At least companies that put out crappy software and/or fall seriously short in the ethics department still actually try to innovate and compete (e.g., Microsoft – though conspiracy theories abound that say they’re behind all this nonsense). This cause, however, is only about greed, opportunism, desperation, and psychopathy, pure and simple. Perhaps these guys ought to try to better life on the planet with their “largesse.” Perhaps someone could actually innovate with that money. You know, find a cure for cancer, or develop social programs to eliminate poverty. I certainly hope the bankruptcy court sees this for the extortionist fraud it is and severs it off at the head.

Even if their case has some merit (which it certainly doesn’t appear to given what’s transpired and SCO’s own tactics of declaring bankruptcy weeks before going to trial), from a moral perspective what they’re doing is simply wrong. With all that’s at stake, with users and governments around the world benefiting from the spread of free software, this is analogous to a rogue enterprise waging a trillion dollar intellectual property battle to blot out the use of antibiotics. It doesn’t make economic sense, legal sense, or business sense, and smacks of moral turpitude.

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