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Red Hat Sues SCO, Sets Up Legal Fund
An anonymous reader writes "Red Hat has released a PR Newswire article stating that it intends to sue SCO Group to prove that it doesn't infringe any of SCO's intellectual property regarding the Red Hat Linux platform, and to hold it accountable for its actions and smear campaign. They've also announced the creation of a legal fund, to which they've pledged $1M US dollars to fight complaints such as these, called the 'Open Source Now' fund."
This is proof that GPL warez are in trouble.
If they wanted to help their customers, they could indemnify them agaist IP claims. Wouldn't that be putting their money where their mouth is?
A million dollar legal fund for GPL open source developers? They wouldn't create that fund if there
weren't a serious possibility of suits happening. Would anyone want to work on GPL stuff with that possibility looming? What if the million dollars is exhausted before someone's suit goes to trial?
Red Hat may win. That would prove that it is illegal to talk bad about your competetor. And then there is a legal precedent. The Microsoft can sue anyone who uses a dollar sign in place of an s when referring to them. Then /. is in trouble. No one can post anything bad about them.
So now that Red Hat is standing up for "the community", they're our fair-haired hero? What happened to all the "Red Hat is the Microsoft of Linux" comments?
Bah.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
"RedHat has to be in this fight....RedHat speaks, lives, and breathes GNU."
Fine. But they shouldn't be deceptive, arrogant folks themselves in their policy/PR statement by stating that this is an open source defense fund. It's not:
"To further protect the integrity of Open Source software and the Open Source community, Red Hat has established the Open Source Now Fund. The purpose of the fund will be to cover legal expenses associated with infringement claims brought against companies developing software under the GPL license and non-profit organizations supporting the efforts of companies developing software under a GPL license." (emphasis mine)
It's a GPL Now Fund, not an OS Now Fund. They aren't protecting the Apache license, the BSD license (includes postgresql, openssh, etc. if I recall), or the X license (a project they ripped for their own commercial purposes).
Furthermore, it's a GPL for organizations fund--commercial and non-profit. If you're an individual, tough.
Red Hat is doing this for themselves. They aren't doing this for you. GNU is open source. GPL is open source. However, not all open source is GPL or GNU, and it's deceptive to state this is an open source fund, because, frankly, it does NOT protect all open source development processes--even those narrowly defined by the FSF.
I'm sorry but I just have to say this. PEOPLE NEED TO STOP USING FUCKING ACRONYMS. I have no idea what the hell IANAL means nor do I care to find out. This isn't english, it's some sort of shitty net-speak that needs to be stopped! IHTB, LMAO, AFAIK.. come on people! Is it so hard to actually type them out??
All of these, *including* lol, need to be wiped from the collective internet conciousness.
(By the way, nothing against you personally AVee, it's just the last straw that broke the camel's back..)
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
The FSF's crack legal eagle Eben Moglen hides behind his keyboard, firing off snippy articles saying that SCO allegedly smell of poo. Then disclaims them. Fucking pussweed.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.