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Servers belonging to the open source Debian Project, which makes a version of the Linux operating system, were hacked last week, according both to statements posted by project organizers on the group's Web page and to a European CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team) Web site on Friday. Four servers that host the project's bug tracking system, mailing lists, and various Web pages were compromised on Thursday. However, the intrusions do not affect a software update for the Debian Linux operating system that was released Friday, according to statements from Debian. The intrusions forced the group to take the precautions of...

There's a traditional definition of a shyster: a lawyer who, when the law is against him, pounds on the facts; when the facts are against him, pounds on the law; and when both the facts and the law are against him, pounds on the table. The SCO Group's continuing attempts to increase its market value at the expense of free software developers, distributors and users through outlandish legal theories and unsubstantiated factual claims show that the old saying hasn't lost its relevance. Just The Facts SCO continues to claim in public statements about its lawsuit against IBM that it can...

BSD developers speak out on SCO campaign Thursday November 20, 2003 - [ 08:00 AM GMT ]       Topics: Linux , Software , Operating Systems By: Chris Preimesberger and Joe Barr In view of the latest SCO lawsuit news conference, we have been talking to BSD professionals to get their opinions, including one of the principals in the AT&T vs. Berkeley Software Design, Inc. lawsuit settlement of 1994; a disillusioned former SCO employee; and several other BSD developers. At issue is the charge SCO has made in a court case against IBM that copyrighted UNIX code has been incorporated...

SCO's Legal Fees Could Jeopardize Its Software Business 19 November 2003 George J. Weiss The SCO Group will pay its lawyers $9 million to pursue lawsuits against Linux users. Linux users should keep a low profile and have a contingency plan. SCO customers should have a migration plan in case SCO's legal strategy falters. On 18 November 2003, SCO announced that it would pay $1 million and issue shares worth $7.95 million to Boies, Schiller & Flexner. This law firm represents SCO in its lawsuits against companies using Linux in alleged violation of SCO's intellectual property rights. First Take Mounting...

The end game in the SCO fiasco is at hand. IBM's dissection of SCO's discovery wish-list is covered in exquisite detail at Groklaw. As yesterday's conference call demonstrated, SCO's lawyers are being forced to make increasingly bizarre arguments to just stay in the game. The company's last substantive filing demanded that the court find the GPL invalid and unconstitutional, and all software released under the GPL in the last three years to be public domain. At this point, it appears the entire SCO case will devolve to the nuts and bolts of contract agreements between IBM and AT&T. If you...

<p>The SCO Group has announced it plans to take legal action to block Novell Inc.'s proposed purchase of SUSE Linux AG. The company claims that it has inherited a non-compete agreement, which was part of a broader agreement signed between Novell and one of SCO's ancestors, The Santa Cruz Operation Inc., when Novell sold Unix's intellectual property rights.</p>

SCO will turn its sights on Novell once the latter has completed its $210m acquisition of SuSE, with a claim that Novell signed a non-competition clause when it sold SCO the rights to Unix in 1995. Darl McBride, chief executive of SCO, commented: "When SCO bought Unix from Novell there was clear non-compete language in the contract to prevent Novell from competing against us."When the Novell/SuSE deal is completed then we may have to enforce that non-compete agreement."Any Linux distribution marketed by Novell would put the firm in breach of the non-compete clause, which stops it from competing directly with...

LAS VEGAS -- The debate over SCO Group's claims on the Unix and Linux operating systems has never been polite.     But now, it has grown deadly serious. Literally.     Following telephone and e-mail threats to the Lindon software company and Darl McBride, SCO's president and chief executive; senior vice president Chris Sontag, and others, an unspecified number of bodyguards has been assigned to protect SCO's leadership.     "It's crazy," McBride said during an interview Tuesday at a Las Vegas hotel, where he is not listed on the guest register and visitors must be escorted to his room by security....

LAS VEGAS -- The man who claims there are Unix copyright violations within the Linux open source operating system is taking his fight to the Berkeley Software Design (BSD) (define) community, which maintains an open source "genetic" version of Unix (define). SCO Group (Quote, Chart) CEO Darl McBride said his company is currently comparing source code awarded in a 1994 settlement between AT&T's (Quote, Chart) Unix Systems Laboratories and BSD, in which Berkeley's version of the Unix source was severed from the proprietary version. The Lindon, Utah-based SCO claims its copyrighted Unix code was incorporated into Linux without authorization or...

Sun Microsystems Chief Executive Scott McNealy always seemed like he was tilting at windmills when he said Sun would challenge Microsoft's dominance on the desktop computer. But McNealy announced today that the Chinese government has pledged to deploy a million computers in the next year using Sun's Linux desktop software. The cost: $50 per license for Sun's desktop software, which includes its Star Office 7.0 productivity program that is a clone of Microsoft's Office suite. Microsoft Office can cost more than $400 a copy. The China Standard Software Co., a consortium of government-funded companies, selected Sun as its preferred technology...

Brian Skiba of Deutsche Bank has put out another SCO report, "Four Reasons Why This Story Remains Compelling NOW" and he is predicting that SCO will "finalize" financial arrangements with Boies shortly and then they will open up a new campaign front and start suing corporate end users, maybe as soon as the end of the month. Boies isn't getting paid enough already? Or were the earlier stories floated in the press just hype? Now they are finalizing arrangements? I thought they told us and the SEC they did that already. Who knows where the truth lies with these people,...

NEW YORK - The legal battle between SCO Group and IBM is taking another ugly lurch forward. On Nov. 11, the same day that Forbes reported that IBM (nyse: IBM - news - people ) had sent subpoenas to investors and analysts who supported SCO (nasdaq: SCOX - news - people )--and a day in which SCO shares suffered a 10% drop--SCO fired back, telling the court it would issue subpoenas to Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux free operating system kernel, and Richard Stallman, president of the Free Software Foundation. SCO won't say what it hopes to accomplish with...

Letter of the day By The Letterman: Tuesday 11 November 2003, 10:28 Subject: Imagine Life Without Google Microsoft really, really wants Google. It wants Google for one reason, namely, to strip it naked and to castrate it. Microsoft wants to put an end to people being able to use the power of Google, especially as to the way that we all can use Google as a tool which makes the Internet particularly useful in helping us all to get through our days without depending on Microsoft. Here's an exercise for all to try. Search Google for "Linux Windows". That gets...

IBM & Linux - A Combo That's Making HeadlinesNovember 12, 2003, http://www.linuxworld.com/story/37858.htm SummaryLinuxWorld Magazine international advisory board member Scott Handy, whose day job is being IBM's Linux strategy and marketing maven, featured prominently in this week's New York Times article about Linux.By LinuxWorld News Desk  Advertisement LinuxWorld readers know him as the international advisory board member featured in Kevin's Bedell's Premier Issue interview, but to his colleagues at IBM he is officially "vice president for Linux strategy and market development : Scott Handy.His name featured prominently earlier this week in The New York Times.In an article entitled "I.B.M. Helps Promote Linux" the Times's Steve...

SCO, IBM battle heats up By Declan McCullagh CNET News.com November 12, 2003, 12:04 PM PT Subpoenas are flying in the high-profile lawsuit between the SCO Group and IBM, as both companies try to buttress their legal claims by turning to third parties for information. SCO said Wednesday that it has filed subpoenas with the U.S. District Court in Utah, targeting six different individuals or organizations. Those include Novell; Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux kernel; Richard Stallman of the Free Software Foundation; Stewart Cohen, chief executive of the Open Source Development Labs; and John Horsley, general counsel of Transmeta....

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...