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SCO Threatens to Press IP Claims on Linux -$99/cpu
Tangential writes "New story on LinuxBusiness week says SCO is about to mount an effort to get all Linux sites to pay a per cpu license for so-called patent violations."SCO has been proposing to charge users $96 per CPU for a so-called one-time System 5 for Linux software license to protect their systems from SCO-enforced patent issues if they ante up as soon as demand is made." They've retained David Boies (DOJ prosecutor of Microsoft) to handle the legal issues." Note: I've been unable to substantiate this - which are fairly incendiary claims. Further updates as more is heard.
I had no idea it was April 1st. But judging from the last 2 slashdot stories, it must be. This one and the "Science Project Quadruples Surfing Speed". Yikes!
Cuz if it is its just another example of an inferior quality product and its company making money however they can.... no one is buying their software so lets pretend they already are....
I have linux running on computers that cost less than $96.
One of the main reasons I use linux is the free beer aspect.
How to win friends and influence people.
POKE 36879,8
SCO, after it's buyout from Caldera and then becoming SCO again, has generally behaved favorably towards Linux and the Linux community, even to the point of incorporating Linux functionality into Caldera/SCO Open Unix 8 through a Linux Kernel layer. If SCO's business model has previously included making money off Linux, it would be an act of either desperation or spite to suddenly demand royalties.
Also, isn't SCO still owned by Caldera, and SCO in name only?
. We've got computers, we're tapping phone lines, you know that ain't allowed - Talking Heads, "Life During Wartime"
...simple blackmail.
How does core Unix IP have anything to do with Linux?
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
That 5% of the cost of linux per CPU, that should be easy for most people to pay.
Doesn't the use it or loose it rule apply anyhow, Linux has been out for ages, the source codes there for anyone to look at. SCO should have cried wolf a long time ago, they have no excuse.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
"Ransom" Love, indeed
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
IANAL (not even US citizen, for that matter), but don't patents need to be applied / enforced right away ? I mean, it's probably been years since those (thought-to-be) patent-violating codes are being used, so doesn't SCO lose its rights to the patent for not having sued earlier ?
Tsuyoikoto ha taisetsu da ne, dakedo namida mo hitsuyousa (Strength is an important thing, but tears too are necessary)
GNU is not Unix.
Linux is a "Unix-like" operating system. Anyone who has ever done system programming for a Linux system could tell you that although it is close to the SVR4 conventions (such as in the acclaimed O'Reilly 'lion' book) it disobeys many of them because it's not quite System 5 compliant.
Is this really happening or is it early in the morning and I'm a sucker to a hoax?
The site's chugging a bit, so here's the full text. And kids, if you're going to post the full text, post it as a/c for crying out loud. Whores.
---
Informed sources, who would only talk on the guarantee of anonymity, say SCO has been proposing to charge users $96 per CPU for a so-called one-time System 5 for Linux software license to protect their systems from SCO-enforced patent issues if they ante up as soon as demand is made. The fee would go up to $149 per CPU if SCO had to wait through a so-called 99-day "amnesty period" for its money. Users of SCO Linux would get a free System 5 license. They would also have the free right to run SCO Unix apps on Linux.
Sources say the scheme, which pretty much sounds like a protection racket - we won't sue if you pay - isn't engraved in stone but an undated weeks-old draft SCO press release that details the plan and was read to us has been quietly making the rounds. At press time, we got word that a major player, believed to be IBM, thought it had dissuaded SCO from going through with the idea.
A usually reliable source swears a SCO executive told him that SCO has hired the redoubtable David Boies, who prosecuted the Microsoft antitrust case for the Justice Department, to press infringement claims not against users but against the other Linux distributions. Presumably this means Red Hat, Sun Microsystems, and maybe even SCO's United Linux partners SuSE, TurboLinux, and Conectiva.
It is unclear whether SCO envisioned the free System 5 license it's been proposing to bundle with SCO Linux extending to its United Linux partners or simply saw it as a SCO differentiator.
SCO would base any claims it makes on the Unix patents and copyrights that it acquired when it took over the Santa Cruz Operation. Its press release claims it "owns much of the core Unix IP" and that it has the right to enforce it.
The Santa Cruz Operation of course bought Unix from Novell, which in turn got it from AT&T. Unix was written at Bell Labs when Bell Labs was still part of the phone company. It is unclear whether the alleged IP is unassailable and that valid patents or copyrights actually exist or that the Unix libraries are actually in Linux. Reportedly there has been a lot of patent research going on in the Linux community lately and there are supposedly serious doubts SCO has much of anything.
SCO CEO Darl McBride was in England or en route home and did not return calls. Other SCO execs declined to comment; neither would Red Hat, SuSE nor major ISVs also familiar with the situation.
SCO's director of marketing communications Blake Stowell finally found a phone and confirmed that SCO was talking to Boies, described in the press release as SCO's "IP advisor," about how best to monetize its IP, but denied that it had retained him yet or that its plans were fixed.
Stowell also denied that SCO would target other Linux distributions, basically suggesting that it would be suicide for SCO to do such a thing. "Microsoft would love to see that happen," he said. Instead Stowell suggested that SCO would take out after other unidentified operating systems that drive something from Unix and hinted that that might mean Microsoft itself since Boies was involved.
Potential SCO targets said patent demands and encumbrances are explicitly outlawed by the GPL, the touchstone of the open source/Linux movement, and any move by SCO against the Linux distributions would make SCO a pariah. They claim the protection scheme itself would be the end of SCO. The open source community regards patents with haughty distain. Naturally there are fears that accounts on the Linux threshold will be spooked if SCO, which is playing on known IP concerns, starts making demands.
The situation is fraught with irony considering that open source people have figured it would be cash-rich Microsoft that took out after them brandishing its patent portfolio, not one of their own.
Red Hat CEO Matthew Szulik publicly fretted about his worries that Microsoft will eventually take Linux to court for patent infringement at a Linux gathering only a month ago (CSN No 479).
Red Hat says it is so concerned - despite the fact that it's against patents and signed a petition to the European Union urging the EU not to adopt software patents - that it has "reluctantly" taken the "defensive position" of assembling its own patent portfolio. To mitigate its intellectual inconsistency, it says its patents can be used for free for any GPL work. Licenses, however, would be required for any closed, proprietary use.
SCO, on the other hand, needs the money. Its tiny Linux business is a disaster and there's little doubt that the company, founded by ex-Novell CEO Ray Noorda, would be out on the street by now if it weren't for the Unix operating systems it got from Santa Cruz.
Meanwhile, Boies' track record since the Microsoft case hasn't been anything to write home about. He wasn't able to save either Al Gore or Napster and actually a lot of the tar he managed to dip Microsoft in rubbed off with Microsoft's subsequent appeal and settlement with the DOJ.
and always has.
No matter who owns it.
Is it just me, or has everyone else noticed a lack of information about this. What does the patent cover? What software does it apply to?
In fact, is there any information other than SCO wanting patent royalties for some undeisclosed software?
This sounds like High School again.
"Mark said that Shirly swears (and Shirly never ever lies) she overheard Jenny say she got it on with Mr. Macgee the English teacher!"
We all most likely use SYSTEM 5 init scripts because they look so much prettier than BSD-style.
Try using the unmount command.
Ughh... i hate bad puns :|
The By line says it all folks. Just another LinuxGram anti-Linux story.
What is pirate software? Software for inventory of stolen treasure?
This is bullshit, pure and simple. How can they claim IP infrigement in Linux if Linux was all about writing a UNIX-like OS *FROM SCRATCH* in the first place ? There is no SCO-owned IP in Linux and there cannot be. Case closed.
GNU = GNU is Not Unix
Duh.
I think the to last two paragraphs in the article speak volumes to me. SCO is strapped for cach, and Boies' track record.
I'm wondering if this is a Boies inspired scheme with the hopes that Microsoft will back-channel funds into the case. Win or lose, Boies gets to keep the Yacht.
The other issue is on what specific technical grounds can/would one sue? Could they find a judge/jury that would understand the technical merits in a short period of time? And that's the other key. If IBM is the target, then SCO is toasting themselves as Big Blue will just pull a Microsoft and drag this out over 10 years -- as they can afford to -- SCO can't -- unless they get Microsoft money.
--- have you healed your church website?
I wonder if now you know why we weren't impressed by Caldera.
From the start they acted like the kinda bottom feeding company who would sell it's own mother for a buck but couldn't rub two creative neurons together if it's entire share equity depended on it.
Yes. For those who don't remember SCO == Caldera.
1. Let's see what these patent claims are.
2. Ask around. Just how much of a stake dose Microsoft have in this action?
3. In the worst case scenario. I.e. That the patent claims are valid and cover some core areas. Be prepared to code around it.
4. Let's just hope for the best. I.e. That this is all a big hoax and Caldera isn't the a venomus parasite after all.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
So? Stop using Sys 5 and start using BSD scripts.
I was horrified to read that SCO was planning on charging $99 per cpu! Thats outrageous!!
You can imagine my relief when, reading further, I see that its $96/cpu.
Informed sources, who would only talk on the guarantee of anonymity ,huh?
Sounds REAL easy to confirm this one
SCO could not be that self-defeating, could they? So, what they waited around until Linux was firmly rooted in many infastructures, then sue? ie. no money in protecting their property when johnny geek and his 12 friends were the only types that used Linux..
