Re: Linux v2.6.9 and GPL Buyout

["Jan 'JaSan' Sarenik" <jasan@maildrop.x31.com>]

Hi.

I'd like, by this mail, to defend Linus Torvalds, despite
I don't know him personally.

I don't know him personally as I don't know that way yourself.
Anyway, I trust him much more than you and SCO together.
You ask why? He is doing something for the others, not
just for himself like you do (or at least you take special
care to look like you're doing so).

The world is not merely about money.

You wrote to Linus:
> Then rather than be reasonable and honorable about it,
> and say something like, " I have not verified that
> associated intellectual property with this submission
> nor have I received a release of claims from the
> contributor.  I have been informed that several
> companies have conflicting claims regarding ownership
> and I have removed the code from the Linux Kernel and
> asked these vendors to maintain it as separate patches
> until these claims are resolved.", you keep right on
> sending it out, hosting it on your servers, all the
> while Linux Community members make statements that
> even if the code was someone else's "it's ours now
> because it was GPL'd".

How _you_ can say to anyone else what he/she should do?
Even if it was like you have imaginated, there are
thousands of Linux developers. Why are you putting
on Linus?!

Thousands of developers, from which everyone is responsible
for _himself_. They are all the same. They are people.
Born here, on this planet. Taught day by day how to
live here, how to survive, how to enjoy life.

Do you at least get my idea? Did you get idea of the
other defending mails from the other people which you
recieved (either as a part of mailing-list discussion
or personal)? The difference is, we try to look on things
like you say we should, you don't even try to look on
it the way we do.

> This flies in the face of every precept of contract law
> and intellectual property law in the United States.

Maybe I should not talk instead of Linus, but I can say at least
for myself and many others I know personally: We disagree
not only with copyright laws, but also with state, global
economics, your view of ``mature, adult, responsible
position'' and we try to live our lives the way we think
is the best.

> I don't think SCO has to apologize to you if you are not even willing to 
> take a mature, adult, responsible position regarding intellectual

What IS ``a mature, adult, ... position''? You mean ``position which
_we_[SCO] would like you[Linus] to have?

> property, and even try to work with these people.  You owe them an apology
> for running an IP laundry mat, cleverly disguised as a "freedom for all" 
> open source effort. 

Disguising is when somebody is killing people and saying he's
making them free.

> This is not good leadership or responsible stewardship of the
> IP of others.  No one can trust you if this is how you are
> going to operate, or trust that your effort is free from
> contamination from others.

You don't understand what's so essential for us: The power does
not come from the top. Linus is not any ``leader'' or at least
not in the meaning you used that word in.

By the way, in the part I haven't quoted here, you are blustering
to Linus Torvalds. That's not nice technique and if you think
that while you have great success with it between some other
people, it'd be not so easy in __this__* multicultural, decentralized,
free software community.

* You cannot count us, you cannot point your finger at ``us''
  and if you do so, you're alredy lacking those who don't know
  yet they're part of ``us''. Although we are decentralized,
  we are able to help each other.

   With no regard
    Jan Sarenik

PS(for lkml people):
    This message was sent also to lkml list in hope it will
    be somehow useful and with no intention to be listed on
    ``LKML-best'' and really no intention to say something
    good about SCO or Jeff V. Merkey.
    Good luck and don't worry!