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SCO Linux Licenses Could Increase In Price
prostoalex writes "ZDNet UK says that, while SCO Group's legal department took a timeout from generating new lawsuits, their Linux license prices might be increased. 'Companies that license now may be able to do so cheaper than if they do so later,' [Blake] Stowell said. In the upcoming financials call, SCO expects to announce 6-figure revenue from its SCOSource division."
I haven't bought mine yet! I better rush out while they're still priced reasonably.
Wouldn't it be cheaper to just not by a license at all?
I mean, if they have sold 2 licenses at $700 a license, but upping it to say, oh, $1400 (nice ring to it :)) a license, they can *double* their revenue with no higher operating costs!!
At least that is how SCO probably is seeing it through the haze of their pipe dream.
I think the only reason that SCO will be able to announce 6-figure revenue for SCOSource is because this is the fiscal quarter that they'll book the revenue from the EV1 scam - the first and to my knowledge ONLY large deal (other than the war-chest they got from Microsoft) they've ever closed.
.... Now, you forecast 10 to 12 this quarter, but that's mostly from the UNIX business, which ....
If this is the case, this does NOT indicate new deals, this does NOT indicate a new revenue source, this does NOT mean that did a dime's worth of business in the last 3 months - it's just when the revenue from their only decent deal some time ago hit the books.
A quote from the SECOND quarter conference call (Darl speaking to Maureen O'Gara):
McBride: We had a few deals on the SCOsource side, Maureen. You know with last quarter we had announced a major deal with EV1. That is not part of the revenue stream that we're reporting in second quarter. That revenue will start to be accounted for in the quarter that we're currently in.
O'Gara: Sorry. The EV1 revenues will show up on this quarter?
McBride: Yes. They will start this quarter, and they'll be booked over multiple quarters going forward.
Now, within that conversation, Darl claims to have deals in the pipeline:
O'Gara: Well, we'll see how that
McBride: Yeah, until there's a stream of revenue that comes out of the SCOsource side, we're not going to get in the business of handicapping or projecting the forecast of it. You know, the pipeline that Bert is talking about that is healthy right now is not really part of that 10 to 12. Once we have more predictability, then we'll start to get projections on that.
Notice he hints "10 or 12", but I suspect all he got this time was money from EV1. Looking forward to the conference call to see if anybody challenges his smoke-and-mirrors show.
I wonder how many figures their legal bill is. Somehow I suspect its a seven or eight figures at least.
Yeah, but what if nobody pays for it. How do they expect to generate 6-figure revenue from nothing? They have to win their cases first, and that doesn't seem to be that likely.
"SCOsource is the Linux users' shakedown program. Apparently, no one is paying up. It took in $11,000 last quarter. That's not a typo. President and CEO Darl McBride paid more lip service to 'increasing shareholder value,' but you really have to wonder about the viability of his vision when his firm's most engrossing initiative brings in less money than the guys who mow lawns in my neighborhood."
--the Motley Fool
Fuck it
Looks like this guy is going to have to get a new account. Such a pity.
I hear there's rumors on the Slashdots
They've ditched the whole currency scheme - now it'll cost 10 shares of Google stock per CPU.
$1000.00 last month.
Does that count?
This is slightly OT, but it's in regards to SCO.
A week ago at SCO Forum, Rob Enderle gave a keynote speech entitled "Free Software and the Idiots Who Buy It." Mr. Enderle employed repeated logical errors, accusations without evidence, and ad hominem attacks. He materially confused the meaning of Free Software, as well as assigning physical threats to the Groklaw / Free Software community without proof.
I have written a paragraph by paragraph critique of his keynote, and it is available at my site (Part One and Part Two)
I welcome and appreciate feedback and comments on it. I jokingly refer to the paper as "Logical Fallacies and the Idiots Who Use Them," but did my best to keep the text proper professional.
- Neil Wehneman
My legal education, in nifty podcast format
$1400.00, now count the digits...
$1234.56
IW4M.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
I think the financial world's penchant for integral numbers saved SCO a little face here: if you allow digits to the right of the decimal, it is actually a 99.87% drop in revenue. That's better than Ivory Soap and their "99 and 44/100th's pure" of yesteryear.
I guess SCO is gunning for a new meaning of "five-nines" - a 99.999% drop in revenue.
