Perhaps their lawyers believe that if they can make an argument that invalidates the GPL then they can indeed make a claim against IBM.
Voiding the GPL would be mostly shooting themselves in the foot. The GPl is mostly a promise by the owner of the software in question that they will not sue you for copyright violation if you agree to -- and follow certain principles
If SCO were to step in front of the court and claim that they believed that the GPL was void. They would be arguing that they have been knowingly distributing millions of lines of other peoples' code without any binding legal agreement that gave them permission to do so.
Anything that they got from IBM, at that point, would be eaten up by copyright infringment suits against SCO.
1) make sure that un-logged in machines hava a unique screen saver.
2) set it up so that the screen saver runs for ~12 hours before shutting off the screen
Usually has to do with overzealous abuse people
that are heavily overworked accidentally concluding
that a forged return address is a guilty party.
Sometims they just get confused between the attacking and defending system.
I have a program which scans http connects for nimda style probes of my server (given that I don't have a 'live' website, or even a real dns address that points at my box, I know that 95%+ of connects are bogus to begin with, but I filter for obvious attacks anyways).
At the height of the NIMDA season, I was getting more than a dozen provable probes a day, and statistics would just catch up to me. Once in a while I would get letters to my roommate threatening him with cutting off his broadband connection unless he cleaned up the virus on his system..... Given the work that he's done to lock down his system and the fact that he depends on it for his business (he pays business broadband rates, even), he would freak.
He'd then pass the letter to me, I'd ask them for the log information indicating when the complaint occurred, and then look in my logs, and send them my (saved) copy of the original complaint. After the second or third complaint, I sent them a much sterner message asking that they completely clear my roommate's name and put an explicit note on his file explaining my program.
I got a call from a rather knowledgable member of their group who appologized profusely, and even took a copy of my program to play with. We agreed on some minor changes to my automatic email that made it even more obvious that my machine was the defender, and that was that...... for a while.
A couple of months later I got another email from my roommate -- forwarding yet another threatening letter from our cable company.
In response, I sent a rather bitter email and wrote a rather sarcastic how-to on reading my logfiles. Once again, their abuse uber-geek called me up and apologized. He told me that the latest email was because they had changed their abuse reporting system and hired a fresh set of newbies. Between then and when I moved out, I didn't get another complaint from them.
What is significant is not what was said, but who signed their name to it.
T'is very true. If I point a CEO or CTO to my article on Kuro5hin, they'll just yawn and walk away. On the other hand, if I point them to the same article signed by a lawyer and law professor, they're a bit more likely to sit up, take notice and possibly even sell their inflated SCO stocks.
If I say "Let's go to war against North Korea", people talk about putting me in a psyche ward.
If Bush says "Let's go to war against North Korea", people go and buy duct tape and plastic(!).
The difference is not the words, it's who says it and how people listen to them that counts.q1
I think the most interesting comment (can't remember now, if it came from RMS or the USENIX panel, was that SCO's lawsuit is less of a red flag for Linux and Open Source than it is for closed-source look-at-our-code but don't-use-it licenses like Microsoft's Shared Source Initiative.
The point is that the Open Source movement is relatively unlikely to try and sue the pants off of someone for 80 lines of shared code than a litigious titan like Microsoft or someone like SCO.
It's also much harder for an open source community to take your work away from you like in the case of what SCO's trying to threaten... Worst likely case is you have to release the source code to your work, and then get the contribution of anybody who's willing to fix it.
SCO says they have the right to control release because it was once attached to an SYSV system
They have also assured their (other) licensees that they stil own their code that they inserted into their versions of UNIX, it's just that SCO can stop them from distributing it.
They say that the GNU license on the code is invalid because the GPL states that it can only be placed by the copyright owner
But if IBM Still owns the code, and they're the ones who placed it, then the GPL is valid (It's just that SCO gets to sue IBM for releasing it withiout their say-so.. but subsequent users are still OK).
SCO is still distributing Caldera Linux -- including kernel source.
This means that they're distributing it under the GPL, with a GPL license on it and IBM (the owner of the code) has also explicitly released it... Seems like everybody in this loop has given their permission -- either explicit or implict.
If their license is really this nasty (and they're ambushing customers with things like this), I expect that a lot of other businesses are going to abandon their Unix license as soon as they can.
It's pretty unlikely that their long stretch claim to owing everything ever put into AIX is going to win.
Some people now think that they're going to try and (essentially) blackmail people into paying them for any copies of Linux that didn't come direct from Caldera/SCO (even if it came indirectly from them).
This whole mess places them in violation of the GPL and opens them up to some nasty copyright suits.
