Sometimes fighting someone way bigger is a coward's trick. Case in point: SCO vs IBM. Now Splicer is an outlaw.

You'd have to be living under a rock in Iraq to have missed the headlines about SCO's $3 billion suit against IBM claiming that IBM leaked copyrighted Unix code into Linux. What hasn't gotten around quite as far is that SCO declared IBM to be in violation of their license for Unix, and therefore the AIX license is null and void.

What SCO has been downplaying, (although they have outright said so) is that rescinding the AIX license means that anyone using AIX is in violation and is, according to SCO's claim, a software pirate if they do not delete the AIX operating system and burn the media on which it was delivered. Chris Sontag, SCO's point man on this action, told CNET, "This termination not only applies to new business by IBM, but also existing copies of AIX that are installed at all customer sites. All of it has to be destroyed."

SCO can get away with this without being torn to shreds by the computer press because they're playing the underdog. Little SCO is taking on Big Bad Blue, and all of IBM's customers are huge corporations anyhow, right? I mean it's kind of hard not to feel sorry for SCO. They're an utter failure of a company with no notable accomplishments or intellectual resources. It's kind of like when your retarded cousin keeps on punching you. You know who Mom will side with if you hit back. SCO is the perfect underdog.

Rather, SCO is the perfect underdog as long only as you don't consider the individual users SCO has essentially declared war on. Sure, AIX is not the most popular home desktop platform, but there are hobbyists and enthusiasts out there, as evidenced by the postings to comp.unix.aix and participation in the RS/6000 User Group. Old RS/6000 workstations sell on eBay every day, and that's without considering the AIX boxes made by Bull, Scitex, and a few other companies that don't have the deep pockets that IBM does. Now suddenly the retarded cousin has found Dad's gun and needs to be stopped before he hurts someone for real.

So just to put a face to the AIX user who has had the license for his or her OS revoked as part of an entirely frivolous lawsuit, I'm coming forward.

I'm an AIX user myself. I have an IBM RS/6000 Model 250. It's the first production machine ever to have the PowerPC chip in it, predating the Power Macintosh by five months or so. It's a lovely machine, very quiet, and built like a Mack truck. I measure uptime in months rather than days and I can't remember ever having unscheduled downtime except during blackouts at my home. It puts every Intel/Linux box I've ever used to shame. It's a great machine. I'd provide a link to the webserver running on it, but after comparing it favorably to Linux I'm afraid of what the Linux brownshirts in the Pigdog Journal readership might try to do to me.

Let me state for the record that I did not pirate the Operating System. When I bought the system, it had a wiped hard drive. I contacted IBM and got my AIX install media and proof of license through regular channels. I am now an IBM customer, with all the paperwork to prove it.

This means that SCO has just declared war on The Compulsive Splicer, who holds a single license for AIX 4.3.3. I have received instructions to destroy my copy of AIX, and though those instructions were received indirectly, I trust that CNET News has accurately quoted SCO's mouthpiece.

Guess what?

I'm not going to destroy my copy of AIX, or stop running my RS/6000.

	The Damning Evidence

I'm saying so right out in public here. Here's a copy of my proof of license (a copy without the serial number obscured can be produced on demand) and my sworn testimony:

I SWEAR TO GOD AND ALL THAT IS HOLY THAT I HAVE NOT DESTROYED MY COPY OF AIX, AND THAT FURTHERMORE MY AIX-BASED SYSTEM HAS BEEN RUNNING NONSTOP SINCE BEFORE THE JUNE 16TH TERMINATION OF ALL AIX LICENSES.

So the next step will be for me to make sure that SCO's lawyers see this page. First thing Monday I'll have my attorney send registered mail to SCO's legal team to ensure that they know about me.

SCO has to do something. If they refuse to do anything about flagrant disobedience of their termination of license, how can they enforce it elsewhere? And if they send me even so much as a toothless cease-and-desist, they become the bad guy and you can be sure I won't keep quiet about it.

Your move, SCO. I'm the retarded cousin now. Bring it on.

vagrant@pigdog.org