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SCO Derides GPL, Will Revoke SGI's UNIX License

Posted by timothy on from the darl-knows-bad-letters-when-he-sees-them dept.

ComaVN writes "Not a big surprise for those who have followed the recent SCO misery, but SCO is going after SGI. According to SGI, SCO intends to terminate their Unix System V license, much like they did with IBM earlier. I guess it's hard to stop once you've chosen a certain direction for your company." sheddd writes "Does this case have any merit? Joe Formage has written a good article on SCO's strange behavior." Read on below for SCO's odd tactic of attacking the GPL by belittling IBM's legal diligence in not avoiding GPL'd software, and word on why Linux users aren't being served SCO invoices.

larry2k writes "PR newswire has an open letter from SCO to IBM.

From the letter: 'SCO believes that the GPL -- created by the Free Software Foundation to supplant current U.S. copyright laws -- is a shaky foundation on which to build a legal case.'" The release is also carried by NewsForge. Among other things, SCO says "By so strongly defending the controversial GPL, IBM is also defending a questionable licensing scheme through which it can avoid providing software indemnification for its customers."

Doesn't supplant mean "replace"? That's not what the GPL does.

And if you're wondering why you have not received an invoice from SCO for any Linux-based OS you may be running, benploni writes "From Groklaw: In this Detroit News story Blake Stowell explains why no one has received an invoice: 'SCO in August said Linux users could avoid lawsuits by paying a one-time fee of $699. The fee will rise to $1,399 on Oct. 15. Since the response to its appeal was adequate, SCO didn't send bills to thousands of Linux users, company spokesman Blake Stowell said.' [emphasis added]. We all knew there was no way they'd risk actually sending out invoices, and here's the proof."

5 of 681 comments (clear)

  1. Indemnification DDOS by SeanTobin · · Score: 5, Interesting
    "By so strongly defending the controversial GPL, IBM is also defending a questionable licensing scheme through which it can avoid providing software indemnification for its customers. We continue to urge IBM to provide legal indemnification for its Linux customers"

    SCO has been shouting that since the beginning. My bet is they have a legal DDOS already planned to sue every single one of IBM's customers. By IBM providing indeminification, they would be swamped responding to the individual claims. It may be hard to take out a 800lb gorilla with a slingshot, but half a million mosquitoes will suck one dry.

    Meanwhile, it does not look like SCO's case against IBM is likely to be settled any time soon. SCO has also filed a motion with the court in Utah asking for more time - until February 4, 2004 - to amend its pleadings and add parties. The case is not expected to go to trial until 2005.

    I remember an article or discussion in the last week about Darl getting a bonus and the freedom to cash out more stock once SCO has 4 consecutive profitable quarters. Febuary 4th would round this out nicely. Then Darl is free to jump ship and watch it burn. I'm sure someone will post the link below :)
    --
    Karma: SELECT `karma` FROM `users` WHERE `userid`=138474;
  2. IBM To Buy Out Novell? by emacnabber · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I live in the Provo area and the rumor I'm hearing from Novell employees is that IBM is looking to adquire Novell...

  3. Stupid SCO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    SCO's actions are much like intentionally walking up to that big, slobbering rabid dog and yanking it's chain. Hey, if they want to piss in the pool, they better not want to drink from it later. They claim the GPL is shaky. Following that logic, a majority of the code in Unix, for example, certainly must have been written by somebody by somebody else. If the GPL doesn't hold, according to them, then are they going to infringe on the rights of whoever actually DID write those millions of lines of code, even if they don't know who those people are?

  4. Indemnification by TrailerTrash · · Score: 5, Interesting

    IBM has alleged that SCO copied parts of GNU/Linux into its products, such as the Linux Personality module.

    WHY ISN'T SCO OFFERING ITS CUSTOMERS INDEMNIFICATION AGAINST IBM'S CLAIMS???????

    SCO has shown that they believe that indemnifying customers over alleged violations of IP is critical to a business. Why won't they offer it themselves?

  5. Re:Stock? by Hettch · · Score: 5, Interesting

    A friend of mine is a broker, and she has been trying to sell SCO short for several weeks, but all the investors have it tied up so that no one can sell the stocks short. Sad, actually. It'd be a good way to make some quick cash.