SCO vs. IBM
Abstract
On March 6, 2003, The SCO Group filed a $1 billion lawsuit [1] against IBM. The lawsuit alleges, among other things, that IBM has violated contractual obligations it has with SCO by incorporating parts of AIX (IBM’s UNIX derived operating system) into Linux – the open source version of UNIX. The lawsuit has not gone to court and, when it finally does, may take upwards of a year to settle. Nevertheless, a preliminary look is worthwhile. Since the time of the initial filing, the rhetoric has escalated and it has become clear that the ramifications of the suit are much broader than just IBM vs. SCO. SCO’s claims, should they be proven, would not only have a major impact on Linux, but could also claim other casualties – chief among them the Open Source movement. After some introductory material, this paper examines the potential effects and provides an ethical evaluation. If one assumes that SCO’s claims are valid, Linux is in serious trouble, and a black-eye will be placed on the face of the Open Source community that will not quickly heal. But, even if SCO prevails, it’s far from clear that they’ve “done the right thing”…
Introduction
On March 6, 2003, The SCO Group filed a $1 billion lawsuit against IBM. Central to the lawsuit is the claim that IBM has violated contractual obligations it has with SCO by releasing into the public domain AIX source code as part of enhancements the company has made to the Linux operating system. Why does SCO care? Because SCO claims to hold the copyright to the UNIX operating system [2]. AIX is a derivative of UNIX – not only is UNIX source code used as the basis for AIX but IBM (and a host of other UNIX vendors) readily admits this and pays licensing feeds to SCO. Linux, on the other hand, is open source. Its source code is freely available for usage, viewing and modification. SCO’s claim is simple – IBM is illegally distributing its intellectual property by placing it into Linux and thereby diluting the value of UNIX.
Over the last few months, there have been a number of key developments that are beyond SCO and IBM’s current spat. Of particular interest:
SCO stopped releasing its Linux distribution – asserting that the Linux is derived from code that is copyrighted by SCO [3].
...s a lot of information out there on student veterans and the GI Bill, and it is hard to keep up on it all. Hopefully this research paper gave a brief introduction of its importance to society. It seems reasonable that all corners of higher education should do what they can to help our veterans. On campus, this translates to reasonable efforts to make small policy modifications that will increase the likelihood that this population of student will succeed. The enrollment of student veterans at colleges and universities will continue to increase into the future. The GI Bill itself will most likely have new additions and another evolution as well. Understanding that student veterans today need more than financial aid upon their entry into college and the more this message is relayed, the better colleges and universities can serve these students during their transition.
Being a military veteran can have both positive and negative effects on one’s ability to maintain a job and socialize with other people. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is usually a problem with soldiers coming back from war, although after a veteran recovers from it, it creates great job opportunities. Business leaders recognize how useful a military veteran is in the work force. Veterans tend to show great responsibility, leadership, and team work which make them the ideal employee for many jobs.
Prior to war and the passage of the GI Bill the average American could only dream about college and owning a home. Designed to be used for college, technical or vocational courses, apprenticeship/on-the-job ship/on-the-job training, certificate programs, flight training and correspondence courses and home loan guaranty, the GI Bill has been credited with establishing the foundation of today’s middle class. By 1984, when the GI Bill was revamped, 7.8 World War II Veterans had participated in education or vocational training programs. The updated program became known as the Montgomery GI Bill (MGIB), after former Mississippi Congressman Gillespie V. “Sonny” Montgomery. His goal was to continue education programs and the VA home loan guaranty for the latest as well as, future generations ...
In early 2003, the threat of Saddam Hussein and the possibility of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq captured the attention and concern of the world. One nation decided to illegally act on these unsubstantiated claims, invading the country, violating the UN Charter and breaking several international laws in the process. The penalizations that were subject to the invading country, the United States, were never carried out. The United State’s role and influence over the UN and the Security Council, along with the nature of the unenforceable, politics and power-based international laws, allowed them to escape sanctions after their invasion of Iraq. The United States did not have a legitimate reason for invading, and their ability to repudiate international law would be unacceptable for any other country. Their decision to invade Iraq was one based on money and politics, and the US should be subject to penalties just as any other nation would have to face after unnecessarily waging war on a nation.
...nderstanding the needs of the student population and knowing when veteran students start to fall behind can help get additional services to these veteran students.
Heinrich Von Treitschke, The Confessions of Frederick the Great and the Life of Frederick the Great (Maryland: Wildside Press LLC, 2010) 37-38.
