SCO website hacked as Linux row boils over
SCO website hacked as Linux row boils over
The website of the Santa Cruz Operation was hit by a denial-of-service attack at the weekend, which left the site down from Friday night until Monday morning, as the row over the Linux source code descended into bitter acrimony.
SCO could not say where the attack originated, but in a posting on Linux.Com, unofficial open-source spokesman Eric Raymond said the timing of the attack strongly suggested that it was triggered by comments made by an SCO executive, in which he described the open-source community as being "IBM's sock puppets."
The row started back in March when SCO sued IBM for $US3 billion, claiming that Big Blue moved proprietary Unix code into Linux and breached the terms of its Unix license with SCO. Additionally, SCO said that Linux users should pay SCO a fee or face potential legal action, which caused uproar and a great deal of uncertainty in the industry.
Raymond, who is president of the open-source advocacy group, urged the perpetrators of the DOS attack to stop it immediately, arguing that it would do more harm than good.
"We're the good guys. But that doesn't matter if we aren't "seen" to be the good guys. We cannot fight our war using vandalism and trespass and the suppression of speech, or SCO will paint us as crackers and maybe win."
IBM and Linux distributor Red Hat have already hit back at SCO in the last couple of weeks through legal means, by launching countersuits against the company as they seek to take the initiative away from SCO.
Raymond also suggested in his mailing that the SCO is doing a good job of destroying their argument all by themselves by issuing contradictory statements, without the open-source community having to tarnish itself with DOS attacks.
"SCO is its own worst enemy. Every time its spokespeople open their mouths, they dig their company's grave a little deeper. We want them to rave in public. It helps us. Everything they say is more rope to hang them with in a courtroom."
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