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."

Comments

Re:Wonder if they used this?

[cybermace5]

The format of that web page is PERFECT for printing in banner mode on an inkjet printer. Using a roll of toilet paper, of course!

The fall of the Trolls

[GillBates0]

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.

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...

...they kicked SCO's big'n'salty donkey balls.

New light to shed on Bill Gates, Microsoft and SCO

[Anonymous Coward]

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.