Slashdot Mirror
SCO Group Hires Boies After All
pitr256 writes "So it seems the SCO Group has decided to
hire infamous Anti-Microsoft lawyer David
Boies after all. This comes upon reversal of the SCO Group statement
according to Chief Executive Darl McBride of having not engaged Mr. Boies
to take legal action against our fellow Linux vendors. Now, CNet
News is reporting that not only is SCO Group investigating the Linux vendors
but that it is also going to investigate Windows, Mac OS X, and the BSD derivatives. So if your technology can't win on price
and performance, break out the lawyers and sue everyone. Does anyone else see
this as the end of SCO (Caldera) like I do? I certainly will never use anything from them ever again."
They are, after all, not interested in girls.
Does anyone know if they have a legal leg to stand on? Are they pursuing software patents?
I'm sure they are all broken up over the fact that you won't be installing any more warez copies of SCO anymore.
Doesn't this entire SCO suing [insert vendor name here] for using the UNIX IP remind anyone of the days when AT&T was getting in Berkley's face over using the UNIX IP - then Berkley rewrote the entire BSD so there was no AT&T UNIX code in there?
I don't know about Windows or MacOS, but I don't believe Linux or Open/Free/NetBSD use any copywritten UNIX IP code in their kernels. Do they?
my guess is they reversed the old quote:
"Instead of if you can't beat them, join them"
"They view it as if you can't join them, beat them"
I certainly will never use anything from them ever again.
Does that include Linux?
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
Anyone know which patents these are? SysV has been around a long time, and AT&T sold it a long time ago, the patents may not have a lot of life left in them.
I hear they are ripe for a lawsuit from SCO?
(/sarcasm)
Dolemite
_____________________
Save the World! Use a Quote!
It seems to me that OpenBSD, NetBSD, and FreeBSD are derived from 4.4BSD Lite -- which I believe is covered by the original BSD license. It would seem to me that trying to pursue something like that legally would simply be a great waste of time and money.
That being said, it does sound a bit like SCO has given up trying to make money the honest way and brought in the land sharks...
unixkb.com -- articles on practical Unix issues.
As I stated in a post from the earlier article, this action is a serious threat to SCO's future and I am not certain that SCO has fully examined the fallout that this announcement will cause, regardless of the final outcome.
The very fact that SCO flat out lied, yes lied, in last week's announcement will seriously impact the level of trust that any vendor or customer might have had in SCO.
The CNet article did not discuss the audience's reaction to this announcement but, I doubt very much that it was well received. Would anyone that witnessed the announcement and the audience's reaction care to report on it?
Those of you that are SCO customers should demand they stop this nonsense or you will cancel your contracts and all other purchases with them. I know I am.
So he defended Napster... That ended well. He fought Microsoft... Does that count as a win? He worked on Al Gores case in the Florida voting fiasco... Good job on that, too.
The Tools Of Ignorance wanna be a tool?
If they will go after the small companies to bankroll enough to go after the larger companies, or go after the large ones first in an effort to scare the smaller ones to cave in.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
The GPL requires people/companies that distrubute software under the GPL and hold patents for that software to grant royalty free use of those patents for everyone. Since SCO distributes a version of Linux, all code their distribution must be free of any problems with their patents.
SPF support for most open source mail servers can be found at libspf2.
...and hope you can salvage a few dollars for your shareholders after the Chapter 7 filing.
You could call it "Plan Be."
Didn't Caldera already sue Microsoft and lose?
Have you ever considered legally licensing SCO's IP if you are going to use it? That's what the issue is all about.
Why am I not hearing outrage from the crowds because Microsoft still dares license their software? Shouldn't I be able to copy Windows at will? Of course not.
So let's adhere to SCO's licensing agreements and everything will be fine. Otherwise if you steal from SCO, I don't feel any more sorry for you then if you have stole from Microsoft.
-BrentSCO: Here hold my beer while I show 'ya somethin'. Hey, everybody watch this! .
BLAM!
SCO: Damn, I missed my foot. Here, lemme try that again . .
BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!
SCO: There, that's better. Now I'll never be able to walk again!
I was asking the same question
last time this news came up.
*Precisely* which patents do
SCO have in mind? Does anyone
know? The article mentions
nothing concrete, just like last
time. Hmmm... FUD?
The sad thing is I like SCO OpenServer. I ditched Caldera primarily due to poor support and a seemingly "go away, ya bother me" attitude. Then all the licensing hooplah. Not this? Someone must plan on profitting from their failure. This is just rediculous. Evidently Randsome Love is not too far removed from SCO or he's clean and it was someone else in the company all along. This, in mind opinion, also taints United Linux. >
By doing so you support what you criticize: So if your technology can't win on price and performance, break out the lawyers and sue everyone.
If you are really against this then continue using what's best suited for your needs.
Cheers everyone.
SCO owns the IP for System V. Linux uses several concepts from the System V design, not the least of which is the Linux init system which is a direct take off of the System V method.
Lets look at this guys track record:
:)
Defending Napster: Failure
Representing Al-Gore: Failure
Anti-trust Against Microsoft: Failure
I'm shaking in my boots
Steve.
Well I guess it's back to MS-DOS for me. Oh wait, that's sorta similar to Caldera's DR-DOS isn't it? There's another lawsuit. Maybe I can hop to OS/2 and hope that I can keep out of SCO's crosshairs there..
"This is great. I love it. I hope they tear a swath of destruction across your beloved Linux vendors. It's only fair, since you all cheered him on when he went after MS."
No, not everyone.
I think that the DOJ case against Microsoft was motivated mostly by envy, greed, misunderstanding, spite and grandstanding. I think it sets a horrible precedent for allowing the government to decide matters which should be left to the market. (Trivial example: like whether and to what degree a web browser should be entangled with an operating system). I am not a fan of Microsoft software, and I don't think tax dollars should be used to pay for source-secret software, but I don't think Microsoft is evil.
Microsoft has done some things I think are bad, some of which are worthy of legal remedies, but that's beside the point I'm making here, which is that there is no single "pro-Linux" viewpoint on the Microsoft persecution / prosecution in which Boies was involved.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
It's entirely possible that SCO's claims are accurate. If they inherited valid software patents on some of the basic designs of UNIX, then they have a government-granted right to sue any company which uses those designs.
We all view UNIX as being freely copyable in its design, because traditionally it has been. Linux shares no code with the original UNIX, but it does share both design and interfaces such as syscalls. This is not a copyright issue, it is a patent issue. If the patents are valid, then it's possible Linux is infringing by its very existence. The BSDs are in a different camp, because of their heritage and the previous agreements between Berkely and AT&T, but possibly they're infringing as well.
Of course, it's also possible that there is no actual patent infringement going on. But that depends on what AT&T decided to do back in the day regarding patenting UNIX. I know that IBM's standard policy is to patent *everything*.
