Posted on 11/20/2003 3:47:19 PM PST by Salo
BSD developers speak out on SCO campaign Thursday November 20, 2003 - [ 08:00 AM GMT ] Topics: Linux , Software , Operating Systems By: Chris Preimesberger and Joe Barr
In view of the latest SCO lawsuit news conference, we have been talking to BSD professionals to get their opinions, including one of the principals in the AT&T vs. Berkeley Software Design, Inc. lawsuit settlement of 1994; a disillusioned former SCO employee; and several other BSD developers.
At issue is the charge SCO has made in a court case against IBM that copyrighted UNIX code has been incorporated into Linux and distributed without authorization or appropriate copyright notices. Code that has been identified by SCO includes Unix System V code as well as copyrighted code included in the 1994 settlement between Unix Systems Laboratories, Inc. and BSD, Inc. SCO acquired this code and associated copyrights in 1995 from Novell. SCOannounced
Tuesday that it is expanding the scope of its campaign by incorporating a prominent law firm within its ownership.
"We do have copyrights out there now that are being broken," SCO CEO Darl McBride said Tuesday. "We have a situation with other settlement agreements with respect to the BSD case from a few years ago, where we do have a legal settlement. We are in strong shape to go out and enforce these now, and this is really what (lawyer) David (Boies) and his team are going to be expanding their focus around.
"But more importantly, what we are announcing today is a substantial number of copyright issues that relate to a settlement agreement that is already in place around the BSD settlement from the 1994 time-frame. As we move forward, we will be outlining those issues. "
So, it appears that McBride and SCO are planning to do something based on the 1994 settlement, though what that is remains unclear. Our take yesterday was that SCO would attack the settlement to have it overturned. Today we are leaning more to the view that SCO is going to claim that the 1994 settlement does not allow the use of Unix code in Linux, even if it was part of 4.4BSD Lite.
Let's start with Kirk McKusick. He's an author, consultant, teacher, and developer who implemented the 4.2BSD fast file system and oversaw the development and release of 4.3BSD and 4.4BSD. He is both a past president of USENIX and the current president, and he has a Ph.D in computer science from UC Berkeley.
McKusick was one of the principals in the Unix System Laboratories, Inc. (the business entity which owned Unix code in the early 1980s; USL was 80 percent owned by AT&T) vs. Berkeley Software Design, Inc.
NewsForge spoke to McKusick Tuesday afternoon to check his reaction to SCO's latest moves, whatever they might be, with regards to the BSD settlement. He told us: "There were two separate settlement agreements: One between the university (specifically, the Board of Regents) and USL and one between Berkeley Software Design and USL. I have no knowledge what is in the settlement agreement between USL and Berkeley Software Design, so I really can't comment on that because I just don't know. What I can comment on is the settlement between USL and the University, because I was involved in that."
He went on to explain that there was a public statement about the agreement, in the form of apress release and also a non-public legal agreement, which neither side is supposed to disclose. The press release, Kirk noted, clearly states that "the settlement clears the way for the University to release a new, unencumbered version of the Berkeley 4.4 BSD operating system software, to be called 4.4 BSD-Lite."
The public record of the settlement also stipulates "4.4 BSD-Lite will not require a license from, nor payment of, royalties to USL." McKusick could not reveal the contents of the secret version of the agreement, but he is familiar with that document. As far as his take on SCO's attempt to now claim copyright infringement on code that USL made public in the settlement, he said, "They don't seem to have a strong legal foot to stand on."
Next up: Former SCO employee Jack Craig, now an SDK support engineer at another software company.
They (SCO officials) should be prosecuted like the crooks at Enron. As a past SCO employee, you may hear my indignation below.
While it was later excised and replaced with UDI code, I wonder how the world would take the news that SCO/Caldera paid a contract house in San Jose over $150,000 to port the NetBSD USB stack to osr5! They sure don't mind stealing open source when it suites them!
My rage at them forces this email ... freakin' ghouls!
Hmmm.
