I'm not sure if it's legal either, but it sure reeks of a protection racket to me. (It's especially galling given that they haven't even established in court that they do in fact own what they claim to.)
There is an
article at newsfactor.com about yesterday's teleconference. I think the following sentence, which is a direct quote from the article, is just lovely:
Since the controversy arose, SCO has been contacted by about 40 to 50 companies asking what SCO wants from them, DiDio said. She compared
the proposed licenses to an insurance policy for businesses running Linux that want protection should the courts rule in SCO's favor.
(DiDio is Laura Didio, a senior analyst at the Yankee Group, who doesn't seem to have taken any clue deliveries recently.)
An "insurance policy" for users who "want protection". Vinny the Enforcer couldn't have put it better.
Does having a copyright of the code that contains the lines supposedly stolen by IBM boost their case at all?
If the code was added as recently as they claimed in today's teleconference (between kernels 2.2.x and 2.4.x), then I don't think that registering the copyright gives them any significant additional legal rights. As I understand it (and David Boies has just said this in the teleconference), registration is a necessary legal formality required before a lawsuit can be filed.
I'm in the DC area, so I plan to call the Copyright Office this afternoon -- I think that what was copyrighted is now a matter of public record. (That wouldn't mean you could copy it, but that you could look at it.)
And this is exactly what is happening. The stock price is up from about $2 to $10+, and the Form 4 filings with the SEC show the corporate officers steadily selling stock.
You can verify this. Go to the SEC Web site, then click on "Forms and Filings[EDGAR]". On the next page, select "Companies and other filers". The CIK {Central Index Key] for SCO is '0001102542' (the leading zeroes are necessary).
Derivative Works
on
My Visit to SCO
·
· Score: 4, Informative
The key to SCO's case against IBM appears to be an expansive notion of derivative works.
But this is just the part of SCO's argument that doesn't make any sense. IBM's original license from AT&T contains an amendment to the effect that any derivative works developed by IBM belong to IBM. This is a direct quote from the letter of amendment (Exhibit C in SCO's complaint filed with the court):
Regarding Section 2.01, we [AT&T] agree that modifications and derivative works prepared by or for you [IBM] are owned by you.
The later agreement between IBM, SCO, and Novell specifies that, after a one-time payment from IBM to SCO, IBM has a fully paid-up, permanent, and irrevocable license.
Here's my take on what's going on here. I had a look at SCO's 10-Q filing with the SEC. It seems they are being sued over alleged securities fraud in connection with their IPO. I also noted from the Form 4 filings (insider transactions) that several of the senior people have been selling the stock in the last couple of months. I think this "litigation by press release" is all about trying to pump up the stock so the rats can get off the sinking ship.
(BTW, if you want to look at the agreements, they're on SCO's Web site.)
Most banks already log phone calls, what is being added is the requirements to archive email and IM messaging.
All banks, brokerage houses, etc. in the US log phone calls from the trading/dealing room, and have for years. I worked as an IT Director on Wall Street for ~20 years, and this is a big deal. For one thing, the law requires it: the firm can be summarily closed down or heavily fined for failing to follow the rules. (And, BTW, you get audited frequently by the regulators, who are singularly lacking in a sense of humor about these things.)
Also, it only makes sense in a business where transactions worth $ millions are routinely done over the phone. Having a record protects everyone in case of "bad memories".
The situation with this reminds me a lot of what I expereienced with software copy protection in the early days of PCs (early 1980s, for you young folks:-)
Our investment management firm was, for the time, highly IT intensive. All of our investment selections were based on statistical/computer models; the only way anyone could order a trade was through a (mainframe) computer interface. We started buying PCs early on, together with an early version of Lotus 1-2-3.
Then, Lotus introduced copy protection. Initially, we didn't have a big problem with that, in principle; but then we started to encounter the practical realities of unusable machines, software that we could not reload, and so on.
I can remember a meeting with some senior people from Lotus in my office. I told them a couple of things:
--We liked 1-2-3: it was really useful.
--We would never, from that time forward, buy any software with copy protection, under any circumstances.
As I told them then, and as I want to make clear now, we were NOT trying to cheat or get more licences than we were paying for.
We were, however, unwilling to do business with another firm that treated us under the assumption that we were criminals.
This story had a happy ending. we were able to negogiate a deal for a "non-copy-protected" version of Louts's software. Not long after, the offer was made generally available.
I'm glad to hear that Intuit has figured things out. Perhaps some day others will;-).
Fighting Spam While Protecting Email as a Legitimate Communication Tool
Then, they helpfully offer to send me details of their proposal.
What a good idea! I am just totally convinced of their sincerity by their request for my E-mail address so they can explain how helpful they'll be.
The hard part is to get their attention, and then to explain the problem in a manner that non-geeks can understand.
I think Prof. Felten is right about this one. I'm reminded of an example from personal experience; it's not related to the DMCA, but is analogous, I think.
I've discussed the issue of privacy in a networked world with my Dad a few times. His initial reaction was along the lines of, "I'm not worried about it, I don't have anything to hide."
