SCOsource

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SCO–Linux controversies
Overview
Litigation
Companies involved
Individuals involved
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SCOsource is a business division of The SCO Group that manages its (now legally voided) Unix intellectual property. The term SCOsource is often used for SCO's licensing program that allows corporate users of Linux to buy licenses to proprietary Unix technology that SCO claims exists in the Linux operating system. A single CPU license costs $699 (USD).

On July 21, 2003, SCO announced that it intends to sell binary-only licences to use the free Linux operating system which will remove the threat of litigation from licence-holders. Linux advocates reacted by stating that SCO has no basis for this action, as their claims were still disputed in court, and that the terms of the GPL seemed to indicate that doing this may cause SCO to forfeit their rights to distribute Linux or Linux-derived code in any form.

On August 5, 2003, SCO's Darl McBride announced the company's final licensing fees requested from end users for the use of Linux; a single-CPU server license will cost US $699 until October 15, 2003, and $1,399 afterward, while licenses for desktop and embedded systems will currently cost US $199 and US $32, respectively. Prices for server systems with more than one CPU range from US $1,149 for two CPUs to US $2,499 for four CPUs and US $4,999 for eight CPUs, with each additional CPU being priced at US $749. All of these prices, including the ones for desktop and embedded systems, were scheduled to be increased on October 15, 2003, but as of January 2005, the prices have remained the same.

EV1Servers.net

On March 1, 2004, SCO announced it had reached a license agreement with EV1Servers.net, which allowed EV1Servers to use some of SCO's "intellectual property". SCO's Blake Stowell claimed the deal was worth upward of "seven figures" ($1,000,000) while a few days later EV1Servers CEO Robert Marsh claimed the amount was much lower. The exact amount was required to remain secret under terms of the agreement.

Computer Associates

During discovery of the SCO v. IBM case, SCO attorney Mark J. Heise wrote a letter answering some questions raised by IBM’s attorneys. In this letter, sent on February 4, 2004 and published on Groklaw on February 10, 2004, Heise revealed that Computer Associates bought a Linux intellectual property license from SCO. On March 4, 2004 Computerweekly.com published an extensive article in which SCO CFO Robert Bench confirmed this. Computer Associates later denied buying licenses from SCO:

CA senior VP of product development Mark Barrenechea says that Bench’s claim is nonsense. CA has not paid SCO any Linux taxes, he said. Drawing up short of calling SCO a liar, Barrenechea claims that SCO has twisted a $40 million breach-of-contract settlement that CA paid last summer to the Canopy Group, SCO’s biggest stockholder, and Center 7, another Canopy company, and has turned it into a purported Linux license.
As a 'small part' of that settlement, Barrenechea said, CA got a bunch of UnixWare licenses that it needed to support its UnixWare customers. SCO, he said, had just attached a transparent Linux indemnification to all UnixWare licenses and that is how SCO comes off calling CA a Linux licensee.

See also

External links

  • Groklaw – An online community dedicated to following the progress of the various lawsuits and investigating the claims SCO makes
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