"While I'm certainly no Patriot Act supporter, things like this tend to add a little perspective to a lot of overheated rhetoric, no?"
Indeed they do. They show just how bad tyranny can become, and how desperately unjust a government can become, quickly, if the tyranny is suffered by its people.
Your argument helps make the case for people making a continual effort to keep government in check. China since Mao is not as horrible as Russia was under Stalin, but they are dealing with many of the same problems in the same way.
The regime enjoys a great deal of support from people in China, though. Until their government can no longer provide them with credible evidence of progress and prosperity, there probably isn't anything to do. If you think a political issue is worthy to kill or die for, then by all means you should kill or die for it. But that also means you must be willing to accept the consequences. Be a Chinese dissident (or do ANYTHING that isn't expressly prescribed by the party?) well, you accept the consequences of imprisonment and/or death when you do that. Hopefully your death will not go unnoticed by others, and your sacrifice will instigate some action. Probably not though, there's a lot of inertia over there, and a whole hell of a lot of people in China think everything is just hunky dory.
>This is why American protestors really have no >idea how good they have it.
So you're saying that because some other country sucks, my right to petition my own government for redress of grievances is somehow diminished? Why is that exactly? Because agents of the state aren't literally executing protestors and dissidents where I live, means everything is just fine and I don't have anything to complain about? And that's up to you?
"What are the legal consequences if copyright holders do not sue?"
None, until (unless) the copyright expires, or is surrendered to the public domain (explicitly).
You do not lose your copyright (a Constitutional right, mind you), simply because you chose not to sue someone for infringement.
Trademark dilution is rather a different story. But this is not that story.
Re:Seem to recall some earilier Win2K hype
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You said you were being forced to run Microsoft products. I say you aren't being forced at all.
You aren't successful to the extent that this became your decsision. You still work for someone who tells you what to do, which you do even though you don't like it.
The sysadmins may think they are "making a case", but they aren't making a strong enough case, they don't have enough influence, something.
I'm saying again, if you're so vital, so smart, and so right, why do we hear time and time again, how bosses are stupid, and the low people are so smart?
I'd say the people making the decisions would ALSO claim to be "making do with what the market gives them."
Management, finance, admins, and customers all see this issue differently.
"I don't see anything on the SCO pages linked from the Reg article that would make this a GPL violation"
They openly reject the GPL, yet they distribute software licensed under it to which they have no interest or any claim of interest. When they rejected the GPL they gave up the right to distribute Vim, NcFTP, glibc, etc.
They have made some vague claims to owning the kernel, but nothing specific. Even if you let them slide the kernel, waiving their privileges under the GPL and continuing to distribute software that is licensed under the GPL, puts them in a position where they are damaging the interests of those works.
It does not matter what additional license terms the put this software under. They gave up their right to distribute it when they rejected the GPL. They basically told the international press "We reject the agreement." There is no gray area here. They have no right to distribute the software, and they should be getting C&D's already, if not restraining orders, and takedown notices from network providers, etc.
This *might* be the GPL's test to determine whether all its clauses apply between SCO and IBM. Whether it applies between any other parties is still open to discussion, and always will be.
Would you claim your mortgage agreement hasn't been tested in court just because you haven't sued your bank yet?
Either it is legal for one party to grant the privileges provided by each clause in the license, or it is not. Either it is legal for another party to accept those license terms, or it is not, with respect to a given product.
If the GPL is "invalid" for one person, that doesn't mean it's invalid for anyone else.
It does not require actions or conditions that are illegal in Utah or in the US. I don't know what aspect of the license people think needs to be "tested", or what legal meaning they think that has. To say that the GPL has never been tested in the US, is tantamount to saying copyright law in the US is but a theory.
So there hasn't been a major case with respect to a piece of software that was licensed under the GPL before. The case law to look for would be ANY software license. Anything that gives force to the GPL, is the same thing that gives force to any other software agreement. And that force extends from an authors *Constitutional* rights under copyright law.
If someone is claiming that Constitutional rights haven't been tested, he's smoking the same stuff as Daryl.
SCO is trying to claim that some clause or clauses in the GPL are not enforceable with respect to them. Presumably, they have some argument that some clause in the GPL is actually illegal, meaning it was not legal for the author to grant this license to anyone. This is preposterous, of course, and you don't need to be a lawyer to understand that you do indeed have rights (Constitutional rights, even) to make such grants.
SCO is going even further, though, and they seem to have some argument which construes a release under the GPL as an absolute surrender of all distribution rights.
Any argument they make that is not a prejudiced circular argument, will probably fail because it can also be applied to any other software license. If an author does not have the right to distribute under the GPL, whatever case can be made for that argument would almost certainly apply to every other license on every other limited grant of distribution privileges under copyright. This is an enormous claim, and reaches far beyond the scope of anything the judge in their suit against IBM is empowered to render a descision on.
If the GPL is invalid between SCO and IBM, that's one thing. It is entirely possible for that to be true. If one of the parties in SCO v. IBM is ordered to not enter into any software under this license as part of a settlement agreemnent, that is also a possibility.
