Where can I find FreeBSD-related SCO lawsuit updates?
Kris Kennaway
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On Wed, Jul 09, 2003 at 01:50:55PM +0100, Jonathon McKitrick wrote:
>=20
> Besides Grog's page, where is the best place to get concise updates on wh=
at
> is going on in the SCO lawsuit, and how (if at all) it affects the BSDs?
>=20
> NOTE: Please CC me, as I am not currently subscribed. Thanks.
"Nope, it still doesn't affect the BSDs"
Print this message out and refer to it as often as you need to.
Kris
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Bill Moran
> On Wed, Jul 09, 2003 at 07:33:15PM -0700, Kris Kennaway wrote:
> : "Nope, it still doesn't affect the BSDs"
> :
> : Print this message out and refer to it as often as you need to.
>
>
> The ripple effect, however, i.e. IP concerns over open source, affect all
> OSS, right?
No, although IP concerns affect all interested media sources. When it comes
down to actual legal action, Stallman is right: there is not such thing as IP.
"Intellectual Property" is a stupid term coined to include many types of
legal protections (copyright, trademarks, etc) each of which have different
rules and different laws. The question of who owns what was _settled_ with
the BSDs and no amount of obfuscation by the media or the people who want to
make money out of suing people (or the people allegedly behind those people
who want to hurt the competition by suing) will change the ruling of a
previous lawsuit.
The reality (if you actually look at the facts) is that the most likely thing
to happen is that SCO will not get anywhere with their lawsuit, thus the
likelyhood that they'll even get around to challenging a previous ruling is
almost non-existant. So your "ripple effect" is more likely to help the BSDs
(by validating their previous court victories) than hurt them.
<disclaimer>
I am not a lawyer. If you bet money or risk your job based on information
contained in this email, that's your business and I can't be responsible for
the outcome.
</disclaimer>
--
Bill Moran
Potential Technologies
http://www.potentialtech.com
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Jonathon McKitrick
------------8<------------------
: rules and different laws. The question of who owns what was _settled_ with
: the BSDs and no amount of obfuscation by the media or the people who want to
: make money out of suing people (or the people allegedly behind those people
: who want to hurt the competition by suing) will change the ruling of a
: previous lawsuit.
What about additions to the source SINCE then?
: The reality (if you actually look at the facts) is that the most likely
: thing
: to happen is that SCO will not get anywhere with their lawsuit, thus the
: likelyhood that they'll even get around to challenging a previous ruling is
: almost non-existant. So your "ripple effect" is more likely to help the
: BSDs
: (by validating their previous court victories) than hurt them.
I agree. If there is nothing SINCE then that could cause a problem, as Wes
said in his last column, the BSDs can step up to the plate as a possibly
superior option/choice.
jcm
--
If you cannot do something well, learn to enjoy doing it poorly.
Bill Moran
> On Thu, Jul 10, 2003 at 09:31:25AM -0400, Bill Moran wrote:
> ------------8<------------------
> : rules and different laws. The question of who owns what was _settled_ with
> : the BSDs and no amount of obfuscation by the media or the people who want to
> : make money out of suing people (or the people allegedly behind those people
> : who want to hurt the competition by suing) will change the ruling of a
> : previous lawsuit.
> ------------8<------------------
>
> What about additions to the source SINCE then?
>
> : The reality (if you actually look at the facts) is that the most likely
> : thing
> : to happen is that SCO will not get anywhere with their lawsuit, thus the
> : likelyhood that they'll even get around to challenging a previous ruling is
> : almost non-existant. So your "ripple effect" is more likely to help the
> : BSDs
> : (by validating their previous court victories) than hurt them.
>
> I agree. If there is nothing SINCE then that could cause a problem, as Wes
> said in his last column, the BSDs can step up to the plate as a possibly
> superior option/choice.
I don't think so. Some of the things the BSD lawsuit established are a) in
circumstances where code has been stolen, you can't stop the entire project,
you just remove the offending code and b) once someone has been contributing
to a project like BSD (or Linux) they really have no basis for demanding
financial damages.
I think that if SCO _wins_ the lawsuit, it will help the free software cause,
since the Linux project will be required to remove a few bits of code to
satisfy SCO's demands (thus proving that a free software project can easily
survive lawsuits such as this). That will be the end of it. Remember that
US law is based on precedents, and BSD has a precident set already.
I firmly believe, also, that the Linux folks should take a hint from the
successful actions of UC Berkely and counter-sue that SCO has stolen GPLed
Linux technology for thier softwares. Demand that a non-biased third party
be given leave to review SCO's source code to prove that there's no GPLed
code in it. I think that would put SCO in a tight position, just like it
worked for the BSD's years ago.
