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| OSAIA Releases a Letter Purportedly from SCO to Congress Attacking Open Source and the GPL |
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Wednesday, January 21 2004 @ 01:51 AM EST
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SCO is reportedly making moves on the governmental front, sending lobbying letters to at least some members of Congress. Newsforge has the story. If the letter is authentic, I gather the goal is to have Linux made illegal, or at least made off-limits for governmental use. The Open Source & Industry Alliance (OSAIA), which describes itself as an organization that "represents the interests of the broad array of companies, organizations, and individuals that comprise the open source community", has released a letter that it says McBride has been sending to Congress.
I first saw this letter last week, and I contacted several congressmen and women to try to confirm the letter's authenticity. None that I contacted had received the letter, but one legislative assistant told me that a letter mailed on January 8, the date of the letter, would not make it through the anthrax-testing process for two weeks and suggested I call back later. I was told by someone who asked to remain anonymous that one Congressperson did receive the letter by fax last week. I decided not to publish the letter until I could get either a second source or someone willing to go on the record, because that is Groklaw policy. However, now that it has been released, I am reporting OSAIA's release of the letter. I do not yet know if the letter is authentic or, if it is, if it is being sent to Congress. Having so many tell me that they have not received the letter indicates that either the letter isn't being sent to all legislators but only to selected ones or that they haven't reached everyone yet and it will eventually arrive. It also crossed my mind that the letter could be deliberately leaked by SCO in an attempt to get the Linux community upset enough to make some wild comments, or maybe set the stage for SCO to make further claims of being "attacked" by Linux enthusiasts, or just to get some headlines around the time of their scheduled rendezvous with IBM in court on the 23rd. (Actually, it's been postponed until February 6.) I don't know yet if the letter is authentic, but I am reporting that OSAIA is releasing it. It's on Slashdot now too.
Did your representative receive this letter, if you are in the US? Sending such a letter alleging that the GPL is unconstitutional and a security threat and that Open Source software must be stopped while simultaneously writing to firms around the world that they can continue to use Linux as long as they pay SCO for a license to "legally" use it is cynical in the extreme. My hypocrisy detector also reports that it seems odd for a company that includes Samba in their products, which is software released under the GPL, to attack the GPL while simultaneously making money from its use. Further, if releasing software that is "free as in beer" is a danger to the economy, somebody better do something about Microsoft. They are releasing software for free this very minute. Over the internet too. If this letter is authentic, it's about as underhanded a move as we've seen yet. Here is how OSAIA describes it, and the issue will also be a primary topic at a session hosted by OSAIA at LinuxWorld New York, in the Javits Center, Room BOF 10 at 5:45 PM, on January 22 (if you attend, please provide us with a report): The company has been spreading FUD through past letters and lawsuits, and now SCO executives are telling Congress that Linux, open source software in general, and specifically, the General Public License (GPL), which protects most open source software is:
* a threat to the U.S. information technology industry;
* a threat to U.S.’ competitive position; and
* a threat to national security.
All of these assertions are outrageous and false. The letter is offensive in many ways, and there are several obviously untrue things in it, but the most egregious is the assertion that open source is a security risk. If Linux is a security risk, why is there a National Security Agency version of Linux, Security Enhanced Linux? As OSAIA points out, open source software is subject to exactly the same export licensing restrictions as is SCO. Obviously SCO must know that, because they were until recently distributors themselves of open source software. Actually, the last I heard, they still are offering Linux for download from SCO's servers. But the letter implies that open source software is freely available without restrictions, whereas SCO's software is carefully controlled. That is ridiculous. Ask yourself: if someone in North Korea really wanted SCO's software, would it be a difficulty for them to get it? All they'd have to do is get someone to buy it for them and hand it over. Caldera was a Linux company. If there were a security risk, SCO is and has been part of the problem for years. Microsoft's products are also subject to export restrictions and they are also available over the internet. Do you honestly believe that people all around the world in China or North Korea have any difficulty getting a bootleg copy of Microsoft's products or have any compunction about lying and saying they are US citizens so as to download it off the internet? Further, is his argument that only Americans should write software? If so, aside from being a little late, maybe outsourcing to India, as I've heard SCO does, and to other places should be stopped this very minute as a security risk. Even if it were possible to outlaw the GPL in the US, or make it so only Americans got to write software and they were only allowed to write proprietary software, the rest of the world would continue to write and to use software, including GNU/Linux software, and would innovate and move forward more rapidly than the US, leaving the US, in my opinion, not only in a bad position with regard to security but economically disadvantaged. Notice that the letter says they have already been talking to governmental agencies and allegedly received a warmer reception there than they have from the private sector. Groklaw has a SCO policy too. I believe it when I see something more than vague and unverifiable words from Darl McBride. The letter attacks the GPL as "a scheme" that they say "some believe, is in direct contradiction to U.S. Copyright law, to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and to the recent Supreme Court decision in Eldred v. Ashcroft. I have attached a document that describes in detail the problems of the GPL and the ways in which it violates current U.S. statutes. "Some believe..." Nobody that I know believes it but SCO. And I seriously question if they believe it themselves or are merely asserting it for goals of their own. He then attaches his brother's ghostwritten letter that Darl released as his own on SCO's web site on December 4, the one that got the whole world laughing with its unconstitutionality arguments. Then the letter says this, and one must sigh at the prospect of ever getting these SCOfolk to comprehend the GPL, if only because it appears to be a willing incapacity, judging from this example: Those who designed the GPL readily admit that they created this license to have the effect of 'freeing' software -- taking it out of the realm of copyright protection by placing it in the public domain. The author of the GPL is well-known for his view that proprietary software (meaning software as an intellectual asset from which the designer can derive profit) is unacceptable. This is laughable. Vicious, but laughable. I just spent two days at a seminar on the GPL, but even before I went, I knew that the GPL is based on copyright law and is enforced by utilizing copyright law and depends on copyright law to protect it from the likes of SCO. SCO is currently facing a counterclaim by IBM that they, SCO, violated IBM's copyright on GPLd code. They of necessity must know that GPL code is copyrighted code now, even if they didn't have a clue prior to that counterclaim being raised. And, one more time, GPL software is not in the public domain. Therefore, it can't have been the intent of those who designed it to achieve that result. As for saying that Stallman is against profits, that is untrue as well, since the GPL includes a specific clause that says it's fine to make money from GPL software. It's encouraged. Does Darl not know this? Does he have any lawyers who could explain it to him? What do you think? There is no lack of lawyers in SCOville. Darl's brother Kevin is a lawyer. Can they not read English? Puh-lease. They are saying untrue, provably untrue things, publicly, to induce others to think less of the GPL and its creator, if this letter is authentic. I notice they don't mention Stallman by name, no doubt having been advised by one of their many attorneys that defamation laws do apply to negative and provably untrue statements. Is any recipient of this letter unlikely to know exactly who they mean by their reference to the author of the GPL? Perhaps they want the FSF to step into the arena and duke it out. And when I say "they want", I think I might as well tell you that it's my impression that this is not a letter just from SCO. The letter reeks of Microsoft to my nose. Why? Note that the letter speaks repeatedly of proprietary software and "innovation". When you hear a software company talk about how vital innovation is, who do you think of? SCO? They have legacy software which they obtained by buying it. Can you think of anything innovative that has come out of SCO? Yet in the letter they repeatedly mention this word. And the second reason I suspect Microsoft might be involved is because one stated goal of the letter is to get legislators to refuse to use GPL software in government. Who would benefit from such a decision? SCO? Or Microsoft? Which company is in the headlines in connection with this issue? Finally, the letter alleges that open source, because it is "free as in beer" means "fewer jobs, less software revenue and reduced incentives for software companies to innovate. Why should a software company invest to develop exciting new capabilities when their software could end up 'freed' as part of Linux under the GPL?" Well, Bill, oh, woops, it sounded so much like him, I forgot for a moment... Well, Darl, if you would attend a GPL seminar (or just look around Groklaw), you would discover that you never have to free your proprietary software under the GPL. Innovate excitingly all you like. Just don't grab other people's GPL code and use it in your exciting software, and there will be no problem. Here is the response to this point by Ed Black, President and CEO of OSAIA: A company that is being out-innovated by the open source community wants us to accept a bizarre notion: that top of the line, enterprise grade software produced at a low cost is a threat to the economy. Software adopted by hundreds of the nation's largest tech and non-tech companies is no threat except to those who can’t innovate and compete. Software embraced by the likes of Novell, Oracle, IBM, HP, Gateway, Sun and 10s of thousands of companies worldwide does represent a sea change in our industry. It will spur even greater value added innovation, which will ride upon open source products, and is a hallmark of competition that should be driving the nation. Darl also in the letter claims there is Unix code, allegedly belonging to his company, in Linux. The OSAIA statement includes this response: OSAIA will actively engage Congress to explain the full benefits of open source software to the economy, how the GPL relies upon and is consistent with U.S. copyright law, and refute SCO’s baseless claims of IP theft. So, with all those caveats, here is the letter OSAIA released today, as text.
UPDATE: Blake Stowell acknowledges the letter in an interview in EWeek, saying it was sent to 535 members of Congress.
*************************************************
The Honorable _____
____ Cannon HOB
Washington, DC 20515
Dear Honorable _______________:
I am writing to draw your attention to an important controversy that has become one of the dominant issues in the software industry. The way in which this issue is resolved will have very important ramifications for
* our nation's economy
* our continued ability to lead the world in technology
* our international competitive position in the global software industry, and even for
* our national security.
The source of this controversy is the rapid spread of a form of software called "Open Source software." The most widely used Open Source product is a software environment called Linux. Open Source Linux software is developed and enhanced by a loose, worldwide group of volunteers usually called "the Open Source community." Through the work of this community of volunteers, lately abetted by the efforts of several major computing companies, Linux software has become a popular way to run computer server systems, Web sites, networks and many applications.
Innovation in software in itself is not a problem -- the new computing technologies have long been an engine of growth for our nation. But there are two serious problems associated with the spread of Linux and the Open Source approach to software development and distribution.
First, Linux and Open Source software are developed and distributed (often at no cost) under a scheme called the GNU General Public License (GPL) which, some believe, is in direct contradiction to U.S. Copyright law, to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and to the recent Supreme Court decision in Eldred v. Ashcroft. I have attached a document that describes in detail the problems of the GPL and the ways in which it violates current U.S. statutes.
Those who designed the GPL readily admit that they created this license to have the effect of "freeing" software -- taking it out of the realm of copyright protection by placing it in the public domain. The author of the GPL is well-known for his view that proprietary software (meaning software as an intellectual asset from which the designer can derive profit) is unacceptable.
The GPL seeks to commodatize software by reducing its monetary value to zero and making it freely available to anyone. The GPL is carefully designed to have a viral effect -- it "frees" the software that is proprietary, licenseable, and a source of income from the companies that developed it. Until now it has been generally agreed that the GPL has never faced a legal test. SCO is involved in a major software intellectual property case through which the GPL will face such a test.
The second problem with Open Source software is that it is not all original. Linux software contains significant UNIX software code that has been inappropriately, and without authorization, placed in Linux. I know this because my company, the SCO Group, owns the rights to that UNIX code originally developed by AT&T. SCO holds licenses to this valuable asset with more than 6,000 companies, universities, government agencies and other organizations. But as the use of Linux has grown, license revenue from UNIX has shrunk. Why wouldn't it? Why would someone license UNIX code from SCO and other legitimate providers when they can get much of that same code, for free, in Linux? The damage this has inflicted on SCO's UNIX business is an example of what could happen to the entire software industry if the current Open Source model continues. For this reason, SCO has taken legal action against those who, we believe, have misappropriated our most important corporate asset. By taking action, our company has become a target for sometimes vicious attacks -- including online attacks that have repeatedly shut down our company Web site. Despite this, we are determined to see those legal cases through to the end because we are firm in our belief that the unchecked spread of Open Source software, under the GPL, is a much more serious threat to our capitalist system than U.S. corporations realize.
I believe that this threat is manifest in these important areas:
1. The threat to the U.S. information technology industry. Our economic recovery appears to be well underway, but it is still fragile and could be thrown off track. Just as technology and innovation have led the U.S. economy during previous boom periods, many assume that this will happen again. But imagine a major new technology buying cycle in which revenue from software sales shrinks. Free or low-cost Open Source software, full of proprietary code, is grabbing an increasing portion of the software market. Each Open Source installation displaces or pre-empts a sale of proprietary, licensable and copyright-protected software. This means fewer jobs, less software revenue and reduced incentives for software companies to innovate. Why should a software company invest to develop exciting new capabilites when their software could end up "freed" as part of Linux under the GPL?
Economic damage to the U.S. software industry could have serious repercussions if this continues unchecked. International Data Corporation forecasts that the global software industry will grow to $289 billion by 2007. Beyond the economic stimulus provided by the software industry, U.S. sales taxes on that amount of software will be somewhere between $17 billion to $21 billion.
Our economy has already been hurt by offshore outsourcing of technology jobs. I'm sure you've seen this among your constituents. What if our technology jobs continue to move offshore at the same time the economic value of innovative software declines? For more than 20 years, software has been one of the leading examples of innovation and value-creation in our economy. When software becomes a commodity with nearly zero economic value, how will our economy make up for this loss?
2. The threat to our international competitive position. In a growing number of countries, including Britain, Germany, France, Israel, Brazil, Japan, South Korea, China and Russian,[sic] national and municipal governments are requiring that government entities use Open Source software. Instead of UNIX from any number of U.S. companies or Windows from Microsoft, governments throughout Europe and Asia are using Linux, often downloaded for free from the Internet. I find this particularly galling because that Linux software contains thousands of lines of my company's proprietary UNIX code -- for which we receive no revenue. SCO has a strong, involuntary presence in certain non-U.S. government markets -- but this is only through unauthorized use of our code in Linux software.
U.S. software companies are already finding it difficult to compete with highly capable Open Source software that has gained many of its capabilities through the illegal incorporation of code "borrowed" from the rightful owners. We need to look no further than the declining revenues of the music publishing industry -- undermined by free, online downloading -- to see a warning of what could be next for our software industry.
Through the years, Congress has repeatedly dealt with the tough issues of predatory pricing and "dumping". I contend that the ultimate predatory price is "free". There is no more damaging example of dumping than the widespread availability of highly capable software that devalues intellectual property by making it available at no cost -- in direct competition with the products from which it is derived.
3. The threat to our national security. I assert that Open Source software -- available widely through the Internet -- has the potential to provide our nation's enemies or potential enemies with computing capabilities that are restricted by U.S. law. SCO's UNIX software is subject to export licensing restrictions, and for good reason. With the powerful multi-processing features of UNIX software, someone could build a supercomputer for military applications. My company must adhere to these restrictions: we cannot sell to North Korea, Libya, Iran, Sudan and several other nations. But a computer expert in North Korea who has a number of personal computers and an Internet connection can download the latest version of Linux, complete with multi-processing capabilities misappropriated from UNIX, and, in short order, build a virtual supercomputer.
When I talk about this, some people think I'm an alarmist. I have a different view -- I think that this may have already happened. Open Source software and the GPL, unchecked, are an easy way for our adversaries to circumvent our software export restrictions.
I'm bringing these troubling issues to your attention to ask you to consider them whenever you are discussing or voting on issues of the economy, intellectual property and national security. The Open Source community now includes several major corporations. These companies have been lobbying for increased government support of Open Source software. Some want government RFPs to specify Open Source software. I urge you to consider the other side because I believe that Open Source, as it is currently constituted, is a slippery slope. It undermines our basic system of intellectual property rights, and it destroys the economic reasons for innovation.
As part of the effort to protect our intellectual property rights, The SCO Group has met with several U.S. government agencies. We have been encouraged to see that, unique among the organizations with which we've met, most government agencies understand the implications of SCO's case. Government agency leaders readily understand the value of copyrights, and they do not want to be in violation. This is in contrast to many corporations, who seem to have a "don't ask, don't tell" policy when it comes to understanding the source of the software they are using.
Our nation's economic system is reflected in the concept and practice of Copyright. In 1980 and again in 1998, Congress took action to solidify the rule of copyright in the software industry. The GPL (which its authors call "copyleft" to emphasize that it is the opposite of copyright) should not be allowed to continue to undermine the foundation of one of our most important industries. I ask that you consider this very carefully in your role as one of our nation's leaders.
Sincerely,
Darl McBride
President and CEO
The SCO Group, Inc.
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| Authored by: Israel Pattison on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 12:14 AM EST |
Raleigh, NC 27601
January 22, 2003
The Honorable David
Price
2162 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC
20515
RE: ANTI-LINUX LETTER FROM CEO OF THE SCO GROUP
Dear Mr.
Price,
A recent release from the Open Source And Industry
Alliance
[http://www.osaia.org] reports that you may have received a
letter
dated January 8, 2004 from Mr. Darl McBride, President and CEO of The
SCO
Group, Inc. [http://www.sco.com] In the referenced letter Mr.
McBride argues
that a particular method of software development known
as "Open Source" presents
an alleged threat to the United
States computer industry and even national
security.
I could provide you with volumes of documentation refuting
Mr.
McBride's ridiculous claims, but no argument I could make speaks
louder than
Mr. McBride's own hypocrisy. You
see, The SCO Group continues to manufacture
and sell software
products that incorporate Open Source software. For instance,
today
it is possible to download open source tools such as Samba and
OpenSSL
from SCO's download website
[http://wdb1.sco.com/clbk_web/owa/dwn_customer].
While Mr. McBride
is decrying Linux and the threat Open Source software posses
to his
company, he doesn't care to mention that his products incorporate
and
rely on Open Source software.
The Open Source community strongly
supports United States Copyright Law.
The General Public License, which Mr.
McBride sites, is based on the
principles of copyright provided by Article I,
Section 8 of the United
States Constitution. Open Source developers seek
compensation for their
valuable copyrighted product through the valuable
contributions of
other developers. Mr. McBride fails to consider that
these
contributions are assets that command value in the marketplace as
surely
as the licensing fees Mr. McBride charges for his proprietary
products.
Open Source software is already a vital part of our nation's
information
infrastructure. Technologies such as the most commonly used
email
transfer mechanism and the tools required to assign URL names to
computers
on the Internet are, and have
been for many years, open source programs.
Government agencies such as the US Postal Service rely on
Linux to conduct the
nation's business every single day.
Corporations like IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and
Red Hat have proven that
Open Source software is a solid foundation for
successful business.
I hope that you will see Mr. McBride's letter for
what it is, a
desperate attempt to salvage a failed business by casting
fear,
uncertainty, and doubt on a
well-established, widely-accepted competitor.
If you need more
information regarding Linux, Open Source software, or The SCO
Group's
attempt to damage both, please visit these web sites on the
Internet:
The Open Source Initiative
[http://www.opensource.org]
The Free Software Foundation
[http://www.fsf.org]
Novell's Unique Legal Rights
[http://www.novell.com/
licensing/indemnity/legal.html]
Open Source
Development Lab Q & A re: SCO vs. IBM
[http
://www.osdl.org/docs/qa_re_sco_vs_ibm_html.html]
Groklaw
[http://www.groklaw.net]
Thank you very much for your time and
consideration in this matter.
Sincerely,
Israel J.
Pattison [ Reply to This | # ]
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- Re: Draft of My Letter .. Date Needs Correcting., - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 12:24 AM EST
- Draft of My Letter to My Representative - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 12:31 AM EST
- typo - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 12:33 AM EST
- 'nuther typo - Authored by: kbq on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 12:51 PM EST
- A simple request... - Authored by: McDeavitt on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 01:16 AM EST
- Draft of My Letter to My Representative - Authored by: PJ on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 01:50 AM EST
- Draft of My Letter to My Representative "cites" rather than "sites" - Authored by: cybervegan on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 04:49 AM EST
- My draft - Authored by: jricher on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 04:50 AM EST
- My draft - Authored by: agriffin on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 07:37 AM EST
- My draft - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 07:58 AM EST
- My draft - Authored by: jricher on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 10:29 PM EST
- My draft - Authored by: cdru on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 08:42 AM EST
- My draft - Authored by: jesse on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 08:56 AM EST
- The Countersuit - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 10:27 AM EST
- My draft - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 10:27 AM EST
- Good Idea - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 01:54 PM EST
- My draft - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 10:29 AM EST
- Draft of My Letter to My Representative - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 07:22 AM EST
- So Important! - Authored by: Frihet on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 07:55 AM EST
- Draft of My Letter to My Representative - Authored by: kberrien on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 08:47 AM EST
- Draft of My Letter to My Representative - Authored by: ausoleil on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 09:51 AM EST
- Draft of My Letter to My Representative - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 10:08 AM EST
- Draft of My Letter to My Representative, GPL'd? - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 11:02 AM EST
- Mention IBM, Sun, etc. - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 11:42 AM EST
- Lobbying for Open Source - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 02:18 PM EST
- Thanx, here is a copy of my letters - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 29 2004 @ 05:40 PM EST
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| Authored by: jarichte on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 12:16 AM EST |
| Is anyone else personally insulted? [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 12:17 AM EST |
| Is there any real way tot determine the authinticity of the letter? [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 12:17 AM EST |
| In this article
Blake Stowell is quoted as saying:
Stowell said IBM's attorneys have
requested for a postponement of a hearing scheduled Jan. 23 on evidence of the
infringing code IBM had requested from SCO. No new court date has been set, and
IBM could not be reached for comment.
Is this true? [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: moopster on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 12:20 AM EST |
Well gawl darnt it... if it wernt for the GPL the godless commies in Korea
wouldn't have nukes!
This is a clear example that M$ feels like it is being pushed into a bad
corner.
I saw one of the IBM Linux commercials, and it had images of Chinese school
children. The metaphor made me smile, and to think that something like Linux has
come so far as to be adopted by a nation.
Commie or not.
* ** *** ***** ******* ***********[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: brenda banks on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 12:21 AM EST |
excellent article PJ
does anyone really believe that darl isnt being deliberately obtuse about the
gpl?
someday he WILL understand
a court will explain it to him
that time is fast approaching
at the end of tht day all we can say is PJ tried to teach you about the gpl
several times but you wouldnt listen
hehehehehe
---
br3n[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 12:21 AM EST |
Darl had better talk to some of his fellow Mormons about the dangers of
using open source software for official Church business.... Here's a link to a group that advocates the
use of open source software specifically for LDS (Mormon Church)
usage!
I'm sure they would have something to say about this latest round
of FUD.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 12:22 AM EST |
It would seem that Linus has a clear case for slander in the first degree if SCO
cannot produce the "thousands lines of code" that McBribe purports
is in Linux as stated in the letter.
Could this not be a way to make SCO fish or cut bait?
Also nice to see the millions lines of code is now down to thousands lines of
code :)
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 12:31 AM EST |
I can't help picturing ol' Darl standing there with the American flag waving
behind him and `America the Beautiful' playing softly in the background as he
reads his letter. (You know... sort of like one of Oliver Douglas's speeches on
Green Acres.)
Seems like Darl's either about to go supernova (based on the
increased levels of radiation we've detected being emitted from him and his
minions as of late) or soon we won't be able to hear his rantings as they become
more shrill, higher in pitch, and beyond the range of human hearing.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: shayne on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 12:31 AM EST |
This has really got to stop :(
I'm now convinced that Linus torvalds should get an injunction on that idiot to
stop him flapping those gums about his product.
To see the labor of so many people and organisations, perhaps in the millions,
who's hard work and labor of love being reduced to some baloney threat of wierd
NK spies building doomsday computers because some johny-come-lately suit has
decided he wants global dominance of the worlds IT infrastructure just blows my
mind.
Honestly. Darl is hysterical. I seriously think he's lost grip on reality.
---
--
“Two things fill me with wonder, the starry sky above and the moral law within.”
- Immanual Kant.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 12:35 AM EST |
I have to agree with the above post. I think Darl McBride is truly mentally ill.
The disease is megalomania, an insatiable addiction to publicity and having
people pay attention to him.
Are there any psychiatrists among us? We see this in disturbed children, but I
can't remember seeing this so pronounced in an adult.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 12:36 AM EST |
Well, putting on my most cynical hat (alas, it often turns out to predict most
accurately), then the SCO drama may play out:
(1) SCO's lawsuits go down in flames.
(2) SCO, now a hollowed out shell with all its tangibles moved to other Canopy
group companies, goes belly up. Boies, Flexner, et al. get what cash they've
got so far. Many lawsuits filed, no resources to pay anyone off. Boo hoo.
(3) Microsoft, through new shills, uses the opportunity to decry the death of
SCO due to the GPL, lobbying Congress heavily.
(4) Canopy group walks off with boatloads of money from manipulating SCO stock
and hoovering SCO's resources prior to SCO's bankruptcy.
(5) IBM's countersuit against SCO expands to include Canopy group. IBM pushes
for fraud, insider trading, and stock manipulation charges against SCO and
Canopy Group officers. The SEC gets involved. The lawsuits grind on for
several years. Various deals are made, fines are levied, a few people go to
jail, and eventually Canopy Group goes belly up.
(6) Novell regains its rights to SysV.
(7) Linux keeps on growing.
RMHJ[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 12:39 AM EST |
| The last refuge of a scoundrel .... [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Sunny Penguin on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 12:40 AM EST |
1. The threat to the U.S. information technology industry. Our economic recovery
appears to be well underway, but it is still fragile and could be thrown off
track.
(End Quote)
The real threat is SCO and their unfounded claims causing delay in corporate
acceptance of Linux. I have Linux on my resume as a skill. I have setup FTP
sites for several small companies in 2000-2002. Since the fiaSCO no one wants to
let Linux into their shop, and one shop has replaced Linux with Windows. The
additional administration cost of Windows is fine with me, but you cannot secure
Windows against all threats of viruses. SCO is costing small techs with Linux
skills money.
