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SCO Defends Against Open Source Advocates
Internet Week Online (internetweek.com) ^ | August 26, 2003 | Mitch Wagner

Posted on 08/26/2003 7:04:02 PM PDT by Golden Eagle

SCO Defends Against Open Source Advocates

By Mitch Wagner

SCO defended itself against criticism by the open source community, saying Unix code used in Linux comes from its own, copyrighted version of Unix, not - as Linux advocates argued last week - earlier versions that have been released into open source.

SCO also said the General Public License (GPL), a popular license for releasing software into the open source community, violates U.S. and international copyright law.

SCO, which owns intellectual property of Unix, is fighting a legal and marketing campaign to show that Linux contains sufficient proprietary Unix code that Linux distributors and users are ripping off SCO. SCO sued IBM in March, claiming that IBM included proprietary Unix source code in Linux, and later SCO warned Linux users that they, too, could be subject to intellectual property lawsuits if they failed to obtain legitimate licenses from SCO. SCO introduced a $699 license this month for Linux users.

SCO has been closely guarding its evidence - the allegedly stolen source code - disclosing it only people willing to sign a nondisclosure agreement. However, last week SCO disclosed some of the code at a presentation at its SCO Forum conference in Las Vegas. Linux advocates, including Bruce Perens and Eric Raymond, obtained copies of SCO's slides, and posted responses to the Web, saying that SCO's own evidence undercut its case.

Perens and Raymond said that some of the code disclosed on the slides, governing memory allocation, comes from early, "ancestral" versions of Unix that were released into open source by SCO itself, while SCO was doing business as Caldera.

But SCO said that, while ancestral Unix versions have earlier versions of the code, the code was refined in SVR4.1, and it's the later version of the code - still proprietary to SCO - that appears in Linux.

Chris Sontag, senior vice president and general manager of SCOsource, the company's business unit for licensing SCO's intellectual property, said another vendor copied proprietary memory allocation code from Unix into Linux, removed the original copyright notices and attached its own. SCO would not identify which company did the label-switch.

Linux advocates also said last week that the memory allocation code is only used in versions of Linux for IA-64 systems, such as systems running on the Intel Itanium chip, representing fewer than 10 percent of Linux installations. The vast majority of Linux installations are running on IA-32 systems such as Intel's Xeon processors.

Sontag accused the Linux advocates of splitting hairs.

"What's at issue is that there is copyrighted Unix System V code, Version 4.1 code, copied into Linux. Whether it is used broadly or not, it is widely published and available. SCO's copyright is stripped out and others are taking credit in violation of the copyright," Sontag said.

Perens said that one of the examples of allegedly stolen code shown by SCO last week was, in fact, from Berkeley Packet Filter (BPF) routines taken from BSD, which is covered by an open source license.

But Sontag said the BPF routines were not intended to be an example of stolen code, but rather a demonstration of how SCO was able to detect "obfuscated" code, or code that had been altered slightly to disguise its origins. The slide displaying the code should have been written differently to reflect that intention, he said.

"It was an example of our ability to find moderately changed or obfuscated code, it was not an example we are using in court," Sontag said. "If they want to go off and make a big defense on that, they are welcome to it."

Sontag said the code examples SCO chose to disclose last week were not its best examples, merely the most easily understood ones. Perens had said the examples SCO disclosed were likely to be SCO's best, and underscored the weakness of SCO's case.

"He's wrong, he doesn't have examples of the evidence. We do. He is trying to put a happy face on a problematic situation for the Linux community," Sontag said. "Try as they might to come up with arguments to bolster their position, the facts and everything we know are extremely strong in SCO's favor."

SCO also focused criticism on the GPL, which is the license for many open source projects, including Linux. The license states that GPLed software and source code must be available to anyone. Modifications to GPL software are subject to the same provisions.

The Free Software Foundation developed the GPL, and defines free software on its Web site.

Linux advocates say that SCO undercut its own case by releasing its own version of Linux under the GPL. The SCO version of Linux contains the disputed code and - even if the code was once proprietary - SCO released it into open source when it released its own Linux, the advocates argue.

However, Sontag said that argument holds no water because SCO never intended to release its proprietary code into open source. "U.S. and international copyright law asserts you cannot inadvertently and accidently assign your copyright to someone else," Sontag said.

