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Microsoft To License SCO's Unix Code
The big news of this morning is that Microsoft will evidently be licensing the Unix code that SCO carries the rights to. Yahoo! is also carrying a brief WSJ report as well. Additionally, give a read to the OSI position paper on the issue. One thing that is worth noting is that Microsoft does do *some* work with Unix - like the interoperability package - but the other side is that Microsoft deals with intellectual property a lot, and licensing is standard way of dealing with IP claims.
i hadn't expected that SCO's "buy me"-whining would actually work, but then again it's MS and they prolly have some evil plan with this all...
It's more likely there's some "borrowed" code in Windows. Anyone else remember the bzip bug that for some odd reason also affected Windows systems. Yeah go figure.
3000 dead over past 2 years, still no free Palestinians, still
If anything, this lends even more credibility to the theory that M$ was behind this all along.
IBM, just go ahead and buy SCO, GPL everything they own, and let's put this silliness behind us.
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
I have been following the whole SCO issue with some interest. This is exactly what closed source strategies cause: a lot of he-said-she-said finger pointing about use of 'our code' and not a lot of progress for mankind.
On the bright side, even if the whole of Linux gets rejected, someone will come up with 'clean' code (like Atheos). There will always be free (as in speech) software. Unless DRM gets global support.
Languages aren't inherently fast -- implementations are efficient
Do people already forgot that an UNIX from M$ had happened called XENIX which became SCO OpenServer?
Call me synical, but to me this looks like Microsoft has found a way to help fund the supposed distruction of Linux, or at least that's what they think.
What would be funny however, is if IBM we're to buy SCO, and then license everything under GPL everything, revoke all previous licenses, then Microsoft would have problems because it uses GPL, and everyone would know it. However this is unlikely to happen because UNIX code is everywhere, which would likely mean that IBM would have to GPL portions of AIX.
This isn't so crazy, so let's calm down. Windows NT is a POSIX-compliant operating system, so I'm not surprised if there's a non-trival amount of Unix-like development going on in Redmond.
Microsoft once had a Unix OS product of their own, Xenix. It ran on the old PC/AT processor (Linux needs at least a 386 for the hardware MMU). Way back in the day, Microsoft licensed Unix from AT&T, ported it to a variety of platforms (many of which no longer exist, this was in the 1970s), then sold Xenix to SCO, who ported it to the 386 and sold it as their own product for a while. Back then, while you could license source code from AT&T, the Unix name wasn't included, hence the name Xenix for what was essentially indistinguishable from "official" Unix. I believe a term of the sale was that Microsoft would not compete directly in the Unix space. I guess that condition must have expired. How amusing that Microsoft are now trying to license their own product back!
Does anyone else find it ironic that one of the founders of SCO is named "Ransom Love"? I'm not sure exactly why, but in the context of the current lawsuit and now this possible merger, I find that extremely funny :P
std::disclaimer<std::legalese> sig=new std::disclaimer; sig->dump(); delete sig;
Microsoft has a history of buying out competition and FUD. They have been watching as Linux constantly forged ahead regardless of the attacks they placed. Linux was not responding as a company would and MS could not deal with 100,000 developers, they needed a company.
They just got one.
My prediction: Every MS sales manager will be out in force over the next fews weeks. At every MS supported site they will be sending the same message:
"I see you have Linux here. Just a word of advice, we are going to be pursuing litigation over some of "our" intellectual rights that have been stolen, and we really want to keep our customers protected. You may want to move to MS products before you get caught up in something ugly.
For your own protection."
While we don't like it, we should not be surprised by it. They have a $30 billion check book to keep this tied up in court for years. They won't want a resolution, they want litigation or the threat of it.
Remember when FreeBSD got sued by AT&T and lost market/mindshare to Linux during that mess?
Now the situation has reversed.
I wonder if FreeBSD will regain some of the lost marketshare as a result of this.
After all, it was rewritten to get rid of intellectual property issues so people who migrated to avoid this particular risk might find it attractive.
What hold would this give MS over Apple's OSX? I can't see MS going for the jugular with respect to Linux but leaving Apple all alive and well.
Apple use UNIX on their site, they're selling a FreeBSD based UNIX derivative. Do MS now control the fate of the name UNIX, the style of OS that is UNIX, or just a few choice bits of code that nobody will give a shit about?
Unless I've missed it SCO hasn't said exactly what part of the kernel they're claiming rights on. At some point that will have to be revealed and the kernel developers can examine their alternatives.
I still think that companies shouldn't be allowed to sit in stealth mode while they wait for the proper time (such as imminent bankruptcy in SCO's case) to perform their legal jack-in-the-box stunt.
