SCOoby Snacks 598
A day with SCO is like a day without sunshine, I know that's what you're thinking. Novell is asking the court to dismiss SCO's lawsuit against them. Groklaw has taken a look at what is necessary to prove a 'slander of title' claim. And finally, reader loonix_gangsta wrote in and pointed to SCO's humorous 5 reasons to choose UNIX over Linux webpage.
Scooby Snacks: Think of the butter (Score:3, Troll)
If you look at the facts of the case, sure, it looks like SCO doesn't have a leg to stand on. They continue to sell a version of an operating system they claim infringes their code. They try to extort money via lawsuits. There is some doubt whether they even own what they claim to own. But put that all from your mind for a minute, and listen to this great analogy I thought up.
You see, Linux is like a cake, with lots of ingredients contributed by different people. The SCO group claim that some of their butter was used to make the cake, perhaps to grease the baking tray the cake was baked on, perhaps it was ground into the flour mix by hand. Without the butter, the cake could not have been made. And it isn't possible to take the butter out of the cake now, the damage has been done. Q.E.D. the SCO company are perfectly justified in demanding recompense for their stolen butter.
Open your mind, and think about the butter.
I really tried... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Scooby Snacks: Think of the butter (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Scooby Snacks: Think of the butter (Score:5, Insightful)
Or is this link to SCO just a masked DOS?? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Scooby Snacks: Think of the butter (Score:4, Funny)
At least in law.
What they claim in a sales brochure bears no more weight than "Everything's better with Blue Bonnet on it."
KFG
Re:Scooby Snacks: Think of the butter (Score:3, Insightful)
If you steal butter from the grocery store to bake your cake, is the grocery store entitled to be compensated for the value of the entire cake? There are a lot of other ingredients (cake mix, eggs, chocolate, milk...) properly paid for or made from scratch in that cake.
And you can always bake that same cake using margarine or crisco to grease the pan.
Re:Scooby Snacks: Think of the butter (Score:5, Funny)
But when IBM asks SCO exactly where in SySV this butter comes from, SCO answers that it it stupid to ask this question. And they can't tell exactly where the butter is from unless they get full access to all the fridges IBM have.
Their current theory seems to be that OK, there is no butter in SySV, but flour. IBM took flour from SySV, added its own special butter to bake an AIX cake. And IBM can't give the AIX cake to Linux because of the SCO flour. So it follows (they believe) that they can't use butter that have been used together with SCO flour in a Linux cake.
Sorry, but I think that SCO are nutcakes.
The SCO theroy (Score:5, Insightful)
- The derivitive work, AIX or DYNIX (containing SysV and IBM code), is to be treated as the original work per 2.01(OK by US copyright).
- AIX or DYNIX contain RCU, NUMA, JFS, etc. Linux also contains these.
- Here is source code (in C) from AIX, DYNIX, and Linux. See how they are similar in implementing these functions.
- Since AIX and DYNIX are to be treated as the original work (No. 1), see Judge, how they have stolen OUR code.
My butter anology:Re:Scooby Snacks: Think of the butter (Score:3, Insightful)
They also want ownership of all future cakes and refuse to identify the butter so that it can be replaced with margarine.
Re:Scooby Snacks: Think of the butter (Score:5, Interesting)
Contributions to Linux are discreet and each component can be uniquely identified and its heritage proved.
Second, stipulating that SCO did indeed own certain discreet elements which have gotten incorporated into Linux, then I agree.
Components that are provably owned by SCO can be removed.
The actual argument in court is about whether SCO did, in fact, own these things that got incorporated into Linux. SCO claims they do, IBM claims they don't.
Currently, IBM and the court are waiting for SCO to show what they owned, so that the ownership claim can be evaluated properly.
SCO hasn't shown it yet, and the little they have shown outside court has been proved not to be owned by them. But since that occurred outside court, it doesn't matter to the case.
I think SCO's basic problem is that they are pursuing this case under some presuppositions that are clearly false, and will be proved to be false in court. But that day is still a long way off, since the case is still in the discovery phase.
Re:Scooby Snacks: Think of the butter (Score:5, Insightful)
From the "millions of lines of code" that are apparently SCO's IPR that are in Linux, they're now down to disputing the contents of 17 files in AIX.
To continue your analogy, SCO are claiming that they provided the butter used. They originally tried to claim that the majority of the cake was theirs.
However, they do not own the rights to all butter and butter making mechanisms. They may not even own any - ask Novell.
