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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."
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Am I the only one that read the first line as "The lawsuit brought by the Satan Cruz Operation ..." ?
nice to see such a clear, concise and complete dismissal of SCO's FUD. They kept it professional and straightforward, and with any luck, this'll defuse some of the tension surronding the entire situation.
Kudos FSF and Eben Moglen
Moreover, is it just me, or has the case really gone from something that is targeted at Linux (kernel) that many people worry about into just an internal dispute between IBM and SCO that not many really worry about anymore? I woudn't be suprised if the latter was true.
This article frames the issues in a way that cause me to consider that this lawsuit is a legal metaphor for a computer virus. Let me explain what I mean.
This article seems to confirm my suspicion that this lawsuit is a business strategy rather than a principled legal action. If it is also true they they themselves distributed the code under the GPL for which they now seek copyright protection, then maybe the GPL is really the target. Perhaps their lawyers believe that if they can make an argument that invalidates the GPL then they can indeed make a claim against IBM.
But, it is important to note that the exploit here would be of the copyright laws rather as a remedy for some improper action by IBM.
In this sense, the lawsuit is the legal equivalent of a virus. It is seeking to exploit a weakness in the code . Rather than doing something just and benevolent (as lawsuits are intended), this suit seems to seek to exploit a weakness for selfish gain or malevolent satisfaction.
Beyond that, the lack of distinction between GNU and Linux in their pleadings as described in the EFF statement is just lame on SCO's part. Lord knows, both Mr. Stallman and Mr. Raymond have done what they could to ring that bell. Some SCO investigator should have picked up on that.
The best way to do is to be.
Just as I can't function without my first cup of coffee in the morning, I can't get my moral outrage going without the first SCO story of the morning. What are we going to do when the case is thrown out? I guess there's always MS.
I agree. This was a quality article. Much moreso than the interview that came out of FSF earlier in the week. He hit the points and did a pretty good job of explaining it. His explanation of why GNUs not "the Linux Kernel" and the whole seperation of terms fit into the points he subsequently made. So it didnt sound like beating a dead horse.
I think this will certainly put to rest any out there nervous about this case. Well, except IBM.
To me the important point of that statement was the focus on the trade secret litigation. There is nothing about Unix these days that could be considered secret. Its doubly certain that there is no way sco could assert that it met the trade secret requirements, coke theyr'e not.
Just a refresher for trade secret protection to apply, everyone who comes into contact with the information, has to agree to a NDA, has to be informed that the information is trade secret, and has to be informed that the company will take action against them if they reveal it. The company further has to have regular trade secret audits to review procedures and make certain that the information isn't being improperly divulged.
Take an operating systems course in college ? Look at anything from GNU ? SCO going after IBM for trade secret infringement is laughable. Whats even funnier is they hired a lawyer who couldnt even get a decent judgement against microsoft for anticompetetive practices, after the introduced obviously fabricated evidence into court
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.
SpongeBob: Hey Patrick, what am I?
SpongeBob lays down and acts dead.
Patrick: Uhh, you're dead.
SpongeBob: No Patrick, I'm SCO!
Patrick: What's the difference? Ha ha ha
SpongeBob: Ha ha ha ha.
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.
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
I have been taught that the OS is the kernel, not the collection of programs running under it.
Now that the FSF claims the OS to be the kernel plus the GNU utils, do we have to change the definition? Is CS a democratic science ruled by majority? I know, I am picking nits. I have a whole basket full.
Once it stopped appearing daily on all the news sites around, everything would calm down a bit, and the case would generally be seen as a private law suit about trade secrets between two companies having a long history of cross-licensing agreements, i.e. nothing that extraordinary.
But I see that at least some news sites seem to have started understanding this already:
We unsuccessfully tried to ignore the SCO v. IBM fracas, mostly because ...
and
We know just how you feel (lwn.net commenting on the above quote from Linux journal...)
IANAL , etc. .It is very very important for FSF to seperate (espicialy right now) the Gnu tools from the linux kernel .Sco is claiming that linux as a whole violates its IP (even if it does which is bloody unlikely) it is a stratigically sound move to say that the Gnu tools are seperate so they cant sue the FSF for violating their IP . Of course knowing SCO they would try anywyas :-)
The signifigance in pointing out that Linux (the kernel) and GNU/Linux (The "OS") are separate would deflate anything that SCO had to say against any company that distributes a GNU/Linux distribution. If IBM did indeed do what SCO claims, then the issue only exists between IBM and SCO. (Much like the RIAA going after people sharing songs rather than downloading songs) The other point here is that even if SCO wins against the Linux kernel, the rest of what companies like Redhat and SuSE put into their distributions is still exempt. All they would have to do is either replace the Linux kernel with something else or work feverishly to replace the few lines of SCO code with something else therefore making Linux exempt as well. There really is a distinction between the kernel and the rest of the GNU software that make up a general impression of a Unix-like operating system. The GNU software was coded by different people and they started from scratch. It is completely untouched by SCOs claims. SCO however wants to blur this distinction to make those who are less knowledgable about the distinction fearful, uncertain and doubtful about GNU/Linux distributions. In a way, this whole SCO thing is actually quite useful in driving RMS's statements about GNU/Linux home. Kudos to RMS and the FSF for thinking this far ahead.