Chris Kuivenhoven is a thief, beware
Predition of future: Microsoft determines linux stole source from its Unix OS, sues and linux becomes illegal.
Microsoft is trying to create publicity for the court case. At this stage, all that SCO has achieved is to raise a few doubts about Linux, specifically in the area of "intellectual property". By licensing SCO's IP, they are drawing attention to the issue, and putting it onto Internet news sites' front pages. It's easy to then segue from there to the discussion of how Linux raises IP questions for those business that use it. From MS's point of view, this is just an extremely cheap negative advertising campaign, without the risk that MS will get criticized for negative advertising.
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
Just to be clear, this isn't just an accidental effect, it seems almost certainly planned to me. Microsoft loves the SCO lawsuit because it validates their own unfounded rantings against Linux. But if they just handed money to SCO to go sue IBM and badmouth Linux, it wouldn't be very effective. Saying "we licensed SCO UNIX because we respect intellectual property" lets them both appear respectful of intellectual property and give money to SCO to act as their attack dog.
However, I don't see anything that anti-trust regulators can do about that.
What the open source community can try to do is deflect the PR impact back on Microsoft by making it crystal clear what a sleazy deal this really is. Than, rather than appearing law-abiding and respecting IP, Microsoft will come across as underhanded and deceitful.
Of course, if anybody could leak the memo from inside Microsoft where this deal was discussed, that would help even more... any volunteers?
What if SCO took linux code and put it in their unix code and then said, "Look, linux stole our code". How can we prove that they didn't do this?
The reason M$ has not been willing to show the windows code is that they have borrowed unix-code to the NT. Especially the network and memory handling routines come to mind first.
Microsoft used BSD code, but the BSD license permits this. You can try this simple experiment on your own PC, assuming you have Cygwin:
C:\WINNT\system32> strings FTP.EXE |grep -i copyright
@(#) Copyright (c) 1983 The Regents of the University of California.
Now why would Microsoft leave that in there if they were deliberately trying to hide it?
OK, it's clear to me (and most analyists) that this SCO/Linux, Sco/Microsoft, SCO/IBM, SCO/Anything is just a sophisticated "marketing" scheme designed to fool everyone in order to capture headlines, money, and marketshare.
I am convinced that SCO, failing to release any evidence what-so-ever of any claim, is merely attempting to manipulate the market. Microsoft, who admits to be fearful of Linux, is looking for anything to confuse potential Linux customers.
NONE of this is news. SCO hasn't been able to show if there has been any violations, likely because there are none. Microsoft has not been able to specify which code they were in violation of, if any, or what code they "licensed".
Therefore, I believe that SCO is just making this all up. I believe that Microsoft is helping them. I believe they are doing this because the executives at SCO want to make money by damaging the reputation of Linux. I believe it is in Microsoft's best interest to help them, because Microsoft's data center business is being bashed by Linux.
My belief and speculation should be the headlines. I suggest
"SCO's new illegitimate business model?"
Because given all the previous "press releases" by SCO, it is is the most likely truth. Maybe I'm wrong... but just lok at the evidence provided so far.
Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith said acquiring the license from SCO "is representative of Microsoft's ongoing commitment to respecting intellectual property and the IT community's healthy exchange of IP through licensing. This helps to ensure IP compliance across Microsoft solutions and supports our efforts around existing products like services for Unix that further Unix interoperability."
Okay... didn't we already learn about M$ borrowing other people's technology and getting burned with the SQL Server and Timeline issue.
I think this is a large case of Bill covering his butt. If SCO has the cajones to go after IBM, then they're building a warchest to go after him next. It's a smart move on M$ part, but it gives me the strange idea that I may be seeing some familiar "new" features in Longhorn.
Hold on cowboy, the US has recently established global precedent. Failure to abide by our views results in your being an "illegal" outlaw regime, and we don't allow those to remain. For reference: see Taliban in Afghanistan, Baath Party in Iraq for recent example, or the Emperor in Japan and the Nazi Gov't in Germany...
:)
:-) ) aren't going to dismiss the US courts because a bunch of college kids like to laugh at the US...
You don't have to respect our culture, you may not respect our President, but you WILL respect our Aircraft Carriers.
All kidding aside, Common Law Courts (49 states in the US, several countries in the EU I believe... I know that LA in the US is on the Roman/Latin system, as are Italy and France, and Britain is obviously on the Common Law system, but I forget who else is what) tend to defer to each other's precedents when possible (but only for rulings on Common Law)....
