Their Jekyll and Hyde behavior has been noticed by just about everyone in the Linux community and beyond.

They are Microsoft's unlucky brother who feels cheated by fate any will use anyone / everything to try to remedy this perceived injustice. BTW Isn't this called tough business practices?

As Microsoft has had to bend slightly (showing source to governments etc) to try to stem the influence of opensource, Sun has tried various opensource guises. Staroffice is a perfect example; attacks MS office, gives it some opensource credibility, and is repackaged as one of their cost effective migration tools.

As Linux gains more influence and market share we are going to see some very bizarre relationship/domination attempts by those who feel threatened.

with metta rob

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<Shrug!> I guess it is because Linux World is a subsidiary of IDG http://ww w.idgworldexpo.com/idgworldexpo/V40/index.cvn?ID=10012 and Sun is a Platinium sponsor http: //www.linuxworldexpo.com/linuxworldny03/V40/index.cvn?ID=10013 not to mention all the avertising revenue IDG receives from Sun.

IIRC Microsoft won the award for best system integration software in the Open Source Product Excellence Awards at the last Linux World.

PS I doubt either would be popular (or winners) in a community sponsored event. ;-)

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Only thing is anyone can put out a Linux distribution regardless of what anyone else thinks of their intentions. The Company That I Shall Not Name could even put out a Linux distribution. In fact, the Company That Chose Dark Side could put out another Linux distribution tomorrow.

So we can't call any company that puts out a distribution or spends money on Linux her boyfriend.

In fact, Windows and the Company I Shall Not Name are married. Solaris and Sun are married. Unixware and The Company That Chose the Dark Side are married. Companies can send flowers to Linux all they want but her only husband is the GPL.

IBM joining with Linux' husband to beat up The Company That Chose the Dark Side is only going to give Linux' husband more "rep", so that the next Company that sends her flowers will be more afraid to try do drive her over a cliff.

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My explanation is that Linux remembers Sun of the happy days that he had with the BSD-stepsister of Linux, and the little SunOS. Then the rich AT&T lady came to spoil those happy days; Sun became richer, but not happier. Solaris is a good child, but a bit spoiled by her mother.

Enter Linux; she knows about the family tragedy. As beautifull as she is, she knows that flirting with Sun is fun; but bonding with Sun will cause unhapyness.

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My first Linux distro was Caldera's eDesktop 2.4. It was love at first sight. The relationship with Caldera did turn ugly, but I believe Caldera's installer and manager set a standard that other distros have followed. StarOffice, grown to become OpenOffice, is a fantastic gift for Linux on the desktop.

Let us keep the ring, no matter how the relationship goes.

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I LOL at this very evocative and accurate (and funny) sentence.

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Old-timers like myself well remember that Sun was viewed this same way twenty years ago. Back then it was UNIX that was going to bring "openness" and "hardware independence" to IT shops. UNIX represented the end of every vendor having his own proprietary OS to go along with his proprietary hardware.

To a large degree UNIX has fulfilled that promise. But even twenty years ago, Sun was viewed as the guy who would proclaim his own proprietary stuff an "Open Standard," and try to get everyone else to adopt it. When X-Windows was still a new thing, Sun tried to promote its own "NeWS" (Network-extensible windowing system) as an alternative. There have been dozens of these. Most of them flopped. Java has been by far the most successful of Sun's many attempts to create a "standard" that they own.

This is their mind set, and it has been for a long time. It is an obsolete mind set, one that is no longer in even their own interest, but Sun has not yet awakened to that fact.

I think people sense, and correctly, that IBM -has- figured it out. And that is why almost everyone except Bruce Perens sees IBM as a Knight in Shining Armor here, instead of just another guy like Sun who would grab control of Open Source if he could.

It is easy to understand why IBM loves linux, and we do not have to bestow Sainthood on them to understand it. AIX looks to them like a big money sink that doesn't really add anything to the bottom line. Yet-another-UNIX-flavor is a commodity; everybody has one and they are all about the same. So it brings no competitive advantage. Why spend a fortune maintaining such a thing?

