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SCO Group Lawsuit Q&A
althalus writes "PLUG, the Provo Linux Users Group, of Utah recently requested representatives from SCO to answer the questions of the local *nix users regarding their lawsuit. Since this topic has been the point of a bit of discussion here on slashdot (
1,
2,
3,
4) We figured it might be nice to get some of the questions from here. SCO has agreed to allow us to submit a list of questions ahead of time, and we will contain some of the highest moderated slashdot questions. SCO has warned us, that since this is an active lawsuit, there are some questions that obviously cannot be answered at this time, but overall, feel free to ask. Notes/Answers will be submitted to slashdot afterwards." Think of this as a third party Ask SCO almost anything.
SCO also gets tremenous points for being vindictive - a failed Linux business doing its best to sink the ship on their way out. It's fortunate for us that their best isn't enough.
Bruce Perens.
(a) Try to Kill Linux
(b) Get bought by IBM
(c) Simply go out of business
(d) Beat Microsoft in the "most hated company of all time poll on CNN"
Disney could sue you for that Caldera logo! It's obviously part of Mickey Mouse's head!
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
I run the Bay-area Unix Testing Tribe [BUTT].
Our organization proposes an alliance for this lawsuit. We have already opened defense fund. the BUTT-PLUG alliance should have no problem getting out of this sticky situation.
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
Microsoft could just buy SCO, and thus ... oh wait, Microsoft would never do that....
How do you (SCO) plan to deal with the loss of community goodwill due to this lawsuit?
SCO is a failed company. Every thing you touch turns to cancer, so why should we even care if you live or die? Just pull the plug and move on with your life.
Is it all you could find as a way to collect as much money as possible for your shareholders before you go out of business ?
"Naughty, naughty, naughty, you filthy old soomka !"
Dear SCO,
Will you attack the macintosh OS? Or are macs too gay to worry about?
Thanks!
Check out my ghey articles and linux pseudo-contributions!!
What evidence do you have that IBM did anything? All your previous releases were vague and void of any hard evidence. If you cannot give out details, could you tell us at least in vague terms the kind of evidence that you have?
smoking when you guys decided to sue IBM?
SCO --- what is it that you do again?
Is the contingency plan for McDonalds or Burger King?
What's the worst you've gotten?
C'mon, mod parent up! Troll? This is FUNNY!
(to the tune of Jingle Bells)
S-C-O
S-C-O
Dying all the way,
Oh what fun it is to sue before going down, HEY
S-C-O
S-C-O
Dying all the way,
Oh what fun it is to sue before going down.
Cheating shareholders
With lawyers on our side
Luxurious we are
Laughing all the way
HAHAHA
Making major cash
What is there to lose?
Oh what fun it is to sue IBM tonight!
Considering the community backlash against your recent lawsuit, what are the company's plans for the near future?
So, what's step #2 in
1. Lose lawsuit horribly to IBM....
2. ??????
3. Profit!!!!
Do you think the publicity you will lose over this lawsuit in the linux/unix community is worth it?
Even though you (SCO) have a large base in the commercial industry, wouldn't you agree that the general opinion of your company will greatly sink if this goes through?
Did you help Al Gore create the internet?
For every annoying gentoo user, are three even more annoying anti-gentoo crybabies. Take Yosh from #Gimp for example.
This lawsuit is an attempt to either:
1) Make some easy bank.
2)Get bought out by IBM.
Their situation has reached a desperate enough time that public good will towards their company is not as important as keeping the company on its feet. Their accountants felt a new direction was obviously needed and this is it. Of course they know that the opinion of SCO within the community will sink - OF COURSE THEY KNOW THIS!!! It's outweighed by more important interests.
I hate liberals. If you are a liberal, do not reply.
are you wasting everyones time with this lawsuit? You do know that if SCO played nice and put itself in a position to be bought out it's quite possible someone would buy you out. The way things are going right now you are just wasting time and money. The likelyhood of you winning any money at all is so nil that it's pointless. In any event, preface over; Where do you see SCO in the next 5 yrs, what's your current business plan or model to retain revenue in today's rough economy especially in regards to Unix(tm)?
don't you agree that this lawsuit will certainly delete your existence/competiveness in the linux os market, and don't you agree that the linux os market is going to get bigger and bigger so that loosing this market is actually a bigger loss for your company?
Especially since almost everyone would agree that no matter how this lawsuit ends it either sco or ibm that will loose certainly not linux or the linux os market.
