[plug] SCO GPLs their UNIX IP

[Leon Brooks]

http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=10700830

Weeeeell... probably not quite, but this insight does make their legal 
case seem even sillier. (-:

    SCO Group has assured its Linux customers that any company that's
    paying for Linux software and services from SCO Group is already
    paying for SCO's intellectual property.

Compare this with:

    http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html

    You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in
    whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any
    part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third
    parties under the terms of this License.

    [...]

    You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program
    except as expressly provided under this License.

    [...]

    You are not required to accept this License, since you have not
    signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify
    or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions
    are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License.

    [...]

    If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent
    infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent
    issues), conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order,
    agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this
    License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this
    License. If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy
    simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other
    pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not
    distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent license
    would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by
    all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you,
    then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License
    would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.

For an example of TSG publishing "Program" under the GPL, download this 
(11.2MB):
 
ftp://ftp.caldera.com/pub/scolinux/server/4.0/updates/SRPMS/kernel-source-2.4.19.SuSE-152.nosrc.rpm

Ergo, if SCO are able to indemnify their own Linux users, they are 
required by the terms of a licence which they have been implicitly 
agreeing to for nearly three months since filing suit (to say nothing 
of many years before) to indemnify all users of any software included 
on that FTP site (ie, practically the entire distribution, certainly 
all GPLed packages within it including the Linux kernel) or disributed 
on CDs.

Cheers; Leon