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Linux Business

Increased Linux Use With SCO's Defeat Predicted 280

twitter writes "The defeat of SCO's infamous copyright attack has Forbes wondering if a GNU/Linux boom is upon us. They discuss how this will benefit Novel, IBM, Chrysler, AutoZone and Red Hat. 'The SCO Group frightened potential business users away from Linux with lawsuits demanding billions in royalties. But the litigious company's claims were shot down in a ruling that will likely boost uptake of the operating system.'"
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Increased Linux Use With SCO's Defeat Predicted

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  • lol (Score:3, Funny)

    by thatskinnyguy ( 1129515 ) on Tuesday August 14, 2007 @07:53AM (#20223525)
    *Companies formerly threatened by SCO peek out from their spider holes*

    "Is it safe to use Linux now?", they say timidly.
    • Re:lol (Score:5, Funny)

      by CaymanIslandCarpedie ( 868408 ) on Tuesday August 14, 2007 @07:56AM (#20223567) Journal
      Does this mean 2008 will be the year of the Linux desktop? ;-)
      • As long as it isn't mine. Tried it several times since 2001 (as recently as June/July), still would rather use FreeBSD or Windows, but Linux does make many users happy, so as long as it keeps them happy, that's a good thing.
        • by fotbr ( 855184 )
          Well said, and same situation here.
        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by MartinG ( 52587 )
          FreeBSD and Windows are very different.

          What are some examples of what they offer that Linux does not for your usage pattern?
          • FreeBSD gives much more useful error information in my experience, and often tells me what command to type to most likely fix the problem. Add the handbook and general mailing list to that (Gentoo and Ubuntu web forums seem to be compareable in quality in my experience to the mailing list), and it's just a whole lot easier to fix than Linux if something goes wrong, in my experience.

            Application installation in Window and BSD have always been much more painless than apt/ubuntu/rpm/up2date/yum. In both cases t
      • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

        by Shano ( 179535 )

        Ooh, I remember the year of the Linux desktop.

        In fact, I seem to remember about 10 years of the Linux desktop, and not seeing a lot of Linux desktops.

        • Well, I have used Linux on the Desktop since 1995, so for me it is 12 years of Linux on the Desktop.
      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by Yvanhoe ( 564877 )
        Yes, 2008 will be the year of the Linux desktop. Unfortunately, it will also be the year of the laptop...
      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by spun ( 1352 )
        The Linux Desktop: yesterday, today and tomorrow's technology of tomorrow!
      • Since 1997 we've been living in a Post-Desktop world. The Desktop is dead.

        Long live the Palm PDA!
  • by Nanite ( 220404 ) on Tuesday August 14, 2007 @07:53AM (#20223527)
    A little company with a lot to protect in the PC market. 20 Mil is such a paltry sum though, they probably don't even remember making the donation.

    • by morgan_greywolf ( 835522 ) on Tuesday August 14, 2007 @08:16AM (#20223777) Homepage Journal

      A little company with a lot to protect in the PC market. 20 Mil is such a paltry sum though, they probably don't even remember making the donation.
      Ding! That 'lil company in Washington has already abandoned SCO. It got what it wanted: FUD. Now its out making more FUD, claiming that Linux infringes 235 patents. They've used their FUD tactics and kickbacks and by planting their operatives to kill ODF in the standards community with OOXML.

      SCO may have lost the battle, but it was already a victory for Microsoft no matter what happened. The war is far from over, but we'll win it by keeping on churning out our best software and leaving the FUD battles to the evangelists like Perens, ESR, RMS and others.

      Here's the fact: Microsoft's actions prove that Linux and Free/Open Source Software scares it shitless!
      • Exactly. SCO were cannon fodder for MS, nothing more.

        Much the same as Novell and Linspire look to be setting themselves up to be...
      • by kimvette ( 919543 ) on Tuesday August 14, 2007 @09:55AM (#20224895) Homepage Journal

        Now its out making more FUD, claiming that Linux infringes 235 patents.