It is also conceivable that another hard working independent dairy churned its own butter. Let's call the maid at that dairy "Linus" shall we?
SCO in my opinion do not have any basis to their legal claim, and will probably disappear up their own behind, perhaps with some players facing criminal charges. They no longer appear to have any product but are a litigation factory. They're making a grab for cash which may turn out to be illegal...
You are a troll, and I claim my $5.
Cheers,
Nick.
Re:Scooby Snacks: Think of the butter (Score:5, Insightful)
The money comes from adding icing, decorations, delivery, setup and serving up that free cake..
Re:Scooby Snacks: Think of the butter (Score:4, Funny)
A day with SCO is like a day without sunshine (Score:5, Funny)
Re:A day with SCO is like a day without sunshine (Score:5, Funny)
Re:A day with SCO is like a day without sunshine (Score:5, Funny)
Long as we're on the subject of "A Day Without SCO..."
A day without SCO is like a day without mistaking the colostomy bag with the an enema bag.
Actually... (Score:4, Funny)
Personally, a day with SCO is like a day spent having a hole slowly drilled in my head. Without pain killers.
But, hey, that's just me.
Trepanning (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Trepanning (Score:5, Funny)
And even if it doesn't, you can find 2 or 3 people who openly claim that trepanning is a Good Thing, but nobody admits to liking SCO.
Re:Trepanning (Score:5, Funny)
Re:HOLY CRAP (Score:5, Informative)
The Raeleans claim a mission going back to the beginning of time despite the cult starting in the 60's or whenever.
SCO claim 20 years experience in the article (despite that caldera was started in 1995).
So Raeleans are ridiculous by a few million years, and caldera ridiculous by only 13 (thereabouts) years.
*5* Reasons? (Score:5, Interesting)
I've got one reason to choose Linux over UNIX-SCO (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I've got one reason to choose Linux over UNIX-S (Score:5, Informative)
Minix is not anywhere in the family tree, I am glad to say. Its limited kernel bears no relation to any of the others, and was created from scratch. Linux sort of came from Minix, although it seems that Linus sensibly threw away all the Minix code very near the beginning. Solaris is influenced by the original BSD, pre the BSD court case. What we now know as BSD of the Free, Open or Net varieties, is unencumbered and therefore has little of Unix as such in its parentage. Don't know about the commercial BSD, I ahven't even seen it advertised for a while....
Now SCO's stupid advert does reveal something that I had not noticed before.
While some application programming interfaces ("API Code") have been made available over the years through POSIX and other open standards, the UNIX(R) ABI Code has only been made available under copyright restrictions. AT&T made these binary interfaces available in order to support application development to UNIX(R) operating systems and to assist UNIX(R) licensees in the development process. The UNIX(R) ABIs were never authorized for unrestricted use or distribution under the GPL in Linux(R). As the copyright holder, SCO has never granted such permission. Nevertheless, many of the ABIs contained in Linux(R), and improperly distributed under the GPL, are direct copies of our UNIX(R) copyrighted software code.
They are alleging that the ABIs (Application Binary Interfaces) are at the centre of their case. Now, correct me if I am wrong, but an ABI definition tells you what to put in which registers and how to make the system call. BSD and Linux use different mechanisms for this, including how the registers and stack are used, and which interrupt. Because of that, and in particular the use of a different interrupt, it is conceptually simple to run BSD code on Linux or vice versa, by adding a handler for the alternative interrupt which shifts the call parameters to where they should be, on the stack or in registers, and invokes the native system call. Now, SCO has a Linux Personality Module, which does the same sort of thing. For this to be possible, without horrendously complex programming causing inefficiency, SCO must be using an ABI set which is entirely different to Linux. Now, the SCO ABIs can not be the same as BSD either, because Linux has a module to enable SCO (and other) Unix code to run, and it is not the same as the BSD module.
So, if we have three orthogonal sets of ABIs, how do they think they have a case? At most, the module, or kernel compile option, to allow SCO code to be run, would be the only place where there was any kind of ABI issue, and of course SCO are using a GPL ABI, and probably some of the associated code, in their Linux Personality Module.
So, on what precisely is SCO's allegation based? Or has Darl confused ABIs with APIs, which are similar in every *nix?
If using similar ABIs or APIs was in any case a copyright issue, would the Convicted Monopolist not have sued DRDOS, Freedos etc out of existence many years ago, and now be taking action against Wine? Or is this a small-scale test by M$ (who after all have funded SCO) to see if they will be able to win a case like that in court? IIRC there have already been court rulings to the contrary, involving M$.
