This is the end for SCO

[Urban Ranger]

After hearing both sides, Judge Wells ruled as intended, granting IBM's Motion to Compel Discovery against SCO and giving SCO 30 days to comply. She also held SCO's Motion in abeyance until after it responds, and she scheduled another hearing in late January. IBM won, and SCO lost roundly here, in this writer's opinion. SCO's hope for its fishing expedition is likely doomed, since Judge Wells can reasonably be expected to limit any SCO discovery against IBM to items directly relevant to its own specific claims, which SCO must now produce before demanding discovery of IBM.

full article here

As fully expected, SCO doesn't have any leg to stand on, and its foolish antics gets ripped to shreds in the court of public opinion.

So much for Microsoft's pawn.

[aaglo]

A few questions:

1# what is SCO?
2# what do they do?
3# who cares about this legal crap

[Urban Ranger]

Go away you mad Finn

[Ned]

I don't know the details of what is going on here, but my gut reaction is that SCO is right and will prevail in the end if IBM has copied UNIX and put it in AIX.

[Urban Ranger]

Ned, have you perfected the art of saying precisely nothing?

[Mr. Harley]

Ned, do some googling and read some technical articles on it - I didn't copy my references when I researched it, but you'll find that's not at all what happened. Some of the technical articles are dense, but if you are an old code writer like myself, interesting. I was surprised (I shouldn't have been) on how poorly the non-IT press has reported this.

Evidently there had been some swapping about of code during the Unix/early-mid Linux days, and the companies involved had no problems. SCO ended up with some of these licenses, but there is no clear documentation on the code development (that SCO "owns", per se, and what SCO has it refuses to release anyway - which is why the judge released her decision). It has to do primarily with multi-thread/mult-processor code. The Linux community has requested data on the offending code, but SCO refuses to tell them all the details necessary to remove it (draw your own conclusions). What is known makes the developmental issues very confused, at best (for SCO). Even SCO's ex-corporate head is not happy with this lawsuit.

(speculation - from multiple sources) It's basically a series of lawsuits to tie up Linux. SCO did not start any of this until Microsoft gave it a big infusion of cash. They got a second one recently. Supposedly Microsoft is going to incorporate portions of Unix into their product line, possibly making their own flavor of an almost Linux, aka Active-X versus Java. They cannot purchase Linux and make it proprietary, so intimidation and slowing it's adoption while developing their counterstrategy is perfectly consistant with Microsoft corporate behavior. Plus, it's been argued SCO is trying to make itself more attractive as a takeover target, though it has enough of the IT community pissed that it seems to have blown up in their face, if that was actually true. Please remember Microsoft makes a profit of around 800% on Windows products, so Linux is a threat that Microsoft would have to competatively price Windows .

[Urban Ranger]

The legal threats and law suits originally had bumped up SCO stock price and some individuals (correctly) labelled this FUD to be a pump-and-dump scheme. It appears that MS then latched on the opportunity to slow down Linux development, but SCO made the error of annoying IBM (whoops).

Now that SCO (formerly Caldera) has gone from bad to worse, and started making boneheaded accusations against GPL too, which got ripped to pieces quickly as usual. [See the linked article for details] This surely should not be good for PR, but strangely non-technical media is not covering the whole thing as much as they should.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Ned, have you perfected the art of saying precisely nothing?

Well, UR, at least I tried reading your links to find out what you were talking about.

[DaShi]

SCO is Smiley Central?

[Q Classic]

1# what is SCO?

sco, pronounced SKOH, is formerly the linux company known as Caldera, which had bought the rights to UNIX code, but not the trademark UNIX, from Novell.
this distinction is quite important; SCO is trying to make it seem as if they own all of UNIX, when this is not the case.

2# what do they do?

litigation.
well, officially, they provide UNIX-based server software in the form of UNIXWare 7. previously, they sold linux based servers, such as OpenServer.

I don't know the details of what is going on here, but my gut reaction is that SCO is right and will prevail in the end if IBM has copied UNIX and put it in AIX.

