Elastic promises "open"—delivers proprietary

Where AT&T (and SCO) failed was in not obfuscating the fraud well enough, and choosing to make an enemy of a large, well-organised group instead of trampling individuals. For a success story, see VMware.

Incidentally, this sort of scam is now the main business model of the “music rights societies” (a euphemism if there ever was one) feeding off of Youtube's automated system. Make a throwaway shell company with a name that looks like it was algorithmically generated itself, upload recordings of white noise, covers of other people's music, microphones pointed at bird feeders, and monetise, monetise, monetise. The system they abuse is built to be a death march for anyone coming in at the other side (Google will do anything to avoid employing real humans to support their products), so this is virtually consequence-free.