[clug] sec: unclassified - Samba Team, on SCO and sweet irony

[Edward C. Lang]

Hi,

Darren Freeman said:
> On Mon, 2003-08-25 at 11:48, Martin Pool wrote:
>> In any case, SCO is not defaming the Samba team at the moment, except
>> indirectly as they say all open source programmers are bad.  So it would
>> be a case of "you slander my friend, I terminate your licence", which is
>> even more tenuous.
>
> That's very true. Plus it's not in the free software spirit.
> Nevertheless bagging free software and selling it at the same time
> should be fought using any and all loopholes that may be available.

I would oppose the method of using "good" litigation, commenced by parties
prepared to win at all costs, to fight morally questionable but quite
legal business practices. I do so based on three opinions: firstly, that
such a method is expensive, time consuming, distracting and has a fair
chance that it will fail due its assumption that epiphanies will overturn
legal precedent. Secondly, would it be beneficial to the open source
software movement in general to gain a reputation for litigiousness? I
have no difficulty imagining how that may affect the continued shift
towards OSS away from (also litigious but in safely known ways)
traditional proprietary software system.

Thirdly, the only winning move is not to play.

Regards,

Edward.

-- 

http://www.tsumakin.net/