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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.
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.
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
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.
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.
In other words, SCO is saying, "The only people we are going to try and charge for Linux right now are the people with enough money to sue us into oblivion."
I am OK with this.
Overrated Moderation: This posts sucks... because.
At least home users of Linux can take solace in knowing that they don't have to pay up yet.
Phew, what a relief. That was really keeping me awake at night.
If a train station is a place where a train stops, what's a workstation?
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?
I would like to have it changed to an overhead image of the caldera logo spiraling mid-flush in a dirty toilet. Thats where they are headed
Sehr geehrter Toilettenbenutzer!
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....
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.
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.
$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!
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
Nope, the way the case works the licesne fee sets the maximum damages in the case that they took you to court.
It is unlikely that SCO can claim any damages because the plaintif in any tort is required to mitigate their damages. In other words someone drops a cigarette near your house, you watch the cigarette set fire to your lawn, your deck and you do nothing to try to stop it even though you are sitting next to a fire extinguisher. The person who dropped the ciggarett asks to use the fire extinguisher, you refuse. No you cannot claim the cost of rebuilding the house as damages.
In this case SCO has deliberately avoided mitigating its damages by refusing to be specific as to which parts of the code are in dispute. They know that the minute they do so those parts of the O/S will be rewritten whether or not there is a genuine copyright issue.
SCO cannot claim for damages that it is intentionally causing. The users of Linux have a right to avoid infringement by using an alternative implementation not covered by a SCO copyright claim.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
If I have to pay $700 for something from FSF does that mean they will have to change their name to just SF ?
"It's better to be a pirate then join the Navy"
Nope.
A copyright holder can do whatever he wants with his copyright. Imagine you write a hit song, and hold the copyright to it. Elton John wants to perform it at the grammies - you decide to charge him a half million dollars to do so..
You find out that some kids garage band played it at their high school talent show - you can look the other way, grant them a 0 cost license.. Whatever you want.
You're thinking of trademarks. You can't trademark a word unless you plan on defending it (or else some jackass would trademark every word in the english language by now)
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Kind of like the financial company ING? If Darl McBride were head of ING, he'd be suing half the world's English speakers every time they used a verb with his company's name at the end.
The Spoon
Updated 6/28/2011