Linked by Eugenia Loli-Queru on Wed 12th Mar 2003 20:31 UTC
SCO's lawsuit filed in Utah last week claims that IBM integrated computer code belonging to another company into the Linux operating system, touching off speculation that the lawsuit could hurt other Linux companies, including Red Hat, the country's largest distributor of the software. Red Hat isn't involved in the dispute, but some analysts say that the Raleigh-based company won't be able to escape the fallout. "It's kind of irrelevant who wins the lawsuit," said Victor Raisys, analyst with Soundview Technology Group in San Francisco. "You can't take back the fact that someone has tried to claim intellectual property on Linux. The genie is out of the bottle."
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>>>>When I was at the SCO site reading and listening to their claims and grievances, what struck me is "Oh god, if they win and IBM has to make restitutions, just think of how long the Linux kernel could potentially be on hold" . See, if SCO has their way, IBM not only has to pay $$, they have to go about the process of removing all the proprietary AIX/UNIX source from Linux. Fruther, if the courts do rule that IBM has to make this particular restitution, they could also say that no further linux kernel developement can take place on the existing source untill IBM has completed it's restitution.
Even in the worst scenario, that IBM can't sell any more copies of AIX (after the 100 day counterdown). So what? It may just mean that RedHat and SuSE can't sell any more Linux distributions. But IBM can still make a bundle of money by hosting Linux-on-demand supercomputers for your rental, like utilities such as electricity or water. The legal risks lie in the linux distributors (RedHat and SuSE), not on IBM.