SCO still refuses to allow the courts to view the alledged
"infringing" code. I am of the opinion, that if there was any
infringing code SCO would have turned it over after being ordered to by the
judge. The fact that SCO can libel the Linux community without any proof is an
outrage. The real theft is from SCO itself playing the legal system and stock
market.
I believe Linux to be the most advanced form of charity yet created by man. The
Linux programmers work for both pride and to help their fellow man, The software
is sold for the cost of the media, compilation of installation CDROMs and
advertising. SCO claims to be Mormons yet they attack this noble cause, that
allows a third world country to afford to supply schools and hospitals with
software to run databases and websites.
I am sorry for the rant, and it may turn out that SCO has not really lobbied
congress to attack Linux. This letter to congress sounds just like the sneaky
attacks we have come to expect from The SCO Group. Any congressman (or Woman)
that votes in favor of SCO, will never get my vote. I will also volunteer to
help any opponent of a SCO backing politician.
---
Litigation is no sustituite for Innovation.
IMHO IANAL IANANAL[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: valdis on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 12:49 AM EST |
| If you're really worried about software threats to national security,
you should be familiar with the paper
CyberInsecurity: The
Cost Of Monopoly. A good paper by respected people in the security industry,
about a much bigger threat, with more obvious manifestations - we've
seen worms like Slammer and CodeRed and Nimda and Welchia/Nachi, as
opposed to the vaporware threats that Darl is worried about.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: brenda banks on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 12:51 AM EST |
another point is what about the other canopy companies that are involved with
open source?
the actions being taken by darl now could have repercussions for them
br3n
---
br3n[ Reply to This | # ]
|
- No repurcusions - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 01:10 AM EST
| |
| Authored by: Dromedary on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 12:51 AM EST |
Darl's latest letter should be nominated for a Frédéric Bastiat award... in
rememberance of the author's famous
petition to the French Chamber of Deputies asking that they outlaw the sun
on behalf of the Manufacturers of Candles, Tapers, Lanterns, sticks, Street
Lamps, Snuffers, and Extinguishers, and from Producers of Tallow, Oil, Resin,
Alcohol, and Generally of Everything Connected with Lighting.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 12:56 AM EST |
...that IBM themselves must be communist, un-American nest of national security
violators and terrorists. Yep, I'm pretty sure that's the case :-)
I seriously believe this letter is not authentic. It is too stupid, even for SCO
;-)[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 12:57 AM EST |
I think it needs to be pointed out to the corporate representatives (sometimes
referred to as Congress) in Washington DC, as well as to people in general, that
SCO/Microsoft uses open source in their own product offerings - namely SAMBA and
CUPS.
The hypocrisy of SCO/Microsoft seems to have no limits.
(Yes, I know Microsoft doesn't use Samba, but I can't avoid believing that
these two entities are not somehow part of the same evil - the two together give
us SCO/Microsoft.)[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Stonecrusher on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 01:01 AM EST |
I was wondering when they would take this to Congress, proven to be a group who
like to make decisions based on unsubstantiated allegation, threats of fiscal
loss to specific interests, and single source evidence. You can be sure none of
the elected officials (and I don't think there are actually all that many on
the list, I believe they picked out a very select few with a public history of
decisions which would run along the same veins as this tripe)will actually try
looking very hard at the issue, except to maybe have a lackey pull up the SCO
website so they can take a look at what they are claiming, or at least get one
of them to print it out so they can read it in between back office meetings on
where to spend the tax dollars they currently don't have.
If for a moment you doubt it would take more than a couple of select legislators
to get things rolling, look to the Patriot Act or the disaster of the DMCA, or
much more recently the State of the Union address (1,000 jobs added is economic
recovery??) Here in New York, you can get quite a bit done with just one select
name [in your pocket]*cough, cough* on your side.
I find it disconcerting to believe elected officials would go to the mat with
only SCO's version of the facts before them, but then reality sets in and I go
back to eating bon-bons and watching what the networks currently call
entertainment. What was I thinking??[ Reply to This | # ]
|
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| Authored by: gkp00co on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 01:01 AM EST |
I'm a transplanted Californian, presently living in South America. What
is interesting to me is the contrasting attitude. There are, as I write
this, bills pending in the legislatures of Argentina, Brazil, Colombia,
Costa Rica, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela that would mandate F/OSS
for all government purchases. The contrast is that, without exception,
the issues of bettering national security and improving the (local)
economy are cited within the bills' preambles as reasons *for* adopting
them.
(The bill in Brazil's legislature may well be moot, since Brazillian
President Lula Da Silva decreed F/OSS purchasing...)
The Costa Rican bill (
http://www.proposicion.org.ar/doc/referencias/cr/pley_15191.html ) is
actually beautiful to read - if you understand Spanish. After several
pages of preamble, you get to Article 3, which, although being the guts
of the matter, is only one sentence long: "Todas las instituciones y
empresas del Estado emplearán preferiblemente software libre en sus
diferentes opciones, en sus sistemas de información y manejo de
datos, garantizando el respeto a los derechos de la propiedad
intelectual."
In English, <b>"All State institutions and business will preferably
employ free software in their choices for their data management and
information systems, guaranteeing respect for intellectual property
rights."</b>
Wow. Simple and sweet. Note that they refer to free software as
"software libre" - liberated software. No
"free-as-in-speech/free-as-in-beer" confusion down here...
Article 6 is interesting as well, where they direct the pulbic educational
sector to educate the students in the principles of free software, and
for the universities to encourage the creation of groups to "produce,
distribute, and implement ... free software"
I received a personal email from Dr. Edgar Villanueva the other day.
Dr. Villanueva is the vice president of the Peruvian Congress and it's
pretty clear that he's still pissed that Microsoft has the US
Ambassador write a letter to President Toledo against his F/OSS bill
two years ago. No matter, he's got a new one (filed last September)
with over 50 other senators listed as either co-authors or as
co-sponsors and he's expecting some action this time...
GKP [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: T. ProphetLactus on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 01:03 AM EST |
...Base Commander Ripper from 'Dr. Strangelove'....
"I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration , Communist
indoctrination, Communist subversion, and the international Communist conspiracy
to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids... "
Let me guess, the infringing code is 'POE', repeated in millions of lines.
TPL[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: adamruth on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 01:06 AM EST |
I read earlier today on a PostgreSQL mailing list about a company
that
received one of SCO's threat letters, and a follow up dated January
19. It's
interesting reading, as is the response from the company in
question.
I've received permission from Gavin Roy, the recipient and
author,
respectively, to post both letters.
I'm interested in hearing
anybody's thoughts.
sco_threat.gif
sco_response.pdf
Ada
m Ruth
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
- OT: SCO Threat letter and response. - Authored by: fb on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 01:11 AM EST
- Wow PJ PJ PJ PJ - You gotta see this PJ !!! PJ! - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 01:18 AM EST
- Wow, is this the smoking gun? - Authored by: xtifr on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 02:03 AM EST
- OT: SCO Threat letter and response. - Authored by: D. on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 02:29 AM EST
- OT: SCO Threat letter and response. - Authored by: Scriptwriter on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 03:18 AM EST
- SCO Threat letter as HTML - Authored by: Robert Hutton on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 03:21 AM EST
- looks like a fake - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 08:06 AM EST
- SCO threat letter response as text - Authored by: Robert Hutton on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 03:39 AM EST
- OT: SCO Threat letter and response. - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 04:37 AM EST
- OT: SCO Threat letter and response. - Authored by: Nigel on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 05:05 AM EST
- OT: SCO Threat letter and response. - Authored by: darthaggie on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 09:38 AM EST
- OT: SCO Threat letter and response. - Authored by: red floyd on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 12:15 PM EST
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 01:06 AM EST |
It's a stupid PR stunt, they were preparing, probably for use when they got
hammered on Friday. Now Friday has been pushed back, they'll use it anyway.
His argument essentially boils down to 3 pieces of idiocy:
1. The GPL is unconstitutional (etc) -- because my bro' said so.
2. There's no such thing as a free lunch - and I've just appointed myself
lunch collector.
3. I have gone to court to press claims against Linux (via IBM), but just in
case my case has no merit, please do something.
SCO have no chance of influencing congress. How many congressmen do IBM, HP,
Novell, Oracle, etc., have on their payroll? How many jobs depend on these real
companies?
Is he echoing Microsoft?
No. I think he's *trying* to use what he thinks Microsoft would argue, for his
own purposes. But he is doing it piss poorly. The whole letter reeks of anger
driven by his imminent defeat by the combined forces of CS&M and those pesky
Linux kids.
What about innovation stuff?
We all know SCO is backward technology. But Darl likes to claim SCO is an
innovator. He thinks it drives up their stock price. Remember SCOforum, all
those press releases around then, etc., his argument for the merits of SCO are
basically:
1. We own UNIX
2. We are going to get $3bn (or $50bn) from IBM
3. We are going to get billions from Linux users
4. David Boies is our lawyer
5. We are all over the press
6. Our products are moving foward, looking at all this stuff we are doing with
Unixware, and preparing UNIX System VI (small print: it will be ready in about
2006 or so)
In short:
It's a stupid PR stunt
It's an especially stupid PR stunt because it's driven by anger
It's not going to have any effect on congress
It's not going to have any effect (except maybe to accelerate) on SCO's
impending legal disaster. I fully expect them to be in a world of hurt at the
hearing on Feb
6.
THE ONLY THING IT'S GOOD FOR...
Don't waste your time on it.
The only thing it's good for, is feed extra ammunition (Darl quotes) to IBM's
lawyers. That's what we should be concentrating on.
AND FINALLY...
SCO can see the disaster coming. It's like a train. And it's getting real
close.
Expect a rising crescendo of FUD, as their position crumbles, before it finally
collapses.
P.S.
In a few months time, I predict Darl will be almost universally seen as a snake
oil salesman, if not worse.
How much weight do you think his arguments will carry then?
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: fb on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 01:06 AM EST |
...isn't held by IBM, or Novell, or RedHat, or the F/LOSS community.
The
guns pointed at him are in Ralph Yarro's hand, and Baystar's, and RBC's, and
probably the delicate grasp of David Boies as well.
Don't be surprised by
anything he does. His audience now is not the courts or the rest of the world.
It's the vipers and sharks whose money (and maybe liberty) he's on the verge of
spinning down the drain. He's singin' and dancin' for them. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 01:07 AM EST |
AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Now, I feel better.
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
- Thanks, Dean - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 04:09 AM EST
| |
| Authored by: kawabago on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 01:09 AM EST |
SCO's SEC filing admits that their UNIX business is declining and new product
lines have been unsuccessful. The only thing they have left is litigation. So
they bet the company on this law suit and they're going to go down fighting,
instead of liquidating the company and paying the shareholders something now.
We shouldn't be surprised at anything they do or say. Every breath may be
their last.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: PM on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 01:11 AM EST |
If Congress directed federal defence and security agencies to cease using open
source software, all the enemies of the USA will laugh their heads off. These
agencies will effectively have one hand tied behind the back with respect to
their IT activities (their lifeblood) while other nations and organisations will
be using Linux (with security customisations) for their defence and security
purposes.
Come to think of it, so will international business and commerce. Microsoft
will need to adapt MS Office to interwork with Open Office.
USA's status will slip from being a superpower to a political and commercial
backwater while Europe, South America, Asia and Australasia will grow and
prosper. Then Darl will probably go bleating off to the World Court and the
United Nations.
USA will abandon Green Card lotteries as there will be far more available than
takers. Mexican passport holders will have free admission to USA.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: xtifr on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 01:30 AM EST |
"The threat to the U.S. information technology
industry."
Spearheaded by those terrorist organizations
IBM, Novell, Oracle, HP, CA, et al., all of whom are known for their undying
hatred of the U.S. information technology industry.
"The
threat to our national security."
Posed by organizations like the
National Security Agency, and their insidious "Security-Enhanced Linux".
"When I
talk about this, some people think I'm an alarmist. I have a different
view..."
Really? You don't think you're being alarmist,
Darl? And what about the people who think you're completely crazy? A
stark raving loon? The ones who think the lights are on but nobody's home? The
elevator doesn't go all the way to the top floor? Do you maybe have a different
view from them too? Just maybe?
What you're trying to say here is that
you don't agree with the people who disagree with you. Right? My, that
is an astounding revelation. I mean, if you hadn't said that, I might
have actually listened to those people with other opinions, but now that you've
explained that they're wrong, well, I won't waste my time.
Obviously none of them are worth listening to -- I mean, why would I ever doubt
your word? [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 01:31 AM EST |
I had a feeling, after I first saw the statement from SCO's lawyer (Hesse?),
that SCO was going to attempt something like this.
And, with the release of
this letter, the few percentage points of uncertainty regarding Microsoft's hand
guiding Darl & Co., have now been turned, and I am 100 percent certain that
Microsoft is actively driving, directing or "counseling" Darl and
TSG.
One of the funniest things to me is that SELinux is being used by one
of the highest security organizations in our nation, the NSA, if my recall is
correct. So, if Linux and the GPL are such a threat to national security,
why was it developed with help of and being used by the NSA?
This has gone
far beyond comical for me, to the point where nothing that Darl and TSG do, say
or try will surprise me any more, absolutely nothing.
May IBM, Red Hat,
Novell (and hopefully the DoJ and SEC), make an example of this irritating
little gnat (SCOldera), with fraud, stock manipulation and other similar charges
giving Darl and key executives and boards members long prison terms. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 01:32 AM EST |
How does that old quote go? ``This isn't right. In fact, it isn't even
wrong.''
``Our economic recovery appears to be well
underway, but it is still fragile and could be thrown off
track.''
Personally, I think that recovery would almost
certainly be thrown off-track if all the companies now currently using Linux and
other OSS could be forced to pay SCO and other blood-sucking freeloaders license
fees for code that they have not proven to be
theirs.
``International Data Corporation forecasts that the
global software industry will grow to $289 billion by 2007. Beyond the
economic stimulus provided by the software industry, U.S. sales taxes on that
amount of software will be somewhere between $17 billion to $21
billion.''
Two things come to mind here: First, SCO feels
that they have some sort of birth right to a piece of the predicted US$289B.
Sorry, Darl. You have to find something that people want to purchase from you.
And a license for code that you haven't proven is yours and undoubtedly will not
be able to prove as yours is not high on anyone's list of ``gotta have'' items.
I suggest writing an original piece of software that customers will find truly
useful. Or, if that's beyond your company's capabilities, try offering stellar
support and services. I can tell you that's what's worked to make me open
up my wallet and part with my hard-earned money.
``The threat
to our international competitive position. In a growing number of countries,
including Britain, Germany, France, Israel, Brazil, Japan, South Korea, China
and Russian,[sic] national and municipal governments are requiring that
government entities use Open Source software. Instead of UNIX from any number of
U.S. companies or Windows from Microsoft, governments throughout Europe and Asia
are using Linux, often downloaded for free from the Internet. I find this
particularly galling because that Linux software contains thousands of lines of
my company's proprietary UNIX code.''
If I were a citizen
of any of those countries, I would be writing my government's officials and
urging them to begin using OSS as soon as possible. These countries are
beginning to realize -- and some are farther along in this realization than
others -- that it's not doing their country's economy very much good to be
shipping boatloads of money to American software firms.
As for your code
being in Linux: There are currently two lawsuits in the U.S. that have asked you
to produce the evidence of this code being in Linux. You recently initiated
another lawsuit in which it your opponent will almost certainly demand to know
that basis for your claims that you own certain source code. Groups in Germany
and Australia have taken issue with you regarding your source code claims and
you have not responded to any of these.
``U.S. software
companies are already finding it difficult to compete with highly capable Open
Source software that has gained many of its capabilities through the illegal
incorporation of code "borrowed" from the rightful
owners.''
Again: Where's the proof,
Darl?
``We need to look no further than the declining
revenues of the music publishing industry -- undermined by free, online
downloading -- to see a warning of what could be next for our software
industry.''
Hate to break it to you Darl but, despite what
the RIAA would have everyone believe, the major reason that the music industry
is finding itself in these financial straights is that they became lazy and
stupid. They have, as a group, decided to reduce the variety, quality, and
quantity of their product and the public has responded by not buying it. I do
not swap music files but I also do not buy anywhere close to the number
of CDs that I did only, say, five years ago. Frankly, there's nothing much that
RIAA member record companies are releasing that is worth the money. (Well, not
new stuff anyway. I did recently buy a CD version of an LP I originally bought
thirty years ago.) This argument's a red herring, Darl. Give it up. It just
makes you look silly.
``... we cannot sell to North Korea,
Libya, Iran, Sudan and several other nations.''
Those
countries and many more were restricted under export rules on certain equipment
and technologies in the past decades. Funny how those countries still managed to
have computers and software. And I have to admit that I'm struggling (mightily,
I should add) to see how the American legislature prohibiting the GPL will
prevent those countries from obtaining OSS from places outside the
U.S.
``When I talk about this, some people think I'm an
alarmist.''
Darl, lately, people think you're a lot of
things. Being thought of as an alarmist should be the least of your worries. If
I were you, I'd worry more about being thought of as
``defendant''.
``This is in contrast to many corporations,
who seem to have a "don't ask, don't tell" policy when it comes to understanding
the source of the software they are using.''
Ah. Sort of
like SCO's ``don't ask, don't tell'' policy: Don't ask us about where
our alleged source code is inside Linux because we don't tell anyone
where it is. And, besides, do you have any evidence to support your claim
that corporations are turning a blind eye to the origins of the source code they
are using? Or is this yet another of your ``opinions'' that you attempt to pass
off as fact?
``The GPL (which its authors call "copyleft" to
emphasize that it is the opposite of copyright) ...''
So
this is where you got the idea that the GPL is intending to be a
replacement for copyright. Good grief!
Darl, if this is the second of
your ``open letters'' I must say I'm very much looking forward to the next one.
Very entertaining.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 01:34 AM EST |
The Ugly American.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: surak on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 01:34 AM EST |
| The source of this controversy is the rapid spread of a form of software
called "Open Source software." The most widely used Open Source product is a
software environment called Linux.
Actually, the most widely used Open
Source product is probably the Apache Web server, which runs 60% of all Web
servers on the Internet. Linux doesn't own 60% of any market.
Those who
designed the GPL readily admit that they created this license to have the effect
of "freeing" software -- taking it out of the realm of copyright protection by
placing it in the public domain. The author of the GPL is well-known for his
view that proprietary software (meaning software as an intellectual asset from
which the designer can derive profit) is unacceptable.
Actually, RMS has
no trouble with people making money from software. That's why GPL v2 was
written -- to make it clear that people can make money from GPLed software.
RMS' issue is with people who produce software without sharing the source code
-- big difference. Please put down the crack pipe, Darl.
The second
problem with Open Source software is that it is not all
original.
Really? What about NCSA Mosaic? All of the popular Web
browsers are now (or at one time were) based on NCSA Mosaic. Mosaic was the
first graphical Web browser. There was no program like it before Netscape
co-founder Marc Andresson (sp?) wrote it. Mosaic is open source and truly
original. I would also venture to say that a number of other open source
products are truly innovative or unique in their approach to their problems.
These products are not original, but have an original approach.
For
instance, GNU Emacs was the one of the first truly programmable editors and
(other than the XEmacs fork) there is still no commercial editor that rivals it
in terms of functionality.
And there are many more examples. GNU/Linux
itself is an original product in that although GNU/Linux is modeled after Unix,
it is designed to be much more of a Swiss Army Knife operating system --
supporting tons of protocols and APIs that make it a sort of universal
pipe-fitting for heterogenous networks and systems.
Again, put down the
crack pipe, Darl.
Linux software contains significant UNIX software code
that has been inappropriately, and without authorization, placed in
Linux
If such code exists, why haven't you shown anyone it, including
IBM who you were ordered to show it to by court order?
1. The threat to
the U.S. information technology industry. Our economic recovery appears to be
well underway, but it is still fragile and could be thrown off track. Just as
technology and innovation have led the U.S. economy during previous boom
periods, many assume that this will happen again. But imagine a major new
technology buying cycle in which revenue from software sales
shrinks.
Software sales are only one part of the technology industry.
Hardware sales and service sales are probably far more important than software
sales. And if Linux does one thing well economically, it's spur on both
hardware and services sales. Why do you think IBM and Intel are supportive of
Linux, Darl? For IBM, it helps them to sell services and hardware, and for
Intel, well, it helps to sell chips. Again, put down the crack pipe,
Darl.
3. The threat to our national security. I assert that Open Source
software -- available widely through the Internet -- has the potential to
provide our nation's enemies or potential enemies with computing capabilities
that are restricted by U.S. law.
Linux does not violate U.S. export
laws, and neither do most open source projects. Anyways, violation of U.S.
export laws is irrelevant in an increasingly global economy. Even members of the
U.S. Congress have recognized this, and that's why they voted to relax U.S.
software export restrictions. Plus, Linux, Apache, and most open source
projects are developed by an *international* collaborative effort. Linux is
truly a global OS. Linus Torvalds lived and went to school in Helsinki, Finland
when he began writing it. Alan Cox is from Wales. There are programmers
working on Linux from the U.S., Canada, Germany, Great Britain, Japan,
Australia, and many many other countries. It's a truly global effort. So how
do export laws matter? Linux is attainable in any country in the world with
Internet access.
Again, Darl, put down the crack pipe!
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: mobrien_12 on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 01:41 AM EST |
PJ showed a great deal of wisdom in holding on to this news for a week while she
tried to check the legitimacy of this letter.
But if it is a hoax, the writer really knows how to impersonate Darl.[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Captain on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 01:42 AM EST |
I completely agree with PJ's writings. Most notably that:
1. This letter is designed to provoke outrage (with or without illegal actions
like personal threats and DDOS attacks.)
2. It's a smokescreen to hide the damaging outcome of the hearing next week.
I don't think McBride is crazy. Throughout his campaign, I've been continually
impressed by his talent for manipulating the media, and causing misdirection. I
don't think he even believes his own letter. It's all in the name of publicity
and FUD. It's infuriating to see this happen, yes, but in the end they still
won't prevail. I don't think Darl's goal is to win his case. I don't think
he even cares about SCO. I think his sole purpose is to slow down adoption of
Linux by spreading FUD.
And he does so quite effectively I must say. Trolls should take note. Darl is a
master.
In the end though, when SCO is slaughtered by the OSS alliance, Linux will be
stronger than ever. It's a learning experience. Despicable or not, Darl's
here, Darl's real, and he must be dealt with one way or the other. In this
process, we will learn valuable lessons.
Just my $0.02[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 01:45 AM EST |
Conclusion First, then Text Analysis
Sorry for all of the caps, but hopefully they added clarity.
Some points I make below are debatable, but the big philosophical point that
Daryl is making and which will profoundly resonate with right wing property
rights advocates, is that the GPL upsets the model of private ownership that
they believe makes the world go around. To claim that the GPL establishes
another model of private ownership in which owners can choose to share their
property is a nice way to spin it, but please don't confuse the spin with the
reality. It is a matter of faith and religion (and it is a very different faith
and religion than that of Daryl, the Republican Party and GWBush) that the
sharing of private property creates a better world and economy than the hoarding
of private property. Both approaches use private property, but they do so with
somewhat (or radically?) differing goals.
It is nice to see the underlying philosophical conflict begin to be expressed.
Let's hope Daryl loses, but don't underestimate the good will he will find in
Congress. The DMCA passed with no public understanding of what was being lost.
The GPL could be outlawed with almost the same blitheness.
The only thing that makes that less likely is the fact that there are now major
corporations with an investment in the idea of the GPL as a tool for, JUST AS
DARYL FEARS, draining the value of proprietary software companies and offering a
competing model.
1. The threat to the U.S. information technology industry.
Our economic recovery appears to be well underway, but it is still fragile and
could be thrown off track.
TRUE
Just as technology and innovation have led the U.S. economy during previous boom
periods, many assume that this will happen again.
TRUE
But imagine a major new technology buying cycle in which revenue from software
sales shrinks.
OK, LET'S DO THAT.
Free or low-cost Open Source software, full of proprietary code,
FALSE, WE THINK
is grabbing an increasing portion of the software market.
TRUE
Each Open Source installation displaces or pre-empts a sale of proprietary,
licensable and copyright-protected software.
TRUE, AND PERHAPS EVEN MORE THAN ONE SINCE IT FREES RESOURCES.
This means fewer jobs, less software revenue and reduced incentives for software
companies to innovate.
TRUE, FOR PROPRIETARY SOFTWARE COMPANIES
Why should a software company invest to develop exciting new capabilites when
their software could end up "freed" as part of Linux under the GPL?
OOOOPS. FALSE FALSE FALSE. NOT POSSIBLE.
Economic damage
ASSUMPTION UNFOUNDED?
to the U.S. software industry could have serious repercussions if this continues
unchecked.
TRUE. ECONOMIC DAMAGE OR CHANGE TO THE PROPRIETARY SOFTWARE INDUSTRY COULD HAVE
"SERIOUS REPERCUSSIONS"... ALTHOUGH WHETHER THEY WOULD BE GOOD OR
BAD REPERCUSSIONS IS DEBATABLE. CHANGE IS HARD.
International Data Corporation forecasts that the global software industry will
grow to $289 billion by 2007. Beyond the economic stimulus provided by the
software industry, U.S. sales taxes on that amount of software will be somewhere
between $17 billion to $21 billion.
