SCO Threatens Red Hat and SuSE

Guy Smith writes "CRN reports that SCO will target SuSE and Red Hat with lawsuits after they are finished with IBM (providing that IBM allows them live). To quote Sco, "There will be a day of reckoning for Red Hat and SuSE when this is done." They seem bent on destroying the Open Source community and they deserve to hear the community's opinion on the matter."

Comments

Am I missing something?

[Rabid Cougar]

McBride: System V is the basis for all operating systems outside of Redmond, AIX, HP UX, Solaris, Apple and Linux. Linux is the only one not rationalized [from a licensing perspective].

I didn't know BSD wasn't "outside of Redmond". It looks like McBride has a firm handle on things. No wonder he thinks they have a case!

Re:Sco wants to be bought out.

[rmadmin]

Na, thats unrealalistic. What IS more possible, is IBM buying SCO, thus owning ALL of SCO's code. Now, this means if IBM choses, they may open the source on ALL of SCO's products. That would just be a beautifull thing. :-)

Re:What parts do they have a problem with?

[An Onerous Coward]

The problem is, they're not claiming specific problems with specific code. They're claiming ownership of "Unix." According to the lawsuit, IBM has a license with SCO to distribute IBM's own version of Unix (AIX). This stems from the fact that every version of Unix is a descendant of Bell Labs' original code. That's the code that SCO now owns.

Now, the simple fact is that SCO's code base is irrelevant. Many of the "high performance" features (SMP, NUMA, journalled file systems, etc.) that they claim IBM put into Linux aren't present in the original Bell Labs code, or even in SCO's latest-and-greatest OS offering.

So my impression is that SCO is actually claiming ownership of all of IBM's improvements, and charging that those improvements were illegally added to Linux.

Sounds stupid? It is.

[Note: any errors of fact are directly attributable to me not knowing of what I speak.]

"our source code."

[Xibby]

I belive their lawers and PR people are confused. Last I heard, they were more interested in IP, not source. SysV is SCO's IP, and the Linux kernel doesn't have SCO code in it, but lots of linux software is based around the SysV design, even if the software itself was written from scratch to behanve like SysV. They also seem to think that IBM and other United Linux partners might have included SCO IP into verious software.

Seems like their issue isn't the kernel, but the software being distributed with the kernel.

Remember folks, Linux is the kernel, not the OS. Distributions are the OS. SCO is after distributers, not the kernel. If anyone tells you Linux is an operating system, they're wrong.

Goodbye SCO

[Curtman]

Just thought I'd post my comments to SCO here as well.

Hello. I'm an admin at a medium sized company that currently uses SCO OpenServer 5.0.5 to run our accounting package.

I just thought I would voice my opinion that I am totally disgusted with the lawsuit against IBM, and after reading the threats to RedHat and SuSE I'm making it a personal goal of mine to see that Server stripped of SCO software, and running RedHat Linux within a time frame of 1 month. I'm currently testing the Linux version of our software which our vendor has agreed to supply us with free of charge.

I think your actions are well deserving of a response such as this, and would also recommend other admins in my position do the same.

I'll keep you posted as to the date of our SCO license burning festivities.

Thanks for your time.

Authors need to revoke SCO's rights NOW

[WCMI92]

SCO is using all sorts of GPL'ed code. They are in violation of the GPL with their actions, and as such, the FSF and other holders of copyright on that code can REVOKE their license to use it.

I'd imagine there are even GPL'ed apps bundled in UnixWare...

SCO is announcing to the world that they are prepared to go nuclear on this. So, everyone else needs to nuke them FIRST.

How strong will they be with no product to sell?

If you read the lawsuit..

[spiedrazer]

They also seem to think that IBM and other United Linux partners might have included SCO IP into verious software.

SCO DOES believe that IBM has illegally taken SCO Intellectual Property and deliberately fed it into the linux community. If you read the complaint the scenario goes something like this...

SCO and IBM enter into agreement to produce 'hardened' Unix for the Intel Platform. When this development is done, and SCO expects IBM to market it, IBM says "nevermind we don't want to go in that direction anymore". Months later IBM announces an initiative to help the linux community 'harden' linux

SCO claim that IBM illegally used what they learned from SCO to make IP contributions to Linux. So even if the code wasn't copied the knowhow was illegally transfered from a private partnership with huge NDA coverage, to a public project without SCO's consent. If this is true, they have a case against IBM

I do not know what there case may be against Red Hat etc.