It is true that you cannot erase damages, just mitigate them. In this case, SGI is working to remove problems it may have caused, even though SGI believes they can prove that the contributed code was released by SCO under a BSD-style license.
US courts, in addition to seeing the actual negligence or malice involved, will also look at the actual damage caused. If SCO claims damages because code that they themselves released to the public under an unrestricted license was used in a program, they'll be asked to describe exactly what damage was caused.
In addition, if SCO is so incompetent that they themselves did not review the linux code that they were distributing, and that they forgot that they released a lot of code under a BSD license on their own, they will have a hard time proving that SGI damaged them at all.
In any organization this will happen. SCO is saying that IBM moved the code into Linux on purpose to destroy UNIX.
This is very different from an inadvertant violation. If you took me to court and I could present evidence that I did not include your code purposefully, that I removed the offending code as soon as I knew about it and presented documentation that the code was public domain, but that I thought it would be better to remove any possibility of violation, chances are that would be the end of it. The court would see that I performed due diligence to detect and fix the problem.
That is why Linus and others keep on challenging SCO to show them the code so that they can perform their legal obligation and remove it. These people have also said that the fact that SCO won't show the code probably indicates that there are no violations, and certainly not on the grand, purposful scale SCO alleges. Look, if somone walked into your place of work and said "you are running unlicensed software," they'd be right. I have never seen a business that was NOT running unlicensed software. Does that mean they did it on purpose to destroy the maker of that software?
Murder means work too. Are you willing to die a few years early so detectives, attorneys, and judges can have jobs?
I would really much rather design and build secure network systems than apply bandages to existing hopeless systems. If a system is available that resists viruses (like BSD or Linux), that might be a good place to start...
Oh, wait, I do have that job! And I bet I am having more fun than you. One thing is certain, my employer is not flushing as much money down the toilet as yours.
One day my job will be obsolete, but it will be because of self-healing, learning software, not software that was written 'perfectly.' Until that happens, however, we might spend our time trying to do things properly, and learning from our mistakes.
Nobody would support houses of mud and straw in the Northeast US just to keep a bunch of mud-slathering straw harvesters in jobs every time it rained. My house of stone, concrete, and wood requires maintenance on my part, and it has provided plenty of skilled, high-paying work to the local tradespeople in my city, as well as opportunities for me to learn valuable skills. Because of its construction, it also provides a safe place to sleep and run electrical wiring. But oh, the unemployed mud mixers! But when you think about it, who really wants to mix mud and straw for a living?
As for your economic 'theory,' read this, In short, it says that as an employee of the government, if you are talking about the US, you are advocating the continuous waste of my tax money so that you can remain employed. Please put that on your resume when you are out of work and apply for a job working for me!
Duh, I know the effects are there. What I am talking about is scientific evidence, that is, an experiment that is repeatable:
"if your phone operates on X system, you will see the following effects with anything on X system or frequency." Phone makers should be forced to provide this info, because if a phone can interfere with a pacemaker or a car navigational system, that is important stuff to know.
What I want is a stop to the fear-mongering. For example, all I can say to you in response is that I use my phone everywhere in the house, watching TV, listening to the radio, using the computer, with no effects that I can see. That's because it's true. I want to know why some devices and phones see interference and others don't.
If my laptop interferes with the plane, how can I get it shielded? But we never get that far, because nobody is proving one way or the other what does and does not interfere with the planes.
Maybe flight 93 didn't crash because the passengers fought the terrorists, it was the rest of the passengers using their cell phones.
But in reality, I have also been unable to find any scientific study about personal electronics and airline instruments / communications.
I would want to see the following questions answered: how I can use my "FCC home or office approved" device without causing any problems (the houses in my neighborhood are right up next to one another), but my iPod can somehow make an altimeter or compass screw up if I go a few kilometers above sea level? Are the airlines telling me that my Mac and neighbors' phones are better built than their jet cockpits?
Presuming that a laptop or cell phone can interfere with airplane cockpits, why can it not be detected from the cockpit? ("We've detected that personal electronics are on, and we won't take off until they're all off.") On the other hand, they cannot even detect a bomb in their luggage hold. If you cannot detect a signal from a gameboy, how can the device interfere with the plane?
