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SCO's new offensiveSCO's new offensivePosted Jul 31, 2003 10:07 UTC (Thu) by dark (subscriber, #8483)In reply to: SCO's new offensive by rknop Parent article: SCO's new offensive
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...
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