Interview: SCO sets out its defence

By Matt Whipp

Posted on 3 Oct 2003 at 10:12

Following SCO CEO Darl McBride's Open Letter to the Open Source Community, SCO PR Director Blake Stowell argues his company's case for compensation and why the GPL is an uncomfortable fit.

Can you clarify for me parts of Darl's open letter regarding a general monetizing of Linux for the good of all: 'The SCO Group is open to ideas of working with the Open Source community to monetize software technology and its underlying intellectual property for all contributors, not just SCO.' How exactly does SCO envisage working with other Open Source contributors to monetize the software?

BS
I think that what Darl was referring to is the fact that many software vendors have approached SCO to try and find a way to change the GPL or create a different license that wouldn't be so damaging to their business. There are a lot of software vendors that we've spoken to that are extremely afraid of the GPL and would like to see some changes to it.

Another point that Darl feels strongly about is the idea that the OS level is being marginalized because of Open Source and what will Open Source marginalize next? The database market? Vertical market apps? Darl believes strongly that intellectual property rights in a digital age need to be respected and that we need to retain the value that's been created in software.

Actually I had conversation last year with Gregory Blepp, then at SuSE, now with you (as I'm sure you know), who even at that time was lamenting the restrictions of the GPL on commercial opportunities for the company.

But if you have had so much discussion regarding this with other vendors, why isn't SCO finding more support publicly from these guys and moving towards a more commercial licence for open source with some kind of unity?

BS
This is the kind of thing that vendors talk about behind closed doors, but not in public. They don't want to be seen as bad community members. Imagine if SuSE was quoted as saying they wanted to change the GPL or go with a different license. The Open Source community would scream, "blasphemy!" Don't you think?

Is it because of SCO's aggressive stance on these issues, or because of this fear you mention surrounding the GPL, or rather the Open Source community itself?

BS
I think that it's a blend of both. I think that people have seen what individuals in the Open Source community have done to SCO (DoS attacks, slamming SCO on message boards, etc.) No one wants to suffer the same kinds of attacks or animosity that SCO has, especially if they've been perceived as a good community member in the past.

Surely taking such an immediately aggressive stance towards Linux users hurts SCO's long term prospects?

BS
Linux users need to respect the copyrights that SCO has that they are infringing upon. Do we want to be heavy handed with end users? We absolutely don't want to be. Does SCO need to be compensated for software code that is currently in use in Linux? Yes. End users have a choice. They can go back to using Linux based on the 2.2 kernel which includes no infringing code, or they can continue using SCO's UNIX code as it is being found in Linux and properly compensate the company for using it.

Certainly the suits SCO is bringing against IBM and potentially SGI are very specific and the allegations will be proven true or untrue - whatever the open-source community says of them.

BS
The way we see it, the suit that we currently have against IBM will be proven in a court of law by a jury and the outcome of that could certainly have ramifications for the Open Source community. I think the case could prove to point out that the policing of code going into Open Source software needs greater vetting by the software developers to make sure it is "clean code" rather than a rip off of someone else. The vast majority of Open Source development is done in a proper way by hard working developers, but a few companies have spoiled things for Linux recently. Open Source can be a great model when done properly.