[PLUG] The Beginning of the End

[Michael C. Robinson]

> Here's the rub: if Sun or Microsoft is using any Unixware code in their
> product, such as USB support, Xeon support, etc. and if a turns out that
> a source audit of SCO's Unixware turns up GPL'd code (as it likely
> would), then that means that SCO is licensing a product they do not
> wholly own. Further, the fact that the code may very well now be found
> in the Sun and Microsoft products as licensed from UnixWare means that
> there is now at it's core GPL'd code in both SUN and Microsoft products.
> 
> This would explain why SCO is so eager to challenge the GPL (it doesn't
> want to have to release the source code for Unixware) and it also offers
> at least a plausible explanation why both Sun and Microsoft purchased
> Unixware licenses for millions.
> 
> To the greatest logical extent this means that all three product lines'
> source code would have to be released because all three rely on GPL'd
> code to function.

I don't see that.  I only see that the GPL code has 
to be treated properly whether it's nested into 
something else or not.  It would be a disaster for 
the long term future of the GPL license if it were 
interpreted so that truly proprietary code has to be 
opened because GPL code may be nested into it under 
improper licensing practices.  A jury could be 
convinced that this opening unfairly takes away a 
company's property.  I believe with BSD code that 
you can copy it verbatim or modify it and license 
that code in a proprietary way having heard this 
was what got Microsoft where it is today.  In all 
frankness though, why aren't companies like SCO etc. 
required to go through third party audits as lack 
of these will likely lead to more problems legal 
and otherwise?  This seems to be a case of get a 
bad name for GPL software at all cost, that being 
why Microsoft is involved even though SCO could 
wipe itself out wading in the center of this 
foolishness.

Maybe the game is violate the GPL to break the will
of the court to uphold it.  It is controversial to 
require public auditing of what likely are
proprietary products, but in the absence of 
audits will there be legal fights for many open 
source programs to prove they were GPL'ed first?

Where in copyright law does it say anything about 1 
copy for backup?!?  I though the latter only pertains 
to particular copyrights that are written to include 
that provision.

What worries me is the damage the way SCO and Microsoft want
to license software can do.  It's well known that Microsoft
products for example are highly resistant to debugging yet
ubiquitous at the same time.  Not only that, resistance to
quality improvements stifles ordinary competition as it is
"not profitable to write quality software since the market 
isn't able or willing to demand it."  In closed source 
software environments can the consumer pick up consumer
reports and decide to avoid certain software favoring the
better written alternatives or are there zero quality 
articles to that affect to read?

     --  Michael