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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.
SUCKERS. I really want to put some sort of useful comment in this post but that word just keeps repeating.
The article is here...
-- search the web
We can't name the company because they don't exi-- er, because of legal reasons.
The SCO(R) Group (SCO) today announced the signing of its first Intellectual Property Compliance License for SCO UNIX Rights.
How could Microsoft NOT be forced into buying these for its "new" Linux Lab (mentioned here several times in the past week.)?
"We've had more than 300 companies in the first four business days of this program contact SCO to inquire about SCO's Intellectual Property License for Linux," said Chris Sontag
Yeah, and 299 of them were trolls from pissed off slashdotters.
To ensure perfect aim, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target
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.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
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.
Maybe they're suckers, or maybe they just don't exist.
So an undisclosed company has bought thier license because SCO claims an undisclosed segment of the linux kernel source is their IP. This sounds like crap to me, for reasons I won't disclose.
And did you read the article? Christ, it sounds liek an SCO commercial. I'm not sure how "The SCO Group helps millions of customers in more than 82 countries to grow their businesses everyday" when it seems all they do is tax them on free software.
"Question with boldness even the existence of a god." - Thomas Jefferson
I seriously doubt anyone caved in. At this point it would be silly to do so. IBM and Redhat are countersuing SCO. I think that any of the corporate types would realize that they can wait until these lawsuits progress before that have to pay anything. Most likely, the company got the licenses for next to nothing and it is in a position to benefit if SCO gets what it wants in the end.
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the "Undisclosed Fortune 500 Company" is none other than Microsoft
I doubt it...
A) It's already common knowledge that MS has purchased some sort of unix license from SCO.
B) If it was MS they probably would have said "Fortune 100" or smaller in order to have an even larger PR impact.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
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http://www.goingware.com/notes/prosecute-sco.html
Here's the introduction: Also from the article: 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.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
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!
I am not a lawyer, but -- not that someone *has* indeed paid their extortion money, SCO is now officially guilty of fraud, no?
I mean, can't every single developer of Linux who has contributed code now sue SCO for a portion of that "extortion money" / and/or sue them for illegally charging for something that is supposed to be free?
In other words, now that there has been an exchange of money, isn't the "john" as guilty now as the "prostitute"?
Sale of stolen goods and all that nonsense? I mean, lets say for a minute that it is Microsoft that just paid to license linux.
By the legal system as I understand it, the recipient of the stolen goods is also liable. If you buy an illegal DVD on the street in Chinatown, can't you also be busted by the cops just as much as the seller?
So, this could be a double edged sword, even for those that want to appease their PHB's by forking over the money for the license, no?
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
So I was skimming along when all of a sudden, they got all preachy on me:
Huh?? Pray for relief?? Well, okay. Here it goes:
IBM is my shepherd; I shall not want.
IBM maketh me to lie down in green tinted monitors: IBM leadeth me beside the still line printers.
IBM restoreth my deleted files: IBM leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for the heck of it.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of SCO, I will fear no eavil: for IBM art with me; their rod and their staff and their lawyers, they comfort me.
Thou preparest a legal brief before me in the presence of mine enemies: though anointest my code with gdb; my buffer does not runneth over.
Surely goodess and mercy shall follow me all the days I code: and I will dwell in the house of Stallman forever.
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?
DiscDividers tabbed plastic CD dividers: divider cards f
This wont mean anything in court because the act of selling something does n't mean you had the right to sell it in the first place.
Look at it this way, lets say I claim to own the rights to Windows and sell 1,000,000 licenses, it does n't validate any claim. 1,000,000 may have believed what I said but it does n't make my claims any more right.
In fact if anything this could be used by IBM as evidence of SCO strong-arm tactics.
So, an undisclosed company has purchased an undisclosed amount of licenses for an undisclosed amount of undisclosed code for an undisclosed sum of money...and we call this news?
We're sorry. We meant to say a Fortune *500,000,000* company. It was actually a lemonade stand, and they were using old RedHat disks as coasters. We traded them a license for 2 cups of lemonade.
--Darl
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Gosh, if only the Internet provided some way of looking things up....
Army of One!
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..
Don't Tread on OpenSource
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.
I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
SCO announces a record profit for the year!
"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."
Should be more like:
10) Even if we did something wrong (which we didn't) SCO isn't allowing anyone to remove its supposed code, so any damages they suffer they have brought upon themselves.
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.
Request your free CD of my piano music.