        If 235 legitinate patents were being infringed, Microsoft would be revealing specifically which ones are being infringed and how they are being infringed, if they were truly interested in protecting their "IP" rather than spinning FUD. It is obvious to all watching that all they care about is scare tactics and saber rattling.
      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by NickFortune ( 613926 )

        Ding! That 'lil company in Washington has already abandoned SCO. It got what it wanted: FUD. Now its out making more FUD,

        I think that they wanted much more than FUD. Ideally they wanted to consolidate most of the rights to Linux, and to as much free software as possible in corporate hands where it could be neutralised using the same techniques MS have used to crush any number of would be competitors. The fact that this aspect failed dismally doesn't mean it wasn't a hoped for outcome.

        There was some ho

  • by Bertie ( 87778 ) on Tuesday August 14, 2007 @07:56AM (#20223571) Homepage
    Nobody believed them anyway.

    Did they?
    • That's what I was thinking. Did anyone actually cease using Linux or put off Linux adoption because they were afraid of SCO? I wasn't aware that people were taking SCO's claims that seriously.

      • Even if they had been worried about the lawsuit, companies like Novell and Red Hat were prepared to cover their customers. I am not sure how much that was *worth* - if Linux had gone down the tubes then Red Hat and Novell would have gone down as well.
        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by ivan256 ( 17499 )
          It was actually a bit of a boon to the likes of RedHat and Novell.

          I work on embedded linux for a living, and all of the customers I have done work for switched from a "roll-their-own" (usually based on an existing freely-available distribution) model for their embedded solution to buying from RedHat or SuSE. The impression that investors and decision makers got was that it was worth the per-unit fee to go through one of them just to avoid the legal hassles down the road.

          Now, though, I'm already transitioni
      • by Andy Dodd ( 701 )
        I can't provide details, but yes. I know of companies that have had a VERY anti-Linux (in terms of allowing its use) stance over the past few years and the SCO case was a big contributing factor.

        Whether or not the "thou shalt not use Linux" contingent in those companies will change their tune with this news, I do not know. My guess is they'll find another excuse.
        • That sounds pretty retarded. Most IT staffs I've been a part of tend to be frustrated at their own inability to use Linux, either because of the lack of a specific application or technical inexperience with anything but Windows. I've never been at a company with an anti-Linux policy.
    • by M. Baranczak ( 726671 ) on Tuesday August 14, 2007 @09:06AM (#20224247)

      Nobody believed them anyway.
      There's a sucker born every minute. And right this very moment, some of those suckers are sitting in their offices, making decisions on purchasing software.
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by fritsd ( 924429 )
      I've never actually read Forbes magazine, but I get the impression that the kind of clueless people who DO read it are, well, your boss.
  • Didn't Houston's EV1.net decide early on to bend over and take it from SCO? I wonder if they can sue SCO for fraud now, or at least what they paid for "a SCO linux I.P. license". If everyone who paid for a Linux license would file suit against SCO, it may help shoot the dying beast in the head and put it out of its misery. (and provide amusement for the rest of us)
  • FTA (Score:4, Funny)

    by grub ( 11606 ) <slashdot@grub.net> on Tuesday August 14, 2007 @08:03AM (#20223631) Homepage Journal

    The SCO Group did not return a call seeking comment on Monday.

    Maybe their phones were disconnected for non-payment?

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by shadowspar ( 59136 )

      Either that, or there are no employees left there to answer them.

    • Maybe their phones were disconnected for non-payment?


      No, the problem was that they're in the process of moving.

      Perhaps they're setting up shop in Lagos, Nigeria, so they can pay their creditors with $20,000,000 cashier's checks and ask them to send the change back to their post-office box.
  • I read about the ruling over the weekend. It never occured to me to short SCOX on Monday even though I thought about it on past occasions. OTOH, if I did think of it I probably would have seen how low it was already and not done it.

    Dumb Dumb Dumb. It was like free money.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by maroberts ( 15852 )
      You probably couldn't have shorted it. There have to be shares available in order for a short position to be taken up.
      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by ucblockhead ( 63650 )
        I *did* short it...back in 2003, but sold in 2004 [yahoo.com]. Made a chunk of cash doing so, too. I'd have made more cash if I'd kept those shares until today, but it took a long, long time to get there and so in the end, it would have only been a marginal investment had I kept it longer. Basically, the stock didn't move for three years as the only people holding onto it were hanging on for dear life, hoping for a miracle.

