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SCO Says 'Linux Doesn't Exist'
4A6F656C writes "In an article on LinuxWorld.com.au, Kieren O'Shaughnessy, director of SCO Australia and New Zealand, details SCO's plans for Australia, stating that they have 'prepared a hit list' and "would approach Australian Linux users to ensure they had an IP licence." In closing, he adds 'Linux doesn't exist. Everyone knows Linux is an unlicensed version of Unix'." UnknowingFool writes "IBM's lawyers have been busy the last few days. Groklaw has reported a number of different filings. On the heels of last week's motions (1) and (2) for summary judgement, they have filed more documents. First, IBM wants large portions of SCO's testimonies striken (removed) on multiple grounds. Deep in the motion, they call out SCO to produce the 'experts' that did the code comparison analysis. If IBM wins on most of these points, SCO will have very little left in the way of legal evidence. SCO answers on IBMs 10th counterclaim. IANAL but from I understand SCO says this copyright infringment that SCO has allegedly committed on one of IBM's patents is irrelevant to the case and the court doesn't need to decide on it. So SCO is saying that they can sue IBM for infringing on their Unix copyrights and patents but IBM can't counter sue on a specific patent. IBM also filed another memo to support summary judgement. As a matter of law, SCO has to produce evidence to backup its claims. This mountain of evidence SCO has claimed all this time: If they don't produce it, the court has to rule in IBM's favor."
Showing a graph of 3 months is worthless, since this whole thing has been going on for years now. If you look at the 2 year chart, you will see that they still have quite a bit to dip before they even hit the low point.
I believe it's a cricket reference. Out for a duck is out for no runs, breaking your duck is actually getting somewhere (i.e. making some runs).
Seriously, go to groklaw and read the latest 4-5 files from IBM. Yes they are each ~100 pages but very interesting. Basically IBM has nailed SCO in a box that they can't get out of. In fact IBM is so confident that the language in their filings has gotten beyond the normal angry lawyer comments as they point out how insane SCO's arguements are.
In Cricket, that funny game played by Poms, Kiwis and Aussies (among others) a zero score is known as a duck. To break one's duck means to have scored, at least, one run. So SCO are claiming to have sold, at least, one Linux "licence" down-under.
Sigs. We don't need no steenking sigs.
His answer to the question: "What chair?"
Probably an urban legend, as discussed by Snopes. Nice analogy, though!
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
It sure beats HP's
and Sun's IBM, of all the vendors, took by far the most productive aproach without trying to leverage and further hype SCO's fud. They're certainly my prefered Linux vendor, and probably will be unless/until their position changes radically.... it probably will.
If you read them, SCO is betting the farm on a diversion tactic to answer IBM's request for summary judgement.
Basically, they're feigning surprise that this is an issue, complaining that they need more discovery, and trying to say that they haven't had time to properly prepare for this because it could take 25,000 man hours.
Unfortunately for them, IBM responds that it's been hammering SCO on this question for over a year now (in spite of SCO sticking their heads in the sand to avoid it). Also, IBM's experts say that SCO's characterization of the times involved is ridiculous and SCO has already claimed in the media *many* times to have made these comparisons already (even though it refuses to provide them to IBM).
Worse, SCO's "experts" haven't been properly qualified, they're testifying about things they would appear to have no personal knowledge of, and as such IBM is moving to strike our large portions of their declarations, meaning that SCO wouldn't have much of an arguement left. This is especially true because SCO's Samir Gupta, the only "expert" who appears to have done any code comparisons (and I say "expert" because they give no credentials for him other than him being in the employ of SCO), has completely ignored the abstraction & filtration required by the case law (whereas IBM's properly qualified MIT professor has done one refuting theirs, which respects the case law in question).
Lastly, they point out via copious amounts of case law that SCO does *not* need any more discovery. They show that the only thing which matters for a judgement in terms of *copyright infringement* is the two final works. SCO surely has its own product line, and IBM points them to every version of Linux since 1.0, which is available online.
