Views of Free Software History●●

Free software has afascinating, intricate
history.
This presentation can
only skim the surface.

Disjointed outline of free software
history and remarks●

Paul Elliott●pelliott@BlackPatchPanel.com●

Not a academic history.

●

I don't limit myself to primary sources.

●

If you want a perfect history, get a real historian!

●This is a “philosophical history”; I will give you some
opinions and remarks as we go along.

●

http://www.free.blackpatchpanel.com/pme/linux/history-bookmarks.html●

http://www.free.blackpatchpanel.com/pme/linux/history.pdf

What is Free Software?
●●Free Software is free as in “freedom”.
As defined by the GNU project, Free Software
includes the following freedoms:– “The freedom to run the program.”– “The freedom to study how the program works, andadapt it to your needs.”– “The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help

your neighbor.”– “The freedom to improve the program, and release

your improvements to the public.”What is “source code”?

Use the Source Luke!
●“Source Code” is text that is written in a“computer language” such as COBOL,FORTRAN, C, or Java. Such code is designed
to be readable and writable by trained humanbeings, any yet computer translatable into aform that can be “executed” (i.e. run) by acomputer.

What is a Fork?

●

A project fork is the creation of a separate
software project from another software
project, usually controlled by a new set ofdevelopers.

The Right to Fork is the Right to be
Free!
●

●

●

apologies to A. E.
Van Vogt.
The right to fork is
the primary rightestablished by free
software licenses.
The threat of forks iswhat keeps
developers from
exploiting software
users.

Forks are rare.
●●

Like the filibuster in
the U.S. Senate,
everyone knows thepossibility is there, so
forks only happen
rarely.
When a fork happens,the fork leaders areusually extremely
apologetic, justifying
themselves andexplaining why thefork was necessary.

Forks sometimes heal!

Forks and history.
●●

Just as in regular
history, wars are thelandmarks, in free
software history, forks
are the landmarks.
This may be an
artifact of a humandefect which causes
humans to focus onconflict!

Spice may have been first free
software project.
●●●

Circuit simulation
program.
In 1972, Nagel andPederson released
SPICE1 (a Simulation
Program with IC
Emphasis) into the
public domain.
Variants are still used
today.

Donald E. Knuth created TeX.
●
●

●

●

1978
Public domain except
you cannot nameyour fork TeX,
Megafont, orComputer Modern.
Guy Steele ported to
ITS!
Now ported
everywhere!

Incompatible timesharing system.
●
●

●

●

Ran on PDP10.
community formed
around ITS at MIT
artificial intelligence
LAB
programs were freely
passed around, but
few thought of publicdomain or licensing.
RMS was there!

Incompatible timesharing system at
MIT.
●

●

●

was a hot bed ofinnovative softwaredevelopment activity.
Many important
projects, ideas andpeople got their startworking with ITS.
“ITS boasted features
most commercial OSs
would not offer foryears.”

Experiences at MIT artificial
intelligence LAB made rms into therms we know today.

geek syndrome?
●Some, including rms,
have suspected that
Stallman may be a
victim of highfunctioning autism or
Aspeger syndrome.

The Xerox printer incident●●●

rms wanted to fix
xerox printer driver towarn users ofjammed printer.
He had done thisbefore with anotherprinter.
Driver was closed
sourced by Xerox.

●

Robert Sproull refused
request for printerdriver. Non-disclosureagreement.

community at MIT AI Lab wasdestroyed.
●●

LAB was raided by
Lisp machines Inc.
(LMI) and Symbolics.
responsibility for thedestruction goes to
MIT administration,
who should haveupheld academic
values rather thancommercial values.

Where are they now?
●●●

Where are Lisp
machines Inc. (LMI)and Symbolics?
What are theircontributions tohumanity?
Compare with ITS
community.

