Posted on 07/21/2003 6:07:30 PM PDT by amigatec
SCO is giving the "tainted" Linux users out there a way to clean up their filthy ways via a licensing program that will begin in the coming weeks.
After dolling out threats of legal action, SCO has called on enterprise Linux users to come forward and pay for code the company claims to own. The legal zealots at SCO reckon Linux has grown up too fast by nicking technology such as support for large SMP systems from its copyrighted Unix code. SCO plans to start calling Linux customers this week, asking them to pay up or face the consequences.
"Following the distribution of our letter to the Fortune 1000 and Global 500, many prominent companies using Linux contacted SCO to ask, 'What do you want me to do?'," said Darl McBride, president and CEO, The SCO Group, in a statement. "Today, we're delivering a very clear message to customers regarding what they should do."
Well, it's not all that clear of a message. SCO says the pricing terms for a license will not be announced for weeks. The suspense continues.
SCO's sudden burst of courage comes after it received U.S. copyright registrations for Unix System V source code. The company had been waiting to make sure all its legal bits and pieces were in proper order before kicking off its Linux licensing business.
IBM has been SCO's main target up to this point, but now the company wants to attack all the dirty, open source users out there.
"Today, we're stating that the alleged actions of IBM and others have caused customers to use a tainted product at SCO's expense," McBride said. "With more than 2.4 million Linux servers running our software, and thousands more running Linux every day, we expect SCO to be compensated for the benefits realized by tens of thousands of customers. Though we possess broad legal rights, we plan to use these carefully and judiciously."
Doesn't that put your mind at ease?
After making "no contribution" to the 2.2 Linux kernel, large vendors began dumping hundreds of Unix files into the OS in the 2.4 and upcoming 2.6 Linux kernels, according to SCO. This code has made it possible for Linux to run well not just on the two processor servers where it got its start but on eight, 16, 32 and 64-way boxes.
SCO is demanding that enterprise users pay for this SMP technology, but why?
There are but a few Intel-based boxes that size in existence, and IBM, the main target of SCO, does not even scale to 64 processors as of yet. Linux is most often found on small systems or on clusters of servers. The number of customers benefiting from this Unix code is quite slim.
Still, Linux customers of all shapes and sizes are to pay for all the bells and whistles in the code. SCO says home users and small-time players aren't on its immediate legal horizon, but contaminated corporate users need to fess up.
"We have a solution here that gets you clean," McBride said, in a conference call.
SCO suggests that the dirtiest players of all are companies such as IBM and Red Hat that let users purchase Linux without providing an OS warranty. SCO continues to put pressure on IBM to help its customer base out and take on the Linux IP costs.
SCO also added a little pressure to Linus Torvalds. Up to this point, SCO has been attacking IBM on contractual issues which left Torvalds out of the fray. With the new copyright claims, however, SCO says Torvalds may come under attack.
"As of today, it is a different game," McBride said. "We are not saying Linus created the problems, but he inherited them."
SCO claims it has a well thought out plan for licensing the Unix IP but remains reluctant to provide any details on the costs a business may face. The lack of information here leaves a nasty air of intrigue hanging over the matter, and we think SCO should speak up sooner rather than later. ®
Far from the truth, I have been here since around 95 (why my profile says 99 I have no idea, others probably have the same problem but since it's no real issue I haven't asked anyone to look into it and waste their valuable time).
I have several virtual friends on here, and we have met and demonstrated together as well. My credentials are more than sound Mr. Brian. And I will continue to take your posts to task if you continue your weak attempts to counter them.
Simple, because even though it was NOT a joke, any attempt at making jokes about neutron bombing the United States is sick anyway.
More to the point, that was only one example, that site is full of that kind of crap ALL the time. Any effort to deny it is absurd.
I wonder if Ari Fleischer's Single Bullet Doctrine [link to washingtonpost.com] is applicable here. :)
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=71886&cid=6491985
I have seen much much worse in the past, I just don't care to sort back through any of it on your behalf. Go look at that same thread, there's some other reference to "fire-bombing" SCO headquarters. You probably think that is funny too.
At the high end where all these guys make their money, there really is no such thing as a "cheap Intel box." The Intel advantage is high-volume chip production. As a component of box cost, that's not that big an advantage at the high end. The CPU chips themselves are not a huge fraction of box cost, the way they are in the desktop PC business. System architecture and nifty schemes for memory management, load balancing, etc., swamp CPU performance per se as a determinant of overall box performance, and those features become more significant as cost elements. Beyond a certain point, I don't think the big-system guys worry about that.
In IBM's particular case, they have their own chipset in the Power PC line. They will never make those in the volumes that Intel makes P4's, but they don't have to. All they have to do is get their manufacturing cost on PowerPC to where Intel's lowest price to a competitor is, and they don't care about Intel boxes anymore. Since most of the volume effects are at the top end of the bathtub curve, they are probably already there, with just their own plus the Apple business.
Sun is apparently happy with their own cost structure on SPARC. That surprises me, but they're still making the things.
The guy who may have stumbled on this is HP, who took the bet that they could abandon their own RISC chip and rely on Intel's 64-bit offering to carry them. So far I don't think Itanium has the volume that SPARC has, so this might not be working out for HP as well as they'd hoped.
IBM does something else though, that hardly anyone else does anymore: basic research. They publish papers every so often about how they've made transistors out of carbon nanotubes... weird stuff that Bell Labs would have been the only other guys doing... except that they're gone now. IBM could have some really scary stuff coming that has patents sticking out of every side of it. They are outspending everyone on R&D, and by a lot. Some of that stuff is bound to turn into problems for their competitors.
You don't have to reply to me, but you can expect I will be replying to you whenever I see commnunistic anti-American BS coming out of YOUR mouth again though
Christians...their religion requires that they use government force to preach it, because it's such a weak religion that it will fail without government backing.
So anti-Christian as well, I see. Let me guess. You will now claim you ARE Christian.
it isn't "homosexual sex" that is at higher risk, it's a certain specific sexual act often engaged in by homosexual males. Not every homosexual male engeges in that act, however, and some heterosexuals engage in the same act, and it's just as risky when they do it. Lesbians typically do not engage in that particular act. As such, "homosexual sex" isn't a higher risk activity per se, because there's no single specific action defined under "homosexual sex".
Sorry for anyone that is offended. Just calling someone out here.
I can't possibly imagine where you got the idea that I was insisting that no one is violating the GPL. Seems to me that you are having some problem reading.
I discussed Microsoft more at length than say IBM, who has billions of dollars invested in Linux and GPL software, because Microsoft was a bit less obvious. Clearly IBM works hard to respect the GPL; it's more interesting that Microsoft is held in its constraints.
But either would be an excellent example of the very substantial teeth in the GPL.
It is you are is asking everyone to make an unreasonable leap of logic - that IBM would risk billions, or that Microsoft would feel constrained from its usual embrace extend and extinguish tactics, on the strength of a license that would not stand up in court.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.