Well said. Tomorrow, SCO will announce the availability of a statement regarding their upcoming disclosure of a release of a new memorandum in connection with the imminent probability of their soon-to-be declared positioning missive.
And every news outlet - Slashdot included - will trip over itself to run it, and another few pointy haired idiots will read it and say "Hey, no smoke without fire!", and SCOX will rise another ten cents.
Well spotted. It's just a shame that the cretins buying up SCO stock like there's no tomorrow (which for SCO there probably isn't) can't make that critical distinction. On the other hand, they are cretins, so it's not really a shame.
I agree about India, that's why I said China. India has, I believe, learned the lessons about doing the US's dirty work for it. We can still use China as a source of cheap disposable (literally) labour, but not indefinitely.
As far as your other opinions go... well, put it this way. I'm a software engineer in Europe. My career plan is to get into the tourist industry before everyone else figures it out.
>It's not really rational to expect that we'll stop using a resource that's available now
It's entirely rational. It fails the guts and nuts test though. If we made decisions with our brains rather than our bellies and groin, we'd switch today.
By the time that next ice age rolls around, or the big rock falls, how can you know what we'll use for energy?
I don't. I'd just rather that we didn't gamble on it though, given the stakes.
what's the point to having a huge world reserve of oil by moving away from oil entirely?
What's the point to having insurance, or buying your own home, or having money in the bank instead of borrowing and bankrupting yourself and dying owing as much money as possible? This is a non rhetorical question. Do you know the answer?
> Expecting the human race to do anything else is irrationally Utopian.
Well, I agree that the expectation is irrational, but the idea isn't.
As far as I'm concerned, if you don't absolutely need linux, stick with Windows. I say this because - unlike corporate bean counters - I actually class salaries as expenses, and think (observe, rather) that Linux is only free as in beer if you don't value your time.
From the point of view of a PHB, if you buy this with Mandrake, you'll attract the ire of SCO, and Microsoft will send the BSA stormtroopers round to make you prove that you're not running hooky Windows installs.
The SCO issue isn't that serious, but the BSA one is a real headache for IT departments. Hell, it wouldn't surprise me if some shops will buy this with XP home on it, then install a linux distro over it, simply on the basis that HP certify it for Mandrake (and soon SuSE and Red Hat), but they don't want the BSA sniffing roun. Result: HP sees poor sales figures for the Mandrake option, and assumes that nobody wants it.
Actually quoting the GPL? That'll never catch on.;-)
Before anyone weighs in with the observation that HP can just point customers at Mandrake, they can't. The next clause is:
c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer
to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is
allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you
received the program in object code or executable form with such
an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
In other words, HP: you ship it, you host the source. Do they?
Anecdotal evidence: I was involved in a proprietary project where we were using a GPL app (ezsetup). As part of creating a Windows CE installer, it links a GPL'd self extractor stub against your application in a single exe. We were uncomfortable with this and offered the author money for a non-GPL binary license, i.e. just a license to use a non-GPL version of the exe, not any rights over the source.
He refused.
More specifically, he couldn't understand our problem. "You're OK to use it under the GPL," he said, clearly puzzled. Well, sure, until he, or his widow, or estate, sold the rights to SCO or Generic EvilCorp or Mattel and they started asking why everyone using it wasn't GPL licensing their "derivative versions". We simply could not make him understand that we'd rather pay him money than dilute our IP portfolio by taking the risk.
The outcome was that we wrote our own app, and ezsetup guy didn't get any reward for his efforts. Perhaps that's unusual, but it gave me a very bad impression of the GPL developers. He put principle over pragmatism, which would be a fine thing if his principle wasn't blinding him to the problems with the license that he was putting so much faith in. Sad.
Then you go and work for Red Hat. Even if every Apache developer worked directly for Red Hat, they'd still have an incentive to see Apache released as free or open source, because, as you say, they get the support money.
