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SCO Sells First Linux Licenses in UK

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the this-is-still-going-on dept.

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."

5 of 295 comments (clear)

  1. Nothing new by Underholdning · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    --
    Underholdning.info
    1. Re:Nothing new by Amiga+Lover · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It's wortless, and people pitty the ones who buy it.

      It's not worthless to SCO.

      According to the recently release USL vs UCal agreement, USL couldn't take legal action against anyone for whom UNIX code had become public knowledge, but reserved the right to still take legal action against licensees to hold them to contracts.

      So according to this agreement, anything public knowledge about UNIX can go into Linux if it wanted to. Filenames, headers, code, whatever. It's ancient and decrepit now, but the freedom was there.

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

      Now if SCO sells licenses, they get more licensees.

      Licensees they are OK to sue.

      Buy an SCO license, open up a world of litigation upon yourself. Listening EV1?

    2. Re:Nothing new by lakin · · Score: 5, Informative

      Except, the US never signed the moon treaty. They did sign the Outer Space Treaty, but that limits the government, not citizens or companies.

      http://lunar.arc.nasa.gov/results/ice/moon.htm

      This is also mentioned on Wikipedia
      There is more detail here:
      "Only nine nations have ratified the Moon Treaty (Australia, Austria, Chile, Mexico, Morocco, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Philippines, and Uruguay), while over 90 have signed the Outer Space Treaty. By UN agreement, five signatures are sufficient to validate a treaty as an international instrument, but there is concern at the refusal of the USA and Russia/USSR to sign--the two nations most likely at present to engage significantly in space exploration."

      --
      Paul
  2. " 20 to 30 organisations worldwide..." by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Ya they all happen to be Microsoft, Microsoft England, Microsoft Germany, Microsoft India, Microsoft Brazil, etc etc etc.

  3. If IBM wins... by icejai · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ... will all those who bought licenses get their money back?