I dunno, there have been equally asinine tech lawsuits in recent times....but this seems way off, IMHO, and somewhat suicidal for SCO
Sehr geehrter Toilettenbenutzer!
Unconfirmed sources say that a confidential source, while taking a shit, heard an anonymous executive talking about a meeting with a person who will be unnamed (possibly Jenna Jameson), and at that meeting, the discussion was about the dire financial situation of the company ( the word 'fucked' was heard repeatedly ).
Or maybe someone was commenting about a movie he rented last night.
Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
If SCO had pursued this avenue, oh lets say 5 or 6 years ago, they may have been able to win such a case. But I think now what they'll get is a long drawn out battle which will give the open source community time to build in replacement solutions that will make the case moot.
Guess its time to roll up our sleeves and get coding.
healyourchurchwebsite.com - WWJB?
If this is indeed true - does this surprise anyone?
It has been said time and time again that SCO/Caldera (and to some extent UnitedLinux) would end up bringing the worse part of proprietary systems (like moronic licensing policies) to Linux. Now it's finally here and we can go ahead and stick a fork in what used to be a pretty good company.
Looks like the decision makers at SCO/Caldera have Ransom Love on the brain.
Some people complain about Red Hat's "market dominance". I guess some companies are just content in making decisions that are so stupid, that they're making it easy to dump their product. RH is going to wipe the floor with what's left of SCO. Who in their right mind would pay per processor fees for linux?
It's interesting reading that IBM was actively "dissuading" SCO from carrying out this threat.
IBM has an enormous number of software patents that probably cover every operating system on the market. IBM, unlike SCO, understands that for software companies software patents are like nuclear weapons. They are useful as a deterrent, and useless for anything else.
There's a story, possibly apocryphal, about how a Microsoft lawyer contacted IBM's legal department, informed them that they had a patent that IBM's operating systems infringed upon, and set up a meeting to discuss royalty payments. The IBM legal team supposedly showed up with a pile of hundreds of patents that Windows infringed on, and that was the end of that.
I suspect that this is the nature of the dissuasive force being brought to bear by IBM.
This seems to be a useful side effect of large companies like IBM adopting Linux. They serve as a certain form of protection against this sort of shakedown racket, at least from by actual software companies.
The only companies that are able to enforce software patents with impunity are those companies that don't actually manufacture software, like PANIP This highlights the destructive uselessness of software patents -- they are only capable of benefiting companies that don't produce software, in other words, lawsuit factories like PANIP.
Oh yes, they also benefit the patent office to the tune of millions of dollars a year -- a destructive racket in and of itself.
A little bird has told me that this sort of thing was discussed internally at SCO long before it became Caldera.
the scheme, [...] isn't engraved in stone but an undated weeks-old draft
Sounds like we can still influence the decision. How do we make SCO an example to the world that this is a very bad idea?
Of course, if you live in the EU you still have time to stop software patents altogether.
Any sufficiently advanced libertarian utopia is indistinguishable from government.
How will RMS comment this? RMS is the only one who can solve this problem. Our hero will fight against this!
If this were to actually happen, their customers - i.e. people who are using Linux for business - would disown them in a heartbeat. There wouldn't be a SCO left to collect on this issue.
Acts 17:28, "For in Him we live, and move, and have our being."
SCO was dead, as Novell, so how a dead company do this?
ahhahaha
Check out the source of the article. I'm not quite convinced yet. :)
From the LinuxGram website ( http://www.linuxgram.com/ ):
"Copyright Notice: While we are flattered that some of our readers may want to pass along copies of our stories to customers, clients, associates, friends, family and co-workers, please know that this practice is illegal, violates our intellectual property rights and undermines our efforts to bring you the kind of reporting you've come to expect..
And, so the legalese: It is illegal to reproduce, copy, photocopy, forward, e-mail, publish, broadcast, post on an Internet/Intranet site, rewrite, store in a retrieval system or otherwise distribute this publication or any portion of this publication or any article in whole or in part by any means, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of G2 Computer Intelligence.
"I'd rather have a full bottle in front of me than a full frontal lobotomy"
Ooooooohhhh! How scary! The man who split Microsoft into two companies! And ensured that Albert Gore assumed the US Presidency!
Given Boise's track record, we can all sleep well tonight.
... is that it doesn't matter that it was written from scratch. Even if that Torvalds guy had been living in a cave, never having seen any kind of Unix ever and just happened to come up with Linux anyway, it would still be a patent infringement if SCO was the first to come up with the patented technology.
I thought Berkeley put IP in Unix... Am I mistaken?
If this story is real, don't worry: There's always BSD. As far as I can see, the SCO claims here are derived from the original AT&T IP, and it has been agreed (as part of the antitrust settlement) that BSD is not covered by any of that intellectual property.
Until I see some citations, I'm a bit skeptical about these claims. If it does turn out that the Linux kernel is violating a solid patent, is there any reason why the code couldn't just be tweaked to not violate the patent anymore? While a "real" company might not be willing to do this, the kernel developers have demonstrated a willingness to overhaul major portions of the kernel code and I'm sure any problems could be routed around fairly quickly.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
This sounds like osx to me. And the whole thing smacks of the sleasiest kind of blackmail. But, knowing how vociferous the Gnu/Linux community is, and how suicidal such a move would be for the company given the culture of the community, this sounds like either some of hoax or perhaps an "anthrax-killer" type ploy to make folks aware of a potential legal loophole with the gpl.
See if I pay it. Wanna take me to court? Okay, do so. I'd rather pay an attorney than hand money over to you.
And if everybody takes this tact, they'll back off. These cowards from Caldera/SCO have been waiting to do something like this for a long time. I don't trust them and never have.
Of course, they won't sue me, an individual user. They'll sue RedHat, as the story says. They'll sue SuSE. They'll sue Mandrake. Let's see them sue the Debian Project, while they're at it and get the EFF involved.
Until I hear that this is false, I'm boycotting SCO.
Off to look through the debian packages to find ones contributed by Caldera and remove them....
Naive people on slashdot will consistently tell you how software patents protect the little guy. Of course, they're unable to ever show you a case of this happening, but I guess the idea that it could potentially help the little guy in some sort of odd circumstance makes it all right.
Software patents have always been a bad idea.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
If this is true, it means SCO is dying. I would
expect a totally cash-strapped company to do
something like this. I would not expect a company
like MS to do this, as it does not need the money
and does not want the bad PR. Some have commented
that they wouldn't expect this to come from "our
fold"-- they underestimate what can happen in a
dying company. Things can get cynical and negative
real fast. Keep in mind though that this is
somewhat unsubstantiated.
SCO was the stuff so bad they had to buy the name Unix to be able to call their software Unix with a clear conscience.
Linux claims it's like Unix.
SCO owns the name Unix.
Therefore, to SCO, Linux is using SCO's intellectual property.
Which is an impressive feat, given that the previous statement shows SCO has no intellect to have property in the first place...
Ransom Love. A little more predictable, but with more sinister implications.
I read this section to mean that if SCO has patents that Linux implements, and 'the community' doesn't already have an unlimited eternal royaltay-free license to use these patents, then the Linux people are right now, regardless of whether SCO tries to pay up or not, legally obligated to remove the implementations of these patents from the Linux code. As far as i'm aware, there have been in the past concentrated efforts to find and remove submarined patents that accidentally wound up in GPLed software, no? What patents of this sort could SCO have?
At any rate one would imagine that SCO would not be so stupid as to demand individual $97 patent licenses from a group of people that (1) is at the moment their core target market (2) has a long-standing tendency to boycott people who do things like demand money for submarine patents (3) would probably not even pay the $97 fees, as they also have a long-standing tendency to not mind stealing from anyone they believe to be screwing them over. (I call (3) "civil disobedience", personally, but that's probably just spin on my part.)
And SCO would have to demand this money from individual users-- it would be impossible for SCO to demand it from vendors, becuase were SCO to start demanding licensing fees from anyone at all regarding patents of theirs inside the Linux kernel (which i assume is where these patent violations would have taken place), all existing linux vendors, including SCO, would be under GPL section 7 immediately legally unable to distribute Linux to anyone at all! (Not permanently, of course, as i find it highly unlikely any defendable SCO patent, once discovered in the linux kernel, would remain there any longer than a span of hours.)
Either way, assuming that SCO is in fact this stupid, and assuming that SCO actually does own patents that the linux kernel violates but that no one in the free software community has ever noticed, i think i'll wait until i read this on SCO.COM to pay any attention to it whatsoever.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Now that my Karma is Excellent, I will.
I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that Microsoft , at one point, owned part of SCO Unix.
But, I'm sure by now, all ties to MS have long been gone...I'm sure....MUST BE!
-- A cat is no trade for integrity!
I would rather pay $200 to a lawyer or the FSF to fight for my free use of Linux than pay $96 extortion money to SCO...
I'm sure there's a logic in there somewhere.
Bazman
-$99/cpu? Hot damn! 'bout time I got paid for serving my favorite OS on the net!
"Just say no to SCO..."
Doesn't affect me in the slightest anymore, I've happily switched to FreeBSD - 3d support, Linux emulation, and less GNU-hippy-ism :)
smash.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
I'm not sure..but initial reports just in say that a caped man..purporting to be "St. Ignucius of the Church of Emacs..just declared a jihad on SCO.
