just got back from our last camping trip of the summer. this time we went up to the largest lake of the fuji five lakes area. yamanakako was a blast. we had fun and generally got some relaxation time in seeing as it didnt rain this time!
…standby for some photo’s to be uploaded.
and on a side note, thanks to `mick-mick for the wicked updated animation on the icon. gotta love the probe-like animation going on!!!…
today is my son anthony’s ninth birthday. it is hard to believe that time flies as fast as it does. feels like just yesterday i was able to hold him with one hand and was changing his diapers!
anyhow, happy ninth birthday to my son. …
so mah buddy ~mafiette aka `liquify made me a new batty that better represents the yellow alien than the one she previously made about a year, or so, ago.
… and it rocks!
the self-probing, levitating, probe will do to those what it needs to do in order to rectify the various situations that need rectifying. beware or thou shalt get probed when thou least expects to be anally raped.
second icon change in 4 days? deal with it or get probed!…
with all the prissy, pretentious and emotionally unstable deviants running amok on deviantART i decided that it was time to bring back the probe.
cross the path of the yellow alien and you shall feel the wrath of the probe in your rectum. incapable of dealing with anal rape by way of green probe from the yellow alien then i suggest that you find yourself another planet to inhabit. either that or do not attempt to engage in any form of communication otherwise you shall find yourself in a position that you will wish you never opened yourself up to.
…the probe hath returned! rejoice.
…
Michael D. Crawford
crawford@goingware.com
[link]
August 7, 2003
While the lawsuits being defended by IBM and filed by Red Hat are likely to put an end to The SCO Group’s menace to the Free Software community, I don’t think simply putting the company out of business is likely to prevent us from being threatened this way again by other companies who are enemies to our community. I feel we need to send a stronger message.
If we all work together, we can put the executives of the SCO Group in prison where they belong.
If you live in the U.S., please write a letter to your state Attorney General. If you live elsewhere, please write your national or provincial law enforcement authorities. Please ask that the SCO Group be prosecuted for criminal fraud and extortion.
It makes me very sad to write this, because I lived in Santa Cruz for fifteen years. Sam Sjogren, a close friend from Caltech, was one of SCO’s first programmers, and for a little while my only friend in town after I transferred to UCSC. Many of my best friends used to work for SCO either writing code or doing tech support. I even used to sit in the company hot tub with my friends who worked there from time to time. I used to dance to the music of SCO’s company band Deth Specula at parties around the town.
Before I ever installed my first Linux distro - remember Yggdrasil Plug-n-Play? - I was a happy user of a fully-licensed
copy of SCO Open Desktop on my 386.
You wouldn’t think the SCO Group of today is the same company that once had to tell its employees that they shouldn’t be naked at work between 9 and 5 because they scared the visiting suits from AT&T. That’s because it’s not - the SCO Group got its name and intellectual property from SCO through an acquisition. I don’t think any of the friends I once knew at the company are likely to still be working there. The SCO Group is in Utah. SCO was originally called The Santa Cruz Operation, a small father-and son consulting firm named for a beautiful small town between the mountains and the ocean in central California. The Santa Cruz Operation was once as much a bunch of freethinking hippies as any Linux hacker of today.
Yes, it makes me sad. But I digress.
It seems that SCO is asking a license fee of $699 for each Linux installation. Take a look at SCO’s press release announcing the licensing program. That’s just the introductory price - if we don’t purchase our licenses before October 15, the price will increase to $1399.
I have three computers that run Linux. That means SCO claims I must pay $2097 today, or $4197 if I wait until after October 15. SCO says theirfee applies even to devices running embedded linux, many of which were purchased by their owners for far less than SCO’s “license fee”.
My response is that SCO is guilty of criminal fraud and extortion. I didn’t violate SCO’s copyright or acquire their trade secrets through any illegal means, and it is fraud for them to claim that I did. It is extortion for them to tell me I must pay them money to avoid a lawsuit.
