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Forbes Examines SCO Subpoenas
z4ce writes "It seems that Daniel Lyons of Forbes just wrote yet another article on the IBM vs. SCO law suit. Now, Daniel seems to seeing SCO for the liars they are. One of the choice quotes include, "What's the point of hassling people who make chips and set-top boxes? Don't ask SCO's top execs. They don't know anything about this stuff, remember?""
Man, this SCO crap is getting as bad as when Napster first went under attack. How about we just hear about it once a day until either its settled, one of the parties backs out, or the trial starts.
Enough speculation, lets quit getting our panties in a bunch until the real meat of the lawsuit comes to life.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Almost right. Should be "Stallman's GNU operating system", since RMS has very little to do with Linux.
SCO's purpose is to pump their stock & keep their name in the headlines. These actions suit their purposes wonderfully.
IMHO this is a delaying tactic. IBM is asking SCO to put up or shutup. Now SCO can say "wait until our latest round of discovery; then we'll show you." It's consistent with the theory that SCO doesn't want this thing in court.
--- Often in error; never in doubt!
Stallman's GNU/Linux operating system is not the target of SCO's suit. Linux, the program SCO is targeting, is not an operating system, but only the kernel of the GNU/Linux operating system, which could run using a different kernel.
Nope, the press is still wrong-headed about this. Firstly, the operating system is not RMS's, although he certainly made valuable contributions toward it. Secondly, if the GNU/Linux operating system were to use a different kernel, then it would be the GNU/XXXXX operating system. This bolsters my impression that RMS is always trying to keep the positive associations of the word 'Linux', while at the same time insisting that the work of Linus et al. is a disposable commodity. Weasel words, if you ask me.
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
Mr Lyons is now sounding like a reporting instead of a puppet (or perhaps a SCO investor).
The best cut is:
Oddly enough, on Nov. 11, SCO Executive Vice President Christopher Sontag complained to Forbes about IBM's decision to send subpoenas to investors and analysts who supported SCO. Sontag called the move "an attempt to bully and intimidate" and said IBM was engaged in "legal gamesmanship."
So why didn't Sontag mention that, uh, SCO itself was about to target Torvalds and Stallman with subpoenas? SCO's spokesman says Sontag and Darl McBride, SCO's chief executive, did not know that SCO's lawyers were planning the move.
The CEO and Vice-President did not know what their lawyers were up to!? Well I guess it is a clue to who is running the show.
"I am concerned about long-term entrenched confusions such as referring to a version of our GNU OS as 'Linux' and thinking that our work on free software was motivated by the ideas associated with 'open source.' These confusions lead users away from the basic issue: their freedom. By comparison, the events involving SCO are transitory and almost trivial," Stallman says.
I think RMS is making an excellent point here. Though the Linux kernel itself is not trivial, these issues surrounding SCO will in the long run become trivial. I have no doubt that the GPL and therefore software freedom will be upheld in court, even if worse comes to worst with the Linux kernel (however unlikely that is). Yes, SCO is crazy/dangerous, but in the long run they can't really hurt free and open source software.
More or less dead on. The true target here was never IBM, the target was Linux, and the only way to start targeting Linux as a whole is to target the kernel. Then you move on from there to the GPL (which they've already done). Id be willing to bet most of the discovery targeted at stallman and other G/L people will deal with undermining the GPL, not the kernel itself. This, if successful serves to blow linux as a whole out of the water.
===== Murphy's Law is recursive. =====
Lyons is evidently more careful with his facts than most of the reporters we like to count as clueful. Still, it would have been better to credit GNU to the FSF, and not just to Stallman personally.
"I am concerned about long-term entrenched confusions such as referring to a version of our GNU OS as 'Linux' and thinking that our work on free software was motivated by the ideas associated with 'open source.' These confusions lead users away from the basic issue: their freedom. By comparison, the events involving SCO are transitory and almost trivial," Stallman says.
