SCO Madness Reigns Supreme

Sri Lumpa writes "It will come as little surprise for those of you that followed the SCO stories and read their latest filing that an IP attorney, Douglas Steele, Esq., thinks that 'SCO is trying to get the judge to declare all works released under the GPL for the last 3 years put into the public domain.' Meanwhile, more lawyers give their opinions, with Eben Moglen saying 'It's just rubbish,' while another says of SCO's defense: 'From the outside, it appears so bizarre and so ridiculous that I fear their argument is being misstated,' while Blake Stowell of SCO believes Congress has drawn a boundary between proprietary and open source and still insists that IBM should indemnify its Linux users while refusing to indemnify SCO's Samba users against a potential MS lawsuit. More links to related news stories continue to appear in the comment section of the first link, thanks to the Groklaw readers." Read on for another handful of updates in SCO vs. The World.

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.'"

Comments

Michael, can I suck your cock?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a girl and I really like you.

Ok, the truth is this is CmdrTaco... come over to my house later, we'll see what will happen.

SCO Who?

[Chris_Stankowitz]

It will come as little surprise for those of you that followed the SCO stories.....

Well I would have followed the stories but I read /. and they NEVER post anything.....

Who the hell am I kidding. I've changed my /. bookmark to read "Slashdot, News for Nerds. SCO Matters!"

It would be funny if.......

[Anonymous Coward]

Michael actually showed up at his house and then took off his coat and he was naked. Taco would be like, "WTF?" and Michael would be like, "you told me to come over here... ah fuck, AC got me again..." Then he would drive over to Timothy's house and start ass-raping him.

Re:Noorda's revenge?

[Anonymous Coward]

so is a bunch If crazy metes. Jarl McBride Can go suck on a dread and die. (mean why on earth are CEOs of the United states of America So cm 247 : is it because they are a bunch ofathinds or am F just generalizing?

Who the...

[glenebob]

Who is SCO?

In terms a 4th grader could understand...

[sllim]

I need it explained that way to me.

This entire 'Linux is bad, but IBM is badder, but Micrsoft is even baddier' SCO stuff is just interesting enough to me to get my attention.

But whenever I read it I have a hard time wrapping my head around it.

The best I can figure out is that somewhere within the thousands of line or code that makes up the Linux kernel there is code that is copyrighted by.... someone. That someone (is it IBM??? see how confused I am) wants to be either paid $900 an installation or wants all Linux code banished to Pluto until the year 3000.

However, no one can site what the offending code is. IBM (or whoever it is) when asked about the code mearly says 'it's proprietary, we can't tell you.'.

So IBM is accusing someone of stealing from them, but IBM won't disclose to the accused what it is they stole from IBM.
Why is this being taken seriously by anyone?

Can some kind person please do me (and others like me) a favor and explain this whole thing in a way that a 4th grader can understand?
Better yet, include Dick and Jane references and you will be my hero.

Re:Blatant Anti-Microsoft Conspiracy Theory

[Anonymous Coward]

BSD Unix was abandoned by commercial software companies by 1988 -- it is no way "perfectly good" (by commercial standards) and is missing many features found even in Linux.

And your comparison of an OS kernel to FTP.EXE is simply retarded.

Re:Where is Richard Stallman?

[NDPTAL85]

Unacceptable. Richard Stallman is the point man for the GPL. I know RMS also founded the FSF and therefore Eben Moglen could be thought of as his spokesman.

However this is RMS we're talking about here. He didn't just market the GPL, he rammed it down our throats. So I think its more than appropriate to expect him to be more forth-coming in his defense of his PRECIOUS! license.

Re:Where is Richard Stallman?

[NDPTAL85]

No one should give a crap about what I think about RMS. But this website, Slashdot is full of people who are affected by Stallman's opinions either negatively or positively. His silence on this matter is disturbing. The free software community could use RMS's moral support right about now and it is not getting it.

Whether you wish to concede it or not the GPL was rammed down your throat if you use GPL software. Were it not for RMS's inhuman persistence in defending his license and the software that covers it the software you use would be issued under another license. Furthermore we would all have been spared such rambling literature such as "The Cathedral and The Bazaar".

Basically what I am saying is that folks like Eben Moglen represent the cold analytical side of Free Software while RMS represents the Lion Heart. This battle so far has no heart. Not a good thing in my personal opinion.