Man, can IBM bitchslap or what? Not only are they targetting SCO, they're targetting the managements pocketbooks as much as possible. If that entire Novell blocking the revocation of the AIX licenses is true, then the shareholders have a beef which could ultimately lead to a class-action.
Oh yeah. Been waiting for this, the official "other shoe," to drop for months.
Seriously, what was SCO expecting? On a ranking of groups not to piss off...
No, not terrorism at all. Treason, yes, but not terrorism.
That's a great point. The one quibble I would have is that the Taliban is no longer a government, being now simply a terrorist regime (ie, al Queda, basically). So, I think technically his actions would have been trason 2 years ago, but terrorism now. I would call directly aiding a group engaged in terrorism to be terrorism, and aiding a foreign government to be treason.
But I'm not sure. Either way, as he's a US citizen, not terribly defendable.
Hacking is of little concern here. Since we aren't talking about Internet voting, so the only opportunity to hack would be while you are in the voting booth, with nothing but the interface that is given to you. So assume there is a touch screen or something with a limited number of options.
I'll admit a fair amount of ignorance of the whole computer voting thing, but I assume the thing has to be 'netted up to communicate its results with something. To me, there's your backdoor for hacking potential.
Also I wouldn't discount walk-up hacking regardless. They don't screen polling volunteers really well - I don't think it's completely inconceivable that a hacker, having had ample access to the software, could figure out a way to, say, run a "patch" of the software. I'm assuming this runs on a typical computer, and with any machine, physical access basically equals root access for anyone savvy enough.
Making this software open source so that we can all look at the code is really just to make sure that there isn't some algorithm that drops every 3rd vote for a particular party or adds it to the wrong tally.
I certainly appreciate that, and I would think it a good idea if I was convinced all other avenues of hacking were cut out, but I'm not convinced they are.
because we haven't made it so yet. Remember Government by the people...
And have we made a good case for why it should be open source? Remember, around here it's taken as gospel that Open Source is a "Good Thing," this isn't the case elsewhere. I'm not necessarily taking a contrary position, but it's a question that needs to be answered clearly.
Obviously security is the main concern here - but one could make a case that this isn't like windows, which hackers can play around with all the time at home. For systems with limited distribution, one could make a compelling argument that Closed Source would be more secure, because the hacking threat is smaller.
On the contrary, if the source were opened, one might not be able to trust that there would be more white hat hackers than black hats for such a high-profile application (ie, anti-US). I don't even think we could assume that a white hat with a name to make would work with the code authors outside the media and a forego a full whitepaper deployed on the eve of an election. A lot of whitehats have recently taken to giving authors about 15 minutes to patch bugs before publishing them. That's not something we can have with a system like this, it's too dangerous.
There are a lot of issues to consider here, and it can't be taken as granted that anyone outside/. and Stallman's disciples will assume that OSS is best here as a matter of course.
This guy simply wanted to go home, and protect his country from what he viewed as US aggression.
The Taliban is not a country. In fact, the Taliban has never been a country. They were not generally, in fact, Afghani - many (I believe most) were foreigners who simply took over, as 1) Afghanistan wasn't able to resist, and 2) they wanted a country in which to practice the most extreme version of Islam. So it would be a mistake to assume there was hardly anyone in Afghanistan who voluntarily supported the Taliban.
Second, this guy was Palestinian as pointed out. So he's not defending a country - he's committing acts of aggression against a country he does not like by aiding an extremely violent terrorist regime with a history of targeted violence against civillians.
Thanks to a runaway dotcom economy. You can thank him for the collapse too. If he's responsible for one, he is for the other too. Personally, I think either attribution is a bit of 20/20 hindsight.
government surplus
See above
relative peace
Appeasement? We can thank him for Osama too. Those 75 cruise missles on impeachment eve seem not to have had much impact. Neville Chaimberlain oversaw a "peaceful" period too. I believe it ended for Britain around 1939.
and one of the biggest economic booms in the last 50 years..
And busts.
Not saying Bush is a great president, but giving Clinton credit for the dot bomb economy is downright stupid, or complete propaganda.