I'm curious just exactly what you think Linux was incapable of doing without stealing from you?
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
In some of the articles that I've read, Mr. Sontag specifically stated that none of the code you believe was stolen from Project Monterey has shown up in any of IBM's developed code. The only "evidence" of foul play is that IBM's code you claim comes from Unix System V/AIX was developed too quickly to have been anything but a derivative of your intellectual property.
Obviously, the best way to demonstrate that this is the case is to prove that IBM was not working on this code prior to having joined into Project Monterey. In other words, if they began working on this prior to gaining access to your IP, then it is conceivable that they found an independant solution and the timing was just coincidental.
Do you have any way of combating this or is your only evidence of foul play the coincidence of timing?
Mordor...a magical, mythical land where women are more rare than dragons--but where every man would rather find a dragon
What evidence do you have that IBM used SCO intellectual property, obtained during the Project Monterey initiative, on products other than [the now abandoned] Monterey itself?
Do you have evidence that SCO/Monterey intellectual property found its way into AIX?
Do you have evidence that SCO/Monterey intellectual property found its way into Linux?
It's fairly reasonable to suggest that SCO has no chance against IBM, IBM being a multibillion dollar corporation and SCO being a minor also-ran with a shakey case. So, my question is: Assuming SCO loses, and the costs put SCO out of business, will SCO, as a final act of good will, release the sources of Unix, NetWare, etc, into the public domain, so that whatever misery this company has inflicted on the rest of the world can at least not have been in vain?
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
2. Has this lawsuit affected the public perception of SCO? If it has, is this the result you anticipated? Is this something you want for your company?
3. Should SCO lose the lawsuit, what would be the future prospects for the company? Why would anyone want to buy SCO stock at this time?
4. Who made the decision to file this lawsuit? Was it approved by SCO's Board of Directors? Was there a vote among shareholders, or were any consulted in making this decision?
I don't expect these to get answered, but I'd sure like to know.
IAAL
Was this lawsuit more of a 6 pack idea or a 12 pack idea? And what are you going to do when you wake up next to the girl that IBM sent over but you have no idea what her name is?
Dear SCO,
I would like to know when I will be able claim that Linux is UNIX. I know all about the crazy UNIX certification requirements...
If the evolution of Linux means the death of UNIX (since nearly no Linux meets UNIX certification and Linux prospers most at the expense of commercial UNIX), then isn't it in your best interest to change the certification rules so that Linux becomes UNIX? Once UNIX is irrelevant, where is SCO? Only you can change this.
UNIX is Dead
Linux isn't UNIX
Long live Linux
Good luck with your Lawsuit and thanks for for the all of the publicity for Linux.
Do your glass bellybuttons help you see well enough with your heads so far up your asses?
What do you think about this?
Windows suffered fewer security vulnerabilities than Linux last year, according to figures released by vulnerability tracker SecurityFocus.
Although the statistics so far only go up to August 2001, aggregated distributions of the Linux operating system suffered 96 vulnerabilities while Windows NT/2000 suffered only 42.
Breaking the figures down by distribution, Mandrake Linux 7.2 notched up 33 vulnerabilities, Red Hat 7.0 suffered 28, Mandrake 7.1 had 27 and Debian 2.2 had 26.
Windows, on the other hand, shared fourth most vulnerable position with 24, alongside Sun Solaris 7.0 and 8.0.
Although in previous years Windows has suffered the most vulnerabilities when compared to individual distributions, against the Linux aggregate the Microsoft operating system has consistently come out looking better off than its open source brethren.
For five years straight, in fact, Windows has come out less scathed than Linux, with 2000 pinpointed as the most significant year when Linux suffered over 150 vulnerabilities and Windows fell just short of 100.
But when looking at the bigger picture, the number of vulnerabilities discovered has rocketed since the start of last year and now peaks 150 new security discoveries a month, revealing a lot of bug-hunting activity poking holes in the security of operating systems in general.
Or, describe how it feels when a loose bunch of geeks, in between fragging sessions, helps develop an operating system that does the equivalent of making you bend over and grab your ankles.
Or, describe the humiliation you feel when a penguin grabs the back of your hair as you bend over, pulls your hair, penetrates, thrusts, and says, who's my bitch? who's my bitch?, and you answer from your cum stained lips, I am, please let me have some more, please let me have some more!
Do you prefer boxers or slips?
Can you picture a world without lawyers?
They think it is impossible for linux to be scaled to "enterprise-level" stuff, like multiple processors and stuff. Yeah, it's bullshit, but let's ask them questions for which we might get original bullshit answers.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
WTF?!?
