...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.