Slashdot Mirror
IBM, Intel Set Up $10m SCO Defense Fund
An anonymous reader writes that the "NY Times reports that a group of companies, led by I.B.M. and Intel, plans to announce today that it is setting up a $10 million legal defense fund to help pay for the litigation costs of corporate users of the popular GNU/Linux operating system if they are sued. ZDnet also has a story on this." otisaardvark points out that "The fund is to be administered by OSDL (Open Source Development Labs) and so, amongst other things, could bankroll legal costs for Linus."
Kudos to IBM/Intel for "doing the Right Thing (TM)". Also found it interesting how the ZDnet article words it "Anti-SCO". Harsh. I like it.
This announcement should add a new dimension to SCO's nonsense about indemnification.
In a weird way this is kind of adds 'validity' to SCO claims. I wish IBM would put a 1 million ransom for capture of McBride or something...
Since Lou Gerstner took control of IBM (although he is no longer at the helm), this has been a different company. Today they are doing everything possible to help Linux, but of course to that end they are also helping themselves. Still, it must be said that the IBM of today is one great company.
(I don't work for IBM or have any connections to them other than my Thinkpad T40 (NewEgg has them now for $1600 bucks!)
I'm refreshing frenetically, waiting for the /. story regarding SCO's 'evidence'.
Ah, what a day to be given mod points.
It doesn't get much better than this.
They are making preparations to buffer their new role as being total service providers, providing OS helpdesk and contracting support to corporaions.
OS was supposed to be use at your own risk... but it seems they are now going to make promises above and beyond a general GNU contract.
The Custom Mary
Those $10 could be spent on more useful stuff, like doing a full audit of the source code to see what REALLY is in linux. The Linux source bz2s are over 35Mb in size now, who knows what is inside them? There is bound to be some old code laying around that may of been leaked in by an ex caldera/sco employee.
Nero-burning ROM for Linux!
What this may do is set the stage for killing SCO by bleeding them by laywers...
The idea is simple: Ring fence SCO from accessing customer license fees. Meanwhile, bleed them to death by keeping them entangled in the SCO/IBM, RedHat/SCO suits.
If SCO cannot extract a single license fee because it ends up in another court case, their business model is effectively dead, thus (hopefully!) devaluing their stock!
Does anyone know what happen with the 30 days given to SCO to produce evidence that ended... last week ? What's going on here ?
United States of America, good ol' backers of world peace.
I know I cannot give as much as Intel or IBM, but I was wondering if there is anyway I can contribute $$ to the fund?? Admitedly my 10$ may not pay for 1/10th of an hour to pay a lawyer, but I would like to feel that I helped destroy SCO in some way. And this isn't a troll, I'd give anything to be part of the reason SCO had to shut it's lying trap!
The question of users being sued for running Linux has got me thinking. Now that RedHat no longer offers a free desktop version of their product, would it be possible that a Linux-running site could be sued by RedHat for illegally running a 'pirated' copy of Red Hat Advanced Server? Would this be any different to Microsoft calling in the BSA to investigate a site running unlicensed copies of Windows? What if the RedHat site was running a hybrid type of installation, with portions of the distro taken from the unlicensed 'illegally obtained' version of RHAS, but others, such as package management (apt-get, for example), taken from the free GNU/Debian distro? Are there any lawyers out there that would care to comment. Thanks.
What I find amazing is the big stink that SCO brought up about indemnification, and protecting your customers against legal action. Even Laura DiDio, our favorite shill, brings up the indemnification issue time and time again.
Now look what's happening here. OSDL is indemnifying linux users against legal action (more than an MS EULA can do, by the way), and SCO is... what's that? they're making noises about suing their own UNIX licensees?
Hypocrites!
Megacorps are neither all good nor all evil. They are just human institutions that plug along and do their thing. What they do often depends on circumstances and who is running them. Often when they do seemingly "evil" things it's out of stupidity and shortsightedness rather than malice.
As for why IBM is doing this, that's obvious. Intel and the others? I'd say that being on the list of contributors for that is probably the best PR money can buy with the hacker community. If you are a tech company, the hacker community are your customers. They probably just redirected a few mil from advertising. Intel needs good PR right now with the hacker community to help them compete with the AMD Opteron.
