[Linux-aus] Service of engrossed documents: copy FYI

[Leon Brooks]

[ An aside: "Contacted for comment, O'Shaughnessy said he had not yet
  received either the latest letter or the version sent by email. "In
  any case, I have no comment and no interest in having a debate with
  Brooks through the media," he said." - he's not interested in a
  debate at all. Their purpose appears to be denial and bluff, not
  consideration of inconvenient facts.

  http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/02/10/1076175146841.html ]

Dear Sir

Following legal counsel, CyberKnights Pty Ltd has forwarded the attached 
letter to you by registered mail, to be absolutely sure that TSG-ANZ 
have all of the required documents to hand in order to be able to 
formulate a rapid response. I am sending this email to you in addition 
tot he paper copy as a matter of courtesy, to give you an extra day or 
two in which to respond.

The text of the body of the letter is reproduced hereunder, again for 
your convenience:

===========8<======cut=here======8<============

Re:     Confirmation of Email Notices to Cease and Desist

I attach in the paper edition of this notice, forwarded by registered 
mail to the address above, copies of emails which have been sent to 
your address without response, and a copy of the email to which the 
electronic edition of this notice is attached.

The heart of the matter is that The SCO Group Australia and New Zealand 
(hereinafter TSG-ANZ) has widely published claims to "intellectual 
property" in Linux, and claims that users of Linux are required to 
purchase a licence from TSG-ANZ in the amount of AUD$999.00 for each 
single-CPU server running Linux.

Take notice that such claims are fraudulent, and unless they are 
retracted as publicly as they were made, CyberKnights Pty Ltd 
(hereinafter CK) will vigorously pursue a conviction of fraud against 
TSG-ANZ.

In support of this assertion, note the following statement drawn from a 
report on compliance before the District Court in Utah's case "The SCO 
Group Inc. vs International Business Machines Corporation", reference 
"2:03CV0294":

    "[...] in response to the Court's Order, SCO abandons any claim
    that IBM misappropriated its trade secrets, concedes that SCO
    has no evidence that IBM improperly disclosed UNIX System V code,
    and acknowledges that SCO's contract case is grounded solely on
    the proposition that IBM improperly disclosed portions of IBM's
    own AIX or Dynix products, which SCO claims to be derivatives of
    UNIX System V".

A contract case has nothing to do with any other entity than the 
contracting parties, TSG and IBM. Any remaining claims by TSG are 
therefore against IBM. Since TSG have produced no supporting evidence 
despite being directly ordered to do so by the judge in the above case, 
and since Novell have formally waived TSG's claims against IBM as per 
the terms of the contract under which such rights as TSG retains were 
acquired from Unix System Laboratories via Novell, such claims are 
extremely unlikely to be proven even if they did have any bearing 
against CK.

Take notice that your actions in falsely claiming to own and control 
software essential to CK's business practices are damaging CK's 
reputation, and in engendering fear and uncertainty amongst clients and 
potential clients of CK as to the ownership, control and possible 
licence costs of said software, both directly and through association 
with statements by your parent company TSG Inc, TSG-ANZ is causing 
damage to CK which CK fully intends to recover.

Take notice that in the absence of a clear and positive response from 
TSG-ANZ before midnight WST (GMT+08) on Saturday, 13 February 2004, CK 
will promptly commence action to suppress TSG-ANZ's fraudulent claims 
and to recover CK's damages and costs related to the matter.

If you have not been ignoring previous emails from CK, you will note 
that the deadline mentioned therein has been extended both to allow 
Court proceedings to pass and to permit registered communication of our 
claims and notice of intent-to-act to be delivered to TSG-ANZ.

===========8<======cut=here======8<============

Leon Brooks (for)
CyberKnights Pty Ltd

-- 
http://cyberknights.com.au/     Modern tools; traditional dedication
http://plug.linux.org.au/       Committee Member, Perth Linux User Group
http://slpwa.asn.au/            Committee Member, Linux Professionals WA
http://linux.org.au/            Past Committee Member, Linux Australia

-- 
http://cyberknights.com.au/     Modern tools; traditional dedication
http://plug.linux.org.au/       Committee Member, Perth Linux User Group
http://slpwa.asn.au/            Committee Member, Linux Professionals WA
http://linux.org.au/            Past Committee Member, Linux Australia