[plug] Copy of my response to SCO ANZ, FYI

[Shayne O'Neill]

Wonderfull. I wonder what the odds are of compiling an infosheet for
business to explain the situation for them, in simple non emotive and non
'evangelising' terms what the problem with SCO's claims are, with
references to where SCO have not told the truth (groklaw has fantastic
resources for compiling this) , and some advice from perhaps an australian
lawyer on what to do with this.

It would be superb to also mention that the licencing is illegal from the
position of it breaching the GPL licencing of linus and others IP.

I might even start drafting something like this myself.

Gawd I feel passionate about this. Heck, even debt collectors and real
estate blacklist companies are only rating a 2 or 3 on my 'immoral
organisation' list!!!

Shayne.

------------------------------------
"Must not Sleep! Must warn others!"
-Aesop.
Shayne O'Neill. Indymedia. Fun.
http://www.perthimc.asn.au

On Tue, 20 Jan 2004, Chris Cornish wrote:

> I have contacted the ACCC today they were very helpful I will be
> reciving a call from them in the next 5 days to clarify the details of
> what is going on with our particular case and we have an appointment
> with our lawyer tomorrow to discuss sco's request with them. I will let
> you know what is said
>
> Cheers
> Chris
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: plug-admin at plug.linux.org.au [mailto:plug-admin at plug.linux.org.au]
> On Behalf Of Shayne O'Neill
> Sent: Tuesday, 20 January 2004 5:03 PM
> To: Perth Linux User Group
> Subject: Re: [plug] Copy of my response to SCO ANZ, FYI
>
>
> You rock leon :)
>
> If I remember, I'll call the ACCC asap. I have in the past dealt with
> the
> ACCC and have found them a friendly department who DO listen to
> complaints
> from the community.
>
> Lets put the screws on these buggers.
>
> ------------------------------------
> "Must not Sleep! Must warn others!"
> -Aesop.
> Shayne O'Neill. Indymedia. Fun.
> http://www.perthimc.asn.au
>
> On Tue, 20 Jan 2004, Leon Brooks wrote:
>
> > Subject: I want to know what's for sale
> >
> > The SCO Group in the person of Kieran O'Shaughnessy announced on 19
> > January 2004 that:
> > > The SCO Intellectual Property (IP) License permits the use of
> > > SCO's intellectual property, in binary form only, as contained
> > > in Linux distributions.
> >
> > What intellectual property?
> >
> > If SCO ANZ can't _specifically_ identify any significant portions of
> The
> > SCO Group's intellectual property in a timely manner in any of the
> > Linux distributions which CyberKnights deploy, we must assume that SCO
> > ANZ is making fraudulent claims and must in defense of CyberKnights'
> > good name vigorously pursue public acknowledgement of fault and
> > material redress from SCO ANZ.
> >
> > Linux distributions which CyberKnights currently have deployed
> include,
> > so far, Mandrake (up to 9.2), Debian (stable and testing), Red Hat
> > (7.3, 8.0, 9.0 and Enterprise), Fedora (1.0), SuSE (9), Gentoo and
> > Knoppix (3.2, 3.3).
> >
> > Take notice that even if SCO ANZ substantiates this somewhat nebulous
> > claim to ownership-through-contamination of software not designed or
> > written by them, a binary-only licence would be of limited use to me
> > since some deployments require the use of source code in rebuilding a
> > kernel, specifically for drivers whose intellectual property claims
> > appear to conflict with SCO ANZ's and whose evidence of ownership is
> > somewhat more substantial.
> >
> > As a Director of CyberKnights Pty Ltd, I personally know and trust
> > several contributors to the Linux kernel, including the original
> > author, Mr Linus Torvalds. As of three days ago, Linus told me that he
> > knows of no substantial code in his Linux kernel source code tree
> which
> > could possibly be subject to ownership claims by The SCO Group.
> >
> > Linus has been consistently truthful and unambiguous in all of the
> > accessible public and personal statements which I have been able to
> > locate. The SCO Group has a well-documented history of ambiguous and
> > often surprising claims, contradictions and retractions. On this
> basis,
> > I find it unreasonable to do other than prefer to trust statements by
> > Linus in favour of statements by The SCO Group or any of its branches,
> > agents or other minions.
> >
> > In short, the burden of proof lies with The SCO Group. Unless and
> until
> > SCO ANZ demonstrates serious and specific substantiation of the claims
> > it makes in this announcement, CyberKnights Pty Ltd does not believe
> > that it is using The SCO Group's property at all, and therefore
> refuses
> > to even consider paying any licence fees.
> >
> > > The SCO IP License is currently available at introductory pricing
> > > of AUD$999.00 per server processor and AUD$285.00 per desktop
> > > processor.
> >
> > This would more than double the customer's cost per server, including
> > the hardware, for most of the servers which CyberKnights installs, and
> > for no material advantage. In our eyes these properties make it an
> > unreasonable demand.
> >
> > If SCO ANZ were to demonstrate ownership of substantial Linux code,
> the
> > only viable alternative such pricing would leave CyberKnights is to
> > reinstall a system other than Linux on customers' machines - such as
> > FreeBSD - involving considerable disruption to customer services.
> >
> > MS-Windows is too unstable, insecure and expensive, and opens privacy
> > and control concerns which are unacceptable to several of my
> customers;
> > SCO's own Unix offerings are pitifully feature-starved, too expensive,
> > and recent versions appear to include driver code stolen wholesale
> from
> > other authors without acknowledgement; Sun are a licencee of The SCO
> > Group and CyberKnights could not in good conscience use software
> > licenced from a company which appears to be unreasonably greedy,
> > unpredictable and apparently disrespectful of the intellectual
> property
> > of others.
> >
> > > Forward looking statement safe harbor:
> >
> > The weaselly disclaimer which followed does not provide SCO ANZ with a
> > safe harbour. Threatening letters demanding monies with menaces can
> > hardly be thought to be defused by statement to the effect that
> > enforcement of the unambiguous claim to fees is yet future and might
> > possibly not be followed through.
> >
> > That this disclaimer is placed among the notes for editors well after
> > the content of the announcment is delineated with the line "ends" is a
> > fairly clear indication that it is not a part of the announcement
> > proper.
> >
> > If CyberKnights has not recieved clear, precise and substantial
> > identification of the specific code which SCO ANZ claims fees from us
> > for by 01 February 2004, we will begin our defense by referring the
> > matter to the appropriate legal authorities, and vigorously pursue a
> > positive resolution from there.
> >
> > Cheers; Leon
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > plug mailing list
> > plug at plug.linux.org.au
> > http://mail.plug.linux.org.au/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/plug
> >
>
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