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The Courts Government News

SCO Threatens Red Hat and SuSE 1007

Posted by timothy from the court-battles-are-fun dept.
Guy Smith writes "CRN reports that SCO will target SuSE and Red Hat with lawsuits after they are finished with IBM (providing that IBM allows them live). To quote Sco, "There will be a day of reckoning for Red Hat and SuSE when this is done." They seem bent on destroying the Open Source community and they deserve to hear the community's opinion on the matter."
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SCO Threatens Red Hat and SuSE More

SCO Threatens Red Hat and SuSE

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  • Beautiful (Score:5, Insightful)

    by inertia187 ( 156602 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @04:26PM (#5793198) Homepage Journal
    CRN: Some are worried that a court case might give Microsoft a legal precedent that could be used to deaccelerate adoption of Linux at customer sites. What do you say to that?

    Ya think? As you may or may not recall [sourcemagazine.com], SCO had ties to Microsoft back in the day, when it was called XENIX. So I guess it's still in it's blood to threaten the other operating systems on the block.
    /* Remember to sue everyone in about 20 years (bgates). */

    • Re:Beautiful (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @04:55PM (#5793578)
      IBM had ties to Microsoft 20 years ago as well. What's your point?

    • Re:Beautiful (Score:5, Informative)

      by inertia187 ( 156602 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @05:01PM (#5793659) Homepage Journal
      Here's a mirror to the article:

      Link 1 [martin-studio.com]

    • Re:Beautiful (Score:5, Insightful)

      by HiredMan ( 5546 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @05:10PM (#5793778) Journal
      What I find very strange about all this is M$ admits it's "anti-Linux/OSS/GPL" FUD isn't working after surveying people about their views in the Halloween VII memo [opensource.org].

      What message DID resonate with IT managers? The possibility of being sued for Linux/OSS patent voilations.

      "Linux patent violations/risk of being sued" struck a chord with US and Swedish respondents. Seventy-four percent (74%) of Americans and 82% of Swedes stated that the risk of being sued over Linux patent violations made them feel less favorable towards Linux. This was the only message that had a strong impact with any audience.

      Hmmm... the only thing that might work is very public lawsuits and threats about patent voilations and what begins to happen?

      But M$ would never actually bribe another company to sue (and threaten to sue) the companies that represent the biggest threats to them just as a marketing ploy would they?

      This was the only message that had a strong impact with any audience.

      Would they?

      =tkk

      • Re:Beautiful (Score:3, Informative)

        by homer_ca ( 144738 )
        "But M$ would never actually bribe another company to sue (and threaten to sue)"

        So? Caldera (now SCO) won $200 mill from Microsoft in a lawsuit settlement over DR-DOS, and this was just a few years ago, not ancient history. They're hardly the people I'd expect to do Microsoft's bidding, but then stranger things have happened.

        • Re:Beautiful (Score:5, Funny)

          by Dausha ( 546002 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @10:02PM (#5795970) Homepage

          May I quote a stable space opera move Star Wars?

          "Not a bad bit of [lawsuiting], huh? You know, sometimes I even amaze myself." [HAN]

          "That doesn't sound too hard. Besides, [Microsoft] let us go. It's the only explanation for the ease of our [lawsuit]." [LEAH]

          "Easy... you call that easy?"

          "They're [buying us off to sue Open Source later]!"

          "Not SCO, sister."

          So, before you think that successfully suing Microsoft is proof against future alliance with Microsoft against Open Source, remember Yoda's words:

          A [Hacker]'s strength flows from the [Source]. But beware of the dark side. [Fear . . . Uncertainty . . . Doubt]. The dark side of the [Source] are they. Easily they flow, quick to join you in a fight. If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will, as it did [Altair]'s apprentice." [YODA]

          "Gates. Is the dark side stronger?" [LUKE]

          "No...no...no. Quicker, easier, more seductive."

          "But how am I to know the [Open Source] from the bad?

          "You will know. When you are calm, at peace. Passive. A [Hacker] uses the [Source] for knowledge and defense, never for attack."

          "But tell me why I can't . . ."

          "(interrupting) No, no, there is no why. Nothing more will I teach you today. Clear your mind of questions. Mmm. Mmmmmm."

      • Re:Beautiful (Score:5, Interesting)

        by stefanlasiewski ( 63134 ) <slashdotNO@SPAMstefanco.com> on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @05:48PM (#5794212) Homepage Journal
        What I find very strange about all this is M$ admits it's "anti-Linux/OSS/GPL" FUD isn't working after surveying people about their views in the Halloween VII memo.

        You're making the assumption that the Halloween VII memo is an authentic, unaltered memo from Microsoft. How do you know it's not a forgery? Where's the proof?

        I have an email from Bill Gates that says he'll give me $1000 if I forward the email to all my friends, but I don't think it's real.

