I'm seeking a bit of advice from anyone who may have had to make a similar decision before.

I have written a driver using FUSE on Linux that implements the SCO HTFS filesystem (read-only right now). I wrote this to help me with some data migration, where it would be nice to mount and read hard disks from a machine that ran SCO Openserver 5. And also I did it as a personal learning experience on filesystem structure, etc.

I'm seriously considering releasing this under the GPL, since I have seen several usenet/web posts in various places where others have wanted a way to mount HTFS drives on Linux. But with SCO being the litigious bastards they are I may not. I don't want them to sue me.

I wrote this purely from reverse engineering, and examination of changes made by a real SCO host to the filesystem.

Does anyone have thoughts on this? Been in a similar situation?

Any advice/comments welcome.


John

I don't know if this will fit into your decision, but very soon sco won't be able to sue anyone, as IBM or Novell will own them. I'm no lawyer, but if you wrote this tool yourself and it just reads sco's filesystem, from my admittedly rudimentary understanding of the law, you should be completely in the clear. If it has the same abilities as sco's filesystem, you could run afoul of patents, but I think I read on groklaw that sco owns no patents. Another point to consider, would a large company think you have enough money to bother to pay a lawyer to mess with you ? Would they think they could recover enough to make it worth their while ? In the end it comes down to what you feel comfortable with. I understand you might not want to pay a lawyer yourself, but perhaps the fsf might help ? Especially if you assign them the copyright. Best of luck.

Thanks for your comments. I feel the same way you do about it. I'm going to give it a little more consideration before I decide, but I am leaning towards releasing it.

You could try posting this question to Groklaw - there are lawyers there and they may well have the answer.

I agree with XavierP; check with a real lawyer.
Also, re budword's comment, 'soon' is along time in law. This case has been going for a while and I'm sure SCO will hang it out as long as possible.

Thanks for your input XavierP and chrism01!

I do have legal insurance through my employment benefits package, which has a free question/answer line for members, so I will give them a call to see if they have any suggestions.

It's a shame,
computers were fun when it was just us nerds and geeks playing about,
now all these dickhead corporations and lawyers just want to make money
and enslave the planet with patents and upgrade fees.