Re: Linux v2.6.9 and GPL Buyout

[Jeff V. Merkey]

Linus Torvalds wrote:

> Jeff,
> can you plkease stop Cc'ing me on this thread?
>
>  

Linus,

I never Cc'd you on this thread.  The person who added you somewhere way 
back there was
someone else.    Talk to them.  Beyond this response, I won't cc you 
ever again.

> No, nobody I know (certainly not me) is willing to re-license Linux under 
> anything else than the GPL. Quite frankly, I suspect you'll have an easier 
> time just rewriting the whole thing.
>  
I won't be "re-writing" anything.  I've written something different that 
takes all the Linux device drivers,
application layer, and a handful of file systems, and drops out most of 
the core of Linux, and these
drivers I suspect will get rewritten over time.  Since it's all open 
source anyway, doesn't really matter.


> And no, the only offer from SCO I'm interested in is a public apology from
> Darl McSwine.  Their made-up stories about copyright ownership weren't
> really that amusing a year ago, and now they're boring and stale.
>
>  
Linus, you took code from these companies without bothering to check if 
there were any agreements
that made certain they weren't contaminating Linux.  You have an 
obligation under US Law if you
are doing business in this country to perform due diligence and this 
stuff.  Then rather than be reasonable
and honorable about it, and say something like, " I have not verified 
that associated intellectual property
with this submission nor have I received a release of claims from the 
contributor.  I have been informed
that several companies have conflicting claims regarding ownership and I 
have removed the code from
the Linux Kernel and asked these vendors to maintain it as separate 
patches until these claims are resolved.",
you keep right on sending it out, hosting it on your servers, all the 
while Linux Community members
make statements that even if the code was someone else's "it's ours now 
because it was GPL'd". 
This flies in the face of every precept of contract law and intellectual 
property law in the United States.

The facts are that there is some code which is the subject of a dispute 
and you are distributing it, willfully,
knowingly, and with malicious intent to keep it for yourself.  Whether 
it's has their copyrights, or even
their trade secrets doesn't bother you one bit.    I felt like Novell 
should apologize to me after what
happened with them, but in all the crap with Novell, I never took their 
source code, and now that
GrokSmear has posted the ruling everyone knows this as well. And guess 
what, I was in the wrong. 
I was doing exactly what you are doing.  Using lawyers and sophistry to 
conceal taking their
trade secrets and using them for myself, and I paid dearly for it.   You 
will too, and so will a
lot of other people who depend on you.

I don't think SCO has to apologize to you if you are not even willing to 
take a mature, adult, responsible
position regarding intellectual property, and even try to work with 
these people.  You owe them an apology
for running an IP laundry mat, cleverly disguised as a "freedom for all" 
open source effort. 

This is not good leadership or responsible stewardship of the IP of 
others.  No one can trust you
if this is how you are going to operate, or trust that your effort is 
free from contamination from
others.  

> So please just remove me 

You code has been removed.

from the cc, ok?

ok

Jeff

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