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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).
...is going the right way so far today.
The Army reading list
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
ha.
Haha.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Heh.
GWAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
SCO.
*sniff*
What was the question again?
Sent from your iPad.
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.
Why is it that no one has taken SCO to court to get an injunction filed against them, barring them from collecting money or sending 'extortion' letters until their case is proved in court? It makes no sense to me that they can send out these letters, making threats, on a legal matter that is nowhere close to being decided. How about if SCO loses? Do they have to refund everyone who was coerced into buying licenses? It's ridiculous that no one has tried to prevent them from talking out their asses yet. It makes sense to me, am I missing something?
That has to be the best damned article I've read on the "SCO" case. Granted, it was slanted against SCO - but it provided logical, point-by-point facts about the history of the case. No new arguments for the geek crowd - but that's one I'll print out and show to the non-geeks I work with who haven't understood what the big deal is.
While we're at it, Mr. Johnson's article should be printed out and mailed to every member of Congress, the Senate, and to Mr. Bush to stop any of the "anti-Open Source" lobbyists dead in their tracks.
I used to live in Salt Lake and remember how good the "City Weekly" was, but I had forgotten that every so often, those bastards could really write.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
"He's no geek," says Benjamin Choate, a self-trained Linux user living in Logan. "His tan's too good."....
... I don't want for that 'Darlness' to rub off on me."
In June 2002, the copper-toned McBride took over the reigns of Caldera, a Linux and UNIX distributor desperately trying to find its place in the Information Technology world.
Gotta love the journalist for poking fun at Darly.
And Linus:
When asked if he had any questions to pass along to McBride, Linus Torvalds chose to err on the side of caution. "The less I have to do with Darl McBride, the better off I am
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.
I'm just glad to see someone bringing the threats to a public forum, and responding in a reasonable manner.
Too many of the public responses seem to be nothing more than namecalling and puffed up catfights.
I, personally(not that anyone cares), can forgive one bad line in an otherwise excellent letter.
-
"Vengeance is fine," sayeth the Lord.
January 21, 2004
Mr. Philip Langer
Regional Director, Intellectual Property Licensing
SCO Group
355 South 520 West Suite 100
Lindon, Utah 84042
Dear Mr. Langer:
I am writing you in response to your letter dated January 19th, 2004 in which you advised that you would
consider legal action if we failed to respond to your efforts to pursue a licensing arrangement. To date, I
have yet to receive any information concerning our systems and what you allege violates your intellectual
property rights. You have sent me letters that conflict with other statements made by representatives of the
SCO Group concerning SCO's ownership of UNIX ABI's and their supposed (re)distribution under the
GPL in the Linux kernel.
If you would like to detail directly which of our systems allegedly violate your copyrights, and specifically
which code on said systems allegedly violates said copyrights, we will be happy to do an internal audit to
verify your claims. Once the results of said audit are complete, we will be more than willing discuss any
pending licensing issues with you.
Our current understanding of your legal situation is that your organization has yet to prove your claims of
SCO intellectual property being included in the GPL based Linux kernel software that SCO itself has
distributed under the GPL. While I understand your concerns regarding intellectual property and your
desire to protect SCO's property, at this time, the legality and claims concerning SCO's ownership of code
that exists in the 2.4 Linux kernel has yet to be determined by a court of law. I, speaking for myself, follow
with interest SCO Group's contortions in its lawsuits against Novell and IBM, and its defense against the
lawsuit brought by Red Hat. In my study of the events that have transpired, it's my understanding that
SCO Group has yet to produce any substantive evidence as to the claims regarding code misappropriation
by IBM. I am requesting the SCO Group to provide to my organization substantive evidence of alleged
copyright violations so that we may compare the alleged violations for the purpose of internal audit to
determine if any licensing needs to indeed exist. I do, however, intend to publicly document the results of
said audit and any communication with the SCO Group regarding this matter.
