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SCO Madness Reigns Supreme
Roblimo knows good, honest Constitutional argumentation when he sees it, and over on NewsForge amplifies SCO's claims that the GPL is unconstitutional.
Dopey Panda writes "Looks like SCO has become just a bit worried about their liabilities for distributing the Linux kernel. Starting November 1 you will have to be a registered SCO customer to be able to access their FTP site. So that leaves just a couple days for you to download your own genuine SCO-approved GPL code!"
And perhaps today's most interesting SCO submission: 1HandClapping writes "In alwayson-network.com, Mark F. Radcliffe (HIAL) writes about a little-reported aspect of the SCO vs IBM case: 'Novell, as part of its sale of the UNIX licenses to SCO, retained the right to require SCO to "amend, supplement, modify or waive any right" under the license agreements (and if SCO did not comply, Novell could exercise those rights itself on SCO's behalf). At IBM's request, Novell employed this right and demanded that SCO waive IBM's purported violations. When SCO did not do so, Novell exercised its right to waive the violations on SCO's behalf. Basically, this defense destroys the core of the SCO case: IBM's violation of its UNIX license with SCO.'"
Consider that Noorda has been around the tech industry a LONG time, that he has been involved in a lot of companys, he presumably knows who the A-team and B-team players are, and that he appears to dislike Microsoft a little bit.
So - he takes one of the organizations under his control. He fills it with C-team players. He fills (or prompts someone to fill) the C-team with truthful but misleading information about SCO's purported "intellectual property". He advises them to go after the biggest target first.
Then he sits back and watches while SCO leads a hopeless charge against IBM. This has the dual effect of (a) laying down case law _supporting_ the GPL that Microsoft will have a very hard time overturning (b) smoking out various linkages and anti-competitive behaviour on Microsoft's part.
Crazy, but I have a hard time seeing why else SCO is being so incompetent.
By now, hasn't SCO contradicted themselves so many times on so many issues they're estoppeled from any course of action whatsoever?
Maybe just a non-lawyer's wishful thinking...
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
I posted this to LWN earlier....
It's important to understand that this really is a war, and SCO has a point, albeit not one that sane people should accept.
The GPL is a truly revolutionary license, it is *designed*, as SCO says, to reduce the financial value of proprietary software. Yes, GPL software is freer than public domain, in the sense that the source code can never be taken proprietary (other than by the original author) and redistributed.
SCO's argument will likely be that this contravenes Congress's will, by creating a commons under rules other than those established by law.
SCO will say that GPLed code cannot be restricted by export controls, thus violates national security laws.
According to SCO, GPL purports to grant *too much freedom* and therefore, according to this argument, the lesser freedom of the public domain is and should be the appropriate terms by which previously GPLed code should be distributable.
By this reasoning, then, SCO will claim it has every right to use GPL code in its proprietary distributions, but on the other hand, can contend that its own code (or code which IBM created under a license which grants SCO ownership of their code) was never intended (by SCO) to be released under GPL nor public domain.
Now, to fully understand these arguments, you must put yourself in the mindset of a madman. Which, undoubtedly, Darl McBride is. Microsoft and others have surely encouraged his delusional state, and given him the resources he needs to pursue his dreams of world domination, with the understanding that even if SCO has no chance of succeeding in the final analysis, the legal case can and will create FUD to slow the adoption of Linux and buy time for proprietary firms.
If this is a war, SCO is a foot soldier. SCO will die, of course, but that's what foot soldiers are expected to do.
Peace and love, y'all
1. File law suits
2. Get the licensing declared illegal
3. Profits
The only thing is getting everything released under the GPL in the last three years turned over to public domain would trampel the very concept of a copyright. It is a nice idea for SCO, but in reality they have to be smoking crack to think that this one will work. I honestly can not see it happening.
The views expressed are mine own and do not express the views of my employer.
Why would a Wookiee - an eight foot tall Wookiee - want to live on Endor with a bunch of two foot tall Ewoks? That does not make sense!
But more importantly, you have to ask yourself: what does that have to do with this case? Nothing. Ladies and gentlemen, it has nothing to do with this case! It does not make sense!
Look at me, I'm a lawyer defending a major software company, and I'm talkin' about Chewbacca. Does that make sense? Ladies and gentlemen, I am not making any sense. None of this makes sense.
