Posted on 08/19/2003 7:39:56 AM PDT by Joe Bonforte
LAS VEGAS--When SCO Group first filed its lawsuit against IBM in March, critics characterized the move as the last gasp of an ailing company hoping to strike a series of lucrative licensing deals.
Since then the company has come out swinging even harder, bashing its detractors, standing by its allegations, and most recently, posting a profit that SCO said would allow it to continue its aggressive intellectual property fight.
At the SCO Forum here Monday, the company pulled out its latest weapon: lines and lines of disputed code that were allegedly copied from SCO's Unix into IBM's version of Linux. The company claims that IBM illegally copied Unix code into its version of Linux, and it's warning Linux customers that they may be violating copyright by using the operating system without paying SCO. It's also recently announced a new licensing plan that would require Linux customers to pay between $199 and $699 per computer.
In a quiet conference room tucked into the conference center at the MGM Grand, SCO offered customers, partners and the merely curious the chance to view the code for themselves, as long as they signed a nondisclosure agreement.
Companies involved in litigation traditionally keep such information under wraps in order not to tip their legal hand, but SCO said it decided to display the code because its critics were charging that it didn't have a case.
"Given the nature of this case and that there may be a significant period of time before it's resolved and that people were clamoring to see it, we decided to show a few pieces of evidence," said Chris Sontag, senior vice president of the SCOsource unit, which is charged with protecting SCO's Unix-related intellectual property.
As of the end of the day on Monday, more than 150 people had seen the code presentation, which the company said includes a small portion of the infringing code it has found so far. Sontag said the company has uncovered more than a million lines of copied code in Linux, with the help of pattern recognition experts.
A compelling case?
According to those who viewed the code at SCO Forum, company representatives showed off several categories of code that allegedly infringed its copyrights, including some lines that appeared to be directly copied, some that were derivative works and some that were obfuscated, such as code from which legal disclaimers had been removed. (This reporter declined to sign the nondisclosure agreement required to attend the special sessions where the companies showed off a special side-by-side comparison of the code, opting instead to gather reactions from people who saw the presentation.)
After viewing the code, Don Price, general manager of Price Data Systems, said he was surprised at the volume that was allegedly copied. "It's compelling," he said. "Some people were either extremely sloppy, or copied and thought no one would go after them."
Neil Abraham, with SCO reseller Kerridge Computer, said SCO made the right decision to pursue IBM. "I think they've got a very firm case," he said, after looking at the code. "It's not just one line. It's huge chunks."
Bob Ungetti, of Raven Technologies, who was milling about waiting to get into a room where the code was being shown off, said he wanted to see the code because his customers have been asking him about the suit. "I want to see the code myself just to substantiate the claims SCO is making, so when I talk to my customers about the credibility of the lawsuit, I can say I saw it for myself," said Ungetti, whose company is a reseller for SCO. "If they're interested in using Linux, they're concerned they may be adversely affected; my SCO customers are concerned that if the company loses the lawsuit, it may be out of business."
Ungetti said a keynote address on Monday morning had already convinced him that SCO had a pretty solid case. During a speech, SCO representatives showed a few slides containing the allegedly infringing code, offering attendees a taste of what they could see if they signed the nondisclosure agreement.
"The spelling errors and comments (copied into the code) are the real kicker. To me, that's the nail in the coffin," Ungetti said.
Many attendees of the conference are longtime SCO fans, so convincing them that the company has a case by showing them the code probably wasn't too tough. However, at least one attendee was appalled by SCO's decision to sue IBM. The man, an exhibitor on the show floor who asked that his name not be used, said that SCO's hands aren't clean either, because the company has probably taken code from other sources and incorporated it into its products. "It looks to me like there's been a lot of cross-pollination" between Unix and Linux, said the attendee, who jokingly called SCO's legal saga "As the Stomach Turns."
Legal experts agreed that SCO faces a challenge of proving that it has the original rights to the code--a task that could prove especially daunting because of a special license popular among makers of free and open-source software known as the GNU Public License, or GPL. The GPL requires companies that incorporate code into their product to share their changes. In its response to SCO's legal filing, IBM claims that SCO can't assert claims to the disputed code because it was originally covered under the GPL.
"Even if there is literal copying, you'll have to say, 'What's the source of the code?'" said Stuart Meyer, a partner with Fenwick & West, who is not involved in the case.
SCO has denied that the disputed code is covered by the GPL. An attorney for the company said Monday that even if it were, federal copyright laws protecting the company's intellectual property would trump the free software license, an argument that could form the crux of the case should it go to trial.
No, AT&T already tried that, against BSD. They lost, big time. Interestingly enough, a major reason was because AT&T was found to have copied significant amount of BSD code. I don't know all the details, but you can find more info at:
http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/bsdi/930303.ruling.txt
SCO's claim about the invalidity of the GPL is hogwash. A first-year law student could demolish it. Copyright law grants the right to make a single copy in the absence of permission by the copyright holder. But, the copyright holder can grant whatever permission they want.
