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Unlike cable DVRs, TiVo machines also can guess what programs a user might enjoy based on viewing habits.

Oracle licensing is...

I'm really surprised no one has mentioned this already. Isn't Oracle licensing more of a gouge than Sun's hardware pricing has ever been -- and much more amenable to an open source cure?

Now bear in mind that (a) there are challenges from all sides coming at Microsoft (they have failed to gain much of a foothold in markets outside their core products of Windows and Office, both core markets now under heavy attack from Free alternatives) and (b) the price of MSFT has almost halved over the past 5 years (in fact, it was almost touching $100 a share in Feb 2000) and you might just think it's not all rosy in the MSFT garden. So much so that co-founder Paul Allen sold all his MSFT stock and got out whilst the going was good. This is also why MS decided last year to pay a dividend on their stock for the first time - they have to prevent institutional investors from jumping ship. The stock setup is their one (big) weakness.

They do OK over at IBM with zSeries hardware sales, such as this one in February. As you can see, $4.2 billion is at least in the high hundreds of units.

You can also lease them. And share them (through a service bureau).

No interest in SCO, no interest in Intergraph, no interest in Intel, and no interest in IBM [although I worked there briefly about seven years ago, and, for the record, hated every second of every minute of every hour I spent on IBM premises, and hated the very thought of going to work every day].

Just somebody who follows the news.

And perhaps I should emphasize that my comments had nothing to do with the Torvalds-ish aspects of the SCO litigation [other than to have referenced the fact that Richard Stallman is a marxist whose goal is the abolition of private property rights]. Rather, I commented on PROJECT MONTEREY, which was a joint IBM/SCO project to design a next generation x86-ish/IA64-ish/UNIX-ish operating system out of IBM's AIX and SCO's UnixWare.

IBM had no expertise in writing Unix on x86, SCO had tons of expertise in writing Unix on x86, so IBM called in SCO:

IBM inks Unix pact with SCO
Story last modified October 26, 1998, 1:25 PM PST

The new version of Unix, code-named Monterey, will merge with parts of IBM's Unix operating system (called AIX), some of SCO's UnixWare (a popular version of Unix for small businesses), and a bit of Sequent's PTX technology. The OS will run on Intel's 32-bit and upcoming 64-bit processors as well as IBM's Power family of chips. It's expected to reach the market in about 18 months, around the time when Merced is due.

http://news.com.com/2102-1001_3-217092.html

COMPLAINT

54. By about May 2001, all technical aspects of Project Monterey had been substantially completed. The only remaining tasks of Project Monterey involved marketing and branding tasks to be performed substantially by IBM.

55. On or about May 2001, IBM notified plaintiff that it refused to proceed with Project Monterey, and that IBM considered Project Monterey to be "dead." In fact, in violation of its obligations to SCO, IBM chose to use and appropriate for its own business the proprietary information obtained from SCO.

http://www.caldera.com/scosource/complaint3.06.03. html

UPDATE: CRN Interview: SCO CEO Defends $1 Billion Lawsuit Against IBM
2:57 PM EST Thurs., Apr. 24, 2003

CRN: How much of this stems from Project Monterey? [Project Monterey was a joint venture between IBM, Intel and SCO to produce a Unix-based cross-platform operating system.]

McBride: IBM walked away from Project Monterey, and they told us if we didn't like it, sue us. That took two years out of our life. IBM took chunks out of Monterey, and gave it away. You can find it in Red Hat and SuSE Linux. When IBM pulled out of Monterey, they did it concurrently with moving over to Linux. The heat has been turning up on this for some time.

http://www.crn.com/Components/printArticle.asp?Art icleID=41480

Instead, however, IBM threw SCO to the wolves.

"Security concerns diverted the focus of our customers, our sales force, and our channel away from closing new deals," Connors said.

Of course, it's even more of a liability for the poor id10ts who run or support their crap.

After worldcom imploded, everyone looked to put the blame on them, but forget to ask about the partners in crime.

Simlar to the illegal practice of swapping bandwidth at the end of the quarter to inflate the value of the company that worldcom, quest and colt were involved in was also practiced by AOL.

But AOL has been deeply involved in Worldcom, as well as Microsoft with both of them.

Worldcom was also hugly overvalued, and way buying up company left and right, until the bubble burst when the MCI merger blew up.