One Reason (Score:5, Funny)
In a year, there will likely still be Linux vendors.
The SCO Group? In a year? Are you kidding? With IBM gunning for them? They are history; just a stain on IBM's rug.
Re:*5* Reasons? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:*5* Reasons? (Score:5, Insightful)
I scanned through the messages to see if anyone else was focusing on #5.
SCO is very legally encumbered.
Novell has legal control over IP shared between Novell and SCO, which Novell is now taking action aginst SCO over.
IBM has already in forced SCO to drop their claims of owernship over some of what just a month ago SCO was threatening to sue every Linux user over.
And finally, SCO claims the GPL is invalid yet has distributed GPLed code. So either they are claiming that they have distributed code illegally (since they claim to have no valid license to do so), or the distribution was legal (because they accepted the GPL as valid) and are now attempting to illegally extort money.
It's hard to get more legally encumbered than SCO. Though Darl might find a way.
Re:*5* Reasons? (Score:5, Insightful)
Single vendor; that's a BAD thing (Score:5, Insightful)
Better to go to a solution that has MULTIPLE vendors so you're not screwed if one of them goes out of business.
Re:*5* Reasons? (Score:4, Insightful)
I guess in the way they'd have to be: who is going to field a support call related to SCO problems? The first response would be 'have you tried a nightly build of the app and debian unstable yet'
Re:*5* Reasons? (Score:4, Funny)
And hopefully Darl will be employment unencumbered too
yeah right (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, this is exactly why their web server runs Linux [netcraft.com].
Re:yeah right (Score:4, Informative)
No exact OS matches for host (test conditions non-ideal).
TCP/IP fingerprint:
SInfo(V=2.54BETA31%P=i586-pc-linux-
TSeq(Class=RI%gcd=2%SI=1527
so does that mean its a i586 pc running linux?
Uptime 137.072 days (since Sun Sep 28 10:21:36 2003)
Re:yeah right (Score:5, Informative)
After all, if TCP/IP was so generous as to provide that string the -O option to nmap would be really simple.
McDonalds and SCO (Score:5, Funny)
Great, now we'll have obese people suing SCO!
Wait...that may not be a bad thing after all...
Re:McDonalds and SCO (Score:4, Funny)
Maybe I know too much to keep it objective, but why would anyone have chosen sco, even a couple years ago? Even 5 years ago? There are far better solutions out there, even to the extent of using windows.
It boggles the mind.
Re:McDonalds and SCO (Score:5, Interesting)
Still, it is funny to see how their enterprise unix compared to linux back then.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:McDonalds and SCO (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:McDonalds and SCO (Score:5, Informative)
Of course not..
There cash registers run on Windows. They are talking about there US chain _ONLY_ and they are talking about the credit card processing server. All of there stores connect to a SCO Unix box in their HQ, and are then routed to the bank (there is only 1 US connection to the bank from MCd's, not from ever store.. This is true of 90% of _ALL_ retailers in North America and it's spreading to the UK fast.).
I happen to know FOR A FACT, that McDonalds Canada, does NOT use SCO Linux for there server, they are running 4 redundant Compaq server's in two locations (2 per location) each with redundant T1 lines to the bank. These server's are ALL running Windows 2000 Advanced Server. I also know this is a trial run, and if successful, all other McDonalds (World Wide) will be switching, starting with the EU, then the USA. So, they are getting rid of SCO for Microsoft.. Now, this should get some interesting reactions..
Was escorted out of McDonalds (Score:5, Funny)
I had just logged into my Linux notebook when I was approached by a SCO employee who escorted me out of the "resturaunt". He told me he was sorry, but those were the orders from above. He told me he didn't have enough stock to dump before he then went back to his fry station.
As we left, I swear the guy running the drive through was Darl McBride himself. He was claiming complete ownership of all the fries in the bag and bemoaning the fact that Burger King fries are stolen from McDonalds because there is no way that Burger King could figure out how to fry a potato on their own.
Reason #6 (Score:5, Funny)
Unencumbered??!? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Unencumbered??!? (Score:5, Funny)
Bullpies (Score:4, Informative)
They meant Linux is Legally Unencumbered.
and SCO Unix is Legally Encumbered.
Sure (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sure (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Sure (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Sure (Score:5, Interesting)
And as far as applications - let's face it - there's more then enough room for many, many similar applications that people can choose from. For example - web browsers. Some people (like myself) prefer Opera, others Mozilla, some Konqueror, some Galeon, some Firefox, some people still use Lynx, Mac folks seem to like Safari... and yes, there's some poor, poor fools still using Internet Exploder.
