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mini fuel cells will take care of one of the issues. Without putting a tower every place, I don't think there's a way to resolve 2), 3 is probably a function of the frequencies used being blocked by things like water or tinted glass or something. Probably there are physical limitations.

The way I see it, an attack on one member of the Open Source community is an attack on all of us.

I don't see this as just an attack on the Open Source community. This is an attack on our society, because it is an abuse of our legal system. As far as I'm concerned, abusing the legal system is worse than breaking the law. I noticed in an article that some SCO users, who even had booths at SCO Forum, were outraged by what this company is doing. And has been doing. Forbes points out that SCO has pulled this same shit with Microsoft -- and won. In this case they bought the rights to an old, 'decrepit' version of DOS and proceeded to sue the shit out of Redmond. They are crafty bastards. And they basically leverage intellectual property law to fuck other people over. Obviously.

This kind of behavior, taken to these extremes, has the potential to seriously disrupt the fabric of our society. Especially since our society is becoming increasingly dependant on software. If SCO wins, which they might (I mean hell, they beat MS), their example has the potential to make the software industry even more litigious, even less focused on solid product design and just generally shittier. EVERYONE should be up in arms about this... Darl McBride makes Bill Gates look like freakin RMS.

The only thing that came close to pissing me off this much was when Rosa Parks sued Outkast -- although the stakes were much, much lower.

I'd have to disagree. See this. Based on that, you can make an argument that they have similar amounts of money and influence, but you certainly can't make a case that MS has more of both than IBM.

I just submitted the same story, it will probably get rejected, so here's some more links:
The Washington Post is reporting that the Slammer worm crashed the computerized display panel which monitors the most crucial safety indicators (coolant systems, core temperature sensors, and external radiation sensors) at Ohio's Davis-Besse nuclear power plant in January. No serious problems occured, primarily because the plant has been offline for more than 1-1/2 years.
Davis-Besse is run by FirstEnergy, which many people feel may bear much of the responsibility for last weeks power blackout.

Feel free to call them and follow up.....

From the following Forbes article we have chief technology strategist from Merril Lynch Rick Carey who is "staking his reputation" on Linux. I'm sure he should be easy to find. Also Steve Yatko who is the CTO of CFSB should be making some calls to the SEC. Someone suggest it to him.
Wall Street Embraces Linux

And from this CRN New Zealand article we have a quote from Merril Lynch VP of Linux strategy Mark Snodgrass. I think he should give the SEC a phone call.
Linux gaining interest from Wall Street (Reseller News)

How about Mark Hunt, Global Directory, Enterprise Product Marketing for Reuters? Or Jeff Birnbaum, CTO of Morgan-Stanley?
Wall Street's Secret Affair With Linux (CIO Update)

How abou Robert Ryan, Linux product manager for JP Morgan Chase? What is Evan Bauer, former CTO of Credit-Suisse First Boston doing these days? Is he calling the SEC to stop the SCO FUD damage? Apparently Robert Liefowitz who is the Director of Meryll-Lynch's Technical Architecture Group thinks Linux is the secod coming of Christ. Has he called the SEC?
Wall Street Gaining Respect for Linux

An excellent quote from Ryan...

"TCO is king. If Windows was really a cheaper alternative and offered a more stable platform, we would not be able to sustain our arguments around Linux," said Robert Ryan, Linux product manager for JP Morgan Chase. "Linux ensures that the best-of-breed can win. In an open-source world, better technology has a better chance to succeed. Everyone's prices have dropped because of Linux. All the proprietary system vendors have dropped their prices because of it."

These trading firms need to put their money where their mouth is. Something like 3 trillion dollars a day flows through wall street. They have benefitted from Linux more than anyone else.

To clarify for you:

PS2 worldwide figures: Asahi Shimbun (also contains Nintendo figures)
Xbox worldwide figures: MSFT 4th Quarter Earnings Report
Gamecube worldwide figures: Forbes from Reuters (at the bottom of the page). There are a few other pages quoting this figure as well.

PS2 US figures: NPDFunWorld
Xbox US figures: Unknown. Possibly the same as above?
Gamecube US figures: Guessed from estimate listed on AMO.NET Please note that this article does seem to be biased towards the Xbox, with multiple opinions to that effect. Nevertheless there is one good quote:

The real truth about these sales figures and future sales opportunities is that no single gaming system fan can be trusted with anything he or she has read regarding one system selling better, or performing better than the other.

