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USENIX Panel On SCO Lawsuit Now Available
porkrind writes "No Starch Press and The USENIX Association co-sponsored a discussion on the SCO vs. IBM case at the USENIX Annual Technical Conference. Now you can listen as Chris DiBona, Don Marti, Jon "maddog" Hall, and others explain the nuances of the case. Click here for the MP3."
Should this thing get all slashdotted to hell, I've got a BitTorrent mirror of the MP3 available here.
ftp://videl.ics.hawaii.edu/temp/usenix-slashdot/us enix.mp3
Mirror of MP3 just in case of Slashdotting.
80 lines of code makes quite a case? The NDA is to see 80 lines of code.
Here is an essay from a person that signed the NDA. Here is a bit you may find interesting:
Here is what I think I can say about the code I saw. The code is fairly trivial--the kind of stuff I wrote in school. The similar portions of the code were some 80 lines or so. Looking around the Net, I found close variants of the code, with the same comments and variable names, in sources other than Linux distributions. The code is not in a central part of the Linux kernel. The code does not appear to have been contributed to Linux by SCO or Caldera. The code exists in current versions of the Linux kernel.
Doesn't sound like much of a case to me. Perhaps you mean if hundreds of thousands of lines of code, that would make it quite a case.
So, if every Linux user could go out and do something that cost SCO a dollar... :-)
Your premiss number (2) is false. The code was put there by the copyright owner. The code in question, according to SCO's own claim, came from IBM's engineers. If you had read the legal filings (which I doubt you have), and in particular Exhibit C Paragraph 2, you would see that EVEN if IBM added code that they then added back to System V "derived works"; e.g., AIX or UnixWare, since the code was written by IBM's engineers, now pay attention, IBM OWNS THE SOURCE CODE EVEN IF IT WAS PLACED INTO SYSTEM V DERIVATIVE WORKS. Why do you think that IBM has been so curt and so blunt in their statements? This lawsuit is a joke, and it's pure FUD. Once the case goes to trial and lawyers get to debate it in front of a judge, I doubt it's going to stay around very long. In fact, I would imagine that IBM's lawyers will file a motion on the first day of proceedings for dismissal on the grounds of insufficient evidence.
Regards,
Edward
It's a bit dangerous to compare books and software. Fair use might protect you if you were merely publishing a small section of code as text, but incorporating it into a runnable product is a bit different. It would be more like incorporating 1 min of someone else's movie in your movie. I doubt that fair use would protect you in that case.
3) The code continues to exist, violating SCO's copyrights.
Not quite.
The alleged code continues to exist because SCO refuses to tell anyone where it is.
Do some reading about the Doctrine of Laches. Basically, since SCO refuses to tell anyone where the alleged code is, then the alleged code is worthless to them. Since the code is worthless, SCO can't claim injury.
That's why the first order of business in a copyright enforcement process is to tell the infringing party what it is they're doing wrong.
By refusing to tell anyone where the alleged code is, so that it can be removed, they are essentially giving up any copyright claims they might have had.