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SCO Preparing Linux Licensing Program
akorvemaker writes "OSNews is reporting about an article at InfoWorld that SCO's new Linux licensing program 'will allow users of the open-source operating system to run Linux without fear of litigation.'" This seems to be either the best business decision ever, or a nail in their coffin. One would think they'd wait before charging a license fee over what some would call shaky ground,
Up 15% as a result? Yahoo finances
..with this is that they finally have to tell WHAT the license would be good for.
"Mr. Itguy, Looks like you're running 1500 copies of RH 9.0."
"Yes, your honor."
"And you're being sued by SCO for 1.5 million dollars?"
"Yes, your honor."
"Did that software come with an EULA?"
"Yes, the GNU GPL."
"Does that agreement bind you pay money to SCO?"
"No, sir."
"Have you seen the news reports of SCO claiming they have code in Linux?"
"Yes, sir."
"Did you know that seeing something on the news creates a binding agreement between you and the plaintiff to pay them whatever amount of money that they ask?"
"No, sir."
"Neither did I. Clerk, are there any cases on our agenda today with some merit?"
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'm sorry if I'm misinformed, but isn't the Linux kernel lisenced under the GPL? And isn't the GPL viral? I'm not a lawyer or anything, so please someone correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't that mean SCO CAN'T put out a new lisence on it?
I want you to assume that all spelling and grammar errors are intentional. Thank You.
If it's a sign that IBM's lawyers are running them out of money. :)
My blog
If they want to charge a fee they will have to tell us what they are charging for. Then we either see that the stuff belongs to them and remove it from the kernel or see that it doesn`t. In either case no payment necessary.
***Quis custodiet ipsos custodes***
Linux Protection, whether you want it or not.
"It's not just for the Mafia anymore."
Graham
Linux - Fast Pane Relief
... deserves to get ripped off, and should probably go back to their proprietary SCO UNIX anyways. Blegh.
Deed to the Eiffel tower
Herbalife
Property on the moon, nicely situated near the Sea of Tranquility
London Bridge
Viagra pills
These REVOLUTIONARY PRODUCTS are to be sold through the REVOLUTION of multi-level-marketing, please contact SCO if you wish to make THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS from YOUR OWN HOME.
99 percent? I think that percentage is a bit low.
The term is "racketeering."
-Peter
Here's the info for the SCO conference call:
Where: US: 800-406-5356
Toll Call: 913-981-5572
Password: 464644
When: Monday, July 21, 2003
Noon EDT
Freedom Is Universal
Linux-Universe
Dear Bride et al. Some day I hope the SEC catches up with you. We all know you're mouthing off in the news to pump the stock so that you can sell and get richer. That's no secret, we can all see it in your trade statements. Your mouth says one thing (all lies), your actions another (the whole truth and nothing but the truth). You use battary and deception to work your shady stockmarket magics, and it will catch up with you. I have a video-capture of the Adelphia directors being led off in hand-cuffs. They thought they'd get away with it too, just like you guys.
Mark my words, in a week we'll see seven more consecutive SELL filings in the database. They're greedy, and greedy people run the constant risk of taking it that one last step too far...
That said, I think this SCO news is great for humor. I can't wait till monday!
Belief is the currency of delusion.
I urge everyone to buy one of these anti-litigation licenses, so that we can all file a class action lawsuit when it's proven that they don't have any rights to code within Linux.
Excuse me, but isn't extortion illegal in the US?
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
... if this is the point where Big Blue is going to stop basically ignoring SCO and start going after them with guns blazing.
...
I mean, if SCO are trying to extort money from Linux customers by making them think they have to pay SCO as well as Linux and Linux service vendors (including, of course, IBM) then that's cutting directly into those vendors' business. It goes beyond FUD into a direct financial attack. Seems to me -- just guessing here -- that given how much IBM makes from the Linux aspects of its biz, they might get very upset.
