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What about SCO?What about SCO?Posted Jan 13, 2006 18:14 UTC (Fri) by pfred1 (guest, #35195)In reply to: What about SCO? by BrucePerens Parent article: There Is No Open Source Community (O'ReillyNet)
But couldn't SCO have forseen their own fate before they decided to change their business model? I would have to say that SCO is one of the biggest believers in the Open Source community out there. And if that is so wasn't the Linux's communities reaction just a knee jerk reaction to that changed (software development to patent house) business model? I would not be suprised if the Linux communities reaction was not calculated by SCO before they put their changed business model into practice. The bridges burned in that debacle are ones that lead to places $CO never plans on visiting again. The rifts created are distances that $CO welcomes.
It all certianly seems to fit together well to me at anyrate.
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What about SCO? Posted Jan 13, 2006 18:28 UTC (Fri) by BrucePerens (subscriber, #2510) [Link] And if that is so wasn't the Linux's communities reaction just a knee jerk reaction to that changed (software development to patent house) business model?I'm afraid you don't understand the SCO case. They only own a few patents, and all are agreed that those are not significant ones. Their own claims are that it's a contract and copyright case, however they haven't been able to substantiate those claims. Their expected revenue would have been from copyright licensing. They might have planned to drop their software business at one time, but this is unclear. But in any case the community reaction destroyed all of their business whatever it was. Thanks Bruce
What about SCO? Posted Jan 14, 2006 3:20 UTC (Sat) by zblaxell (subscriber, #26385) [Link] I interpreted "software development to patent house" as a generic term for a transition from selling permission to access something that one has constructed (as in copyright licenses), to threatening prevention of access to something that someone else has constructed (as in patent licenses).
In the SCO case they seem to be trying to abuse copyright and some contracts to make it behave like a patent or two--and failing miserably, of course.
What about SCO? Posted Jan 14, 2006 3:55 UTC (Sat) by BrucePerens (subscriber, #2510) [Link] Well, you might have interpreted it that way, but I doubt if "pfred1" would have called the community's reaction "knee-jerk" if he had understood that it was something so egregious.Bruce
What about SCO? Posted Jan 14, 2006 12:06 UTC (Sat) by khim (guest, #9252) [Link] Argh. I do not think SCO alone can show the case clearly. Better to compare SCO and Rambus. Rambus is doing the same thing SCO does. Successfully. Why? Rambus is doing it in the area where community truly does not exist. That's why even after bogus claims and abuse companies are licensing new technologies from Rambus and Rambus is able to get money via bogus litigation. There are no friends and enimies in business - just business partners... Now SCO... When MySQL signed the deal with SCO and said "it's business as usual" they've lost some supporters. I was fan of MySQL for years. But now I'm switching to PostgreSQL where I can. And I'm not alone: since it's very clear to me that MySQL traded community support for some $$ - when will go so far as to sell my freedom ? Who knows... I hope to forget about MySQL by then...
What about SCO? Posted Jan 14, 2006 15:48 UTC (Sat) by BrucePerens (subscriber, #2510) [Link] I think the main difference between Rambus and SCO is that Rambus has valid law behind them and can thus win cases. Not just law, and they've played fast and loose with the rules of standards organizations, but they have the ability to convince a court to rule for them. It's always been clear that this was not the case with SCO, and it was the outright, blatant lies that SCO made about their case and purported property that caused the magnitude of outrage we saw.This is another reason to be very concerned about software patents. The folks with them can win. Bruce
What about SCO? Posted Jan 15, 2006 8:24 UTC (Sun) by khim (guest, #9252) [Link] Nope. Rambus does not have law on it's side. What it does have is lack of community. When Samsung decides to settle out-of-court and buy bogus license for DDR it becomes hard for Micron to prove in court that such license is indeed bigus. But why Samsung bought this bogus license in first place ? Easy: that's not community, that's business - SONY will not buy argument "we did the right thing" as replacement for RDRAM modules! So Samsung has no choice - it can not fight Rambus at that time. With community - it's different. We are not business. We do not have responsibility to maximize profits. Thus we can abandon SCO - even if it does not make sense from business viewpoint! We can convince our friends to abandon 1stInternet - even it does not make sense from business viewpoint! What we can not do - is to convince everyone to abandon Microsoft or Oracle - they are too big and users are to entrapped. This is big problem for our community, true. But the only reason tiny company like Rambus can fuck the whole industry with it's bogus patents is the fact that it's industry, not community - it can not decide to just abandon Rambus...
What about SCO? Posted Jan 15, 2006 16:41 UTC (Sun) by BrucePerens (subscriber, #2510) [Link] Rambus has a legal theory that would allow them to collect damages. SCO does not. There's not much justice in the Rambus case, and Rambus has played fast and loose with JDEDEC's rules - because JEDEC didn't take the trouble to build legally-enforcible rules.IBM could have licensed from SCO and told the community "it's just business". Surely they aren't concerned much with the community, their pursuit of legal expansions of software patenting in Europe and elsewhere goes plainly against that community. One or two other companies did license from SCO. But for IBM to do that in this case would have told all others that they are easy to extort with a case that has no legal theory. Thanks Bruce
What about SCO? Posted Jan 14, 2006 20:28 UTC (Sat) by erwbgy (subscriber, #4104) [Link] I think you are confusing MySQL AB (the company) with MySQL (the software). It was the company that made that deal, but if it turns out that they were trying to sell us out, then we could just take the software and move on. That is the beauty of free software.
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