Judge slams SCO's lack of evidence against IBM

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Does SCO have a case?

I don't know but if they do, why in the hell don't they provide their evidence to the courts? In the end, SCO needs a buyer if it wants to survive. Who though?

IBM? IBM would certainly benefit from owning UNIX SVR4 outright as it would put them on equal footing with Sun (and presumably with Novell).

RedHat? RedHat would benfit even more than IBM as any threat of their being the subject of litigation over SVR4 in their Linux distribution would be gone as well.

HP would also benefit from acquiring SCO but right now, HP has bigger fish to fry.

At the crux of SCOs problems is that, by the time they bought UNIX SVR4 from Novell, Novell had already sold off most of the IP value of SVR4 through perpetual licenses sold to Sun (this was a side deal with AT&T since Sun co-developed SVR4), IBM, HP, and perhaps a few others. By the time SCO was in the picture, the UNIX "cash cow" was gone. In short, SCO bought a "pig in a poke".

SCOs days are numbered no matter how this case turns out. The only real question is ... "How much money will IBM have to spend to bring this litigaiton to a close."

If the courts find against IBM, which seems less likely by the day, then the Linux folks (at least those who don't also hold SVR4 licenses) need to watch out.

The only other question is whether or not SCO can prevail in its dispute with Novell over whether Novell retains SVR4 ownership. If Novell prevails in its claim of SVR4 ownership, SCO becomes just another SVR4 licensee -- and will likely go belly-up.

If Novell is nothing more than an SVR4 licensee, the litigation will continue until SCO runs out of money, or until a Linux-friendly entity acquires SCO.

IMHO, when the dust settles, UNIX/Linux will be one two-tiered product offered by a number of SVR4 licensees. It will continue to have a "free" component available to all who are willing to get support through the open source community.

The OWNER(S) of SVR4 will be Sun and whomever buys SCO and/or Novell (depending upon the outcome of THAT litigation.)

Posted by: mwagner@...   Posted on: 02/10/05 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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