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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.
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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.
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.
sPh
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.
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.
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?