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| IBM and FSF Respond |
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Tuesday, July 22 2003 @ 12:56 PM EDT
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An article in Linux Today is very interesting. First FSF's Eben Moglen: Eben Moglen, professor of law at Columbia University and general counsel to the Free Software Foundation (FSF), though says there is absolutely no reason for anyone to buy SCO's license. "Users don't need a license to use copyrighted programs anymore than they need to pay a copyright fee before reading Gone with the Wind. If you copy, distribute, or modify copyrighted material, then you can be in copyright violation."But, he adds, if a distributor, such as Debian, were to agree to SCO's license, they would then be in violation of section 7 of the Gnu General Public License (GPL). This section specifies that if legal "conditions are imposed... that contradict the conditions of this License' you cannot distribute GPL protected free software." Further, he says an end user is not responsible for a copyright violation. He offers to help too:Still, Moglen believes that, "If SCO really wishes to enforce these claimed copyright rights. I would suggest that they sue a Linux distributor. If the FSF distributed Linux, I would welcome such a lawsuit." And, speaking for himself and not the FSF, "I have renewed my offer to assist free software developers who may feel the need for legal assistance" because of SCO's recent actions. IBM also says it isn't aware of any UNIX System V code in Linux, according to Trink Guarino, IBM spokesman: IBM is not aware of any Unix System V Code in Linux. SCO needs to openly show this code before anyone can assess their claim. SCO seems to be asking customers to pay for a license based on allegations, not facts.
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, July 22 2003 @ 10:49 AM EDT |
| From the gossip department (Slashdot):
I talked with a former SCO employee (15 years - high rank) He told me they
were well aware of the mixing of code. And that they (this is the previous
regime) made the business decision to allow this. I assume they saw it as being
in their interest at the time. This article indicates they even pushed it.
Afterall, they expected to make money with Linux.
IANAL but I believe this will be decided as a poison tree - poison fruit
case. SCO poisoned itself. And deserves to die a horrible death.
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, July 23 2003 @ 01:43 AM EDT |
A clarification: The above is the text of a comment I found on Slashdot. Click
on the link for the original version.
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