Take Word Processing - go back to the early days of Dos / Windows - some people wanted to use WordPerfect, others Wordstar, some people PFS Professional Write, and there was more then enough room for all those applications - it was which one you liked best, and most of them could write files to various formats for sharing information. Now, we have OpenOffice, KOffice, AbiWord, etc, and again - these all write to multiple file formats - just pick the one you like best. Competition and Capitalism at it's finest, if you ask me.. which is the opposite route SCO is going with their money grab and frivolous lawsuit.
Re:Sure (Score:4, Insightful)
What you describe is democratic capitalism-- i.e., a market system based largely on what works the best, and in which everyone can have a shot at building something better. When someone is successful at that, the natural rules of the market evolve-- based on the new paradigm of what works the best.
What we have in the U.S. is inching closer to plutocratic capitalism, in which the golden rule is, "He who has the gold makes the rules."
Since SCO has been unable to succeed using the former model, they're attempting to rewrite rules by brute force. They're not likely to succeed, primarily because they don't have enough gold.
Re:Sure (Score:5, Insightful)
Something that is scary rather than humorous, is that they are convincing some politicians. It's the same line of reasoning used in many other cases: what is good for us is good for the economy!
1) "Free software is unfair competition against the products that we businesspeople offer" (or: "we need software patents to protect our inventions!", or insert your favorite cause here.)
2) "If you make legislation against [insert special interest issue], you are hurting our business. Not just our company, really, but the entire economy is at stake!!!111one"
3) "If the economy goes bad, voters will hate you"
You'll find this line of reasoning is used often when business, or indeed any special interest, lobbies with politicians
Re:Sure (Score:5, Interesting)
The interesting thing is: Those arguments "If you do X, we will loose Y jobs" never ask, how many jobs will be slashed if the governement won't do X. Take steel tariffs for instance: How many jobs suffered because steel tariffs increased the steel prices for american companies? There was a calculation for the effect of steel tariffs back in the Reagen era to job count. Even though those tariffs saved about 55,000 jobs at the steel companies, the steel consuming industries like car makers slashed 130,000 jobs at the same time because of the increased costs for steel.
So if you are confronted with a similar argument in a dispute, just ask your opponent, how many jobs would be hurt by the increased costs for the following parts of the economy chain.
Re:Sure (Score:5, Funny)
We'll REALLY know when SCO has hit rock-bottom when they start using
"Think of the CHILDREN!"
"Won't SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!"
Hmmm... Maybe I should have kept that to myself... Hope no one from SCO's legal team is reading this...
There appears to be a typographical error in #5 (Score:5, Interesting)
Shouldn't this read "SCO UNIX (R) is Unencumbered by adherence to the law"?
Seriously though, looking at what SCO is attempting to do to IBM, how can one call this "unencumbered"? The only company that is unencumbered in SCO's vision of the world is SCO. Any of their partners are legaly encumbered by adhering to SCO's license arangement. Anything you add to SCO appears to become a part of SCO's IP if their claims are correct.
But wait, doesn't that make SCO just as bad as the GPL, even from SCO's own perspective?
Re:There appears to be a typographical error in #5 (Score:5, Interesting)
You already know this, but I'd just like to point out to the newer readers that the best way to explain the value of free software to people is to remind them that before the Visicalc(*) folks had the guts to form a company that only produced software without any accompanying hardware, software was largely produced in the domain of shared (scientific?) research, and they should continue to look at it that way, as opposed to some sort of ridiculous anti-capitalistic anarchist movement.
(*) NOTE: I *think* Visicalc was the first to do this. If not, please correct me.
Re:There appears to be a typographical error in #5 (Score:4, Interesting)
Visicalc(*) folks had the guts to form a company that only produced software without any accompanying hardware, software was largely produced in the domain of shared (scientific?) research, and they should continue to look at it that way, as opposed to some sort of ridiculous anti-capitalistic anarchist movement.
You are safe in asserting that Visicalc was the first big software house success. IIRC, its success, and the way it affected the Apple ][ sales, is what got IBM interested in the emerging PC market. PCs were not just for hobbyists anymore: accountants were buying Apple ][s so they could do electronic spreadsheets. But that was 25 or 26 years ago and I'm relying on organic memory that is prone to distortions over long periods of time (for larger values of "long"-- the occasional retraining I require after a coffee break appears to be another phenomenon entirely).
