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Posted on 02/19/2003 8:49:41 AM PST by taxcontrol
Edited on 04/13/2004 2:16:35 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Leading Linux seller Red Hat quietly released an updated version of its Advanced Server product last week that adds support for IBM's x440 server, an important expansion for both companies.
The update to version 2.1 of Red Hat Advanced Server, distributed Thursday and Friday of last week, also was the first in a new plan to release updates once per quarter, company spokeswoman Leigh Day said Tuesday. Red Hat is becoming increasingly aggressive in steering customers and business partners to the premium product instead of its Professional and Personal editions, which can be downloaded for free.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessweek.com ...
The other impact or result is that there appears to be a reduced focus on the Itanium processor from Intel. We may be approaching a point where the cost of deploying a bigger faster processor is more expensive that simply adding a few more lower cost processors.
There is nothing official from SCO that they have no intention of trying that. In fact, the attorney they hired is not some 2bit attorney who would go chasing some $179 library. If they are looking to recoup the 150M+ purchase price of USL, they you need to think bigger. Check the Wall Street Journal article that appeared the week after this news story broke.
The SCO Group is basically part of ancient history and is no longer a force in the marketplace.
The only game they can play is this threat of 'licensing' which will be seen for the mirage that it is: there really isn't anything there to license. BSD excised all the ATT code a *long* time ago, back when BSD ported in main distribution over to the MIPS processor, if memory serves me properly...
Be careful.
I was called a "Luddite" for expressing a similar opinion regarding Moore's Law last week.
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What is the United Linux position on this?
Our partners in United Linux understand that SCO has valuable intellectual property and that we are introducing SCO System V for Linux to help benefit Linux by allowing thousands of UNIX applications to run on Linux.
Isn’t this going to anger the open source community?
It shouldn’t. We haven’t formulated all of our plans for SCOsource yet, but it’s important for people to know that SCO is not interested in chasing individual open source developers to collect $149. We want vendors and large commercial users to comply with our IP licenses. The individual open source developer performs a great service to all Linux vendors and customers. We appreciate that and we want them to continue unabated.
It’s important to remember that the UNIX shared libraries, owned by SCO, are not Linux products. They are not open source software and they are not covered by the GPL. The shared libraries are UNIX intellectual property, which SCO has owned for years. They are proprietary, licensable intellectual property that we sell. Many Linux environments have been using SCO’s UNIX shared libraries because they are a superior product and they make these environments more productive. But until today, there were two ways for users to get the shared libraries:
1. Buy a SCO UNIX or Linux product that included the shared libraries as part of the bundled offering. This is legal.
2. Copy the shared libraries from a disk or through the Internet. In this case someone has unbundled the shared libraries from the SCO offering and opened them up for copying. This is illegal. It is this behavior that we will stop through the creation of SCOsource and today’s announcement.
SCO’s UNIX shared libraries are not open source code available for free use.
Is SCO going to sue Linux vendors?
SCO is a Linux vendor and a member of United Linux. We have no interest in suing Linux vendors. While we haven’t formulated the details of our new SCOsource effort, we’re confident that we can work together with other vendors to clear up IP issues in a fair and amicable way.
Two weeks ago an industry publication headlined a story saying SCO was threatening to sue Linux vendors.
The story was wrong. SCOsource is now one day old. We haven’t made any plans to sue Linux vendors, and we certainly haven’t threatened any vendors. This story was damaging to the Linux community and made assumptions that were incorrect.
But isn’t hiring Boies, Schiller and Flexner a clear signal that SCO is getting ready to sue people?
Not at all. SCO is working with BSF for their expertise at dealing with complex legal problems. Resolving intellectual property issues does not automatically mean litigation.
If SCO requires Linux customers to license SCO’s UNIX shared libraries, won’t this damage the Linux market by driving up the costs of implementing Linux?
By purchasing this license, customers will have the ability to run thousands of UNIX applications on Linux, which they would otherwise have to obtain in a native Linux format. A license to SCO’s shared libraries will actually save many customers thousands of dollars.
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Not trying to start a flame war or pick a fight. Just trying to understand what the threats are so that I can make a living in this space.
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You can buy an AMD 2100+ XP for $90. It don't get no better 'n that.
