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| SCO Reads the GPL and Backs Off! |
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Tuesday, June 24 2003 @ 07:01 AM EDT
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Computerwire has the most significant article, an interview with SCO's Chris Sontag. SCO is clearly backing off, at least if Sontag can be believed as representing what will really happen and it isn't just one more twist in the winding road. He says that it is unlikely they will be suing Linux companies. Sontag makes it sound like they made this decision because they are such nice guys and don't want to kill the GPL. It is, to me, more likely that they finally read it and realize they can't go forward without bumping straight into the GPL and losing. Here is what he said:
"One of the reasons we haven't launched a suit against a Linux distributor is because of the GPL [open source General Public License]," Sontag told ComputerWire. "It would blow up the GPL and destroy Linux and we do not want to do that."
Sure you don't.
Don't you just love it when bullies start to worry and act nice when they think they are going to get hit back?
Sontag clarifies what McBride meant by saying "wait til July". Seems they are trying to figure out some way to get around the GPL and still get money from licenses. Good luck. Here's their plan so far:
Rather than focus its legal efforts on the open source community and Linux distributors, SCO is working to identify the issues and come up with solutions in consultation with customers and other parties, said Sontag. The company hopes to have these solutions finalized during July, he added. One solution may be a new kind of licensing mechanism for the SCO Unix code, he said, although there remain issues with the GPL that complicate how such a mechanism might be implemented. Sontag said SCO's effort was focused on identifying Linux intellectual property issues and possible mechanisms through which future problems could be prevented.
This could be the beginning of the end, folks. I have long admired the GPL and now I think I love it.
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, June 24 2003 @ 09:28 PM EDT |
I thought you'd be interested in Chris Sontag's answers to the last three
questions here (whether SCO have GPLed their code and liability of other Linux
distributions)
http://www.vnunet.com/Analysis/114
0828
S Tanna[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, June 24 2003 @ 09:28 PM EDT |
I thought you'd be interested in Chris Sontag's answers to the last three
questions here (whether SCO have GPLed their code and liability of other Linux
distributions)
http://www.vnunet.com/Analysis/114
0828
S Tanna[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, June 25 2003 @ 01:05 AM EDT |
This is speculation (but then everyone else is doing it ;) but Sontag may be
thinking along these lines: although most of a GNU/Linux setup is GPL, many
corporations deploying it still buy a copy of RHAS, SLE8 etc for every machine,
in order to receive support. In an earlier interview, Sontag said that he saw
Linux remaining free for private and educational use. So his pitch might be to
the major vendors: "Give us a percentage royalty on your support contract sales
and we'll licence you our code." The hope being that RedHat et al will decide to
settle for this arrangement for a quiet life. Of course whether they will accept
this is another matter entirely...
Dr Stupid[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, June 25 2003 @ 08:44 PM EDT |
Another link, http://www.sys-con.co
m/linux/articlenews.cfm?id=381
S Tanna[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, June 26 2003 @ 12:25 AM EDT |
| Thanks for the links, everyone, and the interesting idea. I'll take a look at
the links.
PJ
pj[ Reply to This | # ]
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