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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?"
what to point darlmcbride.com to next...?
answers on a postcard..
Seems like an appropriate title.. Thieving bastards...
-B
$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]?
When is the business world gonna wake up and *SMACK* SCO so I can cover my short positions? Frickin' knew I shoulda 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 ;-)
Think outside the... Hey, where'd the friggin' box go?
Maybe you can't get a salesman on the phone becuase they didn't actually expect anyone to call and want to buy one?
Or it's just a cheap screening tactic to try and weed out the 2 real buyers from the 800 anti-SCO people who just want to argue with them?
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
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?
Is it legal for company A to send you an invoice for a product you got from company B?
War is necrophilia.
The reason you can't get through to the sales staff is because they're too busy operating their huge laser on the SCO death star.
As a businessman with a lot at stake for the various companies I have responibility for, I'll be carefully considering whether I should buy one of these licences. I know that won't be a popular position here, but I have to be practical about this.
Of course, I haven't dicussed any of this with anyone at SCO so far, so I don't know yet how good a case they have.
The real Ralph Yarro posts as Anonymous Coward. Anyone else is an impostor.
Is this any way to run a business?
Therein lies the key. Since when did it become a business? I thought the consensus had pretty much realized by now this was a Pump-And-Dump scheme?
"PC Load Letter? What the $@#% does that mean?!"
"SCO also wants customers to be aware that the license is a binary, run-time-only license"
I'm sorry but having to search the web for vb300.dll or whatever was so 1990's.
SCO got more than 900 calls the first week after announcing the licensing program, Stowell said. Of those, 300 were serious inquiries
:)
That means 2/3 of the callers told SCO to go fsck themselves.
I am the unwilling control for my Origin.
SCO is on the run now, that's why its called Run-Time
New year Resolution: Don't change sig this year
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.
Actually, the companies that matter are the small businesses. Who do you think the Fortune 500-size companies do business with?
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
I think I'll wait until the next minor release of the license once it's more stable.
This is SCO's idea of the travelling salesman problem?
Quoth the article:
...and the other 600 were /. users DDoSing the phone network in Utah. Great job guys!
SCO got more than 900 calls the first week after announcing the licensing program, Stowell said. Of those, 300 were serious inquiries that could immediately be followed up on...
a run-time license that lets buyers use the company's intellectual property that is contained in Linux distributions
In other words, a zero-length file...
Oh wait, my mistake; there are millions of lines of SCO code in Linux. Entire programs, even.
The problem is with the magic-8-ball they use to make decisions and decide on business models. Right now it's "try again later" function is in an endless loop. Don't worry, someone will come along and reboot it soon (shake shake shake) and it will be back to "no", "maybe", and "file a lawsuit."
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.
But what do their employees think?
And by that I mean the coders (if they have any left)?
Sure, the sales people are just doing their job, but what about the coders at the company? Surely they can't believe the drivel thats coming from above?
Is there actually anyone left in that company that has more than 2 ethical brain cells?
Remember, this company was once Caldera, who produced a linux distro, so is there anyone left from those days?
I use to have a funny sig, but slash cut it off, and I forgot what the punchline was.
See the following new letter (dated Sept 9th!):
http://www.linuxworld.com/story/34007.htm
Crisco, too.
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
SCO Director Blake Stowell said the company is willing to negotiate pricing
Here in America we don't negotiate with terrorists.
Someone you trust is one of us.
We will give you a license to run this code we fail to identify. It's not a license to all unix code but only the code we claim is in linux kernels 2.4 and 2.5, and it's a binary only license but we don't actually compile it, someone else does. We won't actually tell you what you are paying for, and what you may not modify or contribute to. You are just going to have to trust us.
Well... I think it's only approperate to respond in binary... Enclosed is a hex represnation so in order to bypass the lameness filter
46 55 43 4B 20 5A 4F 55 21 21 21
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
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?
A while ago, someone noted that the estimated number of Linux users is roughly equivalent to the number of dollars SCO is presently holding.
