SCO's earnings report [LWN.net]

SCO's earnings report

Posted Aug 14, 2003 13:37 UTC (Thu) by dbhost (guest, #3461) [Link] (2 responses)

Let's see, Copyright claims that additional copies may be made with the copyright holder's written permission, the copyright holder has released the software under the GNU / GPL, which supplies said written permission, so what's the big deal? If anything, it looks like McBumpkin and his cronies are sniffing glue again.

SCO's earnings report

Posted Aug 14, 2003 13:50 UTC (Thu) by forthy (guest, #1525) [Link] (1 responses)

Well, we know that SCO breaks the GPL by wanting an antidot license, and therefore, the
GPL is invalid for SCO. But according to their own words, the GPL is null and void as is,
anyway, so they broke the copyright of thousands by distributing Caldera OpenLinux. They
had only the right to make a single personal backup of the RedHat distribution OpenLinux
originally bases on.

How hot is it in Utah at the moment?

SCO's earnings report

Posted Aug 14, 2003 15:19 UTC (Thu) by erat (guest, #21) [Link]

Actually, OpenLinux was based on the LST distribution from Erlangen, Germany. Caldera Network Desktop used Red Hat.

Just clearin' a few things up, that's all.

Re: English article

Posted Aug 14, 2003 14:08 UTC (Thu) by Ross (guest, #4065) [Link] (3 responses)

That seems to be a poorly researched or hastily written article.

The GPL doesn't disclaim copyright of a work, so while it may be true
that disclaiming copyright is difficult or impossible in US law (Lessig
has noted this), that is not relevant.

The article also says that SCO legal firm said it will claim that
copyright restrictions preemt licenses. For example, that you can only
make one copy of a work for backup purposes. If true, this would
invalidate most restrictions in most copyright licenses.

In any case, if what they say is true, then they are still in violation
of the copyrights on the Linux kernel. If the GPL is invalid, nothing gave
them the right to create and distribute copies of it themself.

If software licenses as a whole can only grant those rights explicitly
granted by copyright law, the SCO would also be in violation of other
Unix copyright holder's rights and its coveted agreements with IBM, Sun,
Microsoft, Sequent, and others would also be void because they wouldn't
be able to grant the right to modify Unix to those companies.

That argument sounds so flawed and so likely to hurt them that I don't
think even SCO would use it. Maybe SCO told their lawyers to start
spreading the FUD.

Of course IANAL and SCO has done some crazy things already so we'll see...

Re: English article

Posted Aug 14, 2003 15:17 UTC (Thu) by kunitz (subscriber, #3965) [Link] (2 responses)

I have an subscription to the WSJ website.

It is reported that Mr. Mark Heise of Boies Schiller & Flexner LLP said, that SCO will argue that the GPL itself is invalid. In Heise's legal theory US federal law pre-empts the GPL by allowing only one single backup copy.

I can't comment on this nonsense.

Re: English article

Posted Aug 14, 2003 15:44 UTC (Thu) by ccchips (subscriber, #3222) [Link]

I can; that's ridiculous.

If the copyright holder allows redistribution of the work, then that would override any fedaral law. There is no way this Government is going to tell me, the creator of a work of art, useful or otherwise, how many backup copies I can permit others to make, nor whether I may or may not permit others to redistribute my work without limit. Because if they *are* going to try that, and they succeed, it's time for a full-scale revolution--this has become a dictatorship.

I will be positive, and assume a sensible judge would stop that one good.

Re: English article

Posted Aug 14, 2003 16:08 UTC (Thu) by ccchips (subscriber, #3222) [Link]

Second comment:

I went to read the Register article, which talked about this.

When I think about it more, I believe the Federal law was applicable if the copyright holder had reserved all rights. That law was supposed to be a way for people to preserve their investment in a software package, even if the copyright holder prohibited any copying at all.

If that's true, either Boise's team is incredibly stupid, or they're out to misuse the law for their client's gain. Again, I would hope a judge wouls squash this like a bug.

SCO's earnings report

Posted Aug 14, 2003 17:30 UTC (Thu) by gups (guest, #14053) [Link]

What the hell are Boise and his boys doing? First they took on a case which would sure damage both their and their client's credibility. Then they sat back and let their client continuously mouth off garbage. Now they come up with this hilarious crap in WSJ.

No wonder they're so famous!

SCO's earnings report

Posted Aug 14, 2003 18:25 UTC (Thu) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link]

"JUST PLAIN F U D"

After RED HAT and IBM lawsuits, i have to be cautious with more sensitive persons, but i have to say that:

SCO, OR BETTER SAYING IT'S MA$TER, IS WINNING HIS INTENTS.

The danger for "they" is not if they win or lose in the courts, but if they go in with enough time to lock the majority of users behind DRM machines,..., the lawsuits, absurd as they always seemed IS ONLY A DIVERSION, wich intent is to create enough stir and FUD to prevent the flocking of users to alternative OSes and away from DRM.

14000 desktops in Munich, more a couple of thousands here and there, even 200000 along several years, is not enough yet to unsettle the dictator of the IT world.

IMHO, WOULD BE THOUNSAND TIMES A MUCH BETTER JOB, NOT TO TALK ABOUT SCO, AND TO TALK WIHT THE SAME INTENSITY ABOUT IMPROVING LINUX/OSS STANDARDS(LSB et all)!...

Because if the DRM machine hit hard, than no more tips or papers to wright OSS drivers, no more freeware or shareware even being closed binary forms,... and no more Linux/OSS.