On Thursday 15 May 2003 4:13 am, Fred A. Miller wrote:
On Wednesday May 14 2003 9:11 pm, Curtis Rey wrote:
So, they have suspended their own distribution - aka SCOlinux and Caldera. Funny, they own both of those right? So, how can SCO be in violation with it's own product? Maybe something to do with fruit of a poisoned tree or something.
Your guess is as good as anyone else. :)
Having read SCO on pulling their own Linux, they also say: "SCO will continue to support existing SCO Linux and Caldera OpenLinux customers and hold them harmless from any SCO intellectual property issues regarding SCO Linux and Caldera OpenLinux products." If they indemnify their own customers in this way and then _continue_ to sell Linux, that is an anti-competitive practice, which I doubt would be well received here in the EU and presumably not in the US [sarcastic comment about size of SCO's turnover and their [in?]ability to circumvent US law deleted]. I think that this is their reason for pulling their Linux products. Although the events are very disturbing for SuSE, SCO do not seem to be picking a fight with SuSE, and I would take a comment from another thread to mean that SuSE could well be sufficiently livid at SCO not to do anything new with them, but intend to sit tight rather than inflame the situation [which would probably be to the disbenefit of us users]. SCO also say that legal liability for the use of Linux may extend to commercial users. If this is new, are they turning the screw slowly towards threatening the private user later? On the whole, I think not. But I do think that they have a plan with a timetable, rather than desparate thrashing. Certainly, they seem to be managing the amount of conflict they must handle [eg not getting into anticompetitive issues]. Announcing the IBM lawsuit was a phase, the current announcement is another and maybe United Linux was the first. I am certainly expecting another twist. As for the implications for us users, we really need to know SCO's objectives. I am not fully satisfied with any of the theories [IBM buyout or M$ conspiracy]. Possibly SCO would hope that IBM would find a licensing deal [on eveyone's behalf] at say $20m plus $5m/yr more attractive than going to court, which in turn might be more than SCO would hope to make from Linux.