Before you waste any more of my time or yours, please detail exact information such as the offending lines
of code and the kernel versions you contend this code is in. Alternatively if your organization agrees, we
can re-address these issues after your current lawsuits regarding these issues are finalized.
Sincerely,
Gavin M. Roy
Chief Information Officer
Just Sports USA
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.
"That's Darl McBride, president and CEO of the SCO Group, a perennial loser at selling UNIX"
:-)
Nice
I'm sure this has been brought up before (though I can't find it right off), but isn't this type of arm-twisting by SCO illegal?
For example, and any input from you legal beagles out there would be greatly appreciated, couldn't a company such as Just Sports use the RICO act as a means of seeking relief?
--- have you healed your church website?
Dear [Insert foo&bar SCO lawyer's name here]
After careful consideration, and based on recent media coverage of the events involving the SCO group claiming ownership of code in the Linux 2.4 kernels, plus the fact that to this date no tangible evidence has been presented in a court of law, we understand that SCO's upper management has been under the influence of recreational drugs for a considerable amount of time and thus, should not be taken seriously.
Under these premises, we'll transfer further threatening letters to our security experts, Corleone & Corleone inc for further appreciation and action.
Kind Regards,
[Insert your name here]
When the spade obviously doesnt think itself to be a spade.
Meaning, there's such a thing as professionalism. Being frank is for engineers, and thats why people dont like them.
I know I didnt actually answer your question, but if I did, I'd have to charge.
You can't spell fiasco without SCO
Here's the way I see it:
SCO can't find any code from SysV in Linux. If there were any SysV code in Linux, they would have been able to find it, since they have the source code to both. There would have been no need to ask IBM for Sequent/Dynix code, since they would have found 'their' (SCO's) code in both SysV and Linux.
In other words, no SysV code in Linux
So they asked IBM for all the code that IBM has written, trying to find out exactly what code from IBM made it into both Unix and Linux. This leads me to the conclusion that they consider all code written by IBM for Unix to belong to SCO as a 'derivative work'. However, they (and we) don't know whether IBM developed the code specifically for Unix (and later contributed it to Linux), or whether IBM wrote it for both Unix and Linux at the same time.
If IBM originally wrote the code for both, I can't see how SCO can claim ownership/copyright/patent/IP rights/whatever. However, even if IBM did write it for Unix and later contributed it to Linux, SCO still have to prove that the code IBM wrote belongs to them(SCO). I find that doubtful at best.
Help find a cure for cancer. Join the [H]orde
"'Listen real clearly to what's happening here,' McBride said by telephone from his Lindon office in early January. 'The situation is that we used to be the leader ... we were where Red Hat [the No. 1 Linux distributor] is now. Linux then comes in, with Red Hat being the ringleader, and really attacks our [UNIX] market share and our marketplace..."
self-explanatory
Why did I lurk so long before registering for a Slashdot account? I could have had a Slashdot ID of less than 100000.
Bruce Perens, a Linux cheerleader and open-source advocate
The thought of Bruce in a short skirt and waving pompoms just made me shudder. "Give me an L!"
Ahhhhh Noooo
It's about as much use as a pair of binoculars is to a cyclops...
sPh
turning the entire matter over to the RIAA.
Sigs are bad for your health.
The funny thing is, fully 3/4 of the letter is underlined. Maybe they think if they shout and emphasise it they think people will just agree without even taking it in.
"WE BELIEVE WE CAN PROPOSE SOLUTIONS THAT WOULD WASTE YOUR MONEY AND TIME AND WE OWNZ YOU"
If SCO is right the offending code will be removed. I cant go to you with a bill saying that you owe me money for something that you have and, since that thing belongs to me, you have to pay. What thing? I won't tell or you will throw away and I won't get my money. I may be a liar... and you don't have anything that belongs to me... you will pay in doubt?
Since programmers doing some work for free is prejudicial to the industry we should abolish it. Is that? So all volunteer work should be abolished, since that volunteer work is stopping some professional of making profit somewhere. Is that?
