SCO Run-Time Licenses: Get 'em While They're Hot!

ddtstudio writes "Well, if you've been holding off your payments to SCO for your Linux usage, eWeek reports that you need wait no longer. SCO has now made available for your IP pleasure their run-time licenses -- that is, if you can get one. Seems there are some problems getting even sales people at SCO to answer the phone. Is this any way to run a business?"

Comments

Re:What if.

[BdosError]

If you ask for it, it's not fraud.

Re:What if.

[Mr. Darl McBride]

What if you called SCO and told them that you have X copies of linux (non SCO) and asked them to send you an invoice. If they then actually invoiced you for a product you never bought from them could you then charge them with fraud?

SCO are being quite careful about ensuring that people know this is not a Linux license, but rather a license for any IP that may be contained in Linx. They've even gone as far as to make a part of the license contract be an agreement that they don't owe anything in return, even if it's found that there is no SCO IP present.

If SCO were flat-out licensing Linux to you, you would have a case. But it's a bit more blurry (though that doesn't mean it's entirely legal) with the way they're handling it.

You can be sure that SCO's laywers have been hammering on this for quite a while, and while the broad strategies SCO have been using seem pretty strange, SCO isn't going to hang itself when it comes to collecting cash instead of just spewing bizarre quotes to the press.

Sep 9th: SCO CEO Posts Open Letter to OS community

[mybecq]

See the following new letter (dated Sept 9th!):
http://www.linuxworld.com/story/34007.htm

Re:Dang it!

[TexVex]

I logged into my eTrade account this afternoon to have a look at the status of my stock options, and just for the hell of it punched in "SCOX" on the stock symbol search box. I got the expected info on the current stock price, market cap, etc., but was bewildered when I went to the "Company News" section. Believe it or not, fellow slashdot geeks, nothing I saw on eTrade linked to the Open Group, the FSF, or to Linus' "they're smoking crack" comment.

SCO's press releases are being reported as straight news. The business world isn't going to wake up and smack SCO because right now they have no clue about what SCO is really up to.

Re:But what do their employees think

[Mr. Darl McBride]

But what do their employees think?

And by that I mean the coders (if they have any left)?

You've pretty much answered your question in the parenthesis. SCO has laid off most of its development staff, and there have been a few high-profile people quitting as well. What's left at SCO is mostly the legal team and a handful of salespeople.

If you visit SCO's website and look at the hiring page, you'll presently find no open positions. I think this means SCO are pretty much digging in and wagering the entire future of the company on this lawsuit.

Didn't they sell some before?

[Anonymous Coward]

In a new article, SCO's Blake Stowell is quoted as saying, "As of Tuesday [Sept. 2], we actually began making the license available. Selling it and mailing it to someone is not something we've actually done as yet, but as of today we are able to do that".

Excuse me for being shocked, but didn't SCO announce on August 11th in a press release, that they'd sold the first license? And didn't SCO then go on to tell us that SCO had signed up at least one additional customer since it sold its first IP License for Linux on Aug. 11?

Wait there's more...

There is an interesting coincidence about the timing of 1st license announcement.

According to marketwatch.com on 11 August:
http://bigcharts.marketwatch.com/historical/defaul t.asp?detect=1&symbol=SCOX&close_date=8%2F11%2F03& x=48&y=18

Stock opened at $10.45
Heavy trading (965,500 shares)
Fell to a low of $8.27. From Yahoo message board (see below) this low appears to be part of a sharp decline around late lunch time.
Stock closed at $9.289

Go look around here for what was being said on the yahoo board around 1.30 to 2pm this time: http://finance.messages.yahoo.com/bbs?.mm=FN&actio n=l&mid=&board=1600684464&sid=1600684464&tid=cald& start=26210

The press release when SCO announced their first license was at 2.03pm ET according to the time stamp on it:
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/030811/lam083_1.html

No doubt the timing is all coincidence.

Another coincidence is that Michael Olson, had a 10b5-1 sell on that day:
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1102542/000 110254203000049/xslF345X02/edgardoc.xml

No doubt, another coincidence.

So here's the quick summary:

1. SCO issued a press release, August 11, saying they sold their first Linux IP license: http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/030811/lam083_1.html
2. The press release, luckily for SCO, appeared immediately after the stock crashed to a low of $8.27
3. A SCO insider had a pre-arranged plan to sell stock (and did so) on that day , 11 August: http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1102542/000 110254203000049/xslF345X02/edgardoc.xml
4. In September, SCO later said they had sold at least one other Linux IP license: http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/09/03/HNscocus tomer_1.html
5. In September, SCO later said they hadn't sold any Linux IP licenses: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=1 817&e=2&u=/zd/20030905/tc_zd/59210&sid=9612075 1
6. I am not sure of the order of articles 4 and 5 in date, but article 4 appears to have been published before 5.

Re:choices choices..