If I recall SCO bought the rights to UNIX System V Release 4 from Novell as well as Novell's Intel-based SVR4 UNIX called UnixWare. Novell had in turn aquired it from AT&T. I believe a few years ago they sold the UNIX trademark to the Open Group, but kept Unixware and with it the AT&T code.
Here is a more detailed article from ITworld.com:
Although no one fell overboard and the sea is relatively calm now, many are watching SCO, concerned it could unleash a storm on users and vendors that have grown fond of the peaceful Linux waters.
On January 22, SCO made headlines with its announcement that it had hired firecracker attorney David Boies and his law firm to protect its Unix intellectual property from possible violations, particularly from Linux developers.
SCO hasn't sued anyone. Yet.
"Bringing in a person like Mr. Boies on board is certainly an indication that they plan to take this very seriously," said Brian Ferguson, a partner in McDermott, Will & Emery's intellectual property department in Washington, D.C.
Boies, a partner at Boies, Schiller & Flexner, became famous in the IT world through his work as special trial counsel for the U.S. Department of Justice in its antitrust suit against Microsoft Corp.
Because SCO's intentions are unclear, experts can't predict whether the company will prevail or fail in court, should it get litigious. But most agree that the Linux community had better get ready for a significant increase in legal challenges similar to the ones SCO may unleash.
"This is just the beginning; there's going to be a lot more of this," said Eric S. Raymond, president of the Open Source Initiative, a non-profit corporation that promotes the concept of open source software, such as Linux.
Open source software is, in general terms, that for which source code is available to users. By contrast, most commercial software vendors, such as Microsoft Corp., rarely, if ever, disclose the source code of their programs, and normally forbid users from freely modifying, copying or distributing them. Some call this a "proprietary" approach to software licensing, to distinguish it from the approach of the open source and free software movements, which, while disagreeing on some things, concur that software ought to be free for users to copy, share, modify and redistribute. Neither the open source movement nor the free software movement demands that software be free of charge, a common misconception.
"What surprises me is that I thought the first assault would come from Microsoft. I didn't expect it would be some of our guys who would go over to the dark side," Raymond said, referring to the fact that SCO also sells Linux software.
The legal challenges could affect how Linux is developed, marketed, licensed, sold and used, implications of concern to Linux users, developers and vendors.
So why do some predict Tux, the official Linux penguin mascot, is headed for court? Some point to Linux's rising popularity, which could draw elements wanting to profit from its success by claiming intellectual-property misuse.
"As anything becomes more popular in an industry, it's going to open itself up to and become more of a potential target to holders of intellectual property," McDermott, Will & Emery's Ferguson said. "The Linux situation is a prime example of that."
The weak economy makes revenue-starved vendors more willing to file intellectual-property claims, said Ray Lupo, another partner in McDermott, Will & Emery's intellectual property department in Washington, D.C.
Some say that's SCO's case, which closed its 2002 fiscal year on Oct. 31 with a net loss of $24.9 million, or $1.93 per common share, on revenue of $64.2 million. The stock's 52-week high is $2.99. It closed Monday at $1.18.
"I think they want to generate more revenue through IP licensing. But it would be insanity for SCO to try and say: 'We hold IP on every Unix-like operating system which has ever shipped and is in use right now,'" said Nat Friedman, co-founder and vice president of product development at Ximian Inc., a Linux vendor.
Others, like the Open Source Initiative's Raymond, cite more twisted reasons for legal threats in general, such as sabotage.
"It's a real simple situation: they can't beat us competitively in the market, so they have to try it in the courts," said Raymond.
But SCO and others point back at the Linux community, saying it suffers from a largely-ignored yet significant problem of intellectual property violations, which they say hurts Linux's development.
"If the Linux community is really going to continue to grow, we can't keep ignoring this problem of intellectual property violations. We need to address it head on," said Chris Sontag, senior vice president of SCO's operating systems division.
It's unlikely Linus Torvalds considered any of these concerns when in 1991, while a university student, he set out to build a Unix-like operating system. At some point, he posted his code on the Internet and volunteers worldwide began to help him. Version 1.0 of the Linux kernel saw the light in 1994, and development continues in this fashion.
Right now, what is commonly known as Linux includes Torvald's Linux kernel as well as other essential operating system software, much from the GNU operating system from the Free Software Foundation Inc. (FSF), which is why Linux is sometimes referred to as GNU/Linux.