The real question at hand is, when will the AOL bubble burst?

Or is there more to the Microsoft Worldcom AOL Triangle that will we find out when more people lose thier pension funds?

It is also a question, what is the real value of Microsoft? How much of it is hyperinflated, and what if it turns into another worldcom with cooked books full of accounting tricks. If it is anything like its partners, I would not be suprised if they were involved in such practices with them.

Also, Why is it that microsoft was interested in buying corrupt companies like Worldcom?

Ok, you win. This has to be a terminology problem Let's reformulate: There is no GSM network in the US, because according to your specs they would have to provide SIMS, and none of them does. So those AT&T phones we're talking about are not GSMs. End of argument.

You're either incredibly foolish or a troll (my money is on the latter), but I'll reply anyway: YES there ARE GSM networks in the U.S.A. and YES every single one of them sells phones that require SIM (subscriber identity module) cards. As other posters who are actually clued in have noted, it's part of the GSM spec for a phone to have a SIM card.

There were two types of SIM cards: the original, old Type I cards, which looked like a credit card, and the newer Type II cards, which are the thumbnail-sized cards. You can see pretty pictures here. Type I cards haven't been used since the mid-90s. The last Type I-accepting phone I remember seeing was (IIRC) a GSM Motorola StarTac.

The only major GSM carrier in the U.S.A. until 3 or 4 years ago was Voicestream (Western Wireless), which became T-Mobile after the Deutsche Telekom buyout. As part of the upstart of 2.5G services here in the U.S., other companies such as AT&T and BellSouth started building up GSM networks.

You can see the "proof" that they're GSM networks by Googling for "BellSouth GSM" or "AT&T GSM." Other proof that there are GSM phones: I just took the battery off my Sony Ericsson T68i and...suprise! A GSM SIM card! Just like the ones I used to put in the back of every customer's phone back when I was a VoiceStream dealer. Just like the GSM SIM cards inside every single "next generation" AT&T phone, and every single T-Mobile phone. So forth and so on ad nauseum.

In related news, I've blacklisted you for making repeated stupid statements without taking 10 seconds to STFG.

According to that same report (I just read it through) he also says: "How do you make money out of open source?"
Here was his answer: "It is a development model - but it is also becoming a business model. People will pay for the convenience of 'free' software. Companies like Novell have invested millions of dollars in proprietary code which it is now contributing to the community - such as its UDDI server."

What Mr. Lamo thought he was doing was demonstrating to the NYT that they had a security problem.

CRN News has the story, and SCO has officially confirmed the email is legit. However they claim it is a misunderstanding by the original author. Read on to see for yourself.

Her article on the day's SCO events. Posted before the Judge's order in teh IBM case.

During a conference call Wednesday, SCO CEO Darl McBride dismissed suggestions from opponents--including Linux creator Linus Torvalds--that the end-user lawsuit is based simply on AutoZone's old Unix licensing contracts with SCO, and not serious copyright infringement claims.

"The case is not specific to SCO's shared libraries [as some] mentioned," said McBride, under intense questioning during the conference call. The code in question is based on "structural components that tie to pieces inside Linux," he added. "This case is very general to anyone using the operating system."

Still, McBride declined to discuss the broader copyright infringement issues related to Linux 2.4/Linux 2.6 mentioned in the lawsuit. Instead, he and other SCO attorneys declined to be specific and cited an order by the court magistrate not to discuss the exact code in question.

Darl mentioned that "last summer" some Linux programmers admitted there was some stolen code in the kernel.
A really sharp female journalist from CRN asked what code was stolen and who these programmers were. Darl got tongue tied and someobdy else from SCO stepped in and said they couldn't comment on that.

Article here: Microsoft Strategy

So in some ways, we've got a McDonald's No. 5 super-size offering that costs $2.99 and someone just wants a Diet Coke that costs 99 cents. So do we cut the entire super-size No. 5 down to 98 cents, or do we try to find a way to just give somebody the Diet Coke if that's what they want?

