SCO Threatens to Press IP Claims on Linux -$99/cpu 530
Tangential writes "New story on LinuxBusiness week says SCO is about to mount an effort to get all Linux sites to pay a per cpu license for so-called patent violations."SCO has been proposing to charge users $96 per CPU for a so-called one-time System 5 for Linux software license to protect their systems from SCO-enforced patent issues if they ante up as soon as demand is made." They've retained David Boies (DOJ prosecutor of Microsoft) to handle the legal issues." Note: I've been unable to substantiate this - which are fairly incendiary claims. Further updates as more is heard.
My date my be set wrong.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:My date m(a)y be set wrong.. (Score:2)
I think most people realized this, but just in case.
New Rumor/ Conspiracy Theory (Score:3, Interesting)
We all know the historic MS/SCO link over Xenix. It would be great ploy by a sinking SCO ship to succesfully execute a patent claim over Linux implementations - so as to position themselves as an MS aquisition target.
This is no more inconceivable than the recent, successful coup against Constitutional rule in the United States...
Re:My date my be set wrong.. (Score:5, Funny)
This should read:
"They've retrained David Boies (DOJ prosecutor of Microsoft) to handle the legal issues."
Only in the US!
of course (Score:2, Interesting)
One of the main reasons I use linux is the free beer aspect.
Re:of course (Score:2, Informative)
I think that one reason we like linux so much is that it'll run of computers costing less than $0.96!
Re:of course (Score:3, Funny)
Re:of course (Score:3, Funny)
Re:of course (Score:2)
New SCO Publication... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:New SCO Publication... (Score:2)
Is it possible that they have learned from their parent? Or (no I am not a conspiracy type usually) that Microsoft called on them to help? It would be to the benefit of both companies for Linux to be gone. Then they could get back to charging way too much for way too little.
This would be a 180 to previous behavior (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, isn't SCO still owned by Caldera, and SCO in name only?
Re:This would be a 180 to previous behavior (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, SCO used to be the leading x86 UNIX vendor and yeah, they USED to be extremely arrogant towards Linux, calling it a toy OS, etc. But I think they got pretty scared when all their ISVs started moving their software to Linux. (NOTE: I'm talking ISVs who used to target SCO systems.)
So like, what else can they do? They're dead without the applications. Making their OS run Linux apps might be their only way out. Run the Linux apps and sell on the "flexible" licensing and superior clustering (Compaq NonStop clusters.. which is being ported to Linux. Running on Unixware, it was the worst piece of shit I've ever seen though I've no idea whose fault that was)
Re:This would be a 180 to previous behavior (Score:4, Interesting)
I mean, try changing the IP, or Time Zone in SCO.....then reboot to make it stick. What is this, Win9x?
Fact is, SCO should be going the way of the dinosaur. I'd rather run linux and all it's shortcomings than SCO on my servers. Get 1 distro, stick with it, and you are usually gonna be alright.
I support a few 100 sco boxes, and I hate having to reboot the system because of this, or that. The linux boxes are sound with no trouble at all.
Re:This would be a 180 to previous behavior (Score:5, Interesting)
Or they have hired a jerk as IP counsel. There are law firms that will mindlessly extract value from an IP portfolio on your behalf for a cut of the profits.
There are two issues that would appear relevant here. First is whether there might be a question of detrimental reliance. Having failled to enforce the rights now asserted for so long have the rights become unenforceable? While patents are not like trademarks and lack of enforcement does not necessarily lead to loss, there are circumstances where it can.
The more interesting issue is the question of which of the SCO patents have expired and which are enforceable in the first place. There is very little in UNIX that is innovative. Most of the design is simply a stripped down version on MULTICS. While simplifying a system is often the key to commercial success it does not win any patents.
Furthermore Linux and BSD are derrived from the original UNIX of 20, 25 years ago rather than the reworked System 5 version. The system 5 release was the first time AT&T applied singificant development resources to UNIX, up until then they had simply been content to sit and collect their royalty checks.
The problem for the Linux community is that defending a patent suit, even a completely frivolous one will cost in the region of $2 million.
Finaly, we can do without the knee jerk anti-Microsoft reaction to every Linux story. Microsoft has played the patent game defensively.
Re:This would be a 180 to previous behavior (Score:5, Interesting)
Now granted they can claim infringement on anything but it's another thing alltogether to distribute infinging work then claim it's infringing. I shouldent be able to pattent something release it for free under a liscence then go and sue for infringement as I did give out that code.
