There's some merit to such doctrine, however, since SCO had their own experts working on this, wouldn't they be opening themselves up to liability for having made such a mistake?
Right. And mass transit is not particularly feasible in these areas, precisely because of the larger territories covered. Actually, a good counterpoint to what I said previously about dense urban areas would be the city in which I live: San Diego. A subway really wouldn't be very feasible here. San Diego is an example of a town that is very large geographically. While the county has 10 million+, the localized densities when compared against work location-clusters just aren't right for mass transit. 'Course, if a nice subway system was put in, there is this chance that the terminals would become attractive real estate in and of themselves, so one does need to be forward-looking.
"Burning away too much resources" and purchasing what others produce are two different things; moreover, not all resources are unrenewable. It's generally a good thing, for humans, when their country joins the first world. First world nations generally enjoy stable (even shrinking) populations, also.
Sure. 'Course you pointed out some logistics problems with that. In India, while the coders demand more, you can guarantee that they probably speak English. The Tawainese probably all speak English, too, as well as the Chinese denizens in and around Hong Kong. Anyway, China's economy is veritably exploding. They are now the world's second largest economy, and could quite possibly outstrip the U.S. within just 10 years. Eventually, they will become a great *consumer*, and this is a very good thing.
I think it's simply about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer... ---- The poor are not getting poorer. That's a myth. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting richer.
I think there is probably a lot of money to be had for American proxies willing to act as local representation to foreign outsource. 'Course, the problem, as you pointed out, is that you have to be able to communicate with the locals. India wouldn't be so hard, as they speak English. Most other countries, you'd have to know the foreign language...
Correct. Copyright is handed to copyright owners on the grounds that it is done so on the behalf of serving a public interest. Too bad this basis in philosophy isn't observed more often.
GPL is just a license. Copyright is the LAW. If the license isn't valid, the use of the copyrighted item isn't valid either. Therefore, no lawyer will advise any company to "challenge" the GPL; if they were to do so, their sole basis for legal use of the copyrighted item would evaporate. It would be sort of like creating a lawsuit where one intended in advance to admit to a wrongdoing.
C//
p.s. there might be some actual viable challenges to the terms of the GPL license, where ambiguities are alleged, in particular with older licenses; however that's a whole different issue.
...the stuff had effectively been placed in the public domain.
IIRC, that can't really happen accidentally. About the only way something of significance can enter the public domain, sans copyright expiration, is an explicit statement of the legal copyright holder to that effect. i.e., "this work is entered into the public domain."
While someone with more in depth information regarding securities training could probably elaborate, it's basically an attempt to purchase shares in the company sufficient to control it without the acquiesence of the company's board of directors. For example, on form of "hostile takeover" is simply acquiring sufficient controlling shares on the open market. If you have > 50%, you control the company.
When you publish, you can always prove prior art... ---- Once someone else gets a patent, it takes about $10 million in legal fees to invalidate it, even if there exists prior art. That's why a lot of companies these days patent dubious things; they feel that a patent in their hands is a legal defense tactic against someone *else's* predatory moves.
Under copyright law, you can only claim copyright on the work as a whole.
Perhaps I don't understand what you're trying to say here, but this sentence, interpreted literally, is not correct. For example, if I write a book of poems, register a copyright on the whole thing, and you later republish one of my poems in your magazine without my consent, your publishing company would pay dearly for that error if it was willful.
OTOH, it would be pretty hard to prove that five lines of code from a program, matching that of another, were significant or even likely to be an "original work".
But if the code is a "secret" protected by "licenses", then once the secret is out, the secret is out...
You have a fair point: no trade agreement, outside of the scope of law, can bind other parties, just for exactly the reasons I mentioned. OTOH, all code is copyrighted, upon its creation. Registration of copyright is only a formality under the current law. You have to do it if you want to sue, and it's smart to do it in any case, but strictly speaking it's not required.
I don't disagree with the accuracy of what you're saying.