        The investment community decided that the case had no merit in 2004. You can see that in the
  • Grrrr (Score:4, Informative)

    by Alioth ( 221270 ) <no@spam> on Tuesday August 14, 2007 @08:04AM (#20223639) Journal
    Please. The name of the company that makes things like Netware and did a deal with Microsoft is Novell, not Novel. It's not that hard to get right!
    • Re:Grrrr (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Waffle Iron ( 339739 ) on Tuesday August 14, 2007 @09:08AM (#20224281)
      Apparently [wikipedia.org] it was hard to get right:

      The name for the company Novell was suggested by George Canova's wife who mistakenly thought that "Novell" meant "new" in French. (In fact, the feminine singular of "new" in French is "nouvelle").
    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by canuck57 ( 662392 )

      Maybe Microsoft knew this was coming and want to lure Novell into an agreement so Novell would not go after Microsoft for it's involvement as SCO crumbled. Sort of like, here we will give you an agreement to make money if you don't come after us. If I was running Novell, I would take a hard look at my Microsoft agreement and it's real value.

      SCO was partially owned by Microsoft at one point, is this the fate of companies who embrace MS? Seems to be a pattern here.

      IBM will not be bought off so easily. L

      • The SCOundrels are in now way related to the old SCO (Santa Cruz).

        The SCOundrels are what used to be Caldera, who bought Santa Cruz's Operating Systems Divison, and then changed their name to "The SCO Group" (SCO not apparently standing for anything).

        After Santa Cruz sold off the OS Division, they changed their name to Tarantella, to reflect their major product at the time. Tarantella was bought by Sun about a year ago.

        I agree with you though, ODT was a solid, if stodgy platform. We ported an artillery c
  • by jessecurry ( 820286 ) <jesse@jessecurry.net> on Tuesday August 14, 2007 @08:10AM (#20223701) Homepage Journal
    Reports of a Linux boom have been greatly exaggerated... it's been slowly picking up market share over time and will continue to do so... nothing sensational is going to happen... it's a good OS... it's getting better every day... as the OS is made "idiot-proof" all of the idiots will adopt. A great strategy would be to get linux in the elementary and middle schools, get 'em young.... keep 'em for life. It's an ellipses heavy tuesday.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • A great strategy would be to get linux in the elementary and middle schools, get 'em young.... keep 'em for life.

      Yeah, that worked out great for Apple.

      Apple was falling flat on it's face at the same time it was giving out free goods to public schools. The few that stuck with Apple in their times of need are now helping to drive the Apple market with their expendable income since they're finally growing up a bit and not spending every spare dime down at the local bar. Apple is having mild success with a y
      • by Locutus ( 9039 ) on Tuesday August 14, 2007 @09:14AM (#20224337)
        >The problem with Linux right now is software support. Pure and simple.

        and what software for K-12 is not supported on Linux?

        BTW, Apple did a pretty good job getting school kids familiar with its product. What happened was about a billion dollars in Microsoft marketing of FUD that Apple Mac was dead because Windows 95 made it obsolete. I was there and I had school teachers asking me about Windows PC's "because Apple was going out of business". There were no exploding Macs or anything like it, just millions and millions of Microsofts money going out to the press to spread the FUD. Apple survived by the skin of their teeth and even had to take money from Microsoft and agree to drop Netscape for a Mac version of MS Internet Explorer.

        Linux and OSS are a perfect match for K-12. It's inexpensive, completely open for their learning experiences if that is what they want to do, it works. Atleast here in the US, school systems are constantly fighting for their budgets and floundering with expensive support of Microsoft Windows software and their hardware requirements.