Well, I'll stick to my point. We can do this now. So, why aren't we? Why are we going to suck oil until we go blue in the face and leave nothing in reserve?
I'm thinking of my kids, but longer term, we're due another ice age real soon now. Failing that, god will drop a rock on us sooner or later. Our descendants are going to have to bootstrap themselves from wood burning stoves to nuclear power. Good luck to them.
And here's my problem with that. Sellers want products that need to be supported. I'm not interested in writing those apps. I'm interested in OSs and apps that work, and are documented well enough that I don't have to pay someone to tell me where the Any Key is.
Joe IT: So, why should I switch to this lunix thing?
Vendor: It's really stable and cheaper to deploy!
Joe IT: Uh, how do make your money?
Vendor: Um, by selling you support.
Joe IT: At least Microsoft don't bullshit me when they're fucking me up the ass.
An economy not entirely dependent on oil? Depending on who you ask - and, oh boy, does it depend - we've already passed the global midpoint where we're using it up faster than we can possibly find it.
No, I'm not screaming that we're going to run dry in ten years, I'm saying that oil prices are only going one way, and that it's a risky strategy to rely on a supply of new oil from Arab countries.
How about just for once we plan further ahead than the next election and begin the wholesale switch to renewable energy sources now? We put man on the moon in under eight years from declaring it. If we had eight years warning, could we we build and drive a vehicle through every mainland US state without using a drop of oil, directly or indirectly? Oh, sure we could, we'd just use solar. And, uh, no plastics. And, um, build it in a plant powered by wind turbines. And ship the parts by, uh, yuh, we'll come back to that one. And our factory workers will use geothermal power to heat their homes, and they'll, erm, cycle to work. You see how it goes? Sure, in theory we could do it, and sooner or later, we'll have to. Are we going to wait until the last possible moment to put that theory to the test?
Oil is a one off bonanza in human history. We should be investing that wealth in our childrens' future, not blowing it on wide screen TVs and leaving them to clean up the mess.
While I'm ranting, sooner or later China is going to get rich enough to support an unhealthy population of lawyers, and then we can forget shipping our toxic garbage there to be melted down. Again, we can keep building the tire mountains and circuit board cities higher and higher and leave our kids to work out what to do with them. I just hope they're not such selfish short sighted bastards when it comes to looking after us in our collective old age.
Ah, well, fuck you too. Go ahead and ignore the word "copy", as in the salient phrase "You may copy and distribute the Program [...]", and go ahead and assert without support from the actual text of the license that "you" refers to a corporate entity rather than an individual, and that "third party" refers to anyone outside that entity rather than employees of it.
I'm perfectly aware of what you - and the FSF - like to think that the GPL means. I'm interested in what it says, because that's what the license is, not the preamble, not the FSF FAQ, the actual text.
If you're wondering why I'm getting so worked up about this, it's because the GPL has gaping holes in it a mile wide, just waiting for someone like SCO to attack it through, and those smug fucks in the FSF led by that arrogant prick Moglen have just been too damn arrogant and self assured to fix it for the past twelve years. Moglen has strongarmed people into following the spirit of the GPL so often that he's now apparently in denial about the flaws in the letter of it, and if there's one good thing that's going to come out of the SCO debacle, it's that a new version is long, long overdue.
Ah, I see. You're an imbecile. First, you were flat wrong about the text being in the GPL, as you asserted. Have the good grace to admit that.
Second, please explain your bizarre belief that the FSF FAQ has any bearing at all on the GPL license. As you're not inclined to quote from the license, I'll do it. "The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and modification follow". The FSF's opinion on what the license means is just that: an opinion. The license is defined by itself, as I made perfectly clear. Why do you believe otherwise, and specifically, why do you believe that a court of law would?
Thirdly, where even in the FAQ does it say that "redistribution within an organization does not count as redistribution"? Where in the GPL or the FAQ does it say or mean "distribute" to the exclusion of "copy"? Where does it say that copying a binary internally to an organisation removes your obligation to make the source available to the individual recipient.
