I don't believe that it is in the general case; but the copyright holder of the linux kernel could certainly use the extortion letters as evidence that the terms of the GPL had been rejected by SCO in the specific case of the kernel,
they didn't say that originally (it seems they came up with these doubts about the validity of the GPL only after their lawyers must have come to the conclusion that IBM must be right with their GPL based counterclaims), and they claim that they don't distribute linux anymore (they came up with some fancy explanations about contractual oblugations for the distribution that is still on their ftp server). about their linux license: as far as i can see they ask linux users to get a license to use their IP that they claim made it into linux illegally and threaten to sue you if you use their IP without a license
and so they are in violation of copyright law if they distribute any kernel which contains non-derivative work.
i would be curious how they would handle a declaration like "i have built a custom kernel that contains none of your IP"
so? remember that SCO has access to the source and no doubt will go over it to make sure that whatever they distribute will run under their system. you think the people who are doing this are going to miss this?
that doesn't change the fact that the GPL applies only to the code that is distributed under it. their response most likely would be something like we think the GPL is invalid and are going to contest it in court in another case, but we distribute samba under the GPL and the GPL gives them every right to do so, provided they distribute whatever they make out of it under the GPL. If yes, it would be interesting to see what they charge as distribution fee for the source. if not, the samba team could sue them
Though we both agree that it is likely that SCO has modified Samba code and not redistributed it, but we're not able to see that, and even if we were customers we'd probably be bound by some agreement by which we can't say anything about Unix.
how about compiling the original samba source and comparing the binaries? you would probably have to try quite a few different compilers and compilation options, but if none matches the distributed binary, you can request the source
I am supporting Linux by actually buying it, using it, helping others with it, trying to replace windows boxes with it, but its not really "free". Its close, but BSD is closer to free than GPL, and Public Domain would be the only true "free" software.
well, rms and the FSF go to great lengths to define the freedom the GPL is meant to uphold. i strongly doubt that you can argue that they are not freedoms. in a world where a 500 line title or name isn't acceptable, i consider the term Free Software completely adequate.
in terms of practicality, do you seriously believe that IBM, Trolltech, Sun, or others would have contributed their IP to something with a BSD license?
Isn't DeCSS illegal because it is a trade secret ?
no, they tried to keep CSS secret, but did a pretty lousy job at it, but it is illegal because they put a passage into DMCA which makes "circumventing protection mechanisms" (in this case the encryption) illegal.
there probably is a law that protects tarde secrets insofar that passing on to others trade secrets that have been shown to you after you promised to keep them secret is punishable in some way (probably breach of contract). but otherwise keeping it secret is the only protection. why do you think coca cola keeps their recipe under lock?
No, jackass, in a March 1999 interview with Wolf Blitzer, Gore said, "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet."
and this claim was correct. he started in congress with legislation to create a "national information infrastructure" with the intent to make arpanet acessible for civilians who were not involved in military research. it is thoroughly documented. just get the "Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery" of the second half of the 1970s and browse through the the "Report from Washington" columns. gore's name is mentioned there quite frequently as one of the few legislators who had developed an understanding of computers and communications. his activities in "creating the internet" were mentioned wuite frequently
Invented...created...a distinction without a difference.
there had to be several activities that had to come together to create the internet. he started one of them.
Gore somehow seems to think he was, in a large part, responsible for the internet that we all enjoy today. And, guess what...he wasn't!! He lied!
Generally speaking, I understand that the courts look dimly on that sort of thing. Then again, they might think you did this simply to waste the court's time. They don't like that a lot either.
true, but who would be wasting the court's time? surely the one who goes to court with a bogus claim
just have a look at the DMCA threat letter that started this. the file name is legitimate, has no relation whatsoever to Pac-man, and still got picked up by the bot. given how all encompassing their searches are, it should be no problem to set up a site with quite a lot of filenames that get the bots busy without suggesting misrepresentation
if you want to keep a secret, you better make damned sure that it stays a secret (and i think the laws take that position as well, even in the US). if they send it to me by accident, it no longer is a secret
It's already common knowledge that MS has purchased some sort of unix license from SCO.
that was a license to use in their their unix compatibility pack (or whatever it is called), probably other relevant development work for their products as well. i doubt it would give them the SCO defined right to run linux
If it was MS they probably would have said "Fortune 100" or smaller in order to have an even larger PR impact.
