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SCO, IBM, Lawsuits & ESR
By alex, Section Diaries
Posted on Fri Mar 7th, 2003 at 09:16:43 GMT

So SCO have file suits against IBM. Big deal. Let's not break out into another round of warfare over this...

 

I just read Eric Raymond's response to the SCO lawsuit. It seems every time he writes these days, he needs to get a dig in about the "free-software" community:

It's also smart to accuse the "free-software" community. SCO knows as well as Microsoft did in 2000 that the term "free software" is likely to sound suspicious to anyone who is not already immersed in the open-source community...

(Read the article, and note the veiled reference to communism.. subliminal propaganda at it's finest, remember you're reading the works of a self-claimed "social hacker")

What a marked difference from Free Software Leaders Stand Together (which ESR put his name to) - how out of touch. Yes, the problem with "open source"/Free Software is probably never going to go away, the phrases represent different communities. But that is no impediment to us acting together when it makes sense to do so - as Stand Together shows us.

SCO have filed against IBM - for what yet, we don't know. Eric hints at the ELF binary format, we know SCO also believe that Linux is a derivative of Unix, and that therefore they think Linux infringes on their copyright/whatever. SCO find themselves in the position that their revenue streams are dying and they need to find new ones - what easier pickings, than becoming an "intellectual property" firm?! You don't even need engineers or sales people for that; you just sit on a pile of patents and the money appears to come rolling in. This is what we should be highlighting - the fact that this suit is going to be baseless in any kind of fact, and that the community doesn't require business to stand on it's own. Not firing cheap shots at each other.

Journalists, maybe if you're reading this and interested in the whole SCO thing, go speak to Bruce Perens, he's available for comment...

< David Sugar to speak at OpenWeekend, GNU Alexandria discussed (1 comments) | PCLinuxOnline initiates community boycott of SCO (0 comments) >
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SCO, IBM, Lawsuits & ESR | 5 comments (5 topical, editorial) | Post A Comment
[new] Yep (#1)
by cyd (#42) on Fri Mar 7th, 2003 at 22:57:19 GMT
(User Info)

ESR does seem to go out of his way to get his shots in. It's rather disappointing. Still, his star's in decline, and it's debatable how much weight he still has in the free software/open source community. Note that VA Software is withdrawing from the community, like SCO. To be fair, ESR has already been removed from its board...

Unsurprisingly, one point that's being ignored in the brouhaha is the role of the GNU project. SCO's chief complaint against IBM is that GNU/Linux could not have become enterprise-level (whatever that means) without help from IBM. This blithely ignores the fact that big chunks of Unix functionality - some already superior to the actual Unix components - were in already in place before Linux was written.


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[new] Raymond! logic-fault here (#5)
by S11 or sirian (#439) () on Wed Mar 19th, 2003 at 05:17:49 GMT
(User Info) http://csserver.evansville.edu/~sc87/

...knows as well as Microsoft did in 2000 that the term "free software" is likely to sound suspicious...


Er, since Microsoft was trying to attack free software, then, wouldn't they think of this as a good thing? Or, wouldn't they choose to use this "suspicious-sounding term" to talk about the FS community--thereby encouraging suspicion--instead of "open source"?

S11
DotGNU || Free Software in Education group
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