In many pro-Linux circles, it’s a given that The SCO Group Inc. can’t possibly win in court. Obviously, SCO disagrees.In an exclusive interview, eWEEK.com Linux and Open Source editor Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols visited SCO CEO Darl McBride and Chris Sontag, senior vice president of the SCOsource division, at the company’s headquarters in Lindon, Utah. There, they explained why they think SCO can win the legal battle.
Why SCO Thinks It Can Win
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you know what Linus probably did say that. And it was smart. You would of just used that as leverage against Linux
Linus responded to that exact quote saying that he never said that. He said that what he actually did say is that he would be happy to see the code, but wouldn’t agree to the non-disclosure agreement. He said it was so restrictive that it wouldn’t even allow him to comment on things even if they became public record.
Here’s the link where he responds:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1560896,00.asp
i think SCO has a chance. I am a linux user but linux has obviously violated many IP rights of several companies/users. Perens and ESR has even told us this.
People’s rights need to be protected. Just because its widely distributed dosent mean its a right to steal someone’s rights.
I do disagree with SCO’s strategy and I think they should just reveal evidence and let linus and the kernel.org people clean the kernel out and release a new version without SCO stuff.
After making such a big hoopla about missing copyright notices, it seems that SCO/Caldera was no better:
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20040404080449398
The question now is (since this seems to be one of the very few arguments they have left), how can SCO seriously accuse others for something that it’s also guilty of?
Oh, and note to Anonymous (IP: 69.196.155.—): don’t hold your breath. SCO’s toast – and they keep flip-floppin’ all over the place. Now they say that they respect the GPL and that their position is “built on it.”
In the words of Chris Sontag himself:
“All these contributions of our IP did not have an assignment by SCO saying here, ‘We assign these copyrights to the GPL.’ The fact that we participated with Linux does not mean that we inadvertently contributed our code to the GPL. You can’t contribute inadvertently to Linux. We feel we have a very strong position based on the GPL.”
Never mind that you don’t “assign copyrights to the GPL”; that doesn’t make any sense. He probably meant to say “assign copyrights to the FSF”, but that’s in no way a prerequisite to license under the GPL. In fact, the copyrights for the vast majority of GPL’d software do not belong to the FSF, but rather remain in the hands of those who wrote it.
As usual, McBride and Sontage talk through their hats about Free/Open Source Software and the GPL without really understanding what it is…
Quoting articles that are dated April 1st.
well not exactly but its a long drawn out events thats sorta entertainng to follow. The whole thing is very questionable, such as not showing the source code to anyone. my guess if there was any truth in it they are afraid that the code would be instanly removed from the kernel hurting thier case i.e. they would only get money from people ran the kernel that code was in. my guess is that McBride just has a grudge aginsed linux blaming it for the sales of its own OS going down hes made a few remarks about linux being illigal and unconstitional couse its anti-competative. and I dont think hes worried too much about being legaly in trouble for makeing false claims as im sure theres enough code that looks very simmiler only with some different wording( theres only so many different ways to write C that a lot of code that does the same thing will look about the same)
if you gave someone something as powerful as alot of commercial OS’s and it’s free, wouldn’t you be mad about someone saying you cant have it anymore? Same thing with the RIAA and its music.
People comparing RIAA to linux are wrong though, but the things the people are saying are though. why cant people acknowledge there might have been IP violations and want a new kernel version that has no SCO violations? what about NO BSD violations? Alot of linux users are saying such radical things and supporting such radical things as their only means of stopping SCO are wrong and will hurt their creditability.
Commercial and Open Source should exist together, both of them need to be here.
Us linux users need to be more mature about the matter so that whenever Darl opens his mouth he looks like a fool. I Personally would love it if SCO sued me. I welcome it. Go ahead.
I am a linux user but linux has obviously violated many IP rights of several companies/users.
Really? Care to give any examples of those IP rights currently being violated by the Linux kernel? What makes you so sure that there is indeed infringing code, when SCO has been unable to come up with any? Sorry, the ABIs don’t cut it…and the rest of the stuff is either from the BSDs or was contributed to Linux by Caldera (now SCO) itself.
And as far as user indemnification goes, there are several options available – though I doubt you should be concerned about this…
Linux has violated BSD copyrights obviously, you can get quotes from several articles doing it and I’m not going to sit here for 3 hours defending it. As for linux violating other copyrights, its possible.. very possible. Do I think IBM did it? no.
IBM vs. SCO is a lawsuit because SCO is mad because IBM broke an agreement to help juice up AIX and UnixWare.
The whole thing about SGI is really interesting, knowing that there was actually IRIX code in linux (or some distro) for a period of time and SGI admiting they are working to remove additional code is really interesting.
So, it seems linux has violated some rights. SEEMS. Do I want to get bashed by 100 linux advocates on OSNews that support the “Communist-OS” ? No. Do I think the GPL is communist? ofcourse it is. I don’t think theres anything wrong with the GPL either. It needs to be followed and SCO probably didn’t do that either.
People need to chill. SCO has no reason to show everyone code and what not. That is for court cases. They ain’t going to throw stuff out there before a court case.
