TUHS

tuhs@tuhs.org

27 participants
6496 discussions

by Jim Capp

Hi All, I have been an avid UNIX fan since 1983 when I read my first UNIX manual and realized the power and flexibility of the command line utilities and portability of the C compiler. I have used many flavors of *NIX and the companies I worked for sold a lot of SCO products. However, it became increasingly annoying to have to spend an extra $1,000 to get a C compiler. Beginning in 1994, we began replacing AT&T Unix, SCO Xenix, and SCO Unix with Linux. The final straw for us using SCO was when a major client upgraded their system from a 2-CPU NCR to a 4-CPU Gateway and it took us hours to locate all the necessary drivers to make it fly. Then afterwards, the client could not find their license materials. Just for fun, we popped in a RH7.1 version of Linux and it booted fine, located all the hardware and installed itself in about a half-hour. It has been running that way for the last two years. We had another client simply upgrade their SCO Unix system from a Pentium-100 to a Pentium III. After spending hours trying to move their SCO license and finding out that the bootloaders didn't like *something* (unknown to this day) we went back to the customer and suggested another path. Today, that system is running Linux/Apache/PHP/PostgreSQL. The bottom line is that Linux works well. The fact that it is nearly free (cost of media/downloads/time etc.) is a nice bonus. IMHO, SCO is a victim of their own design (who would symbolically link 1,000 files to some strange /opt/SCO/.../.../etc/init.d/....??? I guess when your business models don't pan out, you can always sue somebody ... especially when someone like Microsoft gives you the money. Do you really think Microsoft would pay $10,000,000 to anyone else without a fight and without trying every other business tactic that they have used in the past? Finally, to threaten pulling IBM's AIX license unless they "settle" is hubris. My only fear is that a judge might think 80 out of 2.5 million lines of code has some significant value :-/ I sincerely hope the dialogue of practical arguments against SCO that I have seen in this list make it to the right people in defense of IBM. Sincerely, Jim Capp

21 years, 11 months

Re: SCO vs IBM: what unix patents?

by Dennis Ritchie

Arnold asked, > Just out of curiousity, what patents are there in the current Unix System V > system? The setuid patent was released to the public, so that can't be > an issue. And copyright, trade secrets, blah blah, I can understand. But > I'm curious what is there in System V that has actually been patented? One article I read mentioned three, all visible in the USPTO database: 5,652,854 (filed 1995, granted 1997, assigned to Novell) 5,265,250 (filed 1990, granted 1993, originally assigned to AT&T) 6,097,384 (filed 1995, granted 2000, assigned to Novell) The first has to do with page table mapping and virtual address space, the second with RPC, the third with managing memory in subobjects. I have no idea how central these are to the case. They appear rather peripheral to me. Dennis

21 years, 11 months

The Open Group vs. SCO

by Kenneth Stailey

http://www.opengroup.org/ Who Owns UNIX�? You may have seen recent press articles announcing that SCO is the owner of UNIX or has licensed UNIX to Microsoft. Such statements are inaccurate, misleading and cause considerable confusion. The Open Group has owned the registered trademark UNIX since 1994. Here http://www.opengroup.org/comm/press/who-owns-unix.htm is what we said in response to a Linux Weekly News article last week. Also available is a backgrounder http://www.opengroup.org/comm/press/unix-backgrounder.htm that explains the history and reasons why The Open Group takes action on trademark misuse. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Calendar - Free online calendar with sync to Outlook(TM). http://calendar.yahoo.com

21 years, 11 months

This is too weird

by Kenneth Stailey

http://www.sco.com/scosource/ Way to weird: http://www.sco.com/scosource/linuxqanda.html Q: What is SVR6? A: SVR6 is the code name for the next-generation operating platform designed to take advantage of Web services and is the foundation of our SCOx strategy. As the owners of the UNIX operating system, it is incumbent upon SCO to advance the UNIX kernel for both 32-bit and 64-bit architectures. This will be accomplished through the support of key industry partners who will also contribute to this next-generation platform. SVR6 will be formally announced at our upcoming SCO Forum event to be held in Las Vegas, Nevada on August 17-19 at the MGM Grand Hotel. It just keeps getting weirder: http://www.sco.com/scosource/unixtree/unixhistory01.html __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Calendar - Free online calendar with sync to Outlook(TM). http://calendar.yahoo.com

21 years, 11 months

SCO to have violated GPL?

by Jeroen Ruigrok/asmodai

As seen on Slashdot: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,1123176,00.asp Some members of the open-source community are claiming that the SCO Group may have violated the terms of the GNU GPL (General Public License) by incorporating source code from the Linux kernel into the Linux Kernel Personality feature found in SCO Unix without giving the changes back to the community or displaying copyright notices attributing the code to Linux. A source close to SCO, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told eWEEK that parts of the Linux kernel code were copied into the Unix System V source tree by former or current SCO employees. That could violate the conditions of the GNU GPL, which states that any amendments to open-source code used in a commercial product must be given back to the community or a copyright notice must be displayed attributable to Linux, he said. The source, who has seen both the Unix System V source code and the Linux source code and who assisted with a SCO project to bring the two kernels closer together, said that SCO "basically re-implemented the Linux kernel with functions available in the Unix kernel to build what is now known as the Linux Kernel Personality (LKP) in SCO Unix." The LKP is a feature that allows users to run standard Linux applications along with standard Unix applications on a single system using the UnixWare kernel. "During that project we often came across sections of code that looked very similar, in fact we wondered why even variable names were identical. It looked very much like both codes had the same origin, but that was good as the implementation of 95 percent of all Linux system calls on the Unix kernel turned out to be literally 'one-liners'," the source said. Only a handful of system calls.socketcall, ipc and clone.were fairly difficult to implement as they involved the obvious differentiators between Linux and Unix: networking, inter-process communication and kernel threads, the source said. -- Jeroen Ruigrok van der Werven <asmodai(at)wxs.nl> / asmodai / a capoeirista PGP fingerprint: 2D92 980E 45FE 2C28 9DB7 9D88 97E6 839B 2EAC 625B http://www.tendra.org/ | http://www.in-nomine.org/~asmodai/diary/ I am the impossibility...

