jsolares | i think it would be a good idea to say on #linux that this |
---|---|
will be the translation to english of the conference | |
guugmembe | Oscar Peredo, from Chile is going to introduce the next |
conference | |
guugmembe | as usual we are going to use #qc for questions |
guugmembe | Welcome to the second talk of today |
guugmembe | Oscar.... |
#redes | |
guugmembe | In this ocation we are going to introduce Dr. Horst Von |
Brand from the IT department | |
guugmembe | of la Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria from Chile |
guugmembe | he is going to talk about "SCO contra linux" |
* Didier is now known as SFC | |
guugmembe | Dr. Von Brand has been a good help from our start in umeet |
back in 2000 and 2001 when the first | |
guugmembe | talks took place |
guugmembe | he is a really active person in th GNU/Linux atmosphere in |
Chile | |
#redes | |
guugmembe | and introduce this philosophy and architecture to the new |
generations | |
guugmembe | he also has been an active patricipant in the lists of |
GNU/Linux, gcc and Kernel development | |
guugmembe | and now with you Dr. Horst Von Brand |
guugmembe | good morning, afternoon, or night to all of you |
* clsk|away (clsk@0-1pool72-218.nas15.fort-lauderdale1.fl.us.da.qwest.ne | |
guugmembe | thanks a lot for those words you said about me |
timeout) | |
guugmembe | just to make clear, the first 3 Linux meetings where |
organized by German Poo, de la U del Bio-Bio, en Concecpcion. | |
guugmembe | we are going to organize the 4th and 5th |
guugmembe | well, lets go to today's topic |
* shadowtlx (shadowtlx@cpc1-norw1-3-0-cust121.pete.cable.ntl.com) has | |
joined #redes | |
guugmembe | On march of this year, SCO sue IBM, because, from the point |
of view of SCO, linux without the help of IBM was a kids bicycle in | |
comparison with a UNIX, an F1 car | |
guugmembe | that was, more or less, what they said |
(Signed off) | |
guugmembe | in detaill, they claim that IBM ilegally took Unix code and |
inserted in Linux | |
guugmembe | making linux a strong and solid alternative operative system |
guugmembe | as you could imagine, all the linux comunnity raised their |
hands in protest against SCO | |
guugmembe | and this are getting hot |
guugmembe | After talking about the legal aspect |
guugmembe | I am going to point out some important dates |
* pask has left IRC | |
guugmembe | 1965: MULTICS work starts between MIT, General Electric, |
and AT&T | |
guugmembe | this system was stopped in development in recent 2000 |
guugmembe | in 1969 AT&T steps out from the MULTICS project |
guugmembe | and two developers of that project, who didnt find anything |
better to do with their free time, took a | |
guugmembe | PDP7 and starts writing an Operative System for it, Unics |
guugmembe | 1978, first BSD Unix, at Berkeley California |
guugmembe | were doing a great deal of the job |
guugmembe | of the innovation of Unix |
jsolares | 1979 -- AT&T announces it'll begin comercialization of Unix |
guugmembe | 1979 AT&T announces that its going to make Unix commercail |
horacio | 1991 - Unix System Labs starts as a bussiness unit of AT&T to |
work on Unix. (Until that time, AT&T was a thelepony monopoly, | |
horacio | that can't do anything else because an restrictive judicial |
order) | |
horacio | Time before, AT&T was divided in a variety of minor |
enterprises. | |
horacio | 1992-- USL starts a trial against BSDI (BSD Unix vendor) for |
Unix licences violations. | |
* pask is on IRC | |
#redes | |
horacio | California U (Berkeley) was involved, obiously. Meanwhile, |
UCB suess USL for violations on AT&T licence code that was introduced to Unix. | |
horacio | Note that BSD license on that time asks name the U and others |
contributors. Nothing else, comercial use, derivated products, etc. was | |
alowed. | |
* pask has left IRC | |
horacio | 1993-- Novell buy USL from AT&T |
horacio | October 193-- Trials against BSD get resolved by an |
arrangement, most of that still remain confidential. | |
horacio | What we know is: |
#redes | |
horacio | -BSD deleted 4 files and some hundreds of lines of the system |
(around 17 thousand files ...) | |
horacio | -USL add the copyright notes that they deleted from a _large_ |
list of files | |
horacio | - Judge of the case says taht he doubt a lot that the Unix |
code can be considered with copy rights | |
horacio | Note: in USA exist the idea of "public domain" |
horacio | if is "public domain" doesn't belong anybody, you cant take |
it if you want. | |
timeout) | |
#redes | |
