SCO Gives Notice To 6,000 Unix Licensees 442
inode_buddha writes "This article describes SCO's recent letters to its UNIX licensees, asking them to certify that they '...are not using Unix code in Linux.' It also notes another set of letters '...outlining additional evidence of copyright infringement to a subset of 1,500 global Linux users that SCO first contacted in May about copyright infringement.' There's also a decent breakdown of the company's balance sheet and some quotes from company officials. I hope to see one of those 'other' letters; could anyone post it? SCO better have asbestos underwear." Ask and receive: idiotnot adds "Here's the article from the Sydney Morning Herald. Here is a PDF Copy of the letter." "Yours truly"?
The important question (Score:5, Interesting)
SCO has in the past managed to sidestep most allegations of fraud by being horrendously vague. They said that they were owned money but never sent any invoices, sidestepping mail fraud. They tried to present things as if you needed an SCO license to use linux, but if you tried to talk to talk to them, they were actually selling UnixWare licenses and not in the process actually distributing linux to you, sidestepping GPL violations. However, this is entirely non-vague. It seems to me that SCO has stepped over some sort of line here and this is actionable.
I know that the law does not seem to have many consequences for people who send out bad takedown notices, but surely there must be something preventing company A from finding lists of competitor B's customers and sending them takedown notices for using some portion of competitor B's product that company A does not, in fact, own.
At the least, can this be added to the lanham act/ restraint of trade/ libel or whatever countersuits that Redhat and IBM have going? What are the options from here, and what will actually happen?
SCO shareholders lawsuit? (Score:5, Interesting)
SCO also announced its first full year of profitability today, reporting $5.3m in net income for its 2003 financial year
The company would have reported net income of $14.3m for the year had it not reported a charge of nearly $9m to pay law firms involved in the lawsuit and related efforts to "enforce its intellectual property rights", SCO officials said.
So, any bets on how long after all the SCO claims are thrown out as frivilous until the shareholders sue the officers for throwing money away on lawyers instead of paying dividends?
The officers are legally required to maximize shareholder value. Spewing frivilous lawsuits like a leaky hose doesn't qualify.
Re:Next Up: SCO FIles Bankrupcy (Score:3, Interesting)
Unfortunately, they still turned a profit.
SCO has noticed the rope stopped moving (Score:5, Interesting)
Remember the NORMAL non-SCO behavior is to say what the disputed IP actually is--but in that case the problem--if there is any real problem--would have been fixed LONG ago. Want to take any bets if there's any code in the 2.6 Linux kernel that has ANY relation at all to anything from SCO?
In related news, SCO admits they paid $9 million to the lawyers last year--but also claims they managed to clear $5 million net. Which number do you trust more? I say the 5 is just more FUDging.
Why would I do that? (Score:5, Interesting)
Running my own small business the question arises why I should certify anything to anyone who has no official business of requesting my certification?
Specifically when it comes to a company who makes the likes of Enron look like a convention of boy scouts?
Re:The important question (Score:3, Interesting)
SCO called liars in Wall Street Journal (Score:5, Interesting)
Saw this on the Yahoo board [yahoo.com]:
"From The Wall Street Journal, 1/5/2004, page B1, by Lee Gomes:"
"As for Linux, when will the courts halt the lies of has-been software maker SCO (with $13 million in funding from Microsoft and Sun -- together at last!) as it tries to make the preposterous claim that it, and not the world, owns the free operating system?"
Not even the business press is taking them seriously any more.
Re:SCO shareholders lawsuit? (Score:3, Interesting)
Without those fud money donations, what will 2004 look like?
Re:Why would I do that? (Score:2, Interesting)
The questions fall into 2 categories:
- covered by the licence that the licensee signed.
- not covered by the licence.
If the question *is* covered by the licence, then you don't need to answer [as your compliance with the licence covers this].
If the question is *not* covered by the licence, then you have no reason to answer it. [note that SCO does not have the right to amend these licences]
Hence, it's a waste of paper.
My maths and 30 days deadline (Score:2, Interesting)
Would this evidence be the list of header files as printed in this letter [sco.com], or has SCO chosen not to disclose anything further?
Is that 30 business days or 30 human days?
Any bets (Score:2, Interesting)
I'll set my marker for 1000
SCO is totally bonkers (Score:5, Interesting)
This letter assumes the guilt of all its licencees until proven otherwise. SCO is demanding corporate HR documents (non-disclosure) for each employee who might come in contact with their software stating that they will follow the licence and letter provisions to the T. The letter also seems to suggest that users of SCO software must swear under threat of legal action never to use Linux, and never to develop GPL software. Unbelievable.
