SCO Linux Licenses Could Increase In Price 305
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! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Oh no! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Oh no! (Score:5, Funny)
har har har...
Re:Oh no! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Oh no! (Score:5, Insightful)
From Rob's keynote [sco.com] at SCOForum 2004, he states: "Now I hear from the Linux folks that it is SCO that is the bad guy here taking away the rights of those that worked hard to contribute to Linux and to that I say Bull Shit. SCO, unlike the RIAA which is targeting kids, is going after large well funded companies who are perfectly able to take care of themselves. In all cases the firms being challenged have more resources and are larger than SCO. If there is one thing firms like Daimler Chrysler don't need is a bunch of "hang'em high" bigots who think of themselves as judge, jury, and executioner."
So it comes down to - do you believe Rob Enderle, that SCO is only going after the big companies, and isn't like the RIAA and targeting kids..?
Re:Oh no! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Oh no! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Oh no! (Score:3, Interesting)
Personally I believe that everything coming out of the SCO "press releases" has degraded to demonstrating a completely delusional lack of contact with reality. Rather than just shooting them, maybe we should lock them up and pump them full of thorazine for their own safety.
Re:Oh no! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Oh no! (Score:3, Insightful)
6 digits! Did Microsft buy a few licences or something? I doubt the EV1 deal can bring 6 digits, and there isn't really anything else they can count as SCOSource revenue.
Re:Oh no! (Score:3, Interesting)
I think they are still milking the EV1 deal - this is the quarter in which (some of) this revenue should finally be on the book. It has consistently been toutet as a 6-figure deal.
And notice that they have not said that they have a 6 figure income this quarter, just that they are going to report it.
All in all, it again looks like
SCO? (Score:2)
Re:Oh no! (Score:4, Funny)
(Limited time threat, er, that is, offer)
Re:Oh no! (Score:2)
[Sarcasm On]
I just whipped out my credit card, and bought 10 SCO IP Licenses [sco.com]. We should all buy our licenses now, and avoid trouble with the BSA later.
By the way, I just got my patent for "electronic communication", and bought the patents for streaming media from Acacia. My fee is $10k per device (device defined as any individual component, including but not limited to telephone, cordless phone, modem, wireless network card, wireless network A
Re:Oh no! (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh, you mean you want to buy SCOX shares to sell at a profit ? So sorry. That seems rather unlikely. Nothing to stop them from sinking to penny stock level now...
I like the comparative views against IBM, their "favorite" target. This one shows the 6-month view, in which SCOX is about 70% below the starting point [yahoo.com].
Re:Oh no! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Oh no! (Score:2, Informative)
It is likely that the license would survive such a bankruptcy. In the event of SCO going belly up uts assetts would be sold off, including any Intellectual property it may own. The purchaser (which could be Microsoft, Dell, IBM, whoever) would continue to own the licensing rights.
None of the above should be interpreted to mean that I think that that SCO has any intellectual property of value
Re:Oh no! (Score:2)
Re:Oh no! (Score:3, Funny)
Cheaper... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Cheaper... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Cheaper... (Score:2)
Now where did I put that COA?
Re:Cheaper... (Score:3)
It makes sense... (Score:5, Insightful)
At least that is how SCO probably is seeing it through the haze of their pipe dream.
Re:It makes sense... (Score:2)
Re:It makes sense... (Score:5, Funny)
To bad i don't have the cash flow for this at the moment...
Re:It makes sense... (Score:5, Funny)
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:It makes sense... (Score:5, Funny)
I'd pixelled up an SCO Dollar [danamania.com] once. Send in 699 of them
Or 1400, your choice
Yes, they did say six figures (Score:5, Funny)
$1234.56
IW4M.
Re:Yes, they did say six figures (Score:2)
Yeah, the insinuation is there for those who don't see it.
Re:Yes, they did say six figures (Score:2)
Re:It makes sense... (Score:2, Funny)
"Six Figures" is just $ from an old deal! (Score:5, Informative)
If this is the case, this does NOT indicate new deals, this does NOT indicate a new revenue source, this does NOT mean that did a dime's worth of business in the last 3 months - it's just when the revenue from their only decent deal some time ago hit the books.
