[plug] Outline of advice to aussie business.

[Onno Benschop]

For those not inclined to download .doc files where .txt suffices:

-------------------------START--------------------------
SCO's Linux Licensing scheme.
Reasons why Australian Business should not cooperate with SCO's Linux
Licensing program.


INTRODUCTION
Quick synopsis of situation at hand.

Unix history till Linux. Economics and the failure of SCO.


The IBM Lawsuit.
When it was launched. The discovery process . Initial reactions to it.
IBM's counter suit.


Discredited claims of ownership.
ABI files.

The files displayed at the SCO conference. 

JFS & NUMA.

SGI.

Caldera programmers.

No known infringement has been identified by anyone , anywhere, ever. 

SCO still distributes Linux code , and has therefore agreed to GPL
conditions.


SCO does not own Unix licences. Novel does.
The transfer of business.

SCO does not own copyrights to UNIX.

Novel exercises its rights and absolves SGI and IBM of infringement.

Novel threatens to audit SCO's compliance with its request to cease and
desist in these actions.


SCO does not have permission to disobey the GPL.
The GPL is not a copyright statement, it is a licence. Although it is
colloquially refered to as a “copy left”, the GPL is a licence that
relies of Copyright to gain force of law.

If the Licensee does not agree to the conditions, the Licensee must
STOP.

The principle IP owners of the Linux Kernel are Linus Torvalds, Red Hat
, IBM, and many others. None of these parties have consented to the
violation of the GPL.

The SCO Licence directly breaches the GPL rights of the IP holders.

Participating in this breach opens business to be liable for charges of
software piracy.

Furthermore, if the ACCC rules this to be Unfair, the penalties range in
the tens of millions of dollars.








SCO are forbidden from these actions in Germany.
The Linuxtag Lawsuit.

The complaints to the ACCC.


Participating in the SCO Source Scheme exposes business to charges of
Software Piracy.
Maybe?


Recommendations to Australian Businesses.
The invoices are illegal and should be treated as such.

Linux uses should feel confident that there software investments are
safe.

Gartner has recommended Migrating SCO boxes away due to the likelyhood
of an SCO corporate collapse.

If the company feels compelled to move away from Linux, the company
should consider the BSD operating system.


References
Apendixes
-----------------END------------------------


Apart from the obvious spelling errors, let me attempt to constructively
provide feedback on this document.

You are not a lawyer AFAIK, so commenting on the legal state of claims
and counter claims is not IMHO a good idea.

Much of what you outline already exists on-line. It would be prudent to
write a single sentence/paragraph regarding a statement and then refer
to the document by URL (perhaps attached if this is submitted off-line).

A much stronger argument can be made if you describe how it affects
you/us, rather than "generally".

The document you outline when completed could consist of a novel. I
suggest that a single page submission with attachments is more
realistic.

I understand the tone of what you are attempting to outline, but it jars
a little with me. Many Linux users have read groklaw and slashdot et-al,
and have a background that goes back to last year. I understand your
desire to share some of that background, but I think that it would be
more beneficial to refer to that background, rather than include it.

I would suggest that a more constructive approach be that this SCO fud
is costing our industry/business/etc money in wasted resources and that
SCO is now attempting to extract funds out of Australian industry, based
on the premise that they have a strong case. While we have no way of
knowing if their case is strong or not, and while we cannot make any
assertions about their case, they are premature in extracting funds.

We can go on to say that we believe that their case is groundless, based
on our investigations into the matter over the last ten months or so,
and that every claim made by SCO thus-far has been disputed.

It is not our place to agree or disagree with SCO's assertions, nor are
we asking the ACCC to do that, we're stating that SCO's methods are not
compatible with Australian business, and we ask that the ACCC
communicate this to SCO in no uncertain terms.

My understanding - incomplete at best - of the German case is that SCO
is claiming something that has not been proven and is attempting to act
as if it were true. The legal system there told SCO to put up or shut
up. The latter being their response. *That* is what we want here...

Anyone?


Onno Benschop 

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