If I were IBM I wouldn't be smiling...[deleted]. IANAL, but that seems pretty straightforward to me...
It's not so straight-forward. Firstly, that document doesn't appear to be even arguably a true representation of the agreement regarding AIX. It doesn't even allow IBM to sub-license. This opens up the possibility that other evidence can be brought in to show what the agreement really was. The appendices also tend to show that IBM has rights that are not mentioned in the body of the agreement - for instance, they show the fees for sub-licensing.
The license appears to be in the standard form that would have been offered by AT&T to end users. This means that even within the document it will be construed where ambiguous against SCO (as AT&T's successor).
But once it is established that there are additional terms that must include a right to sub-license, it would require very clear language to allow SCO to revoke sublicenses previously granted.
What's more, the additional rights of IBM under the agreement appear to be to grant sub-licenses, but the license once granted is actually an AT&T license - the end user doesn't depend on IBM for the continuing validity of the license from AT&T (or its successors).
SCO's claims today that anybody running AIX is doing so without a license are themselves illegal - they constitute the tort of "injurious falsehood". Watch for IBM to make a counter-claim against SCO on this. Imagine how much IBM could claim to have lost if customers stop using and buying AIX because of this. That's the pecuniary damages. Then there's punitive damages. Idiots.
Legally speaking, I am sure of it. You can see as much source code as you like - new code you write isn't an infringement of copyright as long as it doesn't amount to copying. You can even express the same "idea", as long as it's done in your own "words". In programming parlance, this would mean that you can impliment the same broad concepts as long as you write the new code yourself without any copying.
The "idea" in this case, would amount to a high level specification, without pseudocode. If the new replacement is written to such a high level specification, it will be free of copyright. You don't need to go to the extent of having a "clean-room" implementation - it just helps later on as an evidentiary matter.
What "new"? SCO Is Caldera. Caldera has always bought up old, obsolete intellectual property, and then looked around for somebody to sue when they can't sell it. Caldera have tried to do some good things, but they really, really suck at it. Can't execute. They also have some really, really bad ideas, such as buying SCO, and when they realise they made a stupid purchase, it's plan B time - sue somebody, anybody.
For attendance at lectures, forget the gadgets - none of them is as convenient as a pen scribbling corrections on your notes when you're reacting to something the lecturer has said. Get a real thick ring binder to put printouts of your pre-class notes in, and put your scribbled corrections into your computer when you get home.
Also, if you're using a laptop you have the whole problem of jostling for power points, and if you forget to disable the speakers before starting up your laptop in class, you're going to piss everybody off.
After that, if this is your first degree, beer. Lots of beer. Provided you don't live in one of those backward-ass countries that doesn't let you drink until you're 21, in which case I suggest violently overthrowing the government.
This FUD is pissing me off. Anybody for a class action counter-suit? It's possible to apply to the Court for a declaration that the use of the Linux kernel will not infringe SCO's copyrights. This would bind SCO and prevent them fron suing any Linux user. This could be done on an expedited basis based on the amount of damage that could be done to existing users of SCO.
This presumes a "named plaintiff" (any Linux user) and a legal attack fund. There are millions of registered users on SlashDot - if each only donated a dollar there'd be enough in the kitty to do this.
You may be thinking of this. It's never an infringement of copyright if there was no copying, but it's also not an infringement even if there is copying if the code is within a very limited range of possible expressions of the idea. Ironically, the better the quality of the code (that is, the closest to the mathematically ideal expression of the idea the code reaches), the less protection it gets.
The ASRG seems to have trouble figuring out a plan for lunch, let alone agreeing on a plan for spam. There are some indviduals who have proposed their particular spam, but it's wrong to say the ASRG has come to any conclusions.
The information had the quality of confidence attaching to it.
The information was disclosed in circumstances importing an obligation of confidence.
UNIX source code has been used to teach university classes in operating system theory, but if the course materials made it clear that the information is confidential, then the circumstances import an obligation of confidence.
All most NDAs do is restate the legal principles of confidential information, and make it more clear that there is an obligation of confidence.
Re:considered the father of Linux?
on
Today's SCO News
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
That was never really proven.. the complaint was that the structures in the headders looked the same. Given the fact that both drivers were for the same hardware that was a given.
In that case they should have told the alleger to FOAD. If the headers were dictated by the hardware, it's actually not infringement even if they were copied. As it happens I have the case that decided this at my feet now (Computer Associates v Altai). The reason for this is that the required structure, abstracted from the code, is an idea that the headers express, and if the ways of expressing that idea are very limited, then the expression is not protected, otherwise it would amount to protecting the idea.