--
Bill Moran
Potential Technologies
http://www.potentialtech.com
_______________________________________________
mjeays2551
>
> I firmly believe, also, that the Linux folks should take a hint from the
> successful actions of UC Berkely and counter-sue that SCO has stolen
> GPLed
> Linux technology for thier softwares. Demand that a non-biased third
> party
> be given leave to review SCO's source code to prove that there's no GPLed
> code in it. I think that would put SCO in a tight position, just like it
> worked for the BSD's years ago.
>
That's a brilliant idea, that I haven't seen so far in all the articles
I have
read on this wretched subject. I hope someone takes it up.
My belief is that SCO has stamped firmly on the dragon's tail, and
is waiting around to see what it will do. To stretch the analogy further
(maybe too far), upping the claim to $3 billion was like giving the
dragon a further kick, about where the tail joins the body. We are all
waiting for the response with anticipation and delight.
Mike Jeays
Terry Lambert
> I don't think so. Some of the things the BSD lawsuit established are a) in
> circumstances where code has been stolen, you can't stop the entire project,
> you just remove the offending code
Actually, this is not true. You can ask Jordan, Nate, Chris D.
and other who got the "Cease and Desist" letter. Originally,
only BSDI has the ability to continue to distribute binaries
(but not sources) until they could base their code on the
4.4Lite release.
The reason that FreeBSD and NetBSD got the same deal on shipping
code until 4.4Lite came out from CSRG was that I and a couple
other of the senior engineers at Novell USG camped out in Mike
DeFazio's office (then V.P. of Novell USG, and a guy who came to
Novell with the USL acquisition) and squawked like chickens for
all we were worth. We also got Art Sabsovitch and Dennis Ritchie
involved; Art was Novell USG (USL)'s Chief Scientist at the time,
and Dennis Ritchie was... Dennis Ritchie. Not a USL employee, he
was still on good terms with the USL folks. 8-). We even had
some die-hard Linux people involved ("You're next!") who were
then Novell employees, people like Jim Freeman.
We pointed out that FreeBSD had moved copies of the archives off
shore into non-Berne signatory countries (which they had, and
which a number of us had been very insistent on recommending as
soon as the BSDI suit became public -- well before UCB was dragged
into the fray, and a while before the Novell acquisition of USL --
and with it the suit). With no Copyright treaties with the U.S.,
and being prepared to distribute from there, these people, at least,
could act with impunity (this is the main reason why I think that
Linux doesn't need to worry, too). The code had been saved.
This was the same strategy later used to get around U.S. ITAR
restrictions, though in that case, all the code came from outside
the U.S. at the time. I think that Mark Murray, as much as we
sometimes piss each other off (Hi, Mark!) deserves much of the
unsung credit for getting the U.S. to relax it's crypto export
restrictions, whose only effect was to depress creation of U.S.
cryptographers and encourage their creation in non-treaty
countries -- a "double whammy".
Those of us who had been long time Novell employees also personally
lobbied Ray Noorda, using such arguments as "It will be annoying to
the competitor from Redmond", and "It's a public relations coup,
waiting to be grasped". 8-). I think that was a factor in Ray
later ordering the suit dropped, and in Novell's current coming out
against it: it's part of their culture and history now.
In any case, there wasn't any such legal precedent established
Novell permitting the distribution of FreeBSD and NetBSD.
-- Terry
Bill Moran
> Bill Moran wrote:
> >
>
>> I think that if SCO _wins_ the lawsuit, it will help the free software
>> cause,
>> since the Linux project will be required to remove a few bits of code to
>> satisfy SCO's demands (thus proving that a free software project can
>> easily
>> survive lawsuits such as this). That will be the end of it. Remember
>> that
>> US law is based on precedents, and BSD has a precident set already.
>
> all. The opinion on the various motions can be precedent, but as it
> came from a trial court, it is not binding on anyone, including other
> trial courts.
Hmmm ... good point. For some reason I hadn't seen that perfectly obvious
point.
--
Bill Moran
Potential Technologies
http://www.potentialtech.com
_______________________________________________
Bill Moran
> Bill Moran wrote:
>
>>circumstances where code has been stolen, you can't stop the entire project,
>>you just remove the offending code
>
> Actually, this is not true. You can ask Jordan, Nate, Chris D.
> and other who got the "Cease and Desist" letter. Originally,
> only BSDI has the ability to continue to distribute binaries
> (but not sources) until they could base their code on the
> 4.4Lite release.
>
> The reason that FreeBSD and NetBSD got the same deal on shipping
> code until 4.4Lite came out from CSRG was that I and a couple
> other of the senior engineers at Novell USG camped out in Mike
> DeFazio's office (then V.P. of Novell USG, and a guy who came to
> Novell with the USL acquisition) and squawked like chickens for
> all we were worth. We also got Art Sabsovitch and Dennis Ritchie
> involved; Art was Novell USG (USL)'s Chief Scientist at the time,
> and Dennis Ritchie was... Dennis Ritchie. Not a USL employee, he
> was still on good terms with the USL folks. 8-). We even had
> some die-hard Linux people involved ("You're next!") who were
> then Novell employees, people like Jim Freeman.