It seems to me that it should be fairly simple (if not cheap) to find a correlation (or even cause-and-effect), then figure out a way to either enforce the ban, or shield the cabins and pass the cost onto the passengers.
Or, laptop makers could offer more expensive shielded models that will not be detected by, or interfere with, airplane instruments. Again, maybe some actual scientists could take a crack at proving this hypothesis first.
Now, let's talk about the unwillingness or airlines and governments to protect commercial planes against shoulder-launched missiles...
So, when the software provider stops the government's license because of some spat or other, you can freely open the document that tells you how to run the proprietary voting machine software?
The argument for "open docuements" is a different problem from free software in government:
1 - Documents should be open in a universal format because the information in them belongs to the people and must be accessible. (If you believe in democracy, than this must be true even if the government does not believe it.)
2 - Software should be licensed to be freely used and modified so that the government, which belongs to the people, cannot be held up in its business by a foreign, domestic, or multinational corporation with its own agenda. If the free software is not "the best product" for the work, it must be made to perform as needed. The government must not be made to beg Sun or Microsoft for help in making their software work. They should hire their own people to study the problem and make the software work. This is the same way, in the corporate world, that nearly all programming is done, despite what proprietary software vendors would tell us.
The US was started with one idea that government should, in most cases, have fewer rights than its citizens; this includes the 'right' to use unfree software that could put citizens' information access at risk, as well as the running of important government systems, like voting, the census, and security. Corporations, which are persons only in a legal sense, should have fewer rights than real people, who we believe have natural rights.
Not many of us would have the character to threaten and face down a single mom with a 12 year old and a 9 year old. I guess the reason for that is because, well, she's a single mom with two kids, for pete's sake!
Good one RIAA! Just to let you know, I don't buy CD's anymore because the music is terrible; and the only downloading I do is from the Apple store, and it all seems to be music at least 10 years old. The best CD's I have heard in the past 3 years were burned at home by musician friends or produced by local musicians on small labels, because most RIAA members won't go near a real musician anymore. But now you've given me a deeper ethical reason to avoid the "products" you represent.
Actually, I guess I should send that comment to the RIAA, instead of/.
I think you're being too sensitive. You imply that Raymond is lying or obfuscating in some way, or that he is "pretending" to speak for everyone. For all we know he emailed Mr Torvalds and said, "I am going to write this and that," and the response was "Go for it. I like your writing, and have confidence to back you all the way."
If Raymond does not have Linus Torvalds' backing, this is free speech; he can speak up and say "I did not tell Eric Raymond to speak for me, and these are my real opinions." This is just what Richard Stallman did when SCO quoted him as saying "Linux is... a copy of UNIX." He wrote an article saying "I never said that; here is what I really say and think."
As for the "vaguely sinister threat," what is "sinister?" All I read was a promise that the open source community will not tolerate SCO's smears. The response may be coordinated research exposing SCO's weak case, or the copyright holders on Linux/GNU software excercising their rights to revoke SCO's right to distribute their software under part 4 of the GPL. It could be a formal complaint to the SEC about SCO's pump and dump scheme. But, Raymond has specifically said that the figtht will be won legally.
I think you need to switch to decaf, meditate for at least ten minutes a day, and stop worrying about Linus; he is quite capable of looking out for himself. If you think Raymond is speaking for you and you don't like it, send him an e-mail or write an open letter of your own.
For example, I sent ESR an email because of concerns I had about an article I read (in which he offered to sign a 'looser NDA with SCO'), and he responded that day, saying that he did not know what the article's author was talking about; he had never offered to sign an NDA. The point is, I'm nobody in the open/free software community, and Raymond took the time to respectfully respond to my concerns. I don't think he's in it for power and glory.
In the case of Linux, they have no financial incentive to show their cards - they cannot occupy a better position than they do now.
Actually, they may be in a legally precarious position. If you claim contract violation, the judge is likely to ask how the plaintiff tried to mitigate damages. If the defendant says "we offered to fix the problem, but they refused to tell us what we did wrong, then demanded 3billion USD," the plaintiff has a problem.
