Fwd: ESR/OSI's Unix/Linux-history-laden treatise on SCO vs. IBM

[Eric S. Raymond]

Gary W. Swearingen <swear at attbi.com>:
> First let me say that I was sorry, after posting my typically-critical
> comments, that I had not commented on more of the good things about the
> treatise, beyond recommending it as interesting. 

No offense taken.

> > This supposed "copyleftic whopper" is something I have observed in
> > most of my peers since 1982, long before copyleft was invented.
> 
> And that was great; but then Stallman came along an convinced too many
> people to replace "all licit purposes" with "open-source-only purposes",
> effectively replacing the GIFT of a license to derive with a
> FEE-LICENSING contract, with payment in the form of a cross-license of
> the deriver's own source code.

It's fine for us to argue about among ourselves.  But from the point
of view of any outsider, you're engaging in a theological dispute of
*zero* interest.  I am therefore ignoring this distinction, very
deliberately.

> Of course, if the treatise is going to be aimed at courts.  But it sure
> didn't look like it WAS.  It seemed way too coversational (?)  for that.
> ("pure nostalgia trip"; "brazen mendacity"; "insult our competence";
> "When OSDL spun up"; " is false and insulting. It is also dishonest.";
> "They know better."; "SCO's 10Ks"; etc.)  Even I wouldn't dare include
> my pot-shot (more of a broadside?) at the courts, if writing for them,
> but I wouldn't be so "entertaining", either.

Which is one way of observing that you're not as skilled a propagandist 
as I am.  Trust me on this.  I've had practice :-).

Anyway, my wife is a practicing Phildelphia lawyer who went over the
text line by line.  She told me to be *more* aggressive.

> In any case, you've done a lot better job than I ever could or would do.
> Thanks for doing it as well as you have; it showed LOTS of work.

You're welcome.
-- 
		<a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/">Eric S. Raymond</a>