A disturbance in the force

posted at 15:42:18
By Flipping Heck!

Posted In
Technical

I've read with interest that SCO is still on the warpath in regards to their alleged ownership of Linux.

The BBC website has reported that the American company is suing Autozone for apparent infringement of copyright because they've used some of SCO's Linux code on their servers.

Now this is a bit of a legal minefield.

From what I understand Linux is based on bits of Uniux. The Uniux rights were passed round to various different companies, SCO being one of them so now SCO claims it has a right to a bit of the Linux OS therefore anyone who runs Linux must pay them a licence fee.

Excuse me?

They're having a laugh!

The thing that I think is inherently wrong is that they are not releasing information about what part of the source code they own. For all we know it could be the code that displays the "@" sign.

Being "Open Source" (for the time being and only if SCO doesn't get its way) means that there are plenty of people out there capable of removing the offending code and replacing it with something that does the same job without infringing intellecuall property/copyright laws. The problem is that as SCO won't divulge what the code is it can't be taken out!

To me this seems like they're trying to force people to pay for Linux when they needn't have to. One such company EV1 hosting has already stumped up the cash prompting people to say they should boycott the servers they use.

I think we may have a new Microsoft on our hands here.

Bill Gates best watch his back, someone's out to steal his crown...!

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