Maybe you know more than I do, but Microsoft has always had services running on unix-like systems - even back then I'm sure they had Linux servers in places. So they know they would have been next. $6M was just administrative money for them back then and they would have just paid it to make it a non-issue.

And again, $6M isn't really funding any serious legal action, is it? A couple of lawyers' lunch expenses, maybe!

It seems TSG was bleeding around $7M per quarter, and legal fees with Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP were capped at $31M [0]. Microsoft seems to paid more than $6M, eg. this article [1] cites $16.6M figure. It should be possible to check these amounts in SEC fillings, but it is cumbersome, there isn't single summary table but multiple fillings mention various payments in different quarters. [2]

It seems that licensing fees from Microsoft were not insignificant part of litigation costs.

[0] https://www.computerworld.com/article/2566954/sco-caps-legal... [1] https://www.computerworld.com/article/2563673/update--micros... [2] https://www.sec.gov/edgar/search/#/q=Microsoft&dateRange=all...

I'm 32 and the original SCO drama was _barely_ within my comprehension at the time it occurred: another thread reminded me of it, the poster seemed overwrought, my first reaction was "hah that's silly, it wasn't _that_ conspiratorial"...spent about an hour doing a deep dive on it, and yeah, it was pretty bad, $8 mil is the tip of the iceberg. Lotta intentional nonsense, and I'm not exactly wedded to FOSS ideals

The current CEO of Microsoft was an executive VP with then 10 years of work with Microsoft at the beginning of the scandal as well it seems a strange ask to for us to imagine that an executive who looked the other way during criminal conspiracy is supposed to be leading the new more ethical Microsoft.

I think they are still in the Embrace and Extend phases, putting a lot of work into the Linux kernel to make sure it plays well with Windows machines so bringing Azure tons of money, adding WSL so that devs don't need to switch to bare-metal Linux in order to do their work, making GitHub's position stronger so that all Open Source development is concentrated on their platform. This is all a coherent strategy aiming at maximizing value while controlling the situation (making sure Linux is unbootable after you install Windows next to it etc.).

What would be the first stages of the Extinguish stage? If I were them, I would start from neutralizing Stallman. He is the pillar of Free Software, a smart hacker who created GCC and devoted his life towards values that are completely at odds with Microsoft's vision. I would use every occasion to discredit him and eliminate him from exerting any influence.

Don't worry so much about the value. It is a precedent and encourages other companies to do the same.