Wow. It's amazing the things that go on that you don't really hear
about unless you're directly involved.
I'm still having trouble understanding the motive behind all this.
Obviously, SCO can't seriously believe they can gain anything from
this lawsuit ... Are they nuts and actually think they can win? Is
there some other motive that no one has yet to discern? Even if
the "Microsoft Conspiracy" theories are true, what does MS expect
to gain from such a silly attack, and why would SCO agree to be
a patsy?
The other thing that irritates me is the fact that US copyright law,
which is supposed to protect development and encourage it, seems to
be used to hurt it more often than not.
Alex Trull
> I'm still having trouble understanding the motive behind all this.
> Obviously, SCO can't seriously believe they can gain anything from
> this lawsuit ... Are they nuts and actually think they can win? Is
> there some other motive that no one has yet to discern? Even if
> the "Microsoft Conspiracy" theories are true, what does MS expect
> to gain from such a silly attack, and why would SCO agree to be
> a patsy?
>
> The other thing that irritates me is the fact that US copyright law,
> which is supposed to protect development and encourage it, seems to
> be used to hurt it more often than not.
>
> --
> Bill Moran
> Potential Technologies
> http://www.potentialtech.com
Rumour has it that SCO produce nothing of value and just want to be
bought by IBM.
As it happens, this would make SCO's current shareholders' pockets
rather well lined. I doubt IBM would have any cause to want to own
SCO beyond making the problem go away - so commence the litigation!
I'm quite relaxed and looking forward to seeing the outcome.
(From a safe distance)
Cheers,
Alex Trull
Systems and Network Administrator - Hybyte
https://mail.uk.hybyte.net/~atrull/pgppub.key 0x1DCBCFB7
Scott M. Likens
The simple truth is, SCO doesn't really care if they win or loose. They
are seeking to impress the public, to make Linux sign the deal so they
can be a contender again.
The whole issue isn't black & white here, it's mixed in with old
Contracts, IP Laws, this that and well... The simple truth is they don't
want to goto court, they want Linux to cower like a kitten to the mighty
SCO because some bigwig in SCO has deemed he is going to start with
Linux and see where he can go from there.
Their intentions are to get a big piece of the pie, and nothing more.
If he can scare the mighty linux into anything really, he's got suddenly
a large piece of the pie.
What's really bad about this, is this was over contracts that were
signed nearly (over 20years i believe) and what's even more stupid about
this is that they haven't been enforced in ages. So it makes their IP
suit even harder. Wether IBM or SCO or SGI or AT&T still has the IP
rights is not the point.
SCO has the bucks right now to make the press look and give them tons of
attention. and that's all SCO wants is the press.
Terry Lambert
> I'm still having trouble understanding the motive behind all this.
Money.
> Obviously, SCO can't seriously believe they can gain anything from
> this lawsuit ... Are they nuts and actually think they can win? Is
> there some other motive that no one has yet to discern? Even if
> the "Microsoft Conspiracy" theories are true, what does MS expect
> to gain from such a silly attack, and why would SCO agree to be
> a patsy?
All tort (contract) law is really about risk analysis. It's very
much like the scene at the start of "The Fight Club", when Brad
Pitt is telling the apalled woman about how the automobile industry
decides on whether or not to issue a recall.
At this point, SCO's job is to make it more expensive to actually
go to court than to pay them off.
It is said that George Bernard Shaw once asked a socialite:
=93Would you sleep with me for a million pounds?=94
Certainly, she replied with a smile.
=93Would you sleep with me for ten pounds?=94 Shaw then asked.
=93Certainly not!=94 she replied indignantly. =93What do you think
I am?=94
=93We=92ve already established that,=94 Shaw said. =93Now we=92re just
haggling over price.=94 =
I haven't decided yet, whether IBM will settele, on the basis of the
short term cost, or give no ground at all, on the basis that to do
so would invite extortionary lawsuits from other companies (IBM is
in a lot of businesses, which makes them a very big target). The
idea that they would "stand on principle" never entered my mind. It
probably helps to remember that their current CEO, Sam Palmisano,
was Corporate Counsel for IBM for years before he became CEO, so it
is more than likely that SCO really picked the wrong company to go
after. There is also the faint possiblity that this is really just
a marketing ploy, cooked up between the both of them.
> The other thing that irritates me is the fact that US copyright law,
> which is supposed to protect development and encourage it, seems to
> be used to hurt it more often than not.
This is not at all about Copyright law; it's about contracts. It's
true that the Copyright law gave then the leverage needed to extract
the license contracts in the first place, but it's the license
contracts which are at issue.
