Their Own Little World....

[rogerdugans]

Full Article - Overclockers.Com (http://www.overclockers.com/articles796/)

From The Article "Off In Their Own Little World" - Ed Stroligo - 8/6/03

And it seems to me that SCO's world will soon either be:
Wonderful and wealthy
or
Crashing down around them- in flames!

I am one to believe in proof- don't give me unsubstantiated claims about something and expect me to believe your claim.
That's why I have personally paid little SERIOUS attention to the claims SCO has been making although I have been following the story to see what comes out of it....

And it seems like a major player has finally gotten sick of it too- and DONE something about it!

Go RedHat!!!!

While I am not a lawyer and usually have a tough time reading legal documents, I did read the one RedHat has and I think it is fantastic!
I may be wrong, but it seems to say-
"Put up or shut up. If you put up, we think we can prove you are wrong. If you shut up, you owe us BIG."


To get back to the article on the Front Page itself:
Ed called for exactly the same thing (calling SCO out), and also notes that the calling of a company "not nice" is kind of...well, silly. (My word, not his.)

I agree though: companies do not (as a rule) make money by being "nice." They make money by providing a product or service that is wanted. They continue to make money be protecting their interests.

I think Ed's article is great in that it once again brings up some business reality and how few people pay attention to it:

A company that seems to be "nice" is simply following a marketing/business strategy that benefits them.

NOTE: This Information Is Edited :- Reading The Full Article Is Recomended

[Audioaficionado]

SCO thinks they are going to win the lottery with this action. Maybe if they lose, they'll be too broke to stay in business.

[Tekime]

Link isn't working for me :(

Edit:
Okay, it works now. That was strange.. Interesting bit to read, even more interesting that Red Hat is really doing something about it. I'm not a hardcore Linux user, but I've been using it for a few years now on my server. I wouldn't pay SCO a damn cent for it, either. If it violates their copyrights, they can prove it. If they do, maybe it's time to start over on a new kernel. :D

[XWRed1]

Maybe SCO's claims have merit, I'd like to see them heard out. But I don't believe them, their constant changing of stories and sneakiness hasn't built any confidence in me.

If Linux is in violation, probably the day they say what the offending code is it'll probably be patched. I wouldn't be surprised if it was Linux code in Unixware, rather than the other way around. And with Linux, all the changelogs are detailed and public, it should be easy to see *exactly* who added the code in question.

[Tekime]

Originally posted by XWRed1
And with Linux, all the changelogs are detailed and public, it should be easy to see *exactly* who added the code in question.

And that's exactly it, it should be easy to tell exactly what code is in violation. Like you said, their claims may have merit, but they aren't doing anything to support that idea.

[XWRed1]

Well, the people who've signed the ndas and seen the code say it is astoundingly similar, with the same comments even. They didn't say what it was.. it could be a bit of an antiquated device driver for all anyone knows. I'm betting sco accidentily contaminated UnixWare with Linux code. Back when Caldera aquired sco (before Caldera changed its name to sco) they were open-sourcing swathes of the UnixWare codebase and working on adding the Linux syscalls to UnixWare, pretty much making a Linux binary emulator like what the BSDs have. That sounds like a good avenue for contamination into sco's codebase.

[Labotomy Jack]

IBM has also filed a countersuit against SCO now.

From the article in the Boston Globe (http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/220/business/IBM_hits_back_in_Linux_dispute+.shtml) :

IBM, which has received the most US patents for 10 straight years, says SCO is infringing four of its patents. IBM also accuses SCO of breach of contract, unfair competition, intentional interference with business relations, and deceptive trade practices.

My uneducated opinion is that if SCO's claims are valid why don't they offer some actual proof rather than just going around and blowing smoke. I find it hard to see the 1500 letters SCO sent to various companies as anything but thinly (or not at all) veiled threats. After reading quite a few articles on the matter I realise that the concept of proof here is not necessarily a simple matter but they don't seem to be the least bit interested in that avenue.

[XWRed1]

They'll show you "proof" after making you sign an nda. But noone knows what that proof really is.

