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...and if SCO is right...?...and if SCO is right...?Posted May 16, 2003 17:37 UTC (Fri) by josh_stern (guest, #4868)In reply to: ...and if SCO is right...? by JoeBuck Parent article: ...and if SCO is right...?
I'm having trouble seeing Joe Buck's point here. Is there a worry about Linus
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...and if SCO is right...? Posted May 17, 2003 16:35 UTC (Sat) by donwaugaman (subscriber, #4214) [Link] > On the other hand, let's suppose that there was a copyright assignment> to the FSF in place, but that in spite of this, Evil Employee X of > Corporation Y injected tainted code into the kernel. The FSF covers this by making a representative of Corporation Y sign the copyright assignment in addition to or in lieu of Evil Employee X. If Evil Employee X signs it without Corporation Y's approval, Evil Employee X is on the hook for damages, since: "The Assigner hereby represents and warrants that it is the sole copyright holder for the Work and that it has the right and power to enter into this contract." The warrant means that Y cannot go after the FSF if X does the wrong thing; but they can sue X for misappropriation.
...and if SCO is right...? Posted May 17, 2003 19:32 UTC (Sat) by josh_stern (guest, #4868) [Link] >The FSF covers this by making a representative of Corporation Y sign the>copyright assignment in addition to or in lieu of Evil Employee X. If Evil >Employee X signs it without Corporation Y's approval, But our thread topic here is about people knowingly misappropriating/stealing stuff, and what might have to be done to remedy that. In that context, 'extra protection' based on the idea that the person who would do such a thing would not lie about who their employer is, fake a signature, etc. seems minimal to me. Their plan is clearly to get away with something based on the idea that nobody will every bother with the comparison necessary to discover their wrongdoing. >The warrant means that Y cannot go after the FSF if X does the wrong thing; >but they can sue X for misappropriation. Almost every software/technology corporation has employment agreements that would allow them to do this anyway. The one's that don't probably don't consider their software to be proprietary in that way. My argument isn't that the FSF procedures are wrongheaded, but rather they are not all that germane to the important issues. The big core risk to free software here is not lawsuits of FSF, Linus, etc. but rather possible fear on the part of business users of free software who might worry that open source makes fishing expeditions for IP violation easier and increases the possibility that their business, that relies on said said software, could be interrupted sometime in the future by an IP-based cease and desist order. It seems to me that their fear could only be assuaged by either a) believing such an event is just too improbable to worry about, or b) getting some legal protection in the form of court precedent that any cease and desist would have to take due account of their innocence and collateral damage (e.g. they would automatically get some reasonably long grace period to comfortably make a change in their installation). The 'protection' that they would have a stronger lawsuit against the, now unemployed, EvilX just isn't all that relevant to them.
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