An anonymous reader writes "Dennis Ritchie has acknowledged he with Ken Thompson wrote the code cited as 'proof' by SCO. This seems to fit perfectly with Bruce Perens' Analysis of SCO's Las Vegas Slide Show, and undermine Blake Stowell's claim 'At this point it's going to be his word against ours." Andreas Spengler writes "In the ongoing battle between SCO and the Linux community, German publisher Heise has shown that not only was the Linux implementation of the Berkeley Packet filter written outside of Caldera (now SCO), but that it was common practice there and at other companies to remove the BSD copyright notices from the internally used source code. In effect, SCO has proven publicly that they violated the BSD license." (Warning, article is in German.) Finally, a semi-anonymous reader writes "Learn all about how IBM's stomach will be roasted on a pyre of CDs at WeLovetheSCOInformationMinister."

An anonymous reader writes "Cnet is reporting that IBM has launched a counterstrike against SCO Group's attack on Linux users, arguing that SCO's demands for Unix license payments are undermined by its earlier shipment of an open-source Linux product." JayJay.br points out a similar but more colorful article on The Register "in which SCO says that 'SCO-Caldera does not own the copyrights to JFS (Journaling File System), RCU (Read, Copy, and Update), NUMA (Non-uniform Memory Access) software, and other IBM-developed AIX code that IBM contributed to the Linux kernel.' Gee, now that I was almost buying their license ..."

Besides the recent action in Australia, lots of others are choosing to make affirmative statements denying SCO's claims to own the name and code of all things *nix. Read below for a wrap-up of some recent public reactions to the SCO claims from a wide range of potential litigants (if the SCO case gets that far): Japanese conglomerates, American department stores, Bruce Perens, kernel developer Richard Gooch via Mozillaquest, and Joe ("Citizen") Barr.

An anonymous reader submits: "SCO may now have filed for UNIX copyrights and made various allegations about code-copying, but the actual complaint against IBM still seems to be focused around allegations UNIX-based enterprise technologies (such as RCU, JFS and SMP) being improperly added to Linux. Yet, reviewing the Linux kernel archives reveals some interesting and surprising background on just who helped put these technologies into Linux. PJ's GROKLAW blog has uncovered that 'Caldera Employee Was Key Linux Kernel Contributor,' including what looks like a lot of work on the early stages of JFS. The same employee's name also crops up when we look at RCU. When IBM posts RCU improvements, did he complain? No, he requests further improvements even helpfully providing a link to inspire the IBMer!"

hobsonchoice writes "SCO has issued a letter saying SCO Linux customers won't be sued. The same does not seem to apply if using a non-SCO distribution such as RedHat." LightSail points to the SCO letter itself, and raises an interesting point: "If they approve the use of 'their' IP in Linux in a single kernel, then the GPL holds that IP SCO allows to be used by a select few must be freely released to any and all. It appears that all Linux users everywhere were just given a license to continued use of Linux even if SCO would win their suit with IBM." And Haikuu writes "eWeek recently posted an interview conducted by e-mail exchange with Linus Torvalds regarding his recent move to the OSDL and the SCO suit."

akahige writes "Forbes has a fairly detailed story about the sordid history of The Canopy Group and all the various companies they've sued -- Microsoft (who they beat) and CA (this case is still pending), among them. Before joining Caldera, Darl McBride sued IKON Office Solutions, for whom he worked -- and won. And it also seems that a bunch of Canopy power players also sit on SCO's board of directors. The short summary is, 'these guys are professional litigious bastards -- be exceptionally wary.'" A local user's group is planning a protest for tomorrow. Reader myst564 writes: "After reading all of this SCO press I remembered that SCO once offered up all of their 'Ancient UNIX' (their words, not mine) source to the world while retaining all copyrights (i.e, no OSS license). Interestingly enough it WAS located here but isn't any longer: SCO's Ancient Unix. What's more you can read about the original release here at: Linux Today. I downloaded the source myself way back then but never did anything but delete it! Anyway, check out this comment. It's interesting that this was predicted in 2000!"

The SCO must go on. Informationweek has a roundup. News.com has some analysis of the legal case. SCO reiterates their threat to revoke IBM's license. Reader hobsonchoice sends a blurb: "Also more from analysts who saw SCO/Linux code comparisons under NDA. Bill Claybrook, of Aberdeen Group Inc., says SCO changed their story to him about whether they had any "direct evidence" that IBM copied any System V code into Linux. Laura Didio of Yankee Group has answered some detailed questions about her code review process. Lastly Fujitsu Siemens have joined in the debate: they don't think SCO's case is going anywhere." One observer of the SCO case has compiled some notes about Caldera's active participation in the IA-64 project. And look on the bright side: if you follow the school of thought that all publicity is good publicity, at least this suit has gotten Linux mentioned in many places where it normally wouldn't be.

An Anonymous Reader writes "Apparently someone inside SCO has stated that SCO(actually Caldera) copied Linux code into System V. They did it to build what they now market as Linux Kernel Personality - the ability to run Linux software on their Unix. Now, the open source community(of course they don't mention who) is jumping on this, because they didn't return the changes to the OS community or give the community credit. Of course, SCO says it's a misunderstanding and, get this 'SCO also never used any of the Linux kernel code.'"