They do need some Big Iron stuff in there like NUMA and RPC, but if an army of volunteers wants to work on the rest of it for bragging rights on Slashdot, well God bless them. IBM was making all its money on the hardware and the services anyway; AIX was just a cost of doing business. If IBM can sell hardware and services with linux instead, then their cost of developing and maintaining an OS just went down dramatically.

So they are willing to spend a billion dollars to make this happen, because it's still cheaper than maintaining AIX forever.

Are they serious? Has IBM really committed? Read Counterclaim #6 in IBM's latest filing. They are going to foot the bill to have the world's most expensive lawyers conduct the first serious court test of the GPL. This is Bill Gates' worst nightmare. All the FUD about the GPL being "unenforcable" goes out the window if IBM succeed in enforcing it against SCO. Precedent set... now let's have the -real- war.

The funny thing is, Sun has to eventually see the same thing, or they'll go out of business. IBM, HP, and Dell all understand that by chipping into the linux pot, they get to share the cost of developing and maintaining something that enables them to sell lots of boxes for lots of money. Only Sun seems to want to keep pouring money into its own UNIX flavor. In the end, that's just cost the other guys won't have. How does Sun compete if its cost structure is unalterably higher? It can't, and eventually that light bulb has to go on over Scott McNealy's head.

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thanks,

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In companies as large as Sun, HP, IBM (or any others), you find that there are many many groups. One group would be for Solaris (or AIX, or UX) another for Windows (or..uh..Windows), another for Sparc or RISC or Intel and so on.

Do you really think talking to the Intel guy he's going to say, "Yup, go ahead and use Sparc/RISC instead of our products!" You might as well ask the IBM spokesperson about why you should buy Sun!

Same for the os groups. The Windows guy is going to say to use UNIX?

Do you really think that talking to a spokesperson from the AIX group at IBM is going to get you a good idea of why you should switch to Linux? How about a UX spokesperson from HP? Solaris guy from Sun?

Sun has the same type of issue. It seems that they are two-faced on it, but each group has to save, or get, it's customers, or be written out entirely.

And when you get to the top guys, the ones who "control" the flow of the company, what are you going to get? One day it's "Use Linux!" Next day, "Use Solaris!" They have to do it, support all aspects of their business.

And so on.

Vip

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The indemnification issue is, no doubt, one of the FUD angles they would have both users and potential Linux user believe is something good. Personally, I do not share this point of view.

The very nature of Linux makes indemnification onerous and impractical. Exactly what component is a corporation indemnifying against; a kernel component; some other module? Remember, no single person owns the collective works. More importantly, does a corporation want to assume the risk of indemnifying against collectively GPL’ed code? Here's my take:

The GPL is a far-reaching community license. In particular, if a corporation chooses to indemnify for collective works released under the GPL, the corporation may be assuming reciprocating liabilities - if that's even legally accurate terminology. :-) On the other hand, if the corporation provides indemnity against its own developed products contributed via the GPL, then this is reasonable.

I could be out to an all-you-can-eat buffet on this one, but I believe that companies are dooming themselves if they provide indemnification for the collective work that is Linux or GNU/Linux.

Therefore, I believe that it may be safer for a company to indemnify only for their actual contributions. As a result, companies like SCO, who engage in unethical business practices, can take up their beefs only with the contributor.

It seems to me very odd that SCO and Microsoft (or is that SCO = Microsoft?) would all of a sudden start preaching about indemnity as if they actually care for the wellbeing of the very users they are molesting. Is it not more likely that MiSCOsoft is calling for the businesses to institute indemnity for Linux users because they envision the possibility of reciprocating liability (again, I'm not sure this is legally valid terminology)? No doubt, the possibility of such a target must give MiSCOsoft wet dreams.

Comments welcome. PJ, what's your take?

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This is true of SUN but AIX is a bad example for your argument. Remember it was an AIX group exec's speech that "opened our eyes" (Sontag) to the fact that IBM was "misappropriating our IP into Linux."

