SCO Calls GPL Unenforceable, Void 1186
wes33 writes "Groklaw has a link
to SCO's replies to IBM's amended complaints. Some
choice bits: '6th Affirmative Defense -
The GPL is unenforceable, void and/or voidable, and IBM's claims
based thereon, or related thereto, are barred. ... 7th Affirmative Defense - The GPL is selectively enforced by the Free Software Foundation
such that enforcement of the GPL by IBM or others is waived, estopped or otherwise barred as a matter of equity. ... 8th Affirmative Defense -
The GPL violates the U.S. Constitution, together with copyright, antitrust
and export control laws, and IBM's claims based theron, or related thereto, are barred.' Comments are pouring in ... not all of them
complimentary to SCO or its legal strategy." Considering that the GPL and the GNU project rely on and affirm the protections of copyright, this seems like a strange argument to pursue.
Can you say, "Pump and Dump"? (Score:5, Insightful)
EFF (Score:5, Insightful)
If Linus is unequal in his pursuit of his intellectual property rights vis a vis the GPL that only renders Linus property rights at issue, not the GPL. The GPL is a licence (like the Microsoft Shared Source Licence, or even EULA) and not an institution. Since the GPL is one of the more innovative licences we often lose sight of that fact.
(IANAL, of course)
Strung up by their own rope (Score:4, Insightful)
Please, I beg ANY developers of GPL'ed code that is in SCOs distro on their FTP site. Please sue these bastards for breach of copyright. I am willing to pony up $100 to anybody about to do this.
This madness has just got to end.
I'd hate to see (Score:2, Insightful)
They quite knowingly accepted the terms and conditions of the GPL, long before they ever acquired the rights to UNIX or worked on Project Monterey. Even if by some crazy ludicrous miracle of stupidity they actually managed to get anywhere with their lawsuit regarding Unix rights, I'd be incredulous to see them get anywhere with attempts to prosecute users of Linux, commercial or otherwise.
Despite verbosity, IANAL
Re:SCOX ticker says it all (Score:2, Insightful)
This is a good thing. (Score:5, Insightful)
If the GPL stands up in court, it's SCO's case that is going to be crippled.
Re:Can you say, "Pump and Dump"? (Score:4, Insightful)
At what stage does the pumping cross any legal boundaries? I guess while they're getting professional legal opinions they're still in the clean legally.
Selective enforcement of copyright violation (Score:3, Insightful)
If the FSF decides to selectively enforce the GPL and in some way that manages to release their copyright (stay with me).
How exactly does this action relate to IBM?
Even if the FSF was selectively enforcing trademarks, how does that relate to IBMs rights?
Pump and dump is fraud (Score:3, Insightful)
In some jurisdictions, bringing a frivolous lawsuit is the crime of barratry. Even in states without tough anti-barratry laws, "pump and dump" is still securities fraud [duke.edu].
No GPL = Copyright violation (Score:3, Insightful)
Everyone else thought they had a valid licence to distribute linux.
Re:SCOX ticker says it all (Score:5, Insightful)
"Over a 4% drop"? That seems practically insignificant.
The thing that really bugs me is what goes on with financial news all the time - they'll interpret market movements as the obvious effect of X news event without demonstrating any link. "Microsoft issued two new security patches today, and so happy investors raised stock values 4%." It's exceptionally naive to assume that only the events you care about affect what happens to stock prices.
Correlation does not imply causality. It could just as easily be that the SCO-execs-and-cohorts are pulling stock prices to refill their pump-and-dump tanks - it's really all speculation.
Can we examine the big picture? (Score:4, Insightful)
Linux is free software, that everyone participates in making, and then gets to use for free.
SCO distributed Linux itself, until very recently. It was also selling its own "competing" product at the same time.
Now SCO is claiming that some of their "valuable" property was incorporated into Linux - without their knowledge. They're demanding everyone who uses Linux pay them for it (at a price they've just determined) - or face lawsuits.
They're refusing to reveal what was "stolen." (More accurately, they will only show evidence to those who sign an unacceptably onerous non-disclosure agreement.) Not the actions of a company with a good case, but let us assume, since it is certainly possible, that some work of SCO's appears identical to some work inside Linux.
It is first of all not exactly obvious who copied whom. In the most similar case of years past, exactly such confusion resulted in a major legal reversal for one of Unix's past copyright holders. But let us even assume that someone secretly put some stolen SCO work inside Linux, since that is certainly also possible.
One of two things is true, then:
1) If you are a Linux user (who unwittingly received a bit of SCO's property), you have to pay whatever SCO asks, even if you didn't know (and had no way of knowing) you were using "stolen code"!
This means that SCO is in massive trouble, since they violated the licenses of all the Linux contributors _themselves_, by distributing Linux with their proprietary code incorporated into it. This is forbidden by the GPL (Linux's license), which (basically) forces participants to contribute their work for free or not at all. (That's the whole point of the affair, really.) And as we just established, ignorance is not an excuse. The fact that SCO might not have known they were breaking this rule wouldn't save them.
Result? Several thousand Linux contributors (a group which includes some very large, wealthy businesses) sue SCO for violating _their_ licenses, which specifically forbade this in the first place. SCO goes bankrupt.
