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One Company's Response to SCO
Great_Jehovah writes "The CIO of Just Sports USA received an extortion letter from SCO, started a thread about it on the pgsql-general and then posted his response letter after weighing the various pieces of advice and info he received. Here's hoping that most of SCO's intended victims do the same." An anonymous reader submits a story in a Utah paper about SCO: "The Salt Lake City Weekly paper is running a front page article on the SCO shenanigans. The reporter interviewed Darl, Linus, Bruce Perens and others for the article with new choice quotes from them all." Also, IBM at Linuxworld claims it will win against SCO (miscellaneous plug: CmdrTaco will be speaking at Linuxworld later today).
My concern with all of this crap, is the fact that someone hasn't forced SCO to shut the hell up. It reminds me of the Bully in grade school. He would consistantly beat up on kids every day. Some even to the point of actual damage, and he was NEVER suspended. Never. Ever. I think that is what needs to be really focused on. Not so much as "When will all of this madness end?", but rather "How can we prevent this from ever getting this far, if history repeats itself?"
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
From the article: "I've been pounding the table here for a year or so saying there's no free lunch, and there is going to be a day of reckoning for every company that thinks they are going to try and sell a free model."
What is with this messianic attitude? Perhaps what Darl does not realize is that folks contribute to Linux and other open source projects through a variety of reasons. Notably, some contributions to open source have happened via tax-payer funded projects from a variety of nations throughout the world. Other contributions are made from the generous and charitable contributions of others who simply want to make a difference. Darl wants to exploit those contributions and leverage his band of merry lawyers to "liberate" Linux from the rest of us. Only his liberation is not for anything other than selfish desires (like any criminal who sees nothing wrong with theft) with no respect to the common good.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
If you want to sound professional you do not tell someone to stop wasting your time in a letter.
Since when is calling a spade a spade unprofessional?
The law of excluded middle : Either I'm foo or I'm foobar
I would suggest that response was far more 'acceptable' than the extortion threat that was the letter from SCO.
SCO *is* wasting a valuable person's time... he had to spend time treating that letter seriously, and if I were him, I'd be keeping a log of all time spent on the SCO issue in the hope that it could be used to sue them in small claims court for expenses after SCO loses in court. Of course, I expect that SCO won't have much left at that point, but it would be fun to kick them in the nuts when they're down.
Not at all. Nothing happened to the stock price, you're looking at the 5-day graph.
Take a look a the 1-year graph and you'll see how successful their disgusting strategy has been.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
It's hardly that unprofessional. It comes across as a personal opinion, rather than a "purely factual" representation, but it is in no way insulting or offensive, any more so than asking someone to move out of your way in a supermarket aisle. Besides, when has SCO acted purely according to professional business standards anyway?
Personally, I think the mildly-annoyed personal flair indicates that he's seriously considered the issue and is weighing in on it, rather than simply having his lawyers whip up some legalese response. But then, that's just me.
Er.... That would be RedHat, would'nt it? Isn't that exactly what RedHat's lawsuit is about?
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
sPh
I disagree. Having read SCO's vaguely worded letter I agree that it was a waste of time.
I personally feel that ignoring them is a far better approach.
I feel that not responding is unprofessional.
No electrons were harmed creating this post, though some may have been subjected to electrical and/or magnetic fields.
Nobody said I had to be as infantile as they have been - I decided on that all by myself without your help.
As a matter of fact, I don't believe that punishing people for malicious acts beyond merely stopping them from continuing is a bad idea. I believe in whacking them hard enough that they not only stop what they're doing, but never even think of doing it again.
If you go read his posting he says he wants to switch to BSD. IMHO this will not address the problem,
I think BSD is a fine OS as well, BUT if SCO is successful with thier attack on linux, they've already said they will go after BSD as well.
If this guy is really worried about it, then he needs to fight SCO, not just switch to BSD and HOPE they will leave him alone.
SCO is a bully and speaking from alot of experience, the only way to get rid of a bully is to stand up to them and kick thier teeth in if necessary. Once they see you will fight them, they'll go look for easier prey.