The AIX guys are walking a fine line. From the interviews I've read they know AIX will become legacy soon, and many are happy about that, BUT THEY CANNOT SAY THAT IN PUBLIC so that AIX customers jump ship.

They will jump and IBM wants them to jump but not right now, not before Linux has all that's required for AIX customers ... and I'm talking individual, AIX - specific features that keep customers tied to AIX, not the technical abilities of the 2 OSes.

PS last place I worked an HP UK specialist who was helping my company port to HPPA said "a lot of the tech guys at HP would love to dump HPUX for Linux. But remember that HP still supports HP3000s, which gives you an idea how glacial HP management can be."

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Imagine an airline that ran advertising touting its new competitive advantage: it would pay all your burial expenses if you died in a crash involving their plane.

Nobody does that. Airlines show you sunny beaches and gorgeous coastlines, and businesspeople being whisked through check-in. Not flaming wreckage with bodies hanging out the sides of it.

What kind of sales pitch is it that reminds people that they could get sued for buying a computer product? "Yes, if you get sued using -our- product, we'll pay for a bunch of lawyers to come in and be your friends."

And then you can say, "Our competitors won't." But by then the IT manager already has the mental picture of the flaming wreckage with the bodies hanging out the sides.

This has got to be the dumbest marketing move I have ever seen.

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	I believe GROKLAW has missed a major point about
indemnification. It seems the whole world is focused on liability. Yet we see
the first thing both IBM and Red Hat did was move to limit damages. Everyone is
seeking the source (code) for the sake of determining liability (who put the 
code and where ?).


	Both IBM and Red Hat sent letters of request for the source of
harm (offending code) to SCO's business. The were in essence offering to
fix any damage they were causing.


	These letters of request were sent long before any lawsuits against
SCO were filed. Both IBM and Red Hat emphasize these requests in complaints
they filed against SCO. They were not sent as in your face challenges to
liability. These letters were sent to mitigate any possible damages. The legal
doctrine behind this strategy is is known as "avoidable consequences".


Now let us look at  RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF TORTS:
       sec. 918
		(1) Except as stated in Subsection (2), one injured by the tort
of another is not entitled to recover damages for any harm that he could have
avoided by the use of reasonable effort or expenditure after the commission of
the tort.
		(2) One is not prevented from recovering damages for a particular
harm resulting from a tort if the tortfeasor intended the harm or was aware of
it and was recklessly disregardful of it, unless the injured person with
knowledge of the danger of the harm intentionally or heedlessly failed to
protect his own interests.]


	The Supreme Court and all Federal Circuits recognize the
doctrine of "avoidable consequences" concerning damages (not liability).


"[w]here one person has committed a tort, breach of contract, or other legal
wrong against another, it is incumbent upon the latter to use such means as are
reasonable under the circumstances to avoid or minimize the damages. The person
wronged cannot recover for any item of damage which could thus have been
avoided." Ford Motor Co., 458 U.S. at 232 n.15 (quoting C.MCCORMICK, LAW
OF DAMAGES 127 (1935)); see also Faragher, 524 U.S. at 807.


	If you read paragraphs (37) and (38) of IBM's counterclaim this becomes
glaringly obvious. The same is true in paragraph (10) of Red Hat's complaint.
The strategy is to mitigate possible damages first and then fight about
liability later.


	By not identifying any offending source code or accepting offers to
correct the damaging act (source code) SCO has virtually destroyed any chance
it might have had to collect damages after the offers to fix the code were
tendered.


	The point of this analysis is that any Linux end user who felt
threatened by SCO should have sent a letter requesting the offending code be
identified so that it could be removed. No response or a refusal from SCO all
but indemnifies the user from damages after the date of the letter being
received by SCO.


	IANAL but this is the first action I would discuss with my legal counsel
if I were a business executive concerned about Linux use in the workplace.

