Free Republic

IBM exec: 'Forces' at work against Linux By Andrew ColleyStaff Writer, CNET News.comJuly 30, 2003, 12:57 PM PT An IBM executive has claimed that a "set of forces" is attempting to derail Linux, and hinted that Microsoft and SCO Group are among those responsible. Al Zollar, a general manager of sales for IBM eServer iSeries, told delegates attending the company's Asia Pacific Strategic Planning Conference in Queensland, Australia, on Tuesday that a "set of forces" was attempting to stymie adoption of the open-source operating system. "They're mostly located in Redmond, although they have recruited a few allies," said Zollar. Microsoft...

THE SCO WAR might go down as the first Open Source lawsuit, in a couple of senses. First, because the GNU General Public License, or GPL, might be legally tested for the first time. Secondly, SCO has probably sealed its defeat by ticking off many intelligent Open Source users. It's quite probable that the GPL will be tested in court. If not in the SCO vs IBM case, then in other litigation, either by or against SCO. IBM recently issued a memo, as reported by C|Net here. The IBM memo explicitly refers to SCO's prior distribution of Linux under the...

Comparing Server OSes: Why SCO UNIX Is A Bad Idea by Jem Matzan It's a rather difficult mission to shop for an operating system for a server. When most people think of server OSes they think of Unix, and when they think of Unix they think of SCO, the company that owns the Unix source code. But there are so many more choices out there, the least of which offers a bonanza of advantages over SCO's Unix products. Having said that, let's explore the Unix world and take a look at what it has to offer the server and workstation...

update IBM has launched a counterstrike against SCO Group's attack on Linux users, arguing that SCO's demands for Unix license payments are undermined by its earlier shipment of an open-source Linux product. IBM's assertion came in a message to its sales force last Thursday evening, four days after SCO said Linux users must pay the company for a Unix license or face possible legal action. SCO Group, owner of the Unix intellectual property, contends that Unix code was illegally copied line by line into Linux and that companies such as IBM illegally transferred improvements made to Unix into Linux. SCO's...

<p>Many Linux customers have no intention of paying The SCO Group for a UnixWare license that would indemnify them from legal liability for using the open-source operating system.</p> <p>SCO, which is suing IBM over Unix for more than $1 billion and which claims that Linux is an illegal derivative of Unix, last week said Linux users are also violating SCO's Unix copyrights, particularly now that SCO has registered a U.S. copyright for its Unix System V source code.</p>

The continued adoption of Linux by large enterprise in the face of SCO's legal threats is not surprising, said Yankee Group analyst Laura DiDio. "I don't think many of them thought of it as a big threat, I think they viewed it as a mosquito at a picnic -- a sort of gnat buzzing around." Despite legal threats from SCO Group, Linux use by large enterprises is growing, according to a survey by network security company Netcraft. The firm's survey shows Linux growth in the Web server sector, which has long been one of the open source OS's strongest...

SCO Changes Tactics in Dispute Over LinuxBy STEVE LOHR he SCO Group, which has spent the last few months suing I.B.M., a leading supporter of the Linux operating system, and warning that Linux violates its copyright, announced plans yesterday for profiting from Linux rather than trying to fight it.SCO, a small software marketer, said that it would offer the large corporations that use Linux a license so they can continue to use it without any worries about lawsuits that accuse them of copyright infringement.SCO contends that Linux is an "unauthorized derivative of Unix." SCO bought the licensing rights to the...

SCO is giving the "tainted" Linux users out there a way to clean up their filthy ways via a licensing program that will begin in the coming weeks. After dolling out threats of legal action, SCO has called on enterprise Linux users to come forward and pay for code the company claims to own. The legal zealots at SCO reckon Linux has grown up too fast by nicking technology such as support for large SMP systems from its copyrighted Unix code. SCO plans to start calling Linux customers this week, asking them to pay up or face the consequences. "Following...

SCO readies new Linux licensing program Users would get access to OS without fear of litigation By Robert McMillan, IDG News Service July 18, 2003 The SCO Group is preparing a new Linux licensing program that it claims will allow users of the open-source operating system to run Linux without fear of litigation. The program will be announced "within the next month or so," according to SCO spokesman Blake Stowell, but on Monday the company will announce what he calls a "precursor" to this program in a press conference with SCO Chief Executive Officer Darl McBride and SCO's high-profile attorney...

CRN Interview: Linus Torvalds Says Matter Is A Vendor-To-Vendor Contract Dispute By Steven Burke & Heather Clancy, CRN 6:28 PM EST Tues., July 15, 2003 Linux creator Linus Torvalds defended the integrity of Linux intellectual property in an interview with CRN Editor Heather Clancy and Editor/News Steven Burke at the CA World conference. Torvalds--who recently left Transmeta to work on Linux full-time at the Open Source Development Lab--talks about Read Copy Update code, copyright protection and SCO during the half-hour interview. CRN: How has the SCO-IBM lawsuit affected Linux? Torvalds: The biggest effect by far has just been a lot...

