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Computer Hardware & SoftwareBoies' TakeVictoria Murphy, 05.28.03, 6:03 PM ET SAN FRANCISCO - Hired gun David Boies can't understand why no one likes his client. All SCO Group did was file a billion-dollar lawsuit against IBM claiming the computer giant was sharing code secrets with open source developers. Somehow, everyone thinks SCO is in it for the money and out to thwart Linux. In Boies' eyes, it's hard to see how anyone could jump to that conclusion. The $1 billion in damages and future royalties SCO (nasdaq: SCOX - news - people ) is seeking won't put a mere dent...

Bruce Perens writes: "We knew that SCO's attack on Linux was a lie. But we never dreamed of the big lie behind it. "This morning, Novell announced some of the terms of the company's 1995 agreement to sell its Unix business to SCO. The shocking news is that Novell did not sell the Unix intellectual property to SCO. Instead, they sold SCO a license to develop, sell, and sub-license Unix. The title to Unix copyrights and patents remains with Novell. To back up this assertion, Novell refers to public records at the Library of Congress Copyright Office and the U.S....

Kurt Pfeifle writes "Steve Ballmer's recent trip to Munich to offer up to 90% rebates for the Microsoft Software Assurance and Licenses was in vain. The ruling party of Germans biggest city and self-proclaimed 'technology capital' now decided to migrate 14.000 workstations to Linux and an OSS office suite. A study comparing the alternatives had assigned 6218 (out of 10.000) points to Linux/OSS, while the MS Windows platform only scored 5293. Babelfish translation of the latest newsticker story."

Waltham, Mass. -- Linus Torvalds won't render his own verdict on SCO Group's legal case against IBM until the Unix code in question is revealed in court. In an e-mail response to CRN, Torvalds, widely considered the father of Linux, said he is awaiting judgment until SCO identifies the Unix code IBM allegedly misappropriated and handed over to the open-source community. But at this point, he said he's skeptical the case has merit. "SCO isn't even telling what they have, and I'm not a lawyer anyway," Torvalds wrote. "The people I've spoken to seem to think the merit of the...

Microsoft threw its weight behind SCO Group's battle against Linux Monday by declaring that it would license Unix technology from SCO in order to "ensure intellectual property compliance across all Microsoft solutions." Microsoft's license covers a patent and source code from Unix.SCO claims that the Linux kernel holds Unix intellectual property owned by SCO. The company has moved to hold IBM (Quote, Company Info) responsible, unleashing a $1 billion lawsuit against the company for misappropriation of trade secrets (though not copyright infringement, to date). Still, the company has conceded that some of the alleged Unix code in the Linux kernel...

Outside and in-house legal counsel advised the SCO Group to send a warning letter about Linux use to the CEOs of 1,350 companies Monday, SCO CEO Darl McBride says. In a letter dated May 12, SCO Group, which holds the license to the original AT&T Unix operating system, warned commercial users of the open-source Linux operating system that "Linux infringes on our Unix intellectual property and other rights." McBride also said in the letter that "legal liability that may arise from the Linux development process may also rest with the end user." In an interview Thursday, McBride said the company,...

By Reuters May 15, 2003, 7:32 AM PT Microsoft has had a strategy to discount its products heavily when the software giant competes for orders against the emerging license-free Linux operating system, according to a report. The International Herald Tribune newspaper said Thursday that according to internal Microsoft e-mail it obtained, Microsoft's chief sales executive, Orlando Ayala, last summer authorized executives to offer steep discounts. "Under no circumstances lose against Linux," Ayala was quoted saying by the newspaper, adding that the discounts could be paid for by a special fund. The newspaper also cites a Microsoft marketing manager as saying...

In the long term, the battle centers on the hearts and minds of developers.The development and growth of the Linux operating system has brought a new question to the lips of IT managers: Why should I buy Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT)? Five years ago, the answer would have been easy. With the dominant development tools, client operating system and client applications, Microsoft owned a certain portion of the enterprise. But now that the Linux OS is rapidly maturing and companies are looking to shrink IT budgets, the choice is not so easy. Almost everything enterprises once found unique to Microsoft they...

I keep reading all these tales of woe of people having bad experiences with Linux. Sure, I've had my own bad experiences, across many an OS, but just lately I've been running a Red Hat Linux 9 desktop full-time at home and have yet to run into any major issue. What follows is an overview of my personal experiences with Linux. But first, a bit about me. Linux Just Works, Part I Editorial Notice: All opinions are those of the author and not necessarily those of osnews.com I've been involved with computers since my Dad brought home an Atari 400....

