During the weekend I’ve been reading all the articles that spell the end for SCO. Although I don’t yet agree that it’s all over bar the shouting, the indications are that SCO’s banking investors are beginning to get a bit nervous. This is a sure sign of rough times ahead.

In the same thread of thought, it did occur that assuming the SCO action fails it probably spells the end of further lawsuits of similar nature and scale against the penguin.

It’s my belief that the eventual outcome will hold up the Open Source development model as a reasonable and ethical approach to development: a model which encourages creativity on the part of the devlopers and which can protect genuine copyright holders should a breach occur.

The simple fact that anyone can examine the code and that there is a tangible audit trail for every line of code lends massive credence to the movement.

The community was able to respond with incredible speed to the few public code snippets which SCO claimed infringed. Within a day or so the complete history of all the code was uncovered, and SCO were shown to have bungled it.

This and the eventual outcome will dissuade many would-be gold-diggers with perhaps less to lose than SCO.

Let’s not forget that SCO was effectivly on the rocks: with computer hardware costs dropping all the time, no-one was interested in their expensive flavour of Unix. It was already only a matter of time before their customer base, Sun, IBM, SGI and HP would stop using Unixware altogether in favour of Linux.

Whatever the final outcome, it’s certain that anyone else with a beef about open-source is going to have a rough time, both in the courts and out of them.

TurboTas 2003

On Thursday, there was much discussion on public forums when the SCO site went offline for 10 hours or so. Although SCO immediately claimed foul play an analysis of their statements and the attack/availability profile didn’t stack up.

In the end it was generally accepted that they probably did it themselves, possibly a misconfiguration or similar failure.

As of around midday Saturday, SCO has gone again. You can checkout the availability charts at Netcraft.

Part of the problem here is that SCO have made themselves very very unpopular with a very large number of people. It is distinctly possible that some amongst us are budding cyber-terrorists.

It does not take a genius to see that any attacks on SCO like this will result in bad press for the community. In the short term, perhaps it feels good, but that’s bound not to last, particularly when your local law enforcers come knocking.

Don’t do it: Do not stoop to the same low and dirty tactics that SCO and their lawyers are using.

Most likely is that the community was correct about Thursday’s outage and this one either planned downtime, a bug, or perhaps plain dumbness on behalf of an admin somewhere.

BTW, check out those Netcraft charts carefully, particularly the OS that the SCO website runs….

Yet another article found at Groklaw. It transpires that Linus, who is famed for his dislike of all things legal, has started digging away in US law. Guess what, he’s turned up something important already.

Fundamentally, the article talks about how copyright law expressly includes ‘the expectation of receipt’ of anything of value, and expressly mentions ‘receipt of other copyrighted works’ as such a thing of value. And that’s the _definition_ of ‘financial gain’ as far as copyright law is concerned.

I think this means that just by receiving Linux, there is a transfer of value. This makes sense as Linux is after all “free” as in speech rather than “free” as in beer.

This tends to make SCO’s attacks at the GPL look weaker, particularly as they make wild claims like it’s un-American or against financial gain.

I’m not gloating, but to me it all seems bad news for SCO at the moment. I am really glad though!

Groklaw has published an interesting article regarding the authorised contributions of SCO employee Tigran Aivazian to the Linux kernel.The article specifically discusses the contributions of Tigran Aivazian. Tigran has contributed much code and discussion. The big blow for SCO is that his work was done with the blessing of SCO.

Worse than that for SCO: as Tigran’s interest is in SMP, his contributions are specifically related to getting Linux up to enterprise grade: you will recall that getting Linux up to enterprise grade is the specific allegation made against IBM By SCO.

Other recent articles by Groklaw have detailed similar contributions (all authorised by relevant SCO directors) from a number of other SCO/Caldera developers.

It’s another body blow to SCO who were forced to comply with IBM’s motion to compel discovery earlier in the month (meaning that they specifically must identify any and all alleged infrigements).

The big news from the hearing today is that Judge Wells told SCO that they have to go first. They have to show IBM what code they are alleging is infringing. All during discovery, SCO has been telling IBM they had to show all their code first, and then SCO would identify the alleged infringements. IBM kept telling SCO in reply that they had the burden, as plaintiffs, to at least tell IBM what code was involved. Today the judge told SCO that IBM was right.The big news from the hearing today is that Judge Wells told SCO that they have to go first. They have to show IBM what code they are alleging is infringing. All during discovery, SCO has been telling IBM they had to show all their code first, and then SCO would identify the alleged infringements. IBM kept telling SCO in reply that they had the burden, as plaintiffs, to at least tell IBM what code was involved. Today the judge told SCO that IBM was right. SCO has 30 days to comply. IBM doesn’t have to turn over anything until they do it. The judge’s order will be filed Wednesday, and SCO has a month to show the code. They can’t force IBM to go first. That dance is over.
Cody Hilton of Guru Labs , a Utah Linux training company, attended the hearing, and the second big piece of news is that David Boies didn’t show up. Darl’s brother represented SCO. His brother is Kevin McBride, the same person we noted who was involved in writing the Open Letter yesterday.

Why Boies didn’t show up is hard to understand. And then again, maybe not. Brent Hatch was there and so was Darl. There was no media presence at all. Or more accurately, there was a lot of press there in the building but they were all there to cover the Olympic bribery trial , which got thrown out by the judge. Nobody in the courthouse was interested in talking to Darl today, according to my eyewitnesses, to the extent that they noticed, and they were looking.

Cody talked to him, though, after it was over. He asked him why he was there, and Darl said he just wanted to get a feel for it. Cody asked him what he thought about how it went, with IBM winning both motions. Darl said he expected it. Cody rode in the elevator with IBM’s Marriott and asked him how he felt about how things went. Marriott said, “We’re happy. Everything went as we’d planned. We’re happy with the decision.”

