Australian Open Source Company Cyberknights Challenges SCO.

A small Australian open source services provider is standing up to SCO Group Inc, challenging the company to reveal details of its claims of intellectual property infringement in Linux.

Perth, Australia-based Cyberknights Pty Ltd threw down the gauntlet to SCO's Australia and New Zealand business after the Lindon, Utah-based Unix vendor launched its Intellectual Property License for Linux in Australia.

That prompted Cyberknights' director, Leon Brooks, to write to Kieran O'Shaughnessy, SCO ANZ regional manager, challenging the company to reveal details of its claims by February 1 or have the matter referred to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

"If Cyberknights has not received clear, precise and substantial identification of the specific code which SCO ANZ claims fees from us for by 01 February 2004, we will begin our defense by referring the matter to the appropriate legal authorities, and vigorously pursue a positive situation from there," he wrote.

Brooks said his involvement in the Linux community has given him the confidence to challenge SCO's claims. "I personally know and trust several contributors to the Linux kernel, including the original author, Linus Torvalds," he said. "As of three days ago, Linus told me that he knows of no substantial code in his Linux kernel source tree which could possibly be subject to ownership claims by The SCO Group."

It's not the first time that SCO's claims have been challenged "down under". In July 2003 the Open Source Victoria organization filed a compliant with the ACCC, which is still pending.

Meanwhile, resistance to SCO's plans has also been strong in Germany, where a number of businesses including Free Software convention organizer LinuxTag Association succeeded in obtaining a temporary restraining order against SCO GmbH preventing it from making comments against Linux in Germany without substantiating its claims.

In September 2003, SCO GmbH received an administrative fine of 10,000 euros ($12,625) for violating one of the temporary restraining orders. SCO has ceased to make claims over ownership of Linux code in Germany and its IP License is not available there.

Informal complaints against SCO's claims have also been received in Poland and Austria, according to SCO, while in the US Red Hat Inc has of course filed a formal complaint against SCO to get a ruling on whether its code infringes SCO's intellectual property.