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SCO: Fortune 500 Company Buys License, IBM Retort
An anonymous reader writes "SCO announced today that an undisclosed Fortune 500 company purchased Linux licenses for each of their servers running in their business. SCO: 'This Fortune 500 company recognizes the importance of paying for SCO's intellectual property that is found in Linux and can now run Linux in their environment under a legitimate license from SCO. We anticipate this being the first of many licensees that will properly compensate SCO for our intellectual property.'" kanly writes "The full text of IBM's countersuit against SCO is now online at LWN." M : Our own Roblimo has a pretty good take on it. Keep in mind that SCO could sell a blanket license for $1, for the publicity value.
Good news is SCOX closed down 14% today.
Help fight continental drift.
I posted this link under Linux Gaining Ground in India but it is worth repeating.
Because Linus and all of the other people who contributed to Linux released their code under the GPL. This is one of the main arguments with SCO....whether or not they actually released the code under GPL, which (if they DID) would prevent them from claiming IP rights on it.
No idea what most of this means, but it sounds very impressive :-)
First Defense
The complaint fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.
Second Defense
SCO's claims are barred because IBM has not engaged in any unlawful or unfair business practices, and IBM's conduct was privileged,performed in the exercise of an absolute right, proper and/or justified.
Third Defense
SCO lacks standing to pursue its claims against IBM.
Fourth Defense
SCO's claims are barred, in whole or in part, by the applicable statutes of limitations.
Fifth Defense
SCO's claims are barred, in whole or in part, by the economic-loss doctrine or the dependent-duty doctrine.
Sixth Defense
SCO's claims are barred by the doctrines of laches and delay.
Seventh Defense
SCO's claims are barred by the doctrines of waiver, estoppel and unclean hands.
Eighth Defense
SCO's claims are, in whole or in part, pre-empted by federal law.
Ninth Defense
SCO's claims are improperly venued in this district.
Tenth Defense
SCO has failed, in whole or in part, to mitigate its alleged damages.
Take that, SCO! ;-)
Ah, indeed, I'm incorrect:
m l
;-)
http://www.historybuff.com/library/refbarnum.ht
Fairly obscure, so I'm not too upset that I didn't know.
Mikey-San
Karma: +Eleventy billion (mostly affected by watching Celebrity Jeopardy)
And this would seem to substantiate your guess.
Roblimo's text follows from newsforge.
Yes, they found someone gullible enough to bite. At least that's what they're claiming in a press release that's being spread all over the place, including on money.cnn.com. Naturally, SCO can't tell you who it is because of "confidentiality provisions," but the truth will certainly come out sooner or later.
Of course, if this anonymous Fortune 500 company later finds that SCO had no legitimate right to sell Linux licenses in the first place, they are going to be a bit upset, and since one characteristic shared by all Fortune 500 companies is the availability of nearly infinite numbers of inhouse lawyers and outside law firm attorneys, SCO is going to be in a world of hurt if it turns out, as IBM claims, that SCO released all the disputed Linux code under GPL.
Not that we care, since we don't own any SCO stock, and we don't use any SCO (proprietary) software products that are likely to become unsupported orphans if SCO gets trampled by the combined legal might of the growing number of companies their license blackmail scheme has offended.
Linux is worth big money!
We should look at this latest episode in the SCO soap opera as heartening news. Somewhere out there, one of the world's largest corporations has decided Linux is worth paying plenty of money to use, even if that money is going to the least-deserving party possible. This certainly gives the lie to any statement about how Linux has only gained corporate acceptance because it's free.
SCO's antics may cause a few potential (corporate) Linux converts to hold off deployment for a bit, but in the long run this may be the most positive PR boost Linux has ever gotten.
This sig no verb.
I wonder what a million phone calls and requests for written information would do for SCO? :) Perhaps all Linux users should at least request written (paper) documentation on all information from SCO.
.sigs are for post^Hers.
An undisclosed Fortune 500 company paid an undisclosed amount for an undisclosed number of licenses for undisclosed code in the Linux kernel.
Is anyone else skeptical? Or is it just me?
heres the link to the download locations for sco's distro on linux.org some of the foreign ones work. lol
Make that two words: Spineless suckers.
Unless it's M$FT. Then the two words are: Silent partner.
--Given the boom in world population the rate has to be every 28 seconds by now.
More anti-SCO t-shirts:
http://www.cafeshops.com/politinerd
Fight Sco!
SCO's stock price had been declining, for the most part, all day. But then the announcement of the license purchase seems to have helped them pull it back up a bit.
There was a rather interesting dip to $8.27 a share from around $9.00 a share just before they released the news.
See SCOX on finance
This like needs to be put here more often. There's even XML data available. . .
--
me
There is a small, 22-KB gzip version of the entire IBM answer and counterclaimon mozillaquest.com in their IBM counterclaim story. The first part of IBM's filing with the answers is just boring boiler-plate. If you scroll right on down (about half-way) to the counterclaim stuff it is very informative. Download that file and read what IBM has to say in IBM's own words
Right. Check out the revenues for Omega Protein Corp. 25.1 Million probably isn't going to get them into the Fortune 500.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
All of this is doing wonders for SCO's stock price.
Quite unfortunate that my broker didn't have any shares available for me to short.
The deal is not with Microsoft Corp. or Sun Microsystems Inc., two prominent companies that have already signed other licensing agreements with SCO to cover their commercial products, Stowell said.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
Microsoft just anounced that it had a Linux test lab. I am sure MS has just bought a license for every processor in that lab and more. Remember that the "license" it has already paid for is for its Unix Services not Linux.
Just another way to funnel the FUD money. And to enable SCO not to have to outright lie in its press release. As if they wouldn't lie - they are just "economical with the truth"
Only an idiot buys "blue sky". Something they can't see, feel or touch; is intangible, and very likely does not even exist, or at least has not been prooven to exist.
Those who would give up liberty in exchange for security and DRM should switch to Microsoft Palladium!
I believe that M$ would qualify as a fortune 500 company.. They already licensed SCO Linux.. Why not buy SCO Linux licenses for the Linux Lab that they are setting up.. Makes sense to me....
CFO Robert K Bench sold 7000 shares this morning. Fortunately because of the big press release that SCO sold a license nobody noticed :)
From the .pdf you linked to:
...
The source code for which Caldera International, Inc. grants rights are limited to the following Unix Operating Systems that operate on the 16-Bit PDP-11 CPU and early versions of the 32-Bit Unix Operating System, with specific exclusion of Unix System III and Unix System V and successor operating systems:
This is the very old codebase, just when 32-bit CPUs started showing up. And they specifically exclude Sys III and Sys V, which are the modern incantations of Unix.
No, it's not... the licence is "limited to the following UNIX Operating Systems that operate on the 16-Bit PDP-11 CPU and early versions of the 32-Bit UNIX Operating System, with specific exclusion of UNIX System III and UNIX System V and successor operating systems"
It is the "UNIX System V" that is in question...
"Go to CNN [for a] spell-checked, fact-checked summary" -- CmdrTaco
They are concerned about our feelings. Here is a link to give them some feedback http://www.sco.com/company/feedback/index.html