OSDL Position Paper
Professor Eben Moglen and the OSDL released a concise position paper on SCO. If you only read one thing about the issue, read this: it explains why SCO's claims are spurious, and why no Linux user needs to pay SCO for a licence.
From OSDL's summary:
1. SCO has yet to file a lawsuit against end users, nor has it shared publicly any information on what software code might infringe its copyright or trademark trade secret claims. Absent specific factual and legal information from SCO, how can any individual or company threatened with a potential lawsuit respond appropriately?
2. Moglen points out that copyright law is not relevant to customers ''using'' Linux. In much the same way that readers can enjoy a book or a newspaper without a copyright license, so can users of software - unless they have agreed to additional use restrictions in, for example, a shrink-wrapped box of software. Copyright law does restrict modification, copying and redistribution, however these activities are all allowed under the GNU General Public License (GPL) for GNU/Linux and other free software.
3. Moglen says SCO itself continues to distribute Linux under the GPL. He argues that users should be free to modify, copy and redistribute Linux since users can go to the SCO even today and download Linux with a GPL license. Hence, users of Linux already have a license - from SCO - that already allows them to do the things that SCO claims are infringing.
"Failure to come forward with evidence of any infringement of SCO's legal rights is suspicious," Moglen says. "SCO's public announcement of a decision to pursue users, rather than the authors or distributors of allegedly infringing software, only increases doubts."
People wondering about where other large companies stand on this might take a hint from the summary at the bottom of OSDL's press release:
OSDL - home to Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux - is dedicated to accelerating the growth and adoption of Linux in the enterprise. Founded in 2000 and supported by a global consortium of IT industry leaders, OSDL is a non-profit organization that provides state-of the-art computing and test facilities in the United States and Japan available to developers around the world. OSDL sponsors include Alcatel, Cisco, Computer Associates, Dell, Ericsson, Force Computers, Fujitsu, HP, Hitachi, IBM, Intel, Linuxcare, Miracle Linux Corporation, Mitsubishi Electric, MontaVista Software, NEC Corporation, Nokia, Red Hat, SuSE, TimeSys, Toshiba, Transmeta Corporation and VA Software. Visit OSDL on the Web at www.osdl.org.
posted Wed 6 Aug 2003 in /issues/sco-vs-linux | link
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