Who is David and who is Goliath?
The story of SCO versus IBM has been compared to a story of David versus Goliath, except that we all want Goliath to win. I put it to you that IBM is not, in fact, Goliath, but that Linux is. IBM is just Goliath's powerful right arm, and Goliath has been awoken from a peacful slumber.
SCO has repeatedly insulted the Linux community and the Free Software and Open Source communities at large with claims that are, in the eloquent words of (fictional) Colonel Sherman Potter of M*A*S*H fame, "horse patooties." Aside from the slander and defamation of a respectable and successful product, and the attack on large businesses the world over, SCO has made a crucial error in judgement.
SCO has insulted the grass roots of a worldwide, increasingly influential movement.
SCO has insulted each and every one of us, personally.
When a company threatens or insults another company, a small handful of people at each company are really the only people who care or take notice, and the two companies can bicker in court, out of the public eye. SCO, however, has slandered a community of thousands of people who have put their hearts and souls into their often free work.
Whether it is by writing a kernel driver, maintaining a package, helping people with their questions on IRC or on mailing lists, or by helping get the word out by working on news sites, everyone in this community is making an effort to build and support this project.
From the people sitting in Goliath's brain to the companies making Goliath's limbs, we are, together, Goliath.
David has pinpricked us in our right arm, and the mean fighting machine that is Goliath is waking up.
Over the next while, Goliath's other limbs will begin fighting, and this unqualified threat to us will be squished for once and for all.
Originally posted on Linux.com 2003-08-17. Reposted here 2019-11-21.
Posted at 12:26 on August 17, 2003
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