Free Republic

NEW YORK - The legal battle between SCO Group and IBM is widening, as IBM has sent subpoenas to investors and analysts who have supported SCO. On Oct. 30, IBM (nyse: IBM - news - people ) issued subpoenas to Baystar Capital, Deutsche Bank (nyse: DB - news - people ), Renaissance Ventures and Yankee Group, companies that have either invested in SCO (nasdaq: SCOX - news - people ) or published reports suggesting that SCO's claims against IBM could be legitimate. "I view this as an attempt to bully and intimidate analysts--to try to cow them into silence," says...

IBM Addendum to Memorandum in Support of IBM's 2nd Motion to Compel Discovery Tuesday, November 11 2003 @ 05:55 AM EST Here is IBM's Addendum, which is attached to their Memorandum in Support of the Second Motion to Compel Discovery, in which IBM has drawn up a table showing the judge what they asked SCO for, what the response was, and how and in what way they believe the response was deficient. Thank you to Ross Combs for being willing to tackle such an intricate project, even being ready to type it and format it all by hand. And...

IBM Subpoenas SCO Investors, AnalystsDaniel Lyons, 11.11.03, 2:53 PM ET NEW YORK - The legal battle between SCO Group and IBM is widening, as IBM has sent subpoenas to investors and analysts who have supported SCO. On Oct. 30, IBM (nyse: IBM - news - people ) issued subpoenas to Baystar Capital, Deutsche Bank (nyse: DB - news - people ), Renaissance Ventures and Yankee Group, companies that have either invested in SCO (nasdaq: SCOX - news - people ) or published reports suggesting that SCO's claims against IBM could be legitimate. "I view this as an attempt to bully...

Microsoft prepares security assault on Linux Company will criticize Linux for taking too long to fix bugs By Kieren  McCarthy, Techworld.com November 11, 2003  Microsoft Corp. is preparing a major PR assault over Windows' perceived security failings in which it will criticize Linux for taking too long to fix bugs, we have learned. In a sign that the inroads made by the Open Source community are starting to rattle the software giant, Microsoft has hired several analysts to review how fast holes are patched in the open source software and is expected to announce that Windows compares favorably. The strategy, called...

These days the big star at Sony Pictures' special-effects shop, Imageworks, isn't Spider-Man or Stuart Little--it's a piece of software called Linux (news - web sites). Twelve years ago a Finnish college student named Linus Torvalds (news - web sites) hacked it together and gave it away on the Internet. Since then thousands of programmers around the world have developed it collaboratively, crafting an operating system that is fast, stable and--best of all--free. So instead of buying pricey specialized computers from the likes of Silicon Graphics, the techies at Imageworks simply load Linux onto hundreds of cheap Intel-based PCs to...

Novell was left for dead years ago, another casualty of Microsoft's hegemony over computer operating systems. At the height of its popularity in the early 1990's, Novell's Netware software controlled 70 percent of the market in network server operating systems - software that enables desktop computers to share files and communicate over a network. But for nearly a decade, the company has been losing market share to Windows NT, Unix and other programs at a rate of nearly 10 percent a year. By 2002, Netware's share of the market had shrunk to 7 percent. For the first nine months of...

Analysts and industry experts comment on Novell's $210m acquisition of SuSE Linux Novell's agreement to acquire SuSE Linux for $210m is good news for the Linux community and shows that the firm is unconcerned about the fear, uncertainty and doubt surrounding Linux following SCO Group's legal action against IBM. And IBM's investment of $50m in Novell as part of the deal has meant that the distribution and support gap which SCO left in the United Linux consortium has been plugged. "This really is very, very good news for Linux," Gary Barnett, principal analyst at Ovum, told vnunet.com. "It's a very...

Flaws threaten Microsoft SEATTLE — Microsoft Corp.'s offer this week of cash bounties for informants who help it collar virus-writers reflects more than just an escalation of the war on those who would exploit the dominant power in software. The campaign reveals just how much of a threat to Microsoft's bottom line security flaws now represent. When the Blaster worm hobbled hundreds of thousands of computers around the world in August — only the latest plague to exploit a flaw in Windows operating systems — it also hurt Microsoft's ability to book new contracts with corporate customers. For the first...

Organizations running Linux unwilling to pay SCO Group Inc's IP license could find themselves running Unix or Windows, under a planned exit clause from the company. SCO Group has revealed it plans migration options extending the intellectual property program launched earlier this year. Outlined in SCO's latest 8K Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing, no further details were given. However, a company spokesperson told ComputerWire SCO would probably provide customers with financial incentives and discounts to migrate to SCO Unix, other vendors' Unix, and what he referred to as "other proprietary operating systems" but probably Windows. "We are offering a...

SCO isn't putting out press releases like it used to. Surely it wants you to know that it has cooked up yet another way to be loathsome to Linux. It will expand its licensing program (because it's been such a success, I'm sure) and now they will be "offering a migration path" so their customers can escape Linux and return to proprietary operating systems. Note the plural, please. Like, for example, Unix, even a competitor's Unix. Some say they mean Microsoft. Well, well. Why ever might they want to send their customers to Microsoft? Here's what it says in SCO's...