Linux isn't about offering less for cheaper, it's about doing things differently. In the above metaphor, Windows XX is a super-size BigMac (and it tastes just as gross and makes you just as sick in the stomach), the 99c Diet Coke is the Windows 'light' for Thailand, MacOS-X is a slightly tastier and less ubiquitous In-n-Out burger, and Linux/BSDs/... are a good solid helping of whatever healthy food you can find in good restaurants, predominantly outside the US, prepared by actual cooks and served by actual servers, who all prefer seeing you enjoy your meal than make you pay by the half-gram of beef patty present in the burger.

The main spin is whether "leaked source code" and "wide open to hacking" are pretty much the same thing. Imagine someone saying 'we are concerned if Linux source code has been leaked to the internet and gets into the wrong hands. A talented hacker with source code can wreak havoc and will cost our enterprise clients, consumers and businesses time, effort and money to combat it'

here

The funniest part of this whole thing has been the industry pundits explaining the ramifications of the source release in various media outlets.

"Unlike Linux desktops, which is like the wild wild west and not controlled and enhanced all the time, Windows users have come to take a quality controlled operating system for granted and not have to worry about a bad release," Winell said. "We hope that Microsoft can swiftly identify how the code got released, prosecute the perpetrator and build a barrier/security patch to protect against intrusions."

Mr. Winell has obviously never used Windows ME if he thinks Microsoft quality control prevents "bad releases". You know Econium must be a real player when the title of their home page is "Welcome to Econium who is a solutions provider."

The classic yesterday was Laura Didio from Yankee Group comparing OSS hackers to suicide car bombers.

Nothing like an embarassing Microsoft moment to get the "experts" out from under their rocks.

From CRN

"Programmers on Slashdot.org, a new site on the Sourceforge.net open source development site"

A new site ? Oh, and I thought /. had been around for a while. Time must not pass as quick as it seems to me.

Hope they meant a news site. :)

And by the way, if you're not a programmer, go away, it's a place for programmers here, or so it seems.

Heh...there was a funny spot on an article:

Programmers on Slashdot.org, a new site on the Sourceforge.net open source development site, posted messages urging open source developers to help in the cleanup process to help reduce the possibility of security outbreaks for all customers

I didn't realize that /. was a new site!

While it's true that looks do count for something, reputation can count for even more.

Well since the alleged flood on SCO's web site, I was curious enough to go visit it. Interesting are the news items there.

SCO Ranked 75 In Deloitte Technology Fast 500

The SCO(R) Group (SCO) (Nasdaq: SCOX), a leading provider of business software solutions, today announced its ranking-number 75-on the 2003 Deloitte Technology Fast 500, a ranking of the 500 fastest growing technology companies in North America.

Darl McBride Ranked in Top 25 IT Executives for 2003

Darl McBride, president and CEO of The SCO Group, was ranked among the top 25 executives in the IT industry, according to CRN. The ranking represents McBride's fight to raise industry awareness of the importance of protecting intellectual property in a digital age"

and then this little troll from SCO in the NEWS

Zealots: The Three Faces of Linux

It's sad to see how people are so misguided.

According to the following article, the average SCO employee makes over $132,000 a year. (25,000 / 300 * 40 * 50 * .8 (to account for non-salary employee expenses)).

Source

The company estimates the attack cost it about $300,000 in lost productivity alone, based on estimates that the company pays as much as $25,000 an hour to employees, who were only able to achieve less than half their usual output. SCO has about 300 employees worldwide.

Kevin Mack's Top 10 Linus SCO quotes (in reverse order):

[thanks to Dee-Ann LeBlanc for the link.]

10. Not About IP"None of the SCO accusations have anything to do with IP rights; they're all about contracts between IBM and SCO. All the IP rights blathering by SCO was just that -- blathering"

9. Custody Battle"SCO is claiming parenthood of that child and now wants to make money off the earnings of that child. Even though SCO has refused to undergo the technical equivalent of DNA testing, and even though my (and other people's) DNA is probably all over Linux."

8. Lottery

"we have to sadly decline taking business model advice from a company that seems to have squandered all its money (that it made off a Linux IPO, I might add, since there's a nice bit of irony there), and now seems to play the US legal system as a lottery."

7. Copyright Law"So . . . when he attacks the GPL as being somehow against 'financial gain', that notion that the GPL has of 'exchange of receipt of copyrighted works' is actually EXPLICITLY ENCODED in the US copyright law. It's not just a crazy idea that some lefty commie hippie dreamed up in a drug-induced stupor."