Source “GROKLAW” more on this click
here

Yep, another security warning for IE6 and yet again it’s a nasty one.

It’s another active scripting exploit which potentially allows
anyone to do anything to your machine. The majority of these problems
care not a jot for proxies etc, and will work regardless of your access
method.

This is one of the growing list of problems which falls into the
cross-site scripting category of problem: allowing scripts from one
security domain (such as the Internet) to execute with the security
privileges of another domain (such as My Computer). I think you can see
the problem!

Presently Microsoft have no fix for the problem but are looking
into the issue. Industry experts suggest disabling Active scripting
(Not as easy as you woud think) or changing browser until a patch is
available.

The Groklaw site has published a transcript of one of the letters sent out to the 1500 companies originally contacted by SCO to persuade them to buy a license.

Guess what, one of them was IBM. In fact, as IBM have used this letter as part of their ammended counter claims against SCO, it’s actually formed part of the Court Record.

TurboTas has had a quick read of it and can attest to the fact that it is utter bollocks. Read on to get to my facimile or check out Groklaw.

Mr. Lucio A. Noto

Audit Committee Chair

International Business Machines
Corporation

New Orchard Road

Armonk, NY 10504

Dear Lucio:

SCO holds the rights to the UNIX operating system software originally licensed by AT&T to approximately 6,000 companies and institutions worldwide (the “UNIX Licenses”). The vast majority of UNIX software used in enterprise applications today is a derivative work of the software originally distributed under our UNIX Licenses. Like you, we have an obligation to our shareholders to protect our intellectual property and other valuable rights.

In recent years, a UNIX-like operating system has emerged and has been distributed in the enterprise marketplace by various software vendors. This system is called Linux. We believe that Linux is, in material part, an unauthorized derivative of UNIX.

As you may know, the development process for Linux has differed substantially from the development process for other enterprise operating systems. Commercial software is built by carefully selected and screened teams of programmers working to build proprietary, secure software. This process is designed to monitor the security and ownership of intellectual property rights associated with the code.

By contrast, much of Linux has been built from contributions by numerous unrelated and unknown software developers, each contributing a small section of code. There is no mechanism inherent in the Linux development process to assure that intellectual property rights, confidentiality or security are protected. The Linux process does not prevent inclusion of code that has been stolen outright; or developed by improper use of proprietary methods and concepts.

Many Linux contributors were originally UNIX developers who had access to UNIX source code distributed by AT&T and were subject to confidentiality agreements, including confidentiality of the methods and concepts involved in software design. We have evidence that portions of UNIX System V software code have been copied into Linux and that additional other portions of UNIX System V software code have been modified and copied into Linux, seemingly for the purposes of obfuscating their original source.

As a consequence of Linux’s unrestricted authoring process, it is not surprising that Linux distributors do not warrant the legal integrity of the Linux code provided to customers. Therefore legal liability that may arise from the Linux developments process may also rest with the end user.

We believe that Linux infringes on our UNIX intellectual property and other rights. We intend to aggressively protect and enforce these rights. Consistent with this effort, on March 7, we initiated legal action against IBM for alleged unfair competition and breach of contract with respect to our UNIX rights. This case is pending in Utah Federal District Court. As you are aware, this case has been widely reported and commented upon in the press. If you would like additional information, a copy of the complaint and response may be viewed at our web site at www.sco.com/scosource.

For the reasons explained above, we have also announced the suspension of our own Linux-related activities until the issues surrounding Linux intellectual property and the attendant risks are better understood and properly resolved.

Similar to analogous efforts underway in the music industry, we are prepared to take all actions necessary to stop the ongoing violation of our intellectual property or other rights.

SCO’s actions may prove unpopular with those who wish to advance or otherwise benefit from Linux as a free software system for use in enterprise applications. However, our property and contract rights are important and valuable: not only to us, but to every individual and every company whose livelihood depends on the continued viability of intellectual and intangible property rights in a digital age.

Yours truly,

THE SCO GROUP

By: Darl McBride

President and CEO

The US has been upset ever since the first Galileo announcements some years ago, but the moves to make sure it happens in a US controlled way took a worrying turn recently.

The Americans have come out with all sorts of nonsense in the last few months. Every excuse you can imagine has been peddled out to hamper the Euro GPS consortium.

Initially there were concerns that the new constellation would interfere with the existing US DOD run system. Next were claims that terrorist elements would use the system against the US (A silly claim given that this is true of any Positioning System).

Now, in order to move forwards, it looks like the Euro consortium may be ready to cave in and let the US Military cripple the system as and when the need arises.

In practical terms this probably means that the frequencies will be available to allow the DOD to jam the satellites or worse that a form of Selctive Availability would be introduced (probably on a geographic basis this time around).

Dunno what you think, but TurboTas can’t help thinking that these tactics will put the Euro program out of kilter just long enough for the upgrades planned for the DOD GPS constellation to be delivering improved accuracy, at which time the Americans will try to Six the Euro effort permanently.

It doesn’t really need saying that the Balance Of Power in Space has already changed considerably in the last twelve months: Since the grounding of the US Shuttles, the Space Station programme is completely reliant on other countries to get supplies up to the station.

Even now, after the official findings into the tradgedy have been published, it’s uncertain when the Shuttle fleet will return to active service. Until they do it seems strange that a non space-capable nation are calling the shots!

A very interesting thing happened the other day: A very crafty attempt was made to hack the Linux Kernel via the source code. On this occaision the attack was a kludge and developers and server administrators noticed the problem.

In fact, the hacker attacked a copy of the code held on a CVS server and maquerading as a developer made changes to kernel internals that would bump a process to the UID of root uder certain flag/signal conditions.