Observers say most legal challenges to Linux will hone in on two potential vulnerabilities, which also happen to be two of its core features: that its kernel is developed by a dispersed group of volunteers, which arguably makes it hard to monitor possible copyright violations; and that its kernel is distributed under the FSF's General Public License (GPL), which some say is ambiguous and vague.
By press time, Torvalds hadn't replied to several phone and e-mail requests for comment on these issues.
Regarding the Linux kernel's community of volunteer developers, an outsider could claim owning a Linux kernel component and sue anyone using a Linux product containing that component, said Brian Kelly, a Fenwick & West LLP partner in Washington D.C. who specializes in IT intellectual property.
"It's hard to see that happening in any big fashion. But it's certainly a risk with any open source project, because you don't know where all the contributions are coming from and it's possible that any individual contributor could have misappropriated that code or contribution from somewhere else," Kelly said.
Claims of that kind have been made in the past couple of years, and in all cases have been proven bogus, said Bradley Kuhn, executive director of the FSF.
He does point out that it's not ideal that many people hold copyrights on the different components of the Linux kernel, a situation the FSF has tried to avoid by holding the copyrights to many of the GNU components.
"We have a clear chain of custody for that (GNU) software so we're quite immune to those kinds of claims. The Linux kernel, because of the way it was developed, and because its developers didn't feel that what the (FSF) did was the right approach, have left themselves open to that kind of attack" from opportunistic bounty hunters, he said. However, he feels confident that the Linux kernel copyrights are all in order.
But others argue that the GPL, under which the Linux kernel is distributed, is problematic.
"Many have commented that the GPL is very ambiguous and not very specific, leaving many things up in the air that could be potentially interpreted in many different ways, and I would agree with those characterizations," Sontag said.
This vagueness, he said, "can be problematic in cases when companies want to make contributions of certain things and maintain their intellectual property on other things and hold some things in reserve. The GPL in some cases can be problematic as to how you go about sorting that out."
In a nutshell, acquirers of software distributed under the GPL -- including fee-based software and software that is free of charge -- have the right to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software, a precondition of which is having access to the software's source code. And if they redistribute the software, they must share their changes. Thus, the GNU/Linux operating system, including Torvalds' kernel and its other components, has been used by others to create myriad versions of Linux, tailored to a wide range of user needs. Popular commercial versions include those from Red Hat Inc. and SuSE AG.
But, for example, it's not clear whether the developer of a proprietary commercial software product that uses in it a GPL-licensed component would thereby unintentionally turn its product into a GPL-licensed software, said Fenwick & West's Kelly.
"Eventually there's going to be some court cases interpreting the GPL itself," Kelly said. "But to date, there have been no decisions at all interpreting it or what it's supposed to mean ... or interpreting these ambiguities. And that's causing a good bit of uncertainty."
The FSF's Kuhn disagrees, saying the license is "completely enforceable and legally sound," and that ambiguities stem from U.S. and international copyright statutes, created hundreds of years before software. As for proprietary software vendors that choose to include GPL-licensed components into their products, they must abide by the GPL's provisions, he said.
The FSF trusts it will be able to keep the GPL out of court through its active enforcement of its requirements and its non-litigious "diplomatic" and "friendly negotiation" approach to solving violations, Kuhn said.
The GPL aside, Kuhn does see a widespread disposition to shoot down free software products -- those whose licenses allow users freedom to copy, modify and redistribute them, whether they are free of charge or fee-based.
For now, it remains to be seen how SCO will proceed. The company "is the keeper of the core IP for Unix," and it intends to protect it, Sontag said. Unix was first developed by AT&T Corp. at its Bell Labs around 1969, and through a series of transactions and acquisitions over the years, the core Unix code now "resides with SCO," he said. (SCO's official legal name is still Caldera International Inc., although the company has been calling itself The SCO Group since August 2002 and will adopt that as its official legal name if shareholders approve the change in an upcoming vote, a spokesman said. Caldera International bought SCO in May 2001, he said.)
In its statement two weeks ago, SCO billed itself as "the majority owner of Unix intellectual property" and its Chief Executive Officer Darl McBride said sternly SCO "has full rights to license this technology and enforce the associated patents and copyrights."
To that end, SCO, based in Lindon, Utah, not only hired Boies but also created a new intellectual property division, SCOware. It's telling that the first, and so far only, SCOware licensing program addresses Linux.
