Linux users face licence cash call (BBC News)

Posted Jan 16, 2004 22:19 UTC (Fri) by rheggs (guest, #4737) [Link]

Actually, I don't think the article to which you refer is all that bad. His turn of phrase is a bit abrasive here and there, but generally, I think that it is fair. The key points he makes, as far as I can see them are:

1) SCOX have sued IBM, claiming that the latter placed copyrighted material into Linux - but there may be nothing to the claim, and the evidence so far is not impressive.

2) SCOX was a struggling company before this, and since the whol fiaSCO (ahem :) began, senior executives have been selling their shares.

3) UNIX has a long and complicated history.

4) There is nothing inherently implausible about the claim (there really isn't - it's a perfectly reasonable question, to which the perfectly reasonable answer is 'NO'. :)

5) The typical response from Linux users (at the time of writing) was one of dismissal.

I think that this last point is perhaps the most arguable. In my not-so-humble this was indeed a common opinion, last summer; it was certainly mine. 'How dare they make such claims! Ignore them and they will go away.' The attitude has since shifted decisively towards 'We're convinced you're wrong; show us your proofs, and we will demolish them' - a much healthier attitude, I believe.

I disagree with the 5th and 4th paragraph from the end of the article (and the last bit of the 6th paragraph), but on the whole I think that this is a good article, given the facts available at the time. Of course, a great deal has happened since this article was written, almost 5 months ago. I would be very surprised indeed if Mr Thompson would write the same article today.