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IBM Responds To SCO: Business As Usual
Newsforge is running a statement from IBM on its decision not to bow to SCO's demand that they stop shipping AIX. In a statement this short, there's not much room for weaselly language, but the even-shorter version is this: "IBM's Unix license is irrevocable, perpetual and fully paid up. It cannot be terminated."
Fuck off
IBM is not batting an eyelash. wtg!
there is nothing left to say, lets just come back to this when the whole thing is over.
There is no god
SCO has made public statements and accusations about IBM's Unix license and about Linux in an apparent attempt to create fear uncertainty and doubt
I know it's silly but I always love when IBM uses the phrase "FUD" in corporate announcements since they know it means nothing to the mainstream press but it gets the Linux community all fired up. As petty and transparent as it is, IBM's press announcement can be roughly tranlated as "hey geeks, didja hear that? SCO called Captain Kirk a wimp, you feeling riled?" Well, riled we are...
The second paragraph: "IBM's Unix license is irrevocable, perpetual and fully paid up. It cannot be terminated" is nothing but pissing on SCO's shoes. Beautiful, I can't suppress a beaming smile.
it ends with "So there."
Old age and treachery almost always overcome youth and skill.
SCO fires back at IBM, Swears to go to court to collect Damages.
details at 11
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
I am glad they refuse to bow. Now I am just waiting for the wonderfull splat!!
I wanna see IBM crush SCO. I wish they'd pick a fight back so SCO gets into it then IBM could be like the German infantry walking into france.
You know why the streets of france's capital have trees? Because German soldiers like to walk in the shade haha.
forever and ever, in spiritu santcum. Amen.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
Just got a mental picture of Big Blue with a big leapord-print hat laying down some pimp hand.
Mod point free since 2001
It's even crazier than we think. SCO isn't claiming that it (or AT&T, Novell, etc.) necessarilly wrote the code that IBM allegedly put into Linux. Rather, SCO says that it has exclusive rights to any code that IBM distributed with AIX, even if the code is entirely IBM's own word! Essentially, all code in any form of Unix belongs to SCO.
Accoding to an interview at Byte with Chris Sontag, SCO's VP, Linux is used by terrorists, and therefore IBM's Linux efforts are equivalent to selling arms to terrorists. Because of this, Sontag expects the US govt. to support his case against IBM and Linux as part of the war on terror. He also accuses Intel of using Linux as a way to flout US laws that ban weapons exports to North Korea.
Unfortunately, this is not a troll or an attempt at humor.
This whole SCO vs. IBM affair is more entertaining than every daily soap-opera...
can't wait to see the next episode.
So when does SCO sue Sun?
And after that, is Apple next?
Can we get a SCO section for all of this? I filtered Caldera so I don't have to see all of these stories and here's one slipping through.
SCO's claims today that anybody running AIX is doing so without a license are themselves illegal - they constitute the tort of "injurious falsehood". Watch for IBM to make a counter-claim against SCO on this. Imagine how much IBM could claim to have lost if customers stop using and buying AIX because of this. That's the pecuniary damages. Then there's punitive damages. Idiots.
I was prepared for the harsh stance IBM was taking, but I wasn't prepared for the ascii middle finger and the "W3 0wnz0r j00 5c0 b10tch" on the bottom.
Can someone translate this obtuse legalese into plain english please? :)
i'm picturing some kind of weekend, pay-per-view event, where IBM's lawyers square off against SCO's lawyers.
:)
the SCO lawyers will be puny, whiney, and the villians.
the IBM lawyers would all be built like Goldberg and carry lead pipes in. it would be a bloodbath, over in a few minutes, and save us all the legal crap.
let's face it, SCO is going to get bitch slapped hard by IBM at this point. they're trying to play hardball and up until now IBM has pretty much ignored them. however, like a fly that bites i have a feeling they're about to get swatted back into nothingness.
i guess courtTV needs their drama too.
The companies had engaged in brief but unfruitful discussions, SCO said last week.
The call, intercepted by an unnamed source, went like this:
Operator: Thank you for calling IBM. How may I direct your call?
SCO: Mr. Palmisano, please.
Operator: May I tell him who's calling?
SCO: Darl McBride, CEO of SCO
Operator: Oh, you again. *pause* He is still not taking your call. Would you like his voice mail?
SCO: *sigh* Sure.
[Flush][laughter]*click*
What about Suns licence, and all the other old time Unices.
Something tells me IBM is about to get down and dirty.. and SCO should be worried :>
Mod me down im a newf (wiki)
How far along is the countdown to IBM's legal equivalent of Mega Flare turning SCO into ash?
Would this statement be considered "Countdown: 3"?
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
Yea, this post is so -1... But so is this story.
Phase 1. Imagine a Billion dollars.
Phase 2. Sue everyone.
Phase 3. ???
Phase 4. Profit!
Karma: The shiznight, mostly because I am the Drizzle.
Speak softly, and carry a big stick.
Ever get hit by 50 gazillion patent infringment lawsuits and the one of the worlds biggest legal departments?
I stole this Sig
SCO in a surprising move today made it clear that they were intent on pursuing the lawsuit despite IBM's flagrant disregard for SCO's license. Earlier SCO revoked IBM's license effectively prohibiting them from legally distributing SCO's software.
No one remembers why all this started and only a handful of bloggers at Slashdot.org and TheRegister.com are still interested in the story.
At this same time economic indicators are showing a slight turnaround in the economy which has been in the doldrums since late 1999.
I have been pwned because my
SCO - the proverbial fat kid that drops his ice cream cone, and then proceeds to make everyones life a living hell. Give it up, please.
This is about as keen as someone patenting masturbation. Believe me, the patent office laughed at me when I filed MY paperwork for it.
...IBM pisses REALLY hard on SCOs shoes....
Steve
My favorite line:
IBM will continue to ship, support and develop AIX which represents years of IBM innovation, hundreds of millions of dollars of investment and many patents
-------
Doesn't SCO realize that IBM holds so many patents that SCO is infringing upon that IBM will end up owning them lock stock and barrel with no big cash outlay?
Let's just use all of SCO's bandwidth so they can't distribute any more press releases via their web site!
z ip
(removing the space in 'zip')
wget sco.com/images/pdf/education/SCO_AEP_posterfiles.
or click here
"I know it's silly but I always love when IBM uses the phrase "FUD" in corporate announcements since they know it means nothing to the mainstream press but it gets the Linux community all fired up."
Where does FUD come from anyway? I know what it means based on the context, but where'd it come from? "Fucked up deal"?
"Derp de derp."
hey geeks, didja hear that? SCO called Captain Kirk a wimp, you feeling riled?" Well, riled we are...
Screw you IBM, Picard rules!!
I mean seriously. If SCO is not going to handle the case in a legal manner (i.e. file a lawsuit), why should anybody take the company seriously. Here's what the case looks like so far:
SCO: I IS TEH OWNZERS JOO!
IBM: Well buddy, if you have case, why don't you file a lawsuit?
Scene: SCO's balls are tightly wrapped in electrical tape and SCO is lying on the floor...
SCO: Dddddon't hurt me!!
IBM: We ship your clothes, complete your financial transactions, know your insurance info... WE GUARD YOUR DATA WHILE YOU SLEEP, DO NOT FUCK WITH US!
We need to turn this into a boxing match analogy to make it more fun. Let's see SCO started this morning demanding an end to the license. That is the opening jab. IBM has blocked that feeling shot and has come back with a jab themselves. The first round is under way folks!
The other stuff was just the prefight warm up. To bad no one got bit ala Tyson VS. Lewis. I could just see the news now if that had happened. "SCO CEO Chomps IBM CEO over Unix Row, Film at 11."
Papa Legba come and open the gate
Just you wait, he's just going to fade away in a few weeks. No one will know where he went until some fisherman finds his cement shoes in a net one day.
"When I am king, you will be first against the wall..."
represents years of IBM innovation, hundreds of millions of dollars of investment and many patents
uh oh....watch out SCO...they've opened their patent library...you're fscked
IBM is multinational by all means and any measure. International laws, i.e. laws in other countries than US may not be so overwhelmed by SCO's case inside the US as indicate in this Byte magazine article:
"It is also undeniable that the business climate in the U.S. lets someone take a far more aggressive attitude towards a competitor's customers than does the climate in Europe. SCO should have anticipated this, but Sontag seemed to be quizzical about what these European lawsuits are demanding, and how SCO should react to them. I got the impression that SCO's management was thinking entirely in terms of U.S. law, and have not thought through the international implications of their actions.
I find this amazing, especially considering that SCO's latest 10Q filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission reveals that "revenue from international customers accounted for 48 percent of operating system platform revenue." "
Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. i was coined by persons that felt that this was IBMs main tactic against competition.
eric
I think your idealism has made you forget that IBM and SCO are COMPANIES. That means money is involved. That also means greed is involved. Any schoolyard-bully characterization you give them is naivety at the extreme. Yes, we'd all like IBM to kick their (SCO's) ass. But, they are doing it for different reasons than an armchair-quarterback like yourself would like to think.
Is the beauty of this IBM announcement. Is short, straight to the point (at least, one of them) and don't fool around with legalese. And not introduces new arguments, with this one, the same that IBM said a lot of time before, should be enough.
The kind of message which one often does not see on behalf of companies.
Glad to have IBM opting for open source.
Go IBM, boo SCO!
Do you find it a shame your website has NO posts?
Let's say everything that the most cynical slashdotter suspects about this case is true. SCO has no case, this is an exit strategy, they're running around making a bunch of noise and making outrageous claims just to get attention and to try to scare IBM into doing what they say, and the instant that they are in the courtroom and their bluff is called, they are going to go down in countersuit flames in the most spectacular way possible.
If that happens:
What is stopping the people within SCO who started this case and subsequently destroyed SCO utterly from quietly selling all of their SCO stock sometime between now and the point SCO goes into court, thus making gobs of money in the span of time between SCO's stock price being temporarily knocked up by all the publicity around this case and SCO's stock price being knocked down once it becomes apparent SCO has nothing to back up their claims with?
What is stopping the people within SCO who started this case and subsequently destroyed SCO from walking out of SCO with incredibly lucrative golden parachutes, and possibly simply being rehired at another company in incredibly high-ranking, lucrative positions just because from the ignorant perspective of another corporation's board, hey, they were the ones who got SCO all that attention and tried to capitalize on that IP, even though it didn't work out?
I think specifically i'm thinking of Daryl McBride here. But I can't get rid of the sneaking suspicion that, by design this case is designed to cause SCO to go SPLAT like a little tiny bug on IBM's windshield, obliterating it and its stock value utterly, while somehow letting the board members who initiated this entire fucking mess somehow wrangle a huge amount of money for themselves out of it and walk away scot-free and with a big impressive "CFO, SCO CORP" bulletpoint on their resume. What is stopping them from doing this? Anything? Anything at all, either legal or in the way corporations hire? Will the people responsible for causing this mess have consequences, or will the only ones to face the backlash after SCO implodes be the stockholders and employees?
Echo echo echo echo echo.
A SCO janitor just walked onto one of the floors to clean it. Oh no wait! Ipswich from Accounting is opening a drawer! What's this, more news?!?!? Yes it is, the A/C unit just kicked in for the second floor. My this is exciting! Hold the phone, yet more developments! Apparently the new intern just stretched her arms!!!!
It seems like SCO is like that little kid who just wants to be annoying so they will get attention (or in otherwords cause IBM enough of a headache that IBM will just buy them out to shut them up)
Ave Molech Setting
Fear Uncertainty and Doubt
I imagine SCO as an ordinary tyrannosaurus rex and IBM as Godzilla. SCO has been gnawing on IBM's ankle for some time now, and the nerve impulses have just now made it to IBM/Godzilla's brain...
The only question is will IBM squash SCO, fry SCO, or kick SCO over to Mothra's island?
This may be taken a s flamebait but whatever, I'll be leaving work in 10 minutes and won't see it....
What if SCO is right and IBM has stolen IP? I'd rather get this sort of IP battle overwith between two UNIX vendors then say M$ and a Unix Vendor. Better early in the lifecycle then 10 years from now when things would really be Fucked.
To get IBM to buy them is plausible. But what if M$ used thier 40B in Cash to buy novell and SCO, therefore owning unix IP? What then? Another battle with the DoJ? Yippee!, the first one went sooo well...
Then comes the throat-clearing....
I have the image of Ben Affleck's head exploding from the end of the film Dogma*. I get the feeling that this is the start of the end, plus I like to see Ben Affleck's head explode.
*You see, because God is all powerful no mortal can hear God's voice without their head exploding which is why the Metatron is the "voice of God" so mortals can hear what is God saying without their heads exploding...
Consultancy: If you're not part of the solution, there's money to be made in prolonging the problem
A better headline for this article might have been: "IBM Gives SCO the Finger, and SCO gives IBM their phonecall."
Fascinating, I always assumed "FUD" was invented to describe Microsoft tactics but now that you mention it, FUD is a much more accurate description of IBM's tactics in the late-eighties, early-nineties. To coin an old phrase "no one ever got fired for buying IBM". Fortunately they have learned a lot from the early-90's crash and although I'm still sure their only motivation is still profit, you have to admit that when you think "FUD" in 2003 it doesn't bring IBM to mind anymore.
Slashdot is running nonstop stories on IBM's decision not to bow to SCO's demand that they stop shipping AIX. In a statement (issued by Slashdot) this short, there's not much room for weaselly language, but the even-shorter version is this: "Slashdot's Unix/IBM/SCO-story license is irrevocable, perpetual and fully paid up. It cannot be terminated."
And in other news, the Yankees beat the Devil Rays, Pres. Bush says America is great, and Microsoft is accused of shady business dealins.
In weather, plan on overcast skies, or maybe sunshine.
See SCO.
See SCO lie.
See stocks fly.
Fly stocks, fly!
See Gartner blow.
SCO stocks grow!
Grow stocks! Grow!
See Novell.
See Novell smack,
Smack SCO! Smack!
See IBM.
See IBM laugh.
SCO lawyers barf.
SCO stocks cut in half.
See SCO.
See SCO whine.
SCO says "It's mine!"
See IBM.
IBM puts foot down.
SCO execs start to drown.
Drown SCO, drown!
When this goes to trial I hope I get jury duty.