Called SCO System V for Linux, the program will allow clients to license SCO's Unix System Shared Libraries to allow Unix applications to run on Linux. Previously, SCO hadn't made these shared libraries available outside of its operating systems, and it had come across cases of clients and developers using these libraries without permission, Sontag said.
This first program hasn't alarmed Linux enthusiasts. But by SCO's own admission, it's just the first to emerge from its nascent IP-protection initiative, and there's concern over what may follow.
Not even SCO knows yet, Sontag said. "I wish we could just say we know everything, but we're dealing with such a large problem with many areas and complexities that we can't say 'this is it' and be done -- I wish we could," he said. "I can empathize with the concerns of (the Linux community), but we don't know either all the answers to what may or may not be of issue," as SCO assess its intellectual property.
Sontag admits SCO, as a Linux vendor, is in a conundrum.
"We want to see Linux succeed and grow," he said. "But we also have a significant amount of intellectual property in Unix, and in a number of cases we've seen so far, there's been some inappropriate use of our Unix technology."
All agree SCO has the right to protect its proprietary commercial products. However, most of those interviewed expressed skepticism over SCO's possible claims over the original Unix patents from the Bell Labs days, which many say may have lapsed or lost their effectiveness due to a lack of enforcement.
"I think those patents have pretty much expired at this point. I don't think they have much in the way of IP (in that area). ... I think David Boies needs to find a better job now, because this one doesn't sound very exciting," Ximian's Friedman said.
Most observers say that if SCO gets litigious with the Linux community, which now includes big guns like IBM Corp., it stands to lose much more than it will gain, by way of animosity, bad blood and lengthy, costly court fights.
"They will hurt Linux and hurt themselves," Friedman said.
For starters, SCO will get hit with a mighty legal counteroffensive, courtesy of some of Linux's newer friends, which have deep pockets and many lawyers, most say.
"You can be certain that IBM and some of the larger companies will fight tooth and nail if they are approached on this, and they certainly have the legal army to do that. A company the size of IBM will come out with all cannons blazing," McDermott, Will & Emery's Lupo said.
Raymond puts it in blunter and more visual terms.
"There's a lot of big money and big guns who are going to find it in their selfish corporate interest to line up with the open source hackers," Raymond said. "I predict that if SCO attempts to levy patents or seek restraining orders against any of the Linux distributions, there will be a mob with pitchforks and torches at its door."
I think that it is pertinent to note that reverse engineering and re-engineering are both well established and very necessary and healthy practices. Reverse engineering is the process of analyzing a subject system to identify the system's components and their interrelationships and create representations of the system in another form or at a higher level of abstraction. Re-engineering is the the examination and alteration of a subject system to reconstitute it in a new form and the subsequent implementation of the new form. (These definitions thanks to Georgia Tech)
Without these avenues in engineering Compaq would not have been able to "clone" the IBM PC, nor AMD the Intel x86 architecture. Does anyone remember Digital Research DOS? There are many examples in both traditional indusry and software engineering. I agree that SCO has a right to demand that developers pay royalties for using their proprietary software. However, because Linux is a re-engineering of Unix and because GNU libraries and utilities are reverse engineered alternatives to the System V interface defintion, SCO will not get very far in demanding royalties from Linux developers.
From the article, this statement seems to me to be questionable:
Observers say most legal challenges to Linux will hone in on two potential vulnerabilities, which also happen to be two of its core features: that its kernel is developed by a dispersed group of volunteers, which arguably makes it hard to monitor possible copyright violations...
What is questionable about this is that the Linux code is downloadable, which makes it easy for SCO to compare to their own AT&T derived code. If there is plagerized code in the Linux kernel, then SCO should be easily able to demostrate it to the patent office or the courts. There are several metrics used to decide if code is derivative or re-engineered, and if the code is measured to not be derivative SCO has no standing. Likewise with comparing GNU utilities to their AT&T compatibles.
What I am afraid SCO will try to do is to pull an Amazon.com or NCR who tried to patent every thing from keyword searching to product categorization way back in the year 1998. Does anyone remember Archie? Talk about some prior art.
The SCO FAQ you posted doesn't bother me in the slightest. I do believe that SCO has the right to demand royalties for developers using software that they own. Though they might own AT&T Unix they do not own the Linux kernel or GNU software, both of which were developed on their own. If Linux really was an AT&T Unix, it would be slow like Solaris. They don't call it Slowaris for nothing.
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