SCO Linux Licenses Could Increase In Price

prostoalex writes "ZDNet UK says that, while SCO Group's legal department took a timeout from generating new lawsuits, their Linux license prices might be increased. 'Companies that license now may be able to do so cheaper than if they do so later,' [Blake] Stowell said. In the upcoming financials call, SCO expects to announce 6-figure revenue from its SCOSource division."

Oh no!

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't bought mine yet! I better rush out while they're still priced reasonably.

SCO?

[Anonymous Coward]

What, are they still around?

Re:Oh no!

[OrthodonticJake]

You know, I was just thinking about switching to a free OS. It's a good thing that this was on slashdot or I would have ended up paying more than I needed to.

Re:Oh no!

[stefanlasiewski]

Just make sure you put it on the P2P networks so that we can get through Linux's nagware screens! My copy of Linux is a 30-day evaluation copy and it's about to shut down!

har har har...

Great...

[Anonymous Coward]

So now this means that there's more money nobody's paying them. The good news is, current Linux users are paying even less. I mean if you used to pay 0 instead of $50, and now pay 0 instead of $100, that's practically the same as walking into the SCO offices and stealing 50 bucks!

Re:Oh no!

[ethzer0]

Don't stress yourself, simply pay the difference in monopoly money, like the first time...

-1 Redundunt

[MrRuslan]

I know it has been said before and i will say it again...WTF are these mother fuckers smoking...are they completly retarded or something???

Bad news

[spellraiser]

Looks like this guy [slashdot.org] is going to have to get a new account. Such a pity.

Why does Linux cost so much?

[Sheetrock]

An associate told me that this was free software, but $699 sounds a bit steep for what looked to me like a hobbyist Mac OSX clone.

He said you can do all sorts of stuff with it, and I'd sure hope so for that price. :P You can buy a PC with WinXP Home from Dell for that.

10 shares of Google stock per CPU

[Sean Clifford]

They've ditched the whole currency scheme - now it'll cost 10 shares of Google stock per CPU.

Everyone with a 6 figure income

[dtfinch]

raise your hand.

Re:Everyone with a 6 figure income

[Tony Hoyle]

$1000.00 last month.

Does that count?

Re:Great line

[Kafka_Canada]

This also, from a ComputerWorld interview [computerworld.com] with Darl McBride:

Q. In June, SCO reported that Unix licensing revenue through its SCOsource division totaled just $11,000 in the quarter that ended April 30 - a 99% drop-off from $8.25 million in the same quarter last year. What happened there?

A. In the day-to-day business, we have some speed bumps that come up from our [intellectual property] issues. In the previous quarter, we had several large licensing deals, but you can't repeat those every quarter. It's not really as brutal as people might expect.

**

Re:It makes sense...

[sevenofnine]

I have been toying with buying $700 worth of monopoly games, taking the money from them and sending the m-money in a box to sco asking for a license :)
To bad i don't have the cash flow for this at the moment...

Re:"Six Figures" is just $ from an old deal!

[Veridium]

When I read that "six figures", I figured two of them were to the right of the decimal point.

Re:Cheaper...

[lukewarmfusion]

Depends on what the software is... you don't want the BSA Copyright Weasel to get you.

Re:Only works if people pay.

[Ieshan]

Easy! Just convert to base (whatever) and you can make your numbers have however many digits you want.

Yes, they did say six figures

[leonbrooks]

$1400.00, now count the digits...
$1234.56

IW4M.

What!!!!!!

[vwjeff]

WTF are these mother fuckers smoking...are they completly retarded or something???

How dare you ask that question. It should read as follows:

These guys are smoking dog shit...their mothers(I guess bastards can't have a mother) dropped them on their heads daily as small children.

Please don't ask questions. When you ask questions it appears that you don't have the answer.

Six Figures:

[Anonymous Coward]

$000,000.00

-99% is a "SPEED BUMP"????

[crimethinker]

Revenue drops from $8,250,000 to $11,000 and that's a "speed bump"? Talk about cajones! Thankfully I wasn't drinking anything when I read that.

I think the financial world's penchant for integral numbers saved SCO a little face here: if you allow digits to the right of the decimal, it is actually a 99.87% drop in revenue. That's better than Ivory Soap and their "99 and 44/100th's pure" of yesteryear.

I guess SCO is gunning for a new meaning of "five-nines" - a 99.999% drop in revenue.

-paul

Re:Oh no!

[superpulpsicle]

Uh yes, we were in a meeting and someone pointed out that we should try SCO linux. The whole room started laughing. Boy, last time I lol to tears was watching some rerun of Naked Gun 2.

Blake is just trying to out do Rob

[Camel Pilot]

Blake must be feeling a little down and out now that Rob Enderle is apparently competing with him for the SCO Information Minister position:

Here is one of Rob Enderle jewels from his SCO keynote:

That is why I stood up for SCO; they were being attacked because they were vulnerable. Those that attacked them did so because they could in a clear effort to deny the employees, the stockholders, and the customers of SCO their rights and, as a number of veterans have reminded me from time to time, heroes died for those rights and I believe it is our.... No my, obligation to uphold them.

