Tech Watch | InfoWorld Staff » Maybe SCO has a point

January 26, 2004 | Comments: (0)

Maybe SCO has a point

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SCO cannot be winning many friends with its naked disdain for the wildly popular open source Linux platform.

Suing IBM over code in Linux that SCO says is its property is a bit of a peculiar way to attract the masses over to your products. But when SCO says Linux is bad for the economy, maybe we should at least hear the company out. Microsoft, for its part, also has questioned the economic benefit of Linux and open source, calling it un-American and even a cancer.

In a letter to U.S. Congress persons, SCO contends Linux is not only a threat to the economy but to national security, too, since unfriendly nations can get the Linux code and use it to build a supercomputer. Linus Torvalds, founder of Linux, disputed this notion, saying export controls apply to hardware, not software.

The economic question, however, also deserves further review. Linux and open source are popular because of the free nature of this software paradigm, although money is being made on open source through support and licensing arrangements.

However, if the trend of giving away software continues to gather momentum, how do developers and software companies put bread on the table? Work a second job?

This question is something I've pondered before, and now SCO seems to be backing me up.

The capitalist economy is based on selling products and services for the top dollar that the market demands. If the user community begins to expect its software free of charge, what happens to the innovation and incentive to improve software, or to even build it at all?

Posted by Paul Krill on January 26, 2004 10:49 AM

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