On Sat, 23 Aug 2003, Rick Tomaschuk wrote:

peanuts compared to the long term value it offered. What on earth is wrong with a free market? Our whole economy is based on a free market.

This is not about free market, this is about some firm or other dragging down the good name of Linux and attacking the GPL in a FUD war that precedes a multi-billion multi-year lawsuit in a country other than the one where you (I understand) and I (certainly) live, for months on end (**), where such things are a national passtime apparently. The FIRST thing that should worry a Linux user/developer is whether the GPL was violated by someone. Not by whom. Then the second worry would be to undo the damage asap, first by applying the GPL provisions for violations of the GPL license, since THIS is the license that was violated, not some IP ownership or other, about which as a Linux user/developer you should care only as a second thought. That means immediate summons from the GPL and FSF (as appropriate) copyright and license rights owners (such as Linus Torvalds, who owns the copyright on the majority of the kernel code) to the involved or suspected parties to cease distribution and use of Linux and of the name Linux (Linux is also a trademark of Linux Torvalds) until the matter is cleared, and in parallel an effort to find and remove the code that OFFENDS THE GPL (I do NOT care who else it offends !) from the Linux codebase, and replace it as necessary. THIS is what Linux users and developers need. THEN, when on the side, we can talk about whose made a mistake and who went along with it, and have all the fud you want, about those firms who are involved in this. *NOT* about GPL and Linux, which is a *victim* of misuse by someone of someone else's IP, and not *guilty* of it. Come to think of it, the GPL copyright holders could sue both big firms for license violation and slander.

The world is moving toward globalization. The GPL is a welcome addition to our world but we still need to maintain other options. IMHO

The GPL is a welcome addition to what exactly ? It has been here for nearly 10 years I think. Other options ? As many as you want. But without the Linux codebase and the GPL, thank you, we will not have them mixed into the continuous-lawsuit-thing that takes part in a certain country. {\footnote (**) New Linux versions come out about every 6 months. If the lawsuit will work as such lawsuits worked until now, it could bog down Linux development for 6 versions, easily. I do *NOT* want that, badly enough, to start contributing to a new codebase derived from 2.2, and thus unaffected by the lawsuit, starting tomorrow. And I know I am not alone on this. Know thy history, at least so you can avoid past mistakes. 'Waiting it out' is not a good idea in this case. And I don't care if I have to call it 'Notlin' or something like that. } Peter -- The Toronto Linux Users Group. Meetings: http://tlug.ss.org TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://tlug.ss.org/subscribe.shtml