    • Re:Beautiful (Score:5, Funny)

      by Dolly_Llama ( 267016 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @05:47PM (#5794210) Homepage
      Wait wait... deaccelerate? OK i know he meant decelerate but hang with me a second.



      If L is the installed base of Linux, then dL/dt is the net rate of adoption. and if you were to decelerate the adoption, then that would be a negative value of d2L/dt2. But he said de-accelerate which would be a negative value of d3L/dt3, but a positive va....ok I'll go back to sitting in the corner and muttering to myself..

  • From the interview: (Score:5, Interesting)

    by OwnerOfWhinyCat ( 654476 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @04:27PM (#5793217)
    CRN: Some are worried that a court case might give Microsoft a legal precedent that could be used to deaccelerate adoption of Linux at customer sites. What do you say to that?

    McBride: In our case, Linux comes from Unix and we own the Unix operating system. How this plays out with other code bases, I don't know.

    CRN: What are you trying to do? Some say you are trying to compete against Linux by destroying it.

    McBride: We will use our best efforts to protect our source code.

    If that's not a battle cry, what is?

    I probably won't join the flamewar on their inbox, but in EVERY circumstance where I find their products from this point forward I will offer that client a special discount on the hours I spend replacing it with any other product that will do the job.

    • Re:From the interview: (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Matt Ownby ( 158633 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @04:31PM (#5793265) Homepage Journal
      Ya this indeed looks ugly.

      SCO appears to be trying to change their primary source of revenue to be that which they get from lawsuits rather than actually selling services like they used to be doing. I don't know how viable of a business strategy this is, but even if they were to successfully sue every linux company into bankruptcy (hypothetically) they would eventually run out of people to sue and go bankrupt themselves. It's like a virus that feeds on other living cells until it has no more hosts. Once it runs out of hosts, it must itself die.

      • Re:From the interview: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        it seems like a very viable business strategy...for about 5 seconds...just look at what happened to rambus

      • Re:From the interview: (Score:5, Interesting)

        by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @04:57PM (#5793599) Journal
        Keep in mind, that this is Ray Norda's group. He successfully got .5 billion from MS for what MS did to Dr-Dos. IBM is even bigger. In addition, IBM may find it cheaper to buy SCO rather than simply take them to court and tell the truth (this is a very sad commentary on american life). I would not be surprised if Ray needs the cash to buy Novell in about 2 years.
      • SCO appears to be trying to change their primary source of revenue to be that which they get from lawsuits rather than actually selling services like they used to be doing. I don't know how viable of a business strategy this is

        the RIAA/music labels have already adapted their business strategy to this concept, and it seems to work well for them. hey, if they can squeeze $100 trillion out of those college students (ha!) they don't need to sell any CDs for a looong time.

      • Re:From the interview: (Score:4, Funny)

        by robson ( 60067 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @05:40PM (#5794127)
        I don't know how viable of a business strategy this is, but even if they were to successfully sue every linux company into bankruptcy (hypothetically) they would eventually run out of people to sue and go bankrupt themselves. It's like a virus that feeds on other living cells until it has no more hosts. Once it runs out of hosts, it must itself die.

        Oh lordy. If suing Linux vendors is their new business plan... okay. Makes sense. Because, as we know, packaging and selling Linux distributions is such a profitable business that SCO is bound to cash in big time with this strategy.

        *snicker* :)

    • "our source code." (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Xibby ( 232218 ) <zibby+slashdot@ringworld.org> on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @05:00PM (#5793648) Homepage Journal
      I belive their lawers and PR people are confused. Last I heard, they were more interested in IP, not source. SysV is SCO's IP, and the Linux kernel doesn't have SCO code in it, but lots of linux software is based around the SysV design, even if the software itself was written from scratch to behanve like SysV. They also seem to think that IBM and other United Linux partners might have included SCO IP into verious software.

      Seems like their issue isn't the kernel, but the software being distributed with the kernel.

      Remember folks, Linux is the kernel, not the OS. Distributions are the OS. SCO is after distributers, not the kernel. If anyone tells you Linux is an operating system, they're wrong.

      • If you read the lawsuit.. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by spiedrazer ( 555388 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @07:30PM (#5795099) Homepage
        They also seem to think that IBM and other United Linux partners might have included SCO IP into verious software.

        SCO DOES believe that IBM has illegally taken SCO Intellectual Property and deliberately fed it into the linux community. If you read the complaint the scenario goes something like this...

        SCO and IBM enter into agreement to produce 'hardened' Unix for the Intel Platform. When this development is done, and SCO expects IBM to market it, IBM says "nevermind we don't want to go in that direction anymore". Months later IBM announces an initiative to help the linux community 'harden' linux

        SCO claim that IBM illegally used what they learned from SCO to make IP contributions to Linux. So even if the code wasn't copied the knowhow was illegally transfered from a private partnership with huge NDA coverage, to a public project without SCO's consent. If this is true, they have a case against IBM

        I do not know what there case may be against Red Hat etc.