However, a serious ruling in the US will affect ANYONE in the EU that does business in the US. In fact, business leaders and the movers and shakers (re: the 8 people in Europe that work over 35 hours/week
Alex
I believe Microsoft had a perpetual license to Xenix, which turned into SCO OpenServer in the mid-90s. I don't know if Microsoft had any license rights to the OpenServer upgrades.
However, it appears that the license they are getting via this settlement is to SCO UnixWare (which was Novell UnixWare and before that AT&T SVR4). Which is a totally different kernel. Or at least much different.
The UnixWare kernel is substantially more sophisticated than OpenServer, with very good SMP support, clustering support, support for many system items being hot-plug, etc.
SCO tried for years to shift OpenServer customers to the UnixWare kernel, but backwards compatibility and comfort levels always made it a hard sell.
Without its own Unix OS, Microsoft is not necessarily competing directly in the Unix space with SCO, although one could obviously argue that their interoperability tools for the last 4 years or so have competed.
--LP
I now see the reason why RMS has always insisted on keeping Free Software *free* (as in spirit) and never let any corporate interests to hijack the development of Free Software. The whole *open source* thing brought greedy corporations into play and we are now seeing the results!!
Where is RMS when we need him!?
Maybe, but don't be surprised if MS makes a few more of these "Licensing" payments a little further down the road. I think this is probably more about making sure SCO doesn't go out of bidness while they're twisting the knife. In short, Microsoft is funding the lawyers for the lawsuit because it will hurt Microsoft's competition. Remember, SCO *IS* 'financially troubled' so MS no doubt wants to make sure the air conditioning stays on.
What troubles me is why doesn't Microsoft just buy SCO outright? Unless the lawsuit really is bogus and MS just wants to make sure SCO has the financial backing to cause as many headaches as possible before time runs out, it would seem to me that if they are going to make sure the gun gets used, they might as well own it so they can decide where and when the trigger gets pulled. Have you ever known Bill and Steve to **NOT** want absolute total control of everything?
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
Baz
Therefore, in this case, it seems to me to be in their clear interest to act in the interests of squashing this lawsuit completely.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Ms needs to be careful where they get their code from. They are now dealing with a company that is more than likely infected with that there GPL virus thingy.
Now, what if they start releasing some of this code in their key products. Then, what if they trial actually comes about. Then, what if there really is similar code between the two code bases. But, what if it ends up being proved in court that the code migrated from linux to SCO and not the other way around as SCO claims, and this similar code happens to be the code in the MS products. !!!???
Then MS will have combined GPL code with the code for their key products and will have to GPL their key products! That would teach them for dealing with a copmany they hold to be virus infected.
A Nony Mouse and loving it.
Actually, when I first saw the news, I wondered if it was a way for MS to publically fund SCO's lawsuite against IBM and the rest.
This is so obvious:
SCO is taking shots at linux on its own (and in part Microsoft's) behalf. I would bet that SCO has been working a deal with Microsoft to get some code licensed that SCO has. Suddenly SCO realizes that some of the code microsoft wants is already out. Seeing this might cause a problem with how "edible" they look to microsoft they start hammering away at whoever they can (IBM) for infringement on those same rights previously.
So in part, I think its that they wanted to look better for Microsoft, but I don't think it was a ploy to have someone buy them out necessarily.
I'd assume that in the end this will be a gestapo tactic like someone mentioned earlier and also a strategy to kill off linux as competition.
What, exactly, have they licensed? I don't understand how one licenses something without being clear about what it is you are getting. The article says Microsoft is licensing SCO's Unix "patents and source code." If I wanted to fork over money to SCO for such a license wouldn't SCO have to disclose to me in some detail what I'm licensing? And shouldn't a licensee have a right to establish first that the code being licensed is actually controlled by the party claiming to own it, rather than something in the public domain, or already (legitimately) released under the GPL?
Or is SCO's "licensing program" just a thinly veiled form of extortion:
SCO: Something you are using belongs to us. We can't tell you what it is, but if you don't pay us for it we'll sue you."
LINUX USERS: Ok. Here's the money. Now tell us what we've licensed!
SCO: Sorry. Can't say. But consider yourself lucky.
In a similar vein, if I wanted to make a good faith effort to market a distro purged of SCO's code, shouldn't SCO be compelled to tell me exactly what code I need to remove in order not to infringe on their IP?
It is one thing for SCO to argue that IBM contributed code to the Linux kernel that belongs to SCO. If such a thing could be proven then I would think that SCO would be entitled to damages from IBM. But it is another thing to say that the entire community of Linux users owes something to SCO for code IBM stole from SCO and wrongly contributed to the kernel. As a Linux user, I had no way of knowing that parts of the Linux kernel belonged to SCO, nor can I bring my current Linux use into compliance with SCO's ip claims, since SCO refuses to disclose to me details about the offending code.