First the H1-B crap. Now this.
Lawyers are attacking the geeks.
The Berkeley system distribution (BSD) evolved out of AT&T UNIX. When push came to shove, the courts ruled against AT&T - the IP rights for BSD rest with the University of California. I can't imagine any IP in the original Unix that doesn't have a counterpart in the Berkeley codebase.. and the BSD license grants everyone the rights to use that IP.
Furthermore, Microsoft would likely be a large offender of any patents. NT has a POSIX subsystem. Pretty much all of the Unix concepts (processes, pipes, files, yada yada) are present in Win32, heck, in any OS. If SCO really wanted to milk money out of this, I'd be astonished if their first move wasn't to buzz around Microsoft and catch a large cash settlement. Or attempt to be purchased.
My bullshit meter is blowing chunks.
Note: I've been unable to substantiate this
Easy one. According to counter.li.org there are 18 million users. SuSEgives us " more than 15 million private and professional Linux users around the globe".
If we consider 15 million users, we have $99 x 15M = $1.485.000.000 (one billion and a half).
The only UN*X patent I ever heard about was on the setuid bit. It expired years ago. Anybody know others?
David Boies couldn't sink Microsoft, so now he's been hired to sink Linux. Hehe, I guessif you cant beat em, join em.
Remember when a company called Franklin copied the Apple IIe? Apple sued and put them out of business. That didn't mean that all of the computers they had sold could not be used! Same goes for Linux users.
Only patent infringers could be made to pay fees/royalties, not the users themselves.
On the other hand, is it possible to infringe on a patent when the product you make is free? Does one have to profit from patent infringement for a lawsuit to be valid?
Either way, I say this whole story is a big load of crap.
The genie has officially left the bottle. That's right; the genie has left the bottle. Move along, folks. Nothing to see here.
--K.
Sig: Bad people happen. Try to avoid being one of them.
BTW: Good luck inforcing that!!
It isn't like Linux distributions come with built in "spy-ware" like Windows does
Way to be a kill-joy SCO/Caldera
HallmarkOrnaments.Com
If SCO publish the source files for linux complete with the original GPL licence files then surely that constitutes acceptance of that licence. They have already done this so I dont see that they can say anything. IANAL but it makes sence to me.
Her bio
Maureen O'Gara, Editor (Long Island, NY) ogara@g2news.com
[snip]Since launching Unigram.X in the US, she has stalked the aisles of Uniforum with a vengeance, leaving a trail of shaking, sweating VPs of many a UNIX supplier.
Now she haunts the corridors of the Microsoft powerbase and gives Client Server NEWS 2000 some of its sharp edge. Famous for her confrontational style in press conferences she is single-handedly the reason why most companies in the sector have abandoned having press conferences. Maureen doesn't just get stories but she gets to the heart of stories , primarily on Client Server NEWS 2000, but also on Online Reporter.
Who knows why more journalists don't ask questions like her? But we're glad she's on our side.
Sounds like the girl in Ferris Bueller's Day off....
"Linux? Linux? Linux?"
"Umm, Linux's sick. My best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with the girl who saw Linux Violate SCO patent issues out at Thirty-One Flavors last night. I guess it's pretty serious."
This is only serve to help MicroSoft spread FUD
about Linux. Not only will it hurt SCO, it will hurt the whole of Linux and Free Software in the business world. Companies will flee from free software due to fear of lawsuits.
Way to go SCO (thanks for nothing).
is the doctrine of laches. You can't claim back dues for patent infringement if the person you're suing honestly didn't know about your patent. This supposedly puts a stop to "submarine patents".
Does my bum look big in this?
You can play 'tetris' during the install of their distro of linux.
From the SCO website:
The SCO Group
355 South 520 West
Suite 100
Lindon, Utah 84042 USA
801-765-4999 phone
801-765-1313 fax
Or try these people:
Blake Stowell
Director, Marketing Communications
bstowell@sco.com
801-932-5703
Laura Sexton or Avi Dines
Schwartz Communications
sco@schwartz-pr.com
781-684-0770
Paul Hatch
Manager, Corporate Communications
phatch@sco.com
801-932-5811
Slashdot 'em!!!!! Tell them what you think of the SCO Tax!
This sounds like a scam. If the patents cover something trivial its a nobrainer to toss it out and replace it. If they cover something buried in POSIX or some wellused piping/whatever method there are surely similar functions in *BSD and MacOS X. Its perticularly interesting that they only target linux nad not the other 'nix wannabies.
It smells funny indeed.
HTTP/1.1 400
SCO can't be serious about this philanthropic gesture. ' Guess they're just karma whoring with the Linux community.
--
The human brain is a wonderful thing: It starts working the moment you are born, and never stops until you stand up to speak in public -- Sir George Jessel
Demanding a per CPU fee from Linux users and/or distributers for alleged patent infringements would be the single most stupid thing SCO could possibly do.
This actually reminds me of the time (1987) IBM launched their MCA bus based PS/2 line. IBM then reportedly demanded a 'per system ever produced' fee from clone makers wanting to license the MCA technology in order to make clones/compatibles. Unsurprisingly, a few months later we had the EISA bus, a few years on the MCA bus is extinct and the world runs on PCI. Strategic blunders like these have killed off large corporations in the past.
Then again, if the real target is a certain software marketing outfit a bit further north on the US west coast, the process might reveal a few more skeletons in various corporate closets. That might of course turn interesting if you're into that sort of thing.
-- That grumpy BSD guy - http://bsdly.blogspot.com/
What's the matter? Can't deal with competition when you're the underdog?
Yes after seeing the RIAA's servers get soddomised all week. SOC have decided to goad Linux users into doing the same to theirs. Apparently it was feeling left out.
They've retained David Boies (DOJ prosecutor of Microsoft) to handle the legal issues.
Oh, then their suit will change nothing.....
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
...The Next Iteration Of OS Theory (TM).
#1 You don't show your cards too early if you are planning on taking on the likes of Microsoft.
Attacking Linux distros and users would indeed be suicide. Shops which use it heavily might fork over, but you and I would be hard pressed, further, all those people who have downloaded the sources and built would be like chasing dandelion seeds.
If it is indeed Boies then you know the target is a big one, because you don't hire a gun like him to take on pimps.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Is it just me or does something seem wrong with a linux site running IIS? here is the error i got Error Executing Database Query.
[MERANT][SequeLink JDBC Driver][ODBCSocket][Microsoft][ODBC Microsoft Access Driver]
Could not update; currently locked by user 'admin' on machine 'WEBSERVER'.
The error occurred in
E:\Inetpub\wwwroot\linux\articlenews.cfm: line 200
198 :
199 :
200 : cellpadding=0>
201 :
202 :
SQL
update linuxArticles SET hits = '616' where ID = 381
DATASOURCE
content
VENDORERRORCODE
-1102
SQLSTATE
HY000
Looks like access lasted longer than some sites with mysql db's there were 80 comments before i got this error. I have seen mysql go down stop accepting requests in under 50 comments.
Wang33
PAGERANK++ Robsell.com
s/my/may
:)
I think most people realized this, but just in case.
If you read the article, it says that RedHat is starting to aquire patents as well.
Now, I have no doubt that Redhat is doing this for the good of the Linux community but Redhat is a publicly traded company, is it not? All it would take is a corporate takeover/merger and all those good intentions could be out the window.
It would be wise to keep GNU/Linux patent free, even if the patent is owned by Redhat.
I've noticed two articles this morning that come with disclaimers. Been had by one hoax too many perhaps?
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
Are SCO going to find out that I'm using Linux on my machines?
I don't live in the USA anyway, so I don't really care. But it's not like I signed an agreement with SCO when I installed my favourite distribution of Linux.
Although, I do question the legality of the MS EULA.
Anyway, this seems too much like a hoax. And very bad business sense for SCO.
This is a sure sign of the end times.
The end times for Novell/SCO.
A quick look at SCO's financials show that the company of under 600 employees is bleeding red, and it's stock is hovering around $1.30usd a share, if it falls under $1.00usd it could be delisted and that would spell the end for financing.
I didn't investigate what the companies debt load it, but I can guarentee, like almost every other legacy IT coperation, they are loaded heavy from the past.
As for claims to any of the Linux IP, they are going to have to contend with HP, IBM, SUN, in addition to Red Hat and the Monster from Redmond.
Nope, they may make a fuss, but I suspect that the 2 and 3 letter name OS makers will be on this in a blink.
Bye Bye SCO
I've been swashdotted -- Elmer Fudd
Bell Telephone Laboratories was issued a patent in 1979 for the setuid (set user ID) bit in the Unix file system. This patent was no doubt transferred along with the rest of "Unix," from AT&T to Unix International to Novell to SCO.
This patent was never enforced, and should have expired by now. Hypothetically, there could be some other similar intellectual propery "landmines" in the very specification of Unix-like systems.
Just FYI; the story sounds like FUD to me.
Stupid job ads, weird spam, occasional insight at
=> May date my be set wrong?
It sounds to me like SCO must have decrypted the Linux source code
(which is cleverly encrypted as ASCII text). Seems like a
countersuit based on DMCA violation is in order.