Yes, I know you're sure about what you think it means, but stick to the question. Where, in the GPL, does it say that?
To all the students and dropouts commenting smugly from their parents' basement about how this is a step too far, please join the real world. Having just gone through a security audit from a potential technology partner, I can tell you here and now that corporate security teams the world over are wetting their pants at the prospect of this. By the end of this year, "Is all your internal documentation protected by Windows Rights Management?" will be a standard question. By the end of 2004, it will be a prerequisite to doing business in the corporate world. Given the embarrassment of riches of, uh, embarrassment of leaked government documents, it will also catch on in USKA government as well.
Academia and some (read: German) governments will drag their heels over this, but the clock is ticking in the corporate world. If Sun decides to reverse engineer this and try and do it in Star Office, they'll have to fight it under the interporerability clause of the DMCA. Under those circumstances, do you think they'll just gift the source to OpenOffice?
Ah, but on the other hand, fuck you, coward. I grow tired of having this debate with yapping cuntrags that clearly haven't read nor understood the implications of the GPL. Here's the entire text. Go ahead and indicate the parts that make me wrong, or alternatively, fuck you.
GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
Version 2, June 1991
Copyright (C) 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
Preamble
The licenses for most software are designed to take away your freedom to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free software--to make sure the software is free for all its users. This General Public License applies to most of the Free Software Foundation's software and to any other program whose authors commit to using it. (Some other Free Software Foundation software is covered by the GNU Library General Public License instead.) You can apply it to your programs, too.
When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not price. Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for this service if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it in new free programs; and that you know you can do these things.
To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid anyone to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights. These restrictions translate to certain responsibilities for you if you distribute copies of the software, or if you modify it.
For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the source code. And you must show them these terms so they know their rights.
We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and (2) offer you this license which gives you legal permission to copy, distribute and/or modify the software.
Also, for each author's protection and ours, we want to make certain that everyone understands that there is no warranty for this free software. If the software is modified by someone else and passed on, we want its recipients to know that what they have is not the original, so that any problems introduced by others will not reflect on the original authors' reputations.
Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software patents. We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all.
The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and modification follow.
GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
0. This License applies to any program or other work which contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed under the terms of this General Public License. The "Program", below, refers to any such program or work, and a "work based on the Program" means either the Program or any derivative work under copyright law: that is to say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it, either verbatim or with modifications and/or translated into another language. (Hereinafter, translation is included without limitation in the term "modification".) Each
Tell you what, when Red Hat (or IBM) obtain an injunction against SCO preventing them from spewing more bullshit, get back to us and explain how the US system is so superior. Until then, please do precisely what SCO US don't have to, i.e. shut your smug, insular yapping face.
Is that we are to live in a topsy-turvy world where sound and pictures will travel down galvanic wires (snort!) or through the very aether (guffaw!) instead of being carried on good old reliable phonographs and daguerrotypes .
What next, I ask you? Flying-machines? Women's sufferage? Coloreds sitting at the front of the bus? One can only hope that the imminent dawn of the twentieth-century will put an end to this poppycock.
>It seems utterly natural to me that Jackson would come out of the case with a severe distaste for [Microsoft]
And if he'd just had the simple bloody common sense to keep his comments to himself until after the case, that would have been fine. The problem was that he gave interviews during the case, in which he made his feelings clear. He quite literally pre-judged Microsoft. He was trolled, and he bit.
>You are incorrect. The GPL says that redistribution within an organization does not count as redistribution.
It says no such thing. Quote the clause. If you're arguing that there's ambiguity over the meanings of "you" and "third party" then say that, but that's not what you said.
Here, I'll help you out. Sorry to bring facts into this, and god knows we like to discuss the GPL without actually reading it, but here's the entire text of the GPL. Identify the part that supports your assertion. While I'm at it, I'll remind you that the GPL license means only and exactly the text of the GPL. It's not any articles or opinions or addenda or errata, regardless of who wrote them. SCO doesn't get to re-interpret the text, and neither does RMS.
GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
Version 2, June 1991
Copyright (C) 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc. 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
Preamble
The licenses for most software are designed to take away your freedom to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free software--to make sure the software is free for all its users. This General Public License applies to most of the Free Software Foundation's software and to any other program whose authors commit to using it. (Some other Free Software Foundation software is covered by the GNU Library General Public License instead.) You can apply it to your programs, too.
When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not price. Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for this service if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it in new free programs; and that you know you can do these things.
To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid anyone to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights. These restrictions translate to certain responsibilities for you if you distribute copies of the software, or if you modify it.
For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the source code. And you must show them these terms so they know their rights.
We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and (2) offer you this license which gives you legal permission to copy, distribute and/or modify the software.
Also, for each author's protection and ours, we want to make certain that everyone understands that there is no warranty for this free software. If the software is modified by someone else and passed on, we want its recipients to know that what they have is not the original, so that any problems introduced by others will not reflect on the original authors' reputations.
Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software patents. We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all.
The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and modification follow. TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
0. This License applies to any program or other work which contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed under the terms of this General Public License. The "Program", below, refers to any such program or work, and a "work based on the Program" means either the Program or any derivative work under copyright law: that is to say, a
Sure they do. But the strategy so far isn't to switch to Linux, it's to do a small trial, then to proclaim loudly that they'll switch from Windows to save costs.
From here is can go two ways. They can switch, or Microsoft can cut them a deal. Managers are other companies will be watching with interest to see which one it will be.
Slashdot Mirror
Well said. Tomorrow, SCO will announce the availability of a statement regarding their upcoming disclosure of a release of a new memorandum in connection with the imminent probability of their soon-to-be declared positioning missive.
And every news outlet - Slashdot included - will trip over itself to run it, and another few pointy haired idiots will read it and say "Hey, no smoke without fire!", and SCOX will rise another ten cents.
Rinse, lather, repeat.
Well spotted. It's just a shame that the cretins buying up SCO stock like there's no tomorrow (which for SCO there probably isn't) can't make that critical distinction. On the other hand, they are cretins, so it's not really a shame.
Then feel free to send an invoice for any amount you like to:
The SCO Group
355 South 520 West
Suite 100
Lindon, Utah 84042 USA
801-765-4999 phone
801-765-1313 fax
Oh, and be sure not to tell them what the code is. We don't want them "laundering" it.
Hey! I'm not a sycophant!
(What's a sycophant?)
I agree about India, that's why I said China. India has, I believe, learned the lessons about doing the US's dirty work for it. We can still use China as a source of cheap disposable (literally) labour, but not indefinitely.
As far as your other opinions go... well, put it this way. I'm a software engineer in Europe. My career plan is to get into the tourist industry before everyone else figures it out.
>It's not really rational to expect that we'll stop using a resource that's available now
It's entirely rational. It fails the guts and nuts test though. If we made decisions with our brains rather than our bellies and groin, we'd switch today.
By the time that next ice age rolls around, or the big rock falls, how can you know what we'll use for energy?
I don't. I'd just rather that we didn't gamble on it though, given the stakes.
what's the point to having a huge world reserve of oil by moving away from oil entirely?
What's the point to having insurance, or buying your own home, or having money in the bank instead of borrowing and bankrupting yourself and dying owing as much money as possible? This is a non rhetorical question. Do you know the answer?
> Expecting the human race to do anything else is irrationally Utopian.
Well, I agree that the expectation is irrational, but the idea isn't.
Hey, don't drag me into this sordid fantasy! ;-)
As far as I'm concerned, if you don't absolutely need linux, stick with Windows. I say this because - unlike corporate bean counters - I actually class salaries as expenses, and think (observe, rather) that Linux is only free as in beer if you don't value your time.
Actually, there isn't anything after the ...
