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SCO Aims For The Feds
MoFoQ writes "News.com reports that SCO is now targetting the Feds and their supercomputers (the Beowulf clusters, etc.). Looks like they bit off more than they can chew, even before winning a single case "
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Groklaw covered this yesterday - it's nothing more than confirmation that those institutions received the threatening letter that SCO's been sending out.
The difference is that if you sue the Federal Government (as opposed to a State or private organization) they get to decide if you are allowed to sue them or not. That may seem unfair on the face of it, but considering the number of people that make a living from deep-pockets lawsuits it's not hard to understand (there aren't any deeper pockets than the U.S. Government.) A judge will say "Have a nice day, Mr. McBride" and that will be that. But in the meantime SCO gets to capitalize on yet another round of high-profile public FUD. I'm not sure what it's going to take: for some reason the American legal system seems unable to shut them up for more than a couple of days. We all keep hoping that IBM will go to the mat for us and take them down. Somebody needs to. They shoot rabid animals, don't they?
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
hasn't SCO already had several unfavorable rulings in the IBM case? Haven't they been ordered to ~finally~ show the offending code? That should end that case quickly...
Basically yes. And now it's changed from a "there's SysV code in Linux" case to a "there's derivative works of code you licensed from us in Linux" case. That's a big difference. They have not been able to identify ANY code, bar similarities in 5 ABI files, that has been ported directly from SysV to Linux. None. And they admitted it in court in the IBM case.
What it's about now with IBM is that, while they admit IBM invented JFS, and IBM own the copyright over JFS, and while JFS may have originally been included in other IBM products (OS/2 perhaps?) that because it's attached to the AIX code, it's a "derivative work" of SysV, and therefore SCO have a say over how IBM can use that code.
How about that. A completely independent IBM invention, used in SysV, and SCO are getting all shitty saying now that IBM cannot now move that code anywhere else after it's been used in IBM's own implementation as AIX.
And they call the GPL viral. Darl's accusations there are that if anything touches SysV code licensed from SCO, then SCO have a right to say what can be done with it. That just doesn't make sense.
In any case, it won't end the case quickly due to these changes, as SCO still want to see exactly what the JFS code looks like, so they can see if it was inserted into Linux, and then they can run around and issue more press releases saying "IBM has revealed 10,000 lines of our code is in Linux. see. they admitted it". I think the worst is yet to come in the press-release war that SCO has been waging.
That is, unless they run out of money first. With their stock price nearly down to a third of what it was just a few months ago and an increasing number of legal fronts being fought, we can only hope that's sooner rather than later.
linux networx is a canopy company like SCO/caldera is. see: http://www.linuxnetworx.com/news/pr042800_canopy.
Now in the news article it says:
"SCO sent letters raising the prospect of legal action for using Linux to two Department of Energy facilities, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC)."
But in this press release it says that linux networx is the one that installed the linux clusters at the LLNL. http://www.linuxnetworx.com/news/8.28.2001.49-Law
The new lesson of the day is if you do business with anyone funded by the canopy company you risk being sued by other members of the canopy group.
NIH, The National Institues of Health, a division of the Department of Health and Human Services of the United States government, is using Beowulf clusters to help cure diseases such as cancer, Alzheimers, stroke, heart disease and kidney failure.
I'm definitely rooting for the Feds on this one.
"i wasnt aware that he had any opinions towards/against old billy boy"
Then - no offense - your awareness is incomplete.
Microsoft was found to be guilty of anti-competitive practices. The DOJ recommended breaking up Microsoft. This sound familiar?
George W. handed down the proclamation from on high that the Justice department was no longer allowed to pursue a breakup of Microsoft.
This took the wind right out of the sails of the DOJ's case, and Miscrosoft ended up with a slap on the wrist and a request not to do it again.
I'm guessing that GWB's feelings about Microsoft may be *directly* related to the size of some campaign contributions he's received...
Ce n'est pas un vrai mouvement de robot!