From the Yahoo! SCOX board.
ColonelZen's Daily points.
THERE IS NO SYSV OR SCOX IN LINUX
by: ColonelZen
Long-Term Sentiment: Strong Sell 07/06/06 08:01 am
Msg: 387490 of 387562
(Except the Helwig code and some old device drivers willfully contributed as Caldera).
There have been numerous code comparisons between SysV and Linux - including one by Santa Cruz - and the results have been uniformly negative (save 200 lines by SGI of public domain BSD code - long since removed - also in SysV). There simply isn't any significant overlap of actual code between Linux and anything which *might* be copyright enforcible by SCOX.
Over the last three years there have been three (or more depending upon interpretation) court orders for SCOX to produce any evidence of any code in Linux which *might* infringe any of their code. NOT ONE LINE has been clearly demonstrated. While the remaining evidence is sealed, commentary by IBM makes it appear that the "specific instances" asserted it SCOX's narrowed claims remain scattershot and vague without sufficient reference to specific material. Nor is there any plausible reason to hide any evidence of infringement.
Judge Kimball has called SCOX's lack of evidence for any infringement or other misuse in light of SCOX's many screetching public claims "Astonishing".
All public evidence to date points to the title conclusion: There is NO SysV or SCOX code in Linux.
-- TWZ
SCOX DOES NOT OWN UNIX
by: ColonelZen
Long-Term Sentiment: Strong Sell 07/06/06 08:02 am
Msg: 387491 of 387562
"Unix" is a trademark of "The Open Group".
While there was a long standing presumption that SCOX's predecessor, Santa Cruz Operation did have some ownership claim, for the collective at least, that turns out to be fallacious.
In SCO v Novell failed to produce a copyright transfer document as proof that copyrights had ever transferred from Novell to Santa Cruz. The documents entered and discussed, the APA with amendment 2, judge Kimball averred appeared not to transfer copyright. Subsequently letters to Novell from SCOX predating that legal action have come to light which indicate that SCOX knew full well that it did not own the Unix copyrights.
The Unix copyrights are deeply and heavily encombered and (very) likely non-enforcible in specific cases. In 1993 Federal Judge Debevoise wrote a finding in the USL v BSDI case which remarked that AT&T's lax treatment of the (v32 Unix, from which SysV is mostly derived) code for Unix would very likely result in a finding that it had lapsed to public domain. This implies that any copyright action regarding that code will need to establish a specific chain of ownership for the specific disputed code; in the case of code in SysV and antecedant unix that would be *very* difficult.
-- TWZ
SCOX INFRINGES IBM CODE VIA GPL VLNS
by: ColonelZen
Long-Term Sentiment: Strong Sell 07/06/06 08:02 am
Msg: 387492 of 387562
IBM's Counter Claim 8 against SCOX essentially asserts the following facts and asks for a finding of fact by the court for the following.
Way back when SCOX was Caldera and actively promoting and selling Linux a gent named Christoph Helwig with, according to posts by his supervisor on the LKML, Caldera's permission donated some code to the Linux kernel. And BTW there are a few device drivers with Caldera copyright too.
Then along came IBM, and they saw Linux and found it was good, and donated and continue to donate code to linux by the cubic boatload.
Then Ralphie and Darl while running Caldera decided they were too stupid to run a real business and decided to run an extortion racket. They may have been right about the former.
Anyway they renamed themselves "The SCO Group" and started offering - and actually selling "SCO Source Licenses" covering "SCO Code in Linux" for various binary only versions of the Linux kernel AT THE SAME TIME THEY WERE DISTRIBUTING THAT SAME LINUX KERNEL.
Little problem here. IBM's code was in that Kernel. Along with about ten thousand other programmers. And the ONLY right SCOX had to copy, modify, or distribute that code was the GPL. Which among other things expressly excluded works sublicensed by an incompatible - and VERY EXPRESSLY excluded binary only licenses from its own grant of license.
So there was SCOX offering the SCO Source License on the very same instances of binary kernels it was distributing from its own website which contained cubic boatloads of IBM code but with NO license modify (by creating SCOX's configured kernel) or distribute IBM's code, since they had lost aegeis of the GPL by offering their own incompatibile license.
-- TWZ
SCOX LIABLE FOR 1B LANHAM CLAIMS?
by: ColonelZen
Long-Term Sentiment: Strong Sell 07/06/06 08:03 am
Msg: 387494 of 387562
SCOX counsel has all but admitted in court that their claims of stolen code and copyright infringement against Linux were bare assed lies.
