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| Harvard is Pleased to Invite Darl to Speak |
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Friday, January 30 2004 @ 05:45 PM EST
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The Harvard Journal of Law and Technology, for whatever its reasons, has invited Darl McBride to speak. There will also be a webcast, RealPlayer required. The talk is Monday, February 2 at 6:30 PM EDT, and the subject is "Defending Intellectual Property Rights in a Digital Age".
What? You thought he'd lecture on Aeschylus? He's a one-trick pony. Chris Sontag will participate also in the Q & A. This isn't the only Harvard news.
Here's a headline I'll bet you thought you'd never see: Harvard Business School, Gartner link : Harvard Business School Press said it will publish a cobranded series of professional handbooks for senior executives in partnership with Gartner Inc., the technology research firm based in Stamford, Conn. The series will tentatively be titled "The Gartner Growth Agenda: Leading and Managing Strategic Growth with Technology." Under their partnership, HBS Press will also distribute Gartner research reports. Is Harvard under new management or something? Then there is Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society, which is having discussions online about the SCO-IBM case. For some reason they continue to call it Caldera v. IBM, despite Caldera being dropped in July and the name being changed to SCO v. IBM, after the company changed its name. That isn't the only inaccuracy. Here's how they describe the case and the positions of the parties: The Case in Point is Caldera v. IBM, also called the case against open-source.
Update on litigation: SCO is suing IBM under a number of unfair trade practice and breach of contract disputes. Copyright infringement claims were added more recently. IBM has denied most of the claims and asks the court to force SCO to reveal the portions of the code that are the basis of the allegation.
Obviously, this is not accurate. First, no copyright infringement claims have been added by SCO. IBM has denied all of the claims, not most of them. The only things its Answer admits is things like admitting its principal place of business is in New York. The blurb does not mention that IBM has filed counterclaims, including patent infringement and violation of the GPL, with a claim of copyright infringement against SCO, and has affirmative defenses. A Groklaw reader brought this to the attention of Diane Cabell, Clinical Program Director, who is in charge of Case in Point materials, on January 23rd. Hopefully she will correct the inaccuracies eventually. I expect that the next Filter will have the material updated and corrected. Meanwhile, you might find it of interest to read how they describe SCO's ABI claims, which are not part of the IBM lawsuit, so far as we know, so it's a puzzlement what they are doing in a blurb about the IBM case, but it's a clear description of SCO's position, without, I notice, any counter information, such as Linus' statements claiming the code or even a mention that Novell claims copyright ownership of all Unix code anyway:
Since the last Filter report, SCO notified Linux users of more than 65 files ('ABI Code') that it says have been copied into Linux 2.4.21 from SCO’s UNIX code base. Although these files were covered by the BSDI settlement, SCO points out that they are part of the 'UNIX Derived Files' and the particular settlement terms that apply to them do not permit distribution without copyright notice. SCO demands that users remove all ABI Code because such copying violates the U.S. Copyright Act and because the removal of SCO’s copyright notice violates the DMCA §1202’s rights management provisions. See SCO's letter at http://www.sco.com/scosource/
abi_files_letter_20031219.pdf.
Our next discussion question is: Does an open-source license scheme such as the GPL defeat the purposes of the copyright clause of the United States Constitution (Article I, Section 8) by forcing those who wish to build on a work to offer their improvements on a royalty-free basis? Does the answer differ depending on the type of work that is being distributed? Under this theory, would technical rights management restrictions that last beyond the term of copyright protection be equally unconstitutional? See SCO’s comments from Darl McBride at http://www.newsforge.com/
trends/03/12/04/2024240.shtml?tid=85.
See the GPL at http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html - TOC1.
If you are interested in commenting on this question, please go to H2O at
and register for the project “SCO-IBM.” Responses will be reported in the next Filter issue.
Darl was interviewed on CNN today about the virus and the reward SCO is offering, and he continues to imply that Linux enthusiasts are responsible. We're entering willful waters now, I think. He must know by now that experts have said it isn't so and that professional spammers are responsible. Here's a snip of a transcript, thanks to Brenda's eagle eye. Notice that the url ends lol.01.html, which one Groklaw reader jokingly writes to me must stand for "Laughing Out Loud": MCBRIDE: This is a new digital frontier. We came out, we found that key parts of our code -- we owned the Unix operating system -- was showing up in this new upstart program called Linux. These new programmers working with IBM. We found that things were violated against our copyrights.
And so we filed a $3 billion lawsuit against IBM. We've been working through a judicial system here. But now you have people going outside the system, trying to attack us, to try and shut us down before we have a court verdict. . . . With the new Linux system, it's very interesting, because it's very open, anybody around the world can participate, anybody can use it.
But what happens when you have a problem inside the system? Because there are no boundaries and no control systems, the mechanism's built into Linux. Then you have this type of behavior when you have a problem actually pop up.
O'BRIEN: Is Linux particularly susceptible?
MCBRIDE: Well, we believe -- we have had four attacks on our company over the
last year. At least one was claimed -- the Linux community claimed
responsibility for the attack. We believe that there is a problem with Linux
in terms of the code we see showing up inside of there. We don't know for
sure if this attack is coming from Linux, but we have very strong suspicions
that is the case.
