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SCO's Plan Examined
kevin@ank.com writes "In the best expose I've read since the original Halloween documents, Groklaw has links and analysis of Renaissance Ventures' rationale for investing in The SCO Group. Among other misrepresentations, SCO convinced Ren that SCO owned the root of the entire UNIX tree, and that Linux was just one branch of that tree. Linux gets a SCO tax... forever; or worst case, if Linux gets killed in the process, then so be it. Renaissance also estimated that IBM would have settled with SCO last April under the strength of SCO's claims, and the threat of terminating their UNIX license. Oops."
1. Have no business plan 2. Send extortion letters 3. ???? 4. Profit
-jls
Techno-pagan
We have a vested interest to ensure that SCO does not win in its attempts of litigation. We have created a shadow company that hosts our Linux servers. So if someone gets sued by SCO it will be the newly-formed company which will simply fold and we as the customer will be able to get to our data and purchase UNIX or Windows servers to continue the work.
Which is nice.
Did anyone get the text in the 15 seconds it took for the server to get /.'d?
These people look deep into my soul and assign me a number based on the order I joined.
SCO convinced Ren
Ren was always easy, it was Stimpy that was always a stickler for details.
Sorry.
Intelligent Life on Earth
... where a couple of scientists are looking at a blackboard. The left and right sides have formulae. The center part says "Then a miracle happens".
One scientist says to the other, "that middle step seems a little fuzzy."
(Okay, that was paraphrased from memory, but the sentiment fits).
All the FUD generated by the various groups in the end in will be meaningless.
it is hard for me to believe that anyone would have bought into the idea that the case would already be settled. There is no real incentive to settle until a trial date has been set and discovery has started. Even if SCO's claims were rock solid, IBM would force them to spend gobs of money in prolonged discovery before they even thought about trying to settle.
When SCO CEO Darl McBride wrote his open letter last week, he seemed to indicate a hope there could be a viable future partnership between his company and Linux. There is more than a hint as to what that partnership might be like in two research papers prepared back in March and April by Renaissance Ventures, a VC firm that invested in SCO.
The first document is an explanation of Renaissance's reasons for thinking SCO was a good investment. I know you've been wondering what in the world those folks in the stock market have been thinking. The second is an analysis of the SCO v. IBM lawsuit. They are both so blazingly wrong in both facts and conclusions that I fully grasp for the first time how some people may have invested in SCO, based on such misinformation.
First, the investment document. It is based on SCO's telephone conference call in February of 2003. You can listen to it yourself on mp3 here. Renaissance thought it sounded like SCO's bottom line was about to get "prettier" because they believed what SCO reportedly told them in that phone call, namely that most companies were reacting to the new SCOsource licensing program in a positive way.
Renaissance also bought the story -- hook, line and sinker -- that SCO owned the UNIX tree trunk, so to speak, and that all other versions of Unix were branches, or derivatives, off of their tree, including, so they imagined, Linux. (I'm using their language, by the way. They actually mean GNU/Linux, the kernel plus the applications, not Linux the kernel.) They planned on hijacking the GNU/Linux applications and if that meant the death of Linux, so what?
That's their business proposition? And GNU/Linux gets what out of this, other than ripped off and ruined?
Their original strategy was based on the fantasy that the world was clamoring for the ability to stay with UNIX and yet run GNU/Linux applications, and there they'd be, like a troll hiding under the bridge, ready to exact a toll on all those wanting to cross.
SCO, in their daydream, thought they could be the gatekeeper making it possible for companies already on UNIX to sort of transition to Linux, which they knew everyone wanted to do, without leaving their UNIX environment behind. Next step? Backcharge for UNIX shared libraries they believed had been used inappropriately and start scooping the money up in royalties for UNIX code.
Why they imagined companies would rather follow that convoluted, expensive route instead of just running Linux itself is one of those mysteries the tech community can never solve, because it's not based on technical realities but on financial yearning. The tech makes no sense at all. But the ka-ching started ringing in Renaissance's ears, and you know how compelling that can be, like when your telephone starts ringing and you think you have to answer it. But the whole structure is based on a lack of technical knowledge and not enough true facts and a grievous miscalculation about the market. If ever there was a situation illustrating the importance of CEOs and financial analysts comprehending tech, this story is it. Money got invested in a dream that isn't coming true.
Let me let you read it for yourselves, because it's beyond my descriptive abilities to capture all the repulsive nuances, not that this is a subtle document. They begin by describing the conference call and then explain the math potential as they see it:
"We believe management's forecasted $10 million of SCOsource revenue in 2Q represents near-term settlement of possible license violations in arrears (related to heretofore unlicensed use of the SCOsource shared libraries) from one or more large vendors of Linux solutions, but we are unable to glean more specifics at this time. . . . SCO management also stated . . . that the vast majority of interactions with customers and other software vendors with respect to the SCOsource initiative were positive. Our view is that lumpy, and possibly large, bookings of SCOsource license fees will continue for several quarter
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
It's a gamble, with a potential return of 100/1. What the hype is leaving out is that most people/businesses will simply switch, if that happens sell at a peak and still expect a potential 20/1 return.
Maybe someone from SCO is a /. subscriber. Since they would get to see the story earlier than the rest of us, they could DDoS any site they didn't want us to see.
I want to believe.
I was not touched there by an angel.
...when the SCO buble finally "bursts" and angry investors go back to institutions like Ren, Ren can say "we were deceived", and maybe we will yet get the fraud trial that the executives of SCO deserve to live through.
You don't have to pay anything. There has been no judgement, nothing. Quit posturing.
Slashdot has the right to link to who they want to, if you dont want the traffic, there's router/firewall/apache module solutions to fix that.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
As Groklaw is /.'d, has anyone actually told the investing firm yet about the counter-position?
Have "we" told them they should talk to IBM or RedHat or, heck, even Cisco (Linksys routers use Linux, remember...) and that they're about to lose millions on the word of unscrupulous IP whores?
Well, it would be not entirely unplausible that SCO happens to want to score some money for such actions from Microsoft, as to sue Linux and probably BSD out of living. Or make commercial life doing products related to any unix system very uncomfortable, and far more dangerous then it already is.
Well thats my bit.
ta ta.
perlpimp
It's also been discovered that our favourite clueless "analyst", Didio, has known McBride and Stowell for some fifteen years. Yeah, not like that could affect her "analysis" or anything.
''Pass the hookah please!''
Belief is the currency of delusion.
The litigious nature of this society is drawing it into a very frightening pattern of litigating for profit. What happened to the idea that people must take responsibilty for their own actions? Could this be the start of a "my company is failing . . . I need to find someone to sue FAST!" campaign?
StyleChief
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government! -M. Python
Serious, as much fun as SCO is, is anybody else feeling their faith in humanity drain away, little by little, day by day, because of morals like these?
No, not all of humanity just corporate executives... but they're species has always been questionable anyway.
There Stock price was less than $4.00 before this crap, and now it's over $17.00. I guess there BS is worth something more than the effort of all the Open Source Programmers who actually wrote code. Another shinning example of the Amerikan dream. Not too mention Michael P Olson(VP) has filed for a proposed sale of more than half his outstanding ownership(30K) shares on 11/11/2003. Wow when is somebody going to prosecute these people for fraud. IMNSHO --Greg
When work feels overwhelming, remember that you're going to die.
Renaissance thought it sounded like SCO's bottom line was about to get "prettier" because they believed what SCO reportedly told them in that phone call, namely that most companies were reacting to the new SCOsource licensing program in a positive way.
And according to recent SEC filings, wasn't it revealed that the only SCOsource licensing revenue they got last quarter was from Sun & Microsoft? Hardly a raving endorsement from the marketplace...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
That'll be Gore, who (by inventing the Internet) owns the IP to IP. :)
If you are using linux at home, the pricing is the same as windows xp. Do some research before you post please.
You'd think that venture capitalists would have gotten smarter (and pickier) about where they throw their money. This sounds like giving the neighborhood bully some money so he can invest in a nice aluminum bat to make it easier to collect from the rest of the kids.
