OSDL Releases New Paper on SCO's Claims

Ridgelift writes "The Open Source Development Labs have released a paper entitled SCO: Without Fear and Without Research [PDF, HTML version at the FSF] where Eben Moglen debunks SCO's claims to copyright infringement, and also discusses how they contradict themselves by citing that the GPL is both invalid and provides them legal protection. More information at the OSDL site and via an Internet.com article."

Comments

Is there any kind of timeline for the cases?

[elfuq]

From Gartner's comments last week, it becomes clear that SCO's claims, press-releases and lawsuits are damaging the adoption of Linux, in the short-term, in corporate environments. I believe that is, partially, what RedHat's case against SCO is about.

So when do we expect that axe to fall? With the IBM case going into Oral arguments next month? Is there not anyway that this process can be accelerated by one of the judges, so that this hideous trainwreck can be put to bed.

Though Slashdot may not have anything to publish if there wan't a faily SCO story.

Mindless activity on SCO's part...

[Sheetrock]

or is there a method to their madness?

They've kept the Open Source world on the defensive. They experience consistent gains in the stock every time they announce a new initiative in their war on Free Software. They've been able to keep this going for far longer than I would have thought possible, and if this gets to trial the potential is there that they will prevail.

Who would have thought litigation was a way of making a living off of Free Software? I don't like what they're doing, but I have to confess my opinion of their strategy has changed. Fortunately, the rabid response they no doubt expected to provoke from the Open Source community hasn't manifested itself; I've been quite impressed with the professionalism and quality of the response as well. Keep posting these stories... we just can't get enough SCO.

is this argument conclusive?

[qcomp]

SCO's legal situation contains an inherent contradiction. SCO claims [...] that the Linux program contains material over which SCO holds copyright. It also has brought trade secret claims against IBM, alleging that IBM contributed material covered by non-disclosure licenses or agreements to the Linux kernel. But it has distributed and continues to distribute Linux under GPL. It has therefore published its supposed trade secrets and copyrighted material, under a license that gives everyone permission to copy, modify, and redistribute.

I am not sure I follow this argument: Is it obvious (or known) that the code that SCO has distributed contains everything that, say, a RHAT distribution contains? Or could it (in principle) be that SCO's distro (old and unkempt as it is ;-) does not contain the "infringing" pieces while other distributions do?
Similarly, has SCO distributed all of IBM's contributions to Linux (thus necessarily including the alleged trade secrets)?

Thanks.

What happened during the weekend?

[Serious Simon]

Hey, did I miss some bad news for SCO? SCO stock jumped from 14$ to 16$.

Turning around to bite them in the ass

[Avatar889]

Quoting the paper posted in the original article: "Unless SCO can show that the GPL is
a valid form of permission, and that it has never violated that permission's
terms, it loses the counterclaim, and should be answerable in damages not
only to IBM but to all kernel contributors."

Could this eventually be used to force SCO to pay kernel contributors because SCO was in fact infringing on their GPL'ed code?

Re:SCO is a rebel

[BuckaBooBob]

SCO is a bit more like RAMBUS was.. Other than RAMBUS had some legal legs to stand on... Wheres RAMBUS now ?

Mainstream media oblivious- why?

[l8apex]

To what degree is the mainstream media reviewing reports like this recent one from OSDL? If they are, they're certainly not reporting it. It's looking pretty biased to me!

...There's a chance for more "dramatic gains in the SCO stock price"

...The ability to yank one million lines of code out of five million is substantial; Investors seem to believe that SCO's suit has merit

So, to the average investor, SCO's claim that they matched 1 out of 5 million lines of code in Linux is pretty damning evidence.. whereas domain experts like us can easily see through these lies. Hopefully this comes to light in the courts, 'cause people like us are certainly screaming in a vacuum right now!

I'm thinking that the the financial/business media is leaning towards SCO side since SCO represents a more conventional corporate america, and Linux / GPL threatens that model?

Re:SCO is a rebel

[pjrc]

The question is, will anyone remember SCO in 5 years

This is a question best answered with another question...

Does anyone remember Della Croce, who falsely registered the trademark "linux" and attempted to extort licensing fees from the various companies who were selling cdroms (back then, many people purchased cdrom rather than downloaded ISOs).

At the time, it seems to drag on forever. Ultimately, the patent and trademark office assigned ownership of the registered "linux" trademark to Linus Torvalds.

In 6-7 years from now (based on the assumption SCO will lose or implode in 2004 or 2005), SCO will probably be a long distant memory, and the result will be absolutely no doubt about the validity of the GPL and openness which allows infrigements to be seen... just as today there is absolutely no doubt about the trademark, all thanks to the unscrupulous efforts (now mostly forgotten) Della Croce.