(cue Gary Oldman at the end of The Professional: "EVERYTHING!" )
Then we don't have anything to worry about except the large legal bills that everyone on the other side will have. After all he did such a great job with MS that they have been broken up and are now several companies that compete with each other. (oh yeah that was how it was supposed to end.)
I certainly will never use anything from them ever again.
:)
If they are right and they win, then you are already using their stuff.
'Same speed C but faster'
caldera has been dead since after redhat 5 came out. i used to use caldera, but then i switched to deb and have loved it ever since. caldera hasn't had a damn chance ever, so i guess they need to recoup their investment, and suing everyone that "has your technology" seems like a good idea.
"Martha Stewart can lick my Scrotum......do i have a scrotum?" -- Sharon Osbourne
All the BSD's based upon 4.4BSD-Lite (which is all of them) are safe from any action by SCO....UCB was sued by AT&T in the mid '90s....the lawyers went through the code and the BSD's have the legal documents to demonstrate that they dont have any SCO code. Windows and Linux and others may have some issues here.
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
He may be an ass, but he's got a point. Boies was at one point the hero, now he's the goat.
..In my next life I want to be a lawyer in the US.
I don't know what my problem is but I'll bet it's hard to pronounce!
Didn't they know that if they broadcast their IP they might be subject to attack?
...(IANAPL, and I'm not an expert on US patents) they may be able to get any UNIX-like system on that pesky "prior art" provision, not necessarily because it specifically violates any putative patents by reusing code. After all, as the other poster (and anyone who cares to do a little research) knows, both Linux and BSD originate from independent, non-UNIX codebases. The ideational structure, the "Unix-like-ness," however, that makes these OSes what they are, may be the problem, in fact (actually, de facto AND de jure). And that's a big problem, since it's utterly impossible (?) to get around.
I'm not a geek, I'm just a clever script.
Think of the internet as a big dump filled with potential, er, recycling materials. A lot of it is trash but there is some good stuff there. Anyone can go out and pick up stuff and build stuff with it. Only, digital copying and transmission technology means that if someone happens to throw away a split-level ranch house we can all live in nice houses.
So how do you keep this from happening if you are in the business of selling houses? (1) control the real estate market [hardware] so you can have a nice house but no place to put it; (2) cut off access to the dump; (3) make recycling illegal; (4) claim you own the stuff in the dump.
So SCO wants #4 today. What else is new. They'll all be tried. They're all a problem.
The real problem is not today's battle on thus-and-such a front. It's that there are a *lot* of people out there who have it out for recycling of *anything* that people can live in.
=googol=
SCO has a press release about this on thier site, mostly the same info in the article, but worth a read to see their "spin" on it.
SCO Establishes SCOsource to License Unix Intellectual Property
-palp
In all of these SCO is (not) going to sue stories, the jist is the same. Linux (and now apparently other OS's) are using some SCO IP somehow. What any of these stories fail to mention is which SCO IP this is.
SCO would like us to 'license' this IP from them, and that's all fine and good. Personally, I'd rather remove the code, give SCO the big FU, and carry on.
Does anyone know which libraries are being contested here? Just curious.
-Ben
As everyone else is saying, look at his track record. His cases seem to be presented with questionable tactics, not fully exploring the ramifications of what he is arguing for, and attacking the case on one tiny point, missing a bigger picture. I remember reading a lot about his work for Gore, that he was so focused on certain demands in the case that he missed arguing for other things he could have won. For the Microsoft case, he was obsessed with the browser issue, missing many points related to Microsoft's behaviour in the bigger picture.
For such a hugely hyped lawyer, he manages to make swiss cheese of the most open-and-shut cases. Now if they had hired Johnny Cochran, I'd be concerned...
Smithers: "Mr. Burns, there is a small Linux vendor trying to make money in sector 7G."
Mr. Burns: "Release the hounds."
Mind the gap
Ahh, the standard techique of misquoting and then using that as a basis for an argument. See, on a fair and level playing field, such as the Linux market, everyone should be able to compete on their own merits. However, when one company can leverage their monopoly power to maintain it illegally, it is a different story. That isn't fair, moral, or legal. You are simply showing your ignorance of the business model, and comparing apples to turds.
Where's my knife, I need to cut through the irony.
It is probably stuck in the backs of all the companies that Microsoft stole their "intellectual property" from, or ran out of business, or sabotaged. It amazes me that some people still defend their actions.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Obviously SCO, but who uses that? More to the point, I think it would be in our best interests to avoid using (and especially paying for) any products from their parent companies and the parent's subsidiaries. In other words, we should avoid the whole corporate tree.
Caldera is the owner, right? And what about it's subsidiaries? Don't they have an embedded Linux biz, Lineo or something?
What these guys are doing is way worse then Amazon, and we (well, some people, not me personally) are boycotting them.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
We do have concerns about our intellectual property in general," McBride said in an interview. "To us, it's not an issue of: Is Linux violating (SCO intellectual property)? It's an issue of: Is anybody violating it?"
So it's OK if Linux uses their technology, as long as nobody uses Linux?
No I'm not trolling.
You think so? I mean if I were evaluating technology to purchase, I know I always want to select the company that appears to be ready to sue anything that moves since that's the only way they're going to survive.
</sarcasm>
No sig, sorry.
Join the SCOx program now and start taking advantage of the Xtreme Rewards Option:
- Join the SCOx partner program.
- Become authorized to sell SCOx products and services.
- Begin selling SCOx products and services. Reach your revenue objectives.
- Sell your SCOx business to SCO.
- Have a great time with your money!
Methinks they've been reading to many slashdot Profit! postings. They callit SCOx. Their SCOx Sux. Just shows that they can't think of anything new to bring to the table."This comes upon reversal of the SCO Group statement according to Chief Executive Darl McBride of having not engaged Mr. Boies to take legal action against our fellow Linux vendors. Now, CNet News is reporting that not only is SCO Group investigating the Linux vendors. How do you spell: "Lying scak of shit?" D A R L Mc B R I D E
Well yes, it certainly is fair to judge him by his actions.
He was the hero until he took on a case which obviously is a bad thing. So its quite fair to call him down for it.
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
According to Yahoo Finance, SCOX has a market cap of 16.4M. Can't the FSF try to buy them and then release the IP to the community?
It seems to me that this is an opportunity for us open-source geeks to put our money where our mouths are.
Love is no longer WITH Caldera/SCO, and hasn't been for months now. SCO's abrupt change of strategies (including emphasizing Unix rather than Linux)is the direct result of their new president.
And as lame as we might think this move is, I don't think (yet) that they really intend to try to collect direct payments. I think they'll use this as leverage in future negotiations with other software companies. If it stands up in court, you can't deny that it's a nice carrot AND stick to have when dealing with partners.....and competitors.