Hi,
Is it true that you LOVE the Cock?
Last.fm - join the social music revolution
I was just wondering, did you guys wake up one morning and just decide to be evil? Or did you have to work at it for a while? Or did it just happen by accident?
I was going to start my own Evil Corporation(TM) and I was trying to gauge the level of effort required. Also, you didn't happen to aquire the IP rights on Evil(TM) as well, did you? If so, what are your licencing fees for that one? I don't want to get sued over here.
I wish there was some there was some way that I could be outside playing basketball, in the rain, and not get wet.
In fact, a third option does exist, and is in fact the most likely explanation for the whole lawsuit: they know exactly what they're doing, commiting suicide.
The strategy would be, either we get bought by IBM or we settle. Either way, we can give money to the investors and close up shop. They can't survive as a commerical Unix vendor because Linux really has eliminated their place in the market. They probably do have some mildly valuable IP, and IBM never seems to mind picking up a little more of that.
I knew this was going to get bitter -- SCO folks acting like jerks trying to dig a little money out of IBM, lawsuits, major folks pissed off -- but when the first comment is a +5 Perens flame, this is definitely going to be a rocky interview.
May we never see th
That is funny.
Here it is. Microsoft agrees to hire their remaining execs in exchange for SCO acting so nastily that Microsoft is no longer #1 on everyone's hit list.
Seriously, when was the last time that *every* post on an interview was outraged or disgusted? Even Microsoft doesn't manage to build up that much animosity.
May we never see th
Have you tried Crack Light(TM)? Because regular Crack is making you do some pretty messed up thinking on this matter...
Blog Prophyts - Right On, Man
Have you guys considered approaching the RIAA with a view to offering your operating system as a platform for their website? Maybe they could provide a stream of revenue from their evil paymasters if you could manage to keep them online for more than 3 days at a stretch!
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
Here is my question for SCO:
Do you blame Bond for the failure of Plan Omega,
or was it due to a break-down in organisational
process?
Wait a minute, I'm thinking of SPECTRE, not SCO
... sorry.
apt-get install deathstar && deathstar alderaan && echo "You're far too trusting"
WTF!?!?
AC comments get piped to
Why create a lawsuit? THis will obviously cause problems. Why not merge with another company and bring some good stuff to it? Mandrake is always going under. You could join forces with them, show them how to do some real programming, and work to drive RedHat under. Now I think that would be more fun than just trying to sue little old IBM. They are still having a hard time standing after Microsoft knocked them down.
What is it, exactly, you do?
</Office Space>
It's April 4th already. Enough with the April Fools jokes.
*rolls eyes at the notion that SCO cares what I think*
Fat Tony wants to know where to send the horse's head....
When (not if) IBM and the courts hand you back your sore and bleeding chunks of ass, do you have plans to try again, or will you have learned your lesson?
Given that companies are made up of people can you please tell us who looks in the mirror every morning and comes up with this crap? How does it feel to work for them?
Do the people of SCO, when out of their cubby holes and over a glass of suds with friends hail your graspingly false principles or feel a touch of shame?
How do you, the person answering these questions feel explaining what you are doing to your children? What exactly do you say? Daddy is a scumlord? Don't forget, they'll be growing up and reading about all this soon enough.
What I love about children is how they can get the essence of things when 500 lawyers couldn't. For example,
"Enron has 500 offshore trusts, are they evading taxes?"
A: Prbly, can I have some candy?
"We want to give turkey $30 billion, and won't if they don't allow us into their country. Fleisher ( a very important man) denies this is a quid-pro-go. Is he lying?"
A: Obviously, are we there yet?
So, what do you tell your children? Good luck, and remember we've got only one life to live, and it is worth living as a human.
knowing that you bumped lawyers to being #2 on the list to be put up against the wall when the revolution comes??
I've worked with SCO products since the XENIX days, around 2.3.2 or something along those lines. Back in their time, SCO XENIX was pretty good, as compared to the other X86 offerings back then. I have my SCO CUSA, SCO ACE, and SCO Master ACE for both OpenServer, and UnixWare 7. I worked for my area's best reseller a few years ago when their technical expertise was the tops.
;-)
About five years ago, Linux was starting to get known by most people in the computer field, but was still not catching on big. It was at a point where you could run it on decent hardware and have a machine that was every bit as nice, and then some, as an Intel box running OpenServer 5.0.x. I told my bosses then that this was going to be the up and coming thing. Two of them agreed and said SCO would get their ass kicked, and one of them said it wasn't going to catch on. I love being right.
