Did we find our long lost Linux owner?

snoopy · Post by **snoopy** » Wed Jun 23, 2004 11:36 am

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.0 ... _tophead_7

So, some guy made a company whose only goal is to legally win the rights to linux, therefore forcing all linux users to pay him. I have alot of problems with this, starting with the fact that TONS of work has been put into Linux that this guy had nothing to do with. I guess my question is this: at what point do past mistakes no longer have legal standing in the present. He may have had rights at some point to the linux code, but has all that has happened since then negated that? Basically, does a period of inaction indicate a legal release of rights once owned? Most importantly: is it ethically right to use U.S. patent laws to sit on your rear end all day and bully other companies out of their lunch money? Is there anything that can be done about it? I, personally think that doing away completely with the idea of intellectual property would be a step in the right direction. Basically force people to actually invest time and capital into actually developing and producing something before they can sue other people with similar ideas. That would lead to more races/wars between companies, but at the same time it would prevent lazy bums from collecting money from everyone else just because they are trying to patent something. Maybe do something like this: issue a 5 year (approx.) patent for an idea. For those 5 years, noone can patent anything on those same lines. At the end of the 5 years, a fully functional prototype of the idea must be presented, if it is-then the patent is granted. If it isn't, it is revoked. Basically, you can "reserve" the patent ahead of time, but you can't litigate until it is implemented. If you don't make the deadline to implement it, the idea is free game again.

Tetrad · Post by **Tetrad** » Wed Jun 23, 2004 11:39 am

This is an excellent example of why we need intellectual property laws reformed.

Lothar · Post by **Lothar** » Wed Jun 23, 2004 11:45 am

It's interesting to note that SCO doesn't seem to actually know the location of any pilfered UNIX code that made it into Linux -- they just know it's there.

What a bunch of idiots.

fliptw · Post by **fliptw** » Wed Jun 23, 2004 1:34 pm

They've shown the evidence to some people.

But, not IBM(whom they're sueing) it seems.

more info here

http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/inde ... 1173953678

Top Wop · Post by **Top Wop** » Wed Jun 23, 2004 1:37 pm

THey can demand all they want, I aint paying anything for something that's supposed to be free.

snoopy · Post by **snoopy** » Wed Jun 23, 2004 5:25 pm

The main problem is that things like this discourage production and invention, rather than encouraging it.