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SCO's new offensiveSCO's new offensivePosted Jul 22, 2003 1:13 UTC (Tue) by rknop (guest, #66)Parent article: SCO's new offensive How on Earth did we manage to come up with a legal system where extortionists and bottom-feeders like this could even exist, never mind get rich off of it? It's sickening. If the Founding Fathers had had a clue that this monstrosity would rise from the system they created, they would all have gotten on a boat, gone back to England, and volunteered to spend the rest of their lives in a small, dank cell in the Tower of England. All it takes is a few people calling SCO's bluff, and they get rich off of what they're doing. Which is essentially contributing nothing. Hell, I bet the mob does better community service than these guys. Why do we have a system that richly rewards parasites who do nothing? Can a patch to the system get rid of these sorts of things, or is our economic system so fundamentally broken that there's no hope? -Rob
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SCO's new offensive Posted Jul 22, 2003 1:55 UTC (Tue) by dkite (guest, #4577) [Link] It's the same legal system that will make it next to impossible for SCO to collectwhat they invoice out if no one wants to pay them. As a small contractor, it is scary to consider the lack of rights and recourse available. Even with a court decision in your favor, if your opponent doesn't want to pay, it takes years and great expense to get maybe a part of what is due. Even if it is obvious and clear that you are owed the amount. The economic system doesn't work because a judge says it should, it works because it is everyone's advantage to play by the 'rules'. Let SCO try to collect. Then it will go to court. And they will have to prove their point. And if someone wants to buy a useless piece of paper, maybe their names should be publicized, so we can all try to get something out of them. They would be a proven easy touch. Derek
SCO's new offensive Posted Jul 22, 2003 8:22 UTC (Tue) by ayeomans (subscriber, #1848) [Link] We know two names - Microsoft and Sun (:-)Maybe not quite such an easy touch!
SCO's new offensive Posted Jul 22, 2003 9:15 UTC (Tue) by swaldman (guest, #4269) [Link] Both Sun and Microsoft have ulterior reasons for not being too upset about a "leveling of the playing field" between Linux and proprietary operating systems. Their acquiescence doesn't say anything about how a company with no axe to grind would evaluate SCO's threats. It doesn't help though, that Sun and Microsoft are big names -- a follow-the-leader, cover-your-ass impulse might work in SCO's favor here, as SCO no doubt intended.We've all waited a long time to see how courts would handle the complex legal issues posed by the GPL. If SCO is not bluffing, and there really is a lot of commingling of code that SCO has a clear claim to, I guess we'll find out. Ain't no lawyer, but as far as I can tell, SCO can't succeed in doing what they're doing without persuading the courts to ignore the GPL in the face of competing commercial claims. If SCO does show infringement, then under GPL, the Linux kernel cannot be distributed at all until the infringing material is removed, notwithstanding any license anyone has bought from SCO. For these licenses to be worth anything, courts have to interpret GPL like LGPL, or enforce it not at all. Interesting times.
SCO's new offensive Posted Jul 22, 2003 20:06 UTC (Tue) by piman (subscriber, #8957) [Link] > We've all waited a long time to see how courts would handle the complex legal issues posed by the GPL.Please don't propogate this myth. The GPL does not pose any complex legal issues; the language of the GPL is very straightforward. All conditions it makes are clearly grounded in copyright law. Probably the only less ambiguous licenses are the new BSD one, and the MIT/X11/Expat/etc one.
SCO's new offensive Posted Jul 22, 2003 22:30 UTC (Tue) by lolando (subscriber, #7139) [Link] > The GPL does not pose any complex legal issues;Unfortunately, it does, in probably most of the world. It's written in English, for a start, which makes it hard to be valid at least here in France. It also strongly depends on the USAn copyright system (which seems to be rather widespread so this point may not be very important). It may also go against seemingly unrelated laws, like concurrency and customer protection laws: it's not straightforward that offering no guarantee of any kind is legal here. I'm taking the example of France because I'm French, but I assume some of these points are valid in other continental Europe countries, and probably others too.
