One thing not being mentioned is that removal of the code by the Linux community would help their case. That removal would pretty much show to a court that the Linux hackers themselves believed it to be infringing. It would work even better if some stuff was protested as not infringing and SCO says "that's ok" while other stuff was removed. To a judge this would look pretty much like proof that SCO's claims were correct. So it is 100% in SCO's interest to reveal the infinging sections!
For this reason I believe SCO is either lying about the infringing, is being paid by outside parties such as Microsoft to continue this suit, or both.
Microsoft could too make a Unix
on
Today's SCO News
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· Score: 1
They can easily compete in the same way as before by making a Unix-based or even Linux-based system with their own additional features. Only command-line programs would be portable between it and other systems. A windows emulation that only works on their system would be an obvious difference, but there certainly would be others.
One of the previous posters of this idea even pointed out that NASA was not required to find a non-freon solution at all, apparently because it was a government project and thus avoided EPA regulations. They volutarily did it. Also a quick look for shuttle+freon on google will reveal that tons of freon is used on the shuttle anyway, in the engines and cooling systems, probably where they did not think they could get rid of it.
Threats are much more useful than an actual lawsuit.
It sounds like the better lawsuit is for restraint of trade. Their actions serve no purpose other than to hurt any sales of Linux, in no way does it help their case or help with sales of SCO. The claim that the removal of the code from Linux would hurt their case is absolutely false: if the Linux community deleted or changed the code this would represent an admission that the code was infringing, and would make their copyright case much easier!
The fact is that not revealing the code helps nobody except Microsoft, and it looks more and more like an investigation should be done into the money and communication between those two companies.
SCO violated Linus' and every other kernel and Linux contributor's copyright by distributing the code in a way that was not GPL (by including their own code that they now say was not GPL). By not actively fixing their error (by revealing how to remove the offending code) they are continuing to violate hundreds or thousands of individual's copyrights and I think they are liable for a class-action lawsuit.
No they would not have the right to distribute the GPL code. If you stole some copyrighted code and mixed it with the GPL, the GPL says you cannot distribute that, as the result is not under the GPL (because the original copyright holder holds claim to his parts of it). If you added some stolen code to Linux and redistributed it you would be violating the copyrights of all the contributors to Linux.
Now the fact that SCO stole the code from themselves (in effect) when redistributing it with Linux may be important, but I suspect not. They can claim this was a mistake or bad internal communication.
But if there is code of their's in their distribution of Linux, then they violated thousands of individual's and organizations copyrights. By refusing to reveal how to repair these copyright violations (ie saying where the code is) they should be held liable, maybe in a class-action lawsuit.
The fact that they refuse to explain any of the code makes it seem likely there isn't any. Releasing one piece and keeping the rest secret would make their position MUCH more powerful and would be in their and Microsoft's interest.
But it is possible that there is some code, but that it is in am embarassing location, such as in an old implementation of some part of the kernel that has been replaced in 2.5. Then SCO would have egg on their faces in that their precious code has been replaced with better code written by the free software hackers, despite the fact that this does not change the copyright violation in any way.
You don't have to sign the GPL, because it allows you to do more than you can normally do under US copyright law. Since you lose nothing by agreeing to it there is no reason to sign.
In case you don't understand this: if you did not "agree" to the GPL then you would have to agree to US copyright law which by default says that you cannot redistribute the code at all. The GPL allows you to redistribute the code if you follow a few rules (ie make the source available and under the GPL). Thus it allows you to do something you normally cannot do.
If copyright was repealed and you could copy any information you purchased and give it to anybody, then the GPL would be a restriction, and you would have to sign something to agree to limit your ability to copy the information to the GPL rules. However this has not and is not going to happen.
I remember PdB at Sun to program NeWS. You wrote something vaguly resembling C and it would convert it into the shortest possible sequence of pop,exch,roll,dup commands so it was all executed on the PostScript stack. Without that it was impossible to write anything more complex than a+b without using named temporary variables. We were told not to use it (apparently some worry about the open-source license which was probably the phb's being confused and scared) and I ended up rewriting the output to disguise it as hand-written postscript.
