Holy Cow! Microsoft has zealots? When did that happen? I suppose more to the point is: Where do I sign up, how much does it pay, and do you really have to use MicroSoft stuff to get hired?
"Darl isn't the only one who works at SCO, _and_ they have a law firm on their side. Darl can be as insane as you like, but how does he control the minds of so many other people and make them believe that he's right?"
His employees, he has by the wallet (which is even better than balls BTW). As for Lawyers - as long as you are actually giving them cash, they will be what you want them to be.
Sorta like whores, but without any socially redeeming value.
"Now, in the US, public intrest is defined by whoever influences the judge the most"
That is often true, BUT there has to be a very clear case of being against the public interest. Even stupid store-bought judges don't like being reversed in appeals court. And the Utah Judge in question (I forget his name) has a reputation for being an intelligent, fair-minded man who honestly weighs the merits of each case and will deliver his judgement based on those merits. In other words - if the case goes to trial, SCO is in big trouble. They could be in trouble as early as December 5 when IBM's motion to compel discovery is heard.
"SCO's beef with the GPL is the same as Microsoft's. It is its so-called "viral" nature."
Interesting, but I find SCO's interpretation of its Sys V rights far more "viral". They seem to believe that they own anything that has ever come into contact with Sys V.
"SCO's argument, as I understand it, is that US copyright law states that you cannot lose control of your work by accident."
Two separate arguments. SCO argues that their own release of code in the Linux kernal was inadvertant - which may have been true before they filed their lawsuit - but not after. In any case, if it were truly an accidental release of code, the GPL would be satisfied with its removal and would not attempt to hang on to it improperly. The essense of the GPL is "if you make use of the source code we have given you to write software of your own and distibute it, then you must allow others to do the same with that piece of software." There are, of course, more subtle nuances to it, but the GPL does not disagree with copyright law - it relies on it.
That brings us to the second argument SCO has made - That the GPL is invalid because it is superceded by Federal Copyright Law. Their reasoning goes something like this:"Copyright law lets you make one copy of software; the GPL lets you make an infinite number of copies - Therefore the GPL violates copyright law." And, of course, since the GPL attempts to "dictate" copyright law AND the US Constitution gives that right to congress, the GPL is "unconstitutional."
This last line of reasoning is stupid, bordering on insane, and seems to rely on a fundamental lack of understanding of both copyright law and the GPL. Personally I find it difficult to believe that anyone could get away with presenting this argument to a court without being cited for contempt.
Keep in mind that if McBride does not do what is arguably best for the bottom line of the company, his shareholders can sue him.
Yes, but there is "bottom line" and there is "BOTTOM LINE". McBride has sacrificed long term corporate viability for the possibility of a lottery-type payoff (at pretty much the same odds).
I don't think he was counting on IBM and the open-souce folks being utterly unwilling to settle, and able to account for every line of code as well as being able to show its history - in some cases right back to the founders of Unix and before. In other words - he doesn't understand open-source in the slightest.
And since SCO has so thoroughly blotted it's copybook with the Linux/Unix community, when SCO loses this fight THEY. ARE. HISTORY. Their revenue stream will vanish like a soap bubble and their stock go into negative values.
That is the bottom line - and it, too, is actionable by shareholders.
I suspect that Boies and Co. think so too. Did you notice - they aren't working on contingency. They want money up front, now. If they truly believed in their cause I would think that they would prefer to wait for the big payoff.
What I've never understood about the psychology of it is this: do they actually believe themselves? Do they start out knowing they are lying, then convince themselves about it along the way?
I have wondered that myself. Although McBride makes every possible effort to come off as a greedy, money-grubbing weasel, I have come to believe that the truth is that he is just too dumb to know what SCO really and truly owns.
I suspect that he thinks that ownership of the source code of Sys V means that SCO has total and sole ownership of every single line of code contained therein.
A person following that (specious) line of reasoning would leap to the conclusion that anyone else who was using the same lines of code had obviously copied it... because he owns his code - he has papers to "prove" it.
Now admittedly, SCO's repeated failure to identity even a single line of supposedly infinging code is not the action of an honest litigant, but I suppose he could be both stupid AND a weasel.
you can't not do what the government of the country you do buissness in tells you to do.