It took me a few years to understand that difference between Linux and GNU/Linux, but now that I do, I can see how beneficial it really is. As much as I hate politics and would rather avoid them, there are times when you can't. This is one of those times. In a perfect world without scoundrels like Microsoft and SCO, it wouldn't need to be this way, but it's not a perfect world. Embrace the GNU GPL. It guarantees YOU freedoms.
Un-news
This article seems to confirm my suspicion that this lawsuit is a business strategy rather than a principled legal action. If it is also true they they themselves distributed the code under the GPL for which they now seek copyright protection, then maybe the GPL is really the target. Perhaps their lawyers believe that if they can make an argument that invalidates the GPL then they can indeed make a claim against IBM
Law suits imho (I teach media law) are far more often strategies than principled legal action. Sometimes the strategy is principled, and sometimes not. Many famous law decisions by the US Supreme Court were "set up" by one or even both parties to render a decision. So, in U.S. v. Haggerty (the federal flag burning case) someone deliberately burned a flag during a protest in order to bring the law suit. In another example, corporations are required by law to "defend" their trademarks, or risk them entering the public domain, so not that long ago Intel began to demand that a non-profit group that teaches yoga to young people in juvanile detention called "Yoga Inside" change their name because it violated the trademark "Intel Inside." Sometimes principles come out of law decisions, but lawsuits are strategies. My exmaples are two of the less henious strategies out there, but the law is a self-replicating virus even when its biproducts are principled.
Someone needs to draw the media's attention to this point: SCO itself has protected the Linux kernel againt any claim of infringement by SCO. Those 1500 companies SCO mailed letters to can rest assured that they have nothing to fear--SCO itself has released the kernel under the GPL and therefore SCO has given everyone in the world a license to use it.
They may have a case against IBM, but SCO itself has given a license to everyone else.
This needs to get more play in the press, and I think it's the most important point in the article.
The paragraph containing "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." concerns me.
/.", and after publication it was discovered that a certain eloquent essay was completely plagiarized. What happens?
What is omitted from this discussion, and what Eben certainly must already know, is that if SCO redistributes in good faith Free products that it receives from the community, then the illegal inclusion by a third party of material copyrighted by SCO does not in any way lessen SCO's claim to that copyright.
It's as if you sold your house "as is", and while you were in the office signing over title someone stole your car and parked it in your garage.
What's pretty obvious is that Open Source Software functions like an online magazine or bulletin board, to which malicious or incompetent users may illegally post copyrighted material. Once the violation is identified, the offending content is removed. The legal standing of companies reselling the content would be the subject of this suit.
Suppose O'Reilly published a "Best of
They have an compressor sucking the surrounding air, bottling it in tanks, and being sold for $1000/liter. The bottle comes with a free mask, what a deal!
When no one buys this SCOair, they call the constables over to complain about all the nose pirates. They insist that the elephant (IBM) next door it sucking all the air with his trunk and giving it to everyone.
Someone points out that just last week these same folks had tried a similar scheme with bottled water. After an hour of SCO's screaming the authorities cart the SCOair people away for disturbing the peace.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
In a statement in late May, quoted in a CNET article on 28 May, Darryl McBride of SCO said that the SCO lawyers are are working on a contingency fee basis. SCO is not paying the lawyers anything. IFthey win, the lawyers get a big cut of the proceeds. If SCO gets counter-sued for barratry, I hope their lawyers are required to pay an equivalent percentage of the penalty.
"In most cases businesses aren't working for your best interests."
It took you this long to realize that? The whole point of a business is to make money. Although I do think acting like the GPL is the next messiah is childish. It makes you look like a teenage anarchist who hasn't grown up yet.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
If SCO wins, which they won't, the best judgement they could ever get would be to remove said code from Linux.
If they claim that they did not know that their code was in it, then linux users and other Linux distributors can not be bothered because they too did not know it was SCO's code. The law cannot be more forgiving of SCO for its negligence than to the Linux users/distributors.