Re:Random Love still leads the company?? (Score:2, Funny)
Better Idea (Score:3, Interesting)
Doesn't the use it or loose it rule apply anyhow, Linux has been out for ages, the source codes there for anyone to look at. SCO should have cried wolf a long time ago, they have no excuse.
Re:Better Idea (Score:3, Informative)
"Use it or lose it" only officially applies to trademarks.
Re:Better Idea (Score:3, Informative)
Three words and an url
unisys gif patent
http://www.google.com
Combine in a sensible way, and you see you might be wrong.
Re:Better Idea (Score:3, Informative)
This is the "submarine patent" issue. Unknown patents that exist and have not been enforced, but are still valid.
[1]Patents laws in other countries may be different.
Re:Better Idea (Score:2)
"Ransom" Love, indeed (Score:5, Funny)
"Ransom" Love, indeed
Re:"Ransom" Love, indeed (Score:5, Funny)
Would patent still be applicable ? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Would patent still be applicable ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't use a trademark or object to an infringing use that you knew of and you might lose it.
This is not true for patents.
What he's thinking of (Score:3, Insightful)
Duh! (Score:5, Informative)
Linux is a "Unix-like" operating system. Anyone who has ever done system programming for a Linux system could tell you that although it is close to the SVR4 conventions (such as in the acclaimed O'Reilly 'lion' book) it disobeys many of them because it's not quite System 5 compliant.
Is this really happening or is it early in the morning and I'm a sucker to a hoax?
Full text (Score:5, Informative)
---
Informed sources, who would only talk on the guarantee of anonymity, say SCO has been proposing to charge users $96 per CPU for a so-called one-time System 5 for Linux software license to protect their systems from SCO-enforced patent issues if they ante up as soon as demand is made. The fee would go up to $149 per CPU if SCO had to wait through a so-called 99-day "amnesty period" for its money. Users of SCO Linux would get a free System 5 license. They would also have the free right to run SCO Unix apps on Linux.
Sources say the scheme, which pretty much sounds like a protection racket - we won't sue if you pay - isn't engraved in stone but an undated weeks-old draft SCO press release that details the plan and was read to us has been quietly making the rounds. At press time, we got word that a major player, believed to be IBM, thought it had dissuaded SCO from going through with the idea.
A usually reliable source swears a SCO executive told him that SCO has hired the redoubtable David Boies, who prosecuted the Microsoft antitrust case for the Justice Department, to press infringement claims not against users but against the other Linux distributions. Presumably this means Red Hat, Sun Microsystems, and maybe even SCO's United Linux partners SuSE, TurboLinux, and Conectiva.
It is unclear whether SCO envisioned the free System 5 license it's been proposing to bundle with SCO Linux extending to its United Linux partners or simply saw it as a SCO differentiator.
SCO would base any claims it makes on the Unix patents and copyrights that it acquired when it took over the Santa Cruz Operation. Its press release claims it "owns much of the core Unix IP" and that it has the right to enforce it.
The Santa Cruz Operation of course bought Unix from Novell, which in turn got it from AT&T. Unix was written at Bell Labs when Bell Labs was still part of the phone company. It is unclear whether the alleged IP is unassailable and that valid patents or copyrights actually exist or that the Unix libraries are actually in Linux. Reportedly there has been a lot of patent research going on in the Linux community lately and there are supposedly serious doubts SCO has much of anything.
SCO CEO Darl McBride was in England or en route home and did not return calls. Other SCO execs declined to comment; neither would Red Hat, SuSE nor major ISVs also familiar with the situation.
SCO's director of marketing communications Blake Stowell finally found a phone and confirmed that SCO was talking to Boies, described in the press release as SCO's "IP advisor," about how best to monetize its IP, but denied that it had retained him yet or that its plans were fixed.
Stowell also denied that SCO would target other Linux distributions, basically suggesting that it would be suicide for SCO to do such a thing. "Microsoft would love to see that happen," he said. Instead Stowell suggested that SCO would take out after other unidentified operating systems that drive something from Unix and hinted that that might mean Microsoft itself since Boies was involved.
Potential SCO targets said patent demands and encumbrances are explicitly outlawed by the GPL, the touchstone of the open source/Linux movement, and any move by SCO against the Linux distributions would make SCO a pariah. They claim the protection scheme itself would be the end of SCO. The open source community regards patents with haughty distain. Naturally there are fears that accounts on the Linux threshold will be spooked if SCO, which is playing on known IP concerns, starts making demands.
