First, the source agreement dosn't say that all source derivatives belong to the Unix source owner.
Second, Copyright dosn't work that way. The author is automatically the owner except in the case of a work for hire (not applicable here) and an explicit assignment of copyright in writing. A license agreement can not automatically reassign copyright the way you suggest.
The last link shows the code apparently came from SGI. Isn't SCO claiming that IBM contributed the so-called infringing code?
No.
The accusations made by SCO have been very unclear. The IBM case is about acts by IBM which SCO claims breaches the IBM/AT&T contract. It involves contributing code IBM got by buying Sequent and by participating in Project Monterey. This technology includes RCU, NUMA, SMP and scalability.
Independantly, SCO claims that there are many lines of code copied from Sys V into Linux. They have not yet filed any copyright suit against anyone since they only just got the copyright registrations issued.
Don't confuse the two very different legal issues.
We'll eventually see how the courts interpret the GPL. It's a very straightforward license. There's really no legal basis to fail to give it full weight. SCO's best argument is that they didn't explicitly put the code under the GPL, but even that argument had severe weaknesses. Given the close involvement in the development of the kernel by SCO employees up to and including Ransom Love, former CEO of Caldera, the argument that they weren't aware of their code being used in the kernel is hollow.
The "viral" nature of the GPL is not a legal argument.
GPL has caused an amazing mess where copyrights, patents and trademarks have been thrown in and this GPL not only hasn't prevented that contamination, but it arrogantly claims to supercede governmental authority to determine the assignment and licensing of ownership.
Huh? The government has nothing to do with the licensing of IP. It all done through private contracts and licenses. All the government does is enforce contracts and licenses, when asked to do so, in courts. Similarly, assignment
The rest of your post is similarly confused. Copyright vests in the author without any registration requirement. The government can not and will not reassign the copyright to code to people who register and to people who hold patents.
You clearly don't understand the distinction between a contract and a license. Some licenses are contracts but some licenses are not contracts. For there to be a contract, there need to be 4 things one of which is consideration. In the GPL there is no consideration, there for it is not a contract. (The conditions in the license are not consideration.) That dosn't mean that it dosn't stand alone as a license.
There isn't even anything particularly novel about the GPL. People have been granting licenses and had them enforced for as long as there has been copyright law.
The MySQL case from a year or two ago involved a GPL license. The license wasn't a legal issue -- everybody in the case treated it as if it's applicability was undisputed.
One interesting result was that, while the defendants in the case had violated the license for a period of time, once they had complied, the judge felt that no further penalty was necessary to cover the period of time they were out of compliance nor did he think that there was any obstacle to them reasserting the right to distribute once they were in compliance.
Now, if I could only remember the name of the case.
First of all, free markets are like a religion to some people. They have faith in them. I don't.
Markets take into account all publically available information, some privately available information and some wild guesses into the market price. There is no way to determine how much information v. how much speculation a market price contains.
At best, you could determine a concensus value for the probability of an event which is a far cry from being able to predict and an even further cry away from being able to *prevent*.
If markets were always right, why did we have the dot-com boom and bust? It seems like the same idiots who were proposing putting Sicial Security funds in the market have moved on to putting intelligence operations in the market. But they are still idiots with an innappropriate amount of faith in markets.
What exactly is the derivative work? This is not specified in the contract and relies on the usual statutory construction.
RCU is not a derivative work of Sys V.
AIX with RCU is.
IBM owns all the IP in RCU. IBM and SCO share the IP in AIX with RCU. IBM had better not make AIX Open Source because they don't own all of the rights to it. IBM is free to make RCU Open Source becuase they *do* own all of the IP in it.
I thought that my example of someone including a feature in a binary kernel and distributing that kernel was sufficiently clear of grey areas. I don't think that anyone disputes that if you distribute a binary kernel which has been modified, you must release the source since the binary kernel is a derivative work of the unmodified kernel. The GPL says you can only do this if you release the source. The SCO license says that IBM can only do that (release a derivative work of the Sys V kernel) if they keep the code secret.
Since this is a pretty cut and dried example which dosn't get into some of the grey areas about what is a derivative work, It seems clear that any finding that RCU (or an AIX kernel containing RCU) was not a derivative work would be highly damaging to the GPL.
