Dear Linux User

By Alan(UK)

August 20 2008

The offending letter is STILL [ http://www.caldera.com/scosource/abi_files_letter_20031219.pdf ] up on their web-site. Does this mean that they will have to pay out repeatedly until it is taken down? As it is addressed to me, I take a personal interest.

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Microsoft is nailing up its own coffin from the inside.

04:34 PM EDT

The offending article

By bmcmahon

August 20 2008

The Heise article references an earlier one here [ http://www.heise.de/newsticker/SCO-vs-Linux-Erneute-Unterlassungsklagen-gegen-SCO-in-Deutschland--/meldung/98732 ] with more details of the new complaint.

Specifically, it seems that https://www.sco.de/ scosource/letter_to_partners.html contains (or contained) such gems as

As we have progressed in our discovery related to this action, SCO has found compelling evidence that the Linux operating system contains unauthorized SCO UNIX intellectual property (IP)

and

If a customer refuses to compensate SCO for its UNIX intellectual property found in Linux by purchasing a license, then SCO may consider litigation.

So -- the important parts are (1) it was served from sco.de, not sco.com, and (2) it clearly makes claims and threats that SCO Deutschland had untertaken not to make. Hence the penalty.

What is more, this is the exact same URL that was the subject of the original complaint in the 2003 case. That makes SCO Deutschland's "oops, how should we have known" defense seem even less viable.

By the way, following the "letter_to_partners" link currently takes me first to a certificate warning page, and then (if I ignore the bad cert) to a 404 Not Found.

04:45 PM EDT

The offending article

By Peter H. Salus

August 20 2008

The real offence -- it seems to me -- is just how stupic
The SCO Group is. It doesn't seem to matter which country
they're in: they're just stupid. .com, .de mean something
in the domain naming system. But the court just cares
whether its earlier order -- to which SCOG assented -- was
obeyed. It wasn't.

Of course, after five [!] years, I'm shocked, shocked.

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Peter H. Salus

05:06 PM EDT