The situation is fraught with irony considering that open source people have figured it would be cash-rich Microsoft that took out after them brandishing its patent portfolio, not one of their own.
Red Hat CEO Matthew Szulik publicly fretted about his worries that Microsoft will eventually take Linux to court for patent infringement at a Linux gathering only a month ago (CSN No 479).
Red Hat says it is so concerned - despite the fact that it's against patents and signed a petition to the European Union urging the EU not to adopt software patents - that it has "reluctantly" taken the "defensive position" of assembling its own patent portfolio. To mitigate its intellectual inconsistency, it says its patents can be used for free for any GPL work. Licenses, however, would be required for any closed, proprietary use.
SCO, on the other hand, needs the money. Its tiny Linux business is a disaster and there's little doubt that the company, founded by ex-Novell CEO Ray Noorda, would be out on the street by now if it weren't for the Unix operating systems it got from Santa Cruz.
Meanwhile, Boies' track record since the Microsoft case hasn't been anything to write home about. He wasn't able to save either Al Gore or Napster and actually a lot of the tar he managed to dip Microsoft in rubbed off with Microsoft's subsequent appeal and settlement with the DOJ.
Yeah, but... What!? (Score:5, Interesting)
In fact, is there any information other than SCO wanting patent royalties for some undeisclosed software?
It's just you. (Score:2)
#1 You don't show your cards too early if you are planning on taking on the likes of Microsoft.
Attacking Linux distros and users would indeed be suicide. Shops which use it heavily might fork over, but you and I would be hard pressed, further, all those people who have downloaded the sources and built would be like chasing dandelion seeds.
If it is indeed Boies then you know the target is a big one, because you don't hire a gun like him to take on pimps.
"A usually reliable source swears..." (Score:3, Insightful)
"Mark said that Shirly swears (and Shirly never ever lies) she overheard Jenny say she got it on with Mr. Macgee the English teacher!"
Re:"A usually reliable source swears..." (Score:3, Interesting)
'Course, the article does actually talk about the marketting director, who confirms that they are seeing a lawyer about IP assets. So, there's a strong question of truth here. But it still sounds way to much like, "I heard this the other day from this guy, who never lies"
Unmount (Score:2)
Try using the unmount [computerhope.com] command.
Ughh... i hate bad puns :|
$99 or $96 per cpu? (Score:5, Funny)
You can imagine my relief when, reading further, I see that its $96/cpu.
Re:$99 or $96 per cpu? (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, and for sufficently large values of cpu, it works out to be just pennies!
SCO perched on the ledge... (Score:2)
Sounds REAL easy to confirm this one
SCO could not be that self-defeating, could they? So, what they waited around until Linux was firmly rooted in many infastructures, then sue? ie. no money in protecting their property when johnny geek and his 12 friends were the only types that used Linux..
I dunno, there have been equally asinine tech lawsuits in recent times....but this seems way off, IMHO, and somewhat suicidal for SCO
Context? (Score:5, Funny)
Or maybe someone was commenting about a movie he rented last night.
Too Late ! (Score:3, Interesting)
Guess its time to roll up our sleeves and get coding.
Re:Too Late ! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Too Late ! (Score:2, Funny)
Are you really surprised? (Score:5, Interesting)
It has been said time and time again that SCO/Caldera (and to some extent UnitedLinux) would end up bringing the worse part of proprietary systems (like moronic licensing policies) to Linux. Now it's finally here and we can go ahead and stick a fork in what used to be a pretty good company.
Looks like the decision makers at SCO/Caldera have Ransom Love on the brain.
Some people complain about Red Hat's "market dominance". I guess some companies are just content in making decisions that are so stupid, that they're making it easy to dump their product. RH is going to wipe the floor with what's left of SCO. Who in their right mind would pay per processor fees for linux?
Re:Are you really surprised? (Score:3, Insightful)
Patents as deterrence against enforcement (Score:5, Insightful)
IBM has an enormous number of software patents that probably cover every operating system on the market. IBM, unlike SCO, understands that for software companies software patents are like nuclear weapons. They are useful as a deterrent, and useless for anything else.
There's a story, possibly apocryphal, about how a Microsoft lawyer contacted IBM's legal department, informed them that they had a patent that IBM's operating systems infringed upon, and set up a meeting to discuss royalty payments. The IBM legal team supposedly showed up with a pile of hundreds of patents that Windows infringed on, and that was the end of that.
I suspect that this is the nature of the dissuasive force being brought to bear by IBM.
