SCO Extortion

[Gavin M. Roy]

I'm currently one of the targets of SCO's linux licensing extortion
business plan, and am contemplating switching to one of the BSD's to
avoid any potential problems. I'm curious which BSD people prefer for
large scale databases and why. Any pointers as to which I should test out?

Thanks,

Gavin
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[Marc G. Fournier]

On Tue, 20 Jan 2004, Gavin M. Roy wrote:

I'm currently one of the targets of SCO's linux licensing extortion
business plan, and am contemplating switching to one of the BSD's to
avoid any potential problems. I'm curious which BSD people prefer for
large scale databases and why. Any pointers as to which I should test out?

for the longest time, the BSDs have been split as:

FreeBSD - i386 rock solid
NetBSD - work on as many platforms as possible
OpenBSD - be as secure as possible

There is alot of code sharing between them all though, so, IMHO, alot of
it is personal preferences ... I've been using FreeBSD since '95, and
other then having a habit of finding (and, usually pushing) its limits,
I've been most happy with it ...
----
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[Larry Rosenman]

--On Tuesday, January 20, 2004 14:06:35 -0800 "Gavin M. Roy" <gm*@ehpg.net>
wrote:

I'm currently one of the targets of SCO's linux licensing extortion
business plan, and am contemplating switching to one of the BSD's to
avoid any potential problems. I'm curious which BSD people prefer for
large scale databases and why. Any pointers as to which I should test
out? I like FreeBSD. It's PORTS system is WONDERFUL!

LER

Thanks,

Gavin
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--
Larry Rosenman http://www.lerctr.org/~ler
Phone: [phone] E-Mail: le*@lerctr.org
US Mail: 1905 Steamboat Springs Drive, Garland, TX 75044-6749

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[Gavin M. Roy]

Thanks for the feedback thus far. I should also mention I use freebsd
for other stuff, but I am mainly asking in peoples experience, which is
the best for PostgreSQL to live on specifically. In terms of a nice smp
high end scsi system. Sorry for the lack of specifics on that before.

Gavin
Marc G. Fournier wrote:

On Tue, 20 Jan 2004, Gavin M. Roy wrote:

I'm currently one of the targets of SCO's linux licensing extortion
business plan, and am contemplating switching to one of the BSD's to
avoid any potential problems. I'm curious which BSD people prefer for
large scale databases and why. Any pointers as to which I should test out?

for the longest time, the BSDs have been split as:

FreeBSD - i386 rock solid
NetBSD - work on as many platforms as possible
OpenBSD - be as secure as possible

There is alot of code sharing between them all though, so, IMHO, alot of
it is personal preferences ... I've been using FreeBSD since '95, and
other then having a habit of finding (and, usually pushing) its limits,
I've been most happy with it ...
----
Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: sc*****@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664

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[Stephen Robert Norris]

On Wed, 2004-01-21 at 11:55, Marc G. Fournier wrote:

On Tue, 20 Jan 2004, Gavin M. Roy wrote:

I'm currently one of the targets of SCO's linux licensing extortion
business plan, and am contemplating switching to one of the BSD's to
avoid any potential problems. I'm curious which BSD people prefer for
large scale databases and why. Any pointers as to which I should test out?

for the longest time, the BSDs have been split as:

FreeBSD - i386 rock solid
NetBSD - work on as many platforms as possible
OpenBSD - be as secure as possible

There is alot of code sharing between them all though, so, IMHO, alot of
it is personal preferences ... I've been using FreeBSD since '95, and
other then having a habit of finding (and, usually pushing) its limits,
I've been most happy with it ...


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Of course SCO is planning to sue the BSD users, too, so it's not really
a solution.

Just ignore them :)

Stephen

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[Marc G. Fournier]

On Wed, 21 Jan 2004, Stephen Robert Norris wrote:

Of course SCO is planning to sue the BSD users, too, so it's not really
a solution.

We figure that SCO will either be bought out, or go bankrupt, before we
have to worry about them :)

----
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Email: sc*****@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664

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[Jim Mercer]

On Tue, Jan 20, 2004 at 06:16:46PM -0800, Gavin M. Roy wrote:

Thanks for the feedback thus far. I should also mention I use freebsd
for other stuff, but I am mainly asking in peoples experience, which is
the best for PostgreSQL to live on specifically. In terms of a nice smp
high end scsi system. Sorry for the lack of specifics on that before.
i've built several billing systems for long distance companies using pgsql
on FreeBSD since '97. i've found them to be quite stable and robust,
including uniprocessor and SMP, using raw big disks, hardware RAID, and also
the incumbent vinum software RAID.

i've found upgrading the core OS, as well as upgrading pgsql and other apps,
to be fairly clean and troublefree.

Gavin
Marc G. Fournier wrote:

On Tue, 20 Jan 2004, Gavin M. Roy wrote:

I'm currently one of the targets of SCO's linux licensing extortion
business plan, and am contemplating switching to one of the BSD's to
avoid any potential problems. I'm curious which BSD people prefer for
large scale databases and why. Any pointers as to which I should test
out?

for the longest time, the BSDs have been split as:

FreeBSD - i386 rock solid
NetBSD - work on as many platforms as possible
OpenBSD - be as secure as possible

There is alot of code sharing between them all though, so, IMHO, alot of
it is personal preferences ... I've been using FreeBSD since '95, and
other then having a habit of finding (and, usually pushing) its limits,
I've been most happy with it ...
----
Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: sc*****@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664

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--
[ Jim Mercer ji*@reptiles.org [phone] ]
[ I want to live forever, or die trying. ]

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[Marc G. Fournier]

On Tue, 20 Jan 2004, Gavin M. Roy wrote:

Thanks for the feedback thus far. I should also mention I use freebsd
for other stuff, but I am mainly asking in peoples experience, which is
the best for PostgreSQL to live on specifically. In terms of a nice smp
high end scsi system. Sorry for the lack of specifics on that before.

