SCO fires back at Red Hat; Linux faces price realty check
C|Net | at | by Mike
Software maker SCO Group fired back at Linux leader Red Hat on Tuesday and revealed steep licensing prices for Linux users who want to steer clear of the company's legal wrangle with the open-source operating system.
In a teleconference with media and financial analysts, SCO CEO Darl McBride bluntly accused Red Hat of distributing Linux software that illegally copies SCO's Unix code.
"Red Hat's lawsuit confirms what we've been saying all along--Linux developers are either unable or unwilling to screen the code" that goes into the Linux kernel, McBride said. "Red Hat is selling Linux that contains verbatim and obfuscated code from Unix System 5."
If SCO is successful with its intellectual property claims, however, such licensing prices will help kill Linux, Haff said. "If you take away the price advantage and essentially eliminate the open-source development model, what do you have left?" he asked. "There's nothing magical about Linux from a technical perspective... And you're probably cheaper behind Windows or using Solaris," Sun Microsystems' version of Unix.