SCO and the LINUX/GNU World

[THCi]

Am I the only one who is getting really annoyed at hearing the BS that SCO is spouting?

That cannot be! There must be atleast another person on these forums that doesnt care, or would rather see SCO collectivly sued byt the whole of the GNU/Linux community, for damages.

RedHat, alone, has a greater turnover than SCO, so if push comes to shove (and it already has...) RedHat can hire better lawerys(sp?) than SCO, but SCO will be more willing to go into debt for this, as if they win in any case that makes the GPL invalid, they can continue charging Lincence fees from Linux users, and legitamately from then on...


So, am I the only one that wishes SCO would "STFU n00b"?

[directhex]

it pisses ME off, and i don't even like linux. they don't have a case, on fifteen different levels. the case is a sham, an attempt to get money any way they can since their only business relies on selling licenses to a fifteen year old OS nobody wants or needs.

--jo

[THCi]

Originally posted by directhex
fifteen year old OS nobody wants or needs.

Untrue, SCO does pretty well out of its "15 year old OS"... and if it was 15 years old, how would it run on 32bit platforms, and different servers?

[Joel]

SCO UNIX was and probably still is a pretty decent OS, but basically linux and solaris/HP-UX are strangling it, and SCO need money, it doesnt help with M$ shoving them a sheadload of money evey now and then. They are gonna loose money because ibm are not shipping servers with sco unix anymore and preferrring to go with AIX, so basically their cash flow has been reduced, i think really SCO want to be bough out by Big Blue... but they wont, so they are trying to squeeze as much cash out of everyone as they can, i mean whats the point, if a judge rules in favor of SCO, within hours there will be kernel patches that remove any sco code, if there is any to start with, and replace it with new open source code

[THCi]

More likely, the removal of (possible) SCO code will happen BEFORE a judge/jury even starts to swings its way to SCO's favor...

But, if a judge/jury rule in favor, the GNU/Linux code monkies might as well not bother. As, the GPL will be totally invalid, if not in dangerous questioning! Which will make all distrubution of GPL'ed products in serious legal questioning. It might even invalidate it totally. What would happen then?

Would GNU/Linux development still continue, of course it will, but will companies trust it anymore? As they will have to pay SCO dangerous chunks of money, especially if they have been using Linux for a long time. That would break the backs of many small operators, who chose Linux in the first place for its realativly free operation costs.

It makes serious pondering material for people who use Linux, develop it, rely on it for thier uses.

[Agent]

The GPL isnt going to be rendered invalid, dont worry about that.

[directhex]

http://perens.com/Articles/SCOCopiedCode.html

http://news.com.com/2100-1016_3-5065...g=fd_lede1_hed

and an apparent example of copied code, this code being copied from here.

note that
a) SCO spent 2 years distributing their own distro, including the apparent copied code (i.e. the files they claim are trade secrets they gave away for free to anyone, quite happily, for 2 years, under GPL & BSD lisences)
b) many years ago, AT&T tried to sue Berkley because code in Unix and FreeBSD was the same. AT&T shut their faces when categorical proof was given that THEY had in taken code, the other way round, removed comments & pretended it was their own work. SCO now own Unix & all precedent cases from AT&T still apply
c) it's a ten minute job, with the way linux is managed, to show when something was written, by whom, etc. SCO aren't publically saying what's copied, because they know they have no leg to stand on.

and the 15-year-old operating system IS defunt. their business is lisencing it to people so they can officially support it - AIX, HP-UX, Irix, Solaris, all OS's based on Unix but so far ahead it boggles the mind.

--jo

[joshwa]

SCO's behaviour is just unbelievable!

it's like me claiming i invented the secret recipe for coke (or part of it, because I can make fizzy water or something) and asking every coke seller / drinker for £1 per can. (or something similar anyway!)

[THCi]

Wether the OS is defunct, or, not, isnt in question here (well, really...).

So, Hex, you are saying (basically) that SCO (well AT&T back in the day) had copied code that was copied from BSD? So, that inother words, you are saying that SCO UnixWare contains Linux code. And, not the other way round?

[THCi]

Originally posted by Agent
The GPL isnt going to be rendered invalid, dont worry about that.

It questions its authenticity though.