-- OR --
2) If you are a Linux user (who unwittingly received a bit of SCO's property), it's _not_ your problem, because you didn't _know_ there was a problem, and once you found out, you replaced the "stolen code" - by downloading a patch, most likely. Right after SCO gets around to telling people what was stolen, that is. (Which they will do eventually?)
If ignorance is SCO's excuse, it's everyone's excuse. It means THERE IS NO DANGER TO ANY LINUX USER from SCO, because nobody was knowingly involved in these affairs, except potentially IBM (who stands accused of having actually done the deed). If there was any improper copying, it's IBM's problem - which is as it should be (although apparently even that part of SCO's story is questionable).
Result? SCO's threats to sue Linux users are actually a nasty and libelous publicity stunt, and a number of affected business (IBM, Redhat, Dell, Suse, etc) sue them as a result. SCO goes bankrupt.
I can't figure out how SCO's threats to "license Linux users" to the tune of hundreds or even thousands a CPU is anything other than the business world's equivalent of an April Fool's joke.
You can make specious legal threats about any product - open source or closed source. The fact that Linux is a target this time is only a sign of its continually increasing importance.
If you want my take on it, some people sitting in big offices (picture Microsoft and Sun logos on the walls) saw the recent spate of articles about high-profile defections from their own products to Linux, and pushed the "panic button." They encouraged and financed a proxy (SCO) in the advertisement of an elaborate legal fiction in hopes of slowing the hemorrhaging. It's clever, good old-fashioned American business strategy at its finest (no holds barred competition in anything but quality or price). I don't think it will save them, either. And I _think_ it's going to leave a smoking crater where the proxy used to be.
Re:I can't take much more of this (Score:5, Insightful)
The notion of a free product that is in many ways superior to its commercial counterpart scares alot of people. It's frightening to any business minded person that there is a large wealth of talented developers who are making an amazing product and not only distributing it free of charge, but giving away the source as well. To a business person, this is simply nonsense, but to those of us who beleive in creating something useful and of high quality "just for fun", it's not only a hobby, but a cause.
It was only a matter of time before this ideology was challenged. This is that challenge. Fortunate, they are standing on a pretty weak argument, and up against an 800lb gorilla.
~my $.02
Re:Maybe it would be a good thing (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Can you say, "Pump and Dump"? (Score:4, Insightful)
Pump and dump is correct. Any attempts to apply any logic to this are just a waste of time.
This is exactly why SCO is taking it's issues up in the US courts. With the ignorance and insanity that dominates our legal system, they actually have a shot. A long shot, yes; but a shot, none the less.
You have to remember, a lot of the people who sit in high political offices are former judges. They are old white men who care about appeasing each other's financial interests and don't mind if all the geeks in the world want to rip their throats out. Plus, you have to remember that there's a good chance any random judge will have SCO or one of it's alliances somewhere in their investment portfolio. They probably don't care about Linux one bit, nor grasp the importance of the GPL. It's more likely someone in this mindset would think "Well, if this free stuff would go away, then people would have to buy software from the guys I've invested in.. More money! Woohoo!"...
If there was any sanity or fairness left in our courts and political systems, the DMCA would have never gone into law. Nor would we have gone to war in Iraq [google.com]. It's a dark time for the little guy.
Re:Strung up by their own rope (Score:2, Insightful)
Here is the proof [sco.com]
Re:Can you say, "Pump and Dump"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ooo... Graphic designer. BA degree. What the fuck was Ray Noorda thinking?
Re:What? (Score:3, Insightful)
Have to have GPL killed.. they've abused it. (Score:5, Insightful)
SCO has every reason in the world to see the GPL killed. That reason is that they have (most likely) been using GPL'd code in their proprietary code. They want to see the GPL nulled and voided so that when "they win their case", they can, at a later date, keep right on using Linux code in their shitty products.
i'll keep saying it - this is the whole of the "why" behind their case, i'm telling you. They don't want to have to pay up to anyone - let alone thousands of individuals, for abusing their GPL code in their products...
because after this - everyone will go after them.
Re:Can you say, "Pump and Dump"? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a dark time for the little guy. :(
Care to explain when it hasn't been? Perhaps when people were being drafted and shipped to Vietnam, as - I quote - "meat"? Perhaps when streets burned and protestors rioted to give the black community equal rights as humans and citizens?
Or, was it not a dark time during slavery? Or while non-WASPs and women were being persecuted at the birth of this country? Or, let's step out of the U.S. During slavery in the U.K.? In Africa? During the times when serfs were squashed under the thumbs of opressive theocracies?
Perhaps, maybe, it wasn't a dark time before the veneer of "civilization" took hold? When the strong ruled by might alone - brutish fist and club?
It has ALWAYS been a dark time for the little guy. You miss something important though...
If the little guy can get organized, it can actually fight back now. All the little guys and gals are networked. We can MAKE our wills heard if we simply put the effort into it. How many people here know how to Google bomb? We could overrun Google with our own decentralized propaganda in a month. That's a small example of what could be accomplished if the little guys and gals all worked together to a common end. We can make people listen to the little guy for the first time in history without widespread violence and upheaval.
It's still a dark time for the little guy... but it's certainly never been brighter.
Re:SCO is intercoursed either way (Score:3, Insightful)
Two points:
Remember: legal briefs are essentially a series of outrageous claims that are opposed or not opposed, and once the moderately-lengthy discovery process is done, there will be a trial about very severe differnces of opinion in fact and law.
