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SCO's Real Motive... A Buyout?
psykocrime writes "Acccording to this article in ComputerWorld, CEO Darl McBride of SCO has finally discussed the possibility of a buyout by IBM in public. Among other things, McBride says:
"I'm not trying to screw up the Linux business," he said. "I'm trying to take care of the shareholders, employees and people who have been having their rights trampled on." and
"If there's a way of resolving this that is positive, then we can get back out to business and everybody is good to go, then I'm fine with that," McBride said today in an interview with Computerworld. "If that's one of the outcomes of this, then so be it."
Also, yet another computerworld article indicates that most of the press and analysts who have been invited to take part in SCO's "public review of the infringing code" have declined... apparently due primarily to concerns over the terms of the non-disclosure agreement SCO is asking them to agree to. Linus in particular has said "no way" to signing their NDA to look at the code."
Haha, wait. Linus has to sign a non-disclosure agreement to look at the code for the operating system he created? You are richer than rich, SCO.
Given that Caldera (SCO) previously gave away the source code for System V, and that early code was given away in a book that Caldera eventually approved, and the SCO licensed Unix to Lindows.com, which distributes it under GPL, the only code that could be in question is very new code - basically the Monterrey project. Given that McBride has stated that they are main interested in Linux Kernel 2.4 it should be easy to track down all IBM additions/suggestions for additions and remove them/modify them.
However, since Lindows has a license and they are distributing Linux Kernal 2.4 under GPL,it seems that SCO has already lost the battle due to their own actions. So it may not even be necessary to remove the code, since even SCO distributed it under GPL!
I think they dropped a word out of the middle of the Linus quote.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
A positive outcome of this would be the complete and utter bankrupt of SCO. It would be shame if that kind of shitty behavior is rewarded.
If I belived in hell I would wish them there... On the other hand, they would probably be thrown a "welcome back" party.
Is not an operating system I would recommend to any of my customers to buy and run on their servers.
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I have worked with this piece of **** OS and I can say one thing. Datacorruption.
Real case:
SCO UnixWare with veritas filesystem runs Oracle.
Box crashes --> Oracle data corruption.
These boxes crashed a lot (several times a week)
We called SCO support who blamed Oracle
Oracle desperatly tried to find the problem. It was a known bug, in guess what? SCO UnixWare.
SCO did not allow Oracle Server to open the files with directIO, that is circumvent the filecache in the OS. By design it should but in this case it did not, it was a bug in the Operating System.
SCO did not even bother to check their bug database and blamed Oracle who, thank god, found the problem.
I guess that SCO is desperate to make money. Wait who has the money? IBM is rich let's sue em
I really HAD another userid
Among other things, McBride says: "I'm not trying to screw up the Linux business,"
Oh really? Then could Mr. McBride please explain why I hear things like, "SCO to Linux Users: Cease and Desist" and "SCO delivers a warning"?
Sounds to me like Mr. McBride is trying to make up for the self-hurt caused by his company's own arrogance. What better way to ruin your competitor than by scaring the shit out of their users?
Without publicity, they'll wither and die more quickly, so why don't we choke off their oxygen feed by ignoring them?
You are forgetting that this mess is being driven by lawyers. Since lawyers are a form of anaerobic bacteria, cutting off their oxygen won't help...
I for one (like probably everyone here) hope they don't get bought out.
I hope they get ridiculed and made an example of... let this be a lesson to other companies that it's unacceptable to behave this way.
This is just all so laughable.
No it wouldn't. The UNIX code allegedly used in Linux would be EVIDENCE that contract term were violated. IIRC, it is this alleged contract terms violation amongst other illegal acts that is at the heart of the suit, not whether there is UNIX code in Linux--a point that seems to have fallen by the wayside. The code is merely evidence; and it is this ghost-like "evidence" that SCO claims to have that is causing SCO to look like a bunch of buffoons. "We have evidence, but we really don't want to show it. But it proves IBM violated our IP."
As I have said before, changing or destroying evidence doesn't change the fact that a crime was committed.
Government's idea of a balanced budget: take money from the right pocket to balance...oh who am I kidding?
I know at least two people who bought Caldera stock around IPO time because it was a Linux company. They believed in Linux as a product, wanted to support Linux development, and thought there might be some future profit in it.
I've heard a lot from them over the last week. With Caldera/SCO's current action, they've ended up as pawns in a game to attack Linux -- not at all the reason they invested their dollars in the beginning. They have decided to sell out as a result of the SCO action, and have lost significant money in the process on Caldera/SCO shares alone. But they also realize that the dollars they had invested this company have supported action which may eventually reduce the value of their larger holdings in other Linux companies. I can understand the frustration that they must feel.