6. Raelians

"SCO is playing it like the Raelians [the organization backed by Clonaid's founder, known as Rael], saying, 'We'll show you proof in a few weeks, through an expert panel that we trust.' Let's see if there is any baby or not."

5. Jerry Springer"Quite frankly, I found it mostly interesting in a Jerry Springer kind of way. White trash battling it out in public, throwing chairs at each other. SCO crying about IBM's other women. ... Fairly entertaining"

4. Stealing Cars In Bright Daylight

"Do you steal a car in the bright daylight with a lot of people around? Or do you steal a car, go for a joyride at 4 am in the morning when there aren't a lot of people around. With open source, there is a lot of daylight. A lot of people looking at the code. You don't really go around and steal things."

3. Constitution and Marriage"If Darl McBride was in charge, he'd probably make marriage unconstitutional too, since clearly it de-emphasizes the commercial nature of normal human interaction, and probably is a major impediment to the commercial growth of prostitution"

2. Smoking"They are smoking crack."

And number one, according to Mack...

1. Please Grow Up"we find your references to a negotiating table somewhat confusing, since there doesn't seem to be anything to negotiate about. SCO has yet to show any infringing IP in the Open Source domain, but we wait with bated breath for when you will actually care to inform us about what you are blathering about."

What do you think? Join the Feedback to this item.

1) So? Come on, get serious.

2) Why we went to war. You've heard the saying that no one is so blind as he who will not see?

3) I assume you're talking about the recession, which started when Clinton was in office, according to official government figures. Well gosh, where to begin.

Service Sector Hiring Hits 3.5-Year High

NASDAQ, Dow Soar on Productivity Gains

For Home Loans, a Steady Market

Two Reports Indicate Recovery Is Taking Hold

Productivity Makes Best Gains in 20 Years

Auto Sales Rise with Economy

Shares Reach 18-Month Highs on Manufacturing News

Holiday Spending Shows Strength

Reports Indicate the Economy is Continuing its Expansion

Economy's Growth Is Revised Upward to 8.2%

U.S. Economic Growth Hits New Records

Number of New Jobless Claims Fell Last Week

Housing Starts In October Near 18-Year High

Economists Expect An Increase of 135,000 Jobs

Consumer Prices Steady After Four-Month Climb

Durable Goods Jump, Jobless Claims Drop

4) Sure. We're going to the moon so Bush can distract us from a bad e-mail bill passed by Congress.

5) Sure. We're going to the moon so Bush can distract us from the RIAA and MPAA.

I could go on ...

I'm sure you could. But I'd rather you didn't. - Alaska Jack

This block of text inserted to overcome Slashdot's stupid average-characters per line rule: WHEN in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation. WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness -- That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, i

"...what they don't see is that we're trying to defend the rights of capitalism for the silent majority. Linux leaders pound the table about a community-driven model where everything is free, and that's the flip side of capitalism. This country was founded on capitalism, the right to make a profit for what you own, not give it away for free." [November 18 2003]

I think a pool should be started on what big Linux user's name will be dropped next week. Is Merrill Lynch actually a big Linux shop? If so, I bet the casual mentioning of them last week didn't go unnoticed back at their head office. Again, mission accomplished without having to commit to anything.

Hehe, where can I get tin foil in brown? I look so pasty in silver.

From the CRN article: McBride, "When I said we have $60 some million in cash [on hand at SCO] ..."

From this Gartner recommendation: "SCO also received an investment of $50 million from BayStar Capital ..."

Does that mean that SCO is basically out of money except for the recent investment from BayStar capital? Well, I guess we already knew that... paying Boise in shares. (Did he learn nothing from the dot-com era? hehehe.) Anyway, just thought it was interesting.

k.bye

But he did make it onto the CRN list of top 25 execs

Article here

"The more I read on this the more I wonder wtf is going on. It has long since passed the point of being rational."

