SCO goes after BSD?
Ceri Davies
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On Tue, Nov 18, 2003 at 10:19:07PM +0100, Arjan van Leeuwen wrote:
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> From http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=3D03/11/18/1742216 :
>=20
> (about the teleconference today)
> I, for one, don't care how SCO pays its counsel. But I do care about=20
> something new that came out of the teleconference.=20
>=20
> SCO is going to attack the 1994 AT&T/BSD settlement. That's a very intere=
sting=20
> item that the few favored analysts (and only a select few journalists) wh=
o=20
> were allowed to ask questions failed to pick up on. Here's our take on wh=
y=20
> SCO is embarking on this new course of action:
>=20
> (read the article for more info)
>=20
> What to think of this?
It's difficult to say when the only quote on the page is "broad and
deep". I would rather see exactly what SCO said regarding the 1994
settlement before making my mind up, but my gut reaction is that someone
has been at the crack pipe again.
Ceri
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Arjan van Leeuwen
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On Tuesday 18 November 2003 23:24, Michal Pasternak wrote:
> Arjan van Leeuwen [Tue, Nov 18, 2003 at 10:19:07PM +0100]:
> > What to think of this?
>
> Depends.
>
> Linux is (over)hyped these days. Everyone is talking about Linux, big
> corporations want to use and develop it (Sun, IBM). SCO also surfs on the
> Linux wave to merely punch up it's stock value. BSD still seems to be less
> recognized by technical laymen (eg. marketing people).
>
> So, who would be attacked by SCO in case they decide to run against BSD
> systems? Which one of big-bucks-worldwide-famous corporations would it be?
>
> No hype, no media, no big corporation to attack - no profit for them.
The article seems to imply that by attacking the AT&T/BSDi settlement, SCO=
=20
would have more power over Linux source code (as some linux source code als=
o=20
comes from BSD). That is their angle. Also, they could attack Apple (?).
>
> If profit is all they want, they will not attack BSD systems. Why should
> they?
>
> But.
>
> What if they want something else - eg. what if they are only a tool,
> financed by some other corporation, which has to spread FUD and eventually
> make problems for whole opensource software?
>
> It would make sense only if the target is GNU: both Linux and X11-desktop
> GNU-licensed software, which is already a potential threat to some other,
> closed-source, commercial-desktop-producing company. It would be quite
> nonsense to try to destroy software project like BSD - you can easily
> incorporate all the code into your own software (the license allows that!)
>
> So, in my opinion, in both cases BSDs will be left untouched.
Arjan
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.VWV.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Michal Pasternak" <mic...@pasternak.w.lub.pl>
To: "Arjan van Leeuwen" <avle...@piwebs.com>
Cc: <advo...@freebsd.org>
Sent: Tuesday, November 18, 2003 23:24
Subject: Re: SCO goes after BSD?
> So, who would be attacked by SCO in case they decide to run against BSD
> systems? Which one of big-bucks-worldwide-famous corporations would it be?
>
> No hype, no media, no big corporation to attack - no profit for them.
>
> If profit is all they want, they will not attack BSD systems. Why should
they?
Moreover, what's the real counterpart to attack?
It's a kind of terrorism, they especially want to make disappear open-source
from the companies' advertising. They have already obtained this, stopping
the IBM's campaigns about Linux. This has been otherwise useful to stop the
overrating of Linux, whilst as for FreeBSD it will give no effect at all.
.VWV.
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Greg 'groggy' Lehey
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On Wednesday, 19 November 2003 at 0:31:16 +0100, Arjan van Leeuwen wrote:
> On Tuesday 18 November 2003 23:24, Michal Pasternak wrote:
>> So, who would be attacked by SCO in case they decide to run against BSD
>> systems? Which one of big-bucks-worldwide-famous corporations would it b=
e?
>>
>> No hype, no media, no big corporation to attack - no profit for them.
>
> The article seems to imply that by attacking the AT&T/BSDi settlement, SCO
> would have more power over Linux source code (as some linux source code a=
lso
> comes from BSD). That is their angle. Also, they could attack Apple (?).
It would be nice if you'd quote the text which you find suspicious.
What I see is:
(link) Newsletter Sign Up
Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.=20
>> If profit is all they want, they will not attack BSD systems. Why should
>> they?