IBM may have the most-feared legal team in the world, but SCO's millions can certainly pay for some competent counsel, even if the CEO's a moron.
Re:Can you say, "Pump and Dump"? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Strung up by their own rope (Score:1, Insightful)
What is critically important is that someone who is a kernel developer, and whose code has been distributed by SCO, take this up. No one else would have any standing to sue.
I posted this to SCO's feedback: (Score:4, Insightful)
I would like to point you to our product page (http://www.xxxxxxxx.com); we provide xxxx xxxx systems to many large xxxx institutions around the world. Currently, we are based mainly on the Sun/Solaris platform, but are looking at moving to Intel due to customer demand.
After considering SCO's products, we have been forced to exclude them due to your court statements regarding the General Public License ("GPL"); specifically, that it is unenforceable. Considering that large parts of your latest products appear to be licensed under the GPL, we find it difficult to reconcile your legal position with the products you claim to supply. Instead, we have decided to go ahead with Red Hat's Advanced Server product.
Sincerely yours,
XXXX YYYY
ZZZZZ Co., Ltd.
Re:Can you say, "Pump and Dump"? (Score:3, Insightful)
I think there's a better chance that most of the Judges own IBM than SCO. Blue chip, baby.
Re:I can't take much more of this (Score:3, Insightful)
Its economics, just like barter is economics. The GPL relies on respect for other people's property, and the conditions they put on what they produced, and what they are willing to offer it for.
Re:Excuse me. (Score:3, Insightful)
Secondly, the GPL has no provisions whatsover against diarrhea of the mouth. SCO can trash talk the GPL all day without violating it. The GPL is only going to bite them if they distribute binaries without source or attempt to extort fees from users. Basically someone who is approached by SCO with a bill or legal threat needs to go the kernel devs and other kernel copyright holders. Then and only then does SCO get held accountable.
I humbly suggest the v3 of the GPL have oral diarrhea provisions.
Re:I can't take much more of this (Score:5, Insightful)
The GPL mindset is designed, at the very core, with the sole end goal of making the best computer program possible. Everything else-- the financial success of companies like Redhat included-- is merely a means to that end, or coincidental.
The capitalist mindset is designed, at the very core, with the sole end goal of making a bunch of money. Everything else-- creating a good product included-- is merely a means to that end, or coincidental.
People can sit down and found an open source or a commercial software products with these not being their goals, but the open source project or the company will, in time, take on a life of their own. The project will fork, and leave the hands of the maintainer, if the maintainer does not do everything he can to promote it being the best program possible. The company meanwhile will eventually pass out of its original creator's hands, usually into the hands of a board of directors who care only about making the most money possible.
Because these different mindsets are so different, things the open source community does tend to seem completely mind-bogglingly nonsensical to the commercial community, and vice versa. Both sides would have an easier time understanding each other if it were understood on both sides that with a GPLed program, it is not the people, it is the source code, that is in control; and with a company it is not the people, it is the corporate culture, that is in control. Some groups of people do a better job of keeping a reign on their code/corporation than others, of course, but this is still what things seem to tend toward.
Now, there's something slightly more complicated going on here. It is that in most cases, the corporate side of things comes from a culture in which capitalism as a philosophy reigns supreme. This philosophy says that the free market will always defeat everything, because it is ultimately efficient. The mutual selfishness of everyone, acting upon each other, will ensure that only the strongest companies survive, the market winds up with the most fitting goods possible, and the capitalist system overall ends with as much wealth within it as is possible. They then get confused when these open source "things" crop up that don't seem to follow the rules of capitalism at all. They get confused because their philosophy tells them that the way to succeed is to let capitalism optimise everything; but then they see "inefficient", unoptimized, seemingly altruistic open source succeeding, they can't understand why that is. The first thing they've missed is that the open source world is going for a completely different kind of "efficiency" than the capitalist world. Both worlds want efficiency; they just want efficiency at different things. The second thing they've missed is that Open Source does indeed work within a survival-of-the-fittest free market very much like the one capitalism describes. It's just that it isn't a market of money. It's a market of ideas.
IBM != "the little guy" (Score:5, Insightful)
IBM will surely have first class lawyers, and no matter what you think of the judicial system and judges/politicians only thinking about money and what not, who do you think they would side with? IBM or sco?
I'm betting on IBM.
Should we "Thank" SCO for testing the GPL for us? (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, thanks to whomever (M$?) for funding $CO's ability to make this all possible!
Re:I can't take much more of this (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:SCO is intercoursed either way (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:its not illegal (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, in a sense, this lawsuit isn't frivolous at all. This lawsuit is - if (as looks likely?) it goes to trial - going to be make-or-break time for the GPL. It's finally going to be tested in court.
If a ruling is passed in favour of the GPL, then well and good. What I'm worried about is what SCO (and guys like MS, and Sun I guess) would be angling for is that the GPL is defeated. In which case, where does that leave us? It'd be Armaggedon for those of us who feel the GPL serves a purpose and is a good tool. To add insult to injury, what would happen subsequently to that will be wholesale theft of the already-out-in-the-open GPL-ed code by all sorts of unscrupulous and/or "careless" companies.
The stakes in this are so high that I am worried.
