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

Beautiful

[inertia187]

CRN: Some are worried that a court case might give Microsoft a legal precedent that could be used to deaccelerate adoption of Linux at customer sites. What do you say to that?

Ya think? As you may or may not recall, SCO had ties to Microsoft back in the day, when it was called XENIX. So I guess it's still in it's blood to threaten the other operating systems on the block.

/* Remember to sue everyone in about 20 years (bgates). */

Re:Beautiful

[Anonymous Coward]

IBM had ties to Microsoft 20 years ago as well. What's your point?

Re:Beautiful

[inertia187]

Here's a mirror to the article:

Link 1

Re:Beautiful

[HiredMan]

What I find very strange about all this is M$ admits it's "anti-Linux/OSS/GPL" FUD isn't working after surveying people about their views in the Halloween VII memo.

What message DID resonate with IT managers? The possibility of being sued for Linux/OSS patent voilations.

"Linux patent violations/risk of being sued" struck a chord with US and Swedish respondents. Seventy-four percent (74%) of Americans and 82% of Swedes stated that the risk of being sued over Linux patent violations made them feel less favorable towards Linux. This was the only message that had a strong impact with any audience.

Hmmm... the only thing that might work is very public lawsuits and threats about patent voilations and what begins to happen?

But M$ would never actually bribe another company to sue (and threaten to sue) the companies that represent the biggest threats to them just as a marketing ploy would they?

This was the only message that had a strong impact with any audience.

Would they?

=tkk

Re:Beautiful

[homer_ca]

"But M$ would never actually bribe another company to sue (and threaten to sue)"

So? Caldera (now SCO) won $200 mill from Microsoft in a lawsuit settlement over DR-DOS, and this was just a few years ago, not ancient history. They're hardly the people I'd expect to do Microsoft's bidding, but then stranger things have happened.

Re:Beautiful

[Dolly_Llama]

Wait wait... deaccelerate? OK i know he meant decelerate but hang with me a second.

If L is the installed base of Linux, then dL/dt is the net rate of adoption. and if you were to decelerate the adoption, then that would be a negative value of d2L/dt2. But he said de-accelerate which would be a negative value of d3L/dt3, but a positive va....ok I'll go back to sitting in the corner and muttering to myself..

Re:Beautiful

[stefanlasiewski]

What I find very strange about all this is M$ admits it's "anti-Linux/OSS/GPL" FUD isn't working after surveying people about their views in the Halloween VII memo.

You're making the assumption that the Halloween VII memo is an authentic, unaltered memo from Microsoft. How do you know it's not a forgery? Where's the proof?

I have an email from Bill Gates that says he'll give me $1000 if I forward the email to all my friends, but I don't think it's real.

Re:Beautiful

[HiredMan]

From the FAQ:

Are these for real?
Yes. Microsoft has acknowledged the authenticity of these documents. Halloween I, II, III and VII are real;
[VII is the one I cited.]

M$ has openly acknowledged that several of them are, in fact, true leaks of M$ memos. I don't have a specific link for that document but someone probably does - ESR says it is and I think it's too boring and buzzowrd compliant to be fake.
But feel free to show us as wrong.

=tkk

Re:Beautiful

[stefanlasiewski]

Are these for real?

Yes. Microsoft has acknowledged the authenticity of these documents. Halloween I, II, III and VII are real; IV, V and VI are satire/commentary consequent on
various Microsoft statements.

That link leads to a "Path Index Error.".

Hey, I'm open to the possibility of some of these documents being real, but I've looked around, and I've asked for proof from other people who reference these documents, and nobody has ever been able to provide the proof that I want. All of these Halloween documents could be satire/comment consequent on various Microsoft statements.

Rumors have a strange way of being accepted as truth, especially after they are passed around enough.

Re:Beautiful

[orangesquid]

I have $1000 in my hand right here! And Bill Gates is waving goodbye from his helicopter! It's real! I also have a 50% larger penis now too! Thanks, Bill! What a pal!

Re:Beautiful

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, Microsoft wrote Xenix, which in the day was partially the foundation for SCO. SCO and Microsoft got into several heated lawsuits over the Microsoft code and SCO was eventually freed from it's contractual obligations. Then a dying SCO was sold to Caldera. Then AT&T sold the official Unix codebase to Caldera, which changed it's name back to SCO.

Yeah, I can see how they're all related.

Re:Beautiful

[Zorikin]

Just chop out the datetime string, like so.

Re:Beautiful

[Dausha]

May I quote a stable space opera move Star Wars?

"Not a bad bit of [lawsuiting], huh? You know, sometimes I even amaze myself." [HAN]

"That doesn't sound too hard. Besides, [Microsoft] let us go. It's the only explanation for the ease of our [lawsuit]." [LEAH]

"Easy... you call that easy?"

"They're [buying us off to sue Open Source later]!"

"Not SCO, sister."

So, before you think that successfully suing Microsoft is proof against future alliance with Microsoft against Open Source, remember Yoda's words:

A [Hacker]'s strength flows from the [Source]. But beware of the dark side. [Fear . . . Uncertainty . . . Doubt]. The dark side of the [Source] are they. Easily they flow, quick to join you in a fight. If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will, as it did [Altair]'s apprentice." [YODA]

"Gates. Is the dark side stronger?" [LUKE]

"No...no...no. Quicker, easier, more seductive."

"But how am I to know the [Open Source] from the bad?

"You will know. When you are calm, at peace. Passive. A [Hacker] uses the [Source] for knowledge and defense, never for attack."

"But tell me why I can't . . ."

"(interrupting) No, no, there is no why. Nothing more will I teach you today. Clear your mind of questions. Mmm. Mmmmmm."

From the interview:

[OwnerOfWhinyCat]

CRN: Some are worried that a court case might give Microsoft a legal precedent that could be used to deaccelerate adoption of Linux at customer sites. What do you say to that?

McBride: In our case, Linux comes from Unix and we own the Unix operating system. How this plays out with other code bases, I don't know.

CRN: What are you trying to do? Some say you are trying to compete against Linux by destroying it.

McBride: We will use our best efforts to protect our source code.

If that's not a battle cry, what is?

I probably won't join the flamewar on their inbox, but in EVERY circumstance where I find their products from this point forward I will offer that client a special discount on the hours I spend replacing it with any other product that will do the job.

Re:From the interview:

[Matt Ownby]

Ya this indeed looks ugly.

SCO appears to be trying to change their primary source of revenue to be that which they get from lawsuits rather than actually selling services like they used to be doing. I don't know how viable of a business strategy this is, but even if they were to successfully sue every linux company into bankruptcy (hypothetically) they would eventually run out of people to sue and go bankrupt themselves. It's like a virus that feeds on other living cells until it has no more hosts. Once it runs out of hosts, it must itself die.

Re:From the interview:

[Anonymous Coward]

it seems like a very viable business strategy...for about 5 seconds...just look at what happened to rambus

Re:From the interview:

[Zepalesque]

Heh. Sounds like the developing RIAA buisness model.

Re:From the interview:

[WindBourne]

Keep in mind, that this is Ray Norda's group. He successfully got .5 billion from MS for what MS did to Dr-Dos. IBM is even bigger. In addition, IBM may find it cheaper to buy SCO rather than simply take them to court and tell the truth (this is a very sad commentary on american life). I would not be surprised if Ray needs the cash to buy Novell in about 2 years.

Re:From the interview:

[mendepie]

What kind of asshats are running SCO these days?

Lawyers

Re:From the interview:

[LuxFX]

SCO appears to be trying to change their primary source of revenue to be that which they get from lawsuits rather than actually selling services like they used to be doing. I don't know how viable of a business strategy this is

the RIAA/music labels have already adapted their business strategy to this concept, and it seems to work well for them. hey, if they can squeeze $100 trillion out of those college students (ha!) they don't need to sell any CDs for a looong time.

Re:From the interview:

[Tuzanor]

No, just portions of it that were added by IBM. In an earlier article i read that SCO thinks the only reason Linux matured so fast is because IBM took AIX code (which is based on code from the origional AT&T UNIX that SCO now owns) and added it to Linux. Meh, wouldn't surprise me either way, but i still see no PROOF that SCO IP is in there. "Probable" is not supposed to be good enough in court.