Also, at that time I believe the bulk of software development was not occuring in science but in two other realms. IBM, Honeywell, and others were churning out lots of OS and application code, that was tied to the sales of their systems. And on the underside, there was a lot of backroom blackmarket code development going on, where customer IT departments were rewriting what their corporations had bought to make it actually workable, and trading chunks of this amongst themselves (usually in violation of the vendor licenses). I think either of these activities produced more working code (by any reasonable measure of "more") than the scientific/academic communities were producing during those years.
Re:There appears to be a typographical error in #5 (Score:5, Insightful)
But wait, doesn't that make SCO just as bad as the GPL, even from SCO's own perspective?"
No, because SCO profits. If you're not making money, it just isn't fair and SCO wants mommy.
You see, Little SCO has a lemonade stand. Little SCO buys crap lemonade-sugar powder from the super market and mixes it with water from the kitchen tap. Little SCO only does this when nobody's home, as little SCO considers the technique a closely guarded secret. The sign on Little SCO's lemonade stand reads: "Lemonade(TM), only $6.99 per ounce"
Across the street, another kid has a lemonade stand. He grows his own lemons from his own lemon trees, which he cultivates with utmost care. He has developed a really cool way to sqeeze them, getting just the right amount of pulp and juice. He uses water, purified to his taste with a purifier he built himself. The sugar? It grows next to the lemon trees. And he has a workbench set up right next to the lemonade stand, so everybody can see what he's doing. The sign on this kid's lemon stand reads: "Lemonade. Have some. It's tasty."
In better times, when they were younger, little SCO would hang out with the kid across the street. They had great fun, and even made lemonade together. But one day Little SCO's mom remarried, and his new stepdad demanded that he not talk to the kid across the street anymore. Little SCO's new papa won't stand for any damn commie pinkos under his roof, you see. Little SCO complied, and soon after, with the encouragement of new papa, opened up his own lemonade stand.
When cars drive by on the street between the two stands, little SCO climbs up into his treehouse and shouts at the drivers. "Little SCO's Amerrrrr-ican Lemonade! Only SIX dollars and ninety-niiiiiine cents for a limited time!
At first, his former friend's antics made the kid across the street a bit sad. But then you know what happened? He began laughing it off. That poor, Little, SCO. Poor Little Bastard SCO.
For the lazy: (Score:4, Informative)
I *love* number 5!!! Ha ha ha!
Re:For the lazy: (Score:5, Funny)
SCO UNIX(R) is backed by a single, experienced vendor - lawyers who are unmatched in the legal profession
SCO UNIX(R) has a Committed, Well-Defined Roadmap - sue everyone and hope we make money
SCO UNIX(R) is Secure - because nobody knows or wants to know how to use it
SCO UNIX(R) is Legally Unencumbered - because no one in their right mind would copy it
Re:For the lazy: (Score:4, Funny)
That's about as generic as it gets, funny that they never state how they came up with that. I can claim the same about linux using their method of spewing meaningless unsubstantiated numbers.
SCO UNIX(R) is backed by a single, experienced vendor
Because There [ibm.com] aren't [novell.com] any [redhat.com] experienced linux companies, and we all know how one monolithic company [microsoft.com] is better.
SCO UNIX(R) has a Committed, Well-Defined Roadmap
Straight down the crapper requires a ROAD MAP?
SCO UNIX(R) is Secure
My OS is secure too, no one has cracked into it yet. It doesn't boot yet, but it's secure as hell.
SCO UNIX(R) is Legally Unencumbered
Yes, because No [novell.com] One [redhat.com] is trying to get SCO into court.
For those who don't know (Score:5, Insightful)
speed (Score:5, Insightful)
Great. Another Linux Community DDoS (Score:5, Funny)
I like reason #4 (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I like reason #4 (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I like reason #4 (Score:3, Interesting)
As others have pointed out, their webserver runs Linux [netcraft.com], so technically, SCO Unix wasn't hit by the DoS attack.
Oh, wait, they claim Linux is a derivative of SCO Unix... Never mind...
I love these case studies... (Score:5, Interesting)
A Day without SCO... (Score:5, Funny)
And a day without sunshine is like...night.
5 Reasons (Score:5, Interesting)
Linux is a proven, stable, and reliable platform.
2. SCO UNIX(R) is backed by a single, experienced vendor
Linux is backed by multiple, experienced vendors
3. SCO UNIX(R) has a Committed, Well-Defined Roadmap
Linux has a Committed development team and is actually going somewhere
4. SCO UNIX(R) is Secure
Linux is Secure.
