SCO open letter to the Open Source Community

scojones · 09-09-2003 2:09pm #1

http://linuxworld.com/story/34007.htm

Mr McBride says there's over 1 million lines of code that are copied. Well Mr McBride, what are these lines of code?

scojones · 09-09-2003 2:17pm

Also a response can be viewed here:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=77770&threshold=1&commentsort=0&tid=187&tid=88&mode=thread&cid=6908490

Lemming · 09-09-2003 2:22pm

This is just becoming tiresome. It's not even funny even more McDarly-baby :rolleyes:

fisty · 09-09-2003 2:24pm

an interesting read, however there's one thing in it that is gonna get peoples back up.

If the Open Source community wants to develop products for enterprise corporations, it must respect and follow the rule of law. These rules include contracts, copyrights and other intellectual property laws.

A tad condecending nay?
Its a fair overview of whats actually happening in the open source movement and on the commercial level, however, until they provide the actual code I'm not going to be lectured by SCO on fair usage.

scojones · 09-09-2003 2:26pm

I agree, tiresome it is. I want to see the lines of code he says were unlawfully copied into the Linux code. Everyone does. So he should shut up talking and produce the goods.*

* if they exist

scojones · 09-09-2003 2:27pm

Originally posted by fisty
A tad condecending nay?

Very condecending. Not just that, it's down right arrogant.

Trojan · 09-09-2003 2:29pm

Seems like a pretty weak argument. Still waiting from something decent from SCO.

henbane · 09-09-2003 4:09pm

I cannot believe he has the cheek to believe that developers are willing to "monetize" their investment in partnership with SCO. This is the worst I have seen from them yet.

He seems to think that SCO's licenses are somehow better than the GPL because he says so. I'm no fan of the GPL but why does he think that the argument that the copyright holder is entitled to dictate the distribution method of his work is valid for SCO but not for developers using the GPL.

One thing he neglected to mention when talking about stripping out license information code was the Berkeley Packet Filter in SCO's code example (shown in Las Vegas last month) which lacked the relevant BSD license when they showed it.

This seems to me to be a continuous effort to pump up stock. Whenever something comes up against their "case" they come out with more FUD (I hate that term but it is very valid here).

mr_angry · 09-09-2003 4:25pm

I can't believe that they're lobbying companies to pay them for using a brand of Linux that SCO have no proven involvement in! Including (they say) some Fortune 500 companies! Why would anyone in their right mind pay SCO for a copy of Linux at the moment? If they showed some evidence of ownership, well, that would be a different story, but at the moment, its rediculous. SCO are well on their way to being the most hated IT company in the world.

BenH · 09-09-2003 5:52pm

Originally posted by sjones
Mr McBride says there's over 1 million lines of code that are copied. Well Mr McBride, what are these lines of code? [/B]

Remember that these one million lines of code were detected by a team of MIT mathematicians who dont seem to exist, and that they are not directly copied, but rather look similar, like #include "math". In Darl's mind this seems to be a clear case of copying.

He's also completely ignored mitigation of damages and that as the lawsuit was filed prior to SCO obtaining SYSV patents, any awarded damages are immediately limited to $150,000.

Did anyone spot anything abot IBM's return volly, RHAT's lawsuit or the fact he's wanted for contempt of court in Germany BTW?

Typedef · 09-09-2003 6:13pm

Lets' s hope he gets extradited.

BenH · 09-09-2003 6:17pm

He's only up for 10 days in the nick unfortunately :-(

Capt'n Midnight · 09-09-2003 8:50pm

SCO can't release the code
As they correctly claim if they did then the lines would be rewritten before the verdict.. This would sorta screw up the court case.

Judge: So you are saying that the code SCO claim to own the rights to is for essential for Linux to run and is worth billions and represents major intellecual investment, and yet it's been replaced already, for free...

========================================

If they want to prosecute someone for giving away free software because it affects the revenue stream of other companies - look at internet explorer and netscape...

========================================

Has anyone asked the developers who wrote the code what they think ??

Capt'n Midnight · 10-09-2003 9:28pm

http://www.arstechnica.com/
ESR and MD5 vs. SCO
Posted 09/09/2003 @ 3:45 PM, by Hannibal

eWeek is running a piece on a new source code comparison program written by ESR. ESR, in his own typically geeky way (the "grin" quote in the article), as much as admits that the program is aimed at resolving the SCO dispute once and for all.

The source trees get sliced into overlapping three-line shreds. The shreds then get turned into a list of 32-byte signatures by a process called MD5 hashing; each signature keeps information about its file and line number range.

"If the MD5 signatures are different, then the shreds that they were made from are different. When they match, it is almost certain than the two shreds they were made from are the same, to within odds of eighteen quadrillion to one. MD5 is normally used for making unforgeable digital signatures, but the side effect I'm exploiting is that it gives you a fast way to compare texts for equality," Raymond told eWEEK on Monday.

