SCO Claims Linux Lifted ELF 675
fymidos writes "SCO has finally spoken. According to this linuxworld article, they claim that linux illegally uses the ELF binary format, the JFS filesystem, the init code and some more 'copyrighted Unix header and interfaces'. Finally SCO makes its move. The JFS part was expected of course, but according to the article, as far as the ELF format is concerned 'the Tool Interface Standard Committee (TISC) came up with a ELF 1.2 standard' and 'granted users a "non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license" to the stuff'. Oh, and of course 'both Novell and the old SCO - as well as Microsoft, IBM and Intel - were on the committee'."
Truth Elves (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Truth Elves (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Truth Elves (Score:5, Funny)
Truth Elves ??? (Score:3, Funny)
Make a claim that [insert feature] was stolen by Linux
Sue people/companies
Hopefully Profit!
Later on ...
Shareholders file a class action lawsuit against SCO.... I can dream, can't I?
Re:Truth Elves ??? (Score:5, Funny)
Damn.. I have to get out more often...
Re:Truth Elves (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Truth Elves (Score:5, Funny)
-ds
Re:Truth Elves (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Truth Elves (Score:4, Funny)
But wait, what about Linus' quote...
"Ok, I admit it. I was just a front-man for the real fathers of Linux, the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus."
So SCO owns Linux after all!!
More school yard fun (Score:5, Insightful)
I am not sure what this ends up meaning, legally:
SCO also claims "substantial similarity" between the Read-Copy-Update (RCU) routine in Linux 2.6.5 and Linux patches and SCO's copyrighted work, specifically SVR4.2 MP.
Similarity can be a slippery slope and SCO will slide as far down as need be, I suppose. And how about something that "may" be an infringement:
It also says the journaled file system (JFS) module from later versions of AIX, which SCO believes may derive from the JFS Unix, is in Linux 2.6
The folks at SCO probably look like adults, they are adult-sized and wear nice clothes. However, they act like elementary school kids arguing over a ball on the playground. Whoever yells loud enough, pushes hard enough, and hold their breath the longest wins.
Cheers!
Erick
Re:More school yard fun (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, knowing what I know about SCO (only what I read here and on groklaw), I'm willing to believe that there is substantial similarity. However, I'd bet dollars to donuts that the code came from Linux (or more properly, IBM, perfectly within its rights) into SCO, and not the other way 'round.
Their lawyers have fudged so many facts, fumbled so many easy misses, that I wouldn't doubt this for a moment. "Please stay the RHAT case, because it will be decided by the IBM case," and "please dismiss the IBM counter-claim; it will be decided by the RHAT case."
-paul
Re:More school yard fun (Score:4, Insightful)
Your hypothesis is certainly one I wouldn't dismiss immediately, but do you know in what kind of timeframe the SVR4.2 release was made? i.e. Who is the cart and who is the horse, with respect to Linux & SCO.
Re:More school yard fun (Score:5, Insightful)
System V Release 4 dates from 1991, according to th copyright statement in my manuals. That makes it older than Linux, though not by much. This is irrelevant anyway because ELF is a published standard with an open license, and if it should not have been so published that is an issue between SCO and the people who licensed it, i.e. themselves.
Re:More school yard fun (Score:3, Informative)
RCU and Sequent (Score:5, Interesting)
I was working with CBIS (Cincinnati Bell Information Systems) in the early '80s when Sequent S81 was running Dynix/ptx with SVR and BSD interface flavours.
The technical sales reps were very hot on RCU and how it worked with NUMA to scale the system. 32 way SMP of 386's might not seem much now, but it was significant back then.
Their plans were to have multiple OS flavours under Dynix, relying on RCU to provide scalability to AIX, SunOS/Solaris, and other operating systems that would sit on top of the monolithic ptx core.
From day one, RCU and NUMA were marketted by Sequent as seperate products targetted at many operating systems and vendors, not as just a part of Dynix.
I'm tired of watching SCO's insanity. The industry did not develop in a vaccuum -- there are hundreds if not thousands of us who are witness to how the systems were really developed, despite some IP vulture corp's claims otherwise.
It's a disgrace that SCO's legal team and IP trolls haven't been arrested for fraud and locked up by now. They have no legal case, they never did, and they never will. It's time for them to be spanked and sent to sit in a jail-cell corner for 20 years each.
Re:More school yard fun (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:More school yard fun (Score:5, Funny)
Dude, then you know probably more than SCO's lawyers.
Re:More school yard fun (Score:3, Interesting)
The GPL is very clear that if someone tries to use the GPL on software that they have no right to use the GPL on, then they can't use the GPL for it. This means, if someone GPL's someone elses code, it is considered NOT GPLed at all, and it never was, regardless of any claim. In order to
Re:More school yard fun (Score:5, Interesting)
1. Sontag also says that any entities that ignore SCO's ELF copyrights are infringing."
Hello? Copyrights are for "copy" protection. Not "patent" protection. If you invent something new and fail to patent it, I can re-implement it all I want, copyright or no.
2. SCO also claims "substantial similarity" between the Read-Copy-Update (RCU) routine in Linux 2.6.5 and Linux patches and SCO's copyrighted work, specifically SVR4.2 MP.
Again, do they have a patent? If they don't, then they should STFU.
