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Samba Team Points Out SCO's Hypocrisy
An anonymous reader noted an article talking about the Samba
Team's Statement to SCO. While Darl McBride blasts the GPL, his company simultaneously announces the use of Samba 3 in their OpenServer product. I'm not sure if it breaks my heart or boils my blood to read this stuff. Probably a little of both.
Linux and the GPL could potentially provide that life boat, although it's been my experience that the average SCO reseller is neither ncapable of innovation nor independent thought. Cactus is a good example. Their main product, Lone Tar, is nothing that GNU tar and a couple shell scripts (mostly for the "bootable" feature) couldn't replicate. To companies like this, it's still 1993.
sue SCO for using their IP without a license...since SCO believes the GPL is invalid.
Things could get really funny for SCO with this one... Imagine SCO goes to court, challenges the GPL and actually wins. What happens next? Well if GPL is invalid, then it's obvious that SCO is infringing on the copywrites of Samba developers by including Samba into their products.
;)
Samba team suing SCO for copywrite infrigement ?
Isn't that entrapment? Do you have to be a law enforcement agency to entrap? If it's not entrapment, could it be considered extortion? Since they sold me the license, are they an accessory to the crime? If we are guilty, arent they too?
I usually have a more level head than this, but I can't hold it back any longer; Fuck you Darl. If your were standing in front of me, I'd bitchslap you myself. Twice.
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I suspect (and the subsequent news postings of SC0 seems to confirm) is that SCO is going to argue that stuff released under the GPL is public domain. My guess is they are going to argue since the copyright holders aren't "enforcing" their rights then there are no rights to "enforce" - it is publically available and the no one cares what you do with it, it is public domain. So SCO may try a two point attack 1) the GPL itself is invalid and 2) the copyrights underlying it aren't being actively enforced therefore 3) it is public domain. (NOTE: I do not agree with this, this is just what I think one of their arguments are going to be).
Just like that college in California that has to shut down the shortcut through its campus every couple years to make sure they don't lose their property, copyrights are only good if someone is "actively trying to enforce them" - when you find a violation you must act. The history of the FSF/GPL community working with GPL violators to bring them in line is going to be the major counter argument (such as the recent work with Linksys to make sure they release the Linux they use). Other people who have worked on an individual basis to bring GPL violators to task would be helpful for the GPL case also.
-antim
NOTE: IANAL, TIJMV (this is just my view)
"At the end of the day, the GPL is not about making software free; it's about destroying value."
But isn't it true? It's undeniable that the GPL and Free Software *does* destroy value, but the key is destroying value FOR WHOM. For giant monolithic corporations that require absolute control to inflate their profit margins, free software is an absolute bane to their existence if that's their only business model (Microsoft, proprietary UNIX venders with no other line of income). For those who use Free Software to enhance value, their business model is still safe, they now compete by providing superior packaging (hardware and software support, see IBM, Sun, even SGI these days). You will never see a Free Software company reach the kind of marketcap of a Microsoft: Free Software has pushed software into the "commodity" zone. Software that is ubiquitously cheap, affordable, with high standards of quality (uhm, well, maybe one day (in terms of the overwhelming majority of OSS, anyway.. for every SAMBA, there's probably 10 turds or stillborn children on sourceforge)). It has enhanced the value for the END USER, rather than for the developer/owner/investor. It's a shifting of value, to be more precise, and a lot of people have a problem with that. One, you can measure with your bank account. The other is less tangible.
Personally, I like my money green.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
I wonder what the legal rights of the authors of GPL'd software would be if the GPL was rendered invalid?
Any laywers present? Would all that tasty code revert to the public domain? Would ownership fall to the principle authors (good luck determining that gor something like gcc or difflib)?
-- clvrmnky
I mean, on the face of things this whole deal is just so totally and completely wrong. It's ludicrous. So, what is SCO really up to?
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SCO Open Source Tools Found it under talkback posted on that page. Talk about ultimate hypocrisy.
More to the point, someone should raise this issue in SCOX's next investor conference call. Perhaps something along these lines:
"At the recent SCO forum, you indicated that you consider the GPL to be damaging to intellectual property. At the same Forum, you announced that you would be shipping Samba 3 with your next release in order to provide a higher level of Windows compatibility. Considering that Samba is licensed to you under the GPL, your arguments against it would actually prevent including such functionality. Do you plan to remove Samba from your coming release if you win your lawsuit on the grounds that the GPL is invalid under Federal copyright law? If so, how do you intend to provide the Windows compatibility that you have announced?"
A few years ago Anne had a BBC programme called "Watchdog" where they picked on scummy companies, usually trying to get those companies to honour warranties, refund crappy holidays etc. She's extremely sharp and quick witted. I think she'd wipe the floor with Mr. McBride.
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
There are enough readers here to actually make a difference if we all started taking short positions on SCOX. I think that the vast majority would agree that the target share price is somewhere in the neighborhood of $0.00, it's just a question of when.
As of right now, short positions on SCOX are at 391K, or about 2x daily volume.
Take a stand, go short on 20 shares of SCOX, and put $200 into your pocket today. The downward pressure you create thwarts the efforts of SCO management to inflate the price through non-news press releases.
The cure for cancer is coming: Reovirus
What if SCO is just throwing out these stupid claims just to watch the Linux community do all of the legal leg-work? Think about it, it makes sense. All they have to do is make some outrageous claims, show a couple obfuscated slides, and watch thousands of Linux users give thousands of points of view. Every time they put out another stupid quote we all run to kernel posting logs, decipher licenses, and review the entire history of the debate. They then sift through all of it, see if their claim can hold up, and then move on to the next issue. All the while raising their stock value by raking in the licenses by scaring the pants out of some uninformed corporate attorney?
Why don't we just ignore them, let IBM squish them hardcore, and laugh at the end? Anybody can come out and make outlandish claims, it's another thing to be able to back them up. I know most people have already moved on from this thread but I'm getting so sick of these daily SCO fears, the heck with SCO, I have better things to read about.