Re: Linux 2.6.9 and the GPL Buyout

From: Jesper Juhl
Date: Mon Dec 20 2004 - 17:17:01 EST


On Mon, 20 Dec 2004, Jeff V. Merkey wrote:

>
>
> This is the final post on this particular thread. I said I would
> reveal to LKML the purpose behind this original proposal when the time
> was right. The GPL buyout offer has now expired and is formally closed,
> now is the time to explian.
>
> The purpose behind the buyout was to convert as much Linux code over
> as possible to another open source operating system project which
> is sponsored at www.gadugi.org. This project is hosted by the Cherokee
> Nation and is sovereign under US Federal Laws. This project is merging
> the Linux Kernel with the Open Source NetWare project and distributing
> the operating system. The site is operational and the full code repository
> will be posted with the merged operating system after the Cherokee Nation
> Public License is published in January. Anyone who
> wishes to participate can email the site and get an account.
>
> Despite dubious reporting and wild conjecture, the buyout was not geared
> towards helping SCO, or in concert with M$ as some sort of grand
> conspiracy. It was geared towards creating a new licensing and legal
> model for open source development. The Cherokee Nation is enacting
> legislation to promote open source development. So the whole buyout
> was me and a few folks attempting to convert Linux GPL code into
> a licensing model and Cherokee Nation Copyrights that renders the
> code sovereign and immune from litigation outside of tribal courts
> and jurisdiction. So much for all the SCO and other legal wranglings
> regarding this effort and open source in general. We are immune from
> these people and so are any projects that use our licensing or host
> on our servers. I personally told Darl "Mad Dog" McBride at SCO
> good luck and to buzz off.
>
> We are adopting Federal Copyright and Trademark law, and Federal Patent
> law into our courts. We are also enacting trade secret laws that make it
> easier for folks to claim trade secrets on Open Source code for
> individual authors.
>
> Whether anyone here bites at this or not neither adds or detracts from
> the opportunity and what we are doing. We have been around a long
> time in North America; over 7,000 years from our own
> recorded history, which is a lot longer than even IBM has been around. We
> will be here 1000 years from now (and hopefully so will our website and
> open source projects).
>

I'm wondering why you didn't submit this explanation at the very begining.
Not that it changes my personal position that my own contributions are GPL
and nothing else, but it might have resulted in different responses to
your original mail if people had known the full story.

--
Jesper Juhl

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