As this issue of Linux Magazine goes to print, the biggest story in the Linux world is SCO’s “not less than” $1 billion law suit against IBM. News of the suit spread quickly over Web, blogs, and wire. InfoWorld ran the headline, “SCO Sues IBM Over Linux,” while c|net wrote, “SCO Sues Big Blue over Unix, Linux.”
As this issue of Linux Magazine goes to print, the biggest story in the Linux world is SCO’s “not less than” $1 billion law suit against IBM. News of the suit spread quickly over Web, blogs, and wire. InfoWorld ran the headline, “SCO Sues IBM Over Linux,” while c|net wrote, “SCO Sues Big Blue over Unix, Linux.”
My first reaction to the announcement was, “Ugh!” I just couldn’t imagine the words “sue,” “misappropriation,” and “Linux” in the same sentence leading to anything positive. I imagined fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) oozing from newspapers, Web sites, and TV screens everywhere.
And indeed, there was an immediate wave of questions and confusion following the announcement. Do SCO’s claims have merit? Does IBM’s Linux contain SCO code? Do the major distributions contain portions of the Unix source code?
Even if you don’t believe SCO, all of those questions are valid and should be answered by IBM if for no other reason than the good of Linux. Unfortunately, those questions are unanswerable at this point. While SCO’s complaint has many allegations, SCO hasn’t revealed any evidence supporting its claims, leaving analysts, reporters, and the entire Linux community to conjecture about the merits and validity of the case and about SCO’s rationale.
Bruce Perens conjectured that SCO simply wants to be acquired and hopes to leverage this otherwise nuisance suit into a juicy buyout offer.
Others posited that SCO was simply using the suit to force IBM to…
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