From the point of view of a PHB, if you buy this with Mandrake, you'll attract the ire of SCO, and Microsoft will send the BSA stormtroopers round to make you prove that you're not running hooky Windows installs.
The SCO issue isn't that serious, but the BSA one is a real headache for IT departments. Hell, it wouldn't surprise me if some shops will buy this with XP home on it, then install a linux distro over it, simply on the basis that HP certify it for Mandrake (and soon SuSE and Red Hat), but they don't want the BSA sniffing roun. Result: HP sees poor sales figures for the Mandrake option, and assumes that nobody wants it.
Actually quoting the GPL? That'll never catch on. ;-)
Before anyone weighs in with the observation that HP can just point customers at Mandrake, they can't. The next clause is:
c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
In other words, HP: you ship it, you host the source. Do they?
" software & drivers for your compaq d220 ut: Our database did not return results for your Compaq d220 uT"
Anecdotal evidence: I was involved in a proprietary project where we were using a GPL app (ezsetup). As part of creating a Windows CE installer, it links a GPL'd self extractor stub against your application in a single exe. We were uncomfortable with this and offered the author money for a non-GPL binary license, i.e. just a license to use a non-GPL version of the exe, not any rights over the source.
He refused.
More specifically, he couldn't understand our problem. "You're OK to use it under the GPL," he said, clearly puzzled. Well, sure, until he, or his widow, or estate, sold the rights to SCO or Generic EvilCorp or Mattel and they started asking why everyone using it wasn't GPL licensing their "derivative versions". We simply could not make him understand that we'd rather pay him money than dilute our IP portfolio by taking the risk.
The outcome was that we wrote our own app, and ezsetup guy didn't get any reward for his efforts. Perhaps that's unusual, but it gave me a very bad impression of the GPL developers. He put principle over pragmatism, which would be a fine thing if his principle wasn't blinding him to the problems with the license that he was putting so much faith in. Sad.
Then you go and work for Red Hat. Even if every Apache developer worked directly for Red Hat, they'd still have an incentive to see Apache released as free or open source, because, as you say, they get the support money.
Well, I'll stick to my point. We can do this now. So, why aren't we? Why are we going to suck oil until we go blue in the face and leave nothing in reserve?
I'm thinking of my kids, but longer term, we're due another ice age real soon now. Failing that, god will drop a rock on us sooner or later. Our descendants are going to have to bootstrap themselves from wood burning stoves to nuclear power. Good luck to them.
And here's my problem with that. Sellers want products that need to be supported. I'm not interested in writing those apps. I'm interested in OSs and apps that work, and are documented well enough that I don't have to pay someone to tell me where the Any Key is.
Joe IT: So, why should I switch to this lunix thing?
Vendor: It's really stable and cheaper to deploy!
Joe IT: Uh, how do make your money?
Vendor: Um, by selling you support.
Joe IT: At least Microsoft don't bullshit me when they're fucking me up the ass.
Why?
An economy not entirely dependent on oil? Depending on who you ask - and, oh boy, does it depend - we've already passed the global midpoint where we're using it up faster than we can possibly find it.
No, I'm not screaming that we're going to run dry in ten years, I'm saying that oil prices are only going one way, and that it's a risky strategy to rely on a supply of new oil from Arab countries.
How about just for once we plan further ahead than the next election and begin the wholesale switch to renewable energy sources now? We put man on the moon in under eight years from declaring it. If we had eight years warning, could we we build and drive a vehicle through every mainland US state without using a drop of oil, directly or indirectly? Oh, sure we could, we'd just use solar. And, uh, no plastics. And, um, build it in a plant powered by wind turbines. And ship the parts by, uh, yuh, we'll come back to that one. And our factory workers will use geothermal power to heat their homes, and they'll, erm, cycle to work. You see how it goes? Sure, in theory we could do it, and sooner or later, we'll have to. Are we going to wait until the last possible moment to put that theory to the test?
Oil is a one off bonanza in human history. We should be investing that wealth in our childrens' future, not blowing it on wide screen TVs and leaving them to clean up the mess.
