SCO has been on a legal rampage over its claims that some of their intellectual property exists in the Open Source Linux Operating System. They launched a $1 billion lawsuit against IBM in March, followed by sending 1500 warning notices to corporations last week claiming that unauthorized use of Linux could result in legal liability. They have also suspended the sale of their own Linux products.

If their claim is successful, this would mean that anyone running the Linux Operating System could owe SCO some licence fees to use the product, should SCO choose to charge.

If this wasn’t enough to get the Linux fan base nervous, SCO has now licenced its UNIX technology to Microsoft. Microsoft claims that this deal shows “Microsoft’s ongoing commitment to respecting intellectual property (IP) and the IT community’s healthy exchange of IP through licensing.” They claim that they are trying to ensure compliance across it’s UNIX-based products such as Internet Explorer and Frontpage.

Apple has decided to stop selling the popular iMac in the now-familiar lunchbox-like shape. The computer that changed the look of computing by offering multiple colours and funky curves is on its way out.

The iMac is widely credited for saving Apple from certain bankrupcy when it was announced in 1998. Apple has released a more conservative looking eMac to replace it, and has re-issued the iMac title to the new flatscreen model. The future is all white.

Apple writer John Dvorak predicts that Apple will make the switch to Intel based processors within 12 to 18 months. Currently, Apple uses Motorola processors which have not kept up with the speed boosts of the past few years by Intel and AMD.

Note to Motorola: Keep up or get out of the way. Moores Law waits for no-one.

One of the most common problems with crashing software is that many programs share modules, known as Dynamic Link Libraries (DLL’s) to keep their software modular and to save on disk space. With Hard Drive prices dramatically falling in the last few years, Microsoft is revisiting this strategy.

The big problem stems from the process where one program is installed with a DLL, and a second program is installed using the same DLL, but a newer version. The old DLL is overwritten, and the first program which was not written or tested with the new DLL may crash.

Still realizing that modern software development is modular and object oriented and requires these shared components, Windows Server 2003 and version 1.1 of .Net will keep all versions of DLL’s that are in use. Hopefully this filters down to the desktop OS soon!

HP and IBM have taken the top spot from Sun in the Unix Server market, according to a study released today by Gartner. For the last few years, Sun has been suffering as low cost, high powered servers running on cheap Intel based machines, and using the freely available Linux OS have taken customers from Sun’s traditional strngth of high power Unix servers.

Java, Unix, Server markets… Sun has been grasping at straws for several years, and coming up short. Short… there’s a good word..

David Stutz, a Microsoft executive responsible for Microsoft’s Shared Source project, resigned last week. He then went on and posted a “sanitized” version of his resignation letter to the web. In it, he criticizes his former employers for not being visionary and he urges Microsoft to embrace the Open Source wave.

As much as the letter is certainly written with the emotional zeal of a person who has finally left a job that left him frustrated, the letter is sincere, and his concerns are valid. Is anyone in Redmond listening?