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Computer Associates Pays Off SCO
jford235 writes "Forbes reports that CA has paid the fee to SCO for their license. The deal went down in August but today CA has says that they have taken steps to "distance itself from SCO"."
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...is it even legal to do that when the court hasn't even made a decision yet?
CA lost a lawsuit against another company controlled by Canopy (SCO's parent company.)
As a part of that settlment, SCO was required to purchase UnixWare licenses from SCO. SCO placed language in that license that also gave CA the right to SCO's Linux IP. Now SCO is using this to say that CA is a licensee.
The really interesting part is that this shows Canopy manuvering other companies it controls to benefit SCO. This may give IBM an opportunity to "pierce the corporate veil" and go after Canopy's assets in the counter-suit.
They say this is not true http://business.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=04/03 /05/0249257&mode=thread
The least you could do was change the title, as it stands your spreading FUD, try editing it to something more in line with reality like: CA Settlement mis-represented, Canopy Groups twisted web. or CA says 'not willing participant in fiaSCO' or CA says '2 for 1 licenses' do not an enorsement make.
I was under the impression that CA bought the licenses under a sealed settlement under completely unrelated suit. Unless I'm mistaken, CA bought licenses for UnixWare (or some other Old-SCO product), for which each automatically included a binary Linux license.
It sounds like SCO quitely tacked on the "free Linux binary license" in order to give the illusion of legitamacy within the indrustry to their Linux claims. It's a sneaky, bullshit move. I hope that the courts see this the same way I do. OTOH, the EV1 move was not trickery on SCO's part. That was just EV1 being stupid.
-Turkey
Naw, CA is used to getting sued and has a hard-ass legal team. I worked there as a software engineer for three years any without execption every product I worked on had stolen code/libraries and in many cases open source software being used outside it's licensed limits. Every so often we'd have to pay for something we got caught with. We had a policy that nobody talks to anyone outside the building to prevent anybody finding out I presume because this was reiterated everytime we got sued, but it was just a cost of doing business.
Intellectual property, or IP, experts said CA's license could help convince a jury that SCO has a justified claim on Linux.
So if I can convince one person to pay me toll, that proves to a jury I really do own the Brooklyn Bridge? This reduces reductio ad absurdum down to the absurdum.
'Articles say that the liscenses were thrown in as part of a seperate breach of contract settlement. They were not "purchased".'
That's a crucial piece of information. One that SCO will deliberately mishold or put endless spin on.
I'll probably be modded as flame for this, but I have to say I think that CA wasn't thinking when they allowed that "licensing" to be thrown in as part of the terms of any settlement. Now SCO will run around using this as ammunition for their continued litigation.
It's not like CA or anyone else doesn't know who or what they were dealing with...
How does that saying go? Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me?
.
uR iGn0ranc3, Their Power
Doesn't that depend on what the state of SCO's story was last August, or earlier given this was probably hammered out June/July? The basic premise of SCO's case has moved around so much it's hard to recall what happened when, but a quick back track to last August in the Caldera topic right here on Slashdot reveals that this was when they announced the $699 racket. It was also just after the whole code under NDA thing, so it's reasonable to assume that CA really did see the whole thing as little more than the contract dispute between SCO and IBM when they negiotiated the deal.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
CA's payment was only $19,000 - not bad to settle a $40 million lawsuit. I don't think CA's paying SCO $19,000 qualifies as a ringing endorsement.
I **used to** recomend them to my customers.
No longer..
Bad move CA, you'll feel the backlash of this really dumb move you made.
Once a traitor, always a traitor. There is no salvation, redemption or forgiveness for traitors.
Forgiveness is for those that are too weak to hold a grudge..
Why were SCO IP licenses involved at all? Wasn't the lawsuit between CA and Canopy? Could this be enough to pierce the corporate viel between SCO and Canopy?
Some things are more important than an animated rat
It doesn't matter what they did or did not pay! They still "acquired" the licenses, providing validation for SCO's claims.
If the SCO license cost 1 penny, would you buy one? No? Not because you don't want to spend a penny, but because getting a license is pretty much an admission that SCO may be right.
The damage is done, and CA should be taken to task for their cowardly behavior.
Imposing Libertarian views on everyone online since 1992.
A good way for CA to distance themselves from SCO is to publically donate money to the OSDL defence fund. Issue press releases that you do so and that you don't approve of the SCO intimidation tactic.
)9TSS
And, it isn't even Forbes who is reporting it, it is Reuters as the article shows. So it isn't "Forbes reporting" it is Forbes linking to a Reuters story.
Does anyone bother to look at the article before commenting, or worse, POSTING it?
