SCO News Roundup

Bootsy Collins managed to combine all of today's SCO stories. He writes "The firm of David Boies, SCO's attorney in charge of their Linux IP cases, has announced their compensation (so far) from SCO: $1 million USD in cash, and $8 million in SCO stock. Keeping that stock price high until they can sell is clearly of some importance to Boies, Schiller and Flexner LLP. Given the cost of selling a $50 million convertible note to fund their legal actions, the actual cost to SCO is more like $17 million USD. Meanwhile, SCO CEO Darl McBride is saying that Novell's purchase of SuSE violates a non-competition agreement reached when SCO bought the Unix source, and thus is legally actionable by SCO. Over at the Register, they've noticed that SCO's latest SEC filings indicate how firmly they're putting all their eggs in the legal basket: the filings effectively say that 'SCO has already lost business from its loyal customer base, and it expects to lose more.' And finally, in response to a poor response to SCO's attempts to get Fortune 1000 companies to pay $699/server for 'Linux licenses' before the fee jumped to $1399, SCO has announced that the $699 discount rate will apply to the end of 2003. Hurry before time runs out again."

Yeehaw! A roundup!!

Git along, little stories, git along!!!

Re:Yeehaw! A roundup!!

Rollin', Rolling', Rollin',
Rollin', Rolling', Rollin',
Rollin', Rolling', Rollin',
SCOhide!

Rollin' Rollin' Rollin'
Keep the stock price swollen,
Keep them lawsuits rollin',
SCOhide!

Ignorance and Hubris together, Hell bent for treasure, Wishin' IBM was on my side.
All the things I'm missin, Source code, money and lawsuit dissmissin', Are waitin at the end of my ride.

Move em' on, Head em' up, Move em' on,SCOhide!
Cut em' out, Paste em' in, Greek em' out, Show em' off, SCOhide!

Keep movin', movin', movin'
Though their dissaprovin', Keep them Unix users groanin', SCOhide!

Don't try to understand them, Just Subpoena, sue and charge em', Soon we'll be livin' high and wide. My heart's calculatin', My new Rolls Royce will be waitin', Be waitin' at the end of my ride.

Move em' on, Sue em' up, Move em' on, SCOhide!
Cut em' out, Paste em' in, Greek em' out, Show em' off, SCOhide!

Move em' on, Sue em' up, Move em' on, SCOhide!
Drown em' out, Subpoena em' in, Cash em' out, Sue em' ALLLLLLL!!!, SCOhide!

Rollin', Rolling', Rollin', Rollin', Rolling', Rollin', SCOhide!

SCOhide!

Re:Yeehaw! A roundup!!

Can you get a version of "Danny Boy" that we can sing at SCO's wake?

Re:Yeehaw! A roundup!!

Something like this, you mean?

Oh Darly Boy,
The pipe, the crack pipe's calling,
As once again, our stock is on the slide,
It once was high, But now the price is falling,
So pack a case because its time to take a ride.

Oh IBM,
They looked like easy targets,
We thought they'd fold,
And pay us just to go,
And then their lawyers tore us all to pieces,
And now this single crack rock's all that's left of SCO.

So light your pipe,
And recollect the good old days,
When whorish analysts hung on every word,
Because at last, your business rep is ruined,
And everybody knows,
You're just a stinking turd.

Re:Why must it always come down to this?

You must've typed that up on a Windows box.. you, uh, cock-smoking uh teabagger.. whatever that means.

Good news for SCO

Great to see a small company like SCO stand up to huge billion-dollar Goliath as Novell is, and remind them that an agreement is an agreement, and if you sign it, you better stick to it.

Hope the lawsuit is successful and mormons from Novell are not allowed to outsource programming job to that German outfit.

If SCO gets Novell to cash out, that's great news for Caldera Linux users and at least one vendor found a sustainable business model.

Re:Good news for SCO

It's possible they don't want their evidence tainted in 'the court of popular opinion' so they choose to wait until their day in court to reveal it.

Except that this isn't the way the court system works. It's a requirement that the plaintiff tell the defendent what the case against them actually is.
The plaintiff can't simply withhold evidence on the basis of "the public might see it", since there are procedures for any documents submitted by any party not to be made a matter of public record. In order for this to happen a judge needs to be convinced that there is a good reason not to make such documents public.

I'm just saying. I am not on SCO's side. I do think that there's a considerable body of 'popular opinion' out there that doesn't care if SCO is right or not.

If SCO does not want to infuence "popular opinion" then they should not be issuing press releases. Let alone demanding money from third parties. Anyway their case with IBM is irrelevent to their copyright infringement and copyright fraud.

Roundup?

Sounds like that's what they are doing to their bottom line.