1. in cases like these, the burden of proof lies with the plaintiff. thus far, any examples that SCO has shown of "copied code" have failed to hold up to scrutiny; at SCOForum, they erroneously insinuated two samples were IBM's work. Although they did not specifically state that they were from IBM, the entire discussion revolved around IBM's supposed infractions.
The two bits of code? One was entirely SGI's. The other was lifted from BSD, and thus was legal.
after that, SCO has refused to show any offending code, and in the court of law, have asked IBM to show their code first, and then SCO will tell them what they're violating.

UNIX and BSD have a shared history. AT&T, when it initially sued UCBerkeley over copyright infringement regarding UNIX and BSD, lost when it was found that it was UNIX that had borrowed much more from BSD than the other way around. ever since, it's been accepted that BSD is a sort of genetic UNIX that is entirely free and open source.

many operating systems are now derived from this chassis, including Mac OS X.

Linux is not a genetic unix. it has taken many of its cues from unix, and shares the same POSIX standards, but it is not unix.

recently, in addition to SCO's attempts to cash in on linux by saying they own it, SCO has suggested it will soon go after BSD and the BSD settlement. Mac users, if this does occur, Darwin/OS X is going to be under attack, and Apple will join the fray.

as for the microsoft conspiracy. I don't believe it. why? SCO started the lawsuite before microsoft gave them the infusion. yes, microsoft plays dirty, and yes, microsoft is probably cheering them on, but microsoft doesn't really bet on a losing horse, and probably is only involved so much as benefiting from the smear job that sco, and sco alone, has done.

if you want to keep up on the news, there's a great site:

https://www.groklaw.net

[Ned]

Please correct me if I am wrong.

SCO allegations:

AT&T developed UNIX V. AT&T licensed IBM to use and modify UNIX V. IBM adapted UNIX V, calling the adapted code AIX. AT&T sold SCO its rights in UNIX V. IBM stated it would contribute AIX code to Linux. Some of this code is UNIX V code. IBM has no right to sublicense the SCO UNIX V code to anyone. IBM is in breach of its license with AT&T/SCO. SCO has terminated that license. IBM is now infringing on AT&T/SCO copyrights and patents. IBM had demanded to know specifically what AT&T/SCO code is in AIX or that has been incorporated into Linux. SCO has not responded in sufficient detail.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Q Cubed
Linux is not a genetic unix. it has taken many of its cues from unix, and shares the same POSIX standards, but it is not unix.

It depends on how you define Unix. If you narrowly define it as "continuing development of the original Richie and Thompson code," it seems the only Unix is AT&T System V. If you broadly define it as "an operating system based on R&T's original ideas" it seems Linux would fit too.

[Q Classic]

first off, it is important to understand that sco today is not even the same company as sco in the past. sco today derives from caldera.

att developed unix system 5. att also, at the time, licensed it to everyone under the sun, creating multiple genetic unixes (those that stem from the same source code). such examples include what later became UNIXWare, but there's also Minix (Microsoft's entry, and actually how SCO got its start, but not caldera), and BSD.

later, att realizes that it could have made oodles off of unix. so it sues others for infringement, focusing on BSD. after a bit of hubbub, it's found that att's UNIX has actually lifted much code from BSD. therefore, in the settlement, any UNIX source that was present in BSD was granted to BSD. BSD released it under an open source license, the BSD license, which is different from the GPL, which is the license that SCO has called "unconstitutional" because of no good reason; Lawrence Lessig has a good post on that.

att first sold its rights to unix to novell, not sco; novell then sold its rights to unix source to sco; however, the unix trademark belongs to neither sco nor novell, and not with att; furthermore, novell apparently didn't sell all of its rights to sco, including the one regarding contracts.

ibm had long ago licensed unix source to create aix. it had obtained these licenses before sco had rights to unix; and when sco tried to cancel the rights of ibm to distribute aix, novell stepped in and said that sco couldn't do that, because it was not within their rights.

at one point, ibm and sco had worked together in project monterey, which ibm later left once it realized there was no future in it. sco was already dying. caldera, on the other hand, went into linux full speed, distributing it under the GPL and also creating unitedlinux with other companies, such as turbolinux and suse linux.

