The GPL is a commercial licence for software falling under its domain. If the GPL is invalid, so is every other commercial software licence (EULA) in existance, including SCO's own. I wonder what Microsoft, who has helped bankroll SCO's effort, thinks about this latest move.

However, I do not think Microsoft or GPL has anything to fear. Software licence agreements have held up in court already. However, I am interested to see how much more of SCO's "proof" of IBM's wrongdoing turns out to be GPLed code.

It looks like the behaviour of SCO is becoming more and more irrational, unless there is a hidden agenda.
Do they really think the USA is ruling the world ?
While the lawyers for SCO are filling their pockets the rest of the world is moving ahead. By 3035 China will bypass the USA and be the bigggest economy. Long before that time SCO will have disappeared from the face of the world.

However there may be something else going on. What SCO has to proof is that the 0.0001% of their code in Linux is worth money, while the 99.9999% of code other people contributed is worth nothing. If this is not true, anybody contributing to Linux can start sending invoices as well. This will destroy the extortion business of SCO and is obviously something they like to avoid.

I am starting a new job as IT Manager where their is a SCO box in place. The first course of business will be to replace it with a nice Redhat ES system!

We 'd better don't mention SCO and their products any more before they pass the US congress, They might be copyrighted??

We 'd better don't mention SCO and their products any more before they pass the US congress, They might be copyrighted??

Those attacks (i.e the troyan "you_need_us" attack, then billing Linux corporate users, and now the GPL breaking) sound really M$. I think this because it has more chance to fail, but in the same time it may discourage corporate users that felt in security with open source code. I mean, the risk for SCO is really expensive (public image, court fees), but there is someone else behind.

The message is addressed to corporate users : "you want to use open source, free code, it may not be legally safe ; come back to M$". But this message has no effect or a reactional effect on politic, philosophic open source
users.

The problem as always is citizen against corporations. By chance Linux has many corporate and citizen supporters, and a great public fame. It is too late to break the move.

It is clear that SCO are in deep, or that their lawyers can see they are fools easily parted with their money (or MS money, at it happens). For SCO, there is no way to win this. For MS, it helps to muddy the waters in their attack on Linux (and doesn't exactly promote Unix either).

But to mention that the US Constitution is the top legal tier is exceptionally arrogant. Something us non-American countries are getting used to!

What about the WIPO, which has many statements on copyright and patent issues? I suppose they are treated with the same disdain as the United Nations?

I'll be glad when SCO and its expensive lawyers give up (or lose) on this pathetic process of generating FUD for non-MS companies, products and services.

From what I know, GPL is an international license agreement. Any legal actions taken in the US to uppose GPL, can only have outcomes that only apply to the US. Thus, the rest of the world can keep on using GPL. I find it very arrogant of SCO to claim invalidity of GPL solely based on the US law and constitution.

I have the feeling that this is a proxy war. Otherwise, SCO's actions do not make sense.

How crazy can you get!
You start a case where you accuse on illegal copying of code you published earlier under the GPL.
Next you begin to become aware that your case isn't very strong.
Then you tackle the GPL, hoping that you win the case.
If you are lucky to win, you change the sequence of the years and put 2003 before the year you initiated the case.
Finally when in court in 2004 or so, you try to convince the judge that the GPL had been declared void before you published the code under the GPL, so the copying of your code was therefore illegal.....(to be continued)

If SCO wins on this count, doesn't that effectively invalidate all software licenses as they all grant or restrict (mostly restrict) usage in direct opposition to copyright law? Just my two cents.

If one intends to copy something that some other entity has copyrighted, does that person ask the holder of the copyright or the government for permission? I have seen numerous quoted passages 'reprinted with the permission of "so-and-so" but never has "so-and-so" been uncle sam.

What ramifications will this venture of SCO, if sucessful, have on source quotations, as in a scholarly paper? Does a bibliography (or works cited, im never sure which term is more popular) become a federal document? It would be awfully hard to publish an essay which lists at its end people who should, upon reading it, sue the publisher.

Just wondering how this will work...

You know; that approach just about invalidates every copyright there is, including SCO's own. AFAIK American congress has not directly or indirectly been involved in granting copyright to SCO (or any other company) for software produced or purchased by companies.

To argue that the American congress is the only authority that may grant a copyright is rather self defeatist IMO (as well as rather arrogant), since it follows that SCO's copyrights must largely be invalidated as well by this argument.

To my knowledge, Copyright is an automatic right of ownership by the producer of printed material (or these days software). This right is not granted by anyone explicitely, but is implicit in the fact that the owner/writer also owns the "right to copy" the material. This, as opposed to patents which are indeed granted and enforced by patent law.

It is only just that the owner of a copyright should determine who else may have the right to copy software/material. If the owner chooses to subject that right under the GPL, he explicitely relinquishes the right to determine who will in future copy (or extend) the material.

This is really pathetic. McBride would sue his mother. Losers all of them and anyone who supports them.

Sounds like SCO is grasping at straws, having for all intents and purposes failed to easily pursue their initial money-grab endeavour, it would seem that they are now simply trying to stick it to the people making it hard for them to grab a license fee from anyone using linux. If you can't run the show, get the show cancelled.