First Analyst Impressed By SCO's 'Proof'

Vaughn Treude wrote:

>Does any of this matter, even if we (the Linux community) are totally right,
>as I (and most all of us) believe we are . . .?
>
>All SCO has to do is drag this out long enough to cost the remaining viable
>Linux vendors (except, of course, IBM) enough to put them out of business.
>The so-called "wheels of justice" turn very slowly. Martha Stewart is just
>now being indicted for her alleged insider trading deal. Bishop O'Brien is
>just now cutting a deal about the priestly sex scandals. So what if SCO's
>suit is groundless? Unless IBM cuts a deal with them, or someone pressures
>SCO to drop the suit, Tux could be a casualty.
>
>Can anybody say FreeBSD?
>
>Vaughn Treude
>
>
I don't understand a key in all of this.

Basis:
1. Assume for a moment that SCO's claims are true and Unix code that
they own is in Linux.
2. Assume that I am CIO of a Fortune 1500 company using Linux in my IT
infrastructure.

Question:
Can SCO simply give me an ultimatum, requiring me to pay them or forcing
me to stop using Linux? They obviously wouldn't own all of Linux so
wouldn't they only be able to make me stop using the offending code?
After the offending code is written out, I could go on using Linux again.

That would be a worse case scenerio that I don't think will come to be.
However, I do worry that SCO can maintain a cloud over Linux and really
hurt people who have built their business on it.

On the other hand, once the mess is resolved, SCO will either slink away
in defeat or crumble away once the code is removed, since they
completely angered most of their potential market. Then, I would expect
Linux growth to explode because of the pent-up demand.

Alan