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Is the SCO Lawsuit a Good Thing for Linux?
Jack William Bell writes "The National Post is running an essay by Wynn Quon entitled 'Linux's lucky lawsuit'. In it Quon claims that (A) SCO is going to lose (saying ". . . SCO is a toad about to face a steamroller.") and (B) the Linux community needs exactly this kind of 'inoculation' as the OS moves from a hobbyist platform to a real business tool. Good analysis or unwarranted optimism?"
Wouldn't we just be better off with all these companies putting this money into Linux instead of lawsuits?
What doesn't kill you will make you stronger. Same thing here.
I hope I get called in for jury duty on this one. "Down with SCO! What were your arguements again? Eh, they don't matter." I've already made my decision on this case.
Whatever the legal outcome, the fact that people I know who never normally talk about this kind of stuff are starting to get 'interested' in Linux is a good thing (tm) for sure.
I've just got back from the Hampshire LUG meet where we had a good few 'noob' people arrive. We had a good chin-wag about SCO, and generally chewed the fat about all things Linux.
Non-Linux literate people just don't realize how big this open source thing is getting. It's great!
But really, I thought the GPL et al. were pretty strong already. My impression of the SCO lawsuit was that the idiot courts play a much bigger role in prolonging it than any Linux advocate. Linux's legal defences are adequate; our country's implementation of them is not.
Let's face it; Linux is cool and everything, but its not very usefull for most businesse today the way it is today with all the distros in economy problem and with only freelance coders.
Proud patriot and republican voter.
They are obviously trying to make a big profit and get out, killing Linux is a product of them making money.
I don't think this negative information about Linux helps anyone but them...
It's just too soon to tell. Yes, it could be a positive in terms of GPL, but the FUD machine is still rolling along, and that is a huge negative.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
It's hard to imagine ANY scenario under which SCO comes out a long-term winner on this. Maybe they thought IBM would buy them out to shut them up, but it's clear that they were dead wrong on that (anyone who's familiar with IBM's litigation history could'v e told them how unlikely that was... if IBM settled nuisance suits, they'd have them coming out of the woodwork).
It would be interesting to see the GPL tested in court, though.
All I get on that page is "Object Required." Anyone mirror it? Whorepost the article text?
And, on topic: Doubt this is good for Linux, because even if everyone who is scared away from Linux hears that SCO lost and Linux was clean this whole time, they might stay away from it for fear that something like this might really happen in the future. Which brings up a good question: What steps can the Linux community take to actually prevent something like this from ever actually happening (assuming is hasn't already, and I dont' think it has)?
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
As a Utah native, this SCO fiasco is just one of a plethora of evil things which surround this evil place. Discrimination runs rampant here, stupid capitalism runs unchecked and worst of all, Mormonism is alive and well (with correlations between depression and suicide rates). Are all these evils coincidence or is Utah simply a den of iniquity? screw SCO and screw Utah. SCO's PR machine probably gets it's method from the LDS church's PR machine. What an evil, evil place. I need to move away.
In the short term the lawsuit is bad news. What company is going to roll-out an operating system when there is a lawsuit hanging over it?
Oh wait, are we talking about Windows?
"We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers." Carl Sagan
It is mostly how people handle it... For instance, someone like M$FT may say, "See, what if another SCO comes out with a law suit", and the linux folks can say, "Yes, exactly, last time such scum came at us, we trashed it, this is also another such scum supported by the likes of M$FT and SUNW".
:)
In the end, people usually believe what they want to believe. Facts usually don't affect the clarity of wishes and illusions
S
Like it or not, the courts have become the whipping boy for corporations....locking up development for years in the pharmeticul community, bullying individuals who can't afford a legal defense to pull down websites or stop distributing items that are legal... - One needs look no further then Scientology to see what a large organization with lots of money and no shame in suing/litigating their desires into existance. They even forced Slashdot to pull posts off it's server under the "threat" of action to see the courts are the big stick in today's society.
.68 cents a share, but it's a legitmate threat, and I'm glad we're starting here. Once we've established the validity of the GNU/Open Source License, no lawsuit like this will have any teeth again.
Linux is gonna have to be able to stand up to these guys if it's going to make further inroads into the corporate environment. Better that it start now, with an ally like IBM. What if they had gone after some real poor Linux distro manufacturer who would have had to cave under financial demands? - There would then be legal precedent for their claims...
Nope, I honestly think this is a ploy by the Executives of SCO to inflate stock price a bit so they are selling at $10 instead of
----------
ah honey, we're all resplendent - Bill Mallonee
"What makes the SCO action the ideal first-time lawsuit for Linux is this: First, it is directed at IBM rather than directly at Linux customers. This means there is no immediate threat against the deployment and continuing use of Linux."
Then the $699 USD SCO is extorting from the users must be the co-pay. I love HMO's
Since SCO vs IBM lawsuit every newspaper I read had at least one story about Linux. My friends ask me if Linux is really worth over $1000? And I answer yes :) If you don't call it success than what?
Wynn Quon
National Post
Saturday, August 09, 2003
SCO's challenge of IBM's use of its software is not a threat to the open-source Linux operating system. If fact, SCO is a toad about to face a steamroller.
Alarm bells are ringing throughout the open-source software world. SCO Group has filed suit against IBM, accusing it of illegally incorporating SCO's Unix code into the Linux operating system. Some analysts are predicting an onslaught of legal attacks that will kill Linux.
The alarm is overdone. While no one relishes the prospect of going to court, this lawsuit is actually a good thing for Linux in the long run.
The story behind the lawsuit goes like this: In 1995, SCO Group purchased the code for the Unix System V operating system from Novell. IBM has a contract with SCO to use this code as part of its own operating system, known as AIX. (An outside observer would be forgiven if he thought this lawsuit is all about a bunch of acronyms suing each other). SCO charges that IBM violated the contract and stole SCO's trade secrets by incorporating SCO software into the hugely popular Linux operating system. SCO claims a whopping US$3-billion in damages. Linux defenders accuse SCO of being a gold-digger, a two-bit player trying to exploit Linux's success for money.
At the centre of the lawsuit, Linux has its own interesting tale. Linux doesn't belong to any one company. Instead it was created through a fascinating process known as open-source development. A team of talented volunteer programmers led by Linus Torvalds collaborated over the Internet and built a stable, spiffy and very cheap operating system. In less than a decade it has become Microsoft's most dangerous rival. The operating system is now deployed on 14% of servers and its market share is growing at a torrid pace of 60% a year.
Four years ago, IBM recognized Linux's strength. It put 250 of its own engineers to work on it and integrated Linux into its products. The bet has paid off handsomely: In the fourth quarter alone, IBM shipped US$160-million worth of Linux servers.
And there lies the rub. Linux is now big business. It powers products for Dell and HP. It is finding its way (albeit at a slower pace) on to desktops and consumer electronics gear. Linux was born out of a warm and fuzzy let's-work-together idealism that is typical of all open-source projects. Today it finds itself front and centre in a world where market share projections and $800-an-hour litigation lawyers count for as much as spiffy code.
Software analysts worry that SCO's lawsuit will put the big chill on Linux development. This would be a bad thing, not least because it would leave Microsoft in a stronger position than ever. But there's another, more stout-hearted way of looking at it: SCO's legal action is the first harbinger of the corporate makeover of Linux. Open-source advocates are outraged at the audacity of the lawsuit. They should instead be thankful. Linux must inoculate itself against the nasty legal toxins that are endemic in the corporate environment. And if we were to perversely pick a poison, the SCO suit has a lot going for it. SCO is strong enough to provoke a strengthening of Linux's defences but not so strong that it poses any real danger.
What makes the SCO action the ideal first-time lawsuit for Linux is this: First, it is directed at IBM rather than directly at Linux customers. This means there is no immediate threat against the deployment and continuing use of Linux.
Second, the substance of SCO's claims appears weak. Eric Raymond, who heads the Open Source Initiative (OSI) advocacy group, has been a vocal debunker of SCO's charges. According to Raymond, it is unlikely there were trade secret transfers from SCO code to Linux. The codebase owned by SCO is an old and creaky one, a jalopy compared to the Formula One technology found in Linux. Furthermore, SCO itself had made its codebase freely available for public downloading, making its trade secret
Only 10 viewers at a time and if you go over that, BOOM!!
The story's page gives me the typically descriptive MS Error: Object Required.
Sci and Tech home gives me: Out of storage space.
Probably admin's fault, but I'd rather blame MS.
A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. -- William James
Linux was born out of a warm and fuzzy let's-work-together idealism that is typical of all open-source projects.
What about the hot and bothered let's-rip-his-spine-out-of-his-back and beat-him-with-it rage that is typical of all open-source developers when some -1 troll makes a kind comment about [insert closed-source platform here]?
Speaking as an open source developer, of course.
Upstairs Dog, Downstairs People.
Not a good or a positive article.
I'll admit. I read through the first half, and it had the facts pretty much on. I thought..wow. A good article coming from the National Post. One of the biggest rags in the western world.
But then the second half..
FUD FUD FUD.
It raises the spectere of FUD about Linux and GPL in particular. Stating that Linux distrubitors need to cover companies over potential copyright violations (none is needed).
As well, it completely misrepresents the GPL. Giving the absurd idea that somehow a future copyright holder could revoke their code, throwing everything into a huge legal battle yet again.
The funny thing is that it actually mentions FUD in spreading FUD..teehee..*sigh*..
Lightning does not strike even once for the National Rag.
This rather defeats the point of Open Source/Free Software, i.e. adapting the work of others and passing it on. I would be surprised if any insurance company would cover the risk, especially with an ongoing lawsuit and associated FUD.
There is really no reason to use anythingelse,[but Windows] unless you need a truly high-performance computing system such as IBM's proprietary OS/390 or HP's OpenVMS.
Or you want reliability, availability, security, or immunity from the plague of Windows-overrun exploits and attachment viruses.
You're also on pretty shaky ground in the claim that Windows doesn't push the line with patents or other intellectual property (viz. Stac.)