Light●●“Neither do men lighta candle, and put it
under a bushel, but
on a candlestick; andit giveth light unto allthat are in the house.”
Christian religious
writings.

rms fights the Symbolics war.
●

●

●

●

Symbolics closed sourced the software usedby MIT lab, hoping to lock out LMI.
rms disconnects symbolics microwave
communications link to MIT's lab.
rms single handedly creates free versions of all
lisp enhancements created by the symbolics
team using only the documentation as a guide.
rms duplicates the work of an entire team ofprogrammers.

But all's too weak.
●●“One day, while taking a breakfrom writing code, Stallman
experienced a traumatic moment
passing through the lab's
equipment room. There, Stallman
encountered the hulking, unused
frame of the PDP-10 machine.
Startled by the dormant lights,
lights that once actively blinked out
a silent code indicating the statusof the internal program, Stallman
says the emotional impact was notunlike coming across a beloved
family member's well-preserved
corpse.”From “Free as in Freedom”

The Center cannot hold.
●●"'I started crying right there
in the equipment room,' hesays. 'Seeing the machine
there, dead, with nobody
left to fix it, it all drove
home how completely mycommunity had been
destroyed.'"from “Free as in Freedom”

Stallman resigns from MIT to begin
the noble quest to create GNU.
●●●

had to quit MIT sothat MIT could not
claim GNU as a workfor hire.
GNU project toinclude complete OS
and suite of utilities
including C compiler.
GNU manifesto
written as declarationof intent.

Scratching an itch?
●●“Eric Raymond says that'Every good work of software
starts by scratching adeveloper's personal itch.'
Maybe that happens
sometimes, but many
essential pieces of GNU
software were developed inorder to have a complete free
operating system. They
come from a vision and aplan, not from impulse.”
http://www.gnu.org/gnu/thegnuproject.html

rms begins the GNU project●●●

unsuccessfully
searches for existing
free C compiler.
wrote GNU emacs.
Founded the Free
Software Foundation(FSF) to help withfunding.

Emacs●●●Replaced proprietary
Gosling emacs.
created new lisp
interpreter as afoundation.
version 15 of emacs
was released under“the GNU emacs
license”.

1989 version 1.0 of General Public
License (GPL)
●

●

●

●

evolved from GNU
emacs license.
creationism is false!
successful software
evolves. It does not
spring fully formed fromthe Head of Zeus, like
Palas Athena.
successful software
licenses are no differentOnly rms had the unique vision andstubborn inflexibility to create the GPL.
●●“'There isn't a lawyer on
earth who would havedrafted the GPL the way
it is,' says Eben Moglen,
Columbia University law
professor and Free
Software Foundation
general counsel. 'But itworks. And it works
because of Richard's
philosophy of design.'"
http://www.oreilly.com/openbook/fr
eedom/ch13.html●

By Jin Wicked1987 RMS releases gcc under GPL.
●●

gcc is the foundationof all free “unix-like”
OS efforts and manyother projects.
gcc has been ported
to most all platforms;
It is the foundation of
portability.

By about 1990 almost all the GNU
utilities had been released.
●
●

●

●

GNU emacs, gcc, gdb
bash, bison (was
YACC), gawk (wasawk).
Only one piece of the
puzzle remained tocomplete the GNU
program.
The Operating
System!

GNU begins work on HURD●●●

Used a Machmicrokernel. (moreabout mircokernels
later).
microkernel had to be
debugged as well as
kernel!
16 years later still norelease!

Cygnus support, first free software
support firm.
●●rms made the GNU
manifesto as apolitical statement,
but Michael Tiemann
and John Gilmore
saw it as a business
plan.
They create Cygnus
support, selling
support for gcc andgnu utilities.

●

Cygnus was
assimilated by Red
Hat 1999.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch....
●Unix (tm) was
developed.

Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie●

Created Unix as awork for hire while
employed at ........