Re:From the interview:

[ces]

And all these years I thought that AT&T owned the OS

Not exactly.

BSD was based on version 7. Over the years the AT&T and BSD codebases diverged quite a bit. Many UNIX vendors including AT&T copied bits of the BSD codebase back into their implementations of the AT&T codebase. The BSD TCP/IP stack is probably the best known of these.

Flash forward to the early 90's, BSD 4.4 is released, AT&T sues BSDI and the University of California for copying it's source code. After much lawyering the case is eventually settled and the handful of files that still contain AT&T source are removed leading to the 4.4-lite release.

In the interim AT&T has sold the UNIX source code and trademarks to Novell. A couple of years later Novell sells the UNIX code to SCO and donates the UNIX trademarks to X/Open. A few years later SCO sells its UNIX OS businesses to Caldera and Caldera changes its name to SCO.

So the current batch of idiots isn't really SCO but Caldera who has managed to get it's grubby hands on the old AT&T codebase.

Re:From the interview:

[robson]

I don't know how viable of a business strategy this is, but even if they were to successfully sue every linux company into bankruptcy (hypothetically) they would eventually run out of people to sue and go bankrupt themselves. It's like a virus that feeds on other living cells until it has no more hosts. Once it runs out of hosts, it must itself die.

Oh lordy. If suing Linux vendors is their new business plan... okay. Makes sense. Because, as we know, packaging and selling Linux distributions is such a profitable business that SCO is bound to cash in big time with this strategy.

*snicker* :)

Re:From the interview:

[fermion]

It doesn't matter if it is bankrupt in two years. It is a publicly traded company. The board and management have no interest in it's longevity. They are only interested in the keeping the stock high, negotiating deals that transfers maximum company assets to their pockets, and making sure that their pensions are safe, in that order. Also, by that time, all the well connected investors will have had time to cash out, and losses will be fall to ever abused middle class.

Re:From the interview:

[OSgod]

And I'm sure IBM would love to take those same patents and sue the heck out of every Linux vendor. I somehow don't think that IBM would grant the patents out of the goodness of their hearts to the community at large.

Re:From the interview:

[norwoodites]

BSD is not based on Version 7 but on Version 6. BSD1 was out in March 9, 1978, UNIX Time-Sharing System Seventh Edition (V7) was out in January 1979. Look at http://www.levenez.com/unix/history.html for more information on what is based on what including Linux. And it was Novell who settled with the BSDs because they had bought UNIX from Bell Labs after AT&T were found a monopoly.
Also SCO after being bought by Caldera opened up the old UNIX source code.

Also the CEO of Caldera was the CEO of SCO any way so it is really is SCO any way.

Re:From the interview:

[Dunkalis]

IBM doesn't produce a distribution of their own. They have no interest in eliminating other distributions, they just want to provide hardware, software, and services for Linux.

Re:From the interview:

[WindBourne]

Actually, Caldera got squat on the settlement. The settlement was with Lineo, pre IPO. IIRC, According to MS's tax records, it was something like 435-460 M paid out (That may include the taxs, etc). Keep in mind, that it was a closed settlement between Lineo-Caldera and MS. From what I understood, the bulk of the money went to Norda.
I have no animosity towards Norda. In fact, I tend to agree with you that Caldera may have done better if ray had been in command. I do not think that I was blaming him.
I do blame the current management there who use to be Ray's staff. They have had this attitude towards Linux of trying to control it at all costs, like Novell did. Now, they are sueing. Great. That is there choice. Perhaps they know something that we do not know. But that will come at a cost of almost certainly being excluded from the Linux world.
I will say that IBM has not been the great code contributer to Linux that Caldera states or implies. Individuals have contributed on projects, but only a few have dealt with Linux, the kernel.

Re:From the interview:

[thogard]

Remember that AT&T still holds some rights (they use Version 10? on some of their phone switches). AT&T and Sun have an agreement where Sun has as much rights to the Unix trademarks and source code as anyone else and Sun paid Novell (I think) for an unlimited redistribution license. There is also the license stream from the AT&T terminal spin off compnay and at least 5 universities have orignal licenses that have "unlimited" rights to the IP. Tacking this down will bring many skeletons out of the closet. When its over, the courts will have proof that SCO has less of an exclusive right to the IP than they thought they had. Since this is all public, may its time to short the stock.

Re:From the interview:

[Anonymous Coward]

"Probable" is not supposed to be good enough in court.

Actually civil cases are decided on "preponderance of the evidence" as opposed to criminal cases which are decided on "reasonable doubt."

So, if this is a civil case then "Probable" is probably good enough.

Re:From the interview:

[Daniel Phillips]

Naive, perhaps, but reasonable at some level.

At which level? In the same sense that a successful suicide is, at some level, a success?

Maybe they'd have a hope if they weren't lying out their butts.

After they're finished with IBM...

[Anonymous Struct]

...there won't be anything left. :)

"Hey, you! When I'm done kickin' these four bouncers' asses, you're next! You and your huge friends, there!"

Astounding.

[ElGuapoGolf]

Someone should remind SCO that their United Linux offering is built on SuSE. Hell, SuSE is United Linux. Everyone else in the group is just along for the ride.

Believe me, all the feedback in the world won't matter to the SCO folks. They want attention. They want everyone up in arms. They want this to hinder the adoption of Linux in business.

Why? They want to be bought. SCO figures that if IBM's linux related sales start to drop (and IBM makes a fair amount of cash on linux related sales) IBM may just buy SCO to shut them up and end the lawsuit. It's pretty slimy on SCO's part. It's downright microsoftish.

I'm not saying don't send SCO feedback. I'm saying that whatever you send won't matter to them. They're not interested in using linux for anything other than making a quick buck and exiting the market. They're like LinuxONE was, just a lot more insidious and poisonous.

Re:Astounding.

[WindBourne]

It's downright microsoftish.
As much as I dislike MS (and SCO), this really is not an MS tactic. Overall MS remains "ethically challenged", but I have noticed that the courts are a true last resort for them. I am actually quite impressed by that.

Sure they will...

[samrolken]

Who has a business policy of pissing off your customers by going after your competitors? A day of reckoning? SCO has always been angry with RedHat. And now that SuSE is all about AMD Opteron, they are a threat to SCO in the heavy duty 64-bit space.

What parts do they have a problem with?

[FattMattP]

I keep seeing these stories about SCO wanting to sue people over code in Linux but they never will answer the question of what code they have a problem with. The problem will never get fixed if they won't say what's wrong.

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.]

Don't they?

[gr8_phk]

Doesn't they sell a Linux distro? They can't sue someone for selling something they provide themselves under the GPL. Another point would be that if IBM release their trade secrets, you could only sue IBM unless the actual source code was the sectret. If someone is selling an implementation of your "trade secret" that's tough cookies, unless it's actually a stolen implementation. IANAL but this seems simple enough.

Re:Don't they?

[howardjp]

I am not going to bother refuting each sentence in here, but except for the part where the parent claims not to be a lawyer, everything in the parent is wrong.

Simple solution

[Ars-Fartsica]

Call their bluff. Delay. Befuddle. Use the legal system to drive SCO into the ground in the same way SCI is trying to burn everyone else. The legal system rewards the richest litigant, and that is not SCO. IBM should draw this out until 2010 and let SCO die a slow agonizing death at the hands of their own legal fees.

Re:Simple solution

[FortKnox]

You are sadistic!
I like the way this man thinks!

;-)

Re:Simple solution

[lavalyn]

Isn't that why the system is broken?

As groundless as the accusations may be, and as much as I spit at the feet of SCO for their tactics, I cannot agree with a system that rewards the richest litigant, instead of the one that deserves to win on the merit of the case.

I guess the US has gotten used to having corporations possessing so much power that it's considered normal to wave it around like a plush toy.

Re:Simple solution

[Simon Lyngshede]

Are you sure it wouldn't be easier for IBM to simply find a few patents in their archive which SCO violate? I am sure they have patents like that.

Really to sue IBM is just dumb, you know you're going to lose. In SCO case their more likely to get killed.