"Do you know what Unix is?"
No
"Do you know what Linux is?"
No
"Do you know who SCO is?"
No
"Do you know what IBM does?"
Ummmm they make typewriters?
"Ok, you are on."
Bwuahahahahah
Looks like IBM is going to bitch-slap SCO!
This would be a trial worth watching if CourtTV would broadcast it. If nothing else for the entertainment value.
Invalid Checksum. Retrying.
NanoGator, I think they modded you down because my post quoted the phrase "fear uncertainty and doubt" directly from the IBM press release before I used the acronym FUD. No biggie, we all make mistakes, but thought you might want to know why you got modded down...
Ya know i could eat up years worth of mod points on SCO stories alone, and that would be moddin posts up alone.
This whoel thign is like watching a slow motion train wreck. you just cant turn away. (except those who have:)
I fully expect to be off topic, dont feel bad about doing it:)
They've done themselves a world of good by focusing on their services business, thus representing themselves as a benevolent, helpful entity, and by advertising that segment of their business heavily (in some rather amusing spots, I might add - "It's for you. It's the genie.").
But when did IBM become an ally?
There's too many good companies out there to have to resort to playing the "enemy of my enemy" game.
What I want to know is if this will impact anything at all. How widely used is AIX anyway? I thought most servers were BSD or Linux by now.
That odd wet noise you hear is the sound of Linux users around the world wetting their pants with joy.
Blatant self-promotion: Jerek.net
Nuts!
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. -Frederick Douglass
Oh so let me see...IBM helps linux so they are the good guys?. Wait SUN helps Linux (OpenOffice/Java/Gnome) but you are dissing SUN everytime you get a chance. Atleast Sun buys up companies and helps linux....IBM is a fucking selfish company...they have never helped anybody except themselves. Weasels!!!!
Caldera did more for Linux's initial appeal (note was the third commercial distro after Slackware and Redhat).
I hope for the sake of Linux, IBM and AIX fry!.
I sure hope so.
We don't need the play-by-play for this anymore than we needed it for the OJ Simpson trial...
IBM throws the pitch.
SCO swings... pop fly! He broke the bat!
Novell jumps for the catch... ERROR! He dropped it!
SCO makes it to first.. but wait! Is that cork in hs bat?
Well, if SCO hoped that IBM would settle or buy them out, they were clearly mistaken. Now that THAT plan has backfired, d u think they'll go after some one else next ? Maybe RedHat or SuSE ? It'll be interesting to see how they ( RedHat and others ) respond if that happens. After all, currently SCO is going after IBM only on the issue of trade secrets and their contract with IBM. Would they stoop to going after distributors of Linux if this doesn't work ?
The OSI Position Paper on the SCO-vs.-IBM Complaint suggests why IBM seems so confident.
(I'm sure it's been posted here before, but it's required reading)
CousinDave
It's too late to lose the weight you used to need to throw around.
I find it funny that this doesn't even show up on the headlines. Usually, IBM is a big factor in the daily stock news, and investors overreact. But IBM stock is up 2% today. They just don't seem to care.
Unfortunately for myself, I am a Mac user, and unfortunately for myself(again), when IBM and SCO stop their half-naked brawl in the mudpit, the PPC 970 processor will take longer to get over here on the Mac side. Thanks again, Mr. SCO.
{cough} Said moderator was probably expecting you to "RTFA", at which point you would have seen the line;
As a matter of fact, it was the very first sentence of the article. Sorry, chum, but your moderation was fair.
BD Phone Home!
Shameless plug. Like you weren't expecting it.
Anyone remember the simpson's episode that ends with Bart misbehaving and jumping up and down in the background yelling "Hello, I'm Bart pay attention to me, etc etc."
SCO seems to be acting like this, as if for some reason any attention they can get at the moment is good attention... which it's not. That or they're just plain insane, as they can't hope to win this.
Wtfever dood.
I can remember the day Big Blue was the enemy and everyone was rooting for this geek kid out of Redmond...
My how things have changed since then.
Even the big bad 'client/server' model is back..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Point by point translation:
SCO, shut up or put up.
Just who do you think you are?
Fuck off.
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
In the past two months, I've been reading over and over and over and over and over about this court case, without there anything getting something done or new added.
But in the same time, the crowd gets more enthousiastic, more violent in their responses and more sure of themselves.
It feels like the time between october last year and somewhere april this year when the TV stations and pulp-newspapers around the world had specials every day about the upcoming war, with new(tm) and improved(tm) reports about how this was going to be finished and how everything would turn out right at the end.
I'm going to ignore the SCO non-newsitems on slashdot until this case is over and read a proper review of it in one of the less sensational newsletters. Just my 2 cents.
bash$
>posted with: Mozilla Firebird
Lucky you! That Sourceforge site/article crashes my Firebird (0.6) browser!
"Bite my shiney blue ass, meatbags"
Man, this is going to be fun.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
four or more of the top execs at SCO are grads of BYU or Utah state... the company is run by Mormons and by extension, the Mormon church?
what's up with that?
Who is this guy doing this "press release" anyway? Why isn't there an official statement from the company?
And why did Timothy post this himself, linking to NewsForge (no less), instead of posting one of the hundreds of submissions he undoubtedly must've received, given the "hot topic"?
Sometimes I just wonder...
I think he will be in shame once we sign jeff@nightspots.la up for spam galore.
.... in question already and posted a kernel patch? I mean jesus, Linus before (read capital letter stuff in source distro from kernel.org) has just said that if petty disputes continue over IP in Linux stuff, he'll just yank it from the kernel. Why hasn't it been yanked and replaced with some fresh code?
Seriously, did anyone (including SCO) actually think IBM would stop shipping AIX because of this? It would most seriously tarnish their reputation.
I think SCO should retract a few more companies licenses and see what that gets them. Nowhere fast.
Congrats, keep on, big blue....
-m
http://www.invisik.com
The licences between AT&T and IBM that are posted on SCO's site as Exhibit A and Exhibit B.
In section 3.03 of exhibit B it clearly states that "AT&T" may revoke the licence for non-compliance. Moreover paragraph 4 of the cover page contains a standard "no alterations unless signed in writing" clause. I see nothing that allows AT&T to sell this termination right without IBM's approval. There are similar sectoin in Exhibit A, section 6.03 and paragraph 4 of the cover page.
Go for the eyes Blue! Go for the eyes!!!
This space for rent, inquire within.
i`ve never seen a real-life showdown like this over the internet. this is the kinda shit the non-geek ppl don`t know about, we're priviliged that we do!
:D
i can`t tell u all how much i want to grab some popcorn and watch lawyers fight it out by cutting eachother with papercuts from legal doucments, wooooo!
i`m supporting SCO... i like supporting under-dogs
WTF is a sig?
It's gonna be like a wet tshirt competition, but without the tshirts.
heh.
There are 10 kinds of people; those who know ternary, those who don't, and those now hunting for a dictionary.
Are you serious? You're "still sure their only motivation is still profit" .... INCREDIBLE. It had crossed my mind that IBM might be interested in making money too.
"IBM's Unix license is irrevocable, perpetual and fully paid up. It cannot be terminated. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It does not feel pity, remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead."
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
Doesn't this say something to you? Maybe you should stop reading them if they don't interest you. But don't push your crap on everyone else.
Please, SCO story whiners, you are a minority. SCO stories are obviously extremely popular on Slashdot. The editors would be fools not to post them.
Clever signature text goes here.
I haven't seen this posted before. In a news.com article, IBM's alleged violations are listed:
Specifically, the transferred code includes the Journaled File System (JFS), extensions to make Linux work on a multiprocessor server employing the non-uniform memory access (NUMA) technique, Sontag said. In addition, he said read-copy update (RCU) for relieving some memory bottlenecks on multiprocessor servers, was transferred.
Well IBM was regarded as THE "Evil Empire" in the 80's if you was a Nerd, Geek, etc. At this present time it's Microsoft, who knows who it will be in 20 years time.
So the idea is that if you pay millions for commercial software, some company you didn't even know you were doing business with can shut you down. But if you use the free software that works better, is more compatible and looks the same, you're good to go. And this is a problem. OK, thought I had it. Somebody explain this again.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Since filing a lawsuit against IBM, SCO has made public statements and accusations about IBM's Unix license and about Linux in an apparent attempt to create fear uncertainty and doubt among IBM's customers and the open source community.
Yeah, SCO. Don't even think for a moment that you can out FUD IBM. They invented FUD. Its their world, you're just a squirrel trying to get a nut! Now step off!
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
We're sorry SCO, but your call cannot be completed at this time. Please hang up and try again or try at a later time.
We need Macintosh power. I *am* Macintosh power!
Fuck you. kthx Gotta love that. Just for pure entertainment value. :)
jX [ Make everything as simple as possible, but no simpler. - Einstein ]
And not just that, Gerstner was a "traditional" CEO which is what they needed. Instead of responding to and engaging in the endless personality conflicts and insults that are constantly lobbed around Silicon Valley he basically just shrugged his shoulders and got down to the job of repairing the company and rescuing the stock price. His book is a good read, and the thing I find most interesting is that he didn't have some blinding insight into technology, he just shut his mouth, relied on common sense, and focused on what makes businesses work. It's amazing what a cool head can accomplish.
I know it's silly but I always love when IBM uses the phrase "FUD" in corporate announcements
h tm
The irony is delicious, especially when it was Gene Amdahl who coined the phrase "fear, uncertainty and doubt" to describe IBM's tactics towards his company after he quit IBM and founded Amdahl Computers (see one of the 1975 entries at http://www.academic.marist.edu/pennings/hyprhsty.
Call me old fashioned, but I like a dump to be as memorable as it is devastating - Bender
We have been reporting endlessly for weeks that a skinny field mouse, obviously starving slowly to death, has been madly dragging at the claws and kicking the feet of a bengal tiger, in an apparent attempt to beat the sleeping beast within an inch of its life and steal its larder.
Today's update: The mouse bounded upon the tiger's face and kicked it in the lips. In response, the tiger slowly and barely opened one eye, and fixed the mouse firmly in its gaze.
More updates as the situation warrants.
"cowboy Neal Exposed" ;)
now there's a way to keep people from clicking on a link!
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
What if SCO is right and IBM has stolen IP?
Then IBM flattens them with their formidable collection of patents. If you think IBM *might* have stolen SCO's IP... well, I can almost *guarantee* that IBM has a patent that SCO has violated.
Either way, SCO is gonna get squished.
"Martha's polishing brass on the Titanic - it's all going down, man." -- Fight Club
a word of advice, you don't go after the company that practically has the patent on ones and zeros.
sure, you might go after one division, and hope that just want to shut you up, but the core of the company? never.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Well, at least OpenBSD lays claim to being the first open source OS that can have the fun of terrorist allegations.
"As a result of the DARPA review of the project, and due to world events and the evolving threat posed by increasingly capable nation-states, the Government on April 21 advised the University to suspend work on the "security fest" portion of the project." (ie. the OpenBSD c2k3 hackathon)
-- Jan Walker, (703) 696-2404, jwalker@darpa.mil
See http://www.openbsd.org
This string of false accusations relating terrorism to open source software is becoming increasingly more popular it would seem.
Lou "Agent Blue" Gerstner to Darl "Retro" McBride: "It seems that you have been living two lives, Mister McBride. One of these lives - has a future. The other - does not. Oh, who the fuck am I kidding. We're going to pound your balls flat with a mallet."
(Wotthehell, two SCO threads, I'll post my Matrix one-liner twice.)
But in the spirt of avoiding redundancy, I'll throw in one more obvious one inspired by the past day or so:
Hydrodemolitionbot: "Yo! McBride! Bite my deep blue ass!"
Actually "FUD" was coined in a fit of Fruedian Slippage by people that were in fact well aware of the tactic. The Open SOurce/Linux community invented the term and the tactic and use it daily. /. is the current supreme FUD spewing vehicle.
"They know of what they speak of".
"How about I give you the finger, and you go the hell away."
It sounds like a chalenge but what a great way to go.
If you are about to quit and you have access to some company account (petty cash will do) then go and spend it all on 5,000 cpies of OS/2 or something equally as stupid.
Imagine the fame for being the firsrt person to be fired for buying IBM.
Mouse powered Chips, Open source Processors and Lego
The Open SOurce/Linux community invented the term and the tactic...
Did they, or did it originally apply to IBM?
Interesting results from the Insider page:
2003-06-11
OLSON, MICHAEL P
Vice President
6,000
Automatic Sale at $8.59 - $8.66 per share.
(Proceeds of about $52,000)
2003-06-09
BENCH, ROBERT K.
Chief Financial Officer
7,000
Planned Sale
(Estimated proceeds of $60,000)
2003-06-09
BENCH, ROBERT K.
Chief Financial Officer
7,000
Automatic Sale at $9.16 - $9.3 per share.
(Proceeds of about $65,000)
2003-06-06
HUNSAKER, JEFF F.
Vice President
5,000
Automatic Sale at $8.90 per share.
(Proceeds of $44,500)
OSX isn't unix, right? ;-)
Yeah, maybe Google or Yahoo or some internet company will become the next evil empire. Evil companies are always cute when they are still a young pup.
AOL already missed their shot as the big bad, since they are currently imploding.
IBM simply put a brick wall into SCOs way. Considering that with all the ruckus they made SCO has burned all bridges behind them and will never be able to get this resolved on friendly terms there's no way SCO can go: if they stall the shareholders will finally loose confidence and SCO stock will drop through the floor to it's real value, and if they go to court IBM has them where it wants them and SCOs bubble will burst, maybe they can drag along the case a little longer by fighting in court, but then IBM might also countersue for damaged reputation, reduced sales because of FUD etc.
IBM is calling on SCOs bluff, so SCO either has to fold or show their weak hand and lose.
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
Imagine the fame for being the first person to be fired for buying IBM.
Old news. fortune(1) has the following quote from the WSJ in 1989.
Although it is still a truism in industry that "no one was ever fired for
buying IBM," Bill O'Neil, the chief technology officer at Drexel Burnham
Lambert, says he knows for a fact that someone has been fired for just that
reason. He knows it because he fired the guy.
"He made a bad decision, and what it came down to was, 'Well, I
bought it because I figured it was safe to buy IBM,'" Mr. O'Neil says.