Everything is between SCO and the companies they are sueing. Same as any case all other parties not involved with the case just sit back and watch from the side. Hearing people bitch about SCO and what they should do and so forth gets real old. Most people against them don’t even care if SCO was 100% right, they would still say SCO is full of crap. It’s just got to blind SCO bashing. I’m not saying they are right, but the more people just go nuts with the SCO bashing the more I want to see them win. I think they raised some fair points in this interview. But doesn’t really matter. We have a court system, thats where it gets sorted out. I know someone will say the courts will screw it up, well we have a system, it works the way it does. You can go and change it, but as is we go with how it falls. If we just tossed out judgements from cases just because we don’t think they are right then our whole legal system would be worthless.
Even after SCO cases are done. OSS will still face the same sorts of cases forever. If your out there making opensource and free alternitives to closed source stuff you are going to step on lots of toes, and copy stuff. This is a reality the OSS community has to face.
What about when SCO e-mails you and tells you that you owe them money and that you can see code but not all of it and you can’t research the history of it? The whole thing about give us money or we sue you is kinda harsh to not let anyone see the history of some code. It’s just threats though.
None of the cases that SCO has is about the current linux kernel. Like AutoZone, its about SCO libraries during the transition from sco to linux.
I’m tired of the threats!!
Sue IBM, fine, Sue Novell, Fine. I’m ok with it. But I don’t want some company spreading FUD about this like they have been doing and threatening to sue me and my clients.
umm…
exactly how did they violate the BSD copyright?
all the copyright says is to keep the header for credit.
GPL code can incorporate such code with no problems.
I think you need to check your facts…mmmmkay.
They removed copyrights. You need to check your facts. Look it up.
So, it seems linux has violated some rights. SEEMS. Do I want to get bashed by 100 linux advocates on OSNews that support the “Communist-OS” ? No. Do I think the GPL is communist? [of course] it is. I don’t think [there’s] anything wrong with the GPL either. It needs to be followed and SCO probably didn’t do that either.
Communism? Man, you just don’t understand the concept of ill connotation. That was Balmer’s biggest slip-up ever – referencing those dark pasts as though Linux developers are some sort of threat to the general public. Isn’t that what that connotation persuades? Yes, it is. For your information, and Balmer’s as well, Linux could only ever be an award of communism, meaning that a Communist leadership would award such a so called free award to the citizens, much like health care, or schooling. Gee, those latter two aren’t so menacing.
Linux is a “Community driven effort” not a Communism. Consider connotation a little more affectively, and communication is much more enjoyable
It’s well known fact that MS backs SCO and dictates their move s against IBM case. Why doesn’t IBM/NOVELL by SCO and finish this totally once for all
Linky? I can’t find anywhere on Google that says Linux developers removed BSD copyright headers. I do know that SCO, Novell, and AT&T regularly copied BSD code into UNIX without the proper attributions.
Well first off, it’s not a well known fact. It’s just a sneaky suspicion, some of which can be backed up by circumstantial evidence.
Secondly, they appear to have close to 100 million in venture capital, which I think would mean there purchase price would have to be greater then that. Buying a company with virtually no assets other then venture capital isn’t the smartest business move. Plus, the top execs that are resposible for all this would end up making a killing, and I don’t think anyone wants them to profit from this fiasco.
What does SCO have to gain by not coming clean with the infringing code?
Is it so the OSS community can’t remove the infinging software and thus they can have their licenses or what? It’s how they are going about this that makes me think they may not have this smoking gun. Makes me think they are just trying to win through really good lawyers instead.
Going along with this: they have shown some code, although very little, and they have proven to be very easy to discredit (one of which Linus said he wrote himself). To me it makes sense that if they show a little then they would make sure those few snippets were good, solid examples. Just doesn’t make sense.
Finally they have seemed to have been quite delayed in showing it to the courts (I think they finally did come out with it all).
I think this Nicholas guy on eweek got it right before that it’s a hard case to make since they essentially have to win three of three court orders to prove it.
“SCO has no reason to show everyone code and what not. That is for court cases. They ain’t going to throw stuff out there before a court case.”
No but the case is in Discovery, that means that you have to show that you actually have proof that there is a case before it proceeds. SCO has so far not shown any *real* evidence that would prove anything. If they don’t pull something out there asses soon (I’m not sure when the 45 day deadline ends) they are going to get their case thrown out because it has no merits. Of course they keep changing it all the time so they might extend their charade a bit longer.
regarding communism and GPL. It’s the same concept as what you learned what communism is regarding government. There isnt really anything wrong with communism, its just hard to implement it because people abuse it. the FSF’s statements against corporate software probably adds to it. You can’t really abuse a license(that uses the same ideas) without ending up in court (alot of the time)
regarding the BSD stuff, this is BSD-licensed stuff not necessarily the freebsd stuff. One example of this is perens’ anaylst of the “code examples” that SCO showed during a forum. Someone took pictures some of it was SGI, some of it was BSD stuff that had the copyrights removed. I am assuming that there are more violations. Those code snippets are probably replaced in linux now anyway.
The idea that this has even occured hurts many linux groups’ credability. Very upsetting. There may be more code and there probably is. This needs to be corrected so we can get on with our lives, and I think SCO is being unfair.
Again, where are your proofs ? Kernel devs are willing to correct any mistake. They just need to know where in the code the problem are. What SCO has presented cannot be taken seriously since they are, you told us, unfair.
