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

alternative title...

[borgdows]

McBride Speaks, Listeners laugh!

Re:alternative title...

[nysus]

Watch out!

The saying goes a little something like this:

First you ignore them,
Then you laugh at them,
Then you fight them,
Then they win.

Re:alternative title...

[r00zky]

in my book step 4 is: "Then they die horribly"
and 5 is profit, of course

dmca?

[Anonymous Coward]

"The GPL is in violent collision with the DMCA. That's why Linux guys are opposed to the DMCA."

What's he mean by that?

Re:dmca?

[Geek of Tech]

No, I'm opposed to the DMCA, because of the way it has been used as a threat against people with views on technology opposing to a company's view.

Re:dmca?

[aug24]

We discussed this at GrokLaw a month ago.

It's my opinion that Darl et al will argue that: because the GPL requires a licensee of GPL code to give up the rights they have under copyright law to their additions/derivatives (instead of giving up money) then it is not an allowable license.

It's total bollocks when you think about it - after all, any copyright owner gives up rights they have under copyright law when they accept money from a publisher! However, that's my tuppence (like 2 cents, but English).

Justin.

So who REALLY is behind all this SCO nonsense?

[cscx]

You guessed it... Frank Stallone

Tinfoil time

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

and says "all the big guys" are out to get SCO.

Right. But apart from paranoia, SCO also seem to suffer from Multiple Personalities Disorder (once they were a Linux vendor, now they hate the GPL), therefore they'll be fine because they outnumbers their ennemies 2 to 1.

Re:Tinfoil time

[Lost Penguin]

"He's right. All the big guys are out to get SCO. What he didn't mention is that all the little and medium-sized guys hate them too."

Don't forget the gals too.
The whole planet hates him.
Who votes to visit SCO with torches, pitchforks and a rope.
It has been to long since Utah hung criminals.

Always Wondered

[Preach the Good Word]

I've always wondered about people like Darl McBride. Obviously, they are paid a great deal of money to put a certain spin on things, and they try very hard to do it. What I've never understood about the psychology of it is this: do they actually believe themselves? Do they start out knowing they are lying, then convince themselves about it along the way? Or does the notion of truth not even cross their minds, as they are busy trying to define the reality they want?

Re:Always Wondered

[tinrobot]

Darl seems to be of the same mindset as lawyers who defend mass murderers. He simply represents the tiny subset of the truth that best serves his client. I would imagine by repeating that small subset of the truth day in and day out, Darl sees it as the entire truth, regardless of how truly true that truth is.

You also pointed out that he makes a great deal of money. I'm sure that helps a lot.

Re:Always Wondered

[Lodragandraoidh]

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).

Re:Always Wondered

[mcrbids]

Darl seems to be of the same mindset as lawyers who defend mass murderers.

Not the same at *all*. A lawyer who defends a mass murderer is almost always appointed by the court. This lawyer is there to ensure that the legal rights of the defendant are secured. It's a basic and fundamental part of how our legal system works.

With this in mind, it's easy to be vigorous in defending the legal rights of somebody you detest. It's not self-interest, it's moral duty.

On the other hand, McBride is in a different ballpark altogether. Here's somebody who's clearly seeking personal gain at other's expense.

We're talking about something worse than a scum-sucking lawyer... the PR man!

Re:Always Wondered

[rir]

Darl's twisted world:

We're on the side of the silent majority...but at the end of the day it's around who's right. We're rock solid on our claims... and we're not sitting here day in day out trying to counter the stones being thrown at us. We have a business to run. Our roots in the Unix business are strong and won't be blown over by a little bit of Linux wind.

Reality:

We're on the side of the silent majority

Actually, you are a vocal minority.

but at the end of the day it's around who's right

True

We're rock solid on our claims

Wrong

and we're not sitting here day in day out trying to counter the stones being thrown at us

Wrong again

We have a business to run

Not for long

Our roots in the Unix business are strong

No, they aren't

and won't be blown over by a little bit of Linux wind.

Yes, you will.

Re:Always Wondered

[LittleBigLui]

if you count drug dealing as mass murder

i don't count issuing driving licenses as mass murder either, so why should i count drug dealing?

Re:Always Wondered

[arkanes]

He's playing to his audience. The people who's opinion he cares about are the hardcore buisness Wall Street types ("greed is good"), who'll snap up a companies who do things like pay fines instead of complying with law cause it's cheaper. At the same time, alot of em have very John Wayne sorta mentality and they like the idea of a company coming from behing and beating the super blue-chips like IBM. He says a bunch of stuff in that artical which just barely falls short of being outright false - the way he misrepresents Perens statements about the code shown at the SCO roadshow, for example. If I hadn't been following this story, and especially if I weren't familiar with Linux, I'd be pretty heavily swayed by this kind of interview. He doesn't talk about specifics. He plays the underdog card VERY heavily. He sounds very reasonable and very straightforward. It's too bad so much of what he says is unsupportable.

Re:Always Wondered

[Frodrick]

What I've never understood about the psychology of it is this: do they actually believe themselves? Do they start out knowing they are lying, then convince themselves about it along the way?

I have wondered that myself. Although McBride makes every possible effort to come off as a greedy, money-grubbing weasel, I have come to believe that the truth is that he is just too dumb to know what SCO really and truly owns.

I suspect that he thinks that ownership of the source code of Sys V means that SCO has total and sole ownership of every single line of code contained therein.

A person following that (specious) line of reasoning would leap to the conclusion that anyone else who was using the same lines of code had obviously copied it... because he owns his code - he has papers to "prove" it.

Now admittedly, SCO's repeated failure to identity even a single line of supposedly infinging code is not the action of an honest litigant, but I suppose he could be both stupid AND a weasel.

Re:Always Wondered

[Dun Malg]

Darl seems to be of the same mindset as lawyers who defend mass murderers.

Not the same at *all*. A lawyer who defends a mass murderer is almost always appointed by the court. This lawyer is there to ensure that the legal rights of the defendant are secured. It's a basic and fundamental part of how our legal system works. With this in mind, it's easy to be vigorous in defending the legal rights of somebody you detest. It's not self-interest, it's moral duty. On the other hand, McBride is in a different ballpark altogether. Here's somebody who's clearly seeking personal gain at other's expense. We're talking about something worse than a scum-sucking lawyer... the PR man!

You make a good point. I have met many public defenders and frequent pro-bono lawyers who absolutely believed in the system and were quite moral and ethical. Their trick is to tell the client first thing "I don't care if you did it or not. Don't even tell me, because it's not important." But then there's the other kind of defense attorney-- the kind like my cousin Archie-- who use dirty tricks* and courtroom shenanigans to win cases. My cousin is an evil bastard lawyer who is incapable and/or unwilling to see the difference between right and wrong, insofar as it applies in the courtroom. A lot of corporate executives are cut from the same cloth, it seems. I think Darl McBride doesn't even know and probably doesn't care if his techs can come up with proof of IP infringement; he's going let them deal with that issue if it goes to court. He is, as you say, the worst kind of scum: a PR man.

*ask a hostile witness a string of questions that have been gone over before, all of them with "yes" answers. After 20 boring minutes of that, slip in the question "is it possible the gun you saw in my client's hand could have been a toy gun?" and when the unsuspecting witness says "yes....i mean NO" because he was expecting another "yes" question, pounce upon this engineered incident as evidence of "witness uncertainity" and get your scumbag armed robber client a lesser sentence. eeeeeeeeevil......