SCO should forget about getting anything out lincensing from Linux ever.
The case between SCO and IBM now has boiled down to a contract dispute, which has to do with interpretation of the meaning of derivative works. In any case SCO is doomed because they inherited the documents and can not claim to interpret what it was intended to mean. Since SCO did not draft those documents, expert witnesses from AT&T which drafted those contracts will clearify what they meant by derivative works and SCO would be screwed.
"Fighting terrorists with millitary might is like killing a mosquitor on your Dad's forehead with a rifle."
Uhm, what the hell are you smoking? Businesses primarily are supposed to value their own best intrests first, otherwise what is the fucking point in starting a business? The fact that some businesses seem to value their customers is only a side effect of the fact that for them that brings in the most profit.
Individual freedoms must superceded any rights that corporations have. It's time that we really restructure the way business works.
Incase you hadnt noticed, this was the "basis" for marxism, communism and other similar political views. While people value money, this is never going to happen. If individual freedoms supercede any group rights, then why should Unions be ok at the same time?
If this negatively impacts you, you currently have little you can do about it unless you have a lot of money.
Stop shopping there or doing business with them. Simple. Just because they have wrong you according to your views doesnt give you the right to wreak heavenly vengeance on them, any more than I have the right to punish someone who breaks into my house.
Corporations need to answer to the citizens of the world for all the injustices that they have wrought upon us.
Governments first. Then all political parties. Then religion. THose three groups have "wronged humanity" in more ways than corporations ever will. Corporations have never wrought injustices on citizens, they may not do stuff as you see fit, but then my neighbour dresses with no color sense. Should i hold him responsable and be allowed to make him answer for this?
In all instances where business negatively affects citizens, the business should be called to task and made to answer for it's wrongs.
Businesses are there to make money. Dont like that? go to some place where they arent allowed to. As i said earlier, they may not precisely follow your own moral rules, but the worlds a big wide place, and if i were you, id stop having a tantrum, and grow up. The worlds not perfect, and neither, it seems, are you.
The blitz of press about SCO leaves one very confused about all of this. This press release doens't seem to contain a whole lot that is new, and unfortunately does little to resolve any of the significant issues.
The IBM vs. SCO dispute appears to be something that Linux itself is not involved in except as a matter of evidence of violation of contract, unless I misunderstand what the initial lawsuit was about. (IANAL.) IBM does not have any control over the Linux kernel.
The involvement of free software, and I think the reason many of us are so up in arms, is certain statements SCO has made which seem to indicate it thinks a) it can treat Linux, and all the contributions made to Linux by people everywhere, as SCO property and b) that any Unix like system, of any type, also owes SCO for IP use. Those are the really dangerous thoughts, because a lot of us don't trust the court system to acknowledge common sense. The whole IBM thing is just a prelude as far as Linux is concerned - contract disputes between IBM and SCO are secondary. It's whether SCO thinks they can go after Linux that is the real issue. And the reason for the sound and fury is they seem to think they can, or at least they say that. Not to mention their statements that they don't believe the Linux kernel could be enterprise ready so quickly (whatever that means) without commercial software being included. How do they know that? The attitude of "well, we know you aren't capable of creating this, so if you have it it must be from us" is extremely insulting and arrogant. No one has ever put a bounds on what the free software community can achieve with any success. It's just too diverse.
The nightmare scenario seems to be this: A US Court grants SCO the right to all Linux IP, based on some bizarre reading of derivative work definitons. Consequently, if people in the US want to use Linux they now have to license it from SCO, despite the fact that SCO did not create most of the code in Linux. Our efforts will have essentially been stolen out from under us - most developers for Linux have worked in good faith to create a totally free system. If SCO is allowed to destroy that, the result is many years of work down the drain, because free software and open source both would sooner abandon Linux than pay SCO anything. Indeed, if SCO succeeds in such an attempt, Linux will become non-free. The effort will have to be recreated elsewhere, and if SCO's claims to all Unix like operating systems holds up it will have to be on something completely new. Plan9 perhaps, or Hurd, or maybe something totally new. But in any case, years gone.
The mistake SCO seems to be making is that they can grab Linux and make people pay for it. That is, of course, utter nonsense. People would sooner abandon it and start over. Linux is not special because of its technology. It is the freedom of Linux that makes it a powerful force in the software world. The technology is secondary. SCO controlling the technology would, by definition, destroy that which makes Linux worthwhile. We would be pissed as heck if they somehow managed it, but maybe just for that reason the rise of a new system without any IP ties would probably be all the faster. SCO is like the child who wants to hold a snowflake in their hand - the mere act of grabbing it destroys it.