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If I purchase 500 servers running Red Hat 9 and somehow buggy code in the OS corrupts my all important databases (customer lists, delivery schedules etc.), my customers all ticked off at me and I'm ticked off at Red Hat. What are my options? I can't sue Red Hat and I can't sue Linus and I can;t sue the Open Source Community. I'm stuck with a bunch of corrupted databases and angry customers that could sue me. Obviously, I was aware that there was risk beforehand when I agreed to the GPL. I accepted that risk. I think this is where the "risk is on the customer's heads" schpiel comes in from MS/SCO.

So what does this tell me about the MS/SCO thought-process? It tells me that they want to cause FUD for those companies who are thinking about making the switch. They want them to believe its risky, that Linux is unstable and could blow up in your face at any second, and MS wants you to believe that if this happened with their OS, they'd be your best buddy and make things right for you with their indemnification policy.

MS also wants people to believe that Linux is haphazardly fastened together with duct tape and that because it is created by many different people -- for free -- that nobody's at the switch making sure IP isn't put into codebase illegally and that companies like SCO can go after end-users.

The only reason I can see for them to spout on about it is to cause more FUD and tarnish the image of both Linux and the Open Source Community.

If there's some deeper scheme at work, I'm sure someone will uncover it soon and I look forward to seeing pj's article.

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I'm still in the research stage, so if others have thoughts, I'm certainly interested. The marketing perspective, for example, was interesting. But the question of indemnification, at least from my perspective of writing the article, is bigger than just this situation. I'm thinking from the standpoint of "Why I'd Rather Not Get Indemnified", or something like that, meaning, I'm looking at the pitfalls and any reasons why it isn't necessary with GPL code in the first place, reasons why others might want GPLd code indemnified, as well as what proprietary software companies actually offer in the way of indemnification to businesses. Some of you may have a business and have the document handy to look at. What is the precise wording you got? If you wish to email me, that would help me the most.

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With that in mind does that not mean that it is creeping pretty close to either fraud or libel to claim that you shouldn't use Linux because of lack of legal protection, especially when you consider the situation of MS SQL server users who may be getting individually fined for not paying for a licence from that company suing MS for infringing their copyrights (Sorry, can't remember its name).

Seriously, is there anyone who DOES provide the sort of legal protection that people are whining that Linux lacks?

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Something I have found funny, with regards to the SCO extortion license, it that when someone contacts them to inquire whether they need to purchase the license, SCO tells the individual to seek legal advice. Excuse me? Are they not the ones spewing that whoever is running Linux without their extortion license is doing so illegally? So if they are so sure of themselves, why can they not just tell the person to open his/her wallet? Could it be that SCO realizes that their license is illegal and they think that, if the user voluntarily tells them they want the license, SCO is somehow exonerated? I think the judge has gotta be pretty pissed and drugged up before s/he buys that excuse.

It appears that most of those panicking about being sued by SCO simply do not understand the amount of leverage SCO has just given them. You cannot be sued for refusing to enter into an illegal contract. SCO made the mistake of suing IBM and bad-mouthing Red Hat. To sue someone for not accepting their extortion license would be yet another big mistake. I bet each of those licenses they sell will likely equate to a single count of extortion. Thus, the more of those licenses they sell, the more a judge is going to pummel them. No wonder they set such ridiculously high license fees.

The ugly side of lawyers, who represent the unscrupulous, is that they often prey on timidity and ignorance.

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With respect to PJ and everybody else, I'm rather more interested in that, than discussing Sun's and McNealy's mindset.

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At any rate, all this talk about indemnification isn't about functionality, is it? I mean, aren't MS and SCO essentially saying "It's a dangerous legal world out there, and how can mere people defend your business against frivolous lawsuits about their code?" Really does provide huge insight into the moral character of these organizations. They actually WANT the world to operate like this. In some twisted way they must think it's good that only those with a metric ton of cash can defend themselevs in this day and age.

I agree with a previous poster's sentiment: IBM has a metric ton of cash, and has sided with the individual developer (meaning, via the GPL, the whole entire world) on this.

