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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?"
$699 for a single CPU license? Jeez... I bet (even if SCO had a valid case, and they won the lawsuit[s]), almost everyone would go to a non-System V OS rather than use UnixWare... What makes them think they can get that amount of money from anyone, even if they win the case[s]?
I find it quite disturbing that the EWeek article comes across as if linux does have SCO's IP in it, while this has still yet to be proved. It does state in the end of the article that the FSF and other org's say that nobody should buy a licence, but the impression of the article is just wrong. It is generally accepted that SCO's claims are nothing but fluff, and there is mounting evidence against their claims, but SCO seems to be hell bent on causing anarchy and getting brought out by IBM. But the slant of the article is sending the wrong sort of message.
As long as your giving money to people who never bothered to prove that they own what they're selling you, I'm going to go ahead and claim that I own something in the Linux kernel too. Like SCO, I won't tell you what I claim to own, but I'll only charge you $400/CPU for it.
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
If they can state exactly what it is that I'm licensing, and prove to me they have the rights to charge license fees for it, then I'd love to see it.
Failing that, they're racketeering vaporware.
MadCow.
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
> When is the business world gonna wake up and *SMACK* SCO so I can cover my short positions? Frickin' knew I shoulda ;-)
/. just as you shouldn't take medical or juridical advice. Second, ask yourself, did you *expect* the stock to fall or did you *hope* it to fall?
> bought at $10, instead I placed my faith in justice and shorted them... Oh well, at least I can add my name to the list of those
> screwed by SCO
First, it should be clear by now that you should not take investment advice from
The article starts with...
The SCO Group has been threatening corporate Linux users with legal action unless they obtain a license for its intellectual property, but until now, businesses have been unable to buy that license.
Now I may not be kept up to date on the current SCO status but I thought last week SCO said they have no plans to sue linux users - no?
So if they are not going to sue, what motivation would anyone have to but a licence?
And how the heck can they demand payment before clearing establishing their IP?
I've said it before and I'll say it again... clueless people need to die.
Litigious bastards
So what you're saying is that you don't think McBride is an asshat?
And don't forget that SCO went from "contract dispute" to "Linux is our bitch" to "We own anything and everything even remotely related to Unix", and now seem to be switching between those arguments randomly. I don't know about you, but contradictory press releases and interviews do not a court case make.
There are only 10 kinds of people in this world... those who understand binary and those who don't
" If you ask for it, it's not fraud."
Not really, at least not in this case. In this case SCO has threatened to sue people who are not licensed. The only reason you are asking is so that you won't be sued.
War is necrophilia.
If you ask for it, it's not fraud.
But they are not asking for it, SCO is. SCO is saying pay up or else, and he's just reacting to SCO's statements. It's not like linux users have been screaming for binary only licences all these years and SCO is finally providing the service.
The SCO guy (who's nervously flicking his Bic) believes that he can smell some burning wires in my store. For $699/CPU he will insure me against fire hazards.
Is that about right?
SCO has now made available for your IP pleasure their run-time licenses [...]
And you're a fool if you buy one.
SCO is not suing IBM for misappropriation of their IP. What SCO IS suing IBM for is VIOLATING THE TERMS OF THEIR LICENSE.
Right now you probably don't HAVE a SCO license - shrink-wrap style language and all. This makes you nearly immune to suits from SCO.
But if you buy a license - even one - you are not just out the money. You have also paid them by entering into a contract, with contractual obligations. And if you buy one NOW, after all the publicity over their claims to own UNIX and evertying related to it, you can't claim ignorance of their claims.
If you use linux on one machine, and you pay them a sale price of a couple hundred bux, what are you going to tell the judge when he asks you:
- Why aren't you paying them whatever their latest asking price is for another license for your next two hundred machines.
- Why did you distribute this open-source software that SCO says contains their IP, in violation of your contract with SCO.
After all, if you signed the contract and paid the money. Didn't you just admit that this IP was theirs?
IMHO, anyone who buys a SCO license has just signed away, forever, his right to work on open-source code. As an individual you can't EVER release your work. As a company you can't EVER release your employees' work. (And good luck hiring any new employees with open-source experience.)