PROBABLY TRUE.
Our economy has already been hurt by offshore outsourcing of technology jobs.
TRUE, UNLESS IN A RICARDIAN SENSE WE ARE INCREASING SYSTEMIC INTERNATIONAL
ECONOMIC EFFICIENCY AND FREEING UP SMART PEOPLE TO DO MORE PRODUCTIVE STUFF...
WHICH IS UNLIKELY, SO I GIVE HIM A TRUE HERE.
I'm sure you've seen this among your constituents.
PROBABLY TRUE, ALTHOUGH PROBABLY NOT BECAUSE OF OSS
What if our technology jobs continue to move offshore at the same time the
economic value of innovative software declines?
GOOD QUESTION. BY "INNOVATIVE SOFTWARE" WE UNDERSTAND HE MEANS
PROPRIETARY, AND THE QUESTION IS FAIR.
For more than 20 years, software has been one of the leading examples of
innovation and value-creation in our economy.
LEADING? PROBABLY TRUE, ALTHOUGH THE ORIGINAL VALUE OF UNIX WAS CREATED WITH
GOVERNMENT AND PRIVATE DOLLARS, NO?
When software becomes a commodity with nearly zero economic value, how will our
economy make up for this loss?
EXCELLENT QUESTION. THERE ARE GOOD ANSWERS TO THIS QUESTION, BUT IT'S WORTH
THINKING ABOUT. ONE ANSWER IS THAT LOW COMMODITY PRICES ARE GOOD FOR CONSUMERS.
MANY OTHER COMMODITIES ARE UNPRICED BECAUSE THEY CREATE VALUE.... INTERSTATE
HIGHWAYS FOR EXAMPLE. BUT OF COURSE INTERSTATE HIGHWAYS AND ASSOCIATED POLICY
HAVE DESTROYED THE TOLL ROAD INDUSTRY. LATELY OF COURSE THE IDEA OF TOLL ROADS
IS RESURGENT IN SOME PLACES.
2. The threat to our international competitive position.
In a growing number of countries, including Britain, Germany, France, Israel,
Brazil, Japan, South Korea, China and Russian,[sic] national and municipal
governments are requiring that government entities use Open Source software.
TRUE
Instead of UNIX from any number of U.S. companies or Windows from Microsoft,
governments throughout Europe and Asia are using Linux, often downloaded for
free from the Internet.
TRUE
I find this particularly galling because that Linux software contains thousands
of lines of my company's proprietary UNIX code -- for which we receive no
revenue.
PRESUMABLY A BALD FACED LIE... WE HOPE.
SCO has a strong, involuntary presence in certain non-U.S. government markets --
but this is only through unauthorized use of our code in Linux software.
PRESUMABLY A BALD FACED LIE... WE HOPE.
U.S. software companies are already finding it difficult to compete with highly
capable Open Source software
TRUE
that has gained many of its capabilities through the illegal incorporation of
code "borrowed" from the rightful owners.
FALSE, WE HOPE
We need to look no further than the declining revenues of the music publishing
industry -- undermined by free, online downloading -- to see a warning of what
could be next for our software industry.
TRUE. THE SOFTWARE INDUSTRY AS DARYL AND WE KNOW IT IS THREATENED. HOW CAN YOU
DENY IT? WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO?
Through the years, Congress has repeatedly dealt with the tough issues of
predatory pricing and "dumping".
TRUE
I contend that the ultimate predatory price is "free".
TRUE!
There is no more damaging example of dumping than the widespread availability of
highly capable software that devalues intellectual property by making it
available at no cost --
TRUE!
...in direct competition with the products from which it is derived.
FALSE, AND BASED ON WHAT WE BELIEVE TO BE A FALSE CLAIM
3. The threat to our national security.
I assert that Open Source software -- available widely through the Internet --
has the potential to provide our nation's enemies or potential enemies with
computing capabilities that are restricted by U.S. law.
SEEMS POSSIBLE
SCO's UNIX software is subject to export licensing restrictions, and for good
reason.
TRUE I ASSUME
With the powerful multi-processing features of UNIX software, someone could
build a supercomputer for military applications.
TRUE
My company must adhere to these restrictions: we cannot sell to North Korea,
Libya, Iran, Sudan and several other nations.
TRUE
But a computer expert in North Korea who has a number of personal computers and
an Internet connection can download the latest version of Linux, complete with
multi-processing capabilities misappropriated from UNIX, and, in short order,
build a virtual supercomputer.
TRUE
When I talk about this, some people think I'm an alarmist.
TRUE
I have a different view -- I think that this may have already happened.
WELL, IN A SENSE YES IT HAS.
Open Source software and the GPL, unchecked, are an easy way for our adversaries
to circumvent our software export restrictions.
TRUE, TO THE BEST OF MY UNDERSTANDING.
I'm bringing these troubling issues to your attention to ask you to consider
them whenever you are discussing or voting on issues of the economy,
intellectual property and national security. The Open Source community now
includes several major corporations. These companies have been lobbying for
increased government support of Open Source software. Some want government RFPs
to specify Open Source software. I urge you to consider the other side because I
believe that Open Source, as it is currently constituted, is a slippery slope.
TRUE TRUE TRUE.
It undermines our basic system of intellectual property rights, and it destroys
the economic reasons for innovation.
SORT OF TRUE.... AND COMPLETELY FALSE. THE VIRAL NATURE OF THE GPL CREATES AN
INTELLECTUAL COMMONS, AND CREATES PUBLIC OWNERSHIP THAT IS POTENTIALLY STRONGER
THAN PRIVATE OWNERSHIP. THAT IS A DIRECT CHALLENGE TO THE WORLD VIEW OF MANY
PEOPLE AND RIGHT WING POLITICIANS.
AS FOR DESTROYING THE REASONS FOR INNOVATION, BAH HUMBUG. YOU AND I KNOW IT IS
FALSE.
As part of the effort to protect our intellectual property rights, The SCO Group
has met with several U.S. government agencies.
I'M WILLING TO BET IT'S TRUE.
We have been encouraged to see that, unique among the organizations with which
we've met, most government agencies understand the implications of SCO's case.
I'M NOT SURPRISED. THE GPL IS RADICAL. U.S. GOVERNMENT AGENCIES ARE NOW
STAFFED BY EXTREME CONSERVATIVES.
Government agency leaders readily understand the value of copyrights, and they
do not want to be in violation.
TRUE, ALTHOUGH LIMITED IN TRUTH SINCE THE USE OF THE GPL IN NO WAY INVOLVES A
LACK OF UNDERSTANDING OF THE VALUE OF COPYRIGHTS. SMART GPL USERS UNDERSTAND
THE VALUE OF COPYRIGHTS VERY WELL. THEY JUST WANT TO USE THEM TO CREATE AN
INTELLECTUAL COMMONS, AN IDEA THAT RIGHT WING IDEOLOGUES FIND INHERENTLY
OFFENSIVE.
This is in contrast to many corporations, who seem to have a "don't ask,
don't tell" policy when it comes to understanding the source of the
software they are using.
FALSE. SOME MAY HAVE THAT ATTITUDE, BUT IF THEY THOUGHT ABOUT IT THEY COULD
JUSTIFY OSS ON COPYRIGHT GROUNDS, AND REDUCED POSSIBILITY OF INFRINGEMENT DUE TO
OPEN NATURE OF OSS.
Our nation's economic system is reflected in the concept and practice of
Copyright.
TRUE AGAIN. TO THE EXTENT THAT COPYRIGHT IS A PHILOSOPHICAL CONCEPT, IT IS
ROOTED IN THE MODEL OF DERIVING PRIVATE VALUE FROM A NEW KIND OF PROPERTY...
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY. IN CONTRAST, THE IDEA OF INTELLECTUAL COMMONS IS NOT
WELL ROOTED IN US LAW.
In 1980 and again in 1998, Congress took action to solidify the rule of
copyright in the software industry.
PRETTY MUCH TRUE.
The GPL (which its authors call "copyleft" to emphasize that it is
the opposite of copyright)
FALSE... ARGUABLY, SEMANTICLY, THE PHRASE COPYLEFT SUGGESTS NOT
"OPPOSITE" BUT "SAME BUT DIFFERENT".
should not be allowed to continue to undermine the foundation of one of our most
important industries.
A PHILOSOPHICALLY BASED CLAIM. BUT THE LARGER POINT IS SOUND. THE GPL GOES IN
A DIFFERENT DIRECTION FROM THE THRUST OF CONGRESSIONAL ?THINKING? ABOUT THE
OWNERSHIP OF IDEAS.
I ask that you consider this very carefully in your role as one of our nation's
leaders.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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- Text Analysis and Philosophical Considerations - Daryl is Right About Some Things - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 02:13 AM EST
- Who is this Daryl charcter.. - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 02:32 AM EST
- Text Analysis and Philosophical Considerations - Daryl is Right About Some Things - Authored by: Totosplatz on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 03:02 AM EST
- Fundamental tenet of your and Darl's argument wrong - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 03:06 AM EST
- Text Analysis - Nitpick - Authored by: silburnl on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 05:45 AM EST
- Text Analysis and Philosophical Considerations - Daryl is Right About Some Things - Authored by: thiegroe on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 08:30 AM EST
- Whoa! Let's back up the political truck! - Authored by: tanstaafl on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 09:43 AM EST
- Text Analysis and Philosophical Considerations - Daryl is Right About Some Things - Authored by: jesse on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 10:14 AM EST
- Philosophy? Yeah, right. Here's the take of Free market libertarians - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, January 23 2004 @ 05:58 PM EST
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| Authored by: Philip Stephens on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 01:50 AM EST |
I'm not surprised if SCO sent this letter to some congressmen; in fact, I've
been waiting for it to happen for quite some time now. Why? Because it is
clear to me that SCO's lawsuit against IBM was always about trying to destroy
Open Source software in general, and Linux in particular.
I have a feeling that SCO never expected to win the lawsuit, but they felt by
filing it they'd gain credibility in the eyes of congress. "Look
here", they say, "We are vigorously defending our IP rights in
court, but the laws of the land may cause us to fail--we need you to legislate
against Open Source software before it's too late".
Think about it: none of the arguments SCO has put forward in the press or in
their legal filings carries much weight: that much we know from months of
dissecting every word. Many people have commented that they'd be surprised if
SCO was really that stupid. This latest move, if genuine, proves those people
right: SCO is not stupid, instead they've been carefully orchestrating a
campaign of FUD and misinformation to convince both business leaders and US
lawmakers that Open Source software must be stopped.
SCO know that what they're doing (demanding IP licenses from Linux users while
proclaiming loudly that their IP is being stolen) is illegal under current laws,
but they don't care, because their aim is to get those laws changed. But to
have a chance, they need to be as agressive as possible, otherwise congress
won't take them seriously. So SCO isn't going to back down, no matter how
badly their lawsuits go for them...instead, every setback will simply make them
louder.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 02:00 AM EST |
eWeek have this story:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1455175,00.asp
and Stowell said:
"We sent this communication because we felt it was an issue that the
highest lawmakers in the land need to be aware of."
Well, it's official. DEA should step in. The crack proliferation at SCO offices
has reached critical point ;-)[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 02:03 AM EST |
Two ways to look at this:
1) This is another "watch the eyes not the hands" move designed to
create a Press Release. It is as essentially meaningless in itself as has been
all the other loud, testicle-pulling attention-seeking. McBride cloaks himself
in the righteous armour of the Capitalist Hero enriching himself and somehow
everyone else (perhaps when we have the opportunity to clean his pools). But
each of these events only has meaning when you consider it against the stock
price.
2) Darl McBride personally is our picture from The Picture of Dorian Gray. In
order for us to help each other and share joyfully, some cosmic equilibrium
demands that someone take on our sins, our evil, prideful greed. So that we can
be the nice guy from Treasure of the Sierra Madre, McBride has to be Bogart.
Seen this way, McBride is an unwitting, gormless Evil-Christ like figure,
condemned to wander the Earth as our anti-heroic foil, accreting our ugliness
and hatred like a layer of corrosion, somehow unknowing and locked out from our
commonwealth.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: belzecue on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 02:06 AM EST |
http://www.bizreport.com/article.php?art_id=5983
"IBM and SuSE, the Linux developer that Novell Inc. bought last week, said
on Wednesday it received a certification for its Linux operating system that
will open the door to more government business, including business with the U.S.
Department of Defense..."
Omigosh. The U.S. government and especially the DOD must be a bunch of complete
lamebrains, eh what. Even though Linux has jumped through all their hoops and
met their strict standards, I'm sure Darl can convince them why he is right and
they are wrong.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: suppafly on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 02:06 AM EST |
The upshot of this is that it can probably be used as evidence against SCO
considering it was written and signed by one of their chief executive officers.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 02:08 AM EST |
Note to non-U.S. readers:
My fellow American Linux users (and, I suspect, most Windows users) still
believe in freedom, and that the Statue of Liberty is not a relic of a forgotten
past.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 02:11 AM EST |
First off, I find this letter extreemly suspect. If it did come from
SCO I can only see it as something leaked to get the OSS/Linux groups to foam at
the mouth. (Look the wolves ARE after us and they are RABID!) I have been
shocked by the things that Darl et. al. has released in the name of higher stock
payouts, but this is too over the top. Part of me really hopes that this letter
WAS sent out, but so far I just dont buy it. Granted I said that when someone
told me about the entire GPL is unconstitutional thing.
One of
the things I am getting tired of is the reactionary measures by the majority of
the Open Source cummunity. I would have perfered the OSAIA to hold off in
responding to this letter, and instead called for congress to investigate SCO
for harming the economy, extortion of the US Govt. and piracy. If the RIAA can
petition congress over 'piracy' then why shouldn't the Open Source community ask
for an investigation into corporations 'pirating' GLP code? Every month I see a
new discussion on how some company is using GLP'd code in their closed, for
profit, product but without the proper disclosure.
SCO has
also made threats to companies demanding linux license payments and linux
disclosures. Some of these companies have covernment contracts. The public
threats made include claiming that all users of Linux must pay royalties. This
would include government agencies. The postal services rely heavilly on linux
and GLP solutions in order to provide arguably the most vital IT service this
counrty has. Even though the postal service is no longer a funded government
agency, an attack on it would be seen as an attack on the economy and America.
Making these claims and sending these letters before they have a determined
legal base is nothing less than extortion of the Government and the
economy.
These demands also have the effect of chilling the IT
sector. Companies are not going to invest or move forward with IT plans while
being 'audited' (illegaly) by SCO. With the corporate behavior if recient
history, the stock inflation through making public anouncements which are
falicies, the back door deals, with all of this; Congress should be asked to
look into those corporations who are currently engaging in these
behavoirs.
SCO tells congress that OSS/GPL is unconstitutional,
unamerican, and illegal. Don't rebut, don't defend, attack. OSS Groups should
call on congress to investigate SCO on the grounds of styfling free trade,
piracy, endangering the economy, and extorting the US govenrment.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 02:30 AM EST |
While everybody's writing their Congressional delegation, it's worth noting
that CNet News reports that the House Judiciary committee has approved
H.R. 3261 "To
prohibit the misappropriation of certain databases."
This bill seeks
to overturn
FEIST PUBLICATIONS, INC. v. RURAL TEL. SERVICE CO., 499 U.S. 340
(1991).
In that decision, Justice O'Connor
wrote:
Originality is a constitutional requirement. The source of
Congress' power to enact copyright laws is Article I, 8, cl. 8, of the
Constitution, which authorizes Congress to "secur[e] for limited Times to
Authors . . . the exclusive Right to their respective
Writings."
Because Congress is constitutionally barred from
enacting a database protection scheme through copyright, this bill, H.R. 3261,
seeks to restore the "sweat of the brow" doctrine via the power to regulate
commerce.
In Feist, Justice O'Connor further
noted:
It may seem unfair that much of the fruit of the compiler's
labor may be used by others without compensation. As Justice Brennan has
correctly observed, however, this is not "some unforeseen byproduct of a
statutory scheme." Harper & Row, 471 U.S., at 589 (dissenting opinion). It
is, rather, "the essence of copyright," ibid. and a constitutional requirement.
The primary objective of copyright is not to reward the labor of authors, but
"[t]o promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts." Art. I, 8, cl. 8.
Accord, Twentieth Century Music Corp. v. Aiken, 422 U.S. 151, 156 (1975). To
this end, copyright assures authors the right to their original [499 U.S. 340,
350] expression, but encourages others to build freely upon the ideas and
information conveyed by a work. Harper & Row, supra, at 556-557. This
principle, known as the idea/expression or fact/expression dichotomy, applies to
all works of authorship. As applied to a factual compilation, assuming the
absence of original written expression, only the compiler's selection and
arrangement may be protected; the raw facts may be copied at will. This result
is neither unfair nor unfortunate. It is the means by which copyright advances
the progress of science and art.
H.R. 3261 does not advance
the progress of science and useful art. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 02:39 AM EST |
According to Caldera [new SCO Group] SEC executive compensation filings, Darl
McBride receives $80k per year compensation. Net income boils down to about
$4.2k per month.
McBride is 43 years old. More importantly, due to his actions as CEO of
Caldera, he can now lay claim to single handedly sinking the company. Further,
in the process of destroying Caldera, he has become a pariah, at the very least.
And unemployable.
Once, not should, but once Caldera goes belly up what is McBride going to do for
income? He is to young to retire and, on the surface at least, does not have a
known portfolio which would allow him to live the life of leisure.
So why is McBride doing this?
There are two possible answers: (1) McBride is certifiably, verifiably nuts or
(2) someone is/has paid and/or is paying him handsomely to sink Caldera and cast
FUD upon GNU/Linux.
In the case of the first option, the board of directors and other executives at
Caldera would have either quit or fired McBride. That leaves option number 2.
How much money, as in cash would it take to, if it is possible, to silence a
board and keep the other executives in line?
Your call.
krp[ Reply to This | # ]
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- The board has been paid - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 02:47 AM EST
- 80k? Is that all? - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 04:04 AM EST
- Small time - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 04:11 AM EST
- 80k? Is that all? - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 01:24 PM EST
- Not just 80k - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 08:28 AM EST
- Next stop Redmond - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, January 23 2004 @ 05:01 AM EST
- Why. . .? - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, January 23 2004 @ 05:51 PM EST
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| Authored by: BoredByPolitics on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 02:49 AM EST |
| I've just finished reading what I thought was going to be a one sided article
(i.e. from TSG's perspective), but turned out to be a very balanced write-up of
the history so far of the case.
OK, so it uses some inflamatory language (to
some), such as 'dweeb' when refering to linux programmers, but on the whole it's
a good article. It also appears to make the front page of the weekly, along
with a picture of McBride.
Here's a link to the
article.
It's good to see that the (local) media is starting to catch
on.
---
--
Pete [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 03:05 AM EST |
PJ, can you clarify - did this "sic!" appear in the original
document or this was added by the person who transcribed it? If first one (and
this will be confirmed by the second copy of the document) I will try to bring
it to Russian State Duma's Commitees for foreign affairs, industry and
defense' attention. Hope that it will help - treat it as my 0.02 roubles ;-)[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: maroberts on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 03:26 AM EST |
I'm not a US citizen, but amongst all the other rebuttal arguments you can
make, an important point to make to your congressperson is the fact that the
type of deal performed by Open Source is performed by thousands of companies
annually; an agreement to share Intellectual Property (they love that phrase!)
for the mutual benefit of all concerned
The type of deal made by Open Source software is little different from that made
by individual companies when they cross-license patents. i.e. Company A and
company B agree to let each other use their Intellectual Property. Open Source
licensing is nothing more than a cross licensing agreement with many individuals
and companies contributing to the pool of patents and copyright instead of just
two.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: maroberts on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 03:30 AM EST |
I must admit I thought that it was the best troll ever, and that someone had
sent this letter to Congress as a joke. Is there real confirmation SCO sent
this?
On another note, did I miss something about the 23rd deadline being not so dead
after all. PJ, can you put some news about the change of hearing date if true?[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 03:36 AM EST |
I am quite sure that he's not making a serious argument. It's just a stunt.
But anyway, imagine if Darl's dream world comes true.
- Publishing source code outside the confines of a company (open source) becomes
illegal.
Consequences:
- Good bye JavaScript, VBScript, all sample programs (including Unixware and
Windows programs)
- Good bye redistribution of any scripting language code (how can you install a
Perl or ASP or PHP or Shell script, if the person who wrote it is not allowed to
give you the source code [yep I realize there are certain exceptions for certain
scripting languages like encoded PHP])
- Good bye all patents which include. Heck *anybody* can read a patent, and
after it expires *anybody* can use the methods
- Good bye all research articles on Computer Science which include code
- Good bye all programming books, tutorials, etc.
- Good bye all classes on programming. From now on the new teaching rule will
have to be: you have to guess the syntax and operation of the language
yourself.
- Good bye all C and C++ libraries. You can read the damned .h files
- Good bye copyright expiration. I mean when the copyright expires, people can
use the damn code. And if the US maintains its system of copyright
registration, people can get copies of the registered code from the copyright
registration forms.
I could go on, but that's just the start. Now ask yourself what would those
things do for the economy? Sounds like a recipe to turn the US into Bangladesh
if you ask me.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 03:36 AM EST |
The letter says:
I have attached a document that describes in
detail the problems of the GPL and the ways in which it violates current U.S.
statutes
Any sighting of this attachment? This is possibly the
substantive part of the communication which really needs refuting.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Nick_UK on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 03:36 AM EST |
If this is a kosher letter, then it could have disasterious consequences.
1. I expect 80% of people haven't heard of GPL or Linux. Of the 20% that have,
I expect only half of them actually understand what GPL and Linux is (as opposed
to 'something to do with computers'). Lack of knowledge in an issue like this
can be a leverage to win any FUD campaign.
2. The USA are currently starting election campaigns. Now, politicians do
things for 2 reasons, and 2 reasons only - a) Money (power), b) To win votes to
stay elected (and retain reason a). Campaigns cost a lot of money to run, and
money (from any source) is welcome with open arms to fund a candidate. SCO here
are offering a payday.
3. The politicians take this up as a policy (communist code, national security
etc. etc.) and it scares the living shit out of the 80% of people ignorant in
the GPL/Linux issue. It becomes an election manifesto (or part of it) to get
reason b).
I may be cynical, but never trust a politician to do the right thing for the
people or society - trust them to do the right thing for THEM (a & b
again).
Nick[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: zapyon on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 04:02 AM EST |
Hi US people. Even here, on the other side of the pond, this news is running
shivers down my spine: What if SCO actually succeeds in manipulating the
politicians? We all know how IT savvy the average politician is, not to speak of
how susceptible to lobbyists' suggestions.
I get the impression it is time now for concerted action by all big Linux
organisations and companies, i.e. a common public statement explaining the
situation and the falseness of SCO's claims in simple terms understandable to
the general public.
Anyway, I hope nobody in politics will be stupid enough to damage the US IT
industry by making GPLed software illegal or the like.
Regards
zapyon
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 04:22 AM EST |
PJ you must separate comment from legal issues. I have been aware of you and
read you for nearly a year.
I am guilty of posting as anonymous and anything i have to contribute probably
falls under the heading of comment.
If you dont head this off you will dilute what you are trying to do. You,ll just
become another \.
I actually now think that wordwide millions of people read you and harlan etc.
etc. but unless you seperate "informed knowledgable contributions"
from people giving their support and undoubted good ideas you will loose the
credibility that you have at this moment got with the courts, the companies and
the high profile individuals involved in this joke.
I am finding it hard to get to the knowledge through the plaudits and the
support and so will journalists and analysts etc. etc.
I think you are majic.
love brian[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: egbert on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 04:24 AM EST |
Quote from letter:
Our economy has already been hurt by offshore
outsourcing of technology jobs. I'm sure you've seen this among your
constituents. What if our technology jobs continue to move offshore at the same
time the economic value of innovative software declines? For more than 20 years,
software has been one of the leading examples of innovation and value-creation
in our economy. When software becomes a commodity with nearly zero economic
value, how will our economy make up for this loss?
Here is a job posting
on www.sco.com/company/jobs:
Job Title: Senior Software Engineer
Requisition# 40235
Type: Posted 13 January,
2004
Location: Delhi, India
Department: India Engineering
Reports To: Manager
of Engineering Apply Now
Job Description:
Design and develop
systems-level software for Linux and provide systems support by performing the
following duties:
...
Not only are they looking for a Linux
developer, they are looking for a developer in India![ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 04:39 AM EST |
To draw attention away from tomorrow, 23 Jan 2004
PJ - is this an open hearing that anyone can go to?
The Banjo[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: atul on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 04:55 AM EST |
* SCO's licensing guy thinks that he can make threats of legal action seem more
convincing and more scary by writing them in all caps. I'm sure that writing
like a Yahoo troll is going to work wonders.
* SCO's letter has the Old SCO logo on the top. So apparently Caldera *did*
buy something from Old SCO, all their unused corporate stationery. Nice.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: atul on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 05:11 AM EST |
Didn't Darl & Co. previously claim that the GPL was illegal under existing
copyright & export control laws, and was also unconstitutional, to boot?
Didn't they argue that in filings in the IBM case? If they really believed
that was true, why are they trying to get the law changed now?
Also, Darl reiterates his claim that there are "thousands" of lines
of SCO's proprietary code in Linux. I always love it when people make false
and fraudulent claims to Congress. That always works wonders.[ Reply to This | # ]
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- But... But... - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 05:22 AM EST
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 05:14 AM EST |
1."GNU General Public License (GPL) which, some believe, is in direct
contradiction to U.S. Copyright law, to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
(DMCA), and to the recent Supreme Court decision in Eldred v. Ashcroft."
