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See Full StoryDear Mr. McBride, I guess push is coming to shove, huh? You finally got a court to order release of the AT&T code, so things are coming together a bit on that end. It's an important legal step, and one I'm sure you'll be glad to get over with, despite the crowing going on among those who see it as a victory for IBM. Inheriting the whirlwind is all very well as someone else's metaphor, but it's rough for you right now, isn't it? Hang in there. You and I both know that right will ultimately prevail.
Re: An Open Letter to Darl McBride
Posted by: DarlMcLied 2004-01-01 10:43:18 In reply to: Paul Murphy
This "article" must be a joke, right?
I'm looking at the calendar and April is .... a long ways away.
Paul, Darl McBride told you Boies was on contingency. Is he?
Paul, Darl McBride told you that SCOldera had a list of AIX customers and were launching AIX audits. Where are they?
Paul, Darl McBride told you a copyright suit against RedHat was about to be launched. Where is it?
Paul, Darl McBride told you that if SCOldera released the details of infringement the Linux community would "wipe the fingerprints" by proof of the infringement. Quite a feat, wiping the fingerprints of hundreds of millions of CDs, hundreds of thousands of DVDs, hundreds of thousands of textbooks ....
How many times does Darl have to lie to you before you begin to suspect that everything out of his mouth is a lie?
As far as SCOldera "publishing proof" of direct copying between SysV and Linux,
There's a reason SCOldera has not published their "PROOF".
SGI told you what that reason is in their open letter.
HP told you what that reason is when HP indemnified its Linux customers.
SUN told you what that reason is since SUN keeps pushing their Linux desktops while not paying SCOldera one red cent for their "Unix IP for Linux" license. (SCOldera have not sold ONE of these licenses. That fact is in their SEC filings.)
Back to your article, and a factual error therein - the court ordered SCOG to answer all of IBM's interrogatories UNDER A PROTECTIVE ORDER. SCOG has not been ordered to show the public ANYTHING.
10 seconds worth of research on Groklaw would have told you that, Paul Murphy.
And waiting until you read the transcript of the oral arguments, instead of rushing to post your opinion, would have told you what SCOldera thinks of its own case.
If you still don't know what SCOldera thinks of its own case, please read the transcript, especially where Kevin McBride admitted to the judge that SCOldera has no case.
I'm looking at the calendar and April is .... a long ways away.
Paul, Darl McBride told you Boies was on contingency. Is he?
Paul, Darl McBride told you that SCOldera had a list of AIX customers and were launching AIX audits. Where are they?
Paul, Darl McBride told you a copyright suit against RedHat was about to be launched. Where is it?
Paul, Darl McBride told you that if SCOldera released the details of infringement the Linux community would "wipe the fingerprints" by proof of the infringement. Quite a feat, wiping the fingerprints of hundreds of millions of CDs, hundreds of thousands of DVDs, hundreds of thousands of textbooks ....
How many times does Darl have to lie to you before you begin to suspect that everything out of his mouth is a lie?
As far as SCOldera "publishing proof" of direct copying between SysV and Linux,
There's a reason SCOldera has not published their "PROOF".
SGI told you what that reason is in their open letter.
HP told you what that reason is when HP indemnified its Linux customers.
SUN told you what that reason is since SUN keeps pushing their Linux desktops while not paying SCOldera one red cent for their "Unix IP for Linux" license. (SCOldera have not sold ONE of these licenses. That fact is in their SEC filings.)
Back to your article, and a factual error therein - the court ordered SCOG to answer all of IBM's interrogatories UNDER A PROTECTIVE ORDER. SCOG has not been ordered to show the public ANYTHING.
10 seconds worth of research on Groklaw would have told you that, Paul Murphy.
And waiting until you read the transcript of the oral arguments, instead of rushing to post your opinion, would have told you what SCOldera thinks of its own case.
If you still don't know what SCOldera thinks of its own case, please read the transcript, especially where Kevin McBride admitted to the judge that SCOldera has no case.
I'm sorry, but at this point, McBride has no friends left in the Linux world. He may have had some a few months ago, but by now, I bet all of those have turned on him just like he turned on them.
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And Caldera's actions are of the utmost importance because it can be proven by witnesses (the developpers themselfs have admitted to it) that Caldera now SCO are the ones who actually contributed most if not all of what we can only suspect is the contested codes.
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I have to admit though that I agree on one thing,...show the code already.
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face it, if a big guy came to me in the street and said "there's something in you suitcase that's mine, you owe me money!"
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I'd ask what the hell they were talking about.
Then they'd say "someone else put it there, you owe me money"
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I'd ask what the hell it was.
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They'd say "I don't have to tell you or show you what it is, it's in you suitcase, it's mine, and you owe me money for it"
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well..I'd probably hit him as hard as I can between the big toes and tell him to leave me alode...
Got it...SCO.
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And Caldera's actions are of the utmost importance because it can be proven by witnesses (the developpers themselfs have admitted to it) that Caldera now SCO are the ones who actually contributed most if not all of what we can only suspect is the contested codes.