This may be one of the last nails in the SCO coffin, since $10 mil can buy a lot of legal representation and SCO likely can't match that. SCO does not have the cash to bankroll fifty lawsuits. If the legal battle really got ugly, I'm sure the fund could solicit at least another few mil from Linux users.
It's encouraging to see that some of those who benefit from Linux are prepared to defend it against predators. But it may mean that they think there is a significant probability that SCOX will not implode before they can file any new lawsuits (as opposed just to threatening to file new lawsuits).
Just another wannabe fantasy novelist...
"... a group of companies, led by I.B.M. and Intel, plans to announce today that it is setting up a $10 million legal defense fund..."
I am just looking forward to the day where this SCO's legal challenge gets thrown out of court...I am interested what would happen to all these companies that setup these defense funds worth millions of dollars. I sure hope thy donate this back into the OS community in some form (eg donations, code contributions, OS marketing) etc etc.
The enemy of an enemy has already proven that they have the ability to be an enemy.
'You're not friends. You'll never be friends. You'll be in love till it kills you both. You'll fight, and you'll shag, and you'll hate each other till it makes you quiver, but you'll never be friends. Love isn't brains, children, it's blood... blood screaming inside you to work its will. I may be love's bitch, but at least I'm man enough to admit it.'
Spike
This is bad news, not good news. Before this announcement, SCO legal hound dogs were chasing only the big game; small firms and users were safe (what is the point in sending a 1000$/hr lawyer against a 50$/hr one-man ISP?). Now this fund changes everything: expect to see many more of those faxes rolling.
Well, so much for that.
This begs a couple thoughts/questions though.
First, $10M US is not that big a pinch really. IBM could throw that kind of cash around without even a blink (kinda like MS throwing $6M to SCO for a "License",) so $10M really shouldn't be too hard to come up with.
In fact, I would like to see a list of people who are contributing to this, and would like to see some big names on that list (hello Red Hat!)
Also, this would be an EXCELLENT time for Novell to step up and put their money where their acquisition is, and back their SuSE purchase by getting in on this as well.
And someone earlier made an excellent comment: where can someone in the general OSS community donate to such a fund? I mean, its one thing for "We the People" to piss and moan about SCO, and then rely on major corps to handle the legal stuff for us (Which is fine for now, but with the way SCO has acted over the last few months, who knows WHO they are gonna sue next), but it would be a much better show of solidarity if we also contributed to this fund, or sone like it, above and beyond the usual contributions to groups like EFF and such.
"Our funds have never taken part in toxic or death spiral convertible financings of any sort" -BayStar's managing partne
Since SCO approached Google about (SCO)Linux licencing fees, google no longer produces results on searches on "SCO". It has been addressed that any search result in concern with SCO will require Google to pay $695x10000servers=$6,950,000 per result. Therefore Google reprogrammed their search engines to ignore searches on "SCO".
Is the humour lost on everyone?
Not quite. Since Linux is open source and all, the primary designers were all dabbling with code in their spare time, or making "free as in beer" add-ons for it.
Those add-ons qualify as an extension on an operating system that SCO claims is in violation as well, being that one would need a familiarity with a "stolen" product. If anyone profits from it, then by the standards set by the BSA and DMCA, they're guilty.
Needless to say, however, most of these developers make enough to live (relatively comfortably) on, but not enough to buy a new 100' yacht for their respective lawyers, if they can afford lawyers at all. That, IMO, is why Intel and IBM are tossing in the $10 million. Technology tends to run on the trickledown theory, hence, if Linux loses, IBM loses, and if IBM loses, Intel loses. IBM, especially, has a lot to lose, considering how they fumbled the ball when OS/2 Warp was released at the same time as Windows 95. Eventually they do learn their lessons.
SCO, however, lives for market numbers, and whoever is crazy enough to invest in them (such as Microsoft). They aren't fighting for their livelihood, make no mistake in that. Most of their CEOs and whatnot have already cashed in their stocks, with a couple hundred residual stocks to collect any likely profits if they can.
