Linus to SCO: 'Please Grow Up' 1163
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.
Re:Childish screening procedures. (Score:-1, Interesting)
Digital Certificate? (Score:2, Interesting)
Some reference to the original e-mail of Linus?
SCO Childish (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Childish screening procedures. (Score:4, Interesting)
It hasn't been easy getting new jobs over the past few months, so I understand people holding on to whatever jobs they've got.
Now with the economy on it's rise it might be a different story.
I find it wrong to judge people in this manner, the actual coders at SCO probably have NOTHING to do with the "crusade" against Linux.
They didn't squander the IPO money (Score:5, Interesting)
What they didn't do was use it to make good products or a functional business. "Squander" implies they ever intended to try to do either of these.
By the way, am I the only one who always thinks about Resident Evil's Umbrella Corporation every time he hears the name Canopy?
Re:Childish screening procedures. (Score:1, Interesting)
Actually, I agree, hire the codemonkeys away from them, just make sure they haven't been tainted by American lawyer-think!
Re:Childish screening procedures. (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, now that there's a new item for Open Letters, here's the extensively revised version of the one I posted a couple days ago. You can also see it on my journal page [slashdot.org].
A Linux User's Open Response to Darl McBride's Open Letter to the Open Source Community
By John Gabriel, NYC, 9/11/03
"What comes of litigation? Poverty and degradation to any community that will encourage it. Will it build cities, open farms, build railroads, erect telegraph lines and improve a country? It will not; but it will bring any community to ruin." -- Brigham Young, JD 11:259.
"Contracts are what you use against those with whom you have relationships." -- Darl McBride
Dear Mr. McBride,
First, let me introduce myself. My name is John Gabriel. I have been working in the technical field for 15 years, as a Network Administrator, Applications Manager, Network Manager, Sr. Networking Engineer, and now, Freelance Consultant. And, yes, I'm an MCSE.
My first experiences with Unix occurred in the late 1970's, during school field trips to local colleges. I also did Unix technical support for students while taking a class in Pascal in the late 1980's. My first experience with Linux dates to 1994, when I downloaded whatever Linux kernel was available at that time.
While I did install it successfully, on a Compaq Deskpro 386/25, I quickly abandoned it as the Deskpro didn't have enough memory to support the X Windows System. Several years later, in 1998, I became a Caldera customer, with a purchase of Caldera OpenLinux Base ver. 1.22, with Linux kernel 2.0.33. I ran into similar problems once more.
About a year ago, I again became interested in Linux, and now run Linux on my home workstation in a dual-boot configuration with Windows XP.
About 4-5 months ago, I began following the SCO v. IBM story. I was at first inclined to be open-minded towards SCO's claims. It wouldn't be the first time a small company has had its copyrights violated by a larger vendor, though the violator is usually, in my experience, Microsoft, as exemplified by Caldera's history with DR-DOS.
However, the more I researched the story and SCO's claims, the more convinced I became that SCO's claims were, well, baseless. Being the type that usually likes to "root for the underdog", I was surprised by my conclusions.
Anyway, that's enough introduction. What follows is an Open Response to your Open Letter to the Open Source Community. I grant everyone, including you, permission to re-publish it, or quote from it, without restriction, except that my comments be properly attributed to myself. Consider it under a "BSD-style" license if you like.
Open Letter to the Open Source Community [sco.com]
By Darl McBride, CEO, The SCO Group [sco.com]
1) The most controversial issue in the information technology industry today is the ongoing battle over software copyrights and intellectual property. This battle is being fought largely between vendors who create and sell proprietary software, and the Open Source community. My company, the SCO Group, became a focus of this controversy when we filed a lawsuit against IBM alleging that SCO's proprietary Unix code has been illegally copied into the free Linux operating system. In doing this we angered some in the Open Source community by pointing out obvious intellectual property problems that exist in the current Linux software development model.
Re:Childish screening procedures. (Score:5, Interesting)
Companies are only required to keep resumes on file that meet their submission guidelines. If you clearly state, "This is the only way you can send a resume" than you only need to store those that come in that way.
Any EOE experts to give some clarification?
I'm not an expert, but I pretend on Slashdot. This is just speculation, so treat it as such.
