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SCO Attorney Declares GPL Invalid
chrullrich writes "According to heise (German, fishbait), SCO's chief counsel Mark Heise (unrelated) of Boies, Schiller and Flexner has declared that the GPL violates the US copyright law and is thus null and void. SCO's legal position is actually a little too crazy to believe: The GPL allows unlimited copies, the copyright law allows one. Therefore, the GPL is invalid. Apparently, they try to argue that the copyright law, in giving consumers the right to make one backup of their software without any permission from the copyright holder, outlaws any contractual agreement that allows users to make more than one copy." There's an Inquirer article in English. Apparently SCO is now using the Chewbacca Defense. Other SCO news: SCO reports a profit, examining SCO's contributions to Linux, an attorney summarizes the case.
Declares SCO invalid! OOH!
__________
Love conquers all... except CANCER
...that SCO does not exist. HA!
You mean SCO is going to go after George Lucas?
Trolling is a art,
SCO has declared that the earth is actually flat, that you *can* dig a hole to China, and that the moon is, in fact, made of green cheese.
I've often heard of companies having a crack legal team, but this is the first time that I've heard of one being on crack.
HH
And SCO is paying how much per hour for this legal mastery?
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
What a joke. Johnnie Cochran must be part of their legal team.
if the gpl is -legal- then they have no legal legs to stand on.
-of-course- they'll 'declare it' illegal.
thank goodness their lawyer's opinions matter only slightly more than my cat's.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
If they can use the chewbaca defense, I'm calling SHENANIGANS!!!
I first became concerned for my job three weeks before my employer purchased the lisences, when I noticed our mail administrator returning from a meeting with our comapny's board of directors. The conversation had gotten rather heated, as there had been a good deal of shouting and cursing coming from the board room. Two days later he was fired.
Rumors began spreading when 3 more people were laid off under similar circumstances, and the general consensus was that these people had been unfairly screwed by management.
I had no idea how true those rumors were. I soon found myself before the board of directors, being asked what I thought about purchasing Linux lisences for our servers from SCO. I answered truthfully: that not only was such an investment a waste of money, but that SCO's claims regarding intellectual property in Linux were questionable at best. My supervisor considered this thoughtfully for a second, nodded, and the secretary locked the door of the office. Two of the directors, with deceptive strength and agility, bound and gagged me. My memory is somewhat blurry about this part, but I remember having my pants torn from my waist, and then all of the board members took turns ravaging my virgin cornhole. The rumors were true: there I was, being screwed by management because of my opposition to SCO's Linux IP claims .
In the kind of shock that only comes with a brutal ass-raping, I stumbled back to my desk, thankfully unaware of the small stream of blood, liquified stool, and man-cheese that had stained my underwear, oozed down my leg and began to pool in my shoe. To complete my utter humiliation, I was given my pink slip 3 days later, before I had even recovered from my ordeal.
I have always been concerned about SCO's dubious legal claims, but I could never have prepared myself for the amount of personal violation that opposing the corporate bully would bring.
There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
Well everyone knows that two wrongs don't make a right, but three copyrights make a copyleft :)
Burn the land and boil the sea, you can't take the sky from me
Wildly offtopic, I know, but I was just wondering if anyone had reverse engineered the msblast payload yet. I'm sitting here with all these linux boxes on a fat pipe, and I heard there was a party planned next saturday in Redmond. I feel a bit left out and would hate to install 2k/XP just to be able to join in. Can anyone help out?
Vague expansion of witty idea, looking like every other one-liner predictably posted to the thread.
--
Pointless and/or overly-geeky quote
I am waiting for the next SCO press conference where McBride will announce that "all your bases now belong to us".
PS: M$Bride knows that the only way they can getout of prizon sentence in the end is to demonstrate their insanity now. So far it's working well...
Who took my tinfoil hat?
SCO has announced an agreement with the Business Software Alliance to raid data backup centers. SCO CEO Darl McBride was quoted as saying "These renegade 'backup' centers are no more than a front for illegitimate software duplication. Any customers who are found to have multiple 'backup' copies of any of SCO's intellectual property will be required to pay additional licensing fees, according to the number of processors in the machine that served as the source for these illicit duplicates."
Future targets, according to the press release, may include schools, small businesses, and FTP 'mirrors', which not only house myriad copies of copyrighted works, but also make them available to further illegal duplication by end users.
SCO Claims that copyright law prohibiting multiple backups of information may also cover music, movies, and published works. The RIAA and MPAA were reportedly intrigued, but unavailable for comment.
