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SCO Fiasco Over For Linux, Starting For Solaris?
Posted by
Zonk
on Sat Aug 11, 2007 03:18 PM
from the wheel-turns-turns-turns dept.
from the wheel-turns-turns-turns dept.
kripkenstein writes "We have just heard that the SCO fiasco is finally going to end for Linux. But Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols at DesktopLinux.com points out that the favorable result for Linux may cause unpleasant consequences for rival open-source operating system OpenSolaris: 'At one time, Sun was an SCO supporter ... Sun's Jonathan Schwartz — then Sun VP of software and today Sun's president and CEO — said in 2003 that Sun had bought "rights equivalent to ownership" to Unix. SCO agreed. In 2005, SCO CEO Darl McBride said that SCO had no problem with Sun open-sourcing Unix code in what would become OpenSolaris. "We have seen what Sun plans to do with OpenSolaris and we have no problem with it," McBride said. "What they're doing protects our Unix intellectual property rights." Sun now has a little problem, which might become a giant one: SCO never had any Unix IP to sell. Therefore, it seems likely that Solaris and OpenSolaris contains Novell's Unix IP.'"
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An anonymous reader writes "The one summary judgement that puts a stick into SCO's spokes has just come down. The judge in the epic SCO case has ruled that SCO doesn't own the Unix copyrights. With that one decision, a whole bunch of other decisions will fall like dominoes. As PJ says, 'That's Aaaaall, Folks! ... All right, all you Doubting Thomases. I double dog dare you to complain about the US court system now. I told you if you would just be patient, I had confidence in the system's ability to sort this out in the end. But we must say thank you to Novell and especially to its legal team for the incredible work they have done. I know it's not technically over and there will be more to slog through, but they won what matters most, and it's been a plum pleasin' pleasure watching you work. The entire FOSS community thanks you for your skill and all the hard work and thanks go to Novell for being willing to see this through."
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You're not getting off *that* easy. (Score:5, Funny)
McBride: "...we have no problem with it..." (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:McBride: "...we have no problem with it..." (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not really about the FUD, though. The real question is whether Novell will sue Sun or not for misappropriating their intellectual property by open sourcing OpenSolaris. My guess is probably not. I don't think Novell has anything to gain from it. They aren't making money off UNIX, really. They seem to have bet the farm on Linux and were willing to defend it against companies trying to bury it (because their livelihood depends on it), but I'm not convinced they'd stoop so low as to pull a SCO themselves and try to sue away the competition. That's just not how responsible businesses operate.
Besides, Novell isn't really making money off of Linux, either. They're making money off their higher level bits---bits that run on both Linux and Solaris. Thus, suing Sun would actually be hurting Novell. That would be pretty silly.
Of course, I'd love to see Novell drive a stake through SCO by releasing the UNIX copyrights into the public domain, but I don't see it happening. Would be fun to watch, though.
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Re:The enemy of my enemy is my friend? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Troll Article (Score:5, Informative)
Linux and Solaris come from different code bases. Linux is Linux and Solaris is UNIX System V R4.
Secondly, Sun didn't "license unix" from SCO. Sun bought some device drivers.
There, settled.
Jesus Fucking Christ! (Score:5, Insightful)
The issue in question *SHOULDN'T* be Sun but Microsoft who purchasing IP rights to UNIX for their Services for UNIX. Sun already bought them 20 years ago. The issue at play are sales of IP by SCO to third parties.
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Re:Troll Article (Score:5, Interesting)
You do not remember correctly. Sun most definitely got an SV license at least as far back as SunOS 3.2, which picked up a large chunk of System V code (yes, even before SunOS 4.0). I don't remember what UNIX license they had earlier, but even in 3.0 there was, as I remember, some SV code (I think the SunOS 3.0 Bourne shell was an SVR2 Bourne shell tweaked to be more V7/BSD-compatible and the SunOS 3.0 Berkmail was SVR2 mailx - itself based on Berkmail - tweaked similarly).
The SVR4 project whence SunOS 5.x came was an AT&T/Sun joint project, and Sun hardly would have wanted to avoid getting an SVR4 license. It was most definitely based on AT&T code - although a lot of the "AT&T code" in SVR4 was, in turn, based on Sun code (e.g., SVR4's VM system was derived from SunOS 4.x's).
(Oh, and Solaris 1 was based on SunOS 4.1[.x]; Solaris 2 was the name for the Solaris that used the SVR4-based SunOS 5.x, and, until SunOS 5.7, Solaris 2.x had SunOS 5.x as its core OS - eventually, I guess Sun decided that "Solaris 3" in the sense of a complete rewrite with the OS becoming "SunOS 6.0" wasn't going to happen any time soon, so they got rid of the no-longer-very-interesting "2." and just went to "Solaris 7", followed by Solaris 8, 9, and 10.
In addition, the license purchase didn't have anything to do with the "start of a stable Solaris" - that was, from everything I know, the result of a lot of people at Sun doing a lot of work on the OS to beat it into shape.)
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Microsoft also has a problem ... (Score:5, Informative)
Two, actually.
