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Novell, which we expected to be near the top of the list, came in as a relatively trusted company by our readers. With an eighth place showing, only IBM scored fewer votes. We have little doubt that five years or so ago, Novell would’ve probably been right behind Microsoft as one of the least trusted companies in the FOSS world, due primarily to their dealings with Microsoft in support of their SUSE Linux distro, which many people thought was both underhanded and designed to spread FUD.

Speaking of Groklaw, it was déjà vu all over again this week, with PJ once again reporting on the case of SCO v. IBM. Yup, they’re back in court. We’re reminded of the early days of Saturday Night Live when week after week Chevy Chase on “Weekend Update” would reassure the audience that Spain’s late dictator Francisco Franco remained dead.

In March of 2003, SCO Group filed a lawsuit against IBM over Unix trade secrets. Ten years later, it's a legal dispute that is still alive. Groklaw - a site that got its start because of the SCO case - and a site that is still very much alive was the first to report on the re-opening of the case.

Sad that Game of Thrones has wrapped up its third season? Looking for some drama to fill the time? We've got just the thing for you. One of the Internet's longest-running and most-hated lawsuits is back: SCO v. IBM has been reopened by Utah district court judge David Nuffer.

The US District of Utah has re-opened the SCO v IBM court case, as Groklaw reports. The never-ending legal story originally started in 2003 when SCO filed its lawsuit against IBM, alleging the company had violated some of its intellectual property in its Linux products. It temporarily came to an end when SCO filed for reorganisation under Chapter 11 of the US Bankruptcy Code in 2007.

The Hon. David Nuffer granted SCO's motion for reconsideration and reopening its case against IBM. Who can believe this is still going on?

Ten years ago, SCO decided to sue IBM and started a series of legal attacks on Linux. Their cases were pathetically weak, but CIOs and CFOs didn't know that. Thanks to paralegal turned legal journalist, Pamela "PJ" Jones and her Website Groklaw, executives who wanted to know what was really what with SCO's multitude of lawsuits soon learned of the FUD behind SCO's claims. SCO and its silent backer Microsoft hopes for profits and slowing down Linux's corporate success would come to nothing, and SCO ended up in bankruptcy.

Yeah, I know. OpenServer is not Linux by any means. But some of you may know someone who may need to read this article. Pass it on.

If memory serves, the only evidence we ever saw were some clumsily disguised lines of code from Linux that matched Unix code line for line. There was a good reason for the match; it was BSD code dating back to the infamous settlement between AT&T; and Berkeley.

SCO, the company that started the Linux lawsuit madness, is now in Chapter 7 bankruptcy, but the Linux intellectual property FUD lives on. SCO has ceased to be. It has expired and gone to meet its maker. It's joined the choir invisible. This is an ex-company. With apologies to Monty Python's Dead Parrot sketch, SCO, the company behind a series of foolish anti-Linux lawsuits, is finally really and truly dead.

Command chaining is a concept to execute two or more commands in one shot to increase .. productivity Reduce system resource usage(In some cases ) Short and sweet codes . In this post we will see how to use different command chaining operators available for us in an easy way. Command chaining operators & –Forking

Vendors and analysts alike tell me people aren't worried about Linux litigation and that Solaris isn't a concern for Linux vendors. As it turns out, that's not entirely accurate. I was on a panel today at the Red Hat Summitt in Boston and we got a question about the risk of Linux, from a legal perspective. Apparently it is still a (small) concern.

You know what sucks worse than Java alternatives? Java patent infringement lawsuits.

The past week on the LinuxPlanet saw the return of SCO, a company most of us have long ago written off a footnote in the history of Linux's success. It also saw a new study from Ubuntu showing how broad and diverse its base of Linux users have become.

SCO and IBM have reached a stipulation [PDF] on how to go forward on reactivating the Utah litigation, and SCO has filed it in Bankruptcy Court in Delaware. Assuming it's signed by the judge, the Hon. Kevin Gross, in time for the April 23rd hearing now scheduled in Utah District Court in Salt Lake City before the Hon. Dee Benson on SCO's laughable motion to let only *it* go ahead and IBM not, I'd say it's game on. They've agreed IBM can proceed with its defenses and counterclaims. It was IBM that suggested in its opposition to SCO's motion that the best way forward was to ask the Bankruptcy Court to lift the stay on *both* parties, which is what the stipulation agrees to.