If what you are saying is that you "can't undo" a piece of code that has been "GPL'd" by an unauthorized third party, your disagreement is not pertinent, because you'd simply be mistaken. A broad, but very powerful principle of law basically says that, sans authorization, no third party can create a contract between two parties.
In court, an offender may be able to testify that they had every reason to believe that their possession of some copyrighted item was lawful. Such a claim might even hold up, assuming, of course, they *CEASED* violation of copyright upon being informed of the unlawful possession. If not, then the interim would most likely be actionable.
Note that I know nothing about what was going on at SCO, whether or not it is right or wrong, or any of that. I'm *only* commenting on the asserted irreversability of GPL'ing something, which is not at all irreversible by any stretch of the imagination.
way that might serve as a valid stopgap would be the generation of an MD5 hash of each source file and
Silly. Change a single character, and the MD5 changes entirely. Legislating such a thing would cause far more harm than good, because it puts a tremendous weight on the innocent, and catches not an ounce of the guilty.
"The odd part to me is that even if the rogue coder violated SCO's license by GPLing SCO's IP, they still GPL'ed the code. You can't undo that."
This is not correct. Only a person authorized by the company with the rights to release the company's intellectual property can do so. If a rogue does so, lawsuits may abound. However, this does not make legitimate an illegitimate activity.
Slashdot Mirror
There's some merit to such doctrine, however, since SCO had their own experts working on this, wouldn't they be opening themselves up to liability for having made such a mistake?
C//
Right. And mass transit is not particularly feasible in these areas, precisely because of the larger territories covered. Actually, a good counterpoint to what I said previously about dense urban areas would be the city in which I live: San Diego. A subway really wouldn't be very feasible here. San Diego is an example of a town that is very large geographically. While the county has 10 million+, the localized densities when compared against work location-clusters just aren't right for mass transit. 'Course, if a nice subway system was put in, there is this chance that the terminals would become attractive real estate in and of themselves, so one does need to be forward-looking.
C//
You obviously don't live in America.
False. My comment was regarding the population density comment of the prior poster.
C//
You obviously don't live in a rural area.
While your comment is well-taken, it's less relevant than you think. The vast majority of our population is in dense urban areas.
C//
Any programmer who independently writes code that meets those requirements has NOT infringed SCO's licences.
Well... unless it's patented. *grimace*
C//
fact is: opensource is changing the IT industry economics and IT providers should adapt or die ...
Wasn't the article about the GPL? BSD is open sourced too, you know. >;/
"Burning away too much resources" and purchasing what others produce are two different things; moreover, not all resources are unrenewable. It's generally a good thing, for humans, when their country joins the first world. First world nations generally enjoy stable (even shrinking) populations, also.
C//
Sure. 'Course you pointed out some logistics problems with that. In India, while the coders demand more, you can guarantee that they probably speak English. The Tawainese probably all speak English, too, as well as the Chinese denizens in and around Hong Kong. Anyway, China's economy is veritably exploding. They are now the world's second largest economy, and could quite possibly outstrip the U.S. within just 10 years. Eventually, they will become a great *consumer*, and this is a very good thing.
C//
Note most companies claim copyright on the object code not the source.
This statement is completely incorrect.
C//
I think it's simply about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer ...
----
The poor are not getting poorer. That's a myth. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting richer.
Source: THE US CENSUS.
C//
I think there is probably a lot of money to be had for American proxies willing to act as local representation to foreign outsource. 'Course, the problem, as you pointed out, is that you have to be able to communicate with the locals. India wouldn't be so hard, as they speak English. Most other countries, you'd have to know the foreign language...
C//
Yes, we have several facilities like that. "You want to audit that room? Sure, but then I'd have to kill you." HAH.
C//
Correct. Copyright is handed to copyright owners on the grounds that it is done so on the behalf of serving a public interest. Too bad this basis in philosophy isn't observed more often.
