Slashdot Mirror
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."
Just a side thought, but will SCO even be around anyomre when the trial starts? Even if so they will have little or no money to sustain a case, especially against a giant like IBM who could outspend even MS. My biggest burning question is where does UNIX (the code) go to? Who would inherit SCOs IP? Will UNIX enter the public domain?
I am Spartacus
will SCO even be around anyomre when the trial starts?
Possibly - they did a slash-and-burn on their personnel this summer, and recently (a week or so ago) "persuaded" their investors to chip in $10M to keep them afloat. Assuming their burn rate doesn't change, they might just stick around to see trial.
It all depends on whether Novell gets to take their money - they owe 95% of their "Unix" revenue to Novell (well, technically they owe 100%, and Novell gives them 5% back.) Novell has a motion before the court to get 95% of SCOX's money placed in escrow.
they will have little or no money to sustain a case
They claim that their legal fees are capped, so their lawyers are working for free after their cash is gone (assuming they're (a) telling the truth, and (b) SCOX manages to avoid bankruptcy altogether.)
My biggest burning question is where does UNIX (the code) go to? Who would inherit SCOs IP?
Assuming that SCOX has Unix IP to begin with (their contract with Novell says they don't,) it would be sold to the highest bidder in bankruptcy court, just like any other assets.
Will UNIX enter the public domain?
Probably not - unless someone buys it at their fire-sale and releases it as such. Rumor has it that it might already be public domain, because AT&T released it without copyright attribution (this is hearsay based on the AT&T/Berkely settlement.)
TFA says:
To date, no patent claim has ever been upheld against FOSS, and no individual or corporation has needed indemnification yet.
I think that claim is correct. I don't know of any successful claims against major FOSS projects (does anyone have a reference one way or the other, either showing exhaustively that all cases have been fruitless, or showing counter-examples, where claims were upheld?). Overall it seems somewhat strange to be building in indemnification for something that is still, essentially, theoretical. Isn't that like taking out insurance against alien attack?
I guess it's valid since we do have cases where people were sued (even if the claims were false in the end). So having insurance to cover court costs against frivolous lawsuits is indeed necessary. That, however, to me points to a major flaw in the current legal system: we need insurance to continually financially protect us from frivolous lawsuits. It should be easier to avoid baseless accusations, but it isn't.
I've said it before and I'll say it again - the problem is not the software infringing on patents, it's the fact that software can be patented at all.
All of this software is legal outside of the US, whether there are US patents held on it or not. It is the US patent system that is at fault here, not the software vendors.
The US needs to get its act together, or it will find itself falling behind in homegrown new technology as all the innovative companies move (or stay) overseas.
Bob
Listen to my latest album here
Now, if the open source patent pools could be used offensively, or the Independent Invention Defense were allowed, we'd probably see some action.
Getting patents isn't required as long as they publish their project so that it can be used as prior art against anyone who might come later with an attempt to patent what the OSS project has already done.
Please correct me if I'm mistaken.
*sigh* back to work...
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! ..." The Judge would say "We aren't here to discuss him. He's not the one on trial."
Yes. That's what a trial is supposed to do: sort out one particular issue. If your evil doer committed the murder in question, then that would be relavent. The legal system is intended to be blind to matters of personality, and trials are supposed to rest solely on facts. Things don't work perfectly, of course, but what you're complaing about is a feature--- not a bug.
What about debian that has a seperate non-us mirror for software that's not allowed to distribute in the usa becaues of crypto and patent laws?
Exactly my point (if phrased in a somewhat less extremist manner)! As long as a single country (*cough* Vanuatu *cough*), a single state, a single town, a single pair of people, exists that doesn't feel inclined to play ball with those who would lock our culture away from us and charge us just for a peek, no one can tell us "you can't use XOR because Microsoft owns the patent on it". Or rather, they can tell us until they die from exhaustion, but it won't much matter, because this very much counts as a war of attrition, and while corporations and governments may theoretically live forever, real humans - Well, as Doritos says, "Crunch all you want, we'll make more".
but I don't see on which you base it.
Simple civil disobedience. The fact that most of us look proudly on the Boston tea party, sympathize with the students at Tiennamen Square, root for Robin Hood, cheer on "DVD Jon" (All "evil lawbreakers" in the opinion of our political leaders and corporate masters)... All those serve as proof enough to me that we will eventually "win". It may take the blood of billions, imprisoned and tortured in secret prisons in the name of profit, but freedom has a way of popping up even in the most oppressive of situations.
Even the uncertainty about the legal status of oss
Hmm, I don't think you quite followed my original meaning... The "legal status" doesn't matter one whit in the long term viability of open source.
For laws to matter, you need (at least) two preconditions...
One, which I already mentioned, you need a monopoly on laws. The US doesn't have that. The EU doesn't have that. The UN doesn't have that. I really doubt any single nation will ever truly rule the entire human race for long.
And two: People need to believe in laws for those laws to have any power. Laws very much count as consentual fiction - Take away the "consent" part, and you have nothing but fiction. Case in point, speed limits. Spooky Canadian GPS schemes aside, very few people care much about the posted speed limits. And those who get caught violating once or twice a year pay a pittance of a "sin" tax for the privelage of going faster. Even with so draconian a situation as the "War on (some) Drugs", you have somewhere around a third of the population in open revolt against a set of laws on which the US government (as an aggregate) spends the MAJORITY of its policing budget, yet still fails to do more than waste even more money filling prisons.