        LoB
         
  • I think that the writing was on the wall for SCO long, long before this lawsuit got under way. The company I was working at back in 2000 had a number of boxes running SCO, presumably because they needed a *nix that ran on Intel x86 hardware. I remember looking through the godawful tangle of symlinks that was SCO's /etc directory and wondering why anybody would pay for it when the Debian build on my desktop seemed a lot more robust and did a better job of meeting my needs, for free. Seems I wasn't the on

    • by simong ( 32944 )
      I was contracted to build a SCO UnixWare box in about 1998 as a mail server. It was so frustrating to configure with virtual hosts (impossible, as it later turned out), and support was non-existent on the web and only available on the presentation of a credit card on the phone that I advised the client to bin it and use Red Hat. It looks like I wasn't alone either.
    • by Greyfox ( 87712 )
      That overpriced steaming turd of an operating system did't change appreciably from the time I first had to use it in 1989 to the last time I looked at it in 2000. Slakware 1.3 was a better UNIX than SCO ever was. I hope that all the proprietary vendors that locked in on SCO and forced me to use it all now go bankrupt. Then die. Of cancer. In the ass. I'm looking at YOU, Intermec...

      Sorry, just had to get that off my chest...

  • by Swampash ( 1131503 ) on Tuesday August 14, 2007 @08:16AM (#20223773)

    The company is obviously disappointed with the ruling issued last Friday. However, the court clearly determined that SCO owns the copyrights to the technology developed or derived by SCO after Novell transferred the assets to SCO in 1995. This includes the new development in all subsequent versions of UnixWare up through the most current release of UnixWare and substantial portions of SCO UnixWare Gemini 64. Also, SCO owns the exclusive, worldwide license to use the UnixWare trademark, now owned by The Open Group. SCO's ownership of OpenServer and its Mobile Server platforms were not challenged and remain intact. These SCO platforms continue to drive enterprises large and small and our rapidly developing mobile business is being well received in the marketplace.

    What's more, the court did not dismiss our claims against Novell regarding the non compete provisions of the 1995 Technology License Agreement relating to Novell's distribution of Linux to the extent implicated by the technology developed by SCO after 1995. Those issues remain to be litigated.

    Although the district judge ruled in Novell's favor on important issues, the case has not yet been fully vetted by the legal system and we will continue to explore our options with respect to how we move forward from here.
    http://www.sco.com/company/news/statement.html [sco.com]
    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Salo2112 ( 628590 )
      That sure is a lot of verbiage to say "Novell put sand in the KY and widened our hineys."
    • However, the court clearly determined that SCO owns the copyrights to the technology developed or derived by SCO after Novell transferred the assets to SCO in 1995.

      Instead of the word transferred which implies ownership, use licensed. The SCO group is still confusing the facts by implying that ownership transferred. Remember, the royalty payments are badly in default with no liquid assets. Novell may soon own SCO code. Don't count on SCO making lots of money with this asset. They will likely forfet it
  • I wonder if the rise in popularity of such community-developed software will almost make software into a commodity, generally available for all. Perhaps Marx was not wrong in his assertion that a group dynamic can be as productive as any other, but it took a truely equalizing force, such as the internet, to put it to the true test.
    • It is interesting that successful community projects happen mostly in software, a field where all of the necessary tools are affordable to hobbyists, and manufacturing/distribution is even cheaper.

      I guess Marx wanted to achieve that for all fields by socializing the means of production, but that did not work out because in many cases the tools are simply too expensive to give everyone a chance at playing with them. The result was management by bureaucracy and a less efficient economy than in capitalism.
      If w
  • by Anonymous Coward
    1. SCO doesn't own Unix
    2. Novell does
    3. Microsoft has an agreement with Novell
    4. Therefore...
    5. ...

    Insert at #5 any meaningful answer that will prevent users from thinking that MS owns, or could claim to own, even the minimal part of Unix.
    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by flyingfsck ( 986395 )
      Well, long ago, Microsoft wrote a Unix system called Xenix. They sold it to SCO, who renamed it Netware.
  • Statement from SCO Regarding Recent Court Ruling

    The company is obviously disappointed with the ruling issued last Friday. However, the court clearly determined that SCO owns the copyrights to the technology developed or derived by SCO after Novell transferred the assets to SCO in 1995. This includes the new development in all subsequent versions of UnixWare up through the most current release of UnixWare and substantial portions of SCO UnixWare Gemini 64. Also, SCO owns the exclusive, worldwide license to u
    • It doesn't matter. With a stock price of $0.40 and still falling (as of 9:49 AM EST) they'll soon be delisted from the Nasdaq and will go bust. No one believes their story anymore (like they shouldn't have in the first place) and no one really cares about them anymore.
  • It seems Microsoft will have to either sue or shut up.