What their motivations might be, there has been a lot of speculation. The obvious possibilities have already been mentioned time and again. SCO will not succeed if their goal is to make money from controlling open source software, because any software they control is not, by definition, open source. We will go elsewhere.
Do I think it will come to that? No. But the law is a strange animal, and one is never 100% sure what will happen. So the sooner this is over with, the happier we will all be. And whatever happens, SCO can forget about ever being a viable commercial business again. I would not do business with any company who uses methods such as those I have seen from them.
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
Anybody wondering what the "unfair compeition" part of the whole SCO lawsuit might entail? IANAL, of course, but I sort of wonder what would be considered unfair. Releasing secrets and code to Linux that belong to SCO would seem to be different offenses - would they qualify as unfair competition too, or might that be refering to creating a free system to do what SCO can do, and more? Would that be ruled unfair?
I've often wondered if someone wouldn't sue open source software projects based on the argument it isn't fair that they have to compete against a free product, and asking that no one be allowed to distribute free software on the grounds it is unfair competition. Utter nonsense, of course, but the "I have a right to make a profit" thinking in the US is so strong sometimes it makes me wonder if someday we will see it.
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
Stories to be posted daily:
1) Microsoft Security Hole
2) SCO story 1
3) SCO story 2
3) Web Development with PHP and/or Perl book review
4) Physics story that no-one understands but everyone pretends to
5) New Mozilla build
6) Repost of one of the above
Voiding the GPL would be mostly shooting themselves in the foot. The GPl is mostly a promise by the owner of the software in question that they will not sue you for copyright violation if you agree to -- and follow certain principles
If SCO were to step in front of the court and claim that they believed that the GPL was void. They would be arguing that they have been knowingly distributing millions of lines of other peoples' code without any binding legal agreement that gave them permission to do so.
Anything that they got from IBM, at that point, would be eaten up by copyright infringment suits against SCO.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
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.
So is their kernel ... has been for the last 10 years. Remember the Linux Kernel is just a temporary solution. We'll be moving to HURD any day now. You know once they add hardware support for ISA and IDE.
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
If your not part of the solution then your part of the problem.
Of course everyone at SCO say that phrase the othere way round.
Amen to that. They need to grow up over there. Especially since in THIS case it IS Linux under attack and NOT the GNU Project. To date all of the disputed features live in /usr/src/linux.
.iso of GNU 1.0. And if it is actually useful they can return to being the center of mass for the Free Software Revolution. In other words, lead, follow or get the hell out of the way.
Their problem is the fear of becoming irrelevent and I have some news for them. Shouting "call it GNU/Linux" several times a week is one of the fastest ways to make that fear come true. The Free Software community is a harsh meritocracy and of late about all the FSF has been producing is nonsense about GNU/Linux and not a lot of code or other useful work. Think about it; They have devolved into a political action committee. Not saying there isn't some good work to be done in that dept, but they are expending most of their political capital delivering bog standard screeds about "GNU/Linux" instead of advocating Free Software (marketed under the more popular Open Source brand, which they also expend a large effort undermining).
Most of the more useful FSF projects have been shifted to more capable hands. The center of mass of GCC and GLIBC have been with Cygnus/RedHat for years now and GNOME has been at Ximian/RedHat from day one, being FSF Projects in name only. And if you take those parts out of the body of GNU the whole GNU/Linux argument becomes silly since the rest is stuff most users never see anymore and could be replaced (admittedly with less capable versions, I love the GNU utilities regardless which platform they run on) from BSD. It would be more accurate to call it XFree86/Linux these days. (I don't think anyone objected a bit when Yggdrasil used to use Linux/GNU/X on thier login banner.)
If they want to be relevant again, they should get off their butt and finish GNU. Get an actual working HURD combined with the GNU toolchain and X, invest the effort (since they ran Debian out of the GNU project) of packaging it all into a coherent whole and put up an
Democrat delenda est
But, in contrast, passing a needle through the eye of a camel is just plain idiotic. The camel isn't going to tolerate someone trying to do that and will probably kick that person. Maybe stomp on that person. But maybe we're not talking about a camel at all. Maybe it's a gnu.
Laws are for people with no friends.
"As a result, Novell is supposedly trying to figure out how to lob another discrediting hand grenade at SCO and claim that the code SCO is basing its $3 billion contentions on is actually in the public domain," LinuxGram says.
Is it reasonable to expect a company to check the entire code of every release to see if there are some trade secrets of theirs embedded?
Yes, it is.
This isn't relevent to this case, but as a general law senario, consider this:
Let's assume a software vendor makes a great little program. They make millions on it. It brings fame and finacial freedom to all involved...
