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Australian Linux User Group Fights Back Against SCO
ashitaka writes "The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that an Open Source group has gone on the offensive in response to SCO's latest demands that Linux users must buy a Unixware license to avoid any possible future unpleasantries. 'Open Source Victoria today filed a complaint with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, asking it to investigate SCO's activities in light of 'unsubstantiated claims and extortive legal threats for money' against possibly hundreds of thousands of Australians.' I especially like the last bit: 'One feels that this whole fiasco is the IT industry equivalent of a Nigerian scam or internet extortion ploy.' Oh yeah.."
This is truly welcome news. The community there is actually standing up, which, honestly, is more than I can say for the general LUGs here in the states. I am not referencing IBM, I know that they've got to keep quite until their day in court. But aside from the random ranting, I haven't read very much about Linux standing up against SCO. Understandably, there is little to defend, since SCO has been too vague.
Additionally, I really enjoy Linus' comments in his recent interview.
Good work guys!
think before you write, it'll save me moderator points.
BTW, /. should probably stop posting SCO stories every few hours and have a "Weekly SCO digest" feature (or "SCOback" like slashback) or something like that.
Maybe U.S. users should start taking the same action. Would the FTC listen?
We all recognize that SCO is blowing hot air. Why not just ignore it? You get a nastygram from them, throw it out. There's no reason to prevent SCO from talking if no one is listening in the first place.
If SCO claims copyright infringement in the middle of a deserted forest, does the claim make a press release?
paintball
Meanwhile, on Monday the company where I work received two fake "renew your domain" letters. Welcome to the modern business world...
I conclude that SCOs next step will be to write to Microsoft explaining that they have a large amount of IP tied up in a foreign software product but are unable to get it out themselves. In exchange for 15% of their share capital...oh wait, they already did that. I guess it's going to be buying Utah politicians and going round selling "insurance" against your server being ripped out of the rack and thrown out the window next.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
See lazy zdnet press release regurgitation
Anyone else noticed this Vultus company is a Canopy funded company too? They hang out in one of SCO's buildings. Check their website especially this picture!
Question: Who owns/funds ZDnet & the like?
e.g. EU or Oz
What about Canada? We use linux too eh?
Maybe somebody needs to go out and help dig up the various ways we can legally fight back against SCO et al. Various countries, various investigative bodies, various laws.... it's confusing. If somebody in the legal "know" gives us the options, then perhaps more groups will form together as an organized coalition again the "evils that be (tm)".
Yes, I already know about donating to the EFF, etc... but how about organized legal or political opposition? What are my options there
p.s. from experience I can say that Linux is gaining ground within various branches/sectors of the Canadian gov't... so perhaps they'd be more open-minded about such things?
From what I see and hear in computer stores everyone is hedging that Unix, SCO and IBM will self distruct and take Linux and open source with it. Such is the business attitude in Canada, they are all good MS sales people and will not rock the boat even if it sinks. The situation has become so monopolistic that it stinks.
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!
SCO has started this bull....
We must end it!
We need to fight them in the courts of every country on Earth.
We also need to target all the associated companies of SCO directors to teach them a lesson!
What you have to realise though is that the ACCC actually has teeth - they can ban SCO from doing any business in Australia, and slap whopping great multimillion dollar fines on SCO subsiduaries in Oz. They can also petition the Courts for Prison Terms for Company Officers.
OK, so maybe all SCO would do is stop doing business in Oz, well then Oz becomes a leader in OSS development and consulting to the USA's detriment.
We welcome hearing from you because your complaint may be the one that alerts us to a bad broker or firm, an unfair practice in the securities industry that needs to be changed, or the latest Internet fraud.
Certainly SCO's new licensing scheme would qualify as the latest Internet fraud. Also, the following complaint types appear on their complaint page:
I know I'll be filing complaints with both the FTC and SEC. And just because I'm doing it means that you should do it too.
infested with jello like fishes no melotron wishes
It's the end of capitalism. The US corporate complex has cut costs by outsourcing, downsized, and generally f*cked people and each other over to the point where its largest customer base (i.e., the US consumer, corporate and non-) can no longer afford to buy its products. Because of this, deflation is becoming a very probable result. Once the housing market collapses under the weight of refinace-happy consumer debt, it's all over, baby. But I digress...