    They can't continue making public claims and not mitigate "damages" by pointing to a culprit and specifying THE EXACT lines of their code which they believe is in Linux. That will lead, of course, to the issue of the validity of their IP claims since most suffer severely from prior art.
    • Microsoft isn't claiming code was stolen. Microsoft is claiming patents are being violated. You can violate a patent without the plaintiff even knowing where the code that's violating it is located as long as they can show it's doing what they patented.
  • by ICLKennyG ( 899257 ) on Tuesday August 14, 2007 @08:22AM (#20223839)
    So this is what was keeping Linux market share from increasing? I thought it was that most people were too used to windows and not willing to learn a new operating system. Thanks for clearing that up. Can we please get a bit of perspective on this. Linux is doomed to a fringe market share unless something extremely bad happens from Microsoft... yes even worse than Vista. This suit was not hindering all that many people from installing Linux. I know here at work we were running it on our servers, with nothing but mild amusement every time one of these stories came down. Linux will primarily be run in the server space with fringe desktop user space for the foreseeable future. Those who's management is in bed with Microsoft for what ever reason will continue to run Windows Server in their servers. Those who hate M$ and don't have any problems with some of the unsupported functionality will run Linux. This suit changes nothing.
    • by kebes ( 861706 ) on Tuesday August 14, 2007 @09:03AM (#20224219) Journal

      So this is what was keeping Linux market share from increasing? I thought it was that most people were too used to windows and not willing to learn a new operating system.
      Well, such things are rarely due to a single issue. The fact that most people are comfortable with MS Windows (and generally dislike change or learning new things) is a huge roadblock to widespread acceptance of Linux, to be sure. However, in addition to this, the trepidation of many companies regarding the legal status of Linux kept them from considering Linux as a viable business option. (Like it or not, the FUD works on some companies.) Now that Linux has been shown to be: (a) non-infringing, and (b) backed by stable, powerful companies (Novell, IBM, etc.), this makes it a much more reasonable option for businesses. So while this court case may not quadruple Linux usage overnight, it is certainly a powerful step in that direction.

      This suit was not hindering all that many people from installing Linux. I know here at work we were running it on our servers, with nothing but mild amusement every time one of these stories came down.
      I'm glad that your company did not buy into the FUD. Not all companies are as knowledgeable about Linux, FOSS, and the associated legalities.

      This suit changes nothing.
      So you say. Yet, Forbes at least appears to be of the opinion that this does make a difference, so to the extent that Forbes is able to correctly analyze the business sector, or to the extent that businesses value Forbes' opinion, this will make a difference. Now, you or I may not care what Forbes has to say about technology: we already have well-formed opinions. However a vast number of companies (or managers, rather) do not care about such details. For some of them, an article in Forbes will make them take notice far more than the recommendation of their own IT department.

      My point is: like it or not, public perceptions do alter the adoption of technology. This means that lawsuits (even if baseless) and media attention (even if belated) can and do affect adoption.
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by LingNoi ( 1066278 )

      Those who hate M$ and don't have any problems with some of the unsupported functionality will run Linux.
      See my point! They don't even have to spread their own FUD anymore!

      Why do you feel you need to draw a line in the sand. Grow up.
  • An injured animal might bite back even though it is doomed. Time to put it out of its misery.

  • by HangingChad ( 677530 ) on Tuesday August 14, 2007 @08:28AM (#20223875) Homepage

    The mouthpiece of conventional wisdom. I'm been seeing more interest in Linux stemming from the progress in Ubuntu development than anything.

    I never got the impression that anyone choosing Windows over Linux was doing so because of the SCO case. It may have been just one more excuse but I can't think of a time it was the primary reason a customer picked .NET over a LAMP stack. YMMV, of course.

    I believe we will see more interest in Linux, mainly because interest was already picking up, not because of this ruling. And that includes Linux on the desktop. Again, mainly because it makes a nice desktop, not because of this case.

    If Microsoft loses share in the server or desktop market they've got no one to blame but themselves. Vista was a giant FUM-BLE at a time they really needed to hit one out of the park. If you don't mind me mixing sports metaphors. ;) But the big problems aren't related to Vista. Byzantine license requirements, ever escalating fees, product activation, DRM, back-stabbing EULA's...those problems will continue to haunt Microsoft.