I took a bit of time one evening, and searched for and printed all the information about him that I could find on the net: residence, phone numbers, driving record, credit report,... (I did not use any privileged access to get this stuff.) When I handed him the pile of paper, he was flabbergasted -- but I think he gets it now.
Non-geeks are just not used to thinking about these issues in the new context.
Yes, there is an update available. Unfortunately, though, in typical Micrsoft fashion, it is not (at least at the moment) available to anyone who wants to download the fix using a browser other than MS Internet Explorer. Quoting from the Dark Side's Web site:
Windows Update can only be accessed by Internet browsers that support ActiveX Controls. For more information about ActiveX Controls, please refer to the Windows Update FAQ.
Now I run Mozilla on Linux on my own machines, but I do have some clients who still run Windows. It would be nice to be able to help them out -- but then, you can't trust the kind of people who run Linux (just ask Billy or Steve).
I agree with this, but I don't agree that the results you predict will necessarily come to pass.
I'm old enough to have been around when PCs first materialized in the business world. Back then, a great deal of the "state of the art" software that people wanted to use (e.g., Lotus 1-2-3) was copy protected.
We quickly discovered that the CP was a royal pain in the ass. I was IT Director for my smallish firm at the time, and I can clearly remember telling the Lotus marketing folks (we had a firm-wide license), as well as others, that we would not buy any copy-protected software from that point forward.
Did most firms do this? Almost certainly not, but enough did that competitive firms, and Lotus eventually, decided that they didn't want to write off that part of the market. Markets really do work -- if there is a viable niche, someone will try to fill it.
So this bill is, I think, a good thing. Information helps that market process to work.
I don't know the worldwatch.org site, but the poster is surely right: that one of the key tasks of science journalism ought to be to explain why something is important.
That brings to mind the underlying question: what is science journalism supposed to be about, anyway? Is it reporting just the fact of new results (e.g., from scientific / technical journals)? Then, maybe, ordinary good journalism is sufficient. On the other hand, if the objective is to explain technical results, and their implications, for lay people, I would think it likely that the journalist would need to be a seriously-trained scientist, as well as a very good writer. (Unfortunately, this is not a combination that is thick upon the ground.)
Good science writing is possible. There is a guy (whose name, alas, I forget at the moment) who writes a food science column for the Washington Post, who I think does a good job. (Most of what he writes about is chemistry, and that is a subject I know well.)
There are books, too -- perhaps this is an easier format, due to more time for reflection. I think, for example, Stephen Pinker's books The Language Instinct and How the Mind Works are very well done, as are Richard Dawkins's book on evolution, such as The Blind Watchmaker.
Actually, the idea is older than that. There is another very amusing book called, Where are the Customers' Yachts?, by Fred Schwed, first published ca. 1940. In an appendix, he describes a coin-tossing championship along the lines of Hitchcock's swindler, which someone else mentioned. At the end, "there are the winners, the coin-tossing experts who have flipped ten heads in a row. They cannot lose."
You can see a reprinted edition at Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0471119784
You might also want to have a look at Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, by Charles Mackay.
An engineer named Bob is walking across the campus one day, when he sees a fellow engineering student, Bill, riding toward him on a very shiny new bicycle.
Bob: Hey, guy. what's up? Cool new bike !
Bill: Thanks, man.
Bob: Where did you get it ?
Bill: Well, a really strange thing happened. I was walking this way, and this really beautiful coed rode up on the bike. She stopped, got off, took off all her clothes, and said, "God, you're hot. Take anything you want!"
Bob: Good choice, man -- the clothes probably wouldn't have fit, anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
There is an article at newsfactor.com about yesterday's teleconference. I think the following sentence, which is a direct quote from the article, is just lovely:
(DiDio is Laura Didio, a senior analyst at the Yankee Group, who doesn't seem to have taken any clue deliveries recently.)An "insurance policy" for users who "want protection". Vinny the Enforcer couldn't have put it better.
If the code was added as recently as they claimed in today's teleconference (between kernels 2.2.x and 2.4.x), then I don't think that registering the copyright gives them any significant additional legal rights. As I understand it (and David Boies has just said this in the teleconference), registration is a necessary legal formality required before a lawsuit can be filed.
I'm in the DC area, so I plan to call the Copyright Office this afternoon -- I think that what was copyrighted is now a matter of public record. (That wouldn't mean you could copy it, but that you could look at it.)
And this is exactly what is happening. The stock price is up from about $2 to $10+, and the Form 4 filings with the SEC show the corporate officers steadily selling stock.
You can verify this. Go to the SEC Web site, then click on "Forms and Filings[EDGAR]". On the next page, select "Companies and other filers". The CIK {Central Index Key] for SCO is '0001102542' (the leading zeroes are necessary).
But this is just the part of SCO's argument that doesn't make any sense. IBM's original license from AT&T contains an amendment to the effect that any derivative works developed by IBM belong to IBM. This is a direct quote from the letter of amendment (Exhibit C in SCO's complaint filed with the court):
Regarding Section 2.01, we [AT&T] agree that modifications and derivative works prepared by or for you [IBM] are owned by you.