A quote from the SECOND quarter conference call (Darl speaking to Maureen O'Gara):
McBride: We had a few deals on the SCOsource side, Maureen. You know with last quarter we had announced a major deal with EV1. That is not part of the revenue stream that we're reporting in second quarter. That revenue will start to be accounted for in the quarter that we're currently in.
O'Gara: Sorry. The EV1 revenues will show up on this quarter?
McBride: Yes. They will start this quarter, and they'll be booked over multiple quarters going forward.
Now, within that conversation, Darl claims to have deals in the pipeline:
O'Gara: Well, we'll see how that
McBride: Yeah, until there's a stream of revenue that comes out of the SCOsource side, we're not going to get in the business of handicapping or projecting the forecast of it. You know, the pipeline that Bert is talking about that is healthy right now is not really part of that 10 to 12. Once we have more predictability, then we'll start to get projections on that.
Notice he hints "10 or 12", but I suspect all he got this time was money from EV1. Looking forward to the conference call to see if anybody challenges his smoke-and-mirrors show.
Re:"Six Figures" is just $ from an old deal! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:"Six Figures" is just $ from an old deal! (Score:2, Insightful)
Jokes aside, that is clearly a possible revenue stream to SCOSource, and would inflate the numbers. But then they're denting the margin of the "core UNIX business" they're pimping lately by assigning some of that $ from each Unixware sale to SCOSource rather than the software side (unless they increased the price of Unixware). You can't count that $ twice. Either way, it's still smoke-and-mirrors.
Re:"Six Figures" is just $ from an old deal! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:"Six Figures" is just $ from an old deal! (Score:2)
SCO? (Score:2, Funny)
in related news (Score:5, Interesting)
Only works if people pay. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Only works if people pay. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Only works if people pay. (Score:2)
-N
Re:Only works if people pay. (Score:3, Interesting)
0 in base 0 is 1
heh...
Considering they've already achieved it... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Only works if people pay. (Score:2)
They never said in what currency. 1 million turkish liras are easily made by any beggar in any decent sized city in less than 10 minutes...
Before we panic ... (Score:4, Informative)
-paul
Re:Before we panic ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Publicly? No. How do you know what the millions of small to mid sized businesses may have done?
700 bucks isn't a lot of money to throw at a potential problem to go away. And if you run a business, it's probably not the right venue to make your moral stand on OSS. After all, you have a business to run, bills to pay, employees, etc..
Re:Before we panic ... (Score:3, Insightful)
The only problem with that is "Once you pay danegeld, you never get rid of the Dane."
The problem with that is... (Score:5, Insightful)
$700 to throw at a potential problem- no, that's not a lot.
$700 to throw at a NON-problem (which is what this is, no matter how you slice it...) is far, far too much.
I can't see what you've said as being really insightful- what you've said is valid, but only in the context of a possible or probable problem and SCO's just not a reality and they're about to be NUKED from orbit by Novell. If Novell gets that Dismissal with Predjudice, I expect that the whole damn SCO mess will implode within a day or so- they didn't own the IP rights at the beginning of all these cases so they're actionable under the Lanham Act and pretty much all of their cases go *POOF*, including the IBM one (since Novell executed their rights per the APA to waive any issues regarding contract or IP with regards to the SVR4 source base...) with SCO facing countersuits and suits regarding their obvious Lanham Act violations, Copyright infringements, and Patent infringements.
Re:A fool and his money. (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, once you decide to move on, they will sue you for anything and everything you did or didn't do.
So, if you pay up the $700 you'll be paying it for life - plus all the eventual price increases every time revenue doesn't quite meet SCO's expectations.
Chrysler got sued becuase they used to be a customer and they moved on. SCO is sending a message to its customers
Re:A fool and his money. (Score:3, Insightful)
Just like Daimler Chrysler, right?
SCO has demonstrated that they love to invent restrictions which are not in a contract, and then sue over 'violating' them.
I have no doubt that when/if SCO decided they needed more money (perhaps to fund more litigation?) that they'd use the contract as a basis for extortion.
"Hey, we believe you're in violation of your contract by
-1 Redundunt (Score:2, Funny)
Re:-1 Redundunt (Score:2)
What!!!!!! (Score:4, Funny)
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.
Great line (Score:5, Informative)
--the Motley Fool [yahoo.com]
Re:Great line (Score:5, Funny)
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.
