Novell Quotes AT&T on Derivative Works 354
grendelkhan writes "Novell has released their latest correspondance with the litigous bastards ordering them to stop the lawsuit by noon tomorrow, and clarify what the SVRX licensing agreements with AT&T meant regarding derivative works. The letter quotes AT&T from the April '85 issue of $echo as stating that they 'claim no ownership interest in any portion of such a modification or derivative work.' So much for the ladder rung analogy."
And reader highwaytohell links to today's CRN article in which Eben Moglen suggests that the SCO/Linux lawsuit cannot move ahead "until SCO resolves its dispute with Novell. And regardless of which company prevails in court, he said, customers won't have to pay any company for a license fee since both claimants--SCO and Novell--have distributed the Linux code under the GPL. Once again, SCO have no comment."
litigous bastards? (Score:4, Insightful)
How soon we forget. (Score:5, Insightful)
And some of you accused the BBC of making an unfounded claim [slashdot.org] when they said this:
"If anyone's anger has no measure, it is the wrath of internet zealots who believe that code should be free to all (open source). So, it seems likely that the perpetrators of the MyDoom virus and its variants are internet vandals with a specific grudge."
If you guys don't like having the finger pointed at you, then don't say things like that to attract attention to yourselves.
Re:Meanwhile, back on the western front... (Score:5, Insightful)
BUT, IBM has independently produced a lot of software that is part of AIX but is not sysV code. This material from NOVELL makes it even clearer (if anything can be clearer than perfectly transparent) that IBM owns this independently developed code and can do whatever it wants with it -- notably, they can contribute it to linux under the GPL. SCO is toast.
Re:How soon we forget. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How soon we forget. (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't recall sending out any orders to Russian terrorists to infiltrate our internet with a misleading computer worm.
Re:litigous bastards? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Meanwhile, back on the western front... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How soon we forget. (Score:2, Insightful)
DDOS'ing spammers? They're sending out mass mailings to people who've lost their connection? Heh. Okay. I'll run with it.
So
Also, who here really really thinks the community was framed? Take a good hard look at the attitudes around here and tell me that you don't think it was some regular Slashdotter that wanted to be 'cool' for a day. If you can't, then how come you guys aren't more open minded in general? How come you're extremely perceptive to the idea that it wasn't a Linux or Open Source zealot that attacked SCO, but a lot of you are very adamant that there are no Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq? (Sorry for invoking a variant of Godwin's law there, so I'll bring up a couple of more points.) Why is Episode III a bad movie even though it's still in the making? Why is any move that Microsoft makes, and I do mean any move automatically some part of a more sinister plot to rule the world? Now if you're hitting the reply button, just stop right there. You have your reasons. You've come to that conclusion, and even though you have no facts to back it up, you have still reached that conclusion. You still feel, that in all likelihood, you believe that there are no WMD/Episode III will be a bad movie/Microsoft is trying to rule the world. BBC reported this just like they reported that the Columbia disaster was caused by a piece of foam insulation striking the wing of the shuttle long before the investigation was over.
So spare me the bs that the BBC was in the wrong. They were not. The right thing to do was to take a more objective and professional attitude towards SCO. The wrong thing to do was to have a story published that referred to SCO as litigious bastards. Why is it the wrong thing? I appreciate that you want to express your views. I encourage that. But the cost of that is it looks like you're blindly defending one of your own. It doesn't help your case, and it closes doors on anybody who is listening to you.
I'm done with this topic. You can read what I said and try to take away something useful from it, or you can reply with some half-baked argument to try to prove me wrong. Consider the value of the first option, and the time you'd waste with the second.
Yup, plus... (Score:1, Insightful)
As your sometime competitor I can guarantee to the other /.-izens that IBM wants to make money on software. If this were not the case the IBM sales folks would walk into competative sales situations against our sales guys and tell the prospective customers "This stuff is good and it is free to boot. Welcome aboard." At that point our sales guys would shit their pants and walk out defeated.
Unless the software is crap, free beats not most of the time.
Since this is not what happens, it is obvious that IBM charges for their software just like we do. IBM wins some sales, we win a few more (its the only thing we do, and not IBM's sole focus) and the world goes 'round.
Re:How soon we forget. (Score:2, Insightful)
They very clearly said "It seems likely...". So no, they did not report that as fact. Secondly, who has any real motive besides the Linux users that stand to lose the most? BBC did nothing wrong by pointing the spotlight at the people most likely to have done it.
Who has any real motive? How about the folks who have been putting out virus after virus after virus for the past year, where these viruses are really a backdoor to spread their ability to send SPAM? Someone doing that has a motive to hide their real motive. A DOS attack against someone is a perfect extra to hide the motive.
Now, maybe there is some Linux crank out there who is also a Windows expert who was able to do this. And maybe that person is also allied with the folks producing the SPAMbots, because this virus includes one.
But to suggest that whoever created the virus is a MAINSTREAM Linux person is just silly. That doesn't fit any of the facts. In addition, it would be monstrously stupid. However, anyone who wanted Linux users to have a black eye would be able to accomplish that by attacking SCO.
Now, if there's someone out there who hates Linux and who knows Windows internals in great detail, enough detail to create a sophisticated virus, then that person can accomplish many goals by taking their SPAMbot virus and attacking a site that will divert blame from them.
Mainstream Linux users are not people who advocate this sort of malevolent virus or attack.
Re:How soon we forget. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's no a lie strictly speaking. Strictly speaking it conveys no actual information. Saying "the bags may have contained drugs" is the exact same thing as saying "monkeys may have flown out of my butt". Both sentenses are "true" because neither sentense conveys any information.
It's not a lie but it's a sentense carefully worded in order to mislead people. The intent of the reporter was to make people think that some linux zealot wrote the virus. In order to do that he carefully chose his weasel words to convey that information.
In the end even though it's not a lie it's a willfull attempt to deceive people. There is no getting around that.
Please don't Googlebomb (Score:3, Insightful)
Bullshit. (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't want part of such world, even evil people have a right to be protected and respected. Those gurantees for the worst in our societies will ensure that we live with freedom and without fear of unfair prosecutions and retribution.
Re:How soon we forget. (Score:3, Insightful)
It may be that most people expect a string words to mean something. It may be that the job title "reporter" might imply certain responsibilities, one of which very well might be "presenting facts rather than speculation"; another could be "reduce or remove personal bias". I would expect most people, most of the time, carry these assumptions whenever they watch, read or otherwise grok news.
Containing weasel words does not magically render a sentence meaningless. Instead, consider it a presentation of opinion; for that alone, I object-- after all, the BBC says they hire news reporters not news speculators.
Transcript (Score:3, Insightful)