That said, if they really DO try to collect revenue, then yes, there should be some kind of market retaliation against the company. And parts of Linux would simply have to be re-written (using different concepts) to replace the infringing IP.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
I didn't see anything for OpenBSD, but OpenBSD developers and users can feel free to pipe in on this matter.
SCO is not going after every Linux vendor, only those distributing the two libraries without SCO's permission.
To me, this is all just FUD, and is being blown WAY out of proportion.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
Your discovery of irony in this rests on the dubious device of assuming that "Microsoft" and "Linux" are ethically neutral concepts.
"When the Soviets sent tanks to Berlin to kill Hitler, they were our noble allies. When the Soviets sent tanks to Prague to crush democracy, they were international pariahs."
Oh, the irony.
I don't know how to break this news to you, but persecuting bad guys is Good, and persecuting good guys is Bad.
That's the same reasoning as if you said, "Well, Hitler did a lot of good things, he got the German economy working again, he made the trains run on time, never mind he started the biggest war mankind ever fought, never mind 6 million dead Jews, he did enough good things for us to ignore that."
The point is, just because a person does good things in the past doesn't make up for turning around and doing something bad now.
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
patents only last for 17 years from issuance of patent, or 20 years from application for patent, whichever expires first.
Actually, it's whichever expires last according to 35 USC 154(c)(1).
But if Rep. Mary Bono has her way, she'll probably introduce a bill like this to "harmonize" patent terms with copyright terms.
Will I retire or break 10K?
You're even hypocritical enough to say "if you can't compete, sue"! Nevermind that Sun, Netscape, and the various states' attorneys lived by the same mantra when they went after Microsoft.
Microsoft is a monopolist who has been convicted of abusing the market, using their position for leverage. Anyone who filed against them before that was an official court ruling was just ahead of the game, which is not surprising, since anti-trust actions tend to be very slow. Taking someone to court over their behavior is the only accepted way most businesses have of dealing with this kind of abuse.
Launching an attack against all other operating systems over ancient (in computer terms) intellectual property, especially when you are a small, financially troubled unix/linux vendor, is another thing completely. This is a form of abuse of the legal system. If you pay me money, you aren't taking the chance that I will sue you over something you probably can't prove you haven't done (which does not mean you did it). Doesn't this sound like the classic protection racket? Either pay me now, or I tie you up in court. The fact that they are going with this option shows that it is time for them to get out of the business.
what I really want to know is when they are planning to do all this so that I can short their stock
Anybody else in room hearing Bill Gates laughing?
Bill: Steve, Guess what?
Steve: What Bill...
Bill: Guess who SCO is suing now?
Steve: Let me guess... Us?
Bill: Nope!
Steve: Wow, somebody not suing us, that's odd..
Bill: Yeah, I guess their going to sue a whole bunch of linux companies
Steve: Hmmm, that seems odd... On what pretense?
Bill: I guess their contending that everybody stole their IP...
Steve: HAHAHA, this'll be good... for profits...
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
Flash animation featuring Mr. Boies:
People were rooting for the cause, not the person. If motives change, so does opinion. DUH. Welcome to humanity.
I just checked network solutions and it appears that scosucks.com and scosucks.org are both available for registration. Any takers to start an anti-sco website?
http://ir.sco.com/ReleaseDetail.cfm?ReleaseID=9996 5
Caldera sues itself over code contained in OpenLinux and UnitedLinux distributions!
David Boies of course loses the case.
we're still not sure WHAT that means though... film at 11
I couldn't find a long little dogie, so I got two short ones and spliced 'em...
That's a bullshit mod, and if the guy who did it would have checked the time of each post, he would have seen that your post was at MOST 1 minute 59 seconds later. How a bout a bit of leeway here mods?
You think that I'm crazy, you should see this guy!
It is pretty funny to watch someone tie their own noose, but it is even more hilarious when you watch a company like SCO actually put the noose around it's own neck and jump.
This can only end up bad for them in the end, in my opinion.
jlk
which I believe is covered by the original BSD license.
Good news: The three-clause BSD license may include an implicit guarantee of license under applicable patents licenseable by the copyright owner: "Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met" (my emphasis).
Will I retire or break 10K?
The Caldera/SCO chart doesn't look very good. [...] They are hemmoraging money [...] These guys are history [...]"
Wow, that reads almost like the *BSD is dying troll. All you needed to add was a line about a "charnel house".
Well done!
Trolling is a art,
My company still has a few hundred clients on SCO. Everyone that gets a new system, or a new server gets linux. With this news we're looking into getting rid of SCO altogether. Good thing to, because half of our time is spent fixing stupid little problems with SCO, and we're stuck w/out an OO compiler because of it.
"Give someone a program, frustrate them for a day... Teach someone to program, frustrate them for a lifetime."
Honest question. I thought patents expire after 15 years or so. Wasn't much of the Unix design done more than 15 years ago?
That should take care of them and their greedy little lawsuit.
Transistors and Beer!!
The decision to hire Boies is consistent with a "deep pockets first" strategy. Others have posted concerns about SCO's alleged GPL violations regarding patents, and besides, the Linux vendors don't really have the assets to make a lawsuit worthwhile. I predict that SCO will go after Microsoft. Either SCO wins big, or M$ prevails and the patent issue is dead. Either way, why should they bother with the Linux vendors and deal with the GPL issue? As an investment, a proposed lawsuit against Linux vendors fails to meet any reasonable risk/reward criteria. From a customer relations point of view, if SCO were so lucky as to drag M$ down the toilet, who would complain? On the other hand, using GPL and then attacking Linux -- that's a friendly-fire scenario they could do without.
- UNISYS and the GIF/LZW compression patent
- NCR (National Cash Register) and untold number of patents
- Caldera/SCO and DR-DOS (not a patent, but still a lawsuit)
- Caldera/SCO again on all things UNIX
Others, I'm sure can add to this list.From the CNET story:
From Twenty Years of Berkeley Unix by Marshall Kirk McKusick:
- The University's suit claimed that USL had failed in their obligation to provide due credit to the University for the use of BSD code in System V as required by the license that they had signed with the University. If the claim were found to be valid, the University asked that USL be forced to reprint all their documentation with the appropriate due credit added, to notify all their licensees of their oversight, and to run full-page advertisements in major publications such as The Wall Street Journal and Fortune magazine notifying the business world of their inadvertent oversight.
So, in other words, Mr. McBride - PPPPHHHTTTT!!...
The result was that three files were removed from the 18,000 that made up [BSD 4.4] Networking Release 2, and a number of minor changes were made to other files. In addition, the University agreed to add USL copyrights to about 70 files, although those files continued to be freely redistributed.
...
The lawsuit settlement also stipulated that USL would not sue any organization using 4.4BSD-Lite as the base for their system.