This may be a bit presumptuous, but IBM hardly seems like the evil empire it once was. This doesn't seem to be the same giant that tried to throw its weight around with the MCA bus. If anything, recent history shows that it will at least be considered the lesser of the two evils.
After reading the said article I have to disagree with the author when he states that Linux should have tighter copyright control to avoid future lawsuits. The fact that linux is open is it's main asset!
Homer: "Lisa, facts don't mean anything! You can use them to prove anything that's even remotely true!"
as the OS moves from a hobbyist platform to a real business tool.
Could someone explain this author that Linux is professional for something like 10 years and is widely used as a web server platform ?
To be more explicit: Linux has what it needs to protect itself. The courts are just doing a bad job of enforcing the rules.
I wish something like this would have happened a couple years ago... before I started running 5 Linux servers at work that I now can't do without.
----- sXe
Contrary to the popular belief, the SCO case never was and never will be about the GPL.
However, why the SCO case could indeed be a good thing for Linux is that people, managers and businessmen could wake up and realize that the GPL is a true "no sue" license.
The risk of getting fined by the BSA is much higher than any risks from the GPL. (Actually there simply are no risks from a user's point of view. As long as you don't redistribute, there is no risk because there is no way to violate the license.)
In times in which many companies spend a significant portion of their revenue on lawers, a no-sue, no-IP-bullshit license like the GPL is exactly what is needed for a lot of companies.
He basically implies that IBM did put SCO code into Linux. In reality, IBM put code into Linux that IBM/sequent had created and then contributed to Unix.
The real problem is wether IBM turned over all rights to that code to Unix at that time. This is a contract dispute with SCO, not a patent/copyright issue. Unfortunatly, SCO is trying to make it something that it is not.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Over and above the fact that this is not an option it wouldn't be.
It's the same argument as stating we do not need advertising, packaging, etc.
Linux is moving from being a Solution to a Product. A product that needs to compete with other Products in the market place. This means that all the intangibles starts to be very important wether you like it or not.
FUD is a legitimate marketing tool used by alternative products and your Product needs to be able to withstand the critisism.
That is why we need this lawsuit, need for GPL to be declared a legal enforcable license, and for SCO to be silences (or better killed)
Help fight continental drift.
don't be confused. after you get through the 'stigma', you'll find that you get equal stuff, & get to have some money left over. the name is misleading anymore anyway. most of them have gobs of stuff for up to $10.00. make your purchases locally (not just the dollar store), when you can/it represents fair value.
about a 30% drop in the cost of many things. just a thought.
we've also reduced the # of softwar liesense contracts we pay to $0.00. that helps, a lot.
I posted this at the tail end of a very long SCO thread, but it definitely bears repeating. (Since No-one will ever read post #1765 of a 7 page thread....)
A bit of op-ed/interesting facts from Netcraft.com...
Two months ago SCO sent letters to 1500 of the largest companies globally warning them of risks involved in running Linux. Although SCO did not make the identities of these companies public, Chris Sontag described the list as "the Fortune 500 and effectively the global 2000. It ended up being about 1,500 top international companies". This makes it likely that the list of companies that received letters from SCO will be quite similar to the list of sites we use to study enterprises' web site technology choices.
At the time many analysts speculated that SCO's behaviour might deter enterprise companies from using Linux. However, this has not happened to date, at least in respect of their internet visible web sites. In the last two months Linux has made a net gain of over 100 enterprise sites; sites which have migrated to Linux including Royal Sun Alliance, Deutsche Bank, SunGard,T-online and most noteworthy, Schwab.
It may well be that although SCO has generated an enormous amount of attention from the media and the Linux evangelists, it does not presently have the attention of IT practitioners in large companies.
SCO Who?
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!
...but only if we win.
This is it, it's the long-awaited test of the GPL in court. SCO isn't backing down, and IBM isn't forcibly backing them down. The GPL, before this case is over, will have been tested in court, and that is absolutely good... if we win. If the GPL is not upheld in court then this is very, very bad. Since none of us know for sure how it will go, this whole suit is very potentially-good.
But, c'mon, this is IBM here. If anyone can win a court battle, it's IBM.
One way or another we'll know whether the GPL is valid by, say, 2008.
I want my Cowboyneal
That's great to know, Bill.
"When I heard about it, I shit my pants'
You don't seriously believe any of the crap you just wrote, did you?
Most modern operating systems concepts my ass.
How much in the way of operating systems theory have you been exposed to?
Legacy baggage? Pah. Microsloth is in the habit of borrowing those things from "Legacy O/S" after they've been deemed worthless or not worth protecting.
Look at what it got from Xerox Parc, Apple, OS/2 AND Unix. (And if you don't know what those items are, you should shut your trap and go find out before you try to pass off Microsoft as the Holy Grail of Technology).
The number of Microsoft failures and bugs and just plain poor design are legion.
Thinking otherwise, is just plain stupidity, ignorance or both and are equally dangerous.
Ugh.
I think I'm going to kick some pro-Micro-sloth-newbie-ass in a debate today....
and see what will happen. Then we can say it was good, status que, or if we should start an underground resistanse movement :-)
Evolution of Language Through The Ages: 6000 BC : ungh, grrf, booga 2000 AD : grep, awk, sed
Obviously the countless suits, settled and unsettled, in the DOS/Windows arena don't count.
Linux's lucky lawsuit
Wynn Quon National Post
Saturday, August 09, 2003 ADVERTISEMENT
SCO's challenge of IBM's use of its software is not a threat to the open-source Linux operating system. If fact, SCO is a toad about to face a steamroller
Alarm bells are ringing throughout the open-source software world. SCO Group has filed suit against IBM, accusing it of illegally incorporating SCO's Unix code into the Linux operating system. Some analysts are predicting an onslaught of legal attacks that will kill Linux.
The alarm is overdone. While no one relishes the prospect of going to court, this lawsuit is actually a good thing for Linux in the long run.
The story behind the lawsuit goes like this: In 1995, SCO Group purchased the code for the Unix System V operating system from Novell. IBM has a contract with SCO to use this code as part of its own operating system, known as AIX. (An outside observer would be forgiven if he thought this lawsuit is all about a bunch of acronyms suing each other). SCO charges that IBM violated the contract and stole SCO's trade secrets by incorporating SCO software into the hugely popular Linux operating system. SCO claims a whopping US$3-billion in damages. Linux defenders accuse SCO of being a gold-digger, a two-bit player trying to exploit Linux's success for money.
At the centre of the lawsuit, Linux has its own interesting tale. Linux doesn't belong to any one company. Instead it was created through a fascinating process known as open-source development. A team of talented volunteer programmers led by Linus Torvalds collaborated over the Internet and built a stable, spiffy and very cheap operating system. In less than a decade it has become Microsoft's most dangerous rival. The operating system is now deployed on 14% of servers and its market share is growing at a torrid pace of 60% a year.
Four years ago, IBM recognized Linux's strength. It put 250 of its own engineers to work on it and integrated Linux into its products. The bet has paid off handsomely: In the fourth quarter alone, IBM shipped US$160-million worth of Linux servers.
And there lies the rub. Linux is now big business. It powers products for Dell and HP. It is finding its way (albeit at a slower pace) on to desktops and consumer electronics gear. Linux was born out of a warm and fuzzy let's-work-together idealism that is typical of all open-source projects. Today it finds itself front and centre in a world where market share projections and $800-an-hour litigation lawyers count for as much as spiffy code.
Software analysts worry that SCO's lawsuit will put the big chill on Linux development. This would be a bad thing, not least because it would leave Microsoft in a stronger position than ever. But there's another, more stout-hearted way of looking at it: SCO's legal action is the first harbinger of the corporate makeover of Linux. Open-source advocates are outraged at the audacity of the lawsuit. They should instead be thankful. Linux must inoculate itself against the nasty legal toxins that are endemic in the corporate environment. And if we were to perversely pick a poison, the SCO suit has a lot going for it. SCO is strong enough to provoke a strengthening of Linux's defences but not so strong that it poses any real danger.
What makes the SCO action the ideal first-time lawsuit for Linux is this: First, it is directed at IBM rather than directly at Linux customers. This means there is no immediate threat against the deployment and continuing use of Linux.
Second, the substance of SCO's claims appears weak. Eric Raymond, who heads the Open Source Initiative (OSI) advocacy group, has been a vocal debunker of SCO's charges. According to Raymond, it is unlikely there were trade secret transfers from SCO code to Linux. The codebase owned by SCO is an old and creaky one, a jalopy compared to the Formula One technology found in Linux. Furthermore, SCO itself had made its codebase freely available
speaking of evils in Utah, i recently came across this article and found it very disturbing.
6 37 .asp
http://www.sltrib.com/2003/aug/08062003/utah/81
Rolly & Wells: Logan beer basher leaving town
By Paul Rolly and JoAnn Wells
Salt Lake Tribune Columnists
Logan residents lobbying for more liberal liquor laws probably will toast the resignation today of City Council member Karen Borg, who is leaving five months before her second term ends to move to Layton.
Borg became a symbol of the church-state blur in Logan four years ago when she fought a proposed ordinance to allow brew pubs and claimed her opponent, Gina Wickwar, favored brew pubs.
Wickwar, who bested Borg in the primary, was derailed when Borg's LDS stake president, Jay Monson, admonished his bishops to read a letter from the pulpit instructing congregations to defeat candidates who don't respect the Mormon view on alcohol consumption.
Two days before the election, Wickwar got the fatal kiss of death in the nonpartisan race when local Republican leaders labeled her a Democrat.
Borg's replacement will be picked by the four remaining council members, who are split on the still unpassed brew-pub issue. Wickwar, who still has a bad taste in her mouth about Logan politics, does not plan to apply.
The Mailman still delivers: For those who haven't forgiven Karl Malone for swapping a Jazz jersey for a Lakers uniform, consider this:
Malone was in Cedar City recently and stopped at a Subway sandwich store. He got into a conversation with sandwich maker Justin Hignite, 17, who was lamenting that his truck had broken down and he had no money to fix it.