It's actually perfectly rational, and rather easy to explain. Just take a look at this line from this interview in CRN:

"David comes on, he's now a shareholder, he's rowing with us, and let's face it, he's added significant value to our company since February. Our stock was around a buck, now it's $14. That's some of the best money we've spent, not even money, some of the best stock we've issued."[Emph Mine]

Look at what SCO has done so far: made a bunch of far-reaching claims and launched a massive lawsuit against IBM. It doesn't matter that the only 'evidence' they've shown so far was debunked as ridiculously overused code that's been out and around publicly since the 80s. It doesn't matter that they haven't been able to substantiate a single claim. None of this matters, because investors are purchasing the stock, hoping for the big pay-off because they don't know that the entire lawsuit is doomed to failure. Daryl took a dying company and got its stock to jump 1400%. That's not to say that Daryl isn't more evil than Bill Gates, (he obviously is), but he's neither insane, nor stupid. It's about the money; it always was. Now he's paying his legal team with stock that was worthless before the claims began, so he's not even dipping into his operating capital. That's just ingenius.

Correct, in fact they actually admitted to it: VAR Business: Other than the suit, how's business? McBride: That's the great untold story no one even asks about. We have over two million servers actively running today. Customers continue to come to us. We have laid out a growth map that will be significant for our customers. In the next year expect Legend, which will take OpenServer and update it. Longer term, expect SVR 6, which will be 64-bit Unix on Intel. That is a few years out. As we look at monetizing this two-million-user installed base, we can sell product for a $800 to $1,000 dollars, whatever. We're talking about a couple of billion dollars in upgrade opportunities. From a financial standpoint. The first part was cleaning the company up. We've done that. Going forward we have three dials. The core business, we think that's bottomed out and there's upside now with new products coming. We haven't had a new product in our OpenServer base in years and years. The second dial is the 2.5 million Linux servers out there today that are paired with our intellectual property in them. We have a licensed product $699, $1,399. Chris [Sontag] is driving that and that's another multi-billion-dollar revenue opportunity The third bucket has to do with the IBM settlement. We filed that at $3 billion. Every day they don't resolve this, the AIX meter is still ticking.... That's in a Utah courtroom 18 months out. That's a down the road revenue opportunity but the first two dials are going right now, and today's announcement today with Boies will really help move the second dial along.

So the Cowboys says that Linux would be nothing if it wasn't for IBM. But, in his interview with CRN he notes that "Longer term, expect SVR 6, which will be 64-bit Unix on Intel. That is a few years out." I think they should have "counted" on IBM also, as Linux allready suuports 64-bit.

They have to know that going directly against end users is a lose-lose situation. On the one hand they are going against companies who most likely paid for their versions of Linux. In this case, the end user is only "using" not developing or distributing the software. So they are not liable. On the other hand they are not creating much "goodwill" for their company, as many would not bother to even contact SCO for a proposal on any software project, based on the litigious activities of SCO.

And the US legal system is also on trial here. If the broad interpretation given by SCO that they own everything everyone else has done if accepted by the courts, public opinion will demand many changes in our system. How can a company pretend to exist only by suing others? (not counting lawyers, of course).

Anyway, I do hope this matter gets resolved in a timely matter. And, most important, that SCO is ordered to "put up or shut up".

That's top executives, not CEOs, and interestingly, the list included Linus Torvalds, as well.

Darl McBride has featured in the Top 25 Executives list. Article here.

I don't think I have read this much pro-SCO junk in one place. They are trying to make it appear that the Linux community have something to hide and he just wants to calmly sort this out. They are trying to make it appear that SCO is the victim in the case.

"Obviously Linux owes its heritage to UNIX, but not its code. We would not, nor will not, make such a claim." [August 28, 2002]

"This case is not about the debate about the relative merits of the proprietary versus open-source software models. This case is also not about IBM's right to develop and promote open-source software, so long as they do that without SCO's proprietary information." [March 7 2003]

"There will be a day of reckoning for Red Hat and SuSE when this is done." [April 24 2003] (for fun, contrast to motion to dismiss court filings in Red Hat v. SCO Group, particularily where it claims there is no "actual controversy", and Red Hat has no reason to fear a lawsuit from SCO... Well, at least not until they finish with IBM)

Yeah, I'm sure Darl has a much better understanding of the issues. Lets look at another perspective instead, shall we? When Darl took over, SCO was sinking fast. They needed income, and they needed it soon. Linux was never a moneymaker for SCO/Caldera, but they did have some of these old contracts over SVR4 source code with some pretty big names. As Darl so eloquently put it, "Contracts are what you use against parties you have relationships with." Maybe, just maybe they could rattle some sabres and see what money floats their way to shut them up.