Based on our own interpretation of the GPL, SCO has a case here. But any rulings which clarify what consitutes a derivative work are going to be good for uses of GPLed works.
I don't see any way SCO can have a claim unless the RCU code that IBM donated contained SysV code or code derived from SysV. I seriously doubt IBM would be stupid enough to do that.
IBM's contract with AT&T allows IBM to create derivative works but it also requires that IBM treat these derivative works the same way that they treat the Unix base code.
In this way it's similar to the GPL. If IBM had released a Linux kernel with RCU features, people would be clamoring for the RCU code to be released under the GPL.
Similarly, SCO is claiming that RCU is a derived work of Sys V and demanding that the derived work be kept secret as the Sys V codebase was.
Ironically, a ruling which finds RCU to not be a derived work of Sys V helps IBM but weakens the GPL by narrowing what must be considered a derived work. A ruling which holds RCU to be a derived work of Sys V hurts IBM, but helps the GPL by setting an expansive definition of what constitutes a derived work.
But even if IBM loses to SCO, it probably has no implications for Linux unless they can get a ruling that SCO rightfully owns the copyright to RCU which seems incredibly unlikely.
In the MySQL infringement case that the GPL was the contractual basis for the suit and the standard for behavior of both parties was not even a question. The license was part of the case and the judge was ready to enforce it.
Anyone who doubts that the GPL is enforcable has a fool for a lawyer. Now it may not be completely enforcable in the way that GNU zealots claim, but as an IP license, it is on very strong footing in a court of law.
The lack of legal challanges to the validity of the GPL should be viewed as a tacit admission of its validity.
The GPL contains a disclaimer of warrantee. It is perhaps the weakest part of the GPL because, under some interpretations of contract formation, it may require an assent to be valid.
Everything else in the GPL is concerned with the rights guaranteed to the author by copyright. They are on a
The question of who you could sue isn't as clear cut as you think. It involves complicated questions of jurisdiction which vary from place to place.
SCO's case, if there is any, hinges completely around the "derivative works" language of the AT&T/IBM contract. Frankly, I think that the language in the contract is very unclear as to what it requires from IBM.
Ironically, GPL advocates sometimes have as expansive a concept of derivative works as SCO is asserting here. The difference is that, in the case of Linux, a derivative work which is distributed must be GPLed. In this case, SCO is claiming that such a derivative work may not be disclosed to third parties.
The likely outcome of this case is a somewhat less expansive definition of what constitutes a derivative work that some GPL zealots would like.
But, it should be clear that when ambiguous language like this gets up before a judge (and perhaps a jury) all bets are off as to which way they are going to lean.
The Linux community should take some comfort that SCO has not asserted any Copyright claims against IBM. No doubt, they will try to claim that the derivative works clause in the IBM contract gives them copyright over that code and that would be a possible future action against IBM, but
SCO hasn't convinced anyone that the purported code copied in Linux is a violation of their copyright since they haven't shown enough of the code to determine its true source: BSD, SCO, Linux itself or elsewhere.
...and I see this message attached to a 5:Informative comment. I'm supposed to mod it down as overrated on the basis of the say so of a nick that says Sir Holo who claims to be a Solid State physicist?
If the poster is full of shit, explain his errors. Becuase otherwise, I have no basis to accept your words over his.
This Wired article points out the fact that, even during the middle ages, Christian scholars found that extraterrestrial life would not seriously challenge their faith. You can bet these guys weren't big advocates of evolution, either.
There was no concept of Scientific Evolution before the 19th Century.
I'll also mention that the Pope is an evolutionist, also noted in the article, although he almost certainly believes in creationism, as well.
You'd be quite wrong.
I don't know why people confuse the bizarre anti-rational, anti-evolutionary beliefs of a few nutty Fundamentalists from the US Bible Belt with the beliefs of Christians around the world.
Slashdot Mirror
First, the source agreement dosn't say that all source derivatives belong to the Unix source owner.
Second, Copyright dosn't work that way. The author is automatically the owner except in the case of a work for hire (not applicable here) and an explicit assignment of copyright in writing. A license agreement can not automatically reassign copyright the way you suggest.
That would be a copyright violation.
The last link shows the code apparently came from SGI. Isn't SCO claiming that IBM contributed the so-called infringing code?
No.
