Is Linux illegal ?
 

Recently i read news like this:
Novell, the second in the chain of four companies to own rights to the Unix operating system, is challenging the copyright infringement claims that the current owner of those rights, SCO Group, is making against Linux.


Will it be a setback to linux development, and succumb to Microsoft ?

I believe it's a sham, and that they do not own Unix.

check this out


http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/30910.html


Buying SCO stock may be a bad move at this point in time.

as far as i know, linux is built separatly from the ground up and doesn't borrow any proprietary code from unix flavours, besides, there isn't one company to own the copyrights to UNIX either, there are several flavours of unix as well as linux, no linux is just a posix complient *nix OS, so i dobt that that holds much water

I believe that this says it very well


http://www.novell.com/news/press/arc...5/pr03033.html

woudn't the owner of tue main UNIX copyrights be AT&T bell labs, or some derivitive of such? after all they were the ones to if not invent it, at least the first to write it in C. in fact the invented C for the purpose of rewriting unix instead of rewriting it in assembly everytime they upgraded. so SCO's clame would be bogus, besides, look at all the flavours of unix
SCO unix
HP-UX
NOvell-unixware
Linux
'Macos X
whatever os cray uses
whatever version of unix ibm uses
sun solaris
etc...
so to say that SCO has sole copyright ownership of UNIX isn't just a sham, i'ts total Bull$hit to make a buck and sounds almost worse than micro$oft's tactics

What has been missing from these discussions is what happens if the worst case scenario comes true. The SCO suit claims that System V code is in Linux (of course it would be nice if SCO actually pointed to the code rather than simply claiming it is there). If that is true, wouldn't the Linux community simply re-write the "offending" portions until it was no longer System V code? Then Linux continues on and SCO ends up looking even more idiotic than they do now.

you never really know what the legal system is going to
do. i mean, OJ is free, but then again, you're only in danger
if you're married to him, or screwing his wife or ex-wife.

but anyway, copyright doesn't cover algorhythms. that's
patent law. so any algorhythms in the original unix over
17 years old can't be covered anyway. but copyright,
as we know here in the US, is the God given right to
permanent ownership to anything you write, which can
never expire for any reason.
anyway, SCO's claim is under trade secret and
contract law. you can't be held responsible for
disclosing a trade secret unless you had reason to know
or the responsibility to know that it was a trade secret.
so only ibm or somebody there could be expected to
know, and that only affects ibm, really. and thats
assuming sco's version of lies are believed by a court..
there really can't be a patent still valid coming from
original unix code. copyright violations would be
possible, but who had access to the originals. and if
trade secrets were let out by ibm, they aren't trade
secrets anymore, because they were let out. there could
only be damages paid by the letter outter.

McDonald's Copyrights Hamburger
 

Wouldn't this be kina' like McD's trying to copyright the hamburger? I hope that Novell is not that nieve. Mayber they are just grasping for a piece of hope. It would be nice to claim a piece of the copyright to an operating system that is installed on 80% of the WWW servers. $$$$$$ In fact I think I want in on that...... :tisk:

The SCO has plans to kidnap Ronald McDonald and force Americans to go hungry unless IBM gives the SCO a bizillion dollars...or no... a bizillion euros.

"Wouldn't this be kina' like McD's trying to copyright the hamburger?"

Actually, you can't copyright an hamburger. You could how ever patent it.
Really, somtimes I think that if gready corporations existed it the stone age, the weel would have been patented. Imagin that!

Can I safely say that maybe a handfull of people really know if the Linux kernel has parts of Unix code?

Yep. I thinks so If it is true, which I doubt, the programmers at IBM would know. And maby the boss of those programmers. Who else?

McDonalds couldn't copyright the hamburger, but they can claim that the recipe is a trade secret and sue you if they can prove you acted in bad faith while procuring their recipe. If you just tried and tried to recreate it and eventually succeeded, that's fine, that's reverse engineering... more or less, which is evidently still legal and proper these days as long as the hamburger wasn't protecting a copyrighted work, like a movie, song or ebook. Also, you would be quite surprised how long it took McDonalds to actually get a Trademark with that name.

Oh goodness no, up until about... well, '95-ish and maybe even still, Universities could purchase the source code to their unices from the vendor at a minor add-on cost, so just about every CS undergrad for 20 years or so learned C with Sys V source as an example.

75 years from death of author or 100 years from date of publication in case of corporate or multiple author. Of course, the Sonny Bono Copyright foreverment Act I think adds another quarter century.

The trick with making this a Trade Secret case is that it made it scary. They don't want to win, they want to spook companies into hiccup'ing cash. Copyright strictly would have been a bad move, especially since Berkely already beat AT&T in basically the same case back in '90-93! And all of the patents, pretty much, are dead or pointless (like the .Z compression algorithm). Claiming that IBM diluted some unknown quantity from Unix due to Big Blue's support of Linux is far fetched, but not ridiculous like the other moves, and remember, they don't want to win anything, they just want money.

The interesting thing to wait and see is what happens on June 3rd when the AIX license IBM has from SCO technically runs out.

