The amended SCO complaint [LWN.net]

SCO has posted its amended complaint against IBM on its web site. The document is changed in a number of ways. Gone is most of language about how Linux could never have proceeded beyond the "bicycle" stage without IBM's help. SCO noticed the acquisition of Sequent for the new complaint, and has incorporated material relating to that company. There are (a few) more specifics about the problem areas; they include the PowerPC port, clustering (!), scalability improvements, NUMA support, performance measuring, and, as expected, read-copy-update, which SCO claims to own even though RCU was never part of System V. Export violations are now alleged, in what appears to be an attempt to get the U.S. government interested in the case. There is also a plea for an injunction forcing IBM to cease distributing AIX and "return all copies" to SCO.

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Whoops!

Posted Jun 18, 2003 9:12 UTC (Wed) by james (subscriber, #1325) [Link]

This time they've made a mistake...

The amended complaint states that:

Pursuant to its rights under the controlling agreements, IBM was entitled to 100 days to cure its underlying contractual breaches, provided it was willing and able to do so. Both parties were contractually required to "exert their mutual good faith best efforts to resolve any alleged breach short of termination."

Throughout these 100 days, SCO has continually been asked where the allegedly offending code is located. They have been told that it would be rewritten as soon as we saw that it was a problem. They have been assured that there is no way we could delete all copies worldwide of the offending code.

Yet they have only recently pointed to vague areas of the kernel. I cannot see how this counts as "good faith best efforts".

In other words, IBM may (or may not) have breached the letter of the agreement, but SCO have just admitted that they breached both the letter and the spirit.

Incidentally, although they have got rid of a lot of the misleading or factually untrue statements in the previous complaint, they've added some more howlers:

Were it not for UNIX System V, there would be no UNIX technology or derivative works available for IBM and others to copy into Linux.

and

SCO is also the sole and exclusive owner of copyrights related to UNIX System V source code and documentation and peripheral code and systems related thereto.

BSD? Microsoft (through Xenix?) And what about the other contributions from Unix vendors?

Prior to this time [the start of Project Monterey], IBM had not developed any expertise to run UNIX on an Intel processor and instead was confined to its Power PC processor.

AIX v1 (on PS/2)?

[Before IBM]...the Linux developers did not have access to sophisticated high-end enterprise class multiprocessor systems, nor did they have any particular interest in supporting such systems.

Caldera and Alan Cox's SMP motherboard?

SCO’s Trade Secrets [including UNIX source] derive independent economic value, are not generally known to third persons, are not readily ascertainable by proper means by other persons who can obtain economic value from their disclosure and use, and are subject to reasonable efforts by SCO and its predecessors to maintain secrecy.

From the company that made Version 7 source code available...

James.

SCO has shown the exact allegedly copied code

Posted Jun 21, 2003 0:08 UTC (Sat) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link]

SCO has shown many people the allegedly copied code, under nondisclosure agreement. It's available to IBM. That sounds like plenty of good faith to me.

SCO has shown the exact allegedly copied code

Posted Jun 30, 2003 11:48 UTC (Mon) by Wol (guest, #4433) [Link]

At which point, how does IBM fix the problem? They've signed an NDA, remember...

IBM are in catch 22. If they don't sign the NDA, they don't know what needs fixing. If they do sign the NDA, they've just signed away the ability to fix the problem.

I certainly don't call that good faith.

Chers,
Wol

The amended SCO complaint

Posted Jun 18, 2003 11:56 UTC (Wed) by ssharkey (subscriber, #4451) [Link]

After reading the entire amended complaint, it appears that one of the key assumptions that SCO is making is that any UNIX program, of whatever origin, is by definition a derivative work, simply because it was written to run on Unix. This is apparently the basis of their claims that allow them to claim rights over code that has not one line of SCO/ATT origin, at least according to the complaint. Apparently, SCO therefore believes that any UNIX-related technology which was shipped with a commercial UNIX license has become incorporated into their body of owned code -- I'm sure that will raise a few eyebrows around the business world.

