Posted 9:04 AM (0) comments

SCO: Mentally unstable? (updated 8/19)

Anyone who thought SCO might have a grain of sense had that thought demolished yesterday when the increasingly strident Utah company's lawyers announced that SCO would attack the validity of the Gnu Public license (GPL) under which Linux is licensed.

According to the report, SCO will argue that the GPL's provisions allowing unlimited copying and modification are not compatible with US copyright law, which allows software buyers to make only a single copy, says the Journal. Heise said the GPL "is pre-empted by copyright law", according to the report. Copyright law, of course, says no such thing. Copyright is actually a full, rich panoply of rights which the holder may reserve, or not, as they see fit.


SCO's lawyers should be brought up before the bar on charges of "ignorance of the law", while the company's stockholders should revolt and send the current management team riding out of town on a rail, with a stop (should the stockholders feel compassionate) at the closest looney bin.
[update] Eben Moglen, a professor at Columbia Law School, has written a much better critique of the SCO action than I ever could. His conclusion? "This argument is frivolous, by which I mean that it would be a violation of professional obligation for Heise or any other lawyer to submit it to a court."

Posted 11:28 AM (0) comments

Mad as a Hatter, Crazy like a Fox

Sun Microsystems' CEO Scott McNealy frequently castigates Microsoft for spreading Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) but his company is no slouch in that department, either. With the press full of the latest internet worm, Sun is rushing to release its new Linux desktop while the populace is dazed and confused. Project Mad Hatter, which was due to launch in September, includes Sun's Linux, the Microsoft-compatible StarOffice personal office suite, and the latest version of the Java technology platform.

Its FUD, pure FUD, and deserves to be treated like all FUD, no matter its source - ignore it.

Posted 8:56 AM (0) comments

Celebrate your sinister side

Today is the Official Left Handers Day, the 11th annual celebration of all that's "left" with the world. Southpaws unite!

Posted 10:29 AM (0) comments

Novell view from downunder

Australian IT, in a report quoting Novell spokesperson Bruce Lowry saying that - Open Source Software is the future, quotes Giga group's Ron Enderle extensively. Enderle has covered Novell for many, many years and doesn't see this new policy as very different from the acquisitions and the "SuperNOS" of ten years ago. He doesn't think Novell has what it takes to succeed in this new direction - ""This is an entirely new team but they have far less resources than they once did and it is clear that Linux direction is more likely to come from companies like IBM and HP over time and not from smaller players like Novell."

Posted 9:56 PM (0) comments

Another Patently Silly Case

Because a federal judge refusaed to allow the company to challenge the validity of a patent, the jury ruled against Microsoft in a case brought about remote procedure calls and Internet EXplorer.

Maybe, with Microsoft backing, we can finally bring a bit of logic and common sense to the ridiculous farce the patent procedure has become.