| By Maureen O'Gara |
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| January 23, 2004 12:00 AM EST |
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10,909 |
SCO Group CEO Darl McBride has been writing letters again. This time
he's taken his case to Washington and written to all the senators
and congressmen warning them about the threat of open source and the
GPL, which he calls "a much more serious threat to our capitalist
system than US corporations realize."
McBride's letter, which voices SCO's claim that its code is
illicitly in Linux, says that open source could destroy the US
computer industry (and take with it a mountain of taxes), threatens
America's competitive position internationally and endangers our
national security by providing our enemies with export-restricted
computer capabilities.
McBride is trying to step between Linux and government accounts.
"The open source community now includes several major corporations,"
he writes. "These companies have been lobbying for increased
government support of open source software. Some want government
RFPs to specify open source software. I urge you to consider the
other side because I believe that open source, as it is currently
constituted, is a slippery slope. It undermines our basic system of
intellectual property rights, and it destroys the economic reasons
for innovation."
According to the letter, SCO has met with several government
agencies, which the letter claims "understand the implications of
SCO's case."
The Open Source and Industry Alliance (OSAIA), an arm of the
Computer & Communications Industry Association, got a hold of a copy
of the letter and posted it.
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