Moglen on SCO’s FUD

5 Responses to Moglen on SCO’s FUD

1. Kaa says:

   August 4, 2003 at 1:41 pm

   Moglen has written a good anti-FUD piece, but he doesn’t touch upon a very interesting claim that SCO is dancing around. Copyright, as is well known, not only protects the original work, but also prohibits unauthorized creation of derivative works. The issue is what does “derivative work” means in the context of software.

   For example, I cannot publish my own story using Star Wars characters without permission from George Lucas. But I can reimplement a piece of software that provides the same functionality as someone else’s — same API, same call arguments, etc. Why? Well, for mostly historical reasons. It used to be that nobody greatly cared for copyright protections of computer code unless that code was bodily lifted and, unchanged, incorporated into other people’s programs. That is now changing.

   SCO is a litigious company without a valid business. Their only hope for getting some money is through lawsuits. Therefore I wouldn’t be surprised if they tried to to drastically widen the concept of “derivative works” as applied to software. Basically, their claim would be that whole of Linux (with the accompanying GNU, etc. tools) is derivative from the original UNIX and thus has no right to exist except by permission (read, paid license) from SCO.

   The consequences of such a claim being upheld would be quite catastrophic for people who write software. And no, I don’t necessarily trust the US justice system to do the correct, or at least, a reasonable thing…
2. Anonymous says:

   August 4, 2003 at 1:45 pm

   An excellent blog covering this case is Groklaw, a blog written by a paralegal who also knows the Linux world. This blog has brought out key point after key point showing that SCO really has very little chance of succeeding in court.

   There’s a lot to read there, but if you follow the case this site provides daily information on a detailed level that you cannot find most other places, mostly because most other places don’t really know the law and this is a legal case.
3. Songmaster says:

   August 5, 2003 at 6:42 am

   The definitions of the Unix APIs don’t belong to SCO though, they are defined and published by the Open Group, which owns the Unix trademark and was originally set up to ensure that no single company can control Unix. They have also been published many times in books on the subject of Unix programming over the years. Thus I don’t really see how SCO could use this as a valid claim (but IANAL, so…).
4. Roy Murphy says:

   August 6, 2003 at 8:25 am

   I can reimplement a piece of software that provides the same functionality as someone else’s — same API, same call arguments, etc. Why?

   Because an API is a “method of operation”. Methods of operation are specifically excluded from receiving copyright protection. Utilizing or even reimplementing an API do not make a derivative work.
5. pete rock says:

   August 10, 2004 at 5:50 pm

   If you want to buy perscription pills then you have to try this great pharmacy who offer perscription drugs. You can now order your perscriptions online. When order the online perscriptions you will get discount precription drugs prices. There is a real chance to save a lot of monet when order prescription drugs on line from the USA.

Comments are closed.