This is why the Wine project (and similar projects to duplicate the MS API) have not been sued out of existence. The API is an interface for programs to rely on - that is, it is the idea. Even though the API has basically been copied from Windows, because of the constraints imposed by the existing API, the implementation by the Wine project is within a limited range of possible expressions of that idea, and so it is not an infringement for that copying to take place.
I strongly suspect that when SCO gets around to revealing what parts are alleged to have been copied, we'll find that the code in question is substantially dictated by the idea, thus preventing it from being infringing even if it was copied.
Re:considered the father of Linux?
on
Today's SCO News
·
· Score: 1
As discussed elsewhere in the thread, I am not entitled by my license to Windows XP to copy it
Actually, you are, it's just that you might not normally think of these things as copying. You copy when you install (unless somebody else did it - by preinstalling). Perhaps more surprisingly, you copy when you run - the software is copied from the hard drive to the RAM when you run. These things are copying under copyright law.
They'll be covered by "fair use" - and most likely an implied license where the explicit license doen't permit - but this only applies if you had a legitimate license or copy of the relevant code. If there's code in there that MS didn't have the right to copy or licence, then this copying (installing onto a hard drive, running in RAM) is technically infringement.
Of course no software company is going to go to the expense of prosecuting such infringement for the few pennies it would return to them in each case.
Quite the contrary; with proposed antispam laws, users are finally gaining the right to get only the email they want.
Not a single one of the supposedly anti-spam laws before Congress would have this effect. They, at best, require an "opt-out", and I don't know about your volume, but I physically couldn't opt out of the 70+ spams per day that I'm getting right now.
And what kind of organic farmer is this exactly? The lower court ruling says "Mr. Schmeiser testified that it is his general practice to use chemical herbicides as little as possible. However, he does use them when necessary for weed control." Sort of organic-lite?
He didn't spray chemical herbicides on the crops - he used them prior to planting crops, to fallow fields, and in other areas in which he didn't want anything growing at all.
[146] I find on a balance of probabilities that the growing by the defendants in 1998 of canola on nine fields, from seed saved in 1997 which was known or ought to have been known by them to be Roundup tolerant,
This is not the same as finding that he was intentionally growing a Roundup-Ready crop. The finding was only that he, at a minimum "ought to have" known, that there were Roundup-Ready seeds in the stock planted.
This led Dr. Downey to conclude that the seeds provided to him from the 1997 sample taken of plants growing along the road allowances of fields 2 and 5, demonstrated that the canola plants growing there were not the result of pollen movement into those fields, or out crossing between glyphosate-resistant and susceptible plants. Rather, in his view, the high percentage of glyphosate-tolerant plants, among those which had germinated, indicated they were grown from commercial Roundup Ready canola seed.
The "road allowances" are the area between the fields and the roads. These were all the plants that Monsanto had access to, since they would have to trespass to get access to plants in the fields. The finding was that these had probably fallen of the back of a truck carrying Roundup Ready seeds along that road. Notably, the court found that there was no infringement in 1997, which is the crop year to which that evidence referred.
I don't understand why they'd have to. Percy Schmeiser has already testified in court that the glyphosate resistant canola seeds growing in his fields in 1998 were 1) planted there by an employee of his; 2) were taken from plants growing in his fields in 1997 which he had identified as being glyphosate resistant.
As the sections of the judgement you quoted demonstrate, the seeds were taken from a field that was known to have Roundup Ready Canola in it - there was no systematic attempt to gather specifically Roundup Ready canola.
Actually, the court found that the overall resistance was so high that the only explanation was that it was the roundup resistant plants which had been deliberately planted and it was the non gm canola which had accidentally contaminated the crop.
This is simply not true. Monsanto tried arguing this, but very quickly dropped it because the evidence they had couldn't support the claim. The judgement was made on the presumption that there was no systematic effort to incorporate the Monsanto gene into the crop.
The crop is designed to be unable to reproduce, so you have to keep buying seeds every year.
This is not true. Monsanto doesn't use these terminator genes, which is in a way unfortunate since if the plant were designed this way there wouldn't be a problem. This case was specifically about second or third generation Monsanto genes.
In fact, on one farm in Alberta there has been found a subsequent generation crop that has all three major brands of herbicide resistant gene.
He is not arguing that the plants growing in his fields in 1998 were a case of accidental contamination. He's claiming only that he originally got his hands on the seeds by taking advantage of some accidental contamination.
This misrepresents the situation. Yes, he knew there were patented genes in the crop, but he was doing what he had done every year for a couple of decades - taking seeds from one year's crop to plant the following year. He believed his own crops were superior to others in the district because he was essentially running his own breeding program.