    • by east coast ( 590680 ) on Tuesday August 14, 2007 @08:49AM (#20224067)
      If Microsoft loses share in the server or desktop market they've got no one to blame but themselves. Vista was a giant FUM-BLE at a time they really needed to hit one out of the park. If you don't mind me mixing sports metaphors. ;) But the big problems aren't related to Vista. Byzantine license requirements, ever escalating fees, product activation, DRM, back-stabbing EULA's...those problems will continue to haunt Microsoft.

      This is one of my big problems with the Linux community: You guys keep waiting for MS to fuck up.

      Give me a reason to get rid of them first! Where is the software support, for one?

      It actually makes me feel stand-offish about doing anything more with Linux knowing that they (as in the community) are waiting for someone else to fail enough to drive business their way instead of succeeding enough in their own right to give me a reason to look their way. Basing the value of your product on a competitors failures doesn't make me feel too confident. Endless stories of a new Linux revolution while the marketshare hardly creeps up doesn't make me feel too confident. The fact that major apps and games publishers are still taking a wait-and-see attitude towards Linux doesn't make me feel to confident.

      For as much trash talk I hear about Vista around here I'm not seeing too much of it on the streets. The handful of Vista adopters I know don't seem to be having such a hard time with it and it seems that the situation is only getting better for Vista. And these guys aren't geeks, mostly. It's the fabled Joe Sixpacks I know who are adopting Vista. The geeks I know are sticking to XP. Even the biggest Linux advocate I know (whom I also respect his opinion) is running XP on his laptop and his main home desktop. As far as Linux goes he's still little more then a hobbyist. After talks with him I don't think he's going to switch to Linux as his main any time soon.

      Give us a reason to switch. Don't wait for MS to file for Chapter 11. It's not going to happen anytime soon. As long as the Linux community and software publishers don't step up to the plate I don't think I'm going to see a time where I am forced to switch out of desperation.

      So if the big plan in the community is to wait for the old guard to be weak, sick and feeble before they make their attack I'm afraid you guys are going to be hanging out in the bushes for a long long time. And no, talk of another wooden rabbit isn't going to do much to sway me. But I'll keep an eye open because it is mildly amusing.
      • by kebes ( 861706 )

        Where is the software support, for one?

        Was that rhetorical? Seems like you can get Linux software support from IBM [ibm.com], Red Hat [redhat.com], Novell [novell.com], Canonical [ubuntu.com] and many others. This is in addition to the extensive free, community support, of course. The fact that you can actually "shop around" for your support when considering Linux is actually a huge advantage of FOSS over proprietary solutions (where typically you are stuck with a single vendor for support).

        You guys keep waiting for MS to fuck up. Give me a reason to get

      • New flash..

        Linux isn't a company. There are over 12,000 programs in Ubuntu (as an example). That is over 12,000 programmers.

        Your assumption that everyone is waiting for Microsoft to die is such a windows user point of view. Linux users that only use Linux never even THINK of Microsoft, its out of sight, its out of mind. The only time it ever comes up is when Microsoft start spewing BS about patents and that is it.

        Why do you need a reason to switch? If you want to try it out then just do it! You can download
      • by jedidiah ( 1196 )
        Linux has already made itself superior to Windows in a number of ways. No one is 'resting on their laurels' or 'waiting for microsoft to screw up'. Linux developers continue to do their thing, occassionally managing to beat Microsoft at it's own game of "innovation" (which usually just means ripping off Apple again).

        If there's a reasonably cool idea out there in some product that represents genuine innovation or a level of progress above and beyond Linux/Windows/MacO
    • by Lumpy ( 12016 )
      Byzantine license requirements, ever escalating fees, product activation, DRM, back-stabbing EULA's...those problems will continue to haunt Microsoft.

      All corporations spiral into blandness as soon as the guy that built it and kept telling everyone what to do leave. microsoft is ran by Bean counters now, nothing is important to microsoft other than profits. The men making the decisions are making them based on profits and not technology or innovation. This is why Microsoft is starting it's spiral into bla
    • > I never got the impression that anyone choosing Windows over Linux was doing so because of the SCO case.