Since the companies cannot keep raising their prices to the customers, they need a new business model to keep the money coming in and growth appearing to happen. Hence, the "sue everyone and hope some of it sticks" strategy. SCO, being a weak sister, is one of the first to try this ploy. Look for IP (and other) lawsuits to get even more flakey and corporations to reach ever further down the strategic toilet because they can't make and sell product anymore. This kind of crap is admission of the same and just another sign of the slide towards economic collapse leading to either anarchy or a fascist state.
Gosh, I'm cheery tonight! Good luck to all - we'll need it during the next few years...
That is all.
One commentator pointed out that the SCO farce was bad for the U.S. -- true, but more to the point, it is a symptom of a larger problem facing America. The legal system has ceased to function in any sane form, and it is hurting the U.S. bad. The lottery of trial by jury, abolished for good reason in almost all other western democracies, means that SCO could actually win this case in the U.S., while the rest of the world tells them to go jump in a lake. German companies such as SuSE won't be paying those license fees, that's for sure.
American readers should take note that the Constitution doesn't specify the details of how courts should be set up. Congress could overhaul the system any time they choose, and give the U.S. a system that doesn't suck money and talent from American companies and waste it on millionaire lawyers and legal fees. But then, Congress is full of lawyers...
It would be funny if the disputed code in question was part of BSD-Lites and ended up everywhere.
Because BSD-Lites and it's derivatives are protected by a prior court case.
-- The universe began. Life started on a billion worlds...
-- Except on one where stupidity was there first.
Hello. First of all, I'm not a programmer of any sort (medical registrar in Oz). I've been following this SCO thing with some interest. I was reading in eweek.com that SCO basically wants to draw this thing out (doesn't go to court until 2005) so Linux might die a thousand cuts from drawn out FUD.
./ people it might be possible to create a competition where the first people to find offending code in SCO UNIX wins a prize or the most number of tainted snippets ("yes!!!.. we have found LOTS of offending code... we'll make it public any day now..." etc)wins the most money, just like the XBox and Linux thing. I'm sure the big Linux companies will help out :)
It has been suggested that SCO UNIX might actually contain tainted code from Linux. Surely with all this passion and number of talented
I can't comment on how feasible it will be but if this is handled in the media properly, i.e. in a blaze of publicity just like what SCO did and looked half-way organized and leaked media reports at appropriate times, at least it will create FUD for SCO investors. Just a passing thought.
Suggestion: every linux user buys a couple of shares of SCO, rename the company the linux kernel company, chuck their management, donate the IP ...
throw away our stock...
It may be true that because of the current Bush administration appearing to favor corperate interests over the common good of the country may prevent them from interfering, but if IBM were to do any ammount of real lobbying, something would happen. I mean, look at it from the eyes of an elderly bumbling technologically incompetent public official. The odds they recognize IBM's muscle over whatever SCO appears to have seems to be a preatty clear cut answer IMHO, and with the appearance that "bigger is better" for corperation size to this administration, I think its rather evident who they would side with. Just sit back and watch the fireworks *if* it happens (doubtful, but interesting if it did).
We don't need an "overrated" so much as we need a "you completely missed the parent's point, dumbass..."
BBB has anyone filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau since they are a member... if they get enough complaints they can kick the company out.. and that hurts their bottom line..
Instead file a complaint with the
Federal Trade Commission.
http://www.ftc.gov and click on
file a complaint right at the top.
Tell the FTC that SCO is making demands
for license fees based on unsubstantiated
claims. Keep the nastygram as evidence
for the FTC.
While roaming this /. discussion I occasionally fell into US Copyright office... Once there I decided to search SCO's claim on copyright. Found it, but also I found something more interesting:
UNIX system V : release 3.0 INTEL 80286/80386 computer version : programmer's guide.
Searched on the Web for a little more of the book:
Published - February 1988
Copyrighted by AT&T and edited by Prentice Hall and Unix Systems Laboratory.