He never sprayed Roundup on the canola once it was planted, which it the whole point of the Monsanto modifications. In fact he was an organic farmer - he didn't even want the genetically modified stuff there. Thus he gained no advantage from the presence of the Monsanto patented genes, so there is no question of him "taking advantage" of the situation.
The outcome is that he was not permitted to go about his business as he always had - once he knew there were Monsanto genes in his crop, he could never use seeds from that crop again.
Which decision should the court make now? Handing over the contamined seed to Monsanto (because it violates Monsanto's patents)? Or handing it over to the other company (because it violates their patents)?
This is one of the arguments that Schmeiser's lawyers have repeatedly made. It's not necessarily the best one, since given all other factors there's nothing particularly novel about seeds in this respect - an infringer could build, say, a software application, that infringes patents held by multiple patent holders (and almost any software application would do this), and if sued the court would have to figure out how to divide the spoils.
Actually I'm not sure this is such a completely bad thing. Junk mail from legitimate companies that I have given my e-mail address to voluntarily is such a small problem - compared to the other crap flooding my mailbox - that I usually don't even count it as spam, even if it is unsolicited.
The point is that the Tauzin bill states you can't even opt-out of spam from companies you have dealt with previously. In other words, once you deal with a company, they own you for the next three years and you have no further say in the matter. This actually gives the company major new rights they don't have now.
I don't see how Tauzin could have come up with the language he did without being seriously corrupt. There's really no possible way for him to introduce a more pro-spam bill.
Much - if not most - property crime is committed by people who are desperate. That doesn't make it right. In a first world country there is always another choice - even if it's getting a job packing groceries, waiting tables or flipping burgers, or evIt's someone who is desperate.en collecting unemployment benefits.
To put it another way, it's easy to be honest when you're doing well while being honest. It's the choices you make when things get tough or there is an opportunity to do better by being dishonest that make the difference between who is sleazy/amoral/unreasonable and somebody who is honest/moral/reasonable.
Your "friend" merely had no prior reason to demonstrate that she was sleazy, amoral and unreasonable.
Slashdot Mirror
If I were IBM I wouldn't be smiling...[deleted]. IANAL, but that seems pretty straightforward to me...
It's not so straight-forward. Firstly, that document doesn't appear to be even arguably a true representation of the agreement regarding AIX. It doesn't even allow IBM to sub-license. This opens up the possibility that other evidence can be brought in to show what the agreement really was. The appendices also tend to show that IBM has rights that are not mentioned in the body of the agreement - for instance, they show the fees for sub-licensing.
The license appears to be in the standard form that would have been offered by AT&T to end users. This means that even within the document it will be construed where ambiguous against SCO (as AT&T's successor).
But once it is established that there are additional terms that must include a right to sub-license, it would require very clear language to allow SCO to revoke sublicenses previously granted.
What's more, the additional rights of IBM under the agreement appear to be to grant sub-licenses, but the license once granted is actually an AT&T license - the end user doesn't depend on IBM for the continuing validity of the license from AT&T (or its successors).
So you see, it's not straight-forward at all.
SCO's claims today that anybody running AIX is doing so without a license are themselves illegal - they constitute the tort of "injurious falsehood". Watch for IBM to make a counter-claim against SCO on this. Imagine how much IBM could claim to have lost if customers stop using and buying AIX because of this. That's the pecuniary damages. Then there's punitive damages. Idiots.
In practice, your only certain defense against an allegation of copying is that you havn't seen the other guy's code.
This is simply not true.
Legally speaking, I'm not so sure of that.
Legally speaking, I am sure of it. You can see as much source code as you like - new code you write isn't an infringement of copyright as long as it doesn't amount to copying. You can even express the same "idea", as long as it's done in your own "words". In programming parlance, this would mean that you can impliment the same broad concepts as long as you write the new code yourself without any copying.
The "idea" in this case, would amount to a high level specification, without pseudocode. If the new replacement is written to such a high level specification, it will be free of copyright. You don't need to go to the extent of having a "clean-room" implementation - it just helps later on as an evidentiary matter.
What "new"? SCO Is Caldera. Caldera has always bought up old, obsolete intellectual property, and then looked around for somebody to sue when they can't sell it. Caldera have tried to do some good things, but they really, really suck at it. Can't execute. They also have some really, really bad ideas, such as buying SCO, and when they realise they made a stupid purchase, it's plan B time - sue somebody, anybody.
For attendance at lectures, forget the gadgets - none of them is as convenient as a pen scribbling corrections on your notes when you're reacting to something the lecturer has said. Get a real thick ring binder to put printouts of your pre-class notes in, and put your scribbled corrections into your computer when you get home.