Until this started, SCO looked like it was about to go bankrupt
If this fails, not only will their old UNIX funding sources dry up, but nobody is going to want to buy Caldera, either. They could also end up with millions (billions) in legal bills.
My reading of this is that they've started with a weak case, shot themselves in the foot, and are still claiming that they own the world. it really reminds me of Monty Python's infamous Black Night.
If I knew when (not if) SCO's stock is going to tank, I'd issue a shell-sort order today.
It just hit me: Given that SCO has never registered the Unix patents, the patents to RCU, etc.. they can't sue for statutory damages -- only direct damages. Even if SCO was to, somehow, win this legal mudfight: Given that they're still giving away copies of the same code, I think that you could convince a judge that the actual damages are zero.
They haven't just shot themselves in the foot on this -- they've blown off their whole lower leg.
They said they won't sue people using SCO Linux, not that it was ok with them for the code to be used.
No difference.. The GPL is essentially an agreement to not sue you for what would normally be a violation of copyright. A promise not to sue is (in legal circles) essentially a statement that it's OK.
(IANAL)
No big deal... I'll just email RedHat a copy of the SCO kernel that I
downloaded from their site on June 18.. This is well after SCO was aware that it's impugned code was in there. I got it direct from SCO, they know what's in it, and the GPL says I have the right to redistribute it.
I didn't say if you don't I said if you can't. More specifically, if I can't distribute the source freely, then you can't distribute either the binary or the source to me.
My impression is that in July, SCO is going to send a bill to each of the 1500 companies that they sent the warnings to, and more. I think that they're going to start collecting money before anything has happened in court.
If they do that, then I'd hope that Linus would go to court and get a restraining order on them demanding that they stop the demand letters and put any money recieved into a trust account until the lawsuit can be settled.
No, but if you got it after March 1, you can email a copy to RedHat. It would be a copy that Caldera/SCO knew had their code in it, so all RedHat has to do is cut and paste the Caldera version of the code into their release, reapply any patches, and voila! a completely IP-safe version of RedHat.
but that makes the code in question (all of it) a violation of the license under which it was distributed. Which means the users have NO right to run the code.
Er, um no. This means that SCO is in violation of the license. Under the GPL the users continue to have the right to use and distribute the code in question.
If SCO is claiming that they're distributing code that the GPL doesn't allow them to distribute, then it's only SCO who is violating the GPL.
SCO made it clear that They want to own linux. Their spokesman said that Linux will no longer be free (if they have their way). I.e. they expect us to pay (them) for Linux.
You can bet your bare ass that I'll be happy to support any attempt to drag them into and thru any court on this continent that'll flay their duplicitious ass.
In this case, it seems likely that SCO will say that they were unaware of their own IP being in Linux, and hence had not made any decision to license it under the GPL even though they were distributing it. Once they became aware of it they stopped the distribution.
No, They have not stopped distribution. I downloaded a copy of the Linux source code last Wednesday, and it's still available. It's pretty clear that SCO knows that the code they claim is in Linux. They're still making money off of Linux (support contracts). They're still distributing it, and they've promised at least some of the people they're distributing it to that they won't be sued for using it.
Either the code is available under the GPL, or SCO is violating the GPL.
SCO spokesman Blake Stowell says his company's lawsuit will not put an end to Linux.
"Linux could still be used; it just wouldn't be free," Stowell said. "These people are upset because they've been enjoying a free ride for some time. They're upset their free ride will potentially be gone."
I think that this pretty much puts to rest the question of whether or not SCO wants to own Linux.
Part of the problem is that this wouldn't work. Under the GPL, if you can't distribute it for free, you can't distribute it at all. To relicense Linux as an SCO-0wned product, you'd have to get the agreement of all the contributors. I doubt that that would happen.
Don't stop buying CD's. Just start buying CDs from local artists and independents. Not only do you stop supporting the RIAA, but you start doing what they are trying to keep peope from doing -- realizing that there are lots of really good artists out there who don't have RIAA contracts -- and that you can make money as an artist without the big recording studios.
One cent per megabyte seems a bit high. That comes to $10/gigabyte (or $7 for a CD) If your bandwidth usage gets high enough, you should be able to get down below $2/gigabyte and possiby even to $1/GB, if you're lucky. I've got a friend who runs a hosting company is charging under $2/GB for transfers -- and that's retail pricing.
The earlier posting about 95percentile peak rate is pretty important to consider.. That means you only get grace on the top day and a half per month. If you release something and it causes you to peak out for 3 days then you'll still end up paying the peak rate for the whole month (even presumimg that you're only at peak for half of each day). Unless you can fit yourself within that model, what you're going to want to look at are peak bandwidth and total cost per gigabyte. Your other requirement would be scalability.. What's the peak bandwidth that your provider can provide (presuming hat you're willing to pay for it)?
