Linux is UNIX piracy? Three Vulnerabilities of SCO (2003) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ---------------------------------------
The US SCO Group advocated the "Linux infringement intellectual property issues" caused an uproar in the industry. The company prosecuted US IBM in March this year, and said that Linux's kernel is illegally stolen for the company's UNIX source. The SCO believes that "Linux is UNIX pirated" and has sent a warning letter from more than 1,500 companies that use Linux. In July, SCO notified these companies to levy permit, on August 5, and SCO announced the collection standards of licensing fees and began to be levied.
On August 4th, the American Red Hat, which kept silent, to sue SCO. On August 6th, IBM was also prosecuted. Red Hat said: "The behavior of SCO is illegal", and IBM refutes: "SCO cannot claim Linux is the company's exclusive technology", both companies show the determination to fight against SCO.
The SCO in the style is headquartered in Yusheng, a company that is only 300 people. Recently, the quarterly settlement also showed that its sales were only $ 201 million (May to July 2003), and IBM was as high as US $ 21.6 billion (from April to June 2003), and its scale could not compare with IBM. Even in the Linux market, the share is only a few percentage points, which is far less red. That is, such a small company has used the industry giants as a prosecution, and launched a lawsuit. The SCO said that it is very beautiful, but its credibility is unknown. Originally, the patent issue of SCO declared in this dispute, there is an unbroken entanglement between SCO and US Novell. Let's review the Establishment of the SCO and the previous use of these questions.
The process of obtaining UNIX intellectual property is very complex
First, let's pay attention to why SCO has the intellectual property of UNIX. To understand this, it is necessary to review the complex settling process of the SCO. The predecessor of SCO is Caldera for the development of Linux systems. The company was established in 1998, mainly initiated by companies that provide solutions using Linux companies. The company acquired Santa Cruz Operation (current company name SCO, which came) in 2001. From this, Caldera International has changed its name in 2002, which is the current SCO Group (SCO).
Santa Cruz Operation has a patent of UNIX System V at the time, which is the company that originally provided UNIX System V commercial operating system. UNIX System V is a UNIX developed from the original UNIX developed by the US AT & T of AT & T. It is one of the two major systems of UNIX operating systems with BSDs developed by the University of California, Berkeley. Most commercial UNIX is based on System V, and now I have gained SCO's license. "Solaris", IBM "AIX", "HP-UX", etc., US HP's "HP-UX", "HP-UX", etc.
At the same time, Santa Cruz Operation is also very complicated by UNIX System V patented. Unix System V shifts from AT & T to USL (UNIX SYSTEM LABORATORIES), and then goes down to the Novell name of the USL company. Later, Novell sold the UNIX department to Santa Cruz Operation, and finally transferred to SCO (at the time of Caldera Systems). Commercial version Unix plagiarized free version unix?
After understanding these contends, I will review the previous things that have occurred, it is not difficult to see the intention of the SCO.
The first is the reason for the SCO sued IBM. According to SCO: IBM illegally misappropriated Linux from the Unix System V obtained by the SCO authorized. From then on, IBM supported the company's computer support Linux system, strengthened the research efforts to Linux, in which the SCO's source of SCO was used to Linux's kernel code. Therefore, this practice violates the agreement between SCO and IBM - this is the view of SCO. When the SCO sued IBM, the SCO also warned: "If IBM does not correct the default behavior within 100 days, unilaterally abort the contract". "
In SCO, the same as the commercial Unix System V, clearly only provides authorization to the commercial IBMAIX, but is transplanted in Linux without knowing it.
As we all know, Linux is free to modify and re-release it in the GPL (GNU General Public License) patent system, and after modification thereof, the modification must be publicly modified according to the GPL provision. As a commercial SCO source code, it entered the free Linux and disclosed to the world.
However, there are three major vulnerabilities in this view of SCO. Below we analyze in order.