Moreover, SCO said its proprietary code in Linux does not meet the definition of free software as stated in the Linux GPL.

"The Linux GPL itself asserts that the valid legal copyright holder has to place a notice at the beginning of their copyrighted work, the source code, identifying the code and the GPL. It requires an overt action. SCO has not contributed its code, and as soon as we became aware of the copyright violation we suspended our distribution," Sontag said.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Crime/Corruption; News/Current Events; Technical
KEYWORDS: bogus; extortion; fraud; fud; ibm; linux; scam; sco
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Interesting indeed.
1 posted on 08/26/2003 7:04:02 PM PDT by Golden Eagle
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To: Coral Snake; Bush2000; TheEngineer; PatrioticAmerican; Incorrigible; Fabozz; xrp; BlackbirdSST
Latest Developments in the IBM/SCO case should you be interested...
2 posted on 08/26/2003 7:12:32 PM PDT by Golden Eagle
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To: Golden Eagle
Y'know, the idea behind property rights is to encourage innovation and to give the fruits of it to those who do the work. It seems to me that SCO is not the one doing most of the work here--it is the open source community, working under the GPL. The Linux community is willing to rewrite any offending code, but that's not what SCO (perhaps backed by MS) appears to want. It appears that what SCO wants is to get paid by users of Linux for work done by others, not by SCO. That's abuse of the copyright laws. My 2 cents.
3 posted on 08/26/2003 7:19:42 PM PDT by Pearls Before Swine (South-south-west, south, south-east, east....)
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To: Golden Eagle
SCO is dying and desperate.
4 posted on 08/26/2003 7:20:40 PM PDT by PatrioticAmerican (Helping Mexicans invade America is TREASON!)
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To: Golden Eagle
inadvertently and accidently assign

Huh? Placing source code on a web site for download is inadvertent? More SCO horse hockey.

This is better than watching Green Acres. What's Arnold gonna' do next?

5 posted on 08/26/2003 7:25:10 PM PDT by jammer
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To: Golden Eagle
Amazing how the lawyers involved and all the SCO folks can libel and slander millions of Linux users without presenting ANY facts at all and not face ONE stern word from the judge involved in the case. Why does the judge not call them up and tell them to cool it?
6 posted on 08/26/2003 7:25:46 PM PDT by ikka
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To: PatrioticAmerican
they're trying for a dead cat bounce...they have nothing left. Their only hope is to be bought out or settled with. No one wants what they're selling anymore.
7 posted on 08/26/2003 7:26:44 PM PDT by flashbunny ((Hey, he says he's a republican, so what if he's slightly to the left of bill clinton?))
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To: Pearls Before Swine
My 2 cents...

Certainly welcome to them, as well as share them on FR. However it is the opinion of many others that SCO is simply trying to exert its rights over its own property in an age of growing internet piracy. Are they overpricing the value of the supposedly stolen code? Sure looks like it, but if it is their code they have every right to set the price.

If the majority of Linux users had ever paid one dime for the software they are using, their complaints might be more understandable. However, most didn't, and many have said they will still be unwilling to pay SCO a dime if/when it is positively proven the code was hijacked from Unix, again making their positions fairly unsympathetic. Launching the denial of service attacks against SCO further alienate their innocence.

8 posted on 08/26/2003 7:27:51 PM PDT by Golden Eagle
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To: Bush2000; Golden Eagle; TheEngineer
The Coral Snake Ping.

Calling all Anti Commies and Anti Pirates

When should businesses be "upgrading to Linux?

See above PICTURE for the answer!!!


9 posted on 08/26/2003 7:28:59 PM PDT by Coral Snake (Biting commies, crooks, traitors, islamofascists and any other type of Anti American)
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To: PatrioticAmerican
SCO is dying and desperate.

Well their stock went up ~10% Friday so it's probably too early for a fire sale. They still have a good hand to play, and are further setting themselves up as the victim going into the trial if reports of these latest DOS attacks are true.

10 posted on 08/26/2003 7:30:34 PM PDT by Golden Eagle
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To: jammer
Placing source code on a web site for download is inadvertent?

Yes, what he's saying is if they didn't explicitly waive copyright, and they didn't since they had no idea IBM/SGI had planted their code, they aren't liable. Makes perfect sense to me.