This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
VC is always a bit of a gamble, since 2001, a very large gamble. However, it smells like they didn't examine SCO's claims very well. They were undoubtedly hoping for an exit via a trade sale to IBM but, it appears they have underestimated the reaction that "All your Unixes belong to us" has brought. They probably weren't even aware of the BSD settlement (maybe not Darl either).
Is if Groklaw were read by *anyone* other than slashdotters and bloggers
Since as is, they're just providing further blatant proof to prove something that is already obvious to slashdotters
What we need is to get articles like this one into the hands of shareholders, stocks.yahoo.com, the motley fool.. into the hands of people who BUY STOCK. These are the people who are being duped into SCOs claims. These are the people who need to be corrected.
So by that argument, you can't grumble about spam, or huge DDoSes hitting your networks?
I'm talking about people that pay per Mb for the bandwidth used.
Get your own free personal location tracker
Actually, I think in the Bible they cast out demons, instead of spawning daemons.
Just talk to your upstream get them to drop it at the routers, they wont do that? Get a good host.
Crap, forgot to paste in the link.
I know people seem to be sick of reading SCO stories all the time, but I think it's exciting to be witnessing the unfolding of such an epic unix war.
It's just like the old days that I missed except now it involves linux and it's therefore even more exciting.
Maybe we should go back to the tactics of the old unix wars: We should catapult a plague-ridden cow into SCO's castle. Hmm. I think that's how it went.
graspe
And here I was, all set to buy SCO Openware. Now I'm all heartbroken...
I can't get to Groklaw at all now, not even the home page, so I suspect that /. just rang up another kill :-)
We are the Music Makers, and We are the Dreamers of Dreams...
JGG
While Groklaw has been slashdotted...
From their "about us" page: (emphasis mine)
We believe the best investment opportunities for realizing outsized returns migrate from sector to sector over time: from buyout, to venture, to public markets, to conglomerates or pure plays within certain industry sectors, in public or private markets - in our view, in no particular order but contrary to the most recent, firmly established trend. We believe investors have a choice: either following the trend in hopes of jumping off early and profitably, or investing contrary to trend in search of outsized returns.
Renaissance subscribes to contrarian theory and believes the best opportunities now exist in microcap public companies that are orphaned from Wall Street with no institutional sponsorship. We will invest in mis-priced public securities and take an activist role in enhancing returns or sponsor management buyouts of undervalued public companies with high intrinsic value. Few investment groups are now equipped to source investment opportunities with enterprise values below $50 million, either due to their larger capital base or otherwise, which presents an opportunity for us. Aberrational pricing in the public markets often correlates with a despondent, disheartened and perhaps uninformed shareholder base, which helps reduce premiums paid while acquiring securities or entire companies.
If they were contrarian, I would think that they would be selling and go against the people who have bought the price up. But, they said they were looking for a whacked-out company, and they found one. Who knows.. they might buy out management and install some honest people.
But, they said it best.. SCO is at an aberrational price, but its abnormally high, not low. Hopefully they got in in January and aren't in it for the long term.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
Ah, the lawyers are the winners once again. How many of those 7 people are attorneys? I ask because you talk about this situation like my brother, who would rather cover his ass than get his work done.
Someone earlier in this story's comments mentioned that their company simply spun off all their IT to a new company they formed, that way they would be held harmless from any suits, while still retaining all their data.
Not a bad idea, if you ask me, especially if you're so paranoid about SCO's bullshit.
Jory
I don't doubt this will happen some day. It's not like the "linked-to" group could have accepted the responsibility(in this case, the possibility that they would have to pay for their bandwidth) for posting an interesting story or project in the public view...
People Suck.
Partially, because all three return 404s or equivilent.
#define DRM chmod 000
Why didn't they ask IBM for their opinion of the lawsuit or the Linux community for their opinion of SCO?
If Ren says "we were deceived", then Stimpy can just say "We sure were, Ren!", and... wait, somebody's already done that one.
Where does accountability for gross incompetence come into the equation though? Since IANAL, I can't begin to address this in a legal sense, but if I tell you "kicking your little brother's head in will make him smarter and transform him into Megatron" (which has a lot more backing it than SCO's claims, from what I hear), then you do it and he dies, obviously I'm a bad person for filling your mind with utter lies. When do you become liable, though? You either have to be lying when you say that you didn't expect the kid to die, or a complete idiot to have believed me. Well, Ren is kicking their kid brother (by telling investors that SCO is a good investment option, really!) and when the kid (the investor collective) dies a horrible death, it seems like the same thing to me.
If they honestly say that they were deceived, they're much too dim to be in business. If they can't say that honestly, they're crooks. Would you like to be a thief or a mouth-breathing moron today, sir?
"Linux doesn't exist. Everyone knows Linux is an unlicensed version of Unix"- Kieren O'Shaughnessy
What do we get? You watch, SCO is getting ready to sue itself. This post may contain anti-SCO content sposored secretly by IBM. Next McBribe will be showing off a server stats chart to stock holders as proof of sco's growing relevance in the high tech world.
This Comment was generated with the Comment-O-Matic for SCO Stories.
It's an old, classic New Yorker magazine cartoon, by Sidney Harris. You can see it here.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
If you haven't already complained about SCO's conduct to the Federal Trade Commission and/or Better Business Bureau, you really should do so.
The BBB complaints become a permanent part of a corporation's record. Enough complaints can make a difference.
www.bbb.org
www.ftc.gov
(Simply click on "File a complaint" in both cases)
I have filed with both. I believe that SCO's conduct is essentially the same as trying to sell licenses to the Brooklyn Bridge and then threatening those that don't buy a license with lawsuits.
Make a real difference by allowing your voice to be heard. File a complaint.
--
Slash
But then suddenly, the sky became overcast. Out of the distance came a growing sound of thundering hooves and blowing trumpets. Vast clouds of dust rose on the horizon and then they saw. Like ants they came, hundreds of thousands of them, with deadly weapons, keyboards and mice, united as one, proclaiming their love for their motherland. Big and small, shaven, unshaven, fat, thin, charging ahead with a fury that was unimaginable. Closer and closer...faster and faster...and then...
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Don't back down . It goes to show you that some business people will do anything to make a buck.
Didn't I read that SRV4 was a collaboration between AT&T and SUN? The silly question is how much right to the source code AT&T shared with Sun and if SCO has any idea that Sun enhanced AT&T Unix, given their dim recollection of Unix History? The crux of this is Sun is still distributing Linux. Does Sun have the right to do as they please with the Unix/Solaris source code? Sun could be undercutting SCO on the sly. Goodness Knows, they would not intentionally help IBM. Sun would be sitting pretty if they were able to invalidate SCO arguments.
It's been a long time coming and a lot of us in the OSS community were aware that this was always a possibility. I post this anonymously to avoid endangering my reputation at my company. Today, we just got a memo from the CEO of our firm. Starting next Monday, all open source software that we use and any development taking place using open source tools (this includes GNU tools) must be removed and all OSS related projects will cease. The CEO got a "tip" from some of our stockholders that Microsoft and SCO are working out a partnership that may make it next to impossible to use open source/free software without violating some new clauses in the MS EULA. In addition, Microsoft is planning to help SCO out in much the same way that they helped Apple. These two "facts" combined made our CEO very uncertain about the future of open source and to hedge all bets, he felt it in the stockholder's best interests to disassociate ourselves from OSS/Free.
I heartily disagree with his position, but since I am not the CEO I can't change it. Personally, I think he's fallen victim to FUD. From what we've all seen, SCO doesn't have a prayer of getting anything out of this lawsuit with IBM. And they definitely have no way to tell people that they can't use OSS/Free software. But, from a business perspective, the CEO probably has no choice.
Further "rumours" I heard from the folks upstairs are that Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer have been working pretty closely with SCO and Darl McBride on this suit. Originally, it was just supposed to cast Linux in a negative light. But now they supposedly have an opportunity to permanently displace Linux in the business world through some new EULA clauses that are going to be tightly related to the licensing that MS bought from SCO. Hopefully, all this rumour will amount to is just water cooler talk. Again, I can't see how MS could legally make a EULA that would affect competitors in such an obvious way and not get pulled back into court for anti-trust violations.