Even if SCO’s claims are true, it is not a violation of their copyright for me to possess a copy of their code. Instead, any copyright infringement was committed by the vendors who supplied me with the Linux distributions I use.
SCO’s license is actually no license at all - if it really is found that the Linux kernel contains any infringing code, the GPL forbids everyone who possesses a copy from using it at all. No one would be allowed to continue using Linux until the improper code was removed. Only then could we begin using a new version, for which SCO could not claim to be owed any fees, and we could never again use the versions that have any illegally obtained code in them.
The fear of economic harm that SCO is creating through its groundless claims is sufficient to establish a charge of extortion under the Hobbs Act.
Rather than paying their fee, my response will be to write a letter to the Maine State Attorney General to ask that they prosecute SCO. I’m going to include substantive documentation, like a hardcopy of SCO’s claim that I must pay them this fee, as well as IBM’s and RedHat’s responses to SCO.
I’m also going to write to the Federal Trade Commission to ask that SCO be investigated for illegal trade practices.
If you live in the United States, I ask you to write a similar letter to your state Attorney General, as well as to the Federal Trade Commission. If you live in a state where a Linux distro vendor is located, or a company that has a lot of Linux installations - doesn’t Amazon use it? - write to your elected representatives to ask that they work with the state and federal law enforcement authorities to see that these business are protected.
If you live in a different country, write to the head of your national or provincial law enforcement agency, and write to your government to request that it protect Linux businesses and users in your country. Certainly every German should be clamoring to protect SuSE, and every Frenchman should be crying out for the French government to protect Mandrake.
SCO may be guilty of other crimes as well, but only certain parties have standing to complain. To file a frivolous lawsuit is an offense known as barratry, for which not only SCO but its attorneys may be prosecuted. But if this is the case it is up to IBM to bring it to the attention of the authorities.
SCO may be guilty of violating securities law. I understand its executives have engaged in questionable insider trading, possibly to take advantage of the artificial inflation in SCO’s stock price resulting from its allegations. The stock of companies offerring Linux products and services may have been unfairly devalued as well. Stockholders in any of the affected companies - either SCO or its competitors - may wish to avail themselves of the Security and Exchange Commission’s Investor Complaint Form to ask that something be done about this.
If you have the financial means and are willing to go to the trouble, please consider filing your own lawsuit to get an injunction against SCO. I’d like to see how they deal with such lawsuits going on in all fifty states simultaneously. I don’t think even SCO has the money to pay that many lawyers. Perhaps this would be a good project for the larger Linux user groups.
The National Association of Attorneys General provides this Full Contact List for the Attorneys General. Perhaps people who live in other countries can reply by giving the addresses of the legal authorities your countrymen should write to.
Please send your complaint in a written letter, sent via snail mail. They will pay more attention to letters than email. Be reasonable, rational, and as brief as possible. Include some supporting documentation, such as relevant press releases from SCO, Red Hat and IBM, as well as the legal complaints from SCO and (if they make it available) Red Hat.
Be sure to tell your Attorney General where they can find the suspects:
The SCO Group
355 South 520 West
Suite 100
Lindon, Utah 84042 USA
Phone: 801-765-4999
Fax: 801-852-9088
[link]
Consider posting the text of the letter you will write as a reply to this article so others may use it as an example.
It would help to include in your letter an estimate the total license fees that would have to be paid by residents and businesses of your state, nation or province if SCO’s threat is allowed to stand, and to emphasize that many of those who are threatened are in no position to pay.
Please copy and distribute this article according to the terms of the following legal notice. The version of this article found at [link] is deliberately designed to be easy to copy to other websites.
Copyright © 2003 Michael D. Crawford.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs License. To view a copy of this license, visit [link] or send a letter to Creative Commons, 559 Nathan Abbott Way, Stanford, California 94305, USA….
yellow[alien]probed explains why i am back from vacation early. one good thing came out of it: i made it back for our birthday bash!…
