SCO cancels IBM Unix license (News.com)

Posted Jun 17, 2003 0:00 UTC (Tue) by LinuxLobbyist (guest, #6541)
Parent article: SCO cancels IBM Unix license (News.com)

Not a 100% on topic, but close enough. I just caught on Freshmeat that 3.28 of nmap has been released. Here's a very apropos quote from the CHANGELOG file:

o SCO operating systems are no longer supported due to their recent
  (and absurd) attacks against Linux and IBM.  Bug reports relating to
  UnixWare will be ignored, or possibly even laughed at derisively.
  Note that I have no reason to believe anyone has ever used Nmap on
  SCO systems.  Unixware sucks.

I can't really think of too much downside to this and hope to see more releases of Free Software come out soon with comments (and actually code changes) like this.

It may be sad day for Unixware and/or SCO Openserver users, but that sadness should have started the day the dynamic duo (Sontag and McBride) started their bull in a china shop rampage.

SCO cancels IBM Unix license (News.com)

Posted Jun 17, 2003 4:00 UTC (Tue) by fozzy (guest, #7022) [Link] (4 responses)

One aspect of the GPL that mustn't be forgotten is that you have no right to say how someone will use the code. Adding a clause "This can't be used on SCO because they are stupid" is in violation of the GPL. But then again, IANAL.

SCO cancels IBM Unix license (News.com)

Posted Jun 17, 2003 4:49 UTC (Tue) by LinuxLobbyist (guest, #6541) [Link]

Oh, I 100% agree. However, the nmap author has every right (as does any GPL software author) to remove support for any platform and reject any patches for said platforms into the author's own version of his code. To those who want Unixware support, Fyodor can tell them for 'fork away,' in addition to just telling them to 'fork off.' ;-)

I'm not suggesting that we prohibit the running of Free Software (GPL licensed or otherwise FSF or OSI approved) on any SCO operating systems. (As you point out, at least in the case of the GPL, that's not possible, anyhow.) I'm just suggesting that it would be fair play to make it difficult to run it on SCO without maintaining forks of as many Free Software projects as possible.

And I would not accept the accusation from anyone (not that you have made the accusation) that this would be a childish act. Why should *any* Free Software developer spend even another second of his precious time supporting the operating system products of a company that has zero appreciation for what they do. SCO is a pariah and should be isolated from all the good work that the FOSS communities do.

SCO cancels IBM Unix license (News.com)

Posted Jun 17, 2003 7:27 UTC (Tue) by error27 (subscriber, #8346) [Link] (2 responses)

You're reading the GPL correctly, but you're not reading the Changelog correctly. If you want to make nmap run on SCO UnixWare, that is OK but just don't expect anyone to help.

Personally, I think that UnixWare users have enough to worry about, and if nmap doesn't work they probably don't care at this point.

Free software on SCO platforms

Posted Jun 17, 2003 15:35 UTC (Tue) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] (1 responses)

I maintain a free software product, and the latest release will not compile on SCO platforms unless you add:

--enable-running-on-scummy-sco

to the ./configure command. (The software is GPL'd, so if someone wants to fork it to remove this setting, that's fine, but I think it gets the point across.)

Free software on SCO platforms

Posted Jun 17, 2003 18:29 UTC (Tue) by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458) [Link]

> I maintain a free software product, and the latest release will not compile on SCO platforms unless you
> add:
>
> --enable-running-on-scummy-sco

Don't be childish. This kind of attitude hurts SCO users, not the idiots running that particular show. SCO users should get our sympaty (and help for getting out of the mess they will soon be in, when SCO goes under).

SCO cancels IBM Unix license (News.com)

Posted Jun 18, 2003 4:57 UTC (Wed) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link]

SCO support has also been removed from GNU Midnight Commander.