It is on our shoulders, each and every one of us, to help combat the SCO FUD. There’s so much good debunking material out there that it should be easy for people to plop it on the boss’s desk or forward an email with a list of juicy links. Since a lot of people aren’t going to take the time (or just don’t have the time) to collect these, I thought I’d pull together a listing of material with the help of some research and my readers.

Perhaps I should informally title this press kit, “SCO: Refute THIS”:

• OSDL’s position paper on SCO and Linux.
  
• MontaVista’s statement on SCO
  
• SCO’s Web server runs on Linux?
  
• Novell’s latest statement on SCO
  
• Inconsistencies abound from SCO
  
• Round-up of how the community is finally waking up from the “They can’t be serious!” coma and responding
  
• A step by step debunking by Eric Raymond
  
• A look into financials
  
• SCO’s previous incarnation, Caldera, already released the code into open source
  
• What about those MIT experts that verified SCO’s claims?
  
• An attorney on SCO’s claims
  
• Linus Torvalds on SCO
  
• Sun playing both sides of the fence?
  
• An in-depth analysis of the supposedly stolen code
  
• From the people who claim now that they never planned to sue anyone
  
• Oh yeah, and they never planned to sue anyone
  
• McBride claims that people who have put years of blood, sweat, and tears into Linux are only up in arms because IBM is organizing it
  
• Where SCO says they’re not after the GPL after saying they’re after the GPL
  
• Yet more SCO code claim debunking
  
• The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) finally wakes up about SCO
  
• The Economist on SCO and Linux
  
• A look at odd happenings with SCO stock
  
• Major consumer electronics companies don’t seem too concerned about SCO’s claims or attempts to make embedded Linux companies pay
  
• Odd findings about SCO’s denial of service attacks
  
• More on SCO’s legal footing
  
• A look at the company that owns SCO

Have any links to add? I’ll re-release this press list when it’s significantly better.

I’m in a grouchy mood today, but I’ll do my best to just be straight to the point. SCO is now billing selected Linux users for licensing fees. There are a ton of companies and organizations out there that use, support, develop, and otherwise are heavily involved with Linux. Why has no one stepped in to obtain swift court-ordered injunctions against this behavior? SCO has not proven their case in court. They have no right to try to profiteer off the backs of the open source community until a judge is able to properly determine what is going on.

Consider this a challenge to every company that uses or develops for Linux. It’s time to walk your talk. SCO has been allowed too long to get away with these shenanigans.

And a note to the crackers and DOS-attackers who think it’s fun and satisfying to to after SCO: please quit it. You just make them look better, and us look worse.

What is your company or organization doing to help?

I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s fed up to the gills with the whole SCO debacle. Five years from now, I have this weird premonition that we’ll be watching a movie or TV series on the drugs, booze, and backroom cash-tossing that led to one of the most ridiculous stock market scams ever.1

For a while there, I was just getting more and more annoyed about it. I have a difficult time just sitting there with such angry energy buzzing about so I decided to do something even if it might turn out to be a waste of time. Anyway, in the process of setting up a swag shop for a newsletter that I run for Lockergnome, I added a subsection for SCO and other activist topics. A portion of all proceeds from the subshop goes to Red Hat’s Open Source :NOW: Fund.

What can you do to help? Spread the facts to your local newspapers and businesses. Bring copies of many articles showing up discussing Linus Torvalds’ reactions and analyses, and those of Bruce Perens. Include copies of the coverage showing that SCO executives are dumping their stocks, profiting off of this insanity.

Someone told me recently that his company has put its thoughts to move to Linux on hold, and asked me if I saw any slowdowns in the Linux arena. I’m happy to say that no, I haven’t. If anything, SCO’s giving Linux lots of news coverage! And the more obvious slime they spew at Linux, the more Linux is validated, just as Microsoft discovered after their earlier FUD campaigns.

Microsoft is going on lately about how they will fight Linux with “rational truth.” Funny, considering how much money they paid out to SCO when all of this started. What amazes me, though, is trying to figure out what’s going through the heads of SCO’s board of directors and executives. Do they actually think they have a case? Are they that demented?

Or are they just trying to bilk some money out of the system?

1. This is my opinion only, and is of course not necessarily endorsed by O’Reilly & Associates. Maybe they would. I haven’t asked.
   

Let out that frustration. What slogans would you put on a shirt for SCO?

Some co-authors and I put out a call recently to collect people’s annoyances with Linux. Woah, did we hear from folks! Within 48 hours our plea for participants was Slashdotted. Since I’m hosting the discussion list on my servers, it was an excellent test to make sure they they can handle the traffic at the very least!

So, as much as I love Linux, apparently it can be a little annoying. If you’re interested in (polite) venting and contributing to the collection, check out the annoyances list … at the very least, some people have found making a short rant pretty theraputic.

What do you find annoying about Linux?