“On March 7, 2003, a struggling firm referred to as The SCO Group filed a lawsuit towards IBM,” writes LWN.internet, “claiming that the success of Linux was the results of a theft of SCO’s know-how…”
20 years later, “It’s laborious to overestimate how a lot the neighborhood we discover ourselves in now was formed by a ridiculous lawsuit 20 years in the past….”
It was the declare of entry to Unix code that was probably the most threatening allegation for the Linux neighborhood. SCO made it clear that, in its opinion, Linux was stolen property: “It isn’t attainable for Linux to quickly attain UNIX efficiency requirements for full enterprise performance with out the misappropriation of UNIX code, strategies or ideas”. To rectify this “misappropriation”, SCO was asking for a judgment of no less than $1 billion, later elevated to $5 billion. Because the swimsuit dragged on, SCO additionally began suing Linux customers because it tried to gather a tax to be used of the system.
Although this has by no means been confirmed, it was extensively assumed on the time that SCO’s actual goal was to prod IBM into buying the corporate. That may have solved SCO’s ongoing enterprise issues and IBM, for somewhat lower than the quantity demanded in courtroom, may have made an annoying drawback go away and likewise lay declare to the possession of Unix — and, thus, Linux. To SCO’s administration, it could nicely have appeared like a good suggestion on the time. IBM, although, refused to play that recreation; the corporate had invested closely into Linux in its early days and was tired of permitting any type of intellectual-property taint to connect to that effort. So the corporate, as an alternative, directed its not inconsiderable authorized assets to squashing this assault. However notably, so did the event neighborhood as an entire, as did a lot of the remainder of the know-how {industry}.
Over the course of the next years — far too a few years — SCO’s case fell to items. The “misappropriated” know-how wasn’t there. As a consequence of what should be one of many worst-written contracts in technology-industry historical past, it turned out that SCO did not even personal the Unix copyrights it was suing over. The extent of buffoonery was excessive from the start and acquired worse; the corporate misplaced at each flip and ultimately collapsed out of business…. Microsoft, which had not but realized to like Linux, funded SCO and loudly purchased licenses from the corporate. Magazines like Forbes have been warning the “Linux-loving crunchies within the open-source motion” that they “ought to get up”. SCO was suggesting a license charge of $1,399 — per-CPU — to run Linux…. Such an effort, in much less incompetent fingers, may simply have broken Linux badly.
Because it went, SCO, regardless of its finest efforts, as an alternative succeeded in bettering the place of Linux — in improvement, authorized, and financial phrases — significantly.
The article argues SCO’s lawsuit in the end proved that Linux did not include copyrighted code “in a much more convincing means than anyone else may have.” (And the provenance of all Linux code contributions are actually fastidiously documented.) The case additionally proved the necessity for legal professionals to vigorously defend the rights of open supply programmers. And most of all, it revealed the Linux neighborhood was widespread and dedicated.
And “Twenty years later, it’s truthful to say that Linux is doing a bit higher than The SCO Group. Its swaggering chief, who thought to make his fortune by taxing Linux, filed for private chapter in 2020.”
