Slashdot Mirror
SCO Selective About Linux Licensees
cdunworth writes "According to the IDG news wire, SCO is now telling the vast hoardes of willing new Linux licensees that, unless you are a Fortune 1000 company, you can't buy a Linux license. Not yet. Why the delay? In return for your $699 payment, they don't have to send you anything more than a piece of paper." At least home users of Linux can take solace in knowing that they don't have to pay up yet. It doesn't always pay to have deep pockets.
In return for your $699 payment, they don't have to send you anything more than a piece of paper
Do SCO really think people will pay this? Or do they have a 'long term strategy plan'?
I have over 70 freaks, do you?
At least home users of Linux can take solace in knowing that they don't have to pay up yet.
Personally I'm taking solace in knowing that I don't have to pay up, ever.
Someone you trust is one of us.
This is just further evidence that SCO's plan is one of legal extortion, instead of claiming the technology. What's interesting is that they're trying to scare these big-dollar companies who'd rather just toss over a few thousand dollars than to bother their legal department with it. Smaller companies, such as the one I work for, would have a hard time coming up with that capital, and may be better off challenging SCOs claims in court in order to save themselves from a major financial hit. ~D
This sig has been enciphered with a one-time pad. It could say almost anything.
acting like this $699 fee crap is serious? Nobody is going to pay SCO anything unless they beat IBM, which we all know isn't going to happen.
Sounds to me like SCO has a really well thought out plan. Announce licenses. Announce invoices. Respond with confusion when people call to purchase said licenses. Announce price increase. Announce balk on invoices. Annouce price increase time extension. Announce only Fortune 1000 can participate.
Their plan is simply announcements to pump their stock, because otherwise they would have though through this license deal before hand, and shown us the code. But we knew that already.
Linux is distributed under the GPL. The GPL does not permit redistribution if it requires a license (to discourage just the kind of sleazy behavior SCO is engaging in). So, if SCO's claim is valid, then there is no point in licensing Linux because they won't be able to get any updated versions anway, not from SCO, not from RedHat, not from anybody. And if SCO's claim is not valid, then there is no point in paying them any money. In short, you can't really buy a license for Linux: either it's free or you can't use it at all.
I think the scam is that the smaller guys are willing to pay while the bigger guys are taking a wait and see approach. So at the end NOBODY is going to have a license, so when this whole pump-and-dump backfires on them, they won't be held responsible for the legal extortion they are doing.
They know that if they collect even one penny now, and they lose the suit, they will get their azz handed to them by the judge.. this is just a smoke and mirror show
-joe
Yes, according to Tony Lawrence, owner of A.P. Lawrence, a consulting firm that is probably ALSO a small or medium-sized business.
From the article, referring to small and medium-sized business owners:
"They don't necessarily know whether they have SCO or Linux. The only time they care about their computer is when it crashes."
Show of hands: who believes that CEOs of fortune 500 companies know the details of their hardware and software infrastructure better than small and medium-sized business owners?
Okay, Tony, put your hand down.
Show of hands: who believes that CEOs of fortune 500 companies only give a rat's ass when their computer crashes, that small business owners are highly aware of their hardware and software infrastructure because they have a smaller staff and a higher sensitivity to the cost and maintenance to such infrastructure, and that medium-sized business owners fall into both groups?
Okay, everyone else put your hands down. One more.
Show of hands: who believes that Tony's business probably runs on pirated Microsoft products?
There is nothing forcing them to sue everyone, just like the RIAA can choose to only sue those above a certain amount of shared files.
Nobody signed a contract here, so the only problem is copyright law, [...]
But if you buy a SCO license you're entering a contract with SCO. Note that they're not suing IBM for violating a copyright - but they ARE suing them for allegedly violating a contrct.
If you buy the license you are paying $699 to give SCO the right to sue you if you ever use Linux on more than one machine. NOT smart.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Makes sense to me. SCO is playing the lottery here, and hoping one of the tickets is a winner.