Of course, Red Hat, SuSE, et al would also have reason to get upset, and at this point they could probably wipe SCO out themselves if they put their minds to it; but it's always nice to have IBM on your side
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
SCO is still distributing kernel 2.4.13. Are they licensing this code under the GPL or not?
You can't license GPL software, even if it contains some of your code. Combing GPL software with commercial software is like combining anti-matter with matter--it goes poof. As soon as GPL software has been "polluted" with commercial software, the GPL has been revoked. This makes it so that there is no license to do anything with the GPLed portions of the code. So it seems logically that SCO cannot possibly license Linux. They can either enforce their copyright, assuming that the kernel contains SCO code improperly, and stop Linux distribution, or they can sit back and do nothing. Collecting money is not a legal option.
I never thought I would cheer for big corporations but "Go Big Blue!". Come to think of it, Big Blue hasn't really been that evil of all the major computer corporations. They've been dumb at times but I can't think of any instances when they were evil. What would happen if the case was directed at Linux instead of IBM instead? Would we have the resources and coordination to fight it off?
EvilCON - Made Famous by
sounds more like blackmail...
This announcement isn't aimed at the individual Linux users, it's aimed at the PHB's.
It's all about risk management. If a company has a sizeable investment in Linux, and that investment is threatened, then competent management will take necessary steps to protect it. For any company, managment has to determine which option will cost less:
1. Not take any action and await the outcome of IBM vs SCO. Taking this path, one would have to calculate the chance that IBM wins, therefore no new cost, versus SCO wins, and how much would they then have to pay out and/or possibly migrate to another OS.
2. Buy the SCO license as a hedge against an SCO victory. Furthermore, this may also bring other benefits, such as imdemmifing the company from any future claims against Linux from yet another company.
This has nothing to do with right or wrong, but with the bottom line.
At the moment SCO can huff and puff but everyone can ignore then, no one has agreed anything with SCO.
... how about an acknowledgement that you will never again use Linux without paying a SCO tax. Hmmmm, from now to forever you will need to pay SCO for what everyone else gets for free.
You want your peace of mind, so you cough up and give SCO $500 -- what else do you give them ? Well, the copy of the contract that they gave you to sign; what do we think that will contain ? Let me guess
A clever way of making money out of someone else's GPLed software.
Quite simply: is what way is this illegal, and can someone (redhat? linus?) sue SCO for this?
This seems to me that this is probably either barratry, racketeering, or libel. Mostly the third.
Going around saying "linux has stolen code" is a simple allegation relating to a lawsuit you've made. However, if you're going around sending letters to redhat customers saying they owe you money because they use redhat.. I can't imagine that being legal. They are stating in a public, commercial context that they own what is rightfully RedHat's. That seems to be deceptive trade practices, at the least, and most likely like I said some sort of libel against Redhat.
Is this the case? Does this "linux licensing" thing mean that SCO has FINALLY stepped over the line from discussing their lawsuit in public into clear-cut slander, and the FSF/redhat/SUSE/mandrake can jump on them now?
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
While driving today, I saw a guy with a SCO country sticker on the back of his car (similar to these), and the first thing I thought was "god, how could you like an OS/company like that so much that you'd put it on your car?"
/."
Then, I realized that it was a Scottish flag next to the sticker, along with a simultaneous thought of "wow, I've been reading far too much
You see, me and the boys here, we'd hate to see something... unfortunate... happen to your business. After all, running Linux is attractive, but... risky... if you catch my drift.
Now, for a small, shall we say, licensing fee, we can guarantee that we won't burn down, er, um, (cough) I mean, litigate your business into bankruptcy.
After all, we're legitimate businessmen.
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
If you listened to their last conference call, you noticed that they explicitly said they weren't making any copyright claims; they just had a contract dispute with IBM. That's something strictly between them and IBM; it can't affect anyone who isn't involved with IBM or their product.
In Germany, SCO has been court-orderd not to claim that Linux violates their IP until they start giving proof of this. This licensing could be seen aqs such a claim and therefore, this license might acually *cost* them 250.000 Euros (if I remember the amount correctly) over here.
