SCO Gives Friday Deadline To IBM 914
bcisys writes "Reuters is reporting that SCO is planning to revoke IBM's license to Unix this Friday unless IBM settles SCO's claim that parts of its Unix code are being used in Linux. 'If we don't have a resolution by midnight on Friday the 13th, the AIX world will be a different place', SCO President and Chief Executive Darl McBride told Reuters News. 'We've basically mapped out what we will do. People will be running AIX without a valid license.'"
Stop!! (Score:5, Funny)
I mean it this time too, pal.
DO NOT (Score:5, Funny)
Re:DO NOT (Score:5, Insightful)
It is to laugh!
I wonder if all the script-kid 1337 unabombers out there will manage to obliterate SCO's presence from the Inet on Friday. Their whole corp website was unavailable in the recent past...
I don't think SCO understands that some of Linux's biggest fans are guys who 'make the wires work'.
Do somethin creative instead (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Do somethin creative instead (Score:5, Interesting)
How do you NOT develop for SCO? They are POSIX, and have a GNU toolchain..
Re:Do somethin creative instead (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Biting the hand that feeds you... (Score:5, Interesting)
Most of the bigger lines I've delt with, it's a fixed rate for connection itself, a dedicated bandwidth amount, and a burstable amount.
Like, we're dedicated to several Gb between our various facilities. That's what we pay for every month, if we use it or not. If we exceed that amount, we pay a higher amount for the overage. If we use less, well that's our tough luck.
If they're in a colocation facility (like most good companies are these days), they probably have multiple lines coming in from different providers, and have at least a 100Mb/s uplink. That's the prefered method these days. It saves a whole lot of money in actually keeping a physical room going at your facility, and having copper or fiber run to you.
A little research can give you a hint of where they live.
sco.com
216.250.140.112
nameservers:
ns.calderasystems.com 216.250.130.1
ns2.calderasystems.com 216.250.130.5
c7ns1.center7.com 216.250.142.20
nsca.sco.com 132.147.210.253
MX:
mail.ut.caldera.com 216.250.130.2
calderasystems.com is 216.250.140.125
216.250.128.0/20 (everything but nsca.sco.com) is owned by 'NFS", which has nameservers of:
ns1.canopy.com 216.250.129.1
c7cs1.center7.com 216.250.142.20
c7ns2.center7.com 166.70.45.162
c7ns3.center7.com 216.250.142.14
166.70.0.0/16 is owned by XMission, which has the nameservers of:
ns.xmission.com 198.60.22.2
ns1.xmission.com 198.60.22.22
ns2.xmission.com 207.78.169.150
The 198.60.22.0/24 block is owned by Xmission, who only has the
The 207.78.169.0/24 is one of two
My guess would be that SCO lives with Center7. If you go to http://center7.com/ [center7.com], you'll see a whole lot of PR crap, that sounds like every other colo provider's crap. They are nice enough to say that their connectivity is an OC-48 from XO Communications, and an OC-12 with Qwest (which is what I see on my traceroute to sco.com), and two T3's that aren't active. They also say something to the effect that their customers are attached "at 10-100", which I'd take to mean ethernet (like, duh).
I'd have to say that xmission.com is just someone being nice enough to provide a home for a nameserver.
I wouldn't expect that too many people can flood their OC-12 off the net, unless it's already fairly utilized. Since I've never heard of Center7, I wouldn't suspect that they are.
The best, and most likely to hurt them is if there was 100Mb/s of traffic filling up their ethernet connection to Center7's switch.. So, don't try to push 600Mbs in, it only takes 100Mb/s..
I know, I know, there are possibilities that they are rather reinforced. What if they have some spiffy hardware in front of their server? They could be doing all kinds of wild load balancing. But if I remember right, this was the company that was hurting for money and this is their last-ditch effort to make get IBM to buy them. Honestly, it looks like an old Linux box that no one ever bothered to update Apache on.
user@home (/home/user) telnet sco.com 80
Trying 216.250.140.112...
