[plug] Microsost Lisencing Unix from SCO?!

[Peter Weatherall]

mark wrote:

>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Craig Ringer" <craig at postnewspapers.com.au>
>To: <plug at plug.linux.org.au>
>Sent: Monday, May 19, 2003 10:20 AM
>Subject: Re: [plug] Microsost Lisencing Unix from SCO?!
>
>
>  
>
>>>Just stumbled across this.  Looks like some people's theories were
>>>      
>>>
>right.
>  
>
>>>http://news.com.com/2100-1016_3-1007528.html
>>>      
>>>
>>All that looks like is an effort by MS to avoid being sued over
>>"Services for UNIX" and similar products. Quite frankly, I thought they
>>already held the appropriate licenses.
>>
>>If they show signs of buying SCO, that's when to get concerned.
>>
>>Craig
>>
>>
>>    
>>
>I think one can say it is a safe bet that MS was the catalyst for this from
>the start, or at least many people have suspected it!  After all Linux is a
>desktop/server rival that can be done without.
>
>On a more personal note:
>
>I am MS I am the Borg, you will be assimilated.
>
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>  
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Craig 's interpretation seems closser to what you can deduce from that 
article . The crucial paragraph is
"Late Sunday, Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith said acquiring the 
license from SCO "is representative of Microsoft's ongoing commitment to 
respecting intellectual property and the IT community's healthy exchange 
of IP through licensing. This helps to ensure IP compliance across 
Microsoft solutions and supports our efforts around existing products 
like services for Unix that further Unix interoperability."
Note that he is talking about  Microsoft Windows - Unix interoperability 
tools
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/sfu/default.asp
Microsoft advertise the following which is probably what SCO are 
claiming are their IP.
*Source code for SFU 3.0/Interix Utilities*           
CD containing the source code for the SFU 3.0 base utilities: diff, 
sdiff, bc, dc, cpio, gzip, gunzip, gawk, patch, csplit, nl, strings, 
rpm, and SDK utilities/libraries ld.so, gcc, gdb, g++, g77, gasp, 
objcopy, ld, as, ar, nm, size, strip, ci, co, diff3 rcs, rlog, and ident.

Regards