That Notorious Suit (Slightly OT)

[Nathan Kelley]

To Daniel Carrera <dcarrera at math.umd.edu>,

>> From: Nathan Kelley <digitaleon at runbox.com>,
> From: Daniel Carrera <dcarrera at math.umd.edu>,

>> By "That Notorious Suit" I mean the ongoing drama between The Santa 
>> Cruz Operation and International Business Machines over breach of 
>> contract.
>
> To be picky, "Santa Cruz Operation" != SCO. Inspite of the apparent 
> connection.

Thanks for the correction. *looking embarrassed* Substitute "The Santa 
Cruz Operation" for "The SCO Group" - their official name as per 
http://www.sco.com/company/profile.html.

>> Of course, the opportunity for the GnU General Public License to be 
>> weighed, measured, and not found wanting is obvious, as much as the 
>> potential consequences if it is found wanting.
>>
>> The next logical step is to ask what flow-on effects a ruling in 
>> either direction would have - or might have - on other OSI-approved 
>> licenses. Not being familiar with U.S. law, I would appreciate any 
>> insights on this point.
>
> 1) Within your scenario, you should also consider the *probability* of 
> the GPL being found wanting.  This is an important point.  For 
> example, I don't have a contingency plan in the event of meteor 
> collisions.  But the probability of one happening is low enough that 
> I'm not worried.

That is a debatable point. For every claim that the GnU General Public 
License is bulletproof, I can probably find a counter-claim that, in 
one user's words, "the GPL has holes you could drive a truck through". 
Who's to say which is correct with genuine authority and independence?

> 2) But to address your question anyways... I don't see how a problem 
> with one license can have any effect on another, unless they are very 
> similar. In the event that the GPL is deemed invalid, I would bet that 
> the LGPL would also be deemed invalid, because they have some 
> resemblance.  However, the MIT, BSD and X11 licenses would be 
> untouched.  They are entirely different.  Any grounds under which the 
> GPL is deemed invalid would be very unlikely to apply to any of those.
>
> Likewise, I would expect that a positive ruling would give credence to 
> similar licenses, and have no effect on different licenses.

I agree on that point. Those licenses are very unlike the GPL. But 
there are many licenses out there, some of them close to the GPL in 
fashion. Those could also be in the same boat as the LGPL, and claiming 
that they have nothing to do with the Free Software Foundation might 
not help down the track; if it walks like a duck and it talks like a 
duck, after all...

And of course, should the decision go the _other_ way, that being the 
GPL has not been found wanting, a long-time claimed stumbling block to 
adoption of GPL'd products would be diminished, or removed entirely. 
The GPL's near relations would again also benefit.

Although this is only a peripheral issue - at least for now - in the 
proceedings, it could have far-reaching effects.

> The BSD license is very simple.  I can't see it ever having a problem. 
>  Also, since it's very permisive, I can't imagine anyone being 
> interested in questioning it.  Ditto for MIT, X11 and Apache licenses.

I agree on this point, too. Which raises the point that perhaps, were 
the BSD license used for most open-source projects and were _that_ 
license the one that IBM was backing, would this whole situation of 
grander and grander claims by SCO each month or so not have come to 
pass? For that matter, could the proceedings have moved quicker?

> IANAL, but this is my take on this.

I'm glad you did :-)

Cheers, Nathan.

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