I would think the main threat of any antitrust action is what it would do to the value of the stock itself. Just owning the stock in some evil corporation I don't think makes you guilty, except by association in the public mind and in that case selling all the stock makes little difference because you owned it once upon a time.
If in the unlikely scenario that Bill Gates is found guilty of some crime I would also think ownership of the stock would have no bearing on whether he is guilty or not.
You are completely wrong. Somebody who makes a GPL violation can fix it by removing the GPL code.
Maybe the original copyright holder can still sue the GPL violator for damages. But SCO can still sue RedHat or IBM even after their code is removed from Linux.
It is exactly the same, and trying to claim people here are treating them different makes you look like an ass.
Not only that, Microsoft has not made any indication of new products or directions where they would need this license. If this is for "services for Unix" or anything else in Windows then they have been infringing SCO's copyright for 8 to 10 years without compensating them. And they can't say "it was a mistake, we didn't notice until now" because that is the exact same excuse Linux can use.
So either Microsoft has been stealing from SCO for 8 to 10 years, or they are buying this license for FUD reasons only.
Revealing the code would not remove the fact that copyright infringment has been done already, and they could still collect exactly as much damages as before.
There are only two reasons for them not to reveal the code:
1. There is no such code
2. The code is in some laughably insignificant or obsolete part of Linux, which would backfire on them because everybody would then say that SCO's code is obsolete and this proves that Linux has far surpassed them.
Some people say there is a conspiracy and Microsoft is paying SCO to cast fear and doubt on Linux, and that this doubt is more valuable to them than winning the case. But this still does not explain why they don't reveal any of the code. If there was any code of value, it would likely be in several pieces. They could reveal one piece so that everybody knows they are serious and they can prove they have a case, and say "there are several others that we will reveal later". This would be far more damaging to Linux than their current actions and would make Microsoft happy. Therefore I feel pretty confident now that they have no case whatsoever.
I never heard of the piece of Atta's passport. Is that for real? I would agree that it is virtually impossible, but perhaps you are confusing it with material they left behind, or recovered from the crash in Pennsylvania.
There is no need to show the GPL anywhere on the outside of the box or anywhere other than inside the actual source code.
GPL grants exceptions to copyright, which the government says is on all creative material by default. If you don't "agree" to the GPL, you end up with normal copyright, so you can do less with the software (ie you cannot redistribute it at all). For this reason it is irrelevant whether you agree or disagree with it. This is the big difference between the GPL and most EULAs and the reason GPL might be legal while EULA is illegal.
The view is that you should assumme a box of software is copyrighted. The GPL is then like a gift certificate you find in the box that says you can do a few more things than you expected. It does not matter if you find that gift certificate or not. If you don't find the gift certificate you would assumme you cannot copy the code at all, and therefore you would not break the GPL. You cannot break the GPL without also breaking US copyright laws.
Now if the government repealed copyright, so that all things you aquire are copyable unless you sign some sort of NDA when you aquire it, then the GPL would have to be rewritten to be a contract, and it would be the same as a EULA. But for now it is different.
Consider this: I use Evolution and GTK, and port it to win32 calling it RevolutionE or something. I give you all the licenses and copyright
notices and don't distribute the sources online or in the products shrink-wrapped box-set. It's fine because I gave you the GPL which lets
you know you can request the sources from me. Go ahead. Request them. I'll mail the sources when I get around to it, like in say three years
(the same arbitrary time the GPL states the offer needs to be good for). Law suit? Go ahead, I'll keep you spinning for quite a while, let's say
three years, and right before we go to court everyone who has ever requested the source will get a nice letter in the mail apologizing for the
delay, with a copy of all the source on audio tape, paper copy, take your choice.
I've just (for all intents and purposes) hijacked the GPL source code for three years, and made a lot of money selling RevolutionE.
This would probably work, and I would suspect this method is being used plenty right now (OpenTV just got caught, imagine how many others there are that are not)
Only error you made is that the end user is not the one who has a legal claim against you, it's the original copyright holder. This may make your ability to do this even greater (because the end user would have to care enough to inform the original copyright holder), or weaker (because the original copyright holder may be a much bigger fish than the end user).