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| Authored by: brenda banks on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 05:57 PM EST |
i didnt know about the interview until it was posted on yahoo
i just kept watching for the transcript tho
so to the yahoo poster thanks for the heads up there and sorry i cannot
remember your nick
but as soon as i saw it i notified PJ with a hot hot notice to let her know how
good it was
i know i appreciate when PJ writes these articles and breaks them down where
even i can understand because if i can understand then IBM's lawyers will be
able to explain it to a jury because they will have diagrams and things to help
PJ thanks for all your hard work but do take care of yourself
we need YOU
---
br3n
irc.fdfnet.net #groklaw[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: jmc on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 05:59 PM EST |
Presumably part of the business school course is a set of "How not to do
it" examples.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: overshoot on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 06:00 PM EST |
| So the obvious topic for discussion is, "What questions should Darl and Chris be
asked?" Let's see if we can actually come up with a list
that's - Concise
- Polite
- Avoids making statements
- On-topic as
published
I think we can take for granted that they won't be softball
questions, no?[ Reply to This | # ]
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- Questions, please - Authored by: SkArcher on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 06:05 PM EST
- Questions, please - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, February 02 2004 @ 06:01 PM EST
- Questions, please - Authored by: ihawk on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 06:26 PM EST
- Questions, please - Authored by: Harry Clayton on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 06:33 PM EST
- Questions, please - Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, January 31 2004 @ 02:00 AM EST
- Questions, please - Authored by: troy on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 06:33 PM EST
- Questions, please - Authored by: the_flatlander on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 07:11 PM EST
- Questions, please - Authored by: the_flatlander on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 07:15 PM EST
- Blake Stowell's January 13 remark - Authored by: Thomas Frayne on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 07:16 PM EST
- #3 - Authored by: SkArcher on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 07:25 PM EST
- Questions, please - Authored by: Electric Dragon on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 07:20 PM EST
- Who will ask the questions? - Authored by: Thomas Frayne on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 07:25 PM EST
- Questions, please - Authored by: the_flatlander on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 07:33 PM EST
- Copyright claims against IBM - Authored by: Thomas Frayne on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 07:42 PM EST
- Questions, please - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 07:51 PM EST
- Questions, please - Authored by: bbaston on Saturday, January 31 2004 @ 01:43 AM EST
- Questions, please - Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, January 31 2004 @ 03:16 AM EST
- Questions, please - Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, January 31 2004 @ 07:21 AM EST
- Questions, please - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, February 01 2004 @ 04:03 AM EST
- Questions, please - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, February 01 2004 @ 03:42 PM EST
- Questions, please - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 08:07 PM EST
- Questions, please - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 08:19 PM EST
- Questions, please - Authored by: dan_d on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 08:46 PM EST
- Questions, please - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 09:18 PM EST
- Why hasn't SCO made any IP claims? - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 09:50 PM EST
- Questions, please - Authored by: ra on Saturday, January 31 2004 @ 12:56 AM EST
- Will SCO be indemnifuying its customers - Authored by: jaydee on Sunday, February 01 2004 @ 02:17 PM EST
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 06:02 PM EST |
perhaps, as the gentleman in question is visiting one of your renowned law
schools, some of the lawyer types could explain to him in simple terms, (words
of no more than two syllables and only one preferably) the nature of the GPL, as
even I understand the difference between a licence and copyright and I am
definitely not a lawyer.
At the same time they could explain to him that you are supposed to have and
show the evidence when you launch a court case not launch the case then hope the
judge will let you go fishing.
tailgunner. (UK)[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 06:03 PM EST |
Maybe we should get the nice people over at LawMeme to review this, uh,
coverage, of SCO's legal issues.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: ihawk on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 06:04 PM EST |
I seem to recall the recent Napster 2.0 arrangements at Penn State involved
someone on Penn State's board also being related to Napster or the RIAA or
something. That came to mind with this piece about Harvard.
Does anyone know if there is some relationship of anyone on Harvard's board to
any of the players in our little SCO drama? I mention MS in the title because of
their historical relationship to Gartner. There is clearly some kind of bias
going on here.
Also, it would be interesting to find out how Darlin' Darl came to the
attention of the Harvard organizers.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: keanu on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 06:08 PM EST |
I can understand the behaviour of SCO and Darl in this interview. You have to
ask yourself: What would you do in this situation? What else could Darl say?
We are not the only one who are convinced that SCO has _no_ case. SCO has to
play all cards they can get, and MyDoom is welcome.
But hey, if SCO doesn't do anything else then invent new claims they will die
for sure.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Mark Levitt on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 06:08 PM EST |
"Is Harvard under new management or something?"
Harvard has been in bed with big business interest for a long, long time.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: SkArcher on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 06:08 PM EST |
Is there any reader who is there? Do you fancy giving him some groklaw questions
and making a recording in an Open audio format?
---
irc.fdfnet.net #groklaw[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Harry Clayton on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 06:10 PM EST |
to William Gates University?
---
Linux: There is no infringing code.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: lnx4me on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 06:10 PM EST |
Hmm, Boston got dumped on with a snow storm last weekend, looks like a snow-job
for this one...