Interesting note at the end of the interview

[grasshoppa]

CRN: How can you win suing customers and what happens if you go after HP customer?

McBride: The interesting scenario is, do you go after an HP customer or an IBM customer? That's what David is the master of. That's his final decision

So, if I am understanding this, the lawer is in charge.

Anybody else shocked?

Re:Interesting note at the end of the interview

[morcego]

Anybody else shocked ?

Actually, and sadly, no.

Caldera (now SCO) has been sueing people for a long time now. (See: Caldera x Microsoft)

Re:Interesting note at the end of the interview

[tkrotchko]

"Anybody else shocked?"

No, because he's lying.

One of the reasons to hire a lawyer is to give yourself plausible deniability. If I want to cause you pain, you hire a lawyer, sue you, and then claim "Its not me, its the lawyer". The lawyer doesn't care; its his job, and you get to pretend like you're an innocent bystander.

Really, think it through. Darl has the strategy, the lawyer is providing tactics, but ultimately, Darl is approving of those tactics, regardless of what he says in public.

I'm more shocked that people are surprised that Darl is lying. Darl is lying every time he makes a public utterance. Darl doesn't care about Unix, Linux, bits, bytes, he's only trying to raise money, and if you look at it through that immoral mindset, then you say anything as long as it maximizes profits.

Re:Interesting note at the end of the interview

[TrombaMarina]

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.

Re:Interesting note at the end of the interview

[Trepalium]

There was code in the beta versions of Windows 3.1 that showed a non-fatal error message when you tried to start it. It was removed before the commerical release, but it was an artificial MS-DOS compatibility test, and the only real purpose was to promote FUD about DR-DOS. It gave beta test users the impression that DR-DOS may be incompatible with Windows 3.1, nothing more.

Re:Interesting note at the end of the interview

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm. DR-DOS *was* incompatible with Windows 3.1 on release, and DR released a patch.

In fact, DR-DOS was incompatible with a lot of things. That's a different story, but all of those cool features in DR DOS didn't come without a price -- it wasn't MS/IBM DOS and it didn't work exactly the same. Even after it became "Novell DOS", it still needed to be patched to be compatible with Novell's Redirecter. That should tell you something.

Anyone who has ever worked on a software project could tell you that Microsoft wanted Windows beta testers to report bugs against Windows, not DR-DOS. The message had a legitimate purpose beside FUD.

Re:Interesting note at the end of the interview

[nikkipolya]

Oh! don't worry... its the same public that invested in myfoot.com a few years ago. And, yes the stock rallied! it touched the peak, about $31/share. Untill, the company eventually got to the act of deciding what business they wanted to be in... and it became an oft repeated story...

Re:Interesting note at the end of the interview

[Frodrick]

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.

Yes, but there is "bottom line" and there is "BOTTOM LINE". McBride has sacrificed long term corporate viability for the possibility of a lottery-type payoff (at pretty much the same odds).

I don't think he was counting on IBM and the open-souce folks being utterly unwilling to settle, and able to account for every line of code as well as being able to show its history - in some cases right back to the founders of Unix and before. In other words - he doesn't understand open-source in the slightest.

And since SCO has so thoroughly blotted it's copybook with the Linux/Unix community, when SCO loses this fight THEY. ARE. HISTORY. Their revenue stream will vanish like a soap bubble and their stock go into negative values.

That is the bottom line - and it, too, is actionable by shareholders.

I suspect that Boies and Co. think so too. Did you notice - they aren't working on contingency. They want money up front, now. If they truly believed in their cause I would think that they would prefer to wait for the big payoff.

Re:Interesting note at the end of the interview

[pknoll]

I don't think he was counting on IBM and the open-souce folks being utterly unwilling to settle

I'm not so sure. IBM has a long-standing tradition of -not- settling cases like this one, where their business model is being attacked. Quite correctly, they see their reputation and future plans as being worth much more than settling, which in the public eye is often times an admission of guilt.

As far as the Open Source community goes, there is no "settle" at stake - we haven't been sued. We're not engaged in a legal battle with SCO, our fight is one of perception in the public and business eyes.

The more I wonder why on earth SCO chose IBM as a target for the breach of contract suit, the more I believe they chose IBM because they knew IBM wouldn't settle. It makes for a much longer, drawn-out drama which allows plenty of time for FUD tactics, and every day increases the exposure of "tainted Linux" to more people. If SCO's tactic was to discolor the reputation of Linux and Open Source in general, which is seems clear is at least part of their plan, IBM was an ideal target because they won't settle. They'll fight.

Tour

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope McBride comes to columbus ohio - there hasn't been a deent stand up comic here in *years*

Medication?

[Empiric]

Hmm... self-contradiction, baseless claims, conspiracy theories, projection, delusions of grandeur... aren't these primary symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia?

Re:Medication?

[ScrewMaster]

I don't know ... I'm not a psychologist but it seems to me that McBride is more of a sociopath than anything else. He probably knows the difference between right and wrong, but simply doesn't care. I mean, if he were a true psychopath he would probably have murdered a few people by now and have ended up with a life sentence. On the other hand, there are many shades of sociopathy: the neighbor that borrows all your power tools and never returns them, or the realtor that knowingly sells you a house infested with termites. These people know that what they are doing is wrong, but they do it anyway because it gets them what they want. McBride has to know that what he is doing is wrong and is hurting a lot of individuals and companies, but he's doing it anyway because it gets him what he wants. And if he has convinced himself that his actions are correct and aboveboard, then he is mentally ill and should be checked into a good sanitarium. Better yet, make it a third-rate facility ... maybe they'll give him ECT for practice.

Re:Medication?

[enthused i swear]

No, you're thinking of a Slashdot discussion...

Why does he hate himself?

[ericandrade]

1. Attack everybody you know
2. Claim you're doing what you got to do (voices?)
3. P .. .
3. . .. p p p .rrr. . .

3. .. ..... PRISON!!!!!

Re:Why does he hate himself?

[marcushnk]

SLANDER!! Tux is NOT GAY!

Though he might use a rolled up print out of the 2.6 kernel ;-)

Re:Why does he hate himself?

[s20451]

Has it occurred to you that, under US law, a CEO must act in the best interests of his shareholders? Bear in mind that the company would have folded within a year without the lawsuit. 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.

Re:Why does he hate himself?

[faster]

Under US law, the CEO must ALSO obey the law. The law has a few things to say about fraud and misrepresentation, not to mention frivolous lawsuits.

Re:Why does he hate himself?

[Jerf]

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.

You meant to say "as aggressively as is still legal." Being a CEO does not give you the right to engage in extortion or to make untrue statements.

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:Why does he hate himself?

[dbIII]

thus far SCO has revealed *one* legitimate infringement

No they didn't, they don't own malloc.

Re:Why does he hate himself?

[nathanh]

Has it occurred to you that, under US law, a CEO must act in the best interests of his shareholders? Bear in mind that the company would have folded within a year without the lawsuit. 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.

