SCO Claims IBM/SGI Licenses are Revokable 378
shadow099 writes "SCO claims in an open letter writen by Blake Stowell, Director Public Relations SCO, that the Unix licenses to IBM and SGI can be revoked. " This is just the latest volley in the ongoing circus. It keeps getting funnier!
Can we drop this? (Score:0, Insightful)
The obvious comments... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll get a few obvious observations out of the way.
First, they love to cite that original contract, but they don't talk about the addendums. There's a reason for that.
Secondly, even by that contract unamended, they would still have to actually specify what the supposed violations are before they could start the clock running so far as notice. They've steadfastly refused to do this, proving that they're acting in bad faith.
Third, just because they claim something is a violation doesn't make it so. If they really thought they had violations here, they'd be in a hurry to get to court, but instead they've been stalling.
So, in conclusion, more hot air from a guy that's known for it.
Re:The obvious comments... (Score:3, Insightful)
First, the only addenda I've seen are in the IBM-ATTIS contract. This is not an action against IBM, but against SGI. The IBM addenda may change the outcome for AIX, but have absolutely no impact on Irix. More, the AIX issues are clouded by the question of Sequent's contract: it does not contain the extensions of rights clauses in the IBM addenda. If the Sequent-ATTIS contract is held to be binding on IBM for those items which were developed using Sequent's expertise, then the terms of the IBM-ATTIS addendum are irrelevant.
Second, we know that SCO did, in fact, start the clock against SGI some months ago -- SGI's last SEC filing demonstrated that.
And, third: no, there is no reason at all the SCO would ever be eager to get into court. Just because you're right doesn't mean you'll win. Look at Microsoft and Eolas. Microsoft is "right", but Eolas won anyway. Will that be reversed? Possibly, but how much is the doubt worth?
SCO's best strategy is to convince one company that they've got a claim and that the company is in violation of that claim. If they can do that without going to court, then they are golden: if any entity which they sued caves, then SCO can move against companies like Red Hat and SuSE, and against the Australian Competition Commission.
Re:Do not become complacent (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, no, it wouldn't. In that case, standard copyright law would apply, which says that you can't distribute it, modified or not, without a valid license from the author. Copyright authors could still distribute their software under the GPL (it's a copyright license, so the copyright holder can't violate it). GPL v3 comes out (with a fix for whatever made GPL2 get thrown out), they release their software under GPL3, and all is good.
If needs be, Linux could be re-released under GPLv3 from a country which still accepts the licensing agreement. Then work continues as normal.
Of course a license can be revoked (Score:2, Insightful)
So what usually happens if a company keeps using licensed material after the license has been revoked? They get sued, are found guilty of using intellectual property without a proper license and punished.
And of course licenses are revokable (unlike some people here seem to believe). Even if the license is fully paid, it can still be revoked if you are found in breach of the contract. Hell, IBM is using a similar argument [itworld.com] against SCO's Linux.
Re:interesting 2 months notice (Score:2, Insightful)
Really? I thought they were required to give them two months from when they told them what the violations WERE, not from when they claimed that violations EXISTED.
Re:Except... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:interesting 2 months notice (Score:4, Insightful)
SCO did not give them that time. They didn't spell out exactly what the breach was, much less what specific remedies would allow SGI to cure it. The contract requires SCO to specify those things before they can take action. That's the purpose of the waiting period- to give the licensee time to cure his breach and avoid losing his license. The clock can't start until SCO does its part, and by failing to detail the alleged wrongdoing on SGI's (or IBM's) part they've failed to abide by their side of the contract.
Re:"Irrevokable" (Score:4, Insightful)
I really don't know where this idea of "SGI admitting fault" got started, but I can guess.
Re:The obvious comments... (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually there are apparently actions against both, with the IBM suit being the biggest. The article was explicitly talking about both of them. So the IBM addenda are definately relevent there.
Also, although I haven't seen it either, SGI claims they have a similar addendum.
Possibly. I'm sure IBMs lawyers have gone over the relevant documents thoroughly, however, in fact I know they did so long before Caldera decided to rebrand themselves as SCO.