There is no conceivable outcome of this lawsuit that puts HJ Liu's gcc work into the public domain, or Donald Becker's ethernet drivers, or Perl6 for that matter. No possibility of that without each and every copyright interest having full rights to due process.
Perhaps the GPL is invalid between IBM and SCO. I do not believe a judge can simply make that ruling without giving *reasons*. Specific reasons, not "this is the GPL, therefore the GPL does not have merit." More likely the judge will know that SCO rejected the license, and it won't matter if the license is valid or not. All that will matter is whether the material is copyright, and by whom, assuming the question of copyright is ever called in the case.
"How is it possible that they are getting away with the things that they are doing and nothing is being done about it?"
What do you mean nothing? They are facing a lawsuit involving one of the best funded technology coroporations in the history of technology, with billions of dollars at stake.
IBM has expressed an interest in actually going to court, even to say they are looking forward to it. I'd say something is being done, sure. Instead of being victims, people are going to actually defend themselves in a lawsuit for a change.
You posted the same complaint a week ago. Shame on you for getting burned in the exact same way twice (as if).
(plonk)
Re:Seem to recall some earilier Win2K hype
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>sysadmins running Microsoft not by choice.
If you are being coerced to labor, I suggest you contact the State Department.
I rather think you made a choice. You chose to compromise your values in exchange for compensation. I also find it interesting that the sort of people who find themselves in positions to make decisions about what software to use, make their choices. And I find it more interesting that people who are affected by those decisions only ever complain about it. You never hear about one of these clueful sysadmins working his way up the ladder and assuming positions of decision making authority himself. You only hear complaints about how smart the people are on the bottom, and how stupid they are at the top.
If you're so smart, why haven't you been successful in your career? Why does it seem that NONE of you who are so smart, skilled and talented, end up calling the shots?
I don't know what anyone thinks a "court test of the GPL" means, exactly, but the only thing to be found about it is the question of whether it is legal for a given party to license a given work under each clause, and then whether it is legal for a given second party to distribute a given work under each clause.
The "test" that everyone wants has already been done a thousand times. Attorneys who are licensed to practice law have read the GPL, and have found nothing specifically illegal about it.
Read it yourself, it is quite clear. Ask yourself at each and every clause, "is it legal in my State for me to make this agreement?"
Saying the GPL has not withstood the legal test is like saying that my mortgage contract has not stood the legal test. Just because I haven't sued my lender, doesn't mean the contract I signed is no good. Even if there is an illegal clause or two in that contract, doesn't mean I'm going to lose my house, or that I'm going to get it free. And it sure as hell wouldn't mean that the State can come and bulldoze it without compensating either me or the bank.
That's what SCO is proposing. Because they have an idea that there is a clause in the GPL that does not apply to SCO or IBM, that they can make the property rights of arbitrary other parties go away. They have only suggested that was possible, but they have not made any sort of argument that would even reach the ear of a judge, much less be decided on.
I think the popularity of the whole SCO versus IBM thing caught SCO by surprise. I don't think they understood that the noise they made would create an international contraversy. They probably thought it would be settled under the radar of the public eye, that the FUD they created would somehow derail the free software movement which they no doubt perceive as fragile and easily derailed. I think someone may have miscalculated significantly, and now a combination of cognitive dissonance (we've risked our future on this, we MUST prevail), risks associated with estoppel (we cannot change our story even if we know we're wrong), and wishful thinking (if we keep up the negative publicity against linux and gcc, people will stop using it and start looking to us for alternatives) has shaped their strategy.
"Enforcer?" Where do you get the idea that the word is appropriate? What's to be "enforced" is copyright law. Enforcement of laws is the sole domain of duly appointed agents of the government, and only by manner of due process.
Individuals may assert their rights under contract or copyright law, but "enforcement" is reserved to those with a monopoly on the use of force.
Anyone who holds a copyright is entitled to initiate process to protect that copyright. He or she has the right to file a motion in court (a lawsuit, for example), or to make legal requests to cease an infraction (a C&D letter).
>classic action
You mean "class action".
First you need a ruling that creates a legal entity that represents everyone in the class. That would have to be a pretty broad entity, and *many* would object to being made part of the class. I don't think a class action suit would be the best approach at all. It would be much better to force SCO into a position where they must negotiate separate licenses for each and every copyrighted work to which they have rejected the current license.
I can't imagine a legal ruling that includes every author of every GPL'd work (including some that have never been distributed at all, please consider that!), but such a "class" would have to include pretty much everybody on the planet, and it would NEVER include me, because no one represents me, or my interests, but me. Period.
>Has ANYBODY heard SCO's explanation of how the >GPL is "unconstitutional"? Do they even have ane >explanation?
They haven't given one, apparently.
Lots of people comment on how the GPL has "never been tested in court."
My lease agreement with my landlady hasn't been tested in court either, but unless there is something in every clause that is plainly illegal, it's a safe bet that the contract will prevail.