Connected to sco.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
GET ? HTTP/1.1
HTTP/1.1 400 Bad Request
Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2003 06:06:47 GMT
Server: Apache/1.3.14 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.7.1 OpenSSL/0.9.6 PHP/4.0.3pl1
It would seem to me that any of a few thousand script kiddies out there with a few exploits could get in, or anyone in control of a few dozen DDoS slaves could make their site rather quiet.
Now my disclaimer.. I don't suggest doing it.. It's no fun to have your pager go off at 4am because som
Re:DO NOT (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Stop!! (Score:4, Interesting)
I say let this thing go to court, then SCO will have to prove it, which they can't, because it's all lies. That'll be fun:)
Re: Stop!! (Score:5, Insightful)
> You know what would be even cooler? If they took it to court, and they did have the evidence to prove it, and they won.
Problem is, SCO isn't acting like a corporation that has the facts on its side.
If they did, they wouldn't need deadlines like this; they'd be overjoyed to let it go to court, or to let IBM approach them with an offer.
Re: Stop!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Stop!! (Score:5, Informative)
IIRC, recently someone at IBM said that they believe their Unix license to be "in perpetuity". He may have said "irrevocable" as well, I'm not sure. If IBM truly does have a perpetual Unix license, then:
1) SCO probably can't revoke it;
2) If SCO claim they can revoke a perpetual licence, they'll be looking at being dragged through court;
3) If SCO actually can revoke the license, expect IBM to sue SCO to get the balance of their license fee back, which would be all of it. perpetual - 20? years = near enough perpetual...
4) Isn't this extortion anyway? Like SCO threatening to sue Linus if other people don't roll over? Like a hijacker saying, "I'll shoot this kid if you don't give me fuel"??
Re: Stop!! (Score:5, Informative)
Have you read the OSI position paper that demolishes SCO's claims? Among other things, it states that not only did Linux acquire SMP, JFS and other things before IBM was involved, but also that SCO's own Unix doesn't have those things now. Well, not reliably, anyway. So, stating that Linux is only enterprise-ready because IBM illegally copied SCO's code is laughable at best...
Re:Stop!! (Score:5, Funny)
Why the hell is IBM putting up with this crap?
They're buying time. At 12:01 AM Saturday morning SCO's creditors will be backing up the moving vans...
Re:Stop!! (Score:5, Funny)
Friday the Thirteeneth! (Score:5, Insightful)
seriously would be interesting if IBM filed counter-suits, and as part of the discovery process requested the complete UNIX SVR4 source code and pedigries; with 10K patents in the basement I'm sure the lawyers at IBM could find a few infringements of their own.
Re:Stop!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Stop!! (Score:5, Funny)
I don't know, maybe he was named "Darlene" before the SC operation?
Obligatory Simpsons reference (Score:5, Funny)
"Hey, hey! I have asked you rudely not to mangle my copyrights. You leave me no choice but to ask you rudely again."
I's like to know if... (Score:5, Interesting)
We always talk about SCO, SCO, SCO but I realized I have no clue about what IBM's response is...
Anyone ?
Re:I's like to know if... (Score:4, Funny)
"Wipe them out...
ALL of them..."
This time I'd be rooting for Palpatine...
Re:I's like to know if... (Score:5, Funny)
"Find them and destroy them."
Or perhaps
"What good is a Ring of Power if you're unable...to Speak." - Agent Elrond
Re:I's like to know if... (Score:5, Insightful)
In any other segment of the economy, I suspect, this is followed more as a tenet of the industry rather than an exception. IBM's response has been, I strongly suspect, reassuring the most important audience: their customers, shareholders, management team, and employees. Rather then entering into a childish public-affairs fiasco with SCO, I believe IBM has taken the high road, and deferred judgement to the courts, where it matters.
We shall see, in any case.
Re:I's like to know if... (Score:4, Interesting)
Meanwhile McBride has been hyping the lawsuit, trying to pump up SCO's stock price to maximize the payoff in the buyout scenario. But he forgot that sending out those 1500 letters and threatening Torvalds made him look ridiculous to the people who will make decisions about what actions to take as the litigation proceeds.