Bob[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 06:12 PM EST |
It's at Linux World : http://www.linuxworld.com/story/43495.htm
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 06:16 PM EST |
It looks like the CNN reporter's questions were basically ignored while Darl
rambled about non-MyDoom items. The reporter seemed confused and tried to
interpret Darl's statments as being about Linux ("is Linux particularly
susceptable?") but that was but a speedbump for Darl's rantings. So Darl
claims that we claimed responsibility? What? When did this happen? I certainly
don't remember it. Care to cite some supporting evidence Darl? No? Oh right,
once again you defame us in a medium where we can not respond.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 06:16 PM EST |
Gartner is another well-known shill. Gartner's credibility is not much higher
than Darl's.
It looks like Harvard just got a large donation from Microsoft. There's no
other reason for such stupidity.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: JoSch on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 06:17 PM EST |
..We don't know for sure if this attack is coming from Linux, but we have
very strong suspicions that is the case.
Yeah and Microsoft is
responsible for the internet worms of last year.... ;-)[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 06:17 PM EST |
I suppose this is a good time to post this:
"You can always tell a
Harvard man,... but you can't
tell him much." - Source unknown
:-P
[ Reply to This | # ]
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- Harvard Man - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 06:23 PM EST
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 06:17 PM EST |
Hmmmm, their "Greplaw" website has a name strikingly similar to
another community law discussion web site that I know. You'd think they'd be
more careful, especially latey.....(MikeRoweSoft, Lindows,
"Booble",...etc.)[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 06:19 PM EST |
Heh... Darl should do some reading on the Greek "Father of Tragedy."
I mean, one might get the impression that he was living in one of them. Then
again, in the very short term, he's doing quite well for a firm with no
customers which is rapidly alienating folks from even wanting to do business
with them. Of course, that won't last for terribly wrong.
I wonder just how long it'd take SCO to run up enough of a legal tab that
they'd go bankrupt?[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: phrostie on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 06:22 PM EST |
Many years ago my father(one of the great Mainframe/Assembly programmers) was
contacted by Harvard. They were going to start moving manually filed
information to a new computer system and had asked around to see who was the
person to hire. My father was recommended by a number of sources, so they
started a dialogue via regular mail. eventually an interview was scheduled and
he made the trip.
When he arrived he told them he was there to interview for a job. Their response
was that the janitorial staff was full. He explained that the position was the
Director of the Computer Center, not a Janitor(but that he would clean up after
himself). This was not funny to them and he was told to leave.
It's funny how quickly some people will make assumptions. All because my
father spoke with a West Texas draw.
Seems not much has changed.
---
=====
phrostie
Oh I have slipped the surly bonds of DOS
and danced the skies on Linux silvered wings.
http://www.freelists.org/webpage/cad-linux[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Nick_UK on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 06:23 PM EST |
This is really a joke now.
As said lots of times on /. and here...
What is the 'Linux community'?
In a windows worm... 90% of people use windows...
I just finished reading a book today called "English Passengers",
and it is a great tale of woe and suffering, black comedy and woven fiction -
following a historical truth.
It is the story of the English wiping out the Tasmanian Aborigines. Victorian
England was awash with what they thought was the truths (or 'by the by, hither
and thither' as peevay would say.) England was ruled (and still is re the
Hutton enquiry) by untruths and winning the 'war' with the ignorant.
SCO have seemed to be getting near to the same thing.
Ignorance is a very powerful thing, especially when it is not on your side [for
the innocent defendant].
Nick
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 06:23 PM EST |
The exposure of Darl's ideas in such a context may go far towards revealing
their lack of substance. I would expect that Darl would stand little chance of
defending his position against some of the legal minds at Harvard. The only
question is whether they will be aware of the facts and be inclined to challenge
him, or just view him as too much of a kook to bother with.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 06:27 PM EST |
"For some reason they continue to call it Caldera v. IBM, despite
Caldera being dropped in July and the name being changed to SCO v. IBM, after
the company changed its name. That isn't the only inaccuracy.
"
Probably more accurate than SCO Company News.
Chordiant Software Appoints
Don Morrison as President
Mr. Morrison..... Prior to
joining Chordiant, he held senior management positions with Santa Cruz
Operations (NASDAQ: SCOX)...
This is exactly the kind of
confusion the name change was intended to make. IMHO
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: RealProgrammer on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 06:33 PM EST |
I've been compiling an extended timeline, trying to include as much UNIX
history that's relevant to the fiaSCO as possible.
My motivation was
to get a better understanding of how the histories of Microsoft, Novell, The
Santa Cruz Operation, IBM, and Unix all fit together. I'm pretty sure I did
that.
Here is the SCO Timeline.
There's an email link at the top, so feel free to respond here or by
email.
---
(I'm not a lawyer, but I know right from wrong) [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: ihawk on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 06:35 PM EST |
Since analysts have found that the MyDoom attack on www.sco.com probably won't
work, it's unlikely that there will actually be an attack on the 1st. But SCO
is heavily invested in an attack happening to bolster their image as victim. So
I wonder if:
a) there's a way to monitor network activity on the first to see if
there's actually an attack; and
b) if there's any way to make sure it's actually coming from computers
infected by the MyDoom thingy.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 06:38 PM EST |
This is a classic setup... Harvard is planning to confront McBride in public
about his weak claims.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 06:38 PM EST |
Not only was Darl invited to speak at Little Kremlin on the Charles, but he was
also given the honor of having one of his more memorable quotes listed as part
of Business 2.0's 101 Dumbest Business Moments in Business (covering
2003):
83 How to win friends and influence software
sales.