Financially, I'd calll this an unwise maneuver...
NOW I'm *pissed*...
Did these folks ever read and understand the GPL? It's one thing to go against the spirit of it, and another thing to go against the legality of it. And I'm sure that's what we're seeing now.
Oh, wait, I was assuming they actually wanted to participate in the scene instead of just bagging a buck or three.
C|N>K
What repurcussions can these schoolyard bullies really throw at you? Seriously. I use slackware at home. What are they going to do if I refuse to pay them one red cent? Throw me in jail? The legal costs of actually suing each and every linux user are cost-prohibitive to the meager licensing fees they can dream up. Even if I choose to represent myself, just to save the money, they still have to pay for legal exepenses as well as flights/hotels/cars/etc for each case. Can you say "not fucking likely"? They're just blowing FUD.
To paraphrase the NRA (a highly successful, if not a bit misguided group):
They can have my slackware disks when they pull them out of my incarcerated hand.
Make them press charges for not paying. The legal costs of attacking end-users would be fucking staggering. Bullies always prey on the small guy to mask their own insecurity. The only way to stop the schoolyard bully is to not be scared of him. To paraphrase another misguided soul "Bring 'em on". Fuck SCO.
Please send payment to:
Happy Dude
742 Evergreen Terrace
Springfield
If you cannnot protect what you own, you own nothing. This is true if the law doesn't help you and its true if you don't have the will to act. SCO is exposing the weakness of the GPL: it means nothing if you aren't willing to use the courts to enforce it.
SCO's attempts to impose additional restrictions on the Linux kernel could not be a more blatent violation of the copyrights of the many kernel developers who have released legitimately GPL'd code into the kernel. There is exactly one way for this idodicy to stop: kernel developers must sue SCO for copyright infringement.
Even under the rosiest scenario for SCO, the fact that SCO has a contract dispute with IBM, and that perhaps IBM infringed their code does not given them any right to flout the GPL and usurp the work of the kernel developers.
SCO is "hoping that even if 99 percent of Linux customers laugh in their face, that there will be sufficient large companies who, for what is presumably going to be a relative drop in the bucket of their IT budgets, can potentially eliminate a cloud over their heads," he said.
99 percent? I think that percentage is a bit low.
This looks like the "sell worthless insurance" business model, and there are already many companies that use it. For example:
- Credit card insurance ("Protect your Citibank account in case you become unemployed or disabled"). Banks make big money on this one.
- Extended warranties. $19 for a warranty on a $99 television from Best Buy? (If the TV does break, it will almost certainly happen before the manufacturer's warranty expires anyway. TV's either break right away or they last forever)
- "WirePro" on your phone line. Pay $2.99 a month and the phone company pays to repair inside wiring. But this is hardly ever needed, and if you live in an apartment this is often the landlord's responsibility anyway.
What's different about SCO is that they are actually creating the "risk" that companies would be insuring against while the others just exaggerate existing risks. But it's still effectively the same business model.
Remember the days when Republicans were the party of fiscal responsibility?
and yes, there are laws against it.
Barratry \Bar"ra*try\, n. [Cf. F. baraterie, LL. barataria. See {Barrator}, and cf. {Bartery}.]
1. (Law) The practice of exciting and encouraging lawsuits and quarrels. [Also spelt {barretry}.] --Coke. Blackstone.
The above is from the 1913 Webster's dictionary. It's normal use today descibes use of the legal system to slander or malign someone.
After all is said and done, if SCO loses (which is likely) they will be called on the carpet for this, I'm sure.
GJC
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
>>The program will be announced "within the next month or so,"
C OX &selected=SCOX
Last December, scox said they were "planing" a linux licensing programing. Then, about a month ago, scox said they would announce such a plan in July. July is more than half-way over, everybody is wondering what is going on. Now scox is saying they will have a plan "within a month or so." Or so?
