A goofball ruling might have IBM handing over a few Bills, but Red Hat would go out of business altogether.
There's a second reason for RedHat to file it's own case against SCO: The SCO/IBM lawsuit is a complicated case that could go on for years. SCO could bury Linux under an avalanche of FUD by then. On the other hand, a lawsuit for declaratory relief could go much faster. In a realatively simple case, RH could simply say:
They've been selling code under the GPL,
They were clearly aware the code they're claiming ownership of as of their filings against IBM,
They were still selling the code as of that date
SCO is willfully frustrating the GPL community's ability to determine which code is supposedly SCO's -- and their CEO has stated that this is because he is afraid that the Linux community would excise such code.
These are the terms of the GPL
We request a declaration that all of the code distributed by SCO as of that date be declared licensed consistent with the GPL.
The nice thing about this is that -- especially if it avoids any contentious facts, it could be ammenable to a summary finding in a few mnths rather than waiting a generation or two for the IBM suit to wind it's way through the courts.
A declaration of GPLization of the code would pretty much absolve Red Hat of any claim by SCO. It might also leave SCO open to suits by Copyright owners of Linux that SCO has been in violation of the GPL by threatening users of that same code
P>With a declaration that Linux is 'clean' visa-vis SCO, those secondary suits can afford to take the more leisurely pace that more commonly follow.
For Transmeta, that 0.1% increase in market share is a 5% increase in sales. Granted it's only significant because their market share is so small, but they definitely have more reason to celebrate than AMD does.
Whether it's full-blown "Property" or not, you can't deny that Microsoft has considerable rights, and thus considerable say, about who can / can't use WindowsXP.
The only rights that Microsoft has via copyright law are the rights to determine how many copies of XP are sold. The so-called 'considerable rights' that microsoft claims to have come from your supposed acceptance of their shrink-wrap license. If you don't agree to their license then they don't have any hold on you...
If, for example, I buy a PC, with a legitimate copy of Windows-XP, I have the right to use that software.. Microsoft can't claim anything from me until and unless I agree in a legally binding way to the extended terms of their contract. If they have a problems with the sale, then they have to go after the seller of the software (for violating the supposed contract, not the buyer (who has the right to buy the CD).
Has Microsoft ever successfully sued someone for buying a used copy of their software from someone? Despite their copious legal bluster, I don't think so.
I've never signed an SCO license, so they don't have any contractual hold on me beyond the GPL. If I go out and sign a 'protective' license with them, then I'm bound by whateve the terms of that license are... and I could end up (like IBM) owing them $1000 every time I break wind.
I'm not stupid, I'm not gullible, and I'm not signing.
So you and your wife are shopping, you drop a pack of blades in your common cart, then you go out to the car.
It's not your wife that's gonna get the third degree. They have a picture of YOU picking up the blades and now you're trying to leave without paying for them.
Prepare to be boarded.
Actually, I'd be inclined to do the 'pick up a razor, and put it down in some random location' thing. Leave them guessing as to where they went.. (as long as you're willing to put up with thw occasional rectal probe when they decide you're stealing.
If you are the user of a Microsoft product, and Microsoft has installed someone else's copyrighted code into their software, the owner of that copyrighted code can claim that you are using their code without a license
The only people who have need to fear violating SCO licenses are people who sign them. Copyright does not control your use of software, only your copying of it -- i.e. As long as a company is buying a copy of Linux from a Linux distributor (RedHat, Suse, etc.) then it is the distributor who risks being in violation of copyright. (because they're the ones making the extra copies).
In other words, this is just a good excuse to make sure that your company gives business to the Linux community.
Microsoft's "rights" to do things like their software 'audits' are a result of the licenses that companies are stupid enough to sign with them.
Stephen King's lawyers can't go waltzing into my house asking me to prove that I have licenses for all of his books... Neither can SCO ask companies to prove that they have the rights to use their software. In the case of Linux, SCO has very little rights at all, unless they have some proof that the company is (a) violating the GPL, and (b) using SCO code.
as most spam seems to be HTML email embedded with webbugs (1x1 image tag pointing at a logging script) so they know your address is valid as soon as you open the email if your client renders HTML.