For example, the Free Software Foundation has never sued anyone. They see a GPL violation; if they hold the copyright on the software, they contact the offendor and tell him to comply with the GPL. The offender complies (often it is just a mistake, not malice or attempted theft), and the damage is undone. There is no longer a reason to go to court, and if the FSF did sue, the judge would throw out the case, as the damage was mitigated willingly by the defendant.
Actually, Mr Raymond pointed out in his letter that Linus Torvalds supports his comments:
"Linus Torvalds is backing me on this..."
If you don't want him speaking for you, that is easy to solve. Set up a website, write an open letter with your own opinions or proposals, and send a link to/.
Not pedantic, just stubborn. You need to let go of your viewpoint, which seems to be that the new license terms somehow don't practically exist without enforcement. If I break a law and the police are too lazy to arrest me, have I still broken the law? Of course I have. With that in mind, read the GPL, where you will see section 4:
4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance.
The copyright holders of the Linux kernel are within their rights to say that the mere definition and announcement of a new license on top of the GPL invalidates SCO's rights to redistribute, and the word 'automatic' implies that those rights are lost even if the copyright holder does not know yet what SCO is doing. As for the idea that "we never tried to enforce the sublicense," I would argue that imposition of the new license by itself shows an intent to enforce its terms, and that the copyright holder explicitly forbade this by licensing his work under the GPL.
Eben Moglen, General Counsel for the FSF, has written that the FSF has used its rights as a copyright holder on GNU software to tell distributors to remove 'click-wrap' licenses that attempt to sublicense GPL'd software. The FSF has never sued over these violations, nor has it waited until a distributor tried to enforce their click-wrap licenses. The FSF contacted the offender to say that he was in violation of section 4 of the GPL, and in every case, the offender brought his product into compliance, probably because he read the GPL and talked to his attorneys.
This does not matter; the GPL does not talk about enforcing additional terms, merely the imposition of new terms. The copyright holders can now enforce their rights and demand that SCO stop distributing the Linux kernel in source or binary form.
They don't give you a password to access the ftp site.
Yes, they have violated the GPL. SCO is distributing Linux kernel source under the GPL, and now they are trying to add a condition to the GPL (namely, that you must also purchase an additional "SCO IP License"). Adding additional terms to the GPL is strictly forbidden in the license, and doing so loses you your right to keep distributing that software, per wishes of the copyright holder.
This indicates to the court a good faith effort on the part of the Open Source crowd to try to fix the problem.
I agree with this. It is helpful in a civil suit to tell the judge 'we tried to reach an agreement and couldn't.' I just think it is a mistake to offer to sign anything that SCO would find agreeable, especially since the Linux kernel developers are not being sued at this time.
I wonder, if I am a developer and I think that SCO streches contracts beyond the breaking point to sue people, and that this makes me nervous about signing and NDA, what would my lawyer advise?
... "No Comment -- we don't comment on pending litigation." Seems opposite of what SCO is doing.
I completely agreee; I question their seriousness. I come from a family of lawyers, and they spend lots of expensive time telling clients to keep their mouths closed. "Anything you say can and will be used against you..." is true in any US court case. I find it hard to believe that their attorneys are OK with this.
I think that IBM also sees this as an artless shakedown, which is why they are rolling ahead to court; they'd rather take a chance to humiliate their opponent than settle and open themselves to future harrassment.
I agree. For what little it's worth, I sent ESR a note quoting the eWeek article, and asking that he continue to support open and voluntary sharing of source code and not NDAs; if Linux developers have unknowingly released SCO code, SCO has an obligation to give the community a chance to mitigate the damage by removing the code in question. SCO does have a legal obligation to take reasonable steps to mitigate their damages before suing.
I am offended that this fellow is using ESR's name and statements to tell Linux developers that they should sign a 'looser' NDA with SCO. It would be extremely unwise to sign any contract with SCO.
No matter what the Linux developers do or say, SCO will not stop spinning it against them until SCO gets lots of money. There is no legal or ethical reason to sign a contract with SCO. SCO can prove its claims, and the Linux developers will remove offending code. Until then, SCO is owed nothing.
The law that Heise cites says that you can only make one copy for backup without the copyright holder's permission. Of course if you are the copyright holder you can authorize further copying and distribution rights. In software, this authorization is called a "license."
