| Sumario: | A new computer virus, the fastest-spreading ever, was making the rounds at the end of January 2004 among unprotected computers running on Microsoft Windows. This virus, called MyDoom by some and Novarg by others, seems to be of a different nature--conspiratorial and political. That is because its main feature, besides humiliating Microsoft, is to turn infected machines into weapons against a company called SCO. SCO, a tiny software firm in Utah, and Microsoft, the world's largest software firm, have only one thing in common. Both are passionately hated by "open-source" software programmers, who typically believe that computer code should be freely shared instead of sold as property. Microsoft is hated chiefly because it represents the opposite model, proprietary software, and because its operating system, Windows, is the main rival to Linux, the best-known open-source software today. So SCO has sued firms that distribute Linux, such as IBM, and intends soon to start to sue those that use Linux.
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