And so you have to remember, when you're in that jury room deliberating and conjugating the Emancipation Proclamation - does it make sense? No! Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, it does not make sense.
If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must acquit! The defense rests.
In defence to IBM's counterclaims to it's lawsuit, SCO have made public a 21 page document, including 156 'answers'.
In the document the lawyers admit some facts submitted by Big Blue when it counterclaimed, but the important things are what it doesn't admit, of course.
It alleges that Linux is an "unathorized version of UNIX that is structured, assembled and designed to be technologically indistinguishable" from it.
I wonder how much the SCO lawyers are being paid.
When anger rises, think of the consequences.
Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)
i used to say...
SCO has every reason in the world to see the GPL killed. That reason is that they have (most likely) been using GPL'd code in their proprietary code. They want to see the GPL nulled and voided so that when "they win their case", they can, at a later date, keep right on using Linux code in their shitty products.
now, it looks like i need to amend it slightly...
SCO has every reason in the world to see all GPL software made public domain. That reason is that they have (most likely) been using GPL'd code in their proprietary code. They want to see the GPL nulled and voided so that when "they win their case", they can, at a later date, keep right on using Linux code in their shitty products, as well as to prevent being sued into oblivion by a horde of GPL contibutors.
it sucks being right.
I'm telling you - we need to see SCO's "closed source" product code - for there, you will see that they have been going what they have accuesed everyone else of doing.
There is NO other reason for wanting all GPL code made "public domain".
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
Why is SCO trying to get GPL code into the public domain? Could they perhaps be trying to cover their tails in case someone were to uncover GPL code in software THEY have been releasing closed source?
Does anyone else get the feeling that SCO is trying to get the Linux Kernel into the public domain so Microsoft can use it as a base for Longhorn? Robert X Cringley had an article about this a few months back.
DOS is dead, and no one cares...
If there's a Bourne Shell, I'll see you there
Free the meme! Viva la revolution!
Or not.
SCO is obviously out to destroy the open source community, but their method is more subtle than previously thought. They just make an outrageous claim and then watch all the open source developers spend their time flaming on ./ rather than doing real work. Pretty sneaky...
If it is all going to boil down to the GPL being tried in a court of law, there is one big thing that we should all be thankful for. That is the fact that IBM is on the side of the GPL. IBM has some of the best and sharpest attorneys in the corporate world, and short of having Disney come aboard as well, I can't think of any corporation I'd prefer to have as my proxy warrior.
is not necessarily my friend. Noorda dislikes MS to point of calling Ballmer "Emballmer" and Bill "Pearly" Gates. He was fond of saying something like "Emballmer gets you ready for the grave and Pearly drops you in it."
I have no doubt he would like to score a win of some kind against MS. But it wouldn't surprise me if Free Software offends him as badly as it does MS. A victory for the GPL isn't necessarily a victory for him. He isn't going to go out of his way for a little schadenfreude.
The other possibility is that he doesn't care what SCO does as long as they're scoring some change from SUN and MS.
If the GPL is invalid, what other licensings would also be in question?
How about any licensings that violates or circumvents a persons constitutional rights (US)?
Might such a thing also extend to employment contracts?
Sheer genius!
"Looks like SCO has become just a bit worried about their liabilities for distributing the Linux kernel. Starting November 1 you will have to be a registered SCO customer to be able to access their FTP site."
Doesn't matter; it is OK under the GPL to make code available only to those people who received binaries from you. You must, however, grant the same rights to those recipients so that they can further modify or distribute what they got from you.
In other words, if the GPL is enforceable, this move by SCO does not mitigate their responsibility to honor the terms of the license which they accepted by distributing the software.
If the GPL is enforceable, SCO has lost their rights by attempting to add further restrictions (in the form of their "SCO IP License"). If the GPL is not enforceable, then the whole software industry is in for a shake-up, because a license is the only way that software copyright holders extend any rights to you beyond what copyright allows.
- November 1 comes.
- IBM buys one (1) SCO UNIX license.
- IBM downloads the full linux kernel from SCO's website.
- By giving IBM said kernel, SCO has just licensed Linux to IBM under the GPL. This can no longer be argued to be mistake, or something accidentally left around on the website. IBM is now not only someone who has grabbed a file off SCO's website-- which is all that you need for the GPL license to be extended-- they are now a paying customer.
- All the code IBM ever put into linux now falls into two categories.
- Code which IBM had the right to put into linux because they own it.
- Code which IBM has the right to put into linux because SCO has granted them an unfettered license to do so by distributing said code to IBM under the GPL in step 3.
- Thus, SCO's lawsuit against IBM-- in which they allege IBM put code into linux which by right of contract is the property of SCO-- is no longer valid, since whether said code is IBM's or SCO's property, IBM now has the right to distribute it under the GPL anyway. The suit can be thrown out.
Yes, I realize the above is utterly rediculous. I'm pointing this out just to elaborate how rediculous SCO's position is. As if it weren't already obvious to all.Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
'SCO is trying to get the judge to declare all works released under the GPL for the last 3 years put into the public domain.'
There were early rumours about Microsoft having a puppeteer-like hand up SCO's collective ass when this whole mess started.
Everything released under the GPL over the last three years, ostensibly some pretty solid code and products, would suddenly be up for grabs without the viral GPL attachment, including the Linux Kernel.
(Linux - GPL) + (Innovative Open Source GPL Products - GPL) + (Microsoft - Innovation) = ?
- billn
The argument that SCO has outlined states that the GPL contravenes the copyright law by making software very free. I won't try and figure out how something can be too free in a nation that purports to be the most free nation on Earth.
As I understand it, if I create a copyrightable work, I can impose any restrictions on the use of that work. If you want to use that work, you must comply. If I choose to release a work under the GPL, that is my choice. I am complying with the law in that I have imposed restrictions on the use of my work (or lack of restrictions). You as a consumer must comply with those restrictions. I am not forcing you to do so. If you cannot comply, you cannot use it, pure and simple.
Can someone explain to me how this is not constitutional?
'SCO is trying to get the judge to declare all works released under the GPL for the last 3 years put into the public domain.'
correct me if im wrong, but wouldnt this put sco's linux distro into the public domain, and thus, invalidate all of their stolen-ip claims? sco did release their distro under the gpl, correct?
Gyrate Dot Org - "Where high-tech meets low-life"
"Never attribute to malice that which can be sufficiently explained by stupidity."
Any contract whose terms are not legal is null. So I think that's already the case.
Note that there is a difference between someone waiving their rights and inalienable rights being violated. In any contract there is give and take - for example, in exchange for payment I give up some specific rights (like working for my employer's competition on the side, for instance). However, I couldn't sign a contract making me a slave. That's not legal.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
SCO says GPL is unconstitutional. Many public school students feel that school dress codes violate the first amendment. Some people feel that corporate restrictions on the distribution of pornography violate *their* first amemdment rights. Invariably, these people are corrected and accordingly embarrassed when the authorities say "Um, no it's *not*."
This sig no verb.
SCO's book value will be either billions of dollars or zero dollars after this case is over, and now we've got law professors calling their case "bizarre and ridiculous" - isn't that the sort of thing SCOX shareholders might find interesting? Yet unless you go into the discussion forums there's not a peep about it on finance.yahoo.com, fool.com... marketwatch.com is the only site I can find that's actually linking to any of these stories.
So I'm throwing out two questions:
Is there anything we can do to make the financial folks more aware of this? Every time a deceitful SCO executive makes another $100,000 stock sale to ignorant traders, Adam Smith does another 360 in his grave.
Is there some better news source I should be using for the stocks I buy? I may sound like I'm mocking the "ignorant traders", but how can I be sure I'm not inadvertently funding some con artist myself?
America is not the world. (Reminded about my earlier gaffe about Canadians, perhaps I should say "the USA is not the world.)
If the GPL is ruled unconstitutional in the USA then the rest of the world simply goes for a dual license. With apologies to all the sane people in the USA, I go for something along the lines of: "GPL applicable outside the USA. No licensing terms available within the USA." We move repositories of GPL stuff out of the USA and the rest of the world gets on with business as usual, apart from possibly a few years setback having to replace key developers. The USA, meanwhile, carries on smoking its crack pipe.
"'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'"
- JRR Tolkien.
