MESSAGE
| DATE | 2003-08-20 |
| FROM | From: "Inker, Evan"
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [hangout] SCO users divided over GPL
|
Ok, Can everyone now spell Hypocrite?
And Anyone who can read the last three sentence's of this article (below)
without gagging and cursing profusely, just does not get it!
"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."
SCO users divided over GPL
CEO says GPL is about 'destroying value'
By Robert McMillan, IDG News Service August 19, 2003
http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/08/19/HNscodivide_1.html
LAS VEGAS - 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."
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