Yea, ONLY IF you are smart enough to time the market and get out of SCO's stocks before disaster strikes, which is inevitable. This lawsuite is bogus, they have no earnings (P/E ratio is N/A, which means they have no earnings). Their stock is enormously over-valued.
Would any of the men who've made themselves multi-millionares or billionares by investing in the stock-market think SCO's a good investment? Do you think Warren Buffet or Peter Lynch would even consider investing in SCO? Nope.
Look at SCO's P/E ratios. SCO does not have a P/E ratio, because it is NOT making any earnings. The stock is thus, no matter how low it is priced, over-valued. Would you pay 50 dollars for a dollar bill just because millions of fuckwits were also paying 50 dollars for a dollar bill?
If you want to invest in a company, SCO is not the one to invest in. Never invest in a company with a P/E ratio that's larger than the average in it's industry, and larger than it's P/E:G ratio (price/earnings to growth...it's ok if the stock has a high P/E as long as it's growing rapidly enough to accomodate that P/E).
SCO's stock is shit. It's worse than shit. It is the shittiest shit on Wall-Street.
Look at the P/E (Price:Earnings) ratio for SCO's stock. THERE IS NONE. IT IS UNDEFINED, because the denominator in that equation is ZERO. SCO is not making any money. Any pricing of their stock over $0 is over-rated.
If something isn't secure from exploitation if you know the source, then it isn't really secure from exploitation, and it's just a weak system waiting to be exploited. The military need not use confidential software; they only need have confidential information. Sure, some "black" software is used in the military; but that can be called neither proprietary nor FOSS. It is simply top secret black software. This means that not only is it top secret, but the government doesn't even acknowledge it's existence. An example would be whatever software was used for modeling radar reflection for the production of the F-117 and B -2.
The information which produced that software, however, is available in a Russian scientific paper.
You can learn enough about programming language later on to write programs to do what's needed. Learn about as much biology as you can, as well as as much as you can about algorithms (e.g., phylogenetic methods, alignment methods, micro-array analysis methods, and lots and lots of statistics). In your spare time, learn Perl.
The market does not always act rationally. If it did, then the Stock Market wouldn't be so volatile, no stocks would be under or over priced, and no one would "beat the street", nor would anyone get "beat by the street".
There has been no conclusive -- or even convincing -- proof that file-sharing has harmed CD-sales. I doubt there will be because I doubt the underlying truth of the claim. Do you really think anyone would have bought thousands of songs worth of CD's, like they download thousands of songs a year?
Let's examine several of Oppenheim's outright lies or dodges:
Sharing involves lending something to somebody, and while it is on loan, the owner no longer has it.
The question is, would he then support a virtual library of music, which purchases music/etc at bulk price and so many copies of it, and if it has 3 copies of song X, it allows 3 people to listen to song X from it's server at a time? The answer, I think, will be no, which would make him a fucking hypocrite.
when individuals engage in illegal copying, they are taking money out of the pockets of all of the people who have put their hard work into making the music
Nope, wrong. There's nothign that says the individual who downloaded a song for free would have blown away several bucks to get that song on a CD. So his statement is incorrect.
AMEN!!, [in response to Lessig's statement that although the sharing of copyrighted files is illegal under current law, technology can not be made illegal if it has substantial noninfringing uses]
I must admit, I was at first pleased upon reading this response from Oppenheim. However, if Oppenheim -- who is representing the RIAA -- really believed that, then the RIAA wouldn't be trying to stop P2P developers and shut down P2P networks, or destroy these networks by flooding them with crap.
There are quite a few ways that these technologies can incorporate safeguards to prevent copyright infringement.
What Oppenheim conveniently leaves out is that it is almost inherent that any technology that filter's out infringing use will also filter out non-infringing use. Computer's cannot determine whether or not something is infringing copyright. Sometimes judges can't even determine that. Any technology which very efficiently prevents copyright violations on P2P networks will very severely eliminate legitimate uses.