If the GPL is invalid, so is every other software license that derives its authority from US copyright law. When other licenses say "you may not do this and you may not do this," they're merely explicating what is implicit in US copyright law; it's not like you have the right to redistribute Excel until the EULA says you don't. The GPL is an explicit authorization to do what you normally would not be allowed to do, so long as you grant the same right to anyone who receives it from you. The BSD license is an explicit authorization to redistribute in any way you want. Both authorizations are granted by the copyright holder.
I think that Heise got his law degree from a vending machine at the local mall. Happily, we may get to see him try to argue this before a sarcastic judge, which could become as big an underground video as that light sabre kid.
But, RMS did nothing of the sort, and the FSF did nothing of the sort.
All I saw was the start of a discussion: Should we support a platform whose owners would love to see us shut down so they can make a billion dollars? My answer would be a gentle but final "no."
RMS has said that SCO cannot stop free software, not that he will stop SCO.
I would not mind if the team used their resources for other platforms that appreciate their efforts and stopped developing the SCO code. Anyway, the GPL permits anyone to keep modifying the SCO version of gcc, but it does not oblige anyone to develop the code.
The author of this README is looking to the spirit of free software, not just the terms of the GPL. I think it's foolish to help a platform whose owners are so hostile to your work.
As for SCO users out there, they should switch to Linux or BSD and stop taking SCO's phone calls.
What you are saying makes sense, but in practical terms, copying, distribution, and performance precede use. That is the spirit behind copyright.
You're saying that if I write a program on my computer, not intended for distribution, you can copy and use it, and I have no remedy under the law. Is use of a computer program defined as "public performance," or is it more like reading a book?
For all practical purposes, you have no right to my code except those that I grant.
As for your examples, I think you do need permission from the copyright holder if you want to copy books and give them away. Start copying programs, CDs and books and give them away on a website, and we'll see how long that lasts.
I can modify and distribute copyrighted material under "fair use?" That would be news to most musicians, programmers, and authors. I think that parody is the only type of distribution that I have seen protected this way. Can you cite a US precedent or law that permits this?
A contract is an agreement entered into by two or more parties. A copyright license is not a contract. Copyright is stronger than any contract in US law, and copyright and the terms under which use of copyrighted material is granted are well tested in US courts.
If I write code, or a poem, or a novel, I own the copyright, EVEN IF NOBODY agrees to my terms of distribution. Nobody has signed a contract with me to use or distribute it, but the copyright is still mine, and I can dictate terms of use for my work as long as it's in effect.
The GPL states this very clearly; I have italicized the part that I believe relates solely to copyright vs contract:
"5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying the Program or works based on it."
Nothing in copyright law gives you any rights over the software, except the terms dictated by the copyright holder (in this case, the terms of the GPL). If I write a novel and drop the manuscript, and you find it, you have no right to publish it, because the copyright is not yours. Under copyright, law, you have ABSOLUTELY NO RIGHTS to a work EXCEPT those granted by the copyright holder.
The term "intellectual property," was invented by by people like those running SCO, because they want you and me to confuse an expression of an idea, which is under copyright, with the idea itself, which is not. Code is an expression, the algorithm or method is an idea. If SCO, MS, and others can obfuscate the fact that "intellectual property" does not exist in US law, they can make you think that expressing an idea with your own code (also called reverse engineering) is illegal. The only place in US law that ideas protected is patents, and there is much controversy about that.
All this means that if the GPL is found to be invalid, then all software licenses will follow, because copyright is the only thing that gives them their power.
My company purchased 5 used Sun E4500s, fully loaded with 12 CPUS, 12 GB RAM, and Gigabit ethernet, for 2k USD each. Sun made us pay a one-time fee of 60k USD for the OS licenses (after which those OS licenses were in our existing maintenance).
Then, we paid Sun 10k USD to 'certify' that the machines were all Sun equipment, no 3rd party components. Their tech tore each one down to check the parts for this.
With the OS and cetification process we still bought 5 servers for the price of one. What's to complain about? I suppose we could just get the hardware certified and run Linux on them if we didn't want to pay for Solaris licenses, but it's still a bargain to me.