SCO's new offensive Posted Jul 23, 2003 3:29 UTC (Wed) by flewellyn (subscriber, #5047) [Link] "It may also go against seemingly unrelated laws, like concurrency and customer protection laws: it's not straightforward that offering no guarantee of any kind is legal here."If this is not legal, then Microsoft, Sun, SCO, IBM, HP, and pretty much every other proprietary software company is in big trouble. Every proprietary EULA that I've read includes a disclaimer of warranty; the GPL is hardly alone in this regard. It's such common practice, both for free and non-free software, that any objections along these lines would be laughable; no court could rule against the GPL because of the lack of guarantee without also ruling against the entire software industry. Of course, everything SCO has been doing is laughable, but this would be even more so than usual.
SCO's new offensive Posted Jul 24, 2003 11:02 UTC (Thu) by one2team (guest, #7316) [Link] Most shrink-wrapped licenses are almost certainly abusive and at least partly illegal/void in most of the world. They rely on the fact- almost no one reads the fine print Why do you think so many of them state "parts of this document may not be legal your country" ? (as to why companies bother with them - do *YOU* think a company lawyer will tell his clueless boss he's paid to write junk ?)
SCO's new offensive Posted Jul 24, 2003 19:53 UTC (Thu) by mongre26 (guest, #4224) [Link] Before you attempt to "propagate" the myth that the GPL is somehow "magic" or "breaking new ground" please read Eben Moglens excellent essays on this exact subject. He is the lawyer most familiar with the GPL and its enforcement.http://emoglen.law.columbia.edu/publications/lu-12.html The short version is that the idea that the GPL needs to be "proven" in court is silly. Look at any of the files in Linux and you will find entries like the following in icside.c in the 2.4 kernel tree. * Copyright (c) 1996,1997 Russell King. What this shows, and what many people do not realize is that what protects Linux is not the GPL. The GPL is just a _contract_ under which you can use, modify and distribute Linux kernels. What protects Linux is copyright law. The same copyright law that the RIAA uses against university students, the same copyright law that Metallica used to sue Napster. Seems to be working out pretty well for them and I have no doubt it will work just as well for the Linux kernel authors. As far as other countries, again the GPL is not relevant nor is it relevant what language the GPL is written in. No matter what the country you are in what protects Linux kernel authors is Copyright law. The only question you need to ask is did the country in question sign onto the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (http://www.law.cornell.edu/treaties/berne/overview.html) or not ( or earlier copyright agreements ) and before you ask most countries signed it. If the country in question signed the agreement then the copyright stands and thus Russell's and any other kernel authors work is protected. To re-iterate, even if the GPL itself was not compatible with a particularly countries laws as long as said country signed the Berne Convention no one in that country can do anything with that code without Russell's explicit permission ( or that of other kernel authors ). Take the GPL away from Linux and you simply have a copyrighted and protected work, * All Rights Reserved *. I understand the confusion. What is Copy Right Law and what is contract law gets all mixed up. I blame the "copyleft" propaganda partly for confusing the issue. Simply put this is Copyright law. * Copyright (c) 1996,1997 Russell King. This is contract law /* You may use the kernel, which is copyrighted, if and only you follow the contract. If you choose not to follow the contract you have no additional rights to that work and are in violation of copyright. Simple really. Don't worry about Linux, it might seem all fuzzy and warm but it is protected by the same 8 foot thick reinforced steel doors that any other copyrighted work is. It is just that the kernel authors have agreed to let us all use their work as long as we sign their GPL contract. For this we all owe them our gratitude as the terms of the GPL contract are very generous indeed. No the party who should be worried is SCO if they try to start licensing Linux in violation of the GPL contract. If they do that copyright kicks in and SCO is likely to get their fingers caught in that steel door as it slams shut. - t All trademarks used in the above post are the properties of their respective owners
SCO's new offensive Posted Jul 31, 2003 19:29 UTC (Thu) by rgmoore (subscriber, #75) [Link] You may use the kernel, which is copyrighted, if and only you follow the contract. Actually, that's not really true. Just check out section 0 of the GPL: Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the Program (independent of having been made by running the Program). Whether that is true depends on what the Program does. Once you have a copy of the program, you're free to use it as you see fit, provided that the use is otherwise legal. You only have to pay attention to the GPL if you plan on distributing the program or works derived from the program.
