What SCO hopes to accomplish

What SCO hopes to accomplish

GPL advocates like to point out that if SCO does manage to crush the GPL, they will then have no license to any of the free software they wish to distribute (e.g. the Linux kernel, which they still do distribute; but also Samba, GNU utilities, etc. that they might wish to include in UNIX). However, as noted on GROKLAW recently, SCO might be attempting to crush the GPL with the expectation that any GPL code will be effectively public domain as a result.

This would be almost a master stroke. SCO would not be liable for any copying of GPL code; they could ship their "Linux compatability module" code with impunity. They could ship Samba and even Emacs. They could ship anything they wanted to ship and we could not stop them.

Why "almost" a master stroke? Because SCO shipped the Linux kernel, with full knowledge of the fact that the GPL applied to it. SCO not only wants the court to crush the GPL, they also want the court to rule that SCO never meant to ship any of their IP under the GPL, so SCO's stuff is not public domain, and they can charge for it. I am not cynical enough yet to think that this could really happen, or at least that it wouldn't survive the appeals process if it did. (And PJ of GROKLAW already researched the judge who is hearing this case; it's hard to imagine this judge permitting SCO to do everything it is hoping to do.)

steveha