Slashdot Mirror
It is true that you cannot erase damages, just mitigate them. In this case, SGI is working to remove problems it may have caused, even though SGI believes they can prove that the contributed code was released by SCO under a BSD-style license.
US courts, in addition to seeing the actual negligence or malice involved, will also look at the actual damage caused. If SCO claims damages because code that they themselves released to the public under an unrestricted license was used in a program, they'll be asked to describe exactly what damage was caused.
In addition, if SCO is so incompetent that they themselves did not review the linux code that they were distributing, and that they forgot that they released a lot of code under a BSD license on their own, they will have a hard time proving that SGI damaged them at all.
Tell that to the BSA and the companies they've raided, with law enforcement officers.
In any organization this will happen. SCO is saying that IBM moved the code into Linux on purpose to destroy UNIX.
This is very different from an inadvertant violation. If you took me to court and I could present evidence that I did not include your code purposefully, that I removed the offending code as soon as I knew about it and presented documentation that the code was public domain, but that I thought it would be better to remove any possibility of violation, chances are that would be the end of it. The court would see that I performed due diligence to detect and fix the problem.
That is why Linus and others keep on challenging SCO to show them the code so that they can perform their legal obligation and remove it. These people have also said that the fact that SCO won't show the code probably indicates that there are no violations, and certainly not on the grand, purposful scale SCO alleges. Look, if somone walked into your place of work and said "you are running unlicensed software," they'd be right. I have never seen a business that was NOT running unlicensed software. Does that mean they did it on purpose to destroy the maker of that software?
Murder means work too. Are you willing to die a few years early so detectives, attorneys, and judges can have jobs?
I would really much rather design and build secure network systems than apply bandages to existing hopeless systems. If a system is available that resists viruses (like BSD or Linux), that might be a good place to start...
Oh, wait, I do have that job! And I bet I am having more fun than you. One thing is certain, my employer is not flushing as much money down the toilet as yours.
One day my job will be obsolete, but it will be because of self-healing, learning software, not software that was written 'perfectly.' Until that happens, however, we might spend our time trying to do things properly, and learning from our mistakes.
Nobody would support houses of mud and straw in the Northeast US just to keep a bunch of mud-slathering straw harvesters in jobs every time it rained. My house of stone, concrete, and wood requires maintenance on my part, and it has provided plenty of skilled, high-paying work to the local tradespeople in my city, as well as opportunities for me to learn valuable skills. Because of its construction, it also provides a safe place to sleep and run electrical wiring. But oh, the unemployed mud mixers! But when you think about it, who really wants to mix mud and straw for a living?
As for your economic 'theory,' read this, In short, it says that as an employee of the government, if you are talking about the US, you are advocating the continuous waste of my tax money so that you can remain employed. Please put that on your resume when you are out of work and apply for a job working for me!
The result is what matters: Network down bad.
Duh, I know the effects are there. What I am talking about is scientific evidence, that is, an experiment that is repeatable:
"if your phone operates on X system, you will see the following effects with anything on X system or frequency." Phone makers should be forced to provide this info, because if a phone can interfere with a pacemaker or a car navigational system, that is important stuff to know.
What I want is a stop to the fear-mongering. For example, all I can say to you in response is that I use my phone everywhere in the house, watching TV, listening to the radio, using the computer, with no effects that I can see. That's because it's true. I want to know why some devices and phones see interference and others don't.
If my laptop interferes with the plane, how can I get it shielded? But we never get that far, because nobody is proving one way or the other what does and does not interfere with the planes.
Maybe flight 93 didn't crash because the passengers fought the terrorists, it was the rest of the passengers using their cell phones.
But in reality, I have also been unable to find any scientific study about personal electronics and airline instruments / communications.
I would want to see the following questions answered: how I can use my "FCC home or office approved" device without causing any problems (the houses in my neighborhood are right up next to one another), but my iPod can somehow make an altimeter or compass screw up if I go a few kilometers above sea level? Are the airlines telling me that my Mac and neighbors' phones are better built than their jet cockpits?
