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Australian Linux Users Go On the Offensive vs SCO

Australian Linux Users Go On the Offensive vs SCO
By Linux News Desk
Article Rating:
February 22, 2004 12:00 AM EST
Reads:
 20,045
“The OSV categorically believes that what SCO is trying to do is wrong, regardless of who is right or wrong between IBM and SCO,” says the Open Source Group Victoria (OSV), an Australian group determined not to take SCO's busines practices lying down.

The OSV has accordingly made a complaint - its second - to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC). Here's how the action is reported at ARNnet:

The initial complaint, made in July 2003, asked the ACCC to investigate SCO’s “unsubstantiated claims and extortive legal threats for money”. SCO maintains that some UNIX code that has been incorporated into Linux is its own intellectual property. The vendor claims that selling a licence is a means of obtaining compensation from users of the Linux operating system.

The license would apply to all commercial users of Linux based on a 2.4 or later kernel. It is being offered at $999 per server processor and $285 per desktop.

The new complaint was sent to the ACCC chairman early last week and in it, according to the ARNnet report, OSV says it's concerned that SCO may be “making a false or misleading representation ... that people who have already acquired a licence for Linux from SCO are required to acquire an additional licence.”

The report continues:

[OSV] goes on to allege that SCO “made a false or misleading representation ... in that ... when [it] granted licences over Linux in the past it wrongly stated the scope of rights granted under the licence.”

OSV member, Con Zymaris, said that SCO’s claims were “bogus”.

“They were shipping the full Linux kernel with the full general public licence [GPL] in December last year,” he said.

OSV states in its complaint that the GPL requires the disclosure of the source code of the Linux operating system.

“SCO can’t renege on that agreement by claiming a new licence,” Zymaris said.

“The OSV categorically believes that what SCO is trying to do is wrong, regardless of who is right or wrong between IBM and SCO,” he said. “SCO was either lying a month ago, or lying now, we don’t have to see the outcome of a court case to know that.”

SCO's regional general manager, Kieran O'Shaughnessy said, that he had no real comment to make about the OSV complaint.

"We are confident of the assertions we are making," he said, "and we would be happy to share information with the ACCC if that should be required."

Published February 22, 2004 – Reads 20,045
Copyright © 2004 SYS-CON Media, Inc. — All Rights Reserved.
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SYS-CON's Linux News Desk gathers stories, analysis, and information from around the Linux world and synthesizes them into an easy to digest format for IT/IS managers and other business decision-makers.

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Most Recent Comments
John C.E. D'Alton 05/31/04 12:40:58 AM EDT

31 May 2004.
Some people never give up trying to fleece other people. They don't have any morals. Even if there is a slim chance that they, (SCO) have an argument it is the moral ground we the masses expect "some" business people to take. The US has their own texxxxxxts. They don't need Bin Laden and company. The US xxxxxxx are just as bad only more sneaky.
JCED.
=================
Adipex 03/21/04 12:44:43 PM EST

gotta watch this one carefully .. SCO in for trouble
accc32 02/22/04 03:26:51 PM EST

The ACCC, should they choose to follow through, are one of the better government funded Consumer/competition watchdogs. They have an almost free reign on who they investigate. A year or two back, they placed so much pressure on some major petroleum companies that the same companies were screaming for them to stop. They went through all the paperwork more thoroughly than a dose of the salts.

If SCO are bending the truth, this organization has the power to force them to submit all relevent documentation to prove their case without NDA, or alternatively they can forget about pressuring Australian Businesses into the licencing agreements. If the latter happens, it won't look too good for SCO elsewhere.