From norman@nose.cs.utoronto.ca Wed May 28 19:25:05 2003
From: norman@nose.cs.utoronto.ca (Norman Wilson)
Date: Wed, 28 May 2003 15:25:05 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] SCO vs. IBM: NOVELL steps up to the plate
Message-ID: <200305281925.h4SJPYJ8078685@minnie.tuhs.org>
Interesting. I suggest everyone interested in this fracas read the
whole scoop at (to repeat Kenneth Stailey's pointer)
http://www.novell.com/news/press/archive/2003/05/pr03033.html
Here's a question of interest not to the Linux community but to
the TUHS one: if, as Novell now claim, the 1995 agreement didn't
convey the UNIX copyrights to SCO, under what right did SCO issue
the Ancient UNIX Source Code agreements, whether the restrictive
version of early 1998 or the do-as-you-like Caldera letter of early
2002? Are those agreements really valid?
Norman Wilson
Toronto ON
From ckeck@texoma.net Wed May 28 23:24:56 2003
From: ckeck@texoma.net (Cornelius Keck)
Date: Wed, 28 May 2003 18:24:56 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: [TUHS] SCO vs. IBM: NOVELL steps up to the plate
In-Reply-To: <200305281925.h4SJPYJ8078685@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID:
<Pine.BSF.4.05.10305281816160.9998-100000@ppp-151-110-2.texoma.net>
> Here's a question of interest not to the Linux community but to
> the TUHS one: if, as Novell now claim, the 1995 agreement didn't
> convey the UNIX copyrights to SCO, under what right did SCO issue
> the Ancient UNIX Source Code agreements, whether the restrictive
> version of early 1998 or the do-as-you-like Caldera letter of early
> 2002? Are those agreements really valid?
Good point. If memory serves me correctly, the 1998 agreement was
not free for the asking, but rather required shelling out US$100,
which means that SCO "sold" something they never owned, which
constitutes fraud (anybody with some legal background reading
this: please correct). What's the statue of limitations (sp?)
for this?
Regards,
Cornelius
--
Cornelius Keck
ckeck@texoma.net
From wkt@minnie.tuhs.org Thu May 29 00:02:19 2003
From: wkt@minnie.tuhs.org (Warren Toomey)
Date: Thu, 29 May 2003 10:02:19 +1000
Subject: [TUHS] SCO vs. IBM: NOVELL steps up to the plate
In-Reply-To:
<Pine.BSF.4.05.10305281816160.9998-100000@ppp-151-110-2.texoma.net>
References: <200305281925.h4SJPYJ8078685@minnie.tuhs.org>
<Pine.BSF.4.05.10305281816160.9998-100000@ppp-151-110-2.texoma.net>
Message-ID: <20030529000219.GA82058@minnie.tuhs.org>
On Wed, May 28, 2003 at 06:24:56PM -0500, Cornelius Keck wrote:
> > Here's a question of interest not to the Linux community but to
> > the TUHS one: if, as Novell now claim, the 1995 agreement didn't
> > convey the UNIX copyrights to SCO, under what right did SCO issue
> > the Ancient UNIX Source Code agreements, whether the restrictive
> > version of early 1998 or the do-as-you-like Caldera letter of early
> > 2002? Are those agreements really valid?
>
> Good point. If memory serves me correctly, the 1998 agreement was
> not free for the asking, but rather required shelling out US$100,
> which means that SCO "sold" something they never owned, which
> constitutes fraud (anybody with some legal background reading
> this: please correct). What's the statue of limitations (sp?)
> for this?
Actually, Novell have only asserted that SCO/Caldera did not obtain
the rights to System V. Now, neither the $100 nor the BSD-style
SCO/Caldera Ancient UNIX licenses covered System V, so this might
not be fraud.
It depends on whether or not SCO/Caldera have the rights to Research
Editions 1 to 7 and System III :-)
This is all getting to be like a very bad TV soap: UNIX Sons and Daughters.
