http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/8/6/32819/51827
One submission to Michigan's AG: The SCO Group 355 South 520 West Suite 100 Lindon, Utah 84042 USA Phone: 801-765-4999 Fax: 801-852-9088 http://www.sco.com/ The SCO Group has been engaging in legal threats, both electronically and in hard-copy, to further their ability to extort money from consumers and companies in Michigan and throughout the world. By making unsupported and faulty claims of Intellectual Property rights in the Linux Operating System, The SCO Group has instilled fear, uncertainty, and doubt in the industry, and has been offering "licenses" to use Linux for $699 per processor in computer servers. This "license" has no apparent or reputed value per se, except to secure that SCO will not bring frivolous lawsuits against the purchasing company for using Linux. They will not come forward with any real proof of their claims. It is, however, very beneficial to the SCO Group to let the cloud of their allegations cause uncertainty in the marketplace for the chief competitor to their software products: Linux. The attempted extortion has been valued in the field above at approximately $700,000 using an estimation of 1,000 server installations at $699 per server processor, which is actually a very low estimate for Michigan, and does not include Workstations, for which SCO is attempting to charge $199 per seat. The price for each server processor doubles if not purchased by October 15th. The following are links to information regarding these actions. As appalling as it is, one good list of pertinant articles are at SCO's web site: http://www.sco.com/company/news/ Other pertinent information, including lawsuits by other companies being disrupted by this misbehavior, follow: http://www.sco.com/scosource/ http://lamlaw.com/ http://lwn.net/Articles/43307/ http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/030805/linux_cloud_1.html http://www.suse.com/us/company/press/press_releases/archive03/sco_redhat.html http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,4248,1210100,00.asp I have attempted to give my feedback to the SCO Group, since my company was a partner vendor for them until this behavior started occurring. They have proven unresponsive. Primarily this behavior needs to stop. Not only are there many who SCO would change thousands of dollars, but many in Michigan which could not afford either the licensing nor lawsuits, such as my small business. Furthermore, the uncertainty created by these actions hinders mine and every other business who makes money off of Linux-related services. Ideally, the executives of SCO would be tried and sent to prison for extortion, overbilling, and several other fraudulent crimes. This, I believe, is the only way to send the message that companies cannot hide behind the guise Intellectual Property to enable criminal activity. Thank you for your assistance. _______________________________________________ Linux-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe/Suspend/Etc -> http://www.linux-sxs.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-users
