Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S261355AbUJXB6d (ORCPT ); Sat, 23 Oct 2004 21:58:33 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S261356AbUJXB6d (ORCPT ); Sat, 23 Oct 2004 21:58:33 -0400 Received: from mail1.webmaster.com ([216.152.64.168]:10505 "EHLO mail1.webmaster.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S261355AbUJXB63 (ORCPT ); Sat, 23 Oct 2004 21:58:29 -0400 From: "David Schwartz" To: Subject: RE: SCO's copyright claims or lack thereof (was: Re: Linux v2.6.9 and GPL Buyout) Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 18:58:23 -0700 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.6604 (9.0.2911.0) Importance: Normal In-Reply-To: <20041023124054.580.qmail@science.horizon.com> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.2180 X-Authenticated-Sender: joelkatz@webmaster.com X-Spam-Processed: mail1.webmaster.com, Sat, 23 Oct 2004 18:35:01 -0700 (not processed: message from trusted or authenticated source) X-MDRemoteIP: 206.171.168.138 X-Return-Path: davids@webmaster.com X-MDaemon-Deliver-To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Reply-To: davids@webmaster.com X-MDAV-Processed: mail1.webmaster.com, Sat, 23 Oct 2004 18:35:03 -0700 Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1552 Lines: 33 > Just for everyone's information... this is a bit long, but ends up arguing > that, if Caldera/SCO had a shred of evidence of copyright infringeent, > they would heva introduced it in court by now. It seems pretty clear at this point that SCO has no actual copyright or patent claims against code that is in the Linux kernel. All they have are theft of trade secret and violation of the spirit of the contract type claims against those entities that have had direct contact with SCO (and thus could steal their trade secrets or violate their contracts with them). If there is one possibly good thing that has come out of the SCO fiasco, it is a greater awareness of the risk of copyright infringement, especially with open source code. Had SCO actually held copyright to any work that actually wound up in the Linux kernel, we would all be at risk of serious liability. One can even envision a situation where someone maliciously (but with plausible deniability) allows their copyrighted expression to get into an open source project to create the ability to go after people who otherwise would have no interest in using their code. People who control the input of new source into large open source projects do need to be vigilant with regard to the copyright and patent status of that code. DS - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/