[KLUG Advocacy] And Now the Fun Begins...

Andrew Thompson advocacy@kalamazoolinux.org
07 Mar 2003 02:40:48 -0500


I imagine you'll have all heard about it by the time you read this, but
since no one's spoken up yet...

It looks like SCO's taking their recent IP claims straight to the top
with a billion-dollar suit against Big Blue. Accusing IBM of "improperly
extracting and using ... information it acquired from Unix and dumping
that information into the open source community" [cNet; see link below],
SCO is seeking one billion dollars in damages and also threatening to
revoke IBM's AIX license if reparations are not made.

It's probably already well known that SCO has been making noises to the
effect of enforcing their IP rights over UNIX at least for the last
month. The general opinion seems to be that SCO's actions and objectives
should have little impact on the Linux community itself, but given
recent events, especially the latest, it would seem wise to pay close
attention to this story. Judging from postings so far, there will be no
shortage of story, either. Here's a few links to give you the "tip of
the iceberg":

Linux
Today	http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2003-03-07-010-26-OP-CD-LL
(ESR)	http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2003-03-07-011-26-NW-LL

cNet	http://news.com.com/2100-1016-991464.html
eWeek	http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,920731,00.asp
	http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,904685,00.asp
-- 
Andrew Thompson <apthmpsn@imagerie.com>
The Imagerie