WorldWatch Week in Review
August 8th, 2003 by Willy Smith in
This week on WorldWatch, we had an amazing anomaly: even though two of the articles were about SCO v. Everyone, the most popular article was about how certain page links have become illegal in Spain. In another interesting article from Spain, a university professor talks about how Internet usage studies show a need for basic changes in our democratic systems.
In Russia, some of the basic Linux documentation is now available on-line in HTML format, for those who speak Russian and who have Cyrillic character support for their browsers.
Although suits against SCO have been filed in several other countries, it's been relatively quiet on the US front. But this week a major supplier of Linux, Red Hat, has filed a suit against SCO and made another important announcement. Shares of SCOX traded lower, as we expected and predicted in a humorous article on Sunday. This article also provides links to pages for insider trading information and short interest figures, both of which seem to indicate in substantive ways what's really going on with both the suit and the stock price.
On Saturday I ventured forth and published a few of my own opinions and musings on topics that currently interest me. While no one has commented yet, the article has received a good number of reads. As interest has been expressed here in Costa Rica, we'll be talking with others in person about these subjects. As I continue to spend a lot of time reading the Linux and OSS goings-on in many different countries, my understanding and opinions are developing in ways I didn't expect. Also, I'm meeting many interesting people both in person and over the Net. So, in the future I will be posting some of my own opinion and idea articles. As always, your comments and article submissions are greatly appreciated, as they help us to understand what resonates with you and what does not.
Willy Smith is Editor in Chief of WorldWatch.
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Re: WorldWatch Week in Review
On August 8th, 2003 Anonymous says:
(Text of a letter that IBM sent to its internal sales force)
IBM LAUNCHES COUNTER CLAIMS AGAINST SCO
Bob Samson
Vice President, Systems Sales
IBM Systems Group
IBM yesterday responded to SCO's amended complaint. We see no merit in their claims and no supporting facts. Significantly, IBM counter sued SCO on a range of issues. Simply put, SCO's scheme is an attempt to profit from its limited rights to a very old UNIX operating system by introducing fear, uncertainty and doubt into the marketplace.
The counterclaims are detailed in our legal filing, but here are the key points:
* SCO has violated the GNU General Public License, under which it accepted Linux contributions and distributed Linux.
* SCO has improperly claimed the right to revoke IBM's UNIX license, despite the fact that IBM's contract expressly provides that IBM's rights are irrevocable and that Novell, which is a party to the agreement under which IBM obtained an irrevocable and perpetual UNIX license, agrees that SCO cannot terminate IBM's license and has exercised its right to waive this claim.
* SCO has directly infringed four IBM patents relating to SCO's commercially available UnixWare, Open Server, SCO Manager and Reliant HA clustering software products.
IBM is seeking compensatory and punitive damages and an injunction requiring SCO to refrain from misrepresenting its rights, and to cease further infringement of IBM's patents.
We continue to vigorously defend ourselves. And, we see similar resolve across the industry with regard to Linux, just as it has supported important, sometimes disruptive, efforts like TCP-IP and the Internet.
Along these lines, there is an informative analysis of the SCO complaint available on the Open Source Development Lab Website entitled, "Questioning SCO: A Hard Look at Nebulous Claims," by Eben Moglen, General counsel of the Free Software Foundation. It puts the SCO claims in the proper perspective for Linux users. We have this paper, and all of the latest analyst reports and press articles, including the latest C/net story, to help you answer customer questions on our SCO Complaint page.
Make no mistake, SCO will continue to look for ways to create fear, uncertainty and doubt. FUD, not facts, remains the focus of SCO's efforts. As the lawsuit continues, understand that the industry will resolve it. In the meantime, if you get questions, as always, send them to this ID or contact your local counsel.
Linux continues to gain momentum. We have never had a LinuxWorld more overflowing with innovation, offerings and news (see SuSE and IBM achieve government certification for Linux). IBM will continue to drive both AIX and Linux. And, we are as committed as ever to meeting our customers' needs.
-----
Resouces:
1) IBM and SuSE Linux Earn First Security Certification of Linux
2) Open Source Development Lab (OSDL)
3) IBM AIX
4) Linux at IBM