Red Hat files complaint against SCO, launches legal fund [LWN.net]

Red Hat files complaint against SCO, launches legal fund

Posted Aug 4, 2003 18:59 UTC (Mon) by coriordan (guest, #7544)
In reply to: Red Hat files complaint against SCO, launches legal fund by sveinrn
Parent article: Red Hat files complaint against SCO, launches legal fund

Should we all go buy some RedHat stuff?

The Legal fights for Free Software are just beginning. Really, we should all be funding those who defend it for us.

If the decision is: (a) buy RedHat stuff or (b) don't buy RedHat stuff. I'd go with (a). But that's not the decision. If you're willing to donate to help the legal battles of Free Software then you should look for the most effective use.

I regularly donate to FSF. I know most of the staff, they're extremely dedicated and they're tight with money. I can't think of anyone that would make better use of my money.

...and I know I'm not just buying a new car for the Executive Director, he doesn't even own a car :)

Ciaran O'Riordan

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Red Hat files complaint against SCO, launches legal fund

Posted Aug 4, 2003 20:47 UTC (Mon) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

> The FSF has been too passive this time

I understand your point. Right now, I'm working on the EU software patents issue. I used to get really frustrated wondering why FSFeurope weren't doing much.

The thing is, the FSFs have limited resources and they work on the most needy task (which isn't always the most famous task). There was a time when FSF had 15 programmers on their payroll writing GNU but since hundreds of businesses now develop GPL'd software, FSF diverted it's attention and funding elsewhere.

Right now, their focus is on GPL education, usage, and enforcement. Their secondary focus is on informing the public about Free Software (through many many speechs, and mainstream media articles and interviews that usually don't show up on our radars), and talking directly to politicians (in America, Europe, and India).

Recently, the FSFe published a "Two year Executive Summary"[0] that outlined the work they had done. After I read it I understood why they hadn't been working on the patents issue. The patents issue has plenty of volunteers, the FSFe were working on other issues that needed attention.

I've talked to Bradley Kuhn of FSF and Georg Greve of FSFe about publishing more info about what they do.

Georg Greve replied:
me> I often think it's a pity that the FSFs don't publicise their
me> work more.

gg> I know and agree wholeheartedly. We should put more work into
gg> publicising, but you know how it is. :)

Bradley Kuhn had a similar response, they lack resources at the moment.

On the SCO issue, they did make a statement[1], and it was FSF General Counsel Eben Moglen that worked on the OSDL positional paper, but yes, they haven't diverted much attention to the SCO issue.

Ciaran O'Riordan
P.S. just looking at the Preview, Bleh, I didn't realise it was such a long post. Hope you get to read it :)

[0] http://fsfeurope.org/documents/reports/es-2003.en.html
[1] http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/sco-gnu-linux.html
[2] http://www.osdl.org/docs/osdl_eben_moglen_position_paper.pdf

Red Hat files complaint against SCO, launches legal fund

Posted Aug 5, 2003 7:30 UTC (Tue) by pointwood (guest, #2814) [Link]

Thanks for that updateon FSF! I've wondered about that myself more than once.

They should be much better at informing about what they are doing. That would most likely also bring in more donations. People are much more likely to donate if they know what the money will be used for.

Red Hat files complaint against SCO, launches legal fund

Posted Aug 4, 2003 23:14 UTC (Mon) by zonker (guest, #7867) [Link]

The FSF has been too passive this time

I don't think the FSF has standing to do anything -- they don't own copyright over the code for the Linux kernel, and they don't distribute Linux per se, so I'm not sure what they could do legally.