If there was any doubt before, there is none now. This letter can't possibly be seen as anything but insulting, even by historically staunch SCO supporters. I've never seen such arrogance. I feel like I'm reading Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy.
DIE SCO. I can't wait to read that SCO has finally died, and that its officials and officers are being brought up on criminal charges. What a bunch of fucking crooks.
Re:The important question (Score:5, Interesting)
SCO is like the insane man on the street: he's almost certainly harmless, but nobody wants to get embroiled with him anyway. Thus the dilemma for licensees. For SCO, they end up with many more legal targets.
Re:Oh no! They'll terminate my Unixware license! (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:SCO is totally bonkers (Score:4, Interesting)
Your post is to the point.
All these developers and companies who use Unix will not be sued if they want to switch to Linux of BSD. If not under the false pretenses that Linux has stolen code, but rather violating a license agreement.
IF they refuse, SCO can then threaten to sue them claiming they have no respect for their IP.
So they can never run free software at all. Very crafty and slimy indeed.
I sense SCO is planning on a backup to keep them afloat if the IBM case fails. They will just sue companies and individuals who are stupid enough to sign such agreements.
Sorry if your server can not support Unixware, then you must run Windows. Ugh.
Re:The important question (Score:3, Interesting)
It would be funny if they terminated someone's license for running Caldera Linux.
I wonder if they claim that Caldera Linux infringes.
Next step: Declaratory Judgment (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:The important question (Score:4, Interesting)
2) They can't terminate the licenses, even if someone answered yes to these questions. The very paragraph they quote gives them the right to ask about the CPUs deploying Unixware not every CPU in the company (bolding mine)
On request, but not more frequently than annually,
Licensee shall furnish to SCO a statement, certified by an
authorized representative of Licensee, listing the location,
type and serial number of all Designated CPUs
hereunder and stating that the use by Licensee of Software Products subject to this Agreement has been reviewed and that each
such Software Product is being used solely on such
Designated CPUs (or temporarily on back-up CPUs) for
such Software Products in full compliance with the
provisions of this Agreement.
ok, on to reality... (Score:2, Interesting)
Were letters actually sent? (Score:5, Interesting)
Lie: We've gone in, we've done a deep dive into Linux, we've compared the source code of Linux with UNIX every which way but Tuesday
Truth: Experts have shown that SCO used a simple, primitive text search based on a few keywords.
Lie: SCO's expert witnesses are "MIT Mathematicians".
Truth: Among various backpedaling statements, Paul Hatch, a SCO spokesman, wrote in a statement to The Tech
Lie: SCO received the D&T Fast 500 recognition because of the strong UNIX market, IP enforcement and the Web services strategy
Truth: SCO made the list because of revenue growth due exclusively to the Tarantula acquisition.
Lie: The IP protection legal team is on pure contingency
Truth: The legal team is billing at a 2/3 discounted rate with the possibility of contingent commissions
Lie: Boies was compensated $1.6M for a contingent event
Truth: The engagement agreement specifically excludes heritage UNIX OEM license deals; Boies is being compensated 20% of the $8MM Microsoft license deal, which is a follow-on extension of the first deal, a UNIX license deal not eligible as a contingent event.
Lie: Invoices will be mailed to Linux users by October 15, 2003
Truth: No invoices were ever mailed.
Lie: We will show rock solid evidence at SCOForum in Las Vegas
Truth: SCO was quickly shown to not have any ownership of the SCOForum evidence
Lie: The Berkeley Packet Filter code in Linux is "obfuscated" SCO code.
Truth: Jay Schulist, who never had access to SCO code, implemented it from scratch.
Lie: SCO's 2002 UNIX source release was "non-commercial" and excludes 32-bit code
Truth: "The text of the letter, sent January 23, 2002, by Bill Broderick, Director of Licensing Services for Caldera [now SCO], in fact makes no mention of "non-commercial use" restrictions, does not include the words "non-commercial use" anywhere and specifically mentions "32-bit 32V Unix" as well as the 16-bit versions."
Lie: We have been off meeting for the last several months with large corporate Linux end users. The pipeline is very healthy there.
Truth: The pipeline is empty. All inquiries have been to assess SCO's claims and liability exposure.
Lie: We have done additional signups for Linux end-user licenses. We have a number of folks that are in the evaluation process, and we definitely have a lot of interest in what's going on there.
Truth: During the earnings conference, SCO admitted that not a single Linux end-user license has been sold. Follow-on guidance comments warn that no such sales are expected in Q1.
Lie: Our claims are not trivial.
Truth: Based on evidence provided to date, SCO's claims are extremely trivial, debunked in a matter of hours
Lie: claims that SCO has are both broad and deep.
Truth: SCO's has made a breach of contract claim and a copyright infringement claim; all evidence presented to date has shown each of these claims to be trivial and unfounded
Lie: These claims touch not, just not IBM, but other vendors as well.
