McBride's New Open Letter on Copyrights

dtfinch writes "An open letter was posted today by Darl McBride, where he restates his claim that the GPL violates the U.S. Constitution, patent laws, copyright laws, and the DMCA. Mostly he just builds up a false image of the Free Software Foundation and open source supporters claiming that they have no respect for intellectual property and believe copyrights should be eliminated, then attacks that image, AKA the straw man attack. Nothing we haven't seen before."

Comments

basis in law!

[potpie]

From Linuxtoday.com: "The GPL is based on copyright law, unlike the 'shrink wrap' licences we are familiar with, which are based on contract law. Most countries worldwide have signed the Berne Copyright Convention, which protects software automatically upon creation. So the GPL has a more solid international grounding than if it were based on contract law, which can vary greatly from country to country..."

deconstucting the constitution

[segment]

Congress shall have Power ... [t]o promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries

Nowhere do I recall ever reading anything on compensation, that to me is more of an ethical issue if you ask me, but IANAL so I really don't want to stick my foot in my mouth... Or the kb in my ass. As I take the Constitution regarding copyrights is just as stated 'securing for limited times the exclusive right to their work'. SCO is turning this into a circus fanfare with a) either money the underlying issue, or b) other entities are using SCO as a puppet to do their deeds.

However, there is a group of software developers in the United States, and other parts of the world, that do not believe in the approach to copyright protection mandated by Congress. In the past 20 years, the Free Software Foundation and others in the Open Source software movement have set out to actively and intentionally undermine the U.S. and European systems of copyrights and patents.

This is serioulsy bold, and slanderous statement of this guy to make, and I'm wondering who's going to be the first to open a can of lawsuit ass on SCO. It's one thing to make known your beliefs, but to claim someone is intentionally breaking a law is no laughing matter. Pretty ballsy move. Stupid but ballsy.

Leaders of the FSF have spent great efforts, written numerous articles and sometimes enforced the provisions of the GPL as part of a deeply held belief in the need to undermine or eliminate software patent and copyright laws.

Know something, I couldn't even finish reading it because it's so dull, overrated, cumbersome to understand, and downright dumb at this point. Isn't it about time someone maybe IBM or some other bigwig came in the picture, did a hostile takeover and demoted this clown to mailroom janitor, or parking lot car washer.

Re:deconstucting the constitution

[jelle]

The GPL is designed to keep GPL software free (as in speech). People make their writings and discoveries available for free under the GPL, as long as anybody who distributes an improved version also agrees that the improved version is exactly as free (as in speech). And that is the core of what makes the GPL unique, and which is exactly what made companies like WindRiver very cautious in the beginning: If you distribute GPL-licensed software, you better make sure that you know what is in it, because you're giving it away...

So my summary of what Darl of SCO is saying is this:

The GPL is unconstitutional, because the GPL allows people to limit the use and distribution of their writings and discoveries to only those people who do not intent to use copyright or patent law to subdue it.

So, basically, Darl of SCO is saying that he realizes that SCO has distributed Linux under GPL after he knew about what he claims as his infringement of SCO IP. And because that distribution would negate all his claims of infringed IP, he has no other choice but to dispute the legality of the GPL. Well, maybe he doesn't realize that, but at least his lawyers did.

The only other alternative, accepting to have knowingly broken the terms of the GPL license by distributing GPL-licensed software while not agreeing with the terms of the license would not make sense, and according to the law of Chewbacca defense lead to immediate aquittal of his case.

BTW: Who else confuses WindRiver and WinDriver?

Don't they

[mcc]

Don't they actually have to put up in court tomorrow?

If I remember right, tomorrow is the oral discovery arguments for their case against IBM. Doesn't this mean that tomorrow they have to actually justify their unwillingness to clarify the nature of their case and answer to a judge for it?

Can't wait to see what that does to their stock.

