Novell Jumps to Linux Rescue

While SCO is gung-ho about collecting license fees from Linux users (which I personally think is a silly idea to harbour even for a moment), Novell has jumped into the fray in this game of corporate one-upmanship.

Companies are suddenly mounting a vigorous counterattack to SCO Group's claims that the Linux operating system is polluted with code misappropriated from Unix, and that Linux users should pay SCO license fees for their use of SCO-owned Unix code.
The most damaging blow so far came from Novell, which on Wednesday said that it, not SCO, owns the key Unix copyrights and patents in question, and will challenge SCO's claims that Linux illegally contains chunks of misappropriated code.

SCO responded to Novell's claims by reiterating its stance and claiming that it intends to "aggresively continue" with its legal actions.

The open-source community is watching this corporate war with great interest. While many of them feel that this war is getting funnier by the day, there are others who are outraged by this petty-minded commercialization of open-source efforts.

"We wrote our Unix and Linux code as a gift and an expression of art, to be enjoyed by our peers and used by others for all licit purposes both nonprofit and for-profit," open source software advocate Eric Raymond wrote in a position paper about this fray. "We did not write it to have it appropriated by men so dishonorable that after making profit from our gift for eight years they could turn around and insult our competence."

Well said Mr. Raymond!!