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Saving the Net

  • 23-07-2003 4:54pm
    #1
    dahamsta
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 16,659 ✭✭✭✭


    Who Owns What?

    That's the fundamental question, and it's going to get more fundamental as we roll toward the next presidential election here in the US. Much is at stake, including Linux and its natural habitat: the Net. Both have been extraordinarily good for business. Its perceived "threat" to Microsoft and the dot-com crash are both red herrings. Take away Linux and the Net, and both technology and the economy would be a whole lot worse.

    Both the Net and Linux were created, grew and flourished almost entirely outside the regulatory sphere. They are, in a literal sense, what free markets have done with their freedoms.

    Yet, there are some who do not care. Unfortunately, they're driving the conversation right now. Hollywood has lawmakers and news organizations convinced that file sharing is "piracy" and "theft". Apple, Intel and Microsoft are quietly doing their deals with the Hollywood devil, crippling (or contemplating the crippling of) PC functionalities, to protect the intellectual property of "content producers".

    As I write this, SCO claims to own whatever remains of AT&T's original UNIX. They're suing IBM and spreading FUD by the trainload all over Linux, which they claim is derivative. I'm getting e-mails from technologists at big companies telling me that Linux use is now a Big Issue for their corporate legal departments. I also heard recently from a former Novell employee who says Novell intentionally held onto their UNIX patents (acquired from AT&T) so SCO wouldn't have full claims to "owning" whatever it was that Novell sold them (after buying UNIX, renamed UnixWare, from AT&T).

    [...]


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