We've got grandad Research who was a pioneer in the area, son USL, and
now a lot of bastard grandchildren. And of course there's the newcomer
in town called Linux.
Warren
From mike@ducky.net Thu May 29 07:49:56 2003
From: mike@ducky.net (Mike Haertel)
Date: Thu, 29 May 2003 00:49:56 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [TUHS] SCO vs. IBM: NOVELL steps up to the plate
In-Reply-To: <200305281925.h4SJPYJ8078685@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <200305290749.h4T7nu22092199@ducky.net>
>Here's a question of interest not to the Linux community but to
>the TUHS one: if, as Novell now claim, the 1995 agreement didn't
>convey the UNIX copyrights to SCO, under what right did SCO issue
>the Ancient UNIX Source Code agreements, whether the restrictive
>version of early 1998 or the do-as-you-like Caldera letter of early
>2002? Are those agreements really valid?
You can have the right to sublicense something without owning
the copyright. You can even have the right to sublicense the
right to sublicense without owning the copyright, and so on.
It all depends on your contract with the real copyright holder.
This is probably how the contract for Novell's "sale" of Unix
to (old) SCO was written.
But only the real copyright holder can bring a legal action
against copyright violators. And judging from recent press
releases it would seem that Novell feels it is under no
contractual obligation to do so on (new) SCO's behalf.
From rob@vetsystems.com Thu May 29 12:16:33 2003
From: rob@vetsystems.com (Robert Tillyard)
Date: Thu, 29 May 2003 13:16:33 +0100
Subject: [TUHS] SCO vs. IBM: NOVELL steps up to the plate
In-Reply-To: <200305290749.h4T7nu22092199@ducky.net>
Message-ID: <BAFBB8B1.118%rob@vetsystems.com>
I believe the legal action is over breach on contract with IBM and not on
copyright issues.
But if it turns out the IBM is guilty of lifting SCO code and putting it
into Linux I think SCO does have the right to get a bit upset about it,
after all I wouldn't be to happy if I had to compete with a product that's
just about free and contains code that I wrote.
Regards, Rob.
On 29/5/03 8:49 am, "Mike Haertel" <mike@ducky.net> wrote:
>> Here's a question of interest not to the Linux community but to
>> the TUHS one: if, as Novell now claim, the 1995 agreement didn't
>> convey the UNIX copyrights to SCO, under what right did SCO issue
>> the Ancient UNIX Source Code agreements, whether the restrictive
>> version of early 1998 or the do-as-you-like Caldera letter of early
>> 2002? Are those agreements really valid?
>
> You can have the right to sublicense something without owning
> the copyright. You can even have the right to sublicense the
> right to sublicense without owning the copyright, and so on.
> It all depends on your contract with the real copyright holder.
>
> This is probably how the contract for Novell's "sale" of Unix
> to (old) SCO was written.
>
> But only the real copyright holder can bring a legal action
> against copyright violators. And judging from recent press
> releases it would seem that Novell feels it is under no
> contractual obligation to do so on (new) SCO's behalf.
From imp@bsdimp.com Thu May 29 12:33:54 2003
From: imp@bsdimp.com (M. Warner Losh)
Date: Thu, 29 May 2003 06:33:54 -0600 (MDT)
Subject: [TUHS] SCO vs. IBM: NOVELL steps up to the plate
In-Reply-To: <BAFBB8B1.118%rob@vetsystems.com>
References: <200305290749.h4T7nu22092199@ducky.net>
<BAFBB8B1.118%rob@vetsystems.com>
Message-ID: <20030529.063354.51702197.imp@bsdimp.com>
In message: <BAFBB8B1.118%rob@vetsystems.com>
Robert Tillyard <rob@vetsystems.com> writes:
: I believe the legal action is over breach on contract with IBM and not on
: copyright issues.
All of SCO's statements to the court have been contractual. Their
statements to the press have been inflated to include things that
aren't actually alledged in the court filings.
