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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."
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.
3. Raise the stock value.
4.Dump the stocks and escape from the sinking ship.
SCO is trying evry trick to make some money.
Tha's all this lawsuit is about.Cashing in on other people's hardwork
I do hope SCO's claims get trashed.
Any sensible person with a moderately fair background in Unix/Linux can see through SCO's claims
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
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
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
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).
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....
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Besides Linux, they even got Minix and Xinu in there, which were both written from scratch, and are published in their entirety in books. Hmm...
I get it now! They took a chart that had lots of Unix -like operating systems on it (i.e. Xinu, Linux, etc.) and when they came out, and they added some dashed lines to hook them all up! In particular the dashed green line from V7 Unix to Sinix to Unicos and Xinu (which they didn't quite actualy connect) and then down and over to the start of Linux.
Didn't they realize that adding lines to a chart doesn't make it true?!?
- "History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men" -- Blue Oyster Cult, 'Godzilla'
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.
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
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?
See how well the SCO FUD has worked? You think there is some claim against Linux, when actually the only legal claim SCO has actually made so far is against certain extensions of the 2.4 kernel (such as JFS support).
A good many ditros do not, and never have even included those extensions.
Everything else is SCO claiming they claim, without actually claiming it, and then relying on public perception to equate the actual claim with the claimed claims.
And, of course, the second SCO bother to actually identify any code that actually infringes it will be written out of Linux in a matter of a few days and Linux will be "safe" again.
That's why SCO will actually, in the long run, refuse to defend their claims in court where such code will have to be made public knowledge.
Therefore Linux is not only safe, it's safe.
KFG
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.
If you look at it you'll notice the colored line leading to Linux doesn't follow other lines the whole way, it does a magic jump in several places!
Also notice the lines going from linux into Open Server and UnixWare in several places. The chart shows that SCO has GPLed code in their products. Woo!
i don't like my old sig.
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.
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!
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.
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
I know this if offtopic, but the war in Iraq is a perfect example of this.
GWB claims the Brits claim they have evidence of Iraq asking Niger for Uranium.
When the crap hits the fan, and the whole thing is exposed as a sham and an obvious one at that, Don Rumsfeld say, and I quote. "Technically this is correct."
The inferrence was that we KNEW Iraq had WMD, when we were not sure at all. The claim about the claims were much stronger than the claims themselves.
So, SCO is simply playing follow the leader. This, IMHO is completely dispicable, and deserves more than a simple mocking. Frankly, I think people ought to go to jail for these kinds of deceptions, esp when the public relies on them for investing, or for going to war.
If one has a case, simply be upfront and lay it out on the table. If you do have a case, then it's merit will be quickly apparent. If you don't, you can't afford to do this. You have to claim "we have to keep it secret" so that everyone will have no real basis for making an informed decision.
Secrecy, PR BS and "cloak and dagger" insinuations is at the heart of all lies and deceptions.
The moral is...When you hear someone say - "Well, we *know* it's true, but for reason X we can't tell you/show our proof, just trust us. Then run like hell. You've just been lied to in the most blatant way.
Cheers,
Greg
While I agree there are some real idiots sitting on the bench, some of the examples you site are complete BS. In the case of Lee West, his ruling was simply that there was nothing stated in the enforcing agency's charter that would give it the power to enforce a do not call list. You may not agree with the ruling in this particular case, but limiting government agencies to their actual rules and charters is a damn good idea. Congress just added it to the charter, problem solved.
Now as far as the pledge of allegiance is concerned, hell yeah it should be changed. What part of separation of church and state do you not understand? Kids are required to be at school, and required in many schools to say the pledge. If they say the pledge they are acknolodging a god, and dont forget, freedom of religion includes freedom from religion. The pledge as originally written did not even include the words "under god" in it, and the family of the original writer protested its addition during the cold war.
"My head hurts, My feet stink, and I dont love Jesus." -Jimmy Buffett
Quote me the part of the Constitution that says "seperation of church and state".
You can't. It isn't there. It was "added" by a federal judge.
If we are going to hold regulatory agencies back from exceeding their charter, fine. But let's put the same restraint on the courts. If you REALLY want seperation of church and state, there is a way to add it to the "charter"
Constitutional Amendment.
Corporatism != Free Market
F U C K S C O
You're completely backwards there. The Pledge of Allegance, teacher-led in a classroom, cannot be considered a "free" act -- it is coerced. Even though technically a student may opt out of it, peer pressure makes this impossible most of the time. As such, the 9th circut's ruling was a blow for the free exercise of relilgion.
You have to remember that the term "religion" means more than just judeo/christian/muslim beliefs. It also encompasses beleif systems in which God is thought not to exist, or at least is not to be worshipped.
"Orthodoxy is unconsciousness" - Orwell