The Change Mariner

Legal Dispute Unnerves Linux Users

New York Times:

For the true believers in free software, Bill Gates, the chairman of Microsoft, has long been the figurative devil. Yet suddenly, Mr. Gates has a rival for their animosity. The unlikely challenger is Darl C. McBride, the 43-year-old chief executive of the SCO Group, a little company in Lindon, Utah.

Mr. McBride is engaged in an escalating legal fight with I.B.M., and its ripples are prompting concern in much of the computer industry and among the industry's corporate customers. The worries center on whether SCO can hobble the advance of a fast-emerging force in computing, the GNU Linux operating system.