Truth: Exhaustive code reviews by other SYSV licensees, including HP and SGI, have shown that the only Linux/SysV overlap concerns a small amount of public domain code.
Lie: (To the Utah Judge on 12/5) SCO will make a copyright claim in two days, but no longer than a week
Truth: Many weeks later and a copyright claim has not yet been made.
Lie: During the recent road tour, Blake Stowell indicated that core operations were profitable in Q3.
Truth: Core operations lost $3.8MM in Q3-03.
Lie: Sco will audit AIX users.
Truth: It never happend.
Lie: Sco will revoke IBM rights to use, support, or distribute AIX.
Truth: Those rights can not be revoked by scox.
Anyone else going .. (Score:2, Interesting)
Also, Didn't the "SCO
Re:Seems you have way too many lawyers in the US . (Score:3, Interesting)
You've also identified yourself as someone who can be bullied and someone who is not getting good legal advice, just the guy SCO is looking for. If SCO ever actually does sue an end user, they want someone who will pay the fee just to avoid the legal costs. That gives them the appearance of legitimacy and might lead to more people caving in. The last thing they want is for someone to fight back. A savvy lawyer will probably raise the issue of Novell's claims to the same copyright and say something like, "Gee. your honor, shouldn't we find out who really owns the code before we start paying for it?" Once that happens, the jig is up. Everyone else will make the same argument and SCO gets no money until the copyright case with Novell is settled, which could take years.
Your other alternative (Score:2, Interesting)
RICO Lawsuit (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't get SCO (Score:2, Interesting)
I guess what I'm really driving at is that this is an obvious FUD attempt. I'm sure the vast majority of licensees are binary licensees. Also, they specifically mention the ABI, which was a specification published by AT&T, in publicly available books sold by Prentice-Hall, prior to SCO owning the copyright. If I write code to meet this published ABI specification, there will be similarities just because there is only a finite number of ways to implement it for any given platform. The SCO claim is so weak as to almost be non existent.
As I've said many times before, I would not rush to sign any agreements, especially this one. There are certain statements that would severely limit your rights.
One final note. How about an interesting mind game. If I manufacture hardware, and distribute SysV and/or Linux with it, and SCO yanks my distribution license, doesn't it hurt SCO? After all, I can still sell Linux boxes, stop paying SCO royalties, sue SCO for pro rated refund of license fees already paid, and switch my SysV code to something else such as OSF/1 or *BSD. With the exception of the pain of the last step, i.e., inability to ship to unix customers for many, many months, I don't suffer a great deal. Isn't SCO shooting themselves in the foot?
I am not a lawyer, and this is only my opinion. Please seek legal counsel prior to making any decisions related to this topic.
Re:Changes to future eula's (Score:3, Interesting)
Wanna bet?
That kind of overt heavy handedness would almost certainly drive more corps to go for GPL/BSD licensed software.
The BSA's blackmail has already been the best Linux/OpenOffice marketing campaign of all time.
Notice that you don't hear as much about the BSA threatening to raid schools and municipalities like we did a year or so ago... This is a stupid thing for the BSA to do anyway, as they INVITE legislation to limit extra clauses above what copyright law allows them to put into their EULA...
Re:IBM buying SCO, (Score:2, Interesting)
Now, if IBM succeeds in slamming them back down to $0.05 per share, then buys them out and releases Sys V UNIX into the public domain, that would be a pretty strong, "Don't screw with IBM" message.
Re:Oh no! They'll terminate my Unixware license! (Score:3, Interesting)
They just want you to send them money. It's the perfect business: no product, no staff, just a lot of money rolling in due to the past efforts of other, complete strangers (both on the Unix side and the Linux side), and the gullibility of people who believe every official-looking letter they receive.
SCO is comprised of every kind of sheister who ever followed a get-rich-quick pyramid scheme, put sawdust in the tranny, or used inferior concrete and rebar when building a dam a mile up the river from a town. They don't care about anyone else, nor the consequences of their actions, nor whether they actually deserve the money.
It's the money that matters, not the users. And if they can get rid of the actual users in the process, all the better.
Re:Para 7.10 (Score:4, Interesting)
The Law of the Land, however, does grant you the right to sell, lease or otherwise transfer or dispose of your own property
Dude: this is why software in this country is licensed and not sold. The software manufacturers here in the states want to maximize their profits, so they license the software to you *but not sell it*. This allows them to impose all sorts of additional conditions and terms on the use of said software.
Unfortunately, there are several court cases here in the states that establish this as the way things are - regardless of the "looks like a sale, acts like a sale" bit that occurs when you purchase a retail box at your local store.