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Understanding the Microsoft-SCO connection
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CommentsWhat is Microsoft really up to by <SLASH HREF="http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-1007528.html" ID="9cb32f1ec9ae5bd8426144894693c610" TITLE="" TYPE="LINK">licensing Unix from SCO</SLASH> for between 10 and 30 million dollars? I think the answer's quite simple: they want to hurt Linux. Anything that damages Linux's reputation, which lending support to SCO's Unix intellectual property claims does, is to Microsoft's advantage.
Mary Jo Foley, top reporter of Microsoft Watch agrees with me. She tells me, "This is just Microsoft making sure the Linux waters get muddier They are doing this to hurt Linux and keep customers off balance. Eric Raymond, president of the Open Source Initative agrees and adds "Any money they (Microsoft) give SCO helps SCO hurt Linux. I think it's that simple."
Dan Kusnetzky, IDC vice president for system software research, also believes that Microsoft winning can be the only sure result from SCO's legal maneuvering. But, he also thinks that whether SCO wins, loses, or draws, Microsoft will get blamed for SCO's actions.
He's right. People are already accusing Microsoft of bankrolling SCO's attacks on IBM and Linux.
But is there more to it? Is Microsoft actually in cahoots with SCO? I don't think so. Before this deal, both SCO and Caldera have had long, rancorous histories with Microsoft
While Microsoft certainly benefits from any doubt thrown Linux's way, despite rumors to the contrary Microsoft no longer owns any share of SCO and hasn't for years. In fact, Microsoft's last official dealing with Caldera/SCO was in early January 2000, when Microsoft paid approximately $60 million to Caldera to settle Caldera's claims that Microsoft had tried to destroy DR-DOS. While Microsoft never admitted to wrong-doing, the pay-off speaks louder than words.
The deal didn't make SCO/Caldera feel any kinder towards Microsoft. A typical example of SCO's view of Microsoft until recently can be found in the title of such marketing white papers as "Caldera vs. Microsoft: Attacking the Soft Underbelly" from February 2002.
Historically, Microsoft licensed the Unix code from AT&T in 1980 to make its own version of Unix: Xenix. At the time, the plan was that Xenix would be Microsoft's 16-bit operating system. Microsoft quickly found they couldn't do it on their own, and so started work with what was then a small Unix porting company, SCO. By 1983, SCO XENIX System V had arrived for 8086 and 8088 chips and both companies were marketing it.
It didn't take long though for Microsoft to decide that Xenix wasn't for them. In 1984, the combination of AT&T licensing fees and the rise of MS-DOS, made Microsoft decide to start moving out of the Unix business.
Microsoft and SCO were far from done with each other yet though. By 1988, Microsoft and IBM were at loggerheads over the next generation of operating systems: OS/2 and Unix. Microsoft saw IBM's support of the Open Software Foundation (OSF), an attempt to come up with a common AIX-based Unix to battle the alliance of AT&T and Sun, which was to lead to Solaris.
Microsoft saw this as working against their plans for IBM and Microsoft's joint operating system project, OS/2 and their own plans for Windows. Microsoft thought briefly about joining the OSF, but decided not to. Instead Bill Gates and company hedged their operating systems bets by buying about 16% of SCO, an OSF member, in March 1989
In 2000, Microsoft finally divested the last of their SCO stock. Even before Caldera bought out SCO though, Microsoft and SCO continued to fight with each other. The last such battle was in 1997, when they finally settled a squabble over European Xenix technology royalties that SCO had been paying Microsoft since the 80s.
Despite their long, bad history, no one calling the shots in today's SCO has anything to do with either the old SCO or Caldera. I also though think that there hasn't been enough time for SCO and Microsoft to cuddle up close enough for joint efforts against IBM and Linux.
I also think that it's doubtful that Microsoft would buy SCO with the hopes of launching licensing and legal battles against IBM, Sun and the Linux companies. They're still too close to their own monopoly trials. Remember, even though they ended up only being slapped on the wrist, they did lose the trial. Buying the ability to attack their rivals' operating systems could only give Microsoft a world of hurt.
Besides, as Eric Raymond in the Open Source Initiative's position paper on SCO vs. IBM and Bruce Perens' "The FUD War against Linux," point out, it's not like SCO has a great case.