You do have to worry about losing, as copyright infringement can carry some pretty significant statuary damages. Ask the RIAA about them. But you can get out of it pretty easily by immediatly giving in, and posting the code, which has acutally been the outcome in all the cases so far. So if you weigh the chances of getting caught and thus truncating your income, against the potential total income, this is a reasonable business plan.
You are forgetting the original author can dual-license the code. Go contact the original author, just like you have to do with any closed-source author, and ask them to license the code to you under the terms you need. Don't be suprised if you have to pay some money.
The GPL and LGPL can be modified, and often is, by the original authors of code, so that likely uses are not prevented. My own code is distributed with a greately weakened LGPL that allows you to use the code for any purpose whatsoever as long as you do not modify any of the source or header files. Any modifications of the source or headers requires you to release the modifications (and anything the modifications call, so you can't just add "call_secret_stuff()" to the file).
Oddly enough, if I thought I could make money with this code, I would have GPL'd it and not given any such exclusions. Then there would have been much more demand for the closed-source license, which I could sell.
So in fact the GPL is extremely capitalistic and greedy, it allows an author to advertise and even accustom the user on their product, but the restrictions mean that some of them are going to be forced to pay for it someday.
Well at least you are consistent, so in some ways I agree with you. I also agree with the original poster.
Though many people on all sides of these issues wish otherwise, copying music or GPL code without the permission of the original copyright holder is the same thing. Some people may call it "stealing", some may call it "copyright infringement". They can argue that out (I tend toward the copyright infringement part). But anybody who thinks they are different is wrong.
Copying GPL code without following the rules is depriving the original author of their ability to sell closed versions for profit, or to advertise their abilities as the author of the software, or just their desire to not allow their work to be used for other's profit, and it hurts them. Copying music deprives somebody (perhaps even the original author) of selling a record to everybody who would otherwise buy one, and it hurts them.
You can argue all over the place over whether this hurt is greater or lesser than the benefit of the copyright infringement, but I do hope everybody realizes they are the same, no matter how mad it makes them.
This is NOT a problem!
on
Hijacking .NET
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I'm going to agree with the intelligent majority here. This is not a security feature and is not any kind of failure of Microsoft. Private members are designed to encourage properly-written code, but they don't enforce it.
The author is promoting bad programming practice, if his code becomes in common use he will force Microsoft to lock the internal implementation of the objects, which will make them inefficient and may lock in bugs. If his code is not popular than Microsoft will probably change it under him and break all his code, and this is perfectly within their rights, as the whole point of "private" is that this portion is not part of the API and it may change!
Name a single profitable piece of software that depends on a patent, rather than trade secrets or copyright, for it's survival.
There are none.
Microsoft has made tons of money, and though some of their methods are questionable, they have not done it by enforcing patents and actually have not filed very many at all.
Re:If you don't read anything else, read this...
on
OSI vs SCO
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· Score: 1
I think "we didn't know we were infringing" is a legitimate defense. However they must actively do actions to "fix" this "mistake". In this case it means SCO must immediately release sufficient information so that everybody can remove the infringing code from the Linux distributions.
Slashdot Mirror
Lest we forget, IBM has had plenty of experience with evil and can probably find some people who know how to do it.
One thing not being mentioned is that removal of the code by the Linux community would help their case. That removal would pretty much show to a court that the Linux hackers themselves believed it to be infringing. It would work even better if some stuff was protested as not infringing and SCO says "that's ok" while other stuff was removed. To a judge this would look pretty much like proof that SCO's claims were correct. So it is 100% in SCO's interest to reveal the infinging sections!
For this reason I believe SCO is either lying about the infringing, is being paid by outside parties such as Microsoft to continue this suit, or both.
They can easily compete in the same way as before by making a Unix-based or even Linux-based system with their own additional features. Only command-line programs would be portable between it and other systems. A windows emulation that only works on their system would be an obvious difference, but there certainly would be others.
One of the previous posters of this idea even pointed out that NASA was not required to find a non-freon solution at all, apparently because it was a government project and thus avoided EPA regulations. They volutarily did it. Also a quick look for shuttle+freon on google will reveal that tons of freon is used on the shuttle anyway, in the engines and cooling systems, probably where they did not think they could get rid of it.
