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More on Recent SCOings On
An anonymous reader writes "Blake Stowell, SCO's director of communications, acknowledged that the leaked memo is real." However, Stowell went on to say that the memo was misunderstood, and that Microsoft has not been funding SCO, as was previously alleged.
In addition, Computer Associates is now vehemently denying they ever licensed Linux from SCO. AlabamaMike writes "Being employed by Computer Associates myself, I had to admit I was terribly dismayed by the news that the company I work for had licensed SCO's dubious Linux IP. I sent some mail around to those I thought would have some info about what was going on with this very odd move, and the response that came back truly should be posted for the /. community. Basically this is a very creative spin on a settlement CA did with Canopy Group regarding a breach of contract settlement totally unrelated to Linux. Associated with that settlement was a set of UnixWare licenses to which SCO has taken the liberty of attaching these 'Linux IP' licenses."
It's hard to see how they can continue to maintain that they were just "licensing" IP from SCO. As the memo appears to be genuine, it seems to me that Redmond has a lot of explaining to do. Especially to the Justice Department; I mean, if this isn't predatory behavior then I don't know what is.
not only are SCO's IP ambitions doomed, but its Unix interests are a "trailing negative" on the road to dropping from 10% of the market to 3%-5% in a few years and then "SCO will be irrelevant," he said.
Assuming this court case is settled in Linux' favour, SCO will be irrelevant the next day. No company will want to deal with a firm that sues its own customers.
Trolling is a art,
The Linux faithful have been hammering Computer Associates as a heretic since the British publication Computer Weekly quoting the SCO Group's CFO Bob Bench identified CA Thursday as one of SCO's rare Linux licensees.
CA senior VP of product development Mark Barrenechea says that Bench's claim is nonsense. CA has not paid SCO any Linux taxes, he said.
Drawing up short of calling SCO a liar, Barrenechea claims that SCO has twisted a $40 million breach-of-contract settlement that CA paid last summer to the Canopy Group, SCO's biggest stockholder, and Center 7, another Canopy company, and has turned it into a purported Linux license.
As a "small part" of that settlement, Barrenechea said, CA got a bunch of UnixWare licenses that it needed to support its UnixWare customers. SCO, he said, had just attached a transparent Linux indemnification to all UnixWare licenses and that is how SCO comes off calling CA a Linux licensee.
But when CA agreed to that settlement, Barrenechea said, "It was not CA's intention to become a Linux licensee. It has nothing to do with CA's product direction or strategic direction," he said.
CA has absolutely no sympathy for what SCO is doing, Barrenechea said, and in fact, he said, reading from a formal statement, it stands in "stark disagreement with SCO's tactics and threats."
Barrenechea and CA's Linux chief Sam Greenblatt are worried that CA will be tarred with the SCO brush and that CA's considerable Linux ambitions will be damaged by a disaffected, if not hostile, open source community when in reality CA has "nothing to do with SCO's strategy and tactics," they said.
CA was the mystery company SCO was thinking of when it announced last August that an unidentified Fortune 500 company had supposedly become a Linux license. SCO privately described the deal as "significant."
CA couldn't disassociate itself from the rumors that identified it as that licensee because of an NDA that the Canopy side had insisted on hedging in the $40 million settlement with, Barrenechea and Greenblatt said.
Barrenechea said that SCO now regards that NDA as being off because of the legal discovery that's been going on in SCO's $5 billion suit against IBM.
See, SCO lawyer Mark Heisse in a letter dated February 4 to IBM lawyer David Marriott at Cravath Swain identified CA, Questar and Leggett & Platt as Linux taxpayers.
According to that letter, which is up on the Groklaw site, Heisse owed IBM a copy of the CA agreement on CD.
Barrenechea said that SCO was dropping CA's name to associate itself with the "third-largest software company in the world" and build support for its "lost cause."
But according to Barrenechea, not only are SCO's IP ambitions doomed, but its Unix interests are a "trailing negative" on the road to dropping from 10% of the market to 3%-5% in a few years and then "SCO will be irrelevant," he said.
By the way, CA doesn't have enough UnixWare licenses to cover all its Linux servers, Greenblatt said.
In answer to CA's contentions, SCO said its lawyers think that CA has a Linux license.
Meanwhile, Bench also told Computer Weekly, whose story was picked up by sister paper InfoWorld and maybe other properties in the IDG stable, that SCO had signed between 10 and 50 Linux licenses.
