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Caldera Operating Systems Software Unix Linux

ACCC Asks SCO To Explain Themselves 254

Posted by simoniker from the blimey dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) governmental organization has issued a request to SCO to provide information regarding complaints filed with it, according to The Age. This deals with issues regarding SCO's IP claims, and statements regarding the need for commercial Linux users to obtain a Unix licence. With any luck, that'll be Slashdot's daily dose of SCO news..."
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ACCC Asks SCO To Explain Themselves More

ACCC Asks SCO To Explain Themselves

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  • SCO (Score:1, Insightful)

    by D'Sphitz ( 699604 )
    isn't gonna explain themselves. That part is pretty clear already...

    • Re:SCO (Score:2, Interesting)

      by narkotix ( 576944 )
      sco cant explain...sco cant sell in oz... simple :-)

      • Re:SCO (Score:4, Funny)

        by fucksl4shd0t ( 630000 ) on Thursday October 09, 2003 @04:05AM (#7169853) Homepage Journal

        sco cant explain...sco cant sell in oz... simple :-)

        I wonder how badly it will hurt them to lose their customer in Australia, anyway...

        • Re:SCO (Score:2, Informative)

          by narkotix ( 576944 )
          true, but they still are alive and kicking in oz for certain platforms but are being phased out by linux, solaris or *bsd
          • You miss the point of the parent. The word "customer" wasn't a typo, they really meant a SINGLE CUSTOMER, at which point it becomes funny.
        • I doubt if they any longer care -- with all the insder trading and what not, all this stuff now is just a means to help the upper echelons wrap up as much as they can before the company's down under :)
    • sn't gonna explain themselves. That part is pretty clear already...
      They don't have a choice on it. The ACCC are giant killers and have some pretty impressive powers.
      If they want to trade in australia, they have to explain, and probably quicksmart. We might just end up seeing the evidence sooner than we thought.

  • Alternative Link on SMH.com (Score:4, Informative)

    by Sir Haxalot ( 693401 ) on Thursday October 09, 2003 @03:03AM (#7169667)
    here [smh.com.au]
  • We hear about it in October. Do I get the impression this is not being treated witha great deal of seriousness?

    • Now there's a surprise. (Score:4, Informative)

      by Channard ( 693317 ) on Thursday October 09, 2003 @03:38AM (#7169772) Journal
      We hear about it in October. Do I get the impression this is not being treated witha great deal of seriousness?

      No surprise there. The only time I've ever seen a goverment 'watchdog' group do anything was when they took the franchise away from a region rail operator in the UK. By and large all they seem to do is go 'Stoppit. Or we'll cry.'

      • Re:Now there's a surprise. (Score:5, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 09, 2003 @03:57AM (#7169829)
        Actually, the ACCC tends to really kick arse. For instance, they just told Qantas they couldn't merge with Air New Zealand (thank god... look what Air NZ did to Ansett). If you breach the Trade Practices Act, they don't ask you to stop (or cry)... they prosecute.

        Personally, I think the delay with the SCO issue has been that it's just not as important as some of the other major cases they have been dealing with lately (i.e. Pan Pharmacueticals and the ever popular kicking the sh*t out of Telstra). Now that the guns are turned on SCO, I suspect that SCO is in for an interesting time indeed.

        For instance, when I lodged my complaint with the ACCC, the person who answered the phone already knew all about the issue. This implies that lots of complaints were lodged and that the ACCC has a large body of evidence already.

        It's popcorn time...

      • Re:Now there's a surprise. (Score:4, Informative)

        by hype7 ( 239530 ) <u3295110.anu@edu@au> on Thursday October 09, 2003 @04:44AM (#7169963) Journal
        No surprise there. The only time I've ever seen a goverment 'watchdog' group do anything was when they took the franchise away from a region rail operator in the UK. By and large all they seem to do is go 'Stoppit. Or we'll cry.'


        Maybe that's how it works in the UK, but here in Australia businesses are often complaining about how sharp the teeth are of our ACCC.

        Google search for ACCC blocks [google.com] searching Australian sites turns up a bit over 2000 hits. The last big one I remember was when it stopped QANTAS from buying a stake in Air NZ.

        -- james
    • That'd be an honest explanation, anyway.

      The SCO Group ANZ seem to be pretty reasonable compared to D'ohl, but I really do hope they get shut down in Oz, or at least fined into submission. It might lead the producers of some of the vertical market apps that I occasionally bandage up to port their product to a UNIX platform in which gormlessness [reference.com] features less strikingly.

