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SCO Derides GPL, Will Revoke SGI's UNIX License
larry2k writes "PR newswire has an open letter from SCO to IBM.
From the letter: 'SCO believes that the GPL -- created by the Free Software Foundation to supplant current U.S. copyright laws -- is a shaky foundation on which to build a legal case.'" The release is also carried by NewsForge. Among other things, SCO says "By so strongly defending the controversial GPL, IBM is also defending a questionable licensing scheme through which it can avoid providing software indemnification for its customers."
Doesn't supplant mean "replace"? That's not what the GPL does.
And if you're wondering why you have not received an invoice from SCO for any Linux-based OS you may be running, benploni writes "From Groklaw: In this Detroit News story Blake Stowell explains why no one has received an invoice: 'SCO in August said Linux users could avoid lawsuits by paying a one-time fee of $699. The fee will rise to $1,399 on Oct. 15. Since the response to its appeal was adequate, SCO didn't send bills to thousands of Linux users, company spokesman Blake Stowell said.' [emphasis added]. We all knew there was no way they'd risk actually sending out invoices, and here's the proof."
How much did their stock go up by announcing
this? Why is everyone so "blind" to this?
I am a viral sig. Please help me spread.
Hey, look on the bright side. At least SCO is going after people bigger than they are instead of 12-year old girls.
Since the response to its appeal was adequate, SCO didn't send bills to thousands of Linux users, company spokesman Blake Stowell said.'
Too bad - I'd love to hang up such an (otherwise ignored) invoice here in my office. SCO can kiss my ass in Macy's window during a One Day Sale.
The heat from below can burn your eyes out
At this point, due to SCO screwing everyone over, no company is going to be willing to ever touch another OS based on propriatary code licensed from someone else again. They've been burned once -- not again. Given that an in-house solution is insanely expensive, this just adds more impetus to the Linux push.
The Penguin just gets bigger and bigger.
May we never see th
It's clear that Darl has no intellect left and therefore no intellectual property, therefore his claim to intellectual property is null and void.
SCO has been shouting that since the beginning. My bet is they have a legal DDOS already planned to sue every single one of IBM's customers. By IBM providing indeminification, they would be swamped responding to the individual claims. It may be hard to take out a 800lb gorilla with a slingshot, but half a million mosquitoes will suck one dry.
I remember an article or discussion in the last week about Darl getting a bonus and the freedom to cash out more stock once SCO has 4 consecutive profitable quarters. Febuary 4th would round this out nicely. Then Darl is free to jump ship and watch it burn. I'm sure someone will post the link below
Karma: SELECT `karma` FROM `users` WHERE `userid`=138474;
SCO's attempt to try this case in the tech media through "open letters" makes it increasingly obvious that this is a FUD campaign inteaded to impress investors and easily cowed corporations who will heel to their extortion. If they had a legitimate case, they would be filing new and improved court documents, not open letters...
Trouble making decisions? Just flip for it.
I don't you would be particularily wise to pay SCO their fee until after a trial decides just how shaky their ground really is. Why? Because if they lose the lawsuit, then SCO can pretty much say goodnight and you'll never see your tuppence again.
IBM is pretty savy for adopting an open source project as one of their main OS offerings, largely because it does provide them with a certain level of insulation from OS problems, but also because it provides them with considerable developement power at minimal cost.
Let us not forget that Apple has pretty much put their entire future into an open source OS as well, for pretty much the same reasons I think.
It just makes sense to me to build your OS upon a common open source framework. More compatable, more developers, more solutions to problems.
Ya, there are hoards of problems with that approach as well, but I think they can be succesfully managed.
Later . . . . . . WebBug
I live in the Provo area and the rumor I'm hearing from Novell employees is that IBM is looking to adquire Novell...
SCO's actions are much like intentionally walking up to that big, slobbering rabid dog and yanking it's chain. Hey, if they want to piss in the pool, they better not want to drink from it later. They claim the GPL is shaky. Following that logic, a majority of the code in Unix, for example, certainly must have been written by somebody by somebody else. If the GPL doesn't hold, according to them, then are they going to infringe on the rights of whoever actually DID write those millions of lines of code, even if they don't know who those people are?
Block the Caldera topic.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
The article mentions at the end that SCO has asked that the trial date be set back so it can have more time amending its briefs. The court trial is not expected to start until 2005. It would be much easier to relax, if the trial had started. Right now, Sco has managed to create an atmoshpere of (and they all said...) Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. IBM is fine it can hold SCO at bay, but its obviousl that sco is not going to wait for the conclusion of the IBM trial before going after other companies ( several of which do not have the money to hire a hoard of lawers to defend them).