Re:I's like to know if... (Score:5, Funny)
Some possibilities:
Shoo fly.
Shut up and sit down.
Surely you're not talking to me like that. YOU couldn't possibly be THAT dumb right?
You got a problem? Wanna take it outside little man?
I thought I heard something like a threat. But it was probably just the wind.
Re:I's like to know if... (Score:5, Informative)
"IBM believes that our contract with regard to AIX is irrevocable and perpetual and there is nothing further to discuss".
Re:I's like to know if... (Score:5, Interesting)
This was addressed in the recent salon.com article [salon.com] called "Lawyers against Linux". I think it's a MUST READ - at least click-through to get a day pass for this article.
To quote the bit about IBM's response:
In a nutshell, they aren't really taking it seriously - at least not in their initial response to SCO's allegations...
IBM is staying cool (Score:5, Interesting)
The other quote that I can't get out of my head is from Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon, where the Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto explains his reservations about attacking Pearl Harbor as ordered by the military junta: ...it was hard to tell them that their plan was full of shit and that the Americans were just going to get really pissed off and annihilate them. Substitute "IBM" for "Americans", and you have my feelings exactly.
God, I love that book.
Re:Stop!! (Score:5, Funny)
Release the ninjas... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Release the ninjas... (Score:5, Funny)
Mohammed al-Sahaf (now SCO press spokesman)
Re:Release the ninjas... (Score:5, Funny)
A Valid License? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:A Valid License? (Score:5, Insightful)
On the plus side, now IBM will be well positioned to counter-sue SCO for breach of the 'perpetual and irrevocable' contract. Maybe this is what IBM has been waiting for.
Re:A Valid License? (Score:4, Interesting)
If you sell a car to someone, it's perpetual.
If you sell someone the right to use a peice of software, you are essentially selling them intellectual "property" (gee, thus the term.) Unless the contract specifies otherwise, the grant is perpetual -- it's not like MS can take away my right to use the copy of Windows 95 just cause they want to -- they have to prove I violated their license first.
They license it to you, they don't sell it to you (Score:5, Informative)
That is why the software industry has decided license software to you, because legally, when you license something to somebody, you can set whatever you want in the license, like "you shalt not reverse engineer this software", etc...
So, one would have to look at the license between SCO and IBM to be able to say if they can revoke it or not.
Re:They license it to you, they don't sell it to y (Score:5, Interesting)
Either the vendors of computer software are committing fraud on a gargantuan scale, or you are being sold software.
(Software publishers wish to change this- why they include those EULA that are legally nonbinding, and why they've pushed US states to create laws making EULAs effective [upenn.edu]. Virginia, so far, has agreed)
However, the reason normal EULAs are meaningless is because no contract terms were presented before money and product were exchanged. So, they have no similarity with the agreement between SCO and IBM. It was presumably conducted with lawyers, signatures, and even handshakes.
so... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:so... (Score:5, Insightful)
Friday the 13th?! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Friday the 13th?! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Friday the 13th?! (Score:5, Funny)
blinking lights in the corner (like, servers maybe?)
Sysadmin looks up as the door to a lighted hallway opens, and takes on a look of horror as a long bladed glove casts a shadow across the room
Sysadmin: "Noooooo!"
A figure runs around the doorframe. A little mouse with spiky hair and a bad attitude. Sysadmin steps on it.
Cue credits.
SCO are a bad joke (Score:5, Funny)
is this extortion? (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:is this extortion? (Score:5, Interesting)
In fact, if you are running AIX, please note that some of your license money would go and has gone to SCO. You might want to ask IBM about a Linux install. I understand that they DO know the meaning of customer loyalty.
Further, if SCO looses this, I doubt Big Blue would continue buying licenses from them. Imagine what losing an IBM contract would do to their stock price. Customer loyalty is especially important if that customer is a Fortune 500 company.
Re:is this extortion? (Score:5, Informative)
SCO lawsuit against IBM [sco.com]
Read Exhibit A, Exhibit B, and Exhibit C, in particular.
