First, the copyright law does not grant creators of derivative works the right to distribute those works without prior authorization from the copyright holder of the orginal work.
This is where you are confused. Copyright law does not grant creators of derivative works the right to create (duh!) derivative works without prior authorization from the copyright holder of the original work. It does not regulate distribution of derivative work, assuming that derivative work creator automatically entitled to do it.
The SCO's argument is that, according to USC 17, once the right on creation of the derivative work has been obtained, original copyright holder can have no say as to how derivative work creators distribute their works.
In this case it is fair and done, to compensate original work creator with money, but it is not within original work creator rights to limit derivative work creator's options as how to distribute the derivative work, because this right is inherently granted to them by USC 17 without limitations.
The argument (by aug24) that work creators are already effectively limit their rights when they let publishers to distribute their works is not applicable here, because an original work creator usually does not give the right to a publisher to create a derivative work.
You are forgetting that McD is a Fast Food Franchise.
One of the main reasons (aside of getting Kid's Meal with crappy toy in it) people stop by there is to grab something fast and move on.
And this is unacceptably negligent for them not to take into account specifics of their customer base. Plus, as I remember, she was initially asking only for paying for her medical bills, something around $25000. And they behaved very arrogantly, saying that they not only do not feel guilty for her but they are not going to change their practices.
The judge decided correctly that given specific nature of McD business, serving food that is too hot without giving proper notice is not appropriate and they have to pay the medical expenses, and given that McD refused to address this issue it exposed itself to additional punitive damages (3 days revenue, IIRC.)
For example, this particle may be constructed of four quarks, which are already known, but it is the first time that such a combination is proven to exist.
In the first sense, the Standard Model is not violated, but in the second, it has to be extended.
But nothing in the GPL does alter anyone's rights under USC 17 to use the work.
I am not talking about use of the work. I am talking about control of the rights on the derived work. And, technically, requirement to release it under specific license, may be construed as alteration.
And asking for limited rights over derivated works in return for allowing such derivated works to be made is a fairly standard setup. It happens all the time, although I'm not privy to any specific example.
I would consider AT&T UNIX License, so precious to SCO, as one of those examples, since it limits use of derived components to the use only within the derived work. Which by SCO's logic also should make it unconstitutional.
What SCO is saying possibly applies to EULAs that restrict things like reinstalling on a different computer
This is exactly what SCO is NOT talking about. SCO is not arguing validity of GPL for distributing/using original work, only the part that governs distribution of derivative works, e.g. they do not try invalidate BSD-like licenses because they do not exhert any control over derived works.
To clarify it, I'll recite Bruce Perens: Federal law "establishes the right to license copyrights in return for some compensation, which is what the GPL does," Perens said."The only difference between our licenses and those used by everyone else is that they ask for cash; we ask for some rights regarding derived works."
This is what exactly the SCO's point, you can ask for anything but the "rights regarding derived works", because these rights are already established by U.S.C. 17. To take your examples in this context In fact, copyright explicitly says that the copies must be authorized by the copyright owner.. If I were arguing for SCO, I would say that they (FSF) can control authorization of copying their work, but not in a way that alter our rights to use derivative work to the fullest extent granted us by U.S.C. 17.
Sorry, for not responding promptly, I should have been more clear with my statement. What I wanted to say is that This is why SCO argues, that all GPLed works have to go to Public Domain
PS Hope, you look up your old posts and are reading this.
If copyleft licences are unconstitutional, and I can't see any way that they are.
Mostly because there are two schools of interpretation of IP in the US. One, which equates IP with ordinary property, allows you to form a contract with any parties on any conditions the standard contract law would find legal. Incidentally, GPL implicitly relies on this interpretation when builds upon U.S.C. 17.
The other school distinguishes IP from P and sees U.S.C. 17 as artificial construct carefully crafted by State to strike the balance between IP creators and IP consumers. If you look at the IP from this angle, then GPL may be considered illegal (at least in the US) because it alters this balance. Hence, the SCO's argument that it is illegal and must be pre-empted.
