The Coral Snake Ping.
Calling all Anti Commies and Anti Pirates
Posted on 08/26/2003 3:39:06 PM PDT by Coral Snake
Excert due to copyright restraints.
SCO: to pay or not to pay
SCO has started invoicing Linux users that it claims are illegally using copied Unix code.
August 26, 2003 11:58 AM GMT (Datamonitor) - SCO [SCOX] is beginning to invoice Linux users for their use of Unix code that it says has been illegally copied into the open source operating system. This leaves IT shops around the world with a deceptively simple decision: pay the fine, or take a chance.
MORE at: SCO: to pay or not to pay
SCO has started invoicing Linux users that it claims are illegally using copied Unix code.
August 26, 2003 11:58 AM GMT (Datamonitor) - SCO [SCOX] is beginning to invoice Linux users for their use of Unix code that it says has been illegally copied into the open source operating system. This leaves IT shops around the world with a deceptively simple decision: pay the fine, or take a chance.
MORE at this link:
Calling all Anti Commies and Anti Pirates
The company has also indicated, however, that should it lose such a case, there are no provisions for refunding IP license fees.
Apparently, SCO doesn't have much confidence in their own claims.
Wanna be Penguified? Just holla!
Click and find out!
Got root?
That's right.
Pay no attention to that man behind the screen! The great and terrible Bill has spoken!
Pretty sad when the keywords field is the entire strength of your arguement.
Perhaps you hadn't heard that the original writers of the code that SCO proudly displayed last week have come forward.
The code that SCO was so loudly trumpeting as having been stolen from them ends up being code that was public domain code in the 1970's.
SCO, and you, are going to have to come up with some real reasons, and some real evidence, before anyone takes either of you seriously.
And now -- Mail Fraud.
http://www.linuxworld.com.au/index.php?id=1725366517&fp=2&fpid=1
27/08/2003 08:16:17
SourceWars, Episode 14: Novell's chief technology officer - and steely-toed Linux evangelist to boot - Alan Nugent has tossed another broadside into the litigious pursuits of SCO, saying that the Utah-based vendor should justify its claims as fact - or quit moaning.
"I think it really has to come up with some facts. It has really got to demonstrate where it thinks the issues are, and then let the people who may be affected respond. I tend to operate as a fact-based sort of person - innuendo and sleight of hand really doesn't do well for me. It needs to put up or… just cease," Nugent told Computerworld.
Asked if Novell had its time again it would have sold to SCO, Nugent was making no apologies-nor accepting any culpability.
"Jeez… I guess the only thing I regret selling is my 1963 Corvette in 1968 because it would be worth a lot of money now. But I wasn't with the company at the time and I don't know what decisions drove the company at those particular junctures. It's a futile exercise to think about what could have been…" Nugent said.
Meanwhile, Nugent is out among his current and prospective Australian user base selling open source for all it's worth, saying that more vendors and enterprises than ever are headed towards open source.
"The intrinsic value of Linux is what is driving the decisions by large enterprises and government agencies that are adopting it. It's built a reputation around firewalls and Web servers - but now it's pulling into the centre, towards the data centre," the Novell CTO claims, adding that major vendor support easily outweighs any legal shenanigans.
"When you have companies like Novell, IBM, HP and Oracle all saying 'this is the right technology, we support it from applications down through the OS, 7x24x365', that eliminates a lot of the concern on behalf of large enterprise customers. You have to juxtapose that against the noise of the circus."
Nugent predicts that large corporate uptake of Linux will "explode" in the next 18 months, with mainstream applications and desktops coming on tap around 2005-2006.
#2 - Eric S. Raymond - President, Open Source Initiative
http://armedndangerous.blogspot.com/2003_08_17_armedndangerous_archive.html#106157186387886957
Mr. McBride:
Late yesterday. I learned that you have charged that your company is the victim of an insidious conspiracy masterminded by IBM. You have urged the press and public to believe that the Open Source Initiative and the Free Software Foundation and Red Hat and Novell and various Linux enthusiasts are up in arms not because of beliefs or interests of their own, but because little gray men from Armonk have put them up to it. Bwahahaha! Fire up the orbital mind-control lasers!
Very few things could possibly illustrate the brain-boggling disconnect between SCO and reality with more clarity than hearing you complain about how persecuted your company is. You opened this ball on 6 March by accusing the open-source community of criminality and incompetence as a way to set up a lawsuit against IBM. You have since tried to seize control of our volunteer work for your company's exclusive gain, and your lawyers have announced the intention to destroy not just the GPL but all the open-source licenses on which our community is built. It's beyond me how can have the gall to talk as though we need funding or marching orders from IBM to mobilize against you. IBM couldn't stop us from mobilizing!