The "Some Believe" is not evidence or proof. Weak point.
2."Those who designed the GPL readily admit that they created this license
to have the effect of "freeing" software -- taking it out of the
realm of copyright protection by placing it in the public domain."
Has he actually even scan read the GPL. The GPL does NOT remove copyright, it
encourages and supports it. GPL software is NOT public domain, it remains the IP
of the author(s) who have chosen the GPL licensing model.
3."... proprietary software (meaning software as an intellectual asset
from which the designer can derive profit)..."
As opposed to Open Source. Yeah, MySQL, Red Hat have no revenue whatsoever. Bad
definition of propietary software.
4."The GPL seeks to commodatize software by reducing its monetary value to
zero and making it freely available to anyone."
And this would be bad for all other industries apart from the pre-compiled
software market because...?
5."The GPL is carefully designed to have a viral effect -- it
"frees" the software that is proprietary, licenseable, and a source
of income from the companies that developed it."
Oracle, Vertias and many other proprietary software companies seem to think
not.
6."Linux software contains significant UNIX software code that has been
inappropriately, and without authorization, placed in Linux."
No proof whatsoever.
7."The damage this has inflicted on SCO's UNIX business is an example of
what could happen to the entire software industry if the current Open Source
model continues."
IBM, Novell, HP, Oracle, Red Hat, My SQL, Veritas and many other US companies
think not.
8."...Open Source software, full of proprietary code, ..."
Again, no proof.
9."Each Open Source installation displaces or pre-empts a sale of
proprietary, licensable and copyright-protected software. This means fewer jobs,
less software revenue and reduced incentives for software companies to
innovate."
Firstly, the major OSS licneces GPL, LGPL and BSD INSIST on copyright.
Secondly, cheaper software means more money in the IT budget for companies. They
will spend this elswhere, perhaps even employ additional in-house programmers or
buy in a custom solution. There will be the opportunity for more jobs if
copmanies are saving money from MS's lisencing schemes - which have been ruled
illegal BTW.
Thirdly, Linus quoted Newton when he said "...I stand on the shoulders of
giants". The scientific community would suggest that sharing information
increases 'innovation'.
10."Why should a software company invest to develop exciting new
capabilites when their software could end up "freed" as part of
Linux under the GPL?"
There is nothing in Linux or the GPL which prevents proprietary software from
running on Linux.
11."The threat to our international competitive position. In a growing
number of countries, including Britain, Germany, France, Israel, Brazil, Japan,
South Korea, China and Russian,[sic] national and municipal governments are
requiring that government entities use Open Source software."
Despite the fact this is conjection, he is saying that the goverments of the
second to fifth (Japan, Germany, China, Britian) most powerful economies have
ratified open source. By implication he is assuming to know better than any
experts than these goverments would have consulted. The majority of countries on
this list are democratic capatalist societies. They don't seem to think there
is a problem.
12."I find this particularly galling because that Linux software contains
thousands of lines of my company's proprietary UNIX code -- for which we
receive no revenue. SCO has a strong, involuntary presence in certain non-U.S.
government markets -- but this is only through unauthorized use of our code in
Linux software."
Show us the proof. And again. Is it not up to the court to decide if there is
unauthorised SCO code in Linux?
As well as the goverments of several powerful countries he knows better than the
US legal systen.
13."U.S. software companies are already finding it difficult to compete
with highly capable Open Source software that has gained many of its
capabilities through the illegal incorporation of code "borrowed"
from the rightful owners."
And again, no proof.
14."We need to look no further than the declining revenues of the music
publishing industry -- undermined by free, online downloading -- to see a
warning of what could be next for our software industry."
Firstly, this is pirating, nothing to do with software licensing.
Secondly, although I cannot condone theft, if the music industry hadn't
price-fixed CDs for a decade there would not be a backlash.
15."There is no more damaging example of dumping than the widespread
availability of highly capable software that devalues intellectual property by
making it available at no cost..."
No one is forced to GPL their code. If intellectual property is to be respected,
then respect the right of the software author to release their work as they see
fit.
Oh and another, show us the proof.
16.""" -- in direct competition with the products from which
it is derived."
Show is the proof.
17."I assert that Open Source software -- available widely through the
Internet -- has the potential to provide our nation's enemies or potential
enemies with computing capabilities that are restricted by U.S. law."
I assert that Open Source software has the potential to assist the economies of
many developing countries, struggling with the education and poverty of their
citizens.
18."...latest version of Linux, complete with multi-processing
capabilities misappropriated from UNIX..."
Show us the proof.
19."Open Source software and the GPL, unchecked, are an easy way for our
adversaries to circumvent our software export restrictions."
Mr McBride, check the list of countries the US sells military equipment to.
Trust me they are not all liberal democatratic regimes.
20."It [Open Source software] undermines our basic system of intellectual
property rights..."
The GPL uses intellectual property rights in the form of Copyright as a base.
21."... it [Open Source software] destroys the economic reasons for
innovation."
The PC platform is based on a relativley open architecture and is the most
vibrant hardware market in the US and globally. There is a lot of evidence an
open base encourages innovation by encouraging competition.
22."As part of the effort to protect our intellectual property rights, The
SCO Group has met with several U.S. government agencies. We have been encouraged
to see that, unique among the organizations with which we've met, most
government agencies understand the implications of SCO's case."
INAL oSCOs case is currently under the courts
23."Government agency leaders readily understand the value of
copyrights..."
So does the GPL.
24."... and they do not want to be in violation [of SCOs
copyright]."
A gentle reminder that SCO's copyright to portions of Linux has not yet been
proven in a court of law.
25."This is in contrast to many corporations, who seem to have a
"don't ask, don't tell" policy when it comes to understanding the
source of the software they are using."
Cane you blame them? Corporations have the right to not discuss the inner
workings of their business without a valid audit. Especially when it appears
that SCO is going to accuse them of theft or contract violoation of a nature
that has not yet been proven in the court.
26."Our nation's economic system is reflected in the concept and practice
of Copyright."
The GPL is built around the concept and practice of copyright.
27. "The GPL (which its authors call "copyleft" to emphasize
that it is the opposite of copyright)..."
The use of copyleft is taken out of context.
28."... should not be allowed to continue to undermine the foundation of
one of our most important industries."
There is no evidence that comoditiy software will hurt any other business than
the shrink-wrapped software industry. There is good evidence that if all other
industries can take advantage of lower IT costs it will be beneficial to all
industries apart from some software vendors.
29."I ask that you consider this very carefully in your role as one of
[the USA's] leaders."
So do I.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: RedSlash on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 05:14 AM EST |
As I remember, didn't SCO stated in some press release a
while back the reason on why they use Samba in their
products was because they support the useage of Open
Source software and that they only had a problem with ip
infringement? This letter basically goes against that. I
wonder what excuse they will use this time. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 05:16 AM EST |
Politician + business man = ...?
... have we the right to decide how we want to live free and how we want not to
be M$-dependant (in a legal way) ?
JML
------------------------------
(I don't know if there is any copyright on it!)
" CHAPTER VIII -
OF THE GOOD FORTUNE WHICH THE VALIANT DON QUIXOTE HAD IN THE TERRIBLE AND
UNDREAMT-OF ADVENTURE OF THE WINDMILLS, WITH OTHER OCCURRENCES WORTHY TO BE
FITLY RECORDED"
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 05:26 AM EST |
By now, SCO has sued pretty much every big player in the game and has written a
letter to Congress. I wonder what they plan to do next? There is really not much
left. If they add another lawsuit, it would make a big difference. Another
letter to Congress? nah ... thats yesterday's story. To the Senate? Not really
bold enough. To the president? Mhm, I doubt George cares much. Seriously. What
is the next step? Write a letter to god and ask for more rain for Utah? I heard
Darl is very religious ...[ Reply to This | # ]
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- What next? - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, January 23 2004 @ 03:20 AM EST
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| Authored by: Israel Pattison on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 05:29 AM EST |
Thanks for all of the suggestions. I made three changes in my local copy (I'm
not going to post the whole corrected letter):
1) Date was changed from 2003 to 2004,
2) "sites" was changed to "cites", and
3) "posses" was changed to "poses"
Please let me know if I missed anything else. Also, feel free to "embrace
and extend" the body of this letter for your own letter.
PJ and others have commented that the original letter might be a hoax. I am of
the opinion that even if it was, the monster was presented to the Internet
commumnity as if it were authentic, which has the same effect. I attempted to
hedge on the authenticity of the letter in my first sentence to accomodate that
possibility. Anyone see a reason why sending an informative letter would be a
problem either way?
Thanks again.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: hardcode57 on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 05:46 AM EST |
Looking at SCO's behaviour, the only motive that makes sense is the one that we
originally assigned to them: they want to be bought out. Since IBM won't buy
them, they are trying to be such a nuisance to the community at large that
someone else will.
Much as I hate to see them reap benefits from this kind of behaviour, I'm
beginning to hope that someone will buy them before they cause real damage.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 06:01 AM EST |
OK, so what if the USA even came close to effectivley outlawing open source?
Well I think that as a defensive measure the US based copyright holders of Open
Source code could transfer those copyrights to trusted ogranisations based
elsewhere.
The upshot of that would be that US companies could only use propietary software
whilst the rest of the world could use open source and proprietary software as
they see fit.
Where do you think the competetive advantage would shift?
A crazy comment I admit, but no crazier than lobbying the US government to
legislate against a method of creating software which is promising invigorate
the entire IT industry.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 06:11 AM EST |
I'm an old man. Typing bores me. If you think that a decision made in a court
in utah will have any impact outside the us then you must be stupid. I actually
support your war on terrorism. BUT your heading for another VIETNAM if you
continue to assert your ownership of everything human.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: PeteS on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 06:11 AM EST |
| According to This story at
eweek, IBM doesn't agree.
[Nor does anyone else, except M$ and
SCOX]
Enjoy !!
---
Recursion: n. See Recursion
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 06:21 AM EST |
I'm an old man. Typing bores me. If you think that a decision made in a court
in utah will have any impact outside the us then you must be stupid. I actually
support your war on terrorism. BUT your heading for another VIETNAM if you
continue to assert your ownership of everything human.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 06:21 AM EST |
I'm an old man. Typing bores me. If you think that a decision made in a court
in utah will have any impact outside the us then you must be stupid. I actually
support your war on terrorism. BUT your heading for another VIETNAM if you
continue to assert your ownership of everything human.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 06:24 AM EST |
The Microsoft Conspiracy Theory.
For fun and profit, I went to investigate whether Microsoft could really be
directly 'behind' this. No doubt they are watching these events with
interested, greedy eyes. But as some have suggested, they may well be behind all
this. This theory has been conveniently labelled 'The Microsoft conspiracy
theory'. If M$ is directly involved, then there should be traces of this in the
letter allegedly sent by Mr. McBride. As a linguist with an interest in
historical criticism and a job in the IT sector, I tried to combine these
experiences to search for more clues about this unfortunate twist of events. Of
course, I am also a Linux enthousiast, albeit with a much lower 'geek' factor
than most in the community.
For those who did not have the opportunity already, I advice you to read the
Halloween documents, which can be found on
http://www.opensource.org/halloween/.
When PJ commented this text 'reeks of Microsoft', she was right IMHO. Only,
words do not smell. They have connotations and can be used in different contexts
and possibly in combination with certain logic traps.
For the impatient, you can jump right to the conclusion at the end of this
article.
Microsoft has 'softened' its position on Open Source software somewhat. They
have no other option since Linux & Open Source software get so much backing
from major brand vendors. So could this be an attempt to play it more subtly?
Before drawing any conclusions, let us analyze the text.
Following words are somewhat peculiar in this text:
- the frequent use of the words 'leading', 'to lead', 'leaders', ... As
you all know, the company that considers itself the leader in all affairs IT, is
Microsoft. Leading, being dominant, must be an obsession for them, as the theme
reoccures in almost every document you can find about them.
- Pay attention to the term 'volunteers' here, e.g. NOT professionals. Between
the lines what they are actually saying is: 'Linux volunteers are NOT
professionals'. The same connotation is found in numerous articles on the
Microsoft corporate site (usually Press Passport).
- The concept 'engine of growth', is found in the following articles. Now I
know this might seem far-fetched for some of you, but it is important in the way
that it illustrates that Microsoft is very familiar with every 'concept' laid
out in McBride's memo.
Engine of growth:
http://www.microsoft.com/southafrica/press/press-623.htm
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/craig/05-03sharedsource.asp
- 'the term intellectual property'. As quite a few readers remarked, this term
is purposely vague. Not much to see here, but see my previous remark.
- the frequent use of the words 'innovative', 'innovate', 'innovation'. As
everyone knows, M$ loves to herald itself as the 'champion of innovation'.
- the use of the words: 'commodity', 'commoditize', ...
http://www.opensource.org/halloween/halloween1.php
Software becoming a commodity probably is Microsofts worst nightmare. The
emphasis on this in the SCO document is, to say the least, very interesting.
- the use of the term 'intellectual property asset'
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/craig/11-20mspolicy.asp
While this is not really an exact copy, the implications of the statements in
the 2 articles are the same.
- the use of the term 'predator'. As I said, M$ has softened its approach a
bit, so you will probably not see them use that word themselves. But I did find
a curious link regarding MS and SCO, a case study about a switch from SCO
unixware to Windows, dated April 2003:
http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/facts/casestudy.asp?CaseStudyID=13934
- use of the term 'viral'. We all know M$ wholeheartedly agrees with McBride
on this point. This article and the Craign Mundy article are the two most
interesting I could yet find with a resemblance to the SCO statement.
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/sharedsource/Articles/EvansNERA.mspx
- the use of the term 'security' - logical trap, kind of. They shifted focus
from cracking and computer viruses to 'loss of control', bringing up the
ever-popular 'terrorism' fear. Which is, of course, totally ridiculous.
Next I am going to look at the text in it's whole, trying to replace it with
articles from M$ I could find on the web (their corporate site), and see if
there are a lot of similarities. Now we know that at least the TONE of the
letter is VERY Microsoft. Further, ALL of their points benefit M$ is some way,
while the 'security' point has been curiously shifted, but benefits them once
more.
***
extract from Microsoft's texts, found by googling for articles including terms
in this article in their domain. These are found in this format.
***
* /
My comments are found in this format
/ *
Dear Honorable _______________:
I am writing to draw your attention to an important controversy that has become
one of the dominant issues in the software industry. The way in which this issue
is resolved will have very important ramifications for
* our nation's economy
* our continued ability to lead the world in technology
* our international competitive position in the global software industry, and
even for
* our national security.
The source of this controversy is the rapid spread of a form of software called
"Open Source software." Open Source Linux software is developed and
enhanced by a loose, worldwide group of volunteers usually called "the
Open Source community." Through the work of this community of volunteers,
lately abetted by the efforts of several major computing companies, Linux
software has become a popular way to run computer server systems, Web sites,
networks and many applications.
* /
'volunteers', e.g. NOT professionals.
/ *
Innovation in software in itself is not a problem -- the new computing
technologies have long been an engine of growth for our nation. But there are
two serious problems associated with the spread of Linux and the Open Source
approach to software development and distribution.
***
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/craig/05-03sharedsource.asp
It has long been said that change is the only constant in the technology
industry. In the past 20 years the velocity of that change has accelerated at a
seemingly exponential rate, serving constantly as an engine of growth for the
global economy.
***
First, Linux and Open Source software are developed and distributed (often at no
cost) under a scheme called the GNU General Public License (GPL) which, some
believe, is in direct contradiction to U.S. Copyright law, to the Digital
Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and to the recent Supreme Court decision in
Eldred v. Ashcroft. I have attached a document that describes in detail the
problems of the GPL and the ways in which it violates current U.S. statutes.
Those who designed the GPL readily admit that they created this license to have
the effect of "freeing" software -- taking it out of the realm of
copyright protection by placing it in the public domain. The author of the GPL
is well-known for his view that proprietary software (meaning software as an
intellectual asset from which the designer can derive profit) is unacceptable.
The GPL seeks to commodatize software by reducing its monetary value to zero and
making it freely available to anyone. The GPL is carefully designed to have a
viral effect -- it "frees" the software that is proprietary,
licenseable, and a source of income from the companies that developed it. Until
now it has been generally agreed that the GPL has never faced a legal test. SCO
is involved in a major software intellectual property case through which the GPL
will face such a test.
***
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/craig/05-03sharedsource.asp
This viral aspect of the GPL poses a threat to the intellectual property of any
organization making use of it. It also fundamentally undermines the independent
commercial software sector because it effectively makes it impossible to
distribute software on a basis where recipients pay for the product rather than
just the cost of distribution.
***
***
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/sharedsource/Articles/EvansNERA.mspx
The GPL is thus "viral" in the sense that any program making use of
code covered by the GPL becomes code covered by the GPL. The GPL has not yet
been tested in court. Thus precisely what "derived from the Program"
or "based on the Program" (another term used in the license) mean is
not settled.
***
The second problem with Open Source software is that it is not all original.
Linux software contains significant UNIX software code that has been
inappropriately, and without authorization, placed in Linux. I know this because
my company, the SCO Group, owns the rights to that UNIX code originally
developed by AT&T. SCO holds licenses to this valuable asset with more than
6,000 companies, universities, government agencies and other organizations. But
as the use of Linux has grown, license revenue from UNIX has shrunk. Why
wouldn't it? Why would someone license UNIX code from SCO and other legitimate
providers when they can get much of that same code, for free, in Linux? The
damage this has inflicted on SCO's UNIX business is an example of what could
happen to the entire software industry if the current Open Source model
continues. For this reason, SCO has taken legal action against those who, we
believe, have misappropriated our most important corporate asset.
* /
Intellectual property rant. See also 'intellectual property asset'
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/craig/11-20mspolicy.asp
/ *
By taking action, our company has become a target for sometimes vicious attacks
-- including online attacks that have repeatedly shut down our company Web site.
Despite this, we are determined to see those legal cases through to the end
because we are firm in our belief that the unchecked spread of Open Source
software, under the GPL, is a much more serious threat to our capitalist system
than U.S. corporations realize. I believe that this threat is manifest in these
important areas:
1. The threat to the U.S. information technology industry. Our economic recovery
appears to be well underway, but it is still fragile and could be thrown off
track. Just as technology and innovation have led the U.S. economy during
previous boom periods, many assume that this will happen again. But imagine a
major new technology buying cycle in which revenue from software sales shrinks.
Free or low-cost Open Source software, full of proprietary code, is grabbing an
increasing portion of the software market. Each Open Source installation
displaces or pre-empts a sale of proprietary, licensable and copyright-protected
software. This means fewer jobs, less software revenue and reduced incentives
for software companies to innovate. Why should a software company invest to
develop exciting new capabilites when their software could end up
"freed" as part of Linux under the GPL?
/ *
F.U.D. , otherwise known as bullshit. Not worth to comment further upon
* /
Economic damage to the U.S. software industry could have serious repercussions
if this continues unchecked. International Data Corporation forecasts that the
global software industry will grow to $289 billion by 2007. Beyond the economic
stimulus provided by the software industry, U.S. sales taxes on that amount of
software will be somewhere between $17 billion to $21 billion.
Our economy has already been hurt by offshore outsourcing of technology jobs.
I'm sure you've seen this among your constituents. What if our technology jobs
continue to move offshore at the same time the economic value of innovative
software declines? For more than 20 years, software has been one of the leading
examples of innovation and value-creation in our economy. When software becomes
a commodity with nearly zero economic value, how will our economy make up for
this loss?
* /
Commodity software. Microsofts worst nightmare:
http://www.opensource.org/halloween/halloween1.php
/ *
2. The threat to our international competitive position. In a growing number of
countries, including Britain, Germany, France, Israel, Brazil, Japan, South
Korea, China and Russian,[sic] national and municipal governments are requiring
that government entities use Open Source software. Instead of UNIX from any
number of U.S. companies or Windows from Microsoft, governments throughout
Europe and Asia are using Linux, often downloaded for free from the Internet. I
find this particularly galling because that Linux software contains thousands of
lines of my company's proprietary UNIX code -- for which we receive no revenue.
SCO has a strong, involuntary presence in certain non-U.S. government markets --
but this is only through unauthorized use of our code in Linux software.
* /
(start irony)How cute. Microsoft makes its brief appearance, it's almost like a
cameo. What was that? They are using LINUX instead of 'Unix' from SCO or
Windows from Microsoft!? Oh no, whatever will we do! (/end irony)
... continue IP rant.
/ *
U.S. software companies are already finding it difficult to compete with highly
capable Open Source software that has gained many of its capabilities through
the illegal incorporation of code "borrowed" from the rightful
owners. We need to look no further than the declining revenues of the music
publishing industry -- undermined by free, online downloading -- to see a
warning of what could be next for our software industry.
* /
... for which M$ has an 'exquisite' solution in the form of DRM'ed
applications.
/ *
Through the years, Congress has repeatedly dealt with the tough issues of
predatory pricing and "dumping". I contend that the ultimate
predatory price is "free". There is no more damaging example of
dumping than the widespread availability of highly capable software that
devalues intellectual property by making it available at no cost -- in direct
competition with the products from which it is derived.
3. The threat to our national security. I assert that Open Source software --
available widely through the Internet -- has the potential to provide our
nation's enemies or potential enemies with computing capabilities that are
restricted by U.S. law. SCO's UNIX software is subject to export licensing
restrictions, and for good reason. With the powerful multi-processing features
of UNIX software, someone could build a supercomputer for military applications.
My company must adhere to these restrictions: we cannot sell to North Korea,
Libya, Iran, Sudan and several other nations. But a computer expert in North
Korea who has a number of personal computers and an Internet connection can
download the latest version of Linux, complete with multi-processing
capabilities misappropriated from UNIX, and, in short order, build a virtual
supercomputer.
When I talk about this, some people think I'm an alarmist. I have a different
view -- I think that this may have already happened. Open Source software and
the GPL, unchecked, are an easy way for our adversaries to circumvent our
software export restrictions.
* /
You have got to give it to him: he DOES have a lot of fantasy.
/ *
I'm bringing these troubling issues to your attention to ask you to consider
them whenever you are discussing or voting on issues of the economy,
intellectual property and national security. The Open Source community now
includes several major corporations. These companies have been lobbying for
increased government support of Open Source software. Some want government RFPs
to specify Open Source software. I urge you to consider the other side because I
believe that Open Source, as it is currently constituted, is a slippery slope.
It undermines our basic system of intellectual property rights, and it destroys
the economic reasons for innovation.
* /
Particularly interesting paragraph. To consider the 'other side'. Now who
would that be? Since I thought only a short while ago SCO belonged, at least
partly, to 'our' camp. Maybe he is just referring to the dark side of the
force.
/ *
As part of the effort to protect our intellectual property rights, The SCO Group
has met with several U.S. government agencies. We have been encouraged to see
that, unique among the organizations with which we've met, most government
agencies understand the implications of SCO's case. Government agency leaders
readily understand the value of copyrights, and they do not want to be in
violation. This is in contrast to many corporations, who seem to have a
"don't ask, don't tell" policy when it comes to understanding the
source of the software they are using.
Our nation's economic system is reflected in the concept and practice of
Copyright. In 1980 and again in 1998, Congress took action to solidify the rule
of copyright in the software industry. The GPL (which its authors call
"copyleft" to emphasize that it is the opposite of copyright) should
not be allowed to continue to undermine the foundation of one of our most
important industries. I ask that you consider this very carefully in your role
as one of our nation's leaders.
* /
A plea to invalidate the GPL. The thorn in M$'s eye. The nail in their coffin.
The ... well you get it. Now an interesting question, which I will not try to
answer here (well give it a shot guys) is who would benefit this more:
Microsoft, or SCO? Would it benefit SCO AT ALL to get the GPL invalidated?
Clearly they will realize they will never be able to do this in time for their
court case. Am I missing something here?
/ *
Sincerely,
Darl McBride
President and CEO
The SCO Group, Inc.
CONCLUSION
The text is certainly not a direct 'copy', or 'cut&paste' artwork from
M$ articles. However, the TONE of the article, meaning the terms used, the
context in which they are used and their implications is almost identical to
most Microsoft articles. So we could argue this is definitely
'Microsoft-speak'. This would mean that either:
1. Mr McBride, knowing how M$ loathes Linux, went diving into their articles,
effectively 'stealing' their FUD.
2. Microsoft somehow contributed or even wrote the text for SCO. This is not
impossible, since they would already have met during licensing talks. So clearly
arrangments could have been made. In the context of the monopoly lawsuit, this
would not be very good for M$...
But by far the most surprising conclusion I found is, that ALL of the arguments
given BENEFIT Microsoft, even twisting words so 'security problems' does not
call up images of a BSOD anymore. There can only be so much coincidence.
Therefore, the most likely conclusion to me is 2:
- Microsoft IS involved
- Microsoft provided the elements to SCO or even wrote it themselves
option 1 stays open of course, but all the arrows point towards one direction:
Redmond Castle
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 06:32 AM EST |
pj the rest of the world could'nt give a damn what happens in your utah court.
What sco is dong is alienating the world from the thinking public.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 06:39 AM EST |
"Our continued ability to lead the world in technology"
"Our"...
The only one in the U.S.A. that "leads" the world in information
technology (and not too often, and even then because there's no competition) in
the closed camp is Microsoft. Nobody else in the tech industry would think of
talking that way.
Ok, maybe Oracle.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 06:42 AM EST |
when law has a purpose for the benefit of mankind you support it, when law has a
purpose for the benifit of an american corporation you kick it in the bollocks.