The later agreement between IBM, SCO, and Novell specifies that, after a one-time payment from IBM to SCO, IBM has a fully paid-up, permanent, and irrevocable license.
Here's my take on what's going on here. I had a look at SCO's 10-Q filing with the SEC. It seems they are being sued over alleged securities fraud in connection with their IPO. I also noted from the Form 4 filings (insider transactions) that several of the senior people have been selling the stock in the last couple of months. I think this "litigation by press release" is all about trying to pump up the stock so the rats can get off the sinking ship.
(BTW, if you want to look at the agreements, they're on SCO's Web site.)
All banks, brokerage houses, etc. in the US log phone calls from the trading/dealing room, and have for years. I worked as an IT Director on Wall Street for ~20 years, and this is a big deal. For one thing, the law requires it: the firm can be summarily closed down or heavily fined for failing to follow the rules. (And, BTW, you get audited frequently by the regulators, who are singularly lacking in a sense of humor about these things.)
Also, it only makes sense in a business where transactions worth $ millions are routinely done over the phone. Having a record protects everyone in case of "bad memories".
Our investment management firm was, for the time, highly IT intensive. All of our investment selections were based on statistical/computer models; the only way anyone could order a trade was through a (mainframe) computer interface. We started buying PCs early on, together with an early version of Lotus 1-2-3.
Then, Lotus introduced copy protection. Initially, we didn't have a big problem with that, in principle; but then we started to encounter the practical realities of unusable machines, software that we could not reload, and so on.
I can remember a meeting with some senior people from Lotus in my office. I told them a couple of things:
--We liked 1-2-3: it was really useful.
--We would never, from that time forward, buy any software with copy protection, under any circumstances.
As I told them then, and as I want to make clear now, we were NOT trying to cheat or get more licences than we were paying for. We were, however, unwilling to do business with another firm that treated us under the assumption that we were criminals.
This story had a happy ending. we were able to negogiate a deal for a "non-copy-protected" version of Louts's software. Not long after, the offer was made generally available.
I'm glad to hear that Intuit has figured things out. Perhaps some day others will ;-).
Rich
Do they think turkeys vote for Christmas ?
I think Prof. Felten is right about this one. I'm reminded of an example from personal experience; it's not related to the DMCA, but is analogous, I think.
I've discussed the issue of privacy in a networked world with my Dad a few times. His initial reaction was along the lines of, "I'm not worried about it, I don't have anything to hide."
I took a bit of time one evening, and searched for and printed all the information about him that I could find on the net: residence, phone numbers, driving record, credit report, ... (I did not use any privileged access to get this stuff.) When I handed him the pile of paper, he was flabbergasted -- but I think he gets it now.
Non-geeks are just not used to thinking about these issues in the new context.
I agree with this, but I don't agree that the results you predict will necessarily come to pass.
I'm old enough to have been around when PCs first materialized in the business world. Back then, a great deal of the "state of the art" software that people wanted to use (e.g., Lotus 1-2-3) was copy protected.
We quickly discovered that the CP was a royal pain in the ass. I was IT Director for my smallish firm at the time, and I can clearly remember telling the Lotus marketing folks (we had a firm-wide license), as well as others, that we would not buy any copy-protected software from that point forward.
Did most firms do this? Almost certainly not, but enough did that competitive firms, and Lotus eventually, decided that they didn't want to write off that part of the market. Markets really do work -- if there is a viable niche, someone will try to fill it.
So this bill is, I think, a good thing. Information helps that market process to work.
/Rich
That brings to mind the underlying question: what is science journalism supposed to be about, anyway? Is it reporting just the fact of new results (e.g., from scientific / technical journals)? Then, maybe, ordinary good journalism is sufficient. On the other hand, if the objective is to explain technical results, and their implications, for lay people, I would think it likely that the journalist would need to be a seriously-trained scientist, as well as a very good writer. (Unfortunately, this is not a combination that is thick upon the ground.)
Good science writing is possible. There is a guy (whose name, alas, I forget at the moment) who writes a food science column for the Washington Post, who I think does a good job. (Most of what he writes about is chemistry, and that is a subject I know well.)
There are books, too -- perhaps this is an easier format, due to more time for reflection. I think, for example, Stephen Pinker's books The Language Instinct and How the Mind Works are very well done, as are Richard Dawkins's book on evolution, such as The Blind Watchmaker.
Actually, the idea is older than that. There is another very amusing book called, Where are the Customers' Yachts?, by Fred Schwed, first published ca. 1940. In an appendix, he describes a coin-tossing championship along the lines of Hitchcock's swindler, which someone else mentioned. At the end, "there are the winners, the coin-tossing experts who have flipped ten heads in a row. They cannot lose."
You can see a reprinted edition at Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0471119784
You might also want to have a look at Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, by Charles Mackay.
Bob: Hey, guy. what's up? Cool new bike !
Bill: Thanks, man.
Bob: Where did you get it ?
Bill: Well, a really strange thing happened. I was walking this way, and this really beautiful coed rode up on the bike. She stopped, got off, took off all her clothes, and said, "God, you're hot. Take anything you want!"
Bob: Good choice, man -- the clothes probably wouldn't have fit, anyway.