(This isn't what they said in court about open source, if memory
serves.....my, how times do change......rf)

SCO updates Unix product, open-source attitude

By Stephen Shankland
http://news.com.com/SCO+updates+Unix+product%2C+open-source+attitude/2100-10
16_3-5760029.html

Story last modified Thu Jun 23 18:35:00 PDT 2005


In an effort to turn around its dwindling Unix revenue, SCO introduced a new
version of its OpenServer product Wednesday along with a new
open-source-friendly attitude.

OpenServer 6 is based on the same software core as the company's other
operating system product, UnixWare, a later arrival that the company and its
predecessors have emphasized for years but that never was adopted as much as
OpenServer. The new OpenServer can run software for both operating systems,
improves performance by a factor of two to four, and can be used on
32-processor machines with as much as 16GB of memory, SCO said.

The company's software is most popular for use in companies with numerous
business branches--a notable customer is McDonald's. However, the SCO Group
and its predecessor, the Santa Cruz Operation, struggled with competition
from Windows and more recently, Linux.

In SCO's most recent quarter, ended April 30, Unix revenue declined to $7.8
million from $8.4 million during the year-earlier quarter.

SCO has been most prominent recently for its legal attack on IBM, Novell and
others regarding its allegation that proprietary Unix software has been
improperly moved into open-source Linux. Indeed, one of its targets is
AutoZone, a former OpenServer customer.

Part of that attack was leveled at the General Public License (GPL), which
governs Linux and which SCO attorneys said violates the U.S. Constitution as
well as copyright, antitrust and export control laws. But Wednesday, SCO
touted the inclusion of several open-source products with OpenServer.

"In addition to supporting numerous Unix applications, as well as Java
applications with the inclusion of Java 1.4.2, customers will also find
thousands of additional applications available through many of the latest
open-source technologies that are integrated into SCO OpenServer 6," SCO
said in its announcement.

Among the included open-source packages are Samba and MySQL, which are
released under the GPL, as well as Firefox, Tomcat, Apache and PostgreSQL.

SCO's position is consistent, spokesman Blake Stowell argued. "We don't
necessarily have issues with open source, we just have an issue with
open-source technology that includes intellectual property it shouldn't," he
said. Indeed, SCO's products have included open-source components for years.

OpenServer 6 costs $599 for a computer with two users and $1,399 for one
with 10 users.




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