Talk:SCO-Linux controversies

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Contents

[edit] How to use this page

This page was created in an attempt to create more structured information about the various lawsuits that SCO is involved in. My whole idea is as follows:

One page with very brief information about all the lawsuits and other issues that are related to the lawsuits and SCO's campaign (this page). One page with a more detailed explaination for each lawsuit and possible the other issues involved, for example: SCO v. IBM, Red Hat v. SCO, SCO v. Novell, SCO v. AutoZone, SCO v. DaimlerChrysler. Please use these pages to add specific information about these cases and try to keep the main overview page as bare as possible.

If it is needed we could even add specific pages for a complete timeline of each lawsuit, for example: SCO v. IBM (timeline), Red Hat v. SCO (timeline), SCO v. Novell (timeline), SCO v. AutoZone (timeline), SCO v. DaimlerChrysler (timeline). A main less detailed timeline can be found here: SCO v. Linux (timeline).

Other issues that may require external pages are SCO and SGI, SCO and the GPL, SCOsource, Who is the owner of Unix, USL v. BSDi.

Perhaps SCO v. Linux (external resources) could be used to store a more complete reference of external resources that contain information about this subject.

I also found that some legal terms are not defined on Wikipedia. Perhaps we could also create pages that explain some of the terms used on these pages, for example: Declaratory judgement, Preliminary injunction, etc.. See Summary judgement for an example of how I think such a page would need to look like.

Niels Leenheer

[edit] Old information

The following text was removed from The SCO Group. This information still needs to be incorporated into this page and the sub-pages:

The company then initiated a complex reorganization plan described in this [http://contracts.corporate.findlaw.com/agreements/sco/caldera.mer.2000.08.01.html AGREEMENT AND PLAN OF REORGANIZATION], and was renamed the SCO Group. (The company is not related to the former Santa Cruz Operation, now called Tarantella, Inc., other than in its purchase of 2 of 3 business groups from the former SCO and 2002 composition of mostly SCO former employees.)

As a result, the SCO Group was sued for defamation by a number of parties including IBM, the German LinuxTag organisation and Linux vendors SuSE and Red Hat. In Germany and some other countries, the SCO Group accepted a court order to abstain from making claims against Linux, whereas the legal cases in the United States are still unresolved.

Today, the SCO Group outwardly seems to be having much financial difficulty. Some analysts claim that its lawsuit with IBM and its aggressive campaign against Linux stems from this difficulty. The SCO Group denies that it is attacking Linux, citing the fact that they produced their own OpenLinux distribution of Linux.

[edit] Documents

Loan from Canopy Group to Caldera

[edit] Quotes

  • "[O]bviously Linux owes its heritage to UNIX, but not its code. We would not, nor will not, make such a claim." - Darl McBride, as quoted in Linux Journal, August 28, 2002.
  • "We believe that Linux infringes on our UNIX intellectual property and other rights. We intend to aggressively protect and enforce these rights. Consistent with this effort, on March 7 (2003), we initiated legal action against IBM for alleged unfair competition and breach of contract with respect to our UNIX rights. This case is pending in Utah Federal District Court. ... For the reasons explained above, we have also announced the suspension of our own Linux-related activities until the issues surrounding Linux intellectual property and the attendant risks are better understood and properly resolved."

[edit] External links

[edit] Notes from and to writers

[edit] The name of this page

Niels -- I think we got started off on the wronge foot here, calling the page SCO v. Linux, and now with SCO v. SGI . The xxx v. yyy format refers to actual court cases, I believe. So far only the five mentioned cases are actual filings.

(btw - thanks for your help with this subject.)

I don't think the xxx v. yyy format is used exclusively in court cases. The format does indicate a conflict of some sort, whether it be legal in the form of a lawsuit or otherwise. So I don't think the use of this format for the title of this page and the SGI page is a big problem. But if you have better titles for these two pages, I would be interested in hearing them. -- Niels
My only issue is using that specific format. It is very specific in a legal context. It references an actual court case from somewhere and time. Especially when used in a legal context as here, it is very confusing. It leads to the expectation of a court case where there is none. And this whole matter is so terrably confusing in the best of circumstances to begin with. How about SCO verse Linux? That may be enough to suggest conflict and not a court case.
I've change the title of the SGI page to SCO and SGI. Before changing the title of the main page, I would also like some feedback from other contributors. Does everybody agree with changing the title of this page and what would be the correct title of this page? Niels Leenheer 19:27, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Niels, seems we two are the only ones working on this topic. After thinking a bit about it, I would suggest a title of "SCO-Linux Wars. This is to reflect that it's not just a legal conflict, but also has major chapters in FUD, PR and financial areas as well.