SCO can revoke the license for breach of contract. The procedure for doing this is not at all clear.
My question is: what is SCO going to ask a court to do? Is SCO going to ask for a preliminary injunction, or what?
The test for a preliminary injunction is: (1) the moving party's chances of success on the merits of their case and (2) the "balance of harm": how much harm that SCO suffers if they do not get a preliminary injunction, and how much harm IBM suffers if SCO does get a preliminary injunction.
On part (1), it's anyone's guess.
On part (2), the "balance of harm" strongly favors IBM.
SCO does not claim that IBM's distribution of AIX has harmed SCO in any way whatsoever. Thus, stopping the distribution of AIX will have zero effect on SCO's alleged suffering. In contrast, stopping the distribution of AIX will have an immediate, large, irreparable effect on IBM in the marketplace. It is grossly unfair to subject IBM to such a penalty without a trial on the merits first.
If not a preliminary injunction, what else could SCO do after Friday the 13th?
Disclaimer: IANAL
Disclosure: I am short SCOX
('disclaimer' and 'disclosure' mean subtly different things
Re:is this extortion? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:is this extortion? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the type of ridiculous stunt that only damages SCO's credibility. It is very unlikely that IBM signed an agreement with AT&T all those years ago that allowed AT&T to yank the license at a future date.
SCO should be very careful about the claims it is making.
Re:is this extortion? (Score:4, Insightful)
No, it isn't extortion, it is barratry.
How about tortious interference [lectlaw.com]? IBM says it has a license in perpetuity and that's that. Okay, so why is SCO giving press releases about this bogus deadline instead of suing IBM? IBM could argue that SCO is intentionally trying to damage IBM's business, since (presumably) SCO is wrong about IBM's license.
Re:is this extortion? (Score:5, Funny)
The real question of course is: what is it that they really don't want us to notice while they mount this ridiculous distraction?
Go to go now, there's someone at the door...
Still not right (Score:5, Informative)
That's still not quite the full picture.
The Canopy Group is the majority stockholder in Caldera Corp, dba (that's "doing business as") "The SCO Group".
What Caldera bought was not "SCO" (the company formerly known as The Santa Cruz Operation), but that company's "Unix Business". While I haven't seen the documents, there's basically a bundle of rights, contracts, and licenses (the 30,000 contracts, though most are quite historical [iwethey.org], we've heard so much about). The original SCO continues as a going concern under the name Tarentella. Rather quietly, I might add.
Though Caldera voted at its stockholder's meeting this past May to officially change its name to "The SCO Group", the name change has not yet taken legal effect.
Oh, and Caldera is the company which co-developed the RPM packaging format with Red Hat, distributed GNU/Linux (under the GNU GPL) for nine years, and which, for the past three years, has distributed the very 2.4 Linux Kernel (downloaded my own copy last week). Um. Under the GPL, last I checked.
I'd recommend The OSI's Position Paper [opensource.org] and a compilation site I've had some involvment with, SCOvsIBM [iwethey.org].
Re:Still not right (Score:5, Informative)
In the name of completeness (and to avoid an utterly contentless post) more about the Novell / Caldera connection: Novell purchased Digital Research in '91, primarily to market DR-DOS as a competitor to MS-DOS (which was just now gaining ground as a stand-alone product). This went nowhere, and the DR properties (including, apparently, the GEM desktop) were sold to Caldera. This was used as the basis for a lawsuit against MS for anti-competitive something or other. Caldera won and collected a fat check from MS. Then DR-DOS was spun from Caldera to Lineo and has now landed at Device Logics.
Many NetWare users and techies refer to this period as Novell's "What in the fuck are you doing" phase.
just like the movies (Score:5, Funny)
Arr Laddy! (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah, yeah, whatever (Score:5, Interesting)
It's pretty clear that SCO is trying to get IBM customers to pressure IBM to settle this. However, it frankly seems pretty absurd. The bottom line is that, as a customer, I am not responsible for IBM's alleged failure to maintain a proper license for UNIX. IBM's license is a license to *copy* UNIX software, and copying is the only activity that could possibly be prophibited. Given that IBM's customers already HAVE copies of AIX, unless IBM's license from SCO has some very odd language in it it seems extremely improbable that customers could lose the license they already have.