After Malone got his sandwich and prepared to leave, he gave Hignite a $500 tip.
Try pixie dust: Rosewood Lane in Layton has been closed to through traffic because of construction this summer, but construction crews have accommodated those who live on the street by building wooden ramps so they can enter their driveways.
Last Wednesday evening, after the construction crews had gone home, Jason Anderton, who lives on Rosewood Lane, was entering his driveway when he discovered he was being followed by a Layton police car. He was given a ticket for driving on a closed road. When he called the Layton Police Department and asked how he was supposed to get home, he says a sergeant hung up on him.
Start out small: Pat Shea, former state Democratic chairman, Democratic national committeeman and director of the Bureau of Land Management during the Clinton administration, could not get elected to public office in Utah, being a Democrat and all. He unsuccessfully ran for governor in 1992 and the U.S. Senate in 1994.
But Bill Nicholes, a crusty old volunteer for Shea's campaigns after retiring from a 37-year career with AT&T, did something recently that his younger political mentor could not do. He won an election.
Nicholes is the new mayor of Mesquite, Nev., a community he describes as "a political extension of St. George, which means it is ultraconservative." Nicholes moved to the desert gambling oasis after the Shea campaigns and says he has been more successful moderating the town than his fellow Democrats have been in Utah.
Attracting attention: Gary Sneed of Salt Lake City was a bit awed recently when he received license plates for his new car from the state Department Motor Vehicles.
The plates read: "911 WTC."
_________
Paul Rolly and JoAnn Wells welcome e-mail at rolly&wells@sltrib.com.
blah
yes get my karma down i care less as i am right...
blah
I agree with the author's assessment that this is just the first of many attacks. We will be forever defending Linux and Open Source from the individuals and corporations who want to own and control everything.
It will probably become more difficult for Joe Coder to just submit a patch to fix a bug. At worst, a lengthy background check will become required to verify that he hasn't worked on something similar for a corporation. At best, he'll have to complete some paperwork before he gains committer status.
These kinds of steps will help tone down the endless parade of future lawsuits that await us, but they will have an impact on the culture of open source, if you can call it that. We can't be innocent volunteers trying to help out anymore; open source processes will have to evolve to more closely match their corporate counterparts. Expect accountability and responsibilty to become new buzzwords, and expect the sort of back-stabbing politics that come with that kind of corporate climate.
There will be an impact on the meritocracy so often praised -- your work may be rejected for reasons having nothing to do with its merit. Or from another point of view, part of the measurement of your work's merit will be your ability to prove that it's original. "My patch doesn't fix the bug as elegantly, but you used to work for Company X, who developed a similar system five years ago, so we really can't accept your work."
I'm probably too much of a pessimist. But it seems that regardless of the outcome of the whole SCO mess, something will be lost. Maybe nothing terribly vital, but something.
Wow, a lucrative publishing contract! I don't have to be evil anymore. --Meteor
just doing what the bosses are telling them what they want them to do. The fact that the lawyers may not understand how a line of code got into an OS is not the lawyer's worry. They must do as the client wishes if they wish to get paid. When the case gets to court, it will show how good/bad the GPL is. The article's point being that it would be a good idea for to pay more attention to how code is reused and where it comes from is well taken.
The fact that Linux installs went up instead of down after SCO started making noise indicates that most people/companies don't think SCO has a snowball chance in h... and that the GPL will stand the court test.
Hey, has it crossed anyone's mind that maybe IBM is bankrolling SCO's linux suit?
Ok, it's a but far fetched. But the more I think about it, the more diabolically plausible it seems:
What if some Machivellian genius at IBM is orchestrating this? Every day SCO seems more and more like some absurd character from an anti-capitalist farce. What a beautiful test case. They are absolutely unsympathetic as an antagonist. IBM has a flawless legal department. This has none of the ambiguity of the 2600 or Jon cases. How much did IBM spend painting "peace, love, linux" through NYC? How much would it take to buy of a couple of smarmy executives from a failing tech company? (or maybe it was the threat of releasing those compromising pics from the latest NAMBLA rally?)
And Boies? Maybe he's still sore at Microsoft for the de facto loss in the anti-trust case. Maybe he's deep cover for the penguinistas, out for blood in a scorched earth campaign against the Redmond giant.
Think on this: IBM didn't have to include a mention of the GPL in their counter suit. There's enough of an argument in the rest of the brief to shut SCO up and shut them down. The GPL could conceivable hurt IBM in the future if they want to pull shennanigans with the linux codebase in the future. This GPL mention has the potential of being and incredible gift to the community.
Ok. I'll go re-fold my tinfoil hat. 20 years from now when the truth comes out, remember you heard it from me first.
Fermat's other theorem: "I have a simple proof, but I can't write it down as I fear it's a DMCA violation to discuss it"
The reality is that these lawsuits are a necessary step along the way. With so much money involved, we all knew this day would come. You didn't expect companies that are losing sales to Linux to throw up their hands and say "Oh well"? If I was in their shoes, I would put up a fight as well. So, the author of the article is right. The quicker this is begun and over with, the Linux can take it to the next level. Besides, there is no such thing as bad publicity
The odd thing is that I didn't expect the lawsuit to come from SCO. I would have expected Microsoft (conspiracy theories aside) or maybe Sun. Also, I expected the initial lawsuits to be about patents and not copyrights. I actually think there are more lawsuits in the future for Linux. Since patents are more broadly defined, future lawsuits about patents could be even more dangerous than the SCO suit.
Linux was born and has grown up out of a desire for und users, like us, to have another choice for a fast, stable and feature filled OS.
When businesses begin to see linux as a source of revenue is when they will take steps to protect their slice of the pie.
I ask you this, what if MS developed a version of linux and added a closed source kernel driver that would be required to run MS Office for linux?
This would be completely legal, businesses would be interested in running the MS linux because of the mountains of free software out there plus 100% compatibility with MS Office.
The "business" market taking a serious interest in linux will only be bad in the long run.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
It's been pointed out often but it bears repeating: BSD won their lawsuit too, for all the good it did them. All it takes is one or two quarters of businesses' holding off on a Linux migration and we'll end up like BSD: a bunch of hobbyists and cranks who do great stuff but never get to take it anywhere.
All's true that is mistrusted
how gooed could it be?
get rid of those 8 cyl. things. even if they hang linus, you'll still be responsible for yOUR roll in the oil for babies program, etc..
don't worry about linux, our site traffic has gone from 2% gnu os/browsers, to around 20%, in just a few months, since the whoreabull motives of the georgewellian payper liesense softwar felons has been known. add to that the lack of trustworthycomputing.com(monsense) in the infactdead BugWear(tm) distributed buy the Godless kingdumb, & its naykid furor & you've got yourself a paradigm, or something like that.
back on task.
pay attention, the returns/good feelings are astounding.
what will become of Slashdot, when all this is over? Would it survive 50% less articles? And what about all the readers, who have to go to the psychiatrist. :p
I mean, this is addictive stuff, dude! I dont wanna go cold turkey!
Nice.
How about Ximian = Boston = Catholicism = Child Molestor? Or maybe IBM = New York = Jew = Baby Eater?
This is VERY ugly language, and very ugly ideas. That you posess them and spew them and put them forth as the correct perspective is abhorent.
And BTW, I lived in Utah for a number of years. Your perceptions and bigotry are skewed. The Mormons, as a whole, are a nice people. This SCO group, on the other hand....
We can't change what's happened. There's a lawsuit whether we like it or not. BUT ... The lawsuits are drawing a lot of attention to Linux (hey, even my computer-unsavy mom asked me about it the other day). I think that this could end up being really positive feedback for Linux should IBM/Novell/RedHat/etc. emerge victorious.
Of course, it could also set Linux back quite a lot in terms of corporate acceptance should SCO win.
I don't know what's up with you windows-users, I recently upgraded my Windows XP Home to the latest version (v3.1), and it doesn't work at all well. I have received error messages about lack of primary memory (I have 256 MB in this machine), and I can't seem to make it work with anything over 8-bit color. Before, when I ran BSD I could get up to and including 24-bit color on this machine. I also found that multitasking was much faster on BSD.
The way I see it, Windows XP isn't yet ready for the desktop or server rooms.
Many years ago, I wrote a little blurb about this one topic (to remain confidential), and published it on my web page, complete with copyright notice. It sat there neglected for a while, and eventually I took the page down.
Very recently, however, I discovered Encyclopedia Brittanica used my blurb for their entry on the subject. They stole my intellectual property.
I am hereby announcing my forthcoming lawsuit against Encyclopedia Brittanica. I am looking to enjoin them from distributing any further copies, either in paper or electronic form. I will also be seeking royalty payments from anyone owning a copy produced since 2001. And no, I will not disclose which entry it is they stole, since I do not anyone reprinting it even as a news article.
* * * * * * *
Yes, the above is fiction. It was written to illustrate how stupid SCO is being. Why no judge has forced them to disclose said infringing code is beyond me. Frankly, since if the code were disclosed it would be removed, it seems like they are ENCOURAGING further infringement, which I would take as their not defending their copyright adequately.
This is exactly the kind of article that Linux needs. This isn't just another article that only appeals mainly to the technical inclined... This article talks to public at large in layman's terms, something pointy haired business executives (and other non-techies who actually make decisions at large organizations) can understand.
The article has a subtextual premise that the corporate IP game is either legitimate or the only game possible. Its point is predicated on the idea that Linux in order to be and remain strong must play this game by the assumed cast in stone rules. But Linux and Free Software/Open Source in general is about stepping outside of this IP game and freely sharing knowledge, code, algorithms and so on. That is what has made it so powerful and such a beautiful alternative. To now turn around and supposedly "make it stronger" by throwing out or mitigating the very source of its strength would be a fatal error.
The author of this piece obviously does not get it. That is to be expected when apparently all too many of us don't get it either.
It's also very possible that the SCO execs know they're gonna lose, but in the meantime, they can use the publicity and speculation that SCO could win to pump up the stock price, knowing that they will have cashed out by the time the gavel falls on SCO - SCO goes bankrupt, but McBride and co. don't give a fsck, they've already made their pile.