[Anonymous Coward]

/. community. . .the m0r0ns at SCO are at it again. . .spewing more garbage than they can dish out. . .

http://www.linuxworld.com/story/34007.htm

When will their CEO and Co. learn to keep their mouths shut?!?!

The Undertaker

Darl's interesting quoting style

[Anonymous Coward]

An open letter alleged to be from Darl:

http://www.linuxworld.com/story/34007.htm

From the above link, this quote:

The second development was an admission by Open Source leader Bruce Perens that UNIX System V code (owned by SCO) is, in fact, in Linux, and it shouldn't be there. Mr Perens stated that there is "an error in the Linux developer's process" which allowed Unix System V code that "didn't belong in Linux" to end up in the Linux kernel (source: ComputerWire, August 25, 2003). Mr Perens continued with a string of arguments to justify the "error in the Linux developer's process." However, nothing can change the fact that a Linux developer on the payroll of Silicon Graphics stripped copyright attributions from copyrighted System V code that was licensed to Silicon Graphics under strict conditions of use, and then contributed that source code to Linux as though it was clean code owned and controlled by SGI. This is a clear violation of SGI's contract and copyright obligations to SCO. We are currently working to try and resolve these issues with SGI.

This appears to be the ComputerWire article referred to

http://au.news.yahoo.com/030826/20/lfff.html

The paragraph in which the "error" quote reads:

The other SCO code snippet Perens walks through had to do with memory allocation functions in Unix System V and Linux. He says there was, in fact, "an error in the Linux developer's process," specifically a programmer at SGI, and he says while the Linux community had the legal right to this code, it didn't belong in Linux and was therefore removed.

I looked what Perens said in the original (referred to be ComputerWire)

Slides 10 through 14 show memory allocation functions from Unix System V, and their correspondence to very similar material in Linux. Some of this material was deliberately obfuscated by SCO, by the use of a Greek font. I've switched that text back to a normal font.

In this case, there was an error in the Linux developer's process (at SGI), and we lucked out that it wasn't worse. It turns out that we have a legal right to use the code in question, but it doesn't belong in Linux and has been removed.

These slides have several C syntax errors and would never compile. So, they don't quite represent any source code in Linux. But we've found the code they refer to. It is included in code copyrighed by AT&T and released as Open Source under the BSD license by Caldera, the company that now calls itself SCO. The Linux developers have a legal right to make use of the code under that license. No violation of SCO's copyright or trade secrets is taking place.

In this case, there was an error in the Linux developer's process (at SGI), and we lucked out that it wasn't worse. It turns out that we have a legal right to use the code in question, but it doesn't belong in Linux and has been removed.

Re:Darl's interesting quoting style

[Llurien]

Here in fact is the complete analysis on which the computer wire article is based. Apparently, as can be seen a few paragraphs below the quoted text, Bruce meant that the code duplicates a function allready in the linux kernel elsewere, is only applicable to one specific SGI system, and thus should never have been in the Linux kernel distribution in the first place, "for technical reasons".
All the same, the code was released years ago under an open source license in 2002 by Caldera, now SCO, and that even if it had still been in the kernel, the developers would be completely in their right.

Re:choices choices..

[budgenator]

they have allways concentrated on the case on copyright infringment
Copyright infringement? I don't remember anything about copyright infringement unless your talking about the continued distribution of linux by SCO in violation of the GPL. I'll grant that there definetly is code in both IBM AIX, Sequent's Dynix, and Linux that is common but is that because its IBM's code to do with as they please because they own it, is it because it code that IBM got in SVR4 and distributed illegaly, or is it because the code in question either came from BSD or is too trivial to appear different?

The case is not about copyright infringement, SCO is very carefull not to talk about copyright infringement, which has a legal definition, but rather talks about The undefined, nebulous concept of intellectual property. SCO may hold the licenses for both IBM and Sequent, and both those licienses are reported to have very different terms, and since IBM now owns Sequent and its IP, which liciense applies may either make or break SCO's arguements. Also it's interesting to note that IBM's OS390 is the only UNIX that has no lineage to the original AT&T unix.

Open Letter today from Darl

[bstadil]

The Clown from SCO published an open Letter today aimed at the OpenSource community.

I could only manage the first few lines but some brave soul might be able to read the whole drivel.

Re:Get 'em While They're non-existent

[AKnightCowboy]

How come if you called anyone else and said "I want to purchase a license for this software" They would jump on it and get your CC# when all SCO is doing is going on and on about lawsuits? This has to be a joke.

SCO ceased to be a company when this whole mess began. It's only purpose in life is to act as a litigation engine. Nobody would buy their products unless under threat of extortion anyway.

Re:Right to change / contribute

[BigDumbAnimal]

For the interested, but lazy:
Hex, bin, ASCII Converter

thanks to google

Re:choices choices..