:)
Way to get your priorities straight, Richard -- putting your pet semantics above the users' ability to use your software legally. For the love of god, someone call in ESR!
Cheers,
IT
Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.
Think for just a minute about how SCO claims IBM breached the contract. Remember, they took SCO's code and put it into Linux? Well, whether they actually did or not, or whether the code in question really "belongs" to SCO (under "derived work") is in debate. But Linus, as the person in charge of changes to the kernel, would be in a unique position to comment on whether IBM actually did this.
As for calling Stallman, it's clearly to deal with the counter-claims re: the GPL, which IBM brought to the table. Certainly Stallman is worth questioning if the GPL is being challenged or used as a point of attack.
-Dan
I think they can still run the SCO stories, but could they not link to every damn article that Daniel Lyons writes. Like Dvorak before him, he has realized that bating Slashdot is a profitable business.
(This article is anti-SCO tilted, but only because he was pissed off that SCO used him as a mouthpiece yesterday and didn't tell him they had also sent subpoenas. He is lashing out to tell them: I'll be your mouthpiece, but then I want the scoops when I talk to you.)
The target is money. Plain and simple. SCO will do whatever it can to make money with this sharpened scheme. Originally, the idea was to get bought out by IBM hence the agreement with Boies' law firm granting them ownership in the event of sale. Then the idea was to force IBM to idemnify its customers so it could get a settlement from IBM's insurance company. Now the idea is to avoid actually complying with disclosure and revealing that they don't actually know what code has supposedly been misappropriated. To stall they are sending subpoenas to everyone remotely connected to Linux so they can supply large amounts of useless information to IBM and claim to the court that they are complying with disclosure requests. IANAL but I know one from TV and his name is Matlock.
Frylock: That's not a toy!
Master Shake: You say that about everything you own. You should own toys. They're fun.
The only problem I see with this is that Torvalds and Stallman, regardless of what people think of them as personalities, are extremely intelligent individuals, not to mention highly methodical. These types rarely "put their foot in it" so to speak. SCO's lawyers, regardless of how intelligent they think they are, are dealing with 2 people that are way above their league in terms of "knowing what they're talking about".
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
Actually, I belive the dump part is happening or has already happened.
I figure they have to keep pumping no matter how insane so they can claim it wasn't just a pump and dump when the SEC finally comes after them.
They must continue... or go to jail.
Imagine if you weren't allowed to use roads because a bus company complained about your driving 3 times. --skunkpussy
Stallman says the Boston-based Free Software Foundation, which he founded in 1985, has nothing to do with SCO's lawsuit. "SCO is suing IBM for violating a contract. We don't even know what the contract said. In terms of the resolution of that lawsuit, the Free Software Foundation is entirely uninvolved," he says.
i don't know if that's a good position or situation for them to take or if that'd help the case. I mean, i guess it's important that SCO loses the case but then if it's a matter of a contract and what the contract says then maybe IBM might be in trouble if it proves that they've violated a contract regardless of what else. Of course, i think the keyword here is *violated* 'cos i think that what people are angry about is that SCO has not been forthcoming about what violation has happened.
Blame Stallman, then. As I recall, he refuses to be interviewed by anyone unless they promise to use that terminology in their article...
First of all without GNU, there wouldn't have been a GCC and I haven't exactly seen a lot of other choices floating around. There were a *lot* of really crap compilers (every other CS student's undergraduate project) that then seemed to be sold.
GCC worked because of the GPL. Cygnus did a lot of work on it, but they didn't write it. Drepper, if anything, is only talking about the C library which has changed in major ways over the years. RH are doing a lot of work on GCC, but so are very many other people. Without Stallman's development model and his emphasis on portability in the original design, it wouldn't have happened.
I did some hacks on GCC many years ago (early 2.x) to fix some issues with a port and whilst a lot of people had contributed - it was clear that structure came from Stallman.
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