I sure would like to be in that court room to tell them to blow it out their
ass!
Ed Sharpe archivist for SMECC
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http://www.smecc.org
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rt room to tell them to blow it out their ass!
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tom Brandt" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2003 7:55 AM
Subject: [HP3000-L] OT: SCO sues Linux users
> From the NY Times:
>
===========================================================================
>
>
> SCO targets Linux customers
> May 15, 2003
> Stephen Shankland, Staff Writer, CNET News.com
>
> SCO Group, a financially struggling company that claims its
> Unix intellectual property has been illegally incorporated
> into Linux, has sent letters to about 1,500 of the world's
> largest corporations warning they could be liable for using
> Linux.
>
> The move, announced Wednesday, dramatically broadens the
> Lindon, Utah-based company's potential legal actions beyond
> its initial target, IBM. Big Blue, a SCO licensee, was sued
> in March for more than $1 billion on allegations that
> include inappropriately using Unix trade secrets to improve
> Linux.
>
> "We think it is appropriate that we warn commercial
> companies that there are intellectual property issues with
> Linux," Chris Sontag, head of the effort to derive more
> revenue from SCO's intellectual property, said in an
> interview. "We sent it to the Fortune 500 and effectively
> the global 2000. It ended up being about 1,500 top
> international companies."
>
> "We believe that Linux infringes on our Unix intellectual
> property and other rights," the letter said. "We intend to
> aggressively protect and enforce these rights. Legal
> liability that may arise from the Linux development process
> may also rest with the end user."
>
> Industry analysts viewed the move as an escalation of the
> company's intellectual property war and an attempt to put
> more pressure on companies to acquire SCO.
>
> "SCO has lobbed its dirty bomb into the user community,
> saying, 'You'd better clean this up in a big hurry or
> there's going to be a lot of damage,'" said Illuminata
> analyst Gordon Haff. "I guess suing IBM wasn't enough to
> get them acquired, so this is the next stage."
>
> The company warned that it expects to report revenue of $21
> million for its most recent quarter, $2 million to $4
> million less than earlier projected. But that's enough to
> carry it to its first-ever net income, about $4 million,
> SCO said.
>
> The revenue from the quarter, which ended April 30,
> consists of about $12.8 million from operating system
> products and $8.2 million from licensing. The company said
> Wednesday that a second major customer has signed a license
> under its SCOsource plan, the name for its effort to
> collect revenue from its Unix intellectual property. One of
> those licensees is willing to be named, but a SCO
> representative said it won't be revealed until later.
>
> Gartner analyst George Weiss agreed that SCO's actions
> appear designed to make the company an acquisition target,
> but in the meantime, the company is raising hackles.
>
> "They're not well loved," Weiss said. "I guess SCO is
> really attempting to create a fairly large disruption of
> Linux, and will attempt to take the Linux community with
> them in the defense of their intellectual property,
> regardless of how poorly it goes off in the Linux
> community."
>
> Haff of Illuminata concurred. "The only rational
> explanation for this is it's a plea for money, essentially,
> from IBM and others that can't afford to let Linux be
> derailed," he said. "SCO is not the least afraid of being
> the bad guys here."
>
> Indeed, SCO was the victim of a computer attack that
> crippled its Web site earlier this month. Though it's not
> clear who launched the attack, SCO was quick to blame Linux
> enthusiasts.
>
> Despite the consternation SCO’s actions are causing,
> the company vehemently argues it's behaving in a principled
> manner, comparing its fight to the one being waged by the
> music industry to defend its copyrights.
>
> But that’s precisely what some Linux advocates dislike
> about SCO’s campaign.
>
> "They're raising a banner equal and opposite to the Linux
> community," Weiss said. Linux fans, with their
> philosophical roots in the Free Software Foundation often
> bring a moral tone to their advocacy.
>
> "They've compared themselves in glowing terms to the record
> industry in how they're taking actions to look after their
> own rights," Haff said. But “not many people these
> days hold the recording industry as an exemplar of
> corporate behavior."
>
> Also Wednesday, SCO said the legal problems with Linux are
> severe enough that it has ceased sales of its own version
> of Linux.
>
> But that product has never been very successful. The
> software's high-water mark occurred in March 2000, when it
> was the centerpiece of an initial public offering that
> raised $70 million for SCO, then called Caldera Systems.
>
> SCO, though, eventually acquired the Unix intellectual
> property from the Santa Cruz Operation and later scrapped
> its own Linux version for one built by rival SuSE through a
> consortium called UnitedLinux.
>
> Following the legal actions taken by SCO, its relationship
> with SuSE has deteriorated.
>
> "We certainly have suspended our activities with
> UnitedLinux," SCO’s Sontag said. SuSE's argument that
> its UnitedLinux contract protects it from SCO legal action
> is baseless, he added.
>
> "That simply is not the case at all," Sontag said. "Public
> statements to that effect (are) the farthest thing from the
> truth."
>
> SuSE didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.
>
> Linux once was only peripherally involved in SCO's
> Unix-centric lawsuit against IBM, but is now becoming more
> important. Two weeks ago, SCO Chief Executive Darl McBride
> said programming code from SCO's UnixWare product had been
> copied into Linux, sometimes line by line and sometimes
> "obfuscated" to disguise its origin.
>
> Sontag declined to reveal details about the copying, but
> said SCO will disclose specifics in court and to credible
> third parties who sign nondisclosure agreements.
>
> "We've identified a large number of contributions from
> various sources which are very disconcerting to us, and
> additional areas of code with no attribution to any
> contributor or maintainer at all," Sontag said. "This is in
> the kernel, and also in extended areas of Linux."
>
> Sontag said IBM employees were among those who copied code.
> In reading Big Blue's Web site describing Linux
> contributions, one can "find a lot of areas they mention
> code contributions they have made from AIX into Linux,"
> Sontag said. AIX is IBM's version of Unix.
>
> IBM, which is vigorously defending the SCO lawsuit,
> declined to comment on the accusation, but a representative
> did iterate the company's position that IBM believes it has
> a perpetual and irrevocable right to use Unix. As part of
> its legal action, SCO has threatened to revoke IBM's Unix
> license starting June 13.
>
> SCO said the apparent copying led to its SCOsource
> strategy. "It's way wider than we expected. We thought our
> main focus would be with IBM. It still is our predominant
> effort," Sontag said.
>
> SCO also argues that customers aren't protected from the
> alleged infringement of companies from which they bought
> their versions of Linux.
>
> "Legal liability may rest with the end users. It is not
> carried by the distributor or by anyone else involved in
> selling that Linux distribution into these commercial
> accounts. It resides with the end users, which is unheard
> of. They need to know they have exposure in this issue,"
> Sontag said.
>
> While SCO's fight may seem quixotic to some, it could have
> serious repercussions, Haff said.
>
> "One the one hand, you want to laugh and say this is an
> interesting sideshow," Haff said. "But if directives were
> to start coming down from CEOs of, 'Get that Linux stuff
> out of my shop,' it's going to be very disruptive for a lot
> of IT shops, very disruptive for a lot of vendors and very
> expensive."
>
>
http://www.nytimes.com/cnet/CNET_2100-1016_3-1001609.html?ex=1054010366&ei=1&en=0a0dcfd54fee99c9
> http://www.nytimes.com/ads/nytcirc/index.html
>
>
>
> Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company
>
> --
> Tom Brandt
> Northtech Systems, Inc.
> 130 S. 1st Street, Suite 220
> Ann Arbor, MI 48104-1343
> http://www.northtech.com/
>
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