PR: OSDL Releases Position Paper on SCO Lawsuit with Novell

“The Open Source Development Labs (OSDL), a global consortium
dedicated to accelerating the adoption of Linux, today published a
position paper that indicates Linux customers will likely ignore
SCO Group’s legal threats until a court decision is rendered in the
litigation brought by SCO Group against Novell on copyright
ownership.

“The paper’s author, Professor Eben Moglen of Columbia
University, is regarded as one of the world’s leading experts on
copyright law as applied to software. OSDL is disseminating the
position paper to address issues of concern to its members and
Linux industry customers as a result of SCO Group’s ongoing
litigation threat to sue end-users.

“OSDL believes Professor Moglen’s paper will help its members,
the Linux development community and Linux end-users better
understand legal issues and business risks associated with using
Linux.

“In his paper, available on the OSDL Web site, Professor Moglen
makes two main points:

1. “SCO Group admits, by suing Novell, that its claim to exclusive
   ownership of the Unix copyright is in doubt. Moglen argues that no
   judge would hold an end-user liable for intentionally infringing
   SCO Group’s rights when SCO Group itself has cast doubt on what it
   owns. As a result, Linux customers have little incentive to
   purchase a license from SCO Group and instead will wait for a final
   decision on who owns the copyrights as between SCO Group and
   Novell.
2. “Even once the litigation is resolved, and regardless of who
   prevails, customers will still have the right to use the Linux code
   in question without purchasing a license from either SCO Group or
   Novell. Moglen points out that both SCO Group and Novell (who
   recently purchased SuSE Linux, a distributor of Linux) have
   distributed the Linux code under the GPL. Since the GPL allows
   licensees to use, modify, copy and distribute the Linux code
   freely, the results of the litigation will have no affect on those
   rights, and customers will have no obligation to purchase another
   license from either SCO Group or Novell to ensure those
   rights…”

Complete Story

“Now
They Own It, Now They Don’t: SCO Sues Novell to Stay Afloat”
(PDF document)

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