I don't really understand this latest spat of legal attacks - it seems very uncharacteristic of Linus.
I think you'll find it's something that Linus himself would rather not do and has no interest in doing - but the way the trademark "system" works is that you have to make a reasonable pretense of defending your trademark (from unlicensed use) or you lose it. It's quite different to other sorts of intellectual property concepts like patents or copyright.
And that's really all there is to it. If you must blame something, blame the system - don't blame Linus (and definitely don't blame LMI or the lawyers they hire).
I find the mouse gestures on Opera are just so much better than those available (with an extension) on Firefox or Mozilla. It's like the difference between day and night.
When I tried using mouse gestures on Firefox, they worked... just. But the "feel" wasn't responsive enough for it to be worth using. On Opera (at least on Windows - I haven't used Opera much on Linux) it was incredibly responsive and the overall mouse gesture experience was really really nice.
The topic here is the Gimp. The overwhelming majority of Gimp users are still on Linux or Unix based X11 environments, so it's quite reasonable to give four lines of shell commands to "solve" the described problem (keeping the Gimp windows grouped/managed together) for a Unix-ish/X11 display environment.
cortana made the point concisely and effectively. Yes, it does assume a little knowledge... but if you explain every technical solution to make it understandable to someone who knows absolutely nothing, it can actually obscure the valuable information and make it less accessible to people who do know what they're doing (or who at least know enough to recognise patterns and find out the things they might not know (like, eg. "what is xnest?")). And, not to put too fine a point on it, it's hard work to tailor information down to the lowest common denominator - you've got to work out for yourself whether it's worth expending the extra effort.
You making assumptions about cortana's motivations was kind of amusing, though. Especially as my experience is that people doing that tend to ascribe their own motivations to others (as those motivations are the only ones they really understand).
After all, this guy apparently did... ahh... well, something for the Scientologists!
And as we well know, any lawyer that works for bad people is just as bad. Always. There are no exceptions to this rule, ever. Smithers, dismember the corpse and send the widow a corsage.
And certainly the fact that the law-talkin'-guy in question has donated significant time and effort and has been positively involved in the Linux community in Australia for years, that counts for absolutely nothing. Nuh-uh.
....
*sigh* I only wish people couldn't really be that stupid. Ah well. *wrygrin*
You're getting a little confused between contracts and licenses here. But even if a shrinkwrap EULA was accepted in all courts as having the legal weight of a contract (and it isn't), there would still be a question as to whether it was reasonable.
I believe there's a basic component of most contract law (at least in the US and most UK-based Commonwealth countries) that for it to be enforceable, both sides must receive something worthwhile. Ah, the legal term is consideration (and there's a lot of interesting issues around it, that Wikipedia article is well worth reading).
How could anyone be held to terms for which they don't gain something worthwhile in return?
I do apologise, sir. Dreadfully careless of me to forget the fucking.:-)
Regarding the rest, I actually mostly agree with you, with a perhaps a bit of hemming and hawing.
I don't think there's a great deal of value in Linus or Linus' agents being too protective of the "Linux" trademark, but I can't deny that the entire raison d'etre of the trademark system is to give a trademark owner some (in theory quite limited) rights to stop other people taking advantage of their mark without permission.
And I'd suggest that it's probably quite reasonable for a representative of the trademark owner to send out warning letters before a trademark's been given - especially if it's quite reasonable to think there'll be no problem with the trademark application being approved.
This case is probably a bit unusual in a few ways, mainly because the mark in question has been used for a long time by some Australian businesses. Part of me would like to see the trademark refused in Australia, and the term "Linux" accepted as a generic term. But, well, I'm not overly concerned about it. There are more important things to care about.
He wasn't threatening to see you sued by Malcolm. He was making a point, comparing the relative morality and legality between your words and Malcolm's. The fact that you read it as a threat is perhaps indicative of your own frame of mind, but not much else.
And regarding your little hobby - can I have a genuine Doc Ruby "fool" label? I promise to do everything possible to prove I'm worthy of such a label, including (but not limited to) making sense and not completely talking out of my arse.
Although the last will be a bit tricky at times, I won't deny it:-).