From Damage Studio's Point of View they are filtering their applicants based upon previous documented work ethics. You can filter applicants based on past history, without it being discrimination. For example, would the SEC hire someone from the financial department at Enron? Probably not, as they have a history of supporting false claims.
Same thing. SCO employees are supporting false claims, as well as bogus lawsuits. This is something Damage doesn't want to get involved with, so they are opting to not hire people who have worked for a company who is very well known for doing that.
Discrimination usually means things you can't help, too. Nobody is forcing anybody to work at SCO.
Re:Childish screening procedures. (Score:5, Interesting)
If you were an employee of a company that had conflicting values then it's reasonable to reject you based on that fact. It is already common for companies to not hire employees from their competitors fearling IP leaks and the lawsuits that follow.
Under that logic it is a perfectly valid concern that a SCO employee might "inevitably" bring some SCO IP into the company and result in SCO filing a lawsuit.
Does that make it ok to not hire someone just because they worked for SCO? I think it's moraly wrong, baseless and absolutley retarded. But I doubt that it's illegal. But of course IMNAL...
SCO utilizes Microsoft's (UNIX) technology? (Score:2, Interesting)
REDMOND, Wash.-November 24, 1997 - Microsoft Corporation today applauded the decision of the European Commission to close the file and take no further action on a dispute between Microsoft and Santa Cruz Operation (SCO) involving a 1987 contract. The Commission's decision follows progress by Microsoft and SCO to resolve a number of commercial issues related to the contract, and upholds Microsoft's right to receive royalty payments from SCO if software code developed by Microsoft is used in SCO's UNIX products.
Re:oh this is funny (Score:2, Interesting)
If you don't know what the offending code is, and it is removed in a subsequent kernel release, then you might not ever even care to try to find out what it was. Sure, some folks with nothing better to do will do diffs and post it all over, but the majority of folks would just patch and move on.
Now, enumerate the lines that are offending and folks will all know.
Sort of like that rumor about Tom Clancy and his books. Supposedly Clancy found out about stuff that was "classified" and put it in his books. He maintained that all his information was public information, you might just have to dig for it. Supposedly the CIA told Clancy that he has classified information in his books and would have to remove it. Clancy said that he would remove it no problem, just point out which information was classified and he'd remove it. The CIA figured it was best to just leave it alone since removing the information would reveal that it was potentially true whereas leaving the information in could hide it among the other data that was simply fiction.
Granted, if there IS code that has to be removed, there are plenty of folks with nothing better to do than to do diffs on every release to see what the code was.
Since the code is now visible, the cat's out of the bag. However, if this SCO issue IS true and no real penalties can be assessed (actually, it doesn't matter that the person who put the code in is penalized since this type of thing can, in some folks' opinions, potentially ruin companies and cause lots of folks to lose their jobs), it is still a bad thing in that it rewards behavior that is found unacceptable (in the legal world at least). One fear is that it simply encourages others to "steal" code from their employer and release it in an OSS product and letting that cat out of the bag as well - either through vindictive behavior or for some other reason like it would make the person doing this have some "heroic" reputation among the community.
If there is no penalty for doing so, then this could be a big issue to commercial software and I'm still not convinced that any of the OSS folks have thought about what that could mean in the long term.
You choose who you work for (Score:2, Interesting)
However, you choose who you work for. By working for a company, you support its actions. You may not believe these actions are correct, but if you do nothing to change it, you are as guilty as those driving that bus. We each much take responsibility for who and what we support.
In this case, we have a company preying on innocent companies and individuals. This may change if SCO ever gets around to showing any evidence for the claims they have made. Similarily, if these claim turn out to be true (doubtful), I'm sure Damage Studio will change their policy.
I wouldn't work for Microsoft. Even though MS has some fantastic emgineers and great benefits. I simply don't agree with their business practices. Now...if they changed and perhaps opened a department to port their applications to linux or decided to open source their operating system, I might change my mind.
Unbalanced maninstream news! (Score:3, Interesting)
for example, yahoo news on SCOX [yahoo.com]
in the latest [yahoo.com] there is the comment " Leading Linux experts or advocates were not immediately available for comment."
w-w-wha-WHAT?? The open source commuinity has been doing nothing *but* commenting- take the latest extremely well written open leter from Bruce Perens, for example.
Meanwhile SCOX stock price continues to inexplicably rise.. All the harder to fall.
