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

[Adam Tauno Williams]

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

Harkens back to the good old days of Apple and HP sueing each other over the
concept of a virtual trash can.  Those were the days.

>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.

Seems like they might have a problem with due diligence.  This has been going on
for quite some time without them making a squeek.  And how about other companies
that have done the same including HP and SGI?

>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.

It is sure the rev up Billie's FUD engine.

And IBM vs. SCO?  I'm certain IBM's legal department has twice as many employees
as SCO has in total.  But if you can't come up with a product that doesn't suck,
then why not give this a try?