This one's a quickie... Er, at least it was originally intended to be.

I just read Eric S. Raymond's Open Letter to Darl McBride. Mr. McBride is the CEO of SCO, a public company that has been attacking Open Source as being tainted by intellectual property belonging to SCO.

For those who don't know what open source software is, it's computer programs, software, and operating systems that make the source code available to the public in an open and usually free manner. I have written a few bits of programming that I have released under a BSD-style open source license. I personally operate this web site using open source software, and I use it widely at my place of work.

But SCO is being nasty. Rather than behaving in a civilized manner and explaining to the open source community exactly which parts of the publically available source code infringe their copyright and explaining how those parts infringe, SCO instead is keeping quiet. How is this bad? Let me give an analogy:

Imagine a bank in a community proclaiming loudly to all that it had been robbed, that thousands of dollars in cash had been stolen, notes that the bank tells the people it had carefully counted and inventoried (by serial number), then locked in their safe. That bank then refuses to publicly release the serial numbers of the notes stolen.

Now here comes the bad part. The bank now claims that many citizens and merchants in the community are criminals. No, it's not accusing them of having stolen the cash. The bank is just claiming that they have stolen property belonging to the bank in their posession.

The bank goes on to threaten these community members with legal action if they don't pay the bank some restitution fee. If a community member pays the fee to the bank, then the bank agrees to not press charges.

The community citizens and merchants, some independently of one another, and others together in groups or associations, react as would anyone against such a threat. First, they tell the bank, "We're innocent victims of the burglary too. So please tell us the serial numbers of the cash notes stolen, and we will gladly return them to you. Please don't threaten us. We'll even help you track down the bank robbers." The bank responds with refusal to reveal the serial numbers, repeating its demand that each and every person in the community who uses cash or has any cash in their posession, pay a fee to the bank.

Would you pay up? I wouldn't. I doubt anyone would.

How is this like SCO (the "bank") and the open source community (those citizens who have cash in their posession)? SCO has threatened the open source community, claiming that they posess or use programs (open source programs) that contain SCO intellectual property. But SCO, like the bank, refuses to say exactly what the property is, so that open source users and contributors could then remove any intellectual property belonging to SCO from their programs and systems, and even help SCO by tracking down how SCO's property managed to find its way into open source projects in the first place. Instead, SCO is demanding a licensing fee of users of open source systems (the Linux operating system in particular, but who knows what open source project will be next on SCO's hit list), a very high fee of hundreds of dollars. It doesn't matter if you're an innocent user who had nothing to do with stealing intellectual property in the first place.

In Eric S. Raymond's article (see the link above), he responds to SCO's most recent bout of complaints, this time SCO has been complaining that everyone is attacking them. It's like that bank complaining that now all the town's people were causing the bank grief by refusing to do business with them, and by badmouthing them to their neighbors. Well think a little, SCO! You attacked first, and even when the open source community responded, willing to remove any infringing intellectual property from their systems, you, SCO, refused to play nice, refused to behave with integrity, honesty, and fairness, casting all civility aside. So you're getting exactly what you've sown, reaping only the weeds you planted yourself. Congratulations, Eric, on an excellent rebuttal.

What's funny is that there's no clear evidence that SCO's claims that intellectual property has been misappropriated are factual. It's like the bank refusing to show anyone any evidence that there was in fact a robbery at all.

Actuall, SCO claims it will show you the evidence, if you travel to Lindon, Utah, and sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement that has so many conditions in it that no one who has a career in the computer industry who uses or is even remotely involved in open source could possibly agree to sign such an agreement, since it would seriously hamper their future job skills marketability, or even interfere with their ability to pursue their current job. And it is these very same people who would have the skills required to correctly determine if, in fact, SCO intellectual property had been stolen.

It's almost like that imaginary bank only allowing law enforcement officials to look for evidence of a robbery only after they sign an agreement with terms that would then interfere or even prohibit them from ever working on another criminal investigation or case.

If SCO is honest, if SCO's leadership has integrity, there is no intelligent reason that they would not clearly identify exactly what parts of the open source packages in question are a violation of SCO property, and explain how and why those parts infringe. This would not reveal any information to anyone that is not already freely available. It's not like they would be giving away trade secrets. The open source in question is already public knowledge. The only thing SCO would be doing, in essence, is to highlight those parts of the source code they believe infringes, then jotting in the margin a short note explaining why and how they believe it infringes.

So why does this bank refuse to reveal the serial numbers of notes stolen? Could it be that in fact, very little or even nothing was stolen at all, and instead the bank is hoping to use the publicity to its own benefit, or to increase revenue by using fear to encourage others to pay the restitution fee? Why does SCO refuse to reveal what parts of the Linux kernel source code infringe on their rights? They will have to have already done the research necessary, if they wish to continue their legal threats. Could it be that SCO is worried that they may not have been "robbed" at all, and that if they reveal their "evidence" it will be shown to be empty or bogus?

There's very good evidence that SCO's "evidence" of intellectual property infringement is in fact bogus or invalid. In Las Vegas recently, they showed some slides comparing Linux source code to their own. Since then, the open source community has examined those very few items of evidence, done a little historical research, and then clearly shown that in fact the code in question, is freely available under a valid, legitimate BSD open source license, which allows it to be used. Oops! SCO should have done a bit more reasearch themselves before making such a blunder. If that was the best evidence SCO has, SCO is digging a deep hole to bury themselves in.

I worry about SCO's leadership. Public records show key SCO leaders are selling SCO stock that they own. This stock selling occured only after the SCO lawsuit against IBM (which I'm not really commenting on, since it's a contract dispute, but event which does mark the beginning of SCO claiming intellectual property rights in open source). That is just plain fishy. SCO's stock had increased greatly from before the lawsuit. Are SCO executives just pulling a high-tech pump-and-dump stock scheme? I fear that they may be.

If SCO's executives honestly believe that they do have a case against open source, if they truly believe in their cause, why aren't they behaving in a civilized manner? I truly feel bad for them. If they have any integrity left, they will deal honestly with the open source community and show the evidence, permitting the community the opportunity to remove any infringing material from their projects, and enabling the community to help SCO by tracking how the infringing material got there in the first place. This really is the last chance for SCO executives. If they refuse, they do not have any integrity or honesty left. If they think that they do, they are fooling themselves. That would be very sad.

SCO is headquartered in Utah. I suspect that some of SCO's leadership are members of the LDS church, which teaches honesty and integrity in dealing with your fellow man. So please, SCO, act like you know you should. Be a positive example, not a negative one. Please don't tarnish Utah's reputation as a great place to raise families, a place where the people have high moral values. Do what's right, even if it means SCO might to bankrupt. It's hard. I don't know how I'd act if I were in your shoes. I sincerely hope that I'd do the right thing.

I wanted this Yak to be short, a quickie, to just link to the ESR article, but this is a topic I have strong feelings about. I use open source every day. I have contributed to it. It is of great benefit to the public. Open source software will only become more important and more widely used in the future. I guess I've needed to vent my frustration at SCO for some time now.