C//
GPL is just a license. Copyright is the LAW. If the license isn't valid, the use of the copyrighted item isn't valid either. Therefore, no lawyer will advise any company to "challenge" the GPL; if they were to do so, their sole basis for legal use of the copyrighted item would evaporate. It would be sort of like creating a lawsuit where one intended in advance to admit to a wrongdoing.
C//
p.s. there might be some actual viable challenges to the terms of the GPL license, where ambiguities are alleged, in particular with older licenses; however that's a whole different issue.
...the stuff had effectively been placed in the public domain.
IIRC, that can't really happen accidentally. About the only way something of significance can enter the public domain, sans copyright expiration, is an explicit statement of the legal copyright holder to that effect. i.e., "this work is entered into the public domain."
C//
the GPL in its current form is UNENFORCABLE.
Very well, then. Since you say the license is unenforceable, you admit that you have no legal license to this copyrighted work? LOL.
C//
While someone with more in depth information regarding securities training could probably elaborate, it's basically an attempt to purchase shares in the company sufficient to control it without the acquiesence of the company's board of directors. For example, on form of "hostile takeover" is simply acquiring sufficient controlling shares on the open market. If you have > 50%, you control the company.
C//
When you publish, you can always prove prior art...
----
Once someone else gets a patent, it takes about $10 million in legal fees to invalidate it, even if there exists prior art. That's why a lot of companies these days patent dubious things; they feel that a patent in their hands is a legal defense tactic against someone *else's* predatory moves.
C//
Fuck you you mutherfu...
:)
Whuh?
*panic*
My karma, nooooooooooooooooooooo!
C//
Under copyright law, you can only claim copyright on the work as a whole.
Perhaps I don't understand what you're trying to say here, but this sentence, interpreted literally, is not correct. For example, if I write a book of poems, register a copyright on the whole thing, and you later republish one of my poems in your magazine without my consent, your publishing company would pay dearly for that error if it was willful.
OTOH, it would be pretty hard to prove that five lines of code from a program, matching that of another, were significant or even likely to be an "original work".
C//
But if the code is a "secret" protected by "licenses", then once the secret is out, the secret is out...
You have a fair point: no trade agreement, outside of the scope of law, can bind other parties, just for exactly the reasons I mentioned. OTOH, all code is copyrighted, upon its creation. Registration of copyright is only a formality under the current law. You have to do it if you want to sue, and it's smart to do it in any case, but strictly speaking it's not required.
C//
I don't disagree with the accuracy of what you're saying.
If what you are saying is that you "can't undo" a piece of code that has been "GPL'd" by an unauthorized third party, your disagreement is not pertinent, because you'd simply be mistaken. A broad, but very powerful principle of law basically says that, sans authorization, no third party can create a contract between two parties.
In court, an offender may be able to testify that they had every reason to believe that their possession of some copyrighted item was lawful. Such a claim might even hold up, assuming, of course, they *CEASED* violation of copyright upon being informed of the unlawful possession. If not, then the interim would most likely be actionable.
Note that I know nothing about what was going on at SCO, whether or not it is right or wrong, or any of that. I'm *only* commenting on the asserted irreversability of GPL'ing something, which is not at all irreversible by any stretch of the imagination.
C//
At the very least, this indemnifies *everyone* past the first rogue, and
It may indemnify them for past infringment, but not willful future infringement.
C//
way that might serve as a valid stopgap would be the generation of an MD5 hash of each source file and
Silly. Change a single character, and the MD5 changes entirely. Legislating such a thing would cause far more harm than good, because it puts a tremendous weight on the innocent, and catches not an ounce of the guilty.
C//
"The odd part to me is that even if the rogue coder violated SCO's license by GPLing SCO's IP, they still GPL'ed the code. You can't undo that."
This is not correct. Only a person authorized by the company with the rights to release the company's intellectual property can do so. If a rogue does so, lawsuits may abound. However, this does not make legitimate an illegitimate activity.
C//