Author: Bo Persson
Date: 02:48:04 08/20/03
Go up one level in this thread
On August 19, 2003 at 21:23:01, Russell Reagan wrote: >On August 19, 2003 at 20:42:12, margolies,marc wrote: > >>http://news.com.com/2100-1016_3-5065422.html >> >>just in case you all thought the issue died and chess computing remains >>unscathed. > >I haven't followed this story as much as I would have liked to, and some things >don't make much sense to me. > >Has SCO won a court case that allows them to charge for linux? No. >Or can anyone >just start charging whatever they want for something they don't legally own? They are not charging for Linux, they sell licenses for UnixWare, which they legally own. You could buy one "just in case", so that if and when the court agrees with their suits, you are already covered. Very original business idea! >Is SCO going after IBM and "IBM's Linux" only? If IBM used code from SCO's unix, >then I don't see how that affects the multitude of other linux distrobutions. One reason to go after IBM is that they are one of the few that could theoretically pay up for the $3B :-) of damage claims. Another reason is that SCO in fact claims that IBM has transfered code to the Linux distribution. A complication, making it even more funny, is that the claim is not even for SCO code, but for code created by another company (whose name escapes me right now) that IBM bought. That company had written code for UNIX. SCO now claims that this is "derivative work" and therefore should be included in the UNIX code base. Even more hilarious is that SCO themselves has distributed their own Caldera Linux, releasing this very code under GPL. So this weak they have to claim that GPL is invalid! > >I don't see what SCO expects to gain. IF they win a court case and it is found >that IBM copied SCO's code, how does this affect linux users? Can't the linux >distributors or Linus himself (since he's working on linux full time now) simply >rewrite the portions of code that were copied, and go on their marry way? If so, >I don't see what SCO would gain by that. > >And what is stopping every linux user from switching to any of the free BSDs >(Free/Open/Net/...)? I imagine that most linux users would make the transition >almost seamlessly. Here again, SCO gains nothing if they win. Except money. Bo Persson bop2@telia.com
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