[Nerull]

SCO seems to have taken it down now, but they at one time had a page which described several 'Open Source Leaders' as hackers with no respect for the rights of others, including ESR, Bruce Perens, Linus Torvalds, and Richard Stallman. They then called the above IBM sockpuppets in their 'Everyone is out to get us!' press release.

SCO has already givin up their right to be treated as professionals.

Here's why not to buy.....

[whoever57]

Will Linux Luminary 'Shred' SCO's Unix Claims?

Re:choices choices.. tired..

[tuomoks]

SCO can have any licenses they want - the code is the code. Please, show me any code ( any IP ) anywhere that was stolen ( whatever that means - cut and paste excluded ). All these talks about support for this or that - please, people, study a little of computer history, published ideas and documents. When I started at end of 60's I was educated ( what SCO now says they own ) of multiprocessors and shared memory, virtual memory, tasking ( more than any Unix today has ), pipelines. etc. So - that's the way I was coding ( stealing SCO property in 70's?? ), so, again, show me something new. Just as an example IBM VM, both hardware and sofware support - have you ever seen that, you know how old it is ? Or maybe how Univac did EXEC8 - actually Burroughs and Honeywell were't too bad either - of course you remember the Algol based operating system in Burroughs, pure (almost) object oriented - what's new, definitely not the ideas. You should, might give some (new) ideas. have a nice day.

syntax not semantics

[quinkin]

They are syntactic faults. It would not compile on any standard C compiler on any system.

Q.

BPF in UNIX STREAMS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can someone explain to me *how* BPF is part of SysV UNIX, anyway? SysV UNIX network stack is based on the STREAMS architecture - originally developed by D.Ritchie. A BSD network stack (adopted by linux) is a totally different animal. In order to create a packet filter in STREAMS, you'll need to simply write a STREAMS module that plops in between the data link layer and network layer. The BPF doesn't even fit in with the STREAMS architecture, unless one were to somehow write wrapper code around it so that it conforms to the DLPI and NPI interfaces...and I think this would be highly inefficient. Admittedly, I have not looked at the BPF code, but I imagine that it would need to be highly modified / re-written to get it to work with STREAMS.

Original STREAMS Paper

Re:BPF in UNIX STREAMS?

[Guy Harris]

The BPF doesn't even fit in with the STREAMS architecture

The term "BPF" is used to refer to more than one thing.

It's used to refer to the entire packet-tap mechanism in some UNIXes. That doesn't *directly* fit into a STREAMS architecture; however, nothing prevents a system using, for example, STREAMS+DLPI from providing a BPF infrastructure as well and allowing link-layer drivers from calling the BPF tapping routines.

It's also used to refer to the interpreter for packet filter programs that's part of that tap mechanism - that's the "F" part of "BPF".

One could write, for example, a "bpfmod" STREAMS module, which functions similar to Sun's "pfmod" STREAMS module, except that it interprets BPF programs rather than the CMU/Stanford "stack machine" programs that "pfmod" interprets.

In fact, Rick Jones did implement such a module.

The disputed code appears to be part of the BPF interpreter; if SCO are whining about it, presumably they've picked up somebody's BPF interpreter and incorporated it into one of their UNIXes.

If they did so, one hopes that they didn't, err, umm, "[strip] copyright attributions from copyrighted [BSD] code", and that they're giving proper credit to UCB (unless they picked the code up from BSD after the Regents of UCB switched to the new copyright notice).

A BSD network stack (adopted by linux) is a totally different animal.

Actually, Linux's networking stack has different interfaces - and the only way in which it uses BPF is that it has an independently-written implementation of the BPF interpreter, used for the "socket filter" option. There aren't "/dev/bpf" devices on Linux, there are PF_PACKET sockets; libpcap uses different code on systems with the full BPF mechanism (with "/dev/bpf") and on Linux.

n order to create a packet filter in STREAMS, you'll need to simply write a STREAMS module that plops in between the data link layer and network layer. The BPF doesn't even fit in with the STREAMS architecture, unless one were to somehow write wrapper code around it so that it conforms to the DLPI and NPI interfaces...and I think this would be highly inefficient.

If by "packet filter" you mean something to filter out packets based on an expression evaluated on the contents of the packet, no, all you need is a STREAMS module to push atop an opened DLPI device. That's how snoop does it on Solaris, for example.

And even if by "packet filter" you mean something to let you capture packets, you don't need any new STREAMS modules, at least not on Solaris or HP-UX - take a look at libpcap's pcap-dlpi.c to see how it's done. If there were a "bpfmod" STREAMS module, it could push that module and hand it a filter program.

Re:Seems about right

[Dashing Leech]

C'mon BillG, you KNOW it should have been "developers such as I"

Actually, turning off my joke meter for a minute, that's grammatically incorrect. "I" is a subject, "me" is an object. In simplistic terms, "I" comes before a verb ("I developed...") and "me" comes at the end of a prepositional phrase ("...such as me"). That's not the whole of it, but covers most common mistakes. Me would suggest checking a grammar book, if you don't belive I.