  • With any luck... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Black Parrot ( 19622 ) on Thursday October 09, 2003 @03:08AM (#7169682)


    > With any luck, that'll be Slashdot's daily dose of SCO news...

    No, with any luck there will be another story today about the SEC suspending trading of SCOX and the FBI carting Canopy Group's board and execs off to jail.

    • Re:With any luck... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by amcnabb ( 682951 )
      It appears that the ACCC is much more competent than the SEC.

      This comment:

      It asked the ACCC to investigate SCO's activities in light of "unsubstantiated claims and extortive legal threats for money" against possibly hundreds of thousands of Australians.

      shows that the ACCC really understands what's going on.

      With all of the complaints I've sent to the SEC (and I'm sure thousands of other Slashdot and Groklaw readers have done the same), I'm surprised that the SEC hasn't done anything yet. But in any ca

      • Re:With any luck... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Disevidence ( 576586 ) on Thursday October 09, 2003 @03:26AM (#7169741) Homepage Journal
        No the ACCC doesn't understand whats going on, thats why they are asking SCO for a please explain. A Victorian group has complained about it, and ACCC are trying to find the facts from both sides.

        But its always good to see our ACCC responding to complaints in the right way, by finding out the facts. Hopefully this all pans out well for Aussie Linux Users.
        • A Victorian group has complained about it

          Its about time Mr Babbage came off the fence and started bringing his wait to bear. It was only a matter of time until SCO claimed a patent on his calculating engine.

      • Re:With any luck... (Score:3, Informative)

        by rongage ( 237813 )

        That's because the SEC can't do something until there is an actual crime committed. When it comes to appearances and "guessing", the SEC is completely powerless to do anything.

        And before anyone makes some noise about "their execs are dumping their stock holdings now", remember that the one exec who has been selling his stock had filed a plan with the SEC back in January to do so.

        The best (and arguably only) place for us to file complaints with is the Federal Trade Commission. Even then, it takes more th

        • Re:With any luck... (Score:5, Interesting)

          by roystgnr ( 4015 ) <roy&stogners,org> on Thursday October 09, 2003 @10:04AM (#7171570) Homepage
          And before anyone makes some noise about "their execs are dumping their stock holdings now" remember

          If my memory differs, can I make noise anyway? ;-)

          that the one exec who has been selling his stock

          Yahoo [yahoo.com] lists sales from their Senior Executive Vice President Reginald Charles Broughton, their Chief Financial Officer Robert K. Bench, their Vice President Jeff Hunsaker, their Senior Vice President Michael Sean Wilson, and their Controller/Vice President Michael Olson. Last I checked the total sales were up over $2.5 million dollars, and I've been told that the only reason Darl isn't getting in on the action yet is that his contract doesn't give him his stock options until they've had four quarters of payola (er... profit) from Microsoft and Sun.

          had filed a plan with the SEC back in January to do so.

          And as long as they then suddenly realized that they should trump up a multibillion dollar lawsuit and have it ready to make public less than two months later, that's fine. According to analyst Laura Didio, on the other hand, SCO was deciding what to do about "blatant SGI violations" [linuxinsider.com] more than a year ago, in which case the fact that several of their execs filed to sell most of their stock shortly afterward seems a lot less coincidental.

        • remember that the one exec who has been selling his stock had filed a plan with the SEC back in January to do so.

          Uh, you sound remarkably sure of that for someone who is wrong [yahoo.com].

        • And before anyone makes some noise about "their execs are dumping their stock holdings now", remember that the one exec who has been selling his stock had filed a plan with the SEC back in January to do so.

          Yes, but by their own admission, the current SCO executives had planned this from the first day they came on board. They knew in advance they would be suing IBM, and why. Far in advance of the plans filed with the SEC.

    • Re:With any luck... (Score:5, Funny)

      by mark-t ( 151149 ) <markt AT nerdflat DOT com> on Thursday October 09, 2003 @03:24AM (#7169735) Journal
      with any luck there will be another story today about the SEC suspending trading of SCOX and the FBI carting Canopy Group's board and execs off to jail
      no... that wouldn't just be "any" luck... that would be poetic justice at its finest.
      • >>with any luck there will be another story today about the SEC suspending trading of SCOX and the FBI carting Canopy Group's board and execs off to jail
        >no... that wouldn't just be "any" luck... that would be poetic justice at its finest.