Again, its pretty much a personal opinion ... we use FreeBSD for all our
PgSQL work, and have several clients that are doing so also, and have
been most happy with it ..

Again, you have to consider that with the code-sharing that happens,
drivers and such tend to be very similar, if not identical ...

----
Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: sc*****@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664

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[Chris]

Thanks for the feedback thus far. I should also mention I use freebsd

for other stuff, but I am mainly asking in peoples experience, which is
the best for PostgreSQL to live on specifically. In terms of a nice smp
high end scsi system. Sorry for the lack of specifics on that before.

Fact: OpenBSD is not ready for SMP systems (yet). That leaves you with 2
choices left (Free- and Net-).

Opinion: I'd go with FreeBSD because I'd expect better performance and
more help available from other people (since it's more common).

Bye, Chris.


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TIP 8: explain analyze is your friend

[Paul Thomas]

On 21/01/2004 04:21 Marc G. Fournier wrote:

On Wed, 21 Jan 2004, Stephen Robert Norris wrote:

Of course SCO is planning to sue the BSD users, too, so it's not really
a solution.

We figure that SCO will either be bought out, or go bankrupt, before we
have to worry about them :)

If they tried their scam on me, I'd report them to the police. There are
laws against that sort of thing in the UK. By a strange coincidence, SCO
don't have an office this country...

--
Paul Thomas
+------------------------------+---------------------------------------------+
| Thomas Micro Systems Limited | Software Solutions for the Smaller
Business |
| Computer Consultants |
http://www.thomas-micro-systems-ltd.co.uk |
+------------------------------+---------------------------------------------+

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[Bill Moran]

Jim Mercer wrote:

On Tue, Jan 20, 2004 at 06:16:46PM -0800, Gavin M. Roy wrote:

Thanks for the feedback thus far. I should also mention I use freebsd
for other stuff, but I am mainly asking in peoples experience, which is
the best for PostgreSQL to live on specifically. In terms of a nice smp
high end scsi system. Sorry for the lack of specifics on that before.

i've built several billing systems for long distance companies using pgsql
on FreeBSD since '97. i've found them to be quite stable and robust,
including uniprocessor and SMP, using raw big disks, hardware RAID, and also
the incumbent vinum software RAID.

i've found upgrading the core OS, as well as upgrading pgsql and other apps,
to be fairly clean and troublefree.

Since this is a "me too" kinda thread, I'll just say "me too".

Not nearly as long a history, only been working with PostgreSQL for about 2
years, but I've been relying on FreeBSD since 98/99, and it's never let me
down.

Not saying that NetBSD and OpenBSD aren't great systems as well, I just
started with FreeBSD, and I've never had need for anything else.

Gavin
Marc G. Fournier wrote:

On Tue, 20 Jan 2004, Gavin M. Roy wrote:


I'm currently one of the targets of SCO's linux licensing extortion
business plan, and am contemplating switching to one of the BSD's to
avoid any potential problems. I'm curious which BSD people prefer for
large scale databases and why. Any pointers as to which I should test
out?

for the longest time, the BSDs have been split as:

FreeBSD - i386 rock solid
NetBSD - work on as many platforms as possible
OpenBSD - be as secure as possible

There is alot of code sharing between them all though, so, IMHO, alot of
it is personal preferences ... I've been using FreeBSD since '95, and
other then having a habit of finding (and, usually pushing) its limits,
I've been most happy with it ...

--
Bill Moran
Potential Technologies
http://www.potentialtech.com
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[Joshua D. Drake]

Moreover, what should prevent the SCO scumbags from molesting *BSD
users if they would succeed in destroying Linux?

There might be technical reasons to move from Linux to *BSD, but the
SCO amok run should not be a reason to do so.
I agree with this. SCO has really done nothing but prove that Linux is a
threat to many companies
business model. They are in a loosing fight with IBM, RedHat and Novell.
If you read Groklaw
or just research their claims (claiming copyright on code that Linus
wrote himself), you will see
that it is a wild goose chase.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

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[Christopher Browne]

[e-mail] ("Joshua D. Drake") writes:

Moreover, what should prevent the SCO scumbags from molesting *BSD
users if they would succeed in destroying Linux?

There might be technical reasons to move from Linux to *BSD, but the
SCO amok run should not be a reason to do so.

I agree with this. SCO has really done nothing but prove that Linux
is a threat to many companies business model.

Indeed.

If they were to successfully "address this threat," and users started
fleeing en masse to *BSD, the result would be that SCO would see that
*BSD threatens them in the very same way.

If Linux was vulnerable to the (thus far seemingly flimsy) legal
arguments that they have had thus far, I can't see why *BSD would NOT
be similarly vulnerable. "We survived AT&T in the '90s" is _not_ a
reasonable response when it looks as though the 'law' is now being
made up out of whole cloth.
--
(reverse (concatenate 'string "gro.gultn" "@" "enworbbc"))
http://www.ntlug.org/~cbbrowne/internet.html
:FATAL ERROR -- VECTOR OUT OF HILBERT SPACE

[Gavin M. Roy]

My problem is the threat from SCO is not from the bleachers so to speak,
but direct in writing :(
http://www.gavinroy.com/~gavinr/sco_threat.gif

Gavin

Harald Fuchs wrote:

In article <20*****************@ganymede.hub.org>,
"Marc G. Fournier" <sc*****@postgresql.org> writes:

On Tue, 20 Jan 2004, Gavin M. Roy wrote:

Thanks for the feedback thus far. I should also mention I use freebsd
for other stuff, but I am mainly asking in peoples experience, which is
the best for PostgreSQL to live on specifically. In terms of a nice smp
high end scsi system. Sorry for the lack of specifics on that before.

Again, its pretty much a personal opinion ... we use FreeBSD for all our
PgSQL work, and have several clients that are doing so also, and have
been most happy with it ..