But what if they're right?

[binaryDigit]

What if some substantial (either quantity or quality) amount of their proprietary code has made its way into the Linux source? If IBM put it there, should they not be punished for doing so? If RedHat et.al are making/made money from it, shouldn't they pay royalties? I know that SCO is the popular bad guy right now, but what if they have a point, does this still make them bad?

Re:But what if they're right?

[ElGuapoGolf]

It's hard to tell if they're right when they won't talk about what parts of Linux they have a problem with.

Re:But what if they're right?

[Alidar]

It would be a lot easier to say 'Yes you are right' if they said 'See this code here? and that code there? That's ours!'

Re:But what if they're right?

[crazyphilman]

That's all well and good, but didn't several pretty significant people involved in Linux development already weigh in on this, and point out that there's no SCO code in their work? Linus included? SCO seems to be just spreading the FUD around. It's smarmy, it's sleazy, and I hope that IBM really whips their asses in court. In fact, if I were an IBM lawyer, I'd start opening countersuits. You know, the U.S. is the land where anyone can sue anyone, at any time, for anything. I'd be suing them for everything under the sun, no matter how thin the claim might be, and suck the life right out of them.

Think of it as an old Warner Bros cartoon:

(350-pound lawyer/gorilla): "Oh, you like lawsuits, eh? Well, let me indulge you... MUHAHAHAHA Let 'em have it, Ray!"

(98-pound milquetoast pipsqueak): "Um... What did you mean by that?" (looks up as a shadow expands around him, then forlornly says,) "Mother..."

BAM. An entire pallet of legal briefs drops out of the sky and lands on the pipsqueak with a little puff of dust. All that's left is his left hand, with a school ring on it, and his right hand, clutching a little briefcase. A groan is heard from under the pallet...

Re:But what if they're right?

[OwnerOfWhinyCat]

Royalties for good software aren't the problem.

The problem is their motives, made obvious by their approach to this issue. Right now the opens source community is strong enough, and there are a sufficient number of talented coders out there to re-write any section of the kernel that was found in violation. It's not like the open source community has been hiding it's source. If, on the moment the SCO IP team found offending source in Linux they announced it on /. and let RedHat know, there would be some sniveling and whining, but as software people we would understand our obligation to pay them for it or stop using it.

Probably both approaches would be tried. Something like what happened with Blender might work, but if not, we'd just code around the damaged sections. Complete rewrites (though tedious) often dramatically increase performance, so the new code would likely be adopted quickly. That's the cooperative and honest approach.

Spotting the problem, and then threatening to sue people in the order of "Who has the most money?" is the SCO approach. I hope they get spanked for this.

Re:But what if they're right?

[tomhudson]

They're not.

I wrote them a few months ago when this all started, asking them for specific examples and they don't have any, because there are none.

It's a slap-suit, and I hope IBM bitch-slaps them back all the way to bearskins and stone knives (now let's see who get's the reference to bearskins and stone knives).

Re:But what if they're right?

[theLOUDroom]

What if some substantial (either quantity or quality) amount of their proprietary code has made its way into the Linux source? If IBM put it there, should they not be punished for doing so? If RedHat et.al are making/made money from it, shouldn't they pay royalties? I know that SCO is the popular bad guy right now, but what if they have a point, does this still make them bad?

SCO is not claiming IBM put actual SCO code into Linux. They are claming that that IBM took concepts/techniques/whatever that were trade secerts and gave them to linux developers. They claim that this is the only thing that could have made Linux what it is today.

I hope SCO's CEO ends up as IBM's CEO's pool boy. SCO wants someone to come along and buy them out to shut them up, but I hope IBM crushes them and we all get to watch them go bankrupt from deliberately pissing off their entire customer base. Then, when they do, IBM or Redhat can buy SCO's IP for a song :)

Reminds me of my favorite hockey cheer:
Awwwww...see ya asshole! You goon!

Re:But what if they're right?

[ces]

What if some substantial (either quantity or quality) amount of their proprietary code has made its way into the Linux source? If IBM put it there, should they not be punished for doing so? If RedHat et.al are making/made money from it, shouldn't they pay royalties? I know that SCO is the popular bad guy right now, but what if they have a point, does this still make them bad?

First of all the "features" SCO alleges were copied by IBM aren't even present in the System V codebase. Secondly most if not all of these features such as SMP, NUMA, jornalling filesystems, etc first appeared 20-30 years ago in IBM mainframe operating systems. One of the pioneers in bringing SMP and NUMA to UNIX for large numbers of procesors was Sequent who IBM bought a couple of years ago. To claim IBM somehow copied these features from System V is absurd considering IBM probably invented the features in question.

I hope IBM throws its patent portfolio at SCO and crushes them like a bug.

Re:But what if they're right?

[Alan Hicks]

It's hard to tell if they're right when they won't talk about what parts of Linux they have a problem with.

Oh, but they did mention one little area. SCO said it was simply impossible for Linux to have achieved such strong SMP support without one of two things:

1) A strong development platform.
2) SCO source.

They seem to have forgotten that Caldera gave Alan Cox a dual processor machine so he could write the Linux SMP code in the kernel.

Re:But what if they're right?

[OSgod]

And then IBM can put the screws to Redhat and SuSe -- as they will own the IP and can sue the pants off every Linux OS vendor.

Re:But what if they're right?

[Curtman]

since this McBride character is a SCO PR guy

SCO can't afford a PR guy. This is the CEO.
http://www.sco.com/company/execs/

even now they are crying for mercy

[Anonymous Coward]

The Open Source infidels will cower at the will of SCO. Even now Linus Torvalds is jumping off a cliff and Alan Cox is shaving his beard before the might of Sad^Wour lawyers. There is only one UNIX system. All other UNIX systems do not exist, and have never existed. We have nothing against Linux users, just against the hegemony of greedy oi^Wcode-stealing developers. May Al^Hshcroft have mercy upon you ALL!

Re:even now they are crying for mercy

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod this up, it is actually relevant to the article! The rep actually says the below about two thirds of the way down:

McBride: Everyone just says we're a company going out of business, and throwing a Hail Mary pass, but once we get to court, those who say that will look as strange as the Iraqi information minister on TV saying the infidels are defeated and did not get into Baghdad.

Money

[Greg Lindahl]

Doesn't Redhat have more money in the bank than SCO's market capitalization?

Re:Money

[howardjp]

As of today, SCO's market cap was 37.1M USD. On 28 February, Red Hat's cash and cash equivalents was 55.4M USD. Therefore, yes.

Re:Money

[13Echo]

Pat, from Slackware, mentioned that Slack has *always* been profitable.

The oldest and most tried and true Linux distribution is still going strong today. But I supposed that one could argue about calling the one-man project a "company" in the same sense as RedHat.

Never-the-less, Pat's always made money off of Slack. Considering that it has always been stable, reliable and sensable, theres no need to guess why.

Raging geekery

[rmarll]

I'm going to need a scheduling app to keep track of who turn it is to turn our wrath on. Now, I've got Firebird(the DB) mail bombing scheduled for moday mornings, and a random senator on thursdays at noon. But this is 1:30PM wednesday and Sun is scheduled from 1 to 3 for a DNS, followed by a quick annonomous hate mail to Pat Robbertson at 3:30.

Does someone have an update for the hate list. Apparently I'm behind because I still have IBM scheduled for the first and second tuesday of each month.

Thanks ahead of time. Rant on.

Who's next?

[mahdi13]

Next thing you know SCO will be sueing Microsoft for having a command line interface in their OS...

Re:Who's next?

[DickBreath]

Next thing you know SCO will be sueing Microsoft for having a command line interface in their OS...

Hey, don't give them any ideas.

From the horse's mouth...

[American AC in Paris]

I was mulling over the idea of posting some Iraqi Info Minister "Red Hat shall burn!" tripe, but then I stumbled upon this gem in the article:

McBride: Everyone just says we're a company going out of business, and throwing a Hail Mary pass, but once we get to court, those who say that will look as strange as the Iraqi information minister on TV saying the infidels are defeated and did not get into Baghdad.

