SCO, IBM battle heats up

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Not a chance.

I'm not picking sides either way on the SCO / IBM suits. In the long run, I really don't believe it will change anything significant in the computing landscape. Oh there may be a hiccup here or there, but nothing the market and open source community can't deal with.

SCO may (or not) have a case against IBM over their contract terms and that's for a court to deal with. But the open source world will simply side step any significant result of the case. If there is offending code, it'll be gone with the next kernel release of Linux. (Or a patch.) If there is no offending code, pffttt, it's done. And so is SCO.

Open source will not allow itself to be hampered by actions like these, however companies (like IBM) must be careful in their dealings/use of open source. They are the ones with deep enough pockets to make it worth going after. Even if it's a minor or questionable problem/claim the potential payoff is worth it. Even being bought out by a company with deep pockets is a winner. Many companies dream of it happening.

I believe that also explains much of IBM's recent moves with Novell/SuSE IBM must have seriously considered buying SCO out. It may have even been the cheapest and easiest thing to do. But, that would have rewarded SCO in a way certain to generate copy cat suits.

By buying up part of Novell and then Novell buying SuSE, it really puts SCO in a tight spot. Novell still owns considerable rights to UNIX so if they want to distribute IP through SuSE there may not be a thing SCO can do about it.

Yes, IBM may have bought an answer, but they didn't pay SCO a penny and that makes a statement many would be IP claimants would do well to consider...

Posted by: No_Ax_to_Grind   Posted on: 11/12/03 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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