OT: Cutthroat Microsoft Tactic

[Loser]

Now it gets dirty. It seems that no one but SCO knows what code they are suing over. I believe SCO has said they do not want to give away their case before court time and are keeping the offending code to themselves until then. So everybody is just guessing as to what exact intellectual property SCO is complaining about. So SOC could have just blown themselves out of the water by keeping secrets. At the end of the first link, look at the word extort, I think it should be exhort. A big difference between the two words, but the spell checker doesn't care.

Novell to Try to Shoot Down SCO IP Claims.

"We Intend to Aggressively Continue," SCO Responds to Novell

This is cutthroat: neat and clever and very, very vicious. I guess MS isn't worried about backlash: no one who might care is neutral. Anyone who might react to this sort of assault is already against MS. That's the way I see it anyway.

I had heard a few things about SCO and what it was doing, but I didn't know MS was involved. It will be interesting to see how this one plays out. Again, I might not care for their goals (I am opposed to them, even), but I can certainly respect this sort of maneuver.

Now, what are the courts going to do with it?

[tbontob]

Sorry guys. Had a new source of info. But can't get the URL to work properly.

EDIT:

OK, I can't take you directly to the articles in question, but you can get to the main site at
eWeek

RE-EDIT:

A particularly interesting article is "SCO Deserves Public Scolding"

Another interesting article is on the University of Calgary's intention of giving a course on how to code viruses.

[ May 28, 2003, 22:17: Message edited by: tbontob ]

[Will]

Ok, I haven't really heard much about this issue, only those two articles (eWeek article is refusing to load) and a CNN report about a week ago, but...

I fail to see exactly how Microsoft is involved in this. Does MS own SCO? Or am I missing something? The only way I see MS attached to this at all is that Linux/UNIX are it's largest competitors in the PC operating system market, which would imply only a very indirect involvement. Is that it?

--edit: Ok, got the actual article to load now. Before, the connection would time out any time I tried going beyond the eWeek homepage.

[ May 29, 2003, 04:23: Message edited by: Will ]

[Baron Munchausen]

Microsoft has 'recognized' SCO's claims by buying a license, just in time to finance the lawsuit(s) with payments. And has expressed support for their position publicly.

[ May 29, 2003, 01:45: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[tbontob]

Originally posted by Will:
Ok, I haven't really heard much about this issue, only those two articles (eWeek article is refusing to load) and a CNN report about a week ago, but...

I fail to see exactly how Microsoft is involved in this. Does MS own SCO? Or am I missing something? The only way I see MS attached to this at all is that Linux/UNIX are it's largest competitors in the PC operating system market, which would imply only a very indirect involvement. Is that it?

Will. I did have some problems posting the URL to e-week when I creatd the post. I tested it some hours ago and it worked and tested it again just now.

Are you still having problems with it?

[minipol]

As i understand, SCO is whining about code in Linux distro's that would be there intellectual property. So if this goes through that would be great for MS because Linux is gaining on MS specially in the server market.
SCO are a bunch of idiots. I hope they lose their case.

[Dralasite]

Heres a rumor for you (of the best kind, I can't substantiate any of it ) -- SCO used to sell a unix called xenix? or maybe zenix. The rumor is that Bill Gates/MS orginally gave it to them, or at least provided heavy support. Many people consider SCO to be MS's proxy into the unix world.

[Baron Munchausen]

Originally posted by Dralasite:
Heres a rumor for you (of the best kind, I can't substantiate any of it ) -- SCO used to sell a unix called xenix? or maybe zenix. The rumor is that Bill Gates/MS orginally gave it to them, or at least provided heavy support. Many people consider SCO to be MS's proxy into the unix world.

The company that is called SCO today is not the company that partnered with MS to develop Xenix. The current SCO is actually Caldera Linux... Yes, a company that was founded as a Linux company. The original SCO that developed Xenix with MS sold off its Unix 'IP' to Caldera Linux and changed its name to Tarantella, going into some sort of networking/enterprise niche. Caldera-SCO then bought a bunch of licenses from Novell for various things related to Unix, because Novell had bought almost all the rights to Unix from AT&T some years ago, but the actual rights remained with Novell. All they had were licenses to develop their own stuff using Novell's code. Novell said as much in a press release on the day of SCO's Shareholders meeting. (That sure rained on the parade. Caldera-SCO lost 25 percent of it's stock value that day, while the shareholders were meeting and grilling the management! ) That's right, pseudo-SCO does not have the legal standing to make these claims and has publicly admitted it since Novell announced the real nature of the license agreement between them. Even funnier, Novell said that SCO obviously understood this because they had been pressing Novell to sell the actual copyights/patents. Novell refused, of course. And yet they still say they're gonna sue IBM (for breach of contract now rather than patent/copyright violation it seems) and have actually made noises about suing Linus personally for some sort of 'infringement' of the rights they don't own.

Meanwhile Novell is making noises about counter-suits, MS has publicy announced that it has 'licensed' SCO's 'Intellectual Property' and will be giving them lots of bucks (useful for paying the lawyers of course), and a German company is threatening to sue SCO in Germany based on German anti-trust law that bars using threats of lawsuits to get unfair competitive advantage. The exact claim that SCO thinks it has is still a secret, of course. If the programmers were told what SCO thinks it owns they could probably rip it out and rewrite a substitute in a matter of hours or days. But that's the point, and the reason for the lawsuit in Germany, this is about FUD, not business. If people are afraid that Linux might be sunk by lawsuits they won't want to use it, and MS might be able to recover the 1/3rd of server market-share that Linux has taken from them. Maybe the German lawsuit will be able to force Caldera-SCO to disclose what they think they own in the Linux source so it can be replaced. And maybe, just maybe, the legal process will uncover the slimy machinations of William H. Gates III before all is said and done.

Is your head spinning yet?

[ May 30, 2003, 00:25: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[Katchoo]

Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
Is your head spinning yet?

Yes... Yes it is

And how can anyone sue Linus Torvald? Unless he cracked existing licensed software, or stole patented information, no one can touch him seeing as how the Linux code is distributed freely. Sueing the individual companies that sell Linux in retail stores (Red Hat, Mandrake, etc) would make more sense.

Does Linus make any money from the companies that do sell Linux in retail chains?

[Loser]

Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
words, words, words

Baron you rock. That is, of course, unless you are simply living up to your name and pulling our legs.