-paul
Pistol caliber is like religion: everyone has their favourite, and theirs is the only right choice.
Don't buy a license, don't support SCO and most importantly don't give them any money to defend this business practice in court; it's cheaper and it helps out in the long run.
- MbM
Really, has anyone publicly stepped up and said, "SCO is right, and we're buying a license.
Publicly? No. How do you know what the millions of small to mid sized businesses may have done?
700 bucks isn't a lot of money to throw at a potential problem to go away. And if you run a business, it's probably not the right venue to make your moral stand on OSS. After all, you have a business to run, bills to pay, employees, etc..
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Blake must be feeling a little down and out now that Rob Enderle is apparently competing with him for the SCO Information Minister position:
Here is one of Rob Enderle jewels from his SCO keynote:
That is why I stood up for SCO; they were being attacked because they were vulnerable. Those that attacked them did so because they could in a clear effort to deny the employees, the stockholders, and the customers of SCO their rights and, as a number of veterans have reminded me from time to time, heroes died for those rights and I believe it is our.... No my, obligation to uphold them.
One can only smirk at the twisted logic of coupling poor vulnerable SCO with the heroes who died for our rights... Not only that, SCO is proud of this address that they host it on their website . If I were them I would take it down immediately and claim I was hacked and the site was defaced.
I fail to understand...
1. They release their own linux distro (Caldera) making their code GPL.
2. They say that linux infringes their IP, although they have GPL'd it (They haven't proven that it is true anyway).
3. They try to convince everyone that the GPL is ilegal.
4. Their latest Unix distro is full of GPL software.
Please help me understand, perhaps I am too simple minded to ascertain their logic.
Cheers,
Adolfo
Tht just means I have to ship them more Monopoly money.
Damn, and I had enough to survive Boardwalk before this...
Striking fear in the authors of godawful fanfiction, I am here, appearing in darkness, Tuxedo Jack!
EXECUTIVE: "Sir, our evidence was laughed out of court again."
DARL: "Figures..."
A little later...
EXECUTIVE: "Sir, our lawsuit against IBM was thrown out of court!"
DARL: "Figures... guess I better sell my stock now."
EXECUTIVE: "Yeah, it's about as high as it will ever be. Our products are being laughed at for being so obsolete in today's market."
DARL: "Figures..."
A little later...
EXECUTIVE: "We're gonna have to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy."
DARL: "Figures..."
EXECUTIVE: "Looks like the SCO empire is crumbling quickly."
DARL: "Figures..."
EXECUTIVE: "Also, there's some SEC guys outside. Said they wanted to talk to you."
DARL: "Figures..."
Last week I was willing to pay $0 to SCO for a license, but in the face of potentially increasing fees, now I'm willing to pay ten or twenty times that amount!
That Copyrights aren't the same as Patents. Users typically aren't actionable for past and current infringements of Copyright unless they themselves are guilty of willful and active infringement- and typically don't owe anything on it. The worst that could have ever come out of this whole thing would be that SCO was right, there was some infringing code and it'd have to come out to be legit under the GPL- once that happened everything would be back to complete normal for the end-users. The only people that would be actionable and possibly facing stautory damages would be the guilty parties of the active act of infringement, not the contributory part. Worse, since SCO's pretty much made a botch job of their enforcement of any possible IP rights by way of keeping it secret- you're supposed to tell the infringers what they're infringing upon so they are obligated to stop. Failing to do so may be an estoppel on their pursuing anyone that currently is infringing- and may cause them to lose rights to the alleged IP with regards to it's use within Linux.
$700 to throw at a potential problem- no, that's not a lot.
$700 to throw at a NON-problem (which is what this is, no matter how you slice it...) is far, far too much.
I can't see what you've said as being really insightful- what you've said is valid, but only in the context of a possible or probable problem and SCO's just not a reality and they're about to be NUKED from orbit by Novell. If Novell gets that Dismissal with Predjudice, I expect that the whole damn SCO mess will implode within a day or so- they didn't own the IP rights at the beginning of all these cases so they're actionable under the Lanham Act and pretty much all of their cases go *POOF*, including the IBM one (since Novell executed their rights per the APA to waive any issues regarding contract or IP with regards to the SVR4 source base...) with SCO facing countersuits and suits regarding their obvious Lanham Act violations, Copyright infringements, and Patent infringements.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas