2 Apr
2021
2 Apr
'21
5:52 a.m.
Which isn't how I remember things. From what I remember, Linux had the
impetus in the late nineties that FreeBSD didn't have - the *BSD were
still recovering from the AT&T case, which is why O'Reilly had to
issue a 4.4BSD-Lite Cd-ROM when I suspect, they would've preferred to
have issued a 4.4BSD complete disc. So from IBM's POV, they could
support Linux - which by then had already been ported to the VM/370
and there was already talk of porting it to the later mainframe
iterations. I don't think anybody was even thinking of porting any of
the *BSD to IBM mainframes till much later, am I right?
At any rate, by the time IBM formally joined the Linux club, it was
already (unofficial) host to at least one unofficial port to one of
its historic mainframes, and official host to an officlal SkunkWorks
port to its then-current mainframes. Experience counts.
None of the *BSD had nearly as big a presence in the IBM world, and
none of the earlier IBM Unix ports, some 4.*BSD, as far as I can
remember, ever had the presence of Linux as both a platform and -
thanks to Caldera-later-aka-The Sco Group - as a cause.
I had hoped that Xinuos was an honest attempt to provide support for
remaining SCO sites, but it seems they've fallen to the Dark Side and
the Easy Buck again. Sic transit gloria mundi ...
Wesley Parish
On 4/2/21, Warner Losh <imp(a)bsdimp.com> wrote:
The other set of claims made, which may be stronger,
was that IBM and
Redhat used their dominant position to lock out OSes other than Linux,
including FreeBSD from their cloud platform.
Their copyright claims look to be a bit different than the old SCO lawsuit.
Reading their complaint, it is somewhat different than the old suit...
FreeBSD is mentioned like 34 times too, since Xinuos based their products
based on it. And their product is locked out of the IBM/Redhat cloud
platform/ecosystem. The copyright stuff seems almost an afterthought...
Warner
On Thu, Apr 1, 2021 at 8:51 AM Josh Good <pepe(a)naleco.com> wrote:
I read the news, and I could not believe it.
It's April 1st, ain't it?
But then, this looks like is dated March 31. So it could be for real.
Behold: https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/31/ibm_redhat_xinuos/
The PDF also is dated March 31:
https://regmedia.co.uk/2021/03/31/xinuos_complaint.pdf
It's hard to believe someone would go to the trouble of writing 57 pages
of
legalese just to make a damn joke.
"
Xinuos, formed around SCO Group assets a decade ago under the
name
UnXis and at the time disavowing any interest in continuing SCO's
long-running Linux litigation, today sued IBM and Red Hat for
alleged copyright and antitrust law violations.
"First, IBM stole Xinuos' intellectual property and used that
stolen
property to build and sell a product to compete with Xinuos
itself,"
the US Virgin Islands-based software biz claims in its complaint
[PDF]. "Second, stolen property in IBM's hand, IBM and Red Hat
illegally agreed to divide the relevant market and use their
growing
market powers to victimize consumers, innovative competitors, and
innovation itself."
The complaint further contends that after the two companies
conspired to divide the market, IBM then acquired Red Hat to
solidify its position.
SCO Group in 2003 made a similar intellectual property claim. It
argued that SCO Group owned the rights to AT&T's Unix and
UnixWare
operating system source code, that Linux 2.4.x and 2.5.x were
unauthorized derivatives of Unix, and that IBM violated its
contractual obligations by distributing Linux code.
That case dragged on for years, and drew a fair amount of
attention
when SCO Group said it would sue individual Linux users for
infringement. Though SCO filed for bankruptcy in 2007 and some of
the claims have been dismissed, its case against IBM remains
unresolved.
There was a status report filed on February 16, 2018, details
remaining claims and counterclaims. And in May last year,
Magistrate
Judge Paul Warner was no longer assigned to oversee settlement
discussions. But SCO Group v. IBM is still open.
"
Either way, some one if fooling us hard.
PS: OK, it seems it's for real:
https://www.xinuos.com/xinuos-sues-ibm-and-red-hat/
I need to check my stock of pop corn, then...
My take: it's obvious they want to be a nuisance so that IBM settles the
case, so they then can go back home with some fresh cash. I hope IBM goes
ballistic on them to the bitter end, and finally sends the zombie back to
its grave. But then, IBM now has its new RedHat business to protect, so
it
can get interesting.
--
Josh Good