Re:Yeah, yeah, whatever (Score:5, Informative)
SCO claims part of its' code is being used illegally. It won't tell anyone which code, but it makes ultimatums about that code and threatens IBM. Why IBM hasn't filed an Article 78 proceeding / TRO
On to licences....
I cannot legally sell something I do not own. SCO's contention is that IBM did not have the right to sell licences because it did not fully own them. Decent threat, if real.
IBM should tell SCO in court to put up or shut up. Then, if SCO pulls the "unsubstantiated code" BS, IBM can get $$$ sanctions from a judge.
Changes? (Score:5, Funny)
This seems like nothing more than a sneaky attempt by SCO to force IBM to settle.... Did SCO not check into IBM's operating profits before this announcement? This isn't a David and Goliath situation, this is a David VS. 4 Goliaths with Lasers.
And I want Goliath to win too.
Stupid SCO.
Re:Changes? (Score:4, Funny)
Waiting for the other shoe to drop (Score:5, Interesting)
Make it stop mommy...MAKE IT STOP!! (Score:5, Funny)
The problem with proprietary licence (Score:5, Insightful)
If the license of a subcomponent is revoked the whole thing may be in trouble. What if one of M$ subcontractor get in dispute with M$? Windows user is suddenly in license violations.
BFD. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, SCO, you lose.
but they WON'T be unlicensed! (Score:5, Informative)
Except that licenses prior to this threatened expiration are still valid. SCO is really telling a bald-faced lie when it claims that it can de-license people who already have licenses.
One thing will be clear (Score:5, Insightful)
Settlement offer. (Score:5, Funny)
McBitch: Gulp.
An SCO koan. (Score:5, Funny)
And the apprentice asked of the Master, "But the end user is not the infringing party. Why are they to be invalidated?"
The Master replied, "Are the children at fault if their father steals a loaf of bread to feed them?"
"No."
"Yet the baker sees the children eating, the produce of his ingredients" says the master.
The apprentice points out "The father owns the bakery. The baker stole the recipes, which were developed by the father's kin. Who owns the bread now?"
The Master became enlightened.
Chill over Unix (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Chill over Unix (Score:5, Funny)
Quoted from Reuters, "McBride said SCO's Unix intellectual property had been previously under-utilized by the company: 'We've spent the last couple of quarters waking the sleeping giant.'"
Yeah, I guess you could call suing IBM for a billion dollars "waking the sleeping giant."
Re:Chill over Unix (Score:4, Insightful)
Linux
This presupposes that SCO is correct. Sort of like saying "Abbie Normal was charged with the murder of 12 infants today. Abbie is a 28 year old mother of 3, homemaker and serial killer."
I was under the obviously mistaken impression that Reuters did more than regurgitate press releases.
Didn't Licenses AIX through SCO (Score:5, Interesting)
Mike
Is that even possible? (Score:5, Funny)
This is just insane... (Score:5, Interesting)
And the really stupid thing... (Score:4, Interesting)
Anyone here a lawyer? This could fall into several categories, namely extortion/racketeering, and potentially breach of contract. I can't see IBM agreeing to a clause in the contract which states that SCO is able to revoke the license upon 1 week's notice. That's just absurd.
Please... (Score:5, Funny)
Can we do this OJ style? For example:
Trial of the Millenia: Day 47
It is now day 47 in the trial that rocked the geek world as SCO prepares to offer 5 more lines of evidence. Opinions have been mixed, has SCO now is suing IBM for mental anguish while Linus Torvalds has responded "[Expletive Deleted] SCO and their [Expletive Deleted] code". Defending lawyers are believed to try and have the case thrown out on the grounds of insanity on SCOs part. Stay tuned for more minute by minute coverage after these commercials.
Something like that? Come on lets add some day time television drama to this.
