This comes from Wired.com via a Digg post from user moojj:
http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2007/09/mcbride
The SCO Group case is one I have written about before, and it is interesting (amusing in some cases) to read responses from SCO's CEO Darl McBride regarding questions to which many people have long wanted answers.
McBride defends himself as a fighter for what is right, someone attempting to defend his company's property despite the unpopularity he knew it would garner.
While I have followed the case somewhat closely, I have not followed it in enough detail to give specific legal arguments about whether SCO's case had any legal merits. Noting that most of my friends in the Linux community don't believe it did, I will say (and have said before) that regardless of the legal issues at hand, the measures SCO took were simply losing ones. SCO was attempting to do what any business does, and that is make money. But they went about it the wrong way. Even had the most recent court decision gone the other way, and SCO ultimately prevailed on legal grounds, it would have been a short term victory. They would have made some money off licenses, but the Linux community would have found a way to develop future versions of the software which required no payments to SCO. When licensing fees ultimately dropped to zero and SCO attempted to shift to other projects for revenue, they would have had the displeasure of carrying a tarnished brand and reputation with them- one of a company that bullies its potential customer base rather than allying and cooperating with it.
Put simply, in the long run SCO could never have succeeded. McBride's attempts were shortsighted, and to add insult to injury, SCO won't even be profitable in the short term- the day after the most recent court decision, their stock lost 75% of its value.
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