*takes "fool" label* *makes paper plane* *throws paper plane* Wheee!
If you didn't give a fuck, you wouldn't be responding to him. *shrug*
He was right and you were wrong. Australian libel laws are ever-so-slightly different to those of the USA.
But don't worry, you can still come visit Australia if you want. I'm fairly sure Jeremy wouldn't give a flying fuck about anything you've said about him. Certainly not enough to waste his valuable time suing you.
Damn. I wish I'd known about this technique of listing my sources back at uni. Instead of maintaining a formal bibliography and listing my sources down to specific editions and page numbers, I could have done something simple like say "Hey, here's a link to a forum discussion with about 350 comments in it. The info's in there somewhere. No, I'm not going to tell you where specifically, you can find it - and if you guess the wrong thing, that's your fault, not mine."
Sorry, just to clarify - when I referred to the "second one" (as in "the second one wouldn't qualify as a SLAPP in my book") I meant the holysmoke link, which was actually listed first in tomhudson's post.
There are two examples posted
here. It was posted by the author you're trying to refute, a whopping six hours before your post claiming there wasn't two examples.
Well done. I guess the earlier it is, the more correct it is, right?
Actually, no, not really. For a start, I was hoping that tomhudson would actually respond and defend his own words, but what the hell. You say there are two examples (of a SLAPP suit or threat to sue). I see only one - the legal threat against sweenytod.com. Well, at least I'm prepared to lean towards that being a SLAPP-style threat, being ignorant of the specifics of the case. It certainly looks like a typical piece of Scientology critic-intimidation.
The second one wouldn't qualify as a SLAPP in my book, I'm curious as to how you think it would qualify.
Unless by SLAPP you just mean any legal threat sent to anyone for any reason. *shrug*
Feeling a little stupid now?
Give me a second legal threat by Jeremy that could reasonably be considered a SLAPP (probably the best place to start would be if he's actually sent any more threats for the Scientologists) and I promise you, I'll do my best. Don't worry, I've had a lot of practise.:)
Wow. You've really got something personal against Jeremy, don't you? You should try to restrain yourself on the irrelevant ad hominems, it's really not a classy look.
What's the primary issue you've got? As far as I can tell, it seems to be his statement about the Linux kernel violating patents. Are you angry because you know the statement's true, or because you think the statement's false, or just because a respected person in the Australian Linux community made the statement at all?
Would it piss you off if I did the same? I've got no particular status in the Australian Linux community, but I've got a four-digit slashdot ID under my own name, that's gotta count for something:).
Hey, I absolutely believe the Linux kernel violates some software patents. Most of those patents are probably about as worthwhile as the British Telecom(?) patent on hyperlinks, but some of them are probably less trivial and could (in theory) be enforced.
The legal problem with software patents is that they're given out too easily, they're too wide-ranging and it costs so fucking much in time and money to defeat them. And even if you defeat a patent in one country, that's no guarantee you're safe in another.
So the whole point of people tiptoeing around the patent issue is that they know things could blow up at any time. Would you rather continue to tiptoe? Or would you rather actually do something worthwhile to change the system? Because that's one of the things Jeremy's trying to do.
He's not right. Jeremy isn't a "leach", nor a leech.
But he is a lawyer, and he was hired by Linux Australia to represent them in this.
I don't know the specifics of the arrangement between Linux Australia and Linus Torvalds (and I am certainly not a lawyer of any kind), but if Linux Australia indeed have no status to represent Torvalds in this trademark issue, all that should need to happen is for someone to bring that up in court. Or maybe not even in court.
Knowing Jeremy, and knowing that he is, to put it mildly, extremely competent, I'm willing to trust that everything is above board.
"In the event of my being run over by a bus, my will and the three detached digital signatures will be available on my watch," Malcolm wrote on his blog. "That is unless the bus ran over my wrist, in which case all bets are off."
smvp6459 quote:
Malcolm sound like an attention-grubbing water-head.
Believe it or not, not everything you read on the internet is true.
And he's far from being an advocate of free speech. He is always threatening people with SLAP suits.
It's spelled SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation). And if he's "always" threatening people with such things, perhaps you'd like to refer to at least two examples? You can't? What a surprise.