I'd venture to say a lot of Caldera investors may be in the same position. So what's this about "rights" of the shareholders?
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Any chance IBM's legal team could string together SCO's actions of the last couple of weeks and make a case that SCO was trying to blackmail IBM? Maybe there's a RICO case here.
Any chance? IBM's lawyers are among the most dangerous people on the planet. They have a huge stockpile of Patents of Mass Infringement, and a budget that would make the Special Forces weep. Companies like IBM and Xerox (and others) quietly do huge amounts of research, and patent it all. Most infringements they don't care about, because they simply cross-license IP from their allies. Most of the them exist for one reason: so that if anyone sues IBM for anything, they can respond with total disaster, a big smoking crater where your NASDAQ listing used to be. "Yeah, we infringed one of your patents, sorry about that, oh but you infringed about a hundred of ours, you have 20 seconds to come out with your hands up and your pants down."
The one threat that IBM faces here is setting a precedent by buying SCO outright. They won't want to do that unless backed into a corner because it might encourage others. It's more likely that they'd buy Novell.
"IBM, Savior of Linux", wow. That may be enough to get RMS to take a bath.
;)
He'll never open the spigots unless it's "IBM, Savior of GNU/Linux."
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
The weird thing to me is that if SCO had approached IBM quietly and said: "hey, it looks like we have some IP problems here - why don't you buy us out and resolve those problems" then there is a good chance IBM might have considered it. Shareholders happy, golden parachutes for everyone, IBM looks like a hero to the Linux world: the proverbial win-win compromise. But instead SCO took a confrontational approach knowing that IBM would counterattack. Wonder why.
sPh
On behalf of anaerobic bacteria everywhere, I must ask you to stop your libelous assertion that lawyers are a form a anaerobic bacteria.
They would threaten to sue, but that would be too low for them.
www.eFax.com are spammers
I make a movie with my buds. We spend $100K of money hyped from friends and family and shoot a cool low budget western. Miramax sees it and likes it, they want to sign it. So, they contract a deal with me and my buds giving them exclusive license to our low budget western for the next twenty years.
Now, I still own the copyright. It's my movie: all Miramax bought were the US distribution rights. Does that mean I can't sell those rights to someone in Mexico? Maybe - maybe not; depends on the contract. But if they bought exclusive US rights then one thing is sure: I can't sell those exclusive rights to any other US distributor. And if Sony decides to stick it on DVDs and they haven't cleared it with Miramax, those will be the entities going to court; so long as I didn't break my end of the deal (by trying to sell the same rights twice) then it ain't my battle - it's up to Miramax and Sony.
SCO claimed at first they owned... Then, when put in their place by Novell they changed it to we own the rights... It's entirely possible they own (via licensing) exclusive rights to something that is actually owned by another entity.
That's the entire point of copyright and patent protection: to allow you to hold an exclusive property that can be traded and sold through contract. SCO may or may not have a case, but it's not a stretch to believe they (at least) honestly believe they own exclusive rights to a property owned by Novell.
You can't negotiate with criminals because if you do, what will stop the next company from doing the same thing that SCO's doing today.
Normally I would agree with you, but in the insanity of the US court system and its lottery mentality, you almost have to deal with them. The risk of losing is so enormous, the pressure to simply do a deal is overwhelming. I'm not saying it is right, just that it is reality.
SCO literally has nothing to lose here. And that is the problem. If the CEO and the other executive officers of SCO faced some personally liability for filing bad claims (i.e. they could end up paying a $100,000 or more fine) they would more carefully wiegh the risks of going to court. And other companies would be more willing to fight these extortion lawsuits if the court system afforded them more protection.
My Weblog
When people start discribing the Linux community as a business you know what they are about.
Linux isn't a business. IBM is a business, RedHat is a business, Slackware and Debian have a business aspect. But Linux is a code.
This dosen't mean anything malicous in itself. I've just noticed often people will say "The company that makes Linux" or "The Linux industry".
There is in fact a Linux industry but that industry dosen't reflect the whole of Linux. There isn't a "company that makes Linux" there are companys involved in the creation of Linux but there has never been a single company responsable for the whole ball of wax.
Not Like Microsoft for Windows, Apple for MacOs or AT&T for Unix.
What it means is that the person is thinking only in terms of business as if everyone has a proffit motive for anything they say or do.
I submit (and I'm going to say this is sand not cement that I have for the foundation of my clame..) that SCO is looking at Linux as a compeditor and simply desided that there is stolen code in Linux.
SCO need not so much "prove it" to us but the least they could do is tell us what code is stolen. We could replace it quickly enough and it'd be over.
And he said it right... SCO is out to protect it's shareholders. Not SCO's intelectual property.
They have NOT proven anything yet they keep seeking payment from Linux users.
