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

[Kai]

Sweet, bring it on !
:)

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