As distribution licenses go, the GPL is as simple as it gets. You can go through it line by line, and at every clause, ask "is it legal for two parties to enter into this agreement?"
The answer will be "yes." The only question in this case will be whether the agreement is valid between the two parties at suit (SCO, and IBM). It may be a result of this lawsuit that one or both of those parties is found to be unable to agree to the GPL due to some other constraints. (For instance, I could sign a contract that said I will not distribute GPL software, and that would be binding.)
Now, SCO realizes that if it came to this, SCO would not get very many offers of an alternative license agreement, whereas IBM probably would.
But if there's anything *unconstitutional* about the GPL, in any of its clauses or as a whole, what's really frightening about that is the same finding would certainly invalidate many other licenses. I'd expect EVERY software license to have a problem, and it's hard to see how it wouldn't translate to "copyright law is unconstitutional."
The bottom line of the GPL is that it is an expression of an author's rights under copyright law. The question is, do I, an author, have the right to enter into this agreement, or do I not?
If not, there must be reasons. The circular argument won't cut it. The reasons have to be specific. "Because it's the GPL and the GPL is not valid" will never be the precedent. In Mcarthyist philosophy, the socialist colour of the license might be accepted as grounds for prejudice, but that isn't going to drive a contemporary judicial decision, not even in Utah.
So, clause by clause, we need reasons why any part of the agreement is illegal, in the State of Utah, in the US, or in any other jurisdiction. If you can find anything in the GPL that constitutes a breach of law, that parties are breaking the law merely by entering into it, the finding should be construed to apply to every other agreement sharing the same characteristics. A judge may not simply "ban the GPL." That would show clear prejudice and would be a blatant disregard for equal protection of the law.
There was some noise about "releasing GPL'd copyrights into the public domain" also.
If you want to get into "unconstitutional" territory, we need to start with the right of an individual not to be deprived of property without due process of law.
A settlement in a lawsuit between two parties unrelated to me, does not constitute process on the question of my property rights. That is simply not something that the judge has the authority to consider. The motion to release copyrights into the public domain would have to be filed against each and every individual work, and each and every author would be entitled to due process.
Some of them would be in a position to put up an even bigger fight than IBM, since the question would be even clearer.
Most musicians make a reasonable living at a day job, and do the music thing as a creative outlet. For most of them, the reward is ars gratia artis. It is sufficient reward that people have heard the music. If it pays for the cost of instruments, equipment, gas in the van, etc., that's extra rewards. Most musicians would like to make money for playing music, but they also realize that getting free drinks is a more reasonable expectation.
I do speak from experience. I've known quite a few musicians, professional, amateur, and collegiate, and I've also been all three at various times.
I do. I still have an ASR Model 33 in storage, but it hasn't been plugged in since 1980. I actually miss using that noisy fucker. It made me a hero among the (very few) nerds in my school, since we were able to take our time and punch out our own paper tapes for assignments (programming a B6600 and also FOCAL on the PDP8).
My father's business kept a TWX/Telex account, and we also had an account on the Dow Chemical Corp.'s medical supplies ordering system in Midland Michigan. In those days, there was no security whatsoever...
I remember all that shit, and I don't think it's really been that long since then. People seem to get bogged down in the moment, and they don't really appreciate how far we've come in a short time. It wasn't that long ago that I was modifying the RS232 board on my Apple2 for the TTY. I still have that, and it still works...
I don't think you understand the depth of the problem. The people who "fall for" the 419 scam are almost certainly well aware that it's a scam, and they participate in hopes of scamming someone *else*. Remember the person who embezzeled from her company to fund a 419 trick? I'm betting she knew it was a scam the entire time, but somehow saw the whole thing as a means to an end of scamming someone else (maybe trying to proxy and embezzlement so that it looked like the "Nigerian" was responsible?)
I wonder how many people who follow through on these things are actually using it as a means to ripoff someone else, perhaps trying to make the victim appear so stupid that he won't report the theft...
Or maybe there *are* people who are actually stupid enough to really fall for 419. I'd say anyone THAT foolish would have been parted from his money long before now, and scams don't enter into it. No, I suspect there's more to the story, and I really do imagine that people see the 419 scam as an opportunity to play middleman and quietly funnel some money into their own pocket while connecting an unsuspecting victim to a blatant scammer. Maybe they think all the noise will be at the ends of the link, and the small change they grabbed in the middle will go unnoticed? I hope it's something like that. If there are that many people with money who are that stupid, I need to be thinking of legal, ethical ways of relieving them of some of it.
Whatever you want to do is fine by me, and you can call it anything you want as long as you don't infringe on one of my own trademarks, but if you install your crap on my pc without my express consent or knowledge, you're guilty of a serious crime, period.
I don't think gator actually installs that way, but some spyware installers have used remote exploits in IE to do it. If I run a windows box, I only do so because it's needed for applications. It's not appropriate for people to install things on my computer without my consent, regardless of whether they are able to do so or not.