  • Summary (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @04:29PM (#5793231)
    Q: So you agree that you're flaming assholes?

    A: Yes.

  • SCO abviously a superior product..... (Score:5, Funny)

    by DailyGrind ( 456659 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @04:29PM (#5793233) Homepage
    Followed the link and all I got is this lousy error message:

    Contact Us

    The SCO Group
    355 South 520 West
    Suite 100
    Lindon, Utah 84042 USA
    801-765-4999 phone
    801-765-1313 fax

    Choose Location:
    Please Select a Location Warning: Too many connections in /home/www/www.caldera.com/phplib/db_mysql.inc on line 73
    Database error: pconnect(teak.lg.center7.com, web, $Password) failed.
    MySQL Error: ()
    Session halted.

  • After they're finished with IBM... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Struct ( 660658 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @04:29PM (#5793240)
    ...there won't be anything left. :)

    "Hey, you! When I'm done kickin' these four bouncers' asses, you're next! You and your huge friends, there!"

  • Astounding. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ElGuapoGolf ( 600734 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @04:30PM (#5793246) Homepage
    Someone should remind SCO that their United Linux offering is built on SuSE. Hell, SuSE is United Linux. Everyone else in the group is just along for the ride.

    Believe me, all the feedback in the world won't matter to the SCO folks. They want attention. They want everyone up in arms. They want this to hinder the adoption of Linux in business.

    Why? They want to be bought. SCO figures that if IBM's linux related sales start to drop (and IBM makes a fair amount of cash on linux related sales) IBM may just buy SCO to shut them up and end the lawsuit. It's pretty slimy on SCO's part. It's downright microsoftish.

    I'm not saying don't send SCO feedback. I'm saying that whatever you send won't matter to them. They're not interested in using linux for anything other than making a quick buck and exiting the market. They're like LinuxONE was, just a lot more insidious and poisonous.

  • Sure they will... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by samrolken ( 246301 ) <samrolken AT gmail DOT com> on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @04:30PM (#5793255)
    Who has a business policy of pissing off your customers by going after your competitors? A day of reckoning? SCO has always been angry with RedHat [newswire.com.au]. And now that SuSE is all about AMD Opteron, they are a threat to SCO in the heavy duty 64-bit space.

  • What parts do they have a problem with? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by FattMattP ( 86246 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @04:30PM (#5793256) Homepage
    I keep seeing these stories about SCO wanting to sue people over code in Linux but they never will answer the question of what code they have a problem with. The problem will never get fixed if they won't say what's wrong.

    • Re:What parts do they have a problem with? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by An Onerous Coward ( 222037 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @04:49PM (#5793495) Homepage
      The problem is, they're not claiming specific problems with specific code. They're claiming ownership of "Unix." According to the lawsuit, IBM has a license with SCO to distribute IBM's own version of Unix (AIX). This stems from the fact that every version of Unix is a descendant of Bell Labs' original code. That's the code that SCO now owns.

      Now, the simple fact is that SCO's code base is irrelevant. Many of the "high performance" features (SMP, NUMA, journalled file systems, etc.) that they claim IBM put into Linux aren't present in the original Bell Labs code, or even in SCO's latest-and-greatest OS offering.

      So my impression is that SCO is actually claiming ownership of all of IBM's improvements, and charging that those improvements were illegally added to Linux.

      Sounds stupid? It is.

      [Note: any errors of fact are directly attributable to me not knowing of what I speak.]

  • Don't they? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gr8_phk ( 621180 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @04:31PM (#5793258)
    Doesn't they sell a Linux distro? They can't sue someone for selling something they provide themselves under the GPL. Another point would be that if IBM release their trade secrets, you could only sue IBM unless the actual source code was the sectret. If someone is selling an implementation of your "trade secret" that's tough cookies, unless it's actually a stolen implementation. IANAL but this seems simple enough.

  • Simple solution (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Ars-Fartsica ( 166957 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @04:31PM (#5793263)
    Call their bluff. Delay. Befuddle. Use the legal system to drive SCO into the ground in the same way SCI is trying to burn everyone else. The legal system rewards the richest litigant, and that is not SCO. IBM should draw this out until 2010 and let SCO die a slow agonizing death at the hands of their own legal fees.
    • You are sadistic!
      I like the way this man thinks!

      ;-)

    • Re:Simple solution (Score:5, Interesting)

      by lavalyn ( 649886 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @04:58PM (#5793614) Homepage Journal
      Isn't that why the system is broken?

      As groundless as the accusations may be, and as much as I spit at the feet of SCO for their tactics, I cannot agree with a system that rewards the richest litigant, instead of the one that deserves to win on the merit of the case.

      I guess the US has gotten used to having corporations possessing so much power that it's considered normal to wave it around like a plush toy.