>>
>> But.
>>
>> What if they want something else - eg. what if they are only a tool,
>> financed by some other corporation, which has to spread FUD and eventual=
ly
>> make problems for whole opensource software?
Yes, this seems reasonable. They don't need to attach BSD in
court--indeed, they'd have difficulty finding somebody to serve the
writ to. Also, less than two years ago they explicitly went beyond
the terms of the settlement and released all the disputed code under a
BSD-like licence. See http://www.lemis.com/grog/UNIX/ for more
details.
So why do this? I'm currently guessing that SCO needs a steady stream
of press announcements to maintain their stock price. My personal bet
is that IBM is going to drag out the case forever, like they've done
before. SCO can't afford that; they'll self-destruct.
Greg
--
See complete headers for address and phone numbers.
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Alex de Kruijff
>
> It's a kind of terrorism
This has nothing to do with terrorism. They lack the politic motive and
there only means to figth are the courts.
--
Alex
Articles based on solutions that I use:
http://www.kruijff.org/alex/index.php?dir=docs/FreeBSD/
Terry Lambert
> On 18-Nov-2003 Michal Pasternak wrote:
> > Arjan van Leeuwen [Tue, Nov 18, 2003 at 10:19:07PM +0100]:
> >> What to think of this?
> >
>
> Apple.
Unlikely.
A more likely target would be Cisco Systems or practically any
company using TCP/IP, given SCO's theory of what constitutes a
derivative work.
For the most part, however, the 1994 settlement agreement is
unassailable from a lot of different perspectives:
1) It's a settlement agreement which both parties agreed
to be legally binding. An attempt to overturn it would
open them to a Contempt of Court charge, at a minimum.
2) USL was in violation of UCB Copyright on many printed
materials; reopening this would make SCO subject to
the counterclaim of copyright infringement. If they
lost, they would b liable for collecting every scrap of
paper on which the material or derivative works have
been printed. How many Ultrix manuals did DEC print?
3) Much of the code in SVR4.x was imported from the Net/2
sources out of Berkeley. Almost all of the ntworking.
They will have a hard time proving provenance of their
code.
4) Part of the counterclaim's cause of action was Copyright
and license violation by USL, by virtue of removal of the
Copyright and license statements in the header files.
5) Much of the code that makes up the SVR4 networking code
was developed under contract to DARPA. Despite the recent
slapping of a GPL on things developed with public funds,
things developed with public funds are technically requied
to be in the public domain (i.e. slapping a license on top
of it before releasing it is not allowed).
6) One of the contributing factors to the settlement was the
judge effectively telling USL "I think you have a very
weak case, and will probably rule against you".
7) SCO is an assign of the rights in the UNIX source code, and
those rights were specifically limited by the settlement
agreement. SCO is therefore a priori bound by that agreement.
8) USL's primary legal theory at the time was "trade secret
disclosure"; however, trade secret law states that no matter
how a secret is disclosed, once it is disclosed, it is no
longer a secret. This is generally useful in this case,
since SCO can only go after the disclosing party for damages,
and can not limit further propagation of the trade secret as
if it were still secret (this is what they attempted to do);
one of the judge's arguments was that they were attempting
to obtain the moral quivalent of patent protection without
disclosure, and that this attempt was unconstituional.
9) The FreeBSD and NetBSD projects, at least, have auditable
records of every line of code added since the 4.4 BSD-Lite
code was imported into the tree. For them to come after
FreeBSD, as an example, they would need to overturn the
settlement agrement, refile and win the case against UCB,
and then prove that their trade secrets are still secret
after having been published for over a decade and a half.
10) The UCB license was the old Western Electric license, which
did not have a non-disclosure clause in its original form;
hence the Lyon's book.
11) When UNIX was invented and first published, USL was a part
of AT&T, and AT&T was specifically enjoined from making a
profit of any kind off of software -- including a paper
profit in the form of the accumulation of intellectual
property -- as a result of the 1956 consent decree, under
which they were legally acknowledged to be a monopoloy, and
thereafter had to operate as a regulated monopoly. It's
not clear that their sale of USL would permit USL to later
claim intellectual property from conversion of illegally
accumulated assets.
