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SCO News Roundup
Bootsy Collins managed to combine all of today's SCO stories. He writes "The firm of David Boies, SCO's attorney in charge of their Linux IP cases, has
announced their compensation
(so far) from SCO: $1 million USD in cash, and $8 million in SCO stock. Keeping that stock price high until they can sell is clearly of some importance to
Boies, Schiller and Flexner LLP. Given the cost of
selling a $50 million convertible note to fund their legal actions, the actual cost to SCO is more like $17 million USD. Meanwhile, SCO CEO Darl McBride is saying that Novell's purchase of SuSE
violates a non-competition agreement reached when SCO bought the Unix source, and thus is legally actionable by SCO. Over at the Register, they've noticed that SCO's latest SEC filings indicate how firmly they're putting all their eggs in the legal basket: the filings effectively say that
'SCO has already lost business from its loyal customer base, and it expects to lose more.'
And finally, in response to a poor response to SCO's attempts to get Fortune 1000 companies to pay $699/server for 'Linux licenses' before the fee jumped to $1399, SCO has announced
that the $699 discount rate will apply to the end of 2003. Hurry before time runs out again."
Look, we all know that IBM's lawyers are going to rip off their head and shit down their neck, and that the investors who get stuck with SCO stock are going to end up suing Daryl and co. for their pump-and-dump (although anyone buying SCO right now is in a fool-and-their-money situation).
But constantly going over and over the SCO situation when there's not anything really new is like feeding that troll in your usenet list.
The non-compete agreement prohibits Novell from directly competing with SCO's Unix-on-Intel business, McBride said.
Linux Is Not UniX, any more so than BSD, BeOS, or MacOSX. Better double check the wording of that contract Darl.
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
The legal action is also causing them to have problems hiring. I was called up by one recuriter/pimp and asked if I would be intrested in working in their call center. To this I gave a firm but polite no. HE then let slip that everyone he had spoken to had said pretty much the same thing.
Oh well
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
IANAL, but I suspect now might be a good time to join in RedHat's suit against Darl and his crack smoking band of pirates.
From Groklaw...The firm will be enforcing and defending SCO's intellectual property rights, including the protection of our UNIX System V source code and our copyrights that were reaffirmed as a result of the BSDI settlement agreement.'" Does SCO now think that they also own BSDi rights?
Banjo - The more I know about Windoze, the more I love *nix
I don't think Novell is competing with SCO. SCO does not have a product (well one that is worth much at least) The only way I think Novell would be competing with SCO would be to file lawsuits against all things linux.
More than that. IF SCO somehow wins and gets to charge everyone an enormous fee for using linux. Novell would just have to pay SCO, which I don't think is competion.
Can you ping me now?... Good!
Recent Press Release from, SCOX
/PRNewswire-FirstCall via Comtex/ -- The SCO(R) Group (SCO) , the owner of the UNIX operating system, today announced that Chief Executive Officer Darl McBride, will deliver a keynote address at the Enterprise IT Week/Computer Digital Expo (CDXPO) conference in Las Vegas on Tuesday, November 18 at 5:00 p.m. The conference and keynote will take place at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center.
LINDON, Utah, Nov 05, 2003
In his address titled "There's No Free Lunch -- Or Free Linux," McBride will present his perspectives on the prospects of free industries, SCO's suit against IBM, and why intellectual property must be protected in a digital age.
"The Internet created -- and creatively destroyed -- great wealth. It also created a culture legitimizing intellectual property theft," said McBride. "When you defend intellectual property, you speak an unpleasant truth. People don't like to hear unpleasant truths. The alternative to this fight, however, is the death of an industry and thousands of jobs lost."
McBride will also explore how the information technology industry - software, hardware, networking and services -- depends on money passing from one hand to another, asserting that the livelihood of engineers and developers rests on paid models, even as those developers donate time to free projects such as Linux. McBride will lay out his assertion that without paid software, there would be little or no free software. At the conclusion of his keynote, McBride will be available for media questions.
