Slashdot Mirror
RedHat Starts "Open Source Now" Fund
celston23 writes "According to this article (near bottom), RedHat is intending to use their Open Source Now Fund to support open-source (GPL) developers who are sued for copyright infringement. Might be used during the SCO legal battle."
Use it to buy out source code to important projects like the now famous bender project.
who keeps the interest earned from the fund?
get nemulator
Great. I hope IBM uses some of its Billion dollars on Linux that it had previously pledged. Also, I hope that companies in the market for Unix remember that their is HP-UX, Solaris, AIX and others as well as Linux...no need for SCO (some crappy old) Unix
This is awfully familiar, don't you think? (again, near the bottom)
They put the SCO spin on it, so it's new.
Wow. So RedHat gets free karma for creating an ostensibly altruistic fund to defend developers who release GPL software, then they turn around and say "Well, we release GPL code. We'll be taking our money back now, KTHXBYE"
Very interesting...
Does not this defeats the whole purpose of Open Source?
I mean, if you need a fund for raising money for a OS that was initially meant to be free how is it free anymore when someone have to cash out in order to keep it from being sued into oblivion?
Proud patriot and republican voter.
All ye kernel authors, instead of trying to fight SCO, just give them a deadline to license your kernel submissions, provide them a separate "binary only license" on top of the GPL license, and charge them $10 for every license they sell that includes your intellectual property. If they don't pay up, then cancel their license to use your part of the kernel.
meh
Open Source's greatest feature and worst flaw is that it's free and open. Because there's next to no profit in it, software authors have next to no protection from getting sued. So in order to protect things like Linux from SCO, there needs to be some kind of a fund like this. Again, unfortunate but true.
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
What does Open Source have to do with the National Organization of Women?
Why not just call it...
Save Open Source (SOS)?
Just realise the reality of the situation..... There is no reality.
Why is this necessary when we have the EFF?
Perhaps they could also use some of this fund, or another one, to start lobbying for less restrictive copyright laws? Even better, lobbying for legal recognition of the GPL would be a better goal. If the GPL is codified into law as an enforcable license, absurd lawsuits would carry far less weight in a court.
Of course, given the current makeup of the Congress, it would be more likely to see the GPL invalidated in national legislation than supported.
This site is about Open Source Software in education and goverment and its been around for quite a while. I don't know why Redhat have decided to name two things its doing by the same name. I found out about it looking for the fund, but there doesn't seem to be any info on the site about the fund or how you can contribute to it.
Tom.
I go to all the trouble of making it a hyperlink, and somebody just cuts and pastes it into their post! Now I will get redundant mods and I'll be living in a van, down by the river !
My other sig is a peice of shit, too.
i modded your post up, thats what a nice guy i am.
translation - we are getting whoever we can to support a choice "individual" and use all the backing as leverage. They are looking for cattle, people to make a fuss when people are stupid and wine about bad stuff happens, then because there is a mass of people that could and would put pressure on whoever or whatever that "individual(s)" decide things get done
now the catch is how there gonna turn some profit from this venture. People will disagree with this statement and say its for the cause but in the end they wouldnt put effort and money into somthing unless they expect to get substantially more in return.
I may have missed this on the home page, but is OSN a 503C non-profit?
Roving Web-Teleoperated Robot
I don't think it will be needed in the main case as IBM will pull SCO under with the length of the trial. They have much deeper pockets. However for the little folks that will be good. Also hope they EFF get in on it and all works out nicely
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
WTF does "Wildcat is on teh spoke" mean???
But do Red Hat know something that possibly the greater community do not?
If there has been no infringement then logically there would be no need for this fund as, again logically, it could be demonstrated in every court that Linux doesn't contain any SCO material.
I guess that this is not just for the SCO charges, but maybe for other similar charges from other companies who may, sometime in the future, level the same accusations.
Maybe I am well off track here, but surely it would be of better use to the community for SuSE, IBM etc to also put into the pot.... I guess the interest gained alone from such a pot would be huge if it is to protect people from charges similar to SCO which I will guess will end up costing millions.
I really hope this can be finally be put to rest sometime soon, as this kind of 'war chest building' does not inspire confidence. I have said before that whilst these charges, counter charges and now this warchest it is going to make those who are looking at migrating someway towards Linux a little concerned.
