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A day with SCO is like a day without sunshine, I know that's what you're thinking. Novell is asking the court to dismiss SCO's lawsuit against them. Groklaw has taken a look at what is necessary to prove a 'slander of title' claim. And finally, reader loonix_gangsta wrote in and pointed to SCO's humorous 5 reasons to choose UNIX over Linux webpage.
I know I'm going to get modded down for this, for going against the conventional Slashdot groupthink, but I think the SCO company have a good case. Now let me qualify that statement before you jump down my throat.
If you look at the facts of the case, sure, it looks like SCO doesn't have a leg to stand on. They continue to sell a version of an operating system they claim infringes their code. They try to extort money via lawsuits. There is some doubt whether they even own what they claim to own. But put that all from your mind for a minute, and listen to this great analogy I thought up.
You see, Linux is like a cake, with lots of ingredients contributed by different people. The SCO group claim that some of their butter was used to make the cake, perhaps to grease the baking tray the cake was baked on, perhaps it was ground into the flour mix by hand. Without the butter, the cake could not have been made. And it isn't possible to take the butter out of the cake now, the damage has been done. Q.E.D. the SCO company are perfectly justified in demanding recompense for their stolen butter.
Open your mind, and think about the butter.
Meine Schwester ist sehr, sehr reizvoll - Nietzsche
To quote Garbage, I'm only happy when it rains.
A day with SCO is like a day without sunshine, I know that's what you're thinking.
Personally, a day with SCO is like a day spent having a hole slowly drilled in my head. Without pain killers.
But, hey, that's just me.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
I like how of the five reasons, only one of them even mentions Linux, and that's a questionable claim at best!
And finally, reader loonix_gangsta wrote in and pointed to SCO's humorous 5 reasons to choose UNIX over Linux webpage.
Yeah, this is exactly why their web server runs Linux.
The IT section color scheme sucks.
"The everyday business of a McDonald's restaurant requires a stable operating system that can give round-the-clock performance," said John Doty, Director of US Information Technology for McDonald's Corporation's Store Systems. "We are very pleased with the performance of SCO UNIX(R). SCO's platform has provided us with a very stable and reliable system. SCO UNIX(R) has been a dependable platform for thousands of McDonald's restaurants over the past 10 years and we're looking forward to migrating our restaurants to the current version."
Great, now we'll have obese people suing SCO!
Wait...that may not be a bad thing after all...
Because we're litigious bastards.
SCO UNIX(R) is Legally Unencumbered +5 Funny
Karma: Bad. Calmer, good.
What I find humorous is that SCO consistently trumps up their services as the "good" side in a war of good vs. evil. Do hardened capatalists actually succeed when they try to convince the public that something free and welcoming to public scrutiny is a bad thing? Linux sure violates that Constitution... how dare they be kind to the public! This will be the end of America as we know it, surely!
5) SCO UNIX(R) is Legally Unencumbered
Shouldn't this read "SCO UNIX (R) is Unencumbered by adherence to the law"?
Seriously though, looking at what SCO is attempting to do to IBM, how can one call this "unencumbered"? The only company that is unencumbered in SCO's vision of the world is SCO. Any of their partners are legaly encumbered by adhering to SCO's license arangement. Anything you add to SCO appears to become a part of SCO's IP if their claims are correct.
But wait, doesn't that make SCO just as bad as the GPL, even from SCO's own perspective?
-Matt
I *love* number 5!!! Ha ha ha!
It has been my experience justified lawusits happen quickly and those that drag out are a corruption of the legal system to either drain finances or encumber someone with the legal "albatross" around his neck
BRILLIANT!! /. ing SCO to create a DOS attack!!
Through the link to SCO's anemic webserver. Good job, Rob.
Reason number 4 is "SCO UNIX is secure" and they later explain "These security features guard against business interruption, denial of service attacks....". So the DOS attack that took out their website last week was normal business operation?
-?-
All of the dates mentioned in the case studies are early 90s and back. Zenez started with SCO in 1983! Gee, I wonder why they didn't consider Linux? Hmm...