The legal system in any countery with a strong government will be
used the same way by people who "play the system" to get what they
want: you can't come up with a general rule that will cover every
contingency (or you can, but we call that "Religion").
-- Terry
Greg 'groggy' Lehey
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On Friday, 11 July 2003 at 9:03:55 -0400, Bill Moran wrote:
> Terry Lambert wrote:
>>
>> In any case, there wasn't any such legal precedent established
>> Novell permitting the distribution of FreeBSD and NetBSD.
>
> I'm still having trouble understanding the motive behind all this.
> Obviously, SCO can't seriously believe they can gain anything from
> this lawsuit ... Are they nuts and actually think they can win? Is
> there some other motive that no one has yet to discern? Even if
> the "Microsoft Conspiracy" theories are true, what does MS expect
> to gain from such a silly attack, and why would SCO agree to be
> a patsy?
My current best guess is that they're hoping to get royalties from
Linux. That's why they don't want to identify the code; they want it
to be in there. They've said a number of things that point to this
conclusion. See http://www.lemis.com/grog/SCO/sontag.html:
"GPL has the same derivative rights concept [as UNIX]," according
to Sontag: "Once contributed, code cannot be removed."
Greg
--
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Dag-Erling Smorgrav
> My current best guess is that they're hoping to get royalties from
> Linux.
I'm sure Linus Torvalds will be quite happy to turn over 10% of his
license revenues to SCO :)
DES
--
Dag-Erling Smørgrav - d...@des.no
Greg 'groggy' Lehey
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On Sunday, 13 July 2003 at 10:37:12 +0200, Dag-Erling Smorgrav wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 13, 2003 at 03:08:37PM +0930, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:
>> My current best guess is that they're hoping to get royalties from
>> Linux.
>
> I'm sure Linus Torvalds will be quite happy to turn over 10% of his
> license revenues to SCO :)
I'm sure that hope and reality are two different things. I've never
seen a better example than this nonsense.
Greg
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Gary W. Swearingen
> My current best guess is that they're hoping to get royalties from
> Linux. That's why they don't want to identify the code; they want it
> to be in there. They've said a number of things that point to this
> conclusion. See http://www.lemis.com/grog/SCO/sontag.html:
>
> "GPL has the same derivative rights concept [as UNIX]," according
> to Sontag: "Once contributed, code cannot be removed."
You're conclusion might be true, but I don't see how it follows from
your quote there. He surely can't think that contributed code cannot
be removed from other code and it's wrong to assume that reading when
there is a more reasonable one available. He probably just meant that
(legally) contributed (and GPL'd) Unix code cannot be "removed" from
the use of the public under the perpetual license terms. (Even if the
"as UNIX" editorial insertion is accurate, he'd just be saying that
was true of the AT&T license too.) It seems that he was just
acknowledging that legally GPL'd AT&T code could not be removed from
public use by SCO, except that it wasn't (he claimed) legally GPL'd.
Taken out of context, it hints at a worse problem which has received
little discussion, but which SCO might be making an issue of. (I
haven't been paying close enough attention to say.) Specifically,
that while some piece of code (say, a Linux or FreeBSD kernel) no
longer contains ANY code which comes from some bad source (eg,
AT&T/SCO), it might still qualify as a derivative, when everyone knows
that that's what it is in a laymen's understanding of "derivative".
And copyright law gives the owner of the source rights in derivatives.
So what are the chances that a court (or worried targets of a lawsuit)
would agree that some code can be a derivative of some source without
containing any remains of that source? I think that the example of
books and movies is educational. I believe that one could violate the
copyrights (not just trademarks) of, say Star Trek's owners, by
filming a new "Space Track" movie with enough similarities to the real
thing but without a bit of the actual real thing (sound, words,
images, scene design, etc.). Courts tend to side with those who they
think most responsible for the existance of the maybe-derivative, in
our case, SCO (now owning the interests of AT&T). (But they might
instead consider it overreaching for a horse long out of the barn.)
Jonathon McKitrick
: I think that if SCO _wins_ the lawsuit, it will help the free software
: cause,
I hope so. I'm just glad we are still getting a lot of committers these
days, the ports tree is growing, and we get good publicity like the recent
5.x reviews and the Netcraft survey.
I'm looking forward to 5.x becoming stable so I can try it out.
jcm
--
If you cannot do something well, learn to enjoy doing it poorly.
Nicholas Brawn
should stick with 4.8-STABLE for the time being due to the -CURRENT nature
of 5.x
At 02:30 AM 7/15/2003, Jeremy C. Reed wrote:
> > I'm looking forward to 5.x becoming stable so I can try it out.
>
>What parts of 5.x are unstable for you?
>
>(Or what have you heard is unstable that effects you?)
>
> Jeremy C. Reed
> http://bsd.reedmedia.net/