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The Power Behind the SCO Nuisance
akahige writes "Forbes has a fairly detailed story about the sordid history of The Canopy Group and all the various companies they've sued -- Microsoft (who they beat) and CA (this case is still pending), among them. Before joining Caldera, Darl McBride sued IKON Office Solutions, for whom he worked -- and won. And it also seems that a bunch of Canopy power players also sit on SCO's board of directors. The short summary is, 'these guys are professional litigious bastards -- be exceptionally wary.'" A local user's group is planning a protest for tomorrow. Reader myst564 writes: "After reading all of this SCO press I remembered that SCO once offered up all of their 'Ancient UNIX' (their words, not mine) source to the world while retaining all copyrights (i.e, no OSS license). Interestingly enough it WAS located here but isn't any longer: SCO's Ancient Unix. What's more you can read about the original release here at: Linux Today. I downloaded the source myself way back then but never did anything but delete it! Anyway, check out this comment. It's interesting that this was predicted in 2000!"
The GPL has never been tested in court. SCO's claim that they own the Linux source code is clearly ridiculous--how can a person own an idea? So there's no doubt in my mind that Linux will emerge victorious in the end, which makes GPL, and therefore GPL/Linux, even stronger!
So bring it on, we welcome the test! Any thoughts?
Well IMHO...
SCO is going to have a harder time making a case because the Linux community is EXTREMELY tech savvy and we are past the beginning of the information age. Most people absorb info pertaining to topics of interest on a daily basis and geeks even more so.
Should the GPL or Linux be in danger, you have a couple million experts out there waiting to testify or share evidence AGAINST SCO. Though the may be litigious geniuses, they are fighting an uphill battle.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
It's only libel if it's not true. And it'll be hard to prove one isn't a professional litigious bastard while suing someone else for being called that :)
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
These guys in Utah are no dummies. The crunchies in the Linux community should be paying more attention.
,"That's not Fair!" while SCO continues to pound away. How many of us had the "Life-isnt-always-Fair" revelation?
I know which side I'm on, and I know everyone is pretty sure they know what side they are on, but I cant help getting the feeling that Linux side is relying way to much on the Fair principle and forgetting that it is quite difference from Justice in the legal systems.
What I am trying to say is that
Justice does not equal Fairness.
Ie It may not be Fair what SCO is trying to pull, but the legal courts are also concerned with what is Just and in this we are talking money and if the legal courts are about anything, they are about money. Making sure there are legal grounds to protect property (money).
Thus, What I see is the linux community simply yelling
Is the Linux community about to get the same?
Sigs are dangerous coy things
Let's not, eh? A weak test isn't a test. And I don't really think IBM gives that much of a shit about the GPL compared to beating the shit out of SCO. Also, as mentioned ad nauseam on here, allowing SCO to even make the braindead contention that the GPL screwed their IP could be nothing but bad for Linux in general. Look, if SCO's CEO says the GPL screwed them, other companies' CEO's might listen and prevent their CIO's from implementing linux. We'd just as soon avoid that, I expect.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
So then SCO isnâ(TM)t suing IBM because IBM is illegally interfering with implementing their business model, suing (IBM in this case) is their business model.
Hopefully, this is where common sense kicks in during the suit. Let's say SCO actually wins its suit against IBM. The damage award would become hotly contested, with each side throwing out their fictitious numbers to be considered. Since SCO is the plaintiff here, they have to put a dollar value on the damages first, and $1 billion just sounds mammoth, but not totally out of this world, considering that IBM is a $20 billion a year company.
Are they contributing anything to the IS industry? Of course not. But this is America, dammit, where playing the victim can often be the quickest means to success.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
The Linux @ Work section on Forbes seems to be authored by pro-MS people. To them, linux is something only fanatics use. Unfortunately, it appears that most of what they are currently suing over was done by them before their current lawsuit happy management was in charge. It's bad when you wish Ransom Love was back in charge of Caldera/SCO/whatever they want to be called.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
So they're buying each other's stocks, raising the prices and then selling them to outsiders at a profit.
In this cozy company, SCO even leases its office space from Canopy--a fact disclosed in Securities and Exchange Commission filings, along with the fact that SCO's chief financial officer, Robert Bench, has a side job as a partner in a Utah consulting firm that last year billed SCO for $71,200.
So they're renting space from the parent company, at possibly below market rates, making their own profits look bigger OR at above market rates making the parent companies profits look bigger.
