Posted on 05/15/2003 3:31:11 AM PDT by chance33_98
SCO suspends Linux sales
By Peter Williams [15-05-2003]
Commercial users of Linux warned that they could face legal liability
SCO has suspended its sales and distribution of Linux pending resolution of the intellectual property issues surrounding the operating system. The owner of the Unix licences, which is suing IBM for $1bn over the alleged misuse of Unix code in Linux, has also issued a statement stating that legal liability for use of Linux may extend to commercial users.
"When SCO's own Unix software code is being illegally copied into Linux, we believe we have an obligation to educate commercial users of the potential liability that could rest with them for using such software to run their business," SCOsource general manager and SCO senior vice president Chris Sontag said in a statement.
Sontag said the suspension of sales and distribution of SCO Linux until the issues were resolved was because the company felt so strongly about the matter.
SCO said it would continue to support existing SCO Linux and Caldera OpenLinux customers, regarding them as harmless to any SCO intellectual property issues related to these products.
It will now focus more strongly on Unix and its recently announced web services strategy known as SCOx.
SCO has also released guidance on its second quarter financials, in which it says it expects net income to be $4m on revenue of $21m.
We will bring you more on this story later. Meanwhile click here to read vnunet.com's exclsuive interview with Chris Sontag.
Oh, man. When this guy meets reality, it's gonna leave a big old mark.
Meanwhile, in another part of town, some Finnish Hackers clone the Unix OS using the basic outline given in the famous book "Operating Systems". Over time, and the internet, this OS is built up into a competitor with Unix itself, with IBM being one of the main supporters.
The suit alleges that IBM has failed to keep Unix secrets secret and allowed cross pollinization between its Unix (AIX) developers and its Linux developers. If true this is a serious matter.
If Chrysler licenses antilock brake designs to Toyota in 2000 Toyota is not free to make their own clone of these designs and stop paying the royalty in 2004.
Even worse they certainly can not take those trade secrets they licensed and post them to the internet for one and all to use for free.
At this time these are only allegations. We know that IBM has a strong reputation for fairness, good lawyers and strong internal controls. The accusations may be unfounded. But if they are correct I think the Linux world is in for a whole lotta hurt and change. I think it goes without saying the Linus Torvaldes, grad student, was not examing code as he accepted it into the Linux baseline through the prism of "is this based on unique, original and non-derrivative work" and "have you at any time in the past had access to AT&T Unix source code".
I suspect that even if IBM has not violated license agreements others may have, at smaller less security and legal conscious companies.
At the minimum it certainly is hurtful for all the people who worked on the AT&T derivative Unix variants, Solaris, HP-UX, SCO, AIX, DG-UX, DEC Ultrix, Sun OS, and dozens more. This warning shot will effectively prevent them from working on Linux development. It will have to be (and should have been from day one) "clean room" engineered.
Another beneficiary is Free-BSD which has resolved it's own issues vis-a-vis AT&T many years ago and has both a clean license and policies to prevent contamination.
Cheers !
Think about it, exaclty how many different ways are there to hammer a nail? Does the IP for a hammer apply only to the one company that can get a judge to agree with them?
Well that is the essence of the case, isn't it. How do you know it's not a copy? Have you looked at both the Linux source and the AT&T source? (If so I hope you didn't contribute to Linux :-). Do you know who contributed all those kernel modules? Do you know what their day jobs were, where they worked before that, whether they had access to AT&T code. They need not have copied it line by line to have stolen IP. If I take your code, figure out how it works via reading my licensed copy, and reimplement it I have violated IP laws just as clearly as if I cut and paste. (Though it may well be harder to prove).
Think about it, exaclty how many different ways are there to hammer a nail? Does the IP for a hammer apply only to the one company that can get a judge to agree with them?
Well the whole question of software cloning has never really been settled. I believe IBM did sue Borland for cloning 1,2,3 a long time ago and got concessions, but not enough to take the clone off the market.
It is beyond argument that Linux is a direct copy of Unix. Windows is a unique hammer (OS) designed to drive nails (run a PC). Linux is a clone / reimplementation of the Unix OS. Every API is identical, command line works exactly the same. The best that can be said is that some one (group) took the System V users manual and reimplemented it. I think SCO is OK with that, if that's what happened. But what they allege is that people either took code snippets or IP out of their proprietary original and duped it in the clone. If true that's a Bozo No No.
The problem is time. If SCO had any sort of a case, they should have said something several years back, and not waited until LINUX was on the verge of major success to try to suck a billion dollars out of IBM. This is BS.
I don't think it matters legally. If it had been *another* 10 or 20 years it might be moot, but I'm sure the contracts that are the heart of the case are still in force. In fact I'd bet that both sides have renewed them in the last 3 years. That's how almost all software licenses work.
SCO could have publicly posted a single line of offending code and gained instant credibility at zero cost. They haven't done that, and I find no reason to believe they are serious.
I am sure their lawyers are advising them to hold the most damming evidence for the trial. This is the norm, accusations and counter claims fly, none backed up. As the poster said: More fun to come! At least I agee with him on that.
No. Haven't you heard of POSIX?
Here is a link to a discussion of Linux and POSIX. (It is cached, the original is no longer available.)
The link talks about why POSIX certification is good for Linux. It is good, agreed. But the fact that Linux completed this testing says nothing about whether they misappropriated SCO property in getting there.
The one thing POSIX may prove is the SCO has no claim against a true clean room Unix clone. AT&T agreed to the concept of that when they participated or allowed POSIX to become a standard.
SCO's suit is based not on the mere fact that Linux exists and duplicates Unix functions to the letter, but rather that the people who made it do so used proprietary knowledge and maybe even SCO code to make it work.
I don't see the POSIX thing having any bearing on their claim. Am I missing something.
The problem is, that doesn't necessarily follow. IBM developers are primarily focused on porting applications - WebSphere, DB2, etc from AIX to Linux. Some small subset participate in the open source community. It would be that small subset which might be culpible. But SCO could easily do a line by line code search between SCO Unix and Linux. Any single line in the OS which matches up is suspect. (Note I only say suspect, since there are only so many ways to do something, so for any given API there may be clearly independently developed matching code lines.) They then can trace back those lines of code to who submitted them.
Is IBM vulnerable? Probably not much. Fact is, very little of Linux was developed by IBM employees, and any outright copying is likely to be rare. If it occurs that code will simply be yanked from Linux and replaced. SCO will blow far more money on lawyers than they can recover in "damages".
Remember that if infringement is found (and my guess is that there will be trivial infringements found) then damages will be assessed. Because the infringements will be so trivial, the damages are likely also to be trivial. SCO is just wasting their shareholders money. And note they are not trying to sink Linux -- they are one of the 4 backers (perhaps the major backer) of the UnitedLinux initiative.
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