3. It thinks that Unix SMP 4.2 System V initialization (init) code was copied into Linux 2.6, that there's "substantial similarity" between the user level synchronization (ULS) routines in Linux and Unix, that its Unix System V IPC code was copied into Linux 2.4.20 and that copyrighted Unix header and interfaces were copied into Linux.
Oooo... it's similar! Well, that just cinches it, doesn't it. It's not like anyone would ever re-implement a design they liked. I better go take the wheels off my Chevy. It's too similar to a cart and horse.
4. It also says the journaled file system (JFS) module from later versions of AIX, which SCO believes may derive from the JFS Unix, is in Linux 2.6. - MOG
Just to reiterate, SCO is not reading their own contracts. What IBM develops is IBMs. Plain and simple.
These guys ought to be tried and convicted for barratry, regardless of whether their legal counsel is this stupid or not.
Re:More school yard fun (Score:5, Informative)
Regarding RCI, no SCO don't have a patent on RCU (as I'm sure you know
As regards JFS, the Linux code is derived from the OS/2 version. This has been repeated time after time, but it doesn't suit SCO's story, so they keep peddling the same lies as though that somehow makes them true.
Talk about clutching at straws!
Does SCO's stupidity put them in the legal clear? (Score:3, Funny)
Actually, if they're stupid enough to actually think that they're right, they wouldn't be guilty of barratry.
I look forward to a future case involving SCO with Darl trying to prove conclusively that he was too stupid to realize that his lawsuit was a load of BS.
Re:More school yard fun (Score:5, Informative)
In order to violate copyright they don't need to be identical copies. Instead they need to show that they are substantially similiar (there it is) to each other, implying that the Linux version is derived from the original SCO code. At what point something stops being a derived work is a whole different mess...
One common example of this type of copyright dispute is in housing floorplans and architecture. Often someone will see a floorplan they like in a magazine (copyrighted), and move a few things around and have blueprints drawn from that. That's an infringement on the original copyright, because the resulting work is really just a derived form of the original.
SCO's claims fail on a number of levels, but your 'analysis' is more or less incorrect.
Re:More school yard fun (Score:5, Interesting)
Umm, what? Copyrights and patents are orthogonal. They cover two completely different things.
According to the USPTO, if something (like software) can be copyrighted, then it *cannot* be patented - although aspects of it (like an algorithm) might qualify for a patent, the code itself would not. The general rule is that patents protect ideas, copyright protects expressions or implementations.
This is essentially what SCO is claiming with their copyright arguments, as I understand it.
In order to determine what SCO is claiming, one must ask which day of the week it is.
which is not to say those formats cannot be patented, just that it's not what is going on here
Nobody is claiming that - they're claiming that the format *is not* patented, and that (by definition) you *cannot* copyright a format, so therefore SCO's claims are baseless.
Unless they can show that the kernel's ELF loader contains code copyrighted by them, they have no case.
Re:More school yard fun (Score:5, Insightful)
I know this is stupidly idealistic, but according to the patent office, ideas are explicity not patentable, only specific mechanisms/implementations. That the patent office regularly rubberstamps patents on things which are really no more than ideas is just the patent office's usual level of competance.
You couldn't patent the idea of having a door only open for certain people, but you could patent various ways for making a door act that way. Unless we're talking about actual reality, in which case you could patent breathing, and the patent office would grant it without reading it, leaving it to the people you bill (for breathing without a license) to somehow find the mega$$$ needed to get the courts to invalidate the stupid thing.
Re:More school yard fun (Score:3, Insightful)
I call FUD on you. He said they didn't apply to the people at GITMO, he NEVER said they were invalid. He also said the the UN is at risk of becoming irrelevent, which some would argue is a bit late. He parses his words carefully, and I wish people would quit misinterpreting them intentionally. There is plenty I disagree with Bush on, but misquoting the facts isn't benefitin
Re:More school yard fun (Score:3, Insightful)
The UN has been irrelevant for a hell of a lot longer than that and for much more important reasons.
Heck, just the fact that they let countries with non-representative governments even participate, IMHO, makes a completely joke of the whole thing.
Regardless (Score:3, Interesting)
The torture policy from August 2001 can be found here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/doc
Re:More school yard fun (Score:5, Insightful)
MovOn.org never made the claim, two anti-bush ads uploaded to a weblog/competition on moveon made the comparison and they were deleted as soon as moveon were told about them. Its a bit like saying that Slashdot is pro-goatsex.
The tenuous nature of the claim has not stopped the Bush campaign making an ad that intercuts shots of Kerry with shots of Hitler taken from the deleted contributions.
Clearly SCO are learning nothing from the Bush administration, if you substitute Bush administration for SCO and Bin Laden for Linux what you would get is something like:
Act One: Bin Linux initiates hostilities against SCO, SCO retaliates with massive lawsuit, then after a couple of months gets bored. Daryl McBride survives assasination attempt by a rogue pretzel.
Act Two: SCO gets bored with Bin Linux, decides that emacs is a copy of emacs, threatens to sue unless RMS releases sauce code.
Act Three: Despite protestations from RMS that he has already released the sauce code for emacs and the presence of code inspectors SCO applies for court injunction, RMS is thrown in jail.
Act Four: SCO hires company run by Daryl's brother to maintain the source code, company hires a hundred fresh out of college students, then bills SCO $5,000 per day each for their services.
Act Five: Report comes out stating that the grounds for the injuction were lies, SCO argues that the real Bin Linux threat comes from Iran.