And looking at SCOX's stock chart, this strategy appears to be working.
The article wasn't saying a lawsuit is good, but that a lawsuit with this plaintiff is relatively good. A relatively bad one would be with Microsoft.
There's always a bully, whether in business, school, on the street, or in dealing with foreign nations. If you have no prominence, your battles will be few and/or minor. Linux is now big, and it has attracted the attention of others in a big way.
I think this lawsuit will be painful, but Linux could in fact come out stronger. IBM continues to push Linux as strongly as ever. To the outside world, they didn't even flinch when the AIX cease and desist date came and passed. They continue to advertise Linux in prominent business magazines. The IBM legal machine is already engaged for the battle. Now Red Hat and SuSE are going against SCO in the US and German courts, respectively.
IBM can and will continue to fight SCO, and will probably win in court, though there are no guarantees. Linux may come out with what might metaphorically be a bloody nose, but that's life.
The battle needs to be fought such that the next bully thinks twice before swinging at Linux.
Graham
Linux - Fast Pane Relief
mm-mm check it out:
www.darlmcbridesucks.com
awwwww yeah
If the conspiracy people are right and microsoft is behind SCO's misadventure, it doesn't matter wheather this turns out good or bad its just the begining. Microsoft has never gotten anything even close to right on the first try. Windows 1.0, XL, Word, powerpoint, Internet explorer, If they deem its important though they just funnel money from their monopoly cash cows into making it right. Seeing as this attack has cost them maybe 7 or 8 mil and has managed alot of pain you can expect to see a whole lot more untill open source is in bad enough shape for them.
I think whenever you read analysis or someones take on an issue, you have to boil down their argument to their emotional state. It's difficult with words alone, but it can be done.
The submitter noted the authors optimism. I felt something different. I sensed that he masked the anxiety he felt about Linux's fate, and projected an air of cautious optimism.
Not that logic is something we humans have a great abbundance of, but to my mind, logic dictates a great role in the thought process when speculation is involved. Afterall, it will be almost a year before this reaches trial.
There are two problems I see with his essay. First, he denies that the FSF is capable of handling questions about the GPL. The FSF is the heart and soul of the GPL. I couldn't disagree with him more. And second, he makes it sound as if Redhat is better than Gentoo. I don't buy that. They each have their strengths and weaknesses.
How much in the way of operating systems theory have you been exposed to?
Enough to know, for instance, that Linux's monolithic design is obsolete compared to Windows NT's modern microkernel design. Enough to know that NTFS is decades ahead of any non-proprietary Unix FS.
Legacy baggage? Pah. Microsloth is in the habit of borrowing those things from "Legacy O/S" after they've been deemed worthless or not worth protecting.
Oh good. No evidence. I was worried there for a minute. Look, XP does include a DOS emulator, as well as an optional Unix emulator (the Interix subsystem) but these are not part of the core OS. And yeah, it does run programs written for older versions of Windows, but that was because the API designed for NT (win32) was added to Windows 9x in order to make the transition possible. And those operating systems, yes, were not as modern as XP, and their design was necessitated by compromises in the architecture of early PCs and the need for compatibility with them. But you can't buy a new PC with those OS's anymore, only XP, which is as I said based only on the most modern operating system concepts.
Look at what it got from Xerox Parc, Apple, OS/2 AND Unix. (And if you don't know what those items are, you should shut your trap and go find out before you try to pass off Microsoft as the Holy Grail of Technology).
Actually anything it inherited from any of those resides at the user level, in the user interface. If we are talking about the operating system, which is really the kernel and low-level system services, it is more advanced than any of those. Only OS/2 is even close, but you should remember that the project which eventually became NT began as an effort to write a new kernel for OS/2 (which was developed jointly by Microsoft and IBM), which IBM decided they didn't want because then it wouldn't run on 286's! Its also telling that you don't mention VMS, another OS that has some design similarities with NT, which is fitting since they were designed by the same person. Of course, VMS was a generation beyond Unix and was written partially in order to address its shortcoming.
The number of Microsoft failures and bugs and just plain poor design are legion.
More useless slogans, no evidence. Look at the latest security reports -- there are far more Linux bugs and exploits revealed than Windows. Just because hackers are obsessed with cracking Windows systems because of their pathological hatred of commercial software, while they take it easy on Unix and Linux, doesn't mean that the fundamental design of Linux is not worse.
Thinking otherwise, is just plain stupidity, ignorance or both and are equally dangerous.
Oh, so if I don't accept your ridiculous claims without evidence I'm ignorant and stupid? Well then, sieg heil comrade! Glory to the revolution, death to commercial software! Heil Linux!
remember, there is no such thing as bad publicity. Before this incident, many people didn't even know what Linux was, let alone the fact that it is probably what keeps their website online.
DEAR SIR/MADAM:
I AM MR. DARL MCBRIDE CURRENTLY SERVING AS THE PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER OF THE SCO GROUP, FORMERLY KNOWN AS CALDERA SYSTEMS INTERNATIONAL, IN LINDON, UTAH, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. I KNOW THIS LETTER MIGHT SURPRISE YOUR BECAUSE WE HAVE HAD NO PREVIOUS COMMUNICATIONS OR BUSINESS DEALINGS BEFORE NOW.
MY ASSOCIATES HAVE RECENTLY MADE CLAIM TO COMPUTER SOFTWARES WORTH AN ESTIMATED $1 BILLION U.S. DOLLARS. I AM WRITING TO YOU IN CONFIDENCE BECAUSE WE URGENTLY REQUIRE YOUR ASSISTANCE TO OBTAIN THESE FUNDS.
IN THE EARLY 1970S THE AMERICAN TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH CORPORATION DEVELOPED AT GREAT EXPENSE THE COMPUTER OPERATING SYSTEM SOFTWARE KNOWN AS UNIX. UNFORTUNATELY THE LAWS OF MY COUNTRY PROHIBITED THEM FROM SELLING THESE SOFTWARES AND SO THEIR VALUABLE SOURCE CODES REMAINED PRIVATELY HELD. UNDER A SPECIAL ARRANGMENT SOME PROGRAMMERS FROM THE CALIFORNIA UNIVERSITY OF BERKELEY DID ADD MORE CODES TO THIS OPERATING SYSTEM, INCREASING ITS VALUE, BUT NOT IN ANY WAY TO DILUTE OR DISPARAGE OUR FULL AND RIGHTFUL OWNERSHIP OF THESE CODES, DESPITE ANY AGREEMENT BETWEEN AMERICAN TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH AND THE CALIFORNIA UNIVERSITY OF BERKELEY, WHICH AGREEMENT WE DENY AND DISAVOW.
IN THE YEAR 1984 A CHANGE OF REGIME IN MY COUNTRY ALLOWED THE AMERICAN TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH CORPORATION TO MAKE PROFITS FROM THESE SOFTWARES.
IN THE YEAR 1990 OWNERSHIP OF THESE SOFTWARES WAS TRANSFERRED TO THE CORPORATION UNIX SYSTEM LABORATORIES. IN THE YEAR 1993 THIS CORPORATION WAS SOLD TO THE CORPORATION NOVELL. IN THE YEAR 1994 SOME EMPLOYEES OF
NOVELL FORMED THE CORPORATION CALDERA SYSTEMS INTERNATIONAL, WHICH
BEGAN TO DISTRIBUTE AN UPSTART OPERATING SYSTEM KNOWN AS LINUX. IN THE YEAR 1995 NOVELL SOLD THE UNIX SOFTWARE CODES TO SCO. IN THE YEAR 2001 OCCURRED A SEPARATION OF SCO, AND THE SCO BRAND NAME AND UNIX CODES WERE ACQUIRED BY THE CALDERA SYSTEMS INTERNATIONAL, AND IN THE FOLLOWING YEAR THE CALDERA SYSTEMS INTERNATIONAL WAS RENAMED SCO GROUP, OF WHICH I CURRENTLY SERVE AS CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER.
MY ASSOCIATES AND I OF THE SCO GROUP ARE THEREFORE THE FULL AND RIGHTFUL OWNERS OF THE OPERATING SYSTEM SOFTWARES KNOWN AS UNIX. OUR ENGINEERS HAVE DISCOVERED THAT NO FEWER THAN SEVENTY (70) LINES OF OUR VALUABLE AND PROPRIETARY SOURCE CODES HAVE APPEARED IN THE UPSTART OPERATING SYSTEM LINUX. AS YOU CAN PLAINLY SEE, THIS GIVES US A CLAIM ON THE MILLIONS OF LINES OF VALUABLE SOFTWARE CODES WHICH COMPRISE THIS LINUX AND WHICH HAS BEEN SOLD AT GREAT PROFIT TO VERY MANY BUSINESS ENTERPRISES. OUR LEGAL EXPERTS HAVE ADVISED US THAT OUR CONTRIBUTION TO THESE CODES IS WORTH AN ESTIMATED ONE (1) BILLION U.S. DOLLARS.
UNFORTUNATELY WE ARE HAVING DIFFICULTY EXTRACTING OUR FUNDS FROM THESE COMPUTER SOFTWARES. TO THIS EFFECT I HAVE BEEN GIVEN THE MANDATE BY MY COLLEAGUES TO CONTACT YOU AND ASK FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE. WE ARE PREPARED TO SELL YOU A SHARE IN THIS ENTERPRISE, WHICH WILL SOON BE VERY PROFITABLE, THAT WILL GRANT YOU THE RIGHTS TO USE THESE VAULABLE SOFTWARES IN YOUR BUSINESS ENTERPRISE. UNFORTUNATELY WE ARE NOT ABLE AT THIS TIME TO SET A PRICE ON THESE RIGHTS. THEREFORE IT IS OUR RESPECTFUL SUGGESTION, THAT YOU MAY BE IMMEDIATELY A PARTY TO THIS ENTERPRISE, BEFORE OTHERS ACCEPT THESE LUCRATIVE TERMS, THAT YOU SEND US THE NUMBER OF A BANKING ACCOUNT WHERE WE CAN WITHDRAW FUNDS OF A SUITABLE AMOUNT TO GUARANTEE YOUR PARTICIPATION IN THIS ENTERPRISE. AS AN ALTERNATIVE YOU MAY SEND US THE NUMBER AND EXPIRATION DATE OF YOUR MAJOR CREDIT CARD, OR YOU MAY SEND TO US A SIGNED CHECK FROM YOUR BANKING ACCOUNT PAYABLE TO "SCO GROUP" AND WITH THE AMOUNT LEFT BLANK FOR US TO CONVENIENTLY SUPPLY.
