Posted 3:20 PM (0) comments

Maybe, just maybe

Mitch Wagner at InternetWeek has an interesting article based on the question What If SCO Is Right? Odd things could occur should a trial of SCO's suit against IBM actually take place. Wagner also brings up the possibility first raised by the Free Software Foundation that SCO may have inadvertently released its own intellectual property (IP) as part of the Linux Kernel when it released OpenLinux under the GNU license. I don't believe that any judge would throw the suit out on those grounds however. SCO would have to have known that their IP was included in the kernel when they released OpenLinux. Then, too, SCO's claim is that IBM added parts of Unix to the kernel which never was distributed by SCO. That might form the basis of a counter-claim by IBM, but most likely would only serve to reduce the price of a settlement.

Posted 11:32 AM (0) comments

Revoke this!

The neo-Luddites are at it again, this time in the persona of Peter Dorrington, head of fraud at private software company SAS Institute who claims that Biometric ID cards are 'dangerously flawed'.

Evidently, technology has to be 100% failsafe before some people will consider using it, preferring to rely on outdated, outmoded, easily hacked non-tech methods.

Dorrington sums up his argument by saying: "A bank can revoke your credit card or your PIN number but they can't revoke your thumb print or your iris." Of course, no one leaves their iris sitting around on a stickee, either!

Posted 10:41 PM (0) comments

Everybody, it seems, owns a piece of Unix

The Open Group asserts ownership of UNIX trademark which it does, indeed, own. A quick check via the wikipedia shows that:

"UNIX was split into three parts upon leaving Novell. The UNIX trademark was transferred to an industry consortium, the X/Open group, (now just The Open Group) for certifying UNIX implementations as standard. The source base was sold to Santa Cruz Operation (SCO) who sold SVR4 on Intel hardware alongside their traditional Xenix-like SCO-UNIX offering. Hewlett-Packard got the operating system laboratory, which became mired in internal politics when asked to design the eventual replacement for HP's UNIX, HP-UX. Eventually the remaining employees were absorbed into the broader HP Corporation."

The Open Group isn't taking sides in the SCO-IBM battle, just asserting its ownership of the name and the certification process. If Microsoft, IBM, the Open Group and SCO's Darl MacBride are all involved the level of FUD is sure to keep rising.

And, just in case the waters weren't muddy enough already, The Free Software Foundation, maintainers of the GNU Open License, maintain that once SCO distributed the Linux kernel that any SCO-owned intellectual property was placed into the public domain according to the terms of GNU. So now FSF chairman Richard Stallman is also involved - not only is it FUDdier, we're approaching the FUDdiest grouping in history!

Posted 5:14 PM (0) comments

The other Shoe drops...

Maybe its just a coincidence but just days after announcing that Microsoft had licensed all of its Unix intellectual Property, SCO (nee: Caldera) began destroying all the evidence it used in its DR DOS suit against the Gatesians (see Microsoft Documents to be Shredded in Utah).

Coincidences do happen, but this sort of serendipity is beyond belief. Alternatively, of course, you could believe that MS was developing their own Linux distribution and wanted to stay on SCO's good side. That's about as likely as Steve Ballmer calling IBM and suggesting they re-launch OS/2.....