The vast majority of our UNIX customers ran OpenServer, not UnixWare. We could hardly get UnixWare out the door, because legacy applications vendors stuck with OpenServer. UnixWare was a non-seller.
My questions are as follows:
- Why wasn't SCO able to get the software vendors on-board to switch to UnixWare so that the VARs could follow through and have a new revenue stream? Without that, the OpenServer sales died off after Y2K.
- Why didn't SCO watch Linux more closely and get their ass in gear when everyone in the industry realized more than five years ago that Linux was going to cook SCO's goose.
- OpenServer 5's X windows is just plain fugly. Five years ago, RedHat 5.0 was fast, easy to install, and had a beautiful interface compared to OpenServer 5. Why didn't SCO realize they had a chance to do something with their user interface and target the desktop market, even before Windows 95 came along?
- Why does SCO, after having dropped the ball over and over and over again, and after having failed miserably at keeping up with technology (meaning not even trying), think that they are entitled to win a lawsuit, especially since their lack of keeping up with the rest of the world has rendered them obsolete?
- Does SCO expect what's left of their reseller base to remain loyal to their following, especially since most of their resellers probably use and love Linux?
-- I am. Therefore, I think!
How does the licensing agreement on its own prove IBM did any wrong doing? I mean that what you have on your site. Also, in court in this day of age where are you going to find a judge and jury that are well versed in programing of Linux and Unix? Did you actually think what you were doing when you filed your lawsuit? IBM is a company with a market cap of over 134 billion dollars. They could drag the case out for a very long time. So long that it would have cost you so much money that it wouldn't have been worth it. What are you going to do if they do that?
When you hired your lawyers, did you go for:
1. Really dumb ones that simply don't know any better, or
2. Ones that can keep a straight face when drafting the complaint that was filed, or
3. Ones that are really desperate for the money, so that even though they might face Rule 7 sanctions, they were still willing to go ahead with the complaint anyway
Inquiring minds want to know!
GF.
Lots of petrified grits
Since SCO has its back against the wall and has really nothing to lose at this point, is SCO planning on using weapons of mass destruction as a part of a last-ditch effort to remain relevant?
GF.
Lots of petrified grits
That Microsoft is secretly promising to drop XP for Xenix and partner with you one the kernel?
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
Why did you choose David Boies, as your lawyer who has lost every major case he has ever been involved in? Like being the DOJ vs Microsoft prosecutor(DOJ may say they won, but lets face facts they lost miserably), Napster defender(You don't see Napster anymore do you), and 2000 Election Re-Count Lawyer For Al Gore(Is he president?)
How soon before you sad little clowns go out of business?
"Is SCO the 'elite republican guard' of OS companies?"
How do you cope with the shame and disgrace of having taken a large size dump all over your customers? Do you believe that you stand to acquire enough compensation to overcome the universal disgust felt about you?
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
Were you guys born pricks, or did something just make you that way? Thank you.
Why bother, *nix sucks!
My question is which IP issue are important to SCO?
We have SCO stating that they own ip rights to Unix but only specific companies are being sued with other ones absent from the lawsuit..
For example Xenix vendors have not been charged, why since their version of unix has more potential to have infringed than the current candidates of the lawsuit..for those of us who don't remember Xenix is a Microsoft product.
Why is the lawsuit based on no code comparisons and rather on conjecture of someone's marketing prose? Would not comparison of code have to be done in order to have factual evidence in order to proceed with the lawsuit in the first place ie what is Frivious?
While I don;t expect any SCO employee to answer these questions..we the developers and users of unix in all its forms wil remember SCO's acts and respond in kind!
Don't Tread on OpenSource
It was obviously supposed to be a joke. I know I laughed out loud. Yall are letting this war thing drive you crazy. Mellow out and live longer.
The UnitedLinux web page lists IBM as Partner Resource and provider of the Software Evaluation Kit.
Isn't SCO presenting two opposing faces on handling IBM, an UnitedLinux face which expects IBM to help make UnitedLinux as marketable as possible and a SCO face which expects IBM to protect the "intellectual property" from the dead joint project?
If SCO is willing to attack IBM for it's "over" contributions to the GNU/Linux system, is any of the other UnitedLinux partners safe from ever being SCO lawsuit targets (Conectiva, SuSE, TurboLinux)?
What do you think you are doing?!
