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Author Topic:   Throwing hardballs at Linux

Chris Stallings posted 05-27-2003 08:32 PM CT (US)

The Linux vs. Windows battle is starting to heat up. This is only the first round...
"B-grade vendor SCO filed a $1 billion lawsuit against IBM, charging that its intellectual property had made its way into IBM's Linux distribution. Then there was the not-so-shocking revelation last week that Microsoft, which just licensed SCO's Unix technology, has been quietly urging its sales staff to offer huge discounts to users in order to undercut Linux. Also last week, SCO suddenly dropped out of the Linux market and threatened users with intellectual property violations."
-- From Computerworld

Chris Stallings posted 05-29-2003 02:40 PM CT (US)
Frank Hayes of Computerworld offered this explaination of what is happening:
"So what do you do if you're the CEO of a $65 million software company that's losing money, losing market share and -- worst of all -- has a stock that's lost 99% of its value in the space of two years? If you're Darl McBride of The SCO Group, you file a billion-dollar lawsuit against IBM. Then drop the product you've staked your future on. Then send threatening letters to about 1,500 of your biggest potential customers. Then announce a deal with Microsoft.
Result: SCO's stock is up 500% since January. Sort of takes the mystery out of why SCO is taking wild swings at the Linux it championed just months ago, doesn't it?"
billsw posted 06-11-2003 12:15 AM CT (US)

SCO is now showing code samples to U.S. analysts (Gartner, etc.) that it claims to prove that the source code to the Linux operating system contains sections of code lifted directly from SCO's Unix code base. Open source advocates are countering that both UNIX and Linux contain some identical sections from BSD. Also, the open source side is asking if the code was developed first in linux and then copied into UNIX?

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Author	Topic: Throwing hardballs at Linux
Chris Stallings	posted 05-27-2003 08:32 PM CT (US) The Linux vs. Windows battle is starting to heat up. This is only the first round... "B-grade vendor SCO filed a $1 billion lawsuit against IBM, charging that its intellectual property had made its way into IBM's Linux distribution. Then there was the not-so-shocking revelation last week that Microsoft, which just licensed SCO's Unix technology, has been quietly urging its sales staff to offer huge discounts to users in order to undercut Linux. Also last week, SCO suddenly dropped out of the Linux market and threatened users with intellectual property violations." -- From Computerworld
Chris Stallings	posted 05-29-2003 02:40 PM CT (US) Frank Hayes of Computerworld offered this explaination of what is happening: "So what do you do if you're the CEO of a $65 million software company that's losing money, losing market share and -- worst of all -- has a stock that's lost 99% of its value in the space of two years? If you're Darl McBride of The SCO Group, you file a billion-dollar lawsuit against IBM. Then drop the product you've staked your future on. Then send threatening letters to about 1,500 of your biggest potential customers. Then announce a deal with Microsoft. Result: SCO's stock is up 500% since January. Sort of takes the mystery out of why SCO is taking wild swings at the Linux it championed just months ago, doesn't it?"
billsw	posted 06-11-2003 12:15 AM CT (US) SCO is now showing code samples to U.S. analysts (Gartner, etc.) that it claims to prove that the source code to the Linux operating system contains sections of code lifted directly from SCO's Unix code base. Open source advocates are countering that both UNIX and Linux contain some identical sections from BSD. Also, the open source side is asking if the code was developed first in linux and then copied into UNIX?