SCO to Take On Hollywood

An anonymous reader writes "Daniel Lyons, the man you may remember for calling the FSF 'Linux's Hit Men' is now reporting that SCO is 'Holding Up Hollywood.' Their reasoning? It's because 'They're using a ton of Linux in Hollywood, so they've become a lightning rod for us,' says Darl McBride, SCO's chief executive. As usual, Groklaw provides insightful commentary concerning rehash SCO has planted to remain in the news, saying 'Maybe they should fulfill prior threats before they throw out new ones? Otherwise, it could lead some of us to doubt their sincerity.'" At least it's smarter than trying to sell a license to every home user of Linux.

Comments

Where are the Linux kernel copyright holders?

[isolation]

As a Free Software developer this SCO news bothers me more and more as the story unfolds.

From GPL violations to this gangster type activity you would think that someone would put SCO to task here. I still own one share of SCO stock and am holding on to it for no other purpose than to help bring suit to them for these type of actions. What can they be nailed on and how can I as a stockholder help?

Note: I sold the rest of my SCO stock when this mess first started and purchased Novell.

Great...

[tolldog]

Right when I am getting ready to start work in the entertaiment industry again (in a week) SCO has to pull this stunt. I sure hope this doesn't scare people into dropping linux on the desktop or the renderfarm, the industry has just really started embracing it. The cost of swtiching to linux wasn't cheap, the cost switching back, that would be way way too expensive. Compaines with 1000+ box render farms would probably fight SCO on this (I can only hope) because the non linux solution would be going back to Solaris or IRIX, neither of which are cheap OS's or cheap hardware.

This could be the last stupid move that SCO makes. Maybe they are wanting to be bought out. HP has to hate this too, because they are really, really heavy in the CG industry as a Linux solutions provider.

-Tim

Is anyone else just BAFFLED?

[JayBlalock]

I'm starting to think that SCO's strategic decisions are being made by the proverbial room of infinite monkeys. The last few pieces of news about them haven't been maddening, just sad and funny. Opening themselves to thousands of IP lawsuits from Linux programmers? Making a marketing move which virtually hands Red Hat's case to them? And now, attacking an entity which has the power to crush them without a second thought, or even doing more than digging metaphorical pocket change out of the couch?

It's just insane. I can't find any cohesive thread tying all this together.

Let's See...

[TWX]

• SCO Takes on IBM, that is bad from many people's perspectives, but the media doesn't take notice, so many others don't care.
• SCO takes on Sun, SGI, and the like, and no one really cares beyond the computer enthusiasts.
• RedHat files against SCO. No one who isn't a computer enthusiast seems to really notice.
• IBM counterfiles against SCO, which is slightly noticed in SCO stock, but probably more because it's IBM suing, rather than what the suit is about.

What's going to happen when SCO starts actively taking on the very media that has publicized it's side but not publicized the other side of the argument? Remember, many media conglomerations own movie studios, television networks, newspapers, internet sites, and radio stations, or if they don't own them outright, they have a significant financial interest and a certain level of control. If the media feels that it's being attacked, it's in a great position to do two things: show the stories in a positive light for others that are also being attacked, and to villianize the attacker. This has the potential to be the single largest screwup that Caldera International d/b/a SCO Inc has committed.

This one I'm actually interested to see play out. This is going to be fun to watch.

Losing the media

[Nucleon500]

Although it's taken far too long, I think the mainstream media (Forbes, in this case) is beginning to catch on. Before, they just parroted SCO ("SCO, owner of Unix, has sued IBM, and the free Unix derivative Linux is at risk.") Now, however, we see the media going under the surface, creating quotes like "[SCO] didn't even play a role in creating Unix," and, "McBride's assault on the "peace and love" Linux movement already has made SCO the most hated villain in the computer industry. Now he wants to shake down the people who make cartoons for kids." I expect that in a month or so, the media will be overtly telling people how much of a farce this really is.

This article was mostly good, but I wish they had picked apart McBride's "'Boy, this free stuff is sure cool!'" lie - the difference is that the creators of movies don't want them to be free, while the creators of Linux do, and McBride's the one usurping our copyrights. Also, the author slipped up and called Linux freeware, but that's a minor distinction to everyone but us. And there was quite a bit of emphasis on people investing in SCO, but hey, this is Forbes, so what a company does is secondary to how its stock will react.

As for SCO itself, it's difficult to understand why they are so suicidal. They've ruined their defense against RedHat by explicitly threatening to sue their customers (assuming RedHat has at least one customer in Hollywood.) They're extorting from companies even bigger than IBM, companies which might have more to lose, companies that exert some control on the media, which SCO desperately needs. Everyone assumes Microsoft, but one would think Microsoft could buy higher-quality FUD, and hide its ties better. Pump-n-dump doesn't quite fit either - McBride isn't making any attempt to appear like he has a case anymore. Anyone who can't tell he's a raving lunatic isn't looking hard enough. I remain frustrated at our incredibly slow legal system, which won't do anything about this for at least two more years.