Had the hack found it’s way into the mainstream release, things could have been pretty bad. Modern Linux kernel development is robust enough to notice such blatant hack attempts though and these kind of problems are likely to remain rare.

Although there are Public CVS trees, a key point here is that they are read rather than write: the compromised code would never have been imported back into the main tree.

On this occaision we have the chaps at BitMover to thank, who alongside the kernel developers realised there was a problem and fixed it within 24 hours.

Worthy also of note: Linux people always tend to use the Best Tool For The Job. Not afraid to use closed source or commercial offerings, the Linux kernel is mainly maintained within BitKeeper, a non-free Source Code Repository system. Perhaps this say a lot about CVS!

For more nitty gritty, read the technical details at kerneltrap.org.

TurboTas

The Cell project which IBM, Sony and Toshiba began researching in 2001 is reaching a critical stage. Depending on which sources you read, chips could begin shipping as early as 2004.

TurboTas understands that the already eagerly awaited PlayStation3 could use the chip at it’s core.

‘Who Cares’ I hear you cry, ‘I’m not botherd about whats in a PS3!’. Think again, perhaps: It’s consistently the games console and games market in general that pushes the consumer technology to it’s limits. GFX cards, CPU’s, Memory, Networks. Modern games tax all these things to the outer limits.

Okay, to the meat: the Cell technology is based around very high speed cores with phenomenal speed broadband interconnects. The massivley parallel devices can be multi core on a die (Probably up to 64 for big server blades) and also use the broadband to talk off die.

Some numbers? Okay, a 64 core chip in something like a graphics server will be able to deliver 2 Teraflops. Ultimatley, this should lead to a single cabinet in the machine room being capable of 16 Teraflops. In context 2200 G5’s can cluster to deliver around 10 Teraflops. This is pretty fast the G5 itself is no slouch: IBM’s Power PC 970 chip is phenomenal.

TurboTas.

IBM Press Release
STI cell processor defined
Two years ago, Sony and Toshiba and IBM (STI) announced that they had teamed up to design an architecture for what is termed a system-on-a-chip (SoC) design. Code-named Cell, chips based on the architecture will be able to use ultra high-speed broadband connectivity to interoperate with one another as one complete system, similar to the way neural cells interoperate over the brain’s network.

Market demand for STI cell processor
IBM expects Cell to define an entirely new way of operating. Cell’s underlying architecture will enable it to manifest itself into many forms for many purposes, helping to open up a whole new set of applications. Incorporating this architecture, chips will be developed for everything from handheld devices to mainframe computers.

IBM strategy with STI cell processor
IBM has an unmatched history and capability of building custom chips and believes the one-size-fits-all model of the PC does not apply in the embedded space; embedded applications will require a flexible architecture, like Cell. Cell also brings together, for the first time, many leading-edge IBM chip technologies and circuit designs developed for its servers.
STI cell processor benefits
Cell will take advantage of IBM’s most advanced semiconductor development and process technologies. These cells will deliver high performance while consuming small quantities of power.

In a keynote speech Wednesday at the Enterprise Linux Forum, Red Hat CTO Michael Tiemann bluntly stated that today the company’s “focus is on the enterprise.”

Tiemann also said the software world “can no longer afford the folly of proprietary architecture.”

While Red Hat will now concentrate on building its enterprise distribution and associated applications, the company will support the now-independent Fedora Project as, essentially, a replacement for the old free-to-download user-level Red Hat.

Tiemann’s speech coincided with Red Hat’s rollout of its new, substantially upgraded and highly scalable Enterprise Linux version 3, which costs $179 per year for a single workstation, including basic support, and nearly $3000 per year per year for the top-end server version, including 24/7 phone support.

These are the same prices Red Hat charged for its previous versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and users who have already purchased RHEL 2.1 can upgrade to the new version at no charge.

Red Hat seems to be taking a cue from Sun’s support of OpenOffice.org as a 100% free project while selling essentially the same code, plus some add-ons, as StarOffice. OpenOffice.org experiments in ways that StarOffice does not. One example is an in-progress Mac OS X port. Successful experiments are available for later StarOffice inclusion.

Fedora, said Tiemann, will provide “the stimulus and the R&D” behind many future Red Hat innovations. And while Fedora explores the leading edge of Linux, Red Hat will concentrate on producing stable, mature enterprise products — and, obviously, on marketing those products.

Fedora has replaced the old, 100% free Red Hat Linux Project, which essentially was “Red Hat” to legions of downloaders. There has been a “free for the download” version of Red Hat since Mark Ewing released his first version of “Red Hat Linux” in October, 1994.

The only mention of the Fedora Project on Red Hat’s main page as of 23 October 2003 was a small button in the lower right-hand corner that did not describe it in any way.

In a Boston Globe article published 16 October 2003, Red Hat CEO Matthew Szulik was quoted as saying, “Our goal is to become the defining technology of the 21st century.”

Obviously, that goal can’t be reached without substantial income.

So far, even though some old-line members of the free and open source software communities do not like Red Hat’s recent concentration on the enterprise market, the strategy seems to be working in a financial sense. Red Hat declared its first operating profit last quarter — $240,000 — and the company’s revenues have consistently increased year over year (this year’s target gross is $115 million) at a rate similar to that experienced by Microsoft when the first Wintel boom was in full swing.

In the short term, Red Hat’s decision to divorce its “free” and “pay for” offerings from each other has obviously been a roaring success. Whether this move will help Red Hat (or Linux or open source) become “the defining technology of the 21st century” remains to be seen.