Linux has violated BSD copyrights obviously, you can get quotes from several articles doing it and I’m not going to sit here for 3 hours defending it.
“Violated BSD copyrights”? Why aren’t the BSDs suing Linux, then? I assume you’re referring to the copyright notices that were omitted from a couple of files: I’m sorry to say that this does not a 3 billion dollar lawsuit make!
The matter is easily corrected and is in fact quite trivial. It’s not as if someone stole code – remember, the files are covered by the BSD license and therefore open source. Omitting a copyright for something that is freely redistributable is not a cool thing, but it’s not the same thing as stealing IP and putting it into your product. This difference is crucial to understanding the BSD connection.
In any case, this is irrelevant to SCO’s case – not to mention they seem guilty of the same kind of offence (check the link I provided). I don’t think they’ll go very far on this particular new strategy to get out of the hole they dug for themselves.
As for linux violating other copyrights, its possible.. very possible.
Well, certainly it is a possibility, but considering the fact that it’s developed openly, that would seem a pretty stupid risk to take. I mean, it’s relatively easy (if you’ve got the time) to check Linux sources and identify any violations of your own code. Well, easy for anyone but SCO, it seems…Also, it’s a very high risk for a programmer to take, as contributions are traceable and therefore he could be sued and/or ostracized by the community (I’m not sure which is worse!).
So, all things considered, the chances of violation are actually quite slim, even though the risk does exists. But you’ll agree that the attitude of the Open-Souce community on this matter has always been the same: identify the infringing code and it will be promptly removed.
The real problem, as far as IP violations go, is of course with closed source. Since you don’t have access to the source, it’s quite hard to know if IP violations of both closed and open source software are taking place.
The whole thing about SGI is really interesting, knowing that there was actually IRIX code in linux (or some distro) for a period of time
This is a good example of a Linux contributor admitting that code had been improperly contributed by one of SCO’s UNIX licensee. The code was immediately taken out, as it should be, demonstrating the professionalism of the OSS community in this matter. Again, it has nothing to do with the IBM vs. SCO case…
brad
If your out there making opensource and free alternitives to closed source stuff you are going to step on lots of toes, and copy stuff.
As I’ve mentioned above, it’s not in your interest to “copy stuff” when writing OSS, because people can actually find out about it! Then, there’s that whole thing of getting access to the original closed code – which in itself is often harder to do than writing code from scratch. Finally, it’s a lot easier to copy OSS into closed-source software, and therefore one can only assume that it takes place more often.
Now, about “stepping on toes”, what’s wrong with that? Isn’t that the very nature of competition?
Either show the code or just shut up. Don’t just keep this rhetoric going on. Why if it is so sure, it changed it’s suit against IBM and did not stick with the original one. Does any one think SCO which was going gaga over linux and open source once suddenly felt that it’s UNIX property is being misused????????? what happened to it’s linux plans. Just because it’s business did not work out, it now says Linux has stolen code from Unix. Come clean with this and show us the facts
Why do we, as citizens and consumers put up with the idea that there is such thing as intellectual property? Isnt that the most absurd thing you have ever heard of?
For example:
I know how to add 2+2 that equals four. Its mine and mine alone.
I know a sale is going on at store X
I know how to write a sentence, but i will not tell you
again and again. Dumb Dumb Dumb.
I wrote about 500 lines of code in the last six months to help my team achieve its goals at my workplace. I explicitly DO NOT want it copywrited. I want it shared. I want more people to achieve their goals.
Computers are binary number crunchers. I see no need to say that a code is IP.
Explaining to someone else how to use it on the other hand makes sense for making money.
Get over it SCO. The horse is out of the barn, and the sooner people realize that the sooner we can get on using these devices we call computers.
Dont’ feed the trolls
westyvw, laws aren’t based on reason. They are just a majority-rules thing. And the majority appears to like IP. The best route is to just ignore it yourself, like you appear to have done.
It’s true the creators of “IP” should make sure that they get paid for what they actually have of value: the ability to *create* IP. Instead they are upset with the nature of reality (in this case the intangibility of IP), and want to get paid for something of no value: the ability to *distribute* IP. The only way for this to be economically feasible is through legislation, e.g. copyright law.
None of this would ever have occured if we had a libertarian government. Someone would have come up with a great idea (Cotton Gin, revolver, etc.) and had everyone start using it. They would have complained to the government, but instead of the government granting them a monopoly, it would have said, “Um. You appear to be ignorant of some basic facts of the universe. They didn’t ‘take’ your idea, because you still have it. You want to reach into their lives and tell them what they can and can’t do, just because it’s a simpler way for you to make sure you are compensated? You need to find someone who will compensate you for what you are actually contributing: the ideas themselves. Find a ‘patron’ if you are an artist, or a manufacturer if you are an inventor. And get off our lawn.”
Why do we, as citizens and consumers put up with the idea that there is such thing as intellectual property? Isnt that the most absurd thing you have ever heard of?
No, it isn’t. As someone who writes for a living, I have the right to profit from the intellectual items I create. It belongs to me. If I were a furniture maker, each piece of furniture would belong to me until someone pays me an agreed price for its use. You can’t walk into a store, take you want, and head out, because that’s their real property (“real” here being the term meaning “physical”).
