SCO Unix Intellectual Property Pedigree Chart

Jerry Feldman gaf at blu.org
Thu May 1 12:23:11 EDT 2003


On Thu, 01 May 2003 11:20:31 -0400
Chris Brenton <cbrenton at chrisbrenton.org> wrote:

> SCO purchase UNIX code from Novell back in 1995. They have been
> implying that because of the purchase they now "own" Linux. They are
> even going law suit happy including trying to hit up IBM for billions
> of dollars because IBM is now supporting Linux. There are other suits
> and claims pending as well.
While, Linux might have been polluted in recent years, Linux and most of
the utilities that comprise the distros were never part of the AT&T
source base. Therefore, they cannot claim ownership of Linux, but if
Linux source is polluted they can make some Intellectual Property
claims. Also, SCO did not purchase the Unix brand. USL sold that to The
Open Group well before 1995. I don't know if the Unix brand was sold
before or after USL was acquired by Novell. I also think the SCO
purchase of USL was more recent than 1995, but I'm too lazy to research
that.

 
> One gets the impression that SCO has decided its easier to make money 
> with Linux by suing people rather than turning Caldera into a 
> distribution people will prefer to use.
> 
> Its because of these suits that many people have stopped using
> Caldera.
True. Caldera's business model was to shrink-wrap Caldera Linux and
provide support for corporate clients. SCO had already been doing that
for Unix worldwide. The basic concept is sound. But, most of the Linux
community was comprised of technical people until recently. The other
Linux distros proved to be more stable and easier to install. Red Hat,
SuSE, and a few others have done a better job. 
JABR may want to comment, but we've never installed Caldera at our
installfests, and the people I know who have installed Caldera have
abandoned it. 
-- 
Jerry Feldman <gaf at blu.org>
Boston Linux and Unix user group
http://www.blu.org PGP key id:C5061EA9
PGP Key fingerprint:053C 73EC 3AC1 5C44 3E14 9245 FB00 3ED5 C506 1EA9
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