Linus's Letter (Score:5, Interesting)
As for Damage Studios' policy, I think it is mostly just for show. But they have got every right to refuse ex-SCO employees, and I don't think there is anything wrong with that. There are things I, personally, would far rather be on the dole than do. As long as you have a head on your shoulders, a hand on each arm {and, absit omen you should ever have to use it, a hole in your arse}, there is no reason why you should be going short.
Re:Childish screening procedures. (Score:4, Interesting)
"We're going to throw away all resumes, but especially those from SCO."
BTW, note that submitter chrisd is listed on the exec team of damagestudios, along with other former VA/Andover/Sourceforge folks. Basically this is a just a tacky PR ploy, and I guess I fell for it. Looks like they're trying to get some free hits on their site more than anything else. They should just pay for their ads like everybody else.
Re:Childish screening procedures. (Score:2, Interesting)
Not necessarily - considering SCO's views on code ownership it is entirely possible that Damage does not want anyone who has touched their precious "Unix code base" working on new or open source code because it puts his company at serious risk by doing so.
Re:Childish screening procedures. (Score:2, Interesting)
In other words, "We aren't hiring anyone, but we are ESPECIALLY not hiring employees of SCO."
I'd rather die hungry and die honest (Score:2, Interesting)
The Damage Studios Policy - Analysis (Score:3, Interesting)
First, I feel bad for the average employee in the trenches. Imagine SCO collapsing and someone looking for work having had nothing to do with this.
At the same time, if they want to work for a company doing something so reprehensible, they also made a choice. They can live with the results. Yes, the economy is tough, but life's not a series of easy choices.
There is of course the concern that SCO employees are "poison" now, which I have to admit seems completely rational. Gods only know what legal issues they may (innocently) drag in with them.
So, largely in the end I see an anti-SCO policy being rational as a cover-my-legal-rear action. It's not fair, sadly, but it is one involving survival.
I wonder if this could also be the beginning of a trend, as we seem to see more and more legal acrobatics in software and IT.
Any thoughts?
Re:Childish screening procedures. (Score:3, Interesting)
What about brain drain? (Score:2, Interesting)
Instead, whittle them down to Daryl and a fax machine.
Re:Childish screening procedures. (Score:3, Interesting)
This is part of the problem with North America these days. People divest themselves of any responsibility for their actions. "It's not my fault 10,000 people died from toxic waste poisoning, I was just doing my job, delivering the barrels to the river and dumping them." How about, "Yeah, so what if I killed a one-room school full of children? Those were my orders."
In SCO's case, they're damaging the livelyhoods of hundreds of thousands if not millions of people, and doing their damned best to set back Open Source and Free Software 20 years, just when people the world over are starting to wake up and realise that, hey, it's actually a pretty decent way to do things.
So, yes, I wouldn't hire the code-monkey unless his resume stated "Left SCO due to a moral conflict." or similar. Otherwise, he helped them do what they were doing. Maybe he can sleep better at night thinking, "I just did my job," but that doesn't cut it for me.
If your company is truly evil, it is your duty to at the very least quit. I've done it myself. And yes, I had obligations too. If I can do it you can do it, so you get no sympathy from me. You should hide in shame the fact that you ever worked for SCO. Which is what the employer cited is asking for - don't include it on your resume. You aren't allowed to take credit for being even a small part of a group that's hellbent on extortion.
Re:Childish screening procedures. (Score:5, Interesting)
In half the places I applied for a job, if the company was very concerned about thier IP and considred itself in a highly competitive enviroment not only did I have to sign an NDA just to enter the building but I also had to fill out an extensive form detailing where I worked, what I did and if the company was a competitor. I also had to sign a paper saying that none of my family members work for any company that they consider a competitor. Better yet, having worked for eBay I had to sign a paper saying that I will not work for any retalier of used goods over the internet for the next 3 years...
Re:*sigh* (Score:2, Interesting)
If I were Linus, I'd take it a bit personal that my ethics and principles were being brought into question by the SCO lawsuits simply by the association of being the being the creator. If I'd put countless hours hard work to *give* something free and unique to the better good, I'd probably be a bit incensed at being called, in so many words, a thief.
He's not saying 'is not.. is not..' He's saying.. 'prove it, or stfu.'
I don't blame him a bit.