I really hope you are right - but I'll believe it when I see it. So far, no one has been willing to call Microsoft's bluff and say, "We don't care if it does break Windows, get that application out of there!"
" Actually, I believe that even truth isn't a defense in the UK."
The law is usually explained as requiring that a statement be BOTH true AND in the public interest. In other words, it is not enough that that great bit of dirt you have on the guy next door is true - there must also be a legitimate public interest being served that is sufficiently compelling to override his right to privacy.
'he could be charged with libel for his "SCO has become a nest of liars and thieves" comment,'
In Australia or Britain - perhaps - where such an allegation MUST be true to avoid charges of slander, but not in America, where it is sufficient that a person believe a statement is true to avoid charges of slander or libel.
As for ESR changing the entry to reflect the changing times, since SCO quoted from the webpage, now IBM has a right to introduce the entire webpage in rebuttal.
"American's like a Republican government because we like the freedom it gives us and as the #1 economic force on the planet, the #1 military force on the planet, the #1 immigration target on the planet and #1 in a whole bunch of other things too numerous to mention - I would tend to think we're doing things pretty well."
Oh, yeah - America's really great, all right. American capitalism and free enterprise always reminds me of the story of two lawyers who are hiking in the woods and see a gigantic grizzley bear across a clearing. The bear sees them as well and begins running toward them hoping for a quick snack.
Rather than run, the first lawyer sits down calmly and starts to put on his running shoes. His friend (if lawyers can be said to have such) says, "Are you crazy? Running shoes won't help you outrun that bear."
The first lawyer replied, "I don't need to outrun the bear; I just need to outrun you."
it seems that we're not heading towards a Gattaca-esque society, after all.
As you may recall, discrimination on the basis of genetic inferiority was illegal in Gattaca, too. But the corporations did it anyway because it was difficult to prove and the government didn't enforce it very well. They sort of let the corporations do as they please...
Maybe we aren't so different from Gattaca after all.
Give them some credit; they are only trying to make a buck and survive as a company.
Doing any sleazy thing one can imagine just because their lawyers think they can probably get away with it is not an appropriate way to do business - or an honorable one.
And "just doing what they needed to do to survive" is the same excuse the Donner Party used.
Enough people will be prosecuted and then people will stop.
Won't work. People won't stop doing something they believe is their right just because it is illegal. For good or for ill, Prohibition proved that. The prohibition on drugs has had much the same effect. Even when possessing or using very small amounts has been declared a Felony punishable by many years in the pokey, law enforcement can't even make a dent in drug use.
The most that the RIAA can do is drive file sharing underground: To private groups, sneakernets, and other less-easily-detected means.
And most CDs will still suck so the RIAA will still be losing business.
Nobody's laughing. Crying perhaps, but not laughing. The jerks who run the Crystal Meth labs deserve to be prosecuted and jailed - for running a Crystal Meth lab, but not for terrorism!
It is obscene - a perversion of a law written for a totally different purpose. And in that direction lies a slippery slope indeed.
Okay, cigarettes are *NOT* designed to kill people.
Quite so. However, that is not really the issue here. Read the Definition again:
"Prosecutor Jerry Wilson says he isn't abusing the law, which defines chemical weapons of mass destruction as 'any substance that is designed or has the capability to cause death or serious injury' and contains toxic chemicals."
Clearly there are two conditions that can be considered as "Chemical Weapons of Mass Destruction" under that definition:
1) if a substance was "designed" to cause death or serious injury AND contains toxic chemicals, or
2) if a substance has the capability of causing death or serious injury AND contains toxic chemicals.
It is undoubtedly the second, catch-all (and probably "unconstitutionally vague") definition that is being used to prosecute the crystal meth lab. After all, most dope dealers do not intentionally design their product to kill their customers as it tends to put a damper on repeat trade and word-of-mouth advertising.
And - with a bit of a stretch - it could just as easily be used to prosecute those manufacturing cigarettes, alcohol, or gasoline.
Well, here's your opportunity.:+) Share about 10,000 files on KaZaA, use a version of Kazaa that will let others list all of your shared files, and then just sit back and wait.
All joking aside however, you are right. The RIAA's absolute worst nightmare would be for everyone to aggressively defend these lawsuits. Particularly if they managed to call into question the level of actual "damage" suffered by the RIAA because of downloading. (A jury award of $1 would be as bad as a loss in court - from a public relations standpoint.)
