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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>>>>No matter what the outcome, I think some damage has already been done. Companies that were previously evaluating OSS like GNU/Linux might now be holding off or rethinking their choices. This whole lawsuit has put just enough FUD out there to make people hesitate, and I think that is the worst part that will only be compounded as this suit drags on for x amount of time.
I disagree 100% with your view, I think this is a good thing.
What is so wrong with actually THINKING it through before your company goes into the linux business or deploying linux. IBM thought it through --- they have a well thought out business plan regarding linux. IBM doesn't do linux distributions because of IP risks. IBM doesn't embed linux on their own products because of IP risks. IBM starts linux-on-demand utility services because they don't actually sell linux distributions so they don't have IP risks and they don't have to give back their own improvements to the community because linux-on-demand supercomputers reside within IBM buildings so there's no distribution made (and no GPL requirement to give back improvements).
I mean if you didn't think it through before you start a business selling linux or deploying linux on your corporate computer systems --- then you are most likely just listening to FUD about how Microsoft is bad and decided to adopt linux without any thoughtful evaluation.