SCOsource and Linux [LWN.net]

SCOsource and Linux

Posted Jan 29, 2003 17:39 UTC (Wed) by rknop (guest, #66)
Parent article: SCOsource and Linux

I'm worried.

All it takes is one fairly high-profile SCO announcment to give the MS FUD brigades all they need to discouarage business adoption of Linux. "We can assure you that we have fully licenced all the intellectual property in Windows," they will say. "With Linux, there is no vendor, and *you* might find yourself sued if there are IP violations in it. The risk is just not worth it."

A powerful argument. Yeah, this isn't *too* likely to create problems for the home hacker and hobby user like most of us, but it can put a serious crimp in Linux's road towards becoming more mainstream and widespread.

(Indeed, I wouldn't put it past MS to buy SCO and then start suing schools who use Linux. Schools going to Linux have to be a *major* fly in MS's soup.)

In broader terms, our country needs to get over its hangups on intellectual property. Yeah, lots of highly paid patent and copyright lawers will have to find new jobs, but I'm not going to weep over that. Right now, we're so concerned about protecting "intellectual property" that we've lost a lot of perspective. Want a perscription drug benefit in Medicare? I bet it's a whole lot cheaper if you elimiate all pharmceutical patents (thereby allowing rapid production of "generic" drugs)--- even when you factor in the fact that the government will have to sponsor research currently sponsored by pharmaceutical companies. Plus, you aren't in the morally treacherous situation of having to argue that you need to protect your patents to protect your companies while meanwhile millions of people are dying of AIDS in third world countries.

Copyrights and patents have a purpose, but they've been elevated to ends unto themselves in our country, and we're all going to suffer for that. Linux users are just the tip (or even just a little piece on the side) of the iceburg.

-Rob

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SCOsource and Linux

Posted Jan 30, 2003 9:22 UTC (Thu) by pointwood (guest, #2814) [Link]

I'm certainly worried about this too. I don't think SCO will get much out of this though, all the negative press they have already got, will certainly not give them many new customers.

In regards to MS, I actually think their license says that they aren't responsible for that.

SCOsource and Linux - very bad for SCO.

Posted Feb 2, 2003 2:49 UTC (Sun) by wolfrider (guest, #3105) [Link]

>> The only way that SCO will be able to reduce that uncertainty is to research and investigate whether any of our intellectual property currently resides within Linux, which is what the law firm of Boies, Schiller and Flexner are currently doing.

>> We do not feel we can rule out any particular response without impairing our fiduciary responsibility to our stockholders to protect their property. Certainly our first choice in helping to resolve this issue would not to be heavy handed in our response.

--Fiduciary responsibility, my donkey... They're just trying to get some publicity, and it looks like it will backfire on them. The sensible thing to do would be to audit the code FIRST, and QUIETLY, using CODERS (programmers)...

--Then, *if* they found something, go to the LKML and the distros. Involving lawyers before obtaining definitive proof puts them in a VERY bad light. The way they're doing things right now helps to spread FUD about Linux - even though with BOTD, that may not have been their *intention* when they thought up this press release.

--But my perception is that nobody really cares about SCO anymore, and this may turn out to be another nail in their coffin.

** LKML == Linux Kernel Mailing List
** FUD == Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt
** BOTD == Benefit of the Doubt (they may not have had bad intentions)

M$ buying SCO

Posted Jan 31, 2003 11:42 UTC (Fri) by tres (guest, #352) [Link]

Skipping over the political with the single comment that the current administration (including Ashcroft's DOJ) has been bought and paid for by more than a few different industries -- I don't see anyway that Microshaft can take either Linux or Apple out of the picture without raising some serious anti-trust issues. Didn't Billy invest $100M in Apple when Jobs announced that the new Mac would be using Explorer as the default browser? In reality Macs are not really a threat to Windoze but they have to be kept around so that M$'s monopoloy is not so obvious.

Linux, on the other hand, is a different sort of beast! It is disruptive technology; it will revolutionise the way computers work; Gates commoditized the peripheral industry and Linux will commoditize the software industry. In short, it is a real threat to Micro$oft and M$ will deal with it. M$' .Net strategy, in my opinion, was a way to move the monopoly from the OS level to that of the middleware libraries. This was probably in case the antitrust issue went the wrong way but it would be handy for Linux too. If they can move the monopoly to a middle layer then they could even adopt Linux as the base OS in a similair way to Apple adopting BSD. Imagine a stable Winblows!

But to outright kill it by buying SCO would raise the ire of too many congressmen. Mr. Hatch, from Novell territory, has been hearing about M$' exploits for quite some time now. The congressmen that represent Silicon Valley in CA, Silicon Alley in NY, Raleigh NC, and the many other little areas throughout the country that have sprung up are not exactly in M$' back pocket either. Even if M$ could get it by the FTC it would be extremely hard for the DOJ not to re-examine the monopoly issue yet again. Failing that there is always the EU. That purchase would be too hot even for the brazen MS to touch since such a purchase would not just threaten Linux.

M$ buying SCO would also threaten the ONLY OTHER VIABLE ALTERNATIVE to M$: UNIX. This would include Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, IRIX, {Free,Open,Net}BSD, OS-X, Mach, etc. and all of the companies that have interests in those other operating systems. Those corporations have expensive lawyers and lobbyists that would be swung into action. Perhaps DEC (Compaq or HP or whoever they are this month) could dust off VMS as that would be just about the only thing that would be left. M$ needs to have a smaller profile in the battle than using nuclear weapons.

Their coming patent fights will be in many forms. For example they will try to protect their SMB protocols so as to regain their revenue from the file and print server markets. They may come from acquiring other companies as well but SCO would still be too hot. They will attack it from as many different angles as well causing as much damage as possible but they will not destroy it in one fell swoop. That would cause too much attention.

The biggest advantage that Free Software has, besides the obvious legions of devoted developers, is its standing within the rest of the world besides the US and EU. The fact that it can be trusted by governments to run their intelligence communities will force its adoption in many areas of foreign government starting with their defense departments. At the same time its licensing costs will make it attractive to a large public audience that can't spend six month's of salary for a computer. Schools need to teach theory more than application and since the OS that is best for this is also free the economic pressure will eventually silence the political pressure. And don't forget that the easiest way to fix the software piracy issue is to use Free Software.

On a different note, isn't there something in the GPL that states that if you pursue a patent claim against a piece of GPLed software that you forfeit all your rights regarding that piece of software? If that is the case then wouldn't SCO (Caldera) loose the right to market a Linux distribution if they pursue a patent claim against it?