All the real hardware geeks are in Michigan, which won't be fully on-line until late Sunday.

...and now, let's move on to reason.

You're right about one thing: Darl McBride is provably an ambitious young twit. In fact, looking at his photo, I'd say he's likely a mega-twit. Why, then, do you insist that he needs help from Microsoft (or anyone else) to do his dirty deeds?

This is a case of a few men's greed, pure and simple.

so now it will be-
Diamonds are a geek's bust friend ? Offer a diamond ring to your gf without emptying your pockets?

--
Seriously though, if diamond experts have difficulty saying its not earth extracted diamonds then what effect, if any will it have on the diamond hoard of 2 billion $ that De Beers has under its headquarters in SA/London?


Here's a article from the Guardian, article in the Forbes.

Wow, if these new diamonds become popular, then platinum will be the only cool thing to hoard.

Enron trader pleads guilty to rig california energy prices

Another trader pleads guilty.

Fastow indicted in defrauding California PERS

The Texas PUC recommends that Enron pay $7 million for manipulating power prices in Texas
Texas has an obscene overcapacity of power, and obscenely low prices.

As I said, there is truth in that California does not have enough capacity, but that does not mean they were not hoodwinked. I think it is kind of like ordering a penis pump that never is received. The mark is just too embarrassed to admit the crime took place

Well, here's The List of Fortune 500 companies.

One of these companies is a HUGE SUCKER.

Which one is it?

Just make sure to blame all those Indians working in Banaglore meat grinders for a quarter of US wages for your lack of a job. Whatever you do, dont blame American companies for your job loss. That would be unpatriotic!

You tend not to carry that kind of value on a real (non-internal-to-my-university) stored value card. I was a participant in a Mondex stored value experiment in a large-ish (90,000 people, one university, one college) town. At the most, I had $50 or so on the card -- as every Payphone provided a method to move cash from a bankaccount onto the card. It was useful for little transactions (convenience store, parking meter, etc.) but was the best for paying someone across town. If you both had a mondex enabled phone, you could each insert a card and move cash in either direction.

Check the following links for details:

• Mondex Review
• Forbes Story

Mondex missed the boat though -- the real killer app for Mondex is person to person transfers over the internet. Attach a cheap smart card reader to your pc and away you go. (Mondex had a reader that simulated a floppy - you put your card in the carrier and the carrier in the PCs floppy drive). That would cut any paypal-ish goofs from the internet and make it easy to do person to person funds transfers.

Just my two cents... Canadian.

When I heard that IBM four patents in it's countersuit, I thought *only four*?! Immediately I thought of this article. The famous IBM patent infringement shakedown. When you're a big technology company, patents aren't for making money, they're for 'leverage' against unruly competitors wanting to upset the status quo.

Nonetheless, the original poster makes a valid point. In the Yahoo story linked from the main page, both HP and IBM are quite evasive when Bruce Perens asks for a written assurance that they will not sue open-source developers. IBM is not our friend. It's interests happen to be aligned with the Linux community on this issue, but ultimately they are a business with interests of their own and a responsibility (as they see it) to no-one but their shareholders. Perens is quite right: software patents are dangerous for free software.

And IBM have a history of using patents aggressively when it suits them to do so.

So, yeah, IBM could kill Linux if it wanted to brush off some patent and take RedHat or someone to court. They way I read this (IANAL, duh), if IBM got a court order saying that Linux infringes some of its patents, people would have to stop distributing programs that cannot be used royalty-free, right?

Seems unlikely they they would do that.

According to forbes:

IBM last year took in more than $1 billion in Linux-related revenue. In its 2002 annual report IBM claims it has 7,500 employees involved in developing, selling or supporting Linux, and that more than 15% of the mainframe capacity it shipped last year was for Linux workloads.

IBM is pulling in some major cash from its Linux business (after having made an equally major investment, it seems). What motivation would they have to piss in their own cornflakes?

Linux's lack of indemnification is an exception to standard industry practice. Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) indemnifies Windows users. Sun Microsystems (nasdaq: SUNW - news - people ) indemnifies Solaris users. IBM itself indemnifies users of other software products including AIX, z/OS, DB2, and even WebSphere, which includes an open-source technology called Apache.

