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SCO Extorting Unixware Licenses to Linux Users?
An anonymous user noted that SCO will
sell you Unixware if you want to "Legitimize" your usage of Linux at your company. If you buy the license, you will be held blameless for your transgressions against SCO! Pricing has yet to be determined for the special licenses, but I suspect that for any value greater than zero, there are going to be a fair number of angry users.
Ok, maybe I don't understand, but isn't supplying a binary-only copy of Linux w/o source the exact opposite of every ideal GNU and the FSF stand for? Maybe I read the article wrong, if anyone can clue me in I'd appreciate. Is this a violation of the GPL?
is it possible that microsoft are paying sco to become 'most hated business ever' so that we stop beating up on the redmond boys? i'm running out of logical alternatives for this story. i mean... does sco really believe that anyone believes that linux belongs to them?
Ceci n'est pas une signature
Rather than buying a license, why not just go to their ftp site and download the source code to the Linux kernel? SCO is still distributing the Linux kernel sources under the GPL.
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
At what point can SCO finally be charged with fraud, extortion, and stock manipulation? When can SCO at least be sued in a civil court?
This is the most blantant racket I have ever witnessed. And the USA legal system seems to be completely incapible of doing anything about it. Frankly it is beginning to look like another huge failure of the USA legal system.
Germany shut down SCO a long time ago. Germany said put up or shut up - show us some evidence or stop making claims. Predictably, SCO ran away with it's tail between it's legs.
I have always been a bit patriotic. Honorably discharged from the US Air Force and all. It pains me to see how patheticly inept the US legal system really is.
Actually, it's a bit more than that. Since nothing has yet been proven and all of this is allegation, isn't this just a form of blackmail? Isn't that illegal? Here is a definition of "blackmail", which I find very interesting indeed:
It isn't much of a stretch to see how today the threat of "exposing a criminal act or discreditable information" has the same effect as "threatening to sue the pants off of someone for alleged and unproven wrongdoing." Perhaps even more interesting is the relationship of this next definition to SCO's current approach:
(All of these from dictionary.com) That last one is all about what SCO wants: "We're the pirates, pay us and we won't harm you."
I may be wrong (hey, it's happened before), but I find it interesting that the people who shout most loudly about their legal rights are often those quickest to disregard the rights of others.
Check out this posting from yesterday. You can download a GPLed copy of the Linux kernel from SCO, if you feel you need a license from them.
Problem solved, let's go back to writing code.
...things are not always as they appear.
I am confident (though possibly wrong of course) that SCO is doing ALL of this for one reason and one reason only. Stock price manipulation. Look at the following issues and contrast them with the timing on this whole fiasco.
52 week stock price of SCO (SCOX)
Price of stock after each insane press release (while SCO has yet to show anything of substance, press releases feed the hungry speculative buyers out there).
Issuance of stock options at very low ($.6x) prices.
Exercising of options.
Sale of stock from exercised options.
I mean come on, most of these guys got options when the stock was at $.66 just before all of this craziness started. Then they crank up the stock price (fueled by nothing more than baseless accusations in the form of press releases) to $10-$12/share, exercise and dump. Where the heck is the SEC on this!!!
I believe that basically the execs at SCO new the ship was going down. They are doing what they're doing to squeeze what blood they can out of the turnip that is SCO. Once they have gotten what they can from stock games, they'll pull an "Oops, I guess we were wrong about that whole Linux intellectual property thing.", turn out the lights and call it quits...money in the bank.
Anyone disagree?
ER
"Obviously Linux owes its heritage to UNIX, but not its code. We would not, nor will not, make such a claim."
Darl McBride, CEO, The SCO Group, August 2002 Linux Journal Article #6293
This is a test. This is a test of the emergency sig system. This has been only a test.
