Microsoft to license Unix code (News.com) [LWN.net]

Microsoft to license Unix code (News.com)

Posted May 19, 2003 14:12 UTC (Mon) by allesfresser (subscriber, #216) [Link] (3 responses)

So, hmm... MS licences the "Unix IP", everyone else is giving SCO the bird, so I guess MS is the only legal distributor of Linux if they choose to, eh? ;-) How nice.

Microsoft to license Unix code (News.com)

Posted May 19, 2003 15:19 UTC (Mon) by proski (guest, #104) [Link] (2 responses)

Wrong. GPL doesn't allow mixing free and non-free code. Microsoft would be in violation of GPL if they distribute GPLed code under an incompatible license. If they distribute Linux under GPL, they may be in violation of their licensing agreement with SCO.

Microsoft to license Unix code (News.com)

Posted May 19, 2003 16:05 UTC (Mon) by allesfresser (subscriber, #216) [Link]

O, I know that... just kidding. :-) Monday morning before coffee is a good time to write MS-bashing comments. Makes up for having to rise and begin the slog for cash once again...

Microsoft to license Unix code (News.com)

Posted May 20, 2003 9:51 UTC (Tue) by banshee_dk (guest, #10290) [Link]

This is THE reason to support the Free Software Foundation and to use the GPL. Not to mension the little word free (or better: free software) instead of Open Source.

Stallman saw it comming a long time ago!

I know I can be a pain in the neak sometimes (and I apologize for the good people, I have pist off by my remarks on Open Source in the past), but if somebody is more concernt about using the computer than on their freedom, they ARE going to be taken hostage, if not by M$ then someone or somebody else who values money over people.

Microsoft to license Unix code (News.com)

Posted May 19, 2003 14:44 UTC (Mon) by beejaybee (guest, #1581) [Link] (4 responses)

Ho ho - perhaps M$ has finally given up on Windoze?

Microsoft to license Unix code (News.com)

Posted May 19, 2003 14:55 UTC (Mon) by copsewood (subscriber, #199) [Link] (3 responses)

> Ho ho - perhaps M$ has finally given up on Windoze?

No, sounds to me as if SCO would have otherwise run out of cash to pursue the case. I gather M$ has been using their own modified version of the BSD TCP/IP stack and utilities (e.g. ping, telnet, ftp, traceroute renamed traceping etc.) for years. How else did they get onto the Net so fast when Bill Gates realised he wouldn't beat TCP/IP and had to join it circa 93/94 ? M$ weren't the only ones to do this either, I remember seeing BSD documentation copied wholesale into Netware about the same time.

M$ have no reason to want SCO code because they have had their fill from Free/Net/Open BSD for years. This makes funding SCO's to put legal spanners in Linux works the only possible justification.

Microsoft to license Unix code (News.com)

Posted May 19, 2003 16:19 UTC (Mon) by RLeiws (guest, #11322) [Link] (2 responses)

Moments ago I visited the SCO website and asked if they would post the Unix code used by others that violates their (SCO's) IP rights. Do you think SCO will comply with my request? While I not able to read the code or do anything with it, I thought their listing and explaining it on their website might help me better understand this issue.

I'm interest because I bought the Mandrakesoft V 9.0 distribution of Linux last January.

If they don't, maybe you can explain to this lay person - I don't write code - what SCO is referring to here. I was interested in your comment, "...I remember seeing BSD documentation copied wholesale into Netware..."

Needless to say, I'm a little confused by all this....

Please help me figure this out.

Thanks,

RLewis

Microsoft to license Unix code (News.com)

Posted May 19, 2003 17:43 UTC (Mon) by copsewood (subscriber, #199) [Link]

At this time (93-95) I had become moderately familiar with a fair bit of the BSD Unix documentation through use of the SunOS variant of the BSD Unix product. I hadn't seen the (closed) Netware source code, or even inspected much of the BSD source code (apart from what was needed to configure and recompile the SunOS kernel). But the documentation I saw in Novell binders relating to the use of TCP/IP within the Novell Netware product then appeared to me to be identical to the relevant BSD derived manual pages which I had seen.

