Re: [TUHS] Zombified SCO comes back from the dead, brings trial back to life against IBM

[Kevin Bowling <kevin.bowling@kev009.com>]

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On Thu, Apr 1, 2021 at 8:54 PM Wesley Parish <wobblygong@gmail.com> wrote:

> Which isn't how I remember things. From what I remember, Linux had the
> impetus in the late nineties that FreeBSD didn't have - the *BSD were
> still recovering from the AT&T case, which is why O'Reilly had to
> issue a 4.4BSD-Lite Cd-ROM when I suspect, they would've preferred to
> have issued a 4.4BSD complete disc. So from IBM's POV, they could
> support Linux - which by then had already been ported to the VM/370
> and there was already talk of porting it to the later mainframe
> iterations. I don't think anybody was even thinking of porting any of
> the *BSD to IBM mainframes till much later, am I right?


You’ve compressed quite a bit of history.  IBM didn’t engage with Linux in
a serious way until Jan 2000.  It took a bit longer for things to really
become corporate, but the fall of the first dot com bubble definitely
started skewing toward Linux and away from commercial unix, windows, BSD,
whatever.  Red Hat (and many of its variants like Amazon Linux, CentOS) and
Ubuntu emerged as early winners in the corporate and cloud market.  I think
Ubuntu discredits a lot of the claims.  IBM is a major contributor to
Ubuntu.


> At any rate, by the time IBM formally joined the Linux club, it was
> already (unofficial) host to at least one unofficial port to one of
> its historic mainframes, and official host to an officlal SkunkWorks
> port to its then-current mainframes. Experience counts.
>
> None of the *BSD had nearly as big a presence in the IBM world, and
> none of the earlier IBM Unix ports, some 4.*BSD, as far as I can
> remember, ever had the presence of Linux as both a platform and -
> thanks to Caldera-later-aka-The Sco Group - as a cause.
>

Yes IBM shipped 4.3 BSD as AOS, Academic Operating System (the name which
is kind of funny).  There’s definitely BSD code in every OS they ship,
including os/400 by way of PASE (this is somewhat ironic because IBM went
to great lengths to keep unix influences out of os/400).


> I had hoped that Xinuos was an honest attempt to provide support for
> remaining SCO sites, but it seems they've fallen to the Dark Side and
> the Easy Buck again. Sic transit gloria mundi ...
>

The case looks flimsy.  Some lawyers will make money regardless, I’d be
surprised if anyone would take something like this on without immediate
remuneration.


> Wesley Parish
>
> On 4/2/21, Warner Losh <imp@bsdimp.com> wrote:
> > The other set of claims made, which may be stronger, was that IBM and
> > Redhat used their dominant position to lock out OSes other than Linux,
> > including FreeBSD from their cloud platform.
> >
> > Their copyright claims look to be a bit different than the old SCO
> lawsuit.
> >
> > Reading their complaint, it is somewhat different than the old suit...
> > FreeBSD is mentioned like 34 times too, since Xinuos based their products
> > based on it. And their product is locked out of the IBM/Redhat cloud
> > platform/ecosystem. The copyright stuff seems almost an afterthought...
> >
> > Warner
> >
> > On Thu, Apr 1, 2021 at 8:51 AM Josh Good <pepe@naleco.com> wrote:
> >
> >> I read the news, and I could not believe it.
> >>
> >> It's April 1st, ain't it?
> >>
> >> But then, this looks like is dated March 31. So it could be for real.
> >>
> >> Behold: https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/31/ibm_redhat_xinuos/
> >>
> >> The PDF also is dated March 31:
> >> https://regmedia.co.uk/2021/03/31/xinuos_complaint.pdf
> >>
> >> It's hard to believe someone would go to the trouble of writing 57 pages
> >> of
> >> legalese just to make a damn joke.
> >>
> >> "
> >>         Xinuos, formed around SCO Group assets a decade ago under the
> >> name
> >>         UnXis and at the time disavowing any interest in continuing
> SCO's
> >>         long-running Linux litigation, today sued IBM and Red Hat for
> >>         alleged copyright and antitrust law violations.
> >>
> >>         "First, IBM stole Xinuos' intellectual property and used that
> >> stolen
> >>         property to build and sell a product to compete with Xinuos
> >> itself,"
> >>         the US Virgin Islands-based software biz claims in its complaint
> >>         [PDF]. "Second, stolen property in IBM's hand, IBM and Red Hat
> >>         illegally agreed to divide the relevant market and use their
> >> growing
> >>         market powers to victimize consumers, innovative competitors,
> and
> >>         innovation itself."
> >>
> >>         The complaint further contends that after the two companies
> >>         conspired to divide the market, IBM then acquired Red Hat to
> >>         solidify its position.
> >>
> >>         SCO Group in 2003 made a similar intellectual property claim. It
> >>         argued that SCO Group owned the rights to AT&T's Unix and
> >> UnixWare
> >>         operating system source code, that Linux 2.4.x and 2.5.x were
> >>         unauthorized derivatives of Unix, and that IBM violated its
> >>         contractual obligations by distributing Linux code.
> >>
> >>         That case dragged on for years, and drew a fair amount of
> >> attention
> >>         when SCO Group said it would sue individual Linux users for
> >>         infringement. Though SCO filed for bankruptcy in 2007 and some
> of
> >>         the claims have been dismissed, its case against IBM remains
> >>         unresolved.
> >>
> >>         There was a status report filed on February 16, 2018, details
> >>         remaining claims and counterclaims. And in May last year,
> >> Magistrate
> >>         Judge Paul Warner was no longer assigned to oversee settlement
> >>         discussions. But SCO Group v. IBM is still open.
> >> "
> >>
> >> Either way, some one if fooling us hard.
> >>
> >> PS: OK, it seems it's for real:
> >> https://www.xinuos.com/xinuos-sues-ibm-and-red-hat/
> >>
> >> I need to check my stock of pop corn, then...
> >>
> >> My take: it's obvious they want to be a nuisance so that IBM settles the
> >> case, so they then can go back home with some fresh cash. I hope IBM
> goes
> >> ballistic on them to the bitter end, and finally sends the zombie back
> to
> >> its grave. But then, IBM now has its new RedHat business to protect, so
> >> it
> >> can get interesting.
> >>
> >> --
> >> Josh Good
> >>
> >>
> >
>

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