Amen, brother! And at the top of the lazy journalism crowd is Taco with a headline that was virtually ripped from a SCO press release:
"Computer Associates Pays Off SCO"
Way to go, Taco!
-h-
If we should believe the Forbes article, signing the licence would be just as bad as paying for. If it i s signed SCO could use that to show that other companies respect SCO rights to Linux.
If it works this way, we could expect that SCO have given away their "we do not sue you, until we can figure out how" - insurance to a lot of companies and will have a lot of acceptance track record to show up in court. But lets hope they are too greedy to do that.
And by now it would be hard to pull this trick, as so far it has bin SCO customers that have bin dragged to court. People and companies using Linux without any SCO involvment seams to be at low risk.
Doing business with SCO could also trigger actions e.g. boycotts and lawsuits from the open source movement. They could expect denial of service attacs either from misled angry wannebe members of the open source community (hope it never happens) or instigated by the SCO/Microsoft combo trying to discredit the open source movement. In this war everything seams to be permitted. And the best way to stay out of it seams to be to avoid SCO at all costs.
By the way look at the SCO stock! Now below $11!
It seams that investors too, have lost faith in SCO. Time for a new hidden infusion from Microsoft?
God is REAL! Unless explicitly declared INTEGER
It's not quite the same. If I were the lawyer for CA and Canopy offered to include the licenses then I would immediately agree.
Why?
First, it creates no liability for CA. In a worst case situation, the licenses mean nothing.
Second, it costs nothing.
Having it in a settlement agreement is not comparable to purchasing the licenses, even for a penny.
The only slant you could put on this is that, as the lawyer for CA, you would not let them include meaningless content in the agreement even though it created no risk for CA. For example, I doubt CA would have allowed Canopy to include licenses or indemnification for Microsoft products.
Actually, maybe I am wrong about that. I think Canopy may be able to offer MS licenses considering they are a MS subsidiary.
While reading my copy of IT Week (UK) that I get delivered I was quite astounded to read a quote from Blake Stowell (SCO's Director of Pulic Relations). You would have thought that SCO need all the 'good' publicity they can get right now.
But when asked the question, Will SCO also sue European firms, he replied and I quote "Not in the next few days"
How can this in any PR way look good? And a message for anyone in Europe. Look out SCO's looking at this side of the Atlantic... possibly.
Something like "SCO Linux IP License: Unwanted gift".
Basically, they'd be dumping SCO's license and making a statement that they don't believe SCO's claims.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'm surprised the article wasn't by Daniel Lyons, personally.
:P
He's not known for being very accurate, either...
In fact, he's known for being quite terrible at research, from what I've observed.
Anyhow, no one at Forbes seems to be very good at research. All they ever seem to do is read press releases. SCO is pretty much the only one putting out press releases these days (IBM is too smart to pull crap like that), so they wind up taking SCO's side because they haven't done any research.
Besides, like trolls, they crave attention. They must figure that "any publicity is good publicity."
Little do they know that I've probably caused them to lose at least one potential subscription (and this only counting the one I know of), because I was able to detail how poor the quality of their research is and give concrete examples of the deficiency.
Want to stop this crap? Do the same! Let people know that Forbes does NOT do much of anything in the way of actual research. Sometimes they might get tip-offs from their connections, but the rest of the time, they're just rehashing press releases. Surely such a product is NOT worth a dime--you can get press releases for free from the company website 99% of the time. All you're paying Forbes to do is to rehash it.
Anyhow, since Forbes has a habit of quoting random posts from sites like Slashdot as part of their "research," I will note that the above constitutes my personal oppinion and observations of all the facts before me, such as the correlation between Forbes' stories and SCO's press releases. Thus it's protected speech under the 1st Ammendment, and Forbes can go to hell if they don't like what I've said
Sounds reasonable, but recent events have shown that it is dangerous to have any kind of legal agreement with SCO. SCO's legal actions have all been against companies with which it has a formal contract or license agreement. At this stage, I would want SCO to give me money to compensate for the risk involved in doing business with them.
If they have indeed sold or given away Linux licences, they have committed a criminal offence in most countries signatory to the Berne conventions. By "they" I mean of course SCO, not CA. It seems to me that receiving an illegally given licence is simply the act of receiving a truly worthless piece of paper, which is what CA have. I almost feel sorry for them, they will face the vast expense of putting it in the bin with all the other garbage.
It is time that someone pointed out to Darl McFraud and his pathetic team of schysters that every time he licences Linux to someone, he is adding to his own eventual, and quite certain, prison sentence. He has stated that the GPL is invalid, (true, his copy is...) therefore he knowingly is violating simple copyright law on code copyrighted by Linus and many others.