You don’t want to copyright your code? Fine, don’t. But those of us who choose to maintain control over what we create have the right to choose to do so. If IP laws were abolished, development of software would screech to a painfully slow crawl. Ever wonder why the Linux kernal development moves slowly? That’s why. The Utopian Socialist attitude that everything should belong to everyone equally just doesn’t work, which is evident to anyone who studies culture and history for more than five minutes.
“I have the right to profit…”
I find that line absolutely fascinating.
And no, you aren’t someone who writes for a living. You are someone who controls a government-mandated monopoly for a living. If you actually wrote for a living, you would be paid to *write*, not to sell copies of your work. Your exclusive right to physical property derives from the nature of physical things: if you don’t have an exclusive right, you can’t count on being able to continue enjoying the use of it. But intangible things are completely different: we can all enjoy them at the same time. You don’t need an exclusive right to a piece of writing in order to enjoy full use of it for the rest of your life. You only need an exclusive right to the book it’s printed on. The only time to need to exclude me from something is when you want to try to pump value into a valueless thing: *copies* of your work. Your work has value, and you should find someone to pay you to create it. Copies of your work are worth whatever they are printed on, and no more. So by all means, make a living as a *writer*. Just don’t infring on my freedoms so that you can make a living as a distributer. I don’t need no freakin’ distributer.
And as for arguments about the economic ‘necessity’ of IP, you just don’t have a clue what would happen and neither do I. We will likely never find out. But trying to predict it is about as futile as trying to predict what the world would be like today if the U.S. hadn’t entered WWI. We just don’t have a clue, and can’t.
Obviously abolishing IP once it exists is painful, but had it never existed that wouldn’t be a problem. I for one would love to know what the state of software would be if nearly everything had been open source since the 50’s. I’m happy to admit I don’t have a clue, but I bet that for every psuedo-reason you can come up with to try to convince me that software development would have ‘slowed to a crawl’, I can come up with another for why it would have flourished.
As someone who writes for a living, I have the right to profit from the intellectual items I create.
A *right* ? No, what you have is a legal fiction that gives you the privilege to try and profit from your work (although given the ridiculously generous terms of Copyright, your work would have to be pretty terrible not to generate profit eventually).
It belongs to me.
No, you created it. There’s a difference.
If I were a furniture maker, each piece of furniture would belong to me until someone pays me an agreed price for its use.
What if you’re using someone else’s wood and tools, living in their house and eating their food ?
You can’t walk into a store, take you want, and head out, because that’s their real property (“real” here being the term meaning “physical”).
The main flaw with this argument, of course, being that’s it’s impossible to take physical property without depriving someone else of it (basically, the only reason theft is bad). This does not apply to “intellectual property”, so the argument does not hold.
No one can “take” your idea. They can copy it, but they can’t take it. This is why the need for some form of copyright is *fundamentally different* from the need for (physical) property rights and why any scheme that tries to equate the two is flawed from the start.
If IP laws were abolished, development of software would screech to a painfully slow crawl.
Rubbish. There is neither logical argument, supporting facts nor even circumstantial evidence to support this assertion. Much like the argument that the creation of new music and literature would grind to a halt if copyright disappeared.
Certain companies, unable to adapt from their now-unworkable business models, might fall apart, but that’s just the free market in action, no ?
Ever wonder why the Linux kernal development moves slowly?
It doesn’t. Heck, one of Linux’s biggest problems in the commercial world is that development moves *too fast* and is too much of a moving target.
The Utopian Socialist attitude that everything should belong to everyone equally just doesn’t work, which is evident to anyone who studies culture and history for more than five minutes.
I’m neither a socialist nor a historian, but even I’ve read enough about both to know:
a) certain aspects of socialism, practiced in moderation, work exceptionally well; and
b) the failures of socialism have been due to the corruption of individuals pursuing material wealth (something OSS should be immune from, given it doesn’t have anything to do with same).
Umm, there’s just this little detail called “mitigation”, that the courts also tend to decide on.
If I accuse you of stealing my car, and refuse to identify it in any sense – apart from the fact that it’s a car – the courts will not look kindly on me for wasting their time.
The SCO Group’s been mouthing off so frequently about its “IP” being incorporated into Linux without its approval, etc, that it is reasonable for the people primarily concerned, programmers like Linux Torvalds, Alan Cox, etc, to expect an accurate answer to the question of, “well, where and what is it?”
Since the SCO Group has been rather shy of answering them, as opposed to shy about mouthing off, one can conclude that the SCO Group is lying.
In a way it’s not unlike “The Emperor’s New Clothes”. And you’re too busy telling me how magnificent and how fashoinable they are, to notice the dimwitted Emperor is shivering rather violently in the 40 knot 0 Centigrade wind that’s just sprung up.
“Why aren’t the BSDs suing Linux, then? I assume you’re referring to the copyright notices that were omitted from a couple of files: I’m sorry to say that this does not a 3 billion dollar lawsuit make! ”
Never said SCO is sueing over that I’m just saying maybe they have something. I am assuming that The BSD people did not contain the code and the BSD people would start war if they did that.