  • But what if they're right? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by binaryDigit ( 557647 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @04:31PM (#5793266)
    What if some substantial (either quantity or quality) amount of their proprietary code has made its way into the Linux source? If IBM put it there, should they not be punished for doing so? If RedHat et.al are making/made money from it, shouldn't they pay royalties? I know that SCO is the popular bad guy right now, but what if they have a point, does this still make them bad?

    • Re:But what if they're right? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ElGuapoGolf ( 600734 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @04:32PM (#5793289) Homepage
      It's hard to tell if they're right when they won't talk about what parts of Linux they have a problem with.

    • Re:But what if they're right? (Score:5, Funny)

      by crazyphilman ( 609923 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @04:52PM (#5793537) Journal
      That's all well and good, but didn't several pretty significant people involved in Linux development already weigh in on this, and point out that there's no SCO code in their work? Linus included? SCO seems to be just spreading the FUD around. It's smarmy, it's sleazy, and I hope that IBM really whips their asses in court. In fact, if I were an IBM lawyer, I'd start opening countersuits. You know, the U.S. is the land where anyone can sue anyone, at any time, for anything. I'd be suing them for everything under the sun, no matter how thin the claim might be, and suck the life right out of them.

      Think of it as an old Warner Bros cartoon:

      (350-pound lawyer/gorilla): "Oh, you like lawsuits, eh? Well, let me indulge you... MUHAHAHAHA Let 'em have it, Ray!"

      (98-pound milquetoast pipsqueak): "Um... What did you mean by that?" (looks up as a shadow expands around him, then forlornly says,) "Mother..."

      BAM. An entire pallet of legal briefs drops out of the sky and lands on the pipsqueak with a little puff of dust. All that's left is his left hand, with a school ring on it, and his right hand, clutching a little briefcase. A groan is heard from under the pallet...

    • Royalties for good software aren't the problem.

      The problem is their motives, made obvious by their approach to this issue. Right now the opens source community is strong enough, and there are a sufficient number of talented coders out there to re-write any section of the kernel that was found in violation. It's not like the open source community has been hiding it's source. If, on the moment the SCO IP team found offending source in Linux they announced it on /. and let RedHat know, there would be some

    • Re:But what if they're right? (Score:5, Informative)

      by theLOUDroom ( 556455 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @05:14PM (#5793831)
      What if some substantial (either quantity or quality) amount of their proprietary code has made its way into the Linux source? If IBM put it there, should they not be punished for doing so? If RedHat et.al are making/made money from it, shouldn't they pay royalties? I know that SCO is the popular bad guy right now, but what if they have a point, does this still make them bad?

      SCO is not claiming IBM put actual SCO code into Linux. They are claming that that IBM took concepts/techniques/whatever that were trade secerts and gave them to linux developers. They claim that this is the only thing that could have made Linux what it is today.

      I hope SCO's CEO ends up as IBM's CEO's pool boy. SCO wants someone to come along and buy them out to shut them up, but I hope IBM crushes them and we all get to watch them go bankrupt from deliberately pissing off their entire customer base. Then, when they do, IBM or Redhat can buy SCO's IP for a song :)

      Reminds me of my favorite hockey cheer:
      Awwwww...see ya asshole! You goon!

    • Re:But what if they're right? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ces ( 119879 ) <christopher...stefan#gmail...com> on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @05:39PM (#5794114) Homepage Journal
      What if some substantial (either quantity or quality) amount of their proprietary code has made its way into the Linux source? If IBM put it there, should they not be punished for doing so? If RedHat et.al are making/made money from it, shouldn't they pay royalties? I know that SCO is the popular bad guy right now, but what if they have a point, does this still make them bad?

      First of all the "features" SCO alleges were copied by IBM aren't even present in the System V codebase. Secondly most if not all of these features such as SMP, NUMA, jornalling filesystems, etc first appeared 20-30 years ago in IBM mainframe operating systems. One of the pioneers in bringing SMP and NUMA to UNIX for large numbers of procesors was Sequent who IBM bought a couple of years ago. To claim IBM somehow copied these features from System V is absurd considering IBM probably invented the features in question.

      I hope IBM throws its patent portfolio at SCO and crushes them like a bug.

  • even now they are crying for mercy (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @04:31PM (#5793270)
    The Open Source infidels will cower at the will of SCO. Even now Linus Torvalds is jumping off a cliff and Alan Cox is shaving his beard before the might of Sad^Wour lawyers. There is only one UNIX system. All other UNIX systems do not exist, and have never existed. We have nothing against Linux users, just against the hegemony of greedy oi^Wcode-stealing developers. May Al^Hshcroft have mercy upon you ALL!

  • Money (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Greg Lindahl ( 37568 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @04:31PM (#5793273) Homepage

    Doesn't Redhat have more money in the bank than SCO's market capitalization?

    • Re:Money (Score:3, Informative)

      by howardjp ( 5458 )
      As of today, SCO's market cap was 37.1M USD. On 28 February, Red Hat's cash and cash equivalents was 55.4M USD. Therefore, yes.

