Posted on 08/08/2003 1:49:20 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
| SCO Media Statement Re IBM Counterclaims | |
| THURSDAY, AUGUST 07, 2003 4:17 PM - PR Newswire LINDON, Utah, Aug 07, 2003 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via Comtex/ -- We view IBM's counterclaim filing today as an effort to distract attention from its flawed Linux business model. It repeats the same unsubstantiated allegations made in Red Hat's filing earlier this week. If IBM were serious about addressing the real problems with Linux, it would offer full customer indemnification and move away from the GPL license. As the stakes continue to rise in the Linux battles, it becomes increasingly clear that the core issue is bigger than SCO (SCOX) , Red Hat, or even IBM. The core issue is about the value of intellectual property in an Internet age. In a strange alliance, IBM and the Free Software Foundation have lined up on the same side of this argument in support of the GPL. IBM urges its customers to use non- warranted, unprotected software. This software violates SCO's intellectual property rights in UNIX, and fails to give comfort to customers going forward in use of Linux. If IBM wants customers to accept the GPL risk, it should indemnify them against that risk. The continuing refusal to provide customer indemnification is IBM's truest measure of belief in its recently filed claims. (Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/19990421/SCOLOGO )
Regarding Patent Accusations SCO has shipped these products for many years, in some cases for nearly two decades, and this is the first time that IBM has ever raised an issue about patent infringement in these products. Furthermore, these claims were not raised in IBM's original answer. SCO reiterates its position that it intends to defend its intellectual property rights. SCO will remain on course to require customers to license infringing Linux implementations as a condition of further use. This is the best and clearest course for customers to minimize Linux problems. SOURCE SCO Photo : NewsCom: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/19990421/SCOLOG Media, Blake Stowell of SCO, +1-801-932-5703, bstowell@sco.com http://www.prnewswire.com |
However, investors had better be rooting for SCO, as well as software developers who expect to find investors, because the ties that bind free software development are not --- which makes for a world of hurt when people jump ship.
Linux sounds wonderful at times, to the un-initiated, but it is a ball and chain software-hacking requirements to get it to work, that is severly outdated by what will be coming down the pike.
And what is coming, is fiddle-free software, because that is what business needs and wants. No more fussing with all manner of settings.
Instead, you go to a website and click on what you want, what you expect of your computer, and then you click on the download packages button --- and that is ALL you'll do.
And IBM knows it.
Linux as a general concept of packages for purposes, is here because of this --- not because it is a pallet for creative wizards to forever mix and dabble.
Computers that work for people instead of people doing all the work for computer software geeks' tribute, is what's going to leave many current software genui wondering, What happened?
You got a problem with a computer? You Trash your printer plug-in, for example. Go to the support website for your computer, click on the menus and download the replacement printer plug-in. Your work is completed.
There's a revolution in business, that has started against the waste and cost of perpetual hardware and software obsolescence, because people do not have time for it anymore.
SCO is trying to make sure it will be among the few of the big three or four or five of computer hardware and software suppliers who have what people need and want.
Oh yeah, there's always going to be little mom and pop computer shops for the sake of it, but computers are approaching a new era of going the way of the toaster.
For example, there's going to be a power connector and one kind of a peripheral connector on the back of the box, and that's it.
Not to mention that all the space that this stuff takes up, will be replaced by other stuff you've got laying around, because small is the future for computers. In five years, a "desktop computer" will be the size of the current (though venerable) Hewlett-Packard HP 12C hand calculator at present. Users will have their pick of interface tablets, video, and keyboards, but the keyboards, tablets, and monitors will be what is large, in contrast to the box.
The point is that this past few decades of development and growth are going to end as a trend, and another trend will pick up.
SCO probably has plenty of time to think about it, and they are correct in that computer packages are the wave of the future, which inheritance they now claim.
If there were ever any doubt that Microsoft was behind SCO's actions, this single statement erases it all.
If there were ever any doubt that Microsoft was behind SCO's actions, this single statement erases it all.
And your experience with Linux includes...?
I dare you to respond with an intelligent reply.
SCO itself distributed Linux for a while, in accordance with the GPL. IBM points out that any copy of Linux could therefore be from SCO itself.
How is he wrong? His examples concerned recorded music and the threats by SCO to sue end users who might be in possession of their copyrighted code. You bring up patents, but SCO does not have any patents on that code, nor do they claim to have any.
You can't be serious. This is a $70 million company. In the overall scheme of things, they are a pimple on a wart. What's worse, their business has been in decline for years. And they have never made a profit selling their products. They would be lucky to make the top 1000 software companies. Top 4 or 5 hardware and software suppliers? I'm afraid that's a little out of their league.
They actually PUBLISHED the source code to UnixWare on the Internet while retaining all copyrights. At the time, people laughingly said they wondered if SCO might pull something like this. It was an article posted on Slashdot a few months ago. It had a link to the very site that allowed downloading of the code. I wish I could find that link.
The thing is, the legal "doctrine of laches" says that if you entice someone to violate your copyright, you cannot sue them afterwards.
So I gather. My point, which I obviously should've expressed more distinctly, is that there are circumstances in which individual users can be held liable for infringement of someone's intellectual property even though they may have bought the infringing goods in good faith. That was in response to someone else's contention--at least my interpretation of their contention--that such an individual user is always held harmless. I'm more familiar with this crap than I'd like to be, having spent around three years in federal court suing patent infringers myself.
And for the sake of clarity: I think SCO is full of crap.
MM
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