It provides a detailed description of what the supposed 'problem' is, and clearly shows each sides claims.
An excellent article to show to the hestitant boss..
It was run by our lawyer and CEO :)
Being /. readers, it's unfortunate that we will never get the chance to give business to Just Sports...
- In Capitalist America, law violates YOU!
Yes, Darl, there IS NO free lunch . . . get over it and shut the hell up.
How many levels of irony must this guy go through before his head explodes?
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
So what would my options be in said case? Believe it or not, I actually have the unopened Caldera OpenLinux 2.3 disk in a mint condition "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Linux Second Edition" (C) 2000 (Actually I never bothered to read the book or install the distro, but it is ironic that the "Idiots Guide" came with Caldera.) Are they forcing people who are using Caldera to pay up and sign a satanic contract in blood? Should I switch back to using MS Windows 98? (GOD NO! NO! NEVER AGAIN! NO!) Should I immediately sign up for my free 25 megs of space on Tripod? Or better: Use the free 5 megs that comes with my ISP service and use the URL Forwarding? Is Stallman and the FSF and Linus and the whole Slashdot community going to lend me kind sage advice and hold my hand through trying times? What oh what should I do if the EVIL DARYL MCBRIDE should come after my computer?
In all seriousness, if SCO ever did come after my "amatuer" homebrew server, what should I do? (Besides fold like a wet napkin...)
They can't say a damn thing about any of this in Germany- or face nasty fines and jail time for the regional execs if they DO say anything of the sort.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
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.
I was like, "where have I seen this guy before?" Computer guy...wearing a blue work shirt exposing bare forearms. Cocked a bit to the site with his arms folded across his chest.
And then I realized, it's Peter Norton.
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
Regarding the "wasting my time" and being "unprofessional", who cares. I use it, and its very effective in dealing with people that are, well, wasting my time.
I recently told this to a salesman, and now he gets all of his info together before he thinks of calling or mailing me. In a nutshell, he's not wasting as much of my time anymore. Give it a try sometime, trust me its very powerful.
miscellaneous plug: CmdrTaco will be speaking at Linuxworld later today
/. fashion, the same presentation will be made by Timothy some time tomorrow.
Don't worry if you miss CmrdTaco's presentation today. In typical
jason
jason
Have a good day?! Impossible! I'm at work!
I want to walk the Court through enough of our complaint to help the Court understand that IBM clearly did contribute a lot of the Unix-related information into Linux. We just don't know what it is...
This comment was made by McBride's lawyer/brother (birds of a feather?) with during pre-discovery, and sums up the whole mess in its entirety. If a court order were issued to "Figure out what it is or shut up," I think it's quite likely that we'd never hear from SCO again. SCO would still die, only quietly.
And that's just it - how the hell would SCO know just who's running what? How would they know that any given company is running Linux servers, to be able to claim their Linux Tax? How would they know who's got a Linux desktop at work or personal server at home? They certainly won't be allowed to issue fishing expedition subpoenas to the hundreds of thousands of various sized companies in this country who might have Linux, let alone to the millions of home users that could possibly ever have bought a PC capable of running Linux.
And then there's the rest of the world... Anyone want to bet that any non-US company will submit to the Linux Tax SCO is trying to levy on them?
So far, SCO has only threatened people who they know have any kind of Unix at all, and the reason they know about those people is that SCO sold them the product. In the article, it says that a "few companies have moved away from SCO's Unix", and those are the ones SCO is chasing. Well, that's a sure and certain way to win them back, eh Darl? And to keep the few remaining customers who haven't defected yet...
I wrote this earlier today -- well, ok, very late last night -- in response to SCO's apparent Capitol Hill diatribe.
Anyone interested in reading it can find it here, complete with the minor grammatical/typing errors that I failed to catch when reading it the first 20 times.
I encourage all of you to do the same thing. No one is quite sure how wide a distribution Darl's letter has gotten, but we can certainly counter them.
the Linux kernel--the core chunk of code underlying most distributions of the Linux operating system.