It's a cease and desist request. This is very different than a court order that has legal force behind it. Personally, I think that freecraft is clearly different than either warcraft and starcraft. This is like the Xerox case where they went against somebody that they claimed had a similar name... the judge said that just because Xerox was well known, didn't mean that they had the rights to control the existence of an 'x' at either end of a name.
Especially given that 'free' (along with 'gnu') is a well known prefix for open-source type products I think that it would be very hard to seriously argue that Freecraft was a serious trademark violation -- but if they just want to get completely out of the realm, they can change the name to something like 'freecrap' or 'freewar' and all should be well. With names like that they could probably get any lawsuit tossed on a preliminary application.
As for producing software that allows you to (privately) (re)use graphics that are on a CD that you purchased, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Slashdot Mirror
Voiding the GPL would be mostly shooting themselves in the foot. The GPl is mostly a promise by the owner of the software in question that they will not sue you for copyright violation if you agree to -- and follow certain principles
If SCO were to step in front of the court and claim that they believed that the GPL was void. They would be arguing that they have been knowingly distributing millions of lines of other peoples' code without any binding legal agreement that gave them permission to do so.
Anything that they got from IBM, at that point, would be eaten up by copyright infringment suits against SCO.
I'm still looking for someone to start a class-action libel suit against SCO....
1) make sure that un-logged in machines hava a unique screen saver.
2) set it up so that the screen saver runs for ~12 hours before shutting off the screen
And how often have you seen a black man sent to a white color resort prison?
Sometims they just get confused between the attacking and defending system.
I have a program which scans http connects for nimda style probes of my server (given that I don't have a 'live' website, or even a real dns address that points at my box, I know that 95%+ of connects are bogus to begin with, but I filter for obvious attacks anyways).
At the height of the NIMDA season, I was getting more than a dozen provable probes a day, and statistics would just catch up to me. Once in a while I would get letters to my roommate threatening him with cutting off his broadband connection unless he cleaned up the virus on his system..... Given the work that he's done to lock down his system and the fact that he depends on it for his business (he pays business broadband rates, even), he would freak.
He'd then pass the letter to me, I'd ask them for the log information indicating when the complaint occurred, and then look in my logs, and send them my (saved) copy of the original complaint. After the second or third complaint, I sent them a much sterner message asking that they completely clear my roommate's name and put an explicit note on his file explaining my program.
I got a call from a rather knowledgable member of their group who appologized profusely, and even took a copy of my program to play with. We agreed on some minor changes to my automatic email that made it even more obvious that my machine was the defender, and that was that ...... for a while.
A couple of months later I got another email from my roommate -- forwarding yet another threatening letter from our cable company.
In response, I sent a rather bitter email and wrote a rather sarcastic how-to on reading my logfiles. Once again, their abuse uber-geek called me up and apologized. He told me that the latest email was because they had changed their abuse reporting system and hired a fresh set of newbies. Between then and when I moved out, I didn't get another complaint from them.
Anybody stoopid enough to try this thing as root should be running Windows.
If I want to try some wonky program/script, I'll create a temporary user, try the program and then delete the user (and home directory).
T'is very true. If I point a CEO or CTO to my article on Kuro5hin, they'll just yawn and walk away. On the other hand, if I point them to the same article signed by a lawyer and law professor, they're a bit more likely to sit up, take notice and possibly even sell their inflated SCO stocks.
If I say "Let's go to war against North Korea", people talk about putting me in a psyche ward.
If Bush says "Let's go to war against North Korea", people go and buy duct tape and plastic(!).
The difference is not the words, it's who says it and how people listen to them that counts.q1
The point is that the Open Source movement is relatively unlikely to try and sue the pants off of someone for 80 lines of shared code than a litigious titan like Microsoft or someone like SCO.
It's also much harder for an open source community to take your work away from you like in the case of what SCO's trying to threaten... Worst likely case is you have to release the source code to your work, and then get the contribution of anybody who's willing to fix it.
- SCO says it's their code in the Linux Kernel
- They say it's IBM's fault.
- Not only that, but it's code written by IBM.
- SCO says they have the right to control release because it was once attached to an SYSV system
- They have also assured their (other) licensees that they stil own their code that they inserted into their versions of UNIX, it's just that SCO can stop them from distributing it.
- They say that the GNU license on the code is invalid because the GPL states that it can only be placed by the copyright owner
- But if IBM Still owns the code, and they're the ones who placed it, then the GPL is valid (It's just that SCO gets to sue IBM for releasing it withiout their say-so
.. but subsequent users are still OK).
- SCO is still distributing Caldera Linux -- including kernel source.
