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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.
Is the delay is to add "legitimacy". When it goes to court, they cn present these Fortune 1000 companies that have been suckered in as proof that people feel they need a license for Linux.
from TFA:
"one SCO reseller said the decision to leave smaller businesses out of the licensing program will have little effect on his business. most small businesses running Linux wouldn't purchase SCO's license anyway, according to tony lawrence, owner of a.p. lawrence, a consulting firm based in sharon, massachusetts.
"i think the chances of collecting from small businesses are very small, because they have very little to lose," he said. "they don't necessarily know whether they have SCO or linux. the only time they care about their computer is when it crashes.""
does this sound right to anybody here? a small firm that runs linux is insufficiently l337 to take an interest in SCO's antics? wouldn't, in fact, the reverse be true: the local linux admin (and staff) should by slashdotters and hence be paying very close attention indeed.
unless the consultant is speaking of mom & pop shops (which isn't exactly the same thing as fortune 1000), i just can't see this.
ed
bullshit bullshit bullshit.
this is not legal in any sense whatsoever. To the law - there is no difference between me "stealing" something and Enron stealing somthing or Microsoft stealing something.
its still stealing.
They can't have it both ways - they cant tell me "i'm cool" but then tell Boeing they are not cool. What if i become the next Boeing in the next year because i come up with the ultimate something or other? Is my copy of Linux a personal or Fortune 1000 "verison"?
bullshit bullshit bullshit
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
is that you can contact them and reserve your piece of paper at the current price. Oh wait, that's right, I dont need a stinking piece of paper.
:)
BTW, the 699 every one is talking about is for servers. Its only like 200 (approx, I dont remember off the top of my head) for personal use.
I say we all pitch in and buy 1 licence, and then have all the Kernel developers sue the shit out of SCO. We can just add in our 699 to the costs to get our money back
(Im not trying to troll, But I think it looks that way, D'OH)
Stop signs are only Suggestions
If SC0 has a case ( i dont think they do) then they would want all parties, whether corps or home users to pay their fees. As things now stand SCO is essentially saying "only the big boys must pay". This is convoluted and flawed logic. Of course I would not expect much else from SCO these days. The real question is how does SCO expect to legitimize its claims by selective billing? If linux is tainted (which i doubt) then all users who knowlingly use it anyway are liable. This just goes to show that SCO knows they have no case. SGI has essentially said that they reveiwed all the code and compared it to sysV and we are clean. Really SCO should go after everyone if they think they have a chance in hell of winning. They dont and this tale keeps getting weirder and weirder. SCO is getting more desperate. The plot thickens....
Threatening end-users was baseless allegations to drive up the price of your stock is also a Federal crime, but involves securities laws that are far more difficult to prove/prosecute and even when convicted, they usually only result in small fines.
This is in fact going to hurt any chances of suing ppl in the future (liberal use of the word chance here). If SCO wont sell a license unless you are someone important, then again your usage cant be causing them any damages they care about. The fact they issued a price for individual licenses and wont sell any sounds like it would fall under some kind of false advertising scam.
Not to mention the millions the executives and their families have made dumping SCO stock while it's been going up.
Make no mistake, SCO has already won this battle.
Go to district court house - get paper and fill it out including damages (lets set damages at the full price 1398 - or the maximum allowed in your juristiction) that were incurred and cost of delivering the summons.
Find the local lawyer for SCO in your juristiction (they have to have one - it is public record) and get the papers served
Wait and watch SCO go "Oh Shit"
(ps. We all $profit$)
What is nice about this is if enough geeks file papers in enough courts across the country SCO can't possibly defend themselves from the claims, and they will have to payup or shutup.
I propose a geek stampeed - The week of the 8th of December seems like a good time to file lawsuits
Please join in the protest by going to the district courthouse in your district and file a small claims lawsuit then
PS... Don't make it a class action either - that makes the legal costs for SCO go down - and none of us will see the money at that point. Small claims court - we just say SCO is saying we owe them 1.4K - we say they don't so we are suing to get the money from them.
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
But not only is the SCO share price rising, but there are a lot of shares being traded too. The markets back SCO at the moment and not us.
