Fwd: ESR/OSI's Unix/Linux-history-laden treatise on SCO vs. IBM

[Eric S. Raymond]

I've been forwarded some mail from the freebsd-chat list.
Since I am trying to act as an advocate for the whole open-source
community here, and not just Linux, a few comments and responses:

Gary Swearingen:
>  It contains a few whoppers:
> 
>      "...the typical complexity of software [...] doubles every eighteen
>      months..."

Alas, this is true.  You only think it isn't because you live in Unixland,
where we make steady (if not always successful) attenpts to hold down bloat.
If you ever take a job coding C++ for a Windows shop you will learn -- 
painfully -- how bad it is out there.
 
>      a complaint that SCO slighted by saying he "introduced" Linux to the
>      world, presumably instead of ESR's absurd claim the Linus "invented"
>      it ("in 1991"!).

Is there some other year you would propose?

>      the open-source community is "today's principal source of innovation
>      in software"

I stand by that statement.

>      In his wrap-up, he gives us this copyleftic whopper: "We wrote our
>      Unix and Linux code as a gift and an expression of art, to be
>      enjoyed by our peers and used by others for all licit purposes both
>      non-profit and for-profit."  (I dispute the phrase "all licit
>      purposes" as regards the Linux kernel and other "GNU is not Unix"
>      parts of "the Unix tradition".)

This supposed "copyleftic whopper" is something I have observed in
most of my peers since 1982, long before copyleft was invented.

>  A couple of minor problems:
>      He says Unix was invented in 1969, Linux in 1991 (as if they
>          were invented within one year.)

This is within the normal usage of "invention" for technologies with
a complex history.

>      He inappropriately refers to "Ronald McDonald's restaurants".

That's been fixed.  (Hey, *you* try writing under pressure!)

>  He is biased toward Linux and away from BSDs, saying:
>      "We in the open-source community (and our allies) are more than
>      competent to carry forward the Unix tradition we founded so many
>      years ago."
>  soon after saying:
>      "The technical leading edge of the Unix tradition had moved
>      elsewhere, notably to Linux."

Had I meant "We in the *Linux* community", that's what I would have
written.  It says "open-source community" specifically to include you guys.
Don't be paranoid; you make enemies that way.

Remember that I'm writing for *lawyers*, not geeks.  Like it or not,
"Linux" is the open-source community's big visible brand name.  In
this context, talking about BSD would be falling off message.  It's
not that I'm biased against BSD, it's that I know when it's good
tactics to ring the "Linux" bell that J. Random Lawyer will recognize
and then shut the hell up about the other details.

>  I wish that he'd added to his several off-topic pot-shots, the fact that
>  none of the industry-making "Unix tradition" would have been happened
>  had courts developed their concept of software patents before the birth
>  of Unix.

I specifically *refuse* to do that.   We do not want to open up the can
of worms that would be involved in proposing wholesale reform of IP law.
That would be a great way to get slapped down and lose.
-- 
		<a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/">Eric S. Raymond</a>