[CLUE-Talk] Why SCO still sucks...

[Jed S. Baer]

On 02 May 2003 21:35:07 -0600
"Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier" <clue at dissociatedpress.net> wrote:

> On Fri, 2003-05-02 at 21:11, Jed S. Baer wrote:
> > On Fri, 02 May 2003 20:00:18 -0600
> > Dennis J Perkins <djperkins at americanisp.net> wrote:
> > 
> > > >>>What I expect is that they will go to court and largely claim
> > > >that>>someone "stole" particular ideas from UnixWare and re-worked
> > > >them.
> > ...
> > > >>"We're finding...cases where there is line-by-line code in the
> > > >Linux>kernel that is matching up to our UnixWare code," McBride
> > > >said in an>interview. In addition, he said, "We're finding code
> > > >that looks likes it's>been obfuscated to make it look like it
> > > >wasn't UnixWare code--but it was.">
> > > >>http://www.bakutoday.net/view.php?d=4239
> > ...
> > > >Of course, if SCO/Caldera shipped the same kernel code, wouldn't
> > > >that make it fair game under the GPL anyway? 
> > 
> > No, why would it? Now, if SCO decided to use already GPL'd code, yes,
> > but that isn't what they're saying happened. Also, the owner of any
> > piece of code can, in fact, release under multiple licenses, even
> > withdraw later versions from the GPL.
> 
> They can choose to release later versions under a different license,
> providing they're the sole owner, but they can't withdraw what they've
> already put out there. 

Yeah, what I said, err, meant.

> What I'm saying is -- SCO is accusing IBM, Red Hat, SuSE and presumably
> others of shipping code that they claim was part of SCO UnixWare -- but
> if they've shipped products with the very same code, I don't see how
> they can later say that the other companies didn't have the rights to do
> so... are they really going to go into court and claim that they didn't
> know what their own product contained? 

I just don't see what you're trying to get at. It looks to me as if there
are two codebases here. One being the various Unix stuff to which SCO owns
rights. They license these rights to may vendors. It is under those
licenses that IBM, et. al. distribute their own Unix variants. SCO is
saying that IBM's licenses do not extend to releasing that code into an
Open/Free software environment. And of course, SCO, owning the rights, can
certainly also use the code in their own proprietary Unix software
release. Now, IBM still has those licenses, and SCO is threatening to
revoke them. But I don't see how SCO's act of producing their own Unix
distribution automatically implies GPL'd code, or has any bearing on how
other vendors are licensed for use of SCO property.

Linux is a seperate codebase. Are you trying to say that because Caldera
produced a Linux distro, and that SCO does also, as part of United Linux,
that that somehow bears on the intellectual property licensing for the
other codebase? Even if SCO/Caldera shipped a "tainted" Linux distro, they
could very well have done it without knowing it -- I wouldn't expect the
producer of a distro to read every line of source code. If their code was
introduced into Linux without their consent or knowledge, how does their
shipping of it grant freedom for anyone else to use it?

If you're talking about SCO shipping UnixWare, how does that have anything
to do with Linux?

> If there is actually SCO UnixWare code in the kernel, and they shipped
> it, how can they have a case against Red Hat or IBM or SuSE? They're
> either proving that another vendor would have had no way of knowing it
> was there, or proving that they in fact approved of it being released
> under the GPL. 

As I said, and I understand this is the claim, that the code in question
was not placed there with their knowledge or consent.

> > > If their case is so ironclad, why not prove it?  And how do we know
> > > that Caldera did not contribute some code?
> > 
> > Uh, I think that's what the lawsuits are about. Prove it, in court,
> > and collect your damages, or whatever you get out of it.
> 
> Why not provide the proof before resorting to a lawsuit?

Well, whether your or I or anyone else agrees with it, the choice of
tactics is up to the plaintiff.

> Their execs are making all this noise about this being "about
> principle." That's a load. It isn't as if the Linux Community at large
> is trying to rip off SCO -- even if some jerk did submit SCO code to the
> Linux kernel, it's not as if the entire community was in on some kind of
> scam.

True, but now the see it as potentially affecting their bottom line. They
also see IBM, and others, making money off Linux. It's always about money,
isn't it? Same argument applies to Micro$oft -- they have a duty to their
shareholders to produce ROI. Hell, you can make the sam statement about
RedHat. SCO's position is that if there's money being made using their IP,
they deserve a cut -- and obviously compensation for alleged wrongdoing.

> If this were going the other way, someone claiming that SCO had
> appropriated GPL'ed code for proprietary products, the same SCO execs
> would be screaming bloody murder if they were sued without an
> opportunity to remedy the problem prior to a lawsuit. What CNet and
> others aren't pointing out when they write about this is that this is
> the first time that anyone has claimed (at least that I'm aware of) that
> proprietary code has wound up in a GPL'ed product -- but the reverse has
> happened a number of times already, and they've all been resolved
> without a lawsuit. 

Dunno what to say. That's SCO's choice -- a bad one, but their call to
make.

> I sincerely hope someone will file a suit against SCO claiming that the
> company has appropriated some Linux code into UnixWare -- and I wouldn't
> be at all surprised if that has happened at some point. 

Well, so far they've managed to be the target of a pretty large DDOS
attack.

> > As far as whether SCO/Caldera code being in the kernel makes it
> > automagically GPL'd, I'd say that would depend a great deal on how it
> > got there. Certainly, anyone with legal rights to a chunk of code can
> > release it under the GPL. What if someone didn't have the rights, and
> > re-used the code anyway? As someone else said, now we have a mess.
> 
> I think it remains to be seen how much of a mess there is, depending on
> what "proof" SCO actually brings to the table. 

Well yes, I was speaking hypothetically.

> At this point, I have little confidence that SCO has much of a case.
> They've been lying every step of the way. First, they denied that they
> were planning a lawsuit when it was leaked that they were talking to
> David Boies. Then they admitted they were planning to "enforce their IP"
> but they certainly weren't going to be suing Linux distributors. Then
> they sued IBM, but they said they didn't have any plans to sue other
> Linux vendors like Red Hat or SuSE. Now they're talking about "a day of
> reckoning" for Red Hat and SuSE -- ostensibly about issues other than
> IBM bringing SCO IP to Linux, since that would be strictly between SCO
> and IBM. 

Well, I don't know. It would depend upon who know what and when -- that
would be, I guess, SCO's position in pursuing the matter. How RH or SuSE
would have known about something like that, if it occured, is beyond me,
and certainly, had they known, I'm sure they would have refused to use the
code. How much insulation that gets them (in the unlikely event that SCO
IP is in use) WRT civil liability, I don't know. IANAL, so I can only
guess that even in civil law, there has to be some "knowledge
aforethought", and intent to defraud.

> While one SCOster is claiming that they've found SCO UnixWare code in
> the Linux kernel, another was quoted recently as saying that it
> definitely didn't involve the Linux kernel. They can't even get their
> lies straight amongst their executives. 

Sounds sorta like flailing to me.

jed
-- 
I wouldn't even think about bribing a rottweiler with a steak that
didn't weigh more than I do. -- Jason Earl