Mandrake’s a nice OS. I keep trying to switch, but I keep coming back to Red Hat Fedora. While my own experience with Conectiva has been, shall we say, less than stellar, they did port Debian’s outstanding package manager APT to work with RPM, and started the development of Synaptic, which should (in my opinion) be the standard way to install and upgrade software on any package-based Linux distribution with a GUI.

For now it looks like they’ll be maintaining separate brands based on a common core (hmm, sounds familiar), but I wouldn’t be surprised if they end up merging the products in a few years.

Hey, if it means Mandrake replaces their clunky update system with APT and Synaptic, I’m all for it.

(See also CNET’s take.)

• Judge slams SCO’s lack of evidence against IBM. Also Groklaw’s take. After all the wild claims they’ve made without providing evidence, it’s nice to see even the judge is getting sick of it.
• Coke may try out coffee cola – Yeah, it’s a month old, but it’s news to me. (Incidentally, I hate CNN’s practice of deleting stories from their website. That’s where I read about this earlier this week, and I had to go hunting for an article that was still up.) [Note: I've had to track down a third copy of the article.]
• MP3tunes.com shuns DRM – former MP3.com founder starts a new legal download service, and sticks with unencumbered MP3s instead of messing around with ultimately-flawed digital rights management. I’m reminded of Cory Doctorow’s famous talk on why DRM is bad for everyone.
• Beware the unexpected attack vector – Your enemy may not come at you from the direction you expect. Set up sentries around the beach, they’ll get you through the ocean. Set up a firewall, they’ll get you through web browsers. It’s mainly about computer/network security, but it has an interesting story explaining why there’s only one major newspaper in Los Angeles.
• CSS Zen Garden parody: Geocities 1996 – I’ve been meaning to post a link to this for over a month. It’s fully valid code, and manages to bring back the worst of 1990s web design.

I know it’s been said before, but he really is starting to sound like the famed Iraqi Information Minister.

Essentially, SCO sent DC a letter saying “as per your license terms, send us a list of all the computers you’re using UNIX on.”

DC wrote back saying, “We haven’t used UNIX in seven years, so there is no list.”

And SCO sued them for not providing the list.

I’m not making this up, folks – this comes out of SCO’s own deposition!

SCO: Linux stole from us!
Linux: Uh, no. What did we steal?
SCO: Linux stole from us!
Linux: No, we didn’t. What are we supposed to have stolen!
SCO: Linux stole from us! They’re un-American commie terrorists!
Linux: Dude, what the heck? Tell us what we stole or stop accusing us!
SCO: Linux stole XYZ from us.
Linux: No, we got that legally from so-and-so.
SCO: Uh, never mind. We meant to say Linux stole ABC.
Linux: No, we got that legally from such-and-such.
SCO: No, we mean JFS and NUMA!
IBM: Hey, we invented those ourselves.
SCO: We have proof! We have millions of lines that Linux stole!
Linux: Such as?
* crickets *
SCO: We have millions of lines! Millions of them!
Linux: Shyeah, right.
SCO: But don’t worry, for a mere $699, you can assure yourself that we won’t sue you for this chunk of Linux that we haven’t actually proved we own yet!
Linux: $699? For a small piece of something you won’t even prove you own? What’s next, charging Windows users an extra $700 for Notepad because they can write code with it? [Looks up definition of "protection racket"]
SCO: Did I mention we own BSD, MacOS, and Windows too? They’re next! (Well, except Windows, ’cause Microsoft gave us money. For something else, I mean.)
BSD: You’re kidding, right? We went through this in court a decade ago.
SCO: Wait, we never said anything about BSD.
BSD: But in this interview right here –
SCO: Linux is evil! The GPL is unconstitutional! If you let people use software for free, then the terrorists have won!
Linux: What are you people smoking?

Then there are the lawsuits:

SCO: IBM stole from us and put stuff into Linux!
IBM: Such as?
SCO: Stuff!
IBM: Details, please?
SCO: They stole ABC, DEF, and GHI!
IBM: Dude, we invented those things ourselves! What are you talking about?
SCO: Aha, but you developed those for AIX, and we own AIX!
IBM: No, you own Unix. We have a contract with you that lets us use Unix in AIX, but we own anything we wrote. Besides, half those things started out in other IBM products anyway.
SCO: Aha! You admit it!
IBM: No, we own those things, and we can do whatever we want with them.
SCO: Fools! We own all your code! If it even touches Unix, it’s ours!
IBM: And these guys call the GPL viral?
SCO: We’re revoking your license! You can no longer sell AIX!
IBM: What about this clause that says “irrevocable?”
SCO: Hey, look over there!
IBM: Where?
SCO: Oh, nothing. Now, Judge, I have proof that IBM stole from us and put stuff into Linux! Proof! Millions of lines!
IBM: Fine, prove it.
SCO: Well, we can’t actually prove it without looking at IBM’s code…
IBM: Wait, you have access to your own code, everyone has access to the code in Linux, and you need to see our code to prove that it’s infringing? I thought you said you already had proof…
* several more rounds of this go on *

Meanwhile:

RedHat: SCO, I want a declaration that we don’t infringe on your copyrights.
SCO: Oh, don’t worry, we’re not going to sue anyone but IBM.
RedHat: I’ll believe that when I don’t see it.
SCO: Red Hat and SuSE will get theirs, don’t you worry. BTW we’re going to start suing Linux users any day now.
Linux: (Didn’t they just say…)
RedHat: (Yeah, they did.)
* a few months later *
Linux: I thought they were going to start suing Linux users.
SCO: Wait for it…
* crickets *
SCO: We’re suing AutoZone and Daimler Chrysler! They use Linux!
AZ&DC: Yeah, but you didn’t sue us for using Linux. You sued us because we stopped using your products.
SCO: Pay no attention! They’re thieves! They’re filthy little thieves!
AZ&DC: Riiiight….

Further Reading:
GrokLaw (an excellent resource!)
TWikiWeThey: SCO vs. IBM [archive.org]
OSI Position Paper on the SCO-vs.-IBM Complaint
FAQ: SCO and Linux

All they had to do was say “This code here is in violation of our copyright.” At which point the Linux kernel developers could look at it, say, “Hmm, that was contributed by so-and-so on such-and-such a date.” (The entire development process is open to the public – SCO could do this themselves.) An investigation could then be made, and the code could be either shown to be not in violation or removed and replaced with something else. Instead, they’ve remained (deliberately?) vague, such that over the course of four months, with the entire source code for Linux available to the entire world, no one has managed to find anything and say, “this must be what they’re complaining about.”

Yesterday Red Hat got fed up and sued SCO, saying the accusations were a load of bull and accusing them of anti-competetive practices.

Now, not only is SCO claiming that Red Hat’s suit proves that SCO is right (they deny it, therefore it must be true!), their licensing terms for Linux would make it more expensive than Windows.

And you know what really makes me sick? SCO’s stock price just went up. These people are deceptive scumbags. They’re making claims that they refuse to back up. They’re setting prices and threatening to go after people for money, but they refuse to prove that they own what they’re selling. Even in the unlikely event that they’re telling the truth and there is UNIX code in Linux, they’ve acted unethically by not giving anyone a chance to correct the issue.

See also: TWikiWeThey: SCO vs. IBM [archive.org] and OSI Position Paper on the SCO-vs.-IBM Complaint