[Linux-aus] Re: Statement on SCO

[Con Zymaris]

On Wed, May 21, 2003 at 02:32:03PM +0800, Leon Brooks wrote:
> On Wed, 21 May 2003 11:45, Leon Brooks wrote:
> > Something along the lines of the GPL and the kernel patch submission
> > process providing extreme screening protection against exactly the
> > kind of apparently baseless complaints that SCO is raising, deploring
> > SCO's sustained ignorance of Linux's importance and capabilities
> > (maybe mention SGI's Altix and the Beowulf system en passant),
> > deploring the capital Microsoft is making of an unfortunate situation
> > by sticking their oar in (note that the GPL depends on intellectual
> > property laws for its operation and that what MS and SCO are seeking
> > to protect is the "right" to play dog-in-the-manger, not the right to
> > intellectual property), and assuring the business community that
> > using Linux is not only safe but pretty much inevitable.
> 
> OK... take 1:
> 
> BEGIN SPIEL
> 
> Linux Australia (LA) and the Society of Linux Professionals Western 
> Australia (SLPWA) have come under increasing pressure to respond to the 
> Santa Cruz Operation's (SCO) accusations of wholesale code plagiarism 
> in the Linux kernel.
> 
> SCO continue to disparage the quality control systems involved in 
> assembling the Linux kernel, but those systems have driven Linux 
> development to capabilities only dreamed of by SCO's own UNIX product, 
> and at a much higher pace. Linux now runs on SGI's 64-to-512-processor 
> Altix 3000 systems, and powers thousand-processor Beowulf 
> supercomputing clusters.

Recommend to spend as little time as possible on a technical pro-Linux
stance, even though we all agree with these statements. How about:

 "SCO were once a dominant player in the Unix-on-Intel marketplace, yet 
 failed to capitalise on this dominance with their legacy UNIX platform. 
 Linux, written from the ground-up, in a public and openly accountable 
 manner, has managed to fairly-and-squarely defeat SCO's product line, by 
 offering a better product at better value, benefitting all consumers of 
 IT.  SCO is pursuing this case in a desperate effort to compete by way of
 baseless injection of fear and doubt rather than through legitimate open 
 and fair competition"

...


> We openly appeal to Microsoft to play nicely with the Internet community 
> instead of working to sow confusion. We realise that Microsoft is 

 "It is apprarent that Microsoft, by choosing this time to support
 SCO, is focussed primarily on Machiavellian point-scoring exercises. 
 Acts such as this, are also Microsoft's only means of trying to 
 slow the rampant growth of Linux and lend weight to industry-wide
 realisation that the company has no other methods for dealing with 
 Linux's threat to their core product line."

con

-- 
_____________________________________________________________________________
Con Zymaris <conz at cyber.com.au> Level 4, 10 Queen St, Melbourne 03 9621 2377 
Cybersource: Unix/Linux, TCP/IP and Web App. Development  www.cyber.com.au