Sure, they won't give an honest answer, if they respond at all. That too is information useful to those still invested or working for them.
It's amazing that they can't or won't turn around and do something useful. Why is it that they can't act more like Red Hat?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Thanks!
What planet are you from?!?!?!?
My it must have been that slime Boise that contacted you suggesting a lawsuit, right?
After all, you would never had thought of such a desperate move would ya?
(Gonna be funny if ANY question here will actually be asked, never mind answered. Oh, I know bring that fool of an attorney you have. He'll give some slick slimy answers we can all laught at!!)
Are you the least bit worried that IBM will tap this considerable "witness base" and demolish your case?
Sco is known for their leading edge innovation, huge market presence in the enterprise, great scalability, and high reliability and lack of bugs. How many of you walk into a server room and not see sco? Sco is the . in .com. Its great to see a modern OS with smp up to 32 processors, journaling filesystems, and advanced clustering, and huge market pressence from leading software companies.
:-)
I mean who has heard of a sco unix machine dieing? I never had.
I just wish copycats such as Solaris or AIX could scale or be nearly as popular as Xenix OpenServer that has such a high degree of reputation and caliber among Unix geeks. Its truly a great and innovative product that is leaps and bounds ahead of the competition.
David Bois is such a smart guy. There is no way Linus could of even developed an algorithim anything related to Unix. After all the Unix IP is a tradesecret and no one really knows how unix or shell scripts work. Only sco knows this and anything that is sysV has to license it from SCO!
David Bois explicitly said that Sco is the holder, inventor, and innovator of sysV technology and if you use it without paying the piper your stealing! It is impossible to come up with a clone because its such a deep undocumentated secret that only a corporation can achieve this with Sco's help. Therefor project montery code is being used in Linux. Something needs to be done to help these poor starving innovative artists who leads the market with supperior products.
http://saveie6.com/
...I dare you to ask 'em. I dare you.
Why even legitimize this bullshit? You've reported the suit. That's news. Great. Noted. Thank you. Now show some spine, by not allowing yourselves to be "spun" by their PR dept.
to be the Worst Linux distribution?
to have filed the worst linux lawsuit?
to be the worst enemy of open source?
to have such a low sense of ethics that you would sue anyone and everyone in desperation just to keep above the red line?
to realize that your repeated buyouts, mergers, lay-offs, etc. have left you without anything worth buying and that extortion is your only chance of making a profit?
Sure, you have some software that was cool once---a long time ago. What have you done lately?
120 character sigs suck. Make it 250.
Many statements of fact (eg, UNIX history) and technical opinion (eg, relative capabilities of SCO UNIX and Linux) found in the brief are, to put it charitably, dubious, and several are absurd. Were technical staff closely invoved in this, or was it purely the work of 'well-informed' lawyers?
By suing IBM over IP rights what do you hope to accomplish?
Monetary rewards?
Admission of guilt?
The source code rights to the alleged IP infringement?
Phear The Phat Penguin
this is really amusing
Let's assume SCO wins a monetary judgement from IBM. What are SCO's plans thereafter? Where will they be putting that money? Will they be updating and improving SCO, will they concentrate on Linux, or will they be going into a new direction?
because i dont have the slightest.
I know you are psychotic, but please make an effort.
Here's a question that isn't flamebait:
We started to hear rumblings from SCO about Linux earlier this year (and, typically, ignored them). Specifically, the possibility of SCO charging users of Linux for using what SCO claimed was its IP. Therefore, my question is: does SCO plan to attack other companies or *users* at any point, regardless of what happens with IBM? For instance, would SCO bill Google $96 for each installation of Linux on that massive server farm? Or do you plan to seek licensing from actual Linux vendors like RedHat? The IBM lawsuit seems to simply cover damages.
Second question: on that note, what is the point to suing IBM? If you seriously believe that Linux infringes on SCO's IP in some way, how is suing the largest and wealthiest company working with Linux fundamental to your strategy? This seems like an uphill route to take, and not necessarily the best way to establish a basis for future settlements with other Linux vendors. (Unless, of course, SCO is so fucked already that you're hoping for some quick money from a buyout or one-in-a-million surprise win.)
Third question: aside from the obvious fact that you've crippled SCO's ability to ever compete in the Linux (-compatible) market and have ensured that no open-/free-software developers will ever work with you, WHAT WERE YOU THINKING? This is IBM. Who once shook down Sun, just for the hell of it. Who made $1bn profit on $22bn revenues just last quarter, and whose revenues have gone up by more than 20% just this year when we're in an economic downturn. Oh, and they've got $96bn in assets. I bet they employ more lawyers than SCO has total employees. Do you expect SCO to have any cash reserves left by the time IBM's lawyers are done with you?'