"I said, 'No. Wrong. Game over. Next contestant, please.'"
-- The Wall Street Journal, December 6, 1989
Question. If the contended source that is in linux was in source code for the AIX 4.3.3 OS that has been floating around the underground[1] communities for years, would that not account for the code appearing in linux -- but without any improper action on the part of IBM[2].
[1] Source code leaks happen. You think all these exploits and vulnrabilities you see for AIX, IRIX, SOLARIS, and even IOS occur from people doing just black box testing? No. There are copies of the source trees floating about, and traded like dirty porn mags in the seediest corners of the internet.
[2] With the exception that IBM did not properly controll their (and others) information assets which permitted the leak to occur?
its got to be said... everyone has something funny to say about this story... Episode X - the funniest gags about SCOIBM you've ever heard.
revenue from international customers accounted for 48 percent of operating system platform revenue.
IBM is an international company. (The "I" in "IBM".) Oops, you mentioned that. Or is "multinational" different than "international"? Maybe they sell in several countries, but never ship anything from one country to another.
MS is an international company. They sold their source code to China, and just gave SCO money that may be half of SCO's revenue.
SCO's "international" customers may just be those terrorists taked about in other posts.
Does the SEC have a particular meaning for the phrase "international customers"? Does it mean any international company? Can it refer to US companies that have divisions outside the US? Can it refer to a company that has sold goods outside our borders? Since the SEC is US-based, can they use the word "foreign" to mean a customer does not have a presence in the US?
I spend my life entertaining my brain.
The way I see this, this can only help Linux in the long run. If IBM wins, and it seems likely it will, we could start to see large chunks of AIX/UNIX code released under the GPL. If the UNIX code is declared generic, inhibitions to release unix-like code under the GPL will decrease substantially. On the other hand, if all hell breaks loose and IBM looses the rights to distribute AIX the results will be even more immediate. The "disputed" code will be replaced under the GPL by our programmers, and life will go on. *Most importantly* SCO cannot win this, because winning places a monsterous shadow of FUD over UNIX. Companies will think twice about investing in UNIX if they have to fear the fickle whims of SCO. This will be very interesting.
Request...
DENIED!!
The second paragraph: "IBM's Unix license is irrevocable, perpetual and fully paid up. It cannot be terminated" is nothing but pissing on SCO's shoes. Beautiful, I can't suppress a beaming smile.
If I were IBM I wouldn't be smiling... IBM's license agreement with SCO (which SCO acquired from AT&T), says "If LICENSEE fails to fulfill one or more of its obligations under this Agreement, AT&T may, upon its election and in addition to any other remedies that it may have, at any time terminate all the rights granted by it hereunder by not less than two (2) months' written notice to LICENSEE specifying such breach, unless within the period of such notice all breaches specified therein shall have been remedied; upon such termination LICENSEE shall immediately discontinue use of and return or destroy all copies of SOFTWARE PRODUCTS subject to this agreement."
IANAL, but that seems pretty straightforward to me...
The sound of a bug being ground under a black leather shoe.
Now, Linux wasn't derived from any AT&T source code; it was written from scratch, under the GPL, much as System V Unix wasn't derived from Linux. Therefore, any System V Unix code that was contributed to Linux was improperly contributed, and should be removed as well! Right?
I have a feeling that if SCO tries to use this particular line of reasoning as stated in that Byte article, they'll get their asses handed to them. Or at least they should...
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
IBM will continue to ship, support and develop AIX which represents years of IBM innovation, hundreds of millions of dollars of investment and many patents. As always, IBM will stand behind our products and our customers.
# # #
Trink Guarino
Director, IBM Media Relations
PS. Nyah Nyah Nyah
IIRC didn't they use Microsoft Flight Simulator to "practice" flying into the trade center? I guess this means that Windows is more "user-friendly" to terrorists.
It's countersuit time! Looks like SCO is utterly screwed at this point. IBM has finally had enough now that SCO has aimed its sights square on IBM's customers.
And in related news, a certain PR spokesman has been reading too much /.
Screw IBM. I'm calling the BSA out on my last two employers tomorrow. That'll teach them for 1) running Appgen, one of the worst POS excuses for an accounting software on Earth and 2) treating me like dirt.
Actually, I might end up leaving one employer alone. They're being migrated to Great Plains, and that's torture enough.
If using Linux is about choice, how come people complain when I choose to use Windows?
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Ahem.
the obvious fact that IBM could disintegrate SCO if they wanted to, why is this press release not on IBM's website?...
Just wondering...
Karma: Bad (but who really cares anyway?)
That about covers it.
Could we get the IBM release in an audio file generated by by a HAL 9000?
Well, I figured that I had heard pretty much everything moronic spewing from SCO headquarters. Well - I was wrong. Those SCO people must have some pretty wild dope there in Utah. If you really want to read some MORONIC comments, head over to Byte and get ready to fall over.
Not only are SCO's mouthpieces claiming they "own" Unix SysV - but everything that ever had an ancestry that can be traced back to SysV including any derivative work. Chris Snotrag spews that even the BSD trees may be tainted (obviously he never read anything about the last legal go-around...) Mind you everything that Snotrag spews about has been totally debunked by the OSI position paper by ESR.
Add to this - SCO making rumbles late last week that they are considering "actions" against an unnamed hardware vendor. Now who could that be? HP/HP-UX/True64? SGI/IRIX? Intel/Monterey? Weeeeee..... everyone into the pool.
Curious though - Do SCO realize the number of other parties are going to get dragged into this including ATT (they signed the original contracts in 1985 with IBM - contracts that up to now have never even been questioned), UCB (via the USL vs. BSDi lawsuit), and all the above players. If they didn't then their legal advise is totally screwy - if they did - they've got _huge_ balls!
I also wonder - did they ever consider the fact that not only the 1500 Fortune Companies they went after but also the DOJ, US Military & US Government all use *NIX extensively (they have gone way beyond AIX in violation in the Byte piece)? They have to be on serious drugs.
So - here a recap of todays events:
SCO screams at top of lungs! (playground style....)
IBM yawns....(800lb. gorilla style)
B.T.W - SCO are now making comments (in public no less) to the effect that IBM has been _deliberately_ circumventing US export controls on certain types of supercomputers!!! If there is an IBM lawyer reading this, you should look at the comments closely. (i.e. slander)
All your (code) base belong to us. -- SCO
SCO is announcing that they are responsible for every version of Unix and have the right to protect the proprietary changesmade by any of the vendors. AIX has been heavily modified by IBM. I am fairly certain that IBM does not want SCO to protect AIX from anything.
Can SCO possibly believe they will get the rights to the modifications made by the distibutors of UNIX? The only system where custom changes are (usually) given back to the "owners" is the GPL. SCO has already proven they do not understand the GPL or how it affects business or software.
I spend my life entertaining my brain.
Whatever you do / / /
Don't fouque with Big Blue
Or Big Blue
Will annihilate you.
This is like defending the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany: You just fall back a little, and fall back a little more, and let the opponent thrash around, kicking and screaming, burning energy and money, wasting men and machines, building up a supply line that he can't defend. SCO has to stay in the headlines, has to keep pushing deeper and deeper so the press stays interested, or else people will catch on to the fact that the don't have the resources to take Moscow, let alone Sibiria, before winter comes.
And winter is on its way. Once the stock market realizes that this is going to be long, drawn out battle, they will lose interest in SCO, and the stock price will start to fall again -- we saw the first frost on Monday. Their stock price is like the temperature in Kelvin, likely to fall towards a very absolute zero if they don't keep moving. SCO is not equipped to fight unter six feet of financial snow, while IBM has resources to burn. This is where the comparison breaks down: IBM is not a starving Communist dictatorship, but rather has the industrial capacity of the U.S. to draw upon.
So time is on IBM's side, while SCO is running out of ways to escalate this fight. And this is what is so beautiful about the press release: The way it makes clear that there will be no quick, furious battle, just a steady stream of legal artillery raining down on SCO while IBM slowly marches away, giving ground, gaining time. The actual court case will trap SCO like ice, and the the snow will start falling, and SCO will start starving.
And all this time, safe behind the Urals, the penguins will be breeding...
Actually it was coined by Gene Amdahl after he left IBM to start his own computer company. "FUD is the fear, uncertainty, and doubt that IBM sales people instill in the minds of potential customers who might be considering Amdahl products."
See http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/FUD
I think the time has come to sue M$ for all the illegal acts and coping of other people ideas in M$
shitty OS and software.
Half of Slashdot will get laid before this resolves itself.
That hinges on AT&T's successors -- we presume SCO although that's been called into question too -- complied with their part of the license, namely "by not less than two (2) months' written notice to LICENSEE specifying such breach". Yeah, SCO gave IBM "100 days" notice of something, but of what, exactly?
Even if IBM flagrantly violated the SCO-IBM contract to develop Monteray (and I'm not saying they did), that is not the contract by which SysV was licensed to IBM. Unless SCO can point to something in the original IBM-AT&T contract that IBM violated (and which IBM hasn't since fixed), SCO may as well go piss up a rope.
-- Alastair
Microsoft tactics are:
1. Embrace
2. Extend
3. Extinguish
4. Profit!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Imagine you're IBM. Why buy SCO? After the damages lawsuit, you're going to own every patent, copyright, trademark, and toilet brush SCO has anyway.
It reminds me of the end of a game of monopoly when one player ends up mortgaging everything then giving it all to the (now rich) player, who proceeds to unmortgage and build hotels..
EBCDIC. I hate those motherfuckers for that.
The mainstream press couldn't care less about this stupid "story".
Because if they do, this will happen:
1.SCO reveals code
2.IBM, red hat et al remove or re-write the code and give "fixes" to their customers
3.IBM, red hat et al can then say "yes we were using your code but we stopped as soon as we found out about it" which means that SCO cant do things like filing an injunction that says "if you use our code, you have to pay us mega $$$"
and 4.it becomes a LOT harder for SCO to sue individuals and corperations that are using AIX/Linux/etc (because they will have applied the "fixes" from IBM, red hat et al and therefore its up to SCO to show that they were previously using SCO IP which is harder to do than showing that the users are currently using SCO ip.
Personally, I think IBM should argue that unless SCO shows it the code, there is no way that it can comply with a "dont use our code" injunction.
Of course they would n't be prosecuted, as GWB says they would persecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
What a bunch of pussies. Jeez.
thus spoke the evil proctologist said: the enema of my enemy is my friend....
The SCO Group of Lindon, Utah (not to be confused with the cutting edge SCO design firm of Santa Cruz that had made contributions to science) is simply trying to use the power of patents to destroy in its quest for riches.
There are many who consider the power to destroy as a greater power than the power to create.
Even though IBM may not have a perfect past, they do have a long history of creating things, and that history deserves a little bit of admiration. IBM has made a good steady stream of contributions to science along the path of it quest for world dominance. So, yeah, I will cheer big blue as I personally value those who create more than those that simply brandish threats and demand payments.
If you look at page 2 of this document from SCO's site -- in a letter TO IBM, it quite clearly states: ... are owned by you"
"We agree that modifications and derivative works
The only qualification is that the actual lines of code from ATT's source code in the derivative works still belong to ATT.
Elsewhere, in the documents, I found a paragraph that implies that if IBM has someone look at the original source code, write new code, the new code belongs to IBM. This seems to completely destroy any argument that the "methods, etc" belong to SCO.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated.
It amuses me to no end that people consider buying SCO to be a valid option to be brought up again and again. There is no point. It would be of benefit to SCO shareholders, and to reward them for putting these idiots in place is not on IBM's agenda.
If IBM were to buy anybody, they might buy Novell, since Novell owns the patent. Relatively speaking, that'd be an end run around SCO. In fact, if you really wanted to have fun as IBM, you'd buy the patent, and sell it to FSF for $1, and have the patented code GPL'ed.
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. - G.B. Shaw
Yet Another F'ing Sco Thread
"Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms,
The court also finds that IBM is SCO's "daddy", and instructs SCO's legal counsel and executive management to "say it, biatch".
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
Shock and awe, IBM!!! Shock and freeking AWE! I mean, yes, I agree, we are whipped to a war frenzy here.
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain with all your metadata.
IBM today announced the completion of the world's fastest legal team: Blue Thunder which was jointly developed by the U.S. Energy Department's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Harvard University and IBM. Blue Thunder can perform 3.9 trillion lawsuits per second (15,000 times faster than the average IP law firm) and has over 2.6 trillion bytes of high-tech patents to work with (80,000 times more than the average Wall Street tort artist). It would take a lawyer using a small office of secretaries 63,000 years to perform as many legal actions as this team can perform in a single second.
...Fucked Up Disinformation.
All of the court documents are available on SCO's web site including the notice letter. They're claming violation of the clause that reads "LICENSEE agrees that it shall hold SOFTWARE PRODUCTS subject to this Agreement in confidence for AT&T. LICENSEE further agrees that it shall not make any disclosure of such SOFTWARE PRODUCTS to anyone, except to employees of LICENSEE to whom such disclosure is necessary to the use for which rights are granted..."
Though unrelated to the case itself, I still find it funny that SCO has kept their UnitedLinux page on its website given its spiteful accusations. Well, I guess that they are milking Linux (and IBM) for all that it can until the impending legal smackdown.
Isn't it rather silly that the moment we all get an oppurtunity to bash someone - we just go for it.
.... quiet ... must ... yell ... at ... something ... ahhhh ...
This week, Micro$soft has been pretty quiet so we take on SCO for what it's worth.
Feels like an episode in The Simpsons when Homer says: Too
(no, I do not favor SCO in any way - but if one reads the comments made so far, I'd guess half of them haven't even seen SCO's homepage or have little or no knowledge to make such claims.)
Ahead of all the others, SCO's biggest mistake was that they accused IBM of ignoring its confidentiality obligations. IBM either partners with or manages systems for every major company on Earth. (Maybe a few other planets, too, for all I know.) IBM Global Services' main stock in trade is its trustworthiness in keeping secrets. A measly $billion$ isn't even in the noise compared to the value of IBM's reputation in this matter, so IBM simply can not afford for SCO to have even a shred of credibility when the dust settles.