The DMCA Anti-Circumvention provision is not intended to stifle technological innovation.
Intent is irrelevant. It already has stiffled innovation and free speech.
All that aside, the DMCA Anti-Circumvention provision has specific provisions built into it that exempts true scientific research.
Which obviously weren't good enough. See Felton.
every three years, the United States Copyright Office reviews whether specific exemptions need to be added to the DMCA to address this issue.
In case Oppenheimer doesn't know, the scientific community doesn't operate on a 3-year basis. There is extremely rapid turnover in the scientific community. Current knowledge today will be old knowledge a week from now. 3 years is a long time to slow down science.
The goal of copy protection in CDs is not to prevent individuals from making copies that they want to make for personal use, but rather to prevent individuals from distributing the recordings or making copies they don't have a right to make...Many copy-protection technologies include on a CD a second copy of the album in compressed form ready for transfer to an owner's computer
Never-the-less, the DMCA allows copyright holders to effectively circumvent fair use. It allows them to prevent something from ever being public domain (in addition to their bribery of Congress to retroactively extend copyright laws...fucking crooks). Simply allowing such an atrocity is inexecuseable.
irresponsible copyright holder makes a mistake, the DMCA has a process built into it for counter-notifications to be made in which an individual can dispute a take down notice.
This is Oppenheimer's response to the cease&desist questions. For the most part, I found his response here reasonable, but this is a half-truthed statement.
The DMCA may have such a process in it, but that's irrelevant. ISP's will automatically take down the sites of anyone accused of infringement, and they have to counter-claim etc to revoke that (because ISP's aren't liable if they do such). This is a bad
A big bwuhahahahaha to SCO yet again. Firstly, what world of AIX?
Secondly, users can rightfully claim the right to use anything they paid for. SCO's welcomed to deny that user's can't use what they paid for -- but that destroys the entire hypocritical basis of copyright.
If they're not actually living in the US, that's irrelevant. The US has no authority over anyone other than individuals that are physically within the US. They can't have a spammer -- located in, say, Mexico -- imprisoned, because he's disobeying US laws. That would be a violation of sovereignty.
...unregulatable. Try to regulate it in the US, and people will just move off-shore. Even within the US -- e.g., peer-2-peer, The Free Network (FreeNode) -- it is difficult, or impossible, to regulate. In some cases this is this is good. For example, it allows file-sharing networks to thrive. It also allows political descent or whistle-blowing, without fear of retribution (via annonymosity). In other cases it is bad -- as in, when some prick gets millions of dollars by sending out, "make your dick bigger" ads
Cursive is an antiquated bunch of aristocratic bullshit. It has little or no use in moden society, except for perhaps signatures.
Printing is much easier to read. It is also even more easy to read something typed up, and alot quicker to type it up. Why waste time writing or printing a report when you can type it?
But there are still enough things that you have to write by hand that keep people in good practice in regards to printing.
However, most people are terrible with cursive, unless they write their letters.
The only time I use cursive is to sign my signature, and when I had to write a several sentence statement declaring that I consented to blah blah blah, it took me forever.
But so what? When I can type at 80 to 100 words per minute, why the fuck would I want to write? If I had a lap-top, I'd take my notes on it (in fact, with 1GHz laptops selling under $300, I'm probably going to buy one soon).
Free markets are a way to provide to the consumer the most cost-efficient solution.
Cable modems are most certainly not the most cost-efficient solution for rural areas.
If cable companies were to service rural areas unsubsidized, then they would have to charge extremely high rates, in which case the rural areas would simply use satellite.
Satellite is the best solution for rural areas. Don't charge the rest of us unnecessary taxes to solve a problem that doesn't exist.
When civil cases are brought before a court, neither side should be allowed to spend more money than the other. If the kid is only going to spend $1,000 dollars on the case, that's all the RIAA should be allowed to spend. If the RIAA wants to spend more, they should have to either:
(a) Offer to loan him enough money so that he could also spend as much as they do. In this case, he's free to turn down their offer, and they have to proceed to (b) if they want to hire a more expensive laywer than he can afford.