SCO's new offensive Posted Jul 22, 2003 2:48 UTC (Tue) by tjc (guest, #137) [Link] How on Earth did we manage to come up with a legal system where extortionists and bottom-feeders like this could even exist, never mind get rich off of it?This hasn't gone to court yet, so passing judgement on the US legal system on the basis of SCO's actions alone hardly seems fair. It remains to be seen if anyone at SCO will actually get rich from all this. For all we know they might end up being convicted for extortion.
SCO's new offensive Posted Jul 22, 2003 4:49 UTC (Tue) by raph (guest, #326) [Link] >This hasn't gone to court yet, so passing judgement on the US legal system> on the basis of SCO's actions alone hardly seems fair. Actually, I think it is fair. What they're doing is threatening people and companies using nothing other than the US legal system. In a just world, nobody would pay them any attention, let alone give them enough credence to boost their stock and enable serious profits from stock sales. Just imagine how much good the total legal bills in this fiasco could do if they were embezzled towards the free software community instead.
SCO's new offensive Posted Jul 22, 2003 12:38 UTC (Tue) by rknop (guest, #66) [Link] Actually, I think it is fair. What they're doing is threatening people and companies using nothing other than the US legal system. In a just world, nobody would pay them any attention, let alone give them enough credence to boost their stock and enable serious profits from stock sales. Just imagine how much good the total legal bills in this fiasco could do if they were embezzled towards the free software community instead. Yes, thank you. And, it's not just the courts and the legal system I'm complaining about. It's the whole damn ball of wax. I will grant you that if you look at history, you can't find a system that's done better than our capitalistic mess (or, perhaps, than other versions of it-- I don't really believe that the USA has the highest standard of living for all of its citizens any more, although the true degree of personal freedom is debatable) when it comes to preserving human rights and individual freedom with large governments. But just because everything else that has been tried is worse doesn't mean that our system isn't a travesty... as this SCO business points out. I don't know the answer, but the whole thing makes me throw my hands up in frusturation. The fact that they might have a case and that people give them credence, the fact that according to the paper trail the people who are running SCO now and never contributed a damn thing (in contrast to the engineers and such from Caldera and SCO of years past-- it's not the same company any more), the fact that these parasites may actually "legally" have the intellectual property rights either to specific bits of code, or even to some more amorphously defined thing that could, under our system, make much of Linux a "derived work"-- well, it's plainly ridiculous on the face of it. Whatever you think about intellectual property in general, it's difficult to think that there is any justice in these particular SCO jokers being able to make the claim that they're making. And yet, our whole legal and economic system with its buying and selling of rights does allow a paper trail that makes that claim ostensively credible. If they are laughed at by everybody else, and if they eventually get laughed out of court, I'll feel a lot better. But it's almost already too late for that; the media has given them far too much credence, and analysists and such haven't come out and said that SCO should just be ignored. And there is a possibility that eventually the courts will say that the current implementation of Linux is derived from SCO's ill-gotten intellectual property. That will put a huge kink in Linux from which it may never recover. Sure, as soon as they're told what it actually is that SCO is bitching about, and as soon as they're given reason to believe that there might be something behind SCO's bitching (according to the potential opinion of the courts, even though it's almost certainly bullshit in reality), the Linux kernel developers will rip it out and replace it. But the damage will be done. Future versions of Linux, even without the infringing code, will always carry with them the doubt that there might be an SCO tie, and no corporate purchaser with any sense is going to allow it at his company. Linux will return in status to where it was in 1995 or thereabouts-- used by the hobbiest only, and with any driver support it has coming years after the support for proprietary operating systems. I sure as hell hope I'll still be able to use it in an academic setting, but we've all got our lawyers and such as well who will probably tell us to buy something proprietary "for safety". The fact that this is even a reasonable possibility just makes me sick thinking about our screwed up system. The whole idea of patents and copyrights and such is to encourage and reward creators, and the whole idea of civil law is to prevent people from taking advantage of each other. But the marriage of those two has spanwed this foul beast which is the SCO legal team making their intellectual property claims, despite the fact that they've never contributed a damn thing to society, despite the fact that they're the ones who would destroy one of the greatest movements of intellectual freedom in history for their own personal monetary gain, despite the fact that they never created the tiniest piece of Unix and as such are not the ones that copyright and patent laws in this country are theoretically supposed to be "protecting". That our system allows them even to try, even to be given the slightest bit of credence by those who listen, indicate that our system is fundamentally flawed and poorly motivated. And, yes, no other system is better, but as I said, not being worse doesn't make you good. -Rob
Silly legal and social systems Posted Jul 22, 2003 14:30 UTC (Tue) by jeff@uclinux.org (subscriber, #8024) [Link] Yes, actually Canada has a better standard of living and a (less than slightly?) lessmessed up legal system. Protections for Citizens is somewhat better too, and our "social safety net" is astonishing compaired to the US where if you can't pay, you could end up dying from it. Many other countries have evolved legal and social systems, based on the same principals, J.
