must gooo! its gayer than the YMCA (Score:5, Funny)
SCO, "DMCA"; FSF, "STFU"
Re:DMCA Must gooo! its gayer than the YMCA (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, if that DC Sniper didn't have full-auto capability, he wouldn't have been able to take down so many people. Oh, wait a minute...
You see, if I walked into a random schoolyard and started shooting, does it fundamentally matter if I'm using a single-shot muzzle-loader rifle or a modified full-auto AR-15 with a 30-round clip? I'm still a monster, right?
Sure, in practical matters, there may be more dead bodies to clean up if I had a full- (or even semi-) auto, but the fact remains that I am a disturbed person who broke the law. If all guns vanished today, if I were that disturbed, I'd simply walk into the school yard with a 3-iron and start whackin' heads on the kindergarten jungle-gym. Are you going to argue that golf club makers should make their clubs less useful for clubbing someone to death?
And I don't buy the argument that guns are specifically designed to kill/injure people. They're designed to hurl small chunks of metal, accurately, for long distances, and at very high velocities. What people choose to do with them is their own business -- until they break the law.
Yes, this is a rather morbib way to make my point, but I hate it when people still insist on blaming the instrument of crime, rather than the criminal.
Re:If you don't have a product sue! (Score:5, Interesting)
The fact that they are now claiming copyrights on HEADER FILES is the ultimate testament to the weakness of their cases.
I mean, how could one re-engineer APIs without replicating headers. If Linux is in violation, than BSD must be in violation as well. They should be suing Apple.
Re:If you don't have a product sue! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:SCO v. Novell (Score:5, Insightful)
SCO knows that without the lawsuits they have a losing business model. If you can't beat 'em, sue 'em, and hope that 1)One of the charges stick, or 2)Somebody buys you out.
This isn't the first time that someone [rambus.com] has tried this.
Two questions... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:That's what usually happens (Score:5, Funny)
I don't know how much I really got screwed (hell, I didn't even know there was a lawsuit -- I wonder how they even found my current adddress!). The letter states it was "not practical to provide individual caculations" for the refunds. Yeah, right!
I know sure as shit that the lawyers got a hell of a lot more than two checks totalling less than a dollar!
Re:That's what usually happens (Score:5, Interesting)
A lot of those delays stem from the simple fact that legal staff usually haven't got the vaguest understanding of how software is architected or compiled. They don't know that half the headers mentioned are part of ANSI and ISO C/C++ standards.
They don't know that every single platform with a C compiler since the early '80s has had an "errno.h" header file.
It's about time some limits were imposed in US courts, as in:
Then maybe the world can get back to doing business instead of letting these useless "IP companies" affect billions of dollars of purchase and deployment decisions, without fear of repercussions for their fraud.
Re:That's what usually happens (Score:5, Informative)
now, the compiler-supplied errno.h in
looking at the errno.h included with kernel source, it looks like a relatively boilerplate file. just a bunch of #defines for error codes. the only way you could really infer copyright infringement is from the comments on each line that says what the error code means. however, i would think that all these are documented somewhere, so even if SCO's file is identical, it's still arguable that in both cases the comments were copied verbatim from some specification document (where copying is possibly allowed).
looking through the files listed, it seems like all of them fall under this general premise - boilerplate kernel constants and macros for very basic stuff that's really hard and silly to try to implement any other way.
blah, SCO can bite me.
Re:That's what usually happens (Score:5, Funny)