"The market" isn't a single entity, any more than slashdot is. What you are seeing is stock manipulation, plain and simple. At least, here's what I see:
- Someone buys up a large fraction of the float in SCO, until the price just starts to rise.
- SCO or a friend issues some sort of noise maker / press release
- The price shoots up
- Our anonomous friend sells into the rise until the price drops back down
- Profit!
"The market" isn't backing anyone here.What you are seeing is wolves taking money from sheep by not-too-subtle trickery.
-- MarkusQ
Except that people ARE ponying up to buy shares (and float loans) at these ridiculous prices.
People? Or investment firms? I suspect that most of the people who are buying SCO stock are doing so with other people's money.
So you can kiss your pension goodbye for a start.
Show of hands: who believes that Tony's business probably runs on pirated Microsoft products?
From his web site we learn that he's a SCO reseller. This makes what he said one of the more interesting twists taken on the SCO-apologist soapbox, IMO.
Actually, what's surprising about SCO's tactics is that they went straight for IBM in the lawsuit and the Fortune 1000 for licenses.
Traditionally, IP cases tend to start out against the small operations who don't have the resources for a court battle. The small companies either give in without a fight, or can't afford strong legal representation, leading to precedent-setting legal victories for the plaintiff.
SCO went big game hunting immediately either because it thought its case was rock solid, or because it wanted the publicity of taking on IBM (or both).
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
If anyone thought that maybe, just maybe, SCO's claims were valid, you can stop that nonsense. SCO's refusal to take money proves beyond a doubt that they have no case.
If SCO's claim is valid, then it has every right to either stop the use of its IP or to obtain money from its use. But SCO is claiming that while it has the right to obtain such relief, it chooses not to take it.
Imagine this press release from Wal-Mart: "The Wal-Mart corporation has decided not prosecute or to impede shoplifters in its stores. Because we are satisfied with those few people who do pay, we see no need to make everyone pay."
That's EXACTLY what SCO is arguing. That because some people pay for using its IP, the vast majority of users can have a free ride. If SCO's IP claims are valid, than the basis for not taking money is ludicrous!
The real reason for the change is because SCO knows it has absolutely no proof to back up its claims against individual users. If SCO followed through with its threats, no one would pay, they'd be exposed as frauds, and they'd become the laughingstock of the tech world.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
The first thing to remember here, is that this is a pump and dump scheme. Pure and simple. Hopefully, the SEC will pick up on that eventually.
The second thing, the licensing, is fairly unimportant, but it's fun to watch SCO try to dance around the GPL. Suppose for a brief second, that Linux contains SCO code, and it's not held to the GPL. As the parent poster indicated, Linux becomes undistributable. SCO is offering a license to run their code. This would indemnify you from liability from SCO. Now, you could continue to make personal use of Linux without being in violation of the GPL. You're not required to publish modifications that you don't redistribute. If you were, say, Tivo, there is absolutely no way you could distribute your product without violating either SCO or the GPL. But this all supposes that SCO's claims are valid. Which I strongly doubt, because, this is, after all, a pump and dump scheme.
bance.net
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.
That isn't it. They've switched to saying that only fortune 1000 companies can get a license in order to stop people from trying to get one. They know that they can't actually sell one and they're gambling on the idea that a fortune 1000 company won't publicise the fact that SCO wouldn't let them buy one.
They were in danger of people in the media (who run Linux) demanding to know why they can't buy a SCO license, but now that heat is conveniently deflected.
- Brian.
Why not? Because Red Hat stands a very good chance of raining on this whole parade. Red Hat claims the "actual contraversy" is SCO's public statements, SCO's 1500 threatening letters, and this licensing program. The license is pretty damning for SCO, since they're supposedly selling the rights to use SCO's (unspecified) IP and not be sued.
SCO can't afford to sell ANY licenses, because of the Red Hat suit. But they can't publically admit they won't sell licenses, because everyone who's big their valuation up believe they may have a shot at someday taxing all Linux installations. Reversing course would likely be seen as an admission they may not ever get licensing. So instead, they claim they're only going after the big fish... and of course they won't actually do it, just blow a lot of hot air (what they've been doing all along).
To the many individual who've called their bluff and attempted to buy licenses, bravo. SCO's options are shrinking ever smaller.
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