Hmmm...this sounds tasty. Any linkage?

I have not heard any news yet, but if there is a problem, I'll bet it has to do with that (paraphrased) "We reserve the right to sue anybody" speech. I don't recall there being a "with the exclusion of Europe" phrase in there. That would do it.

-Dio

here we go... but only in german...

http://www.pro-linux.de/news/2003/5909.h...

just for entertainment: if the ceo of sco germany does not pay, he's got to go to jail :-)))

For those not understanding German try
babelfish.altavista.com - it reads funny but you can get the jist of it. I like the part where it translates to "mental property" how befitting ;-)

I hope it gets picked up by English press. Bablefish does a really poor job with it.

-----------------------------------------
10.000, - euro order money against the SCO Group GmbH
Sent of demon at the Mo, 1. September 2003 around 15:22

The regional court Munich I has an order money at a value of 10.000 on 28 August 2003, - euro against the SCO Group GmbH imposes.

The SCO has GmbH and the LinuxTag according to data tarent of the e. V. against the provisional order offended in it "the software Linux was forbidden maintaining illegitimately acquired mental property of SCO contains." This order had obtained the Tarent GmbH and further enterprises with emphasis on free software in May/June 2003.

The court accuses the SCO Group GmbH "negligent behavior" with the enterprise of its firm homepage, on which also still after it obtains the provisional order the statement to be read was that "final users, who use the software Linux for protection injuries mental of the property can be made liable by SCO."

"the regional court Munich I made clear in the reason the order money resolution that the statements of SCO as" substantial business-damaging expressions "are to be regarded, which concern" an extremely sensitive range ". It cannot concern to make with unproven statements at expense third a business with the fear. We will examine therefore, to which extent SCO made itself liable to pay damages in relation to the enterprises in the Linux surrounding field and SCO represents stressed attorney Dr. Till hunter of the kanzlei Jaschinski of beers Brexl that to the account to pull accordingly ", the company Tarent in this affair. "we rate the SCO campaigns as part of a strategy, in which GNU/Linux users and potential Umsteiger substantial are to be disconcerted. German courts now already repeats a latch plate put forward shows like this strategy to arrange is: to destroy as an attempt with not durable statements the market for GNU/Linux of products and enterprises. This calculation goes obviously not on ", adds Elmar Geese, managing director of the Tarent GmbH.

The SCO Group must pay the 10,000, - euro now to the treasury, otherwise managing director Hans Bavarian an order detention of 10 days threatens.

Here's a rough translation again... my english is not that good, but I guess I beat babelfish :-))

10.000,-- euro court order against the SCO Group GmbH

On August 28, the regional court in Munich, Germany, has issued an order against the SCO Group GmbH to pay 10'000 Euro.

According to the company "tarent GmbH" and "Linux Tag E.V.", SCO did violate an order which was issued against them. This order did prohibit them to state that Linux contains IP of SCO which was illegaly obtained. This order was issued in may/june 2003.

The court did accuse SCO of a "negligent maintainance of their homepage on which - after the first order had been issued - one could still read that "sers who use Linux may be liable for violating rights of SCO".

The regional ourt in Munich did underline that such a statement is strongly damaging the business which one has to look at with the highest concern. Under no circumstances a company should do business by creating concerns and fear with publishing assertions without substance. Tarent's lawyer said: "Therefore, we will examine how big the damage is SCO caused for companies which are active in the linux-business and will call SCO to account for these damages."

He further states that the SCO-politic is part of a campaign, and the fact that German courts have now repeadedly shoot the bolt against such tactics shows what one should think about that.

SCO has to pay this fine now to the state of bavaria, otherwise, its managing director has to go to jail for 10 days.

I think your translation looks good to me, and it looks like in Germany if you are going to accuse someone of doing something, you had better back it up with some proof, something SCO has failed blatantly to do. We really need a law like that in the US, as it is morally and ethically wrong to assert an accusation as fact without being willing to back it up with something to substantiate that accusation. I think I will write my congressman and ask him to propose a law to that effect.

It just seems that no one with enough money to hire a lawyer is going and hiring a lawyer

while FBI, SEC, FTC are taking their sweet time.

Most states have laws like this -
Here's one law you could use, in South Carolina.
h++p://www.charlestonlaw.net/upta.htm
Under the SC law you can sue Darl, Sontag and Stowell DIRECTLY, as well as suing SCO the corporation.
-

"We really need a law like that in the US, as it is morally and ethically wrong to assert an accusation as fact without being willing to back it up with something to substantiate that accusation. I think I will write my congressman and ask him to propose a law to that effect. "

In this case, I hate to disagree, but I must. The reason? If you give the Congress any rights to restrict free speech, you weaken First Amendment protection. That is a very bad thing.

If they got ahold of making a law like that, they could then simply make it illegal for information which damages a company's case(such as we have been providing for FREE) to be against the law to reveal.

That would be foolish, but a likely outcome, given that we have a certain group of people that want to remove our rights in power now. I think we ought ot have rules about ethical business behavior - no doubt. We should not have people restricting free speech or we would only have the trade rags telling people what to believe.

That would be a very BAD thing.