Re:Can you say, "Pump and Dump"? (Score:2, Insightful)
Look people, there's a chance that the GPL will be invalidated. This probably won't be the end of the world, everything will revert to normal copyright, but it would still be extremely annoying. What are we going to license things to? BSD? Then corporations could take our code and not profit off of it! We need our GPL to bring about a whole new software industry. One where it's about service, one where no vendor has a strong incentive to come in and screw with standards to lock people in.
What the fuck are you going to do if SCO wins?
Step back, consider the situation.
Most of you don't have the legal background to really post anything saying who has what leg to stand on(but when has that stopped anyone). And yes, that includes your open source heroes. All of the stuff they write, etc. etc. It doesn't amount to shit but someone's opinion. And that opinion counts for about as much as my opinion on lunar colonization.
So, the question you should be asking is, worst case scenario, what happens? Then, what do you do about it?
Fuck it, why do I bother?
Re:I can't take much more of this (Score:3, Insightful)
On the other hand, what Open Source (particularly GPL'ed) applications are most definitely not is controllable, and they can't be easily killed off by economic or legal means. That just drives bamboo splinters under the fingernails of the likes of Gates and Ballmer, since control is the name of their game. They will, in fact, do pretty much anything both above and below board in order to stop this evil viral GPL "open source" free-as-in-beer rogue-operating-system stuff. They are correct in perceiving Open Source as the very real threat that it is. The desire to protect what they have is natural, even if the means by which they do so is often unethical or illegal.
SCO's executives, on the other hand, haven't even have that much principle at hand. Companies that operate under the GPL have a synergistic relationship with each other and with their customers: that synergy is, at the core, the raison d'etre of the GPL. This is in contrast to SCO's leadership, who are parasitic creatures at best. They are bad parasites at that because they are perfectly willing to kill the host.
Re:They forgot one... (Score:3, Insightful)
That's what they're hinting at when they use terms like "export control laws". They don't want to say, directly, that IBM is giving all theis technology to America's enemies, but they want people to join the dots.
Re:Can you say, "Pump and Dump"? (Score:5, Insightful)
You're pretty far off of the point. With the exception of the Microsoft handslapping, the judicial system has been pretty fair and removed from Govt politics. The US Govt was set up that way, and of all of the branches of Government, the judicial branch to this day remains mostly neutral and unbiased.
You make it seem like it's a bad thing that some judge doesn't care about Linux or grasp the importance of the GPL. Well, Awptimus, that is the important point. We don't want the judge to care about Linux or bias his decision based upon the importance of the copyright license. We only want him to remain fair and unbiased and to determine how the different aspects of the case fit into the US Copyright Law. The copyright system is currently pretty screwed up, but it's not the job of some individual judge to take matters into his own hands when it comes to the all-important GPL. It's better for the USA if he only does his job to fit the SCO case into existing law. Leave it to law makers to make laws.
Finally, in your last comment, you seem to link the courts to drafting DMCA and to the war in Iraq... both of which the judicial system had NOTHING to do with. I think a course or a book on the US Government would be good for you since you either aren't from the USA or you failed 9th grade Govt.
Re:Can you say, "Pump and Dump"? (Score:2, Insightful)
Over the past few months, I've accumulated a growing hatred for the self-proclaimed puppetmasters of our society. No one should feel that they have some sort of domineering power over everyone else. In fact, the president/congress should feel that we OWN thier bitch asses. There should be some way to motivate the president/congress into being for the proletariat, who represent 95% of this country.
Remember Mr. Puppetmaster, we do everything that makes this nation (United States, but can be transferred everywhere else) run. Give us a reason to keep doing it, or maybe we'll just stop.
Re:its not illegal (Score:3, Insightful)
This goes against a couple centuries of copyright law interpretation which is firmly *against* entry of any copyrighted work into the public domain without the express indication thereof by its author. This just isn't going to happen.
C//
Re:Can we examine the big picture? (Score:3, Insightful)
This means that SCO is in massive trouble, since they violated the licenses of all the Linux contributors _themselves_, by distributing Linux with their proprietary code incorporated into it. This is forbidden by the GPL (Linux's license), which (basically) forces participants to contribute their work for free or not at all. (That's the whole point of the affair, really.) And as we just established, ignorance is not an excuse. The fact that SCO might not have known they were breaking this rule wouldn't save them.
Not entirely true. The above could happen, but it's equally likely that IBM will be in violation of the GPL for putting the code in Linux, not SCO. Be careful when you decide there's only a few possible solutions, then discuss the ramifications of each one as if that were the entire set of possible outcomes.
Companies that don't want their "IP" infringed should take care not to let people see it, and if they do, keep a close eye on what they do with it. If anything this shows that open source software is better at protecting IP than closed source software, on the grounds that one can actually see if said code is infringing on someones copyrights or patents.
Re:Here's what you were saying... (Score:5, Insightful)
Incorrect. Communism has never been attempted by any human civilization. You may have been confused by the Soviet Bolsheviks, who claimed to be "Communist", but they were liars. As were the Maoists who imitated them.
If Communism is ever tried, it might succeed in one of a few ways. Possibly, Marx will have been correct, and the natural evolution of a mature, capitalist society will be towards greater and greater corporate control, until a handful of merged companies + unions control the entire economy, and are indistinguishable from the government.
