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SCO Fiasco Over For Linux, Starting For Solaris?
kripkenstein writes "We have just heard that the SCO fiasco is finally going to end for Linux. But Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols at DesktopLinux.com points out that the favorable result for Linux may cause unpleasant consequences for rival open-source operating system OpenSolaris: 'At one time, Sun was an SCO supporter ... Sun's Jonathan Schwartz — then Sun VP of software and today Sun's president and CEO — said in 2003 that Sun had bought "rights equivalent to ownership" to Unix. SCO agreed. In 2005, SCO CEO Darl McBride said that SCO had no problem with Sun open-sourcing Unix code in what would become OpenSolaris. "We have seen what Sun plans to do with OpenSolaris and we have no problem with it," McBride said. "What they're doing protects our Unix intellectual property rights." Sun now has a little problem, which might become a giant one: SCO never had any Unix IP to sell. Therefore, it seems likely that Solaris and OpenSolaris contains Novell's Unix IP.'"
Don't forget ...to pay US your $699 licensing fee you cock-smoking teabaggers.
Now that the Novell ruling has been handed down, reaffirming that Novell owns the copyrights Caldera Systems claimed and wished to have had, most of McBride's public statements are now worth less than zero. Before the judgment, there was some intangible value in the FUD factor, especially for Microsoft (and maybe SUN Microsystems).
Just because you get modded "insightful" on Slashdot doesn't mean you actually are in real life.
Not to mention OpenOffice, Java, etc. Sun has brought a lot of good stuff into the Open Source world lately. I personally would hate to see them get spanked.
weirdest thing I ever saw: scientology advertising on slashdot.
Linux and Solaris come from different code bases. Linux is Linux and Solaris is UNIX System V R4.
Secondly, Sun didn't "license unix" from SCO. Sun bought some device drivers.
There, settled.
Stick Men
Not so fast! Solaris' roots go back to before UnixWare. UnixWare wasn't released until 1992. The SVR4 code that went into Solaris split off before then, according to the UNIX History Timeline. The sale of UnixWare to Novell took place later. And don't forget that a lot of the Solaris code was supposedly taken from BSD-based SunOS, plus there's no doubt that a lot of it was also written by Sun or for Sun.
Somehow, I don't see Sun and its top-notch legal team making a mistake on this matter. This isn't the sort of scenario that would have been overlooked.
- John
Two, actually.
Remember, they also bought a license. I wonder what Novell IP made it into Microsoft products, and if that wasn't the REAL reason Microsoft wanted a deal with Novell - not because of Microsoft IP in linux, but Novell IP in Windows?
Plus, if Novell and/or IBM and/or Red Hat manage to piece the "corporate veil" surrounding the PIPE invenstment, there's another problem, which will be much worse for the convicted monopolist.
You are (depending on how you count) between about 3 and 9 months out of date.
weirdest thing I ever saw: scientology advertising on slashdot.
Exactly, in version 6 Java really matured as desktop, server and mobile holy grail open source platform. Only thing they did wrong was not open-sourcing it earlier (so they give traction to _now_ meaningless projects like Mono, classpath, gcj, kaffe, ...
839*929
If Sun has to deal with Novell, it's not the same as anybody having to deal with SCO. SCO didn't care if it existed or not at the end of its legal battle with the rest of the world. Their strategy was all about monetizing their precious IP. Sun and Novell, on the other hand, think of themselves as ongoing businesses. They have no desire to run up huge legal bills. If there is an issue between them, they will negotiate like adults, money will change hands and everyone will go about their business.
Bottom line: Novell isn't going to sue Sun.
so they give traction to _now_ meaningless projects like Mono, classpath, gcj, kaffe, ...
.NET to run on other platforms, or a free platform on Windows. That's not meaningless. It will also allow people to choose the .NET languages, like C#; that too is not meaningless. (I happen to think that the C# language is notably more fun and better to program in than Java, but that's just my opinion.)