But, just in case this is all true, we need to prepare ourselves for the ultimately bad scenario and find a way to keep free computing alive even in the face of all the adversity it may encounter in the near future. Forget about the desktop, this is now about survival and the human right to software access.
"He who sells what isn't his'n must buy it back or go to prison."
Someone you trust is one of us.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/groklaw/40692.htm l
Looks like the guys at sco took this and drew some immaginary lines over it. Makes you wonder if using that without permission is a copyright infrinegment...
I got to one of them. You have to take the space out of the word "content" in one of those links. Turns out the OP was talking about the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. I believe it was meant to be a joke.
I won't lie and say I've completely kept up with this SCO thing, but I was always under the impression it was a handful of lines of code in question - like maybe IBM put them there by accident. SCO is telling Renaissance that all of Linux is a branch of UNIX. So is SCO really alleging that there's tons and tons of lines of UNIX code? Or was that just a lie for Renaissance, and they're giving a different story as to why they need $699 from everyone?
Schnapple
Look If they lied to these folks that violates a least a couple of SEC rules. Also, in one phase of discovery IBM has asked for the list of company (SCO) officers that have been dumping stock. IBM also timed thier counter suit with red-hat to coincide with the SEC quarterly dead period, so they could'nt dump more stock for a day or 2. It appears Darl Mcbride and Co have been trying artifically pump up Co stock prices, to then sell thier's at a nice little profit.
Unfortunately this too is illegal. SCO's problems with IBM will pale in comparison to problems they are about to have, namely folks from the US marshals service breaking down doors and (with a search warrant) and hauling off files for SEC to review before filing charges.
The end may be near for SCO, and it will probably be alot more unpleasant than any of us could've hoped for.
So Long and Thanks for all the Fish.
Effectively, all that means is that Darl's wife (plague ridden cow) is home (SCO's castle).
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Groklaw's new page appears to currently be slashdotted. The text of the article in question has already been posted, but I figured someone might want Groklaw's old URL. The mentioned article isn't there (they haven't updated the old page in a few days), but if anyone wants to go through Groklaw's excellent archives, they're still there.
So switch to propriatary AIX instead and be safe.
KFG
That is all
It's easy to work something out once you know about it.
But if you never knew it was coming? Imagine you ran a hobby site on a 2Gb per month, $10 per extra 50Mb deal. You might only find out 6 hours later, by which time you'd been hit with a bill of $500 or something. Nice, eh?
Not to mention it's absolutely useless if no-one at all can get to the story.
Get your own free personal location tracker
Idiots.
They didn't bother to check any of the information presented.
They did do any research into the market or Linux or SCO. None. Nada. Zero. Zilch. They took SCO's press releases as gospel.
They're idiots and anyone who invests based upon their advice is also an idiot.
Groklaw got "slashdotted".
Oh well. I am getting tired of this SCO bullsh*t but this article seemed to be interesting.
Are there any mirrors?
I really HAD another userid
It took me two minutes just to find where Linux actually started on that chart, and I'm still not sure 5 minutes later what all the rest is supposed to say.
Which I suspect is the point.
'Sensible' is a curse word.
A little off-topic, I know- but...
/. effect will subside.
I wish slashdot would give some sort of statistics on how many click-throughs to an article have been initiated (say in the last 10 minutes or so)...
As it is there is no way of knowing when the damn
just a thaught.
....move along....nothing to see here....
Who's gonna start the betting pool for the linux community?
;)
"Guess the day SCO execs get charged with some fraud indictment."
I'll take Dec. 4, 2003.
The orignal tree.
As others have noted, this tree really means nothing in terms of actual code.
For instance, Linux appears to be an offspring of Minix, which in turn is an offshoot of the original Unix.
Now, anyone who's read the preface to Andy Tanenbaum's book (where the entire Minix code is listed) knows that Minix is a clean re-implementation of unix, and contains no UNIX code whatsoever.
Linus, in turn, used some Minix code to get started with Linux, but this was quickly replaced. Linux hasn't contained any Minix code for years.
So this chart, although correct with respect to 'influence' or 'inspiration'
has nothing to do with actual code. Naturally, it doesn't provide any real support to SCO's claims.
That would be something like Digital Research suddenly claiming ownership of Windows, since it's based on DOS, which in turn was based on QDOS, which was a CP/M clone.
google cache
"Go to CNN [for a] spell-checked, fact-checked summary" -- CmdrTaco
new SCO story.. my preciousssss, yesssss
Man talk about misrepresenting the facts about Unix history and just plain out lying on Mcbrides part. He sure did snooker those guys. I always figured Mcbribe a carpet-bagger and snake oil salesman.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
Some form of a "HTTP Bittoernt" would stop the /. effect on the little guys. Everyone who views it gets to serve it.
SO, by this argument, companies that want a "normal business plan" are going to switch leased vehicles, package carriers, trash haulers, office suppliers and all other things each time there's only a press release about legal action. Not a suit, and nowhere close to a judgement.
You, sir, are completely deluded to the merit of SCO's claims. They have none. IBM, Groklaw, FSF, Torvalds, HP and countless editorials concur.
SCO's ideals don't feed your employees. Money does, and the Linux OS is still free last time I checked. Say it with me sir, F-R-E-E.
Yeah, I see a few of these posts from ACs.
I'll bet these posts are planted by people hoping to make a buck out of SCOX stock or something.
There's a no way a serious company would spend an incredible amount of time and money migrating away from Linux based on SCO's threats.
What a co-incidence! I am the CEO of a ginormous fortune 1 company that is doing exactly that! Joe, is that you? Don't even think of showing up to work on monday!
You must be from RIAA or the Bush Administration to think they actually have a plan.
Since anyone can sue anyone in a civil suit, it's likely you could still be sued and held accountable. Think about it: you've formed a shadow company after SCO makes claims about linux, it's wholly owned or controlled by you and has no other customers.
It would demonstrate that you knew you were vulnerable and you engaged in a conspiracy to mask your vulnerability.
IANAL, but I don't think you can shirk that easily. Perhaps if the shadow company had other customers unrelated to yours *and* there were no ownership links between you and the shadow company this might be a viable idea.
Then buy HP Linux servers. HP has idemnified their customers, so you can't go "bancrupt" because of using their Linux. And by the way, how much is SCO paying you to post on /.?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Again, I can't see how MS could legally make a EULA that would affect competitors in such an obvious way and not get pulled back into court for anti-trust violations.
Two words: Bush Administration
(This is coming from an ex-conservative, no less)
Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen
The service guy is being real reasonable, saying bring the car by, we'll look at it, and if there's a turd, remove it.
But she's not having any of it. She just goes on and on, and on...
Of course, this was all just a prank phone call, but it seems to sum up the noise from SCO towards the OSS thus far. SCO's the bitchy woman, who enjoys complaining more than getting things fixed. The OSS is the service guy just trying to fix things, if indeed there is a (unlikely) turd (SCO's code).
Of course, the car is hers (unlike the kernel source code), and presumably the turd is not hers (unlike SCO's code), so the analogy doesn't quite work there. But you get the idea. (OK, I'll shut up now.)
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
While it's all easy to sit back and call Renaissance dumbasses, they probably bought SCOX at < $1, and now own a ~ $20/share stock. I know, I know, it's ill-gotten and short-term gains, but if they were to sell now and make ~$19/share they have made a HUGE profit that is fair-and-square according to the laws of this country - after all, they honestly (if stupidly) believed SCO was a good investment. That's a little different than the pump 'n dump scheme many of us suspected.
I'm not standing up for SCO or Ren. But the louder we screech how stupid they are, the harder they laugh on the way to the bank.
"Stop throwing the Constitution in my face, it's just a goddamned piece of paper!" - George W. Bush Nov. 2005
Here!
are available here at Renaissance Ventures site. Pretty amazing stuff. They even have a table calculating how much money they think SCO will make with an IBM settlement.