Oh, and might want to make sure you are providing due credit to the University of California at Berkeley before you cast the first stone, eh?
slightly off topic, but interesting and not too well known, so i'll give it a shot.
back in the day, microsoft actually had their own unix,
called xenix, which later became SCO unix.
link
yeah
It's an oldie, but a goodie featuring David Boies in the starring role.
Have you ever considered legally licensing SCO's IP if you are going to use it?
Does SCO even offer licenses for use of SCO's patents in free software as defined by the FSF or in open-source software as defined by the OSI?
Will I retire or break 10K?
Bad David? Heck. Who the hell is he? Its bad SCO. The only reason David Boies is mentioned is because he's been involved in a few highly visible cases (one of which involving Microsoft).
Competition only works in a free market. An abusive monopoly within a market changes it. And Microsoft was (is?) an abusive monopoly. The entire court battle with Microsoft was about competition; little suprise that it involved Microsoft's competitors.
This situation is different. SCO is not joining with other industry elements to make a case against an abusive monopoly. Instead, they are taking legal action against systems that have existed for years - decades, perhapse. And they do this at a time when it can be argued that SCO is sinking below the waves for the third time.
SCO could have valid claims. But at this point, it seems like a desperate and despicable move.
Thanks for providing a practical example of "zealotry" not being limited only to one single vendor, technology, or platform.
Its a big assumption to assume MS is a monopoly.
Um, no. The Federal Government determined in a court of law that Microsoft is a monopoly and they are guilty of anti-trust violations. There's no assuming involved.
People's desire to believe they are right is much stronger than their desire to be right.
Let's assume an entity with little or no power which does not wish to become part of the local powerful entity. Non-Windows OSs, users, vendors, etc make good examples.
Most have become part of the Microsoft Collective. They have the Collective's lawyers vigorously defending their rights to use licensed installations of the Collective's product on their machines. Those outside of the Collective do not.
What can those outside do to protect their rights--from the Collective as well as from marauding elements outside of the Collective? Some possibilities:
Not be noticed.
Join the collective.
Remain outside of the Collective, but bind their interests to its interests.
It appears that SCO has chosen the last option for us--in that they are suing *everybody*.
IANAL, so I don't know if these patents actually affect *nix et. al. It's unlikely that SCO will find a much profit in pursuing anyone but the Collective for infringement--blood from a stone and all that. If this happens, then the users of those OSs can continue to "not be noticed".
However, if it turns out that we are all using SCO-infringing patents (M$, and the rest of us), we need to present our use--in a legal context--as similar to that of M$. Co-defendants.
M$ will fight the battle for us. Hee Hee.
Unfortunately, that's not really what's going to happen. If SCO proves a crucial and defensible patent, the Collective will buy it up with their big ol' sack of money. Then their lawyers will come after those who are not "of the body".
Other OSs may have excellent code and design, but the Collective has excellent lawyers and politicians. We will find ourselves in the position of a poor man in a lawless country who finds a chest of gold. Sure, it's his. But can he hold onto it?
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
"I certainly will never use anything from them ever again."
Hmmm. Let's say they are going after patent infringement and were to be successful on all fronts (M$, BSD, Linux) then the only way you can use something not "from them" is possibly Old Line Unices or maybe VM or maybe VMS or some rather Siemens offering. A small and clique-laden market.
Anybody know if SCO owns a piece of the action on any closed Unices? VM is possibly safe, I don't recall SCO ever playing with Big Blue. What about VMS... was the SCO influence at DEC restricted to just their 'nix?
Could it be "you can run but you can't hide?"
Did you read a different post then me? Never once did he defend Microsofts actions, or even make a comment to that effect. The main point of his comment was, when Bois was targeting Microsoft he was the second coming of Jebus. Now that he is in attacking Linux companies (potentially anyways) he is the great Satan. Just look now at all the posts already in here about how many cases Bios has lost. Did you seem him being critic'd that way when he was going after MS? The poster makes a very valid point.
Actually... quite a few manufacturing firms still use SCO and there is quite a bit of EDI software that runs under SCO. I can't pretend to say that I like it, but one of my clients (dental supply company) has been running the same SCO box (sitting under the CEO's desk for christ's sake) without a reboot or any maintenance for the last several years and rely exclusively on it as a terminal server for 20+ EDI terminals. Not one person in the company knows how it works, or exactly what it does, but whatever it does it does well.
SCO is suing only to protect the ABI libraries? Is the only purpose of these libraries to run SCO Unixware software unmodified?
What software will I, as a Linux user, not be able to run if I want to avoid the IP problems here. Do I need to recompile my kernel, delete some packages, what?
(BTW: there seems to be much FUD on this and I would like the straight skinny on what I can't use anymore that I may or may not have used in the past.)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The whole point is no one is using their stuff, ergo they've got nothing to lose.
paintball
A monopoly doesn't necessarily mean 100% of the market. And since one of the findings of fact in a certain court case you may have heard of was that Microsoft *does* have a monopoly (in the desktop operating systems market, which they used to give Internet Explorer its current prominince), I think it's a reasonable accusation to make. :-)
"...[Hitler] made the trains run on time,..."
No, that was Moussolini. (Well, he didn't make the trains run on time, either, but he was the one who supposedly did such a thing.)
Heh. Lawyers are tools. Truer words have never been said.
"But you've already got a DVD. It lasts forever....In the digital world, we don't need back-ups..."
-- Jack Valenti
Of course, this certainly puts Caldera and SCO on the community's shit list. Caldera can no longer consider itself a Linux distro any more than LinuxOne could.
SCO is also responsible for UnitedLinux, though. Now, I always thought that was a dumb idea anyway, but other Linux companies went along with it. I hope the legitimate distributions like SuSE pull out of UnitedLinux as soon as possible.
Win dain a lotica, en vai tu ri silota
I work as a Unix Consultant for several State Agencies. I am responsable for AIX, HPUX, Linux and SCO servers. I always try to migrate the agencies on SCO to Linux. The truth is most tools that the state
uses are already ported to Linux. Oracle (most of the Oracle servers are HP 9000 series boxes like the
L and N series) Anyway It's time to fight fire with fire. I encourage all of you to educate your coworkers and DUMP SCO, Unixware, and anything to do with Caldera now!
In fact, a number of companies believe that if you have seen their proprietary source code and then work on another implementation, the presumption is that you are violating their copyright. Of particular concern to me in that regard is Sun Java: Sun has, in the past asserted such contamination clauses against other companies. There is a strong possibility that any open source Java project is contaminated if the people as much as looked at any of the source code that Sun makes available. And similar concerns exist for other projects.
This is just the beginning of the end of SCO.
...MAYBE his client was. The lawyer is just the mouthpiece - he likely would have defended MS had they approached them first.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
The old SCO used to hand out a free version (which could only handle two simultaneous incoming network connections) of UnixWare 7 at trade shows.
I think I got about six copies. Then I installed one, played with it for a week. Decided it totally suxored in it's inadequacy and stuck debian back on the box.