Geste writes "As now being reported in this brief story and on my local (Seattle) NPR affiliate, 3 million court documents from Caldera's unfair competition suit against Microsoft are to be shredded in Utah. The timing relative to Microsoft's recent licensing of SCO Unix IP is undoubtedly a complete coincidence. "

Slashback brings you another source for the Unix Haters' Handbook, along with more news on the Caldera v. IBM lawsuit and other updates on topics from XPde to creating a stained-glass computer. Read on below for the details.

segoave writes "Lee Hollaar,Professor of Computer Science at the University of Utah has made his book Legal Protection of Digital Information availible for free download. You may remember Professor Hollaar as the lead technical expert in the antitrust suits Caldera v. Microsoft and Bristol v. Microsoft (both of which settled in favor of the plaintiffs), he submitted a friend of the court brief in Microsoft's appeal in the DC Circuit. He has also he worked on patent reform legislation, database protection, and what eventually became the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Maybe this will help convince Lawrence Lessig to make his book available for download."

pitr256 writes "So it seems the SCO Group has decided to hire infamous Anti-Microsoft lawyer David Boies after all. This comes upon reversal of the SCO Group statement according to Chief Executive Darl McBride of having not engaged Mr. Boies to take legal action against our fellow Linux vendors. Now, CNet News is reporting that not only is SCO Group investigating the Linux vendors but that it is also going to investigate Windows, Mac OS X, and the BSD derivatives. So if your technology can't win on price and performance, break out the lawyers and sue everyone. Does anyone else see this as the end of SCO (Caldera) like I do? I certainly will never use anything from them ever again."

el-schwa writes "The Salt Lake Tribune has a story that talks about the old Micrsoft vs. Caldera anti-trust lawsuit. During the trial Microsoft tried unsuccessfully to get 937 boxes of controversial documents kept private. Now it appears that Caldera is no longer interested in paying for storage on the boxes, and they are scheduled to be destroyed."

An anonymous reader writes: "Caldera International, the company that sprang from Novell and went on to distribute a Linux distribution popular among users before the company's decision to withdraw from the retail desktop market, is no more. Instead, what was once Caldera is now 'the SCO Group.' The change, announced at the company's 'GeoFORUM' conference in Las Vegas Monday, recognizes Caldera's acquisition of SCO Unix, and follows what former employees claimed was a switch in emphasis from Caldera OpenLinux to SCO Unix. At the same time, the company announced a new business plan, called 'SCOx,' and new versions of its Unix and Linux distributions. Details, which combine a multitude of press releases, are on Linux and Main."

bhsx asks: "With all the innovations going into open source software these days, why do I still need to run Exchange to meet my clients' needs? Even when demonstrating technology like LTSP mixed with any combination of OpenOffice, Star Office, even Codeweaver's Crossover Office running the latest Microsoft suite, the clincher is always over Exchange functionality. I'm aware of Bynari's InsightServer(Coincidentally, I noticed on that page, that their code is for sale) and have started using that as a possible closer, and the cost is much less prohibitive than eXchange+w2k server+CALs; but why isn't there an open source solution to this problem yet?"

morhoj writes "Looks like Ransom Love, who recently was host to a /. interview, has been replaced as CEO of Caldera and is now exclusively leading the UnitedLinux initiative. Some other stock buybacks and board swaps also happened at Caldera. Can't say that I'm all too pleased by this, I for one didn't like some of his answers in the interview, specifically that fees would be required to become "UnitedLinux" certified. That should really help wider Linux adoption."

We posted your questions for Ransom Love, Caldera's CEO, on June 10. Here are his answers, which ought to clear up a few things about what UnitedLinux is doing, along with some discussion of Linux advances and how to (hopefully) make money selling Linux services and support. This is one of the best "CEO interviews" we've ever posted, with lots of straight answers and hardly any buzzwords or marketspeak. Lots of good insight about the "business of Linux" here.

There has been lots of press and discussion, both positive and negative, about the new UnitedLinux combine formed by Caldera, SuSE, Conectiva, and TurboLinux. Caldera CEO Ransom Love ought to know more about UnitedLinux's goals and possibilities than just about anyone else in the world. This is your chance to ask him what's up with all of this. One question per post, please. We'll run Love's answers to 10 of the highest moderated questions as soon as he gets them back to us.

tit4tat writes: "Caldera chief executive Ransom Love confessed to ZDNet UK that "[Caldera is] not moving Open Unix [i.e., the former SCO Unix] onto Intel's 64-bit platform...." I suspected that Caldera bought SCO just to kill SCO Unix, even though they denied it at the time. Now, the first Unix I ever knew is about to be no more. "

pstreck writes "Red Hat watch out! Caldera, Conectiva, SuSE and Turbolinux have made good on their promise and United Linux is here! According to their website 'United Linux is a standards-based Linux operating system targeted at the business user. It is developed, marketed and sold by an experienced partnership of Linux companies.'" I just don't get it I guess, it just seems like there are already so many standards.