OSCON Panel: SCO Lawsuit About the Money

viewstyle writes "Just when you had heard enough, the ongoing controversy about SCO vs. Linux has popped up over at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention (OSCON). According to Eweek's story, the panelists agreed that SCO is targeting companies like IBM in an attempt to raise cash. Most importantly: "if a company is not after money, suing is not the way to go.""

Comments

Well, yes

[Faust7]

Corporate lawsuits often are--although in this case I would say there's a large, genuine streak of pseudo-evil vindictiveness behind the suit as well, just judging from all the public comments SCO has made thus far. They certainly have a bee in their bonnet about something, and god's death, they may even sincerely believe they're right (even if their claims are based on the wind).

Well, no kidding.

[FreeLinux]

When are people going to realize that first, parties with a vested interest in the matter, such as OSCON, will hold this or a biased opinion. Secondly, the only opinion that matters is that of a judge or a jury. It doesn't matter what anybody else thinks. Finally, a judge or jury is unlikely to render an opinion on the matter for another two to three years so, the constant rehashing of some OSS member's take is completely pointless.

Give it a rest. People need to focus on the positive aspects of Open Source and stop dwelling on this lawsuit. Regardless of the outcome, having this "news" constantly at the forefront is only going to damage Linux and Open Source due to the FUD factor.

Re:Well, no kidding.

[FreeLinux]

but it is definately non-trival to linux advocates who are trying to damage control the SCO anti-linux fears

Not really too helpful for damage control either I'm afraid. As the parent post stated, people with a vested interest(Linux advocates) will have a biased opinion or, at the very least, an opinion that is regarded by outsiders as being biased. In order for the "damage control" to be of value, such statements would need to come from those who do not have a vested interest in Linux and Open Source. This would be people like closed source software companies, lawyers, business analysts, and the dreaded consulting analysts like Gartner/IDC et al.

By the way, for those that have chosen to ignore them, the analysts like Gartner/IDC et al, are recommending that businesses be very careful in choosing Linux. Or they are recommending that businesses avoid Linux all together. Whose opinion is going to be valued by the PHBs, OSCON or Gartner?

corporate ethics

[zenlunatics]

based on all the sarcasm so far it looks like most people buy into the idea that companies can do whatever they want to make money, they shouldn't be judged in the same way we judge people. Obviously there are limits as we wouldn't condone a company that murdered people (or would we? look at all the defense companies that sell to just about anyone) and people start to grumble about companies like ENRON and Martha Stewart and Nike and other companies using child labor, etc. Why are corporate criminals are rarely punished? Is this attitude a result of the increasing difficulty in achieving the American dream? Are there people we might consider ethical who convince themselves that it's OK to keep working for Nike or SCO or Microsoft or whomever because they're just a cog and aren't responsible for the company's actions? Obviously it's not always a black-and-white call for someone to make but I think a lot of people are in major denial. Companies don't only exist to make money. They also provide some goods or services, provide employment, conduct research that eventually benefits the public, etc. All of the focus on profit is harmful and shouldn't be accepted by people inside or outside the company.

sean

Re:corporate ethics

[zangdesign]

Part of the problems is that people that work for these companies are inside the problem. They themselves may not go out and hire child labor - they just call a company in Malaysia or wherever and make some enquiries about production cost and machine equipment, etc. It's very likely that the though never even crosses their mind that the company may hire child labor. This goes on day after day all over the country. The other side of this is that the company in Malaysia or wherever doesn't perceive it as wrong and so the issue of the age of employees never comes up.

I think the people in charge of businesses, as a general rule, try to be ethical and honest and all of that, but they do not have absolute control at all levels of production. Then you have a couple of bad characters who spoil it for the whole bunch. Enron was one such example. Most of the Enron employees probably had no idea what was going on at the time. They did their jobs, got their paychecks and all was right with the world. Then Fastow and Lay come along and screw the gig for everyone. It's easy to claim "well, they should have known!" but it's also very naive. It's even entirely possible that Enron execs were within specific laws because sometimes there's not one law that says "thou shalt not do X-and-such".

At any rate, I agree that absolute focus on profit and nothing else is not right, but there's no law against it. And ultimately, that is all we have to work with. Until our canon of laws is so firmly embedded in our psyche that we become aware of any potential action that might break any law, then we will not be able to get past this problem. Or until someone makes it illegal not to think of the surrounding community, then we're stuck.

Some of that even comes down to varying definitions of community. As an example, I do not feel a particular sense of community with anyone here at at /. simply because I've never met them. Now, I would have to really think about to come up with a way to directly harm /. and the community, but at the same time, how do I know that an action I committed earlier in the day hasn't harmed them in some way?

It's not shades of gray - it's not even a color.