Open Season on Open Source

[jc at trillian.mit.edu (John Chambers)]

rich writes:
| On the surface this will appear to be a lawsuit.  However, if my comment above
| is accurate, then SCO's real strategy has little to do with the lawsuit.
| Their lawyers will *never* publicly reveal the exact lines of code alleged to
| be pirated, and the court may or may not require them to do so.

One problem here is that it's a copyright-violation charge.  To  show
that  someone  has violated your copyright, you have to say what text
of your was copied. If you don't do this, there's no way you can ever
win a case. If I write a passage that expresses the same idea as your
text, but in my own words, I haven't violated your  copyright.   It's
only if I use the same words as you did that there's a violation. And
to prove this, you have to present the actual passage, say where they
are  in  which  documents,  and prove that you published those actual
words first.  For SCO to keep the alleged infringement  secret  means
that they aren't trying to win the infringement case; they are merely
after publicity.

| That's why I am making this open appeal to journalists.  This is not a story;
| it's only "open season" if you believe the FUD.  If journalists would simply
| dispute the FUD, the story will go away quickly.  (But of course, journalists
| have to find SOMETHING to write about after that happens.  Sorry it has to
| work out that way.  ;-)

Possibly something that might get attention: Ask them to imagine that
some  competing  publication has publicly accused them of plagiarism,
but refuses to say what text was plagiarized.  Then ask them how,  as
journalists, they would handle this.

This might get the idea across.