"Terrorists do things designed to intimidate people, and we
see a lot of that going on all the time—people trying to attack us or people
that we're associated with."
—SCO Group CEO Darl McBride,
complaining about the backlash from hundreds of thousands of Linux users after
the former Linux software vendor sued IBM, a major Linux proponent, for
allegedly violating its intellectual-property rights.
URL:
http://www.business2.com/b2/web/dumbest/9/0,19299,,00.html
...Paul[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: kjb on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 06:43 PM EST |
"new upstart program called Linux."
Please!
MegaFUD.
---
kjb
"No! Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try."
- Yoda[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: fjaffe on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 06:57 PM EST |
It would be great if we had an eyewitness account. I'd love to, personally,
but I live 2 1/2 hours away, so I may not be able to make it.
Any groklawyers planning to be there?[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 07:07 PM EST |
We know that SCO continues to ship their product using OSS software. We also
know that were it not for open-source, Unix would probably be a very minor
player in the OS market these days. (This is obvious to anyone not living in a
cave.)
So, I think we should ask them how they justify their attacks, both legal and
(insultingly) moral on the open-source community when that very same community
is a major part of their business.
In other words, how can you be such a filthy hypocrite parasite and still sleep
at night?
But of course it should not be phrased that way.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: terminus on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 07:13 PM EST |
He says it out aloud here. Reads like slander to me.
O'BRIEN: One final thought. You're talking about the ultimate hall of
smoke and mirrors here. What are the chances you could be duped into
giving the reward to a culprit?
MCBRIDE: Well, the way it works here, Miles, is to pay the reward out
means that that person will be in jail. So I guess conceivably they
could turn themselves in, go to jail, sit around with their $250,000
and get out. So I guess maybe that's the way to make money. Since you
can't make money with Linux because it's free, maybe that's the new
monetization system.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Electric Dragon on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 07:18 PM EST |
Why haven't you yet sued any end-users of Linux, despite stating on numerous
occasions that you were going to do so? (if disputed, read out long list of
Quotes of Darl, Sontag et al saying just that)
Why should any end-user pay your license fee when Novell disputes that the
copyrights are yours to enforce? Wouldn't the sensible route for any end-user
be to wait for the resolution of the court cases first?[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: dkpatrick on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 07:39 PM EST |
It's very easy for Darl to duck the hard questions: "This is under
litigation and I'm not permitted to discuss it." Or, "That's a
legal issue and I am not a lawyer so I can't speak authoritatively." Or
"We have the evidence but I can't discuss it further since it involves
trade secrets."
He can deny most anything he wants:
"Was this spurred by an plan to be bought out by IBM?"
"No."
"Is your name Darl McBride?" ... "Let me get back to
you."
I suspect Darl is a fairly persuasive speaker otherwise he wouldn't have risen
to CEO-dom. Since he doesn't have to speak the truth nor reveal anything
"confidential" this may well just be another PR no-op.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: rjamestaylor on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 08:05 PM EST |
Perhaps a benefit of having a nationally respected lawyer such as Boies on your
side is that Harvard gives you the benefit of the doubt?
---
SCO delenda est! Salt their fields![ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 08:49 PM EST |
Fresh from SEC.gov - Ralph Yarro 4K fillings. Surprisingly, he is not selling,
but buying over 174,000 shares of SCO stock. The catch? He purchased them on
6/6/2003, but reporting just now - http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1102542/0001119755040
00001/xslF345X02/primary_doc.xml.
I bet in three month we will learn he
sold them in September. Speaking about 'in three month' - in May Ralph Yarro
will be able to exercise an option to purchase 15,000 shares at $4.75,
according to this filling - http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1102542/0001119755040
00002/xslF345X02/primary_doc.xml[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: mac586 on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 09:08 PM EST |
| Fountain of Lies
It seemed appropriate to use a metaphor for the CNN
transcripts. Darl really is a fountain, he can't stop spouting all of this
nonsense.
I'm not sure why Harvard invited McBride and Sontag to speak.
- SCOX is not, has not, and will not be profitable.
- SCOX can't even
sell one license in six months.
- It has no original technology, or vision.
What could possibly be learned by listening to these two blather on and
on? I couldn't sit through another session of Dark Dark Diatribe, so here are
the Cliff notes for any Harvard Students out there:
IBM stole 1 million
lines of our code, SCO owns UNIX, Novell slandered us, the Linux guys and gals
are terrorists, and Red Hat is a bunch of commies. Story over. Any
questions?
Still not satisifed? Hmmm. I strung this together from
the quote database, this is what you can expect to hear from the historical
chambers of Harvard:
Darl: "First question. Yes, the Ms. Didio look
alike in the third row."
Laura: "Mr. MrBride, is any of SCO's intellectual
property in the MyDoom virus, and will you be issuing a license program for all
the MS users out there who are infected?"
Darl: "When you take our
intellectual property and move it into the MyDoom virus, then we have a big
problem."
Chris: "We will actually be providing some of the evidence next
month to various industry analysts, respected press people and other industry
leaders so that they don't have to take our word for it or wait until we show
some of that evidence in court. We will actually be showing the code, and the
basis for why we have made the allegations that we have. We are very confident
about our case. Because we are dealing with confidential source code that we
have never released without confidentiality agreements, we will have to put in
place nondisclosures agreements simply to protect the source. But people will be
able to give their opinion as to what they think."