That's the main reason why I turn off the loading of remote images in email...
for Mozilla: preferences -> Privacy & security -> images -> []Do not load remote images in Mail and Newsgroup messages
In my experience, most legitimate users attach images to their emails. If I get an email which has remote images that I actually want to see, I can always right-click and explicitly view it, or turn the option on for that one message then turn it back off again. (I think I've done that once or twice in the last year)
Can those of us that are independent consultants sue SCO for some sort of cause of action?
If you've ever contributed code to GNU/Linux, then you may have some room to sue them for copyright violation and/or breach of contract (I think you'd defintitely want the legalese version of and/or).
One possible approach (especially for people with copyright interest in Linux code) would be to sue for a declaratory judgement that SCO has no rights to sue people for copyright violation or patent rights to any Linux code that's been distributed by them (or, at the very least, been distributed by them since they "became aware" that the impugned code was in Linux).
I think that one could also include suit for slander/0.
1libel -- especially given what they said in conjunction with their original complaint. [note: you can't sue them for the original lawsuit, itself. Court filings have some sort of limited immunity against libel laws, but what they say outside the courtroom -- especially in press releases, et al. is potentially legally actionable].
I think that any such action should also include an injunction against them extorting companies for payments to prtect themselves against such actions.
The basis of the action would be that SCO is clearly now aware of the impugned violations, but they have not only continued to distribtute that impugned code under the GPL -- they have wilfully frustrated attempts to determine precisely what code is supposedly in violation (which would allow it's removal from the public code).
In frustrating attempts to determine which code could be removed to place Linux into compliance with any claimed copyright and/or patent rights, SCO is not only condoning the continued distribution of that code -- they are effectively forcing it's continued distribution. They are now claiming to have effectively poisoned the entirety of the Linux code base and, in that context, they are claiming effective control of that entire code base and attempting to effectively extort companies into buying 'protection' from SCO against this legal phantasm.
Note also: In the digital world, there is no way to tell the difference between allowing a copyright notice to remain in a piece of code and removing, then replacing that same notice. SCO's affirmative placement of GNU licence notices on their impugned code is indistinguishable from passive acceptance of its presence in code that they are distributing.
(That would be another declarative relief to ask for)
The longer-term relief to ask for from the courts would be for copyright violation. By attempting to limit the distribution of the Greater Linux code and by attempting to limit licencees to binary-only rights (in their latest moves), they are clearly in violation of both the spirit and letter of the GPL. As such, they have lost the redistribution rights to any Linux code that is not theirs, as of the initiation of their anti-linux campaing. Their continued distribution of that code absent the permissions given by the GPL are a copyright violation.
____
One final note: If the code that SCO attempted to NDA turned out to have not been code that was solely under their own copyright control, then attempting to NDA that code without the permission of the author who GPLed it would also be a violation of the GPL.
As the article aludes, the probability of some random yahoo suing me for using Microsoft products is almost zero. The real legal risk to me is that Microsoft will sue me for some real or imagined slight of their rather onerous EULA's, "shared source" licenses, et al.
Another way of putting it: The fact that the neighborhood drunk driver is indemnifying me against lightning strikes doesn't mean much,.
The possession of a work that infringes on a copyright does not appear to be a violation of the copyright laws at all.
'Tis true, but I'd guess that SCO is thinking that they can still threaten companies based on the fact that most companies that are using Linux didn't buy a RedHat/SUSE/Mandrake/etc. CD from someone else for every computer they have running Linux today. Based on that SCO is asking for 'protection money' to save them having to spend a couple of lawyer-years defending themselves against SCO's probably frivolous lawsuit.
Two lawyer-years in labour and fees will pay for a lot of SCO licenses.
Yes, it's probably illegal, but it would take the Linux IP owners going after SCO to get that money back. (A good time to call in Townsend and Crew, maybe?