Could it be that scox knows they can not legally implement such a plan? In two months will scox call another such teleconference to anounce their big plan, only to say once again: "we're working on some details to try and create some kind of a licensing program for Linux users to be able to run Linux legally."
Some details? Haven't they been working on "some details" since December? How complicated could it be.
Yet another SCOX bluff? Remember scox said they would stop ibm from selling AIX, they haven't. Scox said they would audit AIX users, they haven't. They said they were going sue Linus Torvald, they haven't.
But it did drive the stock price up another 15% in one day. And you better believe, insiders are selling like mad.
http://www.nasdaq.com/asp/Holdings.asp?symbol=S
My-my-my-my (U can't touch us)
SCO tries to bill me so hard
Makes me say, "Oh my Lord, thank you for blessing me
With a mind to think about the O from SC"
It feels good
When you know you're right
A superdope winner in a court fight
And SCO knows as much
And they'd just get beat-uh!
U can't touch us
I told you homeboys
U can't touch us
Yeah, that's how we livin' and you know
U can't touch us
Look in the GPL, man
U can't touch us
Yo, let me bust the funky code
U can't touch us
Stop! RICO time!
(With some apologies to MC Hammer, but mostly to the people who read this.)
As has been constantly said, you can't openly run pirated software or listen to pirated music without fear of reprisal anymore. The corporations that own the intellectual property have wised up to the ways of the Internet and are cracking down. Whether the Linux kernel has any SCO I.P. in it has yet to be proven, but if it does then everyone is on pretty shaky ground.
If they can prove it in a court of law, will most Linux users continue to ignore them like they do the RIAA and hope they'll fly under the radar? This is a very real situation here. Either the SCO management is incredibly stupid or they have staggering evidence to back up their claims. Not many corporations would be willing to risk everything like this over a complete lie. Well, perhaps Enron, Worldcom and Tyco, but those are exceptions.
Most corporations are good, honest, hard working organizations that have the interests of the public at heart. OK, maybe not that either, but they're not willing to put their asses on the line unless they have paper asshole covers to back it up. The question of the day is still, does SCO have their shit in order? If they do then Linux users could be in for a bumpy ride.
Because it's all a racket to pump the stock price so canopy group, and scox execs, can back out. I wouldn't be surprised in the least if this lawsuit never goes to court.
Consider:
June 13th: scox share price goes through the roof on *huge* volume because scox swears it can, and will, cancle IBM's UNIX license.
June 16th: scox could have gone to court and filed for an immediate tempory injunction to stop ibm from selling aix. Scox did nothing of the sort. Instead scox announced that *they* consider ibm's license cancled, and that scox would be "seeking" a permenate injunction - which will take years. But that didn't stop the tech-pop-media from pumping out dozens of headlines about ibm's unix license being cancled.
Scox doesn't want to go court ever. Scox doesn't want to show "evidence" ever.
In Germany, scox was told to put up or shut up. Scox had to show *some* evidence or stop making their claims. Scox immidiately shut down their German web-sites, and signed a document stating they would make no further claims. Germany is scox's second largest market. And scox gave up the German market rather show any evidence.
The entire German incident was ignored by the USA tech-pop-media.
Scox
You are not required to agree to anything to use GPL software.
You are probably correct.
This also means that you can download whatever from the Internet and use it without breaking any laws..
You just can't redistribute it (from the USA and a few other contries).
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
Actually, IBM is quite sure of its footing, and you can see a lot of what IBM's tactics will be in Eric Raymond's position paper for OSI. What should have set off huge warning bells for SCO was IBM's 3 paragraph press release, which included the sentence "This will be resolved in the normal legal process.". For comparison, 2 days later another IBM press release about IBM donating WiFi support to 600 Boys & Girls Clubs ran to 12 paragraphs. Now think about that - they're certain enough of the outcome of a $3B lawsuit that they're spending 4 times as much effort talking about a donation of 6,000 PCs.