Ticker Symbol

Does anyone else have a Beavis 'n Butthead moment whn seeing the ticker symbol "SCOX"?

Re:Ticker Symbol

pretty much! :-D

offtopic, but related to your comment: I work for a local telco, and a while back, the president was giving us the annual vision shpiel. He mentioned that the local cable provider was going to roll out dialtone service in our area, and that "penetration by Cox" was something we had hoped to avoid.

It was all I could do to prevent busting out laughing, but nobody else seemed to catch it... sigh...

Re:Ticker Symbol

I'll go ahead and one up you:

Prior to the Clearchannel buyout, there were two major companies in my city that owned radio stations: Dix communications, and COX. So of course the joke was that there was nothing on the radio but a bunch of Dix and Cox.

Re:Ticker Symbol

Lol, I saw signs at a High School football game where the cheerleaders (too young & too hot for me) were holding up signs that said I (heart) Cox. I just busted out. Unfortunately I had to explain my low brow humor to my wife who was none too pleased.

Linux written to compete with SCO?

"When (The Santa Cruz Operation) sold us the property, included in the property was a non-compete," McBride told IDG News Service. "Last time I checked, Linux was intended to compete with our core products."

I think Darl is going to have to prove that if he wants to enforce that no-compete clause in the contract.

Re:Linux written to compete with SCO?

Probably not. It should be enough to show that it DOES compete - which would be trivial.

IANAL, but I don't think that's the only thing it has to show. I believe that it would also have to show that by distributing linux, Suse/Novell are having a direct impact upon SCO's business.

Given that Linux is freely distributed by a range of companies, it's hard to see how they can make that case. Also, I wonder how confusing it will be for the courts when they learn that SCO is actually a company that was established to try to profit from distributing someone else's intellectual property, which they had a right to freely distribute, but by using the funds from their IPO to purchase an older technology, they believe they can then prevent the company that originally sold the older technology from distributing the same free operating system that led to their successful IPO in the first place.

Now it may just be me, but I've got a very strong suspicion that any judge or jury who was exposed to the arguments would actually laugh this out of court.

"Nice try fellas, do you really think we are that stupid?"

No, I think there are some very twitchy sphincters in Utah at the moment, so it's time to crank the FUD again and bring out the smoke and mirrors for another quick performance.

Re:Linux written to compete with SCO?

And what about Netware? I'm no expert on Novell products, but hasn't Netware been running on x86 for ages? It certainly competes with "Unix-on-Intel".

Given that Netware is Novell's core product, I very much doubt that Darl's claim has any basis in fact.

Re:Linux written to compete with SCO?

The non-compete agreement prohibits Novell from directly competing with SCO's Unix-on-Intel business, McBride said.

Linux Is Not UniX, any more so than BSD, BeOS, or MacOSX. Better double check the wording of that contract Darl.

Re:Linux written to compete with SCO?

"As does NetWare."

thats the first thought that flew through my mind after reading Darls comment.

Netware does a lot of the common tasks as UNIX ware:

Runs oracle, runs mysql, pgsql, serves web pages, serves file sharing.

Only diferentiation is the OS itself.

They would have to be much more specific on what the terms of the non-compete. INAL , but it seems that if they can push a non-compete for SuSE , they can also get it for Netware as well as possibly some of the other products.

My guess is they can't go after existing business that SCO holds or develop a UNIX operating system themselves... where technically Linux isn't UNIX, it's all going to come into the careful wording of the non-compete.

Re:Linux written to compete with SCO?

Depending on how broadly the no-compete clause was written, if it covers linux, there's a chance the same would apply to NetWare as well, cause NetWare isn't Unix either.

On the other hand, hasn't SCO changed their core products to litigation and (trying) to sell licenses for other company's software?

It doesn't cover Netware or Linux.

Depending on how broadly the no-compete clause was written, if it covers linux, there's a chance the same would apply to NetWare as well, cause NetWare isn't Unix either.

It doesn't cover either. The relevant line in the contract (as posted on Groklaw if anyone wants to read the whole thing) is:

Seller agrees that it shall use the Licensed Technology only (i) for internal purposes without restriction or (ii) for resale in bundled or integrated products sold by Seller which are not directly competitive with the core products of Buyer and in which the Licensed Technology does not constitute a primary portion of the value of the total bundled or integrated product.

In other words, SCO doesn't just have to prove that Linux competes with their Unices (which is probably true, at least on those computers which don't rely on new-fangled things like "USB" that SCO is still working on support for), they have to prove that the source code they bought from Novell constitutes a primary portion of the value of SuSE Linux!

