[Linux-aus] SCO suspends it's Linux distribution

[Greg 'groggy' Lehey]

On Thursday, 15 May 2003 at 22:10:00 +1000, Chris Samuel wrote:
> On Thursday 15 May 2003 4:37 pm, Jon maddog Hall wrote:
>
>> No, this is not the reason that this is only happening to Linux.  The
>> real reason is that there are no large companies with deep pockets
>> interested in BSD.  If there were, SCO would be suing them too.
>
> I believe that SCO is bound by the 1994 settlement between USL Inc
> (then owned by Novell) and UCB which released BSD 4.4 Lite as
> completely unencumbered.
>
> I don't think even SCO would be dumb enough to try and reopen a
> lawsuit when it's already been settled that the BSD 4.4 Lite release
> was unencumbered.

More to the point, SCO (well, Caldera at the time) released all
precursors to BSD, including notably Research UNIX up to the Seventh
Edition, and also 32V, under a BSD license on 20 January 2002.  As a
result, BSD is no longer encumbered.  See
http://www.lemis.com/grog/UNIX/ for more details.  Yes, it's a pity
they don't have it on their own web site, but there's no doubt in
anybody's minds (except possibly SCO's new lawyers) that it happened.

> I believe that all the BSD's (including BSDI, if they are still
> going) are based on BSD 4.4 Lite.

Correct.  And yes, BSD[Ii] isn't completely dead yet.  It belongs to
Wind River Systems.

On Thursday, 15 May 2003 at  9:06:55 -0400, Jon Maddog Hall wrote:
>
> Trust me, if the BSDs were seen as likely to snuff out the
> commercial AT&T code stream and royalties, then SCO would be suing
> BSD just to see what they could get out of it, whether or not there
> was any legal relevance.

Absolutely.  That was the background for the BSDI lawsuit ten years
ago.

On Thursday, 15 May 2003 at 21:00:59 +0800, Leon Brooks wrote:
> On Thu, 15 May 2003 11:47, Chris Samuel wrote:
>> Some more FUD from SCO:
>
>> 	http://ir.sco.com/ReleaseDetail.cfm?ReleaseID=109149
>
> After inserting their favourite toy into a legal meat grinder up the the
> hilt, SCO complicate matters by shooting themselves in the foot.
>
> I don't get it. What's going on there behind the scenes?

I think it's pretty clear that SCO's sales model for Linux didn't
work.  The real reason for the suspension is almost certainly that it
wasn't selling, but by stating these reasons they can gain more
credibility in their lawsuit.

I must say that this particular lawsuit has reached a level of
stupidity which far exceeds anything I've seen before.  The stock
market doesn't, though.  Take a look at http://ir.sco.com/stock.cfm
for one good reason for the lawsuit.

Greg
--
Finger grog at lemis.com for PGP public key
See complete headers for address and phone numbers
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 187 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.linux.org.au/pipermail/linux-aus/attachments/20030516/727429eb/attachment-0001.pgp