On Sat, 24 Jan 2004 23:35:30 +1300, Russell McMahon wrote:

>lots of good stuff snipped<

> 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.

SCO's entire conduct has annoyed me immensely, but the aspect that has me leaping out of my seat shouting
"NO!!!!" is their attempt to hitch a ride on the current "if you're not with us you're against us" bandwagon
by making "National Security" part of their argument.  The utter cynicism of suggesting that letting any
flavour of UNIX get into the hands of the "enemy" is dangerous, and that nobody else is capable of writing
software that could threaten the US is amazing, and rather along the lines of trying to stop PGP from being
exported all those years ago.  So someone in North Korea builds a "virtual supercomputer" (!) - what are they
going to do with it that could not be done (perhaps more slowly) using any decent PC that is available
worldwide?  Remember that most of the code-cracking that went on during WWII was done with pencil and paper,
aided only by some crude electro-mechanical devices, which did no actual cracking, but checked the validity of
a possible solution.  A "supercomputer" can speed things up dramatically, but there's very little that can't
be done without one.

The whole thing is patent scaremongering (pun not intended) to try to bolster support for their groundless
position from people who are not equipped to disbelieve their assertions.  I hope they lose their shirt over
it!

I wonder what SCO would do if the US Congress agrees with them, but the rest of the World doesn't?  If their
worst-case scenario happens and Free Software becomes the norm outside the US, but the US only has Expensive
Software, their "continued ability to lead the World in technological innovation" (!) would look a tad thin!

Cheers,

Howard Winter
St.Albans, England

Your homework essay for tonight, children:  "Plagiarism: offence or useful technique?"  :-)

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