Excuse the shouting, but I think that they've gone to far. Among other things: everything is copyright. Do I get thrown in jail for putting my own files on the network??? What about people who accidently do this?
It seems to me like what they're trying to kill is the whole concept of P2P sharing -- whether it's their content, or not (and most especially if it's not -- the last thing they want is for artists to have a viable alternative to the RIAA to get their work widely known).
Beside which: this is a civil issue... They should really have to deal with this themselves... They're the ones making billions of dollars off of starving musicians and an art-hungry public.
When I first got broadband, I had a machine that had NOTHING pointing to it, other than a random DNS name that you had to know about in order to look at it. (blth23845x.bchai.hsadsl.bctel.net or something like that). I started a Web server, and watched the logs -- knowing that ANYBODY who connected to my machine was doing it as part of an IP range scan.
I automatically generated reports on that basis.
I also generated reports for probes to some of the other 'nasty' ports.
There is no evidence that any human has ever been killed by anything falling from outerspace. what may happen over the course of millions of years does not impact humans!
It may happen in 4 million years, or it may happen in 4 weeks.
It's kinda like drunk driving, but with longer odds and bigger costs in the odd possibility that something really does happen. You can drive drunk a hundred times, but that doesn't mean that you won't get yourself killed the hundred and first. The chances are about 1 in 600,000 that humanity will get wiped out this century.
You can either bet your life on the odds, or you can amortize the value of all humanity over the probability of a killer strike and put that money into a counter-asteroid slush fund. The nice thing about a NEA observation team is that they might also be able to mitigate the possibility of a sub-extinction event (i.e. something that would just take out one or two cities/counties/countries) Those kinds of events are more common than an extinction event -- possibly as high as one in thousand or more).
Buying accident insurance doesn't mean that you intend/expect to get into an accident. It just gives you something to fall back on if the unwanted/unexpected does happen. Insurers bet on the fact that you're willing to pay enough that the amortized probablities * costs over millions of people are less than the premiums + interest.
I take myself a lot more seriously as a slashdotter today than I did when I chose that name.
You can always get yourself a second (e.g. yahoo) email, and use that to apply for a new nickname.
Granted, you'll lose any accumulated karma, but other than that -- go for it.
Once you have a new name, I think that you can play musical assignments and switch your new name to your 'primary' email address (may require a third email 'front' to activate.
Save your bias-based rancor for when it's officially Windows-only in production, OR when your operating system of choice has 95% of the desktop market share.
A test which works (supposedly) for 95% of the population (presuming that it will also be usable for people who have win95/98). if the test only works for windows, I doubt that the production system is going to suddenly start working for other OSs. Now is the time to ensure that they have the stuctures in place.
In any case, 95% MS penetration means that it fails for 5% of the population.
That's 5% of the population, where a thousand, or so votes out of however many millions of people in Florida tipped the vote on who got to be President.
Actually, if you're locking out both Mac and Linux, then you're probably looking at more like 10% of the population. And it's a 10% who are generally better educated and possibly even more politically savvy than the general population.
I'm not screaming "conspiracy!", but no matter how you look at it, it's not a good idea for democracy.
Does junk mail sent to your work or residential address through the standard postal service fall under this as well?
If junk mail via snail mail got to the point of being a nuisance then it would. I'm at the point right now where I spend almost as much time getting rid of spam as I do reading personal email (not including mailing lists). I've also missed (or almost missed personal emails that I wanted to get because they accidently got marked as one of the 80 spams that I'd recieved that day.
Yes, I have the righ of free speech, but if I spent the entire day following you around ranting about penises, work-at-home scams, and how to find the best porn on the net, you'd have me charged with harrassment -- and rightly so.
Hmmm... It just hit me... I think it might be possible to charge these bastards with simple criminal mischief. They've actually gotten to the point of preventing my proper enjoyment of my own property -- which is the definition of mischief. They're also doing it wilfully, repeatedly and for profit.