now, sco's contention is that open source sucks, and that linux could have never made it into the enterprise field without ibm lifting code from unix into linux; however, it fails also to point out that while it was still caldera, it itself was actively developing the linux code. however, one must note that the things they are contending belong to unix--jfs, numa, smp, for instance--were not present in their versions of unix until two to three years after they were present in linux. furthermore, most of its claims to such code are tenuous at best, because it is not caldera/sco which created them.

sco's contention is that ibm broke its contract; that is what the lawsuit began as. later, sco began flinging allegations of copyright infringement and patent violations; however, they have not given any concrete proof. the examples they have shown reporters under an NDA they are refusing to give to IBM in this legal case; their "best" examples that they have shown to the public were quickly shown not to be theirs.

sco has also at the same time threatened every user of linux, and repeatedly spread comments sowing fear, uncertainty, and doubt, which has prompted Red Hat to file suit against SCO for making damaging remarks about Red Hat's core business. in a disingenous argument, SCO asked for dismissal against Red Hat because linux somehow was not their core business. Furthermore, because SCO has not given any proof thus far that has held up to scrutiny, a judge in germany has forced SCO to stop making disparaging remarks about linux in germany. put up, or shut up. SCO has not put up.

in the american legal arena, ibm has repeatedly demanded that sco show in detail where exactly they are violating it. however, sco has instead responded by hiring david boies, sending over the source code on paper (millions and millions of lines: utterly useless for code comparisons), and filed a countermotion asking for IBM to hand over its source code first, so sco can say where they're violating it.

sco's saying, in essence, we don't know how or where you're doing it, but we know you are.

meanwhile, david boies, to ensure he gets paid, has made sco sign a contract in which he gets paid in a large amount of stock if he wins, or in a large amount of cash regardless of the settlement, whichever is greater. furthermore, several sco executives have been selling stock like crazy since the beginning of the year.

all of this reeks of suspicious behavior on sco's part, which is why exceedingly few in the it field actually believe the veracity of sco's claims.

if linux is violating their source code, why can't they prove it?

[Q Classic]

by most definitions, linux is not a unix; linux is part of the GNU project, which, amusingly enough, stands for Gnu's Not Unix. linux itself did not have its origins in unix source; as time progressed, it tried to approach unix compatibility in the form of posix-compliance.

it may be prudent to note that unix design principals, and some of its source code, has been published numerous times openly.

[Ned]

I think my summary is substantially correct save for who owns the copyrights and patents.

When Novell transferred its UNIX business SCO, it apparently retained only the copyrights and patents. It transferred to SCO its contracts with third parties and granted SCO a license under the UNIX copyrights and patents together with a right to sublicense those copyrights and patents.

One of the contracts transferred to SCO apparently is a license agreement with IBM to the UNIX system V code. Apparently this license agreement granted IBM a right to incorporate UNIX V code into AIX. It did not grant IBM the right to sublicense that code to third parties and manner that would essentially placed the code into the public domain. But this apparently is what IBM says that it intends to do with AIX by contributing AIX code to Linux. This appears to be a anticipatory breach of its license agreement with SCO. This breach gave SCO the legal right to terminate its license agreement with IBM, which apparently it has done. Any further sales or licenses of AIX by IBM after the termination is unlicensed and infringing of the UNIX V copyrights and patents to the extent that AIX incorporate any UNIX V code.

Even though Novell may have retained the copyrights and patents, SCO may still have the right to sue others on the copyrights and patents to the extent that it can show that it has all effective rights under those copyrights and patents. What SCO would have to show is that Novell no longer has the right to grant licenses under those copyrights and patents. Retention of a right to further license copyrights and patents is, however, inconsistent with the sale of Novell's UNIX business to SCO. Therefore it seems likely that SCO's copyright and patent lawsuit is well based.

Still, SCO will eventually have to show just which copyrighted and patented code has been incorporated into AIX. I think that SCO will eventually win this discovery battle.

It appears that IBM is in a world of hurt.

Ditto Linux to the extent that it incorporates any UNIX V code.