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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.
So, it is not important that all the big guys are out to get SCO. In any business sector all the big guys are always out to get all the other competitors. The problem is that SCO has said that there can be only one *nix distributor, and the authority of all other *nixes must come from it. While this benefits certain firms, and those firms have provided as much help as they can, it does not benefit most of the sector, and actually threatens their survival. Which is just common sense. It is one thing to compete against the big guys. It is another thing to publicly call for their death. Such a thing tends to turn the fight into a death match. And no one feels sorry for the guy who starts it.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
On the one hand, this all seems so ridiculous, . You've got this two bit outfit suing IBM, which has more lawyers on its payroll than most companies have employees. Same than ups the ante, wants to sue the world and his cousin. All this while claiming as its own the hard work of hundreds aroundt the world.
On the other hand, I can't help but remember that the fate of Linux and the GPL are about to be handed over to the same legal system that got OJ acquitted 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.
The way this McBride talks (IBM, Red Hat, HP, now Novell, next *BSD, then you and me?), it looks like lawsuits will be flying around for a long, long time. Add to this the fact that (yeah, yeah, IANAL) that stupid laws like the DMCA seem give his company at least some grounds for his lawsuits (and besides, who knows if IBM et al. didn't do some really stupid things?).
Who wins in the end? You already know of course: Bill.
Prove me wrong, please!
If you're baffled, it's probably because you see SCO as a company who profits from selling things as apposed to suing people. Their latest shareholder statement seems to really emphasise their Intellectual Property as one of their three main sources of income, but they don't have much exciting to say about the other two. In that light, suing their "customers" is just fine. And so is letting their lawyer set their "business" strategy.
Keep in mind that if McBride does not do what is arguably best for the bottom line of the company, his shareholders can sue him. If you have a bunch of SCO stock and about a billion dollars lying around you can probably sue him for taking a short-sighted approach to keeping his company profitable. Not too many people are in that position though.
The thing that kills me is that SCO's stock is still around $14 (up from $1 in March but falling the past week) - which means that most investors believe that SCO will be worth more in the future. Are they banking on a buyout or a win in court? Yes, I'm shocked, but over the public's reaction. Not McBride's statements.
I think he actually enjoys what he is doing; its all a very big [high stakes] game to him. This is indicated by his allusion to 'David and Goliath' and the 'grasshopper'/'master' remarks at the end of the CRN interview. Alot of money is being made by shareowners because of this play.
Several items point to the hypocrisy behind the whole issue:
1. His allusion that the 'big boys' opposing SCO were purely motivated by Capitalism - while his poor little company was merely pursuing their righteous imperative.
2. Then, he states that he has no responsiblity to 'sing kumbaya around the campfire' with the linux users - not customers he is quick to state ["There are only two industries who use the term 'users,' computers and drugs"] - only a responsibility to increase shareowner value (sounds like capitalism to me, particularly as he went on to brag about the SCO stock going from $1 to $14).
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
This just isn't true and seems to have grown into another one of those self-replicating Slashdot myths. A CEO only has a responsibility to act in the best interests of the company. Whether that is aggresive or passively and frugaly is not a matter of law. Shareholders are welcome to vote out execs who's methods they don't agree with but they only have recourse to the law if the exec(s) act _against_ the interests of the company, whether to line their own pockets or those of another company. In other words they would generally have to act fraudulently to be legally culpible. Losing or making money, and the speed or agressiveness with which they do it is a matter purely between shareholders and execs.