Slashdot Mirror
SCO Fined in Munich For Linux Claims
nordi writes "heise.de reports (in German) that SCO Germany has to pay a fine of 10,000 Euros (~10,800 US$) because they kept on saying that Linux contains stolen intellectual property of SCO. In May a German court had decided that SCO Germany must not continue making those claims." Yes, it's auf Deutsch, so break out babelfish.
Now, why would SCO germany pay, if they have SUCH a solid case??
Side Note: Babelfish is aptly named, the translations are usually Babble
Sehr geehrter Toilettenbenutzer!
The question now is can SCO germany be fined for the slander by SCO in the US. After all they are making these comments about an international operating system and comments in the states do effect lionux in the EU.
Come to think of it could every distro with a presence in Germany sue too.
This German court has ordered the German division of SCO to stop making these claims. But what if the North American parent company continues making the claims? Is SCO Germany still liable?
It is $10,800 this time. If they continue to do it the charges will mount. All in all a pretty fair system. Now how will they deal with it is interesting. Considering that information travels pretty freely across boarders. Will this ruling effect statments made by SCO USA or only SCO Germany?
All they really might have to do is send the press releases from the US office.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
it goes like this (only applicable in Countries with preliminary injunctions against SCO regarding their Linux statements):
...
1. call the SCO HQ.
2. ask them about ther 'Linux end user license'.
3. The SCO person will answer "we can't tell you about this because a German court does not allow this."
4. pretend to be surprised.
5. hang up.
6. call again.
7. tell them that you actually read the preliminary injunction and it does not tell anything about the SCO-Linux-License.
8. ask again to send information about this SCO-Linux-License to you
9. listen to their suffering.
and so on.
I did it 4 times and the last time, they forwarded me to the CEO of SCO Germany. It's funny indeed.
My dictionary says that "schadenfreude" is also an english word.
What's it going to take to get a similar ruling here in the US??
Making these insane claims like they do is damaging Linux and the reputation of a lot of good people.
SCO needs to put up or shut up.
I hope to see a slew of counter suits filed against SCO and I hope a judge will order SCO to STFU until this is resolved. Anyone that loses money over this should personally sue SCO..
SCO GmbH in Germany was only fined because they did not fully comply with a preliminary injunction which told them not to repeat certain statements.
;-)
Yes, this does not mean that they see that they are lying. Only that they did not comply with a court order to quit lying
Seriously, I think this will be viewed as a major setback by SCO. They are trying to coerce people into buying licenses and now they can point to a country which has effectively gagged them. People will become wary of $cos dubious claims.
From the Article
I was initially quite skeptical about these claims, but after talking with several of the principals in the case, I'm not so sure anymore. The history of SCO and Unix is complex.
That's when the copyright controversy emerged. Chris Sontag, a VP at SCO, recently visited PC Magazine's offices with a stack of documents he claims proves SCO's case. Some of these documents are compelling. Sontag explained that SCO owns the copyright to Unix System V. He said that through kernel 2.2, Linux was progressing fine under the GPL. But in the transition to kernel 2.4, code was added that violates SCO's copyrights.
Some of the evidence Sontag showed us is straightforward: Sections of the Linux kernel code relating to the journaling file system and multiprocessor support are identical to the Unix System V code. He offered to show us specific sections of the Unix code, but only under a nondisclosure agreement, which we refused. He said this code was not added to Linux by IBM but by someone else, and that it's a violation of SCO's copyright. I'm not a lawyer, but his argument seems convincing.
PC magazine may not be as relevant as it was a few years ago, but it is still where a lot of people get most of their computer news. I was pretty shocked to read this crap as the first story. I would encourage people to leave some feedback for Mr. Miller.
I still don't understand exactly how Jackson's actions were grounds for an appeal. From the start of the case, Jackson seemed to have no bias one way or another. He didn't even use a computer for doing his paperwork from what I understand. By the end of the trial, he'd had to deal with Gates's Clinton-esque waffling over the meaning of commonly used English words, repeated use of faked evidence, and mountains of testimony of contemptuous monopolous action. Why exactly would forming a negative opinion about a company that had so blatantly flaunted their disregard for the law and for his own court room be a bad thing? It seems utterly natural to me that Jackson would come out of the case with a severe distaste for a company that had pulled such flagrantly disrepectful antics in his own court room.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
From the Google Translation, it sounds to me like the claims that they are being fined for appear on their web site. It also appears that SCO is claiming that this was an oversight that will presumably be corrected.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
Not died out; in Scotland it is common (though admittedly decreasingly common) to purchase a "poke of chips" which is a "portion of fries".
Of course our "chips" are not very similar to "Freedom Fries". They are much chunkier, less crisp, always made of chipped potatoes rather than potato puree and covered in salt and sauce (which is a thin mixture of brown sauce and vinegar).
Yours Sincerely, Michael.