To whom it may concern,
I was reading your paper "Is Open Source Software a threat to Future Intellectual Property Rights," and was quite shocked to find the following error. In the paper you claim:

"As unlikely as this might seem to the skeptic, the National Security Agency (NSA), that coordinates, directs, and performs highly specialized activities to protect U.S. information systems and produce foreign intelligence information, made the folly of developing GPL-licensed code to improve the Linux operating system. After reading the terms of the Linux GPL, the NSA realized they needed to post this enhancement to the Internet in source code form for the world to see."

First of all there no such thing as the "Linux GPL." There is the GNU GPL, which many distributions of Linux are published under. This seems a rather large mistake for a PAC specializing in IP to make. Furthermore, the claim that the GPL in some way requires you to post publicly any modifications to GPL-code is completely false. In fact, a specific section of the Frequently Asked Questions of the GPL addresses this issue. From the GNU GPL FAQ: (available at:http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html)

"The GPL does not require you to release your modified version. You are free to make modifications and use them privately, without ever releasing them. This applies to organizations (including companies), too; an organization can make a modified version and use it internally without ever releasing it outside the organization. But if you release the modified version to the public in some way, the GPL requires you to make the modified source code available to the program's users, under the GPL. Thus, the GPL gives permission to release the modified program in certain ways, and not in other ways; but the decision of whether to release it is up to you."

How could you make such a a blatant mistake? How do you conduct research at your organization? Even a cursory glance at the license would have shown this. Do you have such little faith in our Government agencies to imagine that they wouldn't have a horde of lawyers examine a license before using it? And yet, you, a organization who claims to protect my property rights didn't a) already know this, or b) do the trivial amount of research to learn it?

I utterly offended by your complete lack of fundamental research in this paper. To make the baseless claim that the GPL or Linux are some kind of evil things that have weakened National Security and manipulated our government is completely absurd. I am extremely interested how this gross mistake was missed by your editors and fact-finders, and made it into publication. I eagerly await your reply.

[ Damn. Right on, brother... -k]

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