SCO - Linux' Worst Nightmare Is Back (OpenSource Magazine)

Posted Jul 20, 2008 18:16 UTC (Sun) by chel (guest, #11544)
In reply to: SCO - Linux' Worst Nightmare Is Back (OpenSource Magazine) by vblum
Parent article: SCO - Linux' Worst Nightmare Is Back (OpenSource Magazine)

Information about the SCO claim is on
http://web.archive.org/web/20180613184733/http://groklaw.net/article.php?story=20040303075355356

The case is on hold until after the IBM, Novell etc. cases.

The claim is: "AutoZone violated SCO's UNIX copyrights by running versions of the Linux
operating system that contain code, structure, sequence and/or organization from SCO's
proprietary UNIX System V code in violation of SCO's copyrights." 
Well, from the Novell case it is clear SCO doesn't own the UNIX System V code.

Further part of the claim: "Upon information and belief, Autozone's new Linux based software
implemented by IBM featured SCO's shared libraries .." is a statement solely based on
"belief", and not supported by facts or evidence. The "belief" was based on SCO's idea that it
was impossible to migrate to Linux without those libraries. A typical case of confusing "I
can't do it" with "It can't be done"

SCO - Linux' Worst Nightmare Is Back (OpenSource Magazine)

Posted Jul 21, 2008 20:02 UTC (Mon) by vblum (guest, #1151) [Link] (2 responses)

Hm ... I went back and checked (the response by AZ to SCO, as text) ...

"Upon in-depth analysis of its servers as a result of the discovery process, AutoZone
discovered that there were a limited number of programs that had been errantly copied to its
store server image that were old OpenServer compiled programs. Because these programs had been
compiled under OpenServer, they included copies of certain SCO libraries (an issue that is
discussed in Section B below). ..."

With the exception of some old Xenix files, that seemed to be the only thing _technically_ in
violation of SCO's copyright. AZ was ripping mad for havin provided the information to SCO in
good faith and SCO turning around to rebase their complaint on that.

SCO - Linux' Worst Nightmare Is Back (OpenSource Magazine)

Posted Jul 22, 2008 6:50 UTC (Tue) by chel (guest, #11544) [Link] (1 responses)

Well, those claims are without chance anyway. As for the Xenix files, they could not run, so
the matter is only storing files by somone who has a valid license.

As for the files compiled on SCO, SCO was a great promoter of binary compatibility of
executables between systems. The development system was able to generate binaries for several
ABI's, e.g SVR4 SVR5 and iBCS2, and was promoted as such. Therefore running programs compiled
under SCO on other systems that support those ABI's can't be a violation of the license. It
was an advertised future.

Besides that, AZ still had valid SCO licenses for the about 3000 systems, and the use of this
programs compiled on SCO was not intentional. I have done a migration from SCO to linux
myself, and these things can happen, eg. when during the transition, for some reason, someone
loads an old version of a subsystem.

So the AZ case adds nothing.

SCO - Linux' Worst Nightmare Is Back (OpenSource Magazine)

Posted Jul 22, 2008 7:55 UTC (Tue) by vblum (guest, #1151) [Link]

Yes, I agree with all the above. Just saying that if SCO in their own little SCO Universe
wants to go ahead with such claims, all that's left of AZ is about code that SCO technically
owns. SCO-Novell won't help here. One can hope that the judge will have no sympathy for such
nonsense, though.