If each Linux user could do something that would cost SCO $1, then unless they can find a large investor with a death wish, SCO would rapidly vanish.
Calling an 800 number would certainly be a start. This would, however, be hiiiiiighly immoral. Mmm hmm. Bad dog. *stroke pet pet*
Seems there are some problems getting even sales people at SCO to answer the phone
What does a litigation company need with sales people?
Intresting, I tried to call and could not get though. Wonder if it's going to be like this in court:
"Well, we offered licensing. Publicized that we offered it but no one took us up on the offer your honor. What more could we do?"
Then they go about laying out lawsuits like the RIAA. Kinda scary when you think about it that way.
The last thing we need is a bunch of RIAA clones, flooding the network with worthless files.
Litigious bastards
well just for the hell of it I called SCO (Or S.C.O. according to their switchboard) do the usual, press here for product or purchasing info, press there for a representative....
Well when I got the guy, I basically inquired about the 'sco/linux' licenses that I keep hearing about on the news.
him: "What do you need to know?"
him: "Have you read the press release?"
him: "Have you seen the lawsuit information?"
Me: "I don't have internet access, I just wanted to know what I need to buy so I don't get in trouble. Can you please mail(snail) me the license agreement, some product information, and purchasing information so I can send you a cheque?"
Him: "...?"
EOF
He didn't know what to say. Apparently a sales rep will call me back, but all I want is something on paper that says what this license _is_.
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.
Ok. end rant.
HURD - Hurd's Under Research & Development
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 got more than 900 calls the first week after announcing the licensing program, Stowell said. Of those, 300 were serious inquiries that could immediately be followed up on
Man, I'd *love* to hear recordings of those other 600 calls!
2003-07-01 03:36:56 Is this SCO? Yeah, hi. I think I have SCO intellectual property up in my ass. Do you want me to send you the toilet paper tomorrow after I wipe for verification, or should I just go ahead and buy the license? Is that per cheek or can we cover both with one? Hello?
2003-07-24 09:45:22 Can I talk to Darl McBride? My name is Darryl Smith and I'm pretty sure that Darl is an unauthorized derivative work on my name which I own the copyright on. Sure I do! Yeah, I need to talk to him right now he owes me a license? What? Okay I'll call back every five minutes until he comes in.
2003-07-25 10:25:02 Hello, SCO? This is Bill. Crazy busy right now but I wanted to let you know, you guys are doing great! Keep up the good work. I'll be sending some suggestions and money next week.
Wrote to SCO, and after a couple of weeks received an answer: If we run a 2.4 kernel on our server, we don't need licenses on 1000+ client machines running 2.2 kernels where said clients simply run their processes on the 2.4 kernel equipped server, and *display* them locally using the power of the X-windows system. Have it writing from them that in this scenario, only one (1) license would be required. This may help others, it may not, but it is an alternative our lawyers suggested.
Powered by FreeBSD! The Ultimate Windows XP Service Patch.
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".
l t.asp?detect=1&symbol=SCOX&close_date=8%2F11%2F03& x=48&y=18
o n=l&mid=&board=1600684464&sid=1600684464&tid=cald& start=26210
0 110254203000049/xslF345X02/edgardoc.xml
0 110254203000049/xslF345X02/edgardoc.xml s tomer_1.html 1 817&e=2&u=/zd/20030905/tc_zd/59210&sid=9612075 1
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/defau
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&acti
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/1102542/00
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/1102542/00
4. In September, SCO later said they had sold at least one other Linux IP license: http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/09/03/HNscocu
5. In September, SCO later said they hadn't sold any Linux IP licenses: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=
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.
I will happily pay SCO $699 for a copy of the list of THOSE 300 customers! Seems like a good investment ;-)
By reading this sig, you agree to the terms of my sig license.
goatse.cx ?
Slackware, what else when it must be secure, stable, and easy?
Beat the rush! Get yours now while there are still some left!
Just tear off as much as you need, sign it (in brown), then mail it to SCO using the appropriate recepticle..
(You'll know what to do!)
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.
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
10 acres of that premium land in Queensland for $200 an acre and a first class seat on the Scientologists spaceship.
