Posted by: Anonymous Coward
on December 05, 2003 07:34 AM
Essentially they say that the only benefit one can obtain from a copyright is financial gain. The fact hat someone might want to distribute something in the hope of that something being improved by others seems to escape them completely.
It is very simple - SCO does have the right (and duty) to defend their intellectual property, but it remains to be seen if there are any violations of substance. Some people tend to jump on their case about this intent, which I think is wrong. Of course all the tangential BS coming from SCO doesn't endear them to anyone.
However their attack on the GPL is not correct and they will lose. As the first post says, a copyright holder's works can be disributed by sale or other means - it is not a requirement that money change hands, and there is likewise no requirement that the copyright holder maintain certain rights (e.g. sole distribution) in order to avoid their work becoming part of the public domain. In fact SCO seems to equate GPLed works with works in the public domain, but that is not the case.
Speaking of which, given that SCO chose to elaborate its disdain for the GPL, I wonder if the Samba team will rethink their initial position wrt SCO shipping Samba as their windows compatibility layer. If I were them, the cease and desist letter would be in the mail, but perhaps they have a different view of the matter.
Learn about Linux
Download Linux
Get Linux help
Re:omg
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on December 05, 2003 07:34 AMIt is very simple - SCO does have the right (and duty) to defend their intellectual property, but it remains to be seen if there are any violations of substance. Some people tend to jump on their case about this intent, which I think is wrong. Of course all the tangential BS coming from SCO doesn't endear them to anyone.
However their attack on the GPL is not correct and they will lose. As the first post says, a copyright holder's works can be disributed by sale or other means - it is not a requirement that money change hands, and there is likewise no requirement that the copyright holder maintain certain rights (e.g. sole distribution) in order to avoid their work becoming part of the public domain. In fact SCO seems to equate GPLed works with works in the public domain, but that is not the case.
Speaking of which, given that SCO chose to elaborate its disdain for the GPL, I wonder if the Samba team will rethink their initial position wrt SCO shipping Samba as their windows compatibility layer. If I were them, the cease and desist letter would be in the mail, but perhaps they have a different view of the matter.
#