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One common mistake is that if something has any legal use then it can't be ruled illegal. The transcript clearly indicates that the legal use needs to be "substantial". Although the threshold for "substantial" has not been etched in stone, Betamax had set an example of 7% of usage being legal as "substantial" (93% of usage infringing), but isn't a hard threshold. The best the appellates could do was claim 90% of P2P use was infringing (10% legal), which doesn't even meet the minimum Betamax threshold. So as long as the actual real usage of P2P keeps at least 7% legal there shouldn't be much of a problem.

My favorite quote: "First, it is a bad idea to decide the fate of a technology in its infancy." That's a message the RIAA and MPAA can't seem to get their heads around.

Of course judgements can often be surprising. Who knows how this will turn out?

I hope you aren't serious. And if you are, go and read Groklaw a little bit. It's an eye opener.

IBM didn't steal any code from SysV, they paid AT&T a lot of money to have a perpetual license.

And, the code that is in question, IBM wrote. Just because SCO has a messed up idea what a "derivative" work is, doesn't mean that they are right.

"Bar, get a clue, his disclaimer is warning you that he may be unfairly biased against SCOX."

I know Al posted a disclaimer! How does that contradict the facts of my post.

Al has publicly stated he has a financial interest in the defeat of The SCO Group - how does that somehow automagically give him "clean hands"? It doesn't!

I repeat, http://www.groklaw.net/ = clean hands.

Bar

Not much of a disagreement, but a couple of good quotes by PJ.

http://www.groklaw.net/comment.php?mode=display&si d=20040922071703588&title=Shrill%3F&type=article&o rder=&hideanonymous=0&pid=210651#c210819

"... when the share price increases by $1/share, the net value of my portfolio (assets minus liabilities) decreases by $14,300."

Wow, bad month for you Al - do you suppose people might think your articles and websites are an effort to damage SCO to your financial benefit?

Not exactly clean hands, Al.

Did you know that PJ has no financial interests in ANY of the litigants involved in SCO v World? That is what is called 'Clean Hands'!

I have to admit that I hope SCO gets cremated as well but my interests are purely environmental - a world without bottom feeding litigeous bastards can't help but be a better world.

Clean hands http://www.groklaw.net/

Bar

Furthermore, the attribution issue is a software bug, not something PJ did, as has been repeatedly explained.

There have been patches offered to fix the bug. Pam instead chooses to revise the Comments Guidelines to include the bug, instead of having it fixed.

from the above link(my emphasis added):

Consequently, I will delete any nasty or obscene remarks, any obvious trolling, any personal attacks, any illegal suggestions, any URLs to loathsome content or dangerous or annoying scripts, at a minimum. I reserve the right to remove user accounts as well. If an account is deleted, the software removes the author's name and ID# from prior comments, so if you wish to ensure your comments remain attributed to you, kindly include your name or handle in text as part of your comments. If you have any copyright or licensing instructions, those too need to be included in your comments. I will also remove misleading or incorrect statements or links thereto made by persons having an interest in the stock price of any company involved in any of the cases we cover on Groklaw. In addition, the site is copyrighted by Pamela Jones, but unless otherwise noted, articles are released under a Creative Commons license. Comments are copyrighted and no one may copy, modify, reproduce, index (including comment message numbers and thread pointers), or distribute the comments from this site or deep link to comments on this site without permission. An occasional link in accord with fair use is acceptable. We do not permit bots to crawl the site either, for any purpose, without permission. Humor is okay, within reason, but this a working site, not a playpen. We are trying to avoid distractions. If you just want to hang out and act silly, please do so -- but somewhere else.

sPh

Every point I made back then has since played out in court as predicted. Even the SCO Group is now relying on the same interpretation of the GPL license in its defence against IBM.

As I stated on March 10, 2004:

The SCO Group has entered into a series of essentially inherently flawed lawsuits and fraudulent license claims against users of the Linux operating system. Since 1994, Caldera International and the Santa Cruz Operation have been accepting, profiting from and distributing software developed by hundreds of independent developers under the terms of the GPL and LGPL license. The SCO Group has failed to put forward any sustainable legal theory why it should not abide by the terms of the GPL license. Detailed investigation into other facts and evidence which regularly conflict with the SCO Group's various legal claims, filing, press and public statements, raises serous questions which can no longer be explained away by a lack of competence in either the SCO Group's CEOs or the SCO Group's legal representation.

You posted "If O'Gara wasn't I suspect she would have sued PJ by now but truth is the defense for libel/slander"
.
It seemed to me that Pam backpedalled quite rapidly with regard to O'Gara. What was that all about? Link
IANAL

...a journalistic enterprise, with interviews, research, and reporting of events as they unfold...