maybe, but since they used MS as licensing partner to boost their ridiculous claims once already, this might too much give the appearance of a conspiracy and they might see a good reason not to let the identity slip out
there can't be, simplu because it is impossible to determine generally for all what is the best platform and development environment. if you want to start an embedded project, you better do your eveluations up front, starting with objectives, product purpose, etc. then you can look around what software is available and pick the best.
a few years ago i was involved in an embedded project where the people who started it didn't have a clue and wouldn't listen to reason. they wanted to buils an internet gateway for small business. they had almost exclusively windows experience but had heard that linux is the big comer in embedded systems. they wanted to buils on a cheap platform (celeron, 32MB RAM, 8MB flash). so what did they pick? naturally the "linux market leader" (red hat 5.x at the time). when i joined, i was trying to point out to them that for the hardware they picked redhat's desk top version was far from an ideal choice, and that other options (at that time linuxrouter or netbsd) were far more appropriate. the only reply i got was "but we have already invested so much work (probably 3 manmonths) in our approach. when they finally realized that thei setp was a nogo, they decided to redefine the product 1 month before inteded production start.
i didn't stay arount very long, and the company doesn't exist any more. but maybe they would have been better off, given their attitude, to start with one of the embedded windows. it might have prevented them from making some of the stupid mistakes they made.
there is a big difference between simply calling a study flawed and calling it flawed accompamied by detailed reasons why you think it's flawed. the rebuttal follows the latter path. why don't you tell us why these reasons are invalid?
i have no idea why you insist on proving that you are an idiot: the change would demonstrate that there claim was correct and increase their leverage to claim damages. by refusing to reveal what the problem is they remove any chance for claiming damagesm since the problem isn't rectified because of their refusal
ok, genius, if you know of any way how anybody can check submitted code that the submitter claims to be clean against a plethora of unknown possible sources, please let us know
Baxter finally dropped the suit (Regan adnimistration) due to "lack of merit". Lack of merit?
there was another antitrust suit against IBM going on at the time: the suit CDC filed on the eve of their introduction of the 7600 to prevent another paper tiger like the IBM360/91. CDC had set aside one of their biggest system to hold a data base of IBM documents obtained in the discovery phase. their lawyers had direct access to this data base
apparently this caused quite a lot of trouble for the IBM side during the proceedings. when the feds started negotiating with CDC to get acces to this database for their trial, IBM settled the CDC case out of court with very generous terms for CDC. one of the confditions of the settlement was immediate and complete destruction of the data base.
it seems with the data base being gone, the feds didn't see much chance of bringing the trial to a successful end
appare
I think that Copyright law, and anything else from the government that prevents anyone for selling anything they want for whatever they can get for it is Socialism.
thanks for the education. who would have thunk that it is the socialists that protect ownership rights.
sibce we are both diehard capitalists, i assume you won't mind if i sell your house (i want to sell it)
Capitalism, or free market economics, is based on (and defined by) voluntary association.
a tad confused, aren't we? capitalism is an ownership model, and as such has nothing to do with a free or unfree market. and the voluntary association is more a hallmark of anarchism/libertarianism than capitalism
Most people don't realize that IP does NOT fit into this model. IP -- the notion that ideas can be property -- is a concept invented and implemented entirely by government.
actually, IP is a necessary consequence of an ownership system that relies on continuous growth: once you run out of things that offer sufficient growth potential, you have to extend ownership rights just to maintain the growth
not necessarily. in the interview where he basically claimed that evey OS belongs to them, one of the SCO execs (mcbride?) made some noises about them going to take another look at the BSD situation
it doesn't matter. as long as the US insists on deciding for political reasons what technology may be exported, any country that depends on technology will try to get in a position where they don't have to rely on US imports. with time they'll get enough experience that your prediction will be nothing but a fond reminiscence
you never heard of those cases where manufacturers imported complete suits and then sew labels "made in..."? the labels actually were made in..., and because the label was sen in in..., the finsished product was legally considered made there.
when siemens abandoned the 1st generation computers, they licensed their new (ibm360 class) machines from rca. the first dozen or so systems were completely made by rca, except for the name plate (i don't know whether there was also a "made in germany" stamped on it; the name plate certainly was made there).
don't put too much trust in these labels. often they are nothing more than a marketing ploy
Comparing Active Directory to LDAP is like comparing Postgres to a hash table, yet the Samba team has already replicated significant portions of active directory.