While I'm ranting, sooner or later China is going to get rich enough to support an unhealthy population of lawyers, and then we can forget shipping our toxic garbage there to be melted down. Again, we can keep building the tire mountains and circuit board cities higher and higher and leave our kids to work out what to do with them. I just hope they're not such selfish short sighted bastards when it comes to looking after us in our collective old age.
Ah, well, fuck you too. Go ahead and ignore the word "copy", as in the salient phrase "You may copy and distribute the Program [...]", and go ahead and assert without support from the actual text of the license that "you" refers to a corporate entity rather than an individual, and that "third party" refers to anyone outside that entity rather than employees of it.
I'm perfectly aware of what you - and the FSF - like to think that the GPL means. I'm interested in what it says, because that's what the license is, not the preamble, not the FSF FAQ, the actual text.
If you're wondering why I'm getting so worked up about this, it's because the GPL has gaping holes in it a mile wide, just waiting for someone like SCO to attack it through, and those smug fucks in the FSF led by that arrogant prick Moglen have just been too damn arrogant and self assured to fix it for the past twelve years. Moglen has strongarmed people into following the spirit of the GPL so often that he's now apparently in denial about the flaws in the letter of it, and if there's one good thing that's going to come out of the SCO debacle, it's that a new version is long, long overdue.
Ah, I see. You're an imbecile. First, you were flat wrong about the text being in the GPL, as you asserted. Have the good grace to admit that.
Second, please explain your bizarre belief that the FSF FAQ has any bearing at all on the GPL license. As you're not inclined to quote from the license, I'll do it. "The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and modification follow". The FSF's opinion on what the license means is just that: an opinion. The license is defined by itself, as I made perfectly clear. Why do you believe otherwise, and specifically, why do you believe that a court of law would?
Thirdly, where even in the FAQ does it say that "redistribution within an organization does not count as redistribution"? Where in the GPL or the FAQ does it say or mean "distribute" to the exclusion of "copy"? Where does it say that copying a binary internally to an organisation removes your obligation to make the source available to the individual recipient.
Yes, I know you're sure about what you think it means, but stick to the question. Where, in the GPL, does it say that?
To all the students and dropouts commenting smugly from their parents' basement about how this is a step too far, please join the real world. Having just gone through a security audit from a potential technology partner, I can tell you here and now that corporate security teams the world over are wetting their pants at the prospect of this. By the end of this year, "Is all your internal documentation protected by Windows Rights Management?" will be a standard question. By the end of 2004, it will be a prerequisite to doing business in the corporate world. Given the embarrassment of riches of, uh, embarrassment of leaked government documents, it will also catch on in USKA government as well.
Academia and some (read: German) governments will drag their heels over this, but the clock is ticking in the corporate world. If Sun decides to reverse engineer this and try and do it in Star Office, they'll have to fight it under the interporerability clause of the DMCA. Under those circumstances, do you think they'll just gift the source to OpenOffice?
Tick. Tock.
Ah, but on the other hand, fuck you, coward. I grow tired of having this debate with yapping cuntrags that clearly haven't read nor understood the implications of the GPL. Here's the entire text. Go ahead and indicate the parts that make me wrong, or alternatively, fuck you.
GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
Version 2, June 1991
Copyright (C) 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
Preamble
The licenses for most software are designed to take away your
freedom to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public
License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free
software--to make sure the software is free for all its users. This
General Public License applies to most of the Free Software
Foundation's software and to any other program whose authors commit to
using it. (Some other Free Software Foundation software is covered by
the GNU Library General Public License instead.) You can apply it to
your programs, too.
When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not
price. Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you
have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for
this service if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it
if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it
in new free programs; and that you know you can do these things.
To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid
anyone to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights.
These restrictions translate to certain responsibilities for you if you
distribute copies of the software, or if you modify it.
For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether
gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that
you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the
source code. And you must show them these terms so they know their
rights.
