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"."

Comments

Misleading Headline

[Thorofin]

Articles say that the liscenses were thrown in as part of a seperate breach of contract settlement. They were not "purchased".

Re:Misleading Headline

[Anonymous Coward]

Read Groklaw as ever. There is more in later stories too).

Re:Misleading Headline

[squiggleslash]

Even worse, the story is completely consistant with the claims quoted yesterday which reported:

By acquiring the UnixWare licenses ( ed: as part of a settlement of an unrelated lawsuit brought by Canopy, not SCO), CA indemnified itself against a possible Linux lawsuit from SCO, said Sam Greenblatt, the senior vice president and chief architect of CA's Linux Technology Group. "We did an agreement with the Canopy Group and in the agreement with the Canopy Group, we acquired UinxWare(sic) licenses," he said. "For every UnixWare license you acquired, you got indemnified for that number of Linux licenses."

Kind of wierd to post this. Am I missing something?

Re:Misleading Headline

[JamesP]

Articles say that the liscenses were thrown in as part of a seperate breach of contract settlement. They were not "purchased".

Oh, MY GOD!!!

Guy 1: Hey, what about that 100 grand you owe me!
Guy 2: Hey, did you know I own the Brookling Bridge? Let's just throw it in the deal, ok!

Re:Misleading Headline

[wwwillem]

... like giving away free stuff along with other things ...

Ahhh, like AOL disks. Maybe that is the future business model for SCO. Get a free Linux license with your PC Magazine.... :-)

Re:Misleading Headline

[ackthpt]

CA: "I did not have relations with that ho!"

Re:Misleading Headline

[robslimo]

SCO sued International Business Machines Corp. [...] a year ago

Misleading use of the word 'sued' also.

I've seen this a lot, especially with regard to SCO's actions. Wouldn't the correct usage be SCO filed suit against IBM [...] a year ago?

As stated in the Forbes article, it could be taken to mean that SCO successfully sued IBM... or maybe I'm not as hot at my native language as I thought.

Re:Misleading Headline

[DavidTC]

That's exactly right.

CA went to the store and bought a computer. Someone threw three AOL disks in the box while they weren't looking.

Now AOL's trying to claim they've been a customer for 135 days, because, after all, those were 45 day free trial CDs.

Actually, it's even sillier than that. CA got Unixware licenses. SCO has just gone around saying they won't sue anyone who purchases Unixware licenses to cover their Linux intallations. At no point did CA see 'Linux license' on anything, even if they had checked the box carefully thy would have ended up with them.

Re:Misleading Headline

[Bull999999]

I would be like SCO throwing in a Linux license with every Happy Meal and claim that it sold a billion Linux licenses.

What is it with Forbes and inaccuracy?

[Penguinisto]

This is getting to be an ongoing grudge with Forbes... First their editorialists skew every fact they can find in attempts to cheerlead SCO on, now this.

Didn't CA already explain the whole Canopy/SCO financial thing?

/P

Isn't this a repeat?

[mbenzi]

Wasn't it already said that CA was buying a UNIX licenses and they added linux into the contract just for completeness?

CA was tricked

[isn't my name]

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.

Yeah, CA paid for them - $0.00

[mflaster]

From Dow Jones Business News:

The Islandia, N.Y., company, one of the biggest makers of corporate software, said that although it signed the licenses, it didn't pay for them -- and never would.

Mike

What a lame headline...

[Filter]

To run this story under that headline makes this site seem as desperate as Forbes. The real story is easy for anyone to see about 5p down

>>"(SCO) is grasping at straws to purport CA as a SCO supporter,"
>>"CA stands in stark disagreement with SCO's tactics, which are intended to intimidate and threaten customers."

Misleading lede

[LightStruk]

Computer Associates International Inc. said on Monday it has licensed the freely available Linux operating system software from SCO -- a move that could become key legal ammunition for the SCO Group Inc. in a battle over who owns the software.

The editor who let this lede get published should be taken out and, er, fired. It does not make a shred of difference in court if somebody actually caved to SCO's extortion; just because CA believed SCO's lie does not make the lie true.

