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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."
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.
Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. i was coined by persons that felt that this was IBMs main tactic against competition.
eric
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.
Monday:
IBM +1.75
SCOX -0.28
copy and pasted from here/a
There is no god
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.
You mean, like if their VP of Engineering sold every bit of stock he had? Ha ha, yeah... wouldn't that be.... hmmm...
Newsforge: SCO VP Opinder Bawa cashes out
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
AIX is widely used in big businesses such as insurance companies, banks, etc. Linux and BSD are often used for middleware applications in these types of organisations, but they're nowhere near as scalable or mature enough to take over from AIX and other commercial UNIXs yet.
Well, apparently nothing.
Notice the huge block of 26-34k shares sold off-market at 1/10th penny apiece to all the executives just before the 100-day-warning IBM volley in March? Notice how this isn't an annual reward program -- didn't happen last year? Notice that there's not been any insider buying since that point, but plenty of selling once the stock swung upward?
This sort of thing is not going to go unnoticed by the SEC. At this point, if I were playing devil's advocate and suggesting this were a glorious pump-and-dump scheme, I'd say that McBride and friends were merely playing for the cameras at this point, trying to look genuinely quixotic to the end while they take their turns selling off their chunks at one million percent profit.
A lot of people are going to walk away from this with very fat wallets, no matter what happens. Some anticipated the market's buy-in and have already entered and exited. :-)
Because Robin Miller, on NF, just got the scoop from IBM. It's called reporting. It's happened before - what will happen now is that the other news organizations will see this, and rush out to get stories.
Yeah, I'm that guy.
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
Well that's good, JFS for linux is a port of OS/2's cleanroom implementation. IBM has a habit of writing white papers on everything they do, so it's likely that a number of those papers became public, so everything done in JFS was likely common knowledge - down to the mechanism, if not the code - well before it became part of Linux. Hell, before the Linux port even began.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Linux JFS is based on OS/2 JFS, not AIX JFS.
http://216.239.37.100/search?q=cache:CL5Bwe26iPIJ
The new Journaled File System, on which the Linux port was based, was first shipped in OS/2 Warp Serverfor eBusiness in April, 1999, after several years of designing, coding, and testing. It also shipped withOS/2 Warp Client in October, 2000. In parallel to this effort, some of the JFS development team returnedto the AIX Operating System Development Group in 1997 and started to move this new JFS source base tothe AIX operating system. In May, 2001, a second journaled file system, Enhanced Journaled File System(JFS2), was made available for AIX 5L. In December of 1999, a snapshot of the original OS/2 JFS sourcewas taken and work was begun to port JFS to Linux.
cpeterso
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.
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).
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".
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
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