SCO CEO fires off letter to open-source community

[-=TF=-]

FYI a verry good (and lengthy) answer text is here:
An Open Response to Darl McBride's Open Letter to the Open Source Community
http://slashdot.org/~MuParadigm/journal

lars

http://www24.brinkster.com/haagsepatrick/dmcbride3.jpg
http://www.welovethescoinformationminister.org
:bowdown: LOL

[MCronin]

This is the best part of the response

13) In copyright law, ownership cannot be transferred without express, written authority of a copyright holder. Some have claimed that, because SCO software code was present in software distributed under the GPL, SCO has forfeited its rights to this code. Not so - SCO never gave permission, or granted rights, for this to happen.

Response to Paragraph 13:

You are still being misleading about the status of your copyright claims, since you have not filed for any copyright violations anywhere. Furthermore, any claim that SCO didn't realize for 3 years that it was releasing it's own code under the GPL is likely to be laughed out of court. You had the code, you could compare the System V and Linux code bases, SCO previously featured in its public statements its intent to combine the Unix and Linux code bases, and now you claim you didn't know?

Mr. McBride, the only way to defend this in court is to tell the judge that you are a complete ****ing idiot, and that all previous mangement was equally incompetent. Even if a court buys that explanation, I hardly think they'll reward SCO's utter stupidity to the tune of 3 billion dollars. It's far more likely that they will require SCO to pay IBM's court costs instead.

14) Transfer of copyright ownership without express written authority of all proper parties is null and void.

Response to Paragraph 14:

And distributing your own product under an open source license, then claiming that you didn't know it was your own product, you thought it was someone else's, makes you look like a jackass. I suspect it will provide evidence for a class action suit on the part of your shareholders.

I mean, Mr. McBride, do you really have no idea how clueless these arguments make you look?

Just incredible. I saw a post just after all this started coming to a head pointing to SCO's own ftp server where you could download their Linux sources under the GPL. I guess technically, if SCO intends to sue end users or companies, any one of them could deflect the suit by using SCO's sources. How can they sue someone for using something they themselves gave away for free?

[BoydLake]

Yeah.... and SCO's stock continues to rise tipping $18/share up from 16.04 at the end of last week. It was below $1/share before SCO's original filing against IBM in March of this year. Talk about a good day.

[trthing]

Originally posted by -=TF=-
FYI a verry good (and lengthy) answer text is here:
An Open Response to Darl McBride's Open Letter to the Open Source Community
http://slashdot.org/~MuParadigm/journal


...This is very difficult to respond to, because your analysis of the issues and of the reasons for the Open Source community's anger is, in the words of the great physicist Wolfgang Pauli, "so bad it's not even wrong."...

LOL:applause:

[trthing]

http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/09/10/HNtorvaldssco_1.html


Torvalds' letter says:

Open letter to Darl McBride -- please grow up.

Dear Darl,

Thank you so much for your letter.

We are happy that you agree that customers need to know that Open Source is legal and stable, and we heartily agree with that sentence of your letter. The others don't seem to make as much sense, but we find the dialogue refreshing.

However, we have to sadly decline taking business model advice from a company that seems to have squandered all its money (that it made off a Linux IPO, I might add, since there's a nice bit of irony there), and now seems to play the US legal system as a lottery. We in the Open Source group continue to believe in technology as a way of driving customer interest and demand.

Also, we find your references to a negotiating table somewhat confusing, since there doesn't seem to be anything to negotiate about. SCO has yet to show any infringing IP in the Open Source domain, but we wait with bated breath for when you will actually care to inform us about what you are blathering about.

All of our source code is out in the open, and we welcome you point to any particular piece you might disagree with.

Until then, please accept our gratitude for your submission,

Yours truly,

Linus Torvalds

[BoydLake]

Is he serious? Negotiate what? A license of course. And a business model that ensures legal protection for developers and consumers. Mr. Torvalds reply is rather weak. At least to me. And again he expects SCO to just spill the beans of his case before their day in court. Weak.

[MDuffy]

But SCO hasn't even established that there is anything that actually needs to be licensed. SCO wants every Linux user in the world to give them $700 over what is essentially an unproven allegation. And they want Linux distributors to give legal protection to customers over and above what Microsoft or any other software vendor gives. And the only evidence that SCO has publicly given so far, has turned out to be flat out wrong.

Until SCO can actually prove their case, nobody owes them anything. To do so otherwise is extortion through fear and threats.

What happened to innocent until proven guilty?

I found Mr. Torvald's reply to be perhaps a bit too casual given the nature of the situation, but otherwise it is spot on.