: But if it turns out the IBM is guilty of lifting SCO code and putting it
: into Linux I think SCO does have the right to get a bit upset about it,
: after all I wouldn't be to happy if I had to compete with a product that's
: just about free and contains code that I wrote.
That's the rub. Do they, in point of fact, actually have any code
they own the Copyright to or the patent rights to?
SCO is blustering more and more as the open source community exposes
them for the fruads that they have become.
Warner
From grog@lemis.com Thu May 29 23:50:27 2003
From: grog@lemis.com (Greg 'groggy' Lehey)
Date: Fri, 30 May 2003 09:20:27 +0930
Subject: [TUHS] SCO vs. IBM: NOVELL steps up to the plate
In-Reply-To: <20030529.063354.51702197.imp@bsdimp.com>
References: <200305290749.h4T7nu22092199@ducky.net>
<BAFBB8B1.118%rob@vetsystems.com>
<20030529.063354.51702197.imp@bsdimp.com>
Message-ID: <20030529235027.GE20321@wantadilla.lemis.com>
On Thursday, 29 May 2003 at 6:33:54 -0600, M. Warner Losh wrote:
> In message: <BAFBB8B1.118%rob@vetsystems.com>
> Robert Tillyard <rob@vetsystems.com> writes:
>> I believe the legal action is over breach on contract with IBM and
>> not on copyright issues.
>
> All of SCO's statements to the court have been contractual. Their
> statements to the press have been inflated to include things that
> aren't actually alledged in the court filings.
What's not very clear here is that there seem to be two issues. The
IBM issue is, as you say, a contractual one which about which they
have been remarkably vague. The suspension of Linux distribution is a
different matter. From http://www.lemis.com/grog/sco.html:
On Tuesday, 27 May 2003, I spoke to Kieran O'Shaughnessy, managing
director of SCO Australia. He told me that SCO had entrusted three
independent companies to compare the code of the UnixWare and Linux
kernels. All three had come back pointing to significant
occurrences of common code ("UnixWare code", as he put it) in both
kernels.
In view of the long and varied history of UNIX, I wondered whether
the code in question might have been legally transferred from an
older version of UNIX to Linux, so I asked him if he really meant
UnixWare and not System V.4. He stated that it was specifically
UnixWare 7.
>> But if it turns out the IBM is guilty of lifting SCO code and
>> putting it into Linux I think SCO does have the right to get a bit
>> upset about it, after all I wouldn't be to happy if I had to
>> compete with a product that's just about free and contains code
>> that I wrote.
>
> That's the rub. Do they, in point of fact, actually have any code
> they own the Copyright to or the patent rights to?
Of course they have lots of code with their own copyright. The
release of JFS was one example. Probably the majority of AIX was
developed by IBM, not by AT&T. It's rather similar to the issue with
4BSD in the early 90s: with a little bit of work you could probably
replace the entire AT&T code in AIX and have a system which did not
require an SCO license.
If you mean "is there IBM copyright code in Linux?", I think the
answer is again yes, but it's under the GPL or possibly IPL, IBM's
attempt at a compromise between proprietary licenses and the GPL. I
think they've given up on the IPL now.
For what it's worth, I'd be astounded if SCO's claims were found to be
true.
Greg
--
Finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key
See complete headers for address and phone numbers
From imp@harmony.village.org Thu May 29 23:56:39 2003
From: imp@harmony.village.org (M. Warner Losh)
Date: Thu, 29 May 2003 17:56:39 -0600 (MDT)
Subject: [TUHS] SCO vs. IBM: NOVELL steps up to the plate
In-Reply-To: <20030529235027.GE20321@wantadilla.lemis.com>
References: <BAFBB8B1.118%rob@vetsystems.com>
<20030529.063354.51702197.imp@bsdimp.com>
<20030529235027.GE20321@wantadilla.lemis.com>
Message-ID: <20030529.175639.34763729.imp@bsdimp.com>
In message: <20030529235027.GE20321@wantadilla.lemis.com>
"Greg 'groggy' Lehey" <grog@lemis.com> writes:
: On Thursday, 29 May 2003 at 6:33:54 -0600, M. Warner Losh wrote:
: > In message: <BAFBB8B1.118%rob@vetsystems.com>
: > Robert Tillyard <rob@vetsystems.com> writes:
:
: >> I believe the legal action is over breach on contract with IBM and
: >> not on copyright issues.