We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and
(2) offer you this license which gives you legal permission to copy,
distribute and/or modify the software.
Also, for each author's protection and ours, we want to make certain
that everyone understands that there is no warranty for this free
software. If the software is modified by someone else and passed on, we
want its recipients to know that what they have is not the original, so
that any problems introduced by others will not reflect on the original
authors' reputations.
Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software
patents. We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free
program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the
program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any
patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all.
The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and
modification follow.
GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
0. This License applies to any program or other work which contains
a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed
under the terms of this General Public License. The "Program", below,
refers to any such program or work, and a "work based on the Program"
means either the Program or any derivative work under copyright law:
that is to say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it,
either verbatim or with modifications and/or translated into another
language. (Hereinafter, translation is included without limitation in
the term "modification".) Each
Tell you what, when Red Hat (or IBM) obtain an injunction against SCO preventing them from spewing more bullshit, get back to us and explain how the US system is so superior. Until then, please do precisely what SCO US don't have to, i.e. shut your smug, insular yapping face.
Is that we are to live in a topsy-turvy world where sound and pictures will travel down galvanic wires (snort!) or through the very aether (guffaw!) instead of being carried on good old reliable phonographs and daguerrotypes .
What next, I ask you? Flying-machines? Women's sufferage? Coloreds sitting at the front of the bus? One can only hope that the imminent dawn of the twentieth-century will put an end to this poppycock.
>It seems utterly natural to me that Jackson would come out of the case with a severe distaste for [Microsoft]
And if he'd just had the simple bloody common sense to keep his comments to himself until after the case, that would have been fine. The problem was that he gave interviews during the case, in which he made his feelings clear. He quite literally pre-judged Microsoft. He was trolled, and he bit.
So, you're saying that the market will jump by $134 billion in one year? Holy shit, I'd better whistle me up some venture capital!
>You are incorrect. The GPL says that redistribution within an organization does not count as redistribution.
It says no such thing. Quote the clause. If you're arguing that there's ambiguity over the meanings of "you" and "third party" then say that, but that's not what you said.
Here, I'll help you out. Sorry to bring facts into this, and god knows we like to discuss the GPL without actually reading it, but here's the entire text of the GPL. Identify the part that supports your assertion. While I'm at it, I'll remind you that the GPL license means only and exactly the text of the GPL. It's not any articles or opinions or addenda or errata, regardless of who wrote them. SCO doesn't get to re-interpret the text, and neither does RMS.
GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
Version 2, June 1991
Copyright (C) 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
Preamble
The licenses for most software are designed to take away your freedom to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free software--to make sure the software is free for all its users. This General Public License applies to most of the Free Software Foundation's software and to any other program whose authors commit to using it. (Some other Free Software Foundation software is covered by the GNU Library General Public License instead.) You can apply it to your programs, too.
When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not price. Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for this service if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it in new free programs; and that you know you can do these things.
To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid anyone to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights. These restrictions translate to certain responsibilities for you if you distribute copies of the software, or if you modify it.
For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the source code. And you must show them these terms so they know their rights.
We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and (2) offer you this license which gives you legal permission to copy, distribute and/or modify the software.
Also, for each author's protection and ours, we want to make certain that everyone understands that there is no warranty for this free software. If the software is modified by someone else and passed on, we want its recipients to know that what they have is not the original, so that any problems introduced by others will not reflect on the original authors' reputations.
Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software patents. We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all.
The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and modification follow.
TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
0. This License applies to any program or other work which contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed under the terms of this General Public License. The "Program", below, refers to any such program or work, and a "work based on the Program" means either the Program or any derivative work under copyright law: that is to say, a
Sure they do. But the strategy so far isn't to switch to Linux, it's to do a small trial, then to proclaim loudly that they'll switch from Windows to save costs.
From here is can go two ways. They can switch, or Microsoft can cut them a deal. Managers are other companies will be watching with interest to see which one it will be.