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There's No Business Like SCO Business |
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 SCO is still in the news with a story that won't go away. For those of you living under a rock at the bottom of a well and seem to not have had access to a TV or the Internet, SCO is in the middle of a law suit with IBM over an intellectual property dispute stating that IBM submitted UNIX code for use in the existing Linux Kernel (2.4). SCO is also trying to strong-arm Linux users into purchasing a UNIX license for each of their "data serving" Linux boxes (one license per processor).
According to this article from itnews.com, "SCO executives have sold more than 119,000 shares of their company worth US$1.2 million since it filed a lawsuit against IBM in March, according to reports published Tuesday [August 12, 2003]." SCO has gone on record defending the actions of their executives "and has encouraged both its directors and executives to continue to sell stock under Security and Exchange Commission rules..." according to Computer Business Review Online.
A quick review of SCO's legal team and their arguments can be found on SlashDot explaining how they are apparently using the Chewbacca Defense to back their claims the the GPL is invalid due to the fact that it violates US Copyright Laws.
At the recent LinuxWorld Expo, there was a very negative vibe toward SCO. Although SCO decided to not join the festivities at LinuxWorld, they were the topic of many discussions and T-shirts. Also at the event, Red Hat Linux (one of the more popular Linux distributors) made the announcement that they have decided to fight back and has filed a counter-suit against SCO to "demonstrate that Red Hat's technologies do not infringe any intellectual property of SCO." Red Hat also unveiled a fund they started to help cover legal expenses that companies developing software under the GPL incur while the SCO saga continues. Red Hat got the fund started with a bang and pledged the first $1 million.
OSDL has published a Q&A stating facts about the SCO case against Linux. "The real legal issue in this case is between two companies, not between a software provider and end users, nor between a company and an operating system," Rosen (noted technology law and intellectual property expert) says. "Users should be completely informed of their rights and obligations, if any, before they take steps to purchase a software license they may never need."
In an interview, Linus Torvalds (creator of Linux and employee of OSDL) had this to say about the legal battle between SCO and IBM.
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August 15 2003, 12:08 PM EDT, by
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Comments:
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| HTML Samurai |
8/18/03, 8:30 AM EDT |
You gotta check this out!
Linux 'easily' recompiled to dump SCO
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