McBride Speaks, In Person And In Print

Phil Windley writes "Darl McBride gave the keynote at CDXPO this evening and held a press conference afterwards. I've posted my summary of his talk and the press conference on my weblog. In his talk, Darl seemed to be saying "Don't hate me. I'm only doing what I had to do."" On the other hand, in this interesting interview with CRN, McBride comes one whisker from likening Linux users to drug users, renews threats to sue end users, and says "all the big guys" are out to get SCO.

Comments

Here's the Meat of the Story...

[instantkarma1]

and I quote:

McBride: Our goal is not to blow up Linux. People ask why we don't go after the distributors...'If you have such a strong case, why not shut down Red Hat?' Our belief is that SCO has great opportunity in the future to let Linux keep going, not to put it on its back but for us to get a transaction fee every time it's sold. That's really our goal.

what it comes down to:

[CAIMLAS]

is lies. Damned dirty lies. He says:

If I'm Merrill Lynch and have a trading application proprietary to Merrill Lynch and deploy it across all my trading desks, if that deployment occurred where the Linux OS and app are distributed togetherm there are arguments that Merrill would have to provide their proprietary trading application in source form to everyone. That's a problem.

Go read the GPL. Nowhere is that said. This is purely a lie to get people to not invest in linux, or to use it; the only other alternatives, of course, being SCO... and MS. SCO is likely to benefit little - their technology isn't capable of doing what most people use linux for. So MS gets the customers. Combine that with the SCO discount for converting to MS, and everything else...

I'ts pretty damned obvious to those that know even the most basic things about the GPL and IP law that SCO has no case. McBride makes inference after inference, and all of which are lies. Add them up, and to most people, it's a convincing case. Now to get this thing into court and smack him in the mouth. ... but what if hte court agrees with SCO? what if money is passed under the table? this is a case of -very- high stakes, for both sides. If SCO is found in contept ,or anything like that, SCO loses big time, as does MS, as now most people see them as being in bed with SCO (at least in the tech field). The other way, linux wins, big time. Talk about a stacked deck - now it depends on how it's cut.

Given MS's history of buying politicians....

Don't just sit there, whine and complain.

[Understudy]

I orginally posted this on the "IBM Puts Pressure On SCO" article. However I posted it very late. So I will post here again. If you don't like what SCO is doing complain about it. Here is a link to help you contact the people to complain to. http://www.understudy.net/weblog/archives/00000014 .html

Re:Why does he hate himself?

[swillden]

With knowledge of possible IP infringement by IBM and others, it would have been illegal for these gentlemen not to follow up on it as agressively as possible.

Unfortunately for Darl, libel, tortious interference with trade and willfully misleading potential investors are *also* illegal, among other recent SCO actions. A CEO has a legal responsibility to lead his company aggressively, but that doesn't give him license to break the law.

As far as copyright infringement goes, SCO has now been spouting about this for a year and thus far SCO has revealed *one* legitimate infringement -- and it was an ancient and trivial bit of code that was removed from Linux without even replacing it, because better code already existed in the kernel.

With respect to the other IP issues, patents and trade secrets, well, the former is really funny because SCO doesn't appear to possess any applicable patents and the latter has also not been revealed, even though SCO has a legal obligation to do so. IBM has now filed *two* separate Motions to Compel, trying to get SCO to say just exactly what IBM did wrong. Early next month, those motions will almost certainly generate a court order. We'll see if SCO can finally invent something plausible when their other option is to be held in contempt of court or to admit that their case is groundless.

In case any true SCO apologists want to point to the million pages of code and the list of Linux files as evidence that SCO *is* complying with discovery, consider:

• Although SCO's own filings mentioned that IBM would need access to an electronic copy of the SCO code in order for IBM to do the analysis required, SCO *printed* all of the code on paper and had it delivered on a *truck*. In other words, they went way out of their way to make it unusable to IBM even though they had already admitted their obligation to provide it in an electronic format.
• The list of Linux files lacked specificity in multiple ways. It didn't specify which version of the kernel it was from. It didn't specify what parts of the files were problematic or why. It didn't even specify the file names correctly -- they were all mangled and some of them were misspelled! And, finally, the list of "files containing trade secrets" included gems such as:

include/asm-m68k/spinlock.h

#ifndef __M68K_SPINLOCK_H
#define __M68K_SPINLOCK_H

#error "m68k doesn't do SMP yet"

#endif

What, does SCO own C pre-processor macros?