"So once all GPL software becomes public domain, can't you just have everyone who made that software restrict it under a license with a different name but similar principles? (If nothing else it would waste a bunch of SCO's time.)"
There is NO credible chain of events that takes us from a civil suit involving SCO and IBM, all the way to arbitrary copyrights being forcibly surrendered. NONE.
And until someone gives REASONS why the GPL is an invalid agreement, or illegal in any way, there's no reason you couldn't simply relicense your software under the SAME terms WITHOUT changing the name. The only outcome that's even conceivable, is somehow IBM and SCO are unable to use the GPL for some legal reason. In that case, I wonder if IBM would start to enjoy licensing offers that SCO does not?:-)
I know a lot of people would, right now today, offer different terms to SCO than to IBM, if they could.
Many would be as simple as "IBM, you may have this for free. SCO, you may suck my motherfucking cock."
"A hearing where I would be present is probably impossible. So the judge would make his decision based on his own reasoning?"
Actually, if it comes to that, and you don't take the appropriate action to defend your rights, then yeah, you would risk having a summary judgement for not appearing at the appointed time and place to state your evidence. So yes. But no, it won't come to that, because there isn't any doctrine of civil law that leads to a judge directly attaching YOUR property as part of a settlement between two parties completely unrelated to you.
The hype around SCO v. IBM is fueled by reckless speculation and discussion of people who have limited understanding of civil law in the US. (Myself included, IANAL, but I have studied law, including civil procedure and rules of evidence)
You have rights to your property that cannot be taken away without due process.
"If its not enforceable, and goes under public domain"
Then thousands of angry people all have a serious grievance regarding their right due process before a Constitutional Right can be abridged. Every one of them is entitled to an individual hearing on the matter, probably one for each piece of copyrighted work.
The judge in this lawsuit does not actually possess the authority to make such a judgement, except in the specific cases of the property of the parties to the suit. If your code isn't part of the disputed items in SCO v. IBM, it's completely beyond the scope of this trial. Even if the judge finds the GPL to be unenforceable, he can ONLY rule it to be unenforceable by one party to this suit against the other. He could also conceivably be able to order one party to release their property under other licenses, or even surrender their copyrights, as part of the disposition of the case.
This judge cannot hammer his gavel and magically make GPL code into PD, period. That's not even conceivable. And as for finding the GPL to be invalid, it might become invalid between SCO and IBM, but it's still going to be valid between ME and YOU until we get OUR day in court, unless you have some reason to anticipate a Supreme Court ruling on the thing. (This case isn't going there, certainly.)
Yes. Even if SCO can influence a judge to revoke a domestic copyright, I think they are going to need to make a much bigger case if they want to move to an international jurisdiction.
No judge is gonna take this pill though. They know the score. He won't actually have the authority to revoke your copyrights, my copyrights, or Linus' copyrights, period. Even if I licensed my stuff under plainly illegal and unenforceable terms. EVEN IF THE GPL is COMPLETELY INVALID, the copyrights are safe from any sweeping court order.
How would that be worded, anyway? How could it possibly not be discriminatory?
"It would be as if there was an unenforcable clause in the legal warning on a DVD, the entire contents became freely distributable..."
It would be *exactly* like that. And you're thinking small if you only considered the entertainment industry...
But everyone is getting excited over nothing, because as you realize, NO JUDGE will even consider this question, at least not past reading it and instructing his secretary to put the "Motion Denied" stamp on it.
Too much more bullshit like this will get the case dismissed before the first hearing is scheduled.
>I please be the first to sign onto a class >action lawsuit
No judge will do this. Revoking your copyright would require an action by you, a court order where you were entitled to a hearing to defend your property *individually*, and act of Congress amending US Copyright law, or a Constitutional Amendment.
Any decision that renders your copyrights to be void, sets a legal precedent that could bring down the whole house of cards.
Any judge will reject that motion immediately. There is no way to make a ruling that revokes copyright, a Constitutional right, against an vague class. There is no way such a ruling could be tailored narrowly enough to affect ONLY GPL code, without the risk of being discriminatory and violating equal protection doctrine and law.
There is no legal entity to represent the class, as a whole, of all people who hold copyrights under the GPL. How can such a class be created? No one will EVER represent me, as I give such authority to no one. The GPL does nothing like that. You cannot revoke my copyrights without some basis in law to do so (which would require a Constitutional amendment!)
Each and every clause in the GPL could be found invalid, but not without specific reasons given. What is the evidence against the GPL, exactly?
It's hard to imagine a legal situation that renders the GPL invalid, that would not also cause wholesale destruction across several industries on the collateral damage. The GPL is as clearly worded as contracts get. There is nothing illegal about it, not one word of it. It's going to be very hard to get a case law past judicial review if there are no specific problems, and it's a big, HUGE stretch from contract limitations to revocation of copyright.
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"While I'm certainly no Patriot Act supporter, things like this tend to add a little perspective to a lot of overheated rhetoric, no?"