There are also precedents... I knew one person who had been hacking the computers at the University of Alberta. First they tried charging him with something like theft of telecommunications, but he beat that rap on the basis of that a computer isn't a phone... Finally they charged him with Criminal Mischief, and he said that there was nothing that he could do to weasel his way out of that charge.
I have stood in the middle of a computer room during an inadvertent halon discharge[...], and it's a total non-event (except for being very loud, and every single loose dust particle and piece of paper in the room flying around!).
As a couple of people have pointed out in other postings, it's not the pristine halon that's the threat to people... It's the combustion products of halon that are extremely nasty.
(and, yes, halon does combust, but it appears to be an endothermic reaction, which robs the fire of the heat needed for it to continue).
It sounds to me like the combustion products of Halon are only slightly less toxic than mustard gas (but they also seem to have the mild advantage of slowly de(re)composing back to halon once the room cools).
Slashdot Mirror
There's a second reason for RedHat to file it's own case against SCO: The SCO/IBM lawsuit is a complicated case that could go on for years. SCO could bury Linux under an avalanche of FUD by then. On the other hand, a lawsuit for declaratory relief could go much faster. In a realatively simple case, RH could simply say:
The nice thing about this is that -- especially if it avoids any contentious facts, it could be ammenable to a summary finding in a few mnths rather than waiting a generation or two for the IBM suit to wind it's way through the courts.
A declaration of GPLization of the code would pretty much absolve Red Hat of any claim by SCO. It might also leave SCO open to suits by Copyright owners of Linux that SCO has been in violation of the GPL by threatening users of that same code P>With a declaration that Linux is 'clean' visa-vis SCO, those secondary suits can afford to take the more leisurely pace that more commonly follow.
For Transmeta, that 0.1% increase in market share is a 5% increase in sales. Granted it's only significant because their market share is so small, but they definitely have more reason to celebrate than AMD does.
The only rights that Microsoft has via copyright law are the rights to determine how many copies of XP are sold. The so-called 'considerable rights' that microsoft claims to have come from your supposed acceptance of their shrink-wrap license. If you don't agree to their license then they don't have any hold on you...
If, for example, I buy a PC, with a legitimate copy of Windows-XP, I have the right to use that software.. Microsoft can't claim anything from me until and unless I agree in a legally binding way to the extended terms of their contract. If they have a problems with the sale, then they have to go after the seller of the software (for violating the supposed contract, not the buyer (who has the right to buy the CD).
Has Microsoft ever successfully sued someone for buying a used copy of their software from someone? Despite their copious legal bluster, I don't think so.
I've never signed an SCO license, so they don't have any contractual hold on me beyond the GPL. If I go out and sign a 'protective' license with them, then I'm bound by whateve the terms of that license are... and I could end up (like IBM) owing them $1000 every time I break wind.
I'm not stupid, I'm not gullible, and I'm not signing.
Most notably, the failure of governments to protect us from the failures of business.
It's not your wife that's gonna get the third degree. They have a picture of YOU picking up the blades and now you're trying to leave without paying for them.
Prepare to be boarded.
Actually, I'd be inclined to do the 'pick up a razor, and put it down in some random location' thing. Leave them guessing as to where they went.. (as long as you're willing to put up with thw occasional rectal probe when they decide you're stealing.
'Nuff said
More specifically: Produce a seriously buggy system, then charge for fixes.
The only people who have need to fear violating SCO licenses are people who sign them. Copyright does not control your use of software, only your copying of it -- i.e. As long as a company is buying a copy of Linux from a Linux distributor (RedHat, Suse, etc.) then it is the distributor who risks being in violation of copyright. (because they're the ones making the extra copies).
In other words, this is just a good excuse to make sure that your company gives business to the Linux community.
Microsoft's "rights" to do things like their software 'audits' are a result of the licenses that companies are stupid enough to sign with them.
