Should a company continue to put itself at risk by sticking with Windows?
Those questions don't bear on the issue. You can answer "yes" or "no" without affecting the degree of risk in buying Linux. So long as SCO is posturing as being prepared to sue corporations that deploy Linux, any corporation deploying Linux incurs some degree of risk that SCO will sue them. That seems a pretty self-evident proposition to me.
Someone's opinion of Windows or whether or not they are "outraged" at some other company won't reduce or increase that risk.
>> That's based off the false premise that you didn't forfiet your rights - say by using an unethical authorization scheme such as copyrights.that copy, not the work itself, and the have only the rights that I, as the work's creator, delegate to them. Typically, this delegation of rights does not include the right to make and distribute unlimited copies.
All this is fundamental common sense. Copyright doctrine only recognizes and codifies these natural conditions.
You, on the other hand, have no right to freely copy whatever happens to come your way. This ignores how you acquire something and the obligations you took onboard when you acquired it.
In fact, you seem to be arguing that you have as much right to anything I make as I do myself. That's complete nonsense, and just a bit sociopathic. So long as you believe that, there's no point in going further.
Everything you've said is irrelevant. This is simply about incurring the risk of a future lawsuit because you buy something today. Whether that product is Linux, Windows, or a take-away pizza is not important.
The point, the only point, is this: Buying a product that brings with it a threat of a lawsuit is riskier than buying a product that doesn't being with it a threat of a lawsuit.
How brave or how cowardly the managers are doesn't count. How good or how bad the products are doesn't count. Even what the product is doesn't count. If buying something means you might have to spend more money down the road to defend against a lawsuit, you'd be a fool not to think twice.
My customer's choose me for two reasons: 1. Because I am honest. 2. Because I avoid unnecessary risks.
First, you didn't mention your product. Presumably, that's why you have customers in the first place.
But, you got this little scenario wrong. We're talking about managers spending the money stockholders and other investors have placed in their hands. Customers don't play a role here.
And, I didn't say that everyone should just "give in". I said SCO's suit against IBM and their deliberate creation of the fear that they will sue other corporations using Linux ought to make any manager think twice before buying Linux. That's just simple common sense.
Suppose you were a CEO and you spent millions of compnay dollars replacing Windows with Linux. Then, SCO sues you and you spend several million more dollars fighting their suit. And that's if you win. If you lose, it costs even more. That's money that would otherwise have gone back to the people that own your company. How are you going to justify your actions to them?
If you have a copy of my work, you obtained that copy in one of two ways: 1) Via a channel that I authorized; 2) Via a channel that I did not authorize.
If you got your copy via an unauthorized copy (e.g., from someone who bought one copy and made many duplicates) you have no rights at all to do anything with that copy. The only way for you to get any rights to a copy of my work is to get it via an authorized channel.
You have no right to possess, much less copy, stolen goods.
Good for you. Nice to know you can thump your chest with the best of 'em.
Just don't go being brave with my money.
Let's change the analogy a bit. Let's say you're the CEO of a small but publicly held corporation, and your company cafeteria buys all its supplies at Grocery A. Are you willing to risk other people's money rather than tell the cafeteria manager to shop at Grocery B?
Bravery or cowardice have no role in this. People who manage businesses are responsible for the use of other people's money. They have no right to fight their own moral crusades using someone else's money.
Yes, everyone in the U.S. can brng suit against someone else. That's an essential part of Western political freedoms.
However, everyone is not, in fact, suing everyone else.
SCO is, though, suing IBM and is going out of its way to create the impression that it is prepared to sue any corporation using Linux. That's a reality that businesses ignores at their peril.
Adhering to your personal ideology can be costly. So long as you, alone, bear that cost, you can be as fervent as you wish.
However, people given the responsibility to manage other people's money -- like corporation managers -- do not have the right to mold company decisions to their personal ideology. Their role is to be fiscally responsibile.
If buying Linux is fiscally responsible, there's no problem. But, if there's a possibiity that someone will sue the compnay if they use Linux, then a manager is behaving irresponsibly if he still buys Linux solely because of ideology, ignoring the cost of a potential suit.
I still fail to see what kinod of ideology people think Linux is -- it's a bunch of code, nothing else. Trumping up the open source development model as some kind of political ideology is ludicrous. It only works in its own little corner of the software world because open source coders have found other ways to pay their bills.
Accurate, but they have deliberately cast themselves as willing to bring suit against corporations using Linux. That may be FUD, but is it worth risking millions of dollars to find out?
But my choice of the OS that's best for my company is not an ideological decision. "Believing" in Linux makes no more sense than "believing" in the company that made your refrigerator. Buy and use what's best for you.
