Deluded SCO CEO on witness stand: "Linux is a copy of UNIX" (ars technica) [LWN.net]

Deluded SCO CEO on witness stand: "Linux is a copy of UNIX" (ars technica)

Posted May 2, 2008 14:54 UTC (Fri) by felixfix (subscriber, #242)
In reply to: Deluded SCO CEO on witness stand: "Linux is a copy of UNIX" (ars technica) by tbrownaw
Parent article: Deluded SCO CEO on witness stand: "Linux is a copy of UNIX" (ars technica)

I think part of the implied argument is that the contracts can't be reversed in any real world
manner, so returning the money is not feasible.  Therefore the contract is de facto valid and
the money should be given to the rightful "seller", so to speak.

Sort of as if your friend sold your car, which was then heavily modded (not wrecked), and you
wanted the money your friend got rather than taking the car back and trying to undo the mods.
Ignore car theft claims for this analogy :-)

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Ignore "theft" claims because ...

Posted May 2, 2008 18:37 UTC (Fri) by AnswerGuy (subscriber, #1256) [Link]

You had an agreement with your (former) friend that he could rent your car out to other
people, so long as he respected some earlier rental/leasing (sort of sharing) agreements that
you'd already worked out with some other friends.

So it's not "theft" inte the sense of larceny.  But it was conversion.

Your (former) friend went and *sold* the car; and when you came back to enforce part of the
agreement vis a vis some of the other friends (IBM) then your former friend sued you for
"slander of title" (claiming that you had sold the car to him --- even though the plain text
of your original, written agreement, specifically excluded the title to the car and
specifically established a fiduciary relationship between your (former) friend and yourself.

Yep!  That's about it.

(Other than the quibbles about the analogies between a single tangible car and the infinitely
duplicatable and modifiable sources in software).


JimD