This sucker is going to a finish, and I somehow doubt that IBM will be the one finished.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
What about SUN? SGI's IRIX? I don't here any threats there...
||| I still can't believe Parkay's not butter.
"Sorry, chum, but your moderation was fair. "
I see what you're saying, but I disagree. The article doesn't call it 'FUD'. The poster I was replying to called it FUD, which is a term used quite frequently here on Slasdot. I didn't connect the dots. I admit that. Just figured he read something I didn't.
Oh well. Too bad modding me down is more important than answering my question. I appreciate you taking the time to answer my question, though.
"Derp de derp."
The Revenge Of the Coders. Why doesn't everyone who contributed to the Linux kernel slap a TRO on SCO? I'll do the paperwork and the filing for free....
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain with all your metadata.
I'd love to see the fireworks when SCO tries to sue the NSA.
Coining a phase means creating a phrase.
It doesn't mean quoting it.
"I know it's silly but I always love when IBM uses the phrase "FUD" in corporate announcements"
"NanoGator, I think they modded you down because my post quoted the phrase "fear uncertainty and doubt" directly from the IBM press release before I used the acronym FUD."
To be fair, it's not like you said "FUD = Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt". Your post sort of sounds like IBM said 'FUD' (the acronymn, not the phrase). I can understand NG's confusion. The dude with the mod points could have just explained that instead of leaving NG in ignorance.
It's not like he was trolling.
Martha Stewart.
... against corporate crime, executives are getting caught, exposed and tossed in jail. I'm suprised you didn't know that. It's been in all of the papers.
Watching Cowboy Bebop in my jammies, eating a bowl of Shreddies.
I'd imagine IBM don't particularly like companies trying to, when stripped of the legal niceties, basically extort money out of them. Crushing SCO sends a message to anyone else who might try it that IBM isn't going to roll over easy.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
"Tell me Mr SCO...what good is a lawsuit...if you don't have any money left to pay your lawyers?"
:/
I think the only company that would be scarier to go up against than IBM, would be GE - they have nukes.
Vince McMahon loses to Ling-Ling!
Will IBM own the UNIX name if they should destroy/buy/otherwise kill SCO? I keep reading that SCO determines the licensing, but I though the Open Group owned the name since about '95? I'm not crazy, am I?
And if I'm not crazy, what's the situation like between SCO and the Open Group?
-phish
Somebody earned their paycheck. ;-)
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
If (and a big IF) this case actually makes it to court and recieves a judgement this case could very well determine the fate of all free/open software including but not limited to Linux, OS X, BSDs, and all of GNU. If SCO settles with IBM and IBM acquires the same copyrights/patents that SCO is claiming to have the Community could be in big trouble if IBM decides to press the same issues that that SCO is. How could Redhat, Suse, Mandrake, Gentoo and the rest compare to IBM's lawyerly might. Its no contest maybe better than IBM vs. SCO but not that much. I don't think IBM would pull this currently they are enjoying much good will and support from the Community but in a few years diffrent leaders/mindset could cause things to be diffrent.
Now if this case goes to court and GPL/BSD liscenses are validated we will all be on very good ground
just food for thought
Well a modding down for asking the question is allright with me. Your question clutters up the thread and doesn't really add anything to the discussion at all, (sort of like this post). A google search for "FUD" returns a very good selection of hits. The very first link would've answered your question and saved us all a tiny bit of bandwidth. You could have saved yourself some time as well as you would have found the answer right away, instead of waiting for someone to answer your simple query. I'm sure you've heard of google, it's how you find out answers to simple little questions like "Does SCO have any ties to MS?", or "Who is this Big Blue you refer to?". What I find hard to believe is that you never heard of FUD before as I've seen your posts around here as long as I've been a member, (I think). 42, IANAL, Stephen King is dead, *BSD is dying.
Anti-social? My code is just platform-specific.
IBM is already using the expression FUD in the original statement. A legalese-to-nerdish translation is really not necessary...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Look at the statement and in the second para IBM says clearly that it is defending it's AIX customers. The IBM licence for UNIX that as reflected in AIX is probably as rock solid as they suggest ie. irrevocable, never ending and all that.
They do not state that they will defend Linux even if it is implied.
Not to imply that SCO has any validity to their claim but to tout IBM as a hero for what they do normally is silly. That is IBM's response to just about anything...SCREW YOU, we are bigger than you and have more lawyers and money.
That is what got them in trouble with the feds before, it is what almost led them down the tubes following the MicroChannnel/PS2 fiasco. Given enough tries even doing nothing will be the right answer some of the times.
On a side note our IBM rep assured us that we are covered, we dealt with IBM in good faith and with documentation that they were legally able contract for the SW at the time, even if the unthinkable happens and IBM loses, business's would at that point have to start doing somthing new, but until then all is good.
"Well a modding down for asking the question is allright with me. Your question clutters up the thread and doesn't really add anything to the discussion at all..." ...except to other people (such as newcomers) who weren't familiar with the term, which btw was critical to the +5 Insightful post.
"Derp de derp."
So, how many nightspots are there in Laos?
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Right now, SCO stock is flying high, but it's only paper profit. The company officers and management really can't sell a dollar of the stock they own now, because the whole SCO vs IBM case already stinks of fraud, and if anyone can prove that SCO perpetuated any fraud, it's IBM. It's transparent to all of us that SCO is just doing this to pump up their price, don't you think that the SEC and the Justice Department hasn't figured it out too? You think that Martha Stewart's in deep doo doo...compared to what they could get SCO for she's guilty of stealing a second newspaper from an honor box.
The chances of SCO not being crushed by big blue are about... 2^226709:1
First of all, you can't assume their religion by the school they attended. Only one exec comes from BYU. About four from Utah State. Both mormons and non-mormons attend these colleges. Chances are the guy from BYU is one though.
Second, Caldera was established in Utah... why would it surprise anyone that they would be created by people from there. Once again, this doesn't convey their religion.
Third, about your conspiracy theory. The Mormon church has an auditing committee that declares all operations of church owned assets at least yearly. The church doesn't own anything in SCO.
Fourth, again downplaying a "mormon conspiracy", Novell execs are friends of the Caldera execs, as the Caldera people are ex-Novell people. They're are mormons in Novell too, and it's in Utah. yet Novell was so ready to defend linux. There is no church dealings here, obviously.
Obviously you're a troll considering your by your intended provokation and lacking argument for the matter.
It said AIX represented years of IBM innovation, hundreds of millions of dollars of investment and many patents [emphasis mine] and IBM would stand behind its products and customers.
IBM's original intent behind getting patents was to use them for self-defense. Someone could sue them for infringement, they'd walk in with their truckload of patents, and the matter would be promptly dropped, or settled in some sort of cross-licensing arrangement tilted in IBM's favor, no doubt.
.."Go fuck yourselves! We 0wnZ J00!!" have make a better news statement from IBM? They really need to stop being such bores ;)
"Klaatu, verada, necktie!" -Ash
A "fashion" guy like Gore must be a Mac guy hands down. I was a bit worried for a sec.
see post here
http://www.arie.org/doh/
This site goes out to all those rednecks who are having trouble understanding this SCO/Linux issue.
Linus Torvalds :-)
Spencer Ogden
If some playground dweeb starts telling the biggest guy in school, "You stole my calculator," do you really expect the big guy to bother getting a stick? Just let him wear himself out trying to hit you.
SCO could have had a chance, but they seem intent on pouring all their cash (and cachet) into a huge drainpipe labelled:
They just don't realise that it won't survive the first iteration.Author, Shell Scripting : Expert Re
Yeah, but Honeywell has better avionics with which to deliver their nukes..
did you ever think sco are thieving bastards?
fuck you asshole
Two things are at work here.... pick your poison.
SCO is in trouble, they are attempting to strongarm money where none exists. (See Amazon and one-click. Once you have someone that pays the fee, you now have a stand. Problem is, only Microsoft, with a dog in the fight, bought a license. If they could have talked someone like IBM in to bowing, they might have something.)
Option Two: SCO was actually sitting on this until Linux established a bigger user base before they sprung their trap. (Remember when Rambus attempted the exact same manuever?)
Either way, SCO is playing a shitty game. Unfortunately their financial situation sabotaged that game.
Forgeone conclusion; why bother pretending it was about WMD?
This is the David (who I would normally support) fighting Goliath, but with no moral, legal, or other support. SCO seem intent on going down in a blaze of disrepute. I find that pretty interesting... maybe they'll come up with something real, maybe they won't.
Sorry if the real world doesn't happen quickly enough for American attention spans.
Personally, I've been working with UNIX for over a decade, and Linux for half that time, so I am very interested in these new "interpretations" of the contracts involved. If you aren't interested, wait for the 15-second flash on CNN, if that's all you can cope with. It'll be there, hopefully before the "late GWBush (Jnr) indicted as a war criminal" report.
Author, Shell Scripting : Expert Re
I would be quite hesitant to say that this is win/win... (not that they will) But if SCO did manage to win this case it would severely hamper Linux as a platform. Sure, the Kernel devs will re-write the offending code, but that does not mean that Linus/RedHat/Suse et al will be free from legal challenges...
/. I once told my boss (the guy who buys all the IIS and NT machines in the office) that I ran OSX... he was suprised to hear that IBM had upgraded OS/2 to version 10!... If SCO wins, then a good chunk of Linux momentum will be lost...
More importantly were SCO to win would be the shadow over Linux that would be cast... sure, SCO would effectively kill their UNIX sales, but really they are peanuts... I think SCO is out to become a company that just exists to collect royalties.
Now, I know what you might be thinking, Linux is NOT Unix... I too know what the GNU in GNU/Linux stands for... but consider that the business types who write the cheques are not necessarily people who will read
_CMK
Bad spellers of the world untie!
"And then I'll do it again!" yelled Arthur. "And when I've finished I will take all the little bits, and I will jump on them!"
"And I will carry on jumping on them," yelled Arthur, still running, "until I get blisters, or I can think of anything even more unpleasant to do, and then ..."
Author, Shell Scripting : Expert Re
Nope, I envision it as a boxing match. Paul Rueubens vs Mike Tyson. And we all know how that will end. I can see the headlines now:
Iron Mike eats Pee Wee Herman.
Democrat delenda est
Umm, didn't Boies once work as IBM's defense atty in the federal antitrust case against IBM back in the 70's - 80's?
Now he's representing IBM's opponent? Doesn't that constitute an "Attorney Conflict Of Interest"? If he loses for SCO, then SCO can sue Boies for attorney malpractice.
Attorneys have been disbarred for failure to excuse themselves from counsel in COI cases.
Um, but huge chunks (most?) of Linux were written outside the US. The code isn't the United States' to control.
j00 SCO crazy!
...obviously didn't donate enough to the republicans then.
Hand meet ass.
"Well, if SCO hoped that IBM would settle or buy them out, they were clearly mistaken. Now that THAT plan has backfired, d u think they'll go after some one else next ? Maybe RedHat or SuSE ?"
Well, you see, this would require SCO to still exist as a functioning company after the IBM fiasco is all said and done. IBM's win would undoubtedly require SCO to pay IBM's legal fees, pay the court fees, and their own lawyers. IBM could also choose to countersue, citing numerous patent violations. If SCO runs out of money, they can't afford any more high-dollar lawyers, and they can't afford further court fees.
Also, don't forget, the court in Germany bitchslapped SCO already, so SuSE is out of the target area in German court.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
You know what I'm talking about...
You know you do..
You're getting out of your car with your briefcase and your bag of groceries and you have this eerie feeling you're forgetting something important. You stand up and reach for the door and give it a shove. As the door careens toward closure, that little switch in your brain flips and that little voice starts screaming "Take it back! Take it back! Your keys are in there!!!" In an instant, your body wretches trying to catch the car door closing but to no avail. That little voice in your head then says "Awww shit, you really fucked up now, and you're beyond the point of no return."
This is what SCO has just done. They have started the final nail in their coffin in their juvenile, if not heroic, last stand. Their captain has just delivered the message to the crew that this cause is more important than their corporate lives, and they will fight to the death even though the odds are indeed impossible.
In other news, monster.com stock is up 40% today on a wave of new resumes, mostly for UNIX developers.
Now, if this turns out to be a "David and Goliath" situation and they get one of these "root for the underdog" bleeding heart liberal judges, we may have an interesting time yet. These do-gooders who think that parity is more important than justice and truth are easily conned by the "crying little guy" who is actually the devil incarnate.
Liscenses revoke SCO...
at least it was the first dozen times this link was posted....
Microsoft innovates nothing, not even underhanded business tactics.
They learned everything from IBM.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If I were IBM I wouldn't be smiling...[deleted]. IANAL, but that seems pretty straightforward to me...
It's not so straight-forward. Firstly, that document doesn't appear to be even arguably a true representation of the agreement regarding AIX. It doesn't even allow IBM to sub-license. This opens up the possibility that other evidence can be brought in to show what the agreement really was. The appendices also tend to show that IBM has rights that are not mentioned in the body of the agreement - for instance, they show the fees for sub-licensing.
The license appears to be in the standard form that would have been offered by AT&T to end users. This means that even within the document it will be construed where ambiguous against SCO (as AT&T's successor).
But once it is established that there are additional terms that must include a right to sub-license, it would require very clear language to allow SCO to revoke sublicenses previously granted.
What's more, the additional rights of IBM under the agreement appear to be to grant sub-licenses, but the license once granted is actually an AT&T license - the end user doesn't depend on IBM for the continuing validity of the license from AT&T (or its successors).
So you see, it's not straight-forward at all.
excerpted from:I A.Ksg /papers/ibm.pdf (real tilde doesn't display properly here)
Red and White and Blue All Over: The Political Development of IBM
http://ksghome2.harvard.edu/[tilde].DHart.CS
"The cost of victory was high. Cary [then CEO of IBM] spent an estimated 500 days preparing for and providing testimony that amounted to more than 750,000 words. ***IBM generated nearly 50,000 tons of legal documents (enough, Cary noted in 1981, to fuel the biggest bonfire...in corporate history ). Some observers and participants believed that the antitrust culture made IBM quite timid and contributed to the woes that beset it a decade later. The company s chief scientist at the time recalled being forbidden from even purchasing the machines made by competing manufacturers in order to study how they worked."
That's alota snow!
The paper is interesting in its own right.
