Whilst it's not in Open Source software's interests to bankrupt legitimate companies, it's not in legitimate business' interests to blackmail and threaten Open Source software users.
I somehow fail to shed a tear for the inevitable demise of SCO Group but wonder instead whether their motives for suing IBM for $1bn was simply a money-making scheme to attempt to prop up failing sales.
Hopefully this whole sorry tale will soon be in the past and a real company can carry on the UNIX name and treat it (and Linux) with some real respect.
What worries me is that Novell is not too far behind them. I'll hate to see what they pull when their backs are against the wall...their lawyers are _way_ better than SCO's.
Need help in realtime? Visit us at #linuxnewbie on irc.libera.chat
Few of us will do as much for our fellow man as he has done.
--Andrew Morton on RMS
I don't know too much about Novell, but I do realise that they don't seem as blood-thirsty as SCO... OK, they DID attempt to sue SCO for the name "UNIX"...
Haven't Novell generally supported the Linux community? I mean there was Caldera Linux going for a while...
Well, remember that the company masquerading as SCO these days, IS actually Caldera. The REAL SCO sold some UNIX assets (that were bought from Novell) to Caldera and then changed their name to Tarantella and was subsequently bought by Sun. Caldera decided to pretend they were "Old SCO" (the unix company) and changed their name to The SCO Group. Madness ensued...
Need help in realtime? Visit us at #linuxnewbie on irc.libera.chat
Few of us will do as much for our fellow man as he has done.
--Andrew Morton on RMS
Where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?
(No trees were killed in posting this message. However, a large number of electrons were seriously inconvenienced.)
----------------------------------
Debian user since Potato Syngin: Web Portfolio
This is a reference to the recent threat from M$FT that various FOSS projects infringe in its patents, something like 235 of them, I think they are saying. According to M$FT, 42 of its patents are infringed upon by the current linux kernel alone. Other patents are infringed upon (they claim) by stuff like Gnome, KDE and OpenOffice.
There's been a lot on this in the last few days on sites like slashdot and digg. The general consensus is that it just a bunch of sabre-rattling FUD, and that none of these patents would really hold up in court. What's worrisome however is that M$FT is known to cause a lot of damage through their FUD alone. Damn them.
I mean, even if some UNIX things have to be taken out of, say, red hat, it won't be long until alternative code is written, right?
It would probabally take less than two months for a stable rewrite and several better ones to be in the making. the linux community wouldn't keel over and die from a small percent of the kernal being deleted, we would rewrite and update.
Also, there is no way that the open source community could infringe on the code of MS, because we have no access to it to be able to copy it.
Man I wrote that over 4 years ago when the FUD train was just getting rolling....I can't believe its taken so long and we're STILL nowhere near the end...
Need help in realtime? Visit us at #linuxnewbie on irc.libera.chat
Few of us will do as much for our fellow man as he has done.
--Andrew Morton on RMS
That's the best news I've read all day! I'd better finish setting up that ol' surround sound to listen to the aforementioned lady.
We are free to think. We are free to plan. And we are free to do. But once an action has been taken, we are never free from its consequences.
--Russel M. Nelson, apostle.