KINDLY TREAT THIS REQUEST AS VERY IMPORTANT AND STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL. I HONESTLY ASSURE YOU THAT THIS TRANSACTION IS 100% LEGAL AND RISK-FREE.
Mod Parent down, -1, Mormon sympathiser
According to one former Slashdot user who wished to remain anonymous, "I used to like the content they had there but I began thinking, Wow someone must be paying them to bash SCO so much. All they ever talk about now is SCO, SCO, SCO. It's scary."
Slashdot staff members were unavailable for comments on the matter but assured us via third party contacts that this would be the last SCO article for the rest of this hour.
The masses who do not yet consider Linux a household word, may take an interest in the uppity OS that beat "the system". And companies that continue to look for cheaper ways to do business may have another reason to look at Linux.. Someone once said any publicity is good publicity.
We should thank SCO for their suicidal tendencies. If the original plan was to cause a ruckus, and have some high dollar company buy them, that, by now, has obviously failed. I would be amazed if any company would consider purchasing SCO at this point.
Which is certainly one thing SCO doesn't have.
Although your comments seem authoritative and knowledgeable, your facts are fuzzy and wrong. Unix was derived from Multics, but Multics at the point was dead. AT&T had abandoned the project altogether. That's when Dennis Ritchie developed Unix. Since Ritchie helped to develop Multics for AT&T, how can anybody say that he ripped off Multics. Is like saying I'm stealing part of my car to use in my other car. If it's mine, it's not stealing.
The Berkeley Shareware Distribution (BSD) was sued by AT&T in the early 1990s, for openly distributing copyrighted code in its public-domain source releases. As if this wasn't enough, it turned out that AT&T had also broken the license on code they had taken from BSD, leaving both sides forced to essentially accept the other's illegal behavior in order to avoid stiffer penalties.
Again, a mispresentation of history. Actually, AT&T had sold the Unix copyrights to USL by then so it wasn't AT&T vs BSDI. It was USL vs BSDI. Get your history straight. In the preliminary ruling, the judge indicated he would rule in BSDI's favor since USL could not support most of their claims. Was code from both parties intertwined? Yes, but from all accounts BSD had very little code to worry about. USL had larger problems because not only did they borrow code from BSD, they also removed BSD's copyrights and sold the code to other parties.
Reputable software companies such as Microsoft, though initially interested in Unix, have learned to steer clear of the mess of standards, licenses, and conflicting intellectual property rights that Unix forms.
I get it, you're a Microserf! So how much is Billy paying you to troll? Microsoft is one of the few companies you should use with the term 'reputable' around here. To be honest, large companies sometimes do engage in unethical behavior. Microsoft is no exemption. They have been sued countless times for copyright and patent infringement. Stac, Goldtouch, Timeline, Softimage, etc. Stac, Timeline, and SoftImage have all won their suits by the way.
Microsoft Windows XP is the latest release of Microsoft's flagship version of Windows, built from the ground up in the early 1990s based on the most modern concepts in operating systems, without any legacy baggage from the 1970s.
Just because XP is newer doesn't mean it's better. Is XP the most stable version of Windows to date? Yes. Is it good enough for most PC users? Again yes. It is good to run enterprise systems? Maybe. Like any OS, you have to match the requirements with the capability.
From its inception, Unix systems have been designed from the ground up to provide stability, security, and power while handling multiple users and processes. Microsoft only started trying to incorporate those features with NT. So in other words, Windows is the new kid on the block but is trying to play catch up. Is like saying my Kia is so much better and safer than your Volvo because they started designing the Kia after the Volvo has been saving lives for decades.
And it is available essentially for free, preloaded on hardware from all major manufacturers.
I hate to tell you, but you are paying for Windows because its price is rolled into the PC price. If you don't believe, go shopping on Dell.com and try customizing a business server. One of the options is to change the OS. If you remove the Factory OS, it will subract $799 from the price. In my world $799 is not "essentially free". Also if you read /., a user posted how he got refunds on Windows
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Don't wear underpanties.
Sincerely,
Professor Linux
It's time for all of the programmers/contributors to Linux software that SCO is now demanding a license fee stand up and be counted.
... it is ripe for a class action.
It is within their legal rights to demand PAYMENT from SCO for using your GOODWILL to profit. When you signed up you did so with the understanding that there would not be a universal license.
Contact you local attorney
here we can see the Mormon PR machine in action. or maybe in this case it's the brainwashing machine that's gotten to you.
also, you should understand that the original post was meant to be somewhat humorous, with a bit of self-depricating humor built in. I realized the unenlightened (read YOU) may not recognize suttle humor. So, for the unenlightened I have a more clear message.
FUCK YOU!
In it Quon claims that [...] ". . . SCO is a toad about to face a steamroller."
On behalf of the International Association of Toads I have to file a complaint regarding the comparison between Toads and SCO.
Does this man?look like a toad to you?
Head of the Dorks
"What does it cost to license an OS you don't really need? A cool $6 million. That's the figure a Microsoft sales pro let slip when asked why the Redmond boys acquired a Unix license from The SCO Group. According to my source, the pro said Microsoft ponied up because "SCO needed money for their lawsuit problem." SCO PR dude Blake Stowell issued a staunch denial, saying MS wants the code for its Services for Unix product. Still, $6 mil would certainly keep SCO attorney David Boies' legal machine nicely oiled -- and the news is sure to make thousands of Microsoft conspiracy theorists happy" -InfoWorld
A) SCO is a toad about to face a steamroller.
Agreed. The lawsuits are piling up. Red Hat, a 1 Billion dollar company that is 7 times large than SCO has filed a wholely separate lawsuit from IBM.
Anyone out there who contributed any code that shipped in kernel 2.4.19 should consider taking up Red Hat's litigation fund offer and sue SCO. Hell even if you represent yourself, SCO simply isn't going to have the bandwidth to respond.
B) The Linux community needs exactly this kind of 'inoculation' as the OS moves from a hobbyist platform to a real business tool.
Not really. Linux completed the move from a hobbyist platform to a real business tool 2 to 4 years ago. That's old news.
What perhaps is valueable is to demonstrate a point to the world: sham litigation against open source interests is a suicidal strategy with zero chance of success.
Many people do not realize the corporate force supporting open source and a demonstration of this fact by public immolation of an "old guard" tech company will be both entertaining and educational to the general public.
In fact, the best result here would be an early injucntion ruling in favor of either Red Hat or IBM, coinciding with a pouring on of half a dozen more lawsuits from other parties, followed by a stock selloff by SCO holders, followed by a complete collapse from within by SCO, perhaps accompanied by a few stock holder lawsuits against the execs and an SEC investigation.
"Hey, SCO! You know what happens to a toad that gets struck by lightning? The same thing that happens to everything else."
Be who you are...and be it in style!
If you really want to counter the SCO FUD machine, widely publishing the notion that this is a stock pump for the benefit of insiders, who might already expect the gavel to fall heavily against them (if proovable by the SCO shareholders the SCO executive could be facing a class action *after* SCO goes bankrupt), would hit them where it hurts.
Yet this weasel guest columnist would appears far too concerned about his own liability to float such a claim in a self-styled national newspaper, even though it would put a much sharper point on his broad interpretation of the situation.
Yet somehow his peronsal forebearance vanishes entirely when he finds time to suggest that major Linux vendors indemnify their own customers, knowing full well that the wrath and considerable litigious muscle of SCO will be violently focussed on the first company with the temerity to do so.
As every career activist knows, the success of this kind of agitation depends on finding someone sufficiently wet-behind-the-ears who does not yet comprehend that a carefully staged, photogenic arrest nevertheless leads to a permanent criminal record and a lifetime of legal discrimination.
Hey Wynn, we'd be more than happy to indemnify our Linux customers. Small obstacle: you first.
So far the GPL is NOT being tested; it is being deployed as weapon.
Red Hat and IBM are both using the GPL to reign in SCO's actions. SCO has not tried to contest the GPL in court (yet). And if it does they will lose.
In fact, Red Hat and IBM are both using it offensively by pointing out that SCO's attempts to license its IP in the kernel violates the copyrights of everyone else who has contributed to it. The GPL comes into play because none of the other contributors to the code have granted the right of distribution under any other terms.
IBM and Red Hat are holding SCO accountable to the terms of the GPL, so this is a really not a defense of the GPL -- it's an enforcement of the its terms. That's all.
Let's be realistic about this. Neither has much money to start with. If SCO wins, Red Hat's Linux will cost $1,500 per user, and SCO'll be demanding back-pay. Since Red Hat's been earning $70 per box sold, never mind those downloaded or copied, Red Hat'd be finished. There is absolutely no way they can pay that kind of money. They simply don't have it.
On the flip side, if SCO loses... There are a lot of people suing SCO as it stands, and you wouldn't need many class-action suits to follow for SCO to fold. Unlike the tobacco giants, there are no major lobbyists backing SCO, and no State in the US has its entire economy riding on it. Don't expect an appeals court to side with SCO, if there are substantial fines levied.
There is a follow-on impact, though. SGI's future largely depends on Linux. That's why they've backed it so heavily, with both code and hardware. IBM have done the same, but they can survive the loss of their Linux range, the same way they've survived the loss of any other range (eg: PS/2, OS/2). SGI probably wouldn't. They don't have enough in the bank to survive another major blow.
