SCO systems and 'Target Deprecation'

[Scott Robert Ladd]

Mark Mielke wrote:
> I find companies that use open source / free software and who refuse
> to return any resources at all to be border-line inappropriate. I find
> companies that try to exploit the resources of world-wide volunteer or
> shared effort networks to be evil, and to deserve a response of some
> sort. SCO didn't make Linux, and yet, they claim to be the only reason
> that Linux has succeeded as well as it has. This claim questions the
> integrity, intelligence, and capability of Linux kernel developers,
> and as a natural result, due to the confusion between the place of
> Linux in open source / free software, places into question the
> integrity, intelligence, and capability of open source / free software
> developers all around the world. This is disgusting.

100% agreed.

The question is: Who makes a statement? GCC developers as an group? Each 
individual? Does the FSF speak for all GNU or GPL'd projects? In other 
words, do we wait for a decision by the SC, the FSF board, or RMS alone?

I would very much like to see a strong stand on this from the free 
software community. But defining that community is like herding cats... 
some people claim ultimate authority, while others have a personal 
Quixotic agenda.

We need a roadmap that allows participation by all concerned supporters 
of liberty. Beyond matters of justice, we all have a real, practical 
need to defend our rights from companies like SCO.

(As for my practical stake in the matter: I'm writing a book about 
parallel programming at the moment; it is based almost exclusively on 
free projects like GCC and Linux.)

-- 
Scott Robert Ladd
Coyote Gulch Productions (http://www.coyotegulch.com)
Software Invention for High-Performance Computing