The new URL is: http://blogs.cocoondev.org/dims/archives/001770.hPimpin' all the Karma Hoes!
It smells pretty desperate when you won't let your "best" customers comment on what they've bought from you.
Lasers Controlled Games!
LA Times (free crappy reg) story
Here's the highlights (emphasis added):
SCO Confronting Its Creation
Company's CEO is taking precautions as the head of the 'most despised' tech firm
From Bloomberg News
Darl McBride, chief executive of SCO Group Inc., says he sometimes carries a gun because his enemies are out to kill him. He checks into hotels under assumed names. An armed bodyguard protected him when he gave a speech last month at Harvard Law School.
Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux operating system, calls SCO "the most despised company in technology."
McBride and SCO are more hated than Microsoft, the world's largest software maker, and its Chairman Bill Gates, according to some Linux backers. That's because SCO, once a backer of Linux, has turned around and attacked the essence of the system: its free source code.
"SCO are just complete hypocrites," said Jeremy Allison, co-author of Samba, an open source software that runs a file and print service that SCO sells.
"The real reason why people don't like SCO, and Darl McBride in particular, is that he is so dishonest," Torvalds, 34, said in an e-mail.
So on one hand the leaked memo was just 'misunderstood' or a piece of creative spin, yet on the other hand the same could be applied to the CA Linux 'licenses'....
Hmmm, this is just more proof that these guys really do have their heads jammed up their own asses.
Are you local? There's nothing for you here!
Translation: every new lawsuit that SCO initiates costs SCO money in legal fees (and you know Boies doesn't work cheap) and other costs.
The whole article is here.
Well, if SCO says Microsoft isn't funding them, we should undoubtely put that truth in proper context with all the other truths SCO has been claiming.
All along, I've been wondering if enough lies are floating around at SCO that they actually believe their horse crap.
It looks like this proves that's the case. They've lost any grip on reality now.
No. 1 is EV1Servers.net who announced SCO lied about how much they were paid (Microsoft is a fan of EV1)
(little did the CEO know when he made the deal that SCO planned to 'worth' him out of seven figures)
No. 2 is CompterAssociates who announced SCO lied about "linux licenses" which are really from an unrelated settlement
No. 3 is Leggett and Platt say SCO lies and they don't have a license and "would not have an interest in doing so"
No. 4 is Questar Gas said they just wanted to get things over with and also runs Apache/1.3.26 (Unix) on Windows 2000
Make sure *you* are Legally Unencumbered(tm) by getting a SCOsores license
and don't forget to head over and sign your Clean Slate contract with the RIAA
This article is more interesting:n efd_top
http://news.com.com/2100-7344_3-5170181.html?tag=
Since they decided they really can't get a whole lot of people to buy their linux licenses, SCO have to give them to companies without their knowledge, and then call them "Linux IP licensees" and issue a statement as such just to try to weasel a few more bucks from other "uninformed" companies who then decide to buy the "licenses" after all. It's time for CA to lay the smack-down and discredit these punks.
30 posts so far, not one from anyone saying "I was wrong about the comments I made about Microsoft in the previous thread".
And I'm not expecting any.
Read reviews of shopping cart software
The really unfortunate part is that in the elder days, Caldera used to be one of the better Linux distros out there. They had a good system installer, lisa, for example. Shame, really, what mr. McBride's done with the company.
One can only hope.
I mean, who could have thought of a worse, more stupid way to piss off the whole tech sector and drive yourself into bankruptcy. The more I think about it, the more this strange idea develops that SCO (Caldera) is actually doing all this rubbish to help the Linux community. OK, it is way out there, but in some perverted way, it makes sense.
First of all, you have a Linux company (Caldera) who, despite their best efforts, has trouble staying afloat. At this time, there is no corporate support for Linux, the big vendors are running away from it, and the "GPL has never been tested in court" is touted as an argument all over the place. Big UNIX vendors only see Linux as a way to get people into their more proprietary solutions.
So, Caldera buys out a UNIX vendor and does the most ridiculous thing imaginable: sues everybody, proclaims that Linux is communist and all that bullshit. Fast forward to the current situation: IBM, HP, Novell and other big players are squarely behind Linux and protecting it. Microsoft is exposed as a greedy monopolist who uses underhand tactics (yet again). GPL gets tested in court and it is under such circumstances that guarantee a strong precedent in GPL's favour. The UNIX heritage is cleared once and for all. Linux wins, in a BSD fashion, and is free from corporate FUD. And who pays the bill? Greedy investors.