For my part though, I think I will investigate the more anonymous p2p options. That will also make them crazy.
Or is this the first actual case because they suspected before there were actual bugs in the system but never found them?
When the log was written, the term bug had already been in use for almost a hundred years to describe unsolved problems in mechanical and electro-mechanical devices. Thomas Edison probably used the term.
This was just the first time anyone could remember that - when found - the bug turned out to be an actual bug.
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Holy Cow! Microsoft has zealots? When did that happen? I suppose more to the point is: Where do I sign up, how much does it pay, and do you really have to use MicroSoft stuff to get hired?
I'm pretty sure that it is illegal. If it were just weasel-ly, then Microsoft would be doing it already (creating their own "Win, Win" situation.) :+>
Of course it is - I just bought a 4x DVD burner yesterday. 8+(
I'm hoping it will be a 250 pound lifer named Spike.
Which would make him the biggest troll in the history of computing... No. Just the ugliest.
His employees, he has by the wallet (which is even better than balls BTW). As for Lawyers - as long as you are actually giving them cash, they will be what you want them to be.
Sorta like whores, but without any socially redeeming value.
That is often true, BUT there has to be a very clear case of being against the public interest. Even stupid store-bought judges don't like being reversed in appeals court. And the Utah Judge in question (I forget his name) has a reputation for being an intelligent, fair-minded man who honestly weighs the merits of each case and will deliver his judgement based on those merits. In other words - if the case goes to trial, SCO is in big trouble. They could be in trouble as early as December 5 when IBM's motion to compel discovery is heard.
Interesting, but I find SCO's interpretation of its Sys V rights far more "viral". They seem to believe that they own anything that has ever come into contact with Sys V.
"SCO's argument, as I understand it, is that US copyright law states that you cannot lose control of your work by accident."
Two separate arguments. SCO argues that their own release of code in the Linux kernal was inadvertant - which may have been true before they filed their lawsuit - but not after. In any case, if it were truly an accidental release of code, the GPL would be satisfied with its removal and would not attempt to hang on to it improperly. The essense of the GPL is "if you make use of the source code we have given you to write software of your own and distibute it, then you must allow others to do the same with that piece of software." There are, of course, more subtle nuances to it, but the GPL does not disagree with copyright law - it relies on it.
That brings us to the second argument SCO has made - That the GPL is invalid because it is superceded by Federal Copyright Law. Their reasoning goes something like this:"Copyright law lets you make one copy of software; the GPL lets you make an infinite number of copies - Therefore the GPL violates copyright law." And, of course, since the GPL attempts to "dictate" copyright law AND the US Constitution gives that right to congress, the GPL is "unconstitutional."
This last line of reasoning is stupid, bordering on insane, and seems to rely on a fundamental lack of understanding of both copyright law and the GPL. Personally I find it difficult to believe that anyone could get away with presenting this argument to a court without being cited for contempt.
Yes, but there is "bottom line" and there is "BOTTOM LINE". McBride has sacrificed long term corporate viability for the possibility of a lottery-type payoff (at pretty much the same odds).
I don't think he was counting on IBM and the open-souce folks being utterly unwilling to settle, and able to account for every line of code as well as being able to show its history - in some cases right back to the founders of Unix and before. In other words - he doesn't understand open-source in the slightest.
And since SCO has so thoroughly blotted it's copybook with the Linux/Unix community, when SCO loses this fight THEY. ARE. HISTORY. Their revenue stream will vanish like a soap bubble and their stock go into negative values.
That is the bottom line - and it, too, is actionable by shareholders.
I suspect that Boies and Co. think so too. Did you notice - they aren't working on contingency. They want money up front, now. If they truly believed in their cause I would think that they would prefer to wait for the big payoff.
I have wondered that myself. Although McBride makes every possible effort to come off as a greedy, money-grubbing weasel, I have come to believe that the truth is that he is just too dumb to know what SCO really and truly owns.
I suspect that he thinks that ownership of the source code of Sys V means that SCO has total and sole ownership of every single line of code contained therein.
A person following that (specious) line of reasoning would leap to the conclusion that anyone else who was using the same lines of code had obviously copied it... because he owns his code - he has papers to "prove" it.