Indeed, as Perens told me the other day, in addition to all the points that has already been made about SCO's weak case, SCO made most 16-bit Unix and 32V Unix source code freely available. To be precise, on January 23, 2002, Caldera wrote, "Caldera International, Inc. hereby grants a fee free license that includes the rights use, modify and distribute this named source code, including creating derived binary products created from the source code." Although not mentioned by name, the letter seems to me to put these operating systems under the BSD license.While System III and System V code are specifically not included, it certainly makes SCO's case even murkier.
SCO has since taken down its own 'Ancient Unix' source code site, but the code and the letter remain available at many mirror sites.
Given all this, I think Microsoft has done all they're going to do with SCO. They've helped spread more FUD for a minimal investment. To try more could only entangle them in further legal problems. No, SCO alone is responsible for our current Unix/Linux situation and alone SCO will have to face its day in court.
This story was originally published by Practical Technology. The opinions it contains belong solely to its author and may or may not be shared by NewsForge staff or OSDN management.
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on Understanding the Microsoft-SCO connectionNote: Comments are owned by the poster. We are not responsible for their content.
This product is similar to (not exactly like) Cygwin from Red Hat. The Microsoft product provides a basic UNIX-like environment in Windows an includes many GPL tools. Chances are MicroSoft will claim they are ensuring that code within their product is not infringing on SCO's IP by paying the license.
So why didn't SCO sue MicroSoft as well as IBM?
I love to show this page to MicroSoft zombies who bash anything associated with the cancerous un-american GPL. I usually scratch my head and show them that they can buy GPL'ed products from MicroSoft! It shuts most of them up. You can follow the <A HREF="http://www.interopsystems.com/Products2.asp" TITLE="interopsystems.com">link</a interopsystems.com> labelled "GPL source code" on the right hand side to buy a copy of a cd with the source code. This product patches the Windows kernel to work.
If you know anyone that believes all MicroSoft FUD, show them this. According to the spin from MicroSoft, shouldn't all Windows software that gets infected by this viral license become GPL'ed too?
I wonder if IBM or Red Hat has considered trying to force disclosure of the terms of the investment, including $$ and what Microsoft gets to do with the SCO IP. Boies and his team must be clearing, what, 10-20K a day? So in a year they're billing over $3M, maybe much more. Nice work if you can get it!
Steven
I don't honestly see why the anti-Microsoft folks are so down on Noorda, who was not only the original anti-Microsoft crusader in the corporate world, but also the first "suit" who actually saw what Linux's potential was. Expose was a project to build a Linux-based competitor to Windows 95 back in 1994. Say what you will about Noorda's logic and tactics, but he wanted to use Linux to push Windows off the desktop years before it became fashionable. If Noorda was still active with the Canopy Group (which I don't think he has been for years, even if his name's still on the place), I suspect they'd have been rather vocal about not supporting SCO's current actions.
Maybe Microsoft really need to licensed UNIX. Service For UNIX and Microsoft Cluster Services (based on Nonstop Cluster from Unixware) could be need the license.
In the other hand, is obviously a artificial and ugly movement from Microsoft for try to hurt Linux and the Open Source movement.
To the best of my knowledge, there's no direct connection between Microsoft Cluster Services and Unixware Nonstop Clustering, except both descend from DEC's mid-80s VAXCluster technology. Microsoft started on their clustering path with their hiring of VMS designers for their 32-bit OSs and SCO got it via their once close development relationship with Compaq, which had previously bought out DEC. I'd be interested in knowing if there's a later, more direct, connection between the two.
Steven
And do you think that Microsoft don't reuse Xenix code when they have it?
As for Xenix, that code is so old and outdated--for example it was impossible to make its interals Y2K compliant--that I doubt there's any real value in it for Microsoft or anyone else.
Steven
The kernel, GNU tools and the glibc are quite robust for the courts, and I highly doubt any developer copied code between SCO and the linux parts. When SCO says theyve found something in Linux, its pretty much scaring the customers, and the longer they drag this thing without revealing what code theyre accusing of being copied, the more damage is made.