Darl: "Don't you love the
way Chris talks? Maybe I should leave him behind to take a couple of IP classes
with the law students. Next question. Yes, Dion, Good Afternoon."
Dion:
"Based on recent information, Decataur Jones has cut our previous SCOSource
revenue estimate of $7 million by 90%. Any comments?"
Darl: "Everyone
just says we're a company going out of business, and throwing a Hail Mary pass,
but once we get to court, those who say that will look as strange as the Iraqi
information minister on TV saying the infidels are defeated and did not get into
Baghdad."
Chris: "Hopefully by July, we'll have some solutions we can offer.
Next question. Yes, the student in third row with the RTFM t-shirt."
Student: "Mr McBride, what do you expect to encounter on Feb 1 when the
virus starts attacking your website?"
Darl: "From what I hear, IBM will
blacken the Utah sky with lawyers. Next question please."
Student: "How did
your code get into the MyDoom virus?"
Darl: "There is not an intellectual
property policeman sitting in at the check-in counter saying this is OK, this is
not OK. It is a free-for-all. At the end of the day, there's not a basis for
making sure code is clean when it goes in there."
Chris: "I can understand
one or two lines being in common, but when you're talking about this level of
variables being the same the comment sections all being the same, it's
problematic."
Darl: "Yes, you in the back"
Student: "IBM and Harvard
are teaming up to build the Crimson Grid. Do you care if we run AIX or Linux on the grid? Will
you be leaving any invoices behind before you travel back the Wild West?
Chris: "We have already said that for noncommercial use of Linux we will
not be taking any action"
Student: "Just one quick follow up. Is it true
your bodyguards are from MIT?"
Chris: "That simply is not the case at all.
Public statements to that effect (are) the farthest thing from the
truth."
Darl: "We've worked with these guys on the front end. We've thrown
out different models. We've looked for ways of working together and we've been
politely told that they are not interested in working out those kind of
deals.
"They were polite, though. [laughs] They let us know in a very kind
way."
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 09:22 PM EST |
MCBRIDE: Well, we believe -- we have had four attacks on our company
over the last year. At least one was claimed -- the Linux community claimed
responsibility for the attack. We believe that there is a problem with Linux in
terms of the code we see showing up inside of there. We don't know for sure if
this attack is coming from Linux, but we have very strong suspicions that is the
case.
IANAL, but can't I as a member of the Linux community
take Darl to task for this? Is this is not tatamount to slander? He is
attacking my reputation by attacking the behaviour of a group I am a member of.
Isn't this akin to saying that all Italians are mafiosa? [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 09:36 PM EST |
``But what happens when you have a problem inside the system?
Because there are no boundaries and no control systems, the mechanism's built
into Linux. Then you have this type of behavior when you have a problem actually
pop up.''
Huh? That paragraph has got to be the most
incomprehensible thing I've read in the last year. What the heck is he talking
about here? I can't figure it out. First he's (possibly) accusing Linux
enthusiasts of DDoSing the SCO web site. Then it seems he's talking about bugs
in the Linux ``system''. Or is the Open Source development model. Is that the
``system'' he's blathering about? Excuse me, but what mechanism's built into
Linux? What behavior are you referring to, Darl? DDoSing your web site?
Unconstrained innovation? Exhortations to RTFM when you find a coding
problem?
Crimeny! How can anyone take this guy seriously? If the transcript
is accurate, I suspect the interviewer stopped at this point to allow Darl to
wipe the foam off his mouth.
Listening to Darl talk lately must be like
listening to a public reading of Finnegan's Wake.
--
RT
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: blacklight on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 10:08 PM EST |
I am quite annoyed that we got such short notice (48 hours) about Darl
McBride's talk at HBS. With a couple of weeks' preparation, we could have
tried to contact the Linux groups in and around Cambridge (MIT is in the same
town) and in Harvard itself. We would have gotten our heads together to turn
Darl McBride's appearance into a PR disaster. I am reduced to hoping that the
locals can take care of themselves and hand his head back to him on their own.
PJ, it's too much to expect you to be everywhere at once and I may be totally
unfair to you, but you freaking screwed up!
As for HBS's relationship with Gartner: lie down with dogs, get up with fleas.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 10:32 PM EST |
Darl is outright lying here. If I remember correctly, one attack was
orchestrated by a single pro-linux person, not a "community," and
the "community" never claimed responsibility.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: The Mad Hatter r on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 10:44 PM EST |
I sent the following to Matt Davis, one of the Executive Editors at the Harvard
Journal of Law and Technology:
It has recently come to my attention that Darl McBride has been invited to
lecture at your institution on Intellectual Property. This is an extremely
disturbing situation due to the legal situation that Mr. McBride's company is
currently involved in. Since Mr. McBride is the CEO of the company, and the
lawsuits in question stem from his policies, it would be best to have another
speaker to give the opposing viewpoint on the same issue, or cancel the
lecture.
To give the opposing viewpoint I would suggest Jack Messman, Chairman of the
Board and CEO of Novell. Mr. Messman can be contacted at 888-321-4272.
Please advise of your actions in this regard.