      This happened at my workplace. Of course the manager that bought into all of the FUD was an idiot and has since moved on to some other suckers. Once he left, Linux started to pick up much faster for us.

      For us, that means the ruling will cause no change. Wherever that manager works now, however, it could make a difference.
  • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday August 14, 2007 @08:35AM (#20223923)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Locutus ( 9039 )
      having read the article, I felt it was either thrown together or built from pieces of a larger article. The sections just didn't flow very well and there was no depth to any of it. IMO, this seems to be a poor hack at getting something regarding this news into their content.

      Notice that they totally missed that Microsoft had put $15M into SCO for a UNIX license and Sun put in $10 million for their UNIX license. Now, it turns out that SCO does not own UNIX and though they were allowed to sell licenses, they
  • by BobMcD ( 601576 ) on Tuesday August 14, 2007 @08:49AM (#20224061)

    To anyone claiming 'this changes nothing', you're overlooking a great opportunity. Practice this phrase with me:

    "Yeah because that worked out GREAT for SCO!"

    Now, prepare to use this move to any and all of the following objections:

    A) Linux is full of stolen code, and using it means you'll get sued.

    B) Linux suffers from tons of IP problems, and using it means you'll get sued.

    C) Microsoft is going to sue you for using Linux.

    The thing that SCO did for us was dismiss the 'forgone conclusion' that the ability to sue is equivilent to the ability to WIN said suit.

    Having survived this beast makes for a stronger FOSS community, so long as we don't forget it. Of course with all the noise SCO and Darl made when they thought they were certain to win, that isn't too likely...

    Thank you sirs!
  • At first, some companies back in 2003 may have been scared of Linux because of the lawsuit, but later polls seem to suggest that the SCO lawsuit has done little to affect Linux adoption. Any company concerned about Linux would have had to do a little research to see the SCO scam for what it was. After all they sued Daimer Chrysler (one of their former customers) for doing little more than switching to Linux 7 years before the suit. And when they sued them, it was shown that SCO really had no reason, and

    • by DannyO152 ( 544940 ) on Tuesday August 14, 2007 @09:18AM (#20224409)
      Autozone got sued for switching because SCO alleges that there was a point during the transition when Linux applications are linking to unix libraries. Daimler/Chrysler got sued because they didn't respond within 30 days to a letter sent to the wrong address and, eventually, SCO alleged that when DC said "we are not using Unix" they didn't answer the question "which servers are running Unix" and SCO claimed that they had audit rights to Linux usage. For the latter two points, the Michigan state court sent SCO packing with another expensive goose egg.
      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        In Autozone, one of the things SCO is alleging is that Autozone could not have replaced their SCO Unix system with a Linux system without illegally using (or reverse-engineering) their libraries. The case was stayed pending the outcome of IBM, Redhat, and Novell. Now that it has been shown that Novell owns the Unix copyrights, it will limit what SCO can claim. To proceed, SCO would have to show that the libraries in question are under their copyrights and not Novell's or anyone else's. After all, a lot

  • Which has little to do with those who work in IT and much to do with those who pay for IT. It may have made some US CEOs think twice but it wouldn't have affected the workers on the ground. Next week Forbes will tell its readers that mauve has the most RAM.
  • The year of the desktop has come and past. The desktop is dying.
  • by john-da-luthrun ( 876866 ) on Tuesday August 14, 2007 @10:15AM (#20225155)

    From TFA:

    Unix was developed by the old American Telephone & Telegraph. The company allowed the system to be copied, leading to multiple versions, some of which effectively leaked into the public domain. In the early 1990s, Linus Torvalds, then a college student in Helsinki, wrote a version of the program from scratch that he called Linux. Torvalds posted Linux on the Internet, allowing others to copy and improve upon it. The sytem became popular for use on servers as an alternative to Microsoft's Windows.

    Yup, that's right, ol' Linus just sat down and cloned the entire Unix operating system from scratch. On his own. With no antecedents.

"The vast majority of successful major crimes against property are perpetrated by individuals abusing positions of trust." -- Lawrence Dalzell

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