After IBM wins, expect the FUD to shift as follows:

"Oh, well, yes, IBM won that one, but I mean come on. Who's going to defend (say) your web-based open source accounting package? I don't see any billion-dollar businesses behind that one, and it's more or less certain it violates SOMEONE's patent. And what's going to stop a SCO from claiming code infringment against it? It's unfortunate but that's just the way the world is. Really it's irresponsible for you to deny this reality and continue to save money with superior products."

I'm no spin doctor, but that will be the message, and we should really come up with an happy marketing message to counteract it. (Bob, you mentioned a marketing background...?)

Speaking of good counter-FUD, you will be AMAZED how many people get interested in this lawsuit when you let them know Linux=Tivo.

-Paul

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I have had several Linux2.2 and FreeBSD based machines that have uptimes of over a year. For all intents and purposes the only time my systems have to be rebooted is when I am doing a kernel upgrade. I know of at least one SUN server that had a reported uptime of over three years. And in the mid 80's I had a VAX running BSD 4.3 that was up for about 2 1/2 years, and the reason I was brought down was to move it.

My only system that does not have siginificant uptime is my laptop, which only gets used when I am not at home or at the office.

My experience is not abnormal. Good Unix and Unixlike oprerating systems are extremely roubust. Use FLOSS on good hardware and a program crash will not bring your system down.

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Second, on whether IBM can speed this up. Yes, there are things they can do, but there is no way to know if they will. You plan a strategy from the start, but it's a strategy that can change, depending on your opponent, like chess. My guess is that everyone is waiting to see if SCO actually sues anybody for not getting the license. If they do that, I expect it to be raining paper in Utah. And normally, not that anything here has been normal yet, after such a strong answer with patent counterclaims gets filed, you'd expect some conversations to be going on about settlement possibilities, either by phone or by letter. We aren't likely to hear about that in public, though, even if it is happening.

Discovery goes on next, assuming no more major surprises, and lots of times one side or the other gives up and cries uncle during that process. That's ongoing in the IBM case already, as you can see on Pacer's list of the activity in the case. So finding evidence right about now is very important to IBM and Red Hat.

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I wonder if SCO will post IBM's latest stuff to their http://www.sco.com/ibmlawsuit/ as they haven't yet

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"It seems to me very odd that SCO and Microsoft (or is that SCO = Microsoft?) would all of a sudden start preaching about indemnity as if they actually care for the wellbeing of the very users they are molesting."

I can take on the Microsoft and Sun issues, but will try to limit this to just SCO.

Indemnification is not for ordinary MS end users. Microsoft has only just announced some kind of non-retroactive plan for Enterprise and Select licensees. Ordinary users in the millions have already found out that often they can't recover any damages directly from Microsoft because their software was purchased from an OEM and their state doesn't permit claims against Microsoft.

If you are familiar with the SCO complaint, you know that they quoted a press report where an IBM executive explained that the patent and copyright issues in so much code from so many contributors was the reason that IBM would not risk doing distributions. He explained that the distributors were not as exposed as IBM would be to lawsuits (go figure).

Well this might explain some of SCO's problems with indemnification. They are a distributor and their Unix and Linux were largely developed elsewhere. They have a lot of exposure. If you read IBM's conterclaim #6 The GNU General Public License - nobody is indemnifying SCO for those "damages to be determined at trial". If you look at those patent counterclaims you might wonder when SCO began violating those (instead of merely looking at the date they were issued). It's quite possible that SCO will not be able to claim indemnification from anyone for those infringements either.

Sometimes you can turn weakness into a strength. For example your lack of indemnification might spare you some grief or even become an affirmative defense:

Plan #1 Laches and Delay For example: http://www.theregi ster.co.uk/content/archive/3980.html 27/04/1999 SCO president and CEO Doug Micheals has lashed-out at Linux and said "The last thing [major companies] want is some kid from Norway to sue for $100 million for misappropriation of intellectual property."

