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The list of large enterprise sites that have migrated to Linux in the last two months includes Royal Sun Alliance, Deutsche Bank, SunGard, and Schwab. Linux saw a net gain of 100 sites among the 24,000 Web sites run by 1,500 large companies in this period, according to Netcraft.

Netcraft data even shows that the White House site is powered by Apache on Linux, though this appears to have been set up prior to the SCO suit.

The continued adoption of Linux by large enterprise in the face of SCO's legal threats is not surprising, said Yankee Group analyst Laura DiDio. "I don't think many of them thought of it as a big threat, I think they viewed it as a mosquito at a picnic -- a sort of gnat buzzing around."

However, "I think that's going to change as the months go on," she told NewsFactor.

Warning Letter

In May, SCO sent letters to 1500 of the largest companies globally warning them of the legal risks involved in running Linux. Although SCO did not make the identities of these companies public, Netcraft noted that it is "likely that the list of companies that received letters from SCO is quite similar to the list of sites we use to study enterprises' web site technology choices."

Some analysts speculate that SCO's legal action will slow enterprise Linux adoption among enterprises, both large and small.

Given that one of Linux's biggest advantages is that it is lower cost than proprietary software, this added fee "would be detrimental," to Linux adoption, Murphy said.

Reasons for Continued Growth

Explaining the apparent paradox of continued Linux growth in the face of potential legal action, Netcraft said that "It may well be that although SCO has generated an enormous amount of attention from the media and Linux evangelists, it does not presently have the attention of IT practitioners in large companies."

Netcraft listed a variety of additional possible explanations for Linux's increased growth despite legal threats: Companies realize the costs of migrating from Linux to FreeBSD at a later date, if needed, would be small, and they may feel the chance of a SCO victory is remote.

Relying On IBM

These large companies figure that "it will be years before this gets to court, they'll probably settle, IBM says 'don't worry,'" DiDio said.

However, "IBM had better step up to the plate and start saying whether or not they will indemnify their customers, and if so, to what extent," she said. SCO has filed a $3 billion lawsuit against IBM, alleging that IBM misapropriated SCO's Unix intellectual property, using it to increase Linux's capabilities.

Though IBM has denied SCO's charge, IBM should indemnify their customers anyway, DiDio said. "Microsoft has a great indemnification clause in their contract that they put in back in April," she noted.

That IBM has yet to offer their customers such an indemnification is troubling, DiDio said. "That fact that they're not doing it, and that they're not saying what they're going to do, I find that silence really ominous."

Some Move To Windows

Although Linux saw a net gain, "it is by no means one way traffic," Netcraft said. Of the 24,000 enterprise sites included in the survey, in the past twelve months over 1600 have changed operating systems.