Now admittedly, SCO's repeated failure to identity even a single line of supposedly infinging code is not the action of an honest litigant, but I suppose he could be both stupid AND a weasel.
I really hope you are right - but I'll believe it when I see it. So far, no one has been willing to call Microsoft's bluff and say, "We don't care if it does break Windows, get that application out of there!"
The law is usually explained as requiring that a statement be BOTH true AND in the public interest. In other words, it is not enough that that great bit of dirt you have on the guy next door is true - there must also be a legitimate public interest being served that is sufficiently compelling to override his right to privacy.
In Australia or Britain - perhaps - where such an allegation MUST be true to avoid charges of slander, but not in America, where it is sufficient that a person believe a statement is true to avoid charges of slander or libel.
As for ESR changing the entry to reflect the changing times, since SCO quoted from the webpage, now IBM has a right to introduce the entire webpage in rebuttal.
Oh, yeah - America's really great, all right. American capitalism and free enterprise always reminds me of the story of two lawyers who are hiking in the woods and see a gigantic grizzley bear across a clearing. The bear sees them as well and begins running toward them hoping for a quick snack.
Rather than run, the first lawyer sits down calmly and starts to put on his running shoes. His friend (if lawyers can be said to have such) says, "Are you crazy? Running shoes won't help you outrun that bear."
The first lawyer replied, "I don't need to outrun the bear; I just need to outrun you."
That's what America is all about!
As you may recall, discrimination on the basis of genetic inferiority was illegal in Gattaca, too. But the corporations did it anyway because it was difficult to prove and the government didn't enforce it very well. They sort of let the corporations do as they please...
Maybe we aren't so different from Gattaca after all.
Plausable? Hell, it's obvious.
Count me in! . . .provided there are no lawyers, polititians, or corporate greed-weasels allowed, of course.
Doing any sleazy thing one can imagine just because their lawyers think they can probably get away with it is not an appropriate way to do business - or an honorable one.
And "just doing what they needed to do to survive" is the same excuse the Donner Party used.
Won't work. People won't stop doing something they believe is their right just because it is illegal. For good or for ill, Prohibition proved that. The prohibition on drugs has had much the same effect. Even when possessing or using very small amounts has been declared a Felony punishable by many years in the pokey, law enforcement can't even make a dent in drug use.
The most that the RIAA can do is drive file sharing underground: To private groups, sneakernets, and other less-easily-detected means.
And most CDs will still suck so the RIAA will still be losing business.
And because they claim to represent all of the people, they don't really have to represent any of them.
It is obscene - a perversion of a law written for a totally different purpose. And in that direction lies a slippery slope indeed.
Quite so. However, that is not really the issue here. Read the Definition again:
"Prosecutor Jerry Wilson says he isn't abusing the law, which defines chemical weapons of mass destruction as 'any substance that is designed or has the capability to cause death or serious injury' and contains toxic chemicals."
Clearly there are two conditions that can be considered as "Chemical Weapons of Mass Destruction" under that definition:
1) if a substance was "designed" to cause death or serious injury AND contains toxic chemicals, or
2) if a substance has the capability of causing death or serious injury AND contains toxic chemicals.
It is undoubtedly the second, catch-all (and probably "unconstitutionally vague") definition that is being used to prosecute the crystal meth lab. After all, most dope dealers do not intentionally design their product to kill their customers as it tends to put a damper on repeat trade and word-of-mouth advertising.
And - with a bit of a stretch - it could just as easily be used to prosecute those manufacturing cigarettes, alcohol, or gasoline.
Wow. Best...Troll...Ever.
Well, here's your opportunity. :+) Share about 10,000 files on KaZaA, use a version of Kazaa that will let others list all of your shared files, and then just sit back and wait.
All joking aside however, you are right. The RIAA's absolute worst nightmare would be for everyone to aggressively defend these lawsuits. Particularly if they managed to call into question the level of actual "damage" suffered by the RIAA because of downloading. (A jury award of $1 would be as bad as a loss in court - from a public relations standpoint.)
For my part though, I think I will investigate the more anonymous p2p options. That will also make them crazy.
When the log was written, the term bug had already been in use for almost a hundred years to describe unsolved problems in mechanical and electro-mechanical devices. Thomas Edison probably used the term.
This was just the first time anyone could remember that - when found - the bug turned out to be an actual bug.