But don’t forget: Unlike Microsoft, which is and always has been the only publisher of the Windows operating system, Red Hat faces competition from at least 10 ‘major’ Linux distributions. And hundreds of ‘minor’ ones. That is a factor that will keep Red Hat from ever achieving 100% domination of the Linux market — or from ever realizing profit margins as large as Microsoft earns from its core products.

On June 20th 2003, McBride was collared outside the SCO headquarters by an organised protest by a large group of Linux hackers. Mcbride spoke with the guys at some length about the IBM case and Linux in general.

Now, after some delay, Groklaw have published the full transcript.

TurboTas finds it interesting because McBride does actually take the time to talk with the people protesting. In fact he went out of his way to speak with them: They had actually moved a short distance away from the building when McBride spoke with ’em.

Of course it is also interesting because some of the things McBride says have not quite turned out to be true.

Groklaw articles are distributed under a creative commons license, meaning that TurbTas can reproduce it and save you the hassle of visiting GrokLaw.

Darl: So, how’s the day going?

P: Oh, pretty well. We had more people than we expected. We talked to some of your engineers outside, and they’re really nice people.

Darl(0:11): So how did all that go?

P: Oh, really well . . .

Darl(0:16): So you guys are just convinced that we’re Satanic? Is that it?

P: No, no, no.

P: Just greedy, that’s all.

P: We wouldn’t use those words. We would use different ones.

P: We don’t say Satanic, but we don’t respect what’s happening.

P: Yeah, I mean, we obviously don’t know what’s going on 100%. And, we feel like the whole world is being kinda kept out of the loop. But we, the number one reason that we’re out here is because we feel that there’s a lot of FUD going around about Linux right now. Businesses are trying to be scared off to using Linux. I mean, IBM might be at fault, and if they are, they should be punished for what they did. . .

Darl: So your whole basic concern is just the whole FUD side of the issue.

P: Right. Now people aren’t going to use Linux because of this IBM lawsuit, when IBM is not the one that’s hurt. We’re the guys who actually program this stuff in our spare time.

P: We’re worried about claims being made without any proof being shown, and it’s …

P: And we don’t see the legal basis for an NDA to see the supposed code you’re offering …

Darl(1:08): Well, you know that’s a good one. A lot of people have been concerned about the NDA. You know, the basis for that is we have these software agreements that we have made with large vendors around the world and it basically says “We have to protect the software code,” and in order to basically license this you have to sign up to say, this is confidentially protected and you won’t share this with somebody else. So, if we turned around and opened this code up, like if I showed you the code, I mean, I’ve got it right here. . .

P: Do we want to see that, or are we at liability? No, I’m dead serious. Are we at liability if we see that? I’m not kidding.

Darl(1:50): I’m not going to show you. But, the point is we found hundreds of thousands of lines of code that are infringing against our contracts. Okay? Now we went through the process, and everybody said, wait, if this is, just show us ten lines of code. If it’s really that bad, just show us ten lines of code. We don’t want to wait two years. See, your point about FUD, if there’s something there, we want to see it right now.

P: Well, we can fix it …

Darl(2:15): Well, exactly.

P: So, see, with IBM, your liability claim against IBM, if that’s truly what you’re seeking, it doesn’t matter if we fix it and take it out, you can still show that IBM put it in there.

Darl: Right, so let me just…

P: So, what’s the point of …

Darl(2:27): So the point is this. Our agreements say that it’s protected. Now by us going out and this becomes unprotected. ..

P: …and rather than just saying where in the Linux kernel itself . . .

Darl: Like if I show you this side of the page, it’s okay. I mean, this is Linux. This is out and everybody can see it, okay. But if you look at the other side that I’m not going to show you right now, this actually is protected code that nobody is able to see without, you know, being under one of our protected agreements. It’s not about showing the code to keep it protected. It’s just that it’s protected.

P: Okay.

P: So why not indicate the lines in the Linux kernel without showing us your code?

Darl(3:01): Right. Because then by definition, we have exposed the code that is protected. Does that make sense?

P: It already has been exposed.

P: That’s kind of redundant.

Darl(3:10): Exactly. By us coming out and saying where it is and what it is, that’s where it becomes a problem.

P: A different question along the same lines. Caldera in the past has contributed a lot to Linux.

Darl(3:21): Right. But we haven’t contributed our Unix code. That’s the differnce.

P: But, according to… I read something about an engineer who used to work at Caldera that said the other day that said there was code that was, that Caldera did put …

Darl(3:32): There is code that we have agreed to put in there, and we’ve had (unclear), but the code that we’re finding infringing is not the code that we’ve agreed to contribute.

P: Why instead of following the model that AT&T set for this, that is showing what lines of code that is, at least giving an opportunity to remove the code, instead of suing for 3 billion dollars? There’s a big difference. Because AT&T found similar problems with BSD, and you could see their motives. They really wanted that code out of there so that they could continue with their proprietary Unix.

Now the difference with SCO being that they’re not concerned about that so much as they were waiting for code to be in there, and once they found it, they said “We’re not going to tell you so that. We don’t want to give you an opportunity to remove it so Linux can be free of Unix and Unix can be free of Linux.”

P: Trojan horse …

P: Why, instead of showing a certain amount of greed, and saying “We will sue for $3 billion, and we won’t give the Linux community an opportunity to remove that code”, why aren’t you giving the Linux community an opportunity to remove that code? It just seems like the only motivation behind not telling that, and giving the opportunity to remove that, would be greed.

Darl(4:48): Well, I think going back to the economic side of it, the flip side of this argument is, so SCO is a company that for twenty years had Unix on Intel. They have a twenty-year legacy of selling that type of product line. And as you go into the turn of the century, Linux had moved along, and the 2.2 version of the kernel, you know, it was doing rather nicely, you could do two or four way systems together, and that was nice.

