The Lindon, Utah-based Unix operating system vendor’s www.sco.com web site was available intermittently during last week, according to web performance tracker Netcraft, but was again unavailable over the weekend. The site made a fleeting return just before midnight on Sunday, August 31, before disappearing once again.

The company has been the focus of much anger and resentment from the open source community following its claims that Linux contains code illegally copied from its Unix System V code base, and its lawsuit against IBM Corp alleging breach of contract and misappropriation of trade secrets.

SCO last week confirmed that it was the victim of a denial of service attack and claimed that it had notified the Federal Bureau of Investigation for assistance. The gravity of SCO’s response to the attack was certainly in contrast to comments made by president and CEO Darl McBride at its Forum event recently.

Discussing a previous denial of service attack, he joked: We were flattered that they took the time to attack something that doesn’t get visited very often. At press time on Monday the company’s site appeared to have finally returned, with major updates following its recent Forum event in Las Vegas.

The fact that SCO was the victim of a denial of service attack was originally confirmed by open source luminary Eric Raymond, who said that he had been contacted with information that confirmed the attack and that it was perpetrated by a member of the open source community.

Raymond, president of the Open Source Initiative, urged the perpetrator to stop the attack, however. The person responsible has agreed to terminate the attack in response to my earlier request, but it will not actually end until the timers on his ‘bots run out, he wrote in an internet posting. This attack was wrong, and it was dangerous to our goals.

Raymond also asked the community to remain patient, and consoled them that community leaders are preparing a response to SCO. There is a plan developing, which I can’t talk about because the element of surprise is part of it, he wrote. We will counter-attack at a time and place of our choosing and we will win.

Source: Computerwire