Slashdot Mirror
Novell Claims Ownership of UNIX System V
Bruce Perens writes:
"We knew that SCO's attack on Linux was a lie. But we never dreamed of the big lie behind it.
"This morning, Novell announced some of the terms of the company's 1995 agreement to sell its Unix business to SCO. The shocking news is that Novell did not sell the Unix intellectual property to SCO. Instead, they sold SCO a license to develop, sell, and sub-license Unix. The title to Unix copyrights and patents remains with Novell. To back up this assertion, Novell refers to public records at the Library of Congress Copyright Office and the U.S. Patent Office.
"In their announcement, Novell refers to recent letters from SCO asking Novell to assign the Unix copyrights to SCO. So, apparently SCO's management team knew that they did not own Unix while pursuing their sham campaign against Linux.
"Along with this revelation, Novell is reiterating its support of the Linux and Open Source developer community, and its status as a partner in that community. Novell rejects SCO's accusations of plagiarism. Novell management says they do not intend to stand in the way of the development of the Linux kernel, its companion GNU system, and other Free Software.
"It would be an understatement to say that this leaves SCO in a bad position. The company has loudly and repeatedly asserted that they were the owner of the Unix intellectual property, all of the way back to AT&T's original development of the system 30 years ago. They've lied to their stockholders, their customers and partners, the 1500 companies that they threatened, the press, and the public. Their untruthful campaign caused the loss of sales and jobs, and damaged Linux companies and developers in a myriad of ways. And now, SCO will be the lawsuit target. SCO's quarterly earnings conference call is this morning, at 9 AM MST (11 AM EST, 8 AM PST). Call 800-406-5356, toll-free, to participate. You might even get to ask a question. It should be fun to watch them try to weasel out of this one.
"Microsoft executives also have egg on their faces. The company self-servingly rushed to buy an SCO license one business day after the threat letter, bringing a senior attorney to the office on a Sunday to tell the press how much Microsoft values intellectual property. Microsoft's management could have taken the time to analyze SCO's claims, if the company had wanted this license for practical and technical reasons. Their decision to buy when they did must have been motivated by a desire to add to SCO's fear campaign. Of course they'll grab any opportunity to spread fear about Linux, but this time Microsoft bought a pig in a poke.
"SCO management, if they insist on standing in the way of a train, could still claim that software they developed in the years since 1995 is being infringed by the Open Source developers. That claim, always a dubious one, will be difficult to take seriously now that their prevarication throughout this campaign has come to light. SCO would be well advised to drop their suit against IBM in exchange for IBM's agreement not to counter-sue. But IBM might not feel that charitable toward SCO.
"In contrast to SCO, Novell's made a friend among the Free Software developers. We're always happy to see people using our software. But a real partnership between an IT vendor and our community is an equal partnership, with the company donating services and new software in exchange for the value it receives. Novell has already placed important software under Open Source licenses. Today, the company has done us a tremendous service, by stomping upon an obnoxious parasite."
roofle owned sco
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Important Stuff: Please try to keep posts on topic. Try to reply to other people's comments instead of starting new threads. Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said. Use a clear subject that describes what your message is about. Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page) If you want replies to your comments sent to you, consider logging in or creating an account.
BWHAHAHAHA I hope all this is true... that would be real fun!
0wned >D
Burn the land and boil the sea, you can't take the sky from me
MOD PARENT UP.
For a something as interesting, watch SCOX stock price, it is jumping up and down with all theses announcements.
I called the conf call # early and I am told that the phone number has been changed. The new number is 800-946-0719
Nothing you idiots! Ransom Love's dead, he's locked in my basement!
Eminem sucks ass
Asshat
Follow your Euro bills at EBT
n/t
NOVL and SCO
& s= scox&a=v&p=s&l=on&z=m&q=l
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?d=c&c=novl&k=c1&t=1d
"Last one in is a rotten goblin!" - Kepp
I made System V, and so did my wife...
The wont is refered to by members of my family as, "giving you a facelift". It's also mean and stupid to put a cat in a bag to begin with, so you get what you deserve when it gets out. Seems about right here.
Nice work with Novel.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
the management team will never work again in corporate America
If only that were true. Unfortunately, private enterprise does a poor job of recognizing a loser manager when it sees one. Even if you take your company into the toilet, you've got experience and a bunch of connections to get that next job.
There is a saying among engineers - especially electrical engineers - to the effect that:
"Expertese is directly proportional to value of equipment destroyed."
The implication being that learning is an ongoing thing, and one of the most effective ways to learn what not to do because it smokes the expensive box is to smoke one.