...we strive to present solid facts in rebuttal...

...it's an archive of every significant element in the history of the SCO v. IBM, SCO v. Novell, SCO v. AutoZone, SCO v. DaimlerChrysler and Red Hat v. SCO lawsuits, including transcripts of the legal documents filed in plain text, so they can be searched by keyword and so that the blind can have easy access to the information...

Unsealing the court records supports all of these objectives, so why the resistance? Nowhere is there a caveat that some information should remain sealed for "a reason that seems good". Groklaw claims to be all about "applying open-source principles to research", but it now appears to take a different view when the facts don't support its obvious agenda.

Groklaw accused Maureen O'Gara of lying about the court proceedings a while back, so I guess now we'll find out what really happened.

"PJ" definitely doesn't seem happy about this, sniffing: "I am glad she spells that out for the judge, so he realizes that he has a chance to destroy an entire segment of the IT industry should he choose to go along with the plot."

What's the matter? I thought groklaw was all about serving up the facts, and nothing but the facts?

Oh no, that's what journalists do...

Groklaw.net is down and says:

Warning: mysql_connect(): Can't create a new thread (errno 11). If you are not out of available memory, you can consult the manual for a possible OS-dependent bug in /usr/local/wwwcache/groklaw-private/system/databas es/mysql.class.php on line 108
Cannnot connect to DB server

Warning: mysql_connect(): Can't create a new thread (errno 11). If you are not out of available memory, you can consult the manual for a possible OS-dependent bug in /usr/local/wwwcache/groklaw-private/system/databas es/mysql.class.php on line 108
Cannnot connect to DB server

Maybe SCO have attacked Groklaw in order to get their own back (or maybe they attacked themselves and Groklaw because they were bored).

Slightly old news by now.

Actually here's the run down as I see it. SCO owns Unix code, and trademark for Unix. What SCO does not own is the intelectual property or the copyright for Unix, as a matter of fact Novell still owns these according to the APA (Asset Prurchase Agreement) http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200311102 3050367 which clearly show exactly what SCO owns and what SCO does not in Schedule 1.1(a) Assets and Schedule 1.1(b) Excluded Assets respectivly. Pretty stright forward if you ask me. The thing is if this holds water in court SCO is pretty much down the drain as Novell pulled this ace out of it's sleve in it's latest "Reply in Support of Novell's Motion to Dismiss Amended Complaint" http://www.groklaw.net/pdf/Novell-56.pdf. Now if this proves true then SCO's ownership of the "concept of Unix" doesn't hold water, and all they can do is claim that the GPL is unconstitutional, which they are doing, and try and play it out from there. As for the IBM case all that they can say is "stop using our code" but in order to do this they have to prove that IBM has unix in linux.

Actually here's the run down as I see it. SCO owns Unix code, and trademark for Unix. What SCO does not own is the intelectual property or the copyright for Unix, as a matter of fact Novell still owns these according to the APA (Asset Prurchase Agreement) http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200311102 3050367 which clearly show exactly what SCO owns and what SCO does not in Schedule 1.1(a) Assets and Schedule 1.1(b) Excluded Assets respectivly. Pretty stright forward if you ask me. The thing is if this holds water in court SCO is pretty much down the drain as Novell pulled this ace out of it's sleve in it's latest "Reply in Support of Novell's Motion to Dismiss Amended Complaint" http://www.groklaw.net/pdf/Novell-56.pdf. Now if this proves true then SCO's ownership of the "concept of Unix" doesn't hold water, and all they can do is claim that the GPL is unconstitutional, which they are doing, and try and play it out from there. As for the IBM case all that they can say is "stop using our code" but in order to do this they have to prove that IBM has unix in linux.

SCO has been having a road show in the UK. As it happens, a Groklaw reader attended, and this individual reported to me that one of the speakers, in a talk about intellectual property risks in Linux and how you shouldn't use it in business as a result, mentioned me by name, and twisted my relationship with OSRM to say that it proved that I believe there are substantial IP risks in Linux.

That is nonsense, of course. It actually means the opposite, if anything. I was never involved in the insurance side of OSRM anyway. But I take it seriously that they are using my work relationship for FUD purposes. There was also the Ballmer FUD to factor in. I have thought about it carefully for a couple of days and brainstormed some. There is a scripture that says the heart is desperate, meaning it wants what it wants and tries to find a way to justify what it wants, and I'm only human. No one likes to separate themselves from an income stream if they don't have to. I tried to justify to myself maintaining the status quo. The FUD is unfair, but it doesn't matter. FUD is always unfair. One must simply deal with it. In analyzing my choices, I kept coming back to the same thing. If my working for OSRM is doing harm by creating FUD possibilities, I need to remove that issue. Money is nice, but integrity is everything.