There are precedents that decided both ways of interpretation, which makes SCO's case less laughable, then any one of us would want it.
Whether GPLed works fall into public domain or not is a separate question. AFAIK, SCO's argument why they should, is because distributing works under illegal license, you barred yourself from the copyright law protection as a matter of equity.
The most ironic part of the whole thing, is that, in general, most people on/. (including myself) consider IP != P, which weakens their pro-GPL case and corporate IP creators, including SCO, in general, argue that P == IP, which makes their anti-GPL case weaker.
Since both sides try to have a pie and eat it too, I expect the trial to be more interesting then MS' anti-trust case.
That, for example, if a license is declared invalid the item falling under the license is immediately in the public domain.
Though, I despise what SCO is doing, please, RTFDocs, before making statements like this.
Their reasoning why GPLed works should fall into public domain is not that it happens implicitly. What they say is that because GPL violated U.S.C. 17 you can not claim protection under it as a matter of equity. Look up AFFIRMATIVE DEFENSES section here
2) the interaction between the GPL and SCOs claims is not that clear-cut, though I would tend to side with them on this one point, I don't think the outcome is certain
I guess you mean the scenario when I acquired a Linux distro from somewhere under GPL, but I can not use it (however I still can distribute it) because I have to buy a SCO's right-to-use license. The problem is practical. Since not everyone trusts them blindly, in order to enforce the license they will have to specify exactly what is being protected.
Once it becomes known, there are two ways to proceed, either to buy the SCO's license (and pretend that it is somehow compatible with GPL, because GPL is right to copy/modify/distribute and SCO's license is right-to-use and they do not have common points of application) or remove encumbering code. Unfortunately for SCO, given Linus' attitude, offending code will be removed faster then they can spell S-C-O.
As although I was unaware of the fact at the time I had no rights to distribute linux under the GPL as it contained non GPL code.
Being unaware of the law and being unaware of the fact are different things. If you distributed the Program in good faith that you are not violating anyone's rights you DO have rights to do it. You have to cease and desist only when somebody's rights on a part of the Program which are not compatible with GPL have been asserted.
SCO's license is not a distribution license, it is a 'right-to-use' per-processor license, so your analogy is not correct. It is more like a driver's license. You can not sue a dealer if somebody drives a car without a license.
Yes, I wish they had a toilet paper edition. There several reasons I would have bought it.
First, it automatically allocates space and time to perform comparative analysis.
Second, you always know which page you stopped reading on last time.
And the last, but not least you do not have this feeling that your money go down the drain for nothing.
And the only reason why patents are still expire is that the US can not enforce their patents everywhere in the world. And those independent parts would have had advantage in technological growth from sharing the knowledge.
If we had Global Government that functioned by the same rules the US Government does, you would have seen the same pattern as you currently see in copyrights where IP rights are effectively equal to P rights.
As a token of respect to your/. number and some other indications that you know what you are talking about, I will try to be mild.
Please, hire me as a developer next time you are a technical manager.
I would like, at least once in my carrier, to be able to explain to my manager that I need either three days to make the changes quick and dirty, or two weeks if I do it right and why the second approach is preferrable.
Requirements are likely to change or are not well understood.
If there is a one thing which renders XP almost completely useless, it IS that it works only in cases where requirements are not likely to change when defined and the whole system is understood.
Otherwise, it is inevitable that (and I saw it over and over again) the result of those 2-week iterations is just a huge unmaintainable pile of hacks upon hacks which reaches critical mass long before implementation is completed.
I am not saying that it is not a problem with classical approach, but at least if you spent some time on engineering instead of coding and developed some kind of framework allowing flexibility, you might have been much better off at the end.
The problem with XP is that it encourages fast building of extremely (no pun intended) rigid applications, which are a nightmare to extend or maintain, so, unless, you are planning to leave project early, i am not even sure, how you can consider XP as anything more serious then a hype.