Why go after Joe Consumer? SCO knows their odds of even finding private citizens using Linux are next to zero. Private citizens hardly ever get busted using a pirated copy of Windows, and Redmond has cash to burn to go looking for them. And even if they were to nail a few guys, so what? They're looking for a big payoff here, not nickel-and-dime end users.
But Fortune 1000 companies, ah! Big bucks. They're hoping to intimidate some huge company with the threat of audits and huge legal expenses vs. the relatively low cost of a site license.
And they know they only have a limited time to try their horseshit before some judge somewhere finally makes them show the "you can't see it yet" infringing code, and that'll be game over when it happens. So they're in a hurry - no time for small potatoes.
So please, don't bother SCO unless you have obscene piles of cash lying around and a panicky board of directors!
Weaselmancer
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
I'm no lawyer, but the fact that you have "convinced" somebody of something doesn't mean it is any more credible.
Does the fact that lots of people bought shares from those scam artists selling plots of the Moon and Mars lend their claim that "International law says no country can claim celestial bodies...therefore, since I am not a country, I can and do. Shotty Mars!" any credibility? Nope
People bought the shares because they were cheap...and if it WAS credible, it would be an EXCELLENT investment, since the price would go up when we start colonizing. Similarly, Fortune 1000 companies think it is relativly cheap to proff themselves against even the remote possibility of a billion dollar lawsuit like IBM is getting. Even if they think the claims are rediculous, a cost-benifit analysis probably shows they shouldn't really take the risk...and the shareholders will insist.
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
$699 is probably less than you pay your legal department for an hour of sitting around on retainer. Thus, it starts making more sense to just pay SCO this one time to get them to shut up and go away.
The question: "Which is less: the number of processors in your enterprise, or the number of legal man-hours it'd take to fight of a SCO lawsuit?" becomes relevant.
Of course, once SCO starts getting companies to pay up, then it sets an established precedent which they can use to bully the small fry and extract the money from them.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
The rationale is quite simple. If large corporations, which have the resources, expertise and time to fight in court againt SCO were defeated, the small ones will look like sitting ducks. No owner of a small business will risk a war that companies much times bigger couldn't win.
On the other hand, SCO knows that they have power now to intimidate and force the little guys to pay licenses, but if these licenses are bought and later on it turns out that SCO did not have the right to charge them, they are going to be sued for so many firms and so many reasons that they can even imagine right now.
Their strategy makes perfect sense to me.
I wish the world was perfect enough that this made sense to me. Unfortunately both of your points (while ideal) are wrong. People will pay for this (they already are!) and this is just another phase of their strategy plan they have been milking all year.
Last I heard, their court date was in 2005. The way I figure it, they have until then to pull this stuff left and right (as they have been). Whatever the company doesn't rake in through "license sales," the execs rake in through insider trading. It's a nasty game, but it's big business. And they are making this long-term, I don't figure it'll stop the day they go to court.
It's really just tragically ironic how SCO is acting out everything the OS ideals are against while claiming they are entitled to licenses on it.
The only thing more dangerous than a file named -rf is renaming it -rf\ /
Selective like a hoe. Only come after you if they think you've got the money.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
This might be a good idea... or might be not.
I personally don't think I am qualified to say whether it is or not.
In any case, if this campaign is to happen, it has to be organized by someone with reputation, someone whose name people would trust.
And if such campaign is to happen, someone should _first_ consult a lawyer on (a) whether it's legally correct to go to small claims
court with this (b) if it will really help to solve the legal mess over Linux and SCO.
And most importantly of all, does the community even agree on whether we want SCO to shut up or not? There is a good argument for not making SCO shut up - then the case goes to court where IBM (and GPL) can win it - that would be a great thing for GPL.
So in short, if this campaign is to be organized, it has to happen with someone like EFF supporting and approving it.
Or at least with some of the respected people in Linux community saying this will actually help the cause.
Otherwise these guerilla actions may simply not help anyone.
Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.
H.G. Wells, "The Outline of History"