2003 Linux Timeline: June

[Posted December 16, 2003 by corbet]

I am the very model of a modern SCO executive.

Our market share is minuscule; our losses are consecutive.

But from our labs deep in U-T, you very soon will surely see

The ultimate, the pinnacle, in high-technolo-barratry.

MySQL AB receives $19.5 million in funding (press release).

Ximian Desktop 2 is released (press release).

The U.S. Department of Defense issues security guidelines for free software putting on an equal footing with proprietary code.

A public dispute with Linksys begins over the lack of source for its Linux-based WRT54G wireless router. Linksys eventually promises to release source.

The LZW patent expires making the GIF image format free - in the U.S. [Penguin Computing]

Penguin Computing acquires Scyld Computing as a way of jump-starting its cluster business (press release).

SuSE Linux Desktop launches (press release).

We believe that UNIX System V provided the basic building blocks for all subsequent computer operating systems, and that they all tend to be derived from UNIX System V (and therefore are claimed as SCO's intellectual property).

--Chris Sontag, SCOsource VP

The European Parliament Legal Affairs and Internal Market Committee votes in favor of software patents despite strong opposition from many directions.

SCO claims the read-copy-update algorithm as one of IBM's offending contributions to Linux. The company also ups its claim for damages to $3 billion.

SCO terminates IBM's AIX license though its power to do so is disputed.

Linus Torvalds leaves Transmeta and starts working for the Open Source Development Labs (announcement).

The GPL issue is something we've just recently been looking at. It's been said that maybe we've contributed Unix source code to Linux, because SCO was formerly a distributor of Linux.

--Blake Stowell, SCO spokesperson

The 2.4.21 kernel is released at last (announcement).

Brazil will move 80% of its governmental computers to Linux according to a release by the government (translation).

The region of Extremadura (Spain) completes the deployment of 80,000 Linux/GNOME systems (announcement).

Business Week predicts that Linux desktop shipments will surpass Apple's share (article).

[LRP-RIP] The Linux Router Project shuts down (angry announcement).

CorelRescue attempts to defeat the acquisition of Corel, claiming that, instead, the company should return to the Linux desktop arena.

[Sue me] LindowsOS 4.0 is released.

MandrakeSoft launches MandrakeClustering (press release).

Provo Linux users protest at SCO's headquarters (report, photos).

The Core Developers Network is formed as a fork of the JBoss project (press release).

Mozilla 1.4 is released (announcement)

The European Parliament software patent vote is pushed back to September despite an effort to force early action on the initiative (FFII announcement).

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2003 Linux Timeline: June

Posted Dec 17, 2003 10:34 UTC (Wed) by james (subscriber, #1325) [Link]

SCO terminates IBM's AIX license

Personally, I' be happier with something like "SCO allegedly terminates IBM's SysV license for AIX", possibly followed by "IBM strongly denies that SCO has this power."

After all, whose lawyers do you respect more -- IBM or SCO? Whose press releases are more believable?

Maybe I'm being hypersensitive, but by placing SCO's claims in bold and the doubts -- unattributed to IBM -- in normal text, it looks like you agree that SCO has this ability.

James.