SuSE Linux plans to continue honoring its commitments to UnitedLinux, despite allegations by SCO Group –a fellow founding member of the alliance– that Linux contains unauthorized intellectual property. Meanwhile, Linux vendors MandrakeSoft and Red Hat –which are not members of the UnitedLinux group– said they had not been contacted about the allegations and did not see them affecting business.
SuSE: SCO’s Linux Claims are ‘Curious’
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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For some reason I want to download a SCO linux ISO, burn it to a CD, then mail it to them with an angry letter demanding a full refund.
… so SCO is making even more hash with the Linux community. They are floundering, losing money and on the brink and this is the last option. Sue evrything Linux until someone buys all your stock options and then SCO goes away with shareholders happy.
IBM didn’t bite. Who will?
Vic
Hopefully nobody.
Nothing will give me more pleasure than watching SCO fade into nonexistance.
Who’d wanna buy them out anyway, they have absolutly no goodwill now, and that’s about all they really had.
I am surprised that MS has jump in and buy SCO. Maybe there’s nothing behind there claims.
don’t forget about the fact that SCO still owns UNIX IP. it would be kind of funny to see it land in the hands of Microsoft Corp.
I am not sure about this. What is SCO, when Caldera existed, did Caldera just change their name to SCO or was it there an SCO before and SCO took over Caldera. As far as I know, Celdera just changed their name to SCO.
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=1615
Caldera is an old Linux company, and then they bought SCO two years ago. After that, they changed their name to SCO.
If, all the facts here are correct. SCO really has no case according to Eric Raymond and a few other consultants who backed up their position with strong evidence.
Check it out: http://www.opensource.org/sco-vs-ibm.html
http://www.opensource.org/sco-vs-ibm.html ‘nuf said.
Looks like I got beat by half a minute…
Thx for the helpful information
Microsoft mentioned in one place that they’re working on a “command-line only operating system” for servers.
So … UNIX is progressing towards a total GUI, or so it seems … and Windows is progressing towards a CLI version …
And OS X is … stuck in the middle with you.
Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right – here I am, stuck in the middle with you …
I don’t use Mac OS X, but if they are users are as witty as you, I may have to give it a shot one day. Good Dylan tune, by the way.
LOL. Nice one.
Started playing the real tune an singing your lyics with it for a while there
I actually don’t use OS X (can’t afford a mac – heck, can’t even afford a new PC)
As far as I know, SCO released their own Linux version which must have been under the GPL.
So, whatever IP they think they own is in there, they have released it under the GPL and therefore gave permission to _use_ it under the GPL.
Now IANAL, but wouldn’t this be enough?
Here is a rather peculiar statement from a SCO executive (Chris Sontag) :
“(…) SCO will disclose specifics in court and to credible third parties who sign nondisclosure agreements. He said observers could be shown the evidence in “a couple of weeks”.”
Companies threatened by SCO have asked proof of their allegations, without success. So did Open Source developers and well known (in the IT field) reporters. Then who are these credible third parties mentioned by Sontag ? According to which criteria are they credible ?
Why should people sign NDAs before seeing any evidence, considering we are talking about publicly available linux code ?
Is “a couple of weeks” a bone thrown to shareholders to prevent them from liquidating their remaining SCO shares ?
Lastly, if SCO really sent FUD letters to major corporations, shouldn’t they be sued by linux vendors for misrepresentation ?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/30734.html
“For Linux ISO downloads, please connect to http://ftp.iso.caldera.com,” visitors are advised. So we did, and there they are.
It looks like the infringement is “ongoing” all over SCO’s ftp servers, too.
Or at least, SCO sold Xenix a long time ago, and Xenix was a Microsoft product.
I’m starting to wonder if they want to sell to IBM, or if their in it for MS… No proof I know, but it would seem to play into MS’s hands well, more fud (*psst* if you use Linux you will be sued).
Shouldn’t that have read “spurious” instead of “curious?
I first suspected this was an effort to be bought out. But surely SCO realizes now that No one’s going to touch them? Why would MS or IBM buy now? Just wait for the liquidation sale…
Maybe SCO will spout off some crap about suing MS because of some vintage license code, and then SCO would be prompty squashed.
The original Santa Cruz Operation was primarily there to develop and sell Xenix, which was UNIX System III. Perhaps, they should go through the code and find similarities and derivations and then take themselves to court.