LWN: Comments on "Linus Torvalds on SCO's latest claims"

Linus Torvalds on SCO's latest claims

KillerBEEEE — Thu, 22 Jan 2004 00:05:35 +0000

This is to inform you that the name "SCO" is copywrited material. This thread contains 28 uses of the above mentioned name. Please send $100 per useage of the name to po. box 420 danklane stonersparadise ca. 42042

;)

Linus Torvalds on SCO's latest claims

stuart — Thu, 08 Jan 2004 19:17:16 +0000

Actually it was all written by Marlowe. My mum said.

Hmmm i'm starting to sound like McBride.

Stu.

Linus Torvalds on SCO's latest claims

bradh — Mon, 29 Dec 2003 10:57:05 +0000

The toupper() and tolower() routines are basically the same as provided
by P.J. Plauger in his book "The Standard C Library".

Which is (C) 1992.

Linus Torvalds on SCO's latest claims

argolnx — Sun, 28 Dec 2003 14:55:25 +0000

Tomorrow i will register for copyright the "for" routine.... it could be nice ?!?!

Linus Torvalds on SCO's latest claims

iabervon — Tue, 23 Dec 2003 20:34:10 +0000

An actual lawsuit is probably not worth the time and expense, but it
might be interesting for someone to set up a site which lists all of the
copyrighted works and their owners which SCO has claimed to own, with the
intent of having a class action lawsuit at some point if it becomes
economically reasonable. It would might make the press take notice if
there were periodic press releases accusing SCO of more and more
copyright infringement as they claim more things. This week, they seem to
have violated copyrights by J H Lu (the libc that Linus took his strings
and numbers from), Linus (who actually machine generated the file), and
various standards groups (who actually named these things). (Note that
it's perfectly legal to use, modify, and distribute these things, but you
can't claim to own the copyrights on them if you don't.)

I dream of SCO showing up in court without any evidence, and when asked
why they don't have any, being forced to admit that all their computers
and hard drives have been seized by federal marshalls as evidence against
them for software piracy. Having a centralized location which lists their
crimes seems like a good start.

Linus is "owned by SCO"

fLameDogg — Tue, 23 Dec 2003 14:07:50 +0000

Unfortunately, the phrase "is owned by SCO" is owned by... well, you know. Now you must pay royalties.

Re: Sorry to sound so sycophantic, but...

fLameDogg — Tue, 23 Dec 2003 14:04:38 +0000

Well, microbes surely. But I meant his metaphorical programmer's feet :O)

Linus Torvalds on SCO's latest claims

oseemann — Tue, 23 Dec 2003 12:03:18 +0000

he is probably talking about a unix c++ compiler they license.

there is something called UDK from sco that includes a c++ compiler (not gcc).

Linus Torvalds on SCO's latest claims

dvrabel — Tue, 23 Dec 2003 09:42:06 +0000

You're missing brackets around the argument in the body of the macro. This is why I always use inline functions in preference to macros.

Re: Sorry to sound so sycophantic, but...

janpla — Tue, 23 Dec 2003 08:52:05 +0000

So, you're implying that he has 'bugs'? On his feet?

Linus Torvalds on SCO's latest claims

steven97 — Tue, 23 Dec 2003 08:18:27 +0000

Isn't it time to turn this case upside down?

These are the United States you are talking about. You are free to sue them, or anyone else, with ridiculous claims -- but can you afford that?

Linus Torvalds on SCO's latest claims

proski — Tue, 23 Dec 2003 06:38:05 +0000

Try this with your definition:


#include <stdio.h>
int main() {
  printf("Should be A, actually %c\n", toupper(1 ? 'a' : 'b'));
}

$ ./test
Should be A, actually a

Linus is "owned by SCO"

s52d — Tue, 23 Dec 2003 06:22:59 +0000

Baby making is owned by SCO. Linus's mother never payed royalities.

Also, having a name is SCO trade secet. By giving Linus a name,
they again ask for being fined.

Best regards,

Iztok

(p.s.: Iztok is owned by SCO, and phrase "Best Regards" as well.
LWN is owned by SCO.)

McBride, August 2002

frazier — Tue, 23 Dec 2003 05:11:36 +0000

Sure enough, you aren't joking.

There's some entertaining stuff in there:

http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/0,14179,2877578,00.html

Linus Torvalds on SCO's latest claims

link — Tue, 23 Dec 2003 03:42:00 +0000

This is yet another example where SCO is claiming ownership to code which is evidently NOT owned by them! They are threatening individuals and companies for using code which they own just as much as they own the texts of William Shakespeare [&hellip]

Funny you should use The Bard as an example, given there is some controversy over whether he actually wrote the plays he's credited with; the honor usually attributed to one of Christopher Marlowe, Francis Bacon, William Stanley, or Edward de Vere. :-)

Of course, it may be partially appropriate given nobody seriously suggests William Shaespeare of Stratford plagiarized any of the above; rather one of the candidates used the name as a pseudonym (a nom de guerre, possibly, in this case) for publishing their own works. The Oxfordians in particular like to suggest Lord Oxford (Edward de Vere) published under the pseudonym because he as a courtier was forbidden to publish poetry.