Cheers,
Michael Duffy
mduffy@ionet.net

[UrbanFuturistic]

Originally posted by Boyd Lake
And again he expects SCO to just spill the beans of his case before their day in court. Weak. Just when I thought you might be paying attention; read through the first reply (not the Torvalds one) and note the points:SCO's lack of mitigatory action leaves it in violation of its contractual obligation to IBM to exert "mutual good faith best efforts to resolve any alleged breach" (ATT-IBM Sideletter agreement, section 5)which means that SCO is contractually obliged to release this information to at least IBM andIn fact, the evidence you have made publicly available includes the ATT-IBM sideletter agreement, in Section 2 of which ATT grants IBM "ownership" of all works derived by or for IBM. In other words, rather than being compelling, your own evidentiary exhibits contradict your claim.So SCO have inadvertantly provided proof themselves that IBM, not SCO, has ownership of any code that they may have released to the kernel project.

Just two minor issues with all that SCO is claiming, but let's not allow actual facts to get in the way of a good bit of fraud :rolleyes:

Paul

[BoydLake]

Originally posted by odubtaig
Just when I thought you might be paying attention; read through the first reply (not the Torvalds one) and note the points:which means that SCO is contractually obliged to release this information to at least IBM andSo SCO have inadvertantly provided proof themselves that IBM, not SCO, has ownership of any code that they may have released to the kernel project.

Just two minor issues with all that SCO is claiming, but let's not allow actual facts to get in the way of a good bit of fraud :rolleyes:

Paul

Well, it really makes no sense to debate facts of the case since most of the facts will remain unknown for at least awhile. I can't pretend to know what SCO or IBM is contractually obligated to do from a sideletter agreement that may or may not be vailid and could just as easily be a red herring. Remember who the source of the information was. It's curious that IBM itself is not releasing the information regarding it's contracts with SCO... at least as far as I know.

I'm sure there are a few claims being made that are either red herrings or claims that will be shown to be unfounded. But I am a spectator and don't assume I know everything. I do however see more straightforward and concise talk coming from SCO than all other parties, who don't seem to be able to do much but taunt, rant and spew insults and vulgarity. What I don't care for about Mr. Torvalds and the others comments are that he's speaking mainly for the benefit of the ranters, and resorting to insults rather than seriously facing the issues. I think McBride raises some important facts and presented them in a professional, concise manner, and those issues remain ignored for the most part.

I can empathize with the Linux community, at least at the consumer/user level. I can understand some of their anger, but it's really starting to look more and more like a mob. As for the leaders of the community, most of what I see them doing is whipping up the mob to fight their battles, and doing little else.

Personally, I have no vested interest either way other than my own feelings about the instability of the open source model. I have felt that way ever since the question and possibility of moving to Linux arose in recent years. I had arrived at many of the same conclusions that Mr.McBride points out in his letter.

[BoydLake]

Originally posted by MDuffy
But SCO hasn't even established that there is anything that actually needs to be licensed. SCO wants every Linux user in the world to give them $700 over what is essentially an unproven allegation. And they want Linux distributors to give legal protection to customers over and above what Microsoft or any other software vendor gives. And the only evidence that SCO has publicly given so far, has turned out to be flat out wrong.

Until SCO can actually prove their case, nobody owes them anything. To do so otherwise is extortion through fear and threats.

What happened to innocent until proven guilty?

I found Mr. Torvald's reply to be perhaps a bit too casual given the nature of the situation, but otherwise it is spot on.

Cheers,
Michael Duffy
mduffy@ionet.net

Maybe the thing to do would be for SCO to establish an escrow account and put all money from licenses there until there's a ruling on their case. If the ruling goes IBM's way, then the money can be returned. If SCO wins, then those who've paid have bought legal shelter through their purchase. All else will then either risk prosecution or negotiate licenses from a weaker position.

[UrbanFuturistic]

Coming from McBride's position, I wouldn't be talking about 'successful business models' as SCO has been one of the least successful businesses of recen times and has been bought out more times than is sensible. Also, while his language may seem more concise and 'eloquent', it doesn't mean he speak the truth.

There have been numerous (and I mean numerous) attempts by all involved to negotiate with SCO on a sensible level but this hasn't been allowed.

If you want to see informed opinion on the issues then look at the archives of http://www.zdnet.com/ http://www.vnunet.com/ http://linuxtoday.com/ and http://lwn.net/ for some actual information on the issue (and not the continual lies of McBride). Both IBM and Novell have published material (in the public domain) concerning these contracts. TBH, I'd love to see where you source your 'news' from, as it's extremely one-sided.

