For those new to open source, whether on the business or development side, it's hard to appreciate just how far the movement has come in the past few years.
In 1998, when I had my first taste of open-source software through my company's investment in Cobalt Networks, virtually no one knew what open source was, including now-common projects like Linux. Things were a little better in 2000, when I joined a Linux start-up (Lineo), but I spent much of my time working with prospective customers to ease their concerns over open-source licenses like the GPL.
The world is open source's oyster.
By 2004, when a group of friends and I founded the Open Source Business Conference, there was significant, growing awareness of open source, but its adoption was still stymied by Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt, much of it fomented by Microsoft (Steve Ballmer in 2001: "Linux is a cancer") and the SCO Group (lawsuit over the provenance of Linux code in 2003).
Today, SCO Group, once a high-flier, is struggling for existence. Meanwhile, Microsoft has committed another $100,000 to Apache Software Foundation, has started its own open-source foundation, and has embedded significant bits of open-source code within its proprietary programs, among other things.
Linux, for its part, struggled to get noticed in data centers back in 2003. It has since become essential, mission-critical infrastructure across the Global 2000 ranking of public companies
We've come a long way.
This progress reflects itself in the job market, where Linux-related jobs have seen a 6 percent rise in 2009 alone, while Windows-related jobs have plunged by 8 percent, according to data from Dice.com.
But it's also evident in enterprises' willingness--even eagerness--to discuss open-source adoption plans. Virgin America CIO Ravi Simhambhatla tells The Register that his need to do more with less drove the company to adopt open source and suggests that the open-source philosophy is a positive, disruptive force:
Our company doesn't need just another IT team, the more and more we get entrenched in the...way of doing things the less and less room we will make for ourselves to be innovative.
In 2004, when I was trying to find an IT executive to speak at OSBC, it was a lost cause. No one wanted to paint a legal bull's-eye on themselves for SCO or Microsoft. Today, company executives line up to talk up how they're differentiating through open source.
Open source has "arrived," and the signs are everywhere, from the U.S. Defense Department's efforts to boost its open-source adoption further to patent-rich Qualcomm's foray into open source.
Open source is no longer a question of "why" but rather one of "how." It's the way the industry does business, and the way it does development.
No, not everyone in the industry, all of the time. But for those of us who have been involved in open source for even the past five years, it's amazing to see how much things have changed, which suggests they'll evolve even further.
For some within the open-source world, this is unwelcome news. They defined themselves as freedom fighters, battling the forces of proprietary darkness. And as far as good-and-evil metaphors work in technology, they were.
But as that world embraces open source, they're largely left bereft of bogeymen, like old soldiers still struggling against an unseen enemy.
Winning can be a bit disorienting.
All the same, it's time to move on. There are no more vampires to slay, but simply further open-source education to undertake. Enterprises need open source now, more than ever, and they're adopting it now, more than ever.
What a long, strange trip it's been.
Though SCO still has the option to appeal, a federal district court judge Dale Kimball has now effectively written its death sentence in the form of a somewhat blistering final judgment (PDF), as Groklaw reports.
SCO, once the bane of the open-source world, is effectively dead. The company, which long ago stopped trying to make useful products and instead morphed into a boutique law firm, has seen its revenue slide into oblivion while Novell, which stood up to SCO and has now won in court, has seen its Linux revenue jump.
Lesson? You can only milk a weak intellectual property claim for so long. Ars Technica gives the details of the final judgment against SCO:
Judge Kimball determined that SCO was subject to a contract with Novell, which it violated by lifting SVRX confidentiality provisions in a licensing agreement with Sun. This move exceeded the authority granted to SCO under the terms of a 1994 asset purchase agreement that enabled SCO to sell limited SVRX licenses to third parties on behalf of Novell. Judge Kimball also determined that SCO breached its fiduciary duty by neglecting to remit the requisite portion of the licensing revenue to Novell. In addition to the $2,547,817 that SCO was originally ordered to pay to Novell in a previous judgment, SCO will also have to pay $918,122 in prejudgment interest and $489 per day from August 29 until November 20.
It's possible that someone will invest more money in SCO to take a gamble on the lawsuit turning in SCO's favor on appeal, but this is doubtful. SCO's claims have been demonstrated in court to be false, leaving any would-be litigant with no real possibility of winning.
The largely unsung hero in all this? Novell. Novell has stuck with the litigation for five years. Thank you, Novell. I may disagree with the company on other issues, but on SCO and other patent trolls we can agree.
It's true that we haven't been forced to put up with SCO for a year or two, but I will admit to still feeling annoyed by the festering cesspool of greed that leaked from SCO's boardroom into the software industry for several years. These guys deserve to pay.
And so they will. Unfortunately, not very much. $2.55 million.
Still, the irony is sweet, as Groklaw suggests:
So, SCO breached its fiduciary duty to Novell, converted funds, and so it has to pay. That is ironic, in that this case started with SCO accusing Novell of slander of title, and asking for millions in damages. Instead it has to *pay* Novell millions.