(b) Give him the money for the more expensive lawyers.
Maybe. But a good lawyer will probably cost you a lot of money. Good lawyers charge by the hour. So, by the time this case is over, he'll have lost his 12k and be in the hole. His only hope is to get the case dismissed, and get a ruling that the RIAA pay his legal bills.
Our civil court system just sucks.
If you allege something against someone in civil court, you should have to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, just like in real life. Also, if you lose, you should have to pay the other person's legal bills.
Roth IRA's, 401(k)'s, 403(b)'s, and other retirement plans are basically untouchable, by lawsuite or just about anything else. Only downside is they're also untouchable to you, but less money now (when you don't need it) means more money later (when you do).
Even when you apply for financial aid and what-not when going to college, retirement plans don't count. Your parents could have millions of dollars in retirement plans, but the University wouldn't consider that.
Of course, none of this justifies the fact that the RIAA is a bunch of greedy music-nazi's, who are so greedy that they aren't satisfied with the billions they get from sales, but also have to steal college student's life-savings.
. There are dozens and dozens of laws specifying what you can say. Libel and slander for starters. Conspiracy. Negligence through inaction.
True, I hadn't considered that. Nothing under changelogs or comments in FOSS is covered by that, though.
Fair use is absolutely a defense against infringing
No, it is not. When you use fair-use in court, you plead guilty to copyright infringement, but say that your infringement was covered under fair-use; thus, you should be allowed to continue doing it, and shouldn't have any penalties levied against you.
You can punish them by informing them of the infringement at the time of your choosing, and Cease & Desisting them from operating the computer systems running their day-to-day money-earning business operations.
No-one's obligated to abide by any cease&desist letters, especially when no solid proof is provided. Until a court says otherwise, no-one has an obligation to pay any attention to SCO's foot-stamping, nor can they be held liable for ignoring it.
If their case had some merit, lawyers would volunteer for the chance of a payoff ("contingency").
No. IBM is the only company for which it would be profitable for them to sue, and actually get more money from the lawsuit than they wasted on legal bills. Likewise with lawyers. The money they could extract from individual users -- and even leading GNU/Linux companies like RedHat -- would not justify their time. In any event, they wouldn't be able to extract any money, as neither party had any way of knowing the infringement, thus has no liability.
SCO will take the position that they have provided everybody with the information to correct the matter: "Linux" is infringing, therefore you should stop using Linux.
Even disconsidering what you said later on, which negates that argument, it still has no merit:
(1) SCO's word, without any solid evidence, isn't good enough for anyone to stop using anything. Until the court rules it's infringing, it isn't.
(2) Also ignores the fact that Linux the kernel is very modular.
Not necessarily. No one is allowed to evade the laws of his nation, of course.
Whether something is wrong or not is irrelevant. The only laws regulating what you can and cannot say about something are consumer protection laws. If you say, for example, that something contains 100% of the required daily nutritional value, and it in fact contains only 20%, you're guilty of fraud. Since those who make FOSS aren't necessarily selling anything, this doesn't apply to them. It also doesn't apply to them if they lie about something that does not harm the user, as would be the case with this.
It will effect distributors, because if they leave old versions available, they could be liable for infringement.
In other words, it won't. If they feel the need to leave older versions available, they can do so, and simply replace the relevant code for those versions.
Ignorance of a copyright is not a defense for infringing.
Neither is fair use. It does, however, eliminate the possibility of any damages. You cannot punish someone -- either by jail-time or fines -- for infringing on something which they had no practical way of finding out they were infringing on. SCO has made it impossible for anyone to find out if they're infringing by secrifying their evidence, so they only solidify the argument that it was impossible to know.
In any event, SCO does not have the resources to sue individual users, nor even the many distributors of GNU/Linux.
Several areas of US Intellectual Property law obligate the public to make unfeasible efforts to determine they are uninfringing- most severly in the area of patents.