If SCO succeeds in getting the GPL voided and all it's code put into public domain (last 3 years??), can I please be the first to sign onto a class action lawsuit, because it affects me. Surely this damages the work of thousands of people, probably in the trillions of dollars, and I would sure enjoy being part of a coalition to bankrupt and crush SCO. SCO execs will never be able to work in business again.
Copyright Preemption
A person publishing source code does not relenquish the author's legal rights over that source code any more than a book author, by having a book published, relenquishes copyright control over the content of *HIS* work.
Without the GPL, no code that is currently GPL'd can ever be legally distributed by anyone (except those expressly permitted by the copyright holder), until such time that the copyright expires (which given the inane extensions given to copyright recently, could be an *AWFULLY* long time).
As for getting permission from the copyright holder... well if a person had wanted to use the GPL in the first place, they'd just come up with their own licensing system which still maintains the copyright holder's ownership and control on the work, and has simple enough requirements for getting permission that absolutely *ZERO* paperwork is necessary (ie... a GPL-ish license).
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Ironic, isn't it, that it's Windows that's doing more to remove OS software from the realm of competition than the GPL... by making it unprofitable to create a new OS from scratch because of the cost of reverse-engineering deliberately buggy APIs.
Ironic, isn't it, that it's GCC that's being used by all these operating systems, proprietary or otherwise.
Ironic, isn't it, that embedded system makers are picking BSD over Linux (or wishing they had in the case of Linksys) because they don't want to be in the business of developing operating systems... but the GPL is too onerous?
"well if a person had wanted to use the GPL in the first place, they'd just come up with their own licensing system..."
Like BSD, or the LGPL, or the Artistic License, or...
If there were no GPL, SCO's position would be no better. In fact it was a contract with the CSRG containing terms similar to the BSD license that tripped AT&T up the first time this played out... not the GPL.
I think this is like saying that if I live in the woods I'm freer then if I live in a house with a fenced yard. I can go in any direction I want... I am not 'forced' to go to the door or unlock my gate. I'm free!!!
But then, life is complicated, and the result of having no house and no fence is that, for example, I have no place to put my stuff. I'm not really very free to have stuff, and if I do have a VCR in the woods it's easily stolen. You can think that you are more free. There is a semantic argument and a definition of free where you will be "correct", but in the real world, safety measure do INCREASE freedom if they are the right measure (like have a lockable shelter).
The GPL is a lockable shelter. And yet unlockable. Beautiful.
-pyrrho
I know it is probably because they are so certain of their case, and because they don't really want to join the current shit slinging freak-show that is SCO, but. . .
I almost get the impression that IBM is not making a sound for fear that too much pressure on SCO will simply cause them to fold.
When you have a million to one advantage against your enemies, there really isn't any reason to jockey for position.
It is hard enough to keep them in the game, and IBM legal knows as well as anyone else that splattering Boise & Co. in the court room will be some seriously positive publicity.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
Something to understand here is that SCO's lawyers are not behaving eratically or in an unusual way, given their position.
That is, wen you enter a legal dispute, your first tactic is usually going to be to attack the very foundation of your opponent's position. It doesn't matter if your claims are reasonable (though they should be as reasonable as possible), you just want to take the shot.
Then, idealy, you prepare several fallback positions of increasing weight. There's an emotional trick here and a logical reason for this. The emotional trick is that you set the bar by making the hyperbolic claim. When you claim that the GPL is unconstitutional, you're not attacking the GPL directly so much as you're attempting to start the conversation with a debate over the validity of the GPL so that your next points: the enforcability of the GPL will be recieved better.
The logical reason to do this, however, is obvious to anyone who worries about network security. The first thing you do is always the easiest, no matter how likely it is to stop an attacker, to NOT do the easy things, you would be remiss. After you block all incoming IPX traffic, you still have to deal with the TCP threats, and while it's unlikely that you'll be getting IPX-based attacks from your T1 provider, you should still block it.
That's what SCO has done here. They're not really taking the position that the GPL is obviously unconstitutional, so much as they are making that claim because it's where you start... then you can move on to the arguments that are more likely to work for you.
Whenever I hear someone talk about how "insane" SCO is acting, I have to shake my head. It's not insane for a dying company to make grandious copyright claims against the rest of the industry. It is in fact, a very wise, if desperate, tactic. Get used to it, now that Linux is seen as an ecconmic reality, SCO's wild pot-shots will only be the first of many. The open source community's headache here will be the fact that most businesses don't handle all of those pot-shots in the public eye....
