BusinessWeek: Does Linux Have a Dark Secret?

“In his sci-fi western tale The Dark Tower, Stephen King’s
gloomy hero Roland the Gunslinger utters the sage observation,
‘Only enemies speak the truth. Friends and lovers lie endlessly,
caught in the web of duty.’

“So, people who hate you are far more likely to level with you.
It’s a message the open-source community might want to heed as it
prepares for what could be a nasty battle against SCO Group. This
Lindon (Utah) software concern claims it holds key rights to the
Unix operating system. More importantly, SCO has sued IBM for
allegedly lifting key software code from Unix and dropping that
code lock, stock, and barrel into Linux. That, the $1 billion suit
claims, is proscribed by the agreement SCO has with IBM. Big Blue
says it has done no such thing…

“In essence, SCO is challenging the entire Linux community:
‘Prove you wrote this code.’ That’s a challenge only an open-source
foe would make. And while Wall Street and Main Street have embraced
the Penguin tribe, the SCO litigation has brought to the fore a
nagging worry about open-source software: What are the exact
origins of the code going into popular open-source programs? Could
the code have been stolen or lifted…?”

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