Actually that may depend. Knowing oh so well how these things go, he may well have burned it onto his own CDROM using his own burner. Their property is the copyright itself. If they were so very stupid as to lose the only master copy of the IP they value so highly, it's nobody's problem but theirs.
First, I haven't seen his contract, obviously. But typically, if you perform your actions as an employee, the result (ie, the build) belongs to the company.
If they were so very stupid as to lose the only master copy of the IP they value so highly, it's nobody's problem but theirs.
Well, if it was his job to provide said master copy, not doing so was probably a breach of his responsibilities as an employee. You can't blame the company for not having the copy if the employees didn't turn it in. That's speculation, of course.
The sole obligation is to destroy the unlicensed copy of the software.
Well, as above, it depends. If the build was made with company resources, then it belongs to them. If he made it with his own resources, you may be right - then destruction might be sufficient, depending on his contract.
His POSESSION of it isn't illegal - the copy itself was authorized by the copyright holder. And if the company allowed him to take the CD's when he was laid off, the CD's are his.
I haven't seen his particular contract, but I actually doubt that pretty much. I haven't seen any company involved in the production of software that didn't forbid taking home copies of the code, or at least demand the destruction of same upon quitting. Also, chances are he made this copy with company resources, as people typically don't do builds with their own equipment. Though naturally he would have to substantiate. Bottom line, I would bet that copy legally belongs to them. If he made this copy in his capacity as an employee, it belongs to them and is not a personal copy. Technically, he probably has stolen property.
Question - Do I have a right to demand that the University hand over their copy of my work because I have lost my original? Answer - Hell no. They may not have permission to use it beyond the library, but that copy is theirs, fair and square, and they don't have to give it back.
That's different. You provided them with a copy as a condition of you graduating, and you would have signed some mumbo jumbo granting them certain rights, yada yada. However, again, I would be willing to bet that he did not have the right to possess that IP, making him different from the library you mention. At a minimum, I would imagine that he would have been obligated (as an employee) not to have removed said copy in the first place.
Whenever I've bought shares, I've always done it on the fundamentals. Can I see what the company does? Do they look like they are doing the right things in their shops? Is the market right for buying into (such as property after a long slump)?I never bought because of balance sheets.
Well, that isn't happening here - this is straight hype that isn't even showing up on the balance sheet, let alone in fundamentals. Fundamentally there aren't any fundamentals in the business known as SCO.
For what it's worth, though, if you're actually researching companies you aren't listening to CNBC for stock "tips" (ie, hype) anyway.
in case of dissolution by bankruptcy, you are right. Here in Brasil, the preferred creditors are the employers (the value of their severance payments); second preferred is the Gov'ment:-). Then the others. Hehe.
1 more good reason to move to Bra{z|s}il, folks. Like the supermodels and nude beaches wasn't quite enough. Hey, how's that currency though, these days? Stable? Probably more so than ours? Damn.
1. Offer goose for code and post notice in town square.
2. Wait 30 days
3. If no one claims the code in that time you may keep the code and eat the goose.
Linus should tell this to SCO. Tell them their goose was waiting for them in '93, and now he has rights to their SysV stuff.
The way it really works is more along the lines of: How much did it cost the company or individual doing the donation? In the above example maybe they could write off the amount that was donated- development costs if it was never publicly released and they *paid* development costs.
Not really - it has an intrinsic value that is independent of their actual cost. I've seen a lot of this lately, all involving nonprofits as recipients. MS donates copies of windows to schools, and typically deducts retail price. Another biggie is companies donating patents to universities. Typically the patents are things that didn't work out for them, and got shelved. They donate the stuff to the university in exchange for a "favorable" valuation of the donation, which is typically more than they could have ever sold the patent for.
So, from examples I have actually seen, there is frequently a disconnect between what a donation should be valued at and what's been happening. Supposedly the IRS is going to look more closely at this, but good luck there. This has been a nice loophole for a few years now, as everyone but the government wins. The nonprofit gets something that might be of some value for free, the company gets a big writeoff. The nonprofit doesn't pay taxes, so that's not a consideraton. Nice racket, eh? Some big companies have been doing this too - can't remember exactly, but Big Oil comes to mind, as does Dow Corning.