Lindows makes the claim that their Linux distribution is user friendly and ready for the desktop. We review their latest version, 4.0, and see if it lives up to their claims. We evaluate everything from the company, to the presentation and marketing to the actual software itself. As Lindows is geared towards the beginning Linux user, so is our review. Read on for our evaluation of Lindows 4.0.

A Tale of 2 Operating Systems. Change is inevitable in any system. My experiences the last few weeks have only served as reminders of this very fundamental “law for everything”. 2 long-term clients of the company I work for have decided to migrate their Enterprise Management System (EMS) software to a Linux platform. The fundamental reason for this change was to keep ahead of any possible failures in our clients’ hardware. Their warranties had lapsed and they needed new servers for their EMS, a keystone of their business. They made their decision based on 2 options presented with their associated...

SAN DIEGO --June 25, 2003-- Lindows.com, Inc. (www.lindows.com) announced today the launch of LindowsOS 4.0 (www.lindows.com/40) which brings industry-first features to Linux desktops such as comprehensive Plug & Play support, ad blocking, spam blocking and pornography blocking along with a continued emphasis on ease-of-use and affordability. "The argument from Microsoft against desktop Linux is that it may be affordable from the start, but the long term maintenance destroys those early savings," said Michael Robertson, chief executive officer of Lindows.com, Inc. "For the first time, LindowsOS 4.0 with its Zero Maintenance goals makes Linux far easier and lower cost to maintain...

Open source code as flawed as proprietary: Study By Stephen Shankland, CNET News.com Wednesday, July 2 2003 9:54 AM The source code for a newer version of the Apache Web server software is of the same quality as that of proprietary competitors at a similar stage of development, a new study has found. The review compared version 2.1 of the Apache Web server software, which is used to house Web sites, with several commercial packages that handle the same chores. Reasoning, a company whose business is analyzing code quality, compared the recently released version with code of competitors at a...

Open source prepares to kiss EU patent ass goodbye By Kieren McCarthy Posted: 29/06/2003 at 22:17 GMT There's going to be a vote in the European Parliament on Monday (30 June 2003) that will have enormous implications on the worldwide software market. The vote will be on whether to adopt a report by its Legal Affairs and Internal Market Committee that recommends the rules on patenting of software be relaxed in line with existing laws in the US and Japan. It looks as though, despite widespread and deep criticism, the report will be adopted. And this will probably mean a...

FSF Statement on SCO v. IBM Eben Moglen June 25, 2003 The lawsuit brought by the Santa Cruz Operation (SCO) against IBM has generated many requests for comment by FSF. The Foundation has refrained from making official comments on the litigation because only the plaintiff's allegations have been reported; comment on unverified allegations would ordinarily be premature. More disturbing than the lawsuit itself, however, have been public statements by representatives of SCO, which have irresponsibly suggested doubts about the legitimacy of free software overall. These statements require response. SCO's lawsuit asserts that IBM has breached contractual obligations between the two...

Ashton was a macaw that lived in the lunch room at George Tate's software company, Ashton-Tate, home of dBase II, the first successful microcomputer database.  There is a lot about that long-gone company that was unusual.  There was the macaw, of course, which was named for the company, not the other way around.  There was George Tate, himself, who died at his desk when he was only 40, but still managed to get married two weeks later (by proxy -- please explain that one to me).  And later there was Ashton-Tate's copyright infringement lawsuit against Fox Software that pretty much...

<p>Linus Torvalds, the founder and lead developer of the Linux open-source operating system, has some strong views about the legal dispute between The SCO Group and IBM, which he shared with eWEEK Senior Editor Peter Galli in an e-mail exchange last week. Torvalds also last week announced he was taking a leave of absence from Transmeta Corp. and becoming the first full-time fellow at the Open Source Development Lab, where he will continue to drive the next version of the Linux kernel, 2.6, due later this summer.</p>

My Visit To SCO Posted on Thursday, June 19, 2003 by Ian Lance Taylor The full story of what one person who signed SCO's NDA encountered on his trip to Lindon, Utah. This essay describes my visit to SCO on June 17, 2003, to discuss SCO's claim that Linux infringes on its intellectual property rights. I visited the SCO office in Lindon, Utah, for about one hour. I spoke with Chris Sontag, Senior Vice President, Operating Systems Division, and with Blake Stowell, Director of Public Relations. In order to speak with them, I signed a non-disclosure agreement. The short version...

The mysterious trojan horse that's been making security experts scratch their heads now has a name as more details of the oddball malware were made available. The trojan horse that has been causing confusion and concern among security researchers for over a month now has been dubbed 'Stumbler' by experts at Internet Security Systems (ISS). As reported earlier, Stumbler embeds itself in Unix systems and seems to be part of a concerted effort to map Internet-connected networks using port scanning techniques. A copy of the trojan was finally captured Wednesday, and investigation of its code began Thursday. After additional analysis,...