Wow. That's like the Iraqi Information Minister saying that Rummy is going to look as strange as the Iraqi Information Minister when this is all over...or...something.

Re:From the horse's mouth...

[ces]

For a moment I there I thought the SCO PR guy WAS the Iraqi Information Minister.

"God will roast their Linux Penguin stomachs in hell!"

The apocalypse must be emminent...

[Bendebecker]

For the first time I am actually hoping that a company will get crushed under the iron fist of IBM. Armeggedon cannot be too far off!

Re:The apocalypse must be emminent...

[kalidasa]

For the first time I am actually hoping that a company will get crushed under the iron fist of IBM. Armeggedon cannot be too far off!

Must be ... a friend of mine got a call from LL Bean to say they an order from Hades for 20,000,000,000 parkas, and the customer was paying for rush delivery.

What happens if Microsoft Buys SCO?

[ayden]

SCO has very few resources left to pursue these cases against IBM, Red Hat and SuSE. That all could change if Microsoft buys SCO for very short money. Suddenly, Microsoft would have a very strong tool to threaten Open Source Software companies.

Re:What happens if Microsoft Buys SCO?

[doktr thunder]

QUICK mod parent down before billy boy reads this....

Remarkable

[thomas.galvin]

Remarkable. Most companies would have gone after SuSe to build precident, Red Hat to gain momentum, and then worked out some sort of deal with IBM. That, sadly, is the American way. These guys, though, just walked right up to the 800lb gorilla, punched it in the mouth, and tried to take its bananna.

This should be amusing.

Re:Remarkable

[JLyle]

These guys, though, just walked right up to the 800lb gorilla, punched it in the mouth, and tried to take its bananna.

If you had read the article, you would know that IBM is in fact the 2,000-pound man and not the 800-pound gorilla.

Woo, I love this quote.

[ZenShadow]

McBride: In our case, Linux comes from Unix and we own the Unix operating system. How this plays out with other code bases, I don't know.

Okay, now unless minix was based on original Unix source code (which I don't believe it was), then this is entirely false. Linux was based on the API for Unix, but that's about as far as it goes.

Now to say that it might contain some Unix IP these days, that's possible. But to say that it "comes from Unix"?

Who looks like the Iraqi information minister? That's another great one.

--ZS

Re:Woo, I love this quote.

[JimDabell]

Linux wasn't based on Minix either; it was written from scratch. Even if Minix was based directly on a product of SCO's, it wouldn't matter.

Re:Woo, I love this quote.

[ZenShadow]

Depends on how you look at it. I do realize that Linux was not built from Minix source. However, I believe Linus had access to Minix source at the time. *that*'s the part that counts.

As I said in another post recently, everything else is just legal trickery anyway ;)

--ZS

why? ....

[pyros]

What on earth do they hope to accomplish? Getting rid of Linux vendors? That's futile, since the source is already available on the net for free. Chunks of cash from Linux vendors? That would be stupid too. If they are awarded a settlement, it would likely result in bankrupting the targeted vendors. But that wouldn't remove them from the marketplace, since the distributions are, once again, already available on the net for free. Do they think that former customers will suddenly come to them? That's arrogant. The hackers would find out through the course of the trials what parts of the Linux kernel, if any, violate patents, and re-implement such that it's no longer in violation. The only thing SCO can hope to do is temporarily dispose of popular Linux vendors and piss off the very demographic that might ever be interested in their product.

Okay..

[mindstrm]

We all know the public FUD "Linux is like UNIX and WE OWN UNIX" ...

but have they actually said what it is they are suing over? What code is it, exactly, that the lawsuit is over? Linux wasn't derived from BSD or SYSV.. it was written from scratch.

Sco appears to be basically mounting nothing more than a smear campaign.

If there IS copyright infringement... and there IS code that SCO has the rights to in there:

It would be awfully hard for them to show intent - that the code was actually knowingly used without their permission. This is obvious.. as the entire linux world is going "HuH? What are you talking about?"

That means that all we would have to do is politely remove the code covered by their copyright, and have it re-implemented.

Re:Okay..

[An Onerous Coward]

It's not so simple as "copyright infringement." According to SCO, IBM has a license with them to distribute a version of UNIX, because they have a license to use SCO's (basically irrelevant) code base. Not the code base that SCO is selling. They're talking about the original code from Bell Labs, that every derivative of UNIX is based on. (excluding BSD, which was already sued, and already removed every trace of the original Bell Labs code).

Now, IBM has their AIX team. Whatever relationship their code has to the original Bell Labs code, AIX is now light years ahead. None--I repeat, NONE--of the "improvements" to Linux that SCO is suing over were present in that original code base. So basically they're claiming that IBM's license to the original Bell Labs code gives SCO ownership of all the improvements IBM made.

That is effectively the entire claim of the case: SCO owns AIX, even though IBM developed it all by themselves. I'm guessing if the license actually came close to saying what SCO is now claiming, IBM would have ripped out what (very little) Bell Labs code was in AIX a decade ago.

YHBT

[Sloppy]

They seem bent on destroying the Open Source community

WTF? I don't see any hint of that. They're alleging that some IBM guys copied source code from System V to Linux. If that is true, then SCO aren't the bad guys here, IBM is.

Let's see the evidence. If there is no evidence, or the evidence turns out to be bogus, then you can accuse them of trying to destroy OSS and flouridating our precious bodily fluids.

But even if they're right, licensing won't be the answer. The infringing code will have to go, instead. Well, unless the license they have in mind is the GPL, which I kind of doubt. ;-)

SCO will die, not with a bang, but with a whimper.

[LazloToth]

Is there anyone among us who would not bet money that when SCO - - as a corporate entity unto itself - - bites the big one, it will more resemble a puff of breath than an explosion? I see SCO making its way, slowly but surely, into the Bozos Inc. Hall of Fame. I've rarely seen such a series of boneheaded maneuvers as that which has come from Caldera and its permutations. I mean, shouldn't they have sued Redhat first? If they'd won, they might have had a warchest to use against IBM. But to take on IBM first . . . . now THAT'S idiotic.

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:Am I missing something?

[ces]

System V is the basis for all operating systems outside of Redmond

Huh? What rock has this guy been living under?

OS/360, VM/CMS, MVS, Z/OS, OS/400, OS/2, and several others are all operating systems developed in-house by IBM. Mythical Man Month was written about the OS/360 project IBM had during the 60's. None of these owe any heritage to Redmond or System V. Many of the concepts used in modern operating systems first appeared on "big iron" like IBM mainframes: symetric multiprocessing, NUMA, clusters, failover, fault tolerance, transaction processing, pre-emptive multitasking, virtual memory, journaling, etc.

There are others such as VMS or Mac OS9 that have no connection to System V or Redmond as well. I do think it is safe to say that much of the technology used in modern enterprise operating systems was invented at IBM and first appeared in an IBM mainframe OS.

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. :-)

What?

[operagost]

BS from McBride:
System V is the basis for all operating systems outside of Redmond, AIX, HP UX, Solaris, Apple and Linux.

Ever heard of:

OS/2

MS/DR/PC DOS

BeOS

OpenVMS

AmigaDOS

etc.

Re:What?

[BeemerBoy]

OS/390
VM/ESA
z/OS
OS/400

IBM has more industrial strength operating systems in it's portfolio than any other company on the planet. To suggest that the ONLY way for them to make Linux more robust would be to hijack Unix code is so absurd it's beyond ludicrous!!

Jaime Cruz

Day of reckoning?

[Dr. Photo]

"There will be a day of reckoning for Red Hat and SuSE when this is done."

Wow. Reminds me of every cardboard villain in every hokey 1980s action cartoon...

SCO: "You haven't seen the last of us, do-gooders!"

Thanks for the memories, SCO. We'll miss you after your well-deserved demise...

Then who next?

[StarTux]

Let me guess the order of their victims:

1. IBM; Big and Blue

2. RedHat and SuSE; Arguably two of the most succesful distro's

3. Apple?

Re:Then who next?

[Fear the Clam]

4. Profit!

Somewhere, somehow..

[Future Linux-Guru]

There's a Microsoft connection in here.