Fourth question: if you're unable to secure a full injunction against IBM on Unix sales, will you continue the lawsuit? The way I see it, the only way you have any chance is if the judge grants the injunction, in which case IBM might panic and settle.
are you going to sue today?
In the last couple of months, my company tasked me with trying to come up with a way for our developers to start porting some of our enterprise applications to zOS and Linux/390. We didn't have the budget for a mainframe, and Hercules would probably work, but we'd still need a license from IBM to get zOS. This is not cheap or easy.
Then I discovered FLEX-ES from FSI. This emulator comes with a legal s390 license from IBM and seemed like a great solution to our problem. Except that it runs on SCO Unix. They also have a Linux version, but it might not support some of our hardware requirements.
Because of the lawsuit your company has filed against IBM, we have decided not to purchase this software, or the underlining SCO Unix OS license.
Now I'm sure my company's small purchase wouldn't help out a company expecting a billion dollar settlement that much. But if my company is not willing to purchase your flagship OS for fear of the reprocussions, how many other companies out there will also not purchase SCO based products or licenses...
If SCO is to continue in the future, come what may from the lawsuit, how do you expect companies to purchase products from you without fear of a future lawsuit against another company for IP infringement?
Your mom always said, a PB&J is better than nothing, and God is nothing, is a PB&J better than God?
Are you willing to let the OSS community examine the UnixWare code, so as to make sure that no part of the Linux / GPL code found it way into your software. SCO engineers has worked on Linux so by your own reasoning there is a fair chance code was "borrowed" and reused in Unixware.
A small insignificant company like SCO can not possible have the engineering expertise to make enterprise ready SW, therefore they must have stolen from someone.
Help fight continental drift.
Which files in the Linux kernel were taken from Sys V's source tree?
Could you please explain the acquisition of thousands of shares of your company's stock stock by many of your company's officers 10 days prior to the announcement of this lawsuit?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
The net result of this lawsuit appears to be the turning of SCO into something like an IP brokerage firm which carries considerable more risk than the type of company that the majority of your investors originally invested into. Has management and the board properly disclosed these new risks thoroughly enough to avoid future lawsuits by investors?
Why does SCO now believe it can suddenly succeed as an IP speculator, when the majority of its fixed company assets (funded by investors and creditors under the pretense that it would be specifically used for a certain type of business) are not intended to be used in the IP speculating business? How does SCO intend to compete with firms that specialize in the IP industry and has SCO received proper permission from its investors to drastically change its industry and business model?
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
Oh, this one's a sweet one. Pleeeeease mod parent up, moderators.
May we never see th
Where does SCO Group see itself 5 or even 10 years from now? Do you have plans to continue in the commercial/business software market or are there other areas that you see becoming your main area of interest and expertise?
SCO sucks so bad I would rather have ... well, no... urghh NT or SCO - god
/etc.
/u? (slash-you)...
what a terrible choice!
(disclaimer: I haven't had to mess with one since OpenServer 5.0.4, but...)
man o man, every stupid little thing requires a kernel rebuild AND a reboot,
even for something as minor as setting the FIFO triggers on 16550 UARTS.
You don't get full sources, of course, but what little source you DO get it
filled with C structure arrays, where the size of said arrays are plugged in
by cpp (C preprocessor) and the values come from these sick little files
called mtune and stune somewhere under
And whose bright idea was it to call home filesystems
and inbound PPP never worked right, until they started including Morningstar
PPP in version 5.0.4 (which we couldn't upgrade to without a huge fee)
Trying to build most open source packages was pretty painful too - I never
have understood how SCO gets so far with such a crappy product... then again
I could say the same about microsoft... there IS a bit of history regarding
xenix, is there not?
Then there was the series of htfs patches that were supposed to fixed a
little twice-a-week rebooting problem we were always having... and of course
the system was a Compaq Proliant 5000...URGH!
I'm in a bad compaq mood today, I just re-installed Windows on my mom's
Presario 1020 laptop... such cheese!
SCO sucks so bad I would rather have ... well, no... urghh NT or SCO - god
/etc.
/u? (slash-you)...
what a terrible choice!
(disclaimer: I haven't had to mess with one since OpenServer 5.0.4, but...)
man o man, every stupid little thing requires a kernel rebuild AND a reboot,
even for something as minor as setting the FIFO triggers on 16550 UARTS.