The accusations made by SCO have been very unclear. The IBM case is about acts by IBM which SCO claims breaches the IBM/AT&T contract. It involves contributing code IBM got by buying Sequent and by participating in Project Monterey. This technology includes RCU, NUMA, SMP and scalability.
Independantly, SCO claims that there are many lines of code copied from Sys V into Linux. They have not yet filed any copyright suit against anyone since they only just got the copyright registrations issued.
Don't confuse the two very different legal issues.
Code like this?
and this?
Mostly from natural causes. Your disgust arises from your ignorance.
The SCO v IBM Twicky.
We'll eventually see how the courts interpret the GPL. It's a very straightforward license. There's really no legal basis to fail to give it full weight. SCO's best argument is that they didn't explicitly put the code under the GPL, but even that argument had severe weaknesses. Given the close involvement in the development of the kernel by SCO employees up to and including Ransom Love, former CEO of Caldera, the argument that they weren't aware of their code being used in the kernel is hollow.
The "viral" nature of the GPL is not a legal argument.
...or smoking crack.
GPL has caused an amazing mess where copyrights, patents and trademarks have been thrown in and this GPL not only hasn't prevented that contamination, but it arrogantly claims to supercede governmental authority to determine the assignment and licensing of ownership.
Huh? The government has nothing to do with the licensing of IP. It all done through private contracts and licenses. All the government does is enforce contracts and licenses, when asked to do so, in courts. Similarly, assignment
The rest of your post is similarly confused. Copyright vests in the author without any registration requirement. The government can not and will not reassign the copyright to code to people who register and to people who hold patents.
You clearly don't understand the distinction between a contract and a license. Some licenses are contracts but some licenses are not contracts. For there to be a contract, there need to be 4 things one of which is consideration. In the GPL there is no consideration, there for it is not a contract. (The conditions in the license are not consideration.) That dosn't mean that it dosn't stand alone as a license.
There isn't even anything particularly novel about the GPL. People have been granting licenses and had them enforced for as long as there has been copyright law.
Judging from your high uid, I think not. My sig dates to shortly after the limit was put in place.
The MySQL case from a year or two ago involved a GPL license. The license wasn't a legal issue -- everybody in the case treated it as if it's applicability was undisputed.
One interesting result was that, while the defendants in the case had violated the license for a period of time, once they had complied, the judge felt that no further penalty was necessary to cover the period of time they were out of compliance nor did he think that there was any obstacle to them reasserting the right to distribute once they were in compliance.
Now, if I could only remember the name of the case.
I like the sound of that.
First of all, free markets are like a religion to some people. They have faith in them. I don't.
Markets take into account all publically available information, some privately available information and some wild guesses into the market price. There is no way to determine how much information v. how much speculation a market price contains.
At best, you could determine a concensus value for the probability of an event which is a far cry from being able to predict and an even further cry away from being able to *prevent*.
If markets were always right, why did we have the dot-com boom and bust? It seems like the same idiots who were proposing putting Sicial Security funds in the market have moved on to putting intelligence operations in the market. But they are still idiots with an innappropriate amount of faith in markets.
What exactly is the derivative work? This is not specified in the contract and relies on the usual statutory construction.
RCU is not a derivative work of Sys V.
AIX with RCU is.
IBM owns all the IP in RCU. IBM and SCO share the IP in AIX with RCU. IBM had better not make AIX Open Source because they don't own all of the rights to it. IBM is free to make RCU Open Source becuase they *do* own all of the IP in it.
SCO's claims are groundless *as a matter of law*.
While AIX + RCU is clearly a derivative work of Sys V, RCU by itself is not.
There is no legal theory which does the equivalent of making Disney's modifications of the Winnie the Pooh story a property of A.A. Milne's estate.
I thought that my example of someone including a feature in a binary kernel and distributing that kernel was sufficiently clear of grey areas. I don't think that anyone disputes that if you distribute a binary kernel which has been modified, you must release the source since the binary kernel is a derivative work of the unmodified kernel. The GPL says you can only do this if you release the source. The SCO license says that IBM can only do that (release a derivative work of the Sys V kernel) if they keep the code secret.
Since this is a pretty cut and dried example which dosn't get into some of the grey areas about what is a derivative work, It seems clear that any finding that RCU (or an AIX kernel containing RCU) was not a derivative work would be highly damaging to the GPL.