12) If SCO's theory of derivation is correct, then SVR4 is a
derivative work of BSD UNIX and publically funded work.
During the original case, a number of well known people offered to
testify a witnesses on behalf of UCB; among these were Dennis Ritchie
and Ken Thompson, as well as other prominent computer scientists with
an involvement in UNIX since its inception.
Another interesting thing that happened was that MIT offered to fund
the defense, and offered their patent portfolio as ammunition (I
still get annoyed at UCB turning down this offer).
FWIW, I'm personally willing to testify as an expert witness as a
former Novell/USG employee (Novell/USG was the UNIX Systems Group
that was formed after the Novell acquisition of USL). I personally
camped out in Mike DeFazio's (then Novell VP over Novell/USG, and
the man who eventally dropped the lawsuit) office with a number of
other Novell/USG employees to get 386BSD, FreeBSD, and NetBSD the
same deal that USL was giving BSDI. Originally they sent a cease
and desist order to everyone they could find, Jordan included, and
there was no grace period for continuing to ship code (like BSDI
was being allowed) until the 4.4-Lite code was made available. I'm
pretty sure Jim Freeman and others would be similarly inclined.
Finally, remember that civil cases are won or lost on the basis of
a preponderance of evidence. It is much easier for thousands of
angry engineers who know the code to produce such evidence than it
is for lawyers who don't to manufacture it. Going by number of
reams of paper alone, ther's no way SCO could win, if it came down
to it.
In summary, the legal case against any SCO claim against UCB or
claim on BSD code is very, very strong.
-- Terry
Arjan van Leeuwen
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There's more information on this at Enterprise Linux:
http://www.enterprise-linux-it.com/perl/story/22719.html
Seems like we will have to wait until at least 2004 to hear what SCO has to=
=20
say :).
=2D-Start relevant quotes--
Second, SCO has said it will broaden its copyright protection efforts to=20
include "copyrighted code included in the 1994 settlement between Unix=20
Systems Laboratories and Berkeley Software Design (BSD)." SCO has said it=20
does not expect to file any BSD-related lawsuits until the first half of=20
2004.
(...)
BSD Gets Involved=20
Enlarging the scope of its legal battle to include BSD, SCO says it now is=
=20
comparing code awarded in a 1994 settlement involving that company.=20
"As part of the settlement agreement that took place between BSD and AT&T=20
(NYSE: T) and Novell, there were certain files that had to have the=20
copyright attribution put back in," Stowell said.=20
"Copyright attribution has been stripped away from certain code, and we're=
=20
seeing that same situation taking place with Linux with those same exact BS=
D=20
files," he said. "Those files have gone back into Linux, and the copyright=
=20
attribution has been stripped away." Those BSD files must have their=20
copyright attribution restored, Stowell said.=20
Additionally, "there were Unix System V files within BSD that were not=20
supposed to be there, and those files had to be removed from BSD," he said.=
=20
"And we're claiming those files that were supposed to have been removed fro=
m=20
BSD have made their way into Linux."=20
"Some of the BSD code likely made its way into Linux," said Aberdeen Group=
=20
analyst Bill Claybrook, "and probably -- almost assuredly -- made its way=20
into [Unix] System V." However, he told NewsFactor, "You couldn't argue tha=
t=20
just because [BSD] files went into System V, it was derived code."
=2D-end quotes--
Arjan
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Devon H.O'Dell
What does this have to do with the advocacy of FreeBSD? This list has
been getting out of hand recently.
Devon
On Thursday, November 20, 2003, at 06:22 PM, Arjan van Leeuwen wrote:
> There's more information on this at Enterprise Linux:
>
> http://www.enterprise-linux-it.com/perl/story/22719.html
>
> Seems like we will have to wait until at least 2004 to hear what SCO
> has to
> say :).
>
> --Start relevant quotes--
> Second, SCO has said it will broaden its copyright protection efforts
> to
> include "copyrighted code included in the 1994 settlement between Unix
> Systems Laboratories and Berkeley Software Design (BSD)." SCO has said
> it
> does not expect to file any BSD-related lawsuits until the first half
> of
> 2004.
>
> (...)
>
> BSD Gets Involved
>
> Enlarging the scope of its legal battle to include BSD, SCO says it
> now is
> comparing code awarded in a 1994 settlement involving that company.