More of Linus and a lack of grip on reality. (Score:1, Interesting)
Lets see:
150 mil settlement of Caldera with Microsoft of DR-DOS.
71 mil raised for Caldera IPO.
Sure, 71 mil is 'much' money. But the bulk came from Microsoft.
Re:I'd rather die hungry and die honest (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes and can you look at yourself in the mirror and be SURE that you "did the right thing" when you have responsibilities to your family?
Oh sure 'I' don't mind a bit of pain to make my stand, but am I willing to hurt other to make my stand? I think not.
You have NO idea how happy I am to be working. I know people who are graduating IST/CS right now and have NOTHING but 50k-70k in loans. I can tell you right now that even the most moral of them will BEG for a job at SCO, right wrong be damned. You wouldn't be so sure about "doing the right thing" when your car got repoed and you filed for bancrupcy..
Re:I'd rather die hungry and die honest (Score:5, Interesting)
Admirable though this sentiment is, I can't help but wonder if it is being opined by someone who has never felt real hunger.
Me? Given the choice between dying honest and living in guilt, I'd choose to live in guilt. There are very, very few things in this world worth dying for.
good day for SCO (Score:5, Interesting)
Wow, that must really concern management at SCO, that they don't have to wory about employees leaving and going somewhere else because no one will hire them. Even is this were true, it actually would be great news for top management. Between that and Linus's response being a lame "grow up" while they watch company stock go through the roof and some chumps actually paying them and they must really be having a good day today.
Re:Childish screening procedures. (Score:4, Interesting)
Employees of SCO are not a protected class under any iteration of federal or state civil rights legislation of which I am aware. Discrimination in hiring is not illegal. In fact, it is encouraged. Generally, you want to discriminate against the stupid, lazy, and dishonest. Discriminating against members of protected classes while hiring is illegal, however.
Typically impermissible grounds for making hiring decisions include:
-sex
-race
-religion
-age
Sexual orientation is a close fifth behind those four biggies. Previous status as an employee of a certain organization may not be impermissible, unless it is seen as a covert method of excluding members of a particular group.
For instance, stating that you will not hire someone who is a member of the NAACP would probably be impermissible because it smells like subterfuge for keeping out blacks, even though you need not be black to be in the NAACP. Stating that you won't hire members of the NRA, or less policitally, members of Mensa, would probably be ok, although it might seem bizarre.
In this case, stating that you won't hire SCO employees is probably quite defensible, and perhaps the company in question thinks that it will make them distinguishable from other companies in the market for labor (more "street cred" with GNU/Linux geeks, I guess).
IMHO, most GNU/Linux geeks recognize that the problem isn't the guys in the cubes -- it's the guys at the top, so not much street cred is to be had here, in all likelihood. It just looks sort of juvenile. Besides, don't we want to encourage any and all talent to leave SCO?
In any case, it got their "help wanted" site some free pub, which was probably the idea in the first place.
GF.
Re:Chrisd opened him self up to being sued. (Score:2, Interesting)
These resumes would serve as the basis for evaluating hiring practices for evidence of discrimination against disabled individuals.
Whether there is a real danger here is debatable as the discrimination does not fall under the scope of the act (IANAL).
You sir are a F**KING LOSER (Score:2, Interesting)
If SCO employees started looking for a job in April or May, chances are they won't find a new one somewhere else for a while. 422000 jobs were cut last month.
In fact all idiots like damage studios are doing is making it harder for folks from SCO to leave.
Yes when people don't make money they starve.
Damage needs to change thier name to Brain damage studios. because doing crap like this shows me they won't be around very long.
Damage Hiring Policy is good thinking (Score:5, Interesting)
Bear with me for a moment....
By hiring a SCO employee, and knowing SCO's current mindset (sue for money), I would not be surprised if you got a knock on the door six months down the road from SCO counsel asking for a code audit, thinking that the former employee must have given your company some IP knowledge due to past experience at SCO....
So by not hiring an ex-SCOer, you would be keeping yourself from being exposed to such risks.... not at all unfair.... and good thinking
Re:Childish screening procedures. (Score:4, Interesting)
> mainly concerned with nothing to do with your job?
Your totally missing the point.
If they are hiring a programmer, working for SCO means you _can't_ do your job.
