Linus to SCO: 'Please Grow Up'

brakk writes "From this article at Infoworld, Linus responds to SCO's open letter in a manner reminiscent of patting a child on the head." chrisd notes that his company is making SCO employees unhireable.

What's the point of making them unhireable?

[lar3ry]

SCO doesn't seem to have any employees other than lawyers and mouthpieces at present.

I doubt that anybody looking for a job in the software field would have SCO from May, 2003 on their resume.

Karma whoring ...

[Etyenne]

Just the Torvald's letter ... hilarious !

---
Dear Darl,

Thank you so much for your letter.

We are happy that you agree that customers need to know that Open Source is legal and stable, and we heartily agree with that sentence of your letter. The others don't seem to make as much sense, but we find the dialogue refreshing.

However, we have to sadly decline taking business model advice from a company that seems to have squandered all its money (that it made off a Linux IPO, I might add, since there's a nice bit of irony there), and now seems to play the US legal system as a lottery. We in the Open Source group continue to believe in technology as a way of driving customer interest and demand.

Also, we find your references to a negotiating table somewhat confusing, since there doesn't seem to be anything to negotiate about. SCO has yet to show any infringing IP in the Open Source domain, but we wait with bated breath for when you will actually care to inform us about what you are blathering about.

All of our source code is out in the open, and we welcome you point to any particular piece you might disagree with.

Until then, please accept our gratitude for your submission,

Yours truly,

Linus Torvalds

Re:Childish screening procedures.

[greygent]

I'm assuming you must be a teenager, or someone who is oblivious to reality. So I'll give you some hypothetical reasons why someone wouldn't just up and quit their job the minute they don't like it:

- They have kids
- They have a wife
- They have car payments
- They have house payments
- They have many bills to pay
- The economy sucks, and working at Domino's Pizza does not present a viable alternative

Any other questions?

Re:Childish screening procedures.

[mhesseltine]

I believe this could be considered discrimination, and companies are required to keep all resumes they receive on file.

This page on EEOC regulations [eeoc.gov] looks like a good place to start looking. From my quick glance over the page, it looks like age, gender, religion, and medical disability are about the only things that are protected under the EEOC. Everything else looks to be fair game.

Also, as it pertains to keeping resumes on file; that would only apply if you actually receive the resume. If the mail server simply drops it, or bounces it back, I would say that you haven't received it, therefore, you don't have to file it.

Standard disclaimer: IANAL, YMMV, HTH, HAND, etc.

Re:*sigh*

[UtucXul]

>when someone mentions Stallman or Raymond, do
>youimmediately think of code they've written, or an
>image of them jumping up and down on a soapbox?

Maybe it's me, but emacs comes to mind with Stallman.

Offtopic: -1 ... whatever

[jmb-d]

Please send all resumes in text or pdf format. We do not open word documents sent from outside the company. We will immediately delete them, and the mail they came attached to, if recieved.

Good idea, security-wise.

Now, if only they would immediately delete any resumes which were obviously not checked for spelling errors...

<rant>
When reviewing resumes, my eye is immediately drawn to typos like this, and resumes containing things like this are put into the "consider them only if nothing else better shows up" pile. It's important, folks -- you only have one chance to make a first impression. Do you really want the boss to see that you can't be troubled to hit F7 (in Word)?
</rant>

Re:Childish screening procedures.

[mark-t]

IANAL, but I am something of an expert on employment standards, having been subjected to more than my share of ***hole employers. As such, I've read my regional employment standards act from top to bottom more times than I can count.

Where I live, disrimination is only illegal when it is done on the basis of race, religion, age, gender or sexual orientation. It is completely legal to discriminate against someone on the basis of their past affilliations. I can't see this being any different anywhere else in the world that civil and human rights are protected.

Equal Opportunity, So what!

[jthurma]

Contrary to common opinion, Equal Opportunity only covers protected classes under the Civil Rights Act of 1963. The Civil Rights Act does not protect people based on where they worked before and it never will. There are many justified reasons not hire an employee from a certain company. A company could decide to not accept applications from a competitor that has been involved in corporate espionage to protect trade secrets.

Before judging Damage Studios, one must know whether they have a reason to fear SCO. Do they fear being sued by SCO for stealing their human resources? Do they do in house programming and contribute to the GNU/Linux source code? Any company that does contribute code to GNU/Linux should not hire ex-SCO employees because that will give reason for SCO to accuse them of adding illegal code.

Re:Childish screening procedures.