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
You know what SGI is going to do if they lose their Unix lisence. The same thing IBM did, they'll start to use Linux even more in their business. SCO needs to shower their clients with gifts instead of alienating everyone Unix and Linux related. Linux seems to be faring well regardless of all this mess. Who's really getting screwed is commercial Unix.
IBM has alleged that SCO copied parts of GNU/Linux into its products, such as the Linux Personality module.
WHY ISN'T SCO OFFERING ITS CUSTOMERS INDEMNIFICATION AGAINST IBM'S CLAIMS???????
SCO has shown that they believe that indemnifying customers over alleged violations of IP is critical to a business. Why won't they offer it themselves?
What they mean is : We need to fix our briefs after an "atomic" wedgy IBM and RHAT gave us.
Karma: Dude, where is my Karma???
There's also a dryer, less rah-rah note on the filing for extension here.
...watching two senior citizens pummel each other with legacy computer equipment; one using a Commodore PET computer and the other a Trash-80...
Then again, people do buy those *Bum Fights* DVDs...
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
We [SCO] continue to urge IBM to provide legal indemnification for its Linux customers.
Now why, oh why, does SCO want that? Well, one reason that occurs to me is this: IBM has been fairly unaffected by SCO's suite against them. They're not cowering in fear or hiding under rocks or anything. SCO would like IBM to look worried because, well heck, if I'm going to make flagrantly ridiculous accusations against somebody who could squish me like a bug, and nobody believes me, nobody's going to put up much argument when it's squish-time. So here's what SCO has to gain:
- If IBM (or Redhat) were to indemnify Linux users, that's as good as saying they're not so sure of their case. HP can get away with it because they haven't been targeted and probably won't be before the thing is over. Besides, for them, it looks good. So one thing SCO wants is for IBM to show a tiny bit of uncertainty in public instead of all this "SCO's claims are without merit." and "The Earth is not flat." stuff that they keep throwing around.
- The second reason is a little more complicated: Right now, SCO has a huge legal staff devoted to protecting a large corporation. Right now, if SCO were to choose a bunch of Joe-Linux-user types (not companies using Linux, but individuals), it would look really bad, and they'd have to fork over their evidence soon, since for $699, that's small claims court, and it's not that easy to delay a small claims trial for the next two years or so. So, with no indemnification from IBM, it's not at all practical to sue the little guys. If IBM is indemnifying them though, it works well for SCO to attack all of the smallest users they can find. IBM is able to defend itself perfectly well, but if SCO were to go RIAA-style and start with a few hundred or even a few thousand Linux users, and IBM had to defend them or pay up, IBM is not so well equipped. They'd have to hire a bunch of lawyers on the side to take care of it which would cost money and create a huge sideshow to mask whatever SCO's goal is.
So there you go. Unless SCO is actually concerned about Linux users. Ha! Can you see it?SCO: Hey IBM, we're really concerned about your users. We're worried that we might accidentally catch them up in our extortion scheme. How bout you pay us off and nothing bad happens?
IBM: *stomp*
SCO: *squish*
http://oss.sgi.com/letter_100103.txt
Here is a very slanted view of the Canopy Gropu published this past Sunday:
Littl Tech Titan
I'll let you reach your own conclusions.
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I predicted that.
;-)
Speaking of "predict", I reckon the Closed Source vs Open Source arena we have, today, is much like the Closed Architecture vs the Open Architecture hardware arena of the past (ironic that IBM started this, then tried to re-neg -- remember the Charlie Chaplin ads?).
Back then, we didn't have the World Wide Web, so one had to read about the goings on of that market battle in the trade papers. But I bet history is, once again, repeating itself. This time it's about software, not hardware, of course. Makes sense that it's taken longer to get the software battle under way because hardware, well, just has to come first -- no hardware, no software possible.
But the past is interesting to me because of my (strange?) belief that we can probably predict the ultimate outcome and peer into the future a bit, by looking into the past. But, I can't remember how the last battle went (I was too young to care much, fresh out of college).
BTW, I really like how things turned out. At the time I was a real Motorola fan -- wished that the most ubiquitous desktop hardware hadn't gone little-endian and had shared stack/heap/program space (what a pain it was/is to write firmware for Intel chips vs Motorola!!!). However, what I like, now is paying next to nothing for seemingly endless increases in power!
So, what about the past? Anyone remember the hardware "Open Architecture" battles that went on? Are we closely repeating our technology history? Did anyone get as bent out of shape (as I feel over SCO) toward the "wrong side" at the time? Did we win?