You can no longer program for any company in the US (Atleast until SCO is removed from the face of the planet)
If any company hired a SCO worker, _especially_ an 'average coder', that worker will taint your code the instant he speaks to any of your corders about anything what so ever related to programming, and SCO can(Will) sue for it.
The SCO execs fucked their workers over big time by doing this. No one else.
SCO has all but said outright "If you use any code that may be ours, we will sue."
I say it would be a firable offence to the interviewer if he/she knowingly and willingly hired someone from a company that stated they plan to sue anyone that uses that workers code or knowledge.
Its fucked up of SCO to do this to all of their workers, but atleast point the blame where it belongs... Not at the companys that simply dont want garenteed lawsuits pressed aginst them, but at SCO for ruining all of their workers futures by doing this.
Re:You are so out of touch with reality its scary (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not the original poster, but I'm kind of amused, because you've pretty much described me, except that the other "professional field" I jumped into for five years (three, so far) is stay-at-home motherhood. That cut the household income in half.
I expect to jump back in at the point where I left off, partly because I'm spending these five years working on free/open source projects and other stuff like that (okay, and reading Slashdot, too... I keep up on the industry).
If you look at it right, it's really not that much different from quitting an unethical company, other than that I'm *guaranteed* to be staying out of the IT field, where the hypothetical ex-SCO employee isn't.
per processor??? (Score:1, Interesting)
So if I run Linux on a dual processor, does that mean I "owe" SCO $1400? I thought it was $700 per machine...
Re:Childish screening procedures. (Score:4, Interesting)
Not that I want to defend lawyers, but American (US) lawyers are indeed a separate species from at least German ones. That might have something to do with different ecosystems. Over here, Lawers are reasonably regulated. Among other things, the following rules apply:
- No advertising
- Minimum fees are fixed, depending on the value of the lawsuit (and that will be set by the judge). The lawyer typically gets paid the same for winning and for loosing. He can't work for just a percentage of the damages awarded.
- Looser pays the winners reasonable legal fees.
All in all, it makes for a lot less ligitious society. It also means that damages are reasonable to low (as opposed to much to high to insane in the US).Ethics? No way! (Score:2, Interesting)
People rationalize.
In the case of working for the WI I don't sympathize, but that's just personal. In the case of SCO I think one shouldn't be too judgemental and look at this case by case.
Maybe people think good jobs for nice people who make the world a better place are for grabs. I don't think so, and I don't see many people making an effort to ensure their employer is ethically sound. I don't like that, but it's only human. We think about ourselves, spouses, children first.
IMO there are far worse people to work for than SCO (from an ethical point of view)
And from the other side of things:
I can see why a company wouldn't hire people with certain backgrounds, but I fail to see any ethics being involved.
IMO it's - apart from maybe prudent policy - a pointless gesture aimed at the wrong people.
And I'm sure SCO management couldn't care less.
Re:Damage Hiring Policy is good thinking (Score:4, Interesting)
Chrisd
Bad news (Score:1, Interesting)
http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2003/09/10/wind
Re:Childish screening procedures. (Score:4, Interesting)
That's why they said "any resumes which include the SCO Group after September of 2003 will be immediately deleted" - they're specifically giving SCO employees until the end of the month to quit if they want to be eligible for employment at Damage Studios. That seems fair to me - anyone who is still working at SCO in a month is clearly part of the problem. They've known about SCO's actions for nine months - if they haven't been looking for a new job and preparing to quit, then clearly their ethics do not agree with mine and I don't want to work with them.
The line: (Score:3, Interesting)
The 'line' is where it does harm to me. Simple as that.
If what is taking place at my company doesn't harm me, then I wont be leaving with out someplace to go first.
That doesn't mean I wont LOOK for another place, but I'm not stupid enough to jump with out a place to go.
Eating is a nice thing to do. You cant eat morals.
They'll be.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Seriously, if Damage developed software with someone who worked at SCO conceivably SCO if it got even a little bit crazier might see that as a potential revenue source, based either on ancient code, gpl code, the employee's (probably secret) nda, patents, trademarks, pending lawsuits against various companies, etc. I feel for the code monkeys but even when that company dies it probably will still be one of the undead, liable to walk the graveyard at midnight from time to time. It is a bit of fear nobody needs. Maybe the employees should sue SCO?