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SCO Letter to Fortune 1500 Now Online
e6003 writes "The text of the extortion letters that SCO sent out in May 2003 to the 1500 largest US companies is now online. Read in all its glory the lies and misconceptions that SCO has about Linux and the kernel development process. Pamela Jones, the proprietor of Groklaw, suggests Linus Torvalds would have a great case for defamation as a result of this letter and subsequent events."
can be found here.
Did you have to link Groklaw? Its not fair to /. the happy fun (para)legal site.
For your information, the text of the letter has been available here for a few months.
The only reason this is news is that its a document attached to the court docket for the December the 5th hearing on the motions to compel discovery.
An infinite number of monkeys will eventually come up with the complete works of
Spell it correctly and it works.
http://www.sco.com/scosource/
This worries me. Either people are so dumb, or SCO has some ace up its a^Hsleeve.
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The submitter:
Pamela Jones, the proprietor of Groklaw, suggests Linus Torvalds would have a great case for defamation as a result of this letter
The article:
Now that Linus has a lawyer, maybe they'll take note and consider if the necessary elements for an action for defamation are now available. They are hard cases to win, particularly for a public figure, so they may not want to go that route
The requirements to file a suit? Yes. A "great case"? Hell no.
Execs have been successfully sued for bleeding a company dry (e.g., granting themselves huge bonuses while the company is clearly going bankrupt). Such conduct is illegal, though hard to prove except when it is egregiously obvious. Usually it's the ripped-off investors who sue. There have been cases of investors successfully going after the personal assets of execs when it can be showed that they did something specifically illegal, such as making false statements to investors.
I suspect, though, that a clear case may be harder to make this time. Hopefully, the best that will happen is that lots of screwed investors will realize they were duped by their "advisors," and will take their business elsewhere.
Suing for libel would be difficult in any case, as it's hard to sue for libel in general (at least in the US).
It's scheduled for April 11, 2005. It will be amazing if SCO can make it long enough to see even the beginning of the IBM and Red Hat trials.
Oh well.
Please check this article from OSDN. Linux kernel developers are well known and actually SCO's definition for commercial software "built by carefully selected and screened teams of programmers" describes better the reality of Linux Kernel development.
I certainly hope that RedHat has time to enter this letter as evidence in their lawsuit against SCO for Lanham Act violations.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Maybe IBM could lend him one of their lawyers.
Heck, there are probably a number of lawyers who would take the case pro bono just for the publicity. You can't get a much more sympathetic plaintiff.
He also needn't file a multimillion dollar suit. He could choose to ask for one dollar, plus costs, and an injunction against further libellous statements. He doesn't look greedy, and SCO still faces a court declaration that their remarks are defamatory.
Still, it would probably end up soaking up a good bit of his time, and he has better things to do...
~Idarubicin
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
would they HAVE to sue me? Because if they don't - they aren't enforcing protection of their IP, and therefore ... relinquish it or something. Kind of like it's the responsibility of a Trademark holder to enforce their ownership of the trademark, or it becomes public domain, or something.
:)
No. If a trademark owner doesn't enforce their rights, it is possible for the trademark to become public domain. This does not apply to copyright and patents (SCO doesn't even own the UNIX(TM) trademark, the Open Group does).
You don't lose your copyrights and patents if you don't prosecute violators. Copyright lasts until it expires (a long time, due to Disney's legislation), and patents last 20 years.
(obviously I don't really understand the issues I'm asking about)
That's ok... at least you ask, unlike many slashdotters
This letter implies then, that SCO is indemnifying all it's customers if the gcc and Samba that adds most of the value to their OS contains somebody else's "intellectual property"? And that they've put this code through a rigorous screening process, which somehow the Linux kernel hasn't gone through? That seems somewhat doubtful, seeing as how they themselves were providing customers with the same Linux kernel they now claim is infringing. And what's with "intellectual property and other rights"??? Are they refering to patents? No, they have no Unix patents. Are they refering to trademarks? No, they don't own the Unix trademark. Here's an idea: if you mean "copyrights", why not just say "copyrights"? Also, they claim to have suspended all Linux activity back in March -- aren't they still distributing it?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Well, I was carefully selected and screened and build propietary, secure software.
I can't program for shit compared to Linus and Co.
This space for rent.
What you're describing is communism. Socialism isn't about forcing people to work for a common good. In fact forcing people to do anything AGAINST their will is one of the things socialism is against.
Mainly, socialism consists of making sure
1) Those who work for an employer can't be abused (e.g. summarily dismissed, locked out, paid different rates - trades unions stuff)
2) Ensuring the better off in society take care of those at the lower end of the scale.
The most successfully socialist countries are in Scandanavia where taxes are huge (up to 75%) but things like dental care and hosptials are free for all, drugs are subsidised by the government, there are adult education schemes, the whole lot of it. And while people are being gouged in terms of tax, their standard of living is nonetheless increased as it all gets returned to them in kind.
This is the big difference between socialism and capitalism, socialism you give up significant funds to better society, which will in turn better your life. In capitalism you make and hold onto as much money as possible, so you can afford to better your life, as society won't do it for you.
By and large the core policy of socialism is donating to society for the benefit of all. In one sense it's a form of charity, except more reasoned, and engineered so you get something back from your donation.
It is has nothing to do with communism (which incidentally has nothing to do with the totalitarian regimes practised in China, Cuba and formerly (presently?!) the USSR).