Slashdot Mirror
Sun Rethinking Linux Strategy Over SCO Lawsuit
manyoso writes "Sun is waisting no time taking advantage of the SCO lawsuit against IBM. They are making statements trying to play up Solaris as a safe harbor for worried Linux and IBM users. John Loiacono, VP of Sun's operating platforms group, "For people looking at the issues at hand, we are a safe harbor. We have absolute rights to our technology ... We're changing our strategy around Linux (but) we're pausing because we're trying to figure out what the implications of this are going to be". So, this begs the questions... What are the short term implications for the new Linux based desktop we've been hearing about from our fair weather friends? How will the SCO lawsuit affect Sun's long term strategy with Linux and Open Source?"
I found this in the alt.folklore.computers news group.
Zoid.com
Ummm, IBM probably couldn't have produced OS/2 without at least some code from Microsoft.
Let's face it, IBM is a Business Machine company. They'll always be making metal plates to rivet onto whatever kind of business machines they're currently selling. Years ago it was wall clocks and timeclocks for factories, copy machines, etc. They've had a strong market share in computers for almost as long as computers have existed. But they're a business machine company that happens to make computers, not a computer company. So they hire out and borrow what they have to.
No, David Boies didn't lose the DOJ case. He worked the trial before Judge Jackson, and won decisively -- most observers said that he beat the crap out of M$'s team. Then Bush got elected, and they certainly weren't about to keep working with Boies. Instead, it was the new administration who decided to let M$ walk.
As for Bush v. Gore, I think even if God Himself had been Gore's lawyer, He wouldn't have had a chance against the Rehnquist Five.
But at any rate, I was rooting for him in both of those cases, and I'm very dismayed to see him join the wrong side now.
Always keep a sapphire in your mind
I don't think SCO has a chance:
1 - First, IBM has too many patents to counter-sue SCO.
2 - Second, I think most the stuff that IBM has been bringing to Linux, like their journaling file-system and LVM is very recent software, that was develloped by IBM staff and not derived from the ancient Sys-V.
3 - Even if we have to remove the parts developed by IBM from the current Linux kernels, we would still have sevaral alternative implementations.
4 - Evern if SCO has patents that cover some parts of the Linux kernel, they (SCO) have also been distributing Linux under the GPL. Consequently, they have offered permition for everybody use it.
5 - SCO can also be sued for using the Linux trademark: remember Linus owns the Linux trademark.
Finally, this shouldn't be a major concern to the open source community, becvause even if we couldn't use the Linux kernel, we could allways move to HURD or a BSD kernel.
For most aplications, users wouldn't see almost any change.
BSD has already had a batle in court and won.
In the end, we will be stronger than now.
It's my impression (in my personal opinion, not based on anything "proprietary" I've been told because I haven't been) that this announcement is a combination of lawyers and PR folks wanting to make it clear that Solaris is not subject to any such lawsuits from SCO and wanting to reassure our customers and shareholders that we won't get so far with our linux strategy as to get ourselves entangled on that score. "We're pausing to see what the implications are" is not "AVOID LINUX!!! IT'S DANGEROUS!!". It's smart business practice to keep from being dragged into a potential tar baby.
Just because you and I believe that the lawsuit is completely frivolous doesn't mean that a large corporation can blythely assume the outcome of litigation and proceed on a path that might lead to problems for us and our sharelholders.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
Oh, please... this is complete crap. IBM is profitable, they're smart, they've survived by knowing how to both leverage old technology in new ways (VMS, still making them hundreds of millions a year through various different business models), and pursuing "new" technologies in their own, conservative, focused, profitable kind of way (AIX, OS/2). Are they the most leading-edge? No. Are they the coolest? No. Are they a good example of how to keep your head down and make a profit in the software industry? Well, most of the time (yeah, they screw up like everybody else, but they recover more quickly than most too).
Don't get me wrong, I'm no IBM lover. I don't use any of their stuff at home, but when I've had large IT budgets to spend in big companies, they have often provided me the best price/performance I could find, and I went with them. And, my users have always been happy with the outcomes. I have always been impressed with their ability to roll with the changing industry and figure out a way to deliver value to people with checkbooks.
Oh, yeah -- just because *you* aren't in their target market doesn't make them wrong. They understand their target markets very well, and don't give a damn if you get it or not.
Yep. I've got the impression that IBM has only recently started contributing scalability-related stuff, i.e. their work will be seen in 2.6 series of kernels.
What they did is contribute people. The Linux work done by those people is original. I know this to be true, since I've been working with them from the start (on the VM/scalability front) and we have the irc logs where the ideas were born and developed, including ideas originated by non-IBM people and developed further by IBM people. IBM also contributed the patented RCU lockless sharing algorithm and contributed a license as well, as required by the GPL. Besides that, I don't know of a single instance of IBM people contributing anything other hard work, original engineering and creativity.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
If Trolltech ever discontinues licensing Qt as GPL then it automatically can be licensed under the BSD. This is the purpose of the KDE Free Qt Foundation. This has been all worked out long ago:
n .p hp
http://www.kde.org/whatiskde/kdefreeqtfoundatio
It's actually rather different because AIX still includes code licensed from Bell Labs/USL/Novell/SCO. If there has been cross-pollination between AIX and Linux at IBM, misuse of SCO's UNIX IP is conceivable.
I don't think it's likely that IBM employees have misused IP licensed for AIX in Linux, but this sort of thing is always a possibility when two similar products with incompatible licences are being concurrently developed within one firm.
NT has never included any code licensed from Bell Labs/USL/Novell/SCO. Moreover, Microsoft Xenix was sold to SCO in 1985, three years before NT was started, so there was never any concurrent development. Finally, the original NT team comprised developers brought to MS from DEC, including the architect of the VAX/VMS OS, who may have had knowledge of DEC trade secrets relating to VMS (there's a rumour there was a lawsuit to this effect), but were never involved in UNIX development.