http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,110712,00.asp

their attitude is very m$ like in nature - arrogant and threatening.

Yeah, it's because they are Utah based. Stupid Utah based enterprising, mind controlling, power hungry freaks.



Cool

Turning ugly.

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/st...1947129&EDATE=

I see they decided to hang themselves.

Tell me this doesn't smell familiarWhat I'd like to know is how a company that made $4 million in profits this year can finance a multi-year litigation crusade. Gotta be a sugar daddy in the works, perhaps someone who has somehting to lose by Linux's gains. Someone with lots of money and a thorough knowledge of guerilla tactics in both the marketplace and the legal system. Just have to figure out who it could possibly be.

As for SCO pursuing Linux users - if that's the case then I guess that would make anybody who purchased a Dr. Dre CD laible for copyright infringement

On the other hand, If IBM settles and SCO still has the bloodlust I can only hope that the entire Linux community gets off as easy as Microsoft by giving an equal dollar amount of free software to SCO.

From this letter
Essentially they are threatening to sue you into oblivion for an undefined copyright infringement. They won't disclose the supposed violation of their intellectual property and their vague threats are harming real businesses. Their legal actions aren't just frivelous - they are hostile, damaging and illegal. IMO the when the smoke clears from the financial crater that once was SCO, the board of directors should be held accountable up to and including criminal prosecution.

After reading the briefs filed by SCO I can summarize...

IBM Licenced UNIX from AT&T to build and modify it as AIX for its mainframe and minicomputers in 1985.

IBM (who already developed significant expertise in UNIX via their AIX product) entered into an agreement with SCO (who through a convolution of share exchanges as Novell aquired the UNIX license from AT&T) to work on the joint project named 'Project Monterey' in order to build "a new 64-bit UNIX-based operating system for Intel-based processing platforms." sometime between 1998 and 1991.

IBM (through a series or press releases and public appearances, including LinuxWorld in January 2003) announced its intent to focus more of its AIX expertise on the development of Linux including large-scale, multi-CPU hardware.

SCO claims that the current state of the Linux kernel could never have made the advances we see today without access to UNIX System V source code. In a sense they have made the claim that it would be impossible for the Open Source talent pool to solve the same problems SCO or AT&T faced when creating UNIX System V.

If you've read this far you should at least take the time to see the quotes which they (SCO) feels strengthens the case against Linux. From this you should see that they are capable of making extreme leaps of logic in cause and effect.

is the mark of the beginning of the end of "linux" ????

No. Its not. Not by a long shot. The only people who think so are microsoft astroturfers who want to make sure that the FUD is at an all time high. Linux won't be stopped by something this silly. I'm waiting for IBM to take the big guns and blow this company out of existence.

There have been many many articles refuting SCO's claims, which frankly are insulting to most developpers who contributed to the kernel and the various apps that make up linux distros...just googling for a few minutes will get you plenty...one salient point that stuck to my mind was that a lot of what SCO says couldn't be done in Linux without IBM's "help" actually WAS done before IBM ever got involved in open source and linux...

We'll just have to see this played out...

mcleodnine,

thanks for that link to the sco quotes page. my guess is that they want to be bought out. hrm, think they want microsoft to buy them??

man, i remember thinking it was cool when caldera
bought the old unix, and my first thought was
"hey, now we can use the old unix code if any of it is better
then the current linux stuff", then they bought sco, and i
thought, "sweet, now they'll open source it and we can
take the best stuff out of it".
this whole thing is really weird.
it's like dating a girl that smokes crack, and buying her
a cup of coffee, then she beats you up, and her parents
sue you cause she broke her finger punching you.
it's like your neighbor plants a pecan tree in their yard,
and a pecan rolls into yours, and you eat it, and get sick
and sue them because you're allergic to nuts.
in this analogy SCO is on crack and they're the nuts.

Hell, I'm halfway thinking that Microsoft already owns them

Yep, my cynicism is turning me into a real conspiracy nut....but then again, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're NOT out to get you

Uh huh... So, uh, have a bit too much candy this morning?

I know what you are saying. How about the fatty kids who's parents sued McD's for supersizing their french fries? Some people just need their a$$ kicked...

Cool

I wonder if there will be much brain drain from sco's current employees. They may view this as a sign that sco is going down so it's better to go ahead and look for a job. And what about recruiting new talent? Who is going to want to work for them knowing this about them?

With sales of $20 million they can't have too much of a real brain trust to begin with. How much could be left over for salaries after paying the legal fees? SCO's talent pool probably doesn't even come close to IBM's AIX crew, 250 of which were set to work on the Linux project. And keep in mind that SCO didn't create UNIX - they bought it.

A lot of people have openly wondered if SCO may have benefited from GPL'd code.