Sure, but he doesn't have to destroy Linux in the process. If SCO has been wronged then SCO will be compensated. But Darl is doing his level best to ruin everything good about Linux in his attempt to make money.

Oh yeah, he says he doesn't want to "destroy" Linux. He's lying. In the CRN interview he states without ambiguity that he wants SCO to be paid for every installation of Linux. He publicly defames the GPL. He attacks the development process. He attacks the developers! He makes critical but not constructive statements about Free Software.

But the worst act of all. The most despicable and heinous act. Darl refuses to help the Linux developers remove the alleged copied code. Darl seems content to allow the alleged infringements to continue in perpetuity so as to line his own pockets. Linux will be destroyed by that act alone. Darl doesn't give a fuck about that. It's his money, right? Linux is his bitch and he can charge whatever he damn well likes. Bad luck to all the millions of developers who poured their heart and soul into creating a community owned project. It's his! He gets to charge $699 for it. Nobody else. Just him!

These are immoral acts. He has every right to defend SCO's property. He has every right to get compensation for use of SCO's property. He has every right to sue IBM so a court can decide the truth of that matter. But he's a fucking prick in the way he's going about it.

I hope he goes to prison.

Re:Why does he hate himself?

[JonnyCalcutta]

A CEO has a legal responsibility to lead his company aggressively

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.

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.

Re:Here's the Meat of the Story...

[mark-t]

Well they have said that they think the GPL violates U.S. copyright.

This is patently false. US copyright says that you can't copy (outside of fair use) without permission from the copyright holder, and the GPL says exactly the same thing, it just happens to also say that everyone who agrees to the terms of the license is henceforth granted said permitssion for as long as they continue to agree to the terms of the license.

That you aren't allowed to create derivative works of a GPL'd work without them also being subject to the GPL is not a violation of copyright either, as derivative works typically contain some or all of the original copyrighted code, and must therefore be subject to whatever copyright restrictions were placed on it.

I find it peculiar that the GPL is practically the exact _opposite_ of what McBride seems to think it is.

"Users"

[SpaceRook]

In case anyone thinks Darl McBride is more clever than he actually is, the "drug users and computer users" joke is pretty old.

Re:"Users"

[NaugaHunter]

Yeah, but having that 'Users are Losers' sticker sure helped get me through my customer support period.

What end-products?

[MavEtJu]

David comes on, he's now a shareholder, he's rowing with us, and let's face it, he's added significant value to our company since February. Our stock was around a buck, now it's $14.

And what are the end-products your company makes?

Re:What end-products?

[TopShelf]

Lawsuits!

I can't wait to see their next quarterly 10Q statement, and see how the death spiral continues in their main business while the rest of the enterprise hinges on settlements and/or courthouse victories. Either way, I suspect in 5 years SCO will be but a distant memory.

Re:What end-products?

[sharkey]

And what are the end-products your company makes?

The same end-products I plan to produce this afternoon. (Going to Taco Bell for lunch)

In case of slashdotting:

[Spytap]

From the blog, copied and pasted.

"Carl McBride: Linux Won't Remain Free

The evening keynote at CDXPO is by Darl McBride. On the way in they handed out a pamphlet from WIPO entitled "Intellectual Property: A Power Tool for Economic Growth." I'm not sure who decided to hand it out, but I think its a little silly.

Darl starts out with a history of SCO. He says "SCO = UNIX." (Note: in the interest of my fingers, I'm going to stop typing "he says" and just type the essence of his speech. If I add commentary of my own, I'll note that.) A year ago, the answer to the question "who owns UNIX?" would have gotten a variety of responses. While there are many branches of UNIX, they all tie into the same tree trunk. AIX, HPUX, and others are licensed products of SCO. There are more than 6000 licensees with access to UNIX source code. Now he world knows that SCO owns those licenses.

When Darl joined SCO, its market cap had gone from a billion dollars to 6 million and had about 6 months of operating funds in the bank. When he looked at the assets, he saw $60 million in revenue, a channel of resellers, and intellectual property. He didn't think the company was getting the most from its IP assets and saw IP infringements from "the upstart Linux."

He was told when he examined this space that going after Linux infringements would bring down the wrath of the Linux community on the company. He didn't see the Linux community as one of his assets. His constituents are his shareholders and customers.

SCO set up a licensing program to put UNIX libraries on Linux. IBM threatened that they would not support SCO on their products if they didn't retract their licensing program. 20% of SCO's operating systems ship on IBM hardware. IBM thought the program would imply licensing issues with Linux. IBM was talking about taking major parts of AIX and moving it into Linux. Since IBM makes a large portion of its revenue from its IP, SCO thought this was unfair.

SCO got to the point where they had one option left: litigation. That set in place a chain of events that led to the last six months. What is not in dispute:
SCO owns all UNIX System V source code
SCO owns agreements to all UNIX vendors
SCO owns all UNIX System V copyrights
SCO owns all claims for violation of UNIX licenses.
SCO controls UNIX System V derivative works.

SCO doesn't own the derivative, but they have rights to confidentiality that are the same as for the original work.

The Linux infringements include literal copying, obfuscated copying, derivative works, and non-literal transfers.

Darl takes on what he calls urban myths surrounding SCO.
I am not a Penguin Slayer or a Suit-Happy Cowboy.
SCO does not want to destroy open source or Linux. With the appropriate checks and balances, open source has merit.
End users are not safe in taking a wait and see position. SCO is contacting customers and asking them to take a license of litigate position.
Linux infringements cannot be fixed by simply removing or changing it.
The GPL is at risk, but IBM put it on the table, not SCO as part of the litigation.

Some other points:
There's no free lunch or free Linux. The value proposition of Linux is UNIX for free. Free models such as free music, free Internet, free bandwidth, and free love haven't worked.
Giving away a UNIX-like OS for free isn't a problem. What is a problem is giving away UNIX or pieces of it when you don't own it.
Free software removes the incentive for innovation. There will lost jobs and lack of competition. SCO is in a tug-of-war between those who want software to be free and those who support proprietary software. SCO is a bellwether for this giant tug-of-war.
This country was built on the notion of property ownership and being about to protect one's property. What's left in this company are concepts and ideas. If you take away the ability to protect that, we're reduced out ability to compete as a country (cue the break out the flag, someone).

Predi

Re:In case of slashdotting:

[hughk]

McBride is a stock manipulator, shyster, confidence trickester and a copyright pirate. He is probably an ill person. He is also deeply ignorant about computers, programs and operating systems.

First, there is no concept under US law called "Intellectual Property". There is patent law and copyright law and that is it. As far as trade secrets are concerned, that is a matter between contracting partners. McBride has no claim against partners with whom his company or their predecessors weren't contracted.

The problem is that the Opensource model means that companies must make money out of support. They can even compete to provide support as all have source access. SCO as a company (like Microsoft) do not provide good support. Actually, SCO don't provide anything these days except entertainment.

I actually started programming around the time that Unix was written. I was never at a place with source code access, as this was before that time. On the other hand I worked with other system software where I had source access and many have their own solutions to the problems of multiprocessing, reliable file systems and clustering. These solutions were from the early eighties before AT&T had anything in S4. There is *nothing* special about Unix. Some things were so basic that two programmers working on different ends of the planet would come up with identical answers (they were both probably reading Knuth).