However, SCOs connection with Microsoft must be revealed since that would qualify Microsoft for a major lawsuit for damaging the reputation of RedHat and SuSE for such a long time. I am convinced that SCO's execs revealing this connection could turn this against Microsoft, and possibly making money both ways. It would also limit Microsoft's further ability to appear in courts in the future against Linux. This is all the more reason for Microsoft to secretly pay SCO more for this suicide.
Ghazan Haider
Microsoft plays by the rules of the corporate world - it's not about merit, it's not about feeling all warm and fuzzy at the end of the day. It's about survival and eating your competition.
Microsoft is a carnivore, vs. Linux the herbivore. That's just the way the world works, folks.
But the point being that there are specific limits on "business". If not, after all, the mafia could claim "hey, we're just a business" too...
SCO's actions are so irrational, even to the point of suicidal from a business perspective, that folks are trying to figure out the motives and the game plan behind it. Microsoft coming in to pay for some licensing at this point opens up a range of new theories to discuss.
Those theories are worth discussing.
Microsoft has done a lot a crappy stuff in their time, and they've gotten burned as best as anyone can burn them for it at this time. But you guys see conspiracy in every move they make. If Bill passes gas, it's assumed to be a slight against Linux.
People - it's software, not your children. If it was your children, I'd be the first to say you have the right to be overprotective and paranoid, and I'd worry if you weren't. But software doesn't live or breathe or cogitate - it's electrical signals flowing through predefined pathways through a machine, and all the anthropomorphic personification you put on it will never change that immutable fact until we invent some new technology.
You can guess, ponder, discuss, bluster, or blow it out your rear end, but the ONLY existing fact is that Microsoft has apparently paid SCO (yes, I think the people at SCO are shitheels) to license some IP, and that's all there is. In absence of any other evidence, leaping to conclusion solves nothing. Remember that Microsoft does have some tools for Linux/Unix interoperability and that they probably did not write portions of that code, and therefore may need to license the parts they didn't write.
On a further note, considering how litigious SCO is right now (however suicidal it may be), it would behoove Microsoft to make sure all the i's are dotted and all the t's are crossed. I really doubt they want to go through the hassle of getting sued, even if it's by an irrelevant pipsqueak.
For what it's worth, to my knowledge, Microsoft has actually been pretty good about IP issues - I can't personally think of anything beyond the Apple lawsuits of the 80's where they tried to go after anyone over IP issues. The balance of evidence points to Microsoft sticking to the business and marketing playing fields and using every play in the book. I could be wrong there, I will stipulate that right now.
But as far as I can tell, sometimes a spade IS just a gardening tool.
Coders who don't work for microsoft are generally under constant THREAT by microsoft. What about THEIR children?????? Research dollars in ms are among FEW such budgets. All ms has to do is gyrate its loinal probiscus and everybody nearby is sprayed or injured if not on or in ms bed.
As for ms being fair on IP, jeez, man, with they buying sprees and ability to preempt technologies from startups they choose not to buy, why should they be worried? Many companies implode before we hear them ghasp simply because they end up in ms bullseye. (And, I understand a number of companies exist solely to get bought up by ms, tho many fail to get attention. But, the HotMail guy was lucky. So were Visio, but HotMail became HotSmell, and Visio was probably just whoring itself out, as I understand...)
For your benefit, remember they recently (purportedly?) double-crossed a cell phone company on whose board an ms-exec with ties to ms surely knew of the company's impending monetary or technical demise.
(Yet, they played out the situation until it reach the clause in the contract where ms says "If you go belly up or don't tell us all the facts, we own all your IP..." Surely, ms knew the company's fledgling state, smelled blood, and allowed the cell company to belive its future would turn around for the better. Surely, ms would not intentionally buy into or buy up a lousy company and then say, "Oh, we feel sorry for you, so you can go, no strings.." Just as the mill & belinda foundation SURELY are not making strings-free donations. When you donate, you DONATE, not gloat and demand "the donation (unspokenly) comes ONLY if you (further our monopoly by agreeing to ) use our products, eschew non-ms products where possible, and whatever else we think of before we sign on the lines..." And, DON'T tell me "they donate so much MONEEEEE", as my response to that is: If my parents were philanthropers to every city, county and state but were found to be incontrovertibly linked to the disapperances of persons x, y & z, the presence of gutted cows, the implosion of certain businesses and such, I'd say to hell with them and throw the book a them, for it's not the GOOD DEEDS that get their "asses" off the hook. Once they act this way, they're just despicable pieces of MEAT, not filial-piety-due parents. It's the eschewing and aversion of improper and muddying activities that preserve their integrity. Try getting a school to ditch their "donated" ms wares for Linux. Their boards are likely too "well-supported" to commit that kind of career or donation attraction suicide...)