But what’s happened, from Linux 2.4 that came out, what was it, January 2001 or so, to current, there have been millions of systems shipped into the marketplace, OK? And the code increase during that period of time — I’m sorry, the functionality increase of Linux during that point in time — has gone up dramatically. And, with respect to scalability, and ability to get high-end enterprise scalability, and a lot of the code increase has come, and the functionality increase has come, from the vendors that we have these confidentiality agreements with.

And so the question that came up earlier, was, you know, we’re all working for free on this stuff. We have no problem with all of you guys that are working on this stuff for free. The problem we have on the economic modeling side of this, is the vendors that are getting an economic incentive to reducing the amount of royalties that they pay by virtue of taking our property and putting it into Linux, then turn around and saying it’s a free system.

P: The same pattern was followed by AT&T, though, with BSD.

Darl(6:17): Yeah, but during that same period of time, there was still a lot of economic value to the System V code base.

P: Well, sir, if you don’t mind my asking. ..

Darl: Sure.

P: What is the absolute definitive answer to the question of why can’t we just take the code out? I mean what… honestly, Linux is my livelihood right now. That’s where I’ve been making all my money. If that goes away, you put a family on the street.

Darl(6:42): Yeah, and we’re not trying to get Linux to go away. We’re trying to get damages that have been done to this company, a company that used to have a few hundred… You want to talk about economic damages. . .

P: Well, damages, I mean, you’re damaging my livelihood now. Should I turn around and countersue?

Darl: There’s hundreds of companies that used to work for this company that don’t work here anymore. You know, revenue streams have gone from hundreds of millions down to 50, OK, 50, 60 in the last year, and so the question is, is intellectual property protectable, or not? Now we’re in litigation, we’re trying to get these things resolved. Now, you’ll notice we haven’t gone out and attacked RedHat. We haven’t sued them.

P: You just threatened.

P: Sent out thousands of threatening letters.

P: 1500. (laughter in audience)

Darl: The point, the part of the concern…

P: I’ve read several quotes where it says that individual users of Linux could possibly in the future be held accountable.

Darl: So the problem then is when you have infringed code that is sitting there on the system.

P: I have a uniprocessor system at home. I’m never going to touch any of this other code. Why should I have to pay a license for UNIX where …

Darl: We’re talking about commercial users.

P: What’s the difference?

Darl: We didn’t send you a letter, right? We sent it out to commercial users.

P: But the FUD is that I’ve read, I don’t remember if it was you or Sontag, that said that individual users might have to pay sometime. And that kind of trash talking, I mean, the thing with IBM I think should be completely separate.

Darl(8:05): Let me set one thing straight right now for you guys. We are not going after individual users. We’re trying to say people who are commercially getting gain on this. And people who were getting commercial gain on Unix, and now they’ve gone over to this system. That is really where we have a major problem. That’s where we’re …

P: What’s to stop you from pursuing that venture in the future?

P: My company uses Linux, so are you going after my company?

Darl: So, the question. Again, our focus is not on end users right now. We believe that there has been an IP hot potato that has been passed down to end users. And we are trying to get that resolved with the Unix vendor community.

P: So, if I use Debian, which is a completely open-source distribution, nonprofit, why would I be possibly liable in the future for something, I mean. . .?

Darl(8:55): I can’t… Again, when I look at Debian versus what we’re talking about with enter… I would really draw the line on enterprise class Linux versus what you’re talking about. Right? ‘Cause I think that there’s a huge difference. I mean, when I hear what you’re talking about, the thing that is interesting is, I would argue the point which is that’s not where we’re trying to go. Okay. Because our real beef is where the thing has been highly commercialized. When you get a 64-way system, and my guess is that the one you’re using at home is not a 64-way system, right? That is really where we have a lot of concern.

P: So, you opened, was it Unixware 3, or OpenSystem 3, I can’t recall. It was back in 2000, you basically made that source code available to everybody.

Darl(9:37): It wasn’t Unixware. We’ve never taken our System V code and made that available.

P: No it was system 3 of something.

Darl(9:42): It was very, very early versions of that go back into the ’70’s that predate the commercialized versions of any of the forms of Unix. So, again, we would agree that there’s things out there that, we’re not trying to round up all this stuff and say “Boy, every ounce of Unix that is out there is protectable and SCO owns all this stuff”, and you know that’s not what we’re saying, our focus is on the commercialized …

P: So, give me an example. If I create an embedded system, say an access point, or some motor controlling module, that uses a Linux kernel, is that infringing on SCO’s intellectual property?

Darl(10:13): Yeah, that’s hard for me to say right now with respect to what you just said about that.

P: Hewlett Packard has stated that they’re supporting Debian. Would that be an infringing instance right there? It’s major commercialized corporate backing. It’s a non-profit distribution.

Darl(10:33): Here’s what I would say. In May, we had a lot of folks that were very concerned that, you know, that this was a big FUD case, and you guys didn’t even have any code inside Linux, and so we said, you know what? We went back and said from a legal standpoint we’re going to open some of this up just so that people understand that there are direct files of System V showing up in Linux. Then we said, we’re going to move on and go through the month of June, and show this to people. And we’ve been showing it. Had dozens of people who have seen it. And every day, more people roll into here in Lindon, and we show them the code.

And further what we’ve said is that when we get into July, we’re gonna come back. We’re getting feedback right now, and I would view this as a form of feedback, you guys are obviously telling us what you think. We’re hearing feedback from users. (unclear) And then when we get into July… Pardon?

P: What about all of your copyright violations? Not abiding by the copyright on the stuff that you have profited from all these years?

Darl: We haven’t seen those violations. But let me just finish up here…

P: Have you ever read the license you distributed it under?