Cheers,

Finegan

Originally posted by whansard

is the God given right to
permanent ownership to anything you write, which can
never expire for any reason.


i was trying to be facetious, but i did a poor job.
i think copyright out to be somewhere in between
5 and 20 years. maybe news articles about 6 months.
i am law school educated, and it goes horribly against
what out forefathers had in mind for copyright for it
to be as long as it is now.
copyright SHOULD be only as long as MINIMALLY
necessary to induce authors to produce works, and
ONLY that long.

this is funny. salvation from lindows? lmao

This thing gets more and more complex. The bottom line though is, SCO has a snowballs change in hell to win this. But then again as was pointed out before, they probebly don't intend to win.

Am I the only one that smells the hand of microsoft all over this? It seems like a great way for a monopoly to attack the up and comer. Insite a piss ant company like SCO to attack the image of Linux. This seems more about the movement than the money.. SCO is scared of Unix losing to Linux in the server market (It will), and Micosoft has been a little nervous about its position in the server market as well.

Am I just a conspiracy nut, or does anyone else see this?

Oh absolutly I do. For microsoft it's about harming the name of Linux. About spreding Fear doubt and uncertainty. It think the longer this goes on, the more harm it will do. Novell and Lindows just complicated things. Which means the legal battle will take even longer. Woulden't it be better if IBM would end this right now, by beying SCO. To just get over it. Then again that's exactally what SCO wants.

linux illegal?
 

I doubt that it is. I can remember when there was ms-dos and dr. dos. different os's but same commands. I don't recall any challenges to dr. dos from microsoft. Maybe there were, but I don't recall any.
This SCO thing is getting very suspicious. Especially after microsoft got into a deal with them shortly after the suit against ibm.

IBM buying out SCO would be an admission of guilt by IBM and do more harm than good in the long run. IBM and Linux would both end up with a 'tainted' image; Linux more than IBM since Linux depends more on reputation than marketing.
IBM(and Linux) needs to defeat SCO in court with a clear judgement.
Personally I hope IBM stomps SCO into nothing more than a greasy stain on the 'information superhighway':D

I thinks you are wrong steved123. M$ did sabotage dr dos. Apps creaded my ms that ran on top of dos mysteriusly creashed on dr dos. M$ probebly did that on porpose.

dr.dos vs. ms-dos
 

I was only talking about legal action by microsoft against dr. dos. I don't think microsoft took any legal action against the dr. dos people. Maybe they did but I don't recall any. Incompatiblity is another issue.

After reading the letter from Novell, it sounds like Novell is here to help. They have a big investment in Linux and the jist I got from the letter is that they are only interested in preventing damage from SCOs smear campaign. I didn't get the impression that Novell would turn around and pull a similar stunt once this matter is resolved. It's in Novells interest to play nice with the Linux community if they want their services to survive in the server market.

We as Linux users are finally being seen as a demographic worth fighting for. That says something great about the progress of the Linux movement. No longer can Microsoft say Linux is no threat without looking foolish.

I agree, Movell is on our side. They also seem to be talking legal action against SCO if they continue the bs.

No I don't doubt Novell is on our side. I just pointed out this got a bit complex with all these parties involved. And I fear that because of that, this thing will take even longer.

I am thinking it may help Linux in a way.

All the people who use Linux coming together to stand up and fight for the right to use free software.

If Linux is illegal, god it's good to be a criminal....
The matrix doesn't have me anymore. :-)

This SCO thing is making people say "what's Linux".
Free advertising for Linux...Cool :cool:

chris dibona was named by linus to checkout the sco code they say. good guy chris, i always liked him when hes on tech tv in fact it was he that got me started on linux. he'll figure out whats up.

This is not a farce.
linux might be banned if SCO won the case.

It won't stop me from using it.

so if pasted some copyrighted text right here,
linuxquestions would be illegal and completely
shut down, right?

or if your neighbor came and took a few bricks from your
house and put them on his, his whole house would be
illegal right?

how about i use a kernel from 1999, so i'm completely
legal, assuming a few lines of code makes the whole
kernel illegal.

Not at all..check THIS out :D

Could you imagine the immense backlash that would occur if SCO succeeded and Linux was no more. I think it would get really ugly out there.

at some point in the past, the linux kernel had no
stolen code in it. what's wrong with using a slightly
older kernel, and still using all the current software
with it, or the debian bsd thing.
if there is ANY stolen code, rip it out then fix what's left.
ibm is the one getting sued here. there's no basis for
an end user to get sued.

So your saying there is stolen code?