... wonder if they have paid their SCO tax?
http://www.welton.it/davidw/
Just remember mantra...
The private sector does everything right.
The government does everything wrong.
Idiocy is the exclusive right of the government sector.
Anyone want a bridge?
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Bush blows up Iraq. The United Nations ask Bush to take financial responsability for the damage Bush caused. Bush refuses. The U.S. budget explodes and that's unpopular. Bush loses, and is forced by Elections 2004 to assume responsability for his actions.
That's what elections are for-- throwing irresponsable dimwits out of office.
SCO Intellectual property pedigree chart looks like this UNIX History.
You can make your own graphics.
These guys hyping the stock to nieve suckers should be reported too.
A rather lame joke. In any case, there's no excuse for not wrapping links in HTML anchor tags.
Please, PLEASE tell me you're trolling. Restore my confidence in humanity. Please.
No... wait...
Is it lying to Peter in order to rob Paul?
Or is it paying off Rob, in order to lie to Peter and sue Paul?
Wait! I got it! Rob lies to Paul who sues Peter who's also been lied to by Sue who's robbing Peter of his source code which was inspired by different source code initially written by Paul and debug'd by Rob when Sue was dating Pauls older brother Don Knuth.
Meanwhile, Don Knuths older brother, Don Corleone, was busy making Peter an offer he could not refuse. Unfortunately, Peter, Paul, Rob and Sue all died in a hail of bullets as Don Corleone went to war with Darl McBride, head of the Tattaglia family.
There's a moral in there somewhere...
Just do what you do best
Arnold "Red" Auerbach.
Yes, yes, I know its off topic!
Don't go to a brothel if you want to buy broth
What possible reason would Microsoft have to fear an anti-trust prosecution?
All your branch are belong us!
Take life easy: one bit at a time.
Today, we just got a memo from the CEO of our firm. Starting next Monday, all open source software that we use and any development taking place using open source tools (this includes GNU tools) must be removed and all OSS related projects will cease. The CEO got a "tip"...
Nice troll, or plant. I really like the parts where you say they are wrong, but what can you do, it's a sound business decison.
Are you the same guy that posted the Our company is switching again post?
SCO: 0WN3D!!1! [UNIX]
SCO: 0WN3D!!1! [GNU applications]
SCO: 0WN3D!!1! [Linux kernel]
SCO: 0WN3D!!1! [Red Hat]
Suckers. Simply acting like the money grubbing fools they are.
Is any of this stuff posted on GrokLaw actionable against SCO and Renaissance, or are these documents those non-legally-binding "forward looking, using words like should, etc, blah" documents that can't be used against them?
(can't see the originals, slashdotted)
I, for one, would welcome a big purple 0WN3D!!1! on Darl's forhead. (let the photoshopping begin) May SCO die a horrible, painful, long'n'drawn-out death in the courts.
I suspect you are a Microsoft plant, your post stinks of very strong FUD.
Groklaw is down. When is Slashdot going to become responsible enough to offer some load sharing to the sites it links to?
Assuming this anecdote is true:
-- It will expose them for what they are and it's going to end in a PR disaster.
-- They won't be able to use apache or sendmail and such in SCO's Unix which would make it worthless. So it would imply an MS only environment. If anything, it would be the ultimate argument to go fully non MS instead.
So I'd say, good, let 'em bring it on.
...shit that I can smell you all the way down here in Antarctica.
>>Renaissance also bought the story -- hook, line and sinker -- that SCO owned the UNIX tree trunk, so to speak, and that all other versions of Unix were branches, or derivatives, off of their tree, including, so they imagined, Linux.
If their logic were correct, then by the same logic, Unix is a derivative of Multics, which in turn is a derivative of GCOS. Thus, by SCO's logic, General Electric owned the whole trunk, but sold it to Honeywell, who sold it to Bull of France.....
Maybe it is time to trade in my GE stock for Bull stock?
Guessing that IBM would have settled is like assuming that a bear would not shit in one particular acre of a woods because you told him not to.
This sig no verb.
I think you hit it right on the head. The 'average' CEO I've dealt with is certainly not equipped to assess this issue and react accordingly. This is a multi-disciplinary process, requiring analysis by a group of some technologically-savvy and some legally-savvy individuals, and one accountant. Personally, my input around the shop has been limited to the technology side of things. For us, the issue has consistently come down to the fact that OSS has become a major part of our infrastructure. Sure we could replace all the OSS stuff we use with commerc*al software to accomplish the same task, but the cost is prohibitive. So far, our CEO has come down on the side that our responsibility to our stockholders is best executed by not needlessly incurring costs to migrate to alternatives. Obviously the legal-eagles in our little focus group could up the pressure to make change, if the lay of the land were to change. But failing that, we see no reason to undertake the migration plan. It is important to have that migration plan though. We needed to know that we could migrate if need be. We further needed to know the cost of such migration (in time and money) to correctly assess the impact of such a move. We needed to have that safety net should the unthinkable happen and SCO prevails. Your CEO (and I know I'm teching someone's grandmother to write #include statements...) is furiously displaying the same sort of vaunted executive expertise that got Ren in bed with SCO. But ask any one of these over-tailored, under-achieving paragons of the corporate ladder the secret to attaining positions of such lofty and virtuous responsibility: Delegate down, follow up, follow up , follow up. Oh, really?
"Talk minus action equals nothing" - Joey Shithead, D.O.A.
"Talk minus action equals
Which one of you's the guy that whizzed on the electric fence?
Stick Men
At least you know where folks stand by their reaction to the SCO crap.
I can't decide if this Infoworld piece is a statement of the rags position or simply a consultant looking for more business. Either way, it's something I wouldn't have expected from Infoworld, it's nice to see where they stand so I can ignore them from now on.
So, who else has made their stand and is in need of ignoring?
Anything is possible given time and money.
fight SCO's illicit and deceptive business practices will illicit and deceptive business practices of your own! What company do you work for, Enron?
Darl, is that you?
1. Collect poop
2. ???
3. Profit!
Is this really a contest? The People's Republic of China wants Linux. IBM wants Linux. Both IBM and the PRC have more experience buying judges/politicians than SCO/Microsoft. The PRC has a lot more money than Microsoft/SCO-and IBM is no slouch.
Maybe SCO may have some success for a while buying off the US GOP-but that just isn't going to happen in the EU or the rest of the world. Do you really think the EU is going to dis the leading techie to come out of that region in ages on behalf of a greedy US corporation? That just doesn't get votes.
Worse case scenario here: SCO manages to force some folks off Linux and onto BSD. More likely, SCO just make themselves, their stooges in Washington DC and much of the US corporate leadership look like fools.
Seriously.
.
I am now of the opinion that corporate entities that break any securities or fraud laws should have their corporate charters revoked, their assets auctioned off to the higgest bidder and the entire list of principals each given a lifetime ban against serving as any kind of corporate officer.
Man, I am strict
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
I pray SCO marches this document into court. It does not mean what they think it means.
That kinda reminds me of how bills are passed in DC. Tack on your shit bill to a really good one and get your shit past of noses.
Which also really sucks.
J
Seriously, Windows hacker in general tend to be script kiddies. But Linux hackers tend to understand the in and outs of Linux.
If SCO did win... I could see every version of UNIX LINUX they ever release being more virus-ridden and attacked than any Windows OS ever was.
I don't say that sarcastically - I mean it. Specifically, I'm being an idiot because I have a cell phone plan which charges outrageously high fees for excess minutes and which makes it unnecessarily difficult to find out how close I am to using up the monthly minutes allowance and beginning to incur those costs.
Imagine you ran a hobby site on a 2Gb per month, $10 per extra 50Mb deal. You might only find out 6 hours later, by which time you'd been hit with a bill of $500 or something. Nice, eh?