During the first two years of SCOX's berserker butterfly rampage IBM was doing an estimated 5 Billion a year in Linux related business. If SCOX's FUD may have slowed Linux adoption 10-20% a billion dollar damage claim is not unreasonable. Several times that is more likely.
Of course SCOX would have real trouble raising 10M in cash at this point.
-- TWZ
KILROY MCBRIDE WAS HERE
by: ColonelZen
Long-Term Sentiment: Strong Sell 07/06/06 08:03 am
Msg: 387495 of 387562
See message 336423 and followup 336459 for evidence and argument. Darl McBride or someone in his family has been posting here.
I have no idea of what, if any, legal implications there are for the CEO of a litigious lunatic excuse for a corporation posting on the Yahoo stock board for that company.
I am contemptuous of the gutless wonder's cowardly refusal to own up to it.
-- TWZ
NO METHODS AND CONCEPTS BY SCOX
by: ColonelZen
Long-Term Sentiment: Strong Sell 07/06/06 08:04 am
Msg: 387496 of 387562
... are likely to be upheld. No "method and concept" claim for previously disclosed by others knowledge has ever been upheld outside of a patent case that I am aware of. The huge bulk of "methods and concepts" of SysV were disclosed in BSD; books on Unix internals have long been available.
Note that SCOX itself originated none of the "methods and concepts" in dispute. In actual fact SCOX "disclosed" them itself by distributing Unix code as Caldera.
Violation of trade secret and confidential information has been held tortuous by the courts but such is only the original disclosing party (which is not IBM) is liable. After disclosure such knowledge is considered public and no longer confidential or secret. Even in contracts prohibiting disclosure of specific information courts do not enforce such clauses once that information is disclosed by other channels. (I am not a lawyer, this is my understanding and opinion only).
-- TWZ
Added Bonus selection:
Re: Why SCOX doesn't own UNIX copyright
by: ff5166 (32/M/UK) 07/06/06 09:09 am
Msg: 387517 of 387564
It said 15 msgs hidden so I thought I ping this to scroll some of the troll crap down.
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I hope this list is a handy reference of why any reasonable person would conclude that SCOX does not possess much in the way of UNIX copyrights.
01. The Asset Purchase Agreement (APA) between Novell and Santa Cruz Operation specifically excluded copyrights. Amendment 2 added a vague qualifier. As far as anyone can tell, Santa Cruz never requested, nor received the copyrights subsequent to this amendment.
http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=20040103144354238#1.1b
http://edgar.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1102542/000104746903037863/a2123204zex- 99_1.htm#toc_ke2800_2
http://www.groklaw.net/pdf/SCONovellAssetAg.pdf
02. As per the APA, Novell still collected royalties for the System V licenses. Why would it still be getting this if it sold the copyrights?
http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=20040103144354238#1.2
03. Judge Kimball was not persuaded that the APA plus amendments conveyed copyrights: "the agreements raise substantial doubt as to whether the APA as amended by Amendment No. 2 qualifies as a Section 204(a) writing".
http://sco.tuxrocks.com/Docs/Novell/Novell-29.pdf
or
http://scofacts.org/Novell-29.pdf
04. Darl McBride asked Novell to transfer over the copyrights before the lawsuits started.
http://www.novell.com/licensing/indemnity/pdf/5_28_03_n-sco.pdf
05. In its second amended complaint against Novell, SCOX asked for an injunction ordering Novell to hand over the copyrights.
http://www.groklaw.net/pdf/Novell-96.pdf
06. Suspiciously, SCOX claims to not being able to find its copy of the schedule of assets transferred from Santa Cruz to itself.
07. Ransom Love, the previous SCOX CEO, alluded to other parties' copyright ownerships preventing SCOX from open-sourcing UNIX: "Indeed, at first we wanted to open-source all of Unix's code, but we quickly found that even though we owned it, it was, and still is, full of other companies' copyrights."
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1492264,00.asp
08. The minutes from Novell's board of directors meeting of Sept. 19, 1995 clearly state that copyrights remained with Novell.
http://sco.tuxrocks.com/Docs/Novell/Novell-57-A.pdf
09. Santa Cruz never filed any copyright registrations for UNIX when it owned the UnixWare business from 1995 to 2000.
Posted as a reply to: Msg 387437 by pzxy6754
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