Fact is, if SCO was learning from the Bush administration everything they did would be a complete incompetent Cheney-up from start to finish.
FreeBSD and linux compatibility? (Score:3, Interesting)
-SD
Re:FreeBSD and linux compatibility? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:FreeBSD and linux compatibility? (Score:5, Informative)
Time to move to Mach-o (Score:5, Informative)
This affects everyone, including the BSD's. And, of course, they're full of shit, once again. ELF is not the mortar that binds the OS together. Linux started with a.out, and can probably function just fine with some other binary format.
Re:Time to move to Mach-o (Score:5, Informative)
It means running, like MkLinux did, as a client process atop a Mach microkernel architecture. This is diametrically opposite to the way that the Linux kernel functions, which is largely because Linus (and many other people, myself included) thinks that microkernel architectures are a waste of resources in the real world (though they're certainly very pretty for OS research).
This would also destroy the usefulness of all the binary packages in distribution now, which would be a major financial blow that would quite probably put all of the commercial Linux vendors out of business.
Also, this wouldn't affect OpenBSD, since they still use a.out. (Hey, refusing to change finally paid off for Theo! Good going!)
Re:Time to move to Mach-o (Score:4, Informative)
And then, some of them don't.
See Plan 9, or QNX, or VSTa (still a toy for most purposes -- but very small and fast, and generally considered quite promising by a group of kernel developers I happen to know, a group which includes some folks who are considering building it into an OS suitable for real-life deeply embedded work).
Re:Time to move to Mach-o (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Time to move to Mach-o (Score:3, Interesting)
My thoughts also. The microkernel crowd in general seems to agree that Mach is not a good microkernel. (L4 is much better.) And writing a monolithic kernel on top of a microkernel, rather than taking advantage of the full microkernel flexibility...I don't see the point.
Can anyone explain to me
Re:Time to move to Mach-o (Score:3, Informative)
As I said in the last post, MkLinux sprung up because Linux didn't run natively on PPC -- and Mach did. At the time, the PPC machines were fast enough that a PPC running MkLinux was performance-comparable to an x86 machine running Linux on the hardware. The project didn't last very long, however. And MkL
Re:Time to move to Mach-o (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Time to move to Mach-o (Score:3, Interesting)
Best of all it affects SCO. If ELF support has to be dropped from gcc, what will they use for a compiler?
Re:Time to move to Mach-o (Score:5, Informative)
Under a.out, each library had to be assigned a memory location. Back in the old days, there was a long list of official assignments that you could download from sunsite and the other major ftp sites. There were three major problems.
Obviously, this wasn't scalable.
awww... (Score:5, Funny)
Then you had to go ruin my blissful existance...
Why wasn't this brought up in 1995? (Score:5, Insightful)
"In 1995, the year Novell sold Unix to the Santa Cruz Operation, an industry group calling itself the Tool Interface Standard Committee (TISC) came up with a ELF 1.2 standard and to popularize it and streamline PC software development granted users a "non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license" to the stuff, effectively putting it in the public domain, SCO says.
SCOsource chief Chris Sontag, the SCO VP in charge of the company's hate-inducing IP push, claims TISC, which folded immediately after the spec was published, exceeded its rights even though both Novell and the old SCO - as well as Microsoft, IBM and Intel - were on the committee."
So if SCO had a problem with ELF way back in 1995, why didn't they stop this back then? Obviously they had the choice to -- they clearly knew what TISC was doing. So why did it take SCO until 2003-2004 to point fingers at TISC?
I'm sorry, but this reeks of a last-ditch money-grab by SCO...even more than it did before. The release of ELF into the public domain happened nine years ago. IMHO, SCO should not be allowed to pull this into court because their business model is hurting now. Ridiculous.
Re:Why wasn't this brought up in 1995? (Score:5, Interesting)
This may be a hard sell to the court since they were not a party to the original effort and they can't seem to find any of the documents transferring any rights from old SCO to Caldera/TSG.
We'll see if it staves off the inevitable for a while longer at the aug 4th hearing. The best part is that the more deperate they act the more chance the principals will end up in jail when all of this fraud is exposed.
SCO has no standing. (Score:5, Interesting)
Since the seller sold the copyright with the explicit understanding that ELF was in the public domain, NewSCO can not claim anything.
If someone "exceeded" their authority it's a matter for the parties involved at the time.
Re:Why wasn't this brought up in 1995? (Score:5, Interesting)
What happened with TISC in 1995 is irrelevant [google.com]. As the Usenet post from 1993 shows, the ELF support in Linux does not come from any code that TISC released into the public domain in 1995 with the support of SCO. It was a clean room implementation based on documented interfaces from "SYSTEM V RELEASE 4 Programmer's Guide: >ANSI C and Programming Support Tools" (ISBN 0-13-933706-7).
There is no copyright issue here SCO, but have fun taking the US Navy to court over it.
Re:Why wasn't this brought up in 1995? (Score:5, Informative)
> court...
They aren't. In none of their claims in any of their lawsuits do they ever accuse anyone of infringing their copyrights by putting their stuff into Linux.
IBM, on the other hand, is close to getting a declaratory judgement that nothing in Linux infringes SCO's copyrights. In opposing IBM's motion for summary judgement on that declaratory judgement SCO has explicitly said that they are not claiming any infringement by Linux.
