M$ buying SCO [LWN.net]

M$ buying SCO

Posted Jan 31, 2003 11:42 UTC (Fri) by tres (guest, #352)
In reply to: SCOsource and Linux by rknop
Parent article: SCOsource and Linux

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?

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