Simply amazing [LWN.net]

Simply amazing

Posted Dec 22, 2003 19:54 UTC (Mon) by Ross (guest, #4065)
Parent article: Novell reasserts Unix copyright claim

This is the biggest, most confused, disorganized, dishonest, and epic
story in the Linux world. Every week or two I marvel over the absurdity
of the whole thing and tell myself "ok, now it has reached the limits of
insanity, it can not possibly get any stranger" only to discover I was
completely wrong the next day. It's almost like this thing is being
scripted by soap opera writers.

The only thing I can say which covers my feelings at a high level is that
I hope that SCO's management and supporters are brought to justice and
that the whole scheme is exposed for what it is in the mainstream press.

The scary thing is that there are so many details and conflicting
statements it would take a book to do it justice.

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Simply amazing

Posted Dec 22, 2003 22:02 UTC (Mon) by vblum (guest, #1151) [Link]

It is amazing. It is the best case anyone could possibly have made for open source type development. It teaches you to NEVER touch a project with outside former copyright holders involved, or even who may believe to be involved.

Unless the situation is clarified by something as clear as the GPL, building on top of other people's proprietary code is a legal minefield, even if you believe to have paid for it.

Due to its open development history and the GPL, Linux itself seems pretty much in the clear of all this. The people who are really hurt are those who are unlucky enough to have signed a contract with SCO's predecessors, and tried to build on Unix. Not because they did anything wrong; but because someone with highly dubious claims now threatens to force them into a fully unnecessary legal battle.

It has been said before, but it can not be repeated often enough.

[And life will get that much more interesting a few years from now if Microsoft ever begins to charge royalties for its .NET patents - is there anything to stop them from doing that?]