Here. 33N 38' 8" by 117W 56' 28" in back, on friday 8th of August at 11:00 pm. in a brown paper bag...Now you have tossed it in the trash. I'll come pick it up and do a back alley GPLing... All for only a pack of Camels and a Mt. Dew.
Screw that - I live in Pasadena, if I leave at 9:30 I can beat you to it.;)
Why don't corporations have easy legal means for property disposal after "death", just as Last Wills and Testaments offer individuals a convenient means for avoiding probabe and all those complications?
Well, they do, actually. There are preferred creditors, less preferred, and non-preferred. The first are banks, the last something like common-stockholders. There is a VERY well-defined pecking order - basically, the higher ups basically get what they want until the debts are satisfied, and if there's anything left, you go down the chart.
The problem here is this guy's code is like Grandma's shitty costume jewelry - it wasn't worth Grandma putting in the will, and before she died, no one really makes a fuss about it. They likely didn't even notice it when the family divvied up Grandma's grap when she died. But if anyone actually wears Grandma's shitty old necklace to a family reunion, say, then everyone's going to get all pissed asking you how come you got Grandma's necklace. Then, the oldest sister wants it an pulls rank, and a nasty fight ensues. Yay.
Same thing here. Everyone assumes that code is comepletely worthless, and doesn't even want it - that is, until you come along, mention that you have Grandma's necklace from the estate (ie, the source code from this project) that you weren't really entitled to. Now, everyone else ahead of you in the pecking order (ie, the preferred creditors) wants the code, simply because it now might have value. Remember, they don't care if they make money off of it - but if you do, that means they could have, and somebody's ass is grass.
And, if there is no hope for this particular after the fact problem, or for corporations to put in general legal safeguards for tidy disposal of property without the need for expensive lawyers, then is there some small "sunset" clause that software developers could put in their code to ease the transfer, like a quit-claim that goes into effect if the corporation dissolves and no creditors assert any rights for a period of one year.
I like that idea - problem is, I don't think it's enforceable unless it is agreed to (probably ahead of time) by every potential lienholder/creditor of the company, down to common stockholders. You could make it boilerplate. The problem is that creditors don't want to give things that might have value away, and would rather just have it "just in case." Most likely, they'll just assert their rights over all software in general, in case something comes up they didn't know about.
They either deal with him fairly, or they get zilch. All he must do is "lose" the disks.
That's a one-way ticket to jail. If he has those disks unknowingly, it's a potential oversight. However, if he 1) finds them, and 2) contacts the rightful owner, he's obligated to return them immediately. I suspect they'll record the conversation, and no judge/jury on earth will go for the old "I lost them" routine. Well, maybe the OJ jury.
Remember, his copy is legal under fair use (backup copies made while employed)
The hell! He doesn't have a license to anything he used as an employee. When he quits (or is fired, or laid off) his rights to use company property ceases. I've seen the fair use law, and it ain't that. If MS fires me, can I do whatever I want with a Windows CVS, like develop it into another product? Uh, no. That isn't fair use.
and the only thing the owners can do is compel him to destroy it. They can't compel him to give the code back - he doesn't have a relationship with them anymore.
Legally they sure as hell can. He has their property. Period. They can't threaten to fire him, but he can go to jail.
4. Convince them to assign the rights collectively to the old development team, under an open license. This way, both the old developers and the general public will benefit. That's what any respectable company would do.. (of course, ideally, said company would not have produced proprietary code to begin with and this wouldn't have been an issue)
Right, and then we'll all dance in fairy land and everyone will be happy. I mean seriously, there's no chance in hell that would happen. If the team ever did anything worth a damn with it then the lawyer might have his boss come in and say "Why the hell did you give this away, you are FIRED!"
I mean, that's just not the way this world works. I'm pretty sure parent is a troll (and a good one!;>), but it does raise a good point, namely the following...
The only chance you would have of open-sourcing this would be for the guy to convince the company to donate it to FSF or some other non-profit. The FSF would then value the code at some ridiculous value, giving the owner a massive tax write-off that is much more valuable than it sitting around collecting dust, and more than the guy could have ever paid for it.