Actually, it is adviseable to make *no* efforts in such regards, from a legal standpoint. Making no efforts to determine such legitimately gives you ignorance. Also, you independently re-invented or re-implemented whatever patented process is being spoken of, so there's a good argument that you have just as much right to use it as does the person who originally patented it. If you develop something independently on your own, you shouldn't have to pay someone else who came up with it first.
In any event, this entire case is trumped up. SCO has provided no evidence to the public; what they have provided is covered under an NDA, which allows them to pick and choose what they'll allow people to see (iow, manipulate the results). This is certainly because either there is no shared code, or it is them that copied the code from Linux to their OS. As I've pointed out again and again, they nullified their entire case years ago when they distributed a GNU/Linux distribution under the GPL, therefore GPL'ing any code they could possibly be talking about now (if they ever had the rights to any of it anyways). It is also questionable whether they have any rights to the code their talking about, as is made clear by Novell.
As a free, open project, they're free to call their updates whatever they like. In any event, in re-writing the relevant sections, they would undoubtedly code improvements, which menas that such an entry in the changelog would in fact be true. It's of no interest to the community either way, whether you say "changing to remove SCO code" or "improving performance". This entire case is of no relevance to the community. It will not affect distributors of GNU/Linux, as: (a) the allegations are trumped up; (b) were they true, the problem would quickly be coded around. It also will not affect individual users, as users are in no way liable for infringing code in the software they use -- they have no means of knowing that, and no obligation to spend money to find out.
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"If SCO wins"? SCO has about as much chance of winning as did the opponents of MJ's Bulls in the Finals. None.
Since SCO's lawsuite is bogus on it's face -- even from the limited knowledge we have of it, it is bogus -- there is no chance in winning.
Yea, ONLY IF you are smart enough to time the market and get out of SCO's stocks before disaster strikes, which is inevitable. This lawsuite is bogus, they have no earnings (P/E ratio is N/A, which means they have no earnings). Their stock is enormously over-valued.
Would any of the men who've made themselves multi-millionares or billionares by investing in the stock-market think SCO's a good investment? Do you think Warren Buffet or Peter Lynch would even consider investing in SCO? Nope.
Look at SCO's P/E ratios. SCO does not have a P/E ratio, because it is NOT making any earnings. The stock is thus, no matter how low it is priced, over-valued. Would you pay 50 dollars for a dollar bill just because millions of fuckwits were also paying 50 dollars for a dollar bill?
If you want to invest in a company, SCO is not the one to invest in. Never invest in a company with a P/E ratio that's larger than the average in it's industry, and larger than it's P/E:G ratio (price/earnings to growth...it's ok if the stock has a high P/E as long as it's growing rapidly enough to accomodate that P/E).
Some people are FUCKING STUPID.
SCO's stock is shit. It's worse than shit. It is the shittiest shit on Wall-Street.
Look at the P/E (Price:Earnings) ratio for SCO's stock. THERE IS NONE. IT IS UNDEFINED, because the denominator in that equation is ZERO. SCO is not making any money. Any pricing of their stock over $0 is over-rated.
Spread some more anti-FOSS FUD, while you're at it. In most areas, FOSS is either at level or ahead of proprietary software technologically.
If something isn't secure from exploitation if you know the source, then it isn't really secure from exploitation, and it's just a weak system waiting to be exploited. The military need not use confidential software; they only need have confidential information. Sure, some "black" software is used in the military; but that can be called neither proprietary nor FOSS. It is simply top secret black software. This means that not only is it top secret, but the government doesn't even acknowledge it's existence. An example would be whatever software was used for modeling radar reflection for the production of the F-117 and B -2.
The information which produced that software, however, is available in a Russian scientific paper.
You can learn enough about programming language later on to write programs to do what's needed. Learn about as much biology as you can, as well as as much as you can about algorithms (e.g., phylogenetic methods, alignment methods, micro-array analysis methods, and lots and lots of statistics). In your spare time, learn Perl.