there must be some specifications of what active directory is supposed to do and how to interact with it. based on that you always can replicate significant portions
I find it hard to believe that in that replication, they haven't violated some patents
if they violated patents without being aware of them, this most likely proves that the patents should never have been granted (wasn't "nonobvious" and "significantly advancing the state of the art" originally a requirement for granting patents?)
and probably even redeveloped the exact same code to solve some of the problems.
if it isn't copied, nothing wrong with it. independently developing the same thing is not theft
Unfortunately, since linux was not developed with rigorous clean-room techniques, there is no way to prove that this reverse-engineered code wasn't stolen.
the fact that MS code is generally unavailable for inspection should be proof enough
Slashdot Mirror
they didn't say that originally (it seems they came up with these doubts about the validity of the GPL only after their lawyers must have come to the conclusion that IBM must be right with their GPL based counterclaims), and they claim that they don't distribute linux anymore (they came up with some fancy explanations about contractual oblugations for the distribution that is still on their ftp server). about their linux license: as far as i can see they ask linux users to get a license to use their IP that they claim made it into linux illegally and threaten to sue you if you use their IP without a license
and so they are in violation of copyright law if they distribute any kernel which contains non-derivative work.
i would be curious how they would handle a declaration like "i have built a custom kernel that contains none of your IP"
so? remember that SCO has access to the source and no doubt will go over it to make sure that whatever they distribute will run under their system. you think the people who are doing this are going to miss this?
that doesn't change the fact that the GPL applies only to the code that is distributed under it. their response most likely would be something like we think the GPL is invalid and are going to contest it in court in another case, but we distribute samba under the GPL and the GPL gives them every right to do so, provided they distribute whatever they make out of it under the GPL. If yes, it would be interesting to see what they charge as distribution fee for the source. if not, the samba team could sue them
how about compiling the original samba source and comparing the binaries? you would probably have to try quite a few different compilers and compilation options, but if none matches the distributed binary, you can request the source
well, rms and the FSF go to great lengths to define the freedom the GPL is meant to uphold. i strongly doubt that you can argue that they are not freedoms. in a world where a 500 line title or name isn't acceptable, i consider the term Free Software completely adequate.
in terms of practicality, do you seriously believe that IBM, Trolltech, Sun, or others would have contributed their IP to something with a BSD license?
no. the FSF has a list of licenses that are compatible with the GPL. if your claim were correct there wouldn't be any
no, they tried to keep CSS secret, but did a pretty lousy job at it, but it is illegal because they put a passage into DMCA which makes "circumventing protection mechanisms" (in this case the encryption) illegal.
there probably is a law that protects tarde secrets insofar that passing on to others trade secrets that have been shown to you after you promised to keep them secret is punishable in some way (probably breach of contract). but otherwise keeping it secret is the only protection. why do you think coca cola keeps their recipe under lock?
and this claim was correct. he started in congress with legislation to create a "national information infrastructure" with the intent to make arpanet acessible for civilians who were not involved in military research. it is thoroughly documented. just get the "Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery" of the second half of the 1970s and browse through the the "Report from Washington" columns. gore's name is mentioned there quite frequently as one of the few legislators who had developed an understanding of computers and communications. his activities in "creating the internet" were mentioned wuite frequently
Invented...created...a distinction without a difference.
there had to be several activities that had to come together to create the internet. he started one of them.
Gore somehow seems to think he was, in a large part, responsible for the internet that we all enjoy today. And, guess what...he wasn't!! He lied!
no, but you are
true, but who would be wasting the court's time? surely the one who goes to court with a bogus claim
just have a look at the DMCA threat letter that started this. the file name is legitimate, has no relation whatsoever to Pac-man, and still got picked up by the bot. given how all encompassing their searches are, it should be no problem to set up a site with quite a lot of filenames that get the bots busy without suggesting misrepresentation
if you want to keep a secret, you better make damned sure that it stays a secret (and i think the laws take that position as well, even in the US). if they send it to me by accident, it no longer is a secret
that was a license to use in their their unix compatibility pack (or whatever it is called), probably other relevant development work for their products as well. i doubt it would give them the SCO defined right to run linux
If it was MS they probably would have said "Fortune 100" or smaller in order to have an even larger PR impact.