---
Wayne
telnet hatter.twgs.org
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 10:57 PM EST |
My recollection is fairly weak on this, but I once recall
reading a story
about a couple that wanted to make a (as it turns
out, rather sizable)
contribution to Harvard. They made a trip to
Harvard to discuss the matter, but
upon arriving there, they were
essentially rebuffed, basically on the basis of
their appearance
(not being "sophisticated" enough). Harvard wasn't
even
interested in what size donation might be emanating from such
an
unsophisticated couple.
Upon being rebuffed, the couple considered
what else they
might do with their money that they were going to give
to
Harvard. As it turns out, what the couple decided to do with
their money was
to start their own university. The couple's last
name, by the way, was
"Stanford." The rest is history.
Has anybody else run across this story,
and do I have it about
right? Any links?
Wally Bass
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Tim Ransom on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 11:13 PM EST |
That Dikephobic Darl won't be floating his vaunted Bottled Water business plan.
I wonder if he will be treating the kids to one of his vainglorious entrances -
He's done the Harley thing and the James Bond (tuxedo fixation?) thing,
so what's next? Now that he's become a fearless defender of national security,
how about Captain America?
A little dry ice, some flashpots go off, and Darl
is repelled from the ceiling in Cap's trademark red white and blue underoos to
the opening strains of Grand Funk Railroad classic We're An American Band. As
Dynamic Darl alights deftly to the stage, the surging crowd rises to their feet,
lighters in hand.
Suddenly, the lights dim. The rolling I IV V piano riff of
the theme song for the classic TV series Wonder Woman surges out of the
PA:
In her satin tights
Fighting for your rights
And the red,
white and bahlewww - -
Wonder Woman! [dodododododeedodo]
The
crowd reaches fever pitch as Logizomechanophobic Laura Didio struts out in
full-on Lynda Carter Wonder Woman regalia, carrying oversized confetti cannons
in each hand --
dadrl3p4oooavmdf,mm
???
Woah, must have
passed out there...Wheew![ Reply to This | # ]
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- ROTFL! - Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, January 31 2004 @ 12:16 AM EST
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, January 31 2004 @ 01:03 AM EST |
Those Harvard quotations appear prejudicial against the GPL and Linux.
The wording of those topics for discussion casts doubts on the
constitutionality of the GPL or any legal mechanism that maintains a
commons in software. Nothing is quoted about the public value of the
GPL. Nothing is quoted about the superiority of OSS versus shrink wrap
licensed SW.
Daryl, SCOG, Microsoft, Gates, and big donations are all very welcome at
Harvard. Gates and Ballmer went to Harvard. Daryl might have a
sympathetic audience.
This could be nothing important, but I hope the groklaw community
keeps watching our legal flanks vis a vis Harvard Law School and its legal
publications. I expect legal attacks directed against the GPL from
somewhere.
My experience with Harvard professors is they are long on opinion and
must publish major, significant, new work before they get tenured.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: ile on Saturday, January 31 2004 @ 01:53 AM EST |
This thing about McBride in Harvard strongly reminds me of
a case most of you have not heard about: that of Mario
Conde.
This person was a very well known, very successful and
flamboyant banker in Spain, several years back. At one
point he was given out as an example to youth, brilliant,
independent from the government, what have you.
So much so that he was granted an honorary doctorate from
the Complutense University, the biggest university of
Spain, and one of the oldest in the world. Much to the
chagrin of many students, former students and faculty (I
should point out that I got my first degree there...); to
no avail, it was granted. In law, by the way.
That chap is currently in prison for embezzlement and
associated felonies.
University officials do get it wrong from time to time...
ile [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: timthoe on Saturday, January 31 2004 @ 02:58 AM EST |
Sorry but all CNN's "Live from..." transcripts have lol in their
name.
We should be careful not to see connections/hints where it might just be
a coincident.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, January 31 2004 @ 03:10 AM EST |
This is all a plan to destroy Mr. Noorda. He is an old man no longer really in
controll of his money but it is still tied up with the canopy group. How
convienient it would be for an ENYMY of bill gates to end (or all his money) up
tied up in lawsuites based on the unresponsible acts of those essentially in the
pay of Microsoft.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: eggplant37 on Saturday, January 31 2004 @ 08:18 AM EST |
O'BRIEN: One final thought. You're talking about the ultimate
hall of smoke and mirrors here. What are the chances you could be duped into
giving the reward to a culprit?
MCBRIDE: Well, the way it works here,
Miles, is to pay the reward out means that that person will be in jail. So I
guess conceivably they could turn themselves in, go to jail, sit around with
their $250,000 and get out. So I guess maybe that's the way to make money.
Since you can't make money with Linux because it's free, maybe that's the new
monetization system.
Nice bit o' slander there, wouldn't y'all
say?? If one cannot make money with Linux, someone please tell me why my IBM
and Redhat shares are doing so well??
Rich[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Grokker on Saturday, January 31 2004 @ 10:13 AM EST |
I am the Groklaw reader that corresponded with Dianne Cabell. I if I can get
her permission, I will post the thread of our correspondence.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, January 31 2004 @ 11:05 AM EST |
Harvard sco discussion thread -
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/archive/dvd-discuss2/msg19676.html[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, January 31 2004 @ 04:08 PM EST |
Check out this news item at
http://nwc.storagepipeline.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleId=17500067
Harvard's annual Cyberposium hosted a panel of industry leaders to
discuss open source software.