That's the only chance of open-sourcing this stuff.
Do you know who was the corporate counsel for the company? If so, have your lawyer contact them. If not, your lawyer may be able to discover who it was. Also, your lawyer may already know the answer, or be able to get in touch with someone who does.
You are of course correct. Again, asking/. for legal advice isn't sound advice. However, I'll tell you what would happen, basically. If you tell that lawyer you have something from this company of value, it should technically belong to the company's creditors - I assume it went out of business for a reason, correct?
What will likely happen is that the lawyers for that company won't be interested in developing the software - but they'll be damned if they'll just give it to you and see you do something with it of value. Likely, they'll tell you to fork over the code and decide to archive it in case anyone wants to screw with it. No one likely will.
There are basically three options you have. The first two certainly involve getting a lawyer.
1. Buy it from them. Problem there is that they will not know how to attach a value on it, so they will pick an arbitrarily high one. Remember, if no deal is struck, they get it back once you admit to having it. They also don't want to get fired when they sell it to you for too little. Not reaching a deal won't get them fired, and burning the code is probably best for them.
2. License it from them. Give them some money up front and a cut of whatever you get. This will cut your upfront costs, but they will likely want a huge cut. However, they won't be as afraid, at least, since they get more money if you do. Nobody looks too bad.
3. Pretend you don't have it, and do a "dirty room" re-write of it. Effectively plagiarize it and assume that anyone else involved with it won't remember, won't notice, etc. Then, if you do anything of value with it, worst case scenario is they sue you, you settle, everyone's happy. Bet you wish you hadn't posted this now, huh?
The problem is that, as the article poster mentions, this is a software dead-end, and it's very hard to revive dead code. The current owners don't want to look like idiots when they get pennies for valuable code that they didn't correctly value. They'd rather bury it, which is your problem now.
Note that this is not to be construed as actual legal advice. You'd have to be an idiot to listen to me, particularly since option 3) is pretty illegal.;)
Today's Internet is no longer a free-for-all. I remember things like The Anarchist's Handbook or Jolly Roger or the like that were filled with dangerous or inciteful content.
Actually, I kept all that shit figuring it would go away. I have the collected Jolly Roger works and the Anarchist's Cookbook. Does that make me old?;)
It's all fun and games until somebody gets hurt, though, and I've read about a number of cases of people injuring themselves or others by trying to do that kind of stuff.
No doubt. I knew I was in trouble when I saw, repeatedly, the symbol for calcium referred to as "C" (instead of "Ca"). Whoever wrote most of that thing was a complete poseur. But it was still fun when I was 15.;)
The mature thing to do is to preemptively avoid spreading that kind of content so that it doesn't fall into the hands of idiots.
You're probably right, although I really don't like the sentiment there, though. I mean, this is the damned first amendment here. Spreading information is now illegal if the gov. doesn't like it? What the hell is that? I really wish hte ACLU or someone would have taken this up. Remember, we don't *need* the 1st Am. for protection of speech no one finds offensive. We need it to protect speech that is attacked, like this.
As mentioned previously, advocating the overthrow of the gov. is a right and privelege granted to us by the Declaration of Independence, assuming that wasn't just a bunch of crap. So what did this kid do wrong? It's not like he actually did any of this stuff. And didn't the abortion group that posted doctors' names on its website get off? Or am I wrong?
Quibble. I think the original plan was to sue IBM, have IBM buy them out, and then exercise their stock options. This pump-n-dump scheme is probably Plan B.
No quibble at all. You say that they wanted IBM to buy them out - yes, and how do buyouts work? On a per-share basis. So the more they pump this stock, the more the IBM buyout would have been worth. Didn't matter if they sell the stock (or, indeed, all the stock) to IBM or the world at large, except that they would have gotten a slightly higher price from IBM and sold it all at once. Either way, the share price is critical, and had to be driven up.
So the pump part of the pump-n-dump would have been critical from the outset.
In that sense, it makes perfect sense. Get your stock price up as high as you can, and then sell as much as you can before everyone else catches on. Claim that you own all the IP in the world, and as long as there are others dumb enough to believe you, they'll keep your stock price high.
