Maybe SCO had a point

Posted Aug 22, 2003 3:22 UTC (Fri) by ccchips (subscriber, #3222) [Link]

Well....I wish people would start looking at history, especially the history of physical industry, such as food (recipes) architecture (blueprints,) manufacturing (cement products, hardware, etc.,) and show people who are willing to listen, how openness has always won out in the long run.

And--as far as copyright infringement is concerned, how the Hell can anyone cshow copyright infringement if they won't show the infringer their copy?

As for SCO's spin on the deal, it's probably time to start writing and calling our supporters in industry. Rmember, it is a benefit to hardware manufacturers if they can avoid unnecessary software costs. It should therefore benefit those people to help us correct any errors that may have been made.

It would also benefit them to help us to show that SCO is blowing trivial matters way out of proportion, instead of concentrating on their big issue (assuming they have one in the first place.)

It might also be good to ask SCO why they insist on distributing products like Samba on their proprietary platforms, while at the same time spouting their rhetoric.

Posted Aug 22, 2003 9:45 UTC (Fri) by brouhaha (subscriber, #1698) [Link]

If SCO allowed us to remove the offending code, they wouldn't have a strong case in court.

IANAL, but I believe that to be false. Suppose your neighbor doesn't keep his dog properly secured, and the dog routinely destroys your garden. There are two scenarios:

1. You tell the neighbor he is causing you damage, but don't give details. The neighbor asks how he can fix the problem, but you refuse to tell him. The damage continues to occur, and you file suit against the neighbor. When you wind up in court, the judge asks you why you wouldn't specify the specific damages so that they could be corrected. The judge awards you damages for the problems that occurred before you notified your neighbor, but not for those that occurred later, because you didn't make a good faith effort to provide enough information for your neighbor to solve the problem.
2. You tell your neighbor that the dog is getting loose. The neighbor fixes the problem. However, you still want the neighbor to pay for your flowers, and he refuses. You sue, and even though the problem has since been remedied, you present evidence that damage occurred. .The judge awards you the damages.

Note that keeping the nature of the infringement secret, as SCO has been doing, does not in fact help their case at all. The judge will want to know why SCO chose not to reveal the specific Linux code in question (beyond the one trivial example they've shown) so that the Linux copyright holders could take positive action to stop infringing. SCO's claim that revealing the Linux code in question would damage their trade secrets is completely ludicrous; the Linux code is already public, so for SCO to state that lines 1287-1315 of foo.c infringe their copyrights would not damage any trade secrets. They do not have to show the System V code to do this, although it would eventually be necessary to prove infringement if they choose to litigate over the copyright.

Posted Aug 22, 2003 18:11 UTC (Fri) by lsweeks (guest, #14198) [Link]

>If SCO allowed us to remove the offending code, they wouldn't have a strong case in court.

Just the opposite, actually. If SCO showed the code they would be identifiying the IP they claim ownership of in order to mitigate their damages as required under law. By taking actions that tend to continue or enhance the claimed damages of infringement they are in essence destroying their claim to be acting in good faith on this issue. This is specifically barred by copyright law.