Indeed they do. They show just how bad tyranny can become, and how desperately unjust a government can become, quickly, if the tyranny is suffered by its people.
Your argument helps make the case for people making a continual effort to keep government in check. China since Mao is not as horrible as Russia was under Stalin, but they are dealing with many of the same problems in the same way.
The regime enjoys a great deal of support from people in China, though. Until their government can no longer provide them with credible evidence of progress and prosperity, there probably isn't anything to do. If you think a political issue is worthy to kill or die for, then by all means you should kill or die for it. But that also means you must be willing to accept the consequences. Be a Chinese dissident (or do ANYTHING that isn't expressly prescribed by the party?) well, you accept the consequences of imprisonment and/or death when you do that. Hopefully your death will not go unnoticed by others, and your sacrifice will instigate some action. Probably not though, there's a lot of inertia over there, and a whole hell of a lot of people in China think everything is just hunky dory.
>China is a hardline socialist dictatorship ...
>This is why American protestors really have no
>idea how good they have it.
So you're saying that because some other country sucks, my right to petition my own government for redress of grievances is somehow diminished? Why is that exactly? Because agents of the state aren't literally executing protestors and dissidents where I live, means everything is just fine and I don't have anything to complain about? And that's up to you?
"What are the legal consequences if copyright holders do not sue?"
None, until (unless) the copyright expires, or is surrendered to the public domain (explicitly).
You do not lose your copyright (a Constitutional right, mind you), simply because you chose not to sue someone for infringement.
Trademark dilution is rather a different story. But this is not that story.
You said you were being forced to run Microsoft products. I say you aren't being forced at all.
You aren't successful to the extent that this became your decsision. You still work for someone who tells you what to do, which you do even though you don't like it.
The sysadmins may think they are "making a case", but they aren't making a strong enough case, they don't have enough influence, something.
I'm saying again, if you're so vital, so smart, and so right, why do we hear time and time again, how bosses are stupid, and the low people are so smart?
I'd say the people making the decisions would ALSO claim to be "making do with what the market gives them."
Management, finance, admins, and customers all see this issue differently.
"I don't see anything on the SCO pages linked from the Reg article that would make this a GPL violation"
They openly reject the GPL, yet they distribute software licensed under it to which they have no interest or any claim of interest. When they rejected the GPL they gave up the right to distribute Vim, NcFTP, glibc, etc.
They have made some vague claims to owning the kernel, but nothing specific. Even if you let them slide the kernel, waiving their privileges under the GPL and continuing to distribute software that is licensed under the GPL, puts them in a position where they are damaging the interests of those works.
It does not matter what additional license terms the put this software under. They gave up their right to distribute it when they rejected the GPL. They basically told the international press "We reject the agreement." There is no gray area here. They have no right to distribute the software, and they should be getting C&D's already, if not restraining orders, and takedown notices from network providers, etc.
>this is the GPL's test in court
This *might* be the GPL's test to determine whether all its clauses apply between SCO and IBM. Whether it applies between any other parties is still open to discussion, and always will be.
Would you claim your mortgage agreement hasn't been tested in court just because you haven't sued your bank yet?
Either it is legal for one party to grant the privileges provided by each clause in the license, or it is not. Either it is legal for another party to accept those license terms, or it is not, with respect to a given product.
If the GPL is "invalid" for one person, that doesn't mean it's invalid for anyone else.
It does not require actions or conditions that are illegal in Utah or in the US. I don't know what aspect of the license people think needs to be "tested", or what legal meaning they think that has. To say that the GPL has never been tested in the US, is tantamount to saying copyright law in the US is but a theory.
So there hasn't been a major case with respect to a piece of software that was licensed under the GPL before. The case law to look for would be ANY software license. Anything that gives force to the GPL, is the same thing that gives force to any other software agreement. And that force extends from an authors *Constitutional* rights under copyright law.
If someone is claiming that Constitutional rights haven't been tested, he's smoking the same stuff as Daryl.
>How is Linux/GNU any different?
SCO is trying to claim that some clause or clauses in the GPL are not enforceable with respect to them. Presumably, they have some argument that some clause in the GPL is actually illegal, meaning it was not legal for the author to grant this license to anyone. This is preposterous, of course, and you don't need to be a lawyer to understand that you do indeed have rights (Constitutional rights, even) to make such grants.
SCO is going even further, though, and they seem to have some argument which construes a release under the GPL as an absolute surrender of all distribution rights.
Any argument they make that is not a prejudiced circular argument, will probably fail because it can also be applied to any other software license. If an author does not have the right to distribute under the GPL, whatever case can be made for that argument would almost certainly apply to every other license on every other limited grant of distribution privileges under copyright. This is an enormous claim, and reaches far beyond the scope of anything the judge in their suit against IBM is empowered to render a descision on.
If the GPL is invalid between SCO and IBM, that's one thing. It is entirely possible for that to be true. If one of the parties in SCO v. IBM is ordered to not enter into any software under this license as part of a settlement agreemnent, that is also a possibility.