No open-source drivers for your products. No folding your fixes back into the mainstream, so you don't have to make them again on every new release of whatever open-source tool you fixed or improved for your critical business process.
So if you're contemplating buying a SCO license, ask yourself: "Is that REALLY what I intended to to?"
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Whatever people feel about Darl Mcbride bashing him don't do the Linux community any good. And whatever people feel about SCO they have allways concentrated on the case on copyright infringment and not tried to take some easy shots on the Linux community.
WTF??? Have you been in a cage the last half year? No easy shots?
Look at this diamond (yeah, they removed the page since then).
Or how about:
""A significant flaw of Linux is the inability and/or unwillingness of the Linux process manager, Linus Torvalds, to identify the intellectual-property origins of contributed source code that comes in from those many different software developers" who contribute to Linux, the suit said.
Just a few flaws:
1) Darl implies that because one person allegedly associated with the open source community has launched a DDoS attack against SCO and, again allegedly, ESR didn't turn this person in, the whole open source community is suspect. I don't think so.
2) Allegedly (again) some SCO proprietary code made its way through SGI into the Linux source tree with the SCO copyright notices removed at some point along the way. Darl claims that this means that all Linux code is therefore suspect. Again, I don't think so.
3) Continuing from 2, this conveniently ignores copyrighted BSD (Berkely Packet Filter) code that was presented as an example of Linux code that infringes on SCO copyrights. It seems that somehow the original BSD copyright notice got removed at some point and now SCO calls the code their own. For Darl, SCO employees removing someone else's copyright is not a problem.
4) Darl seems to be really concerned about warranties and indemnifications not provided by open source software and Linux but he must not have ever read a software EULA. They always claim to limit the liability of the licensor to the cost of the product. As an aside, this concept doesn't work with open source software since the customer has the source code and is freely permitted to change it as they see fit. No one can warrant a product when the end user can make changes, not that the warranties provided by closed source software vendors are anything to make you sleep well.
5) Darl (talking about profitable business models) apparently wants to return to the time when software companies thought they could make big bucks by selling software licenses. All it takes is a quick look at the TCO and ROI arguments for Windoze vs. Linux to see that these times are long gone and that isn't just because of pricing pressure from Linux. Software buyers are more concerned now about support, service, stability, maintainability, etc. The initial cost of the software license is a small component at what buyers look at when selecting an operating platform for a business. A litiguous vendor such as SCO is not someone I would consider even if there weren't technical arguments against choosing them. Also, I haven't exactly heard of SCO as being a paragon of customer support which is supposed to be the argument for selecting a closed source vendor.
Its time for dinner so I'll stop at this point.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
OK guys - what crime did I just commit? Fraud? Extortion? Attempting to obtain money under false pretenses? I'm damn sure that'd be illegal behaviour. It would if I did it anyway. Maybe if I was publically traded it'd be another matter.
Point is, I rather suspect that it'd be just as illegal for SCO to do it - especially since their claim to Linux is only marginally stronger than my claim to Feet(tm). But as long as they only talk about it there's no evidence for anyone to base a case around. So there'll be no sales.
It's just more FUD. And possibly, as someone else pointed out, a ploy to get future victims to identify themselves. But mainly FUD I think.
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
So let's see if I get this right: people are willing to buy a license without actually being able to read it ?? I mean, isn't this the root of the entire problem in the first place: a mis-understanding or blatant ignorance of licensing rules?
Yikes!
Anti-social? My code is just platform-specific.
They now admit that SGI was responsible for one example of "stolen" code they have been touting, but forget to mention that was removed from the kernel and was only compiled into intanium kernels.
"To date, we claim that more than one million lines of Unix System V protected code have been contributed to Linux through this model."
This is much stronger than the "derivative code" claim, because they are saying one million actual specific lines of code were taken, not just ideas and algorithms, and that they are from SysV code. IBM/Sequent AIX stuff is not System V code. They are going to get in trouble for telling such a blatant lie.
They are specifically claiming that SysV code was legally put into books and posted on public web sites but for non-commercial use only, and that Linux programmers illegally copied this code. This is new. And weakens their claims by making the chain from SysV code to my Redhat CD one link longer. It also sounds like they are claiming that any ancient Unix code that is still in their SysV codebase is SysV code.