I've met Jeremy. His company, Terminus Network Services hosts my flooble.net site. All indications are that he's a decent bloke, even if he is a lawyer:).
And regardless of what Jeremy says about any topic ever, regardless of whether he says the earth is flat or that 2+2=4, you're allowed to say he's full of shit. And the rest of us are allowed to dismiss you as clueless. Nice, isn't it?
For a start, it would have been stylish if you'd specifically pointed to his statement about "Linux violating patents" and especially references to "hundreds" of violations. Because, you see, when I look at the GP's link, the only possible link to your statement is Jeremy's article titled Software Patents, the FTA, and the End of All Things.
And in that article he includes a quote from him in a ZDNet interview:
There is no question that some of the open source software that is out there - such as the Linux kernel itself - has got patent violations in there. That is acknowledged. There is more danger that those potential violations will be litigated.
Your insinuation (in bold, no less) about "hundreds" of linux patent violations actually comes from a point made by a FSF lawyer (Dan Ravicher), not by Jeremy himself - immediately below the above quote:
The resulting furore on Slashdot was deafening. But my statements aren't actually terribly controversial. Last year, Open Source Risk Management published a paper by Free Software Foundation lawyer Dan Ravicher in which he claimed to have found 283 potential patent violations in the Linux kernel.
If you want to object to the way this trademark licensing thing is being handled, do that. And be specific and refer to your sources. Don't just throw unsupported (and unsupportable) mud (and FUD) on completely unrelated topics. To borrow from one of my favourite sigquotes:
In case you weren't aware, "ad hominem" is not latin for "the user
of this technique is a fine debater."
By the way, moderators, I'd suggest you take a look at the grandparent of this post, to which tomhudson was referring. It's had a grossly inappropriate mod to 0, Troll. It'd be nice if you could help to bring it back up to the 2 or 3 that it deserves. Thanks.:)
Something like that has happened with the developers of some Half-Life mods - I believe Valve has hired most of the people behind the Counterstrike and Day of Defeat mods, and now sells/supports those mods commercially.
The main thing so far has been that id only releases their engines under GPL when they're a few years out of date - so generally you're not going to get a source mod while the engine is still widely used.
I'm not sure how much Q3A is played nowadays, but I get the impression that more modern games like UT2004 and HalfLife2 have pretty much taken over the online FPS scene.
It may also be that it's never really occurred to mod-developers as a possibility. I think the general rule with Q3A/UT/HL mods has been that the mod cannot be distributed commercially (though I may be talking out of my arse here). But if the engine is under the GPL, such rules couldn't apply.
True, they could steal only a small amount of your code, incorporate it into their stuff and it'd be difficult or impossible for you to find out...
...but that little fragment of code isn't going to be terribly useful to them, is it?
You usually don't get a great deal of business value from tiny fragments of algorithmic/programming genius - the real value is in having a larger chunk of tested, known-good, documented and working code. Yeah, you'd get a little value from stealing a code fragment here or there - but nothing really significant. You'd still have to make the effort to integrate that stolen code into your codebase.
If they steal only a few small chunks of code, it's unlikely they'd be caught - but the value they'd get out of it would be pretty small. Conversely, if they stole a significant library of working code, they'd probably get significant value out of it - but they'd be at much greater risk of being caught.
It's a risk-reward thing - and even at best, the reward isn't likely to be anything too special. And I believe that most developers prefer to be honest and/or write their own code anyway (even if it's okay to use someone else's). Ever heard of the Not-Invented-Here syndrome?:)
the problem is that other companys could steal parts of your code and reuse it as in their closed source stuff without you knowing
Well, that's a problem with source code in general, not just GPLed source code -
any license that makes source code publicly available is much the same. Hell, Microsoft could (in theory) have people stealing their "Shared Source" source code and using it in their own products.
The risk for companies that do that is that they'll end up building their products on sand - if they're ever caught (and the more successful they are, the more likely they are to be caught, so they're fucked either way) then their entire product line will be compromised and their reputation (if any) will be destroyed.