McBride's keynote will be followed by a Town Hall discussion moderated by Jack Powers, conference chairman of Enterprise IT Week and director of the International Informatics Institute...
What is the "Enterprise IT Week/Computer Digital Expo (CDXPO) conference"? Is it important?
Why would they invite McBride to give him a platform from which to hurl his dispatches
from the surreal and serial random threats? Comic relief?
The non-compete, I'm guessing, would have been regarding the unix source code that was licensed (not sold) to SCO... which would make good sense right? Why would SCO buy the completel rights to it if Novell could turn around and compete with them using it?
Of course, that has nothing to do with OTHER operating systems.. Novell has always been in the networked OS market, and using linux is hardly any differnet than using Novell's old stuff in that respect. Linux is not unix, as everyone except SCO is fond of saying.
...is the status of IBM's filings to compel discovery not just from SCO, but with companies investing in SCO.
This could get particularly sticky if SCO's legal team has a strong financial stake in SCO and the outcome.
Attorney/client privilege is pretty strong, but can it be pried apart if there is evidence of, oh, say fraud?
"Provided by the management for your protection."
The operative principle is a well understood one, that once you lose a customer (for any reason) it is very difficult to get them back. I don't think the folks over at SCO will change their tune, since it is apparent that they've put all their eggs in the legal basket. But, I really don't think I want to support SCO's customers with my money either.
Incidentally, I'm also pushing at my work to discontinue supporting older versions of our application which run on SCO, and provide those customers a free upgrade path to the Linux based versions. This may be successful, for more than purely ideological reasons as well. I don't think it is a coincidence that when we ported the original SCO version to Linux over 80% of our support issues disappeared overnight on those deployments. This certainly helps my case, and is a non-scientific indicator of what garbage their product actually is, source owner or not,
"Talk minus action equals nothing" - Joey Shithead, D.O.A.
"Talk minus action equals
One Million in cash, Eight Million in stock... How much longer will the eight million in SCOX be worth more than the one milly in cash? SCO is actually paying for their lawyers with a diminishing asset. Brilliant! Most folks pay attorneys all they can cash, and finance the rest. SCO is paying all they can cash, and then substituting a commodity for the remainder, Over time this stock will drop in value (SCO knows this) and the eight million will be five million, or two, or half or none.
Smarter than paying with a credit card.
They must be planning to pay more people with stock if I read the SEC filing right. Note the last paragraph where it says, "SCO anticipates . . . issuance of the Series A Convertible Preferred Stock of approximately $8,741,000." No hint who that is going to.
"As does NetWare."
thats the first thought that flew through my mind after reading Darls comment.
Netware does a lot of the common tasks as UNIX ware:
Runs oracle, runs mysql, pgsql, serves web pages, serves file sharing.
Only diferentiation is the OS itself.
They would have to be much more specific on what the terms of the non-compete. INAL , but it seems that if they can push a non-compete for SuSE , they can also get it for Netware as well as possibly some of the other products.
My guess is they can't go after existing business that SCO holds or develop a UNIX operating system themselves... where technically Linux isn't UNIX, it's all going to come into the careful wording of the non-compete.
Actually, they are planning to sue a large Linux user according to the Wall Street Journal (subscription required, I'm afraid, but you could try this printable view). Boies the lawyer claims that they will be suing a representative large copyright violator (Linux user) in the near future. That should teach all those deadbeats not to pay their SCO license fee, eh?
The article also said SCO is giving Boies' law firm $1 million cash and 400,000 shares. I wonder when this turns into a conflict of interest for Boies, if not an SEC pump and dump type of violation.
Amazing.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
It is of course circumstantial, but here is the evidence that I have observed:
1. Means: Microsoft's financial support, via 'licensing'.
2. SCO's specific attacks that fall widely outside their original complaint against IBM, namely attacks against Torvalds, Stallman, and the GPL
3. (Most damning) SCO's denial that MS helped them in any way
4. Motive: MS are one of the few (only?) companies who stand to benefit from FUD surrounding Linux, GPL
5. Timing: as soon as SCO's attacks began, Microsoft stopped theirs. Later, when the SCO case reached a plateau, Microsoft started again.
