Posted on 07/14/2005 4:01:54 PM PDT by Salo
Davidson reports:
The project was a result of SCO's executive management refusing to believe that it was possible for Linux and much of the GNU software to have come into existance without *someone* *somewhere* having copied pieces of proprietary UNIX source code to which SCO owned the copyright. The hope was that we would find a "smoking gun" somwhere in code that was being used by Red Hat and/or the other Linux companies that would give us some leverage. (There was, at one stage, the idea that we would sell licenses to corporate customers who were using Linux as a kind of "insurance policy" in case it turned out that they were using code which infringed our copyright).
So, Darl's SCOsource scheme wasn't even original, was it? SCO *hoped* to find copyright infringement so they could make some money selling "insurance" for Linux, the email says. Sound familiar? And after all that effort, what did they find?
At the end, we had found absolutely *nothing*. ie no evidence of any copyright infringement whatsoever.
In commercial arenas Bill Gates is not used to having for his own private playground, that's what's technically called "competition".
And it's supposed to be one of the good things about capitalism.
I'm sure Darl enjoys the full support of the lawyer industry. He and his legal team should be thrown under the jail for fraud.
welllll, not really. MS made its fortune by competing against entrenched companies such as Novell, Oracle, and IBM, and by being less expensive and "good enough."
Now, the shoe's on the other foot. Someone else is now less expensive and "good enough" and they're not sure how to compete when the situation is reversed.
They'll learn, or they'll sink. That's capitalism.
Considering Darl's legal team includes David Boies, I'll drink to that!
LOL like when she claimed SCO was launching denial of service attacks on itself, just to have Eric Raymond come out and admit it was someone from the shadowy "community"?
As usual, Jokelaw doesn't give the full story. From news.com:
http://news.com.com/SCO+e-mail+No+smoking+gun+in+Linux+code/2100-7344_3-5789132.html?part=rss&tag=5789132&subj=news
Late Thursday, SCO released an e-mail from Swartz that it points out shows the analysis dates back to 1999 and that SCO says shows that Swartz did find possible issues with Linux.
In the e-mail, dated Oct. 4, 1999, Swartz said that there was some code that was line-for-line identical to Unix and other code that appeared to be rewritten, perhaps to disguise that it was copied.
I'm all for fair and legal competition, but when you're trampling on ~300 patents in the Linux kernel alone, you're not competing fairly.
Agreed. Let's see some proof, though.
As usual, News.com doesn't post original documents so we can read for ourselves. However, I'm sure Kimball saw both before he gave his "Despite the vast disparity between SCO's public accusations and its actual evidence--or complete lack thereof..." statment.
Pamela Jones (aka PJ from Jokelaw) is an employee of OSRM, the firm that estimated the 283 patent violations...
Their discovery in Autozone is about the possibility of Autozone having files compiled on SCO's UNIX on their Linux systems. Such files are compiled statically linked, and would therefore include SCO's copyrighted libraries. This could be a problem if Autozone didn't have a license to do that (which they claim they do). It has nothing to do with SCO code in Linux.
As for IBM, SCO has been backpedalling big-time on their copyright violations claims since the evidence never appeared.
OK--but that doesn't constitute proof of anything. Try again.
That firm stated possible violations. None of those were possible violations of court-upheld patents. Many are for patents that are likely to be thrown out if challenged in court, or found that they are so broadly worded that they can't apply. You know, patents like the recent Eolas one used against Microsoft that is dying under re-examination.
Also, you have to remember that Groklaw is generally document- and court action-based. When something pops up, it's usually on Groklaw first. It was unsealed, she posted, then SCO had its response later.
BUT, if you notice, Groklaw has it up in bold print on the front page that there are two updates to the story, and includes the CNET coverage of SCO's response.
You try to discredit Groklaw by claiming it only shows news favorable to the editor's viewpoint. Sorry GE, wrong as usual.
First, "infringing" code mentioned is admittedly likely to be covered under the BSD agreement, written by third parties, or standaard code for standards compliance, and is therefore exempt. Second, all of this is a preliminary investigation "subject to the further analysis" to decide whether any of the code they found is actually infringing.
I'll give you one guess as to who the guy mentioned in this memo is who was supposed to do the "further analysis" and reach a final conclusion.
.
.
If you guessed Michael Davidson, the author of the memo that this thread is about, your're right! To put it succinctly, their initial investigation said "there might be something here," while their final conclusion was "there's nothing here."
Darl was making his threatening statements and trying to sell SCO Source licenses after that final "there's nothing here" conclusion. I would say that could land him in jail. He and Evers would be good bunk buddies.
Fregards
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