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"."

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:Ugh...

[capz loc]

Yes, it's called "settling out of court."

Stupid CA

[piett134]

Seriously, when will these companies stop supplying SCO with more money for these legal challenges? I work with a company that sells software for both Linux & OpenServer, and let me tell you, about 1/2 to 2/3 of our major SCO Resellers have switched or are switching to Linux. Still havent had a single customer switch to SCO from linux.. If companies just sit tight and let SCO keep pursuing their death-wish, they will implode on their own.

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?

BS

[CoolCat]

According BBC those payments where not SCO Linux license (Sorry to lazy to dig a link, read it yesterday).

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."

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.

Re:Misleading Headline

[Anonymous Coward]

Read Groklaw as ever [groklaw.net]. There is more in later stories too).

Re:Misleading Headline

[Jeffrey Baker]

Specifically, Charles Forelle spake thusly in the Wall Street Journal:

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. It said it agreed to sign the licenses only to settle a lawsuit with the Canopy Group, one of SCO's major investors.

Yes, CA did NOT pay for these licenses

[_bug_]

As you can see here [cnn.com] 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.

WRONG WRONG WRONG

[Anonymous Coward]

SCO's Claim re CA "Is Nonsense," Says Computer Associates [linuxworld.com]

CA's senior VP of product development Mark Barrenechea says here that the SCO claim is nonsense.

Re:Isn't this a repeat?

[spungo]

Yes, but worth repeating as there are still countless journalists out there who are creating headlines as if the payment was primarily for linux licences, and, therefore, substantiating SCO's case. It is lazy journalism by hacks who are unable to research past SCO's press releases.

They key point is in the last paragraph

[eddie can read]

The payment has nothing to do with whether Linux contains SCO code. It's part of a settlement for something entirely different. CA might just as significantly have agreed to license the use of the word "is". The very last paragraph of the article contains the key point:

Computer Associates said its license for Linux is part of a legal settlement with Canopy Group, SCO's major shareholder. In August, Computer Associates signed the SCO license and paid $40 million to Canopy Group to settle breach-of-contract charges, but news of that deal surfaced only recently on Web sites.

I hope that the papers will at least get this right, after botching the job on the AutoZone lawsuit.

Update the Article!

[kuwan]

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

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 [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. ;)

SEC may be investigating MicroSCOft

[Tennguin]

It seems as though this jig may be close to over. Lets hope this isnt just a rumor:

http://www.newsforge.com/trends/04/03/08/0457259.s html

who knew shit could be worth so much

[hetairoi]

I was just waiting for the daily SCO story after reading this [theregister.co.uk] new BOFH.

Re:Yeah, CA paid for them - $0.00

[Anonymous Coward]

CA bought UnixWare licenses, due to the settlement with the Canopy company C7. SCO piggybacked Linux licenses. They counted the money in their SEC fillings with their Unix business, not with their SCOsource Linux licensing scheme. It caused a lot of confusion with SCO claiming licensees and the SEC filling showing no revenue.

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?

Re:WRONG WRONG WRONG

[prgrmr]

The sad part is when you consider how many article submissions were rejected in favor of posting this misleading repeat.

Taco

[LittleLebowskiUrbanA]

Do you try to stay up with the SCO situation? RTFA, editor! CA is pissed that anyone even assumes they caved into SCO's demands.
Throw in Michaels antics and stuff like this and your surprised there's not that many subscribers?

Re:I don't use CA, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Bad move on not RTFA. The licensing was part of some legal settlement. Thrown in as part and parcel, not a conscious decision to pay SCO licesing fees as a separate action.

Way to fall for the FUD though.

Re:Taco

[prgrmr]

It gets better. Every post pointing out this is a repeat or misleading is getting mod'ed as "overrated". It's sad, really.

Bruce Perns fact based article....

[trifster]

...picks up where Forbes fails, the truth.
here [com.com]

NOT Forbes, but Reuters

[Anonymous Coward]

Talk about almost everyone spreading Forbes FUD. RTFA, although the link is on the Forbes web page, it links to a Reuters' article. It is just like much of Yahoo or CNN, they pick up newswire stories and link to them with the headlines often in place.

It has NOTHING to do with Forbes and their editorial positions except they linked to a Reuters story.

