[ILUG] interesting article otherwise known as the smell of napalm in the morning.

[Gavin McCullagh]

On Thu, 05 Feb 2004, Kermie wrote:

> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3457823.stm
> 
> direct quote
> 
> "There seems little doubt that SCO was targeted - illegally and 
> unacceptably, lest anyone be in any doubt - because it has enraged many 
> people devoted to the Linux operating system."
> 
> Is this fair comment?

Technically, yes.  The reason SCO were targetted (I'm pretty certain) is
the IBM lawsuit, offence of OSS community etc.  They aren't just some
randomly targetted software company.

However, that does not imply that it is the OSS community that is doing it.
As mentioned before, the attack on SCO makes a convenient smoke-screen to
obscure the view of an attack which has opened up millions of open relays
for spamming.  

As I see it, the two major effects of this are:

1. opening up backdoors on several million windows pcs 
2. damage to reputation of OSS
3. shortlived attacks on SCO, Microsoft

All sorts of people stand to benefit from the above three.  OSS has nothing
to gain from this attack.  Spammers & crackers on the other hand, have
everything to gain.

Gavin