Sometimes the good guys win. I just wish Novell could pierce the corporate veil and take more money out of Darl and his henchmen. That would be true justice. But I'll settle for what little the US courts can render under the circumstances.
Pamela Jones of Groklaw rightly takes umbrage that Sun Microsystems apparently stood by while The SCO Group attempted to foul the pedigree of Linux, but how much righteous indignation is warranted is debatable. Jones writes:
And what an icky role Sun played, to judge from (Novell's Greg) Jones' description of the agreement. Look at all the damage that resulted from Sun's silence, the litigation that never had to happen....And as far as Linux is concerned, why didn't Sun speak out to help?
It had in the power of its hand the ability to protect Linux users. Silence. For years and years and years. While folks got sued, and the FUD campaign raged on.
Yes, but this overlooks one convenient point: Sun was competing with Linux. Hard. Not only did it not have a legal obligation to speak out, it may well have had a legal obligation to not speak out.
Every contract that I've negotiated in the last few years has, at the customer's or partner's insistence, a section in it that prohibits disclosure of the contract. I would guess that similar wording is to be found in the partnership agreement between Sun and SCO.
Even if Sun had an obligation, legal or otherwise, to disclose Linux's clean bill of health, why would it? We can argue that it may have had a moral obligation, but it also has a fiduciary duty to its shareholders, which arguably wouldn't have been well-served by propping up a competitor, however unfairly maligned.
I'm not suggesting that I personally could have stood by and watched, had I worked for Sun, but I also think it's important not to burden Sun's efforts to remedy some errors of its past with all the good it's doing now. I believe in that pesky repentance thing. :-)
You can't make this stuff up. Sandy Gupta, whose UNIX experience was thoroughly discredited while at SCO for the paucity of his "analyses" of Linux's alleged infringement of SCO's UNIX code, has been hired by Microsoft as its director of Competitive Strategy within the Server & Tools Division.
From the press release:
Sandy Gupta is the kind of technology expert that Microsoft prides itself on having inside the company.
Well, no, Microsoft. This isn't, or should not be the kind of "expert" on which Microsoft prides itself. Microsoft has does so many things well and right, why does it have to do shockingly silly things like this? IBM and others have shredded Gupta's work for SCO, and a judge couldn't throw it out fast enough.
Gupta may be a great person, but he's not a UNIX, Linux, or Windows expert. Perhaps that's just what Microsoft wants? After all, SCO once said of Gupta that "he is able to laser-focus on product deliverables." If half-truths in the interest of competitive strategy are what Microsoft wants in terms of deliverables, Microsoft couldn't do better than to pull in the SCO team.
Disappointing. Shame on you, Microsoft.
Open Season Episode 12 was a very special session for us, as we got Fake Steve Jobs (aka "Dan Lyons") to join in. We spent a fair amount of time talking with Dan about his position on open source and why he gets so much flak for his coverage of the open-source community. Dan is hilarious and often insightful. It was a pleasure to have him on the podcast.
One of our best. Have a listen. (Also, the link provides my coconut cream pie recipe, which is definitely worth having.)
Jim Zemlin is no fun. In an insightful blog posting, the president of the Linux Foundation does a reality check on SCO'S $100 MILLION CASH INFUSION!!!!) and finds...not much reality.
Actually let me be more clear: not only is there no $100 million dollars in cash in SCO's bank account, but if the proposal is accepted, there will only be a conditional availability of that large number.
... Read more
When will SCO die? Once and for all, die? It has had no business for years, yet investors keep squandering money down the SCO rat hole in an attempt to wring legal settlements from the one-time software maker turned ambulance-chasing-law-firm.
This week SCO got its biggest investment of all: $100 million from private equity firm Stephen Norris Capital Partners and partners in the Middle East. $100 million for a company with no real assets, including viable intellectual property, as noted open-source legal expert Mark Radcliffe notes:
... Read morePJ at Groklaw notes today that Microsoft is lining up to nibble on the remains of SCO as one of its largest creditors. But Microsoft is not alone in wanting to gnaw on a chunk of parasite flesh. As a list of SCO's top creditors shows [PDF], Sun, Veritas, Intel, Unisys, and others are smacking their lips for SCO's remains.
The world is not always fair. Sometimes, however, it's not fair enough. Too many SCO people made far too much money on its scam.
In some ways, it's just another nail in SCO's coffin, but Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols reports that a German court has found SCO guilty of lying (gasp!) with regard to its claims that Unix code found its way into Linux. But with SCO's directors trying to reap final monetary gains from their mendacious ways, it's probably good to drive as many nails in as possible to ensure SCO truly dies. Quickly.
In the United States, SCO's Linux/Unix litigation has been stalled out while the company's bankruptcy trial is being dealt with. In Germany, however, several court cases have found SCO Group GmbH, SCO's Germany branch, guilty of lying about Linux containing stolen Unix code.
Truth was never a strong point with SCO's management team. At least now we can thank the Germans for officially declaring this fact. Remember, SCO friends: Lügner gehen zur Hölle.