Somebody should suggest to them that the reason they are not making money is not that other people are using the same ideas they had, but that other people actually use it to DO SOMETHING.
Stupid Corporate Operations.
"Semper in excretum set alta variant"
Famous perhaps, but why "infamous"?
Is it because he is not on Our Side this time?
Paul.
You are lost in a twisty maze of little standards, all different.
So SCO's plan is to allow hordes of Creepy Sales Guys to hock SCO -- when they reach the "target" they get a SCO buyout..?
Hm, are they going to put SCO in Amway magazines..? is my wife going to be invited to one of her bored-housewife friends' "SCO Party"?
sheesh.
All this is quite consistent with typical Slashdot views on these subjects:
Illegal extension of monopoly power is bad, so fighting it is good.
Software patents, especially old ones that claim to cover common techniques, are bad, and supporting them is bad.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
It's a pity you can't go through a company's patent pool and pre-emptively scuttle patents they own on prior art and triviality. The effects of an entire community doing that to a company a few times might convice others that they don't want to bother with this particular bunch of people.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
who fucked up Al Gore's chances in the Florida recounts.
He's the unsung villian who turned Al into a laughingstock. If Boies had advised a statewide recount of ALL counties even a week after the election, he would have got it, and would have turned the election. Instead, he wanted just a few handpicked counties, something no one could go along with.
Of course, Al did follow his advice. For the want of intelligent legal advice, a kingdom was lost. Just in case you go through a divorce, don't sign until you're released from the debts (credit cards you don't want to pay. Boies isn't the only stupid lawyer admitted to the bar.
Actually, there are patents open on *nix: the famous example is patent no. 4,135,240, the setuid patent (this link may work), filed 1973, granted 1979.
I don't know if there were any post-assignation grants of ownership to the patent, or if Lucent (nee Bell Labs) still owns it.
A press release from SCO states that Boies, Schiller and Flexner has been retained in an advisory capacity, which isn't unusual when a company is trying to determine an IP strategy. We often forget that lawyers are often used for things other than suing people (such as, uh, determining under what statutes one may sue, who one may sue, contracts to enforce terms over which one may sue ... I'm not helping my case here, am I?). The press release (and this story) indicates that the UnixWare and OpenServer libraries are affected. Unfortunately, their "Intellectual Property Pedigree Chart" is one of the least useful displays possible, since it appears simply to be the "History of UNIX" chart with some colored lines added. Hopefully, a full clarification by SCO will be forthcoming.
"Freedom is kind of a hobby with me, and I have disposable income that I'll spend to find out how to get people more."
nevertheless, they had a net LOSS of $2.7M last quarter, they've gone from over $110 a share to $1.44 in the last 2 years, even after a REVERSE split of 4:1 to keep the share price up (without that it would be 36 cents a share)........as the hecklers & bashers on the popular stock message boards would say "THIS PIG IS GOING DOWN!!!!"...or "STICK A FORK IN IT, IT'S DONE"
It is a good solid Unix for 386 machines, but of course Linux and FreeBSD and Solaris x86 is eating its lunch.
This is SCO's way of saying:
"We're going down and taking you all with us"
Thanks, SCO!
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
On a lighter note I found this on a Solaris machine:
I wonder if I'll get in trouble for that. I'm sure it's been mentioned before. Is the the stuff SCO is worried about?
Wouldn't these claims predate the era when software patents were allowed?
Can software patents be applied retroactively?
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
...Since it makes a lot of things clear.
From the CNET article: "If you pull down (Mac) OS X you'll see a lot of copyright postings that point back to Unix Systems Laboratories, which is what we hold."
From the O'Reilly link in the parent post: Soon after the filing in state court, USL was bought from AT&T by Novell. The CEO of Novell, Ray Noorda, stated publicly that he would rather compete in the marketplace than in court. By the summer of 1993, settlement talks had started. Unfortunately, the two sides had dug in so deep that the talks proceed slowly. With some further prodding by Ray Noorda on the USL side, many of the sticking points were removed and a settlement was finally reached in January 1994. The result was that three files were removed from the 18,000 that made up Networking Release 2, and a number of minor changes were made to other files. In addition, the University agreed to add USL copyrights to about 70 files, although those files continued to be freely redistributed.
Meaning: The reason why those USL copyrights are in OS X is because the code was taken from FreeBSD, which took the code from 4.4BSD-Lite, which had permission to do so from Novell, the owner at the time of the copyrights. That settlement is still legally binding, even if the ownership of the USL code is now SCO. Looks like SCO has no case against the BSDs (nor against MS or Apple, who use BSD code in accordance with the BSD license.) Linux, I wouldn't be sure about, but I always thought Linux never had any AT&T/USL code.
Apparently others feel the same way. The following is a great rant that I snagged a copy of from an online forum a few years back:
(My apologies to the originator of this as I didn't get your name -- I was laughing too hard at the time -- so if you see this and want to claim it, let me know.)
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Caldera Stock Is Dirt Cheap. Buy Them!
Perhaps it is time for those who disagree with the policies of the board and management of SCO to do the all American thing: buy shares, form a voting bloc, oust the board, end the policy and make SCO release their "patents" into public domain once and irrevocably.
While you or I as your friendly neighborhood geeks might not be able to pony up the smads to buy a company outright, if enough people who disagree with this so-called "tyranny" did, then the owners of the firm can decide policy by sitting board members. Richard Stallman lives just up the coast and it would certainly be amusing to read THOSE board-room minutes!
On the other hand, it is entirely possible that those with the most to lose might band together and do something similar...namely, IBM, HP, Red Hat and others. If IBM stood to lose millions, they certainly could adsorb these miscreants and forever end the issue.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is precisely the outcome SCO wants. Pump up the stock in an acquisition and call it the end of the day.
I'll never touch Calsera again. These tactics are the last refuge of a depleted loser.
I hope they tear a swath of destruction across your beloved Linux vendors. It's only fair, since you all cheered him on when he went after MS.
And they may just go after the biggest purse of all (read Microsoft) and not the other small fry Linux vendors. We're all pretty sure there's some BSD code in the TCP stack for Windows. This has the potential to affect every OS on the planet if SCO continues to pursue it.
Be careful what you wish for...
Your mom always said, a PB&J is better than nothing, and God is nothing, is a PB&J better than God?
I certainly will never use anything from them ever again.
Nobody's been buying their stuff for a while now... and their busy blaming linux...
Which may or maynot be true. SCO was a pain in my ass long before I discovered linux...
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
The playing field was level to begin with. MS won the market, and were subsequently penaized for business practices which would not be illegal, but for antitrust legislation.
It's ironic that you're ripping on MS for supposed IP theft, when no case has been won proving this, and meanwhile the article claims linux is guilty of the crimes that you infer makes MS evil.
