2003 Linux Timeline: November

[Posted December 16, 2003 by corbet]

SCO has made repeated, public accusations of IBM's supposed misconduct, while refusing to disclose its alleged evidence to IBM. Either SCO has evidence to support its accusations or it does not. If it does, IBM is entitled to see it now; if it does not, IBM will be entitled to dismissal of this case.

--IBM turns up the heat

The Linux Gazette team moves to LinuxGazette.net after SSC changes LinuxGazette.com. Both sites put out an Issue #96.

Novell acquires SUSE for $210 million (press release).

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission approves the "broadcast flag" mandate requiring copy protection technology for digital TV.

Red Hat announces the end of support for Red Hat Linux (again)

Fedora Core 1 is released (release notes).

An attempt to insert a back door into the kernel fails when the attack is detected.

SCO hated Linux! The GNU Linux season!

Now, please don't ask why. No one quite knows the reason.

It could be that their heads weren't screwed on quite right.

It could be, perhaps, that their shoes were too tight.

But I think that the most likely reason of all

May have been that their bank account was two sizes too small.

--The Grinch Who Stole Linux

Xandros Desktop 2.0 is released (press release).

SCO threatens to sue film studios which are using Linux.

SCO sends subpoenas to Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman, and others.

The Desktop Linux Conference is held near Boston.

Trustix Secure Linux returns from the dead after the company is bought by the Comodo Group (announcement).

Sun makes a deal in China which may result in up to 1 million installed Linux desktops in one year.

#ifndef __M68K_SPINLOCK_H
#define __M68K_SPINLOCK_H

#error "m68k doesn't do SMP yet"

#endif

--SCO's valuable IP

SCO threatens to sue a Linux end user within 90 days (transcript).

SCO claims that Novell's acquisition of SUSE violates a non-compete agreement between SCO and Novell.

Red Hat reports a renewal rate of over 90% on its Enterprise Linux subscriptions.

The JBoss Group offers indemnification against patent and copyright suits relating to its application server (press release). [MySQL]

MaxDB by MySQL is released; this is the old SAP database in new form (press release).

I've been trying to be an absolute _bastard_ when it comes to patches.

--Linus Torvalds wants 2.6.0 out.

The Open Source Development Labs states it will pay Linus Torvalds's legal bills in the SCO case (press release).

The U.S. Congress passes the "CAN-SPAM Act," which has the potential to legitimize many types of spam.

Several Debian servers are compromised by an unknown attacker. The Debian Project's infrastructure goes off the net for a few weeks to clean up. (Alert).

Our belief is that SCO has great opportunity in the future to let Linux keep going, not to put it on its back but for us to get a transaction fee every time it's sold. That's really our goal.

--Darl McBride

Darl McBride talks on "no free Linux" at CDXPO; 80 people show up.

Savannah.gnu.org is compromised by an unknown attacker.

Mitel ends development on its SME Server (formerly e-smith) and turns it over to the community (announcement).

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