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IBM Moves To Enforce GPL By Summary Judgement
gvc writes "So much for the GPL 'never being tested in court.' IBM, in its third motion for summary judgement against SCO, is seeking a permanent injunction against SCO's distribution of Linux, on the grounds that SCO has renounced and violated the GPL, and therefore has no right to distribute the 700,000 lines of IBM-copyrighted code therein. As usual, Groklaw broke the story." We previously reported on another IBM summary judgement from earlier this week.
Well if IBM get their judgement this could be just about the best news for free software since GNU started.
It's certainkly worth the trauma of the last year to get the GPL publicly upheld in court.
Here's three cheers for IBM (and SCO;-).
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
I only hope a difinitive judgement will be issued to answer the (legal) question of the GPL once and for all. IIRC, the question of the GPL has been brought up before but has always been settled out of court.
Since the GPL has never really been tested in court (that I know of) it will be interesting to see how it is disassembled and twisted by the SCO lawyers to become ineffective.
IBM has a decent case, it brings to mind the image of a kitten poking at a Rotty.
The GPL is well written enough, it should stand up in court, even against SCO.
At least, I hope it will, or else we have a whole new battle on our hands...
Remember, if the the court finds the GPL to be invalid, regular copyright law takes effect and IBM can sue SCO for copyright infringement over the IBM-written code in Linux. The court may not have a position on the GPL yet, but it certainly understands copyright.
Vino, gyno, and techno -Bruce Sterling
SCO said their code is in Linux, files motion (breaks GPL) and now it is found that SCO has been illegally distributing IBM's code without licence (as the GPL has been invalidated).
If IBM's motion is successful this would open the door for IBM to sue SCO for the breach!
Rest assured, they are _not_ doing it for the warm fuzzy feeling you get by doing something nice. OSS and GNU/Linux are part of their business strategy. They are in it for the money. That they happen to help us geeks is certainly nice, but at the end of the day, Linux and such would survive anyway.
But if you really want to get them something fitting, how about some code?
"I think it would be a good idea" Gandhi, on Western Civilisation
In the end the big corporate winner of this story will be IBM. By first been a victim and then a defender and hero of the GPL they achieved the impossible: Removing the virtual big "EVIL" tattoo from their forehead and replacing it by the "GOOD KARMA" one.
Yahh, hiii haaaaa! -Major Kong, from Dr. Strangelove
Fortunately, because of the GPL, globalisation and the internet, GNU/Linux or some other functionally equivalent free OS will tend to survive, even if in the future IBM (for good business reasons) decides to change its stance.
Bitching aside, it is nice to have a real OVC (Original Villainous Company - IBM) show these wanna-bes how it's done.
US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
How 'bout a name change: GNU/SCOUnix! GNU/Openserver Cool.
More seriously, I'm starting to think it should be called GNU/Linux not so much because of Stallman's contributions of lots of user mode software, but rather in honor of his brilliance of the GPL. No matter what people say about RMS, the GPL is beautiful.
Note that this IBM move wouldn't work with the BSD license. To a large extent I think the GPL is a big part of the reason why Linux seems to havae more momentum than BSD. Companies like RedHat, IBM, Tivo, Linksys etc seem far more likely to "give back" to Linux; meaning a bigger pool of contributors.
If this works, I'll switch from thinking GNU/Linux is a silly name to thinking RMS deserves it for his legal brilliance that he foresaw long before anyone thought it might be important.
Next time you are in the market for linux server, use IBM hardware. That's what my company has done. The IBM hardware is rock solid so you're doing yourself a favour at the same time.
Will.
I hate to double reply, but I can't edit my previous post.
SCO is breaching the GPL. Remember how you could buy a license for Linux, but you could not redistribute it? That's a GPL no no.
Thanks to those few who signed a legally binding contract for SCO/Linux licenses, there is concrete proof that SCO is distributing Linux illegally.
If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. - James Madison
Years ago, my then boss remarked that operating system software should be like the sewage system: only noticed on the rare occasions it fails. The sewage system is, in effect, Open Source: anyone can read the rules for designing it, and anyone who follows the rules can connect to it. They will have to pay to dispose of waste through it, but that's another matter. What they pay in taxes is the cost of provision, not an IP tax to the person who designed the system in the first placed.
Equally, anyone can read the plumbing codes. I don't have to pay a fee for intellectual property to Home Depot every time I want to put a shower in, or connect two pipe lengths.
On the other hand, Home Depot makes good money, and highly skilled plumbers installing big shower rooms do very nicely, thank you.
So I think this is where IBM wants to be. IBM wants, in effect, to put in really big and impressive bathrooms. It's easier to do this if someone else, who hardly has to be thought about, is taking care of the water supply and the sewage. It makes sense to give away some of your knowledge of infrastructure, because others will build on it and make your life easier.
I apologise (a bit) for the extended metaphor, but I think my understanding of the basic economics is right. SCO builds high priced sewage pipes and charges a premium for knowing how to do it. They also want everybody else who digs holes in the ground to pay them a tax. In doing this, they are trying to backflow (sorry) against the entire trend of technology development. IBM, in classic Adam Smith mode, look to their own advantage but, without intending to, benefit everybody.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
When they started trying to charge people $699 for using code they've been distributing themselves under the GPL for years, you don't think that was maybe a breach of some kind?
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
It's not just Darl's mouth. They said in court that the GPL is not valid. That's very important. By actually filing papers in court disputing the validity of the GPL SCO (the corporation) put themselves into a bind. There are only two possibilities here.
