In an interview with ZDNet UK on Tuesday, Gregory Blepp, vice president of SCOsource -- the IP licensing division within SCO -- said that the first of the companies targeted for lawsuits have been identified, and it is now just a matter of logistics and administrative issues to start proceedings.
"It will most likely happen prior to the end of this calendar year," said Blepp, referring to litigation from SCO. "This is now up to the legal teams to get the filing done, but it would not surprise me if the first would happen soon."
Blepp said it would be folly of companies to wait for the outcome of its lawsuit against IBM. "A typical reaction is 'let's see what happens when the IBM case is over, and then we will consider a licence'," he said. "But those two issues have nothing to do with each other. The IBM is about breach of contract, and any case against Linux users is completely different."
SCO's licensing plan has been lambasted by open-source advocates, criticised by analysts, and ignored by 84 percent of the chief information officers polled by Credit Suisse First Boston in September. Nevertheless, SCO has signed up at least one unnamed Fortune 500 company with a "large number" of Linux servers.
The licenses currently cost $699 (£419) for a single-processor Linux server, $1,149 for a dual-processor server, $2,499 for a four-processor server, $4,999 for an eight-processor server, $199 for a desktop computer and $32 for an embedded device such as a DVD player. SCO argues that any company using Linux must pay for the licences.
Legal analysts have said companies should avoid paying for any licences until lawsuits or legal judgments conclude that it's necessary. SCO has sued IBM over its handling of Linux, arguing that IBM illegally moved Unix technology into Linux, but IBM has countersued. In addition, Linux seller Red Hat sued SCO in an attempt to lay the matter to rest.
HP has said it will indemnify its Linux customers against litigation from SCO, and Sun chief executive Scott McNealy has said its customers are safe too. But companies who bought or downloaded Linux from other companies, including IBM, are likely to have to fight their own legal battles.
Although the first recipients of a lawsuit from SCO are likely to be in the US, said Blepp, the process will be conducted globally. "We first offer information to explain the case to companies and why we are doing what we are doing," said Blepp. "Then if they do not comply we ask for legal advice and engage the customer to get their legal advice, and offer a way out for them by getting a licence from SCO. If the customer says 'I don't see the case', or 'let's wait until the IBM case is over' -- we keep saying the cases are separate -- then we say we need to move forward because we have clearly stressed that we will claim the rights we strongly believe we have."
When SCO files its first lawsuit, Blepp said, it will provide more code examples to prove its case.
Talkback
The SCO Group has been threatening to sue
Linux vendors and/or users for six months now.
No suits yet, but just the threats have
been effective in pumping the stock price.
Any connection?
In both the IBM and Red cases, the SCO Group
has whined to the judges about being overwhelmed
with legal paperwork to comply with discovery
motions. If SCOX files another lawsuit,
it would demonstrate to both judges that
they have been lying.
"When SCO files its first lawsuit, Blepp said, it will provide more code examples to prove its case." I thought SCO already filed its first lawsuit, against IBM, and is refusing to reveal what code it claims will prove its case.
What SCO needs is a raid by the SEC and the Justice Department complete with seizure of all their files and a perp walk of McBride, Sontag, Boies, Noorda, and Yarrow, to show that this type of pump and dump scam will not be tolerated.
Funny how SCO takes two positions at the same time. They ask the court to dismiss the RedHat vs. SCO lawsuit because they claim that the issue of copyright violation is already addressed in the SCO vs. IBM lawsuit and here we have Mr Blepp claiming the exact opposite.
Must be the SCO Kool-Aid again.
As a casual Linux user, I am appalled by the behaviour of SCO et al. Without all the facts before me, thoughts like 'usury', 'blackmail' and 'chicanary' come to mind.
It does seem to me that SCO is so wrong in it's actions until, and unless, a case is made and proved in the courts. Surely only then can they proceed to seek/extract license fees from the use of Linux.
I am surprised that, until there is a judgement in their favour (subject to any appeal proceedures), that they are permitted to carry on in this manner.
It is interesting to note that while this is all happening, Microsoft are proceeding to considerable excesses with their new software in complete defiance of the principles in any settlements and agreements they have made in the various court cases over the last few years.
So far as SCO are concerned, I can choose not to do business with them, and will. Unfortunately, this is not so easy with Microsoft but I do object most strongly to the pervasive power they exert over us and do not wish to see them so dominant, or even the potential authors and enforcers of our future behaviour and security.
I would, at least, like a choice!
SCO is doomed. Businesses live by serving the public, and any business model that's based on SUING the public is going to bring disaster., regardless of the outcome of the litigation. Right or wrong, win or lose, suing the public is going to bring disaster, and if SCO can't find a way to use its claim to Linux to serve the public, it would do well to just forget about it.
I'm talking about an economiic/ natural/ spiritual law, The great economic philospher Earl Nightengale was speaking about exactly this when he said: "If you jump off a building you'll always go down; you'll never go up. It's the same with all the great laws of nature. They always work; they're inflexible." Trying to build a business model on something other than service can be seen not only in the dot-com bubble of the late 90s, but in all the corporate sczndals of the past few years.
SCO's lawsuit against Linux users do have merit.
Here is an article from LinuxWorld dated 8-2003, about a company called Aduva that created a program to eliminate SCO coding from Linux distributions. If there were no codes copied from System V Unix to Linux, this program would not have been necessary.
http://www.linuxworld.com/story/33970_p.htm
QED --(quod erat demonstrandum)....thus it is proven.