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SCO Gives Notice To 6,000 Unix Licensees
inode_buddha writes "This article describes SCO's recent letters to its UNIX licensees, asking them to certify that they '...are not using Unix code in Linux.' It also notes another set of letters '...outlining additional evidence of copyright infringement to a subset of 1,500 global Linux users that SCO first contacted in May about copyright infringement.' There's also a decent breakdown of the company's balance sheet and some quotes from company officials. I hope to see one of those 'other' letters; could anyone post it? SCO better have asbestos underwear." Ask and receive: idiotnot adds "Here's the article from the Sydney Morning Herald. Here is a PDF Copy of the letter." "Yours truly"?
.After almost 2 weeks of no SCO stories, I was begining to delevop a bit of a nervous tic!
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have backups to corrupt.
...and i've been putting unix code into linux. Do they expect people to admit it?
This SCO notification is brought to you by the letters 'U' and 'O' and the numbers '6' and '0'.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Just go and buy off SCO (Thats what SCO wants anyway) for us. Write it off as a tax write off as donation to a good cause.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Yes I skimmed the story, and I was pleasantly surprised to see an advert for IBMs linux solutions halfway down the main body of the text. That's intelligent ad placement at it's best :)
There's also a decent breakdown of the company's balance sheet and some quotes from company officials
Here it is, for your viewing enjoyment:
+56.00 1 x Uniware license w/ rebate
-700.00 1 x 1 hour, law firm
-1500.00 1 x law firm, misc.
-89100.65 10000 x threatening letter photocopies, envelopes and stamps
- 23000.00 1 x Blake stowel xmas bonus
- 100000.00 1 x Darl McBride xmas bonus
+699.00 1 x SCO license
-450.99 1 x christmas meal for law firm's Dachsund
- 5000.00 2 x conference call with law firm
- 1500000.00 4 x Payol^H^H^H^H^HReturn on investment for Canopy execs
+9.99 1 x mail-in rebate for postage scale
Company officials statement:
Are we the greatest company in the world or what?
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
If you are posting from a machine running linux, they will sue you.
Err...that's what an existing legal agreement actually is - a formal communication of utilising x within the bounds of what was agreed. I believe -1 Redundant is called for?
Cheers,
Ian
Your imagination is not my problem. I no more need to certify to you that I am not using your intellectual property than that I am not using alien UFO technology in our corporate restrooms. A assertion must stand on its own merit, and any response to that assertion must necessarily be based upon that merit.
Having established that point, I think I have found a use for your assertions in our corporate restrooms.
who are those slashdot people? they swept over like Mongol-Tartars.
From the letter:
Neither you nor your contractors or employees with access to the Software Products have contributed any software code based on the Software Products for use in Linux or any other UNIX-based software product.
I'm still waiting to actually see the evidence that SCO claims is in the Linux source code.Apparently SCO is waiting to see the evidence as well. Why else would they keep asking everyone else to see if there is any?
SCO
If you: license our technology
Then: you are first in line when we roll out our sue-the-world plan.
Whack-A-Burger
If you: buy one of our burger value meals
Then: the fry cook gets one free whack at you with a 2-by-4 on your way out of the restaurant
Ben Dover Bowling Lanes
If you: rent one of our lanes for an hour
Then: the ex-convict who works behind the counter demonstrates who is your daddy when you bend over to pick up your bowling shoes
"SCO may pursue all legal remeidies available to it including, but not limited to, license termination rights."
Here is the text of my certified response letter:
"Dear SCO, I hereby terminate my own Unixware license. The 3 machines we still had running Unixware have been pining for years to join their linux brethren or BSD friends. Today, they do so. Thanks for the gentle push!"
Mass suicide involved sedatives, vodka and careful planning
...The drugs were taken for a very specific purpose and that was to take their own lives," Lipscomb said.
CNN/Januray 6, 2003
Salt Lake City, Utah -- The 39 cult members found dead at a local software company apparently died in a carefully orchestrated suicide that involved sedatives, vodka and plastic bags possibly used to suffocate, officials said today.
The victims apparently believed they were going to be able to claim ownership of the Linux operating system.
Police said they had gathered little information so far on the background of the group or its leaders, only that they operated a computer Web service called "SCO."
The mass suicide likely took place over three days and involved three groups, proceeding in a calm, ritualistic fashion. Some members apparently assisted others and then cleaned up, then went on to take their own dose of the fatal mixture, mixed with apple sauce or pudding.
The last two victims to die were found with plastic bags over their heads.
Lying on cots or mattresses with their arms at their sides, the victims each carried identification.
"It seemed to be a group decision," said Dr. Brian Blackbourne, Salt Lake Medical Examiner, at a news conference today. "There were different stages, suggesting it was planned. They all had IDs. The house was immaculate."