>
> "As part of the settlement agreement that took place between BSD and
> AT&T
> (NYSE: T) and Novell, there were certain files that had to have the
> copyright attribution put back in," Stowell said.
>
> "Copyright attribution has been stripped away from certain code, and
> we're
> seeing that same situation taking place with Linux with those same
> exact BSD
> files," he said. "Those files have gone back into Linux, and the
> copyright
> attribution has been stripped away." Those BSD files must have their
> copyright attribution restored, Stowell said.
>
> Additionally, "there were Unix System V files within BSD that were not
> supposed to be there, and those files had to be removed from BSD," he
> said.
> "And we're claiming those files that were supposed to have been
> removed from
> BSD have made their way into Linux."
>
> "Some of the BSD code likely made its way into Linux," said Aberdeen
> Group
> analyst Bill Claybrook, "and probably -- almost assuredly -- made its
> way
> into [Unix] System V." However, he told NewsFactor, "You couldn't
> argue that
> just because [BSD] files went into System V, it was derived code."
> --end quotes--
>
> Arjan
> <mime-attachment>
Michal Pasternak
> What does this have to do with the advocacy of FreeBSD?
Well, we are unable now to advocate FreeBSD via saying:
"SCO is after Linux, so please use BSD"
;)
--
Michal Pasternak :: http://pasternak.w.lub.pl
PS: and it would be really nice if you don't forget about cutting unneeded
quotes, please.
Linh Pham
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On 2003-11-20 18:24 +0100, "Devon H.O'Dell" <dod...@sitetronics.com> wrote:
# Who cares? SCO is full of shit.
#=20
# What does this have to do with the advocacy of FreeBSD? This list has=20
# been getting out of hand recently.
I agree that SCO is full of it and all of the talk about SCO and SCO's
press releases and quotes are getting out of hand... but remember that a
lot of BOFHs will hear that SCO may/will be going after BSD and will
shun it even more like the have with Linux.
Oh what do I know anyway...
--=20
Linh Pham question...@closedsrc.org
Webmaster and FreeBSD Geek http://closedsrc.org
Apprentice Manager Editor and Writer http://www.daemonnews.org
Courage: The things I do for love | And So Western Civilization Crumbles
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Stacy Olivas
> On Thu, 20 Nov 2003 18:35:15 +0100
> Michal Pasternak <mic...@pasternak.w.lub.pl> wrote:
>
> > Devon H. O'Dell [Thu, Nov 20, 2003 at 06:24:57PM +0100]:
> >
I think the point here is that, since there is a hint that SCO may try
to go after BSD, people who are promoting it's use are going to have to
work a little but harder now.
> > Well, we are unable now to advocate FreeBSD via saying:
> > "SCO is after Linux, so please use BSD"
> > ;)
> >
That is true. I'm sure someone has used that line to get people to use
BSD. But, now people who buy the SCO FUD will be skeptical of BSD like
they are of Linux.
-Stacy
Adam Turoff
> Seems like we will have to wait until at least 2004 to hear what SCO has to
> say :).
Seems like we will have to wait until at least 2004 to hear SCO's next
ploy to pump up its stock price and buttress its paper tigers.
If there were an angle to go after PalmOS, they'd do that too. Their
strategy is to go after Anyone but Microsoft and threaten lawsuits unless
and until their claims are found to be baseless and without merit.
They're just arbitraging the legal system. By the time the courts arrive
at *ANY* conclusion, months will have passed where SCO is able to write
licenses to companies trying to minimize their risk exposure.
Z.
Jeremy C. Reed
> Where on earth did you people find any proof to rumors of SCO going
> after _any_ of FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD projects?
http://www.windley.com/2003/11/18.html#a919 appears to be a notes from the
Tuesday event, cdXpo keynote Webcast of Darl McBride.
If I am reading it correctly, he answered these questions:
- Do you have claims against BSD or BSD derivative works?
- Will you do an analysis of BSD source tree and all derivative works?
How much time will that take?
It doesn't specifically mention any BSD projects by name.
If I have time I will listen to that keynote and write an article for
http://www.bsdnewsletter.com/
Jeremy C. Reed
http://bsd.reedmedia.net/