Fri, 27 Jun 2003

Profs Look at SCO

Law Professor Examines SCO Case [Slashdot]

Follow the link to an interesting bit on FindLaw about the SCO patent fiasco. I think the good professor inadvertedly identifies the real reason for the suit as well ... and it has little to do with SCO's contract rights:

On its website, SCO quotes a suggestion that computer "[s]ystem administrators must be admonished to submit open-source code to inspection for potential violation of patents."

And Microsoft has recently been arguing that the SCO case proves that open source software is bad policy for software corporations. According to Microsoft, open source software may lead to repeat patent violation: After all, as the SCO suit shows, you can never be sure where a piece of code, contributed by a volunteer, came from.

Pretty transparent attempt to bolster the standing of software patents, eh?

/Copywrongs | 0 writebacks | permanent link

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