Slashdot Mirror
OSI vs SCO
the jackol writes "As expected, the OSI's just given the SCO vs IBM case a bite with this position paper. "SCO has never owned the UNIX trademark. IBM neither requested nor required SCO's permission to call their AIX offering a Unix. That decision lies not with the accidental owner of the historical Bell Labs source code, but with the Open Group.""
The best bet for this whole thing is that SCO did their own Linux and released it. Since they did it under GPL, the cat's out of the bag. ...At least from this point on...or rather, the point they released it on. They've pulled their Linux since then.
Question is, can they sue for release of software BEFORE they released the now GPL-ed SCO code in their Linux distro?
open-source advocate Bruce Perens:
g =f d_nc_1
http://news.com.com/2010-1071_3-1007758.html?ta
He doesn't outright say it be he is almost implying that certain monied interests (M$?) could be indirectly funding the whole SCO effort to spread FUD about Linux.
smd4985
I've been reviewing this document since ESR first published it on the web several weeks ago. I'm glad to see he's updating it, and the chart is a great improvement.
There are still some rough edges, though. For instance, directly below the AIX label on the chart the text says "AIX and Solaris are not included..."
It's a wonderful overview of the UNIX world, but it also underscores complacency among UNIX hackers for AT&T's license. I'm not sure the judge in the SCO v/s IBM case will look kindly on the "everybody did it so it was okay" attitude toward sharing code. Isn't that just the thing SCO is talking about?
I'm reading in the paper where ESR uses a graphic to illustrate the relationship between the various Unixes/workalikes, and I'm a bit confused -- why is Linux way off to the side disconnected from everything else when a largish part is composed of BSD tools and another largish part is derived from Unix?
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
Yeah, i saw this ages ago (well, a few days anyhoo). I found it fairly interesting, until i looked outside and was mesmorised by the grass growing!
Honest, I do think this is an interesting case, purely from one view point. The claims SCO have raised are valid, but since the legal submission they gave to the court is 'open source', ie everyone can read it, the amount of evidence piling up against SCO is astonishing. The interesting point is how on earth SCO feel their gonna get out of this. I can't wait for it to hit the courts....
With Microsoft is now licensing Unix from SCO,they're probably planning on using SCO as a FUD lever (or worse) against Linux The result could be a bidding war between IBM and Redmond to control SCO. IBM could buy out the sickly company to euthanize it. SCO sold their soul in hopes somebody would bid it up to take them out of their misery.
Furthermore, SCO is barred by the terms of the GNU General Public License from making copyright or patent-infringement claims on any technology shipped in conjunction with the Linux kernel that SCO/Caldera itself has been selling for the last eight years. Therefore, SCO may accuse IBM of misappropriating SCO-owned software to improve the Linux kernel only if that software does not actually ship with the Linux kernel it is alleged to be improving!
Finally, SCO is barred from making trade-secret claims on the contents of the Linux kernel, not merely by the fact that the kernel source is generally available, but by the fact that SCO has made the sources of its Linux kernel available for download from SCO's own website!
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
Considering the history of SCO in the mid-late 80s, you have to wonder how closely MS and SCO remained linked at the executive levels. Gates really liked UNIX and MS had their hands in the mix in that time frame. Gates is technical and understands why Unix/Linux is powerful and he actually liked working with it. SCO took over all the MS aspects of their initiative (sort of) back in the 80s/early 90s.
I suspect that their is more here than meets the eye in terms of collusion between MS and SCO. I could see MS picking up SCO if they can damage Linux in the process.
To spell it out, here is what I'm suggesting (IMHO): I suspect MS and SCO execs are acquaintences. I suspect that MS execs tugged on the SCO execs to make some troubles for Linux (starting with the IBM thing whenever). I suspect that they have a big bag of such issues with which to harass Linux vendors. I suspect that MS will enter the Linux/Unix arena in the next 3 to 5 years, possibly through an aquisition of SCO.
Question: Was SCO part of the anti-trust suits and related suits against MS? If so to what degree?
