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Linus Speaks Out, Calls SCO 'Cornered Rat'
dexterpexter writes "In an interview with Business Week, Linux founder and guardian Linus Torvalds had, in his usual brand of blunt humor, the following to say about SCO: 'They're a cornered rat, and quite frankly, I think they have rabies to boot. I'd rather not get too close to them,' and 'There are literally several levels of SCO being wrong. And even if we were to live in that alternate universe where SCO would be right, they'd still be wrong.'" In the same issue, there's also an interview with Darl McBride where he admits that the company was failing and the Linux-related lawsuits were a last-ditch effort to prevent bankruptcy.
How unfortunate that the ethical bankruptcy is tied so closely to the fiscal one. Where was it written that this *had* to be so painful?
C|N>K
In the end, I think we'll all look back on this as the time where Linux went from sort of a fringe software in the minds of a lot of people to a mainstream player, where corporations learned they shouldn't mess with the OSS community and when the idea of open-source really started to make people ask "Why *am* I paying for this software?"
After all, that which doesn't kill us, etc. etc.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
I'd say right now the open source community might look like the bigger rat with the new worm spreading and DDoSing SCO. It's not funny, it's not justice, and it just makes the open source community look like the cornered rat in the eyes of the masses. The first thing Linus should've done was to speak out and condemn this sort of behavior.
While it may be humorous to some of the immature individuals on this site, a worm to DDoS SCO is a terrible blunder. It just strengthens SCO's arguments that the open source community is made up of troublemakers that need to be stopped.
Sco saw that linux had hit it big and looked for an easy way into the money. Rather then doing a partnership type association like IBM they decieded to sue the hell out of them and then when that started to look bad they started to sue the users of linux. They are desperate and nothing to worry about.
Everyday You see me is the worst day of my life -Office Space
SCO can do absolutely anything they want. Lie, steal, commit slander and fraud. There are no repercussions.
The linux community, meanwhile, has to be absolutely perfect and saintlike and have not a single user do anything that could be interpreted as unethical, or they get blasted as scary anarchists.
This is even more funny when you consider SCO is a singular organization which can enforce ethical standards, whereas "the linux community" is an open ended, uncontrollable group of people that basically means everyone who downloads a certain program.
We need a media that knows how to do more than reprint press releases.
more interesting is what will happen to the companies that paid the licensing fees. if they decide they've been ripped off (well, that's only a matter of time) they're going to have a bejesus of a time recouping their costs. there will definitely be civil action. that's a given. but will there be criminal action to follow suit?
you can't sell the brooklyn bridge to tourists, after all. they put you in jail for that.
2 1337 4 u!
"Q: There has been a rumor in Silicon Valley that you're going to sue Google. A: Yeah, Google gets brought up a lot. They're high-profile, and they're one of the largest users of Linux. They have nearly 10,000 boxes, from what we can tell. They're a poster child. I think what's interesting about them is they have been able to develop a low-cost operating model because of Linux. If your model is going to hold up, you better make sure you don't have any infringing code in there. Otherwise, you need to adjust your financials based on how much you pay for your servers. "
The emphasis is mine. This is SCO's trump card for going after google. You see, any lawsuits based on IP would look VERY bad for potential investors when google wants to go public. I mean, licensing all of their 10k boxes would cost $6,990,000, but any amount looks bad to shareholders, especially since if SCO were to win (yeah yeah I know) they could basically say " we don't care how much you offer, we're not letting you use our IP" and google would be in a tight spot, and probably have to spend a LOT more than 7 mil to fix it.
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On a side note, I'm just amazed by IBM's social conscience. It's plain how few companies there are that recognize opportunities to invest in community for the benefit of the company and the community.
IBM doesn't necessarily (well, as a company) have a social conscience. IBM, however, is smart enough to realize that dealing with the OSS community can be phenomenally profitable -- that acting as if it *does* have one is marvelously beneficial. There are, very many differences in dealing with OSS versus traditional software. Here are some of my guesses as to what to do differently:
* A feeling of good will matters. Goodwill only matters normally as far as wining and dining a negotiator to try and get him to sell out his company a little. The OSS community is *extremely* sensitive to companies, treating them like people, whom are either friendly or unfriendly to OSS. A cohesive positive-sounding OSS company policy does a tremendous amount to keep a company in the good graces of the OSS folks. Press releases about how said company uses OSS, and thinks it's a good idea. Periodically releasing some code as OSS is a nice icing. (Take OpenAFS -- IBM only benefits from having that around, and it generates lots of good will.)
* Legal issues need to be minimized. Dealing with a company, you have lawyers who can hammer things out. The OSS community likes things pretty simple and clear.
* The OSS community doesn't demand masses of money. It's appreciated, like IBM's ongoing investment in open source development (which was probably done for strategic reasons, improving software that they needed worked on, as much as PR value), but a positive attitude toward OSS can count more than donating masses of money toward OSS.
* You don't need to worry about getting screwed over legally, in general. OSS folks are not generally out to shaft people over licenses. Legally, things are simple and nice.
* The OSS community can jump to conclusions quickly, and needs to be spoken to publically when misconceptions start going around. You have a lot of people with individual opinions. If a major Linux Ethernet player, like Donald Becker, writes a letter to, LKML saying that some chipset made by a company is lousy, said company needs an official, public response quickly. If there's a Slashdot story out about how your company is discontinuing production of Mindstorms (and the story is wrong), you should probably have a press release out within the day.
* The OSS community values specs. Take a page from Matrox, who decided what they could and couldn't release (couldn't release source to some on-card microcode, which had to be distributed in binary, but *could* release specs to much of the rest of the card.) Matrox's older G200-G450 series are still among the best supported of video cards under Linux and X.
* Maintain an official presence on relevant public forums, since so much OSS-related stuff takes place in the open. You might just have a mail filter that drops any email on major mailing lists containing your company name or product names into your PR department's inbox.
* Little of the OSS community accepts legal liability. This should be noted -- however, problems like illegal code copying do not seem to be prevalant, simply because of the high visibility of doing so. There are times when you may want indemnification of code you use -- the OSS community doesn't do that.
* Giving gifts can be inexpensive and valuable. In healthy Linux tradition, if someone runs out and implements a driver for your chipset, send 'em something nice in the mail. In rich Linux tradition, a case of beer seems to work well. It also costs you about a ten thousandth of what it would to implement the thing commercially, and ensures future good will. For driver writers, it's frequently a really, really good idea to just send along a few other products that you make (ones without drivers). This encourages people who have already demonstrated willingness to produce, wi
May we never see th