But the GPL requires not only the freedom to redistribute, but to distribute arbitrary derived works. So really, the above should read "... would not permit royalty-free distribution of arbitrary derived works". But this is clearly nonsense: If I added one-click shopping to GNU ls, I would not have a license to distribute the result. So by section 7, nobody can distribute GNU ls under the GPL.
There are many other scenarios in which the claims of section 7 are rendered absurd. Consider the impact on those outside of the jurisdiction in which the patent applies; the hypothetical rogue nation that outlaws GPLed software; the employee whose contract prohibits him from contributing to certain free software projects. The requirement that "all those who receive copies directly or indirectly" be able to exercise their GPL rights is ludicrously onerous.
Regarding the parent's main point: I certainly believe that SCO itself is prohibited from distributing GPLed software on which it has patents, unless they also give everyone a free, perpetual license to the patent for GPLed software. Otherwise, they would not really be giving others the freedoms that they say (via the GPL) they are giving. Since they have distributed Linux, that alone is enough to thwart the rumored patent attack.
The evaluation of an action as 'practical' . . . depends on what it is that one wishes to practice.
So, what will happen, if this is true, is that the SCO code will be ripped from the distros and a new POSIX layer introduced.
I thought patents were only enforcable for a specific length of time. 7 or 20 years are the numbers sticking in my mind. Given that Linux is over 10 years old and I believe the AT&T code which Novell and then SCO owned is even older than that, wouldn't any patent claim be in effect mute.
Copyright lasts much longer, too long at 95 years past the death of the original author. But that is already being litegated at the US Supreme Court.
If there is anything substantive about this, I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft was sitting in the SCO boardroom within hours with a nice check for a billion dollars.
I've got a couple of PCs at home that mostly run Win98, but sometimes run Linux, and some at work too. OK, so maybe the Business Software Alliance could come around demanding to see what I'm running at home, but they won't get within 100yards of where I work. Secure underground bunkers with multiple card-access locks on the grounds of an airport. I must admit it would be kind of funny to watch the Pinkerton rent-a-cops call out Homeland Security to detain the BSA goons...
Count the downloads, maybe? Nope, that won't work either. I've downloaded some distros I've never used, and I've seen burned copies of downloads passed around and copied by multiple people.
So, again, who counts how many cpus any given person is running Linux on? My boxes at home are behind a firewall doing NAT and hiding all the usual ports, so good luck fingerprinting that...
Maybe there's a big up-and-coming UNIX vendor they're really wanting to target who has deeper pockets than RedHat, SuSE and the rest combined, some one like, oh I don't know...APPLE!
</conspiracy theory>
Seriously though, what if there's some UNIX quibble with Apple? Sounds like an extortion racket no matter what way it goes....
--
Mac OS X--Unix without the assholes^Whassles.
Okay, so the conspiratorialist in me is alive and well this morning -- but this whole thing sounds suspicicious.
Remember that Microsoft once had a version of Unix, named Xenix, licensed from AT&T and developed by -- you guessed it, the original SCO. Caldera bought SCO, and the combined entity is known by the "SCO Group" moniker.
Microsoft recently went through a nasty court battle, in which lawyer Boies did a piss-poor job for the U.S. government in pressing anti-trust violations against Redmond. Now this same Boies has set his sights on Linux through a company that has tried to apply Microsoft-like marketing to selling Linux and Unix.
FUD is on the loose here. The SCO Group may think this will drive Linux user into buying their over-priced product -- or they could be shilling for Microsoft. The best way to defeat an enemy is to make him a friend -- and it is awfully suspicious that a lawyer (Boies) would go from a wussy prosecution of Microsoft to actually helping attack Linux.
In any case, this should not be taken lightly; the U.S. legal system is no longer rational, and Boies might find some judge who will ignorantly rule that Linux is somehow "illegal" for patent violations. Stupider things have happened in our court rooms...
All about me
Sources say the scheme, which pretty much sounds like a protection racket - we won't sue if you pay
Uhh... spare me the hyperbole, but this is hardly a protection racket. In fact, this is just standard legal procedure: Settle out of court and get a better deal; wait for the verdict and you take your chances.
-a
look and see if we have any SCO code.. and if we do, remove it...
if we dont..... we collectively need to crush SCO like the cockroach they are....
redhat and the rest of us need to mount a evil-mean hearted smear campain, everyone attack SCO as the devil that is worse than microsoft. and go for a goal that they file chapter 11 liquidation before november..
what are they going todo sue me for the price
of $96 and since its in america i guess it doesnt
effect me.
so what patent does it break ?
they dont give us that info because by tomorrow
the code will be patched out of the kernel
Since SCO = Caldera can any of us sue "Caldera" for not disclosing this to anyone who bought a retail box version of Caldera Linux during the time period in which they owned the rights to SCO?
For a moment, lets say its true. Lets ignore how they are going to collect.
The BSD's have a free pass on this one. The peoples Republic of Berkley reached a settlement with Novell (who sold the rights to SCO).
Well written UNIX^H^H^H^HGNU/Linux programs are portable, thus run on platforms like FreeBSD.
Put it that way, it seems like those software patents are being used primarily to circumvent the GPL copyrights.
He says it himself that he knows it would be suicide, and hints that it might actually be Microsoft who is the target.
"GNU's not Unix....it's Linux" / Kami "kokamomi" Petersen
n/t.
Get some substantiation and get back to me. Until then... What is this www.MOSR.com? Just mod trolls down and reject rumors.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Tossing something patented and replacing it with something that does the same thing... doesnt work. Only a wheel has the function of a wheel.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
to my favorite software patent fighting organization!
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
"How does core Unix IP have anything to do with Linux?"
Based on what is described, they are arguing that running a System V based implementation, which is a function-a-like of SCO UNIX, is a violation of software patent. I'd imagine that they'd argue that things like the init structure, command structure and function, and other aspects that are similar to System V as implemented in Linux are intentional and violatory copies of their intellectual property, and have hurt their business.
Should such a case proceed, it'll be interesting to see what kind of arguments and outcomes occur, since Linux has been historically stated to be a re-implementation of Minix, and not solely based on System V (I mean, Slackware uses BSD init even), so they may not have much of an argument to stand on.
Beyond that, since the kernel and structure is all open source, they've had YEARS to attempt something, with their full knowledge of what was going on in the Linux community, and they've waited until now, a full decade after Linux became a stable OS.
The other thing that they're not properly considering is that if they attempt to pursue this, all that people have to do is change how Apache, or whatever other software they're going to attempt to use to prove that someone's running Linux, to report something else, like unknown, which leaves the burden on SCO, not on the user, to prove what is running.
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
Modern US tactical nukes are even engineered to be extremely "clean" (falloutwise) both to improve the efficiency and to facilitate rapid occupation of the target area by the ground troops.
Has there been anything linking the anthrax scare to interests outside the US. most evidence would indicate that the anthrax sent came from the US's own supply. Now it _may_ fall under the realm of terrorism, but it is pretty much established it didn't come from al-quaeda (or Iraq) for that matter.
Check this Federation of American Scientists Chemical and Biological Arms Controllink for the most complete documentation you will find on the issue.
You may also want to ask yourself why the Bush administration didn't downplay the anthrax threat. (Plausible answer-- it would lessen the nation's fear factor...)
Acquiescence leads to obliteration
Because Linux is a kernel, how can they go after the distributions like Red Hat? Wouldn't they HAVE to go after Linus and team?
Just another reason why my vote is for the 'this is a hoax' option.
Oh, my God. Tell me where- tell me where! I want to kill it before it grows!
...if it's real.
No, wait- SCO _doesn't_ grow. It's the same product it was in 1989, aside from some cryptic bugfixes.
Well, if this is real, then SCO can kiss my ass. I'll send THEM a bill for all the wasted hours trying to make their laughable OS do modern things before I became aware of Linux.
Maybe they just figure they can get some income from _somewhere_...
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
Buried within all the froth and unsubstantiated hype, comments from a named/informed source suggest that the real target may be Microsoft, not Linux. Slashdot editors appear to be every bit as stupid as they are given credit for.
The only reason the decided to split SCO from Caldera was to prevent a major public relations flop for Caldera, but anybody with a 10%QI can see this was very well planned in advance.
Hmmm... that's real reliable.
Let's assume for the sake of discussion that they're really doing this. Why? They don't have the muscle to pursue *all* the violators. And if they did, there would be serious impact to infrastructure. Aren't there one or two or more "CPUs" critical to the internet running GNU/Linux?
So, we also have to assume that SCO doesn't care about the potential impact to the community (not the "Linux community"; the community). And we also have to assume that they don't care about the logistical nightmare of effectively enforcing their alleged patent.
Maybe they're hoping some big organization that has an ideological problem with Linux will buy SCO (and the alleged patent), and enforce it?
If we assume all that, then we can conclude that SCO is ready to throw in the towel. What has happened when the sort of company that might buy this alleged patent for the purposes above actually does so? You can reasonably expect that company act like a wolverine that's found a cache of food.
C'est la guerre.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
On a related point, if you agree to a license and later find out that your system does not infringe, there is nothing you can do. You can't sue because you agreed to take a license. You can't even sue to invalidate the patent because of a principle called licensee estoppel - it means that once you take a license, you are foreclosed from claiming that there is nothing to license (i.e., the patent is invalid so there is no property right to license).
The moral of the story is to spend some time in advance doing your homework. Threats of "you can pay a little for a license now or pay a lot for one later, if I decide to license it to you at all" are designed to do one thing - keep you from doing your homework.
Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.
Its not blackmail. The author says its a protection racket.
"we sue if you don't pay".
Wait a minute, all civil litigation basically boils down to this.
Then by golly, all civil litigation is merely a form of a "racket"
Lets sue all civil plaintiffs under RICO.
Wait a minute, if we sue in a civil court then we are "racketeering".
Lets just sue ourselves goddamnit and be over with it.
In the article it mentions lack of EU software patents... does this mean that if in Europe, anyone could (currently) write software mechanisms similar to ones patented elsewhere (eg: adobe palettes etc) without fear of reprisal?
XJS*C4JDBQADN1.NSBN3*2IDNEN*GTUBE-STANDARD-ANTI-U
A slashdot editor actualy taking the time to check up on a contraversial story? Amazing. But Hemos always was the only smart one.
Oh, and you can always tell when a company is dead when the stop putting out products and start suing...
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
The points being made by the SCO people, assuming they're real, is that specifically the System V implementation is the problem. MacOSX is based on NeXT, which is based on BSD, which is a different development strain from System V, going way back. If they took on this to take on Apple, they'd also be taking on BSDi, who have had commercial UNIX platforms for so long that they'd totally get their asses whooped.
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
If Boies "saves" SCO as well as he saved Napster, then there is nothing at all to worry about.
Moreover, at the end of the day, what did he really "win" from Microsoft?
What is SCO? What's it got to do with Linux? What patents are we talking about, here?
Well SCO aka Caldera is an enterprise with a long Linux tradition. I may dislike it more than like it, but this is more a question of taste and preferences. Anyway, one shall take into consideration that SCO, today, combines one of the oldest Linux distributors + the most traditionalist Unix developer.For such a company to come up and try a suicide move like the one shown in the article is rather irrational. True, there have been such cases, when companies change hands and new management gets nuts and the company burns to flames. But, as far as I remember, it was Caldera who bought the remains of SCO. Considering that this company was created by one of the most mature figures of software, and a full-hearted anti-MS partisan - Ray Noorda, I really wonder how serious this story can be.
Besides, the story itself, is full of foggy statements. Many already referred the strange chain of anonymous sources that broke things to the newsrooms. But there are many other foggy moments.
First is the price tags - 96, 99, 149 per cpu. For anyone who knows how Linux is deployed, one can really wonder how they could be planning for such BS.
Then we read: Users of SCO Linux would get a free System 5 license. They would also have the free right to run SCO Unix apps on Linux. So... Are we talking about Linux or SCO Linux?
Then, we have this weird statement on pressing charges: Presumably this means Red Hat, Sun Microsystems, and maybe even SCO's United Linux partners SuSE, TurboLinux, and Conectiva. If I'm not mistaken, TurboLinux is a Japanese comapny, SuSE is from Germany and Conectiva is from Brasil. Well, patent systems behave differentially in different countries. So, the best that SCO could have done was to commit harakiri as its partners would probably broke the alliance and it would force Caldera to fight in three different countries.
And the most weird of all statements would be this one: SCO would base any claims it makes on the Unix patents and copyrights that it acquired when it took over the Santa Cruz Operation. Its press release claims it "owns much of the core Unix IP" and that it has the right to enforce it. Well, if it owns much of the core of Unix, then not only Linux but the whole *NIX world would be in danger. Considering that this was once a matter that was partially and painfully settled down between Bell and Berkeley, considering that even Windows has a little bit of Unix inside, considering that lots of standards and protocols are based on Unix, considering the tens of Unices around, this would be double harakiri for SCO. So it is very weird to consider that anyone at SCO could ever seriously think the way it is shown on the article.
So it is very probable that the article is either someone trying to get some sensational points in yellow journalism, or this is a well elaborated FUD test to see how people react.
If one cares to see SCO site, they still are well determined in their Linux moves. And this adds an argument to the fact that probably this article is just some cheap provocation. No matter that I dislike SCO/Caldera, I have to recognise that someone is playing dirty against them.
Assuming for the moment that this is not a hoax, Slackware uses BSD style init scripts and would not be affected.
I think that Slack can afford $0 just fine.
They're like the buzzing of an insignificant group of retarded flies who keep demanding attention when they have nothing noteworthy.
Here's a plan.
Sounds like fun. I call dibs on the SCO Ethics Manual.
I won't be surprised if an apology story is published later today.
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
Sending $96 worth of this express should solve the problem nicely and indefinately, even if in a kinda messy way....
...it would still be a patent infringement if SCO was the first to come up with the patented technology.
...it would still be patent infringement of SCO was the first to win the footrace to the patent office.
Correction.
Inventing isn't required. Being the first to pay the USPTO vig and have the government summarilly declare you "invented" it and grant you an entitlement to a 20 year monopoly is all that is required. Actually inventing the product, before or after the fact, is not only not required, it could be a hinderence.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Even if this story is a hoax or simply incorrect, it does serve one very useful purpose: It demonstrates very clearly just how dangerous and counterproductive the current practice of software patents is. Too bad nothing will come of it unless the basic story is accurate.
Oh wait...I just infringed on his (copyrighted) saying! Does this mean he owns me now? Q: Why does someone sue? A: Because they can. and until the rules are changed to stop them from suing just because they can, these kind of ridiculous lawsuits will continue...
I've always supported caldera, thru all the accusations of their 'anti community' actions..
But this is over the top.
While even if they do win some judgment, they can never practically enforce this as it would effect most every OS on the face of the earth.
Must be a joke.. a bad one, but a joke..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Remember, this is FUDot. When it comes to SCO or Caldera, Slashdot had always had an agenda.
Sigged!
I'm pretty sure that thats where this case is leaning towards, IBCS has been around since the early 90s allowing us to run SCO bins under linux. It sounds like they want to charge for that ability now... (bit late with the action on SCO's part)
"Note: I've been unable to substantiate this - which are fairly incendiary claims. Further updates as more is heard."
Gee, I'd think you'd want to substantiate this BEFORE publishing it live to millions of viewers. Not only is it irresponsible, it is potentially actionable. What if this is not true and SCO sues Slashdot for publishing this? Any real lawyers out their know what could or could not happen?
Peace, or Not?
Lots of Unixes that are SCO's age have problems with time changes. For example during Y2K I had to check if some SunOS boxes were Y2K compatabile enough. It turns out that if you role the clock back the boxes double crash (down for the time change -> come up go down again for the check -> come up and start working).
Seriously, at 97 cents, SCO would stand to pull in a lot of money, and many large users would pay that small bill than deal with potential litigation. $97 seems like a ridiculously large sum to ask for.
Wouldn't this just give SCO an unbelievably bad reputation among "common users"? I'd think it would be better to create a good impression by playing along with Linux rather than playing against it.
And if SCO should change its mind, and become Linux-friendly -- how can Linux users ever trust the company again?
IANAL BUT I am a Patent Agent which is just as good as far as patents go. This threat (if it's real) by SCO really pisses me off. I'd be glad to volunteer my expertise to help investigate SCO's claims and help draft a formal response.
And the man who saved Napster.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
Does this mean that anything implemented to the POSIX standard is owned by SCO?
...
If so, we might note that Windows/NT has included a POSIX library from the start. So Microsoft is going to have to pay $96 in royalties for every NT/2K/ME/XP license that they've collected royalties on.
This might get interesting
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Seems to me like this would be the biggest boost one could hope to provide to MS. I suppose, being a lawyer, Daivd Boies only cares about the money.
They got one of the DOJ idiots. They'll never win the case in any substantial form. Wonder if he was at all involved with the USFL vs. NFL suit too.
The GPL specifically addresses this. Section 8 reads:OK, so that doesn't seem to cover the idea of a nation that outlaws the GPL-- i guess there's a bug in that section 7 covers "any law" and section 8 covers intellectual property law only. But that's a pretty outlandish scenario to consider, and unless a country someday outlaws GPLed software, this is not even worth thinking about. Anyway, since most GPLed software is licensed under "GPL 2.0 or, at your option, some later version of the GPL", were this issue ever to somehow come up, RMS could release GPL 2.0.1 in which section 8 allows you to make a geographical exemption based on any law, and just about everyone could switch to that. But i just don't see this happening.
As far as the contract thing goes, that's just kind of wierd and i don't think it's a valid problem. In that case, you've still unconditionally granted the rights the GPL requires you to grant, it's just that someone signed those rights away.
the above should read "... would not permit royalty-free distribution of arbitrary derived works". But this is clearly nonsense: If I added one-click shopping to GNU ls, I would not have a license to distribute the result. So by section 7, nobody can distribute GNU ls under the GPL
Yes.. that is clearly nonsense. But that's not what the GPL says. The GPL says that derivative works must be "licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License". It seems pretty clear to me that your obligations in section 7 are toward certifying the unlimited redistributability of code *you distribute*. Code other people write is not your problem in this way, even if it links against code you put under the gpl, and there's no reason to think it is.
Okay, so it's possible to misinterpret the language in the GPL to make a logical contradiction. That doesn't make it any less a misinterpretation, and since the *intent* of the words which are there are spelled out very clearly in the associated FAQs, i believe a court of law would (if for some bizarre reason someone in court attempted to argue what your post argues) interpret the GPL in the way it was intended to be interpreted.