SCO's new offensive Posted Jul 22, 2003 14:33 UTC (Tue) by tjc (guest, #137) [Link] I don't know the answer, but the whole thing makes me throw my hands up in frusturation.All of the world's problems can be summed up in one word: people. If we weren't here, everything would be fine. ;-)
loser pays Posted Jul 22, 2003 19:59 UTC (Tue) by pflugstad (subscriber, #224) [Link] Go read this:http://overlawyered.com/topics/lpays.html scroll past the articles at the top and read the summary.
SCO's new offensive Posted Jul 24, 2003 6:06 UTC (Thu) by ekj (subscriber, #1524) [Link] I don't really believe that the USA has the highest standard of living for all of its citizens any more, although the true degree of personal freedom is debatableThis is uncontroversial. USA is at the forefront in pure economic terms (though beat by some small rich states) but in general living-standard they are not leading. The UN Human Development Index for example, is a index based on a multitude of social and economic indicators such as income, gender inequality, access to education, poverty-level, illiteracy, life-expectancy, infant mortality, access to healthcare and so on. In 2003 USA scored 7th place. Beat by (in sequence) Norway, Iceland, Sweden, Australia, Netherlands and Belgium. Still quite good offcourse, since 7th out of 55 "highly developed" countries is still respectable. This unshakeable belief that some Americans seem to have that their country is the best possible one is quite silly though.
SCO's new offensive Posted Jul 24, 2003 8:34 UTC (Thu) by Liefting (subscriber, #8466) [Link] That's cute...As far as I know, 3 or 4 (I'm not sure about Norway) of these countries are actually kingdoms. One has a women president, and one was started by shipping prisoners to what was then considered a mostly-empty continent. Makes you wonder, doesn't it?
SCO's new offensive Posted Jul 31, 2003 13:22 UTC (Thu) by job (guest, #670) [Link] Norway is a kingdom.What does it make you wonder?
SCO's new offensive Posted Jul 30, 2003 4:55 UTC (Wed) by ronzone (guest, #10671) [Link] This is uncontroversial. USA is at the forefront in pure economic terms (though beat by some small rich states) but in general living-standard they are not leading.The UN Human Development Index for example, is a index based on a multitude of social and economic indicators such as income, gender inequality, access to education, poverty-level, illiteracy, life-expectancy, infant mortality, access to healthcare and so on. In 2003 USA scored 7th place. Beat by (in sequence) Norway, Iceland, Sweden, Australia, Netherlands and Belgium.
SCO's new offensive Posted Jul 31, 2003 10:07 UTC (Thu) by dark (subscriber, #8483) [Link] I think that even your nightmare scenario is just a matter of educating the public. Only a dumb lawyer would recommend buying proprietary software "for safety", because it isn't any safer. Consider that a victory for SCO (in some alternate reality :) would also mean IBM's AIX license is revoked, leaving all of IBM's customers in need of licenses from SCO. It would also mean that SCO has similar rights to every proprietary Unix except Sun's. Furthermore, buying proprietary software on a large scale generally means entering into a contract with the vendor, a contract in which you give up many of the protections normally available to a consumer. Microsoft, for example, explicitly disclaims liability for damages resulting from its products, even in cases where Microsoft acted negligently and in bad faith. (Whether it can successfully avoid this liability when sued is another matter, but the rights of copyright holders are getting stronger all the time so it wouldn't surprise me. Next time you see a software license, check if it specifies that disputes must be resolved in a UCITA state.) Then there's the Timeline incident, which shows that buying proprietary software is just as likely to get you into trouble, and you'll have no recourse other than to stop using the product entirely or pay extra license fees to a third party. Note that Microsoft, again, does not indemnify or protect its customers in such a case. My examples are from Microsoft because their licenses are public knowledge. I don't know if licenses from other vendors are any better. Judging by the history of the Unix licenses, I doubt they are...