maybe, but since they used MS as licensing partner to boost their ridiculous claims once already, this might too much give the appearance of a conspiracy and they might see a good reason not to let the identity slip out
a few years ago i was involved in an embedded project where the people who started it didn't have a clue and wouldn't listen to reason. they wanted to buils an internet gateway for small business. they had almost exclusively windows experience but had heard that linux is the big comer in embedded systems. they wanted to buils on a cheap platform (celeron, 32MB RAM, 8MB flash). so what did they pick? naturally the "linux market leader" (red hat 5.x at the time). when i joined, i was trying to point out to them that for the hardware they picked redhat's desk top version was far from an ideal choice, and that other options (at that time linuxrouter or netbsd) were far more appropriate. the only reply i got was "but we have already invested so much work (probably 3 manmonths) in our approach. when they finally realized that thei setp was a nogo, they decided to redefine the product 1 month before inteded production start.
i didn't stay arount very long, and the company doesn't exist any more. but maybe they would have been better off, given their attitude, to start with one of the embedded windows. it might have prevented them from making some of the stupid mistakes they made.
there is a big difference between simply calling a study flawed and calling it flawed accompamied by detailed reasons why you think it's flawed. the rebuttal follows the latter path. why don't you tell us why these reasons are invalid?
if you don't want to be modded down, try to come up with some convincing arguments rather than spout nonsense
i have no idea why you insist on proving that you are an idiot: the change would demonstrate that there claim was correct and increase their leverage to claim damages. by refusing to reveal what the problem is they remove any chance for claiming damagesm since the problem isn't rectified because of their refusal
ok, genius, if you know of any way how anybody can check submitted code that the submitter claims to be clean against a plethora of unknown possible sources, please let us know
doh, in the given example it was the same author in both cases. why wouldn't he write identical comments?
there was another antitrust suit against IBM going on at the time: the suit CDC filed on the eve of their introduction of the 7600 to prevent another paper tiger like the IBM360/91. CDC had set aside one of their biggest system to hold a data base of IBM documents obtained in the discovery phase. their lawyers had direct access to this data base
apparently this caused quite a lot of trouble for the IBM side during the proceedings. when the feds started negotiating with CDC to get acces to this database for their trial, IBM settled the CDC case out of court with very generous terms for CDC. one of the confditions of the settlement was immediate and complete destruction of the data base.
it seems with the data base being gone, the feds didn't see much chance of bringing the trial to a successful end appare
thanks for the education. who would have thunk that it is the socialists that protect ownership rights.
sibce we are both diehard capitalists, i assume you won't mind if i sell your house (i want to sell it)
a tad confused, aren't we? capitalism is an ownership model, and as such has nothing to do with a free or unfree market. and the voluntary association is more a hallmark of anarchism/libertarianism than capitalism
Most people don't realize that IP does NOT fit into this model. IP -- the notion that ideas can be property -- is a concept invented and implemented entirely by government.
actually, IP is a necessary consequence of an ownership system that relies on continuous growth: once you run out of things that offer sufficient growth potential, you have to extend ownership rights just to maintain the growth
not necessarily. in the interview where he basically claimed that evey OS belongs to them, one of the SCO execs (mcbride?) made some noises about them going to take another look at the BSD situation
it doesn't matter. as long as the US insists on deciding for political reasons what technology may be exported, any country that depends on technology will try to get in a position where they don't have to rely on US imports. with time they'll get enough experience that your prediction will be nothing but a fond reminiscence
when siemens abandoned the 1st generation computers, they licensed their new (ibm360 class) machines from rca. the first dozen or so systems were completely made by rca, except for the name plate (i don't know whether there was also a "made in germany" stamped on it; the name plate certainly was made there).
don't put too much trust in these labels. often they are nothing more than a marketing ploy
Comparing Active Directory to LDAP is like comparing Postgres to a hash table, yet the Samba team has already replicated significant portions of active directory.
there must be some specifications of what active directory is supposed to do and how to interact with it. based on that you always can replicate significant portions
I find it hard to believe that in that replication, they haven't violated some patents
if they violated patents without being aware of them, this most likely proves that the patents should never have been granted (wasn't "nonobvious" and "significantly advancing the state of the art" originally a requirement for granting patents?)
and probably even redeveloped the exact same code to solve some of the problems.
if it isn't copied, nothing wrong with it. independently developing the same thing is not theft
Unfortunately, since linux was not developed with rigorous clean-room techniques, there is no way to prove that this reverse-engineered code wasn't stolen.
the fact that MS code is generally unavailable for inspection should be proof enough