For those reasons, I would argue that writing your Congress person is not a good idea. There are laws on the books which cover libel and slander. I don't think we have done that here. We are providing a service - warning people by informing them of the truth about the so-called presentation of evidence (none).

StockSentinal << We really need a law like that in the US, a <<

freecode >> There are laws on the books which cover libel and slander. <<<

AND AND AND
And fraud and extortion and false advertising and lying on financial statements and reporting scientific research in ads for drugs.

"Free speech" is MUCH MORE RESTRICTED than you think. (or what your post leads me to think you think)

>> That would be a very BAD thing. <<<
Good or bad, numerous such laws Already exist, in every state. Consumer protection laws, solicitation laws (which are, after all, free speech restrictions).

These laws already exist and the supreme court has already upheld them many times.

commercial speech by executives is judged at a different standard than normal free speech. Such speech has been held to be false advertising not covered by the 1st.

Here's one law you could use, in South Carolina.

h++p://www.charlestonlaw.net/upta.htm

You can sue Darl, Sontag and Stowell DIRECTLY, as well as suing SCO the corporation.

I'm searching for similar laws in the other states.

<<"We really need a law like that in the US, as it is morally and ethically wrong to assert an accusation as fact without being willing to back it up with something to substantiate that accusation. I think I will write my congressman and ask him to propose a law to that effect. "

In this case, I hate to disagree, but I must. The reason? If you give the Congress any rights to restrict free speech, you weaken First Amendment protection. That is a very bad thing.>>

If you scream "fire" in a crowded theater and 7 people are killed during the rush to escape, is that "free speech"?

If you scream "Linux is an illegal unix derivative and everybody that uses it will face legal action from us" and corporations lose billions as they spend money to swtich to alternatives and it turns that it's NOT TRUE, is that free speech?


Let me tell you what IS free speech. If my government starts bombing Cambodians in MY NAME and some guy takes and American flag and burns it as a protest - THAT'S FREE speech.

Free speech is designed to protect POLITICAL speech. It's not there to protect @#$%ography, or television shows, or movies, or public "dirty language" or corporations. It's there to keep your government from turning evil and then killing you.

Corporations are NOT the same as people. They do not have the same rights that I do. *I* have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, no corporation does. I have the right of free speech, not a corporation. I have the right bear weapons, no corporation does.

"We really need a law like that in the US, as it is morally and ethically wrong to assert an accusation as fact without being willing to back it up with something to substantiate that accusation. I think I will write my congressman and ask him to propose a law to that effect. "

<In this case, I hate to disagree, but I must. The reason? If you give the Congress any rights to restrict free speech, you weaken First Amendment protection. That is a very bad thing.>

I don’t see being able to make baseless statements of fact as being something that should be protected under the first amendment. As a matter of fact, that is typically called slander. The only problem is it usually applies to a person, or corporation. So I think it would be stretching the slander laws as they are currently written in the case of SCO’s abusive claims that they are unwilling to backs up with evidence that substantiates their claims.

After all how would you like it if someone started going around your neighborhood telling everyone are a @#$%e, and that it’s a fact without a doubt, but they refuse to tell anyone how they know this because it’s a secret. The fact is such a statement is a baseless accusation, more commonly called a lie, and I don’t see any reason the first amendment should protect liars.

That is what SCO is doing in my opinion, telling a lie and using claims of secrecy to avoid having to substantiate their claims. I see no reason a company should have the right to do that, and see no reason they should not be punishable for such actions. To me it makes a lot of sense to fine companies that publish lies, and that is what the German law seems to do. If you are a company over there, when you start publishing something as a fact, you had better be willing to back those claims up somehow, and I see that as a good thing.

Aha! now we know why the homepage kept going down. They were tripping over themselves trying to comply, but couldn't quite manage..

So exactly how much US is 10,000 Euros??

<<So exactly how much US is 10,000 Euros??>>

12 K about or so. Check www.xe.com if you really care to get an accurate conversion.

It's roughly 10,000 USD

But the violation was on sco.de ... which is a totally different server than the jack-in-the-box server at sco.com

I haven't found what they said, but they had been told to stop casting aspersions.

That makes sense. I assume that site is actually written in the German's Language.

altavista seems down for translsations
h++p://tinyurl.com/lw0y

Ah it was the website... I thought it was that article. Same reason though. They forgot to add "But not in Germany" to their crap.

Seems SCO is none to tidy with their legal entanglements. I have a spare pooper-scooper they can borrow.

-grin-

-Dio

Yeah, I know, I am replying to myself...

"Ja, Ja, der explanation uf vy letter to Linux customers got removed"

So I flunked German I in college... twice.

-grin-

-Dio

PS: I eventually gave up, and took French. Got a C-

Si je ne dois pas traduire ça en français, c'est bien :-))

>>> I have a spare pooper-scooper they can borrow.

I don't need one. All my stools go down a well.

@#$%ing in the public resource that volunteers built.

hence the name, Blake Stoolwell (aka Blake out-house-mouth)

US$11,000. I will have to charge $5,000 now for our Linux license instead of $699. Laura DiDio, tell those suckers to pay me and buy more SCOX stocks. Crap, no one is listening to DiDio. Hans Bavarian, you would better go to jail then.