Apparently LWN's comment "All your base are belong to us" isn't very far off the mark...

Unfortunately, the term derivative work has a very specific legal meaning, one which includes the requirement that it contain code from the original program, in substantial and non-trivial amounts. In other words, a derivative program is one that has a common ancestor in the protected work.

It's not clear that the functions which IBM has made available to Linux fall into that category.

-Scott

The amended SCO complaint

Posted Jun 18, 2003 14:10 UTC (Wed) by ccchips (guest, #3222) [Link]

I don't know how the legal wrangling ended up here, but you may not know this: IBM tried the same thing. At one time, on their 360 platform, a completed compile and link and catalog would result in a message like:

*** PHASE ABCPROG1 CATALOG IS SYS1.GODLIB ***

The term "phase" was used to describe exactly the kind of baloney mentioned in this previous message: IBM was leading people to believe that if you wrote, compiled, and linked, *any* 360 program of any kind, it automagically became their property. And this was true even if the program bindings were weak or late.

I wonder--how old are these Sontag and McBride people? Did they have parents who trained them properly at home? Somehow I doubt it.

I also think the same way about the buttholes at IBM who tried that trick in the 1960's and 1970's.

Now that I think about it, remember the H. "Rap" Brown speech?

"We have an understanding of Karma. What goes around, comes around."

Hey---maybe somebody from IBM is reading this? Guys, I like the idea of your involvement with Linux, but I can't help but ask...

"What you goin' do now?"

The amended SCO complaint

Posted Jun 18, 2003 14:52 UTC (Wed) by dkite (guest, #4577) [Link]

That is funny. Although, I think they sued the right people. IBM won't roll over on
this, and have deep pockets.

What SCO is trying to do is collect royalties on a free system. This won't go to
court. The stuff they are coming up with is so ridiculous and far fetched. They
won't show any evidence, because the possible offending code would be excised
within hours, and likely shown to be from bsd. The purpose is as IBM says, again
the ones who invented it, FUD. That is why they tripled the damages when IBM
didn't sit and beg. And they took the work of a respected Linux journalist and
highlighted it in their claim. I wonder how many users of Linux have sent them a
cheque already? I suspect it would be surprising.

Are the developers, some in employ of other companies, some not, going to let
SCO collect royalties on their work?

Derek

A corporation is not a person; things to ask the people at IBM

Posted Jun 19, 2003 20:22 UTC (Thu) by lilo (guest, #661) [Link]

ccchips wrote:

"We have an understanding of Karma. What goes around, comes around."

It's worth reiterating: A corporation is not a person. How many people who were at IBM 30-40 years ago are still there now? Probably not many. There's a certain symmetry to corporate karma, but one hopes it has no basis in reality. There are a lot of good people at IBM today, and I think they've done a fair amount for the community, in the process of trying to do well by their employer.

However, this does raise an important point. As a result of the chain of events begun by this litigation, IBM might end up with some of the intellectual property rights which form the basis for SCO's complaints. If so, the community would be well-advised to talk with IBM about the disposition of that Unix IP. We know that any corporation can change direction. Providing unrestrictive, perpetual and irrevocable licensing for Unix technology would be a nice way for IBM to demonstrate its long-term commitment to the community behind the technology it's helping to develop and market.

Rob Levin, President
Peer-Directed Projects Center

The amended SCO complaint

Posted Jun 18, 2003 12:01 UTC (Wed) by dbhost (guest, #3461) [Link]

Does SCO have an anti drug policy like most companies do these days? I would love to see what sorts of hallucenogens Darl Mcbride and his compadres have been popping up there in Utah. These are not that actions of a corporation run by sober individuals that is certain... This is sort of like Martha Stewart trying to sue you or me for using silverware that actually matches instead of a mishmash of garage sale pieces.

I personally challenge the executive leadership of SCO to have drug screenings done by an independent third party clinic, and post the results on their web site to prove they haven't been drinking the bong water. And perhaps a nice report from a clinincal psychiatrist. The public behavior of these guys makes it look like they are a couple of fries short of a happy meal.