Indemnification usually means that a) if your system crashes, the vendor might compensate you for your downtime; and b) in this case, IBM would held liable if the code you're using infringes on someone's intellectual property.

Emphasis is mine. How do I get M$ to pay be for all the downtime when my system has crashed?

And in another article, What SCO Wants, SCO Gets is about how SCO and its buddies have played games like before.

SCO may not be very good at making a profit by selling software. (Last year the company lost $24.9 million on sales of $64.2 million.) But it is very good at getting what it wants from other companies. And it has a tight circle of friends.

The closing sentence to the article was another jab at the Linux community: "These guys in Utah are no dummies. The crunchies in the Linux community should be paying more attention."

I wonder how many people at Forbes have investments in SCO or The Canopy Group?

Linux's lack of indemnification is an exception to standard industry practice. Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) indemnifies Windows users. Sun Microsystems (nasdaq: SUNW - news - people ) indemnifies Solaris users. IBM itself indemnifies users of other software products including AIX, z/OS, DB2, and even WebSphere, which includes an open-source technology called Apache.

Indemnification usually means that a) if your system crashes, the vendor might compensate you for your downtime; and b) in this case, IBM would held liable if the code you're using infringes on someone's intellectual property.

Emphasis is mine. How do I get M$ to pay be for all the downtime when my system has crashed?

And in another article, What SCO Wants, SCO Gets is about how SCO and its buddies have played games like before.

SCO may not be very good at making a profit by selling software. (Last year the company lost $24.9 million on sales of $64.2 million.) But it is very good at getting what it wants from other companies. And it has a tight circle of friends.

The closing sentence to the article was another jab at the Linux community: "These guys in Utah are no dummies. The crunchies in the Linux community should be paying more attention."

I wonder how many people at Forbes have investments in SCO or The Canopy Group?

It would show SCO that they are right in some way.

IBM is already doing this in a way.

If this whole SCO thing is BS why won't they put their money where their mouth is? We all think it is BS, but until the big boys(RHAT made a good first move) start pushing SCO back linux is going to suffer.

This is a serious issue. Even if RH has a defense fund, why has no organization offered indemnity?

An article like this at forbes I think is enough to scare a CTO. We can't keep looking at this like an absurd joke, IBM needs to setup to the plate.

It's true...people are underestimating SCO's tactics.

Here is the most informative article about the players in the SCO suit, who they are, their history, and how they make money:

"The Players"

All the major *nix players need to get together and kill SCO. IBM, HP, RedHat, SGI, Apple, Mandrake, Debian, FSF...all have been threatened, all need to pull together and end this.

Something like what the "Liberty Alliance" did to Microsoft's passport/hailstorm scheme...there needs to be a group effort to end this nonsense.

It's a shame that the United Linux vendors are hiding behind their alliance and basically rubber stamping SCO's activities. Suse and Sun Microsystems are in bed with some serious scumbags and that strategy could really turn around and bite them.

Now that could be a good signature :
Linux Geek - Stays Crunchy in Milk
I couln't make FUD work in there at all.

Anyone else suspect Forbes staff of owning stock in SCO? That seems to me a far simpler hypothesis than supposing that they're really so unschooled in journalism as to believe that their contempt for Linux users should be expressed in this way.

"They've gone to our customers and business partners numerous times and have said publicly that Linux is infringing. We want the truth. We want them to stop engaging in unfair business practices. Basically what we're saying is put up or shut up," Szulik says.

"The whole sorry saga began last March, when SCO sued IBM (nyse: IBM - news - people ), claiming that Big Blue had ripped off SCO's Unix code and put it into Linux.

Linux geeks howled a bit, but then wrote off SCO as a bunch of sleazebags and went back to playing live-action roleplaying (LARP) games in their mothers' basements, or whatever it is they do when they're not writing device drivers and complaining about clueless end users."

"Linux geeks howled a bit, but then wrote off SCO as a bunch of sleazebags and went back to playing live-action roleplaying (LARP) games in their mothers' basements, or whatever it is they do when they're not writing device drivers and complaining about clueless end users."

You can read lots more about this by choosing from the links in the rejected post below. Also, it's important to note that EAL2 is NOT the highest Common Criteria certification level. The Common Criteria for Information Technology Security Evaluation v2.1 describes the security assurance requirements and EALs in detail. For a look at the details read about the Evaluation Assurance Levels at NIST.