SCO's new offensive Posted Jul 22, 2003 14:20 UTC (Tue) by tjc (guest, #137) [Link] Actually, I think it is fair. What they're doing is threatening people and companies using nothing other than the US legal system.Yes they are, but that's entirely SCO's transgression, not the US court systems. One of the foundations of the US legal system is the concept of "due process." I would be very concerned if this principle were set aside. Now that would be something worth complaining about. In other words, SCO can't be found guilty before they are found guilty. You may think this would be fine, but what if the circumstances were different? Say, for example, that you or I were punished for some crime before we had been tried in court, based soley on public opinion? This is the case in some parts of the world; places that I'm glad I don't live. It may be evident that SCO is in the wrong to you and I, but this has not yet been tried in court.
guilty plaintiff? Posted Jul 23, 2003 9:06 UTC (Wed) by djao (subscriber, #4263) [Link] SCO can't be found guilty before they are found guilty.Actually, SCO is the plaintiff in the IBM case (which is the only legal case that has been brought forth so far), and "guilty" is not a concept which applies to the plaintiff.
guilty plaintiff? Posted Jul 23, 2003 17:09 UTC (Wed) by tjc (guest, #137) [Link] When I said "guilty" I was referring to the accusations against SCO by members of the Linux community, specifically within the context of this discussion, not the SCO v. IBM case. Sorry about the confusion, I should have been more explicit about this.It seems resonable (to me) to speculate that SCO's recent actions may result in additional trips to court, especially now that they are attempting to extort protection money from people without even saying what it's for.
guilty plaintiff? Posted Jul 31, 2003 16:10 UTC (Thu) by forthy (guest, #1525) [Link] > SCO can't be found guilty before they are found guilty.Actually, here in Germany, SCO has been stopped by court to repeat its lies without proof. We have consumer protection laws. The stuff SCO tells (without proof) is against those consumer protection laws. SCO has been found guilty. And they did stopp telling their lies in Germany (except that those lies they tell elsewhere still are spreaded around here). Usually, if you tell that someone else did something criminal (and that's what SCO is doing), you can do that legally in two ways: either you provide a proof, or you clearly mark it as satire or something like that, so that people understand that it is not meant seriously. Why can't someone sue SCO on consumer protection laws in the states? There are, you can get millions for being burned by a surprisingly hot coffee from McDonalds (ah, I expected coffee at McDonalds to be as stale and lukewarm as their fries are ;-). And why does nobody, since SCO now obviously breaks the GPL, sue them on breaking contract law (the GPL), go in, and shut down all their Linux boxes?
SCO's new offensive Posted Aug 1, 2003 16:39 UTC (Fri) by walterbyrd (guest, #11620) [Link] >>Yes they are, but that's entirely SCO's transgression, not the US court systems.<<What about the SEC, DOJ, FTC, and Attorney General? When a company tells you that you owe them money, when you don't really: that is a lie, and it's fraud. When the company threatens to sue you over rights that the company only pretends to have: that is extortion and barratry. When the company pumps it's stock price by proclaiming information that is not true, that is stock manipulation. The USA legal system is clearly failing in this matter.
SCO's new offensive Posted Jul 22, 2003 11:00 UTC (Tue) by ctg (subscriber, #3459) [Link] It's all about the legal system and nothing else.- Either pay me a relatively small amount or face the threat of vast legal bills. If I win you will pay me a vast amount on top of legal bills; if I lose you won't get anything from me because I have nothing, but you will still have to pay a vast legal fee. So the choice is to pay a small sum or a very large sum. This is a feature of the legal system where any action is very expensive, regardless of the outcome. In addition it is lengthy, so you will be under a cloud of financial uncertainty for a while. Will people want to invest in you? Will you be able to get loans? Will customers want to enter a relationship with you?
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