Red Hat offers software warranty

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Errors in the last paragraphs

There are some mis-statements in the last two paragraphs. These aren't so bad as to look intentional, but they are a continuation of some myths:

/* ... That collaborative programming method, while leading programmers from competing companies to cooperate, makes it harder for a single company to control what's in a specific software package.
*/

Not really. Red Hat has complete control over what goes into Red Hat Advanced Server. Novell will hae complete control over what it puts into it's modified SuSE Linux.

The myth is that everybody in the world has access to web servers, and that anybody can (and does) add new code at all hours of the day without any oversight, so there's no control.

But that's not true.

In the case of Linux, Linus Torvalds has access to a certain webserver. He has picked some "lieutenants" to take care of certain aspects of Linux, and only they can actually add any changes to the code. If IBM wants to submit something, for instance, see http://opensource.org/halloween/halloween9.php and go to paragraph 138 or the quote from paragraph 108 "It's interesting to note that technology IBM has submitted to Linux has been repeatedly turned down. IBM's Enterprise Volume Management System was rejected, prompting IBM to gracefully withdraw it, and design a new system built on top of the winner."

Anybody can download the code from Linus's webserver (and many webservers do, and offer it unchanged), and anybody can change code they have downloaded (and many people and companies do), but the official release stays under Linus's control.

So, in practice, Red Hat downloads Linux from www.kernel.org, and spends some time customizing it for Red Hat's intended customers. Novell downloads Linux, and customizes its version vor its customers. Under the terms of the GPL, these customizations are available to Red Hat's and Novell's customers, respectively, and almost always make their way back to Linus, who decides if he wants to include them in official versions of Linux.

"Open-source software can result in complicated copyright issues. ... however, each programmer owns the copyright for whatever patch of code he or she wrote unless the copyright was assigned to another person or entity."

This is almost completely accurate. Indeed, if only the last sentence were written, it would be totally accurate. The issues aren't complicated. It works pretty simply: you own the copyright to stuff you wrote (unless its uncopyrightable stuff (http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=499&invol=340) "copyright protection extends only to those components of the work that are original to the author").

And, in the US and many other countries, you automatically own the copyright. In the US you may register for extra protection, but you do get a copyright automatically. If you work on MySQL's code, as noted above, your additions are yours, unless you assign the copyright to MySQL AB, which they pretty much require if you want your code added to their distribution; but if you'll distribute your MySQL-based database without them, you sure can. Linux works the same, but that's because copyright works the same.

And, as a great quote of the day: "It seems to me, particularly with the indemnity funds, it's less and less of an issue every day," said C.E. Unterberg Towbin securities analyst Katherine Egbert of the SCO attack.

Hmm, you amy read this differently, but I think it says "it looks like SCO's going to lose, so offering indemnity isn't a big deal anymore." See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/sco/questioning-sco.html for details (written by a respected lawyer, who teaches at Columbia and clerked for the Supreme Court).

Posted by: mlybbert   Posted on: 01/20/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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