IBM, SuSE Linux Get Common Criteria Security Certification

Linux has reached a new milestone: IBM and SuSE Linux have received the Common Criteria Security Certification from the U.S. government (mirror), specifically from the Defense Information Security Agency (DISA) arm of the Pentagon. 'Right now it is the only Linux distribution available that has this. This certification is used as a standard by 14 countries including the U.S. and Canada,' says the SuSE U.S. general manager. Linux Enterprise Server 8 is certified at Evaluation Assurance Level 2+ EAL2 with the companies jointly pursuing a Controlled Access Protection Profile EAL3 certification by year-end, then on to EAL4. More details at CNet, AP via Detnews/CNN and Reuters/Forbes. It looks like they beat Red Hat to the punch.

(After SCO sued IBM) Linux geeks howled a bit, but then wrote off SCO as a bunch of sleazebags and went back to playing live-action roleplaying (LARP) games in their mothers' basements, or whatever it is they do when they're not writing device drivers and complaining about clueless end users.

I read the Forbes Garmin iQue 3600 overview last week, but it didn't seem quite so exceptional. The Garmin iQue debuted at CES this year. It looks pretty bulky due to the integrated GPS hardware but I can see its usefulness as someone who travels. At $589 for a Palm plus GPS though, the price seems truly exceptional.

I read the Forbes Garmin iQue 3600 overview last week, but it didn't seem quite so exceptional. The Garmin iQue debuted at CES this year. It looks pretty bulky due to the integrated GPS hardware but I can see its usefulness as someone who travels. At $589 for a Palm plus GPS though, the price seems truly exceptional.

> What if a compant decides it does not want to sell to people of certain ethnic backgrounds (French and Arabs, for instance), and raises its prices for those people to a million dollars?

I believe that some French and Arabs will not be bothered by such a minor markup.

> What if a compant decides it does not want to sell to people of certain ethnic backgrounds (French and Arabs, for instance), and raises its prices for those people to a million dollars?

I believe that some French and Arabs will not be bothered by such a minor markup.

" Sony has not set a price for the PSP, a multi-media unit that also plays movies and music, but analysts expect it to sell for 19,000 to 30,000 yen ($159-$251), well above the 12,500-yen price tag for Game Boy Advance SP, Nintendo's smaller version of its hot-selling device launched in February."

The savings from telecommuting could rival savings from offshore outsourcing, if the telecommuting is done en masse.

If they made the almost the entire IT department telecommute, they could reduce their real estate and other physical overhead costs drastically. They would just need a room for the servers, a few floating terminals lined up side by side like an Internet cafe (ie no space-hogging cubicles) for when people do come in to the office, and a set of meeting rooms so teams can meet once or twice a week.

It would also need a different approach to management and more strict rules regarding being at your home desk during office hours -- there is no good reason for not answering your phone for an hour, because you're not going to be away at somebody else's cubicle discussing anything.

Combine the reduced real estate costs with the reduced salaries that they can pay because people would accept less money in order to telecommute, and US employees wouldn't cost much more than Indian programmers when taking total costs into consideration. (Remember that although Indian salaries are only 10-20% of US salaries, their physical overheads are often the same or more than in the US - for example look at the office real estate costs in Bombay compared to Boston http://www.forbes.com/global/2002/0527/066sidebar1 _2.html. The result is that Indian programmers are 1/3 - 1/2 as expensive as an in-house US employee when counting total direct costs, not as low as 1/10 - 1/5.)

Then after you add in the undocumented and indirect costs associated with outsourcing that result from differences in language, time zone, and culture, and other factors like the relative lack of company-specific business knowledge, you're probably saving MORE by telecommuting than by outsourcing.

But outsourcing is popular now not because they are really interested in saving money; it is happening because it is the latest fad. If they were really interested in saving money, this big outsourcing wave should have been happening 5 years ago when American programmers were hard to find and expensive to keep, and Indian programmers were much less expensive than they are now. But no, the fad back then was to throw megabucks at anything that touched the Internet, and pay six figures for any semi-talented web programmer. They jumped on the dotcom bandwagon in pursuit of dubious profits ... and we know what happened with that. Now they are jumping on the offshore bandwagon in pursuit of dubious savings.

omitted mention of Linux. That way, users who are not tech-savvy can't be sure that Linux is safe.