--Jasin Natael
True science means that when you re-evaluate the evidence, you re-evaluate your faith.
funny, it seems more like every 2 *hours*. sigh
sco .. drugs are bad mmmmmmmm-kay?
[alk]
1. Use the Chewbacca defense.
2. ???
3. Report Profit!
The news story is kind of tragicomic, McBribe says "We intend to use this capital to continue our intellectual property protection and licensing initiative..."
I wish all their customers would simply stop giving them money. I know my company has; we've ditched using the products that ran on the SCO platform, but that's only about 60-70 licenses. The rest of you need to pony-up!
John
In Soviet Russia authority questions you..oh wait, that really did happen in Soviet Russia, nevermind.
In the RED Corner, weighing in at $140M, we have the Self-Proclaimed Siiiilent Majorrrity. . .
And in the BLUE corner, weighing in at One Hunnnndred and Fifty Beeeellion Dollars, The Heavyweight Champion of Patent Litigation, DEEEEEEEEP POCKETTTTTTTS!!!!
Round 1.
Fight!
there is a post every 2 days about SCO
Not for long
I've got it figured out. SCO is trying to throw out so many baseless accusitions, and fill the air with so much nonesense, that we simply become numb, unable to deal with it, or respond in a coherent manner.
It's like a two year old that keeps arguing that the sky is, in fact, green, and that he'll never grow up to be a basketball player if you don't let him eat cookies for breakfast. It's cute the first couple of times, then becomes slightly annoying, but eventually you are so baffled by the shear stupidity that you stop tyring to correct him, stop trying to prove your point, and simply say 'yes, dear.'
That, my friends, is SCO; Litigation through Temper Tantrum.
Thomas Galvin
Based on the continuingly insane SCO claims, I'd say that massive head trauma, or the smoking of some really bad weed got us into this mes to begin with...
...for very large values of 2....
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
what are you doing posting here then? that option must be working really well... ;)
Dear Darl,
Thanks, I needed that. Can't remember when I heard something so goddamn funny. I nearly blew Mountain Dew through my nose on that one.
What, you're serious?! Ssnnnorrkkk!!! Damn, that's even funnier! Have you guys thought about doing a stand-up routine somewhere?
Really. Just too f'ing funny. Pardon me while I wipe the tears out of my eyes.
You're the best,
Bill Gates
is when the copymachine get a serious paperjam.
Evolution of Language Through The Ages: 6000 BC : ungh, grrf, booga 2000 AD : grep, awk, sed
I predict we'll get our section three days before IBM crushes them to death in court.
You win again, gravity!
They've attempted *ludicrous speed*!
"Copyleft is not a principle the law recognizes."
And not a character the Unicode recognises.
Bastards.
"SCO, they're about to get on the wrong side of Microsoft too, since MS..."
Are you hoping for a Battle of Stalingrad situation, where there is really no site to cheer for?
Or is the Godzilla vs Rodan analogy more appropriate? Or would a simple shark feeding-frezny do.
This is what it's like when worlds collide....
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
From the inquirerarticle:
Has the whole world gone stark staring bonkers? [Yes. Ed.]
IBM: That does it! Shenanigans! Shenanigans!!!
SCO: What are you doing?
IBM: I'm declaring Shenanigans on you. This lawsuit is rigged.
Maybe you should educate the morons of tomorrow so they'll stop believing the leaders of tomorrow. - Dogbert
Oh, well. If SCO says the GPL is invalid, then obviously it's time to pay up!!!
http://www.tuxrocks.com/
I might put something together like:
./ troll == turd. /. troll.
-
- SCO lawyer == eats
but, I would be trolling.
...now that I don't have to take it seriously. I love the department tagline. Somehow the sight of a monkey in a fez seems utterly fitting. Any chance we could make that the new SCO icon?
who are those slashdot people? they swept over like Mongol-Tartars.
SCO declares Law of gravity invalid, as servers with linux use it to stay on the ground.
Linux: Helping nerds look smarter since the late 90s.
Excellent. I think all Canadians should be required to use IAC somewhere in their posts, so we can give their opinion the proper weight.
Yeah, with a Q-Tip.
Pathetic.
Whoa there - I agree with you.
I'm asserting that the tack that SCOs lawyers seem to be taking is to try and push GPLed works into the public domain and not copyright.
Soko
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
It's all fun and games until someone loses the key to the handcuffs.
In the news.com article, it states "He [McBride] said the company had spent between $600,000 and $700,000 on legal expenses since March, less than half of the $1 million per quarter it has budgeted for such costs."
SCO is budgeting $333k per month to go up against the company that took on the part of the United States government that literally prints money and won?