Worrying about a competitor stealing your code shouldn't really be a major issue. Most reputable companies wouldn't (knowingly) risk it, and most disreputable companies will destroy themselves through incompetence before you or id even have a chance to destroy them in the courts.:)
You seem to be assuming that any such company would have to keep the game source code closed.
I absolutely agree that most "normal" companies would indeed want to do that, the idea of making their game code available under the GPL would probably make their heads explode:). And you're exactly correct that if they wanted to use the Q3A engine but keep their code closed, they could pay id a (probably quite high) license fee for non-GPL access to the Q3A code.
All I was suggesting was that it'd be technically possible for a small (and abnormal:)) company to maintain a GPLed fork of the Q3A source for their own game engine (and thus not have to pay the large id licensing fee), but the aforementioned engine would be useless without their content. And they could sell their content under whatever license they chose.
Note that I wasn't (and still am not) saying it'd be likely, or even plausible. Just that it'd be possible.
It'd be extremely interesting if a small group of artists/modders could pull it off though - put together a professional-quality game with entirely their own content but using a (slightly) modified Quake3 engine. Maintain the engine as an opensource (GPL) project on their website, sell the content for $5 or so.
They (ie. Company X) could (at least in theory) make money out of selling a Quake 3 derivative under the GPL - it's just that their source code would also have to be under the GPL. That wouldn't mean anything for their content - maps, graphics, sound effects, music, etc. They wouldn't be obliged to make that available under GPL.
The only practical result from a company selling a game based on GPLed source code is that they couldn't easily do any copy-protection tricks on their game content.
To be fair, it'd be kind of tricky to make any real money from such a project - especially with the large number of fairly decent free mods available for Quake3 engine games. But it's theoretically possible...:)
I think the hair length requirement (and probably the aroma as well) is more of a philosophical thing. You shouldn't need long hair or a smell to be a long-haired smelly. If you think SCO are a bunch of duplicitious FUD-spewing scammers and bullshit artists, then welcome aboard!:)
[...] if the linux kernel code on SCO's website continued to be present past that point, that would make it clear that SCO's distribution of the linux kernel under the GPL terms could not possibly be said to be anything but conscious and intentional
If, and I stress if SCO were actually telling the truth about their IP being transplanted into the Linux kernel without their permission - then regardless of whether they knowingly distributed the code later, they could still argue that they didn't explicitly give permission for their code to be licensed under the GPL (and thus it shouldn't be made available under that license). A judge might or might not think their arguments had any merit. An appeals court might disagree. Higher-level courts might disagree again.
All I'm trying to say is that the law is not simple and it is not absolute, no matter how much some of us might like it to be.
Did you consider the possibility that neither I nor eyeye were actually trolling?
As I said, the best I could tell was that you were saying web apps were a bad thing. But I couldn't understand why you were saying that.
It'd probably be more effective if you just gave a single specific example of one webapp that you believe is "bad", and explain why. Then I could explain why your points don't inherently apply to all webapps - and while I'm at it, point out that the webapp probably also has some distinct advantages over a desktop-app equivalent.
Consider Google Maps. Is that a "bad" webapp? If so, why? Can you understand why a desktop alternative, while it could have some advantages over the webapp version, would also have some massive disadvantages in convenience and flexibility?
And, more specifically, that any advantages of the desktop version may actually be completely irrelevant advantages for the vast majority of ordinary users?
Well, it's not necessarily that straightforward. If you gave a random Linux distribution CD to a friend of yours, but unbeknownst to you there was a GPL-licensed piece of software on there that incorporated significant chunks of your non-GPL code without your permission... should that mean that you've officially approved your intellectual property to be licensed under the GPL?
Because it bloody well shouldn't. If a piece of software incorporates a significant chunk of code under a different license without the copyright-holder's explicit permission, then that entire piece of software is legally invalid (for want of a better term).
Assuming we could give any credence whatsoever to SCO's claims, it may be significant if they "knew" "their" code had been incorporated into the Linux kernel without their permission, and yet they kept selling/distributing Linux kernel software.