Re:Misleading lede

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell, they let Daniel Lyons post some rambling bit of nonsense wherein he "investigated" Groklaw. He read the PO box from her domain registration (which is NOT even the town where she lives...) and discovered that IBM might have an office somewhere in that general area. He then found out that IBM, once upon a time, had given some computers to Ibiblio (which recently became the host of Groklaw).

That's it. That's the supposed "connection" between them. And half of it was WRONG.

And Forbes let Daniel Lyons publish that. Why? Because PJ chastized him for not bothering to do ANY research. And now we see how poor his researching skills really are. Hell, I could do better than that, and I'm just an amature. Yet, given what I know, if I had access to some of the databases PIs use, I could probably have PJs info in a few minutes. And I'm just some schmoe, not an "investigative reporter."

The lesson here? Forbes' "research" consists primarily of corporate PR documents. IBM hasn't put out any, SCO has, so Forbes prints SCO's story and never bothers to research after that.

At least, that's the most consistant interpretation I can give of it. In the mean time, guess which magazine I tell everyone NOT to bother reading or subscribing to? I would encourage the rest of you to do the same, unless you want to read rehashed press releases for some reason...

CA sees it a little different

[mtthws]

Here is the funny thing. CA is saying they did not pay off SCO. They were just buying unix liscense they were forced to by as the result of losing a lawsuit about unix liscenes. SCO threw they indemdification for one linux manchine for every unix liscense in there so they could claim CA was a linux liscense. CA keeps saying they want nothing to do with the linux liscense.

Change the article title

[Callan.ca]

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.

Yes, CA did NOT pay for these licenses

[_bug_]

As you can see here CA was GIVEN these licenses as part of a settlement with Canopy Group, one of SCO's major investors. Canopy was looking to lighten the financial burden, and so they threw in the licenses like they were water.

WTF?

[j-turkey]

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.

I have a few other news updates.

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Kennedy was shot.

2) The Beatles broke up.

3) The Berlin Wall is down.

4) The Soviet Union is no more.

5) Slashdot editors have poor memories or cannot search their own archives.

Update the Article!

[kuwan]

Yes, this article is both misleading and old news. You can find this from CA on Newsforge:

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.

You'll also find this on news.com.com.com.com:

Computer Associates, which has begun making its management software available on Linux, acknowledged it had the license, but took pains to distance itself from SCO's methods.

"CA disagrees with SCO's tactics, which are intended to intimidate and threaten customers. CA's license for Linux technology is part of a larger settlement with the Canopy Group. It has nothing to do with SCO's strategy of intimidation," said a statement from Sam Greenblatt, senior vice president and chief architect of CA's Linux Technology Group.

Greenblatt has been an outspoken Linux fan. "The whole world is going to unite around a single operating system, and it's going to be Linux," he said in a keynote address at the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo in January.

Basically Canopy threw in the licenses as part of a settlement with Canopy's Center7 company. I wonder if SCO broke any confidentiality agreements regarding the settlement by announcing that CA was a Linux IP Licensee. ;)

Thanks for pushing SCO's FUD

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't the /. moderators even bother to RTFA at all?

The headline effectively states CA bought a SCO Linux license, when nothing of the sort happened.

Canopy put a SCO Linux "license" in with other stuff in the settlement of a breach of contract lawsuit.

And now SCO (and /., apparently) start spouting off hou that means CA bought a Linux "license".

Anyone now doubt that Canopy and SCO are intertwined? Or that they both have Bill Gates hand shoved up their asses like the ragged sock puppets they are?

The license fee was all of $19,000

[Bangie]

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.

Piercing the corporate viel

[solidhen]

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?

You Have Purchased Linux Licenses From Me

[MyHair]

For going through the trouble of reading the subject and/or body of this post, I hereby grant you license to IP I own in Linux.

Heh heh, now I can submit a press release claiming I sold Linux licenses to hundreds or thousands of Slashdot readers. Muahahahah!

(I feel compelled to add a disclaimer that this is satire and as far as I know I currently don't own any IP in Linux and therefore can't grant you any license. Geez, that's a joke kill.)

Best not do business with SCO

[unoengborg]

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?

Re:CA should have known better than to allow this

[DavidTC]

CA ended up with UnixWare licenses, not Linux licenses. It's just that SCO has turned all UnixWare licenses into Linux licenses.