Microsoft's Jason Matusow claimed of MS Windows, "There's BSD code in
Windows." and also "It's going to be a hybrid.", to the press.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: raistlin on Saturday, January 31 2004 @ 04:44 PM EST |
Hey all... PJ suggested that I could share this with you. I've had a brief
discussion with the people at JOLT, and what turned out, briefly, is that Darl
proposed a speech and they accepted it, not the other way round... they will
also be hosting a speech by someone on the "other side", as they had
it, in the next few weeks... or so they promised. They should announce it on
Monday (stay tuned).
Basically, their proposition is that however ludicrous the lawsuit may appear to
us techies, the lawyers studying at Harvard will have to deal with this sort of
things in the future, and should be exposed to both the points of view. Also, if
Darl has no case, the debate should be able to demolish his thesis, which brings
us to the key point.
It seems that they will hold a truly open Q&A session - probably not open to
questions from the internet however, so it would be nice if a Groklaw reader or
two can be present there.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: plex on Saturday, January 31 2004 @ 05:32 PM EST |
Okay, let's see if I understand this. Darl and Chris are going to splain the
intricacies of, well, probably the GPL and family. To Harvard business and legal
experts. Riiight.
I for one am looking forward to more mud slinging, linux-hippie bashing
generally nasty, unfounded accusations,and selective mis-interpretations of the
GPL. Anyone want to bet he mentions the "GPL is illegal" letter to the
editor we all read yesterday?
Since he can duck any question by claiming 'pending litigation' or 'IANAL', this
is low-risk. Maybe he'll clarify exactly what transferred and when as oldSCO
became SCO Group. That seems on-topic. Maybe he'll just say if anyone named
Ransome Love offers you any advice, take it.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Uncia on Saturday, January 31 2004 @ 08:48 PM EST |
Since I live just a few minutes from Harvard, I'm going to try to make it to
this event (if I don't get stuck at work!) I'll try to take some notes, but I'd
also like to get a good question to ask. Anyone have any suggestions? Simple,
quick and devastating questions preferred.
-Uncia[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: cabell on Sunday, February 01 2004 @ 11:42 AM EST |
| Thanks for all the excellent suggestions to correct the Berkman Center's 'Case
in Point' series.
PJ: "For some reason they continue to call it Caldera v. IBM,
despite Caldera being dropped in July and the name being changed to SCO v. IBM,
after the company changed its name."
'Case in Point' is intended to be a
chronological series discussing issues as they are raised in each phase of the
proceeding. This was announced in the first CIP installment (in Filter 6.1 at
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/filter/) which also included a link to Groklaw
coverage.
It is still titled "Caldera v. IBM" because that's the name under
which the case was initially filed and we're still targeting the initial
complaint.
Our first query asked about the strategy of leaving copyright out
of the original complaint. We're still working that thread, debating McBride's
interpretation of the copyright clause in the Constitution and the ABI claims.
PJ: "First, no copyright infringement claims have been added by SCO."
No
argument. I haven't read far enough into the pleadings to see whether the
copyright claims have actually been filed. I was relying on a reported SCO
announcement that they intended to add them.
http://news.com.com/2100-7344_3-5114689.html Thanks for pointing out this
inaccuracy.
PJ: "IBM has denied all of the claims, not most of them."
IBM did
not deny all of the claims. As to some of them, it claimed insufficient
information to respond. See for example, #12, 13 and 14 of the Answer at . I was
going for literal accuracy, but your substantive point is well taken.
PJ: "The
blurb does not mention that IBM has filed counterclaims,"
No, it doesn't at
this point, because we haven't reached that stage of the pleadings yet.
PJ: "A
Groklaw reader brought this to the attention of Diane Cabell"
dev.null gave me
a lashing for appearing to favor SCO's position by failing to present IBM's
side. I'll reword the intro to make it perfectly clear that we'll get there
eventually. ---
Diane Cabell
Berkman Center for Internet & Society
Harvard Law School
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: blacklight on Sunday, February 01 2004 @ 02:43 PM EST |
"'Case in Point' is intended to be a chronological series discussing issues
as they are raised in each phase of the proceeding. This was announced in the
first CIP installment (in Filter 6.1 at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/filter/)
which also included a link to Groklaw coverage." Diane Cabell.
Our buddy Darl McBride may have his own reasons for inviting himself to Harvard,
but it is clear from Diane Cabell's statement above that Havard has its own
reasons for having him come. I have the feeling that Darl McBride is going to be
the proverbial clueless guinea pig in a particularly ghastly educational
experiment aimed at getting to the truth of the matter. I certainly hope that
the groklaw has a strong relationship with Harvard University over the months to
come. While Harvard students and faculty will benefit from groklaw's research
and analysis, I wonder if there are any resources of Harvard University's that
groklaw could ask for access to and make use in a way that would benefit both
Harvard and groklaw.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: mikez on Monday, February 02 2004 @ 02:10 PM EST |
Hi all. I just wanted to correct a few misunderstandings that may have arisen
among Groklaw readers about our journal hosting Darl McBride.
