when dealing with an extortionist

[Keith Mastin]

> It seems that the Open Source community has indicated its willingness to
> make a deal with the SCO extortionists.
>
> http://linuxtoday.com/developer/2003081901726OSCYLL

At first glance, it doesn't look to me like this is a deal at all. It
looks more like the OSC wanting to keep their own back yard and name
clean.

> In my opinion this is a very dangerous tactic but I recognize that the
> court system may be many things but fair isn't one of them.

Agreed, they just want to look fair while screwing the little guy.

> In my opinion if we are going to cut a deal with SCO as an Open Source
> community it should contain some elements which ensure that they will
> never be a problem again:

Mmmm. Better to keep that within OSS control rather than depending on SCO
to do anything. Any deal will be written by shysters at a huge expense.
OTOH, if SCO steps out of line, there shouldn't be any hesitation to call
them on it.
<snip>

> In return the Linux community should remove the contentious pieces of
> source code from the 2.6 source tree ( presumably until the matter of
> ownership is clarified by a court ).

This seems to be the spirit of things, but in the interest of keeping the
code pristine rather than to appease SCO. We always have to remember that
if someone doesn't honor a proprietary license that they might not honor
the copyleft either. I think that attitude is pretty much prevalent within
the community. We are not a bunch of Warez advocates, although there are
always some who would rather not pay anythng. I think that there's a lot
of OSS advocates who will pay for opensource apps and programs if they
work.

-- 
Keith Mastin
BeechTree Information Technology Services Inc.
Toronto, Canada
(416)696 6070


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