1. IBM, we sue you for leaking a few lines of our code into Linux.
2. IBM, we sue you because you leaked thousands of lines of our code into Linux.
3. IBM, we sue you because we own Unix and you developed software for Linux.
4. Linux was based on Unix and Unix has 2,000,000+ lines of code. Linux contains all our code!
4. IBM, we sue you... not quite sure why now... We own Linux. Everyone give use $699 or else.
5. All software written under the GPL in the last 3 years is free because the GPL is stupid and it just should be ours anyway.
6. All software ever written is ours.
7. ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!
Ascalante: Your bride is over 3,000 years old.
Kull: She told me she was 19!
In the unlikely event that all GPL released works become public domain per SCO's request... wouldn't that include SCO's own Linux release, therefore killing whatever ownership of any fragement code they might have had?
I think Stallman is being quiet because this offers the best possible contrast with SCO's approach to this farrago. Eben Moglen makes regular, measured, authoritative statements concerning SCO's claims. He is the appropriate conduit for the FSF's position in this case, IMHO.
You know, maybe there's a lesson for us all here. On second thoughts, maybe it's just a lesson for you.
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
SCO and Microsoft aren't the first people to dislike the GNU Public Virus. It's a licensing approach that's very aggressively designed to promote certain ideas about how Free Software should work, and there are alternative viewpoints even among people who *do* like free software. However, SCO does appear to be the first group that's sufficiently well-funded, aggressive, and boneheaded to attack it with a large crash-and-burn lawsuit.
They do have a partial case - the Unix source license terms were always unclear and dodgy in terms of exactly how closely derived something from Unix source had to be covered, and it's possible that IBM or Sequent or SGI slipped close enough to the edge to sue, but the BSD lawsuits pretty much established that reverse-engineered work-almost-alikes are ok, at least with sufficiently careful clean-room techniques, and IBM has more experienced software-issue lawyers than anybody except possibly Microsoft or remotely possibly the US Government (who also suffer from combinations of malice and incompetence.) However, SCO's distribution of Linux 2.4.x weakens their position substantially.
Me? I've probably still got my Usenix "Mentally Contaminated" pin from a few years ago, though Unix source has evolved a bit from the System V Release 2.0p days when I last looked at licensed kernel source, or from the early 90s when I was using licensed user-space code, and it's amazing how much bit-rot can set in...
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I contacted the SEC about SCO, and they called me back!
I posted a comment with more information about this yesterday....
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
GPL is more free because you cannot not distribute source.
Right, by restricting freedom you can create more. You should work for SCO they need a minster of information. The GPL restricts freedom, whether that is good or bad can be argued, but at least call a spade a spade.
More importantly (and more accurately), Eben Moglen "could be thought of" as the FSF's Legal Counsel. Why do you think that anyone cares whether you think RMS's actions are acceptable?
Nobody rammed the GPL down my throat. Some people offered some software under a licence they selected. I chose to use the software. Occasionally I have redistributed this software, under the rights and conditions granted to me by the GPL.
There is a certain art in trolling. You have to stay just the right side of acting like an obnoxious idiot, otherwise you'll just get patronised by people who are cleverer than you are.
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
Madmen always take the most simple and logical path to reason their madness. SCO wants money at the expense of everyone else, so naturally they must assert themselves as superior to everyone else.
... well that would be bad.
It seems to me that they will build an ingeniously incorrect case, bring it in front of a court of law, play the justice system like a card table in Vegas, and if they win
Only one problem, the 9th and 10th Amendments have been effectively removed from the US Constituition. When was the last time a major case turned on one of them? For if the Courts were t rediscover them they would be forced to strike down most of the Federal Government.
Example: I have the babble box on in the background right now, happen to be on CNNFN and was half listening to a discussion about a new proposed EPA rule requiring apartments to install water meters on each unit in the name of water conservation. The discussion covered a lot of issues, whether it would actually save water, how hard it would be to retrofit existing structures, blah blah. At no point was the most important question asked. What section of the US Constituition granted the Federal Government the power to regulate water supply to dwellings? Since there is no such section, the clear language of those same Amendments mean it HAS no such authority. Most of the EPA, FDA, HUD, etc. etc. are illegal according to the Constituition but violate their edicts and you will go directly to jail, not pass go and never find a lawyer willing to take your 200/hr to use the 9th or 10th Amendment in your defense.
