The fear war against Linux (News.com) [LWN.net]

The fear war against Linux (News.com)

Posted May 20, 2003 14:43 UTC (Tue) by DaveK (guest, #2531)
Parent article: The fear war against Linux (News.com)

Or is this perhaps a tacit admission from Redomnd that within their proprietary codebase there might be code which is 'borrowed' from others and may include parts of that to which SCO lays claim?

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The fear war against Linux (News.com)

Posted May 20, 2003 15:12 UTC (Tue) by jdthood (guest, #4157) [Link] (1 responses)

In the article, Bruce Perens wrote:
> I earlier thought the suit could be a bid to force IBM
> to acquire SCO at a cheaper price than the cool billion
> dollars being demanded to settle the case.

Bruce wasn't the only one that thought that, but where is the
evidence to back up such speculation? He goes on to say:

> Microsoft hardly needs an SCO source license. Its license
> payment to SCO is simply a good-looking way to pass along
> a bribe

Another interesting theory, but where is the evidence of
collusion?

I support Bruce Perens's efforts. However, Bruce should be
careful not to make public accusations (however plausible)
for which he has no evidence.

DaveK wrote:
> Or is this perhaps a tacit admission from Redomnd that
> within their proprietary codebase there might be code
> which is 'borrowed' from others and may include parts
> of that to which SCO lays claim?

More speculation.

allesfresser wrote:
> Well, that's exactly what the GPL is for... to prevent
> "intellectual property" from becoming the smokescreen
> by which moneygrubbers keep people in the dark and
> charge them dearly for it.

That is true at the macro level: the growing trove of GPL
software protects users from proprietary monopolists.

However, it is *not* the purpose of the GPL to undermine
individual companies by means of legal trojans. That was
fergal's point: if SCO loses because their use of the GPL
comes back to haunt them then this will supply Microsoft
with useful fudder. That would be bad.

The fear war against Linux (News.com)

Posted May 20, 2003 18:38 UTC (Tue) by allesfresser (subscriber, #216) [Link]

The pointy bit of the GPL (the part that makes it a tack on Mr. Gates' chair) seems to be RMS' strong advocacy of the view that sharing is normal. The GPL embodies this assumption. If you want to make a piece of software proprietary, and you are in an environment where lots of GPL code is floating around, you have a problem to work out, because you have to essentially make it clean-room style because you as a proprietary developer are intentionally sealing your code off from the rest of the world. The 'normal' thing to do would be to participate in the common good by sharing your unique code and by using others' code to bring your package to light faster by not reinventing the wheel. But (according to the RMS view) since you're being recalcitrant and ornery by refusing to share your code, you should bear the burden of making sure that your code is truly sealed off, not the other way round. The creative commons shouldn't bear the burden of your selfishness. I know that's a radical departure from the reigning zeitgeist, but that is what I have synthesized as the mindset behind the GPL, and I for one agree with it. Whether or not it works to 'keep all the programmers from starving' or whatever the latest FUD is, I don't care. If there is a need for software to be written, it will be written, and someone will figure out a way to eat while it's being written. The development model doesn't matter on that point. The point is, sharing makes us all richer. Not sharing makes us all poorer in the long run.

The fear war against Linux (News.com)

Posted May 20, 2003 21:57 UTC (Tue) by cpm (guest, #3554) [Link]

Win2K SP2

# strings ftp.exe | grep Copy
@(#) Copyright (c) 1983 The Regents of the University of California.

I sent a letter to the Regents of the University of California a few
years back, they didn't know anything about it. Nor did they care.