Does Using GPL Software Violate Sarbanes-Oxley? 272
Anonymous Coward writes "eWeek is reporting that The Software Freedom Law Center has published a white paper that dismisses recent publications from embedded systems seller Wasabi Systems. Wasabi recently released statements focusing on alleged GNU General Public License violations in relation to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. The white paper, titled "Sarbanes-Oxley and the GPL: No Special Risk," essentially counsels users of the free software license that they have no need to worry."
Worded poorly. (Score:3, Informative)
And no surprise...they advertise BSD-based products on their front page. (Not dissing Any of the BSDs, they're cool, IMO.)
So what if it does violate SO (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Worded poorly. (Score:5, Informative)
Slightly off topic but .... (Score:4, Funny)
CSPAN called (Score:5, Funny)
Re:CSPAN called (Score:3, Funny)
And just to head the smart replies off at the pass...
The Jerk factory called. It wants me back. I'm outtie.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com [digitalelite.com]
Re:CSPAN called (Score:5, Funny)
Re:CSPAN called (Score:3, Funny)
No, it was the village that called...
More info on SOX (Score:5, Informative)
Wasabi's complaint [wasabisystems.com] is that under these laws, you have to declare all assets, including intellectual property. Their rationale is that using open-source software, you may be in violation of the law if you do not review and declare that usage.
As was pointed out last time this was discussed on slashdot [slashdot.org], a company would only be in trouble if they were already doing something illegal: violating the GPL. If you violate the GPL, then you're misrepresenting your ownership of IP (claiming to have a license you don't), and thus are also violating Sarbanes-Oxley.
So what's the problem? If a company follows the GPL, then everything is fine. They have nothing to worry about. If they violate the GPL, then they're breaking multiple laws. So, as always, companies should make sure that what they are doing is legal. This in no way diminishes the extent to which GPL software can be used in commercial environments. Wasabi acts as if there is some tremendous additional legal burden to using GPL software. However it seems that Sarbanes-Oxley would equally apply if you mis-represented your ownership of non-GPL software. So there's no difference. (You can read the Software Freedom Law Center white paper [softwarefreedom.org] for a more complete explanation.)
Re:More info on SOX (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:More info on SOX (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the biggest arguments against the GPL is that if you use it in your own code, you have to agree to its terms. In the case of the GPL, those terms mean that your code must be GPLed. Other licenses set other terms; many licenses don't even ALLOW you to use their code in your code. In any case, if you don't follow the terms, you can be sued for copyright violation. So you always have a choice, no matter what the license -- either follow the license, or get sued.
Re:More info on SOX (Score:3, Informative)
One of the biggest arguments against the GPL is that if you use it in your own code, you have to agree to its terms.
How is that an argument against the GPL? In most other cases, even getting the code will violate several laws, and you have no right to use it in your product. Seems the GPL gives you more than most. If you just want a library, the choice is simple - make your stuff GPL or don't use the library (with some exceptions).
Re:More info on SOX (Score:5, Informative)
This is an extremely misleading statement, if not outright false. Your code must only be GPLed *if you redistribute it*. There are, unfortunately, plenty of cases where PHB's decide not to use GPL software because they don't understand this. And apparently neither do many Slashdot readers.
Re:More info on SOX (Score:4, Funny)
booch (4157) is new here
Re:More info on SOX (Score:3, Informative)
There are rights you cannot sign away. For instance, there is no form, statement, or contract you can sign, notorize, witness, swear before a judge, that grants another human being the right to take your life.