"i said that".[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 06:56 AM EST |
Dear Congressman,
In regards to Mr. Darl McBrides comunications regarding potential legislative
solutions to the Open Source Problem that is currently destroying his business
(SCO) and the overall threat to the US IT industry.
We are very supportive of Mr. McBrides proposals. Seeing as we are not US
citizens we look forward to the effect of his proposals. This will inevitably
result in the total collapse of the pesky US IT industry that is posing so many
difficulties for those not employed within your fair shores. The consequence of
vastly increased IT costs, lack of innovation and competition in the US market
will result in a vast improvement in the efficiency of European corporations and
IT base. While your corporations are paying massive amounts of money to prop
up an increasingly venal IT industry our corporations will be focusing on
technical innovation, open standards, and new technology for a mere fraction of
the cost.
We were very grateful for the US legislative effort to ensure that the leading
cryptography systems and technology were developed outside of the US and were
quite disappointed when you modified the legislation giving your own industries
a fair playing ground to compete with our technology. Luckily for us all the
momentum provided by the initial legislation was too large for US companies to
catch up. We sincerely hope that you will enact Mr. McBrides proposals, and not
repeat your mistake of revoking them as you did with the cryptographic export
controls that so effectively handed world dominance in this field to our own
companies.
Sincere Regards,
The joint ministers of the EC
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 07:11 AM EST |
As I posted in the previous article:
I'm sure Mr. McBride won't mind having to pay back royalties for all the GPL
code owned by countless other people that his company has been distributing for
the last 9-10 years.
No free lunch? Except when it's SCO who benefits...[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 07:16 AM EST |
The most comical part of all this is SCO thinks their code is worth stealing.
It's not. Unixware is an awful operating system. I've had to maintain a
Unixware server before; it was utter shit. I know of more MP-RAS installations
than I do Unixware. In fact, I know of only one Unixware installation in all of
my consulting work to be still around. And it's got more problems than you can
shake your fist at. All this talk of "the reason linux can scale so well
is because of our code blah blah blah". Unixware is awful at scalability.
Even if there was stolen code, it wouldn't be the reason Linux scales so well
now. They also assert properity code from JFS made it's way into open source
JFS. Who the fuck uses JFS? Last time I checked no one. Resier, Ext3, XFS, yes.
But JFS is largely untested in Linux thusly no one uses it.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 07:23 AM EST |
| From internetnews.com
:
Reached for a response, SCO spokesman Marc Modersitzski
told internetnews.com: "We respectfully disagree. We aren't trying the case in
the court of public opinion--we're trying it in a courtroom. That's why we're
not showing everything. The Linux community may think that the small amount
they've seen is the basis of our case. It's not. Nothing could be further from
the truth. The header files illustrate that there's a problem. As far as that
being the extent of what we have, we're not showcasing it in the public forum."
SCO is trying every part of the case in the court of
public opinion except for the proof they claim to have.
And also note that
he says that the header files illustrate a problem and not that they ARE a
problem.
H@ns [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 07:29 AM EST |
Hi,
My first post, I love groklaw.net you all do great work.
Anyway the GPL was
attacked in 2002 in congress with a simliar letter from some politicians I
wrote my congressman at the time and receive a letter back from some one that
seemed like they knew what the GPL was and that they will be looking into it
after recess.
I hope this is the right
link.
http://newsvac.newsforge.com/newsvac/02/10/23/1247236.shtml?tid=4"
Thanks[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: vonbrand on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 07:39 AM EST |
| "GPL is viral and destroys the software value"... right. IBM, HP, Oracle, Red
Hat, Novell, ... are in the business of loosing money.
"Software industry
pays billions in taxes"... but it was commented here that for instance MSFT
doesn't pay a dime.
"Open source destroys the economy"... but Internet
is open source, at its very best. Go ahead, outlaw that!
"All open
source is Linux", "All open source is GPL". Both ridiculous claims. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: jaydee on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 07:51 AM EST |
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/linuxunix/0,39020390,39119283,00.htm[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 07:57 AM EST |
Here is my draft letter to my congressmen.
Most Honorable ________;
I am writing you regarding a letter that the SCO Group apparently sent out to an
unknown number of congressmen and women. If you have not seen it, the text of
the letter can be found at http://www.osaia.org/letters/sco_hill.pdf. As you
may know, The SCO Group has filed a lawsuit against IBM and another one against
Novell in order to establish some level of intellectual property rights in the
Linux operating system.
In their letter, The SCO Group makes a number of substantial allegation about
open source software in general and the GNU General Public License in
particular. These include allegations that open source software is a threat to
the US economy and the IT sector in particular, that open source software
undermines US competitiveness throughout the world, and that open source
software is a threat to US national security. These allegations are completely
false.
In its letter, The SCO Group has alleged copyright infringement in the source
code for Linux It should be pointed out that they have been unable to show, as
yet, that there is any infringing code in Linux, and also that they are
currently in a lawsuit with Novell over ownership of code that they feel was the
basis for the infringement. Therefore any claims of copyright infringement are
far from demonstrated. They have, as yet, been unable to show infringing code
even when ordered by the court to do so in SCO vs. IBM (in response to IBM's
motions to compell).
Over the last few years I have engaged in consulting activities centering around
open source software, and have contributed two software programs of my own
design to the community under the GPL (more may follow depending on the time I
am willing to commit to maintenance). I have done so because, contrary to the
views of The SCO Group, such a release has been of benefit to me and to my
customers. Open source software may also, I believe, contribute to the economic
recovery now underway.
I am not alone in my opinions on this matter. IBM, Sun Microsystems, Hewlet
Packard, Silicon Graphics Inc, Cray Supercomputers, and other technology
companies have committed large resources to the development of Linux and other
open source solutions. Hipocritically, The Sco Group (while not making any
contributions, to my knowledge) relies on the open source package SAMBA for
network interoperability with Windows.
Also, a few more cautionary words need be said about The SCO Group.
The SCO Group has threatened legal action against hundreds of Linux end-users
for using allegedly infringing software (the ABI code), yet previously they have
stated publically that they do not own copyrights to these files. As in other
instances where SCO has claimed that certain code is infringing, the source of
the files has been quickly found to be independent of the code SCO claims to own
(the UNIX SVRX code, which Novell claims to own as well). Furthermore, they
licensed those files under the same licenses they now claim are contrary to
copyright law.
SCO's CEO, Darl McBride, characterized the litigation strategy as a success due
to the fact that it has dramatically increased their market capitalization.
However, a quick look at SCO's SEC filings shows that their sales and revenue
have continued to decline. The only benefit to their company has been an
increase in the stock price, making me wonder whether this is an Enron-style
scam. Furthermore, a few days after an independent website (at
http://www.groklaw.net) pointed out severe defficiencies in their S-3 filing,
they revised it. You, and the SEC, may find the amended S-3 filing
interesting.
Most Truly Yours,
Chris Travers
Additional Groklaw Note:
I wonder if MS does have a strategy here and is using SCO for something bigger.
If the GPL is declared illegal either through an act of congress or via the
courts, this will in essence make distribution of SAMBA problematic. THis would
likely accelerate the decline of proprietary UNIX, and hand the market to
Windows on a silver platter.
Not that I think that it is likely. This case has attracted WAY too much
attention, and lobbyists at IBM will certainly bring some balance to any
SCO-sighted discussion.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Kristoffer on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 08:00 AM EST |
This letter reminds me of what I sometimes hear from the record industry: 1)
we have an a priori right to be in the market, and 2) that right must be
protected by law, no matter what. In real life companies often just don't cut it
because they make inferior products, and sometimes an entire industy is
vaporized by technological progress. The clever ones adapt instead of
resist.
I thought competition was an essential parameter in a
capitalistic society. If 10,000 people around the world sit down and write a
competitive operating system (Linux) how on earth can that ever be
anti-competitive?! "Because they give it away for free" I hear you say. Well,
it's not free as in gratis: Red Hat charge money for their Enterprise server,
and IIRC Red Hat made profit in the last quater. Even if it was free as in
gratis should it be the job of a democratic government to outlaw such a
copyright-based development model in order to support the market share and
revenue stream of another company. Even when considering that any governmental
money saved on lower software prices could be used for improvements of society,
like e.g. health-care.
But before we celebrate the vast amounts of money
saved by switching to Linux, lets not forget that the Linux that SCO claims is
gratis (as in "zero monetary value") is the same Linux that Microsoft claims has
a higher Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) than their products. The message seems to
be that Linux is gratis and very expensive. If this came out of the same company
it would be clearly paradoxial to anyone - maybe that's why Microsoft contracted
with SCO for this doublespeak FUD campain?
Should we have a slogan
like:
The price you pay for free software (like Linux) is not in the
currency of money, but in the rights you accept to grant others when you
distribute free software. If you wish to distribute copies or modifications of
the software, you still hold copyright to your own code, but you pay the price
of giving others the right to modify and distribute the software under the
condition that they comply with the GPL. That is the essence of the GPL. If you
will not accept the GPL, your rights to use the software are limited according
to copyright law. Hence, you're allowed to use and modify the software, but not
to copy or distribute it.
I hope I got the GPL right there. More
clear suggestions are welcome! The key point is that GPL software is not public
domain code that anyone can use as they see fit. For some the price of accepting
the GPL is simply to high as they will not release their source code under the
GPL. A recent example of this is the controversy between the MPlayer developers
and danish Kiss Technology. Kiss are unwilling to release their "media player"
(the application in their DVD/DivX stand-alone players) under the GPL and
therefore they are not allowed to include copyrighted GPL code (allegedly
MPlayer code) in the application. It's very simple.
Sorry for the rant!
:-)
./ Kristoffer[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Stumbles on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 08:10 AM EST |
Finally we get to see McBrides hidden agenda. I wonder where
the money trail goes. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Dale on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 08:11 AM EST |
This letter upset me greatly. Perhaps that was its intent.
I entirely disagree with its claim that open source software may be a
"threat to our international competitive position" or a
"threat to our national security".
I am an engineer for a US Aerospace company. We design and build rocket engines
for spacecraft. The control of these rocket engines during flight qualification
requires very tight timing tolerances. In the past we were forced to design and
build our own control computers, nearly from scratch, including both hardware
and software. These machines cost us close to $600,000 each to produce. That
had a significant impact on cost of operations, and that cost was eventually
borne by the customers, including the US Government.
Three years ago I started a project to replace the control systems with COTS
hardware and OS, and our own control software. The hardware was easy, it's a
commodity now. The OS selection was more difficult, $15,000 for a license for a
hard real-time OS, less for run-time licenses, but still not cheap. Since I was
to initially deploy 15 of these machines, that became a significant amount of
money. Enter Linux. I had used Linux for a number of years in different
projects, but all were using the general purpose version of the OS. I decided
to try out RTLinux, the hard realtime version developed by Victor Yodaiken and
Michael Barabanov.
With RTLinux I was able to develop hard realtime control systems that have
jitter measured in nanoseconds. We do not sell our software. I didn't have to
modify the OS. There is nothing to force us to release our software to the
public. It is, in fact, proprietary, even though it uses RTLinux and the Linux
operating system. And it saved us a significant amount of money, which has
allowed us to further trim our costs to our customers and has helped to
strengthen our position in the international marketplace. And as for national
security, our engines are what keep quite a number of spacecraft in position and
functional.
Linux has helped both our competitiveness and security.
It seems to me that Darl embodies the worst of capitalism.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: pogson on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 08:17 AM EST |
My hypocisy detector also reports that it ("hypocrisy")
This is laughable. Vicous, but laughable.("Vicious")
That I have so little comment is indicative of 99.999% agreement.
---
We used to optimize the innermost loop. Now it fits in the cache of a chip.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 08:37 AM EST |
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1455155,00.asp
It seems to me that this answers the question if the letter is real or not.
Maybe I am wrong I don't know but here it is anyway.
~JUSTIN THAYER~[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 08:48 AM EST |
Having just been made aware (can't remember where) of this law, could this
letter (if SCO is stupid enough to step up and claim ownership) constitute a
chargable offense?
IANEAP (. . not even a paralegal), but I would think that claiming that GPL is a
violation of the Copyright law constitutes a threat against the TITLE (as in the
"title" to your car) of that property.
This threat was clearly made with the intent of preventing the future sale (gee,
Bill, I mean Darl, how can you have a "sale" of something that's
free?) of someone else's property, and possibly an attempt to actualy steal the
property (in the sense of taking away the copyright holders' right to
distribute it as the owner sees fit).
(Gee, Bill, I mean Darl, how can you simultaniously claim that someone is a
threat to the concept of Copyright, while trying to overturn his Copyright?)
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: photocrimes on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 08:55 AM EST |
We have seen this all before.
>>>
Microsoft vs. the NSA
SE Linux may be the NSA's last direct contribution to open-source security,
however. Because of loud criticism, the NSA will have a far less direct role in
the creation of more secure versions of open-source software.
"We didn't fully understand the consequences of releasing software under
the GPL (General Public License)," said Dick Schafer, deputy director of
the NSA. "We received a lot of loud complaints regarding our efforts with
SE Linux."
Many complaints criticized the agency for providing the fruits of research to
everyone, not just U.S. companies, and thus hurting American business.
While stressing that the agency received a loud chorus of support as well, the
chagrined Schafer said that the issue was contentious enough that "we
won't be doing anything like that again."
Sources familiar with events said that aggressive Microsoft lobbying efforts
have contributed to a halt on any further work. "Microsoft was worried
that the NSA's releasing open-source software would compete with American
proprietary software," said a source familiar with the complaints against
the NSA who asked not to be identified.
Microsoft would not comment directly on its lobbying efforts, but did stress
that it wanted to ensure the government continued to fund commercial ventures.
"The federal government plays an important role in funding basic software
research," said a Microsoft representative. "Our interest is in
helping to ensure that the government licenses its research in ways that take
into account a stated goal of the U.S. government: to promote commercialization
of public research."
The debate over whether the government should fund open source projects has been
raging for some time. In July, MITRE, a defense contractor and think tank,
released a much-awaited report sponsored by the Department of Defense endorsing
the use of open-source software in the government.
"Open source methods and products are well worth considering seriously in
a wide range of government applications," the report concluded.
After news of the favorable report leaked out in May, a second report appeared
in early June from the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, a newcomer to the
open-source debate, calling such software insecure. A press release preceding
the report breathlessly announced "open-source software may offer target
for terrorists."
Many critics have claimed that Microsoft funded the report, but a Microsoft
representative denied that charge, saying that while the software giant does
fund the institution, it doesn't fund any specific research.
Despite the intense battle surrounding the open source, the NSA will still fund
research on secure operating systems based on Linux as well as work with U.S.
companies to create better security in their own operating systems.
Both Red Hat's CEO Matthew Szulik and Chief Technology Officer Michael Tiemann
said the company is working with the NSA on security projects, but neither would
give details about the initiatives. On Tuesday morning, Tiemann and other
technologists from companies including Intel, IBM and Oracle met to discuss the
future of Linux in the government, said a source familiar with the meeting.
<<<
Just as an update, you will note NSA never did "stop" working on
SE-Linux. After that article was released the NSA forums lit up with rebutal.
Nobody ever even hinted that we would stop work on it. Seems Schafer was just
popping off to the press. I'm not really sure what happened in the long run.
Development never shut down and it's still going strong. NSA did outsource a
huge contract to a Microsoft vendor soon after. Microsoft piped down a bit after
that. Not saying that it's conected, just odd.
Just looks like the same old crap but Microsoft has found somebody new to spew
it. Even if they are not behind this, they can't claim it's not the same
message they evangelized three years ago. Purhaps one of our favorite reporters
could do a story about SCO titled "Microsoft's hit men"
Just FYI, The Alexis de Tocqueville Institution also did another study showing
that an MCSE cert was worth more than a 4 year college degree, I know this is a
touchy subject but please note the only cert they speak of is Microsoft's bread
and butter money maker cert. The only reason I mention this is because SCO is
just starting to walk the walk of a Microsoft funded "objective
report" if ya know what I mean.
;-)
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-950083.html
(P.S. If you hit NSA's SE-Linux forum from the project you will get a real
taste of what Microsoft is like. It looks like a bad trailer for the SCO movie.
This is just another tactic right out of the Microsoft play book.)
---
//A picture is worth a thousand words//[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: blacklight on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 09:02 AM EST |
"The SCO Group has met with several U.S. government agencies. We have been
encouraged to see that, unique among the organizations with which we've
met [my italics], most government agencies understand the implications of
SCO's case."
I guess this statement pretty much whacks off the SCO
Group's claim that "we are talking to potential licensees who can't wait to have
our licenses available" (approximate quote).[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: blacklight on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 09:14 AM EST |
I will make the point that outlawing the US agencies' use of Open Source
software will have the effect of putting the US government among the select
group of the banned: to wit, Cuba, Lybia, Iran and North Korea. I personally
believe that would be the kind of incredibly stupid and silly outcome that not
only will cause us to be the laughingstock of the world but cause some really
serious injury to the larger interests of the American people - but hey, it's
only my opinion![ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 09:20 AM EST |
I'm in Canada. And you know what? From here and probably from every other
contry in the world, it really doesn't matter what your congress thinks and
what your laws are.
It would be phisically and logistically impossible for the US gov. to kill OSS.
Your gov. cannot come to my shop and tell me I can't use it. The US gov cannot
go into every programmer's house and arrest them for working on OSS in the
privacy of their own home. The US gov cannot force any other government or any
citizen of other countries to stop using or developping OSS. It's pure madness.
The whole movement started in a foreign country to begin with!
ALL the US government can do is limit or stop the use of OSS in it's own
system, and since OSS is already firmly implanted and rapidly growing, I don't
think a complete reversal is even possible.
The people in the government who I believe have to most power over software are
actually the IT folks. If you're a congressman pondering the value and benefits
of an application over another, who are you going to ask. SCO or the IT guy who
runs your office and works down the hall?
I think too much weight is being given to those letters. Sure they are about a
hair beyong slander, and obviously all kinds of malicious intent can certainly
be given to them. But the reality is, OSS isn't going away and a few ranting
letters sent to clueless congressmen don't stand a chance because as far a
lobbying for the cause is concerned, I don't think SCO can even come close to
mustering the kind of tidal wave the all the OSS supporters can generate as a
group.
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
- Don't panic! - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 10:41 AM EST
- Don't panic! - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 11:02 AM EST
- Don't panic! - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 11:03 AM EST
- Don't panic! - Authored by: the_flatlander on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 01:14 PM EST
- Don't panic! - Authored by: beast on Friday, January 23 2004 @ 02:23 AM EST
- Don't panic! - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, January 23 2004 @ 04:56 AM EST
- Don't panic! - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, January 23 2004 @ 03:25 AM EST
| |
| Authored by: RedBarchetta on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 09:21 AM EST |
Ok, follow me on this one folks. I found this incredibly
slanted
research report on Yahoo. Here is the URL to buy
a report on
Yahoo, followed by the summary:
Link to
PriceTargetResearch SCO summary
"SCO GROUP is currently rated A (highest rating).
Appreciation potential (98) is very high; power rating
(89) is
very high. Relative to the S&P 500 Composite, SCO
GROUP Inc
has moderate Growth characteristics; appeal is
likely to be to
Capital Gain-oriented investors;
perception is that SCOX is
higher risk. Current annual
total return performance of 949.2%
is upper quartile.
Over
the full time period,
SCO GROUP's stock price performance
has been variable and
significantly below market. SCO...
"
Ok, so I then try to find out who PriceTargetResearch is,
and all I get is this shell of a web
site with no way to contact, phone or fax them, except
an
e-mail address. You can buy reports and pay
using PayPal. Oh yeah,
very professional.
So then I perform a
WHOIS on the "pricetarget" domain
name, and I find that an
organization named J.M. Lafferty Associates out of
Chicago,
IL., is the domain owner. The admin reference
points to someone
at jmlafferty.com.
So I follow the trail
even further and I find a web site:
www.jmlafferty.com. Lo and
behold, the admin of the
domain PriceTargetResearch.com is the VP
of JM Lafferty
and Associates.
Ok, so I follow the trail even further. I click on the
"About Us/Our website" button on the jmlafferty.com site,
and
follow the "IRAgent" link, and I find this quote:
"Strategic IR (investment research, I
suspect)
We will continue to deliver
our products and services
with professionalism and at reasonable
cost and our teams
will work closely to assure that the products
delivered
best fulfill our clients' overall needs."
Draw your own conclusions; my impression is that
this is
a shell web site that's a front for a company that
provides reports customized to the client's whims
(as in SCO
"buying a report?").
From the same JM
Lafferty page, I clock on "Investors
Agent" and lookup SCOX. Here
is their summary:
"SCO Group, Inc.'s
(SCOX), formerly Caldera
International
Inc.,
business is focused on serving the needs of small
businesses,
including replicated site franchisees of
fortune 1000 companies,
to have reliable, cost
effective
Linux and UNIX
operating systems and software products to
power computers
running on Intel architecture. The
company's largest source
of revenue is derived from its
indirect, leveraged channel of
partners, which (blah blah
blah)"
I find it quite odd that this investment company that
touts
it's knowledge and "intelligence" is so drastically
incorrect on
several faces. IMHO, it appears to be a sham
"investment counseling firm"
that takes payment in
exchange for favorable reports. Sound familiar?
(Micr***, cough, cough, ahem....)
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Tim Ransom on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 09:21 AM EST |
Here's Diametricly Dualistic Darl explaining what 'impressed him' about Linux.
Can you guess what it was?
From here:
DL: Do you remember how you first heard of Linux?
McBride: When I was
at Novell, Ransom Love had a team working on it. So I eventually hooked them up
with Ray Noorda (founder and former CEO of Novell, now Canopy Group). I was
running our NetWare Embedded Technology Group. I heard about Linux and Mosaic at
the same time. The thing that captured me more at the time was the browser, to
be honest, because I'd never seen one before. What impressed me about Linux
was Open Source.
DL: Did you understand Open Source at that time,
or did the concept come later?
McBride: I did understand it because I
was pretty close to Ray when we did the acquisition of USL (Unix Systems Lab) in
1993. It wasn't a new notion, but they way they were approaching it was
unique.
And:
DL: I think Novell and Linux are the great
unrecognized marriage in today's OS space.
McBride: Right. I think
you're on to something.
Thanks again,[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: RSC on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 09:22 AM EST |
I wounder if SCO sent one of it's letters to the DOD? Or even the NSA?
If they did, I would love to see the response from them. Especially to the
suggestion that they pay the license fee.
I think,that even if the congress people were stupid enough to aggreed with
Darls' requests. A lot of the encumbant Public Service top dogs would quickly
make it clear that it was a *bad* idea.
Come to think of it, I would have thought that the US Govt. has a vested
interest in seeing the entire fiaSCO diappear.
MS may have the money to buy a lot of political support for the death of Linux,
but I am not sure thay have enough to buy off certain US Govt. departments (EG:
DOD, DOE, CIA, NSA etc), who have a lot more influence than the MS lobby group.
To buy off these types of departments, they will need a better product than
Linux, and it is clear they have no interest in actually creating one.
---
----
An Australian who IS interested.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: blacklight on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 09:29 AM EST |
I parallel this latest letter of the SCO Group to a propstitute's decision to
display her wares on a different street corner, because her efforts on the
current street don't seem to bring any good results. I guess the SCO Group did
not appreciate the way the ungrateful, unwashed and unappreciative bastards of
the groklaw community disremembered - er, deconstructed - their last open
letter.
I see a pattern where rather than try to refute OSS's debunking, the SCO Group
will take its same old, discredited message to some new audience, be it the
financial press, the rag trade press, US corporate chieftains, the US government
or the Congress. I take this pattern as a strong additional indicator that OSS
is in the right and the SCO Group in the wrong.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 09:36 AM EST |
What is so sickening about this is that Darl's precious "value of
Unix" would not exist without open source.
Unless you have been living in a hole for the last ten years, it's patently
obvious to anyone who's paying attention and who even minimally understands the
industry that Unix would be *dead* were it not for the open source community.
Linux, combined with all the apps written by open source groups such as Apache
and Samba, have kept Unix alive when Microsoft's market share was in danger of
hitting nearly 100% and when everyone in the industry was talking about how neat
Windows NT was and how old and obsolete Unix was.
Darl's company continues to sell a Unix product integrated with open-source
applications. For him to have so clearly benefitted from the volunteer efforts
of so many people, and then to attack and slander them so viciously, is
unbelievably sick and reprehensible. Whether it's the result of pure malice
and foulness of character, or whether it's the result of an idiot so out of
touch with reality that he actually believes this stuff, is irrelevant.
I've grown up in this country, and I cannot recall ever seeing such a foul
display performed so publicly by any person in American business. (Of course,
you always have the Enron stuff.. but they didn't have the gaul to get up and
say that the people they ripped off were the ones who were the crooks and were
"unamerican.")
Write your senators and congressmen, and be sure to explain just what it is
these guys are actually doing. Be polite and be articulate, but explain.
Explain that, having been handed an opportunity by the efforts of volunteers,
Darl now seeks to insult those volunteers and misappropriate their efforts.
Explain their obvious lawsuit-mill behavior of failing to mitigate (and actually
encouraging) damages. Explain their insults to the people whose efforts prop up
their business.
IANAL but,
The other thing that needs to be done is that we need to withdraw support for
SCO completely somehow. Would it be legal to include in the license for open
source products that they may not be used on any platform marketed by the SCO
Group? Is the copyright holder allowed to attach an addendum to the license
like that? If so, the Samba group should do this immediately and then seek an
injunction against Caldera for copyright violation. It would be great if open
source project could demand that SCO remove the software and issue a DMCA
complaint if they don't. It's a shame the GPL has no provision for this. It
should.