The post to which you refer announces the countersuit. This post announces the actual launching of the fund, complete with a website where you can join and make contributions.
Finding God in a Dog
Help support your favorite charity or donate to the anti-sco fund to help others protect the open source.
www.antitshirts.com
Though it's great that somebody is willing to step up and offer legal protection to Linux, the kind that Microsoft are readily willing for the lack thereof. How will this help?
Take a look at SCO. For the last couple of months they have been spouting nonsense, slander and let's be honest FUD. In fact, in the face of the current IBM countersuit, they have the gall (read: stupidity) to launch another claim.
Now, all this is quite illegal, as IBM's lawyers have pointed out, but has it stopped SCO? No, not until 2005, at least. Until that time, SCO can say and do as it more-or-less pleases, until an injunction anyways. They will nodoubt reep the rewards for there behaviour, but that doesn't stop the damage they're causing in the meantime, until the courts get around to dealing with it.
Reason, let alone a cadre of Open Source Funded lawyers won't stop SCO. That's just the way it is.
Because HE JUMPS OUT OF THE PLANE and the lady is like Wildcat is on teh spoke!
except that unless you actually logged out (as opposed to being logged in and choosing 'post anonymously' your mods will be removed.
You know, back in the day, when I first came to Slashdot, Open Source was all about the free, wild and woolly creation of software, about freedom from The Man, and doing stuff because it was a Nerd Mountain and by goddamn we were going to climb it. I'm never sure if I should be happy or sad that companies such as Red Hat and Oracle are essentially hijacking the popularity of Linux. At the end of the day, is it about being on everybody's desktop or server, or is it about having written good code without a boss? Coding just for the sake of coding, fixing problems without having to beg marketing to let you do it.
What do I say this? Well, I just can't bring myself to believe that Red Hat has the interests of the greater community at heart here. In my view, they are simply trying to protect their revenue stream. Without companies turning to Open Source, they simply don't have any customers.
Maybe that's obvious, but I think amongst all of the support that this fund will have, it's at least good to have it said.
20% is modest and truly "small" compared to welfare administration and every one of the charities that call you on the phone.
I still don't see anywhere to donate money. The open source fund right now seems little more then redhat.
It's a dupe you brown noser
You mean there's a project to create bender? Sweet! That's much cooler than that weak-ass blender project!
"Question with boldness even the existence of a god." - Thomas Jefferson
Redhat doesn't HAVE to do this, and I'll wager it doesn't put "money in their pocket" as so many Redhat bashers seem to be obessed with mentioning. It's good PR, yes, but it's also good for the community.
Redhat makes IMHO the BEST out-of-the box distro. You want something that just works (tm)? 95% of the time, you're talking about Redhat. Is it perfect? No, not by a long shot, but it amazes me the sheer number of people who attack Redhat just because they are the market leader. Remember kids, if it's popular, it must be crap!
--Stupid Sig Here--
In a related development, SCO has filed separae lawsuits against the government of Turkey and the Vienna Boys Choir for having employed eunuchs in the past.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
...SCO executive stock sales.
So, if SCO "buys" a copy of RedHat for "R&D" does that mean they'd be contributing to a fund to protect programmers against themselves? And if one of their programmers adds to any GPL code, they could sue their own employee but he'd be able to hire a laywer from the fund they added to...
---
Lousy rotten karmic retribution.
The FSF, will say it should be SFS (Save Free Software), but you can use your orginal name as long as you put a GNU/ in front of it.
But I'm digressing. Yes, here in the US, you _do_ need to protect yourself from litigation, even if the litigation is totally unjustified and spurious. And countersuing for abuse of process offers little relief when the entity suing you has no assets of values anyway. SCO has nothing to lose, that's what makes it dangerous!
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
This seems different (though related) to the "Open Source Now Fund", which would specifically target legal threats against Linux and related things, like the FSF does for GNU.
I haven't been able to find any info on how to contribute to the fund. I spoke with many Red Hat people at Linux World about it, and they didn't know. I sent an email to opensourcenow@redhat.com, and they never replied. I've also been talking with Red Hat salesmen for the past week or two trying to put together a proposal, and they don't know either.