This could turn out the be the best thing for the corporate image of Linux ever.
So why on earth are the suing Autozone if they have
a license to run the binary form in Linux. Isn't that the meat of their argument.
A little quote from Blake reguarding the CA vapor
license deal.
"UnixWare licences allow SCO customers to run UnixWare and the SCO Intellectual Property Licence allows Linux end users to run our Unix intellectual property in binary form in Linux. Today, CA has a licence in place to run our Unix IP in binary form in Linux without fear that they may be infringing on our intellectual property."
Got Code?
Memo misunderstood? Is SCO now implying to the world at large that all of us had failed our english comprehension?
:P
:P
Can everyone sue for personal attacks?
Not only they don't know how to count...(million lines of code)... they have problems with their english language too! I am sure Darl's teachers won't be pleased
Since the site is horribly slow and I haven't seen the news about Leggett & Platt anywhere else, here's the text:
05 March 2004
Two of four SCO licensees deny their purchase Linux licence? What Linux licence?
By Robert McMillan, IDG News Service and Kieren McCarthy, Techworld
Two of the four companies that SCO has publicly named as having bought a licence from it to use Linux, have denied doing anything of the sort.
Both Computer Associates and Leggett & Platt have been held up by SCO as purchasing a $699 (384) licence to cover the alleged SCO copyrights in the open-source operating system. But both have publicly stated that they have done no such thing.
The chief architect of CA's Linux Technology Group, Sam Greenblatt, admitted the company had struck a deal with an investor in SCO over UnixWare licences and said that for each UnixWare licence bought, it was indemnified against a Linux box but he denied outright that the company had bought a licence specifically dealing with Linux.
Leggett & Platt was even clearer. "I have now talked to our people who handle our Linux systems and, at least at a corporate level, we have not bought such a licence from SCO Group," said the company's VP of human resources, John Hale. "To their knowledge they would not have an interest in doing so."
The denials come the same day that SCO was forced to admit an email appearing to demonstrate that Microsoft had helped fund the group to the tune of $86 million was real. But, the company claims, the email does not show what people claim it does.
This same misunderstanding approach was used by SCO to explain CA's statement. SCO spokesman Blake Stowell said that CA had indeed obtained an IP licence for Linux in an email. "UnixWare licences allow SCO customers to run UnixWare and the SCO Intellectual Property Licence allows Linux end users to run our Unix intellectual property in binary form in Linux. Today, CA has a licence in place to run our Unix IP in binary form in Linux without fear that they may be infringing on our intellectual property."
This hazy distinction angered CA's Greenblatt, who strongly objected to the portrayal of CA as a IP licensee for Linux. "To represent us as having supported the SCO thing is totally wrong," he said, before accusing the company's tactics as "intended to intimidate and threaten customers". "We totally disagree with [Darl McBride's, SCO CEO] approach, his tactics and the way he's going about this," Greenblatt added.
SCO claims to have copyrighted material within the Linux open-source operating system and has embarked on a dramatic legal battle to enforce them. Earlier this week, it expanded its lawsuits to include one of its own customers and a company using the Linux software and warned that it "will take and continue to take" legal action against Linux end users. The company sees itself as educating people about its rights in the same way that the RIAA - the US music industry body - has sued individuals in an attempt to prevent the free trade in copyrighted music.
However, one financial analyst said that the conditions surrounding the CA licence did not cast a favorable light on SCO. "I think it just speaks to the weakness of their case. Why could CA have not been convinced to take a licence without legal action," said Dion Cornett, managing director with Decatur Jones Equity Partners.
The other two companies that have been named as IP Licence for Linux customers are EV1 Servers.Net and Salt Questar. Both have confirmed that they did purchase SCO's licence.
and their $86M payment to SCO is just to cover the $699/each licensing fee.
SCO: (sKO) verb
"Can there be a Klein bottle that is an efficient and effective beer pitcher?"
Imagine the fun things they'll find!
Most industry analyists knew that Microsoft was concerned about Linux.
But I for one never quite realized that Microsoft was in a panic.