IBM is by nature a slow-moving and cautious company, and at the current time there's no reason for them to hurry. Remember - they took 17 years to resolve their anti-trust case a few decades ago, and will spend as many months as they feel needed to get their cased lined up. Also, note that delay may be in IBM's interest - the longer SCO persists in acting foolish, the better the chances that SCO will give IBM more things to use against them.
But rest assured - IBM is pissed, and is readying the corporate equivalent of a "shock and awe" retaliation. They fully intend to leave SCO headquarters looking like Dresden after the firestorms.
Why Dresden rather than Hiroshima? Well, Dresden was a firestorm rather than an explosion - almost all the damage was fueled by the city itself burning rather than externally provided. Similarly, most of the damage to be done to SCO will be fuled by SCO, not IBM...
The tax originally applied to cassette tapes. A similiar tax applies to blank video cassettes. Canada has one on all CD-Rs, the USs is only on the "audio" ones, which is why they cost more.
Furthermore, SCO's claims are bunk as this entry shows, for what SCO is complaining about is the inclusions of pieces of code in IBM's distro, such as JFS. But a Caldera employee at the time was contributing to this process and they didn't complain at the time!
SCO is sunk.
Hehe. Great fun. Nice operating system you have here ... to bad if someone should ... copyright it ...
I'm going to make you an EULA you just can't refuse.
sigs are hazardous to your health
Based on this precedent, tomorrow I will begin licensing copies of Windows XP, for the low low price of $50 a pop. Remember, if you're not getting it through me, you're a dirty rotten pirate and my lawyers will use our bulletproof claim to this intellectual property to sue you three ways from sunday.
If your theory is different from practice, then your theory is wrong.
IANAL, but as I understand it, if you feel there is a reasonable probability that you are going to be sued then you can seek a delcaratory judgement against the party likely to sue you. This aleviates the fear & anxiety of waiting to be sued, by the court giving a ruling as to who would win the case were you sued.
Surely it is in the interest of one, or a group of, companies to fund a preemptive suit for declaratory judgement against SCO? The fact that they are offering to sell people indemnity against being sued would seem to offer reasonable grounds for them to believe that they might be sued, to say the least.
G.
Actually, when MS runs a little low on MS Office revenue, instead of holding a sale (and raising prices later) they just instruct their resellers to stop checking for student ID for the educational version. That gets the units sold number right up but is a blatant violation of the EULA that is promoted by the vendor. I've seen it happen in retail stores and seen an interview where the VP in charge of the Office division confirmed it was policy but, of course, didn't talk about that as piracy.
No. Downloading from Napster/etc. is patently illegal -- it's clear copyright infringement to make an unlicensed copy of a copyrighted work on your hard disk. The DCMA includes a special exemption to that: if you have software which requires a copy be made in order to run the software, then you may make that copy. That way, you don't need a license to install software you've acquired through legal means.
Basically, if there's code in the Linux kernel which isn't properly licensed, then anyone running a copy of the kernel is infringing.
Downloading from Napster/Kazaa/et all is not illegal in and of itself.
However, if you discover that something you downloaded from there is covered by copyright, and you then keep it, then and only then have you committed an illegal act.
A friend of mine put a 3.4 MB text file on Kazaa under the name of some Brittany Spears single, and tagged it as an MP3. Downloading that, even though it had the same name, was not illegal. Neither was uploading it.
Of course, he's doing this because he wants to be sued by a knee-jerk responding RIAA.
I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
This seems like it violates the gpl. Can someone
that has authored code within the linux kernel
please sue SCO and shut them up. This has gone
on long enough. They can not license gpl'd code
to other people, because that breaks the license,
otherwise making them violaters of a copyright
and piraters. SCO has talked and talked, again
and again, but has never shown any evidence.
After this news release, which is obviously made
to heighten their stock value, someone should
follow through and shut them up as was done in
germany.
Downloading Britney Spears anything, however, should be illegal.
