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Ibrahim Haddad ibrahim.haddad@linuxworld.com
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Pawel Leszek pawel.leszek@linuxworld.com
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[INTERNATIONAL ADVISORY BOARD]
Wim Coekaerts, Director of Linux Engineering
Oracle
Brian E. Ferguson, Partner
McDermott, Will & Emery
John Fowler, CTO, Software
Sun Microsystems
Gaël Duval, Cofounder/Director of Communication
MandrakeSoft
Samuel J. Greenblatt, Senior Vice President
and Chief Architect, Linux Technology Group
Computer Associates
Scott Handy, Director of Linux Software Solutions
IBM
Bruce Perens
Perens, LLC
Simon Phipps, Chief Software Evangelist
Sun Microsystems
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Jean Cassidy jean@sys-con.com
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Anyone following current trends
in computing and information tech-
nology can tell you that big things
are afoot in the world of Linux and
open source software.
At the top of the list as I write
this are the current activities of SCO. In
case you’re new to the Linux and open
source worlds, let me explain the issue in
a nutshell.
SCO has been alleging that Linux contains a
significant amount of software code that SCO
owns the copyright to. While they have not produced
any proof of this publicly and won’t provide
any details to support their claims, they have
sent threatening letters to many Linux users and
have even been charging major corporations
“license fees” for the code they say they own.
Most in the open source community believe this
practice is akin to an illegal shakedown.
However, there may be much broader implications
lurking that could impact virtually every
company around the world.
These implications stem from the fact that virtually
every company today uses a huge amount
of open source software – not even taking Linux
into account. I’d be willing to wager that most
company executives have literally no idea how
much open source software they use. The cost to
replace all this software for even a mid-sized
company would easily run into millions of dollars.
One developer I asked about this recently told
me that his development group had used more
than 25 different open source applications and
programming libraries in building the suite of
Java-based applications that ran his company’s ecommerce
systems (and, by the way, that’s likely
to be about average). Can you imagine the cost of
replacing these? Just purchasing and negotiating
the contracts to buy these applications would be
a huge cost.
Linux and the networking and security applications
that many companies use are also comprised
of many smaller open source applications.
Again, replacement cost would be prohibitive.
BY KEVIN BEDELL
FROM THE EDITOR
A Time for Leadership
www.LinuxWorld.com 7
Yet there are companies today that,
like SCO, are plotting ways of forcing
companies to pay for these applications.
It’s likely that the upcoming
assaults on the open source “infrastructure”
that is so widely used will
come in the form of patent infringement
lawsuits – whether valid or
invalid, frivolous or real.
So what are we as developers,
administrators, and managers to do?
Stand by and wait for the assaults? Throw up our
hands and do nothing?
Hardly. We as a community have the ability to
impact this. What can we do?
First, we need to make sure that management
understands the impact that open source software
has on their business. Management in most companies
likely has no idea that open source software
is so widespread within their organizations. Many
managers probably don’t know what it is or don’t
even realize they use it – let alone realize their
companies depend on it so extensively.
Second, we need to ensure that our vendors
support open source software. This is especially
true if our vendors own a significant number of
software patents. Those vendors need to know we
want them to continue to be friendly to the open
source community and ensure our rights to open
source software are preserved.
Third, we need to participate in the community.
We need to give back. John Fowler, Software
CTO at Sun Microsystems (and new member of
the LinuxWorld Magazine International Advisory
ABOUT THE EDITOR
—continued on page 85
Kevin Bedell is an open-source author, developer and
speaker almost 20 years of experience in the software
and computer industries. As editor-in-chief of
LinuxWorld Magazine, Kevin has played a critical
role in setting editorial direction for that magazine.
He is coauthor of “Struts Kick Start” from SAMS
Publishing and “Axis: TheDefinitive Guide” from
O’Reilly. He keeps a popular weblog on O'Reilly's oreil
lynet.com website. He is on the technical advisory
board for Adjoin, Inc (a web services start-up company)
and is a member of Toastmasters International.
kevin@sys-con.com
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2003