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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!)
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
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!
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...
It ends today and SCO has stated they are handing it over today, but no one knows what it will be yet.
It may just be evidence they give to IBM so that they can then look at the code themselves, in which case we don't get to find out anything yet, but they may also submit evidence to the court, in which case we do get to find out today or soon after
"... a group of companies, led by I.B.M. and Intel, plans to announce today that it is setting up a $10 million legal defense fund..."
I am just looking forward to the day where this SCO's legal challenge gets thrown out of court...I am interested what would happen to all these companies that setup these defense funds worth millions of dollars. I sure hope thy donate this back into the OS community in some form (eg donations, code contributions, OS marketing) etc etc.
This is bad news, not good news. Before this announcement, SCO legal hound dogs were chasing only the big game; small firms and users were safe (what is the point in sending a 1000$/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
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.
There is bound to be some old code laying around that may of been leaked in by an ex caldera/sco employee.
Caldera released all of that code under the GPL, though.* If not initially, through the contributing developer, then when they published the resulting body of work as OpenLinux.
They still retain copyright, but that doesn't mean they can revoke the use, distribution and modification rights that they've already granted to Linux users.
* (and SCO were still doing so until midway through last year, after this whole kerfuffle started.)
deus does not exist but if he does
...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
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
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