From the Article, Quote by Chris Sontag: (about 4/5th down the page):
Later some of the Linux people said that code shouldn't have been there, Bruce Perens said it was development problem and 'we've taken it out.' My analogy is [that's] like a bank robber with posse in pursuit swinging back by the bank and throwing the money back in...

From Bruce Perens website:
of the two examples, one isn't SCO's property at all, and the other is used in Linux under a valid license. If this is the best SCO has to offer, they will lose.

Where did Bruce Perens say "we've taken it out"? On the contrary, he points out that SCO didn't own one block of code and the other is under a valid license.

So is Chris Sontag lying, or am I in error?

Long Darl McBride and Chris Sontag Interview dated 7:36 PM EST Tues., Nov. 18, 2003

============

CRN in a grand exhibition of both lack of research and insight has Darl McBride listed as one of the top 25 CEOs this year. My favorite quote is about us Open Source Communists:

"It's like back on the farm where we had to break a new colt and try and tame them," McBride says.

Now you know why Wall Street loves this guy. This is a glowing review of the man and his mission for Team Capitalism.

that powerbook would go very nice with the rumored 30" cinema display that should be out early next year - even though dell beat them to the 2.5 feet punch.

Sun Microsystems Inc. has scored a deal with a Chinese technology consortium to distribute its Java Desktop System to citizens of China, the company said Monday.

The China Standard Software Company (CSSC) has selected Sun as its preferred technology partner to help provide a nationwide standard desktop software system to China's 1.3 billion citizens, according to Sun.

At least they're paying to find hackers. Sure they should use that money for better coders, who's complaining, I'm looking in the mirror debating on whether I should turn myself in for fun and profit.

Oh my bad it says bittorrent. I thought it said terrorism, as in cyberterrorism.

How can an Open Standards UNIX company with its roots in BSD and contributions of millions of lines of code to the Open Source community (just look at OpenOffice.org) be a threat to Linux?

Sun's contributions to the open source community are useful and appreciated, but that doesn't change the fact that Java is not open and presents a threat.

By analogy, would you sign over ownership of your house to me if I gave you my old car for free? Probably not.

How can a company who is comitted to playing fair and abiding by Open Standards, with public documentation be a threat to Linux?

The Java documentation may be "public", but it comes with a several page long license attached to it that imposes strong constraints on anybody using the specification.

Why would Sun hate Linux when it keeps closed, proporietary, buggy, virus and trojan-infested, expensive Windows off PCs?

Your argument makes no sense. Sun is selling SPARC-based systems. Why would they want to keep buggy software off PCs? The worse PCs are technically, the easier it is for Sun to compete with them. Linux makes PCs into a very viable, low-cost alternative to Sun's products and that is destroying Sun's market. Of course, if Sun could wave a magic wand and make Linux go away, they would do so. However, since there is no way in hell they could succeed at that, they are living with an uneasy truce.

In any case, we don't have to guess what Sun management is thinking about Linux and Gnome, they are telling us. For example, Schwartz called it "open source crap" and the "Linux mistake". And McNealy is busy spreading FUD about Linux, comparing it to illegal MP3 file sharing and raising questions about copyright liabilities.

Some of you slashbots really need your heads examining!

Some of you Java zealots really need to get over this "we think Sun is a nice company and therefore we trust them" thing and look at actual licenses.

Jim Alchin (Windows OS Chief) on Open-Source: CNET 2/14/2001
"Open source is an intellectual-property destroyer. I can't imagine something that could be worse than this for the software business and the intellectual-property business."

"I'm an American, I believe in the American Way. I worry if the government encourages open source, and I don't think we've done enough education of policymakers to understand the threat."

"We can build a better product than Linux. There is always something enamoring about thinking you can get something for free."

Bill Gates on Linux IP: CRN 7/25/2003
"There's no question that in cloning activities, IP from many, many companies, including Microsoft, is being used in open-source software."

Bill Gates on beating Linux at any price: USA Today 6/30/2003
"Well I'm not sure what you mean by undercutting. We will never have a price lower than Linux, in terms of just what you charge for the software. We compete on the basis of, if you look at the value you get out of the system and the overall cost that the system has that apply in our software.