From Matt Thomas, a BSD developer:
IANAL, but SCO doesn't have any real chance of getting the ATT/BSD settlement "unsettled." 1) IIRC the lawsuit was dismissed with prejudice, which means ATT (or their successor) can't reopen it; 2) SCO, by agreeing to buy the USL package, implicitly agreed to abide by the terms of any agreement of the purchased entity.
SCO is beating a dead and buried horse if they try to go after BSD. Think about this analogy: After buying your current home, you decide you didn't like something the seller twice removed did, so you bring him to court to fix it. Do you really think the judge isn't going to laugh you out of court?
If SCO does attempt to reopen it, I think that trying to convince a district attorney to bring charges of barratry against SCO and its law firm would be in order. Additionally, a civil lawsuit charging vexatious litigation might also be prudent."
Personally, I think the most prudent thing for SCO to do is prove they aren't engaged in a pump-and-dump stock scheme. When the lawsuit started, the stock price was under a $1, and now it's around $20.
SCO has decided to play legal chicken with IBM. That's akin to a motorcycle playing chicken with an semi-truck. It seems that SCO is trying an exit strategy of being so obnoxious that it's cheaper and easier for deep pockets to buy them out or off than to fight them. One could say that SCO is acting as a racketeer offering protection services from themselves. If that's actually true, I have to wonder if a civil lawsuit against SCO under RICO for extortion would have merit.
From BSD developer Steve Allen:
It doesn't affect BSD at all. The issue was settled in the ATT vs. BSDI suit many years ago. SCO may lay claim to the SYSV code, but they have no claim at all on the BSD code.
While I use BSD at home, I do use Linux at work, and from my point of view, the only danger is that SCO might make some of their silly arguments stick. But what I've seen of the IBM legal staff's work, I don't believe that will happen. So, really, as a member of the BSD team, I'm basically on the sidelines watching.
SCO has no case with BSD, there's nothing to attack there. I'm curious to see how the no-compete thing with Novell plays out. That would be the more important issue at this point.
One BSD developer asked us not to use his name with his reaction:
At this time I feel that going after BSD is mostly talk. I think that the BSD development efforts have been very "clean" with respect to UNIX Intellectual Property because of Lawsuit v1.0 in the early 90s, so I am not particularly worried. So I am not going to turn off my 2 BSD boxes, but I probably will not assist in the legal fight.
SCO seems to be trying to pull off a hostile takeover of Linux to remain in business, so I think that the Novell-SuSE merger is going to be a more important effort for their lawsuit. To attack BSD seems rather foolish to me -- fewer users, less overall investment than Linux and Novell.
More to come, undoubtedly.
Wanna be Penguified? Just holla!
Got root?
To attack BSD seems rather foolish to me -- fewer users, less overall investment than Linux and Novell.
About as foolish as everything else they've done. I guess Darl thinks the BSD folks are too comfortable and complacent about their code origins.
Or maybe he's just getting greedy again.
It's deja vu all over again.
I am not aware that any legal action has taken place wrt to the BSD-lite UC-ATT settlement in years.
IANAL but I think SCO is just feinting legally, and doing a poor job of it at that. No one on the technical side is going to give any action against the UC-ATT settlement any credibility at all.
Must be some kind of lawyer thing, and a desparate one at that...
Well we definitely are seeing them morf into more of a law firm, however this may not necessarily be good news for those they oppose legally.
It appears their BSD claim is that code that was within BSD that was by previous settlement required to maintain ATT copyrights, has not continued to maintain them. This code also is in Linux according to SCO. But without the copyrights being maintained, the code has now been transferred to a different license, GPL, that SCO did not agree to. That will not only apply pressure on the people who took the ATT copyrighted code and put it into Linux, but the GPL itself.
This is just more Legal Mouthware from Darl McBride. He's going nowhere with this one.
Er, Nick just established that the code in question does not belong to SCO. They need SCO's consent as much as they need my consent or the Man in the Moon's consent (which is to say not at all).
Er, he did? All is see is something about "clean hands". And there is a LOT of code in question, for a large variety of reasons.
Don't see how they could be MORE of a law firm than before. They have, however, merged with another law firm.
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