Stephen King's lawyers can't go waltzing into my house asking me to prove that I have licenses for all of his books... Neither can SCO ask companies to prove that they have the rights to use their software. In the case of Linux, SCO has very little rights at all, unless they have some proof that the company is (a) violating the GPL, and (b) using SCO code.
Methinks the reference was to the idea of OS copyright holders asking the DOJ to rip SCO a new, um, PR policy.
That's the main reason why I turn off the loading of remote images in email...
for Mozilla: preferences -> Privacy & security -> images -> []Do not load remote images in Mail and Newsgroup messages
In my experience, most legitimate users attach images to their emails. If I get an email which has remote images that I actually want to see, I can always right-click and explicitly view it, or turn the option on for that one message then turn it back off again. (I think I've done that once or twice in the last year)
If you've ever contributed code to GNU/Linux, then you may have some room to sue them for copyright violation and/or breach of contract (I think you'd defintitely want the legalese version of and/or).
One possible approach (especially for people with copyright interest in Linux code) would be to sue for a declaratory judgement that SCO has no rights to sue people for copyright violation or patent rights to any Linux code that's been distributed by them (or, at the very least, been distributed by them since they "became aware" that the impugned code was in Linux).
I think that one could also include suit for slander/0. 1libel -- especially given what they said in conjunction with their original complaint.
[note: you can't sue them for the original lawsuit, itself. Court filings have some sort of limited immunity against libel laws, but what they say outside the courtroom -- especially in press releases, et al. is potentially legally actionable].
I think that any such action should also include an injunction against them extorting companies for payments to prtect themselves against such actions.
The basis of the action would be that SCO is clearly now aware of the impugned violations, but they have not only continued to distribtute that impugned code under the GPL -- they have wilfully frustrated attempts to determine precisely what code is supposedly in violation (which would allow it's removal from the public code).
In frustrating attempts to determine which code could be removed to place Linux into compliance with any claimed copyright and/or patent rights, SCO is not only condoning the continued distribution of that code -- they are effectively forcing it's continued distribution. They are now claiming to have effectively poisoned the entirety of the Linux code base and, in that context, they are claiming effective control of that entire code base and attempting to effectively extort companies into buying 'protection' from SCO against this legal phantasm.
Note also: In the digital world, there is no way to tell the difference between allowing a copyright notice to remain in a piece of code and removing, then replacing that same notice. SCO's affirmative placement of GNU licence notices on their impugned code is indistinguishable from passive acceptance of its presence in code that they are distributing.
(That would be another declarative relief to ask for)
The longer-term relief to ask for from the courts would be for copyright violation. By attempting to limit the distribution of the Greater Linux code and by attempting to limit licencees to binary-only rights (in their latest moves), they are clearly in violation of both the spirit and letter of the GPL. As such, they have lost the redistribution rights to any Linux code that is not theirs, as of the initiation of their anti-linux campaing. Their continued distribution of that code absent the permissions given by the GPL are a copyright violation.
____
One final note: If the code that SCO attempted to NDA turned out to have not been code that was solely under their own copyright control, then attempting to NDA that code without the permission of the author who GPLed it would also be a violation of the GPL.
IANAL, but I like to play one in court sometimes.
Another way of putting it: The fact that the neighborhood drunk driver is indemnifying me against lightning strikes doesn't mean much,.
'Tis true, but I'd guess that SCO is thinking that they can still threaten companies based on the fact that most companies that are using Linux didn't buy a RedHat/SUSE/Mandrake/etc. CD from someone else for every computer they have running Linux today. Based on that SCO is asking for 'protection money' to save them having to spend a couple of lawyer-years defending themselves against SCO's probably frivolous lawsuit.
Two lawyer-years in labour and fees will pay for a lot of SCO licenses.
Yes, it's probably illegal, but it would take the Linux IP owners going after SCO to get that money back. (A good time to call in Townsend and Crew, maybe?
25% of zero??? I'd give that to them -- as long as they paid me 25% of what they're getting off of all those Fortune-1000 companies.
