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Is the SCO Lawsuit a Good Thing for Linux?

Posted by michael on from the tetanus-shot dept.

Jack William Bell writes "The National Post is running an essay by Wynn Quon entitled 'Linux's lucky lawsuit'. In it Quon claims that (A) SCO is going to lose (saying ". . . SCO is a toad about to face a steamroller.") and (B) the Linux community needs exactly this kind of 'inoculation' as the OS moves from a hobbyist platform to a real business tool. Good analysis or unwarranted optimism?"

5 of 422 comments (clear)

  1. NO it is NOT good for Linux by FreeLinux · · Score: -1, Troll

    Don't be an idiot!

  2. The Unix IP Jungle: Lessons from the Past by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    If the latest revalations regarding IBM's possible leakage of copyrighted Unix code into Linux have proven anything, it is that using any derivative of this outdated operating system is a legal disaster waiting to happen. Not only is Linux licensed under the anti-business GNU General Public License, but it turns out that commercial code may have been unlawfully added, making it illegal to use or distribute.

    This should suprise no one familiar with the history of Unix. The earliest version was an unlicensed ripoff of the proprietary Multics operating system, and was partly responsible for destroying the market for this pioneering operating system. The Berkeley Shareware Distribution (BSD) was sued by AT&T in the early 1990s, for openly distributing copyrighted code in its public-domain source releases. As if this wasn't enough, it turned out that AT&T had also broken the license on code they had taken from BSD, leaving both sides forced to essentially accept the other's illegal behavior in order to avoid stiffer penalties.

    Reputable software companies such as Microsoft, though initially interested in Unix, have learned to steer clear of the mess of standards, licenses, and conflicting intellectual property rights that Unix forms. Microsoft Windows XP is the latest release of Microsoft's flagship version of Windows, built from the ground up in the early 1990s based on the most modern concepts in operating systems, without any legacy baggage from the 1970s. And it is available essentially for free, preloaded on hardware from all major manufacturers. There is really no reason to use anything else, unless you need a truly high-performance computing system such as IBM's proprietary OS/390 or HP's OpenVMS.

  3. Re:Er... no by gbjbaanb · · Score: 0, Troll

    not necessarily - if the GPL wins, and the court conclusion is that anything with GPL code in it is GPL, then business will be very scared indeed. I may be able to open-source all my employers products by slipping in a few lines of some-GPLed routine. yikes!

    Alternatively, if the conclusion is that mixing GPL code into proprietary code doesn't affect the proprietary licence, then the GPL is effective useless. (or more likely, finally usable in the real world)

  4. SCO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Step 1: Buy stock (SCOX)
    Step 2: File lawsuit
    Step 3: Watch SCOX value run up
    Step 4: Sell SCOX
    Step 5: Buy yacht, head for Bahamas

  5. Unwarrented Optimism it is by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
    Good analysis or unwarranted optimism?

    Unfortunately, it is unwarranted optimism.

    The problems here are:

    1. The players (working against Linux, GNU etc.) are too powerful.
    2. This will simply widen the rift between GPLers and anti-GPLers.
    3. This will bring patriotism into question and guess who will win then.
    4. Negative publicity: People already think that Linux is a rip-off of Unix, SCO just reinforced it, and even if SCO's claims are disproved, the damage will be done. History has proof for this.

    Combine all of the above and you have a recipie for disaster. He is just getting