I'm not sure which possibility is more pathetic — that the CEO of SCO is lying through his teeth for tactical reasons, or that you genuinely aren't capable of recognizing honest outrage when you see it. To a manipulator, all behaviors are manipulation. To a conspirator, all opposition is conspiracy. Is that you? Have you truly forgotten that people might make common cause out of integrity, ethical considerations, or simple self-defense? Has the reality you inhabit truly become so cramped and ugly?
I'm in at least semi-regular communication with most of the people and organizations who are causing you problems right now. The only conspiracy among us is the common interest in preventing the open-source community from being destroyed by SCO's greed and desperation. (And we think it's a perfect sign of that desperation that at SCOforum you ‘proved’ your relevance by bragging about the amount of press coverage SCO generates. Last I checked, companies demonstrated relevance by showing products, not press clippings.)
Yes, one of the parties I talk with is, in fact, IBM. And you know what? They're smarter than you. One of the many things they understand that you do not is that in the kind of confrontation SCO and IBM are having, independent but willing allies are far better value than lackeys and sock puppets. Allies, you see, have initiative and flexibility. The time it takes a lackey to check with HQ for orders is time an ally can spend thinking up ways to make your life complicated that HQ would be too nervous to use. Go on, try to imagine an IBM lawyer approving this letter.
The very best kind of ally is one who comes to one's side for powerful reasons of his or her own. For principle. For his or her friends and people. For the future. IBM has a lot of allies of that kind now. It's an alliance you drove together with your arrogance, your overreaching, your insults, and your threats.
And now you cap it all with this paranoid ranting. It's classic, truly classic. Was this what you wanted out of life, to end up imitating the doomed villain in a cheesy B movie? Tell me, does that dark helmet fit comfortably? Are all the minions cringing in proper form? "No, Mr. Torvalds, I expect you to die!" I'd ask if you'd found the right sort of isolated wasteland for your citadel of dread yet, but that would be a silly question; you're in Utah, after all.
It doesn't have to be this way. Sanity can still prevail. Here's the message that Jeff Gerhardt read at SCOforum again:
In recent months, the company formerly known as Caldera and now trading as SCO has alleged that the 2.4 Linux kernel contains code misappropriated from it. We in the open-source community are respectful of intellectual-property rights, and take pride in our ability to solve our own problems with our own code. If there is infringing code in the Linux kernel, our community wants no part of it and will remove it.
We challenge SCO to specify exactly which code it believes to be infringing, by file and line number, and on what grounds it is infringing. Only with disclosure can we begin the process of remedying any breach that may exist. If SCO is truly concerned about protecting its property, rather than simply using the mere accusations as a pretext to pump its stock price and collect payoffs from Microsoft for making trouble, then it will welcome the opportunity to have its concerns resolved as quickly and with as little disruption as possible. We are willing to cooperate with that.
The open-source community is not, however, willing to sit idly by while SCO asserts proprietary control, and the right to collect license fees, over the entirety of Linux. That is an unacceptable attempt to hijack the work thousands of volunteer programmers contributed in good faith, and must end.
If SCO is willing to take the honest, cooperative path forward, so are we. If it is not, let the record show that we tried before resorting to more confrontational means of defending our community against predation.
Linus Torvalds is backing me on this, and our other chieftains and philosopher-princes will as well. Show us the overlaps. If your code has been inserted in our work, we'll remove it — not because you've threatened us but because that's the right thing to do, whether the patches came from IBM or anywhere else. Then you can call off your lawyers and everyone will get to go home happy.
Take that offer while you still can, Mr. McBride. So far your so-called ‘evidence’ is crap; you'd better climb down off your high horse before we shoot that sucker entirely out from under you. How you finish the contract fight you picked with IBM is your problem. As the president of OSI, defending the community of open-source hackers against predators and carpetbaggers is mine — and if you don't stop trying to destroy Linux and everything else we've worked for I guarantee you won't like what our alliance is cooking up next.
And in case it's not pellucidly clear by now, not one single solitary damn thing I have said or published since 6 March (or at any time previously for that matter) has been at IBM's behest. I'm very much afraid it's all been me, acting to serve my people the best way I know how. IBM doesn't have what it would take to buy me away from that job and neither do you. I'm not saying I don't have a price — but it ain't counted in money, so I won't even bother being insulted by your suggestion.
You have a choice. Peel off that dark helmet and deal with us like a reasonable human being, or continue down a path that could be bad trouble for us but will be utter ruin — quite possibly including jail time on fraud, intellectual-property theft, barratry, and stock-manipulation charges — for you and the rest of SCO's top management. You have my email, you can have my phone if you want it, and you have my word of honor that you'll get a fair hearing for any truths you have to offer.
Part 3 - Last but not least -
How could they? They do not have a pot to .... in. This is desperation. They have no right to demand money when they have not established their claim to the code.
This is nothing more than blackmail.
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