This is just more BS intended to prop up their stock price; don't bother paying attention until they actually start trying to pull this stuff on a judge, instead of their current backpedaling official stance of "We only have a contract dispute with IBM, and we've never threatened Red Hat with anything more."

Re:Linux written to compete with SCO?

I don't see how SuSE competes with SCO's core business. As far as I know, SuSE has never sued anyone.

Actually

Actually SuSE successfully sued SCO.

Re:Linux written to compete with SCO?

It seems to me that the only ones currently competing with SCO's business model are ambulance-chasing lawyers.

Next round of news:

1. SCO patents litigation as a business model; changes name to Tort, Inc.

2. Tort, Inc. (formerly SCO) files suit on over 4000 law firms specializing in personal injury and workers' compensation cases, claiming patent infringement.

3. Tort, Inc. sues US Senate and House of Representatives, claiming tort reform bills designed to threaten innovation and excellence in their product line.

Re:Linux written to compete with SCO?

I am afraid that if you have a product that is not for sale that replaces a product that is for sale, you are in competition.

You may be right in general -- but in this case, I believe that you're misinformed. The wording in the Novell/SCO agreement is very specific. It did not specify that Novell could not compete with SCO in the x86 market. They already do -- if Novell agreed to do so, they'd put themselves out of business.

Read the text of the agreement at Groklaw.net [groklaw.net]. Essentially, the agreement stated that they could not use SysV Unix (the IP that Novell sold to SCO) to compete with SCO. Darl's argument is based on his contention that Linux contains enough stolen code from SysV Unix to warrant it being called Unix. Essentially, his non-compete claim is completely based on the outcome of the SCO Vs. IBM case (which, IMO is all bullshit). If SCO loses the IBM case, then they won't have a leg to stand on against Novell since the courts will have affirmed that Linux!=UNIX.

--Turkey

Legal basis of non-compete

"When (The Santa Cruz Operation) sold us the property, included in the property was a non-compete," McBride told IDG News Service. "Last time I checked, Linux was intended to compete with our core products."

I think Darl is going to have to prove that if he wants to enforce that no-compete clause in the contract.

We don't know enough facts about the non-compete agreement to make a real judgement about the validity of this claim. Here are some factors that we need to consider.

First, Novell continued to sell its NetWare product, so we know right off the bat that the non-compete did not apply to any OS on x86.

Second, control of the definition of UNIX was transferred to the Open Group at around the same time. We do need to take into account that Linux is not UNIX. It is a system based on extremely similar principles and conventions, but does not conform to the UNIX standard.

Third, Linux was just starting to make an impact beyond the dorm room in 1995. BSD was already established. It was probably forseeable that BSD and/or Linux would impact the market for SysV on x86.

Lacking further information, we are left with impression that the agreement was likely ambiguous. Typically, when an ambiguity is discovered in a contract, that ambiguity is interpretted against the side that drafted the ambiguous clause. I would guess that SCO drafted that clause. Novell has no interest in it being there, so that would mean the clause would be interpretted as narrowly as possible.

There are a lot of leaps here. We'll see how this actually works out.

Thinking about this financially...

Well 17 million $ / $699 = 24,321 (rounding up remainders), can SCO find 24,321 users to pay for the Linux license? Chances are that there are 24,321 corporate workstations that will be paid for should SCO win, so unfortunately SCO wins at this point.

But really, their image? Their likelihood of getting future products bought that they offer? Anyone in the Linux community buying SCO after this? Tangibly this much money still makes sense, but intangibly I'd be concerned about the long term effect on SCO.

Re:Thinking about this financially...

If I had a corporation w/ 100+ users, there's not a chance in hell that I'd pay $699 oer license, per user.

Really? How does that compare to having those users on Windows with full installs of MS Office, and connecting them to an Exchange server and maybe a few MS fileservers? I think you'll find it's about the same, and yet, somehow, corporations find a way to justify that everyday.

SCO news is good news, or is it?

I just took a break from coding, and thought, "Gee, I haven't checked /. in a while. I wonder what's new with SCO today."

THANKS for being my source of SCO drama!

the dreaded SCO joke...

...before the fee jumped to $1399...

Attention all SCO jokes posters, get ready to update your jokes by the end of the year, thank you.

Bootsy!

Bootsy Collins managed to combine all of today's SCO stories.

Holy crap! Funkalicious bass lines and journalistic know-how? Bootsy, I hardly knew ye...

Re:Bootsy!

Tear the root off, we're gonna tear the root of, tear the root of this sucka!

Re:Bootsy!

I'm still waiting for George Clinton to weigh in. You know someone whose website [georgeclinton.com] has an intro that reads, "Welcome black, mellow-maggots, fellow-funkateerz, gangsta-tokeheadz and hippyfied-deadheads, to our brand spankin' nu cyber-haven-a-go-go!" is going to have a unique take on SCO.

