[plug] Cyberknights vs SCO

[Cameron Patrick]

Kai wrote:

| A few days ago I read this:
| http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20040205005057966

The groklaw page links to a nice article by Leon which I hadn't seen
before - http://www.cyberknights.com.au/scoaway.phtml

I'm a bit dubious about the "What can I do?" section, though, which ends:

	If you release any software under the GPL, consider a specific
	exclusion of rights along these lines:
	
	/*
	 * Name Of Program
	 * Copyright (c) 2003 Your Name Here <email at address.here>
	 *
	 * May be distributed only under the terms of the GNU General Public
	 * Licence (GPL, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html for details)
	 * except that all rights are withdrawn for The SCO Group, their
	 * employees or agents, any person employed or contracted with The SCO
	 * Group in a management position during the calendar year 2003, any
	 * company owned by, controlled by or affiliated with such a person or
	 * their immediate family, and any employee or agent of such a person
	 * or company.
	 *
	 * Without prejudice to the above paragraph, and without granting any
	 * rights whatsoever, let it be known that the rights mentioned above
	 * are withdrawn because The SCO Group have demonstrated callous
	 * disregard for the Open Source community and a willingness to
	 * carelessly disrupt the lives and businesses of millions of people,
	 * apparently driven by greed, and have expressed malicious intent
	 * with regard to the very GPL under which the right to use this
	 * software might otherwise have been granted. In short, since you
	 * haven't played nicely or by the rules, you won't be permitted to
	 * play with these toys at all.
	 */

As I understand it, anything with such a licence wouldn't be free
software (at least by Debian's standards - see DFSG#5 "No Discrimination
Against Persons or Groups"), wouldn't be GPL-compatible (Leon's licence
places further restrictions on redistribution which the GPL forbids) and
would generally work /against/ the openness and code-sharing that is
characteristic of free software.  That strikes me as a pretty poor trade
for some uncertain degree of protection against a short-term threat from
SCO.

Cheers,

Cameron.