[edit] Please, no "Wars"

Calling it "war" is hyperbole. It's fine for a sensationalist headline in a newspaper, but I don't think that it is appropriate for a supposedly serious encyclopedia article. Please rename the page, e.g. to "SCO-Linux Controversy".

Note that you don't put spaces around a hyphen in ordinary English typography, and "the" is generally superfluous in an article title.

—Steven G. Johnson 14:14, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)

I would have thought something like "SCO-Linux lawsuits" would fit this page better. It's mostly about what's happening in court as opposed to a "controversy" (what people think of one side or the other). --LeeHunter 20:52, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

A lawsuit, by definition, involves a controversy between at least two parties. In this case, the controversy extends well outside of the courtroom — to competing public-relations efforts and press releases, to disputed licensing programs, to questions about the degree of financial involvement by Microsoft and Sun. Yes, the lawsuits are the centerpiece of all this, so if you feel strongly that it should be "SCO-Linux lawsuits" I won't argue further. —Steven G. Johnson 17:34, Sep 29, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Which abbreviations to use?

In order to avoid confusion of the reader I think it is important to determine which abbreviations we should use and then use them consistantly. I've made a little list of things that are not used consistantly right now. I've made my preference bold:

  • The SCO Group: SCO, SCOX, SCOG
SCO is the abbreviation The SCO Group uses themselves and it is also used in the names of the lawsuits.
  • Santa Cruz Operation: Santa Cruz Operation, Santa Cruz, SCO, OldSCO
I don't think this name should be used as an abbreviation in order to reduce the confusion. Futher, I think it would be wise to use a contruct like this the first time this name is used on a page: .... Santa Cruz Operation, currently operating under the name Tarantella, ....
  • System V Release 4: SVR4, SVr4, Svr4, SVR 4, SVr 4
The official name uses caps, so the abbreviation also
  • System V Release: SVRx, SVR
The same as above, only without a specific version number
  • Unix: UNIX, Unix
This is a difficult one. Most of the time the term Unix is used in these text, it is not in the context of a single product, so Unix seems appropriate. On the other hand, UNIX is the official trademark.
There was a mix of Unix and UNIX so I changed them all (except UnixWare) to UNIX. My reasoning was that it should match the UNIX page (where the capping issue is discussed). I actually prefer the look of 'Unix' but consistency is important too. --LeeHunter 22:59, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • UnixWare: UnixWare, UNIXWare, UW
I think UnixWare would be the only acceptible way to call this product. Just like the official trademark.

In general, I think it is important to use the full name for the first occurance of an abbreviation, with the abbriviation between parenthesis. For example: The SCO Group (SCO) is currently involved .... SCO has initiated a series....

These sound OK to me. My only hesitation is using SCO for the SCO Group, but you are correct about the current court cases reference.

Any comments?

Niels Leenheer 08:04, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Edits

Removed information about share price. Seems like trivial and constantly changing information. It also has the taste of something included just to tweak SCO's nose.

Removed the following "Core Issues" section as it only repeated what was written earlier in the article (and the same info is repeated again later):

  • The SCO Groups basic claim was that certain intellectual properties (IP) that they own has is some manner made its way into Linux. They further claimed that this obligated users of Linux to aquire a license from SCO in order to legally run that operating system. Thoughout the controversy that followed in both the public press and in the courts, several core questions have emerged and clear answers have not yet been arrived at. The first one is specifically what intellectual property is at issue? The second question is who actually owns what rights in the various elements of that intellectual property? And the third question is where in the Linux source code base are any of these rights violated?

The following bit is garbled. I left it in because I have not idea what it means or what to do with it

  • Many of the UNIX Licensees took the license was to develop new and additional features for the core UNIX system and develop new products and services. Those new features are provided by computer code that was not included in the initially licensed as the SVRx code base. --LeeHunter 03:13, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Remove the following section because it is too vague and POV. Also the section name (SCO and the GPL) has already been used:

  • During 2003 and 2004, The SCO Group repeatedly stated that they believe the GPL is unconstitutional. The open source community, including the creators of the GPL, the Free Software Foundation, responded fiercely to these claims and believe that SCO is making a fool of themselves by even suggesting that the GPL cannot be enforced because of this.

