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Is Licensing SCO Unix Legally Dangerous?
cheros asks: "I'm starting to get very puzzled by the SCO licensing scheme - am I mistaken or is licensing SCO actually about the most dangerous thing you can do as business or end user using Linux? [disclaimer: IANAL and AFAIK, so get decent legal council - I might be completely wrong ;-)]
If I buy a copy of Linux from a provider, my contract is with that provider, NOT with SCO. In other words, if said provider has supplied me with something dodgy (and that is still very much an open question IMO), the issue lies with SCO and the provider, not with me and SCO, as I have no contractual relation with SCO in any way, shape or form. So, licensing SCO might actually CREATE that relationship and thus enable SCO to play further games with enforceable contractual obligations, something it currently lacks with end users. If that is correct it puts SCO in an even worse light (if that's possible) as that could mean deception as well as FUD. The latter might have become accepted in business and politics, but the former might actually be illegal in some countries. In short, as far as I can see you don't actually have a problem as a Linux end user...until you get a license. Comments?"
At least with college football it will be concluded by january. This damn SCO thing is going to go on forever.
Use linux, ignore SCO until they are done with IBM. And for the love of god quit asking slashdot, ask your lawyer.
However, the distributor must comply with the terms of the copyright holder. If SCO holds any copyrights that are not covered by the GPL on the Linux codebase, your distributor is in violation of SCO's copyright unless they have specific exemptions granted by SCO.
The upshot of this is that you as a consumer are safe from litigation, but if you were a distributor of the code (even passing a CD around the office would suffice) then you can be charged with copyright violations of SCO's code.
OSDL have produced Positional Paper on the SCO issue.
It's a very well written 5-page document by FSF General counsel Eben Moglen, and can be found here.
Ciaran O'Riordan
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Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
Craptacular as the SCO stuff is, it's actually very important stuff. SCO may not produce anything of note anymore, but they do appear to know how to abuse the legal system in a way that should concern anyone with a heavy investment in the IT industry.
Um, I was being sarcastic.
:)
Say you buy a used stereo you find listed in the classified ads of your local newspaper. Then, a week later, the cops knock on your door to tell you it was originally stolen. What do you think happens then?
If you bought it in good faith, you don't get arrested, no. But the cops take the stereo, and you're left to try and get your money back from the sleazeball that sold it to you.
"Intellectual Property" isn't an accidental name -- it's property. If, instead of a stereo, it was a piece of software, I'd be very surprised if the actual owner who's work was ripped off would actually be so hamstrung; rather, I'll bet they could very easily drag you into court and demand that you either a) pay up, or b) stop using the software.
Gee, kinda like SCO's doing right now! If we discover we actually ARE in some weird bent universe where SCO wins out in all this, fifty bucks says we WILL have to pay them or be branded pirates. But, we'll get to sue the hell out of RedHat, IBM, etc, to the extent that we actually paid them in the first place.
Now, this DOESN'T mean that I think SCO has a case here, at all. I'm merely suggesting that this argument doesn't strike me as holding much water (otherwise, an Ask Slashdot wouldn't be the first place we heard about it -- it's an angle the more legally attuned Bigs would be pounding SCO with in much more public fashion).
No, SCO is going to wind up in a world of hurt because they've ALREADY given their code away under the GPL.
Further, five bucks says there's a handful greybeards out there who have full sets of circa 1974 unix source code, fresh from their personal archives, ready and waiting to be grep'ed for whatever code SCO is claiming is theirs. Given Unix's long, crufty evolution, there's doubtless TONS of code in there that SCO is assuming is theirs, but in actuality isn't.
That, and they already gave away all their damn code under the GPL anyway. But then, I already said that
Since you bought it in good faith, and in legal fashion, you get to keep it!
Um, no, no you don't. There is a legal doctrine, nemo dat quod non habet (trans. "You can't give away what you don't have") that says otherwise. Since a vendor of stolen property does not possess title in the property, s/he can't possibly transfer it to someone else. Your only right over the property is a bare possessory right that's good against the entire world, except for the true owner.
After all, you didn't do anything wrong, why should YOU get screwed?
Yeah, life sucks sometimes. But why should the poor bastard who's had his stereo stolen have to suffer; he's just as innocent as you, after all. This is a case where the law has to come down on the side of one of two innocent parties who've both been wronged by a third, and the rule that the law has adopted in this case is caveat emptor.