Blackbourne said 21 of the victims were women and 18 were men.
Initially all the victims had been identified as men, since deputies found all of the victims dressed alike in black suits with close-cropped hair, making it difficult to determine their sex.
Officials are now trying to notify victims' families and have withheld names until that process is completed.
Authorities also showed video of the bloodless death scene at an afternoon news briefing. All the victims wore black pants and black Nike athletic shoes, their faces and chests covered with purple shrouds. Their bags had been packed neatly in the dormitory-type rooms. Those who wore glasses had them carefully placed at their side. In a pocket, most of the victims had a $5 bill and some quarters.
"They were at different stages of deterioration," Jerry Lipscomb of the Salt Lake Sheriff's Department told CNN. "That's the most pleasant way I can put that."
Lipscomb said officials were tipped off to the suicide after videotapes and a letter were sent to each of the company's software customers.
"What we're finding is that each and every one of the members of the organization, prior to their death, gave a brief statement... The essence of those statements were that they were going to a better place where there was no such evil as open source software," Lipscomb said.
Most of the victims were in their 40s, but their ages ranged from 26 to 72, said Cmdr. Alan Fulmer, chief investigator in the case.
Blackbourne said the victims mixed the sedative phenobarbital in apple sauce, washed it down with a drink of vodka and then were smothered with plastic bags over their heads. The plastic bags were found in trash can behind the house.
"We're not talking about a drug-crazed, party-time situation
"It's our opinion that it was their intent -- they planned to do this."
Of the letter written to an ex-member of the group, he said: "Although it is not a suicide note, per se, it does imply that it was their intent to take their own lives..."
The first deputies who entered the company to find the bodies Wednesday complained of a distinctive odor.
Some of the victims had been dead for more than 36 hours before they were found, Blackbourne said. All had been removed from the house and identified by mid-day Thursday.
The SCO web site does not espouse suicide as such but promotes a "willful termination of contract" as the road "entering the Heaven of IP security."
The Web site characterized SCO as a potential target for law enforcement, making referen
That should give the SCO lawyers a Nervous Tic (tm)
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
How much?
And don't say $699.
"ok, well maybe it wasn't billions, but didn't SCOG say in their may/june PRs(stop laughing) that they had millions of users world wide. now they are down to 6000."
It is official; Netcraft confirms: SCO is dying
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered SCO UnixWare community when IDC confirmed that SCO market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that SCO UnixWare has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. SCO is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict SCO's future. The hand writing is on the wall: SCO faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for SCO UnixWare because SCO is dying. Things are looking very bad for SCO. As many of us are already aware, SCO UnixWare continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
SCO has lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time UnixWare developers L. Ron Hubbard and Joseph Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: SCO is dying.
All major surveys show that UnixWare has steadily declined in market share. SCO is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If SCO is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. SCO continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, SCO is dead.
Fact: SCO is dying
http://saveie6.com/
Would you like to borrow some money?
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Dear Mr. So-and-So
In response to your request for certification that we have not contributed SCO IP into Linux our official response:
Bullshit.
Sincerely,
Mr. Shadow
Director Software Support
XYZ Corporation
Of course legal would nix it anyway. Might get fired for sending it without their chop, but what a way to go out, huh? Hehe.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Did they seriously end the letter in "Yours truly" fashion? Talk about double meaning...
In response to your letter request for me to verify that I am not using UNIX code in Linux, please send me ALL of the source code to UNIX so that I can verify that I am not using it in my version of Linux. Otherwise, how can I truthfully say whether or not I am using it?
Dear SCO,
/me
please talk to my hardware/software vendor. We bought this fancy new server with the latest software included. This is called a bundle. They told me the software was free, so we paid $0.
BTW my vendor is IBM!
Best regards
Grundgesetz * 23. Mai 1949 - 30. November 2007 - http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/
No. On Dec 5th, the court rules that SCO had to respond in detail to Interrogatory Nos. 1-9,12,13 from IBM. They had 30 days from the date that it was entered into the books and the judge signed the order IBM prepared...Dec 12th I beleive. That makes the 11th the deadline. On the 23rd, the judge finds out if SCO complied with the order. Expect to see some legal filings on Jan 22 or 23 to delay the order since SCO hasn't had enough time to make up^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hfind^H^H^H^Hdocument their case.
The original interrogatories are here.
Dear Mister Hussein,
Please provide evidence that you are in compliance with UN Resolution 3177, and that you have no active programs to develop WMI, and that you are not in posession of any WMI or WMI delivery systems.
Failure to provide evidence will result in a massive invasion of your country by US Laywer forces, shock and awe, resulting in the eventual extraction of your carcass from a spider-hole.
Sincerely,
Darl McBush
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.