Or it may not. Hard to tell. Copyright law can be subtle and tricky.:)
Slashdot Mirror
I think you'll find it's something that Linus himself would rather not do and has no interest in doing - but the way the trademark "system" works is that you have to make a reasonable pretense of defending your trademark (from unlicensed use) or you lose it. It's quite different to other sorts of intellectual property concepts like patents or copyright.
And that's really all there is to it. If you must blame something, blame the system - don't blame Linus (and definitely don't blame LMI or the lawyers they hire).
When I tried using mouse gestures on Firefox, they worked... just. But the "feel" wasn't responsive enough for it to be worth using. On Opera (at least on Windows - I haven't used Opera much on Linux) it was incredibly responsive and the overall mouse gesture experience was really really nice.
cortana made the point concisely and effectively. Yes, it does assume a little knowledge... but if you explain every technical solution to make it understandable to someone who knows absolutely nothing, it can actually obscure the valuable information and make it less accessible to people who do know what they're doing (or who at least know enough to recognise patterns and find out the things they might not know (like, eg. "what is xnest?")). And, not to put too fine a point on it, it's hard work to tailor information down to the lowest common denominator - you've got to work out for yourself whether it's worth expending the extra effort.
You making assumptions about cortana's motivations was kind of amusing, though. Especially as my experience is that people doing that tend to ascribe their own motivations to others (as those motivations are the only ones they really understand).
After all, this guy apparently did... ahh... well, something for the Scientologists! And as we well know, any lawyer that works for bad people is just as bad. Always. There are no exceptions to this rule, ever. Smithers, dismember the corpse and send the widow a corsage.
And certainly the fact that the law-talkin'-guy in question has donated significant time and effort and has been positively involved in the Linux community in Australia for years, that counts for absolutely nothing. Nuh-uh.
*sigh* I only wish people couldn't really be that stupid. Ah well. *wrygrin*
I believe there's a basic component of most contract law (at least in the US and most UK-based Commonwealth countries) that for it to be enforceable, both sides must receive something worthwhile. Ah, the legal term is consideration (and there's a lot of interesting issues around it, that Wikipedia article is well worth reading).
How could anyone be held to terms for which they don't gain something worthwhile in return?
I do apologise, sir. Dreadfully careless of me to forget the fucking. :-)
Regarding the rest, I actually mostly agree with you, with a perhaps a bit of hemming and hawing. I don't think there's a great deal of value in Linus or Linus' agents being too protective of the "Linux" trademark, but I can't deny that the entire raison d'etre of the trademark system is to give a trademark owner some (in theory quite limited) rights to stop other people taking advantage of their mark without permission.
And I'd suggest that it's probably quite reasonable for a representative of the trademark owner to send out warning letters before a trademark's been given - especially if it's quite reasonable to think there'll be no problem with the trademark application being approved.
This case is probably a bit unusual in a few ways, mainly because the mark in question has been used for a long time by some Australian businesses. Part of me would like to see the trademark refused in Australia, and the term "Linux" accepted as a generic term. But, well, I'm not overly concerned about it. There are more important things to care about.
And regarding your little hobby - can I have a genuine Doc Ruby "fool" label? I promise to do everything possible to prove I'm worthy of such a label, including (but not limited to) making sense and not completely talking out of my arse.
Although the last will be a bit tricky at times, I won't deny it :-).
*takes "fool" label*
*makes paper plane*
*throws paper plane* Wheee!
He was right and you were wrong. Australian libel laws are ever-so-slightly different to those of the USA. But don't worry, you can still come visit Australia if you want. I'm fairly sure Jeremy wouldn't give a flying fuck about anything you've said about him. Certainly not enough to waste his valuable time suing you.
*sunny smile*
You, sir, are a genius. :)
Sorry, just to clarify - when I referred to the "second one" (as in "the second one wouldn't qualify as a SLAPP in my book") I meant the holysmoke link, which was actually listed first in tomhudson's post.
Well done. I guess the earlier it is, the more correct it is, right?
Actually, no, not really. For a start, I was hoping that tomhudson would actually respond and defend his own words, but what the hell. You say there are two examples (of a SLAPP suit or threat to sue). I see only one - the legal threat against sweenytod.com. Well, at least I'm prepared to lean towards that being a SLAPP-style threat, being ignorant of the specifics of the case. It certainly looks like a typical piece of Scientology critic-intimidation.