In the US, the vast majority of "liability waivers" that you sign before doing something that could be remotely dangerous (i.e. scuba lessons, skydiving lessons, bungee jumping, wall climbing, surfing, marathon running, go cart driving, you know, stuff you can't do sitting in front of a computer
Cui bono -- who benefits -- is often important. (Score:4, Informative)
The reason why they're making their case against the GPL is important. Proprietors are saying that the GPL makes them nervous, they don't like the commons the GPL creates and maintains. Proprietors want to discourage everyone from using and developing GPL-covered code so that they have less competition and won't have to spend their time lobbying governments around the world to help make Free Software implementations of various programs impossible. Thus this is just another legal risk FUD case against the most widely used Free Software license, the GNU GPL which fails to mention what the Software Freedom Law Center points out:
And when it comes to GPL-covered software being so complicated to deal with, the SFLC has this to say:
Re:Swatting a fly with a sledge hammer (Score:2)
My understanding is that one of the reasons that Enron got as far as it did was because of the absence of laws that declared a conflict of interest if the same firm used for accounting/auditing, was also used for consulting. Doing the right thing would have meant giving up either of those roles, and all the money that went with it. Money talks, integrity walks.
If my understanding is accurate, I wonder why it wasn't fixed by simply closing this loophole. Seems like every time something goes wrong (and it wen
Re:More info on SOX (Score:5, Informative)
Witness the number of embedded devices (particularly routers) where you can't get the source code to the GPL parts, and where you can, they're hard linked to closed source binaries with 'no unauthorised distribution' clauses (Yes I mean you Broadcom!).
So it's perfectly legal to modify the GPL bits, but illegal to distribute the resultant code... thus the GPL is defeated by apathy because nobody cares.
Re:More info on SOX (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you meant 'binaries' of course, obviously you can redistribute the source code, it just won't Compile or if it compiles it won't 'run' without the proprietary bits that you had to seperate out.
anyways, it's just a sign of how sad and pathetic things are nowadays. back in the old days if you invented something, but hated patents, you could just tell people how to do it, and no one else could patent it, because you'd proven how to do it first... but with s
Re:More info on SOX (Score:4, Informative)
Witness the cases where GPL gets enforced legally, when embedded devices violate the copyright of the netfilter project.
Intended Consequences of laws (Score:4, Informative)
The law was initially meant to "fix" problems such as the Enron fiasco, but if you rewind just a few years, you see that most of these fiascos came directly out of trying to take advantage of loopholes in previous laws. The SEC colludes with the rest of the all powerful federal government to constantly keep non-preferred companies on their toes, while giving excessive power to the cronies. Sarbanes-Oxley will have the same effect.
The one light in Congress, Dr. Ron Paul, made an excellent note [lewrockwell.com] regarding Sarbanes-Oxley and the cost it will pass on to consumers. The Mises Institute also has a ton of great articles and blog posts [google.com] regarding the horrors of this law.
It is time to realize that government is NOT good at regulating business, except from the point of view of the cronies. Bills like this will rarely be used for their original intent, and the un?-intended consequence in the long run is to see criminals made of innocents that had nothing to do with the law's purpose.
Instead of voting, I think we need to start pitching money in a hat to buy rope for those who violate their oath to uphold the Constitution.
Re:Intended Consequences of laws (Score:2)
Re:Intended Consequences of laws (Score:2)
Re:Intended Consequences of laws (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem starts with the Fed (Greenspan, Bernanke and their inflationary cycle) that makes money worthless over time so we seek to invest it to at least break even. The problem is made worse by the same inflationary cycle that makes our salaries go up slower than the inflationary cost of living increases (which go up because of the money printing). It goes downhill from there -- the SEC makes investors believe they're protected, which in a free market is a fallacy. You are only protected through contracts, not through law forcing people to act a certain way. Beyond contracts you protect yourself by doing business with people with a history (see eBay's feedback system).
This is all a mess, made worse by people who have faith in others. I have no faith in others except those who have proven their trustworthiness to me. This is why I only invest in businesses I have direct contact with.
Re:Intended Consequences of laws (Score:2)
The people who oppose big government and any regulation are accountants with clipboards and calculators who make no business decisions. They only tell their corporations if they met expectations or didn't in the current quarter and penalize anyone who doesn't financially.