I can feel it. There's a definite disturbance in the Source...

Blacken the sky?

[bopo]

Blockquoth the article:

CRN: Have settlement talks begun?
McBride: The phones are not ringing off the hook. From what I hear, IBM will blacken the Utah sky with lawyers.

Jeez, does IBM have so many lawyers that they have to catapult them in?

Re:Blacken the sky?

[Selanit]

Blockquoth the article:

CRN: Have settlement talks begun?
McBride: The phones are not ringing off the hook. From what I hear, IBM will blacken the Utah sky with lawyers.

Jeez, does IBM have so many lawyers that they have to catapult them in?

No, it's just that IBM's lawyers are seven-foot-tall black shadows with glowing red eyes and bewinged black steeds. The maleficent, quavering calls of these dark dwimmerlaiks will echo across the low, rolling plains of Utah, and when the wings of their ebon steeds sweep across the gibbous moon, the SCO lawyers will think "Oh, shit!"

What source code, specifically?

[Lendrick]

Obviously, they have to be claiming that some of the code within Linux wasn't originally GPLed. Which code is that? Are their complaints legitimate? In other words, can they point out the code that was lifted from them, and then provide documentation to support their claims? If so, then they're actually in the right, whether or not everyone happens to think they're a bunch of goatse's.

Holy smokes, it really is war.

[torpor]

OpenBSD going down at the hands of a serious DARPA taint, RedHat (never mind the rest) and IBM getting slaughtered by a vicious left-behind SCO, man ... I just don't know what to think.

What other OS'es are there to switch to? I guess OSX is safe, sorta ...

*sigh* See kiddies, this is why it was sad to see Be die. *sniff*

Re:SCO is a piece of garbage.

[arivanov]

I have been saying it since 1995. Even as far back as that (1.2.x - 1.3.x) linux on the same hardware was beating the shit out of it. I had to replace sevearal SCO systems with linux at the time and my overall impressions were:

1. SCO was slower
2. SCO was horrible to maintain
3. The file system hierarchy had nothing in common neither with system V, nor with posix, nor with anything else for that matter
4. It was so ridden with security holes that it could be hacked by script kiddiez on the fly. Raising the sec to higher levels (C2) even made the job easier for them beacause half of executables were setuid to maintain the functionality for C2 and almost every one of them had a buffer overrun.
5. The only thing it was useful for was running Oracle on a PC.

Since then, linux has got better. And as 5 is no longer the case SCO is dying. Frankly it deserves anything it gets. All IBM needs is an injunction preventing SCO from enforcing the 100 day clause in its contract. After that it is game over.

End-All of Operating Systems?

[mahdi13]

We're the source of AIX, HP UX, Solaris, Linux, Mac OSX. It all comes from us.
...
System V is the basis for all operating systems outside of Redmond, AIX, HP UX, Solaris, Apple and Linux.

This sound very arrogant and egotistical to me.

So SCO is saying that they own every operating system available...except BSD. That's good to know, in a few years the world will be either SCO free, or two OS's to use...BSD or SCO =(

Re:End-All of Operating Systems?

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

I saw this too. I guess they forgot about OSF.

The stupid thing is, anyone who's every used a select() on Linux will know this is false. select() on Linux was written to the specs on the BSD man page. Unfortunately, no one else's was. If it used infringing code it would be "bug compatible" with other implementations. It's not. There may be some stuff that IBM put in, but this statement seems to imply that the basic core of all OSes are UNIX, specifically SYS5. Silly.

If they claim that the ideas in UNIX are what they're after, then they are right in that Linux is "infringing", but that's not a valid legal claim.

Come on gloomy Gus

[jj_johny]

Hey its not great the SCO has decided that their best IP assests are some government documents instead of in creating new stuff. But come on. The OS community will not die even if they win against IBM. The OS community is much bigger than that and even if they win against Red Hat and Suse, so what.

Please put all predictions of doom on the shelf with the other stupid predictions that are made every day about computers and business.

It's dumber than that.

[SatanicPuppy]

You're right, a) that they don't really have any hard proof. Their argument is that there is NO WAY linux could have advanced so fast if IBM hadn't been feeding them code. Completely ignoring the whole "Open Source Movement" thing, which isn't exactly a small workforce, not to mention the major companies who build bits of it. (ie Red Hat, SuSe, Mandrake...etc etc.)

Beyond that, however, when Caldera bought SCO, they did it for around 7 million dollars. And now they're suing IBM for like a billion for DEVALUING their 7 million dollar product. It's completely retarded, and I eagerly await the righteous can of whoopass that IBM is about to unleash.

Even if IBM had stolen ALL of SCO's code verbatim, and Linux had incorporated all of it verbatim, it is highly unlikely, based off past precidents, that they could recover even a fraction of what they are asking for.

I would almost welcome MS buying SCO, just for the amusement value of watching a convicted monopoly, and a convicted code stealer trying to sue someone else for monopolistic code stealing.

Think anti-trust law

[mdfst13]

Personally, I think that MS has about as much chance of getting FTC approval to buy SCO as I have of seeing pigs flying down the street. If MS did do so and won the lawsuit, it would prove that it is a monopoly, since it would then own the base patents for all current OSes (the Linuxes, the Unixes, Mac OSX, Windows).

It would be like GM trying to buy Ford.

Ironic?

[carambola5]

Anyone else find this ironic?

Product and Sales Inquiries
1-888-GO-LINUX

What SCO doesn't realize...

[bazmonkey]

Is that even if the source code is theirs (which I don't see how it could be), the BUSINESS was never theirs. The popularity that IBM and the likes enjoy was never SCO's nor will it be if they try to eliminate Linux, at least in the not-underground corporate world.

We should consider the possibility that SCO is right, as well. They're undertaking a billion dollar lawsuit against one of the largest technology corporations on the planet. Everyone says they're stupid, but it looks to me like they know something we don't.

I wrote SCO, but I couldn't tell them that they should stop because they're wrong, because we just don't know that. We want them to be wrong, but we really can't say. They should stop because they won't get anything with it except general hatred from a very large part of the IT world. SCO was never popular or "poised" to take the X86 server market. MS stole more "umph" from SCO's strategy than Linux did. Blaming Linux is just a convenient way to explain their company's loss.

SCO: $38 million, Red Hat: $230 million

[Anonymous Coward]

The original poster is correct. Remember, Red Hat has a sweet pile cash from their sales of stock ot the public.

Spend a few minutes on http://finance.yahoo.com and you will see:

The SCO Group (SCOX) has a total market capitalization of $38 million. That is how much money it would cost to buy all the shares of SCOX, 12 million shares, at the recent price of $3.20 per share.

Red Hat (RHAT) has a lot of cash in the bank (actually, in "long term investments") from their two stock offerings. Red Hat has about $230 million cash in long term investments, short term investments, minus ALL their outstanding debts. That's as of November 30, 2002. I'm too lazy to find more recent balance sheet figures.

Red Hat's market capitalization is a lot more than its cash. Its market cap is $1.07 billion.

So the original poster is correct: Red Hat has more than 5x as much cash as SCO's entire market capitalization. And on top of that, Red Hat's market cap is several times bigger than Red Hat's cash.

Lastly, if you want to compare revenue, Red Hat had revenues of $91 million in the last 12 months. SCO ... $64 million. That's right, customers are paying more real money to Red Hat than they are to SCO.

"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.

Re:"our source code."

[EvlOvrLrd]

But they got "their" source code after AT&T sold off the Unix business to Novell in '93 and Novell sold it to SCO in '95.

Even if Redhat and SuSE had any SysV code, so long as they were using the "Available Opensource" prior to date of sale, then SCO needs to go back to the drawing board and actually develop a product worth competing with the rest of the market.

Re:"our source code."

[mendepie]

IIRC, SCO is not going after IBM for patent infringment, since most if not all of AT&T's patents on Unix(tm) have expired.

They are going after IBM since they violated the NDA and/or Trade Secret agreement of the sysV source license.

A cleanroom implementation should not be bothered. The only question is if linux's sysV support is tainted (by IBM or someone else).

Re:"our source code."

[GlassHeart]

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.

...or they are aware of more than the desktop.

