SCO ready to clean out Linux users for $1399 per CPU (Register)
Posted Aug 6, 2003 0:30 UTC (Wed) by
dwalters (guest, #4207)
In reply to:
SCO ready to clean out Linux users for $1399 per CPU (Register) by mmarq
Parent article:
SCO ready to clean out Linux users for $1399 per CPU (Register)
True, Red Hat could fall on its sword, the infringing code identified and removed, and the world would move on.
However, SCO might argue in court that the evidence should be "lawyers eyes only" due to trade secret issues, and if successful, the code would not be made public if SCO wins.
Of course, Red Hat's argument is that since all Linux source code is public anyway, there are no secrets in it, so trade secret protections don't apply. This ought to be very compelling. Let's hope so, anyway.
What really annoys me is the way SCO paints all of us Linux community folks as pirates who just want to get away with stealing their code. Based on all the fine, intelligent people I've met in our community, this couldn't be further from the truth. Almost all of us DO respect copyrights, and just want any copyright-infringing code, if it really is there, to be verifiably identified, removed, and rewritten in a clean room, so that GNU/Linux can be free of IP infringement issues.
All this "We'll show you a little sample of infringing code if you sign an NDA, but you can't write any of it down, and we won't tell you exactly what the files are" nonsense is utterly contemptible, and I desperately hope that Red Hat win their summary judgements to put an end to it.
Finally, if it's true that SCO programmers copied chunks of Linux into the Linux Kernel Personality layer of SCO's Unix product, and you're one of those programmers reading this, PLEASE do the honorable thing and come forward publicly about this; this is too big an issue, and too much damage can be done TO THE WHOLE FLOSS MOVEMENT by this SCO FUD engine for you to remain quiet about this.
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