Its like swallowing yoru own tail as government intervention is taught as a good thing in an
Re:Intended Consequences of laws (Score:2)
The telecom industry has never been deregulated in any way -- it has only been re-regulated -- some regulations were ended, many more began. Don't believe for a minute that the industry is running in a free market, it is heavily regulated and subsidized.
Supply side economics doesn't work in every situation and we are having problems now due to it. The debt is o
Re:Intended Consequences of laws (Score:2)
Send me a bill for my share of the roads and defense (not offense) and I'll happily pay them until I can find a way to replace them with private providers.
You should make that your sig.
Re:Intended Consequences of laws (Score:3, Insightful)
Contracts are only worth the paper they're printed on because the law enforces consequences if they're broken. In the end, it still falls back on the law to enforce good behavior. The problem isn't that the laws to force the truth don't work- its that they aren't actively investigated or enforced until after a major collapse such as Enron. And that even after that, most of the people get away with it. What we
Re:Intended Consequences of laws (Score:2)
Beyond just getting contract insurance, we can also c
Re:Intended Consequences of laws (Score:2)
Right off the bat, I'd like to say that I don't share the beliefs you have expressed in this thread. I'm aquainted with a number of people that share your beliefs, but do so for knee-jerk, tinfoil hat, militia sort of reasons. However, your points seem well thought out.
So I was hoping you could explain some things that others haven't. Do you believe in public property? What about government regulation for companies/corporations with regard to polution?
Re:Intended Consequences of laws (Score:2)
Pollution is a very difficult situation for me. I'm not sure what the answer is
Re:Intended Consequences of laws (Score:4, Interesting)
No, it can't. First off- I sure as hell shouldn't HAVE to take out insurance for every one of my contracts. Yeah, thats a great idea- lets build up yet another level of middle men into society. Second off- its rife for corruption. For example, say I have a contract with a big company- say WalMart (no reason for picking them except their size). The bond company does hundreds of contracts with WalMart a year. They do 3 or 4 with me. We have a disagreement. WalMart tells them to side with WalMart, or they'll never give them buisness again. Who do you think they're going to side with?
The free market doesn't work on situations like this. They're called externalities, and covered in econ 101. A course I become more increasingly sure no libertarian has ever taken.
So in a world already hampered by big corporations, you want to add another artificial stumbling block raising the barriers to entry and allowing the big corps to fuck you over even more. Another great idea.
Don't forget to factor in that over half of all buisnesses fail in under 5 years. So yes, there would at any one time be a majority of buisnesses with little to no feedback. You'd also have a whole new class of crooks- feedback scams. They happen on ebay all the time- someone creates an account, sells a few dozen items to friends to build up feedback, then scams some unlucky guy (or frequently several unlucky guys) out of thousands of dollars in a big sale.
Deflation is no better than inflation. Both are good for different sectors of the economy and different economic classes. Inflation is good for people in debt (they need to pay less when the debt is due), deflation is good for debt owners (the debt is worth more when it is due). There's good reasons for prefering inflation to deflation- inflation makes credit very expensive. It makes buisnesses hard to start and homes hard to buy. Historicly inflation in this country was pushed for by farmers, who were land rich and cash poor, so they could more easily utalize their land to generate debt in bad years and repay in good.
As for a fixed money supply- thats not a good thing. One of the biggest problems in the middle ages was that the fixed money supply frequently left too little cash money in an area, limiting economic growth. The basic macroeconomics equation is change in money supply+ change in velocity of money=change in GDP plus inflation. If the money supply is fixed, you either have no change in GDP or you end up having money cycle very quickly. Quickly cycling money lowers savings rates (you have to spend it more often). Its much preferred to have a slowly increasing money supply. The ideal is to increase the money supply just enough so that inflation is 0, but this is nearly impossible to do. In practice its better to overincrease it and have mild inflation than the reverse.
