> I read the SCO letter
> and it made a
> great deal of sense to me

whoops, you'd better re-read it!

> because I do not believe that
> anyone should be
> compelled to open their software (technology).

Who is? And by whom?

> I am a
> staunch advocate of
> individual rights and copyright protection as well as patent
> protection.

Do you know that the GPL and related license are based on copyright law?

> If I am to understand you, the controversy is that ones right
> to publish
> freely without consequence is being infringed upon.

Who does this?

> If someone steals the
> source code from someone else and publishes it at large, I see that as
> infringement and I cannot see any way to justify it.

Neiter do I. Provided of course that it is proven.

> persuaded that protection against such theft is warranted.

No-one (especially no Open Source proponent) will argue with that,
especially beacuse
the Open Source licenses are based on copyright law.

> I appriciate your clarification, that open-software means
> anyone can give
> away their work without fear of being impugned or maligned.

Not just that. It also means that they have full rights to impose
restrictions on this 'giving away', just as much as those how sell right
to their software have rights to impose limitations. Equal rights,
remember?

> some are indeed
> advocating that legal protection of software rights be
> removed that it is a
> compelling force.

So? Anyone is free to advocate (almost) anything.

> As you have stated, however, these must be the extremists, or fringe
> elements of the idea.

There are extremist Christians, Muslimst, Jews, Left-wingers,
Right-wingers, Moderaters, (Moderators?), Open-sourceres,
Closed-sourcerers, name any other group. So what?

Wouter van Ooijen

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Van Ooijen Technische Informatica: www.voti.nl
consultancy, development, PICmicro products

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