When I read the linked article, I had to grin somehow. But then the head-shaking took over at so much nonsense. The article contains so many wrong ideas and interpretations of open source that you can only wonder how so many errors fit into such a short article. The biggest mistake is probably once again the mistaken assumption that open source needs a business model to function. Absurd notion - searching for a business model in the creation and distribution of open source is just as sensible as pulling on the value chain of weblogs. Of course there are companies that build a business model on the existence of open source - similar things exist with weblogs too. But the business model is absolutely irrelevant to the actual engine.
But then I thought about what it would really mean if SCO won (which apart from the article's author and maybe Darl McBride, probably nobody really believes). What would that mean for open source? Not much - the questionable sources would have to be named sooner or later and would simply be removed from the Linux kernel. Version 2.2 is according to SCO's own statements clean, it has already worked, at worst subsystems would fall back to the 2.2 level. Not fatal, at most annoying.
What would happen if the Linux kernel were banned by SCO? Wouldn't that destroy open source? Apart from the fact that this notion is quite absurd, here lies the biggest mistake in the article - a mistake, however, that is made almost consistently in the media. Open source is not Linux - Linux is only one (even relatively small, though significant) component of the entire open source field. Linux is a kernel - and thus important, but only one possible component that can easily be replaced. In the Intel processor environment, one could relatively quickly simply use the FreeBSD kernel (due to its compatibility functions for the Linux API) instead of the original Linux kernel. For other processors, just take NetBSD - much open source is not dependent on Linux anyway, but runs on almost everything that is Unix-like.
And what if companies no longer want to use open source because of the proceedings? Please what? Companies should refrain from using something they can get for free, just because there's a court case in a marginal area? Why should companies do that? How many companies use pirated software, knowing that it's illegal, knowing what that could mean, because they don't want to spend the money? As long as greed exists, open source will also find commercial use. And greed will exist as long as we have a market economy. So for a damn long time.
But surely companies won't release their own things under open source licenses anymore? Why not? It's a fairly inexpensive way for many companies to get free advertising. Besides, these companies rely on project business, less on software creation. The SCO proceedings don't change that at all. And even if it does decrease - much open source is created by individuals, originated at universities, or created in loose developer groups. Companies have contributed things - but usually only those in which they themselves had an interest for their own business fields. If companies no longer contribute to open source, they primarily harm themselves. Open source typically arises from someone having a problem that bothers them - and begins to create a solution for it. Suddenly something should change about that?
What bothers me most about what is written in the press about open source is the complete obtuseness of the authors about the facts of open source - that there is far more than just Linux, that the companies based on Linux are absolutely not necessary for the survival of open source, and that the motivation for open source has absolutely nothing to do with business models: Open source is the enthusiasm of people to create something that other people use with just as much enthusiasm. This motivation, the core of open source, cannot be stopped by court proceedings or bans. Open source would continue to exist even if it were banned by law - then just underground. Because creative achievements by people cannot be prohibited or suppressed - that applies in the software world just as much as with writers, painters, or musicians.
Open source will - no matter what the representatives of proprietary software attempt to do - continue to exist. Get ready for that. There is no going back.