Tragedy to farce--the SCO vs. IBM lawsuit (ZDNet) [LWN.net]

For those who haven't seen enough of this stuff yet: ZDNet has published an Eric Raymond rant about the SCO lawsuit. "In order to make its case against IBM, Caldera has had to push the claim that Linux was a pathetic makeshift until the corporate hand of IBM injected into it secrets stolen from the ancient Unix code. Besides being ludicrously false, this enraged every Linux developer on the planet. Accusing us of trafficking in stolen goods was bad; implying that we were incompetent was far worse."

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Tragedy to farce--the SCO vs. IBM lawsuit (ZDNet)

Posted May 21, 2003 18:38 UTC (Wed) by jonabbey (guest, #2736) [Link] (5 responses)

I so wish Eric wouldn't keep making the point that everyone's had copies of the AT&T Unix sources and that morally the code belongs to all the hackers that contributed to it. It's a wholly unnecessary approach, and it will not be persuasive to any judge who takes on this case. AT&T, Novell, SCO, etc., paid for its development and/or paid to acquire ownership rights over it. Arguing that corporate ownership over intellectual property in this way is immoral is not a grown-up argument to make in this context.

It should be enough that Linux is a new creation, one not derived from the genetic UNIX code base.

Tragedy to farce--the SCO vs. IBM lawsuit (ZDNet)

Posted May 21, 2003 19:46 UTC (Wed) by Ross (guest, #4065) [Link] (1 responses)

Actually it is a very convincing argument. While it is unclear exactly what SCO is talking about, at one point they were alluding to trade secrets. I'm not a lawyer but my understanding is that a trade secret is only protected so long as the owner acts to keep it a secret.

Tragedy to farce--the SCO vs. IBM lawsuit (ZDNet)

Posted May 21, 2003 21:14 UTC (Wed) by StevenCole (guest, #3068) [Link]

The following was written by people who are lawyers. In an amicus brief for the USL vs BSDI lawsuit, lawyers for the University of California argued the following:

2. USL'S TRADE SECRETS HAVE BEEN EXTINGUISHED BY PUBLICATION

USL's trade secrets -- at least all of those mentioned in Dr. Carson's
affidavit -- were injected into the public domain before Net2 was 
distributed. Joint Decl., at Paras. 27, 28, 31, 33, 36, 37, 39, 40, 45, 
47, 50, 53 and 56.[fn35] "Public disclosure of a trade secret 
destroys any confidential relationship upon which a trade secret is 
based." Videotronics. Inc. v. Bend Electronics, 564 F.Supp. 1471, 1475 
D. Nev. 1983), 1 Servo Corporation of America v. General Electric 
Company, 393 F.2d 551 (4th Cir. 1968). Since USL has not identified 
any specific trade secret that is not widely documented, it cannot 
obtain any relief for misappropriation.

The entire amicus brief may be viewed here, courtesy of Dennis Ritchie. A listing of a dozen documents pertaining to that suit (which has similarities to the present one) is available here.

Tragedy to farce--the SCO vs. IBM lawsuit (ZDNet)

Posted May 21, 2003 19:50 UTC (Wed) by lyda (subscriber, #7429) [Link]

i agree.

esr makes a number of persuasive arguments actually. the at&t/bsd case was important since there is give and take between linux and *bsd developers. but that was a legal case. and it's a good thing that the courts focus on legal arguments not moral or even ethical arguments.

as for other good arguments, i particularly like the fact that caldera provided resources for the development of smp on linux.

Tragedy to farce--the SCO vs. IBM lawsuit (ZDNet)

Posted May 21, 2003 22:32 UTC (Wed) by jonabbey (guest, #2736) [Link] (1 responses)

In response to everyone's comments, I'm not suggesting that it's not appropriate to challenge any trade secret claims on SCO's behalf. It's just that some of ESR's comments seem close to pleading that SCO has no moral right to ownership of anything with respect to UNIX, which I think might lead a judge to think that Linux folks had no respect of ownership of intellectual property rights in any form whatsoever.

That would be an extremely unfortunate thing, in my opinion.

Tragedy to farce--the SCO vs. IBM lawsuit (ZDNet)

Posted May 23, 2003 7:52 UTC (Fri) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

Don't forget that SCO (in its guise of USL/Novell) has BEEN CONVICTED of stealing large chunks of code.

And it's that very code that they are complaining "has very close similarities to linux".

So it's not unreasonable to wonder if they are accusing linux of stealing code that they in fact stole themselves.

Cheers,
Wol

Tragedy to farce--the SCO vs. IBM lawsuit (ZDNet)

Posted May 21, 2003 20:33 UTC (Wed) by trutkin (guest, #3919) [Link] (1 responses)

A more indepth writeup (both historically and legally) writeup can be found at opensource.org. It doesn't use emotional, loaded words and dissects SCO's claims from several points. Astonishingly, it's also by ESR.

Tragedy to farce--the SCO vs. IBM lawsuit (ZDNet)

Posted May 21, 2003 23:22 UTC (Wed) by Baylink (guest, #755) [Link]

I don't think it's astonishing at all.

I've been reading ESR for some years, and his range doesn't remotely surprise me. I *do* believe, as I think does jonabbey, that he's sometimes not *quite* as good about characterizing which hat he's wearing when he writes for publication... but if you've read the Halloween rant (to which I linked the other day), you'll see that "rant" mischaracterizes this story to some extent.

UNIX bicentennial!

Posted May 21, 2003 20:37 UTC (Wed) by FarcePest (guest, #3065) [Link] (3 responses)

And it's not just Linux programmers who are angry. Much of the mail is coming in from old Unix hands who are finally, terminally fed up with the theory that any one corporation owns the code they spent 20 decades writing before Linux even existed. Morally, if not legally, the Unix code belongs to the hacker community that wrote it -- the same community that gave the world the Internet and the World Wide Web, and is now behind open-source software.

Hmmm, somebody couldn't decide if they preferred "2 decades" or "20 years"...

UNIX bicentennial!

Posted May 21, 2003 22:02 UTC (Wed) by rknop (guest, #66) [Link] (1 responses)

Great. Now Microsoft is going to start calling Unix "that OS that was written before the computer"

-Rob

UNIX bicentennial!

Posted May 21, 2003 23:16 UTC (Wed) by petegn (guest, #847) [Link]

Huuuum well lets get serious for one moment jus what the blue blasedoes it matter what
M$ says/claims or provaricates (SP) about they only got a short shelf life left anyhow ..

pete .

UNIX bicentennial!

Posted May 21, 2003 23:24 UTC (Wed) by Baylink (guest, #755) [Link]

*I* assumed it was "programmer years"... at which point, I guess, 200
might be too low.

"What's an IBM man-year?"

"730 guys trying to get it done before lunch."

Tragedy to farce--the SCO vs. IBM lawsuit (ZDNet)

Posted May 23, 2003 20:53 UTC (Fri) by s_cargo (guest, #10473) [Link] (1 responses)

First I read in the Caldera complaint how pathetic they claim Linux was prior to IBM's involvement, then I see that boxed distribution of Linux that Caldera sold me. If they somehow do manage to convince a judge and extract money from IBM, I think a class-action lawsuit is in order by all of us who Caldera sold to. If a court degrees that pre-IBM Linux was crap, then Caldera sold me crap, and I will want my money back.

Tragedy to farce--the SCO vs. IBM lawsuit (ZDNet)

Posted May 23, 2003 20:55 UTC (Fri) by s_cargo (guest, #10473) [Link]

Good grief! Make that "decrees that Linux is crap...".