Slashdot Mirror
Notes From The SCO Roadshow's First Stop
compactable writes "Just got back from the first half of the SCO roadshow's first stop in Toronto. No unfurling of IP, no NDA, however an interesting view of what's running this litigious blip of a corporation. Full details at my weenie write-up (feel free to mirror the contents so that my ISP doesn't kill me)."
Damn. I was interested in seeing the /. in real time... that's why I put a counter there ...
Also of note was the volume of OpenSource software in the box - OpenSSL/SSH, Apache, Samba, CUPS, Gimp-print, bash
Isn't most or all of that released as GPL? The "invalid" license? Does SCO intend to claim that the GPL's alleged invalidity means the software is "license-free" and therefore they can do whatever they want with it? Perhaps they assume that nobody associated with free software can afford to sue them for copyright infringement...
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
I know this is going to sound like flamebait, and if you feel it is then be my guest in using the moderation system to let me, and everyone else, know.
Where SCO press is concerned, Do Not Feed The Troll. SCO are undoubtedly revelling in the fact that every time their marketing droids put pen to paper, their output is mirrored on /., newsforge, linux.com and any number of similar sites. I expect they use this coverage to show their investors how seriously the community takes SCO's business, and how the Linux-using and Open Source Software communities are incredibly worried about the fact that 'they stole SCO IP and used it in their anti-competitive software'. In short, SCO profit from the coverage, and Darl McBride's worth increases with every SCO post on /..
We as a community should not be furthering this action. SCO proved long ago that their statements do very little to reflect reality, and that they are not averse to publishing absurd comments in order to try and gain a few share points. Indeed, at the time IBM showed us what a large organisation of UNIX-types should do in such a situation; they ignored SCO. SGI have since taken a similar approach. However, regular statements by ESR and others, alongside frequent coverage on sites such as this or Newsforge, have shown that the Open Source community cannot help but to rise to a troll's bait.
This may be because of the lack of centralisation of the community, i.e. there is no single mouthpiece from which views are aired. Whereas IBM or the like can carefully control the statements issued by its press department, should someone like ESR decide to express their opinion on a subject, it is erroneously considered to represent the wishes and views of the community as a whole. Now while I'm not advocating restrictions to free speech, I do think that such publications or announcements should be self-vetted to consider whether or not they are helping the very people who wish to harm our winderfully open community.
In summary, as I said at the top, SCO are trolls. Please do not feed them in the future.
If you attend some of the future SCO roadshow maybe ask a few of the ones that they have come up with
Second: If you have any questions that you think needs to be included post it over at Groklaw.
Help fight continental drift.
As someone who's worked on SCO systems, I'd say that would be the best thing anyone has ever done for SCO users. There isn't a single SCO application provider that hasn't already started supporting Linux.
People joke about the ancient feature-set of current SCO products, but even the stability and reliability of what's SCO offers is something out of the mid-nineties. (As in, mid-nineties *Microsoft* software)
Most of SCO's customers, being small-scale retail/manufacturing, generally have little or no IT support and only know as much as their (overpriced) SCO crack-dealers tell them. I'd bet that most of them are still running serial terminals.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"