Re:Oh, for the love of God...

I, for one, welcome SCO's new neck-shitting overlords...

Re:Oh, for the love of God...

Yes, IBM's lawyers are doing a great job so far in this litigation, but remember that it is NOT a foregone conclusion that SCO will lose. This is not the kind of issue I would want to be ignorant of and I feel it is our responsibility to keep reporting SCO's tripe and to consistently call it out for what it is, if only for a solid counterpoint to the analysts who continue to push SCO as a 'buy.'

This is an important case because it is one that we MUST win. Suppose we lose, and a new Open Source operating system gets written to replace the IP'd linux. How long will it take SCO et al to pursue it with similar litigation? How ready will coders be to place themselves in the line of legal-fire? We have companies like IBM and Red Hat doing the heavy lifting for us now - how likely are they to continue down this path should they lose this case?

Pretty bleak, and admittedly unlikely outcome. Yet pretty important stuff to most of us here. Hell, I know people who would walk away from computers in disgust should SCO win. Of course this is news, and of course it is reported on Slashdot! THIS is news that matters.

SCO license makes a great gift for the holidays!

Now that you can purchase the license until the end of '03, we have the perfect x-mas/kwanza/Chanukah/XXXXX-holiday gift for that linux nerd in your family Get one for mom, dad, the dog... Great stocking stuffer! plaque it up next to that resume before its too late and costs $1400!

A sad, sad tale that's far from over...

The air must be getting stuffy in Darl's bunker. Apparently, he'll be suing Sun and China [slashdot.org] next!

Although if you think about it, a potential 1 billion users popping for Linux licenses at $699 apiece (but only if they act NOW!)... Gotta get me somma that SCOX!

That should be trademarked man!

"Gotta get me somma that SCOX!!" (tm) :)

Re:A sad, sad tale that's far from over...

Actually, they are planning to sue a large Linux user [wsj.com] according to the Wall Street Journal (subscription required, I'm afraid, but you could try this printable view [wsj.com]). Boies the lawyer claims that they will be suing a representative large copyright violator (Linux user) in the near future. That should teach all those deadbeats not to pay their SCO license fee, eh?

The article also said SCO is giving Boies' law firm $1 million cash and 400,000 shares. I wonder when this turns into a conflict of interest for Boies, if not an SEC pump and dump type of violation.

Amazing.

Posts over time

This must be one of the most long-running Slashdot stories I've ever seen, and one of the most vehement :-) I wonder what a plot of stories/posts over time would look like...

Simon

Re:Posts over time

Probably a lot like a timeline.

What I like about this

I just love the fact that SCO is now paying its lawyers with stock options. I can't wait to see the look on McBride's face when their stock tanks. One thing you never want McBride, is a room full of angry lawyers..

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!

Comments on today's SCO conference call

I found these comments from the excellent GrokLaw site [groklaw.net] by someone who was able to get in on this morning's teleconference call set up by SCO. See here [groklaw.net] for where I got the comments from, as well as PJ's commentary on recent events in SCOville:

Authored by: radicimo on Tuesday, November 18 2003 @ 12:40 PM EST

Conference call just ended. I had a *1 for questions, but they just cut off the conference before things got too hairy, with a "We have no more callers". LIARS. Also, interesting how Dion Cornett was unable to ask his question. Makes me wonder out loud.

1. They referred to SCOsource licensing as one of the contingencies that created the payment for Boies (really cagey about it too). However they also said that Microsoft in no way was funding the lawsuit. That is a patently untrue then, as MSFT has funded the SCOsource licensing.

I think this one is really important to note. IF there ever is a securities fraud investigation of TSG, some of their comments in the call are patently self-contradictory, and if I was "allowed" to ask my questions these would have come out.

2. Still seems that there are no other licensees besides MSFT and SUNW. I was going to force them to get specific about this and find out when Sun payment will be recorded, and if there were any future contingencies which would lead to additional payments by either.

3. I wanted Boies to explain how the USL v. BSDI lawsuit gave them any legal standing. It doesn't, and seems to weaken it (IANAL).

4. Compete versus non-compete wrt Novell. First UNIX is not Linux, so how are they competing with the letter of the agreement? Second, SCO legacy revenue is decreasing whereas this new partnership (word they used again and again) with a law firm suggests that their core business is now lawsuits. How is Novell competing with that (tongue in cheek)?

5. Has OSDL contacted them about their use of the trademark UNIX, and why do they continue to use this trademark without proper attribution?

