More on IBM's Project Monterey and SCO

karvind writes "Groklaw has posted another interesting article about AIX/Monterey/POWER research. The primary purpose of Project Monterey was to provide a stepping stone to Linux. IBM clearly stated this in promotional and technical materials, some of which SCO participated in publishing. It was always the plan that Project Monterey would be for POWER and SCO knew about IBM using SVR4 on POWER as far back as 2001. The article asks (and answers) some interesting questions: 'Where is the monetary damage to SCO? Where is there copyright infringement? Was SCO fully aware how quickly Linux would develop, that it would replace Unix, or did it take them by surprise?'"

Comments

Timeline

[Virtual Karma]

Here is the timeline for SCO vs IBM and Linux: Click here

Re:Timeline

[Anonymous Coward]

For some other constantly updated information on the SCO debacle, Yahoo's SCOX message board has it. It's not all financials but is an unmoderated board where links to all the new news articles about what's happening in the case appear, be it traditional print media, SCO press releases, or the other SCO/IBM dedicated sites such as groklaw etc.

Re:Timeline

[RealProgrammer]

Here is a more complete searchable timeline.

Ransom Love's Linuxworld 2000 Keynote Speech

[NZheretic]

In August 2000, just days after Caldera purchased the Old SCO server division, the then CEO of Caldera, Ransom Love, made a keynote speech at LinuxWorld 2000. A RealPlayer8 video stream of the event can be found at DrDobbs Journal's Technetcast.

In the question and answer session at the end of the keynote (44:30 minutes into the videostream), Love was asked about the possible confict over Monterey and Linux IA-64. (A mp3 capture of the transcribed portion)

"Q: What happens about Project Monterey, because that conflicts with the IA-64 Linux, 64-bit Linux?

"Love: OK. I don't -- if we do our job right in making Linux scale over like UnixWare to the degree that everybody, that we know we can... May I ask, some people have said, "Well, people have tried this in the past, but they haven't been that successful," may I suggest: we don't have any ulterior motives for not making it successful. Technologically has not been the reason why it hasn't done it before. There's always some other motive, right? And so to talk about Monterey, clearly we want to make sure we have the same level of Linux integration on Monterey that we would have in our Unixware product. Now, we don't control, I mean, we have a great relationship... it's a joint development relationship with IBM which we intend to preserve ... but they have similar interests and so this is really a very synergistic, uh, this transaction is great for all of the major partners as they have already wanted to embrace Linux moving forward.

"Now, let me address one other aspect of your question, which is that the Monterey Project is in conflict with the IA-64 Linux Project. I don't believe it's in conflict at all. Now, clearly, we have tremendous vested interest in the IA-64 Linux Project and with the acquisition of SCO, they've been doing a lot, so you combine those, and we've got one of the more comprehensive offerings, I believe, on the IA-64 Linux. So that's clearly an area that we're very committed to. But like Unixware, there's elements of the Monterey kernel that are more scalable, OK? Now, on the IA-64 platform, I don't know how long of window that is, but today, it's a little bit more robust and more scalable than the IA-64 Linux is today. Now, I'm not saying that over time that won't change.

"But, and let me address one other thing. Sorry, (laughs) you're getting all of it through one question. But clearly we are going to add components back to the Linux kernel on both IA-32 and IA-64 platforms. We'll work with Linus and everyone in order to make that available. That will take some time. And as I mentioned earlier, I don't know that over time you can have a single kernel -- in fact I know you can't -- that will scale, you know, the breadth of IT technology needs. So I think we're looking, in the Linux community, at having multiple kernels, so...

"Q: Multiple Linux kernels? Or multiple UNIX kernels?

"Love: Multiple Linux kernels as well, over time.

"Q: Thank you.

"Love: You bet.

This is complete nonsense, of course

[Anonymous Coward]

"IBM siphoned the code over to its Linux development efforts. This violated the terms of their agreement. "

Yes, we all know the SCO party line, but the problem with it is the total lack of evidence two years running. Even the judge was amazed that SCO can't seem to bring up anything to back these claims in court. And when you look at the Project Monterey contract details, you see that SCO hasn't a leg to stand on.

Actually...

[schon]

SCO actually launched this case on their own behalf and with some merit?

Of course not. There was never any merit.

this was a proxy attack on behalf of Microsoft against its two main enemies, IBM and Linux

Actually, it started out as a way for SCO executives to bail out a dying company. They threatened IBM with a bogus suit, expecting to be bought out. When they weren't, they shopped it to MS as a way to continue to make IBM's life painful, and for MS to smear Linux.

Both McBride and Sontag have publically stated this - they were "amazed" that IBM chose to fight, instead of taking the easy way out, and purchasing them.

Re:For the clueless, here are some answers...

[argent]

IBM was supposed to use SCO's code to develop Monterey, and instead, they apparently used it to enhance Linux.

The word you're looking for is "allegedly", not "apparently". SCO alleges that this happened, but it doesn't appear that their allegations are correct. They have been asked to produce evidence that IBM took the code SCO provided for Monterey and put it in Linux. that's when they started saying IBM put code that IBM had developed but which allegedly (there's that word again) belonged to IBM because of some allegedly viral language in the license for System V. The problem is that IBM has explicit documentation that this is a misreading of the license and Novell who wrote the license backs them up on it.

The issue is really quite simple. SCO is claiming ownership of any UNIX code developed by any company with a System V source license, whether the software in question was licensed System V code or not.

Some more ammo for PJ

[btarval]

SCO's statment according to The Fine Article:

"Unlike IBM, virtually none of these (Linux) software developers and hobbyists had access to enterprise-scale equipment and testing facilities for Linux development."

This was back in 2001.

Pardon me, but this is blatent nonsense. SGI had a significant push to put Linux on the Itanium Processor back in 2001. I don't believe that it was announced publically then, but it was a significant effort, and the NUMA stuff resulted from it (among other things). This is definitely Enterprise-class equipment, well beyond the price range for your average "hobbyist". And needless to say, this required Enterprise-class testing. I speak from direct experience, as I was involved with the project.

So this statement alone is blatently false, and here's some more ammo for PJ to shoot down SCO's claims.

Heck, 64-bit Linux appeared on Sun's 64-bit SPARC machines before SunSoft had completed it's 64-bitization efforts as well. This was back in the Solaris 2.7 timeframe, around 1998, IIRC. Most people would consider the 64-bit SPARCs to be Enterprise level as well.