Remember, they also bought a license. I wonder what Novell IP made it into Microsoft products, and if that wasn't the REAL reason Microsoft wanted a deal with Novell - not because of Microsoft IP in linux, but Novell IP in Windows?
Plus, if Novell and/or IBM and/or Red Hat manage to piece the "corporate veil" surrounding the PIPE invenstment, there's another problem, which will be much worse for the convicted monopolist.
certainly not. (Score:5, Insightful)
However, Sun bargained with the authorized agent. It was not Sun's job to make sure Darl was fufilling his contractual obligations.
Novell has asked for the money from this and the MS deal. THis means they are not trying to kill it.
Microsofts legal sockpuppet? (Score:5, Informative)
It's possible that Novell could act as Microsofts legal sockpuppet, but as we have seen, those who act as Microsoft proxies are doomed to failure.
Agency (Score:4, Insightful)
More trouble for SCO, actually (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course, I believe that Sun and Microsoft really didn't buy anything, they were just funneling money to SCO.
Re:Let me be the first to say... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Let me be the first to say... (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Let me be the first to say... (Score:5, Interesting)
I need Open Source. I make my living with Linux. I need Linux to be strong and healthy. I need Apache and PHP. I need Bluefish, Kate and Quanta Plus. I contribute financially to a couple of products, although I don't have much to give. I learned how to do what I do by following Open Source documentation, asking questions on web forums, and mostly by downloading and installing the software to learn to use it for free. I never could have afforded to buy Windows Server 2003 with IIS as ASP just to learn, but it took me one evening to install and start learning debian, apache, mysql and php, and now I make my living with those tools. Do you understand how liberating that is? I was a sand-pounding infantryman for god's sake, and now a year later I am a skilled worker in the IT industry, thanks to Open Source.
If different members of the development community (and Sun is and continues to be a huge member of that community) perpetually sue each other, it hurts the Open Source reputation (which equals fewer customers and fewer developers) and it prevents them from working together toward the common goal of a better set of software for everybody.
The prospect of that is horrifies me.
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Re:Let me be the first to say... (Score:5, Informative)
So what if they have done bad things in the past? Right now, they support open source. As long as they keep supporting open source, I will support them.
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Re:Let me be the first to say... (Score:4, Informative)
Secondly, Novell would have a really hard fucking time suing Sun over Unix because Sun didn't buy their license to unix from SCO. They bought it from AT&T way back. What they bought from SCO several years ago was licenses for additional drivers. Which wouldn't be under the rights Novell purchased from AT&T when they bought Unix.
Sun has built more core technologies and released more code open source than almost any other organization. You are disingenius with you claims of bad mouthing. The most recent spat comes from Linux people shitting on Sun and Sun responding. Eg. systrace and Andrew Morton's claims that Sun is fracturing the non-windows market. Hey Andrew here's a clue for you, Sun was shipping a non-windows product before Linus ever started work in Linux. If you can grasp that little fact it would make a lot more sense for you to say Linux is fragmenting the non-Windows market.
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Re:Let me be the first to say... (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Let me be the first to say... (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Let me be the first to say... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Let me be the first to say... (Score:5, Insightful)
Mono will still allow some programs written for
GCJ provides a compiler for Java that goes to native machine code rather than bytecode. Open-source Java doesn't do this; this project too is not meaningless. (Though there was, I'm sure, a good bit of duplicated effort.)
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Not so fast! (Score:5, Insightful)
Somehow, I don't see Sun and its top-notch legal team making a mistake on this matter. This isn't the sort of scenario that would have been overlooked.
- John
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Re:Just one question.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Making an interoperability deal - even if it includes "patent protection" and money changing hands - does not seem to me to indicate any sort of "control".
Last I heard, despite Novell's profitability problems with the Linux side of the business, Novell is still relatively cash rich and entirely a viable company at this point. They're not SCO, dying on the vine and desperately looking for a way out. They might be that way in another five years if they can't get Linux moving fast enough, but they're not there yet.
And obviously it would be ridiculous for Novell to "inhibit Linux growth" since they're betting the farm on Linux - unless you're one of the conspiracy theorists like Bruce Perens who think Novell only made the deal to tempt Microsoft into buying them out. I call tin-foil hat conspiracy theory on that notion.
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Re:well, now that we know (Score:5, Informative)
These were:
1. Linux does not include any unix code.
2. SCO does not own the copyright to unix code.
3. SCO themselves published a linux kernel under the terms of the GPL, and hence granted permission for any SCO owned code it might contain.
The court judgement yesterday established point 2, and therefore linux wins.
In a court case taken by Novel, point 1 would still apply, and point 3 would apply as well in that Novel have also published a linux kernel under the terms of the GPL. Either of those two points would be sufficient for Linux to win.
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Re:well, now that we know (Score:5, Insightful)
Any (if any) UNIX code that is in Linux is effectively Free software now. If Novell owns it, and they've been distributing it under GPL, it's Free. They can't sue anyone. Linux vendors are completely and utterly safe now.
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