The SCO Group’s legal actions against Linux have shed light on the inner workings of the open-source programming project and on the operations of a company desperate to survive. They’ve also created a cottage industry for conspiracy theorists over Microsoft’s role in the affair.
Fact and fiction in the Microsoft-SCO relationship
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
The SCO Group’s legal actions against Linux have shed light on the inner workings of the open-source programming project…
Sort of an oxymoron to talk about “shedding light on the inner workings” of an OS kernel project when source code commits and mailing list communications between the developers can be read by anyone with a Web browser, isn’t it?
Or are we actually hearing less and less about SCO as time goes on?
http://www.groklaw.net has a good even-handed view of the relationship with many open discussions afterwards.
Will someone please post a short message which indicates what the news is? I’m not gonna read all that. When regular media reported earlier about this, its more of the same what i already read elsewhere.
MS gets a sweetheart license deal from SCO and publicly validates SCO ownership of certain *nix IP. The possible conspiracy is not MS involvement; IBM is the firm now in the drivers seat regarding the rights of Joe Independent user of Linux. If IBM drops the ball, SCO becomes the IP enforcer; HP, Dell, MS, others become sweetheart partners. For them, a kernel license would cost only a few dollars, the USD 699 price applies to everyone else. Those with service and support contracts (enterprise users/developers) will have indemnification, but Joe Sixpack/SOHO user won’t be covered. SCO makes like the RIAA, and MS gets to keep it’s target market. I’d guess that most of the big entertainment and consumer e-commerce players have already committed to MS/IBM anyway. IBM has a 25-year history of acting as a toxic influence on MS competitors, something Linux fans should have thought about before touting IBM as the “white knight” of the OSS/FS movement.
I wouldn’t be surprised if MS merged with an entertainment or sports media property sometime in the next 4-5 years.
rofl!!!! I don’t care if Eugenia removes your post, it made me laugh. Maybe we can call McBride “Dubya II” !!!!!
Dave
Your right David, that is damn funny.
hmm.. some people say sun is involved.. but if sun were involved why would sun finalize rights to unix in the SCO purchase and move to open source that code–nearly shattering SCO’s claims? HMMmmmm
>>why would sun finalize rights to unix in the SCO purchase<<
WTF? What do you mean?
>>and move to open source that code–nearly shattering SCO’s claims?<<
Sunw isn’t open sourcing anything. Sunw has been saying that for years, you would be a complete fool to believe them at this point. Ever hear of “crying wolf” ?
By buying Vintella. Interesting the way these articles are timed, isn’t it?
An article comes out – right out of the blue – for no apparent reason. The article seems to state that msft isn’t all that involved with scox. And by coincidence, on the same day the article is released, msft is giving scox another big fat check.
What a coincidence.