Summary: SCO are, it would seem, utterly pathetic and despicable. __________________________ I'll put material referred to by others in plain text here: 1. Truly pathetic whinging & lying letter from SCO http://www.osaia.org/letters/sco_hill.pdf 2. Text version of DOC file posted by Richard Portions between "> ... > " are Lucas Hartman's original. At end ______________ I'll assume the letter really was written by SCO. If not, my apologies to them for anything here that rails against things they have not in fact said or done. If it IS genuine, then I consider their actions despicable. At least SCO's letter clarifies their claim. It says that "thousands of lines" of their code is contained in Linux. Shouldn't be too hard to spot then, should it. I absolutely agree that there is no place in GPL software for stolen code. They have every right to protect their property. I would not be at all surprised if there was in fact some stolen code in Linux. If so, those who are responsible for taking the entirely unnecessary short cuts which bring GPL into disrepute deserve all the trouble that results. Regrettably, such trouble will instead be directed far more broadly at the whole GPL / Linux community. However, SCO's letter presents an utterly perverted impression of what GPL is about. If it was presented in a technical forum it could simply be treated with the utter derision that it deserves. At a minimum rotten eggs are invited. However, if this is being sent to US legislators, who are liable to be less than aware of what GPL really is about, then it is an attempt to create a mis-impression and to destroy something by nefarious means that they cannot, apparently, combat by fair means based on the merits of their own software. If this is the ethical level that SCO sees fit to operate at then woe betide their customers. GPL makes no demands on the behaviour of those who wish to pursue another software production model. It may well (indeed, does) impact on other models. As long as the actions of GPLers are legal in all areas then the only morally available course is to combat it through legally available means. Telling lies to Congressman et al about it doesn't count guys. As for the ability for eg North Koreans being able to run Linux but not UNIX - they must have an extremely exalted opionion indeed of the effect of mere regulations to prevent the illegal dissemination of software. If legal restrictions had any protective value whatsoever they would stop SCO code turning up in Linux much more effectively than they would prevent North Korea pirating as many copies of SCO UNIX as they wished. The arguments that other practices reduce the value of the software market for the protagonists, while not without some persuasive value at first glance, would logically led one to the conclusion (amongst many others) that software producers should be protected from competition and encouraged to put up their prices at every opportunity. SCO's attempts to fetter people legally doing what they wish to do with their resources is against the core tenets of US democracy (and most other democracy as well :-) ) and, dare I say it, the spirit of capitalism (whatever that is) and is an offence to the concept of freedom. Alas, such perversity may well go unnoticed in the current US climate. Russell McMahon _______________________________________ RICHARD'S LETTER > .... > = Lucas >SCO is trying to make OpenSource software and the GPL illegal. Just 3 points on it: How can SCO believe that if I wrote my software I MUST be credited for it, even if I don't want to??? > 1. This is not about the existential individual but about the broader aspects of business, even though some persons tend to see the world in terms of their self as apart from the greater community without rendering any responsibility to that community. This is clearly an issue of reciprocity. It is an issue of prosperity for the individual that obtains from the prosperous functional organization and security of the greater technological community, which by virtue of its existence creates the very opportunity for technical contribution by the individual. Your argument, here, is without merit because it is not germane to the central issue, which is the software industry. > If open-source software really slows technology innovations, why they're refered to as "highly capable software", and why would RedHat, Conectiva and Mandrake spend time and efforts improving Linux? > 2. These questions here you raise are hypothetical and reductio ad absurdum. Furthermore, you are implicitly advancing the proposition that open-source software enhances technology, without a reasonable premise. Do you, in fact, intend to suggest that technology will be enhanced by open-source software, and that technology is presently retarded by the legal protection of intellectual property? 3. You have raised some intriguing and important questions that demonstrate the need for education and understanding of the issue itself, and also to the ramifications of removing the legal protection of intellectual property. 4. Furthermore, there are legal considerations to be taken into account. The process of law is in large part a process of decision. Cases are reviewed with consideration to precedent. The abrogation of intellectual property rights to software sets a dangerous precedent for intellectual property protection in the broader sense. Is it possible that such as invention, writing, music and art forms in general will not be encumbered or discouraged by the loss of such protection as now exists? > However I don't agree with RedHat's opinion of "no copyrights for software". Leave paid software alone... If they can't be good enough to pay for their cost, they'll die on their own. Engineering software use to be really expensive, making development restricted to big companies. With free software smaller companies can grow up to become big ones. > 5. Engineering costs for software, like the costs for hardware, are defined by the market conditions and the imposition of government regulations and social costs together with fully burdened overhead. The issue you present limits the scope of the argument to the simplistic view of one man's basement overhead versus the large corporate facility overhead and does not take into account many other important factors; the productivity of a technical community versus the freelance programmer, for example. The resources available for problem solving in a community of software engineers is advantageous by virtue of collective knowledge, collective experience, funds available for research and testing, intellectual backup and redundancy and the list goes on. Clearly, the issue is not a simplistic as the advocates of open-software make it appear. It is likely, in fact, that most advocates of open-software are ignorant of the broader ramifications of their position and have no idea that they are uneducated as to the real issues. What is the cost of errors? We have already discovered that they can be very expensive. Even small errors in Microsoft products received big attention and cost large sums of money, not only from the errors, per se, but from the publicity and the outcry. To advance the idea of open software we must ask would we advance the idea of open military strategy? In a real sense, that is an equivalent proposition because proprietary software is as germane to American Security as proprietary military strategy. It may be that some adversary of America would promulgate open software, and that is altogether understandable. Because there is insufficient space and time to provide a comprehensive answer to your argument, I have summarized a brief mention of some challenges that you have raised. I hope that I have been of some help and that this reply is of some value to you. I am always happy to see that people will get involved in an issue rather than stand by passively and watch things happen. It is nobler to get involved regardless of the position taken than it is to have no interest. Reading and learning, whether or not one takes up a position, is still an active practice of involvement. I complement you on your willingness to take a position. My advice is to become educated on all sides of the issue. I am confident that many rebuttals would follow this were it to be an open issue. But that is also a form of intellectual colloquy and it is intellectually healthy. And this is an issue of critical strategic interest to Americans, Germans, or other nations as benefit from intellectual property protection laws. The open debate on a Grande scale could only prove beneficial, if it is carried by logic and not propaganda. Respectfully, Richard Lucas Hartmann. -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The list server can filter out subtopics (like ads or off topics) for you. See http://www.piclist.com/#topics -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The PICList is archived three different ways. See http://www.piclist.com/#archives for details.