This seems to be a useful side effect of large companies like IBM adopting Linux. They serve as a certain form of protection against this sort of shakedown racket, at least from by actual software companies.
The only companies that are able to enforce software patents with impunity are those companies that don't actually manufacture software, like PANIP [panip.com] This highlights the destructive uselessness of software patents -- they are only capable of benefiting companies that don't produce software, in other words, lawsuit factories like PANIP.
Oh yes, they also benefit the patent office to the tune of millions of dollars a year -- a destructive racket in and of itself.
No use telling people here (Score:3, Insightful)
Software patents have always been a bad idea.
Re:Patents as deterrence against enforcement (Score:5, Interesting)
The IBM legal team supposedly showed up with a pile of hundreds of patents that Windows infringed on, and that was the end of that.
The mechanics of American business are defined by meetings such as this. IBM is standing in the gap for the moment, but I am afraid that Linux's nebulousness will result in its being banned in the U.S., simply because no one will be around to go to the closed door meetings you describe.
We could of course, organize protests, and these might be well attended and done with heroic emphasis, but those of us who understand the very concept of electronic freedom are in a hopeless minority. Most computer users are perfectly happy with Windows, AOL, IE, etc., and are actively hostile to those sufficiently aware of the open source world to be concerned about these issues.
I have a two pronged approach to this problem. On the one hand, I am doing everything I can to evangelize for electronic freedom. If enough Americans understand the sheer tyranny megacorps exert over how we use information, we might be able to change things. I'm not optimistic, however, so plan B is finding another country to live in. I have to say that I've never imagined leaving the United States in search of freedom.
Re:Patents as deterrence against enforcement (Score:4, Interesting)
People like PANIP are the final death throes. The innovators dilemma is destroying the west. We lost the heavy industry, we have to pay farmers to avoid losing farming, we are losing the support businesses, gradually the more efficient nations munch their way up the food chain. Soon all that will be left are the futile attempts to own ideas and lawyers.
That won't last long either. There are a lot of non US companies building huge patent pools. Their staff are cheaper, their lawyers don't charge outrageous fees and they have lots of young and bright staff encouraged to think rather than to conform for fear of liability and lawsuits for being original.
Something to think about as you watch the US drop your tax money out of bombers over the desert
Re:Patents as deterrence against enforcement (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, I agree that we're seeing the beginnings of the American Empire. Asymmetric threats give rise to a local police state and a foreign policy of overt gunboat diplomacy, which is analogous to the rise of the Roman Empire.
The core of the empire will be commercial, exactly like the British Empire was, but where Britain dealt in a monopoly of commodity, the American Empire will be about the monopoly of intellectual property. How far would we have to go from banning Linux due to (imagined) patent infringement to bombing other countries to enforce our patent law?
I'm afraid that history does not support your predictions about the fall of America. I say that with not the slightest pride. I honestly hope you are right. (Though I have more confidence in a resurgent Europe being the world's next major power) I'm personally not at all concerned about power and influence. I want freedom. And because the U.S. is set to create an Empire of Information, we stand to be the greatest threat to freedom the world has ever known. I cannot and will not support that Empire.
Empires built on IP are built on sand (Score:3, Interesting)
US monopolies on "intellectual property" vanish as soon as significant foreign players decide not to go along. The UK was far ahead of the US early in the 19th century. How did the US catch up? By ignoring British patents and copyrights, and smuggling manufacturing equipment out of Britain and cloning it. The Chinese don't even have to bother with that, as US corporations are setting up manufacturing operations in China.
In another few years, the Chinese can just say that they want to negotiate new terms: they'll happily continue to sell the Americans practically everything, as almost every manufactured good consumed by Americans is made there. But they want to pay vastly less to American copyright and patent holders. If there's no deal, they just pay nothing at all: the US could try to forbid Chinese exports, and watch its entire economy collapse, because too many basic necessities are available from nowhere else.
Similarly, Europe is running a big trade surplus against the US: Americans buy much more from Europe than they sell to Europe. This means that American companies need access to European markets far more than vice versa, putting the EU's regulatory authorities in a position of power. The US has evidently abandoned the antitrust concept, but you'll soon see the EU insisting that American companies break up, and winning.
Re:Mod Abuse! (Score:4, Offtopic)
It was an interesting point, but he was trying to be prolific and whether you think he is right on wrong, he isn't necessarily more interesting than the thousands of other wanna-be philisophical posts on slashdot that are making some prolific statement so that some day they can say, "see I told you so."