I don't think SCO knows it's clames are bogus. I think they actually believe thies clames are valid. But they don't know what code is stolen and if they'd check I think deep down they know they won't find any stolen code.
SCO has presented us with an argument that is simply "Linux now has features found in SCO Unix. The only way this could happen is if Linux got code from us."
That's not true.
SCO expects us to accept that alone as proof. But it's not any more proof than to say:
A Zigu Di rock fan steals donuts from a 7-11
Jack Du is a Zigu Di fan... he must be the crook.
There is more than one way to solve a given problem and more than one person who can find a solution.
SCO won't put it's money where it's mouth is.
They won't point out the offending code.
What's to stop SCO from pointing at some random code and saying "Thats it.. thats ours"?
Easy...
SCO: "See this thats ours..."
Linus: "Ummm no I wrote that myself."
SCO: "Oh right.. well that's ours"
ESR: "Thats BSD code..."
SCO: "Oh sorry... THAT..."
RedHat: "Is covered in RedHat patent xxxxxxxx. We liccesned it for open source use only. Your using it you said so your villating our IP fork it over...."
SCO: "I mean this..."
IBM: "We wrote that in 1933 to solve a defect in 'Mega 1+1=2 delux' it was taking more than an hour to add 1+1..."
SCO: "Umm this?"
Ghost of Lovelace: "Sorry thats MY code.."
SCO: "Well THIS is deffinetly ours."
CmdrTaco: "I wrote that."
SCO clames the code came from IBM. But if they finger code randomly they'll likely find code that IBM never touched.
SCO is seeking to discredit Linux and boost sales for it's failing product.
If I were forced I'd switch to BSD.. not SCO.
Or if a commertal Unix I'd use Solarus.
I don't actually exist.
Let a few rumour slip to the press that the $10M is the price they estimate the court case will cost and thet they think they will be unable to collect the expected Damages against SCO they court will impose.
That would make their stock price crash to around $2 for a Capitalization of around $15M, then have a RedHat led consortium offer $20M or so, that will likely be accepted.
IBM can then buy some of the SCO contracts from RH and a later date.
That way there will be no impression left that IBM gave in to Blackmail.
Help fight continental drift.
IBM won't buy SCO because that is not how billion dollar corporations deal with IP terrorism. You don't appease small terrorists.
Why is SCO's action "IP terrorism"? Because its fundamental purpose is to destroy the remarkable social capital that the GNU license and Linux have created--the trust and co-operation of a global collaboration.
The fact SCO claims economic motives rather than ideological ones or corporate bloodlust or something doesn't matter. They are *trying* to make people suspicisous of sharing source. (AOL is doing the same thing with Nullsoft).
We will see increasing attempts to make people suspicious of "counterfeit GPLs" because terrorism pays right now.
In the long run, the social capital and trust our community has invested in Linux and GNU will have to be divided up in order to survive this sort of attack. Information may want to be free, but having a critical amount of it invested in one place invites attack. Like Napster.
The correct communal resopnse on *our* part (not to this particular attack, which is bogus, but to the swarm of them we will now get) is a more defensive posture in which the "web of trust" established.
Think of Linux and the GPL as the "gold standard" of the free software community (the thing everyone trusts). SCO and AOL are trying to panic us into thinking it is counterfeit, and engineer a corporate "bank panic" so they can mop up. They won't succeed, but they *will* decrease peoples trust in gold and drive its price down a little bit.
One response--the wrong one--would be to create a central repository of "valid GNU software" with a central agency, which would indemnify users of free software. This is the wrong approach because it makes free software quasi-proprietary--takes out the viral component of the model.
Another wrong solution is to try to make code use traceable by requiring the developer to publish deltas, not just source. This is wrong because it creates a high transaction cost (not viral, because it is not free).
The right response is to create numerous, smaller, "webs of trust" so that the whole interlocking structure is harder to attack. This is what modular kernels like the GNU/Hurd or Flux project do. Distributions will have many components, mixed and matched, pulling from the same communal pool. By spreading the IP over many projects and users, we can create the same P2P defence that is being used for the same problem in the music arena. There is no central server or even large server (Linus, IBM) to attack.
One way to solve the problem of counterfeit money is to eliminate the central authority. If everyone prints money (it's all counterfeit), then there is no one to attack. In the long run, the answer to terrorism is diversity (along with a solid defence of the "big" communal targets like Linux and the GPL).
This pushes the question of how you can trust money (software licenses) into the P2P area. You build small webs of trust that leverage the "gold standard" but in the long run do not depend on it at all. Probably, we will go through a "Bretton-Woods" stage of managed trust, before going for the free-for-all.
But. We *must* get to the free-for-all stage, or in the long run we will be hostages.