US legal system? [LWN.net]

US legal system?

Posted Jun 13, 2003 4:14 UTC (Fri) by hathawsh (guest, #11289)
In reply to: US legal system? by Odysseus
Parent article: Will SCO's Suit Chill the Penguin? (E-Commerce Times)

It's apparent that the businesses involved are patiently waiting for whatever happens next. This is the right strategy for now, since SCO has only made empty threats. In the meantime, SCO continues to bring out new publicity stunts. The image of a little yapping dog comes to mind.

What's most amazing about this event is the complete change in the company's apparent character. Years ago I made a short list of companies I most wanted to work for, prominently featuring Caldera. Caldera made great strides toward a well engineered and broadly usable computing environment built on open source. Debian might have fit my geeky profile better, but I had a master plan.

My plan was to learn a version of Linux that I could give to my grandparents. Once I learned all of the quirks in a particular distribution, I would give my grandparents a computer with Linux preinstalled. When they called for help, I would have built up all the necessary experience and I'd be able to answer any question. Helping your own family get into computers is wonderfully fun! Caldera was in sync with me and was going to help me fulfill this little dream.

Somewhere, Caldera took a wrong turn. I'm not privy to any insider information, so I don't know what happened, but I suspect it has something to do with the IPO days. Caldera alienated its character and switched to an entirely different business. Admittedly, the new business seems more profitable, but it's unethical.

I don't see how SCO can be taking themselves seriously. They are wildly claiming that both Linux and AIX should be shut down because of some privileged developer's failure to keep code separated. The only rational explanation I can find for SCO's behavior is that this is a publicity stunt designed to launch them into a larger market.

What a shame it is to see all of this happen. A while ago I moved to Mandrake, which doesn't quite have the same vision Caldera did, but it's close enough that I may be able to fulfill my hopes yet. May Caldera be remembered as a superb Linux company that lost its way.

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