  • Raging geekery (Score:5, Funny)

    by rmarll ( 161697 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @04:32PM (#5793276) Journal
    I'm going to need a scheduling app to keep track of who turn it is to turn our wrath on. Now, I've got Firebird(the DB) mail bombing scheduled for moday mornings, and a random senator on thursdays at noon. But this is 1:30PM wednesday and Sun is scheduled from 1 to 3 for a DNS, followed by a quick annonomous hate mail to Pat Robbertson at 3:30.

    Does someone have an update for the hate list. Apparently I'm behind because I still have IBM scheduled for the first and second tuesday of each month.

    Thanks ahead of time. Rant on.

  • Who's next? (Score:4, Funny)

    by mahdi13 ( 660205 ) <icarus.lnx@gmail.com> on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @04:32PM (#5793286) Journal
    Next thing you know SCO will be sueing Microsoft for having a command line interface in their OS...

  • From the horse's mouth... (Score:5, Funny)

    by American AC in Paris ( 230456 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @04:32PM (#5793288) Homepage
    I was mulling over the idea of posting some Iraqi Info Minister "Red Hat shall burn!" tripe, but then I stumbled upon this gem in the article:

    McBride: Everyone just says we're a company going out of business, and throwing a Hail Mary pass, but once we get to court, those who say that will look as strange as the Iraqi information minister on TV saying the infidels are defeated and did not get into Baghdad.

    Wow. That's like the Iraqi Information Minister saying that Rummy is going to look as strange as the Iraqi Information Minister when this is all over...or...something.

  • The apocalypse must be emminent... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Bendebecker ( 633126 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @04:34PM (#5793304) Journal
    For the first time I am actually hoping that a company will get crushed under the iron fist of IBM. Armeggedon cannot be too far off!

    • For the first time I am actually hoping that a company will get crushed under the iron fist of IBM. Armeggedon cannot be too far off!

      Must be ... a friend of mine got a call from LL Bean to say they an order from Hades for 20,000,000,000 parkas, and the customer was paying for rush delivery.

  • What happens if Microsoft Buys SCO? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ayden ( 126539 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @04:34PM (#5793305) Homepage Journal
    SCO has very few resources left to pursue these cases against IBM, Red Hat and SuSE. That all could change if Microsoft buys SCO for very short money. Suddenly, Microsoft would have a very strong tool to threaten Open Source Software companies.

    • Think anti-trust law (Score:5, Informative)

      by mdfst13 ( 664665 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @04:55PM (#5793580)
      Personally, I think that MS has about as much chance of getting FTC approval to buy SCO as I have of seeing pigs flying down the street. If MS did do so and won the lawsuit, it would prove that it is a monopoly, since it would then own the base patents for all current OSes (the Linuxes, the Unixes, Mac OSX, Windows).

      It would be like GM trying to buy Ford.

  • Remarkable (Score:5, Funny)

    by thomas.galvin ( 551471 ) <slashdot&thomas-galvin,com> on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @04:34PM (#5793317) Homepage
    Remarkable. Most companies would have gone after SuSe to build precident, Red Hat to gain momentum, and then worked out some sort of deal with IBM. That, sadly, is the American way. These guys, though, just walked right up to the 800lb gorilla, punched it in the mouth, and tried to take its bananna.

    This should be amusing.

  • why? .... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by pyros ( 61399 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @04:35PM (#5793328) Journal
    What on earth do they hope to accomplish? Getting rid of Linux vendors? That's futile, since the source is already available on the net for free. Chunks of cash from Linux vendors? That would be stupid too. If they are awarded a settlement, it would likely result in bankrupting the targeted vendors. But that wouldn't remove them from the marketplace, since the distributions are, once again, already available on the net for free. Do they think that former customers will suddenly come to them? That's arrogant. The hackers would find out through the course of the trials what parts of the Linux kernel, if any, violate patents, and re-implement such that it's no longer in violation. The only thing SCO can hope to do is temporarily dispose of popular Linux vendors and piss off the very demographic that might ever be interested in their product.

  • Okay.. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mindstrm ( 20013 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @04:36PM (#5793333)
    We all know the public FUD "Linux is like UNIX and WE OWN UNIX" ...

    but have they actually said what it is they are suing over? What code is it, exactly, that the lawsuit is over? Linux wasn't derived from BSD or SYSV.. it was written from scratch.

    Sco appears to be basically mounting nothing more than a smear campaign.

    If there IS copyright infringement... and there IS code that SCO has the rights to in there:

    It would be awfully hard for them to show intent - that the code was actually knowingly used without their permission. This is obvious.. as the entire linux world is going "HuH? What are you talking about?"

    That means that all we would have to do is politely remove the code covered by their copyright, and have it re-implemented.

