In a piece just released via the IDG News service, Torvalds writes, in his
characteristic robust style:
"I was recently sent a copy of SCO CEO Darl McBride's Open Letter on
copyright law. As usual, Mr. McBride portrays the Linux community as the
enemy of copyright. As always, he gets fundamental facts wrong.
Their argument about copyright law is totally specious, and fails any
sensible test. They claim that the U.S. Congress' authority under the U.S.
Constitution to "promote the Progress of Science and the useful arts"
inherently includes a profit motive.
This is an obvious misrepresentation of facts. It's akin to saying that
public universities are fundamentally unconstitutional, since they "promote
the Progress of Science" yet they aren't motivated by profit.
There is ... (more)
Dear Darl,
Thank you so much for your letter.
We are happy that you agree that customers need to know that Open Source is
legal and stable, and we heartily agree with that sentence of your letter.
The others don't seem to make as much sense, but we find the dialogue
refreshing.
However, we have to sadly decline taking business model advice from a company
that seems to have squandered al... (more)