[nylug-talk] Companies demonized as "Scummy" and "Evil" -- WAS: Looking for recommendations

[Eric Moore]

"Bryan J. Smith" <b.j.smith at ieee.org> writes:

> On Tue, 2008-03-18 at 06:41 -0700, Peter C. Norton wrote:
>> What I recall of the beginning of the bru-ha-ha, there was threats
>> from SCO that linux included infringing IP in the form of
>> contributions from IBM employees in the form of portions or all of
>> JFS and LVM, and possibly other parts of the kernel.
>
> Yes, in the original, 2003 March filing citing $1B, SCO named items
> #1-49 named many things that seemed "inflammatory."  I felt that too,
> until I read times #50-55, then it made sense.  It was leading up to
> their citing the Non-Compete terms of Project Monterey, a signed
> contract between IBM and SCO, in items #50-55 -- i.e., state "damage"
> inflicted then contractually binding "terms" that apply.
>

[...]

> It was 2003 May, not 2003 March, when SCO expanded the lawsuit and
> damages they were seeking ($3B), started the rhetoric outside of the
> filing.

Not true.  From a January 2003 eweek.com article:

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Past-News/SCO-Group-Readies-New-Platform/

  McBride also confirmed that the company has hired high-profile
  attorney David Boies and his legal firm to investigate whether
  Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and versions of BSD infringed on the Unix
  intellectual property it owned.

  While claiming that it is hard to estimate how many people are
  technically in breach of its licensing terms, McBride said its "very
  widespread and would generate a revenue stream in the millions of
  dollars. We know who they are."

Investigating whether Linux infringes on their intellectual property?
That sure sounds to me like "threats from SCO that linux included
infringing IP" (if not specifically from IBM).  And if not, this is a
little more indicative, from march, before the case against IBM was
filed:

http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/02/11/HNsco_1.html?s=feature

  This first program hasn't alarmed Linux enthusiasts. But by SCO's
  own admission, it's just the first to emerge from its nascent
  IP-protection initiative, and there's concern over what may follow.

  Not even SCO knows yet, Sontag said. "I wish we could just say we
  know everything, but we're dealing with such a large problem with
  many areas and complexities that we can't say 'this is it' and be
  done -- I wish we could," he said. "I can empathize with the
  concerns of [the Linux community], but we don't know all the answers
  to what may or may not be of issue," as SCO assess its intellectual
  property.

  Sontag admits SCO, as a Linux vendor, is in a conundrum.

  "We want to see Linux succeed and grow," he said. "But we also have
  a significant amount of intellectual property in Unix, and in a
  number of cases we've seen so far, there's been some inappropriate
  use of our Unix technology."

Even if it was to be filed as "just a contract dispute", prior to the
filing they were clearly suggesting they felt they had IP in Linux.

Still prior to the filing of the case Darl McBride said:

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Past-News/SCO-Group-On-the-Licensing-Warpath/1/

  But the unlicensed use of its Unix shared libraries was just the
  "tip of the iceberg as there are so much IP were dealing with here,
  ranging from copyright, trade secrets, patents, source code and
  licensing issues.

Well, forgive us for thinking they had copyright, patent, and source
code claims beyond just the trade secret contract dispute claims in
their original IBM filing.  I mean, just because THEY SAID THEY DID is
no reason to be suspicious, right?

After filing the lawsuit, we get this little gem:

http://www.forbes.com/home/2003/03/06/cs_qh_0306unix.html

  He also said that a specific type of intellectual property cited in
  the suit, the so-called "shared libraries" used in the operation of
  Unix, was "one of seven or eight" different types of IP which SCO is
  investigating for IP violations by Linux developers. He declined to
  comment on whether SCO would pursue additional lawsuits against IBM
  or other Linux companies.

So, that's march 2003, the day they filed the lawsuit, and they said
they were "investigating for IP violations by Linux developers" and
did not "comment on whether SCO would pursue additional lawsuits
against IBM or other Linux companies."

And you really think until May we had no reason to think they thought
there was infringing IP in Linux?  What crack are/were you smoking?

How about this from April 24th (maybe you want to claim you really
meant "late April" rather than "May"):

http://www.crn.com/it-channel/18830075

  McBride: Yes. We approached Red Hat [about licensing source code
  libraries] and they thought [our claim] was interesting. They said
  they'd talk about it, but then called back and said we'll pass [on
  licensing the source code from SCO]. [Red Hat Chairman and CEO
  Matthew] Szulik said copyright issues scare him. But Red Hat has had
  a free ride. In its IPO filings, one of the warnings to investors
  stated clearly that Red Hat may be violating IP and one day they may
  have to step up and pay royalties. Why not? Every time I ship a copy
  of my operating system, I pay royalties toNovell (NSDQ: NOVL) and
  Veritas. There will be a day of reckoning for Red Hat and SuSE when
  this is done. But we're focused on the IBM situation.

"There will be a day of reckoning for Red Hat and SuSE" isn't rhetoric
about their having rights they could enforce against Linux?  

same article:

  McBride: Yes, we're getting a good amount of support from the OEMs
  and even others in the Linux community. We have a good relationship
  with Sun [Microsystems]. Of all the companies, they are very clear
  in terms of licensing. They paid more than $100 million [in
  royalties]. They're not interested in destroying Unix.

  IBM was unique in their push back. They know this is a problem, but
  they played a card. They underestimated our resolve. This is not
  about eking out some [marketing development funds] or getting more
  money for the quarter. This is our most prized possession. We're the
  source of AIX, HP UX, Solaris, Linux, Mac OSX. It all comes from
  us. The only one that hasn't been rationalized [from a licensing
  perspective] is Linux. If people signed a source code license with
  us, they have to think hard about how they protected it or didn't
  protect it.

"We're the source of Linux"?  

And (same article):

  Not necessarily. We have options to apply our IP to Linux. But if we
  get no benefit from it, then the dog won't hunt. It could be
  potentially invigorating for the industry. There are a lot of great
  things about open source, but you can't ask one company or companies
  to be the sacrificial lamb in the process.

Sure sounds to me like he wanted to extract royalties from Linux.

> But in no case did I never touch SCO v. IBM, for various reasons.  SCO
> v. IBM was not SCO v. Linux, Linux advocates were the ones that made it
> that _first_.

Bullshit.  Look at what SCO was saying.  The Linux advocates certainly
had public statements by SCO that indicated SCO might very well intend
to...  do exactly what they did do.

> Because before that, it was a "contract dispute" -- not just my
> words, but the words of ESR, Linus' and many others in 2003 March.

The IBM case was.  The SCO rhetoric already clearly was not.

> A great number of us assumed SCO sued believing IBM would buy them
> out.  In reality, there may be some legal malpractice involved here
> (I won't go into).
>
> Again, it wasn't until 2003 May that Linus said "SCO's smoking crack,"
> and most of us then changed our attitude.

OTOH, it turns out that the people who thought they were smoking crack
before that were right.  And there's considerable evidence in SCO's
public statements that they'd already been hitting the crack pipe even
before they sued IBM.

> But that didn't have to do with SCO v. IBM or SCO v. AutoZone,
> Chrysler, etc...  100% of those lawsuits are over written contract
> disputes.  The key is to point this out, that SCO was 0% threat,
> legally, to any end-user or even OEMs.

Except to hear SCO tell it.

> And that's why SCO v. IBM was not our concern, which is part of the
> problem.  People thought it was, and gave SCO that "rhetoric"
> avenue.

They thought it was because SCO said that they had grounds to go
against end-users or OEMs.   Weird.

-- 
Eric