It isn't necessary to address the earlier point. SCO's right to sue is one thing. SCO's demonstrated willingness to sue is another thing. It's the cost of defending even a frivolous suit that ought to make any manager think twice before acting.
Once they're in court, SCO's credibility with the IT community won't count.
>> Being innovative and creative now entails running the risk of having your butt reamed by the legal system....
Where's the innovation in copying something? The technology was already in place; othereise, you couldn't have made the copy.
Those lawyers I consulted about copyright made one point especially clear: The technology used in a potential fair use case is not relevant to the question. It's the extent of the copying that is at issue, not the tool used to make the copy.
You're thinking like an engineer: SCO's case has no technical merit, so full speed ahead.
SCO's case may be entirely fiction, but if they sue you, you'll still need to spend lots of money and lots of time in court fighting them. Convincing a court that the suit has no techical merit will be your problem, and that will cost you.
When money is at stake, decisions can't be based on technical merit alone.
The companies you work for are probably right. But, if they weren't already using Linux, wouldn't they be irresponsible if they ignored SCO when considering their next software buy?
This isn't about Gartner. They aren't suing people. It's about investing money in a product that may bring with it unaffordable legal expenses. The merits of SCO's case are beside the point. You have to respond to the suit, pay lawyers, and go to court to prove them wrong.
If a company can't afford to take that risk, why would they?
I think you're quite wrong. Evidence or not, SCO is, in fact, suing people. That's the risk Whether or not their case is credible is irrelevant. Paying lawyers is expensive, even if you win.
Suppose someone in your town decided to sue everyone who shopped at Grocery A. Even if you were convinced that their case was baseless, wouldn't you think about shopping at Grocery B until the issue was resolved??
Should a company put itself at risk by using Linux?
Would you change your mind if SCO sued you for, say, 75 percent of your company's assets, and won? Even if they lose, do you want to take on the costs of defending yourself in court?
These are especially critical questions for large publicly traded corporations with millions or billions of dollars at risk.
SCO has already affected Linux by making businesses ask if they'll be sued for using it.
Gardner's recommendation is sensible and probably not necessary. So long as SCO seems to be threatening legal action against Linux users, only a foolish manager would put a company at risk by deploying Linux.
Note that this has nothing to do with the technical merits of Linux. It has everything to do with SCO's litigious behavior. If they were bringing suit against Microsoft for the same thing, it would be foolish to buy Windows.
Having been in the position of looking for that "bright line" more than once, I'll agree that it can be frustrating.
However, if you impartially apply the standards laid out in the fair use clause, step by step, you ought to be able make a reaonably clear determination. When I've brought in lawyers, that's what they've done.
Of course, be ready to argue your position of the copyright holder disagrees. Remember, a fair use challenge will be a civil case, and you'll need to convince a judge that you're right. If your actions are in keeping with other actions traditionally considered fair use, you've nothing to worry about. If you are doing something new or different, that's a different matter.
If I make something, I have complete and exclusive rights to determine how that something is used. If I don't want you to touch it, hold it, or use it, you can't. If I want to make one copy and sell it to you with proviso that your purchase obligates you to make no additional copies, that's my right. If I want to sell some of those rights to a company that makes and sells many copies, with each purchase of a copy binding that buyer to make no additional copies, that's my right, too.
All rights to an authored work originate with, and flow from, the creator of that work. The owner of a legitimate copy of that work has only the rights granted by the author. The owner of an illegitimate copy has no rights at all.
Copyright is perfectly moral, therefore, because it is simply the state's recognition that the creator of a work owns that work and that others hold copies and/or rights in the work only at the volition of the work's creator.
Positions on the Slashdot editorial staff will be filled by six rhesus monkeys walking on the keyboards of an equal number of Pentium XVII boxes running the newest Debian release, which will be release 3.2
>> Having all of these new apps for Linux may well give a lot of companies the incentive to re-consider Linux
I doubt it. First, I've used all 3 platforms -- MAc, Windows, Linux -- and never noticed "thousands" of RealBasic apps floating around. Perhaps several dozen Mac-style shareware things. Nothing, certainly, that would sway a purchase decision. ("Oooh, someone wrote a downloader in RealBasic that we can port to Linux. Great! Let's replace all of our Microsoft infrastructure and our tech staff with Linux and a bunch of Linux geeks so we can use that downloader.")
Second, RealBasic is not a VB clone. It's been around for several years, with a degree of VB compatibility added for obvious marketing reasons.
Slashdot Mirror
>> Wouldn't you be outraged enough to fight back?
Should a company continue to put itself at risk by sticking with Windows?
Those questions don't bear on the issue. You can answer "yes" or "no" without affecting the degree of risk in buying Linux. So long as SCO is posturing as being prepared to sue corporations that deploy Linux, any corporation deploying Linux incurs some degree of risk that SCO will sue them. That seems a pretty self-evident proposition to me.