If Torvalds' replies seem facetious, then it's probably a sign of how tired he is of SCO's refusal to deal with him in any reasonable manner and their continuation of a policy of exaggeration (at the very least), slanderous insulting, defamation and the somtimes illegal continuation of allegations without any proof and without actually litigating (as yet). They have already been fined €10,000 (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=SCO+10%2C000+fined&btnG=Google+Search) for breaching a court order in Germany that prevented them from doing this.

When I say SCO are contractually obliged I am not basing this on hearsay or conjecture but on proof positive that has been provided in plenty by any party but SCO, who themselves are the most obliged to provide this proof (and yes, sometimes legally obliged). Of course, if you actually followed and thoroughly read any of the links that disagreed with your ill-informed point of view, you would already have gleaned all the neccesary facts from the articles you so fondly label 'rants'.

BTW, when you say the OS model is unstable, do you mean business, financial or development?

Paul

[BoydLake]

Originally posted by odubtaig
Coming from McBride's position, I wouldn't be talking about 'successful business models' as SCO has been one of the least successful businesses of recen times and has been bought out more times than is sensible. Also, while his language may seem more concise and 'eloquent', it doesn't mean he speak the truth.

Being bought is not an indication of failure, but an indication of having value. And, who said anything about eloquence?

Once again you miss the point and resort to insult. McBride is not referring to SCO, but the capitalist (or objective) model. Under that model, a business is in business to make money for itself and it's investors, not to serve the interests of a collective of developers, or even serve a community of users/developers. Business is about making money plain and simple.

Companies do that by meeting consumer demand with product. They maintain and enhance that demand by offering that product at a competetive price, and by accepting responsibilities to warrant that product and it's performance and provide remedies for claims against said warranties. It also, out of the drive for continued profitablity in the market, invests in continued development and improvement of the product, leveraging those improvements in the marketplace, not giving them away to competing developers of like product.

I'm talking about the model that made the likes of Ford, GM, Apple, Sony, Ninetendo, Microsoft, and many others immensely successful. These are companies that compete in free markets with product that meets a demand while providing warrantee for that product, and under law they can be held liable for damages to consumers by those consumers when their actions/products cause harm.

It's the same busines model under which Microsoft has kicked the collective butts of many corporate sponsors of today's Linux community like IBM, Novell, Sun, SGI, who are now hoping to exploit the open source community, and use it to take market share away from Microsoft. It's ironic that executives of these companies fling the label of failure at SCO. They're where they are because of failures of their own.

I also wouldn't exactly consider a rise in SCO's stock share price from about $1/share to $18/per share in five months exactly failure. Would you? Obviously there are more than a few investors siding with SCO. Maybe you should run and tell them the SCO case is a sham. I don't think they hear you. :scream:

There have been numerous (and I mean numerous) attempts by all involved to negotiate with SCO on a sensible level but this hasn't been allowed.

Have those attempts included taking McBride up on his invitation and signing the NDA to be able to view the code themselves? And why is signing the NDA to view the code in question such a big deal? IMO it's because they don't really want to obectively analyze the case, but bolster the IBM defense position. Would all those attempts you speak of include the appointment made by Red Hat to negotiate with SCO on a particular day while never intending to fill that appointment, but rather filing a lawsuit of their own against SCO the next day?

I was under the impression that the Linux community always thought the SCO case was so ludicrous that the mere idea of negotiation was out and out silly. At any rate I'd be curious to hear about how the supposed negotitation attempts went, and what terms were demanded in those negotiations by the parties.

If you want to see informed opinion on the issues then look at the archives of http://www.zdnet.com/ http://www.vnunet.com/ http://linuxtoday.com/ and http://lwn.net/ for some actual information on the issue (and not the continual lies of McBride). Both IBM and Novell have published material (in the public domain) concerning these contracts. TBH, I'd love to see where you source your 'news' from, as it's extremely one-sided.

You mean one sided like the Linux community rags you're reading? I have seen the stuff they write and I hardly consider it independent and objective analysis. I have looked a much of the stuff from zdnet and vnunet and found them to be less biased. At any rate, I've read many reports from a wide range of independent scorces that I consider to be credible.

Admittedly, since I have work to do, I am not feverishly pouring over every snippet of news on the case, but I do feel I'm informed enough to have valid opinions of my own. I'm also objective enough about the case to be rational enough to accept that I don't know all the facts. And I can't know for now since I'm not counsel for either party or an officer of the court involved with the case. All I can go by is what both parties are willing to say publicly, and that has to be filtered with much salt since statements are parsed and political in nature during cases like these.

