Law Professor Examines SCO Case 558
An anonymous submitter writes "This law professor from the University of California points out weakness in SCO's legal bluster, and further takes a poke at closed software, for those hungry for more SCO scraps. At the end, he references Slashdot for more info ('itself a demonstration of the power of dispersed individuals working together')."
Hah! (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:The Biggest SCO Weakness (Score:2, Insightful)
No, but there is a difference between not volunteering the truth, and outright accusations based on no fact.
It is business smart not to 'volunteer' information which can hurt you, and every company does it.
The *only* thing Linux should fear is patents..... (Score:5, Insightful)
If Microsoft or anyone else gets coordinated enough, maybe 10 years from now, the software industry will be so littered with software patent landmines that Linux will no longer be able to continue development. This is a very real possibility.
Please, Slashdot readers, we need to join together to figure out how the hell we are going to stop this, or else we need to come up with implementations of new ideas, business methods, software algorithms before anyone else like Microsoft can, and publish them open source so that no one else can claim a patent on them!
Talk to your representatives in Washington, Europe, whereever because this is a very real and very serious threat that **will** kill software development.
Re:I doubt they're going to win. (Score:2, Insightful)
Where there's money there's greedy people - a necessary evil that goes with the creation of a new paradigm for software.
Pull out the duct-tape and expect the herd to move in and trample everything. By next year David Letterman will be making lame jokes about Linus' hair.
Re:What has been said all along (Score:5, Insightful)
The guy in the article made a similar comment and I fail to see how it's relevant at all. The issue here is that IBM licensed some code and SCO is claiming that IBM then used this licensed code in Linux. That SCO also participated in Linux development is utterly irrelevant unless they themselves also put proprietary Unix code into Linux.
Now the issue of what took SCO so long to figure this all out might be more relevant. But it would appear that SCO and IBM have been in talks about this for a while, so it's hard to say how long the "offending" code has been there.
SCO biggest Goof (Score:3, Insightful)
After they lose this case there will be nothing lkeft but the angry mob of customers taking McBride's hide and stapling it to the wall..
Re:Credit where credit is due... (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a lot of vagueness there -- aside from the kernel, GNU had recreated the majority of the OS long before SCO owned any such trademarks.
The part they lacked most, the kernel, has been so long in coming almost because of that fact -- they recreated the OS to work with existing kernels, so there wasn't a dire need for one.
In other words, reinventing the OS was more important than reinventing the kernel. But the OS (GNU) was recreated legally, and the FSF owns copyright to every line of code in a GNU project (to prevent silly suits such as this one).
ah come on, I thought everyone figured this out ! (Score:4, Insightful)
can't you see it's obvious what SCO is doing?
and what this is all really about?
no... ok clueless ones, here's a clue for you...
after they announced the lawsuit their stock went up $10 a share, and the VP sold over 100,000 shares that day!
hello?!? Don't you get it? They don't care if they lose (and they will) that was never the point!
just like the WMD crapola in iraq (there never were any, it never was about that), it was about the oil!
all SCO wants to do is jack the stock high enough, long enough for their CEO, VPs, etc to cash out nice and RICH, and leave a burning twisted pile of rubble at the end....
they probably figured IBM (or someone - say Mr. Bill at M$) might buy them out, but either way, they're getting fat and rich off the share prices.
its a stock scam, and the securities people should be all over this!
so now you know the truth... what are ya gonna do about it?
Ummm, no (Score:4, Insightful)
That would be like saying since McAfee wrote Virus Scan on top of Windows and using the information from Windows then they can't reuse any of that code in writing a Virus Scanner for any other OS.
Re:What has been said all along (Score:5, Insightful)
That is only one issue. SCO has been claiming that ALL modern operating systems are in some fashion derived from ideas that they own. They have been talking about per CPU licenses for Linux users and that the "free ride" is over. I'd say their previous Open Source participation is EXTREMELY relevant.
Imagine the Microsoft win-win from this. (Score:5, Insightful)
a] SCO wins and Linux and/or IBM is injured
I have to wonder if they researched the issue and then clued in SCO to go after people.
Also...
What if it is determined that IBM gave up its rights (by helping Linux) and that SCO isn't the sucessor the the rights? Would nobody own UNIX, and if so, would that devalue it in some way?
Re:I doubt they're going to win. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not _that_ open. Try getting a patch without review to the vanilla tree..
And besides, isn't IBM one of these "core companies"?