You don't get full sources, of course, but what little source you DO get it
filled with C structure arrays, where the size of said arrays are plugged in
by cpp (C preprocessor) and the values come from these sick little files
called mtune and stune somewhere under
And whose bright idea was it to call home filesystems
and inbound PPP never worked right, until they started including Morningstar
PPP in version 5.0.4 (which we couldn't upgrade to without a huge fee)
Trying to build most open source packages was pretty painful too - I never
have understood how SCO gets so far with such a crappy product... then again
I could say the same about microsoft... there IS a bit of history regarding
xenix, is there not?
Then there was the series of htfs patches that were supposed to fixed a
little twice-a-week rebooting problem we were always having... and of course
the system was a Compaq Proliant 5000...URGH!
I'm in a bad compaq mood today, I just re-installed Windows on my mom's
Presario 1020 laptop... such cheese!
;
Actually the law does have contrasting views on this. While unpopular in today's understanding it was quite common for companies to act in the interests of "stakeholders" at the expense of ownership:
where stakeholders include:
-- employees
-- the wider community
-- bond holders / bank
etc... There really is no law which requires companies to act as unethical money grubbing machines.
Your lawsuit says that if IBM hadn't used Unix intelectual property to improve Linux, Linux wouldn't have gotten beyond being a hobbyist system. I do not agree with this view, but lets accept that idea as the basis for this question.
If this is true then it means the only reason Caldera managed to build a business, and do a hugely successfull IPO, the same IPO that gave Caldera the financial muscle to buy SCO, is because of IBM's actions.
In other words you are making a lawsuit against IBM for making it possible for your business to become successful enough to buy SCO?
Or in other words, you are taking IBM to court for dilluting the value of property you would never have owned in the first place if it where not for IBM's actions?
You don't find this a tad weird?
This question is addressed to CEO Darl McBride and SCOSource VP Chris Sontag, although it applies to the whole management team. What are your plans after the death of SCO? Won't you constitute a liability to any company you work for in the future, due to the association of your names with this lawsuit?
If you manage to get a ruling that seriously harms Linux, it will negatively impact tens of thousands of people worldwide. What effect do you think this will have on your personal life, and how will you cope with it?
Many big OS vendors - IBM, Sun, Apple - have realized that if a decent free kernel is available people are not willing to pay $$$ for pretty much the same thing. Instead they are selling software that runs on top of Linux/*BSD, basic UNIX utilities and gcc.
It seams that SCO decided to hold out like Microsoft and try to compete from the kernel level up. What are you plans to make this approach succeed when even IBM, with more money to pay for development, is trying to hedge its bets on AIX.
It seams to me that a better strategy for SCO would be to take advantage of existing SCO binary compatibility Linux offers and release a professional quality Linux workstation and a low-end server using SCO applications, administation tools and so on.
But in this case, the lawsuit makes no sense. Sure, there is a chance of one-time payout from IBM. But nobody except law firms builds a successful business on lawsuits alone. If applications is what matters, you guys might as well release whatever "corporate secrets" you think will further increase Linux scalability, stability and so on and let the enormous number of willing hobbyists integrate them into the kernel.
There are a lot of things going for this approach. For one thing, nobody buys an OS itself. Customers buy an OS to be able to run certain programs. Nothing prevents SCO from selling those proprietary, closed-source programs under Linux. Just look at MacOS X.
On the other hands, lots of people are obviously willing to write, optimize and improve OS code just for the fun of it. SCO could just use their work to get a performance boost for both UI and server applications with no investment. Also, writting device drivers is a thankless work but thousands already exist on Linux, free for the taking. Is there an optimized NVIDIA or ATI 3D driver for SCO?? How about adding some rendering applications and shipping a serious alternative to SGI based on Linux?
I don't know if IBM used any knowlege of AT&T UNIX to make improvements in Linux. But I am pretty sure that trying to guard yesterday's technologies is not in the long-term interest of SCO and its shareholders. Spend effort where the new markets are today.
How do you cope with the shame and disgrace that comes with being associated with Slashdot? It's a well known fact that Slashdot is a group of mindless 12 year-old children, who are only capable of operating systems other than Linux, and never with any facts, but always with grammatical and spelling errors.
Given the past history of technical companies that decided to sit on any technology and sue competitors, rather than investing in that money in further growth of their business (IT Lotus vs Borland, Apple vs Microsoft, Ashton-Tate vs Anyone who thought of trying to create an Xbase language), how does SCO plan on avoiding the same fate?
