[lug] SCO (aka Caldera) now suing all Linux users

Kirk Rafferty kirk at fpcc.net
Thu May 15 16:18:06 MDT 2003


On Thu, May 15, 2003 at 02:37:01PM -0400, Michael D. Hirsch wrote:
> Which extends my favorite conspiracy theory: that Novell was secretly in 
> cahoots with Microsoft.  If you look at stuff that was going on at Novell, 
> they bought UNIX, a big MS competitor at the time, and drove it into the 
> ground.  They bought DR-DOS, to drive it into the ground.  Then he started 
> Caldera, and recently has started working on destryoying Linux. 
> 
> More than coincidence...?

Eh, I think the Unix sourcecode (intelectual property, if you will) was
pretty much dead on it's own.  Unix has a "split-personality."  There is
the sourcecode, which is owned by SCO.  Then there is the trademark name
"Unix," which is owned by the Open Group.  Solaris, for example, is Unix
because it adheres to a set of standards set forth by the Open Group, not
because it traces it's origins back to the SCO-owned code.

The actual Unix codebase was obsolete even when Novell bought it.
Novell would have had to dig it back up again before they could bury
it. :)  As to *why* they bought it--dunno.  I tend to think it was a
marketing thing.

I think they bought DR-DOS so they could get away from making a sale for
Microsoft every time they sold a copy of Netware.  Remember that you had
to boot into MS-DOS before you could load Netware.  I'd love to know who
the genius was that came up with that one. (maybe your conspiracy lies
there... :)

Regards,
Kirk



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