Two legal concepts go by the name barratry: one in criminal and civil law, the other in admiralty law.
In criminal law, barratry is the act or practice of bringing repeated legal actions solely to harass. Usually, the actions brought lack merit. This \ has been declared a crime in some jurisdictions.
In admiralty law, barratry is a fraudulent act committed by a master or crew of a vessel which damages the vessel or its cargo, including desertion, illegal scuttling, and theft of the ship or cargo.
The company currently going by the name of ``The SCO Group'' was once a Linux distributor called ``Caldera''; they changed their name after buying what they claim are the rights to the Unix operating system from the Santa Cruz Operation, which apparently bought the distribution rights to Unix System V from Novell, who in turn bought it from AT&T. Confused yet? So were they. Somehow they imagined that this gave them control over every piece of code that someone else had once added (as a separate module) to a version of Unix and then later added, independently, to a version of Linux. They then proceeded to demand a license fee for the commercial use of Linux. Ironically, they continued to offer Linux source code, as required by the General Public License (GPL), for free on their FTP site.
lyrics
Of a company called S-C-O, the tale I'll briefly tell
_With G-P-L, our software all is free_
Who turned their hands to barratry when software wouldn't sell
_Sailing through the legal straits of High Barratry_
``And are you selling Linux or old Unixware?'' said we
_With GPL, our software all is free_
We're the owners of all Unix come demanding of our fee!
_Sailing through the legal straits of High Barratry_
You've stolen code from System V and given it away
_With GPL, our software all is free_
So buy licences for Linux, or we'll sue and make you pay
_Sailing through the legal straits of High Barratry_
They first sued IBM over a million lines of code
_With GPL, our software all is free_
Though a subroutine or two from BSD was all they showed
_Sailing through the legal straits of High Barratry_
Well, RedHat sued them next so they went gunning for Novell
_With GPL, our software all is free_
Autozone and Daimler-Chrysler soon were on their list as well
_Sailing through the legal straits of High Barratry_
Then lawsuit and lawsuit we fought for many a day
_With GPL, our software all is free_
'Till the research done at Groklaw blew their cases clean away
_Sailing through the legal straits of High Barratry_
Oh, please buy us out, the SCOundrels made their plea
_With GPL, our software all is free_
But the buyout that they'll get is in a court of bankruptcy
_Sailing through the legal straits of High Barratry_
And oh, it was a sorry thing to hear them rant and roar
_With GPL, our software all is free_
With their options underwater as their stock sank through the floor
_Sailing through the legal straits of High Barratry_
Though they started as Caldera selling Linux long ago
_With GPL, our software all is free_
Soon a huge volcanic crater will be all that's left of SCO
_Sailing through the legal straits of High Barratry_
Notorious hacker/songwriter Steve Savitzky has been kicking around the Net since the days of bang-paths and bearskins, and writes songs of computers, spacecraft, love, friendship -- and sometimes all four at once.
From Cork, Ireland, Lewis Barfoot writes mystic, majestic songs derived from regional folk, with an ambient music aura. Bandcamp New & Notable Dec 11, 2023