I used to use Linux-Linux, but I've become a big fan of the Linux distributions that don't use Linux.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
I've followed most of the SCO nonsense over the past year, but somehow in all of that I missed something....
In SCO's letter it is talking about the Unix ABIs. I had always assumed the issue involved actual code (e.g., the buffer management code). But they're talking about ABIs here.
For those that haven't dealt directly with ABIs, here's the skinny...
When you want to open a file you issue a command like:
The ABI defines the value of O_RDONLY (0) and the value of ENOENT (2). Without an ABI, one vendor (vendorA) might use the values 0 and 2 while another (vendorB) might use the values 1 and 3. Thus while you would have source compatability (code using the macros O_RDONLY and ENOENT will compile anywhere), you would not have binary compatability (code compiled with vendorA's headers will not run in vendorB's environment).
What all this means is: SCO is basing their case on the values of #defines!
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.
Dear SCO:
After reviewing your claims with our legal department and system administrators in extreme detail, we have come to the following conclusion.
Bite me.
Sincerely,
Some Random Company
I think I'll let the C*Os of the world decide what's professional and what's not. It's the glaring typo that got me chuckling. As for how to handle SCO, I think that sending back a nastygram is the calmest, sanest, cheapest response there is. Personally I'd be tempted to file a complaint with the FTC (or whichever agency really ought to receive the complaint) and possibly a lawsuit with a local district court.
If a company like SCO sends a letter, it is definitely worthwhile to send a letter back, this establishes that you are acting in good faith on your beliefs rather than ignoring them in hopes that your misdeeds will simply go unpunished for a while. And just because it's a business communication doesn't mean it can't be worded strongly. In this case the "wasting time" comment adds emphasis to the point the CIO was making about the level of detail he expects from SCO should SCO want to insist in pursuing their demands (i.e. don't just send the names of some kernel header files and expect us to cave).
I do not have a signature
You know what? I disagree with your "just ignore SCO" policy.
It seems to me that Just Sports CALLED SCO'S BLUFF
And that's exactly the best way to get rid of the posturing buffoon SCO is.
Anything else lends them an air of credibility and permits Darl or whoever to issue more press releases stating that their claim is being addressed by their victims.
Remember silence is consent.
Stand to arms, FIRE! (at SCO's retreating backside)
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
I note in the rather excelent salt lake article that Linus was asked if he wanted to pass on a message to Darl, which he declined.
I would of loved that oportunity. I'd ask Darl a question. Sorta like this;-
I'd ask "Darl, Are you happy? I mean *REALLY* happy?. Are you happy that you have made one of the most well loved unix brands into an almost universal object of loathing amongst IT professionals. Happy you are planning to capture and destroy the work of thousands of passionate individuals worth millions of manhours. Happy you are building an enterprise on a foundation of litigation of lies."
I'd ask "Darl. If indeed you are happy then, tell me, would you in all conscience recomend to your children that they act as you do?"
And finally I'd ask "Darl. Men live in this world only a short time. When your day of reckoning comes, just what *WILL* you say to your creator when he asks you if your prescence on this planet has made the world a better place."
Cos sure as heck, I'd like to know.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
Okay, now they're sending letters lobbying congress. This is getting so out of hand. But, here's where you and I can actually fight back. If you're involved in open source (or even if you just support it) and you're a U.S. citizen, write your congressperson in support of Open Source. Be polite and be professional. Explain your understanding of the facts and why what SCO is doing is extortion and ask your congressperson to consider the facts before passing legislation.
In particular, point out to said congressperson that to date, no evidence has provided by SCO has survived more than a day's scrutiny by the community. That no court has yet supported any of SCO's allegations, and so on.
Please send snail mail instead of e-mail, if possible. Snail mail is more likely to be read. The great thing about congress is, if you send a lot of letters, they sometimes get the point (though not always, as evidenced by the DMCA among other things).