So Long and Thanks for all the Fish.
> How about if SCO loses? Do they have to refund everyone who was coerced into buying licenses?
No, because at the time, the people "chose" to pay the license. They could have:
- paid the fee
- stopped using the software (however unrealistic)
- challenged the fee in court
- waited for the outcome of this case.
If they choose the last option and SCO wins, they can be penalized even more for not paying "when required." If they choose to challenge it, they put a lot of money on the line (hell of a lot more than $699) to defend themselves. They could switch OSes, but that's entirely unrealistic, and I imagine SCO is counting all this to force the victims to choose the first option: to pay with no chance of refund (unless later they pursue further legal action over the extortion of $700).
This is what was actually sent to SCO and quite honestly I don't see anything wrong with it. The first clause is dismissive but the demands are reasonable. Unprofessional would have been something like "Blow me."
So it got to the point without using a bunch of $1.50 words or couched in a slew of legalese cliches. Whatever. It most certainly doesn't merit the criticism it's currently receiving.
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
No, being frank is for everyone. It is sickening that people have to pussyfoot and sugarcoat things. If something sucks, I'll say it sucks, not that "It is moderately deficient in numerous ways." Just say the fucking truth. It Sucks.
Political Correctness belongs in the trash, along with any letters from SCO.
Feh.
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
What SCO CEOs are really interested in is getting rich. They are doing very well so far.
Whether they'll win in court or not is irrelevant. Whether they'll collect on those Linux licenses is irrelevant. All that matters is the movement of the stock. This is a wag the dog situation. They have started a bullshit war and winning or losing it is not the point. The point is having the war and make it look as real as possible, for long enough.
This they are very successful at. I guess that's what they teach you in Management School.
What I want is them to be accountable for their actions as individuals, no more able to hide behind the "Corporation".
What I see is the history repeating: Very powerful people use power to create an environment where they are no longer accountable for their actions. Reminds me of "noble" families in the past - owning the land and the lives of others just because they are noble. Able to steal, rape and kill without consequences.
My feeling is, King of England is back.
I am not amused.
Actually not, it was exactly the right thing to do. What he said was don't waste your time and mine with any future letters unless you can state the specific code items that you claim ownership of.
This has a legal significance. Daryl has been put on notice that SCO's claims are in dispute and are not believed. What SCO want to do at this point is to get to a point where they could claim the infringement to be willful.
It is very clear that SCO have to state their claim with specificity if they want any further action. What the last paragraph does is in effect say 'I won't consider myself as having been put on notice until you address this issue'. The case history of SCO vs IBM shows this is an reasonable point of view.
In summary I don't think SCO would be sucessful in a claim of willful infringement and I don't think any further correspondence will have that effect either unless that point is met.
Rudeness can have a useful legal effect.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
IANAL, but this may also be laying the groundwork for possible legal action against SCO if SCO continues to send letters or makes other threats, harrassment, etc. For example, it establishes communication (and a paper trail for it) that defines the beginning of losses (of valuable time) could lead to libel, slander, harrassment, etc. It could even become an initial paper trail for criminal charges (I don't know, could racketeering, extortion, etc. apply to what SCO is doing? A lot of similarities to a Mafia protection scam). An interesting angle would be in proceedings of disbarment of their legal counsel and/or law firms' attornies.
Now that analysts and journalists are starting to catch on, expect to see more articles like this. I think that SCO's stock price is nearing the end of its plateau. I don't think that it will drop dramatically but will slowly decline over a number of months. If there are no quick wins in any of their lawsuits, then their investors will gradually lose faith.
HH
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...to see someone diplomatically tell SCO to go to hell. I hope the court system and the judges don't let these folks down.
Catherine
Don't confuse professional and polite, they are not the same. All definitions of professional point to your ability to understand and carry out your job in a proficient manner.
This is a very impolite letter, very few people are paid to be polite.
How politely would you respond to extortion?