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Do You Know UNIX Secrets?
ESR writes "You can help stop the SCO attack on IBM and the Linux community.
I'm looking for ways to prove that Unix trade secrets have been legally
nullified.
I want to know if you have ever had read access to proprietary Unix
source code (not just binaries and documentation) under circumstances
where either no non-disclosure agreement was required or whatever
non-disclosure agreement you had was not enforced. To help out, see my No Secrets page."
So let's get this... ESR wants to know where the NDA wasn't enforced. So he's looking for someone who's copied code from the Unix source tree into something else and got away with it. Isn't that what's called admitting your culpabilty? And when SCO serves papers on ESR for that information which he has garnered? Oh, you too can have your day in court. Woohoo.
The point is, it's been basically otu in the open for decades already... so yes, you can't take it and make a product with it... copyright prevents it.
But the source code to various versions of unix has been widely available to anyone who wanted it, and none of the previous copyright holders of it even really cared.
SCO cannot claim trade secret violations for somethign that has been common knowledge for well over 10 years.
Yes, 2 wrongs don't make a right, and merely taking something and publishing it doesn't make trade secret invalid.. but if I publish your trade secret stuff, and it gets re published for a full DECADE, you can't come in 10 years later and claim your "secrets" have been leaked.. it's not a secret anymore.
The only case in which access to source code would be of interest would be if SCO or its predecessors made the code available themselves, without requiring an NDA. That could be accidental (putting it up for FTP on a public site) or deliberate (publication in a book, sending it to a university research group).
In all other cases, access to it would probably be in breach of either NDAs or computer crime laws. For example, if you had access to SCO source code through your employer, you are covered through their NDA. If you made your own copy of it, you and your employer might be in a lot of trouble. If SCO or someone else accidentally left open an NFS mount with the source tree (as has happened in the past), you'd probably be guilty of computer hacking if you tried to access it. So, be careful of what you admit to.
Overall, I think people should just ignore SCO and go about their business until SCO comes forward with concrete claims. There is no need to spin our wheels or waste any amount of time on this right now. After SCO makes concrete claims, any reasonable judge should give the open source community ample time to respond, and SCO's secretiveness and unwillingness to let people fix whatever they are complaining about probably only hurts their case.
There are three problems here.
"under circumstances where either no non-disclosure agreement was required or whatever non-disclosure agreement you had was not enforced."
Problem #1: Just because it wasn't enforced at one time, doesn't mean the NDA is null and void- in fact, many/most NDAs specifically say "lack of enforcement does not nullify this agreement".
I'm looking for ways to prove that Unix trade secrets have been legally nullified
Problem #2: Disproving "trade secret" status is pointless(not to mention, unlikely to happen). It's still copyright SOMEONE ELSE, and YOU CAN'T USE IT unless they let you!
Problem #3: It's been said time+time again, there is no proprietary code that belongs to SCO in the Linux kernel. This project, therefore, is entirely moot, at least in regards to the SCO lawsuit...and it can only, in fact, cause damage, because you're implying there IS code that belongs to SCO that "we" need to find a way to justify its presence in the kernel...when in fact no such code exists.
By the way, why are people wasting time "helping" IBM? They don't need it, nor do they deserve it- they're "into" Linux because it makes them money, not because they wanna be friends, or they think it's "cool"...and with legal "help" like this, who needs SCO? Dispute the claims intelligently, boycott SCO, whatever- just leave the legal arguments to the lawyers, or you just might end up helping SCO...and IBM won't be the only loser if that happens.
I can hear the SCO execs and lawyers now: "See? They DID steal our code, now they're trying to find a loophole!"
Please help metamoderate.
This would serve only to HELP SCO's case that people are running around with 'improper' code that they signed non-disclosure agreements that they have disclosed....
Exactly what the case is based on..
Don't give them MORE ammunition people.. its going to get ugly before its all over.... and download what code you can now.. for soon it may be gone... between this, DMCA, DRM, and patriot act.. OSS just may become extinct...
---- Booth was a patriot ----
This project, therefore, is entirely moot, at least in regards to the SCO lawsuit...
I think you understand the most literal level, but I think you're missing the logic. I think you're right, this doesn't have anything to do with the lawsuit. I think this is punitive . I think this is a side-project, to punish SCO for violating community standards, no matter what happens to the lawsuit.
As such the rest of your concerns are irrelevant, since as you yourself say this has nothing to do with the lawsuit.
This is a long-term project, to establish the danger of messing with the UNIX community, to make anybody else in the future who thinks they can milk money from the community, or that a lawyer-spasm is preferable to simply going out of business, think twice because they can expect the community to lash out not just in rhetoric, but with legal manuevers of their own. Textbook deterrence.
I'm not ESR and I don't know. But that's how I read this, and I think it's a great idea. May not go anywhere but if it works it's very poetic and appropriate payback.
He has no case. He'd have to show that the IP holder knew about the failure to NDA and did nothing about it. If the failure to NDA was between a sublicensee and an employee, that wouldn't count as abandonment of the IP rights. The IP rights weren't ever abandond. Bell Labs did due diligence on the Lions book. The people who bought UNIX since have kept it close because really all they had bought was the IP.
And your metaphor with the polls is just silly.
That's true, but SCO isn't just claiming its copyrights were violated. SCO is claiming its *trade secrets* were stolen. If you want to claim that something is a trade secret, you have to make some reasonable effort to actually keep it secret.
This space unintentionally left unblank.
IANAL, but here is my spin. To address your statement, yes but no. It is too old to be considered in this case (looking for 7 or newer) HOWEVER while it would not allow you to cut and paste the code and use as you want, it would nullify any 'trade secrets' claim. Because it was published, you would be allowed to create your own, independent, implimentation of anything in the book. It would no longer be 'secret', even if it is covered by copyright.
Linus owns Linux. You can't cut and paste the code and release under a different license, but you can impliment a new kernel from what you learn from Linux, and release it however you want because there is no trade secrets that can be claimed. As you state, you can't just change a few routines and let it slide, but if you get the 'idea' for virtual memory, and figure out a different way to do it, then you are free to copyright it or license it anyway you want, assuming your code is 100% gpl free.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
What if SCO programmers looked at Linux code, put some of it into SCO code, line for line.
Now someone else goes back and looks and goes, "Hey, there's SCO code in Linux!! Time for a lawsuit!"
How to say if this type of thing is happening?
Vip
Where did you get that.
Nobody is saying that you can steal... there is a difference between trade secret stuff and just "How we did that thing".
SCO is not "locking down their IP rights". THey are trying to assert IP rights they do NOT have.
You CANNOT claim to have a "trade secret" if everyone and his pet duck has had virtually unfettered access to it for TEN years. SCO did not have anything that EVERYONE did not already know, was taught in universities, etcetera.. that's the point.
This has nothing to do with RMS.
This is about asking if anyone in the past has had access, legally, to the unix source in any form where they did not have to sign NDAS, or where the NDAS were consciously overlooked by the rightsholder in the first place. Why? So they can help show that SCO is making baseless claims (which any idiot can see that they are)