sco:ibm lawsuit

[Alex Beamish]

On 4/6/06, Peter <plp-ysDPMY98cNQDDBjDh4tngg at public.gmane.org> wrote:
>
>
> This is an unbelievable lawsuit. Just how long can they pull it on ?
> Longer than the Bold and the Beautiful ? According to Slashdot IBM are
> feeling that the lawsuit is Kafkaesque (with references to 'Der
> Prozeß'). I already knew that. Is there some precedent to how long a
> lawsuit can be drawn out ?


Well, there's always the USA v. IBM[1] suit .. launched January 17, 1969, it
went to trial May 19, 1975 and was ultimately withdrawn January 8, 1982.
That suit was one of the reasons that caused IBM to license an operating
system for their IBM PC, rather than develop or buy one -- which suited
young Bill Gates just fine. But I digress.

The SCO v. IBM case is, to me, a biased observer, a much more clear cut case
than USA v. IBM.

Lawyers aren't fans of lawsuits. They'd rather negotiate some kind of
settlement. I imagine that's what SCO thought would happen .. they'd sue,
haggle for a few months, then get the equivalent of half IBM's annual budget
for paper clips and be happily be on their way, probably never imagining
that it would go to trial.

What SCO didn't count on was 1) a very active open source community popping
up and tracking the lawsuit[2] and generally tearing their arguments to
shreds and 2) a willing opponent not at all in the mood for a settlement.

Linux is providing IBM with lots of business -- and IBM doesn't want
anything to harm that business. So, it's a business decision to fight this
case. Anyway, they don't want companies to get into the habit of suing them
and getting piles of cash in a settlement. I expect IBM will either win
their case or SCO will collapse, making the case moot.

I'm sure the community would prefer that SCO play the case out so we could
see what all the fuss was about, and whether there really ever was any
infringing code. But SCO's case depends on two legs, the other of which is
that SCO 'owns' UNIX. Only if both those legs hold does SCO have a chance;
if either one falls, the case falls. To me, neither of those legs looks
strong at all.

In the meantime, we wait, and observe the twilight zone/parallel universe
that SCO's stock price seems to live in. Yes, I'm sure many of us are
impatient, but like Wiley E. Coyote falling through the air, gravity will
work its magic and SCO will eventually be a lovely cartoon crater in the
desert.

--
Alex Beamish
Toronto, Ontario

1. http://www.hagley.lib.de.us/1980.htm
2. http://www.groklaw.net/
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