Is there any doubt that this was the plan all along? Come on, this is just a large-scale Pump-n-Dump scheme. Let's see - an organization that owns a few companies (let's call it Canopy) buys a down-on-it's-luck company (let's call it Caldera) that has some worthless IP. They decide, wisely, to pay their executives (coincidently, themselves) in options.
Then, they make obscene claims and sue a big-name target (let's call it IBM) for a ton of cash. Then, instead of filing court documents in a timely fashion to win their suit with minimum expenditure, they FUD like crazy. They get interviews wherever they can, especially in the mass media like CNBC, which moron daytraders watch to get "stock tips." This drives up share price, making their options worth a ton of cash. Then, they sell out, literally and figuratively.
This is where we are now. The interesting part is, though, that after they sell out they may not even care about the result of the suit all that much.
Bottom line is this needs to be investigated as the pump-n-dump scheme that it is. Why is it illegal for some morons on a chat board to do it, but perfectly legal for a management team to do it? It's a scheme/scam either way.
Actually I have the database ready as a 15 meg bzipped csv file right now. I just need to find someone who can convert it to the mozilla.dat format and host it.
You should talk to the guys at Mozdev - I can't believe they wouldn't be interested. I think the mail filter should come with a "starter kit" of signatures that are used until the user builds up a decent library. And 15,000 is a lot - I've got probably 1/10 that. It should make for an interesting project.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh yeah. Been waiting for this, the official "other shoe," to drop for months.
Seriously, what was SCO expecting? On a ranking of groups not to piss off...
999,934,953,021: PETA
999,934,953,020: FSF
127:GNAA, San Quentin Prison Chapter
2: Colombian cocaine cartels
1: IBM
Shoulda seen this coming.
No. I'm sorry. Nothing is better than watching Battlebots.
That's a great point. The one quibble I would have is that the Taliban is no longer a government, being now simply a terrorist regime (ie, al Queda, basically). So, I think technically his actions would have been trason 2 years ago, but terrorism now. I would call directly aiding a group engaged in terrorism to be terrorism, and aiding a foreign government to be treason.
But I'm not sure. Either way, as he's a US citizen, not terribly defendable.
I'll admit a fair amount of ignorance of the whole computer voting thing, but I assume the thing has to be 'netted up to communicate its results with something. To me, there's your backdoor for hacking potential.
Also I wouldn't discount walk-up hacking regardless. They don't screen polling volunteers really well - I don't think it's completely inconceivable that a hacker, having had ample access to the software, could figure out a way to, say, run a "patch" of the software. I'm assuming this runs on a typical computer, and with any machine, physical access basically equals root access for anyone savvy enough.
Making this software open source so that we can all look at the code is really just to make sure that there isn't some algorithm that drops every 3rd vote for a particular party or adds it to the wrong tally.
I certainly appreciate that, and I would think it a good idea if I was convinced all other avenues of hacking were cut out, but I'm not convinced they are.
And have we made a good case for why it should be open source? Remember, around here it's taken as gospel that Open Source is a "Good Thing," this isn't the case elsewhere. I'm not necessarily taking a contrary position, but it's a question that needs to be answered clearly.
Obviously security is the main concern here - but one could make a case that this isn't like windows, which hackers can play around with all the time at home. For systems with limited distribution, one could make a compelling argument that Closed Source would be more secure, because the hacking threat is smaller.
On the contrary, if the source were opened, one might not be able to trust that there would be more white hat hackers than black hats for such a high-profile application (ie, anti-US). I don't even think we could assume that a white hat with a name to make would work with the code authors outside the media and a forego a full whitepaper deployed on the eve of an election. A lot of whitehats have recently taken to giving authors about 15 minutes to patch bugs before publishing them. That's not something we can have with a system like this, it's too dangerous.
There are a lot of issues to consider here, and it can't be taken as granted that anyone outside /. and Stallman's disciples will assume that OSS is best here as a matter of course.
The Taliban is not a country. In fact, the Taliban has never been a country. They were not generally, in fact, Afghani - many (I believe most) were foreigners who simply took over, as 1) Afghanistan wasn't able to resist, and 2) they wanted a country in which to practice the most extreme version of Islam. So it would be a mistake to assume there was hardly anyone in Afghanistan who voluntarily supported the Taliban.
