Posted by
ryuzaki0
on from the please-be-polite dept.
AndyFewt writes "TheRegister has an article on the latest form of SCO FUD, their Roadshow. Funded by HP and kicking off on Oct. 7, SCO users throughout the U.S. and Canada can get their chance to go show Darl just how much they "love" SCO. But of course, Linux users are free to attend."
The REAL news
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
At the end of the day who cares about SCO, really? The real news is HP. Are we going to let HP think that it's okay to back SCO. That's the REAL question.
SCO's latest filings
by
eddy
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Docket Text: Motion by SCO Grp to extend time until 2/4/04 for pla to amd pleadings and add parties
So, any guess on parties?
-- Belief is the currency of delusion.
Re:Slashdot Press
by
thesupraman
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Actually, I would say this is one of the more useful SCOish pieces for a while - SCO coming out into the wild and talking to people could quite likely backfire on them if the masses can get a little organised.
I'm not of course talking about the crowds of screaming protesters approach here, but with a little consideration, organisation, and information a lot of their FUD spreading could be turned around on them.
To me this looks like a great opportunity - if this doesn't backfire on them, nothing will, IMHO.
Of course they may be hoping for, and may unfortunately get masses of idiots there making the non-SCO *nix comunity look like the revolting peasants, lets hope not.
A list of 'standard' questions should be distributed to be asked of SCO at these events, and the list should be tuned and improved as we find out what they have the most trouble answering.
Nothing scares these kinds of lawyers like an organised and informed public!
Funded by HP?
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
All of the articles I read about Sun on Slashdot end up mentioning Sun "funding" SCO regardless of the fact they were coming up to date on a 10 year old license.
Now, HP is directly funding SCO and nobody has mentioned anything yet. I was under the impression HP was another major friend of Linux who helped in development (such as LVM) and pushed Linux servers.
If this is true, who is on Linux side in the SCO vs IBM battle? Right now, it seems only Red Hat, IBM and the community. 50% of IBM's revenue comes from Global Services. Linux is a perfect opportunity to continue to expand this revenue since they are the only major player with both brand appeal and the size to appeal to almost any customer. With HP directly funding SCO to help them market their products they don't seem like much of a friend.
It looks like the OSS community might need to re-evaluate who their true friends are.
An Idea..
by
thesupraman
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
How about people (well behaved of course) turning up outside these functions and giving all attendees free linux distributions and information as the arrive and leave?
Nothing like spreading a little information - and if SCO tries to block it, it makes them look like the bad guys.
For the cost of a couple of hundred writable CD's and some time a lot of good could be done to a very good target audience.
Re:An Idea..
by
zerocool^
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
For the cost of a couple of hundred writable CD's and some time a lot of good could be done to a very good target audience.
That would be AWESOME! Get a spindle of those little bitty CD's that hold like 175 MB's (the 3 inch ones like these) and just burn the linux kernel onto each one.
Write on them, in sharpie, "SCO's business model is based on selling you this free software".
Then hand them out at the show.
Oh, it's brilliant! Also, put like an autorun.info or whatever makes things run in windows and have it pop up like a flash or html presentation of why we think SCO is full of shit.
~Will
P.S. The SCO code bounty is up to $350 on pink fairies, and no one has claimed it as of yet. Not that I suspected that anyone would, but no one has come forth with code "from the inside" yet.
-- sig?
A delicate question to US readers
by
greppling
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
I have a question to the few American slashdot readers, if there are any:
In a German article on SCO/Cannopy, I recently learned that Darl McBride is a "devout mormon". Now, I have never seen this mentioned anywhere in the many articles on SCO/McBride, even when they were specifically talking about McBride's personality.
Of course, his beliefs do in no way at all affect my factual views on his mission against Linux/GPL. But nevertheless, knowing he is a believing Mormon changes my understanding of him as a person, and possibly of his motivations. Maybe it should not, but it does change my reaction to many of his strongly worded statements.
Now I wonder why I never saw this mentioned in American articles. Is this because Americans don't think it matters? Is this because, while they know it might matter, they want to keep that out of the discussion? Is it an unwritten rule that religion is kept out of controversal discussions? Even when analyzing personalities? Or is it just not widely known that he is Mormon? Or is it, to the contrary, just implicitly assumed by US readers that a person such as McBride is probably strongly religious?
I am posting this despite knowing that it might be misunderstood as being negative on religious people, or religion in general. It is not meant that way. It is just that knowing whether someone is deeply religious or not is an important aspect in understanding his motivations.
Re:A delicate question to US readers
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Americans are loathe to discuss religion publicly; though privately they will talk about it. Mormons are not a well liked religion; they are thought of as a little crazy. Mormonism is a relatively new religion and I guess all religions start off as a bunch of crazy fanatics. Mormons are having a little trouble shaking their reputation. Most people in the US are familiar with their door-to-door salesmen dressed up in circa 1960s nerdy business casual outfits.
McBride's religion is not a big issue here in the US. Though the Mormons are a bit clanish and the SCO suit is filed in Utah: the only state with a Mormon majority. There is some fear that the Mormons "may scratch each other's back"; though it's not discussed.
