Microsoft To License SCO's Unix Code

[Tomas]

 Microsoft will license the rights to Unix technology from SCO Group, a move that could impact the battle between Windows and Linux in the market for computer operating systems. http://news.com.com/2100-1016_3-1007528.html

[KennyR]

Hehe...Microsoft view Linux as a competitor, which is why they'll never win. Linux isn't in it for the money. If Gates undermines GPL with a technicality, the Linux people will just use something else and move their sources across to it.

Microsoft could put an end to Linux, but only by totally rewriting their execrable software to resememble some form of competence, and selling it very cheaply. Otherwise, don't expect to see Linux users quaking in their boots.

[alx]

Or they could attempt to make TCPA/Palladium the de-facto standard.  Big companies like Redhat could afford to pay for licenses, but it'd wreck the whole spirit of open source (and bedroom coders in general) - every time someting was changed, it would need to be re-evaluated for the TCPA system.  Since Linux upgrades are small and frequent, this could severely damage it.

[Tomas]

The biggest problem is that this will scare companies off from using linux, which microsoft will earn big time on...
Loads of servers are currently running linux.

[System]

What I find funny is that MS are licencing code from SCO that they originally wrote themselves.

SCO UNIX/OpenServer/Unixware ( All the same thing basically) used to be called Xenix.

Before that it was called Microsoft Xenix!

MS sold it to the Santa Cruz Operation years back, and promised not to compete with SCO in the UNIX market.  MS even had a considerable amount of shares in SCO for a long time.

Funny thing is, SCO/Xenix was actually a very good x86 UNIX implementation.  I used to run SCO UNIX on a P75 with 64MB RAM with a PCI NCR SCSI adapter which fed a SCSI HD and CDROM.  It was a damn site faster than NT3.51 on the same hardware, and it was more stable.  MS could write good code once upon a time believe it or not!

If MS hadn't hired the VMS guy from DEC to create WNT (V+1,M+1,S+1) maybe they would have used Xenix as a base for the Win32 API's, and the world would have been a far different place. We'll never know.

[clark]

I don't quite remember it the same way.

Microsoft did own and licsene Xenix for quite some time back in the 80's, and somehow they convinced AT&T to integrate certain parts of  their Xenix code into the main UNIX release (I think that this was System III at the time), so for a time all UNIX based O/S's used Xenix code, HP-UX, IRIX, Solaris 2.x, and even Commodore UNIX.  I can't recall exactly what Xenix code was integrated (I think it was mainly library stuff, although I'm not positive).

So, M$ was getting paid on all UNIX based O/S's, although I don't know exactly how it was done (liscensing usually confuses me anyhow  :-D ).  UNIX went from AT&T to Novell to somebody else, eventually ending up with SCO (not the same SCO we've now, which is really just Caldera in disguise).

Mid 90s SCO and Microsoft get involved in a lawsuit against one another (I'm not sure who started it, but it went on for quite some time).  SCO was paying M$ lots of dough in liscensing for the code from Xenix, which had been replaced, and was now just empty baggage.  M$ thought they could force SCO into keeping their source in the UNIX source, and continue to pay royalties.  But they went to court, and SCO won.  So there hasn't been any Xenix code in SCO's various OS's for about 7 years now.

I love the irony!

The real question in what M$ is going to do with this.

yes I know I spelt licsensing wrong.

Clark

[Erwin-K]

Just to add fuel to the fire...

Here is the link to the open source community's position on the SCO - Linux - IBM lawsuit. Has a lot of Unix history included plus linked footnotes.

http://www.opensource.org/sco-vs-ibm.html

If the lawsuit goes to court the document is intended to be a 'Friend of the Court' brief. (If I read the Latin term correctly.)

[Dan]

Microsoft can´t sue just sue  opensource away like that.
Even if they win, then they have to go after Free/Net/OpenBSD and then all the others like GNU/Hurd and AROS.
Possible future:
Microsoft buying Amiga Inc to stop AROS?
Or have they already done that? :-P

[SSSMoves]

M$ has ####ed up to much so please don't give them a reason to #### up things more.
They don't even control there own code....

screw them  :destroy:
burn them :flame:


 :-P let them first try to write something good. and than were talking  :-P

[System]

http://news.com.com/2010-1071_3-1007758.html?tag=fd_nc_1

Bruce Perens take on the whole fiasco.

Some very interesting points in here.

[KennyR]

AInc have nothing to do with AROS.

[Dan]

AInc have nothing to do with AROS.

The name: AMIGA Research OperatingSystem

If you made an os and called it MROS= Microsoft Research OperatingSystem
you would be sued for sure!

Maybe they should change it to  Anything Research OperatingSystem  ;-)

[KennyR]

AInc would get rid of AROS if they could (AROS is an unofficial port). But I doubt they have the ability. Anyway, sliding OT, so...

[bhoggett]

Maybe they should change it to Anything Research OperatingSystem

Or, in true open source tradition, the "AROS Research Operating System".

[Plaz]

I bought stock (and still own it) in Caldera 2.5 years ago thinking I was supporting a linux company. Now it seems bas-awkwards and I've funded the enemy. I don't think SCO Group (Caldera) will win this one. But it will be interesing to watch.

Plaz