5. SCO UNIX(R) is Legally Unencumbered
Linux is Legally Unencumbered and Open
SCO's 5 reason page (Score:5, Funny)
5 Reasons?? (Score:5, Funny)
Their list started at 1 for cryin' out loud.
Re:5 Reasons?? (Score:4, Funny)
Well it certainly isn't a Linux Slashdotter's list. Otherwise it would contain:
6. ???
7. Profit
Poor SCO (Score:3, Insightful)
No. 2 (Score:5, Insightful)
also, does anyone else read the slogan "SCO Grows Your Business" and immediately associate them with the "G3n3r1c Vi 4g ara!!!"-type of business?
just posted over at groklaw (Score:5, Insightful)
SCO UNIX(R) has a Committed, Well-Defined Roadmap (Score:5, Funny)
I guess "stagnant" is well-defined. SCO's recent investments in its technology core ($0) prove they are committed to stagnation, too.
How many people are thinking, "Whew, I'm glad my company isn't listed on that Hall of Shame page? I know I am!"
Unencumbered? Not Quite (Score:5, Interesting)
ROTFLMAO
Daryl's take on POSIX standards (Score:5, Informative)
Most of the code that SCO came up with as evidence of stolen IP consisted of header files, which all of us concluded was part of the POSIX standard. That's Daryl's comeback from the 5 reasons link.
Essentially, what he's saying is that ABI code (including headers) is not part of the standard, but their IP. Atleast we know now what their defense will be if IBM lawyers argue that the headers are part of the POSIX standard, and not their IP.
One lousy reason (Score:5, Funny)
SCO is the owner of the UNIX(R) Operating System Intellectual Property that dates all the way back to 1969, when the UNIX(R) System was created at Bell Laboratories.
Yes, I remember that great day, when Darl reached out of his crib, played with some punch cards, and voila!, a multi-user operating system was born. He was years ahead of Gates' measly DOS, and I know that Linus reveres him deeply as the grandfather of his own IP.
Of course, none of this would have been possible without the hard work of his venerable company, SCO, who, since the 1830s has been an innovator in computer technology.
A day with SCO is like a day without sunshine (Score:4, Funny)
SCO is the little gray raincloud that follows the Unix world around.
Groklaw wants a reason? (Score:5, Informative)
Why didn't SCO sue for breach of contract, then, if their position is correct and copyrights were supposed to transfer and Amendment 2 is the contract that was to make that happen? No one I have talked to can figure that out.
Well, I know why.... SCO must know their copyright claims are questionable at best. They're not claiming breach of contract so not to draw attention to the contract. Because, once the contract is fully analyzed by a court, SCO will know they've lost.
(this, of course, won't stop them from filing at least 8 more stupid lawsuits within a three month period)
Re:Groklaw wants a reason? (Score:5, Informative)
The Real Five Reasons (Score:5, Funny)
2) SCO UNIX(R) is backed by a single, experienced vendor - and Lord knows, vendor lock-in is a GOOD thing!
3) SCO UNIX(R) has a Committed, Well-Defined Roadmap - who cares if it's a highway to Hell.
4) SCO UNIX(R) is Secure - from legal attacks, unlike you, you friggin' thief! Give us your money! You owe us! Give it to us!
5) SCO UNIX(R) is Legally Unencumbered - and we truly believe that IBM's counteroffensive will do nothing to harm us. Really! It's all sunshine here at SCO!
SCO claims that SCO UNIX(TM) is legally safe (Score:5, Insightful)
You simply cannot risk using SCO UNIX(TM) as a solution if you're serious about your IT strategy. They represent a huge risk.
Translations (Score:5, Funny)
1. SCO UNIX(R) is a Proven, Stable and Reliable Platform
Well, it worked when we bought it, and we're too busy suing people to update anything.
2. SCO UNIX(R) is backed by a single, experienced vendor
Vendor lock in, you know you want it!
3. SCO UNIX(R) has a Committed, Well-Defined Roadmap
Updates will only come when and if we feel like it.
4. SCO UNIX(R) is Secure
With market share like ours, who would bother to crack this platform?
5. SCO UNIX(R) is Legally Unencumbered
We're the one company you know SCO won't be suing.
