Re: SCO Thread that will never die (was Re: Maddog at work.)
On Tue, 3 Jun 2003 09:06:59 -0400 (EDT), bscott wrote: On Mon, 2 Jun 2003, at 8:36pm, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [If] you code it in PHP and never saw one letter of Amazon's code if your PHP code does the same thing that Amazon's 1-Click code does then you're in violation of the patent. So then, wouldn't that suggest that Linux is doomed from the start? Basically, patents are intended to protect ideas. If you develop a new and valuable idea, you can patent it. That way, you can turn that idea into a product without fear of someone else just copying your idea (and all your hard work). If you have the idea first, the system also rewards that. (I'm not going to get into the arguments about how well the system works.) Not to be splitting hairs, but one should be aware of terminology. Patents protect mechanisms - which are expressions of ideas. AFAIK, IANAL, ideas aren't protected - just their communication (via copyright) or implmentation (via patent) is protected. However, with the rather broad brush of the CDMA and recent PTO management changes, even this interpretation is up for debate. Copyright protects a written work, such as book, an essay, or a computer program. Two people can write two articles about the same thing, and that is perfectly legal. But one person cannot just copy the other person's article without permission. Copyright also protects forms of expression other than written: choreography, movies, sound recordings, ... The law regarding trade secrets I really don't understand, myself. Essentially, the secretiveness of a work has to be proven, along with substantial efforts to keep it secret - I believe several books have been published about Unix internals, and that maintaining trade secret privileges for any Bell Labs or ATT code will be nearly impossible as a result. However, we're talking litigation here, so its more a matter of who can afford the bigger team of lawyers longer that will determine the outcome of this case. If IBM (and others) determine that Linux will not make/save them money, or provide other market advantage, then the entire commercial Linux effort will collapse in the US - it will be up to the European Union and other countries who aren't controlled by business interests to carry the OSS/FSF/BSD/... flags. BTW: Does anyone know how the Dutch stand with respect to IP rights? Especially software patents. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: SCO Thread that will never die (was Re: Maddog at work.)
On Tue, Jun 03, 2003 at 11:50:16AM -0400, Bruce Dawson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Not to be splitting hairs, but one should be aware of terminology. Patents protect mechanisms - which are expressions of ideas. A good example is the RSA patent. If you actually dig up the patent (I'm not going to right now, but somebody else can), you'll find that the RSA mathematical algorithm was actually not the subject of the patent. The patent was for using RSA to encrypt data communication. A subtle point perhaps (what else are you going to use it for?), but a key one nonetheless. -- Bob Bell [EMAIL PROTECTED] - It's easy to solve the halting problem with a shotgun. :-) -- Larry Wall, creator of the Perl programming language ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: SCO Thread that will never die (was Re: Maddog at work.)
On Tue, 3 Jun 2003 11:12:24 -0400 Travis Roy [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Coke... (the drink, not the drug). They have a trade secret on the coke formula because they didn't want it to be in a patent so anybody could make it. Now, if you reverse engineer coke and make the same thing they can't do jack. But if somebody on the inside gave you the formula and you started making it then that would be bad becuase the trade secret was stolen. It is stored in a vault at the Trust Company of Georgia (I believe now part of SunTrust). I am a graduate of Coca Cola University (eg. Emory which owns a majority of Coke stock). I think your explanation of trade secret is pretty decent. -- Jerry Feldman [EMAIL PROTECTED] Boston Linux and Unix user group http://www.blu.org PGP key id:C5061EA9 PGP Key fingerprint:053C 73EC 3AC1 5C44 3E14 9245 FB00 3ED5 C506 1EA9 pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: SCO Thread that will never die (was Re: Maddog at work.)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: SCO's claims seem to vary by the week, but AFAIK, they have not claimed patent infringement (yet). They've been claiming copyright infringement and theft of trade secrets. I think. I was going to say last night that this was the first article I had read where patents were mentioned by the reporter. Notice that no one from SCO is quoted in the article saying Linux infringes their patents. I believe the author of the article in question is confused about the issues involved. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: SCO Thread that will never die (was Re: Maddog at work.)
On Tue, 3 Jun 2003, at 9:48am, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I believe the author of the article in question is confused about the issues involved. I believe *SCO* is confused about the issues involved. :-) -- Ben Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] | The opinions expressed in this message are those of the author and do | | not represent the views or policy of any other person or organization. | | All information is provided without warranty of any kind. | ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: SCO Thread that will never die (was Re: Maddog at work.)
On Tue, 3 Jun 2003, Ben == [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Ben Basically, patents are intended to protect ideas. Well, that is the way they are used, but they were *intended* to foster invention and innovation by rewarding the inventor/innovator with a 17(?) year span of exclusivity during which they could patent that invention/innovation. Unfortunately, it seems to have done exactly the opposite of this :( Ben Two people can write two articles about the same thing, and Ben that is perfectly legal. But one person cannot just copy the Ben other person's article without permission. Yeah, just ask the New York Times about that, they seem to know all about plagiarism and lying, to the point where if you're good enough, they'll even promote you for it ;) Ben The law regarding trade secrets I really don't understand, Ben myself. Yeah, I've never quite gotten this either. You declare it as a trade secret, but don't file a patent on it because that would release the trade secret to the public. But without the patent, in theory, you have no protection. So, what good does declaring it a 'trade secret' do you if anyone can come along and think up the same thing? -- Seeya, Paul -- Key fingerprint = 1660 FECC 5D21 D286 F853 E808 BB07 9239 53F1 28EE It may look like I'm just sitting here doing nothing, but I'm really actively waiting for all my problems to go away. If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right! ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
RE: SCO Thread that will never die (was Re: Maddog at work.)
