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?"

Comments

Dennis Ritchie's Thoughts on the SCO/IBM Subject

[zoid.com]

I found this in the alt.folklore.computers news group.

Re:I've karma to burn...

[James_Duncan8181]

The suit does not allgege that any code was directly copied - it alleges that the concepts were reused, and that linux could not have adanced so far/fast without IBM slipping SCO code to us under the table. I find this quite insulting. Amusingly, it then goes on the say that Big Blue does not have the expertise to produce a OS without SCO code *snigger snigger*. Now I have seen IBM accused of many things, but technical incompetence is not one of them. I would personally say that OS/2 and the fact that IBM produced the original arch suggests they might just be able to program and design...jeez. Combine this with IBM's famous paranoia on IP issues, and it starts (!) to sound like complete and utter bollocks from a failing company. Personally I hope they don't get bought out by IBM but crushed into a small, smoking pile of rubble. I will then enjoy seeing IBM perchase the UNIX rights for pennies in the dollar when SCO go tits up.

Goodbye SCO, I won't miss you...

For those who are as confused as i was

[chabotc]

The headline quotes "has a impact on Sun's shifting linux strategies". Since it doesn't give a lot of context it's a bit hard to know exactly what is ment by that. What happened is that days before it was anounced that Sun is considering striking up partnerships with mainstream Linux sellers such as Red Hat and SuSE (dated march 6). However a day later (march 7), the news breaks that The suit could affect SCO's relationship with Linux seller SuSE, whose version of Linux is the foundation of the UnitedLinux products SCO uses. Plus ofcource the posible implications for Linux patent violations at large such as forinstance the ELF binary format (SCO claims its a derivative of COFF), and other area's of linux..

Thus sun is in the mess that they decided to investigate how and if they should dive into the linux pool, but the day that news breaks, the pilar of their company (Unix servers, OS, etc) and the company they licence rights to use this from gets into a fight with linux and their bigest threat in the large-server-space.

It's gotta be shitty to be Sun to be in that position, they can't really afford to alianate either camp (openoffice, gnome2 and mozilla are contributed to or owned by them and linux seems to be a way to go for the future) but their current income comes largely from selling & maintaining large servers and they can not afford to give out the slightest impression that that market could be in any trouble, because customers buy them for the 'five nines' dream (99.999% availability)

To deep in either way to get out.. they'll have to do a switcherland if you ask me

Read the article!!!

[srp3]

So, in reading the article (and in finding the quote in context), Sun's doing a strategy shift to Linux, this comes up, and they have to figure out what the implications of this are. Are they going to be dragged into this suit? Are they safe from it because they have a license that covers it?

NO WHERE in the article did they say they were stopping Linux support.

The original poster of this article makes it sound like Sun's just going to drop everything now that the lawsuit is happening to other folks, and THAT IS NOT WHAT THE ARTICLE SAYS.

People are showing their cards

[fjpereira]

At least we are starting to know who are our enemies: SCO and SUN are showing their faces.

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.