Linux is no longer free? (or THE DEATH OF OPEN-SOURCE)

Hiding in the shadows of P2P frenzy has been this little legal issue, now a giant issue...

news.com.com...
SCO Group, a company arguing that Linux infringes on its Unix intellectual property, said Monday it has been granted key Unix copyrights and will start a program to let companies running Linux avoid litigation by paying licensing fees.

The company, which is at the heart of a controversial lawsuit over Linux code, said that it plans to offer licenses that will support run-time, binary use of Linux to all companies that use Linux kernel 2.4 versions and later.


Thus marks the death of open source, and the way is paved for Windows dominance... digital rights management... and one person/group controlling the past.



[Edited on 21-7-2003 by William]

This kinda' sounds like an attempt to kill linux. They want eleventy billion dollars in damages and at the same time, they mailshot the 1500 main companies to warn them not to use it, suggesting that there may be legal action against them..... Which could stop them having the eleventy billion dollars to pay the debt, which would cause the whole thing to collapse, game over.

I dunno, sounds like copporate murder in some ways. On the other hand, maybe these companies will just fork out the cash, because it will be cheaper than setting up completely new systems. Maybe it is yet another clever attempt to milk the cash cow that is modern business.

Either way, this doesn't sound good for linux. It's a pity, redhat 9 is a gem.

$0.02

Does this company have any legitimate claim to this? It sounds to me like they're trying to scam people.

Wasn't Linux an off-shoot of the Unix codebase though, so wouldn't this be a copyright infringement in itself?

I smell a new Moronsoft plot!!

Linux is never going to die, is the OS for people that knows IT, Unix was the first language for computers and linux is based on it, and also there is a lot of versions and Linux types, Red Hat, Devian, Slackware, SuSE, etc etc etc. If they want to finish off all they�ll have big troubles, just people with high knowledge and hackers use Linux systems, so we are talking about experienced people getting affected with this.
Be careful, don�t think this is gonna be done easily, people loved (and we still loving it) Linux because it was a Freeware and done and updated by all of us, no problem about it, there is even Hacker Versions of Linux and a lot of stuff done due to no problem changing the code and the programming, nobody is responsable, Microsoft is gonna take over the market, obviously the NWO needs to have one company for each type of bussiness, like microsoft will be the only one for PC�s related, Vodafone the only tel company, it will all end in one Big Corportation, controlled by them, instead of all the small bussiness controlled by civilians that don�t help their agenda....
Anyway good article William

Don't go blaming this one on Microsoft. SCO wrote the original UNIX. Linux is based on UNIX (some places it has been copied line by line) and therefore copyright issues abound. The real issue is whether or not SCO can prove that they still own those rights. If they can then they are entitled to what they are asking.

True that Linux may stay in vogue with individual IT guys, but if a company has to pay for the rights to use it then they might as well pay for an O/S that they know is backed by a company that will be around for a while. If this goes through it will probably be the death of Linus as a business mission-critical operating system.

SCO is being eaten up and the legal arena is their last ditch effort. SCO did not write Unix - Novell sold it to them in the 90s, I believe, after getting it from AT&T Unix was developed by people from Bell labs, GE, and MIT.

This is going to get interesting! Novell at one point recently said they own Unix - SCO is going after IBM because of AIX and Microsoft has paid SCO licensing fees.

[Edited on 24-7-2003 by Bob88]

Originally posted by Bob88
SCO is being eaten up and the legal arena is their last ditch effort. SCO did not write Unix - Novell sold it to them in the 90s, I believe, after getting it from AT&T Unix was developed by people from Bell labs, GE, and MIT.

This is going to get interesting! Novell at one point recently said they own Unix - SCO is going after IBM because of AIX and Microsoft has paid SCO licensing fees.

[Edited on 24-7-2003 by Bob88]

Thanks, Bob. Sco is a horrible company in its death throws. They will do anything to stay alive.

But even if SCO is in it's death throws -- if they can prove they have the rights to UNIX, then someone will buy the company for those rights alone.

Face it, if the lawsuit has merrit then it will go though. The rewards are too huge for anyone to ignore. Even if SCO goes totally bankrupt, someone will buy the company for those rights.

Originally posted by Kahuna
But even if SCO is in it's death throws -- if they can prove they have the rights to UNIX, then someone will buy the company for those rights alone.

Face it, if the lawsuit has merrit then it will go though. The rewards are too huge for anyone to ignore. Even if SCO goes totally bankrupt, someone will buy the company for those rights.

Of course, if any lines of Linux code is shown to be Sco's, they are back in business and can get licencing fees from all users.

and Linux started out in 1991 - SCO allegedly got Unix in 1995. So again, this can get very interesting.

Microsoft gladly gave SCO money and in my opinion is pushing SCO to sue everyone, it's in their best interest. They aren't *really* worried about little 'ol SCO coming after them (Microsoft has more cash on hand then any other company in the world - billions - #'s that can't be fudged, Enron-style)

We can't tolerate this!

I do think that the linux community, which will probably be backed even by IBM, can put together quite an offense to tackle SCO. I can see geeks everywhere (myself included) donating money to the Linux defense fund via Paypal: We'd hire Johnny Cochran!

To put it shortly, Sco, is engaged in extortion in order to try to save the failing company.

If they own the rights then why is it extortion?