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
Win, lose, or draw, SCO can hurt Linux merely by muddying the waters.
org.slashdot.post.SignatureNotFoundException: ewg
Err well making money is arguably morally good.
SCO is far less trying to fsck over linux than IBM, yes they've made noises toward the Distributions, but a primary thrust of their suit is to revoke IBM's Unix license. Even a very small likelihood of that happening will grab the attention of people running AIX.
Naturally we expect IBM to address this with the court and if the court considers it likely they will prevail, then IBM will be allowed to continue shipping AIX.
The reasons I think SCO loses this case, amplifying OSI's discussion:
- AIX as a kernel is the Mach microkernel, (derived from BSD not SysV) and among unixes it's the one which outwardly seems to have the most rewriting. The same kernel and hardware have been the basis of os/400 for half a decade.
- AIX as an OS mostly uses bsd-flavored commands (and only adopted sysV-style init as Linux's SysV-style became the lingua-franca)
- IBM is supporting thier Unix clients by building linux compatibility on top of the (far more solid) AIX kernel. This means middleware. Does anyone doubt that IBM has done a GPL-free interface? No way do I believe they'd risk opening AIX source by directly incorporating GPL.
Basing AIX on Mach didn't come cheap. For instance AIX took longer than it's competitors to get 64-bit clean for the same reasons that the Hurd (also Mach-based) just got set-back a year, the 32bit limitations are in the microkernel, not the bolted-on subsystems. One thing they bought with that investment, however was a very strong position in the event that SYS-V's inheritors ever wanted to raise this particular ruckus.Personally I'm hoping SCO gets tapped for IBM's legal fees when they inevitably lose this case. The only winners I can see are SCO's lawyers, and perhaps to a lesser degree microsoft and Sun.
Linux is Linux, if One need clarify their dist: <Dist>/GNU Linux
bsds are of course just BSD
This lawsuit is what SCO will be known for. It's really too bad because before Caldera got ahold of SCO it was one of the true Unix hack shacks.
Zoid.com
The best part is at the end of the document:
A judgment in favor of SCO could do serious damage to the open-source community. SCO's implication of wider claims could turn Linux into an intellectual-property minefield, with potential users and allies perpetually wary of being mugged by previously unasserted IP claims, and ever-more-outlandish theories of entitlement being propounded by parties with only the most tenuous relationship to anyone who ever wrote actual program code. On behalf of the community that wrote most of today's Unix code, and whose claims to have done so were tacitly recognized by the impairment of AT&T's rights under the 1993 settlement, we protest that to allow this outcome would be a very grave injustice. We wrote our Unix and Linux code as a gift and an expression of art, to be enjoyed by our peers and used by others for all licit purposes both non-profit and for-profit. We did not write it to have it appropriated by men so dishonorable that after making profit from our gift for eight years they could turn around and insult our competence.
And here's the really important message:
Damage to the open-source community would matter, because we are both today's principal source of innovation in software and the guardians and maintainers of the open Internet. Our autonomy is everyone's bulwark against government and corporate control of the digital media that are increasingly central in political, commercial, and personal communications. Our creative energy is what perpetually renews and finds ever more exciting uses for computers and networks. The vigor of our culture today will translate into more possibilities for everyone tomorrow.
I think that is a nice roundup of every geek's feelings towards the tendencies found in politics, business and laws nowadays.
Keep open minded - but not that open your brain falls out...
www.levenez.com/unix/
No, seriously, check it out. Best *nix genealogical tree I know of.
This paper is a gem. It provides a good history of unix and unix-like OSs, and in my mind it establishes that SCO has no claim to the UNIX trademark. SCO willfully misrepresents itself as a much bigger player in the enterprise market than it actually is, for the purpose of claiming bigger damages. My favorite quote:
Examination of SCO's 10Ks reveals that, even were we to assume that every dime of their revenue came from the enterprise market, their 2002 share could not have exceeded 3.1% [5] This is at the level of statistical noise.
The current version (1.7 as I write) is more accurate than the earlier ones (I think 1.2 was the first I saw).