The reason why SCO is able to perpetrate the FUD they do is because the press and financial community are not doing their research and asking the hardball questions. Things only got a bit tight when they got called to task on the issue of Boies payment and whether it was a contingency based on past or future actions."

The Novell Bit...

Should be interesting. After all, Novell could argue simply that "Since we are buying a GNU/Linux company, and GNU means 'Gnu's Not Unix', blah, blah, blah".

The burden of proof should (notice the "should", because the law may say different) be on SCO to prove that Linux *is* UNIX.

If it is according to the law, then there could be problems. If it is not, then Novell's scott free.

Just my $0.02.

SCO

The legal action is also causing them to have problems hiring. I was called up by one recuriter/pimp and asked if I would be intrested in working in their call center. To this I gave a firm but polite no. HE then let slip that everyone he had spoken to had said pretty much the same thing.
Oh well

Rus

Re:SCO

Let me guess. They wanted to pay you entirely in stock options?

Going after HP's customers...

There was an interesting remark on the Linux Weekly News [lwn.net] site about SCO's suggesting that they plan on going after HP's customers because they are covered by HP's indemnification policy.

"They also made numerous claims that copyright-based lawsuits will be initiated against Linux users in "the next 90 days. There were hints that HP customers could be targeted, as a result of that company's indemnification promise - as had been predicted previously."

It looks like IBM were extremely smart not to offer indemnification, despite the calls from the peanut gallery for them to do so, but I wonder how the people at HP feel, getting a good solid assfucking like this after they sponsored the recent SCO roadshow?

IANAL, but I suspect now might be a good time to join in RedHat's suit against Darl and his crack smoking band of pirates.

News?

Put it this way: SCOX stock had been in free-fall for days (opened today around $13.5); after a phone-in, that was announced at 10:30pm last night, they declare that they will sue Novell; stock rises (now over $14.5).

And this has been going on for months.

Strange.

SCO and BSDi Copyrights

From Groklaw...The firm will be enforcing and defending SCO's intellectual property rights, including the protection of our UNIX System V source code and our copyrights that were reaffirmed as a result of the BSDI settlement agreement.'" [groklaw.net] Does SCO now think that they also own BSDi rights?

Lawyer in a Box

From the Article: The SCO Group has again extended its offer of cut-price Linux licences, this time until the end of the year - and possibly beyond. The UnixWare licensing scheme, announced at the beginning of August, set the price at $1,399 (828) per server for Fortune 1000 companies, but offered a special price of $699 for those who signed up before 15 October.

The attractive feature of this software product is that it is bundled with a blue-suited lawyer-in-a-box.

Darl Named a top 25 CEO

CRN in a grand exhibition of both lack of research and insight has Darl McBride listed as one of the top 25 CEOs this year [crn.com]. My favorite quote is about us Open Source Communists:

"It's like back on the farm where we had to break a new colt and try and tame them," McBride says.

Now you know why Wall Street loves this guy. This is a glowing review of the man and his mission for Team Capitalism.

There's No Free Lunch -- Or Free Linux

Recent Press Release from, SCOX

LINDON, Utah, Nov 05, 2003 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via Comtex/ -- The SCO(R) Group (SCO) , the owner of the UNIX operating system, today announced that Chief Executive Officer Darl McBride, will deliver a keynote address at the Enterprise IT Week/Computer Digital Expo (CDXPO) conference in Las Vegas on Tuesday, November 18 at 5:00 p.m. The conference and keynote will take place at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center.

In his address titled "There's No Free Lunch -- Or Free Linux," McBride will present his perspectives on the prospects of free industries, SCO's suit against IBM, and why intellectual property must be protected in a digital age.

"The Internet created -- and creatively destroyed -- great wealth. It also created a culture legitimizing intellectual property theft," said McBride. "When you defend intellectual property, you speak an unpleasant truth. People don't like to hear unpleasant truths. The alternative to this fight, however, is the death of an industry and thousands of jobs lost."

McBride will also explore how the information technology industry - software, hardware, networking and services -- depends on money passing from one hand to another, asserting that the livelihood of engineers and developers rests on paid models, even as those developers donate time to free projects such as Linux. McBride will lay out his assertion that without paid software, there would be little or no free software. At the conclusion of his keynote, McBride will be available for media questions.

McBride's keynote will be followed by a Town Hall discussion moderated by Jack Powers, conference chairman of Enterprise IT Week and director of the International Informatics Institute...

What is the "Enterprise IT Week/Computer Digital Expo (CDXPO) conference"? Is it important?

Why would they invite McBride to give him a platform from which to hurl his dispatches
from the surreal and serial random threats? Comic relief?

What I Want to Know

...is the status of IBM's filings to compel discovery not just from SCO, but with companies investing in SCO.