There is no conceivable outcome of this lawsuit that puts HJ Liu's gcc work into the public domain, or Donald Becker's ethernet drivers, or Perl6 for that matter. No possibility of that without each and every copyright interest having full rights to due process.
Perhaps the GPL is invalid between IBM and SCO. I do not believe a judge can simply make that ruling without giving *reasons*. Specific reasons, not "this is the GPL, therefore the GPL does not have merit." More likely the judge will know that SCO rejected the license, and it won't matter if the license is valid or not. All that will matter is whether the material is copyright, and by whom, assuming the question of copyright is ever called in the case.
"How is it possible that they are getting away with the things that they are doing and nothing is being done about it?"
What do you mean nothing? They are facing a lawsuit involving one of the best funded technology coroporations in the history of technology, with billions of dollars at stake.
IBM has expressed an interest in actually going to court, even to say they are looking forward to it. I'd say something is being done, sure. Instead of being victims, people are going to actually defend themselves in a lawsuit for a change.
You posted the same complaint a week ago. Shame on you for getting burned in the exact same way twice (as if).
(plonk)
>sysadmins running Microsoft not by choice.
If you are being coerced to labor, I suggest you contact the State Department.
I rather think you made a choice. You chose to compromise your values in exchange for compensation. I also find it interesting that the sort of people who find themselves in positions to make decisions about what software to use, make their choices. And I find it more interesting that people who are affected by those decisions only ever complain about it. You never hear about one of these clueful sysadmins working his way up the ladder and assuming positions of decision making authority himself. You only hear complaints about how smart the people are on the bottom, and how stupid they are at the top.
If you're so smart, why haven't you been successful in your career? Why does it seem that NONE of you who are so smart, skilled and talented, end up calling the shots?
I don't know what anyone thinks a "court test of the GPL" means, exactly, but the only thing to be found about it is the question of whether it is legal for a given party to license a given work under each clause, and then whether it is legal for a given second party to distribute a given work under each clause.
The "test" that everyone wants has already been done a thousand times. Attorneys who are licensed to practice law have read the GPL, and have found nothing specifically illegal about it.
Read it yourself, it is quite clear. Ask yourself at each and every clause, "is it legal in my State for me to make this agreement?"
Saying the GPL has not withstood the legal test is like saying that my mortgage contract has not stood the legal test. Just because I haven't sued my lender, doesn't mean the contract I signed is no good. Even if there is an illegal clause or two in that contract, doesn't mean I'm going to lose my house, or that I'm going to get it free. And it sure as hell wouldn't mean that the State can come and bulldoze it without compensating either me or the bank.
That's what SCO is proposing. Because they have an idea that there is a clause in the GPL that does not apply to SCO or IBM, that they can make the property rights of arbitrary other parties go away. They have only suggested that was possible, but they have not made any sort of argument that would even reach the ear of a judge, much less be decided on.
I think the popularity of the whole SCO versus IBM thing caught SCO by surprise. I don't think they understood that the noise they made would create an international contraversy. They probably thought it would be settled under the radar of the public eye, that the FUD they created would somehow derail the free software movement which they no doubt perceive as fragile and easily derailed. I think someone may have miscalculated significantly, and now a combination of cognitive dissonance (we've risked our future on this, we MUST prevail), risks associated with estoppel (we cannot change our story even if we know we're wrong), and wishful thinking (if we keep up the negative publicity against linux and gcc, people will stop using it and start looking to us for alternatives) has shaped their strategy.
>Since EFF is the primary enforcer of GPL
"Enforcer?" Where do you get the idea that the word is appropriate? What's to be "enforced" is copyright law. Enforcement of laws is the sole domain of duly appointed agents of the government, and only by manner of due process.
Individuals may assert their rights under contract or copyright law, but "enforcement" is reserved to those with a monopoly on the use of force.
Anyone who holds a copyright is entitled to initiate process to protect that copyright. He or she has the right to file a motion in court (a lawsuit, for example), or to make legal requests to cease an infraction (a C&D letter).
>classic action
You mean "class action".
First you need a ruling that creates a legal entity that represents everyone in the class. That would have to be a pretty broad entity, and *many* would object to being made part of the class. I don't think a class action suit would be the best approach at all. It would be much better to force SCO into a position where they must negotiate separate licenses for each and every copyrighted work to which they have rejected the current license.
I can't imagine a legal ruling that includes every author of every GPL'd work (including some that have never been distributed at all, please consider that!), but such a "class" would have to include pretty much everybody on the planet, and it would NEVER include me, because no one represents me, or my interests, but me. Period.
>Has ANYBODY heard SCO's explanation of how the
>GPL is "unconstitutional"? Do they even have ane
>explanation?
They haven't given one, apparently.
Lots of people comment on how the GPL has "never been tested in court."
My lease agreement with my landlady hasn't been tested in court either, but unless there is something in every clause that is plainly illegal, it's a safe bet that the contract will prevail.
