Posted on 08/20/2003 9:32:53 AM PDT by justlurking
While The SCO Group Inc.'s upper management has taken a dim view of Linux's software license, the GPL (GNU General Public License), SCO developers here at the company's annual user conference this week expressed dissatisfaction with SCO's public disparagement of the software license.
SCO CEO Darl McBride's opened SCO Forum on Monday with comments that the GPL was "about destroying value," but apparently the Lindon, Utah company sees some value in GPL-licensed software. McBride's keynote was followed, just hours later, by a scheduled presentation entitled "How to Use the GNU Toolkits," given by SCO engineer Kean Johnston.
SCO ships its own development kit with its UnixWare and OpenServer operating systems, called the UODK (UnixWare/OpenServer Development Kit), but it also includes with them the approximately 150 pieces of open source software that make up the GCC (GNU C Compiler) development tool. The GCC is released under the GPL software license.
"The UODK is a very capable compiler for our platforms," he said during his presentation. "However, there are certain advantages to using the GNU tools."
Developers at the presentation were more frank, saying that SCO was, in fact, dependent upon the GNU tools, which are used and supported by a large community of developers and work with languages, like Fortran and Objective C, that are not supported by the UODK. "The OpenServer compiler is crap. Without (the GCC) they would be up the creek," said Hans Anderson, the director of software development with Price Data Systems in Louisville, Kentucky.
Boyd Gerber, a consultant based in Midvale, Utah said that his development work depended on the GNU tools. "With some of the OpenServer tools I use, I just can't do it without the GCC," he said.
SCO's image as a threat to Linux and the GPL has evaporated any goodwill toward UnixWare or OpenServer developers, and made some open source project leaders wary about accepting their code, developers said. "Because of what they're doing with their suit, it's making it hard for me to contribute," said Gerber.
The backlash against SCO has even resulted in rumblings from some open source developers that SCO's operating systems should no longer be supported in the GCC. A readme file in the recently released GCC 3.3.1 contained the following message from the GCC 's maintainers, the Free Software Foundation: "We have been urged to drop support for SCO Unix from this release of GCC, as a protest against this irresponsible aggression against free software and GNU/Linux. However, the direct effect of this action would fall on users of GCC rather than on SCO. For the moment, we have decided not to take that action."
Both Gerber and Anderson were unhappy with the increasing amount of anti-GPL rhetoric coming from McBride, who on Monday argued that open source software and the GPL are bad for the entire technology industry.
Proprietary and open source technologies can coexist, said Anderson, who argued that SCO copyright holders should have the right to release their code under the GPL, should they so choose. "It made me livid, sitting there, to hear him say that people can't give away what they want," he said, referring to McBride's keynote.
At one point, SCO's business model was based on selling the Linux operating system, which is released under the GPL. In 2000, after completing an initial public offering as a Linux vendor, the company, which had been called Caldera Systems Inc., bought the software and professional services divisions of the proprietary Unix company, The Santa Cruz Operation Inc. (also known as SCO). It acquired the UnixWare and OpenServer products, as well as the rights to the original AT&T Unix source code in the transaction. Caldera has since changed its name to The SCO Group Inc, and ceased distribution of Linux, except to customers with existing support contracts.
The Lindon, Utah company's anti-GPL position may not sit well with SCO's developers, but resellers at the show literally applauded McBride's stance during his keynote. After the talk many expressed concerns that free software would threaten their own products or erode their profit margins.
"We as a reseller feel that we want to protect our market," said Jay Davidow, a reseller with Winnipeg, Manitoba's Profit Master Canada Inc. "Giving away our software would not be a good business case."
The proprietary world would have created adequate alternatives to the GCC, had the free software not driven development tool companies out of that market, he noted. "You had companies that made developer tools, but where are they today? They don't exist." <
I want to be the first to call: "BS Alert!".
Aside from the tools for Windows from Microsoft, Unix vendors like HP and Sun already ship compilers with their products.
And any software developer can tell you that a compiler is only part of the suite of tools needed for a large project. Rational is just one of the vendors that sells tools to assist through the software development lifecycle. They seem to be doing well, if the number of my clients using their tools is a reasonble measure.
I realize that the author felt the need to provide some balance in the article, but I have to wonder if he intentionally chose an exceptionally clueless person to quote, or if this guy was truly representative of people at the conference?
So, don't use it. You are under no obligation to use GPL'ed software.
And, even if you do use it, its provisions only come into play if you choose to redistribute it or a product derived from it.
The originator of software has the right to specify the conditions under which it can be redistributed. They can choose the GPL, the BSD license, any one of several open source licenses, or one of their own.
If you don't like it, tough.
There are lots of proprietary Unixes.
If you do not want to use GPL code, why wouldn't you use one of those?
Why would you insist upon running Linux?
Because you are schizophrenic?
When SCO first started attacking the GPL, I thought it was proof that Microsoft was behind all of this.
However, I'm not so sure at the moment. SCO has backed themselves into a corner, where they find themselves violating the GPL and are expressly accused of doing so by IBM in their countersuit. So, it's a necessary defensive move, although a laughable one that would probably get them thrown out of court on the spot.
With the latest developments, they will now have to challenge the BSD license as well. Previous "owners" of their Unix variant released at least some of the disputed code under the BSD license, and they have to invalidate those actions in order to claim exclusive ownership again. AT&T tried to take on BSD and lost, and SCO will suffer the same fate in the unlikely event they ever get to court.
If it's a moral issue for you, that's correct.
But, the GPL does impose any obligations on you as a user. It only imposes obligations if you chose to redistribute the software in question, with or without modifications.
Just because the SCO FUD campaign is a quagmire (QUAGMIRE ALERT!!!) does not mean that Microsoft is not behind it.
It is a desperate measure. Desperate measures are usually not thought out very well.
You can simply use Linux in any organization without having to meet the requirements for redistribution.
Of course, it means that you must be sure that no one in your organization copies code out of the Linux kernel (or any of the other GPL'ed code in the system).
As long as we are talking about numbskulls shooting their mouths off, why haven't you responded to Post #7?
Why don't you explain why you want to run proprietary code but at the same time you want to run Linux?
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