[ox-en] [Fwd: <nettime> Red Hat Fires Back]
- From: auskadi <auskadi tvcabo.co.mz>
- Date: Tue, 05 Aug 2003 18:19:23 +0200
Hi
I am new to the list ... I just recieved this from nettime. Stefan
crticqued a paper of mine a little while back where I discussed som
Australian Aboriginal art copyright cases and their relationship to OSS.
He was right in his criticisms of my then understanding of OSS (three
hail marys as penance) but I have been rethinking my approach and
realise that the SCO debate is a better example of the analogy I sought
to draw.
In the Aboriginal example the "traditional owners" of a design are able
to bring a case to restarin athird party or another traditional owner if
a ceratin use undermines the integrity of the communla project. It is
not an action based in property but equity and the notion of a fiduciary
relationship. My developing argument is that this approach better
reflects the practice of OSS than does a property/licence based approach.
The posting below is an example of where it could be used ... eg a Red
hat user could seek a decalaration based upon their equitable interst in
red hat or better still a general linux user (not code
developer-copyright owner):
anyway I thought for my initail appearance here on the lsit I would just
pass this on...don't want to gte too carried away just yet
regargs
Martin
Euskadi and Mozambique
Reposted from the excellent commons-law mailing list maintained by Sarai
(original post by Sunil Abraham)
-----------------------------------
http://newsforge.com/newsforge/03/08/04/1813224.shtml?tid=23
Monday August 04, 2003 - [ 06:09 PM GMT ]
Topic - GNU/Linux
- by Joe Barr -
Red Hat announced today a two-pronged attack against the SCO Group. Red
Hat filed a claim for two declaratory judgements: that they had not
infringed on SCO's copyright material and that they didn't
misappropriate SCO trade secrets. The complaint also seeks a permanent
injunction against SCO for their "campaign" against Linux and Linux
customers.
Red Hat also announced a one milliar (million? PR) dollar donation to a
fund for the defense of open source developers against open source
developers for infringement and invited other companies to follow suit.
Red Hat came out swinging in the 27 page complaint filed in the U. S.
District Court in Delaware against The SCO Group. The opening sentence
of the complaint states that Red Hat "has commenced this action in
response to the unfair, untrue and deceptive campaign now being waged by
the defendent, The SCO Group, Inc. ("SCO"), to harm the market for Red
Hat's highly successful operating system based on the open source LINUX
kernel."
In addition to asking for declaratory judgement of two items (that Red
Hat did not infringe upon SCO's copyrights or misappropriate SCO's trade
secrets), the complaint asks "damages, trebled, as well as injunctive
relief, attorneys' fees and costs, for harm caused by SCO's unfair
competition and false advertising in violation of Section 43(a) of the
Lanham Act... unfair and deceptive acts or practices in violation of the
Delaware Deceptive Trade Practices Act... as well as for violations of
common law, including trade libel, unfair competition, and tortious
interference with prospective economic advantage".
In the press conference announcing the suit held this morning at the
Linux World Conference and Expo being held in San Francisco, a Red Hat
spokesman said the aim of the suit "is to help our customers. Customers
were brought into this process and received threatening letters from
SCO. Customers have been threatened and extorted that if they don't ante
up X amount of money, they will face legal consequences." Shares in The
SCO Group fell over two dollars on the news, but have rebounded slightly
and are now trading at $11.32 a share, down from its high for the day of
$13.75.
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