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Contractors to Bear Burden if SCO Chases AU Govt
Peter writes "Contractors are set to bear the burden of SCO legal action if the company chases Australian Government departments. Apparently there are provisions in the Australian Copyright Act which allows the govt to assume IP rights then negotiate a "fair and reasonable" payment for those rights. This is in addition to contract provisions which state that contractors must accept liability for third party IP disputes."
"If legal action is taken against a Commonwealth department or agency through a dispute on third party software, the agency reserves the right to withdraw, leaving the legal battle -- including all costs incurred and all penalties applied -- to the contractor." ... then how many contractors are going to be willing to recommend Linux systems ...
This is supposed to be worrisome? HA
What this article actually says is:
Attention Aus IT departments: GO AHEAD AND BUY LINUX SOLUTIONS, IF THERE ARE ANY PROBLEMS, OUR LAW SAYS IT'S NOT OUR PROBLEM!
Not to mention the fact that this only comes into play if
"Should SCO's claims on Linux be upheld in US courts."
No Australian government agency is going to "Negotiate" with SCO. They're beaurocrats, and given the decision between "Take Action" and "Pass the Hot Potatoe to Someone Else" no sane official is going to do anything but pass it back to the contractors.
It's not only the reasonable and intelligent thing to do, but for once, it's politically expedient.
All the article says, in essence, is:
There appear to be problems with using Linux in gov't, but by law, those problems belong to the contractors. Procurement agents: go right ahead, you're indemnified by federal law.
This is actually good news, although it depresses me how often my sig has been appropriate lately...
********* sig: If you don't like the law, get filthy stinking rich, and buy a better one.
uhh... they keep forgetting one important part ... THEY HAVE TO PROVE IT FIRST.
how can you seek payment on the IP if you havent been able to prove that your code is in linux.
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It is truely quite amazing how far a good (by good I mean good at his/her job) lawyer can get on threats alone. I am really quite in awe.
It's not that surprising really. Businesses have to consider legal threats, even if they appear to be without merit, so they can plan for the worst-case scenarios. IIRC, publically traded companies must also report on the potential impact of lawsuits to their stockholders as well.This is one time where the rest of the world should not follow the US lead. Don't be sue happy. It's really no good. Look at us. Does the rest of the world really want to end up like this.
Evolution or ID?
It is truely quite amazing how far a good (by good I mean good at his/her job) lawyer can get on threats alone. I am really quite in awe.
Just remember: You can fool some people all the time, and all the people some of the time, but you can not fool all the people all the time.
SCO has managed to fool some of the people. But their time has started to run out.
It's a threat, see? The sovereign government of .au just needs to tell SCO that the interests of their Linux users outweighs any private "IP" ownership rights of some sleazy American co.
Sounds like a good way to stick it to those 'merkins to me!
But if the contractors are too scared of being sued to implement open source solutions, what good is that?
Why do I get the feeling that Linux is Bugs Bunny and SCO is Elmer FUD?
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
racketeering: To carry on illegal business activities that involve crimes, such as extortion.
extortion: An excessive or exorbitant charge, such as a $600 licensing fee for a dubiously made IP claim.
SCO's illegal activities aside, does SCO, being an American company, even have the ability to sue a foreign government? Where would the case even be tried? Any chance Darl can just get fed to a croc?
If your worried at all I would say go with BSD (specifically FreeBSD). You can do the same things and it's not getting hounded. I know it's hard for people to make that jump but it's a thought. And it's technically pretty easy to make the jump.
Evolution or ID?
MOST times the rest of the world shouldn't follow the US.
I'm not suprised by either
.......
;-), but do we need to go this far as a country (corporately or as people) to prove we are equal in the arse licking stakes as little Johnny?
a) those loopholes put in place by the aust-govt, as someone else said, it's to stop the goverment
departments being responsible for any feckups of any contractors. And as such is reasonable i guess.
b) SCO is gutter feeding like this. I mean c'mon they've already shot themselves in the foot and the shin and the
c) Australia is not a state of the US, i mean why the hell are we getting so bleeding litigation happy here now?
(o/t) I know Howard is a Blair/Bush lovechild, and wants Bush bad
Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know when your gonna get food poisoning.
What's really unfortunate though, is that, after the dust has settled and its all over but the shoutin', the lawyers are very seldom ever held accountable for their actions.
If, say, it turns out that SCO is in fact in league with the devil, and that David Boies joined SCO's cause fully aware of any lies told thus far, "justice" should demand he be punished alongside Darl McBride.
Nonsense. Are you saying that the lawyer who defends a murderer he knows to be guilty should be executed too? Obviously not - our justice system requires that the defense lawyer does his damnedest to get his client off, even if she's clearly as guilty as hell, because that's the only way we can guarantee that someone innocent gets a fair trial even if their lawyer thinks they did it.
Now, you might say that's different, and obviously you weren't referring to criminal trials, and the rules should be different for civil lawsuits, right?
Wrong.
Think about it: consider a hypothetical situation where... oh, let's say Microsoft so everyone knows who to cheer for... where Microsoft really had stolen a bunch of source code from a small company. If a lawyer who lost a case stood a good chance of being accused of knowing the case was wrong and punished for that, then no lawyer would dare go up against Microsoft, since Microsoft's own lawyers would be so likely not only to win, but also to get the little company's lawyer punished. In that situation, our little company would be screwed: who would represent them?
Like it or not, I think you'd be hard pressed to come up with a system that both ensures justice and punishes crooked lawyers.
SCO has ceased making simple minded threats here due to complaints to the ACCC (competition watchdog) from various sources, including local Linux advocates.
If found to be breaching the trade practices act, SCO can be fined millions of dollars, like the multi-vitamin industry was a few years ago.
Extortion is an even worse crime, and if they're found to making threatening demands which are clearly illegal, directors can be sent to jail if they ever come to Australia.
If the case is upheld (which it wont be), US results of law cases is just common law to us, not a final opinion. SCO still has to work within our copyright act, which is different (for now) than the US copyright regime.
For example, Sony lost the 'right' to enforce regionalization on PS2 and ipso facto DVDs through an action the ACCC took against them in another copyright case as an amicus curae.
SCO are just fudding here. Unfortunately, barratry was removed as an offence a few years ago, but realistically, it should have been left on the books.
Andrew
Andrew van der Stock