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.

Comments

I'll take a guess

[Trogre]

With their new 'testing labs', what's the bet that it's Microsoft?

I'm sure they'd love to further finance Caldera's extortion/FUD campaign.

Word count

[brejc8]

Article length: 184 words
Sales pitch: 169 words
Im taking everything below "For more information on the SCO Intellectual Property License for Linux, contact SCO..." as sales pitch

So what happens when we win?

[ChiefArcher]

What happens when we win?
Does that fortune 500 company look like a complete fool? Do they get their money back?
Do they sue for extortion?

The company that did it is a fool. It's probably Microsoft... registering their 2 copies.

ChiefArcher

GPL goes to court

[k-hell]

I read this interesting article over at The Register by Andrew Orlowski about taking GPL to court. My favorite quote:

The greatest strength of the GPL is that it's a social contract, one that makes the most powerful, who can buy the legal system, think twice before going to law. And that's pretty powerful.

But with IBM's counter suit against SCO explicitly defending its rights in terms of the GPL, it looks like The One Thing we Didn't Want To Happen will happen. We'll have a random judge poking holes in the GPL, on some perfectly defensible grounds that bear little relevance to the social obligations these imply. As if he's supposed to know the difference.

Re:There is one word to describe these people:

[brejc8]

I wonder if they really are suckers.
SCO needed someone to admit paying up. So what if they got a company which has just the one or two linux servers to pay in exchange for SCO paying them back double.
Company is happy, SCO looks more credible and lawyers get their share.

Please Copy "Let's Put SCO Behind Bars

[MichaelCrawford]

Please copy my article "Let's Put SCO Behind Bars" to your own website. I released it under a Creative Commons license. I designed the page to be very easy to copy, with only very simple, valid markup, and no external dependencies like images or stylesheets. It even looks good in lynx!

• http://www.goingware.com/notes/prosecute-sco.html

Here's the introduction:

While the lawsuits being defended by IBM and filed by Red Hat are likely to put an end to The SCO Group's menace to the Free Software community, I don't think simply putting the company out of business is likely to prevent us from being threatened this way again by other companies who are enemies to our community. I feel we need to send a stronger message.

If we all work together, we can put the executives of the SCO Group in prison where they belong.

If you live in the U.S., please write a letter to your state Attorney General. If you live elsewhere, please write your national or provincial law enforcement authorities. Please ask that the SCO Group be prosecuted for criminal fraud and extortion.

Also from the article:

Stockholders in any of the affected companies - either SCO or its competitors - may wish to avail themselves of the Security and Exchange Commission's Investor Complaint Form to ask that something be done about this. You may not even be aware that you have standing to complain: if you invest in any mutual funds that hold shares in SCO, IBM, Red Hat or any other company that offers Linux products or services, then you have a right to ask the SEC to investigate. Check with your mutual fund to fund out which securities are in its portfolio.

This page provides the article in the UBB code that some message boards use, with plain text coming soon. I'm also starting to post examples of letters that others have sent to their Attorney's General.

Thanks for your help.

Re:There is one word to describe these people:

[bigjocker]

The word that keeps comming to my mind is: Microsoft.

They are a fortune 500 company, have had business with SCO this year regarding this UNIX licensing fiasco, and have opened the Open Source Test Lab. I'm pretty sure they would benefit a lot by licensing all the linux in their Test Lab with SCO, that way they support the case and fuel SCO's FUD machine.

Word for the wise...

[stephenry]

Just so that everyone knows. This "news" became public around the same time as SCO's stock was in free-fall. In fact, the stock was trading 2 dollars lower than its opening price and falling. I found this rather a coincidence because since the news came out, the stock actually regained an entire dollar to its value.

Oh, and by the way, one of the executives (ROBERT BENCH) unloaded 7,000 shares today just after the market opened. How strange.

Keep an eye out on who of loads their shares tomorrow!

Sorry, but if that's the case it needs this trial

[Kjella]

But with IBM's counter suit against SCO explicitly defending its rights in terms of the GPL, it looks like The One Thing we Didn't Want To Happen will happen. We'll have a random judge poking holes in the GPL, on some perfectly defensible grounds that bear little relevance to the social obligations these imply.

If that's the case, maybe the social contract needs work. You certainly see the same in the legal system, people find new loopholes, legislators try to close them. Do you really expect every company under the sun to have a social integrity and uphold those social obligations on their own accord? They won't. And when they break them, the GPL had better have the necessary legal force to rein them in, because that is just about the only real countermeasure available. Any holes they manage to poke will only serve to be the foundation for a GPL 3.0

Kjella

Re:A cave in...

[Angst Badger]

in the larger scheme of things it just makes SCO's complaint look valid

Hardly. Any random judge picked at random might be technically clueless, but I'm sure they all understand the logic behind hedging one's bets against litigation -- aside from seeing it every damn day of their working lives, they are all lawyers, after all.

Isn't this distribution under the GPL?

[notyou2]

Okay, so SCO just licensed a product containing (according to them) their proprietary source code combined with GPL'd source code. By the very act of bundling the two, doesn't this now give the licensee the right to modify and/or redistribute said work?

In other words... SCO can claim (*cough*BULLSHIT*cough*) that they had no idea their IP was in linux when they distributed it previously, but now that they have SPECIFICALLY given someone rights to their particular IP, in a product bundled with GPL'd code, aren't they now EXPLICITLY releasing their IP as GPL?

Re:Isn't this distribution under the GPL?

[notyou2]

No, they only sell the rights to use it in binary form.