: >
: > All of SCO's statements to the court have been contractual. Their
: > statements to the press have been inflated to include things that
: > aren't actually alledged in the court filings.
:
: What's not very clear here is that there seem to be two issues. The
: IBM issue is, as you say, a contractual one which about which they
: have been remarkably vague. The suspension of Linux distribution is a
: different matter. From http://www.lemis.com/grog/sco.html:
:
: On Tuesday, 27 May 2003, I spoke to Kieran O'Shaughnessy, managing
: director of SCO Australia. He told me that SCO had entrusted three
: independent companies to compare the code of the UnixWare and Linux
: kernels. All three had come back pointing to significant
: occurrences of common code ("UnixWare code", as he put it) in both
: kernels.
:
: In view of the long and varied history of UNIX, I wondered whether
: the code in question might have been legally transferred from an
: older version of UNIX to Linux, so I asked him if he really meant
: UnixWare and not System V.4. He stated that it was specifically
: UnixWare 7.
I base my statements on the legal filings that are available at the
SCO site. I do not base them on anything that SCO has said to the
press, since those statements are nearly universally overinflated.
Since these are statements to the press, or other public statements, I
trust them as much as I trust public statements by politicians.
: > That's the rub. Do they, in point of fact, actually have any code
: > they own the Copyright to or the patent rights to?
:
: Of course they have lots of code with their own copyright. The
: release of JFS was one example. Probably the majority of AIX was
: developed by IBM, not by AT&T. It's rather similar to the issue with
: 4BSD in the early 90s: with a little bit of work you could probably
: replace the entire AT&T code in AIX and have a system which did not
: require an SCO license.
I was speaking of SCO, not IBM. What code does SCO own the copyright
to?
: For what it's worth, I'd be astounded if SCO's claims were found to be
: true.
Me too. There's another article that is saying that there are 10-15
line snippets scattered all through the kernel. Give me a break.
That claim is so absurd as to be not credible on its face. I can see
one or two files, maybe stretching my disbelief to its limits, but I
can't see anything more pervasive than that.
Warner
From grog@lemis.com Fri May 30 00:37:46 2003
From: grog@lemis.com (Greg 'groggy' Lehey)
Date: Fri, 30 May 2003 10:07:46 +0930
Subject: [TUHS] SCO vs. IBM: NOVELL steps up to the plate
In-Reply-To: <20030529.175639.34763729.imp@bsdimp.com>
References: <BAFBB8B1.118%rob@vetsystems.com>
<20030529.063354.51702197.imp@bsdimp.com>
<20030529235027.GE20321@wantadilla.lemis.com>
<20030529.175639.34763729.imp@bsdimp.com>
Message-ID: <20030530003746.GF20321@wantadilla.lemis.com>
On Thursday, 29 May 2003 at 17:56:39 -0600, M. Warner Losh wrote:
> In message: <20030529235027.GE20321@wantadilla.lemis.com>
> "Greg 'groggy' Lehey" <grog@lemis.com> writes:
>> On Thursday, 29 May 2003 at 6:33:54 -0600, M. Warner Losh wrote:
>>> In message: <BAFBB8B1.118%rob@vetsystems.com>
>>> Robert Tillyard <rob@vetsystems.com> writes:
>>
>>>> I believe the legal action is over breach on contract with IBM and
>>>> not on copyright issues.
>>>
>>> All of SCO's statements to the court have been contractual. Their
>>> statements to the press have been inflated to include things that
>>> aren't actually alledged in the court filings.