First, and perhaps most importantly, trying to ascribe any one view on anything
to "Harvard" as a whole is probably not a great idea; we have not been
in discussions with anyone at the business school, or any other Harvard school
or administrative body, with regards to this talk. (The first mention I've ever
heard of this Gartner book deal was here on Groklaw.) Even within the Law School
there are many different constituencies; for example JOLT (the Journal of Law
& Technology) is not associated with the Berkman Center for Internet &
Society in any way other than via some common membership and a common
association with the Law School. But we don't often coordinate events, etc., and
any position taken by either JOLT or the Berkman center does not necessarily
have anything at all to do with what Harvard University, as an entity itself,
would want/believe/say/etc.
In addition on this point, we have received no financial (or any other)
incentives to host this talk, from any corporation, university body inside our
outside Harvard, or any other entity. We did not ask "approval" of
anyone outside the journal before deciding, on our own, to host it, nor were we
approached by anyone else (outside of SCO) who asked us to host it,
"suggested" that we host it, or anything else like this. I don't know
about any broader conspiracy involving SCO, Harvard, HBS, Microsoft, Gartner, or
anyone else, but whether there is one or not, this talk has _nothing_ to do with
it, at least as far as I know.
Second (and here I'm copying from emails I've sent over the past week to several
people who likely are readers of this board), here's the scoop behind why JOLT
(as opposed to Harvard, HBS, the law school, or any other body here) is having
Mr. McBride speak tonight:
The primary audience for our speaker series is (and has always been) our staff
members and the other law students here - however ridiculous you think SCO's
claim is on the merits, there is an actual lawsuit (or several) here, and our
audience is exactly the people who are going to have to deal with these types of
suits now & in the future. We believe that there is value in exposing people
to the various sides of issues like this that are likely to significantly affect
the legal & technical communities in the future.
Do you really believe this will be the only time ever that someone will question
the ownership of parts of an important piece of open source software? We don't.
And even if we did, the attorneys of the future will at least have to keep this
possibility in mind when drafting licensing agreements, etc. And even if you
don't take Mr. McBride's claims seriously, IBM, Novell, and other Fortune 500
companies (and all their lawyers) are being forced to, at least to some degree
in order to defend against them.
We never would have hosted Mr. McBride had he been unwilling to answer questions
- the Q&A is obviously a key part of this forum, and I expect that via this
(and via our next event) the people in the room & watching online will get
good exposure to the issues central to this case. While it's a completely fair
criticism of JOLT that we are providing Mr. McBride with a forum, I have to
admit this is only a secondary concern to us after making sure our staff,
readership, and other interested law students get exposed to what's at stake in
this case. If Mr. McBride has no case, the marketplace of ideas (or the court
system) ought to serve to make that clear regardless of what he says here at
Harvard or anywhere else.
Whether he has a case or not, the fact that current and future lawyers will
likely have to deal with similar (if not exactly the same) cases, or the
possibility of them, in the future argues in favor of us giving our staff
attempting to understand what's at stake here.
Now, the fact that our events have always been open to the public has not (in
the past) meant huge public attendance, so editorial neutrality concerns (again,
in the past) were not huge issues for these events. Recently, it occurred to us
that many of our members (and others) who couldn't make it to one of these
events would be interesting in watching our speaker events, so we started
webcasting them. This event is making it clear that such webcasts may not always
be the best idea, given it may appear to some watching from afar that we (or
"Harvard," or whoever people associate with Harvard) are giving our
imprimatur to the views of whoever's speaking, when this is actually rarely (if
ever) the case.
There are a number of avid Linux users among the JOLT staff, and I have little
doubt that at least some good, legally-related, and not ridiculously combative
questions will be posed to Mr. McBride - I can't speak for what or how good his
answers will be. However, in this case it's clear that opposing views need to be
heard by our members (as well as by other interested parties). As a result I'm
pleased to announce that Chris Stone, Vice Chairman of Novell, will be speaking
here on Monday Feb 23rd, on exactly the same set of issues.
Will tonight's event be exactly the complete demolition of SCO some Groklaw
posters want it to be? Probably not. Will it be a shining moment for Mr. McBride
where everyone in the audience stands up and proclaims he's right? Also probably
not. As with all such events, it's unlikely that anyone will come away
completely (or even mostly) satisfied with the discussion. But we hope it (along
with Mr. Stone's speech) will provide, particularly for the people here who will
have to deal with such issues (preposterous or not) in the future, a good
exposition of the types of things at stake here.
I've tried my best to respond to the numerous emails we've gotten on this event;
I can't spend all day responding to the ones I'm sure I'll get after this post
(I'll try, but no promises), but at least I hope this clarifies some people's
understanding of who is hosting this talk and why.
Thanks, PJ, for providing a great forum for discussion of these issues.
-Mike
Mike Zarren
Editor-in-Chief, v.17
Harvard Journal of Law & Technology[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, February 02 2004 @ 08:28 PM EST |
Hi, I just returned from the presentation at Harvard. To clear things up:
1) It was at the Harvard Law School and sponsored by JOLT (Journal of Law and
Technology) at the Law School. JOLT wanted him there because of the interesting
possibilities regarding intellectual property discussion (regardless of the
validity to the claims, the suit still presents many interesting intellectual
property issues)
2) Questions were not pre-screened at all. Anyone could ask questions. And
there was a large group of MIT graduate students there to ask the more technical
questions. [ Reply to This | # ]
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