If SCO were seriously interested in making money from Linux licenses, they would not (could not!) attack its very legitimacy. Instead, they would promote the system at the same time as they tried to claim ownership over it.
It is true that SCO executives appear to also be involved in a "pump and dump" scheme but I seriously doubt this was the original or principal plan, it is far too risky. The inflated SCO shares are a bonus but not the motive.
And Occam's Razor demands that one seeks the simplest explanation that fits a set of observations. Indeed, it would be very curious if Microsoft did not support SCO, morally and financially.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
What is the purpose of licensing "model" that inflicts more cost onto users than an "equivilant" M$ license. Microsoft is the known competitor to linux. (not that there aren't others, but this is what I get from October memos/Constant M$ bashing across the geek spectrum) as I suppose is BSD in all it's iterations.
Why would SCO present a model that would force a company to either A) move to M$, or B) move to BSD?
For one reason, for most companies who made the decision to move to linux, the overwhelming reason was going to be license cost. (Stability, Security, and Professional development on the part of the IT staff probably played a role as well, but nothing beats saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in OS licensing to a CFO.) Now, nobody in their right mind would pay for what they already recieved for free, and in their minds LEGALLY for free.
So, why is SCO doing this? There is only one reason, they started this whole legal BS to perpetuate a lawsuit for 2 years. Who actually purchased the Linux licenses from SCO? No one with any brains, that's for sure. They have made themselves a target, and gone after a cash cow. Hopefully the cash cow known as IBM won't be dropping them any change, as this is ALL they can be after. They certainly are no longer after DEVELOPING linux, so they sure as hell don't deserve ANY reimbursement in my mind. Besides, what do you get with that 700-1400 dollar license. Support? No. Regular updates? No. This business model is all about the benjamins, and they care nothing about the Linux users.
from thestreet.com: >> attorney-for-all-seasons David Boies to lead its (SCO) efforts to defend the company's patent portfolio
Anyone taken the author to task for this little bit 'o misinformation yet?
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
There's this bit from the article header (also on Groklaw):
We don't know enough facts about the non-compete agreement to make a real judgement about the validity of this claim. Here are some factors that we need to consider.
First, Novell continued to sell its NetWare product, so we know right off the bat that the non-compete did not apply to any OS on x86.
Second, control of the definition of UNIX was transferred to the Open Group at around the same time. We do need to take into account that Linux is not UNIX. It is a system based on extremely similar principles and conventions, but does not conform to the UNIX standard.
Third, Linux was just starting to make an impact beyond the dorm room in 1995. BSD was already established. It was probably forseeable that BSD and/or Linux would impact the market for SysV on x86.
Lacking further information, we are left with impression that the agreement was likely ambiguous. Typically, when an ambiguity is discovered in a contract, that ambiguity is interpretted against the side that drafted the ambiguous clause. I would guess that SCO drafted that clause. Novell has no interest in it being there, so that would mean the clause would be interpretted as narrowly as possible.
There are a lot of leaps here. We'll see how this actually works out.
I saw an article recently about McDonalds exploring moving to Linux for their point of sale systems. Of all places, the trial will be at franchise units in Germany. Now what was the name of that German Linux distro?
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
Anyone know where we could find the top 100 web sites running SCO so we can write to them and ask them to please consider an alternative or bid our business goodbye?
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
Yes....In this case, the court is exactly the way we want this to go.
IBM will splatter SCO. No doubt about it. Doesn't matter who the judge is, or how many appeals.
IBM has more money, IBM has better lawyers, and IBM has had all the cards for the past 15 years (They have ALWAYS had access to the SCO source, the AIX source, and Linux source).
No chance of a SCO victory---none whatsoever.
