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SCO Caught Copying
linuxwrangler writes "While accusing everyone else of copying "their" code, SCO has meanwhile been caught copying documentation. In fact they copied several chapters of the Book of Webmin directly into their online documentation. While the book is available online, it is not licensed for redistribution. Details are sparse but it appears that SCO had to pay the publisher for using the material."
Things are awfully silent around SCO lately...Cat got Darl's tongue?
Hate me!
They paid after the fact to settle the copyright violation. Same as you paying for a speeding ticket because you did bad.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
Because, if you RTFA you will notice the words "copyright infringement settlement." In other words, they took without authorization first, got caught, then paid.
The irony here is palpable. Not that we expected anything more. Aren't there suspicions that their "Linux Kernel Personality" is a direct Linux ripoff as well?
Error 404 - Sig Not Found
So if they paid the publisher for the documentation, why is this even a story?
/. summary.
Because the were stealing, and like... not respecting the inviolable rights of someone else to not have their stuff pinched.
If they paid, then in exchange for the money they got a non-public license to redistribute the content.
If they didn't pay and get a proper deal, then they stole.
That's a huge difference that isn't clear in the
You know, I swear that posts are going up faster and faster. I clicked, wrote a quick reply, and when I check, there are 6 other posts saying exactly the same thing as mine.
That'll teach me to be baited in such a blatant way by a question that is so clearly not intended to be replied to.
Just so that I don't come off sounding rediculous or offtopic, let me say something that is original.
SCO as an organization didn't do this. One lazy person or group which was supposed to write documentation decided not to write their own. It may be that we can take this as a compliment to the Book of Webmin. It was so well written that SCO couldn't even improve upon it... wait... is that a compliment?
But SCO did put their money where their mouth is. They copied text, waited for someone to notice, then paid up without a court order. That's pretty much the way most businesses work.
Post: Sigged, for your pleasure.
How many times do we have to tell you people - copyright infringement ISN'T STEALING no matter who does it.
True, however here it did not sound like there was a question of who owned the infringed upon text, it was a clear-cut case of copyright infringement, SCO realized that and paid up.
In the SCO vs World case, the ownership issue is still one that will need to be settled before most of the cases can go anywhere. Expect that if the courts rule that SCO does in fact own the code that they claim to, that plenty of companies with little prompting will pay up.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The problem is, they passed the point of no return a while back.
If SCO gives up, they have lost and will go out of business rather quickly. They are not going to be able to settle so easily with IBM because IBM's out for blood.
If SCO plods on, they are most likely to lose. But there's some chance for them to win.
It's also the case that, even if they aren't doing a pump-n-dump on the stock, they are still getting paid huge amounts of money and will continue to do so as long as the company is a operating concern. If they give up, that happens relatively quickly. If they plod along, as long as they can avoid a ruling, they can still get paid.
Gentoo Sucks
The world does not need convincing, the courts do. Popular opinion is not what sways a judge, facts do.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
I wouldn't necessarily assume that.
If IBM wanted this over, they'd have paid off SCO at the start and never let this hit the public media.
No, IBM's business at this point relies upon their ability to ship commercially-supported army-of-consultants software on free operating systems (i.e. Linux). This, more than anything else, is why IBM has helped out Linux. Good feeling among geeks doesn't pay the bills, but competitive advantages do.
If IBM wins, they won't have to worry about anybody else trying to pull a similar stunt in the future. If IBM were to have settled, others might try to do the same sort of racket with them down the road. It also wouldn't prevent SCO from suing other Linux vendors, which also hurts IBM's chances in the Linux market.
Gentoo Sucks
Wow, that's a very thorough complaint. What worries me, though, is all of the focus on conspiracy theories. A lot of the material in the complaint is slam-dunk, send SCO executives to jail material. But a lot of it is tin-foil-hat conjecture. And I hope it doesn't get dismissed because of such.
Yes, SCO was caught violating copyright. Is there any company in the world that doesn't do this, on occasion, by accident, or because some employee pretends he wrote something he didn't? I doubt it.
The test of respecting the copyright, however, isn't *never* violating one, but fixing it when you realize you have. SCO did exactly what it should have, here, and both parties are perfectly satisfied with the result, I should think. SCO's quick action shows that they are eager to demonstrate how much they respect copyrights of others.
Does any of this mean SCO's suit is more or less merited? No, of course not. Does this infringement make them hypocrites? Not unless those filing the lawsuits sanctioned this infringment.
Now, the one point that someone made which has some validity is that SCO is hypcritical to suggest that Linux's review process is tainted, when they themselves are unable to review sufficiently to avoid infringement. SCO has no business complaining about the review process of any software if they cannot guarantee their products are 100% clean (and no one can, of course). SCO has made that argument to make Linux sound out of control and "scary," but it is not really a legal argument, just a tactic.
Like SCO's documentation, Linux is open for review at any time by anyone. Like SCO's documentation, if something infringing is in Linux, it is likely to be noticed by the copyright holder. SCO is saying that they have noticed such a thing, but unfortunately isn't able to point it out. That is what makes this documentation case so cut-and-dry, and the Linux one so out of control.
Personally, I think SCO should put up or shut up...but the fact that they were caught infringing, and made amends doesn't do anything to the validity of their suit. From their point of view (assuming they actually believe there is infringement), they are just asking for the same treatment they offered here.
-Dan
It goes like this.
Good person:
1) Pay for content
2) Get content.
Bad person:
1) Get content.
2) if (Gets_Caught())
Pay_For_Content();
else
Never_Pay();
The point is, they likely wouldn't have paid if they didn't get caught, and they still broke the law. Do you say everything's ok and you're just like a normal, honest citizen after you've served your 4 years in jail for auto theft, or do you have a GTA record?
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Was that SCO, like the RIAA, is further evidence that you can tell alot about the misdeeds of an organization based on the wild accusations that they make against everybody in the world.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
The reason SCO acted so quickly wasn't because they respect other peoples copyrights, since they obviously didn't check before ripping this material off.
It's simply that to do otherwise given their current legal shenanigans would have been foolish.
There's no honour involved, just cold calculation of the lawyer variety.
oh brave new world, that has such people in it!