If Torvalds' replies seem facetious, then it's probably a sign of how tired he is of SCO's refusal to deal with him in any reasonable manner and their continuation of a policy of exaggeration (at the very least), slanderous insulting, defamation and the somtimes illegal continuation of allegations without any proof and without actually litigating (as yet). They have already been fined €10,000 (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=SCO+10%2C000+fined&btnG=Google+Search) for breaching a court order in Germany that prevented them from doing this.

Did Torvalds go to Utah and see the SCO presentation of the code? I haven't heard of such a visit. Why not go see it on SCO's terms. What about their terms is so unacceptable? Oh yeah, you're referring again to the german court ruling on the statements SCO was making on their own german language website. I guess the german courts feel they can regulate speech on the internet now. That it's required to give proof of claims being presented publicly in Germany has no relevance here in the U.S. since that's not the law here. Weak.

I would expect however at some point if the rhetoric heats up to a point that the courts here in the U.S. may issue limitations on public statements about the case. Even so,unless that ruling is tied to an overall ruling on the case, it's not a real indication of how the case would turn out.

When I say SCO are contractually obliged I am not basing this on hearsay or conjecture but on proof positive that has been provided in plenty by any party but SCO, who themselves are the most obliged to provide this proof (and yes, sometimes legally obliged).

Then I'm sure IBM and the rest of the Linux hoarde have little to worry about. Something tells me there's more to it. If you know it's a sham then why the fuss?

With IBM's legal resouces don't you think if that were the case we'd be watching IBM pick over the charred remains of SCO by now? The fact remains the case moves forward without any indication that the court agrees there's "proof positive" SCO's case is a sham. Better scream louder... I don't think the judge hears you. :wip:

Of course, if you actually followed and thoroughly read any of the links that disagreed with your ill-informed point of view, you would already have gleaned all the neccesary facts from the articles you so fondly label 'rants'.

Don't you think these comments are a bit incendiary? At least I'm willing to face the truth that all the necessary facts are not known. They may never publicly be known. And don't assume you know what I'm fond of.

BTW, when you say the OS model is unstable, do you mean business, financial or development?

I don't mean Linux as an OS is unstable. I think as a platform it's proven itself to be robust.

I meant many other things. Philosophically speaking a collective development model IMO in principle is less able to address specific specialized needs of individual consumers because there's no basic source of core responsibility for the development, support and warranty of the product. In a collective environment it's too easy to shirk responsibility and hide behind the community. That's pretty much what I see IBM doing right now. They don't think they are required to shield the consumer with warranty. That's a problem.

I also believe there will eventually be a conflict between the capitalists and collectivists in the open source community. I'm more than a little skeptical that IBM, Novell, Red Hat et al will indefinitely continue sacrificing their own interests in Unix (and other technologies) in the name of community. At some point they'll begin to cannibalize each other and the community for more and more market share. I can't ignore the basic belief that they are using the community for now and will eventually pounce. You could look at the SCO case as the first salvo in that war.

The community is also fragmented by specialziation which creates the multiple flavors of the same OS which requires manufacturers to either pick and chose flavors of Linux, or support all, both of which at least right now just a few of the larger vendors are willing to do.

For example It's widely known in the cg community that available video cards/drivers for Maya on linux is a bit thin. It was getting better, but it's still thinner than shopping for a card for a Windows box. I think under the current conditions it will stay that way for awhile

Legally speaking, as long as the case hangs over the community, I cannot observe it and feel it's a safe place to play just yet... at least until it's corporate contributors clear up the minefield. I don't like the idea of spending money on something that might get me sued.

Anyhoo, this post is way to long. I'm going back to work. See you when it's worth discussing again. :hmm:

[malducin]

It's ironic that executives of these companies fling the label of failure at SCO. They're where they are because of failures of their own.


Well not al of them, especially IBM. Sure OS/2 was a failure among many others but IBM has a lot of other business sides including Services in which it's extremely successfull. But on proinciple you are right.

$1/share to $18/per share in five months exactly failure. Would you? Obviously there are more than a few investors siding with SCO.

Well I'm sure a lot of investors thought the same thing about Enron and Worldcom before the collapse ;-). Maybe it's not a failure for the investors right now but there are other worrying things. Like the fact that most income for SCO has come from the licensing and the lawsuits business, as opposed what it should be, developing and selling products. Unless they win big or resolve quickly they are in big trouble.

Have those attempts included taking McBride up on his invitation and signing the NDA to be able to view the code themselves? And why is signing the NDA to view the code in question such a big deal?