1) GPL is valid. If this is the case then MS just wasted all the money they funneled to SCO.
2) GPL is not valid and therefore SCO has no right to distribute IBM code. If the judge rules that the GPL is not valid then this would in all likelyhood make all EULAS invalid and that would be a happy day indeed.
You notice I said IBM code not samba, gimp or whatever. IBM is suing about IBM code was released under the GPL.
The case seems pretty open and shut to me but then again IANAL. In fact the more learn about the US legal system more bewildered and disgusted I get. How long has this suit been going on and they haven't even held a trial yet.
evil is as evil does
If you read the MSJ closely, IBM is actually saying: (emphasis added)
So this isn't really about the GPL--it's a simple copyright infringement issue. They're saying to the judge, "we own this code and SCO is distributing it without permission, so stop them".
On the other hand, they do go on to add:
So if SCO is going to mount a defense to this MSJ, they'll have to argue for the GPL, essentially countering their own earlier claims that the GPL is invalid and forcing them to tell the judge "uh, we were wrong". This isn't about IBM "testing" the GPL, it's about them grabbing two big boulders and squishing SCO between them. (:
If the GPL did end up being ruled on by the judge, about the only ruling I could see is that the GPL is valid and therefore SCO has not infringed IBM's copyrights--but IANAL, so what do I know?
"Still... I'm suspicious enough to wonder what their long-term (10+ year) plan for linux really is..."
Easy.
Here are the high points.
By making the operating system and other software open source you undercut MS. Less money MS has the less they can boss you around.
You concentrate on making good hardware especially mainframes where you are a market leader.
By boosting linux which can run on many platforms you undercut Intel and thereby giving your chip division chance to compete.
Continue to build up your services division because open source software needs lots of support.
Profit!!
Pretty simple actually.
evil is as evil does
IBM tried their best to stop clones. Eventually they were reverse-engineered, but they certainly didn't go willingly into the "IBM-compatible" era.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I more or less agree with the principle of what you've said, but I'm not sure if this is a great example. Even if you and your landlord have never been to court, chances are that the lease agreement is either a clone or a very close copy of a standard and legally scrutinised agreement. It's likely that a similar template agreement has been used in thousands or more lease agreements, and probably that template has been tested in court many many times already.
Although the GPL is clear, concise and (we would hope) very straightforward, it's still out on it's own to a large extent. It's quite a different way of doing things from any software agreements that came before it (to the best of my knowledge, anyway), and it hasn't been tested. There seems to be quite an incentive to have it tested in court, too, if only to silence the people who might publicly dispute its validity for their own reasons.
But "robust" doesn't mean what "vigorous" means. The latter just means they are trying hard (to counter-claim), but the former includes Forbes' judgment that the counter-claim is solid.
:)
And those are very different. Yes, the whole article was pretty neutral, but it was just poor word choice, Forbes should be more careful with the opening remarks (because those are what most people read/remember)...
But I find it sligthly difficult to accept your explanation, even though I'm not with the tinfoil hatters. Forbes must have considered SCO's response as "robust" (rugged, durable) and I can't understand how's that.
Ah well, nobody browses at "0" anyway so don't mind an AC challenging your view
Calling the GPL an exception would be far more misleading IMHO. The GPL does not void copyright or exempt you from it. You are still subject to copyright law, but you are given permission to exceed what copyright law would normally allow; it's the GNU Copyright Extension, perhaps, rather than Exception, as it adds to your rights rather than taking away from them.
Your agreement with PJ consists of PJ allowing you to do something (copy one of her posts) that ou would not otherwise be allowed to do - in other words, she's giving you licence (or permission) to do so.
SCO's error has been that they *did* treat the GPL as an exception, thinking that it acted to erase copyrights somehow while adding a couple of conditions - and that voiding the GPL eliminated the conditions and left the code copyright-free. IBM is now demonstrating to them the errors in this interpretation. :-)
Still, it's definitely a puzzler why SCO continued to distribute Linux while claiming that the GPL was invalid.
(Incidentally, I notice Forbes now has an article giving SCO's "reply", which essentially pushes SCO's own dubious views concerning what a "derived work" comprises. Basically it looks like a SCO press release... not unusual for Forbes when it comes to the SCO/IBM case.)
In accusing IBM of copyright infringment, while being extremly sketchy on what was being infringed, SCO is now accused of infringing on IBM's copyrights. The only difference is IBM can pinpoint the code they own.
Who the hell at SCO _ever_ thought this would be anything but a disaster?
The major distinctions being: EULAs are generally "compulsory", in that you must agree to them simply to use the software (using the software, by itself, is a fair use right, so your rights are immediately curtailed), and EULAs usually place limitations on how you can use the software and what you may do to back the software up, usually giving you less rights than you started with.
People read the GPL like it's an EULA, but it isn't. The GPL basically says "Ok, you weren't allowed to do this, that, and the other, but we're going to let you do this and that." An EULA reads more like "You were able to do this, that, and the other, but we don't like that, so from now on you can only do this and the other, not that, and even then, when you do the other, you can only do it like ...".
The point I'm making is that simply because a license might get legally enforced or struck down, doesn't mean that License Agreements will be likewise. I'd say the odds are in favour of the GPL being held up, because it would be an obvious restriction of an artist's rights if it wasn't, but EULA's are another matter because they impose upon consumers and take rights away, and that should, when coupled with basic "First Sale Doctrine" type precendents, make them invalid in most cases.
Disclaimer: IANAL, but I do read Slashdot, and that's almost as good, right?
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.