Am I totally mistaking the nature of Discovery, but doesn't it mean that any evidence they haven't submitted by tomorrow, they can't use in the case? Meaning if they don't clarify their violations, rather than just giving the names of a bunch of documents (some of which contain nothing but some #includes and a "not implemented" comment), the "linux community" can then go around confidently stating that no such violations exist?

When's Redhat's Lanham Act case get to hit court to ask for injunctions?

Anyway, it probably wouldn't be too far-out to assume Darl's letter is some kind of diversionary tactic. Or that they won't try to do something even bigger and noisier tomorrow to draw attention away from the court.

An open letter TO Darl McBride

[Specter]

Darl,

I've got to tip my hat to you. It's rare that you can find someone so outspoken and with such an interesting interpretation of reality who is also able to elicit such vociferous and multitudinous responses from your friends and (more often) your enemies. Really, for your family's sake at least, I feel better knowing that when someone finally points out that the emperor has no clothes, you'll have no problems finding employment in the afternoon talk show circuit.

In the months since you've launched your Sisyphean attack on Linux and Open Source Software in general I've come to regard you with something of a grudging affinity. Like that crazy uncle you hope never shows up for family events but then miss terribly when he's not there, you've become a constant ache that I just know I'm going to miss. Who else can I count on to inspire such fits of laughter and frothing rage?

It's with this new found amiability towards you that I make the following offer. I know you've been wanting someone to buy up The SCO Group and in the interests of not seeing you completely financially devastated, I'd like to buy your company. I'd like to offer you a one crisp United States dollar bill for the entirety of The SCO Group. You may find the amount a little less than you'd hoped for, but as Homer Simpson was once counseled (if I may paraphrase) "I think you should take it."

You see I've been both amused, enraged, and more recently dismayed as the scope of your intellectual property land grab expands. I finally decided that some sort of intervention was necessary after I read your latest diatribe in which you both demonstrated a profound lack of understanding of intellectual property law as well as the GPL and made thinly veiled threats to employ the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to further expand your legal assault against Linux. Darl, have you even read the DMCA? Do you know what it is or says? Were you aware that you've got to actually demonstrate you've got copyright in something that's been infringed before you can even open that can of worms?

I'm sure it may have slipped your mind what with all the heavy composition you've apparently been engaged in, but although you've talked a lot about your lawsuits with IBM and RedHat, you haven't actually won either of them yet. As such, that presents a real problem for your DMCA strategy because so far you've been unable to demonstrate an intellectual property interest of The SCO Group that's been infringed in any way. Sort of putting the cart before the horse aren't we?

Surely it's also obvious to you now that you've painted yourself into a corner with respect to the GNU Public License (GPL)? If you prevail and the GPL is declared invalid, as a distributor of many works (including Linux) which were formerly licensed under the GPL, The SCO Group would appear to be guilty of copyright infringement on a rather unprecedented scale. (Without the GPL Darl you can't distribute Linux or Samba.) If you fail, and the GPL is valid, you've released all your supposedly infringed works into the Open Source community under terms where you lose all ability to make infringement claims on pretty much any IP grounds. In which case any value of any intellectual property left in the corpses of your versions of Unix is pretty much gone.

So please, I urge you, it's time to stop the madness. Take me up on my offer, let Mr. Boise have his cut of my buyout, and walk away a winner Darl. I'm pretty sure it's the best offer you're going to get.

Your friend,

Specter

Re:Closed Letter -- pedantic spell checking is fun

[ak_hepcat]

ye == the. y is a rune, pronounced like 'th'

'ye shalt' is then wrong. 'thou shalt'
'readeth' is not a proper conjugation, simply use 'read'.

'ye hearts' should be 'thy heart dost'

'I am using ye' => 'I be using the'

'hast thou hearest' => 'hast thou not heard'

'Remindest' is an improper combining of dost. Drop the do, and add an apostrophe: Remind'st

'ones'? just 'one' will do.

Most humbly, I remain _thy_ servant...