Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
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.
...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!"
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.
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.
samrolken
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
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.
"I'm The Bounty Bear. I will find him anywhere. I'm searching."
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.
Thomas Galvin
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.
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.
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. ;-)
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
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!
This isn't the sig you're looking for...
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. :-)
Can all fish swim?
"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...
There's a Microsoft connection in here.
I can feel it. There's a definite disturbance in the Source...
Blockquoth the article: Jeez, does IBM have so many lawyers that they have to catapult them in?
"Understand you're having a little Jimmy Page trouble."
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.]
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
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.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
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.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
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.
IWARS.
People, in general, disappoint me. Politicians even more so.
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.
I'm going to go back in my box and will think within the limits of my box: MS Sucks Linux Good I read too much Slashdot.
"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.
:)(smile)
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.
Graham
Linux - Fast Pane Relief
they are using Rumsfeldian tactics and are now in the "shock and awe" part of the campaign.
A radio maverick jumps to internet only. The Future of Rock n Roll
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.
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.
- We are the slashdot. Resistance is futile. Prepare to be moderated -
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?
Corporatism != Free Market
SCO - Stop Creating Open-source...
Dude, where's my karma...?Dude, where's my Karma?
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.
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.
Keep passing the open windows...
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.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
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.