[PLUG-TALK] Re: [PLUG] Crimes and Justice against SCO and Microsoft

[gepr at tempusdictum.com]

Eric Harrison writes:
 > term. I replied to plug-talk.

Thanks, Eric.

Keith Lofstrom writes:
[...]
 > 0) I love S&M.  You Linux people are silly.
 > 1) Don't offend anybody.  Say nothing about S&M.  Just smile and
 >    help people run Linux.
 > 2) Participate in efforts to expose S&M faults, and support IBM
 >    and others in the lawsuit, but otherwise promote caution and
 >    avoid suggesting any kind of reactive measure.
 > 3) Participate in active legal attacks on S&M.  Make rude remarks
 >    about the companies, their principals, and their customers.
 > 4) Engage in victimless but illegal attacks on S&M, such things as
 >    posting secret sources to the net or hacks of license code.  Here
 >    "victimless" is in the sense of causing annoyance or thwarting
 >    expectations, but not in terms of leaving systems useless or people
 >    physically hurt.
 > 5) Make threats of physical damage; destroying data, breaking
 >    machines.
 > 6) Make threats of personal damage against DMcB or BG.  
 > 7) Actually launch physical/network attacks - i.e. MyDoom .
 > 8) Actually launch personal attacks - i.e. break legs, pistol whip.
 > 9) Kill anti-Linux principals.
[...]
 > I'm wondering where the rest of you stand.  Indifference?
 > Quiet? Active? Illegal? Damage? Murder?  What would you do,
 > and what would you tolerate, and what would you punish ?
 > 
 > What do YOU think?  We will get some silly/joking answers to this
 > question - please help me keep this thread on track by ignoring
 > those.  The folks making the jokes are worried too.  Let's get
 > some opinions out there, and avoid the flames while we learn the
 > feelings of the group.  Perhaps some of the debate can occur at
 > the Lucky Lab on thursday.

If you reword (1) to be:  Allow IBM and SCO lawyers to do their 
jobs and don't badger them or anyone else.  Help people run Linux.

Then, I'm a (1).

The single exception I've noticed so far is that good old Darl claims
the GPL violates article I§8 of the constitution.  I don't know how
clueless our representatives are.  I presume that they know that an
author is never _forced_  to use the GPL; therefore, the GPL is no 
threat to the government's responsibility to secure an author's claim
to their produce.

(Of course, some versions of these open-source-in-government bills
_are_ threats to article I§8, namely, the ones that want to _mandate_
that software created with public funds be published under open source
licenses.  But, the GPL isn't.)

If I had reason to believe our representatives were dumb enough to 
believe Darl, then I would move from (1) to (2).

 > And forgive the long rant - this is a tricky subject, and definition
 > may help avoid some misunderstandings.

There's nothing to forgive.  It's a reasonable question.

-- 
glen e. p. ropella              =><=                           Hail Eris!
H: 503.630.4505                              http://www.ropella.net/~gepr
M: 971.219.3846                               http://www.tempusdictum.com