As distribution licenses go, the GPL is as simple as it gets. You can go through it line by line, and at every clause, ask "is it legal for two parties to enter into this agreement?"
The answer will be "yes." The only question in this case will be whether the agreement is valid between the two parties at suit (SCO, and IBM).
It may be a result of this lawsuit that one or both of those parties is found to be unable to agree to the GPL due to some other constraints. (For instance, I could sign a contract that said I will not distribute GPL software, and that would be binding.)
Now, SCO realizes that if it came to this, SCO would not get very many offers of an alternative license agreement, whereas IBM probably would.
But if there's anything *unconstitutional* about the GPL, in any of its clauses or as a whole, what's really frightening about that is the same finding would certainly invalidate many other licenses. I'd expect EVERY software license to have a problem, and it's hard to see how it wouldn't translate to "copyright law is unconstitutional."
The bottom line of the GPL is that it is an expression of an author's rights under copyright law. The question is, do I, an author, have the right to enter into this agreement, or do I not?
If not, there must be reasons. The circular argument won't cut it. The reasons have to be specific. "Because it's the GPL and the GPL is not valid" will never be the precedent. In Mcarthyist philosophy, the socialist colour of the license might be accepted as grounds for prejudice, but that isn't going to drive a contemporary judicial decision, not even in Utah.
So, clause by clause, we need reasons why any part of the agreement is illegal, in the State of Utah, in the US, or in any other jurisdiction. If you can find anything in the GPL that constitutes a breach of law, that parties are breaking the law merely by entering into it, the finding should be construed to apply to every other agreement sharing the same characteristics. A judge may not simply "ban the GPL." That would show clear prejudice and would be a blatant disregard for equal protection of the law.
There was some noise about "releasing GPL'd copyrights into the public domain" also.
If you want to get into "unconstitutional" territory, we need to start with the right of an individual not to be deprived of property without due process of law.
A settlement in a lawsuit between two parties unrelated to me, does not constitute process on the question of my property rights. That is simply not something that the judge has the authority to consider. The motion to release copyrights into the public domain would have to be filed against each and every individual work, and each and every author would be entitled to due process.
Some of them would be in a position to put up an even bigger fight than IBM, since the question would be even clearer.
>Where does it state in the GPL that you can't
>restrict downloads?
If you reject the GPL and do not negotiate some other agreement, under copyright law you have NO RIGHT WHATSOEVER to distribute the code.
>Most [musicians] just barely make a living.
Most musicians make a reasonable living at a day job, and do the music thing as a creative outlet. For most of them, the reward is ars gratia artis. It is sufficient reward that people have heard the music. If it pays for the cost of instruments, equipment, gas in the van, etc., that's extra rewards. Most musicians would like to make money for playing music, but they also realize that getting free drinks is a more reasonable expectation.
I do speak from experience. I've known quite a few musicians, professional, amateur, and collegiate, and I've also been all three at various times.
>Anybody remember TWX?
I do. I still have an ASR Model 33 in storage, but it hasn't been plugged in since 1980. I actually miss using that noisy fucker. It made me a hero among the (very few) nerds in my school, since we were able to take our time and punch out our own paper tapes for assignments (programming a B6600 and also FOCAL on the PDP8).
My father's business kept a TWX/Telex account, and we also had an account on the Dow Chemical Corp.'s medical supplies ordering system in Midland Michigan. In those days, there was no security whatsoever...
I remember all that shit, and I don't think it's really been that long since then. People seem to get bogged down in the moment, and they don't really appreciate how far we've come in a short time. It wasn't that long ago that I was modifying the RS232 board on my Apple2 for the TTY. I still have that, and it still works...
I don't think you understand the depth of the problem. The people who "fall for" the 419 scam are almost certainly well aware that it's a scam, and they participate in hopes of scamming someone *else*. Remember the person who embezzeled from her company to fund a 419 trick? I'm betting she knew it was a scam the entire time, but somehow saw the whole thing as a means to an end of scamming someone else (maybe trying to proxy and embezzlement so that it looked like the "Nigerian" was responsible?)
I wonder how many people who follow through on these things are actually using it as a means to ripoff someone else, perhaps trying to make the victim appear so stupid that he won't report the theft...
Or maybe there *are* people who are actually stupid enough to really fall for 419. I'd say anyone THAT foolish would have been parted from his money long before now, and scams don't enter into it. No, I suspect there's more to the story, and I really do imagine that people see the 419 scam as an opportunity to play middleman and quietly funnel some money into their own pocket while connecting an unsuspecting victim to a blatant scammer. Maybe they think all the noise will be at the ends of the link, and the small change they grabbed in the middle will go unnoticed? I hope it's something like that. If there are that many people with money who are that stupid, I need to be thinking of legal, ethical ways of relieving them of some of it.
Whatever you want to do is fine by me, and you can call it anything you want as long as you don't infringe on one of my own trademarks, but if you install your crap on my pc without my express consent or knowledge, you're guilty of a serious crime, period.
