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SCO Includes OS Products In OpenServer 6
William Robinson writes "In a bid to be friendly with Open Source, SCO has included 7 OS products in their Unix product. Among the included packages are MySQL, PostgreSQL, Samba, Apache, Tomcat, and FireFox. SCO's position is consistent, spokesman Blake Stowell argued. 'We don't necessarily have issues with open source, we just have an issue with open-source technology that includes intellectual property it shouldn't' he said."
From Groklaw:
So, yes. Their position on the GPL is completely consistant. i.e. The GPL is invalid, therefore they can take and redistribute all the software they want without any reprocussions from copyright law. They're wrong, but at least they're consistent. (In a twisted, "believe what I want you to believe," sort of way.)
P.S. Shouldn't this be under YRO or general articles instead of Apache?
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
I know there was never much doubt, but IIRC one of SCO's arguments was that the GPL was invalid.
I am trolling
that they've checked those projects for infriging intellectual property too and certify it's clean?
Interesting, I wondered who would still be throwing money at SCO. I believe I've spent my last dollar at McDonalds. I don't want to support a company that's still supporting SCO.
"It's too bad stupidity isn't painful." - A. S. LaVey
SCO has very publically disclaimed the GPL. Letters to congress, letters to fortune 1500, and in sworn statements in court.
"The GPL violates the U.S. Constitution, together with copyright, antitrust and export control laws, and IBM's claims based thereon, or related thereto, are barred."
Given this position, isn't there standing for a contributor to actually litigate the validity of the GPL? You've got a company that has disclaimed the GPL, but still uses the software.
That's not the way it works, you can't have it both ways. Either you agree to play fair, or you have to create your own software, not take others.
And of course, the PR spin on this being "consistent" is hillarious.
Uhm, that's not "being friendly." That's taking advantage of the IP of programmers that they're trying to demonize.
It's not an attempt at bridge building. It's a reflection of their desperate need for Open Source in order to offer ANYTHING worth using with their OS.
It's a clear statement that they consider Open Source to be code that they can use for whatever they want, but no one else should be allowed to use.
It'd be like FedEx trying to keep UPS from using the US highway system.
It's not trying to be nice to Open Source. OSS doesn't need any boned from the SCO jackal. They're trying to continue to take advantage of Open Source even as they try every legal trick they can think of too hurt it.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
Shouldn't the people behind these open source products demand a licensing fee (say..$699 per copy) for SCO using their products? Because SCO does not believe in the GPL, but some of these products (like MySQL) have other licenses.
It seems only fair that SCO should fork over the cash, I'm sure their lawyers and accountants would understand.
Actually, there are still quite a few SCO users left. Most of those that aren't completely ignorant (though there are those) are either "stuck" because their app doesn't run on anything but SCO or because while they could switch to Linux, relicensing costs for their app are too high or redevelopment is too difficult.
I have been involved in quite a few switchovers for former SCO clients, and not all were particularly smooth, though all have been succesful. It's the stupid little stuff that bites you - slight syntax differences in shell scripts, path differences, that kind of thing. The easiest are the ones where all they have is one app and don't use it for anything else, but even those can have little gotchas.
I find that it's easiest to persuade a switch when the hardware and OS plainly have to be upgraded anyway, but I do constantly warn the SCO users that they need to be prepared to switch even if they don't want to - the funny thing is that those who take that advice and put up a Linux box "just for testing" have ended up switching more quickly than they or I thought they would.
Other folks are mired more deeply and would have to buy entirely new application software to move off SCO. Often these are people with marginal businesses or tight profit margins; they didn't move to better software years ago because they couldn't afford to. So they are very, very stuck: the cost of a switch is more than they could bear.
I suppose somewhere there may be some die hard person who really thinks they should stay with SCO because it's "better". I doubt there are many of those left, but once in a while I do hear someone wistfully comment on how "reliable" their SCO has been. But even those folks seem to understand that it's time to move on..
Interestingly, one of the holdouts who as recently as 90 days ago insisted on sticking it out called me this morning to discuss planning a transition. He *could* do Windows, but is adamantly opposed, so it will be Linux. One more down, but still plenty to go.
-- Tony Lawrence
Since SCO is on record in various court-filed documents as NOT believing the GPL to be valid, one has to wonder how they go about distributing software that's licensed under the GPL.
If the software is GPL'd, but they don't believe the license to be valid - then how do they go about distributing someone else's code w/o any license? It's my understanding that the code is automatically copyrighted by the author unless the author grants some other rights to users, such as under the GPL; so that should mean that if they don't accept the license that the author released it under (GPL) that it's still copyrighted by the author, and SCO would have to go to the author for a license to distribute.
Given the trouble they've caused everyone with their temper-tantrums over the past few years, if I were mySQL - I'd say "ummm, no thanks. We'll pass on allowing you to distribute our stuff if you don't want to do it under the GPL. And by the way, we need you to sign a document under penalty of perjury that you accept the license we offer (GPL) in it's entireity, and agree not to dispute any portion of it in perpetuity, and to indenify, protect, and defend us against any and all claims as may come relating to said license..."...
basically toss it right back at 'em...
And finally - can we get rid of this half-assed "confirm you're not a script" crap... most of them are an absolute bitch to make out.