I’ve been working on a story all week on the mess at HP caused by the all-at-once and probably premature announcement they’re dropping WebOS, smartphones and consumer PCs. One trouble, I keep having to go back and rewrite stuff, because the story is still very, very fluid and new aspects keep popping up almost daily. On Monday, Bloomberg Businessweek announced that HP’s chief communications officer, Bill Wohl, will be moving to a “special assignment.” Chief Marketing Officer Marty Homlish will be picking up the slack with the corporate communications team and Lynn Anderson will take care of PR’s day-to-day operations, at least for the time being. According to the Bloomberg, both Wohl and Homlish have a history with CEO Leo Apotheker that predates his tenure at HP:

Finally, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled [PDF] on SCO's appeal of its loss to Novell in the second jury/bench trial. The appeals court affirms in all respects. So, SCO loses again, and likely this is as far as it will go. Technically, SCO can ask the US Supreme Court to hear a further appeal, but that is very unlikely to happen and even less likely to be granted were it to happen. SCO has fallen downstairs, hitting its head on every step, to the very bottom, just like I told you in May of 2003, in the first article I ever wrote about SCO.

Remember how SCO told the court in SCO v. IBM that Linux wasn't ready for the enterprise until IBM got involved in the year 2000 and allegedly worked to make it "hardened" for the enterprise by donating code? It said that it wasn't until 2001, with version 2.4 of Linux, that Linux was ready for enterprise use. Linux, SCO said, was just a bicycle compared to UNIX, the luxury car, until IBM did all that. Not only is that chronology not true, I think I can show you evidence that SCO knew it was not true or could have and should have known. Just in case the case ramps up again in some form, I thought it would be good to add the evidence to our collection.

Even I finally got my bellyful of SCO. But there is yet one guy left who still can't get enough. And so it transpires that there are new developments in the never-ending trademark dispute that was initiated by X/Open in 2001 when Wayne Gray tried to trademark the mark INUX. If you recall, the dispute was put on ice back in the summer of 2010, pending resolution of Gray's civil litigation.

This week's Linux Top 5: SCO gets new ownership, Oracle call its quits on OpenOffice as Novell releases last major update for SLES 10, and more.

LXer Feature: 18-Apr-2011

Forgive my lateness once again in getting the LXWR out to you, I am out of town and working from a family member's Mac..how does anyone get anything done on these things? No keyboard shortcuts, no right clicking, safari sucks and of course I forgot my mouse! I need some Mac lessons methinks.. Enjoy!

LXer Feature: 11-Apr-2011

In the Roundup this week we have Ubuntu announcing that 11.10 will not ship with the Gnome classic DE, is it worth rooting a Nook Color, Novell shows of Mono for Android, praise for the D-Link Boxee and last but not least PJ says there will be no more Groklaw after May 16th. Enjoy!

Saturday, April 09 2011 @ 04:14 PM EDT

I have decided that Groklaw will stop publishing new articles on our anniversary, May 16. I know a lot of you will be unhappy to hear it, so let me briefly explain, because my decision is made and it's firm. In a simple sentence, the reason is this: the crisis SCO initiated over Linux is over, and Linux won. SCO as we knew it is no more.

There will be other battles, and there already are, because the same people that propped SCO up are still going to try to destroy Linux, but the battlefield has shifted, and I don't feel Groklaw is needed in the new battlefield the way it was in the SCO v. Linux wars.

A consultant hired by SCO in 2004 to compare UNIX and Linux, with the thought he could be used as an expert at trial, says that, after days and days, his comparison tool found "very little correlation". When he told that to SCO, it paid him and he never heard from SCO again. Interesting, huh? And how odd that SCO went on to sue folks for alleged copyright infringement even after that happened, don't you think?

In an email, SCO today (Friday) informed its partners that UnXis Inc. was chosen as the successful bidder for SCO's Unix software business on 26 January. The slightly convoluted phrasing is probably due to SCO's current reorganisation under Chapter 11. On 16 February, the transaction is to be submitted for approval to the bankruptcy court where SCO's case is pending. The email also quotes Hans Bayer, SCO's Vice President Worldwide Sales, as saying that “We are delighted that after years of shifting targets, that under the UnXis ownership, we now will be prepared to create a truly customer driven, fully supported, open systems platform for high reliability enterprise computing”.

Let's forget the last few years ever happened — the last five, at least. Possibly 10. In the 1980s Sun Microsystems was on fire. Founded in 1982, Sun raked in so much money that it broke the psychologically important $1bn sales barrier in six years. It took Microsoft 15 years to hit $1bn — six if your starting point is the date Microsoft was incorporated. Oracle — up the road from Sun — took 14 years. Sun was the fastest growing US company between 1985 and 1989, according to Forbes, and supplied the entire US government with more than half its workstations nine years after starting.