(By the way, it is SCO's bizarre notion of the Linux community's collective "responsibility" for damage to SCO's IP that make "viral" gpl arguments so appealing. After all, if every Linux user is "responsible" for violations to SCO's ip, even if we have had no way of knowing such violations were occurring, then certainly Caldera's distribution of SCO's code under the gpl should function to annul SCO right to their source, even though Caldera "didn't know" they were GPL'ing proprietary code.)
Lurking behind all of this are some troubling legitimate questions. For example, is the kernel development process adequate to the task of screening out contributions to the kernel that violate someone's intellectual property? Do Linus Torvalds and those working with him on kernel development have a responsibility to vet code for ip violations? Is such a thing possible or practical? If someone used the kernel development process to deliberately damage another company or individual's ip, would all legal responsibility for this damage lie with the individual making the illegitimate contribution, or is there some way in which the kernel developer's would also be liable?
I would be willing to bet there is quite a bit of Unix code in Windows. How else could you explain the gradual increased steadiness over the past 5 years. Whether you want to admit it or not, Windows 2000 was a major jump in reliability over previous releases and XP edged out 2K slightly.
So you're saying that the only way to write a stable OS is with UNIX? Do you have any idea how absurd that is?
I'm guessing that the reason XP is so much more stable is because you used to use 98, which was a hacked-up version of MSDOS because MS and IBM never finished "their" OS/2, and so it took until 2001 for MS to finally get a stable second generation operating system (gradually adding Win98-like features to NT).
Why?
As soon as this court case gets going any code they show as being part of their IP will be replaced within weeks (I think that the likes of IBM/REDHAT/SUSE/MANDRAKE/LINUS T. etc... will all team together to do this as fast as possible!). And because of this I don't think that MS will "buy" (Not licence as they have done so far according to the topic header) SCO's IP as the minute the Linux comunity removes this IP the licence will not be worth anything to MS.. Unless they already have some of that IP in windows and/or They intend on using some of that IP..
Only time will tell but I think it is going to be an interesting fight!
Mark.
---- There are 10 types of people in the world. Those that understand binary and those that don't
Microsoft only buys stuff that has value to it,
I'd say the FUD value of SCO's current tack is pretty valuable to MS.
and even then it only buys when there's no alternative.
I completely disagree with this. MS doesn't have to license the technology to kill the company, they could just reimplement it and bundle it without buying the company (assuming there are no patents involved). It's a less attractive alternative when you have billions in the bank, but it is an alternative.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
SCO can only license what it owns.
If SCO passed on stolen property, then Microsoft may very well have some GPL code lurking about it's OS. They could suddenly lose all rights to distribute various versions of their product.
They might also be on the hook for all of the source.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I would imagine that Microsoft, and others, might try to get around the GPL by basing their decision on SCO's claims - in other words - if SCO claims a certain part of Linux violates their IP rights, then that would be a part that Microsoft (and others that license the UNIX code) could use without having to GPL it. So even if IBM wins the court case, now it would be the GPL vs Microsoft (and the others who might be into this kind of thing); if the court case drags on long enough before any decision is reached, those large corporations that are licensing UNIX from SCO might incorporate those parts of Linux that are in question without the GPL in an effort to "comply with the IP rights". This whole thing is bad for GPL.
I had a thought earlier today that maybe we will have two Linuxes - just like there is UNIX and BSD - I wonder if it would evolve to a point where there would be the UNIX Linux and then the GPL Linux. No doubt there are people that like Linux but hate the GPL. I am beginning to wonder if this is what this whole thing is about.
First, since this is a trade secret case we will never know what the code that SCO claims is stolen is, unless it is established in court that it is not a trade secret. My question is then if the court does up hold that the code is a stolen trade secret, what does linux do? SCO can't tell them what code to take out, because that would reveal their trade secret. Since linux is open source even if all the developers signed NDA's, a quick grep would show what code was removed and violate the trade secret. So, in the sort of situation what happens? Second question. Lets say SCO did the smart thing here (I know it's a stretch, but lets pretend). They completly isolate their unix and linux groups. They know if any of their unix code ends up in linux they loose the copyright. They assume IBM does the same thing. IBM puts some of the unix code into linux. How is SCO supposed to know this? Their linux team doesn't know what the unix source looks like. This is the kind of dilemna that might start scarring people away from linux.
Jack Valenti and Orrin Hatch will be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.
For comparison, Microsoft spends $8m anually on soda for it's employees...