>>
>> What's not very clear here is that there seem to be two issues. The
>> IBM issue is, as you say, a contractual one which about which they
>> have been remarkably vague. The suspension of Linux distribution is a
>> different matter. From http://www.lemis.com/grog/sco.html:
>>
>> On Tuesday, 27 May 2003, I spoke to Kieran O'Shaughnessy, managing
>> director of SCO Australia. He told me that SCO had entrusted three
>> independent companies to compare the code of the UnixWare and Linux
>> kernels. All three had come back pointing to significant
>> occurrences of common code ("UnixWare code", as he put it) in both
>> kernels.
>>
>> In view of the long and varied history of UNIX, I wondered whether
>> the code in question might have been legally transferred from an
>> older version of UNIX to Linux, so I asked him if he really meant
>> UnixWare and not System V.4. He stated that it was specifically
>> UnixWare 7.
>
> I base my statements on the legal filings that are available at the
> SCO site. I do not base them on anything that SCO has said to the
> press, since those statements are nearly universally overinflated.
> Since these are statements to the press, or other public statements, I
> trust them as much as I trust public statements by politicians.
The trouble is that there *is* no legal filing on the Linux without
IBM case.
>>> That's the rub. Do they, in point of fact, actually have any code
>>> they own the Copyright to or the patent rights to?
>>
>> ...
>
> I was speaking of SCO, not IBM. What code does SCO own the copyright
> to?
Ah, sorry. Got to pass on that one. They probably have the rights to
XENIX.
>> For what it's worth, I'd be astounded if SCO's claims were found to be
>> true.
>
> Me too. There's another article that is saying that there are 10-15
> line snippets scattered all through the kernel. Give me a break.
> That claim is so absurd as to be not credible on its face. I can see
> one or two files, maybe stretching my disbelief to its limits, but I
> can't see anything more pervasive than that.
There are plenty of cases where you need to initialize a data
structure. Many data structures are public knowledge, and
initialization is a brainless enough task that the code could have
been written independently and look almost the same. Does this line
ring a bell?
(*bdevsw[major(bp->b_dev)]->d_strategy) (bp);
How many people have written that independently of each other?
Greg
--
Finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key
See complete headers for address and phone numbers
From norman@nose.cs.utoronto.ca Fri May 30 01:00:17 2003
From: norman@nose.cs.utoronto.ca (Norman Wilson)
Date: Thu, 29 May 2003 21:00:17 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] SCO vs. IBM: NOVELL steps up to the plate
Message-ID: <200305300100.h4U10pJ8090918@minnie.tuhs.org>
M. Warner Losh:
There's another article that is saying that there are 10-15
line snippets scattered all through the kernel. Give me a break.
That claim is so absurd as to be not credible on its face. I can see
one or two files, maybe stretching my disbelief to its limits, but I
can't see anything more pervasive than that.
I agree that it sounds unlikely, and I won't give it much credit
until SCO makes its evidence generally available. But it's by no
means absurd. Suppose SCO invented some whizzy data structure and
associated code conventions to afford especially efficient
interprocessor locks. That could show up in fragments scattered
throughout the kernel, and the idea itself could in fact be
valuable intellectual property and the fragments a demonstration
that the idea was stolen.
Or suppose the issue at hand was a particular way to implement a
file system switch. I was involved in adding such a thing to an
old-fashioned kernel myself; it touches many little pieces of
code all over the kernel that happen to do certain things to or
with in-core i-nodes. If I was worried that someone had stolen
such work wholesale, part of what I would look for would indeed
be scattered fragments.
As I say, there's no useful evidence on view at all, therefore
there is no useful evidence that what I am describing is what
the fuss is about.
