Linus Corrects Darl on Copyright Law

cybermancer writes "ITWorld.com has a rebuttal by Linus Torvalds to Darl McBride's latest FUD on copyrights and Open Source. In a nutshell Darl states "SCO asserts that the GPL, under which Linux is distributed, violates the United States Constitution and the U.S. copyright and patent laws" and Linus points out that "the notion that the GPL has, of "exchange of receipt of copyrighted works," is actually explicitly encoded in U.S. copyright law". With Linus of course providing a link allowing the reader to see the law for themselves."

Comments

Excellent..

[herrvinny]

Darl said in his letter that this was only the first of many letters... Is Darl going to try and rebutt Linus' statement in the next letter, or is he going to go spread more FUD?

Re:Excellent..

[Surt]

The better strategy from Darl's point of view will be to rebut something that is not Linus' argument at all.

For example, darl might rebut as follows:

Linus must be crazy to think that the united states can be overthrown from within by a bunch of poorly funded communists!

Attacking off topic is generally much more effective in the public forum than actually debating your opponent.

Linus is guilty of the same sin as Darl

[boxless]

Everyone blasted Darl last week for his challenging use of the english language.

To be fair, I must say that Linus's piece is not very cogent, either. At the end of it, I'm left wondering what he's really trying to say. Is he saying that Darl is right (in a sense), that copyright does require profit motive, but the GPL has it because people are exchanging copyrights? On one level, that seems to agree with Darl, doesn't it?

I'm confused. I think Linus should leave this one to all those EFF lawyers.

Re:Linus is guilty of the same sin as Darl

[Dashing Leech]

To be fair, I must say that Linus's piece is not very cogent, either.

It seems you aren't a very experienced debater or in logical argument construction. If your "opponent" has stated a list of bad premises and reached a bad conclusions, the worst thing you could do is attack all of the premises and conclusions at once. That confuses the issues.

What Linus has done here is pretty close to the right way to make the counter-argument. First, accept all of Darl's premises for the moment, that a "profit-motive" is required, and demonstrate how the GPL meets those premises. If Linus had explicitly attacked the "profit-motive" premise and his conclusions relied on this attack, the arguement would then turn into one about "profit-motive", not the validity of the GPL.

What Linus did was say, "OK, lets assume your premises are true, then the GPL meets all of your premise requirements and hence the proper conclusion is that the GPL is valid." This makes the argument very clear and concise and keeps it on the topic (validity of the GPL). If Darl can make a convincing argument about why the GPL does not meet his premises, then that's the time to attack the premises. You should always work backwards in an argument, starting from the conclusion.

That being said, Linus did partially attack Darl's premise on "profit-motive", using the public university example. (Essentially, the arguement is that profit is a possible motive for progress, but not a required one.) I think Linus' university argument would have been better if he had attacked the premises after the conclusion, and do it more thorougly that the simple example given or don't do it at all. It's a good example, but he doesn't explicitly state what is wrong with Darl's premise, just an example in which it does apply.

maybe they aren't smoking crack

[meatbridge]

does anyone else think these sco guys are just releasing all these inflamatory statements just to bait the leaders of the oss movement. playing on their passions to force them to make comments that will eventually be used against them in court?

other news

[daniel23]

While the front page article looks like some one just felt the need to show the caldera icon once more there seem to be interesting things happening at SCO, apparently some of the investors are not that happy with the current state of events:

SCO Finalizes Agreements With Investors and Law Firms

and...

Santa Claus Operation

A new look for SCO - not supreme but funny enough to take a look.
sco_christmas

Call me an anarchist, but-

[subjectstorm]

isn't government, at best, just a necessary evil?

Linus makes an excellent case for the legality of the GPL under the constitution as it stands, but who's to say that the constitution, in its current incarnation, is anywhere close to adequate? What if, for once, Darl actually got something right and the constitution DID say that copyrights REQUIRED a pure profit motive? What sense is there in enforcing an antiquated law if the result of that action ran contrary to the best interest of society, progress, or just general common sense?