    • It's dumber than that. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by SatanicPuppy ( 611928 ) <Satanicpuppy.gmail@com> on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @04:54PM (#5793570) Journal
      You're right, a) that they don't really have any hard proof. Their argument is that there is NO WAY linux could have advanced so fast if IBM hadn't been feeding them code. Completely ignoring the whole "Open Source Movement" thing, which isn't exactly a small workforce, not to mention the major companies who build bits of it. (ie Red Hat, SuSe, Mandrake...etc etc.)

      Beyond that, however, when Caldera bought SCO, they did it for around 7 million dollars. And now they're suing IBM for like a billion for DEVALUING their 7 million dollar product. It's completely retarded, and I eagerly await the righteous can of whoopass that IBM is about to unleash.

      Even if IBM had stolen ALL of SCO's code verbatim, and Linux had incorporated all of it verbatim, it is highly unlikely, based off past precidents, that they could recover even a fraction of what they are asking for.

      I would almost welcome MS buying SCO, just for the amusement value of watching a convicted monopoly, and a convicted code stealer trying to sue someone else for monopolistic code stealing.

    • Re:Okay.. (Score:4, Informative)

      by An Onerous Coward ( 222037 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @05:05PM (#5793700) Homepage
      It's not so simple as "copyright infringement." According to SCO, IBM has a license with them to distribute a version of UNIX, because they have a license to use SCO's (basically irrelevant) code base. Not the code base that SCO is selling. They're talking about the original code from Bell Labs, that every derivative of UNIX is based on. (excluding BSD, which was already sued, and already removed every trace of the original Bell Labs code).

      Now, IBM has their AIX team. Whatever relationship their code has to the original Bell Labs code, AIX is now light years ahead. None--I repeat, NONE--of the "improvements" to Linux that SCO is suing over were present in that original code base. So basically they're claiming that IBM's license to the original Bell Labs code gives SCO ownership of all the improvements IBM made.

      That is effectively the entire claim of the case: SCO owns AIX, even though IBM developed it all by themselves. I'm guessing if the license actually came close to saying what SCO is now claiming, IBM would have ripped out what (very little) Bell Labs code was in AIX a decade ago.

  • YHBT (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sloppy ( 14984 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @04:36PM (#5793338) Homepage Journal
    They seem bent on destroying the Open Source community
    WTF? I don't see any hint of that. They're alleging that some IBM guys copied source code from System V to Linux. If that is true, then SCO aren't the bad guys here, IBM is.

    Let's see the evidence. If there is no evidence, or the evidence turns out to be bogus, then you can accuse them of trying to destroy OSS and flouridating our precious bodily fluids.

    But even if they're right, licensing won't be the answer. The infringing code will have to go, instead. Well, unless the license they have in mind is the GPL, which I kind of doubt. ;-)

  • Am I missing something? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Rabid Cougar ( 643908 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @04:36PM (#5793342)
    McBride: System V is the basis for all operating systems outside of Redmond, AIX, HP UX, Solaris, Apple and Linux. Linux is the only one not rationalized [from a licensing perspective].

    I didn't know BSD wasn't "outside of Redmond". It looks like McBride has a firm handle on things. No wonder he thinks they have a case!

    • Re:Am I missing something? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ces ( 119879 ) <christopher...stefan#gmail...com> on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @05:08PM (#5793745) Homepage Journal
      System V is the basis for all operating systems outside of Redmond

      Huh? What rock has this guy been living under?

      OS/360, VM/CMS, MVS, Z/OS, OS/400, OS/2, and several others are all operating systems developed in-house by IBM. Mythical Man Month was written about the OS/360 project IBM had during the 60's. None of these owe any heritage to Redmond or System V. Many of the concepts used in modern operating systems first appeared on "big iron" like IBM mainframes: symetric multiprocessing, NUMA, clusters, failover, fault tolerance, transaction processing, pre-emptive multitasking, virtual memory, journaling, etc.

      There are others such as VMS or Mac OS9 that have no connection to System V or Redmond as well. I do think it is safe to say that much of the technology used in modern enterprise operating systems was invented at IBM and first appeared in an IBM mainframe OS.

  • Ridiculous ravings (Score:5, Funny)

    by moreati ( 119629 ) <alex@moreati.org.uk> on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @04:39PM (#5793377) Homepage
    "There will be a day of reckoning for Red Hat and SuSE when this is done." said the former Iraqi Information Minister, now employed by SCO as PR Spokesperson.

    He went on to add "We are wiping their CVS and Bitkeeper repositories as we speak, the legions of IBM a fleeing at the meerest glimpse of our glorious crack lawer squads. I have personally caught the imperialist general Alan Cox, and the Dictator excuse for a warleader Torvalds will be tried for his crimes. We are victorious!"

  • IBM will crush SCO (Score:3, Insightful)

    by DigitalDreg ( 206095 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @04:40PM (#5793385)
    SCO acts like IBM wouldn't have AIX or contributions to Linux if they hadn't stolen the IP from SCO.