Also, if you're using a laptop you have the whole problem of jostling for power points, and if you forget to disable the speakers before starting up your laptop in class, you're going to piss everybody off.
After that, if this is your first degree, beer. Lots of beer. Provided you don't live in one of those backward-ass countries that doesn't let you drink until you're 21, in which case I suggest violently overthrowing the government.
One Aircraft Carrier: $4,500,000.
Slashdot registered users: 6,000,000.
Online geek community with own aircraft carrier: Priceless.
C'mon, 'unpleasant incest case' is like 'disposable condom' -- it's redundant, and it makes you shudder thinking about the alternatives.
Bad example - the original condoms were washable and reusable.
This could be done on an expedited basis based on the amount of damage that could be done to existing users of SCO.
Obviously I meand "existing users of Linux" - was in too much of a hurry to preview
This FUD is pissing me off. Anybody for a class action counter-suit? It's possible to apply to the Court for a declaration that the use of the Linux kernel will not infringe SCO's copyrights. This would bind SCO and prevent them fron suing any Linux user. This could be done on an expedited basis based on the amount of damage that could be done to existing users of SCO.
This presumes a "named plaintiff" (any Linux user) and a legal attack fund. There are millions of registered users on SlashDot - if each only donated a dollar there'd be enough in the kitty to do this.
You may be thinking of this. It's never an infringement of copyright if there was no copying, but it's also not an infringement even if there is copying if the code is within a very limited range of possible expressions of the idea. Ironically, the better the quality of the code (that is, the closest to the mathematically ideal expression of the idea the code reaches), the less protection it gets.
The ASRG seems to have trouble figuring out a plan for lunch, let alone agreeing on a plan for spam. There are some indviduals who have proposed their particular spam, but it's wrong to say the ASRG has come to any conclusions.
All that's needed is that:
UNIX source code has been used to teach university classes in operating system theory, but if the course materials made it clear that the information is confidential, then the circumstances import an obligation of confidence.
All most NDAs do is restate the legal principles of confidential information, and make it more clear that there is an obligation of confidence.
That was never really proven.. the complaint was that the structures in the headders looked the same. Given the fact that both drivers were for the same hardware that was a given.
In that case they should have told the alleger to FOAD. If the headers were dictated by the hardware, it's actually not infringement even if they were copied. As it happens I have the case that decided this at my feet now (Computer Associates v Altai). The reason for this is that the required structure, abstracted from the code, is an idea that the headers express, and if the ways of expressing that idea are very limited, then the expression is not protected, otherwise it would amount to protecting the idea.
This is why the Wine project (and similar projects to duplicate the MS API) have not been sued out of existence. The API is an interface for programs to rely on - that is, it is the idea. Even though the API has basically been copied from Windows, because of the constraints imposed by the existing API, the implementation by the Wine project is within a limited range of possible expressions of that idea, and so it is not an infringement for that copying to take place.
I strongly suspect that when SCO gets around to revealing what parts are alleged to have been copied, we'll find that the code in question is substantially dictated by the idea, thus preventing it from being infringing even if it was copied.
As discussed elsewhere in the thread, I am not entitled by my license to Windows XP to copy it
Actually, you are, it's just that you might not normally think of these things as copying. You copy when you install (unless somebody else did it - by preinstalling). Perhaps more surprisingly, you copy when you run - the software is copied from the hard drive to the RAM when you run. These things are copying under copyright law.
They'll be covered by "fair use" - and most likely an implied license where the explicit license doen't permit - but this only applies if you had a legitimate license or copy of the relevant code. If there's code in there that MS didn't have the right to copy or licence, then this copying (installing onto a hard drive, running in RAM) is technically infringement.
Of course no software company is going to go to the expense of prosecuting such infringement for the few pennies it would return to them in each case.
Quite the contrary; with proposed antispam laws, users are finally gaining the right to get only the email they want.
Not a single one of the supposedly anti-spam laws before Congress would have this effect. They, at best, require an "opt-out", and I don't know about your volume, but I physically couldn't opt out of the 70+ spams per day that I'm getting right now.
And what kind of organic farmer is this exactly? The lower court ruling says "Mr. Schmeiser testified that it is his general practice to use chemical herbicides as little as possible. However, he does use them when necessary for weed control." Sort of organic-lite?
He didn't spray chemical herbicides on the crops - he used them prior to planting crops, to fallow fields, and in other areas in which he didn't want anything growing at all.