Originaly it had statements like (from memory, can't find the CVS copy online):
The current version says So now he admits that UnixWare (the code that IBM had access to via Project Monterey) has all but one of the features in his checklist. (It has NUMA as well, but it takes a while to fix those position papers).Watch this Heartland Institute video
Not any more they don't. They run Linux under VM.
However, you used to be able to get AIX for S/390. It was hugely expensive and didn't really catch on.
Last night I watched on one of the cable news channels, Larry Ellison and Scott McNealy sitting side by side discussing the newest "partnership" between Oracle and Sun Microsystems. In effect they are about to all-but-legally merge the two companies into one. I predict that they will ultimately actually do the formal merger soon. They *have* to, in order to survive against MS in the future. Ellison can buy SCO with his pocket change, and I predict he will. This is the dark horse that hardly anyone has yet mentioned here on Slashdot. Look for IBM to blow the chance at "owning" Unix, because of their attittude of conservative "not caving in to demands of terrorrists", and no doubt SCO is terrorizing the *nix world right now, but Ellison is enuff of a cowboy to pull off such a gamble.
>The GPL has never been tested in court, after all, and that's already
> something of a concern about it for enterprise level customers.
Then maybe it is finally time for the GPL to have its day in court and do or die. And this looks like an excellent test case.
My rights don't need management.
"SCO has never owned the UNIX trademark. IBM neither requested nor required SCO's permission to call their AIX offering a Unix. That decision lies not with the accidental owner of the historical Bell Labs source code, but with the Open Group."
Well, this is quite true, but it's a trivial offhand swipe at SCO that has nothing to do with the court case. SCO are claiming breach of contract and copyright infringement, not trademark infringement.
The OSI position paper is actually pretty good, and almost any sentence picked at random would probably have been more relevant than that one.
How about:
SCO alleges (Paragraph 57): "When SCO acquired the UNIX assets from Novell in 1995, it acquired rights in and to all (1) underlying, original UNIX software code developed by AT&T Bell Laboratories."
SCO neglects to mention that those rights had been substantially impaired before its acquisition of the ancestral Bell Labs source code. [...] ten years ago at a time when Linux was in its infancy, the courts already found the contributions of other parties to what is now UnixWare to be so great, and Novell's proprietary entitlement in the code so small, that Novell's lawyers had to settle for a minor, face-saving gesture from the University of California or walk away with nothing at all.
Or:
SCO's claim to own the scalability techniques certainly cannot be supported from the feature list of its own SCO OpenServer, a genetic Unix. The latest version advertises SMP up to only 4 processors (a level which SCO's complaint dismisses as inadequate), no LVM, no NUMA, and no hot-swapping. That is, SCO is alleging that IBM misappropriated from SCO technologies which do not appear in SCO's own product.
The title kind'a get you thinking... "The Fear War on Linux". It seems pretty clear that the only one who might benefit from this is Microsoft. Really fitting for their strategy of FUDing Linux out of existence. Is this just a convenient turn of events for the Redmond guys, or a truly Machiavellian charade orchestrated by them since day one?
Btw, could someone explain these clearly out-of-context quotes?
Hi swordgeek,
I read the first half of the article and skimmed the second half. I saw points taken from SCO's complaint and Raymond discrediting them. He is obviously biased toward free software but that doesn't take anything away from the points he makes.
You said that Raymond is not risking anything by writing this rebuttal, and I agree with you. However, he is not the one who started this fight. He would not have written this article was it not for SCO filing the lawsuit.
Finally, if you respond to this post will you explain to me why you think that Raymond's rebuttal doesn't have clout?
Ciao.
Honk if you're horny.
One thing that might help would be to contact your local paper. I've just written to the editor of the business section for mine, offering him a few helpful links and my help if he wants it.
Help spread anti-FUD.
This is so much bullshit, you don't need to write twice as much code to do twice as much work.
It was not said that you need to code twice as much; rather, that complexity doubles. This is demonstrably true.
