[ Thanks to Harlan Wilkerson for this
contribution. ]
By Harlan Wilkerson
The Germans and Australians aren’t the only folks that can take
action against the SCO Group. It’s just that no sensible group has
come forward here in the US to offer a framework for end-users to
take action.
No one knows when an individual off in the stony lonesome does
something on their own. There are many of us who DON’T want another daily fix of “watching” the steno
pool at Groklaw from the sidelines. We worry that in the end
software development will be like the practice of medicine here in
the US–something that you can only do if you can afford to pay the
insurance premiums.
The recent EC patent vote proves that the opposition is willing
to impose their political solutions on the rest of us.
I recently filed a consumer protection complaint against SCO in
Kansas. I was a former Caldera customer, and I based the substance
of my complaint on my own purchases of their licensed and branded
Linux software products.
I wrote the complaint after some discussions with the State
Attorney General’s staff. I was very happy with their
fill-in-the-blank forms, but they asked for a very detailed
explanation of all the subject matter involved. If there’s ever a
next time, I’ll try to hire a ghost writer to handle that part
😉
Kansas and a few other states don’t permit a vendor or supplier
to disclaim the implied warranty of merchantability (general
fitness). The promise that the product is fit for the ordinary
purposes for which it is used. This extends to any facts and
promises that appear on the product labels or in their marketing
materials. Caldera rebranded their Caldera Network Desktop products
as “OpenLinux.” Linux is a trademark that they helped secure. It is
sublicensed exclusively for use in connection with open source
products. OpenLinux was advertised as the beginning of a
collaborative effort to change the UNIX industry. It was supposed
to be a fully GPL’ed UNIX 95 branded Linux product.
Caldera’s marketing materials said the products were targeted at
developers. The label said things like: “Full Linux source code
included”, iBCS-compliant for running Intel-based UNIX programs,
alternate server for Intel-based UNIX programs, and etc. It’s also
an unconscionable act here to try and deprive a consumer of the
material benefits of a purchase transaction at any time.
My complaint is available
online for those who are interested.