11 posted on 08/26/2003 7:31:57 PM PDT by Golden Eagle
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To: ikka
Why does the judge not call them up and tell them to cool it?

One would have to guess he feels they are within their rights. As high a profile as this case is, along with IBM's recent counter suit, chances are he is aware of exactly what is going on.

12 posted on 08/26/2003 7:33:40 PM PDT by Golden Eagle
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To: Golden Eagle
I've been studying and writing about what is called the "poison pill" provision of the GPL last night for my article and have come to the conclusion that it is mainly for socialist code stealing through GPL "poison pill" landmine Linux programming libraries. I will agree with Mr. McBride and Mr. Songag on one thing. This "license" certainly should be revoked in this country. It sure sounds to me like they are trying to use this sneaky "poison pill"
provision against SCO as well.
13 posted on 08/26/2003 7:38:47 PM PDT by Coral Snake (Biting commies, crooks, traitors, islamofascists and any other type of Anti American)
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To: Golden Eagle
2 more cents
GE, I have to question that motive. I am all for IP rights--I make my living on a proprietary piece of software (Windows based). I only know one Unix command "MGet", whatever the heck that is. I HAVE heard of Perl and Python.

But I don't believe that the primary motive of "many others", including you, is to hope that SCO gets its property rights fairly assigned. Furthermore, I don't believe that SCO has any case.

I think that the motivation of most people on SCO's side, considering the total mishandling of a court case (if they were serious and not dice-rolling) is to see chaos in the Linux community.

I think that if SCO were not desperate for a buy-out or playing legal roulette with our--your word here--"communist" legal system, that they would have either kept their damned mouths shut, as attorneys tell people to do, or they would be offering examples that are not easily skewered.

I believe that if Microsoft were being sued for IP violations--oops, they have been and lost--those very people on SCO's side would be, and have been, on Microsoft's side.

That's worth what you paid for it. And I am not a Communist, Socialist, or any other leftist, and I am not a thug or thief.

14 posted on 08/26/2003 7:41:51 PM PDT by jammer
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To: Coral Snake
Yes, you will notice the #1 defense of the Linux crowd is that SCO lost copyright to their code when they released a version of Linux even though SCO likely had no idea their code was in there. In this one example, it appears the code was listed as "copyright SGI", so how in the world was SCO supposed to ID this as theirs?

But to your point, according to the Linux crowd when this happened it somehow stole the code from them. This repeated argument seemingly displays their apparent motives above all else.
15 posted on 08/26/2003 7:45:06 PM PDT by Golden Eagle
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To: Golden Eagle
But Sontag said the BPF routines were not intended to be an example of stolen code, but rather a demonstration of how SCO was able to detect "obfuscated" code, or code that had been altered slightly to disguise its origins. The slide displaying the code should have been written differently to reflect that intention, he said.

Riiiiight Chris. That's why the slide was titled "Stolen Code".

16 posted on 08/26/2003 7:45:14 PM PDT by TechJunkYard (this post not reviewed by IBM Legal Dept.)
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To: Golden Eagle; Coral Snake
That "communist, etc." was for Coral Snake. Sorry. Also, I'm not a traitor, crook, or any other thing in the tag line.
17 posted on 08/26/2003 7:45:46 PM PDT by jammer
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To: jammer
jammer - you are correct that is *MY* motive, as I freely indicate is that Linux is a foreign controlled peice of software that is detrimental to the overall US for-profit software industry. I also feel based on evidence I have seen that a large part of their "community" are internet pirates and hackers capable of launching denial of service attacks and generally aren't the kind of movements we should be supporting.

However there are many others (like yourself in many ways) that are only concerned about IP property rights, and who understand code contribution to a project that is simply playing catch-up is unfortunately likely to infringe by it's very nature. They are reinventing the wheel in many aspects, and should drop the holier than thou attitude and realize that infringement is probable when building clones of long standing systems.
18 posted on 08/26/2003 7:55:09 PM PDT by Golden Eagle
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To: jammer
No problem, you can check my reply anyway.
19 posted on 08/26/2003 7:55:42 PM PDT by Golden Eagle
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To: Golden Eagle
Good, well-reasoned points.
20 posted on 08/26/2003 7:59:08 PM PDT by jammer
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