If I’m not wrong, didn’t Caldera release some of this code as BSD, the ones that the copyright notices were ommited? INTERESTING.
Anyway, you just told me that some copyright notices were omitted which is a violation of the BSD license.
I’m not a troll. I’m just not BIASED and I’m not a linux radical. I use linux as home and at work and I manage linux servers as a living but I did state before that I don’t agree with SCO but they do have a slight chance.
OK, I’m seeing stuff like software should not be copyrighted and stuff. I code too, I copyright some of my work and some I open it up to the open source community.
I want my stuff protected. In the event of open source dominating over commercial software.. how am I supposed to get paid?
I am also a musician. I choose to put some of my stuff on the internet, and some I want to sell (in the future). I want my IP protected. I want it to be my choice and I want people to follow my terms because I’m the creator and they must obey those agreements. If I sell software or song ownship rights then thats different.
I really don’t see how talking about how copyrights should not exist relating to this article. I’m sure if you owned the IP to windows youd open source it rather than keeping it and making a profit? interesting eh? anyway i dont want to hurt anyones feelings and i dont want to be bashed I’m making personal opinions
>> “There isn’t really anything wrong with communism, it’s just hard to implement it because people abuse it.”
No, there are a lot of bad things about Communism, that’s why it doesn’t work.
First it takes away people’s freedom to choose, others decide what’s best for you.
(This reason alone is enough.)
Second it tries to plan the economy. That cannot be made on the basis that we cannot predict the future.
Third it tends to unify society and to create elitism on the Political side. It destroys motivation on the people.
Fourth it is a political doctrine that ignores the basic fact that absolute power corrupts absolutely, if we all are more or less evil by nature, why do you thing the people in charge won’t be any different and will be benevolent benefactors and won’t abuse their powers???? (Ask the soviets)
And a long etc.
OOS is a social movement, Software is a product of human intellect, OSS capitalizes on the fact that ideas are free and should be publicly available for the common good.
This is not communism. Dissidents are not being removed from history, nor are they being physically eliminated nor are they sent to a Gulag.
OK, I’m seeing stuff like software should not be copyrighted and stuff. I code too, I copyright some of my work and some I open it up to the open source community.
There’s part of the problem. There is no distinction between “copyrighting” some of your work and opening others up to the open source community. When you write a program, provided it can get over the thresholds to qualify as a copyright work, it will be protected by copyright. You don’t need to do anything to “copyright” it. It is protected by copyright by virtue of its existence. If you “open it up to the open source community” that in no way affects the copyright in the work. You still own it. You simply give others permission to do things with it under a license. It is still a copyright work owned by you.
I want my stuff protected. In the event of open source dominating over commercial software.. how am I supposed to get paid?
Well, you issue your program in binary only form, and under a restrictive license, and see if people find it worth the sticker price you put on it. If you’re smart, you might realise that commodity software is worth very little, and dicide that you are going to sell services to support that software. Alternatively you could join the 95% of all coders, and work in-house building software for your employer. If you’re really smart, you’ll work out that you can use GPL software as a base for your inhouse apps, and as long as you don’t distribute the software beyond the corporation you work for, you don’t have to disclose the modified source.
I really don’t see how talking about how copyrights should not exist relating to this article. I’m sure if you owned the IP to windows youd open source it rather than keeping it and making a profit? interesting eh? anyway i dont want to hurt anyones feelings and i dont want to be bashed I’m making personal opinions
The SCO case loosely relates to copyright – started out as a trade secret case/contract case, now appears to by a copyright case. I suppose people with views on the efficacy of copyright protection in the context of computer programs have a view on the basis of SCO’s complaints.
you get paid more if you code software for $.
I don’t want to sit and provide support services for software . Furthermore, like fedora has shown us the community can provide upgrades so the upgrade service i dont see has long term potential. That’s always been microsoft’s thing with linux is that costs more to support, maybe true but linux is becomming more friendly and easier to support due to the community demands. not all software requires support. The 95% of coders making in house software will likely drop due to open source. I program inhouse software too and I’ve found that as OS grows there are an increasing amounts of alternatives compared to before and i expect more to grow. I don’t agree with the “if your smart” because im already doing that. Companies will lay off more people if they use open source software to be part of their software. I’ve heard the term of we switched to open source software and laid off x,xxx amount of people and cut costs greatly! I am an employer so I understand this.
about the communist comment about GPL, i dont want to argue it. “for the people, by the people, used by the people, cannot proprietarize” sums it up enough. I dont want to bring back the red scare against software.
I agree with everything else about your comment, great post.
I’m will likely not make any further post on this thread because its getting way off topic.
im sorry, but i had to reply to this. I’m sorry I don’t mean to relate the GPL to the old USSR or red china or north korea. I’m talking about the first “ideas” of communism. like how you learned about it in a civics or government class in high school or college (if you went to high school or college).
The communist manefesto is actually not that bad of an idea they are just hard to implement because people are so dishonest and greedy. This is way off topic but I wanted to make myself clear on that I dont mean to relate it to horrible governments that twist it around. I’m sorry if i made it seem like that and I’m sorry for getting off topic. I will stop it and leave the thread alone. thanks
Anonymous (IP: —.wlawla.wa.charter.com): Your exclusive right to physical property derives from the nature of physical things: if you don’t have an exclusive right, you can’t count on being able to continue enjoying the use of it.
