SCO Sells First Linux Licenses in UK

Christopher writes "SCO has actually sold its first Linux licenses in the UK. These licenses permit the use of SCO's intellectual property that is apparently present in Linux distributions, and in binary form only. To my understanding SCO hasn't won yet and these licenses don't grant you any freedoms you didn't already have, but SCO's vice president Chris Sontag says that 20 to 30 organisations worldwide have purchased these licenses."

Comments

Nothing new

[Underholdning]

There are also people who sell land on the moon. It's wortless, and people pitty the ones who buy it.

Re:Nothing new

[k98sven]

Now, they can only sue licensees hence the legal action against IBM, Autozone and DaimlerChrysler, all of whom are licensees of UNIX.

Yes, but being an SCO Linux licensee doesn't necessarily make you a licensee of UNIX.

From what I understand, the SCO Linux licenses are as vague in describing what exactly you are supposedly licensing as SCO is in describing what part of Linux is supposedly infringing.

*who* is important

[Alain Williams]

I should imagine that it would not be too difficult to pursuade a couple of one man bands to buy SCO licences - especially if, quite coincidentally, SCO happened to buy some consultancy ...

A 500 seat/licence company would be quite different.

Woo

[ggeezz]

You must be in bad shape if selling your first license in a country garners a headline. And 20 to 30 organisations worldwide? Is that supposed to lend merit to SCO's case. This just shows that there are still idiots out there, even at the corporate level.

What are these people's recourse?

[zakkie]

Just wondering what options these organisations will have once SCO's case is dismissed? At what point is public deception so severe that criminal cases can be opened against executives who knowingly lie to the public?

Who are they?

[tclark]

It would be interesting to know who these org are organizations because:

1. We might want to avoid them like the plague;
2. We might want to help the poor bastards out - they clearly need help;
3. We might all want to hit them up to buy our own "IP licenses". If they will buy this crap from SCO, they will buy it from anybody.

Chris Sontag = Joe Isuzu

[Jaywalk]

Remember the old Isuzu commercials? The spokesman would come out and make some outrageous claim ("Zero to sixty in one second."), but the caption underneath would say, "He's lying." Keep that little caption in mind whenever SCO issues a press release.

Most of the time in the past when SCO announced that someone had "bought" a Linux license it turned out to be a deception. The most common ploy was to tack a Linux license onto a court settlement or a purchase of a Unixware license. The article quotes only SCO sources and the customers are not named, so don't expect this time to be different. Wait a few days and see if any customer names come up, then see what the customers have to say.

I'd guess they'll say something like, "Linux license? What Linux license?"

Re:If IBM wins...

[mwvdlee]

I think the question would be whether SCO will have any money left to give back at all.

Wonder

[Sai Babu]

1) If SCO includes the licensed material with the license. If I'm gonna buy a license, I want to be sure I'm running the code I licensed and not some miscreants cobbled hack that delivers the same functionality.

2) How to merge this binary with my linux once I've got the linux compiled? If I'm gonna buy it, I want to use it. That way if my linux fscks up there is someone I can sue. SCO warrants the stuff, right?

3) The market has any faith. Baystar appears to be cutting it's losses. I heard at the bar that baystar was finessed into keeping quiet through margin advantage on another investors bailout. IIRC Baystar was questioning SCO's claims on linux back in the summer (northern hemisphere).

I'd be Willing to Bet

[Greyfox]

The contract says "Nope!"

The bluff by SCO is that you can buy a license now and pay not so much, or you can wait until after the lawsuit and if they win you'll be paying a lot more. If you fold now, you don't get your chips back if SCO loses. At this point we're pretty sure that IBM holds all the aces, but I bet that most of these sales are politically motivated or the people buying them aren't very good at poker either.

I wouldn't be surprised if the comapnies in question are associates of the companies in the US that purchased licenses. It'd be just like SCO to count the Microsoft or Sun UK branch offices as new licenscees.

Besides which, if SCO loses the next legal action you will see out of them will be a bankruptcy filing.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't

[Linuxathome]

When you're dealing with companies with million dollar accounts and expenditures, it's an executive decision that's required for these expenses. I personally think that the executives are doing it to save their asses (no, not assets, asses): they all are covering their butts on the slim, slim chance that SCO might win. That way, the board won't fire them if SCO wins.

But the downside is the the legions of Linux lovers will cry "foul" and "traitor" if they do. Hmmm...losing your job versus some people calling you l0s3r? What would you choose?

In the UK.....

[mormop]

There's a crime of "obtaining funds by deception" aimed at nailing fraudsters who use false information e.g. claiming property as theirs to extract money from people. Given that SCO have no proof of ownership over the disputed code I can't see how they can sell anyone anything.

Should the case fall through I look forward to the arrest of the head of the UK arm of SCO and, should McBride, Sontag etc., ever land in the UK their arrests also. After all, conmen are among the lowest forms of scum.