SCO has some steep hurdles to overcome still. There must first be a legal finding of fact showing that Linux does contain proprietary UNIX code.
Next, there must be a finding of fact showing that said code was introduced into Linux without authorization from the then copyright holders; or that withstanding; said code was introduced after SCO became the legal copyright owner and without SCO's authorization.
Finally, if SCO's case can survive those two steps, SCO would need to quash any claim that it released its proprietary code to the GPL when it knowingly produced and distributed its own Linux product. On the surface, it will immediately appear that this is what SCO did. To defeat such a claim, SCO will need to show that it did not know and had no reason to know that Linux contained proprietary code owned by SCO or anyone else.
This will be an unconvincing argument however, since by having access to the full Linux sourcecode, SCO had legal notice.
An interesting final twist. If all these findings of fact are met, the case can proceed; and if SCO wins, SCO will immediately make itself liable for copyright violations if Linux contains any proprietary code owned by another party. Poetic justice...
I find it discouraging that there are so many programmers who only want to learn as much about their job, as to merely be good enough . Don't they feel any pride, or any desire to excel at something?
Professional apathy. It's not just for civil service workers anymore!
It all depends on how closely tied the software developer is to the hardware developer. It was true with VAX and it's true with Wintel today.
It makes a pretty S-curve. Toward the bottom an independent software developer has an incentive to optimize his/her product in order to compete with the big guys. (i.e., Alchemy Mindworks)
At the middle a developer partnered with a hardware maker has an incentive to encourage component upgrades (BioWare & NVIDIA).
At the top, a developer also makes the hardware or otherwise controls hardware design, and so can encourage whole platform upgrades.(MS + Intel)
Yes, I believe Microsoft owns Intel and that DEC really played a part in its own demise.
I've just found that you can't trust the garbage collector, no matter how good people say it is.
I tried learning Java years ago precisely because of the powerful marketing SUN put behind it, but this is the first I heard about garbage collection being untrustworthy - can you elaborate?
Question: if a person writes only portable code in C/C++ to begin with, and if Java garbage collection isn't all it's cracked up to be, does that mean Java has no real advantages over C/C++?
This is an interesting employee rights "wrongful discharge" issue. Unfortunately, unlike in the EU, private sector jobs that are neither contractual or unionized are subject to the employment-at-will doctrine, meaning that such jobs are not protected by government. Just as employees are free to quit their jobs, employers are free to terminate employees without notice. There are three generally accepted exclusions to the EAW doctrine though: violation of public policy, implied contract, and implied covenant. Firing employees for refusing to commit a crime, reporting criminal activity to the authorities, or for disclosing illegal, unethical, or unsafe practices (whistle-blowing) is considered a violation of public policy and is actionable. The employee though has to show that the employer's sole grounds for the termination was retaliation; otherwise, Collegis can fire the two. Depending on the work records of the two employees, the case could go either way. I'm not sure their argument that finding the porn constituted sexual harassment has any merits. It would depend on the specific wording of the NY statute. In my jurisdiction, it wouldn't fly.
If the employees allowed the porn to pass though without informing the management, then the employees would put themselves in a bad situation legally if the porn was ever discovered in the future and it was shown that the company via the IT workers knew or had reason to know that there was child porn on the system.
I'm not 100% sure open relays should go away all together. I get that they pose major problems, but they satisfy a legitimate need many people have. I think my situation illustrates this well.
Back in college I used UNIX and VAX/VMS systems for my email. I had Pine and Elm, and I was happy. At work it was pretty much the same case. I'm a Windows king of girl, but I really appreciated the flexibility and safety I had with UNIX and VMS.
Eventually both my work and my old university cancelled UNIX shell access in favor of webmail systems, which locked me down to a hideous, inflexible, mail system that didn't fit the way that Pine did, and that imposed size limits on incoming and outgoing messages - not to mention, leaving me with a severe sense of impending doom.
The university kept POP access, but cancelled open relaying so there was no more SMTP, meaning that my email client is useless. Now I'm stuck using my ISP's POP/SMTP access, which has an even smaller quota, poor spam protection, and size limits on outgoing messages. At this point, I can't afford to invest in a nice webhosting/email package that will give me a nice large account - but then even those impose limits on attachments.
I really feel open-relaying would have allowed me to continue to use my email the way I have always used email.:(
Slashdot Mirror
SCO has some steep hurdles to overcome still. There must first be a legal finding of fact showing that Linux does contain proprietary UNIX code.