The market does not always act rationally. If it did, then the Stock Market wouldn't be so volatile, no stocks would be under or over priced, and no one would "beat the street", nor would anyone get "beat by the street".
There has been no conclusive -- or even convincing -- proof that file-sharing has harmed CD-sales. I doubt there will be because I doubt the underlying truth of the claim. Do you really think anyone would have bought thousands of songs worth of CD's, like they download thousands of songs a year?
Let's examine several of Oppenheim's outright lies or dodges:
Sharing involves lending something to somebody, and while it is on loan, the owner no longer has it.
The question is, would he then support a virtual library of music, which purchases music/etc at bulk price and so many copies of it, and if it has 3 copies of song X, it allows 3 people to listen to song X from it's server at a time? The answer, I think, will be no, which would make him a fucking hypocrite.
when individuals engage in illegal copying, they are taking money out of the pockets of all of the people who have put their hard work into making the music
Nope, wrong. There's nothign that says the individual who downloaded a song for free would have blown away several bucks to get that song on a CD. So his statement is incorrect.
AMEN!!, [in response to Lessig's statement that although the sharing of copyrighted files is illegal under current law, technology can not be made illegal if it has substantial noninfringing uses]
I must admit, I was at first pleased upon reading this response from Oppenheim. However, if Oppenheim -- who is representing the RIAA -- really believed that, then the RIAA wouldn't be trying to stop P2P developers and shut down P2P networks, or destroy these networks by flooding them with crap.
There are quite a few ways that these technologies can incorporate safeguards to prevent copyright infringement.
What Oppenheim conveniently leaves out is that it is almost inherent that any technology that filter's out infringing use will also filter out non-infringing use. Computer's cannot determine whether or not something is infringing copyright. Sometimes judges can't even determine that. Any technology which very efficiently prevents copyright violations on P2P networks will very severely eliminate legitimate uses.
The DMCA Anti-Circumvention provision is not intended to stifle technological innovation.
Intent is irrelevant. It already has stiffled innovation and free speech.
All that aside, the DMCA Anti-Circumvention provision has specific provisions built into it that exempts true scientific research.
Which obviously weren't good enough. See Felton.
every three years, the United States Copyright Office reviews whether specific exemptions need to be added to the DMCA to address this issue.
In case Oppenheimer doesn't know, the scientific community doesn't operate on a 3-year basis. There is extremely rapid turnover in the scientific community. Current knowledge today will be old knowledge a week from now. 3 years is a long time to slow down science.
The goal of copy protection in CDs is not to prevent individuals from making copies that they want to make for personal use, but rather to prevent individuals from distributing the recordings or making copies they don't have a right to make...Many copy-protection technologies include on a CD a second copy of the album in compressed form ready for transfer to an owner's computer
Never-the-less, the DMCA allows copyright holders to effectively circumvent fair use. It allows them to prevent something from ever being public domain (in addition to their bribery of Congress to retroactively extend copyright laws...fucking crooks). Simply allowing such an atrocity is inexecuseable.
irresponsible copyright holder makes a mistake, the DMCA has a process built into it for counter-notifications to be made in which an individual can dispute a take down notice.
This is Oppenheimer's response to the cease&desist questions. For the most part, I found his response here reasonable, but this is a half-truthed statement.
The DMCA may have such a process in it, but that's irrelevant. ISP's will automatically take down the sites of anyone accused of infringement, and they have to counter-claim etc to revoke that (because ISP's aren't liable if they do such). This is a bad
A big bwuhahahahaha to SCO yet again. Firstly, what world of AIX?
Secondly, users can rightfully claim the right to use anything they paid for. SCO's welcomed to deny that user's can't use what they paid for -- but that destroys the entire hypocritical basis of copyright.
If they're not actually living in the US, that's irrelevant. The US has no authority over anyone other than individuals that are physically within the US. They can't have a spammer -- located in, say, Mexico -- imprisoned, because he's disobeying US laws. That would be a violation of sovereignty.
