By now, everyone in the industry has heard about SCO filing a $1 Billion law-suit against IBM.
The whole story is quite bizarre. It began with the SCO accusing IBM of contract violation and appropriation of trade secrets. They alledged IBM had stolen IP from SCO (during project Monterey on which they collaborated) and alledge IBM took SCO IP and added it to Linux. They contest that Linux couldn't have achieved its current enterprise features and power without appropriating their code - a claim that is as easily dismissed as it is laughable.
SCO obviously haven't done their homework...
As soon as the community finds out which parts of the code are supposed to be infringing, a horde of developers will descend upon the problem, rewrite any code that is infringing, and dissolve the problem on the spot.
This is assuming that there is even any merit in their claims anyway. And this is far from clear. The analysis below just rips to shreds all the claims made by SCO:
SCO will be left with their lawyers trying to chase down the culprits (if any). And Linux - indeed, the entire Open/Free community - will continue to survive, and thrive. This is a mere distraction that cannot divert the cause.One cannot help but wonder why Microsoft is resorting to such dirty tactics too. Obviously Linux is far more a threat to them than we imagined, given they are trying to prop up SCO with cashola... Read more analysis.
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