Bell Labs●

code originating at
Bell Labs was always
the property of ATT or
it's successors ininterest. It was notfree software by any
stretch of theimagination.

but,
●

●

Code was licensed tovarious universities
including the
University ofCalifornia at
Bezerkley!
New code began tobe createdindependently there!

Gradually...
●●

Much ATT sourcecode was replacedwith Free code.
Then, the serfs
became restless frompaying high ATT
license fees...

Then Keith Bostic and others reduced the
ATT contribution to BSD to just 6 files!
●

This allowed theComputer Systems
Research Group(CSRG) to release
Networking Release2.

This allowed Bill and Lynne Jolitz tofill the gap, writing the remaining 6
files!
●

This allowed them tocreate a BSD
distribution for the
386 completely freeof ATT claims, which
he called 386BSD.

But ATT's lawyer's did not agree!
●

lawsuit between
Berkeley Software
Design, Incorporated(BSDI), Berkley and Unix
System Laboratories(USL) (a mostly-owned
subsidiary of AT&T spun
off to develop and sellUnix) caused a 2 year
delay in which the statusof BSD was in doubt.

The final settlement resulted in
freedom for 386/BSD.
●●

Some say the Settlement
was a victory for BSDi
with only a bone thrown
to USL to protect theirlawyers fromembarrassment!
In any case the end
result was a BSD free ofonerous entanglementswith USL.

“Secret” settlement discovered andreleased by Grocklaw!

●

●

●

Acquired document through California's
public records act.
Because settlement was never filed withany court, Grocklaw was not bound by thesecrecy clause.
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?
story=20060713064700703&query=USL++BSDI+settlement

Meanwhile BSD forked!

●

In 1993, 386BSD forked into FreeBSD and
NetBSD. In 1996, OpenBSD forked from
NetBSD.

Why did not one of the BSDs
assume the place of the dominantFree OS in the place of Linux?
●

Many theories.

●

Lawsuit delay.

●●●

Loss of developers
because of lawsuit.
The forks.
BSD projects tended
to use “cathedral”
style development,
Linux used “bazaar”
style.

Many BSD advocates seem to bequite hostile toward Linux, evenTodayAndrew Tanenbaum writes minix
●

●

●
●

Written as a teaching
tool, not free.
Deliberately kept
minimal for teaching
purposes.
Uses microkernel.
Included gcc
development
environment.

Andrew Tanenbaum writes
Operating Systems: Design and
Implementation.
●●

Book is influential
Operating Systemdesign circles.
In the summer of
1990, the book “lived
on Linus Torvalds'
bed.”Linus Torvalds begins some bare metal
experiments on a 386. Apr 1991

Linus asks for the POSIX standards.
●●

In June 1991, Linus
made a usenet
request for the
POSIX standards.
There is only one
reason that he would
ask for these; He wasthinking of an POSIX
compliant Operating
System!

Linus asks for suggestions oncomp.os.minix (25 Apr 91)●●

I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby,
won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT
clones. This has been brewing since april, and isstarting to get ready. I'd like any feedback on things
people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resembles it
somewhat (same physical layout of the file-system(due to practical reasons) among other things).
I've currently ported bash(1.08) and gcc(1.40), andthings seem to work. This implies that I'll get
something practical within a few months [...] Yes - it's
free of any minix code, and it has a multi-threaded fs.
It is NOT protable (uses 386 task switching etc), and it
probably never will support anything other than ATharddisks, as that's all I have :-(."

He planed to call his system “Freax”●●

He was using Minix
as a development
system to crosscompile his code,
until Linux wasadvanced enough tocompile and link itself.
He included no codefrom Minix.