Also removed the following for POV reasons:

  • Many people, including many users of Linux, consider this to be a scam. To date, SCO has claimed certain companies have paid for the licenses. Two of them, Computer Associates and Leggett & Platt deny having purchased any such licenses, at least not having any intention to do so. Questar and EV1Servers, however, have admitted to purchasing the controversial licenses, angering many customers who continue to follow the story.

[edit] More links

--2mcm 05:18, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] A Summary?

Could we see a paragraph or two about the current state of the case ( which AFAIK SCO has 'lost' ) in the first 'screen' ? --2mcm 05:18, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Accusations of Linux plagiarism

I found it rather strange that the weasel phrase "Some open-source advocates claim that" was inserted. It's not a matter of claiming or not claiming. According to the terms of the GPL, if you include code from a product that is licensed under the GPL, you are required to release your work under that same license. While the truth of the claims has yet to be established, the consequences should they be shown to be true stand pretty much certain. Jamyskis Whisper, Contribs Germany 14:15, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Misunderstanding

"Microsoft, at the time, had $550 million invested with BayStar."

This was a common misunderstanding at the time, coming from a BayStar statement about Microsoft usage of pipe investments in general. As you can see from the article linked to that claim, nothing of the claim remains (if it ever was in that article). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.216.110.111 (talk • contribs)

[edit] Current Event?

Given that these lawsuits are ongoing, should this page get a 'current event' tag? Is this too long of a current event to get such a tag? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Darkonc (talk • contribs)

  • I think the current event template is used on articles where information can change rapidly in the immediate future, which is not the case for this article. - Sikon 13:29, 4 September 2006 (UTC)


[edit] bewildering storm of claims?

should an encyclopedic entry ever refer to anything as bewildering? Perhaps a rephrase is in order here.

[edit] NpoV

After reading this article, I came away very against the SCO group. Can this article be made more neutral? 194.105.160.77 16:45, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

  • I just re-read the article after a number of months having not read it and while the article doesn't present SCOX in a very favorable light, that is a direct result of the events being described. You can certainly try to make the tone more neutral and might have a good deal of success doing that, but I don't think that the underlying developments in the court cases to date will allow an article that leaves the reader with a neutral feeling about the parties to the controversies. -- Upholder 17:14, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
If this article was changed to read closer to actual reality, you would come away from it even more so against the SCO Group. For example, SCOG have a claim about "derivative works", and they relate that to "methods and concepts" from UNIX somehow not being allowed to be implemented in Linux. Yet there is a link to another Wikipedia page which describes "derivative works" in a legal sense as meaning something entirely different ... a work is legally a "derivative work" (despite SCOGs claims) only if it actually contains parts of an earlier work. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_work In this case, that means that Linux must be shown to actually have "major, basic copyrighted aspects" from UNIX source code contained within it for SCOG to actually have a case. SCOG have utterly failed to find any part of UNIX code contained within Linux.

From the article: "SCO has also claimed in early stages of the litigation, that the GPL is invalid and non-binding although they have stopped taking that stance after realizing that by their own distribution of Linux code, they are liable for multiple copyright infringement instances unless they accept and respect the GPL." This paragraph in particular is an example of something that's NPOV. I don't think any facts need to be removed from it, but the phrase "after realizing that" (for example) strongly suggests the reader draw a certain conclusion from the article; it's better to just present the facts and be encyclopedic and let the reader draw their own conclusions. 63.163.61.3 20:39, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

That is not a NPOV. IBM entered a counterclaim saying that IBM contributions in Linux were IBM's copyrighted property, and they were licensed for distribution under the GPL. If SCOG repudiated the GPL, then SCOG were distributing IBM's copyrighted code without any license to do so. SCOG answered that counterclaim of IBM's in offical court papers by claiming that SCOG fully complied with the GPL, and had never repudiated it. Therefore, it is entirely acurate to characterize this sequence of events as follows: "SCO has also claimed in early stages of the litigation, that the GPL is invalid and non-binding although they have stopped taking that stance after realizing that by their own distribution of Linux code, they are liable for multiple copyright infringement instances unless they accept and respect the GPL."

[edit] corrected reference no.32

It was pointing at an obsolete page. Apparently the original website changed their content management engine. The corrected reference points at the original article again. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.52.82.203 (talk) 13:16, 19 September 2007 (UTC)