Seems there's been a fair amount of trading by the higher-ups in the last couple months. Note, also, the levels of the automatic sales...
http://biz.yahoo.com/t/s/scox.html
"I might have made a tactical error in not going to a physician for 20 years." -- Warren Zevon
As has been constantly said, you can't openly run pirated software or listen to pirated music without fear of reprisal anymore. The corporations that own the intellectual property have wised up to the ways of the Internet and are cracking down. Whether the Linux kernel has any SCO I.P. in it has yet to be proven, but if it does then everyone is on pretty shaky ground.
I'm sorry but you are way off base here and show a lack of understanding of IP law. It depends greatly on exactly what IP rights SCO is asserting were violated. Currently SCO is only asserting breach of contract and trade secret disclosure. The ONLY parties who are liable were the ones who signed the contracts involved.
Even if SCO was to claim copyright violation it would be difficult for them to go after everyone who distributed linux since the distributors and users acted on the assumption of good faith. Typically at worst they could demand that everyone stop distributing the infringing code.
The only scenario where SCO would have any possible legitimate claim against the users would be patent infringement. This is highly unlikely since SCO holds few or no current patents. (if anything SCO should be afraid of violating IBM's patents, indeed this is likely a key part of IBM's defense strategy.)
This case has little or nothing to do with the Internet and much to do with a contract dispute. If SCO was suing Microsoft for breach of contract and disclosure of trade secrets, Windows users would be in no more danger of being individually sued than linux users currently are.
(I do realize that SCO could file lawsuits against individual users if they really wanted to. However when it was discovered that the suits had no basis, SCO would get bitchslaped hard)
Happy Fun Ball is for external use only.
Need i say more? Thats right, scare em into paying. The money is still green right?
--- I was far from home, and the spell of the Eastern sea was upon me. -Lovecraft-
Ha! My sig is working!
If enough people short the stock and the short interest goes sky-high, that by itself will take the wind out of SCO's sails. At some point the herd effect kicks in, and nobody will buy at any price. After all, it's sheer insanity to buy a stock that everyone else is shorting, regardless of what you think of the company's future.
MANY people are looking to short SCO, but most are trying to figure out when the rest of the world realizes there will be no buyout.
If most of the potential buyers (Sun, IBM, etc.) started announcing that no buyout of SCO was under consideration, that might get the ball rolling. Although merger negotiations are always kept secret, a non-merger is under no such restriction, right?
I think if we can get the price under $9, they will be on the fast track to bankruptcy. Keep up the good work Slashdotters!
That's NOT a loophole for SCO in any way, shape, or form.
Clause 4 in the GPL invalidates your license the moment you knowingly distribute intermixed code of your own or someone else's that isn't also GPLed.
SCO continued to sell OpenLinux for 2-3 months after they allegedly found there was allegedly a problem and has continued to distribute the kernel sources now for SEVEN months. This is combined with a public statement from them saying that it was all "okay" for them to do so since the infringing IP was theirs to begin with. That makes whatever SCO has done as premeditated and willful.
Now, charging for licenses means they're intending on claiming that the code is theirs and that it's not under the GPL. This means that SCO is liable for seven months worth of infringement on at least 400 seperate instances of Copyrighted materials- of which they've already made it clear that it was intentional. Not understanding the license doesn't count- you shoul d never agree to something you don't understand fully. And, by distributing Linux, they agreed to all the terms, including clause 4.
There is not going to be a court that is going to let SCO off the hook for this if they go ahead with the licensing ideas. Without the GPL, they can't distribute. Clause 4's not unreasonable and isn't illegal- so it won't be discounted. They distributed the code with the alleged infringing code, knowing it was there, for seven months.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Is there any possibility of class action lawsuits against SCO that Linux users can bring to the court just like LinuxTug? Or any bureaus like FTC or Consumer Affairs to file claims against SCO of unfair business practices?
Now SCO is actively pursuing Linux users' money with underlied implication that if you won't pay, SCO will sue you. IANAL, SCO's action appears to me a threat and extortion, demanding "LICENSE" fees for the product which ownership is yet to be determined by the court. After all this whole thing looks a well planned extortion scheme that, ironically, has been very unsuccessful.