Next, there must be a finding of fact showing that said code was introduced into Linux without authorization from the then copyright holders; or that withstanding; said code was introduced after SCO became the legal copyright owner and without SCO's authorization.
Finally, if SCO's case can survive those two steps, SCO would need to quash any claim that it released its proprietary code to the GPL when it knowingly produced and distributed its own Linux product. On the surface, it will immediately appear that this is what SCO did. To defeat such a claim, SCO will need to show that it did not know and had no reason to know that Linux contained proprietary code owned by SCO or anyone else.
This will be an unconvincing argument however, since by having access to the full Linux sourcecode, SCO had legal notice.
An interesting final twist. If all these findings of fact are met, the case can proceed; and if SCO wins, SCO will immediately make itself liable for copyright violations if Linux contains any proprietary code owned by another party. Poetic justice...
I find it discouraging that there are so many programmers who only want to learn as much about their job, as to merely be good enough . Don't they feel any pride, or any desire to excel at something?
Professional apathy. It's not just for civil service workers anymore!
It all depends on how closely tied the software developer is to the hardware developer. It was true with VAX and it's true with Wintel today.
It makes a pretty S-curve. Toward the bottom an independent software developer has an incentive to optimize his/her product in order to compete with the big guys. (i.e., Alchemy Mindworks)
At the middle a developer partnered with a hardware maker has an incentive to encourage component upgrades (BioWare & NVIDIA).
At the top, a developer also makes the hardware or otherwise controls hardware design, and so can encourage whole platform upgrades.(MS + Intel)
Yes, I believe Microsoft owns Intel and that DEC really played a part in its own demise.
I've just found that you can't trust the garbage collector, no matter how good people say it is.
I tried learning Java years ago precisely because of the powerful marketing SUN put behind it, but this is the first I heard about garbage collection being untrustworthy - can you elaborate?
Question: if a person writes only portable code in C/C++ to begin with, and if Java garbage collection isn't all it's cracked up to be, does that mean Java has no real advantages over C/C++?
Angry Pixie
This is an interesting employee rights "wrongful discharge" issue. Unfortunately, unlike in the EU, private sector jobs that are neither contractual or unionized are subject to the employment-at-will doctrine, meaning that such jobs are not protected by government. Just as employees are free to quit their jobs, employers are free to terminate employees without notice. There are three generally accepted exclusions to the EAW doctrine though: violation of public policy, implied contract, and implied covenant. Firing employees for refusing to commit a crime, reporting criminal activity to the authorities, or for disclosing illegal, unethical, or unsafe practices (whistle-blowing) is considered a violation of public policy and is actionable. The employee though has to show that the employer's sole grounds for the termination was retaliation; otherwise, Collegis can fire the two. Depending on the work records of the two employees, the case could go either way. I'm not sure their argument that finding the porn constituted sexual harassment has any merits. It would depend on the specific wording of the NY statute. In my jurisdiction, it wouldn't fly. If the employees allowed the porn to pass though without informing the management, then the employees would put themselves in a bad situation legally if the porn was ever discovered in the future and it was shown that the company via the IT workers knew or had reason to know that there was child porn on the system.
I'm not 100% sure open relays should go away all together. I get that they pose major problems, but they satisfy a legitimate need many people have. I think my situation illustrates this well.
:(
Back in college I used UNIX and VAX/VMS systems for my email. I had Pine and Elm, and I was happy. At work it was pretty much the same case. I'm a Windows king of girl, but I really appreciated the flexibility and safety I had with UNIX and VMS.
Eventually both my work and my old university cancelled UNIX shell access in favor of webmail systems, which locked me down to a hideous, inflexible, mail system that didn't fit the way that Pine did, and that imposed size limits on incoming and outgoing messages - not to mention, leaving me with a severe sense of impending doom.
The university kept POP access, but cancelled open relaying so there was no more SMTP, meaning that my email client is useless. Now I'm stuck using my ISP's POP/SMTP access, which has an even smaller quota, poor spam protection, and size limits on outgoing messages. At this point, I can't afford to invest in a nice webhosting/email package that will give me a nice large account - but then even those impose limits on attachments.
I really feel open-relaying would have allowed me to continue to use my email the way I have always used email.
The Angry Pixie,