I heard all the rumors - "maybe Microsoft is behind the SCO lawsuit"... but I didn't think Microsoft would actually be funding this entire effort. I mean, isn't Microsoft focusing on the Next Generation Great Thing that will put Linux to bed once and for all? Obviously, the answer we now have is "no".
I read the news yesterday, and it seemed pretty clear that the memo was a fabrication. I mean how could such a blatent memo be true? And with all the grammar and spelling errors? It just didn't add up. Mircosoft is smart, right? They hire smart people, right? They may be a monopoly, and they may make try to lock their customers into their products, but they're doing it to make globs of $. That's smart, right?
Well obviously I was mistaken. Microsoft was more-or-less caught trying to fuck up the entire Linux industry by buying what is looking more and more like secretly misusing the courts. On top of that, Microsoft is looking like it's releasing blatent lies about the Linux industry under the guise of Microsoft fabricated or controlled companies.
Microsoft, it's time to come clean. Don't you think it's time that you admit that you're funding these lawsuits?
Or is Microsoft so scared about Linux and the Law that it'll continue to shelter itself behind a quickly diminishing cloud of deception and covert control of companies like SCO?
"I am sure Darl's teachers won't be pleased"
I need some clarification. By Darl's teachers, did you mean Stalin, or Lenin?
That sounds like pretty good ammo for a fraud suit if you ask me. It's not in itself enough, but it certainly shows SCO in a lie that's so obvious and deceitful that it just can't be ignored or chalked up to misunderstanding, and it's not too technical for a *moron(ie. a U.S. judge) to understand.
* no, I don't really think all U.S. judges are morons, but sometimes you gotta wonder...
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Interestingly enough, no one was or is jumping on said bandwagon. I have found it very interesting to read some of the ways that AC has been used to distract this discussion away from Microsoft/SCO.
I don't think the question here is CA or IBM (another AC posted on how CA is almost as bad as IBM at FUD, which is interesting when the discussion is really on Microsoft and SCO.) but it is certainly good to spread the mud around to make things less clear. I also saw the statement that this was no different than media saying that linux advocates were behind MYDOOM, and that none of the Halloween papers had every been objectively proven as real, despite the fact that both this latest one and many early ones WERE confirmed by Microsoft (and in this case SCO).
Just a warning to everyone, it seems like there is alot of counterattacks on Slashdot. This particular post might be legitimately from someone who has some grudge against CA and isn't really a press representative sent to sow some discord and confusion into a discussiont hat is already hard enough to follow.
The Halloween 3 document ( http://www.opensource.org/halloween/halloween3.php ), first posted by Eric on Nov 5. 1998, contains an interesting quote:
...snip... }
"Unless Linux violates IP rights, it will fail to deliver innovation over the long run."
The comment by Eric is even more interesting:
{ This final remark is worthy of an essay all by itself. It is the least logical -- and at the same time, most damning -- assertion in Ms. van den Berg's entire statement.
As propaganda, it has a superficial cleverness. It plants the idea that any MIS manager so foolish as to use Linux will find his operating system yanked out from under him by a future patent lawsuit -- perhaps one initiated by (whisper it) Microsoft itself. It's a perfect FUD tactic.
More clear sighted theory there than anyone would have thought, 5 years ago.
SCO are totally dishonest and they will repeat the "Linux is ours" routine until someone stops them.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
of the iraqi minister of communications while reading this?
*que some sco guy getting a check from bill gates and a pat on the back*
"No! that isnt what you think it is! microsoft isnt giving us $86 million dollars and encouragement to take out IBM and linux.. so it isnt! no! we are the true owners of linux! linus is running a huge corporation that is taking over 95% of the desktop mark...er... what?"
These events happened yesterday, and this is the stock market we are talking about. It was more than 15 min ago, and the traders saw a shiny thing between now and then, it will have no bearing on today's trading.
-Charlie
Isn't this right out of the MS playbook? When MS agreed to settle with the Justice department, part of the original settlement proposed millions of dollars of vouchers for schools redeemable only for MS software. Later when it's competitors complained that this just extended their monopoly, it was changed to any software or hardware.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
You have read some of IBM's arguments, no? A lot of it looks like it came right off Slashdot, just presented more professionally.
Maybe you want people to shut up so SCO has a better chance? Do you own SCO shares?
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
The gov't can do this, but is it possible
for a private citizen or public group to initiate proceedings for the revocation of a corporate charter?