This past weekend, while the US was ramping up for yet-another contentious election, politics of another sort were happening in the land of open source software. Specifically, 33 members of the Germanophone project within the larger OpenOffice.org community gave Oracle and the OpenOffice.org team leaders notice that they would be walking away from the project and working for the new LibreOffice project, now being managed by The Document Foundation. The reasons for the walkout are clearly stated: the developers are unhappy with the OpenOffice.org stance that any current OpenOffice.org project or team leader who is also working on LibreOffice should withdraw from their position in the OpenOffice community.

On the back of the news that Microsoft (MSFT) is suing Motorola (MOT) for patent infringments related to Android, Steve Ballmer tells the Wall Street Journal that HTC is paying a license fee for its use of Android...and that other Android manufactures may be forced to do the same.

Bids are due to SCO by October 5th at 5 PM and I suspect there will also be a few hedge/investment type groups that may express a lowball offer interest as well. Then again, the SCO Unix business could have such little value that no one in their right mind will offer anything for it and it will finally die the death it should have had years ago and simply fade away.

LXer Feature: 21-Sept-2010

Could things be more exciting in the the world of FOSS right now? Yes it could, but let's not be too hasty..

The SCO Group has stated in an ad hoc press release that it will be selling its UNIX division to the highest bidder. SCO's UNIX unit handles sales and the development of UnixWare and OpenServer, alongside support for these products. Interested parties have until October 5 to submit a bid.

I am currently employed with a large global company, working in a division that strictly focuses on embedded Linux development. Earlier this week, during our lunch hour, as one would expect with a predominantly Linux crowd, we had engaged in a conversation on the following question: What technology has Microsoft been the first to market? And of those technologies, which was developed by Microsoft?

Look what I just found, SCO's Partners page from 2002, on Internet Archive, and lo and behold, it provides proof positive that SCO, then calling itself Caldera, knew that IBM was involved with Linux as far back as 1998. That's the year Santa Cruz and IBM signed the agreement regarding Project Monterey, executed in October of 1998. No one, therefore, Santa Cruz or Caldera, had any reason to be in the dark about IBM's Linux activities while IBM was also working on Project Monterey.

Bruce Steinberg was the best Linux Journal reader I ever had, qualifying on the grounds of correspondence volume alone. His letters to this one editor were always long, and always thick with good humor, good advice, and rich history. Bruce was a Unix/Linux geek of the first water, and worked for many years at SCO, long before that "brand" was shamed at the end of its life. He was also a veteran of the rock & roll world, and knew more about the band Tower of Power than most people know about life. (It mattered to us both that the band, at the time traveling under another name but using the same horn section and singer Hubert Tubbs, played at our wedding.)

If you compare that strong language with IBM's counterclaims for patent infringement against SCO Group in 2003, for example, claims it later dropped for fear it would be stuck in that stupid litigation forever with a party that had no money to pay in the end for any infringement anyway, you'll see that IBM didn't use that language. My point is that it's language that indicates Oracle is going for treble damages. And sure enough, at the end, in the relief section, Oracle America does ask for that. And it also means they likely have something quite fact-based and specific in mind that they think can be pinned on Google.

First, the complaint. We'll have to wait for the answer to know specifically what Google's defenses are, but I know some of you are asking why the GPL isn't blocking Oracle's copyright claims, at a minimum, let alone the patents. Because Google apparently didn't use the GPL'd version. We'll see if Google's clean room workaround stands up. I'm sure they considered their steps super carefully, but as we saw in the SCO saga, you can still get sued even if a plaintiff is pretty sure he'll lose in the end. I am puzzled why corporations that understand so much about openness still struggle with the GPL. It would protect you, you know. Oracle distributes Linux, after all. Think about it.

Just as LinuxCon ended, Oracle announced that it has filed suit for patent and copyright infringement against Google for its implementation of Android; as an Oracle spokesperson said, “In developing Android, Google knowingly, directly and repeatedly infringed Oracle’s Java-related intellectual property. This lawsuit seeks appropriate remedies for their infringement … Android (including without limitation the Dalvik VM and the Android software development kit) and devices that operate Android infringe one or more claims of each of United States Patents Nos. 6,125,447; 6,192,476; 5,966,702; 7,426,720; RE38,104; 6,910,205; and 6,061,520.” (some more details in the copy of Oracle complaint). Apart from the slight cowardice of waiting after LinuxCon for announcing it, the use of the Boies Schiller legal team (the same of SCO) would be ironic on its own (someone already is calling the company SCOracle).

The Justice Department said on Thursday it sued Oracle Corp, alleging it defrauded the federal government on a software contract in effect from 1998 to 2006 that involved hundreds of millions of dollars in sales.