This could get particularly sticky if SCO's legal team has a strong financial stake in SCO and the outcome.

Attorney/client privilege is pretty strong, but can it be pried apart if there is evidence of, oh, say fraud?

The story of how this will end (spoiler!)

SCO and IBM fight for years. Eventaully, SCO wins a few battles but by then most of the linux community has moved to kernel 3.0 which removed any offending code years ago. IBM has merged the AIX stuff to Linux without any offending code (of course, they're still running old 2.8 stuff). SCO lingers with a few large companies paying the lisc demanded of them (typical scare tatics apply). Eventually, SCO stock dips to penny stock levels and the lawyers cash out for nickles on the dollar and the lawyers start asking for "real money" instead of stock. SCO goes bankrupt (re-org). Flownders around for a few years trying to re-organize until they finally give up the ghost. SCO will eventually die but perhaps take half the computing industry with it. Windows becomes the unquestioned king of desktop AND server operating systems. Bill Gates declares himself God of IT and all systems must authenticate with the Master Server in Redmond. The world is cursed with rampant hacking, script kiddies, worms, viruses, and the like (someone thought trust-based security was a good idea). This all leads to a massive breakdown in society and the end of the world as we know it.

Boycott SCO customers!

This crap has continued long enough. It's high time that we the people start punishing the people who use SCO software. Perhaps a nice on-line petition to send to SCO customers indicating that the undersigned will boycott their businesses until such a time as SCO desists in their nuisance behaviour, or that the business in question terminates all their relationships with SCO.

The operative principle is a well understood one, that once you lose a customer (for any reason) it is very difficult to get them back. I don't think the folks over at SCO will change their tune, since it is apparent that they've put all their eggs in the legal basket. But, I really don't think I want to support SCO's customers with my money either.

Incidentally, I'm also pushing at my work to discontinue supporting older versions of our application which run on SCO, and provide those customers a free upgrade path to the Linux based versions. This may be successful, for more than purely ideological reasons as well. I don't think it is a coincidence that when we ported the original SCO version to Linux over 80% of our support issues disappeared overnight on those deployments. This certainly helps my case, and is a non-scientific indicator of what garbage their product actually is, source owner or not,

Re:Boycott SCO customers! Here are some tools!

A boycott might actually have some positive effects. SCO, in a recent SEC filing, identified some of the "risks" involved in their operations. One specific risk mentioned was:

We rely on our indirect sales channel for distribution of our products, and any disruption of our channel at any level could adversely affect the sales of our products.

A first step toward a boycott would be to contact those distributors and let them know how you feel -- that you will not be doing business with them and will encourage your business associates to avoid them as well.

To that end SCO provides a list of their distributors. Here are their US distributors:

Avnet (formely Savoir)
(Offices located in Phoenix, Az; Campbell, CA; and Atlanta, GA area)
3950 Johns Creek Court, Suite 200
Suwanee, GA 30024
Phone: [phone]
URL: www.avnet.com
Email: [e-mail]
All SCO Lines Available

DTR Business Systems
1160 Centre Drive, Suite A
Walnut, CA 91789
Phone: [phone] or 909-598-5721
URL: www.dtrbus.com
Email: [e-mail]
All SCO Lines Available

Seneca Data
7401 Round Pond Road
North Syracuse, NY 13212
Phone: [phone]
URL: www.senecadata.com
Sales Contact: [e-mail]
All SCO Lines Available

Tech Data
5350 Tech Data Drive
Clearwater, FL 33760
800-237-8931, 75289 option 1
URL: www.techdata.com
Email:[e-mail]
All SCO Lines Available

Terian Solutions
7040 Empire Central Dr.
Houston, TX 77040-3214
Phone: [phone]
URL: www.terian.com
Email:[e-mail]
All SCO Lines Available

For those of you outside the US, you may find the distributors in your area by using SCO's list [sco.com].

Go get em!

Got a license as birthday gift...

The first time my parents care about my real hobbies and what do I get? A SCO license for $699.

What can I do to reverse this? I don't wan't to hurt my parents.

What will happen now since SCO knows my address? I don't wan't to get sued either.

The historical importance of SCO

Guys,

You are watching history in the making. SCO might look like an annoying pest, a cynical manipulator of the stock market, a bucket of shit without the bucket, but think about how future generations will view this.

First, this is the first serious industry-wide debate about the legitimacy of Linux, as an open source concept, as a child of the GPL, and as an operating system. The simple fact that people are prepared to go to war (and this is war) over Linux raises it from a curiosity to a treasure.

Second, this is of course about much more than SCO vs. The World, and future generations will place it in its correct context. Mainly, this is about Microsoft trying to ward off the oncoming Linux mammoth, unable to attack Linux head-on for many reasons, but unable to watch as it demolishes their market with an apparently unstoppable force.