My ego is slightly assuaged, however, by knowing that there are people even more foolish than I am, who would not only sign a contract that lets them be overbilled for excess use but would do so for a service in which that excess use can occur at any time, without their knowledge, as a consequence of unlikely but normal events. Aren't there a lot more web hosts to choose from than cell phone providers, as well? Wouldn't it make sense, if you can't afford to pay x*$100 for web hosting, to pick a provider that stopped serving your pages after (x-1)*$100 worth of bandwidth had been used?
There are over half a billion people on the internet now, and another million or so start using it every week. If you're gambling that your web page is interesting to any of those people but that it will never be interesting to more than 0.02% of them, you're not playing with very good odds.
So really, by SCO's logic, Al Gore owns SCO, so you'll be paying Al Gore for your Linux license. ;)
Support Israeli punk bands. Man Alive.
If anything, Multics derivative of CTSS that MIT implemented on the IBM 709/7090/7094 computers.
No, I'm New Here
At some point in the 80's, the IEEE wrote up the POSIX operating system standard. I'd think that would figure into the chart of Unix history at some point.
didn't sco, under their own volition, make the linux kernel available for download(even after this whole issue came about)? and since the linux kernel is gpl, they essentially gave away rights to any source code that *may* be based upon their IP. case closed!
Same goes for DDoS, which, like spam, isn't a legitimate use of the network.
I submitted a complaint to the BBB. I suggest everyone submit one if they feel it necessary. I requested that sco be stoped from 1) Pump and Dumb Stock Scheme 2) Slander of reputable business'/communities 3) Deception to investors 4) Attempt to distroy the competition (Literally) EVERYONE bbb.org!
No, this is
Obviously, although SCO is very, very bad with most of the practices a business is supposed to engage in (like verifying facts, generating code, or conducting business), they are great a fleecing investors out of their money.
We don't need to hear about this particular investory (Ren). You just have to look at their stock price for that.
Ultimately, I don't think it matters. SCO has a 80% chance of being stomped by IBM in court, and given appeals, quite probably a 98% chance of being stomped in court. They have already won (for the most part) in the public opinion court of Wall Street, but IBM is shrewd, well-equipped, extremely well funded, and ultimately in the right.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
I thouht /. was broken. I hadn't seen a SCO posting in about a day.
FreeBSD rocks!
If I read that chart correctly, then they think they own Mac OS X as well. And yet, they are failing to protect their IP by failing to protect their rights.
I wonder why Apple hasn't been attacked. I mean via FUD since that's about all that most of their attacks have added up too.
Seems that if you are going to attack everyone in the known universe without any decent rational, then it's unfair to leave Apple out of it.
plus-good, double-plus-good
It takes up to 30 days to process a complaint.
Don't expect miracles.
--
Slash
Funny to find out that the last question in SCO's teleconference (August 5, 2003) came from the same Herbert Jackson at Renaissance Ventures who had fabricated that "Strong Buy" investment thesis in March 2003 and that "Handicapping SCO - vs. - IBM Lawsuit" paper where they allotted the fur of the IBM bear in advance (April 2003) as Groklaw had published some days ago.
The laughter of those two pals might now be seen in a special light.
-----
"Sontag: OK, the last question.
"UF: Thank you. And that will come from Herbert Jackson at Renaissance Ventures.
"Jackson: Hi, guys, you've been busy.
"McB: (laughs) Yes, it's been a busy few months.
"Jackson: (laughs) Can you comment on any discussions with other software vendors that might produce a (inaudible) legal version of Linux going forward?
"McB: We have a variety of discussions going on and I'm not at libertyto go into detail of all the various discussions that are out there. I can say there are companies we're dealing with that have seen the code, have seen the problem, they're stepping up There are others that are taking the approach to really come after us, and to try and take our legal rights that we have and just squash these rights.
-----
For a transcript of the teleconference see here and here.
So now imagine Adobe finding this handy program and saying "Hey, we own some rights to renaming of image files, so we're gonna sue this guy for infringement on our IP over batch renaming image files of any kind." So they do this, then Microsoft comes in and makes some sort of deal with Adobe to modify their EULA so nobody can use my program? One neither company had anything to do with authoring? Ridiculous.
Minor, simple example. But SCO didn't have anything to do with writing Linux, it hasn't been proven in court, so Microsoft cannot make any deals with anyone such that they can rewrite a EULA.
SCO's position on this is... well, it seems to go something like this:
The original UNIX licenses most companies signed with AT&T stated that modifications to the UNIX codebase would be treated as derivatives of UNIX, and is owned by the UNIX copyright holder (now SCO).
Therefore, anything any UNIX licensee installs in their UNIX instantly becomes a derivative of UNIX, and owned by SCO.
Therefore, any code contributed by any UNIX licensee from their UNIX codebase to Linux is therefore SCO's property.
Therefore, by including this code in Linux, Linux becomes a derivative of UNIX, and becomes owned by SCO.
Now, this is really... creative reasoning at just about every step of the way. But it does seem to explain SCO's statements about millions of lines of code that they own in Linux. Basically, they are claiming that any code that comes from a UNIX licensee is their intellectual property, because it is a derivative of the AT&T-licensed UNIX code.
Or at least, I think that's the story this week.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is... Oops. Frank, I've got your sig again! Where's mine?
Perhaps we should examine the SCO Executive's desk drawers instead... that must be where they're keeping their crack pipes!
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Seeing as how SCO released 32V (amongst other Unixes) under a BSD-style license, that link actually just helps show that even if Linux *was* descended from Unix, it would *still* be free! Yay, SCO!
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
ahem what did Ms buy by the way?
SCo does not own any standard api to unix..opengroup does..
the only thing sco group owns is system v code..
While I do nto have thext of the license that MS bought from sco..
I call your post pure FUD in nature..
MS has for almost 5 years had interfaces to unix type stuff without any licensing becuse opengorup does nto require it in fact..
Don't Tread on OpenSource
Step 1: put all evidence on websites so it can plainly be found
Step 2: get it linked on slashdot
Step 3: laugh as the defense lawyers commit seppuku when they find out the server will be down for the next month
SCO convinced Ren that SCO owned the root of the entire UNIX tree, and that Linux was just one branch of that tree.
UNIX has been 0wnz0r3d by sc0! w00t!
Hugs,
d4rl mcbr1d3
Lots of petrified grits
No sig, sorry.
That is the REASON the VP has to FILE AHEAD if he wants to sell his shares.... it's to avoid insider trading charges.
It's not insider trading.. as long as he is trading on the same info as everyone else.. it's fine.
Pretend for a minute you are a SCO shareholder... just joe american shareholder... would you sell right now (let's say profit was involved?). Whta if you konw their claims are bullshit.. should you selling be illegal?
If and when Groklaw comes back up, read some of the older headlines. Beautiful information in there; don't get turned off by what seems to be excessive sensationalism over the past couple days.
The amount of beauty required to launch 1 ship: 1 Millihelen
And yet if they sold all the shares now they'd be making over 400% in about a year. This looks to me like they were in on the whole pump-and-dump scheme. See who's left holding the bag after these guys unload their stock -- that's the sucker.
-- It only takes 20 minutes for a liberal to become a conservative thanks to our new outpatient surgical procedure!
You may be correct as well, as Multics was supposed to be a group project (which failed).
In the long run, GCOS had more the look and feel that evolved into UNIX anyway.
http://impact.arc.nasa.gov/congress/1998_may/chapm an.html
You have a 1:20,000 chance of being hit by a meteor so you should probably go buy a helmet on your way to pick up WinXtraProfit.
I'd really like to know what kind of diligence Ren did in this case. VCs (at least, those with any brains) don't just take a company's word for it. They look into it *in depth*. I've worked for a variety of startups, and that's how things work (gee, just like you'd expect them to work!)
So at least one of three things seems to have happened:
1) Ren didn't do very good diligence.
2) SCO flat out lied and presented some major-league bogus evidence.
3) Ren believed as SCO appears to believe - that they could get away with this farce.
Note that these are not mutually exclusive.
More and more, it smells like Enron to me.