Someone's opinion of Windows or whether or not they are "outraged" at some other company won't reduce or increase that risk.
>> That's based off the false premise that you didn't forfiet your rights - say by using an unethical authorization scheme such as copyrights.that copy, not the work itself, and the have only the rights that I, as the work's creator, delegate to them. Typically, this delegation of rights does not include the right to make and distribute unlimited copies.
All this is fundamental common sense. Copyright doctrine only recognizes and codifies these natural conditions.
You, on the other hand, have no right to freely copy whatever happens to come your way. This ignores how you acquire something and the obligations you took onboard when you acquired it.
In fact, you seem to be arguing that you have as much right to anything I make as I do myself. That's complete nonsense, and just a bit sociopathic. So long as you believe that, there's no point in going further.
Everything you've said is irrelevant. This is simply about incurring the risk of a future lawsuit because you buy something today. Whether that product is Linux, Windows, or a take-away pizza is not important.
The point, the only point, is this: Buying a product that brings with it a threat of a lawsuit is riskier than buying a product that doesn't being with it a threat of a lawsuit.
How brave or how cowardly the managers are doesn't count. How good or how bad the products are doesn't count. Even what the product is doesn't count. If buying something means you might have to spend more money down the road to defend against a lawsuit, you'd be a fool not to think twice.
My customer's choose me for two reasons:
1. Because I am honest.
2. Because I avoid unnecessary risks.
First, you didn't mention your product. Presumably, that's why you have customers in the first place.
But, you got this little scenario wrong. We're talking about managers spending the money stockholders and other investors have placed in their hands. Customers don't play a role here.
And, I didn't say that everyone should just "give in". I said SCO's suit against IBM and their deliberate creation of the fear that they will sue other corporations using Linux ought to make any manager think twice before buying Linux. That's just simple common sense.
Suppose you were a CEO and you spent millions of compnay dollars replacing Windows with Linux. Then, SCO sues you and you spend several million more dollars fighting their suit. And that's if you win. If you lose, it costs even more. That's money that would otherwise have gone back to the people that own your company. How are you going to justify your actions to them?
If you have a copy of my work, you obtained that copy in one of two ways: 1) Via a channel that I authorized; 2) Via a channel that I did not authorize.
If you got your copy via an unauthorized copy (e.g., from someone who bought one copy and made many duplicates) you have no rights at all to do anything with that copy. The only way for you to get any rights to a copy of my work is to get it via an authorized channel.
You have no right to possess, much less copy, stolen goods.
Good for you. Nice to know you can thump your chest with the best of 'em.
Just don't go being brave with my money.
Let's change the analogy a bit. Let's say you're the CEO of a small but publicly held corporation, and your company cafeteria buys all its supplies at Grocery A. Are you willing to risk other people's money rather than tell the cafeteria manager to shop at Grocery B?
Bravery or cowardice have no role in this. People who manage businesses are responsible for the use of other people's money. They have no right to fight their own moral crusades using someone else's money.
Yes, everyone in the U.S. can brng suit against someone else. That's an essential part of Western political freedoms.
However, everyone is not, in fact, suing everyone else.
SCO is, though, suing IBM and is going out of its way to create the impression that it is prepared to sue any corporation using Linux. That's a reality that businesses ignores at their peril.
>> What you are not willing to lose, you never owned.
Nice bumper sticker. I wonder what it means?
>> I guess I see the OS as something I've helped create and so take the slander by SCO as a libel against my character.
More than fair enough. Remember, though, that for everyone outside the Linux development community, Linux is a means to an end, not an end itself.
>> ...threats and extortion should be resisted.
Adhering to your personal ideology can be costly. So long as you, alone, bear that cost, you can be as fervent as you wish.
However, people given the responsibility to manage other people's money -- like corporation managers -- do not have the right to mold company decisions to their personal ideology. Their role is to be fiscally responsibile.
If buying Linux is fiscally responsible, there's no problem. But, if there's a possibiity that someone will sue the compnay if they use Linux, then a manager is behaving irresponsibly if he still buys Linux solely because of ideology, ignoring the cost of a potential suit.
I still fail to see what kinod of ideology people think Linux is -- it's a bunch of code, nothing else. Trumping up the open source development model as some kind of political ideology is ludicrous. It only works in its own little corner of the software world because open source coders have found other ways to pay their bills.
Accurate, but they have deliberately cast themselves as willing to bring suit against corporations using Linux. That may be FUD, but is it worth risking millions of dollars to find out?
Sure, I'll stand up for my beliefs.