Second, this guy was Palestinian as pointed out. So he's not defending a country - he's committing acts of aggression against a country he does not like by aiding an extremely violent terrorist regime with a history of targeted violence against civillians.
That's terrorism in pretty much any book.
Your prize is in the mail. ;)
Thanks to a runaway dotcom economy. You can thank him for the collapse too. If he's responsible for one, he is for the other too. Personally, I think either attribution is a bit of 20/20 hindsight.
government surplus
See above
relative peace
Appeasement? We can thank him for Osama too. Those 75 cruise missles on impeachment eve seem not to have had much impact. Neville Chaimberlain oversaw a "peaceful" period too. I believe it ended for Britain around 1939.
and one of the biggest economic booms in the last 50 years..
And busts.
Not saying Bush is a great president, but giving Clinton credit for the dot bomb economy is downright stupid, or complete propaganda.
They've also started a hotline. 1-800-382-5633. Tell 'em what you think.
First, I haven't seen his contract, obviously. But typically, if you perform your actions as an employee, the result (ie, the build) belongs to the company.
If they were so very stupid as to lose the only master copy of the IP they value so highly, it's nobody's problem but theirs.
Well, if it was his job to provide said master copy, not doing so was probably a breach of his responsibilities as an employee. You can't blame the company for not having the copy if the employees didn't turn it in. That's speculation, of course.
The sole obligation is to destroy the unlicensed copy of the software.
Well, as above, it depends. If the build was made with company resources, then it belongs to them. If he made it with his own resources, you may be right - then destruction might be sufficient, depending on his contract.
I haven't seen his particular contract, but I actually doubt that pretty much. I haven't seen any company involved in the production of software that didn't forbid taking home copies of the code, or at least demand the destruction of same upon quitting. Also, chances are he made this copy with company resources, as people typically don't do builds with their own equipment. Though naturally he would have to substantiate. Bottom line, I would bet that copy legally belongs to them. If he made this copy in his capacity as an employee, it belongs to them and is not a personal copy. Technically, he probably has stolen property.
Question - Do I have a right to demand that the University hand over their copy of my work because I have lost my original? Answer - Hell no. They may not have permission to use it beyond the library, but that copy is theirs, fair and square, and they don't have to give it back.
That's different. You provided them with a copy as a condition of you graduating, and you would have signed some mumbo jumbo granting them certain rights, yada yada. However, again, I would be willing to bet that he did not have the right to possess that IP, making him different from the library you mention. At a minimum, I would imagine that he would have been obligated (as an employee) not to have removed said copy in the first place.
Well, that isn't happening here - this is straight hype that isn't even showing up on the balance sheet, let alone in fundamentals. Fundamentally there aren't any fundamentals in the business known as SCO.
For what it's worth, though, if you're actually researching companies you aren't listening to CNBC for stock "tips" (ie, hype) anyway.
1 more good reason to move to Bra{z|s}il, folks. Like the supermodels and nude beaches wasn't quite enough. Hey, how's that currency though, these days? Stable? Probably more so than ours? Damn.
1. Offer goose for code and post notice in town square.
2. Wait 30 days
3. If no one claims the code in that time you may keep the code and eat the goose.
Linus should tell this to SCO. Tell them their goose was waiting for them in '93, and now he has rights to their SysV stuff.
Not really - it has an intrinsic value that is independent of their actual cost. I've seen a lot of this lately, all involving nonprofits as recipients. MS donates copies of windows to schools, and typically deducts retail price. Another biggie is companies donating patents to universities. Typically the patents are things that didn't work out for them, and got shelved. They donate the stuff to the university in exchange for a "favorable" valuation of the donation, which is typically more than they could have ever sold the patent for.
So, from examples I have actually seen, there is frequently a disconnect between what a donation should be valued at and what's been happening. Supposedly the IRS is going to look more closely at this, but good luck there. This has been a nice loophole for a few years now, as everyone but the government wins. The nonprofit gets something that might be of some value for free, the company gets a big writeoff. The nonprofit doesn't pay taxes, so that's not a consideraton. Nice racket, eh? Some big companies have been doing this too - can't remember exactly, but Big Oil comes to mind, as does Dow Corning.