In short, the original poster is correct in pointing out how hypocritical slashdotters are, or at least how inconsistent their arguments are.
Vote for Pedro
SCO Unix IP
ROFL
What do you want to do today Pinky?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The real story is that Maureen O'Gara and LinuxGram deliberately spread the false rumour about SCO. The only reason I can think of is that they must dislike SCO.
h tm
If you read O'Gara's article carefully she says that she presumed that SCO was going to go after Linux users. She only talked to one person at SCO who thought the idea was retarded. He said going after Linux users would be "suicide." After that most people would probably decide they had presumed incorrectly but O'Gara likes to go with the most damaging thing she can presume even if it's wrong.
The day after the article SCO said: "SCO has no desire to take legal action against fellow Linux vendors."
But the rumour had already spread. Stupid reporters took O'Gara's speculations and said, "It was reported that SCO was planning to sue Linux users."
Here is a factual article:
http://www.practical-tech.com/business/b01162003.
I knew this guy when he "worked" for Franklin Covey (see bio here: http://www.sco.com/company/execs/dmcbride.html ). He ran the e-Planning group, trying develop things from online planners to FC's desktop planning software.
I should say, "ran into the ground." Everything he did sounded nice on the long project plans that he and other around him made, and were full of COMPLETE FREAKING BULLSHIT, every time.
Darl McBride is a total symbol of all that is wrong with the tech world, especially during the dot-bomb era.
He knows dick-all, but sounds real good and smooth to other suits.
He was really hot on WAP (if that tells you anything!) and thought that people would pay to be able to check www.franklinplanner.com (FC's online planner - seemingly now not working) via their cell phones.
Dumb!
By the way, he also bought that technology (for the online planner) from two guys who were basically Cold Fusion script kiddies for $10,000,000 ... I spent some time talking to the guys who had to rewrite all the crappy code (non-componentized, no db abstraction, etc. etc. non-optimized). Those script kiddies must have laughed all the way to the bank.
I mean, can you believe it - buying an online planner! A good coder can whip up a basic one in a week solo!
Then they spent $250,000 - a cool quarter of a mill US - turning it into a Flash planner ... so it would feel like a desktop app on the web.
Maybe not such a stupid idea, but they executed it as a total one-off, again with no componentization, etc., so that their strategy (to customize this calendar for big corporate clients) was totally impossible.
Then his big plan was an app that aggregates all your data (mail, web, documents, contacts, etc.) into one big portal-on-the-desktop application. I forget the name of the company that he did this with, but again it was a total freaking failure.
FC stock, which had been trading at about $30 in the '98, '99 years, dropped like a stone ... not just because of Darl, of course, but almost certain contributed to by his total freaking cluelessness about anything technical that could actually make (as opposed to burn) money.
The one group of people that did get rich while Darl was at FC was the lawyers ... they had an insane contract with some top firm, running at something like $15,000 monthly retainer.
For what is anyone's guess.
But this really makes sense when I see he's now running SCO. Those dolts are so far gone their exit strategy is to sue the whole world. Maybe they invented the if statement or something, too.
Rest assured: with Darl McBride at the head of SCO they won't make anything innovative, new, good, or money-making.
But I supposed the lawyers are still going to be fine.
Unbelievable ... I never expected him to turn up there.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If your mom said a PB&J is better than nothing.
And nothing is better than God.
Then is a PB&J better than God?
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
Likeness is irrelevant, as long as the codebase is different. Remember when Apple sued M$ for infringement? Apple said that M$ stole the look and feel, but M$ was able to prove the underlying code was different. The court sided with M$ (and this is back in the day when M$ wasn't all that gigantic)
Microsoft is a monopolist who has been convicted of abusing the market, using their position for leverage
I know this may sound bizarre, but could you please explain to me how M$ is a monopoly? I can buy any whitebox pc with no OS, load whatever non-M$ software I want, and never send a dime to M$. This has always been the case. The court's decision is a result of fine lawyering on the part of the plaintiffs, with a big dose of politics thrown in. (Remember this is the same system that said United Airlines and US Air shouldn't merge since they would be too dominant, now both are in Chapter 11.)
As the Linux dollars get bigger, you can only expect people to start examining their potential for filing claims, like it or not. This is exactly what happened to M$, (and IBM, silicone manufacturers and others with deep pockets.) I personally think the SCO suit is BS, but I thought the same thing of the M$ suit. I would not care to predict how this will turn out. Like the original poster, however, I agree that this is exactly what M$ competitors did to it. Well, they set a precedent, and now it may be coming back to bite the *nix community.
Imagine how much harder physics would be if electrons had feelings! -Feynman, maybe
IMHO, Caldera, like their father SCO before, have always sucked. It was probably a good business move for them to start litigating, as it's the only shot they have left at turning a buck. I don't know too many people who ever respected them enough to buy their products anyways.
11*43+456^2
I told you so seems the phrase most apropos. The BSD code has made it through the courts as free from Unix copyright, not patents. Apple's vast cash reserves make it a very attractive target for litigation.
You are absolutely correct! Thanks for catching that... I've was trying to keep it within the sig space limit, and it must got turned around during editing. I need a new QA process... ;-)
Your mom always said, a PB&J is better than nothing, and God is nothing, is a PB&J better than God?
...but I would argue with the conclusion of hypocrisy (turning on Boies) - I would accuse Boies' fans of being particularly naive. No offense to anyone who has a David Boies Fan Club sticker on their car.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
explain to me how M$ is a monopoly?
Go buy a Dell, HP, or Gateway computer without an operating system. What can you get at Best Buy? You don't have to have 100% control of a market to be a monopoly. Being a monopoly is not what got Microsoft into trouble, it was using that monopoly to kill off their competition (small though they may have been by comparison) that got them in trouble. Most people don't get white box systems, they aren't comfortable with doing that, so they have only one choice, buy a machine with Windows on it. You and I are different, we can pick computer parts, assemble the machine we want, and load whatever OS we choose, but my neighbor can't.
P.S. The court system decided Microsoft was a monopolist, and they used that power in ways they are not allowed to, at least if they don't want anti-trust acton against them. You don't have to agree, although you may be one of the few who would dispute that decision. Everyone else thought that was a given, and the penalty phase was the only interesting part of the whole courtroom drama.
"Boies is noted in the computing industry for working on the U.S. Justice Department's antitrust case against Microsoft and for defending music-sharing site Napster. He also represented Al Gore in the Florida vote-counting controversy during the 2000 presidential elections. "
With a track record like that, we don't have a thing to worry about...
Mommy. What's a karma whore?
or is it?
BZZZ! Rong!
When reading either a diplomatic or a PR statement (really the same thing), you have to pay attention to what is not said in the statement.
In the statements by both companies, they made it clear that Boies had not ((YET)) been employed by SCO. They never denied being in negotiations. From those omissions, I figured it was reasonably likely that Boies would be hired in relatively short order (anywhere from days to months).