Only one problem. It's based on a wee bit of "IP" from someone who never OKed it's distro.
The owners find out. The new rich software designers didn't check the code. Who's at fault? Who's going to get that massive law suit against them, and lose all that finacial freedom. And most likely a first born or two?
As a business, expectally one so conserned about IP, it would be hoove them to check all source before they release a product.
Isn't IP fun.
The reason people have lawyers to do IP and "trade secret" work is because all they do is spend their time looking for any and everything that can be a infringment. The fact that their distro passed the law department, and that they released GPLed software that maybe have contained IP that SCO claims to exist makes said claim invalid, as they have now made the code GPLed by their own distrobution of it.
Except that Debian has not been an Official GNU Project activity for a couple of years. They weren't GNU enough for the GNU Project. Unfortunatly they DO still have enough GNU zealots that they have picked up that damnable GNU/Linux crap. Personally I'd love to see Linus drop a few hints regarding trademark dilution but he is too nice a guy to do that. Linux is not now and never was a GNU project. Sticking their trademark on as a prefix leads to the confusion that it is.
Putting the GNU where Debian does makes zero sense. Were they still a GNU blessed project calling it GNU Debian would be correct in the same way that GNU Emacs or GNU Compiler Collection is. Of course that would never happen because Debian realizes that having Linux in the name is more important than just GNU, so they try to have it both ways. Frankly, that sort of childishness was probably the primary reason I didn't use Debian until RedHat forced the issue with their dropping freely redistributable stable versions.
Democrat delenda est
Dear Sir,
I am not sure if you goal was to take the polar opposite stance of the post you are replying to but you have made just as grievous errors. Let us begin.
You seem to imply that valuing one's customers is only a side effect of the best interests of the company (which your point seems to be is to make money). This is a terribly cynical POV, however is the the view most companies take. Perhaps on the other hand a company should have a goal of making profit but not have it be the blinding exclusive goal.
Point 2. I am not sure what book you got our definitions from but just generally one does not associate strong personal freedoms with Marxism and communism. Unless you are look only at the alleged 'anti- private business/ownership' angle. Of course both of those are in the theory. As we all know the practice of those philosophies turned out different. As for unions, well (again ideally) they are supposed to advocate the rights of the workers.
Instead of driveling on here let me sum up. I believe that businesses (corporations) should have no 'rights' in the sense that individuals have. Corporations are artificial entities. We as people with rights can grant on to them (corporations) privileges, that may mimic the rights an individual has. However with all privileges we stipulate the responsibilities that that one has to meet in order to keep those privileges. Thus a business can run and make money for its owners, pay its employees, while not gaining the illusion that it it entitled to the rights and actions of an actual human being.
Linus uses a very pragmatic philosophy - "the best tool for the job." Debian, by and large does not, and instead uses the Free Software Foundation's "the best tool for the job, as long as it's Free." Hence the Debian Free Software Guidelines, the name GNU/Linux, and the strong insistence on keeping the "non-free" portions of Debian optional and un-tied to the main part of the OS, which is wholly Free.
Furthermore, I'd argue that Debian is a good example of RMS's argument that Linux is just a kernel, and not the operating system. Debian is working on several alternate systems in which the major portion of the OS is kept the same, and the kernel is replaced. Thus Debian can be viewed as essentially a distribution of the GNU OS, with various versions including different kernels (hence Debian GNU/Linux, Debian GNU/HURD, and the in-discussion Debian GNU/BSD).
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
There is a general idea that some people have that Linux is THE operating system. The fact of the matter is that Linux is just the kernel. Everything else (for the most part) isn't Linux. People need to be educated on that fact.
My favorite line from the statement:
"... SCO's public statements are at best misleading and irresponsible."
Duh! But not everyone understands, so thanks for saying that.
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.
"This article seems to confirm my suspicion that this lawsuit is a business strategy rather than a principled legal action."
Wow, this is a surprise - we're talking about a corporation here, not a philanthropist. This is like saying 'the way this shark is circling around me confirms my suspicion that it wants to eat me and not be my friend.'
Corporation's motivations and ethical motivations are completely orthogonal to one another. In some cases, what's best for the company (& shareholders) is ethical. In some cases it's not ethical. Either way, the corporation will chose what it thinks is better for the bottom line.
"Rather than doing something just and benevolent (as lawsuits are intended), this suit seems to seek to exploit a weakness for selfish gain or malevolent satisfaction."
See above. Like a shark, SCO's motivations are not malicious (although the CEO appears to be a butt-head) - it's goal is to make money (for top executives first, shareholders second), and if they think they can do it by throwing around lawsuits, they will.
