Re: SCO Turns Up the Heat on Linux Users

(Forwarded from Digital Copyright in Canada list)

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [d@DCC] Re: SCO Turns Up the Heat on Linux Users
Date: Mon, 18 Aug 2003 14:12:37 -0400 (EDT)
From: Russell McOrmond <[email protected]>
Reply-To: General Discussion <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]


Re: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,1224000,00.asp

  I would be helpful if articles on this issue clarified some of the
relevant legal and moral issues, which are not in SCO's favor.

  Whether or not there is a copyright violation against code SCO purchased
the copyright for is under dispute, and this issue will eventually be sorted
out in the courts.

  The fact that SCO's attempt to collect royalties is a violation of the
copyright of hundreds of other legitimate contributors to Linux is not under
dispute.

  What SCO is attempting to do by violating the creative rights of hundreds
of software creators puts them morally below the worse imaginings of the
claimed violations against Business Software Alliance members.   SCO is a
vendor and previous distributor of Linux who has now changed their mind and
is trying to kill the goose that layed the golden egg.

  If the BSA was interested in protecting software copyright they would be
involved in this case providing legal assistance to the legitimate creators
of Linux. It is interesting that BSA member Microsoft has payed SCO a
license fee for undisclosed source code.  This suggests to me that
Microsoft, and possibly BSA members generally, are not interested in
protecting copyright but only protecting their legacy "software
manufacturing" business model.  They seem far more concerned concerned about
alternative business models than copyright infringement.

  "Software manufacturing" is a historical way of looking at software as a
manufactured product that is created, distributed and sold on a per-unit
basis using business models that made sense with hardware.  Free/Libre and
Open Source Software represents far more advance thinking around software,
recognizing that hardware-like business models are only a very small subset
of possible business models.  There are many situations from a public policy
and business perspective where treating software like hardware is highly
inappropriate.


For more, see: http://weblog.flora.org/article.php3?story_id=458 Which says
in part:

    It should be noted that because of my support for copyright I have been 
strongly advising customers and associates to not pay royalty fees to  SCO,
no matter the outcome of any court cases. Whether or not SCO has any
copyright claims to Linux source code is under dispute, but the
contributions of all the other almost 450 contributors are not. These people
deliberately licensed their contributions under the GNU General Public
License which specifically disallows any contributor from extracting license
fees.

    The GNU General Public License was designed very specifically to 
protect Free/Libre software from the type of legal antics that SCO is
attempting. The license for Linux is such that it is royalty-free Free/Libre
software, or it is not copyable at all -- this is an all-or-nothing
situation where the only method to solve the problem is  for SCO to publicly
disclose (not under a non-disclosure agreement as  they haven done so far)
the alleged infringing code and allow the  community to replace it.

---
 Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/> 
 Governance software that controls ICT, automates government policy, or
electronically counts votes, shouldn't be bought any more than politicians
should be bought.  -- http://www.flora.ca/russell/

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