Darl: I’ve said that as we move into July, what we want to be able to do is come out and state definitively, here’s where we are. Here’s how we want to try and move forward. And…

P: Suppose a company that’s based in Lindon that makes a lot of money off of technology has a web server that runs Linux. Would they be in infringement of your copyright? Like SCO, or something

Darl(12:00): Again, back to web servers is not where I see the big problem.

P: (snickering in crowd)

Darl(12:09): When you talk about highly-scalable systems, and again, I’m not going to sit here today and say that that day in Lindon, Utah, on the corner of I-15 and 1600 North, we defined all the rules of this here. [laughter] What I’m trying to say here is the general approach here is … individual use of Linux …

P: … guys, he says we’re too close to the road here.

Darl: And commercialized Linux that has derived great benefit from folks that have Unix contracts with us is where we have a lot of problems. And our real goal as we get into July, we want to come out and definitively say “Here’s how we’re gonna try and move forward, and here’s how we want to see things go forward.”

P: So, how is it cut and dry where the infringement occurred? Do you have substantial proof that one company …

Darl: Yeah.

P: What about SGI? I mean, they’ve contributed significant code to NUMA scalabilities, so how is it that you’re going after IBM but yet SGI is free and clear for the time being?

Darl(13:09): We haven’t said who’s free and clear. What we have said is we have significant problems with IBM, we’re working through those issues right now, and we hope to get resolution to those. But, ya know, we’re working through these issues, we’re dealing with them on a case-by-case basis, and we want to get resolution.

P: Have you ever read the GNU Public License?

Darl(13:30): Sure.

P: Well, what about 100 thousand lines of copyright infringement on your part for every, maybe, one line that there might allegedly be on anyone else’s part?

Pleasant Grove Police Officer: Is there anything else here that we need to address?

Darl: I think we’re okay. Everybody has moved over here [unclear]. I just stopped to say hi to these guys for a minute. I’m gonna take off right now, so I think we’re fine. . .but I appreciate…

P: Before you take off, I was not able to get a very good picture of you off the web. Do you mind if I get another picture with you?

[laughter]

Darl(14:05): [unclear… laughter] You guys are awesome. I gotta go home, and you guys have a good weekend.

P: While you’re grabbing a picture, I did have one other question. So, you’ve talked about how your intent isn’t to go after end users, and how certain companies you’re not expecting to prosecute, whereas other companies you are. We see this as sort of uncertainty as much as the fear and doubt that SCO is propagating. We would enjoy an on-the-record statement from your company saying more or less the things you just told us.

Darl(14:40): Yeah. I appreciate that. When you talk about fear, uncertainty and doubt, I mean, the point is that it is very certain that there is copyrighted code infringement violation problems we’re dealing with here. And, it’s also very certain that as we get into the next month, we want to try and figure out how to move things forward in a way that, you know, we can live together peacefully. We’re gonna attempt to do that.

P: Is there anything that we can do as a …

P: … [unclear] unsettling with all the people you’ve infringed? All of the contributors to Unix, where you’re not … Where you’re no longer honoring the GPL?

Darl(15:10): We haven’t seen that.

P: Yea, of course. Because that’s your own attorneys. . .

P: Do you hope that the Linux kernel becomes completely Unix-free? Completely free of any potential copyright violations or patent violations, and everything? Is that your ultimate hope right there? Do you …?

Darl(15:30): Well, here’s what I would say. I think on the Linux side, it’s pretty clear that the processes are — first of all, I think that the model here of you guys all being involved, and people all around the world being involved, and contributing in, and being involved as part of this community is outstanding. You know. Hats off. That’s a very cool deal, OK?

The part that is concerning is that when the code goes into the kernel, there is in fact not a vetting process to make sure there’s not code violations in place. One of the hopes that I would have coming through this process that we would all come out with is a mechanism whereby the code can be vetted, it can be safe, it can be secure, so that we don’t have these kind of problems coming up in the future.

P: So is that a yes or a no? Do you hope that the Linux kernel is completely free of any violations whatsoever?

Darl(16:22): Sure.

P: How?

P: I have one other question.

Darl: That’s what I think …

P: How would this vetting process work?

Darl(16:28): Well, that’s what I think needs to be understood and put together here with people that …

P: Linux developers don’t have any access to know what the other code, where things came from …

Darl: Exactly, and that’s where I think there’s an opportunity to in fact work together on some of this. There’s been sort of a “don’t ask, don’t tell” process over here which is ask for forgiveness, not permission, and to the extent that you can get some kind of an equilibrium here, where you’ve got proprietary here and you’ve got open over here. To the extent that we can come together, there some modeling there, I’m all for that.

P: Do you actually have any quotation that shows that there’s a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy? The only quotation we’ve seen is with respect to patents, which is the same thing any patent attorney says. With respect to copyright, I believe that what you’re saying here is a gross misrepresentation, and that the Linux process is very much better than your wholesale copying of Linux into your source tree.

Darl(17:27): I think when we look at this, you’ll find… You’ve seen a lot of people out there in industry today that are understanding that there are issues and problems with the very process by which Linux comes together.

P: As well as Unix, right?

Darl(17:40): And so, what needs to happen, I believe, in this process is that some of these things are put together more tightly.

P: Is BSD free of any copyright violations?

Darl(17:50): I can’t answer right now. I haven’t done the same kind …

P: When you say you’re not after the end users, are you interested in suing companies that sell Unix operating systems, Unix-like operating systems, not companies that use them or buy them?

Darl(18:00): We’re just fundamentally not interested in tracking down end users like yourself.

P: Can I have that in writing?

C: I’ve got it on tape.

P: Here’s my question. It seems from all the things I’ve read, and all the research I’ve done that SCO is more interested in trying to get money back for the damages than for actually cleaning up the Linux code and making sure that everything’s put in its place. Is that true, or are you . . .?