Screw that - I live in Pasadena, if I leave at 9:30 I can beat you to it. ;)
Well, they do, actually. There are preferred creditors, less preferred, and non-preferred. The first are banks, the last something like common-stockholders. There is a VERY well-defined pecking order - basically, the higher ups basically get what they want until the debts are satisfied, and if there's anything left, you go down the chart.
The problem here is this guy's code is like Grandma's shitty costume jewelry - it wasn't worth Grandma putting in the will, and before she died, no one really makes a fuss about it. They likely didn't even notice it when the family divvied up Grandma's grap when she died. But if anyone actually wears Grandma's shitty old necklace to a family reunion, say, then everyone's going to get all pissed asking you how come you got Grandma's necklace. Then, the oldest sister wants it an pulls rank, and a nasty fight ensues. Yay.
Same thing here. Everyone assumes that code is comepletely worthless, and doesn't even want it - that is, until you come along, mention that you have Grandma's necklace from the estate (ie, the source code from this project) that you weren't really entitled to. Now, everyone else ahead of you in the pecking order (ie, the preferred creditors) wants the code, simply because it now might have value. Remember, they don't care if they make money off of it - but if you do, that means they could have, and somebody's ass is grass.
And, if there is no hope for this particular after the fact problem, or for corporations to put in general legal safeguards for tidy disposal of property without the need for expensive lawyers, then is there some small "sunset" clause that software developers could put in their code to ease the transfer, like a quit-claim that goes into effect if the corporation dissolves and no creditors assert any rights for a period of one year.
I like that idea - problem is, I don't think it's enforceable unless it is agreed to (probably ahead of time) by every potential lienholder/creditor of the company, down to common stockholders. You could make it boilerplate. The problem is that creditors don't want to give things that might have value away, and would rather just have it "just in case." Most likely, they'll just assert their rights over all software in general, in case something comes up they didn't know about.
That's a one-way ticket to jail. If he has those disks unknowingly, it's a potential oversight. However, if he 1) finds them, and 2) contacts the rightful owner, he's obligated to return them immediately. I suspect they'll record the conversation, and no judge/jury on earth will go for the old "I lost them" routine. Well, maybe the OJ jury.
Remember, his copy is legal under fair use (backup copies made while employed)
The hell! He doesn't have a license to anything he used as an employee. When he quits (or is fired, or laid off) his rights to use company property ceases. I've seen the fair use law, and it ain't that. If MS fires me, can I do whatever I want with a Windows CVS, like develop it into another product? Uh, no. That isn't fair use.
and the only thing the owners can do is compel him to destroy it. They can't compel him to give the code back - he doesn't have a relationship with them anymore.
Legally they sure as hell can. He has their property. Period. They can't threaten to fire him, but he can go to jail.
Right, and then we'll all dance in fairy land and everyone will be happy. I mean seriously, there's no chance in hell that would happen. If the team ever did anything worth a damn with it then the lawyer might have his boss come in and say "Why the hell did you give this away, you are FIRED!"
I mean, that's just not the way this world works. I'm pretty sure parent is a troll (and a good one! ;>), but it does raise a good point, namely the following...
The only chance you would have of open-sourcing this would be for the guy to convince the company to donate it to FSF or some other non-profit. The FSF would then value the code at some ridiculous value, giving the owner a massive tax write-off that is much more valuable than it sitting around collecting dust, and more than the guy could have ever paid for it.
That's the only chance of open-sourcing this stuff.
;) No. But then, he doesn't have IBM's pockets either. Less of a target.
You are of course correct. Again, asking /. for legal advice isn't sound advice. However, I'll tell you what would happen, basically. If you tell that lawyer you have something from this company of value, it should technically belong to the company's creditors - I assume it went out of business for a reason, correct?
What will likely happen is that the lawyers for that company won't be interested in developing the software - but they'll be damned if they'll just give it to you and see you do something with it of value. Likely, they'll tell you to fork over the code and decide to archive it in case anyone wants to screw with it. No one likely will.