It seems to me like what they're trying to kill is the whole concept of P2P sharing -- whether it's their content, or not (and most especially if it's not -- the last thing they want is for artists to have a viable alternative to the RIAA to get their work widely known).
Beside which: this is a civil issue... They should really have to deal with this themselves... They're the ones making billions of dollars off of starving musicians and an art-hungry public.
I automatically generated reports on that basis.
I also generated reports for probes to some of the other 'nasty' ports.
Standard Microsoft design error for well known process.
(sigh)
(damn. no mod points)
It may happen in 4 million years, or it may happen in 4 weeks. It's kinda like drunk driving, but with longer odds and bigger costs in the odd possibility that something really does happen. You can drive drunk a hundred times, but that doesn't mean that you won't get yourself killed the hundred and first. The chances are about 1 in 600,000 that humanity will get wiped out this century.
You can either bet your life on the odds, or you can amortize the value of all humanity over the probability of a killer strike and put that money into a counter-asteroid slush fund. The nice thing about a NEA observation team is that they might also be able to mitigate the possibility of a sub-extinction event (i.e. something that would just take out one or two cities/counties/countries) Those kinds of events are more common than an extinction event -- possibly as high as one in thousand or more).
Buying accident insurance doesn't mean that you intend/expect to get into an accident. It just gives you something to fall back on if the unwanted/unexpected does happen. Insurers bet on the fact that you're willing to pay enough that the amortized probablities * costs over millions of people are less than the premiums + interest.
.... but first I must go dance on it's grave.
You can always get yourself a second (e.g. yahoo) email, and use that to apply for a new nickname.
Granted, you'll lose any accumulated karma, but other than that -- go for it.
Once you have a new name, I think that you can play musical assignments and switch your new name to your 'primary' email address (may require a third email 'front' to activate.
A test which works (supposedly) for 95% of the population (presuming that it will also be usable for people who have win95/98). if the test only works for windows, I doubt that the production system is going to suddenly start working for other OSs. Now is the time to ensure that they have the stuctures in place. In any case, 95% MS penetration means that it fails for 5% of the population.
That's 5% of the population, where a thousand, or so votes out of however many millions of people in Florida tipped the vote on who got to be President.
Actually, if you're locking out both Mac and Linux, then you're probably looking at more like 10% of the population. And it's a 10% who are generally better educated and possibly even more politically savvy than the general population.
I'm not screaming "conspiracy!", but no matter how you look at it, it's not a good idea for democracy.
If junk mail via snail mail got to the point of being a nuisance then it would. I'm at the point right now where I spend almost as much time getting rid of spam as I do reading personal email (not including mailing lists). I've also missed (or almost missed personal emails that I wanted to get because they accidently got marked as one of the 80 spams that I'd recieved that day.
Yes, I have the righ of free speech, but if I spent the entire day following you around ranting about penises, work-at-home scams, and how to find the best porn on the net, you'd have me charged with harrassment -- and rightly so.
Hmmm... It just hit me... I think it might be possible to charge these bastards with simple criminal mischief. They've actually gotten to the point of preventing my proper enjoyment of my own property -- which is the definition of mischief. They're also doing it wilfully, repeatedly and for profit.
There are also precedents... I knew one person who had been hacking the computers at the University of Alberta. First they tried charging him with something like theft of telecommunications, but he beat that rap on the basis of that a computer isn't a phone... Finally they charged him with Criminal Mischief, and he said that there was nothing that he could do to weasel his way out of that charge.
Criminal Mischief is a real catch-all crime.
He made my penis 6 feet long! (god, was my girlfriend pissed!) I might have been OK, if I'd only bought one.
As a couple of people have pointed out in other postings, it's not the pristine halon that's the threat to people ... It's the combustion products of halon that are extremely nasty.
(and, yes, halon does combust, but it appears to be an endothermic reaction, which robs the fire of the heat needed for it to continue).
It sounds to me like the combustion products of Halon are only slightly less toxic than mustard gas (but they also seem to have the mild advantage of slowly de(re)composing back to halon once the room cools).