There was another funny one (which I can't find right now), which happened to mention IBM in a comment regarding a hack used to work around some misfeature of ancient IBM hardware. The file was a driver for said hardware, and wasn't written by IBM.

Pah! It's clear that SCO just grepped the Linux source base (which the community has deduced was version 2.5.59, BTW) for SMP, NUMA, IBM and JFS, excluding matches related to architectures pushed by companies who have been cooperative with SCO (Sun and HP).

You really think a CEO has a fiduciary responsibility to engage in crap like that?

Re:I'm not sure this is so funny

[Catbeller]

..."and awarded millions to some idiot who couldn't figure out that driving a car with hot coffee between her laps was a bad idea."

Actually, she wasn't an idiot, and she didn't get millions.

If you investigate the "idiot's" case, instead of parroting the meme, you will find a couple of things you may not have known.

First, the coffee was not "hot". It was near-boiling. McDonalds in New Mexico had apparently kept the coffee super-hot - 180 degrees or higher - both to satisfy health inspectors who were concerned about coffee sitting in pots for hours, and to keep the coffee hotter longer for take-out orders.

Secondly, there were over 700 cases of such cases of people being injured by the boiling coffee.

Third: the woman wasn't driving, or doing anything else other than prying the lid off of the coffee cup between her thighs. The coffee splashed on her pants, and soaked her skin. She suffered third degree burns on her genitals, perineum, buttocks, and inner thighs. She underwent eight days of skin grafts and debridement (think of a steel wool pad scouring the subdermal layers of your now-skinless penis, boys). Normally hot coffee made at home doesn't make third degree burns; it is served at around 140 degrees. Near-boiling coffee, at 180-190 degrees, which McDs had been doing, does. I can add a personal observation: I've been burned by normal coffee, and also I've fallen into a puddle of boiling hot water. Believe me, 30 degrees or more variance determines the difference between a second and a third degree burn.

Fourth. She originally asked to settle her claim for 20 grand. McD's refused her offer.

Fifth. She didn't make millions. Here's a quote from ballinlaw.com:

"The jury awarded Ms. Liebeck $200,000 in compensatory damages (money to compensate the injured party for the injury sustained). The judge reduced this amount to $160,000 because the jury believed the plaintiff was 20 percent at fault. The jury also awarded Ms. Liebeck $2.7 million in punitive damages. The jury considered McDonald's actions reckless and willful, but despite this, the trial court reduced the punitive award to $480,000, which was considered three times her compensatory damages. "

Six. McD's in New Mexico reduced the serving temperature from 190 to 158 after the punitive damages.

http://ballinlaw.com/mcdonald.htm

Seven. The large judgement was not awarded because the woman was burned; it was because McD's had served the coffee at boiling temperature for years, ignoring over 700 instances of scaled customers. They found them willfully negligent for not reducing the temperature long before the 80+ year old lady lost the skin on her lap.

Here's some more documentation:
http://www.mattenlaw.com/FSL5CS/ar ticles/articles6 .asp
"The coffee was 40 degrees hotter than most other restaurants keep it - close to the 212 degree boiling point.
A national burn center had issued a public warning not to serve hot beverages over 135 degrees.
There were 700 other burn claims against McDonald's before this injury, yet no action was taken.
The victim offered to settle the case for $20,000 before trial, but McDonald's refused to settle. "

"The jury in this case decided that the coffee was a defective product and that McDonald's had violated products liability laws that assure that consumers are protected.

The jury awarded her $200,000 in compensatory damages (to compensate her for past and future pain, suffering, emotional distress, lost wages, and medical bills). The jury also decided that she was 20% at fault and reduced her damage award by that amount.

The jury also awarded $2.7 million in punitive damages. However, the judge reduced the award of punitive damages to $480,000. The case settled for an undisclosed amount before it was appealed."

Now that we've discussed the facts of the case, I'm up for some editorial comment.

BIG point: The vast, vast majority of liability cases do no