[H-GEN] Sad day for Linux

[Ewan Edwards]

[ Humbug *General* list - semi-serious discussions about Humbug and     ]
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On Tuesday 27 May 2003 09:33 am, David Thorndike wrote:
> [ Humbug *General* list - semi-serious discussions about Humbug and     ]
> [ Unix-related topics. Posts from non-subscribed addresses will vanish. ]
>
> SCO nows says that anyone using linux without paying
> SCo a licensing fee is breaking copyright laws.
>
> And also SCO has now licensed its software to MS.
>
> http://www.itnews.com.au/storycontent.cfm?ID=8&Art_ID=12081
>
> http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/os/linux/story/0,10801,81352,00
>.html?SKC=linux-81352


Unfortunately, this issue has the potential to severely damage the progress of 
Linux, and other open source software (OSS), in the corporate world.  Not 
because of any legitimacy in the claim by SCO, but because of ignorance and 
fear - fear of being sued.  

I'm sure there are a number of decision makers in the corporate world who are 
not well educated about OSS, who have read the SCO announcement.  Without the 
benefit of other knowledge they will react in a OSS negative way.  With the 
benefit of advice from third parties (legal consultants, industry analysts, 
etc.), they will still react in a cautious (better safe than sorry) manner.  

As a result, my guess would be that Microsoft has already benefited from this, 
and at the same time Red Hat, Mandrake, et. al. have already lost out.  I 
feel sure there have already been some new deployments, originally planned 
around Linux, changed to Windows deployments at the last minute, simply in 
reaction to the SCO announcements.

It is for this reason that I am surprised at, what seems to be, a rather mute 
and unconvincing response from the open source world.  I would have thought 
that very loud and very public responses from the likes of Red Hat, GNU, IBM, 
etc. for SCO to 'put up or shut up' would have been appropriate from the 
outset.  The potential damage to OSS businesses is quite high no matter how 
easily SCO's claims are shown to be unsupportable.  And the longer it takes, 
the more potential damage.

I agree that the SCO claims are worthy of no more than contempt, but as many 
politicians have learned, no matter how contemptable the mud when it is 
thrown some will always stick and the trick is to stop the mud being thrown 
as soon as possible.

My $0.02 worth.



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