SCO Fiasco Over For Linux, Starting For Solaris?

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.'"

McBride: "...we have no problem with it..."

[LinDVD]

Now that the Novell ruling has been handed down, reaffirming that Novell owns the copyrights Caldera Systems claimed and wished to have had, most of McBride's public statements are now worth less than zero. Before the judgment, there was some intangible value in the FUD factor, especially for Microsoft (and maybe SUN Microsystems).

Re:Let me be the first to say...

[an.echte.trilingue]

Not to mention OpenOffice, Java, etc. Sun has brought a lot of good stuff into the Open Source world lately. I personally would hate to see them get spanked.

Not so fast!

[Anonymous Coward]

Not so fast! Solaris' roots go back to before UnixWare. UnixWare wasn't released until 1992. The SVR4 code that went into Solaris split off before then, according to the UNIX History Timeline [levenez.com]. The sale of UnixWare to Novell took place later. And don't forget that a lot of the Solaris code was supposedly taken from BSD-based SunOS, plus there's no doubt that a lot of it was also written by Sun or for Sun.

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

There's a huge difference

[Anonymous Coward]

If Sun has to deal with Novell, it's not the same as anybody having to deal with SCO. SCO didn't care if it existed or not at the end of its legal battle with the rest of the world. Their strategy was all about monetizing their precious IP. Sun and Novell, on the other hand, think of themselves as ongoing businesses. They have no desire to run up huge legal bills. If there is an issue between them, they will negotiate like adults, money will change hands and everyone will go about their business.

Bottom line: Novell isn't going to sue Sun.

Re:Troll Article

[kripkenstein]

Linux and Solaris come from different code bases. Linux is Linux and Solaris is UNIX System V R4.

TFA didn't say otherwise, perhaps you miss the point here.

The point is that Solaris is Unix (not Linux), and it just turned out in court that Novell own Unix. Coincidentally, Novell also happen to own a Linux distro. So, in theory, they might want to assert their rights on Unix to prevent Unixes (Solaris) from competing with Linux (and therefore with Novell's Linux, SUSE).

But, this is just theory. For all we know, Sun has had a license from Novell for years to use whatever portions of Unix code are in Solaris. Or perhaps there is no such code in Solaris at present. We just don't know, DesktopLinux.com was just speculating I guess.

Re:Let me be the first to say...

[EvanED]

so they give traction to _now_ meaningless projects like Mono, classpath, gcj, kaffe, ...

Mono will still allow some programs written for .NET to run on other platforms, or a free platform on Windows. That's not meaningless. It will also allow people to choose the .NET languages, like C#; that too is not meaningless. (I happen to think that the C# language is notably more fun and better to program in than Java, but that's just my opinion.)

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.)

certainly not.

[Anonymous Coward]

True, SCO had no "IP" (as Darl would like to put it, frequently) to sell. However, they were Novell's authorized agent for handling licensing for UNIX. The deal was that ALL money from such deals would go to Novell, and a 5% administrative fee would be remitted back to SCO. Furthermore, SCO had no authority to initiate new deals with SYSV without Novell's authorization.

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.

Jesus Fucking Christ!

[kaiwai]

Sun *NEVER* bought their rights off SCO - they bought drivers. Sun bought their rights off who ever owned SVR4 20+ years ago - IIRC Novell who bought UNIX Labs. Sun bought the most extensive rights to the code one could possibly have.

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.

Re:Does anybody run OpenSolaris on non-Sun hardwar

[GPL Apostate]

Open-sourcing Solaris seems more of an end-of-life abandonware move than a product line.

That's the classic FUD statement that has been made with regard to many other formerly 'closed' projects which went Open Source. Several previous examples:

Mozilla (Netscape)
Open Office (Star Office)

Just because you think such a FUD campaign may now 'benefit the community' (whatever that happens to mean at any moment) doesn't make it less of a dirty FUD campaign than it has been in the past.

Agency

[John Hasler]

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.

SCO was Novell's agent in the sale of SysV licenses and it is likely that they were Novell's "ostensible agent" in the sale of this license to Sun. If so the license will stand even if they exceeded their authority in in selling it. Their failure to remit the receipts to Novell is entirely between Novell and SCO and has no effect on the validity of the license.

Re:The enemy of my enemy is my friend?

[TheRaven64]

The management of Sun Microsystems believed that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". So, Sun proceeded to ally with SCO and put the screws to the entire Linux community.

Definitely. They were in it to kill Linux. The fact that they had an operating system that was based on the original UNIX code that they were planning on releasing as open source, and have spent the last few years auditing and systematically buying up any IP rights that they need for this process is completely irrelevant.

Did anyone get their OpenSolaris DVD?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Does anybody actually run OpenSolaris in production on non-Sun hardware? "

I'd run it if they sent me the DVD I requested.

Re:Misappropriating *what*?!?!?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Sun already had rights to SysV and has for a couple of decades. It includes restrictions that do not allow them to open up SvsV code, only their own. I particularly liked the way you added the final "Obviously", which makes it easier to tell you have no clue what you are talking about.

Please go back to digg.com and stay the fuck off of slashdot. Thank you.

Re:well, now that we know

[benanzo]

At this point, it doesn't matter if there's any UNIX code in Linux. The _whole_ thing could be UNIX and Novell (or anyone else) still couldn't sue any Linux vendor for IP violations. The reason is because Novell (the legal owner of the UNIX copyrights) has been *actively* distributing _all_the_code_ (whether UNIX or Linux) under GPL as part of SLED/SLES for at least a few years now. You can't put code under GPL and then forbid your competitors (Red Hat, Ubuntu,etc) from Freely modifying and redistributing.

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.

Re:Let me be the first to say...

[watchingeyes]

To add onto that, Mac OS X Leopard has been certified as a Unix operating system, despite being based on BSD and their own (open source) kernel and (closed source) interface, none of which came from Unix.

http://www.macnn.com/articles/07/08/02/leopard.uni x.certified/ [macnn.com]

Re:Microsoft also has a problem ...

[tomhudson]

"which SCO did have the authority to license to third parties (though SCO failed to actually give Novell their chunk of the pie -- but that isn't Microsoft's problem)."

If Novell can prove that Microsoft doesn't have "clean hands", it becomes a problem for Microsoft, not just SCO. The timing of the PIPE deal as well as the license is suspicious, to say the least. I'm left wondering if there's a sudden shortage of paper shredders in the SCO area this weekend ...