Darl(18:28): As we get into July, we want to try and try and figure out methods how we can move forward. It’s not …

P: It seems to me that …

Darl: There’s no doubt we’ve had significant damages. That’s not the only goal in this process.

P: It seems you could say lines this or this and this and this and this and this violate, send that out, it doesn’t matter any of your problems, and just give people a chance to fix it. But it seems you’re more interested in getting $3 billion, than in actually making Linux free of Unix.

Darl(18:54): No, I wouldn’t say that.

P: After the dust settles, what becomes of SCO?

Darl: Well, I think SCO …

P: Because, right now, I think lots of people feel, you know, [car ignition starting] Linux is what everyone uses these days, and SCO is doing this because Unix isn’t selling. So after this lawsuit, I personally don’t think a lot of people are going to be interested in buying SCO Unix, except people who already have a strong basis. . .

Darl(19:22): And right now we think… We already know what people are buying from us, and seven of the largest retailers in the world use SCO Unix. McDonald’s uses SCO Unix. Biotech uses SCO Unix.

P: But a lot of people are moving to Linux. So, they’re looking for reasons to replace…

Darl(19:37): And so the point is there used to be hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue here. It’s obviously come down. In terms of how we go forward . . .

P: … competition…[unclear]

Darl(19:47): So we need to step forward and say here’s how we’re moving forward with our version of Unix. Here’s how we work with Linux. Here’s how this thing moves forward.

P: How are you going to work with Linux?

Darl(19:57): Well, stay tuned in July. That’s really what we plan to come out with.

Darl(20:00): Hey, I gotta run. Guys, I appreciate ya.

P: Thanks so much.

P: Thanks for talking to us.

P: Thank you.

P: And thanks for explaining to us.

Darl: Yeah, I mean I understand. It’s a big issue. It’s a big issue for all of us.

P: This is one of the biggest…

P: But you said that the copyright issues that you’re violating, it’s not an issue for you. . .

Darl: And it is one of the biggest problems in the industry, and that’s why we all need to get it fixed together, and move forward.

P: Is that a commitment to fix your copyright violations?

[laughter]

P: That’s a good question.

Darl(20:28): We feel very comfortable with where we are with our IP on this so … [unclear]

P: [unclear] rampant violation of the GPL?

P: Will any third parties have a chance to go through the SCO source code and see if they’ve done violations of the GPL?

Darl(20:41): Yeah, well, again, our source code is protected material, so…

P: Like a third party that has…

Darl(20:46): Absolutely, [unclear] really ought to do that.

P: but the fact that they’ve shipped Linux for years, and now are not willing to abide by its license, which means that the years they’ve supplied it they’ve been in violation.

P: …applies to Linux

P: They shipped Linux . . .

[crosstalk]

Darl: We obviously have problems. Now one issue here is a distribution is not the same as a donation, right? Somebody donated code that is protected by us through other agreements in there. When it goes in, it doesn’t say “this was SCO protected code.” We only found out about this a couple months ago. That’s when we said “we’ve gotta stop this until we get this figured out.”

P: How did you find out?

Darl(21:27): Well, what happened is after we filed the IBM lawsuit, we were in the process of … This was… Clearly we found code that related to IBM. That is what led us to go into the lawsuit, and in the process of getting ready for that litigation, there was a deep dive that was going on, to comparing code bases in Linux and Unix, and it coughed up during that [unclear] process.

P: Isn’t it possible that someone was just inspired by work they’d done for other companies? Isn’t that reasonable?

Darl(21:50): It’s reasonable, except when the comment codes are the same, the humor lines in the comment code are the same, and the typos in the comment code are the same, then you start getting beyond… Ya know, it was kind of like, I learned this one day at school … It becomes more of the… Those, to me, are really the DNA of the code here.

P: But the question is, can you say which one comes first? For example, we know that we can see the change log on …

Darl: Yeah, it’s real clear.

P: Can we tell that SCO isn’t the one that …

Darl: Yeah. We’ve gone through this. It’s really clear.

Darl: We want to get to a good solution.

P: …IBM…

Darl: And we want to get this resolved, and ya know, we’re working to that end, and I appreciate you, guys. You’re on that end too.

P: The thing that we ask is that you just make it clear that you’re attacking IBM, not us.

Darl(22:38): I appreciate what you’re saying. OK.

P:Thanks.

P: Do you mind if we publish this? A transcript of this?

Darl: You know, I said everything that I said, so you know, I didn’t put you under NDA, so obviously you guys will do whatever you’re gonna do.

P: We’ll try not to take it out of context.

Darl: I appeciate that.

P: Thanks.

SCO have responded to the open letter released by SGI. Rather unsurprisingly, it doesn’t seem that SCO are impressed.

SCO say that SGI’s remedial action does not go far enough. They’ve not elaborated other than to say that SGI cannot remedy the problem, but they’ve given them two months to do so anyway!

SCO did make references to the August letter sent to SGI. It seems that this letter needs leaking if we are to find out what SCO think SGI have done wrong!

Read the source article at vnunet.com.

Yep, no joke. Finally a way to make working in the kitchen more manly. Although this gadget seems bizarre in the extreme, it’s actually a pretty neat device!

Check it out here

Hooray: OOo has finally gone final on version 1.1. As per article posted the other day, the features list is pretty impressive: Java is needed, but then what doesn’t need Java these days?

Check out the links section and grab OOo today!

In what is becoming a common-place occurrence, SGI have released an open letter detailing their actions and responses to alleged infringements in SCO IP rights.

SGI are trying to set the record straight and are saying in no uncertain terms that SCO have overstepped the mark in terms of what they claim is Sytem V IP.