So you are correct, people shouldn't mod things as overrated as a matter of an emotional reaction, but people shouldn't be lazy with their mod points and think, "Oh Alan Cox, yeah, I'll mod that one up."
To keep this on subject, yes I think that Alan has an interesting point, but one of the things I've noticed about computer programming types (myself included) is that we tend to over-react to things and bring them to an extreme end. This has been more evident to me as I am a computer programmer that just married a computer programmer. She and I think of the worst possible outcome. We have to, by following the different paths that a problem can follow and choosing the worst possible outcome, you can fix the worst problems first.
This gives us, as computer programmers and interesting view of the world. In other words we tend to view the world in a pessamistic view. Alan has every right to say what he said, and I think that he makes some good points about how things are. Perhaps he has just predicted the demise of the U.S., but I'm still not going to call him a prophet or a fortune teller or whatever.
The fact of the matter is that with a machine in a finite set of rules he most likely has an accurate prediction, however man kind is not necessarily a machine. That means that the people of the US may wake up someday and decide that they are stupid for doing what they're doing and correct the situation.
So like I said, it was an interesting point. The whole point of what I'm saying here is that its just a prediction. He feels that he has history to back himself and maybe he's right. But short of calling him God (which I know some people around here do), he has no definitive way to say that he is 100% correct. An interesting point that may or may not be overrated, may or may not have been modded up to +5 because it was Alan Cox.
Re:Patents as deterrence against enforcement (Score:3, Informative)
That's a very different IBM, obviously, but they have a long way to go before they atone for their past behavior.
Strike back! (Score:2)
Sounds like we can still influence the decision. How do we make SCO an example to the world that this is a very bad idea?
Of course, if you live in the EU you still have time to stop software patents altogether. [ffii.org]
Re:Strike back! (Score:5, Funny)
I know! From now on, nobody buy their products!
Oh, wait...
It doesn't matter (Score:2)
Re:It doesn't matter (Score:2)
And by the way, they can take my Debian when they pry it from my cold dead fingers. (insert obligatory Debian "woody" joke here).
Re:It doesn't matter (Score:2)
They are going to have a tough time attacking any non-US based distributions, no? Great, so now they can just shuffle all business for Linux distributions to Europe or Asia. Thanks SCO.
A little background information (Score:3, Informative)
Check out the source [g2news.com] of the article. I'm not quite convinced yet. :)
From the LinuxGram [linuxgram.com] website ( http://www.linuxgram.com/ ):
"Copyright Notice: While we are flattered that some of our readers may want to pass along copies of our stories to customers, clients, associates, friends, family and co-workers, please know that this practice is illegal, violates our intellectual property rights and undermines our efforts to bring you the kind of reporting you've come to expect..
And, so the legalese: It is illegal to reproduce, copy, photocopy, forward, e-mail, publish, broadcast, post on an Internet/Intranet site, rewrite, store in a retrieval system or otherwise distribute this publication or any portion of this publication or any article in whole or in part by any means, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of G2 Computer Intelligence.
Uh-Oh! The Fearsome David Boies! (Score:5, Funny)
Given Boise's track record, we can all sleep well tonight.
I'm Dubious... (Score:5, Insightful)
So send me a bill, SCO (Score:5, Interesting)
And if everybody takes this tact, they'll back off. These cowards from Caldera/SCO have been waiting to do something like this for a long time. I don't trust them and never have.
Of course, they won't sue me, an individual user. They'll sue RedHat, as the story says. They'll sue SuSE. They'll sue Mandrake. Let's see them sue the Debian Project, while they're at it and get the EFF involved.
Until I hear that this is false, I'm boycotting SCO.
Off to look through the debian packages to find ones contributed by Caldera and remove them....
What patents? (Score:5, Informative)
I read this section to mean that if SCO has patents that Linux implements, and 'the community' doesn't already have an unlimited eternal royaltay-free license to use these patents, then the Linux people are right now, regardless of whether SCO tries to pay up or not, legally obligated to remove the implementations of these patents from the Linux code. As far as i'm aware, there have been in the past concentrated efforts to find and remove submarined patents that accidentally wound up in GPLed software, no? What patents of this sort could SCO have?
At any rate one would imagine that SCO would not be so stupid as to demand individual $97 patent licenses from a group of people that (1) is at the moment their core target market (2) has a long-standing tendency to boycott people who do things like demand money for submarine patents (3) would probably not even pay the $97 fees, as they also have a long-standing tendency to not mind stealing from anyone they believe to be screwing them over. (I call (3) "civil disobedience", personally, but that's probably just spin on my part.)