I don't see the problem here. Section 7 is necessary for the rest of the GPL to work.
Since they have distributed Linux, that alone is enough to thwart the rumored patent attack.
Actually, not really. Since the GPL is a redistribution license and not a contract, there really isn't anything at all *legally* to stop SCO from exercising any patents they might have. If the patent they have is valid and they institute a license fee for that patent, they would lose the right to redistribute any gpled software that is covered by said patent, but then so would Debian. I think the only *direct* consequence for SCO if they instituted a license fee would be that they'd have to stop distributing linux until such time as they removed the code covered by their patent.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
"Only a wheel has the function of a wheel."
IIRC Poul Anderson showed that this is not so, when some of his characters needed to transport heavy equipment while stranded on a world where the wheel was subject to a religious taboo. I think it was collected in "The Trouble Twisters".
If you think hard enough, there is often a truly different way to get the same result.
we never had a meeting of the minds on this issue. this would be a classic case of 'bait and switch'.
and just in case the 'pin headed' plaintiff doesn't know who i am. i am michael thompson, and i can be easily contacted at comintel@faceting.com
so go on big guy, come and give me 'hell'.
Scenario: Microsoft buys out SCO and then THEY keep making a fuss about it until Linux becomes unusable.
All I can say is, this better darn well not be true!
AFACS, There are only two solutions to this mess: One, if they smarten up and don't allow software patents. Two, if new patent laws were raised that required a patent owner to have no more than a certain amount of time after they would have first had reasonable opportunity to become aware of the infringement (I think one year or so would be good) -- further, it would not be legal for a new purchaser of a patent to enforce it if the person or organization they purchased it from had not enforced it within the requisite time.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Linux, *BSD, Windows somewhat all same some part of the same IP Stack... I was beleiving that it was BSD that did most of the IP stack was based on, am I wrong on this???
Well anyway why don't we wait for Microsoft to deffend Linux because somewhat they infrige the Patent too? Or have Microsoft buyed Caldera/SCO and not told anyone?
Conversely, it is alive and well in the IBM RS/6000 p-series UNIX servers.
System V. Ha, ha, ha, I wonder what they won't claim. It's a rumor, no one is that stupid, right?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
> Until I hear that this is false, I'm boycotting SCO.
If everybody behaves this way, we can kill a vendor just by starting a rumor.
The SCO patent story is _unsubstantiated_. It says so in the story and on the front page of Slashdot.
Alan Cox picked up an overrated mod which was clearly an emotional reaction to his contreversial post! We need these chickenshit overrated mods in the M2 queue so i can weed the bastards out.
Does anyone else think we need to have laws past that limit the time someone can take to act on infringements on their IP? Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that SCO does have something here. They surely knew for quite some time, and could have acted sooner. Of course, they wouldn't have made as much money off of such a deal then... See my point?
Question
http://www.ironfroggy.com/
> Doesn't the use it or loose it rule apply anyhow
;-)
IANAL, but I read Slashdot
"Use it or lose it" applies to trademark rights,
"We'll just rewrite the code" applies to copyright.
Patents protect ideas, not writing, and the tragedy of the submarine patent is that prior art has to be, well, prior. Reinvention after the patent doesn't nullify the patent.
Calm down, people. SCO obviously wants to be bought out by a major Linux player like IBM. This $96 license thing is not going to happen.
Linux threates the existance of UNIX not Windows. Ergo, UNIX vendors are forced to eek out as much as they can as they lose ground.
He works exclusively on the United Linux venture now. He was pretty much sacked from Caldera/SCO. This was just a graceful way to do it.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
"They are useful as a deterrent, and useless for anything else."
Of course we don't get to hear about the IBM legal team out on the offensive.
A while back there was an article about a newgroup postings that Linus wrote about just ignoring patents, because he didn't believe in them.
Remember me????
Nice going Linus, this is what happens when you think you are above the law.
Yes, this article may be a hoax, but the principles behind this are most definitely real, and just sticking your head in the sand will NOT protect you from patents, so ya better learn to live with it. Grow up, okay?
Patent applications don't have to be made public. The process of getting a patent can take a few years, but once the patent is granted it lasts 20 years from the filing date. That is the true "submarine patent" -- one that's not just obscure, but actually secret, and which will be announced next year on something you yourself invented last year, with a starting date two years ago.
Careful now, this might make Stallman's head explode.
I have tried to find the patent, but came up with zip. Nada. Will the uspto.gov be slashdotted??
Anyhow, it sure must have expired?
As heavy bombers deliver heavy ordinance, I will be assured that US heavy industry is alive and well, though it may be encumbered by unions, silly laws and cartel ownership.
Farmers, like eveyone else, demand to make a living for what they do. When farming, or anything else does not pay, people move on to what does pay. You would be hard pressed to say that the US, which exports more food than anyone else in the world, and has an obesity problem, has any kind of problem making food.
This, however takes the cake:
The odd billion chinese people are slightly more significant. ... Their staff are cheaper, their lawyers don't charge outrageous fees and they have lots of young and bright staff encouraged to think rather than to conform for fear of liability and lawsuits for being original.
Whatever encumberences people in the US work under are nothing compared to conditions in China, where you could be sent to jail for reading this post. This does not make things as they should be here but chicken little claims and praise of others are not the way to fix things. China, without huge infusions of western cash, would fall to ruin just as the Soviet Union did. Regiems like that are the worst corporate nighmare you ever had. If you think it's hard to get things done in a large company here just imagine living there. Here are some other stuff you might want to consider about the "competition"
Technical innovation can occur anywhere, but the basis for consistent performance and general prosperity is freedom. The US still has plenty of that.
Something to think about as you watch the US drop your tax money out of bombers over the desert
I'm a little more worried about the people on both ends of that drop than I am about money.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
1. SCO didnt do SHIT. Linus Torvalds made the damn system in the first place. This means that SCO can't charge a frickin penny for a stupid license. What fucking patent violation?
2. SCO == UnitedLinux == GPL VIOLATION TO THE MAX. So, why dont Richard Stallman and Linus sue their asses off? They posess the copyrights on the components that comprise the SCO system.
the way that AMD was able to basically clone the Intel cpu's
...was that Intel licensed the code to AMD so it would head off the likelihood of monopoly enforcement against it. That license expired a few years back, since when AMD has been doing its own development - but they started off doing Intel-sanctioned clones, and had to go to court to get Intel to back off on an attempt to keep them from applying what they'd learned from Intel's designs to their future chip development after the licensing agreement expired.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
Never underestimate the peoples power to chose a substantial inferior product to save a penny.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
David Boies. The guy most of you drooling nerds probably have alters in honor of in your little huts. He went after Microsoft and you loved him.
Hasn't the worm turned? I find the idea of lawsuit idiotic and I hope he loses, but I'm glad you nerds are suffering some of what MS had to suffer because of this crap and I think it's pretty funny.
If I recall correctly, one can not patent an idea only implementation of that idea... /Seva
Are they talking about the System 5 start up scripts? If so easy fix is to say f***'em and switch to bsd style startup. It's much easier to find things IMHO. But then again is this true???
I'd quote the article, and started to, but I then thought about possible copywright infringements (seriously!) and decided not to, but do read paragraph 6 of the article.
Only 'flamers' flame!
I too have been considering leaving America for freedom. Is Wales nice this time of year??
As an American, I have to look long and hard at Canada... They (mostly) speak English, seem roughly American sans the carpet bombing, and it leaves us close to friends and family. On the Con side, it's cold, their economy is tied to the US economy, and they are known for bowing to US pressure too often.
The UK on the other hand, it's cold, their economy has not been vibrant since the empire collapsed, and I understand that unemployment is still rampant. (No job = No visa)
Finally, I thought they dropped our tax money out of Helicopters over the desert.
Maybe we should have an ask slashdot: New coutries for expatriates??
~Hammy
Nothing4sale.org ~Hammy
Let's say that I have a patent for xyz operation. If I write a piece of software to perform that operation and then release that software under the General Public Licence, then my understanding is that anyone else can make a dericative work from my software so long as they continue to hold to the terms of the General Public Licence. Under those conditions I think I would have a very hard time enforcing my patent against you so long as your software was a LICENSED AND PERMITTED GPLed derivative of mine. Were you to make a non-GPL version, things would change, but until that point I'm sure you wouldn't have a worry.
==========
Error in module creativity.dll : Unable to create witty comment.
Abort / Retry / Ignore ?
One thing you have to realise is that twenty years from now nobody will care if one wacky bankrupt state has banned Linux. There will be no real IT industry left in the USA by then anyway. The odd billion chinese people are slightly more significant.
Hmm ... yet oddly, the people who try to migrate for economic opportunity and freedom move from China to the US, not from the US to China.
I guess it's those people you should be ranting to; they don't seem to be listening ...
