Not likely. Assuming this is a pump'n'dump scheme, such a course of action would kill SCO very quickly and they know it. Far easier to drag this on until the execs have sold all their stock, then wind the company up & go live in a country without an extradition agreement.
There is IP that I own in Windows. All versions of Windows later than Windows 95 are infringing it, and I'm therefore suing WalMart. Meanwhile, you can buy a license from me to use versions of Windows later than Windows 95.
Should the lawsuit fail and I'm shown to be a liar, I shall continue making these allegations and demanding people pay me.
Yeah, but MS have it worse. They're trying to compete price-wise with free, they sound the trumpet of support to people who have tried calling for support a few times and know how bad it is, they sound the trumpet of quality to techs who have spent the last week clearing up after SirCam, CodeRed, , they shout about security to someone who's just discovered several gigs of porn on a public-facing server.
Basically they've spent 20 years trying to build a monopoly at the expense of the customer, succeeded and now there may actually be some real competition. To top it off, the customers are well aware of this.
Scary stuff for any company, no matter what they sell.
Yes, but right at the bottom of the Yahoo article it also says that 'In Thailand and England there were reductions of hundreds of percent" on products that it sells.'
Hundreds of percent, eh? Cool. Who do I contact at Microsoft to get my cheque?
It doesn't need to. The GPL only covers "derivative works", and Linus has specifically said that he doesn't consider code intended to run in Linux a "derivative work".
I'm going to stick my neck out on this one:
If we assume that the best operating system is not Linux, not MacOS and not Windows, but instead "the one which does the job required", this leaves a number of possibilities, none of which are particularly nice:
He requires spending 11 hours a month fixing Windows issues. Ouch.
He has to use Windows, but also uses cheap hardware, with all the headaches that can cause. So he's daft enough to set up a number of systems for the entire family and in doing so picks up the cheapest hardware he can find. Ouch.
He has to use Windows, he buys perfectly good hardware but is crap at administering it. Ouch.
Hardware, software and usage are totally out of his control. But he is still lumbered with fixing any problems. Ouch.
I don't think we will see a change. However, what we might see is visibility.
Many/. readers have a good idea how the kernel is managed and thus know that it's unlikely that illegal code on the scale SCO is claiming could make it in there - either through personal experience or through reading the various SCO-oriented stories.
Most columnists, managers and commentators don't. To them, it's just some system which appears to have magically come into existence from nowhere with no visible structure. Expect the structuring to become more visible as IBM, Novell et al demonstrate how unlikely it is that infringing code could make it into the kernel.
This isn't that hard to predict - they've made Linux a serious part of their business now and if this doesn't happen it could seriously dent their credibility.
Slashdot Mirror
Does the school have the right to sublicense?
This should be modded Insightful - it puts SCO's entire case in a nutshell.
They've spent the last 10 years or so doing this. Why change it?
Not likely. Assuming this is a pump'n'dump scheme, such a course of action would kill SCO very quickly and they know it. Far easier to drag this on until the execs have sold all their stock, then wind the company up & go live in a country without an extradition agreement.
Should the lawsuit fail and I'm shown to be a liar, I shall continue making these allegations and demanding people pay me.
Therefore, SCO can't extract money from users.
Say what? Of course it's a David and Goliath mismatch. The only difference is that David is the challenger!
Basically they've spent 20 years trying to build a monopoly at the expense of the customer, succeeded and now there may actually be some real competition. To top it off, the customers are well aware of this.
Scary stuff for any company, no matter what they sell.
Hundreds of percent, eh? Cool. Who do I contact at Microsoft to get my cheque?
Cite?
It doesn't need to. The GPL only covers "derivative works", and Linus has specifically said that he doesn't consider code intended to run in Linux a "derivative work".
Many /. readers have a good idea how the kernel is managed and thus know that it's unlikely that illegal code on the scale SCO is claiming could make it in there - either through personal experience or through reading the various SCO-oriented stories.
Most columnists, managers and commentators don't. To them, it's just some system which appears to have magically come into existence from nowhere with no visible structure. Expect the structuring to become more visible as IBM, Novell et al demonstrate how unlikely it is that infringing code could make it into the kernel.
This isn't that hard to predict - they've made Linux a serious part of their business now and if this doesn't happen it could seriously dent their credibility.