Can Linux ward off the new threat?

Srikanth R P / Mumbai

‘Great business model, isn’t it? You don’t need to make a profit selling anything, just sue those who do’ goes a poser posted by a Linux enthusiast on slashdot.org, angrily reacting to SCO’s recent announcement that the Linux operating system contains unauthorised SCO UNIX intellectual property.

For the uninformed, early last week SCO sent out a letter to all its partners stating that the discovery of its IPR infringement has prompted it to take a number of initiatives. One of the first statements in the letter tries to alert commercial users of the fact that there maybe legal liability for the use of Linux by businesses.

In another letter addressed to Linux commercial users, SCO claims that it holds the rights to the Unix operating system originally licensed by AT&T. It adds that as Linux is like a Unix operating system, it is an unauthorised derivative of Unix and infringes on the Unix intellectual property. SCO followed this up by announcing that it was suspending its Linux-related activities until all the issues surrounding Linux intellectual property were addressed and resolved.

This announcement by SCO has caught the Linux community on the hop, and most of them are angry at the fact that SCO being a marginal player could even take such a step. However, the Indian Linux community is not too perturbed about the threat or the impact that SCO’s announcements could have on Linux in India.

Says Venkatesh Hariharan, co-founder, IndLinux.org, “SCO’s market was in the Unix-on-Intel space and this has vanished due to the tremendous popularity of the GNU/Linux operating system. In the early days of GNU/Linux, SCO used to dismiss it as a toy. Later, they tried to see how they could embrace Linux and now they are turning hostile. This smacks of desperation. Even in an unlikely worst-case scenario where proprietary code is found within the GNU/Linux operating system, this could be set right within a couple of months. While we at IndLinux.org are definitely concerned about the development, we are confident that the Linux movement is too big to be thwarted by a single company.”

Says Netcore Solutions CEO Rajesh Jain, “Around 200 clients of ours are using Linux-based solutions and not even one of them has called up to ask what could happen to their systems. To summarise, Linux is too strong a movement to be impacted.”

While SCO has clarified that it does not intend to go after fellow Linux vendors slapping legal suits, it certainly believes that it has a right to get intellectual property payments from companies using SCO-licensed libraries and from operating system vendors who sell the libraries without paying for them.

Analysts believe that this is a last bet the company is playing in the hope that eventually some companies will cough up the royalty for using SCO’s claimed Unix intellectual property. Further, the same move can stop customers migrating from Unix to Linux, which benefits SCO.

The Microsoft gamble
Adding to the confusion surrounding SCO’s IP, arch Unix and Linux rival, Microsoft put an interesting twist to the tale, when it decided to license the rights to the Unix system from SCO. Microsoft announced that the Unix license was intended to ensure that the company did not violate any intellectual property rights when developing products that have to take care of interoperability between Microsoft’s systems and Unix.

“The announcement of this license is representative of Microsoft’s ongoing commitment to respecting intellectual property (IP) and the IT community’s healthy exchange of IP through licensing. This helps to ensure IP compliance across Microsoft solutions and supports our efforts around existing products like services for Unix that further Unix interoperability,” said Brad Smith, Microsoft’s general counsel and senior vice president. Microsoft has also subsequently denied that the timing has anything to do with trying to exploit the controversy in the Linux market.

Linux enthusiasts are however not impressed by these innocuous statement. The penguin crowd believes that this is a simple but a great strategic move by Microsoft—a legal quagmire can benefit most Linux competitors, which obviously includes Microsoft. The software giant has not exactly been promoting Linux, and SCO’s suit offers it the perfect opportunity to grapple with Linux’s growing popularity—an arch rival paying license fees gives a stamp of legitimacy to SCO’s case and could force others to start thinking on the same lines. The stock market, for one, seems to be impressed and has sent SCO’s share price roaring by a massive 40 percent.

Any pause in the Linux momentum cannot only benefit Microsoft but also other Unix vendors like Sun, besides SCO itself. Opines Skoch Consultancy CEO Sameer Kochhar, “In the current scenario, the stance taken by major vendors like Red Hat and Suse becomes extremely crucial as customers may start demanding indemnities in view of the letters sent by SCO. Therefore, it is imperative that the commercial Linux community takes proactive steps in issuing complete customer indemnities. At the same time, I feel that SCO should be morally bound to show this alleged pirated code to the customers and independent consultants to prove that it is not a case of too much ado about nothing.”

Linux major Red Hat, has sought to address customer’s concerns, if any, by issuing a letter stating that it respects the legal and technical integrity of valid intellectual property, including patents, copyright and trademarks. Most importantly, the letter clarifies that “When the integrity of the Red Hat brand is publicly called into question, we will defend the use of Red Hat Enterprise Linux by our customers.” Such a statement is bound to create confidence and dispel any rumours floating in the country.

Another interesting take on the entire controversy is provided by Meta Group, “SCOsource filed a suit against IBM last week for $1 billion in damages while positioning Unix on Intel versus Linux-on-Intel (Lintel). When users implement Linux, it is not free; they buy service, support, and software from vendors that provide Linux as a core operating system to a “value priced” solution. This situation is reminiscent of the Unix wars of more than a decade ago and likewise will benefit only one vendor—Microsoft. The bottom line is that organisations should not defer Lintel deployments because of legal wrangling, but should address concerns they have with a vendor’s position for support, service, and integration of a Lintel solution in their portfolio.”

While Linux has always had a proclaimed enemy in Microsoft, SCO’s announcement is a boon, which has fallen right into Microsoft’s lap. As a penguin fan laments on slashdot.org, its clear who would be the beneficiary from this stalemate:

The clear water is muddled.
The manager pauses.
The moment passes.
A small victory is made.