The second one wouldn't qualify as a SLAPP in my book, I'm curious as to how you think it would qualify.
Unless by SLAPP you just mean any legal threat sent to anyone for any reason. *shrug*
Give me a second legal threat by Jeremy that could reasonably be considered a SLAPP (probably the best place to start would be if he's actually sent any more threats for the Scientologists) and I promise you, I'll do my best. Don't worry, I've had a lot of practise. :)
What's the primary issue you've got? As far as I can tell, it seems to be his statement about the Linux kernel violating patents. Are you angry because you know the statement's true, or because you think the statement's false, or just because a respected person in the Australian Linux community made the statement at all?
Would it piss you off if I did the same? I've got no particular status in the Australian Linux community, but I've got a four-digit slashdot ID under my own name, that's gotta count for something :).
Hey, I absolutely believe the Linux kernel violates some software patents. Most of those patents are probably about as worthwhile as the British Telecom(?) patent on hyperlinks, but some of them are probably less trivial and could (in theory) be enforced.
The legal problem with software patents is that they're given out too easily, they're too wide-ranging and it costs so fucking much in time and money to defeat them. And even if you defeat a patent in one country, that's no guarantee you're safe in another.
So the whole point of people tiptoeing around the patent issue is that they know things could blow up at any time. Would you rather continue to tiptoe? Or would you rather actually do something worthwhile to change the system? Because that's one of the things Jeremy's trying to do.
I don't know the specifics of the arrangement between Linux Australia and Linus Torvalds (and I am certainly not a lawyer of any kind), but if Linux Australia indeed have no status to represent Torvalds in this trademark issue, all that should need to happen is for someone to bring that up in court. Or maybe not even in court.
Knowing Jeremy, and knowing that he is, to put it mildly, extremely competent, I'm willing to trust that everything is above board.
smvp6459 quote:
*raised eyebrow* Riiiiiiight.
Did you hear that whooshing sound? :)
It's spelled SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation). And if he's "always" threatening people with such things, perhaps you'd like to refer to at least two examples? You can't? What a surprise.
I've met Jeremy. His company, Terminus Network Services hosts my flooble.net site. All indications are that he's a decent bloke, even if he is a lawyer :).
And regardless of what Jeremy says about any topic ever, regardless of whether he says the earth is flat or that 2+2=4, you're allowed to say he's full of shit. And the rest of us are allowed to dismiss you as clueless. Nice, isn't it?
For a start, it would have been stylish if you'd specifically pointed to his statement about "Linux violating patents" and especially references to "hundreds" of violations. Because, you see, when I look at the GP's link, the only possible link to your statement is Jeremy's article titled Software Patents, the FTA, and the End of All Things. And in that article he includes a quote from him in a ZDNet interview:
Your insinuation (in bold, no less) about "hundreds" of linux patent violations actually comes from a point made by a FSF lawyer (Dan Ravicher), not by Jeremy himself - immediately below the above quote:
If you want to object to the way this trademark licensing thing is being handled, do that. And be specific and refer to your sources. Don't just throw unsupported (and unsupportable) mud (and FUD) on completely unrelated topics. To borrow from one of my favourite sigquotes:
By the way, moderators, I'd suggest you take a look at the grandparent of this post, to which tomhudson was referring. It's had a grossly inappropriate mod to 0, Troll. It'd be nice if you could help to bring it back up to the 2 or 3 that it deserves. Thanks. :)
The main thing so far has been that id only releases their engines under GPL when they're a few years out of date - so generally you're not going to get a source mod while the engine is still widely used.
I'm not sure how much Q3A is played nowadays, but I get the impression that more modern games like UT2004 and HalfLife2 have pretty much taken over the online FPS scene.
It may also be that it's never really occurred to mod-developers as a possibility. I think the general rule with Q3A/UT/HL mods has been that the mod cannot be distributed commercially (though I may be talking out of my arse here). But if the engine is under the GPL, such rules couldn't apply.