Or, there's the even more off-the-wall chance that a resurgence of Christianity will bring with it the recognition that their religion is doctrinally Communist (as laid out in Matthew 25:44, amoung many other places). Some people think Communism implies atheism, but they are independent social factors. A strong religion might be one way to overcome the natural greed that impedes Communism.
Re:Can we examine the big picture? (Score:3, Insightful)
The linux users had no idea they were infringing! SCO had no idea they were violating the GPL! It's a great big ignorance party. But you can't have it both ways, can you?
GPL will not be trashed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:SCOX ticker says it all (Score:3, Insightful)
When you buy a stock, you are endorsing the business practices of the company. If you don't believe the company's business is sound, you shouldn't be investing in them.
It's one thing if you're ignorant of the contents of your mutual fund portfolio. But in this case, if you KNEW what SCO was up to and then invested, you'd certainly be ethically culpable (in my opinion) since you agree with their chosen course (by virtue of the fact that you've bought their stock).
Re:Can you say, "Pump and Dump"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, I can see that happening. Not.
I can suspend disbelief (briefly since I have a vivid imagination) and envision a world where the GPL is invalidated but that's way too far out.
Re:Their argument makes even less sense. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Can you say, "Pump and Dump"? (Score:1, Insightful)
Believe it or not, most people in government are there for primarily the right reasons, and most are trying to do the right thing. It's a big country with a lot of conflicting interests, so they can't be as educated as you on your pet subjects, and they won't always agree with you even if they are, but they are trying to do the right thing.
Let's get back on subject: SCO is EVIL!
Re:unenforcable = void? (Score:1, Insightful)
As opposed to "they cant catch me", "unenforceability" refers to an agreement that directly conflicts with statutory law (among other things, depending on your state).
Thus, if they are able to establish that GNU comflicts with statute (eg copyright laws?) and is thus unenforceable, it may well be void.
I think, however, that this is a big if.
You got that wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
Why the dickens would thieves wait to steal?
As for the chances of the GPL being ruled invalid, for what cause? It does not remove permissions, it only adds permissions. If it is ruled that it violates the copyright clause of the constitution because it expands on said clause, then every license does, including every EULA out there. You think Microsoft wants that?
That's probably what they want (Score:2, Insightful)
Kinda like the chicken-and-egg thing.
Re:GPL's invalidation got you down? Time to switch (Score:3, Insightful)
BTW, FreeBSD, which Apple used heavily in revamping the BSD layer of Mach for Mac OS X, is under the BSD license which has many of the same provisions that SCO is arguing make the GPL invalid.
Better hope they loose, huh?
Moron.
GJC
Re:I can't take much more of this (Score:3, Insightful)
The way that you are portraying this conflict, as if the GPL(and/or the notion of free products produced for 'the love of the game) can not coexist with notions of business.
I think that is only part of the story. Opponents of free products, mainly business people incapable of producing a good product, often feel this way.
There is another position, and its not actually that new of an ideology.
Think Patents. Now, I don't think that the cookie cutter 14 years is good for all patents, and I certainly don't think that the broad way in which patents are interpreted is necessarily good, but, think about it: Being part of the patent system means giving up your secrets/methods to the public.
Yes---After 14 years, whatever it is you have patented becomes avaliable for anyone to use, no questions asked.
If you think back even farther, there was a time (perhaps renaissance age+earlier) when works of art/craftsman ship were commissioned, not purchased. Imagine a world in which corporations decided they needed software to fill a certain job, and therefore commission a developer to create it.
Given that it is much easier to stand on top of the sholders of others than starting from scratch, and as long as the software itself isn't your core business, most business people wouldn't have a problem releasing it to other corporations+individuals as an act of 'good faith'.
It was only a matter of time till someone understood this, but the situation needed a jumpstart---hence, the FSF.
Corporations picked up on it, and now sell improvements to Opencode bases. Software programmers now act as coders for hire, rather than peddlers of a product.
Fast forward a few years more, and you have huge corporations who have picked up on this model. Redhat, Sun, IBM, etc, etc . .
Of course, there is always the old guard (SCO, MS, etc. .
But free software makes sense. The only problem is how you can prevent someone from taking your work (i.e. MS) and embracing/extending.
As much as I disliked RMS, thinking of the GPL in game theoretic terms, it really makes a lot of sense.
The GPL is, for the most part, a tit-for-tat strategy. Any game theorists knows that in the long run tit-for-tat is the guaranteed best strategy in any game---> It always allows for win-win, and discourages attempts to take advantage of the other (defecting). I play nicely with your code? You can then use mine! I refuse to reveal my code? Then I can't integrate yours.
It even has a little bit of a blacksheep clause, where if the GPL is declared invalid on one part of a codebase, you are no longer permitted to distribute any part of that codebase.
It seems to me that a brillant extension of the GPL would be a cross-product restriction---i.e. the GPL v4 could include a provision whereby if you violated the GPL on any codebase that your organization offered you would no longer be permitted to use the licensed codebase (I'm pretty sure that the restriction could only apply on a case-by-case basis, but that wouldn't matter if everyone upgraded to the GPL v4).
Any, just my $0.02. Not every business man is the way you are portraying. Many honestly love what they produce, and are extremely proud of having an excellent product.
They would produce that product even if they couldn't make any money off of it---They would produce it for the love of the game.
This sort of envy of free 'works of art' really only comes into play with substandard producers attempting to make a quick buck (I would argure that MS is one of those corporations).