Oracle, Sun, Intel... these have also invested substantial amounts in Linux, and would all lose significant sums of money if SCO wins.
If SCO loses, the reverse is true. These companies will be seen as having a competitive edge over their rivals. They will also likely share in any pay-outs by SCO, because of their investments. Free money is never a bad thing for a company. It looks good to investors, too.
There is the argument that any publicity is good publicity. But the Governments of Germany and Peru won't see it that way, if they end up with a large bill to pay. Again, though, the reverse is also true. If SCO loses, you can expect Governments to pull out of contracts with SCO, because SCO will be seen as a lame duck, about to become a very dead duck.
But what will those machines run? With the economy still bad, nobody is going to suggest replacing one expensive OS with another expensive OS. That would make Linux an obvious candidate. It's cheap to install, it works on the same hardware, and it's the one that's getting attention.
Right now, all that anyone can really say is that it'll make or break somebody. Who that somebody is -- that's to be determined. It could so easily swing either way, and that makes it a dangerous thing to bet on.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
If Linux were found to be in violation of a patent, it would either have to remove that particular feature (thus weakening the software) or agree to whatever licensing the patent owner requests.
An odd concept...the author makes this statement as if "Linux" were some centralized entity that could remove the code. The closest that Linux comes to being a product of a certain entity is the various distros (Red Hat, SuSE, etc.) which just distribute code available to the public; they make their money on support services mainly, not the distribution of code itself.
How does "Linux" violate a patent? From where I sit, nobody "owns" Linux, it's just out there, waiting to be used by anybody who wants to use it. It's like air; owned by nobody, free for all who want it.
And how is a patented feature removed? If MS had patent-violating code (try not to laught too hard and stick with me here) it is easy to point to a responsible party responsible for removing the code. Who is the proverbial "it" that is responsible for removing the code from Linux? One could say the distributers are responsible, as they are the closest thing to a "Linux, Inc." However, they don't "own" the code; they distribute in a convenient form what is freely available to the public, in many cases at no charge (such as downloads from FTP sites). Red Hat may not have added a violating feature, so why should Red Hat be responsible for removing it or getting it licensed?
My largely ransom yet not incoherent thought on the topic.
Government's idea of a balanced budget: take money from the right pocket to balance...oh who am I kidding?
Enter SCO, threatening IBM's core business through its crow-jewels AIX if IBM don't drop Linux like a hot potato. One could have no greater example to point business-heads to than that IBM stands up for Linux when faced with lawsuits affecting its beloved AIX.
As you pointed out, this will not theoretically get to court for a long time. It won't EVER get to court for the following reasons:
a) SCO goes bankrupt following collapse of sales and goodwill, and no one buying into their extorsion scheme, not to mention legal bills, or
b) SCO implodes following SEC investigations of criminal activity of its executives, or
c) SCO loses their lawsuit against IBM (the contract dispute), which essentially nullifies the need for IBM's coutersuit (the GPL and patent dispute).
SCO won't last into the new year, that's my personal feeling. They sure as hell won't last to 2005 (the court date for their suit).
So, in short, NO this is not going to be the long-awaited test of the GPL in court. That will only come when two deep-pocketed goliaths lock horns: one whose business bocomes dependant on OSS (IBM) and one whose business becomes obsolete because of OSS (Microsoft). Mark my words, if it happens, it'll be between these two.
Look at the tomato! Isn't it sad? He can't dance! Poor tomato!
I may be wrong, but AFAIK non-compete agreements are not totally illegal in the UK (or in Europe); however they are restricted in the sense that you cannot stop someone carrying on in the same trade somewhere else. The scope of the non-compete agreement determines its enforceability.
For example, it is legal say, for an estate agent to employ someone with a contract preventing them from opening or joining another agency within 5 miles of where they work. It is not legal for them to have a term preventing them opening or joining an agency anywhere in the UK.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Linux monolithic? What definition of monolithic are you using? If anything Windows is monolithic. From Webster's:
Linux is not uniform. It's one of the strengths (Linux on many different platforms, by many different vendors) and one of it's weaknesses.
Oh good. No evidence.
Well technically, your whole point about NTFS being decades ahead is also without proof. Unless you have a time machine. If so, what's next week's numbers in the Powerball? NTFS is newer than some of Unix FS, but it doesn't make it better.
Look, XP does include a DOS emulator, . . .
I think you missed his point. Until NT, Windows was not really designed to be a multiuser, networked environment. These features (or their ideas) were borrowed from Unix, VMS, and, in some respects, Apple. These Legacy OS had these features and others decades before Windows.
Look at the latest security reports -- there are far more Linux bugs and exploits revealed than Windows.
You really have to compare apples and apples. The Linux kernel has had fewer patches than Windows. The rest of the patches are for applications that run in Linux. When patches are needed for these applications, they are almost always needed in other platform versions of the application. ie. sendmail in Solaris, sendmail in AIX, etc.
Oh, so if I don't accept your ridiculous claims without evidence I'm ignorant and stupid? Well then, sieg heil comrade! Glory to the revolution, death to commercial software! Heil Linux!
That's pretty brave words coming from an AC.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
-
http://www.goingware.com/notes/prosecute-sco.html
Here's the introduction: This page provides the article in the UBB code that some message boards use, with plain text coming soon. I'm also starting to post examples of letters that others have sent to their Attorney's General.Thanks for your help.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
OTOH, since Windows is closed source, noone will ever figure out how much of that code is stolen. I remember something about BSD TCP/IP stack, whoknows if there's more?
I'm in a Unix state of mind.
The article compares SCO to a toad. This is irresponsible, yellow journalism.
It's true that many species of toad are poisonous and cause hundreds of deaths in the USA every year. But compared with SCO, they are harmless, benign creatures which have an unfairly bad image.
Comparing toads with SCO will worsen the already-negative image which people have of toads. Let's not forget that some toad species are endangered. They don't need the hostility by association which this irresponsible article will provoke.
First and foremost, posting this here is all well and good, but I suspect it would have a much better impact being sent to the original publisher.
Second, it may also be worth pointing out winders wasn't "built from the ground up in the early 1990s" unless you use a numbe system which starts with 3.
Linux is unstoppable in such a way that it will matter as much what OS runs on a machine as what brand network chip is on the motherboard. Standards matter, and because of its open standards, wide industry support, the GPL's viral nature, and 0 cost linux is going to win out against the *BSD clones. Microsoft doesn't figure at all because they have none of these advantages.
The GPL doesn't need to be declared an enforcable license; the GPL is not against the law and basically is just a contract under which you can use the source code. I don't think any judge can say that you're forbidden from setting your own source code licensing terms.
Of those to whom much is given, much is required.
It has already been mentioned in an earlier post that one possible outcome is that contributors to Linux will have to acknowledge their work as original. I would hate to see that happen, but it may be necessary to protect Linux distrubutors from lawsuits.
Has anybody gone through existing Linux source code and found anything proprietary? This is a tedious task, and very much after the fact. But, it could protect against future lawsuits.
Do the research and you realize that Sun and Microsoft are funding SCO's attack against Linux.
Then SCO's ridiculous IP claim begins to make a lot of sense.
IBM Buys Novell, finds something in the SCO/Novell contracts that allows IBM to terminate SCO's license to Unix code.
Incidentally, would Ray Noorda benefit from this? Does he still have substantial holdings in Novell?
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Multics didn't die in 1969 - it went on under the auspices of Honeywell to influence many more OSes than Unix.
And one could argue that the "enterprise" features of Unix were present in Multics some time before they were reintroduced to its descendant.
The last Multics machine was turned off in October 2000. More details here.
Main Entry: whipping boy
Function: noun
Date: 1647
1 : a boy formerly educated with a prince and punished in his stead
2 : SCAPEGOAT 2
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary
can we talk about something else then SCO?
my karma sucks. so mod me down.
Although your comments seem authoritative and knowledgeable, your facts are fuzzy and wrong. Unix was derived from Multics, but Multics at the point was dead. AT&T had abandoned the project altogether. That's when Dennis Ritchie developed Unix.
Completely incorrect. AT&T withdrew from Multics in 1969, before a single Multics system had been shipped. In fact, after that point, development continued, and the first systems went into production use four months after Bell Labs' withdrawal. Honeywell (who acquired GE's computer business in 1970) continued to sell and develop Multics systems well into the 1970s, and Multics was not officially cancelled until 1985. See here for more info.
Since Ritchie helped to develop Multics for AT&T, how can anybody say that he ripped off Multics. Is like saying I'm stealing part of my car to use in my other car. If it's mine, it's not stealing.
Right, he was the only one, and all those people at GE and MIT contributed nothing? The facts are simple: in 1969, Systems at Bell Labs were running Multics, and Ritchie and others had access to the source code and knowledge of its internal workings. This code was copyrighted and the property of the three parties involved in development. Bell Labs left the project, and a scant few months later Unix was up and running, developed by many of the same people. If there was any leakage of copyrighted code, or ideas considered to be trade secrets of the Multics project, then Unix was clearly founded on IP theft. And it is clear that the existence of a much cheaper workalike (AT&T basically gave away Unix licenses to universities, etc. in the 70s because the government wouldn't let them sell it competitively) did much to undermine Multics as it struggled to gain acceptance in the same time frame as Unix became popular. Its the same lesson the recording industry has learned: You can't compete with cheap pirated copies of your own product. But piracy is embedded into the culture of Unix, so no business model based on sale of Unix-like operating systems can practically survive.
This whole SCO business has nothing to do with the survival of SCO, the GPL, the 3 billion from IBM, or the $1400 license fees from you. That's all cover for what's REALLY going on.
I have one question: WHERE IS BOIES? You remember him right? Mr. Bigshot lawyer guy? Showed up on the first day of the filing and disappeared. Why is it that he hasn't told his client Darl(ing) to STFU and handled the responses himself? That's what a responsible, caring lawyer would do. That's what a lawyer not rented for a single DAY would do. I'll tell you what - this has all been a show.