BSD was derived from Unix but was in many ways a parallel development. Linux is not Unix at all and even by McBride's standards until IBM/SGI started working on it, it was clean.

McBride knows Tricky-questions-dodging-fu

[Jesrad]

Attendee: Critics have said SCO previously participated in open source. Did SCO give its own code away?
McBride: From a legal standpoint, this is not an issue, but its a PR issue.

Nice dodge, we'll see if it works as well in court.

Any way to scare SCO off?

[MarcQuadra]

I don't know. I hope something very personal and very scary happens to people like McBride.

The law is obviously going to take a long time to work, and his army of lawyers working on huge sums of borrowed money will just keep leeching from the Linux camp. This might be something you and I can brush off, but the PHBs out there are REALLY not going to take on OSS software so long as shit like this keeps happening.

Re:Any way to scare SCO off?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

I don't know. I hope something very personal and very scary happens to people like McBride.

Whatchayall need is to get SCO to claim copyright infringement against the Church of Scientology. Somebody tell Darl that the Church's highest level doctrines contain SCO intellectual property. The $cienos will lay his company to waste.

Linux and drugs

[commodoresloat]

At last, a CEO not afraid to break the silence about Linux. I was a linux user, so I know the kinds of pressures that you succumb to. You wind up using crack to check the security of your system. And to detect intrusions, you snort.... It only gets worse from there. Listen to this man, before it's too late.

McBride's Funniest Quips!

[sithkhan]

Welcome back to FUD's premiere of "Dunderhead Asshats". In this segment, we have fresh from the CDXPO, assuring the press after his keynote speech.

What percentage of Linux is infringing? Roughly one million lines of code. 20% of the Linux kernel. BSD is in a clear legal environment. There are dozens of protected BSD files that have made there way into Linux.

Have you forgotten the Bill Gates' quote of 640 kB being more than enough memory for PC user? Well, dump that old chestnut, and try this one on for size:
20% of the Linux kernel. I have wet myself. America, we have a new "Dunderhead Asshat"! Welcome your new overlords, and don't forget the compulsory $699 'tithe'. The more Darl opens his mouth, the more I'd like to shut it for him ...
Is this Moore's Law for FUD? IIRC, there were 80 lines of code infringing at the beginning of this ordeal; now, it's up to Roughly one million lines of code? Please, someone crush this $#!+ soon ...

Re:McBride's Funniest Quips!

[gl4ss]

how many lines are there in 'linux' anyways?
i forgot the numbers(they've been posted to sco articles quite frequently).

do they match up even nearly with 1million=20%?

his an asshat of course, i wonder if he could answer how many lines of code sco claims to have ownership of are used in a compile of a kernel meant for normal x86 desktop? zero?

I used to work for SCO, in a past life

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm posting anonymously from a coffee shop so I don't end up getting a subpoena. A looong time ago, I used to work for SCO. When I started, I didn't think it was a bad company, but my opinion changed gradually. It's hard to put my finger on any one thing, but it seemed like the corporate culture was a little...strange. I had never worked at a tech company before, but I found it odd that upper management would get defensive when they read a bad review on SCO Unix. It seemed to me that they should have been taking the criticism to be constructive, so they could improve their product. But they took a "we know what's best for you, because we're smarter than you" kind of attitude. Not everyone agreed with them, as I found out at many an exit interview. It makes me wonder if this attitude blossomed and overtook the company.

all the big guys...

[fermion]

The issue is not so much that all the big guys are out to get you. For instance, all the big guys are out to get North Korea, but creative management and secrecy has kept it relatively safe. For instance, we are pretty sure that N Korea is ruled by as much of a maniac as Iraq, and we have been more sure about Koreas nuclear capability for many years, but there N Korea sits, not invaded.

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.

Faaaaark

[trouser]

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.

I can see that happening in a hurry. Hell I bet nobody would be interested in reverting to an older kernel and then working back to where we are today with new source. And nobody would look at alternative kernels (eg. the BSDs). And nobody would just throw in the towel and run Windows. No way, we'll just pony up a butt load of money to McBride and Co. to use the kernel they're trying to steal from us. Cock smoking bitches.

My impressions

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, first off, Darl McBride shows that he *completely* misses the distinction of free-as-in-speech Free Software and reduces the GPL to Free Beer. Sad. Granted, it is kinda hard to sell GPL software, but he doesn't seem to understand that a lot of what people love about Linux has less to do with price and more to do with freedom. The ability to get access to the source code at no additional charge. The ability to create 'derivative works' from GPL software as you please (well except that it too has to be GPL'ed of course), and the ability to distribute those changes. To fork projects when necessary.

And, most importantly, not having one central company or organization claiming total control over the OS. One of the things I love about Free Software, especially for the Operating System is that I think it is *crucial* for there to be a viable, widely used Free-as-in-speech OS Platform for everyone in the world to be able to use without it being leveraged to one company's or government's or whatever advantage. A true 'level playing field.'

So, SCO doesn't get it. Darl wants everyone to stop 'crucifying' him and SCO for doing what they "have to" in order to survive and leverage the investment they made in Unix. Everyone is picking on him, especially IBM who are big bullies (note this isn't my opinion - I'm just summarizing McBride). Oh, also SCO likes Open Source and Linux - we aren't out to destroy Linux and Open Source - we just want $700 dollars for every CPU that runs Linux commercially. Don't hate us, we want to co-exist peacefully with Open Source.

Oh, and the best part - the GPL is dead - Open Source isn't dead, just the GPL because it isn't friendly enough to business according to Darl. And, Free (as in beer) linux is dead (nevermind Debian and other non-commercial distros).

Lastly, in the world of Darl McBride, the BSD's don't exist. He didn't mention them ONCE in the presentation. And there were a couple times (Unix History discussion, as well as a few other places) where it would have probably been quite appropriate to mention them. Along those lines, SCO == UNIX, and we own the copyright to ALL UNIX (again what about the BSD's?).

Oh he did clarify that AIX, HP/UX, et al are 'owned' by the respective companies, but that SCO 'controls' all of them as the root of the unix tree.

I dunno. I really at this point just wish SCO would put up or shut up. Show definitely that there is wide-spread infringement instead of just throwing out "We have STRONG IP claims" (Take our word for it). Basically, this issue needs to go to court and be resolved.

Speaking of which, here's the SCO lawsuit scheme: IBM is not a copyright infringment case - it's breach of contract. But if people who use Linux don't buy Unix Licenses, we will sue them for copyright infringement. (Which is basically what they've been saying all along - no surprise there).

So what I hear, when I hear McBride make that statement is IBM probably has the resources and expertise to discredit our copyright infringment claims - so we are going to go after small fish who (we hope) can't reasonably defend against the infringement claims, and gradually build precedent one case at a time and then go after the big companies when we have a few cases behind us that gave us favorable findings.

Re:My impressions

[Rysc]

Giving away a UNIX-like OS for free isn't a problem. What is a problem is giving away UNIX or pieces of it when you don't own it.

So he has no problems with Free-beer style software. He has problems with the GPL. He also said that the GPL can be fine, "if it's modified to be more business freindly".

What the *hell* does "giving away UNIX or pieces of it when you don't own it" have to do with "the GPL must be modified"?