And SCO would have to demand this money from individual users-- it would be impossible for SCO to demand it from vendors, becuase were SCO to start demanding licensing fees from anyone at all regarding patents of theirs inside the Linux kernel (which i assume is where these patent violations would have taken place), all existing linux vendors, including SCO, would be under GPL section 7 immediately legally unable to distribute Linux to anyone at all! (Not permanently, of course, as i find it highly unlikely any defendable SCO patent, once discovered in the linux kernel, would remain there any longer than a span of hours.)
Either way, assuming that SCO is in fact this stupid, and assuming that SCO actually does own patents that the linux kernel violates but that no one in the free software community has ever noticed, i think i'll wait until i read this on SCO.COM to pay any attention to it whatsoever.
section 7 doesn't fly (Score:5, Insightful)
But the GPL requires not only the freedom to redistribute, but to distribute arbitrary derived works. So really, the above should read "... would not permit royalty-free distribution of arbitrary derived works". But this is clearly nonsense: If I added one-click shopping to GNU ls, I would not have a license to distribute the result. So by section 7, nobody can distribute GNU ls under the GPL.
There are many other scenarios in which the claims of section 7 are rendered absurd. Consider the impact on those outside of the jurisdiction in which the patent applies; the hypothetical rogue nation that outlaws GPLed software; the employee whose contract prohibits him from contributing to certain free software projects. The requirement that "all those who receive copies directly or indirectly" be able to exercise their GPL rights is ludicrously onerous.
Regarding the parent's main point: I certainly believe that SCO itself is prohibited from distributing GPLed software on which it has patents, unless they also give everyone a free, perpetual license to the patent for GPLed software. Otherwise, they would not really be giving others the freedoms that they say (via the GPL) they are giving. Since they have distributed Linux, that alone is enough to thwart the rumored patent attack.
Re:section 7 doesn't fly (Score:5, Insightful)
While the GPL in general requires that the code can be arbitrarily modified, that's not the language of this particular clause. You're reading something in that just isn't there. This clause simply says "royalty free".
The rogue nation idea is hypothetical, and certainly you'd never get a court in a non-rogue nation to take the rogue nation's law into account.
If the employee can't contribute to the project, that's fine, he can still redistribute. That satisfies section 7.
It seems to me you've constructed a straw man that doesn't accurately reflect what the GPL says.
Re:What patents? (Score:3, Insightful)
Pay for defence (Score:2)
I'm sure there's a logic in there somewhere.
Bazman
hmmm (Score:2)
"Just say no to SCO..."
Doesn't affect me in the slightest anymore, I've happily switched to FreeBSD - 3d support, Linux emulation, and less GNU-hippy-ism :)
smash.
BSD? (Score:5, Interesting)
The Berkeley system distribution (BSD) evolved out of AT&T UNIX. When push came to shove, the courts ruled against AT&T - the IP rights for BSD rest with the University of California. I can't imagine any IP in the original Unix that doesn't have a counterpart in the Berkeley codebase.. and the BSD license grants everyone the rights to use that IP.
Furthermore, Microsoft would likely be a large offender of any patents. NT has a POSIX subsystem. Pretty much all of the Unix concepts (processes, pipes, files, yada yada) are present in Win32, heck, in any OS. If SCO really wanted to milk money out of this, I'd be astonished if their first move wasn't to buzz around Microsoft and catch a large cash settlement. Or attempt to be purchased.
My bullshit meter is blowing chunks.
Estimate (Score:2)
Easy one. According to counter.li.org [li.org] there are 18 million users. SuSE [suse.com]gives us " more than 15 million private and professional Linux users around the globe".
If we consider 15 million users, we have $99 x 15M = $1.485.000.000 (one billion and a half).
Re:Estimate (Score:2)
Attention SCO: (Score:2)
--K.
Score 1 for Microsoft! (Score:2)
BTW: Good luck inforcing that!!
It isn't like Linux distributions come with built in "spy-ware" like Windows does
Way to be a kill-joy SCO/Caldera
Gotta love her bio (Score:2)
Maureen O'Gara, Editor (Long Island, NY) ogara@g2news.com
[snip]Since launching Unigram.X in the US, she has stalked the aisles of Uniforum with a vengeance, leaving a trail of shaking, sweating VPs of many a UNIX supplier.
