This was my initial reaction as well. Sun will have to define "employees" as users of the product or in some broad fashion to avoid this possibility..
On the other side of the coin "employees" would also include personel that would never touch a computer (janitorial staff etc...), so maybe Sun knows what it is doing....
Right, and in this case really it is just a question of jurisdiction. Federal courts can only hear actual cases and controversies, they are not allowed to give what amounts to an advisory opinion under Article III of the U.S. Constitution. SCO is simply arguing (based on the press report of its motion to dismiss) that there is no such controversy here since SCO has made no direct threat of imminent litigation towards Red Hat specifically. So SCO is arguing that Red Hat's claim is not proper under the declaratory judgment act. Basically this motion has nothing to do with the merits or substance of either sides claims regarding the software/code/copyrights etc. It is a mere jurisidictional issue. Even if SCO wins this motion and Red Hat's claims are dismissed, if SCO later sends a demand letter or something to that effect to Red Hat, Red Hat could bring this same action... But not that Red Hat has shown its willingness to litigate, SCO probably would file a suit before sending such a letter so that they could pick the forum for the litigation....
That ruling (the Nike case) was by the California Supreme Court. So it is only binding on California state courts, and if based on the California constitution, it would also bind federal courts applying California law (for example if they were hearing a case based on diversity jurisdiction).
But that said, commercial speech is still protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Consitution, it just has a lower degree of protection.
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This was my initial reaction as well. Sun will have to define "employees" as users of the product or in some broad fashion to avoid this possibility.. On the other side of the coin "employees" would also include personel that would never touch a computer (janitorial staff etc...), so maybe Sun knows what it is doing....
Right, and in this case really it is just a question of jurisdiction. Federal courts can only hear actual cases and controversies, they are not allowed to give what amounts to an advisory opinion under Article III of the U.S. Constitution. SCO is simply arguing (based on the press report of its motion to dismiss) that there is no such controversy here since SCO has made no direct threat of imminent litigation towards Red Hat specifically. So SCO is arguing that Red Hat's claim is not proper under the declaratory judgment act. Basically this motion has nothing to do with the merits or substance of either sides claims regarding the software/code/copyrights etc. It is a mere jurisidictional issue. Even if SCO wins this motion and Red Hat's claims are dismissed, if SCO later sends a demand letter or something to that effect to Red Hat, Red Hat could bring this same action... But not that Red Hat has shown its willingness to litigate, SCO probably would file a suit before sending such a letter so that they could pick the forum for the litigation....
That ruling (the Nike case) was by the California Supreme Court. So it is only binding on California state courts, and if based on the California constitution, it would also bind federal courts applying California law (for example if they were hearing a case based on diversity jurisdiction). But that said, commercial speech is still protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Consitution, it just has a lower degree of protection.