Re:Intended Consequences of laws (Score:2)
Corporations would love nothing better to be completely free to poison the waters, kill people who are claiming insurance benefits etc, buy and sell slave
Re:Intended Consequences of laws (Score:2)
Primarily the web, honestly. In the past, I could accept some government oversight as the people had very little interaction with one another outside of their community. But now that we can share information about bad businesses instantly, I think there is less need for the use of force to govern businesses and individuals. Hell, the entire stock market can be taken apart and let shareholding be deregulated -- people can trade and exchange stocks and bonds throu
Re:Intended Consequences of laws (Score:2)
During the age of the copper barrons people had telegraphs, telephones, newspapers, and mail. They were able to communicate with the outside world just fine. It was not the internet but it was communication nevertheless. Despite the this entire towns were living as indentured slaves. In some places the air was literally toxic and there was a blanket of smog so thick it was like lving in a fog of soot 24/7 and the visilibility was never more then a dozen yards or so.
The barron
Re:Intended Consequences of laws (Score:2)
Here in America it is almost impossible to open a business today (I know, I've succeeded and I've failed), mostly due to government at every level. There is so much red tape and so many r
Re:Intended Consequences of laws (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Intended Consequences of laws (Score:3, Insightful)
In any country there will be the poor and the rich. The measure of a countries civility and humanity is how the poor live. The fact that there are people "getting ahead" in India is of little consequence when they are getting ahead on the backs of child labor, prison labor, and slavery.
A programmer in India is able to charge two do
Re:Intended Consequences of laws (Score:2)
Re:Intended Consequences of laws (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you believe that?
Business can not happen without the government. Its in any economics101 course and certain services can not be done by business. Mainly things in public consumption since its not profitable to help everyone.
The free market works best when the market is stable. The government tries to setup the market as free as possible and to stabilize it so it can grow.
Without SOX you would have problems of more problems of bad accounting reporting which would hurt the general market more.
The governmen
Re:Intended Consequences of laws (Score:2)
I've read all the books you use to support your side, would you mind reading just one free tiny e-book that covers mine? http://www.mises.org/money.asp [mises.org] This is Rothbard's basic book regarding money and what government has done to destroy the economy.
I am against big business as well because I believe big business grows out of abusing government's laws. I also believe these laws were written with this abuse in
Re:Intended Consequences of laws (Score:2)
That's just in America. There are lots of examples all over the world of what happens to a country when the corporations are allowed to run wild.
Re:Intended Consequences of laws (Score:2)
The copper barons of Montana were not a corporation, they fully controlled the state, too. Henry H. Rogers was a philanthropist who gave money out of his fortunes
Re:Intended Consequences of laws (Score:2)
It has destroyed any reason to save (the best way to create a strong economy is through savings, not public credit)
All right, let me play devil's advocate here for a minute:
If government has destroyed any reason to save (and I tend to agree with this, mind you), then why do you save so much?
Re:Intended Consequences of laws (Score:2)
Ahh, good catch there! I'll amend my statement to read "government has destroyed any reason to save federally issued dollars." I save in gold, silver and land -- mostly appreciating assets versus the federally issued currency.
Re:Intended Consequences of laws (Score:2)
Ah, okay; just checking. :)
BTW, adding some information about purchasing land to the information you're already providing about gold would be great. :)
Re:Intended Consequences of laws (Score:3, Interesting)
I went ahead and read it, and the author makes the same mistake that all advocates of the gold standard make: they fail to understand that currency and value are separate. Further, the author completely misunderstands the role of the central bank (The U.S. Federal Reserve Bank) in a paper money economy: which is t
Re:Intended Consequences of laws (Score:2)
Rothbard doesn't really ask for a gold standard, per se, but a deregulated currency system -- which I support. In a gold standard, some players COULD horde all the gold, but this wou
Re:Intended Consequences of laws (Score:3, Informative)
This statement is only true for a very carefully selected group of products (and almost no services). While an ounce of gold will still buy a nice men's suit of about the same relative quality as you might buy in 1800, for pretty much everything else, an ounce of gold will not buy you the same things you could get in 1800. This is due to relative changes in value of purchasables, especially the
Re:Intended Consequences of laws (Score:2)
The market was very unstable before 1913 with huge inflation when it grew and bad recessions when it didn't grow.