Here is SCO's Official comment on the whole thing: SCO statement on Client Server News story On January 10, 2003 Client Server News published a story concerning SCO and its UNIX intellectual property. This article states as fact speculations about what SCO may do or not do with regard to its ownership of core UNIX IP. Darl McBride, president and CEO of SCO, has discussed SCO's UNIX IP ownership in many public venues and on the most recent quarterly investors' conference call. SCO has significant UNIX intellectual property dating back to the company's purchase of AT&T's Bell Labs UNIX technology. Our UNIX IP is a significant asset and for several months we have been holding internal discussions, exploring a wide range of possible strategies concerning this asset. We've reached no final decisions on any course of action. SCO is a Linux vendor and a leading member of United Linux. Contrary to the claims in the Client Server News article, SCO has no desire to take legal action against fellow Linux vendors. As a normal part of business, SCO has had discussions with several legal experts in the field of intellectual property law, and these discussions included David Boies. Contrary to the claims in the Client Server News story, SCO has not engaged Mr. Boies to take legal action against our fellow Linux vendors. It's unfortunate when a publication runs a headline, stating as fact in the present tense that our company is engaging in certain activities when, in fact, we've made no decisions, formed no programs and announced nothing about this.
The open source movement has no such portfolio (attempts have been made to put together a couple of dozen patents, but this is trivial compared to portfolios of hundreds or thousands). However we do have a large body of valuable IPR in the shape of our source code. We can threaten to withdraw that. Any large company should be very frightened by the threat to stop it using Linux or other open source software from tomorrow.
Every open source license should contain a clause along the following lines:
That should make them think twice.
Paul.
You are lost in a twisty maze of little standards, all different.
Granted patents are published.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
MS is/was a substantial share holder in SCO. In fact, it wasn't until 1999/2000 that SCO removed MS's CFO from SCO's board of directors.
Maybe MS is using their position here to put some pressure on Linux?
"Prior Art" is the solution to this problem: If a given invention existed "in the wild", or was in use in some public way by another party before one party filed for the patent, the patent will either be thrown out in court or never granted in the first place during the discovery phase.
Contrary to popular Slashdot opinion, the Patent & Trademark Office of the U.S. does throw out many patent applications during discovery due to prior art or previous patents. However, they still let through too many that should never have been granted, which then can go through lengthy infringement cases before they are finally discarded.
Matthew P. Barnson
I learn what I think when I read what I write
It's time for FS/OS to move to licenses with that patent mutual termination clause that goes something like this:
If you ever threaten any legal action in part or in whole because of software patents against any software or program that has this clause in its license, then you and everyone at your company lose the right to ever use any software licensed with this clause.
That's the only way to do it...you ever mess with ANY FS/OS with this clause, then you and your employees can never use ANY FS/OS ever again.
Best. Comment. Ever. Enjoy!
Ahem, if SCO wants sell (or give away) linux and then charge the other distros to do the same, then they would be violating the GPL. If SCO releases a Linux, it must be under GPL and so they can not charge others for using/selling it. Actually, if SCO has EVER released a Linux they have already shot themselves in the foot as far as this goes. Funny, it sounds like they don't want to crush Linux, but rather to OWN it. That just isn't possible no matter if it contained their IP (which it doesn't).
"How can we better market our Linux distribution? Anyone have any ideas?"
"I know! Let's launch the distribution, wait a couple of months, and then beat the crap out of most of our prospective customers!"
Assuming any of this is true of course.
The first step to domination someone is causing CHAOS so they can't tell exactly WHAT is going on. Looks like it's working.
:)
We've use SCO OpenServer at our site for over 7 years. Well, we did till they dropped OpenServer and required us to upgrade to UnixWare 7.1 during the Y2K scare. So we now have UnixWare 7.1 server. I have yet to receive anything from them wanting me to purchase the aforementioned products. Beleive me THEY LOVE TO BILL ME. So don't think they would just let me slide.
I have also not seen one thing that led me to beleive that this hasn't been sensationalized by the media. From my stand point anyone can walk up to you and tell you you have to purchase x product to reain compliant. It's up to YOU to determine if thier claims are true.
We bitch and moan about people/companies/goverment getting in your business and "infringing out privacy rights" then turn around and get all whacked out when something like this come along.
The only thing threatened with this article is the intelligence of the IS industry. It is UP TO EACH IT person that deal with the software inventory to KNOW what you need to purchase and what needs to be round filed!!
I've nothing of importance to say, now go away before I taunt you with a second sig!
Remote OS detection via TCP/IP StackF ingerPrinting
TCP/IP Stack Fingerprinting Principles
Graphing Randomness in TCP Initial Sequence Numbers
Security Problems in the TCP/IP Protocol Suite
System Fingerprinting With Nmap
Remote OS detection via TCP/IP Stack FingerPrinting
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
US monopolies on "intellectual property" vanish as soon as significant foreign players decide not to go along. The UK was far ahead of the US early in the 19th century. How did the US catch up? By ignoring British patents and copyrights, and smuggling manufacturing equipment out of Britain and cloning it. The Chinese don't even have to bother with that, as US corporations are setting up manufacturing operations in China.
In another few years, the Chinese can just say that they want to negotiate new terms: they'll happily continue to sell the Americans practically everything, as almost every manufactured good consumed by Americans is made there. But they want to pay vastly less to American copyright and patent holders. If there's no deal, they just pay nothing at all: the US could try to forbid Chinese exports, and watch its entire economy collapse, because too many basic necessities are available from nowhere else.
Similarly, Europe is running a big trade surplus against the US: Americans buy much more from Europe than they sell to Europe. This means that American companies need access to European markets far more than vice versa, putting the EU's regulatory authorities in a position of power. The US has evidently abandoned the antitrust concept, but you'll soon see the EU insisting that American companies break up, and winning.
www.uspto.gov returns 2 patents for the Santa Cruz Operation as the Assignee Name: 6,362,836 and 6,104,392. Both are related to SCOs Tarantella (terminal serverish) product. I guess either or both might broadly cover the use of a Linux box as an X or VNC server, I have only skimmed them.
I looked a bit at patents listed for Novell and American Telephone and Telegraph, but I don't see anything obvious. Caldera comes up empty. I also don't see an obvious way to transfer a patent to a new Assignee, but I'm sure that there must be some method.
I'd sure like to see what patent numbers they intend to exploit....
the no
Perhaps part of their hurry is to grab the money and run before the patents do expire.
Please don't say "Something exists" without describing the something. Otherwise god will hate you.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
I have no wish to infringe intellectual property or copyright laws. However, anyone accusing me of that needs to be specific (which patent am I using, what is its expiry date, which piece of work have I plagiarised), I'd like to have the opportunity to check myself (e.g. for prior art), and I'd like the opportunity to cease and desist if I have inadvertantly strayed.
Their OS was terribly slow. I mean, really, really, pitifully slow. Typing on the console on a low end Pentium actually lagged! With nothing of note running on the system. I'm not making this up. I had to port some software to it at one point.
.8 seconds to switch consoles), but the shell and the standard Unix utilities were really anemic. My coworkers used to call OpenServer "OpenSewer".
And the other problem was that the OS didn't have many modern features and tried way too hard to be different. I liked the virtual console thing (but it was slow, about
Combine that with the cost and it's no wonder Linux killed it off.
After reading the article in /. I dashed off a quick note to SCO suggesting that Unix Sys Admins show repay SCO for their kindness by moving customers from their OS.
With visions of a campagin slogan like:
Hell No! We won't SCO!
I thought they should hear from the masses.
Anywho, I got the reply below back fairly quickly. Unfortunately all its says is that no decision has been made. So, in effect a cloud hangs above Linux's head. This should be useful for Microsoft's FUD machine.
I think we all need to let them know how we feel!
mwfolsom -
Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2003 10:16:24 -0700
From: Blake Stowell bstowell@sco.com
To: mwfolsom
Subject: RE: IP patent claims on Linux
Michael:
This is the statement that SCO is sending to the media today as a follow up to the Client Server News article. I hope that it puts this issue to
rest.
Kind regards,
Blake Stowell
SCO statement on Client Server News story
On January 10, 2003 Client Server News published a story concerning SCO and its UNIX intellectual property. This article states as fact speculations about what SCO may do or not do with regard to its ownership of core UNIX IP.
Darl McBride, president and CEO of SCO, has discussed SCO's UNIX IP ownership in many public venues and on the quarterly investors conference call. SCO has significant UNIX intellectual property dating back to the company's purchase of AT&T's Bell Labs UNIX technology. Our UNIX IP is a significant asset and for several months we have been holding internal discussions, exploring a wide range of possible strategies concerning this asset. We've reached no final decisions on any course of action.
SCO is a Linux vendor and a leading member of United Linux. Contrary to the claims in the Client Serve News article, SCO has no desire to take legal action against fellow Linux vendors. As a normal part of business, SCO has had discussions with several legal experts in the legal action against fellow Linux vendors. As a normal part of business, SCO has had discussions with several legal experts in the field of intellectual property law, and these discussions included David Boies. Contrary to the claims in the Client Server News story, SCO has not engaged Mr. Boies to take legal action against our fellow Linux vendors.
It's unfortunate when a publication runs a headline, stating as fact in the present tense that our company is engaging in certain activities when, in fact, we've made no decisions, formed no programs and announced nothing about this.
I have a SunOS 4.1.4 box and I know it doesn't crash when I change the time and that it's Y2K incompatabilities are things like 2 digit dates displayed by man pages. Really. I've changed the time on several ocassions and I'm running it with the real date (2003). It doesn't have a single patch applied. Of course I would never expose it to an external network, but it still does its job fine.
Actually Linux isn't derived from any Unix. That's why some people refuse to call it a "Unix" platform. That's also the reason many of the original Linux developers jumped onto the bandwagon: the legal status of BSD was in question because it was based on AT&T code.