21 years, 11 months

SCO vs IBM: what unix patents?

by Aharon Robbins

Just out of curiousity, what patents are there in the current Unix System V system? The setuid patent was released to the public, so that can't be an issue. And copyright, trade secrets, blah blah, I can understand. But I'm curious what is there in System V that has actually been patented? Thanks, Arnold

21 years, 11 months

My response to SCO vs. Linux

by msokolov＠ivan.Harhan.ORG

Here is my response to SCO vs. Linux. The thing is, some of the things they are saying I agree with most emphatically, except that what those things really support is not SCO but our TUHS cause. Their main line, at least as I interpret it, is that UNIX is the real OS, UNIX is better than Linux, and Linux is just a naughty child that is becoming more and more of a nuisance to the adults. I agree wholeheartedly! I and many other UNIX bigots have been more vocal about this than SCO. BUT... UNIX is not what SCO means by this term, UNIX is V7 -> 4BSD! That is the real UNIX, USG is just a bad commercialized branch that no one ever really liked anyway! So to all those Fortune 1000 (or whatever that was) companies warned by SCO to stop running Linux, they should throw out those cheap micros, put all their old large VAXen back online, and run True UNIX, 4.3 BSD UNIX! And that *is* real UNIX, it comes directly from V7 and openly and proudly admits to this fact! Isn't an OS that openly and proudly admits to come directly from Holy UNIX better than a cheap UNIX copycat that needs to be sued in court to determine what the hell it really is? But SCO probably won't be too happy about it as they just gave away the True UNIX (V7) to the World for free, and it's non-retractable. So if anything good comes out of this lawsuit it's that maybe, just maybe, BSD will finally get some attention and use over Linux. The Free Computing community doesn't have to suffer any loss whatsoever if SCO wins, we can instead just switch from Linux to the much better True UNIX, which is just as free but a lot more solid, mature, and True. And stick it to SCO and laugh diabolically at how they voluntarily made UNIX free without us having to seize it by force in a revolution. MS (donning the flameproof spacesuit)

21 years, 11 months

one person comments on his attorney's take on the SCO NDA

by Kenneth Stailey

http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=3752 In a nutshell the SCO NDA is a gag, a muzzle. It restricts you to only being able to say "yes there is common code" or "no there is no common code", nothing else may be said by you without violating the NDA. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Calendar - Free online calendar with sync to Outlook(TM). http://calendar.yahoo.com

21 years, 11 months

Re: [TUHS] SCO vs. IBM: NOVELL steps up to the plate

by zmkm zmkm

Looks like sco has learned a lot from its cozying up with microsoft that is instead of meeting market challenges with better technology and competitive pricing against its competitors it resorts to the lowest form bullying marketing gimmicks and legal arm twisting just like microsoft style , so now they look like shooting themselves in the foot , good ! let's hope they shoot both feet !. >From: Kenneth Stailey <kstailey(a)yahoo.com> >To: tuhs(a)tuhs.org >Subject: Re: [TUHS] SCO vs. IBM: NOVELL steps up to the plate >Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2003 19:32:55 -0700 (PDT) > >Two words: "version control". > >If the code that SCO purports is copied into Linux is known the version >control >archives will say who inserted it. It will be very easy to prove if >Caldera >inserted the code themselves. > > >__________________________________ >Do you Yahoo!? >Yahoo! Calendar - Free online calendar with sync to Outlook(TM). >http://calendar.yahoo.com >_______________________________________________ >TUHS mailing list >TUHS(a)minnie.tuhs.org >http://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs _________________________________________________________________ The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail

21 years, 11 months

Re: Re: [TUHS] SCO vs. IBM: NOVELL steps up to the plate

by Norman Wilson

Kenneth Stailey: Two words: "version control". If the code that SCO purports is copied into Linux is known the version control archives will say who inserted it. It will be very easy to prove if Caldera inserted the code themselves. Alas, two more words: "read-write storage." Version control info is stored in a file; how do we know (as SCalderaO might argue) that some hacker hasn't edited it after the fact to pretend something was put in by Caldera, or that they just lied about it to begin with? Version control data might be a useful, but I suspect only as a trail to specific people whose could then offer personal testimony about the history of a particular piece of code. The testimony would be harder to impeach than the code. Even a read-only copy of the version control info, e.g. a CD-ROM, isn't a lot more solid; some hard evidence would be needed of when that CD-ROM was written, beyond the easily-forged timestamps on the disc itself, and there could still be a claim that someone just lied when writing it, especially if there is a claim that malice was involved. So it still would probably come down to personal testimony. The usual disclaimer applies: I'm no lawyer. I'm just trying to think of counter-arguments, both those reasonable in abstract and those that seem to fit within the spirit of the complaint against IBM. Norman Wilson Toronto ON

21 years, 11 months

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TUHS