Heck, with a ms-siding board member, how could ms NOT know the company was already in extremis? To me, it appears ms was buying time to get their hands on tech & IP to weasle deeper into the cell market, using that company's IP if it won/wins the gamble.
I personally believe the corporations reaching a certain size or acting in certain ways (particularly being a convicte monopoly) need to be slapped with instantaneous, retroactive life spans. When they trip the wire, their IP is divvied up and shared for the betterment of those less malicious. Humans have life spans, and non-will individuals' property ends up in probate or is outright stolen by family or state. So, mega corps which are recalictrant, vicious, malicious, FUD-spreading, Vapor-ware spreading, and on constant shopping sprees that result in no NEW technolgy but simply a rebranding, should face a during-business disbanding when they behave ruthlessly, foist vapor ware upon weaker competitors, donate but tie strings (I temped at Stanford GSB in 1997 and I was told the ms-acolytes there were ordered to expunge Novell...) to software use....You get my drift?
Over the past few years, we've seen ms go into PDAs, game consoles, Web, browsers, Instant Messaging, e-mail (and foisting html-mail on people), being a virus payload infrastructure, lying in court, fudging video testimony, and MORE. Fact is, ms has so much money they could go into selling panties and run Haynes out of business, or they could sell Lemonade and run RealLemon out of business. That AIN'T RIGHT!.)
((Are you an ms sympathiser, or what? If you swing a sword, it has to either go around or come back at some point (unless you drop it or cease your attack...)))
No one who's observed ms over the years should be letting ms off the hook so graciously. Business being ruthless only perpetuates the conduct because nearly-innocent kids grow up and have to "follow the ruthless corporate line" in many companies just to keep a job. Most businesses are antithetical to fairness. Yes, nobody ever said business was fair, but if Linux is ms' "manufacturing recall"/"grim reaper" message, the TOUGH.
I personally believe ms is behind the FUD and using SCO as a suicidal patsy. Nevermind how much blood changed hands at SCO. The pointers are indicating that ms has advantages to manipulating undisclosed aggreements clauses with the current SCO, and if the blokes in charge stand to get rich, what's to make them say to ms, "We don't have anything to do with the previous management.. leave us alone..." No, they'll take the money. Case closed!
(Now, if you feel the way I do, then reflect this diatribe to those who are hard-core ms acolytes, henchmen/henchwomen, and the like. Basically it comes down to this: "ms: Shape up or PERISH!" Your choice. The world decide, even if I am snuffed out by a ms-mob shooter or dragged into court for libel. Foreign nations' national security, homeland IP, and general pride further are eroded and mocked by ms and ms world-domination mission of over-diversifying. Over-divesifying brought down Rome and nearly wrecked the UK. If ms want's to learn from history, they'll pull back and consolidate and focus on core technologies and stop trampling and still-birthing companies already barely alive in their own markets or trying to emerge as a small-bit player.)
David Syes
Moreover, when mega mergers occur, CEOs and board members SHOULD personally be deprived of enuogh cash to enable the "bastardee hirees" to gracefully exit.
I know it isn't the way business works, but to damn many businesses go on hiring binges then purge people after promising "there's very little to no overlap; you don't have to worry about being laid off; we've got $700,000,000 in the bank and assets..."
IT HAPPENED TO ME! And, to lots of others. Yet we never or rarely hear about a CEO taking a paycut. It's just the corporation taking a "charge of x amount of $, and they get to recover. Unemployemnt doesn't help a lot of people. Transition and exit packages should be in the form of something menaingful, considering the "bonuses" all too many CEOs used to get. It's refreshing to see in the news that a number of CEOs got roundfiled recently, but the feeling is short-lived if they're being bounced for a meaner, fiercer, more-slaying CEO to take the mantle...