Thirdly, this is about the Old versus the New, on the one side the forces of "software is a product" and on the other, the forces of "software is a commodity technology". The period 1998-2003 saw software evolve from a rare and precious thing to something that is so cheap we simply can't build harddisks large enough any more. SCO and Microsoft are firmly in the "Old" camp, IBM and most of the rest of the world are in the "New" camp. You don't need to be a genius to see the inexorable grip that the technology cycle has on software, and the consequences of this.

SCO lost before they started, that is clear. But this battle defines the line that must be crossed to move into the future. Stick with proprietary platforms, die. Move to commodity platforms, live and prosper.

It would be a good time to sell your Microsoft shares too: $51 billion can disappear remarkably quickly when the money stops rolling in.

SCO stock as payment?

The firm of David Boies, SCO's attorney in charge of their Linux IP cases, has announced their compensation (so far) from SCO: $1 millio USD in cash, and $8 million in SCO stock.

Taking stock in the company you are representing as payment? Is it just me, or does that seem wrong?

Lots of people don't make the connection but

If you remember back to the 1500's there used to be stock markets where pirate ships could get funding to go out and plunder other countries' merchant ships. The risks were high, but the payoff was huge. Is this any different? The only difference is that instead of the stocks being taken out for biker gangs that take on big rigs, you've got one corperation trying to exercise it's ability to legally wrangle other corperations for money through an entirely different system much like a bully, but at this point it's at the pirate. SCO is the first legal-pirate (tempting to call them lepirates, ;) ) corperation; a corperation that adds nothing to society that uses strongarm tactics, extortion, blackmail, ect all given a hint of legality by their lawers lies and a couple patents and copyrights that are getting old.

Microsoft will turn into one when they start going downhill, so will the RIAA, etc. If the RIAA can't make money by competition they'll just go back through the past 100 years of copyrights they have and start releasing them. Microsoft will pull all kinds of BS on the linux community if htey have to. Same with the MPAA, and any other monopoly that has sufficient stake in the legal system of the country they are located in that they can effectivly control it and a market.

Novell- Santa Cruz Operation Agreement

Novell sold UnixWare to real SCO. Sales Contract stated that Novell and real SCO compete and that Novell would not use retained SysV rights to complete with real SCO. Novell was expected to compete with other products as long as they are not primarily based on SysV. SCOX is again blowing smoke, but what do you expect from Smoking Crack Outfit.

Novell's reply

Essentially, they say SCO is smoking the good stuff and not sharing;

From the press release:
"There is no non-compete provision in those contracts, and the pending acquisition of SUSE LINUX does not violate any agreement between Novell and SCO."

They also mention that SCO hasn't bothered to call THEM.

http://www.novell.com/news/press/pressroom/news_ br ief/archive/2003/11/pr03042.html

Someone pointed out to me.

What is the purpose of licensing "model" that inflicts more cost onto users than an "equivilant" M$ license. Microsoft is the known competitor to linux. (not that there aren't others, but this is what I get from October memos/Constant M$ bashing across the geek spectrum) as I suppose is BSD in all it's iterations.

Why would SCO present a model that would force a company to either A) move to M$, or B) move to BSD?

For one reason, for most companies who made the decision to move to linux, the overwhelming reason was going to be license cost. (Stability, Security, and Professional development on the part of the IT staff probably played a role as well, but nothing beats saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in OS licensing to a CFO.) Now, nobody in their right mind would pay for what they already recieved for free, and in their minds LEGALLY for free.

So, why is SCO doing this? There is only one reason, they started this whole legal BS to perpetuate a lawsuit for 2 years. Who actually purchased the Linux licenses from SCO? No one with any brains, that's for sure. They have made themselves a target, and gone after a cash cow. Hopefully the cash cow known as IBM won't be dropping them any change, as this is ALL they can be after. They certainly are no longer after DEVELOPING linux, so they sure as hell don't deserve ANY reimbursement in my mind. Besides, what do you get with that 700-1400 dollar license. Support? No. Regular updates? No. This business model is all about the benjamins, and they care nothing about the Linux users.

I didn't know SCO had patented Unix

from thestreet.com: >> attorney-for-all-seasons David Boies to lead its (SCO) efforts to defend the company's patent portfolio

Anyone taken the author to task for this little bit 'o misinformation yet?

Questionable Legal Fee Payment

While not illegal, the use of stock options for payment of legal fees has come under fire lately because of the inevitable conflicts of interest and their association with recent corporate scandals.

