SuSE sheltered by SCO pact

[Zombie9920]

By Stephen Shankland
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
May 4, 2003, 6:30 PM PT


An agreement with SCO Group protects Linux seller SuSE from legal action stemming from SCO's accusation that Unix software was copied into Linux, SuSE said.
"We have a joint development agreement with them, which includes appropriate cross-licensing arrangements," said SuSE spokesman Joe Eckert on Friday. "Our lawyers feel that covers us from any actions that SCO may take."

SCO on Thursday said it had found cases in which source code underlying the proprietary Unix operating system--the rights to which the Lindon, Utah-based company owns--had been copied into Linux, an open-source clone of Unix. If SCO can prove its allegation, resulting copyright infringement issues could pose a challenge to companies that sell Linux, legal experts have said.

 

Asked if SCO planned legal action against Red Hat and SuSE, SCO Chief Executive Darl McBride told CNET News.com, "There's a point in time that has to be resolved with those guys, too." However, he said such action isn't currently part of SCO's legal proceedings, which are concentrated on a billion-dollar lawsuit alleging that IBM misappropriated SCO's Unix trade secrets and moved them into Linux.


View the entire article

[HPC GUY]

this is a greedy last ditch effort by the dying Cladera/SCO company to generate some cash. when in finacial doubt, sue someone....

[TheQuirk]

That's right--not Stalin or the USSR.

What he meant to say is that SuSE is a NAZI COMPANY, HEADED BY HITLER AND OUT THERE TO KILL THE LIKES OF ME.

[slave]

I never liked SuSE.  People always scream how Red Hat is "the next Microsoft" and all of that unfounded shit, but Red Hat produces one of the most Free distros available, even going to far as to remove mp3 support due to potential patent issues (some would say they even go to far in this respect)  SuSE doesn't even let you download x86 ISOs from their website (or anyone else's) and their distro contains a bunch of non-free software by default, which is not bad in and of itself, but inhibits free distribution I mean, I'll download flash if I really want it, but I do NOT want it in by default if that makes the distribution non-free, mkay?  Yast is also covered under a non-free license, lest anyone else use it in their distribution.

[mobrien_12]

quote:Originally posted by TheQuirk:
That's right--not Stalin or the USSR.

What he meant to say is that SuSE is a NAZI COMPANY, HEADED BY HITLER AND OUT THERE TO KILL THE LIKES OF ME.

Where the hell did that come from?  

Unfortunately, it seems that I need to explain myself better.  I'm genuinely suprised.

In WWII, Germany started invading countries.
Germany signed a nonagression pact with the Soviets.  Germany invaded Russia anyway.

For those who need this analogy explicitly described, SCO is the agressor, suing everyone.  SuSe says they have something like a nonagression pact that should protect them.  I say SCO will sue them anyway.  

And, just in case I need to explicitly say this too:   The analogy deals only with agressive behavior and non-agression pacts.  The analogy has nothing to do with fascism,  anti-semitism, the nazi party, the communist party, white supremacy, or your mother's brother's father's former roomate.

[ May 05, 2003: Message edited by: M. O'Brien ]

[Calum]

quote:"We have a joint development agreement with them, which includes appropriate cross-licensing arrangements," said SuSE spokesman Joe Eckert on Friday. "Our lawyers feel that covers us from any actions that SCO may take."

this means that even if unix code is shown to be inside linux, SuSE have the right to use that code within their linux because SCO already said it was okay. and re: the nazi analogy, lets not forget that there's no governing body in international politics, like their is in business law. i don't think it will come to this though, see my next answer for details.

 

quote:SCO on Thursday said it had found cases in which source code underlying the proprietary Unix operating system--the rights to which the Lindon, Utah-based company owns--had been copied into Linux, an open-source clone of Unix.

what a bunch of idiots. they should not go to court until they have proof, and they cannot have proof because their allegations are untrue.

Even if linux code can be shown to be identical to unix code, this DOES NOT prove their claims. BSD and Linux were both created by people who did NOT have access to unix code. these people created the software using descriptions (their own or somebody else's) of what the software was intended to do. Even if the description was a description of a feature of unix, the resultant code was original. This is a perfectly legal form of reverse engineering. This has been shown to be legal in that it is the method that compaq used to reverse engineer the IBM ROM BIOS chip in the early 1980s (more or less). lets hope SCO go down the shitter and waste their last money on this pathetic ploy.

[ May 09, 2003: Message edited by: Calum: hopelessly outnumbered ]

[Faust]

Look!  Look at that line!  It says "if x=y then"!  We have *exactly* that line somewhere in our Unix code, so they blatantly plagiarised us!

Filth.

[Faust]

SCO : And in this line of plagiarised Linux code we can clearly see the line "#include <iostream>" which was clearly originally used in Unix.

Have they actually shown any evidence yet?

[TheQuirk]

quote:Originally posted by M. O'Brien:


Where the hell did that come from?  

Unfortunately, it seems that I need to explain myself better.  I'm genuinely suprised.

In WWII, Germany started invading countries.
Germany signed a nonagression pact with the Soviets.  Germany invaded Russia anyway.

For those who need this analogy explicitly described, SCO is the agressor, suing everyone.  SuSe says they have something like a nonagression pact that should protect them.  I say SCO will sue them anyway.  

And, just in case I need to explicitly say this too:   The analogy deals only with agressive behavior and non-agression pacts.  The analogy has nothing to do with fascism,  anti-semitism, the nazi party, the communist party, white supremacy, or your mother's brother's father's former roomate.

[ May 05, 2003: Message edited by: M. O'Brien ]

I know that. I just like acting like that sometimes. If you didn't catch my humor in the second line... Geeze.