Development dollars? (Score:5, Insightful)
The ELF bit is a weak arguement, but what can they do? They have a medium-sized pile of money and a dead-end product line. They can litigate, piss the money away trying to outdevelop both the open-source community and Microsoft in the OS space, or give up and find a new business to try and develop. Given the source of their pot of money, it makes sense to take their shot a the IBM lottery...
Of course, understanding their position doesn't make the decision a smart one.
Re:Development dollars? (Score:3, Insightful)
An immoral person might go ahead and steal.
Re:Development dollars? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think we must be missing something here. I understand your logic, but if you only have $5, you don't go buy a slingshot and take on a Kodiac bear, unless your goal isn't to win to begin with.
They can't really be expecting to make money licensing Linux. They can't expect to win against the other litigants, since even they know all the other judges want to wait until the IBM case is settled before proceeding. They may not have known this before it all started, but they have to know it now. Its as if:
1. Sue everyone
2. ????
3. Profit!
And they REALLY DONT KNOW what step 2 is, so they are trying a little of everything. As hard as I look, I just can't believe that they really think they can win, so it begs the questions: What is the *real* motivation?
Microsoft? Did you read the article about how MS was going to go after open source the other day? (the HP internal docs) I am still waiting for MS to let SCO completely self destruct, then buy their "IP" at a bargain, to hold a cloud over open source. Its like getting your buddy hooked on crack, just so you can buy his stereo cheap.
Demise dollars (Score:5, Interesting)
I used to think that way too, before "I made $10 million bucks and all I got was this crummy t-shirt."
Seriously. Built an early ISP. Sold it for a ton of money. Raised an additional $20 million to chase UUNET and PSI's coat-tails. Had a neutral broker in the whole deal steal the money and the company. His attorneys stalled everyone out long enough to get money to offshore banks. We all won the suits, and never saw a dime. Company was long dead by the time the court system got done.
What I didn't understand at the time was that people like this know how to make money going down. Study what they call penny stock companies (ala bulletin board stocks/pink sheets). You can run one of these that does absolutely nothing, never files SEC documents, and make a nice income. Here's the middle item of the underwear gnomes strategy:
1. Incorporate a dummy privately trading C corporation which you and your friends own.
2. Use your public bulletin board company to acquire the dummy company. Claim the dummy company has some mystical super secret technology, or better yet, a patent claim against someone like Amazon.com, Priceline, Ebay, etc. When you buy it, it not only loads you and your friends up with more shares of stock (you buy it with the public company stock, and if you're smart, you do much of this w/ registered stock you can immediately dump), but it puts a bunch of press releases out about the event and gets half of the stock buying market going in a feeding frenzy buying your public stock.
3. Dump a bunch of your newly accumulated shares. Ride the stock price down to $0.001.
Repeat steps 1-3 over and over. Oh, when creditors come, make sure you drive the price to zero again (this makes it worthless for them to come after you and even keeps them from pushing involuntary bankruptcy which would take over your company). Claim you were an innocent investor who lost millions too. If pressed on where financial documents are, make sure you had hired some stupid kids and promoted them to CEO by promosing them multi million dollar paychecks. Have them sign all the IRS and state revenue department documents, but don't ever let them actually have control of the bank accounts. This sends the IRS and SEC after them and will stick them with tax obligations for decades. During this lying low time, acquire a few of your dummy companies and load back up on stock.
Sound far fetched? It happens every single day. The SEC told us it could not do anything about these and could only worry about the big Worldcom sized matters because they were "underfunded and overworked." The rest of the story is that it takes financial and political clout to get the SEC to investigate. Common folks don't matter.
So is there any wonder that the names behind SCO include power hitters from both parties and much of Utah's power base? Just another way of taking money from the lower classes...
Microsoft strategy (Score:3, Interesting)
I've been wondering about this as well, though really see the SCO deal as more of a trial balloon and not the actual mother of all battles for open source.
It really doesn't seem like Microsoft's approach (remember how many billions they have and the pride that comes with the wealth and dominance). A proxy battle is more interesting as a means of testing the waters and seeing how the open source world responds.
Oh please .... make it stop! (Score:5, Interesting)
The JFS claims, that seems like an awful stretch as well, It does make more sense in targetting IBM though as I believe they had heavy involvement in JFS. Honestly I am not nearly as familiar with the ins and outs of it, but unless they are claiming something ridiculous like memcopy() or something...
Which brings us to number three, 'copyrighted unix headers and interfaces'
Now the interfaces, which could perhaps be interpreted as API... there is some chance that could have some fuzzy ground I imagine. But how on earth can the judge/court even take them seriously at this point?
Not the first time... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not the first time... (Score:4, Informative)
Rambus committed fraud by ensuring their patented technology became incorporated in the standard without revealing their patent.
SCO committed perjury by claiming it owned copyrights on UNIX and JFS (Novell and IBM own those copyrights, respectively), and it violated the GPL by not allowing IBM to redistribute code that was licensed to them under the GPL.
The former was a fraud committed to get real evidence, the latter is a fraudulent claim to evidence.
Not even close.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, they're the same, except that the 'little company' didn't exist when the standard was written, don't have clear title to the format, waited *NINE YEARS* to bring it up, and doesn't have a patent, and thinks that this is a *copyright* issue.
But yeah, except for all those differences, it's totally the same.