On its complaint, more specifically on paragraph 35 and 36, SCO lawyers nearly fill the world with tears by claiming that SCO was the sole developer of UNIX for Intel platforms. But they seem to forget that SCO developed its System V Release 3 only a year after USL's work. And that by the time they were releasing their version, USL was already launching Release 4, which 3 years later became Unixware.
It seems they the mind they have to fill new copyrights and patents is not enough to search those same copyrights and patents...
BTW. the book can still be found for sale...
This is not a good thing.
Rather than waiting for SCO to take action. The Australians have played their card early. SCO has now been made aware of a countertactic to their actions and can take appropriate countermeasures.
What SCO has been doing is the equivalent of tossing explosives into a mine field to detonate the mines. The linux people have been cheerfully blowing up at SCO.
Let SCO make the mistakes and then hurt them. Believe me if they actually get money from licensing and then are attacked it will cost them a hundred times what they have taken in to defend it.
It's time to dump SCO. Drop their UseNet news groups. Don't accept email from SCO. Don't accept requests from SCO browsers. Drop support for SCO operating systems in OSS applications..
The best defense against slander is often to claim the allegations are the exact truth, meaning that SCO might have to disclose the infringing code. If they don't, they give in to the action. A class action may work as an effective put up or shut up legal action.
The class action could request a temporary injunction to stop them making further allegations until the trial. Either they are shut up by the court, or they try to demonstrate they have a sufficiently good case to make the injunction unnecessary. This may force them to disclose the infringing code even faster.
Once the infringing code is disclosed, the FUD is over. Either the allegations will be refuted, or the infringing code will be replaced. The IBM lawsuit will become a contractual dispute like any others without impacts oustide SCO and IBM.
Remember the whole idea of this lawsuit is in the FUD and the FUD is allowed to exist only because they don't disclose the code. The real battle is in getting them to disclose the code. All the rest is only skirmishes.
As always IANAL.
If you've ever contributed code to GNU/Linux, then you may have some room to sue them for copyright violation and/or breach of contract (I think you'd defintitely want the legalese version of and/or).
One possible approach (especially for people with copyright interest in Linux code) would be to sue for a declaratory judgement that SCO has no rights to sue people for copyright violation or patent rights to any Linux code that's been distributed by them (or, at the very least, been distributed by them since they "became aware" that the impugned code was in Linux).
I think that one could also include suit for slander/0. 1libel -- especially given what they said in conjunction with their original complaint.
[note: you can't sue them for the original lawsuit, itself. Court filings have some sort of limited immunity against libel laws, but what they say outside the courtroom -- especially in press releases, et al. is potentially legally actionable].
I think that any such action should also include an injunction against them extorting companies for payments to prtect themselves against such actions.
The basis of the action would be that SCO is clearly now aware of the impugned violations, but they have not only continued to distribtute that impugned code under the GPL -- they have wilfully frustrated attempts to determine precisely what code is supposedly in violation (which would allow it's removal from the public code).
In frustrating attempts to determine which code could be removed to place Linux into compliance with any claimed copyright and/or patent rights, SCO is not only condoning the continued distribution of that code -- they are effectively forcing it's continued distribution. They are now claiming to have effectively poisoned the entirety of the Linux code base and, in that context, they are claiming effective control of that entire code base and attempting to effectively extort companies into buying 'protection' from SCO against this legal phantasm.
Note also: In the digital world, there is no way to tell the difference between allowing a copyright notice to remain in a piece of code and removing, then replacing that same notice. SCO's affirmative placement of GNU licence notices on their impugned code is indistinguishable from passive acceptance of its presence in code that they are distributing.
(That would be another declarative relief to ask for)
The longer-term relief to ask for from the courts would be for copyright violation. By attempting to limit the distribution of the Greater Linux code and by attempting to limit licencees to binary-only rights (in their latest moves), they are clearly in violation of both the spirit and letter of the GPL. As such, they have lost the redistribution rights to any Linux code that is not theirs, as of the initiation of their anti-linux campaing. Their continued distribution of that code absent the permissions given by the GPL are a copyright violation.
____
One final note: If the code that SCO attempted to NDA turned out to have not been code that was solely under their own copyright control, then attempting to NDA that code without the permission of the author who GPLed it would also be a violation of the GPL.
IANAL, but I like to play one in court sometimes.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.