Presuming that a laptop or cell phone can interfere with airplane cockpits, why can it not be detected from the cockpit? ("We've detected that personal electronics are on, and we won't take off until they're all off.") On the other hand, they cannot even detect a bomb in their luggage hold. If you cannot detect a signal from a gameboy, how can the device interfere with the plane?
It seems to me that it should be fairly simple (if not cheap) to find a correlation (or even cause-and-effect), then figure out a way to either enforce the ban, or shield the cabins and pass the cost onto the passengers.
Or, laptop makers could offer more expensive shielded models that will not be detected by, or interfere with, airplane instruments. Again, maybe some actual scientists could take a crack at proving this hypothesis first.
Now, let's talk about the unwillingness or airlines and governments to protect commercial planes against shoulder-launched missiles...
So, when the software provider stops the government's license because of some spat or other, you can freely open the document that tells you how to run the proprietary voting machine software?
The argument for "open docuements" is a different problem from free software in government:
1 - Documents should be open in a universal format because the information in them belongs to the people and must be accessible. (If you believe in democracy, than this must be true even if the government does not believe it.)
2 - Software should be licensed to be freely used and modified so that the government, which belongs to the people, cannot be held up in its business by a foreign, domestic, or multinational corporation with its own agenda. If the free software is not "the best product" for the work, it must be made to perform as needed. The government must not be made to beg Sun or Microsoft for help in making their software work. They should hire their own people to study the problem and make the software work. This is the same way, in the corporate world, that nearly all programming is done, despite what proprietary software vendors would tell us.
The US was started with one idea that government should, in most cases, have fewer rights than its citizens; this includes the 'right' to use unfree software that could put citizens' information access at risk, as well as the running of important government systems, like voting, the census, and security. Corporations, which are persons only in a legal sense, should have fewer rights than real people, who we believe have natural rights.
Not many of us would have the character to threaten and face down a single mom with a 12 year old and a 9 year old. I guess the reason for that is because, well, she's a single mom with two kids, for pete's sake!
/.
Good one RIAA! Just to let you know, I don't buy CD's anymore because the music is terrible; and the only downloading I do is from the Apple store, and it all seems to be music at least 10 years old. The best CD's I have heard in the past 3 years were burned at home by musician friends or produced by local musicians on small labels, because most RIAA members won't go near a real musician anymore. But now you've given me a deeper ethical reason to avoid the "products" you represent.
Actually, I guess I should send that comment to the RIAA, instead of
I think you're being too sensitive. You imply that Raymond is lying or obfuscating in some way, or that he is "pretending" to speak for everyone. For all we know he emailed Mr Torvalds and said, "I am going to write this and that," and the response was "Go for it. I like your writing, and have confidence to back you all the way."
... a copy of UNIX." He wrote an article saying "I never said that; here is what I really say and think."
If Raymond does not have Linus Torvalds' backing, this is free speech; he can speak up and say "I did not tell Eric Raymond to speak for me, and these are my real opinions." This is just what Richard Stallman did when SCO quoted him as saying "Linux is
As for the "vaguely sinister threat," what is "sinister?" All I read was a promise that the open source community will not tolerate SCO's smears. The response may be coordinated research exposing SCO's weak case, or the copyright holders on Linux/GNU software excercising their rights to revoke SCO's right to distribute their software under part 4 of the GPL. It could be a formal complaint to the SEC about SCO's pump and dump scheme. But, Raymond has specifically said that the figtht will be won legally.
I think you need to switch to decaf, meditate for at least ten minutes a day, and stop worrying about Linus; he is quite capable of looking out for himself. If you think Raymond is speaking for you and you don't like it, send him an e-mail or write an open letter of your own.
For example, I sent ESR an email because of concerns I had about an article I read (in which he offered to sign a 'looser NDA with SCO'), and he responded that day, saying that he did not know what the article's author was talking about; he had never offered to sign an NDA. The point is, I'm nobody in the open/free software community, and Raymond took the time to respectfully respond to my concerns. I don't think he's in it for power and glory.
In the case of Linux, they have no financial incentive to show their cards - they cannot occupy a better position than they do now.