I am selling "pirated"
The first vulnerability is: SCO also sold Linux's Distribution "SCO Linux". "SCO has sold Linux products on the GPL system, but said that the Linux is the 'UNIX pirated'. The company's statement is self-contradictory, and they have no right to advocate patents with Linux, this is IBM's point of view. The SCO seems to be aware of this contradiction and suspended SCO Linux sales in May this year.
But in the industry, SCO previously sold SCO Linux behavior into a handle. It is said that the company is based on what kind of understanding of the sale of SCO Linux will become future focus. If the company has realized that "Linux infringes UNIX intellectual property" is also selling the product, then the company's views are clear.
Novell said "There is no giving to SCO"
The second vulnerability is: Novell and SCO are different from the understanding. Novell gives the UNIX department to Santa Cruz Operation, but Novell said: "In the asset transfer contract signed at the time, the company does not have the copyright and patents of UNIX SYSTEM V." Novell further: "Before this, the SCO repeatedly requested that the Company transferred to them. This shows that the copyright and patented owners of UNIX SYSTEM V, SCO is consistent with our views."
For this statement, SCO issued a statement in June. SCO and Novell signed the Asset Acquisition Contract "Asset Purchase Agreement" on September 19, 1995. Only the two companies have signed a modification contract "Amendment No. 2" on October 16, 1996. The modification contract called SCO refers to "Amendment No. 2". But Novell rebuted: "There is no so-called modification contract in the company's documents." Think that "the files present in the SCO seem to be used in the words of UNIX transfer to the words of the SCO, but did not touch the ownership of patents. Therefore, it is clear that all the patents are owned by the Company (Novell).
SCO has started to switch to the focus of IBM litigation, and "IBM also violates UNIX 'copyright'", focusing from previous violation contracts to copyright violation. And on June 16th, it is also to provide authorization to IBM on the day of the 100-day buffer period (see related reports), and will increase the amount of $ 1 billion from the original $ 1 billion in the original $ 1 billion.
Credibility of "stealing source code" evidence
The third vulnerability is the credibility of stealing source evidence. The SCO has previously advocated its intellectual property in the event of a clear evidence, which is also one of the reasons why the Red Hat.
But in the Talk on August 18, the SCO announced the source code of everyone. According to the report of CNET News.com, some people in the participants made such sighs: "The source code of theft) involved quite large, surprising," "even spelling mistakes, the comments were blinded, too surprised ! " On the other hand, in another article in CNET News.com, it also reported that "part of the release of the source code is even traced back to the 1970s, and has been announced as the patented product of BSD".
In addition, the co-founder of Open Source Initiative, supported by Debian Linux, Bruce Perens replied when accepting the report: "The source code presenting SCO is a deceptive thing." SCO is easy to determine the source code of important evidence, but did not expect it to have trouble on its credibility.
Although the licensing fee is high, Microsoft has signed all the best.
For this dispute, the relevant people in the unauthorized industry, and the majority of users are also very concerned. The reason is because the SCO's permission fee is the US $ 1999, a server version of $ 699 on October 15. It is said that the price of the server version has risen to $ 1399 from October 16. Compared to this, the license fee for the desktop standard version of the Red Hat is $ 39. This means that Linux will not be used in an environment like a past.
In addition, the SCO also has intended to list the embedded Linux to the license fee. It is said that the charge in this case is $ 32 each embedded device.
If the SCO wins in this lawsuit, the company will get huge license fees. Perhaps it is because investors are optimistic about this, the company's share price is rising. There is also a news that the company's senior personnel take this opportunity to sell a large number of SCO stocks held by individuals.
In addition, SCO also announced companies with the company's patent use contracts, including companies that have signed contracts. This is the US Microsoft. For Microsoft, Linux is a very unstable factor. Because of this, I immediately decided to sign a patented use contract with SCO. Some people accused "Microsoft this grades publicly showed that they stood on the opposite side of Linux."