One can only smirk at the twisted logic of coupling poor vulnerable SCO with the heroes who died for our rights... Not only that, SCO is proud of this address that they host it on their website . If I were them I would take it down immediately and claim I was hacked and the site was defaced.

Re:Cheaper...

[Anonymous Coward]

Screw linux, it's way to expensive at those rates! I've decided to save big $$$ and buy Windows XP Starter Edition for all my server and desktop needs.

Re:It makes sense...

[Pharmboy]

I have been toying with buying $700 worth of monopoly games, taking the money from them and sending the m-money in a box to sco asking for a license :)

Might as well print your own bogus money. You could even print a $699 bill. Put Darl's picture in the center. "In Laywers We Trust" or similar. That would cost you nothing, except time. If it's good enough, do a rear image, and save both as TIF files for sharing.

Re:sure...that will get the customers running.....

[LifesizeKenDoll]

That's why their next plan is to charge an infinite amount of money for a license, that way, they'll at least get $1.00

1/0 * 0 = 1

Well, you know what?

[Tuxedo Jack]

Tht just means I have to ship them more Monopoly money.

Damn, and I had enough to survive Boardwalk before this...

Re:It makes sense...

[AndroidCat]

Why stop there? If they raise the price of a licence to one billion dollars, they only have to sell one of them. How hard can that be?

Damn it!

[OmegaBlac]

I was $199 away from getting that license and now this happens! Looks like I need to go find(create) some security holes in Mozilla to pay for the increase in SCO's Linux fee.

Greedy SCOwned

[OmegaBlac]

First they demand a fee for Linux and now they are raising the license fee!?! What are they going to do next sue their customers? Oh wait...

UPSIDE POTENTIAL: 8 to 10 FIGURES!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

By accident, they hired an account, and he discovered that the trading rate for a dollar is 110 Yen. By converting their earnings into Yen, their 100,000 USD contract becomes 11 million Yen!

But that trick will only work one quarter, you say? Not true -- at 1,916 Venezuela Bolivares to the dollar, their measly 11,000 USD this quarter becomes 21 Million VEB!

Okay, you say -- two quarters, tops! Anything more is inconceivable. Nay, I retort. At 1,463,000 Turkey Liras to the dollar, they just need to sell one 1,400 license to report over 2 BILLION TRL in earnings.

Re:Blake is just trying to out do Rob

[Strontium-90]

Reminds me of a movie:

Walter Sobchak: Those rich fucks! This whole fucking thing... I did not watch my buddies die face down in the muck so that this fucking strumpet--

The Dude: I don't see any connection to Vietnam, Walter.

Walter Sobchak: Well, there isn't a literal connection, Dude.

The Dude: Walter, face it, there isn't any connection.

Six figures

[VistaBoy]

EXECUTIVE: "Sir, our evidence was laughed out of court again."
DARL: "Figures..."

A little later...

EXECUTIVE: "Sir, our lawsuit against IBM was thrown out of court!"
DARL: "Figures... guess I better sell my stock now."
EXECUTIVE: "Yeah, it's about as high as it will ever be. Our products are being laughed at for being so obsolete in today's market."
DARL: "Figures..."

A little later...

EXECUTIVE: "We're gonna have to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy."
DARL: "Figures..."
EXECUTIVE: "Looks like the SCO empire is crumbling quickly."
DARL: "Figures..."
EXECUTIVE: "Also, there's some SEC guys outside. Said they wanted to talk to you."
DARL: "Figures..."

Re:Oh no!

[Necrobruiser]

SCO Linux - Free as in "$699".

(Limited time threat, er, that is, offer)

That's like...

[labratuk]

...me selling my pants for $100,000.

It doesn't matter, I can charge what I want because nobody's going to want to buy them anyway.

Uh-oh, better hurry up!

[kkirk007]

Last week I was willing to pay $0 to SCO for a license, but in the face of potentially increasing fees, now I'm willing to pay ten or twenty times that amount!

Re:Oh no!

[trewornan]

I really want one but I'm hoping to pick one up on ebay after they go bankrupt. Trouble is they've sold so few they're going to be gold-dust. Might be easier to buy one now - if only giving them money wasn't such a repulsive idea.

Re:Enderle: "Free Software and the Idiots Who Buy

[killjoe]

Never argue with an idiot, people might not be able to tell the difference.

Really it's enough just to call him insane.

Re:It makes sense...

[danamania]

Might as well print your own bogus money. You could even print a $699 bill. Put Darl's picture in the center. "In Laywers We Trust" or similar. That would cost you nothing, except time. If it's good enough, do a rear image, and save both as TIF files for sharing.

I'd pixelled up an SCO Dollar [danamania.com] once. Send in 699 of them

Or 1400, your choice :)

Re:Oh no!

[mbrezu79]

Now I understand those Microsoft studies about Linux TCO. The TCO just went up, it seems. Boy, these Microsoft guys know the future! Wonder why they don't see the exploits coming ...