Sounds to me like they were completely fair. Of course that's not a journalistic conspiracy involving Microsoft and the NYT. Could not happen, categorically impossible. I never gave it a second thought. Our journalistic 5th Estate is as honest as our courts and our politicians.

In a few articles, I've heard that the WHO and CDC established secure web sites to aid in the communication and collaboration. One was in the (paper) Technology Review from MIT. Another is Forbes here

I've done about an hour of googling, and the only lead I've found is this:

from: http://www.baselinemag.com/article2/0,3959,1161972 ,00.asp

The federal government is prepared to spend $377 million on medical communications and surveillance improvements in fiscal 2003, according to President Bush's proposed budget. The CDC is linking its bio-terror preparedness funding grants to NEDSS-compliance.

So far, all 50 states and large cities such as New York have received funding for the surveillance system, but the national rollout, is expected to take "several years," says Loontz.

Under a pilot, Tennessee is using federal funds to replace its DOS-based system, with a NEDSS-based system with Microsoft SQL 2000 and BEA Systems WebLogic software running in the background.

My guess is that the real webmasters behind the collaboration were using something like simple FTP sites, or Zope-like CMS for the collaboration.

FORBES.COM

Another article at forbes.com

Wow, 802.11a support and a 2-hour battery life... sign me up.

A controlling body such as the American political administration would covet very highly the ability to keep an extremely detailed and up-to-the-minute database on whomever they so wished and considering the size of the population in the United States of America today, keeping such close tabs on that amount of people would be a daunting, if not impossible, task. Since the introduction of the IBM compatible personal computer (PC) a few short decades ago, it and its spinoffs (PDA's etc) have become more of a necessity in the daily life for those people who live in a civilized urban or city environment and less of a luxury/novelty/curiosity item as they used to be. Now, loaded onto the vast majority of these computers worldwide is one of Microsoft's Windows operating systems. Here then is the perfect opportunity for said administration - in close collaboration with one of their major campaign sponsors mind you - to keep under close scrutiny millions of Americans with a degree of precision that would have been considered impossible only two decades ago. Microsoft's Palladium software will become all pervasive. It will become mandatory to have it installed on all practically all consumer computing devices which are capable of running an operating system (gaming consoles, PDA's, laptops, watches, mobile phones, home entertainment systems, car stereo systems etc) and furthermore, this trusted (trusted by whom exactly?) operating system will quietly, constantly and discreetly be feeding information into either one, huge database or numerous databases.

Of course, this is all speculation, but we all know how absolute power corrupts and one only has to look at the history of mankind to see that there are few - if any - exceptions to the rule. United States Presidents come and go but the underlying administration/power structure remains and quite frankly, it is probably as Machiavellian as any government can possibly be (although they are unfortunately not alone in this regard) - irrespective of whom is currently occupying the Whitehouse. Once the Uinted States government has declared that all non-TCPA compliant computing devices and untrusted operating systems (i.e. not Palladium) are illegal (using the PATRIOT Act to bolster it of course), then the rest of the civilized world will surely follow. If anyone or any country appears to be intending to "break ranks" as it were, then Microsoft - with the full support of the current U.S. government it seems (as the adage goes; "birds of a feather flock together") - will do its utmost to prevent such a rebellion. For instance, a few months ago, Microsoft managed to arrange to have the US ambassador to Peru petition the Peruvian government on Microsoft's behalf shortly after Peru stated their positive stance with regards to the use of open source software and earlier this week, Craig Mundie from Microsoft met with the Brazilian Minister for Education. That to me alone is a cause for concern. Sure. Banks may do it (although I've never heard of a bank arranging to have their country's Ambassador do their bidding) - but they're banks - not software companies.

As I said before, this is all pure speculation - but nevertheless, after looking at their past track record, I would not put it past them.

I hate to bring this up with trolltech doing such a public service. I suspect they must not fit the canopy group mold. But their technology is at such a base and hard to replace level one should be aware of who might own it.

The canopy group by the way has already sued MS and won and another company McBride used to work for and won. they know how to use their IP... as a war club.

But this seems to be the wrong way to address a company, especially a company like SCO.

First, SCO doesn't care what you or I think about them. They want money.

More specifically, they want money for what they bought, as in "We have deep pockets and political connections. Show us the respect that we paid for."