After the spaceship arrives...
To know that you know what you know, and that you do not know what you do not know, that is true wisdom. --Scooby Doo
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!
SCO claims anything that touches OS code they once sold licenses to is now owned by them; Microsoft claims that anything that touches OS code GPL licensed is now owned by the GPL. Note Microsoft's concocted nightmare of viral ownership is the same thing SCO's trying to pull off - not the GPL reality but Microsoft's cracked mirror of it.
The danger here is that SCO is not trying to make a claim contrary to the GPL model, but is trying to present a claim that is arguably isomorphic with part of the GPL's own claim, so that SCO either wins (not at all likely) or loses in a way that potentially weakens part of the GPL structure, providing that future courts look back on this case and see it as a precident against licensing giving an ownership right to derivative works.
Which would be exactly why Microsoft has put them up to this; and why it's far more than a pump-and-dump.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
I call bullshit. You need to go RTFWebsite
ESR has already stated how he feels about being the guidon holder for open source.
1. Take my job, please.
2. Understand my job, please.
Further, if you can find someone who will do all of that, and perhaps more, you need to send him an e-mail, because he wants to know about it. Why not use this as a starting point when you're looking.
As for what ESR has done for the Open Source Community-at-large, ponder this, batman: You need the idealists, the pragmatists, and yes, even the more wild. Why? Because the community they're speaking in the name of, and the communities they're speaking to are just as diverse. It will be these men, and the relevant foundations that write the amici curiae in support of Linux, the GPL, or Open Source in general, when the time is necessary.
When was the last time you said thanks?
-- I'd say your post was about 3 monkeys, 18 minutes.
Dear RIAA,
It has come to our attention that D McBride is using this SCO product to build file sharing technolgy at a mega level. He has secretly assembled a complete catalog of some 472,000 songs that he will offer via his web site.
Dear SCO,
It has come to our attention that Capitol Records is using 4500 copies of Linux to run their offices with.
This is my sig.
Last Trade: 16.379
Trade Time: 3:59PM ET
Change: Up 0.339 (2.11%)
Insider Tearsheet for the week ending September 06, 2003
Even the insiders don't have faith in this crap. They are selling, not buying.
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 could only manage the first few lines but some brave soul might be able to read the whole drivel.
Help fight continental drift.
If I only have one foot, am I exempt, since I am not using your SMP code???
Calling SCO and asking for a license is nothing more than calling SCO and saying "Hey SCO, I'm using Linux. Put me down on your list of known people using Linux, and while you are at it, add me to the list of people/companies you will audit to determine whether or not I'm being truthful about how many Linux licenses I need.".
If you don't fess up to SCO, its unlikely that SCO knows about your Linux machine(s), and likely that they will never know, unless someone says something. Don't let that someone be you!
I know of people who work for companies who have Linux machines on internal networks with no access to the outside world. In order for SCO to know they exist they would have to physically go to the companies in question and force someone to log into every machine, on console, to ensure that every machine has been checked. I don't see that happening in my lifetime. Or maybe the disgruntled employee will spill the beans...
> 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
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.
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.
SCO got more than 900 calls the first week after announcing the licensing program, Stowell said. Of those, 300 were serious inquiries
I suppose 2/3 of them were pissed off slashdot trolls, and the other 1/3 of them were slashdotters trying to act serious about it, I talked to an operator a long time about it acting serious and asking exactly what I was buying, I hope alot of other slashdotters do too
Sig: I stole this sig.
I've worked with our (Celestica) corporate procurement folks on a number of software licenses and if our company is in any way representative, SCO will wish it just let this go business as usual and never thought they saw an opportunity to make some bucks from Linux users.
Before Celestica would agree that licenses are appropriate, SCO would have to prove that they own the right to give them out. This will be interesting and while it is going on, the question will be asked are there any distributions that do not have the offending code and, from Celestica's perspective, could we wait for a distribution that SCO has no possible claim of ownership on?