Again, you have to consider that with the code-sharing that happens,
drivers and such tend to be very similar, if not identical ...

Moreover, what should prevent the SCO scumbags from molesting *BSD
users if they would succeed in destroying Linux?

There might be technical reasons to move from Linux to *BSD, but the
SCO amok run should not be a reason to do so.
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[scott.marlowe]

They have no case on this. The abi files were written by Linus Torvalds
himself, not SCO.

tell them to show you the EXACT lines in the abi that are theirs. If they
can't produce it, tell them to bugger off. If they do take you to court,
a first year clerk could tear them apart with no preparation whatsoever.

On Wed, 21 Jan 2004, Gavin M. Roy wrote:

My problem is the threat from SCO is not from the bleachers so to speak,
but direct in writing :(
http://www.gavinroy.com/~gavinr/sco_threat.gif

Gavin

Harald Fuchs wrote:

In article <20*****************@ganymede.hub.org>,
"Marc G. Fournier" <sc*****@postgresql.org> writes:

On Tue, 20 Jan 2004, Gavin M. Roy wrote:
Thanks for the feedback thus far. I should also mention I use freebsd
for other stuff, but I am mainly asking in peoples experience, which is
the best for PostgreSQL to live on specifically. In terms of a nice smp
high end scsi system. Sorry for the lack of specifics on that before.

Again, its pretty much a personal opinion ... we use FreeBSD for all our
PgSQL work, and have several clients that are doing so also, and have
been most happy with it ..

Again, you have to consider that with the code-sharing that happens,
drivers and such tend to be very similar, if not identical ...

Moreover, what should prevent the SCO scumbags from molesting *BSD
users if they would succeed in destroying Linux?

There might be technical reasons to move from Linux to *BSD, but the
SCO amok run should not be a reason to do so.
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[Adam Ruth]

My $.02.

I've been following the SCO case very closely since the beginning (I
live about 10 miles from SCO headquarters, used to work for Novell, and
am a big user of Linux and other OSS). My advice would be to wait
before making any moves, here's why:

1) SCO has yet to prove anything.
2) SCO has also threatened to go after BSD, so if SCO wins (and that's
a real big IF), BSD is no safe harbor.
3) SCO and Novell are currently in dispute over ownership of the
copyrights in question in the letter you received (SCO sued Novell over
just that issue yesterday). They cannot sue anyone until that lawsuit
is finished, which could take years (okay, they COULD sue, but most
likely, it would be postponed until the ownership of the copyrights is
cleared up).
4) Even if they do win, the infringing code can be removed, and they
can't really sue anyone for running code prior to them telling you what
it is (contrary to their public statements). And do you really think
those 5 header files constitutes $699 in damages per processor?
5) Your company is only one of 1000 that received that letter. There
must be more lucrative companies for them to go after first (companies
with HUGE linux deployments, such as Google). Not to mention that
there threatening many more companies outside that 1000 overseas.
6) Even if you are sued, there are over $4 million of legal defense
funds currently in existence to help fight such a battle. If you did
happen to be first sued, then the Linux community (including Novell,
Red Hat, and IBM) and all that money would rally to your side to make
an example of SCO.

Certainly look into all of your options, I mean, after all, you may
research and want to go to BSD on its own merits! IANAL, so take my
statements as such, but I wouldn't spend too much time on it at LEAST
until the Novell lawsuit gets moving and you know more where the chips
will fall.

Adam Ruth

On Jan 21, 2004, at 11:28 AM, Gavin M. Roy wrote:

My problem is the threat from SCO is not from the bleachers so to
speak, but direct in writing :(
http://www.gavinroy.com/~gavinr/sco_threat.gif

Gavin

Harald Fuchs wrote:

In article <20*****************@ganymede.hub.org>,
"Marc G. Fournier" <sc*****@postgresql.org> writes:

On Tue, 20 Jan 2004, Gavin M. Roy wrote:

Thanks for the feedback thus far. I should also mention I use
freebsd
for other stuff, but I am mainly asking in peoples experience,
which is
the best for PostgreSQL to live on specifically. In terms of a
nice smp
high end scsi system. Sorry for the lack of specifics on that
before.

Again, its pretty much a personal opinion ... we use FreeBSD for all
our
PgSQL work, and have several clients that are doing so also, and have
been most happy with it ..

Again, you have to consider that with the code-sharing that happens,
drivers and such tend to be very similar, if not identical ...

Moreover, what should prevent the SCO scumbags from molesting *BSD
users if they would succeed in destroying Linux?

There might be technical reasons to move from Linux to *BSD, but the
SCO amok run should not be a reason to do so.
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[Larry Rosenman]

--On Wednesday, January 21, 2004 13:38:10 -0700 "scott.marlowe"
<sc***********@ihs.com> wrote:

They have no case on this. The abi files were written by Linus Torvalds
himself, not SCO.

tell them to show you the EXACT lines in the abi that are theirs. If
they can't produce it, tell them to bugger off. If they do take you to
court, a first year clerk could tear them apart with no preparation
whatsoever.

AND, read http://www.groklaw.net/ for some ongoing commentary on what's
going on.

LER

--
Larry Rosenman http://www.lerctr.org/~ler
Phone: [phone] E-Mail: le*@lerctr.org
US Mail: 1905 Steamboat Springs Drive, Garland, TX 75044-6749

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[Alex Satrapa]

Gavin M. Roy wrote:

My problem is the threat from SCO is not from the bleachers so to speak,
but direct in writing :(
http://www.gavinroy.com/~gavinr/sco_threat.gif

That's a threat that SCO will take illegal action against you.

It's the same as Luigi from The Family calling by to remind you that if
you don't pay the insurance premium, bad things could happen to your
office or your person.