Now she haunts the corridors of the Microsoft powerbase and gives Client Server NEWS 2000 some of its sharp edge. Famous for her confrontational style in press conferences she is single-handedly the reason why most companies in the sector have abandoned having press conferences. Maureen doesn't just get stories but she gets to the heart of stories , primarily on Client Server NEWS 2000, but also on Online Reporter.
Who knows why more journalists don't ask questions like her? But we're glad she's on our side.
Sounds like the girl in Ferris Bueller's Day off....
"Linux? Linux? Linux?"
"Umm, Linux's sick. My best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with the girl who saw Linux Violate SCO patent issues out at Thirty-One Flavors last night. I guess it's pretty serious."
Duh? (Score:3, Interesting)
It smells funny indeed.
Re:"And replace" (Score:3, Insightful)
I sincerely hope this is not true (Score:5, Interesting)
This actually reminds me of the time (1987) IBM launched their MCA bus based PS/2 line. IBM then reportedly demanded a 'per system ever produced' fee from clone makers wanting to license the MCA technology in order to make clones/compatibles. Unsurprisingly, a few months later we had the EISA bus, a few years on the MCA bus is extinct and the world runs on PCI. Strategic blunders like these have killed off large corporations in the past.
Then again, if the real target is a certain software marketing outfit a bit further north on the US west coast, the process might reveal a few more skeletons in various corporate closets. That might of course turn interesting if you're into that sort of thing.
Linux Business Week Runs On IIS & Access?? (Score:3, Funny)
[MERANT][SequeLink JDBC Driver][ODBCSocket][Microsoft][ODBC Microsoft Access Driver]
Could not update; currently locked by user 'admin' on machine 'WEBSERVER'.
The error occurred in
E:\Inetpub\wwwroot\linux\articlenews.cfm: line 200
198 :
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SQL
update linuxArticles SET hits = '616' where ID = 381
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-1102
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Looks like access lasted longer than some sites with mysql db's there were 80 comments before i got this error. I have seen mysql go down stop accepting requests in under 50 comments.
Wang33
Redhat Patents (Score:3, Interesting)
Now, I have no doubt that Redhat is doing this for the good of the Linux community but Redhat is a publicly traded company, is it not? All it would take is a corporate takeover/merger and all those good intentions could be out the window.
It would be wise to keep GNU/Linux patent free, even if the patent is owned by Redhat.
Re:Redhat Patents (Score:3, Informative)
The only reason that acquiring patents is useful to RedHat is for defensive purposes.
Is it just me?? (Score:2)
-Restil
O'Gara strikes again (Score:4, Interesting)
setuid is patented; anything similar? (Score:5, Interesting)
This patent was never enforced, and should have expired by now. Hypothetically, there could be some other similar intellectual propery "landmines" in the very specification of Unix-like systems.
Just FYI; the story sounds like FUD to me.
Re:setuid is patented; anything similar? (Score:5, Interesting)
There is the issue of how thouse rights were transferred. As far as I know, no part of AT&T gave up any rights to any of it patents when they were split up. What they gave up was rights to some markets. I suspect tring to get SBC to pay for a license to use an old AT&T patent would be pointless.
There is also the issue that Sun owns all the rights to all of Unix as well. When things started going bad for SCO (or was it novel or whoever), they bought a non-exclusive right to everything. Since they helped develop System V, they are in a very good position to keep themselves covered in this case.
Of course the all new code could be written released under a new license. One that specificly excludes all rights to use the software from any company that has ever brought a patent suit aginst anyone. That would be an interesting twist. The concept goes aginst free software in a bad way but its the only big stick free software has left and it will be needed if the dmca line nonsense keeps going on.
Re:setuid is patented; anything similar? (Score:5, Informative)
Patents expired? (Score:3, Interesting)
Copyright lasts much longer, too long at 95 years past the death of the original author. But that is already being litegated at the US Supreme Court.
If there is anything substantive about this, I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft was sitting in the SCO boardroom within hours with a nice check for a billion dollars.
And who gets to count the cpus? (Score:5, Interesting)
I've got a couple of PCs at home that mostly run Win98, but sometimes run Linux, and some at work too. OK, so maybe the Business Software Alliance could come around demanding to see what I'm running at home, but they won't get within 100yards of where I work. Secure underground bunkers with multiple card-access locks on the grounds of an airport. I must admit it would be kind of funny to watch the Pinkerton rent-a-cops call out Homeland Security to detain the BSA goons...
Count the downloads, maybe? Nope, that won't work either. I've downloaded some distros I've never used, and I've seen burned copies of downloads passed around and copied by multiple people.