...unregulatable. Try to regulate it in the US, and people will just move off-shore. Even within the US -- e.g., peer-2-peer, The Free Network (FreeNode) -- it is difficult, or impossible, to regulate. In some cases this is this is good. For example, it allows file-sharing networks to thrive. It also allows political descent or whistle-blowing, without fear of retribution (via annonymosity). In other cases it is bad -- as in, when some prick gets millions of dollars by sending out, "make your dick bigger" ads
Who cares if they can write cursive or not?
Cursive is an antiquated bunch of aristocratic bullshit. It has little or no use in moden society, except for perhaps signatures.
Printing is much easier to read. It is also even more easy to read something typed up, and alot quicker to type it up. Why waste time writing or printing a report when you can type it?
"Daddy, what's a penis enlargement?" when he's 6...
What about this one, "Daddy, why do girls suck on guys dicks?"
Spammers are just the scum of the earth, along with the RIAA, MPAA, Congress, Senate, MS, etc.
Ok, so then if it can give you cable at such cheap rates unsubsidized, why do we here in the US need to subsidize it?
But there are still enough things that you have to write by hand that keep people in good practice in regards to printing.
However, most people are terrible with cursive, unless they write their letters.
The only time I use cursive is to sign my signature, and when I had to write a several sentence statement declaring that I consented to blah blah blah, it took me forever.
But so what? When I can type at 80 to 100 words per minute, why the fuck would I want to write? If I had a lap-top, I'd take my notes on it (in fact, with 1GHz laptops selling under $300, I'm probably going to buy one soon).
Free markets are a way to provide to the consumer the most cost-efficient solution.
Cable modems are most certainly not the most cost-efficient solution for rural areas.
If cable companies were to service rural areas unsubsidized, then they would have to charge extremely high rates, in which case the rural areas would simply use satellite.
Satellite is the best solution for rural areas. Don't charge the rest of us unnecessary taxes to solve a problem that doesn't exist.
When civil cases are brought before a court, neither side should be allowed to spend more money than the other. If the kid is only going to spend $1,000 dollars on the case, that's all the RIAA should be allowed to spend. If the RIAA wants to spend more, they should have to either:
(a) Offer to loan him enough money so that he could also spend as much as they do. In this case, he's free to turn down their offer, and they have to proceed to (b) if they want to hire a more expensive laywer than he can afford.
(b) Give him the money for the more expensive lawyers.
This eliminates the advantage of the rich.
Maybe. But a good lawyer will probably cost you a lot of money. Good lawyers charge by the hour. So, by the time this case is over, he'll have lost his 12k and be in the hole. His only hope is to get the case dismissed, and get a ruling that the RIAA pay his legal bills.
Our civil court system just sucks.
If you allege something against someone in civil court, you should have to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, just like in real life. Also, if you lose, you should have to pay the other person's legal bills.
Roth IRA's, 401(k)'s, 403(b)'s, and other retirement plans are basically untouchable, by lawsuite or just about anything else. Only downside is they're also untouchable to you, but less money now (when you don't need it) means more money later (when you do).
Even when you apply for financial aid and what-not when going to college, retirement plans don't count. Your parents could have millions of dollars in retirement plans, but the University wouldn't consider that.
Of course, none of this justifies the fact that the RIAA is a bunch of greedy music-nazi's, who are so greedy that they aren't satisfied with the billions they get from sales, but also have to steal college student's life-savings.
Ok, this is sort of a gray area. Check the EFF's FAQ on Fair Use: http://www.eff.org/IP//eff_fair_use_faq.html
. There are dozens and dozens of laws specifying what you can say. Libel and slander for starters. Conspiracy. Negligence through inaction.
True, I hadn't considered that. Nothing under changelogs or comments in FOSS is covered by that, though.
Fair use is absolutely a defense against infringing
No, it is not. When you use fair-use in court, you plead guilty to copyright infringement, but say that your infringement was covered under fair-use; thus, you should be allowed to continue doing it, and shouldn't have any penalties levied against you.
