Federal judiciary to move to Linux [LWN.net]

Federal judiciary to move to Linux

Posted Nov 19, 2003 18:28 UTC (Wed) by sphealey (guest, #1028) [Link]

Um, I think you underestimate how large the US federal government is, how large just the judicial branch is as a subset of the USG, how slow procurement can be in a large organization, and how little legal issues affect operations and purchasing decisions in same.

I worked for a corporation that was fairly large but probably 1/25th the size of the Judicial Branch. We would hear all the time that some product we were buying was involved in some sort of litigation (usually patent). We would totally ignore such rumours and specify/buy what was best for the business (or at least the purchasing agent's Christmas gift from the vendors), figuring (correctly) that the Legal Dept would handle the lawsuits and it wouldn't affect us.

This is probably a response to a decision/requistion from 3 years ago when SCO was still selling Linux.

sPh

Federal judiciary to move to Linux

Posted Nov 19, 2003 18:52 UTC (Wed) by allesfresser (subscriber, #216) [Link]

I think that's a very good point (that it's probably a result of a decision made many months ago.) The wheels of procurement grind slowly in any large organization and especially one as conservative as the federal judiciary. All the same, they do have a peculiar interest in staying legally clean, don't they? I still think they've got a safe bet that SCO is full of... well, you know. :-)

Federal judiciary to move to Linux

Posted Nov 19, 2003 18:53 UTC (Wed) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link]

"We would hear all the time that some product we were buying was involved in some sort of litigation (usually patent). We would totally ignore such rumours and specify/buy what was best for the business."

Did your employer received threatening letters about those possible litigations ?

In the actual SCO case , it seems to me, that part of the press, SCO leadership, and some other operators in the IT world and in the financial world, are doing everything possible to inflate FUD... So, at least, is going to be much harder to just ignore them, not to say that judjes are human and can be influenced too.

In the end Linux/FOSS will win, but in the meanwhile it needs the efforts of everybody, because the forces against it(Linux/FOSS) are far greater than SCO.

Mario Marques

Federal judiciary to move to Linux

Posted Nov 19, 2003 19:23 UTC (Wed) by sphealey (guest, #1028) [Link]

Did your employer received threatening letters about those possible litigations ?

Yes, every day. It was a big company.

If they came in to the end user of the product, we sent them to Legal. 99.95% of the time a counter-bark letter from Legal solved the problem. 0.05% of the time there was a legitimate dispute over the claim.

I don't know what the actual percentage of times we had to pay anyone was, but I would guess something like 0.001% of all letters received. That's why I find some of SCO's comments mildly amusing - semi-non-threatening letters arrive by the metric ton at corporations all over the US every week. Companies know how to handle them.

sPh

Federal judiciary to move to Linux

Posted Nov 20, 2003 0:29 UTC (Thu) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link]

I had no doubt that SCO was bluffing all the time... and i'm sure that they missed concerning to frighten Linux/FOSS developers too...

But you have to agree with me that is not easy for medium to small entreprises, and some large ones to, without "decent" legal departments, to have to take with SCO barking trougth their masters FUD press arrangements, several times a week, every week!

I belive that there were already historys about users trying to pay those licences and SCO somehow refusing!... so its obvious that they only want those freightened entreprises to go buy software somewhere else than Linux... and that is what is completly obnoxious.