Slashdot Mirror
SCO's Open Letter to Open Source Community
joefish_only_1 writes "SCO CEO has posted an open letter to the open source community. There's some things Mr McBride mentions that I hadn't heard of yet, like an admission by Bruce Perens that "UNIX System V code is, in fact, in Linux, and it shouldn't be there."" A slashdot reader posted a comment recently
that breaks it down quite well.
You can have $699 for my SCO Intellectual Property for Linux License when you pry it from my cold, empty wallet.
Sincerely,
Anonymous Coward
Sure this letter is really open? No strings? Will I be sued if I don't include parts of this letter into my own?
I could be wrong. I'm always wrong...
I have written an open letter to the open source community. Unfortunately, I am not in a position to reveal its contents since that would mean compromising our trade secrets. However, I welcome you to license a copy of my open letter by signing a Non-Disclosure Agreement and payment of $699.
Yours affectionately,
Darl McBride
CEO, SCO Inc.
DDoS attacks, maybe your getting DDoS because everyone's trying to get to your site to buy a Linux license from you.
I can take things out of context too! "The most controversial issue" with having sex with cows "in the information technology industry today is the ongoing battle over software copyrights and intellectual property." ALSO "This battle is being fought largely between" various warring factions in my rectum, and "vendors who create and sell proprietary software, and the Open Source community." AND "My company, the SCO Group, became a focus of this controversy when we filed a lawsuit against IBM alleging that" we would really like to have repeated sex with cows, and "SCO's proprietary Unix code has been illegally copied into the free Linux operating system."
I bet the IBM lawyers were laughing their collective asses off while they compiled *that* list... "Ooh, Ooh, I've got a good one! Let's ask for any documents that mention the GPL! Bwaaahaahaahaa!". I love the way the points about "any documents relating to Microsoft" and "sales of stock" that slipped in there too. Now where do you suppose *that's* going? ;)
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
This guy [Darl McBride] really is in his own world. And it's obvious there is no oxygen on it.
It's the necktie. No, really.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
----
a paragraph-by-paragraph interpretation
of what he really meant to say
----
blah blah blah opening fluff
what we're doing is beneficial for us and for our secret
backer in Redmond because we want to spread as much fear about Linux
as possible before 90% of the people realize it is a superior product
to Windows for a cheaper price
whine whine whine, our website got DoS'd
keep attacking us and your company will fire you when they
find out that you're a Linux advocate because they will
just associate you with other open source "outlaws"
now I'm going to talk about how we paid people to put
System V code into Linux. normally these people would
be fired and sued, but we would rather go after Linux.
now I want to talk about why the Linux model can never
succeed because nobody can possibly ever be sure that
people with access to System V source won't sneakily
inject more into Linux. The Catch-22 here is that the
people auditing Linux code most likely don't have access
to AIX, IRIX, Solaris, etc source code. "Hey Bill, isn't
this great!! we're gonna make a fortune on this lawsuit!"
Now I'm going to spend 10 paragraphs explaining copyright
laws, but I will conveniently omit the reasons why we are
persuing the *product* of a crime rather than the people
that perpetrated the crime itself. Remember how I mentioned
the SGI programmer and how we know plenty more like him?
Well we're letting him off the hook because his criminal
acts have been the best thing that ever happened to SCO
and SCO's Redmond backer.
Finally I would like to end by justifying SCO's behavior
on the whole. Why should we go around suing the living daylights
out of everyone and spreading FUD about a platform
that was the result of countless volunteer hours and
philantropic contributions? Because we can! Isn't this great?
We live in a world where this behavior is not only allowed,
but also encouraged!! Now just wait until Bill^H^H^H we
pay off a few judges and lawmakers and have Linux officially
owned by SCO so at long last Windows^H^H^H we can prevail!
Sincerely,
Jerkoff McBride
A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
ESR doesn't know the identity of the DDoSer
Silly me. I automatically believed something Darl McBride said was the truth, and the whole truth, without checking the real facts. I won't make that mistake again.
Gerv
Funny, the way I read the OpenLetter from SCO, Darl seems to be in favor of OpenSource. Now that he's dumping all of his SCO stock maybe he doesn't care anymore. Or maybe he's realized that there is not case...
Here is quotes from the letter that support my statement:
"This ""Open Source software is healthy and beneficial. It offers long-term benefits to the industry by addressing a new business model in advance of wide-scale adoption by customers."
"My company, the SCO Group, became a focus of this controversy when we ""fought ""to ""cast...""a shadow over the ""Open Source movement ""by ""alleging ""that UNIX System V code"" in fact"" proprietary software code""."
"Linux ""is a ""authorized ""work ""not ""derivative ""of ""the ""UNIX System V code""."
"No one can tolerate ""SCO's ""business model that is ""built only on ""a lawsuit against IBM"". ""Finally, it is clear that the ""SCO Group is ""increasingly alienated from anyone associated ""with ""software ""and ""community."
"I will continue to ""sue... ""everyone ""...as... ""CEO""."
Check the letter, every quoted word is in there in some context or another. I see this as just as valid of an interpretation of his letter as he does Bruce Peren's letter and ESR's statements.
"Everybody knows the moon's made of cheese," Wallace.