Posted by: Anonymous Coward
on August 25, 2003 07:36 AM
I think SCO is very afraid of having to go to court against anyone and actually have to prove their claims. Their IBM lawsuit is completely frivolous and without merit and full of claims that they know are false or weak. It's one huge bet-the-company bluff to make IBM settle out of court or buy them out. This is the reason for the obscene damage amounts requested in the lawsuit and their attacks in the media against IBM, Linux and the open source community.
Unfortunately for SCO, IBM called their bluff and now they know they're screwed, but they continue their desperate attacks in the hope that IBM will still settle. They also have to keep their stock price propped up so their executives can sell off their stock, either for their personal gain or to fund the lawsuits.
SCO has little chance of invalidating the GPL since it's been used by many people, including Caldera, for quite a few years. And if they were to win their preposterous argument about only one copy being allowed under copyright law overriding software licenses, it would turn the software industry upside down. No reasonable judge would hand down a decision that would be so extremely disruptive to entire industries.
And if the GPL were invalidated, SCO would be guilty of distributing software for many years without a valid license to do so, which would make them guilty of huge copyright infringement.
They don't really believe the GPL is invalid. No judge will believe that argument since they distributed software under the GPL for almost a decade as Caldera.
They want to kill it off because 1) it prevents them from being able to extort money from Linux kernel users, 2) Linux weakened demand for x86 Unix, like Unixware, and 3) McBride has a personal vendetta against the GPL because he believes it destroys intellectual property and prevents him from being able to send his kids to college and buy a second home.
Not responding to a GPL violation doesn't weaken the GPL in any way. However, it could weaken the ability of the Linux kernel copyright owners to enforce their rights. If they knowingly allow SCO to infringe for a significant period of time as they distribute non-GPL source code mixed into the kernel, sublicense portions of the kernel, or collect royalties (all forbidden by the GPL), the kernel copyright owners may forfeit their copyrights and have no way to stop them from infringing.
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Re:Or maybe don't pull their licenses
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on August 25, 2003 07:36 AMUnfortunately for SCO, IBM called their bluff and now they know they're screwed, but they continue their desperate attacks in the hope that IBM will still settle. They also have to keep their stock price propped up so their executives can sell off their stock, either for their personal gain or to fund the lawsuits.
SCO has little chance of invalidating the GPL since it's been used by many people, including Caldera, for quite a few years. And if they were to win their preposterous argument about only one copy being allowed under copyright law overriding software licenses, it would turn the software industry upside down. No reasonable judge would hand down a decision that would be so extremely disruptive to entire industries.
And if the GPL were invalidated, SCO would be guilty of distributing software for many years without a valid license to do so, which would make them guilty of huge copyright infringement.
They don't really believe the GPL is invalid. No judge will believe that argument since they distributed software under the GPL for almost a decade as Caldera.
They want to kill it off because 1) it prevents them from being able to extort money from Linux kernel users, 2) Linux weakened demand for x86 Unix, like Unixware, and 3) McBride has a personal vendetta against the GPL because he believes it destroys intellectual property and prevents him from being able to send his kids to college and buy a second home.
Not responding to a GPL violation doesn't weaken the GPL in any way. However, it could weaken the ability of the Linux kernel copyright owners to enforce their rights. If they knowingly allow SCO to infringe for a significant period of time as they distribute non-GPL source code mixed into the kernel, sublicense portions of the kernel, or collect royalties (all forbidden by the GPL), the kernel copyright owners may forfeit their copyrights and have no way to stop them from infringing.
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