[Labotomy Jack]

Just read (http://www.vnunet.com/News/1142898) this quote from SCO regarding IBM's countersuit:

But SCO has hit back, saying: "We view IBM's counterclaim filing today as an effort to distract attention from its flawed Linux business model. It repeats the same unsubstantiated allegations made in Red Hat's filing earlier this week.
(Emphasis mine.)

:rolleyes: Really, that's precious.

[Ploaf]

The idea of paying sco a license for linux is a joke for more reasons than were mentioned here. First of all nobody knows anything certain at the moment except for ibm and maybe sco. There are a few things that make me think that sco is full of beans.
1- As stated before Caldera had two games going at the same time. One was open source Linux and the other was their own proprietary product. They were developing both at the same time and it's more than likely that much of that code was mixed in house and highly likely that Linux code was used in SCO's own products. Who would know? This would be very hard to determine in any case. Now that there is a lawsuit we will probably see who when what and where.
2- Linux code is about as open as the King James Bible, and more so in that not only can everyone get their hands on it but they can see when code was added, where it was added and, if they so desired, submit code of their own to be added. The history of Linux is an open book available to anyone who is willing to look it up.
3- As also pointed out SCO group has flipflopped quite a bit since this came out. First they were just interested in IBM and enterprise users. The original complaint was that code that ibm was using to further aix was also being used in the Linux kernel iirc. As they dug deeper they 'found' more and more identical code and they are laying claim to the code. It went from SCO vs IBM to SCO vs anyone.
4- because of this they are now trying to extort money through a license agreement for code that is in legal question and they are doing so not only to enterprise users, but to anyone all the way down to your standard home user. They claim this isn't the case because how in the world could they possibly get a license from every home user. Even Microsoft has found this feat to be impossible and they actually own the code. But SCO has come up iwht a single cpu workstation license at $199 which is an exhorbitant sum of money for a workstation license for an OS that they didn't even create.
5- They won't let you see the code without signing a NDA which would also prevent you from making the necessary changes to the Linux codebase to bring it up to speed and to remove SCO's IP, should it prove to be their IP. They claim taht they will damage their case against IBM if the code is removed from the Linux kernel, but given that additions to the Linux kernel are recorded according to who submitted it, when it was submitted and when it became part of the codebase I don't see how they could make such a claim. There is a paper trail of proof. What they are doing is trying to obstruct repair of the codebase so that it may remain untainted.
6- SCO claimed that they could NOT be held responsible for distributing their code in the linux kernel under the terms of the GPL since they did not know that the code was there. Nobody besides SCO could have really known that their code was in the Linux kernel. If SCO cannot be held responsible for distributing this code under the GPL due to their own lack of diligence in checking the code that they were distributing how can other distributors, companies who use Linux and Linux end users be held responsible for using and distributing this code when it would have been absolutely impossible for them to know that SCO's code was in there. At least SCO could make the side by side comparison necessary to create this fiasco in the first place and yet they continued to distribute Linux, and any code that they claim to own, under the terms of the GPL. If SCO could not be held responsible then neither could the end user who used the Linux kernel in good faith thinking that it was free of such offending code given the nature of the license by which it is distributed and the nature of the source tree especially given that the end user could never have been aware that offending code existed.
7- SCO is making what is pretty much an unprecedented move by attacking end users in this case for a possible infringement of IP rights by another company and not by the end user or any of the distributors. Trying to extort money through fear tactics and the threat that it will cost more to buy a license in the future should they decide to not but the license today. You are free, of course, to pay this tax to SCO in the form of real dollars or you can simply jump on the perlguy bandwagon and send them $199 in monopoly money.

The redhat lawsuit may be important in just shutting sco up and to get them to stop threatening end users at least until the other cases are settled in court. If this seems confusing it's because I'm typing it in this little box at the bottom of the thread and keep looking back to make sure I didn't repeat too much or leave anything out but who knows. It's your call but that's pretty much all that I have to say about SCO vs Linux at this time. ;)