26 January 2005

Beware Lawyers Bearing Subpoenas

Responses to this Musing begin here ...

I will be the first to admit that sometimes I cross a few lines with the way I take the stands that I take. I can easily foresee a time when some enterprising young soul is going to decide that I've gone too far this time and try to take me for all I'm worth. Personally, I wish them luck: you can't get blood from a stone.

Legal action is a big deal these days. It seems that every time you turn around someone is suing someone else, and its usually for the silliest reasons. Just look at the fellow who sued MacDonald's and won because while he was driving he put a cup of hot coffee between his legs and slammed on the brakes. It makes sense, doesn't it? I mean, that was obviously the fault of MacDonald's, right? It's not his fault that he was stupid, is it?

Certainly his lawyers don't want him to think that way. Why would they when they made a tidy bundle of money from that successful suit? And indeed that one question lies at the very heart of this problem. Why should people take responsibility for the things that they do wrong when there are people out there who are willing to argue that it was someone else's fault because they make vast sums of money when they win?

That personal greed lies at the heart of the problem with frivolous lawsuits. The lawyers stand to make a ton of money when they win so they're not going to take the time to ask a potential client if this really happened because you're a fucking twit, sir?

Unfortunately this kind of mentality has slipped into the world of corporate litigation as well. Corporate litigation is a business in and of itself, it seems. For example, SCO is suing IBM because IBM has announced plans to start supporting Linux on the corporate desktop. SCO contends that every single Linux distribution out there uses source code that is the inherent property of SCO because SCO was the first major computer company to put together and ship Unix on PC's and high end workstations. Their logic is that the entire Linux movement is one giant patent infringement, and since they can't sue the makers of every Linux distribution out there then they'll settle for suing one of the big guys as a warning to everyone else.

SCO isn't the only company suing for patent infringement. Microsoft is so afraid that the Open Source movement is going to spell they're doom that they've announced plans to sue a number of Open Source developers for patent infringement.

The problem with these kinds of lawsuits is that the only people they benefit are the lawyers. It sure as hell doesn't benefit the industry. Do you really think that a bundle of patent infringement suits in Microsoft's favor is going to do anything towards making Windows more stable and secure? Does SCO really think that winning their suit with IBM is going to enable them to build better products? The industry sure as hell doesn't, I can tell you that.

No, the only people that benefit from this constant flow on senseless litigation are the lawyers. The only benefit that the companies themselves derive is the intangible kind that appeals only to their sense of vanity.

So, why is this kind of litigation senseless? Simple. It's senseless because it never should have been allowed to happen in the first place.

See, the whole issue revolves around source code, which are the instructions given to a computer to make it do things that you want it to do. Now, most operating systems are written in C, and since an operating system is defined as a program which provides essential services that allow a user to be able to accomplish things with their computer then logically it follows that a lot of the source code to make things work on one type of system is going to be pretty similar to the source code to accomplish the same things on another system. The only real differences will be invisible to everyone except the computer itself. Now, SCO and Microsoft believe that their source code is proprietary, that it's their individual intellectual property, and on that score they're not wrong. This is why we have copyright laws, to protect this kind of intellectual property.

Where they've lost their way, though, is in thinking that intellectual property and copyright are the same thing as innovation and patenting. The concept of patents was designed to ensure that people who invented new devices were given the appropriate credit for the work that they did. Patents were never designed to accommodate specific ways of doing things, which is pretty much what source code is. However, some enterprising soul somewhere along the line decided that software source code should be patentable, and as soon as companies like Microsoft found out about it they started patenting everything in sight. The government let them get away with it because they just didn't care. It was irrelevant.

The only people who did care are the lawyers. The lawyers are the ones telling the corporate bigwigs at Microsoft and SCO and a dozen other companies that they have to look out for their interests and take action against these people who are infringing on patents that they shouldn't have. The lawyers are the ones fueling the lawsuits because they're the ones who stand to gain the most from them. And the corporate bigwigs at SCO and Microsoft and other companies are dumb enough and shallow enough to listen to them and believe them because it suits their vanity to do so.

And here's the real kicker: The whole reason why things like this are happening is because we as a society are allowing them to happen. We're allowing these frivolous lawsuits to be filed day after day and in so doing we're actually condoning what it probably one of the single sickest business practices known to man. In other words, we really have no one to blame but ourselves.

Well done, people. This is one for the books.

Respond To This Musing

Responses to this Musing begin here ...

From katzztak on LiveJournal:

SCO is actually owned by Microsoft and is being used as a pawn to delay, potentially screw over, and generally annoy IBM for not joining the dark empire.

My law prof refers to this case everyday in class, so it'll be interesting what he has to say if this ever does finally end.