--
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I have to admit though that I agree on one thing,...show the code already.
--
--
face it, if a big guy came to me in the street and said "there's something in you suitcase that's mine, you owe me money!"
-
I'd ask what the hell they were talking about.
Then they'd say "someone else put it there, you owe me money"
-
I'd ask what the hell it was.
-
They'd say "I don't have to tell you or show you what it is, it's in you suitcase, it's mine, and you owe me money for it"
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well..I'd probably hit him as hard as I can between the big toes and tell him to leave me alode...
Got it...SCO.
...since at the time, they were the survivor in interest of the Unix IP.
One can certainly argue that once they 'open sourced' certain Unix flavors, no non-disclosure terms could afterwards be enforced against the code contained in those flavors.
Obviously, this wouldn't affect any disclosures that occured BEFORE their action, which MAY have been the point you were trying to make, though it didn't really come out that way too well.
True, in general, the actions of another party don't imply the 'rightness' of the actions of the first one; unless that 'other party' happens to be the owner of the code in question.
One can certainly argue that once they 'open sourced' certain Unix flavors, no non-disclosure terms could afterwards be enforced against the code contained in those flavors.
Obviously, this wouldn't affect any disclosures that occured BEFORE their action, which MAY have been the point you were trying to make, though it didn't really come out that way too well.
True, in general, the actions of another party don't imply the 'rightness' of the actions of the first one; unless that 'other party' happens to be the owner of the code in question.
Actually, Mr. Murphy, you have made a minor legal error. It is true that in a criminal case the fact that someone else did it is not a legal excuse.
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However, the rules are different in a civil case. Particularly important to this question is the doctrine of estoppel, or "unclean hands" which essentially states that you can't sue someone for something you yourself also did.
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So the fact of contributions by Caldera to Linux IS relevant. The improvements Caldera added to Linux were, in fact, a major part of their business practices. (Programmers employed by SCO before SCO was bought by Caldera also contributed to Linux as well.) In fact, I know of one case where a Caldera programmer helped IBM with the transfer of the JFS filesystem from OS/2 to Linux.
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You can bet that IBM will dig up this information during discovery and that they will use it in a motion to dismiss.
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Alex
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However, the rules are different in a civil case. Particularly important to this question is the doctrine of estoppel, or "unclean hands" which essentially states that you can't sue someone for something you yourself also did.
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So the fact of contributions by Caldera to Linux IS relevant. The improvements Caldera added to Linux were, in fact, a major part of their business practices. (Programmers employed by SCO before SCO was bought by Caldera also contributed to Linux as well.) In fact, I know of one case where a Caldera programmer helped IBM with the transfer of the JFS filesystem from OS/2 to Linux.
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You can bet that IBM will dig up this information during discovery and that they will use it in a motion to dismiss.
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Alex
I thought about that (my former editor at
Linuxworld.com made the same point when he published my first comment on the SCO claim) but I think this will prove to be one of those situations in which the precise nice-ities of who owned whom when to hold what, will come into play.
I don't know the critical date was - sometime during the summer of 02 (not 03)- but I think SCOsource will be clean before that and able to
argue that subsequent actions don't matter. This point may get interesting, but I doubt it'll be that difficult a matter to settle.
Linuxworld.com made the same point when he published my first comment on the SCO claim) but I think this will prove to be one of those situations in which the precise nice-ities of who owned whom when to hold what, will come into play.
I don't know the critical date was - sometime during the summer of 02 (not 03)- but I think SCOsource will be clean before that and able to
argue that subsequent actions don't matter. This point may get interesting, but I doubt it'll be that difficult a matter to settle.
Sorry, but I dont understand the point of describing a legal issue as a "nice-itie".
The original article wandered around the concept of the GPL, while the tag-line seemed to infer that someone was attempting to manipulate it to support some clever plan to steal proprietary code. After reading the article 3 times, all I come away with is you "believe" SCO must have a good case. Please elaborate...
Despite the wandering nature of the article, the original respondant correctly pointed out that this is NOT a criminal case. The fact that the GPL'd release of the linux product by SCO (Caldera) negate future claims of IP infringment. This doesn't seem like just a "nice-itie", It seems like the crux of the issue.
You wanna give Darl some advice? Tell him to take a bunch of that option and bonus money and start paying a good defense attorney. Pump and Dump will inevitably attract the SEC, and I hear it has other connotations in federal prisons :)
The original article wandered around the concept of the GPL, while the tag-line seemed to infer that someone was attempting to manipulate it to support some clever plan to steal proprietary code. After reading the article 3 times, all I come away with is you "believe" SCO must have a good case. Please elaborate...
Despite the wandering nature of the article, the original respondant correctly pointed out that this is NOT a criminal case. The fact that the GPL'd release of the linux product by SCO (Caldera) negate future claims of IP infringment. This doesn't seem like just a "nice-itie", It seems like the crux of the issue.
You wanna give Darl some advice? Tell him to take a bunch of that option and bonus money and start paying a good defense attorney. Pump and Dump will inevitably attract the SEC, and I hear it has other connotations in federal prisons :)