# 2004-01-20 20:16:12 What to say to SCO? (askslashdot,linuxbiz) (rejected)
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
Daryl and Kevin McBride are just out to make money. This is how they do it, by (ab)using the legal system. They make outrageous claims, pump up the stock price (investors buy the stock like a lottery ticket - hey maybe SCO can do it, who knows?) and Microsoft pays their salary.
They will keep milking this cow until one day in court a judge will say "So, thousands of programmers from around the world help build this Linux system on their own time, or on their company's time, and they specifically state that this work does not belong to you by including the GPL, and yet you claim that you own this property? Next."
At this point Daryl will turn to Kevin and say "Well bro, that was a cool adventure, what do you want to do next? Hey maybe we can sell licenses to people who use smiley emoticons in their email - let's check out a copyright for that!"
And SCO will be a rapidly fading stain on the highway of the history of UNIX.
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.
Couldn't we respond to SCO in much the same way we respond to telemarketers (well, pre-DNC telemarketers...) ?
SCO: You're using our IP, we want money.
Consumer: Oh really? Perhaps you'd care to talk to the head of the household?
[gives phone to baby]
SCO: You're using our IP, we want money.
Consumer: Oh really? Here's my response.
[holds phone up to airhorn, fires]
SCO: You're using our IP, we want money.
Consumer: Oh really? Is that so? Tell me more...
SCO: UNIX, blah, blah, blah, Linux, blah, blah, blah.
Consumer: Uh huh, go on.
SCO: Stolen IP, blah, blah, blah...
Consumer: Really? Could you elaborate further?
[sets phone down, makes cheese sandwich, watches two hours of TV, plays video game, comes back...]
SCO: Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.....
Consumer: I think I'll need some materials on your plan. Could you send me your prospectus and the details of the alleged infringement?
[pause...click]
Consumer: Hello? Hello?
Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
Attributed to Bruce Perens:
"If Darl McBride had his way, he would have banned marriage too, because it obviously is against the remunerative interests of prostitutes"
I wonder if my wife will accept that argument?
There are 10 kinds of people in the world: Those who understand binary and those who don't
SCO's circus is better entertainment because most of us aren't paying quite as much for it...
-----------------------
You are what you think.
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.
The entire letter was "acceptable" until his closing paragraph where he told them to stop wasting his time and their time... If you want to sound professional you do not tell someone to stop wasting your time in a letter. Find another way to put it.
I don't see what was unprofessional about his closing paragraph. He didn't insult them or call them names. The fact that he responded with a thoughtful, detailed and unambiguous letter addressing their points was professional.
He also has a duty to see to it that his company's time and money is not wasted on vague (and almost assuredly baseless) legal claims. Sometimes being professional means giving direct and unambiguous communication priority over 'professional sounding' ear candy.
Now that you have an actual Letter from SCO Please contact the SEC with this letter, inform them that SCO is attemting to extort money from you, send them a copy of this letter and also report this to the DA in your state This should be covered under the RICO act.
If any other company has recieved a letter like this plese report this to the SEC the DA and consider a class action suit against SCO for Extortion and Defamation.
What this means to you.
IF you win against SCO you can MAKE money from the law suit. a class action suit for 100M$ would not be too much for this kind of offence.
IANAL
This is one article that is definitely worth reading. I had my reservations, thinking an article in a Salt Lake paper would be backing SCO, but no. Just a very well laid out, easy to follow description of the entire sordid affair that clearly shows just how ridiculously SCO are acting. My favourite part:
"I want to walk the Court through enough of our complaint to help the Court understand that IBM clearly did contribute a lot of the Unix-related information into Linux. We just don't know what it is," Kevin McBride told the court, according to a transcript of the proceedings.
So, imagine your car is stolen, and you go to the police. "What kind of car was it?", they ask. "I don't know, but tell me what cars have been stolen recently and I'll tell you if any of them are mine", would apparently be SCO's response.