Norman Wilson
Toronto ON
From wkt@minnie.tuhs.org Fri May 30 01:01:26 2003
From: wkt@minnie.tuhs.org (Warren Toomey)
Date: Fri, 30 May 2003 11:01:26 +1000
Subject: [TUHS] SCO vs. IBM: NOVELL steps up to the plate
In-Reply-To: <20030530003746.GF20321@wantadilla.lemis.com>
References: <BAFBB8B1.118%rob@vetsystems.com>
<20030529.063354.51702197.imp@bsdimp.com>
<20030529235027.GE20321@wantadilla.lemis.com>
<20030529.175639.34763729.imp@bsdimp.com>
<20030530003746.GF20321@wantadilla.lemis.com>
Message-ID: <20030530010126.GA90870@minnie.tuhs.org>
On Fri, May 30, 2003 at 10:07:46AM +0930, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:
> There are plenty of cases where you need to initialize a data
> structure. Many data structures are public knowledge, and
> initialization is a brainless enough task that the code could have
> been written independently and look almost the same. Does this line
> ring a bell?
>
> (*bdevsw[major(bp->b_dev)]->d_strategy) (bp);
And you've got to watch out for these ones, which have been around
since 1973:
#define EPERM 1 /* Operation not permitted */
#define ENOENT 2 /* No such file or directory */
#define ESRCH 3 /* No such process */
#define EINTR 4 /* Interrupted system call */
So that that extent, there is real UNIX code in Linux 8-)
Warren
From grog@lemis.com Fri May 30 01:20:30 2003
From: grog@lemis.com (Greg 'groggy' Lehey)
Date: Fri, 30 May 2003 10:50:30 +0930
Subject: [TUHS] SCO vs. IBM: NOVELL steps up to the plate
In-Reply-To: <20030530010126.GA90870@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <BAFBB8B1.118%rob@vetsystems.com>
<20030529.063354.51702197.imp@bsdimp.com>
<20030529235027.GE20321@wantadilla.lemis.com>
<20030529.175639.34763729.imp@bsdimp.com>
<20030530003746.GF20321@wantadilla.lemis.com>
<20030530010126.GA90870@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <20030530012030.GA39063@wantadilla.lemis.com>
On Friday, 30 May 2003 at 11:01:26 +1000, Warren Toomey wrote:
> On Fri, May 30, 2003 at 10:07:46AM +0930, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:
>> There are plenty of cases where you need to initialize a data
>> structure. Many data structures are public knowledge, and
>> initialization is a brainless enough task that the code could have
>> been written independently and look almost the same. Does this line
>> ring a bell?
>>
>> (*bdevsw[major(bp->b_dev)].d_strategy) (bp);
>
> And you've got to watch out for these ones, which have been around
> since 1973:
>
> #define EPERM 1 /* Operation not permitted */
> #define ENOENT 2 /* No such file or directory */
> #define ESRCH 3 /* No such process */
> #define EINTR 4 /* Interrupted system call */
>
> So that that extent, there is real UNIX code in Linux 8-)
Heh. Also in the Third Edition:
/src/UNIX/PDP-11/Third-Edition/dmr/bio.c: (*bdevsw[dev.d_major].d_strategy)(rbp);
/src/UNIX/PDP-11/Third-Edition/dmr/bio.c: (*bdevsw[rbp->b_dev.d_major].d_strategy)(rbp);
Yes, this is the reason why I asked Kieran if it was really UnixWare
or UNIX System V. They need to prove where the code originally came
from before they have any kind of case.
Greg
--
Finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key
See complete headers for address and phone numbers
From lm@bitmover.com Fri May 30 02:42:53 2003
From: lm@bitmover.com (Larry McVoy)
Date: Thu, 29 May 2003 19:42:53 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] Re: TUHS digest, Vol 1 #159 - 12 msgs
In-Reply-To: <200305300130.h4U1UMJ8091290@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <200305300130.h4U1UMJ8091290@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <20030530024253.GE21405@work.bitmover.com>
> SCO is blustering more and more as the open source community exposes
> them for the fruads that they have become.