The government needs to run the currency to help slow inflation and also regulate interest rates to both slow and expand growth.
There are several theories in economics. One is supply side with minimal government intervention in which the economy will explode and take care of itself (the side your on), demand side economics which state the opposite that the government
Re:Intended Consequences of laws (Score:2)
That's untrue. $1 in 1800 was $1 in 1912. The only time money was inflated was when the Tyrant Lincoln decided to abandon the gold standard and issue paper currency. His money because worthless during the war, so he was forced to return to gold reserves, which brought the dollar back to its previous value and power. Of course some banks decided to cheat and loan out more money than they had g
Re:Intended Consequences of laws (Score:2)
First of all that's an out and out lie. There are numerous mercenary corporations providing soldiers all over the world. There are also numerous corporations providing armed security in the states. So yes corporations do have armies, police and prisons.
Secondly if we let the govt abdicate their responsiblity then there would be no law to which corporations would be subj
Re:Intended Consequences of laws (Score:2)
I think you MIGHT be able to win a debate that government was needed in some way back then, when communication was limited and people were not aware of the world around them. The Internet has replaced much of the need for government oversight, replaced instead with the ability for billions of consumers to oversee each other instantly and in an aggregated fashion.
I'm familiar with some company towns today, such as
Re:Intended Consequences of laws (Score:2)
Re:Intended Consequences of laws (Score:3, Interesting)
I do travel the world, in fact I just got back from a 3 week trip to Eurasia. My visits to Poland and India were eye opening, indeed. This summer I am traveling to 2 other continents, and following up with a late winter visit to Dubai, one of the my favorite cities in the world, and also the freest market to boot. I see growth everywhere I go, except in the US. Of all my businesses, my 2 biggest failures were due to regulation by the government. My 2 b
Re:Intended Consequences of laws (Score:3, Informative)
I think that's everybodies point. Business loves to run free and do whatever it wants. It's great for you, sucks for everybody else.
As I said there are lots of places in the world where there are weak govenments and businesses run the country. I don't want to live in any of them. You want to live in Dubai? Under a king? No democracy? Go ahead. My guess is that you won't live there, you will set up a business and fuck the g
Re:Intended Consequences of laws (Score:3, Funny)
Nonono - you got that all wrong. It's "we need to start pitching money in a hat to buy our own senators". Don't vote with a voting box - vote with your dollar! Isn't that the american way anyway?
Re:Intended Consequences of laws (Score:4, Informative)
That being said, I hate accountants. The average CPA is part of the problem in this country (CPAs as a group lobby Congress to make the tax code worse every year). Instead of requiring companies to do anything, how about telling people that they really shouldn't put their money anywhere but where they trust? I make between 20% and 50% on my various businesses, annually. Most stocks pay no dividend, so they actually make their owners no profit (except on sale, which is ridiculous as companies should pay profits).
The whole system is a mess, and its a mess because we keep requiring business to perform counter-productive to how a free market performs.
Re:Intended Consequences of laws (Score:5, Insightful)
Instead of requiring companies to do anything, how about telling people that they really shouldn't put their money anywhere but where they trust?
Our culture has accepted a lie about trust. We believe that it is the obligation of people to extend trust, and that it is a moral failing when they do not. In reality, the exact opposite is true. Nobody should be trusted until they have proved themselves trustworthy. If person A fails to trust person B, that is solely and completely person B's responsibility. It is not person A's fault. A has to earn B's trust.
This was clear to me during my dating days in an online singles community when I'd hear women who had just been jilted say, "How can I ever trust anyone again?" Well, the problem is that they were extending trust to people who had not yet earned it, and those people performed as could be expected. Then these women were viewing it as somehow their own moral obligation to trust people after that. In reality they were receiving an education that was pointing them to the obvious conclusion that it was not their responsibility to trust people who have not earned it.
