Slashdot Mirror
SCO Wants $699 for Linux Systems
walterbyrd quotes: "'We believe it is necessary for Linux customers to properly license SCO's IP if they are running Linux 2.4 kernel and later versions for commercial purposes. The license insures that customers can continue their use of binary deployments of Linux without violating SCO's intellectual property rights.' SCO will be offering an introductory license price of $699 for a single CPU system through October 15th, 2003." Update: 08/05 18:24 GMT by M : After October 15, SCO says they'll want $1399. Better buy now!
We had Red Hat enter the game yesterday. With SCO requiring money for a Linux license, I think it is time for GNU to enter the game and sue SCO for violating terms of the GPL.
SCO wants money. I want code, and I want proof that they can legally do this. No code? No proof? No money.
It's that simple.
I strongly suspect some major holders of Linux copyrights are about to jump in with Red Hat, demanding that SCO prove it can do this.
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
Because the SCO license authorizes run-time use only, customers also comply with the General Public License, under which Linux is distributed.
sHi
The SCO stock is so much shorted that is has become diffcult to borrow the stock to short. Datek (Ameritrade now) did not let me short SCO for a long time (it doesn't let me even now, but I stopped trying).
Very funny coincedence -- when NOVL said they own the IP for UNIX, I sold SUN and tried to short SCO. Now, after the shit SUN pulled with SCO, I put that money yesterday into RHAT (small amount of money, so it is more like a fun story)
S
As a contractor and an consultant, I'm documenting all lost sales and damages. Should SCO lose, and it be shown in court that this was truly BS/FUD, I'll have legal recourse.
The SCO folks are making such GENERAL statements against Linux, Linux Users, and Linux consultants, that it should NOT be hard to prove their negligence/libel/slander in court.
But by the end of the SCO/IBM lawsuit, the SCO bigwhigs will have unloaded all their stock anyway, and there won't be much to collect on.
----- LoboSoft specializes in Digital Language Lab
> PS: SCO is going down, and everybody know it (including SCO). The question is: will they drag Linux too....
It's a kamakazi attack. Remember that these people don't have any interest in SCO as a software firm. They're ambulance chasers, jackals who bought a moribund enterprise in hopes of squeezing some cash out of it and discarding the husk. If they can get the most cash by hurling it at other companies as a bomb, then that's exactly what they'll do with it.
And it appears that that is the course they decided on.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
A single CPU license (the first one) costs $699. Any more cost $749. Isn't that backwards?
Doesn't SCO claim that its properties include only SMP and related technologies? If that's the case, then a single CPU license would not be required at all because SCO's technologies apply only to multiple-CPU boxes.
Mind you, their story has changed so often it's hard to know what they actually claim now. Today's claims are probably different than yesterdays. Oh, it's after noon? Then the claims are different than they were this morning.
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
Dear fellow geek,
Consider your future as laughing-stock at your next employer. The shame in working for SCO is fast approaching that of working for Microsoft.
Consider that you will need a job after SCO Enrons (hey, any noun can be verbed), and that I, for one, would be suspicious about taking you on, if I knew you had stayed throughout this outrage.
So for your own good, WALK OUT NOW and make it a public walk-out! Do it while your options are still worth money, at least. Hurry!
WKR,
A concerned fellow geek.
And they refuse to provide any information until you give them your phone number and name. Yeah, I don't see them sending me any bills in the mail.
aren't we overdue for a new, less sympathetic SCO icon? i mean, if we borgify M$ surely something similar is way past warranted for these guys?
ed
At $699 they very obviously don't expect anyone to pay (except maybe some allies like Microsoft who will very publicly purchase some token seats).
Well, Microsoft uses Linux in their test lab. I wonder how many licenses they'll be purchasing.
// TODO: fix sig
He is calling out RMS by name. This is a lot worse than "hey your product infringes on our product". This is a declaration that proprietary source and open source cannot co-exist in the same world.
In his closing remarks, McBride likens SCO's actions against Linux end users to the RIAA's actions against P2P copyright infringers.
This is some lethal FUD here. There is a huge difference between music thieves and open source developers. Music thieves are in fact making using other people's work without their consent, whereas open source developers create their own independent content and distibute it on their own chosen terms. We are indies. We are not warez d00dz.
Back to SCO
Classical company: make products and services, sell them to customers for money, profit.
F/OSS community: make products and services, give them away, self-generating funding, community rewards (but not much profit).
SCO: generate FUD, sell "ScoSource licenses" to Microsoft and Sun, profit.
Classical companies took some time to adjust to the radically different approach of the F/OSS Community. We don't breath the same oxygen that they do, so strategies that worked against, say, Netscape, do not work against, say, Apache.
Similarly, SCO has a radically different model. SCO throws shit like a mad monkey at the Bronx zoo. For a classical corporation, there is huge backlash to this, because customers tend to avoid the products and services of the shit-thrower. But SCO doesn't care, because they don't make their profit from selling products and services
How to fight something like this?
Well, Linuxtag did something effective. Red Hat's lawsuit may or may not be effective, but it sure is good for morale. I asked RMS to boycott SCO -- remove support for SCO operating systems from GNU products -- but he replied that he didn't think it would be effective (because SCO can just maintain their own branch). I disagree with that and I urge more developers to follow Fyodor's lead and remove OpenServer and UnixWare as configuration options in their software.
SCO makes money by throwing shit at Linux -- not indirectly by increasing sales of their products (which does not work very well), but directly, in the form of checks from Microsoft and Sun.
SCO has essentially two assets and is fighting on two levels. They have legal claims and are pursuing those in court. But they also have PR assets. It is deadly for us to reply to their PR attacks with legal defenses. We have to attack SCO's PR assets.
Some ideas for an attack:
. SCO claims they spent hundreds of millions of dollars developing and purchasing the rights to Unix. Well, actually, they probably spent a lot less than that. Check how much they raised in their IPO and how much revenue they've made since then and how much they've actually spent on engineering.
. SCO even bought their name! The SCO Group didn't build a reputation on that name. They used to be Caldera International, but when that didn't work, they bought the name from the Santa Cruz Operation.
. SCO isn't a product and service company. Their revenues are tiny and declining. Their VP of Engineering sold all his stock (and I've heard a rumor that he left the company, haven't tracked it down yet). It's not enough to point out that they are litigious. Point out that they have nil legitimate technology to bring to the table.
Sorry this rambles a bit, I should write an essay instead of just rambling in a comment box.