SCO

[David Mandala]

SCO is in trouble, they don't sell hardware they sell software,
specifically an OS. Now that OS is being commoditized to a point where
they are losing money quickly. The rest of the UNIX vendors also sell
hardware so they have something else to fall back to. SGI, HP, IBM  and
even SUN (though they are still fighting it) all can make money on
hardware and service.

SCO had 2 choices, become a Linux distro vendor and accept the lower $$$
avalible as a Linux distro vendor or go out of business. Now they really
only have a single choice, go out of business. They will like any
trapped/cornered animal go out fighting, thus the attempt to sue IBM and
others.

In the process they have grossly offended the Linux community. According
to SCO Linux was a toy until IBM but SCO's trade secrets into Linux.
Bullshit, yes IBM has helped Linux, they have hired a fair amount of
Linux hackers, etc. But Linux was already a force to be reckoned with
long before IBM jumped into the fray. You could say (and I do) that IBM
jumped into the fray in the cause of Linux because it was already
dinging IBM's business and was a force to be reckoned with.

IBM has always been pragmatic about OS"s, they don't care, if it meets
the clients needs and does not hurt IBM's business, then they sell it
and support it. Linux came along and started to hurt IBM's AUX business,
customers wanted it and IBM saw a way to save money to they adopted it.

How do they save money you ask. By leveraging the Linux kernel, they get
far more then they put into it, that is the nature of the kernel forced
by the GPL license. Say what you will but I contend that Linux is the
force it is today directly because of the license. BSD has been around
longer but the license allows, no encourages commercial forking, which
is what happened to UNIX over the years. The GPL license effectively
stops forking cleanly. The offshoot of this is that everyone gains more
then they put in. Of course marketing, sales and business types hate
this because it is very hard to have product differentiation and
customer lock in when everyone is using the same code base.

This is one of the reasons why Microsoft is so afraid of Linux, they
exist mostly because of customer lock in. Interestingly enough Microsoft
is not in the same position as SCO, they have diversified over
the years, they have always had other software to sell and they have
branched into hardware and other devices. So they can exist in a Linux
OS world unlike SCO who has no other products. Of course Microsoft will
have to do something they are out of practice on, competition and actual
customer service.

Cheers,

Davidm

On Wed, 2003-03-12 at 07:41, Kevin Brown wrote:
> Why is it only now that they are trying to enforce their IP now?  How many years 
> has the linux kernel supposedly been in violation?
> 
> >>From what I have read the linux kernel is also in breach of SCO's
> > intelectual property. All System V systems are. I havent read anything
> > about new projects but I did read an article saying that SCO was
> > focusing on the big unix/linux companies that could actually pay them
> > should they win, the article said they files a 1 billion dollar lawsuit
> > against IBM for "devaluing unix", the article I read is here ...
> > http://theregister.co.uk/content/53/29632.html
> > 
> > On Tue, Mar 11, 2003 at 11:09:38PM -0700, David Mandala wrote:
> > 
> >>I believe the project has been underway for a number of years, ... It's
> >>called Linux (-;
> >>
> >>Cheers,
> >>
> >>Davidm
> >>
> >>On Tue, 2003-03-11 at 23:00, Aaron Cordova wrote:
> >>
> >>>Has there been any news about what SCO is planning to do? And if so have 
> >>>there been any projects started to replace their software?
> 
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David IS Mandala
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