But I'm confused how the CFO, who has a fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders of SCO, can also be a partner of a company (hence having a fiduciary responsibility to his partners) that consults for SCO. He has cross-loyalties. Either the contracts with the firm are too generous, benefiting his partners at the expense of the shareholders OR the contracts are too strict screwing over his partners to the benefit fo the shareholders.
> What then are they really contributing? Is SCO really a software company? What is it?
Sounds like the so-called "technology firm" - a bunch of lawyers with a big patent portfolio and nothing better to do for society than shake down innocent passers-by, and use the proceeds to buy up more patents.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Okay, so now someone can run a diff between this & the Linux source, and we can finally identify what the claims are all about without having to let SCO continue to make vague threats about what they allege to be there. We don't have to wait for them anymore!
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
Before you know it, you receive an envelope from SCO on your doorstep, as you now have seen their sources, and you might be working on Linux..
Caveat emptor!
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
The Forbes article is unbearably basic and takes the view that SCO have a good chance because Caldera won a previous case against Microsoft.
No attempts to examine any facts are made, with the assumption being that Caldera won the DR-DOS case only because the judge agreed with them and not because Microsoft actually did anything wrong. Whilst the judge's decision does determine the outcome, if you want to analyse the situation before the end of the case then you must look at the facts yourself, i.e. they are not irrelevant!
- Brian.
This does not help nor hurt SCO. It helps their current shareholders. Which happen to be, the people who are doing these actions, in order to get bought. In other words, you are proposing that we do exactly what they are wanting us to do. Buy them to make this go away.
If IBM won't just buy them to make them go away, then why should we? IBM has much more interest at stake. It would cost IBM significantly less than $3 Billion.
Doing this also sends a message that a viable business model is...
Those who would give up liberty in exchange for security and DRM should switch to Microsoft Palladium!
Every single SCO story on Slashdot gets a lot of comments - far higher than average. This means that these stories are very, very popular to the readers. Why, pray tell, should Slashdot stop posting popular stories? It doesn't make sense.
As for a new IBM vs. SCO topic - this thing is time limited. When IBM has utterly devastated SCO, there will be nothing more to report.
Please, stop the whining about the SCO stories. They are obviously very popular, so you are a tiny minority. And as the saying goes, if you don't like what's posted on Slashdot, go somewhere else. Simple.
Clever signature text goes here.
"And it'll be hard to prove one isn't a professional litigious bastard while suing someone else for being called that"
Ah yes, the Catch-22 defense.
The fact that SCO has published their code has absolutely nothing to do with this case.
Their license is pretty clear that you can't use in a projects as the Linux kernel, BUT, this doesn't matter.
For the moment, there's no proof for ANY SCO PROPRIATARY code in the kernel, and I believe that it'd be really hard to proove this. So, looking at old stories is just shifting the attention from the main subject, and nothing more.
The thing that strikes from this article is that those guys just don't look the type that'll start FUD-ing, if the don't believe they've some chance to win... that's scary.
1. No sig. 2. ???? 3. Profit!!!
Today, it is not news that sells, it is controversy that sells. Here I think Forbes is just selling controversy.
I'm already getting bored with this. I'm waiting for IBM to knock them out, but IBM looks like they are playing the rope-a-dope strategy. which seems to be somewhat effective if you take into account how SCO's story changes as they try and fine tune their lawsuite.
I'm interested in whether there was some pre-lawsuite negotiations with IBM before this all became public and what exactly SCO was trying to get then, rather then in the lawsuite.
I disagree. I have YET to hear anyone on slashdot say anythign to the affect of "thats not fair." What people are saying is "Thats not right." People are pointing out lies and misrepresentations they believe SCO is making. Nobody is simply crying foul.
more than 1/2 the work of the lawyers will be research into the issue. The community has already produced mounds of information that lawyers can and WILL use in court. Look at what was found today about the Anchient UN*X code being shown, and the predicition of law suit.
I think the Linux community is not a bunch of kids but intelligent working professionals that know exactly what is going down here and is offering their help in the best way they each know how.
Unfortunately, the MD5 checking won't lead us to the core of SCO's complaints. After reading this inteview, it seems that they claim IP rights to all licensed derivatives of SysV, not just their "ancient" codebase.