The amended SCO complaint

Posted Jun 25, 2003 18:20 UTC (Wed) by whig (guest, #8781) [Link]

Actually, if the SCO people smoked up, they'd probably chill out a good bit.

My guess for McBride's drug of choice is probably amphetamine. I've seen people go psychotic after going without sleep for long enough....

The amended SCO complaint

Posted Jun 18, 2003 12:37 UTC (Wed) by wweber (guest, #11678) [Link]

In a legal document where processors are to be referred to as "chips" I'm not inclined to expect any sort of technical precision. SCO Group appears to have bought the right to jealously guard a collection of ideas, the UNIX operating system, for their own.

On the one hand, they may be "hearing a giant sucking sound" as the free flow of code drains the value out of their purchase. Some of us who read about offshore outsrourcing of programming work can sympathize with this. When Linux was merely the Bookstore/Cafe Operating System for students, there was always The Real UNIX that the real business world used.

On the other hand, UNIX has been around for a LONG time. How long can anyone own it? Don't patents and copyrights eventually sunset?

The amended SCO complaint

Posted Jun 18, 2003 12:45 UTC (Wed) by jarek (guest, #4105) [Link]

"On the other hand, UNIX has been around for a LONG time. How long can anyone own it? Don't patents and copyrights eventually sunset?"

Patents, 20 years.. Copyrights, 50 or perhaps 75 years, I believe (depending on country).

/jarek

Posted Jun 18, 2003 13:03 UTC (Wed) by dark (subscriber, #8483) [Link]

In the US, under current laws, copyrights held by a corporation expire 95 years after publication or 120 years after creation, whichever comes first. That would put the UNIX code somewhere in 2090 (and now you know why the comments at the top of each file claim the code is "unpublished").

Project Gutenberg has a page about this.

However, in practice, nothing will expire in 2090 because the copyright durations will have been extended by that time. The practical duration of copyright is: (age of Mickey Mouse) + (0 to 20 years). This will remain true until the human race rises up against its corporate overlords.

lets end this now

Posted Jun 18, 2003 13:35 UTC (Wed) by lyda (guest, #7429) [Link]

does anyone here have the system v source? this article has ideas on how to find any duplicated lines. essentially for EACH line of each file in a source tree compute the md5sum of it and the next four lines. the author recommends removing duplicate hashes witin a source tree, but it might be best not to. it could be improved - some quick and simple fixes could:

remove leadingi/trailing whitespace
change all tabs to spaces and turn multiple spaces in a row into a single space.
remove blank lines
it could fold cases.

anyway if someone has access to the unix system v source and could do these calculations it would be very helpful.

The amended SCO complaint

Posted Jun 18, 2003 17:06 UTC (Wed) by nicke (guest, #12150) [Link]

There are some important distictions that they mix freely.

-UNIX source (syste V) code in Linux
This should'nt be there, is probaly very easy to remove but also
a minor case, not worth a billion dollars, considering what they pay'd
for it to Novell, 6 millon plus more (up to 82 mill) if sales went well, and that has not happened.

-AIX code that IBM by AT&T contract should give back to UNIX
But as I can read the contract amendment (on SCO web) IBM are free to use
all UNIX concepts, technologies as they like, as long as it is not
in the SOFTWARE PRODUCT, ie. original AT&T code. Should cover all modern
AIX work.

-UNIX technologies. Whatever that is.
They seem to think that every modern OS technonoly that has ever been put
into UNIX is "UNIX technology".
From what I know Journaling FS, RCU, SMP NUMA, and clustering are general
OS technologies. Some of them patented, but not as UNIX technologies.
That fact that they also have been implemented for UNIX is interesting
but that does'nt make the ideas into UNIX technologies.

The case should sink like a stone inte the deepest pit in or around
Lindon UTAH.

I use Linux or UNIX and also Windows, but robber barons, NO THANK YOU.