horacio | According to the USA legislation, untill 1976 or some, if |
something was published (or distributed under copyright note) it couldn't be | |
considered confidential. | |
* pepita is on IRC | |
* pask is on IRC | |
horacio | That's why AT&T decides to _not_ add a Copyright note on the |
code | |
horacio | but distributing code without that note they "published" it, |
and probably put it on the public domain | |
horacio | At least that was the judge's opinion. |
horacio | [No, I don't understand more than you, this is a mess!! ] |
jsolares | the judge opinion was without a detail study, and would not |
be considered a ruling. | |
jsolares | considering the judge's opinion, USL had to withdraw with |
it's tail between its legs (see the practial result of the story). | |
timeout) | |
jsolares | the result is that the *BSD's were free from needing a Unix |
licence (originaly dummy for you, later it became very expensive...) | |
jsolares | note that linux began in 1991, and had it not been for these |
battles on the Unics wars, the penguin might've never took flight | |
jsolares | Well, lets get back to the subject. |
(Signed off) | |
jsolares | November 1995 -- Novell sells UnixWare (their version of |
Unix, and (parts) of their rights on Unix) to Santa Cruz Operation (old SCO) | |
jsolares | SCO was the company that ported Unix to the PC for |
Microsoft, under the Xenix name, and then aquired the rights to this Unix | |
(very primitive) from MSFT when they decided to go with windows. | |
jsolares | The idea SCO had was to complete their products, it was the |
leading company in Unix for PCs for uses on cash register and similar devices | |
(McDonalds uses it). | |
jsolares | By those times the oracles that look into their crystal |
balls already announced that SCO was going to be the first casualty to | |
Linux... | |
jsolares | August 2000 -- SCO announces it selling thier Unix division |
to Caldera. | |
timeout) | |
jsolares | Caldera was one of the companies distributing Linux. |
tailored for "corporate use". the distribution was quite capable, it was just | |
that Caldera came up with a weird licensing per user program, that made it | |
quite umpopular. | |
exceeded) | |
jsolares | Caldera got it's hands on money in the dot com era, that |
helped it finance the buying of several stuff, like SCO Unix division | |
jsolares | The idea was to use the (highly developed) channels of |
distribution of SCO for Caldera Linux. | |
jsolares | They also lent a strong hand to help the development of |
Linux ( they donated a Dual procecor PC to Alan Cox, whom was beginning to | |
work on SMP) | |
jsolares | The problem was that they werent doing well with Linux, and |
most of their income came from their SCO side... so they were in a bind | |
jsolares | SCO was going nowhere (they had two products, the one |
descending from Xenix (usefull for cash registers...) and UnixWare (a full | |
grown Unix). the first one was obsolete, the second one was becoming | |
obsolte.) A Huge network for distribution, and a lot of clients with the idea | |
"if it aint broke, dont fix it", that had no intention of migrating towards | |
(the very expensive) UnixWare. $$$ went in $$$$ went out. | |
jsolares | They never had a profit |
jsolares | March 2003 -- Caldera starts a trial towards IBM "for have |
taken Unix code and ilegally putting it on Linux", and for "Doing so | |
specifically to harm Unix" | |
couldnt have made such a serious operating system", etc. | |
jsolares | Obviously this fired up quite a few people. |
#redes | |
jsolares | They staged a great scandal with the idea that Linux belongs |
to them, y as such they'll begin charging a license fee for it (it's at US$ | |
699. Hurry up that soon it'll be double!) | |
error: EOF from client) | |
jsolares | The legal theory behind such story is that the original AT&T |
license specified that anything developed under the Unix base "must be | |
considered the same as the original software product", it's worth to say, | |
it's confidential. | |
jsolares | IBM ported several of the things it had developed on AIX |
before to Linux (JFS, of course this code has a very interesting story as | |
well). | |
jsolares | Besides, IBM bought Sequent, from where it ported the NUMA |
technology (Non Uniform Memory Access, basically built a machines with quite | |
a few CPU's each with ti's own local bank of memory (fast access) so that it | |
can access the memory of the other CPU's (slow access)) | |
timeout) | |