[cdrudge]

EEO doesn't mean equal opportunity for every person for every trait. EEO means that they can't descriminate based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, or disability. Notice past job history isn't one of them. I have the choice to not hire if you worked for SCO, not hire you if you are ugly, and not hire you if you are overweight. Would I be an ass if I did? Yes. Is it illegal, no.

As someone else stated though, automatically deleting them is probably against the law. All resumes should be kept at least 1 year depending on where the business is located and state law.

. What Are the Federal Laws Prohibiting Job Discrimination?

* Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII), which prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin;
* the Equal Pay Act of 1963 (EPA), which protects men and women who perform substantially equal work in the same establishment from sex-based wage discrimination;
* the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA), which protects individuals who are 40 years of age or older;
* Title I and Title V of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), which prohibit employment discrimination against qualified individuals with disabilities in the private sector, and in state and local governments;
* Sections 501 and 505 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which prohibit discrimination against qualified individuals with disabilities who work in the federal government; and
* the Civil Rights Act of 1991, which, among other things, provides monetary damages in cases of intentional employment discrimination.

Re:Spellchecker?

[bl8n8r]

If you are referring to the word "Bated" as which some controversy has already started over, see below.

bate1 1. To lessen the force or intensity of; moderate: "To his dying day he bated his breath a little when he told the story" (George Eliot). See Usage Note at bait1. 2. To take away; subtract.

Usage Note: The word baited is sometimes incorrectly substituted for the etymologically correct but unfamiliar word bated ("abated; suspended") in the expression bated breath bated on dictionary.com [reference.com]

Re:*sigh*

[Anonymous Coward]

Stallman had nothing to do with the BSD license, which is much closer to the true spirit of free - as in no strings attached.

Re:Chrisd opened him self up to being sued.

[Bob(TM)]

The Americans with Disabilities Act requires retention of all received resumes for a period of one year (as evidence of compliance with non-discriminatory hiring practices in relation to disabled individuals).

Here's a guidance page for HR document retention [pro2net.com]

Re:Today's top story

[DaveAtFraud]

Probably because he's Finish. Seems most people who grow up speaking English associate "bated" with having something to do with bait. If someone writes "baited breath", I ask if they mean someone has a worm on their tongue.

Have a definition:

"Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)"
Bate Bate, v. t. imp. & p. p. Bated; p. pr. & vb. n.
Bating. From abate.
1. To lessen by retrenching, deducting, or reducing; to abate; to beat down; to lower.

He must either bate the laborer's wages, or not employ or not pay him.
--Locke.

2. To allow by way of abatement or deduction.

To whom he bates nothing or what he stood upon with the parliament.
--South.

3. To leave out; to except. Obs.

Bate me the king, and, be he flesh and blood. He lies that says it.
--Beau. & Fl.

4. To remove. Obs.

About autumn bate the earth from about the roots of olives, and lay them
bare.
--Holland.

5. To deprive of. Obs.

When baseness is exalted, do not bate The place its honor for the person's
sake.
--Herbert.

"Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)"
Bated Bat"ed, a.
Reduced; lowered; restrained; as, to speak with bated breath.
--Macaulay.

Still using the same debunked slides

[Anonymous Coward]

SCO still using those same debunked slides as the basis of their argument. What's more they've gone back on the BPF thing is only a demo of their code searching capability.

1. Aug 19 - paraphrase - These are damning examples of copying.

http://news.com.com/2100-1016-5065286.html

Sontag then showed, in a series of slides, Linux code that he claimed has been literally copied from Unix. He said numerous comments, unusual spellings and typographical errors had also been copied directly into Linux.

2. Aug 20 - paraphrase - The criticism of these example slide are incorrect. This is our code.

SCO, though, was steadfast. ''Their assertions are incorrect. The source code is absolutely owned by SCO,'' said Chris Sontag, a company spokesman.

3. Aug 26 - paraphrase - One of the examples (BPF) is just to show our technique for searching. It's not meant to be a damning example. It's not meant to show copying. We won't use it in court. Ignore the wording on the slide that says it's about our damning "proof" of copying.

http://www.internetwk.com/breakingNews/showArtic le .jhtml?articleID=13900143 http://www.internetwk.com/breakingNews/showArticle .jhtml?articleID=13900143&pgno=2

But Sontag said the BPF routines were not intended to be an example of stolen code, but rather a demonstration of how SCO was able to detect "obfuscated" code, or code that had been altered slightly to disguise its origins. The slide displaying the code should have been written differently to reflect that intention, he said.

"It was an example of our ability to find moderately changed or obfuscated code, it was not an example we are using in court," Sontag said. "If they want to go off and make a big defense on that, they are welcome to it."