And
drsmithy: The main flaw with this argument, of course, being that’s it’s impossible to take physical property without depriving someone else of it (basically, the only reason theft is bad).
Considering all physical objects originally existed in some form as a part of nature and no one owns nature, wouldn’t that make actually owning a physical object “theft”?
For example: If you find some rock sitting on the ground somewhere or in some mountain or whatever… And you take it, I can no longer make use of it. Nor can anyone else I know, unless I am allowed to take it back. Since it originally belonged to all of us to begin with, it should be ok if I take it in turn.
Of course, if you’ve modified the rock in some way, you may have made it so that it is no longer useful to me or a number of other people. In which case, you have permanently stolen the rock from the community.
My point is… In essence being allowed to own anything is theft from the community.
Actually… What is allowed to be property and what isn’t allowed to be property has more to do with our ideas than it does with the nature of anything.
You must be from Mars. Every human is biased, some more than others. Since all humans are biased, you can only argument you are not biased by applying one or multiple fallacies.
Thank you for understanding.
As for Mr. BcBride, i suggest we as techies take the things we say with a grain of salt. The man doesn’t know what he is talking about. He does not understand the GPL, he does not understand copyright infringement. What he does understand is that his business got apocalypsed by some, public domain operating system which is dependant on a vital part called Linux. Mr BcBride does not wish to adapt, and instead of dying in silence he wishes to fight earth’s most strong in legal business called IBM.
I think he has a small chance against IBM, also taking into account the vultures of IBM’s attorneys. I’m rather wondering what kind of chance they even stand against IBM’s _counterclaims_.
Compare http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20040402014813843 with http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20040331043539340 and you know what i mean *g*.
“You can’t assign your copyrights to the GPL, stupid!”.
So when McBride/Sontag say that
“We did not donate our copyrights to the GPL”, they are making as much sense as
saying that “Microsoft donated their copyrights to the
EULA”.
Sontag: We don’t have to knock out the GPL for us to
succeed on the copyright issue. The GPL itself supports, in a lot of ways, our
positions. Section 0 of the GPL states that the legit copyright holder has to
place a notice assigning the copyright over to the GPL.
All these contributions
of our IP did not have an assignment by SCO saying here, ‘We assign these
copyrights to the GPL.’ The fact that we participated with Linux does not mean
that we inadvertently contributed our code to the GPL. You can’t contribute
inadvertently to Linux. We feel we have a very strong position based on the
GPL.
McBride: We will admit the things we’ve contributed and that we
can’t claw them back. But there’s a big difference in our minds between the
things we contributed versus things that are now showing up out there that we
didn’t sign over our title. We think we have protection under both the GPL and
copyright law.
Sontag: We feel very covered under the GPL itself, and
second, U.S. and international copyright law does not allow for inadvertent
assignments of copyrighted material; the copyright holder must make an explicit
assignment, typically in writing, in a contract. If that’s the strongest
argument that’s out there that SCO has a big problem here, that’s a molehill as
far as we’re concerned.
What are these guys smoking? The GPL is a
licence that you license “your” code under. The code still belongs to you! You
can license it to someone else under different conditions than the GPL. You can even include it in your closed source programs.
Let the courts handle this and leave the trolling out of OSNews. SCO can think then can win all they want but that doesn’t guarantee them a win. They have yet to prove anything they have claimed in the courts. I’m just suprised companies are gullable enough to send them money when they receive an SCO threat letter to sue for license infringment. I would be calling SCO and saying “Hello, Mr. Mcbride, how do you plan to sue me when you haven’t proven in a court of law that Linux has any of your code integrated into it?” Of course people will point to articles such as this saying “Well SCO thinks they can win”..lol.
McBride: A lot of code that you’ll be seeing coming on in these copyright cases is not going to be line-by-line code. It will be more along the lines of nonliteral copying, which has more to do with infringement. This has more to do with sequence, organization, which is copyright-protectable. It’s interesting when you go down this path that everyone wants to go to the exact lines of code, but most copyright cases…
Sontag: 90 to 95 percent
McBride: …are not line-by-line, exact copies. It’s too obvious. Most copyright infringement cases come from these nonliteral implementations of the same code or literary work.
The above lines are the clincher. When this whole law suit business first came out, pump-n-dump McBride was saying there was wholesale line-by-line copying of SCO IP in the Linux kernel. Now all of a sudden it’s more like this line sort of looks like our IP. So, obviously they had access to our IP when they wrote that line. Do they think we just do not remember? IBM, Red Hat, and others are not going to be forgetting either.
“You are someone who controls a government-mandated monopoly for a living. If you actually wrote for a living, you would be paid to *write*, not to sell copies of your work.”
No, you are the one that is wrong, he can do whatever he wants with his own work and if you don’t like that then don’t read his work. You can’t force people to give you their work, that would be same as forcing everyone to use GPL for their software, they should use it IF THEY CHOOSE SO.
As for communism, it doesn’t work because unlike what Marx liked to think, people aren’t bees and society isn’t a bee hive. Also comparing the GPL with a polital movement is absurd.
