The SCO tax [LWN.net]

SCO did not content itself with threatening the "long-term survivability of Linux" after Red Hat filed suit. The following day, the company announced its latest product: an "intellectual property license for Linux" (license text here). Why, one might ask? From the SCO License FAQ:

Customers have come to SCO asking what they can do to respect and help protect the rights of the SCO intellectual property in Linux. SCO has created the Intellectual Property License for Linux in response to these customer needs.

It is encouraging that SCO is such a concerned, customer-oriented company. In fact, the company is even kind enough to offer a special "promotional" pricing arrangement for those who buy their licenses before October. Prices vary; a "desktop" license is $199, for a single-CPU server it's $699; for eight processors it goes up to $4999. Embedded devices get a special $32 price - but that's still enough to hurt when added to your wireless access point or video recorder.

After the promotional period ends, prices will double.

Of course, certain questions come to mind. Questions like "why the hell should I pay off a company to use my nicely GPL-licensed software when that company refuses to show me any proof that it has any claim on said software?" Strangely enough, this question does not appear in the SCO licensing FAQ.

For what it's worth, even the Gartner Group has been quoted as recommending that potential licensees not bother until the Red Hat suit plays out.

SCO, perhaps, thinks it is sitting on some sort of gold mine. All it has to do is make a tax on every Linux installation stick, and enough gold will flow to Utah to fill Canyonlands. There's only one little problem: if it were ever to become clear that Linux users actually had to pay this tax, all distribution of Linux would have to immediately stop. Distribution of a non-free Linux kernel would be a clear GPL violation, and there is little doubt that some holders of Linux copyrights would sue, if necessary, to prevent their code from being distributed as part of a proprietary product. Even SCO acknowledges this fact in its FAQ:

The IP License for Linux does not grant distribution rights, nor does it grant any rights associated with source code. SCO doesn't offer a license to cure the infringement on the part of the Linux distributor because SCO's source license agreement directly conflicts with the GPL.

So, if SCO somehow makes its license stick, it kills the whole game. Linux distribution would cease, and companies, seeing no future in Linux, would switch to something else rather than pay exorbitant fees for a dead-end system. Given that scenario, it is hard to come up with reasons why SCO would attempt this licensing program in the first place. With the application of sufficient imagination, however, a few possibilities can be found:

The purpose of the licensing program may just be to attract attention and, with luck, a bit of short-term cash. Perhaps it is not expected to last very long.
Perhaps SCO thinks that the momentum and installed base of Linux are big enough that a way around the GPL problems would have to be found.
Or, perhaps, the death of Linux is the real goal.

In the short term, however, it's a fairly safe prediction that this licensing program will not go very far. Most users are far from convinced by SCO's claims, to say the least. And SCO has very limited resources to direct toward new legal battles; the company is, after all, fighting two high-profile cases already. Of course, if you are concerned about the issue, you should get your advice from a lawyer, not from web publications like LWN.

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Maybe it's RIAA math

Posted Aug 7, 2003 7:55 UTC (Thu) by steveha (guest, #3876) [Link]

it is hard to come up with reasons why SCO would attempt this licensing program in the first place

The best theory I have yet seen to explain this was (I think) in a posting on Slashdot. The theory is this:

SCO wants to set a (high!) value on the cost of a Linux license. Then they want to estimate how many millions of Linux systems are out there, multiply the two numbers together, and then tell the judge "Piracy is costing SCO $X billion dollars of revenue!" There's bound to be a few companies who will actually pay the license fees, and SCO will point to the actually collected money and claim that the fees are "reasonable"; after all, a few companies who wanted to do the right thing have already paid it.

steveha

The SCO tax

Posted Aug 7, 2003 11:06 UTC (Thu) by smoogen (subscriber, #97) [Link]

Oh I doubt very much they(SCO) wont make similar claims about BSD in the near future.

SCO going after BSD next

Posted Aug 7, 2003 13:42 UTC (Thu) by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458) [Link]

I don't think they can easily, BSD was detoxified way back, and the outcome of the USL vs BSDI lawsuit should shield them (BSD might countersue for the pirating of UCB code...). OTOH, they surely will find "similar streches of code" again...

SCO going after BSD next

Posted Aug 8, 2003 2:32 UTC (Fri) by pimlott (subscriber, #1535) [Link]

It was before my time, but it's my understanding that this suit was settled out of court, and the settlement terms were never disclosed. So I think the door may be open to suits by other parties.

The SCO tax - part of a bigger plan?

Posted Aug 7, 2003 13:56 UTC (Thu) by DaveK (subscriber, #2531) [Link]

Although the current SCO attack is directed at the Linux Kernel, can we be sure that Linux alone (and SCO's short term financial gains) is the real target, and that this is not part of a bigger plan?

Lets assume that the doomsday scenario plays out, and the contradictory licensing issues stop Linux in its tracks. The following chain of events is likely to ensue:

The FUDsters who oppose OSS and particularly the GPL will have a field day as they receive overwhelming ammunition for their FUD campaigns.
The attack is opened up on *BSD and Gnu/Hurd etc. under the OSS banner.
Industry doesn't think that OSS is such a wise move after all, and rather than 'just switch to *BSD', decides to 'play safe' and return to proprietary closed source solutions.
A certain well known proprietary vendor - alligned with SCO - (no prizes for guessing who) goes into celebration overtime, and laughs all the way to the bank.
OSS is dismissed as a yesterday's unfashonable fad and fades away - or is at least set back at 10 years.

Remember that to most people OSS == Linux, this would soon become Linux == Bad_News and by inference OSS == Bad_News.