The SCO lawyers seem to have quite a few misconceptions about Linux, and especially GNU, in their brief. Is the FSF gonna file a friend of the court brief? Someone should correct them.
Here's some of the misconceptions they have:
In their brief, one of the points they make is that Linux was originally created for not-for-profit uses:
76. The initial market positioning of Linux was to create a free UNIX-like operating system to be used by developers and computer hobbyists in personal, experimental, and not-for-profit applications. As such, Linux posed little, if any, commercial threat to UNIX.
I don't know for sure about what Linus was thinking, but I know for certain that GNU was intended to be used in commercial, for-profit applications. Stallman has repeatedly stated that people can GPL stuff and sell it. His analogy was with legal help: you pay a lawyer to write up a contract, but then you can give the contract to a friend in a similar situation. You pay once for the lawyer to write up the contract; the lawyer doesn't get royalties every time you use it. OTH, your friend would be wise to at least run it by a lawyer before using the contract to make sure it fits his/her situation. You can produce GPL'ed software that way, too. You can offer custom GPL'ed programs for a fee. The GPL has ALWAYS been intended to be applicable to for-profit programs.
79. In order to assure that the Linux operating system (and other software) would remain free of charge and not-for-profit, GNU created a licensing agreement entitled the General Public License ('GPL').
Free of charge, yes. Not-for-profitt, no. I can sell GPL'ed code for a gazillion dollars if I want. Of course, the first person who buys it can then put it on an ftp site and distribute it to the world...
80. Any software licensed under the GPL (including Linux) must, by its terms, not be held proprietary or confidential, and may not be claimed by any party as a trade secret or copyright property.
All GPL'ed software is copyright property. That's the only way the GPL works.
And then they go on to claim that IBM is trying to "destroy the economic value of UNIX (paragraph 90)." Um, guys, Stallman's intent at the outset was to destroy the economic value of all proprietary software.
I just hope that IBM's lawyers don't let them get away with such huge misconceptions. I really hope IBM can squash this suit like a bug (oh, wait, is that a good analogy? IBM... squashing bugs...infinitely growing bug lists... hmmm...))
I got some of the best advice ever a few years before I graduated college. A friend of mine was about to graduate, and he had just landed a really sweet first job. So I asked him for advice on getting such a job.
He said, "My advice is don't take anyone else's advice. You gotta follow your own direction, and anything anyone else will tell you is just their bias."
Hmmm... Now that I think about it, though, I didn't really follow his advice: I ended up getting the job that my new wife advised me to get. Hmmm...
... and don't get married because in the end, you'll end up losing more chances to get laid than you get. Or at least you'll have less variety and later you'll have someone take half your stuff, make your life hell, and try to character assassinate you in a miserable custody battle.
I dunno what I'd tell myself about computers. I got my first computer (a Commodore 64) when I was 13. I'm not sure if I'd tell my young self to go ahead and spend lots of time learning how to use, or if I'd tell myself to forget the computer, get a drum set and learn how to play that instead. Hmmm... richer or happier? So hard to decide.
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Here's some of the misconceptions they have:
In their brief, one of the points they make is that Linux was originally created for not-for-profit uses:
I don't know for sure about what Linus was thinking, but I know for certain that GNU was intended to be used in commercial, for-profit applications. Stallman has repeatedly stated that people can GPL stuff and sell it. His analogy was with legal help: you pay a lawyer to write up a contract, but then you can give the contract to a friend in a similar situation. You pay once for the lawyer to write up the contract; the lawyer doesn't get royalties every time you use it. OTH, your friend would be wise to at least run it by a lawyer before using the contract to make sure it fits his/her situation. You can produce GPL'ed software that way, too. You can offer custom GPL'ed programs for a fee. The GPL has ALWAYS been intended to be applicable to for-profit programs.
Free of charge, yes. Not-for-profitt, no. I can sell GPL'ed code for a gazillion dollars if I want. Of course, the first person who buys it can then put it on an ftp site and distribute it to the world...
All GPL'ed software is copyright property. That's the only way the GPL works.
And then they go on to claim that IBM is trying to "destroy the economic value of UNIX (paragraph 90)." Um, guys, Stallman's intent at the outset was to destroy the economic value of all proprietary software.
I just hope that IBM's lawyers don't let them get away with such huge misconceptions. I really hope IBM can squash this suit like a bug (oh, wait, is that a good analogy? IBM... squashing bugs...infinitely growing bug lists... hmmm...))
I got some of the best advice ever a few years before I graduated college. A friend of mine was about to graduate, and he had just landed a really sweet first job. So I asked him for advice on getting such a job.
He said, "My advice is don't take anyone else's advice. You gotta follow your own direction, and anything anyone else will tell you is just their bias."
Hmmm... Now that I think about it, though, I didn't really follow his advice: I ended up getting the job that my new wife advised me to get. Hmmm...
... and don't get married because in the end, you'll end up losing more chances to get laid than you get. Or at least you'll have less variety and later you'll have someone take half your stuff, make your life hell, and try to character assassinate you in a miserable custody battle.
I dunno what I'd tell myself about computers. I got my first computer (a Commodore 64) when I was 13. I'm not sure if I'd tell my young self to go ahead and spend lots of time learning how to use, or if I'd tell myself to forget the computer, get a drum set and learn how to play that instead. Hmmm... richer or happier? So hard to decide.