http://finance.messages.yahoo.com/bbs?.mm=FN&act ion=m&board=1600684464&tid=cald&sid=1600684464&mid=23814

http://finance.messages.yahoo.com/bbs?.mm=FN&act ion=m&board=1600684464&tid=cald&sid=1600684464&mid=23819

I know yours will be much cleaner. I had no recording to work from and was distracted too.

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SCO is very unclear, and purposely so, but this must be their position.

Since they claim to own an interest in Linux but now do not authorize its distribution under the GPL, the GPL forbids distribution of (what SCO thinks is) the combined derivative work. Therefore Red Hat, SuSE, IBM, etc, are not legally permitted to distribute Linux at all. But they do anyway, since they do not believe SCO's unsubstantiated claims.

No fear, the GPL specifically holds those who receive the distributed code blameless in this situation. Except for SCO's part ... they won't grant end-users such consideration. They demand cash.

It's a really weird position, and I think it will be shredded to pieces. But there is some bizarre logic behind it.

There are signs they don't really want to sell many of these licenses, the real goal is to encumber and kill distribution of Linux. Darl McBride referred to some report that illegal music downloading is down 30% since the music industry went after end users. Shouldn't he have made a comment about increasing revenues or sales instead? SCO's Political Agenda

What they are doing really does not make business or legal sense. They are now pushing a political agenda:

* How the open source model is unsustainable

* How developers who like open source agree with them and question how they will be compensated financially

* How Red Hat's recent loss of customers is its own fault for an unworkable busniess model

* How Linux legal liability rests with the end user

* How RH and IBM will not offer indemnification

* How RH and IBM painted targets on the backs of their customers

* How SCO is forced to take on end users

It's all legal and business nonsense. They have no business development of their own to report except this licensing. But it pushes a line of argument that certain large players in dominant positions in the industry want to push.

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Then SCO also doesn't have rights to distribute Linux to anyone, whether they are a previous SCO customer or not? What's sauce for the goose (Red Hat) should be sauce for the gander (SCO)

Futhermore SCO say on their web site that their license is incompatible with the GPL, quoting from http://www.sco.com/scos ource/linuxlicensefaq.html says:

Why doesn’t SCO offer an IP License for Linux to the Linux distribution companies so that they can bundle SCO IP with their Linux distribution? The SCO compliance program is an end-user program for the right to use SCO IP in binary format. The IP License for Linux does not grant distribution rights, nor does it grant any rights associated with source code. SCO doesn’t offer a license to cure the infringement on the part of the Linux distributor because SCO’s source license agreement directly conflicts with the GPL.

So I have to ask, by what right do SCO distribute GPL software (openlinux) even to their own customers??? Seems like they've already said twice, that the GPL does not grant them any right whatsoever to do so.

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The plan of war is laid out by SCO. That is the overall purpose of this exercise: to destroy the GPL. That quote that sounds as if it could have been written by Microsoft itself.

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"Red Hat thinks we should show them every line of infringing code so they can make changes and go forward, in complete ... with complete disregard for our business rights."

What makes SCO think it has the right to *force* Linux developers and users to continue using a binary version of Linux with SCO's code in it, if it is actually proven that SCO's code exists in Linux at all? This is insane talk from McBride. Red Hat, in addition to every Linux developer on the planet, has *every* right to know what infringing code exists, so that they can rip it out. Linux 2.6 deserves to be free of all SCO's dirty, unwelcome code.

I am also spitting mad over the media, and their seemingly inability to reveal SCO for what it is: a company run by unlawful, immoral extortionists. Thank god for sites like this one, where the truth can come out.

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http://radio.weblogs.com /0120124/2003/07/31.html

Of particular interest was this statment:

"Don't touch open source software unless you have a team of intellectual property lawyers prepared to scour every single piece [of the open source code]. We offer indemnification, but many suppliers do not. A lot of companies are going to get very disappointed as we move forward. It will become a very challenging intellectual property issue."

Now followed by this announcment today: Sun joins ODSL

http://news.com.com/2104-725 2_3-5060143.html

Hmmm...

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Can you explain what issues if any there are with indemnification? If SCO wanted to do the same thing to Microsoft, would Microsoft have options that IBM and Red Hat don't have? Also if SCO threatened MS end users, would the end-users have options IBM and Red Hat end-users don't have?