Americans will complain privately about "Hebrew dominated media", "too many blacks in the NBA", "bunch of white frat boys running business", "too many Indians in hi-tech", etc. But we don't discuss them openly in public dicsourse.
Re:What to ask them?
by
bfields
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
What should I ask SCO when I'm there if I get a chance to ask one question?
Based on previous stories the best thing to bring may just be a digital camera good enough to reproduce the text of any slides....
But personally I think it's most interesting to ask when we'll see evidence to allow us to evaluate SCO's claim that Linux infringes SCO's copyright. They seem to like the idea of turning this into a "free" vs. "proprietary" debate, which is of course just an attempt to draw attention from the main question of whether there's actually any infringement going on.
--Bruce Fields
Re:Sponsored by HP !?!?!??!?!?
by
Pembers
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
A post further down says the page about the roadshow on the SCO site no longer mentions HP. Instead, it says the sponsor is a company called Microlite, whom I'd never heard of before today. From a cursory glance around their site, it appears they do backup systems for UNIX and Linux. I'd suggest letting them know how you feel about their sponsorship of these events, but they mention some SCO products by name, so presumably, they already have some idea of the kind of people they're dealing with...
Slashdot Mirror
At the end of the day who cares about SCO, really? The real news is HP. Are we going to let HP think that it's okay to back SCO. That's the REAL question.
SCO's stalling.
Docket Text: Motion by SCO Grp to extend time until 2/4/04 for pla to amd pleadings and add parties
So, any guess on parties?
Belief is the currency of delusion.
Actually, I would say this is one of the more useful SCOish pieces for a while - SCO coming out into the wild and talking to people could quite likely backfire on them if the masses can get a little organised.
I'm not of course talking about the crowds of screaming protesters approach here, but with a little consideration, organisation, and information a lot of their FUD spreading could be turned around on them.
To me this looks like a great opportunity - if this doesn't backfire on them, nothing will, IMHO.
Of course they may be hoping for, and may unfortunately get masses of idiots there making the non-SCO *nix comunity look like the revolting peasants, lets hope not.
A list of 'standard' questions should be distributed to be asked of SCO at these events, and the list should be tuned and improved as we find out what they have the most trouble answering.
Nothing scares these kinds of lawyers like an organised and informed public!
All of the articles I read about Sun on Slashdot end up mentioning Sun "funding" SCO regardless of the fact they were coming up to date on a 10 year old license.
Now, HP is directly funding SCO and nobody has mentioned anything yet. I was under the impression HP was another major friend of Linux who helped in development (such as LVM) and pushed Linux servers.
If this is true, who is on Linux side in the SCO vs IBM battle? Right now, it seems only Red Hat, IBM and the community. 50% of IBM's revenue comes from Global Services. Linux is a perfect opportunity to continue to expand this revenue since they are the only major player with both brand appeal and the size to appeal to almost any customer. With HP directly funding SCO to help them market their products they don't seem like much of a friend.
It looks like the OSS community might need to re-evaluate who their true friends are.
How about people (well behaved of course) turning up outside these functions and giving all attendees free linux distributions and information as the arrive and leave?
Nothing like spreading a little information - and if SCO tries to block it, it makes them look like the bad guys.
For the cost of a couple of hundred writable CD's and some time a lot of good could be done to a very good target audience.
In a German article on SCO/Cannopy, I recently learned that Darl McBride is a "devout mormon". Now, I have never seen this mentioned anywhere in the many articles on SCO/McBride, even when they were specifically talking about McBride's personality.
Of course, his beliefs do in no way at all affect my factual views on his mission against Linux/GPL. But nevertheless, knowing he is a believing Mormon changes my understanding of him as a person, and possibly of his motivations. Maybe it should not, but it does change my reaction to many of his strongly worded statements.
Now I wonder why I never saw this mentioned in American articles. Is this because Americans don't think it matters? Is this because, while they know it might matter, they want to keep that out of the discussion? Is it an unwritten rule that religion is kept out of controversal discussions? Even when analyzing personalities? Or is it just not widely known that he is Mormon? Or is it, to the contrary, just implicitly assumed by US readers that a person such as McBride is probably strongly religious?
I am posting this despite knowing that it might be misunderstood as being negative on religious people, or religion in general. It is not meant that way. It is just that knowing whether someone is deeply religious or not is an important aspect in understanding his motivations.
Based on previous stories the best thing to bring may just be a digital camera good enough to reproduce the text of any slides....
But personally I think it's most interesting to ask when we'll see evidence to allow us to evaluate SCO's claim that Linux infringes SCO's copyright. They seem to like the idea of turning this into a "free" vs. "proprietary" debate, which is of course just an attempt to draw attention from the main question of whether there's actually any infringement going on.
--Bruce Fields
A post further down says the page about the roadshow on the SCO site no longer mentions HP. Instead, it says the sponsor is a company called Microlite, whom I'd never heard of before today. From a cursory glance around their site, it appears they do backup systems for UNIX and Linux. I'd suggest letting them know how you feel about their sponsorship of these events, but they mention some SCO products by name, so presumably, they already have some idea of the kind of people they're dealing with...
Just another wannabe fantasy novelist...