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?""

Comments

The tides, they are a-changin'

[Space cowboy]

Excellent - it seems I'm reading more and more critical-of-SCO stuff these days. Just desserts, and all that :-)

Simon

Re:The tides, they are a-changin'

[orcrist]

Eggplant62 said: A blatant attempt by some big money corporate thugs to take over the finest collaborative work this world has ever seen.

Then you said: I'm partial to the Bill of Rights, myself.

I agree the Bill of Rights trumps Linux overall (though it could be argued that Linux enjoys more support than the former, unfortunately) and is a fine piece of work, but collaborative?:

The Bill of Rights: A BRIEF HISTORY:
The American Bill of Rights, inspired by Jefferson and drafted by James Madison, was adopted, and in 1791 the Constitution's first ten amendments became the law of the land.
Additionally, James Madison used "The Virginia Declaration of Rights" as a basis, but he essentially wrote it alone.

I think it could be argued -- independently of the individual projects' merits -- that many open-source projects are without precedent at least in their collaborative aspects.

-chris

Congrats, Forbes

[grub]

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.

It's refreshing to see mainstream media getting it right.

Daniel Lyons ?

[Jesrad]

You actually mean Daniel "FSF-are-hitmen and Linux-users-are-religious-fanatics" Lyons ?

Quite a change in tone ! Oh, well, maybe he's grown as tired of the SCO-IBM case as I am...

Re:Daniel Lyons ?

[javaxman]

I'm going to guess two things after reading this latest article by Mr. Lyons :

1) Daniel had to face some of the criticism generated by his previous articles, and recognize that criticism as legitimate. Maybe one of his editors caught wind of what was going on and had to have a talk with him. While the top brass at Forbes are obviously pro-business, they don't want to be seen as biased or ( worse ) unable to comprehend current technology issues.

2) He's woken up to the fact that SCO has used him as a mouthpiece in the past, and realized they're trying to do so again. Perhaps he is understandably bitter about that. Good. Maybe he'll be more careful in the future.

To me, he'll always be the idiot who wrote an article about the FSF's lawyers being hit-men without having actually bothered to understand the GPL or research what the FSF's lawyers do. It's nice to see he can learn, though...

This isnt a desperation move, not to SCOs thinking

[j0keralpha]

It would seem to an outside observer that SCO is getting desperate and seeking discovery from anyone they can get their hands on(this is alluded to in the article). Im not sure thats how they are thinking. SCOs logic trail seems to follow two basic paths:

1. We know there is UNIX code in linux, and we need to bring in as many people as possible to show how fragmented and uncontrolled Linux Development is. This will make the court favor us, as we can show a lack of true orginization on the defendants part (the defendant being Linux, not the legal defendant e.g. IBM).

2. We have gone on record disclosing that our revenue model is largely based around SCOSource, which is largely based around people paying us for our IP. Ergo, we have to show people that we can win(otherwise we have no IP to charge people for), and to do this we must undermine Linux's Credibility.

The practical upshot is that the 'buckshot' discovery model is aimed partially at garnering as much information possible (relevant or not) and partially to illustrate to the court that there is no one authoritative 'source' to the problem (thereby undermining the general credibility of linux with the court, making the court more inclined to see it as a dangerous conglomeration of not-necessarily-IP-abiding individuals.)

I know this is supposition, but like many of the other theories about why SCO is doing what they are doing it fits well in the facts.

Linux hitmen

[goombah99]

His previous article was called the Linux Hitmen and painted the EFF in a really ugly light almost like they were the extortionists not SCO. So its quite a aturn around. or maybe he just hates everyone.

The article is written in a very casual almost unbussiness-like tone of voice--odd for forbes. I bet it does not make it into the dead-tree edition of forbes read by real bussiness types, so it wont have much impact

Lyons just trying to _appear_ balanced, maybe?

[wa1hco]

I'm not sure David gets it, yet.

Groklaw.net (IBM's Subpoenas to Analysts and Investors: Why? Why? Why?) points out that IBM's going after the network of analyists and investors, possibly because this whole SCO/Linux thing looks strikingly similar to a pump and dump scheme the Feds have already found.

Does Lyons need to appear balanced to avoid getting entangled with IBM Subpoenas?

Notice that this article spends more time than necessary on the differences between Free and Open software. If I was a SCO lawyer with MS interests at heart, I play RMS to really divide the community. It won't work, but will generate useful FUD.

Re:Lyons just trying to _appear_ balanced, maybe?

[macrealist]

Yeah, a kind of win the battle, lose the war thing. SCO self destructs, but in the process spreads FUD, starts open/free religous wars, distracts the public enough that MS can launch a (PR) attack on Linux security, and show the business world that a very few linux supporters go too far in their support.