That is, they say their license agreements w/ IBM, Sun, etc. give them control over the bits in AIX, Solaris, etc. that were developed by the licensee. So it seems that if IBM develops a special memory locking scheme for AIX then shares it with linux, SCO still claims a violation even though they played no part in developing the code.
Here is the relevant comment:
When we take a top-tier view of the amount of code showing up inside of Linux today that is either directly related to our Unix System 5 that we directly own or is related to one of our flavors of Unix that we have derivative works rights over--we don't necessarily own those flavors, but we have control rights over how that information gets disseminated--the amount is substantial. We're not talking about just lines of code; we're talking about entire programs. We're talking about hundred of thousands of lines of code.
Where people get a little confused is when they think of SCO Unix as just the Unix that runs the cash register at McDonalds. We think of this as a tree. We have the tree trunk, with Unix System 5 running right down the middle of the trunk. That is our core ownership position on Unix.
Off the tree trunk, you have a number of branches, and these are the various flavors of Unix. HP-UX, IBM's AIX, Sun Solaris, Fujitsu, NEC--there are a number of flavors out there. SCO has a couple of flavors, too, called OpenServer and UnixWare. But don't confuse the branches with the trunk. The System 5 source code, that is really the area that gives us incredible rights, because it includes the control rights on the derivative works that branch off from that trunk.
And they say the GPL is viral!
Now I have no idea if this claim is true, if it's in the contract or if it's enforceable, but it make SCO's claims seem a little less bizarre.
Kill, Tux, kill!
Do these people (canopy, SCO, whatever) actually produce anything, or is all their revenue generated through litigation? If this were a biological analogy, I would say that this is classic example of a parasite.
These guys are phenomenal hackers, they are just using the American legal system as their medium.
So the fuck what? They say they own the rights of parts of Linux - why would they stop using it?
That source offer was made by people with no management connection to McBride...
So? That doesn't make it any less valid of an offer, nor any less applicable to the current situation. (Not that I necessarily believe that it is particulary applicable, but for the sake of argument) If the code was once given away by the owner, any new owner can't just revoke and/or retroactively criminalize the original offer. They can only change the terms going forward.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Can anyone please tell me what impact this has on europeans???
Yes, I'd be glad to. Stifling the freedom to innovate and rewarding pirates in the world's largest economy is a generally bad thing. Europeans contribute lots of great open source software, but so do Americans. If the Americans slow down on OSS contributions, it will only hurt Europeans. Is that clear enough?
Generally speaking, if your neighbor is happy and prosperous then you will be happy and prosperous, too. It's a fairly well understood principle. If you take the short-sighted and selfish attitude that what's bad for your neighbor is good for you, then you will get what you deserve.
If you still don't understand, then I'll put it in terms that even the most self-centered, tunnel-visioned person can relate to. If the American tech economy slows down, the market for European products in the U.S. will shrink and Europeans will make less money.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
Has anyone noticed that this generation has a screw everyone else attitude. Why build anything when you can sue others for fun and profit, especially when I can sue a large corporate entity? Take it to the man! This generation, who grew up in the free love period, is going to screw it up for those generations before and after. This is just an example.
Where are my moderation points when I need them.
-1 Troll.
Sorry, guys, but this DOES matter. Linux is the POSTERCHILD for OSS and the GPL. If LINUX DOES get dragged into this, and SCO IS sucessful, the general public will most likely view all OSS and GPL software as 'risky', and everyone will be afraid to use it because of that risk of litigation.
Does SCO have a viable position? IANAL, so I have NO idea. But I CAN see what possible outcomes would be, and what affect they could have on our post-dot-com industry.
I'm STILL hoping for a viable alternative to the crappy quality code MS puts out. MAC ain't gonna do it... they're too desktop focused. Linux is currently the strongest contendor. If SCO wins, this could DRAMATICALLY change the face of Linux.
-- You can't idiot-proof anything, because they're always coming out with better idiots.
The SCO-IBM case is centered around two assumptions:
1. Unix Source went into Linux
2. This was because of a violation of an agreement SCO had with IBM
Now that it seems that the Unix sourcecode was in the open, how will they ever prove that IBM put it in Linux, breaching the agreement? Anybody could have done that, if the source code was copied from Unix to Linux at all.
the pun is mightier than the sword
First, let me point out that IBM does not have the right to transfer the rights of individual developers the world over, to SCO. So even if they put SCO code into the kernel, SCO could at most require it to be removed. Whether that would require the removal of whole programs, or individual sections of code, is up to individual lawsuits of SCO against individual developers. Those lawsuits, in turn, would probably turn on such things as whether the developer knew that this was SCO code.
