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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.
...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.
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.
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
It's hard to tell if they're right when they won't talk about what parts of Linux they have a problem with.
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.
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?
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!
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...
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
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.
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!
Life is too short to proofread.
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.
Happy Fun Ball is for external use only.
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.
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 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...