"Some have claimed that, because SCO software code was present in software distributed under the GPL, SCO has forfeited its rights to this code. Not so - SCO never gave permission, or granted rights, for this to happen."
Once again a big lie: No one says the code is GPL because it was distributed under the GPL, they say that is GPL because SCO distributed it under the GPL. They can't claim they never gave permission to distribute the kernel under the GPL with their code in it, when they themselves knowingly did it. It's the distribution that's key, as they admit here. Doesn't matter who fired up emacs and typed the code in.
"Transfer of copyright ownership without express written authority of all proper parties is null and void."
A true, but irrelevent statement, as GPLed code does not generally involve the "transfer" of copyrights. Sounds good, though, doesn't it? Also ignoring that they don't own copyright to code written by IBM. Think about it. Does SCO own the copyrights to AIX? If they do, then they can sell it themselves without giving a penny to IBM. They can't sell AIX themselves? Then they don't own the copyright to the code.
Blah blah. More of the same legalistic, but not legally specific, mumbo jumbo about liability of Linux users and SCO's "IP". But the comment about programmers popping in code that is publically available but not public domain is new, and I expect to hear a lot more about it from them.
"I've seen no credible theory that would get SCO any money out of their claims..."
To be fair to SCO, not that there's any reason to be, their very first claims that the SCO Openserver and Unixware *libraries* should be licensed and paid for by end-users had some merit. If they had left it at that and charged a fair price - say $100 give or take $25 - to license those libraries, then most of us would not have had any issues with them.
BTW, I know and you know that those libraries kinda suck, but they're a niche product for corporate deployments that need that support, so the relatively high price I'm suggesting for them is probably a fair value to the clients who would actually need them.
Other than that, I agree; none of their other legal theories have any credibility whatsoever.
This was also clear from the ineptitude of their slide presentation: If there were any competant techs in the company, the execs would at least have had them sanity check the presentation to avoid making fools of themselves. Which evokes the amusing image of SCO execs and lawyers staring dumbly at Linux and SysV code in Word and, with only the fuzziest comprehension, trying to figure out what to paste into PowerPoint.
The evaluation of an action as 'practical' . . . depends on what it is that one wishes to practice.
> First, it should be clear by now that you should not take investment advice from /. just as you shouldn't take medical
/. a question like the following: ``I just had my day in court, & the judge gave me 3-5 in a minimum security jail. (Never mind the reason why, it's not computer related.) I mean, I have excellent karma, know the difference between a bubble sort and a quick sort, & can get Windows NT running on an Itanium computer. And I had to help him operate the cheap laptop he had on before him. Do I really have to listen to this bozo & go to prison?"
> or juridical advice.
You mean some guy asked the folks on
I can only shudder at the kind of advice he might get.
Geoff
I think I see a trend here. Maybe for them it really would be easier to muzzle the entire internet than to produce p
There is only a very small amount of SCOX availiable on the open market. Many posters suggest buying their stock out and scuttling them. Its a bad idea on a number of levels but it is nothing more than intellectual wanking. The vast majority of SCO is held by insiders, some collaborating investment firms (see the Melinda Gates/Drugstore.com connection at Greplaw), and a few chunks are held by companies like Sun.
The fact that they hold the majority of the stock means they just can't just dump it. If they did, the price would quickly crash..probably all the way back to penny stock levels. Like VA at the height of the bubble, they're only worth a pile of money on paper. They have to know this.
Instead, they have to quietly sell off small chunks over a long period of time. They need to drag this debacle out as long as possible so they can sell as much of the stock at the current inflated levels as possible. Actually, I doubt they're very interested in getting rid of the stock as such. MS and Sun can work through cut-outs to buy the stock and keep the price up. In this way, they can fund the FUD war and the legal battles without seeming to be directly involved.
It may be a good idea to concentrate less on SCOs frothing at the mouth and look more into who buys their stock. Follow the money and we'll see who's really hoping to profit from this.
... to his own ends, and this is precisely what has happened here in the LinuxWorld article.