If I sue John in a court of law, I can't ask the court to award me Bill's house. That lawsuit has to be against Bill. And I *definitely* can't sue Mary for living in the house that she rented in good faith from Bill, especially before said lawsuit against Bill reaches a conclusion.
Nonetheless, the MD5 hash checking [of the 5-line segments, as described on slashdot]] still will be useful. First, it will tell us what code coincides. That allows us to look for BSD coincidences: BSD source automatically cleans that code. We don't have to worry about it. Next, it allows us to track down and start talking to individual developers, to find out where the code came from: published material in a textbook that predates SCO's work cleans code also. Finally, for those programs that remain unsure, it allows us to immediately start recoding those programs or finding alternatives, so that even before any decision [like my hypothetical lawsuit vs. Mary vs. Bill vs. John above] the code can be clean. In that way, no work is ever legally held to be derivative. Only former work is held to be derivative, which is a major difference, especially against Microsoft's / SCO's / Forbes' FUD.
Just out of wondering, I wonder how to get a Sourceforge "code cleaning project" going. Could that be done?
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
I really feel bad for the employees. It takes a toll when you are working for a company who has become the spit of the industry. Not to mention the conseqences to their jobs and their stock value if SCO cant (ha!) beat IBM.
The Forbes writer missed one thing: it isn't the Linux companies SCO and Canopy are suing, and against the company they are suing they're relatively small fish. IBM is the defendant named in their lawsuit. Remember the IBM-DOJ antitrust suit? The one that IBM fought to a standstill for 20 years? The one that IBM effectively won?
The Linux people may or may not be right, but IBM's saying SCO is blowing smoke and IBM has the legal department and the paper trail and audit trail procedures in place to be certain they know what they're talking about. And this suit is a direct threat to their core business, they aren't going to take it laying down nor pull any punches in dealing with it.
.
If you read the article, you'll see that the current SCO was formerly Caldera. Caldera bought the Unix rights from SCO, the old SCO became Tarantella (which was one of their products IIRC...), and then Caldera renamed to The SCO Group.
Which pill makes me small?
Seriously though, this is going to be part of what hurts NewSCO if this ever get's to the courts.
They are going to have a darned hard time showing what they really own, what they stole, and what was borrowed... long before they ever became NewSCO.
The wiggle room that they have built into thier complaint is they are not really using copyright, or patent as the basis for the suit, they are using contract law.
And they are alleging the transfer and or use of 'Unix Methods and proceedures'. This is a fuzzy area that may not even be answerable.
Part trade secret, part dogma. If you didn't know about how to do something, or that something could be done, you might never have developed it yourself, even without using the original Unix code, or seeing the affect.
Might be true, might not, but the contract kinda binds you up and makes you liable, even if you didn't peek under the covers.
These are the kind of arguments that RMS had for creating GNU in the first place.
Owning code is one thing, controlling ideas is another, and what SCO is attempting is not protection of code, but restriction of ideas.
The temptation is to throw out the phrase UnAmerican right about here, but that's not right. Corperations are not American, or Canadian, or Egyptian... they are just big money making machines that have more rights, fewer morals, than individuals and total disregard for anything but more profit/power.
Would you really want RMS in the spotlight speaking out in support of Linux? It might do more harm than the lawsuit :)
Never mind here, just another Slashdot article with inaccurate and misleading information.
It's good to know where the cut-off point is for this particular piece of evidence. But this ancient UNIX (V7 and before) could be the source of any duplicated code (assuming there is any significant duplicated code). IBM may have nothing to do with this.
At any rate, anything found in V7 and before can no longer be called a trade secret.
The History of Open Source and Why It's Important (December 1999)
Microsoft employee considers using V7 (February 1999)
Slashdot poster's reference to "free" UNIX source license (March 2000)
I can imagine that IBM might care about the GPL. After all, it gives them:
(1) a free, very dedicated, and huge developer base for code that runs on their systems
(2) A ton of good will from said coder-base, thus sales into the future are much more likely
(3) It helps keep down that upstart competitor from the NorthWest.
At this point, there are just too many computer-savvy people to make "Only IBM" a reality. The code will be developed, one way or another. So IBM's best bet is "IBM at the head of the stack of everyone." Since IBM has invested in Linux, IBM does have reason to push development under Linux.