-brice
Reading the agreements on SCO's site that were mentioned earlier, SCO may have the right of termination of IBM's contract, but they're blowing smoke when they say they can make customer copies of AIX invalid. The licensing language only provides for copies of System V and AIX in IBM's possession.
See totals above.
Uhhh, he successfully defended IBM in the antitrust case of United States vs IBM. You'll find a very short wikipedia article on him here
-- Kircle
Most of use depend on *nix; Windows have a few servers here and there, but ... and think about the possibility ... if SCO won this case in, say, 2007, and all UNIX derivatives were invalid, what would we be left with?
MS Windows, which by then would have Palladium. If SCO get their way, even *BSD will be dead; in the worst-case scenario, the US will be depending on European laws making something (Linux, *BSD, whatever) legal to be distributed (hmm, maybe under license?) to the USA
Author, Shell Scripting : Expert Re
IBM is going crush SCO. It's gonna take a few years but they have been marked for death. No licensing, no merger, no buyout. Remember, IBM got into a pissing contest with the Justice Dept. in the 70's. In case you need to be reminded the Justice Dept. is part of the U. S. Government who prints the money. The Justice Dept. does not have to show a profit, IBM does. IBM fought the Justice Dept. to a standstill for over 12 years and still showed a profit every year.
IBM most likely employs more people in their legal department than all of SCO. IBM is going to go into court with SCO and stall, bleeding them dry in the process. The legal fees will bankrupt SCO and IBM will not even break a sweat.
You do realize that this is precisely what is so wrong with our legal system and how corporations abuse it, right? It just happens to be working in our favor at the moment, but what happens why Goliath goes after the little guy and the little guy is right?
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
Your question clutters up the thread and doesn't really add anything to the discussion at all,
Sorry but yes it had something because I was looking for the meaning of FUD. What is it not adding nothing is this nonsence discussion right now.
Yahh, hiii haaaaa! -Major Kong, from Dr. Strangelove
So you see, it's not straight-forward at all.
The part I was referring to as straightforward was the fact that there is a mechanism by which SCO can terminate the agreement. IBM claimed in their press release that the license is "irrevocable, perpetual and fully paid up. It cannot be terminated."
What you're saying on the surface doesn't match my experience when dealing with contracts and law.
Rights have to be specifically assignable, or else they are not. That is to protect exactly against this sort of thing. Typically, legal language would be something like "AT&T or their assignees".
You're thinking of [1F12] Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy
Interestingly (or maybe not), that episode is about the doll's original creator working with Lisa to try and compete with what the heartless organization has turned the doll into.
No, I guess that isn't interesting, or strictly relevant, but maybe snpp.com is.
R: That voice. Where have I heard that voice before? B: In about 365 other episodes. But I don't know who it is either.
That isn't the equation I am using.
I noticed you completely ignored his first point.
The equation I am using is: Terrorism = killing innocent civilians
Your definition is wrong. By your definition, mugging is terrorism, accidentally running over a pedestrian is terrorism, pretty much anything that causes anyone not in combat would be terrorism.
Whether someone dies or not is irrelevant - terrorist groups sometimes give warning before they blow up a building. If everyone is evacuated, and nobody is killed, then by your definition, it's not an act of terrorism.
Take a look at the root of terrorism: terror - as in the goal is to invoke terror.
The goal of war is not necessarily to inspire terror in the populace. Many wars (notably civil wars througout history) were not fought to inspire terror in one side or the other. The American Revolution had nothing to do with terrorism - there were no revolutionaries in Britain blowing up civilian targets.
As the previous poster said: You should learn the language before posting again.
(no text)
I bet you thought he was joking about "World Domination".
I would not be too sure of that. Many of the things McBitch has been saying amount to fraud and he should be held personally responsible for that. No matter how bad things get, you can always make them worse.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
And SCO has yet to clearly specify (as opposed to vague generalities) what was disclosed(*), let alone prove that IBM made such disclosures.
Even if they do manage to prove IBM did that (unlikely, given IBM's usual extreme care in managing IP rights), IBM can argue the point that the clause was rendered moot because the "software products" had previously been disclosed by AT&T and others (see the USL vs BSDI suit, for example), including AT&T's successors Novell and SCO.
Sure, if, if SCO can prove that things actually happened the way they said, and that the license means what they think, and that the point was not rendered moot by previous actions, then IBM is in trouble. I wouldn't hold my breath on that point.
(*) The vague generalities mentioned have included JFS (Journaling File System), the Linux version of which was ported from OS/2; SMP, which in large part was developed (in Linux) by Alan Cox on hardware donated by Caldera for the purpose, and NUMA, orginally an SGI development. None of these things were in the SysV code that IBM licensed. For SCO to claim that these are non-disclosable "software products" for the purpose of the license, they'd also have to prove that their interpretation of the "derivative work" ownership reversion applies to such technologies that were added to UNIX/AIX by IBM rather than derived from it. Good fscking luck.
-- Alastair
The point is, however, that this may not be the proper license. If this license doesn't allow sub-licensing, then it is not the license which IBM utilizes for AIX. And, regardless, SCO is utterly full of shit when they claim that AIX customers may be held liable - that's just pure and utter crap -- the customers have a license derived directly from SCO. SCO would have to suspend it from each and every one of those customers, individually, and would have to give some proof of those individual customers violating the terms of the license. Frankly, SCO is screaming for a lawsuit on illegal restraint of trade here... probably because if they get sued by IBM or by one of IBM's customers then they're in a much better legal position as the defendant.
Beyond that, it's still not clear that IBM even violated this license... or rather, that SCO didn't violate it in claiming that IBM violated it. Depends on what information SCO submitted, in writing, to IBM. If they didn't detail the exact violation -- and their court briefing sure as hell isn't adequate -- then they're in violation of the license and cannot suspend IBM's license over this. It's exactly this kind of thing that got UnixWare in trouble with UC and BSD. If you don't play by the rules in IP, you risk losing the IP completely - it's the trade off for the monopoly power granted by copyright, patent, et. al. (and, yes, I know this is allegedly trade secret stuff, but SCO's gonna have one hell of a hard time making that stick against IBM -- I mean, come on... IBM was doing "enterprise features" before Unix even existed).
Your synopsis of the case indicates you have paid no attention already. Had you been reading SCO preess releases, you might have been alternately amused and outraged. Did you send in your "one time only" $99 per CPU Linux fee? Do you really think they own all of Unix? Their have backed their ludicrous claims with nothing but slander and insult and so far the only people taking them seriously are M$ and an English major. If you would, kindly sit at that other table in the cafeteria with all the PHB for the durration and quit posting useless drivel.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Hmm. I know Novell gave SCO the right to license out Unix bits, but did they give up the right to issue licenses themselves? My question is: Could IBM nip over to Novell, pay them 20 bucks and get a brand spanking new Unix license?
---
Am I the only one suspicious about the authenticity of this so-called "press release"?
There's only one press release dated the 16th, and it doesn't mention SCO.
Actual Transcripts of the discussions between SCO, IBM and Linux vendors ..
. html?thread=2531787
http://www.livejournal.com/community/linux/397771
JFS and NUMA are not implemented in system V or SCO Unix, the code SCO showed their shills to back aledged copyright violation. SCO says one thing one day and another the next. None of it ever adds up.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
You are a fucking waste of air.
Yeah, IBM could make their life a misery if they ever tried to sell any products that crossed IBM's patents. But it seems clear to me that SCO only want to be an IP protection racket. If I was a SCO customer, I'd be looking for replacement products.
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
I never said he couldn't ask the question. However I did say that it should be modded down because it is a waste of space/time to the vast majority of /. readers. You could have googled for "FUD" as well, and you would have found out what it meant. I thought that was what geeks did when they wanted to find out the definition of a word like FUD, or to figure out who RMS is. And as for this "nonsence" discussion, I said in my post pretty much the exact same thing, (it's a waste of space/time), so thanks for chiming in to agree with me, and adding some more nonsense, (proper spelling), to this thread.
Anti-social? My code is just platform-specific.
Well IBM was regarded as THE "Evil Empire" in the 80's if you was a Nerd, Geek, etc. At this present time it's Microsoft, who knows who it will be in 20 years time.
My bet is eBay. When they get big, that's when they get out of hand. eBay's gotten big, fast, and shows no sign of slowing down.
dude, where were you during the September that never ended? Usenet used to be a great place for info on the internet.
FreeBSD for the impatient.
I agree. Wish I had mod points.
Yeah, Slashdot posters have such refined senses of humor that I have all "Funny" comments knocked down by a -2 modifier so I don't waste my time with them. Please. To paraphrase JWZ's famous comment about Linux, Slashdot is funny only if you're not terribly smart (still in high school). [ducks] [karma sinks like a rock]
One simple rule for its versus it's
Did anyone ever stop and think about this for a second -
1. Maybe SCO planted this code a long time ago, knowing full well what they would do a year or whenever later. They set themselves up for a lawsuit.
2. What if the opposite is true - SCO took Linux code and put it into UNIX? We can't verify which side put the code in first, because SCO's unix code isn't open. We do know however when the linux code was put in.
We already know SCO violated the GPL for their linux compatibility stuff.
Brielle
Isn't it an example if typical behavior of a typical american?
Why is everyone making this out to be some kind of wrestling match? You all sound like kids in the playground saying "OOHHhh, I'm the Hulkster! Die Bitch!"
Maybe you're all just losers.
i'm amazed that i survived - an airbag saved my life.
Achille Talon
Hop!
In any case, this is a historic moment, and SCO's gonna be smacked like a bloated mosquito. Too bad you're going to miss it when it happens.
A rolling stone is worth two in the bush!
Look, pallie, it 'aint OUR fuckin' fault you are dumber than Homer J. Christ. The moderation was fair, and it stands. Now stop whining and start reading, so you don't make the same ill-witted mistakes in the future. Not that I consider such a prospect even slightly likely.
20 years from now? thatt'd be Linus Torvalds, INC.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Typically, legal language would be something like "AT&T or their assignees".
You took the words right from my fingertips.
All I can is say is that SCO must have a terminal brain fart. I know that Texas Instruments reversed their sagging fortunes by enforcing patents and suing companies. I guess that SCO thinks they can do that too.
I had to administer a SCO box at a former employer, and all I can say is that it was the least friendly UNIXes I've ever dealt with. I say goodbye to SCO and good riddance.
In defense of SCO, we'd all be cheering them on if they were suing Microsoft, and I'd bet we'd try to find some justification for it and cheer them on. Note to SCO--If you survive, go after Microsoft! Oh wait! You are probably their patsy. Er that's Microsoft Patsyâ. Never mind.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
If I had moderator points at the moment, now would be the time to use them.
All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.
The second paragraphi is pretty much the formost modification to the novell/sco/ibm agreement found on the exhibit d on sco site Ten million and some signatures can buy you UNIX. Can't keep the owner from shutting up.
Yahoo Finance News has several articles about it today, including the IBM press release text.
Google News doesn't (fortunately) consider BusinessWire to be a news medium, so it's not on there yet.
The second paragraphi is pretty much the formost modification to the novell/sco/ibm agreement found on the
exhibit d on sco site Ammendment X, section 1. No additional royalty... IBM will have irrevocable, fully paid and perpetual...
Ten million and some signatures can buy you UNIX. Can't keep the owner from shutting up.
IBM: What does YOUR code looks like?
SCO: What?
IBM, pointing his gun: Say "what" again. SAY "WHAT" AGAIN! I dare you, I double dare you, motherf***er! Say "what" one more goddamn time!
SCO: You s-s-stoleee my source code...
IBM: Go on.
SCO: I w-w-want YOUR m-m-money...
IBM: Do I look like a bitch?
SCO: What?
[IBM shoots SCO in the shoulder]
IBM: DO I LOOK LIKE A BItCH!?
SCO: NO!
IBM: Then why you trying to f*** ME like a bitch, SCO?
SCO: I didn't!
IBM: Yes you did. Yes you did, SCO. You tried to f*** ME. And I don't like to be f***ed by anybody, except by Micro$oft.
IBM will not have gained that right by winning the lawsuit unless either SCO or their successor explicitly grants IBM that right or makes the code publically available for some unknown reason.
Neither possibility is at all reasonable or probable.
Now go home to your wife and kids.
Sincerely, AC - ass clown
It seems the compromise point on a lot of contracts is that they are so confusing, vague, and contradictory in different clauses that both sides' lawyers are convinced that the other side will be afraid to ever actually try to enforce the contract in court. It's like the old cold war tactic of Mutually Assured Destruction. Once each side is confident neither they nor the other side can ever have a foolproof case (other than the most obvious, blatent violations of the contract), both sides are confident that conflicts will always be resolved through means less final and ugly than the courts.
Dude, I think I can see my house from here.
I guess that helps to explain what happened to Drexel-Burnham-Lambert. Be seen as making a wrong decision and you're out the door. I'll bet they still can't comprehend the death of company loyalty, or why eventually the sleeze oozed to the top of their organization.
/. poster.)
It would be a lot funnier if this attitude didn't represent the viewpoint of so many incompetant managers out there. 'Next contestant' my ass: have you ever wondered why the competant people went to work for someone else, dipshit? ('Dipshit' is Mr. O'Neil, not the
"Look, pallie, it 'aint OUR fuckin' fault you are dumber than Homer J. Christ."
At least I know how to log in Mr. Anonymous.
"The moderation was fair, and it stands."
No it isn't and it didn't. Go look at my score. (of course now I'm inviting retribution. Oh well.)
" so you don't make the same ill-witted mistakes in the future."
Asking a question is never a mistake.
"Derp de derp."
No need to be disturbed.
Help fight continental drift.
I BM
You BM
We All BM
For IBM
From an old sci fi novel where the protaganist had an AI computer, but the co he worked for was about to cut the funding. So our hero asks the AI to show off for the CEO.
The little guy fills out the necessary paperwork to proceed in forma pauperis?
:)
Check out the Supreme Court of the US's order lists sometimes.
Look for "Motion for petitioner to proceed in forma pauperis is granted".
That means "I don't have to pay the legal fees cause I can't afford it".
Yes he was.
AFAICT, most posters want IBM to kick SCO's ass simply and only because IBM are the only ones in an obvious position to. If Mandrake or Mozilla.org could do it, so much the better, but probably not this decade if ever.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
"Yes he was."
