McBride, who is fluent in Japanese, will visit with several founding members to show them code samples in which the Linux open-source operating system allegedly violates SCO's Unix patents, said an SCO spokesman. CELF's eight founders are Hitachi, Matsushita, NEC, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Sony and Toshiba. "Members of that consortium are lining up in droves to view that source code," the spokesman said.
Linux proponents saw the formation of CELF by a powerhouse coalition as a vote of confidence for the upstart OS, and further proof that corporate Linux users are not overly concerned about the legal threat from SCO. CELF will focus on the promotion of Linux-based consumer electronics products (see story, below).
"It shows how entrenched Linux has become," said Victor Yodaiken, CEO of FSMLabs Inc. (Socorro, N.M.), a maker of real-time software for Linux. "These [eight consumer] companies are not known as adventurers, and they wouldn't do this if they thought there would be legal repercussions. It's an endorsement of how irreplaceable Linux has become for them."
The rising tide of Linux support was oddly incongruous, however, with the growing concerns of industry observers who viewed evidence of the SCO Group's legal claims. Several analysts said last week that users of Linux need to tread carefully.
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