Any protest of that type is unlikely to have the desired impact on SCO, the media or the outcome of the court case.

Second, if you think that there is something illegal happening at SCO, such as insider trading, buying and selling of stock by executives that is in opposition to to the interest of investors, lying on the quarterly and anuall reports, etc., then report that to the SEC. But be damned sure of your accusations.

Third, write well reasoned, insightful letters to the editor of major (business) news outlets. Be clear in your opinions and support all your claims with logical and ethical arguments. Business readers are not much swayed by pathos.

And be ready for the remote possibility that SCO may win the court case, despite having no valid claims. It's happened in the past, it will happen in the future, and it's just the way it sometimes goes. I know it sucks to be in on the side of right in a losing battle, but there's a lot of that going around right now.

Take it from me - I work for a Fortune 500 company (no not microsoft ;-)) that gets protests pretty much *weekly* and the upshot of it is that company email gives logistical directions on where and how to avoid the protests. (ironically, I think that the protesters are *dead on* but believe me, its not going to change the company's practices. Nothing but an act of god is going to do that.)

Anyways, don't get me wrong. I think that SCO is a borderline illegal company, but to *really* hurt them where it counts, we need to organize online. Hurting them where it counts means presenting the SEC with a well-thought out case on why they need to be investigated.

I posted the following proposal to slashdot (it was rejected, probably because it was too controversial) and the gist was that SCO's share price (ticker symbol SCOX) has gone up 1400% on rumors and FUD. Now SCO may have a case, they may not have a case, but the least that should happen is an investigation by the SEC into the facts surrounding this incident.

Here's a SEC link that lets you enter a complaint. Hell, if SCO gets enough heat from this, they may divulge all. We deserve, as a community, to be able to evaluate their gripe objectively, and that requires full disclosure by SCO of what their gripe is. SCO's failure to do so is *hurting our livelihood* - and at the least it is libelous.

Anyways, below is the text of the original submission. I'm hoping to get it on the head Slashdot page, so if you could submit it as a story, I think it would do us all a favor. (Note to slashdot editors - a 'soapbox' icon would be very nice... something which allows users to post controversial stories like this whilst having a disclaimer so slashdot can keep its nose clean)

original submission:

I just read the vaguely demeaning forbes article describing the complacency of the linux community, and believe me, this "crunchie" wasn't pleased, at either a) being called a crunchie for having the ethics to be upset about what SCO is doing, or b) for being labeled as ineffective and powerless. The truth is, the open source community isn't powerless. The whole SCO incident has a very bad smell to it, and what they are doing (and the consequent effect on their stock price) is in my opinion highly unethical if not illegal. I am not a lawyer (or SEC official for that matter) but their stock price has jumped from 60 cents to $11 per share, in dubious circumstances... so in my opinion at the very least the SEC should be notified about the unsavory aspects of it and other pieces of background info so they can do an investigation and find out the facts for themselves. So - I think the open source community should take a stand. If you don't like what SCOX is doing, here is the sec complaint form where you can submit evidence, background facts, personal knowledge, and - if you think so - your opinion about how malfeasant SCOX's actions are and the damages that they are doing. (Any info about how SCOX insiders are capitalizing on the stock price would be especially helpful.. personally, its the element I find most distasteful of all, and if they find manipulation, its information the SEC can directly use.) How many people read slashdot? How would the SEC handle 500,000 complaints? Only time would tell - but I think at the minimum it would warrant an investigation, possibly even a class-action suit. Anyways, if you are going to submit, please be civil about it. The worst thing possible would be for the SEC to get lots of long-winded rants - they want courteous dialog and accurate information they can use, not a vitriolic screed of profan

What we have to do is *organize*. I posted the following proposal to slashdot (it was rejected, probably because it was too controversial) and the gist was that SCO's share price (ticker symbol SCOX) has gone up 1400% on rumors and FUD. Now SCO may have a case, they may not have a case, but the least that should happen is an investigation by the SEC into the facts surrounding this incident.

Here's a SEC link that lets you enter a complaint. Hell, if SCO gets enough heat from this, they may divulge all. We deserve, as a community, to be able to evaluate their gripe objectively, and that requires full disclosure by SCO of what their gripe is. SCO's failure to do so is *hurting our livelihood* - and at the least it is libelous.