You can punish them by informing them of the infringement at the time of your choosing, and Cease & Desisting them from operating the computer systems running their day-to-day money-earning business operations.
No-one's obligated to abide by any cease&desist letters, especially when no solid proof is provided. Until a court says otherwise, no-one has an obligation to pay any attention to SCO's foot-stamping, nor can they be held liable for ignoring it.
If their case had some merit, lawyers would volunteer for the chance of a payoff ("contingency").
No. IBM is the only company for which it would be profitable for them to sue, and actually get more money from the lawsuit than they wasted on legal bills. Likewise with lawyers. The money they could extract from individual users -- and even leading GNU/Linux companies like RedHat -- would not justify their time. In any event, they wouldn't be able to extract any money, as neither party had any way of knowing the infringement, thus has no liability.
SCO will take the position that they have provided everybody with the information to correct the matter: "Linux" is infringing, therefore you should stop using Linux.
Even disconsidering what you said later on, which negates that argument, it still has no merit:
(1) SCO's word, without any solid evidence, isn't good enough for anyone to stop using anything. Until the court rules it's infringing, it isn't.
(2) Also ignores the fact that Linux the kernel is very modular.
Not necessarily. No one is allowed to evade the laws of his nation, of course.
Whether something is wrong or not is irrelevant. The only laws regulating what you can and cannot say about something are consumer protection laws. If you say, for example, that something contains 100% of the required daily nutritional value, and it in fact contains only 20%, you're guilty of fraud. Since those who make FOSS aren't necessarily selling anything, this doesn't apply to them. It also doesn't apply to them if they lie about something that does not harm the user, as would be the case with this.
It will effect distributors, because if they leave old versions available, they could be liable for infringement.
In other words, it won't. If they feel the need to leave older versions available, they can do so, and simply replace the relevant code for those versions.
Ignorance of a copyright is not a defense for infringing.
Neither is fair use. It does, however, eliminate the possibility of any damages. You cannot punish someone -- either by jail-time or fines -- for infringing on something which they had no practical way of finding out they were infringing on. SCO has made it impossible for anyone to find out if they're infringing by secrifying their evidence, so they only solidify the argument that it was impossible to know.
In any event, SCO does not have the resources to sue individual users, nor even the many distributors of GNU/Linux.
Several areas of US Intellectual Property law obligate the public to make unfeasible efforts to determine they are uninfringing- most severly in the area of patents.
Actually, it is adviseable to make *no* efforts in such regards, from a legal standpoint. Making no efforts to determine such legitimately gives you ignorance. Also, you independently re-invented or re-implemented whatever patented process is being spoken of, so there's a good argument that you have just as much right to use it as does the person who originally patented it. If you develop something independently on your own, you shouldn't have to pay someone else who came up with it first.
In any event, this entire case is trumped up. SCO has provided no evidence to the public; what they have provided is covered under an NDA, which allows them to pick and choose what they'll allow people to see (iow, manipulate the results). This is certainly because either there is no shared code, or it is them that copied the code from Linux to their OS. As I've pointed out again and again, they nullified their entire case years ago when they distributed a GNU/Linux distribution under the GPL, therefore GPL'ing any code they could possibly be talking about now (if they ever had the rights to any of it anyways). It is also questionable whether they have any rights to the code their talking about, as is made clear by Novell.
As a free, open project, they're free to call their updates whatever they like. In any event, in re-writing the relevant sections, they would undoubtedly code improvements, which menas that such an entry in the changelog would in fact be true. It's of no interest to the community either way, whether you say "changing to remove SCO code" or "improving performance". This entire case is of no relevance to the community. It will not affect distributors of GNU/Linux, as: (a) the allegations are trumped up; (b) were they true, the problem would quickly be coded around. It also will not affect individual users, as users are in no way liable for infringing code in the software they use -- they have no means of knowing that, and no obligation to spend money to find out.