At the *very most* SCO can prove that IBM really stole source code and put it in Linux, and then in some strange FANTASY this would lead to SCO owning all of Linux, or Linux being crippled when all that code gets summarily ripped out.

I don't think either thing will happen, since I don't think SCO has a very good case.

But in NO WAY does any of this have anything to do with the validity of the GPL.

Did you READ the interview? He said "If you distribute a proprietary product on a CD with Linux, you must GPL your proprietary product." Or words to taht effect.

Tell THAT to nVidia.

McBride is lying deliberately, or seriously deluded, or seriously misinformed. Whatever else about the case holds, weak or strong, the GPL isn't going anywhere.

remember people:

[Jeff DeMaagd]

You are not paranoid if everybody REALLY is against you!

To Quote Sontag

[TitaniumFox]

"...You don't have to be a programmer at all to see copying had occurred. It wasn't just ten lines of code, that example was over 80 to 100 lines of code. Later some of the Linux people said that code shouldn't have been there, Bruce Perens said it was development problem and 'we've taken it out.' My analogy is [that's] like a bank robber with posse in pursuit swinging back by the bank and throwing the money back in...

In that one example, copyrighted code had been misappropriated and there's substantial benefit out there that has still not been rectified. There are other literal copyright infringements that we have not publicly provided, we'll save those for court. "

Linus has always stated that we'll rip everything out if the code was shown. McBride has even mentioned that in interviews and said something like "Hey, that's great! We want that to happen, too."

Bank robbers? Substantial benefit? The truth is that they would rather keep the IP in there and keep the linux kernel, charging us for each CPU.

The only problem is this: What would keep anyone from forking the kernel at the point where all "infringing code" had been ripped out. Sure, the tree would be on fire, but I doubt it would take TOO long for some seriously pissed off coders to re-write the missing items.

I can't wait to watch the flamage in court.

Re:To Quote Sontag

[Daytona955i]

In this current article, aside from what you quoted, it seems to me he is saying... You can't take out the code because it's like a bankrobber throwing back the money... however, you can just give us money so we can stay afloat since people are now buying linux instead of SCO products.

Talk about shooting oneself in the foot. Managers like Linux because that tech who lives in his cubicle can administer a whole bunch of them without leaving and they can put them on as many computers as they want without paying anyone anything (except that poor tech guy in the corner secretly wooried that they will outsource his job to India)

That poor tech guy likes linux because he can just get things done. He hacks out perl scripts to automate his work and he likes to look at the code just for fun. He also likes the fact that he can recompile his kernel whenever he wants. There are so many great tinkering things you can do with linux which is what makes it so popular. Most of these things would not be possible if we have to pay $700 to SCO every time we install another copy of Linux. Linux is about choices, Debian, Redhat, Slackware, Mandrake, Gentoo, Suse, turbolinux, etc... I can go download any one of those and install it on my computer and then decide I don't like the way this distro arranges things so I switch back to another distro (or try something new).

SCO just wants money, nothing more, nothing less. They really don't care that their code is in linux, they just want money! Linus and others have said many times - show us the code and we'll remove it. Apparently that's not enough for them. I just wish this would go to court already.

Re:To Quote Sontag

[Trepalium]

It's worse than that. McBridge expects the Linux kernel developers to act as SCO's unpaid employees, producing a product that SCO can demand a cut from everytime someone downloads it.

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.

His vision of SCO getting a cut of every linux sale is unfortunately for him, unworkable. It would require the licence on the kernel to be changed from the GPL to something else, and that would require the consent of every single Linux developer that ever contributed a line of code. Besides the fact that would be a terribly difficult task, there's also some who have died over the years, and getting the permission from the estate of the deceased could be impossible. There's also the fact that some people have "disappeared", and have little or no contact information available. And I'm betting that none of them would consent to a license that gives SCO control.

This little tidbit is also interesting from the article that is linked:

McBride: [...] The core business, we think that's bottomed out and there's upside now with new products coming. We haven't had a new product in our OpenServer base in years and years.

Look at it from SCO's perspective, SCO OpenServer costs a lot to maintain, and adding features and drivers is expensive. The customer base is dwindling, so why not become a lawsuit company, and seize control over Linux?

He also brags a lot about how he's improved shareholder value and this and that. However, what good is shareholder "value" when the company is not sustainable? Sure the shareholders are richer right now, but unless SCO becomes a sustainable company, they're really just burning shareholder cash.

Darl's translation

[mabu]

His constituents are his shareholders and customers.

Which at this point probably resolves down to his own company, their satellites and the law firm they've retained to fight their last ditch effort.

SCO does not want to destroy open source or Linux. With the appropriate checks and balances, open source has merit.

I think he means, if people pay with the appropriate checks, he'll consider the effort worthy of merit.

End users are not safe in taking a wait and see position. SCO is contacting customers and asking them to take a license of litigate position.

IOW, please pay us now so we can show some revenue long enough for the remaining shareholders to cash out before this whole thing implodes. Otherwise, the FBI will bust in your door and cart you off to Guantanamo.

There's no free lunch or free Linux. The value proposition of Linux is UNIX for free. Free models such as free music, free Internet, free bandwidth, and free love haven't worked.

On the other hand, the free mushrooms the guys in the legal department put in my tea this morning do seem to be working.

This country was built on the notion of property ownership and being about to protect one's property. What's left in this company are concepts and ideas. If you take away the ability to protect that, we're reduced our ability to compete as a country

If you don't support our desire to scare the crap out of the public in order to extort money for intellectual property my company had absolutely no hand in creating, then you're some sort of unpatriotic, filthy commie scum.

By the way there is no truth to the rumors that I am violating any patents previously held by the Rumsfeld-Cheney group. I am operating with a legitimate license from the holder of the scare-the-crap-out-of-america patent.

GPL will not survive. Open source will survive, but the GPL will have to be reworked in a way that is more pro-business.

By pro business I mean pro-big-mega-corporations that deserve to profit from the innovation of others who have the audacity to claim such work that we can exploit be donated to the public domain.

SCO will prevail in its legal battle. SCO is now worth $200 million and has $60 million in the bank. SCO is committed to seeing this through.

Bill's check cleared! Bill's check cleared!

We are also introducing an exciting new product in cooperation with Kool-Aid and the government of Columbia. Look for it soon.

Linux will not be free.

But a woman who is willing to trade "love" may be able to get a discount on the enterprise edition. I.M. my AOL handle, "sexy14yoGRRL" for more details.

Huh?

[TitaniumFox]

You aren't the real Perens.

You're .Bruce Perens

The real Perens is #3872.

Why doesn't anyone ask the unanswerable question?

[CoughDropAddict]

"Samba isn't your IP. What gives you the right to sell the copyrighted work of others?"

What can SCO possibly answer, while maintaining that the GPL is illegitimate?

GPL and DMCA

[kidgenius]

The GPL is in violent collision with the DMCA. That's why Linux guys are opposed to the DMCA. Something has got to give. You've got to be fucking kidding me.

I thought Darl was asinine before, but this is just ridiculous.

Linux people are not the only people against the DMCA Darl! The reason people oppose it is because it infringes upon our rights and every Tom-Dick-and Jackass Corporation in America is trying to invoke the DMCA for things that it shouldn't be invoked for. It's akin to people filing for patents on such things as "one click shopping", etc.