Is there any significance to what Web server/platform combinations 2004 presidential candidates are using? As we swing into the thick of the 2004 electoral playoffs, it's interesting to see what kinds of platforms are running under the candidates' official campaign Web sites. Netcraft has a handy feature called "What's that site running?" that lets us see combinations of Web servers and OS platforms. So here's a quick rundown, in alphabetical order: George W. Bush: Microsoft IIS on Windows 2000 Wesley Clark: Apache on Linux Howard Dean: Apache on FreeBSD John Edwards: Microsoft IIS "behind a computer running NetWare" Richard Gephardt:...

Is there any significance to what Web server/platform combinations 2004 presidential candidates are using? As we swing into the thick of the 2004 electoral playoffs, it's interesting to see what kinds of platforms are running under the candidates' official campaign Web sites. Netcraft has a handy feature called "What's that site running?" that lets us see combinations of Web servers and OS platforms. So here's a quick rundown, in alphabetical order: George W. Bush: Microsoft IIS on Windows 2000 Wesley Clark: Apache on Linux Howard Dean: Apache on FreeBSD John Edwards: Microsoft IIS "behind a computer running NetWare" Richard Gephardt:...

Two major moves by well-known Linux companies have the open-source community worried that the consumer is being left behind. On Monday, in an expected move, Red Hat said that it would stop supporting all consumer versions of Red Hat Linux by the end of April and that it planned to support only its business version of the operating system. On Tuesday, enterprise software maker Novell surprised the high-tech world when announced an agreement to buy software maker SuSE Linux for $210 million. For the business world, the deals seemingly confirmed the corporate role for the communal operating system. However, many...

NEW YORK (AP) -- Novell Inc. stock soared Tuesday after the company said it will buy Germany's SuSE Linux AG for $210 million in cash. Novell also said IBM Corp. plans to buy $50 million of Novell's convertible preferred stock, and the two companies are in talks to extend agreements between IBM and SuSE. SuSE provides software and support for Linux, an operating system widely used on Web servers and corporate computers. Its version of Linux is supported by IBM. Shares of Novell traded Tuesday morning at $8.48, up $2.44, or 40 percent, on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The...

US Army 'going to Linux' after OS switch for GI PDA By John Lettice Posted: 27/10/2003 at 15:44 GMT The US Army has abandoned Windows and chosen Linux for a key component of its "Land Warrior" programme, according to a report in National Defense Magazine. The move, initially covering a personal computing and communications device termed the Commander's Digital Assistant (CDA), follows the failure of the previous attempt at such a device in trials in February of this year, and is part of a move to make the device simpler and less breakable. According to program manager Lt Col Dave...

Here's SCO's Reply to IBM's Amended Answer with Counterclaims. The most significant thing they say is that the GPL isn't enforceable or applicable, and in paragraph 16 that Linux is an unauthorized "version" of UNIX: "Denies the allegations of paragraph 16 and alleges that Linux is, in actuality, an unauthorized version of UNIX that is structured, assembled and designed to be technologically indistinguishable from UNIX, and practically is distinguishable only in that Linux is a 'free' version of UNIX designed to destroy proprietary operating system software." I'm guessing you have a few words to say on that. In their...

OCTOBER 23, 2003 How Microsoft's Misunderstanding of Open Source Hurts Us All By Robert X. Cringely This week, speaking at a Gartner conference in Orlando, Florida, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said some fascinating things about Linux and about Open Source software in general. And thanks to those remarks and the blinding realization they caused for me, I finally understand exactly why Microsoft doesn't understand Open Source. Ballmer asked, "Should there be a reason to believe that code that comes from a variety of people around the world would be higher-quality than from people who do it professionally? Why is its...

Dear Microsoft: I've long admired your warrior spirit, your commitment to winning, and your drive for success. Lots of companies and individuals have enjoyed many of your products and derived significant value from them; your financial success has made many people inside and outside of your company very wealthy; and you have created a global brand that's the envy of marketers around the world. Several years ago, realizing the Internet and the Web were about to make you as relevant as Gray Davis, you executed what could well be the fastest and most dramatic corporate reorientation anyone's ever seen. You...

<p>Hot on the heels of The SCO Group's announcement that BayStar Capital has invested $50 million in the company, questions are being raised about whether Microsoft Corp. may have had a role in that investment.</p> <p>As an investment firm, BayStar leads, creates and participates in a number of PIPEs (Private Investments in Public Equity). Many of these deals involve investment money from other companies, including Microsoft, sources said.</p>

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct 17, 2003 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- As the economy continues its recovery, the demand for top-quality Linux/Unix software developers seems to be on its way back to levels not seen since the late-90s. With its focus on providing the best Linux/Unix-based C++, Java, and Perl application developers to Fortune 500 companies, PerlUSA is seeing growth well ahead of the general economy. This growth is about to accelerate even faster, as PerlUSA gears up to help IBM and others find top talent in 2004. "IBM's announcement about needing 10,000 skilled technology workers in 2004 is obviously great news...