There are basically three options you have. The first two certainly involve getting a lawyer.
1. Buy it from them. Problem there is that they will not know how to attach a value on it, so they will pick an arbitrarily high one. Remember, if no deal is struck, they get it back once you admit to having it. They also don't want to get fired when they sell it to you for too little. Not reaching a deal won't get them fired, and burning the code is probably best for them.
2. License it from them. Give them some money up front and a cut of whatever you get. This will cut your upfront costs, but they will likely want a huge cut. However, they won't be as afraid, at least, since they get more money if you do. Nobody looks too bad.
3. Pretend you don't have it, and do a "dirty room" re-write of it. Effectively plagiarize it and assume that anyone else involved with it won't remember, won't notice, etc. Then, if you do anything of value with it, worst case scenario is they sue you, you settle, everyone's happy. Bet you wish you hadn't posted this now, huh?
The problem is that, as the article poster mentions, this is a software dead-end, and it's very hard to revive dead code. The current owners don't want to look like idiots when they get pennies for valuable code that they didn't correctly value. They'd rather bury it, which is your problem now.
Note that this is not to be construed as actual legal advice. You'd have to be an idiot to listen to me, particularly since option 3) is pretty illegal. ;)
Actually, I kept all that shit figuring it would go away. I have the collected Jolly Roger works and the Anarchist's Cookbook. Does that make me old? ;)
It's all fun and games until somebody gets hurt, though, and I've read about a number of cases of people injuring themselves or others by trying to do that kind of stuff.
No doubt. I knew I was in trouble when I saw, repeatedly, the symbol for calcium referred to as "C" (instead of "Ca"). Whoever wrote most of that thing was a complete poseur. But it was still fun when I was 15. ;)
The mature thing to do is to preemptively avoid spreading that kind of content so that it doesn't fall into the hands of idiots.
You're probably right, although I really don't like the sentiment there, though. I mean, this is the damned first amendment here. Spreading information is now illegal if the gov. doesn't like it? What the hell is that? I really wish hte ACLU or someone would have taken this up. Remember, we don't *need* the 1st Am. for protection of speech no one finds offensive. We need it to protect speech that is attacked, like this.
As mentioned previously, advocating the overthrow of the gov. is a right and privelege granted to us by the Declaration of Independence, assuming that wasn't just a bunch of crap. So what did this kid do wrong? It's not like he actually did any of this stuff. And didn't the abortion group that posted doctors' names on its website get off? Or am I wrong?
No quibble at all. You say that they wanted IBM to buy them out - yes, and how do buyouts work? On a per-share basis. So the more they pump this stock, the more the IBM buyout would have been worth. Didn't matter if they sell the stock (or, indeed, all the stock) to IBM or the world at large, except that they would have gotten a slightly higher price from IBM and sold it all at once. Either way, the share price is critical, and had to be driven up.
So the pump part of the pump-n-dump would have been critical from the outset.
Is there any doubt that this was the plan all along? Come on, this is just a large-scale Pump-n-Dump scheme. Let's see - an organization that owns a few companies (let's call it Canopy) buys a down-on-it's-luck company (let's call it Caldera) that has some worthless IP. They decide, wisely, to pay their executives (coincidently, themselves) in options.
Then, they make obscene claims and sue a big-name target (let's call it IBM) for a ton of cash. Then, instead of filing court documents in a timely fashion to win their suit with minimum expenditure, they FUD like crazy. They get interviews wherever they can, especially in the mass media like CNBC, which moron daytraders watch to get "stock tips." This drives up share price, making their options worth a ton of cash. Then, they sell out, literally and figuratively.
This is where we are now. The interesting part is, though, that after they sell out they may not even care about the result of the suit all that much.
Bottom line is this needs to be investigated as the pump-n-dump scheme that it is. Why is it illegal for some morons on a chat board to do it, but perfectly legal for a management team to do it? It's a scheme/scam either way.
You should talk to the guys at Mozdev - I can't believe they wouldn't be interested. I think the mail filter should come with a "starter kit" of signatures that are used until the user builds up a decent library. And 15,000 is a lot - I've got probably 1/10 that. It should make for an interesting project.