====
Crudely Drawn Games
A day with SCO is like a day without sunshine...
And a day without sunshine is like...night.
Linux is a proven, stable, and reliable platform.
2. SCO UNIX(R) is backed by a single, experienced vendor
Linux is backed by multiple, experienced vendors
3. SCO UNIX(R) has a Committed, Well-Defined Roadmap
Linux has a Committed development team and is actually going somewhere
4. SCO UNIX(R) is Secure
Linux is Secure.
5. SCO UNIX(R) is Legally Unencumbered
Linux is Legally Unencumbered and Open
"Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." -- Linus Torvalds
I can tell SCO isen't serious about Unix or Linux:
Their list started at 1 for cryin' out loud.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
They missed the obvious 6th reason, SCO UNIX(R) will be a valuable piece of memorabilia in a few years time after the company itself has long since buried itself both commercially and perceptually.
since when is being "backed by a single... vendor" a good thing?
also, does anyone else read the slogan "SCO Grows Your Business" and immediately associate them with the "G3n3r1c Vi 4g ara!!!"-type of business?
it appears Novell has just torpedoed SCO's newest acusations against IBM. here's the letter they sent SCO waiving the claim to any Sequent developed code that touched SysV. Since Novell already waived the claim to IBM code, there's not a lot left for SCO to stand on.
I never said I was smart, I just said I was smarter than you
I guess "stagnant" is well-defined. SCO's recent investments in its technology core ($0) prove they are committed to stagnation, too.
How many people are thinking, "Whew, I'm glad my company isn't listed on that Hall of Shame page? I know I am!"
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
ROTFLMAO
Linux is unencumbered by Darl McBride. The audacity of this asshole is amazing.
Most of the code that SCO came up with as evidence of stolen IP consisted of header files, which all of us concluded was part of the POSIX standard. That's Daryl's comeback from the 5 reasons link.
Essentially, what he's saying is that ABI code (including headers) is not part of the standard, but their IP. Atleast we know now what their defense will be if IBM lawyers argue that the headers are part of the POSIX standard, and not their IP.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
SCO is the owner of the UNIX(R) Operating System Intellectual Property that dates all the way back to 1969, when the UNIX(R) System was created at Bell Laboratories.
Yes, I remember that great day, when Darl reached out of his crib, played with some punch cards, and voila!, a multi-user operating system was born. He was years ahead of Gates' measly DOS, and I know that Linus reveres him deeply as the grandfather of his own IP.
Of course, none of this would have been possible without the hard work of his venerable company, SCO, who, since the 1830s has been an innovator in computer technology.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
SCO is the little gray raincloud that follows the Unix world around.
--- Ban humanity.
From the Groklaw article:
Why didn't SCO sue for breach of contract, then, if their position is correct and copyrights were supposed to transfer and Amendment 2 is the contract that was to make that happen? No one I have talked to can figure that out.
Well, I know why.... SCO must know their copyright claims are questionable at best. They're not claiming breach of contract so not to draw attention to the contract. Because, once the contract is fully analyzed by a court, SCO will know they've lost.
(this, of course, won't stop them from filing at least 8 more stupid lawsuits within a three month period)
Punctanym: alternate spelling of words using punctuation or numerals in place of some or all of its letters; see 'leet'
2) SCO UNIX(R) is backed by a single, experienced vendor - and Lord knows, vendor lock-in is a GOOD thing!
3) SCO UNIX(R) has a Committed, Well-Defined Roadmap - who cares if it's a highway to Hell.
4) SCO UNIX(R) is Secure - from legal attacks, unlike you, you friggin' thief! Give us your money! You owe us! Give it to us!
5) SCO UNIX(R) is Legally Unencumbered - and we truly believe that IBM's counteroffensive will do nothing to harm us. Really! It's all sunshine here at SCO!
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
ah but they're not suing over code similarities anymore. they're suing because they see AIX and dynix as "derivative works" of SysV, which they are, but then SCO concludes (and it seems overreachingly) that therefore every line of code in AIX and dynix are "derivative works" of SysV as well. the suit is now about whether or not IBM violated the contract they signed with SCO by distributing publicly "derivative work" code.
