"Software is not becoming free but it is becoming a commodity. Once you have a commodity product the things you make money on are the services and hardware that are built around it. For example, with a lot of mobile phones the software is not the value in the product. Shrink-wrap software businesses are the exception, not the rule. . . .

"I’m happy to see Novell release a letter that SCO is violating Novell’s agreements. SCO also had to make available its case to IBM. This reaffirms the fact that this is not about copyrights but a contract agreement with IBM.

"It’s been very irritating at times with SCO’s ludicrous, unsubstantiated claims. Some of the press has picked up the SCO case without a lot of critical analysis but lately SCO press releases have [been subjected to] a lot more scrutiny. Outside the US SCO has not been good at pushing its case. I don’t have a PR department so unless journalists come to me I have no way of [commenting on] SCO.

"Lawsuits are a big part of the business landscape in the US. It’s good that this case has made all the Linux developers aware of code, but it has been bad because it is irritating and I definitely don’t want something like this to happen again.

"All the Linux developers take copyright very seriously. They are developers and want to do coding, not copying. Because of this, I feel that the code quality of Linux is even better than commercial Unix operating systems. I’m not worried about copyrights but the Linux community doesn’t have a lot of lawyers, PR or marketing."

Memo to Linus: You can comment on Groklaw any day/every day of the week, if you want to.