Today's SCO News

landoltjp writes "SCO (Nasdaq: SCOX) are hosting a teleconference today in order to clear the air (*snort*) regarding "Novell's baseless UNIX ownership assertions" and other bits of hubbub and nonesense that's in the news today. Should be fun." And SCO has apparently been enjoined from making some of its claims by a German court (also here.) Cringely has an editorial on the whole mess.

Comments

Cringley, Linus, and Christoph Hellwig

[Surak]

t doesn't help, either, that one of SCO's own people made a strong argument awhile back against the whole idea that Unix code could make it into the Linux kernel. Linus Torvalds found a Linux-kernel mailing list (lkml) posting from Christoph Hellwig, a former employee at SCO, then called Caldera. Hellwig pointed out the impracticality of actually getting copied code from UnixWare accepted by the tough critics on the mailing list. "The kernel internals are so different that you'd need a big glue layer to actually make it work and you can guess how that would be ripped apart in a usual lkml review," Hellwig wrote.

Hmmmm...the kernel internals are so different...? But wait, if that's the case how did IBM copy SCO code into Linux...? Exactly. It didn't. Even a SCO employee says so.

SCO doesn't appear to be forcing Microsoft, so I can only come to the conclusion that Redmond is thinking of actually using that license, selling its own version of Unix. I wrote about something very similar to this a few months ago, only then I speculated that Microsoft might build a new OS atop Linux. But why use Linux when they could claim Unix, instead? The key here, I think, is the Windows emulation technology Microsoft got when it bought Connectix. Originally aimed at server consolidation, that code could be used by Microsoft to create and sell a Unix/Windows hybrid that would be a big success if Linux is killed by SCO. And the new Microsoft OS would even be a viable competitor to Linux if SCO loses, since it would offer Windows application compatibility. Microsoft could certainly use a sturdy server operating system for a change.

I never put those together until Cringely did, and ya know, Cringley could be on to something here. It's entirely possible that Microsoft staged this whole thing from day one. That would be the ultimate evil -- but then, again, wouldn't that be just like them? Yeah. ;)

Lindows joins the fight

[Lxy]

Since the editors didn't find this interesting enough to include, I'll post it here.

Lindows has claimed that their SCO license allowed them to relicense SCO kernel code as GPL. See here for the article. Basically it either means that Lindows has cleaned the offending kernel code or they're about to get sued off the face of the earth.

now that you mention it [netcraft]

[mcc]

Netcraft's analyzer says:

Operating System and Web Server for www.sco.com

The site www.sco.com is running Apache/1.3.14 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.7.1 OpenSSL/0.9.6 PHP/4.0.3pl1 on Linux.

Cringely is missing something...

[CoolVibe]

SCO does not decide which operating system can call itself UNIX. If SCO yanks the license of AT&T UNIX away from IBM, then AIX can still call itself a UNIX because the Open Group (which controls the UNIX trademark, _not_ SCO) has said that AIX can claim to be a UNIX.

Sure, SCO would like to have the UNIX branding powers, but they don't have it. Period.

What I think MS was up to...

[gosand]

SCO doesn't appear to be forcing Microsoft, so I can only come to the conclusion that Redmond is thinking of actually using that license, selling its own version of Unix.

I never put those together until Cringely did, and ya know, Cringley could be on to something here. It's entirely possible that Microsoft staged this whole thing from day one. That would be the ultimate evil -- but then, again, wouldn't that be just like them? Yeah. ;)

Actually, I think what they (SCO and MS) wanted to happen didn't materialize, so they are taking this route. Consider this from the article by Cringely:

But Novell made a good point, which was that SCO had been asking for the copyrights for some time, and Novell had refused. If being the copyright holder didn't matter, why did SCO want that role so badly?

Gee, maybe SCO wanted to get its hands on the copyrights to UNIX so that Microsoft could buy SCO. If MS were to buy SCO, then they would have the copyright rights to UNIX, and could sic the lawyers on all the Linux vendors. All the greedy, incompetent execs at SCO get to retire on a nice fat payday, simply for turning over the keys to Linux. This plan didn't materialize because Novell wouldn't give up the rights, so Microsoft came up with this strategy. The execs at SCO don't really care what happens, they just need an out. They are heading a dying company, so all they are concerned about it how they can get paid before the whole things collapses.

It may sound like a conspiracy theory, but I think it is a pretty good one. Using money and power, Microsoft could legally squash Linux. What, you think they wouldn't want to do that?