I never said I was smart, I just said I was smarter than you
SCO's reasons to use list is very strange, SCO while presenting themselves as the legally safe option is actually a very risky prospect. They are currently the target of a massive countersuit by IBM, Red Hat is suing them and they're also in a legal tussle with Novel. They're running out of cash obtained from their initial shakedown and it looks like other attempts at intimidation won't work because people are learning more about the facts. It is doubtful they'd actually sue anyone else purely on the basis of their legal bills and the OSDN defense fund that would eliminate any chance of an early settlement even if they weren't laughed out of court on day one. So there are serious doubts about the medium term viability of SCO as a company.
You simply cannot risk using SCO UNIX(TM) as a solution if you're serious about your IT strategy. They represent a huge risk.
Cutting a hole in one's skull is called trepanning. And it makes a lot more sense than SCO ever will.
1. SCO UNIX(R) is a Proven, Stable and Reliable Platform
Well, it worked when we bought it, and we're too busy suing people to update anything.
2. SCO UNIX(R) is backed by a single, experienced vendor
Vendor lock in, you know you want it!
3. SCO UNIX(R) has a Committed, Well-Defined Roadmap
Updates will only come when and if we feel like it.
4. SCO UNIX(R) is Secure
With market share like ours, who would bother to crack this platform?
5. SCO UNIX(R) is Legally Unencumbered
We're the one company you know SCO won't be suing.
I think that this snippet from SCO's original purchase agreement with Novell is superb.
"(b) Buyer shall not, and shall not have the authority to, amend, modify or waive any right under or assign any SVRX License without the prior written consent of Seller. In addition, at Seller's sole discretion and direction, Buyer shall amend, supplement, modify or waive any rights under, or shall assign any rights to, any SVRX License to the extent so directed in any manner or respect by Seller. In the event that Buyer shall fail to take any such action concerning the SVRX Licenses as required herein, Seller shall be authorized, and hereby is granted, the rights to take any action on Buyer's own behalf."
Basically the original contract says "SCO all your base are belong to us! signed Novell."
Novell can instruct SCO to amend or invalidate any of their license agreements on demand and if SCO refuses then Novell can go ahead and amend them anyway.
"Well that just about wraps it up for SCO." -- Gag Halfrunt.
Worst
One reason to choose Linux over SCO-Unix:
In a year, there will likely still be Linux vendors.
The SCO Group? In a year? Are you kidding? With IBM gunning for them? They are history; just a stain on IBM's rug.
When the heck will SCO learn that they are fighting and already lose the game.
You think that their goal is to win a lawsuit. I disagree; I think their goal is to cast FUD on the GPL specifically, and open-source in general.
I mean they are sueing over Code similarities.... It's the Same thing as bill gates patent of binary Numbers (0,1) it's not going to happen.
Exactly. They're not stupid, they know that they have no case. Therefore, winning isn't their goal. Even if they lose, the FUD that they've spread is going to stick, even if it's just a little bit. I can't even propose linux-based projects because my employer (a fortune-50 insurance company) doesn't want the hassle. The FUD is working already.
IMO - I think they should just give up, and distribute what $ they have left, and go away from the world of computing.
If they just go away, the FUD sticks. If they get bought out, the FUD sticks. If they get shot down legally in no uncertain terms, some of the FUD will _still_ stick. Their goal isn't to win money, their goal is to try to destroy or cripple the Open Source Software community.
When one's enemies' actions are illogical, it makes sense to re-evaluate what that enemy's goals might be.
Apparently, some guy posting at Yahoo Finance has done some digging:
t ml s ec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1259429/0000947871 03002580/xslF345X02/form3_112603cohenex.xml
e .html c .gov/Archives/edgar/data/1259429/0000947871 03002585/xslF345X02/form3_112603royceex.xml
t the same time Cohen stopped talking about SCOX and Deutsche Bank takes over the PR duties, initiating coverage with highly suspect rationale and rating:p hp/309220 1
0 0950136 03002896/file001.txt
2 09.gtscodec9/BNStory/Technology/
The SEC will be *VERY* interested in this. The SCO debacle is a big story, but SCO may simply be a pawn in a bigger scandal. The big story is about market manipulation and insider trading. It isn't just about pump and dump. It is about buy, then pump, then short, then dump, then cover using the money of Royce clients and some assistance from the Royal Bank of Canada. SCOX investors are being played for fools.