If the two companies had never even been in negotiations I would have expected the denials to have been more sweeping -- if only by Boies' organization.
___
If Russia were to launch an ICBM at Washington, they would still have 12 minutes during which they could truthfully say:
Or consider the (true) straight-faced comment by a French diplomat:OS Software is like love: The best way to make it grow is to give it away.
First, nobody said SCO were enforcing patents. They said they were enforcing copyright on certain libraries they publish. There's nothing wrong with that, except it may be stupid if it drives customers to way-cheaper alternatives.
Second, even if they were enforcing patents, and even if the patents have run out, that doesn't keep them from collecting from anybody who agreed, before the patents expired, to continue paying afterwards. Such a provision is very common in patent license agreements.
Third, BSD didn't re-implement Unix. Discovery revealed that Bell Labs had stolen lots of BSD code (deleting the copyright notices), which terminally weakened AT&T's case. If the adversaries had been evenly matched, UCB would probably have got the whole shebang free and clear, but as it was they had to let the AT&T lawyers save face by pulling out five of the thousands of files as uniquely AT&T property.
It's fun to speculate what we would all be running if the case had been tried more quickly, or if the five files had been re-written sooner, or if the BSDs hadn't had their little fratricidal wars before they finally learned to get along, more or less.
My boss said that we just needed to pay for the premium tech support to get real help. So we paid $1200 for one year of premium support. The next problem we had involved a system with brand new ESDI drives. ESDI was the Next Big Thing after ST506 for inexpensive disk drives. The problem was that Xenix would crash while formatting the ESDI disk when it encountered a bad sector, requiring a reboot (from floppy, since the system wasn't installed yet). So we called premium tech support, figuring that at least they couldn't tell us to "Reformat the disk and reinstall Xenix".
You can probably guess what their suggested solution was. When I tried to explain why that solution was impossible, the tech person replied haughtily that *he* was the tech person and if I wanted his help I would have to follow instructions. That finally convinced my boss that it was time to find another Unix company.
A bit later one of our clients ordered an SCO system against our advice because they claimed to support SMP. It turned out that most IPC did not work between processors (not even shell pipelines!). The fork() call would always create a processor on the same processor, so that login shells would mostly work. But IPC based servers (such as a database server) would fail whenever the client was on a different processor.
We called our clients premium tech support, and were informed that their system could not possibly be as broken as we described, and we would have to hire a certified SCO consultant at our (clients) expense to verify the problem. So we hired the consultant, and he came out and verified that yep, IPC only works on the same processor, and you can use a special API to assign a process to a particular processor to access a service that happens to be running on that processor.
The consultant called SCO, and SCO insisted that that was the way it should work, and it was not broken. So we disabled all but one CPU so the system would at least run.
After this, my bosses theory was that all SCO employees were stoned.
Ask yourself why Microsoft hasn't already done this. They would have lots of fun harassing the Linux community. Perhaps it's because they can see that SCO don't have a leg to stand on and it would be $16M wasted.
Anyone up for some research?
/proc file system and SCO may have the patent for it. It was done in the early days of software patents and either AT&T or Sun or both might have a patent on it. It would be good to find out for sure since I do know some people that might have prior art.
One of the big ideas for sys v r 4 was the
Intellectual Property Pedigree Chart
Does it seem accurate? (aside from the interesting Copyright on the bottom: "Copyright © 1887-2003, Eric Levenez." ,,,uh, 1887?)
Somewhat Crazy OrangutansOk, this will be modded down as troll BUT--
Caldera has been very fishy for a while-- they have become a relatively minor player in the market though they used to be far more important than they are now. My own viewpoint is that they never really "got it" and tried to pull stupid tactics like this. Look at what Randsome Love has said about the GPL....
So, I think that thier main strategy right now is this-- buy product lines, sue people, sell the product lines. THey already did this with DR-DOS (somebody had to sue Microsoft on that one, but I wish it was someone else...), and now they are doing this with SCO. Look at DR-DOS for a moment--
Caldera DR-DOS buys from Novell
Caldera sues Microsoftg
Caldera settles suit
Caldera sells DR-DOS to Lineo
Caldera buys SCO
Caldera is looking for people to sue.
Caldera sues-- who? Microsoft? RedHat? BSD?
Caldera sells SCO?
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
(the subject says it all)
In order to help the employees of Linux companies, I have composed this list of
The Top Ten Signs That Your Linux Company Will Fail
And the number one reason to bail from a Linux company is:
--K.
Sig: Bad people happen. Try to avoid being one of them.
Exactly one year ago, the late Caldera company made most of its pre-1979 Unix code Open Source, see http://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Caldera-license.pdf. This means that even large parts of the AT&T Unix code are free today - explicitly made free by them. Thus they can (and will) hardly claim that anybody violates their rights concerning basic Unix concepts now.
Wait, it's Dell, HP, and Gateway's decisions to include Windows (and by proxy, their customers) that decide if MS is a monopoly? Wow, that's, ummm, great.
Our antitrust laws are stupid. If Standard Oil were selling oil below cost, and there were 20 of their competitors selling it for free there would have been no case.
But somehow, because the market has chosen MS in the face of many, many alternatives (some even free), MS is suddenly a monopoly.
It's patently idiotic and there is no valid argument for it other than "I don't like Microsoft tools" or "I'm a Microsoft competitor and I can't beat them".
Any one remember WANG, sued all PC MB manufacturers because they were using "WANG's Proprietry" SIMM holder? Where are they now? Where is Centronics? Can't think of modem company that created "AT" command set but they are no longer around either. This looks like death throes of Caldera/SCO.
I used to support SCO UNIX, back when they bought "UNIX" name from NOVELL, as far as I can remember back then that's all they bought. As far as I remember HP got some part of that purchase as well, I believe HP got the smarter UNIX engineers.
I believe that SCO also put into public domain older SCO UNIX about 3 years ago. Also SCO started as a company that Licensed XENIX from Microsoft and went on from there. When I worked at SCO Microsoft owned about 15% of SCO. What was weird was prior to SCO purchasing UNIX, SCO had to pay Microsoft a licensing fee for XENIX source code in SCO Enterprise UNIX. Since Microsoft owned XENIX, and XENIX was derived from UNIX, Microsoft had to turn around and pay licensing fee to UNIX group Licensing for UNIX code in XENIX. What is wierd is that once SCO purchased UNIX, SCO was paying Microsoft for use of XENIX code, Microsoft was paying UNIX for use of UNIX code in XENIX code which then filtered back to SCO.
I have supported MS-DOS, MS-WINDOWS, APPLE/MAC, SCO Enterprise UNIX, SCO UNIXWARE and IBM AIX, my belief is that "What works, sells".
