[Sussex] The on going SCO Vs IBM (Linux)

[Steve Dobson]

Hi Andrew

On 09 June 2003 at 09:08 Andrew Guard wrote:
> I haven't said much on SCO subject but this just got me started.
> 
> http://www.eetimes.com/sys/news/OEG20030606S0039
> 
> This get worse and worse, all this court case has done is show that
> SCO are bunch of baby's.

Isn't this how these sort of thinks go?  It was bound to get nasty.

>                          Why well all this would happen ages ago the 
> source which SCO says was from the product (Which increasingly it
> looks like they don't own but Novell).

IANAL: For SCO to have a chance I think that they would have to prove
100% ownership of the rights to the System V source.  If Novell retain
any rights then couldn't they could say that they grant (at no cost)
the right to use the source, but then again IANAL.

> The you just got to remember who is biggest share holder of SCO,
> you guessed it Microsoft.  Also I bet you can not guess who is an
> share holder in Aberdeen Group?
> 
> Microsoft isn't scared of Linux, it petrified.  For first time ever
> Microsoft has an rival to be worried about and trying anyway it can
> to own it.

I'm not sure that this is the first Microsoft has had a rival to be
worried about; remember IBM & O/S 2.  Okay, now we see the O/S 2 went
nowhere, but that observation was not so clear at the time.  The biggest
play in the computer market place had an operating system for the
personal computer.  Microsoft won that what with backwards compatibility
as much as anything else.

But I do agree with you that Linux is an opponent that Microsoft's
normal strategies can't fight.  It could buy out RH (or SuSe, ...) but 
that would only encourage more distros to start up and wait to be
bought.  I could pay Linus not to develop for Linux every again
(everyone has their price), but then Alan, Ted or and list of 
thousands would take up the banner and wait to be paid off.

So if you can't stop the software from being written and distributed
then a way must be found to stop it being used.  SCO's claim against
IBM might fit into that but....

How much is the license going to be?  The "infected" code can't be
that much of the overall code base, so the per-seat cost should be small,
much smaller than say a Win2K license.  And this cost is a one off.
As soon as the contaminated code is identified work will start to 
re-write it.  So the next version of Linux will be free again (in
both meanings of the words a applied to Linux).

So far I still think that the main reason behind this is a dieing
companies last throws at survival.  I don't think that will work.
Even if they win their case (which I don't believe) who is going
to buy their stuff after that?

> PS I would be amazed with USA legal system if this case is 
> heard before late 2004.

Why do you think that?  Delaying tactics are used by the
defendant's lawyers.  SCO has filed so isn't that an indication 
that it is ready to go to court?  [Where is Geoff when you need
him? :-)]  I'm can't think why IBM would want to delay any longer
than they need to to prepare for the case.  I have a feeling they
may feel sorting out the copyright on an major open source produce
in a court of law and advantage to the whole OSS community.

Steve