- This means that they're distributing it under the GPL, with a GPL license on it and IBM (the owner of the code) has also explicitly released it... Seems like everybody in this loop has given their permission -- either explicit or implict.
- If their license is really this nasty (and they're ambushing customers with things like this), I expect that a lot of other businesses are going to abandon their Unix license as soon as they can.
- It's pretty unlikely that their long stretch claim to owing everything ever put into AIX is going to win.
- Some people now think that they're going to try and (essentially) blackmail people into paying them for any copies of Linux that didn't come direct from Caldera/SCO (even if it came indirectly from them).
- This whole mess places them in violation of the GPL and opens them up to some nasty copyright suits.
- Until this started, SCO looked like it was about to go bankrupt
- If this fails, not only will their old UNIX funding sources dry up, but nobody is going to want to buy Caldera, either. They could also end up with millions (billions) in legal bills.
My reading of this is that they've started with a weak case, shot themselves in the foot, and are still claiming that they own the world. it really reminds me of Monty Python's infamous Black Night.If I knew when (not if) SCO's stock is going to tank, I'd issue a shell-sort order today.
SCO what? You think I care how they pronounce it?
They haven't just shot themselves in the foot on this -- they've blown off their whole lower leg.
I wonder if SCO is intending to sue Novell for violating the Unix Patents, despite the fact that the patents are still registered with Novell?
No difference.. The GPL is essentially an agreement to not sue you for what would normally be a violation of copyright. A promise not to sue is (in legal circles) essentially a statement that it's OK.
(IANAL)
No big deal... I'll just email RedHat a copy of the SCO kernel that I downloaded from their site on June 18.. This is well after SCO was aware that it's impugned code was in there. I got it direct from SCO, they know what's in it, and the GPL says I have the right to redistribute it.
I didn't say if you don't I said if you can't. More specifically, if I can't distribute the source freely, then you can't distribute either the binary or the source to me.
If they do that, then I'd hope that Linus would go to court and get a restraining order on them demanding that they stop the demand letters and put any money recieved into a trust account until the lawsuit can be settled.
No, but if you got it after March 1, you can email a copy to RedHat. It would be a copy that Caldera/SCO knew had their code in it, so all RedHat has to do is cut and paste the Caldera version of the code into their release, reapply any patches, and voila! a completely IP-safe version of RedHat.
Er, um no. This means that SCO is in violation of the license. Under the GPL the users continue to have the right to use and distribute the code in question.
If SCO is claiming that they're distributing code that the GPL doesn't allow them to distribute, then it's only SCO who is violating the GPL.
You can bet your bare ass that I'll be happy to support any attempt to drag them into and thru any court on this continent that'll flay their duplicitious ass.
No, They have not stopped distribution. I downloaded a copy of the Linux source code last Wednesday, and it's still available. It's pretty clear that SCO knows that the code they claim is in Linux. They're still making money off of Linux (support contracts). They're still distributing it, and they've promised at least some of the people they're distributing it to that they won't be sued for using it.
Either the code is available under the GPL, or SCO is violating the GPL.
"Linux could still be used; it just wouldn't be free," Stowell said. "These people are upset because they've been enjoying a free ride for some time. They're upset their free ride will potentially be gone."
I think that this pretty much puts to rest the question of whether or not SCO wants to own Linux.
Part of the problem is that this wouldn't work. Under the GPL, if you can't distribute it for free, you can't distribute it at all. To relicense Linux as an SCO-0wned product, you'd have to get the agreement of all the contributors. I doubt that that would happen.
Don't stop buying CD's. Just start buying CDs from local artists and independents. Not only do you stop supporting the RIAA, but you start doing what they are trying to keep peope from doing -- realizing that there are lots of really good artists out there who don't have RIAA contracts -- and that you can make money as an artist without the big recording studios.
The earlier posting about 95percentile peak rate is pretty important to consider.. That means you only get grace on the top day and a half per month. If you release something and it causes you to peak out for 3 days then you'll still end up paying the peak rate for the whole month (even presumimg that you're only at peak for half of each day). Unless you can fit yourself within that model, what you're going to want to look at are peak bandwidth and total cost per gigabyte. Your other requirement would be scalability.. What's the peak bandwidth that your provider can provide (presuming hat you're willing to pay for it)?
Try wrapping html around the URL, </A> next time...
Especially given that 'free' (along with 'gnu') is a well known prefix for open-source type products I think that it would be very hard to seriously argue that Freecraft was a serious trademark violation -- but if they just want to get completely out of the realm, they can change the name to something like 'freecrap' or 'freewar' and all should be well. With names like that they could probably get any lawsuit tossed on a preliminary application.
As for producing software that allows you to (privately) (re)use graphics that are on a CD that you purchased, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.