4. Sep 11 - paraphrase - The examples that we showed, are damning.

http://www.sltrib.com/2003/Sep/09112003/business /9 1398.asp

SCO acknowledges it has not, because of pending litigation, completely revealed its evidence of purloined code showing up in Linux. However, Stowell argues his company has revealed -- through a mix of private screenings where viewers signed nondisclosure pacts and in a public slide show three weeks ago at SCO's trade show in Las Vegas -- sufficiently damning examples backing its claims.

"They keep saying we are not showing the code, that we are being deceptive," Stowell said. "But we have shown it, literally, to hundreds of people now. . . . We have been very forthcoming. The programs we have identified make up about 20 percent of Linux."

Media Response Team

[Yog Soggoth]

It's absolutely critical that the Open Source Community counter one-sided stories like the one written by Reuters yesterday.

http://biz.yahoo.com/rc/030909/tech_sco_linux_1. ht ml

I would encourage all /.'ers to write Reuters to get their editors to take a second look at their story:

Here's what I wrote them. Please feel free to send my letter verbatim, or something similar. The more feedback they get, the less likely they will be to do a one-sided treatment of this in the future.

To: [e-mail]

I am writing in reference to the September 9 article on SCO's current lawsuit and critique of the Open Source community.

http://biz.yahoo.com/rc/030909/tech_sco_linux_1. ht ml

Your article failed to provide any response from members of the Open Source community, or to articulate the views of the community, and as such was an entirely one-sided treatment of the topic.

The author lamely suggested that Open Source leaders were "unavailable for comment" either unaware of, or deliberately ignoring the mountains of responses generated in recent days, weeks, and months regarding the lawsuit, and in particular, and McBride's letters. Given the lopsided nature of the article, I suspect that the author did not try very hard to find responses from the Open Source community regarding SCO's claims.

In the interest of balance, I would strongly encourage you to write another story articulating the Open Source movement's response to McBride's letter.

For references in which the Open Source, and other communities, notably the Open Group which holds the UNIX trademark, have responded to SCO's claims in general, and to the particular letter being reported on in yesterday's article please review the following references:

http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2003- 09 -10-016-26-OS-CD-CY
http://www.osdl.org/docs/osdl _eben_moglen_position _paper.pdf
http://www.perens.com/SCO/SCOSlideShow .html
http://www.opengroup.org/comm/press/unix-ba ckgroun der.htm
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/sco/sco.htm l

Please give the following email addresses to authors doing future research on SCO's claims regarding the Open Source community.

moglen [at] columbia [dot] edu Eben Moglen
esr [at] thyrsus [dot] com Eric Raymond
bruce [at] perens [dot] com Bruce Perens
rms [at] stallman [dot] org Richard Stallman
torvalds [at] transmeta [dot] com Linus Torvalds

Re:Childish screening procedures.

[chrisd]

Actually, we refuse to do business with the Boies lawfirm as well...

It isn't really Guilt by association if you are part of the problem...I think this is a measured, appropriate response to SCOs attack on free software. Note the date is well after they launched the lawsuit, giving employees time enough to go find new jobs..

chrisd

Re:Now thats a long copyright

[chrisd]

Actually, the game is -set- 400 years in the future, the copyrighting at the bottom of the page is our little joke. If we take as long at Duke Nukem Forever, I can pretty much guarantee that we won't be in business...

Chrisd

Re:You are so out of touch with reality its scary

[welshsocialist]

Equal Opportunity Employers cannot deny employment based on these factors:

• race
  
• color
  
• religion
  
• sex
  
• national origin
  
• disability
  
• age
  

Does than mean that this gaming company can refuse SCO employees? Yes. Is it right. I don't know.

Re:Spellchecker?

[tommck]

From the University Of New Mexico [unm.edu]:

Prepositions are words that combine with nouns/pronouns to make
a phrase. A phrase, in turn, is a group of words that express a
single thought or idea. In a prepositional phrase, the preposition
logically comes at the beginning: "at the store," "on the table,"
"with much interest." Ending a sentence in a preposition requires
the listener/reader to reconstruct the idea. Compare: "The store
we saw the coat at," with "The store at which we saw the coat."
Again: "The table you left my book on," with "The table on which
you left my book."

Winston Churchill is said to have asserted that this is a
rule "up with which I will not put," but the reason for the rule
is clear if one ends a sentence in several prepositions: Consider:

What reason did you bring the topic up for?
What reason did you bring the topic we disagree about up for?
What reason did you bring the topic we disagree and fight
over about up for?

The best way to avoid getting tangled up in sentences that are
hard to untangle is to avoid ending sentences with prepositions.