Doubt it. Unless you're overly sensitive to people asking questions about what FUD means.
If the AC is out of a job, it's likely to be at least in part the fault of a greedy coorporation or two that hogged resources and fought destructively and dirty instead of co-operatively and clean. Greedy corporations (like SCO at present) are almost always driven by one or a few greedy individuals. They should not be able to use any corporation as a moral facade that they can hide behind.
Contrast insert-random-company-here with (say) Scaled Composites. Burt Rutan may well make more megabucks as a consequence of his venture, but he doesn't need to and he knows it. If I had anything to bet you, it would be down on this premise: Rutan is doing it primarily for the challenge and to see if he can, not in the hope of earning squillions. Notice that even his domain has a wordplay in it: SCALED.COMposites. Anything that will encourage fair, competent and happy players like him and discourage the greedy has to be a good thing!
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
> And SCO has yet to clearly specify (as opposed to vague generalities) what was disclosed(*), let alone prove that IBM made such disclosures.
...". I'd imagine IBM's lawyers have lots of info that they're not making public until the trial.
Small correction: "And SCO has yet to publicly clearly specify
man you said it. I wonder where all you freaking slashdotters would be if AIX was found to contain Linux GPL code?. Oh wait - it's IBM give them a "get out of jail free" card but if it's others like DLINK or SCO - publicly flog them!. Fuck IBM and fuck Slashdot......I'm running BSD and Solaris that is where all cool things are happening. I fucking HATE IBM!!!! IBM are fucking parasites and leeches of the computer world.
Subject says it all. (-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
You should just read "The Predators Ball" by Connie Bruck. It's not as if senior mgt wanted to have a totally independant operation run thousands of miles away by a secretive control freak. It's just that he was making about %80 of their firm's revenues and all his customers would follow him anywhere else he went. In those circumstances, it is very, very difficult to tell that guy "my way or the highway."
Drexel failed because Mike was breaking the law and because years of doing "whatever Mike says" prevented the company from pushing him to take a plea or make a deal much earlier. Frankly, if some guy at your company had decided to let you into some financial deal, on his own and for no personal gain, and made you into a multimillionaire, don't you think you'd stand up for him when the time came?
It's pretty clear that the top levels of Drexel management had no idea what was going on in as far as insider trading, just from their reaction to another case that came to their attention only months before Millikin's.
SCO have been awfully quiet about that as well. I bet it includes a major gotcha that SCO don't like. How they hjope to keep it out of court is beyond me.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
This is sort of amusing, but not actually accurate. IBM certainly was a very tough competitor and they certainly made full use of FUD tactics. However, they never deliberately acted in an illegal manner (as MS does regularly). I would even argue that they have always been, for the most part, a pretty ethical (albeit hard nosed) organisation.
SCO have amended their complaint against IBM: - They now want $3bn
- Blames Linus for letting proprietary stuff into Linux
- Complains Open Source "can be used for encryption, scientific research and weapons research" in Cuba, Iran, Syria, North Korea and Libya
- Says IBM copied RCU
- Sequent added to the complaint
http://news.com.com/2100-1016_3-1017965.html
Yup! Noy, oh, boy, they sure do! (-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Oh! How very delicious, indeed!
When I was a newbie Unix Sysadmin in the mid-eighties, it was at a Very Large University that had been given an IBM 3090 "supercomputer" (while the administration, whose salaries were paid for by IBM Corp, purchased a second for full price , at a time when typical academic discounts from Sun and SGI were up around 50%). Well, there were a number of IBM employees "advising" University IT services full-time with offices on campus . They were there to squash any and all use of non-IBM gear, they were.
IBM didn't really have a Unix offering at that time, and the faculty were just clamoring for Unix mini's -- Suns, SGIs, DEC VAXen running BSD 4.2/4.3, Apollos, HPs -- even PC's running XENIX. The faculty found it was more beneficial to their research projects to buy a smaller computer but have it dedicated to the project, than to have to buy time on the University supercomputer. For one thing, they'd have the hardware for as long as it lasted, and have, well, root access. And they could hire monkeys like me for peanuts to keep them running -- on the network!
Well, my installing BSD on VAXen and keeping a network of Suns and SGIs running on the network made me none too popular with the Brainwashed-By-Big-Blue Brigade-- much as my putting cygwin on Windows boxes and occasionally whiping Windows altogether with a nice Linux install makes me none too popular with the MSCE's that infest corporate IT department these days.But in academics, as well as in business, it's the Golden Rule: the ones with the Gold make the Rules. By bringing in research grants, the faculty, who wanted unix boxes, were making the rules. Also, since much of the money was coming in from DARPA and Friends, who all championed BSD (having funded its development) we had the funding agencies to refer to as well. But the B-B-B-B Brigade would continually try to sell us time on the 3090 -- and we would be, like "get your eyeballs off of my stack, jack!"
I recall numerous acrimonious meetings with the BBBBB where they would point to this wonderful "gift" of the 3090 as obligating us to use it -- at which point we would counter with "Well, if it was running UNIX, we'd consider it..." They'd come up with their FUD to the tune of "Well, IBM is working on Unix versions..." (referring to AIX which was vaporware at that stage, and a BSD RISC machine that unfortunately never got off the ground).
But BOOM! We'd hit them with "Why not just install UTS on the 3090?"
Oh! The dirty looks we'd get for that one! Talk about hitting a raw nerve!
But now, IBM is our new best friend. The FUD Fighters and Champions of AIX and Linux.
It is way beyond ironic. It is so deeply satisfying!
Now IBM is famous for its interdepartmental rivalries. I do sometimes wonder if our little blows against the empire at that stage had anything to do with the ultimate rise of the groups, internal to IBM, that were behind the development of AIX.
The truly ironic thing, though, is that the technical sophistication and security features of the PPC chipset and OS/400 systems architecture are really starting to impress me as being quite a bit better than what either linux or unix on any hardware platform ever had to offer. *nix is just starting to get serious database-tuned journaling file systems, stable security implemented, VM's (or LPARs) to your heart's content, and use of an instruction set that can directly manipulate tables of 64-bit hash keys (on the PPC anyway). The AS/400 has had these things for a looooong time. So...maybe we were wrong back in the 80's, and IBM had it right the first time.
Truly ironic.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
...at least half a dozen times every day.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
it was 80 lines of code???,,. and they want 3 billion?!?!?
how can they prove an employee within IBM
actually added the code to the linux source?,
its impossible, should IBM have logs
of what they've added or at least documented it
what about other licence holders(Licensees)??
IBM cant be the only one with access to the code,
it seems they are just an easy target at which to point the finger,.... its childish at best
...on a gold and light blue background?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Dr. Evil> Let's blackmail them for one-meealion-thousand dollars. Bwhahahahah...
Robert Wagner> You know Dr. Evil, one-hundred-thousand dollars isn't nearly that much money.
Dr. Evil> Oh, really? Then let's blackmail them for one-thousand-thousand dollars! Bwhahahaha...
Quality American journalism . The title of this page: "IBM loses its Unix license - Jun. 16, 2003" The title of the article: "IBM losing its Unix license?" Not just inaccurate, inconsistent. Nice to see CNN giving it their traditional, rigorous once-over.
TI was being clobbered by Japanese memory makers that was subsidised by their government. Miti was pouring money into the Japanese SC industry by underwriting the process technology needed for next generation IC's. Memory was the technology driver.
The ITC woke up thanks to mostly Micron but it was touch and go for a while. If it hadn't been for TI's effort in "asking" for royalties for Technologies that was key to the SC industry we would probably only have Intel and IBM making semiconductor in the US today.
TI got $700M in total or the equivalent of one empty Front-end.
Help fight continental drift.
But wasn't RMS concerned that non-free code in the kernel could spell the end of linux?
http://pcblues.com - Digits and Wood
Dr. Evil> Let's blackmail them for one-hundred-thousand dollars. Bwhahahahah...
Robert Wagner> You know Dr. Evil, one-hundred-thousand dollars isn't nearly that much money.
Dr. Evil> Oh, really? Then let's blackmail them for one-thousand-thousand dollars! Bwhahahaha...
Felt like saying this close to the top of the article... From here:
How did Microsoft's agreement to pay you for Unix rights happen?
Darl: In the Microsoft case, they saw an opportunity. We originally approached them and said we're on a new licensing path; we have this intellectual property that we've started approaching vendors about. IBM is one we approached; Microsoft was another. We had about four big vendors in the last quarter that we talked with. With two of them, we signed deals. The other we're still talking with, and IBM we reached an impasse.
To me it feels like they are still talking with HP, and Sun decided to pay up to take a stab at linux (in the back, I might as well say). Or is there any other interpretation? Was anyone surprised at how quick Sun was to advertise that they are in the clear?
Boy, these Sun people don't seem like such friends of ours after all.
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
With all of the high standards for perspective and attention to detail we've come to expect, the next installment of: Quality American Journalism. The title of this page: "IBM loses its Unix license - Jun. 16, 2003" The title of the article: "IBM losing its Unix license?" Not just inaccurate, inconsistent. Nice to see CNN giving it their traditional, rigorous once-over.
SCO caused a contract violation over a supposed contract violation?
Ok, I did a little digging, since everyone has been proclaiming how huge IBM was and how puny SCO was. My conclusion is that they are right. Here is what I found:
M &target=%2fstocks%2ffinancialinfo%2fstatements%2fb alancesheet%2fannualO X&target=%2fstocks%2ffinancialinfo%2fstatements%2f balancesheet%2fannual/ nlj_client_list_who_defends_corporate_america.shtm le ys/aug01.cfm
SCO
Net Assets: $37.4m (Source: Multex)
Total Employees: 340 (Source: Multex & Yahoo! Finance)
Legal Department Employees: Unknown (See below*)
IBM
Net Assets: $96,484m (Source: Multex)
Total Employees:
315,889 (Source: Multex)
Legal Department Employees: 308 (Source: Law.com)
Sources:
IBM Balance Sheet - http://yahoo.multexinvestor.com/IS.aspx?ticker=IB
SCO Balance Sheet - http://yahoo.multexinvestor.com/IS.aspx?ticker=SC
IBM Legal Department as of 2002 - http://www.law.com/special/professionals/nlj/2002
IBM Legal Department in 2000 and 1999 - http://www.corporatelegaltimes.com/editorial/surv
*SCO's legal department is not anywhere in the top 200, naturally, and no mention of size or otherwise is made in any SEC filings, etc. However, unlike IBM, SCO has no "Head Counsel," nor is any real mention made of an in-house legal department. From this, I construe that SCO either outsources its legal needs to a third-party firm, or does not employ enough lawyers to require a full "department." The acquisition of David Boies perhaps corroborates the first. Any additional information that anyone has would be helpful.
A CD from iTunes: $10 A Song from iTunes: $0.99 Not paying a cent to Microsoft: Priceless
...in the belly of a whale... "swimming with fishes" seems singularly apropos.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
"that's not encryption - it's a new perl script that I'm working on..." - from some Matrix parody
This does indeed to be what SCO wants to argue - that all these things that licensees have added to their own unix derivatives are somehow now their property. I think (and I hope) that when this finally gets in front of a judge they'll be disabused of that notion very quickly. This isn't just Linux and AIX they're talking about, it's Sun and HP and SGI and everyone else that's ever added features to a SysV derivative (which is everybody that's ever sold a unix, essentially - SysV isn't exactly a useful system without all the stuff the various vendors have coded themselves.)
I know it sounds like a bad joke, but it really does sound like 'all your IP is belong to us' is what SCO is asserting.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
http://news.com.com/2100-1016_3-1017965.html
end quote
This comes the next day after I posted that SCO was after $3 to $4 billion, including buying them out, but they just raised it to $3 billion alone just for damages. I would have thought the $4 billion figure was good for a buyout yesterday, but after MAD was declared today by SCO they probably will require a lot more to settle now.
Here's what I based my reasoning on. The dollar values given of $250 million per year for Unix licensing fees that dropped to $50 million means that $1 billion approximates the direct loss of licensing fees since IBM did this and for the forseeable future. In addition, buying them out would require the billion plus a considerable premium for the value of future licensing fees.
In my opinion, all the comments about any Linux kernel contributors besides IBM are irrelevant, that this is a case strictly between SCO and IBM, and that the threats against Linux licensees are leverage against IBM. I think SCO thinks they can blackmail IBM to the tune of something like $3 billion to $4 billion to buy out their rights to Unix source code and IP and make their Linux future secure.
Obviously, IBM is not going to just acquiesce, but the code to look at is not historic, not from individual contributors, and not random. It is the enterprise features that IBM spent a billion dollars adding to Linux according to their press releases, and it's probably not a coincidence that SCO chose that billion dollar figure themselves to sue for. Again, that is not pie in the sky, we'll settle for enough to vacation in Tahiti, that's the ground floor for a deal to buy them out, in other words, maximize the shareholders value of the assets of SCO.
In my opinion, this has nothing to do with Linux and open source and everything to do with throwing your cards in and cashing out. It throws a lot of FUD on Linux, to be sure, but again that is powerful leverage against IBM which has made Linux their future. I look for IBM to pony up and acquire the rights to secure their future with Linux and AIX. The ones behind this surely hope they will never have to work again.
rd
modded this flamebait as interesting??
Ok, SCO seems to admit that the stuff added to Linux is IBMs technology and was not in the SysV source code. Just that they have rights to it or that they have a right to say what happens to it as a "derivative work" of their Unix code. (That is my synopsis of today's various news articles).
So, where are the damages to SCO? Even if IBM were to have broken their UNIX contract as alleged by SCO, SCO suffered no damages since the (supposedly) mis-appropriated code was not SCOs, and not in SCOs UNIX, so SCO has received no damage due to the contract "breakage."
Consider that Boies must have been a party to whatever secret agreement MS forged to get out from under the Justice Department suit. What better go between when MS and SCO were dreaming this all up? Also, consider his contacts with the US establishment. Next...