Actually, they may be in a legally precarious position. If you claim contract violation, the judge is likely to ask how the plaintiff tried to mitigate damages. If the defendant says "we offered to fix the problem, but they refused to tell us what we did wrong, then demanded 3billion USD," the plaintiff has a problem.
For example, the Free Software Foundation has never sued anyone. They see a GPL violation; if they hold the copyright on the software, they contact the offendor and tell him to comply with the GPL. The offender complies (often it is just a mistake, not malice or attempted theft), and the damage is undone. There is no longer a reason to go to court, and if the FSF did sue, the judge would throw out the case, as the damage was mitigated willingly by the defendant.
Actually, Mr Raymond pointed out in his letter that Linus Torvalds supports his comments:
/.
"Linus Torvalds is backing me on this..."
If you don't want him speaking for you, that is easy to solve. Set up a website, write an open letter with your own opinions or proposals, and send a link to
The copyright holders of the Linux kernel are within their rights to say that the mere definition and announcement of a new license on top of the GPL invalidates SCO's rights to redistribute, and the word 'automatic' implies that those rights are lost even if the copyright holder does not know yet what SCO is doing. As for the idea that "we never tried to enforce the sublicense," I would argue that imposition of the new license by itself shows an intent to enforce its terms, and that the copyright holder explicitly forbade this by licensing his work under the GPL.
Eben Moglen, General Counsel for the FSF, has written that the FSF has used its rights as a copyright holder on GNU software to tell distributors to remove 'click-wrap' licenses that attempt to sublicense GPL'd software. The FSF has never sued over these violations, nor has it waited until a distributor tried to enforce their click-wrap licenses. The FSF contacted the offender to say that he was in violation of section 4 of the GPL, and in every case, the offender brought his product into compliance, probably because he read the GPL and talked to his attorneys.
I don't think they are enforcing this, however.
This does not matter; the GPL does not talk about enforcing additional terms, merely the imposition of new terms. The copyright holders can now enforce their rights and demand that SCO stop distributing the Linux kernel in source or binary form.
They don't give you a password to access the ftp site.
You're right, it is an anoymous ftp site.
Yes, they have violated the GPL. SCO is distributing Linux kernel source under the GPL, and now they are trying to add a condition to the GPL (namely, that you must also purchase an additional "SCO IP License"). Adding additional terms to the GPL is strictly forbidden in the license, and doing so loses you your right to keep distributing that software, per wishes of the copyright holder.
I agree with this. It is helpful in a civil suit to tell the judge 'we tried to reach an agreement and couldn't.' I just think it is a mistake to offer to sign anything that SCO would find agreeable, especially since the Linux kernel developers are not being sued at this time.
I wonder, if I am a developer and I think that SCO streches contracts beyond the breaking point to sue people, and that this makes me nervous about signing and NDA, what would my lawyer advise?
I completely agreee; I question their seriousness. I come from a family of lawyers, and they spend lots of expensive time telling clients to keep their mouths closed. "Anything you say can and will be used against you..." is true in any US court case. I find it hard to believe that their attorneys are OK with this.
I think that IBM also sees this as an artless shakedown, which is why they are rolling ahead to court; they'd rather take a chance to humiliate their opponent than settle and open themselves to future harrassment.
I agree. For what little it's worth, I sent ESR a note quoting the eWeek article, and asking that he continue to support open and voluntary sharing of source code and not NDAs; if Linux developers have unknowingly released SCO code, SCO has an obligation to give the community a chance to mitigate the damage by removing the code in question. SCO does have a legal obligation to take reasonable steps to mitigate their damages before suing.
I am offended that this fellow is using ESR's name and statements to tell Linux developers that they should sign a 'looser' NDA with SCO. It would be extremely unwise to sign any contract with SCO.
No matter what the Linux developers do or say, SCO will not stop spinning it against them until SCO gets lots of money. There is no legal or ethical reason to sign a contract with SCO. SCO can prove its claims, and the Linux developers will remove offending code. Until then, SCO is owed nothing.
The law that Heise cites says that you can only make one copy for backup without the copyright holder's permission. Of course if you are the copyright holder you can authorize further copying and distribution rights. In software, this authorization is called a "license."
