LINUX PIPELINE NEWSLETTER
http://www.LinuxPipeline.com/
Tuesday, July 27, 2004

1. Editor's Note: SCO: Looking More Ridiculous Every Day
2. Top Linux News
3. The Week's Best Stories
   - SCO Lawsuit Against DaimlerChrysler Is Thrown Out
   - BEA Systems Leads Linux Server Market
   - Open Source, Open Questions
4. Voting Booth: Cast Your Vote On User Interfaces
5. Get More Out Of Linux Pipeline

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-----------------------------------------

1. EDITOR'S NOTE: SCO: Looking More Ridiculous Every Day

Imagine if Darth Vader's secret identity had turned out to be 
Bozo the Clown. They would have been afraid Darth would blow up 
the whole galaxy, but instead the villain did pratfalls all 
around the Death Star control room, sending stacks of papers 
flying through the air, accidentally hitting himself in the face 
with a cream pie and squirting seltzer down his pants. 

That's how the SCO lawsuits against the Linux community are 
ending up. Until early this year, it was easy to envision SCO as 
a super-villain, threatening the Linux community with its deft 
gamesmanship and masterful legal maneuvers. Now, SCO is looking 
like a bunch of bumblers. 

A Michigan court recently dismissed most of SCO Group's lawsuit 
against DaimlerChrysler Corp.
http://www.LinuxPipeline.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleId=23905085
When the lawsuit was first filed, things looked pretty grim for 
DaimlerChrysler and, by extension, the entire Linux user community. 

But then a couple of things became apparent: first off, SCO 
wasn't suing about Linux, they were suing about Unix. The 
DaimlerChrysler action really had very little to do with the main 
conflict, which was SCO's attempting to prove that Linux 
contained SCO's proprietary Unix intellectual property. 

Worse for SCO: It later turned out that DaimlerChrysler wasn't 
even using SCO's products - hadn't been for seven years. Whoops! 
Ha ha! 

And SCO has also been targeted by a lawsuit from one of its 
biggest investors. BayStar was introduced to SCO by Microsoft 
last year, but the relationship quickly soured and, in a rare 
slap in the face, BayStar publicly demanded return of its 
investment in SCO. 
http://www.linuxpipeline.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=18901902
BayStar later said SCO could keep its money, but only if SCO made 
changes in management and focused more on its lawsuit against IBM. 
http://www.linuxpipeline.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=18902808
Another big investor, the Royal Bank of Canada, sold its shares to 
BayStar. 
http://www.linuxpipeline.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=20000263
And SCO in June agreed to buy back BayStar's stake. 
http://www.linuxpipeline.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=21401109
BayStar had a $40 million investment in SCO; SCO agreed to pay 
$13 million in cash plus several million shares of SCO common stock. 

BayStar sued on Friday, claiming SCO didn't live up to its end of 
the bargain. This was a few hours after SCO issued a press 
release saying the settlement was a done deal. BayStar claims SCO 
misled it on how much money could be made from SCO's intellectual 
property licensing, a claim that SCO denies. 

The outcome of the DaimlerChrysler lawsuit and the BayStar 
dispute leave SCO looking pretty foolish. But it's a mistake to 
think SCO is completely harmless. The company is still 
well-funded and its main lawsuits, against IBM, Novell and 
customer AutoZone, are still alive. Companies and users who 
depend on Linux should be sure they're comfortable with the legal 
ground they're standing on. 

The Linux community should by no means let down its guard against 
SCO. But a little pointing at SCO and laughing is certainly in order. 

Mitch Wagner
mwagner@cmp.com
Linux Pipeline
http://www.LinuxPipeline.com

2. TOP LINUX NEWS

Jabber To Interoperate With SIMPLE
http://www.LinuxPipeline.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleId=23904970
The company plans to make its XMPP protocol communicate with 
IBM's version of SIMPLE.

AMD's Opteron Gets Boost From Sun, Microsoft
http://www.LinuxPipeline.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleId=25600461

Versata Ships Time-Saving App Dev Tools For JBoss Server
http://www.LinuxPipeline.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleId=25600222

3. THE WEEK'S BEST STORIES

SCO Lawsuit Against DaimlerChrysler Is Thrown Out
http://www.LinuxPipeline.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleId=23905085
Michigan judge's ruling is likely to discourage SCO from suing 
other Unix licensees that failed to certify their use of the 
operating system.

BEA Systems Leads Linux Server Market
http://www.LinuxPipeline.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleId=25600184
IDC analyst Dennis Byron reports BEA held 25.2 percent of the 
North American market in 2003, compared with IBM's 11.5 percent 
in 2004.

Open Source, Open Questions
http://www.LinuxPipeline.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleId=23902487 
Features due in the next version of MySQL database could add to 
its momentum--or rob it of its simplicity.

4. VOTING BOOTH: Cast Your Vote On User Interfaces
http://linuxpipeline.com/vote/interface_040608.jhtml
Best user interface: KDE, GNOME, Command line, other?

-- THE RESULTS SO FAR --

KDE: 56%, 700 votes out of 1249
GNOME: 21%, 268 votes 
Command line: 15%, 184 votes
Other: 8%, 97 votes

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adopted into your enterprise. To find out more about our 
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