"Don't hate me because I'm beautiful"

[sjbe]

We don't. We hate you because you're a conceited bastard.

As long...

[Anonymous Coward]

...as you want to cut balogna so thin you can read through it:

I said absolutely nothing about him being a troll.
I said absolutely nothing about the content of his post.
I said absolutely nothing about high ID = bad content.

I will point out that he's posing as *someone* important enough to have an inbox stuffed with Darl McBride's e-mail, though.

If that's a lie, it's still a lie.

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....

Where do I go to learn to lie this well...

[fermion]

David comes on, he's now a shareholder, he's rowing with us, and let's face it, he's added significant value to our company since February. Our stock was around a buck, now it's $14. That's some of the best money we've spent, not even money, some of the best stock we've issued.
This seems eerily similar to statements that might be made about the lawyers, accountants, and bankers that cooked the Enron books. They are worth every penny because they raise stock prices. They are now shareholders so they have a great incentive to make the stock price stay high using every trick in the book, legal or illegal. I suspect that even if Boies loses his license over this, and pays a fee, he will still be a wealthy man. It might even be worth a couple years in a country club jail.

That's the great untold story no one even asks about. We have over two million servers actively running today. Customers continue to come to us. We have laid out a growth map that will be significant for our customers. In the next year expect Legend, which will take OpenServer and update it. Longer term, expect SVR 6, which will be 64-bit Unix on Intel. That is a few years out.
as compared to
We are informed that participants in the Linux industry have attempted to influence participants in the markets in which we sell our products to reduce or eliminate the amount of our products and services that they purchase. They have been somewhat successful in those efforts and similar efforts and success will likely continue. There is also a risk that the assertion of our intellectual property rights will be negatively viewed by participants in our marketplace and we may lose support from such participants. Any of the foregoing could adversely affect our position in the marketplace and our results of operations.
These type of cases seem to years in the making, and i am sure there will be point when Boise will stop accepting stock and want a greater portion of cash. I suspect there is also a point at which new investors might stop pouring money into SCO, and two or three license agreement only generate so much cash. Not to mention the burn of normal operating costs. Can anyone expect them to survive the 'few year' to 'SVR 6'. And if they win and actually get a couple billion from IBM, will there be any reason to develop for a 64 bit platform. It will be MS model all over again. We own your desktop. We have all the cash. We will tell you what you need.

The second dial is the 2.5 million Linux servers out there today that are paired with our intellectual property in them. We have a licensed product $699, $1,399. Chris [Sontag] is driving that and that's another multi-billion-dollar revenue oppotunity
The third bucket has to do with the IBM settlement. We filed that at $3 billion. Every day they don't resolve this, the AIX meter is still ticking....
I seem to remember an interesting ruling several years ago. It basically said you cannot advertise certain things about certain products at certain prices unless a significant amount or product had been sold at that price. Although that ruling applied to the retail chain, I would think that publicly saying that revenue is going to be generated from a product that you do not even own and have no reasonable exception of owning with the constraints of normal sense would be really close to lying. The funny thing is he separates the ruling in the IBM from expected income from Linux users. The two are in fact connected. The later would tend to negate the former, though the later will not guarantee the former. One really wonders if the clock it winding down faster on AIX or SCO.

No no no no: GPL reworked to be more pro-business

[lenski]

The business for which I work is perfectly happy with the GPL as it stands right now. We are profitable, we have some proprietary code, and we use and enhance GPLed code with a clear understanding of its value proposition. We value the rate of progress that comes with membership in the community.

What Darl wants, and I will fight to the end of my days to prevent, is a return to the hugely inefficient days when every Tom, Dick and Harry company could build their own unique, incompatible-with-the-universe, expensive custom OSes. Only in the rarest of cases were those systems worth anywhere near their costs. Digital, Data General, IBM, AT&T, Sun, Apollo, (reaching back in history here) Interdata, Xerox, Burroughs, Sperry, RCA, all spent *huge* numbers of their customers' dollars funding their slick research OSes. It was interesting for some, but terrifically expensive for the majority of businesses. On the other hand, the openness implicit in GPLed (and to a lesser extent BSD licensed) code provides an excellent mechanism for encouraging the boad adoption of open standards. These standards lead to portability, interoperability, and the dissemination of the knowledge needed for full participation in information-intensive societies.

<repeating a prior comment>I dropped a fully-paid UNIXware license, converting to Linux in 1996 due to UINXware's inadequate support of then-current hardware. It has only fallen further behind since then. If you want to compete with the big boys, then be prepared to perform up to their standards.</repeat>

Godwin's Law

[Treacle Treatment]

Aww shucks! This thread was just getting started and already someone has to mention Hitler!

http://info.astrian.net/jargon/terms/g/Godwin_s_La w.html

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

Clueless!

[mabhatter654]

Working at a smaller business now, I'm beginning to realize that Executives can play the game, but tend to be both insulated from reality and clueless. They tend to live in a world where "Their Word" is right or wrong...and things like ethics, laws, honor just get in the way. It's a growing problem I see as I've learned to look for it. Especially the higher ups tend to do what they want, then buy their way out. If they made contract they didn't like...pay a lawyer to get out of it. EPA hounding you...pay the fine and carry on as normal.

It's the cost of "playing the game" of business...sitting around board tables, jet setting to last-minute meetings--it's a drug of "power".

Guys like him start out "at the bottom" in the old boys network. They typically go from newbie to boss in a short time...he's probably never actually researched ANYTHING to do with copyright or patent on his OWN...delegating doesn't count. Guys like him deal in what they WANT...not what's REAL. I find executives as a class get a surprising amount of info from word-of-mouth, Forbes [& such], and CNN...far more often than say..googling for a copy of the LAW, or court cases/common practice to support their claims.

I find they're like the kids in school that don't know the game really well, but can argue the rules 'till everyone is bored and gives up.

Re:Clueless!

[Texodore]

Sounds like our President.

Here it comes: -1, Flamebait

BSD

[smiff]

And nobody would look at alternative kernels (eg. the BSDs).

From the article:

We need to get our arms around the BSD front. We can only focus so much with our limited energies. Right now, we're focusing on Linux. We'll get to BSD next year.

Reduction of potential liability or cosy deal?

[krusadr]

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.

Being so reliant on future litigation revenues, its starting to look to me as thought there might possibly be a connection between Red Hat's recent announcement to stop distributing a free linux in favor of enterprise server distro and the SCO intent to get a fee for each linux install.

McBride seems to be playing it very gently with Red Hat ...

I'm not sure this is so funny

[jBabel]

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!

Re:I'm not sure this is so funny

[ischorr]

This is also the same legal system that ruled that Microsoft should preliminarily stop shipping Internet Explorer with Windows, ruled the company an illegal monopoly performing persistant, highly anti-competitive practices, then ordered that it should be split into three parts as there was no better remedy to prevent the problem in the future.

...Then let the DoJ settle with MS for what amounted to a slap on the wrist (a promise that they will never, ever do it again. Really.) when the DoJ realized that the system would allow Microsoft to continue to appeal for all eternity. (Of course, Bush and the "wait-big-government-is-good-after-all", "trust us" mob coming to power was no small impact).