Statistical noise? Yeah, if you were taking a survey with a standard sample size (~1200 samples) Actually, 3.1% is > 2 standard deviations from the mean regardless of sample size. It's noise, plain and simple.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. (Einstein)
I'll assume two things here: 1) You're not a troll, and 2) you've read the OSI paper that was the article. Both are probably wrong, but hey.
So if you have some serious research, I'm sure we'd love to see it. Particularly if some of it invalidates claims in the OSI paper, which are pretty strong.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Once again postings like this prove that Slashdot is full of CS graduates and home "experts" who wouldn't know true corporate computing environments if they slapped them in the face. Of course people use AIX.
/dev/pts/0 from netmgt1 /dev/pts/0 from netmgt3
Yes, we certainly do use AIX, and it is a fine, reliable, stable and high-performance *nix.
telnet (CWX1)
CWX1 (AIX 4.2.1) Unauthorized use/access is prohibited.
login: root
root's Password:
Last unsuccessful login: Wed May 14 13:25:58 2003 on
Last login: Thu May 15 09:28:00 2003 on
Determining terminal type, please wait...
Terminal recognized as vt220 (DEC VT220)
TERM=vt220
/ >#uname -a
AIX cwx1 2 4 00054848A100
/ >#uptime
10:41AM up 337 days, 12:13, 4 users, load average: 0.19, 0.22, 0.54
/ >#
Yes, it's an older, outdated version of AIX, but does its job and runs too reliably to risk dorking with upgrading it. Besides, it's on a private internal network only (hence being able to telnet in as root), and runs an older version of Oracle that's quite happy on this platform. And furthermore, it's long since paid for itself over and over again.
And Bill Gates is the devil because...
Nice try, but guess what? Unixware and OpenServer are still two separate products.
For the most part, though, this seems to have some good points. I'd love to see the reaction from SCO. It's farily obvious from SCO's original presentation (from which this document quotes) was not fully reviewed by enough mind power backed by technical experience. For example,
Virtually none of these software developers and hobbyists had access to enterprise-scale equipment and testing facilities for Linux development. - SCO
Not true at all, including the hardware IBM, Compaq, etc., made available, not to mention the equipment Caldera generously made available themselves to developers. Oops. Too bad they got rid of the folks who could have reminded them of this...
I know that AIX (along with every other OS at IBM) was to be hosted under Mach back in the mid-90s, but every system house except OS/2 abandoned that project. And OS/2... well, we know about what happened there. This was all part of the much-hyped and little-designed Workplace project.
AIX does have a rather unusual kernel for UNIX; it has quite a lot of dynamic configuration and device management, and it has had it for a very long time--back when it was still standard practice to reboot a Sun to make a config change, you almost never needed to reboot an RS/6000. AIX has, by Sun and Linux standards, an unusual shared object system as well. But it worked back when everyone was saying, "always build static on Solaris" (ca. 1993). That it hasn't changed much (prior to AIX 5.2) kind of hurts C++, but oh well.
And I can't find any trace of Mach on IBM's marketing pages for AIX; companies who use Mach seem to be quite happy to add it to the list of features they're marketing.
I really hope that a lot of people actually READS the paper. It's excellently clear, and very well written.
If the case goes to court (which it should) and IBM wins (which it will), then a lot of FUD about Linux and IP actually will be out of the way.
It's not failing. It's gaining marketshare. It's winning people contracts in larger and larger organizations for larger and larger installations.
There's no such thing.
Put another way... I felt that I was up to the job to perform a heart-and-lung transplant. I had several experiences applying band-aids to minor scrapes and recommending chicken soup to people with the sniffles.
You got the wrong memo. It's in honor of Richard Nixon, who also (unlike Karl) has an 'i', an 'n', and an 'x' in the same name.
Ought to be easy, as you clearly don't have any.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
Reading thru the OSI document, it became clear to me that the SCO suit and surrounding PR are an attempt to do to Linux what the USL/BSD suit did to BSD a decade ago -- that is stall it's adoption in a cloud of legal FUD.