“…he can do whatever he wants with his own work and if you don’t like that then don’t read his work. You can’t force people to give you their work…”
I completely agree. He can in fact do anything he wants with his own work. And I should be able to do anything I want with it too, if I come to possess a copy of it. And no, I can’t force him to give it to me, and have no desire to do so. It’s forcing people that I’m trying to get *away* from. Telling me I can’t build X because it’s patented, or use Y to run my server, is force.
In a world with no IP laws, no one would have to give software away. They could protect it with contracts between businesses, they could protect it by never letting it leave their servers (hosted apps, etc.), they could protect it by releasing only binaries, for goodness sake. E.g. Windows.
And how come anyone who denies the existence of any particular kind of ownership is called a communist? You wouldn’t like John Locke’s property rights, on which ours in the US are based. They say you only have a right to property that derives from your right to life, meaning that if the property doesn’t help you live, we can just fight for it. What do you base your extremist pro-property views on? What is the basis of the ‘right’ you claim to have? Or is it just capitalism-via-politics: hm… seems we could make a lot of money if we passed law X…
When I look at our case, I think anyone who has a rational mind would come down to the same conclusions I do.
Some interesting ideas about what should and shouldn’t constitute property that wouldn’t last 10 minutes in an economics class, or more importantly in the real world.
Money doesn’t have much if any intrinsic worth. Neither do shares of stock or other investments. (Shares of stock are called “intangible” property for this reason.) So if you’re going to restrict property to physical stuff, not only is there no way to get paid for writing or discovering the drug that cures AIDS, there’s nothing to get paid *with*. Back we go to a semi-agrarian barter economy. Like seafood? Better live near the ocean and/or a fisherman. The ease of things like buying a fish sandwich for most of us is due to the fact that a few thousand years ago, “primitive” cultures became a lot smarter than many of the folks posting here, and no longer insisted that value had to be restricted to physical property.
OK, so if your economic philosophy is current as of early Biblical times and you allow that non-physical things can have value, it then becomes a question of what you value. You indicate that by what you’re willing to pay for. If you don’t think writers should be paid, then you get a society without writers. I personally like to read, so I’m willing to pay writers. I like to use software, so I’m willing to pay the people who code it. How to make sure these people can make a living at things we like having them do – should copyrights, patents, etc., be allowed, and if so on what sorts of intellectual products – is a complicated, interesting question, not something that can be resolved by ignoring the last couple thousand years of economic history.
Do I think the GPL is communist? ofcourse it is.
I really dislike seeing people say this. It shows either an ignorance of what communism is, or an ignorance of what the GPL is.
Communism is forced upon all citizens of the communist nation whether they like it or not. This is obviously not the case with the GPL. If you must compare the GPL with a governing structure, then it most closely resembles a united order, where people contribute to the good of society of their own morale agency and of their own good will. The are not compelled to do so; as is the case with communism.
This freedom, which exists in the GPL and does not exist in communism, is in and of itself enough to render the two at opposite ends of the social spectrum.
No, it isn’t. As someone who writes for a living, I have the right to profit from the intellectual items I create. It belongs to me.
Do what you want with what you’ve created. But you shouldn’t be allowed to restrict other people’s right to use and modify *copies* of your creation. A copy is certainly not yours anymore, although extremist laws say so.
If I were a furniture maker, each piece of furniture would belong to me until someone pays me an agreed price for its use. You can’t walk into a store, take you want, and head out, because that’s their real property (“real” here being the term meaning “physical”).
That’s why the comparison is not valid. Someone copying your IP does not use a copy you provided, but creates himself the copy.
You don’t want to copyright your code? Fine, don’t. But those of us who choose to maintain control over what we create have the right to choose to do so.
You should not be able to copyright something you do not own (in this case : ideas). Only extremist capitalism advocates can defend that but it is neither moral nor viable (economically).
Considering all physical objects originally existed in some form as a part of nature and no one owns nature, wouldn’t that make actually owning a physical object “theft”?
Sure, if this object is unique. But if anyone can have such an object, that’s not a problem anymore.
That’s why theft should not be allowed with software, since it can be copied at no cost. There’s no reason to keep this archaic ownership concept for immaterial objects.
I agree with part of what you are saying. However, I strongly disagree with other parts, as outlined below.
You can’t walk into a store, take you want, and head out, because that’s their real property (“real” here being the term meaning “physical”).
But by the same token, you shouldn’t be allowed, as the owner of a store, to go around filing false police reports and pressing charges against people for stealing your merchandise when they in fact didn’t.
In my opinion, with all the flip-flopping and misleading statements, this is exactly what SCO is doing. They may have a legitimate complaint regarding Unixware/AIX, but the Linux thing is a sham. I work across the street from them and have several friends that work there who have either donated a bunch of code, under the GPL, to the Linux kernel, or watched it be done by Caldera/SCO. Now that they’ve changed their business stategy they want to reclaim their GPL’d contributions. It just doesn’t work that way.
You don’t want to copyright your code? Fine, don’t. But those of us who choose to maintain control over what we create have the right to choose to do so. If IP laws were abolished, development of software would screech to a painfully slow crawl.
First of all, copyright and IP laws are two different things. Secondly, this is the one part of your post that I disagree most with. IP laws would be fine if they protected true advances in technology (for less time than they currently do), but as they exist today, along with patent laws, the laws are grossly abused and broken.