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.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
> Linux systems without GNU code are as rare as tits on a bull
If using GNU code automatically infects the name then I guess when Microsoft was shipping the GNU toolchain (with source) as part of the POSIX joke in NT 3.1, Stallman should have been shouting down anyone calling it Windows NT and saying it should be properly called GNU/NT.
It just doesn't work that way. The GNU toolchain is just that, a toolset. Important? Yup. Usefull? Yup. But just because DOS used to be crap without Norton Utilities nobody called it Norton/MSDOS. If the FSF wants their name on something they have an option. They reserved the name a decade ago, it is the Operating System that shall be called GNU. Trying to now stick the name as a prefix to Linux is an admission by the FSF that GNU probably won't ship in their lifetimes.
Democrat delenda est
Its a lot more than just GNU, so you can call it:
GNU/Linux/XFree/KDE/etc.
Or, if you choose a single name, choose the most singificant single contributor: GNU.
This is the FSF claim.
The people who still insist on calling the entire OS "Linux" are, imo, fanatics.
This is a demonstratable case of where harm is being done to the entire FS and OSS community because of the confusion between Linux the kernel and the GNU/Linux OS, which is at the core of what every distributor (like RedHat, Suse, Gentoo, Debian, etc) distributes as a distribution.
The only reason SCO is able to exploit the confusion between Linux the kernel and the "Linux OS" is because fanatics insist that because most people have always called the entire OS "Linux", we should continue to do so; despite the fact that it creates confusion between the kernel and the OS, while another name (GNU/Linux) ameliorates that confusion.
Now, I'm not saying that if everyone knew that Linux referred properly to the kernel, and GNU/Linux to the set of OS distributions, this lawsuit would have been prevented. SCO still could have sued IBM, and still could have launched this smear-campaign. However, they would have to specify exactly what they were referring to -- the kernel or the entire OS. They would not be able to exploit ambiguity and confusion to as great an extent as they currently are.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Santa Clara vs. Southern Pacific (1886) established corporate personhood in the US. A corporation has the same legal rights as a person in the US. However, I do believe there were more than 5000 years of successful business trading in the world without corporations. People will by and sell goods no matter if the is an artificial legal construct that allows individual to act as irresponsible as they wish or not.
Dying and waiting seventy years is considered in this case to constitute permission.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
> choose the most singificant single contributor: GNU.
What has GNU contributed to Linux? The GNU tools don't count since they a) predate Linux and b) according to the FSF are strictly intended for GNU and any use others make of their Free Software is just a bonus. So just what has the FSF/The GNU Project done with the express purpose of aiding the Linux based distributions? (Hint: there are some, but not many and those are often tangential. Certainly not a significant share though.)
I'm sorry but the FSF can't have it both ways, either they ARE still working on GNU and shouldn't be creating confusion by trying to stick that name to other people's unrelated work or should admit defeat and adopt one of the existing distributions into the GNU Project and rename it as the Official GNU System. Hell, they could fork RedHat and do the world a real favor by providing a freely redistributable version of a stable RedHat. I'd even BUY that from them if they didn't want per seat licensing.
In a nutshell, what I'm saying is that if you expect people to call it GNU it better have a GNU on the login screen, not a hat, lizard or penguin.
But to date, Linux is not GNU. As to the Linux the kernel and Linux the OS confusion, it really isn't. We all know what people mean when they use the word, and to date if it uses the Linux kernel and the distribution want to call it Linux and fly the penguin flag everyone accepts it as a new member of the Linux family.
In the end this is why they are so hysterical about GNU/Linux and don't give a crap about renaming Solaris to GNU/Solaris. Because of Linux, few people care anymore whether GNU ever ships a working system. Linux is a threat to their ego and their need to control. It is the penguin they hate, bacause in the marketplace of ideas more people consider themselves followers of the Penguin banner than members of the GNU herd.
(yea, bad pun)
The FSF has done some wonderful things, and will probably do more in the future, but I for one am glad things worked out where the FSF was never given that much control because like most fanatics they serve a useful purpose but should NEVER be given real power. (See current world affairs for examples.)
p.s. This isn't flamebait. If you disagree, point out where I'm in error instead of modding.
Democrat delenda est
Have you noticed when a Stallman-defender responds to this, it usually involves a personal attack and makes them look somewhat fanatical as a whole?
Shut up you pompus twit. I've no time for jerks like you - I have to go play with my RMS and ESR action-figures.
(kidding)
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
SCO has launched at very little expense currently to themselves a successful FUD campaign. While the lawsuit may be expensive, considering lawyers fees, court costs, and other related items. The publicity campaign has been helped along by everyone protesting the actions being done by SCO.
I am looking at it from this perspective. The management types right now are going to think twice about using Linux and AIX. Think that is a ridiculous statement. Guess what, I have already been to three fortune 500 company meetings where questions were asked. IBM maintains many of the systems at these companies. And many of the companies have AIX systems currently. Some even have a long term plan in the works with IBM to upgrade in a couple of years to Linux based systems.
The questions being asked are some of the following types and yes I am paraphrasing:
What is the status of our current systems in regard to this issue of SCO claiming you have violated your contract with them?
How does this affect our long term plans?
What is being done by IBM to quickly resolve this issue?
Well the IBM reps answer these questions honestly. The problem is the FUD has already started to set in.
The management does not care about the truth in the long term. They care about the right now. And right now they are seeing a lot of press on the SCO issue and it doesn't seem to be going away. That is what will cause them to worry. They have to be able to tell their customers that they can service their needs and the customers are going to be the same attitude as the management. The customers want to know that the system that supports who they do business with is not in jeopardy. Right now it looks like it may be.
SCO may have no foundation for their claim, however before this is over they will have cost IBM money and they will have helped taint the image of Linux and other free software. And that is all they have to do.
FreeBSD is the prime example of this all you have to is look at the history of their lawsuit with AT&T to understand. FreeBSD would have had a much better market share today if not for that lawsuit.
While the SCO claim may have less validity than the AT&T suit. SCO has to only show one small line of code for them to turn around and say we were right.
Yes the line of code could be changed but by then the PR machine will have already dealt a heavy blow.
I think that this is going to drag out for a while and unless SCO is quickly put in their place the long drawn campaign will have been somewhat effective.
OK. Think of it this way. Let's say the GNU project didn't exist and none of the GNU tools was available. You wouldn't have much of an OS with just the Linux kernel, would you? Sure, someone probably would have written what was needed, but it would have taken a lot longer for GNU/Linux to get where it is today. And chances are that most of those additions probably wouldn't have been made under as license like the GPL. They would probably all be BSD. Given that... what would the point be then? Linux (the kernel) is just a kernel with nothing that does anything in userspace for the average user. All that userspace stuff is handled by GNU and XFree86. Given all this, that means that if you want to refer to a distribution as something more acurate than just "Linux", it should probably really be "Linux featuring GNU and XFree86". The distinction MUST be made because none of these projects would be particularly useful in a free software context all by themselves. Before the Linux kernel, GNU was not praticularly relevant to anyone but the most technical user. Before GNOME, X was not particularly useful to anyone but the most technical user. Without X or GNU, the Linux kernel would be nothing more than something interesting to watch boot until it hit init. That's the way it is.
Un-news
This is so unfair since most useful programs reside /bin or /sbin or /usr/bin and so on and so forth. /etc only contains some configuration files, really minor in importance when compared to the overall system. Especially if you, like me, equate size (in the filesystem) with importance.
I feel so sig.
Whats even funnier is they hired a lawyer who couldnt even get a decent judgement against microsoft for anticompetetive practices, after the introduced obviously fabricated evidence into court
I'm really tired of reading all of the flames of Boies regarding the Microsoft case and the Bush v. Gore decision. The tech-heavy, law-light readership of Slashdot seems to be unwilling to come to grips with the fact that Boies is a very talented attorney.
Boies has an extraordinary track record, both while he was at Cravath and after. The enormously high-profile cases he has taken can never be reduced to the skill of one (or even a group of) attorney(s) alone. The law deals with facts and other uncontrollable aspects that can serve to tank a case no matter how skilled the lawyer. Moreover, the law is an imperfect process at best.
Would you really be happy with a legal system that permitted attorneys to always wins, regardless of the facts of the case? While you consider that, also remember that Boies represented Napster in the 9th Circuit case (where he lost on dismissal, but did stay an injunction). Was the eventual loss Boies' fault? Or, maybe did some of the facts surrounding Napster's loose-cannon approach to copyrights and over-restrictive copyright laws have something to do with it?
Slashdot is understandably perturbed by the SCO deal. And, I believe that their case is utter crap. That's possibly a good reason to resent Boies for his choice in representing SCO. However, it's a far cry from claiming he's an incompetent lawyer.
I don't understand your argument about the GNU tools not counting. When you write a program, it doesn't touch the kernel directly; it gets all its services from language support libraries (the C and C++ libraries). These are all GNU. Similarly, without the GNU tools you don't have a usable system.