Because the terms of the NDA are so draconiana that a developer might not be able to contribute to a lot of projects (in particular the kernel and core utilities) if he accepts the terms and sees the SCO code. That's why Linus can't agree to the NDA and also many other developers. Just imagine it the other way around, sign an NDA that would almost certainly forbid an SCO engineer to program anything at his company.

By the way Eric Raymond has proposed a way in which codebases can be compared without SCO revealing their code and the open source developers have to be tainted by the NDA.

to negotiate with SCO on a particular day while never intending to fill that appointment, but rather filing a lawsuit of their own against SCO the next day?

Then again SCO can't even say where the infring code is so it can be taken out (which is a very sensible offer) and they keep changing their claims, from lines numbers to actually wating to take ownerhip of all derivative work. Kinda the pot calling the kettle black. Though in this case SCO did a lot more mud slinging instead of trying to solve things.

I was under the impression that the Linux community always thought the SCO case was so ludicrous that the mere idea of negotiation was out and out silly.

On the contrary, see above. Developers have repeatedly ask SCO to tell them what infringing code there is so it can be taken out and worked around of. After that of course the only thing SCO could do would be to sue IBM and SGI for illegally putting there in the first place, but they won't even say what the code is. Last time I heard they were saying like 1 million lines or like 40% of the kernel which is ludicous. Besides the source and development history of the kernel is wide open. They could easily point out the problems and fix it. No luck so far.

Did Torvald's go to Utah and see the SCO presentation of the code? I haven't heard of such a visit. Why not go see it on SCO's terms. What about their terms is so unacceptable?

He hasn't for the reasons above. This kinda reminds me more or less how the BIOS was reversed engineered.

In any case SCO posted some slides to bolster its case with investors. You would think they would show a strong hand to their fold. Well pics of slides got out, and Bruce Perens demosntrated that the SCO claims were false in that case and gave all the appropiate references so you could check it out for yourself. In one case the code was already removed and just used in an old SGI sstem. In another it was code long ago released (by ATT), which wasn't even copied but reimplemented. Worst of all that code had a BSD license and seems SCO stripped the copyright headers in violation of the license. ust read perens report which SCO hasn't even dignified to counter.

With IBM's legal resouces don't you think if that were the case we'd be watching IBM pick over the charred remains of SCO by now? The fact remains the case moves forward without any indication that the court agrees there's "proof positive" SCO's case is a sham.

No, it seems to me and several other they are waiting for SCO to run out of money. SCO doesn't have too many sources of income. IBM could have bought SCO. But why bother, maybe they think they can crush them via patents) or run them to the ground (long litigation) and then just pick up the pieces.

And as far as the lawsuit it's more SCO faults that it doesn't move as opposed to the court thinking it isn't a sam. They have yet to provide any evidence whatsover about all the countless claims and grievances. It seems more fear mongering to try to extort money as opposed to go to court to solve the case, which you think they would tdo if the case is as strong as they claim.

Philosophically speaking a collective development model IMO in principle is less able to address specific specialized needs of individual consumers because there's no basic source of core responsibility for the development, support and warranty of the product.

I might not understand your staement correctly so forgive me but how so? If you download and compile all your components you have a point. But you can get responsability, support and warranty from any number of Linux vendors like RedHat. heck they will even allow you for future versions decide what goes in.

Second what kind of warranties does any software maker have. Really read the fine print on software warrantoies, even Microsoft. They basicly say they are not liable for anything, at most just giving you backthe price of the product. So if for some reason their software crashes and wipes out all the data in your business, you're SOL. Not much of a warranty ;-). Heck some even take away a lot like allowing them to track you on the net, etc.

I also believe there will eventually be a conflict between the capitalists and collectivists in the open source community. I'm more than a little skeptical that IBM, Novell, Red Hat et al will indefinitely continue sacrificing their own interests in Unix (and other technologies) in the name of community.

I agree with that to a certain extent. In particular they most extreme elements in Linux wanting all free and open. There will be scuffles but after all there will also be a lot of middle ground. Just because it's open source doesn't mean it isn't business friendly. There's redHat, Sendmail, Apache, Zope, etc.

The community is also fragmented by specialziation which creates the multiple flavors of the same OS which requires manufacturers to either pick and chose flavors of Linux, or support all, both of which at least right now just a few of the larger vendors are willing to do.

You are right but in a sense that gives the community strength. And for bigger commercial vendors they usually settle one one or two distros, like RedHat in North America.