Anyways, below is the text of the original submission. I'm hoping to get it on the head Slashdot page, so if you could submit it as a story, I think it would do us all a favor. (Note to slashdot editors - a 'soapbox' icon would be very nice... something which allows users to post controversial stories like this whilst having a disclaimer so slashdot can keep its nose clean)

original submission:

I just read the vaguely demeaning forbes article describing the complacency of the linux community, and believe me, this "crunchie" wasn't pleased, at either a) being called a crunchie for having the ethics to be upset about what SCO is doing, or b) for being labeled as ineffective and powerless.

The truth is, the open source community isn't powerless. The whole SCO incident has a very bad smell to it, and what they are doing (and the consequent effect on their stock price) is in my opinion highly unethical if not illegal. I am not a lawyer (or SEC official for that matter) but their stock price has jumped from 60 cents to $11 per share, in dubious circumstances... so in my opinion at the very least the SEC should be notified about the unsavory aspects of it and other pieces of background info so they can do an investigation and find out the facts for themselves.

So - I think the open source community should take a stand. If you don't like what SCOX is doing, here is the sec complaint form where you can submit evidence, background facts, personal knowledge, and - if you think so - your opinion about how malfeasant SCOX's actions are and the damages that they are doing. (Any info about how SCOX insiders are capitalizing on the stock price would be especially helpful.. personally, its the element I find most distasteful of all, and if they find manipulation, its information the SEC can directly use.)

How many people read slashdot? How would the SEC handle 500,000 complaints? Only time would tell - but I think at the minimum it would warrant an investigation, possibly even a class-action suit.

Anyways, if you are going to submit, please be civil about it. The worst thing possible would be for the SEC to get lots of long-winded rants - they want courteous dialog and accurate information they can use, not a vitriolic screed of profanity. ( A long finding of fact and QA on what is found would also help, so they don't hear misinformation and hear the pertinent information loud and clear... but that's what slashdot discussions are for aren't they?? :) )

telecom == fraud. There is no honest phone company in the US.

So how does one counter bullshit like this then? It is clear there is a significant undercurrant of people who are afraid of Linux and Open Source software. They are afraid, perhaps, for their jobs or for losing the influence they have over those who are using their closed source software. I personally feel this lawsuit and the growing chorus of "Stop using Linux or your IP will be lost" is a pseudo-co-ordinated last ditch effort to end the widespread corporate use of Linux in the USA. Saying that we should wait till the court case is settled may not work, since SCO and their crony's in the press are leveraging this as a scare tactic to get people to stop using Linux now.

But these articles don't have substance: that is, as far as I can tell, they are designed to play to the court of public opinion, and little else. After all, the fact that other minor players caved does not mean that IBM is going to cave. And the article did not look at one iota of the substance of the lawsuit.

So Forbes is definitely in on this too, and not so much for SCO, as against Linux. But that being the case, one must remember that Forbes has a ton of readers who play the stocks.

I think I begin to see why SCO's stock is climbing so high.

Now, someone please just tell me that Forbes didn't just get a $10 million M$ advertising contract, or isn't selling their own SCO stock, Merrill-Lynch style.

Forbes's Linux@office examples:
Linux=OS/2

A crashing company chooses Linux(Lisa Dicarlo)

Boies:Linux=risk(Victoria Murphy)

We're overhyping Linux(Lisa DiCarlo)

Neutral (but reminds us that a teacher told Torvaldas he'd get a low grade for his creation):
List of previous Linux articles(staff)

In favor of Linux:
Oracle supports Linux(Lisa Dicarlo)

But these articles don't have substance: that is, as far as I can tell, they are designed to play to the court of public opinion, and little else. After all, the fact that other minor players caved does not mean that IBM is going to cave. And the article did not look at one iota of the substance of the lawsuit.

So Forbes is definitely in on this too, and not so much for SCO, as against Linux. But that being the case, one must remember that Forbes has a ton of readers who play the stocks.

I think I begin to see why SCO's stock is climbing so high.

Now, someone please just tell me that Forbes didn't just get a $10 million M$ advertising contract, or isn't selling their own SCO stock, Merrill-Lynch style.