        Not "poetic justice" -- just "justice"
        • Not "poetic justice" -- just "justice"
          Touche... I had actually meant to say "sweet justice", but like a dough-head, I clicked submit instead of preview.
      • with any luck there will be another story today about the SEC suspending trading of SCOX and the FBI carting Canopy Group's board and execs off to jail

        Nutz, if they suspend trading even my $2 put options will be worthless. ;)
    • Like this? [slashdot.org]

  • yeah, right (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mOoZik ( 698544 ) on Thursday October 09, 2003 @03:09AM (#7169684) Homepage
    Something tells me they still won't release any actual code and provide proof that it was/is theirs. Nothing new from SCO...

    • Re:yeah, right (Score:5, Interesting)

      by zekt ( 252634 ) on Thursday October 09, 2003 @03:19AM (#7169708)
      They actually may have to, as the claim is that their attempt to get licences amounts to extortion. If the ACCC sees this as a case of extortion they may be asked to show proof or face court. The Australian Competition and Comsumer Comission actually has some teeth. This may actually be an inetresting one to keep an eye on.

      • Re:yeah, right (Score:1, Funny)

        by zekt ( 252634 )
        damn... my kingdom for a browser spellchecker...

        (actually my kingdom is only a rental property and a cat, but if anyone wants the cat they are welcome to him in exchange for a spell checker)
        • > damn... my kingdom for a browser spellchecker...

          Get a Mac. Safari makes use of the built-in system spellchecker. Of course, it doesn't help with grammar (Safari catches another one!) or accidental use of words (such as start instead of stop), but it at least makes sure you can spell.

      • The question shouldn't be whether they will or won't - they almost certainly will have to provide some of it - but whether the ACCC will fall for the claims SCO make about the code. Unless the ACCC demand independant verification of the history of the source, they only have SCO's word for where it came from, and given that these idiots even claim ownership of c++, I wouldn't bank on them giving accurate code history..

  • This is... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Matrix2110 ( 190829 ) *
    This is one small step for mankind, and hopefully one giant leap into the inferno for SCO.

  • SCO-isms (Score:5, Funny)

    by mcrbids ( 148650 ) on Thursday October 09, 2003 @03:12AM (#7169694) Journal
    Let's see how many /.-isms I can throw into a single sentence:

    The SCOmbag behind this fiaSCO, $CO is SCOspiciously silent when people say, "show me the SCOurce"!

    How's that? What did I miss?
    • Let's see how many /.-isms I can throw into a single sentence:

      The SCOmbag behind this fiaSCO, $CO is SCOspiciously silent when people say, "show me the SCOurce"!

      How's that? What did I miss?

      "In Soviet Russia... the SCOurce code infringes you!"

    • How's that? What did I miss?

      SCOff

  • I guess they should get a form letter back... "Thank you for taking interest in our Linux license program. Please visit our website for further details and be sure to sign up for our mailing list".
    • I guess they should get a form letter back... "Thank you for taking interest in our Linux license program. Please visit our website for further details and be sure to sign up for our mailing list".

      That might work in the USA but other countries actually have working legal systems.

  • Yeah, right...

    SCO will just tell them exactly what we've already heard them say: that Linux is a derivative of Unix and therefore the property of SCO blah blah blah blah blah.

    While that bullshit may qualify as an explanation, it certainly doesn't qualify as any sort of justification, which is what I think they should *REALLY* be asking SCO to do.

    Oh, unfortunately for SCO, justifying their actions would require them to reveal the code.

    • Uh, but it worked in germany, SCO germany _did_ get a fine (and paid), albeit a smallish one.
      Now SCO germany just STFU about linux, until the courts do their job, and this is how it ought to be.

      Can't understand why this is not possible in the usa.

  • SCO's answer (Score:4, Funny)

    by segment ( 695309 ) <sil&politrix,org> on Thursday October 09, 2003 @03:21AM (#7169719) Homepage Journal
    Well you see Mr. Crocodile Hunter, Sir, the problem
    all started when developers started using the
    following snippets of code:

    main()
    {alarm(10);sleep(5);write(1," something",12);exit(0);}

    As you can clearly see, the way () is used, is an
    obviously blatant rip-off of the way our patents
    are written. Sure there are open source zealots
    and we love them all, but realistically speaking
    Mr. Dundee your honor, your aboriginee, we feel
    it is unfair for anyone to use main() without a
    brand new SCO license.

