Slashdot Mirror
SCO Says It Has No Plan To Sue Linux Companies
cadfael writes "SCO is reported in the Age as saying they 'Have no plans to sue Linux companies...' This seems to contradict the earlier statements of Chris Sontag. This story also points out how Canopy owns stakes in several other Linux companies, including Linux Networx wheich supplied the supercomputer for Lawrence Livermore Nat Lab. One begins to wonder if the reality of their situation has become clear to them?" Maybe, just maybe, this is the beginning of the end of this mess.
http://www.anerispress.com/wltsim/
aka http://welovethescoinformationminister.org
"that's not encryption - it's a new perl script that I'm working on..." - from some Matrix parody
You can try the timelines at http://sco.iwethey.org/ and one on linuxonline They don't contain all the news from slashdot, but they have a good deal of it between them.
Linux software companies could also become SCO targets. "Do we have potential issues with Red Hat, SuSE and other commercial Linux distributors--yes, we might," Sontag said, adding that chances for negotiating with such companies appear to be slim.
Chris Sontag, senior vice president and general manager of the company's SCOsource business, added: "There is no warranty for infringement of intellectual property [in the GPL], so all of the liability ends up with end users."
Mark Heise, of law firm Boies Schiller and Flexner, representing SCO against IBM, believes SCO is entitled to pursue users based on its claims. "End users are improperly using this copyrighted material, and under copyright law SCO is entitled to damages and injunctive relief," he said.
Chris Sontag, senior vice-president and general manager of SCOsource, which is trying to derive more income from the company's intellectual property, said today: "SCO is taking this important step because there are intellectual property issues with Linux.
"When SCO's own UNIX software code is being illegally copied into Linux, we believe we have an obligation to educate commercial users of the potential liability that could rest with them for using such software to run their business. We feel so strongly about this issue that we are suspending sales and distribution of SCO Linux until these issues are resolved."
asked whether SCO would sue the laboratory, the company spokesperson said: "No. SCO has never made concrete plans to sue anyone."
You can't handle the truth.
The copy on my own website has been served to about 5000 distinct hosts so far this month. A google search for "Let's Put SCO Behind Bars" turns up 2190 matches.
Most of those are links. The article has a Creative Commons license, and I've been encouraging copying. By doing various searches, and checking my logs for referring pages, I've found a few dozen other copies on the web, many of them on message boards where they've had lots of readers.
It turned out to be very helpful when Linux Universe asked me to submit my article there. They use UBB codes instead of HTML. I realized that lots of other message boards use UBB, so I saved a copy on my site in UBB format for people to copy to other message boards.
I've been meaning to write a plain-ascii version suitable for email and usenet but haven't gotten to it yet.
Both Richard Stallman and Eric Raymond enjoyed the article. Stallman said that if it weren't against his ethics to write proprietary code, he would have enjoyed working at the SCO of old as I described it.
My first draft I posted at Advogato, followed soon after by InfoAnarchy and then Kuro5hin.
However, I didn't succeed in getting Slashdot to feature it. One can only dream.
I have been hesitant to allow copying of many of my articles before now, but when one's objective is to get a lot of people to read what one has written, and to do so in a short time, it works wonders.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
For the legal timeline, go straight to
the United States District Court, For the
District of Utah. The dossier
is online.
In case anybody starts thinking about how they might profit from an imminent decline in the SCOX short, The Motley Fool has an FAQ on shorting stocks.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
Politics is just a way of saying 'nice doggie' untill you can find a big stick.
Diplomacy
Well, you could always just go to Yahoo! finance to look for yourself.
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
Nah, it's probably legit. Sontag is talking to someone in Australia, and he probably means they have no plans, and never had any plans, to sue anyone in Oz.
Oz's legal system isn't as bang-up gridlocked as the US's. Which means that if they sued anyone down there, it would go through the courts much faster and leave less time to make money by pumping up the FUD.
SCO vs IBM event timeline
Nope.
They were answering in Australia and there is an anticompetitive complaint there filed against them.
They have provided the same answer in Germany where they have an injunction filed against them.
They have not provided such answers and have stated exactly the opposite in every other country where they are not under anticompetive practices investigation (or injunction).
I think that it is absolutely bleeding obvious what takes them to make the statement they have done in Australia.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Red Hat's case has a few counts. Count I is "Declaratory Judgment of Noninfringement of Copyrights". They can only get this declaratory judgement if they show that "an actual controversy exists" (para. 73)
Count II is similar, but with respect to trade secrets not copyright.
Counts III - VII are for libel, unfair trade practices etc. and can run on their own whether SCO plans on suing or not.
"A gun is a tool, Marian. No better, no worse than any other tool. An axe, a shovel, or anything." Shane (1953)