jsolares | Also, Sequent brought a patent for a concurrent access |
scheme without locks (locks are _very expensive_ en machines with a lot of | |
CPU;s, since it requires that they all syncronize) called RCU | |
jsolares | Well this was developed for Unix/on Unix, and as such |
"confidential, under SCO's control" | |
* guba is now known as GuBA | |
jsolares | The problem is that IBM (and many others) had negotiated |
aggregates to the license that would release them from this conditions | |
(Sequent didnt do it, so there is doubt if IBM's conditions are valid for it | |
or not), besides during the setback to BSD, AT&T indicated that the license | |
was _not_ to control third party work) | |
jsolares | There was also a proyect with IBM and SCO to port Unix to |
IA64 (Itanic^Hum). when IBM realized IA64 wasnt going anywhere, they ditched | |
the project. | |
jsolares | The idea was to take the best of IBM and SCO, and integrate |
it in a common product. According to anonymous sources, the better part of | |
the "best" was put by IBM | |
jsolares | Well, when this fiasco began, Caldera stock was at around |
US$ 0.70 (70 cents). | |
jsolares | Crying before all the media that "Linux is ours!" their |
sell serveral important licenses, to MSFT, Sun Microsystem and other lesser | |
ones | |
jsolares | The stock went through the roof (at the moment they are at |
around US$ 16.something, they got to US$ 23). | |
jsolares | Weird case.. they start trail vs. IBM, acuse the open source |
comunity of piracy, they demand pay for licenses to use linux (which is not | |
compatible with the terms of the GPL!), they claim the GPL is ilegall and | |
antiamerican, ... | |
jsolares | So far they havent showed even the slightest ammount of |
credible evidence of the stolen code. Meanwhile they claim that "around a | |
million lines of code in linux is stolen/missapropiated" | |
jsolares | What they showed was a function, malloc, introduced by SGI |
for a machine based on (surprise) IA64, that was never went on sale. the code | |
in case was eliminated a while ago, beacuse it was ugly. the rest of it is an | |
implementation of an algorithm published by D.E. Knuth in his "Art of | |
Computer Programming" circa '69, and that appears almost the same on | |
Kernighan & Ritche 's "The C Programming Language".. probably of public | |
domain, not from SCO in any case | |
jsolares | They showed more code "copied and modified to hide it's |
origin", that was developed independently for Linux based on the | |
especification of BPF (BSD's firewall system) by Lawrence Berkeley National | |
Lab, and the original code being under the BSD license... and as such Linux | |
could have taken it without a second doubt (SCO also had the right to do so, | |
of course). That they had shown it as their code shows that they dont have a | |
clear idea what is theirs. | |
error: Connection reset by peer) | |
jsolares | The current trial situation is that IBM started one against |
Caldera for breaking 4 patents and violating the GPL in the code delivered by | |
IBM to Linux. | |
jsolares | At the same time, Red Hat (mad beacuse they were being |
accused of piracy) asked the court to stop SCO from continuing with their | |
attacks, since it was damaging their business. | |
(Signed off) | |
jsolares | Other minor moves was a request in Germany that SCO showed |
the evidency of the pirated code, or to stop from their public acusations. | |
SCO didnt provide evidence, it also eliminated the references on their | |
webpages as requested. But they were careless and a few were left... they had | |
to pay a fine. | |
jsolares | around may of the same year, Caldera changed it's named to |
"SCO Group" | |
jsolares | the latest novelties on the case (december 5) is that before |
a hearing with the jugde, he asked SCO that they should deliver in detail | |
their rights over Linux, indicating exactly where they are and what they're | |
basing their claims on. | |
jsolares | The request by SCO that IBM give them info was denied, as |
long as SCO didnt deliver as requested. | |
jsolares | SCO is a small company (when it all began it's market value |
was at around 70 million USD). IBM is a huge company (at around 155 billion | |
(thousands of millions) USD) | |
#redes | |
jsolares | SCO wants to obtain around 3 billion dollars for "damages |
and losses"... in something that Novell bought at a calculated 220 million | |
dolars, and Caldera got for around 60, which shows how much the code has lost | |
its value due to no maintenance) | |
error: Connection reset by peer) | |