So, I have resigned.

OSRM were extremely gracious about it. Down the road, when there's nothing left of SCO but an old blues song, perhaps we'll be able to work together again. But for now, I decided to try to find other work.

I have spoken with ibiblio about the UNIX/Linux Ownership History Timeline, and they have kindly agreed to host it. I love ibiblio.

Saw a good reveiew at Groklaw a couple of days ago.

SCO has been having a road show in the UK. As it happens, a Groklaw reader attended, and this individual reported to me that one of the speakers, in a talk about intellectual property risks in Linux and how you shouldn't use it in business as a result, mentioned me by name, and twisted my relationship with OSRM to say that it proved that I believe there are substantial IP risks in Linux.

Groklaw clears this mess up. Turns out someone doesn't understand the word "fork."

Groklaw has an article up in response
to this one, including responses from Andrew Morton..

Well, in my defence I would point you to a comment by PJ over at Groklaw. She says that "Users are liable whether they know about a patent or not."

Here is the link.

As I said, IANAPL or even AL but it seems pretty clear. I have also read of cases where companies have refused to settle with MS over patent issues.

PJ at http://groklaw.net/ has a comment on the forking. Seems like the fork rumor is due to a misunderstanding. The forking in the talk was about 2.7 being a fork off of 2.6

Groklaw has an interesting article on MS and its FUD about OSS and patents.

I believe Microsoft will indemnify as long as you don't use any non-Microsoft software at all on your system.

See this article on Groklaw for a description of some of the other possible loopholes.

Matt

Keep in mind that China is a Communist country and any concept of intellectual property is relatively novel.

For a moment, I thought this was an Ask Slashdot.

So did I. And the question seemed moot, since Groklaw had already asked this question of its audience and gotten a resounding yes. A very misleading title.

If you read the sources carefully especially this you will see that it was Canopy, the successors of Caldera that wanted to destroy their evidence because it was costing them too much to maintain it, and they didnt need it anymore because their case was finished.

The key line is "The Canopy Group, Inc. ("Canopy"), filed a motion to this court seeking permission to dispose of hundreds of boxes in its possession..", "the primary issues relate to Canopy's desire to avoid further burden and expense.."

The sort of fudging of facts in the headline here is how you get people who are nearly insane with hatred who post here making the linux crowd look totally unstable to the mainstream.

IBM has not but others have.
Also even not haveing 1337 programing skills I can see the BS and lies SCO puts out. MY favorite was the complaint about SMP. SCO gave Allen Cox the hardware and help to develop Linux SMP. They even (months after the lawsuit) still had web pages up braging about the things they did to help Linux development.

Object files and executables come in several formats. One is ELF (Executable and Linking Format) and another is COFF (Common Object-File Format). ELF is used on SystemVr4 UNIX systems, while COFF is used on Windows systems.

Groklaw blocks the Google spider, last I heard.

Searching for "Groklaw's Mission Statement" in Google finds this page so it seem like Google is indexing them.

Version 6.1(DOS) was a very good version, in my view. Stable (6.0 had some problems but we got a free upgrade and 6.1 fixed them,) keystroke compatibility with 5.1 on toggle with a more GUI mode that was easier for new users, and also for the first time with a WYSIWYG mode which I found helpful when working with charts and graphs. But several people in the office asked me to roll back 5.1 anyway - they already knew how to do everything with it, and it did run faster in less memory - very important running it on the 486s of the day, particularly if you were using Windows to multitask.

It was really still lightyears ahead of MSWord - hell, it's still lightyears ahead of MSWord, yet MSWord took over the market. I don't have a firm opinion yet on to what degree that was due to MicroSoft being better at marketing and to what degree they actually crossed the line into illegality, but from a cursory look at the complaint and the coverage at Groklaw it looks like Novell may have a case.

I used to be able to hit Slashdot and get a good reading on breaking geek-type news. Hell, FreeRepublic is probably breaking news faster then Slashdot nowadays, and I'd bet they don't have anywhere near as many dupes...

Nope. According to Groklaw, Microsoft will only defend you in court if they feel there is no infringement on their part. If there is then you're stuffed.

So much for the hyped Microsoft Indemnification.

...Or some guy just liked using his cracked copy of SF, and brought it into work to use.

I don't know exactly how the law is worded (perhaps this is better talked about on GrokLaw), but if the pirate copy is on a Corporate computer, then Microsoft is still responsible. Most of the companies I have worked for have had rules about installing personal software on company-owned computers for this very reason.