I don't think gator actually installs that way, but some spyware installers have used remote exploits in IE to do it. If I run a windows box, I only do so because it's needed for applications. It's not appropriate for people to install things on my computer without my consent, regardless of whether they are able to do so or not.
"So once all GPL software becomes public domain, can't you just have everyone who made that software restrict it under a license with a different name but similar principles? (If nothing else it would waste a bunch of SCO's time.)"
:-)
There is NO credible chain of events that takes us from a civil suit involving SCO and IBM, all the way to arbitrary copyrights being forcibly surrendered. NONE.
And until someone gives REASONS why the GPL is an invalid agreement, or illegal in any way, there's no reason you couldn't simply relicense your software under the SAME terms WITHOUT changing the name. The only outcome that's even conceivable, is somehow IBM and SCO are unable to use the GPL for some legal reason. In that case, I wonder if IBM would start to enjoy licensing offers that SCO does not?
I know a lot of people would, right now today, offer different terms to SCO than to IBM, if they could.
Many would be as simple as "IBM, you may have this for free. SCO, you may suck my motherfucking cock."
"A hearing where I would be present is probably impossible. So the judge would make his decision based on his own reasoning?"
Actually, if it comes to that, and you don't take the appropriate action to defend your rights, then yeah, you would risk having a summary judgement for not appearing at the appointed time and place to state your evidence. So yes. But no, it won't come to that, because there isn't any doctrine of civil law that leads to a judge directly attaching YOUR property as part of a settlement between two parties completely unrelated to you.
The hype around SCO v. IBM is fueled by reckless speculation and discussion of people who have limited understanding of civil law in the US. (Myself included, IANAL, but I have studied law, including civil procedure and rules of evidence)
You have rights to your property that cannot be taken away without due process.
"If its not enforceable, and goes under public domain"
Then thousands of angry people all have a serious grievance regarding their right due process before a Constitutional Right can be abridged. Every one of them is entitled to an individual hearing on the matter, probably one for each piece of copyrighted work.
The judge in this lawsuit does not actually possess the authority to make such a judgement, except in the specific cases of the property of the parties to the suit. If your code isn't part of the disputed items in SCO v. IBM, it's completely beyond the scope of this trial. Even if the judge finds the GPL to be unenforceable, he can ONLY rule it to be unenforceable by one party to this suit against the other. He could also conceivably be able to order one party to release their property under other licenses, or even surrender their copyrights, as part of the disposition of the case.
This judge cannot hammer his gavel and magically make GPL code into PD, period. That's not even conceivable. And as for finding the GPL to be invalid, it might become invalid between SCO and IBM, but it's still going to be valid between ME and YOU until we get OUR day in court, unless you have some reason to anticipate a Supreme Court ruling on the thing. (This case isn't going there, certainly.)
Yes. Even if SCO can influence a judge to revoke a domestic copyright, I think they are going to need to make a much bigger case if they want to move to an international jurisdiction.
No judge is gonna take this pill though. They know the score. He won't actually have the authority to revoke your copyrights, my copyrights, or Linus' copyrights, period. Even if I licensed my stuff under plainly illegal and unenforceable terms. EVEN IF THE GPL is COMPLETELY INVALID, the copyrights are safe from any sweeping court order.
How would that be worded, anyway? How could it possibly not be discriminatory?
"It would be as if there was an unenforcable clause in the legal warning on a DVD, the entire contents became freely distributable..."
It would be *exactly* like that. And you're thinking small if you only considered the entertainment industry...
But everyone is getting excited over nothing, because as you realize, NO JUDGE will even consider this question, at least not past reading it and instructing his secretary to put the "Motion Denied" stamp on it.
Too much more bullshit like this will get the case dismissed before the first hearing is scheduled.
>I please be the first to sign onto a class
>action lawsuit
No judge will do this. Revoking your copyright would require an action by you, a court order where you were entitled to a hearing to defend your property *individually*, and act of Congress amending US Copyright law, or a Constitutional Amendment.
Any decision that renders your copyrights to be void, sets a legal precedent that could bring down the whole house of cards.
Any judge will reject that motion immediately.
There is no way to make a ruling that revokes copyright, a Constitutional right, against an vague class. There is no way such a ruling could be tailored narrowly enough to affect ONLY GPL code, without the risk of being discriminatory and violating equal protection doctrine and law.
There is no legal entity to represent the class, as a whole, of all people who hold copyrights under the GPL. How can such a class be created? No one will EVER represent me, as I give such authority to no one. The GPL does nothing like that. You cannot revoke my copyrights without some basis in law to do so (which would require a Constitutional amendment!)
Each and every clause in the GPL could be found invalid, but not without specific reasons given. What is the evidence against the GPL, exactly?
It's hard to imagine a legal situation that renders the GPL invalid, that would not also cause wholesale destruction across several industries on the collateral damage. The GPL is as clearly worded as contracts get. There is nothing illegal about it, not one word of it. It's going to be very hard to get a case law past judicial review if there are no specific problems, and it's a big, HUGE stretch from contract limitations to revocation of copyright.