Before reading this, I was willing to discount the comments about Darl and his merry men being on crack, but after reading this the only question I have is:
Darl, where can I find some of what you're smoking, swallowing, snorting or injecting?
myke
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
the JPL is null and void under U.S. copyright law
Quick! Someone call NASA!
I'm sorry I wasn't clear in our last conversation.
What I meant to say is "Get crack team of lawyers", not "Get that team of lawyers some crack".
Sorry for any inconviences
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
In soviet Russia, the GPL declares SCO invalid.
Who said anything about 'donate'? Why would I want to 'donate' code to anyone for any reason? Why on earth would I want to 'donate' my code to you? You're a dick. If I want to GPL something, that's my choice. I don't give up 'ownership' of the code in the way I would if I put it in the public domain.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
At least open source software you can point out parts that may have been misappropriated and remove them. Imagine how much misappropriated code could be in windows but no one will be able to prove that.
Imagine this: in 10 years, windows will be on sourceforge as a GPL'd project (heads of M$ were killed by an army of mechanical penguins and microsoft was forced to shutdown). Then each of you can pick out the code that they stole from your project.
Is it just me, or does anyone else read IANAL and pronounce it in your head as "I anal"? It drives me crazy.
Go ahead, mod me down as stupid or whatever, but I know someone else has to read it that way.
Well everyone knows that two wrongs don't make a right, [...]
... but two Wrights make an aeroplane.
That would be iAnal(TM) the first in Apple's new line of internet enabled buttplugs.
About 10,000 Linux advocates laughed themselves to death today, France is now confused about weather to add their share of the dead nerds to the heat death toll. In an official response to the sea SCO's chairman said there will now be weekly wild assertaions until the case is lost... errr he meant won.
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath
All we need is one slashdotter on the jury and SCO is doomed. I just hope it isn't the penis bird man, the Natalie Portman stalker, or the grits fetishist.
I can see Boies during voire dire.
Boies: "Have you ever read Slashdot?"
Juror: uh.......yeah
Boies: "Your honor I move to have this juror excused."
Juror: "But all I ever post is hot grits and natalie portman posts."
Boies: "Oh, sorry your honor. We'll keep him."
"The words of the prophets are written on the Slashdot walls."
I won't have to read it then, Tried before always got a headache.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
(Score:5, Insightful)
Is it just me or do posters always get modded up whenever they dare the moderators to mod them down?
Please mod me down, I'm a redundant, trolling, flamebait-loving dogmatist and I was a pro-DMCA lobbyist. And I'm sleeping with Darl.
Maybe partying will help...
No, that was Asimov's little-known collection of sci-fi erotica.
Ok, karma dive.
I declare SCO it be invalid.
There that should solve all our problems!
Smeghead every day of the week.
Yes, this SCO deal is pissing everybody off. If the original post says they are using th chewbacca defense, I would go further and say that they used the Argentinian attack, just like at Falkland.
Like lame Slashdotters who post before reading the article, SCO's lawyers appear to have not even bothered to read the GPL before declaring it illegal.
I think this is just a floater for Boies, etc., to see how well it will fly. . . Remember, they demanded a trial-by-jury.
Ah, I now understand the term "trial balloon".
SCO has been going on about Linux being in violation of the law, IBM being in violation of the law, Linux users being in violation of the law, and now, incredibly, the GPL being in violation of the law on the grounds that copyright ownership prohibits you from transferring copying privileges, all of which point to the big question that nobody so far has asked:
Isn't having an entire company full of people smoking crack in violation of the law?
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
can see Boies during voire dire.
Boies: "Have you ever read Slashdot?"
Juror: uh.......yeah
Boies: Then you'll know that in Soviet Russia, intellectual property steals YOU. By stealing other people's intellectual property, SCO are simply engaged in the sort of anti-communist activity that's necessary to protect our way of life.
Judge (who is a Microsoft troll): Somebody mod that sucker UP!
"hey! glad to see you? hows it been? come on over here and have a seat.. can I get you a drink? are you sure? cigarette? no? fine, fine...
Listen, I'm glad we had this chance to talk privately for a second, there was something I've been wanting to tell you, and I don't see any reason to discuss it it front of just everybody, right?
There is this little thing that everyone else on the planet has been aware of for quite a while now, that you just can't seem to get a grasp on......"
Why, yes, I AM a Pagan Libertarian.
Um, if SCO's lawyers do ever argue this in front of a judge, does this sort of stupidity count as one of the things for which a judge can declare the lawyer in contempt? Something along the lines of "Mr. SCO Lawyer, in recognition of your extreme ignorance of copyright law and for wasting our time, I'm fining you $500."