Richard Painter, a Professor at the University of Illinois who was an early proponent of the legal reforms now included in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, wrote to the SEC recently. He stated that they should examine "conflicts created by unorthodox methods of compensating lawyers (particularly receipt of stock in lieu of legal fees and contingent fee arrangements such as the fee of over $30 million reported to have been earned by Time Warner's counsel in that company's merger with AOL)."

Hopefully these types of arrangements will be put to an end soon. While I don't see an end to contingency fees (because that's how many people are able to afford lawyers), I can certainly see practice of using stock options as payment coming to an end.

How much would you pay?

Hurry before time runs out again.

I'm holding out for the "Buy 1 licence get 9 free - Noncompliance Blowout Sale"

-Karma neutral, but you'd better stop looking at me..

Slashdot and SCO == Microsoft and patches

Instead of a random vulnerability every couple days - round them up and release once a month. SCO Tuesdays anyone?

ah what the heck

if all else fails, we still have a hird of unix replacing deamons as a backup ;)

Webservers

One of the biggest uses of SCO is running web servers.

Anyone know where we could find the top 100 web sites running SCO so we can write to them and ask them to please consider an alternative or bid our business goodbye?

Stock options as compensation

As another user pointed out, this seems wrong.

Let's expand - this is wrong. Remember all those dot-bombs that offered stock options as compensation, and promptly died in the late 1990s? Now we have something similar. Payment with stock options.

SCOX is currently hovering around $15-17/share, but now they're filing lawsuits like McCarthy threw accusations of communism around. And at the rate they're going, they're going to discredit themselves and self-destruct, probably filing Chapter 11 in the process.

Chapter 11.

Funny thing that, Ch. 11. It's used for companies who can prove they have less assets than their debts. That's what bankruptcy is, you have more debt than assets, you'll never be able to pay it off, bang, discharged. But waitasec, SCO had that US$50M gift/grant/bribe/whateveritwas. They can afford it. Dismissed. Maybe. I dunno, I'm with everyone else here, SCO is dead where they stand, they're just buying themselves time so they can pay off the lawyers with the pump-and-dump schemes they're running.

This is great!

I can't wait to see Darl McBride in one of those "if you've had a personal injury" commercials.

Novell Officially Replies to SCO "Non-compete"

In a press release here [novell.com] Novell basically says "fuck off".

Novell Statement on SCO claims regarding a non-compete clause in Novell-SCO contracts

PROVO, Utah Nov. 18, 2003 Novell has seen the November 18 InfoWorld article in which SCO CEO Darl McBride refers to a supposed non-compete agreement between Novell and SCO. Mr. McBride's characterization of the agreements between Novell and SCO is inaccurate. There is no non-compete provision in those contracts, and the pending acquisition of SUSE LINUX does not violate any agreement between Novell and SCO.

Novell has received no formal communication from SCO on this particular issue. Novell understands its rights under the contracts very well, and will respond in due course should SCO choose to formally pursue this issue.

Long Darl McBride and Chris Sontag Interview

Long Darl McBride and Chris Sontag Interview [crn.com] dated 7:36 PM EST Tues., Nov. 18, 2003

Reminder: Paying the $699 opens you to suits.

SCO has announced that the $699 discount rate will apply to the end of 2003.

Hey, the $699 troll was right, you cocksmoking teabaggers!

Reminder:

SCO is not suing IBM for infringing it's alleged IP. It's suing them for BREACHING A CONTRACT>

Right now, most Linux users don't have any contractual relationship with SCO. But if you pay the $699 for their blessing to use Linux on ONE machine, they can sue YOU for failing to pay $1399 (or whatever price they pull out of their hat next year, or next century) for ANY ADDITIONAL machines you ever run Linux on. (Which could get problematic with Linux in settop boxes, PDAs, car disk players, etc.)

It's REALLY NOT SMART to PAY them $699 to give them a license to SUE you.

Completely wrong analogy

Trying to paint SCO as a lame horse is an insult to horses everywhere. Horses are productive, helpful animals who sometimes, through no fault of their own, come up lame. When their injuries are severe and causing the horses great pain, the animals are shot to put them out their misery.

SCO is a malignant cancer. It needs to be surgically removed, irradiated, poisoned with Chemo.

Re:Alternative defense

Yes....In this case, the court is exactly the way we want this to go.

IBM will splatter SCO. No doubt about it. Doesn't matter who the judge is, or how many appeals.

IBM has more money, IBM has better lawyers, and IBM has had all the cards for the past 15 years (They have ALWAYS had access to the SCO source, the AIX source, and Linux source).

No chance of a SCO victory---none whatsoever.

And this BS they are pulling about discovery? If they keep up these shennangians, the Judge is going to be mighty pissed at them.