David Syes
Most of your arguments appear to be more emotional than rational. I'm sorry if you feel you got screwed over, but I'm hearing more pride and ego than any attempt at rational thought.
I agree that some CEO's are taking advantage of their positions, but all of the things you suggest are what we should be doing, not what we are legally bound to do. The law is not about making people feel good about themselves, but rather a minimum protection for society as a whole.
To make the kind of changes you imply are necessary requires a fundamental shift in human nature that takes decades, eons even.
---
When it comes down to it, I don't particularly like major corporations either. I'm much more inclined to enjoy working for a small company where you can get to know the people you work with. The view of a company as family might be pushing it, but you should at least be able to know SOMETHING about the stockboy AND the CEO. But I refuse to paint all big companies with the same black brush. We need the big fish, too, so that the small fish have something to aspire to be.
A. A. Freeman
You're under threat by everybody. Other coders, other companies in the same market. If you aren't at least aware of the competition, then you're chum for the sharks and deservedly so. (Loinal probiscus? You mean proboscis? Frankly, I was laughing so hard at that I almost ruptured mine<nobr> <wbr></nobr>... )
As for ms being fair on IP, etc<nobr> <wbr></nobr>...
Perfectly legal. Ethics is another matter, but those have to come from within and large corporate ethics are different than for small companies because the aims and concerns are different. You can't legislate ethics or morality because we all have differing views based on upbring, surroundings, etc.
mill & belinda foundation, etc<nobr> <wbr></nobr>...
Got any evidence that they're tying donations back to usage? Remember that the Foundation is separate from Microsoft. It's Bill's personal foundation, not Microsoft's, and the governing board is different.
Cell phone company, etc.
That's SOP. A company will buy stock in another company, either because they are interested in some aspect of that company operation or products, or as an outright earning investment. If you look at the board of any major corporation, you will see a ton of cross-pollination - major corps do not exist in a vacuum. Now, whether any given board member is investing in his/her own right or because of the company is probably next to impossible to determine. So, if the company goes under, do the other board members act to protect their investment or do they just let it die?
I personally believe the corporations reaching a certain size or acting in certain ways<nobr> <wbr></nobr>...
The first part of that argument just doesn't make sense. How big is too big? Who determines how big is too big? You? Me? The second part, I agree with, but the company should be allowed to defend their actions - if they have better lawyers, then so be it. Remember, courts are not about justice (which is a whole 'nother can of worms), but about crime/punishment (which has nothing to do with justice) or about injured parties seeking redress for perceived wrongs (which also has nothing to do with justice).
mega corps which are recalcitrant, vicious, malicious, FUD-spreading, Vapor-ware spreading<nobr> <wbr></nobr>...
Most of what you mention is marketing and politics. The only yardsticks we have are our personal beliefs, which vary so wildly as to be unusable as an overall objective measurement, and the law, which varies in value but at least is an immutable fact that we, as a society, have decided is where we draw a line that one cannot cross without some sort of punishment.
---
I stand by my statement that software is not your children. Feeding your children and creating software are two different things entirely. You can, in a pinch, do any other job which will provide the funds to feed your children. It may not be pleasant, but sometimes that's life. Software is just electrical signals, and all the wishing in the world will never make it live, and I personally would worry about the values or sanity of any person who equates the two.
Famous last words.
Remember Rick Belluzzo? After driving SGI into the ground trying to develop NT and giving away SGI's graphics patents to Microsoft, he quit to become president at Microsoft. He should have been sued by SGI shareholders.
Darl is figuring on doing the same: sell anything useful to Microsoft for a song, do as much damage to Linux as possible and pretty soon he's doing lunch with Bill, Steve, Craig, Jim, Joachim and the rest of the thugs in Seattle.
At the same time, however, the cash from Microsoft was definitely a payoff to stop Corel Linux. It's unfortunate that Michael Cowpland (fmr Corel CEO) got sidetracked with futile projects like WordPerfect Office for Java, webservers, etc. which sucked a lot of money from the company. I think that Corel could still profitably develop Linux applications if these sideshows hadn't been embarked upon.