You usually don't get a great deal of business value from tiny fragments of algorithmic/programming genius - the real value is in having a larger chunk of tested, known-good, documented and working code. Yeah, you'd get a little value from stealing a code fragment here or there - but nothing really significant. You'd still have to make the effort to integrate that stolen code into your codebase.
If they steal only a few small chunks of code, it's unlikely they'd be caught - but the value they'd get out of it would be pretty small. Conversely, if they stole a significant library of working code, they'd probably get significant value out of it - but they'd be at much greater risk of being caught.
It's a risk-reward thing - and even at best, the reward isn't likely to be anything too special. And I believe that most developers prefer to be honest and/or write their own code anyway (even if it's okay to use someone else's). Ever heard of the Not-Invented-Here syndrome? :)
Well, that's a problem with source code in general, not just GPLed source code - any license that makes source code publicly available is much the same. Hell, Microsoft could (in theory) have people stealing their "Shared Source" source code and using it in their own products.
The risk for companies that do that is that they'll end up building their products on sand - if they're ever caught (and the more successful they are, the more likely they are to be caught, so they're fucked either way) then their entire product line will be compromised and their reputation (if any) will be destroyed.
Worrying about a competitor stealing your code shouldn't really be a major issue. Most reputable companies wouldn't (knowingly) risk it, and most disreputable companies will destroy themselves through incompetence before you or id even have a chance to destroy them in the courts. :)
All I was suggesting was that it'd be technically possible for a small (and abnormal :)) company to maintain a GPLed fork of the Q3A source for their own game engine (and thus not have to pay the large id licensing fee), but the aforementioned engine would be useless without their content. And they could sell their content under whatever license they chose.
Note that I wasn't (and still am not) saying it'd be likely, or even plausible. Just that it'd be possible.
It'd be extremely interesting if a small group of artists/modders could pull it off though - put together a professional-quality game with entirely their own content but using a (slightly) modified Quake3 engine. Maintain the engine as an opensource (GPL) project on their website, sell the content for $5 or so.
Ah well, it's a nice idea. :)
The only practical result from a company selling a game based on GPLed source code is that they couldn't easily do any copy-protection tricks on their game content.
To be fair, it'd be kind of tricky to make any real money from such a project - especially with the large number of fairly decent free mods available for Quake3 engine games. But it's theoretically possible... :)
I think the hair length requirement (and probably the aroma as well) is more of a philosophical thing. You shouldn't need long hair or a smell to be a long-haired smelly. If you think SCO are a bunch of duplicitious FUD-spewing scammers and bullshit artists, then welcome aboard! :)
And that's exactly why I said may or may not . The previous post is not necessarily correct when saying:
If, and I stress if SCO were actually telling the truth about their IP being transplanted into the Linux kernel without their permission - then regardless of whether they knowingly distributed the code later, they could still argue that they didn't explicitly give permission for their code to be licensed under the GPL (and thus it shouldn't be made available under that license). A judge might or might not think their arguments had any merit. An appeals court might disagree. Higher-level courts might disagree again.
All I'm trying to say is that the law is not simple and it is not absolute, no matter how much some of us might like it to be.
As I said, the best I could tell was that you were saying web apps were a bad thing. But I couldn't understand why you were saying that.
It'd probably be more effective if you just gave a single specific example of one webapp that you believe is "bad", and explain why. Then I could explain why your points don't inherently apply to all webapps - and while I'm at it, point out that the webapp probably also has some distinct advantages over a desktop-app equivalent.
Consider Google Maps. Is that a "bad" webapp? If so, why? Can you understand why a desktop alternative, while it could have some advantages over the webapp version, would also have some massive disadvantages in convenience and flexibility?
And, more specifically, that any advantages of the desktop version may actually be completely irrelevant advantages for the vast majority of ordinary users?
Because it bloody well shouldn't. If a piece of software incorporates a significant chunk of code under a different license without the copyright-holder's explicit permission, then that entire piece of software is legally invalid (for want of a better term).
Assuming we could give any credence whatsoever to SCO's claims, it may be significant if they "knew" "their" code had been incorporated into the Linux kernel without their permission, and yet they kept selling/distributing Linux kernel software. Or it may not. Hard to tell. Copyright law can be subtle and tricky. :)