For those who are not aware, back in the early '90s Unix Systems Lab (the inheritor, at that time, of the bell labs IP in Unix) sued the BSD people over their attempt to split off the BSD code from the Bell Labs IP. At that time, they had realized that the BSD code base had very little code that had actually sourced with AT&T and decided that it was time to excise what was left of the AT&T code and go their own non-proprietary way. USL was indignant at this abandonment of fealty and attempted to sue the BSD group back into compliance.
As the OSI paper succinctly puts it: "The suit was settled after AT&T's request for an injunction blocking distribution of BSD was denied in terms that made it clear the judge thought BSD likely to win its defense." -- (and after Berkeley's threat to counter sue AT&T over their own violations of the BSD copyright and license).
Many people, however, credit the current popularity of Linux -- at least in part -- to the legal cloud that the AT&T suit placed over the BSD codebase -- at about the same time that Linus released the early (and relatively primitive) versions of the Linux kernel with the GNU utility codebase.It is believed that a number of people decided that it was easier -- legally speaking -- to throw their lot in with the clearly IP-intact Linux than to risk getting caught by the BSD license debacle.
As a result, Linux is now the dominant Unix-variant OS OS, and the various BSDs -- which started with a much more stable and mature codebase are now holding a relatively niche market space.
SCO's suit along with their rather bombastic and (as shown by the OSI document) seriously misleading and unfounded PR claims seem intended to create precisely the same kind of 'chilling environment' around Linux. The fact that Linux is just about to get into a serious head-on fight with Microsoft for control of both the server market and the desktop market may be either coincidental or part of a conspiracy.
Although SCO's legal filings have a limited immunity to claims of slander and libel, to the extent to which they have repeated those claims in press releases, public statements, and letters, they are not. Those public and semi-public statements appear to be a large part of SCO's 'legal' campaign, and open them to some serious libel claims.
I honestly believe that it would be appropriate for the Linux community to seriously look at suing SCO over the insulting, degrading and clearly untruthful statements that they've made about us. The intent of those statements is to degrade the image and financial value of the work of the Linux community, and if they're allowed to stand, they may succeed in doing so to a greater degree than they already have.
OS Software is like love: The best way to make it grow is to give it away.
Look at PL/S, a PL/I derrivative that IBM has used internally since the early '70s. It generates compact systems-level code (like C can) and supports in-line assembler instructions for when a high-level language just doesn't cut it. Mention that you know PL/I and you'll get laughed outta Dodge, but if you've ever seen a PL/S listing, you'll understand why they still use it. All their mainframe code is written in PL/S, so it'll be around for a long time.
Similarly, IBM has a lot of code and a lot of trained programmers invested in OS/2. They're not going to throw that away without a compelling business reason. "But Linux is cool!" is compelling, but it's not a business reason.I used to work for a subsidiary of Fujitsu. They made a box that competed with IBM's 3705 and 3745 communications controllers back in the day. Their programmers knew that architecture inside out, so they wrote -all- of their code in 3705 assembler and Fujitsu even produced a proprietary 3705-based microprocessor chip for internal use.
Never underestimate the value of a code base.You were 80% angel, 10% demon. The rest was hard to explain. - Over The Rhine
"Math in a song is good."-Linford
It appears that SCO's claims about Linux scalability, etc, may have been as a result of some IBM PR in 2000.
A vunet article from June 2000 quotes Miles Barel, IBM's program director for AIX and Monterey, as saying that scalability, volume and systems management features present in IBM's Unix operating system, AIX, are still missing from Linux.
Of course, an IBM'er would (at that moment in time) push AIX over the (then) hobby project called Linux. But, it seems that it is this comment that's sparked SCO's much delayed attack.
"values of beta will give rise to dom!"
The thing that I'm seeing in this whole affair between SCO's FUD and ESR's OSI writeup is oddly ironic: it won't be a battle between open source developers and Micros~1 that becomes the pivotal point for Linux, it will more likely be this issue that we're all reading about.
This sig no verb.