Linux is increasingly used in embedded systems, without the usual init task, daemons, or user space utilities. It is still referred to as "the OS" in those cases, as opposed to "the applications". Embedded systems considered to be "OS-less" are usually far more limited in terms of features. Linux implements the Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), which surely makes it an "Operating System".

An OS usually refers to a collection of code that does a number of the following:

• hides the hardware and presents an API to the user applications
• manages memory allocation
• manages CPU allocation (launches and kills tasks)
• allows tasks to communicate with each other
• runs in the CPU's supervisor mode and handles CPU and memory protection
• provides a file system
• provides networking protocols
• provides user-level applications to interact with the core OS, such as the GNU utilities
• displays web pages

There is no strict limitation to what constitutes an OS. The term is historically loose.

Re:Fools

[howardjp]

FYI,

SCO hasn't read the terms of their own settlement. Systems derived from 4.4BSD-Lite and Lite2 are unencumbered.

Enjoy,

Re:Dear SCO: FUCK OFF!!

[Thud457]

"The one thing I could never stand about Santa Cruz all the Goddammned bloodsuckers!"

Chances?

[nanojath]

Do they actually have a snowball's chance in hell of winning any of these cases?

Maybe I am not enough of a Linux geek to understand this, and I guess this is bound to be snowed under given what seems to be the prevailing opinions, but if the fundamental claim made in the interview - that IBM gave away or otherwise violated significant amounts of proprietary code owned by SCO - then of course they have a snowball's chance. Maybe no more since IBM has those basements full of lawyers they feed only the blood of virgin geeks. But if there is significant proprietary code in open source that the owner did not put some type of open license on then any open source project that has that source code in it has a problem - and incidentally, I interpret that as being the intention of the "day of reckoning" comment regarding SuSe and RedHat, not a promise of a lawsuit, just the reality of having to expunge or otherwise deal with any proprietary code mucking up a project.

Re:Chances?

[Hellkitten]

But if there is significant proprietary code in open source that the owner did not put some type of open license

Which is exactly what sco themselves does when distributing OpenLinux. Any claim they may have had on any part of the code is uninteresting now since they themselves (as copyrightholders) have distributed the source under GPL (and other lisences).

If they never themselves ditributed linux they might have had the snowball's chance, now they haven't even got that.

What happened to SCO Group Lawsuit Q&A?

[dduardo]

Back in the beginning of april there was a slashdot article where "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."
What happened? Were the question answered?

Re:What happened to SCO Group Lawsuit Q&A?

[Ponty]

They decided to sue Slashdot, instead. Can't win 'em all.

I think we've heard this before

[azcoffeehabit]

"There will be a day of reckoning for Red Hat and SuSE when this is done."

I think I know where the the Iraqi Information Minister is now working.

Worst Metaphors ever

[Funk_dat69]

Is it just me or does this guy use some of the worst metaphorsever:

McBride: ...We're the 200-pound weakling and IBM is the 2,000-pound man.

2000lb man??

CRN: Many in the open-source community support IBM's efforts to make Linux succeed.

McBride: There are a lot of people that don't care about IBM. IBM has been very arrogant in the last few years. They're having their oats.

CRN: Well, won't it destroy Linux?

McBride: Not necessarily. We have options to apply our IP to Linux. But if we get no benefit from it, then the dog won't hunt.

hehe..maybe he metaphored his way to the top! Hmm...maybe I can make it too since the early dog gets the oats!

Link to Complaint of SCO vs IBM

[grahamkg]

http://www.caldera.com/scosource/ip.html

This contains links to the complaint and 5 exhibits. If you're going to write to SCO, you really ought to RTFDocs.

I believe

[rosie_bhjp]

they are using Rumsfeldian tactics and are now in the "shock and awe" part of the campaign.

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.

Re:Goodbye SCO

[TeddyR]

You also just made the venodr of the software very happy (especially if there are not that many of their sites that use sco) since that means that there are less configurations to support. [could be why they were so eager to get you to use the linux version]

I know of several companies that had sco versions of software that had changed to Linux versions.

One even offered their existing SCO users "free" feature/product upgrade and a "free" 3 months of additional "prime" support...

How about patent infringement?

[wolpert]

What's really funny about this is IBM has tons of patents, and I'm sure SCO's SYSV must have violated at least one of them. A smell counter-suit. This is the only reason to have software patents... protection of the self.

no better than Iraqi tanks.

[twitter]

But M$ would never actually bribe another company to sue (and threaten to sue) the companies that represent the biggest threats to them just as a marketing ploy would they?

Of course they will. Will it save them? No. They can eliminate IBM, Red Hat and Susi but free software will remain. The contributions of such companies are considerable but far from required. Microsoft will run out of whores faster than the world will run out of free softare developers and users. IBM is not going to lose either and SCO is going to find that the faster they prosecute this nonsenes the quicker they die.. The demise of such whores only makes working with M$ that less atractive and free software that much better.

It's like watching your buddies in 1970 vintage Soviet tanks getting splattered because they were too afraid of Sadam to run away. You don't need to see much of that before you move onto the bigger better thing.

I did my part!

[msimm]

I just thought I'd write in my feelings regarding your companies recent (and threatened) legal actions against respected members of the open source community. I am a technically inclined person and in fact make almost all major decisions regarding technologies at my place of work (non-profit company, 20+ employees, two websites, 10 workstations). Because of your companies recent litigious behavior you can be certain that I will never recommend a product produced by your outfit. In fact I would go one further and actively dissuade any persons that cross my path whom I might think would be looking in your direction and I will carry this decision with me for the rest of my career. This is a bad business move and while I realize that sales member are not responsible for these types of decisions I also know that you are the first in line to see and hear their repercussion. Please pass my message on to the appropriate persons. Thanks for your time. Zach **** San Diego, CA 92101

Thanks for the Image

[Esion Modnar]

Jeez, does IBM have so many lawyers that they have to catapult them in?

To paint the picture of just one of them: arms and legs wrapped around his briefcase, white-knuckled, bug-eyed from terror, suit flapping behind him, waiting for the meaty thud.

That cartoonist R. Crumb could really do it justice.

Re:I always thought OSX was based on BSD

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

Do you mean BSD, or FreeBSD/NetBSD?

BSD predates SYS5 by quite some time. Back before UNIX was "productized" (I hate that term) they actually were pretty free with source licenses, and Berkely picked one up. They did a lot of good work, including adding insignificant things like virtual memory, which they actually picked up from Mach. There was the fork for a while, then eventually they joined again to make SVR4.

No again.

[dmaxwell]

The only problem is that SCO distributes Linux themselves. Anything they own (which I doubt) in the Linux kernel is now properly GPLed and has been downloaded by thousands. They can point out code till the cows come home. They've already committed a Scientology-style Footbullet.

Re:Don't they just beg for the Alan Ralsky teratme

[Loosewire]

All adressed to "Mr Tux" ;-)

Where's the beef?

[3seas]

Is there any real news comming from the IBM case?

What would happen if IBM turned around and backstabbed Linux?

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?

Make GNU software incompatible with SCO

[AaronW]

Why not fight them the way we can as developers. We can always hasten the downfall of SCO as developers. All we need to do is make sure that some key GNU software refuses to compile or run on SCO.

For example, we could make autocon, autogen, automake, binutils, gcc, emacs/xemacs, KDE, Gnome, gdb, gnu tar, cpio, ghostscript, gzip, bzip2, and any other essential GNU tools refuse to compile or run on SCO. SCO would then have to go and spend all of their time patching everything to run on their dead platform. Just make certain that any new GNU software does not work with SCO.

That will get their attention.

Pack of Lies

[Opusthepenguin]

For the record (and those who can't get to the article), SCO did not say anthing about suing Red Hat or SuSE. What McBride said was this:

But Red Hat has had a free ride. In its IPO filings, one of the warnings to investors stated clearly that Red Hat may be violating IP and one day they may have to step up and pay royalties. Why not? Every time I ship a copy of my operating system, I pay royalties to Novell and Veritas. There will be a day of reckoning for Red Hat and SuSE when this is done. But we're focused on the IBM situation.

