SCO defies logic by selling Samba under "invalid" GPL

THE SAMBA TEAM issued a statement the other day about SCO's proud inclusion of Samba in its latest release of Unixware. Their view can be found by following this link (please use your closest mirror site, they're all the same).

For those readers who might be unfamiliar with Samba, that's the Free / Open Source Software (FOSS) replacement for Microsoft's file and print servers using the Vole's Server Message Block (SMB) protocols (thus the name SaMBa, get it?). Samba is distributed under the GNU General Public License (GPL). And therein lies the rub, as it were, for SCO's usage.

You see, SCO has just announced that it believes that the GPL's invalid, though no one concurs with it (it's unlikely any honest judge might).

SCO's problem then is -- even if it manages to hoodwink a judge (or buy some corrupt judge) and get the GPL declared invalid -- then it will be violating copyrights by distributing not only Linux but also other GPL'd software products like, say... Samba. SCO cannot have it both ways here, pilgrims. That it uses both positions at once is simply unbelievable.

The Samba Team -- those Open Source developers who have invested tens of work years to develop this superior drop-in replacement for Microsoft's "innovation" -- is understandably not at all happy to have SCO sell it: "For SCO to continue to use Open Source / Free Software while attacking others for using it is the epitome of hypocrisy."

However, the Samba Team winds up bending over backwards to uphold their core ethos, saying: "...we believe that the Samba Team must remain true to our principles and our code must be freely available to use even in ways we personally disapprove of.

"Even when used by rank hypocrites like SCO." µ