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SCO Claims IBM/SGI Licenses are Revokable
shadow099 writes "SCO claims in an open letter writen by Blake Stowell, Director Public Relations SCO, that the Unix licenses to IBM and SGI can be revoked. " This is just the latest volley in the ongoing circus. It keeps getting funnier!
I'll get a few obvious observations out of the way.
First, they love to cite that original contract, but they don't talk about the addendums. There's a reason for that.
Secondly, even by that contract unamended, they would still have to actually specify what the supposed violations are before they could start the clock running so far as notice. They've steadfastly refused to do this, proving that they're acting in bad faith.
Third, just because they claim something is a violation doesn't make it so. If they really thought they had violations here, they'd be in a hurry to get to court, but instead they've been stalling.
So, in conclusion, more hot air from a guy that's known for it.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Just picture Dr. Evil putting his pinky to his mouth and saying it: "Irrevocable? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm." See, it fits perfectly, doesn't it?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
IBM/SGI's licenses are "fully paid up and irrevokable". That's specific legal language which means "SCO can't demand more licensing fees, and it can't pull the license on a whim". That in no way restricts the ability of SCO to revoke a license which has already been invalidated by IBM or SGI violating its terms.
I'm not saying that IBM or SGI has violated the terms of their UNIX licenses; but if they have, that "fully paid up and irrevokable" language is irrelevant in this case.
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
The piece itself is about nothing : the term irrevocable doesn't mean it can't be revoked, it usually just means it can't be revoked for no reason - i.e. there has to be a breach of the terms of the license. (That's assuming there isn't a clause somewhere that says 'This license can never be revoked.')
There is one worrying thing, and I quote:
{Villain fingers pussycat}
If that's an accurate description of what Mr. Stowell was doing, shouldn't somebody call the RSPCA???
Concrete analysis...
So, by the original language, the license can only be revoked by specifying the breach. SCO has yet to specify the breach so much as point in its general direction.
The other proviso is that if the breach is fixed (ie the infringing stuff is removed) then the license can no longer be revoked. So, if the offending code in Linux is identified and removed- there is no breach.
Is it just me or are they no even bothering to hide their alterior agenda anymore?
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
Secondly, if Blake Stowell had actually read his own contract properly he would found this bit: "...in addition to any other remedies that it may have, at any time terminate all the rights granted by it hereunder by not less than two(2) months' written notice to LICENSEE specifying any such breach, unless within the period of such notice all breaches specified therein shall have been remedied.". I particularly find the bits about "other remedies" and "breaches specified" of note. IANAL, but that implies to me that SCO is obliged to to both disclose details of what is in breach (not necessarily publically), which it hasn't done as far as I am aware, then give IBM/SGI two months to correct that breach.
I suspect SCO's refusal to disclose any information prior to an actual trial is going to bite them in the ass somehow.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
SCO did not give them that time. They didn't spell out exactly what the breach was, much less what specific remedies would allow SGI to cure it. The contract requires SCO to specify those things before they can take action. That's the purpose of the waiting period- to give the licensee time to cure his breach and avoid losing his license. The clock can't start until SCO does its part, and by failing to detail the alleged wrongdoing on SGI's (or IBM's) part they've failed to abide by their side of the contract.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
No, no, hackers would be better served in downloading this top secret "Linux" operating system of theirs that they seem to love so much and distributing it to thousands of people across the globe! Maybe even for free?
How cool would that be?
Namely because there are other ways of enforcing your contracts. I haven't seen all of the SGI contracts, but here is Ammentment X to the IBM contract and it clearly states IBM has an "irrevocable" and "perpetual" contract. It also says that SCO is not otherwise limited from enjoining or prohibiting IBM in other ways.
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
The court system in the US is less than predictable, and often makes ludicrous decisions in favor of seemingly frivolous lawsuits (see RJR Reynolds, McDonalds, and KB Toys.)
I quote this from Snopes, which I found in my research before posting this reply. Barbara stated it better than I could have: Only rarely do ridiculous lawsuits result in windfalls for the plaintiff; these cases are almost always either thrown out or the judgement goes for the defendant. Some celebrated "outrageous" suits wherein judgement went for the plaintiff prove upon closer examination to be far less "outrageous" than originally presented in the media. (For example, the "woman scalded by hot coffee" suit, which at first blush looked like the height of frivolity proved to be a perfectly legitimate action taken against a corporation that knew, thanks to a string of similar scaldings it had quietly been paying off, that its coffee was not just hot, but dangerously hot. The Association of Trial Lawyers of America provides an excellent description of this case).
Linux CAN lose, and defeat in just this one battle would be disasterous.
Remember, IBM is being sued, not "Linux". Linux is a product, not a company nor an organization, and IBM is not a Linux vendor. If SCO won in its case against IBM, there would be a chilling effect on Linux to be sure, but I have a hard time seeing it as "disasterous". In the event that IBM loses, it would have to pay damages to SCO and... that's it. SCO would be barred from suing Linux vendors or users because that would be "double dipping". SCO would have been awarded damages from IBM already and therefore relieved of its harm. Linux would be fixed based on discovery and court records and life would go on. Granted, it would be an indelible mark on the OS and wide-scale adoption would be hampered, but I don't think it would be disasterous.
Linux, on the other hand, would be utterly destroyed.
I highly doubt it. There's simply too much money invested. Do you honestly think that the hundreds of companies, including goliaths like IBM who has invested billions into Linux, are going to just throw up their hands and say "oh well, we give up"? Of course not! Within WEEKS (yes, WEEKS -- not months nor years) Linux, like a phoenix, would be reborn from its ashes. There's just too much force behind it.
Invalidation of the GPL would mean that existing GPL'd software could be incorporated into commercial code without restriction or credit to the original author.
This is very incorrect. First of all, SCO hasn't brought the GPL into the lawsuit, only IBM did in its countersuit. In the very unlikely scenario that the GPL is "invalidated" for some reason, the software doesn't become public domain for Pete's sake!! That's just silly and wrong. The GPL only grants rights, it does not take them away. If the GPL is invalidated, then the GPL'ed software would have no license at all, and people would not be legally allowed do anything at all with it, other than perhaps use it... and I'm not even sure about that.
However, most GPL'ed software says that the license is something along the lines of "version 2 or whatever is the latest version". If "version 2" of the GPL is invalidated, there would soon be a "version 3" that solved whatever grounds "version 2" was invalidated on that would be applied to GPL'ed software.
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