Differences between version 5 and predecessor to the previous major change of SCO.
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| Newer page: | version 5 | Last edited on Friday, January 23, 2004 9:03:51 pm | by zcat(1) | Revert |
| Older page: | version 3 | Last edited on Thursday, January 22, 2004 3:30:04 pm | by JohnMcPherson | Revert |
@@ -1,8 +1,23 @@
-An [Acronym] for Santa Cruz Operation
+An [Acronym] for __S__anta __C__ruz __O__peration
-Originally a company that made
a version of [Unix] for [x86
] (
[Intel
])-based machines
called !UnixWare
. Their expensive software never became very popular, and the company (or only code?) changed hands a few times, becoming owned by (or known as) Caldera (
which made a distribution
of [Linux
]) and eventually
being turned into
the current SCO Group. They also purchased
[Xenix
] from MicrosoftCorporation
.
+Originally a company that distributed
a version of [Unix] for the
[Intel
] [x86
] architecture
called [Xenix], bought from MicrosoftCorporation. Later they made another [Unix] version [SCO] [UNIX] System V/386
. Their expensive software never became very popular. In 1995 they bought !UnixWare from [Novell]
, which [Novell] had bought directly from [AT&T], the original creators
of [UNIX
]. Their profits were
being eaten alive by
the growing popularity of
[Linux
] soon after however, and they made a few desperate moves to try this OpenSource thingamajic with little success
.
-The current
SCO Group is not very profitable and has given up on its
Linux distribution
. Apparently it also thinks it can make money by asking people
to pay them licensing fees
for vague reasons
, and suing
[IBM
] for reasons that require some
lateral interpretation of old legal documents. Enough said
. See
[this Salt Lake City Weekly Editorial|http://www.slweekly.com/editorial/2004/feat_2004-01-22.cfm] for a
(slightly long but)
very readable background to their dubious legal claims.
+In 2001, they were bought by [Caldera], a [Linux] distributor that had repeatedly made big plans to establish their LinuxDistribution as part of the business world and had repeatedly failed. [Caldera]'s hope was to benefit from the well established distribution channels [SCO] had built in over ten years of work. Well, chalk another one up for [Caldera]; the attempt failed. Desperate to make profits, they turned to the [SCO] products bought in with the acquisition, renaming themselves to __
The SCO Group__. One more failure.
+
+At this point, someone rememebered that they owned !UnixWare, which meant ownership of the IntellectualProperty of the original [AT&T] [UNIX]. A plan was hatched to construe [
Linux] as having been impossible to create without theft of IntellectualProperty from [UNIX]
. The first one
to get sued was [IBM], who had paid licenses to use that IntellectualProperty
for their AIX clone of [UNIX]
, and later also invested (quite heavily) in
[Linux
]. The lawsuit is based on
lateral interpretation of old legal documents. As if this wasn't ludicruous enough, they're also demanding money from ''users'' of [Linux], which is completely devoid of any legal basis
. (If someone plagiarises your song, you don't sue the people who bought his CD, do you.)
+
+Let's hope this lawsuit is their ultimate failure.
+
+There's also a googlebombing campaign to associate them with the search term
[litigious bastards|http://www.sco.com/], and since the Wiki ranks quite highly.. ;-}
+
+There are __heaps__ of resources on the web about
this lawsuit. The one you don't want to miss is [PiratesOfPenguinance | http://twiki.iwethey.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/PiratesOfPenguinance].
+
+But see also:
+
+* GrokLaw
+* [The IWeThey wiki page on SCO vs IBM | http://twiki.iwethey.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/SCOvsIBM]
+* [
Salt Lake City Weekly Editorial | http://www.slweekly.com/editorial/2004/feat_2004-01-22.cfm] (slightly long but very readable background to their dubious legal claims)
+* [A company history of SCO | http://williambader
.com/museum/dell/xenixhistory.html]
----
CategoryCompany