All of this has been to pump up the stock so Darl and his cronies can dump it and enjoy life in some warm climate somewhere. All these claims of IP and GPL violations are cover for the real criminal activity. These guys are destroying SCO and they know it - have known it for some time.
I feel for the employees, the duped stockholders, and even those stupid enough to purchase a single useless license from these guys. One can only hope for a class action, but history shows (check out the corporate histories of Commodore, Ameritrain, Enron, Worldcom), the big guys of these types of companies rarely do time.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
The universe.
Well, ya got trouble, my friend.
Right here, I say trouble right here in Silicon Valley
Why, sure, we're a software company
Certainly mighty proud to say,
I'm always mighty proud to say it
I consider the hours we spend with code on our screens are golden
Help you cultivate horse sense and a cool head and a keen eye
Didja ever take an' try an' give an iron clad leave
to yourself from Scalable Multiprocessing?
But just as I say it takes judgement, brains and maturity
to test and debug Enterprise Software with full Code Review
I say that any boob can take and shove C source in the GCC compiler
And I call that sloth,
the first big step on the road to the depths of degreda-
I say, first- medicinal wine from a teaspoon,
then beer from a bottle
And the next thing you know your son is hackin'
Distributed Denial of Service Attacks.
and listenin' to some big pseudonymous script kiddie
Hear him tell about mp3 downloadin'
Not a wholesome CD, no, but a compressed
format where the entire _player_ can be smaller than the smallest disk.
Like to hear some disposable Ko-rean hardware playin' Mozart?
Make your blood boil, well I should say
Now, folks, let me show you what I mean
You got zero, through twelve - that's THIRTEEN terms and conditions in the 'Public License'.
Terms that mark the difference between a gentleman and a bum
With a capital 'B' and that rhymes with 'G' and that stands for 'GNU'
And all week long, your Silicon Valley programmers'll be fritterin' away
I say, your coders'll be fritterin'
Fritterin' away their noontime, suppertime, WORKtime, too
Run the code through the compiler
Never mind gettin' Digital Rights Management implemented or the security holes in Outlook patched
or Total Information Awareness connected
Never mind filing for any patents 'til the software industry is caught
with an IP portfolio empty and no one to sue and that's trouble
Oh, ya got lots and lots o' trouble
I'm thinkin' of the kids in the cargo pants,
young ones learnin to install Linux on their Game Boys after school
Ya got trouble, folks, right here in Silicon Valley
with a capital 'T' and that rhymes with 'G' and that stands for 'GNU'
Oh, we got trouble
Right here in Silicon Valley
Right here in Silicon Valley
With a capital 'T' and that rhymes with 'G'
That stands for 'GNU'
We surely got trouble
We surely got trouble
Right here in Silicon Valley
Right here
Gotta figure out a way to keep customers
paying dues
. . .
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
You forgot: 6. Profit!
YHBT. YHL. HAND.
I'll know in a few days if people are finding it independently with search engines, and what keywords they are using. I think it will work out well, though, because my article links to its original copy, and because my website is already regarded highly for google, for reasons I discuss in this other article.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
YHBT YHL HAND
I think its high time we are forced to look at the law we are passing and consider whether or not it is good law.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
That's when Dennis Ritchie developed Unix. Nope we can thank Ken Thompson for that one.
I know it sounds odd, but I think this is making a Linux even more famous than it was before. Now all of my non-technical friends are asking me questions about Linux, UNIX, BSD, and what not. In fact, one of my friends who is a non-CS guy wants to install Redhat on his computer because of all the hype he's being hearing. Everyone seems interested in the "other" OSes. Yeah, "those.." :)
So the Bell Labs team copied the source code and no one said anything? MIT, GE just let them copy away? Or was it that the Bell Labs Team saw the source code and derived Unix from it. Unix was designed to overcome some of the major problems with Multics. Maybe you're right. Well by your argument, Microsoft and MSDOS was founded on the IP theft of CP/M and later Unix.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
http://127.0.0.1:8888/CHK@B77vW9VUiUhMlcymwhGB0BGW zgIOAwI,aWb~rIROm4ztEbmoGdTAbw/linuxluckylawsuit.h tm
Sweet Merriam-Webster! "THEN what", not "than what." May your 4th grade teacher clobber you in the head with an English book.
If you don't stand for nothing I can't really stand behind you
Who knew you withdrew your point of view
I lost mine, you cry and whine all the time
And I can't stand aside or anywhere near you
I'd get in check, you're a wreck, no respect,
In effect you elect me to fuckin' hate you
I'll break you down on the ground, I've found
You're a clown, I'm around, you want war? I'll take you
Stand aside, take a ride, I won't try, you're a lie, my lyrical lesson will teach you
So take a stand if you can, my man, go where I stand, I'll hold my hand
But in the real world you get squashed and then stung
Get hit bitch, shit, aw then you get hung
in a fantasy all day long, it must be so fun being so fucking dumb
(full lyrics)
It infuriates me to read such good articles in a paper that I hate so dearly.
This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it. - Dorothy Parker
n/t
Good analysis or unwarranted optimism?
Neither.
The article is neither "good analysis" nor is it "unwarranted optimism". It is an editorial piece making the argument for "the corporate makeover of Linux" and attempting to sell that idea to the current users and developers of Linux. "Corporate Makeover" implies both the limitation of the Free aspects of Linux (and other Free Software) in distribution (beer) and in access to the source (freedom), and the introduction of centralized management of Free Software development.
The repeated claim that Linux cannot become a success and remain free is getting tired and thin. That companies cannot wrap thier minds around the implications of the GPL enough to ship thier products (and services) in a way that is compatible with the GPL is not the fault of the Free Software comunity. It is possible to create and distribute propietary apps for Linux without running afoul of the (L)GPL.
If Microsoft had helped WINE, there would be little or no demand for OpenOffice, and Linux users would be purchasing Office. Of course, this would have meant acceptance of the fact that Linux is eroding Microsofts dominance of the Desktop market, but acceptance of reality is generally thought of as part of a healthy attitude.
The accusation that there needs to be more "centralized" control over Free Software development is equally false. The current decentralized methods being used for many projects is the main reason for Linux's (and other FS project's) success. There seems to be a failure to understand how the success of Linux has been due (in part) to the lack of marketing driven development. The "markets" that have directed development have been the needs of individual (and groups of) developers, the needs of the users of individual distributions, and the needs of distributions to cooperate in specific ways. This allows greater freedom for separate distributions to explore different answers to the problems of creating an OS and to share, either in whole or in parts, the solutions that different distrobutions have created. It also allows distributions to decide whether to impliment standards based on merit instead of on compliance (I do not want nice to exit with anything but 0 unless there is an error).
There will continue to be people who either refuse or fail to understand that Linux and free Software not only fits nicely into the business place, but is a direct result of business philosophies failing to fufill the needs of software developers and end users alike. Corporations are free to cooperate in free Software Development, make products that run on top of Free Software, and market services to end users of Free Software, but it would be a bad idea to let them run the show.
Read, L
Law of the jungle, battle field or corporate world is the same.
We do not want to see Linux die.
Linux may only be a small part of Richard Stallman's bigger plan, but if it was to go down, then SCO might try and attack other GNU "partners" providing a kernel [NetBSD, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, Darwin, HURD, etc.] which would stall, but not stop, free Operating Systems as we know them.
IANAL but when the IBM vs. SCO lawsuit gets underway does not SCO have to give full disclosure to all offending code when the trial starts? If so, how long do you think it would take to replace any offending code? I'll bet it could be replaced before the trial finishes.
From excellent karma to terible karma with a single +5 funny post...
Although your comments seem authoritative and knowledgeable, your facts are fuzzy and wrong. Unix was derived from Multics, but Multics at the point was dead. AT&T had abandoned the project altogether. That's when Dennis Ritchie developed Unix. Since Ritchie helped to develop Multics for AT&T, how can anybody say that he ripped off Multics. Is like saying I'm stealing part of my car to use in my other car. If it's mine, it's not stealing.
Much of the above is wrong. First, Multics was developed at Project MAC at MIT, in an arrangement with General Electric and with some funding by the U.S. Government. Honeywell later ended up owning the commercial rights; it's unclear exactly how, but I know some Multics people and could ask.
Second, Multics is a very different system from UNIX internally. It has rings of protection instead of a monolithic kernel. Multics requires some special hardware support, and it's closely tied to specific hardware. Multics was written in PL/1 and assembler for the GE machines.
Third, Multics lived well into the UNIX era. It was well-liked within the U.S. Government, because it had better security than anything since. NSA's public access machine, DOCKMASTER, ran Multics until the late 1990s. The classic security comment about Multics was that PENTAGON-MULTICS contained the detailed budgets for all three armed services, and they couldn't look at each other's budgets. No break-ins. No viruses. No buffer overflows. It actually worked. Clunky to use, but very solid.
And if it fails, maybe half of the Open Source Community's hard work is irretrevibly lost to Big Business... Much too high stakes...
i was aware of the offensive nature of my comment. In this case it was supposed to be somewhat offensive and funny. But alas, it looks as if I've failed. Oh well, at least it was offtopic and flamebait, not to mention the spelling error that brings out the demand for correct spelling in all the ACs.
and it wasn't the AT&T lawsuit that did them in. In fact, the AT&T lawsuit was probably a free chunk of publicity.
The fact is: The only people who use *BSD are those who 1.) Hate the GPL. 2.) Hate multiple distributions (but love multiple *BSDs) 3.) The secretly adore Theo De Rat, and wish they had his ticket to bitchslap people in newsgroups.
*BSD is a dead man walking. Say a prayer.
Hmmm, "designed from the ground up" and "has some design simililarities with VMS". In fact, the original NT bears a _startling_ resemblance to VMS. VMS is *hardly* a "modern" operating system, and it's hard to see how dragging all the VMS garbage into NT/2000/XP is good for anyone. Except MickeySoft, of course.
If you're not living on the edge, you're just taking up space!
Well, speaking of conspiracy theories, I've got a new one that involves Sun.
Somewhere early in the year, around February I think, Sun entered into a licensing agreement with SCO that gave it, in addition to other things, an option for 210,000 shares of SCO at $1.83 each.