[146] I find on a balance of probabilities that the growing by the defendants in 1998 of canola on nine fields, from seed saved in 1997 which was known or ought to have been known by them to be Roundup tolerant,
This is not the same as finding that he was intentionally growing a Roundup-Ready crop. The finding was only that he, at a minimum "ought to have" known, that there were Roundup-Ready seeds in the stock planted.
This led Dr. Downey to conclude that the seeds provided to him from the 1997 sample taken of plants growing along the road allowances of fields 2 and 5, demonstrated that the canola plants growing there were not the result of pollen movement into those fields, or out crossing between glyphosate-resistant and susceptible plants. Rather, in his view, the high percentage of glyphosate-tolerant plants, among those which had germinated, indicated they were grown from commercial Roundup Ready canola seed.
The "road allowances" are the area between the fields and the roads. These were all the plants that Monsanto had access to, since they would have to trespass to get access to plants in the fields. The finding was that these had probably fallen of the back of a truck carrying Roundup Ready seeds along that road. Notably, the court found that there was no infringement in 1997, which is the crop year to which that evidence referred.
I don't understand why they'd have to. Percy Schmeiser has already testified in court that the glyphosate resistant canola seeds growing in his fields in 1998 were 1) planted there by an employee of his; 2) were taken from plants growing in his fields in 1997 which he had identified as being glyphosate resistant.
As the sections of the judgement you quoted demonstrate, the seeds were taken from a field that was known to have Roundup Ready Canola in it - there was no systematic attempt to gather specifically Roundup Ready canola.
Actually, the court found that the overall resistance was so high that the only explanation was that it was the roundup resistant plants which had been deliberately planted and it was the non gm canola which had accidentally contaminated the crop.
This is simply not true. Monsanto tried arguing this, but very quickly dropped it because the evidence they had couldn't support the claim. The judgement was made on the presumption that there was no systematic effort to incorporate the Monsanto gene into the crop.
The crop is designed to be unable to reproduce, so you have to keep buying seeds every year.
This is not true. Monsanto doesn't use these terminator genes, which is in a way unfortunate since if the plant were designed this way there wouldn't be a problem. This case was specifically about second or third generation Monsanto genes.
In fact, on one farm in Alberta there has been found a subsequent generation crop that has all three major brands of herbicide resistant gene.
He is not arguing that the plants growing in his fields in 1998 were a case of accidental contamination. He's claiming only that he originally got his hands on the seeds by taking advantage of some accidental contamination.
This misrepresents the situation. Yes, he knew there were patented genes in the crop, but he was doing what he had done every year for a couple of decades - taking seeds from one year's crop to plant the following year. He believed his own crops were superior to others in the district because he was essentially running his own breeding program.
He never sprayed Roundup on the canola once it was planted, which it the whole point of the Monsanto modifications. In fact he was an organic farmer - he didn't even want the genetically modified stuff there. Thus he gained no advantage from the presence of the Monsanto patented genes, so there is no question of him "taking advantage" of the situation.
The outcome is that he was not permitted to go about his business as he always had - once he knew there were Monsanto genes in his crop, he could never use seeds from that crop again.
Which decision should the court make now? Handing over the contamined seed to Monsanto (because it violates Monsanto's patents)? Or handing it over to the other company (because it violates their patents)?
This is one of the arguments that Schmeiser's lawyers have repeatedly made. It's not necessarily the best one, since given all other factors there's nothing particularly novel about seeds in this respect - an infringer could build, say, a software application, that infringes patents held by multiple patent holders (and almost any software application would do this), and if sued the court would have to figure out how to divide the spoils.
Actually I'm not sure this is such a completely bad thing. Junk mail from legitimate companies that I have given my e-mail address to voluntarily is such a small problem - compared to the other crap flooding my mailbox - that I usually don't even count it as spam, even if it is unsolicited.
The point is that the Tauzin bill states you can't even opt-out of spam from companies you have dealt with previously. In other words, once you deal with a company, they own you for the next three years and you have no further say in the matter. This actually gives the company major new rights they don't have now.
I don't see how Tauzin could have come up with the language he did without being seriously corrupt. There's really no possible way for him to introduce a more pro-spam bill.
It's someone who is desperate.
Much - if not most - property crime is committed by people who are desperate. That doesn't make it right. In a first world country there is always another choice - even if it's getting a job packing groceries, waiting tables or flipping burgers, or evIt's someone who is desperate.en collecting unemployment benefits.
To put it another way, it's easy to be honest when you're doing well while being honest. It's the choices you make when things get tough or there is an opportunity to do better by being dishonest that make the difference between who is sleazy/amoral/unreasonable and somebody who is honest/moral/reasonable.
Your "friend" merely had no prior reason to demonstrate that she was sleazy, amoral and unreasonable.