Mono will still allow some programs written for
GCJ provides a compiler for Java that goes to native machine code rather than bytecode. Open-source Java doesn't do this; this project too is not meaningless. (Though there was, I'm sure, a good bit of duplicated effort.)
This is just it. I find it fantastically funny that their bankrolling SCO may come around and bite them on the bum, and they've hardly been a friend to Linux, but overall it would be a shame for that to happen when they've given a fair bit up as open source.
True, SCO had no "IP" (as Darl would like to put it, frequently) to sell. However, they were Novell's authorized agent for handling licensing for UNIX. The deal was that ALL money from such deals would go to Novell, and a 5% administrative fee would be remitted back to SCO. Furthermore, SCO had no authority to initiate new deals with SYSV without Novell's authorization.
However, Sun bargained with the authorized agent. It was not Sun's job to make sure Darl was fufilling his contractual obligations.
Novell has asked for the money from this and the MS deal. THis means they are not trying to kill it.
Sun *NEVER* bought their rights off SCO - they bought drivers. Sun bought their rights off who ever owned SVR4 20+ years ago - IIRC Novell who bought UNIX Labs. Sun bought the most extensive rights to the code one could possibly have.
The issue in question *SHOULDN'T* be Sun but Microsoft who purchasing IP rights to UNIX for their Services for UNIX. Sun already bought them 20 years ago. The issue at play are sales of IP by SCO to third parties.
While SCO didn't own Unix, it did have a right to sell licenses. The recent court order seems to regard the sale to Sun as valid:
Finally, the court concludes, as a matter of law, that the only reasonable interpretation of all SVRX Licenses includes no temporal restriction of SVRX Licenses existing at the time of the APA. The court further concludes that because a portion of SCO's 2003 Sun and Microsoft Agreements indisputably licenses SVRX products listed under Item VI of Schedule 1.1(a) to the APA, even if only incidental to a license for UnixWare, SCO is obligated under the APA to account for and pass through to Novell the appropriate portion relating to the license of SVRX products. Because SCO failed to do so, it breached its fiduciary duty to Novell under the APA and is liable for conversion.
It's possible that Novell could act as Microsofts legal sockpuppet, but as we have seen, those who act as Microsoft proxies are doomed to failure.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Ahem, I'd like to see some supporting evidence for the notion that Microsoft has ANY sort of "control" over Novell.
Making an interoperability deal - even if it includes "patent protection" and money changing hands - does not seem to me to indicate any sort of "control".
Last I heard, despite Novell's profitability problems with the Linux side of the business, Novell is still relatively cash rich and entirely a viable company at this point. They're not SCO, dying on the vine and desperately looking for a way out. They might be that way in another five years if they can't get Linux moving fast enough, but they're not there yet.
And obviously it would be ridiculous for Novell to "inhibit Linux growth" since they're betting the farm on Linux - unless you're one of the conspiracy theorists like Bruce Perens who think Novell only made the deal to tempt Microsoft into buying them out. I call tin-foil hat conspiracy theory on that notion.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
SCO possibly sold something to Microsoft and Sun that they didn't own, which is fraud. I'm not sure exactly what the agreements were (some vague unix licenses), but Sun and Microsoft might be able to sue them for that in addition to criminal charges.
Of course, I believe that Sun and Microsoft really didn't buy anything, they were just funneling money to SCO.
Do you have ESP?
Yes, but this is why I don't think that would be funny:
I need Open Source. I make my living with Linux. I need Linux to be strong and healthy. I need Apache and PHP. I need Bluefish, Kate and Quanta Plus. I contribute financially to a couple of products, although I don't have much to give. I learned how to do what I do by following Open Source documentation, asking questions on web forums, and mostly by downloading and installing the software to learn to use it for free. I never could have afforded to buy Windows Server 2003 with IIS as ASP just to learn, but it took me one evening to install and start learning debian, apache, mysql and php, and now I make my living with those tools. Do you understand how liberating that is? I was a sand-pounding infantryman for god's sake, and now a year later I am a skilled worker in the IT industry, thanks to Open Source.
