SCO Says No Way To a GPL Solaris, Moves Trial Back

penguino writes "Looks like it didn't take long for SCO to formally respond to claims by Sun that it will open source Solaris. According to SCO 'they [Sun] still have licence restrictions that would prevent them from contributing our licensed works wholesale to the GPL'. The company has also released a statement dated June 8 that 'SCO is making a motion to move the scheduled trial date to September 2005 and split IBM's counterclaims into a separate case'. Also quoted is AUUG president and FreeBSD developer Greg Lehey who recommends 'that the best thing for IBM to do would be to print out every single version as requested and send the resultant 20 tonnes or so of paper to SCO. That would keep them quiet for a while'."

Re:Hmmm

[acidos]

Although Sun has not publicly stated under which licence it intends to release an open source Solaris, Schwartz said: Make no mistake, we will open-source Solaris.

If you wonder about something, you should read the article.

It might keep them quiet...

[16K Ram Pack]

... it would also allow SCO to delay further for all the time they need for the trial.

IBM have been more than patient and reasonable with SCO. And SCO have produced zilch to support their claims.

Unfortunately, they're right

[IGnatius T Foobar]

As much as we all hate SCO, unfortunately they are right this time. Solaris is built from the original Unix code. There is a direct descendence here, and SCO is absolutely within its rights to tell Sun that they can't sublicense it (which is essentially what open sourcing the code would do, assuming that it's a DFSG/OSD compliant license).

On the other hand, if Sun is in cahoots with SCO, as some here suggest, then perhaps they are shooting themselves in the collective foot today. Solaris is demonstrably descended from System V -- Sun programmers had all the original code to work from. It only strengthens the contrast between Solaris's development and Linux's development; i.e. the Linux developers did not have access to System V. Perhaps someone will subpoena Solaris code eventually, and show the court what a derivative work would really look like, contrasted with Linux, built from scratch and looking very different.

Incorrect Title

[Omni-Cognate]

SCO haven't moved the trial back. They've requested that the trial be moved back. The judge has taken it under advisement.

20 tonnes of paper

[cynicalmoose]

That's exactly what SCO did to IBM, and IBM successfully got the court to agree that the stuff must be given electronically.

You can't have the cake and eat it.

You would, after all, only do that if you thought that your case was so weak that you couldn't give your opponent fair access.

Re:Sun will Shine at the Big Blue

[turgid]

Agreed, but how much of that "high-end Solaris" is under SCO license restrictions?

Like you say, it is probably none. Plain System V is ancient, and there has been a lot of development at all the big vendors since those days. It's probably a safe bet that Sun owns all of these high-end features in Solaris, since they're not in any other UNIX.

Sun can roll whatever "high-end Solaris" code they have into Linux.

Why bother, when it's already in Solaris? People seem to assume that because various *nixes are similar on the outside that it must be fairly straight forward to grab code from one and put it in another. Code bases have diverged so much in the last 15 years, that this is not the case. The POSIX interface to the kernels may be similar enough, but what's going on inside is radically different. Don't forget that internally Linux is nothing like a Syatem V or derivative, so any serious porting takes a lot of effort. It's a whole very large and interesting subject in itself, and one I have barely scratched the surface of...

or are they

[not_a_product_id]

and SCO is absolutely within its rights to tell Sun

Slow down there friend. There's actually quite a lot of doubt (seeGroklaw [groklaw.net]) about whether or not SCO even has any rights over the Unix code. I believe that's the basis of their current legal tussle with Novell.

Judge denies SCO any delay

[brett_sinclair]

This story is a bit old already. See groklaw [groklaw.net].

Update: Judge Wells Denies SCO's Extension

[phoxix]

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200406090 20821429 [groklaw.net]

Gotta love them Groklaw folks, especially PJ, who totally rocks.

Sunny Dubey

Re:Sun will Shine at the Big Blue

[pitr256]

On the Solaris update issue, check out http://www.blastwave.org/

From the website:
What is blastwave.org?
blastwave.org is a collective effort to create a set of binary packages of free software, that can be automatically installed to a Solaris computer (sparc or x86 based) over the network.

Re:but...

[AndroidCat]

The assets (including IP) of a bankrupt companies belong to the creditors. Stockholders are also creditors, but usually have to join the back of the line (depending on the type of stock). After government taxes and direct bank loans, I'd expect IBM to be at the front of the line with knife, fork and bib.

Get off the high horse. It's renewable

[Moraelin]

Most of the paper comes from trees planted precisely for that purpose. They get planted, they get cut down and turned into paper, and other trees are planted in their place.

I.e., the whole idiocy of "waaah, must save the trees from the evil paper-using people" is just as retarded, as trying to save the grain plants from the evil bakeries and whiskey distilleries. What's the point? That crop was planted there precisely for that purpose, and another crop will be planted next year.

I.e., while I can see some point in saving non-renewable resources (oil, coal, etc), I fail to see what's the point in fighting to save a _crop_ which was planted for the purpose of being harvested. That's all that those trees are. A crop. No more. No less.

Unlike with oil, noone's going to invade, say, Canada for its trees. They'll just _plant_ more trees. And if more paper is needed, more crop will be planted.

In Linux...

[Ayanami Rei]

all the cards can listen to the same IP address.
You can have all the network cards active at the same time. IP Multipathing isn't really an issue, because you don't need it. You can push any path preference issues down a layer into your router's configuration.

SCO earnings conference call tomorrow

[Animats]

Call in tomorrow and hear Darl blither.

• The SCO® Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: SCOX) will host its second quarter 2004 financial results conference call on Thursday, June 10, 2004, at 9:00 a.m. (MDT), or 11:00 a.m. (EST).

  If you would like to participate in the live call you may dial 800-795-1259 or 785-832-0326; confirmation code: 431766.

Listen via webcast here [sco.com]. RealAudio or Windows Media Player, of course.

Re:Could you point out some of those advances?

[illumin8]

You will also never get the same performance using six 12-way boxes that you can get from one 72-way box. The bus speeds and I/O throughput capabilities are much higher.


Agreed.

I have never seen an application that requires that extra boost and can jusitify the additional cost, but the capacity is there regardless.

I have. Large, monolithic OLTP databases, such as the ones that banks and telcos use. When you have to track every single phone call made or received by every cellphone subscriber in the US in one huge billing database, you need that kind of horsepower on a single system.

Granted, this use is becoming less and less common, but I predict that Sun will continue to sell well on the extreme high-end, which is what the banks and telcos, and other high-volume OLTP shops need.

Re:Sun will Shine at the Big Blue

[Biolo]

Actually Sun hasn't committed to open sourcing Solaris (or Java for that matter). What they have said is that they are "evaluating whether or not to open-source". I got that from McNeally himself just this week when he was giving a speach at the Sun Scotland manufacturing plant with a Q&A session afterwards. During that session he was point-blank asked which of the stories in the press were correct, and that was his answer.

Re:Don't know what they are talking about

[fcecin]

... intellectual property ...

Can we stop using "intellectual property" already? Holy St. IGNUcius [stallman.org] already schooled us [gnu.org] about this.