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
- Sickening - Authored by: stanmuffin on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 10:01 AM EST
- Sickening - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 11:00 AM EST
| |
| Authored by: markecul on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 09:38 AM EST |
I am a new user and I have just contacted my Senators and representatives.
Thanks GrokLaw - AWESOME website!!!
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: blacklight on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 09:40 AM EST |
The SCO Group's actions have run so far against the interests of the American
people that I describe them as cynically betraying one's country in the name of
patriotism - not that this sort of thing has not been done before in other
countries and in other times, places and circumstances.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 09:41 AM EST |
just to officially 'express the concern regarding the fact... etc' (like US
State Department loves to do when criticizing foreign governments - they don't
interfere, they 'express concerns' ;-)
In fact, many things that happen in US IT industry involve not only US -
including DMCA or Verisign 'creative networking' for example...
P.S. I checked the original PDF - there is _no_ "[sic!]"[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: blacklight on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 09:48 AM EST |
"The Open Source community now includes several major corporations"
... And these corporations are making billions of dollars with Linux and Linux
related services. To mention the existence of these corporations in a letter,
one of whose points is that Open Source is bad for business, is
self-contradictory. The SCO Group has been self-contradictory before - in its
own legal filings and within the same legal filing no less. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Tsu Dho Nimh on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 09:58 AM EST |
| Darl's fatal logic flaw ... he's only looking at the loss to proprietary
software companies like SCO. To ALL other industries, software is an EXPENSE to
be minimized. The money that is NOT spent on proprietary software WILL be spent
on other things, and taxes will not be reduced. What I don't pay as an EXPENSE
is a PROFIT (taxable, last I looked) or can be spent on other things, like
factory upgrades, salaries, or R&D.
He's like a hay dealer decrying the
loss to the economy when automobiles came in, demanding that gas motors be
outlawed. The smart ones became blacksmith/mechanics and sold gas along with
the hay, then transitioned ot being srevice staitons. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: blacklight on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 10:01 AM EST |
On a different note, I will return to my Vietnamese ancestry and wish each and
every member of the groklaw community a Happy New Year of the Monkey (and I hope
the Monkey in question gets to do a masterpiece of a four-handed kung fu live
demo on the SCO Group. While I would be able to guarantee that no animals were
hurt during the demo, I don't think I want to say the same things about some of
the humans unwillingly involved at the receiving end of that demo). Given the
state of the economy, last year's Year of the Horse was the Year of the
Horse's Ass and the more quickly we forget about that year, the better.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 10:06 AM EST |
I understand now.
SCO was supposed to make a diversion in OSS world. To take their tank and drive
for as long as they can into the wals around them. For MS to collect the bounty,
of course, but the dumm mercenary didn't get it...
It went wrong. SCO, turned out, does not has a tank. They are on foot and
bumping into the walls with their heads. Yet, they crossed the red line, and
cannot go back. MS, they are not happy, but this is at least something, so they
will secretly encourage SCO to keep running into the croud, surely sacrafizing
themselves, but also a bunch of people around them, driving them over...
This is pure terrorism, ladies and gents. Same way pallestinian shahids are
running into the croud, hoping to stay alive ... just long enough to take even
more people with them...[ Reply to This | # ]
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- I agree... - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 12:06 PM EST
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| Authored by: RichMan on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 10:18 AM EST |
I got this from the yahoo message boards. Really great quote pushing the open
UNIX development philosophy.
http://finance.messages.yahoo.com/bbs?.mm=FN&action=m&board=1600684464&a
mp;tid=cald&sid=1600684464&mid=84372&thr=84372&cur=84372&dir
=d
From IP transferred to SCOX in attach E
by: cat_herder_5263 (M/TX) 01/22/04 08:24 am
Msg: 84372 of 84400
I have in my hand one of the documents referenced in Attachment E. "Unix
System V 3.2 Programmers Guide - Volume I", copyright 1989 by AT&T.
From the introduction:
--------8< quote >8--------
UNIX System Philosophy Simply Stated
For as long as you are writing programs on a UNIX system you should keep this
motto hanging on your wall:
* Build on the work of others *
Unlike computer environments where each new project is like starting with a
blank canvas, on a UNIX system a good percentage of any programming effort is
lying there in bin, and lbin, and /usr/bin, not to mention etc, waiting to be
used.
The features of the UNIX system (pipes, processes, and the file system)
contribute to this reusability, as does the history of sharing and contributing
that extends back to 1969. You risk missing the essential nature of the UNIX
system if you don't put this to work.
--------8< quote >8--------
Now what's all this fuss about pinko commie hippy weirdos stealing code????
=^^=
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 10:30 AM EST |
Just pray that Tom DeLay does not get involved. There may be a Christian angle
to this, and you do not want to know what it is.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 10:33 AM EST |
Maybe a bit OT, but couldn't the copyright holders of the GPL'd software that
SCO(mbags) is bundling with their 'products(?)' merely revoke SCO's ability to
redistribute said copyrighted GPL'd code? Or even sue SCO for violating the
terms of the license under which the code is distributed?
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: lightsail on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 10:34 AM EST |
If this letter is authenticated, I simply see it as a continuing Lanham act
violation. IBM, RedHat, and Novell will have additional material to show SCOG
has continued to interfere with each company's Linux business.
It is my perception that SCOG is maintaining a high level of publicity to
support a pump-n-dump or pump-n-squeeze stock manipulation. The lawsuit is a
smoke screen to prolong the scheme. The writing to elected officials is simply
another form of smoke screen. "How can writing my Congressman be an
illegal act?" will be the defense of the action. Just as "We were
just conducting a civil lawsuit, how can that be a illegal act?" will be
the defense of other actions.
If SCOG management keeps the stock price elevated for enough time to complete
the scheme without jail time for any members of management, this technique may
be come a "example" of quality "end game management" for
the dying company. It is my hope that the various authorities see through the
smoke screen and nail Darl's hide to the wall! [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: sbungay on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 10:55 AM EST |
Looks like a troll to me. I sit here in disbelief when I think that such a
frothing-at-the-mouth display of emotonially loaded rhetoric can possibly
eminate from an organization trying to convince everybody that they are being
wronged.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: PJP on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 11:03 AM EST |
open source software is subject to exactly the same export licensing
restrictions as is SCO.
True, but facts have little to do with
politics. A direct analogy is what some activists and polititans refer to as
"The gunshow loophole" which they claim allows criminals and terrorists to
obtain arms with no checks or formalities at all at gunshows.
This is
patently false, the same federal laws apply to federally licenced gun dealers no
matter where they do business, and to the illegal purchase of weapons by any
person who is not entitled to own weapons, but this fact has not stopped several
state and local laws being passed and calls being made for the federal
government to pass a similar law.
Just because something is obviously
untrue, don't for one second believe that will protect against any polititian
who receives sufficient funding from a pressure group. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: roman_mir on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 11:05 AM EST |
I suggest MS buys SCO out and changes its name to:
(drum rolls please)
drrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...
..
..
..
BanG:
Micro$COft[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: moogy on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 11:13 AM EST |
Darl said that when he took the job of CEO he started to look
around closely at the failing company to try to find a way
to save it. He says he looked at the Novell-SCO contract
closely and determined that SCO owned the UNIX IP. He then
had his engineers compare the Linux kernel code with the
UNIX legacy code the he believed he owned and came to a
determination that Linux was an unauthorized derivative
of the UNIX IP he believed they owned thus setting the
stage for the SCOSource licensing initiative and the means
by which SCO would be saved.
Although you and I may think he has no basis for this, he
continues to promote Linux licensing to his investors and
the public as a very successful revenue source that will
eventually earn them huge profits and make them an industry
leader. This all, of course, depends upon Linux remaining
widely used. No Linux users, no Licensing potential. The
more Linux users there are the more money they will make.
Now why is Darl suddenly writing to US Congress trying to
udermine and eliminate purchases and use of Linux within
the government? He is trying to reduce his potential
market for his SCOSource licensing? He is trying to
eliminate all his potential customers? This makes no
sense. Darl should be encouraging the spread of Linux
thus maximizing his profits, instead he is trying to
decrease the customer base as he has defined it for
his investors.
How can his letter and Darl's actions make any sense?
The only way I see it as making sense is that he has been
funded by someone who has a very big interest in
undermining the spread of Linux. They see that they are
soon going to lose their court cases and thus need to
maximize the return on their FUD investments before SCO dies.
Yes I am talking a conspiracy and I've always hated even
considering such in most cases but when you eliminate
the possible causes of an event and are left with only
one that makes any sense at all, then you should except
that one cause regardless of how fantastic it sounds.
---
Mike Tuxford - irc.fdfnet.net #Groklaw
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you,
then they fight you, then you win. --Gandhi
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
- Motivation - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 11:39 AM EST
- Motivation - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 01:18 PM EST
- Motivation - Authored by: Jude on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 08:00 PM EST
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 11:13 AM EST |
Darl says (if this is a genuine letter)
"Through the years, Congress has repeatedly dealt with the tough issues of
predatory pricing and "dumping". I contend that the ultimate
predatory price is "free". There is no more damaging example of
dumping than the widespread availability of highly capable software that
devalues intellectual property by making it available at no cost -- in direct
competition with the products from which it is derived."
He'll have a tough time with that one. Predatory pricing is the sale of goods
at less than cost. You could only accuse the F/OSS movement of predatory pricing
if there's a cashback sticker with each download.
Darl, for once you're right; I too contend that the ultimate predatory pricing
is "free". It was MS "dumping" IE to crush Netscape.
--
An interested bystander
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 11:17 AM EST |
I think the best analogy that a congressman would understand is the following:
Think of SCO as a company that builds barns. SCO is encouraging congress to ban
barn-raisings because it detracts from their business. They would like you to
believe that the constitution of the United States guarantees them the right to
sell their product, and to prevent individuals from freely associating to build
the same barns that they sell.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: mojotoad on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 11:19 AM EST |
Since nobody has pointed it out yet, from this paragraph of the
letter:
First, Linux and Open Source software are developed and
distributed (often at no cost) under a scheme called the GNU General Public
License (GPL) which, some believe, is in direct contradiction to U.S. Copyright
law, to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and to the recent Supreme
Court decision in Eldred v. Ashcroft. I have attached a document that describes
in detail the problems of the GPL and the ways in which it violates current U.S.
statutes.
In that opening sentence they claim that all Open
Source is distributed under the GPL.
False!
As we know, the GPL is but
one of many Free/Open Source licenses -- noteably Apache is distributed under
the Apache license rather than GPL.
Matt [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: kcassidy on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 11:20 AM EST |
So GPL software is a threat to national security? All open source software is a
threat to US national security? Wow. That's deep. I mean, I understand the US
restrictions on exporting software to identified countries in order to make the
US and its allies more secure, but Tux Racer has now become a threat to national
security? GNU Chess is a threat to national US security? ALL GPLd
software is a threat? I guess SMBA had better go then... as well as all the
other software that SCO has included in its versions of Linux and UNIX, since
they are now providing threats to national security, and all organizations that
provide a threat should be shot down...
DARL McBRIDE: We did it!
Congress passed the bill to make all open source products illegal!
KEVIN
McBRIDE: We use a lot of open source products in our operating systems. We
wanted ownership, not illegality!
DARL: ... Sh*t.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Curtman on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 11:32 AM EST |
Funny, I downloaded my copy of SCO OpenServer 5.0.5 from SCO at no charge along
with a free personal license a year or two ago. I wonder if they had somehow
blocked access to that from Iran, Libya, etc.. I highly doubt it.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: guyNiowa on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 12:01 PM EST |
You could call the tactics being used as "Inflame Then Blame" as in
imflame the Open Source community at every opportunity to provoke as
much IRRATIONAL and inflamatory response as possible then blame the
community for being irrational, irrisponsible, etc. etc. The timing and
frequency of these are very interesting. But we need to stay calm and not
give them what thay want. I also think there is a very strong connection
to MS, but that will be very dificult to prove.
Craig Carpenter
---
Somewhere in Texas a village is missing its Idiot-bumper sticker[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: PJP on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 12:11 PM EST |
| This is really, really off topic, but it just seemed so appropriate I
couldn't resist.
Take a look at this and help Darl to deal with
the Linux menace.
[Hint you need to click on the picture - twice.] [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 12:12 PM EST |
I found it interesting that the National Security Agency, who's vested interests
are matters of "National Security" (of course), both use and promote the use of
linux.
http://www.nsa.gov/selinux/
A quote or
two:
"End systems must be able to enforce the separation of information
based on confidentiality and integrity requirements to provide system security.
Operating system security mechanisms are the foundation for ensuring such
separation. Unfortunately, existing mainstream operating systems lack the
critical security feature required for enforcing separation: mandatory
access control."
"Linux was chosen as the platform for this work
because its growing success and open development environment provided an
opportunity to demonstrate that this functionality can be successful in a
mainstream operating system and, at the same time, contribute to the security of
a widely used system."
I think I'll actually trust the NSA before I
start listening to Darl & Co who's vested interests are its
shareholders, and not the American public, or anyone elses public for
that matter.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 12:33 PM EST |
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/ptech/01/22/linux.desktop.reut/index.html
This article doesn't appear to be trying to spread FUD but it contains a few,
uh, misleading statements which echo common FUD in pro-MS publications and
MS-sponsored studies:
'As never before, corporate customers are turning to Linux ... if only they
could get the word processor's basic "cut and paste" feature to
work.' I haven't had any problems with cut-and-paste working, unless they
mean cut-and-pasting mixed graphics with text between Gnome and non-Gnome
applications.
'It works 98 percent of the time. But it's the 2 percent of the time it
doesn't that kills you' This is a quote from the lead WINE developer. I can
only assume it is out of context.
'Linux relies on a network of independent programmers to improve its software.
Its users are required to share the computer code they create.' This is the MS
and SCO "it destroys IP" argument. It is, of course, mostly false.
It is true that if users distribute a modified version of a GPLed program or
distribute a new program incorporating a non-fair use portion of a GPLed program
they must distribute source. But nothing forces them to distribute the code in
the first place, or even to base their work on someone else's software!
'The trouble for Linux is that it must move quickly to create a credible
alternative to Windows. Analysts say Linux has a window of opportunity before
Microsoft's next major operating system ...' I remember hearing this in
1994! It turned out not to be true then and it isn't true now. Sure it would
be nice to takeover the desktop market and now is a good time. But if Linux
doesn't it won't wither and die.
Those are the worst in the article. If you read them without reading the rest
you will think it is completely anti-Linux which it is not. I think they may
have been striking for a balance or something. I just found those particular
statements to be somewhat incorrect.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 12:59 PM EST |
"I decided not to publish the letter until I could get either a second
source or someone willing to go on the record, because that is Groklaw
policy"
ROTFLMAO!!!!!! Since when? What about all those Bill/Belinda conspiracy theories
of yours, that you have absolutely no evidence of? PJ, I very much dislike SCO
too, but you're way over the top and making us civil Linux advocates look like
raving maniacs...
You have made the most egregious error a journalist can make: you believe your
own press...
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: pooky on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 01:10 PM EST |
Well, if I wasn’t convinced before that SCO and probably Microsoft in the
background are very worried about their future competitiveness against Open
Source products, this is pretty convincing that this is indeed the case, no
matter what Microsoft says publicly.
There is one, and only one, reason for lobbying congress in this manner. SCO’s
intention is now very clear to the rest of the world. SCO’s goal and aim is in
fact to destroy Open Source developed software and it’s competitiveness in the
world marketplace (especially the US). They can claim lots of things in the
press to convince people that OSS is flawed, that the licensing is flawed, but
that does not require lobbying congress to this end.
So, perhaps Microsoft’s purpose is clear here. They know they can keep UNIX
operating systems down to a small segment of the server market and that it will
virtually never invade the desktop market due to total lack of innovation to
that end. The desktop isn’t UNIX’s primary marketplace. Microsoft seems willing
to fund SCO’s campaign in an effort to have SCO either a) destroy Linux and OSS
or b) get ownership of Linux directly to remove it’s effectiveness in competing
with Microsoft’s own operating systems.
This willingness must be born in a deep founded worry about the pace at which
Linux is advancing in the business marketplace, Microsoft’s most profitable
segment of customers. Microsoft is not stupid, they can see as plainly as we can
that if Linux continues to grow at the pace it which it is currently growing, it
will eclipse Microsoft in the next few years as the dominant OS used on
computers. Microsoft also knows if they let this happen the game is over.
Microsoft, SCO, NO COMPANY can innovate as quickly and as securely as the Open
Source community has already proven they can. Microsoft knows they can’t buy
their competitor in OSS, and they cannot out-innovate the OSS community.
Microsoft’s pace of development in the last few years has clearly been at the
expense of quality and thus security.
Make no mistake about it, this is Microsoft’s backhanded, direct assault on OSS
and the community that develops OSS. Look at the tone of the letter, great for
an election year. SCO attacks the major areas that will be a major factor in
this election in hopes of getting action. The decry that OSS will be the undoing
of the economic recovery of the US. They decry that OSS is a threat to national
security. They decry that OSS will endanger the US’s leadership position in the
world for software development. These all speak to peoples general common fears
in the US today. Vicious is too polite a word. “Act of war” is a term that seems
to come to mind.
-pooky
---
Veni, vidi, velcro.
"I came, I saw, I stuck around."
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Karina on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 01:14 PM EST |
This doesn't just smell like Microsoft... it reads like it was written from
Steve Ballmer's (MS's CEO) pen.
If you're not familiar with his anti-linux/gpl comments and his ongoing love of
the word "innovation" then open Google and put in: steve ballmer
linux
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 01:35 PM EST |
I agree with you, PJ. This is much to intelligently worded to have been written
by Darl or Kevin.
-AIB.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: kbq on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 01:45 PM EST |
PJ - are you planning to provide us with a summary of the GPL conference (pretty
please!)?
Thanks --
Kevin Quinn[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 01:58 PM EST |
| And the excuses being given on this site are shallow. To-wit:
if
releasing software that is "free as in beer" is a danger to the economy,
somebody better do something about Microsoft. They are releasing software for
free this very minute. Over the internet too.
LOL, it's always about
Microsoft, is it not for you? Must be a sad lonely life hating something that
is so beneficial to so many others. 90% of the desktops is it not? What is
that, 88% of ALL computers?
The letter is offensive in many ways, and
there are several obviously untrue things in it, but the most egregious is the
assertion that open source is a security risk. If Linux is a security risk, why
is there a National Security Agency version of Linux, Security Enhanced
Linux?
Well if you went to NSA's site and looked for yourself, you'd see
because the open nature of the code allowed the NSA to demonstrate how security
could theorhetically be improved. However they openly admit that SE-Linux is
not a trusted solution, nor is it intended to be.
As OSAIA points out,
open source software is subject to exactly the same export licensing
restrictions as is SCO.
No it's not, you can freely download Linux from
kernel.org, or direct rip offs of Red Hat etc from websites scattered across the
internet. There is little if any control on the unregulated versions of
Linux.
Ask yourself: if someone in North Korea really wanted SCO's
software, would it be a difficulty for them to get it?
Yes, as a matter
of fact it would be much more difficult than going to some website and
downloading the O/S directly without identification or cost. Also large scale
operations require vendor support, something else you're not easily going to get
for Unix in North Korea.
Do you honestly believe that people all around
the world in China or North Korea have any difficulty getting a bootleg copy of
Microsoft's products or have any compunction about lying and saying they are US
citizens so as to download it off the internet?
Obvious strawman,
because if they do it they are doing it illegally, therefore a greater chance of
it being found out and stopped. Also router ID's can often determine where
someone is coming from so that technology can be blocked, and is a common
practice. Guess the free software flunks never thought of that.
Even if
it were possible to outlaw the GPL in the US, or make it so only Americans got
to write software and they were only allowed to write proprietary software, the
rest of the world would continue to write and to use software, including
GNU/Linux software, and would innovate and move forward more rapidly than the
US, leaving the US, in my opinion, not only in a bad position with regard to
security but economically disadvantaged.
The GPL would be invalidated
so that Linux would have to become purely 'public domain'. Might as well since
all 'effective' copyright rights go out the door and the only real use of them
is to confiscate other's IP. What is your basis for claiming this would hurt
the security and economy of America? If Linux didn't exist, we could have been
selling Unix or Windows to these third world countries, both of which would keep
our technology secret and have much higher profits. Sorry if your international
readership is insulted. What percentage of your readership is international
anyway, 75%?
"Those who designed the GPL readily admit that they created
this license to have the effect of 'freeing' software -- taking it out of the
realm of copyright protection by placing it in the public domain. The author of
the GPL is well-known for his view that proprietary software (meaning software
as an intellectual asset from which the designer can derive profit) is
unacceptable."
This is laughable. Vicious, but laughable. I just spent two days
at a seminar on the GPL, but even before I went, I knew that the GPL is based on
copyright law and is enforced by utilizing copyright law and depends on
copyright law to protect it from the likes of SCO.
No it doesn't, GPL'd
code loses all effective copyrights by giving up restrictions on copying and
modifying. The only reasons copyrights are used at all in the GPL scheme are to
require anyone that uses it must adhere to it's cancerous and viral nature of
additional code confiscation.
As for saying that Stallman is against
profits, that is untrue as well
Anyone that knows a lick about Stallman
knows that his religion is making ALL software free. That is the purpose of the
FSF, read it in their charter if you doubt it.
The letter reeks of
Microsoft to my nose. Why?
Easy, because Linux people so despise
Microsoft that they immediately blame them for anything that disrupts their
little baby Linux.
Finally, the letter alleges that open source, because
it is "free as in beer" means "fewer jobs, less software revenue and reduced
incentives for software companies to innovate.
Which is quite an
elementary dedection. Ask Sun, SGI, any of these Unix companies that have
reduced staff and profits even while trying to sell Linux themselves. SCO
tried, and didn't work for them either.
Most obviously, why don't you
ask the #1 Linux vendor of all, Red Hat, why don't they have any free versions
anymore?
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
- I AGREE WITH THE LETTER - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 02:08 PM EST
- No free software from MS - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 02:36 PM EST
- With friends like you... - Authored by: Tim Ransom on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 02:40 PM EST
- Invalidate the GPL ? - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 02:47 PM EST
- Please don't feed the troll - Authored by: Jude on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 03:22 PM EST
- get a clue [I AGREE WITH THE LETTER] - Authored by: pooky on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 03:47 PM EST
- Wow, look at the troll - Authored by: the_flatlander on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 09:00 PM EST
- I AGREE WITH THE LETTER - Authored by: blacklight on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 09:02 PM EST
- I AGREE WITH THE LETTER - Authored by: jkondis on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 09:34 PM EST
- I AGREE WITH THE LETTER - Authored by: brenda banks on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 11:21 PM EST
- Strange Conclusions - Authored by: davcefai on Friday, January 23 2004 @ 01:36 AM EST
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 02:30 PM EST |
A call to those of you who publish in professional journals, particularly
journals of economics, national policy, national security, and the
computing field:
Please write op-ed pieces to discuss the SCO situation and the impact
OSS has in your field. Better yet, do peer-reviewed studies and publish
the results.
Let's get some expert, not-off-the-cuff, writings that answer SCO's
claims, writings that are backed by the respect of a bona fide journal:
Is OSS really
"*a threat to the U.S. information technology industry;
* a threat to U.S.’ competitive position; and
* a threat to national security"
and if so, to what degree? Are there benefits to OSS that outweigh these
arguements?
If you know of any existing articles and studies that have been published
in a bona file journal (online or paper) please post a citation and
summary here. Those of you writing letters to your Congress-people
can then cite these as backup.[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: blacklight on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 03:04 PM EST |
"The Open Source community now includes several major corporations."
Darl McBride.
These corporations also make billions off Linux and Linux related services,
which ruins the SCO Group's argument that Open Source is bad for the US
economy. This is not the first nor will it be the last time that the SCO Group
makes self-contradictory assertions. In fact, the SCO Group makes
self-contradictory assertions even in its own legal filings and within the same
legal filing.
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: tyche on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 03:14 PM EST |
| This link, "It'll Hurt If
I Swallow!" is a response to the letter that to which PJ introduced
us.
Craig
(Tyche) ---
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not
ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."
Stephen Hawking [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 03:23 PM EST |
I'm not too worried about SCO's letter because I suspect most of the
recipients never saw it.
I had a friend who worked for a Senator as a legislative correspondent. Some
time ago, she explained to me how receiving letters worked in her office. Here
it goes, as best I remember:
Senators get a lot of mail. They have assistants that are supposed to be
experts over a certain area (ex. energy, the environment). The assistants read
the letters that come in for that area and also send responses in the senator's
name with the senator's position. In general, the senator never sees a
specific letter. The assistants also keep track of the opinions in the letters,
so they can let the senator know what most people think. I also got the
impression that they don't care about letters from people outside their voting
districts, sort of a "that's nice, but I don't represent you and you
can't vote for me in the next election". (I don't know if letters from
corporations are treated differently than letters from citizens.)
I suspect SCO's one letter got read and has gotten a nice form letter response.
However, if enough of us send letters to our representatives then the
representative will hear about the dominant GPL-friendly opinion.
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: TerryC on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 05:06 PM EST |
Several people have commented in this thread and in other places that the owners
of copyrights of F/OSS software used by SCO, eg Samba etc, should stop them from
using it. Generally the response has been that this is a bad move and would be
playing into Darl's hands. I agree with this sentiment, while feeling the same
kind of frustration about what is going on. I also think that it would be
difficult to do, because I presume that the copyright notice couldn't be
changed retrospectively.