What's the hold up Red Hat? TAKE MY MONEY DAMMIT.
Wow, a lucrative publishing contract! I don't have to be evil anymore. --Meteor
From the artical: "SCO has not been trying to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt to end users. We have been educating end users on the risks of running an operating system that is an unauthorized derivative of Unix," said the statement. Correct me if I am worng, but wasn't SCO's problem with Linux not that it is similar to Unix, but that it had "unauthorized propitary code" in it?
Shouldn't it be Open Wallet?
You can't copyright names. They're covered by trademarks. And it is totally within the bounds of fair use to call something by its name. The canonical example: I don't have to call it "that long race we have in Boston on Patriots' Day every year" just because the Boston Athletic Association owns the trademark "Boston Marathon". Likewise, if SCO is actually referring to Linux, they can call it that.
/. so often that it occurs to me that I've probably just been trolled, hard. Oh well.
This is a good thing.
And this comes up on
With the FUD Microsoft and others spread about open source and the GPL being anti-american and bad for business, perhaps it isn't such a good idea for the site to look like it advocates socialism.
Just my $0.02.
I don't care if they use my donations to counter sue SCO. The Open SOurce Now fund is a charity, and they can help Red Hat if they please.
Is not the point of this whole issue fight against the FUDfest from SCO? And who are the ones that have _legally_ answered. There are the folks from Germany and Australia, but from the big folks (who will ultimately be the ones that can solve this whole issue, as has been said before, this is not a matter of justice but of money) we only have RedHat and IBM (for now) taking our side (their motives are part of another discussion since a lot of people disagrees with the angle IBM choose to atack).
IBM can fight all the way to the end of days in courts and will still have a lot of money in the bank, but Red Hat can't. If you feel uncomfortable with Red Hat using the donations to fight SCO then save your money, I'm puting my money where my mouth is and givin all I can spare to the fund.
BTW, I DO believe this whole issue has the potential to make a lot of damage to Linux, just see the parties involved (SCO, IBM, Microsoft, Sun, etc) and you will realize they have crushed more than one company/movement in the past.
Life isn't like a box of chocolates. It's more like a jar of jalapenos. What you do today, might burn your ass tomorrow.
Okay, the neo-WPA art-of-the-worker look might work on a KMFDM cover, but OSN army's website is not a KMFDM cover. Why is it any open source effort has to go maximum with the pinko look. Why not Che Guevara with raised fist?
GPL is Free Software(R) -- Open source is a conciderably wider target than that. A quick look over the site doesn't show anything GPL-specific, just Linux-specific. BSDers need love too!
Mod parent down! These posts are lame enough when it actually IS a dupe!
When the Open Source community is dancing on the empty husk of a company SCO will be, the execs of SCO will have sold all their stock, pilaged all SCO assets and disappeared to some tropical beach somewhere rather then answering for the smear-campaign that they started.
Why would anyone keep the interest? If it's a fund that has probably not reached it's full goals, and could use more money, why wouldn't it be rolled back into the fund?
We need to start a new slashdot. One where everyone has a clue, and stupid posts like the parent are unnecessary. I've tried... I have about 300 foes, right now, but there's a lot more people out there.
I may not like your distro, but damn you guys are brave! Keep up the fight, and never give in!
I agree with you. I have tried to send money for a while, but no luck. Maybe the third time Slashdot posts this story RH will have a Donation link ready.
Help fight continental drift.
So wait a sec, this fund is to support developers like you and me who write GPL software, when we're sued by someone else? How often does that even happen? How about if the fund did something useful, and supported me when companies use my GPL code in their products?
Old story (like the day RH filed their suit against SCO), previously posted story... are the editors paying ANY freaking attention around here? I'm sick of reading the same stories every day.
The actual deeds of the soldiers of the five countries fully demonstrate the determination and strength of the SCO member states in jointly attacking the three forces of terrorism, separatism and extremism and the deepening solidarity and cooperation among various member countries.
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200308/13/eng200 30813_122258.shtml
Doing so only requires you to admit that your code is in the kernel. His hypothetical situation was that you charge SCO a fee for each licence they sell. You are not admitting that the kernel contains rogue code, only that SCO is selling licences, and your code is among that being licenced.