Re:GPL and other international copyright issues (Score:4, Insightful)
If the GPL is shot down in court people will just move to BSD type licenses.
Re:I can't take much more of this (Score:4, Insightful)
The GPL mindset is designed, at the very core, with the sole end goal of making the best computer program possible.
Even if you've missed the constant dogma of promoting freedom, you need look no further than the first two sentenses of the GPL's preampble:
What makes this a troll is the tension between "Free Software" and the "Open Source". Richard Stallman, for the last few years, as argued that the term "open source" is a deliberate attempt to discard the importance of freedom (the clear purpose of GNU, the FSF and the GPL) and instead emphasize the superior performance and development of software. On the other hand, OSS advocates like Eric Raymond intended to "rebrand" free software to "sell" it to businesses, primarily by chaning the name to something less ambigious (in English) and by emphasizing characteristics that commercial interests care about (mostly superior software and development methodology).
Many a bitter flame war has errupted over this.
Re:affirmative defenses and selective enforcement (Score:4, Insightful)
However, wrt the GPL, we're talking about a contract.
I thought the GPL was a grant of rights, not a contract.
Re:Have to have GPL killed.. they've abused it. (Score:1, Insightful)
If the GPL is killed, what gives them the right to use other people's copyrighted code at all? They'd have to have copyright killed for that.
Re:Can you say, "Pump and Dump"? (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't have any legal background but Eben Moglen (professor of law) and Pamela Jones (paralegal) and about half a dozen regular /. readers (lawyers) do.
They all say SCO is full of shit.
Go back to Linux 2.2. Darl and Blake have both stated publicly and in court-filed documents that there are no SCO-related IP issues with 2.2.
Re:SCOX ticker says it all (Score:3, Insightful)
I am responsible for my actions.
If I buy stock, I am responsible for endorsing the actions of the board. I have given them my (small and irrelevant) imprimatur.
It IS immoral for SCO to fabricate lies. The individual middle class investor has TOTAL say in who he trusts with his investments.
If you think that one's value system can be separated from my profit motive, I argue that you are part of the reason we're seeing all the corporate malfeasance that is destroying enormous amounts of wealth in this country right now.
It's not immoral to earn money, or to pursue profit. It IS immoral to do immoral things in order to earn money or to pursue profit. Just because you make money, doesn't make it morally or ethically correct. So, in that sense, the market IS amoral.
Re:Can you say, "Pump and Dump"? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I can't take much more of this (Score:3, Insightful)
The GPL mindset is designed, at the very core, with the sole end goal of making the best computer program possible.
I dunno... a lot of OSS contributors seem awfully concerned with fame. Some want to become famous; others just want to bask in celebrity's warm glow. In a way, it's a lot like the irrational obsession some people have with movie stars.
They get confused because their philosophy tells them that the way to succeed is to let capitalism optimise everything; but then they see "inefficient", unoptimized, seemingly altruistic open source succeeding, they can't understand why that is.
Actually, I think a lot of OSS advocates have a deep seated belief in capitalism. They believe that capitalism is such an omnipotent force that you can take away patents, copyright, trade secrets, collusion, and any kind of leverage, and capitalism will still prevail. These are the people who become incensed if you suggest that the GPL is not capitalist. (I call those people naive.)
-a
Re:Here's what you were saying... (Score:3, Insightful)
The intent of communism is that everyone is equal and should be treated fairly, the basic premise is that everyone deserves to be part of a sharing community where people aren't taken advantage of. Everyone that can provide, should. And everyone that needs, should be given. In such a society no-one shold be considered a freeloader, because everyone should pitch in as much as they can.
Capitalism could be viewed as the opposite, where everyone is out for themselves rather than for the benefit of the whole.
Of course, communism is always doomed to failure because humanity is inately selfish (a necessary evolutionary trait), and the chance of a benevolent leadership persisting indefinately is unlikely.
However the fact that the ideals of communism are benevolent should not be overlooked. And it is uninformed and rude to suggest that an ideological system that exists only as a fanciful mental construct in which everyone is truly equal should in some way be feared and/or insulted. Perhaps this is just a left-over fear from the Cold War? But let's stop thinking of comunism as being the opposite of democracy, and let's stop thinking that capitalism is identical to democracy.
As it happens, while I hold many socialist views, I must confess that the core of my being
Re:Can you say, "Pump and Dump"? (Score:2, Insightful)
I beg your pardon, can anyone say "ahem, George Bush, cough cough, election, cough, 2000"!!!
Totally removed, right. On which planet?
Re:GPL and other international copyright issues (Score:1, Insightful)
If the GPL is shot down in court people will just move to BSD type licenses.
If that happens Ballmer and Gates would dance a jig and shout hooray!! Afterall, the codebase they have been stealing for 15 years is drying up. The chicken farmers have wised up to the fox, and now MS has run out of "innovations", which is the MS term for outright stealing someone else's idea.
The GPL undermines their (MS) whole business model. In fact, it undermines the whole proprietary software business model. Have you noticed that companies such as IBM and Apple, who have embraced opensource to varying degrees (IBM with the GPL, and Apple with Apple Public License and BSD) are HARDWARE companies. And they want to go back to the days of juicy HARDWARE margins, and bundle as much quality software with their customer's purchases, so as to increase the value proposition of the expensive HARDWARE??