SGI Do admit that some routines have slipped through the net into Linux from SysV, but they mitigate this by clearly stating that the routines in question were already in the public domain. Two routines were never actually used and were removed in July. A few further ones are in the process of being removed. all in all, this equates to a few hundred lines of code (out of more than a million that SGI have contributed).

As if that were not enough, you’re not likely to even be running the code: most of the routines related to getting Linux running on SGI hardware.

XFS on the other hand DOES represent a large source code release to the OS community, but SGI are happy that it’s theirs. They say that their Unix license allows then to keep all code they write themselves. TurboTas is not clear on the impact should SGI be found not to own their own code: What depends on XFS, anyone?

Read more to get the whole letter (Original link source was Ned Ulbricht).

October 1, 2003

To the Linux Community:

As one of many contributors to the Open Source movement and to Linux, SGI takes the subject of intellectual property rights seriously. Our contributions are a valuable expression of ideas which contribute to the intellectual richness of Linux.

Over the past four years, SGI has released over a million lines of code under an open source license. Throughout, we have carried out a rigorous internal process to ensure that all software contributed by SGI represents code we are legally entitled to release as open source.

When a question was raised by the community earlier in the summer about the ate_utils.c routine, we took immediate action to address it. We quickly and carefully re-reviewed our contributions to open source, and found brief fragments of code matching System V code in three generic routines (ate_utils.c, the atoi function and systeminfo.h header file), all within the I/O infrastructure support for SGI’s platform. The three code fragments had been inadvertently included and in fact were redundant from the start. We found better replacements providing the same functionality already available in the Linux kernel. All together, these three small code fragments comprised no more than 200 lines out of the more than one million lines of our overall contributions to Linux. Notably, it appears that most or all of the System V code fragments we found had previously been placed in the public domain, meaning it is very doubtful that the SCO Group has any proprietary claim to these code fragments in any case.

As a precaution, we promptly removed the code fragments from SGI’s Linux website and distributed customer patches, and released patches to the 2.4 and 2.5 kernels on June 30 and July 3 to replace these routines and make other fixes to the SGI infrastructure code that were already in progress at SGI. Our changes showed up in the 2.5 kernel within a few weeks of our submission, and the 2.4 changes were available in the production version of the 2.4 kernel as of August 25 when the 2.4.22 kernel was released. Thus, the code in question has been completely removed.

Following this occurrence, we continued our investigation to determine whether any other code in the Linux kernel was even conceivably implicated. As a result of that exhaustive investigation, SGI has discovered a few additional code segments (similar in nature to the segments referred to above and trivial in amount) that may arguably be related to UNIX code. We are in the process of removing and replacing these segments.

SCO’s references to XFS are completely misplaced. XFS is an innovative SGI-created work. It is not a derivative work of System V in any sense, and SGI has full rights to license it to whomever we choose and to contribute it to open source. It may be that SCO is taking the position that merely because XFS is also distributed along with IRIX it is somehow subject to the System V license. But if so, this is an absurd position, with no basis either in the license or in common sense. In fact, our UNIX license clearly provides that SGI retains ownership and all rights as to all code that was not part of AT&Ts UNIX System V.

I hope this answers some of the questions that you and the Linux community might have. We continue to release new Linux work, and are very excited about the growth and acceptance of Linux. We are continuing full speed to do new work and release new Linux products. We take our responsibility to the open source community seriously and are confident that we have an effective process to verify the quality and integrity of our contributions to Linux.

Rich Altmaier

VP of Software, SGI

richa@sgi.com

Oh dear. As per recent TurboTas predictions, SCO have cast the net wider than IBM in the alleged infringements case. They are now picking on another of their biggest customers, which lets face it is always a pretty daft thing to do.

This is bang up to date news: SGI have been served the legal notice that IBM got all those months ago: they’ve been told that they have breached the terms of their Unix license and accordingly their Unix licenses will be revoked.

SGI of course already had problems: it was an SGI engineer at the heart of one of SCO’s initial disproved claims.

Turbotas can’t help but wonder how long before HP and Sun get the same letter.

Read some more here.

In an interesting about turn, HP have requested that SCO remove all the HP banners on their American Roadshow.

HP are a big sponsor of the Roadshow. This you can expect: HP are a massive SCO customer. It seems though that HP are nervous about just how in bed with SCO they are prepared to get. TurboTas guesses they may be frantically trying to saw their arm off before SCO awakes.

Now it seems they’ve noticed that it may not be beneficial to their Linux business to stand too close to SCO.

Needless to say, there are many parties beginning to distance themselves from SCO, both politically and financially.

Interestingly, Sun have been reasonably quiet so far: it can’t be long before they wade in to support their primary OS vendor alongside HP? Mind you they are in a financial world of hurt at the moment: perhaps OS problems are the least of their worries….

At the same time, SCO have just enjoyed a 25% downturn in share price. To be fair this is far more likely to be IBM related than HP.

Fun stuff at the coalface then!

IBM to follow HP? Do be serious: that would give SCO ammunition that IBM agree there is a risk. Oh no, instead, IBM have instead taken a leaf from SCO’s own Law book.

Yep, IBM filed a fresh round of counterclaims against SCO. Indeed, these are becoming the stuff of legends: amongst other things, IBM claim that SCO Violated IBM’s copyright: they distributed IBM’s contributions to Linux after having breached the GPL.

Of course, SCO consider this nonsense, nevertheless, IBM’s claims have some merit: The GPL requires Linux distributors to permit customers to freely copy the software. Once SCO stopped doing this, they effectivly breached the GPL and left themselves vulnerable to copyright suits by ALL Linux Copyright holders.

As you can imagine, I’m not suggesting that all Linux contributors should immediately sue SCO: risky at the best of times. It does bring yet another interesting twist though.

Read more