Here we go...
Jonathan Cohen is the CEO of JHC Capital and is an investment advisor to Royce & Associates. Cohen is the fund manager for the Royce Technology Value fund.
www.roycefunds.com/funds/technologyValue.h
Under Cohen's direction, this fund has acquired 430,000 shares of SCOX.
www.roycefunds.com/funds/holdings_rtv.html
He is also the CEO and Director of Technology Investment Capital Corporation (TICC) and owns 139,100 shares:
www.ticc.com/management.html#cohen
www.
Charles M. Royce is President, Chief Investment Officer of Royce & Associates.
www.roycefunds.com/about/inside_royc
The Royce Low-Priced Stock Fund owns 943,600 shares of SCOX:
www.roycefunds.com/funds/holdings_rlp.html
However, Charles Royce is also a Director of TICC and personally owns 69,500 shares of TICC.
www.ticc.com/management.html#royce
www.se
Royce & Associates owns a total of 1.4M shares of SCOX.
Cohen went on a whirlwind publicity tour the second half of last year to pump SCO for the Royce Technology Value fund that he manages for Royce & Associates.
www.threenorth.com/sco/cohen.html
A
siliconvalley.internet.com/news/article.
RBC Dain Rauscher is the U.S. wealth management subsidiary of Royal Bank of Canada.
www.rbcdain.com
RBC Dain Rauscher Inc. was an underwriter for the IPO of Technology Investment Capital Corporation (TICC), underwriting an initial share allotment of 1,304,348 shares of TICC.
www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1259429/00
Of course RBC initiates coverage of TICC with an "Outperform" rating.
10:22am 01/15/04 Tech Investment Capital started at 'outperform' by RBC - CBS MarketWatch.com
RBC also participated in the private placement for SCOX, accounting for 2.3M of the Series A shares. www.globetechnology.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20031
"An RBC spokesman was reluctant to comment, saying the SEC filing was about how SCO operates its business. He said that RBC's "investment in SCO is passive, made to hedge an economic exposure resulting from client transactions."
Current SCO management are old-school; they simply want traditional Unix technlogy to die under a mound of legal paperwork. They don't care who loses as long as the lawyers get paid.
Linux is Unix is Linux. As far as joe-user or joe-admin is concerned the GUI or shell is identical in that its not Microsoft Windows.
All they simply seem to be upset about is some ABI headers !. The joke being that they then seem to go on about the Linux Kernel Personality (LKP) in Unixware. So they quite happily take but don't want to give back.
Their Unix is chocka full of juicy Open Source contributions which they have merrily grabbed and then they try and deflect interest in what they are doing by pointing fingers at others and calling these other Operating System developers pirates.
Pre-2.6 everyone knows what deficiencies there where in the Linux scheduler. This wasn't a cut+paste from Unix but was a paragmatic easy-to-understand scheduler that evolved over many years by many developers. Along comes 2.6 and it has fixes for the main known deficiencies. SCO have seen this happen. Why is it that both kernel 2.6 and 2.4 are priced the same from SCO's point of view ?. If the technology in 2.4 was top-of-the range Unix Intellectual Property then why was it so poor that it needed fixing for 2.6 to get 2.6. to scale ?. Something tells me 2.4 did not have any Unix SMP technolgy else it would not have been able to scale better in 2.6 !
(taking a page from Dave Barry)
SCO has a well defined roadmap, unfortunately the lug nuts of ethical competition came off the left front wheel of research and marketing, causing the SUV of profitability to crash into the ditch of bankruptcy.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
From reason number 5 on their own site:" The SCO source division will continue to offer traditional UNIX(R) System licenses to preserve, protect, and enhance shareholder value."
Translation: We will sell you something that is distributed for free so we can make ourselves (and our stockholders) richer.