Yeah, I've never quite gotten this either. You declare it as a trade secret, but don't file a patent on it because that would release the trade secret to the public. But without the patent, in theory, you have no protection. So, what good does declaring it a 'trade secret' do you if anyone can come along and think up the same thing? Coke... (the drink, not the drug). They have a trade secret on the coke formula because they didn't want it to be in a patent so anybody could make it. Now, if you reverse engineer coke and make the same thing they can't do jack. But if somebody on the inside gave you the formula and you started making it then that would be bad becuase the trade secret was stolen. What SCO is saying as far as the trade secret is concerned is that somebody either leaked or broke in and stole code. The only way to prove this of course is in a court since SCO can get that stuff sealed and a judge and the lawers can all look at the code and see if it's the same. That way both sides see the code in question, they're sworn to uphold the trade secret and they all find out if it's the same or not. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: SCO Thread that will never die (was Re: Maddog at work.)
Travis Roy mentions how trade secrets are used to protect the formula for Coca-Cola (the beverage that until 1914, or therabouts, actually contained coca extract, more commonly known as cocaine). Quick summary: If you invent something similar on your own, the Coca-Cola company can't do much. However, if (as is more likely) you acquired the formula for Coca-Cola from a Coca-Cola employee or some other surreptitious means and used it to make a competing product, then they could sue the pants off of you. A rather illustrative situation came up in Kentucky recently (in the last five years). A couple bought a house that had been owned by the Sanders family whose modern patriarch started Kentucky Fried Chicken with the secret recipe of eleven herbs and spices. Well, the folks who had lived there last didn't clean out all the junk, and the new owners found some papers in a trunk that contained Sanders' original recipe for his pressure-cooker fried chicken, including the eleven herbs and spices. Realizing that they had struck gold the new owners of the house attempted to sell the recipe to the highest bidder. The management company that franchises KFC (Jerrico, IIRC) could not allow the secret recipe to get out so they cited trade secret protections in a civil lawsuit to get the folks to hand over the papers and to promise that they'd never reveal what they had learned under penalty of law (i.e. NDA). Entirely OT, I want to add that if you've never had real, southern fried chicken or ckicken fried in a pressure cooker, then you haven't had fried chicken. It's best, of course, if the bird was raised free range. The industrial stuff that you generally find in your supermarket has no flavor. Fried turkey is pretty gol'danged good, too. :-) ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: SCO Thread that will never die (was Re: Maddog at work.)
Bruce Dawson mentions BSD in his previous message in the context of saying that it will be up to the European Union to continue free software development. I want to mention that all the currently extant BSDs are pretty much immune to SCO as a result of the ATT lawsuit. ESR even cites, and I think he does a good job here, the decision by saying that it may even a priori nullify SCO's claims against Linux. BSD is a whole different kettle of fish. I do think Bruce is right on when he mentions all the books having been published about UNIX internals and so on. I definitely don't think that SCO could stand on trade secrets for a second. Along the same lines, I'm going to followup on something that just struck me about Novell's claims. The SCO that is suing IBM today is not the same SCO that acquired UNIX or whatever rights they acquired from Novell. The current management of SCO, AFAIK, are basically Caldera. We all know that Caldera bought part of SCO including the name and after about a year, switched names from Caldera to SCO. The current management may very well be mistaken about the terms of the deal that previous management made with Novell. They may think that they actually own more than they do. It could be that they were misled when working out the deal to buy SCO, or that previous management simply didn't explain the terms of the deal in a way that was understood by Caldera. If the above is true, and SCO management truly are confused on what they own and Novell are correct in their assertions, they are going to have some serious explaining to do, particularly to shareholders who will likely slap management with a class action lawsuit for failure to do due diligence. I wouldn't be surprised if this is how it all plays out in the end. It could also be that they know what they acquired from Novell, and that their role is to pass along licensing revenue to Novell, as stated in their 10Q. If so, then they are misrepresenting themselves as copyright owners when they more like copyright administrators. They may or may not have the right to pursue legal action in this case, but obviously they, and David Boies, think they do. Of course, what big cases has David Boies won, lately? Bruce also aked: BTW: Does anyone know how the Dutch stand with respect to IP rights? Especially software patents. I know only that the EU gov't is or was considering software patents, and that there was a big to-do on Slashdot with lots of people posting how to get in touch with EU representatives to voice opinions on the matter. With the majority of us on the list not being citizens of EU member nations, it wouldn't do much good for us to contact them. Though, as I recall, Richard Stallman among others had been invited to speak before a committee in the EU parliament that is considering the legislation. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Maddog at work.
On Monday, June 2, 2003, at 04:30 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Glanced at the cover of EE Times this week, and saw Maddog weighing in on the whole SCO thing. Check out the article (and picture) at http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20030527S0020 Thanks for posting that. Though the article doesn't mention the Novell announcement from last week. Erik ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
