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Samba Team Points Out SCO's Hypocrisy

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the sweet-sweet-irony dept.

An anonymous reader noted an article talking about the Samba Team's Statement to SCO. While Darl McBride blasts the GPL, his company simultaneously announces the use of Samba 3 in their OpenServer product. I'm not sure if it breaks my heart or boils my blood to read this stuff. Probably a little of both.

4 of 612 comments (clear)

  1. SCO Resellers by MoxCamel · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Quite frankly, if I were a SCO reseller, I'd be looking for the nearest life boat. (Unlike the Titanic, however, SCO actually steered itself into the ice berg.)

    Linux and the GPL could potentially provide that life boat, although it's been my experience that the average SCO reseller is neither ncapable of innovation nor independent thought. Cactus is a good example. Their main product, Lone Tar, is nothing that GNU tar and a couple shell scripts (mostly for the "bootable" feature) couldn't replicate. To companies like this, it's still 1993.

  2. SCO's view: GPL == Public Domain by antimuon · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I suspect (and the subsequent news postings of SC0 seems to confirm) is that SCO is going to argue that stuff released under the GPL is public domain. My guess is they are going to argue since the copyright holders aren't "enforcing" their rights then there are no rights to "enforce" - it is publically available and the no one cares what you do with it, it is public domain. So SCO may try a two point attack 1) the GPL itself is invalid and 2) the copyrights underlying it aren't being actively enforced therefore 3) it is public domain. (NOTE: I do not agree with this, this is just what I think one of their arguments are going to be).

    Just like that college in California that has to shut down the shortcut through its campus every couple years to make sure they don't lose their property, copyrights are only good if someone is "actively trying to enforce them" - when you find a violation you must act. The history of the FSF/GPL community working with GPL violators to bring them in line is going to be the major counter argument (such as the recent work with Linksys to make sure they release the Linux they use). Other people who have worked on an individual basis to bring GPL violators to task would be helpful for the GPL case also.

    -antim
    NOTE: IANAL, TIJMV (this is just my view)

  3. check this link out by hansoloaf · · Score: 5, Interesting

    SCO Open Source Tools Found it under talkback posted on that page. Talk about ultimate hypocrisy.

  4. Re:samba team... by BJH · · Score: 5, Interesting

    More to the point, someone should raise this issue in SCOX's next investor conference call. Perhaps something along these lines:

    "At the recent SCO forum, you indicated that you consider the GPL to be damaging to intellectual property. At the same Forum, you announced that you would be shipping Samba 3 with your next release in order to provide a higher level of Windows compatibility. Considering that Samba is licensed to you under the GPL, your arguments against it would actually prevent including such functionality. Do you plan to remove Samba from your coming release if you win your lawsuit on the grounds that the GPL is invalid under Federal copyright law? If so, how do you intend to provide the Windows compatibility that you have announced?"