    Need we remind SCO that IBM has been building operating systems, middleware, and software for quite some time?

    Threatening the AIX license is absurd. That will fly back in their face. ("Use Linux because it *isn't* under an SCO royalty!")

    Disclaimer - I am an IBM employee. This opinions are my own.

  • What? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by operagost ( 62405 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @04:40PM (#5793389) Homepage Journal
    BS from McBride:
    System V is the basis for all operating systems outside of Redmond, AIX, HP UX, Solaris, Apple and Linux.

    Ever heard of:

    OS/2

    MS/DR/PC DOS

    BeOS

    OpenVMS

    AmigaDOS

    etc.

  • Day of reckoning? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Dr. Photo ( 640363 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @04:42PM (#5793406) Journal
    "There will be a day of reckoning for Red Hat and SuSE when this is done."

    Wow. Reminds me of every cardboard villain in every hokey 1980s action cartoon...

    SCO: "You haven't seen the last of us, do-gooders!"

    Thanks for the memories, SCO. We'll miss you after your well-deserved demise...

  • Then who next? (Score:3)

    by StarTux ( 230379 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @04:44PM (#5793435) Journal
    Let me guess the order of their victims:

    1. IBM; Big and Blue

    2. RedHat and SuSE; Arguably two of the most succesful distro's

    3. Apple?

  • Somewhere, somehow.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Future Linux-Guru ( 34181 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @04:45PM (#5793447)
    There's a Microsoft connection in here.

    I can feel it. There's a definite disturbance in the Source...

  • Blacken the sky? (Score:5, Funny)

    by bopo ( 105833 ) <bopo AT nerp DOT net> on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @04:46PM (#5793455) Homepage

    Blockquoth the article:
    CRN: Have settlement talks begun?

    McBride: The phones are not ringing off the hook. From what I hear, IBM will blacken the Utah sky with lawyers.
    Jeez, does IBM have so many lawyers that they have to catapult them in?

  • What source code, specifically? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Lendrick ( 314723 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @04:47PM (#5793460) Homepage Journal
    Obviously, they have to be claiming that some of the code within Linux wasn't originally GPLed. Which code is that? Are their complaints legitimate? In other words, can they point out the code that was lifted from them, and then provide documentation to support their claims? If so, then they're actually in the right, whether or not everyone happens to think they're a bunch of goatse's.

  • End-All of Operating Systems? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mahdi13 ( 660205 ) <icarus.lnx@gmail.com> on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @04:52PM (#5793541) Journal
    We're the source of AIX, HP UX, Solaris, Linux, Mac OSX. It all comes from us.
    ...
    System V is the basis for all operating systems outside of Redmond, AIX, HP UX, Solaris, Apple and Linux.

    This sound very arrogant and egotistical to me.

    So SCO is saying that they own every operating system available...except BSD. That's good to know, in a few years the world will be either SCO free, or two OS's to use...BSD or SCO =(

  • Come on gloomy Gus (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jj_johny ( 626460 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @04:54PM (#5793567)
    Hey its not great the SCO has decided that their best IP assests are some government documents instead of in creating new stuff. But come on. The OS community will not die even if they win against IBM. The OS community is much bigger than that and even if they win against Red Hat and Suse, so what.

    Please put all predictions of doom on the shelf with the other stupid predictions that are made every day about computers and business.

  • Ironic? (Score:5, Funny)

    by carambola5 ( 456983 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @04:58PM (#5793616) Homepage
    Anyone else find this ironic?

    Product and Sales Inquiries
    1-888-GO-LINUX

  • What SCO doesn't realize... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bazmonkey ( 555276 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @04:58PM (#5793618)
    Is that even if the source code is theirs (which I don't see how it could be), the BUSINESS was never theirs. The popularity that IBM and the likes enjoy was never SCO's nor will it be if they try to eliminate Linux, at least in the not-underground corporate world.

    We should consider the possibility that SCO is right, as well. They're undertaking a billion dollar lawsuit against one of the largest technology corporations on the planet. Everyone says they're stupid, but it looks to me like they know something we don't.

    I wrote SCO, but I couldn't tell them that they should stop because they're wrong, because we just don't know that. We want them to be wrong, but we really can't say. They should stop because they won't get anything with it except general hatred from a very large part of the IT world. SCO was never popular or "poised" to take the X86 server market. MS stole more "umph" from SCO's strategy than Linux did. Blaming Linux is just a convenient way to explain their company's loss.

  • I think we've heard this before (Score:4, Funny)

    by azcoffeehabit ( 533327 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @05:08PM (#5793746)
    "There will be a day of reckoning for Red Hat and SuSE when this is done."

    I think I know where the the Iraqi Information Minister [welovethei...nister.com] is now working.