Derivative works (Score:5, Informative)
"(b) Buyer shall not, and shall not have the authority to, amend, modify or waive any right under or assign any SVRX License without the prior written consent of Seller. In addition, at Seller's sole discretion and direction, Buyer shall amend, supplement, modify or waive any rights under, or shall assign any rights to, any SVRX License to the extent so directed in any manner or respect by Seller. In the event that Buyer shall fail to take any such action concerning the SVRX Licenses as required herein, Seller shall be authorized, and hereby is granted, the rights to take any action on Buyer's own behalf."
Basically the original contract says "SCO all your base are belong to us! signed Novell."
Novell can instruct SCO to amend or invalidate any of their license agreements on demand and if SCO refuses then Novell can go ahead and amend them anyway.
"Well that just about wraps it up for SCO." -- Gag Halfrunt.
One reason to think again (Score:5, Interesting)
The SEC will be *VERY* interested in this. The SCO debacle is a big story, but SCO may simply be a pawn in a bigger scandal. The big story is about market manipulation and insider trading. It isn't just about pump and dump. It is about buy, then pump, then short, then dump, then cover using the money of Royce clients and some assistance from the Royal Bank of Canada. SCOX investors are being played for fools.
Here we go...
Jonathan Cohen is the CEO of JHC Capital and is an investment advisor to Royce & Associates. Cohen is the fund manager for the Royce Technology Value fund.
www.roycefunds.com/funds/technologyValue.h
Under Cohen's direction, this fund has acquired 430,000 shares of SCOX.
www.roycefunds.com/funds/holdings_rtv.html
He is also the CEO and Director of Technology Investment Capital Corporation (TICC) and owns 139,100 shares:
www.ticc.com/management.html#cohen
www.
Charles M. Royce is President, Chief Investment Officer of Royce & Associates.
www.roycefunds.com/about/inside_royc
The Royce Low-Priced Stock Fund owns 943,600 shares of SCOX:
www.roycefunds.com/funds/holdings_rlp.html
However, Charles Royce is also a Director of TICC and personally owns 69,500 shares of TICC.
www.ticc.com/management.html#royce
www.se
Royce & Associates owns a total of 1.4M shares of SCOX.
Cohen went on a whirlwind publicity tour the second half of last year to pump SCO for the Royce Technology Value fund that he manages for Royce & Associates.
www.threenorth.com/sco/cohen.html
A
siliconvalley.internet.com/news/article.
RBC Dain Rauscher is the U.S. wealth management subsidiary of Royal Bank of Canada.
www.rbcdain.com
RBC Dain Rauscher Inc. was an underwriter for the IPO of Technology Investment Capital Corporation (TICC), underwriting an initial share allotment of 1,304,348 shares of TICC.
www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1259429/00
Of course RBC initiates coverage of TICC with an "Outperform" rating.
10:22am 01/15/04 Tech Investment Capital started at 'outperform' by RBC - CBS MarketWatch.com
RBC also participated in the private placement for SCOX, accounting for 2.3M of the Series A shares. www.globetechnology.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20031
"An RBC spokesman was reluctant to comment, saying the SEC filing was about how SCO operates its business. He said that RBC's "investment in SCO is passive, made to hedge an economic exposure resulting from client transactions."
SCO does an injustice to Unix technology. (Score:4, Insightful)
Current SCO management are old-school; they simply want traditional Unix technlogy to die under a mound of legal paperwork. They don't care who loses as long as the lawyers get paid.
Linux is Unix is Linux. As far as joe-user or joe-admin is concerned the GUI or shell is identical in that its not Microsoft Windows.
All they simply seem to be upset about is some ABI headers !. The joke being that they then seem to go on about the Linux Kernel Personality (LKP) in Unixware. So they quite happily take but don't want to give back.
Their Unix is chocka full of juicy Open Source contributions which they have merrily grabbed and then they try and deflect interest in what they are doing by pointing fingers at others and calling these other Operating System developers pirates.
Pre-2.6 everyone knows what deficiencies there where in the Linux scheduler. This wasn't a cut+paste from Unix but was a paragmatic easy-to-understand scheduler that evolved over many years by many developers. Along comes 2.6 and it has fixes for the main known deficiencies. SCO have seen this happen. Why is it that both kernel 2.6 and 2.4 are priced the same from SCO's point of view ?. If the technology in 2.4 was top-of-the range Unix Intellectual Property then why was it so poor that it needed fixing for 2.6 to get 2.6. to scale ?. Something tells me 2.4 did not have any Unix SMP technolgy else it would not have been able to scale better in 2.6 !
The SCO Roadmap (Score:5, Funny)
SCO has a well defined roadmap, unfortunately the lug nuts of ethical competition came off the left front wheel of research and marketing, causing the SUV of profitability to crash into the ditch of bankruptcy.