If we extended the current state of IP laws into the material world, you would have one store that could legally have a checkout line and could put their goods on shelves. All other stores would have to pile their goods on the floor in heaps, or end up paying huge licensing fees to the owner of the checkout-line/goods-on-shelf patent holder. This is ridiculous! Blatently obvious IP and patents should not be allowed (like Amazon’s one click checkout – which is my opinion is blatently obvious).
As a software developer, I shouldn’t have to get an attorny to protect my right to do something as obvious as create drill-down links into database details, but I have to because some dimwit in Texas was granted a patent on doing that very thing. This is wrong.
Ever wonder why the Linux kernal development moves slowly? That’s why.
I disagree with you here as well. The kernel is very complex. Writing advance software well takes a lot of time. It has little to do with IP and copyright laws.
The Utopian Socialist attitude that everything should belong to everyone equally just doesn’t work, which is evident to anyone who studies culture and history for more than five minutes.
Socialism does not work. It is as retarded as its proponents. However, OSS is not socialism for the same reasons it isn’t communism. You are not forced to participate.
People probably have myriad reasons for wanting to distribute their code under the GPL. But they are free to do so should they choose. My company distributes some software freely because it vastly improves their ability to sell the rest of their software and services. What is wrong with that? Absolutely nothing. However, it becomes wrong when a company attempt to renege on its GPL’d contributions and begin suing its customers, which is what SCO is doing.
Is that most people who write “Free” software intend it to be free as in BSD Free but use GPL by mistake because they don’t realise the communistic nature of it.
Listening to characters like Stallman (who unfortunately get far to much attention) has messed up peoples choices… lies lies and more lies… very similar to politicians.
I guess that’s also why this political debate started… GPL and politics seems to have a lot in common.
Me personally favour free software… PD/BSD/MIT software…
Actually it’s us information anarchists. We are surprisingly strong on this particular board – my ideas are usually met with nothing but a chorus of responses like Captain Chris’. Nice to see the tables turned for once…
They removed copyrights. You need to check your facts. Look it up.
In the Linux kernel code, I see in numerous places the BSD licence, ahead of a lot of files. So if there have been mistakes, they have been repaired. Anyway, I would like to see the links and how this issue has been solved, if it was intentional or if it was just a matter of misplaced licence terms. Actually the open source community plays it fair, this is not the case from SCO.
Falling into a coma reading the same old tired arguments. SCO please roll over and die quickly, your acting like a fat opera diva in a death scene and the public are restless for you to just shut up and die.
Communism, great theory but until hunams have access to uncontrolled limitless resources (which hopefully stifle greed and primal survival instinct), it won’t happen. Maybe next milleniu but unfortunately, not in my lifetime.
“Some interesting ideas about what should and shouldn’t constitute property that wouldn’t last 10 minutes in an economics class, or more importantly in the real world. ”
If you did study economic history you’d know that they actually do work in the real world and have lasted for a time that is vastly more then what you propose.
“Money doesn’t have much if any intrinsic worth. Neither do shares of stock or other investments.”
If you’ve ever say lit a fire or collected crap you’d know that this is wrong.
“So if you’re going to restrict property to physical stuff, not only is there no way to get paid for writing or discovering the drug that cures AIDS, there’s nothing to get paid *with*.”
If you did study economic history you would know that this is wrong, the inventor could have been paid with something that has a value for the inventor.
“The ease of things like buying a fish sandwich for most of us is due to the fact that a few thousand years ago, “primitive” cultures became a lot smarter than many of the folks posting here, and no longer insisted that value had to be restricted to physical property. ”
If you where as smart as you try to pretend you are with your pseudo intellectual attitude you’d know that all “property” is physical.
“OK, so if your economic philosophy is current as of early Biblical times and ”
If your studies of philosophy was as current as that what’s his name(I think he’s often being called the first philosopher or something like that) you’d know that just because you feel like something should be right/just doesn’t make it right/just and pretending to be smart doesn’t mean you are smart or that people will think you’re smart.
Sontag: Sure, there may be some of that, but look at dynamic shared libraries; different operating systems implement these very differently. But in Linux and System V, they’re implemented in exactly the same way. They could have been done very differently and still accomplish the same thing.
Now aren’t these the same whining bitches that produced a little operating system called DOS? And didn’t this DOS of theirs not only look and act like the DOS of TWO other companies, but wasn’t it implemented in the exact same ways, despite being an independant implementation (And also like the SYSV code, not originally written by them? Didn’t they take Microsoft to court over that one too?).
American capitalism at it’s best boys and girls.
Here’s to the unending FiaSCO.
Now aren’t these the same whining bitches that produced a little operating system called DOS?
Not quite. In a previous incarnation, as Caldera, SCO *bought* DRDOS so they could sue Microsoft.
Sound familiar ?
Not quite. In a previous incarnation, as Caldera, SCO *bought* DRDOS so they could sue Microsoft.
Same Demon. Different face.
Well said.
Less innovation. More Bitching. More Lawyers. Waste of time, money and energy.
Someone else said IBM/Novell should buy SCO? What a waste of money.
With backing via the evil empire how can it fail to win?
Say what?
So you won’t refute my testimony?