Bill Gates on standards: CNN 9/18/2003
Gates said the Redmond, Washington-based company's work toward Web services standards would be "royalty free." ... "I can't believe I said that," Gates joked.

Balmer on Linux: E-week
"Can IBM give you a product roadmap for Linux? Can they deliver new features and fixes to Linux? Does it indemnify the intellectual property in Linux? No, no and no,"

Sun *will* be fine... Besides their servers and Solaris and all those rock solid things, they are the Javameisters after all -- and what with the growing pervasiveness of Java, their sway will only increase... Also, I think they still have some exciting technologies on deck like Jini, for example, and probably something up their sleeves...

And anyway, Sun has piles of cash still (5.7 billion according to McNealy in this interview ), despite its low stock price. Much the same as Apple did when the world and his dog were jumping on the "Apple is Dead!" bandwagon... They can turn things around, and I really think they will.

There's an emerging technology for ya!

"There will be a day of reckoning for Red Hat and SuSE when this is done." --Darl McBride, Apr 24 2003, here

www.sco.com is running Apache, OpenSSL, PHP, and Linux...

(so does www.canopy.com)...

But who is really behind this:

Oh, look at the hosting company: nft.com

That also hosts canopy.com, next to the sco.coma and caldera.com domains.

But guess what nft.com stands for... Noorda Family Trust. Ray Noorda that is. Research his history and you'll see that he is the type of person to hold a resentment (click 'Post Anonymously'. oof this guy is way too powerful for me). Here is his bio... "Even in the early days" he kept busy with things like "combat IBM". Just a quote from his BIO...

Then here it comes from that same page "Many analysts claim Noorda overreached when he bought DR-DOS, WordPerfect Corp. and Unix in a series of costly acquisitions in the early 1990s.".

Ah... and that Unix purchase is still bothering him till this day eh?

"Noorda was pressured to retire by Novell's board after he revealed some short-term memory problems in 1993."

Yeah, like details about where Linux comes from...

"In fact, the 73-year-old still reports to work each day as head of the Noorda Family Trust"

Noorda Family trust, which owns the Canopy Group, which owns SCO.

And Darl McBride worked at Novell from 1988-1996 , and I wouldn't be surprised if he and Ray were buddies.

Nuf said.

Check out Interview with McBride on crn.com

First of all, McBride seems to think that IBM's counterclaims may be a sign that IBM is trying to get into a better position to capitulate to SCO:

IBM might be throwing hard balls to [get ready] for the soft pitch [to settle].

Hahahahahahahaha!

We'd want a settlement and royalty [on Linux] going forward.

I think he's rather confused. Even if IBM did settle, that would not necessarily give SCO any right to receive royalties on Linux from now on.

Could IBM retroactively assign the copyrights and patents to SCO? I doubt it. And it is far less likely that they would.

Even if IBM did improperly contribute their own code to Linux in violation of their contract, it doesn't follow that there is anything improper about using that code. It is, after all, IBM's code, not SCO's.

And I, for one, think IBM is highly unlikely to have done anything to violate that contract. There are other companies that I might believe it, but not IBM.

And then there's this:

Hundreds of customers like and use SCO's Unix products.

And later on, CRN asked about the number of resellers being reduced from 16,000 to 11,000. McBride answered:

McBride: We cleaned up the list. We had 16,000 names in our database but about 5,000 names were marketing fluff that we sent materials to. This is the real number.

Hmmm.

Hundreds of customers and 11,000 resellers?

Just how many resellers does it take to convince anyone to purchase anything from SCO?

As sites may be removed from google's cache, here's a listing of the companies that were listed

Premier Sponsor
HP

Gold Sponsor
CRN

Silver and Bronze Sponsors
Microlite Corporation
Rasmussen Software Inc.
Equinox Systems
Century
Digi International
TeleVideo
Multi-Tech Systems
InoStor
TelSoft Solutions
Open Systems
Lone Star Software
DTR Business Systems
Maxspeed Corporation
Tarantella
Basis International
Vultus Inc.
SDSI
fp Technologies
TAKgroup
NextAxiom

Now all those sites reference a site, but that has been taken down too...OR HAS IT!!! mwaHAHAHAHA!!

But, yeah, that page is much more informative. Also for those interested on what the diff sponsorships mean[pdf]...