Rep. Edward J. Markey
2108 Rayburn HOB 
Washington, DC  20515-2107

Dear Representative Markey,

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy
315 Russell Senate Office Building 
Washington, DC  20510-2101

Dear Senator Kennedy,

Sen. John Forbes Kerry
304 Russell Senate Office Building 
Washington, DC  20510-2102

Dear Senator Kerry,

I am writing to express my opposition to the SCO Group, Inc.'s decision
to sue individual users of the Linux operating system and to request your
intervention.  SCO is currently involved in litigation over a range of claims
regarding their intellectual property interest in Linux, a popular "open
source" operating system (competitor to Microsoft's Windows) which I am
one of many co-authors of.  None of these cases has yet produced any guidance
on whether SCO's claims are valid, and most commentators seem to agree that
they are not.  However, SCO recently announced that it would begin suing
individual Linux-users who refuse to pay a $700 license fee for the software.

This strategy smacks of extortion.  SCO should establish the validity
of its claims before even thinking of harassing individuals.  Instead, it
is planning to bolster its position in the larger cases by targeting individual
end-users who cannot afford multimillion-dollar defenses.  This is not an
appropriate use of the law.

As a constituent, I urge you to do what you can to stop this bad behavior.
Please urge the Commerce Committee to intervene in this abusive practice
and stop SCO from punishing innocent consumers to inflate its other legal
claims.  This is not the only time the legal system has been so abused:
it is becoming more and more common for large corporations to exploit, harass,
and threaten ordinary consumers who feel they cannot afford to hire adequate
representation to defend their innocence.  I will briefly mention the DirectTV
and RIAA lawsuits in this regard.  The Digital Millennium Copyright Act
(DMCA) has, of course, made this sort of abuse in copyright-related cases
even easier.  I urge prompt action in regard to SCO's current bad behavior,
but also continued effort towards a long-term solution to this exploitation
of our American legal system.

In the SCO case, I am an affected copyright holder: I have written part
of the code for the Linux operating system.  SCO has profited greatly in
the past from its sale of a distribution including the Linux kernel, and
therefore on code that I (and so many others) have written and licensed
to them under what's known as the "General Public License" (GPL).  They
are now chosing to blackmail *me* via lawsuit (for I am also a user of Linux)
and to sow fear and distrust in the IT economy (which widely uses Linux)
on dubious pretext.  My license of my code to SCO included as an explicit
provision that it be freely redistributable to others without charge, which
SCO is now trying to negate.  I urge you to address this abuse of my copyright.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

C. Scott Ananian
57 Mystic Street
Arlington, MA 02474