  • Worst Metaphors ever (Score:3, Funny)

    by Funk_dat69 ( 215898 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @05:09PM (#5793752)
    Is it just me or does this guy use some of the worst metaphorsever:


    McBride: ...We're the 200-pound weakling and IBM is the 2,000-pound man.

    2000lb man??


    CRN: Many in the open-source community support IBM's efforts to make Linux succeed.

    McBride: There are a lot of people that don't care about IBM. IBM has been very arrogant in the last few years. They're having their oats.


    CRN: Well, won't it destroy Linux?

    McBride: Not necessarily. We have options to apply our IP to Linux. But if we get no benefit from it, then the dog won't hunt.


    hehe..maybe he metaphored his way to the top! Hmm...maybe I can make it too since the early dog gets the oats!

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @05:10PM (#5793779)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Goodbye SCO (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Curtman ( 556920 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @05:36PM (#5794089)
    Just thought I'd post my comments to SCO here as well.

    Hello. I'm an admin at a medium sized company that currently uses SCO OpenServer 5.0.5 to run our accounting package.

    I just thought I would voice my opinion that I am totally disgusted with the lawsuit against IBM, and after reading the threats to RedHat and SuSE I'm making it a personal goal of mine to see that Server stripped of SCO software, and running RedHat Linux within a time frame of 1 month. I'm currently testing the Linux version of our software which our vendor has agreed to supply us with free of charge.

    I think your actions are well deserving of a response such as this, and would also recommend other admins in my position do the same.

    I'll keep you posted as to the date of our SCO license burning festivities.

    Thanks for your time.

    • Re:Goodbye SCO (Score:4, Informative)

      by TeddyR ( 4176 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @07:12PM (#5794925) Homepage Journal
      You also just made the venodr of the software very happy (especially if there are not that many of their sites that use sco) since that means that there are less configurations to support. [could be why they were so eager to get you to use the linux version]

      I know of several companies that had sco versions of software that had changed to Linux versions.

      One even offered their existing SCO users "free" feature/product upgrade and a "free" 3 months of additional "prime" support...

  • Authors need to revoke SCO's rights NOW (Score:5, Interesting)

    by WCMI92 ( 592436 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @06:20PM (#5794514) Homepage
    SCO is using all sorts of GPL'ed code. They are in violation of the GPL with their actions, and as such, the FSF and other holders of copyright on that code can REVOKE their license to use it.

    I'd imagine there are even GPL'ed apps bundled in UnixWare...

    SCO is announcing to the world that they are prepared to go nuclear on this. So, everyone else needs to nuke them FIRST.

    How strong will they be with no product to sell?

  • Is this a joke?? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by I_redwolf ( 51890 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @06:47PM (#5794750) Homepage Journal
    I want to read the story but it's already slashdotted. Now the IBM lawsuit earlier I thought was just a big press stunt, but saying that after IBM they'll go after RedHat and SuSe is psychotic. They honestly can't be thinking they'll make it past IBM to begin with and secondly aren't they going after stuff that is GPL'd in the kernel? Which would mean they would HAVE to go after every single person and/or vendor who has compiled and sold the kernel for anything. Regardless of what the judge says should be proper penalties. I'm not a judge or lawyer but I can already see; "What took you so long to address this problem, surely you had a vested interest". I mean Linux did exist before IBM and if you make it past IBM which i'd probably fall over dead at that news but if, infact you do there is just no way you'll be allowed to exist selling "Unix" anymore. If you are an investor and invest in SCO; I'd sell right now before the IBM lawyers decide to rip SCO down to bare nothing, make them go bankrupt and then buy all their shit at an auction to recoup the lawyer fees.

    SCO, you will not be missed and I think the place where you once stood will be scorched earth and well deserved. You're terrorists by every definition of the word.

  • SCO will stop terrorism!! (Score:4, Funny)

    by ccbaxter ( 660318 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @07:01PM (#5794853)

    SCO - Stop Creating Open-source...

    Dude, where's my karma...?

  • Late to the rant party . . . what about China? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mtgstuber ( 457457 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @10:50PM (#5796193)
    Argh! I'm late to the rant party. I suspect this will never get read by anybody, but here's a thought for you:

    Let's say IBM chooses to fight this (this seems to be the plan), and let's say some idiot US judge actually sides with SCO, and let's say SCO looses on appeal. Won't this really end up meaning that all Linux development will happen outside of the states? (a whole slew of it does already.) Think about Alan Cox's "I can't describe this security patch because it's a violation of the DMCA." Think about how open source cryptology was developed when encryption was considered a munition. Remember poor Phil Zimmerman? [skypoint.com]

    I figure if they do win, they'll only be screwing over those of us who live (and program) in the states. Will China care? Especially two years from now when Red Flag Linux [redflag-linux.com] has gotten that much better. Will Europe care? (It's not like there is a whole lot of love between the US and Europe these days.) I suspect the rest of the world will shrug their shoulders at the silly Americans and their inane legal system and that will be the end of it.

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