Comments on the SCO Debacle
 

SCO are nuts. They have not improved their own variant of Unix significantly for years. Now they want to cash in on the work of hundreds of other people. In their best case, they are asking to be rewarded for 100% of something of which they own about .05% (unless comments count as intellectual property). At worst, they are trying to solve their own lack of innovation by killing off a significant source of innovation in the industry.

However, SCO's  insanity is similar to much of the software industry, and I include the entertainment industry as a software provider. The root of the insanity is an old one; as St. Paul said, "the love of money is the basis of many kinds of evil".

If you create something, you don't have some kind of natural right to make money as a result of that action. You may benefit in other ways: the product may be useful for you, or enjoyable. Other people may like what you have done enough to pay you for the right to use or enjoy it. However, determining how much money should change hands should be a transaction involving both parties.

If it happens that other people do find your creation worth paying for, then it seems reasonable that you, as the creator, should get the benefit. If someone else takes what you have done, and sells it, and gives you nothing, then they are obviously stealing.

Of course, if you ask for help in distributing your product, you'll want to pay the people who do so something that seems fair to you both.

So far so good. However, what if you decide to give away what you have done? You definitely should have that right, if you have any self-determination at all. Of course the distributors may not want to do their part for free, but this just moves the question of what is just compensation to a transaction between them and the consumer.

Now, what if your product depends on the work of someone else?

(From a letter by Dana Paxson to GMSV):

There's a little thing in the law called a "contract of adhesion". A contract of adhesion is a contract that offers the first party to the contract no way to negotiate contract terms with the second party. Ordinarily someone facing such a problem is free to seek alternative relief for the need addressed by the contract's terms, but in some situations there is no acceptable alternative. The lack of alternatives enables the second party to set any terms they like, and the first party is helpless to get them changed. Where a software user confronts the EULA for a software package having no acceptable alternatives, the EULA for that package is a contract of adhesion. Here the only alternative to agreeing to the EULA is not to be able to work. Guess what the law says about contracts of adhesion: (At http://dictionary.law.com/:)

"adhesion contract n.(contract of adhesion) a contract (often a signed form) so imbalanced in favor of one party over the other that there is a strong implication it was not freely bargained. Example: a rich landlord dealing with a poor tenant who has no choice and must accept all terms of a lease, no matter how restrictive or burdensome, since the tenant cannot afford to move. An adhesion contract can give the little guy the opportunity to claim in court that the contract with the big shot is invalid. This doctrine should be used and applied more often, but the same big guy-little guy inequity may apply in the ability to afford a trial or find and pay a resourceful lawyer."

cf. http://armedndangerous.blogspot.com/2003_08_17_armedndangerous_archive.html#106157186387886957