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Patents and User Protection In OSS
missing_myself writes "Linux.com has nice summary on 'How major distributions are dealing with potential violations of patents and trademarks, cryptography, packaging proprietary software and consequential damages' from Bruce Byfield (a journalist from OSTG)." From the article: "Slowly, some commercial distributions are taking a different route. In the last few years, indemnification has become an increasingly important issue in FOSS communities, largely because of the SCO-IBM case. Claiming ownership of Unix, SCO alleges that IBM has allowed copyrighted code to pass from System V Unix to GNU/Linux. Although no evidence has been released and the trial is not scheduled until February 26, 2007, the issues in the case have made both commercial and community FOSS participants reevaluate their practices."
Well, the reason spyare companies get away scot-free, I think, is because the people in charge of making the laws don't really fully understand the problem. Well, that and they're really too busy trying to kill one another and fighting over political affiliations.
I know windows won't let me use the OS in every way I want. For example, they have DRM that is enforced, DVD players under windows can lock you into a region. A friend had a linux laptop that was not locked into any region.
Is Linux going to start doing the same thing as windows? Are the major distros worried about being sued?
There are way too many lawyers in the USA. I bet if someone did a study, they would find just about everyone will be sued at least once in their life. Too bad it is not like the old days of PC computers when software companies made good money and left users alone. But ever since software companies stopped selling software and started selling services, they now are going after users. I guess selling software once for $50 is not as profitable as activating software on a monthly fee of $12.95. Take the RPG of the 80's and compare them to the games of today. :( If they had open networks, it would be like the 80's, but companies see a way of making more money.
For that matter, another horrific flaw in the American system is that trials are not bidirectional.
Let's say an evil villain accused you of killing someone. You turned around and said to the Judge, "But Your Honor, HE killed people! I didn't!" The Judge would say "We aren't here to discuss him. He's not the one on trial."
In the real world, this sort of thing happens all the time. Scummy individuals (or, more often, scummy companies) take innocent people (or companies) to court on BS charges, and at the end of it all-- after the "good guys" waste so much time and money fighting said BS charges-- the BEST they can hope for is essentially "Yeah, you're innocent. Bye now, you're free to go."
That's it. That's what the "good guys" get for their destroyed finances and personal lives.
Even a "loser pays" system wouldn't fix this (and, in fact, in practice a "loser pays" system would probably just end up benefiting the rich "bad guys" anyhow, as they could use it to bankrupt, say, single mothers whose kids allegedly warezed copies of popular music).
I know somone who was taken to court over trumped-up, rubbishy charges... charges of WRONGFUL DEATH at that. Meanwhile, it was her accuser, if anyone, who was responsible for the death. This case destroyed her social life, her health, and her finances. In the end, the bad guys won.
Were it not for IBM's presence (for the moment, at least) among the pantheon of "good guys" as far as this case goes, we wouldn't have a snowball's chance in Hell.
Is there any country whose justice system isn't completely corrupt and bureaucratic and slothful and wasteful and HORRIBLE like ours? This truly makes me sick.
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
Protecting intellectual property is good. Going after old women because someone downloaded a mp3 on thier cable line is bad. Having fees which do not match the crime are bad.
The problem is everyone has become so greedy. It is a cycle. The software companies got greedy, so they pushed the end users around with absurd EULA's. The users got ticked off and pushed back copying and distributing protected materials on P2P networks. Software companies cripled their software and made it call home. Hackers got ticked off and wrote hacks.
My advice to software companies is this: Treat the end user with respect. Why shouldn't an end user be allowed to make one back up copy of their software (for example)?
That's just the tip of the iceberg. Even assuming a speedy trial (perhaps 6 months, if they get a jury/judge that can stay awake through all the technical arguments), then come the appeals. This whole SCO/Linux brouhaha is just a battle of attrition now. It'll be interesting to see who cracks first and when.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
It'll be interesting to see who cracks first and when.
Umm, I think that will be the company who hardly has any money, aka SCO.
"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb."
> Even a "loser pays" system wouldn't fix this [...] , single mothers whose kids allegedly [...]
Um, why not? No matter what, the single mother would be bankrupt anyway. So, the winning side wouldn't profit terribly from getting their share paid.
But should the single mother have a good case, I think even expensive team of lawyers might take an interest in the case based on the term, that provided they win they get payed by the losing side, and get not payed when they lose.
In the current situation, she could practically only go to court, provided the lawyers work pro bono.
"Between strong and weak, between rich and poor [...], it is freedom which oppresses and the law which sets free"
That would only work for big companies (Red Hat, etc.)... and those companies already have patent portfolios to protect themselves with (and as leverage). However, the main problem for most OSS projects is money. Unlike copyright (with free registration), where the GPL can exploit the system to protect OSS, patents are expensive. It takes money to file patents, and it takes (lots of) money to protect your patents.
If you are wondering what the people who post to
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
FOSS does not mean the voluntary contribution of a group of stupid hippies to the business interests of the world.
Welcome back to the Wild West. He who can code, controls the world. We write code. We use code. End of story - Except...
Corporate America has a schizophrenic obsession with the code we write and use. On the one hand, they see something for free and want in. On the other, they see an ENORMOUS threat to everything they stand for, and want us all taken out back and shot.
Well, this time, it doesn't really matter what Corporate America wants. They can play along if they want, but every time they try to play (or buy) the new sheriff in town, they get tarred and feathered and send home crying to mommy that we treated them unfairly. "They broke my pathetically weak DRM! They won't let me root their PCs! Make them play fair, Un'ca Sam!"
Patents? What do the distros do about it? The "real" distros, by which I mean those that don't have shareholders to answer to, do nothing. And if they buckle, someone else will come along to replace them - Once you know how, it doesn't take much to "roll your own" distro (I say that as someone who has done it... granted, maintaining one, with active users, takes a lot of free time).
So stop Asking Slashdot what horrors will befall us when the festering patent dungheap hits the cool-breeze-blowing fan of Open Source. Because the fan gets a little dirty, and keeps right on spinning, while those flinging the feces get covered in shit.
Indeed. Setting up defense funds for indemnification isn't going to solve the problem. While the patent system itself is broken and needs to be fixed, a better short term use of those funds would be to throw it into resources to review and challenge as many patents as possible. This needs to be a two-pronged attack - one, to sift through all of the published applications and challenge them before they get issued, and two, to sift through existing patents that clearly should have failed on whatever grounds.
Anybody can file an anonymous protest against a patent application before it issues, so all it takes is assigning people to read the apps and make the challenges. Companies taking out "defensive patents" are missing the point, filing for new junk patents to defend against other junk patents only makes the problem worse. Those patent lawyers ought to be earning their money invalidating junk patents, not filing new ones.
-- *My* journal is more interesting than *yours*...
All of your other examples are of things that have happened, only with a new level of damage. How do you underwrite an entirely new category of risk?
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"