The stock market greets this latest news... (Score:5, Informative)
Claims on 2.6 ? It was but a gleam in Linus' eye! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Claims on 2.6 ? It was but a gleam in Linus' ey (Score:3, Informative)
According to http://www.dvorak.org/scotimeline/ [dvorak.org], the SCO suit was launched on March 6, 2003.
According to http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Timeline %20of%20Linux%20development [thefreedictionary.com] Linux Kernel 2.4 was released on January 4, 2001 so it would follow that the code for 2.5 would be under development until the release of 2.6 on December 18, 2003.
So it's possible that SCO code was incorporated into 2.5 at the time of the lawsuit, but if they had actually seen that
thefreedictionary.com (Score:5, Informative)
Please do not post links to thefreedictionary.com - they are a dodgy site which repackages Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] content whilst stretching the GFDL [wikipedia.org] as far as they possibly can.
Look at that link you posted - you'll see a credit to Wikipedia at the bottom. Now disable javascript in your browser and refresh - ooh, the credit is gone! They insert it in with javascript rather than putting it in the body of the page to ensure that Google doesn't pick it up. Why? Because a link to Wikipedia's article would help lift Wikipedia's pagerank above that of freedictionary.com.
Just say no, and if you want to read Wikipedia's timeline of Linux development, read the original [wikipedia.org].
Now this gets entertaining (Score:5, Interesting)
So they have just got themselves into the aiming calculations of the entire computer industry including the other big Blue, not just IBM.
Anyway, do not see a problem even if they win this one. While I want to puke just at the thought of ECOFF, it is if IIRC (C) intel and HP and all it will take to get linux to use them will be one big rebuild and a rewrite of libdl. That is if Intel and HP do not decide to put the dl for ECOFF into the public domain.
In, btw, this is something on which Cisco can buy them just to shut them up (if everyone agrees to go home and stop the lawsuits).
Re:Now this gets entertaining (Score:5, Insightful)
You can not, must not cave in to buy a company like this because it sets precedent for the creation of a million more just like them that will create noise and/or sue for things they don't have ownership for nor can prove there is damage being done.
You must see this out to the end, either being the annihilation of the barratrous company or the squashing of the lawsuit by an informed judicial process. You must send a message to all other wannabes that this type of crap will not be tolerated and that doing so will result in the destruction of their companies, their reputations, and their personal viability.
How the stink (Score:4, Insightful)
Gupta? (Score:5, Funny)
Any relation to Dr [slashdot.org] Samir [google.com] Gupta [slashdot.org]?
Finally, a SCO story (Score:5, Funny)
I was starting to have withdrawals. No SCO story in days. I didn't have my SCO fix. I thought no SCO story could only mean one thing: "SCO had figured out how to take over the world." At last, you fulfilled my deepest cravings for more SCO news and I can go on living in my beautiful world of FUD.
Thank you slashdot. Without my SCO updates, I don't think I could go on. My life would be in even more shambles than it already is. Even my dog would not speak to me (now, as for the wife, that might be a good thing).
Long Live SCO and FUD . Better than comics!
The Complete Story of Caldera/SCOX (Score:4, Informative)
Diagnosis and Prescription (Score:5, Funny)
The patient is suffering from paranoid delusions. His accustation of persecution ("theft") despite having previously personally approved of the situation represent a psychotic dissocation from reality and should be construed as a negative hallucination. As such, the patient should be provisionally diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenia, and should be admitted for stabilization and observation, lest he become dangerous to himself or others.
Seriously, if SCO were a person acting this way towards other people in public, by now it'd be better than even money they'd have been put in hospital.
Of course they have to file something (Score:5, Insightful)
(Being below $5 is a bad thing(tm), because many mutual funds cannot own stocks priced that low. Also since one cannot easily sell short a stock on Nasdaq priced below $5, it dries up the pool of short-sellers to be squeezed with price manipulations)
Re:Of course they have to file something (Score:5, Interesting)
SCO's real problem is that the lawsuits are starting to reach the point where SCO loses. AutoZone got a stay. Damlier-Chrysler has moved for summary judgement, and they have a procedural hearing tomorrow at which SCO probably won't look good. Early next month, the big one, IBM's motion for summary judgement on the copyright claims, goes before the judge.
In the IBM case, SCO is frantically filing motions in all directions, desperately trying to stall a ruling on summary judgement or to raise issues that will convince the judge not to dismiss the copyright claims. If they lose on that one, it's the beginning of the end.
ELF Info (Score:5, Interesting)
Help from SCO on ELF compatability in SCO OpenServer [sco.com]
Summary of a.out, COFF and ELF from a FreeBSD pov [unixguide.net]
Nice descriptions of various BFFs (binary file format) including ELF [uq.edu.au]
"Viral license"? (Score:4, Funny)
The mainstream press is buying SCO's claims (Score:5, Insightful)
Take a look at today's CNN.com article [cnn.com], in which the reporter says:
"The communal aspects of open source can lead to thorny legal questions, particularly when a company claims its proprietary code has seeped into a project. Because developers typically don't offer warranties, end users could be held liable for infringements."
Wow. It's like saying that all code under the GPL is held to a legal standard that's as harsh as
Sad. And probably not fixable.
ELF licence/standard (Score:5, Informative)
"The TIS Committee grants you a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to use the information disclosed in this Specification to make your software TIS-compliant; no other license, express or implied, is granted or intended hereby."
Now that's pretty damn clear indication that anyone is allowed to use this license.
