28 lines
1.6 KiB
Plaintext
28 lines
1.6 KiB
Plaintext
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As all users of GCC will know, SCO has recently made claims concerning
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alleged copyright infringement by recent versions of the operating
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system kernel called Linux. SCO has made irresponsible public
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statements about this supposed copyright infringement without
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releasing any evidence of the infringement, and has demanded that
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users of Linux, the kernel most often used with the GNU system, pay
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for a license. This license is incompatible with the GPL, and in the
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opinion of the Free Software Foundation such a demand unquestionably
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violates the GNU General Public License under which the kernel is
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distributed.
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We have been urged to drop support for SCO Unix from this release of
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GCC, as a protest against this irresponsible aggression against free
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software and GNU/Linux. However, the direct effect of this action
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would fall on users of GCC rather than on SCO. For the moment, we
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have decided not to take that action. The Free Software Foundation's
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overriding goal is to protect the freedom of the free software
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community, including developers and users, but we also want to serve
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users. Protecting the community from an attack sometimes requires
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steps that will inconvenience some in the community. Such a step is
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not yet necessary, in our view, but we cannot indefinitely continue to
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ignore the aggression against our community taken by a party that has
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long profited from the commercial distribution of our programs. We
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urge users of SCO Unix to make clear to SCO their disapproval of the
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company's aggression against the free software community. We will
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have a further announcement concerning continuing support of SCO Unix
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by GCC before our next release.
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