Ask them to detail:
- The infringing code (and exactly how it infringes)
- The ancestry of the code (where they got theirs from)
- The licence that they expect you to sign (and note that
their licence does not stop them from suing you further
for using Linux, nor does it stop anyone else from suing
you for using code that they've licenced to you)
- The terms and conditions that accompany the licence
- Their support policy
- Their upgrade policy

Make sure all the documentation is signed. That makes it easier to whack
them with it if they take you to court.

Check out these names in relation to the SCO case: Linus Torvalds and
Eben Moglen. No doubt Eric Scott Raymond has made some comment on it.
And as everyone else has stated, catch up with the latest at Groklaw.

In the meantime, treat the SCO complaint as seriously as you'd treat a
drunk cop who's just pulled you over and is trying to charge you with
posession of drugs. He has no case, you just have to survive the
immediate encounter. Don't sign anything, don't hand over any money,
make no representation that you intend to agree with their demands, just
keep them talking until you have enough evidence to hurt them with.

Especially don't sign or pay for any "licence", since SCO is going to
use the money and the fact as leverage (especially in court!) to get
other, bigger companies to cave in to their demands.
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[Marc G. Fournier]

you should invite him in to talk, and let him know that you are
investigating drop'ng Linux altogether and are curious as to what
SCO/UnixServer could offer ... basically, tell him you are looking at
options, and take up his time on 'the sales pitch' :)

On Wed, 21 Jan 2004, Gavin M. Roy wrote:

My problem is the threat from SCO is not from the bleachers so to speak,
but direct in writing :(
http://www.gavinroy.com/~gavinr/sco_threat.gif

Gavin

Harald Fuchs wrote:

In article <20*****************@ganymede.hub.org>,
"Marc G. Fournier" <sc*****@postgresql.org> writes:

On Tue, 20 Jan 2004, Gavin M. Roy wrote:
Thanks for the feedback thus far. I should also mention I use freebsd
for other stuff, but I am mainly asking in peoples experience, which is
the best for PostgreSQL to live on specifically. In terms of a nice smp
high end scsi system. Sorry for the lack of specifics on that before.

Again, its pretty much a personal opinion ... we use FreeBSD for all our
PgSQL work, and have several clients that are doing so also, and have
been most happy with it ..

Again, you have to consider that with the code-sharing that happens,
drivers and such tend to be very similar, if not identical ...

Moreover, what should prevent the SCO scumbags from molesting *BSD
users if they would succeed in destroying Linux?

There might be technical reasons to move from Linux to *BSD, but the
SCO amok run should not be a reason to do so.
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[Joshua D. Drake]

Marc G. Fournier wrote:

you should invite him in to talk, and let him know that you are
investigating drop'ng Linux altogether and are curious as to what
SCO/UnixServer could offer ... basically, tell him you are looking at
options, and take up his time on 'the sales pitch' :)

But before you do this, rent a temporary office in the worst part of
town, and put up a bunch
of Voodoo relics. When he comes in, make your first question:

Are you enlightened?

;)
On Wed, 21 Jan 2004, Gavin M. Roy wrote:

My problem is the threat from SCO is not from the bleachers so to speak,
but direct in writing :(
http://www.gavinroy.com/~gavinr/sco_threat.gif

Gavin

Harald Fuchs wrote:

In article <20*****************@ganymede.hub.org>,
"Marc G. Fournier" <sc*****@postgresql.org> writes:

On Tue, 20 Jan 2004, Gavin M. Roy wrote:


>Thanks for the feedback thus far. I should also mention I use freebsd
>for other stuff, but I am mainly asking in peoples experience, which is
>the best for PostgreSQL to live on specifically. In terms of a nice smp
>high end scsi system. Sorry for the lack of specifics on that before.
>
>
>
>

Again, its pretty much a personal opinion ... we use FreeBSD for all our
PgSQL work, and have several clients that are doing so also, and have
been most happy with it ..



Again, you have to consider that with the code-sharing that happens,
drivers and such tend to be very similar, if not identical ...


Moreover, what should prevent the SCO scumbags from molesting *BSD
users if they would succeed in destroying Linux?

There might be technical reasons to move from Linux to *BSD, but the
SCO amok run should not be a reason to do so.
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[Marc G. Fournier]

Oh, I like that added touch :)
On Wed, 21 Jan 2004, Joshua D. Drake wrote:

Marc G. Fournier wrote:

you should invite him in to talk, and let him know that you are
investigating drop'ng Linux altogether and are curious as to what
SCO/UnixServer could offer ... basically, tell him you are looking at
options, and take up his time on 'the sales pitch' :)

But before you do this, rent a temporary office in the worst part of
town, and put up a bunch
of Voodoo relics. When he comes in, make your first question:

Are you enlightened?

;)

On Wed, 21 Jan 2004, Gavin M. Roy wrote:

My problem is the threat from SCO is not from the bleachers so to speak,
but direct in writing :(
http://www.gavinroy.com/~gavinr/sco_threat.gif

Gavin

Harald Fuchs wrote:

In article <20*****************@ganymede.hub.org>,
"Marc G. Fournier" <sc*****@postgresql.org> writes:

>On Tue, 20 Jan 2004, Gavin M. Roy wrote:
>
>
>
>
>>Thanks for the feedback thus far. I should also mention I use freebsd
>>for other stuff, but I am mainly asking in peoples experience, which is
>>the best for PostgreSQL to live on specifically. In terms of a nice smp
>>high end scsi system. Sorry for the lack of specifics on that before.
>>
>>
>>
>>

>Again, its pretty much a personal opinion ... we use FreeBSD for all our
>PgSQL work, and have several clients that are doing so also, and have
>been most happy with it ..
>
>
>
>

>Again, you have to consider that with the code-sharing that happens,
>drivers and such tend to be very similar, if not identical ...
>
>
>
>
Moreover, what should prevent the SCO scumbags from molesting *BSD
users if they would succeed in destroying Linux?

