Whichever the case, one can't help but question the timing of the SCO Group's latest legal wrangle.
In a letter to approximately 1,500 of the world's largest corporations, Darl McBride, SCO president and CEO, said: "We believe that Linux infringes on our Unix intellectual property and other rights. We intend to aggressively protect and enforce these rights.
"As a consequence of Linux's unrestricted authoring process, it is not surprising that Linux distributors do not warrant the legal integrity of the Linux code provided to customers. Therefore legal liability that may arise from the Linux development process may also rest with the end user."
What does this legal speak mean? If you're a commercial Linux user, SCO could sue you for copyright infringement since as the owner of the Unix operating system, it has claimed that Linux is an unauthorised derivative of Unix.
It's still unclear if SCO's threat, I mean, legal stance has any substance.
As Linus Torvalds, the founder of the Linux operating system, so aptly put it in an interview with LinuxWorld.com: "I'd personally just like to know what they claim infringes, since they themselves seem to be quite confused about it (at one point they said that it wasn't the kernel but something else, and at another point they said it was)."
"And I suspect some SCO lawyer just woke up to this fact and realised that they haven't made money any other way, and if their main cash cow is going to be litigation, they'd better avoid doing anything that makes their case any weaker than it already is," Torvalds said.
Oh, and let's not forget the ongoing SCO-IBM saga.
On 7 March 2003, it filed suit against IBM for more than US$1 billion in the State Court of Utah alleging Big Blue made "concentrated efforts to improperly destroy the economic value of Unix, particularly Unix on Intel, to benefit IBM's new Linux services business." According to Gartner, SCO's suit could be a way to make it a more attractive takeover target.
Gartner's sentiment was echoed by Illuminata analyst Gordon Haff. Commenting on the latest development, he told CNET News.com that "SCO has lobbed its dirty bomb into the user community, saying, 'You'd better clean this up in a big hurry or there's going to be a lot of damage'...I guess suing IBM wasn't enough to get them acquired, so this is the next stage."
SCO has halted its Linux-related activities in a bid to better understand and resolve the issues surrounding Linux intellectual property. If the validity of the claims is proven, there will be wide ramifications--beyond IT circles and straight through your bottom line.
Do you think companies should suspend current and/or upcoming Linux projects or adopt a wait-and-see attitude? Please send all comments and opinions to edit@zdnet.com.au.
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No company that I am aware of has ever tried so hard to have their case tried in the press. They *know* that a jury can only consider evidence offered in the courtroom, not reports in the press. So who does SCO plan to influence through all of this? Customers and investors. These two groups are the only consumers of Sontag's retoric that might be influenced to act on SCO's behalf. So, by your SCO stock now! Use your influence as an investor to influence SCO's board to stop this nonsense. And when this is all over you'll end up owning some nice IBM stock instead (hopefully).