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SCO Wants to License Europe
MacEnvy writes "It looks like SCO isn't letting up - they've decided to expand their war on Linux to other countries. According to Internet Week, the company will be offering its Intellectual Property License in the UK and other European countries starting February 1. Whether Europeans will buy the licenses has yet to be seen." Motley Fool has chipped in on SCO's chances.
I had a company named SCO...
It died!
It died!
McBride said they owned Unix...
He lied!
He lied!
Why oh why is my company dead?
Couldn't IBM lawyers sue me instead?
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
Now not only can they be slaughtered in the US courts, but the rest of the world can get in on picking them apart too!
~~ Please keep your arms, legs, and outright stupidity inside the ride at all times. Thank You ~~
...is the Motley Fool article. A lot of people on Wall Street pay attention to them, or pay attention to people who pay attention to them. And they've said, pretty unequivocally, that things are looking very bad for SCO. That's not going to do nice things to SCO's stock price.
Well, we'll see, of course. Past performance does not guarantee future results, et cetera...
The BBC has the news as the lead article under the Techology section, which means it's linked off the front page. It's largely a "state of play" article, but does makes the point that SCO has already tried this in the US and had few takers and is yet to sue. Doesn't take much reading between the lines to see they are saying "don't bother paying", without compromising their neutrality... ;)
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
Practially, SCO is f*cked in Europe. In Germany, they are not allowed to say anything about their "intellectual property" or their license. Should they try out anything similar in any other European country, they can expect to get f*cked the very same way they were f*cked in Germany. Oh, I love European legislation... it doesn't give fraudulent companes like SCO any chance.
A monkey is doing the real work for me.
...will be trying this licensing shit in Russia.
EVERYBODY knows you don't invade Russia. It screwed Napoleon, it screwed Hitler, and it's going to screw McBride.
"Why Subscribe?" Good question...
A list of the transactions taken by SCO's top brass since December is very telling. Sell, sell, sell. 1/07/04 THOMAS P RAIMONDI Director 11,841 Proposed Sale (Form 144) estimated proceeds of $213,138.00 1/07/04 THOMAS P RAIMONDI Director 11,841 Open Market Sale proceeds of $210,189.59 1/07/04 THOMAS P RAIMONDI Director 11,841 Exercise of Stock Options at cost of $13,261.92 12/29/03 R DUFF THOMPSON Director 10,000 Proposed Sale (Form 144) estimated proceeds of $173,400.00 12/29/03 R DUFF THOMPSON Director 10,000 Open Market Sale proceeds of $174,860.00 12/10/03 LARRY GASPARRO Divisional Officer 25,000 Proposed Sale (Form 144) estimated proceeds of $371,500.00 12/10/03 LARRY GASPARRO Divisional Officer 6,640 Open Market Sale proceeds of $100,190.25 12/10/03 LARRY GASPARRO Divisional Officer 6,640 Exercise of Stock Options at cost of $7,436.80
There isn't enough crack in the world to explain this...
JWall: GUI client for IPTables
for SCO to lose in the US and Europe?
The company should be broken into a billion tiny 1's and 0's and sprinkled into the fires of Mount Doom.
I'm laughing at clouds.
WARNING! Do you own a car, know how to read, or view photographs? Then you may be using some of my intellectual property, and I may file a lawsuit against you, claiming hundreds or even billions in damages.
Are you concerned? YOU SHOULD BE! Intellectual Property Theft is one of the most notorious crimes facing life on this planet. Terrorists often use Intellectual Property Theft to further their own evil goals. Stealling my intellectual propery is unAmerican.
What can you do? Well, you can either give up on life, or you can buy a license from me! Feel comfortable driving, reading, or seeing things. Have no fear of turning into an unamerican terrorist. And all it costs is $350 per person!
Isn't that a fair price for a piece of mind?
Scene at french castle as sco's lawyers arrive looking for their money
Frenchman 1: Uh c'est sco.
Frenchman 2: Quoi?
FM1: Les litigious bastards
FM2: Ohhhh...oui! sco.
FM1: Fetchez le vache!
FM2: Uhhh?
FM1: Fetchez le vache
Mooing noise. Cow is seen flying over wall of french castle. Sco's lawyers run away screaming "run away. run away".
I am not completely familiar with this, but I believe that there is a general agreement in place that the international community attempts to enforce other countries' copyright violations. I believe that this was part of the Berne Convention (http://www.wipo.int/clea/docs/en/wo/wo001en.htm), assuming that you consider code a literary or artistic work which, in many cases, code is considered due to outdated laws in need of revision.