I've been wondering, ever since reading about it, where that buck-three-eighty came from as the option price. I mean, why $1.83? Why not $0.66 or that $0.0001 option price all the SCO execs have?
Turns out $1.83 was the closing share price on March 6, 2003, the day before SCO announced its suit. This raises some interesting questions, such as, did Sun know from SCO (inside information) that the suit was coming up and choose that day for option price evaluation?
This looks like a smoking gun for an insider trading charge, not to mention corroborating accusations that SCO may be running a pump and dump scheme.
I don't know why I'm replying to such an obvious troll, but it's important to put the facts out there.
> This code was copyrighted and the property of the three parties involved in development.
Multics was written in PL/I with some GE assembly.
UNIX was originally written in PDP-11 assembly (about as different a machine from the GE mainframe as you can imagine) and later in C (after they developed it) Also the kernel design was VERY different.
The point of UNIX wasn't to make anything even resmbling a multics clone as you imply. It was closer to "wow, this complicated multics design has turned into a pain to implement - let's design something TOTALLY different that we can actually implement quickly on relatively cheap hardware"
Basically if you actually studied the systems (and Multics is a fascinating design - it's really quite interesting to read about) you'd know how silly these allegations are.
> did much to undermine Multics as it struggled to gain acceptance in the same time frame as Unix became popular
Uh, during Multics' (brief) heydey it didn't compete against UNIX at all. It was solidly in the mainframe market, where it largely failed against other proprietary offereings from IBM and DEC. By the time UNIX was starting to be seriously deployed outside academia for those tasks Multics was already an also-ran.
My bad, What I meant to say was the the terms of the GPL is upheld in court,
I agree with you and like your analogy about Network chip, as network chip mstters to some as they provide additional functionality and reliability but for most it's a moot point.
Help fight continental drift.
Good Thing(tm), You forgot the (tm), now /. is going to get sued!!
[alk]
I can't wait to see clean-scrubbed SCO guys on bicycles trying to sell us Linux licenses.
Don't drop the soap, Tommy!
Every draft, though, has suggested that stockholders in any of the companies whose stock has been affected by SCO's shenanigans available themselves of the Securities and Exchange Commission's Investor Complaint Form.
The page points out that if you're concerned about security as your complaint is transmitted over the Internet, you can fill in all the fields, print it from your browser, then fax or snail mail it in.
The form is pretty detailed, to make sure they receive all the information they need. That suggests to me that the SEC pays attention to these complaints.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
This idea isn't really well thought out (and not a flame), but just take a second glance for a moment.
What if IBM put SCO up to this?
This is a lose lose situation for SCO. Is anyone really stupid enough to go against IBM with such stupid claims? Maybe this is being choreographed by IBM to reinforce the GPL and their own place in the market. What then are the kickbacks to SCO? It will certainly even out the playing field between MS Windows an Linux a little more, and IBM would love to do that, the money will be in the hardware again, rather than the software. I just think there has to be more to it than can be seen at the superficial level. Really can anyone be so stupid? Maybe they are........
Saying your OS is the best because more people use it is like saying MacDonalds make the best food
The point of the IP laws was to help provide incentive to innovate and there were limitation on just how long those monopolistic rights were to be enforceable.
...
Today, though the advancement of technology means the shorter the time span of technology is useful, the IP monopolistic rights have been extended. Where the only way to extract value after initial integration is to take the laws to their extream and to a degree never intended by the founders.
At the heart of the arguement is not SCO vs. the world but IP laws applied today vs. their original intent.
The simplist statement of original intent is that "of benefit to society"
And not to be used in a manner of
"Unfair Competition
The repression of unfair competition is directed against acts or practices, in the course of trade or business, that are contrary to honest practices, including, in particular:
* acts which may cause confusion with the products or services, or the industrial or commercial activities, of an enterprise;
* false allegations which may discredit the products or services, or the industrial or commercial activities, of an enterprise;
* indications or allegations which may mislead the public, in particular as to the manufacturing process of a product or as to the quality, quantity or other characteristics of products or services;
* acts in respect of unlawful acquisition, disclosure or use of trade secrets;
* acts causing a dilution or other damage to the distinctive power of another's mark or taking undue advantage of the goodwill or reputation of another's enterprise.
Protection of industrial property is not an end in itself: it is a means to encourage creative activity, industrialization, investment and honest trade. All this is designed to contribute to more safety and comfort, less poverty and more beauty, in the lives of men.
"
Seems to me that GNU and GNU/Linux reaches that last sentence far better than SCO can possible achieve in their lawsuit and claims against Linux and the world.
Maybe SCO thinks the last word "men" is exclusively them.
everybody be sure and write Darl a nice thank-you note when this is all over.
to see if there is any Sco stock in there. I am gonna check the yahoo financials on the insider selling.
Maybe there is more to this than meets the eye: Is the purpose of SCO's actions to damage the GPL?
It is your personal duty to fight for what is right on a daily basis. Ignoring injustice is identical to approving
here. apparently im not the only one who feels this way.
I'd ask Martha Stewart but.... you know
"IBM has only 1 motive here. It's profit."
Every company has that motive.
Companies that don't have the money motive have a name... called "bankrupt".
How is the GPL obnoxious? And making everything proprietary isn't?
Linux needs to reinvent itself... why be a UNIX clone??
This is an opportunity for the Linux community to rip off the UNIX roots and build something better and innovative. YEAH INNOVATIVE!!!
Want UNIX ?? buy a real one, or use BSD. The world needs a free OS that competes with Microsoft in terms of innovation, not cheapness.
No one owns shit from MS. They aren't giving it away or selling it. They license it at their terms and can change the terms whenever they want.
I got to hear the "let's put our heads together on this one" when they were deciding how to approach our company's owner about coughing up around six figures more to give to MS to use the same software that they had been using and that they had thought was all properly licensed.
This situation summarized for me the Total Cost of Licensing and the viral nature of publicly-traded, for-profit software companies' IP rights in action. One virally installed and unlicensed product is all it takes-and your employee policies against it won't help. Can you afford that risk?
Is there any legitimate grounds upon which a single user or owner of a small company could sue SCO in small claims court? Either from lost business, or as a counterclaim against the company's assetion that Linux users owe them licensing fees?
It seems to me that if even 1 percent of Linux home and small business users filed individual suits against SCO in small claims courts across the country, and if SCO decided to defend against every claim, they would likely be bankrupt just from paying their legal bills before they ever run up against RedHat or IBM in Court.
What would be the good reasons for not making a small claims filing, assuming that there is a legal basis for a claim?
But I heard about a man called Friedrich Nietzsche.
Please don't translate Names, otherwile Bill Gates would be called "Wilhelm Gatter" in Germany or "Guglielmo Cancelli" in Italy.
That explains a lot!
Ok, so maybe the "new adoption" is temporarily down. However, development seems to be trodding along just the same, I haven't exactly heard of developers fleeing the kernel hacking lists.
I hardly think it was the lawsuit that killed BSD, I certeinly don't believe it was "lack of commercial interest" that made all the difference. Assuming BSD even died, which would be an exaggeration, considering BSD is powering OS X.
If anything is a threat to Linux, it is the total lack of respect for copyright law. If people had really been forced to pay for Windows/Office, I know quite a few that would be tech savvy enough to get around in Linux just fine. But as it is, they do WinXP/OfficeXP and with the same savvyness, dodge whatever activation scheme MS is putting in there.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
They report us as being hosted on IBM_HTTP_SERVER/1.3.19.3 Apache/1.3.20 (Unix) mod_macro/1.1.1 whereas we're only using IBM to host the front static page or two. The rest of the site is hosted here in our datacentre where the presentation layer boxes are all IIS on NT4 :(
You can't learn lessons from the past if you get your facts wrong.
Multics did not die when Bell labs pulled out early in its development. It continued to grow, became a commercial product, sold hundreds of millions of dollars of hardware (back when that was a lot of money), and was finally killed by the French in 1986. Systems remained in use until October 2000.
see http://www.multicians.org/myths.html for more on this and other incorrect ideas about Multics.
My Points:
Now for my conspiracy theory:
As it turns out there is a contract between IBM and SCO to do this. Why? Because IBM needs a test case for GPL to cover its butt. It can't wait for a real competitor to show up, because that involves risk. If SCO wins, IBM buys 'em. Heck, it's likely a condition of being bought by IBM, win or lose.
As far as Microsoft's and Sun's involvement, I think it's just incidental. Sun did it to get a look under the kimono of SCO, have a laugh, and keep doing their own thing. Microsoft did it because it actually thought that SCO was on its side (duh - at whose expense in the UNIX market has NT gained market share?), with the end effect that it just sweetened the pot for IBM and SCO.
There are a couple of reasons why I think this:
I would love to see the phone conversation transcripts between the SCO and IBM execs as they dream this stuff up.
- - - Non Caffeine Drink or Drink Error
In other words if you would only be forced to release under the GPL in cases were you would be utterly screwed if you had copied e.g. MS "Shared Source".
The SCO case is a bit odd, because they claim that the did not knowingly release the code under the GPL. However when they learned of the alledged violation they did not request that Red Hat remove the code, and infact refused to allow Red Hat to remove the code. If distributing code under the GPL and then refusing to allow the code to *not* be distributed doesn't count as knowingly accepting the GPL, I don't know what is.
Sure, it doesn't make sense for SCO to win. But sometimes the law doesn't make sense. Why, for example, should a candidate lose the election and still get elected president (Bush)? A lot of the analysis I've read on the SCO issue is based on common sense. So the community gets the warm fuzzy feeling that losing to SCO is as unlikely as a city-killing asteroid crashing down on us.
test
<a href="http://www.joblessjimmy.com">Work is dumb and so is Jobless Jimmy.</a>
Took the words out of my mouth, except I think the first iteration(s) of Unix were on the PDP-7, the '11 was used for the first 'production' use of Unix (1971 in the Bell Labs Patents Dept, for writing documents).