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IBM Denies Charges of Unix Theft
ahooton writes "C|net is
reporting
that SCO has filed a lawsuit accusing IBM of theft of it's Unix intellectual property. SCO
alleges this occurred because IBM released portions
of the Unix system, owned by SCO, in to Linux." While the suit is nothing new, IBM's retort is. IBM asserts it is innocent of any charges of wrongdoing. Additionally, IBM is accusing SCO of trying to stifle Linux development through the use of the courts.
That there is the SCO reply saying that they have hired consultants and found major code duplications between UnixWare and Linux, although they will not release the information about what parts of code they are talking about that has been duplicated. Article also quotes SCO's Darl McBride:
"We feel very good about the evidence that is going to show up in court. We will be happy to show the evidence we have at the appropriate time in a court setting."
I hope they are bluffing, or IBM will just buy SCO out and be done with it.
Maybe those Unix license buyouts will protect Sun and HP against SCO's lawyers, but if their versions of Linux can't be redistributed freely then the GPL require that Sun and HP not distribute them at all.
Doesn't really mean anything. You could have a company with each share not valued as much but with many shares issued, or with few shares but each share valued highly.
Market capitalization is much more useful:
IBM:
Market Capitalization $147.9B
Caldera International:
Market Capitalization $40.2M
(Yahoo Quotes)
May we never see th
This is the most cheapest way to try to earn money. SCO can't stand up to themselves to come up with good product, so they found the most ugliest route to get money. Kudos SCO !
Ok - so you've unix' IP, so what ? What have you done with it. Hybernate and wait for unix to hatch by itself and pour money on you. Come on...
SCO's real purpose is not prove Linux' authenticity, its just a cheap trick to earn money( if they're going to get a dime ). Besides, I hope folks in M$ should be very happy tonight, laughing and feel as if they've got something for their bait...
Time will tell as who is the real beneficiary is... FUD over Linux at this point - I won't say is bad, because we don't know as how it spins out but it certainly will be a bump in this superfast drive.
Another quality dupe from Slashdot's crack editorial staff. Quick! Cut'n'paste those 5-rated comments! Score some cheap karma!
Let me clue you in. The "<", ">", and "&" signs all have significance in HTML. Comments on /. are HTML. You must use "entities" for these characters.
Here are the substitutions:
< equals <
> equals >
& equals &
Use those next time and reach comment nirvana!
Otherwise, I like your post very much. Very funny.
I'm pretty sure any lawyer that helped you with this would be charged with barratry, or for vexatious litigation.
:)
I'm not sure if individuals can be charged with something similar. You'd have to look it up.
Note that the charges you are laying can still have some merit, but doing them in an attempt to subdue the defence isn't legal.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
McBride also addressed the controversy surrounding SCO's plans to make users pay for some Unix software they're running, unlicensed, on Linux. SCO announced this week a Unix library licensing program that will let companies pay $149 per server processor to use those Unix libraries.
and nobody could have guessed this next paragraph:
While claiming that it is hard to estimate how many people are technically in breach of its licensing terms, McBride said it's "very widespread and would generate a revenue stream in the millions of dollars. We know who they are." But he stressed that this is a "friendly move" by the company, which would be flexible in determining what customers who had been using the software in an unlicensed way for some time would be charged.
IANAL, but it seems to me that there must be a defensive line against the SCO suit in the mere fact that it has promulgated that policy. Of course the existence of the policy is no guarantee that it is going to be adhered to 100%, but in the (unlikely) event that SCO is able to establish that some illegal copying of their material did take place, the corporation can hold its hands up and ask what more it could have done to prevent it.
While IBM has incorporated some of their code into Linux, none if it has been from SCO.
IBM's operating system, AIX, has some code from SysV, for which SCO owns rights, but the code they've ported to Linux (such as JFS) are property of IBM.
SCO is probably trying to muddy the issues - because AIX contains both code that has been shared with Linux and code that SCO owns rights to.
However, considering that SCO has never specifically pointed out what parts of IBM's contributions to Linux supposedly violate their agreements, they have zero credibility.
The FSF can't sue SCO, they don't hold copyright over any of the code in the Linux kernel (if FSF held copyright over Linux, RMS would probably want distributions to just call themselves GNU, not GNU/Linux).
First of all, if SCO's claims are in some way valid, it's primarily IBM's problem.
More importantly, IBM's contributions are somewhat peripheral, so in the worst case, it would involve minor cleanups of the infringing portions. It would not affect functionality significantly.
As a past example, the things omitted from 4.4 BSD-Lite compared to the 4.4 BSD that actually requires source licenses were entirely insignificant, and haven't prevented the *BSDs from being fully functional.
The settlement wasn't actually honored by everybody - DEC was never sued for continuing to distribute net2...
Ballmer actually said: "customers will never really know who stands behind this product."
The intent is similar, but it's a subtler shade of meaning here.
Of course, people pay Red Hat and IBM and other companies money to stand behind the code. And you DO know who wrote the code anyways. Their names are all over it.
My journal has hot
Given the turnover within MS, nobody knows who is writing Windows code either!
SCO accuses IBM of giving away SCO property that SCO never had in the first place. See ESR.
Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11, if the case is being presented for any improper purpose, such as to harass or to cause unnecessary delay or needless increase in the cost of litigation, SCO can be sanctioned. At this stage, however, no oath has been administered.