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Linus to SCO: 'Please Grow Up'
brakk writes "From this article at Infoworld, Linus responds to SCO's open letter in a manner reminiscent of patting a child on the head." chrisd notes that his company is making SCO employees unhireable.
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Well, now that there's a new item for Open Letters, here's the extensively revised version of the one I posted a couple days ago. You can also see it on my journal page.
A Linux User's Open Response to Darl McBride's Open Letter to the Open Source Community
By John Gabriel, NYC, 9/11/03
"What comes of litigation? Poverty and degradation to any community that will encourage it. Will it build cities, open farms, build railroads, erect telegraph lines and improve a country? It will not; but it will bring any community to ruin." -- Brigham Young, JD 11:259.
"Contracts are what you use against those with whom you have relationships." -- Darl McBride
Dear Mr. McBride,
First, let me introduce myself. My name is John Gabriel. I have been working in the technical field for 15 years, as a Network Administrator, Applications Manager, Network Manager, Sr. Networking Engineer, and now, Freelance Consultant. And, yes, I'm an MCSE.
My first experiences with Unix occurred in the late 1970's, during school field trips to local colleges. I also did Unix technical support for students while taking a class in Pascal in the late 1980's. My first experience with Linux dates to 1994, when I downloaded whatever Linux kernel was available at that time.
While I did install it successfully, on a Compaq Deskpro 386/25, I quickly abandoned it as the Deskpro didn't have enough memory to support the X Windows System. Several years later, in 1998, I became a Caldera customer, with a purchase of Caldera OpenLinux Base ver. 1.22, with Linux kernel 2.0.33. I ran into similar problems once more.
About a year ago, I again became interested in Linux, and now run Linux on my home workstation in a dual-boot configuration with Windows XP.
About 4-5 months ago, I began following the SCO v. IBM story. I was at first inclined to be open-minded towards SCO's claims. It wouldn't be the first time a small company has had its copyrights violated by a larger vendor, though the violator is usually, in my experience, Microsoft, as exemplified by Caldera's history with DR-DOS.
However, the more I researched the story and SCO's claims, the more convinced I became that SCO's claims were, well, baseless. Being the type that usually likes to "root for the underdog", I was surprised by my conclusions.
Anyway, that's enough introduction. What follows is an Open Response to your Open Letter to the Open Source Community. I grant everyone, including you, permission to re-publish it, or quote from it, without restriction, except that my comments be properly attributed to myself. Consider it under a "BSD-style" license if you like.
Open Letter to the Open Source Community
By Darl McBride, CEO, The SCO Group
1) The most controversial issue in the information technology industry today is the ongoing battle over software copyrights and intellectual property. This battle is being fought largely between vendors who create and sell proprietary software, and the Open Source community. My company, the SCO Group, became a focus of this controversy when we filed a lawsuit against IBM alleging that SCO's proprietary Unix code has been illegally copied into the free Linux operating system. In doing this we angered some in the Open Source community by pointing out obvious intellectual property problems that exist in the current Linux software development model.
I am fairly sure that this is legal. Past employment record is something that "shows your ability to perform the job".
If you were an employee of a company that had conflicting values then it's reasonable to reject you based on that fact. It is already common for companies to not hire employees from their competitors fearling IP leaks and the lawsuits that follow.
Under that logic it is a perfectly valid concern that a SCO employee might "inevitably" bring some SCO IP into the company and result in SCO filing a lawsuit.
Does that make it ok to not hire someone just because they worked for SCO? I think it's moraly wrong, baseless and absolutley retarded. But I doubt that it's illegal. But of course IMNAL...
In Soviet Russia, the television watches YOU!
Ughu...
Yes and can you look at yourself in the mirror and be SURE that you "did the right thing" when you have responsibilities to your family?
Oh sure 'I' don't mind a bit of pain to make my stand, but am I willing to hurt other to make my stand? I think not.
You have NO idea how happy I am to be working. I know people who are graduating IST/CS right now and have NOTHING but 50k-70k in loans. I can tell you right now that even the most moral of them will BEG for a job at SCO, right wrong be damned. You wouldn't be so sure about "doing the right thing" when your car got repoed and you filed for bancrupcy..
In Soviet Russia, the television watches YOU!
The policy of not hiring SCO employees is actually somewhat inteligent, and I would be surprised if other companies did not follow suit....
Bear with me for a moment....
By hiring a SCO employee, and knowing SCO's current mindset (sue for money), I would not be surprised if you got a knock on the door six months down the road from SCO counsel asking for a code audit, thinking that the former employee must have given your company some IP knowledge due to past experience at SCO....
So by not hiring an ex-SCOer, you would be keeping yourself from being exposed to such risks.... not at all unfair.... and good thinking
Who is the master of foxhounds, and who says the hunt has begun? -Pink Floyd