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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."
-jls
Techno-pagan
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!
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.
The BBB is great if you want to check out a plumber, HVAC company, or other small business. It is totally worthless for large corporations. Why? Because it is funded by corporations, therefore it is biased. Besides, the BBB has no legal ability to sanction, criminally charge, or otherwise take to task a company that receives negative comments. The best it can do is tell a requestor how many and complaints a company has received and how severe they are. That's great if you need a sound bite for the evening news, but totally useless for policing corrupt businesses.