No LINUX?
●

●

●

●

Recently, during FISL 6.0 (Fórum
Internacional de Software Livre), in
Brazil, Marshall Kirk McKusick wasprobably the main atraction for BSD
community. Gentle and kind, he wore
the I BSDCon Brazil shirt and talked
about Unix history, open source modelof development, BSD license, Beastie,
Matt Dillon and others BSDs. Indeed,
he still revealed unusual Linus Torvalds
confesion, the kernel Linux creator.
According to McKusick, one of the
FreeBSD creators, Linus said: "Iwouldn't have to create Linux if there
wasn't any lawsuit against BSD in theearly 90`s. It wouldn't be necesary".
Linux version 0.11 when lawsuit started
http://www.myfreebsd.com.br/s
tatic/mckusick-20050608.html

Sep 1991 Linux version .
01released!
●

Intended for reading only!

●

You were stuck with a Finnish keyboard!

●

Remember, Linus Released it Just
for Fun!

Tanenbaum-Torvalds microkernel
vs monolithic kernel Debate came in
two waves!
●●●First wave was in 1992.
Tanenbaum claims“LINUX is obsolete”.
Second wave was in2006. Linus claims “The
whole 'microkernels are
simpler' argument is justbull,...”
Linus lost 1st argument
and won the 2nd.

Big picture
●

●

●

●

Microkernels are a form of Bondage andDiscipline Programming.
14 years ago in 1992, Tanenbaum said: “Linux
is obsolete” and “it's all over but the shoutin”.
14 years later Minix 3 does not compete withLinux in its own huge problem space. Neither
does any other microkernel design.
It is time for microkernel advocates to come up
with something that works on real world
problems or stop shouting!

Linux and GNU join forces.

●●

In 1992, the GNU project adapted GNU
utilities for use with Linux, while they waited
for the Hurd. (long wait).
Linus released Linux under the GPL. “Bestdecision I ever made” -- Linus

Could rms have created the OS
portion of GNU/Linux?
●
●

●

●

NO!
HURD failed for manyreasons, some ofwhich are rms.
OS projects, ifdeveloped quickly
require the “bazaar”
model (otherdevelpers)
Projects headed byrms tend to fork!

●●

Examples: Lucid
emacs, xemacs,
egcs, glibc
Rms believes in the
microkernel

Could Linus have created the GNU
portion of GNU/Linux?
●

●

●

●

NO!
Linus is not a compiler
developer, he could nothave created gcc.
Linus is a talented OS
designer, but he does
not have the visionnecessary to create theGPL, a necessarycomponent of thedevelopment model.
Linus is not that crazy.

●

Only Stallman was crazyenough to create the GNU
project. He planned tocreate compiler, runtime
library, utilities, thesymbolic debugger, OS –the whole smear. This isclearly crazy!

libc forks from glibc.
●●

When GNU and Linux were learning to live
together, when dinosaurs roamed the earth,some Linux developers thought that glibc would
be a good C library for gcc running on the LinuxOS. However, they thought it should be
adapted for Linux as a separate project, so they
forked it! They called the fork libc.
glibc was then at version 1.x.

Both branches develop.
●●●

libc develops some features and bug fixes inversions 2.x, 3.x, 4.x, 5.x.
FSF'S glibc developed some advantages:
Better downward compatibility, multiple
language support, multi-thread support!
The Linux programmers realized that the fork
had been a strategic mistake. They decided tomerge their changes back into glibc.

libc merges back into glibc.
●●●

But glibc was still released as version 1.x andversion 2.0 was a fixin to be released.
“The version numbers were a minor problem: The
GNU/Linux guys had already reached 5.4.47, while FSF
was just hitting 2.0. They probably pondered for about amillisecond asking Stallman to make his next version 6.0
for their benefit. Then they laughed, said "This is Stallman
we're talking about, right?", and decided out-stubborning
Richard was not a wise idea. So, the convention is that
Linux libc version 6.0 is the same as glibc 2.0.”
from Fear of Forking, Rick Moen

XFree86 added to Linux.
●●

Orest Zborowski
writes a patch adding
Unix sockets to Linux.
This allows Linux to
run Xfree86.
XFree86 was forked
from X consortium
code because thelicense was too
restrictive. 1992

X.org forks from XFree86

●

●

●

Xfree86 development had become too
cathedral-like.
New licensing restrictions upset a number ofpeople, including FSF. License may havebeen incompatible with GPL.
So X.org forked from Xfree86. 2004.