**
-99% is a "SPEED BUMP"???? (Score:5, Funny)
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:Great line (Score:2)
Re:Great line (Score:2)
Bad news (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Bad news (Score:2)
Why does Linux cost so much? (Score:3, Funny)
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 (Score:5, Funny)
Six figures... (Score:2)
What happens when (if - haha) SCO lose? (Score:2)
Everyone with a 6 figure income (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Everyone with a 6 figure income (Score:5, Funny)
Does that count?
Enderle: "Free Software and the Idiots Who Buy It" (Score:5, Interesting)
A week ago at SCO Forum, Rob Enderle [enderlegroup.com] gave a keynote speech entitled "Free Software and the Idiots Who Buy It." Mr. Enderle employed repeated logical errors, accusations without evidence, and ad hominem attacks. He materially confused the meaning of Free Software, as well as assigning physical threats to the Groklaw / Free Software community without proof.
I have written a paragraph by paragraph critique of his keynote, and it is available at my site (Part One [fallinggrace.com] and Part Two [fallinggrace.com])
I welcome and appreciate feedback and comments on it. I jokingly refer to the paper as "Logical Fallacies and the Idiots Who Use Them," but did my best to keep the text proper professional.
- Neil Wehneman
Re:Enderle: "Free Software and the Idiots Who Buy (Score:2)
Re:Enderle: "Free Software and the Idiots Who Buy (Score:2)
Groklaw is how I found out about the speech.
- Neil Wehneman
Re:Enderle: "Free Software and the Idiots Who Buy (Score:2)
Re:Enderle: "Free Software and the Idiots Who Buy (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Enderle: "Free Software and the Idiots Who Buy (Score:3, Funny)
Really it's enough just to call him insane.
I wonder (Score:2)
sure...that will get the customers running..... (Score:3, Insightful)
anything * 0 = 0
maybe they are just going to charge their UnixWare customers an extra $1400 when they bundle in the 'Linux IP' license
No change (Score:2)
All proceeds go to defending SCO... (Score:5, Insightful)
Blake is just trying to out do Rob (Score:5, Funny)
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:Blake is just trying to out do Rob (Score:4, Funny)
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.
Extortion (Score:2)
I'll pay when SCO can publish their proof in the form of source code publicly on the internet. Heh, or I'll most likely just steal from them until that block of code, which probably doesn't exist, was removed from the Linux kernel.
I just love stealing software, it reminds me of the good old days on Windows.
Does not compute (Score:4, Interesting)
I fail to understand...
1. They release their own linux distro (Caldera) making their code GPL.
2. They say that linux infringes their IP, although they have GPL'd it (They haven't proven that it is true anyway).
3. They try to convince everyone that the GPL is ilegal.
4. Their latest Unix distro is full of GPL software.
Please help me understand, perhaps I am too simple minded to ascertain their logic.
Cheers,
Adolfo
Re:Does not compute (Score:2)
6. Profit!
I couldn't resist
In Other News... (Score:2)
Well, you know what? (Score:5, Funny)
Damn, and I had enough to survive Boardwalk before this...
irc.sco.com (Score:2)
Six figures woooooooo (Score:2)
Although more traditionaly I'd call 100,000 six figures and for whatever reason 1,000,000 can be called six figures too and that's not that impressive at all either. $9,999,999 wouldn't be enough to have made it worth the hate would it?
Damn it! (Score:3, Funny)
Greedy SCOwned (Score:2, Funny)
Six figures (Score:5, Funny)
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..."
Refund? (Score:2)
If you listen closely.... (Score:2)
sco tries to boast themselves up, thus far they've been the big bad wolf who has TB.
"I'll huff...and I'LL PUFF.... and I'l *cough coughcoughgagcough*"
*everyone sits there yawning*
"Wait! lemme try again!"
That's like... (Score:3, Funny)
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! (Score:5, Funny)
Check out LamLaw.com... (Score:3, Interesting)
And the good news is: this guy *is* a lawyer.
http://www.lamlaw.com/ [lamlaw.com]
His take on SCO's increasing their SCOSource license fees:
t_t_b
Just an observation... (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course it will cost more (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:cost increase (Score:3, Informative)
Microsoft purchased a license from SCO early on, ostensibly because they have some sort of Unix interfacing or development tools that run on Windows.
Re:So much for the US Gov't using open source (Score:2)
Re:Formation of SCO (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I still don't understand... (Score:2)