If he pulled that stunt in the UK he would be subject to arrest and imprisonment, just like the pirates who hang around street corners in London, selling illegal copies of Windoze (and better things from Adobe, Corel....). His offence is exactly the same, he is violating normal copyright law for commercial gain.
It makes me sick that the DOJ have not moved on this already. You need better laws in the US, not a vast excess of lawyers!
It is high time that these criminal elements, which are parasitical on the whole world, not just the US, were removed from society for a decent period of time. The same goes for his paymaster, the vile Convicted Monopolist, who seems to get away with continuing to ignore court rulings, extending the Criminal Monopoly on a daily basis. Don't they ever punish real criminals in the US?
Then C.A. needs some killer PR that is going to dis-associate themselves with SCO. Right now, they are appearing to support the SCO Extortion Ring (tm), and the Microsoft Racketeering Foundation (tm) and it is going to be curtains for them if they don't take some action to suggest otherwise. Simply saying "uh.. we don't agree.. with..uh..SCO.. and umm... they, you know, really suck for what they are doing." As far as I'm concerned, C.A. is lathering itself up in SCO fecal matter, and trying to tell the world they don't smell like shit.
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
Also lets not forget. These licenses for Linux are not licenses for Linux. They are licenses to use SCO's IP in binary form. "Sure we'll take that, we still need to support UnixWare". 6 months later "Oh, they're calling them Linux licenses now? Those bastards!"
Open Source Java DAO Generator
I really like this, but I have to point out a subtle point that skews the 'scoring', and it is an important point, especially as it's what the Slashdot editors (WTH, Slashdot editors! WTH??) are getting wrong.
The reason that juries consider the existence and number of industry licensors to be significant is that it's assumed the licensors are "putting their money where their mouth is" -- they are investing their money in the licenses because they believe that they are paying the person who legally owns the intellectual property rights, in exchange for the freedom to use those rights safely and legally.
Of course, because juries make this consideration, it's becoming a less reliable consideration to make -- I think we can safely say that convicted software pirate Microsoft paid for its SCO licenses solely for the purpose of swaying public opinion and possible juries. And while we may decry their decision as foolish and/or cowardly, there is unfortunately a certain basic logic to EV1's decision to buy SCO's license; one can be entirely sure a claim is without merit and entirely unsure that a jury would recognize the lack of merit.
But fewer than 4,000,000 companies have put their money into Linux -- or if they have, the amounts have been orders of magnitude lower. Microsoft-funded "studies" on TCO aside, it is easier and cheaper to go with Linux, and in this specific arena, that works against us, because doing something that's easy and cheap doesn't make as much of a statement as something that's more costly and difficult. There is still a cost and effort to comply with the GPL -- companies like Cisco and Linksys have found that out -- but again, the 'investments' have been orders of magnitude lower.
And this is the central point that the Slashdot editors got wrong in the headline, stating that "Computer Associates Pays Off SCO" when the only party claiming that CA paid any amount of money for SCO's Linux licensing has been SCO. Why, again, would we take SCO's word for it? SCO could do this to anyone that pays them any money, for anything: throw in licenses for free and then claim that they weren't free, that they represent an investment of money and therefore an endorsement of SCO's claims.
Yes, Forbes published the egregiously wrong Dan Lyons "Linux's Hit Men" article. But in this case, Forbes published the correct and balanced information and it is Slashdot that grossly mischaracterized the events to the detriment of Linux.
If people are to respect the law, perhaps the law should begin by respecting the people.
Hopefully, if you're in business, you know that there is no free lunch. Everything has a cost.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
CA's customers are almost exclusively large, mostly publicly held, companies and governments.
That was my point, actually. Big companies are potentially afraid of using linux because SCO might actually sue them. That would affect their bottom line, and they don't want to have to deal with defending themselves from a nonsense lawsuit just because CA deployed some linux servers/software for them. Individuals (non-corporate) who might otherwise use linux are really not worried about SCO suing them.
I don't know how many of you personally use metadata repository scanners or decision base implementation software, (at $30k per scanner, per license) but I'd bet they'll be okay without you.
Okay, now that's just creepy. I work for CA on their metadata repository scanner / ETL software. A DecisionBase product from (most recently) Platinum, no less. (this is, incidentally, a pretty small segment of CA's total business).
But yeah, you're exactly right, a bunch of slashdot readers aren't going to make a dent boycotting CA software, and the corporate customers aren't going to boycott.I'm not a smorgasbord.