Forbes's Linux@office examples:
Linux=OS/2

A crashing company chooses Linux(Lisa Dicarlo)

Boies:Linux=risk(Victoria Murphy)

We're overhyping Linux(Lisa DiCarlo)

Neutral (but reminds us that a teacher told Torvaldas he'd get a low grade for his creation):
List of previous Linux articles(staff)

In favor of Linux:
Oracle supports Linux(Lisa Dicarlo)

But these articles don't have substance: that is, as far as I can tell, they are designed to play to the court of public opinion, and little else. After all, the fact that other minor players caved does not mean that IBM is going to cave. And the article did not look at one iota of the substance of the lawsuit.

So Forbes is definitely in on this too, and not so much for SCO, as against Linux. But that being the case, one must remember that Forbes has a ton of readers who play the stocks.

I think I begin to see why SCO's stock is climbing so high.

Now, someone please just tell me that Forbes didn't just get a $10 million M$ advertising contract, or isn't selling their own SCO stock, Merrill-Lynch style.

Forbes's Linux@office examples:
Linux=OS/2

A crashing company chooses Linux(Lisa Dicarlo)

Boies:Linux=risk(Victoria Murphy)

We're overhyping Linux(Lisa DiCarlo)

Neutral (but reminds us that a teacher told Torvaldas he'd get a low grade for his creation):
List of previous Linux articles(staff)

In favor of Linux:
Oracle supports Linux(Lisa Dicarlo)

But these articles don't have substance: that is, as far as I can tell, they are designed to play to the court of public opinion, and little else. After all, the fact that other minor players caved does not mean that IBM is going to cave. And the article did not look at one iota of the substance of the lawsuit.

So Forbes is definitely in on this too, and not so much for SCO, as against Linux. But that being the case, one must remember that Forbes has a ton of readers who play the stocks.

I think I begin to see why SCO's stock is climbing so high.

Now, someone please just tell me that Forbes didn't just get a $10 million M$ advertising contract, or isn't selling their own SCO stock, Merrill-Lynch style.

Forbes's Linux@office examples:
Linux=OS/2

A crashing company chooses Linux(Lisa Dicarlo)

Boies:Linux=risk(Victoria Murphy)

We're overhyping Linux(Lisa DiCarlo)

Neutral (but reminds us that a teacher told Torvaldas he'd get a low grade for his creation):
List of previous Linux articles(staff)

In favor of Linux:
Oracle supports Linux(Lisa Dicarlo)

But these articles don't have substance: that is, as far as I can tell, they are designed to play to the court of public opinion, and little else. After all, the fact that other minor players caved does not mean that IBM is going to cave. And the article did not look at one iota of the substance of the lawsuit.

So Forbes is definitely in on this too, and not so much for SCO, as against Linux. But that being the case, one must remember that Forbes has a ton of readers who play the stocks.

I think I begin to see why SCO's stock is climbing so high.

Now, someone please just tell me that Forbes didn't just get a $10 million M$ advertising contract, or isn't selling their own SCO stock, Merrill-Lynch style.

Forbes's Linux@office examples:
Linux=OS/2

A crashing company chooses Linux(Lisa Dicarlo)

Boies:Linux=risk(Victoria Murphy)

We're overhyping Linux(Lisa DiCarlo)

Neutral (but reminds us that a teacher told Torvaldas he'd get a low grade for his creation):
List of previous Linux articles(staff)

In favor of Linux:
Oracle supports Linux(Lisa Dicarlo)

But these articles don't have substance: that is, as far as I can tell, they are designed to play to the court of public opinion, and little else. After all, the fact that other minor players caved does not mean that IBM is going to cave. And the article did not look at one iota of the substance of the lawsuit.

So Forbes is definitely in on this too, and not so much for SCO, as against Linux. But that being the case, one must remember that Forbes has a ton of readers who play the stocks.

I think I begin to see why SCO's stock is climbing so high.

Now, someone please just tell me that Forbes didn't just get a $10 million M$ advertising contract, or isn't selling their own SCO stock, Merrill-Lynch style.

Forbes's Linux@office examples:
Linux=OS/2

A crashing company chooses Linux(Lisa Dicarlo)

Boies:Linux=risk(Victoria Murphy)

We're overhyping Linux(Lisa DiCarlo)

Neutral (but reminds us that a teacher told Torvaldas he'd get a low grade for his creation):
List of previous Linux articles(staff)

In favor of Linux:
Oracle supports Linux(Lisa Dicarlo)