SCO has made no secret in recent months that it hired high-profile attorney David Boies to spearhead its case against IBM, but the company's legal representation in Utah courts is also noteworthy. The company retained Brent O. Hatch and Mark F. James of the law firm Hatch, James & Dodge. Hatch is the son of Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, a spokesman for SCO confirmed Monday.
according to http://news.com.com/2100-1016_3-1017965.html
Now, consider a scary scenario. What if the CIA and the Pentagon wanted the ability to control more or less every computer in the world? With open source, this would be impossible. However, they could make a sweet deal with MS: fix the courts to eliminate Linux, BSD etc.; create a computer architecture that will mandate use of closed source software with backdoors built in.
In the US of today, I think subverting the legal process is a very real possibility. I think this occurred in the MS v. Justice Department suit. Given the ludicrous US court decisions of the past, there would be no way to prove that this has occurred. There are those who would argue it justified by the enhanced ability it will give the US to ensure freedom and democracy, deal with international terrorism and protect our children.
Do I really believe this is happening? I am not sure, but I really think it may be.
According to the Byte.com article, SCO is claiming RCU is their IP. The USTPO may have something to say about that. IBM acquired the patent to RCU when they bought up Sequent. Patent #05442758
Hang on it was the the Linux dizzie Caldera, that gave us graphical installers, WTF?!?
More than 600 postings on this thread, and (at the top level at least) nobody's mentioned indemnification yet...
SCO thought they'd be smart today, pull the plug on IBM and the AIX installed base and let all those multi-billions of dollars of customers force IBM to it's knees. Oh please... A standard part of the (megabuck) license agreement that the AIX licensees sign is that IBM will indemnify them against patent and copyright infringement committed by IBM in constructing the product. IP infringements do happen, intentional or not, and it's only reasonable for a licensee to expect the licensor to stand behind their product. That's indemnification - it frees the person who's purchased the license from having to defend against an embedded IP infraction. In addition to IBM indemnifying their own code, they would normally ask indemnification against infringements by the licensee if they make mods.
Now, if you're buying software from me, I can promise indemnification and buy and insurance policy. But you won't buy from me, because the IBM salesman also paid you a call, and explained that his ability to stand behind his product legally is unmatched by anyone else, probably in the world. More lawyers, more patents, more money and more lethal force than anybody else is packing.
I've mentioned it in earlier postings, and it's popped up in this thread too. Little gnats often pop up and try to suck some blood from IBM. They are crushed quietly and behind the curtain by IBM's IP portfolio and legal muscle. Usually the customers don't even hear about the problem, which is the way they like it. Nothing probably makes the IBM contract management group more angry than having a SCO make a ruckus in public and cause them to have to call their gazillion licensee to tell them that there's no problem.
The only question on how this will turn out is whether IBM will take SCO out for a ride in their limo before fitting them with concrete boots or whether they get it in broad daylight at the toll booth.
Which leads to the worst job in the world (yes, even worse than yours). I remember reading an article that mentioned that only 3 SCO employees are focused on the lawsuit (yes, many many more non-employees), while the other couple of hundred continue on their path of innovation, the Caldera way.
I think everybody realizes that this is going to take a while. The guy you *don't* want to be is the VP of Sales as SCO. Now, you might have been jazzed that your company was going to squeak, IBM would buy it to make the problem go away, and you'd go home with your $20 million bucks. Only it didn't work that way. Not only is IBM not going to buy you a mansion, they're not going to even acknowledge your squeaking. You might have felt a buzz of pride thinking that IBM would have to rename AIX to "SCO AIX". Now, IBM has about 3000 people talking to every client in the world telling them how their enormous company is going to crush your clueless company.
Then the SCO CEO comes into your office, says "This isn't as easy as I thought it was going to be" and tell you that it will be really important that you maintain SCO's revenue stream since it will be too damn obvious if Microsoft gives SCO anymore money.
When SCO makes a sales call today, do you think anybody *doesn't* laugh at them? That's a job that sucks.
Oh well, I guess you can hope that Microsoft buys you before the end of the quarter. In two weeks...
David Fung
Last I heard SCO was claiming code had gone from SCO -> AIX -> Linux. IBM will defend both in their own best interest, at least as long as they're the one being accused of leaking SCOs code...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
The final stand at Stalingrad and the subsequent victory was only possible b/c the German forces were weakened from the Russian Winter.
Russian troops suffered from winter no less than Germans. The reason for the victory was more-or-less decent operational planning that led to encirclement of German forces, and the inhuman, fanatical will of defenders.
Otherwise your point is perfectly valid - Red Army retreat in 1941-42 was not a bait, but a necessity. Red Army just wasn't on par with Wermacht in terms of armament and planning skills until the very 1943.
Lisp is the Tengwar of programming languages.
Sorry, chum, but your moderation was fair.
I will dedicate the rest of my time on Slashdot modding your posts down whenever I get mod points. It's only fair, chum.
Thankyou.
Two points...
IBM must have a copy of the "offending" code as identified by SCO? In which case IBMs silence means they believe they have a killer defense. Any other situation IBM would be negotiating a settlement.
SCO motives have changed over the months. At first it was just a trivial copyright problems with some SCO libraries. They probably had a case then. Since expensive laywers have become involved everything changed. SCO is now attempting to hijack all Unix. It's obvious that they are on the road to trying to use legal tactics to invalidate ALL existing Unix licensing in the hope that ALL Unix rights and code will revert to SCO. If they win against IBM, SUN, HP SGI and many others will be next.
See my journal, I write things there
mod up the answer
not the question
Is it just me, or does that license agreement read as an agreement for the use of SVR2 for internal use, not as any kind of agreement for it to be used as basis for the creation of IBM's own unix software?
Which might mean that there is another license, which *does* have the correct transference of rights, or that IBM is of the opinion that they don't need any such license.
It's OK, he's generally clueless anyway.
DIfficult? What happens when you have to make decisions that actually matter?
My [large, well known hardware vendor] rep is also SCO's representative. His company sells Linux server solutions, BTW. Anyway, he told me even as a vendor he didn't want to do business with SCO. Talk about a tech industry pariah...when the vendors hate your guts...
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
.... if I remember correctly, was "The tipping point." A good read as well.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
Not that little brat Annekin.
You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.
and short the stock.
This doesn't seem ironic to me for a different reason: the user-base for AS/400 did not exist the way the user-base for *nix did. Part of what makes you decide which to pick includes such things as *availability* [computer dedicated to your own use], *controlling the system* [you said root access], *thinking in that OS* [personal preference], and so on.
IBM was, by necessity, expensive. Therefore you didn't have geeks running around using it. Therefore Apple got started, and the rest just developed.
It brought a user-base into the fold, but that user-base is *nix. IBM apparently recognized this way back, and moved to stay ahead of the flow.
Kudos, BLUE.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
SCO SEC filings (and those of its insiders) are available on the SEC's "EDGAR" website at the following address:
SCO SEC Filings
Reports on stock transactions by insiders are reported on a document called a "Form 4". Additional information on insider stock holdings can be found in other documents, such as SCO's proxy statement (the "DEF 14A" document).
Sales (and purchases) of securities by an insider who possesses material non-public information is a violation of U.S. securities law. Looking at the Form 4 filings, however, note that most officer sales line items have a footnote "(1)" appended to them, which reads: "This sale was effected pursuant to a Rule 10b5-1 sales plan adopted by the reporting person." What Rule 10b5-1 permits is an insider to (i) adopt a formal plan for share transactions at a time when he does not does possess material non-public information and (ii) make transactions at a later time in accordance with the plan even if the insider does possess material non-public information at such time -- the concept being that the purchase or sale decision is made at the earlier time. The plan could be something like: "Sell 1000 shares on the 1st day of each of the next five months if the stock price is over $10 per share on such day." I do not believe that such plans are filed with the SEC or otherwise publicly available.
Of course, the plan must be entered into at a time when the insider did not possess material non-public information and the rule says the plan must have been entered into "in good faith and not part of a plan to evade the prohibitions [on insider trading]". Thus, the contents of the plan of each insider and what the insider knew at the time the plan was created is relevant.
It does not appear that Opinder Bawa's sales, pursuant to which he appears to have sold all his shares, took place pursuant to a 10b5-1 plan (there is no footnote). Also note that Mr. Bawa signed his own Form 4, while the forms of the other recent selling officers were signed on their behalf by Kimberly Steele, who I would guess is an SCO administrative employee. Is Mr. Bawa still with SCO?
...from overheating, and the terrorists win?
I'm not a big fan of the US Government, but I really hope this isn't their legal strategy.
But while we're at it, why not imagine a beowulf cluster of Blue Thunders?
The point being... It spells EEEP! Duh!
Is there any reason why the collective open source movement couldn't buyout SCO and then place a non-hostile board in control and firing the f******s that are there at present. Such a buy out could be used to massive advantage in the future and specifically could open source the System V source.
Any thoughts?
FUD is a much more accurate description of IBM's tactics in the late-eighties, early-nineties.
To my recollection, it goes back at leas to the late seventies, to the time of "IBM and the Seven Dwarves", when the Seven Dwarves (Honeywell, Univac etc) complained that it was IBM's main selling tactic.
It is an obvious tactic to use when you are overwhelmingly the largest plauyte in the field. IBM then, Microsoft now. An the fact is that there is some truth in it. You know that you will never be totally lost if you fall back into Microsoft's choking embrace. Maybe you could do better by hunting around, but why bother? Many peole prefer mediocrity to risk, even if the payoff may be high.
OTOH, I think it is a very bad signe for the long term propagator of FUD. IBM had a massive fall after years of FUD, and only recovered when it dropped that attitude completely and started competing on its merits. While you use FUD as your main marketing tool instead of excellence, you aren't developing your product properly, and eventually the competition will get far enough ahead that FUD won't work. And when that happens, you are in deep trouble, because you are already far behind. I predict this for Microsoft in 3-4 years time. The chanllenger may, or may not, be Linux. And the crash will take years to happen.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
A number of people have pointed out that SCO have nothing to lose by taking on anyone and everyone, yet they are doing us all more damage than we probably realise. No doubt a majority of what they have been saying will prove to be untrue, and the reciprocal damages claims will be devastating. Yet those in control will walk away relatively unscathed, and if things go to plan for them they will be well rewarded for their efforts. I wonder if it will be possible to hold them personally liable for the damages they have caused, as a thief would be held liable for the $1,500 worth of damage [s]he does to your car while stealing your radio which will later be sold for $50. Where an instigator causes a large amount of damage for a relatively small gain, they should be punished switftly and severely.
"They know of what they speak of".
Shouldn't that be,
"They know of what they speak" ?
SUN ALREADY PAID ITS LICENSE. SCO EVEN STATED THAT SUN HAS THE MOST UNIQUE LICENSE AND ITS ALREADY PAID FOR UPFRONT. UP TO 600 MILLION.
thats alot of money.
Sun said that they will offer AIX-Solaris programs and that they will make money either way.
since they offer linux on their x86 based servers and they also offer their solaris platform (which i might add is a badass OS)
Sun thinks its a win-win situation. They will obviously continue to offer linux as an option.
The truth is that they are jumping at the opportunity at the IBM AIX thing, No more AIX is good for solaris.
Basicly the bottom line is that sun just wants money, and will try any way to get it. Linux or not.
some already regard Google as the evil empire.
I dunno, perpetual cookies which can tie your browser to a record of everything you search for is a worrying thing. Say the law changes a little bit.. DHS just needs to threaten Google legally, make them turn over the IPs of everyone who searched for the Anarchists Cookbook, for example, and then make some raids and your computer will agree with them that you searched for it, and hey presto, 25-to-life.
The Linux is used by terrorists! argument is almost too stupid to even bother arguing against.
I mean, sure, Linux is probably used by terrorists (however you define that) but statistically speaking it is almost certainly less used than Microsoft operating systems.
Simply put, a lot more people use Windows, terrorists or otherwise.
This "OMG, the Terrorists are using toilet paper too! We must stop them from wiping us all out with it!" attitude every single PR-weasel in the entire US seems to be spewing out is getting a little old, to say the least. Admittedly this is my impression from across the pond, but... people can't really be buying this bs, can they?
Someone in the US please tell me this seems as stupid to you as it does to me.
"First lesson," Jon said. "Stick them with the pointy end."
SCO want to huff and puff, draw attention to themselves and generally scream bloody murder.
They'll say anything, no matter how stupid (see the IBM & Linux support Terrorism thread.) in order to get bought, or at least inflate the stock price long enough for certain people to cash out.
I doubt the actual merit of their claims rank very high compared to chock-value when they decide what to include in the next of their seemingly endless stream of press releases.
"First lesson," Jon said. "Stick them with the pointy end."
The whole point of AIX2 was a complete rebuild in 'clean room' conditions by people who had never seem a line of Unix (tm) before.
That's why its a complete sod to get your head around AIX admin when you're used to other unix varients.
How SCO can claim any code reuse by IBM is beyond me. Have they seen AIX source code???
Don't be so certain that SCO is going to die here.
David Boies, who led charge for the White Plains Cravath office team defending IBM in the antitrust action, is now representing SCO.
In the '70s, IBM was facing the real risk of being split at a time when they were unquestionably the dominant player in the computer industry. There was not a dime IBM had it would not have spent in the defense of that action.
Now, IBM is a shadow of its former self, and this issue -- a license fee for Unix -- is not the same mission critical issue as the antitrust litigation.
My guess is Microsoft.
Uhh... whatever. I tried using their graphical installer its first time around (don't laugh... I was trying out the distro as I never had before -- only knew Debian and Slack up till then. It did not pass muster.) and it sucked big time. I tried it on four different HW configs and it failed each in new and disgusting ways. The error handling was absolutely non-existent. What a total piece of shite.
Can I bum a sig? I left mine at the office.
If I were human, I believe my response would be, "Go to hell."... if I were human. *eyebrow thing*
--Nuintari
slashdot : where an opinion can be wrong.
if i had mod points, you'd get them ...
What happens when the young and trecherous take on the old and skilled?
In the beginning it was a suit against IBM's alleged breach of contract in copying code from Unix(tm) -whatever this means right now - into Linux. SCO gave IBM 100 days to give them $1 billion or get their AIX licence revoked. At the time it wasn't sure that this had anything to do with Linux.
IBM barely responded.
Then there were 1500 letters of warning sent to corporations running Linux and AIX I assume. At the time it wasn't sure that this had anything to do Linus.