Put yourself in his/her shoes. You're a budding young technical writer and the one word you hear popping up in almost every tech-related conversation is, you guessed it, Linux. Now look in the mirror and try to tell yourself you're more than a writer. After all, you write about technology because it not only interests you, but you're accurate and fair enough to tell it like it is. Maybe not. We've used the word Linux here to signify Linux as an OS. Thus unless it is specifically mention Linux as a kernel within the context of the article it means...

NEW YORK -- At a gathering here Tuesday of current and potential Oracle ISV (independent software vendor) partners, Oracle Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Larry Ellison extolled the virtues of Linux and predicted that the open-source operating system will soon decimate Microsoft in the battle for the data center market. "(Microsoft has) already been killed by one open-source product. Slaughtered, wiped out, taken from market dominance to irrelevance," Ellison said, speaking of the Apache Web server's displacement of Microsoft's IIS (Internet Information Services) technology. "They had a virtual monopoly on Web servers, and then they were wiped off the face...

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Vulnerability: CAN-2003-0127 The Linux 2.2 and Linux 2.4 kernels have a flaw in ptrace. This hole allows local users to obtain full privileges. Remote exploitation of this hole is not possible. Linux 2.5 is not believed to be vulnerable. Linux 2.2.25 has been released to correct Linux 2.2. It contains no other changes. The bug fixes that would have been in 2.2.5pre1 will now appear in 2.2.26pre1. The patch will apply directly to most older 2.2 releases.

SCO sues Big Blue for $1 billion; HP, Sun reassure customers The SCO Group last week announced a $1 billion lawsuit against IBM Corp. for allegedly sharing SCO’s proprietary technology with the open source software (OSS) community. SCO also claims to have warned Big Blue in a letter that if IBM doesn’t address its concerns, SCO will revoke its Unix license within 100 days. The implications of this move are unclear for IBM’s AIX installed base, but some industry watchers concede it could at least temporarily prevent IBM from shipping AIX. “That’s exceedingly unlikely, however,” stresses Rob Enderle, a senior...

Major Internet vulnerability discovered in e-mail protocolBy DAN VERTONMARCH 03, 2003The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been working in secret for more than two weeks with the private sector to fix a major Internet vulnerability that could have had disastrous consequences for millions of businesses and the U.S. military. Since Feb. 14, the DHS and the White House Office of Cyberspace Security have been working with Atlanta-based Internet Security Systems (ISS) to alert IT vendors and the business community about a major buffer overflow vulnerability in the sendmail mail transfer agent (MTA). Sendmail is the most common MTA and...

Critical flaw exposes Internet e-mail Servers that process most e-mail messages at risk MSNBC By Bob Sullivan March 3 — A newly discovered flaw in a critical piece of Internet infrastructure software could put more than half the Internet’s e-mail servers at risk, researchers say. The flaw exists in Sendmail, a program that sorts and delivers most e-mail. A single message sent at a flawed e-mail server could allow an attacker to take control of the server, read its contents and use it to organize a massive denial of service attack. But officials are hopeful that a month’s work of...

From: "Copyright Europe" To: "Abuse" Sent: Wednesday, February 26, 2003 5:51 PM Subject: [NOC] Case ID 588853 - Notice of Claimed Infringement Wednesday, February 26, 2003 Westfaelische Wilhelms - Universitaet Roentgenstr. 9-13 Muenster, D-48149 DE DE RE: Unauthorized Distribution of the following copyrighted computer program(s): Microsoft Office Dear Sir/Madam: The Business Software Alliance (BSA) has determined that the connection listed below, which appears to be using an Internet account under your control, is operating an FTP server to offer unlicensed copies or is engaged in other unauthorized activities relating to copyrighted computer programs published by the BSA's member companies. Infringement...

Here's yet another reason to be glad we don't use a Microsoft OS. The Trusted Computing Platform Alliance, headed by Microsoft & Intel, provides both hardware and software standards that will allow only licensed operating systems to run on a machine. This means unlicensed operating systems such as Linx can no longer even be installed on a TCPA-compliant system. In a not so distant future (2004) the TCPA hardware will take charge, when you turn on your PC. This onboard chipset checks the integrity of your boot ROM, executes it and measures the state of the machine. After that, it...

A consulting group that scrutinises the source code underlying several operating systems has found that a key networking component of Linux is of higher quality in many regards than competing closed-source software. Reasoning, which sells automated software inspection services, examined part of the code of Linux and five operating systems, comparing the number and rate of programming defects. Specifically, Reasoning examined the implementation of TCP/IP, a key networking technology, and found fewer errors in Linux. Reasoning declined to disclose which operating systems it compared with Linux, but said two of the three general-purpose operating systems were versions of Unix. The...

<p>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.</p> <p>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.</p>