File suit against a Linux user? [LWN.net]

File suit against a Linux user?

Posted Nov 26, 2003 11:50 UTC (Wed) by ekj (subscriber, #1524)
In reply to: File suit against a Linux user? by bryn
Parent article: Lawyers in charge

Sure it's possible for them to *start* a case. After all anyone can start a case against anyone at any time for any reason at all.

I could start a case against you for posting that question. The case would likely not get very far, that's true. But sure as hell I can *start* it. (yes it'd get thrown out at the first opportunity)

They could not win a copyrigth-case without showing evidence that there is indeed something to which they hold copyrigth in Linux. But they don't nessecarily need to. In the USA, even *winning* a court-case can cost big bucks for the defendant. They don't expect to win any case without showing evidence. They are hoping to find a target soft enough that it'll settle instead of letting the matter get to court.

My bet is that such targets are harder to find than SCO think. It takes 5 minutes with Google to find out that SCOs claims are pretty shaky. Most companies would do atleast that much if faced with legal threats.

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File suit against a Linux user?

Posted Nov 26, 2003 16:08 UTC (Wed) by jre (guest, #2807) [Link]

Depending on how, exactly, SCO goes about the attempted money extraction, they may risk more than being told to take a hike. They seem to be aware of this; after Groklaw pointed them to the statutes on mail fraud, the promised invoice mailing was conspicuous by its absence.