My point actually was that, at least, GPLed software, was created for, so to speak, internal consumption by the software enthusiasts. Neither RMS nor LT did not (and do not, AFAIK) push, say, GNU/Linux for commercial purposes. If some companies, like, RH, SuSE, IBM or Dell put trust in Linux and commercialize it, they should do proper code review before making it basis for their business plans.
I, of course, appreciate that IBM has added JFS into Linux as well as 32-way system support, which they would not, probably, do without later benefitting from it (they are a corp after all.)
But commercialization is not the reason for existense for FS and if somebody pitches to you Linux security it is not because LT says so, but because they looked at the code, reviewed it and decided that they tend to trust more their own eyes, then take word of other people, you all know who they are.
Slashdot Mirror
This is where you are confused. Copyright law does not grant creators of derivative works the right to create (duh!) derivative works without prior authorization from the copyright holder of the original work. It does not regulate distribution of derivative work, assuming that derivative work creator automatically entitled to do it.
The SCO's argument is that, according to USC 17, once the right on creation of the derivative work has been obtained, original copyright holder can have no say as to how derivative work creators distribute their works.
In this case it is fair and done, to compensate original work creator with money, but it is not within original work creator rights to limit derivative work creator's options as how to distribute the derivative work, because this right is inherently granted to them by USC 17 without limitations.
The argument (by aug24) that work creators are already effectively limit their rights when they let publishers to distribute their works is not applicable here, because an original work creator usually does not give the right to a publisher to create a derivative work.
One of the main reasons (aside of getting Kid's Meal with crappy toy in it) people stop by there is to grab something fast and move on.
And this is unacceptably negligent for them not to take into account specifics of their customer base. Plus, as I remember, she was initially asking only for paying for her medical bills, something around $25000. And they behaved very arrogantly, saying that they not only do not feel guilty for her but they are not going to change their practices.
The judge decided correctly that given specific nature of McD business, serving food that is too hot without giving proper notice is not appropriate and they have to pay the medical expenses, and given that McD refused to address this issue it exposed itself to additional punitive damages (3 days revenue, IIRC.)
In the first sense, the Standard Model is not violated, but in the second, it has to be extended.
Actually, it always stood for "Nice Try."
I am not talking about use of the work. I am talking about control of the rights on the derived work. And, technically, requirement to release it under specific license, may be construed as alteration.
And asking for limited rights over derivated works in return for allowing such derivated works to be made is a fairly standard setup. It happens all the time, although I'm not privy to any specific example.
I would consider AT&T UNIX License, so precious to SCO, as one of those examples, since it limits use of derived components to the use only within the derived work. Which by SCO's logic also should make it unconstitutional.
What SCO is saying possibly applies to EULAs that restrict things like reinstalling on a different computer
This is exactly what SCO is NOT talking about. SCO is not arguing validity of GPL for distributing/using original work, only the part that governs distribution of derivative works, e.g. they do not try invalidate BSD-like licenses because they do not exhert any control over derived works.
To clarify it, I'll recite Bruce Perens: Federal law "establishes the right to license copyrights in return for some compensation, which is what the GPL does," Perens said."The only difference between our licenses and those used by everyone else is that they ask for cash; we ask for some rights regarding derived works."
This is what exactly the SCO's point, you can ask for anything but the "rights regarding derived works", because these rights are already established by U.S.C. 17. To take your examples in this context In fact, copyright explicitly says that the copies must be authorized by the copyright owner.. If I were arguing for SCO, I would say that they (FSF) can control authorization of copying their work, but not in a way that alter our rights to use derivative work to the fullest extent granted us by U.S.C. 17.
Now, excuse me, I have to go and wash my mouth :)
PS Hope, you look up your old posts and are reading this.
Mostly because there are two schools of interpretation of IP in the US. One, which equates IP with ordinary property, allows you to form a contract with any parties on any conditions the standard contract law would find legal. Incidentally, GPL implicitly relies on this interpretation when builds upon U.S.C. 17.
The other school distinguishes IP from P and sees U.S.C. 17 as artificial construct carefully crafted by State to strike the balance between IP creators and IP consumers. If you look at the IP from this angle, then GPL may be considered illegal (at least in the US) because it alters this balance. Hence, the SCO's argument that it is illegal and must be pre-empted.