So how does SCO own this again? Oh, right, unlike IBM, Microsoft, Intel and the other members of the TIS committee, their business model is to sue! Ok, sorry, my fault.
Object formats (Score:4, Informative)
* a.out (Unix / Linux)
* COFF (Unix / Linux)
* XCOFF (AIX)
* ECOFF (Mips)
* SOM (HP)
* Mach-O (NeXT, Mac OS X)
* NLM
* OMF
* PEF (Macintosh)
ELF vs a.out - Gentoo anyone? (Score:3, Interesting)
I think that the worst case scenario is that SCO get a tempory injunction blocking the use of ELF (nevermind that no judge would actually agree that to not issue on would cause irreprable harm, given that it's 9 years old). Therefore, there is some merit in ensureing that it is possible to build a modern Linux system on a.out format binaries. Additionally, it torpeados thier claim that ELF is the 'magic pixie dust that they stole to make Linux work'.
This sounds like a case for a source based distribution. Gentoo, being the most used source based distro sounds like a place that might be able to do that. Alas, I'm not familiar enough with Gentoo to comment - so can anyone who is give a definiative answear on whether Gentoo can be used to give a system without ELF binaries. I undertand that there will likely be a bootstrap step (I remember the a.out -> elf shift in the first place, after all).
It's not just (not even, I should say) fear of SCO, but there is significant meaning in being able to switch executable formats - that's a lot of flexability for the future.
So, a.out Gentoo, anyone?
The Copyright Problem (Score:5, Insightful)
If you write a book, it's unlikely that somebody's going to excerpt part of your book for their own use. It's even more unlikely that the excerpt they do make will get used by somebody else in their book. This is a standard practice in software.
Linux uses Elf. SCO claims that the committee that opened up that standard didn't have the authority to do so. Well, it's now years later, and there are countless works derived off of that original standard, and now SCO wants to undo it.
Basically this has the effect of destroying copyright in software. How can anybody feel legally safe using any software product at any time when the history of every piece of code isn't out there for our perusal? How many times do we here of code that's out there, gets implemented countless times, and then somebody comes along and claims patent or copyright on some ancestor. The GIF patents are a perfect example of this.
I'm aware of no good solution to this problem. Every year, more code is written like this, and more copyright issues and patent issues arise. This will lead to legal fights, and overall increase the cost of developing software exponentially over time. Keep in mind that the code were dealing with don't date back much further than 1970, so it's only going to get worse.
Re:The Copyright Problem (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually I feel this is a good analogy; whoever wrote the first "Whodunnit" story (probably that dude who wrote the Bible) could claim "Murder She Wrote", "Columbo" and "Hong Kong Phoowee" are all derivative works.
Stephen King (deceased at 54?) would b
Re:The Copyright Problem (Score:4, Insightful)
Which is why copyright in software should be abolished and patents should be used instead. (Ducks behind heat-absorbent shield.) No, really; there are some actual benefits to this.
Patents expire. (Copyrights seem to be going on forever.)
Modern software is far more like the interlocking gears of a machine than like the mystic gestalt of a painting.
Copyright cares about where code came from (which is a pain). Patent only cares about what code does.
Copyrights are automatic, but most stuff that gets invented is never patented.
Every piece of code written before 1984 would instantly be public domain.
Re:The Copyright Problem (Score:5, Informative)
Not true. People use other people's code under license, and people use other people's written texts under license. There is no inherent problem here: A programmer knows when he is and is not writing original code just as well as a writer knows when he is producing original work as opposed to quoting.
SCO claims that the committee that opened up that standard didn't have the authority to do so. Well, it's now years later, and there are countless works derived off of that original standard, and now SCO wants to undo it.
Yes, and they can't.
Basically this has the effect of destroying copyright in software.
No it doesn't. SCO can claim whatever they want. It doesn't mean it'll stand up in court.
How can anybody feel legally safe using any software product at any time when the history of every piece of code isn't out there for our perusal?
Not difficult. As a programmer, don't use other people's code without knowing what copyright restrictions apply.
No, you can't change those restrictions retroactively, except if a court finds it was an obvious mistake, and even then only within a reasonable timeframe. SCO has no case, yet you seem to assume they are right. One should never assume that about SCO.
As a end-user you are not liable. You are only guilty of contributory copyright infringment if it can be proven that you knew or should have known that the software you were using contained someone else's code. How are you supposed to know that as an end-user? Especially if you're running a binary? That is just silly.
As a software developer, for patents: Don't look at patents. If you can't afford to have a team of lawyers continously scrutinize your work for patent violations, the best option is not to look at anything you know is patented. In that way, you can always claim any infringment was unintentional, in which case you are unlikely to be forced to pay damages.
(Given you take appropriate action when a patent owner does accuse you of infringement)
As an end user: The same logic on contributory infringment applys.
I agree though, patents are dangerous and will end up increasing the legal complexity and costs of developing software.
But copyrights are not a problem in this sense.
Re:The Copyright Problem (Score:3, Insightful)
It's actually pretty easy - apply the idea / expression dichotomy, already clearly established in other areas of copyright law, to code. Distributing line-for-line copies of SCO's ELF implementation, which is their expression of an idea, is and should be illegal. But that's not what they're saying we did; they're saying they own the standard, they own the idea. Copyright law doesn't allow you to own an idea. Anyone who thinks otherwise needs to be educated
Ha, ha! (Score:4, Funny)
A question. (Score:3, Funny)
I need to know, as I am conflicted.
