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Attachmate To Retain Novell Unix Copyrights
angry tapir writes "Novell's copyrights for the Unix operating system will remain under Attachmate's control as part of the companies' pending merger, a Novell spokesman has revealed. The confirmation, which came in a terse message posted to Novell's website, seems to rule out questions of whether Unix assets are part of some 882 patents being sold to a Microsoft-led consortium, CPTN Holdings, as part of the deal."
Anyone who uses Linux, BSD, OS X, or any other Unix or Unix-like OS* should care, since the SCO insanity showed that there are numerous bottom-feeders out there who will try to use "owenership of Unix" -- whether or not they actually own it -- as a weapon. It doesn't matter if there's any infringing IP to go after, either; they'll still cause loads of trouble. I have no idea what Attachmate's business practices are like, but Microsoft being able to claim any kind of Unix ownership would be a guaranteed disaster.
*Which, of course, means anyone who uses the internet, even if they don't know it.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Because open source sucks.
He says, on Slashdot, on the web, on the internet ...
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Though I am a long time Microsoft basher (with very good reason) I have to totally disagree with you. A small company with nothing to lose run by a moron (SCO anyone?) is much more likely to try the kind of Hail Mary that any such attempt would constitute. Microsoft, while wrong in many ways, is not that phenomenally stupid. They actually have something to lose, and would be going up against Google, Motorola, HP, IBM, and thousands of other companies single handedly, and even they can't t weather the ill will such a stupid move would garner circa 2011. If it gets in the hands of another Darl McBride, it is still a non-issue, because they are guaranteed to lose, whether you think it is because we are right (which we are of course), or because big money talks. Any way you slice it, worrying about said trademark and who owns it is tantamount to complete foolishness.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Anyone who uses Linux, BSD, OS X, or any other Unix or Unix-like OS* should care, since the SCO insanity showed that there are numerous bottom-feeders out there who will try to use "owenership of Unix" -- whether or not they actually own it -- as a weapon. It doesn't matter if there's any infringing IP to go after, either; they'll still cause loads of trouble. I have no idea what Attachmate's business practices are like, but Microsoft being able to claim any kind of Unix ownership would be a guaranteed disaster.
*Which, of course, means anyone who uses the internet, even if they don't know it.
Why exactly should the BSDs care? They were cleared by the original lawsuit many years ago, and every line of code can be accounted for since as they've been using a version control system every since so that it wouldn't happen again (which is what got Linux in trouble in the first place because a lot of things could not be tracked back to its origins). Logically (which is sadly not the way the world works) if there's a dispute in the BSD code an CVS / SVN "annotate" command can trace it back and things can be cleared up.
Apple's Mac OS X should be similarly clear to a large extent as well, as they've used FreeBSD (as have Isilon, Cisco, etc.).
Solaris should be okay because Sun (when it existed) would get licenses for all of these things to be on the safe / paranoid side. It's why they indemnified their customers, as they were fairly sure they had everything they needed (in so far as even getting a license from Xerox PARC for the GUI AFAIK). I would bet that similar things could be said about AIX and HP-UX, but I don't have as much experience with those.
Properly run organizations can deal with any such Unix IP claim with little to know effort (though it's still a hassle). AFAICT, Linux is the main Unix-y system that has a problem because of a lack of organization, especially on the documentation side of things during its early development.
(This is for copyright and trademark claims of course. Patents are a whole other kettle of fish.)
The issue of copyrights and unix has been taken care of already. Both SCO and Novel released the linux kernel and other parts of the operating system under the GPL. Any claims for copyright infringement are rendered moot. Once those codes were released under the GPL by the "owners" of the copyright then the game is over. Thank you Novel for buying and releasing SUSE under the GPL. (Never thought that I would be glad about anything done by SUSE but there you go....)
This whole "GPL is restrictive compared to the BSD-style licenses" thing seems to be the favourite FUD of the corporate masses now.
It seems to have gained a lot of traction, predictably, because it's true, from a certain point of view.
Yes, the GPL grants you fewer rights than a BSD style license. The most important right that it does not grant you is the right to take the rights of others away by closing the source after you have received it.
So I don't think of GPL as "restrictive" and BSD-style as "permissive". I think of GPL as "freedom-preserving" and BSD as "promiscuous".