Linux connects to the internet!
●●●

Fred van Kempen
begins working on
Linux Internet code.
Net-2. 1993
Alan Cox forks thiscode, debugging it.
Linus accepted Alan'sfork, which became
standard.

Linux ported to DEC alpha
●

●

●

●

Jon “Mad Dog” Hall gets
DEC to loan Linus a
DEC alpha.
Linus ports Linux to DEC
alpha.
Today Linux is probably
ported to morearchitectures than any
other OS.
alpha, mac, power PC,
x86, x86-64, Crusoe, sunsparc, others.

David Miller ports Linux to sun sparc●●

1999 David Miller
ports Linux to sun
sparc
Sun corporate
opposed this port, butthey could not stop it.

Distros begin (1994)●●

Various distros begin
in 1994. Debian,slackware, SuSE, andRed Hat.
Linus collects a lot ofmoney from Red Hat
stock options.

●

●

●

●

●

The reason people do not use
LINUX.

A 1999 quote from Neal Stephenson's book
“In the beginning was the command line”
explains why people do not use Linux.

Hacker with bullhorn: "Save your money!
Accept one of our free tanks! It is invulnerable,
and can drive across rocks and swamps atninety miles an hour while getting a hundred
miles to the gallon!"
Prospective station wagon buyer: "I knowwhat you say is true...but...er...I don't know
how to maintain a tank!"
Bullhorn: "You don't know how to maintain astation wagon either!"
Buyer: "But this dealership has mechanics on
staff. If something goes wrong with my station
wagon, I can take a day off work, bring it here,
and pay them to work on it while I sit in thewaiting room for hours, listening to elevator
music."●

Buyer: "Stay away from my house, you freak!"●Bullhorn: "But..."●●Bullhorn: "But if you accept one of our freetanks we will send volunteers to your house to
fix it for free while you sleep!"

Buyer: "Can't you see that everyone is buying
station wagons?"

Free for all●●

2000, written by Peter
Wayner"How many open source developers

does it take to change a lightbulb?"
The answer is: 17. Seventeen to argue
about the license; 17 to argue about
the brain-deadedness of the lightbulb
architecture; 17 to argue about a newmodel that encompasses all models of
illumination and makes it simple toreplace candles, campfires, pilot lights,
and skylights with the same easy-toextend mechanism; 17 to speculate
about the secretive industrial
conspiracy that ensures that lightbulbs
will burn out frequently; 1 to finallychange the bulb; and 16 who decidethat this solution is good enough for thetime being.

2000

The Y2K disaster did not happen.

EGCS fork●●●

EGCS(Experimental/
Enhanced GNU
Compiler System)
was a fork from gcc.
The fsf was interested
in stability andresisted
improvements.
improvements
included g77(fortran)●

Pentium
optimizations, c++
improvements, andOS variants.

EGCS branch was successful●●●

egcs was so
successful that
distros began usingegcs rather than gcc.
egcs used the"bazaar" model.
in 1999 the fsf
stopped developmenton the gcc branch,and blessed egcs as
the “official” gcc.

●

The developers of
egcs became leadersof the newly merged
gcc.

The Red Hat gcc 2.96 fiasco●●

Just as the egcs fork
healed, Red Hat
decided to use an
unreleased, buggy,
developmental
branch of gcc called
gcc 2.96 for RH 7.0.
The FSF complainedthat this code was not
for release and was●●incompatible withboth the previous andfollowing releases ofgcc.
Developers refused tosupport RPMs
compiled with gcc
2.96.

Suspicions●●

binary RPMs from RH
7.0 were incompatible
with all other distros that
did not use gcc 2.96.
Many suspected that thiswas intended in order tocreate vendor lockin.

