[tlug] an amusing idea

[Tim Hurman <kano-tlug@example.com>]

Hi All,

I had a little idea a few moments ago and though it might be quite fun to
air it. Everyone by now has heard of the SCO law suit, and I am sure most
Linux users want nothing to do with SCO, so I though about the complete
opposite. SCO, like most other companies sell shares which are fairly
cheap to buy. However once you own a share, you have a say, albeit a small
one in the company's direction. So here is the plan...

If a large number of Linux users each bought a few shares, the typical
outlay to each individual is small. However at the next AGM, a vote could
be forced to re-licence the SYSV source code to an open source licence,
probably LGPL to avoid doing colateral damage to people like Sun. The
rammifications are interesting, take Sun for instance, they would be
released from a rather large contract, as Solaris is already free for
personal use, maybe they would use the money to subsidise the low end
hardware range and promote more people to use Sun hardware (sorry, I am
rather a fan of Sun kit).

And the other option, if the vote fails, well then all the Linux users
could sell their shares, prompting a large fall in the stock price which
would probably cascade and force the company under, again no more law
suit. The question remains what would happen to SYSV, but I suspect they
would be begging for someone to buy them out.

Anyway, just thinking,

Tim.