For example It's widely known in the cg community that available video cards/drivers for Maya on linux is a bit thin. It was getting better, but it's still thinner than shopping for a card for a Windows box. I think under the current conditions it will stay that way for awhile

You are right but it's getting better. Just a few years ago you could barely get any card supported at all. Now there is more decent support from some vendors. NVidia provides their won and ATI is aggresively pursuing the Linux community. Besides for serious CG there are only a few vendors for consideration like NVidia, ATI and 3DLabs which are supporting Linux more and more. It's not like yopu are gonna use a no name brand card to run Maya ;-). Same thing happened when for example the first time Softimage and Maya got ported to NT 4. Some people said it would never work. Some other vendors like Houdini sell it in preconfigured systems.

Legally speaking, as long as the case hangs over the community, I cannot observe it and feel it's a safe place to play just yet... at least until it's corporate contributors clear up the minefield. I don't like the idea of spending money on something that might get me sued.

Well some governements have said not to worry about anything. Besides the Germany case I believe New Zealand has claimed that (heck Weta as said they won't worry until there i something to worry) and either the government of Japan or Korea. There are a lot of frivoulous lawsuits out there. besides why would you get sued you didn't infringe on anything. As a user the worst thing could happen is you would probably have to pay a lot more to use Linux, like say payin for M$ Win 2003 server.

[UrbanFuturistic]

Originally posted by Boyd Lake
Once again you miss the point and resort to insult. McBride is not referring to SCO, but the capitalist (or objective) model. Under that model, a business is in business to make money for itself and it's investors, not to serve the interests of a collective of developers, or even serve a community of users/developers. Business is about making money plain and simple.This statement only holds if you ignore the services sold by SuSE, RedHat and other Linux vendors for support contracts. Also, there is nothing to stop OS software co-existing with commercial software products ie: Crossover Office/Plugin, SuSE Linux (with proprietary installation and configuration tools) and others.

Asides from this, I don't see a statement of fact as 'insult'. A failure is not in a position to lecture others on something in which they have failed.Companies do that by meeting consumer demand with product. They maintain and enhance that demand by offering that product at a competetive price, and by accepting responsibilities to warrant that product and it's performance and provide remedies for claims against said warranties... You've obviously never read the EULA to any of the software you've ever bought, MS Windows has the same 'THIS PRODUCT IS PROVIDED AS IS AND WITHOUT WARRANTY" line that the GPL contains. There's also the minor point that it was SuSE and IBM who got First Security Certification of Linux (http://www.suse.com/us/company/press/press_releases/archive03/security_certification.html) first, not MS, so the US government begs to differ.It's the same busines model under which Microsoft has kicked the collective butts of many corporate sponsors of today's Linux communityNo, MS gained it's market share by bullying vendors with overarching contracts that were one of the central tenets of the anti-trust case against them

...and talking of insults...Maybe you should run and tell them the SCO case is a sham. I don't think they hear you. :scream: ...and of pots and kettles...Have those attempts included taking McBride up on his invitation and signing the NDA to be able to view the code themselves?Yes, in a number of cases, there were people from the Linux community reporting non-specifics of what they were shown long before pictures were sneaked out.And why is signing the NDA to view the code in question such a big deal? IMO it's because they don't really want to obectively analyze the case, but bolster the IBM defense position. Because any normal NDA would only have prevented someone from talking about specifics whereas this one prevents anyone taking any information back for objective analysis. Probably because the moment objective analysis was applied to the snippet of code it was proven on a number of different 'biased' sites that the code was public domain and had been for some time. I was under the impression that the Linux community always thought the SCO case was so ludicrous that the mere idea of negotiation was out and out silly.No, follow the links above and there is plenty of information (and a search engine) from 'the other side'You mean one sided like the Linux community rags you're reading?Oh yes, your condescending tone is certainly endearing me to your point of view.At any rate, I've read many reports from a wide range of independent scorces that I consider to be credible. Which sources (and don't say MSNBC, Microsoft have been involved in a number of successful IP cases against them and have previously described Linux as 'like a cancer' and 'unamerican' in attempts to discredit it).Admittedly, since I have work to do, I am not feverishly pouring over every snippet of news on the case, but I do feel I'm informed enough to have valid opinions of my own.After your assertion that Microsoft provides waranteed software I disagree that you're informed enough about anything regarding software to be able to hold an opinion on anything related to it..I'm also objective enough about the case to be rational enough to accept that I don't know all the facts.I don't know all the facts, that's the problem, the only people who do are SCO and they're not letting anyone in on their secret, a move which is bound to raise suspicion. Of course, I obviously know more than you about this as following news on Linux is part of my job.All I can go by is what both parties are willing to say publicly, Well, you've obviously missed a lot of what anyone but SCO has to say...Did Torvald's go to Utah and see the SCO presentation of the code?What, for 20 lines of code that a) have since been proven to have their origins elsewhere (BSD released code no less), b) were only in a non-widely distributed version of the kernel (for Itanium) and c) had already been removed as 'ugly' code under an NDA that would prevent him doing anything about it anyway?Oh yeah, you're referring again to the german court ruling on the statements SCO was making on their own german language website. I guess the german courts feel they can regulate speech on the internet now. That it's required to give proof of claims being presented publicly in Germany has no relevance here in the U.S. since that's not the law here....and if you'd read the article, you'd have seen it was the German website that was the focus of the court order. They're called libel laws, have applied to other media for centuries, and in the US would mean I could print pamphlets making claims about your sex life and you couldn't do shit about it. I don't see how the German laws are a bad thing.Then I'm sure IBM and the rest of the Linux hoarde have little to worry about. Something tells me there's more to it. If you know it's a sham then why the fuss?Because of the 12% less people developing on the Linux platform because of this case, because it's damaging (at least temporarily) the businesses that depend on Linux sales, and plain old moral indignation (especially as they're still considering suing consumers).Don't you think these comments are a bit incendiary? At least I'm willing to face the truth that all the necessary facts are not known. They may never publicly be known. And don't assume you know what I'm fond of. Nah, that could be libellous (except this site's based in the US *phew*).