On one hand, a good punch in the nose may do him good.
On the other hand, hasn't he suffered enough? Why add injury to insult?
hmm. Perhaps punching him in the nose until he is sad is the answer...
Decisions, decisions.
ELF, COFF, and PE (Score:5, Interesting)
ELF is not "similar to Microsoft DLLs", or that's badly worded. It's similar to Microsoft PE format.
ELF is derived from COFF. It was mostly a rewrite of COFF with some bad assumptions and nn-portabilities fixed. It so happens that Microsoft's PE (PE-COFF) format is also derived from COFF and is very similar to ELF. If the format was somehow "protected" (which wouldn't be via copyright as pointed out elsewhere), then Microsoft are also guilty of copying. If SCO really own the copyrights to Unix (they don't), and if copyright applied here (it doesn't), then MS are in the same boat with everybody else. Lucky for them that SCO don't have a leg to stand on
Tim
TIS, UNIX International, and ELF 1.1 (Score:5, Interesting)
That's a handy reference document for SCO, the version 1.2 of the specification. Too bad it wasn't the first published version:
Google for "pfmt11.pdf"; here is the most interesting and damning excerpt:
-
"Some of the major reasons for selecting this format are the public nature of the specification and the fact that the PLSIG and ABICC standardization committees can enhance its formats."
-
This version came out of USL and UNIX International, who are jointly credited with the creation of the ELF 1.1 standard. Even if USL could argue rights, the current SCO can't. This standard, along with the DWARF standard, TET, ETET, and the last draft of Specification 1170 (the original Single UNIX Specification) were published on the UNIX International FTP server. UNIX International was a legal agent for USL at the time of publication.
If you want to check into anything, check into the contractual agreements between USL and UI with regard to what rights UI did or did not have. You will find that they had full rights to publish the standard on behalf of their member USL.
In the interests of full disclosure, I was a Novell/USG ("UNIX Systems Group") employee at the time. Novell/USG was comprised of the NWU ("NetWare for UNIX"), NUC ("NetWare UNIX Client"), and the former USL. I'm one of the people who rescued the public content of the UNIX International FTP server and found it a new home at various other corporate sites when UNIX International effectively disolved in 1994. One of the documents rescued was this very document.
-- Terry
I HOPE YOU ARE WELL! (Score:3, Funny)
From: Sandeep Gupta
Date: Tuesday, july 20, 2004 12:53 AM
Subject: TRANSFER
Sandeep Gupta
Dear Sir/Madam,
I am fine today and how are you? I hope this letter will find you in the best of health. I am Sandeep Gupta, the VP of "Engineering", of the "Santa Cruz Operation (SCOX)", a subsidiary of the SCO Group (SCOX).
SCOSource (SCOX) was set up by SCOsource chief Chris Sontag, to manage the excess FUD accruing from Intellectual Property Claims and its allied products as a domestic increase in the Copyright products to develop the litigation in the Linux Lawsuit producing areas. The estimated annual revenue for 1999 was $45 Billion US Dollars Ref. FMF A26 Unit 3B Paragraph "D" of the Auditor General of the Federal Republic of Nigeria Report of Nov. 1999 on estimated revenue.
No, I can't do any more, it's too much like making fun of the mentally deficient.
Some article problems (Score:4, Informative)
"ELF is sorta like Microsoft's DLLs and was developed by AT&T's Unix System Labs as part of the Unix Application Binary Interface (ABI) before Unix was sold to Novell in 1993."
ELF is not like Microsoft's DLLs. ELF is a binary executable format, and is comparable to Microsoft's PE executable format (am i correct on that?) used in their EXE files. Unix shared libraries are comparable to Windows DLLs. Also, that's the first time I've ever seen the word "sorta" in an article. hmmm....
They also don't mention that almost every Unix OS uses the ELF format (as far as I've seen).
"The Free Software Foundation is also the creator of the GPL, the viral license that makes Linux so provocative."
Is this a statement from the Linuxworld author or SCO? SCO claimed the GPL was a "viral" license, but if that is coming from Linuxworld then something's wrong.
"It also says the journaled file system (JFS) module from later versions of AIX, which SCO believes may derive from the JFS Unix, is in Linux 2.6. - MOG"
what's "the JFS Unix"?
Anyway, SCO is going insane and should hopefully die soon. But the author of that article needs to learn more about Linux first lol (especially since it's a Linux magazine).
-eventhorizon
What a surprise, or not. (Score:4, Interesting)
The board is surely behind this and i suspect the SCO laywers are furious. Now they have to explain to the court why this was so damn hard to bring forward in a court with two orders hanging around their neck while it was this easy to tell the media.
Share price up tomorrow and then as theese unfounded allegations get shot down it will fall again.
Those million lines... (Score:3, Funny)
Lifting ELF? (Score:3, Funny)
If SCO declares war on the ELFs... (Score:3, Funny)
"One OS to rule them all and in the darkness bind them."
Transaction pattern for SCO (Score:3, Informative)
Largest number of transactions (by far) and largest total value (by a smaller ratio) is Director Thomas P. Raimondi.
Gasparro, Larry (VP), Broughton, Reginald (SR VP), and Bench, Robert K. (CFO) all appear on the list. Bench owns (or owned by the most recent record) roughly 2.4 times as much stock as the next largest investor on the list.