jsolares | IBM business is "Intelectual Property", it's the company |
with the biggest patent portfolio in the world. Their business depends | |
critically on the rigorous respect of many others (its clients). | |
#redes | |
jsolares | IBM is immensely carefull with the handling of source code |
et al. Comments from inside indicate that any code liberated into OSS goes | |
through various stages of legal revisions. | |
jsolares | IBM is huge, they have separate groups working on more or |
less the same thing for various clients, Where this happens, it's strictly | |
forbidden to have any kind of contact with the other groups. | |
jsolares | IBM has on hand the best lawyers concerning IP |
jsolares | In view of this, and considering that the standard |
recomendation from a lawyer to someone in a trial is to keep their mouth | |
shut, while SCO makes a fool of itself publicly, we can speculate on the | |
motive and results. | |
jsolares | It seems that Caldera/SCO wanted to make a huge scandal, |
with the purpose of "someone" (IBM?) bought them up to shut them up. | |
(Signed off) | |
host) | |
jsolares | The unexpected rise of their share (SCO) favors it's |
executives. But the public scandal only harms their judicial case... | |
jsolares | For IBM it's important to smash all accusations of |
dishonesty. everything depends on it. After, they dont intend to buy SCO, but | |
to leave a crater where it used to be (Curiusly, "Caldera" is the geological | |
name for a kind of volcano crater ;-)) | |
jsolares | MSFT is obviously happy with anything that harms it's |
arch-rival Linux. | |
#redes | |
jsolares | in what will it all end? |
jsolares | There's no evidence that indicates that SCO is right. IBM is |
a meat grinding machine, and it's been set into motion. All tells me that SCO | |
will be erased from the map. | |
jsolares | But is this good for Linux, GPL and OSS in general? |
error: Connection reset by peer) | |
jsolares | Of course this result will be the best. but lest we forget |
that IBM is a money making oriented business, they arent doing this beacuse | |
of anice heart, but out of convenience. Mainly we have common goals. | |
jsolares | And if SCO wins? |
jsolares | I highly doubt that the code in the case is "more than a |
million lines" like they claim. if there is any ilegall code in Linux, it'll | |
be removed fairly quickly. and if that's not posible, there's the *BSD or the | |
(mythological) HURD. SCO wont get a penny out of this. | |
jsolares | For the rest, if IBM pays for thir bad actions (if there's |
any), they have no right to charge the users as well. | |
jsolares | SCO claims that they apropiated and relased "technical |
secrets", and if that's true, they are no longer secrets and have no legal | |
protection. | |
jsolares | They are now talking about reopening the BSD cases, and |
although they've said many things. As long as we dont see any document in | |
court, there is no need to believe it. | |
jsolares | Well, to close up, a few URL's for whomever is _still_ not |
up to date on the subject. | |
jsolares | Details of the legal aspects: <http://www.groklaw.net> |
jsolares | A Summary, which is more or less up to date (and organized) |
<http://sco.iwethey.org> | |
(Signed off) | |
jsolares | Relevant News, week after week, as usual in |
<http://www.lwn.net> (Yes, you have to pay subscription, but it's highly woth | |
it). | |
jsolares | Thanks for your attention. |
jsolares | [How do i ring the bell of your terminals to awake you?] |
guugmembe | clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap para |
jsolares | |
horacio | i'm awake !! |
horacio | bravo !! |
horacio | clap clap clap clap !!! |
Geryon | thx for the translation :) |
guugmembe | excelente chema, muy buena traduccion |
guugmembe | most of the translation was done in Guatemala |
jsolares | well and a lot of claps for Mr. von Brand :) |
guugmembe | defenetlly |
> clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap | |
> clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap | |
> clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap | |
> clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap | |
> clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap | |
> clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap | |
> clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap | |
> clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap | |
SFC | Good work shinta :) |
jsolares | thanks dutchie |
End of #redes buffer Tue Dec 16 01:03:56 2003 |