Another question is exactly what has to be met to qualify for a preliminary as opposed to permanent injunction? Do you think any Linux proponents could meet those requirements?

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How could SCO overcome a public good argument for keeping OpenSource open and in the public domain considering the monumental good OpenSource provides to the public?

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They've claimed "trade secret" status in the past (search for "trade secrets" on this page to see why this is ridiculous)

http://twiki.iwethey.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/SCOvsIBMSCOLicensingJustSayNO

Now they're also claiming "contractual obligations".

PS pj, I hope you don't consider this advertising.

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"Red Hat's lawsuit confirms what we've been saying all along: Linux developers are either unwilling or unable to screen code in the Linux kernel to remove infringing code before customers buy and use it."

So he thinks Red Hat might be willing to remove any infringing code.

vs

"Red Hat thinks we should show them every line of infringing code so they can make changes and go forward, in complete ... with complete disregard for our business rights."

So he thinks Red Hat is willing to remove any infringing code.

"either unwilling or unable" must therefore be "unable". And the fact they have no idea what is supposed to be infringing, presumably why they'd be "unable".

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There are a lot of arguments, most of them expressed in Groklaw that SCO couldn't possibly counter in court.

It seems SCO's strategy is to delay any court decisions and grab as much money as they can in the interim from companies willing to pay to slow down linux and maybe from companies unwilling to take even the near-zero risk of being sued by SCO.

(The RIAA doesn't use that strategy because it actually represents real copyright holders and therefore has a legal leg to stand on.)

Now that McBride is gloating about how the Delaware action won't see a judge until 2005 and has actually said in public that he will not show the infringing code because he doesn't want anyone to change it (!) I'm sure we'll see more developments from the Linux side.

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There are major differences. I assume that Microsoft is still operating under the terms of a sealed settlement with Caldera in the DR DOS case. They have since been convicted of multiple antitrust violations and are operating under a Consent Decree. I doubt that they want to be dragged back into either court over a dispute about another operating system. That sort of thing probably would get a hearing very quickly. IBM might be able to purchase SCO, but Microsoft buying the rights to Unix? That sort of thing couldn't pass muster with the regulators or Courts here or in the EU. I'm sure that Microsoft is making the most of the current situation, I'm just not so sure they had a great deal of choice in the matter. After all, they just signed a contract with the SCO Group, and "contracts are what they use against people they know". In case you are wondering the same sort of dispute could arise with MS Windows. The last sentence of the first paragraph is exactly the sort of thing that caused them to level charges against IBM. Compaq to merge Unix and Windows NT: http://h18020.w ww1.hp.com/newsroom/pr/1998/pr100998d.html

Recently, Microsoft announced that they would start indemnifying Select and Enterprise license holders. If you purchased Windows pre-installed from an OEM you really have no direct dealings with Microsoft and may not recover anything from them in court.

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"Part of MS Windows infringes our IP rights. We are not going to sue MS. We are not going to sue Compaq or Dell or Egghead or any other distributor. We won't tell MS or anybody else what part of Windows infringes out rights. Instead we demand payment from end users of all Microsoft products from Pocket PCs to Windows 2003 servers. Pay now or the price will rise soon. We've also send letters to all large companies advising of their legal risk to continue use Windows without paying.".

What would happen? What would MS do? What would federal and states do?

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IBM didn't purchase a Unixware license, it was a license for the old Unix System V. SCO admits that IBM owns the copyright and or patent rights for JFS, RCU. and NUMA. Those are not in Unix System V. They only claim that they control the release of these as derivatives under their contract or license with IBM. They probably have never seen IBM's proprietary source code, and simply plan to obtain copies during the discovery phase.

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That's exactly my question. I haven't seen a legal argument that it wouldn't exactly the same with MS. Would there really be a difference or not? I know up to now of the many many parties that have had patent or copyright disputes with Microsoft, none have even hinted at going to the end users.

Where is the law that going after Linux end users is easier than going after Microsoft end users?

SCO and Microsoft seem to want us to just take it as a given that Linux end-users are more vulnerable than end-users of proprietary software. But I won't believe it until PJ agrees.

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A quick summary of copyright law:

• Copyright is the exclusive right of authors to copy and distribute their work.

SCO has a big legal problem here as it distributed Linux under the GPL. They effectively licenced the "offending" code by doing so. (SCO denies that.) They still have the right to sue the one that contributed their code to Linux. (IBM, not IBM?)