Calm down folks (Score:2, Insightful)
Alright, the guy is brown nosing in his article to get some fame, but he's surely more qualified to comment on the legal merits of this case than 99% of the cretins here. It is legal opinion that will decide this matter, not a bunch of people arguing over the merits of RMS's claims to OS glory. No matter how wizard your skills are Harry Potter, getting a lawyer's opinion is the only way to understand the potential impact of this case, which could make some of us very unhappy. I, for one, found this article informative, and that's all I ask for with opinion pieces.
Now take a pill and play nice.
Re:The Biggest SCO Weakness (Score:2, Insightful)
I doubt they're going to win.-But I'm still scared (Score:1, Insightful)
And why wouldn't they? Desperation breeds desperate acts. Besides bluffing is a time honored tactic, both in war and business.
" It could be that they've got a solid case. It could be that they're working out some great shenanigans. Irregardless, I'm starting to wonder if Linux should be open to the average user to contribute, or if perhaps it should be restricted to a core group of companies and Linus who can afford lawyers to vet the code. Things are getting pretty scary in the open source world, particularly with the lawyers getting involved..."
Did you read the article? It's already explained why this isn't necessary. Besides those things in life that are truely worthwile are worth fighting for. Now the OSS movement will finally have the trials and tribulations that seperate the men from the boys. The rubber meets the road, and we will find out if our principles actually mean anything.
SCO's real game (Score:5, Insightful)
Assume for a second that this case goes to court. What are the chances that it will be resolved quickly? Not good. The matter is arcane enough that it will spend several years going through judgement, appeal, judgement, appeal, as long as SCO can pay their own (cheap) legal fees.
What on earth can SCO be after? I don't believe it's a settlement from IBM. They _know_ IBM, a company that has always lived by the fist.
What else? Their business is bankrupt. They sell _nothing_. Their IP is worthless - indeed, realizing this may have been the trigger that set them on their course.
Nuisance value, that is their game. They are attacking Linux and all OSS by association, and they are attacking it a level that plays directly to the paranoia of managers making a Windows / Linux choice today. What SCO are saying, and getting lots of attention to, is that Linux/OSS is not a safe choice. Even IBM are likely to be sued. How about your business next? If the RIAA can sue ten thousand P2P users, why can't SCO sue ten thousand Linux users?
Normal decent paranoia suggests that Microsoft's hand and money lie behind this move, but that is not the crux of the matter.
What is important is that we are at the stage when Linux/OSS seriously threatens commercial interests, and this looks like an undeclared war by those interests against it. War is not nice, not decent, not logical.
Such attacks can go either way. Linux has never has so much publicity as during the last weeks, and the association IBM+Linux is now strongly in the minds of many managers. This is a good thing. People trust IBM.
The OSS community must counter attack. The best approach would be a collective libel and defamation suit by some thousand OSS developers, seeking punitive damages against SCO.
Such a suit would not win but it would show SCO that their opponents are not helpless nerds unable to understand the meaning of cold, hard steel. Knives out!!
Perhaps someone from the EFF would set up a campaign fund? I would gladly contribute $50 or $100 if it would result in SCO getting slapped with a suit.
Re:I doubt they're going to win. (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone ever hear the phrase, "Even bad publicity is good publicity"?
Hold up a minute.... (Score:2, Insightful)
A few years ago, I was mucking around with Linux on my machine. Of course, I was a regular in the associated IRC chat rooms, and did a lot of internet searching to basically "learn how the dang thing worked". As my understanding grew, I started to contribute by helping newbies myself when I could (once walked someone through a kernel build over IRC). Anyway, back then, the pervading mode of thought was that Linux was the actual operating system and the everything else were merely extensions to it (X, FVWM, etc.). Just like with DOS was the actual operating system and Windows was just a program running on top of it.
Now, the paradigm appears to have shifted. The latest versions of Windows are no longer trying to eek out what they can out of the venerable DOS and, today, Linux is just a kernel and the whole package is the OS.
Fair enough, define it however you wish, but it really just boils down to semantics..doesn't it?
BTW -- When the HURD matures a little (a my kids get older so I have some free time), I'll probably muck around with it a little as well. Although, I did just do a hard drive install of Knoppix and I'm pretty darned impressed with KDE - quite an evolutionary change from FVWM2.
Re:Yeah, that was news (Score:5, Insightful)
NO you could not have.
there is a difference, a big difference, between an Anonymous Coward IANAL saying "the SCO suit has no merit", and a law professor saying "the SCO suit has no merit".
sure there are no new facts, no brilliant new insights there, (nor from you). it's an opinion piece. What is significant is not what was said, but who signed their name to it.
