Posted 8:28 AM

Tully Bascomb and Linux

Lindows.com, the Windows-on-Linux wannabe OS funded by erstwhile MP3 honcho Michael Robertson has declared that it is legal in its use of Linux due to 2001 discussions and agreements with SCO's predecessor, Caldera, Inc. But as The Register points out, there are enough weasel words in Robertson's statement to make you wonder if any written agreement actually exists.

The whole sorry episode is beginning to resemble the actions in Europe in 1914 when the assassination of the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary led to all the rest of Europe choosing up sides and starting World War I.

Unfortunately, or perhaps very fortunately from a writer's perspective, the current Unix mess resembles more the phoney war in The Mouse That Roared, Peter Sellers 1959 send-up of war movies in which the tiny duchy of Grand Fenwick declares war on the US in hopes of losing and being given Marshall Plan-like aid. I do believe I could see Sellers playing the role of SCO chief Darl MacBride.