There might be technical reasons to move from Linux to *BSD, but the
SCO amok run should not be a reason to do so.
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[Gavin M. Roy]

Here is a copy of the letter which I've sent out today:

http://www.gavinroy.com/~gavinr/SCO%20Response.pdf

We'll see their response and act accordingly. Thanks for all the
feedback everyone.

Gavin

Alex Satrapa wrote:

Gavin M. Roy wrote:

My problem is the threat from SCO is not from the bleachers so to
speak, but direct in writing :(
http://www.gavinroy.com/~gavinr/sco_threat.gif

That's a threat that SCO will take illegal action against you.

It's the same as Luigi from The Family calling by to remind you that
if you don't pay the insurance premium, bad things could happen to
your office or your person.

Ask them to detail:
- The infringing code (and exactly how it infringes)
- The ancestry of the code (where they got theirs from)
- The licence that they expect you to sign (and note that
their licence does not stop them from suing you further
for using Linux, nor does it stop anyone else from suing
you for using code that they've licenced to you)
- The terms and conditions that accompany the licence
- Their support policy
- Their upgrade policy

Make sure all the documentation is signed. That makes it easier to
whack them with it if they take you to court.

Check out these names in relation to the SCO case: Linus Torvalds and
Eben Moglen. No doubt Eric Scott Raymond has made some comment on it.
And as everyone else has stated, catch up with the latest at Groklaw.

In the meantime, treat the SCO complaint as seriously as you'd treat a
drunk cop who's just pulled you over and is trying to charge you with
posession of drugs. He has no case, you just have to survive the
immediate encounter. Don't sign anything, don't hand over any money,
make no representation that you intend to agree with their demands,
just keep them talking until you have enough evidence to hurt them with.

Especially don't sign or pay for any "licence", since SCO is going to
use the money and the fact as leverage (especially in court!) to get
other, bigger companies to cave in to their demands.
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[Adam Ruth]

Excellent response!

On Jan 21, 2004, at 3:50 PM, Gavin M. Roy wrote:

Here is a copy of the letter which I've sent out today:

http://www.gavinroy.com/~gavinr/SCO%20Response.pdf

We'll see their response and act accordingly. Thanks for all the
feedback everyone.

Gavin

Alex Satrapa wrote:

Gavin M. Roy wrote:

My problem is the threat from SCO is not from the bleachers so to
speak, but direct in writing :(
http://www.gavinroy.com/~gavinr/sco_threat.gif

That's a threat that SCO will take illegal action against you.

It's the same as Luigi from The Family calling by to remind you that
if you don't pay the insurance premium, bad things could happen to
your office or your person.

Ask them to detail:
- The infringing code (and exactly how it infringes)
- The ancestry of the code (where they got theirs from)
- The licence that they expect you to sign (and note that
their licence does not stop them from suing you further
for using Linux, nor does it stop anyone else from suing
you for using code that they've licenced to you)
- The terms and conditions that accompany the licence
- Their support policy
- Their upgrade policy

Make sure all the documentation is signed. That makes it easier to
whack them with it if they take you to court.

Check out these names in relation to the SCO case: Linus Torvalds and
Eben Moglen. No doubt Eric Scott Raymond has made some comment on it.
And as everyone else has stated, catch up with the latest at Groklaw.

In the meantime, treat the SCO complaint as seriously as you'd treat
a drunk cop who's just pulled you over and is trying to charge you
with posession of drugs. He has no case, you just have to survive the
immediate encounter. Don't sign anything, don't hand over any money,
make no representation that you intend to agree with their demands,
just keep them talking until you have enough evidence to hurt them
with.

Especially don't sign or pay for any "licence", since SCO is going to
use the money and the fact as leverage (especially in court!) to get
other, bigger companies to cave in to their demands.
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[Adam Ruth]

I've mentioned your predicament to the Yahoo SCO message board, and
some have asked to see the letter. Would you mind if I showed it (I
won't if you'd prefer I don't) Also, if you prefer, I can mirror it on
my server and post that link so as to not chew up your bandwidth.

Also, the same request goes for your response.

Thanks,

Adam Ruth

On Jan 21, 2004, at 11:28 AM, Gavin M. Roy wrote:

My problem is the threat from SCO is not from the bleachers so to
speak, but direct in writing :(
http://www.gavinroy.com/~gavinr/sco_threat.gif

Gavin

Harald Fuchs wrote:

In article <20*****************@ganymede.hub.org>,
"Marc G. Fournier" <sc*****@postgresql.org> writes:

On Tue, 20 Jan 2004, Gavin M. Roy wrote:

Thanks for the feedback thus far. I should also mention I use
freebsd
for other stuff, but I am mainly asking in peoples experience,
which is
the best for PostgreSQL to live on specifically. In terms of a
nice smp
high end scsi system. Sorry for the lack of specifics on that
before.

Again, its pretty much a personal opinion ... we use FreeBSD for all
our
PgSQL work, and have several clients that are doing so also, and have
been most happy with it ..

Again, you have to consider that with the code-sharing that happens,
drivers and such tend to be very similar, if not identical ...

Moreover, what should prevent the SCO scumbags from molesting *BSD
users if they would succeed in destroying Linux?

There might be technical reasons to move from Linux to *BSD, but the
SCO amok run should not be a reason to do so.
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[Gavin M. Roy]

Feel free to link away :)

Gavin

Adam Ruth wrote:

I've mentioned your predicament to the Yahoo SCO message board, and
some have asked to see the letter. Would you mind if I showed it (I
won't if you'd prefer I don't) Also, if you prefer, I can mirror it on
my server and post that link so as to not chew up your bandwidth.

Also, the same request goes for your response.

