Re: [FYI] SCO plant Linux-Lizenzen fuer Anwender

["Axel H Horns" <axel.h.horns@gmx.net>]

On 22 Jul 2003, at 11:24, Kristian Koehntopp wrote:

> http://radio.weblogs.com/0120124/2003/07/17.html
> 
> http://radio.weblogs.com/0120124/2003/07/15.html
> Hier speziell
> 
> Admit, Deny, or Lack Sufficient Information to Form a Belief 

Das Ganze spielt sich zur Zeit in den USA ausschlisslich nach der 
U.S.-Zivilprozessordnung ab, die mit denjenigen 
Zivilprozessordnungen, die in den verschiedenen Laendern auf dem 
europaeischen Kontinent Gueltigkeit besitzen, in mancherlei Hinsicht 
wenig Gemeinsamkeit besitzt ...  

Und das mit den "Trade Secrets" sieht man hier m.E. im Detail auch 
anders, aber ...

Wir stehen als europaeische Zuschauer zunaechst erst mal fassungslos 
da und betrachten das seltsame Schauspiel.  

Falls SCO je in DE klagen sollte, saehe die prozessuale Umgebung 
anders aus.

Es scheint mir aber eminent wichtig zu sein, dass diese Schose auch 
von den Techies _ernstgenommen_ wird: Mit Verdraengung und Hoffen auf 
wundersame Effekte zivilen Ungehorsams wird diese Krise nicht zu 
ueberwinden sein. Und, wie Lutz schon richtig schrieb, mit ein 
bisschen in den Kernel-Sourcen herumeditieren ist es nicht getan, 
falls an den SCO-Copyright-Claims denn ueberhaupt was dran sein 
sollte. Die inkriminierten Source-Module sollten komplett verworfen 
werden, und damit nicht vorbelastete Leute sollten diese Dinge von 
Scratch auf neu codieren. Vielleicht wird man - den allerschlimmsten 
Fall vorausgesetzt - auf einen aelteren, "sauberen" Kernel 
zurueckgehen und diesen mit neuen Leuten in einem anderen Zweig 
weiterstricken muessen.   

Der "clean room" winkt.

<http://www.swiss.ai.mit.edu/6805/articles/int-prop/software-copyrigh 
t.html>  

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[...]

1992: Computer Associates v. Altai: SSO rejected

In this decision, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a 
district court ruling that Altai's program did not infringe one by 
Computer Associates. This was a second version of Altai's program. 
The first version had been written by an ex-employee of CA, who 
(unknown to Altai) had copied about 30% of the code from a similar CA 
program. Altai then wrote a clean-room second version, using 
programmers who had never seen the CA code. CA claimed that the 
second version of the program, even though it was a clean-room 
development, nevertheless copied the structure of the CA program.

In the District Court opinion, the judge relied on report by Prof. 
Randy Davis of MIT, who was appointed as an expert to assist the 
Court. Davis pointed out that the SSO test does not make sense, since 
a program consists of both text and behavior. The code is text 
(static structure), but the user of the program deals with its 
behavior (dynamic structure) which may not be copyrightable. Thus, to 
analyze copyrightability in terms of "structure" is ambiguous, and to 
identify structure with "sequence" and "organization", as the Whelan 
Court had done, is fallacious.

The Second Circuit agreed, and it criticized the Whelan Court's SSO 
analysis as showing "a flawed understanding of a computer program's 
method of operation," and a "somewhat outdated appreciation of 
computer science."

The Court concurred with the Whelan decision that copyright can be 
infringed even if no literal code is copied, but it continued: "that 
conclusion does not end our analysis. We must determine the scope of 
copyright protection that extends to a computer program's non-literal 
structure."

In place of SSO, the Court proposed using a three-step abstraction-
filtration-comparison process to gauge the similarity of two computer 
programs. This process first describes the two programs at various 
levels of abstraction; then, at each stage, filters out the elements 
that are not subject to copyright; finally, it compares the results. 
Most courts now try to follow this procedure, even though it can be 
complex and highly subjective. 

[...]

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und

<http://www.fenwick.com/About%20Fenwick/ip/about_ip_law/copyright_pro 
tection/copyright_protection.htm#developing2>  

--------------------------- CUT ---------------------------------

[...]

"Clean Room" Procedures

Companies often attempt to avoid a claim of copyright infringement 
while developing a product that competes with a copyrighted product 
by relying on so-called "clean room" procedures. These procedures 
attempt to prove that, even if a company's work is substantially 
similar to the copyrighted work, it is not infringing because the 
company had no access to the copyrighted work. In other words, the 
company's work was independently developed.

In the case of computer programs, for example, clean room procedures 
consist of creating two groups of developers: the specifications 
group and the coding group. The specifications group is the only 
group allowed to see the copyrighted computer code, and that group 
prepares a functional specification from which the coding group 
creates the new code.

The coding group is never allowed to see the actual code of the 
copyrighted program, but instead sees only the functional 
specification prepared by the specifications group.

Relying on the fundamental principle of copyright law that copyright 
protects only the expression of ideas, and not ideas themselves, the 
functional specification attempts to capture only the ideas 
underlying the plaintiff's product. The coding group creates its own 
expression of those ideas by coding a program that conforms to the 
functional specification.

Such a methodology can help a company reduce the likelihood of losing 
a copyright infringement lawsuit. However, there are several risks 
that it may not be possible to avoid. The functional specification 
must not be too tight -- that is, the specification must not be so 
detailed that it tracks the original author's expression in the 
computer program. In a case decided in 1985, for example, even those 
programmers in the coding group who did not have direct access to the 
copyrighted code were given such a detailed description of the 
organizational scheme that they created, at the least, an infringing 
paraphrase of the original code.

Another case found infringement based primarily on the fact that the 
two computer programs at issue had the same systems-level design. 
Because a product developed through a clean room procedure generally 
will have some of the same systems-level design as the product being 
emulated, the clean room procedure may not ensure that no 
infringement will be found. In other words, the clean room procedure 
may give the coding group access to the systems-level design of the 
copyrighted product, which may be sufficient for infringement. Thus, 
a company should carefully consult with counsel before relying on 
clean room procedures to avoid infringement liability. 

[...]

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Und immer daran denken: Zivilprozesse sind Parteiprozesse, d.h. das 
Gericht betreibt nicht von sich aus Wahrheitserforschung. Wenn eine 
Seite nicht die richtigen Fakten und Argumente vorbringt, wird nahezu 
zwangslaeufig ein krasses Fehlurteil am Ende stehen ...

--AHH

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