What is needed is to show the world and in this case the US Senate just how much
F/OSS software is out there and how much it contributes to the economy of the US
and the world in general.
Any kind of legal move would be expensive and take too long, but wouldn't it be
terrific if some important part of the internet could be turned off for a very
short period of time at a non-critical time? The F/OSS community would have to
mount a huge publicity campaign, both to ge the buy-in of the people who would
have to co-operate in implementing this and also to tell the rest of the world
why we feel forced to make this demonstration.
Maybe it's not practical; it certainly seems difficult to achieve, but maybe
someone else can come up with a practical variation to achieve the desired
result?
---
Terry[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Charles Holton on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 05:48 PM EST |
| It reads like the work of a total nut-job. I don't think this is going to
improve Mr. McBride's image.
BTW, isn't there an old saying
about patriotism being the last refuge of
scoundrels? [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 07:36 PM EST |
SCO sent that letter and says that is the first of several that they intend to
send.
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/?http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/news_story.php?id=52737[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Tsu Dho Nimh on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 07:40 PM EST |
I made very simple changes, swapping horse-drawn carriages for proprietary
software, transportation for software, Gasoline Powered for "Open Source", and
minot changes to make the theme consistent. Now imagine Darl in business at the
turn of the 20th century, when Benz and Ford and Diesel were beginning to make
radical changes to transportation technology :)
Dear Honorable
_______________:
I am writing to draw your attention to an important
controversy that has become one of the dominant issues in the horse-drawn
carriage industry. The way in which this issue is resolved will have very
important ramifications for
* our nation's economy
* our continued
ability to lead the world in technology
* our international competitive
position in the global horse-drawn carriage industry, and even for
* our
national security.
The source of this controversy is the rapid spread of a
form of transportation called "Gasoline Powered transportation." The most widely
used Gasoline Powered product is a transportation device called Linux. Gasoline
Powered Linux transportation is developed and enhanced by a loose, worldwide
group of volunteers usually called "the Gasoline Powered community." Through the
work of this community of volunteers, lately abetted by the efforts of several
major computing companies, Linux transportation has become a popular way to
transport goods and people.
Innovation in transportation in itself is not a
problem -- the new carriage-making technologies have long been an engine of
growth for our nation. But there are two serious problems associated with the
spread of Linux and the Gasoline Powered approach to transportation development
and distribution.
First, Linux and Gasoline Powered transportation are
developed and distributed (often at no cost) under a scheme called the GNU
General Public License (GPL) which, some believe, is in direct contradiction to
U.S. Copyright law, to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and to the
recent Supreme Court decision in Eldred v. Ashcroft. I have attached a document
that describes in detail the problems of the GPL and the ways in which it
violates current U.S. statutes.
Those who designed the GPL readily admit
that they created this license to have the effect of "freeing" transportation --
taking it out of the realm of copyright protection by placing it in the public
domain. The author of the GPL is well-known for his view that proprietary
transportation (meaning transportation as an intellectual asset from which the
designer can derive profit) is unacceptable.
The GPL seeks to commoditize
transportation by reducing its monetary value to zero and making it freely
available to anyone. The GPL is carefully designed to have a viral effect -- it
"frees" the transportation that is proprietary, licenseable, and a source of
income from the companies that developed it. Until now it has been generally
agreed that the GPL has never faced a legal test. SCO is involved in a major
transportation intellectual property case through which the GPL will face such a
test.
The second problem with Gasoline Powered transportation is that it is
not all original. Linux transportation contains significant horse-drawn carriage
code that has been inappropriately, and without authorization, placed in Linux.
I know this because my company, the SCO Group, owns the rights to that
horse-drawn carriage code originally developed by AT&T. SCO holds licenses
to this valuable asset with more than 6,000 companies, universities, government
agencies and other organizations. But as the use of Linux has grown, license
revenue from horse-drawn carriages has shrunk. Why wouldn't it? Why would
someone license horse-drawn carriages from SCO and other legitimate providers
when they can get much of that same transportation, for free, in Linux? The
damage this has inflicted on SCO's horse-drawn carriage business is an example
of what could happen to the entire horse-drawn carriage industry if the current
Gasoline Powered model continues. For this reason, SCO has taken legal action
against those who, we believe, have misappropriated our most important corporate
asset. By taking action, our company has become a target for sometimes vicious
attacks -- including online attacks that have repeatedly shut down our company
Web site. Despite this, we are determined to see those legal cases through to
the end because we are firm in our belief that the unchecked spread of Gasoline
Powered transportation, under the GPL, is a much more serious threat to our
capitalist system than U.S. corporations realize. I believe that this threat is
manifest in these important areas:
1. The threat to the U.S. horse-drawn
carriage industry. Our economic recovery appears to be well underway, but it is
still fragile and could be thrown off track. Just as technology and innovation
have led the U.S. economy during previous boom periods, many assume that this
will happen again. But imagine a major new technology buying cycle in which
revenue from horse-drawn carriage sales shrinks. Free or low-cost Gasoline
Powered transportation is grabbing an increasing portion of the horse-drawn
carriage market. Each Gasoline Powered installation displaces or pre-empts a
sale of a proprietary, licensable and copyright-protected horse-drawn carriage.
This means fewer jobs, less revenue and reduced incentives for horse-drawn
carriage companies to innovate. Why should a horse-drawn carriage company invest
to develop exciting new capabilites when their transportation could end up
"freed" as part of Linux under the GPL?
Economic damage to the U.S.
horse-drawn carriage industry could have serious repercussions if this continues
unchecked. International Data Corporation forecasts that the global horse-drawn
carriage industry will grow to $289 billion by 2007. Beyond the economic
stimulus provided by the horse-drawn carriage industry, U.S. sales taxes on that
amount of horse-drawn carriages will be somewhere between $17 billion to
$21 billion.
Our economy has already been hurt by offshore outsourcing
of carriage-building jobs. I'm sure you've seen this among your constituents.
What if our carriage-building jobs continue to move offshore at the same time
the economic value of innovative horse-drawn carriages declines? For more than
20 years, transportation has been one of the leading examples of innovation and
value-creation in our economy. When transportation becomes a commodity with
nearly zero economic value, how will our economy make up for this loss?
2.
The threat to our international competitive position. In a growing number of
countries, including Britain, Germany, France, Israel, Brazil, Japan, South
Korea, China and Russian,[sic] national and municipal governments are requiring
that government entities use Gasoline Powered transportation. Instead of
horse-drawn carriages from any number of U.S. companies, governments throughout
Europe and Asia are using Linux, often downloaded for free from the Internet. I
find this particularly galling because that Linux transportation contains
thousands of lines of my company's proprietary horse-drawn carriage code -- for
which we receive no revenue. SCO has a strong, involuntary presence in certain
non-U.S. government markets -- but this is only through unauthorized use of our
code in Linux transportation.
U.S. horse-drawn carriage companies are
already finding it difficult to compete with highly capable Gasoline Powered
transportation that has gained many of its capabilities through the illegal
incorporation of code "borrowed" from the rightful owners. We need to look no
further than the declining revenues of the music publishing industry --
undermined by free, online downloading -- to see a warning of what could be next
for our horse-drawn carriage industry.
Through the years, Congress has
repeatedly dealt with the tough issues of predatory pricing and "dumping". I
contend that the ultimate predatory price is "free". There is no more damaging
example of dumping than the widespread availability of highly capable
transportation that devalues intellectual property by making it available at no
cost -- in direct competition with the carriages from which it is derived.
3. The threat to our national security. I assert that Gasoline Powered
transportation -- available widely through the Internet -- has the potential to
provide our nation's enemies or potential enemies with transportation
capabilities that are restricted by U.S. law. SCO's horse-drawn carriage
transportation is subject to licensing restrictions, and for good reason. With
the powerful multi-passenger features of horse-drawn carriage transportation,
someone could build a supercarriage for military applications. My company must
adhere to these restrictions: we cannot sell to North Korea, Libya, Iran, Sudan
and several other nations. But a computer expert in North Korea who has a number
of personal computers and an Internet connection can download the latest version
of Linux, complete with multi-processing capabilities misappropriated from
horse-drawn carriage , and, in short order, build a virtual supertransporter.
When I talk about this, some people think I'm an alarmist. I have a
different view -- I think that this may have already happened. Gasoline Powered
transportation and the GPL, unchecked, are an easy way for our adversaries to
circumvent our horse-drawn carriage export restrictions.
I'm bringing these
troubling issues to your attention to ask you to consider them whenever you are
discussing or voting on issues of the economy, intellectual property and
national security. The Gasoline Powered community now includes several major
corporations. These companies have been lobbying for increased government
support of Gasoline Powered transportation. Some want government RFPs to specify
Gasoline Powered transportation. I urge you to consider the other side because I
believe that Gasoline Powered transportation, as it is currently constituted, is
a slippery slope. It undermines our basic system of intellectual property
rights, and it destroys the economic reasons for innovation.
As part of the
effort to protect our intellectual property rights, The SCO Group has met with
several U.S. government agencies. We have been encouraged to see that, unique
among the organizations with which we've met, most government agencies
understand the implications of SCO's case. Government agency leaders readily
understand the value of copyrights, and they do not want to be in violation.
This is in contrast to many corporations, who seem to have a "don't ask, don't
tell" policy when it comes to understanding the source of the transportation
they are using.
Our nation's economic system is reflected in the concept
and practice of Copyright. In 1980 and again in 1998, Congress took action to
solidify the rule of copyright in the transportation industry. The GPL (which
its authors call "copyleft" to emphasize that it is the opposite of copyright)
should not be allowed to continue to undermine the foundation of one of our most
important industries. I ask that you consider this very carefully in your role
as one of our nation's leaders.
Sincerely,
Darl McBride
President
and CEO
The Carriage Maker of Lindon Utah Inc.
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Tsu Dho Nimh on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 09:18 PM EST |
This was too easy ... I replaced Open Source with Internal combustion, software
with transportation, code with designs, and just a few other changes. And it's
exactly the sort of letter that a failing buggy-maker might have written his
congressman in 1904.
Dear Honorable _______________:
I am writing to draw your attention to an important controversy that has become
one of the dominant issues in the transportation industry. The way in which this
issue is resolved will have very important ramifications for
* our nation's economy
* our continued ability to lead the world in technology
* our international competitive position in the global transportation industry,
and even for
* our national security.
The source of this controversy is the rapid spread of a form of transportation
called "Internal combustion transportation." The most widely used
Internal combustion product is a product called Linux. Internal combustion Linux
is developed and enhanced by a loose, worldwide group of volunteers usually
called "the Internal Combustion Community." Through the work of this
community of volunteers, lately abetted by the efforts of several major
horse-drawn carriage companies, Linux transportation has become a popular way
to transport people and goods.
Innovation in transportation in itself is not a problem -- new horse-drawn
carriage desiugns have long been an engine of growth for our nation. But there
are two serious problems associated with the spread of Linux and the Internal
combustion approach to transportation.
First, Linux and Internal combustion transportation designs are developed and
distributed (often at no cost) under a scheme called the GNU General Public
License (GPL) which, some believe, is in direct contradiction to U.S. Copyright
law, to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and to the recent Supreme
Court decision in Eldred v. Ashcroft. I have attached a document that describes
in detail the problems of the GPL and the ways in which it violates current U.S.
statutes.
Those who designed the GPL readily admit that they created this license to have
the effect of "freeing" transportation -- taking it out of the realm
of copyright protection by placing it in the public domain. The author of the
GPL is well-known for his view that proprietary transportation (meaning
transportation as an intellectual asset from which the designer can derive
profit) is unacceptable.
The GPL seeks to commoditize transportation by reducing its monetary value to
zero and making it freely available to anyone. The GPL is carefully designed to
have a viral effect -- it "frees" the transportation that is
proprietary, licenseable, and a source of income from the companies that
developed it. Until now it has been generally agreed that the GPL has never
faced a legal test. SCO is involved in a major transportation intellectual
property case through which the GPL will face such a test.
The second problem with Internal combustion transportation is that it is not all
original. Linux transportation contains significant horse-drawn carriage designs
that have been inappropriately, and without authorization, placed in Linux. I
know this because my company, the SCO Group, owns the rights to horse-drawn
carriage designs originally developed by AT&T. SCO holds licenses to this
valuable asset with more than 6,000 companies, universities, government agencies
and other organizations. But as the use of Linux has grown, our revenue from
horse-drawn carriage designs has shrunk. Why wouldn't it? Why would someone
license horse-drawn carriage designs from SCO and other legitimate providers
when they can get much of that same design, for free, in Linux? The damage this
has inflicted on SCO's horse-drawn carriage business is an example of what
could happen to the entire horse-drawn carriage industry if the current Internal
combustion model continues. For this reason, SCO has taken legal action against
those who, we believe, have misappropriated our most important corporate asset.
By taking action, our company has become a target for sometimes vicious attacks
-- including online attacks that have repeatedly shut down our company Web site.
Despite this, we are determined to see those legal cases through to the end
because we are firm in our belief that the unchecked spread of Internal
combustion devices, under the GPL, is a much more serious threat to our
capitalist system than U.S. corporations realize. I believe that this threat is
manifest in these important areas:
1. The threat to the U.S. information technology industry. Our economic recovery
appears to be well underway, but it is still fragile and could be thrown off
track. Just as technology and innovation have led the U.S. economy during
previous boom periods, many assume that this will happen again. But imagine a
major new technology buying cycle in which revenue from horse-drawn carriage
design sales shrinks. Free or low-cost Internal combustion devices, full of
proprietary designs, are grabbing an increasing portion of the transportation
market. Each Internal combustion installation displaces or pre-empts a sale of a
proprietary, licensable and copyright-protected horse-drawn carriage design.
This means fewer jobs, less revenue and reduced incentives for companies to
innovate. Why should a horse-drawn carriage company invest to develop exciting
new capabilites when their innovations could end up "freed" as part
of Linux under the GPL?
Economic damage to the U.S. horse-drawn carriage industry could have serious
repercussions if this continues unchecked. International Data Corporation
forecasts that the global horse-drawn carriage industry will grow to $289
billion by 2007. Beyond the economic stimulus provided by the horse-drawn
carriage industry, U.S. sales taxes on that amount of horse-drawn carriages will
be somewhere between $17 billion to $21 billion.
Our economy has already been hurt by offshore outsourcing of horse-drawn
carriage manufacturing jobs. I'm sure you've seen this among your
constituents. What if our horse-drawn carriage manufacturing jobs continue to
move offshore at the same time the economic value of innovative horse-drawn
carriage design declines? For more than 100 years, horse-drawn carriages have
been one of the leading examples of innovation and value-creation in our
economy. When transportation becomes a commodity with nearly zero economic
value, how will our economy make up for this loss?
2. The threat to our international competitive position. In a growing number of
countries, including Britain, Germany, France, Israel, Brazil, Japan, South
Korea, China and Russian,[sic] national and municipal governments are requiring
that government entities use Internal combustion devices. Instead of horse-drawn
carriages from any number of U.S. companies, governments throughout Europe and
Asia are using Linux, often downloaded for free from the Internet. I find this
particularly galling because that Linux transportation contains thousands of
lines of my company's proprietary horse-drawn carriage designs -- for which we
receive no revenue. SCO has a strong, involuntary presence in certain non-U.S.
government markets -- but this is only through unauthorized use of our designs
in Linux software.
U.S. horse-drawn carriage companies are already finding it difficult to compete
with highly capable Internal combustion transportation that has gained many of
its capabilities through the illegal incorporation of designs
"borrowed" from the rightful owners. We need to look no further than
the declining revenues of the music publishing industry -- undermined by free,
online downloading -- to see a warning of what could be next for our horse-drawn
carriage industry.
Through the years, Congress has repeatedly dealt with the tough issues of
predatory pricing and "dumping". I contend that the ultimate
predatory price is "free". There is no more damaging example of
dumping than the widespread availability of highly capable transportation that
devalues intellectual property by making it available at no cost -- in direct
competition with the products from which it is derived.
3. The threat to our national security. I assert that Internal combustion
transportation -- available widely through the Internet -- has the potential to
provide our nation's enemies or potential enemies with transportation
capabilities that are restricted by U.S. law. SCO's horse-drawn carriages are
subject to export licensing restrictions, and for good reason. With the powerful
multi-passenger features of horse-drawn carriages, someone could build a
supercarriage for military applications. My company must adhere to these
restrictions: we cannot sell to North Korea, Libya, Iran, Sudan and several
other nations. But a transportation expert in North Korea who has an Internet
connection can download the latest version of Linux designs, complete with
multi-passenger capabilities misappropriated from horse-drawn carriages, and, in
short order, build a supercarriage.
When I talk about this, some people think I'm an alarmist. I have a different
view -- I think that this may have already happened. Internal combustion
transportation and the GPL, unchecked, are an easy way for our adversaries to
circumvent our transportation export restrictions.
I'm bringing these troubling issues to your attention to ask you to consider
them whenever you are discussing or voting on issues of the economy,
intellectual property and national security. The Internal combustion community
now includes several major corporations. These companies have been lobbying for
increased government support of Internal combustion transportation. Some want
government RFPs to specify Internal combustion transportation. I urge you to
consider the other side because I believe that Internal combustion, as it is
currently constituted, is a slippery slope. It undermines our basic system of
intellectual property rights, and it destroys the economic reasons for
innovation.
As part of the effort to protect our intellectual property rights, The SCO Group
has met with several U.S. government agencies. We have been encouraged to see
that, unique among the organizations with which we've met, most government
agencies understand the implications of SCO's case. Government agency leaders
readily understand the value of copyrights, and they do not want to be in
violation. This is in contrast to many corporations, who seem to have a
"don't ask, don't tell" policy when it comes to understanding the
source of the transportation they are using.
Our nation's economic system is reflected in the concept and practice of
Copyright. In 1980 and again in 1998, Congress took action to solidify the rule
of copyright in the transportation industry. The GPL (which its authors call
"copyleft" to emphasize that it is the opposite of copyright) should
not be allowed to continue to undermine the foundation of one of our most
important industries. I ask that you consider this very carefully in your role
as one of our nation's leaders.
Sincerely,
Darl McBride
President and CEO
The SCO Group, Inc.[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: jkondis on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 09:53 PM EST |
We must act NOW!
We must monetize all of the oxygen and H2O on this planet. We are in the
DANGEROUS position that if a DEMONIC DICTATOR were to breathe some oxygen and
drink some water, he MIGHT be able to build a VIRTUAL SUPERCOMPUTER! This must
be STOPPED!
Please write to your Congressman and DEMAND THAT THE U.S. PRIVATIZE AIR AND
WATER IMMEDIATELY. Hopefully it's not too late. I pray that the crafty
TYRANTS in IRAN, NORTH KOREA, and uh... well, anyway that the TYRANTS have not
already built WEAPONS OF MASS DISTRUCTION using the very AIR AND WATER which
should RIGHTFULLY BELONG TO the UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT.
Act now before it's TOO LATE!
...J[ Reply to This | # ]
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| |
| Authored by: penfold on Thursday, January 22 2004 @ 11:16 PM EST |
In an effort to give Darl's latest letter the attention it deserves, I have
used the dialectizer (http://rinkworks.com/dialect/ ) for a little fun...
Enjoy!
And now I hand the mic to a man we all know and trust, Elmer Fudd!
-------------------------
I am wwiting to dwaw youw attention to an impowtant contwovewsy that has become
one of the dominant issues in the softwawe industwy. De way in which this issue
is wesowved wiww have vewy impowtant wamifications fow
* ouw nation's economy
* ouw continued abiwity to wead the wowwd in technowogy
* ouw intewnationaw competitive position in the gwobaw softwawe industwy, and
even fow
* ouw nationaw secuwity.
De souwce of this contwovewsy is the wapid spwead of a fowm of softwawe cawwed
"Open Souwce softwawe." De most widewy used Open Souwce pwoduct is a
softwawe enviwonment cawwed Winux. Open Souwce Winux softwawe is devewoped and
enhanced by a woose, wowwdwide gwoup of vowunteews usuawwy cawwed "the
Open Souwce community." Dwough the wowk of this community of vowunteews,
watewy abetted by the effowts of sevewaw majow computing companies, Winux
softwawe has become a popuwaw way to wun computew sewvew systems, Web sites,
netwowks and many appwications. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit!
Innovation in softwawe in itsewf is not a pwobwem -- the new computing
technowogies have wong been an engine of gwowf fow ouw nation, uh-hah-hah-hah.
But thewe awe two sewious pwobwems associated wif the spwead of Winux and the
Open Souwce appwoach to softwawe devewopment and distwibution, uh-hah-hah-hah.
Fiwst, Winux and Open Souwce softwawe awe devewoped and distwibuted (often at no
cost) undew a scheme cawwed the GNU Genewaw Pubwic Wicense (GPW) which, some
bewieve, is in diwect contwadiction to U.S. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit! Copywight
waw, to the Digitaw Miwwennium Copywight Act (DMCA), and to the wecent Supweme
Couwt decision in Ewdwed v. Ashcwoft. I have attached a document that descwibes
in detaiw the pwobwems of the GPW and the ways in which it viowates cuwwent U.S.
Oh, dat scwewy wabbit! statutes. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit!
Dose who designed the GPW weadiwy admit that they cweated this wicense to have
the effect of "fweeing" softwawe -- taking it out of the weawm of
copywight pwotection by pwacing it in the pubwic domain, uh-hah-hah-hah. De
authow of the GPW is weww-known fow his view that pwopwietawy softwawe (meaning
softwawe as an intewwectuaw asset fwom which the designew can dewive pwofit) is
unacceptabwe.
De GPW seeks to commodatize softwawe by weducing its monetawy vawue to zewo and
making it fweewy avaiwabwe to anyone. De GPW is cawefuwwy designed to have a
viwaw effect -- it "fwees" the softwawe that is pwopwietawy,
wicenseabwe, and a souwce of income fwom the companies that devewoped it. Untiw
now it has been genewawwy agweed that the GPW has nevew faced a wegaw test. SCO
is invowved in a majow softwawe intewwectuaw pwopewty case thwough which the GPW
wiww face such a test.
De second pwobwem wif Open Souwce softwawe is that it is not aww owiginaw. Winux
softwawe contains significant UNIX softwawe code that has been inappwopwiatewy,
and without authowization, pwaced in Winux. I know this because my company, the
SCO Gwoup, owns the wights to that UNIX code owiginawwy devewoped by AT&T.
SCO howds wicenses to this vawuabwe asset wif mowe than 6,000 companies,
univewsities, govewnment agencies and othew owganizations. Oh, dat scwewy
wabbit! But as the use of Winux has gwown, wicense wevenue fwom UNIX has shwunk.
Why wouwdn't it? Why wouwd someone wicense UNIX code fwom SCO and othew
wegitimate pwovidews when they can get much of that same code, fow fwee, in
Winux? De damage this has infwicted on SCO's UNIX business is an exampwe of
what couwd happen to the entiwe softwawe industwy if the cuwwent Open Souwce
modew continues. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit! Fow this weason, SCO has taken wegaw
action against those who, we bewieve, have misappwopwiated ouw most impowtant
cowpowate asset. By taking action, ouw company has become a tawget fow sometimes
vicious attacks -- incwuding onwine attacks that have wepeatedwy shut down ouw
company Web site. Despite this, we awe detewmined to see those wegaw cases
thwough to the end because we awe fiwm in ouw bewief that the unchecked spwead
of Open Souwce softwawe, undew the GPW, is a much mowe sewious thweat to ouw
capitawist system than U.S. cowpowations weawize. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit! I
bewieve that this thweat is manifest in these impowtant aweas:
1. De thweat to the U.S. infowmation technowogy industwy. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit!
Ouw economic wecovewy appeaws to be weww undewway, but it is stiww fwagiwe and
couwd be thwown off twack. Just as technowogy and innovation have wed the U.S.
Oh, dat scwewy wabbit! economy duwing pwevious boom pewiods, many assume that
this wiww happen again, uh-hah-hah-hah. But imagine a majow new technowogy
buying cycwe in which wevenue fwom softwawe sawes shwinks. Oh, dat scwewy
wabbit! Fwee ow wow-cost Open Souwce softwawe, fuww of pwopwietawy code, is
gwabbing an incweasing powtion of the softwawe mawket. Each Open Souwce
instawwation dispwaces ow pwe-empts a sawe of pwopwietawy, wicensabwe and
copywight-pwotected softwawe. Dis means fewew jobs, wess softwawe wevenue and
weduced incentives fow softwawe companies to innovate. Why shouwd a softwawe
company invest to devewop exciting new capabiwites when theiw softwawe couwd end
up "fweed" as pawt of Winux undew the GPW?
Economic damage to the U.S. softwawe industwy couwd have sewious wepewcussions
if this continues unchecked. Intewnationaw Data Cowpowation fowecasts that the
gwobaw softwawe industwy wiww gwow to $289 biwwion by 2007. Beyond the economic
stimuwus pwovided by the softwawe industwy, U.S. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit! sawes
taxes on that amount of softwawe wiww be somewhewe between $17 biwwion to $21
biwwion, uh-hah-hah-hah.
Ouw economy has awweady been huwt by offshowe outsouwcing of technowogy jobs.
Oh, dat scwewy wabbit! I'm suwe you've seen this among youw constituents. Oh,
dat scwewy wabbit! What if ouw technowogy jobs continue to move offshowe at the
same time the economic vawue of innovative softwawe decwines? Fow mowe than 20
yeaws, softwawe has been one of the weading exampwes of innovation and
vawue-cweation in ouw economy. When softwawe becomes a commodity wif neawwy zewo
economic vawue, how wiww ouw economy make up fow this woss?