In the for what it is worth department, I happen to know that this
stuff is more complex than it seems. For instance, I am pretty sure
that ATT should have won their lawsuit over the BSD stuff and if you
doubt that I'd suggest that you go compare the UFS code against the 32v
or v7 code. bmap() is a good place to look. Any suggestions that that
was completely rewritten are patently false, at least in my opinion.
I'm a file system guy, I've done a lot of work in UFS, I'm intimately
familiar with the code. In fact, I defended UFS against LFS when Kirk
wouldn't (LFS is a friggin' joke, any file system hacker knows that the
allocation policy is 90% of the file system).
I do not have knowledge of the code it is that SCO says infringes. And I
think that SCO is about as astute as I am in terms of public relations
(we both tend to be our own worst enemies and I thought I was without
peer in that department :-) But I suspect that there is at least some
merit to what they are claiming. I have to believe that nobody is stupid
enough to have zero data and jump out in public like they are doing.
That's just way too far over the top. Anything is possible I guess,
but doesn't it seem just a little unlikely that a corporation would
commit that public a suicide? I'll probably be proved wrong but I'm
a CEO, running a small company, much smaller than SCO, and there is
no way I'd stick my neck out that far with no data to back it up.
I'd like to think I'm smarter than they are but I tend to doubt it,
they have more experience.
--
---
Larry McVoy lm at bitmover.com http://www.bitmover.com/lm
From grog at lemis.com Fri May 30 13:01:24 2003
From: grog at lemis.com (Greg 'groggy' Lehey)
Date: Mon Jun 2 10:51:16 2003
Subject: [TUHS] Re: TUHS digest, Vol 1 #159 - 12 msgs
In-Reply-To: <20030530024253.GE21405@work.bitmover.com>
References: <200305300130.h4U1UMJ8091290@minnie.tuhs.org>
<20030530024253.GE21405@work.bitmover.com>
Message-ID: <20030530033124.GB39668@wantadilla.lemis.com>
On Thursday, 29 May 2003 at 19:42:53 -0700, Larry McVoy wrote:
> I do not have knowledge of the code it is that SCO says infringes.
Which puts you in the same boat as the rest of us.
> But I suspect that there is at least some merit to what they are
> claiming. I have to believe that nobody is stupid enough to have
> zero data and jump out in public like they are doing. That's just
> way too far over the top. Anything is possible I guess, but doesn't
> it seem just a little unlikely that a corporation would commit that
> public a suicide?
It's certainly unlikely, agreed. But SCO has done some unlikely
things recently. You saw the public threat to sue Linus Torvalds
personally?
> I'd like to think I'm smarter than they are but I tend to doubt it,
> they have more experience.
As far as I can see (somebody please correct me if I'm wrong), most of
the key players at SCO have changed over the last 12 months. They
appear to have few engineers left, which is presumably one reason why
they gave the UnixWare and Linux code to outsiders to compare. I'm
not convinced of their understanding of the matters at hand. For
example, last year Caldera released "ancient UNIX" under a BSD-style
license, but now they're claiming it never happened. Maybe they don't
know about the company history. And if the code in dispute is derived
from ancient UNIX, there'll be egg on their face.
Of course, a simple comparison doesn't show the origin of the code.
If it proves to have been lifted from Linux, they'll *really* look
stupid.
Greg
--
Finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key
See complete headers for address and phone numbers
From norman at nose.cs.utoronto.ca Sun Jun 1 22:51:01 2003
From: norman at nose.cs.utoronto.ca (Norman Wilson)
Date: Mon Jun 2 12:51:38 2003
Subject: [TUHS] Re: TUHS digest, Vol 1 #159 - 12 msgs
Message-ID: <20030602025128.89BFA1E4D@minnie.tuhs.org>
Greg Lehey:
For
example, last year Caldera released "ancient UNIX" under a BSD-style
license, but now they're claiming it never happened. Maybe they don't
know about the company history. And if the code in dispute is derived
from ancient UNIX, there'll be egg on their face.