If the documentation has been copied this implies that the product itself has been copied, source code and all. The BSD license allows copying free software under this license into closed proprietary products. My reading of MS-DOS help pages for the console based TCP/IP utilities suggests the same process has occurred, i.e. that Microsoft lifted the BSD TCP/IP stack in order to Internet-enable their Windows operating system products in the early nineties.

Microsoft to license Unix code (News.com)

Posted May 19, 2003 23:58 UTC (Mon) by petegn (guest, #847) [Link]

This all boils down to one thing and one thing only SCO are skint broke stoney
strapped on their uppers so they need to find ways to make money to pay their
shareholders off else they get a right good caining ..

pete .

Microsoft to license Unix code (News.com)

Posted May 19, 2003 14:46 UTC (Mon) by jonabbey (guest, #2736) [Link]

This is a PR position for Microsoft, and a way to send some dollars to SCO to support their prosecution of their flaming death^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H legal campaign.

Microsoft to license Unix code (News.com)

Posted May 19, 2003 15:23 UTC (Mon) by smoogen (subscriber, #97) [Link] (3 responses)

SCO's big notice today is that they have a Active Directory for Unix also which would seem that this is a cross-release day. It also seems to be part of the 'pump' of SCO stock because people think Microsoft is going to buy SCO for either the IP or court case.

I dont' think Microsoft in its worst day would be that stupid.

Microsoft to license Unix code (News.com)

Posted May 19, 2003 15:33 UTC (Mon) by jamesh (guest, #1159) [Link] (1 responses)

"Convicted monopoly buys Unix" probably wouldn't go down too well in the press or courts ...

Microsoft to license Unix code (News.com)

Posted May 19, 2003 16:09 UTC (Mon) by kdart (guest, #486) [Link]

But probably in the long run that wouldn't matter. <sigh>

Microsoft to license Unix code (News.com)

Posted May 21, 2003 18:48 UTC (Wed) by vonbrand (guest, #4458) [Link]

Wasn't there a court case where Microsoft was prohibited from doing Unix bussiness? They couldn't buy SCO in that case, AFAIU.

Besides, I seriously doubt Microsoft to be stupid, buying SCO (+ Unix code) would in a sense legitimate what they have claimed to be "inferior, obsolete Unix technology" all along. Throwing a bit of cash (anyone knows how much?) in SCO's direction "to get access to the SCO IP" is a PR move, to make IBM et al look bad, bolster SCO's claim in the ignorant's eye (as the SCO press release tries to do), and perhaps add some to the war chest of SCO.

It goes without saying that IANAL, just a bewildered bystander looking at the bizarre.

Microsoft to license Unix code (News.com)

Posted May 20, 2003 0:02 UTC (Tue) by petegn (guest, #847) [Link]

Oh dear that dumb assed old billy goat M$ Gates can't wait to find another way
to knock Linux can he now he has got to latch onto another no hoper SCO well
maybe between the pair of them they will cream each other out completely curl
up and die .

Microsoft to license Unix code (News.com)

Posted May 20, 2003 22:28 UTC (Tue) by rogla (guest, #11349) [Link] (1 responses)

Microsoft is as clever as ever. This is a way of assuring that SCO will have the
money needed to cause as much disaster as possible to GNU/Linux and IBM in
the court, since they cannot beet Linux on the market.

If would be bad publicity to sponsor SCO actions directly, but now they have
found a more clever way to do it. They could as well buy T-shirts from SCO,
paying a fortune per item.

Microsoft to license Unix code (News.com)

Posted May 22, 2003 8:10 UTC (Thu) by Liefting (guest, #8466) [Link]

We're all speculating why MS did this, so I'll just add my bit:

MS is adding UNIX-like features to their operating systems, for UNIX interoperability. Perhaps the cheapest way of getting that functionality in is to use some of the original UNIX code, which happens to be owned by SCO. So this might just be a case of clean and clear licensing of code, for a reasonable price.

It's only because of the -so far not proven to be related- court case vs. IBM that we're reading so much into this.

Remember that most, if not all big vendors that sell a commercial UNIX or UNIX-like system, or a system with UNIX-like features pay license fees to SCO already.