This must be the only true thing that SCO has ever stated...
Business \Busi"ness\, n.;
A scam in which all people involved perceive as beneficial...
Backed by one vendor? And what if they go out of business, which is very likely, considering the desperate flailing legal moves they're trying?
Better to go to a solution that has MULTIPLE vendors so you're not screwed if one of them goes out of business.
That was until someone then announced that you can download the Unreal Tournament 2004 beta from www.thescogroup.com and now it's down again.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
- The derivitive work, AIX or DYNIX (containing SysV and IBM code), is to be treated as the original work per 2.01(OK by US copyright).
- AIX or DYNIX contain RCU, NUMA, JFS, etc. Linux also contains these.
- Here is source code (in C) from AIX, DYNIX, and Linux. See how they are similar in implementing these functions.
- Since AIX and DYNIX are to be treated as the original work (No. 1), see Judge, how they have stolen OUR code.
My butter anology:Cardkey's in particular. Note that the testimonial mentions choosing "SCO and Compaq". I know about this one because I work at an airport, and we're phasing out our old Cardkey access control system right now (which runs on the aformentioned SCO and Compaq platform).
First off, Cardkey doesn't exist anymore, really. They were bought out by Johnson Controls years ago. Secondly, Compaq became HP years ago. Thirdly, most vendors are moving to Windows 2000 based ACS, so I'd be very surprised if Johnson Controls was still using SCO for new installs. They have to support their older Pegasys systems, but I'd be willing to bet they've gone Wintel along with everyone else.
All this raises a good question: how many NEW installs is SCO doing? Who's buying OpenServer and UnixWare NOW?
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
They meant Linux is Legally Unencumbered.
and SCO Unix is Legally Encumbered.
I had taken my kids there to play since it was cold and raining out. I was going to do some work on my notebook while they navigated the maze of plastic.
I had just logged into my Linux notebook when I was approached by a SCO employee who escorted me out of the "resturaunt". He told me he was sorry, but those were the orders from above. He told me he didn't have enough stock to dump before he then went back to his fry station.
As we left, I swear the guy running the drive through was Darl McBride himself. He was claiming complete ownership of all the fries in the bag and bemoaning the fact that Burger King fries are stolen from McDonalds because there is no way that Burger King could figure out how to fry a potato on their own.
1. SCO have proven themselves unstable and can be relied on only to make random legal claims with no actual backing.
2. SCO have recent experience only in pissing off their entire potential customer base and making half assed threats.
3. SCO CEO, Darl McBride should be committed.
4. SCO can't even take simple steps to stop a DoS of their own webserver.
5. SCO are currently in a legal quagmire of their own devising.
Disclaimer: This isn't a troll, I'm just a fucking idiot.
Less is more !
"The motive of profit is the engine that ensures the progress of science."
If that was true your OS would be better then Linux
Minix is not anywhere in the family tree, I am glad to say. Its limited kernel bears no relation to any of the others, and was created from scratch. Linux sort of came from Minix, although it seems that Linus sensibly threw away all the Minix code very near the beginning. Solaris is influenced by the original BSD, pre the BSD court case. What we now know as BSD of the Free, Open or Net varieties, is unencumbered and therefore has little of Unix as such in its parentage. Don't know about the commercial BSD, I ahven't even seen it advertised for a while....
Now SCO's stupid advert does reveal something that I had not noticed before.
While some application programming interfaces ("API Code") have been made available over the years through POSIX and other open standards, the UNIX(R) ABI Code has only been made available under copyright restrictions. AT&T made these binary interfaces available in order to support application development to UNIX(R) operating systems and to assist UNIX(R) licensees in the development process. The UNIX(R) ABIs were never authorized for unrestricted use or distribution under the GPL in Linux(R). As the copyright holder, SCO has never granted such permission. Nevertheless, many of the ABIs contained in Linux(R), and improperly distributed under the GPL, are direct copies of our UNIX(R) copyrighted software code.
