Stop The Madness
IBM could easily settle the matter by either buying SCO or by drawing up a broad cross-licensing copyright and patent agreement. Surely IBM, the king of patents, has enough intellectual property to force SCO to commit to a detente. It's a David vs. Goliath story. And right now, SCO is putting its slingshot to good use, while IBM and Linux are being pelted by rocks.
The Linux soap opera gets more bizarre with each passing day. Last week, SCO upped the ante by publicly threatening to sue solution providers, end users and vendors who are using or implementing Linux version 2.4 and later without a UnixWare license from SCO. The vendor contends that Linux contains misappropriated Unix System V source code and derivative source code that contributed to Linux in a variety of areas.
IBM, for its part, has maintained that it is on firm legal ground. The computer giant has characterized SCO's suit and comments as an "apparent attempt to create fear, uncertainty and doubt" among customers and in the open-source community.
Linux creator Linus Torvalds, ever the voice of reason, has characterized the matter as a contract dispute that has little impact on Linux. "I can't say I expected SCO to sue IBM," he said. "But, I mean, it was clear that in the U.S. business kind of climate, once enough money is involved, lawsuits will happen."
In the end, SCO's legal threats regarding its alleged intellectual property in Linux will not slow the rapid growth of the open-source OS. The Linux phenomenon is simply too big a movement to be stopped by a nine-year-old company that posted a net loss of $24.9 million on sales of $64.2 million for its last complete fiscal year, which ended Oct. 1, 2002.
SCO is hoping that paying high-profile legal eagle David Boies, who bested Microsoft in the courtroom of public opinion in the antitrust battle against the giant software vendor, will help its case. But remember, Boies' legal fireworks didn't actually slow Microsoft. And his legal mind and public relations savvy will not slow Linux. The OS is bigger than SCO. It's bigger than all of us.
What do you think of the Linux madness? Let me know at (781) 839-1221 or via e-mail at [email protected].