Hunsaker, Jeff F. is the only person appearing on the list who is not shown with a position in the company described to explain why he is an insider, but other sources confirm he was a SR VP.
Interestingly, Darl's name does not appear at all on the inside trading list.
Standards can't be owned (Score:5, Insightful)
There are three ways of 'owning' a standard:
The first is patents. For example, something about Betamax tapes were patented, and thus people had to license the standard from the owner, Sony. SCO has no patents, so can't possibly have one over ELF, so let's move on.
The second is trademarks. For example, Firewire is trademarked by Apple. This doesn't stop anyone from making Firewire ports on their laptop, but it does stop them from calling them Firewire ports, without paying a fee. Likewise, anyone can impliment ISO-9001, but you have to get certified if you want to call yourself that. (Technically, I don't think these are trademarks, they're 'seal of approval' marks, but they're under trademark law somewhere.)
The third is ownership of the copyright of the standards document. Quite a few standards organizations make their money this way.
While I know SCO does not have a trademark on ELF, and I doubt they somehow have copyright on the standards document that someone else released into the public domain before they were born, the important thing to remember is that only patents can stop someone from implimenting a standard.
I can sit here without having pay any money to Phillips for their standards documentation or their trademark and build a CD player. I can't call it a 'CD' player without getting their approval, and I'll have a hell of a time building it without looking at their documenation, but as all patents on basic CD players obviously expired already (Yeah, it's been 20 years.), I can build one, and even sell it.
As there never were any ELF patents, there has never been anything to prevent anyone else from implimenting it, period. Even if TISC trademarked 'ELF' and sold the standards documentation, it's still perfectly legal for someone to use that document, or in fact any way of figuring out the format they want, and impliment a system that uses ELF, even if they have to call it 'HOBBIT' or something. (Remember, reverse engineering for compatiblity reasons is still legal.)
(For everyone still paying attention, there is standard information in the format, and I can just hear everyone thinking 'what about copyright on those bytes?'. Well, no go. It's been explicitly ruled that, since copyright is only on creative works, and as information required by a standard is not 'creative', but 'factual', thus, you can't copyright it.)
Re:Finally (Score:5, Funny)
It's not even the beginning of the end,
It might, however, be the end of the beginnning.
Quite funny... (Score:5, Funny)
Will there EVER really be an end though? SCO will probably lawyer themselves out of existence, but what is stopping some other greedy little twerp from pulling the same stunt with copyright claim or perhaps a software patent? (OK, I'll be fair, McBride isn't a little person)
It seems that even very obvious or simple ideas can be patented these days, which gives the patent holder a pretty effective legal weapon. Even without patents (after all, the central argument by SCO doesn't involve patent issues) the most flimsy and ridiculous claims can be brought before court, wasting everyone's time and money.
As long as there are lawyers without ethics or scruples (and the majority lack both) there will be no real end. Unfortunately, lawysers are quite resilient. If the bomb were ever to destroy civilisation, only cockroaches and lawyers would survive--and I'm sure one lawyer would sue another for millions and order him to exterminate the cockroaches at his expense.
Re:Finally (Score:4, Funny)
I'm sorry to inform you, but this Winston Churchill quote has been acquired by SCO through a series of acquisitions and mergers. As with the linux operating system, we require that you license this quote from us for the low price of $699 a post.
Thank you, and "History will be kind to me for I intend to write it!"
http://www.workinghumor.com/quotes/winston_church
Re:Can we have some details on the JSF (Score:5, Informative)
Q1. What is the history of the source based use for the port of JFS for Linux.
A1. IBM introduced its UNIX file system as the Journaled File System (JFS)
with the initial release of AIX Version 3.1. This file system, now
called JFS1 on AIX, has been the premier file system for AIX over the
last 10 years and has been installed in millions of customer's AIX
systems. In 1995, work began to enhance the file system to be more
scalable and to support machines that had more than one
processor. Another goal was to have a more portable file system,
capable of running on multiple operating systems.
Historically, the JFS1 file system is very closely tied to the memory
manager of AIX. This design is typical of a closed-source operating
system, or a file system supporting only one operating system.
The new Journaled File System, on which the Linux port was based, was
first shipped in OS/2 Warp Server for eBusiness in April, 1999, after
several years of designing, coding, and testing. It also shipped with
OS/2 Warp Client in October, 2000. In parallel to this effort, some
of the JFS development team returned to the AIX Operating System
Development Group in 1997 and started to move this new JFS source base
to the AIX operating system. In May, 2001, a second journaled file
system, Enhanced Journaled File System (JFS2), was made available for
AIX 5L. In December of 1999, a snapshot of the original OS/2 JFS
source was taken and work was begun to port JFS to Linux.
So, the original JFS-1 was written as closed source for AIX. However, the JFS that made its way into Linux was JFS-2, which was originally written for OS/2 then ported to AIX and Linux.
Dunno how SCO can claim code written for OS/2
Re:Can we have some details on the JSF (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, it's a load of BS.
Re:SCO's business plan will be taught to MBA's (Score:5, Funny)
You misspelt Enron..................^
Re:The neverending saga (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Copyright (Score:4, Interesting)
Unless the code to implement ELF is identical in Linux, I don't see anything like a case here. And if SCOX had a patent on ELF, we'd know it by now.
Re:SCO sounds more like Kim Il Jong (Score:5, Funny)