There are precedents that decided both ways of interpretation, which makes SCO's case less laughable, then any one of us would want it.
Whether GPLed works fall into public domain or not is a separate question. AFAIK, SCO's argument why they should, is because distributing works under illegal license, you barred yourself from the copyright law protection as a matter of equity.
The most ironic part of the whole thing, is that, in general, most people on /. (including myself) consider IP != P, which weakens their pro-GPL case and corporate IP creators, including SCO, in general, argue that P == IP, which makes their anti-GPL case weaker.
Since both sides try to have a pie and eat it too, I expect the trial to be more interesting then MS' anti-trust case.
Though, I despise what SCO is doing, please, RTFDocs, before making statements like this.
Their reasoning why GPLed works should fall into public domain is not that it happens implicitly. What they say is that because GPL violated U.S.C. 17 you can not claim protection under it as a matter of equity. Look up AFFIRMATIVE DEFENSES section here
Mod the parent up
That's why all GPLed works have to go to Public Domain.
I thought her line was: "Yeah, dear. It's a riot, indeed."
Bill Gates: I can not use fscking e-mail anymore and MS-Word is clunky too.
Steve Ballmer: We have to teach users how Microsoft secures Microsoft.
I guess you mean the scenario when I acquired a Linux distro from somewhere under GPL, but I can not use it (however I still can distribute it) because I have to buy a SCO's right-to-use license. The problem is practical. Since not everyone trusts them blindly, in order to enforce the license they will have to specify exactly what is being protected.
Once it becomes known, there are two ways to proceed, either to buy the SCO's license (and pretend that it is somehow compatible with GPL, because GPL is right to copy/modify/distribute and SCO's license is right-to-use and they do not have common points of application) or remove encumbering code. Unfortunately for SCO, given Linus' attitude, offending code will be removed faster then they can spell S-C-O.
Being unaware of the law and being unaware of the fact are different things. If you distributed the Program in good faith that you are not violating anyone's rights you DO have rights to do it. You have to cease and desist only when somebody's rights on a part of the Program which are not compatible with GPL have been asserted.
SCO's license is not a distribution license, it is a 'right-to-use' per-processor license, so your analogy is not correct. It is more like a driver's license. You can not sue a dealer if somebody drives a car without a license.
Let me introduce CRashing nAPSTER or CRAPSTER for short
damn, still trying to pull my foot out of my mouth
I wish they would not have to talk that much
If we had Global Government that functioned by the same rules the US Government does, you would have seen the same pattern as you currently see in copyrights where IP rights are effectively equal to P rights.
Please, hire me as a developer next time you are a technical manager.
I would like, at least once in my carrier, to be able to explain to my manager that I need either three days to make the changes quick and dirty, or two weeks if I do it right and why the second approach is preferrable.
Requirements are likely to change or are not well understood.
If there is a one thing which renders XP almost completely useless, it IS that it works only in cases where requirements are not likely to change when defined and the whole system is understood.
Otherwise, it is inevitable that (and I saw it over and over again) the result of those 2-week iterations is just a huge unmaintainable pile of hacks upon hacks which reaches critical mass long before implementation is completed.
I am not saying that it is not a problem with classical approach, but at least if you spent some time on engineering instead of coding and developed some kind of framework allowing flexibility, you might have been much better off at the end.
The problem with XP is that it encourages fast building of extremely (no pun intended) rigid applications, which are a nightmare to extend or maintain, so, unless, you are planning to leave project early, i am not even sure, how you can consider XP as anything more serious then a hype.
I, of course, appreciate that IBM has added JFS into Linux as well as 32-way system support, which they would not, probably, do without later benefitting from it (they are a corp after all.)
But commercialization is not the reason for existense for FS and if somebody pitches to you Linux security it is not because LT says so, but because they looked at the code, reviewed it and decided that they tend to trust more their own eyes, then take word of other people, you all know who they are.