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.

Comments

wait a sec

[ed.han]

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

Extortion

[Dracolytch]

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

Well thought out plan

[praxis]

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.

Fortune 1000 can't buy license either

[penguin7of9]

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.

Re:Fortune 1000 can't buy license either

[ajs]

You're blurring two very different things, here, and while your core point is correct, it does need some clarification.

You can buy a license for Linux. There is, in fact, nothing wrong with buying or providing a license. SCO's problem is that they are a licensee of Linux under the GPL, and under the terms of that license they have certain obligations and one of those is not to sue their licensees or their sub-licensees for the technology contained in that software.

SCO's counter to this is fairly weak, but let me state it anyway: they claim that they did not know that Linux contained this code, and they distributed their own version of Linux, essentially just as much in the dark as Red Hat. Only (again according to SCO) IBM had any clue what rampant duplication of SCO proprietary technology was being hidden away in the Linux source.

The reason this is weak is several-fold: 1) SCO has continued to distribute the 2.4.13 kenerl from their FTP site under the GPL even up to this date. 2) the interaction between the GPL and SCOs claims is not that clear-cut, though I would tend to side with them on this one point, I don't think the outcome is certain 3) SCO helped in the development of some of the IBM technology in question, so they dang well DID know it was in there.

Ok, now on to you as a user.

If you use Linux, the GPL says you can keep using Linux even if the code is found to be proprietary and the GPL goes into its "failsafe mode".

Now, SCO will say that you cannot continue to use it, and they can press that case if they want, but that's their assertion independant of the GPL. The GPL does not stop you from using the software just because the GPL was nullified by the discovery of a conflict between it and other terms.

However, Red Hat (for example) cannot ship an encumbered version of Linux (they can use it, they just can't ship it). So, they would have to remove the encumbering code, which is why they and everyone else have asked SCO to outline the problem code. At this point, I can't see a court siding with SCO, as they have failed over and over and over to give distributors of Linux the information that they need to AVOID infringement. If SCO said, lines 200-20000 of fubar.c are ours, then the community would move to validate that claim and, if it was valid, remove the offending code ASAP. SCO doesn't want that, clearly, or they would have made it happen (as has happened with their claim over the SGI malloc, even though their claim to that code is tenuous at best).

So, when you say "they won't be able to get any updated versions anway, not from SCO, not from RedHat, not from anybody," that's not so. You will, in fact, get an update pretty damn soon after such a chunk of code is revealed (should it exist at all), and that update will be unencumberd. If that means re-writing 90% of linux, then it will take a bit, but even SCO's wildest claims have made it clear that only a few (albeit large) subsystems are affected.

What Red Hat's obligation to SCO will be (if any) is not your concern. That's a business arrangement between Red Hat and SCO.

Good for us in many ways

[argmanah]

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.

Thanks god...

[soccerisgod]

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.

Small and Medium business owners == Idiots?

[DaveJay]

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?

OT: The Slashdot Caldera/SCO topic icon

[curtisk]

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

fair is fair

[tetrahedrassface]

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....

Separate the wheat from the chaff

[Weaselmancer]

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

Re:This is getting ridiculous

[ansak]

Except that people ARE ponying up to buy shares (and float loans) at these ridiculous prices. Who says the market is intelligent?

Or to put it another way: if you understand the technical issues, you probably haven't spent enough time on the economic ones to see the value of the bet the way the economists do. Conversely, if you understand the economics, you probably haven't spent the necessary time to grok the technical issues enough.

Sounds like a great opportunity for a scam artist (SCO) to play off both sides (geeks and investors) against the middle and walk away (Hey! How could we know the court would find against us?).

cheers...ank

Look again

[MarkusQ]

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:

1. Someone buys up a large fraction of the float in SCO, until the price just starts to rise.
2. SCO or a friend issues some sort of noise maker / press release
3. The price shoots up
4. Our anonomous friend sells into the rise until the price drops back down
5. Profit!

"The market" isn't backing anyone here.

What you are seeing is wolves taking money from sheep by not-too-subtle trickery.

-- MarkusQ

Re:Oh no! Help!

[Zeinfeld]

Does this mean I'll have to pay for a full price licences for my Tivo, Router and network enabled coffee maker instead?

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.

Re:GNU/FSF business model leaked

[Nykon]

If I have to pay $700 for something from FSF does that mean they will have to change their name to just SF ?

Like ING?

[jdray]

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)

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.