[Linux-aus] What? No evidence?

[Leon Brooks]

Good morning, SCO ANZ!

Today dawns fine and clear, and I see no invoice from you, and no 
evidence for any of The SCO Group's code being in Linux.

In my office, I constantly run a uniprocessor server on Linux 2.6.1, a 
UP server on 2.4.23, a dual-processor server on 2.4.22, two UP 
workstations on 2.6.1 and a UP laptop on 2.4.22. In addition, I 
regularly run up other Linux-based machines as they are prepared for 
installation on client premises.

If you know that in doing so I'm using any of your code, copyrighted 
material, patented processes or anything of the kinds, please send me 
an invoice for those but only if you can accompany the invoice with 
precise specification of the rights you can prove are being used.

By "precise" I really do mean precise: vague references like "the RCU 
code" will not do because they are not sufficient to make an 
independent determination of the veracity of your claims. The SCO Group 
must surely have at least some of this evidence available already, as 
it is being required to collate it for presentation to a US Court in a 
week or so.

If you have any trouble identifying the kernels I'm using, just pull the 
latest Mandrake Cooker kernels from a file mirror like the one below, 
and supply the version number of that along with a list of file names 
and line number ranges referring to that which you claim as your 
property:

http://public.planetmirror.com/pub/mandrake/devel/cooker/SRPMS/

Do take care when nominating "your" code, because if you claim as your 
property any code written by non-SCO developers, you can be sure that 
at least some of them (incensed by The SCO Group's recent high-handed 
tactics) will certainly take the opportunity to sue you for copyright 
infringement.

I haven't seen any response to my previous communication, which is odd 
given that The SCO Group's lawyers rushed to include accusations of 
attack from the MyDoom virus in their most recent 10K filing:
 
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1102542/000104746904002142/a2127332z10-k.htm#page_dm1113_1_38

This is significant because The SCO Group has essentially accused the 
Linux community (and I am unequivocally a part of the Linux community) 
of writing MyDoom, specifically "We've been working through a judicial 
system here. But now you have people going outside the system, trying 
to attack us, to try and shut us down before we have a court verdict" 
although Darl later backwaters this to "We don't know for sure if this 
attack is coming from Linux<1>, but we have very strong suspicions that 
is the case":

http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0401/30/lol.01.html

This is even more significant because MyDoom has been traced to 
commercial spammers in Russia<2>:

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2004/01/30/002.html

I'm wondering if this demand for licence fees might be more of the same? 
If it is, do bear in mind that Australian law is a lot less inclined to 
let freedom of speech trump fraud than US law.

Either way, today is your final chance to either prove your claims 
against my company for our use of Linux, or to publicly retract them. 
If you need more time to prove your claims, please contact me promptly 
with the details to negotiate a deferment of action.

Cheers; Leon


<1> Doubly ironic because the MyDoom attack is coming only from
    Microsoft Windows-equipped machines.

<2> At the time MyDoom had not yet been formally activated against
    www.sco.com (they'd be getting the odd angry shot from machines
    with incorrect clocks, that's all) so Darl seems a little
    confused on this point.

-- 
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