VanLUG Email Archive
Dave Michelson (dmichelson@home.com)
Fri, 07 May 1999 09:03:50 -0700
Hi, all.
VanLUG, CLUE, and Linux International are working quietly behind the
scenes to quash this latest round of FUD that overzealous SCO sales and
marketing people have been flinging.
Robert Todd, president of BSDI, says that no such claims (about BSD/OS
code illegally in Linux) have ever been made, and *certainly* no lawsuit
has ever been considered, let alone threatened.
Also, check out
http://www.sco.com/linux/letter.html
I've attached an extract below.
-- Dave Michelson dmichelson@home.comApril 30, 1999
To: Linux International board and other interested parties,
I would like to clarify my position regarding Linux and address the comments attributed to me in several recent press articles.
<snip>
To clarify a few points:
a) I do not believe Linux was created by "punk kids." During interviews, when I am asked about Linux, I always clearly state my respect and admiration for Linus and the community of developers who participate in the open source movement. I believe that the open source community is often perceived as an unruly bunch of young hackers, especially by the IT establishment, and that this will be a factor in the adoption of Linux.
b) Of course, I don't believe that Red Hat is in any way fraudulent. But, I do believe that there is a fundamental difference in the value proposition to customers between that of Open Source Aggregators, such as Red Hat, and that of traditional commercial software companies such as SCO. We will continue to educate customers so that they understand our view on this difference. And I will continue to try and find the right way to communicate this in measured and objective terms but none the less forcefully.
c) I also believe in the principle that great programmers should "steal" great code whenever possible, so long as they do not violate any laws or license agreements. In hindsight, it's clear that "steal" was a poor and confusing choice of words on my part. I was perhaps being too flippant by trying to point out that one can't really steal that which is freely offered.
All in all, I sincerely apologize if anything that I said, or am reputed to have said, has offended anyone. I promise to do my best to avoid saying anything which could be twisted or misconstrued into sounding this stupid....ever again!
Doug Michels
President and CEO, SCO
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Fri 07 May 1999 - 09:10:27 PDT