SCO's 'Ancient UNIX' license agreement still exist
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on May 23, 2003 12:24 AMThe article states that SCO's 'Ancient UNIX' source code sight has been taken down, but the <A HREF="http://shop.caldera.com/caldera/ancient.html" TITLE="caldera.com">license agreement</a caldera.com> is still out there.
This agreement lists the versions of UNIX source code that were freely available from SCO, and how they could be incorporated into other works.
Unless SCO starts supporting their accusations with some hard facts, they will look like complete fools in court.
I like the line:
CALDERA INTERNATIONAL, INC. claims no ownership interest in any portion of such a modification or DERIVED BINARY PRODUCT that is not part of a SOURCE CODE PRODUCT.
The license clearly states the source code is only for non-commercial use. However, this hurts SCO's lawsuit against IBM. Why is IBM accused of taking SCO's ancient UNIX source code when open source developers could have gone to SCO's website to get the same data.
Re:SCO's 'Ancient UNIX' license agreement still ex
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on May 23, 2003 03:53 AMIn fact, anyone connected with Linux is acting in pure defensive mode right now. I am conflicted about the whole thing. I trust the guy that told me he saw copied code with his own eyes, but I do not trust the people directing his employer.
The whole thing sounds like the MS anti-trust thing, in that the company can't be sued for what it's really doing wrong, but it is being sued for what it can be sued.
I can easily speculate that there is more here than Mr Perens or Mr Raymond have seen, and that there will be hard evidence at which we must all take a look. There's no other reason for SCO to launch such a suit, nor hire Mr Boies. SCO may suck at writing contracts, but it's not about to launch frivolous suits vs a company like IBM. They must have hard evidence, and we'll see this when the time's right. We can't be so arrogant as to expect them to break the process just to pander to our petty desire to verify the data for our own 4 million eyes.
Also, and we have to understand this too, SCO's customers do not care about what a bunch of ranting longhairs like us actually think of it. It's business, and we who comment on news stories or write up these huge tirades in<nobr> <wbr></nobr>/. just don't influence very much. The sooner we realize that the business community sees our hysteria and ranting as just another sign that we're lunatics, the sooner we will be able to actually make a difference vs what really matters - we need to get back to making Linux the widely uses OS it should be.
The anti-SCO sentiment that's always been present in<nobr> <wbr></nobr>/. people, ever since the misnamed support-contracts-called-seat-licenses fiasco, it's not helping us see clearly right now. We need to sit back, calm down, and stop spewing conjecture about a legal case we know nothing about, just because it makes weak comments about the OS we all know, love and quickly rise to defend.
We have better things to do, like getting RH to fix its kerberos install or suggesting that the almighty GNU learn what Backward Compatibility means. We have greater issues than flaming about some lawsuit that we know will not, ultimately, affect us or Linux.
Our very overblown reaction presents an image that we're protesting too much. We're letting the dog wag us.
I'm not attaching my name to this. I don't need some IBM lawyer to misread this thing and drag my ass into court in some strange and foreign land, just because they think I meant to say something other than what I wrote.
The next paragraph should have read "For example..." Without examples, this is just pure FUD and amounts to an ad hominem attack on ESR and BP.
I read both articles pretty carefully and spoke to ESR about this at PenguiCon. I see no "wrong" point in either article.
-- Michael Rudas
-- Michael Rudas
The IBM lawsuit has driven SCO's share prices up. But watch SCO's SEC Form 4's. Insider common stock sales will indicate profit taking by senior executives. In my opinion the IBM lawsuit is a make or break move for SCO. They are getting killed by Linux and the world IT slowdown. SCO is probably seeking a buyout by IBM. The SCO Chairman of the Board is also the CEO of it's largest shareholder - The Canopy Group, Inc. The Canopy Group Inc. with 43.4% of the common shares is probably trying to cashout on its investment.
http://www.practical-tech.com/infrastructure/i033<nobr>1<wbr></nobr> 2003.htm
Steven
But now they can now take the "viral GPL" crap they were trying push before and combine it with a real life circus that plays up to it. Maybe they get lucky and the suit actually pans out and Linux is significantly impaired: so much the better. But this is a relatively cheap way of attacking their major enemy; if they paid, say $500 million for the license, that would still only be about %1 of the total cash they have onhand.