Having said that, I'd have to look at the GPL again to see if such a thing is possible. And, I agree, Linus has the right idea.
No it's not! What the fuck do you mean?
is it just me or does the OSN site remind you of that "Open Source is Communism" advertisement/spoof that was circulating awhile back?
:-)
- "Join in today and enlist with OSN's Army of Friends!"
- all the red on black
- the big hand in the bottom left??
was the first thing that came to mind
Just click the box that says Caldera
Is a fund to help open source developers get a lawyer and go after people who are infringing on their copyrights.
It's high time (the SCO case should have made this obvious) that we in the OS community quit acting like laws only work for companies and start going on the offensive against companies that are infringing on our copyrights. The fact that SCO continues to distribute the Linux kernel even though they've rejected the GPL, for example, means that they're violating copyright law. There is talk of Linux code in SCO's operating system.
We need to start defending our IP. Perhaps the fund could specify that when you win, a percentage of the winnings go back into the fund.
Michael
Do you have ESP?
It seems to me that this thing could be self funding. If, for example, most of the major contributors to the Linux kernel were to offer a 50% stake in the awards in exchange for OSN handling the legal aspect, OSN could do copyright infringement settlements in cases like the Cisco Linux based routers that were being shipped without offering source code (I think it was Cisco), and full blown litigation with companies like SCO (who is continuing to distribute the Linux kernel in direct violation of the GPL).
Theoretically, this could provide sufficient funding to retain the attorneys for any defensive issues. The only risk is that companies will stop violating the GPL and the source of funding will dry up, but that doesn't sound like such a bad thing; we'd just have to go back to contributing to a fund like this.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Why do they insist on making that page look like something out of the communist revolution?
http://www.archive.org/details/ThePowerOfNightmares
Rememember the Stonecutters episode of the simpsons when towards the end of the show they formed a group of no-homers? There are pleanty of open source alternatives to Linux, with Linux binary compatiability just waiting to be used. Once these alternatives such as the BSD's (including Apple's Dawrin effort) gain market attention, it would be relatively easy to port the Linux apps to the BSD variants, and thus completly avoid any of these legal suits. SCO dies as a result, and we are all happy. (Except for the SCO employees).
Open Source was never about freedom, it was and is about pitching the Open Source development methodology primarily to businesses: when businesses share source code they ostensibly get better programs developed with less expense because they can tap a large community of programmers who are willing to work on their project for no fee. Open Source talks about the practical outcome of sharing source code, not the freedoms that make those practical ends possible.
Freedom to share and modify programs was and is the message from the Free Software movement which started over a decade before the Open Source movement began. I recommend this essay for an instructive look at the differences between the two movements. It was the Free Software Foundation that brought us the GNU General Public License which secures the freedoms to share and modify and the community the Open Source movement has leveraged to spread their message. The FSF did these things well before the Open Source movement got started. I'm grateful the Open Source Movement is bringing users to Free Software and encouraging use of the GNU GPL (one of many Free Software licenses), but let's not overstate what the Open Source Initiative did--adding a license to a list of approved licenses cannot compare with writing and defending the license (links to parts one and two of Eben Moglen's essay).
SCO FUD aside, is Oracle interested in what's in the Linux kernel, or were you referring to the GNU/Linux operating system? I don't understand what you mean by "hijacking" here either--Red Hat has contributed a great deal to Linux and (as far as I know) all in accordance with the GPL. Everyone is free to study, share, and modify their contributions as well as the rest of the kernel.
Digital Citizen
red hat is actually helping the people that made their company.
I've been trying to contact them about it too. So far, I haven't seen a mechanism to donate to the non-profit org.
... shouldn't it be called "Open Source Real Soon Now"?
I've found that my posts don't format quite right w/o a sig.
I think the reasoning behind RH bashing is twofold. One, they are seen as 'selling out' as far as the zealots are concerned. Even though they are not earning money off the code itself, it still can be percived as being explotation of many man-hours of programing effort. Two, Red Hat et al are partially responsible for the sanitisation of Linux (i.e. making it acceptable for the masses). I remember a similiar undercurrent when Windows 95 came into being. All of the 'leet' Dos tweakers were up in arms about how it dumbed down things and so on. While I don't think that linux will ever get as rigid as Windows, it could be percived as such.