Who was it stolen from?

i do not think there was any stolen code. i just get tired
of people talking about linux being banned because of
stolen code. even if there is stolen code, the practical
result to linux users is almost nil. no banned linux.

if that is true, then that means that everyone who has ran unix has ran an unregistered/pirated or stolen os or something along those lines?

no it doesn't. it would only mean that ibm violated
a contract with sco. sco is now amending their
complaint to include copyright violations too, i think.
assuming, and this is HUGE freaking assumption,
that a copyright violation was found, the court would
then have to issue a remedy. remember how long
that part went on, after microsoft was found guilty?

assuming this isn't settled, this would drag out for years.
as soon as linux people find out what the code is that
is in dispute, it will probably be redone, just in case, and
no longer be relevant, years before there could even be
a finding by the court.

the only reasonable thing to do would be to make ibm
pay some money for these trade secrets they have
or haven't taken.

if a copyright violation was found, then possibly
people or businesses who wished to continue using
the (by then years old) kernel, they should pay a
license. but basically that would require people to
turn themselves in. like you writing the riaa a letter
telling them you made a copy of a cd and you want to
pay for it.

this all assumes.
sco owns trade secrets and or copyrights ( doubt it )
that ibm stole ( doubt that )
that was significant to kernel development ( no way)
and people using linux were unjustly enriched
by getting to use linux for free ( possible, but all the
previous would have to be true ), and
the court thinks that people should have to pay, even
though they had no way of knowing that the code
was stolen, or what code was stolen. ( fat chance )

The latest news showed that SCO can threaten IBM and linux,
bad news to penguin users.

i have a deadline for sco. they better meet it or else.
if they don't meet it, they're really gonna be in trouble.
things are really gonna be different in sco land i'll tell you.
they're really gonna get it. and when they find out what
i'm talking about, they're really extra plus gonna get it.
then everybody's gonna get it, and that whole group
will be in trouble. all of em that are affected by sco
not meeting my deadline. they can settle if they want,
in fact, they better settle, or else. or they're all gonna
get it in fact everybody could be in violation if sco
doesn't meet my deadline, they'll all get it too. they'll
all be in trouble. big trouble mister. big big trouble.
("is my stock going up yet? good. sell sell sell")
they'll all be in big trouble, big huge all kinds of trouble.
billions of troubles. i just want them to meet my
deadline, cause i value my property. thats all.
my deadline might be coming soon, but it might not,
and i can't tell you what it is, but it's big trouble thats
for sure.

thats rubbish. No matter what the outcome is, Linux would survive. If they decided that huge parts of the code was stolen, it would be rewritten and reimplemented, and due to the amount of worldwide interest in this case, chances are that would take a matter of a few days/weeks.

i think it is a farce, as many others do. This case will fall through and SCO will be laughed out the courts.

I dunno which reports you lot have been reading recently, but the "sample" evidence currently revealed by SCO is 85 lines of code, with "identical" developers notes/comments.

85 lines of code is diddlysquat.

I'm pretty sure that could be re-written - that's presuming that SCO can actually prove that they own the UNIX copyright/patent and not NOVELL or whoever.

I think i'll wait and see what happens.

Irrespective of that, it will take a court official, clutching a court order, standing behind me before I will even entertain the prospect of uninstalling my linux!:D

regards

John:cool:

i run my own version of unix called willix. i took the
linux source code and removed all the comments.
now it's legal. the comments are what sco was
complaining about anyway, right?

This, to me anyway, is one of the reasons I'm not all that concerned yet. Pretty much everyone here would do the same I think. Try to come get my spindle of distros. I mean, it's not like Napster where it was obvious infringement (not that most of us would care about that either :D ), we all bought onto this thing assuming Open meant "Open". If they take that away, we still have the idea that it's open, and they can go straight to he!!... There'll be a good chunk who'll go BSD, but it's not likely that Linux would go away. I'm no lawyer, nor do I really know a whole lot about the case, but I think that they cannot retrospectively remove our rights. At best, they'll halt future production on the same code, but the previous code is out, it's over, there's no turning back. It's like mooning the town, you can't take back the images they've seen :D

Cool

nothing is going to happen
 

Slow down people! Don' t panic.
Linux is going to be unharmed!

As I see it:

best case situation: Linux does not contain any "illegal" code. IBM beats SCO. End of story.

worst case situation: Linux contains illegal code. Illegal code is identified and IBM, RedHat, Linus is warned "seize and desist". There will not much code, so code is rewritten / renamed sufficiently. Next release goes out, everybody get's newest release, problem solved. No more illegal code. End of story.

So, in short: nothing can happen, no problems, no legal action. Kernel and Linux release cylcles are so fast that in no time, everybody would be on legitimate flooring.

Not that I suspect that there is illegal code in linux.
M$ is pushing this, trying scare users to use linux (business Users are not known for their braveness)
FUD (Fear uncertainty and doubt) is the marketing term.
I love the unconfortable heat the our little penguini is giving M$. ;-)

For me, it is the sign that SCO is on the deathbed, doomed (unix is killed by linux big time) and desperately trying to get some cash.

cease -- seize what?

SO I can delete my kernel and all is okay.

I never reboot anyway.

he he he. Looks like we all might just have to do that. Good thing we are using decent OS's here ;) Delete the "bad code" build a new kernel with the "good code" (hopefully 2.6 :eek: ) and reboot to make sure it all went well (which of course it will).

Ahh, how I love the "ease" of things now.

Cool