What they're really saying... (Score:5, Interesting)
Translation: We will sell you something that is distributed for free so we can make ourselves (and our stockholders) richer.
This must be the only true thing that SCO has ever stated...
Some of the testimonials are very old (Score:5, Interesting)
First off, Cardkey doesn't exist anymore, really. They were bought out by Johnson Controls years ago. Secondly, Compaq became HP years ago. Thirdly, most vendors are moving to Windows 2000 based ACS, so I'd be very surprised if Johnson Controls was still using SCO for new installs. They have to support their older Pegasys systems, but I'd be willing to bet they've gone Wintel along with everyone else.
All this raises a good question: how many NEW installs is SCO doing? Who's buying OpenServer and UnixWare NOW?
Re:Some of the testimonials are very old (Score:4, Funny)
"
1. SCO UNIX(R) is a Proven, Stable and Reliable Platform [Maybe 10-15 years ago...]
2. SCO UNIX(R) is backed by a single, experienced vendor [Experienced litigators...]
3. SCO UNIX(R) has a Committed, Well-Defined Roadmap [Over the river and through the woods... then to hell in a handbasket when their litigation fails.]
4. SCO UNIX(R) is Secure [Can't exploit something no one uses...]
5. SCO UNIX(R) is Legally Unencumbered [Buy Unix, and we promise we won't sue you.*]"
*Limited time only!
[Comments added for clarification.]
Now back you your regularly [re-]scheduled fiaSCO.
5 reasons to choose to ignore SCO (Score:5, Funny)
2. SCO have recent experience only in pissing off their entire potential customer base and making half assed threats.
3. SCO CEO, Darl McBride should be committed.
4. SCO can't even take simple steps [netcraft.com] to stop a DoS of their own webserver.
5. SCO are currently in a legal quagmire of their own devising.
SCO is right, Unix is often better than Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
AIX - when you need to use 64-bit IBM hardware for DB2 databases or custom IBM software to run a website like Ebay.com. Very robust OS/Hardware combo with rock solid reliability, hot-swappable hardware, and scalability to run on huge systems.
Solaris - When you would like the 64-bit capability and scalability of Sun Hardware and all in one enterprise resource management. Solaris runs huge applications on 128 processor servers with terabytes of disk space capable and 64+ GB of RAM capabilities.
IRIX - If you are running graphics apps on an Silicon Graphis system, there is excellent software written for this OS and the hardware defined what you could do with computers for CGI.
HP-UX - I don't know why anyone wants to use HP-UX unless they have custom software that won't port to another UNIX.
SCO UNIX - If you want to run a 10-15 year old cash register software that already has a superior Linux or Windows counterpart, money is no option, or you were recently made retarded SCO Unix is the only viable option.
Linux - Use Linux anytime you want a low cost, reliable Unix-like workhorse for applications like as Network Server (Web, Email, DNS, News, et...), database server, development machine, low cost UNIX workstation, the list goes on.
Just my $0.02
MICROS 8700 on SCO (Score:5, Interesting)
The way SCO presents the Safeco Field study, as if the customer chose SCO, is deceptive at best, in my opinion.
worldwide presence? (Score:4, Funny)
Uh, worldwide presence? I live in Orem, literally blocks from Lindon. The last thing I'd call their presence is "worldwide"
"Behind Home Depot" comes more to mind, than worldwide.
Re:When Will they Learn (Score:5, Informative)
The're not up to what you think they're up to. (Score:5, Interesting)
You think that their goal is to win a lawsuit. I disagree; I think their goal is to cast FUD on the GPL specifically, and open-source in general.
I mean they are sueing over Code similarities.... It's the Same thing as bill gates patent of binary Numbers (0,1) it's not going to happen.
Exactly. They're not stupid, they know that they have no case. Therefore, winning isn't their goal. Even if they lose, the FUD that they've spread is going to stick, even if it's just a little bit. I can't even propose linux-based projects because my employer (a fortune-50 insurance company) doesn't want the hassle. The FUD is working already.
IMO - I think they should just give up, and distribute what $ they have left, and go away from the world of computing.
If they just go away, the FUD sticks. If they get bought out, the FUD sticks. If they get shot down legally in no uncertain terms, some of the FUD will _still_ stick. Their goal isn't to win money, their goal is to try to destroy or cripple the Open Source Software community.
When one's enemies' actions are illogical, it makes sense to re-evaluate what that enemy's goals might be.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)