SCO did not invest millions in the development of UNIX. Darpa, AT&T and a host of other did. I think the case can be made that the doctrine of estoppel applies here. This has been out there for years with no complaints. LINUX has operated under the free and open rule. SCO may be able to claim that Lucent (or whomever sold them the UNIX IP rights committed a fraud since they were selling rights that were non existance) but they cannot claim that they now own rights that they purchased and withdraw them. Also, the question is what is so copyright able about the kernal.
In some ways this may break open the source code looks like text there form it must be a creative work and get copyright problem....BTW...the functionality arguments on DeCSS may come back to haunt some people.
mickey <mickeym@mindspring.com> Sent by: owner-dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu
08/12/2003 07:45 AM
Please respond to dvd-discuss
To: dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu
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Subject: [dvd-discuss] Is SCO Entitled?
"SCO has invested hundreds of millions in the development of UNIX and is
therefore entitled to a reasonable return on its investment. SCO
believes that major portions of the 2.4 and later versions of the Linux
kernel are unauthorised derivative works of SCO UNIX IP," it said.
This is a root issue in the copyright/patent/secret arena. The belief
that one is *entitled* to be paid for their efforts seems to fuel most
of these arguments.
So, are they entitled? Is that what "incent" was supposed to mean?