Other things you seem to be fond of:-
- Telling other people that no-one knows enough of the facts to be making statements when they disagree with you then attacking the Linux community as a whole in a manner that more than suggests you are not in possession of any facts.
- Calling any article that disagrees with your point of view a rant and then ranting.
- Claiming other people are insulting and going on to insult and patronise them.
- Calling the kettle black.I meant many other things. Philosophically speaking a collective development model IMO in principle is less able to address specific specialized needs of individual consumers because there's no basic source of core responsibility for the development, support and warranty of the product. You are so obviously not a developer. There is always a core of people responsible for what goes into an open source project. If you buy RedHat, it's them, if you download from sourceforge, it's the project leaders. As for warantees, read a MS EULA and tell me their software's waranteed again.I also believe there will eventually be a conflict between the capitalists and collectivists in the open source community. I'm more than a little skeptical that IBM, Novell, Red Hat et al will indefinitely continue sacrificing their own interests in Unix (and other technologies) in the name of community. Except for the part where they are dependent on this community to provide a stable and solid platform and make their money selling hardware or support. They're not sacrificing they're own interests for Linux, Linux is in their interests. ResHat's been selling Linux almost since it first existed and their business depends entirely upon it being a success. As for IBM, they're making a killing with Linux based servers.The community is also fragmented by specialziation which creates the multiple flavors of the same OS which requires manufacturers to either pick and chose flavors of Linux, or support all, both of which at least right now just a few of the larger vendors are willing to do.So use a supported distro, they're not that bloody specialised.For example It's widely known in the cg community that available video cards/drivers for Maya on linux is a bit thin. It was getting better, but it's still thinner than shopping for a card for a Windows box. I think under the current conditions it will stay that way for awhile Where were you when ATI released drivers for Linux? Also, right now I'm running the unified architecture drivers from nVidia which also support the latest Quadro's. As well as this, most Wildcat cards are supported out of the box by chip specific drivers under X Windows. Yet another clear demonstration that you're not half as clever as you think you are.Legally speaking, as long as the case hangs over the community, I cannot observe it and feel it's a safe place to play just yet... at least until it's corporate contributors clear up the minefield. I don't like the idea of spending money on something that might get me sued....and you ask why we're so pissed off about this? Answered your own question there :rolleyes:

Paul

[BoydLake]

Whoa there….. not so fast! ;) If you re-read my statement, you’ll see I was speaking philosophically and generally about the two models. This is why I referred to only one software publisher and several other entities outside the software OS world. They do share in common the model about which I was writing, and the basic singular nature of their agreements and warranties. By singular nature, I mean one party exchanging value for value offered by another party.

It would appear that speaking more specifically about warranties and EULAs is needed. Certainly given Raymond and Perens’ reply to McBride’s assertions, I should have anticipated a similar response. Please understand that I don’t pretend to speak for McBride. Nor am I any real authority on legal matters.

Almost all warranties of course are limited in nature and are designed to limit the scope of liabilities of manufacturers in the case of claims. They do usually only cover the cost of the product itself and little else. Speaking specifically about software, considering only their limitations of liabilities, there is little difference between the typical open source EULA and the closed source EULA. What I’m referring to, and where the two models differ is in their structure. In other words, I’m talking about their respective “singularity” or “plurality”.