No idea. The more interesting question, however, is whether or not you could pierce the corporate veil. Particularly Canopy's veil. If there were (as alleged) some underhanded dealings regardin SCO, Canopy, and other Canopy holdings then you could easily pierce the corporate veil.
Once that's done you can pretty easily sue the directors of the companies involved (both SCO and Canopy) and take them to the cleaners. And there's nothing they can do about it -- their personal property would no longer be immune from lawsuits, and between civil and personal lawsuits you could pretty much guarantee that they'll die penniless paupers in prison.
Yes, vindictive. But seeing charlatans and crooks hide behind the corporate veil and get off scott free has gotten beyond tiresome. The various scumbags involved in this particular scheme could, possibly, act as a wake up call to a lot of other companies. Wouldn't that be nice?
Oh well.. it's a nice dream at least.
Yes, the "unwise investment" defense could be given a workout. But do not forget that MS is an adjudged monopolist (upheld on appeal) and thus it's and BG's behaviour is held to a different standard.
Since SCO is in the "computer field", any transactions between it and MS/large shareholders is subject to anti-trust scrutiny.
Not to flame, but this needs to be stated.
I know there seems to be an inordinate amount of interest with SCO, but you must realize that there are a LOT of developers who are putting Linux into commerical products, all legal within the GPL. I am involved in such a project. In addition, there are many major companies that are using Linux as enterprise server iron. Companies like RedHat, SuSE, Mandrake, etc, are built upon selling a distribution of Linux.
As to my project, for me to have to flush Linux, and use embedded BSD, or VxWorks would be throwing away a year of development. Seeing the Linux distro companies die would be a tragedy.
The concept of free (as in freedom) software has brought rich rewards to all who embrace the concept, use, and contribute to it. The only viable threats to the Redmond monopoly is Apple, BSD, and what we call Linux.
Yes, I agree there is a lot of FUD and idle speculation running around. Much of it belongs in the "tin-foil hat" paranoid category. Ignore it, or laugh about it. But keep the interest going!
But the crucial point is this: If SCO were to pull this off it would cripple many corporations in an already weak, recovering economy. Products, such as TiVo, Linux-based PDA's, Linksys routers, just to name a few, would come under the fire of SCO's legal department, crippling many, and entirely flushing others. And dont think that BSD would escape unscathed. Even if SCO were unsuccessful against trying to challenge BSD, (and remember that Apple's OSX has BSD parts within it -- they could be dragged into the middle of it) more damage would be done.
In the end we would end up with essentially a monopoly in computer operating systems. No choice, just pay, pay, pay.
I know what I have said has been already been posted in various forms, and I'll probably get modded as redundant, but serious interest is warranted.
Think of it this way. A cockroach, like SCO, hates bright lights and avoids being seen. Keep the lights on and polish your magnifying glass, because the SCO headquarters needs a good dose of insecticide.
-dh
Blake Stowell, knowing that we will never beleive a word he says, claims the memo is real to convince us that it was faked!
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
1) When all is said and done, I don't think that SCO will have really done much damage to Linux (or by extension, the GPL). When all this started, the more far-sighted among us said this would be a great test case for the GPL. As SCO's smoke and mirrors have been pierced and as the various cases have developed, however, this has not been about the GPL. It's all been FUD. Most of us have known this for a while, but now EVERYONE knows it. If anything, Linux has gained strength, if this is the best that it's enemies can do.
2) This potentially hugely damaging to MS. If the allegations are true (I'd put money on it), they're in breach of the settlements. Kollar-Kotelly, the judge of the punishment phase, will certainly want to take another look at the case. The various state Attorney Generals will want to reopen the case. There might also be new criminal charges filed, not to mention civil cases. At the very least, we should see some investigations. And I haven't even mentioned how this might play out internationally.
3) Regardless of how this plays out in the courts, MS is going to lose big in the court of public opinion. The MS defenders will not have a leg to stand on. (I never imagined Enderle with any legs. Instead, I've always imagined him as a giant farting ass, with no other body parts attached.) The FUD campaign has not only fallen apart, it has backfired.
4) Having failed to really slow Linux adoption or development, MS will continue to lose ground. Longhorn is two or more years out, folks are already suspicious about "XP Reloaded" (why name a product after a really bad sequel?), and Linux clearly has huge momentum.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.