I think what will actually happen is this: MS will look into it, verify it, figure out who did it, and if he's not gone already, they'll can his butt. In the next release of the WinMediaPlayer, they'll have the files fixed, in one way or another.

This isn't MS being hypocrites, it is an employee breaking company policy and bringing in outside sofware.

Precisely. Scratch one employee at Microsoft. Look for the opening in their job postings soon.

...have decided that there are other ways to change the market.

"What's funnier? He tried to use Paypal to sell it, or he sold it for only $20?? Apparently, he doesn't place a high value on MS's source code..."

Especially when Linux source-code is worth $612 million...

I thought it looked awkward, too, but it's Groklaw's english, not mine or samzenpus's (who?)

Oh, and in my original story submission I *did* have a link to the actual Groklaw article, but the editor removed it.

Really, the summary made a lot more sense when it left my computer...

I'm a lawyer and I'm not doing anything this evening. I'm sure some FOSS project could use one....But I don't know which or where.

SCO is trying to claim that Novell was malicious in knowingly publishing a false claim (that Novell owns Unix copyrights). Novell says that it had every right to publish its claim and it has reason to believe that the claim is true.

The particular memo doesn't prove anything about ownership but is one more (small) piece of evidence that Novell sincerely believes its claim (of ownership of copyrights), and so are in no way guilty of knowingly publishing a falsehood.

Novell's case is overwhelming, but this particular document is part of a filing in response to a filing by SCO alledeging that Novell knew it didn't own the copyrights.

I could be entirely misunderstanding things. There will certainly be a compentent analysis on groklaw soon enough.

There are four links listed in that post and none of them are to the actual story at Groklaw. Can you knock off the linking of every term in a post that has a website or at least make sure to give us the one link that's most relevant to a post? Please?

Groklaw coverage here

But for the rest of us a link to the actual groklaw story and it's analysis is more helpful. Legalease is too much for me.

This is just FUD, I think.

Intellectual property falls into the following general areas. Infringement is completely different for each area:

1. Patents

   Anyone using patented technology (even in a "device" they didn't make) can infringe. However, the idea that some patent holder would sue Microsoft customers for patent violation strains the imagination. I suppose as a business tactic someone might do it to hurt MS, but the negative feedback they would get would dwarf any harm done to MS. Maybe after they sue Microsoft first, but I can't imagine Microsoft a) letting it get that far and b) leaving the patented technology in place.

2. Copyrights

   FUD. Unless you make copies and distribute them to others and harm the owner of the copyright in doing so, you don't infringe. I see no way a Microsoft customer can be liable for copyright infringement without also infringing against Microsoft.

3. Trademarks

   FUD. If you just use Microsoft products, and don't display the products to others, I don't see how you can violate some hypothetical third party's trademark.

4. Trade secrets

   FUD. The only person who violates a trade secret is the one who reveals it. The person who learns the secret is not liable for trade secret violation. They may be guilty of doing illegal things to get the secret, such as breaking and entering, but they aren't on the hook for trade secret violations.

5. Contracts and licenses

   FUD. If you don't sign a contract or click through someone else's EULA to run a MS product, these don't affect you.

6. (What The SCO Group Has)

   It's not known what this is, since it occupies a different reality from our own. OT: the Novell Board of Directors understood in 1995 that they retained the copyrights to UNIX after the sale of the UNIX business to the Santa Cruz Operation.

Do the wonderful folks at groklaw have something to say about this?

In an apparent first for /. today, mo mention of robots, either.

This is OT, but I never noticed it before - the following HTML works here:

link to slashdot:
<a href="/.">/.</a>

Yup.

From this Groklaw thread, one estimate put it at $176 million, while another (more realistic) at ~$612 million for Linux kernel 2.6.

And this, the redevelopment costs alone.

I'd wanted to post the actual figures, but ofcourse Slashdot's _brilliant_ lameness filter blocked it.

Heh, funny - Slashdot these days seems to block more content than it allows for.

Why are responsible slashdotters encouraged to ignore trolls but such a blatant one gets an entire story? After the very professional way the kernel developers tore him apart you'd think the issue would be over.

Don't feed the trolls!

As the parent AC says:

I would suggest you all read what else PJ of Groklaw wrote about that whole issue here: http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200410261 33519345

LinuxWorld really did run O'Gara's story with SCO's latest spew, and should have been a bit more careful.

Now then, it's not that parent doesn't have a point about O'Gara taking SCO's word for things a *wee* bit more than should have been reasonable, but I would suggest you all read what else PJ of Groklaw wrote about that whole issue here:

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200410261 33519345

Not that most Slashdotters will likely heed her advice...