Open Letter to Jack Powers, Conference Chairman, Enterprise IT Week

Dear Mr. Powers,

I see that you are scheduled to moderate a discussion at the Enterprise IT Week conference after Darl McBride speaks. Although there may be an interesting debate over the merits of free and proprietary software development models, Mr. McBride is hardly a strong representative of the proprietary side.

As Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn said about King Henry VIII, "S'pose he opened his mouth -- what then? If he didn't shut it up powerful quick he'd lose a lie every time."

Lie: The Berkeley Packet Filter code in Linux is "obfuscated" SCO code.

Fact: Jay Schulist, who never had access to SCO code, implemented it from scratch.

Source: www.perens.com

Lie: SCO's 2002 UNIX source release was "non-commercial".

Fact: "The text of the letter, sent January 23, 2002, by Bill Broderick, Director of Licensing Services for Caldera [now SCO], in fact makes no mention of "non-commercial use" restrictions, does not include the words "non-commercial use" anywhere and specifically mentions "32-bit 32V Unix" as well as the 16-bit versions."

Source: www.linuxjournal.com

Lie: SCO's expert witnesses are "MIT Mathematicians".

Fact: "The SCO Group of Utah has had to backtrack after saying that MIT mathematicians verified its claims that Linux, the center of the popular and freely-available GNU/Linux operating system, is an illegal knock-off."

Source: www-tech.mit.edu

Lie: SCO owns all rights to UNIX concepts and methods.

Fact: McBride cited parts of IBM's UNIX license out of context. The license also includes this text:

Source: sco.iwethey.org

Fact: "Obviously Linux owes its heritage to UNIX, but not its code."

Lie: "We would not, nor will not, make such a claim."

Source: www.linuxjournal.com

As is clear from the growing torrent of corporate purchase orders and investments flowing to Linux, Mr. McBride's outlandish claims are completely outside the mainstream of the IT industry. Mr. McBride's legal shenanigans have little to do with real-world software development and everything to do with making a quick exit from a failed company.

I would like to encourage you to read some of the background information on Mr. McBride's scheme located at sco.iwethey.org and groklaw.net. Both sites have extensive links to SEC filings, court papers and other primary sources.

If you would like a demonstration of how unlikely we in mainstream IT believe Mr. McBride is to succeed in his shakedown, I offer to walk on stage and sell you a copy of Linux for one dollar and give you a signed receipt, in front of Mr. McBride. Please let me know if you're interested.

Don Marti is Editor in Chief of Linux Journal.