These reasons lead me to believe that yes, IBM does care about the GPL. Not for the sake of the GPL, but for the sake of their own business. So I'd say that their motivation is dual, and if given a choice between "let SCO destroy Linux, and we squash SCO" and "squash SCO before SCO destroys Linux", they'll likely choose the latter, even defending Linux in court.
When it's the masse rabble against the castle, it's usually a ton better to be the guy directing the rabble, than to be the guy in the castle. Especially if the guy directing the rabble also has access to a ton of munitions. I think IBM has already chosen their spot, and that's where they'll be. This one doesn't look to me like what America pulled on Iraqi Sikhs ("yeah, rise up, and we'll support you, probably").
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
You are wrong. SCO cannot claim anything to the Ancient UNIX code base because it was released with a BSD style license in 2001 by Caldera. SCO is suing about System V which is not considered "Ancient UNIX".
Maybe it's just me, but it sounds like the death of System V UNIX. I believe the statement to be correct. Most all commercial Unix vendors branch from System V. Even Linux has a fair amount of roots tangled with System V. Just because most Unix OS's are dirived from System V doesn't make SCO's case any more legit though. That's just my opinion.
Although I think SCO's lawsuit is nothing but FUD with the backing from Microsoft. In court who knows what will happen. O.J. got away clean and so did Microsoft. When it comes to the justice system, I have very little confidence that justice will be served. So maybe we do have something to fear.
I don't know too much about what SCO is battling over, but I think the only safe Unix's out there are ones based off the BSD Lite tree. As far as I know, FreeBSD and NetBSD are totally free of System V source code right? So SCO couldn't even in their wildest dreams touch them with their sue happy plans could they? I'm not a *BSD advocate, but is this not true? I know BSD Lite wasn't a complete OS, but after the court battles in the early 90's with ATT and BSD, I'm under the impression that BSD did indeed purge ALL System V code from their tree. The kernel is totally free of ATT code as I understand it.
Not looking at their source code would simply perpetuate the idea that there is something magical about software copyright that isn't the same as literature copyright, music copyright, etc. If you're a writer, do you avoid reading any material written by someone else? If you're a musician, are you afraid to listen to anyone else's copyrighted song? Of course not. As a programmer you shouldn't have to be afraid of these things either.
Ironically, this idea is exactly what SCO would like to encourage: they don't just want to be able to sue anyone who copies what they've written, they want to sue anyone who writes an original implementation of the same solution, or even someone who writes a different solution to the same problem!
Hasn't RMS being predicting this since dinosaurs ruled the Earth? Remember how we all thought "Gee, Richard, aren't you being just a little paranoid?"
He might be a slightly crazed filthy socialist hippy, but by golly, he nailed this one.
Next up: all those RedHat "defensive" linux patents, and their sort-of-promise to temporarily refrain from suing over them. Better hope that they never get bought out by someone a little less altruistic, eh?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
One of SCO's major claims is that it owns NUMA and other IBM technologies belong to it by the AT&T "all derivative works are mine" license.
Fine. That may or may not be true legally (I hope such a license is as illegal as usary), but it has nothing to do with Linux. Since IBM is the original creator of the IBM code, they can license it however they like. That means that they can relicense their code so that it is GPL, BSD, or shared source. SCO has no say since IBM wasn't working under a "work for hire" license.
Contributing to Linux under these circumstances *cannot* be illegal.
I'm really surprised that non of the lawyers in the crowd haven't picked this up.
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.
Look, the comments made that the Ancient Unix release may have been a trap are cute, but lets face it, what they actually released in 2000 IS COMPLETE AND UTTER REFUSE THAT'S NOT WORTH ANYTHING.
Go ahead and take a look: about 5M compressed worth of binaries and source for the only 32-bit release (32V), which only works on the VAX.
Linux probably reached that level of sophistication and functionality some time in 1998. So I think that anyone looking at the source wouldn't have found anything of merit to bring over that they couldn't already figure out from reading man pages.
Black holes are where the Matrix raised SIGFPE
So SCO says IBM can't distribute code that IBM owns because it was first used on derivative workds of System V.
As someone pointed out yesterday, the letter of understanding that is Exhibit C in SCO's complaint explicitly agrees that IBM owns their derivative works. They may just not be allowed to distribute them.