That's precisely what the GPL prohibits. I cannot take proprietary code, link it with GPL code, and sell the resulting binary unless I put the entire thing under the GPL.

By their own admission, SCO is apparently now distributing a "properly licensed" version of linux containing their IP alongside the GPL'd "portions" of linux (according to them).

If you distribute anything that's linked with GPL stuff, you MUST provide source and allow modification/redistribution... that's the single-sentence summary of the entire GPL.

Mirror the UNIX Source Code

[armypuke]

As mentioned on GROKLAW, SCO seems to have forgotten that Caldera released the old UNIX source code under a BSD-style license. The source code that was released is still available. When SCO finds out that their "intellectual property" is freely available on the internet, I don't think they are going to be too happy. We all need to start making copies of the old UNIX source code before SCO tries to do something about it.

Re:There is one word to describe these people:

[DaveAtFraud]

If it was anybody else they wouldn't have a reason for keeping it a secret. SCO has a huge incentive for being able to publicize any big names besides Micro$oft who pony up. I would think they would be more than willing to cut a deal on the licensing fees just to be able to publicize whoever paid... but that assumes its a company who has a significant number of Linux boxes and who doesn't mind telling the world that they use Linux.

"Undisclosed Fortune 500 company" my a$$.

I know who bought it..

[linuxislandsucks]

I know who bought the license..

Straight from yahoo.com

http://biz.yahoo.com/t/47/4393.html

Oemga Protein Corp..

Wilson, M Senior Vice President of SCO Group is also
Vice President of Omega Protein Corp..

Re:The best bits from IBM...

[NecroPuppy]

Pretty simple, but if I mess something up too badly, someone who is a lawyer can correct me.

1) None of what they (SCO) said we (IBM) did is against the law.

2) No really, none of it was against the law, and here are the contracts we had that prove we didn't do anything wrong.

3) Piss off, you don't have any real reason to file this suit. (No, really, that's what a lack of standing defense means.)

4) Even if we (IBM) did do something wrong (which we didn't), then SCO didn't file in time to actually do anything about it.

5) Even if we (IBM) did do something wrong (which we didn't), then SCO didn't lose any money from it (mostly because their business sucked before any of this started).

6) When they 'found' what they say we (IBM) did (and, no we _really_ didn't do it) they waited too long after they found out about it to tell us there was an issue. [Not the same as #4.]

7) We (IBM) bought the stuff from the Original SCO (now Tarrentula), and the new SCO (dirtbags) can't sue us for stuff we legally liscenced from them.

8) Talk to the Feds. We (IBM) still didn't do anything wrong, and even if we did, Federal law says it wasn't wrong, it was legit.

9) They (SCO) are playing the ball in the wrong court. Come play in our backyard, and this arguement goes away.

10) Even when they (SCO) found what they say we (IBM) did wrong, they didn't try to stop it first, they just went straight to the lawyers.

Re:A cave in...

[AntiOrganic]

It doesn't really matter if they paid for it or not.

Should the IP claims [inevitably] turn out to be invalid, this company now has certifiable legal grounds to sue SCO for all their licensing money back. And more lawsuits over this sort of thing will just hurt SCO's stock values more in the long run.

Just think of it as "insurance."

Re:are they?

[MuParadigm]

I agree with the spirit of what you are saying.

Unfortunately, the GPL doesn't hold anyway in the case of non-distribution. Therefore, the purchasers of the license are not under any legal liability from the GPL. Sure it's an abrogation of the spirit of the GPL, but not the lettter.

Of course, why anyone would *pay* to limit their rights to use the software, I have no idea. I know there are people who pay to have things reamed up their asses once in a while, but they seem to enjoy it. But I don't see how a corporation could find this licensing extortion fun at all.

Oh well, maybe I'm just naive. I mean, you should have seen the expression on my face the first time I heard about a Prince Albert.

How to shoot yourself in 500 other feet...

[Simon Brooke]

So this unnamed Fortune 500 company now has a license from SCO to use Linux. However, that doesn't mean they can legally use Linux; on the contrary, it means they can't legally use Linux, at least not on any machine on which it is not already loaded.

Why not?

SCO are clearly in breach of the GPL since they have imposed ...further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights... contrary to paragraph 6; and clearly they may not distribute Linux (or anything linked to any part of Linux) at all. But in accepting SCO's claim to have the right to charge these fees, in paying these fees, the unnamed company is effectively in breach of paragraph 6, and may not redistribute to itself...

In other words, the poor schmucks have got themselves in some very tortuous legal soup, and they end up losing out no matter who wins.

License program "suspended until further notice"

[MichaelCrawford]

I called just now. They said at first that they wanted my name and number so someone could call me back, and I gave it to them. Then they asked if I already had a license that I wanted to renew, so I said no.

I explained that I had several linux systems, and that I understood there were some intellectual property issues, so I wanted to be sure to be covered.

The helpful and polite lady on the phone told me that the license program had been "suspended until further notice". She said she was pretty sure it had to do with the lawsuit.

May you should call too (800 726 8649) just to be sure.

Interestiiing.

[eddy]

Soon we'll have McBride swearing there never were any kind of linux license(s) sold... That PR was just... an accident. Yes. Some secretary released it by mistake. Oh, yes.

Oh well, it's interesting to follow, I'll give you that. I've learned a lot about the stockmarket the last few days.

Stupid Question...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, it may be a stupid question, but ... Isn't Microsoft a fortune 500 company? And wouldn't that also explain immediately why it is an undisclosed company that paid SCO?