So, unless SCO wants also to charge for LPUs (leftside processing units), I don't have to pay.
May. Or may not. There is no my.
-Lasse
We all know the historic MS/SCO link over Xenix. It would be great ploy by a sinking SCO ship to succesfully execute a patent claim over Linux implementations - so as to position themselves as an MS aquisition target.
This is no more inconceivable than the recent, successful coup against Constitutional rule in the United States...
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
HJFGBFG BFG BFG BFTB
I guess I'm typical of europeans here in that I find the US dislike of anti-hate laws as strange as their predilection for firearms. I guess its a fundamental cultural difference.
He, he, Europeans love to say Americans are arrogant, but they should travel to Latin America to see what it's said of them over there, specially about the subject of "arrogance". This post is just another great example.
Hate speech laws are and free speech don't go together. That's why millions of people like me, who came from opressive dictatorships, and governments full of unelected bureocrats that "know better" than the masses, leave our countries to a better future for ourselves and our families at the shores of the United States of America. When that same freedom an opportunity is offered in Europe, let the rest of the world know so they can all go there to try to become citizens of your ancient countries.
So please, don't give us that better than thou attitude, because ignorant racists here can say whatever they want. WE WANT THEM TO EXPRESS THEIR HATRED, that way we can figure out who are the idiots and ignore them accordingly.
You think because you have anti-hate speech laws you have no racists in Europe? Better wake up buddy.
|Germany [bbc.co.uk] go to jail for a web post.
Umm DMCA, 2600, DeCSS ?
I don't like the DMCA, but what's worse, putting somebody to jail because they stupidly posted on a web site an (joke he says, doesn't matter) anti US and pro Bin Laden comment, or somebody posting arcane code for DVD ripping? Which case restrains speech more, which case is more likely to happen?
- sigs are for wimps.
When i was a poor student, I had fond wishes of running a UNIX machine, just to learn about it. I priced out suns, decs and even looked at abused 3b2's. if my pennies were dollars, i might have been able to think about this... but they weren't, and i scriped every penny for a LONG time and bought a machine to put linux on, just to play with...
Does it mean anything that back in 1994, AT&T did not push the "patent" coverage, ie sue, sue, sue (or get an injunction to stop development) ?
Does it matter that when Novell bought the IP that it did not enforce the patent?
IIRC, version 0.12 was circa 1991. this is twelve years of non-enforcement.
On another note, It would be interesting to see what "core unix ip patents" they would cite, as they might be applicable to many other operating systems (windows?)
Also, linux implements POSIX, which is a ISO or ANSI standard, right? Are there other such standards which are patented?
(lotsa questions, no answers)
Does anyone remember who SCO is/was?
It was the Santa Cruz Operation was it now... But whos Operation was it? From memory it was MICROSOFT's Santa Cruz Operation. The SCO www site does not really describe this part of their history, but check the quote below.
"Seventh Edition UNIX was licensed by Micorsoft who used it to develop their XENIX operating system which was subsequently jointly developed by SCO"
Darryl
Somewhat related, I recently participated in a project to replace SCO with RedHat 7.2 for a major UPS/FedEx competitor (you figure out who) they cited that they could no longer get support for the version of SCO-Unix they owned (I am not sure what version it was since all I did was take the old box out and put a new one in.) the SCO machines were AT&T with CGA monitors. I am an MCSE who uses Linux to get stuff to work right.
(4) There is no way in hell that SCO or any other entity could ever find all the people running Linux.
also...
(5) We have the source. There is no way to stop us from loading and running it.
and...
(6) Unless SCO backs off, disclaims and/or apologizes profusely it is DOA.
From the Linux cluster alone at LLNL, they stand to make a quarter of a million dollars. What company would pass up this chance for YAIPW (Yet Another IP windfall)
SCO, on the other hand, needs the money. Its tiny Linux business is a disaster and there's little doubt that the company, founded by ex-Novell CEO Ray Noorda, would be out on the street by now if it weren't for the Unix operating systems it got from Santa Cruz.
That pretty much explains SCO's motivation.
what part of SCO is owned by usloth?
Back when we were first throwing drivers left and right into the kernel (1992), someone brought up the point that Linux itself might be vulnerable to IP claims if it weren't developed "clean room" style. At that time it was thought that Sun would be the most likely threat, but a message was floated amongst the kernel and application developers, asking anyone who had worked on Sys III/V code or kernel code for anyone else, and I don't remember anyone raising their hand. I worked for Sun during that timeframe, but did not have access to the SunOS or Solaris source.
Of course, this could all be a desperate ploy by SCO to get cash in the door, but they want to leak it via the rumor mill, to gauge how well it would go over. Credits to Navy beans that, when they get inundated with bad press, they claim that it wasn't a consideration, plausible deniability, all that jazz.
-- Ed Carp, N7EKG erc@pobox.com PGP KeyID: 0x0BD32C9B What I'm up to: http://intuitives.mine.nu
[suuuuck]... [whooosh]
i liked how you managed to put an on-topic comment in a thread that degenerated into spelling fascism. of course, this is just karma-whoring 101
Some very important ones:
And you yourself listed 3 innovations, although you disputed whether they are indeed innovations.
They are; e.g. you seem to have missed the fact that the voting has been over for a long, long time. Unix was correct to avoid putting structured files like ISAM etc into the kernel. Database vendors who need something fancier than vanilla files turn out not to want to add ISAM/etc support to the kernel, instead they universally want an entire disk partition in which to build accellerated database structures.
If you take out the layered applications you are left with the kernel, the shell and mostly a lot of dreck that could be cleaned out without most people noticing.
That is just pathetically wrong. The *only* decent command line systems in existence are (1) Unix command interpreters, and (2) strict copies of Unix command interpreters. Even Microsoft and Macintosh developers depend heavily on Unix-flavored command lines. There's never been a GUI built that could completely substitute for Unix-like command lines.
MULTICS was innovative, but it was also largely a failure (yeah, I know, it was in use until just recently, but there were never many installations).
Following your line of argument, the correct conclusion would be that Unix was a second generation of Multics that *was* successful, by doing so much right.
When was the last time you played a UNIX console game?
A few weeks ago. Rogue. Oh, was that supposed to be a rhetorical question?
Your failures of the imagination are staggering. Quake and Half Life etc are cool, but there's never been a good graphical replacement for Rogue-like games, and many of them are still very popular. Nethack, I think, might be the one that's most popular, rather than Rogue itself.
Don't be a dork. As Henry Spencer said, "those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it -- poorly".
You obviously are aware of a fair number of things about Unix and its history, but equally obviously, you don't understand Unix worth a damn, in Spencer's sense.
Professional Wild-Eyed Visionary
see subject
but they'd better be armed better than I am. I don't pay extortion, and I don't recognize their authority. End of discussion. Fuck SCO sideways with a chainsaw. If they cant survive on thier own merits, every last fucking one of them should start getting used to living in a refrigerator carton and eating maggots, because that's exactly what they deserve. Hard, mind breaking, permanent poverty.
But you choose to fall on your own sword.
Just for the simple fact that you people would even consider such actions, rest assured, myself and many others will do everything in our power to drive customers AWAY from SCO products.
The end is near, you've chosen suicide.
Some people go out with a big bang, some go quietly. Either way, they end up the losers in the game..
GPL. Learn it, Love it, LIVE IT....
Er, I think you've got it wrong. Publicising that you're out to buy a controlling interest in SCO will raise the market cap in the short term as people will be wanting to gouge you.
How about this for strategy number 2?
Buy $500 in PowerBall tickets and if you win, use the money to buy up SCO...
The very existence of DEATH TO SCO, Inc. would drive down SCO's stock price, which would make it even easier to acquire.
It would drive the price UP, not down, and SCO shareholders would be very happy to see such a company created.
A large comunity of activists can do a lot of things, but the last thing they want to do is benefit the "agressor".
unfinished: (adj.)
Sounds like a nieve executive thinks anything vagely pretending to be Unix compatable is using SCOs IP and that they can sue for it.
Or figure Linux is an easy target for frivilous clames.
But the memo didn't result in anything.
Rummors rummors and more rummors.
I think before SCO mounts a lawsute the'll need to find the IP volations for sitation in cort.
If there is real IP code in Linux then it must be patched out ASAP.
Ferther there may be an issue of an IP trojen. If SCO/Caldera dropped SCO IP into Linux then what happends is:
SCO in adding the code to GPLed code released the rights.
No ferther code from SCO will be trusted. This may already be the case.
SCO will face the wrath seen during the Linux one IPO.
I don't actually exist.
Many years ago, a friend who used to work at SCO but moved to MS told me that MS owned something like 10-20% of SCO. I seem to recall MS wanted to get out of the UNIX market, so they sold Xenix to SCO, which became SCO Unix.
Anyone seen the CNET story yet today entitled "SCO to seek fees from Linux users." http://news.com.com/2102-1001-980514.html It seems to indicate that the company is targeting a subset of Linux users that are using SCO's UNIX libraries and not the whole community in general. I'm breathing a sigh of relief right now.
As far as I can determine, SCO is attempting to charge those that have moved from SCO to Linux and are running THEIR libraries. SCO is simply attempting to collect from those directly using their ip in the form of these libraries.
Here is a relevant link explaining what this is all about LINUX ABI