I work at a software vendor who produces software for numerous large commercial instituations such as banks, telco's, etc. We have recently had a number of these companies request that we sign an agreement stating that software we have provided them DOES NOT contain any "Free Software". This has been a headache as of late, especially for my team. We work in Java and have used numerous LGPL libraries from various locations in our product to save time during development. We now have to get rid of all of these and rewrite it ourselves. Not fun.
mp3's are only for those with bad memories
In SCO's case, the damages could be easily mitigated by releasing enough detailed information so that the offending modules can be rewritten. Now we have a good idea why SCO has chosen not to do this, it is not to their short term advantage. They are relying on FUD to boost their stock prices and provide a cash stream to pay Bois and friends.
So the real question is, how will the court interpret the fact that they have refused to mitigate damages? Any lawyers out there that can answer this question?
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
I would really hate any company to read this, and think that SCO has any legal ground vs. the linux community whatsoever, so I will repost my message, from yesterday, here to clarify SCO's idiocy:
. org/copyleft/gpl.html
...
Here, is where I think SCOs major flaw in their argument is, the GPL circa Jan 28, 1999 explicitly states in its preamble:
To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid anyone to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights. These restrictions translate to certain responsibilities for you if you distribute copies of the software, or if you modify it.
For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the source code. And you must show them these terms so they know their rights.
Refer to way back machine: http://web.archive.org/web/19990128195748/www.gnu
And seeing as how SCO has been distributing Linux which had their code in the kernel. They have thusly, knowingly or not, distributed their rights, to the GPLd code in question, to the public. Because, of the statement above. Or if you want to hear it straight from GNU's statement:
Moreover, there are straightforward legal reasons why SCO's assertions concerning claims against the kernel or other free software are likely to fail. As to its trade secret claims, which are the only claims actually made in the lawsuit against IBM, there remains the simple fact that SCO has for years distributed copies of the kernel, Linux, as part of GNU/Linux free software systems. Those systems were distributed by SCO in full compliance with GPL, and therefore included complete source code. So SCO itself has continuously published, as part of its regular business, the material which it claims includes its trade secrets. There is simply no legal basis on which SCO can claim trade secret liability in others for material it widely and commercially published itself under a license that specifically permitted unrestricted copying and distribution.
...
Occam's razor is the blind faith in the natural selection of least resistance and in universal oversimplification. -- EF
As I posted in another thread, after reading a fairly good article on the subject in eWeek this morning, I think the SCO suit is going to be completely irrelevant to most people for the following reasons (IANAL, this is my opinion based on articles I've read and etc):
1. The suit isn't due to come into court until 2005. Until the court makes some kind of judgement, SCO has absolutely zero legal power to demand anything from anyone. They can send all the letters they want; but until a court makes a decision, they're just letters.
2. By 2005, the BSDs and Linux will have become so similar in functionality, hardware support, and applications, that migrating from one to the other will be fairly painless. Since the BSDs are unencumbered, and SCO is specifically targeting the Linux 2.4 kernel, this means we have a great big safety net.
3. By 2005, who's going to be using the 2.4 kernel? Unabomber-like holdouts, crouching in a shed with a dilapidated old Pentium-II and a stockpile of candy bars and beer? Any code which even remotely looks like SCO code is going to be stripped out long before then. So, the code in use by the time the court convenes is going to be unencumbered anyway. What could SCO possibly charge people money for, even if they win?
4. 2005 gives the market a full two years to crush SCO. The court case will probably drag on for another two or three years, giving the market even more time. How is a company like SCO going to stay aloat that long? How is it going to avoid a hostile takeover for that long? Two to five years is an eternity when it comes to software.
5. By 2008 (when the case would probably get wrapped up and appealed, etc), do you think we're still going to be using X86 machines, anyway? It's 2003; how many of you are still using the 486's you had in '98? Who's still using a 16 bit O/S? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?
Add it all together, and you'll see that buying SCO right now is a sucker move. If you just continue with business as usual, keeping the option of switching to BSD down the road, or updating to a new, unencumbered kernel, or migrating from X86 to whatever new platform is the vogue in 2005, you can (I think) pretty much ignore SCO. If, and this is remote, they win, it won't matter anyway. You can still dodge their sad attempts at extortion as I've pointed out.
This whole thing is a total non-issue.
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!