Imagine how this would look with DRM (Score:5, Interesting)
Wham, come Saturday June 14 thousands of boxes with AIX all over the world would suddenly shut down.
Now tell me why DRM is a good idea and explain how it will never be misused or abused.
or... (Score:5, Insightful)
*Note I'm talking Trusted Computing, not Palladium - Palladium is Microsoft's version of TCPA that will run on Windows - it's a moot point for things like AIX and Linux and such, since it's a Windows technology. TCPA on the other hand is platform neutral. Palladium may well have the "external control of systems" feature, but I don't know - Palladium isn't my problem, since I don't run MS systems. ~,^ On the other hand, I _look forward to_ TCPA, since it actually does offer the ability to increase security, and doesn't have any features to make me worry, especially not on an Open Source platform.
IBM, you have 48 hours (Score:5, Funny)
Many IBM employees can hear me tonight in a translated radio broadcast, and I have a message for them. If we must begin a military campaign, it will be directed against the lawless men who rule your company and not against you. As our lawyers take away their power, we will deliver the employment and medical benefits you need. We will tear down the apparatus of AIX and we will help you to build a new IBM that is prosperous and free. In a free IBM, there will be no more wars of aggression against UNIX, no more antiquated mainframes, no more skipped lunches, no more broken copier machines and TPS reports. The board of directors will soon be gone. The day of your liberation is near.
in other news.... (Score:5, Funny)
They were questioned about the use? possibly for research for their military contracts with the US government?"
the reply was not what was expected....
"No, we are gearing up for negotiations with a rival company that has been knocking on our door with insane claims for a while. the CEO last night in a fit of rage mentioned that he would love to see SCO just dissappear... so we decided to follow his orders... we figure these 75,000 pounds of conventional bombs will do the job, and suprisingly enough the US govt said that they would be glad to "drop ship" them for us."
we figure that the whole thing will settle within a few days...
No further comments were made, but one of the IBM representatives was overhead asking if it was going to be really loud, and can they swing by Redmond Washington if they have any leftovers...
Richard Head, UPN News...
News for Nerds: IBM can take care of themselves... (Score:5, Insightful)
If IBM thought SCO had a case, they'd slam them with a countersuit of a kazillion patents SCO violates and offer to settle. End of story. The fact that IBM is letting SCO buzz around like they do tells me that SCO has no case.
And I sure as hell don't think that IBM's lawyers were so stupid that the revocation of the licence from SCO would create any problem with current AIX licences (maybe with issuing new, but that's another story). My conclusion: More FUD, but let IBM debunk this and get back to something more nerdish.
Kjella
In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
Such a strange business model... (Score:4, Interesting)
Usually, if someone is breaching a license, you would go to them, point it out and ask for a chunk of money. It's not just to help them protect their good name. It's also to protect your own good name as a trusted partner to do business with.
If SCO's business is really about trying to license Unix, then they should pay attention to this. Imagine what their other customers are thinking. "These guys are feral. We should look for a way out of this". And prospective customers would be thinking "Err, no. That's not the type of supplier I want to do business with".Well, unless you are Microsoft. I will leave you to draw your own conclusions on that.
Clearly this is a sad death spiral.
Corporate Stucturing (Score:4, Insightful)
SCO just messed with the wrong people... (Score:5, Insightful)
But forget about the guard force using SCO interns for target practice, you just threatened almost every Fortune 500 company with a datacenter to speak of. THEIR lawyers using your ass for target practice is much more scary. Telling folks with THAT kind of power to turn off their line-of-business systems will get SCO slapped around like a red-headed stepchild.
A noteable aside.... (Score:5, Insightful)
SCO also won a license from Microsoft, which agreed to pay SCO to ensure that it would not violate intellectual property rights when developing software that works with Unix. But Microsoft's move was widely seen as an attempt to lend weight to SCO's attack on Linux, which Microsoft views as a threat to its Windows franchise.