    Thank you your boomerang tossing mate.
    • Girl: pay them the money...
      Dundee: why ?
      Girl: They have unix sources...
      Dundee: Eh? You call that unix sources? I will show you unix sources.

    • Re:SCO's answer (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Now15 ( 9715 )
      Here in Australia, Steve Irwin is largely ignored. The Crocodile Hunter doesn't even screen on Australian TV...
      • What! He's ignored!

        Steve makes for great TV! Especially here where I watch it in (mostly) German.

      • Yeah its a shame really, I didn't realize how much of an "Australian icon" he is until I left Australia - mostly because in Australa, he isn't!

        I suspect that most Australians feel along the same lines that I do when I see him on TV, "embarassingly enthusiastic" is not a good way of describing it, but its the best I can come up with at the moment. It just doesn't fit in with how Australians view themselves (or at least, how Australians view what an Australian stereotype should look like :-))

    • "obviously blatant rip-off of the way our patents are written"

      I know you are just making a joke at SCO's expense, but I think it is important to clarify what "intellecual property" SCO has. They have no unix patents. They don't have the unix trademark either. They might have some copyrights on some unix, or they might only have the right to license that unix. They also have the licensing contracts with IBM, Sequent, SGI, and just about everyone else who developed for Unix. They could also claim "trad

  • Wha? (Score:1, Funny)

    by Malcontent ( 40834 )
    Huh what kind of a strange form of government is this. Whoever heard of a govt telling a software company what to do.

    • Are you saying companies can act in any capricious manner they feel like, in any jurisdiction, untrammelled by regulation, because "The market knows best"?

      We have in Australia a Trade Practices Act that precludes companies from making misleading claims about their or a competitor's product in the marketplace. While it is not perfect, it is at least some defence for consumers where litigation is heavily favoured on the side of those with the biggest bank balance.

      • Re:Wha? (Score:1, Funny)

        by TC (WC) ( 459050 )
        I don't know about Australia... but we, in Canada, certainly have these things called "sarcasm" and "humour".
        • That's part of the problem.

          If Canadians focused more on education than wit, then you WOULD know about Australia and it's wonderful people... ;)

    • Re:Wha? (Score:3, Funny)

      by GrouchoMarx ( 153170 )
      Whoever heard of a govt telling a software company what to do.

      Yeah, in this country it's the other way around.

      Hm.... "In Soviet Russia..." Nah.

  • Well done (Score:5, Insightful)

    by evil_roy ( 241455 ) on Thursday October 09, 2003 @03:45AM (#7169792)
    This is actually better than a lawsuit. The ACCC has real teeth in Australia and can demand and enforce instant compliance. The fact that they use these powers for somewhat dubious outcomes is a point of contention here, but a referral their way has to be at least investigated.

    These guys love publicity and this is win/win for them. They get to flex some muscle and no Aussie company(read Packer or Murdoch) will be asked to do anything.

  • SCO's Explination: (Score:2, Insightful)

    by freidog ( 706941 )
    You see, we SCO execs were rich, but not filthy rich
    So Darl, and a bunch of the guys decided to go around making absurd claims about how everyone and their grandmother who had access to the System V code dumped said code (which we will claim we own (yes, even the public domain parts) for the purposes of said absurd claims) into Linux.
    Thus, with promises of massive payoffs from those hapless users who unkowingly used what we claim is our property, the uniformed MBA's over on wall street will want to buy ou

  • Companies are noticing (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 09, 2003 @04:17AM (#7169893)
    I work for dell in the servers division and we get a monthly newsletter. When the SCO news broke, the blurb was something like "IBM got sued by sco", anything bad for IBM is good for us
    In Later weeks it was more like "they are threatening us" but Redhat will fight for us, we need not worry
    This weeks newsletter is the best. It actually uses the word FUD against sco, also pretty much rooting for IBM.The blurb was something like, IBM has a great amount of IP and SCO stands no chance. We wont indemnify customers yet, but we are thinking about it.
    It looks like old enemies are being pushed to the same side of the table, united against a common enemy.

  • SCO's IP claims (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sela ( 32566 ) on Thursday October 09, 2003 @05:58AM (#7170186) Homepage
    In a recent intreview here [techtarget.com] Chris Sontag, SCO veep, says:

    You've said that the offending code cannot be 'cleaned' from Linux. Why not?
    Sontag: I'm not sure that it can't be. The question becomes, will it? Beyond the 80 or so lines of code that we show under nondisclosure to interested parties, we have identified some examples of more than a million lines of code that have gone into Linux in the form of programs and files such as NUMA (non-uniform memory access), RCU (read, copy, update), and the JFS (the Journal File System from AIX).