Extending that to business is left as an exercise for the reader; I've had more success in dating than I have in business. ;)
Thats no better than what you complain about (Score:5, Insightful)
I tend to take a decidedly buddhist view when it comes to that, nothing to do with the religion (before I get a religious flamewar going here), but I believe in moderation. Completely distrusting everyone is no worse than complete trusting everyone. You have to strike a balance - the way our world works depends upon it. Buisness depend upon trusting that the average consumer is not a theif (someone should tell the RIAA that, before they strangle the music industry), relationships depend upon trusting that the person you are with will be true to you, in whatever way that means to you.
~ Wizardry Dragon
Re:Intended Consequences of laws (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Intended Consequences of laws (Score:3, Insightful)
I seem to recall that much of the economic success the jewish communities had in the early 20th century and before was based on trust, i. e. you could give someone locally some money and some business partner of them would pay the same sum (minus some fees maybe) to the final recipient. Very useful in the times be
The original article says ... (Score:5, Insightful)
solution: don't violate the GPL.
Re:The original article says ... (Score:2)
Coming soon to slashdot: (Score:5, Funny)
[E]ssentially counsels users of the free software license that they have no need to worry.
Coming soon:
Does peanut butter taste like fish?
No
Is water wet?
Yes
Short and informative - this is great stuff!
Re:Coming soon to slashdot: (Score:4, Insightful)
In the vast majority of possible temperatures it is gas or solid. So I'd say, on average, no; water is not wet.
Re:Coming soon to slashdot: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Coming soon to slashdot: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Coming soon to slashdot: (Score:5, Funny)
Solid H2O: Ice
Liquid H2O: Water
Gaseous H2O: Steam
Plasma H2O: Profit!
Re:Coming soon to slashdot: (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Coming soon to slashdot: (Score:3, Informative)
water is not steam.
ice is solid water.
steam is gaseous water.
Re:Coming soon to slashdot: (Score:3, Informative)
Tastes Great! Less Filling! (Score:2, Insightful)
Ultimately, there is only one kind of person who can tell you if it is legal or not. That person is called a Judge or, in rare instances for corporations, a Jury.
you know (Score:3, Insightful)
The Founders of this insane country have got to be spinning in their graves.
SOX is change management over financial systems (Score:5, Interesting)
Just my Experience.
Re:SOX is change management over financial systems (Score:2, Insightful)
SOX can be boiled down to two things: #1) The opinion from the auditor of how effective your controls are (this includes everything from IT to Payroll, and everything in between), and #2) The opinion from the auditor expressing their evaluation of if or if not you are following the controls.
Now. Consider what you said:
"SOX requires strict change management..." -- While true, it is somewhat misleading. Your company has esta
Re:SOX is change management over financial systems (Score:2, Informative)
Not directly. PCAOB Audit Standard #2, however, does. The PCAOB Audit Standard is the SEC approved audit standard to which US Public Companies filing under Sarbanes-Oxley are held.
Paragraph 50 of the standard requiter that Change Management over financial systems should be tested by the auditor.
Since when is the GPL a EULA (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe I'm a bit thick but... (Score:2, Redundant)
Re:Maybe I'm a bit thick but... (Score:4, Informative)
You can not get in trouble for using software you have a license to use. Period. If you follow the GPL, you have a license to use OSS. Break the GPL, and well, you don't have that license anymore. Ditto with normal software. If you violate an EULA, or steal software, you don't have a license anymore. Using software you don't have a license to is a SOx violation, regardless of whether the software is free or not.
Re:Maybe I'm a bit thick but... (Score:3, Informative)
The counterlink given in this article is just as biased.
Here is the problem. You run linux and your software is an asset used to help run your company. Who owns it? Does Linus own the kernel? What about the distro owner? How about the 250 people who contributed to the kernel?
