[Talk] TSG and lawyers: volunteers please

[Greg 'groggy' Lehey]

On Sunday, 27 July 2003 at 12:47:10 +0800, Leon Brooks wrote:
> On Sun, 27 Jul 2003 09:30, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:
>> May 9 17:51 linux-2.4.13-21S.src.rpm
>> I'm trying to interest some lawyers in the issue, so far with only
>> limited success.
>
> Jeremy Malcolm, currently SLPWA's President of Vice and a qualified
> lawyer specialising in IT issues including fighting and winning against
> local spammers (and being harrassed by loonies, so TSG should be
> nothing new for him), is interested in pressing a case on many counts,
> but needs a volunteer with the following properties:
>
>   * Has suffered measurable financial damage from TSG's actions;
>     and
>
>   * Either can survive losing to TSG, or are willing to crash and
>     burn if justice is mocked;

Yes, this ties in well with what I've heard from other sources.  I
think, though, that it'll be difficult to prove measurable financial
damage.

> WRT SCO making demands on Australians in Australia, consider this slice
> from an email to me by Kieran O'Shaughnessy <kierano at sco.com>, ANZ area
> manager from SCO, in answer to a query about licencing:
>
>     In May, SCO announced that Linux contained SCO's UNIX System V
>     source code and that Linux was an unauthorized derivative of
>     UNIX. SCO also indicated that Linux end users could face
>     liability for running it in their organization.
>
>     It was announced yesterday that SCO will offer UnixWare(R)
>     licenses tailored to support run-time, binary use of Linux for
>     all commercial users of Linux based on kernel version 2.4.x
>     and later. SCO will hold harmless commercial Linux customers
>     that purchase a UnixWare license against any past copyright
>     violations, and for any future use of Linux in a run-only,
>     binary format.
>
>     I cannot provide any assurance that there is no misappropriated
>     code in earlier than the 2.4.x versions of the Linux kernel,
>     however at this time SCO has not identified any issues with the
>     older kernels.

This is almost certainly text he got from elsewhere.

> The phrase "to support" is weasel words. Kieran didn't come out and
> say "you *must* buy a licence" 

No.  That would be a trigger for the ACCC.

> and hasn't got back to me since Wednesday morning, so I think I'll
> ask her

Him.  Don't you love these obscure Christian names?

> point blank: "If I want to deploy the Linux kernel version 2.4.19,
> do I need to buy a licence or licences from The SCO Group to do it?"

He would say that it's a good idea, just in case, and that if you
don't, you run the risk of being sued in the future.  It's conceivable
that that would be enough for the ACCC, of course.  Suck it and see.

Greg
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