So, once all the signatures from all the code trees have been included in the comparator, all the "unique" signatures are then thrown out, leaving a list of shreds with duplicate signatures or common code segments. From there it is just report generation, he said.

"The shred technique has two advantages: one, it's amazingly fast; and two, if you have the hash list for a given source code tree, you can do overlap reports with other trees without having the original code.

So now Raymond just has to get SCO to cough up the hash list for its Unix. We'll be taking bets in the discussion thread as to whether or not they agree to do so. My money is on an initially positive response to the idea from SCO, and then lots of foot dragging, nitpicking, terms setting and lawyering, with the result that the list never actually gets handed over and the blame is placed on the Open Source community for failure to cooperate.

BenH · 10-09-2003 10:01pm

This idea was proposed on linux elitists when this whole mess kicked off. But how nice of eric to give it his seal of approval :rolleyes:

It shouldnt be necessary for sco to release any code however, the hashes could be generated from the binaries. Not as precise, but a useful guide.

dahamsta · 10-09-2003 10:01pm

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=11487

Subject: Response to SCO's Open Letter
Date: Tue, 9 Sep 2003

Mr. McBride, in your "Open Letter to the Open Source Community" your offer to negotiate with us comes at the end of a farrago of falsehoods, half-truths, evasions, slanders, and misrepresentations. You must do better than this. We will not attempt to erect a compromise with you on a foundation of dishonesty.

Your statement that Eric Raymond was "contacted by the perpetrator" of the DDoS attack on SCO begins the falsehoods. Mr. Raymond made very clear when volunteering his information and calling for the attack to cease that he was contacted by a third-party associate of the perpetrator and does not have the perpetrator's identity to reveal. The DDoS attack ceased, and has not resumed. Mr. Raymond subsequently received emailed thanks for his action from Blake Stowell of SCO.

Your implication that the attacks are a continuing threat, and that the President of the Open Source Initiative is continuing to shield their perpetrator, is therefore not merely both false and slanderous, but contradictory with SCO's own previous behavior. In all three respects it is what we in the open-source community have come to expect from SCO. If you are serious about negotiating with anyone, rather than simply posturing for the media, such behavior must cease.

In fact, leaders of the open-source community have acted responsibly and swiftly to end the DDoS attacks -- just as we continue to act swiftly to address IP-contamination issues when they are aired in a clear and responsible manner. This history is open to public inspection in the linux-kernel archives and elsewhere, with numerous instances on record of Linus Torvalds and others refusing code in circumstances where there is reason to believe it might be compromised by third-party IP claims.

As software developers, intellectual property is our stock in trade. Whether we elect to trade our effort for money or rewards of a subtler and more enduring nature, we are instinctively respectful of concerns about IP, credit, and provenance. Our licenses (the GPL and others) work with copyright law, not against it. We reject your attempt to portray our community as a howling wilderness of IP thieves as a baseless and destructive smear.

We in the open-source community are accountable. Our source code is public, exposed to scrutiny by anyone who wishes to contest its ownership. Can SCO or any other closed-source vendor say the same? Who knows what IP violations, what stripped copyrights, what stolen techniques lurk in the depths of closed-source code? Indeed, not only SCO's past representations that it was merging GPLed Linux technology into SCO Unix but Judge Debevoise's rulings in the last big lawsuit on Unix IP rights suggest strongly that SCO should clean up its own act before daring to accuse others of theft.

SCO taxes IBM and others with failing to provide warranties or indemnify users against third-party IP claims, conveniently neglecting to mention that the warranties and indemnities offered by SCO and others such as Microsoft are carefully worded so that the vendor's liability is limited to the software purchase price, They thus offer no actual shield against liability claims or damages. They are, in a word, shams designed to lull users into a false sense of security -- a form of sham which we believe you press on us solely as posturing, rather than out of any genuine concern for users. We in the open-source community, and our corporate allies, refuse to play that dishonest game.

You invite us to negotiate, but you have persistently refused to state a negotiable claim. You have made allegations of a million lines of copied code which are mathematically impossible given the known, publicly accessible history of Linux development. You have uttered vast conspiracy theories which fail to be vague only where they are slanderous and insulting. You have already been compelled to abandon major claims -- such as the ownership of SMP technology alleged in your original complaint against IBM -- on showings that they were false, and that you knew or should have known them to be false.

Accordingly, we of the open-source community do not concede that there is anything to negotiate. Linux is our work and our lawful property, the distillation of twelve years of hard work, idealism, creativity, tears, joy, and sweat by hundreds of thousands of cooperating hackers all over the world. It is not yours, has never been yours, and will never be yours.

If you wish to make a respectable case for contamination, show us the code. Disclose the overlaps. Specify file by file and line by line which code you believe to be infringing, and on what grounds. We will swiftly meet our responsibilities under law, either removing the allegedly infringing code or establishing that it entered Linux by routes which foreclose proprietary claims.

Yours truly,
Eric Raymond
Bruce Perens

SCO open letter to the Open Source Community

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