samba - Feb 2004 - [OT] Fyodor terminates SCO nmap rights -- how about Samba?

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As you all may know Fyodor of nmap fame has terminated SCO's
rights to distribute namp with its products.  See:

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/02/27/1077676955381.html

I know this is off-topic, but I am interested in opinions
on the subject of SCO using Samba in it's products while they declare
the GPL is unconstitutional and invalid.  In Darl McBride's recent speech at
Harvard Law School, he was asked in the Q&A period about SCO's use of
Samba and the GPL - to which he replied something to the effect (I am 
paraphrasing here) of "Samba doesn't infringe on our IP to our
knowledge, so we
still contribute (??) to the Samba project and distribute Samba with our
products"  Is this hypocrisy?  I welcome opinions of the members of the
list.

Sorry if this is not the right forum for this, but I am interested in the
opinions of the Samba community on this issue.

Michael Brown 

 
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As much as I would like to see a slew of copyright infringement claims
get filed against SCO, from my reading of the GPL, violations of the
license only terminates your right to distribute the software which
was violated.  AFAIK, the only GPL software who's license SCO has
arguably violated, to date, is Linux.  Making derogatory comments
about the GPL to the press does not violate the terms of the license.

On Fri, Feb 27, 2004 at 02:28:09PM -0800, Michael Brown
wrote:
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> As you all may know Fyodor of nmap fame has terminated SCO's
> rights to distribute namp with its products.  See:
> 
> http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/02/27/1077676955381.html
> 
> I know this is off-topic, but I am interested in opinions
> on the subject of SCO using Samba in it's products while they declare
> the GPL is unconstitutional and invalid.  In Darl McBride's recent
speech at
> Harvard Law School, he was asked in the Q&A period about SCO's use
of
> Samba and the GPL - to which he replied something to the effect (I am 
> paraphrasing here) of "Samba doesn't infringe on our IP to our
knowledge, so we
> still contribute (??) to the Samba project and distribute Samba with our
> products"  Is this hypocrisy?  I welcome opinions of the members of
the list.
> 
> Sorry if this is not the right forum for this, but I am interested in the
> opinions of the Samba community on this issue.
> 
> Michael Brown 
> 
>  
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Michael Brown wrote:
> As you all may know Fyodor of nmap fame has terminated SCO's
> rights to distribute namp with its products.  See:
> 
> http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/02/27/1077676955381.html
"Fyodor, whose Nmap (network mapper) security scanner is extremely popular
among geeks and
even featured in the latest film of the Matrix series"

Where in Matrix: Revolutions in nmap used? I'm going to have to watch that
movie a little
closer.

-- 
Andrew Gaffney
Network Administrator
Skyline Aeronautics, LLC.
636-357-1548

I'd have to rally behind Michael on this topic, I think this is where
the opensource community needs to show is stance and protest in a
non-vandalistic way.  I personally was confused how some script kiddies
felt that writing e-mail viruses that attacked SCOs website would do
anything more than give the OpenSource community a bad name.  This is
where we as GNU citizens need to show our support for Linux, even if
that isn't our OS of choice.  I'm personally a FreeBSD geek.  If SCO
throws an enough money at this case and wins, that makes OpenSource lose
value and vulnerable to many other lawsuits for someone that feels
OpenSource prevents them from making money.  Cough Cough M$.

My 2 cents

-Aaron Collins
hellfire at fastq dot com



-----Original Message-----
From: samba-bounces+hellfire=fastq.com@lists.samba.org
[mailto:samba-bounces+hellfire=fastq.com@lists.samba.org] On Behalf Of
Michael Brown
Sent: Friday, February 27, 2004 3:28 PM
To: samba@lists.samba.org
Subject: [Samba] [OT] Fyodor terminates SCO nmap rights -- how about
Samba?

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Hash: SHA1

As you all may know Fyodor of nmap fame has terminated SCO's
rights to distribute namp with its products.  See:

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/02/27/1077676955381.html

I know this is off-topic, but I am interested in opinions
on the subject of SCO using Samba in it's products while they declare
the GPL is unconstitutional and invalid.  In Darl McBride's recent
speech at
Harvard Law School, he was asked in the Q&A period about SCO's use of
Samba and the GPL - to which he replied something to the effect (I am 
paraphrasing here) of "Samba doesn't infringe on our IP to our
knowledge, so we
still contribute (??) to the Samba project and distribute Samba with our
products"  Is this hypocrisy?  I welcome opinions of the members of the
list.

Sorry if this is not the right forum for this, but I am interested in
the
opinions of the Samba community on this issue.

Michael Brown 

 
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>> Actually, didn't SCO make the arguement that any GPL'd software
should
>> actually be declared "public domain"?  If that's so,
doesn't allowing them
>> to continue using the software under the GPL put the copyright at risk?
> In their site they write (these are not THEIR words !):
>  "Congress shall have Power [t]o promote the Progress of Science and
> useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the
> exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."
> Thi later cite a sentence that want to show they are right. The sentence
> is about extension of terms, that is how much "limited time" is
excluseve
> right !
> The only things that GPL license differ than a "normal"
copyrighted work
> are: 1. the license does not "expire" 2. The license force you to
license
> derived works with the same license.
> There are the points that SCO try use to show it is illegal.
> Observations:
>  1. : Yes, they are right on this point, but -apart that this would
> apply to any of the computer licenses- this would only have the effect to
> set a limit on the time it would apply, and since they see
"right" to
> increase the spanm of tiome this would not be a problem now, and for may
> years to come [incidentally: each update of programs would shift further
> later expiring !]. The fact that whitin a certain time it would become PD,
> as many patents, should not worry much. 
Ahem...

Many people have a hard time understanding American Constitutional issues...

The delegation of authority to Congress:

"...[t]o promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing 
for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their 
respective Writings and Discoveries."

is NOT an exclusive one. In other words, it does NOT preclude any 
PRIVATE association from creating their OWN system for protecting the 
works of authors via contract, which is all the GPL is. It is valid, and 
any judge with half a brain working at 50% efficiency can see this plain 
as day - the problem will be finding a judge of this caliber who has 
ever read the Constitution and studies it's application.

Charles