Some Linux Users Violate Sarbanes-Oxley

Goyuix writes "According to the IT Observer, publicly owned companies who are using Linux, could be violating the federal securities laws as part of Sarbanes-Oxley. The article goes on to say that companies are required to "disclose ownership of intellectual property to their shareholders." How are these companies supposed to really list out all the IP owners if they were to install a full desktop or server environment - there could be literally thousands of parties listed! What are the current Fortune 500 companies doing, as many of those use Linux in one form or another?" update several people have pointed out that this is about companies who are violating the GPL, not everyone.

Comments

Not just Linux

[balster neb]

It appears that this would apply to any free software, not just Linux. It would apply to at least all GPL'd software, including gcc, etc.

Ownership != utilization

[SIGALRM]

companies are required to "disclose ownership of intellectual property to their shareholders." How are these companies supposed to really list out all the IP owners if they were to install a full desktop or server environment - there could be literally thousands of parties listed!

There's a big difference between ownership and utilization. For example, if McDonalds employs the use of WinXP workstations in their facilities, that does not mean that they own, but instead license Microsoft's IP.

Yum yum yum, I love FUD

[MoxFulder]

The title of the post is pure FUD, "Some Linux Users Violate Sarbanes-Oxley!!! TFA is only slightly better...

Why stop at Linux, or free software in general? If a company makes an embedded device that uses a pirated copy of a proprietary RTOS, that would violate the Sarbanes-Oxley law too.

This seems to me a fundamentally good law (at least this provision): companies must not claim to have rights to use or distribute software, unless they actually do have those rights!

So why is anyone linking this provision to Linux?????? The only reason is because it's easy to get Linux for free, so incompetent people think they can do whatever they want with it. No one would make the same mistake with Microsoft software, simply because it's wrapped in a menacing 10 page EULA.