Open Letter from Darl McBride, CEO of SCO This is just breathtaking. At first I thought he probably did this without clearing it with legal, but the latter half of the letter was most certainly written by a lawyer, inlcuding proper cites to Supreme Court cases. He does a couple of truly odd things. He mixes copyright (good for software) and patent (bad for software), invokes the DMCA for no apparent reason, mischaracterizes the open source movement, and on and on. Here are a couple of the more choice bits: SCO argues that the authority of Congress under the U.S. Constitution to “promote the Progress of Science and the useful arts…” inherently includes a profit motive, and that protection for this profit motive includes a Constitutional dimension. We believe that the “progress of science” is best advanced by vigorously protecting the right of authors and inventors to earn a profit from their work. The software license adopted by the GPL is called “copyleft” by its authors. This is because the GPL has the effect of requiring free and open access to Linux (and other) software code and prohibits any proprietary use thereof. As a result, the GPL is exactly opposite in its effect from the “copyright” laws adopted by the US Congress and the European Union. 5:29:26 PM |
Hacked Gentoo Linux server taken offline. A server used by the open-source project has been compromised by attackers and subsequently pulled offline for a full forensic analysis. [CNET News.com - Front Door] 12:03:18 PM |
Backing Up Files Shifts to Automatic When a Server Moves In. Devices that can back up data on a PC range from the humble, increasingly rare diskette to high-capacity DVD recorders. But to Richard Mandeberg, the chief executive of Mirra, they all share a common flaw. By Ian Austen. [New York Times: Technology] 11:51:34 AM |