The Constituition uses shockingly clear and direct language, but it still gets ignored.
Amendment 9:
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment 10:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Democrat delenda est
While most of your post is accurate and informative, I have to dispute one point: nobody could make money selling Multics, or they'd still be selling it today. GE tried and failed, Honeywell tried and failed, and no one else was stupid enough to buy it after that. (I am a former Multician.) Multics was very good at a bunch of things, but it was never designed to be ported to different hardware, and it just cost too damn much to run and maintain.
We call it art because we have names for the things we understand.
"If its not enforceable, and goes under public domain"
Then thousands of angry people all have a serious grievance regarding their right due process before a Constitutional Right can be abridged. Every one of them is entitled to an individual hearing on the matter, probably one for each piece of copyrighted work.
The judge in this lawsuit does not actually possess the authority to make such a judgement, except in the specific cases of the property of the parties to the suit. If your code isn't part of the disputed items in SCO v. IBM, it's completely beyond the scope of this trial. Even if the judge finds the GPL to be unenforceable, he can ONLY rule it to be unenforceable by one party to this suit against the other. He could also conceivably be able to order one party to release their property under other licenses, or even surrender their copyrights, as part of the disposition of the case.
This judge cannot hammer his gavel and magically make GPL code into PD, period. That's not even conceivable. And as for finding the GPL to be invalid, it might become invalid between SCO and IBM, but it's still going to be valid between ME and YOU until we get OUR day in court, unless you have some reason to anticipate a Supreme Court ruling on the thing. (This case isn't going there, certainly.)
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
If they go for the "Public Domain" extreme, the fact that they've given out 2.4.13 means that all that material's public domain now, as well as any earlier Linux material IBM had access to when developing their versions, so there's not much covered by their alleged contracts except some of the multi-processor scheduling stuff in SVR4.2 and later versions, and there are other sources of multi-processor scheduler work that IBM may also have drawn on. They certainly can't nail anybody who's not using those post-2.4.13 modules.
But if they go for the "Invalid, and everybody who contributed anything can still sue" part, it may be arguable that they've still got no claim over anything in 2.4.13, since they gave that away for free, or to derived works from that, and if they want to mess around suing anybody other than IBM for material that was in other Linuxen, they'd better be willing to defend themselves against the Death of a Thousand Lawsuits from anybody who contributed to 2.4.13 or to other GPL material SCO is continuing to use or distribute along with their licensed Unix versions (though they're probably safe leaving the BSD stuff in.) They'd certainly better ditch any EMACS and GCC because of RMS's direct contributions.
The Middle Case leaves Linux off the hook except for a few IBM scheduler additions and perhaps a few other features they haven't named, and IBM may or may not be able to beat the rap for sharing their trade secret on the rest of it. The Evil DMCA Cases leave IBM's position a bit shakier, but unlike the DVDCCA's ability to judge-shop and harass random teenagers first, SCO is stuck with fighting the 800-pound gorilla first and then hitting any weaker players later if they win.
And at first glance, SCO's assertion that the GPL is unconstitutional suggests that they're consuming substances that were frowned upon by the majority religion in Utah but are quite popular in Santa Cruz, or alternatively that they've been overusing substances that even Santa Cruzers view as harsh and ill-advised. Their best bet is to file a motion of "Withdrawing because we wuz drunk at the time we filed it, Yer Honor" with the court and get out, or see if they can get the Governator to go back in time and stop Linux and RMS.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
RMS has been very successful in promoting his obsessive viewpoints on Exactly How Free Software Should Be, and enough people have been willing to go along with it that there's not a significant body of work covered by the GPL. How many of the authors would have been just as satisfied contributing to something with an Artistic License or a Not My Fault license is debatable; once you attach it to GPLed stuff, it tends to get GPLed unless you're very careful about how you build and use interfaces, and that may not be the best _technical_ choice or may be more work than people want to bother with.
There's Free like in Free Speech, and Free like in Free Beer, and then there's Free like in Free Kittens...
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks