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."

Comments

Users liable? Someone thinks so.

[Derek]

I posted this comment in an earlier article on the same issue, but it is also relevant here. According to Melise Blakeslee (a partner with the law firm McDermott, Will & Emery),

"Users meanwhile need to understand that Linux enduser license agreements are an 'as is' contract, meaning Linux users aren't protected from copyright or intellectual-property infringement claims..."

Quoted from the July 28th edition of Information Week magazine in an Article by Larry Greenmeier titled "Sco Group Threatens Users in Linux Fight" p.24 -- sorry, I couldn't find a link online.

Agree with it or not, at least one lawyer thinks users could be liable. -Derek

my thoughts on his main three arguments

[BobTheLawyer]

1. where's the evidence of infringement?

this is the key argument: without evidence of infringement they clearly have no claim.

2. you can't charge a license fee to users

this has to be correct: if there has been a breach of SCO's copyright then SCO has a right to sue the Linux distributors. It has no right to charge or sue Linux users.

3. SCO distributed the allegedly-copyrighted work themselves, and have therefore licensed it under GPL

I'm not sure it's no simple. SCO will no doubt argue that, at the time, they didn't realise the source contained their copyrighted material. This raises the question of whether you can be legally bound by the GPL if you don't realise what you were licensing. This is a tricky question under English law; I've no idea what the US position is but doubt it is straightforward.

Re:SCO is plainly lying

[TopShelf]

Interesting indeed. Insiders have sold ~125,000 shares since late June (with no purchases), when it poked through the $10 mark for the first time in over two years. Not exactly a ringing endorsement of SCO's future from their own leadership!

Bias?

[grennis]

You guys always complain about bias when the Gartner Group etc., releases a study about how Microsoft is better at this or that.

But I don't see anyone complaining that the OSDL certainly has a vested interested here and is hardly to be expected to provide an unbiased report.

Discuss.

Re:Bias?

[Kismet]

Do you see something in Moglen's paper that isn't certifiably factual?

Do you see something in Moglen's paper that ignores SCO's side of the argument?

It's hard to be unbiased when the only available facts are so one-sided.

Some people like to ignore facts if it helps them look less "biased," because facts tend to lead the mind to certain conclusions. I mean, we wouldn't want actual critical thought at the expense of giving both parties equal benefit of the doubt, would we?

So far, I have yet to see one single, tangible, FACT from SCO that would support their claims in the least amount. And yet I see all sorts of "journalism" that lends credibility to SCO's claims for the sake of "unbiased" reporting.

Conspiracy theory!

[Urkki]

What I'd find interesting is, who the hell are idiot enough to buy SCO stock...? Or gambling, "ok, there's 0.1% chance SCO will win, and then their stock price will really go up"?

Or, is it maybe some pension fund or something like that with corrupt management "investing" in the SCO stock, helping their PHB pals at SCO?

Conspiracy!
(Well, that would make more sense than most other explanations...)