It sounds like the better lawsuit is for restraint of trade. Their actions serve no purpose other than to hurt any sales of Linux, in no way does it help their case or help with sales of SCO. The claim that the removal of the code from Linux would hurt their case is absolutely false: if the Linux community deleted or changed the code this would represent an admission that the code was infringing, and would make their copyright case much easier!
The fact is that not revealing the code helps nobody except Microsoft, and it looks more and more like an investigation should be done into the money and communication between those two companies.
SCO violated Linus' and every other kernel and Linux contributor's copyright by distributing the code in a way that was not GPL (by including their own code that they now say was not GPL). By not actively fixing their error (by revealing how to remove the offending code) they are continuing to violate hundreds or thousands of individual's copyrights and I think they are liable for a class-action lawsuit.
"compress" works on my Linux box (RedHat). Not sure where it came from. "man compress" clearly explains that it is using LZW.
Now the fact that SCO stole the code from themselves (in effect) when redistributing it with Linux may be important, but I suspect not. They can claim this was a mistake or bad internal communication.
But if there is code of their's in their distribution of Linux, then they violated thousands of individual's and organizations copyrights. By refusing to reveal how to repair these copyright violations (ie saying where the code is) they should be held liable, maybe in a class-action lawsuit.
But it is possible that there is some code, but that it is in am embarassing location, such as in an old implementation of some part of the kernel that has been replaced in 2.5. Then SCO would have egg on their faces in that their precious code has been replaced with better code written by the free software hackers, despite the fact that this does not change the copyright violation in any way.
In case you don't understand this: if you did not "agree" to the GPL then you would have to agree to US copyright law which by default says that you cannot redistribute the code at all. The GPL allows you to redistribute the code if you follow a few rules (ie make the source available and under the GPL). Thus it allows you to do something you normally cannot do.
If copyright was repealed and you could copy any information you purchased and give it to anybody, then the GPL would be a restriction, and you would have to sign something to agree to limit your ability to copy the information to the GPL rules. However this has not and is not going to happen.
Just because the software is open source does not mean it is written by the "OSS community".
I remember PdB at Sun to program NeWS. You wrote something vaguly resembling C and it would convert it into the shortest possible sequence of pop,exch,roll,dup commands so it was all executed on the PostScript stack. Without that it was impossible to write anything more complex than a+b without using named temporary variables. We were told not to use it (apparently some worry about the open-source license which was probably the phb's being confused and scared) and I ended up rewriting the output to disguise it as hand-written postscript.
If in the unlikely scenario that Bill Gates is found guilty of some crime I would also think ownership of the stock would have no bearing on whether he is guilty or not.
Maybe the original copyright holder can still sue the GPL violator for damages. But SCO can still sue RedHat or IBM even after their code is removed from Linux.
It is exactly the same, and trying to claim people here are treating them different makes you look like an ass.
So either Microsoft has been stealing from SCO for 8 to 10 years, or they are buying this license for FUD reasons only.
There are only two reasons for them not to reveal the code:
1. There is no such code
2. The code is in some laughably insignificant or obsolete part of Linux, which would backfire on them because everybody would then say that SCO's code is obsolete and this proves that Linux has far surpassed them.
Some people say there is a conspiracy and Microsoft is paying SCO to cast fear and doubt on Linux, and that this doubt is more valuable to them than winning the case. But this still does not explain why they don't reveal any of the code. If there was any code of value, it would likely be in several pieces. They could reveal one piece so that everybody knows they are serious and they can prove they have a case, and say "there are several others that we will reveal later". This would be far more damaging to Linux than their current actions and would make Microsoft happy. Therefore I feel pretty confident now that they have no case whatsoever.
Dammit the bank turned down my loan, so I was unable to buy that M1 tank I needed to defend my liberties. What should I do now?
I never heard of the piece of Atta's passport. Is that for real? I would agree that it is virtually impossible, but perhaps you are confusing it with material they left behind, or recovered from the crash in Pennsylvania.
GPL grants exceptions to copyright, which the government says is on all creative material by default. If you don't "agree" to the GPL, you end up with normal copyright, so you can do less with the software (ie you cannot redistribute it at all). For this reason it is irrelevant whether you agree or disagree with it. This is the big difference between the GPL and most EULAs and the reason GPL might be legal while EULA is illegal.