If the GPL is invalid, so is every other software license that derives its authority from US copyright law. When other licenses say "you may not do this and you may not do this," they're merely explicating what is implicit in US copyright law; it's not like you have the right to redistribute Excel until the EULA says you don't. The GPL is an explicit authorization to do what you normally would not be allowed to do, so long as you grant the same right to anyone who receives it from you. The BSD license is an explicit authorization to redistribute in any way you want. Both authorizations are granted by the copyright holder.
I think that Heise got his law degree from a vending machine at the local mall. Happily, we may get to see him try to argue this before a sarcastic judge, which could become as big an underground video as that light sabre kid.
My fault, I misread and saw a "not" where there was none. You did say that permission is needed for copying to distribute. Sorry.
But, RMS did nothing of the sort, and the FSF did nothing of the sort.
All I saw was the start of a discussion: Should we support a platform whose owners would love to see us shut down so they can make a billion dollars? My answer would be a gentle but final "no."
RMS has said that SCO cannot stop free software, not that he will stop SCO.
The OSD refers to licenses, not code.
I would not mind if the team used their resources for other platforms that appreciate their efforts and stopped developing the SCO code. Anyway, the GPL permits anyone to keep modifying the SCO version of gcc, but it does not oblige anyone to develop the code.
The author of this README is looking to the spirit of free software, not just the terms of the GPL. I think it's foolish to help a platform whose owners are so hostile to your work.
As for SCO users out there, they should switch to Linux or BSD and stop taking SCO's phone calls.
What you are saying makes sense, but in practical terms, copying, distribution, and performance precede use. That is the spirit behind copyright.
You're saying that if I write a program on my computer, not intended for distribution, you can copy and use it, and I have no remedy under the law. Is use of a computer program defined as "public performance," or is it more like reading a book?
For all practical purposes, you have no right to my code except those that I grant.
As for your examples, I think you do need permission from the copyright holder if you want to copy books and give them away. Start copying programs, CDs and books and give them away on a website, and we'll see how long that lasts.
I can modify and distribute copyrighted material under "fair use?" That would be news to most musicians, programmers, and authors. I think that parody is the only type of distribution that I have seen protected this way. Can you cite a US precedent or law that permits this?
A contract is an agreement entered into by two or more parties. A copyright license is not a contract. Copyright is stronger than any contract in US law, and copyright and the terms under which use of copyrighted material is granted are well tested in US courts.
If I write code, or a poem, or a novel, I own the copyright, EVEN IF NOBODY agrees to my terms of distribution. Nobody has signed a contract with me to use or distribute it, but the copyright is still mine, and I can dictate terms of use for my work as long as it's in effect.
The GPL states this very clearly; I have italicized the part that I believe relates solely to copyright vs contract:
"5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying the Program or works based on it."
Nothing in copyright law gives you any rights over the software, except the terms dictated by the copyright holder (in this case, the terms of the GPL). If I write a novel and drop the manuscript, and you find it, you have no right to publish it, because the copyright is not yours. Under copyright, law, you have ABSOLUTELY NO RIGHTS to a work EXCEPT those granted by the copyright holder.
The term "intellectual property," was invented by by people like those running SCO, because they want you and me to confuse an expression of an idea, which is under copyright, with the idea itself, which is not. Code is an expression, the algorithm or method is an idea. If SCO, MS, and others can obfuscate the fact that "intellectual property" does not exist in US law, they can make you think that expressing an idea with your own code (also called reverse engineering) is illegal. The only place in US law that ideas protected is patents, and there is much controversy about that.
All this means that if the GPL is found to be invalid, then all software licenses will follow, because copyright is the only thing that gives them their power.
My company purchased 5 used Sun E4500s, fully loaded with 12 CPUS, 12 GB RAM, and Gigabit ethernet, for 2k USD each. Sun made us pay a one-time fee of 60k USD for the OS licenses (after which those OS licenses were in our existing maintenance).
Then, we paid Sun 10k USD to 'certify' that the machines were all Sun equipment, no 3rd party components. Their tech tore each one down to check the parts for this.
With the OS and cetification process we still bought 5 servers for the price of one. What's to complain about? I suppose we could just get the hardware certified and run Linux on them if we didn't want to pay for Solaris licenses, but it's still a bargain to me.