In some countries it is fair use to install and run a legally obtained copy of a program; without having an explicit license to do so. In other countries an explicit run-time license is required to do the copying nescessary to run the program. It is very much dependent on the details of your law what your legal status is when you are running Linux in good faith.

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Thanks. Is it running a copy fair use in the United States? I've read the answer is yes.

My biggest question is yes or no, is the situation different depending on if the program is open or closed source?

MS and SCO are really trying to hammer the point the closed source is safer for an end user. I don't get it. Not that I want to get it.

If it is the case that no end user has been successfully sued in the United States for copyright infringement, that would be a great fact to add to our arsenal. Is there an easy way to find out if that is true?

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Linux users usually have a license to copy and redistribute binaries and source code. Most Microsoft EULA's prohibit that sort of thing in the first place. A legitimate copyright violation might cause the rightful owner to go after Linux users to stop any further redistribution. I think we can all agree that SCO isn't doing anything to actually stop distribution.

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It's becoming my conclusion that SCO has given up on winning a judgement and is now trying to just stretch the proceedings as long as possible and profit from FUD.

The conference call was just unbelievable if they were trying to win these cases.

For example, until Tuesday SCO could not reveal the code in question because doing so would violate its contracts with other Unix vendors. After yesterday they don't reveal the code because they are afraid Red Hat would remove it and stop infringing without paying them. Another example, they rushed to publish an FAQ about the licensing program that *admits* it is not consistent with the GPL that they distributed Linux under. They admit it.

So I think the bigger fight now is fighting SCO's FUD until the cases are over. And I think it would be helpful to people who don't care about this issue as much as we do if we compile a list of SCO statements and short understandable responses.

Here is my version 0.0. I hope other readers of this site can add more and maybe someone (me?) can compile all of our best responses and put them into one place that journalists or non-technical people considering the Linux vs Sco matter can find.

SCO Statement: Red Hat is selling Linux that contains verbatim and obfuscated code from UNIX System V.

Proposed response: Assuming there is identical or close code in both Linux and SCO Unix, there is no proof that the copying was done from the closed code to the open code. Linux programmers program in the open. They know their code will be read by the public. SCO Unix programmers program in secret. They don't expect their code to ever be seen. If SCO publicly names the code in question this issue can be settled. It refuses to do so.

SCO Statement: Red Hat is also selling Linux that contains derivative works from UNIX that have been contributed to Linux in violation of UNIX licensing agreements.

Proposed response: SCO is in court now trying to change how their agreements were followed from their inception until May 2003. SCO or its predecessors was aware and participated in all of the contributions all vendors made to Linux. The new interpretation they are trying to pursue is questionable at best.

SCO Statement: RH's pledge will not do anything for end users, since there is still no indemnification for Linux end users.

Proposed response: The biggest threat to Linux end users is that they will have to endure more empty threats of being sued by SCO until the matter is settled in court. If SCO was able to sue end users, it would have sued one and established its right to do so. Then it could expect a high participation rate in its licensing programs since the issues would be clear. As it is, SCO is threatening millions of Linux users hoping a tiny percentage will pay their fees. Their strategy is more like Email spammers or Nigerian Scam artists than reputable businesses.

SCO claim: We have a 100% hit rate of people saying yeah there is a problem.

Proposed response: Since one viewer has publicly stated that he can't see how what he was shown could convince a judge of grave copyright problems, and since none of the viewers have heard Linux developers defending themselves, and since SCO seems very reluctant to let a judge be one of the viewers anytime soon. That statement is at best misleading.

SCO statement: We think IP rights and the legal system do matter.

Proposed response: Thousands of developers added their work to a GPL'd work with the expectation that that license would be followed. SCO is now distributing that work openly in violation of its license and trying to profit from that.

Please add your thoughts. And take from my list anything you find helpful. By making our side of the issue easy to acquire and understand, we will be hurting SCO in the only place it still cares, its FUD battles.

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With regard to your FUD answer list, you've missed the most important of all:
An end user needs a SCO licence to run a tainted legal kernel
Answer: SCO allready licenced it to the world under the GPL.

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1. Timeline is about patents, not about copyright, "control rights", etc 2. The IP which was in dispute was clear 3. As far as I know Timeline didn't hit on MS users. If they ever do, it would presumably after they prove the main MS issue, not before.

