Preventing future SCOs

SCO undoubtedly thinks that they're making a show of strength by suing
IBM, the proverbial 800LB gorilla. Do they play a more dangerous game
than they know? With their suit, and more significantly the constant
barrage of press releases and threats to sue, SCO has insulted the
Free Software community, threatened our job satisfaction and in some
cases our very livelihood. There seems little to be done besides
playing at dueling press releases. Although the potential loss to the
Free Software community may be the larger there is a forgotten group who
are more directly harmed the the we are, the people who are now
purchasing SCO stock.
 
Step back for a moment and reflect on why the SCO of some months ago
has taken this path. Their stock was trading for less than $1/share
and the company was plainly on the road to ruin. Regardless of the
merit of their suit, the major stockholders could only stand to
benefit. And, of course, the lawyers get paid no matter what. There
are, of course, losers too. The people who buy SCO stock on the basis
of SCO's as yet unsubstantiated legal claims, and the notion that SCO
is perpetuating that, should their claims be true, SCO can somehow
require all Linux users to purchase licenses from SCO. IANAL, but
something slimy is clearly going on here.
 
SCO has had some help by others who are threatened by Linux. The suit
has lead the Gartner Group, a company paid to produce research
reports, to recommend against Linux, which has no owner interested in
paying for research reports.
(http://www3.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?doc_cd=116445) Interestingly,
there was no recommendation that AIX be avoided even though in
conjunction with the suit SCO has already suspended AIX's Unix related
licenses. Likewise, SCO has also received help from other businesses
threatened by Linux; when it started the suit it knew there are
powerful business interests which would help spread mis-information
and inflate SCO's stock value. There will always be groups interested
in disparaging Linux and Free Software.
 
SCO stock is now trading for more than 10 times it's former value.
Again, IANAL, but if it can be shown that the members of SCO's board
of directors are benefiting from this, and if it can be shown that the
board initiated all this activity knowing that it would inflate the
price of the stock beyond it's underlying value, I imagine that
there's a class action lawsuit that could be brought. There certainly
seems to be knowledgeable lawyers with grave doubts of the merits of
SCO's case. (See
http://www.osdl.org/docs/osdl_eben_moglen_position_paper.pdf and
others.) The scam may be even more complicated, for example see
http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/os/linux/story/0,10801,83452,00.html?SKC=linux-83452
but my underlying argument remains sound.
 
The only way to prevent this sort of underhanded activity in the
future is to make sure that those who initiate it don't profit. I
suppose the lawyers will always get paid, but who knows, there might
be a way to penalize their involvement as well.
 
Anyone who would like to prevent future suits like SCO's, and related
flimflamery, can help by preparing to sue the individuals responsible
(SCO's board?) when SCO's scheme, and it's stock, finally crashes to
earth. Regardless of what happens to the companies involved, if there
are people making money off practices like SCO's similar actions will
re-occur. It's time we put a stop to these practices before they
become common. The price of admission is low, the purchase of a
single share of SCO stock. If everyone contributes an amount equal to
the price of one share to a legal fund there should be enough money to
get started. Perhaps some lawyer who wishes to make a name for
himself can be found to work for cheap. No doubt there is some
question as to whether you can sue if you purchased your SCO share
knowing it's worthless. But there are many out there who _have_ been
taken in and by starting now we give them a better chance of
recovering something. In any case, ensuring that the perpetrators
don't profit from their schemes would serve the common good.
 
Me, I'm avoiding lawyers. By writing this note I hope to have
done my part, although I'd be willing to participate as a member of a
class action lawsuit. I leave the implementation to someone with more
time and knowledge than myself.
 
Regards,
 
Karl O. Pinc <kop@meme.com>
Free Software: "You don't pay back, you pay forward."
                  -- Robert A. Heinlein