Perhaps there is a similar saying relating to CEOs who crash companies?
(Interestingly, the saying appears to be largely false. Good engineers learn early to think ahead, and tend to stop smoking expensive boxes, or at least lower the occurrence rate of smoke generation events to near-nill - often before leaving junior high school. Meanwhile, flakes keep frying 'em as long as management lets them twiddle knobs and swap cables. Perhaps this ALSO applies to CEOs. B-) )
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Sco is dying
It is official. Netcraft has confirmed: Sco is dying
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered Sco community when IDC confirmed that Sco's market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that Sco has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Sco is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict Sco's future. The hand writing is on the wall: Sco faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for Sco because Sco is dying. Things are looking very bad for Sco. As many of us are already aware, Sco continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
Sco Open Server is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time Sco Open Server developers only serves to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: Sco is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
Sco leader Darl McBride states that there are 7000 users of Sco. How many users of Sco are there? Let's see. The number of Linux versus Unix posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 Sco users. Sco Open Server posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of Sco posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of Sco Open Server. A recent article put Sco Open Server at about 80 percent of the Sco market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 Sco users. This is consistent with the number of Sco Open Server Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of The Sco Group, abysmal sales and so on, Sco went out of business and was taken over by IBM who sell another troubled OS. Now Sco is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that Sco has steadily declined in market share. Sco is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If Sco is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. Sco continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, Sco is dead.
Fact: Sco is dying
Slackware, what else when it must be secure, stable, and easy?
[ed. note: in the following text, former FreeBSD developer Mike Smith gives his reasons for abandoning FreeBSD]
When I stood for election to the FreeBSD core team nearly two years ago, many of you will recall that it was after a long series of debates during which I maintained that too much organisation, too many rules and too much formality would be a bad thing for the project.
Today, as I read the latest discussions on the future of the FreeBSD project, I see the same problem; a few new faces and many of the old going over the same tired arguments and suggesting variations on the same worthless schemes. Frankly I'm sick of it.
FreeBSD used to be fun. It used to be about doing things the right way. It used to be something that you could sink your teeth into when the mundane chores of programming for a living got you down. It was something cool and exciting; a way to spend your spare time on an endeavour you loved that was at the same time wholesome and worthwhile.
It's not anymore. It's about bylaws and committees and reports and milestones, telling others what to do and doing what you're told. It's about who can rant the longest or shout the loudest or mislead the most people into a bloc in order to legitimise doing what they think is best. Individuals notwithstanding, the project as a whole has lost track of where it's going, and has instead become obsessed with process and mechanics.
So I'm leaving core. I don't want to feel like I should be "doing something" about a project that has lost interest in having something done for it. I don't have the energy to fight what has clearly become a losing battle; I have a life to live and a job to keep, and I won't achieve any of the goals I personally consider worthwhile if I remain obligated to care for the project.
Discussion
I'm sure that I've offended some people already; I'm sure that by the time I'm done here, I'll have offended more. If you feel a need to play to the crowd in your replies rather than make a sincere effort to address the problems I'm discussing here, please do us the courtesy of playing your politics openly.
From a technical perspective, the project faces a set of challenges that significantly outstrips our ability to deliver. Some of the resources that we need to address these challenges are tied up in the fruitless metadiscussions that have raged since we made the mistake of electing officers. Others have left in disgust, or been driven out by the culture of abuse and distraction that has grown up since then. More may well remain available to recruitment, but while the project is busy infighting our chances for successful outreach are sorely diminished.
There's no simple solution to this. For the project to move forward, one or the other of the warring philosophies must win out; either the project returns to its laid-back roots and gets on with the work, or it transforms into a super-organised engineering project and executes a brilliant plan to deliver what, ultimately, we all know we want.
Whatever path is chosen, whatever balance is struck, the choosing and the striking are the important parts. The current indecision and endless conflict are incompatible with any sort of progress.
Trying to dissect the above is far beyond the scope of any parting shot, no matter how distended. All I can really ask of you all is to let go of the minutiae for a moment and take a look at the big picture. What is the ultimate goal here? How can we get there with as little overhead as possible? How would you like to be treated by your fellow travellers?
Shouts
To the Slashdot "BSD is dying" crowd - big deal. Death is part of the cycle; take a look at your soft, pallid bodies and consider that right this very moment, parts of you are dying. See? It's not so bad.
To the bulk of the FreeBSD committerbase and the developer community at large - keep your eyes on the real goals. I