What SCO is banking on is that IBM engaged in unfair competition law by dumping unix code into linux. Basically, IBM is competing unfairly with SCO by taking their knowledge of Unix and using it to develop linux. SCO proabably has a good chance of winning, on Bois wouldn't have signed on to the case. If you say this is ridiculous, then ask yourself how ridiculous is was that the government was interfering with MS's business, and see whether or not you're a hypocrite. I'll be amused if Linux gets burned by the same type of stupid laws they use to persecute MS.
Vote for Pedro
I haven't read this slashdot for about two and a half months, and what do I see when I get back? Again SCO stories. Will it ever stop?
"SCO convinced Ren that SCO owned the root of the entire UNIX tree, and that Linux was just one branch of that tree."
How was SCO able to do that? I mean there is documentation that proves Linux started out more the 10 years ago with one guy Linus, who has NO ACCESS to the CLOSED SOURCE UNIX tree. How could anyone be convinced it's possible that Linux could be a fork of the existing tree?
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Signed, "Happy Customer of SCO Linux 2.4.13 distribution, downloaded for free but not actually installed."
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Why don't we ask /. editors to change the "Anonymous Coward" username to "SCO/Microsoft plant" instead? It would be a lot more accurate...
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Yeah...
You do realize how many ex-CEO's are in office right?
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
Moderators, the parent is a fucking troll.
Insightful?
Funny.
That guy got consideration for that article. He is mouthing the company line word for word with a one-line sop to objectivity sunk in the middle of the puff.
illegitimii non ingravare
Jebus, I haven't heard about this revelation on Fox.
I'm inclined to agree with that sort of penalty. If you're going to have laws, damnit, ENFORCE THEM!
StyleChief
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government! -M. Python
I don't have PJ's commentary but I saved the docs and they can be downloaded at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/no2sco/
In the files section in the legal documents folder.
This is a temp solution till groklaw. I can't make the files section a public access at the Yahoo Group so if you want them you'll have to join but you can leave after you get the docs.
--Shaun
According to the BBB report...
...Why werent they a member of the BBB before? And I think that the BBB has pretty low standards if SCO can meet them.
This company has been a member of this Better Business Bureau since April 2003. This means it supports the Bureau's services to the public and meets our membership standards.
> impossible to use open source/free software without violating some new clauses in the MS EULA.
In what way will _new_ clauses apply to your company ?. Unless thay are stupid enough to buy new products from MS of course.
The EULA is a contract. The existing software has an existing EULA. That cannot be changed without the agreement of both parties, which may occur if you sign a new agreement, update software, buy new, in which case the new one applies to _that_ software, not existing.
If these new EULA do, as you claim, make it impossible to do some things then it does leave a choice: Throw out what MS tells you to, _or_ keep existing MS software and EULAs and what MS wants to ban and _never_ buy from MS again.
If MS does that do you realize how bad the EU will gangfuck them?
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
So you finally got that brain implant huh? ;)
poke, poke
Is it just me, or does SCO's logic in interpreting this pedigree (unixhistory01.html) imply that BSD's shared heritage with OpenServer have significance? Does SCO mean to suggest that they own BSD as well?
After all, it looks like both Bush and SCO have a lot in common.
Are George Bush and Darl McBride the same person?
- You never see Bush and McBride in the same room at the same time
- They both do FUD.
- When they do FUD, they both do it poorly.
- They both change their stories as often as their underwear
- They both are M$-friendly
- They both are worried that someone's going to look at the basic economic figures
- They both are approaching their best-before date.
- They've both picked wars that were supposed to be over quickly
- The wars they are in threaten to ruin them
- Neither one has an exit strategy
so, are George Bush and Darl McBride twin, brothers, or even (gasp) clones?SCO's claims that these are derrivative works are not based on any kind of common law, but rather specific contractual terms provided when UNIX code was licensed to UNIX vendors.
It was written broadly, and they are interpreting it even more broadly. But Linus never signed any contract with anyone. How can Linux therefore be considered a derrivative work of Minix, even by any perverted contractual definition of the term?
BSD certainly is a derrivative work...what let them slip away as not being a derrivative work, even in terms of common law? I don't know all the details here... I presume they did not sign a contract with the "derrivative works" clause in it, like IBM did.
Even IBM's contributions (such as JFS) are separate works--not derrivative. They are separate files/modules and do not include any modified SCO code....or so I understand.
Matthew
It's called GNU/SCO Linux.
They are species has always been questionable? WTF does that mean?
Aaaah, I get it, you meant to express ownership, i.e., their species has always been questionable.
Ovum has a nice short piece at http://www.ovum.com/go/content_old/019948.htm.
Subscribers can access a longer version dated 12 September, which has more depth.
Having met Gary a couple of times, I personally think his opinion is well worth consideration.
Alternatively, maybe it's time to get a new CEO...
Live Free
Come on...that's funny
I can't give you my name or company but while I was cleaning the kitchen area at this Fortune 500 company, I heard some exec talking about how Darl McBride is g4y n00bite.
I think "3. ????" is actually "Have Slashdot and the rest of the Linux media compulsively give you free publicity and credibility several times a day for months."
Notice that IBM doesn't feel compelled to publicize every exchange between SCO and Groklaw as if it's the discovery of life on Mars....
Last time I looked, Slashdot was a NEWS site, THE premier site for news about Linux and open source software, and the SCO suit is the biggest threat to Linux and open source software in its history.
Given that developments in that suit tend to occur daily or more often, don't you think it's appropriate for Slashdot to mention these developments as soon as they show up?
Meanwhile, IBM is NOT a news organization. It's the defendant in a potentially VERY expensive lawsuit that jepoardizes TWO of its top product lines.
Given that anything it says might be used against it in a court of law, crash its sales, or crash its stock price, don't you think it's appropriate for IBM to keep as quiet as possible?
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
How about a GNU version of VMS? If we could just get HP to bless it it should be sue free. :) :)
Maybe AthenaOS?
It really does not matter in the long run if They kill Linux. It would suck but the Open Source Community have proven that it can write an OS. How about HP GPL VMS! Of course there is always BSD. Fear not they can not win for our cause is just and are programers have not life
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Therefore Linux is not only safe, it's safe.
I take it you mean:
Therefore Linux is not only safe as in not poison, it's also safe as in not bathwater.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I'm with stupid... that's funny...
The tree that everyone has that links Linux and Minix is a hot topic. There is an argument for the connection and against the connection on the UNIX distribution tree.
For the connection:
Linus did not like Minix, which is the Unix he was using when he wrote Linux with his friends. Linus no doubt studied Minix when he was in college and Minix is one of the few Unix (not true Unix) variations that is taught with published code (as of 1991). Minix was no doubt the inspiration for Linux 1.0.
Against the Connection:
Due to the licensing restrictions of Minix (you cannot redistribute any derived work) Linus had to do a clean room implementation with no Minix derived code. Linux is a Monolithic Kernel and Minix is a Micro Kernel. This was no doubt done do to ease of code writing, but Linus and the Minix guy have volumes of arguments about what is better. This split is the key reason that Linux is not derived or a child on the tree of Unix from Minix.
If you have some to add or correct, feel free. It has been 5 years since I was in OS classes and I knew every detail about the arguments between Linus and the Minix guy.
- Kill Yourself, spare us all! -
Have to, sorry:
"Ladies and Gentlemen of this supposed jury, SCO's accusers would certainly want you to believe my client doesn't own the rights to Unix, and they make a good case. Hell, I almost felt pity myself. But Ladies and Gentlemen of this supposed jury, I have one final thing I want you to consider.
Ladies and Gentlemen, this is Chewbacca. Chewbacca is a Wookiee from the planet Kashyyyk who carried a gun and ran from the mob. But Chewbacca lives on the planet Endor. Now think about it. That does not make sense. Why would a Wookiee, an eight-foot-tall Wookiee, want to live on Endor with a bunch of two-foot-tall Ewoks. That does not make sense.