Each SCO move may seem ludicrous, but don't celebrate their demise too much. So far this thing has been awful for Linux at a time when it should be gaining on Windows (security issues).

Re:Confusion ...

[ntsucks]

This sums it up. SCO is suing IBM for breach of contract, nothing more, nothing less. What dows Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman et al have to do with this contract? did they sign it?

Civil litigation is not always about achieving equitible settlement. Its very often about intimidation, marketing, public relations, bragging rights, money, etc. To achieve these goals lawyers regularly entangle as many related entities as possible. Its FUD and intimidation.

A few years ago I changed jobs. My old employer sued me, my new employer, and a corporate officer of my new employer. They sued with an overly broad interpretation of violating a non-compete clause I had signed with them. (They claimed any other job in computer programming was competing.) They knew they would not win the case and they sued my new employer who did not sign the non-compete contract. In the end the judge rendered summary judgement and dismissed their case. BUT-- Guess what? Mission accomplished. I had to hire a lawyer and go to court. So did my new employer and its officer. Ever try to buy a house when you are being sued? Banks don't like to lend money to people being sued. Now other employees of my old company were scared to leave and my new employer had financial incentive not to hire any more of my former co-workers.

SCO is undertaking a similar but grander plan. They are doing some discovery, I am sure, but they also want to intimidate Linux developers, waste their time, and cause them to run up legal bills. They want to do the same for Linux companies.
Thus, providing incentives to "see it there way". It also serves to muddy the public reputation of GNU/Linux itself, its developers, and Linux companies. The later provides a clear marketing reason to pay SCO license fees. All of this also drags out the case, keeping the Linux FUD out there for people to see for a longer period of time. Which of course provides reasons to settle or license up.

SCO's tatics here are the norm, I would expect more of the same in the future.

LinuxWorld editor features in the Forbest article

[softwareJoe]

LinuxWorld today notes that one of its editors, Brian E. Ferguson, features prominently in the Forbes story. Ferguson authored the savvy analytical article SCO's IP Gamble in the current issue, which, as Forbes notes, concludes that "SCO's case a long shot."

Top Story

[rock_climbing_guy]

Check it out. If you go to forbes.com, this is the story at the top of the page, as opposed to being burried in some tech news link.

Re:Top Story

[fferreres]

Maybe IBM got a bit upset, and made some calls. After all, they are official sponsors of Forbes "Executive Connection", as anyone visiting forbes can notice (front page) :-)

Re:objective reporting at its finest

[herrvinny]

Which part is wrong?

1. Nope, not the clueless end users. Lots of stuff about that here.

2. Nope, not the geeks. According to the /. motto, we're all nerds, so it just stands to reason we're geeks too.

3. SCO is a bunch of sleazebags? Nope, no problem there. We've debated that point endlessly here.

4. Writing device drivers? I have to say, I haven't written a device driver in some time, but I have one or two stuck in the ol' code library. Next!

5. LARP games? Nope. Nerds and geeks (I'm repeating myself; see #2) play those.

6. Basements? Well, I'm on the second floor, if you must know, but it's close enough.

Final Analysis? Yup, the author's cool with me.

Re:Confusion ...

[Eggplant62]

Even that Forbes reporter could (kind of) tell the difference between GNU/Linux the OS and Linux the kernel ... how come Caldera, a former distributor, can't?

Because the entity that was Caldera spun off and became Tarantella, then Canopy stepped in and bought out the rest of the business, the Linux distribution, the Unix software, and all the successive rights. The clowns at Canopy probably looked at the failing bottom line of what was left of the business, said to themselves, "We gotta stop this hemorrhaging.. *FAST*!!"

"But how we donna do dat, boss?" I can hear in reply in my mind.

"We'll call ourselves SCO again, so that people will associate us with all that was good in the Unix world -- BIG BUSINESS!! Then they hired Darl and his pals Sonntag, et alia, and put them to work to come up with a bright idea to salvage some stockholder value outta the whole mess.

The most creative thing they could think of was a stock pump-and-dump deal and an attempt to rape the world for the software that they created.

Linus and RMS reply to SCO

[octalman]

SCO
Linden, UT

Re: subpoenas in re Linux and/or GNU software

Dear SCO-folks,

All Linux and GNU code, including comments, is freely available to you and anyone else who wishes to see it, and always has been. Every release and every tiny change is there. Likewise, our communications with our fellow developers with respect to these programs has been freely available for years.

So, what is it you want? You already have access to everything we have on the subject. Just download it like everybody else does.

And then show us exactly what you claim has been misapproprated from your code.

Now, go away so we can write some more first class programs.

Sincerely,
Tux and The Gnu