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The Santa Cruz Organization (SCO), which owns the UNIX copyrights, recently sued IBM claiming copyright infringements by (they claim) using SCO intellectual property in Linux. IBM refused to settle and instead said they'd take it to court.
Two questions come to mind as I approach the topic of SCO and its ongoing anti-Linux jihad. Where do I start, and when will it all end?
I should start with the recent revelations about the so-called evidence against IBM. There is new information that at least some of the most important common source code between Linux and SCO UNIX actually originated with Sequent.
Is The Truth Relevant?
I hesitate to explore this new evidence about the evidence, because I'm not convinced any of it matters. Pardon the cynicism, but it is not without a foundation in personal experience. This suit is destined for a court of law. My personal experience as a defendant and as an expert witness have taught me to be cynical about the justice system. If these experiences (I will spare you the details) were isolated incidents, I might still be optimistic. But my opinions have also been shaped by historic court decisions that determined that if you're stupid enough to place a cup of hot coffee between your legs, the fast food restaurant that brewed the coffee must be held responsible.
So when I rotate around the source code and copyright issues to examine every side, I am reluctant to speculate about the outcome as if the truth matters. It usually doesn't. I know lawyers who recognize truth when they see it. I know some who might even take a stand on the truth outside the courtroom. But I have yet to meet a lawyer who actually leverages and respects the truth in a case. Lawyers tend to build their strategies based on how much money is involved, where the money is located, how much of that money can possibly be awarded in court decisions, and what they have to convince the court to believe in order to get the best portion of that money. Everything else, truth included, is negotiable or disposable. Anyone who reads the D.O.J. findings of fact must come face-to-face with this reality to understand why Microsoft is now once again on its worst behavior, unchecked by legal restraints.
The Sequents Of Events
Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that the new information does matter. Here's the current speculation: Someone at Sequent wrote and contributed useful code to SCO UNIX. IBM bought Sequent. The same code showed up in Linux.
The knee-jerk reaction to this news is that Sequent owns at least the algorithms and ideas (the abstract intellectual property), if not the copyrights to the source code itself. This means that if IBM, Sequent's new proud owner, wants to put the code in Linux, it has every right to do so.
Even if SCO has some rights to this code, one can no longer argue that IBM stole the code from SCO to make Linux great, because IBM (Sequent) invented the code, not SCO. Indeed, since IBM was indirectly responsible for improving SCO UNIX with the code in the first place, SCO should be indebted to IBM for the innovation, not the other way around.
Let's assume for a moment that the court decides IBM did not have the right to re-use this code in Linux. What is the remedy for the offense? I don't mean monetary remedy -- we haven't gotten to the issue of monetary damages yet. I'm talking strictly about what it would take to correct the offense.
The remedy seems obvious. IBM and/or the Linux Kernel maintainers should remove the offending code and replace it with original code that performs the same function. That seems a bit silly, doesn't it?
It might give a twisted mind at SCO some satisfaction knowing that SCO was able to put IBM and the Kernel developers to the trouble. But if Linux will end up with the features either way, and IBM/Sequent invented the code in the first place, why should it have to go through the contortions of modifying the code just so it won't look like the SCO code anymore?
Counting The Change
There's an even more interesting ramification to this new information about the origin of the offending code, and that brings us to the monetary remedy. The SCO lawsuit now seeks $3 billion in damages, up from $1 billion, ostensibly because this code made Linux so competitive that it destroyed the market for SCO UNIX.
So someone answer me this. If the code is identical, how did it make Linux more competitive than SCO UNIX? If both Linux and SCO benefit from this code, it doesn't give Linux the edge, it levels the playing field, doesn't it? After all, it's the same code, isn't it?
If you're still with me, then one must ask the next logical question. If this code made Linux equal -- not superior, equal -- to SCO UNIX in what SCO seems to believe is a critical aspect of the operating systems, then why did Linux stomp all over SCO sales?
Is it possible that people prefer Linux to SCO UNIX for other reasons?
Let's look at this from a slightly different angle. It's a decidedly personal one, but those of you who agree with my opinion might see an interesting consequence to this line of thinking.
Here's the opinion. SCO UNIX is a dog. I recall trying to install and use various versions of SCO Open Server several times. I've had mixed results, but never good results. Most of the time, it was so much trouble to install that I never completed the installation. Obviously others have had better luck, or nobody would be using it at all. But SCO UNIX has always struck me as the most quirky, unfriendly and overall poorly conceived commercial UNIX on the planet. Solaris, HP-UX, Irix, AIX and others are far easier to install and manage, in part because they are more mature and specialized implementations of UNIX, and in part because they are designed to run on specialized hardware instead of unpredictable configurations of Intel machines.
The Heart Of The Matter
Since SCO UNIX is such a downer, could Linux have destroyed the SCO market with or without any of the code SCO alleges is its intellectual property? One can answer that simply by looking at the better alternatives. The rapid growth in Linux has been eroding the market for every flavor or UNIX, including Solaris, HP-UX, Irix, and others. Yet neither Linus Torvalds nor IBM had to steal secrets from Sun, Hewlett-Packard or SGI to accomplish this. Therefore, there must be something about Linux that people desire more than these alternatives.
I think you can guess what that "something" might be. Linux is free software and open source. That, my friends, is the crux of this whole case. Linux is not a threat because it includes source code that is also present in SCO UNIX. Linux is a threat because all the source code, common or uncommon, is open and free.
Linux leaves SCO with few ways to survive, two of which seem rather obvious. First, SCO could get off its heinie and start turning SCO UNIX into something someone might actually prefer to Linux. That is obviously too strenuous for the company, because the SCO leadership has instead chosen to seek an easier way to restore its prior existence of comfortable mediocrity.
That brings us to the other alternative, which is equally obvious -- not because it is logical or makes sense, but because SCO has been doing it so loudly. SCO has decided instead to throw one pre-adolescent tantrum after another. SCO has announced one outrageous claim and target after another, each time promising that it has no other intentions. Each time, SCO is (rightfully) ridiculed in the press, after which it breaks its promise and launches an attack on another victim, from 1,500 companies to Linus Torvalds himself.
SCO clearly has no talent to build on, no products with which to survive, and no leadership other than a cadre of poor losers. I'm tempted to say they're simply losers, but given my cynical view of the justice system, the outcome of all these shenanigans remains to be seen.
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发表于 2003-7-1 23:28:13
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