What SCO is doing here, however, is reprehensible. A company with any integrity would first legally prove that they own a copyright and give the offending parties a chance to correct said mistake, not try to build a business model out of lawsuits. What is worse is that SCO is not only making a business model out of lawsuits, but they are profiting through soliciting licensing from people to whom they owe proof of infringement, but refure to give!
I suspect that the international community will laugh at SCO when they try to enforce an unproven (and unlikely) claim of copyright violation.
Its becoming even more apparent that this is just a product of sleazy business tactics.
But the short answer to your question is that, if SCO were to prove (which they have yet to do) their claims, the international community might likely try to uphold that. However, they do not have to except in good faith. If they really wanted to, they could simply look at Mr. McBride and say "Bite me." Mr. McBride is setting SCO up to be crushed. Its just unfortunate that they can make money (by bullying with threats of licensing fees and lawsuits) through pumping and dumping their stock.
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
"We are Linux. Resistance is measured in Ohms."
SCO will expand its licensing program to all european foreign dictionaries in the near future.
A quick seach shows that the english version of /usr/share/dict/words alone already contains
1613 words, which illegally include the SCO trademark. Examples are diSCO(tm)mfort,
diSCO(tm)mmodity, MoSCO(tm)w.
SCO, in the attempt to protect its trademark, and the legitimate interests of its stock owners, will sue everyone who uses any of these words without permission.
Right now, the legal department of SCO is reviewing european word lists, and is expecting to find a huge amount of diSCO(tm)ompliance to the trademark and IP laws.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
http://www.sco.com/company/jobs/
:-)
I kid you not:
Software Engineer (05 Nov 2003)
Internal Audit (21 Nov 2003)
Director of Financial Reporting (08 Dec 2003)
Inside Sales Manager (09 Jan 2004)
Senior Software Engineer (13 Jan 2004)
Kinda tells a little story, doesn't it.
Meanwhile, bystanders will be murmurming to each other:
Europe is a completely different story to the US when it comes to how they'll handle companies talking crap. So far it's just the UK and Italy, but if they try to push any further they'll run into problems.
Like Germany, there is a lot more restriction in many parts of europe of what is allowed to be said. "Free Speech" may not exist as a constitutionally bound concept in many parts of europe, if you don't have the responsibility to back it up. SCO simply don't have that.
Along with the general anti-american attitude of much of europe I see it far more likely a country will tell SCO to piss right off until they have solid proof, putting the burden on SCO to play their hand and get the legal wrangling out of the way before they can play the media with their lies, half truths and misinformation
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The French fought valiently in WW2. Unfortunately the Germans were a vastly superior military and quickly overwhelmed the French army. However the French didn't simply give in, despite a puppet gov't being installed. Instead they continued to fight back as the French Resistance. Many brave Frenchmen (and women) died battling the Nazi's who'd taken over their country.
This cliche is false, and its been beaten to death. Let's put it to rest.
C - A language that combines the speed of assembly with the ease of use of assembly.
Ok I've been following along with this story for quite awhile now and I personally believe sco is going to lose the case. It should be the end of the company at that time. Now I was just at the nasdaq site looking to see how the recent news has affected sco. While there I started looking into some of it's numbers and found that overall if I knew nothing about the company everything looks pretty good. Hell they even went from losing money to having an actual earnings/share in the past year. There stock is ranked as being an average risk and there is both a buy rating and a sell rating in the analysis. Something worth $250,000,000 could be worth $2 in less then 30 days time and it's an average risk?
This leaves me wondering just how many other stocks out there are rated so highly based off of a hope and prayer? Is the entire system this easily manipulated?
It's time to turn "sco" into a generic noun and a generic verb.
Noun definition: "a loser who resorts to deceitful or coersive tactics due to a lack of imagination or principles." Synonymous with "scumbag." Also, "a fraudulent or coercive scheme." Synonymous with "scam."
For example, "That sco tried to rip me off!" and "Don't fall for that, it's just a sco."
Verb definition: "to deceive or coerce someone, or obtain something through deceit or coersion, due to a lack of imagination or principles, or a combination of laziness and greed." Synonymous with "to screw."
For example, "They tried to sco me, but I didn't fall for it."
There's a certain poetic justice in this. SCO is trying to take something that belongs to *all of us* and make it exclusively *theirs*. Turning their name into a generic noun and verb, turns the tables and makes something that is/was "theirs" into something that belongs to *everyone*. Best part is, they can't stop it!
What's the difference between Darl McBride and a car battery?
A car battery has a positive side!