It got me thinking. In one of his inspiring communications with the press, Darl McBride relates how people told him that he couldn't pursue his litigation strategy because it would anger the Linux community. His reply was something like "do I report to the Linux community?" I tend to believe that the substance of this anecdote is true, whether Darl actually said it or not. An executive, or certainly a developer at a Linux company would probably worry about the Linux community, given that the FOSS process is cooperative, and the anger of the community you are basing your business on is a force to be reckoned with. But Darl had a bolder plan than merely trying to leverage that cooperative effort into a growing business. Caldera had already failed trying that, had it not? No, Darl was going to make money the old-fashioned way, by parisitically sucking it out of competitors and customers, without providing a shred of value in return.
I've been around the tech industry for a few years. I've watched Microsoft start to pay for its short-sighted pursuit of market dominance to the exclusion of all else, The irony is that they left out stuff that might have helped them stay dominant, such as secure architectures and efficient code. I've watched an industry quail in fear at Microsoft's actions, and I've seen the resentment that caused contribute to the rise of Linux in the enterprise. I sense some of the same arrogance, ignorance and greed in the new SCO, particularly in the pronouncements of its president and CEO. But the pronouncement that really rings true for me is one from a far wiser head:
"People pay for what they do, and still more, for what they have allowed themselves to become. And they pay for it simply: by the lives they lead." - James Baldwin
SCO cannot harm Linux. The engine of its success is the idealism of its community. That idealism is not unalloyed, but it is real. If every business currently using Linux stopped tomorrow, Linux would survive the withdrawal of all those resources. Linux, and the larger communities of Free Software and Open Source Software would retain the twin advantages of unquenchable energy and enormous leverage. I and many others would have to find new jobs, but we'd manage.
No, the ideas that are at risk here
are the ones Darl McBride and his fellow travellers hold so dear. That you can
make money as a parasite. That central control and planning are the only way to
go. That you can wring water from the stone of twenty year old code. These
dinosaurs are the ones truly endangered here.
Posted by hbo at December 16, 2003 11:07 PM