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There has been a similar case against SCO's German office and website, they were forced to take their claims off their site, as they couldn't provide proof. Along with that court order came a warning that they will be heavily fined if they ever try it again. See, for example: http://www.computerwoche.de/nachrichten/538897/ (German) or here http://www.linuxtoday.com/developer/2003053001926NWLLDV (English).

beware: German language: http://www.computerwoche.de/heftarchiv/1990/12/1144912/

And this was not even new in 1990. Siemens had them in special tubes that could be buried below the surfac e.

This appears to be an evil ploy by Google to destroy the USPTO.

There was a well written in The German magazine "Computerwoche" a few weeks ago which was about business usage of excel and its consequences.

Google Translation here.

We have news from Germany. It seems, according to Computerwoche, that SCO Group GmbH (SCO's German branch) agreed, on February 18, 2004, to an out-of-court settlement between it and Univention and will refrain from saying in Germany some things it says in the US constantly. There are four things they have agreed not to say in Germany, on pain of a fine of 10,000 euros per offense -- that's about $12,500 USD -- and one thing they can't say unless they present proof within a month of the settlement date.

Details of the settlement from the article:

1) SCO Group GmbH (German branch of SCO) has agreed not to allege any more that Linux contains SCO's unlawfully acquired intellectual property.

2) The settlement also forbids SCO from claiming that if end users are running Linux they might be liable for breaches of SCO's intellectual property.

3) Also they cannot say that Linux is an unauthorized derivative of Unix.

4) Finally SCO Group GmbH is prohibited to threaten to sue Linux users unless they bought SCO Linux or Caldera Linux.

I asked a couple of others who speak German to make sure this last was an accurate translation, even holding off on the story for half a day, because it still sounds a bit odd. Evidently, they can sue their own customers in Germany if they feel like it. Perhaps others can refine our understanding. The news article also says that they can't allege that proof of copyright violations will be presented soon, unless such proof is presented within a month after the settlement date, in which case, then SCO Group may continue to make that claim publicly.

Thanks primarily to doughnuts_lover, who did the initial translation for us.

Here is a snip from the German, for those who can readily understand it:

"Die SCO Group GmbH wird danach im geschaftlichen Verkehr, also gegenuber Kunden und Anwendern, kunftig nicht mehr behaupten, dass Linux-Betriebssysteme unrechtmaBig erworbenes geistiges Eigentum von SCO Unix beinhalten. Der Vergleich verbietet es SCO ferner zu behaupten, dass Endanwender, wenn sie Linux einsetzen, fur die damit verbundenen Schutzverletzungen der SCO Intellectual Properties haftbar gemacht werden konnen. Auch die Behauptung, Linux sei ein nicht autorisiertes Derivat von Unix, ist nicht mehr statthaft. Last, but not least, darf die SCO Group GmbH nicht mehr behaupten, Kaufer von Linux-Betriebssystemen hatten eine Strafverfolgung zu befurchten, es sei denn, es handelte sich bei den gekauften Betriebssystemen um SCO Linux oder Caldera Linux. . . .

"Nach diesem wird SCO auch nicht mehr offentlich behaupten, Beweise fur die Urheberrechtsverletzung wurden demnachst vorgelegt. Ausnahme: Sollten diese Beweise innerhalb eines Monats nach diesem Vergleich vorgelegt werden, kann die SCO Group GmbH solch eine Behauptung weiter veroffentlichen."

I quote from an article in the Financial Times Deutschland. This is my own translation from the German so all disclaimers apply:

"Linux plays a dominant role and is much stronger than in the US, and we must make this clare to the Americans" says Kurt Sibold, designated chief of Microsoft Germany.

"There is no business model behind Linux and that makes things difficult. It is easier for us to go against other companies like Sun"

Next thing to quote Computerwoche David Turner, Lead programmer of MS's .NET commented on the open source availability of SOUP that:

In spite of the hype about Windows vs. Linux, many people want to use both.

Your friend made the mistake to start at 2/3 of a normal salary I think.

There is an arti cle in the German IT-Newspaper Computerwoche about German IT salaries. From my experience as an IT Consultant the salaries in that paper seem to be quite low, though.

A typical post-degree starter salary is 75kDM per year.
A junior consultant with some experience gets about 90kDM.

Please keep in mind that we have very high income taxes in Germany. We have progessive taxation (the percentage grows with the income), up to 53% for a high income.

The IT center of Germany is just around München (English speaking people like to mis-spell that "Munich"). For IT people in finance, Frankfurt (we call it "Bankfurt" somtimes) is the place. Smaller IT cities are Hamburg and Bremen in the north, a little bit in the Hannover area. More and more service companies are moving to Berlin now, thus there are some jobs there.

A very good starting point for searching job adverts (sorry, all in German) are the pages of the newspaper DIE ZEIT. They use a crawler to collect information from many other job sites. They have a page for international jobs too.

Your friend made the mistake to start at 2/3 of a normal salary I think.

There is an arti cle in the German IT-Newspaper Computerwoche about German IT salaries. From my experience as an IT Consultant the salaries in that paper seem to be quite low, though.

A typical post-degree starter salary is 75kDM per year.
A junior consultant with some experience gets about 90kDM.

Please keep in mind that we have very high income taxes in Germany. We have progessive taxation (the percentage grows with the income), up to 53% for a high income.

The IT center of Germany is just around München (English speaking people like to mis-spell that "Munich"). For IT people in finance, Frankfurt (we call it "Bankfurt" somtimes) is the place. Smaller IT cities are Hamburg and Bremen in the north, a little bit in the Hannover area. More and more service companies are moving to Berlin now, thus there are some jobs there.

A very good starting point for searching job adverts (sorry, all in German) are the pages of the newspaper DIE ZEIT. They use a crawler to collect information from many other job sites. They have a page for international jobs too.