Anyway, this article can be highly recommended for lay people wanting to understand what this is all about, or worried if SCO might have a case. They won't be worried after reading this.
In all seriousness, if SCO ever did come after my "amatuer" homebrew server, what should I do? (Besides fold like a wet napkin...)
Roll up a newspaper, and swat them on the nose with it. Say, in a firm, commanding voice, "bad Darl". Then rub their nose in a pile of something appropriate.
After reading the SCO letter and Gavin's response, I just couldn't sit around any longer and do nothing. Below is the text of the FAX I just sent Gavin:
Dear Mr. Roy,
I just read the article on slashdot.org about you receiving a demand letter from SCO regarding their yet-to-be-proven claims of IP infringement in linux. I also read your reply letter to Mr. Langer and would like to congratulate you for handling this matter in what I feel is the most appropriate response to these scoundrels.
Please consider this FAX to be a legally binding pledge in the amount of $1,000 to help defray any litigation costs should SCO file any sort of legal action against Just Sports. I sincerely hope you will resist any and all efforts by them to extract payment from linux users until such time as they have proven their claims in court.
It appears you do not work in an environment where tact matters. There are ways to say things without being unprofessional and get the exact same point across - and have a supportive audience. There is a saying that goes "Diplomacy is telling someone to go to hell and making them look forward to the trip". It is always important to be truthful, but as a person that supports many users, I have found you MUST sugar coat it. You can't tell a user (as an example) the problem with their computer is a glitch between the keyboard and chair - not if you expect to keep your job. Coarse language in a professional environment encourages people to ignore and discredit you.
By the same token, if someone is able to point out errors you have made yourself in a tactful way, you are likely to take less offense and actually learn something - but not if they say "Dude, you're fucking up, fix your shit".
I do agree that we have taken political correctness too far, although it is a separate issue from being tactful.
ymmv
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/
How you ask? Well, SCO provides nothing more than broadbased and unsubstantiated allegations. The SCO letter says, in essence, "You are using our code." Mr. Roy responded with, "Show me were." Further, SCO threatened to litigate the matter if Just Sports did not respond. The SCO letter tells Mr. Roy that if he wishes to avoid litigation then HE HAS to initiate a buisness relation. You'll notice this idea is proposed via:
This whole discussion as to whether the letter was unprofessional or not is stupid. When you look at Mr. Roy's response letter, you will notice that is actually more mature and professional that SCO's. SCO ordered Just Sports to initiate a buisness relationship or face the posiability of legal action. Notice that Just Sports was not given the opportunity to stop using Linux and switch to a "clean" system, SCO said that they have to do buisness.
All Mr. Roy's letter did was say, "We don't believe you," and provide the evidence to substantiate the claim. Furthr, Mr. Roy said that Just Sports and SCO will not talk until the court cases are settled.
The views expressed are mine own and do not express the views of my employer.
as an old, burned-up, has-been reporter and not a lawyer, this is a nicely done version of what is known around the courthouse as a "shit or get off the pot" letter. quite well done.
much better done than the version I sent to the Nebraska Attorney General's office thirty years ago after they tried to dun me instead of my insurance company after a little traffic accident munged up a guard rail.
they preserve your rights, show willingness to negotiate specific questions of interest, and give nothing away, including any further time and effort without specific facts being raised.
Mr. Roy deserves some sort of award for excellence in handling seekers of deep pockets.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
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.
Those mormons also happen to be the most accepting of other peoples religions too. Don't believe me? Look at history. Even recent history. Or why not just move to some bible belt town that will run out anyone who doesn't goto their church. Where I just visited a Hare Krishna temple and find out the LDS church donated money so they could build their temple.
BTW, I just moved to Utah here for a job. And I have yet to meet one person that likes SCO.
Some info that I dug up real fast thanks to google.
mormons helping Hare Krishna Temple
If you want to bash a religion, try the catholic church and the church of england for their known repeated atrocities against man kind. Anyone who thought differently was tortured, killed, as well as the families.
