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Open Source Group Victoria v. SCO, Part II
Following up on last July's complaint, Elektroschock writes that "The Open Source Group Victoria (OSV) made a second complaint to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC). In a similar case in Germany SCO Group received an injunction from the court, so SCO never sold Linux licenses in Germany (tarent vs. SCO, district court Munich). Competition police seems to be a strong weapon against SCO-like action."
SCO never sold licenses in Germany because of an injunction? Have they sold any licenses anywhere? Didn't think so....
Literally I puke it up nowadays It goes on to allege that SCO "made a false or misleading representation
And so ... I troll no more
MoFscker
Taking them to court may be a violation of their business method patent!
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
It's nice to see that the ACCC are doing their job. Does anyone know what the situation in the UK is with regards complaints to the relevant authorities? I would be very, very surprised indeed if the Trading Standards Authority, in their new guise and with things to prove, allow the sale of Linux licenses to UK residents and companies by SCO before a decision is reached in court with regards the allegations against the Linux kernel.
I don't know how it would be in Australia - Munich obviously was not interested in paying for Linux (they are currently migrating...)
You can defy gravity... for a short time
Why hasn't anybody done something like this yet in the US, where SCO is arguably the "strongest"? That'd REALLY put a damper on their FUD.
And while they were at it, maybe they could get the court to order that SCO pay back any company they scared into paying for a licence.
- an administrative fine from EUR 5 up to EUR 250.000,
- and, in the case that this cannot be collected, administrative detention
or
- administrative detention of up to six months to be enforced in the person of the managing director
in each case of contravention
prohibited
in business relations from claiming and distributing the assertions
as far as such assertions are not proven to be true.
That's clear enough. No more threats by SCO in Germany, or Darl goes to jail.
SCO isn't fighting this. If they had a case, they would.
Competition police seems to be a strong weapon against SCO-like action. ... IN countries that have applicable laws
NO SIG
Help fight continental drift.
In fact quite some people tried to purchase licenses and SCO wouldn't sell them any (because then SCO could get sued for racketeering(sp?))
It is sad that there are businesses that will so easily pay the extortion money. This only encourages others to adopt similar extortion techniques where they make bogus claims and want you to pay up *before* any of their claims have been proven. Maybe if I was as corrupt as SCO management I would also make a claim against your Linux installations and you'd pay me too. Oh well.
And please tell me that you at least got a T-shirt.
It is like SCO is saying that you stole their lawn mower because they heard you have an automobile. As evidence they point to your neighbour's RV.
Yes, it is that crazy.
[Stolen from Yahoos Finance's SCOX Message Board]
There once was a man named McBride
Who brought a great case to be tried
His stock was a hit
As Darl talked his shit
But the code he continued to hide.
To lawyers McBride was a debtor
Who sought to sue users by letter
He sued IBM
With facts few and thin
A five year old could have done better.
Darl's *nix was the first in his deal
The clones that came after he'd steal
The clones were his perks
Or derivative works
Like prior art on the wheel.
The press was the court Darl first chose
Didio just brought it new lows
One could not but wonder
Whose sheets they were under
Since both were just Microsoft hoes.
Darl claimed stolen code when he sued
With millions of lines he'd include
He must have deceived
Since no one believed
He could count to twenty one when nude.
To be purchased was Darl's major plan
Then retire and keep up his tan
IBM said, "Fuck off,
You won't be playing golf
But homeless, beside a trash can."
McBride only wanted a fee
For Linux , which always was free
His whole case was hinging
On Linux infringing
On SCO's useless IP.
Darl wanted these fees forever
For hatching a plan he thought clever
With news so infernal
While hacking the kernel
Linus said "what the fuck ever."
Who understood Darl's attack?
Surely he smoked the best crack
We were mostly appalled
Ninety-three called
Wanting their UnixWare back.
In Vegas Darl said it would be
A display of infringing IP
Boy Wonder McBride
Pitched all truth aside
What he showed was all BSD.
Darl sued everyone that he could
With contracts he misunderstood
Not even a shrink
Could teach him to think
These lawsuits just made him sport wood.
(post to be continued in following post due to Slashdot wordcount filter, sorry)
NOTICE: SCO has suspended new sales and distribution of SCO Linux until the intellectual property issues surrounding Linux are resolved. SCO will, however, continue to support existing SCO Linux and Caldera OpenLinux customers consistent with existing contractual obligations. SCO offers at no extra charge to its existing Linux customers a SCO UNIX IP license for their use of prior SCO or Caldera distributions of Linux in binary format. The license also covers binary use of support updates distributed to them by SCO. This SCO license balances SCO's need to enforce its intellectual property rights against the practical needs of existing customers in the marketplace.
For further information on how to obtain RPMS/SRPMS for OpenLinux, eDesktop and eServer see:
www.sco.com/support/linux_info.html
For further information on how to obtain RPMS/SRPMS for SCO Linux 4.0 see:
www.sco.com/support/scolinux_info.html or the SCO Linux 4.0 Update Download Page.
From: www.thescogroup.com/support/download.html
Taken directly from
http://www.thescogroup.com/scosource/eula.html
You may not assign, sublicense, rent, lend, lease, pledge or otherwise transfer or encumber the SCO IP, this Agreement or Your rights or obligations hereunder
The SCO group is now distrubuting the kernel with additional restrictions, and thus are violating the GPL. They are truely now in violation of all the kernel developer's copyright on the code.
Molog
So Linus, what are we going to do tonight?
The same thing we do every night Tux. Try to take over the world!
Competition police seems to be a strong weapon against SCO-like action.
The most salient observation I have seen for some time on Slashdot. You nailed the point.
Intellectual Property, be it trademark, copyright, patent, trade secret, and the related non-IP causes of action such as anti-circumvention, create limitations and monopolies. Ideally, the monopolies are carefully limited against social needs to yield a net societal benefit, but as with all law, horrifying results can occur. IP is a core source these days of examples of unintended consequences.
While IP and pseudo-IP create monopolies sponsored by the government, the government likewise has another body of law, a different kind of trade regulation, antitrust, to keep enterprises from abusing even fairly obtained competitive advantages to the detriment of society. Like IP, the application of these laws must be careful, because fear of antitrust liability can actually result in highly anticompettive consequences to the detriment of society.
Combine that with the corpus of law governing unfair competition and deceptive trade practices more generally, and it is no surprise that when a company really goes out there, there are a kazillion conflicting policies and issues.
That is why some uses of IP can be so "out there" as to rise to anticompetitive conduct, even though the monopoly given was government-blessed. And why some anticompetitive conduct can preclude a right to assert iP.
Look for that whenever: (i) a company with significant market share throws IP weight around; (ii) a company with a fairly fought ownership of a marketplace governed by IP tries to extend their rights to non-controlled markets; and (iii) a company, though not a market leader or innovator, really stretches some IP rights they do have to control a market beyond any reasonable threshold.
Remember that they're not actually *selling* the license here in the US, only claiming to. More than one person has documented the effort of attempting to buy a license, only to be ignored by SCO.
They probably realize that they have the potential to get into serious trouble here if they do sell a fraudulent license. They can yell about it all they want, however, to keep the stock price buoyed, and the clueless journalists who write about it never seem to think to do a little more research into the process of buying one.
Do you have ESP?
The ACCC sticks up for the consumer, takes bad companies to court, stops undercutting to put small businesses out of business, tramples on monopolies, destroys unfair business and does so regularly.
Most of the big corporates in Australia *hate* them. But I, as a consumer, love them :-)