They are alleging that the ABIs (Application Binary Interfaces) are at the centre of their case. Now, correct me if I am wrong, but an ABI definition tells you what to put in which registers and how to make the system call. BSD and Linux use different mechanisms for this, including how the registers and stack are used, and which interrupt. Because of that, and in particular the use of a different interrupt, it is conceptually simple to run BSD code on Linux or vice versa, by adding a handler for the alternative interrupt which shifts the call parameters to where they should be, on the stack or in registers, and invokes the native system call. Now, SCO has a Linux Personality Module, which does the same sort of thing. For this to be possible, without horrendously complex programming causing inefficiency, SCO must be using an ABI set which is entirely different to Linux. Now, the SCO ABIs can not be the same as BSD either, because Linux has a module to enable SCO (and other) Unix code to run, and it is not the same as the BSD module.
So, if we have three orthogonal sets of ABIs, how do they think they have a case? At most, the module, or kernel compile option, to allow SCO code to be run, would be the only place where there was any kind of ABI issue, and of course SCO are using a GPL ABI, and probably some of the associated code, in their Linux Personality Module.
So, on what precisely is SCO's allegation based? Or has Darl confused ABIs with APIs, which are similar in every *nix?
If using similar ABIs or APIs was in any case a copyright issue, would the Convicted Monopolist not have sued DRDOS, Freedos etc out of existence many years ago, and now be taking action against Wine? Or is this a small-scale test by M$ (who after all have funded SCO) to see if they will be able to win a case like that in court? IIRC there have already been court rulings to the contrary, involving M$.
Well Maybe.
:) see.
The Raeleans claim a mission going back to the beginning of time despite the cult starting in the 60's or whenever.
SCO claim 20 years experience in the article (despite that caldera was started in 1995).
So Raeleans are ridiculous by a few million years, and caldera ridiculous by only 13 (thereabouts) years.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
The Unix that is better than Linux
AIX - when you need to use 64-bit IBM hardware for DB2 databases or custom IBM software to run a website like Ebay.com. Very robust OS/Hardware combo with rock solid reliability, hot-swappable hardware, and scalability to run on huge systems.
Solaris - When you would like the 64-bit capability and scalability of Sun Hardware and all in one enterprise resource management. Solaris runs huge applications on 128 processor servers with terabytes of disk space capable and 64+ GB of RAM capabilities.
IRIX - If you are running graphics apps on an Silicon Graphis system, there is excellent software written for this OS and the hardware defined what you could do with computers for CGI.
HP-UX - I don't know why anyone wants to use HP-UX unless they have custom software that won't port to another UNIX.
SCO UNIX - If you want to run a 10-15 year old cash register software that already has a superior Linux or Windows counterpart, money is no option, or you were recently made retarded SCO Unix is the only viable option.
Linux - Use Linux anytime you want a low cost, reliable Unix-like workhorse for applications like as Network Server (Web, Email, DNS, News, et...), database server, development machine, low cost UNIX workstation, the list goes on.
Just my $0.02
- Kill Yourself, spare us all! -
The Safeco Field "study" is whack. The Micros 8700 only runs on SCO UNIX. It's not like the customer chose SCO at all, it was "we need a point of sale system, let's get a Micros 8700". The 8700 is a very widely deployed system that is very reliable. It's also been around since christ was a pup, which is probably why it uses SCO.
The way SCO presents the Safeco Field study, as if the customer chose SCO, is deceptive at best, in my opinion.
"We take these actions... knowing that those who believe 'software should be free' cannot prevail against the U.S. Congress and voices of seven U.S. Supreme Court justices who believe that 'the motive of profit is the engine that ensures the progress of science.'"
This is utterly rediculous. Just because SCO is greedy doesn't mean everyone is. Where in the Constitution does it say "All science must be done in the name of capitalism and greed"?!
ninja monkeys are meeting as we speak, plotting my demise
Based in Lindon, Utah, SCO has a worldwide presence
Uh, worldwide presence? I live in Orem, literally blocks from Lindon. The last thing I'd call their presence is "worldwide"
"Behind Home Depot" comes more to mind, than worldwide.
As I recall, Linus owns the Linux trademark...
Insanity is a gradual process; don't rush it.