FSF Statement on SCO vs. IBM

tomdp writes "Eben Moglen, Law professor and general counsel for the Free Software Foundation, has written a statement about SCO's lawsuit against IBM."

Comments

A better view of the same issue

[narfbot]

Quote from FSF Statement:
"Moreover, there are straightforward legal reasons why SCO's assertions concerning claims against the kernel or other free software are likely to fail. As to its trade secret claims, which are the only claims actually made in the lawsuit against IBM, there remains the simple fact that SCO has for years distributed copies of the kernel, Linux, as part of GNU/Linux free software systems. Those systems were distributed by SCO in full compliance with GPL, and therefore included complete source code. So SCO itself has continuously published, as part of its regular business, the material which it claims includes its trade secrets. There is simply no legal basis on which SCO can claim trade secret liability in others for material it widely and commercially published itself under a license that specifically permitted unrestricted copying and distribution."

So instead of claiming they inadvertantly GPLed it, we should rather say, they only made it worse by distributing it themselves, and cannot claim any liability from other people doing the same.

We will publish no brief before its time.

[The Monster]

One would think that FSF would jump at the opportunity

(Good) lawyers don't JUMP at anything they don't have to jump at. They act more like snipers, studying their target(s) carefully, finding the best angle to attack from, and then fire a single shot designed to do the most damage.

Most of what's come out of SCO is so self-contradictory that the only intelligent response is "What the hell are you saying?" Until they can nail down exactly what they're complaining about, there's nothing else to do but demand that they give the particulars.

Re:Anyone who opposes the GPL is a corporate whore

[Anonymous Coward]

I posted the original post. Yes it was a bit of a troll, but I firmly believe that corporations have gone too far in their quest for profit. The fact that the auto industry would sell unsafe cars and try to keep this from consumers is a perfevct example. When they are finally forced to reveal that there is a problem with their product, then do a recal and put the least amount of money and effort into rectifying the situation. That is morally and ethically wrong. By doing this, it would appear that they place the value of their corporate bottom line above a human life. The funny thing is that all you corporate supporters would easily cry foul with regard to abortion saying the "human life is god's greatest gift" like Reagan did back in the 80s. And yet, when a human life is put at risk by a product that a corporation sells, you do a 180 and say, "well... it would be bad for business if we had to resolve each problem for each individual. It will cut into profits." Sorry, but I think anyone that thinks that way is ghoulish as well as hypocritical.

Think of all the rotten things that businesses have done to consumers in the name of profit. All the dangerous chemicals they's been feeding us in our food and giving us as "medicine"... All the coverups to try and keep critical life saving information from reaching the public. If there is one thing that we all should be aware of as human beings, it's that we should put our fellow man far above profit and personal gain. If you can't do that, you have failed as a human being.

Re:SCO is protecting Linux

[pair-a-noyd]

How can this be?
Did not SCO have developers working on the code inhouse?

If they are modifying and distributing the code themselves, and over a period of several YEARS, you would think that someone there would have caught this, eh??

No, incompetence and ignorance is not an excuse.
They KNEW what code was in the kernel and distributed it under the GPL.
If they did *not know* then they are ignorant bastards and that's just too bad for them, they still ditributed the code under the GPL and had ample time to not only catch but to rectify any descrepancies...

Why it's important.

[mindstrm]

It's not so much about the merits of the lawsuit itself, but about the public opinion statements SCO has been making, trying to affect the free software world in a really negative way, based on vague statement sabout the ramifications of this lawsuit.

As everyone knows, they went from "Trade secret" to "license violation" to "copyright violation" to alleging "patent" almost.

They went from talking about their secrets making it into linux, to pointing out it was actually code that was NOT their secret, but that they technically may have an exclusive license to, due to some wording in IBM's Unix license.

They are saying many confusing things, and backing it up with little.

Sco -vs- IBM is between SCO and IBM. Hopefully the rest of the world is smart enough to realize that the free software world is more than happy to obey the law, if only someone would tell them what they are doing wrong.

So it's good for people, lawyers, and organisations to put forward their own researched opinions as to what the ramifications of SCO's actions are, because the public needs both sides.

Re:OK, so when does this party get started?....

[AlecC]

When do the legal festivities kick off?

For most of us, that surely is the point. This is Slashdot, of course we are all Linux fans, of course we want to see SCO kicked into the long grass. But even if it were to turn out the "wrong" way, it were better done sooner than later. Just suppose SCOs allecagtions are true (I doubt this as much as most). IBM gets hit with massive damages - bad for IBM shareholdres but IBM, and they, will live. But SCO has revealed all the bits of GNU/Linux it believes to be ripoffs (it has to, in order to estimate the damages and to claim future royalties). So the Linux community cuts them out, does without some of them, and puts in a panic effort to do a cleanroom rewrite of those that are really necessary. I bet that if Torvalds, Stallman & Co. put out a "Save Our System" call, any really crucial bits of the system could be duplicated in three months.

And the Linux cimmunity could get back to growth as normal. This is because the FUD would have been dissipated. The harm being done by the SCO lawsuit hanging over GNU/Linux, and SCOs threatening letters, is far greater than the harm done by ripping out the offending code - if there is any. We, the Linux community, need a quick resolution.

In English law - I don't know about US law (and IANAL anywhere) - there is a duty on a plainiff in a civil case to take all reasonable steps to minimise any losses resulting from the harm being done to them. If you think I am infinging your copyright, you have a duty to tell me as soon as possible, not wait cackling while my potential fine piles up. If such an obligation exists in US law, SCO are not observing it. The cannot claim that every line of GNU/Linux is theirs. In fact, they cannmot claim that the fragnents allegedly stolen by IBM are crucial to the system, because it existed as a working system before IBM ever became involved. But they do claim that they have lost sales of their Unix product because Linux, incorporating their stolen code, is so good. It seems to me, therefore, that they have a duty to expose the code they allege to be stolen, and allow the Linux community to remove it. If their theory about the value of their code (if any) is true, Linux will drop in functionality and their sales will correspondingly recover; they may then claim for past, but not future, sales lost. In fact, I think that Linux would barely huccup. As I say, three months top level work by the community should repair all significant holes in the system.

So if anybody knows how to speed thes up, pleas tell. And for heavans sake, nobody do anything which could slow it down.