I mean, fundamentally speaking, all governments begin with the purest form of democracy - a person or group of persons decide what is in their best interest and then act upon that decision. It is only later, when a group becomes too large to govern itself effectively, that it chooses to allow some other person or group to act on its behalf. There is always choice involved; even dictators would be powerless if their soldiers simply laid down arms and said "screw you buddy".

All i'm saying is that MAYBE we (and by we, i mean "the government") should be debating wether Darl's ideas on copyright are in anyone's best interest other than his OWN rather than trying to decide if he has some shaky, defunct legal leg to stand on.

The constitution is and has always been a dynamic document . . . else women would still be a silent majority.

Re:Rebut or spread more FUD?

[aldousd666]

One has to wonder if maybe Boise et al weren't railroaded into signing up for this case in the first place. They may have thought better if they knew what ground they'd eventually be treading on. Now on the other hand, they may just be greedy lawyers rooting for the bad guys, but in the past Boise has had nothing but a good reputation. Kinda makes you wonder, or at least makes me wonder. Contracts are contracts and there probably is no turning back for the lawyers at this point. (IANAL but then again, most of us aren't so I probably don't really need to put that.)

Re:OK, but the fact is copyrights are still wrong

[Hatta]

Yes, this is important because authors never made any money before copyright. Amazing how with one act of law, whole fields of human endeavour, writing, music, art, finally become worthwhile. Thank you Government, I don't know what we'd do without you.

A Tolkien Response

[buckhead_buddy]

The common (rather than legal) understanding of copyright seems to be what Darl's ghost writer (right-wraith?) is declaring:

"There can only be one Lord of the [Rights]. Only one who can bend others to his will. And he does not share power!"

The fact that there are people who are not succumbing to it's greed and wielding these rights to oppress and profit from the work of others was an unexpected way to defend against the corrupting influence of the instrument of power.

But one should be cautious...

[The GPL] is a gift. A gift to the foes of [Closed Source]! Why not use this [right]? ... Give [the FSF] the weapon of the enemy. Let us use it against him!"

While the SCO menace may be simply a minor diversion (akin to Lurtz) the true menaces may be more corrupting and more difficult to fight.

Defending or defeating attacks from the closed source enemy means a need to unite and to pool the copyrights we each develop individually. But such power placed in any one man is a difficult thing to manage, to defend, and to resist the corrupting greed that arises from it.

Of course there doesn't seem to be much alternative:

• Stay low, hidden in the woods while others feed the corruption of the ruling closed source
• Unmake the power and release all copyright into the public domain. This destroys the corrupting influence, but it strenghthens the enemy as well.
• Continue to weild the GPL until the problems and corrupting influence of the intellectual property system can be worked out and the evil truly unmade.

Sorry, if the above arguments are a bit muddled. I guess I have something else weighing on my mind.

Re:Why do we need to defend the GPL?

[Raphael]

There are several reasons why the GPL is attacked by SCO:

• The main reason is probably because they realized (a bit late) that the GPL forbids them from distributing Linux and at the same time requesting license fees from Linux users. So if the GPL is valid (and it is), then SCO is in big trouble.
• In addition, if the GPL were not valid, SCO would probably be able to steal some code from Linux and put it in SCO UNIX, claiming that they do not have to give anything back because the "share alike" sections of the GPL would not be enforceable. Considering that Linux has several enterprise-grade features that are sorely missing in SCO UNIX, it would be interesting for SCO to be able to get that for free.
• Another reason is that Microsoft is (directly or indirectly) pushing SCO in that direction. They are one of the few companies that gave some substantial amount of money to SCO this year.
• There are probably many other reasons, but that does not really matter because I don't think that SCO stands a chance to convince anybody (especially the judges) that the GPL is invalid.