Sheesh.

Re:Ironic thing - UC Berkeley

[Ohreally_factor]

It's either a joke or a misunderstanding.

In this case, CA = Computer Associates, not California.

Re:What is it with Forbes and inaccuracy?

[ogre57]

So the score is SCO 4 GPL 4,000,000.

I was wondering if anyone else noticed ..

Lindon, Utah-based SCO said at least four companies, including CA, have received the license to use Linux.

Microsoft Corp. .. and Sun Microsystems Inc. .., which are competing fiercely for market share in selling computer server operating systems, have license deals with SCO to use Unix.

So the four* so-called "Linux licenses" they have sold are to Microsoft, Sun**, CA, and EV1. Of those arguably only EV1 knew (or cared) they were getting any such thing. Yup, persuasive proof of "respecting the IP holder's claims". Riight.

* - Iirc quote was "less than fifty" so guess they didn't exactly lie

** - An in-the-trenches Sun tech claims "word is" that Sun was after drivers to use in x86, did not know about nor intentionally fund SCO's attack plans. Not displeased mind, but not exactly a willing accomplice either. (No evidence here to decide fact or spin.)

Re:Piercing the corporate viel

[Krow10]

Repost [slashdot.org].

They only needed to pierce the veil as long as Canopy stayed behind the scenes. The limitation of liability afforded a corporation's shareholders only covers the shareholder from responsibility for the actions of the corporation; it does not in any way protect a shareholder from liability for his or her own actions.

With this deal, Canopy commited an overt act in furtherance of SCOX's campaign to mislead the public in SCOX's anti-linux campaign when they made the UnixWare license (with the linux indeminification attached) part of the CA lawsuit settlement. SCOX then used this deal to misleadingly imply that CA had entered into a voluntary deal to license linux. I'd say this falls under IBM's Lanham Act claims[See this [groklaw.net], start at 84.) IBM doesn't need to pierce the veil, Canopy pulled is aside themselves.

Cheers,
Craig

Re:Stupid CA

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, when will these companies stop supplying SCO with more money for these legal challenges?

Read the fucking article. CA didn't pay them for the Linux licenses. CA was forced to buy Unixware licenses as part of a legal settlement, and SCO quietly attached the Linux licenses so they could claim CA as a licensee.

Wrong

[sjvn]

We've known for five days now that CA only got the license because they were forced to in a settlement.

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1543091,00. as p

"Sam Greenblatt, chief architect of the Linux technology group for CA, in Islandia. N.Y., told eWEEK that while 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 [Inc.]. It has nothing to do with SCO's strategy of intimidation."

With licensees like this, who needs enemies?

Steven

Re:Forgive them

[Jaywalk]

Forgive them

I don't think so.

many companies will unfortunately make a business decision - pay a little money now, rather then possibly a lot later in lawyer's fees. So I can't entirely blame them.

Its required for companies to honor their contracts. One of those contracts is the GNU license which they agreed to when they got Linux. One of the conditions of that license was that nobody is allowed to tack new conditions onto the GNU license. These companies expect to get free use of Linux both now and in the future and to have it supported by the Linux community. Fair enough, but part of the deal is to stick to the agreements which they've made with that community. It's not to their advantage or anyone elses to cave in on this. So far this seems to have been understood by pretty much everyone and only EV1 has given in.

Been here, done this

[whisper_jeff]

Haven't we already discussed the CA issue already?

Here [slashdot.org] and here [slashdot.org].

Not that I'm against ragging on SCO and their stupidity, but isn't this horse dead?

SCOX reaches lowest price in 6 months

[KrunZ]

A least the investors got it right this time:

1 year SCOX chart [msn.com]
5 days SCOX chars [msn.com]

Re:Misleading Headline

[MuParadigm]

Headlines are usually written by the editors, not the journalists.

Incorrect information on the front page

[Anonymous Coward]

They didn't pay SCO for these licenses. They settled a lawsuit with one of SCO's investors (Canopy). Canopy threw in a bunch of UnixWare licences as part of the deal. They weren't "Linux licenses" and CA didn't pay for them. So I guess that's actually two mistakes.

Yeah...

[Overly Critical Guy]

Slashdot already reported this last week. How SCO was spinning the breach of contract money as a Linux license.