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OSDL Position Paper on SCO and Linux
cshabazian writes "The OSDL has released a position paper raising serious questions about SCO Group's threatened litigation against end users of Linux. The position paper, which casts doubt on SCO's position, was authored by one of the world's leading legal experts on copyright law as applied to software, Professor Eben Moglen of Columbia University."
There's an easy way to avoid this: go to your user settings and tell it not to put stories about Caldera on your home page. Seriously, the tools are there, use them.
Here is some more legal commentary. It seems to dispute some of the OSDL's position - but comes up with other reasons why SCO's case may be flawed.
Here's another lawyer (Australia), saying don't "drop your pants" to SCO.
Finally, here's IBM planning a response to SCO's amended complaint. Once again SCO's web site seems to omit some important issues.
Even after they knew there was "infringing code", SCO continued to distribute it.
Karma: Food Fight (Mostly affected by Date Plate).
You must be new here. And a little ignorant to boot.
/. to the article, not by the author of the article referenced as you appear to believe.
The author of the article (Egen Moglen) is an extremely well known IP lawyer. He has been the general counsel of the FSF for about 10 years. He has contributed more the Open Software movement than it's likely you ever will, and by several magnitudes. Go listen to him talk sometime, you may find it educational, he's a Very Neat Person.
The typo you complained about was made by the guy who alerted
Re-read that..
Linux enduser license agreements are an 'as is' contract... Linux users aren't protected from copyright or intellectual-property infringement claims...
First, there are no "Linux enduser license agreements" (except perhaps the one from Caldera), so whoever wrote this knows jack about shit.
Second, even if there were Linux EULAs, it would still be irrelevant, because he's saying "the EULA doesn't protect you from copyright or IP claims" - all the while ignoring the fact that people would be immune anyway, as they're not copying anything.
If the New York Times got sued for plagarism and lost, would that make it's readers liable? Of course not. This is really no different.
at least one lawyer thinks users could be liable
No, actually - at least one lawyer, who doesn't have a clue about the facts in the case, thinks that an EULA (which doesn't exist) wouldn't stop liability, when standard property-rights laws would.
IAAL - and I do software licensing & copyright.
Prof. Moglen makes the point that mere use of a program doesnt infringe the copying provisions of the Copyright Act. That may or may not be the correct analysis, noonetheless its worth pointing out that this is only true for US law. UK readers may be interested to note that under the Copyright Designs and Patents Act section 17(6) (here)the making of transient or incidental copies is an infringing act i.e. the mere act of loading it into RAM.
In the UK therefore users of 2.4 kernels would not have this defence if SCO is right. The same may be true elsewhere in the EU.
-he who laughs last, is a bit slow.
journal
If people were short selling SCO would that not bring the price up?
The price would go up if people were covering their shorts(ie. cashing them out). Generally you see a bounce(often called a dead cat bounce) right before a stock goes under as people buy the stock to cover their shorts. To short a stock you don't have to own it, and from what I understand the stock has been going up so people most likely aren't covering their shorts yet.
More than likely people are betting that someone(ie. MS, IBM, whoever) will come along and buy them.
Bzzzzzttt!!! Wrong answer...
Short selling works as follows:
First the short-seller sells the stock in question, without actually having any in their portfolio. Typically in looking at your brokerage account the position would be listed as -X shares of the stock. The actual shares in question are "borrowed" from other accounts temporarily. This selling activity initially places downward pressure on the share price, which can become significant if short-selling becomes intense. If you look here, for example, you can see that about 5.5% of the existing float for SCOX has been sold short. That's significantly higher than the figures for MSFT, IBM, and SUNW, which are all around 1%.
Once the stock in question has fallen, the short seller then buys back the shares at the lower price. Their profit, minus transaction fees, is the difference between the initial sell and the final purchase. Usually the short-seller has control over when they'd like to buy back the shares, but sometimes in rare circumstances they can have their positions called in, or more commonly, an unexpected upturn in the company's outlook causes a rise in the share price. In order to minimize their losses, the short sellers rush in to cover their positions, which puts additional upward pressure on the stock, which becomes a "short squeeze."
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
The GPL is a license. It is the declarations of actions an individual is allowed to do with the software.
More accurately, it is an agreement that anyone in possession of the software can choose to enter with the copyright holders of that software, the acceptance of which grants that person rights they would not otherwise have.
A person in possession of the software can choose not to accept the agreement, and thus ignore its terms completely. The GPL excplicitly recognizes this option:
5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying the Program or works based on it.
If the user opts to ignore the GPL, copyright law prohibits modification or distribution of the software, but does not govern use.
Calling the GPL a EULA is misleading. EULA's are generally understood to be click-through agreements that limit the rights of the user beyond the exclusive rights already provided by copyright. Companies that distribute software with EULA's attempt to force users to accept the agreement before they can use the software.
Classifying distribution and reproduction under "use" is also misleading. "Use" is understood to mean "running the program." End-users are understood to be parties who use the software but do not distribute it; hence "end" as in "terminal to the distribution process."