[Luni]-understanding the Linux/SCO court case

[Matthew Landry]

On Thu, Jun 05, 2003 at 07:56:21PM -0500, Larry Garfield wrote:
> I'm not that concerned about the courts going ape and shutting Linux 
> down.  That's highly unlikely.  What I AM worried about is PHBs seeing 
	That's impossible, actually.

	What we all have to remember is that the case may be ABOUT things
that allegedly happened with Linux, but the only defendant is IBM. The
worst imaginable outcome would be that IBM loses and declines to buy SCO
out instead of paying off the judgment, some offending code in the Linux
base is identified, and whatever kernel features or userland tools that
incorporate that code are rewritten to do without it. The BSD world already
did that back in the early 90s, and although we lost some mindshare ground
(mostly to Linux, ironically enough) while the case was still pending, it
didn't break us, and we're still out here releasing new versions and
quietly running many of the most important servers on the internet. :)

	Slightly more likely (but still very farfetched, IMHO) is that IBM
loses, but buys out SCO instead of paying the judgment. That sets a bad
precedent for the future, but probably not a crippling one, and IBM can buy
SCO out of petty cash if they have to, so it's not like anyone's gonna go
hungry for this.

	Significantly more likely than either of these is that IBM doesn't
lose. A loss by SCO would probably close their doors, or at least put them
up for sale at fire-sale prices. Either way, if SCO loses, the precedent
GNU and Linux and all other software developed under open source licenses
need will be etched in platinum-iridium by the decision.

	But "shutting down Linux" is both impossible in a practical sense
and outside the realm of the court's authority in this case even if it WERE
theoretically possible. Nor is any company not in posession of a Unix(tm)
source license from AT&T/Novell/SCO/Caldera/SCO even theoretically at risk
of finding themselves defending against a similar case, whether they use
Linux (or even contribute to Linux) or not.

	So the second most important thing is to not look like we're
panicking. The most important thing, though, is actually NOT to be
panicking. :) Because even though this case is sort of trivially about
Linux, it's not really about the Linux community at all, and even the worst
possible outcome won't do us the kind of crippling damage that a lot of
people are fearing.

	Yes, Microsoft will use it for FUD. Linux developers can't go to
the loo without Microsoft using the event for FUD. That's certainly why
they're semi-covertly buying a unix source license to slip SCO some help
with the legal fees. But in this case, there's a counter-argument against
the FUD we can tell managers to confirm with their own lawyers if they
don't believe us. Any manager who still believes the FUD enough to go with
Windoze in that case is one we had no chance of convincing anyway.
-- 
Matthew Landry              mbl at lelnet.com                       O-
LEL Network Services                           Anti-Stupid Talisman
"You don't have to outrun the bear. Just outrun the slowest hiker."