    So all they got is just 80 lines of code, don't they? That's the whole story ... after all, even in the unlikely event that the court decides adding RCU,NUMA etc. to linux is a breach of contract, they clearly don't have any IP claims over this code.

    In other words: if you follow closely what SCO are saying, you realise that all the IP claims they may (and then again, may not) have is not more than 80 lines of code. Isn't it lovely?

    • Do they even have 80 lines?

      They showed some obfuscated code as being "infringed" code, which was GPL code. How do we know that someone hasn't used some kind of code compare and found 80 lines where someone at SCO had removed the GPL license so it didn't appear on the compare.

      And even if it is 80 lines, that's the kind of level of code that appears on websites advising how to hook VB up to Outlook or something. If I caught someone using 80 lines of my code, I'd suggest buy me a crate of champagne as penn

    • Zero lines. (Score:5, Informative)

      by leonbrooks ( 8043 ) <SentByMSBlast-No ... .brooks.fdns.net> on Thursday October 09, 2003 @08:35AM (#7170826) Homepage
      The "80" they showed weren't owned by SCOX, in fact they may get into breach-of-copyright trouble if certain BSD developers complain about SCOX filing off the copyrights and BSD licence banners. Which might explain why they're - to quote Linus - "playing it like the Raelians".

      SCOX's claim, if you can believe this, is that because IBM, SGI et al created JFS (which I don't use), NUMA (which I don't use) etc while they were licencees for the UnixWare sources, SCOX controls the rights to those technologies. This despite at least IBM's contract explicitly leaving the rights to such works in IBM's hands even if they had been derived from the UnixWare sources (which they weren't).

      I'm sort of wondering if/how SCOX got any rights to even use any of the listed technologies, since they don't hold any of the patents on them, but IBM do.

      • But since they're not telling use what is the code in Linux they claim they own, and we don't have access to their code, we're just speculating. I agree the poor examples they displayed at the SCOforum is a good indication the number of lines may very well be zero, but we couldn't be 100% sure.

        Now at least we have an upper-bound for the number of lines of code they're talking about, and even this upper-bound is not very impressive.

  • Response (Score:4, Funny)

    by Citizen of Earth ( 569446 ) on Thursday October 09, 2003 @06:03AM (#7170200)
    With any luck, that'll be Slashdot's daily dose of SCO news...

    Accompanying any news that might pose a threat to share price, we can expect even more outrageous claims from SCO today in response.
    • +lots insightful. SCOX is dropping [yahoo.com] so they'll have to come up with something new. Perhaps they'll claim to own MacOS X?
    • "Accompanying any news that might pose a threat to share price, we can expect even more outrageous claims from SCO today in response."

      Perhaps if they want to make some money they should consider developing and packaging the software they use to fabricate/deliver press releases in reaction to stock price fluctuations. I'm sure there's a number of firms on Wallstreet who would love to purchase it.

  • There are two points in it.

    1) SCO is doing nothing but delay delay delay.
    2) RedHat's discovery requests make it clear - they are going for the juggular. They are requesting Linux Kernel Personality code.. oh, and all of their other code. The reason why is clear - to determine if SCO has violated the GPL by putting Linux code in SCO UNIX products....

    which would explain why SCO is so interested in seeing the GPL be voided in court in the IBM case - the most likely scenarios is that SCO has been stealing G
  • point them to the famous Linus interview where he said "SCO is smoking crack"?

    I think that explains it best.
  • Go ahead and explain away. SCO stock is traded in New York and regulated by the SEC. Austrailia has no role in any of this.

    Their government can demand explanations all they want. They may even get them. What's the expression they use there....it doesn't matter a pair of dingos kidneys.

    Keep your eye on the bouncing ball. This isn't about software, OS, licenses or patents. This is all about a sucking sound in the bank vault.

    • Go ahead and explain away. SCO stock is traded in New York and regulated by the SEC. Austrailia has no role in any of this.

      SCO have staff, customers and offices in Australia, and can be held accountable for their actions here. I don't know exactly what the ACCC have in mind, but it's not unheard of for executives to be personally fined or even jailed if they're sufficiently naughty.

      Fining SCO in Australia, or locking up their local management wouldn't stop the IBM case, but it'd be great PR and enormous

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