If different members of the development community (and Sun is and continues to be a huge member of that community) perpetually sue each other, it hurts the Open Source reputation (which equals fewer customers and fewer developers) and it prevents them from working together toward the common goal of a better set of software for everybody.
The prospect of that is horrifies me.
weirdest thing I ever saw: scientology advertising on slashdot.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
So what if they have done bad things in the past? Right now, they support open source. As long as they keep supporting open source, I will support them.
weirdest thing I ever saw: scientology advertising on slashdot.
There were three key elements to the defence, and success in any one of them would mean victory for linux.
These were:
1. Linux does not include any unix code.
2. SCO does not own the copyright to unix code.
3. SCO themselves published a linux kernel under the terms of the GPL, and hence granted permission for any SCO owned code it might contain.
The court judgement yesterday established point 2, and therefore linux wins.
In a court case taken by Novel, point 1 would still apply, and point 3 would apply as well in that Novel have also published a linux kernel under the terms of the GPL. Either of those two points would be sufficient for Linux to win.
That's a surprisingly uninformed post you made there buddy. First, of all the open source licenses out there, the one that take the most childish attitude of "my ball, my rules" is the GPL. Compare the GPL with the other major licenses and it's the one that puts the most restrictions on people who would incorporate the code into their deliverables.
Secondly, Novell would have a really hard fucking time suing Sun over Unix because Sun didn't buy their license to unix from SCO. They bought it from AT&T way back. What they bought from SCO several years ago was licenses for additional drivers. Which wouldn't be under the rights Novell purchased from AT&T when they bought Unix.
Sun has built more core technologies and released more code open source than almost any other organization. You are disingenius with you claims of bad mouthing. The most recent spat comes from Linux people shitting on Sun and Sun responding. Eg. systrace and Andrew Morton's claims that Sun is fracturing the non-windows market. Hey Andrew here's a clue for you, Sun was shipping a non-windows product before Linus ever started work in Linux. If you can grasp that little fact it would make a lot more sense for you to say Linux is fragmenting the non-Windows market.
At this point, it doesn't matter if there's any UNIX code in Linux. The _whole_ thing could be UNIX and Novell (or anyone else) still couldn't sue any Linux vendor for IP violations. The reason is because Novell (the legal owner of the UNIX copyrights) has been *actively* distributing _all_the_code_ (whether UNIX or Linux) under GPL as part of SLED/SLES for at least a few years now. You can't put code under GPL and then forbid your competitors (Red Hat, Ubuntu,etc) from Freely modifying and redistributing.
Any (if any) UNIX code that is in Linux is effectively Free software now. If Novell owns it, and they've been distributing it under GPL, it's Free. They can't sue anyone. Linux vendors are completely and utterly safe now.
No, rms uses Gnu/Linux, you heathen!
The Open Group owns the trademark on the name UNIX®, so whoever owns code that TOG says is Unix owns a Unix product.
TOG currently gives the nod to any set of code that conforms to the Single UNIX® Specification, as maintained by The Austin Group. Thus, from a product point of view, Unix is not a set of code but a set of specifications.
So, if Linux were to evolve to the point where it met the SUS, Linux could be UNIX®. :-)
Fixed that.
http://dilemma.gulecha.org - My philospohical short film.
My friend, you may be a champion in the Understatement of the Century Contest.
Sure, there are many entirely respectable reasons why Hurd never got finished.
But, ah, erm
It's time to give up!
The Hurd project has failed! Blue blazes, tarnation and a monkey, it's been seventeen fucking years!
There are software projects for which a delay of seventeen days is intolerable, although that is usually salvageable. A project that is seventeen weeks too late, on the other hand, is universally recognized as a failure.
And we all know about projects that come in seventeen months too late. We all know that someone, somewhere in a project like that was thoroughly incompetent.
There are simply no words, no satire, no amount of acid-tongued vituperation that could do justice to a software development project that still isn't finished after seventeen years.
Always keep a sapphire in your mind