Tux become Linux mascot.
●“I've always liked penguins, andwhen I was in Canberra a few
years ago we went to the local zoo
with Andrew Tridgell (of sambafame). There they had a ferocious
penguin that bit me and infected
me with a little known disease
called penguinitis. Penguinitis
makes you stay awake at nights
just thinking about penguins andfeeling great love towards them. So
when Linux needed a mascot, thefirst thing that came into my mind
was this picture of the majestic
penguin, and the rest is history.”

Homer Simpson●

Albert Cahalancomplained that TuX
looked too much like
Homer Simpson.

Battle of the titans●●

Around 1998 it
seemed that
MicroSuck's Internet
Exploder was about
to destroy Netscrape.
Then, as an
emergency survival
desperation measure,
Netscrape open
sourced creating
Mozzila!

Free Mozzila grows●

Because netscrape
did not own all thecode, all code could
not be released.
Much of the code was
not up to free
software standards.
Thus initialdevelopment of thefree version was
slow.

●

Eventually it served
as a base for thefirefox we know
today.

Mozzila Firefox●●

began as a fork of the
Mozzila project in2004. Created byDave Hyatt and Blake
Ross.
Early Firefox
documentation
described cookies as“Delicious
Delicacies”.

Open Source●●

In 1998 at the Open Source summit(retroactively named), the term “open source”
was invented to avoid all of this embarrassing
talk about “freedom” when talking to suits.
rms was not invited to attend.

Open Source Summit●

Attending were Linus
Torvalds, Larry Wall,
Brian Behlendorf, Eric
Allman, Guido van
Rossum, Michael
Tiemann, Paul Vixie,
Jamie Zawinski of
Netscape, and Eric
Raymond.

●Primary issue was
how to takeadvantage of theopen sourcing of the
Mozzila source code.

Open Source Initiative created●●●

to promote open
source software.
Maintains a definitionof open source and alist of licenses
thought to be open
source.
They try not to disturb
the suits.

FSF and OSI●●●

the FSF also maintains adefinition of Free
Software and a list of
acceptable Licenses.
You would think that
FSF's list would bestricter.
But it is not so, forexample, the C++ boost
library license is listed by
the FSF as a Free
Software license, but isunlisted by OSI.

●

This may be justlaziness on OSI's
part.

The Halloween Documents●●

In October 1998, an
anonymous source
leaked the infamous
Holloween
Documents to Eric
Raymond (esr).
The documents
describe Microsoft
strategy to destroy
open source.

●●

key tactic“de-commoditize
protocols”

The Halloween Documents●●

MS acknowledges“threat of open
source”.
Embrace, extend,
extinguish (decommoditize
protocols) is MS's
best strategy.
●

Patents may help MS.

Linux fork?
●

●

●

●

In 2004, Linux almost
forked!
Linus was dropping
patches on the floor
and key developers
were very upset.
Problem solved by areorganization.
“Linus does notscale.”

The BitKeeper Debacle

●
●

●
●

A proprietary distributed version control system.
Linus decided to use BitKeeper for Linuxdevelopment. (It was offered gratis Larry McVoy
Linus' personal friend).
Rms expressed concern about the dangers.
Several key developers including Alan Cox
refused to use it.

Andrew Tridgell hacks BitKeeper●●

Andrew Tridgell (tridge)
creates SourcePuller, a
BitKeeper interoperability
tool that would allow
developers not using BK
to have access to BK
metadata.
Tridge did not have a BK
license and broke nolaws or agreements. He
used the same methods
he used to reverse
engineer Samba.

Linus accuses Tridge of “Screwing
people over”●●

Larry McVoy yanks
BitKeeper so that
Linux developers
must find analternative.
Linus accuses Tridgeof “screwing people
over” even though he
did precisely thesame thing in creating
Samba.