Re:I'm not sure this is so funny

[kimgh]

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

This one is actually not a good case to use. One version of the facts of this case includes the information that McDonalds in fact heated their coffee to 190 degrees or more, when the normal temperature is usually more like 120 degrees. And numerous people had been scalded and complained, and McDonald's refused to do anything about it or to change their process in any way. And that's why, even though it was dumb to drive with a coffee cup between her legs, the plaintiff was awarded a judgement: McDonald's knew their coffee was too hot and committed itself in writing to the effect they weren't going to change things. And any first year law student will tell you those are the elements for negligence.

By the way, the woman had to have some reconstructive surgery as a result, if I'm recalling this correctly.

and no, IANAL.

Re:I'm not sure this is so funny

[RevRa]

"awarded millions to some idiot who couldn't figure out that driving a car with hot coffee between her lap"
The facts of this case have been so misrepresented it's become an urban myth.
It was February 27, 1992. Her name was Stela Liebeck and she was a very active 79 year old retired department store clerk in Albuquerque NM. She and her grandson drove her son to the airport one morning and on the way back they stopped at McDonalds drive through for breakfast. Her grandson was driving. The grandson parked the car so she could put sugar and cream in her coffee. She had trouble removing the lid so she put it between her legs for leverage. When she got the top off, the scalding coffee spilled into her lap. (Most restaurants serve coffee that is 130-150 degrees, Mcdonalds coffee is 180.) She was wearing a sweat suit, it held the 180 degree liquid against her skin and helped retain the heat. She suffered third degree burns to her genitals, buttocks, and legs. She was hospitalized for 8 days, immobilized at home for 3 weeks, then went back to the hospital for skin grafts. It was an excruciatingly painful and VERY expensive experience. Luckily, her insurance DID pay most of her bills. In 1994 Stella simply wrote to McDonalds and asked them to lower the temperature of their coffee. She did not plan on suing at the time. Her familly felt that she was due $2000 for lost wages and various expenses. They had to pay the insurance deductible and her daughter had taken time off work to care for her. McDonalds offered her $800. The family hired a lawyer and he asked McDonalds to give Stella $100,000 for her injuries and $300,000 in punitive damages. The lawyer tried to settle the case before they went to trial. McDonalds' position was that Stella knew she was buying hot coffee and spilled it herself due to her own neglect. They knew that they were not liable for someone spilling coffee on themselves. If they took responsibility for this injury, they would have to take responsibility for untold numbers of other things that people do to themselves. They were technically absolutely right. The plaintiff (that's Stella's lawyer really), said that McDonald's knew that their coffee was not drinkable at 180 degrees and that they knew there was a risk of severe burns, and that they had decided NOT to warn their customers and had NO INTENTION of changing their policies. He also showed large color photos of Stella's burns and reconstructive surgery. This is where it gets fun. McDonald's defense lawyers did themselves more harm than good by pressing their point and case which was LEGALLY SOUND, but EMOTIONALLY OFFENSIVE. It turns out that McDonalds had incurred over SEVEN HUNDRED lawsuits from their coffee. A quality assurance supervisor dismissed the complaints as "statistically insignificant". The McDonald's lawyers asserted that Stella was asking for too much money because she was old and therefore didn't have much use left in her injured body parts, therefore she deserved less money. The lawyers also noted that Stella hadn't LEAPT from her bucket seat, so the coffee stayed in her lap making her burns worse. In other words, McDonalds made themselves look like insensitive pricks to the jury, and the jury didn't like it one damned bit. Now for the financial facts: The jury awarded Stella $200,000 compensation for her injuries, but found her 20% at fault, so they lowered it to $160,000. The jury also found McDonald's guilty of "Wanton, willful, reckless, or malicious conduct", which is grounds for awarding punitive damages in the US. The jury was fundamentally disturbed by McDonald's behavior and attitude and they wanted to send a message to the company bigwigs. They based the amount of punitive damages awarded on two days worth of McDonald's coffee sales. $2.7 Million dollars. The judge reduced the award to $670,000. McDonald's appealed and the case went back to court. Stella and McDonald's eventually settled for an undisclosed amount of money. McDonald's has since lowered the temperature of their coffee. Please, research your facts before you speak. -kate

Re:I'm not sure this is so funny

[Maestro4k]

• And that's why, even though it was dumb to drive with a coffee cup between her legs, the plaintiff was awarded a judgement: McDonald's knew their coffee was too hot and committed itself in writing to the effect they weren't going to change things. And any first year law student will tell you those are the elements for negligence.

Actually she was the pasenger, not the driver, and the car was stopped when she opened the coffee and got so severely scalded. You are correct, while many think that case was just frivolous, it wasn't. McDonald's was also heating their apple pies to obscene tempatures and ignoring complaints about scalding and 2nd and 3rd degree burns caused by them. As a result of the coffee lawsuit, McDonalds finally lowered the tempature of their coffee and apple pies to sane tempatures. That alone probably saved untold numbers of people from very serious injuries. Imagine if your kid had gotten a 3rd degree burn from a super-heated apple pie because McDonalds didn't care they served them too hot.

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

Re:I'm not sure this is so funny

[weileong]

No, the legal system ruled it was a monopoly etc., but it was the political system that let them get away with it.

Re:I'm not sure this is so funny

[CaptainBaz]

She had trouble removing the lid so she put it between her legs for leverage.

And this is the part which makes her an idiot.

Re:I'm not sure this is so funny

[arkanes]

Tell you what. Give me your address. I'll come to your house and pour a regular old cup of coffee on your groin. It'll hurt like a bitch and if you don't get out of your pants you'll get first and maybe second degree burns. We'll wait a couple weeks for you to heal, and then I'll pour coffee like McDonalds used to make it on you. You'll have 3rd degree burns and you may very well be permanently disfigured.

If she'd just burned herself a little, nobody would have given a shit. This was coffee that was heated to physically harmfull levels. Trying to drink it would have raised blisters on your tongue. What the hell is so hard to understand about that?

Re:I'm not sure this is so funny

[Afrosheen]

Also you have to consider how many of the 700 burned had severe burns. They might have gotten 699 calls from people that burned their tongue sipping it. Yeah, 180 degrees fahrenheit is crazy hot, but then again, you should know that it's hot. You shouldn't be prying the lid off in a moving vehicle with it nestled firmly between your thighs.

I agree, however, that Mickey D's was liable for this. I don't agree, however, that stupidity should be rewarded.

Re:I'm not sure this is so funny

[Mr Guy]

No, twit, it would be like suing Audi because the brakes and the gas are too close together, and occasionally you could hit both and wreck your car (most often in the garage).

Oh...wait...

Products should do what they are expected to do. If by NOT doing what they are expected to do they can have an injurious result, the manufacturers should fix it. If they blatantly refuse, they should be penalized. Just because it's a lady in a car with hot coffee doesn't make it any different than Monty Python's candies with Lark's Vomit. It shouldn't say, with Lark's Vomit, there should be a bloody big sign that says WARNING LARK'S VOMIT.

Re:I'm not sure this is so funny

[hankaholic]

I agree, however, that Mickey D's was liable for this. I don't agree, however, that stupidity should be rewarded.

Chances are, a significant portion of her "reward" were used to repay her medical bills.

