I found a fairly recent Tech Ping list on another computer. If you weren't pinged to this and feel you should have been, please let me know.
Thanks!
Posted on 11/01/2005 6:47:15 AM PST by ShadowAce
It took more than two and a half years, but the SCO Group finally has disclosed a list of areas in which it believes IBM violated its Unix contract, allegedly by moving proprietary Unix technology into open-source Linux.
In a five-page document filed Friday, SCO attorneys say they have identified 217 areas in which the company believes IBM or Sequent, a Unix server company IBM acquired, violated contracts under which SCO and its predecessors licensed the Unix operating system. However, the curious won't be able to see for themselves the details of SCO's claims: The full list of alleged abuses were filed in a separate document under court seal.
The Lindon, Utah-based company did provide some information about what it believes IBM moved improperly to Linux.
"Some of these wrongful disclosures include areas such as an entire file management system; others are communications by IBM personnel working on Linux that resulted in enhancing Linux functionality by disclosing a method or concept from Unix technology," SCO said. "The numerosity and substantiality of the disclosures reflects the pervasive extent and sustained degree as to which IBM disclosed methods, concepts, and in many places, literal code, from Unix-derived technologies in order to enhance the ability of Linux to be used as a scalable and reliable operating system for business and as an alternative to proprietary Unix systems such as those licensed by SCO and others."
District Judge Dale Kimball, overseeing the case in U.S. District Court in Utah, has expressed skepticism for SCO's claims. He said in a February ruling, "Viewed against the backdrop of SCO's plethora of public statements concerning IBM's and others' infringement of SCO's purported copyrights to the Unix software, it is astonishing that SCO has not offered any competent evidence to create a disputed fact regarding whether IBM has infringed SCO's alleged copyrights through IBM's Linux activities."
SCO, whose Unix business continues to struggle, said it will file a final report on the alleged abuses on Dec. 22.
I found a fairly recent Tech Ping list on another computer. If you weren't pinged to this and feel you should have been, please let me know.
Thanks!
> ... SCO Group finally has disclosed ...
The heck they did. If they actually filed anything, they
did so under seal. The filing apparently ins't on Pacer
yet, so this story is a selective ultra-spun leak to a
favored journalist.
And what's the point of sealing, if the allegation is
that IBM put the material into Linux, where everyone can
now see it? Well, the point is to keep groklaw from
inspecting the evidence and tearing it to shreds.
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2005110100443634
Friday was the "interim deadline" (whatever that means) for some filings. Dec 22 is the final deadline.
IANAL, but I would think that five pages isn't a heck of a lot, considering how verbose I've heard them become.
I thought this was funny... SCO calls one of their Unix products "OpenServer", yet they argue its "proprietary". (?)
The five page document sounds like it contains SCO's legal arguments with the actual evidence contained in the document that is under seal.
Bingo! What a swarming little company SCO turned out to be.
Maybe, I think, they call it openserver because:
Apache
Samba
Squid
Nmap
Webmin
Linux Kernel Code
BIND
GNU Developemnt tools like gcc and acssociated libraries
Mozilla
OpenSSL
OpenSSH
And other GPL/BSD/$OPEN_LICENSE programs..
It'll be interesting to see if any of this is actual SYSV code in Linux or, as I suspect, it all hinges on SCO's pretty whacked, and thoroughly debunked, theory that anything IBM itself wrote for UNIX can't be used anywhere else.
Anybody using the words "numerosity" and “substantiality” in a legal filing should immediately have their case decided in the opponents favor. It is indisputable evidence that you understand the inherent weakness of your argument and are trying to obfuscate the weakness with stupid permutations of common every-day words like “numerous” and “substantial”
As much fun as it is going to be watching the Nazgul ripping SCO's entrails out, I think I will enjoy watching Novell grudgefork SCO even more.
It will mostly depend on the interpretation of what is Unix code vs. Posix standard, did IBM AIX engineers contribute to Linux making clean room impossible, did the original contracts prohibit "methods and concepts", does SCO legally have the right to enforce this, etc.
What isn't disputable, is that SCO was the original Unix on Intel vendor, and IBM backed out of an ongoing agreement with them after reviewing all their IP and then significantly invested in a foreign clone of Unix instead. While it may not ultimately prove to have been illegal, it was unquestionably a dirty trick that has ultimately led to the near collapse of SCO and the loss of millions if not billions of licensing revenues from US Unix software vendors. Not only are licensing revenues being lost to the US, the export controls that previously governed technology of this caliber are being circumvented by the GPL license.
How do you propose to teach OS design, if students are not allowed to study other OS designs?
How do you prove that Linux's design is not merely POSIX-standard as opposed to a rip-off?
the export controls that previously governed technology of this caliber are being circumvented by the GPL license.
Are you actually suggesting that federally mandated export controls can be circumvented by a commercial license?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.