IBM barely responded and the Linux community exploded with some people even calling Darl to come out and have a fist fight. Linus was very calm and welcomed the threat, but commented that the suit didn't have much chance of getting anywhere. Microsft, very publicly, bought a licence from SCO, giving rise to millions of suspicions that MS was behind the whole charade.
Then Darl McBride retracted his statement about sueing Linus. He then started the first of his (in)famous conference calls, claiming ownership to just about everything that had ever been in touch with anything to do with Unix.
Then Novell chimed up saying that no patents or copyrights had been sold to SCO.
SCO claimed that they had been sold, "according to some of our experts"
Then SCO started harping about hundreds of thousands of lines of code.
Speculation was rife in the OSS community as to what code exactly was being referred to.
Then there was the code preview and the (in)famous SCO NDA, which in effect didn't allow you to comment on the specifics of the code. Most analysts commented that they didn't see how SCO had a case, with only Microsoft friendly Gartner warning clients about Linux.
Most analysts refused the NDA, with only some analysts taking the bait. After reviewing the code, the situation was by no means any clearer than before, because while the analysts had indeed seen similar code, there was no relaible means of checking when the code had been entered into the SCO Unixware codebase, thereby starting suspicions by thousands of OSS members that SCO had in fact copied Linux code into the SCO code base.
The 100 day period rolls around, with only Darl "the mouth" McBride making threatening sounds about "mapping it all out for IBM and AIX licencees". Darl had failed to notice that IBM covers each and every one of it's cutomers against lawsuits against AIX.
The next week, IBM, in a first real response to the whole theater piece, basically stated that "AIX is ours, it's licence is irrevocable, and that this matter will be sttled in court". McBride, apparently very unsettled by the fact that IBM was not taking him personally seriously, resorted to an attempted injunction and that all time favourite fallback method used by Americans of all colors and creeds when really in deep shit: "Linux is giving the commies, arabs and terrorists high tech because it's free for all"- Appealing to Americans patriotic fervour when one has no other way out, thereby following the likes of other famous personages such as Oliver North, Admiral Pointdexter and Richard Nixon.
The saga continues...
This is better than TV.
OK, there have been any number of posts saying how this lawsuit is some kind of scam by SCO insiders.
/.ers mobilise it?
Initially the strategy was probably to get bought out by IBM. Plan B seems to be hype the lawsuit, ride shareprice up and sell-out at a healthy profit, although this seems to carry a pretty hefty regulatory risk for the principals unless they can spin out their death spiral long enough for their recent transactions to pass beyond the 9-month window for an SEC investigation once they declare bankruptcy (maybe there's a deep, dark Plan C - acquisition by Somebody Else to forestall an SEC investigation).
Now my thinking is that if there was enough money in the market shorting SCOX, this would undercut the lawsuit hype and crash the company price faster than the the SCO board were anticipating, forcing them to bail early and exposing them to the SEC investigation (or fall back to Plan C if such a thing exists). A nice side-effect being that the holders of the short contracts on SCOX would make a profit on the deal.
So the question is: what kind of money would move the market against SCOX's pump'n'dump operation and could the serried ranks of
"I need put options... lots of put options."
Or is the garderine herd of day-traders too large a stampede to turn in this way? Looking at SCOX's history the volumes have gone gangbusters in the last four weeks or so. In which case we fall back to our Plan B and which is to short the stock for fun (and profit!!!!) and watch them bleed out - anyone care to opine what kind of timeframe would make sense for a put contract if this thing is actually going to court?
Regards
Luke
#include witty_one_liner.h
Late to the game and all that . . . but you're missing the obvious. If IBM and SCO lawyers were talking 24/7, SCO would have tanked the possibility of any deal by revoking IBM's license. How do you think Big Blue's going to respond to that shot across the bow?
No meeting of the minds here, folks. The legal battlelines have been drawn. The generals have dropped the hotline.
blog
I also hold two SCO ACEs amd two SCO Master ACEs.
I am thoroughly disgusted at their behavior, and have to hold my nose while working on SCO clients.
I've already moved several over to other platforms.
There are only a few holdouts left, as most have thrown their arms in the air in disgust and have moved on to a better platform, but some others have moved to Microsoft.
-- I am. Therefore, I think!
More like:
SCO: All your [free] base are belong to us!
Someone smoke us up the bomb!
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
In other words, IBM invented FUD, IBM has a patent on FUD, and if you continue to use it you will be crushed by the blue monolith. You are irrelevant. Shoo.
Pound! Bang! Bin! Bash! is this a shell script or a Batman comic?
So, Microsoft didn't even invent FUD? They copied it from IBM? That figures!
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
The terrorists want to destroy our economy (bombing the WTC). SCO wants to destroy our economy (suing the whole world). Therefore, SCO is with the terrorists!
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Companies will think twice about investing in UNIX if they have to fear the fickle whims of SCO.
Errr. Like they do with MS?
Maybe Novel could yank SCO's liccens to Unix and hand it over to IBM.
I don't actually exist.
What happens when an AC get's a clue? Nobody knows. It can't happen.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Look at how much companies are shaped by their bosses, i.e. is it Oracle or Larry Ellison, Microsoft or Bill Gates? Also take a look at the arm wrestling over PeopleSoft, Siebel and JDEdwards, with some of the execs called "Little Larrys" because they previously worked at Oracle. Now they are suing Oracle and hugely ticked at Larry, but Larry claims he's on good terms and is proud of his proteges.
As you correctly note, once you get to the top, there's a lot of ego involved.
Therefore it is really amusing to realize that "companies" are really just subject to the whims at the "boys" or "girls" (Carly) running the show. This is especially apparent with the Oracle bid for PeopleSoft. Is this just Larry throwing his weight around? Is there real business sense here, or a corporate clash? Either way, it's a brawl. I don't know Palmisano too well (he's more low profile than the rest), but I'd say he's a pretty tough cookie too.
I am surprised to see very few references to anything but SCO and IBM in these postings. Has anyone stopped and considered why Microsoft bothered to license the code from SCO? I like to think of this battle as two old men on the beach, one old and frail (read SCO), the other a Jack LaLanne body-builder type (read IBM), who kicks the other old man. The frail and weak old man attempts to defend himself, by calling the body builder out and threatening to sue him for damages. A couple of blankets over sits an 800 lb gorilla (read Microsoft) who happens to like the frail and weak old man and has already given him a banana (read licensing fee). The gorilla just sits and watches the body builder, waiting to see if it needs to step in and help its friend... As much as IBM might like to drive SCO into the ground, one has to wonder whether Microsoft will enter into these proceedings, either indirectly by supporting SCO financially (remember the non-controlling-interest investment in Apple) or directly, by acquiring SCO, and possibly even Novell, which would afford them the intellectual property rights they would need. And with $40+ billion in the bank, they can afford to take on Big Blue. And wouldn't this further their case against open source (read linux) environments? Also consider the effect of Microsoft paying the licensing fee. Might this not lend credibility to SCO's claim of Intellectual Property? Something to chew on...
Then again, maybe one could make a nice pile of dough short selling their stock before the next NASDAQ meltdown ...
- You do not do anything for Lockheed Martin, that is a lie. The more you espouse, the more apparent your lying becomes. Let your comment history document your lies, fantasies, inconsistencies and fallacies.
- Your use of the word "kit" is really, really fucking annoying. You little newbie bastard. Kit. Hahahah. What a loser.
- I laugh at you. The shit you reveal about IBM is hilarious. No AS/400. No z-series. No Unix machines. Just PC trash. I knew it. A PC kiddie. I love it man. Keep it up. PC BOI. Wow. You making judgments on IBM as a whole based on your experience with little, trashy piece of junk PC servers. Hahahaha. Oh man, you are a classic.
- You can't spell: their, management, performed, finicky.
Again the fact that you know nothing, shit about shinola only proves on thing, CommieSys, you are King Shit of Tird Island. "Big Fish", extra small pond. HAHAHHAHAHAHAA.
- Valley girl use of "Whatever." Like totally, whatever, AlphaSys. Like gag me with a spoon. Oh, sorry, you are too young to remember "gag me with a spoon." I place you being a teenage bopper and dancing to New Kids on the Block. That is the era you are from.
- You have never used Debian or Slack. This is clearly a lie. Microsoft kiddie that has PC crap. While Caldera is a piece of shit, you cant pin point one fucking technical reason why. I can go on for some time technically about Caldera, but you cant even get it installed. HAHAHAHAH. HAHAHAHAHA. BWAHAHAHA.
- Error handling? Hahahaha. Its the linux kernel. You saying the linux kernel has no error handling? You cant say why its shit, you just fucking cant even get it installed to say why, and little tird kiddie, its not that hard to get it up and running.
KNOW NOTHING. Medicore. Little. Stupid. Sexless. Fat. Stupid. Moron. Liar. Freak. Geeky. Nerd. Live with Mommie and Daddie. Loser.
is that when the DOJ went against IBM, they seems to back away from the tactics that brought the suit against them. MS didnt.
emt 377 emt 4
In my 25 years in this business I can say I am no lover of IBM. But in SCO vs. IBM, IBM go get'em and make SCO look like the jerks they are.
Most in this business realize SCO has spent lots on MBA hype, even more on sales "bull----" and so little on technical development. And now some runt CEO wants a stock option....
SCO should have their staff tossed in jail for hype, fraud, extortion and general insanity.
SCO can probably dig an amendment out of their filing cabinets somewhere to cover the process of breaking into a web server. They seem to be practiced at terrorist tactics (standover, blackmail, broadcast fear, demanding money etc).
BTW, the starting mod value of -1 for your post sucks big time. What's the point in posting if the post is going to start off invisible?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Hmm. Should I put a superfluous apostrophe in the word gets? Sure, why not? I don't truly grasp my own language anyway.
SCO: "We are the Knights of the Corporation SCO, and we are in search of some mythical source cod.."
IBM: "I fart in you general direction! Now, go away!"
OH, you total fuckwad. I've been waiting for you to show your hand. And now, you have, you little troll, you. Of course I remember Moon Unit's Valley Girl. But then again, I remember FRANK Zappa and the Mothers. I've even performed on the same bill as one of the musicians -- Col. Bruce Hampton (Ret.) -- who recorded on Lumpy Gravy. That was a little before Moon Unit hit the scene tho :)
If you think remembering Moon Unit or even Dweezil is the measure of having been on the scene long emough, I think I grandfather clause that by quite a bit.
And my comments about error handling had to do with LiZard, not Caldera's admittedly poor distro or the kernel that propped it up. At a time when I was trying to use some packages like Squid, I wanted something a little easier to configure, and a friend (who I think has some minute bit of his code in a kernel printer driver) suggested I try Caldera. I think he did it because he thought text-mode was too much for me at my level of inexperience, and he probably was right. Because then I was still pretty new to Linux and to anything not MS. But LiZard was not the ticket.
Now, even a dipshit like you can put two and together and figure out how long I've been learning Linux if you figure out when LiZard first hit the scene and match that with my saying I was "pretty new" to Linux at that time. While that by no means makes me a wizened kernel hacker, it should at least clear the air from you n00b FUD. Not that it matters. I had sworn to myself not to respond to you anymore, but the Moon Unit bit pissed me off. My guitar wants to kill yer mama!
Can I bum a sig? I left mine at the office.
Well, looky here. I've got my very own fanboy, following me around. Must be that guy who put me on his enemy list because I was talking shit about AOL.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
- You lie about music prowess. You googled to come up with all that bullshit. You have no identity here so all the googling in the world wont save you from your lies.
- you are a *nix/linux/*bsd newbie. plain and simple. you cannot escape your newbieness. you always stay on the light side of technical discussions because you are a fraud. you can tell me you installed every single linux distribution since slackware but you are still a newbie. period. you havent learned anything. sorry.
- you dont play music, you know 3 chords on the guitar at best. take a whack at vivaldi with an extra string and some nylons. thats what i thought. 3 chord superstar poser you are.
I use: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.4b) Gecko/20030528 Mozilla Firebird/0.6
/. you are not supposed to read the articles!
Also.. this is
That would not harmonise with anything else (that I know of) which Burt's ever done in his life. I mean, it's all very well pulling bets out of your ass, but when it turns sharply away from history's trajectory, you'd should be prepared to explain in detail why we should accept it.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Yeah, but if the guy bought IBM because it was perceived as the safe thing to do, not because he thought it was actually the best product, then he's an idiot and may have deserved to be fired for it.
And he's building the ship for free, is he? Keep reading, and you'll see that he's already spent over twice as much developing the thing, and he's not done yet. Business plan:
1. Drop $20-30M on development
2. Win $10M prize
3. Prof... oh...
Care to try again, this time with your brains in a forward gear?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
No, I'm going to turn around and say (I already did, had you bothered to read it) that what Bill donated to was more or less his own companies and he got a tax writedown as well. On over $100M a year (which is chump change anyway for someone worth over $60G). How generous!
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
FUCK OFF and DIE.
The murderous bastard is gone. He can't torture, rape or kill another Iraqi. He can't use food and medical care as weapons against his own people. He can't send money to any terrorists or allow them to train in his country again. These are all things which have been reported by unbiased news agencies.
You and people who think like you are the baby killers and murders. You sit and watch this shit go on then grouse when some one does the right thing about it. You can re-write history all you want but it doesn't change a thing. You and your kind will sit and do nothing but run down those who act instead of go along with your personal ideas of right and wrong.
Again fuck off and die.
Would anyone like a tin foil hat?
As you can see I don't care about my karma.
Howard Dean is a fuck wit and you are an ass clown.
That larpo bred?
As you can see I don't care about my karma.
Only on person in histroy has been fired by going with IBM...
As you can see I don't care about my karma.
Hello AC,
/. has always been a topic discussion area.
/. makes news via comments made by uids.
/. uids provided perspective, clues, help, experience and links.
/. CT, Hemos, CN, ... posting late may be intentional.
/. Is used by many as source focus device.
/. Is never used by me as a news tool.
/. Is used by me as a common interest/concept community for research and discovery of important topic/issues (for technology, economics, culture, global community, ...). I suspect many others in government, companies,
universities, military, NSA, CIA, FBI, Microsoft, Dell, Norton, ... are
unregistered readers (lurkers/spies) keeping in touch with our
alternate-reality, culture, and perspectives.
/. uids have good Technology Experience and Knowledge (TEK)
OldHawk777
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?