SCO: what a mare

OVER THE WEEKEND I thought it would be such a wonderful (NOT) world if Microsoft bought SCO, picking up SCO's party line of "Linux is contaminated with copyrighted code." After all, the Great Evil to Microsoft on servers is Linux and the open source movement. Since Microsoft already has a monopoly on the desktop, they need to fuel the great mawl of the Redmond cash engine by expanding market share in the corporate arena.

Instead, Microsoft announced over the weekend that they're going to license UNIX patents and source code from SCO, according to CNET, and as we reported early this morning.

How marvy!

Is Microsoft going to release a version of UNIX? After all that time and money burned on Windows NT, XP, and CE? Hardly. Instead, Microsoft can feed money into cash-strapped SCO so they can keep their lawsuits burning for a few more years and see if that scares away anyone from Linux. If they get really lucky, SCO's suits put a dent into corporate Linux through sheer FUD, thereby selling more Microsoft servers. While the big boys - HP and IBM - have their own versions of UNIX, they had been rapidly swinging their boats to Linux.

If necessary, Microsoft can keep its hands clean of the firefight by continuing to "expand" its license agreement with SCO by writing more checks. Since Microsoft has more cash on hand than any three companies would know what to do with, they can simply feed the anti-Linux effort with a couple of days interest per month. If SCO loses, Microsoft can write off the expenses as noise.

This is realpolitik at its best. If Microsoft bought SCO outright and then started to sue IBM and other Linux companies outright, well, that might be a little much even for the U.S. Department of Justice to stomach, much less the Fortune 500. And the EU would likely use it as the final straw to put heavier sanctions onto Microsoft in Europe. So, in the best French tradition, Microsoft makes a license agreement for products they have little intention of using, SCO continues in court, and the Fortune 500 grumble at the back door war.

A couple of years ago, I thought Microsoft could have co-opted the Linux movement by releasing their own supported UNIX variant for the corporate world. MS-UX could have been a portable, supportable UNIX across multiple platforms with a clear growth path. Right now, Linux development is currently at 2.4 "official" with 2.5 developmental. So the next official version might be 2.5 or it might be 3.0 depending on what mood Linus Torvalds is in that day.

Of course, you can develop your own Linux enhancements, but corporations who do that also have to end up supporting those enhancements in-house unless they are adopted and incorporated into the latest Linux version. When the latest version might come out is, well, a matter of speculation and not linked to any sort of published timetable. And what it might include is also a matter of informed speculation rather than a clearly defined roadmap. Needless to say, this sort of planning is one of the reasons IT managers swing to either Windows or a "closed" version of Unix. µ

See Also
Microsoft to license Unix from SCO