SCO To Show Copied Code

A number of people have written this morning in regards to the latest update in the ongoing SCO dropping Linux, with word from LinuxJournal that SCO has broadened the implications of code copying. A number of analyst groups have come out, however, saying that it's fine to keep moving ahead with Linux adoption - and there's an interesting interview with SCO's General Manager of SCOSource.

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SCO is dying

[jdfox]

Yet another crippling bombshell hit the beleaguered SCO community when last month IDC confirmed that SCO accounts for less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of the latest Netcraft survey which plainly states that SCO has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. SCO is collapsing in complete disarray, as further exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.

You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict SCO's future. The hand writing is on the wall: SCO faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for SCO because SCO is dying. Things are looking very bad for SCO. As many of us are already aware, SCO continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood. SCO UnixWare is the most endangered of them all.

Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

SCO leader Chris Sontag states that there are 7000 users of SCO Linux. How many users of SCO UnixWare are there? Let's see. The number of UnixWare versus SCO Linux posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 UnixWare users. SCO OpenServer posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of UnixWare posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of SCO OpenServer. A recent article put SCO UnixWare at about 80 percent of the SCO market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 SCO UnixWare users. This is consistent with the number of SCO UnixWare Usenet posts.

Due to the troubles of OpenLinux, abysmal sales and so on, Caldera went out of business and was taken over by SCO who sell another troubled OS. Now OpenLinux is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.

All major surveys show that SCO has steadily declined in market share. SCO is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If SCO is to survive at all it will be among OS hobbyist dabblers. SCO continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, SCO is dead.

Re:SCO has Dirty Hands. Will not be able to collec

[jkrise]

"MS can then say "see, I told you so! GPL caused SCO to lose their IP!!!!".

And MS would be making perfect asses of themselves, IMO. No self-respecting co. ought to license it's code under GPL and expect to retain control over IP. Numerous firms offer products and Services under GNU/Linux, but not under GPL.

"It would benefit us greatly as a community if no company makes this argument in defense."

Actually, I'm more concerned IBM isn't taking this stand. Who has benefitted us (the community) the most: SCO, IBM or the community? It's us, for ourselves. I don't think we should be too bothered about the logic, or lack of it, from arguments coming from MS. The success of GNU/Linux proves that we ignore (or rather take as falsehood) anything coming from MS.

If this argument helps IBM close this case faster, so be it.