Well it does look like it was going to be one of the last things they tried to do: http://news.zdnet. co.uk/story/0,,t289-s2135391,00.html "SCO Group chief executive Darl McBride said in a published report that his company may take legal action against Linux founder Linus Torvalds was overstated. Responding to a portion of a Wednesday story by CBS Marketwatch that has generated intense criticism from the Linux community, McBride said that targeting Torvalds is unlikely."

http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/os/linux/story/0,10801,81709 ,00.html McBride says he will settle for a buyout, the article goes on to say: "Asked why SCO has suddenly started looking at these issues now, after years of declining revenues at his company and the increasing popularity of Linux, McBride said SCO had few options in the late 1990s as Linux began surfacing in the business computing world. "Even if you potentially had a problem [with concerns about Unix code in Linux back then], what are you going to do?" McBride asked. "Sue Linus Torvalds? And get what?"

So it seems that SCO's long drawn out plan to ambush Linus Torvalds if he ever comes into any money may have to be scrapped under the doctrine of laches and delay.

Plan #2 Promissory Estoppel, More Laches and Delay

SCO CEO Mr Michael's stated at a Project Monterey press conference that UNIX vendors like IBM need to support Linux development: http://www.cnn.co m/TECH/computing/9908/18/scoforum.idg/

The involvement of both SCO and Caldera (as a Sponsor) in the Linux Trillian Project http://lwn.net/Comments/36053/

CEO Ransom Love not only talked about merging Linux and UNIX, but even started to refer to Unixware as if it were a Linux product: http://news.zdnet. co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2093314,00.html

What does the future hold for your unified Linux/Unix platform? .....

"Linux is most widely deployed in embedded systems and low-end servers. Because of the current economy, there is no funding for general Linux, so we will see tremendous specialisation in these areas. WITH UNIXWARE WE CAN NOW TAKE LINUX TO 32-WAY SYSTEMS, and while we are not going into the embedded space we will concentrate on thin client implementations as well as those server implementations." (Emphasis added)

At SCO forum in August 2000 Ransom Love says that Independent Software Vendors need to know that Linux is the future UNIX on Intel standard, while IBM struggles to deliver on the Monterey Project contract with AIX5L. How then can SCO now claim that IBM failed in it's obligations? It didn't declare Monterey dead until the following May - even according to the SCO Group's complaint: http://www.linuxjournal. com/article.php?sid=5406

Consider the two stories above and Caldera's use of trademarks, i.e. Linux, Unix, and Unixware belong to others.

You are probably asking yourself if any of this has anything to do with indemnification?

If you look at the SCO/IBM/Novell contract Amendment no. X you will see in para 10 that SCO has indemnified IBM in an amount up to $10,125,000 if their interpretation of para 5 "Authority" is wrong and Novell's is more correct in the present case of SCO V IBM:) So even if they drop the suit now they loose.

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The original SCO (Tarantella) also had plans about about improving Linux SMP, improving Linux clustering capability, and open sourcing some of their UNIX code:

http://www.nwfusion.com/ne ws/2000/0612sco.html

"Beefing up Linux's symmetric multiprocessing capabilities. Currently the number of CPUs per Linux server is usually limited to eight; UnixWare can run on servers with up to 32 CPUs."

http://slashdot.org /interviews/00/05/05/0713234.shtml

"In some cases, we will be taking current technology that we think is needed in the Linux market and driving it forward as the project maintainers. Right now, we are focusing on bringing some of our high-performance Intel development tools to Linux."

"In other cases, we will make some sources available as reference documents, without a specific intention of driving them forward as projects." ... "Someone else would be welcome to pick them up, if they saw a need."

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I couldn't get these lines out of my head as I read your description of Linux's new toxic boyfriend. Seems appropriate, doesn't it?

My question: do you think IBM actually "gets it"? For that matter, what can a business, which must be motivated by profit, ever hope to get? Maybe IBM just understands that they won't get they the better and cheaper software they want without satisfying the needs of the community that helps write it? Or maybe they see a business advantage offered by the same freedom that the Free Software movement seeks based on morality?

