The Carnival Goes On
Tags: linux, servers
“..there are some 2.5 million servers running Linux and that SCO has ‘identified by name’ those companies running many of them.”
“We are in the process of contacting them about coming into compliance and taking a UnixWare license from us. If they refuse to do so, we will sue them directly and see them in court,” he said.
“In a nutshell, this litigation is essentially about the GNU General Public License and all it stands for. That license has not yet been challenged or tested in court, but it is now going to be. We are also firmly and aggressively challenging the notion that Linux is a free operating system,” McBride said.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,1224000,00.asp
Does anybody else think that this charade has gone on long enough?
Where is the proof that any of this IP is actually in the code they claim that these 2.5 million servers are running? Are there really 2.5 million Linux servers running SMP/NUMA/RCU/JFS in the public internet? I’d be very surprised if that figure was true.
Has anyone (or their company) actually received a letter from SCO requesting (demanding?) a license to UnixWare, or face litigation from them? Wouldn’t this constitute mail fraud? If a company sends you a bill, through the United States Postal Service, and that bill cannot be proven to be valid, isn’t that considered fraud? Time to talk to the postmaster and see.
This game has gone on long enough. First it was a contract dispute case against IBM. Then it was an IP case against Linux (the kernel). Then it was an IP case against ANYONE using Linux (the operating system as a whole). Now it’s all about the GPL? There is only one company that spins FUD like this.. and it seems as though they are doing the actual speech-writing for SCO these days.
linux != Linux, and I think SCO and the media need to get straight on those facts.
Prove that my linux kernel is running your intellectual property, and I will remove the infringing code myself, and run it sans your IP. Period. This is how it works. If you can’t prove it, legally or morally, then I’m sorry, I (and everybody else) don’t owe you a damn thing.