Even if SCO prevails in court on that one issue, they're going to get their butts handed to them on so many others it could only be a pyric victory.
They said they did. That doesn't mean they actually did so, in a legally enforceable way. If they can't or won't detail the alleged breach in such a way that SGI could know what to do to rectify it, and/or if the supposed breach is not an actual breach, then it means nothing.
Actually, I think this example makes my point. Under the law as it stands, Eolas was right and that is indeed why they won against an opponent that was in a far better position to wage a legal battle. Eolas didn't dick around with delaying tactics, they got into court and got their ruling. I don't happen to think that the law as it stands in this case is sensible or good, but that's how it is.
SCO claims this is a pretty straightforward case of breach of contract with IBM and SCO (although they keep making contradictory statements on the periphery) and if that were the case it would indeed be the smart business decision to do everything possible to get this in front of a court ASAP. IBM can pay the lawyers indefinately, but SCO cannot. If SCO had a case, they would be trying to get this heard as quickly as possible, and IBM would be the one scurrying around and delaying things interminably.
Nonsense. Getting someone to cave wouldn't affect the legal issues, it wouldn't set a precedent, it certainly wouldn't have any affect on the Aussies. At best, it would mean an infusion of cash.
Re:Of course a license can be revoked (Score:3, Insightful)
One point that may cause a violation is the release of code that is a derivative, of code that was placed in SVR4, such as IBM made a journalizing files system for SVR4 unix such as AIX, released the code as in distributing AIX then took that code out and made minor mods and released it in LINUX. That in my second and third hand lay knowlege of the issues would violate the contract and alow SCO to terminate IBM's SVR4 liciense. IBM will of course argue that the file system was developed indepently of the operating system and that a derivative of the file system was later modified and place in AIX, and that the filesystem that went into LINUX was again taken from the independant, pre-SVR4 sources and therefore not a unix derivative covered by the licience and contract terms.
If the court buys SCO's version, IBM's goose is cooked, they lose their SVR4 liciense and owe SCO $3 billion; If the court buys IBM's version, SCO's goose is cooked and their assets go on auction, and their officers probably get hefty fines from the SEC and or jail time.
SCO even if they win, lose because they've pissed away good will they might have had in the developer community, and what good is an operating system with software that was state-of-the-art circa 1980, for businesses in the 2003?
Re:Do not become complacent (Score:5, Insightful)
I quote this from Snopes, which I found in my research before posting this reply. Barbara stated it better than I could have: Only rarely do ridiculous lawsuits result in windfalls for the plaintiff; these cases are almost always either thrown out or the judgement goes for the defendant. Some celebrated "outrageous" suits wherein judgement went for the plaintiff prove upon closer examination to be far less "outrageous" than originally presented in the media. (For example, the "woman scalded by hot coffee" suit, which at first blush looked like the height of frivolity proved to be a perfectly legitimate action taken against a corporation that knew, thanks to a string of similar scaldings it had quietly been paying off, that its coffee was not just hot, but dangerously hot. The Association of Trial Lawyers of America provides an excellent description of this case).
Linux CAN lose, and defeat in just this one battle would be disasterous.
Remember, IBM is being sued, not "Linux". Linux is a product, not a company nor an organization, and IBM is not a Linux vendor. If SCO won in its case against IBM, there would be a chilling effect on Linux to be sure, but I have a hard time seeing it as "disasterous". In the event that IBM loses, it would have to pay damages to SCO and... that's it. SCO would be barred from suing Linux vendors or users because that would be "double dipping". SCO would have been awarded damages from IBM already and therefore relieved of its harm. Linux would be fixed based on discovery and court records and life would go on. Granted, it would be an indelible mark on the OS and wide-scale adoption would be hampered, but I don't think it would be disasterous.
Linux, on the other hand, would be utterly destroyed.