Assume for the moment that the modifications themselves are derivative works. (I don't think this is likely from the definition of derivative work from Title 17 of the U.S. Code.)
But even if is a derivative work, IBM still owns that code. The code is not stolen or misappropriated, merely released in a manner that might possibly be a contract violation. While SCO might possibly be able to demand that everyone stop using it or maybe remove it from future versions, it doesn't necessarily follow that everyone would owe SCO any damages or licensing payments at all.
Noone is in possession of stolen property or SCO's intellectual property.
The whole matter then becomes nothing more than a contract dispute over whether or not IBM has the right to distribute code they own.
I think that the whole matter then boils down to whether or not the modifications themselves are considered a derivative work.
If the judge and jury agrees with SCO that the modifications are a derivative work of System V when there is no System V code in it, then IBM might owe something in the way of damages. It might be possible that they could just be ordered to retrieve the code (unrelease it) and owe no damages at all.
But it's hard to see how anyone who does not have a contract with SCO would owe them anything at all on this matter.
Someone could set-up a "site of SCO factoids" where all intesting links are collected in one place for reference to the volunteers researchers. As more factoids are discovered, they are added to the site. With a little chance, this will lead to a more effective research.
Having all the evidence at one place would also help counter SCO's FUD, especially if the page becomes known to industry analysts and press. If the site shows for instance how SCO's claim change overtime, their FUD campaign will become much more apparent to CIOs and CEOs that are considuring using Linux. Some essay explaining basic concepts such as trade-secrets, copyrights, patents and derivative work would help debunking many misconceptions.
If geeks makes a habit of immediatelyposting new SCO claims on the factoid site and immediately explaining what the claims are, then it will become harder for SCO to increase the FUD pressure by confusing issues.
All OSS homepages should link to the SCO factoid site home page. This will increase the likelihood this site turns up as a result on a Google search for SCO.
IBM has acces to both Linux an System V code. They can compare to find all potentially litigious code and then call upon geeks to determine to origin of "code of interest". If they want stay on a legally safe ground, they may even include with such requests some code that doen't match System V. This could help avoid giving ground to claims they indirectly disclose SCO's alleged trade-secret.
If IBM dare identify publicly the Linux code that matches System V code, the list could be posted on the site of SCO's factoids. The result of research on the code origin could be posted as well. The general public would then be able to watch SCO's claims deflate day after day. If some code is found to be of dubious origin, the the public will be able to see how fast the Linux community can correct the issue. Tracking dates when information is posted on the page will be extremely useful.
Linux could also be compared with the ancient Unixes for matching code. This portion of Linux will then be cleared from any trade-secret claims. Again the result of this search could be posted on the SCO factoids page.
The stench will only grow worse.
Mod Parent up as insightful.
A SCO/Mormon conspiracy is ridiculous.
Why? Because the common thing that all these entities in the article have is that they are located in Utah. If you ever lived in Utah, it should come as no surprise that a BYU graduate would work at a company 15 minutes down the road (both SCO and Novell).
Another good reason? The LDS (aka 'Mormon') church IT department just started an Open Source Mailing list, in hopes to migrate its existing software to Open Source alternates. I'm a member of it.
Another good reason? The BYU (largest LDS university) Unix Users Group *strongly* advocates Open Source Unices and is one of the biggest clubs on campus.
People love to conjure up conspiracies about the Mormons. I guess I can understand, as an avid Linux user I love to entertain conspiracies about Microsoft.
But get real: there's no connection.
I'd be curious to know what impacts the behavior of people like McBride and others has on U.S. international business relations, existing or potential.
From the looks of it, SCO is not and has not been an exceptional company in terms of ingenuity or revenue. Their talent seems to be in their legal skills rather than technical prowess. It also looks as if they dangled a carrot in front of the nose of some programmers with the intention of creating the current situation (and I'm not saying that there is one). I'm not a business/financial person, but if I was in Europe or the UK, or anywhere in the world for that matter, I would be hesitant to engage in business transactions with people who are so obviously out of control. "Let's sue Linus!" "Make it another billion! No, wait, make it another TWO billion! Yeah!" These numbers are obviously not tied to any real assets. The transparency of the aggression by the owners of SCO, as well as recent transgressions by other CEOs in other companies, would not seem to bode well for U.S. international business relations. I sure as hell wouldn't want to interact with someone who might turn around and take my company away. I feel like my country is rotting.
The Death Penalty: Killing people to show others that killing people is wrong.