On Friday 07 March 2003 07:19 pm, Steve Baker wrote:
> Chris Cox wrote:
> > It's based on the assumption (a weak one) that Linux
> > developers would not be able to put together the resources
> > necessary to actually obtiain high-end computing equipment
> > to test against without help from large corporations... of
> > course, SCO would like for you to believe that it is
> > primarily ONE corporation, IBM...
Yup. The entire basis for their argument just sounds like a lot
of hearsay, speculation, circumstancial evidence, etc.
If SCO perhaps posted a source diff that backed up their claims
(as in the recent OpenBSD vs. MicroBSD fiasco), then they might
have a case. But just saying, "well, we can't see how Linux
could come this far without getting our code" doesn't
automatically equate to "Well, obviously Linux got our code."
At least not in court. ;)
I personally don't see how Boies could hope this case has a
snowball's chance in hell. He's a damn good lawyer; I imagine
he told SCO outright it was a losing case. But of course, if
SCO wants to throw money away paying his bills, who's he to
refuse?
> And a BILLION DOLLARS!! How the heck can they justify that?
Just repeat after me...
____
/ \
| |
| |
S (% O S "One beeeellion dollars!"
| )( |
| `' __|_____
\ -==(____ \__
\____/(_D)
(_D)
(_D)_ ___
/ /
(_;
Deja vu, anyone? ;)
(Pardon my crappy ASCII art.)
> The trouble is that SCO are *dead* the only thing they have
> left are a big pile of expired UNIX patents which are useless
> for beating Linux down with because SCO distributed GPL'ed
> Linux code and that means that they aren't allowed to use
> their patents in this way.
I agree. SCO's product portfolio just isn't that great. At my
last job, I was actually compelled to learn OpenServer and
UnixWare (I was already familiar with UNIX-Tao). It was
absolute crap. Every other release was bugged to hell, every
other patch fixed one problem and introduced a dozen more.
Maybe they were capable of great things, but neither O/S could
even handle something as simple as being a DHCP client.
OpenServer just didn't let you do it at all, at least not to my
knowledge. UnixWare 7 tried (and even gave you a DHCP radio
button in its netconfig dialog), but it would throw a hissy-fit
and require extensive massaging whenever the IP address changed.
SCO's going to get a lethal beating on this one, and IMO they've
had it coming for a long time. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
--
Kelledin
"If a server crashes in a server farm and no one pings it, does
it still cost four figures to fix?"