Oh, get off your high horse. Microsoft was a monopoly because they controlled the market for PC operating systems. People made bad choices that let them get there, admittedly. No one voted to make Microsoft a monopoly, it was an accident of the market. Once they were there, they made deals that bundled their other software on machines at an attractive price, and made it very costly for a manufacturer like Dell to provide anything else, basically making them pay for Windows, even if they didn't put it on the machine.
You would be annoyed if they charged you for leather seats on your car, even when you didn't get them, wouldn't you? That would be wrong, wouldn't it? How can you defend a company that would make you do that? We don't know what else might be in their contracts in the way of penalties for not shipping Windows on a computer, because the terms are secret. If anyone reveals them, they lose their licnese to sell Windows with their computers. Are you saying that is a normal business practice? What business are you in?
You chose to ignore the multitude of reasons that caused anti-trust action to happen against Microsoft. That is your choice. I chose to see the whole picture. For years I ignored my friends who hated Microsoft, until finally the evidence of their actions was too much for me to ignore.
I'm tired of teaching a history lesson here, especially to someone who sounds like a Microsoft employee. You will note that Microsoft is making itself less and less attractive to businesses as it moves to the annual license mode of operation. Microsoft is aiding the market for alternative operating systems by their own actions, which is only a fitting way for them to end.
Maybe this was all part of the secret deal that Microsoft and (then) Caldera had as part of their settlement two years ago. In the original Haloween Documents, Microsoft mentions using IP as a potential weapon against Free Software. However, if Microsoft were to pursue this line of attack, it would be exposing itself directly to more accusations of anti-competitive practices. However, if it could use some sort of leverage to get SCO/Caldera to do it for them-- especially at a time when Microsoft is making somewhat half-hearted gestures toward cooperating with Free and Open Source software projects-- it would be a different story. By SCO, a Unix vendor, attacking BSD, OS-X, Linux and who knows what else, it looks more like infighting in the Unix world and allows Microsoft to spin the whole thing as just another example of the kind of fragmentation that has hindered Unix in the past.
Mind you, a lawsuit doesn't have to be succesful-- or even viable-- in order to disuade people from investing in a product. Even the threat of possibly being sued would be enough-- no matter how specious the case.
"IS there Anyone we can sue?? We are in a desperate need of cash? Please sir, can we sue you for patent/copyright infringements?"
- Voice of Ambience -
- Voice of Ambience -
If SCO decides to prosecute the open source software projects, such as, Darwin, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, or Linux; I suggest we start a legal fund to hire legal counsel to defend these open source software projects from SCO. Maybe, we could even get help from that famous FSF lawyer. What's her name?
That is like saying speeding would not be illegal, if it weren't for speed limits.
The playing field WAS level, and MS did win it. However, they used the OS market, which they held a monopoly on, to maintain that molopoly and to illegally push into other markets. That is what the DOJ found, and everyone else knew for a long time. What is ironic is that everyone who is pro-MS are saying "hey, that is fair", when in reality all that is wanted is a truly fair playing field.
It's ironic that you're ripping on MS for supposed IP theft, when no case has been won proving this, and meanwhile the article claims linux is guilty of the crimes that you infer makes MS evil.
They buddy up to small companies, promising them their "friendship", get on their board, run them into the ground (because they can), and buy up all of their assets. I call that stealing.
In short, the original poster is correct in pointing out how hypocritical slashdotters are, or at least how inconsistent their arguments are.
Well, yeah. But in this case, you can't compare the two things directly. In general, the /. crowd (and many others) don't like the idea of "intellectual property". MS uses that concept all the time to strangle whatever they feel like strangling at the time, and now that someone else is trying to play the IP card, it is just as unpopular. The fact that it comes from "within" makes it a little more disgusting.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
You didn't close your tag correctly.
You don't want to hurt yourself.
I am a viral sig. Please copy me and help me spread. Thank you.
What ever happened to UnixWare? As I remember it was a quite competent flavor of unix.
No depending on how what was recounted and how, the margin of victory changed. All recount methods that limited themselves to counting marks on actual ballots had Bush winning. "Reimagining" the admittedly odd Buchanan votes would have yielded a Gore victory but you just can't do that sort of thing and still call it an election.
Democrat delenda est
It's like the case of an artist who creates lithographs. He can print as many copies as he wants, and distribute them tho who he wants.
Lithography, like almost all markets for copyrighted works, is a market characterized by monopolistic competition (many differentiated products that are imperfect substitutes for one another, and no small group of sellers dominates the market price). Because copyright covers expression not ideas, a copyright on a particular lithograph is quite narrow. Some patents are about as narrow as a typical copyright, covering only one process to make a given product, but patents can be much broader and can bring about a real monopoly by themselves.
If it turns out that SCO does hold broad patents on operating system technologies, then SCO may hold "market power" under the antitrust act and would thus lose the protection of 35 USC 271(d).
Will I retire or break 10K?
"Mutual Termination for Patent Action. This License shall terminate automatically and You may no longer exercise any of the rights granted to You by this License if You file a lawsuit in any court alleging that any OSI Certified open source software that is licensed under any license containing this 'Mutual Termination for Patent Action' clause infringes any patent claims that are essential to use that software."
If this provision were in the Linux license, then Caldera would be unable to sue for patent infringement unless it was willing to forego its license to use and distribute Linux. :-)
This addresses the potential problem of patent infringement, but it wouldn't help if someone infringed a copyright. That's still a bad.
Oh, get off your high horse. Microsoft was a monopoly because they controlled the market for PC operating systems
Please tell me how they did this? Once again, anyone can go out and buy a whitebox PC with no OS. That's essentially always been the case.
No one voted to make Microsoft a monopoly, it was an accident of the market
In my view, the market made a very rational choice, since M$ offered an OS that everyone supported and was cheaper than the alternatives for consumers and developers.
You would be annoyed if they charged you for leather seats on your car, even when you didn't get them, wouldn't you? That would be wrong, wouldn't it? How can you defend a company that would make you do that?
OK, go into a car dealer and ask to buy a car with no wheels, since you want to put on aftermarket wheels...Or no radio, or just primer since you want to choose your own custom color, etc, etc... If you think about it, it soon becomes apparent that the PC is probably the most user reconfigurable consumer product there is.
We don't know what else might be in their contracts in the way of penalties for not shipping Windows on a computer, because the terms are secret. If anyone reveals them, they lose their licnese to sell Windows with their computers. Are you saying that is a normal business practice? What business are you in?
This is a very common business practice. Almost every contract I have seen (and I've seen many) has a confidentiality clause.
I have yet to be convinced M$ is a monopoly. Do they have a dominant market share? Yes. Did they push the envelope with it? Yes. Did the anti-trust suit have merit, or was it essentially instigated by their competitors since they were too stupid to figure out how to compete? No and yes. BTW, did the competition come up with OSS? Of course not! Also, I don't work for M$.
Imagine how much harder physics would be if electrons had feelings! -Feynman, maybe