That is to say that even Red Hat several years ago (1999's IPO filling) knew they may have IP issues in the future. SCO is not threatening Red Hat, SuSE or Grandma's Apple Pie despite some people's reaction. McBride is simply saying that the fears Red Hat had in 1999 are accurate, not because of anything they did, but because of IBM's arrogance.

Further, the Slashdot post makes the statement "They (SCO I guess) seem bent on destroying the Open Source community." What a stupid statement especially since McBride says specifically:

What if SCO is right? We're not trying to destroy the Linux industry. They say we're attacking Linux, but IBM brought this on. We are in defense mode. We've been attacked. To the open-source community, I ask them how they feel that IBM knew about these contracts and did what they did anyway. You have to shift the responsibility back to IBM and ask them why they're running [the open-source community's] party.

Since when is the Open Source movement 100% dependant on IBM? Open Source grew and flourished for years before IBM got on board, and it would do fine without them. Sure, if IBM looses OSS projects may be much more careful about where they get their code, but is that a bad thing? The GNU folks don't thinks so.
The best word on the subject was what McBride said himself:

We're either right or we're not. If we're wrong, we deserve people throwing rocks at us. But what if SCO is right? When we go through the legal proceedings, people will see.

Unfortunately for McBride the /.ers want to throw stones now, before proof is allowed to come out in court.

Re:Pack of Lies

[befletch]

I don't disagree with everything you say, but one point seems a little hard to support:

For the record (and those who can't get to the article), SCO did not say anthing about suing Red Hat or SuSE.

You then proceed to quote the article:

There will be a day of reckoning for Red Hat and SuSE when this is done. But we're focused on the IBM situation.

It seems totally unreasonable to you to interpret that as a threat to sue? It is a pack of lies? I don't know how to respond to that, but I'll try by a completely hypothetical example:

Someday you will die, but right now I'm busy killing this other guy.

If someone told me that, I'd be calling the police. But you would be totally unconcerned?

Re:Pack of Lies

[dwsauder]

I disagree with much of your posting. I read almost the entire complaint filed by SCO, and I read the interview with the CEO.

First, the statements by Red Hat (maybe SUSE, too) are the statements prepared by lawyers that cover every possible situation that might have an impact on the value of an investment made in the company. You can be pretty sure there are also statements that "the company may never become profitable," and "key upper management could leave the company," and a whole host of other possibilities. The possibilities are limited only by the imagination of their lawyers. And the statements about IP probably fall into the category of boilerplate material. So, I don't put too much stock in Red Hat's statements about IP liability, even though McBride seems to. By mentioning Red Hat's statements about IP liability, I think he tips his hand a little. And, I definitely get the impression that SCO intends to eventually take on Red Hat, Suse, and any other company that they think they can collect royalties or damages from.

Second, while SCO may not be trying to destroy the Open Source community, there is no question that they feel threatened by Linux. This lawsuit is all about trying to fight that threat using whatever legal means they have. You can see this very clearly if you read the complaint. They mention in the complaint that IBM seeks to destroy the economic value of SCO's Unix IP. They mention that it cost over $1 billion to develop the Unix source code base. And, in the complaint, it's clear that they expect Linux to be the operating system for hobbyists, not servers used by businesses. So, while it may be true that they aren't trying to destroy the Open Source community, it is clear what they want: Run Linux at home where you do your hobby stuff. Or run it in your business and pay a royalty to SCO.

Third, you seem to think that /.ers are unjustified in their anger, at least until all the facts come out in the court proceedings. I will say that I am angry about the current situation, and I believe that with good reason. SCO's business model is failing, for legitimate reasons. Stay still too long, and you lose. The business environment changes. In this particular case, SCO apparently thinks the Unix IP that they own is a cash cow. I would argue that the Unix IP has run its course, and is now near the end of its economic lifetime. Unix was a very successful operating system, from an economic perspective. I'm sure the $1B spent in development has been returned many times over in revenue. But the software industry doesn't stand still. Linux has become a contender. Operating systems are becoming a commodity. Cash cow time is over. So, what offends me, is that SCO would try to stop all the clocks -- freeze time at, let's say, 1999. One thing is perfectly clear: SCO is not trying to compete fairly by introducing innovation or adapting their business model. It is trying to keep an outdated business model alive through litigation. And that disturbs me.

Has anyone heard IBM:s comment on this?

[Mof-Tan]

What's IBM:s view one this whole mess? There must be some kind of official (or inofficial) remark or comment from them on this.

Are they playing this safe, or unleashing Utah-covering-hoards of lawyers on poor SCO?

I can't help but feel gleefully expectant of what will happen when IBM makes their move. It's a little like watching those MTV-crazys take a kick in the groin or going down a stairway in a shopping cart.

Isn't it great to finally have the big gorilla in the right corner!

Which IP and some analysis which no one will read.

[ebresie]

I think this was previously mentioned in a past post about the SCO vs IBM case, but which IP are they suppose to have been abused?

While reading the case

41. Shared libraries are by their nature unique creations based on various decisions to write code in certain ways, which are in great part random decisions of the software developers who create the shared library code base. There is no established way to create a specific shared library and the random choices in the location and access calls for "hooks" that are part of the creation of any shared library. Therefore, the mathematical probability of a customer being able to recreate the SCO OpenServer Shared Libraries without unauthorized access to or use of the source code of the SCO OpenServer Shared Libraries is nil.

If someone compiles something with these shared libraries, does that make that derrived work dependent upon the share code and subject to having used the shared library IP?

If someone creates a compile (say gcc), including its own libraries (say libc), it does not then violated source code duplication, unless code was used in the compiler or library....right?

If someone creates something that has the same interfaces (say posix) as someone else, is that subject to violation?

It makes reference to 4000 applications written for SCO OpenServer. Are any of these specifically gnu related applications which are ported to a given platform? Does that mean if something was written for a different platform, is it subject to the same viloations?

50. As SCO was poised and ready to expand its market and market share for UnixWare targeted to high-performance enterprise customers, IBM approached SCO to jointly develop a new 64-bit UNIX-based operating system for Intel-based processing platforms. This joint development effort was widely known as Project Monterey

53. Specifically, plaintiff and plaintiff's predecessor provided IBM engineers with valuable information and trade secrets with respect to architecture, schematics, and design of UnixWare and the UNIX Software Code for Intel-based processors.

So does this mean they provided any sort of possible NDA Intel information to IBM? Did SCO in turn violate any agreements with Intel in doing so?

Are schematics and design IP? By that I mean, if I write something that conforms to a specific design or schematic, am I in violation? Or since it is new code, is it not in violation?

Has IBM developed any 64-bit UNIX for the PowerPC chip line?

AIX is not currently on the Intel platform correct?

54. By about May 2001, all technical aspects of Project Monterey had been substantially completed. The only remaining tasks of Project Monterey involved marketing and branding tasks to be performed substantially by IBM.

55. On or about May 2001, IBM notified plaintiff that it refused to proceed with Project Monterey, and that IBM considered Project Monterey to be "dead." In fact, in violation of its obligations to SCO, IBM chose to use and appropriate for its own business the proprietary information obtained from SCO.


So was anything ever done with Project Monterey? Did IBM ever produce a 64-bit Intel platform product? Perhaps this would be a breach of contract between IBM and SCO, but is it a violation if one decides after working on something not to follow through for other reasons such as performance, or outdated by something else?

If IBM felt that Linux was a better platform to make a 64-bit Unix then Unixware, etc, then this doesn't seem to be a violation to move to that platform verses SCOs derrived platform.

However, if while analizing the platform, they found weaknesses or strengths in the product, does that count as a violation since it is derrived from SCO work? If that was then feed into so

Is this a joke??

