While Red Hat’s complaint and IBM’s countersuit provided fan-pleasing left and right hooks to SCO on the first morning of the most recent LinuxWorld Expo, the most important story of the show lay underneath the flurry of press releases, swagger, and bluster: for the first time ever, the vaunted GNU Public License (GPL), the constitution of much of the free software world may be put to a legal test.
While Red Hat’s complaint and IBM’s countersuit provided fan-pleasing left and right hooks to SCO on the first morning of the most recent LinuxWorld Expo, the most important story of the show lay underneath the flurry of press releases, swagger, and bluster: for the first time ever, the vaunted GNU Public License (GPL), the constitution of much of the free software world may be put to a legal test.
If the GPL withstands scrutiny, it could undermine SCO’s infringement claims, but more importantly, a court’s stamp of approval on the GPL would establish its enforceability. Up to now, plaintiffs’ lawyers finesse defendants that appear to be in violation of the GPL, because at the moment, plaintiffs’ attorneys have no precedent to back up their client’s claims. In other words, the GPL is all bark, and no bite. A finding in favor of the GPL, would give the “viral” license teeth.
But if the GPL is instead deemed unenforceable, the legions of open source developers that rely on the GPL to propagate and protect the openness of their work will be forced to retreat, albeit to an improved free software license that addresses any shortcomings that a court may identify. However, the turmoil and resulting fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD), would surely have implications, affecting far more than how much money SCO can extract from a jury.
The test of the GPL is being prompted by IBM’s counterclaim against SCO. IBM’s argument goes something like…
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