[oclug] And another thing

[Greg]

Milan Budimirovic wrote:
> On Thu, 2003-11-20 at 08:06, Greg wrote:
> 
>>Milan Budimirovic wrote:
>>
>>>An article on InfoWorld (who should know better than to regurgitate this
>>>sort of thing)
>>>
>>>  http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/11/19/HNgplthreatens_1.html
>>>
>  < snippage >
> 
>>He does say the ideas behind GPL constitute a mortal threat to WIPO, at 
>>least the software market.  He is correct.  And WIPO has shown it agrees 
>>with this assessment.
>>
>>
>>>... Logic 101 ...
>>
>>Logic is antithetical to politics.
>>
>>
>>>The point of the exercise for McBride here was to win the political
>>>battle even if he gets creamed in the courtroom. Maybe keep the
>>>politicians from putting an end to his dog and pony show.
>>
>>Actually, the players are the corporations behind WIPO/WTO/etc, and 
>>their servants.
>>
> 
> 
> I doubt that. For a couple of reasons. One is that the WIPO people are
> anything but stupid. They've probably already figured out that SCO has
> no case whatsoever, and don't want to be anywhere near it when SCO loses
> big.

''Attendees of McBride's keynote were handed a WIPO primer on 
intellectual property (IP) law entitled "Intellectual Property: A Power 
Tool for Economic Growth." The pamphlet had been shipped to SCO by WIPO 
free of charge, a SCO spokesman said.''

> The second reason is that WIPO do not want ANY End User License
> Agreement challenged -- let alone oiverturned -- in a court of law. If
> the GPL is ruled invalid, then that ruling casts doubt on any and all
> EULA's. GPL'd code is not public domain. If you overturn the GPL, then
> you have a situation where the author cannot dictate the terms of use.
> For proprietary software vendors, such a turn of events would be far
> worse than anything that Free Software could do to them.

GPL is not the same as ''the ideas behind the Free Software Foundation's 
GPL''.

In any case, the _World_ IP Organization has little interest in local 
laws and customs.  WIPO pushes international agreements which overrule 
national Legislatures and Constitutions.

There is the DMCA.  There is the naughty European Patent Office, issuing 
_software_ patents with no enabling legislation.

They are not content with mere copyright.

>>That said, we should not assume, for example, that IBM has the same 
>>vision of the future as Microsoft.  OTOH, it is not impossible that IBM 
>>did indeed (if it did) drag GPL into the courtroom for the purpose of 
>>exposing it to legal or legislative attack.
>>
> See argument above. IBM is up there with Microsoft as the world's
> largest proprietary software vendor. There would be too much potential
> blowback if courts started to overturn license agreements.
> 
> In any event, if IBM wanted to destroy the GPL, they didn't need to go
> through this charade of being "one of us".

It is true that IBM owns and sells software.  And hardware.

However, I think IBM is really in the services and comforts business. 
''Nobody ever got fired for going with IBM'', ''Things go better with 
IBM'', stuff like that.

MS, on the other hand, has little beyond its software and its founder.

If software were to become tomorrow, ''free, as in beer'', MS would 
crash and probably burn, whilst IBM would hardly notice.

>>Although it is easy to see Ken Lay cast as McBride's role-model, perhaps 
>>former PM Brian Mulroney is more appropriate.
>>
>>
> McBride is increasingly looking like a snake oil salesman, trying to
> pump up SCO's stocks before the truth comes out.

Well, Mulroney seems to have been driven by a need to have American 
politicians admire his fine singing voice, and perhaps to have his name 
displayed more prominently than in a short footnote in history books.

The actions of MS, BMO, DB, and others, suggest there is more than 
McBride's retirement fund at stake.