So, yeah, MS is bankrolling the enemy of their enemy cause its convenient.
Either that or the RICO acts.
The <A HREF="http://www.fsf.org/licenses/gpl.html" TITLE="fsf.org">GPL</a fsf.org> clearly states:
4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance.
5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying the Program or works based on it.
Threatening Redhat, SuSE and Linux users in addition to IBM, clearly ran afoul of "Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License." It was an attempt to restrict the rights of users to code that SCO had intentionally released. From that moment on, SCO did not have a valid license to distribute Linux. Yet they continued to do so.
Every Linux kernel developer now has grounds to sue SCO for violation of the GPL. I would suggest a coordinated effort, filing suits in as many jurisdictions as possible simultaneously. It is dirt cheap to file in small claims court in the US. Let them die the death of a thousand cuts.
These aren't the same people who contributed code back to Linux. The people in charge at SCO are bean counters, not programmers. What you're thinking of occurred a long time ago.
The question is not "what have they done", but "what have they done lately?"
if you think that they'd be putting all their money into this only to be 'debunked' by someone posting on NewsForge, you'd be wrong again.
In the meantime they have participated in Linux community developement, marketing and sales. Suddenly they feel the need to sue other large vendors and even their own partners in UnitedLinux. Looking at SCO's cashflow one would understand their desperate actions but not their loss of logic.
Operating systems developement has been ongoing for more than 30 years. IBM's operating systems VM, MVS, MVT, VSE, Digitals VMS and of course Unix AT&T + BSD are commonly known for OS developers. SCO claims that noone would be able to get Linux up2date with "enterprise" functions this fast are indeed strange. Most universities have had their own projects in OS developement going on with VM and Unix since 1972. The universities migrated from IBM's VM to Unix when IBM closed parts of the assembler code for the CP part of VM. Then we changed to use Unix and now Linux for inhouse developement. Just look at Princeton University in the US or University of Liverpool. Both Melinda Varian and Iain Stinson of these Universities could confirm a lot of the effort that the Universities has put into IT within this area.
One could ask SCO about all the code they have ripped off from others. The same question could very easily been sent to MS. Anyone who remember Stacker (check the MSDOS 6.2 disk compression...., MIT's kerberos, Sun's NFS, NIS.. the list is becoming long...) MS is not known for beeing "loyal" to others right. So the conclusion for them licensing "unix" must be to attack the OpenSource community and Linux by "supporting" SCO's claims. MS are not afraid of beeing sued. They have a long history og buying themselves out of lawsuits.
SCO seems to forget that The Open Group has the right to the Unix brand and specification. SPEC1170, Posix, RFC's etc. are NOT SCO's property. So the functions, specifications etc. are Open and not patented to any specific vendor.
Hopefully SCO's action will lead to "free" "unix" from such companies as SCO.
The non-microsoft theses; problems
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on May 22, 2003 10:03 PMAlso, in negotiating a license, one does not expect the business your negotiating with to not disclose what it might do. Certainly if we presume Microsoft and SCO had been discussing licensing for several months, the idea of SCO dropping unexpected bombshells during those negiations seem highly improbable.
The question that is left is if Microsoft pressed SCO to greater action than it might have undertaken otherwise to conclude a license agreement, or if they simply were happy to mearly help facilitate and participate in it. But the idea of Microsoft being completely ignorent of what SCO was planning and mearly taking advantage on a sudden impulse seems ludicrous.
The other part I find interesting is that Mr. Sontag repeated promised over the past few months to SCO investors to expect significent revenue increases in the next two quarters. Where were these revenues to come from? Surely not from SCO's linux business; even without abandoning it, they were not deriving the revenue needed. Existing SCO unixware and openserver licenses? No, these were at best a declining business. The IBM suit? If any revenue is seen from that, it would obviously be a matter of years, and not next quarter. So where were these mythical significent increase in "next quarter" revenues to come from? I see only one licensee that might be able, at no real cost to itself, make a 50-100 million contribution to SCO....
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