But my choice of the OS that's best for my company is not an ideological decision. "Believing" in Linux makes no more sense than "believing" in the company that made your refrigerator. Buy and use what's best for you.
It isn't necessary to address the earlier point. SCO's right to sue is one thing. SCO's demonstrated willingness to sue is another thing. It's the cost of defending even a frivolous suit that ought to make any manager think twice before acting.
Once they're in court, SCO's credibility with the IT community won't count.
>> Being innovative and creative now entails running the risk of having your butt reamed by the legal system....
Where's the innovation in copying something? The technology was already in place; othereise, you couldn't have made the copy.
Those lawyers I consulted about copyright made one point especially clear: The technology used in a potential fair use case is not relevant to the question. It's the extent of the copying that is at issue, not the tool used to make the copy.
You're thinking like an engineer: SCO's case has no technical merit, so full speed ahead.
SCO's case may be entirely fiction, but if they sue you, you'll still need to spend lots of money and lots of time in court fighting them. Convincing a court that the suit has no techical merit will be your problem, and that will cost you.
When money is at stake, decisions can't be based on technical merit alone.
The companies you work for are probably right. But, if they weren't already using Linux, wouldn't they be irresponsible if they ignored SCO when considering their next software buy?
This isn't about Gartner. They aren't suing people. It's about investing money in a product that may bring with it unaffordable legal expenses. The merits of SCO's case are beside the point. You have to respond to the suit, pay lawyers, and go to court to prove them wrong.
If a company can't afford to take that risk, why would they?
OK, who's paying your lawyers? Who's running your company while you and your managers are busy in court?
Are you really willing to lose your company for ideology?
I think you're quite wrong. Evidence or not, SCO is, in fact, suing people. That's the risk Whether or not their case is credible is irrelevant. Paying lawyers is expensive, even if you win.
Suppose someone in your town decided to sue everyone who shopped at Grocery A. Even if you were convinced that their case was baseless, wouldn't you think about shopping at Grocery B until the issue was resolved??
Should a company put itself at risk by using Linux?
Would you change your mind if SCO sued you for, say, 75 percent of your company's assets, and won? Even if they lose, do you want to take on the costs of defending yourself in court?
These are especially critical questions for large publicly traded corporations with millions or billions of dollars at risk.
SCO has already affected Linux by making businesses ask if they'll be sued for using it.
Gardner's recommendation is sensible and probably not necessary. So long as SCO seems to be threatening legal action against Linux users, only a foolish manager would put a company at risk by deploying Linux.
Note that this has nothing to do with the technical merits of Linux. It has everything to do with SCO's litigious behavior. If they were bringing suit against Microsoft for the same thing, it would be foolish to buy Windows.
Having been in the position of looking for that "bright line" more than once, I'll agree that it can be frustrating.
However, if you impartially apply the standards laid out in the fair use clause, step by step, you ought to be able make a reaonably clear determination. When I've brought in lawyers, that's what they've done.
Of course, be ready to argue your position of the copyright holder disagrees. Remember, a fair use challenge will be a civil case, and you'll need to convince a judge that you're right. If your actions are in keeping with other actions traditionally considered fair use, you've nothing to worry about. If you are doing something new or different, that's a different matter.
Nuts.
If I make something, I have complete and exclusive rights to determine how that something is used. If I don't want you to touch it, hold it, or use it, you can't. If I want to make one copy and sell it to you with proviso that your purchase obligates you to make no additional copies, that's my right. If I want to sell some of those rights to a company that makes and sells many copies, with each purchase of a copy binding that buyer to make no additional copies, that's my right, too.
All rights to an authored work originate with, and flow from, the creator of that work. The owner of a legitimate copy of that work has only the rights granted by the author. The owner of an illegitimate copy has no rights at all.
Copyright is perfectly moral, therefore, because it is simply the state's recognition that the creator of a work owns that work and that others hold copies and/or rights in the work only at the volition of the work's creator.
Positions on the Slashdot editorial staff will be filled by six rhesus monkeys walking on the keyboards of an equal number of Pentium XVII boxes running the newest Debian release, which will be release 3.2
>> Having all of these new apps for Linux may well give a lot of companies the incentive to re-consider Linux
I doubt it. First, I've used all 3 platforms -- MAc, Windows, Linux -- and never noticed "thousands" of RealBasic apps floating around. Perhaps several dozen Mac-style shareware things. Nothing, certainly, that would sway a purchase decision. ("Oooh, someone wrote a downloader in RealBasic that we can port to Linux. Great! Let's replace all of our Microsoft infrastructure and our tech staff with Linux and a bunch of Linux geeks so we can use that downloader.")
Second, RealBasic is not a VB clone. It's been around for several years, with a degree of VB compatibility added for obvious marketing reasons.