More SCO cheer

[Posted December 23, 2003 by corbet]

Since the above article was published, a few more things have happened on the SCO front...

Linus has posted a response to SCO's claims of ownership of various include files in the Linux kernel. In particular, he examines the "ctype" macros, which he wrote personally, tracing their development from very early kernels. Needless to say, he does not concur with SCO's claims in this regard.

Since then, a significant effort has been underway to find the true origins of the errno.h include file. This file, it turns out, was added in version 0.97 of the kernel; Linus has concluded that it was automatically generated from libc-2.2.2 (note that's "libc", not "glibc", which came much later). Tracking down the source for that version of the library was a challenge, but, once it turned up on an FTP site, Linus was able to verify that it was the source for errno.h. The next question would be how the error numbers and descriptions got into libc, but, as Linus says:

But it shouldn't much matter, since I don't think SCO really is going to try to claim copyright ownership of the result of standard C library interactions like using "sys_errlist[]". (I take that back - _of_course_ they are going to try to claim ownership. After all, they already claimed ownership of code I provably wrote).

In any case, errno.h was not copied from anything owned by SCO.

It is also worth looking into ancient history (October, 2003) to review a quote by SCO's spokesperson Blake Stowell:

End users have a choice. They can go back to using Linux based on the 2.2 kernel which includes no infringing code, or they can continue using SCO's UNIX code as it is being found in Linux and properly compensate the company for using it.

Files like errno.h have been in the kernel since well before 2.2, which, apparently, "includes no infringing code." Either SCO has changed its mind in the last couple of months, or they know that this code does not actually infringe upon any copyrights owned by the SCO group. We requested clarification from Mr. Stowell, but, predictably, got no response.

Meanwhile, SCO has announced the abrupt departure of Steve Cakebread from its board of directors, ostensibly due to "personal time constraints." We note (thanks to a pointer from Don Marti) that Mr. Cakebread's day job is Chief Financial Officer at Salesforce.com, which is a heavily Linux-based application service provider. Could it be that Salesforce.com got a shakedown letter from SCO, and has given its response?

SCO's offices are, apparently, shutting down for the holidays. Expect more interesting developments in January after they return to work and, according to the Monday conference call, set a significantly larger staff on the task of shaking money out of Linux users.

More SCO cheer

Posted Dec 25, 2003 13:29 UTC (Thu) by ekj (guest, #1524) [Link] (3 responses)

Isn't there *some* sort of limit in the US of A on how many mutually exclusive statements a company can make in public during a on-going court-case before the judge will start demanding that they pick *one* version of the story and stick to it rather than change the story from day to day according to whom they're talking to at the moment ?

That thing called "lying"...

Posted Dec 26, 2003 2:26 UTC (Fri) by rankincj (guest, #4865) [Link] (2 responses)

I guess the crunch-point is: it's only a crime if you lie in Court. However, you can happily lie to journalists for as long as they continue to print your statements.

Nothing wrong with advancing multiple opinions

Posted Dec 28, 2003 21:36 UTC (Sun) by giraffedata (guest, #1954) [Link] (1 responses)

We're not even talking about lying here. We're talking about things which are clearly matters of opinion.

Not only is it OK for a plaintiff to express conflicting opinions in public, it's OK to do it in court, and a court can even find that both conflicting opinions are valid, in separate contexts.

Consider the following legal argument, from an ancient legal argument textbook. A person is accused of borrowing a kettle and cracking it, and thus owing the owner a new kettle. "Your honor, Defendant argues that 1) he never had the kettle; 2) the kettle is not cracked; and 3) it was cracked when he got it."

If you sufficiently broaden your mind to what the facts of this case might be, the above argument is perfectly sane. And the facts of the SCO case are far less concrete.

Nothing wrong with advancing multiple opinions

Posted Dec 29, 2003 1:13 UTC (Mon) by rankincj (guest, #4865) [Link]

Perhaps, but this does remind me of a passage in Douglas Adams' "Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy" where Man proves that Black is White, only to get run over on the next zebra crossing...

SCO has totally failed to produce any substantive evidence after 9 months, and their press releases to date have exhibited both an 'economy with the truth' and a lack of candour. But hey, if you want to believe them then don't let me stop you.