A move to BSD type licences would be a disaster. MS would simply steal your hard work, profit from it, and eventually turn it into bug-ridden, bloated crapware. And you don't see a dime. And you don't get the source code back from MS so you can fix their fuck-ups and make it work right.
Sheesh!! Who wants that??
Re:Can you say, "Pump and Dump"? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Can you say, "Pump and Dump"? (Score:2, Insightful)
you should actually learn about the church and the majority of its people.
I actually wish I knew less about organised religion, the awful waste of life that it is.
Re:Here's what you were saying... (Score:2, Insightful)
Incorrect. Communism has been attempted several times. It just happens that every single time the end result has been an oppressive dictatorship. Oh I know that you are going to say that "Yes, but that isn't REALLY communism!". But you know what? I don't care! All I care what communism is like in real-life! I don't care what some whacko theories and books say how it should be, I care about what it's reality is.
And reality is that communism is a monumental failure. If you need proof, take a look at the communistic countries and their actions.
Re:Here's what you were saying... (Score:2, Insightful)
I find it funny that it seems the same people that are critizing Microsoft for thier "supposed Monopoly" are the same people that say that Linux is a viable and better alternative to Microsoft, and also the same that want this "Ideal Communism". First off, in a communistic society, there will be no competition as the only industry would be owned and run by the government, and secondly, if Linux is a viable and better alternative to Microsoft, then they cannot have a Monopoly!
Don't get me wrong, I like Linux better then Windows, but come on, lets see some common sense.....
Patrick
Old white men? (Score:3, Insightful)
The basic problem? Instead of taking responsability for their circumstances, the American underclass attempts to santify otherwise bad behaviour. When "OWM" is shouted from the desktop, nobody seems to be offended, but if they choose a different phrase, watch out! Unless you know a particular "OWM" before you judge him, you are prejudging him, and last time I checked perjudice and bigotry are synonyms.
There is a cardinal rule of society which has withstood the test of time:
If you think small you will always be small.
Re:Can you say, "Pump and Dump"? (Score:2, Insightful)
Some are pacifists. Some didn't want to go to war for our unfounded fears. And many (including myself) think we should have finished what we started in Afghanistan. Just look what's happening there now...
Re:Shut down sco.com the legal way (Score:2, Insightful)
Didn't read all comments, but ... (Score:2, Insightful)
This is yet more FUD.
Re:Here's what you were saying... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's called fascism. And yes, there have been academic papers categorizing fascism then comparing modern American politics. American Fascism is a real possiblility, just because they won't all dress up like Nazis and try to kill an entire ethnic group or two outright doesn't mean it's not fascism.
Fascism is a danger to all democratic states, as it requires a democratic state to breed fascism. Read this for some primer info:
Rush, Newspeak and Fascism: An exegesis [cursor.org]
BTW, Communism is bunk. It will never work, black markets are part of a body of evidence that shows humans are pre-disposed to capitalism at some level. Also Marx was railing agains the oligarchic crony capitalism, not the free and fair markets that the large part of American capitalism enshrines. Marx would probably be an economist if he'd grown up in modern America. But, he'd still see the danger of the crony capitalism we've seen with the recent Wall Street fraud. He'd probably be rapidly anti-Fascist too.
Quit sitting around on the fringes between libertarians, neo-cons and commies. There have been a lot of moderate voices who have studied all of these different systems and agree that free markets with enough regulation to keep the markets fair for new entrants is the wisest course. Regulate where it makes sense, free markets where it benefits all citizens. As Roosevelts' VP Henry Wallace once said,
I don't think this is true. (Score:3, Insightful)
Typically, the answer is litigation. What happens in contract litigation? Contracts are brutally picked apart, word for word. If the contract is found to be problematic, parts of it may be void. e.g. if the GPL violates contract law, it's out in the cold. The (ugly) beauty of it is, a single case that breaks the GPL is all that's really needed for anyone else to present the same arguments and get out of that same agreement.
Now, the main purpose of all that obscure language in a contract is to protect each side's interests against that. But its mere presence demonstrates why it's needed.
I knew a pretty good IP lawyer once. He said 90% of the protection against litigation is outside the contract.. i.e. not getting in bad relationships in the first place. Once it's down to litigation, it's very much a question of time and money how it turns out.
Now, the GPL, at least to my eye, is a fine contract with a lot of attention to detail. We should be very grateful to the FSF for making it so well.
However, the vested interests of the software industry have had the GPL in their sites for some time now. Even at the small companies I've worked for, there's kind of a underground rumor mill between the execs and general counsel about possibilities for breaking it. The few times I've had the oppportunity to talk to execs at larger companies, it's positively hated. This isn't conspiracy, it's competition... even *ideological* competition. There would be a huge sigh of relief in the old business community if the GPL could be ignored. I have some choice epithets in mind to describe this kind of thinking, but we've heard them all before.
I think it would be very unwise for the free software community to underestimate the risks involved here. The more this story develops, the more it looks like SCO will be the first concerted, and possibly successful effort, to kill the GPL.
We want to say "but it does the right thing in the right way". They want to say "find a way to break it so we can make money." This goes back to not getting in bad relationships in the first place.
So, think damage control. Don't be surprised to see a GPL version 3 in the works. We'd have to get it out en force to keep things honest.