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
Actually, that may not be needed after the next court hearing. SCO has to produce real linux code and SHOW the court (and IBM) how it truely belongs to them. I suspect that within 30 days after that , IBM will show the total farce that SCO is and the case will be dismissed.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
It's a shame this money has to be spent in this way and that it couldn't be used to pay for programmers and bandwidth. Hopefully it won't have to be used.
Hopefully, the nightmare possible scenario I outlined as the possible SCO strategy can't and won't happen now this has been done. See the link to my JE below for an explanation.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
...said it best when he wrote this entry in "The Devil's Dictionary":
CORPORATION, n.
An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.
In short; whatever the acronym, they're all in it for the green and the Holy Ego.
"The only clear view is from atop the mountain of our dead selves." - Peter Carroll
For now, this is the right thing to do. However, Americans never seem to remember that money to pay lawyers must come from somewhere. Why do Americans pay astronomical sums for health care? Easy, to pay the legal costs and damages from all the loony malpractice actions. Well, at the end of the day, corporations supporting open source software solutions will also need to pay for the weaknesses of the US legal system -- and the only place they can get that money is from their customers.
As far as I understand, Red Hat Advanced Server is protected by tradmark law, not copyright law. This means that if someone redistributes RHAS without removing Red Hat trademarks, they may be sued for tradmark violation. I don't believe an end user will be in any risk, trademark law is supposed to protect trade, not use.
IBM comes off looking like a hero, combined with the Linux commercials all over TV this weekend and it's a huge PR win. I'm not easily impressed but this was brilliantly conceived, timing and execution nearly flawless.
With everything else they've done so well one would have to believe that somewhere inside the folds of the cape there is a sword ready to strike the killing blow.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
It's only 3.22% right now. A 10% jitter up or down seems about normal. Call me when they're down 50%.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
It's already happening!
z =m &q=l&c=
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=SCOX&t=5d&l=on&
SCOX is on a steady downhill slide. Bye Bye Darl!
It goes without saying, but it needs to be said: SCO threatens the existence of free (as in freedom) software, and for now, IBM has taken up the sword in defense of that principle. If SCO where to somehow prevail, the nightmare of endless litigation would be of biblical proportions. No matter how you feel about IBM, SCO must be stopped.
Now after this is all over with, will I become a Big Blue groupie? Probably not. But it does influence my future buying decision when I'm looking for a new laptop built with consideration for using Linux.
The only problem there is that the government might just cave in.
If the forces currently in charge of such things as microsoft investigations see losing a case to sco as a good strategic move, or they simply see a payoff as less expensive than the case would be, they might just give up.
After all, they don't have any reason to support free software. The people making the budget decisions are spending other people's money.
And then sco would have a win - and a ton of new cash.
I'll pick a nit or two...
Floundering may seem like a premature word.
I recently saw an employee get fired and worse from a client of mine. The employee seemed invincible as he was a serious suck-up to the owner. He used slime tactics, and would stab anyone in the back to get ahead. I knew he would get his just reward - yet even then I dispaired that it would happen in my lifetime.
This went on for 3-4 years!
About six months ago, though, it caught up to him.
So, yes, MS isn't dead, yet. But I know that their kind of behavior eventually costs. And it will cost MS. And I think the cracks are starting to show now.
So, yes, I think "Floundering" is appropriate. Perhaps a bit visionary or ahead of it's time, but not wrong.
Cheers,
Greg
This is a smart move, in helping others to resist SCO's shakedown they undermine SCO's ability to fund additional litigation and limit the impact of their legal intimidation. Companies who otherwise might have given SCO some money and furthered SCO's PR campaign are now likely to refuse and they'll be backed by the slush fund put in place to defeat SCO.
Why can't the US repair it's legal system so as to do what happened in for exemple Germany and Poland where the courts told SCO to "Put up or Shut up", i.e. shut up untill you SHOW the problem.
Regretfully the present situation reflects baldly not only on the flawed US legal system but on a once great nation (and people!) as a whole.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."