Next a costing agreement would have to reached in which Celestica, which builds systems is licensed for the systems used in house, built, tested but not shipped using Linux as well as built, tested and shipped with Linux installed would have to be presented with a bill that reflects the different uses within the corporation. As part of this, a monitoring agreement would have to be put into place. Oh, did I mention that we built systems in every continent except Africa and Antartica?
Before any cheques would be written, a service agreement would have to negotiated. This is great news for somebody like me - we will not buy software licenses without any terms of support that goes with it.
Finally, an MOU regarding confidentiality would have to be in place between Celestica and SCO so that before new and unannounced systems are introduced to our manufacturing lines there is a process to set up a three way CITR between SCO, Celestica and the OEM to allow development and installation of manufacturing software. As part of this MOU, all existing relationships between SCO and their customers would have to be disclosed along with details so that we can make this process as painless as possible.
Creating a software license of this scope will take us 9 months or more and will include a hefty legal bill for both parties. Our procurement people are pretty sharp and SCO will have a tough time negotiating a price that is more than a fraction of what the street price single processor Linux license will be despite the additional legal costs and support infrastructure investments that will have to be made as part of the agreement.
"I pity the fools!"
myke
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
... 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)
Will Linux Luminary 'Shred' SCO's Unix Claims?
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
See, now this shows the difference between me and SCO. If I had been SCO, I would have sued your ass off for making a line by line copy of my own post. Since I am not SCO, I will do no such silly thing, other than to draw attention to your lack of courtesy in failing to attribute the post.
Karma: Frotzed (mostly due to the Frobozz Magic Karma Company)
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.
Something I came across that may be of interest in this discussion. I considered submitting a story on this, but rather than risk it getting rejected, I'll just mention it here.
ESR may have something up his sleeve. Check out this article on eWeek. ESR has apparantly come up with some program that can compare source trees at a phenominal rate. He's keeping mum on what he exactly intends to do with it, but he's wearing a mighty big grin.
Karma: Frotzed (mostly due to the Frobozz Magic Karma Company)
try this handy script in case they actually answer the phone ;)
SCO Slave: "Hello, Thank you for calling SCO, owner of %110 of Linux sources, how may I own^H^H^Hhelp you today?"
You: "Yes, I was considering going for a walk, and I was curious if you own my legs."
SCO Slave: "Why yes we do, we own your right leg. You're required to sign up for our $50,000 right-leg usage license."
You: "Alright, so, after I pay for my leg, I'll be able to do what?"
SCO Slave: "oh, you'll be able to go for a walk, and continue using your legs like you used to."
You: "Legs? I thought you said my right leg."
SCO Slave: "Of course not, we own both your legs, and as I said before, the license fee is $70,000."
You: "But I grew these legs myself!"
SCO Slave: "Our research has determined that your legs contain parts stolen from our leg product"
You: "What?"
SCO Slave: "Your legs contain our patented 10-Toe module, as well as the version 3 rotating ankle."
You: "Alright, so if I pay $70,000 for the use of my legs, you'll leave me alone."
SCO Slave: "That's right, $100,000 for the use of your legs and torso."
To find out how the story ends, call them yourself, and share you results!
Klowner
Serious professionals don't pull punches with their opinions, and stand behind their statements.
Faced by a "case" that is comprised largely of barratry, fraudulent accusations, and public grandstanding such as SCO is delivering, I see no reason anyone should "watch what you say".
SCO is going to lose, of that I have no doubt. Darl is going to plead insanity because there is no other way he can hope to avoid jail time in such a massive case of fraud. Those stuck with the stock with cry that the government owes them payback for allowing the fraudulent case to continue, and if it's in the hands of investment corps, they'll turn around and recover their losses on the backs of the consumers.
This case serves one purpose and one purpose only -- to highlight the utter insanity of the current US legal system with respect to IP law and it's enforcement.
Or have you not noticed that IP law is the only case where one is guilty until proven innocent, with no way to recover the costs of defending against the barratry? The fact that SCO is being allowed to demand license fees and threaten charges against those who don't pay for their unproven claims is the worst abuse of US law I've seen to date.