Thanks,

Adam Ruth

On Jan 21, 2004, at 11:28 AM, Gavin M. Roy wrote:

My problem is the threat from SCO is not from the bleachers so to
speak, but direct in writing :(
http://www.gavinroy.com/~gavinr/sco_threat.gif

Gavin

Harald Fuchs wrote:

In article <20*****************@ganymede.hub.org>,
"Marc G. Fournier" <sc*****@postgresql.org> writes:
On Tue, 20 Jan 2004, Gavin M. Roy wrote:

> Thanks for the feedback thus far. I should also mention I use
> freebsd
> for other stuff, but I am mainly asking in peoples experience,
> which is
> the best for PostgreSQL to live on specifically. In terms of a
> nice smp
> high end scsi system. Sorry for the lack of specifics on that
> before.
>
Again, its pretty much a personal opinion ... we use FreeBSD for
all our
PgSQL work, and have several clients that are doing so also, and have
been most happy with it ..

Again, you have to consider that with the code-sharing that happens,
drivers and such tend to be very similar, if not identical ...
Moreover, what should prevent the SCO scumbags from molesting *BSD
users if they would succeed in destroying Linux?

There might be technical reasons to move from Linux to *BSD, but the
SCO amok run should not be a reason to do so.
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[Alex Satrapa]

Gavin M. Roy wrote:

Feel free to link away :)

Gavin

Adam Ruth wrote:

...Also, if you prefer, I can mirror it on
my server and post that link so as to not chew up your bandwidth.

Just make sure you get someone to mirror it before it hits Slashdot.
That way it's someone else's server that gets turned to slag.

Alex Satrapa
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[Chris Travers]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Marc G. Fournier" <sc*****@postgresql.org>

We figure that SCO will either be bought out, or go bankrupt, before we
have to worry about them :)

Especially since they don't reply to licensing inquiries. I know, I sent
them a letter asking what sort of licensing I needed and under what basis I
needed it. I suspect they are trying not to pick on anyone who seems to
have a cl (half a clue).

IANAL, but you might want to read this before you respond and possibly
consult with a lawyer as well. This is an attempt to understand where SCO
is coming from, and might be helpful in further research.

I am not sure where SCO is coming from or where its influences are.
However, I have noticed a number of interesting issues which makes me think
that this is a major problem at SCO which goes back quite a ways.

I remember Ransom Love (former Caldera CEO) writing that the GPL was bad for
business. At the time Caldera was a has-been Linux distributor who was
facing declining sales in part because they had never embraced
redistributable distros and was being crowded out by RedHat and others.
Caldera at the time was trying to sell per seat licenses for its Linux
distro and justifying this by bundling it with proprietary development
tools. Love left Caldera after they acquired the OS division of Tarantella
(formerly SCO) and headed the UnitedLinux project for a while. Sometime
afterward, Caldera renamed itself as The SCO Group.

I am not sure that Love gets it when it comes to the GPL, but he has double
backed on many of the harsher statements he made while at Caldera, which
leaves me wondering whether there was heavy pressure from the Board of
Directors (and Canopy) to try to make it as a proprietary software company.
They utterly failed in this regard, and were actually facing a shareholder
lawsuit sometime before Love stepped down.

To my knowledge Caldera was never profitable despite being an early favorite
among Linux distributions. I suspect that when Caldera was formed, they
understood that "Business" was not yet comfortable with open source, and so
they sought to provide a Linux solution which provided many of the benefits
that businesses saw in proprietary software at the time. Unfortunately,
Caldera IMO made a business mistake which has cost them their leading
position and may yet cost them what they have left (albeit not much). This
mistake was buying DR DOS from Novell and immediately filing suit against
Microsoft for Sherman and Clayton act violations (anti-trust law).

The suit dragged on for nearly 5 years and was settled the week before it
was due to start in court for an undisclosed (but by all accounts
substantial) sum. In the mean time, the landscape had changed and Caldera
had become a dinosaur. Caldera and others had outmanuvered them by allowing
redistribution of ISO images of their distros, and Caldera was facing losing
market share. Caldera's response was to tighten their control over
redistribution of their software and attempt to license the software per
seat. This failed miserably. So Caldera (with part of their settlement
money) bought SCO (another failing product with a limited market). They
continued to try to unify development on SCO Unix and Linux, but this did
not attract many customers either (who were now understanding that open
source was in itself a business benefit because it allowed for greater
flexibility in implementation). Linux was here but Caldera was not really a
part of it. This was the timeframe which defined Love's comments regarding
the GPL.

Later, the IBM suit was filed, with RedHat countersuing, and SCO later suing
Novell as well over the dispute of the copyrights it needs in order to sue
anyone else over copyright infringement. Their current CEO, Darl McBride,
has characterized the strategy as a success not because SCO is selling more,
but because greater publicity has raised their their market cap (by raising
their stock price).

How a litigation strategy is successful at building a business if one is not
really selling many products is entirely beyond me unless this is a stock
game. SCO wants the world to think that they are going to be successful and
be able to sell a product (licenses to run Linux), and because Linux is big,
they will be big too.

They have also stated or implied that they might consider looking into
infringement in BSD, Windows, and OS X, and have issued statements that they
believe that all other operating systems are derivatives of their IP. In
other words, it doesn't matter what OS you are using unless it is theirs,
and even there if they lose their suit with Novell, there might be unforseen
consequences (such as a lack of support as The SCO Group goes out of
business).

The SCO cases (SCO vs. IBM, Red Hat vs. SCO, and SCO vs. Novell) are worth
following, but I am not worried yet.

Best Wishes,
Chris Travers
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[Uwe C. Schroeder]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
Actually that same letter is available at sco's website. The one at SCO only
has a list with all the "infringing" header files attached.
On Wednesday 21 January 2004 10:30 pm, Alex Satrapa wrote:

Gavin M. Roy wrote:

Feel free to link away :)

Gavin

Adam Ruth wrote:

...Also, if you prefer, I can mirror it on
my server and post that link so as to not chew up your bandwidth.