I will not go into the details of the misquotations from ESR and Mr. Perens, or his abuse of the DDoS attack, as several other astute /. posters have already done so above (below? not sure where the post will appear in the thread). I will instead turn to the interesting tidbit that Mr. McBride mentions near the end, after all the talk about the flaws in the Open Source development process:
It is easier for some in the Open Source community to fire off a "rant" than to sit across a negotiation tableAnd to this I can only respond: Mr. McBride, how the FUCK can we negociate with you or work together with you when you WON'T REVEAL A SINGLE GODDAMN LINE OF INFRINGING CODE?
Mr. McBride is playing an interesting game here. He is acting as the master manipulator of the public mindset. Whether this was his intent from the beginning or simply a means to cover up a huge blunder is irrelevant at this point. While it is true that many of his statements are contradictory to the rational person, his intended audience is NOT the rational, but the business world and the media. He knows all the buzzwords that make business/media sit up and pant like lapdogs. What makes this an uphill battle for the OSS community is the very fact that we eschew these buzzwords and prefer to rely on fact. Unfortunately, fact is apparantly not what business/media wants to hear. I am sure that in the next few days we will see reports from the media that Mr. McBride is presenting the proverbial olive branch to the community. I can almost guarantee that the very term "olive branch" will be used.
It will be interesting to see if this is successful in affecting the tide of opinion. I sincerely hope not. But then again, the vitriol and self-contradictory, specious, racist bullshit spewed by Adolf Hitler was enough to sway the masses.
Karma: Frotzed (mostly due to the Frobozz Magic Karma Company)
Well... At least it helps us understand the "dot com bubble" a lot better...
An interesting thing happens when you repeat a lie often enough and loud enough. Not only do you begin to sway the masses, you begin to believe it yourself. I have to wonder if this is possibly what has happened here. The human mind is an amazing thing. One moment it is capable of the most keen observation and insight. The next, it very easily knows how to apply its own filters to make you not see things that contradict your most deeply-held beliefs. Anyone only need look at religious fundamentalism to realize the truth in this.
I make no excuses for SCO. I merely point out what might be some of the driving force behind their actions. Remember that in war, intelligence is everything. Everything you can learn about your enemy is an advantage on the battlefield, and knowledge of the psychology of your enemy can be very useful.
Karma: Frotzed (mostly due to the Frobozz Magic Karma Company)
They are professionals alright.
Professional criminals to be specific.
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
The fact that the code in question won't compile suggests to me that it's so ancient it hasn't been supported in compilers since well before the 2.x series (which I've compiled on my systems).
It's a shame that all this info can't be directed to the stock-owners in such a way that they understand it. If so, and if any of them have any sense, SCO would take a huge hit.
realityshunt
Democracy is susceptible to being led astray by having scapegoats paraded in front of the electorate.
When is thing going to trial? I'm getting sick of discussing it.
I Still don't know how all this applies to IBM. He talked about what SGI did. He talked about the "flawed" process by which Linux & OSS in general is developed. None of this goes to prove that IBM did any thing wrong. And the Offending code That SGI put in is Open Sourced now, & no longer in the source anyway.
So, SCO where's the beef? (Clara Peller)
This is where the forces of businesses such as IBM, RedHat, SuSE and others (even SCO could have once upon a time, but now couldn't pay anyone yp listen to them now) can work to influence Linus into accepting that IP, weather you agree with it or not, is something that must be dealt with in some fashion in the kernel. One is accepting code only from developers who have agreed that they a legally able to add the code, or some legal junk like that, and that they are solely responsible for it's content (with the express written approval of the Commissioner of Major League Baseball). Throw some kind of submitting requirements on what is accepted, or some kind of agreement that should keep the kernel outside of IP problems. The second is to just keep the kernel into the wind and say this does not comply with any laws, anywhere, so you're on your own. (put it into clase 11. of NO WARRANTY to include IP non-compliance)
"Oh that code? That's john Smith's. We'll take it out, now go sue him and leave us alone to fix something."
(Of course SCO's not doing any part of this since they won't even identify the code outright, so they're not actually trying to do this for any reason other than hype, but that's being redundant.)
I am, and always will be, an idiot. Karma: Coma (mostly effected by
Behind the scenes. Go read Kernel Traffic sometime.