From: invalid@see.sig.telecom-digest.org   
      
   On 9/23/2020 3:55 PM, Moderator wrote:   
   > Appellate Courts Recognize Strike 3's Ability to Meet Standard for Early   
   > Discovery to Obtain John Doe Defendant's Name and Address   
   > ...   
   > ***** Moderator's Note *****   
   >   
   > That's not even to mention the Linux binaries that I get via BitTorrent:   
   > if some preteder-to-the-Linux-throne *COUGH*Redhat*COUGH* decides to   
   > make an example of someone like me, what then?   
      
   Uh, no, Bill. Red Hat, which is now one of the more profitable parts   
   of IBM, would not attempt anything stupid like that. Linux is all   
   under the GPL and very much "free as in speech". Red Hat did have a   
   little proprietary software, but it's not the core of Linux, just   
   extras they sell (now as IBM).   
      
   There was, of course, a case about 15 years ago, wherein The SCO   
   Group, which had at one point been a minor Linux distributor, decided   
   to sue IBM and everyone else distributing or using Linux for patent   
   and copyright infringement. They claimed that they owned Unix, having   
   bought it from AT&T, and that Linux copied from Unix. It was   
   preposterous, of course, but people make nutty claims and sometimes   
   sell shares based on it. The case went on for a few years, eventually   
   proving that SCO did not own Unix, just had a master license to   
   distribute it, and that Linux was in any case original. Oh, and the   
   claim that BSD (Open Source) too had copied from AT&T? That one got   
   shown to be backwards; Berkeley's work was largely original and AT&T   
   had taken some code from it.   
      
   - -   
      
     Fred R. Goldstein      k1io    fred "at" interisle.net   
     Interisle Consulting Group   
     +1 617 795 2701   
      
   ***** Moderator's Note *****   
      
   RedHat not only attempted, but accomplished, something like that: the   
   company exploited the open-source movement and managed to convince   
   corporate America that it owned an operating system called "RedHat   
   Enterprise Linux," after it relied on hackers like me to popularize   
   its brand name.   
      
   Not only did RedHat prove that the average IT purchasing manager is a   
   gullible fool, but it got very rich, very quickly, and then its owners   
   cashed out to IBM and settled in to laughing themselves to sleep every   
   night, while those of us who had made them their money were relegated   
   to "Enthusiast" status and told that we would henceforth be allowed   
   access only to the "Fedora" brand of products, so that we would be   
   "privileged" to do RedHat's beta testing for them.   
      
   When we all finally got to see the man behind the curtain, I ranted   
   about RedHat's business model and tactics in several posts to the   
   Boston Linux & Unix User Group's discussion list: FYI, I've included   
   some of the links here.   
      
   http://blu.org/pipermail/discuss/2003-November/017846.html   
   http://blu.org/pipermail/discuss/2003-November/018051.html   
      
      
   Bill Horne   
   Moderator   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)