This year, the United States is set to end over a decade of continuous combat operations in Afghanistan as well as reduce the size of the military in an effort to restrain the growing deficit of the federal government. While some welcome these actions, they will have a significant effect on the men and women of the armed forces. Since the military is now focused on returning to a peacetime posture and cutting personnel, more veterans will be entering the civilian market. These men and women, who come from all walks of American life, will have had vastly different experiences than their civilian counterparts. These veterans will have spent their formative years in a wartime military and while they have so much to offer society, often, their service and they as individuals are stereotyped with unflattering characteristics by civilian managers, which has a negative impact during their post-military search for employment. Some civilians see them as uneducated and suffering from a host of mental problems related to their service. This problem is not only relevant for recent veterans but for all of those who have volunteered to serve in the military. Veteran unemployment is a serious problem for the United States. Those who choose to serve in the military should not be negatively impacted in the civilian marketplace as a result of their sacrifice.
To sum up, the future trend of the Sino-US relation is to cooperate through competition, which is the “competitive coexistence”. China is growing, which is the reality that the U.S has to accept, and the interdependence between China and the U.S is stronger than ever before both politically and economically. Therefore, just as Robert (2013) pointed out in his article “the explore of a new type of great-power relationship would not only help the most two powerful countries to avoid the Thucydides trap, but also allow the world to become more vibrant and invigorated”. In other words, cooperate bring more benefits to the U.S. rather than compete with the rising China.
The student veteran population can be described as an ethnically diverse group of men and women who have served time in the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps or Coast Guard. After service, many veterans seek new careers through the college classroom in the effort to transition into a new phase in their life. Most student veterans are between the ages of 24-40 and are entering the classroom with varying experiences from other student veterans, and are in a different phase of life versus traditional incoming freshman. For many student veterans, they may be the first in their family going to college and may already have a family of their own. As compared to traditional freshman, student
The Industrial Revolution was a time of great change in the world and changed the way many products were manufactured. Originating in England and Great Britain, its effects spread across the globe and influenced the way people lived and worked and lead to the modern world known today. While it did not always have positive effects, through imperialism, Britain’s Industrial Revolution brought about technological innovations that transformed the world and its economies.
Since then, both countries have existed in neither a state of complete independence nor integration of neither war nor peace. The United States has committed to defend Taiwan if attacked by china in the Taiwan relations act of 1979, in which the US president carter officially began diplomatic relations with the people’s republic of china and gave token recognition to their “one china policy” and its agenda of reunification. Instead of maintaining a significant deployable military force in the region, the United States has sold billions of dollars worth of arms to Taiwan, from small arms, to ships, fighter aircraft, and patriot missiles. Despite the arms sales to Taiwan and vows to defend it if attacked, the United States also has significant economic ties to both china and Taiwan. Since, then it has been trying to maintain the “status quo” of the current situation.
The industrial revolution of 17th and 18th centuries saw the transformation of Britain from a Neolithic nation into an industrious nation. However, this spread quickly throughout the world, introducing the modernisation of agriculture, revolution in power and manufacturing of textile.
In the following paper I will be discussing the use of open source software as part of a larger project. Example uses of this include incorporating existing publicly available source code within another piece of software. Because the term open source has such broad implications, I will attempt to explain it within the context of this paper. Open source code comes with many different licenses such as GPL, BSD, and MIT. I will describe the most popular licensing options and how they differ. Many companies believe open source software projects have an immense lack of accountability; this is simply untrue. Lastly, open source software has recently received an abundance of attention in the media because of possible copyright violations. I will discuss some of the probable scenarios regarding copyright violations with open source and how to protect ones self. Throughout this paper, I hope to shed some light on the use of open source and how beneficial it truly can be to a company.
Since the initial warming of U.S.-China relations in the early 1970’s, policymakers have had difficulty balancing conflicting U.S. policy concerns in the People’s Republic of China. In the strange world of diplomacy between the two, nothing is predictable. From Nixon to Clinton, presidents have had to reconcile security and human rights concerns with the corporate desire for expanded economic relations between the two countries. Nixon established ties with Mao Zedong’s brutal regime in 1972. And today Clinton’s administration is trying to influence China’s course from within a close economic and diplomatic relationship.
From the beginning of their establishment, the bilateral relations between the United States of America and China have changed throughout the time. The bilateral relations of the two countries emerged from 1970’s with the ‘Ping-Pong’ diplomacy and there have been many pauses in their mutual relations. The US and China enjoyed cooperation in economic and military spheres and the mutual relations grew massively during until the end of 1990’s. The heads of the two states began visiting each other’s countries and the economic ties were tightening year by year. However, the issues of human rights and free speech declined mutual Sino-American relations. The American principle of democracy promotion and human rights protection minimized the Sino- American relations after the Tiananmen Square events in 1989, the US Presidents-George Bush and Bill Clinton- playing a key role in determining the further American foreign policy towards China.