The SCO Group would then be in violation of the GPL license [LWN.net]

The SCO Group would then be in violation of the GPL license

Posted Jul 20, 2003 5:48 UTC (Sun) by NZheretic (guest, #409)
Parent article: SCO readies new Linux licensing program (InfoWorld)

The GPL and LGPL licenses do not grant the right to sublicense the code.

From the GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE

4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance.

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The SCO Group would then be in violation of the GPL license - and they do not care

Posted Jul 20, 2003 12:08 UTC (Sun) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

Who said they will sublicense anything GPL'ed ? They will sublicense their code. Wrongly GPL'ed by others. They will give you nice paper which will guarantee that even if you are using code illegaly sold to you by RedHat under GPL you are "in the clear" as far as SCO is concerned.

Sure: if you accept such a license you can not redistribute or modify code in question (even inhouse!) or you'll stumble upon IBM, HP, SGI and so on copyrights but you can run it "without worry" and this can be enough for someone...

Obviously if there are no such code they will be criminals - but to say this we need to wait for a few years. Long enough for SCO...

P.S. Oh... and after that SCO will never be able to distribute Linux but looks like they do not care as well.

The SCO Group would STILL be in violation of the GPL license - and the FSF do care

Posted Jul 20, 2003 14:37 UTC (Sun) by NZheretic (guest, #409) [Link]

The SCO group has knowingly sold and distributed the GPL'ed kernel, containing the supposed "infringing source". SCO executives have publicly claimed that they knew of the existance of the supposed "infringing source" for many months before they considered legal action.

To quote Eben Moglen, General Counsel to the FSF, in the FSF Statement on SCO v. IBM

But even if SCO could show that some portions of its UNIX source code were copied into the kernel, the claim of copyright infringement would fail, because SCO has itself distributed the kernel under GPL. By doing so, SCO licensed everyone everywhere to copy, modify, and redistribute that code. SCO cannot now turn around and argue that it sold people code under GPL, guaranteeing their right to copy, modify and redistribute anything included, but that it somehow did not license the copying and redistribution of any copyrighted material of their own which that code contained.

Any attempt to introduce a sublicense would open The SCO Group to potential legal action from any and all individuals or organizations, including IBM,HP, who hold copyright over parts of the same Linux kernel SCO have distributed. Such an attempt to limit downstream rights could result in The SCO Group being potentially liable for damage claims from everyone who currently uses the same linux source.

Remember that The SCO Group's own Unix offering relies on many GPL's components. The SCO Group's violation of the GPL license of the kernel would grant the right for any the copyright holders of those components to file an injunction to prevent the SCO distributing SAMBA,CDRecord,Squid and most importantly the entire GNU GCC toolchain and libraries, all vital components for a modern Unix system.