Update: Save this XML file, and then open it with MSFT WordXP.  Examine the properties.  Here's a hint, whenever you use Word to create HTML docs, better clean them up.

Under the doc's properties we see Kevin McBride, Darl's brother listed as author, Dean Zimmerman, a longtime Caldera/SCO employee as last author, and we note it was apparently emailed by Blake Stowell though to who we can only guess.

For the terminally curious a view of the XML source indicates this is a Word doc and reveals this:

<xml>
 <o:DocumentProperties>
  <o:Author>Kevin McBride</o:Author>
  <o:LastAuthor>Dean Zimmerman</o:LastAuthor>
  <o:Revision>2</o:Revision>
  <o:TotalTime>10</o:TotalTime>
  <o:LastPrinted>2003-12-04T17:33:00Z</o:LastPrinted>
  <o:Created>2003-12-04T18:13:00Z</o:Created>
  <o:LastSaved>2003-12-04T18:13:00Z</o:LastSaved>
  <o:Pages>1</o:Pages>
  <o:Words>2119</o:Words>
  <o:Characters>12079</o:Characters>
  <o:Company> </o:Company>
  <o:Lines>100</o:Lines>
  <o:Paragraphs>28</o:Paragraphs>
  <o:CharactersWithSpaces>14170</o:CharactersWithSpaces>
  <o:Version>10.4219</o:Version>
 </o:DocumentProperties>
 <o:CustomDocumentProperties>
  <o:_AdHocReviewCycleID dt:dt="float">-8151263</o:_AdHocReviewCycleID>
  <o:_EmailSubject dt:dt="string">Open Letter from Darl McBride</o:_EmailSubject>
  <o:_AuthorEmail dt:dt="string">bstowell@sco.com<;/o:_AuthorEmail>
  <o:_AuthorEmailDisplayName dt:dt="string">Blake Stowell</o:_AuthorEmailDisplayName>
  <o:_ReviewingToolsShownOnce dt:dt="string"></o:_ReviewingToolsShownOnce>
 </o:CustomDocumentProperties>
</xml>

5:32:22 PM    comment []  

Open Letter from Darl McBride, CEO of SCO 

This is just breathtaking.  At first I thought he probably did this without clearing it with legal, but the latter half of the letter was most certainly written by a lawyer, inlcuding proper cites to Supreme Court cases.  He does a couple of truly odd things.  He mixes copyright (good for software) and patent (bad for software), invokes the DMCA for no apparent reason, mischaracterizes the open source movement, and on and on.  Here are a couple of the more choice bits:

SCO argues that the authority of Congress under the U.S. Constitution to “promote the Progress of Science and the useful arts…” inherently includes a profit motive, and that protection for this profit motive includes a Constitutional dimension. We believe that the “progress of science” is best advanced by vigorously protecting the right of authors and inventors to earn a profit from their work.

The software license adopted by the GPL is called “copyleft” by its authors. This is because the GPL has the effect of requiring free and open access to Linux (and other) software code and prohibits any proprietary use thereof. As a result, the GPL is exactly opposite in its effect from the “copyright” laws adopted by the US Congress and the European Union.

5:29:26 PM    comment []