SCO backlash grows

THE POWER of a diverse international community of individuals and organizations interested in Open Source software is turning to bear upon SCO. Events just this week alone show that this backlash is growing.

SuSE Linux, SCO's German partner in the United Linux consortium -- along with TurboLinux and Conectiva -- denounced SCO's Linux licensing demands as "without merit", as translated into English at the Groklaw SCO-tracking weblog's Tuesday, August 26 entry. (Maybe smarmy Darl McBride deserves a guest slot on Bill O'Reilly's rant-in TV show at Fox News, since its new brand slogan is "Wholly Without Merit", according to Salon.)

MontaVista Software, a vendor of embedded Linux systems, weighed in also, as we reported yesterday here and earlier updated today here. It blasted SCO for "maliciously" attempting to destroy embedded Linux, and we think it told us how it really feels.

MontaVista is also rallying its strategic partners and customers to band together with it in order to "...take a public stand against SCO and its attempts to intimidate." That unequivocal statement is at MontaVista's website here.

Even Novell finally seemed to find its voice yesterday, when CTO Alan Nugent reportedly told LinuxWorld Australia that it's high time for SCO to either put up or shut up.

And earlier this month, but just come to light in the US, the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) issued an official press statement saying, in effect, that it's not worried by SCO's allegations against Open Source software. It looks like McBride not only failed to sell any Linux licenses on his recent trip to Japan but also managed to alarm some large companies, such as Matsushita, Sony, Fujitsu, Hitachi, NEC, etc., since METI is really a sort of super-exclusive club for all of those huge firms, which in turn sets Japanese industrial policy. The METI press release can be found at Nikkei .

However, the best news for the Open Source movement all week so far has to be Rob Landley's article, written with Eric Raymond, entitled "It Ain't Necessarily SCO". In it, the authors rebut SCO's Amended Complaint in its lawsuit against IBM in painstaking and thoroughly researched detail, claim by claim. It takes apart SCO's prevarications and misrepresentations with unremitting logic, devastatingly factual accuracy and shrewd historical insights.

There are a number of enlightening analyses and deconstructions in this piece, along with some illuminating legal and technical revelations that we've not seen elsewhere previously.

For instance, did you know that, because SCO filed its initial Complaint before it registered its copyright, it's therefore limited by statute to recovering merely $150,000 for any infringements? There are several such Aha! moments awaiting an assiduous reader of this analysis.

The "Background Facts" and appendices sections are well written, almost riveting, but those who aren't interested in slogging once more through SCO's tortured arguments might want to skip over those sections and let their attorneys review them instead.

In oblique recognition that SCO's Amended Complaint against IBM is just another expression of Microsoft's anti-Linux strategy for attempting to retain and extend its desktop monopoly, Landley and Raymond have lodged this document among the Vole's other Halloween documents as the next in the series, Halloween IX.

What's next?

Might other Linux distributions and smaller Linux IT consultants join in the Red Hat lawsuit against SCO?

Will Linux kernel developers mount a class action lawsuit for copyright violations against SCO?

Could the Free Software Foundation be crafting a lawsuit against SCO for violating the GPL?

Are US SEC and FTC lawyers' Inboxes are filling up with complaints, such that they might launch investigations based upon allegations of insider trading and commercial fraud against SCO?

All of these are possible.

There's a scene in the film "Dances With Wolves" where a raiding enemy brave is cornered and surrounded in a streambed by the mounted and well armed surviving members of Indian tribe he has just attacked. You might guess how that scene ends, even if you didn't see the movie. That's SCO. µ

See Also
HP employs Catholic method to avoid SCO pregnant moment
SCO defies logic by selling Samba under "invalid" GPL
Eric Raymond gets very mad at SCO
SCO "maliciously" attempts to kill off Embedded Linux
MontaVista - corrections and amplifications
(Use our Search function for more -- just bung in "SCO" - Ed.)

L'INQS
Groklaw
MontaVista
LinuxWorld Australia
Nikkei
Halloween IX