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SCO Madness Reigns Supreme
Roblimo knows good, honest Constitutional argumentation when he sees it, and over on NewsForge amplifies SCO's claims that the GPL is unconstitutional.
Dopey Panda writes "Looks like SCO has become just a bit worried about their liabilities for distributing the Linux kernel. Starting November 1 you will have to be a registered SCO customer to be able to access their FTP site. So that leaves just a couple days for you to download your own genuine SCO-approved GPL code!"
And perhaps today's most interesting SCO submission: 1HandClapping writes "In alwayson-network.com, Mark F. Radcliffe (HIAL) writes about a little-reported aspect of the SCO vs IBM case: 'Novell, as part of its sale of the UNIX licenses to SCO, retained the right to require SCO to "amend, supplement, modify or waive any right" under the license agreements (and if SCO did not comply, Novell could exercise those rights itself on SCO's behalf). At IBM's request, Novell employed this right and demanded that SCO waive IBM's purported violations. When SCO did not do so, Novell exercised its right to waive the violations on SCO's behalf. Basically, this defense destroys the core of the SCO case: IBM's violation of its UNIX license with SCO.'"
1. File law suits
2. Get the licensing declared illegal
3. Profits
The only thing is getting everything released under the GPL in the last three years turned over to public domain would trampel the very concept of a copyright. It is a nice idea for SCO, but in reality they have to be smoking crack to think that this one will work. I honestly can not see it happening.
The views expressed are mine own and do not express the views of my employer.
Why would a Wookiee - an eight foot tall Wookiee - want to live on Endor with a bunch of two foot tall Ewoks? That does not make sense!
But more importantly, you have to ask yourself: what does that have to do with this case? Nothing. Ladies and gentlemen, it has nothing to do with this case! It does not make sense!
Look at me, I'm a lawyer defending a major software company, and I'm talkin' about Chewbacca. Does that make sense? Ladies and gentlemen, I am not making any sense. None of this makes sense.
And so you have to remember, when you're in that jury room deliberating and conjugating the Emancipation Proclamation - does it make sense? No! Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, it does not make sense.
If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must acquit! The defense rests.
a rube goldburg...
:^)
pure genius
SCO is obviously out to destroy the open source community, but their method is more subtle than previously thought. They just make an outrageous claim and then watch all the open source developers spend their time flaming on ./ rather than doing real work. Pretty sneaky...
The one thing I've never truely understood about the Export Control argument is that, firstly, Linux is not American, and can therefore not be controlled by it's government, secondly, export controls only apply to that which is not already freely available to the public. Unless, US law suddenly applies to everyone else in the world, I don't see this being successfull.
Shame really. I can just see it now. McBride's just spent his new $50 million hollowing out an old mountain (for SCO's new headquarters), bought him self a brand new white cat and leather chair and got his employees kit-ed out in matching grey overalls.
Sheer genius!
"Never attribute to malice that which can be sufficiently explained by stupidity."
sPh
1. IBM, we sue you for leaking a few lines of our code into Linux.
2. IBM, we sue you because you leaked thousands of lines of our code into Linux.
3. IBM, we sue you because we own Unix and you developed software for Linux.
4. Linux was based on Unix and Unix has 2,000,000+ lines of code. Linux contains all our code!
4. IBM, we sue you... not quite sure why now... We own Linux. Everyone give use $699 or else.
5. All software written under the GPL in the last 3 years is free because the GPL is stupid and it just should be ours anyway.
6. All software ever written is ours.
7. ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!
Ascalante: Your bride is over 3,000 years old.
Kull: She told me she was 19!
Leave Martha out of this you sexist! Especially with Thanksgiving coming up... who will help me get my table set correctly?
Milo
Madmen always take the most simple and logical path to reason their madness. SCO wants money at the expense of everyone else, so naturally they must assert themselves as superior to everyone else.
... well that would be bad.
It seems to me that they will build an ingeniously incorrect case, bring it in front of a court of law, play the justice system like a card table in Vegas, and if they win
While most of your post is accurate and informative, I have to dispute one point: nobody could make money selling Multics, or they'd still be selling it today. GE tried and failed, Honeywell tried and failed, and no one else was stupid enough to buy it after that. (I am a former Multician.) Multics was very good at a bunch of things, but it was never designed to be ported to different hardware, and it just cost too damn much to run and maintain.
We call it art because we have names for the things we understand.
While King Darl is pretty good, a more interesting name would be "The Princess McBride" ;)
Karma: Could be worse (could be raining)
IBM sits quietly for quite a while.
Then, they'll finally speak.
And then, there will be quite a few comments SCO needs to respond to, such as:
At this point, SCO will probably realize challenging IBM was a mistake.
For once upon time there was a time when horror had a face, and that face was - paradoxically enough - the facelessness of IBM's legal department.