SCO tries to revoke IBM's unix license

[invaliduser88]

http://news.com.com/2100-1016_3-1017719.html?tag=fd_lede2_hed

The best line has to be.

SCO said that the termination of the AIX license means that all IBM Unix customers also have no license to use the software. "This termination not only applies to new business by IBM, but also existing copies of AIX that are installed at all customer sites. All of it has to be destroyed," Sontag said.

So you have an AIX system out there, it is your duty to take a sledgehammer to it immediately.

[firephoto]

And IBM responds with a laugh. :lol:
http://newsforge.com/newsforge/03/06/16/2232255.shtml?tid=5

June 16, 2003, Armonk, NY.... Since filing a lawsuit against IBM, SCO has made public statements and accusations about IBM's Unix license and about Linux in an apparent attempt to create fear uncertainty and doubt among IBM's customers and the open source community.

IBM's Unix license is irrevocable, perpetual and fully paid up. It cannot be terminated. This matter will eventually be resolved in the normal legal process.

IBM will continue to ship, support and develop AIX which represents years of IBM innovation, hundreds of millions of dollars of investment and many patents. As always, IBM will stand behind our products and our customers.

# # #

Trink Guarino
Director, IBM Media Relations

As someone on slashdot said....... IBM has more lawyers than SCO has employees. :)

My thoughts on this whole SCO thing is that Microsoft is pulling the strings on the SCO puppet in an attempt to squash, or at least slow linux down a bit while SCO tries to get bought up so the executives make a quick buck and get out of Dodge on their horse before they get shot.

[Mike123abc]

As someone who worked on AIX before it was released, I can tell you that a lot of what was said in the article was inaccurate. JFS came from the 801 project from Yorktown, NY. JFS was a strict IBM invention, and we had quite a time fitting it into UNIX. The original gal that did the port the C code looked like early Fortran. I did the NFS port to AIX (NFS of course came from Sun, again not SCO/ATT) which had to access the underlying JFS code.

Also having worked on UNIX kernels, there was no multiprocessor support from ATT (later SCO). It was all done by the companies doing the porting. Sequent and Encore did the early work on parallel threading the kernel. It was most definitely not Unix technology (I worked at Encore prior to my time at IBM).

Of course these are highly technical things, and given an army of lawyers that have no idea what a JFS is from an NFS, where things actually came from will probably never come up in court.

[marko]

That's sort of cool you worked on AIX before it was released. I have always preferred AIX to the other unix flavors. Maybe it is because of that wonderful tool smit, that made system management easy for the people who didn't really know all the exact commands.

As far as the lawsuite goes.... yeah, don't think they SCO will have much luck.... with the lawsuit or somebody buying SCO.

[gcutler]

Ok, which versions of UNIX are still around. I remember in the mid 90s there were 4 big versions of unix that the consulting company I worked for pushed.

IBM AIX
SCO Unix
HP-UX
Sun Solaris

I know Solaris is still around and only was reminded of AIX and SCO because of the article. DOesn't IBM push Redhat Linux instead of AIX, or is that for a different set of servers???

[marko]

IBM pushes linux everywhere. From Intel PC, to powerpc based machines (AIX/AS/400), to Z-series mainframes, and I'd imagine linux on that new Intel chip soon.

But IBM still pushes AIX too. Although I will say, linux keeps getting better and better, and before time there probably won't be a need for IBM to conitinue pushing AIX.

[gcutler]

Originally posted by marko
But IBM still pushes AIX too. Although I will say, linux keeps getting better and better, and before time there probably won't be a need for IBM to conitinue pushing AIX.

Normally I would say it is an ego thing to keep such a longtime product alive (like how Lotus kept on pushing 1-2-3 into the late 90s, more out of old times than any profit). But IBM drops support for products on a whim, so those DieHard AIX users are probably not shocked by it if they did have to go with AIX unsupported :D

[invaliduser88]

HP-UX & Compaq True64 Unix formally known as Digital Unix, formally known as OSF1.

And, don't tell SCO, Linux...