The view is that you should assumme a box of software is copyrighted. The GPL is then like a gift certificate you find in the box that says you can do a few more things than you expected. It does not matter if you find that gift certificate or not. If you don't find the gift certificate you would assumme you cannot copy the code at all, and therefore you would not break the GPL. You cannot break the GPL without also breaking US copyright laws.
Now if the government repealed copyright, so that all things you aquire are copyable unless you sign some sort of NDA when you aquire it, then the GPL would have to be rewritten to be a contract, and it would be the same as a EULA. But for now it is different.
notices and don't distribute the sources online or in the products shrink-wrapped box-set. It's fine because I gave you the GPL which lets
you know you can request the sources from me. Go ahead. Request them. I'll mail the sources when I get around to it, like in say three years
(the same arbitrary time the GPL states the offer needs to be good for). Law suit? Go ahead, I'll keep you spinning for quite a while, let's say
three years, and right before we go to court everyone who has ever requested the source will get a nice letter in the mail apologizing for the
delay, with a copy of all the source on audio tape, paper copy, take your choice.
I've just (for all intents and purposes) hijacked the GPL source code for three years, and made a lot of money selling RevolutionE.
This would probably work, and I would suspect this method is being used plenty right now (OpenTV just got caught, imagine how many others there are that are not)
Only error you made is that the end user is not the one who has a legal claim against you, it's the original copyright holder. This may make your ability to do this even greater (because the end user would have to care enough to inform the original copyright holder), or weaker (because the original copyright holder may be a much bigger fish than the end user).
You do have to worry about losing, as copyright infringement can carry some pretty significant statuary damages. Ask the RIAA about them. But you can get out of it pretty easily by immediatly giving in, and posting the code, which has acutally been the outcome in all the cases so far. So if you weigh the chances of getting caught and thus truncating your income, against the potential total income, this is a reasonable business plan.
The GPL and LGPL can be modified, and often is, by the original authors of code, so that likely uses are not prevented. My own code is distributed with a greately weakened LGPL that allows you to use the code for any purpose whatsoever as long as you do not modify any of the source or header files. Any modifications of the source or headers requires you to release the modifications (and anything the modifications call, so you can't just add "call_secret_stuff()" to the file).
Oddly enough, if I thought I could make money with this code, I would have GPL'd it and not given any such exclusions. Then there would have been much more demand for the closed-source license, which I could sell.
So in fact the GPL is extremely capitalistic and greedy, it allows an author to advertise and even accustom the user on their product, but the restrictions mean that some of them are going to be forced to pay for it someday.
Though many people on all sides of these issues wish otherwise, copying music or GPL code without the permission of the original copyright holder is the same thing. Some people may call it "stealing", some may call it "copyright infringement". They can argue that out (I tend toward the copyright infringement part). But anybody who thinks they are different is wrong.
Copying GPL code without following the rules is depriving the original author of their ability to sell closed versions for profit, or to advertise their abilities as the author of the software, or just their desire to not allow their work to be used for other's profit, and it hurts them. Copying music deprives somebody (perhaps even the original author) of selling a record to everybody who would otherwise buy one, and it hurts them.
You can argue all over the place over whether this hurt is greater or lesser than the benefit of the copyright infringement, but I do hope everybody realizes they are the same, no matter how mad it makes them.
The author is promoting bad programming practice, if his code becomes in common use he will force Microsoft to lock the internal implementation of the objects, which will make them inefficient and may lock in bugs. If his code is not popular than Microsoft will probably change it under him and break all his code, and this is perfectly within their rights, as the whole point of "private" is that this portion is not part of the API and it may change!
Name a single profitable piece of software that depends on a patent, rather than trade secrets or copyright, for it's survival.
There are none.
Microsoft has made tons of money, and though some of their methods are questionable, they have not done it by enforcing patents and actually have not filed very many at all.
I think "we didn't know we were infringing" is a legitimate defense. However they must actively do actions to "fix" this "mistake". In this case it means SCO must immediately release sufficient information so that everybody can remove the infringing code from the Linux distributions.