●●

The fact that key
developers like Cox
refused to use BK
should have been theclue that something
was wrong.
Linus was violating
the principle that
freedom is more
important thanconvenience.

Arker on Slashdot writes●●

In fact, what Tridge has done here is the epitome of ethical behavior.
Linus is stung now, understandably disoriented and angry because
he's been proven wrong and, being human, his first response is tolash out at Tridge instead of thanking him. Give it a few years
though... once his wounded pride settles down I'm sure he will, in
fact, thank Tridge for this.
Locking your data into a proprietary single-vendor format for the sakeof temporary convenience was never a good idea. Everyone told
Linus this, but he was too smart to listen. Now exactly what he waswarned about has happened. And it was inevitable all along - if Tridge
hadn't done it someone or something else would have - McVoy was aticking time bomb. The fact that the guy isn't very stable didn't help,
but honestly - McVoy could have been a saint and the thing would
have still been a ticking time bomb. If Tridge's actions resulted in it
going off a little sooner than otherwise, then he saved Linus andmany others trouble in the long run. Replacing BK wasn't going to get
any easier...

Save the cost of a hacksaw?
=?

●

●

●

●

Was Linus Like the PHB that decides tocontinue to use Microsoft because of theconversion cost?
When someone spends money to install aring in your nose, they expect to get it back.
In this case, is it smart to save the cost of ahacksaw?
Freedom is not free, but slavery costs more.

The BitKeeper Debacle(continued)●●●

Linus' actions showed a lack of vision.
The debacle had no long term consequences
because Linus replaced BK with git. (The costof a hacksaw.)
Except perhaps, to the Linus, Tridge friendship.

Indian state of Kerala decides to use
Linux rather than Microsoft in
Schools●●●

rms traveled to
Kerala to persuade
leaders. (2006)
3 year plan to replace
MS with Linux.
Kerala is India's mosttechnically advanced
state.

SCO vs the World●●●In 2003 SCO claimed toown UNIX system V andthat Linux was aderivative of UNIX.
SCO's absurd position
was debunked by many
people including Eric
Raymond.
There is no chance that
SCO's executives
actually believed its
claims unless they are
idiots.

SCO vs the World●●

Nevertheless, SCO tried
to extort money fromLinux corporate users inviolation of the GPL.
It also began lawsuits
against a number ofcompanies.

SCO vs IBM●●

SCO begins a lawsuit
against IBM. SCO
turns out to be amaster of delay, but it
could not find any
evidence of copyrightviolation undercurrent law.
SCO's lawsuit was
deep frozen when
SCO declaredbankruptcy.

Groklaw monitors SCO●●

SCO attempts to use
FUD (fear uncertainty
and doubt)
Its every move isrefuted by Groklaw.

●

●

●

Groklaw is run by Pamela Jones, a journalist
with para-legal training. She runs the blog as aservice to free software community.
She throws cold water on all of SCO's
grandiose claims.
Groklaw was not a factor that SCO's executives
took into account when making their extortion
plans.

SCO vs Novell●●

SCO begins a lawsuit
against Novell. SCO
claims to own theUNIX system V
copyright in a contract
dispute. This also
turns out to be false.
This case leads tobankruptcy for SCO.

SCO vs Novell●

SCO is able to create
many delays inbankruptcy but in theend SCO will beannihilated and its
false claims will diewith it.

There is more.
●●

I have barely
scratched the surfaceof free software
history.
I encourage you tobegin your own
investigations.

●●perhaps you have a
different view of someof the events
mentioned here.
Perhaps I haveprodded you to backup your views withyour own research.

copyright●●This document contains a number of trademarked logos. They are included
by virtue of fair use. I obviously, do not hold the copyright to those logos. If
you copy this document, you are responsible to insure that your use of
those logos is fair use.
The rest of this document is–

Copyright (c) 2008 Paul Elliott.

–

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document–

under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2–

or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation;–with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-CoverTexts.

–

A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU–Free Documentation License".