According to Helen Austin, Centrelink national manager for enterprise architecture, SCO's legal activities may delay the organisation's investigation into open source software expected to run over the next five years. Austin said the government was now investing more time in the evaluation phase of the project to protect the government against any negative legal impacts from court actions involving Linux.
Austin told delegates attending Open Source Forum 2004 in Sydney yesterday that "[Centrelink] can't afford the distraction of litigation".
"Even if we were happily convinced that everything we did was the right thing its still an exhausting process to prove that in a court of law and its that reluctance that makes us say: 'we don't want to leave the pack here; we want to check what happens in other people's situations so that we can defend ourselves in advance, prevention being better than cure," Austin later told ZDNet Australia in an interview.
As well as protecting the specific interests of Centrelink, Austin said the federal government was now making sure that government contracts with "third parties" were "watertight".
Delegates were told that Centrelink was working closely with National Office for the Information Economy (NOIE) and the Attorney General on the matter.
Centrelink has engaged in little public discussion about the investigation project - not be confused with its five-year, AU$300 million dollar IT refresh program -- to date, aside from revealing that it aims to establish the organisation as an "active user of open source and open standards".
Privately, sources say that Centrelink is investigating the possibility of rolling out a uniform Linux operating system across the organisation's mid-range and IBM mainframe server hardware, which serves an estimated 27,000 users.
SCO's assault arose from its vigorously-debated claim to intellectual property contained in the popular non-proprietary operating system.
The company launched in March 2003 legal action seeking damages from IBM on the basis of allegations it illegally incorporated code from a variant of Unix SCO claims to own into Linux. It initially sought US$1 billion in damages and later escalated the claim to US$3 billion.
SCO was met with avalanche of protests from the Linux community, which widely viewed the litigation as an attack on the open source software. The fracas over the software escalated in July, after SCO began demanding license fees from commercial users of Linux in jurisdictions it calculated would favour its claim.
ZDNet Australia today approached Centrelink for further comment on how its project was positioned legally as a result of SCO's assault, but it was unable to respond in time for publication.
The License that SCO is litigating people into signing could be seen as nothing more than an “Interim Assurance policy”. If SCO looses the IBM case (and/or any other cases) the licensee has no recourse for a refund. I believe this a bad license to agree with even if SCO wins.
How can a “Linux” user be litigated into signing a contract that does not allow for any recourse should SCO fail to prove that it’s IP and/or code is in Linux (Or in other words loose the IBM and Novel cases)? (EG: In simple terms: I sue you in Australia for steeling my car, you pay a settlement out of court before I can prove in a court in the USA that it is my car. Even if I am the car owner there should be a sequence of events. Proof that the car is mine and from there seek a solution.)
Also… SCO has stated that the lawsuit was filed because it had the “AIX” and “Linux” code compared and analyzed by 3 separate teams; these teams found that there was SCO IP (AIX derived code) in Linux. However in court SCO has asked for the AIX code so that these comparisons can be done. IBM has not and will not file contempt (Or Perjury) charges against SCO as they want to win this case on its merits and not on a technicality.
This is why there is a lot of “Disappointment” with SCO in the Linux Community. Not just because Linux advocates believe (very strongly) that there is no SCO IP in Linux but the process of how they are going about a resolution to this issue.
In sight of all this; a logical sequence of events should be sought:
1) SCO should prove it’s case, (If it can), this is disputed strongly by IBM, Novell, Redhat and Linus Torvoldes (The original creator of Linux)
2) This should be verified independently by a court appointed team of experts.
3) Then and then and only then should End Users be asked to remedy the situation, not before.
There are other rumours and highly disputed facts surrounding the case, but I want to calmly dispute SCO’s “COURSE OF ACTION” not its stance.
Indemnification can be sought/investigated by “Centerlink” from Hewlett Packard, Redhat or Novell. Centerlink, nor anyone else, should be punished for asking to delay proceedings until the outcome SCO vs. IBM, and the SCO vs. Novell cases. In fact this course will benefit SCO if it wins. (Short term SCO has a cash flow issue at the moment)
For more information, please visit www.groklaw.net, www.novell.com and www.redhat.com or speak to their Australian offices about this.
Centerlink, simply keep a calm and level head, seek advice from all corners and take the best option that suits them for both long and short term. From my perspective, I believe this would be a rational approach to this unique situation.
Errors and Omissions are not intended.
IANAL (I am not a Lawyer)