Just make sure you get someone to mirror it before it hits Slashdot.
That way it's someone else's server that gets turned to slag.

Alex Satrapa
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UC

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Cell: [phone] United States
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[Bruce Momjian]

Chris Travers wrote:

I am not sure where SCO is coming from or where its influences are.
However, I have noticed a number of interesting issues which makes me think
that this is a major problem at SCO which goes back quite a ways.

I remember Ransom Love (former Caldera CEO) writing that the GPL was bad for
business. At the time Caldera was a has-been Linux distributor who was
facing declining sales in part because they had never embraced
redistributable distros and was being crowded out by RedHat and others.
Caldera at the time was trying to sell per seat licenses for its Linux
distro and justifying this by bundling it with proprietary development
tools. Love left Caldera after they acquired the OS division of Tarantella
(formerly SCO) and headed the UnitedLinux project for a while. Sometime
afterward, Caldera renamed itself as The SCO Group.

I am not sure you can call Love wrong in his GPL comments. Isn't this
what Red Hat is moving to with their Enterprise release? I don't think
that is distributable. You can have the source and compile your own,
but I don't think you can distribute the Red Hat binaries anymore. Is
that correct?

--
Bruce Momjian | http://candle.pha.pa.us
pg***@candle.pha.pa.us | [phone]
+ If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road
+ Christ can be your backup. | Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073

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[Chris Travers]

RedHat Enterprise IS redistributable, and there are third party distros
based on it. However there is one major gotcha:

The contract for the enterprise services for RHEL state that every copy of
RedHat Enterprise Linux in an organization MUST be signed up for the
enterprise services if any one copy is. This means that an organization
does lose the install flexibility that open source normally gives, though
they still can run Fedora on other systems where they do not need these
services.

From RedHat's perspective, this avoids a shell game of support "This server
gets the services this week but this other server got the support last week.
So we only need one subscription." Again, RHEL's licenses are not
"licenses" but rather service contracts.

Best Wishes,
Chris Travers

IANAL, but I have checked with them in the past over this issue.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bruce Momjian" <pg***@candle.pha.pa.us>
To: "Chris Travers" <ch***@travelamericas.com>
Cc: <pg***********@postgresql.org>
Sent: Sunday, January 25, 2004 12:55 PM
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] OT: SCO Extortion

Chris Travers wrote:

I am not sure where SCO is coming from or where its influences are.
However, I have noticed a number of interesting issues which makes me think that this is a major problem at SCO which goes back quite a ways.

I remember Ransom Love (former Caldera CEO) writing that the GPL was bad for business. At the time Caldera was a has-been Linux distributor who was
facing declining sales in part because they had never embraced
redistributable distros and was being crowded out by RedHat and others.
Caldera at the time was trying to sell per seat licenses for its Linux
distro and justifying this by bundling it with proprietary development
tools. Love left Caldera after they acquired the OS division of Tarantella (formerly SCO) and headed the UnitedLinux project for a while. Sometime
afterward, Caldera renamed itself as The SCO Group.
I am not sure you can call Love wrong in his GPL comments. Isn't this
what Red Hat is moving to with their Enterprise release? I don't think
that is distributable. You can have the source and compile your own,
but I don't think you can distribute the Red Hat binaries anymore. Is
that correct?

--
Bruce Momjian | http://candle.pha.pa.us
pg***@candle.pha.pa.us | [phone]
+ If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road
+ Christ can be your backup. | Newtown Square, Pennsylvania

19073

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[Chris Travers]

I should add that what Red Hat is doing with RHEL is very intelligent. They
recognize that they are selling services based on freely available software,
so they cleverly write a contract where they charge a per-seat license for
the services. The software is still Free in all senses of the word, but if
you don't get it from Red Hat you can't get the services. Also if you don't
get the services on ALL your RHEL systems you can't get them on ANY.

So, Red Hat is charging per seat but it is for the services, not the
software per se. It is fairly similar, but unlike proprietary subscription
programs (MSDN, for example) you don't lose your right to use the software
when your subscription expires.

Best Wishes,
Chris Travers
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[Richard Welty]

On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 17:36:33 +0700 Chris Travers <ch***@travelamericas.com> wrote:

So, Red Hat is charging per seat but it is for the services, not the
software per se.

and the support is really pretty expensive, the cost of filling those seats in
the call center with tolerably well trained staff is pretty significant.

so basically, what they've done is directly tied a revenue stream to
the associated expenses. it makes a lot of business sense.

we do want businesses that try to support open source to stay in
business, i should think.

richard
--
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Averill Park Networking 518-573-7592
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[Jim Wilson]

Richard Welty <rw****@averillpark.net> said:

On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 17:36:33 +0700 Chris Travers <ch***@travelamericas.com> wrote:

So, Red Hat is charging per seat but it is for the services, not the
software per se.

and the support is really pretty expensive, the cost of filling those seats in
the call center with tolerably well trained staff is pretty significant.

so basically, what they've done is directly tied a revenue stream to
the associated expenses. it makes a lot of business sense.

we do want businesses that try to support open source to stay in
business, i should think.

Yes but the philosophy behind RHEL support is precariously close to that of
the gatesist shrink wrap model. It is about getting paid for nothing (or to
buy the right to use an IP which is the cumulative skill of the phone staff?).
Per incident charges with hourly rates past a time limit would make more
sense. A support provider could hedge their overhead against variations in
call volume by negotiating flat rate contracts with large users, based on
faster response times and discounted hourly rates.

The RHEL strategy pushes the limits of the intented flexibility built into GPL
for distribution and added value costs, especially in the way it extorts the
user into the all or nothing deal. Does this mean that if you use White Box
on one server you void the whole contract?

