SCO's McBride Testifies "Linux Is a copy of UNIX"

eldavojohn writes "Here's a short update on the Novell Vs. SCO case we've been following. Our good friend Darl McBride made some interesting comments in court yesterday. He stated (under oath): 'Many Linux contributors were originally UNIX developers... We have evidence System V is in Linux... When you go to the bookstore and look in the UNIX section, there's books on "How to Program UNIX" but when you go to the Linux section and look for "How to Program Linux" you're not gonna find it, because it doesn't exist. Linux is a copy of UNIX, there is no difference [between them]." This flies directly in the face of what SCO found in extensive investigations in 2002 and contradicts what SCO Senior Vice President Chris Sontag had just finished testifying earlier that day (testimony that McBride did not hear)."

Comments

Re:The awesome part about this

[hackstraw]

McBride really COULD go to prison over this for perjury

Obviously, you've never been busted, or had much experience with "the system".

Criminal charges come like a tidal wave for larger offenses. Its never, "The state vs McBride on one count of perjury". Its the state vs McBride for a laundry list of ranges of crimes, and odds are one of em will be good enough.

Now with the supposed McBride quote to the supposed jury: "When you go to the bookstore and look in the UNIX section, there's books on "How to Program UNIX" but when you go to the Linux section and look for "How to Program Linux" you're not gonna find it, because it doesn't exist."

That is utter bullshit. At least where I live, if I go to the local Barnes and Noble, and look in their computer section, there is the Linux section, and under it are the books on "UNIX".

Even though McBride is backwards in his evidence collecting, the same result could be said by a nutcase like him. That Linux is so much of a now popular version of UNIX that you can't even find a programming UNIX book, you have to look between the Linux books for a UNIX book.

I simply can't wait until this is over. This has been going on how long now? Like 6-7 years or so. My employers have lost some significant amount of money over this thing while I waste my time commenting/reading on slashdot about this train wreck.

Its also interesting to note that chages against companies take about an order of magnatude longer to try than those against an individual. For business, this is just part of the game of business. Even when you lose. as in theory McBride has done here, he has been able to finacially gain what? What have the lawyers and other people part of the pump and dump scam gained as a result of this?

not too often the case of how these go

[Locutus]

but because SCO went after some deep pocketed businesses( IBM, Novell, etc ) they actually got a fight instead of being handed over millions and millions. Usually this is a bully vs weakling type of fight and the weakling must give in. It takes alot of weaklings to make a business plan work though so there are $ in the eyes when someone gets the bright idea to go for the big guys pockets.

Come to think of it, Lindows wasn't really a big-guy but I guess Microsoft had to stop them one way or another. I'm thinking of this case because it is another case where the outcome wasn't what was expected. ie, Microsoft almost lost their "Windows" trademark and the result was that Lindows became Linspire, Lindows got paid millions, and Lindows got 5 years of licensed software.

At least the Lindows vs MSFT case only took a couple years. Had it taken longer and Lindows/Linspire might have had to settle for much much less. They were not rolling in the doe.

This case has been dragging on for over 6 years and in that time, just little me, I've had small business owners mention licensing issues with regard to using Linux and OSS. The exact reason why I feel Microsoft and Sun helped fund SCO and the reason why Microsoft created their own SCO-ish licensing threats against Linux and OSS.

Unfortunately, Microsoft is learning alot from all this and will most likely stay way clear of filing suit against any of the big companies using or backing Linux and OSS. They know that they get more value from threats and little fear of having those threats exposed as long as they stay out of court. Their game is to use the threats to keep the Linux/OSS market contained and then use their wealth to pay off any large business thinking of being a GNU/Linux/OSS poster child. They have the funds to keep down alot of the uprising and the business customers are the ones willing to take short term payola from Microsoft to keep the current course with running Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office, and Microsoft Server software.

Where this is not in Microsoft's control is in government and the public sector. They've already had a tough time using the BSA to muscle some school districts into longterm licensing contracts when the Linux K12LTSP group showed the way to Microsoft/BSA independence and low cost computing. Recent financial belt tightening is opening the door further and there's little Microsoft can do but deeply discount their software and they are already showing signs of reduced revenues( (24%) this quarter ) from their big money maker, the Windows OS.

SCO is smart to try to devalue the licenses paid by Microsoft and Sun and if they are able to pull it off and get Novell out of the revenue stream, Novell also knows that Microsoft and Sun will not ask for their money back. After all, both Microsoft and Sun got what they paid for and that was not really a license for UNIX. IMO.

One more thing, McBride should get burned for what he's done to SCO, IBM, Novell, AutoZone, and all others involved. It was a scam of epic proportions and took way too long. IMO.

LoB