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive
I assume many others noticed the following odd retort from Darl: {quote} Another gripe Torvalds has with McBride is that the Linux community has pleaded all along, 'tell us what the code is, and if it doesn't belong there, we'll remove it.' McBride says SCO has shown plenty. "They're disingenuous on that or they would be ripping out the million lines of code we've already pointed to," he said, adding that the violations are too far-reaching to simply rip out anyway. One million lines amounts to roughly 20 percent of the entire Linux kernel. McBride says SCO revealed the offending code last August at its Las Vegas SCOForum. "Truly, and then they just ignored it," he said.{end} I beg your pardon, Darl, but... 1) "million lines of code"?!? How many lines of code were even present when the alleged borrowing occurred? 2) "we've already pointed to"?!? That's rich. This is precisely the heart of the issue: which are the offending lines of code, Darl?!? Show them! SCO consistently refuses, although the article suggests that 60 pages of... something... was provided IBM. You cannot blame Linux programmers for not fixing lines that you refuse to point out! Wright's First Observation states: "Whenever someone is in error, they will, at some point, in word or deed, not merely refute but contradict themselves. They will do this not because it is logically necessary but because this is how human beings have been observed to behave." This Observation is subject to Wright's First and Second Laws. McBride's arguments are not merely wrong - they are internally incoherent and self-contradictory.
Dear Mr. Darl McBride,
It has come to my attention that something in your house may belong to me.
You are breaking the law by having my possession. I am willing to rent it to you for $200 a year, or $700 if you use it commercially.
Obviously, I cannot identify the item because you would give it back to me. I am willing to prove that the item is there, however. Send me a list of every single possession in your house, and I will tell you whether it is somewhere in the list.
Please contact me about payment or I will send this case to my contigency counsel, who will litigate you until you pay.
In the meantime, be aware that I will be spreading lies about you, your family, and anything else you happen to care about.
Sincerely,
--alteran
Who is RTFM and when will he help me with Unix?
The value of SCO would be destroyed if a very large number of application code developers, code maintainers, and installers declared that they would have nothing to do with any SCO products. Getting the message out to the small investors and proprietors that the product was 'black' would pull the rug out from under Mr. Darl McBride and the rest of the associated SCOundrels. There is no point in dealing or trafficking in any product, software or otherwise, which is, in effect, unsupported, because nobody is going to buy it. Bye Bye SCO you've had your day in the sun. Somebody else's turn now.
...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
Having manners does not require one to obscure or ignore the truth or any facts. Tact means to try to communicate with others in the least hurtful manner possible but communicating whatever may be at issue (if there is no point in doing so or doing so would only cause harm, tact might dictate that one say nothing).
In this case, SCO has attempted to threaten and bully others into ignoring the obvious - that they have not proven their assertions on contract or copyright law in any forum more meaningful than a weekend bong party involving LSD while inhaling Cheetos and watching QVC.
Stating the obvious in this case is both tactful (there is no point in addressing licensing until you prove your point in a court of law) and reasonable (it puts SCO on notice that their targets are less likely to be intimidated by claims without evidence to back them up). It prevents the issue from wasting any more time than it already has. Companies won't give SCO money until they have a legal claim (and the enforcement behind it). Until SCO has legal backing, the letters are a waste of time.
In a more base counter, when has SCO adhered to any standard of manners for the corporate environment (other than that championed by companies such as Bre-X and Enron)? SCO has illustrated with their words and actions that they will not adhere to standards applied to others; they are unworthy of either respect nor gentleness aimed at preserving their feelings. In fact, their misperception of their status indicates that they need to have their feelings (or their logic) altered in some fundamental way.
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?
Because I've been looking at BSD as a viable alternative should there come a point where I need to switch from Linux due to licensing issues. I originally wanted to know which BSD varient is the favored flavor for high volume pgsql databases and high-end hardware.
Thanks, and sure, just fix the few typos before you send it out ;-)