But more important, you have to ask yourself what does this have to do with this case. Nothing. Ladies and Gentlemen, it has nothing to do with this case. It does not make sense. Look at me. I'm a lawyer defending a major Unix company and I'm talkin' about Chewbacca. Does that make sense? Ladies and Gentlemen I am not making any sense. None of this makes sense.
And so you have to remember when you're in that jury room deliberating and conjugating the Emancipation Proclamation, does it make sense? No. Ladies and Gentlemen of this supposed jury it does not make sense. If Chewbacca lives on Endor you must acquit.
I know SCO seems guilty. But ladies and gentlemen this is Chewbacca. Now think about that for one minute. That does not make sense. Why am I talking about Chewbacca when a company is on the line? Why? I'll tell you why. I don't know. It doesn't make sense. If Chewbacca does not make sense you must acquit. Here look at the monkey , look at the silly monkey.
The defense rests."
Aych tea tea pea colon slash slash slash dot dot org slash
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/1997/Nov9 7/scopr.asp
REDMOND, Wash.-November 24, 1997 - Microsoft Corporation today applauded the decision of the European Commission to close the file and take no further action on a dispute between Microsoft and Santa Cruz Operation (SCO) involving a 1987 contract. The Commission's decision follows progress by Microsoft and SCO to resolve a number of commercial issues related to the contract, and upholds Microsoft's right to receive royalty payments from SCO if software code developed by Microsoft is used in SCO's UNIX products.
> The litigious nature of this society is drawing it into a very frightening pattern of litigating for profit.
Only the details are new... they used to hide in a bush until you came walking down the road, at which point they jumped out waving their sword and crying "Half your pack belongs to me!", and you could either draw your own sword or else hand over the goods without a fight.
Now we use lawyers instead of swords, but the basic concept hasn't changed. And there's a potential for lots of profit, if you're good enough with your sword and the shire reeve doesn't string you up.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Interesting analogy. I wonder if it's commonly understood that SCO is the literal descendent of Digital Research. SCO was until recently known as Caldera. Caldera pursued a billion dollar lawsuit with Microsoft re: DR DOS, as it was spun off from Novell with DR rights.
The litigious nature of this society is drawing it into a very frightening pattern of litigating for profit.
If someone steals from you or hits you, you bring a court case against him. You do this for two reasons:
- To make hurting people and stealing things a net loss, so other people will be more likely to avoid doing such nasty stuff.
- To get back what was stolen from you.
If what was stolen from you was your profit, it's perfectly reasonable to sue to get it back.
This is, of course, what SCO is CLAIMING was stolen - their profit for licensing the code they claim rights over - which is why the courts will hear the case.
What happened to the idea that people must take responsibilty for their own actions?
Some people DON'T take responsibility for their actions. Courts determine whether they have acted irresponsibly and if so to force responsibility upon them.
Some people lose their property through the irresponsible actions of others (in the absense of irresponsibility on their own part) and may use the courts to try to recover it.
Of course one way to act irresponsibly and harm others is to bring bogus suits. The courts have SOME mechanism for handling this as well. But it's hard to prove, because you have to prove that the plantif knew he was wrong and brought the suit deliberately and maliciously. The courts do not want to discourage legitimate victims from seeking redress due to fear they'd be zorched if they were mistaken.
Could this be the start of a "my company is failing . . . I need to find someone to sue FAST!" campaign?
No. But only because that's been going on for a LONG time. B-(
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
My name is Sue and I am not happy, you insensitive clod.
My name is Sue.
How do you do?
Now you're gonna die!
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
We're talking about lawyers and judges here. It's important to make simple pictures with bold colors to make sure they easily understand why SCO deserves a boatload of cash.
They don't have Coherent on their chart! I knew I kept those diskettes for a reason. If SCO should win (on BizarroWorld) I have a fallback plan!
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Beyond that... what happened to the idea that a company had to actually produce something or do something useful in order to make money? Lawsuits may have their place, but not in a business plan.
If IP is really "property", once you have some (from inventing it or buying it) a viable business plan consists of making money by licensing it.
Of course that means if somebody uses it without licensing it you have to sue him (or everybody will do it).
So the business plan is:
1) Buy some IP.
2) License it to everybody who will pay.
3) Sue everbody who uses it and won't pay (thus encouraging people to pay up in step 2 or collecting form them in step 3)
4) PROFIT!
There's a lot of that going around:
- SCO
- RIAA
- MPAA
to name just three. B-(
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
F U C K S C O
Even the Bush people aren't that dumb. When every big company in the country except MS screams, the Bushies will see their campaign contributions disappearing and listen. And the companies screaming start with IBM, Sun and Oracle, and go on from there.
SCO's plan held up almost as long as the server that exposed it!!!
Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
The Matrix is real... but I'm only visiting!
Sounds like FUD.
BUT ~ If such a EULA came out of Redmond that prohibits a licensee from using or developing OSS, it would be time to retailiate by changing the GPL. Just add a rider on saying SCO (and MS) may not use any GPL software. Free for everyone else. If RMS doesn't want to do that, write a new GPL-like license that does include such a rider.
If SCO wants to attack, we have to defend.
...SCO directly to jail,
do not pass Go, and
do not collect $1B dollars.
It's a damn statue you idiot, not a law. Since when did inanimate objects become laws?
So you finally got that brain implant huh? ;)
nope.. i just finally switched on the one Mother Nature gave me.
Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen
You know that you are on /. when:
50% of their, they're and there have been replaced by one of the other two.
3. Raise the stock value.
4.Dump the stocks and escape from the sinking ship.
Yes, SCO could have gotten away with it, had they not attacked linux. But they went too far. After me and my blackhat friends are satisfied with DDoS'ing their servers, we'll initiate
Phase 2:
Acquire SCO board member bank account numbers and all of their personal information and sell it to the black market. Let the Identity thieves eat them alive.
Then Phase 3:
TP their houses, smother vaseline, bologna, and saran wrap all over their cars, soap their windows, super glue their car and house door keyholes, egg their driveways, send every pizza delivery guy to their mansion, and subscribe their email and snail mail addresses to as much spam as humanly possible.
Ah, then Phase 4:
?
and Phase 5:
Profit!
Didn't the main character move the red line on the chart, indicating that the front had moved, and they no longer needed to fly?
Yay me!
I've seen a lot of comments on /. about MS 'helping' SCO out... Leaving aside their purchase of a license -- which is not clear what it is for in any case -- I just can't see MS getting involved in the whole debacle, at any level... MS may be many things, but they are not entirely daft. They can see where it's going just as well as the rest of us.
Mind you, they probably don't mind SCO doing the dirty work... but we know and they know that it would be devastating to them if a solid link was found, when SCO's claims are finally debunked.
The solid green line, clearly labeled Linux Pedigree, starts at Linux kernel 0.01 at around 1991. The dotted one is very clearly labeled Linux Heritage in the key, not Pedigree. You should notice the difference and look at the key before just assuming that they're pulling something that they're not, simply because you don't like what they do.
Okay...okay...Bill Joy looks like he should be playing Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet...but all the ones other than Linus, Steve and Bill...they all look like evil Santa Clauses.
Right now I'm a
If you haven't already complained about SCO's conduct to the Federal Trade Commission and/or Better Business Bureau, you really should do so.
The SEC would be more appropriate. This story looks like a smoking gun for securities fraud.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Your first guffaw will occur when you read that United Linux is causing Red Hat to have to play catch-up in "the enterprise space":
"We believe SCO is the top of the food chain in a Red Hat/SCO Group universe".
I love this part, because to anyone who even spent a minute on research it was obvious that SCO wasn't even at the top of the food chain within UnitedLinux. SuSE was calling the shots there, and of course we all know how UL has completely overshadowed Red Hat... NOT!
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
All this Caldera BS means one simple thing: this stock has a fantastic downside.
Does any one know if there are any marketable future contracts or options for SCOX?
Jesus loves you
Maybe if the companies actually scream. But if history is any example, they are more likely to just groan and rollover.
Not that I want to be pissing on anyone's parade or anything. I think the worst case scenario is that open source development is killed in the USA and we become a 3rd world nation.
Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen
Actually, not. GECOS (General Electric Comprehensive Operating System), which became just GCOS when GE's mainframe business was sold to Honeywell, has and had nothing to do with Multics OR UNIX.
GCOS was a batch operating system that had a "time sharing subsystem" (TSS) which was a batch job itself, that just happened to own and talk to all the TTY (and later VT) devices attached to the front-end processors.
I worked on GCOS from 1973 until 1983, Multics from 1975 until 1983, and my first UNIX box was a PDP-11/70 running v6. I've got boxes of manuals in the garage if anyone wants to see the stuff.
GCOS timesharing commands looked more like what we know think of as MS-DOS, or TOPS-10.
I normally abbreviate X/BSD/GCC/Linux as "Linux", but once in a while the "GNU/GPL" part is at least as relevant as the "BSD" part. After all, SCO was distributing 2.4.13 under the GPL, and the BSD parts have already had their relationships with AT&T Unix intellectual property somewhat defined.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
It was long suspected, and has now been confirmed by Darth McBride's ghostwritten autobiography and DIY classic "Eunuchs Made Simple", precisely how Darth McBride was readied for his position as CEO.
This book - now given away free with every purchase of an item from the SCO EunuchsWear lingerie range for the genitally-challenged male - also sheds much-appreciated light on the infamous Fifteen Hundred Letters incident, when Darth McBride, furious at his brand's cool reception by customers, mass-mailed potential customers with the threat to raid their premises with the Eunuchs Unleashed* legal squad, to remove various components of anatomy alleged to infringe his contracts.
*Eunuchs Unleashed - The lawyer-fanatics of the SCO Emperor. They were men from an educational background of such boredom that it killed six out of thirteen persons before the age of eleven. Their legal training emphasized ruthlessness and a near-suicidal disregard for personal integrity. They were taught from infancy to use stupidity as a standard weapon, weakening opponents with boredom.
(With profuse apologies to Frank Herbert.
Does SCO believe that they own SE Linux?
And just how are they going to stop the NSA from using it, or force them to reveal just how many copies are running?
"SELinux"
The missing links in the SCO Tree
I want to know why on one hand SCO thinks that it is okay for their version of Unix to have a "Linux kernel personality" yet it is not okay for Linux to be Unix like or have a Unix Kernel Personality. Surely it takes a duplicitous company of (thieves) to way that they can do the very thing they are trying to forbid Linux to do. I have bad karma okay...I am sorry.... -2 idiotic....Why?
The really bizarre thing about SCO v IBM is that SCO/Caldera seem to be claiming that the Unix copyright would have been worth at least $3 billion if only those meddling kids at IBM hadn't underhandedly turned Linux overnight into a Unix-killer. Why on earth should anybody think Unix is worth $3 billion or more? How much did Caldera pay for it? How much did (old)SCO before them pay? Novell? I'll bet each time it was sold for 1/10 as much as the previous time. Caldera couldn't possibly have paid more than a few million for it; they simply don't have the cash reserves. Unix an antique, a historical curiosity; no one would buy it except for sentimental reasons or for the prestige of saying, "Remember Unix? Well, we own that now!" And the price tag reflects that. Seems like a no-brainer.
I just visisted Yahoo Finance and took a look at their one year SCOX chart.
Most it it was what I expected, stock price gradually going down, little by little, until right about time the filed their lawsuit vs. IBM.
Then, I noticed the tiny bar graph at the bottom of the chart, and spotted something very very interesting:
Namely, that there was practically no stock volume prior to their filing their suit vs. IBM.
Then, from that time on, large and very easily seen volumes of stock changing hands.
Seems to me, that this would be a prime indicator of "something is wrong with this picture" and would warrant a very hard look by the SEC and DoJ. Well, one would hope so, anyway.
Regards,
Fredrick
Reading the comments here, it is clear that very few people have actually read the new "evidence".
What has been "discovered" are two equity research reports from February and April of this year that basically make the case that SCO (at under $4/share) is undervalued, particularly in light of the potential for revenues from the IBM lawsuit and the pursuit of alleged copyright violations.
The report was spectacularly prescient. Today the stock is trading at over $17/share. Far from being embarassed, the authors of the report are likely beaming with pride.
Even if you believe that SCO has no legitimate claim on the Linux source code, their conclusions still could have been justified based on the expected value of settlements.
There is nothing evil about the report. It simply drew an accurate (and richly rewarded) conclusion based on Darl's pronouncements, and their own corroborative research.
I'll even defend their corroborative research. On the one hand you have David Boies pursuing the lawsuit largely on a contingency basis, and a CEO who claims (supported by several journalists) that identical code appears in SCO's products and the Linux code base. On the other hand you have several thousand hackers who don't think that they have infringed on SCO's IP, but say that they can't be sure until they actually see the code. Keeping in mind that if the CEO deliberately misrepresents the status of his company, he can go to jail, who are you going to believe.
MOST REASONABLE PEOPLE, would believe the CEO. Going on about the BSD settlement, the GPL, and SCO IP violations is FAR more likely to confuse than convince. Moreover, even if the CEO is probably wrong, the research report's conclusions remain valid. Only if you can conclude with near certainty that Darl is wrong, can you reject the report's conclusions.
My hat goes off to the report's authors. They made a great call.
I became aware of Linux in late 1991, a month or so after Linus' first announcement of Linux. Linux source was very small at that
time, although it could be used as a completely fine Unix substitute as early as second quarter of 1992 (which is when I installed it on my computer. I have been using it as my office computer ever since. With hw- and sw updates of course). So, with the small source and everything I followed all the development very closely, including test-driving alpha- and beta versions of the first network code and the first non-minix-compatible filesystem (ext, precursor to ext2). In fact I read every single line of sourcecode put into Linux from the start and up to around 2.3.50, when the amount of code finally grew to more than I could absorb.
With the above in mind I can tell you that insinuating that there is any link from Unix to Xenix to Minix to Linux is so off the mark that it leaves me almost speachless. I've watched every line of code painstakingly put in by the early developers of that small, but already fully functional and useful Unix-line operating system called Linux. Useful as early as 1992, and everything was written from scratch. I saw it happen.
The first riddle I ever heard, one familiar to almost every Jewish child, was propounded to me by my father:
Sound like anybody we know?Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
I worked GCOS from 1978 thru 1985. The look and feel was like both UNIX and DOS. I was recruited to work on a cut down version of GCOS by Honeywell, but turned them down. From 1978 thru 1981, I was at Honeywell's beta site.
I did work with some people at one point who were in a position to know. Just because you are aware of one parent of something, doesn't mean you are aware of ALL of them.
My PDP experience was all running the Digital OSes. (OS/8 and OS/11) I was never a fan on UNIX, even when I was at AT&T.
I've got manuals too, but what does that prove?
"Info World" Sept Issue has a great article on the Q
if SCO Wins or Looses.
Their bets are on IBM.
Anyhow debian fans can always move to
Debian Hurd !!!
Judge Moore isn't a federal judge, correct. He is the Alabama State Supreme Court Chief Justice - an elected position. Which just goes to show you that maybe an elected judiciary isn't such a great idea either...
The framers of the Constitution did a pretty good job of placing an unelected judiciary, with carefully proscribed powers, to check the potential runaway legislation of an elected Congress. Works pretty well, if you ask me...
Everyone will start to cheer when you put on your sailin' shoes.
No, no no... That's not Xenu of Scientology fame, that's Xinu of Douglas Comer fame.
Sheez, obviously if it was Xenu, the line would have started way to the left of the whole Unix hierarchy on the chart -- we're talking 95,000,000 years ago, after all.
- "History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men" -- Blue Oyster Cult, 'Godzilla'
Debunking the "59 Deceits"
Debunking the "59 Deceits"
So you think that extortion is not a valid business model? The Mafia has made it work for years. Of course, the Mafia is something that always operates "somewhere else", but we all know people who would provide financial backing to your neighborhoold bully if they thought they could get away with it. Venture capitalism has never been known for strong social ethics.