Calling McBride and SCO "asshats" is being extremely polite in the face of their behavior.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
1. If I fail to purchase a SCO License will SCO sue me
Push the point until the sales rep says yes they will sue you if you don't buy a license. This is a threat
2. Ask them what code in Linux infringes their IP, and where you can find details so that you can remove it
Give them the chance to substanciate their claim of stolen code in Linux so that their threat to sue is not extortion. They will of course refuse
3. Ask them if the SCO IP License allows you to redistribute the Linux source code that contains their IP under GPL
They have made it quite clear in the press release that they will not.This contravenes the GPL license of Linux
4. Explain that their 'binary only license' is in direct contravention of GPL and ask them to indemnify you against being sued for non compliance with the source provision requirement of GPL
They obviously will not do this because their license mutually exclusive with the GPL.
I think it would be interesting to post replies to these questions, Perhaps I may even make an international phone call just to see what they have to say.
Answers to these questions may be useful in any future legal cases against SCO so if you can record the call and identify the rep you spoke to it will help the case against them for extortion, or perhaps not in the strange legal system of the USA
Hans Bayer: hansba@sco.com
I've written a lengthy letter that starts like this. E-mail me for full text:
Thank you for your reply. I shall fill in my details and will expect you to fill in yours.
My in-use Linux distributions are:
Caldera OpenLinux 2.4, running a straight file- and printserver. I was given the installation CD at a conference with no restrictions on use or requirements for license fees, and being published under the GNU GPL, I assume that no additional license fees apply. I am considering changing this, since you seem not to be upgrading this product further - which means that support for USB and other new technologies is spotty at best.
RedHat 8.0.94, running kernel 2.6-test4, AMD Athlon workstation. This is a public beta downloaded from the Internet, and updated with the latest kernel from www.kernel.org. It is a kernel build without SMP, thus RCU is not in use. NUMA does not apply to the i386 platform. It does use the Ext3 journaling file system, but since this has been developed as an extension of the legacy Ext2 FS, and independently of the JFS from IBM, there is presumably no SCO IP involved here. The heritage of IBM's JFS is being discussed on the Internet, no need to go into details here.
The first piece of code you presented at the recent SCO conference has been removed earlier by the Linux kernel programming team, as it was shown to be of too poor quality for a modern OS. The second piece was developed independently from published specs by a person never exposed to the Unix source code - it must be a mistake that your chose this, thus I'll give it no further consideration.
Summing up, I assume that you have no code in this kernel, and thus that no licensing fees will apply. If you differ on this, please let me know the details (modules / file names) and I'll look into not compiling it in, or having it replaced by new code.
SuSE 7.0 Personal, boxed, running on a Pentium-based laptop. Since you have a joint project with SuSE to develop UnitedLinux, SuSE customers should (according to SuSE) be free from any additional licensing. This is currently running kernel 2.5.70, and I offer you to remove any SCO IP from the kernel. All I need to know is which elements of the kernel are in question.
Furthermore, I'm planning to set up a web/ftp server, based on Pentium (possibly dual CPU). At this time, I'm undetermined which Linux distribution/kernel version to use, and I am curious about which ones can be used without violating any IP problems. Therefore, I kindly ask your advice on the subject. Please be specific, however, any claims without sufficient details to investigate the matter will be disregarded. We intend to use only code that has been legally licensed and is free to use.
Since the pricing of your SCO IP Licenses is set quite high, I am mainly interested in removing any and all SCO IP from our computers, which should resolve the matter completely. Therefore, I ask you in good faith and well in advance of any court decision to provide me with details on how to do so. Please also note that all code in the Linux kernel has been licensed to me under the GNU GPL by the copyright holders. I consider my licenses to be complete and covering - if you have an IP issue, I think you should contact the individual copyright holders first, to clear out any problems. Since IBM has taken the SCO Group to court for breach of the GPL, any licensing issues will of course be pending the courts opinion on the matter.
I'm in a Unix state of mind.
Hot indeed....with all the torching, it's gotta be hot.