For instance, Microsoft grants OEM's the right to make many copies of Windows for installation on new computers. If the GPL violates copyright law for this reason, then many other commonly-accepted practices are also illegal.
I wonder if SCO had any clue that their little love-in for their true believers would go that ugly on 'em? I think it's past time for them to hire someone who can read code, and someone who can drive Google... skills they seem to be lacking.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
When SCO first made the complaint against IBM, I thought it was possible they had a case. I am not privy to business parternship agreements made since AT&T Unix System Labs first started selling source licenses. I felt it was plausable that IBM over stepped its bounds when it came to some of its intellectual property.
However, SCO's actions since then have changed my opinion. I have never, ever seen a company move with such reckless abandon when an important lawsuit is on the line. Even when the outcome is virtually assured, companies are cautious in the extreme when referring to a potential outcome. There are very good reasons for this not the least of which is federal law.
After doing some light reading, I believe that SCO may have comitted deceptive trade practices when it announced that various commercial companies and governmental agencies owed them per Linux install. I have never in my years in the computer industry seen a company demand license fees relating to a court case that had not yet been decided. I am not a trade attorney, but from my limited understanding of federal deceptive trade practices law as well as similar state laws prohibit causes of confustion or misundertanding as to ownership or affiliation of a product, misleading statements concerning prices and fees, as well as disparaging statements directed towards compeditors. Under federal law, it is not necessary to prove actual deception, only that a company had the capacity to deceive others with regards to the business activities of others.
Without judicial backing, I think that SCO by demanding payment from various parties and announcing ownership of Linux as theirs without proof has uncautiously opened themselves up to legal action, even if in the end IBM is orderd to pay fines and Linux is ordered to remove files with SCO code.
Speaking without the facts proved in a court of law is very reckless of them. I thought that they had a chance when they had only filed their complaint against IBM. But once they started announcing press releases that contained claims of ownership and a large installed base of fees, I knew something had to be wrong. No company in its right mind makes announcements such as these. I don't care how cut and dried the facts of the case may be, making such statements before they are proved is extrememly dangerous -- which is why no other company I have seen has made such wide-sweeping claims.
Furthermore, GNU Hurd was tied up in lawsuits for a time, shortly before the emergence of Linux. Stallman himself has been rumored to have whined and complained that while he was tied up in court, people were installing Linux.
The BSD and Hurd suits are one of the reasons why I believe SCO is five to ten years too late to raise the question of "unauthorized UNIX implementations."
Under your interpretation, I would expect a consent agreement to restore the copyright notice (which is similar to what happened between BSD and USL/AT&T). But, it hardly supports SCO's claims of misappropriation of proprietary code.
Is a Berkeley license included in Linux? This is a broader issue than just this piece of code, it applies to anything from Linux that was borrowed from BSD.
Yes, it is. Those parts of Linux that were taken from BSD are supposed to include a notice acknowledging the source (it's a condition of the license).
The BSD license is less restrictive than the GPL: it doesn't require redistribution in source form. That's why you will find it in many operating systems, including Windows. The TCP/IP networking code is a common example.
$ uname -r
2.4.20-gentoo-r6 $ find . -name \*.[ch] | xargs egrep -il \ > 'Copyright \(c\) [0-9]+(, *[0-9]+)* (The )?Regents of the University of California'
./drivers/net/bsd_comp.c
./drivers/net/slhc.c
./drivers/char/tpqic02.c
./drivers/isdn/isdn_bsdcomp.c
./include/net/slhc_vj.h
./include/linux/quota.h
Is that all it takes to permanently steal code these days? Just have some rogue post it on Usenet, and *BAM*, no longer yours.
You're not? Well that is the question, I believe, down to the root, and were they authorized to do that. If it was a previous licensee, how do you know they were allowed?
It actually makes sense that if SCO was willing to show any portion of their evidence in public, it might be something that was already 'public', even if illegally. Maybe that's giving SCO more benefit of the doubt than they deserve, but I've certainly not seen any of this frantic evidence gathering by these partisans as proof of anything yet.
Look at the date. It predates SCO Unix. SCO can't claim prior art afterwards.
All you have to do is follow some of the links. It provides information about the origin. At the time I posted that comment, I didn't know and hadn't yet found it.
The important part is the date: 1979. It predates SCO Unix, and invalidates their claim of prior art.
I find the SCO executive staff beneath contempt.
Most of the links I posted early in the thread were to archives of source code -- the story was developing fast and I was trying to provide info to people following this thread. I subsequently posted links to articles that summarized the relevance and provide the information that you were asking for.
If you don't want to take the time to read them, then don't waste my time. Personally, I think the problem is that you are afraid of what you will find -- irrefutable proof that SCO's claims are bogus.
If you want to stick your head in the sand, please do so. But be sure to take a deep breath first, as you may have to stay there for a while.
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.