NewsForge: An Open Letter to Darl McBride
Aug 22, 2003, 18:05 (32 Talkback[s])
(Other stories by Eric S. Raymond)
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"Mr. McBride: Late yesterday I learned that you have charged
that your company is the victim of an insidious conspiracy
masterminded by IBM. You have urged the press and public to believe
that the Open Source Initiative and the Free Software Foundation
and Red Hat and Novell and various Linux enthusiasts are up in arms
not because of beliefs or interests of their own, but because
little gray men from Armonk have put them up to it. Bwahahaha!
Fire up the orbital mind-control lasers!
"Very few things could possibly illustrate the brain-boggling
disconnect between SCO and reality with more clarity than hearing
you complain about how persecuted your company is. You opened this
ball on 6 March by accusing the open-source community of
criminality and incompetence as a way to set up a lawsuit against
IBM. You have since tried to seize control of our volunteer work
for your company's exclusive gain, and your lawyers have announced
the intention to destroy not just the GPL but all the open-source
licenses on which our community is built. It's beyond me how can
have the gall to talk as though we need funding or marching orders
from IBM to mobilize against you. IBM couldn't stop us from
mobilizing!
"I'm not sure which possibility is more pathetic--that the CEO
of SCO is lying through his teeth for tactical reasons, or that you
genuinely aren't capable of recognizing honest outrage when you see
it. To a manipulator, all behaviors are manipulation. To a
conspirator, all opposition is conspiracy. Is that you? Have you
truly forgotten that people might make common cause out of
integrity, ethical considerations, or simple self-defense? Has the
reality you inhabit truly become so cramped and ugly...?"
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