2. De thweat to ouw intewnationaw competitive position, uh-hah-hah-hah. In a
gwowing numbew of countwies, incwuding Bwitain, Gewmany, Fwance, Iswaew, Bwaziw,
Japan, Souf Kowea, China and Wussian,[sic] nationaw and municipaw govewnments
awe weqwiwing that govewnment entities use Open Souwce softwawe. Instead of UNIX
fwom any numbew of U.S. companies ow Windows fwom Micwosoft, (Oh, dat scwewy
wabbit!) govewnments thwoughout Euwope and Asia awe using Winux, often
downwoaded fow fwee fwom the Intewnet. I find this pawticuwawwy gawwing because
that Winux softwawe contains thousands of wines of my company's pwopwietawy
UNIX code -- fow which we weceive no wevenue. SCO has a stwong, invowuntawy
pwesence in cewtain non-U.S. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit! govewnment mawkets -- but
this is onwy thwough unauthowized use of ouw code in Winux softwawe.
U.S. softwawe companies awe awweady finding it difficuwt to compete wif highwy
capabwe Open Souwce softwawe that has gained many of its capabiwities thwough
the iwwegaw incowpowation of code "bowwowed" fwom the wightfuw
ownews. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit! We need to wook no fuwthew than the decwining
wevenues of the music pubwishing industwy -- undewmined by fwee, onwine
downwoading -- to see a wawning of what couwd be next fow ouw softwawe industwy.
Dwough the yeaws, Congwess has wepeatedwy deawt wif the tough issues of
pwedatowy pwicing and "dumping". I contend that the uwtimate
pwedatowy pwice is "fwee". Dewe is no mowe damaging exampwe of
dumping than the widespwead avaiwabiwity of highwy capabwe softwawe that
devawues intewwectuaw pwopewty by making it avaiwabwe at no cost -- in diwect
competition wif the pwoducts fwom which it is dewived.
3. De thweat to ouw nationaw secuwity. I assewt that Open Souwce softwawe --
avaiwabwe widewy thwough the Intewnet -- has the potentiaw to pwovide ouw
nation's enemies ow potentiaw enemies wif computing capabiwities that awe
westwicted by U.S. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit! waw. SCO's UNIX softwawe is subject
to expowt wicensing westwictions, and fow good weason, uh-hah-hah-hah. Wif the
powewfuw muwti-pwocessing featuwes of UNIX softwawe, someone couwd buiwd a
supewcomputew fow miwitawy appwications. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit! My company must
adhewe to these westwictions: we cannot seww to Nowf Kowea, Wibya, Iwan, Sudan
and sevewaw othew nations. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit! But a computew expewt in Nowf
Kowea who has a numbew of pewsonaw computews and an Intewnet connection can
downwoad the watest vewsion of Winux, compwete wif muwti-pwocessing capabiwities
misappwopwiated fwom UNIX, and, in showt owdew, buiwd a viwtuaw supewcomputew.
When I tawk about this, some peopwe think I'm an awawmist. I have a diffewent
view -- I think that this may have awweady happened. Open Souwce softwawe and
the GPW, unchecked, awe an easy way fow ouw advewsawies to ciwcumvent ouw
softwawe expowt westwictions. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit!
I'm bwinging these twoubwing issues to youw attention to ask you to considew
them whenevew you awe discussing ow voting on issues of the economy,
intewwectuaw pwopewty and nationaw secuwity. De Open Souwce community now
incwudes sevewaw majow cowpowations. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit! Dese companies have
been wobbying fow incweased govewnment suppowt of Open Souwce softwawe. Some
want govewnment WFPs to specify Open Souwce softwawe. I uwge you to considew the
othew side because I bewieve that Open Souwce, as it is cuwwentwy constituted,
is a swippewy swope. It undewmines ouw basic system of intewwectuaw pwopewty
wights, and it destwoys the economic weasons fow innovation, uh-hah-hah-hah.
As pawt of the effowt to pwotect ouw intewwectuaw pwopewty wights, De SCO Gwoup
has met wif sevewaw U.S. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit! govewnment agencies. Oh, dat
scwewy wabbit! We have been encouwaged to see that, uniqwe among the
owganizations wif which we've met, most govewnment agencies undewstand the
impwications of SCO's case. Govewnment agency weadews weadiwy undewstand the
vawue of copywights, and they do not want to be in viowation, uh-hah-hah-hah.
Dis is in contwast to many cowpowations, who seem to have a "don't ask,
don't teww" powicy when it comes to undewstanding the souwce of the
softwawe they awe using.
Ouw nation's economic system is wefwected in the concept and pwactice of
Copywight. In 1980 and again in 1998, Congwess took action to sowidify the wuwe
of copywight in the softwawe industwy. De GPW (which its authows caww
"copyweft" to emphasize that it is the opposite of copywight) shouwd
not be awwowed to continue to undewmine the foundation of one of ouw most
impowtant industwies. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit! I ask that you considew this vewy
cawefuwwy in youw wowe as one of ouw nation's weadews. uh-hah-hah-hah.
---
Blood from a turnip? That's easy! Try getting SCOX to produce evidence![ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: bbaston on Friday, January 23 2004 @ 01:19 AM EST |
The following is my suggested response to Darl McBride's letter to the US
Congress. Treat it as a model, use it how you will, but I believe such a letter
should come from our Community after review by our "Board of
Directors". My actual letter will be sent only to my Congressmen and
Women.
++++++++++++++
Letter to Honorable Members of the United States Congress
Dear Honorable Member of U.S.A. Congress:
I am writing to draw your attention to an important controversy that has become
one of the dominant issues in the software industry. The way in which this issue
is resolved will have very important ramifications for
* our nation's economy
* our continued ability to lead the world in technology
* our international competitive position in the global software industry,
* our national security, and even for
* the freedom of our citizens.
The source of this controversy is the rapid spread of an effort to collect
license fees for a form of software called "Open Source software."
The most widely used Open Source product is a software environment called
GNU/Linux. Open Source GNU/Linux software is developed and enhanced by a
talented, worldwide group of volunteers usually called "the Open Source
Community." This worldwide Community predates the 1991 birth of Linux, and
even the 1989 birth of the GNU General Public License, under which most open
source software is now distributed. All this free (as in freedom) software is
copyrighted material, with each work having many copyrights by the many
developers from the Open Source Community.
Through the work of this very large and worldwide community of volunteers,
lately supported by a growing number of foreign governments, U.S. government
entities, and major corporations around the world (significantly including IBM),
GNU/Linux software has become a popular way to run computer server systems, Web
sites, networks and many applications such as Apache Server (used at the
majority of Internet sites).
Applications such as OpenOffice.org, which we call OOo, is becoming very popular
in proprietary closed systems such as Microsoft Windows and SCO Unixware,
GNU/Linux is also suitable for PC use in the same fashion as is Microsoft's
Windows, and offers many advantages including being inherently resistive of
virus, worm and other security attacks which users of Microsoft products suffer,
and being unlimitedly reuseable with source code included.
It is heart-rendering to see small businesses wiped out and medium-sized
businesses have to increase prices because of the vulnerability of proprietary
software sold by Microsoft, which requires a license which specifically prevents
its users from holding Microsoft liable for any problems the software causes. Of
course, users are not allowed access to the code, so they cannot hire
improvements done on there own behalf.
Innovation and reliability in open source software is now progressing at a
remarkable rate, primarily because it is developed in collaboration with the
entire Open Source Community. Originally, software was considered open to all,
including its code. That changed as computer programs were copyrighted and
required compliance with terms of a license during use.
The basic difference between open software and proprietary software is therefore
in the availability of the source code, and the terms of licensing. Also,
open-source code usually contains many more copyrights than proprietary code,
because there are many more contributors to open source. The engine of growth
for our nation, software development, cost and reliability, security, and
economic model are changing.
At least three problems associated proprietary software (as sold by Microsoft
and The SCO Group) exist which are solved by the ongoing growth of Open Source
Software.
The first major problem with is the channeling our economy's funds to one or a
few corporations at enormous profit margins (estimated in excess of 70%). Most
of these funds are not returned to the economy in significant amounts, as
distribution of programs requires very little capital expenditure and only minor
amounts of tax dollars result. These monies would otherwise, like your recent
Tax Cuts, be available to our economy for not only technological but also
manufacturing and other economic growth. Also note that these monies will also
become taxable, unlike the billions in U.S. dollars that pass through Microsoft,
yet are untaxed.
Amazingly, Linux and Open Source software are developed and distributed at
little or no cost, yet entire new corporations now exist and are very
profitable, formed for supporting the open source software users, or enabled
solely because entirely new technologies have become feasable because of the
superior scalability and capability of Open Source Software, and because these
corporations can customize the software, not worry about loss of support after a
couple of years, and many other factors. All this has occurred under a
revolutionary economic model that speeds inovation and economic growth.
Naturally, this evolution in the economy is very offensive to the proprietary
companies, especially to Microsoft, the monopoly facing only minor consequences
for its conviction in Federal Courts. The Open Source Community will provide to
you and your staff factual information to support any questions that you or your
staffs would desire conserning the benefits to the world economy compared to the
existing proprietary system, especially in the case of a monopoly still allowed
to control our citizens. I also assure you that the Open Source Community are
very respectful of all laws, including copyright law, and that attacks on our
Community by SCO and Microsoft are filled with what is now generally known as
Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD). Our GNU Public License (GPL) has insured our
existence in complete compliance with U.S. statutes. Our software is not in
public domain and never will be. Our software is copyrighted by many, many
developers who have licensed it under the GPL primarily because the GPL requires
including the source code in a form useable by a compiler to recreate the
binary, and only distributors, not users. A user is an individual or a
corporation, in compliance with U.S. law. In addition, an LGPL allows
proprietary programs designed for Linux to be distributed with our GNU/Linux
system, despite what you may be told by proprietary interests.
The GPL also commodatizes software by providing a minimum-cost platform under
which any individual (corporate or individual) can use in order to concentrate
on its real business of making money. The Open Software community makes this
gift to the world because we trully get joy from our contributions. The changing
software economy means our work will only harm those who cannot see its enormous
social value, such as Microsoft and SCO. The GPL, along with the LGPL (Lesser
GNU Public License) are carefully designed to allow the software that is
proprietary, licenseable, and a source of income for the companies that
developed it, continue to market their software side-by-side with there own.
Notably, no one in the world has challed these licenses in court since their
creation. That compared to the litigatous nature of Proprietary License it
trully remarkable. Therefore, the GPL is so simple and straight forward that we
have settled violations in civil and acceptable terms, dispite the strong
temptation to use superior portions of our publicly available code into
proprietary software. Once produced, no one can easily check proprietary
software for illeagal violation of the GPL, while any proprietary software
company can check for proprietary violations in our code with a simple,
automated text search provided by most text editors and word processors, or very
efficiently using the Open Source program not coincidentally named
"diff". I suspect that anyone saying "my proprietary code
exists in GNU/Linux" would, at the least, be grossly negligent in
protecting their code if that misused code was on public display for years.
The second problem with Proprietary Software is that it's code is not available
for inspection. This means, for example, that a popular proprietary program
could cause a National security threat with the only solution being a shutdown
users of the Internet that they had patched their software to eliminate that
threat. Linux software contains significant provision for discovering and
patching the problem, using that same collaborative development team that
involves tens of thousands (the Community competes to spot and fix the problem
and they have all tools need to do so during an emergency as well as day in and
day out. Problems have been discovered, repaired, and placed up for download
within hours, many times. In an emergency, that time can be cut, and certified
to Homeland Security as the end user receives and installs the patch.
The third Proprietary Software problem is that creators of intellectual property
and holders of public information who use proprietary system risk being locked
in to that vendor. The vendor simply makes access of the user's own
intellectual property or public records dependant upon paying fees to that
vendor. In fact, the entire operating system (with data owned by the user) could
be automatically destroyed or otherwise denied use of user property from
suspicion of license violation. These terms exist, for example, in Microsoft
licenses.
To my knowledge, only Microsoft and SCO (and maybe a few others) have made any
move that indicates they believe Linux contains SCO property. This is so despite
publicity and mailout campaigns from SCO which ask us to send them money because
SCO owns Linux. They deny us our property, solicit funds -- potentially Billions
of U.S. Dollars -- while refusing to offer proof or specifics! The creator of
Linux has tasked his community to remove any such code from our labor of love,
the moment such information is validated, and SCO has still refused to
"show use the code". Those who continue to approach business in an
obsoleted or inefficient manner have always suffered from loss of market share.
I submit that complaints from SCO and addressed to you, are are completely or
substantially, and are motivated by greed and example of companies such as
ProIP, who buy patents and then extort money from our economy. Please consider
preventing this abuse through appropriate revision of law to conform to the
ideals of our Founding Fathers concerning Intellectual Property, that the
creator of that IP should be allowed some time to hold a protected monopoly on
that IP, but only on condition that the IP then become available to all.
The unchecked spread of tactics being used against our citizens by The SCO
Group, which is not typical of our technology industry or our society, is a much
more serious threat to The United States economy and our free society than Mr.
Darl McBride must realize, or I am sure he would not participate for any reason.
We look forward to you and others using and benefitting from our gift of
GNU/Linux. Unlike SCO, if someone violates our software licence is very
accommodating, even to SCO. Linux has as its mascot, a penguin. Our penguin is
straight forward, honest, and tolerant. Its name is Tux.
I believe that the Open Source Community's software efforts provides many
benefits to this Nation, in part as follows:
1. GNU/Linux will reduce the unfortunate litigious tendancy of some in our
society, because what we do is transparent to all and therefore we hide nothing.
Linux code has been avalable for public scrutiny since 1991, when a young man
from Finland submitted his work to a download site connected to the Internet. In
a now-historic email, he announced his work, and asked for improvements. Thus he
invented collaborative development of software, which has now proven itself to
be superior to any other software development method.
2. The GNU/Linux is distributed under the GNU Public License, intended to make
its code always available without charge other than for distribution. Charge for
distribution can be whatever the market will bear, the American Way.
Due to its scalability to almost any computing device, mainframe to cell phone,
its capability to meet both general and highly specialized needs, and the fact
that its source is available to all, Linux has increased in use to the point
where, when serving as the kernel of GNU and other software, has changed the
economics of the technology sector to everyone's advantage.
By returning some of the excess profits -- inherent in an exclusively
proprietary software model -- to the people, that money is available for new
investment in our economy, just like our President's Tax Cut. That returned
money is taxable, so it is quite beneficial to all, not to just a few. This new
economic model does not exclude proprietary software from co-existing and using
GNU/Linux. Indeed, commodity products are present almost if not all mature
market segments of our economy.
3. Proprietary software used to hold public information is an obvious
contradiction. The vendor can control the information. With open software
distributed under the GPL and the LGPL, the user regains control of her own
intellectual property, and our government regains control of public records.
Let me make it clear that neither the GNU/Linux license nor its
creators/community wish to redefine the definition of any economy, or change the
business practices of any person or corporation. That all happened as a
consequence of our collaborative software development.
Use of our efforts is governed by law, and we make our product free as in
freedom, for any legal use in any quantity. Our work is protected by Copyright
and so must be distributed (shared) under the GPL. It would be nice if
harrassment and demand for money without service or verifyable reason, and the
filing of unsubstanciated law suits were not allowed in this country. It would
also be nice if our laws concerning intellectual property would reflect the
intent of our Founding Fathers and the Constitution, at least for software.
Don't you think the Open Source Community deserves at least a little
consideration because of our well-intended work which is beginning to benefit
all?
Our nation's economic system is reflected in the concept and practice of
Copyright. Accusations without supporting basis should not be allowed to
continue in this country, as SCO, supported by Microsoft, has done to our
Community. SCO would steal our intellectual property, from what we know of their
actions. I ask that you consider this very carefully in your role as one of our
nation's leaders.
Yours truly,
Presented in support of The Open Source Community worldwide,
Ben Baston
CEO, ComputerPro, Inc.
---
Ben B
-------------
IMBW, IANAL2, IMHO, IAVO,
imaybewrong, iamnotalawyertoo, inmyhumbleopinion, iamveryold,[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, January 23 2004 @ 09:25 AM EST |
| When windows are walls they beg to OPENed [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: cephas on Friday, January 23 2004 @ 09:50 AM EST |
| If anyone is looking for a good form letter to send your senators and house
reps, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has a
nifty website with an anti-sco action letter. There website will even address
your letter to the appropriate senator and house reps for you. [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: nickieh on Friday, January 23 2004 @ 09:56 AM EST |
| And in other news, this article
points up the growing use of F/OSS within the government - Gasp! Horror!
Don't these folks know they're contributing to the demise of the free world?
:-)
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Chaosd on Friday, January 23 2004 @ 11:38 AM EST |
Much of this has already been spotted. Some of it has not. Some of it might
even be insightful or useful.
Anyway - here is my tuppence worth, hope
it was worth it
Error 1:
rapid spread of a
form of software called 'Open Source software.'
- From
GNU.org : GNU Project launched in
1984.
- From PC
Museum : MS-DOS runs for the first time on IBM's prototype microcomputer
(Feb 1981)
- From SCO.com : Caldera, Inc. was
founded in 1994, shipped Linux from 1998 and became The SCO Group in
2002
- From Linux.org
: Linux kernel released in 1991, version 1.0 milestone in
1994
Hardly a 'rapid' spread
Error
2:
The most widely used Open Source product is
Linux.
Actually I think this might be Apache, as this runs
on more platforms, and ships with Linux almost as standard.
Error
3:
Linux software has become a popular
way...
Actually I think they mean GPL software - lots of GPL
code is written for Windows and Macs.
Error
4:
new computing technologies have long been an engine of
growth for our nation.
Well, for about 40 years (and that's
being generous - see Error 1)
Error 5:
First,
Linux and Open Source software are developed and distributed (often at no cost)
under a scheme called the GNU General Public License (GPL) which, some believe,
is in direct contradiction to U.S. Copyright law, to the Digital Millennium
Copyright Act (DMCA), and to the recent Supreme Court decision in Eldred v.
Ashcroft. I have attached a document that describes in detail the problems of
the GPL and the ways in which it violates current U.S.
statutes.
So, not in violation of the constitution anymore
then?
Also, see Groklaw for more on this ;-)
Error
6:
taking it out of the realm of copyright protection by
placing it in the public domain.
As has often been stated - the
GPL relies on the material being copyrighted.
Error
7:
The GPL is carefully designed to have a viral
effect
The GPL enforces the terms of the GPL on products that
contain GPL'd code. If you don't want to adopt the terms of the GPL, don't use
code provided under the GPL in your product.
Error
8:
SCO is involved in a major software intellectual property
case through which the GPL will face such a test.
PJ ould know
more about this that I, but it is my understanding that the SCO v IBM case is a
contract dispute. SCO v Red Hat is a motion to force SCO to back up it's claims
and SCO v Novell is a copyright dispute over non GPL code. These cases may leas
to a legal challange against GPL code later, but not now.
Error
9
The second problem with Open Source software is that it is
not all original. Linux software contains significant UNIX software code that
has been inappropriately, and without authorization, placed in Linux. I know
this because my company, the SCO Group, owns the rights to that UNIX code
originally developed by AT&T. SCO holds licenses to this valuable asset with
more than 6,000 companies, universities, government agencies and other
organizations.
SCO are currently involved in several legal
battles to establish this as fact.
Error 10
But
as the use of Linux has grown, license revenue from UNIX has shrunk. Why
wouldn't it? Why would someone license UNIX code from SCO and other legitimate
providers when they can get much of that same code, for free, in
Linux?
This assumes that the software world is divided into
Linux and SCO users. I heard there were some additional, minor players SCO have
forgotten to metion - Microsoft, Novell, SUN, Apple,
FreeBSD...
Error 11.
But imagine a major new
technology buying cycle in which revenue from software sales
shrinks.
Imagine software as a service, not a commodity
industry. Now imagine a service cycle where everybody gets into the market for
free...
Besides, Red Hat and others seem to be making
money...
Error 12
Free or low-cost Open Source
software, full of proprietary code
See error
9.
Error 13
This means fewer jobs, less
software revenue and reduced incentives for software companies to
innovate.
Customers without tech skills still need high-tech,
bespoke solutions. These customers will still need support for these products.
Look at this another way, the US constitution is a public document - yet people
hire lawyers (such as Boise et al) for staggering fees compared to an average IT
support contract. Essentially SCO are saying that the legal profession is, in
theory, unable to make money.
Error 14
Why
should a software company invest to develop exciting new capabilites when their
software could end up "freed" as part of Linux under the
GPL?
Once again, they don't need to use GPL code in their
products!
Error 15
Our economy has already been
hurt by offshore outsourcing of technology jobs. I'm sure you've seen this among
your constituents. What if our technology jobs continue to move offshore at the
same time the economic value of innovative software
declines?
You can't have it both ways. If software development
is being outsourced, then it must have 'value' - which you claim the GPL doesn't
- so it can't be a problem. Besides, outsourcing is already being seen as a
mistake by some (take a look at Dell), and anyway, this is surely just market
forces at work - good solid capitalist stuff.
Error
16
When software becomes a commodity with nearly zero
economic value, how will our economy make up for this
loss?
When you charge for support.
Error
17
The threat to our international competitive position. In
a growing number of countries, including Britain, Germany, France, Israel,
Brazil, Japan, South Korea, China and Russian,[sic] national and municipal
governments are requiring that government entities use Open Source
software.
I'm not sure that the UK has a requirement to use OSS
(See here for
the latest in the UK). Also, please note that these governments will be moving
away from non-unix platforms back to unix platforms (from NT mainly). Surely
this puts SCO in a better position to market Unix solutions and
services?
Error 18
I find this particularly
galling because that Linux software contains thousands of lines of my company's
proprietary UNIX code -- for which we receive no revenue. SCO has a strong,
involuntary presence in certain non-U.S. government markets -- but this is only
through unauthorized use of our code in Linux software.
See
Error 9.
Error 19
We need to look no further
than the declining revenues of the music publishing industry -- undermined by
free, online downloading -- to see a warning of what could be next for our
software industry.
Firstly the music industry is hardly in
decline - the music distribution business may be concerned, but there is some
evidence that it's recent troubles are a) going away, and b) caused by general
economic factors. Secondly downloading of music is a direct theft by consumers
- SCO are arguing against theft of methods by competitors (a subtle but
important distinction). Thirdly, see error 9.
Error
20
3. The threat to our national security. I assert that
Open Source software -- available widely through the Internet -- has the
potential to provide our nation's enemies or potential enemies with computing
capabilities that are restricted by U.S. law. SCO's UNIX software is subject to
export licensing restrictions, and for good reason. With the powerful
multi-processing features of UNIX software, someone could build a supercomputer
for military applications. My company must adhere to these restrictions: we
cannot sell to North Korea, Libya, Iran, Sudan and several other nations. But a
computer expert in North Korea who has a number of personal computers and an
Internet connection can download the latest version of Linux, complete with
multi-processing capabilities misappropriated from UNIX, and, in short order,
build a virtual supercomputer.
A computer expert in North Korea
could write an entirely non-standard O/S if required, which the US would then
have to go and steal I suppose.
Besides, AFAIK the only 'restricted
software' are encryption methods, which have nothing to do with multi-processing
or anything else SCO have actually laid claim to.
Not really an
error
When I talk about this [export of Linux to North Korea
and others], some people think I'm an alarmist. I have a different view -- I
think that this may have already happened. Open Source software and the GPL,
unchecked, are an easy way for our adversaries to circumvent our software export
restrictions.
No, I think your mad. It's a bit like comming
back from your holiday and screaming "They all speak English! They could
understand everything I said!! We can't keep anything secret
anymore!!!"
Error 21
It undermines our basic
system of intellectual property rights, and it destroys the economic reasons for
innovation.
No, it's built upon the basic system of Copyright
(there is no legal definition for 'intellectual property rights' that I am aware
of), and provides a more stable technological platform from which to develop
economically viable support business models. It also provides non-economic
reasons for innovation. It is the closest thing to a 'free lunch' the service
and support industry will ever see.
Error 22
We
have been encouraged to see that, unique among the organizations with which
we've met, most government agencies understand the implications of SCO's case.
Government agency leaders readily understand the value of copyrights, and they
do not want to be in violation.
These would be US govenrmet
agencies then? Not the backstabbing foreign agencies mentioned earlier.
Error 23
This is in contrast to many corporations,
who seem to have a "don't ask, don't tell" policy when it comes to understanding
the source of the software they are using.
The 'Don't ask,
don't tell' policy was originally attributed to the Open Source movement in
general, and Linus Torvalds and Bruce Perens in particular. This is the first
time I have seen a SCO representative attributing this 'policy' to corporations.
When it was first mentioned it was false, and it still
is. ---
-----
There are no stupid questions [ Reply to This | # ]
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- Very good! - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 26 2004 @ 06:24 AM EST
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, January 23 2004 @ 07:03 PM EST |
Here's an interesting article -
http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/01/22/HNscocongress_1.html
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: chaz_paw on Friday, March 19 2004 @ 09:48 PM EST |
I have been reading here less than two weeks. I knew of this case before I found
out about Groklaw. Rather than anyone being outraged at Darl, we should all
encourage him to keep on talking. Darl is his own worse enemy, and he doesn't
even know it.
There is an old saying- Give 'em enough rope, and they'll hang themselves.
Charles
---
United we stand.[ Reply to This | # ]
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