-- There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
We don't have plans you insensitive clod!
--- Hot Shot City is particularly good.
Is it just me, or does the Caldera logo really look like a globe with Mickey Mouse's head projected on it?
OK maybe this is a little offtopic, but I'm really curious whether others see that too.
This Like That - fun with words!
SCO stands fro...
Stupid CEO Oxymorrons
Don't Tread on OpenSource
===============
What you will do after court decision (If you or IBM win the case)? Because Linux will be probably closed market for you.
Vlatko Kosturjak - Kost
I just read Sco hired Morbo (you know futurerama) for their case. Fools! I will destroy you!!
Why would my company:
A) Choose to develop software on a SCO platform?
B) Choose to implement a third party software solution on SCO?
c) Choose to resell SCO products?
In light of the lawsuit, how do you expect my company to change our position on Linux?
-- $G
At one time SCO dominated the low-end Unix market. But it seems like sometime around 1997 development ground to a halt. What happened? Were all bets hedged on Unixware? OpenServer was pretty much useless without the Skunkware add-on CD. Why is SCO now whining about a product they themselves seemed to have given up on years ago?
----- obSig
My question is:
Launching a lawsuit against such a gigantic company like IBM who have orders of magnitude greater resources than yourselves was of course laughable. Do you regret accidentally releasing the statement to issue the lawsuit when in fact it wasn't April 1st (All Fool's Day) as you had first thought?
... I guess
Has Caldera/SCO ever made a buck on anything they've made themselves (not bought from someone else)?
Why, oh, why did you let MS skate on the DR-DOS lawsuit? While it also was just another acquisition of yours, MS had really done wrong, and you were in the best position to do something about it. You could've made enough to float that boat of yours for ten years! And the DOJ case would've turned out very differently. I'm so glad my boss didn't follow my advice and buy your stock just before you settled.
What color's your parachute?
Can I bum a sig? I left mine at the office.
How does SCO, and its cohorts, account for the lying and factual misrepresentation that exists in the initial filing?
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. (Einstein)
I guess I'd like to know their take on their relevance. Given their seeming betrayal of community values, why should we care if they survive?
Better tell these people, then.
I would like to ask SCO why, when they have a very capable offering of their own, they are running Windows servers within their organization?
Someone else said, "Here's my question: Companies are just collections of individuals. Name the individuals ... who are directly reponsible." How much of the company is involved here? Is it just the new upper management?
Now my question is this: Can you prove it? Note, this is not rhetorical. This is an honest and sincere question. The implications to the answer to this question are staggering, so I am eager to hear your response, as it would have implications on all open source projects everywhere.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
How upset are your employees Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson about having their intellectual property stolen? Oh, wait a minute...
So...
Is IBM going to buy out SCO and make the lawsuit go away in the NEAR future?
Or are going to drag the case through the courts for a while, so as to devalue SCO's stock, and THEN complete the buyout?
'Cuz those are really the only two ways this is going to end.
(And you know there's a tie-wearing IBM beancounter, somewhere in Armonk, whose job for the moment is to do the math and see exactly which of the two would be cheapest.)
cya,
john
Imagine all the people...
Why does the SCO logo look like the world covered on one side by Mickey Mouse's head?
Someone put a black hole in my pocket and now I'm broke.
Are you planning to be bought by microsoft?
the whole affair seems to be planned by someone pro-microsoft.. if you win well then you got your mighty bucks.. but if you loose.. you can allways sell the company and your IP to another corporation with a lot of cash and a grudge againt open source and let them have a try..
I wonder how much lobbying there is behind this lawsuit?
- I choked on the red pill and now I'm stuck in limbo
i believe they really are trying to kill linux. .
must likely this has been backed behind the scene's by microbucks bribes to key people to start phony law suite.
the other prong from microsucks was bribes to mandrakes new admin,s to misspend money
the third prong is microsofts opening of its source codes. as they are really trying to finish there only competition off.
SCO's lawyers have forbidden the person who was going to talk to us to answer the questions we had on the grounds the answers would be used by IBM against them.
... I don't think IBM really needs any help in that resepect.
I don't think they have to worry about that
Liberation is not deliverance.
There are many of us in this old world of ours who hold that things break
about even for all of us. I have observed, for example, that we all get
about the same amount of ice. The rich get it in the summer and the poor
get it in the winter.
-- Bat Masterson
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