Linus Torvalds

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 all its money (that it made off a Linux IPO, I might add, since there's a nice bit of irony there), and now seems to play the US legal system as a lottery. We in the Open Source group continue to believe in technology as a way of driving customer interest and demand. Also, we find your references to a negotiating table somewhat confusing, since there doesn't seem to be anything to negotiate about. SCO has yet to show any infringing IP in the Open Source domain, but we wait with bated ... (more)

Linus Declares "GPL is No Hippie Dream"

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 misre... (more)