MoFoQ grabs some more pitchforks and flaming torches from a local Pitchforks and Things.
An Open Response to Darl McBride's Open Letter to the Open Source Community
(First Draft)
Dear Mr. McBride,
First, let me introduce myself. My name is John Gabriel. I have been working in the technical field for 15 years, as a Network Administrator, Applications Manager, Network Manager, Sr. Networking Engineer, and now, Freelance Consultant. And, yes, I'm an MCSE.
My first experiences with Unix occurred in the late 1970's, during school field trips to local colleges. I also did Unix technical support for students while taking a class in Pascal in the late 1980's. My first experience with Linux dates to 1994, when I downloaded whatever Linux kernel was available at that time.
While I did install it successfully, on a Compaq Deskpro 386/25, I quickly abandoned it as the system didn't have enough memory to support X Windows. Several years later, in 1998, I became a Caldera customer, with a purchase of Caldera OpenLinux Base ver. 1.22, with Linux kernel 2.0.33. I ran into similar problems again.
About a year ago, I became interested again Linux, and now run Linux on my home workstation in a dual-boot configuration with Windows XP.
About 4-5 months ago, I began following the SCO v. IBM story. I was at first inclined to be open-minded towards SCO's claims. It wouldn't be the first time a small company has had its copyrights violated by a larger vendor, though the violator is usually, in my experience, Microsoft, as exemplified by Caldera's history with DR-DOS.
However, the more I researched the story and SCO's claims, the more convinced I became that SCO's claims were, well, baseless. Being the type that usually likes to "root for the underdog", I was surprised by my conclusions.
Anyway, that's enough introduction. What follows is an Open Response to your Open Letter to the Open Source Community. I grant everyone, including you, permission to re-publish it, or quote from it, without restriction, except that my comments be properly attributed to myself. Consider it under a "BSD-style" license if you like.
1) The most controversial issue in the information technology industry today is the ongoing battle over software copyrights and intellectual property. This battle is being fought largely between vendors who create and sell proprietary software, and the Open Source community. My company, the SCO Group, became a focus of this controversy when we filed a lawsuit against IBM alleging that SCO's proprietary Unix code has been illegally copied into the free Linux operating system. In doing this we angered some in the Open Source community by pointing out obvious intellectual property problems that exist in the current Linux software development model.
Mr. McBride,
Response to Paragraph 1 of your "Open Letter":
This is very difficult to respond to, because your analysis of the issues and of the reasons for the Open Source community's anger is, in the words of the great physicist Wolfgang Pauli, "so bad it's not even wrong."
For instance, your own lawsuit against IBM does not allege that "SCO's proprietary Unix code has been illegally copied into Linux" -- it alleges that code *owned* by IBM but under contractual "control" rights to SCO has been copied into Linux. Surely, you don't dispute that IBM owns the relevant copyrights and patents to NUMA, JFS, and RCU?
Or do you dispute Section 2 of Exhibit C on your web site, the ATT-IBM sideletter agreement, which states in part, "we (ATT) agree that modifications and derivative works prepared by or for you (IBM) are owned by you"?
The truth is there are many reasons the Open source community is angered with you and the actions of The SCO Group and The Canopy Group, none of which have too do with "intellectual property problems that exist in the current Linux software development model." We don't believe such problems exist. We do believe that The SCO Groups legal theories of what constitutes "derivative works" have no basis in copyright, patent, or tradem
Q.
Insert Signature Here
When is thing going to trial? I'm getting sick of discussing it.
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
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
The problem is that the same "problem" of accepting code exists in proprietary code too, so Darl's argument that this is somehow a flaw only present in the Open Source world is false. Developers who work for company XYZ will use code obtained from company ABC (either because he/she worked at ABC in the past or "borrowed" it from a friend at ABC). They probably know this is wrong, but who would ever know? The key difference is that since the code is proprietary, no one ever knows. Since open source is open for the world to see, you get vultures like McBride swooping in. Hell, there's probably a lot more GNU code improperly placed into proprietary code than the other way around!
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.