SCO a ‘cornered rat’: Torvalds
“Nothing to lose is a bad situation to be in. They’re a cornered rat, and quite frankly, I think they have rabies to boot. I’d rather not get too close to them.”
The words are Linux creator Linus Torvalds’ and they came during Q&A with BusinessWeek correspondent Jim Kerstetter on the SCO -v- The Rest of the World fight which, as Kerstetter handlily sums it up, is “a small Utah software company that says intellectual property rights it inherited from Novell, which in turn got them from AT&T, are being trampled”.
The latest manifestation of the battle came in an attack from Mydoom, a new e-virus programmed to start Distributed Denial-of-Service attacks on SCO. In fact, SCO is offering a $250,000 reward for arrest of Mydoom’s author, says ComputerWorld here.
In the meanwhile, everything centres on Linux and Kerstetter had a revealing email conversation with Torvalds.
Read the whole thing here. For now, below are a few excerpts.
Bottom line, SCO’s arguments are “just too wrong to even discuss rationally,” says Torvalds.
What did Torvaldsthink of SCO’s lawsuit against IBM and its threats against customers?
“Quite frankly, I obviously don’t think much of it. But clearly we have to be careful … Any business in the U.S. ends up having to worry about legal action, whether merited or not,” he says.
“So I can’t say that I’m ignoring it, because I’m not. But I do consider the thing to be a pretty clear-cut fishing expedition on SCO’s part … [But now,] they can’t just back down, because that would show how [questionable] the original stuff was.
“Nothing to lose is a bad situation to be in. They’re a cornered rat, and quite frankly, I think they have rabies to boot. I’d rather not get too close to them.”
Kerstetter asked Torvalds what he thought was motivating SCO.
“I think there was a fair amount of bad feeling when IBM dropped out of the Monterey project [a joint-development project with SCO],” he replied. “That was a big deal for SCO, and they had a hard time with that. Never mind the fact that it had long since become clear that the project wasn’t going anywhere, and IBM would have been crazy to continue with it.
“So you have some pent-up anger at IBM, a failing business that was losing its market, and put it together with a greedy new CEO who has fought legal battles before, and what do you get?”
How is the situation affecting Torvalkds in personal terms?
“I’m actually pretty good – or at least I think I am – at taking a step back, and looking at my own reaction to it pretty neutrally,” he states. “And that not only calms me down a fair amount, it has actually made me appreciate the situation a bit: The lawsuit has made me realize just how personal these things get and how badly you can react to them.
“So I still get angry, and sometimes I vent through e-mail, but at the same time, it has been an interesting experience. Not something I’d recommend to others, and quite frankly, if I never hear of another Linux lawsuit again, that will be too soon. But it’s a bit like being at the dentist and instead of thinking about the irritating whining noise, you appreciate trying to figure out what it’s like to be the man with the drill.
“It doesn’t make the situation any more pleasant, but at least you can get something out of it. Learning how things work, and how you yourself react to stressful situations, is worthwhile in itself, I think.”
The photo is by Gary Wagner