Re:Ummm, no (Score:5, Insightful)
Ummmm no. There is a huge difference between writing an application FOR an OS and writing code that is a PART of the OS. SCO is claiming that any code that becomes a PART of the OS becomes their property (rightly or wrongly). To clarify your analogy, it would be like McAfee being granted a license to make VirusScan a PART of Windows, but in return, M$ now makes claim to that code. If their license says that McAfee then can't use that code in other apps, then they'd get sued if they tried.
The *only* thing Linux should fear is patents..NO! (Score:4, Insightful)
Since it's the US that's pulling most of this nonsense. It's the US that will suffer the most, while the rest of the planet will shake it's collective head, and mutter something under it's breath about those silly Americans.
If there's any dark knight? It's the same force that brought about the mess in the first place.
That's right, greed. You'll see change when rampent software patents make it nearly impossible to continue to make money.
Then you'll see the gordion knot undone quicker than it took to tie.
Re:The Biggest SCO Weakness (Score:3, Insightful)
Insider Trading.
As much as they wish they can sell their stock, the SEC would nail them to the wall, and the way the public is feeling, I doubt 'Club Fed' would be in the cards.
Re:I doubt they're going to win. (Score:3, Insightful)
Instead why don't we refuse contributions from corporate companies. After all it's mainly the U.S. based corporations that erode everything that is even remotely based on benevolent principles -- Capitalism at work primary focus is not on the advancement of humanity...
This is no more a good idea than yours - to do either will do more harm than anything some [insert evil doer here] can dream up to deter the growth of GNU, Linux, or OSS of any flavor.
Revisionist history (Score:5, Insightful)
Linus Torvalds did not "indtroduce an operating system...that did some of what UNIX did". Linus wrote a kernel, which is complementary to UNIX kernels (though different in architecture, design, etc). He did not write the entire operating system -- properly called GNU/Linux. He wrote one component necessary for the operating system that is now improperly called "Linux".
This is not a knock again Linus. He has never claimed credit for any entire GNU/Linux operating system, nor GNU/Linux in general. He has simply claimed credit for the Linux kernel.
It is, however, a prime illustration of how simply calling all GNU/Linux OS' "Linux" is revising history. People here talk about it like, "so what, everyone knows Linus didn't write all of the software for Linux-based OS' [GNU/Linux distros]". We know that. Obviously, no one else does. This lawyer thinks that Linus Torvalds created the GNU/Linux distributions from the ground up, single-handedly.
It is an example of revisionist history. Just like how Issac Newton is credited as the founder of Calculus, but no-one mentions Leibniz, who invented calculus at the same time as Newton independently.
Linus has done great things for the FS and OSS communities. We should, however, credit others where credit is due.
Re:I doubt they're going to win. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:The *only* thing Linux should fear is patents.. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:I doubt they're going to win. (Score:3, Insightful)
Why not? SCO is going BR anyway. SCO has everything to win and nothing to lose by filing this lawsuit. At the very least, SCO sent their stock price from $2 to $10. Insiders are still selling like mad.
IBM, on the other hand, has a lot to lose if SCO has a case. If SCO had any case at all, it would have been best for IBM to settle as quickly and quietly as possible.
There is no way IBM would want this to court if there was any chance of SCO winning.
No, patents are LESS worrisome than SCO case (Score:3, Insightful)
With this full transparency, legions of open source coders could write around the protected algorithm. Although important code might be sacrificed, no legal problem would remain.
Much more distressing is the possibility that a company like SCO finds a judge who agrees to view code that is the foundation for a legal claim "in chambers", and finds IBM or another firm using Linux guilty of violating some "copyrighted" or "trade secret" not a matter of public record.
That's the big danger of the SCO case -- the prospect that the code that is the foundation for the legal claim never sees the light of day.
Patents are a danger only to some countries... (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, this will come as cold comfort to those of us in the idiot countries, because if M$ and company DO manage to erect software patent barriers to OSS, Linux will be a banned article we cannot legally import.
The logical result of all this will be that the US and (probably) EU will lose their technological edge to China and India and become second-rate powers (and probably not just in the software field) until the software patent madness is overturned.
Our leaders, if they had any ability to think strategically beyond the next election, would realize that Open Source is a critical resource for their countries' ability to compete in the only area they have a critical advantage in -- their technological edge. (Not that I like what's been sliced up with that edge recently, but living in a declining country is an unpleasant prospect...).
Re:The Biggest SCO Weakness (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:ah come on, I thought everyone figured this out (Score:5, Insightful)
Word of advice; personally, I wouldn't accuse the SCO folks of running an illegal pump-and-dump scam in a public forum, since that could potentially lead to a libel suit. Since you've represented this as fact and not opinion, I'd say you're at pretty high risk...
