Thursday, August 30, 2007

 

8/30 SNR



Sunday, August 26, 2007

 

8/26 SNR

SysV directory

SysV directory

SysV directory

I like to think I sometimes perform some kind of valuable service here beyond merely linking to the latest GL stories. I do have a whole weekend's worth of GL stories to catch up on, but first a bit about the photos. The local techie bookstore here in Portland has a free bin near the entrance, with books they ended up with somehow and then realized nobody's ever going to pay a cent for. I've picked up a few SCO-related books that way over the last few years, and the latest is perhaps the most poignant. The book you see here is OldSCO's 1990 catalog of available third-party hardware and software. The thing runs nearly 1400 pages, with over 200 pages devoted just to the "Accounting - General" category. There's even a single-entry "Games" category, listing something optimistically called "SDA: Multiuser Games Vol. 1", with multiplayer, multi-tty blackjack, poker, and other games. Now just try to imagine what the equivalent book would look like today, if it existed. How the mighty have fallen.... And good riddance.

Now about those GL stories. I was away most of the weekend, and apparently there were a bunch of new filings on Friday, so PJ and the gang have spent the weekend poring over the new docs. Basically this is the part of the pretrial phase where SCO and Novell get to fight over exactly what each party is permitted to say to the jury, introduce as evidence, and so forth. The goal, of course, being to get as much of one's own stuff into the courtroom, and exclude as much of the other guy's stuff as you possibly can. Looks like SCO's putting up quite a struggle, too. There's nothing they can do to un-hit the iceberg at this point, but they seem to think it's a fine time to have a fistfight on deck, instead of heading for the nearest lifeboat. I'm starting to think they were really serious about that "to our utter destruction" nonsense.

I confess I haven't had time to digest everything yet, myself, but here are all 5 stories since Friday evening, rearranged oldest to newest (that's my meager contribution to the effort so far):



Meanwhile, a thread on c.u.s.m. started by some poor user who needs a C compiler on his SCO box. Alas, unlike, oh, Linux, or FreeBSD, or Mac OS X, you don't get a compiler when you buy a SCO OS. Dev tools and libraries are sold separately, as if it was still freakin' 1990 or something. Various responses disagree on whether the compiler costs $99 or $599, which suggests to me they haven't sold any lately.

Oh, and SCO pops up in this week's Spencer F. Katt column:

"This must feel similar to the end of WWII for Linux lovers," laughed the Lynx, as he envisioned the open-source crowd kissing nurses in the street, filling their freezers with meat, buying big-finned automobiles and enjoying some well-deserved leisure time.


Hey, now, that sounds like fun. Mmmm.... a freezer full of meat....


Thursday, August 23, 2007

 

8/23 SNR



Sunday, August 19, 2007

 

8/19 SNR

So this is how the long, sordid SCO saga winds down: First a bang, and now the whimpering. You might've already seen Friday's Joint Status Report, in which SCO and Novell lay out the new landscape in the wake of Kimball's big ruling the previous Friday. There's still a lot of stuff they disagree on, which presumably still has to go to trial. But SCO concedes (or appears to concede) a couple of the key points. First, they don't seem to be disputing Unix copyright ownership anymore. And second, they concede that their claims against IBM, Autozone, etc., must be waived. So there isn't much left of their case against Novell, although Novell still has a bunch of live claims against SCO. And all that's left of the IBM case are those pesky IBM counterclaims. In particular, I'm crossing my fingers that Kimball doesn't decide CC10 is moot now. CC10, you may recall, is the one where IBM seeks a declaratory judgement that Linux doesn't infringe on SCO's precious IP rights. To my thinking that's the #1 issue left to be resolved, and I'm not 100% certain we'll get a definite resolution now. It would be a damn shame if we go through all this, and the bad guys still get to keep that accusation alive, just for the FUD value of it.

Kimball also laid out some more pretrial dates. So there'll be some additional filings to read soon. Probably nothing earthshaking, but possibly interesting for us non-lawyers, just to observe how all the procedures work.

I'm still not convinced SCO's given up on the litigation business entirely. More than likely they still have a few ridiculous delaying tactics up their slimy little sleeves. Nobody really believes SCO can change the overall outcome of the matter anymore, and a rational company might try to cut its losses at this point, but this is SCO we're talking about. Like most CEOs, Darl comes across as a guy who sees the world entirely in terms of sports metaphors, and it would be surprising if he's never once asked the legal team "What's our Hail Mary play?". If they were talented professionals (which is debatable), they somehow resisted the urge to roll their eyes at the client, at least not while he was looking.

Today's batch of assorted media coverage:


Wednesday, August 15, 2007

 

8/15 SNR



Monday, August 13, 2007

 

8/13 SNR

Ahh, where to begin...

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Saturday, August 11, 2007

 

8/12 SNR

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8/11 SNR

More media reaction to yesterday's big ruling in SCO v. Novell:

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Friday, August 10, 2007

 

The Post You've All Been Waiting For

Kimball ruled, and SCO is now Officially Hosed. TuxRocks has the ruling here [Warning: 103 page PDF, but worth the wait.]

PJ's already got the story up too. Not totally surprising that she had it before I did, I mean, I'm sitting here at home with a nasty cold right now, medicated to the gills. But I wouldn't miss this for anything.

I can't wait to see what SCO has to say for itself now. That ought to be a real hoot. It's like Esker says: HAR!!!!! HAR!!!!! HAR!!!!


Updated:

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Wednesday, August 01, 2007

 

8/9 SNR

I have all kinds of good excuses about why I haven't posted in a few days, even though there's been a mini-flurry of SCO news of fair-to-middlin' importance. I could take some time out and bore you with the excuses, but I won't.

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