This rather strong anti-Microsoft comment is coming off Reuters. Not Slashdot. This tells me that, despite what the Windows apologists may say, the public view of Microsoft closely mirrors some of the more cynical posts here. Such widely-held disdain spells doom for a corporation. Cash reserves and ruthless schemes will only go so far against it....
-----------
A clear message. (Score:5, Funny)
Who does SCO think they are? (Score:5, Funny)
I do believe there is a word for this (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't know who they think they are, but they're an ant to IBM. If they pissed off IBM enough, IBM is gonna squash them. Hey, maybe that what will happen.
Does SCO know what it's doing? (Score:4, Insightful)
1. It is not SCO that is going to determine the pace of this case. Upon trying to unilateraly cancel IBM's license a judge will step in and maintain the "status quo" until the dispute is settled.
2. If you bought AIX prior to SCO's accusations, then you still have a valid license. SCO cannot retroactivly cancell prior licenses on it's own whim. Can you imagine the havok that would cause in the business world as a whole if it were so? Can you imagine Novell announcing tomorrow that they are cancelling whatever agreement they had with SCO?
3. The mere fact that SCO is dragging IBM customers into this tells me that this is more a political manuever then a valid legal manuever. They are trying to get IBM customers to pressure IBM to resolve this fast, and fast means caving to SCO.
4. SCO has yet to prove harm. 80 lines of code copied exactly word for word, punctuation for punctuation means nothing without harm. The actual code has to do something particular that is germain to SCO and that the loss (or unlawfull distribution) has harmed SCO.
5. So not only does SCO have to reveal the offending code, it has to say when it discovered it and when it notified IBM and prove what type of harm was done. I find that hard to believe that 80 lines of code out of a code base of a million plus lines is going to fly just on its own.
6. There is no doubt that IBM is insured for all errors and ommissions on their part, that will protect their customers. As long as everybody was acting in good faith ... IBM believed they were in compliance, the Customers believed they were in compliance, the only damages that SCO will be entitled to are actual damages.
7. Actual damages will be a whole 'nother lawsuit and court proceedings. Probably take years to sort this out. But then, who doubts this is SCO's intent. To hold LINUX hostage for years.
8. If it turns out that SCO discovered this a while ago, and didn't immediately notify IBM, they themselves may have given up alot of rights in the remedy. I.E You just can't discover it and hold back a few years, then come forward and try and correct or remedy it.
Predictions ... When IBM makes its legal move, watch how fast SCO shuts up (gag order, restraining order. If IBM sees no need to capitulate, they will slap SCO silly with gag orders and restraining orders enjoining them from frightening IBM's customers.
I have a feeling it's not going to be pretty for SCO
I feel bad for SCO employees (Score:4, Insightful)
I hope that the criminal stupidity of SCO management doesn't result in out of work SCO employees, but I strongly suspect that sooner or later the pigeons will come to roost, and guess who will get shit on?
THE POSSIBLE IMPLICATIONS!!! PLEASE READ! (Score:5, Interesting)
Several thoughts have come to my mind concerning this issue.
Please keep in mind that IBM:
1) backs Linux on a large number of it servers
2) believes that it's license with SCO is perpetual.
3) has spent billions hyping Linux.
IBM will likely take action on Friday or perhaps sooner in a pro-Linux fashion, given the above facts.
Suppose it is shown that in the completion of LKP (Linux Kernel Personality) that SCO did incorporate GPL'd code into it's kernel (as suggested by an article on linuxtoday.com) and it is shown that, according to Eben Moglen, that "SCO gave up rights to the code when the released their version of Linux".
If SCO licensed any of this code to third parties for inclusion in their products, it is possible that *all* of those products will be *required* to be released as Free Software under the terms of the GPL.
This is perhaps why SCO is being so loud about this. Is this the fact that they want to hide under all of this legal rangling? Also, don't forget that Microsoft made a public showing of buying a license from SCO, which according to the recent news from Novell, ONLY covers the copyrights which, if the above is shown, would be subject to the GPL.
The implication here is very clear. Many companies which have incorporated the disputed code would need to release their code under the GPL.