Based on our own interpretation of the GPL, SCO has a case here. But any rulings which clarify what consitutes a derivative work are going to be good for uses of GPLed works.
I don't see any way SCO can have a claim unless the RCU code that IBM donated contained SysV code or code derived from SysV. I seriously doubt IBM would be stupid enough to do that.
IBM's contract with AT&T allows IBM to create derivative works but it also requires that IBM treat these derivative works the same way that they treat the Unix base code.
In this way it's similar to the GPL. If IBM had released a Linux kernel with RCU features, people would be clamoring for the RCU code to be released under the GPL.
Similarly, SCO is claiming that RCU is a derived work of Sys V and demanding that the derived work be kept secret as the Sys V codebase was.
Ironically, a ruling which finds RCU to not be a derived work of Sys V helps IBM but weakens the GPL by narrowing what must be considered a derived work. A ruling which holds RCU to be a derived work of Sys V hurts IBM, but helps the GPL by setting an expansive definition of what constitutes a derived work.
But even if IBM loses to SCO, it probably has no implications for Linux unless they can get a ruling that SCO rightfully owns the copyright to RCU which seems incredibly unlikely.
In the MySQL infringement case that the GPL was the contractual basis for the suit and the standard for behavior of both parties was not even a question. The license was part of the case and the judge was ready to enforce it.
Anyone who doubts that the GPL is enforcable has a fool for a lawyer. Now it may not be completely enforcable in the way that GNU zealots claim, but as an IP license, it is on very strong footing in a court of law.
The lack of legal challanges to the validity of the GPL should be viewed as a tacit admission of its validity.
The images are tiny and of poor quality. If a blurry 120x90 pixel image of a 1200 dpi origional is not a fair use, I don't know what is.
The GPL contains a disclaimer of warrantee. It is perhaps the weakest part of the GPL because, under some interpretations of contract formation, it may require an assent to be valid.
Everything else in the GPL is concerned with the rights guaranteed to the author by copyright. They are on a
The question of who you could sue isn't as clear cut as you think. It involves complicated questions of jurisdiction which vary from place to place.
SCO's case, if there is any, hinges completely around the "derivative works" language of the AT&T/IBM contract. Frankly, I think that the language in the contract is very unclear as to what it requires from IBM.
Ironically, GPL advocates sometimes have as expansive a concept of derivative works as SCO is asserting here. The difference is that, in the case of Linux, a derivative work which is distributed must be GPLed. In this case, SCO is claiming that such a derivative work may not be disclosed to third parties.
The likely outcome of this case is a somewhat less expansive definition of what constitutes a derivative work that some GPL zealots would like.
But, it should be clear that when ambiguous language like this gets up before a judge (and perhaps a jury) all bets are off as to which way they are going to lean.
The Linux community should take some comfort that SCO has not asserted any Copyright claims against IBM. No doubt, they will try to claim that the derivative works clause in the IBM contract gives them copyright over that code and that would be a possible future action against IBM, but
SCO hasn't convinced anyone that the purported code copied in Linux is a violation of their copyright since they haven't shown enough of the code to determine its true source: BSD, SCO, Linux itself or elsewhere.
Debian, who brand their dist as GNU/Linux following the example of the Great Leader, ESR.
Debian, who have flame wars on the developers over whether a contribution is free enough.
Debian, where 'stable' means two years old.
...and I see this message attached to a 5:Informative comment. I'm supposed to mod it down as overrated on the basis of the say so of a nick that says Sir Holo who claims to be a Solid State physicist?
If the poster is full of shit, explain his errors. Becuase otherwise, I have no basis to accept your words over his.
This Wired article points out the fact that, even during the middle ages, Christian scholars found that extraterrestrial life would not seriously challenge their faith. You can bet these guys weren't big advocates of evolution, either.
There was no concept of Scientific Evolution before the 19th Century.
I'll also mention that the Pope is an evolutionist, also noted in the article, although he almost certainly believes in creationism, as well.
You'd be quite wrong.
I don't know why people confuse the bizarre anti-rational, anti-evolutionary beliefs of a few nutty Fundamentalists from the US Bible Belt with the beliefs of Christians around the world.
Did you mistype the link?