But in answer to some of your other questions: the FSF provided key funding to get the Debian distribution launched. Eben Moglen, the FSF lawyer, has worked behind the scenes to pressure more than a hundred different GPL violators to comply with the license, and has helped many people who didn't assign their copyright to the FSF deal with legal issues (notably the mysql folks).
The Debian folks are working on a distribution that runs the GNU C library and Debian packages on top of a BSD kernel. You won't be able to tell, when using such a system, that you aren't using a Linux-based system, because all the apps will work just the same.
You are right that the FSF tools aren't designed specifically for Linux, they are key infrastructure for all the BSD systems as well, and also Apple's OSX.
I'd say their view of copyright law, software programming, and giving respect by calling things by their given name is considerably "grow[n] up". What you don't appear to understand is that SCO's language is purposefully unclear so they can leave their options open on what to sue for. The FSF was simply being thorough in their explanation by showing that SCO's language lead to a losing case.
No on both counts--their fear is probably closer to not having enough money to do all the things they want to do, and no you don't have any news for them. Perhaps you haven't been around long enough to know what contributions the GNU project has made to our community (ideological and programmatic). The political forces are at work challenge both the Open Source and Free Software movements and must be met by focusing our efforts on lobbying for political support, not just more code.
Getting a working GNU/Hurd system has been accomplished and looks to me like it is now in the stage where it is not ready for most computer users but it does boot. Improvements and extensions to the system (as well as getting the Hurd on a new microkernel) continue to arrive. This is all significant and needed progress but more code will not help stop harmful policies from being adopted under the cry of "harmonization" (such as EU adopting software patents or stopping the US Congress from extending the term of copyright again), nor will it stop various US states from adopting legislation that could (among other things) make it illegal to have a firewall unless the local telecommnications corporation says otherwise, or a host of other things that adversely affect our community. The FSF continues to speak on these issues and support Free Software development; the FSF is relevant nearly 30 years after they began.
Don't think that developing code must be done instead of working on other issues. All this and more needs to be done and is being done all at the same time.
Digital Citizen
"Revocation of corporate rights is revocation of individual rights in disguise. "
I'm afraid you are quite incorrect. The 'revocation of rights' for corporations as you call it does not infringe or revoke the rights of the individual. As, you have correctly stated, a corporation is an imaginary construct we are real people can but any or all the limitations on them as we deem fit. To raise a corporation to the level of 'being', that we afford actual people implies that corporations are the equal of said individuals. Thus making a corporation more than it is, or we, people, less than we are.
"By opposing corporate rights, Anticorporatists seek to deny rights to a specific group of individuals who hold views opposing their own: the representatives of corporations. Reborn in modern liberals, it is the age-old totatiltarian instinct to deny rights to those who think differently; Special rights for special classes, not equal rights for all."
All I can say is HUH? Im not quite sure when this became an 'anti-corporation' argument. And I haven not suggested denying rights to any individuals. People who represent corporations have all the rights as an individual has. Being part of a corporation does not grant them some new superset of rights or privileges. Might I remind you that your attempt to 'labelize' liberals as totalitarians is not only currently false but also historically. Generally speaking those who wants equal rights for all people don't usually end up becoming totalitarian dictators. If you are wishing to advocate equal rights for all fine. A corporation is not part of 'all', they are not real, they do not breathe, they do not eat. they do not bleed or have children. Its an abstract construct concocted by humans. Thus human have the final say about what the privileges and responsibilities we foist upon such entities. If you wish to advocate that a non-being has the same level of 'being-ness' as you do, feel free. I choose to think otherwise.
Absolutely no one has suggested that people working for corporations shouldn't have the right to do whatever they normally have the right to do. They simply say the individual people should be accountable when they violate the law. (And, of course, you don't have the right to violate the law, by definition.)
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
to deny rights to corporations is to deny rights to individuals
More correctly, to grant rights to corporations is to weaken the rights of individuals.
Due to wealth and size, corporations have the ability to impact and influence issues far more easily then any individual. A perfect example is the SLAPP (Strategis Lawsuits Against Public Participation) suit. These suits are generally baseless countersuits launched by corporations against non-profit organizations or individuals who speak out against, sue, or press charges against corporations who have violated the law or acted unethically, and the only purpose of these suits is to bankrupt the corporation's opponents until they shut up. So tell me how this benefits individual rights.
Another good example is the influence of said corporations on the political systems, internationally and particularly here in the U.S.
The travesty here is that coporations are able to act like 800 pound gorillas in the public arena fue to their equal standing as "individuals" and the fact that so much of what passes for "justice" and "speech" is really just exercising one's wealth. And the loser in this system is the individual.
fuck you.