Could the GPL set the industry on it's head?
I, for one, hope so. I am not a lawyer, just an engineer.
Later, GJC
I see it from both sides (Score:5, Interesting)
Something happened though. The
I was laid off about a year ago, and I've since moved on to much better things. Ransom was replaced, and the name was changed back to SCO because OBVIOUSLY there was no value left in the Caldera name after you guys were finished with it.
I've been using Red Hat ever since I was laid off, as Caldera's Linux distro pretty much fell by the wayside. I look back on those days with fondness and wish it could have turned out differently. I am horrified by SCO's actions as of late, at the same time I can't help but think that you guys kinda created this fiasco in the first place. You guys have been poking this dog into a corner for the last several years and now, when it turns around and starts fighting for its life, you seem to be amazed at how angry and irritated and frusterated SCO is. "Will they stop at nothing?!" you all ask in amazement? Of course not, cause they are going the ONLY ROUTE THEY HAVE LEFT. You all seem to be proud of yourselves for boycotting their products... sheesh, that's a rediculous notion since you had all boycotted them WAY before the lawsuit ever happened. I'll quote my friend who still works there when I asked him about how he felt about
I'm rooting for IBM. I think SCO are going way too far. It makes me angry that they have become such a mindlessly self-centered company. SCO is not at all what Caldera used to stand for.
But when you think about it, they really don't have anything to lose and a whole possible pile of cash and revenge to gain if this thing pans out for them.
And the ironic thing is that you are all, to some degree, the ones that helped cause this. You can bet that if they do prevail, they are going to make you suffer as MUCH AS THEY CAN with no remorse, since you all have had no remorse for them in the past.
This is not meant to be a troll. I only wanted to present a unique viewpoint of the whole situation.
Re:I see it from both sides (Score:5, Insightful)
"You guys" are your customers. If you can't keep your customers happy, you go under. If your customers are unreasonable and you can't reach a point where they can be satisfied, there may not be a market. You can't say that it's the customer's fault if you can't sell your product - it's the business's fault for not understanding the market. RedHat chose to play it 100% open source; Caldera didn't. That was apparently a bad business choice, to which they have no one but themselves to blame.
The Black Knight (Score:5, Funny)
I'm not dead yet....really I'm not dead.
You can't kill me...I'm invincible...
(Youâ(TM)re a loony)
Hack-Hack-Thump...
Alright we'll call it a draw.
SCO reveals infringing code!!! (Score:5, Funny)
#include<stdio.h>
#include<stdlib.h>
#inc lude<math.h>
#include<limits.h>
#include<time.h
More cases of flagrant copyright infrigement of System V source code by Linux kernal hackers is to come!
SCO sues Linux customers (Score:5, Funny)
Darl McBride, SCO's CEO has made the following statement:
"This move was made in the light of the fact that, like, you know, our case with IBM was thrown out of court on account that we were misleading the court in our complaint and like, you know, were trying to confuse the court on the issues of trade secrets and copyrights and like, you know, we didn't do anything to minimize our losses until we were waaaay down the drain."
Also, SCO's CEO declared that the company was strapped for cash, depriving the board of certain commodities: "Lately, there seems to be a crackdown of some kind
SCO's lawers declared that the grounds for the lawsuits are rock solid: "Well, it's obvious they stole it from us. Yes, we sold it to them, but we didn't know it was stolen from us. And even when we knew, we kept selling it for a couple of month, but look
Good luck, SCO, you're gonna need it.
Re:They really think they can scare IBM's customer (Score:5, Funny)
Yep, I'll bet both of them are worried!
Re:Wrong way down a one way street... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:SCO can't really revoke it... can they? (Score:5, Insightful)
That would be AT&T. It is unlikely that SCO can affect IBM because any contract they have made with Novell is trumped by the prior contract with AT&T.
AT&T may under the terms of the contract be able to assign its interest to another party (Novell) and that in turn may be assignable. But SCO is bound by the terms of the earlier IBM/ATT contract.
Re:AIX License (Score:4, Insightful)
-- Rich