Taken in sum, unless SCO can pull off one hell of a miracle to convince the judge in the oral arguments, I would tend to think that SCO is screwed here. SCO's tactic of sticking its head in the sand to try and duck IBM's arguement doesn't seem very persuasive, and *SCO* has the burden of proof to show that there are material facts in dispute. Given how IBM so carefully destroys all the testamony SCO relies on, it's hard to see how SCO could prevail in any meaningful way when these motions are resolved.
It is now an undisputed fact that Microsoft was behind BayStar investing 50 million in SCO, and a BayStar manager has admitted that they made the investment based on the guidance of Microsoft. Microsoft also purchased SCO license(s) for Linux for an undisclosed sum (I'm assuming it was a bit more than $699).
"The market alone cannot provide sufficient constraints on corporation's penchant to cause harm." -- Joel Bakan
Actually, IBM's given quite a few things to the community that we linux developers want: Eclipse and JFS leap to mind instantly. A lot of the good stuff from AIX is already in Linux - which is why SCO is suing them in the first place.
So yeah, we agree- they have bought a lot of loyalty with their code contributions, their defense of the GPL, and more.
It's probably appropriate to consider IBM as a services rather than a software company. Distributing software for free enhances the value of the services they provide enormously - it makes the market possible. IMHO, a services business benefits tremendously from open source, while a software business will be inevitably chewed up and spit out without govt. intervention in the form of prior-restraint patent laws. So IBM's switch to outright developer coddling (seen in this context) is less of a dubious religious conversion and more of a practical business necessity- the more stuff I can do for free, the more stuff I can do on customer's behalf without having to sock them with a huge oracle or microsoft tax.
What a strange bird is the pelican, his beak can hold more than his belly can.
(SCO-Microsoft connection)
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Where is the source for this information?
Does this little lot help?
http://www.opensource.org/halloween/halloween10.h
http://trends.newsforge.com/trends/04/03/08/04572
http://www.practical-tech.com/business/b05212003.
A log scale chart is more meaningful when it comes to the real value of the company - a share price drop from $5 to $4/share means they've lost 20% of their value, while going from $15 to $14 is only about a 7% drop. The log scale graph comes a little closer to representing how serious each day's change is to SCO (and their investors).
What is the robbing of a bank, compared to the founding of a bank? -- Bertolt Brecht
The current price is roughly consistent with their cash position, now that they've paid off BayStar. There's an earnings call on August 31, and then we'll know how well, or badly, SCO did this quarter. SCO has lately been issuing press releases for many minor events, and none of them mention substantial revenue. So there probably isn't any new income.
Meanwhile, many of the various motions in SCO vs IBM will be heard in September. If IBM wins any of them, SCO is toast. If IBM doesn't win any of them, IBM is no worse off.
As a former IBM employee, I had the opportunity to sit in on a lot of different presentations on many different topics in the FOSS and Linux areas.
One thing a lot of people seem to miss is that one of the very important reasons why IBM started embracing Linux had nothing to do with it being free, but instead being able to offer a single OS and API set across all of their hardware platforms. This had been a "holy grail" at IBM for some time -- I actually sat in on a public presentation one time where IBM developers were talking about extending OS/2 up to their mainframe line -- and Linux fits the bill.
IBM is still, at its core, a hardware company, and being able to have a single API with which you can use to control all their different systems is a huge potential benifit.
Java, another technology IBM has pushed heavily, is one such solution. And Java isn't free -- IBM pays Sun licensing fees in order to create the JVMs for all their different platforms (OS/2, Linux, Windows, AIX, OS/400, etc.).
IBM got into Linux in a big way not so much because it was free, but because it was readily portable (a side-effect of being free).
IBM wants to be able to sell you an Intel-based xSeries server for your business. And then another. And then as you grow, upgrade you to a bigger server (like an iSeries). Then a xSeries mainframe. If you start off running Linux and developing your business code in Java, they can push bigger and more expensive solutions on you, and you don't have to retrain your IT staff to deal with a new OS, and you don't have to rewrite your business code.
That's where the big benifit to IBM is. Of course, it doesn't hurt IBM when it's trivial to port DB2 (and WebSphere, and other big business products) for Intel Linux over to an S/390 also running Linux. They can target different hardware without having to hire on a whole new development team to port it to yet another platform.
Yaz.
If people are to respect the law, perhaps the law should begin by respecting the people.