=====
If the code in dispute is derived from an ancient UNIX covered by
the Jan 2002 free license, and it doesn't clearly say so somewhere,
there is certainly egg and chips on someone's face. Said license
imposes few conditions, but one is that Caldera's copyright must
be maintained and the notice `This product includes software developed
or owned by Caldera International, Inc.' placed in `any advertising
materials.'
Of course, if the code comes from V6 and those notices are present
and Caldera still claims it's stolen, that's another basket of eggs.
Norman Wilson
Toronto ON
From arnold at skeeve.com Sun Jun 8 12:56:08 2003
From: arnold at skeeve.com (Aharon Robbins)
Date: Sun Jun 8 19:55:26 2003
Subject: [TUHS] SCO vs. IBM: NOVELL steps up to the plate
Message-ID: <200306080956.h589u8si030665@localhost.localdomain>
What I find fascinating (and that no-one has mentioned yet) is how anyone
can claim that Unix internals are still trade secret, especially given
this book:
The Design of the UNIX Operating System,
Maurice J. Bach.
Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, USA, 1986.
ISBN 0-13-201799-7.
There's also these:
The Magic Garden Explained:
The Internals of Unix System V Release 4:
An Open Systems Design,
Berny Goodheart, James Cox, John R. Mashey.
Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, USA, 1994.
ISBN 0-13-098138-9.
Unix Internals: The New Frontiers,
Uresh Vahalia.
Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, USA, 1996.
ISBN 0-13-101908-2.
According to Amazon.com, a new edition is scheduled for 2005.
The Bach book, in particular, is a rather large smoking gun that AT&T
didn't care a huge amount about trade secrets. The book is still in
print (and selling for a whopping $69.97 on Amazon.com!). It doesn't
contain actual source code, but let's get real here...
Arnold
From kstailey at yahoo.com Sun Jun 8 19:32:55 2003
From: kstailey at yahoo.com (Kenneth Stailey)
Date: Mon Jun 9 12:33:05 2003
Subject: [TUHS] SCO vs. IBM: NOVELL steps up to the plate
In-Reply-To: <200306080956.h589u8si030665@localhost.localdomain>
Message-ID: <20030609023255.2087.qmail@web10004.mail.yahoo.com>
Two words: "version control".
If the code that SCO purports is copied into Linux is known the version control
archives will say who inserted it. It will be very easy to prove if Caldera
inserted the code themselves.
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Calendar - Free online calendar with sync to Outlook(TM).
http://calendar.yahoo.com
From norman at nose.cs.utoronto.ca Mon Jun 9 09:00:31 2003
From: norman at nose.cs.utoronto.ca (Norman Wilson)
Date: Mon Jun 9 23:01:33 2003
Subject: [TUHS] SCO vs. IBM: NOVELL steps up to the plate
Message-ID: <Dl4tzrT1lQK9.tB6tvnhh@128.100.27.218>
Kenneth Stailey:
Two words: "version control".
If the code that SCO purports is copied into Linux is known
the version control archives will say who inserted it. It will
be very easy to prove if Caldera inserted the code
themselves.
Alas, two more words: "read-write storage." Version control
info is stored in a file; how do we know (as SCalderaO might
argue) that some hacker hasn't edited it after the fact to
pretend something was put in by Caldera, or that they just
lied about it to begin with?
Version control data might be a useful, but I suspect only as
a trail to specific people whose could then offer personal
testimony about the history of a particular piece of code.
The testimony would be harder to impeach than the code.
Even a read-only copy of the version control info, e.g. a
CD-ROM, isn't a lot more solid; some hard evidence would
be needed of when that CD-ROM was written, beyond the
easily-forged timestamps on the disc itself, and there could
still be a claim that someone just lied when writing it,
especially if there is a claim that malice was involved. So
it still would probably come down to personal testimony.
The usual disclaimer applies: I'm no lawyer. I'm just trying
to think of counter-arguments, both those reasonable in
abstract and those that seem to fit within the spirit of the
complaint against IBM.
Norman Wilson
Toronto ON