[I_redwolf]

I want to read the story but it's already slashdotted. Now the IBM lawsuit earlier I thought was just a big press stunt, but saying that after IBM they'll go after RedHat and SuSe is psychotic. They honestly can't be thinking they'll make it past IBM to begin with and secondly aren't they going after stuff that is GPL'd in the kernel? Which would mean they would HAVE to go after every single person and/or vendor who has compiled and sold the kernel for anything. Regardless of what the judge says should be proper penalties. I'm not a judge or lawyer but I can already see; "What took you so long to address this problem, surely you had a vested interest". I mean Linux did exist before IBM and if you make it past IBM which i'd probably fall over dead at that news but if, infact you do there is just no way you'll be allowed to exist selling "Unix" anymore. If you are an investor and invest in SCO; I'd sell right now before the IBM lawyers decide to rip SCO down to bare nothing, make them go bankrupt and then buy all their shit at an auction to recoup the lawyer fees.

SCO, you will not be missed and I think the place where you once stood will be scorched earth and well deserved. You're terrorists by every definition of the word.

Re:Is this a joke??

[Xeger]

I think what he meant was, Linux existed before IBM had anything to do with it.

SCO will stop terrorism!!

[ccbaxter]

SCO - Stop Creating Open-source...

Dude, where's my karma...?

Besides...

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

If there is one thing SCO is known for, its support for massively SMP machines. Why, I once saw this 1024 CPU behemoth... oh wait, that was IRIX on mips. Well, there was this screamer of a system with 64 CPU's that collectively managed a sustained flops somewhere in the trilli... oh wait. That was Solaris on SPARC. Well how about that 128 CPU monstrosity...ooh, nevermind. Tru64 on alpha.

[thumbs through unix reference for 'SCO']

Here it is. SCO Unix is known as "the lamest unix implementation on the lamest CPU family in the history of technology, several notches below Minix, which itself was an intentionally incomplete unix implementation meant to teach students OS theory".

There you have it.

Uh.. what?

[EdMcMan]

McBride: In our case, Linux comes from Unix and we own the Unix operating system. How this plays out with other code bases, I don't know.

I really don't know either. Something about Linux stealing 'unix source code', then about stealing 'libraries source code'. Linux comes from Unix? Since when? Is the idea of a posix operating system IP? It isn't to my knowledge.

I think it's pretty obvious what's going on. SCO is spiraling down, and in an attempt to get some business back, they're trying to portray using Linux as illegal. Unless their lawyers are complete idiots, they realize suing RedHat would result in a) them losing b) RedHat not having any money to give them even if they won.

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.

Re:If you read the lawsuit..

[einhverfr]

IANAL, but this is interesting....

One of the interesting thing about this suit is that it is extremely limited by the GPL. For kernel issues, they are limited to complaining about content which is not in kernels which they distribute. For the most part, I assume this would limit it to the 2.5 series (development kernels). In this case, RedHat and SuSE are *far* less vulnerable. Maybe they will sue Linus next ;-)

This GPL limitation also makes this suit entirely self-defeating for SCO. If 2.6 ships and Caldera/SCO ships it while the suit is continuing, they have inadvertently granted a license to IBM for these changes! Either way SCO loses.

As for libraries, they would only be able to sue for libraries which are either NOT licensed under the LGPL and GPL or are NOT distributed by SCO. Since the Sys-V stuff are usually handled in the GLIBC and the kernel, I would be *very* surprised if anyone is vulnerabile for the libraries. I would expect that Caldera/SCO ships the GLIBC.

Keep in mind that Caldera (before the SCO aquisition) was being sued by their shareholders because of accounting scandles 2 years before Enron! I suppose that shows what sort of company they are.

No they don't

[Goonie]

IBM seems to have decided to use patents mainly for defensive purposes rather than actively targetting other companies. If they are threatened with a patent lawsuit, they go through their extensive catalogue of patents and pick an appropriate one to countersue with, but that's about it.

From a business perspective, such a policy can make good sense. According to a book I once read, Xerox came to the same conclusion. Back in the 60's and 70's, they chased after everybody that might be violating their patents, but in the 1980's they decided that chasing people through the courts was a distraction from their main business and more trouble than it was worth.

How are they violating the GPL?

[Trepidity]

The authors can't revoke the license; it either remains valid, or it's automatically revoked due to a violation (the authors could perhaps sue to enforce such a revocation however).

In any case, simply suing IBM is not a violation of the GPL; are there any actual violations taking place, such as not publishing source code to modified binaries they distribute?

Re:Norda is a very bad man

[SN74S181]

It's funny how everbody liked Noorda when he was pulling this kind of crap on Microsoft. He specifically bought DR-DOS in order to extort Microsoft, and not for the money. He's an angry man and his agenda is to fuck things up for people who he doesn't like.

A copy of what I just send them

[X-Nc]

Here is what I sent to them in their feedback form....

------8<--------8<--------
I do not understand why you are pursuing these blatantly insane legal shenanigans. As a SCO stock holder, I do not feel that your present actions are in the best interest of me, my shares or the Linux world in general. I originally purchased $4500 worth of stock at the IPO and had intended to keep this stock for the long haul, even though it is now nearly worthless. But if you insist in your attempts to harm the Linux and, by association, the IT/IS world I will have to dump my shares.

I had great hopes for Caldera. I go back far enough to remember when it first started up; when the name changed from Corsair to Caldera; I helped friends with recommendation to use Caldera Linux and even helped a friend get a job there. Now, it seems like you are doing everything you can to kill Linux, UnixWare & SCO Unix. It is a shame.
------8<--------8<--------

And yet...

[pr0ntab]

Not one mention of how IBM has leaked any SCO IP into linux. Not one mention of how any IBM contributions might are SCO derived.
Not one mention of how any particular part of linux is contributed directly (instead of jointly developed with) IBM.

They successfully made PDF copies of the individual IP and Trademark transfers between parties (AT&T, IBM, SCO, etc.).
Hurrah. Real informative.

Late to the rant party . . . what about China?

[mtgstuber]

Argh! I'm late to the rant party. I suspect this will never get read by anybody, but here's a thought for you:

Let's say IBM chooses to fight this (this seems to be the plan), and let's say some idiot US judge actually sides with SCO, and let's say SCO looses on appeal. Won't this really end up meaning that all Linux development will happen outside of the states? (a whole slew of it does already.) Think about Alan Cox's "I can't describe this security patch because it's a violation of the DMCA." Think about how open source cryptology was developed when encryption was considered a munition. Remember poor Phil Zimmerman?

I figure if they do win, they'll only be screwing over those of us who live (and program) in the states. Will China care? Especially two years from now when Red Flag Linux has gotten that much better. Will Europe care? (It's not like there is a whole lot of love between the US and Europe these days.) I suspect the rest of the world will shrug their shoulders at the silly Americans and their inane legal system and that will be the end of it.

Re:What if M$ buys them?

[budgenator]

strip out the IP sco licensed from Microsoft from openServer and it wouldn't even boot! SCO bought Xenix from Microsoft, and it the base for their OS, Microsoft copyright notices are all over it. That's why this suit is going to be very interesting, so much of the source code was bought and sold, often in circles, that it may take a decade in court to figure out who realy owns what.

Can someone please clarify this..

[rsax]

Apple (I'm assuming he was referring to OS X) was mentioned a couple times. Is this guy talking out of his ass like all the other FUD SCO seems to be spewing out? I thought OS X (based on *BSD) had nothing to do with SysV. And what's with all the Redhat bashing? "They barely kept their head above the water?" Somehow SCO seems to fit that description way more than Redhat.

IBM claims we're about to go out of business, but we've never been as strong a company as we are now. If IBM said that last year, when we were on the ropes, well, OK, that would be different. But we expect to continue to grow our source code revenues, and our projected revenues next quarter will double that of what it is now.

Yea you keep telling yourself and your investors that. If you repeat something over and over again it might turn out to be true! Everything considered I hope they first get a brutal beating in court and then get bought out by IBM. I have this really scary picture in my mind seeing M$ getting their grubby little hands on SCO's IP.

Interesting...

[brsmith4]

Haven't linux distros been using SysV-style stuff since BEFORE 1995, you know, when SCO got the rights to UNIX from Novell? It's not their code in SysV anyway. It has all been rewritten to "act" like SysV. Plus, if they technically "own" UNIX, could they not sue because the entire base for Linux distros "mimics" the UNIX environment?

I dunno, I see this lawsuit as baseless. It is being done by a company that is going under and is merely an attempt at reaching the surface of the water for one last breath of air.