So, again, who counts how many cpus any given person is running Linux on? My boxes at home are behind a firewall doing NAT and hiding all the usual ports, so good luck fingerprinting that...
Re:And who gets to count the cpus? (Score:5, Insightful)
Was I the only one who read THIS part? (Score:5, Informative)
He says it himself that he knows it would be suicide, and hints that it might actually be Microsoft who is the target.
I guess it is time to pay-up . . . (Score:3, Interesting)
Putting on my TFH (Score:4, Insightful)
Hmmm... that's real reliable.
Let's assume for the sake of discussion that they're really doing this. Why? They don't have the muscle to pursue *all* the violators. And if they did, there would be serious impact to infrastructure. Aren't there one or two or more "CPUs" critical to the internet running GNU/Linux?
So, we also have to assume that SCO doesn't care about the potential impact to the community (not the "Linux community"; the community). And we also have to assume that they don't care about the logistical nightmare of effectively enforcing their alleged patent.
Maybe they're hoping some big organization that has an ideological problem with Linux will buy SCO (and the alleged patent), and enforce it?
If we assume all that, then we can conclude that SCO is ready to throw in the towel. What has happened when the sort of company that might buy this alleged patent for the purposes above actually does so? You can reasonably expect that company act like a wolverine that's found a cache of food.
C'est la guerre.
The fire is here, but where is the smoke? (Score:5, Interesting)
Besides, the story itself, is full of foggy statements. Many already referred the strange chain of anonymous sources that broke things to the newsrooms. But there are many other foggy moments.
First is the price tags - 96, 99, 149 per cpu. For anyone who knows how Linux is deployed, one can really wonder how they could be planning for such BS.
Then we read: Users of SCO Linux would get a free System 5 license. They would also have the free right to run SCO Unix apps on Linux. So... Are we talking about Linux or SCO Linux?
Then, we have this weird statement on pressing charges: Presumably this means Red Hat, Sun Microsystems, and maybe even SCO's United Linux partners SuSE, TurboLinux, and Conectiva. If I'm not mistaken, TurboLinux is a Japanese comapny, SuSE is from Germany and Conectiva is from Brasil. Well, patent systems behave differentially in different countries. So, the best that SCO could have done was to commit harakiri as its partners would probably broke the alliance and it would force Caldera to fight in three different countries.
And the most weird of all statements would be this one: SCO would base any claims it makes on the Unix patents and copyrights that it acquired when it took over the Santa Cruz Operation. Its press release claims it "owns much of the core Unix IP" and that it has the right to enforce it. Well, if it owns much of the core of Unix, then not only Linux but the whole *NIX world would be in danger. Considering that this was once a matter that was partially and painfully settled down between Bell and Berkeley, considering that even Windows has a little bit of Unix inside, considering that lots of standards and protocols are based on Unix, considering the tens of Unices around, this would be double harakiri for SCO. So it is very weird to consider that anyone at SCO could ever seriously think the way it is shown on the article.
So it is very probable that the article is either someone trying to get some sensational points in yellow journalism, or this is a well elaborated FUD test to see how people react.
If one cares to see SCO site, they still are well determined in their Linux moves. And this adds an argument to the fact that probably this article is just some cheap provocation. No matter that I dislike SCO/Caldera, I have to recognise that someone is playing dirty against them.
Will someone squash SCO/Caldera/whatever already? (Score:5, Funny)
They're like the buzzing of an insignificant group of retarded flies who keep demanding attention when they have nothing noteworthy.
Here's a plan.
Sounds like fun. I call dibs on the SCO Ethics Manual.
Re:Idiots think. (Score:2)
I knew I made the right choiche!
Jeroen
Re:What the hell ? (Score:5, Informative)
The problem with patents... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:The problem with patents... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What the hell ? (Score:2)
That doesn't matter. A patent would cover a specific way of writing code. So if you were to write your code in the same way - no matter whether you know of the patent - you violate the patent and owe license fees.
Of course, coming up with the same solution independently is a good indicator that the patent was not actually valid.
If they release a linux (oh they have) (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Microsoft Lawyer ... I smell a rat ... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Microsoft Lawyer ... I smell a rat ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why? Because it's in still in court trying to settle it's antitrust case. All a judge (or Sun, or any one else that is "Sue MS" Happy) would have to hear is that MS is involved (in any way I might add) in preventing Linux from being sold in a market that MS dominates, and all kinds of hell breaks loose.
Because if this, Microsoft will not even think of getting close to this case, let alone touch it.
Re:Berkeley? (Score:2)