I highly doubt it. There's simply too much money invested. Do you honestly think that the hundreds of companies, including goliaths like IBM who has invested billions into Linux, are going to just throw up their hands and say "oh well, we give up"? Of course not! Within WEEKS (yes, WEEKS -- not months nor years) Linux, like a phoenix, would be reborn from its ashes. There's just too much force behind it.
Invalidation of the GPL would mean that existing GPL'd software could be incorporated into commercial code without restriction or credit to the original author.
This is very incorrect. First of all, SCO hasn't brought the GPL into the lawsuit, only IBM did in its countersuit. In the very unlikely scenario that the GPL is "invalidated" for some reason, the software doesn't become public domain for Pete's sake!! That's just silly and wrong. The GPL only grants rights, it does not take them away. If the GPL is invalidated, then the GPL'ed software would have no license at all, and people would not be legally allowed do anything at all with it, other than perhaps use it... and I'm not even sure about that.
However, most GPL'ed software says that the license is something along the lines of "version 2 or whatever is the latest version". If "version 2" of the GPL is invalidated, there would soon be a "version 3" that solved whatever grounds "version 2" was invalidated on that would be applied to GPL'ed software.
SCO's threat to proprietary software licensing (Score:3, Insightful)
Now suppose that SCO manages to make this stick. How can we ever again have confidence in proprietary licenses, if the customer can have its license revoked through no fault of its own, but through the fault (real or alleged) of its vendors? Or its vendor's vendor? Or its vendor's vendor's vendor's vendor, which turns out to be some small software house in Middle of Nowhere, Idaho, which the customer in question never even heard of?
The GPL, OTOH, specifically disclaims any right to terminate the rights of sublicensees:
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[1] Predicated, of course, on proving that IBM actually breached its license, but SCO would rather gloss over that unimportant detail.
Re:By the Original (Score:3, Insightful)
And this agenda is: Keep SCO in the news at all costs
It just keeps getting better. (Score:1, Insightful)
What seems most interesting is what will happen 3-5 years from now. Sco can only delay the law suits from Redhat and ibm for so long. They continue to alienate there distributors as well as squandering any good will within the development community that might have existed, based on there past performance. At the same time, sun is bleeding to death and can't sustain its support for sco. Sun's problems are really caused by poor management decisions and an inability anticipate the future of the server market.
To sgi's credit they moved quickly to identify and fix the problems they were responsible for. Whether sgi's license will be revoked can only be sorted out in court. This is a real serious problem for sco because they don't want to go to court. Given sgi's quick action to sco allegations it seem unlikely. But this is the us court system so it's probably a crap shoot. Ultimately, sco has only one card to play. They must prove they have some right to linux source code. Whether those rights are direct, as in copied code or whether they can "leverage" some rights by asserting claims of "derived" code remains to be proven. If they were hoping to settle this out of court that bet seems to have been a dismal failure for them since it looks like ibm is willing to go the distance.Only a very small number of companies are buying sco licenses while a very large number are continueing to deploy linux. This shows how the vast majority of people see the long term impact on linux.
Re:Licenses really can be revoked (Score:3, Insightful)
Addendum X to the UNIX license with IBM says the license is irrevocable. There are no words in the license or addendum that say "oh, unless you do this, in which case we can revoke it". The license is irrevocable.
The license even makes things clearer: it says the license is perpetual. Now explain to me why the license would say perpetual and irrevocable and less than a page later give conditions for revocation? Hint: it doesn't.
The UNIX license with SGI might be different. Somehow I doubt it. I recall SGI saying that they also have an irrevocable agreement in an addendum.
The addendum says that the UNIX license can be enjoined if there are any violations. This means to force into compliance. Not to revoke. If the license is irrevocable and it states that the license is irrevocable then it'd hardly make sense if the license could actually be revoked.
In the most imaginative intepretation, enjoin could perhaps permit an injunction. But that will require a judge to decide, and SCO first has to submit a request for injunction to the court (and you might notice they haven't done that). The word "enjoin" definitely doesn't give SCO the right to revoke the license, because it's very clear that the license is irrevocable.
Re:Licenses really can be revoked (Score:3, Insightful)