Re:ah come on, I thought everyone figured this out (Score:3, Insightful)
That's the fun thing about "intellectual property". It doesn't burn to the ground. It survives corporate implosion - at pennies on the dollar. With a fire-sale price, such "property" can even be snatched up by those with relatively little to lose and a lot to gain if they can leverage their new holdings in a creative manner.
And, of course, it doesn't stop there. Even if a company remains intact one shouldn't depend on the benevolence of that company. Company leadership changes. There could be a personnel shuffling in management. Or perhapse someone in Legal discovers a particularly "clever" way of making more money and gets top-level support.
Which, of course, sounds awfully familiar.
his argument (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Yeah, that was news (Score:5, Insightful)
T'is very true. If I point a CEO or CTO to my article on Kuro5hin [kuro5hin.org], they'll just yawn and walk away. On the other hand, if I point them to the same article signed by a lawyer and law professor, they're a bit more likely to sit up, take notice and possibly even sell their inflated SCO stocks.
If I say "Let's go to war against North Korea", people talk about putting me in a psyche ward.
If Bush says "Let's go to war against North Korea", people go and buy duct tape and plastic(!).
The difference is not the words, it's who says it and how people listen to them that counts.q1
Re:ah come on, I thought everyone figured this out (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes. It is obvious. This is discussed again and again each time SCO comes up. Thanks for restating it.
But you, in turn, are missing another point. It doesn't matter what their intent is. What matters is their claims and actions.
Another initial theory floated when this whole thing cropped up is that its all being orchistrated by Microsoft. After all, it would appear to be validation of MS' most recent anti-Linux strategy claims. I'm more inclined to think that Caldera/SCO took a pointer from Microsoft's sales propoganda. But in any case, there will now be CIOs making purchasing and deployment policy based on both Microsoft and SCO propoganda.
What we are already doing about it. Keeping informed. Discussing claims. Being prepared to offer a counter-perspective if the oportunity arises.
Part of this situation is a publicity stunt. That's where we come in. But the other part will, most likely, be an actual trial in court. That will be up to IBM.
One final point...
Keep in mind that the SEC is a governmental agency. These guys work on a very different time schedule than we do. They're slow and deliberate - but if they come down, they'll come down hard (whether it sticks or not is another point entirely).
I'm reminded of the spammer Rodona Garst who's legendary pump-and-dump spam [slashdot.org] eventually lead to action [sec.gov] by the SEC.
Re:I doubt they're going to win. (Score:3, Insightful)
Just wait until the big shareholders have quietly unloaded their stock, and expect a retraction of the lawsuit (on second thought, we may not have a strong case against IBM at all...)
[Any ressemblence to actual persons or situations is purely coincedental]
Re:Credit where credit is due... (Score:3, Insightful)
Given the philosophical drive of the GNU Project, I highly doubt this statement. I don't think GNU thought it was such a great idea to run free utilities on top of a closed-source proprietary kernel.
the FSF owns copyright to every line of code in a GNU project (to prevent silly suits such as this one).
Nothing can prevent a lawsuit. Some things help you win one. In any case, somebody who steals code (say, from the company he works for) and contributes it to the GNU project will result in the same actionable contamination.
Re:Revisionist history (Score:3, Insightful)
There are times and places for taking to task those who play fast and loose with our favorite subject, but this isn't an example of either.
Beware of Talking Heads (Score:1, Insightful)
Even a cursory history of the expert professors (most of whom have never actually litigated in a courtroom) which have filled the news channels over the last few years would show an astounding ability to make pronouncements which turned out to be wrong. The OJ Simpson case is a great example. But there they were reporting on a trial as it unfolded. Here we only have the filed complaint and media posturing by affected parties. Hardly an informed base on which to fully analyze litigation. (and a very complex one)
The professor certainly knows the law, but he does not know the facts - without which he has only 1/2 the equation.
Untils we get more information stuff like this is only surmise - regardless of who says it.
Re:ah come on, I thought everyone figured this out (Score:3, Insightful)
OTOH I bet they *will* listen to hundreds of SCOX investors after they get bilked.
Re:Next Slashdot Article (Score:4, Insightful)
What's especially interesting about that case, is when Caldera acquired DR-DOS it was already effectively destroyed and devalued, and presumably Caldera paid much less for it when they acquired it (like buying a car that's already wrecked from a scrapyard, and then suing whoever wrecked it, in my view).
The people who would have suffered any real damages from MS's conduct would have been primarily DR, and possibly Novell. But Caldera was the one who sued and ended up getting the settlement.