The whole RHEL concept is doomed to failure anyway. The main thing that Red
Hat has had going for it was support from the closed source vendors. As those
applications are replaced with opensource alternatives and as more closed
source applications vendors support running their applications on other
distributions, Red Hat's value will erode. It already has somewhat. There
was once a time that many of the oss projects would release redhat binary rpms
for the last few RH versions on or near the first day of a new source release.
Not any more.

Best regards,

Jim Wilson
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[Chris Travers]

This is still marginally on-topic because it does have to do with PostgreSQL
and competitive issues with proprietary RDBMS ;-)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Wilson" <ji**@kelcomaine.com>

Yes but the philosophy behind RHEL support is precariously close to that of the gatesist shrink wrap model. It is about getting paid for nothing (or to buy the right to use an IP which is the cumulative skill of the phone staff?).

Not necessarily. You have to understand that there are several markets for
services. RedHat is targetting the enterprise mission-critical market where
service-level agreements etc. are important. From RedHat's perspective, it
is important that they don't get cheated in a support shell-game.

Red Hat has, for the time being at least (I hear rumors that this will be
changing) abandoned the SOHO (Small Office/Home Office) and SMB (Small to
Midsize Business) market, where support fees are much more of an issue than
the interruption of business. They are doing this because this is a market
that they can penetrate that will give them the best return for their money.
Per incident charges with hourly rates past a time limit would make more
sense. A support provider could hedge their overhead against variations in call volume by negotiating flat rate contracts with large users, based on
faster response times and discounted hourly rates.
Sure. And for some businesses, this is what they will want to do. For
others, RHEL is a good solution. This is likely to be more prevalent, IMO,
in the SMB market.
The RHEL strategy pushes the limits of the intented flexibility built into GPL for distribution and added value costs, especially in the way it extorts the user into the all or nothing deal. Does this mean that if you use White Box on one server you void the whole contract?
This is a very valid critique of RHEL. The real problem with it for many or
most business customers is that it limits the flexibility of implementation,
and increases the overhead of additional implementation (because contract
seats must be accounted, planned for, and budgeted). A business must
ballance this tradeoff with their migration plan (how often do we want to
upgrade?), exposure to downtime costs, etc. I think that for most
businesses, RHEL is not the appropriate solution, and I expect their
workstation market to be especially small.

However, for a few environments, RHEL is a very good deal. I think, for
example, their advanced server product has great market potential for
mission-critical enterprise servers.
The whole RHEL concept is doomed to failure anyway. The main thing that Red Hat has had going for it was support from the closed source vendors. As those applications are replaced with opensource alternatives and as more closed
source applications vendors support running their applications on other
distributions, Red Hat's value will erode. It already has somewhat. There was once a time that many of the oss projects would release redhat binary rpms for the last few RH versions on or near the first day of a new source release. Not any more.

In general, I am inclined to agree that RedHat's decision to ditch Red Hat
Linux in favor of Fedora was a mistake, though I can see why they did it. I
don't release RPM's because the system seemed more trouble than it was worth
to learn (I use Red Hat, though I install most software from source because
I find that is more flexible and less trouble over the long run). Red Hat
is now finding that they have to backpedal and find something to offer in
the midrange. In other words, simplifying their product line didn't
accomplish the task at hand. Without the midrange and hobbyist products
being as pervasive as they have been, they may find it hard to continue to
penetrate the enterprise.

I remember how Red Hat came to dominance-- that they saw the value of freely
redistributable Linux CD's, and their principle competitor, Caldera, did
not. THier current strategy seems a retreat from the source of their
success.

I actually think that this is relatively on-topic for the PostgreSQL-General
list for 2 reasons:
1: This does have an impact on how we recommend OS's for the RDBMS and more
importantly
2: This is a great example of greater issues regarding open source software
which can be directly applied to PostgreSQL and its proprietary offshoots.

Regarding #2, I hypothesize that those vendors who take PostgreSQL and turn
it into a proprietary product are selling:
1: A different product which has different advantages than PostgreSQL from
a business perspective but
2: One which loses important advantages of the open source varient.

Best Wishes,
Chris Travers
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[Bruce Momjian]

Chris Travers wrote:

RedHat Enterprise IS redistributable, and there are third party distros
based on it. However there is one major gotcha:

The contract for the enterprise services for RHEL state that every copy of
RedHat Enterprise Linux in an organization MUST be signed up for the
enterprise services if any one copy is. This means that an organization
does lose the install flexibility that open source normally gives, though
they still can run Fedora on other systems where they do not need these
services.

From RedHat's perspective, this avoids a shell game of support "This server

gets the services this week but this other server got the support last week.
So we only need one subscription." Again, RHEL's licenses are not
"licenses" but rather service contracts.

Thanks. It seems perfectly reasonable for Red Hat to place any
restrictions they want on organizations that also want to purchase
support.

--
Bruce Momjian | http://candle.pha.pa.us
pg***@candle.pha.pa.us | [phone]
+ If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road
+ Christ can be your backup. | Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073

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[Tim Smith]

In article <40************@ehpg.net>, "Gavin M. Roy" wrote:

Here is a copy of the letter which I've sent out today:

http://www.gavinroy.com/~gavinr/SCO%20Response.pdf

We'll see their response and act accordingly. Thanks for all the feedback
everyone.

Excellent response. Basically, here's what SCO has done. It is rather
clever, in a slimey way:

1. They sue IBM over contract and trade secret issues, *NOT* over copyright.

2. They send letters to big Linux users claiming copyright violation.

They do have a contractual relationship with IBM, and no doubt IBM has had
access to SCO trade secrets, so there is probably at least some basis for
#1--enough to at least get to court and a trial eventually.

Their hope is that people like you will receive their copyright claim
letter, and mistakenly think that since they think they have enough to take
*IBM* to court, there might be something to it, and you'll cough up the
money they want, without noticing their letter to you doesn't have anything
to do with what they've actually sued IBM over.

--
--Tim Smith