If you take a look at the Windows XP EULA, you’ll note that the agreement is between the user and Microsoft. That’s it. Microsoft assumes responsibility for the code, and all contracts and licenses, patents involved in its intellectual property. Possible risks of intellectual property claims against Microsoft don’t appear to expose the user under this sort of EULA. Why? Because of the lack of access to the code, and (I think) because of a legal concept called consideration. Consideration, (the exchange of value for value) suggests that the closed source EULA can be considered a contract as well as a license.

With Red Hat’s EULA, for example, the difference is that there’s not one entity behind their EULA and warranty (and non warranty under the GPL). In fact, there are many EULAs (the agreement itself refers to hundreds of individual programs with their individual copyrights and their holders ) that the license agreement itself encourages the user to explore. I’m assuming these are covered under the GPL license, which itself offers no warranty since these programs are free. Aside from the possibility of legal issues that arise from questions dealing with copyrights of the various authors of these free programs under the GPL, I’m just addressing the plurality of the EULA of the open source model in general as compared to the singular nature of the closed source model.

Certainly if you belive in Ockham's Razor or in the KISS approach, you'd appreciate my bias toward simplicity.

I’ll leave it to the lawyers to deal with the apparent holes in the GPL.

Here are some alternate legal opinions. Some from the US and at least one abroad:


http://www.ilaw.com.au/public/licencearticle.html

http://www.denniskennedy.com/opensourcedmk.pdf

http://www.abanet.org/intelprop/opensource.html


While we’re discussing Red Hat: Certainly the existence of capital ventures would tend to demonstrate that at least for now there are exceptions to my philosophy. I would assume there are always exceptions to generalities. Red Hat is filling a demand which I would think only exists because of the usability problems for average non-developer users when installing, configuring, and maintaining Linux. You assume correctly when you say I’m not a developer. I’m probably typical of the majority of the OS market which needs simplicity and broad compatibility in their OS platform. This allows for a bigger range of configuration possibilities in both hardware and applications. Another advantage of the closed model, which goes to the support question, is that 3rd party manufacturers can better predict what future versions of closed model OS platforms are going to be like since they can deal directly with the sole owner and controller of a particular platform. Even with companies like Red Hat, who probably spend time monitoring the various development projects involved, the open source model seems like it would always lag due to its plural nature. With so many projects going and no one controlling the ship (or maybe many captains exists depending on how you want to look at it) certainly you’d understand why someone from the outside of the community would observe that and call it a bit more un-predictable.

On NDAs: In my professional career, I’ve signed many NDAs and they all tend to be severely limiting in what I can say at all (publicly or privately) about the properties and materials covered. I think the SCO agreement is seen as draconian because people in the Linux community want so desperately for the information to be made public. On that note, here’s a Linux advocate with opinions and analysis I can accept as being reasoned and rational. I may not agree, but I think opinions like these deserve a lot more consideration that those that appear much more emotional and reactive.

http://www.airs.com/ian/essays/sco/sco.html

You’ll notice links to the SCO NDA itself.

I’m not a developer so I’ll refer to these comments which are critique of open source developers by open source developers. They discuss both specific and general challenges of developing open source software. Much of it can be seen as evidence of the (current or sustained) failure of a particular development model. Some of it probably exists just because they are developing software. Anyway, here are the critiques:

http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue4_10/bezroukov/#b4

http://www.denbeste.nu/cd_log_entries/2002/07/OpenSourcepart1.shtml

http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~daven/docs/oss-wp.html

http://mpt.phrasewise.com/discuss/msgReader$173

http://www.welchco.com/02/14/01/60/00/10/3101.HTM


On the “cancerous” comments: I can only guess that you’d be referring to comments by lawyers and Microsoft officials regarding the “viral” or “propagating” nature of open source licensing under the GPL. That’s an interesting and unfortunate way to put it. I’m not sure if the terms originated in the legal community or if Microsoft came up with the term. At any rate, I would probably take offense to that too. I haven’t come across the term “cancerous” though. That’s even uglier. Maybe it’s in response to Torvalds’ description of Linux development as being as sort of “directed mutation”. At the rate these guys toss barbs at each other, I wouldn’t be surprised.

Anyhoo…. That’s enough run-on sentences for now. :)

Here are a few of my general sources. I usually link to these from my Yahoo finance pages, which is where I usually come across news on the SCO case. No. I never go to MSNBC.

http://www.computerweekly.com/

http://www.newsfactor.com/

http://www.pcworld.com/

http://www.pcmag.com

http://www.eweek.com/

http://www.technewsworld.com

http://www.forbes.com/

http://www.cmpnetasia.com/

http://www.abcnews.com

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