Kieran O'Shaughnessy told ZDNet Australia a US court decision in SCO's favour could prompt commercial users of Linux in Australia to kick off negotiations to secure licences covering their use of the open source software rather than deal with the issue via the courts.
"If and when that decision comes through, it could mean there's no need to take [court action in Australia], as local corporates could see [a favourable US decision] as establishing SCO's claims," O'Shaughnessy said.
He said while a court decision in the US would not establish a formal legal precedent in Australia, it could nevertheless influence commercial and legal developments here.
However, O'Shaughnessy stressed that while litigation was "a last resort," the company "always retained the right to file claims against users who are not forthcoming with compensation".
The Australian and New Zealand managing director reaffirmed that he had decided not to run his campaign to secure revenue for the alleged use of SCO's intellectual property by Linux users here in parallel with the US campaign, but would instead wait and learn from the US experience.
"This is new ground here," he said.
He told ZDNet Australia the company globally was establishing a framework for the means by which it would pursue financial compensation for alleged intellectual property breaches related to the use of SCO's Unix code in Linux.
The SCO Group's US headquarters said this week it had signed an agreement with the law firm of David Boies -- which is already handling SCO's case against Big Blue -- to pursue Linux copyright cases in the US. The first lawsuits are expected to be filed within 90 days. The company has said, however, the lawsuits would be preceded by a communications process which could eliminate the need for litigation.
O'Shaughnessy reaffirmed that there was unlikely to be any movement until the first quarter of 2004 on making available licences for Australian users which would allow them to pay the SCO Group an agreed price for their use of Linux.
He said he had heard nothing more from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission about a complaint from open source advocacy group Open Source Victoria (OSV), who had filed a complaint several weeks ago over the SCO Group's activities in relation to open source.
OSV had argued that the vendor's call for commercial users of Linux to purchase licences to legitimise their use of the open source software breached those provisions of the Trade Practices Act dealing with misleading and deceptive conduct.
Con Zymaris, a high-profile member of OSV, told ZDNet Australia he had heard nothing since the ACCC formally requested a response from the SCO Group in Australia.
He said that "if [the SCO Group] does proceed with the licences and they 'market' them in a particular way, it leaves them open to further claims of misrepresentation of need, which contradicts Trade Practices Act requirements.
"Linux users do not need SCO licences to legally run Linux.
"SCO have shown zero worthwhile proof in 10 months of blathering and more importantly, no court has ruled that SCO has a case".
And pigs could fly, too...
SCO doesn't have a hope in hell with this scam.
There is no proprietary SCO code in Linux; SCO have had 10 months to prove this and have not shown a single shred of believable evidence.
We're all bored of this SCO nonsense. Let's just move on.