[Source: Google & The Shakespeare Oxford Society's “A Beginner's Guide to the Shakespeare Authorship Problem”]

SCO's latest claims

dusty — Tue, 23 Dec 2003 03:10:40 +0000

SCO is a modern day patent medicine outfit that deserve a slow agonizing death. Methinks they are about to get it.

Linus Torvalds on SCO's latest claims

tres — Tue, 23 Dec 2003 03:08:33 +0000

This fails to take into account the possibility of some SCO programmer doing:

char new_char = toupper( '5' );

It also fails to work on non ASCII codes which Linus' might or might not depending on whether or not lower case letters have a larger numerical representation.

Linus Torvalds on SCO's latest claims

jimm007 — Tue, 23 Dec 2003 02:26:45 +0000

#define toupper(c) (char)(c & ~32)
#define tolower(c) (char)(c | 32)

Linus Torvalds on SCO's latest claims

mmarq — Tue, 23 Dec 2003 01:45:03 +0000

"It is possible that the improvements to (say) tolower() could have been borrowed from a protected source."

"IF SO", isnt that the job SCO to prove ??
IMHO, they dont have nothing, never did, and google even once after phamtoms, is one to many.

Linus Torvalds on SCO's latest claims

mmarq — Tue, 23 Dec 2003 01:38:25 +0000

Not even Mcbride... he was not joking, he was on crack (he must had been on something)!

What a "piece of work" this McBride.

Linus Torvalds on SCO's latest claims

bojan — Tue, 23 Dec 2003 00:45:25 +0000

You are right, but you're also giving SCO too much credit, IMHO. They have released some of their own versions of Unix under a BSD-style licence. Also, the settlement between UCB and USL clearly allowed for BSD to be distributed under BSD licence.

Remember when SCO folks claimed that all the "infringements" had nothing to do with BSD code? Now it turns out (as before) that they do. One would have to ask why exactly is that? My bet is this - there is not real evidence, so they have to come up with this.

And that doesn't even begin to describe the very desperate position SCO is in:

1. Novell renewed their Unix copyright claims.
2. IBM is calmly proceeding with their defence.
3. Red Hat is waiting in the wings to collect on their lawsuit.
4. IBM's patent lawsuit is still pending.
5. SCO are burning bridges with everyone way too fast.

In any event, it is fun to watch :-)

Linus Torvalds on SCO's latest claims

karekaa — Tue, 23 Dec 2003 00:16:00 +0000

Isn't it time to turn this case upside down?

This is yet another example where SCO is claiming ownership to code which is evidently NOT owned by them! They are threatening individuals and companies for using code which they own just as much as they own the texts of William Shakespeare -- (or Hamlet knows, if SCO has bought those rights too... sigh).

It's time for some qualified jurist to look into the possibility if all target parties could actually claim replacement for consumed time on this illusion of a court case from SCO?!

Kjell Arne Rekaa
(Norway)

Linus Torvalds on SCO's latest claims

jbh — Tue, 23 Dec 2003 00:04:01 +0000

Well if not C then at least C++:

"And C++ programming languages, we own those, have licensed them out multiple times, obviously." McBride, August 2002

I'm not joking.

Linus Torvalds on SCO's latest claims

Halmonster — Tue, 23 Dec 2003 00:00:23 +0000

As much as it pains me to contradict our Fearless Leader, I must point out the following. Just because the history of a C source file can be traced to code that SCO clearly has no claim over, that does not mean that the patches and bugfixes applied to that C source file were not tainted. It is possible that the improvements to (say) tolower() could have been borrowed from a protected source. We need to go through all the patches to these files and make sure they are free from copyright burdens as well.

Hal Eisen
http://www.BuiltOnLinux.com

Linus Torvalds on SCO's latest claims

smoogen — Mon, 22 Dec 2003 23:29:37 +0000

Hmmm it has become obvious.. SCO owns the rights to C itself. Since C was really written so that Unix could occur the two can NOT be decoupled by any international body or standards...

- the C standard also specifies what kinds of names a system library
interface can use internally. In particular, the C standard specifies
that names that start with an underscore and a capital letter are
"internal" to the library. This is important, because it explains why
both the Linux implementation _and_ the UNIX implementation used a
particular naming scheme for the flags.

Thus SCO really should also say it owns all implementations of C out there.. as it is the real root of their copyrighted code.

[ :) for the humour impaired.. but on the other hand if SCO starts suing everyone who uses C and its derivatives of Java and C++ and C#.. I want a piece of the action.]

Linus Torvalds on SCO's latest claims

ccchips — Mon, 22 Dec 2003 22:59:50 +0000

SCO better not get Linus in a courtroom, or he'll "shoot [them] with little yellow bolts of light." -Farscape, episode 1

Sorry to sound so sycophantic, but...

fLameDogg — Mon, 22 Dec 2003 22:34:46 +0000

I worship at Linus' feet. Bugs and all.