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In our litigious society, I think it is a great advantage to be involved with a product that is less likely to draw litigation. The present skirmish is an aberration. It is about strained relations, not Linux. When it becomes clear that suing the big guys or the end users is futile, there will be few of these adventures.

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Does IBM actually "get it"? That's hard to say. Why does IBM have developers working on the Linux kernel? Because IBM customers want more "enterprise" features in Linux. The community gets those features because of the GPL. IBM's own open source license, the IBM Public License and Common Public License (it's the same as the IPL), are OSI and DFSG (Debian Free Software Guidelines) approved licenses. IBM's Eclipse IDE is released under the CPL. I think IBM is still feeling out the whole opensource development thing. But in the end it comes down to the bottom line. Does working on and contributing to an opensource project help IBM?

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Consider all the benefits opensource and the GPL bring, I would say that IBM will vigorously defend itself against SCO because in the long run IBM will save itself lots of money. That's the bottomline.

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I'll give you an example of what I mean. Let's imagine for a moment: suppose every reader here sent IBM an email. Next, discovery in the trial. SCO asks for the emails for the last, oh, three months. Maybe IBM says no and it goes to the judge. Imagine the judge says OK. IBM turns over the email. Now SCO has a handy list of probable GNU/Linux users. Hmm. Imagine next they decide to "select" end users to sue, as Sontag yesterday said they intend to do. Catch my drift? It's not as good as getting everyone to send a letter to SCO by registered or certified mail, which is legal proof, by the way, the method snookered tried to get everyone to use, but it's a fine start. Didn't think of that? Well, there's lots more you might not think of. And that's why it's best to do nothing without your own attorney's advice first.

Anyway, I consider it a given that IBM and Red Hat know about Groklaw and read it. I also consider it a given that SCO does too.

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As usaual you have given sage advise.

As we all know SCO Group has sent nastygrams to between 1400 and 1500 large users (the number varies from report to report) and has threatened to sue these same users if they don't pay up.

One can safely assume, given SCO Group's actions since January, that they could very well go after "small" users next. If and when they do, I do not expect them to attack any one who has made friendly comments about them and their methods of operation.

I am not a lawyer, nor am I a paralegal, I am just a veteran coder who has seen way too much (and in my opinion, silly) litigation over software over the years.

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If Sun is two-timing Linux by also going with Solaris, Linux is doing far worse to Sun by also going with IBM, HP, Red Hat, SuSE, and countless others. When Linux offers Sun no special loyalty, why should Linux expect any special loyalty in return? Why shouldn't Linux expect Sun to be merely out to use her, just as she is merely out to use him?

If Linux wants to be Sun's one and only, she has to either give up all her other guys (which is so much against her nature as to be manifestly impossible) or convince Sun that she is worth his undivided loyalty in spite of her lack of any special loyalty to him. So far, she has not done so.

In case I've given anyone the wrong impression, I very definitely want Linux to succeed. But I want it to succeed on its own merits, not because people get so blinded by a particular concept of ideological purity that they ignore questions of what actually works best in the real world.

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In my not very humble opinion, the analogy is apt. GNU/Linux is the Belle of the Ball at the present time. And She has many suiters. Some have lost (Caldera), some have mixed intentions (SUN) and some have what seem to be paternerlistic intentions (IBM, RedHat, and ?).

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Linux is a girl who replicates herself at will. Your particular version is as true to you as you are to her. Only when you try round up all of her sisters, and trap them in some kind of twisted bondage scheme (often referred to by the slang term, EULA), does the relationship break down.

SCO thought that Linux was pretty hot, and even had dreams of true love, but couldn't control his jealousy, when he saw her twins around town with other guys. Now he's lashing out at her for ruining his relationship with Unixware, his middle-aged wife.

Sun likes Linux's looks, too, but can't stop himself from bad-mouthing her, because of her supposed "loose morals".

Microsoft doesn't like Linux, but most everyone agrees that he's into beastiality.

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