[NBLUG/talk] SCO: "legal liability for the use of Linux"

[Andru Luvisi]

On Sun, 18 May 2003, Edward Mendoza wrote:
>
> And more...
>
> "SCO told Linux users on Wednesday that they may find themselves in the
> crosshairs for using the open source operating system, sending letters to
> some 15,000 corporations warning that "Linux is an unauthorized derivative
> of Unix and that legal liability for the use of Linux may extend to
> commercial users."
>
> http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/2207791
>
> Please make this go away,

I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice.  It is, however, my take on
the situation.

Did you read the whole article?  The FSF lawyer says that in distributing
Linux under the GPL, SCO gave us all permission to use it.  SCO may have
stopped distributing Linux, but it's too late.  In distributing one copy
they gave us permission.  I doubt there is any infringing code in Linux,
but it really doesn't matter.  Thank you, Stallman.

Other related notes:  Most of the UNIX patents have expired (like the
setuid bit).  Everything in 4.4BSD-Lite is fine, due to the settlement
between UCB and Novell
(http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/opensources/book/kirkmck.html).  Lots and
lots of concepts in UNIX have been published in the open literature (for
example, Bach's book The Design of the UNIX Operating System) and cannot
be considered trade secrets.  Oh, and Caldera released much of the
"ancient UNIX" (V1-V7 and 32V) under a BSD style license.  See
http://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Caldera-license.pdf .

So, in order to make a case, they would need to find something that was
added after the latest version of Linux they distributed.  This thing that
was added... If it is a patent infringement, it would need to be on a
patent that hasn't expired.  If it is a trade secret infringement, it
needs to be a concept that isn't in the open literature or any 4.4BSD-Lite
derived systems.  If it is a copyright infringement, it would need to be
fairly recent code.

Of course, I am still waiting to see any specific claims...  Has anyone
here read the complaint against IBM (http://www.sco.com/ibmlawsuit/)?  Am
I the only one here who thinks it sounds more like whining than a legal
argument?  I couldn't find any specific actions of IBM that were cited in
the complaint.

Who on the planet knows Intellectual Property better than IBM?  I can't
speak from experience, but I have heard tell from numerous IBM employees
that the idea of IBM reassigning an AIX developer to Linux is ludicrous.
They don't even let the teams talk to each other.  They also have an army
of lawyers.  If it were a university or an individual, I could see SCO
bullying their victim into a settlement, but IBM can defend itself.

Between the lack of specific claims, a well armed opponent, the fact that
they distributed Linux under the GPL themselves, the UCB/Novell
settlement, all the open literature on UNIX internals, and the BSD style
license on the old code...

If, somehow, they do make the case, we all either roll back to a legal
version of Linux (like the latest one distributed by Caldera/SCO) and
Linux development proceeds from there again, or we move to *BSD or Hurd or
some other UNIX clone.  Given the 4.4BSD-Lite settlement, *BSD seems
awfully safe to me.  It shouldn't be too hard to build a FreeBSD/RedHat
distribution...

Personally, I'm not worried.  I don't see any way that SCO can win this
case, and even if they do, it won't cause me any problems.  All of my
favorite software (Apache, Perl, Mozilla, gcc, and so on) will run on an
older version of Linux, all the BSDs, the Hurd, etc.

That's the story of, that's the glory of, Free Software.  As the old
saying goes, the Internet views censorship as damage and routes around it.
Even if SCO wins, they still lose, because everybody will be angry at them
and we will still have good Free Software options available to us.

Andru
-- 
Andru Luvisi, Programmer/Analyst

Quote Of The Moment:
  Appel's method avoids making a large number of small trampoline bounces
  by occasionally jumping off the Empire State Building.
                  -- Henry G. Baker, "Cheney on the M.T.A."