Wasabi is saying that you need to keep track of all the thousands of kernel and FOSS developers since they own the copyright on the code in your accounting reports. Si
Re:Maybe I'm a bit thick but... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Maybe I'm a bit thick but... (Score:2)
Re:Maybe I'm a bit thick but... (Score:3, Interesting)
That is really very simple. Your company can just make a statement like: "In our company, we are using 500 copies of Linux and 500 copies of OpenOffice. Both Linux and OpenOffice are owned by their respective copyright holders; we are using this software under the GPL license. We are a
GPL - Gets Perused Lightly (Score:2)
Does the GPL Violate Sarbanes-Oxley? - No
Groklaw quotes Moglen: FUD, plain and simple. (Score:4, Interesting)
Quoting a response by the Software Freedom Law Center:
Wasabi = BSD zealots (Score:4, Interesting)
I stayed with Linux for embedded systems, and probably will forever, unless embedded BSD is freed from the grips of these people.
Re:Wasabi = BSD zealots (Score:3, Interesting)
Management wants to kill linux as much as possible so you can run netbsd instead.
It seems they are desperate at this point and bashing linux was not a good way to make a customer. It seems they have incompentant salesmen and upper management probably had a role in training them.
Re:Wasabi = BSD zealots (Score:2)
You can use NetBSD on some embedded platforms if you wished.
Sarbanes-Oxley is a joke (Score:4, Interesting)
The basics of SOX is that your CEO must sign that the proper controls are in place to ensure that all changes made to production systems that affect the reporting of financial information are approved changes.
Companies can take this to mean that changes to your firewalls, mail servers and webserver need to be logged and monitored with scrutiny. And they will even send "auditors" in to take screenshots of
Realistically it is impossible to be 100% SOX compliant and profitable. This bill will be gone within 5 years and other countries without silly laws like this will prosper in the meantime.
So yes. If there is a not an audit trail in place where someone approves of applying that patch to the linux kernel on all production machines then you are not SOX compliant. Just like if someone doesn't approve installing that critical service pack from microsoft. Without approval and test cases you will fail your SOX audit unless you pay the extortion^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H fee that anderson^H^H^H^H^H^H^H accenture is charging these days.
Re:Sarbanes-Oxley is a joke (Score:2)
Re:Sarbanes-Oxley is a joke (Score:2, Interesting)
My company's parent company has several internal corporate auditors on staff that are extremely computer illiterate. They basically take what
Scuttlemonkey does it again! (Score:4, Insightful)
Does this actually have anything to do with the article? No
The Article says that violating the GPL may be a SOX violation, but no more so than any other EULA.I've seen a lot of complaints about Zonk; SM is worse.
Wasabi Burns (Score:5, Interesting)
What the FUD? (Score:3, Interesting)
No Violation (Score:2, Interesting)
SOX Violations (Score:3, Funny)
Beware Your EULA (Score:4, Interesting)
Under the MS EULA, once you upgrade your software, you have no rights to use the older version(s). This means that if the 'upgrade' breaks your mission-critical software you are so toast.
If you don't revert your software, then your mission-critical software wll remain broken until Microsoft deigns to fix the issue.
If you do revert your software then you're in violation of the EULA and subject to having Microsoft demand that you delete the entire package at any time.
With the GPL, you're only likely to run into problems if you want to distribute the software without distributing the full source. You can sometimes get away with not publishing the source to isolated parts of software written by you, but at that point you're running on the border and should talk to lawyers to make sure that you're not crossing over the line.
Re:Beware Your EULA (Score:3, Informative)
I believe you are mistaken. Not only would it violate the principle that once you have paid for a license it is yours to dispose of as you wish (doctrine of first sale), Microsoft specifically grants downgrade rights in many of their licenses anyway -- e.g., if you want a second license for Office 97 you can buy a recent
Re:Beware Your EULA (Score:3)
If you're saying that, I'd have to conclude that you've never actually read (and understood) your MS windows EULA.
Once you buy an article you can do what you want with it. Licenses are arbitrary... That's why the EULA has the claim "you agree that you have licensed this software, not purchased it (or something to that effect).
Under general copyright there is n