The SCO vs. Linux controversy continues, and the reporting is almost universally bad. There is this article from EETimes: Linux-Unix ties spelled out and the Slashdot discussion.
But analysts categorically disagreed with that viewpoint last week. "SCO is not trying to destroy Linux," said DiDio of the Yankee Group. "That's silly. This is about paying royalties."
This is absolutely wrong. It is about destroying Linux. Linux is under GPL. Therefore, if any company thought they could pay a royalty to SCO and continue to use Linux, they are deceived. If there is such code in Linux, then to use that code would violate the GPL. Therefore, if SCO cares at all about IP, it must tell everyone to stop using Linux. If SCO tells them to continue to use Linux, but pay a royalty, then they show that they don't care about intellectual property, unless its their intellectual property. How hypocritical. SCO really is trying to destroy Linux.
This whole SCO vs. Linux situation is so full of FUD. The analysts saw as much as 80 lines of code that appeared to be identical. So, out of millions of lines of code, perhaps a fraction of one percent appears very similar to the Unix code. Yet, according to SCO, that must be a very critical fraction of one percent, because
SCO contends that by co-opting code from Unix, Linux has severely damaged SCO's intellectual property. According to some estimates, the company collected annual revenue of between $200 million and $250 million on Unix System 5 software before the rise of Linux. After Linux reached the mainstream, those revenue figures dropped to about $60 million a year.
What's going on here? I think SCO is trying to imply that the code that is the same in Linux and Unix is randomly sampled, meaning that we can then infer that a much larger portion of the Unix code was copied. How else can we explain it? How could stealing -- if it is in fact stealing -- a fraction of one percent of the code base result in "severely" damaging SCO's intellectual property? No, it must be much more than a fraction of one percent. The inference that a much larger portion of Unix code was copied is intended to spread FUD.
So, some analysts saw sections of as much as 80 lines of code that appear to be copied, and then conclude
"If IBM wants to cure this problem, they could start by buying all the appropriate licenses and then paying SCO a billion dollars," Claybrook said. "But SCO now says that a billion may not be enough to cover their damages."
There is a serious disconnect here. A few hundred lines of code may have been copied from Unix into Linux -- that being a small fraction of one percent -- and analysts conclude that because of that IBM should pay SCO $1 billion!? Huh?
Someone has to stand up to the rights of the thousands of developers who put in volunteer time to make their contribution to the Linux code base, agreeing to license their code under GPL. They didn't ask for SCO's Unix code to be mixed with their own code. SCO is showing no respect for the intellectual property of those developers. Rather, SCO is trying to make billions off intellectual property that SCO does not own, all the while preaching the morality of respecting intellectual property.
Posted by Doug Sauder at June 8, 2003 10:35 AM