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1. Timeline is about patents, not about copyright, "control rights", etc 2. The IP which was in dispute was clear 3. As far as I know Timeline didn't hit on MS users. If they ever do, it would presumably after they prove the main MS issue, not before.

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"Timeline is about patents,..." yes but IBM/Sequent enjoy the patent rights to both NUMA and RCU, as well as the copyrights to the supporting code/implementations they submitted for the consideration of the kernel.org folks. They have also properly licensed them for use in the Linux kernel. NUMA in particular is bound to hardware, and doesn't even depend on the Unix operating system. SCO makes a number of claims that relate to contracts or patents, but not copyrights. For example, their objections to "obfuscated code" in the Linux kernel have nothing to do with copyrights. Their contractual claims to confidentiality of (public domain) trade secret "methods and procedures" can have no application to IBM's publicly patented technology. Patents, applications, and all related correspondence on file at USPTO are all eventually made available to the public. These documents openly make specific technological claims that are non-obvious and original. It's quite a reach to say that copyright or contract derivative works clauses apply to new and original (patented) technology. Copyright gives you very little means to go after an end user. Patents are a property right and a grant of monopoly power that allows the owner “to exclude others from making, USING, offering for sale, or selling the invention throughout the United States or importing the invention into the United States”.

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SCO's efforts to portray Red Hat and others as negligent are almost as ludicrous as they are hypocritical. As both the owner of Unix System V and a Linux distributor, SCO was in by far the best position of any Linux distributor to identify violations of Unix copyrights in Linux. But did SCO catch the problems they allege are in the 2.4 kernel before they started using that kernel in their Linux distributions? Further, SCO had the unique position of having the power to choose whether to deal with violations of Unix copyrights by demanding that the code in question be removed from Linux or by opening the code in question for use under the GPL. If one assumes that SCO held themselves to the same high standards that they now seem to think Red Hat should be held to, we should take for granted that any Unix code in SCO's Linux distributions cannot possibly be there except as a result of a deliberate choice by SCO to make the code available under the GPL.

Finally, consider what may be the scariest aspect of SCO's dual status as Unix owner and Linux distributor. Did SCO act promptly to have suspected Unix code removed from Linux as soon as they saw a problem? Or did they initially implicitly consent to the use of the code under the GPL and only later, when they changed business strategies, start to claim the code as proprietary? If the latter, not only are they in gross and deliberate violation of the GPL, but very possibly of some criminal laws as well. I certainly hope that that issue is investigated fully as the case progresses.

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I agree that that's an important piece of SCO fud to counter. It may be possible to improve the answer so that it is easier to understand for someone who is not following this issue. For example I've read an anecdote that a person's local school board decided against linux because of this issue. Also if journalists have access to answers they can understand they will produce stories that seem more sympathetic to our side.

I'm offering this as a possible starting point.

SCO statement: SCO has created the Intellectual Property License for Linux in response to these customer needs. Customers who are running Linux distributions on a client, a server or an embedded system can obtain a license from SCO to use the SCO IP in binary form.

Response: That's just a scam. If there were SCO copyrighted or patented code in Linux, SCO would be able to stop Linux from being distributed, order the code removed and then it could collect damages for past use of its patents or past distribution of its copyrights. Instead SCO is trying to scare users into paying them before any of their claims are proven and before Linux developers even have a chance to defend themselves against SCO's charges. Instead of appealing to the law, SCO is appealing to the fear of people who don't understand the issues in order to collect payments.

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FAQ: What are my rights as a Linux user when I don't buy SCO's license?

Answer: The authors of the Linux kernel chose to apply the GPL (General Public Licence) to it. This means that you are free to run the kernel (on as much CPUs as you like), have the right to see the source code, modify and compile it, and are allowed to distribute Linux (modified or the original code) under the conditions of the GPL [link].
We think that the GPL still applies, even if SCO's claims of illegal copying are ruled true. The GPL has a provision that all code that is distributed as part of a GPLed program must be distributed under the conditions of the GPL. SCO still is distributing versions of the Linux kernel and it will infringe the copyrights of the Linux coders if it uses a different license than the GPL. So SCO implicity allowed distribution of (at least some of) the code they claim that is infringing their rights under the conditions of the GPL.

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