LXer Feature: 27-June-2010

In the LXWR this week we have a Mac devotee moving to Linux, you want Linux to run what?, Marcel Gagne talks about when Linux was fun, Phoronix does a five-way Linux distro comparison and Steven Rosenberg says goodbye to Ubuntu..sort of. Enjoy!

Were you imagining that "Paul Murphy" was going to apologize for his attacks on Groklaw or for being so wrong in his support of SCO? Or that he'd keep his promise to stop blogging if SCO lost? Or that he'd finally admit SCO has no case Au contraire. He continues to insult, and he predicts SCO, or a new owner of Novell, will surely succeed yet in fulfilling SCO's plot, in what he believes, if I've understood him, will be a legal Hail Mary pass to go down in history. The new FUD is his article, Suicide by Victory: More on SCO, in which he predicts gloom and doom for Linux because Novell won at the jury trial in Utah. I know. He's so funny. It makes no sense. But I'll answer him seriously anyway.

Another shoe has dropped for the SCO Group -- this makes about a dozen -- but when will this outfit go away? First the SCO Group sues IBM for billions in a case related to alleged intellectual property infringement, and then it starts threatening Linux and Linux users. Then, after Novell says that the SCO Group does not have the rights to Unix that it needs to sue and threaten, it sues Novell. Since then it has been mostly downhill for the SCO Group.

LXer Feature: 14-June-2010

In this week's LXWR we have Jono Bacon's Ubuntu: meritocracy not democracy, can virtual PCs save desktop Linux? Is Android fragmentation something to fear? The four different types of Linux users and our own Hans Kwint says "Tear down this stair!". Enjoy!

Last week, the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah finally granted Novell's request for declaratory judgment and ruled against SCO's last frantic attempts to keep any of its claims going. Or, to quote Pamela Jones, editor of Groklaw and top expert on SCO's endless anti-Linux lawsuits: "The door has slammed shut on the SCO litigation machine."

“ORDERED that SCO's Renewed Motion for Judgment as a Matter of Law or, in the Alternative, for a New Trial is DENIED.” So ends the ruling of District Judge Ted Stewart. And so also, perhaps, ends the seemingly endless quest of SCO to tax or kill Linux.

The case began in 2004 over a transfer agreement made in 1995. And finally, thanks to Groklaw, its volunteers and Pamela Jones, whose tireless efforts to follow and explain the twists and turns of this case showed what an obsessive compulsive with a blog can do and helped make the case understandable for those of us happy enough not to be lawyers. - John Oates, The Register

SCO Group wants a judge to overrule a jury that found it doesn’t own Unix. Or it wants a fresh trial. Either, really, as long as SCO gets the result it wants. The company’s filed papers with a US court saying the jury hearing its case over whether SCO owned the Unix copyright, and that found for Novell last month, was either too stupid, too confused or too distracted to grasp the compelling power of its evidence.

SCO has filed its "renewed" motion for judgment "as a matter of law", with its supporting memorandum. They ask the judge to rule over the heads of the jury and decide that the jury "simply got it wrong" when it ruled that SCO didn't get the copyrights in 1995 from Novell. In the alternative, they'd like a new trial. See, this is the problem with loaning money to SCO. They don't ever want this dance to end. The rest of the world gets it. SCO lost, by judge (Dale Kimball) and now by jury. They'd like this to be over. And us, the musicians, so to speak, at the dance? We're tired and we want SCO to stop already so we can pack up and go home and get some sleep. And no, this isn't normal, stretching a case that was hopeless from day one into what looks to become a more than decade-long event. And can you imagine the international outcry if the judge were to grant a request like this?

Once upon a time, IBM was seen as the dark force in the computing industry - Darth Vader in a Charlie Chaplin mask. More recently, though, the company has come across as a strong friend of Linux and free software. It contributes a lot of code and has made a point of defending against SCO in ways which defended Linux as a whole. But IBM still makes people nervous, a feeling which is not helped by the company's massive patent portfolio and support for software patents in Europe. So, when the word got out that IBM was asserting its patents against an open-source company, it's not surprising that the discussion quickly got heated. But perhaps it's time to calm down a bit and look at what is really going on.

We know that the jury in SCO v. Novell decided that SCO didn't get the copyrights in 1995 under the APA or by Amendment 2 or any fusion thereof. That killed SCO's slander of title claim as well. But that isn't the end. There were some issues the parties agreed before the trial which would be decided by Judge Ted Stewart. That has yet to happen.

Covering SCO is a marathon, not a sprint, so after each big win, I tend to savor the moment, goofing off and enjoying a rest, knowing as I do that they never quit and there will be more awfulness to come.