Thursday, March 6, 2003

SCO Sues IBM For $1 Billion -- 10:41 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Well, the other shoe has dropped. SCO has filed suit against IBM, claiming that Big Blue has dumped Unix intellectual property into Linux. One analyst pretty much hit it on the head:

"It's a fairly end-of-life move for the stockholders and managers of that company," said Jonathan Eunice, an Illuminata analyst. "Really what beat SCO is not any problem with what IBM did; it's what the market decided. This is a way of salvaging value out of the SCO franchise they can't get by winning in the marketplace."

From the "unintentional comedy" file: I don't think IBM has much to fear, judging from the track record of SCO's legal counsel.

Representing SCO is David Boeis of Boeis, Schiller and Flexner, the attorney who prosecuted the U.S. Justice Department's antitrust case against Microsoft and represented Al Gore in the vote-counting controversy in the presidential election.

Granted, IBM has the cash to fork over, but the danger for SCO is that they also have the cash to fight this forever and drive SCO into bankruptcy. Funny, people liked to call Red Hat the next Microsoft. Looks like it really was SCO/Caldera. Thanks Slashdot.

<editorializing> You know, it's stories like this that remind me of just how full Hell is going to be. </editorializing>

UPDATE! here is some updated information on the suit:

• The Register gives some background information on SCO, IBM, and the suit.
• Eric S. Raymond condemns the suit as a "strike at the heart of our [open source] community".
• You can view the complete text of the lawsuit here.

Thanks go out to Linux Today for those three links.

J.t.Qbe comments: Not a surprising move by SCO--there were rumblings about this a few months ago, though there wasn't any indication whom they'd be suing. I should've figured they'd go for the big payoff. It's also not surprising given SCO's immense lack of market share. SCO's out for a payoff: they're either going for one last cash grab for the stockholders and execs, or else they're looking for someone to pay to shut them up.

Personally, I don't know that they really have the basis to win this. We'll have to see how it goes.

News for 03/06/2003

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