Re:Here's what you were saying... (Score:3, Insightful)
If you stand in a country but have no power over it, then you should not be judged as that nation is. But if you are a member of the ruling class- if you influence decisions and are rewarded by the actions of a nation- then you bear guilt for whatever ills it does. To encourage and justify a way of evil is to do evil yourself.
And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw
When I shall bring again their captivity, the captivity of Sodom and her daughters, and the captivity of Samaria and her daughters, then the captivity of thy captives in the midst of them
Bottom line: Free Speech and Free Enterprise are both American.
I believe they're American. But they're not Christian, and the USA is not a Christian nation. It may follow the pattern established by so-called "Christian" churches in Europe since the founding of Catholocism, but that behavior is a far cry from what is actually expounded by the New Testament.
WWJD? He sure wouldn't spend 25%+ of the federal budget on weapons and warriors! He wouldn't launch an transcontinental war to hunt down a few Muslims who blew up some towers. He'd never impose a death penalty. He would not approve [biblelookup.com] of the violent methods which the "born-again Christian" president of the USA excells at.
Re:everybody misses the humor (Score:4, Insightful)
Then US copyright law will need to be evaluated from first principles. The GPL is very straightforward, and is merely an application of copyright interests, making specific grants of distribution rights which are reserved to authors under copyright law.
If there is anything to find "invalid" about the GPL, it's going to be very, very difficult for such a finding to be narrowly tailored so that it only affects the GPL and does not affect every other agreement that has ever been made under copyright law, and it's also going to be a challenge for a court to make a finding that ONLY respects the GPL, because that would not pass the basic test of fairness and gets into 14th Amendment territory.
No judge is going to order the GPL "invalid" without stating the reasons. Any reasons given are guaranteed to affect other licenses. Without reasons given, it would obviously be a case of prejudice against the "GPL".
There might be specific problems with the GPL, but the overall implication of the agreement is solid and doesn't do much besides exercise an author's right under copyright law. I have never heard an argument against the GPL that does not abridge authors' rights under copyright law, and I doubt that such an argument can be made.
Re:I call for a SCO client boycott (Score:4, Insightful)
No, they won't.
Linux users aren't enough of the population to pull off an effective boycott (except perhaps in some technology sectors where we make a disproportionate amount of purchasing decisions).
The companies you listed purchased something from a company which later got bought by a company which later turned evil. Punishing them for it would be ridiculous.
SCO isn't a technology company any more. They've never made a profit by selling products, and never will. They have enough venture capital now to finish their lawsuit regardless of what happens to their business. If by some freak chance they won these cases then their sales revenue would be a drop in the bucket that they could afford to lose. By the time they lose this case the executives will have all cashed out and won't care what happens to the company afterward.
Re:Here's what you were saying... (Score:3, Insightful)
Great. "My ideal utopian assumptions have never been tried before". Why not? Because your utopian model of society assumes things that simply are not so. Communism (which you fail to define) has never been tried before because it's not practical. It assumes conditions which are simply not true. Read on...
*GPL is not Communist. It's cooperative. If I make a buck selling manuals, boxes, CDs, and consulting/design services for GPL software, it's my buck. It does not go to "the community" unless I want it to.
Let's see a successful practical application of communism. I invite you to cite examples.
Communism and capitalism--defined here in very simple terms are the two systems of economics most often discussed. There are other systems, of course, but
Capitalism: "Every man for himself" assumes human greed. A capitalist system acknowledges this and involves laws, social mores, and regulations which use this tendency (human greed) to produce good things for society. The individual's greed is his motivator to produce as much as he can.
Communism: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." depends on human altruism. Similarly to capitalism, a communist implementation of social structure tries to use this tendency (human altruism) to produce good things for society. The individual's concern for his neighbor and for society at large is his motivator to produce as much as he can.
Failure Modes are the problem. Look around you. Go to longbets.com if you're sure you're right--make a prediction that demonstrates the superiority of communism, and test it.
In an "ideal" society (that's one where everyone behaves the way you want them to), communism looks like utopia.
In the real world--greed kicks the ass of altruism. Every time. You don't find the wealthy embracing communism, giving away all their possessions and dedicating their lives to the service of the poor.
Hey, look at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation--that's altruism, right? Nah. That's PR. Just like the Carnegie Libraries. Sure they did good. Not by putting themselves in the same financial situation as "the people", though. I'm sure you're familiar with the parable of the widow's mite.
The proponents of communism aren't so altruistic, either. In fact, those are generally the best examples of the greed that makes capitalism successful.
Because "Let's Share" always seems to mean "Let's share...yours"
Re:Here's what you were saying... (Score:3, Insightful)
It is interesting that GPL software keeps being cited as communist rather than what it truly is... enlightened self interest, which could be translated to capitalism. Allow me to expound. The GPL is a market where I write code that helps me, and deliver it to others in exchange for any code they write to improve my code. The "I" and "others" above can be translated to IBM, Red Hat, Linus, Alan...
GPL software is really a barter system where the unit of exchange is code, testing, bug reports... This is why it messes up money focused capitalists, they assume if money is not exchange it isn't capitalism. A point that should be made is that barter unless there are sufficient people willing to trade in that currency. This would suggest that certain kinds of specialized software where a critical mass of contributors cannot be reached should continue to use the proprietary model where money is exchanged for labor.