Slashdot Mirror
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.
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!!
I'm curious just exactly what you think Linux was incapable of doing without stealing from you?
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
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?
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.
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?
They can't do that.
They are a publicly held corporation. As such, they have a duty to their shareholders (could be you and me) to get the maximum value of their assets. They would HAVE to sell the trademark if it would bring $$, and it would. If they did otherwise, their shareholders would sue them into the ground.
It SOUNDS nice that they could, but the reality is that they can't. Now, IBM could BUY the Unix mark and then IBM could release it into the public domain / gpl / bsd license / or leave it proprietary. IBM could justify it since they have invested 1 billion in Linux lately, and the price of the code (current value of sco $35mil) would be a bargain for the code gained, thus justifiable to the stockholders. Also, the goodwill earned would be worth it.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
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
The kernel people are making lots of innovations everywhere, improving performance for interactive desktops AND big multiprocessor servers. They may even have a run-time configurable scheduler in the next release! Since Solaris went from BSD to System V it's gained reliability but gone stagnant (now they're copying from the Linux guys, the /dev/random patch being one example). Linux 2.6 will kick ass and impress people.
"... I declare our city to be a free and independent state to be named Tri-Insula!" --Fernando Wood, Mayor of NYC 1861
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.
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.
Microsoft builds a real competitor to Linux. No matter how much FUD and general crap (from both sides) gets thrown, people have to admit that Windows is a viable platform with some strengths over Linux. I consistently hear stories of people switching from SCO to Linux 10 years ago, despite Linux's infancy, because SCO sucked that bad. And nothing I hear gives me any evidence that they've improved. Then they make a lie filled lawsuit claiming that without IBM ripping them off, Linux would be nowhere? The only place I see SCO engineers contributing to open source is GCC, and that's just to keep it running on SCO.
They get no respect for their code, no respect for their contributions, and no respect for blantly lying about Linux.
Are you the least bit worried that IBM will tap this considerable "witness base" and demolish your case?
Why? because we're the local people who are most affected by their lawsuit. Why? because they are based in our area. Why? because most of our members really dont' like this lawsuit, and would really like a chance to get some of their questions answered about it. If nothing else, the local community get's a chance to vent their feelings to SCO managers and representatives, and not just to fellow geeks who share the same opinion.
I would hardly count it as letting SCO "spin" us as if we didnt' know anything. Instead, it's a chance for us to voice our concers, and get at least some response back from the source.
Why? Why not?
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?
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?
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.
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'