Unix lawsuit agreement raises questions for SCO
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The SCO GroupÂ may have a more difficult time making its case that Linux includes illegal source code than previously thought, according to documents published recently on the Groklaw.net Web site. Earlier this week the site published for the first time a 10-year-old lawsuit settlement agreement that grants developers the right to redistribute much of the Unix source code that SCO claims to own and which may ultimately strengthen IBM's defense in a lawsuit between the two companies.ADVERTISEMENTSolaris 10(TM) OS: Position your business ten moves ahead.Solaris 10 OS has arrived and provides even more reasons for the world's most demanding businesses to operate on this, the leading UNIX platform. Like the fact you can run Linux and Solaris applications side-by-side and run the same OS on SPARC(R), AMD Opteron(TM), and Intel processor-based systems. Discover more reasons and how Solaris 10 OS can move your business ahead today.
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SCO, the ever-popular Unix company, has come under attack from hackers once again. This time they have replaced the front page of SCO&#39;s Web site with their own version that parodies SCO&#39;s legal battles over Linux.
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spackbace writes &quot;The notorious, mysterious Source Code Club (SCC) has re-emerged, this time selling source code for a Cisco application in another blatant violation of copyright regulations.
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TechWeb - NetApp, which blames Sun for starting the intellectual property dispute, tries to distance itself from SCO&#39;s long-running, controversial lawsuit.
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The SCO Group Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, just a month after losing several key court rulings in its legal fight against Novell Inc., IBM and others over what it asserts is the company's Unix intellectual property.
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InfoWorld - Following its bankruptcy filing, The SCO Group may be booted off of the Nasdaq stock exchange as early as next week, the Unix vendor said Wednesday.
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Malicious hackers have once again compromised The SCO Groupâs website, the second time in as many days. The messages on the website appear to mock the companyâs ownership claims over various parts of the Linux operating system.
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Lodges filing with SEC The company at the centre of an intellectual property dispute with IBM that has lasted for years is facing the prospect of financial ruin. The SCO Group said it may be unable to continue operating as a company.â¦
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After a year and a half of being flamed, dissected and dismissed on the Groklaw.net Web site, The SCO Group Inc. (SCO) has decided to set up a Web site of its own to cover the latest happenings in its many legal disputes.
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Software giant's deal with Sun has raised some questions.
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With its cash reserves dwindling and losses continuing to mount, The SCO Group Inc. is taking measures to cut its expenses and ensure it will have enough cash to process its lawsuit with IBM Corp, the company announced during its quarterly earnings conference call Tuesday. SCO reported a loss of $7.4 million on revenue of $11.2 million for the third quarter - a loss that was affected by the $7.2 million in legal expenses the company incurred during the quarter, which ended July 31.
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Unix vendor SCO Group (Quote, Chart), in the midst of copyright infringement lawsuits over parts of Linux, reported a net loss of $7.
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By Brice Wallace Deseret Morning News  International Business Machines Corp. on Thursday asked a federal court judge for summary judgment in a lawsuit SCO Group Inc. filed against it.
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A federal judge in Utah has ordered IBM to turn over more programming code to The SCO Group Inc., whose lawsuit accuses IBM of illegally inserting proprietary Unix code into the Linux operating system.
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Almost fully functional Cluster Watch: Day 6 It may have been CEO Darl McBride or attorney David Boies, but someone has stepped up to fix the SCO Group's web site.â¦
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The Story: What?s in a name? Back in the days of the Gingrich revolution, the nastiest label you could pin on a politician was ?liberal.? And now that open source has become an essential technology, the quickest way to get a rise out of an open source executive (and to get flamed on dozens of blogs) is to say his or her company is ?commercial.?[ Slideshow: 2007's top underreported tech stories ]                                                    No matter what you call them, open source companies have been steadily integrating parts of the hated commercial software subscription model into their business. First it was support, and now it is software access. Say it ain?t so, Linus.MySQL, for example, will charge users of its enterprise edition to use the code, not just for support as has been the traditional open source business model. ?We are looking for ways to extend our offerings in a way that can be monetized,? bluntly says Kaj Arno, the company?s VP for community.Chander Kant, founder of the open source storage software company Zmanda, is likewise frank about the need to drive revenue. Speaking of the open source community as a whole, he says, ?We are not a charity. We need to monetize.?Recognizing that charging to use open source software flies in the face of the original open source premise of freely sharable code open to everyone, Arno is quick to note that the paid version of Workbench has code and features not found in the free version ? and that the free version ?is not crippled.? Arno calls the move an experiment, and acknowledges that MySQL needs to move carefully to avoid upsetting the often quick-tempered open source community.Is this a trend? Red Monk analyst Stephen O?Grady says it is: ?Ultimately when you look at a high-profile firm like MySQL embracing it, it?s difficult to conclude anything else.?InfoWorld blogger (and IBM employee) Savio Rodrigues notes another example. In a recent blog post, he looked at changes to JBoss since it was purchased by Red Hat Software and concluded: ?The Fedora/JBoss subscription is just like the software subscription business model that commercial software vendors have been using for decades.?Does that mean a company that adopts the usage-based pricing model isn?t really open-source? That?s an interesting point, since as Zmanda?s Kant acknowledges, ?the litmus test of open source is control of the code.? Open source software delivered through appliances keeps the access ? and thus control ? away from users, he notes. But code binaries distributed as software remain open to their users ? for now, at least.The Bottom Line: Have MySQL and Red Hat run away from the principles of open source? Who cares. The real point is that the open source business model is evolving away from the ?free? model and toward an alternative development approach for commercial software. If you adopted open source due to its cost, you may not save as much as you thought. If you adopted open source for the access to source code or the community-supported development approach that is supposed to result in better software, it?s not yet clear if the greater commercialization will enhance those aspects or drive away the true believers and make open source no different than the old-fashioned commercial offerings.Complete list of 2007 underreported stories: 1.? Java is becoming the new Cobol 2.? Sun Microsystems is back in the game 3.? Hackers take aim at Mac OS X 4.? There are some threats you can worry less about 5.? Companies may have found a way around H-1B visa limits 6.? Open source?s new commercial strategy 7.? End-to-end Ethernet finally arrives 8.? Blade servers arrive for the masses 9.? BI is dead; long live BI 10. Balance of power shifts to software buyers
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Yeah, you can say that Microsoft has their flaws, and commission companies produce white papers trying to prove that point, but at what point will consumers (in this issue, mainly IT professionals) begin understanding that the cost of employing a Unix