And this BS they are pulling about discovery? If they keep up these shennangians, the Judge is going to be mighty pissed at them.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
Let's expand - this is wrong. Remember all those dot-bombs that offered stock options as compensation, and promptly died in the late 1990s? Now we have something similar. Payment with stock options.
SCOX is currently hovering around $15-17/share, but now they're filing lawsuits like McCarthy threw accusations of communism around. And at the rate they're going, they're going to discredit themselves and self-destruct, probably filing Chapter 11 in the process.
Chapter 11.
Funny thing that, Ch. 11. It's used for companies who can prove they have less assets than their debts. That's what bankruptcy is, you have more debt than assets, you'll never be able to pay it off, bang, discharged. But waitasec, SCO had that US$50M gift/grant/bribe/whateveritwas. They can afford it. Dismissed. Maybe. I dunno, I'm with everyone else here, SCO is dead where they stand, they're just buying themselves time so they can pay off the lawyers with the pump-and-dump schemes they're running.
This sig no verb.
This is a common misconception, but it's not quite true. SCO hasn't refused to show the code to everyone. They have refused to show the code unless people viewing the code sign a Non Disclosure Agreement. SCO offered to show the code to Linus, and several other people who are involved, but they refused to sign the NDA so they didn't get to see it. I'm not on SCO's side of this, what they are doing with all this mess is immoral, but I can see both sides of the code disclosure issue. Linus says "If I sign an NDA, then you could sue me next time I try to right UNIXy code!", and SCO says, "But if you don't sign an NDA, there is nothing stopping you from giving away our code, or putting it into Linux." Thus the two parties are at in impasse. Of course there is still the issue that SCO doesn't want Linus or others to read the code. I have not read the terms of the NDA, but I expect they were ridiculously restrictive so that SCO knew that Linux would never sign.
SCO.com uses Linux
What I am waiting for in the ethics hearing against the law firm in which keepping the stock price up is used as the motive.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Did anyone else have this flash before their mind's eye while reading the parent post?
For those who aren't Monty Python fans, he Crimson Permanent Assurance was a 20-minute skit that opened their film, the Meaning of Life, in which an office building hoists sail and sets off to wage piracy on the corporate landscape.
Peace and love, y'all
... or elsewhere, as far as I can see, is McBride's announcement of plans to identify a large Linux end user and sue them if they don't pay the licensing fee within the next 90 days (http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle. jhtml?articleID=16101193).
~~~ thoughts ~~~
They'll sue an unnamed defendant for violating an unidentified intellectual property. Or so they say. The mouse realizes its roar isn't much of one?
IANAL, but I have worked with an FBI agent with respect to online communicaitons. His take:
A threat is considered an assault in every state.
A threat of legal action in no way makes the threat legal.
If phrased in terms of "If you do/do not X, then I will Y" it's extortion.
If transmitted via the net, or by phone and can shown to be transmitted in part between different states, it's extortion by wire, interstate, and is a federal offence.
I hope someone out there is watching what SCO does and is planning on going after their methods, other than those named by SCO as targets. Otherwise the only people claiming SCO was doing something wrong in the process of carrying out their tirade will be those defending themselves from it. That won't carry near as much weight.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Novell Statement on SCO claims regarding a non-compete clause in Novell-SCO contracts
PROVO, Utah Nov. 18, 2003 Novell has seen the November 18 InfoWorld article in which SCO CEO Darl McBride refers to a supposed non-compete agreement between Novell and SCO. Mr. McBride's characterization of the agreements between Novell and SCO is inaccurate. There is no non-compete provision in those contracts, and the pending acquisition of SUSE LINUX does not violate any agreement between Novell and SCO.
Novell has received no formal communication from SCO on this particular issue. Novell understands its rights under the contracts very well, and will respond in due course should SCO choose to formally pursue this issue.
Long Darl McBride and Chris Sontag Interview dated 7:36 PM EST Tues., Nov. 18, 2003