As the parent poster mentioned, and you seem to have ignored, much of the treatment involved skin grafts to her inner thighs and sexual parts. If you consider having McDonald's pay somebody to scrub the remains of scalded flesh from your genitals and inner thighs to be a "reward", then I suppose your post is quite on-topic, since you'd probably get quite a lot of pleasure from paying SCO their $699 per CPU.

If not, you're a troll, because calling an 80-year-old woman "stupid" because she spilled some coffee while trying to remove the lid is just plain asinine. I've known and dealt with many older people, and it is quite common among people who are more advanced in years not to have the steadiest hands. Would you call anyone with a MedicAlert badge an idiot as well, since they may fall and need assistance? This was an elderly woman, and you condemn her for her physical problems.

She didn't sue because she spilled her coffee. She sued because of the third-degree burns which resulted from McDonald's decision to keep the coffee at a dangerous temperature.

Armageddon

[earthforce_1]

From dictionary.com:

Armageddon ( P ) Pronunciation Key (arm-gdn)
n.

1. Bible. The scene of a final battle between the forces of good and evil, prophesied to occur at the end of the world.
2. A decisive or catastrophic conflic

Before you mod this "off topic" or rant about another SCO article, think about what the this really means for IT in general, and open source in particular. This is THE final, decisive battle between the forces of good and evil.

MS may have a hundred billion dollars in the bank, but they have passed their zenith, and are now slowly, but surely sliding backwards. Country by country, city by city, company by company they are finally starting to lose. Like a fist full of sand, the harder they sqeeze, the more it slips through their fingers.

I don't think the problem is guys like Darl doesn't get it. He does get it, and it probably keeps him awake at night.

Re:Armageddon

[roystgnr]

This is THE final, decisive battle between the forces of good and evil.

Wow. And I thought I read too much Slashdot.

More Darl on Crack

[red floyd]

SCO owns all UNIX System V source code
SCO owns agreements to all UNIX vendors
SCO owns all UNIX System V copyrights
SCO owns all claims for violation of UNIX licenses.
SCO controls UNIX System V derivative works.

I suspect that Novell might just have a few things to say about that!

my fave quotes

[twitter]

CRN: When you talk to your VARs, partners, integrators... what are they saying?

McBride: It's a range. Those who are directly selling SCO Unix products, are cheering us on ...

Stop the presses, someone sold SCO Unix last year?!

McBride: .... Those who have drifted over to the Linux camp are confused.

Indeed, I can't figure out what those idiots at SCO are up to.

McBride: My first reaction was we needed to create a counterbalance [to the vocal open sourcers]. We're on the side of the silent majority...

Eh? Let's see, for ages we've all had to listen to and counter his company's Microsoft funded bullshit, press releases and amazing old media broadsides. He's been saying all sorts of stuff designed to stirr doubt deep in the hearts of PHB and it's been reported by every WinTel rag on earth, but he reagards himself as "silent". Somehow people who have to reassure their bosses not to give in to SCO's extortion of end users is somehow "vocal"? The free software's statements are all reactions to this turkey. If some people get angry, it's because of the volume of ignorant and wrong nonsense this man has been able to generate - you need to buy a $700 license for every Linux box you own because IBM put "secret" SCO code into the kernel that SCO published openly under the GPL but refuses to specify. It's madening and hardly "right".

More McBitch: This is about our IP! ... IBM is the master of creating an illusion that they're being attacked by this big brutal bully SCO when they're the ones attacking us. They're the ones doing all the behind-the-scenes work.

Oh sure, Dayrl, and I'm Steve Barkto. IBM must be running the Free Software Society. Tell me all about it. The whole world of knowledgable computing says you are full of it. What do you produce? Some poor woman who's BA was in French who had to sign a massively restrictive NDA to look at publically published and GPL'd code next to snippets of your ancient Unix? Give me a break. Put up or shut up and quit threatening the world and maybe, just maybe people will think your extortion and stock fraud days are behind you.

We early on looked at GPL-related issues and felt it was an Achilles heel for IBM but we didn't open them up initially. We didn't want to confuse a clear-cut contract issue [with IBM] with the untested GPL and other issues. But when IBM dragged GPL onto the table, our lawyers started sharpening their steak knives. 'Ok, if that's what you want to talk about , we'll talk about it.'

Oh yeah, you were forced to call the GPL a cancer, but you hated it all along. Bzzzt! Your case of trade secret violation got blown out of the water because your company published said traid secrets openly and under the GPL. You can't fall back to copyright violations, because you can't really find any infringing code. So, you are left with this crack house attack on the GPL.

If you take IBM out of the equation, Linux would not be growing up, it would not be SMP-enabled, it would not be multi processing, scaling up to hundreds of servers. It is IBM that is enabling that.

There he goes again, taking credit for stuff that his crappy Unix can't do.

VARBusiness: Are customers changing their Linux purchasing pattern since SCO sent out warning letters?

McBride: A research report came out saying 80 percent of users had not slowed down. Our take on that is 20 percent have. So one out of five.

Thanks Dayrl, that will come in handy when you get sued for the damages all your BS has done. I'd love to see Red Hat pin the end of their retail distro on you and strip off some of those $20,000,000 Microsoft has funded you with.

If you look at the GPL, it couldn't be more clear, they either have to pull [the offending code] or shut down the distribution. The things we're laying claim to are things you can't pull out very easily....it's very difficult to yank this stuff out.

Right. Everyone is begging for the proof and the code they can shut this idiot up by rewriting that supposed code. It's not there.

OK, I hate everything this idiot says -5 flamebait article.

Re:my fave quotes

[quinkin]

"Longer term, expect SVR 6, which will be 64-bit Unix on Intel. That is a few years out."

Oh yeah... SCO once again pushes the envelope...

I guess I had better pull the plug on that 64bit linux server I built, it is in "future breach" of the SCO's groundbreaking 64 bit support... Thank goodness it is not multi-CPU.

Q.

Even if....

[alexborges]

Well, this is the best FUD SCO has pulled so far. I mean, this guy is articulate and now hes playing the victim angle. He is also cynic enough to explain to us what this is all about.

The worst part, is that he is such a good communicator one can even end believing in him. And im a blindfolded linux junkie (i live of linux and GPL software, thank you very much).

Now, the interesting part of this, is that lets say yeah, linux infringes by court of law and etc. etc. etc.

It will take the community a year to either fork to a clean base or move to a bsd based kernel. Hey this may even force a scenario where BSD copyright holders my want to release BSD GPL just to not see a GNU pure system die. Anyhow, lets say it takes a year or two to get back on track, by then (2007 since trial is late 2004-2005), i dont think it will matter so much really. Brasil (LA major economie), China (Asia major econimie, probably by 2007 will be second to none), europe...etc. Will be swarming with FLOSS, both at the state and at the private enterprises. Darl has gotta stop them NOW (and he aint succeding), not in 2005.

If he doesnt, darl is gonna have to do much more than this to stop that size of projects (bush would have to invade a couple of pretty large, socialist oriented nuclear, or developing nuclear enabled powers to enforce this).

By 2007, all your OS is belong to us, and maybe you can fuck up redhat and charge them for each sale, but u aint gonna kill debian (a good chunk of it is developed in europe). So there, i aint going nowhere. Gimme my GPL and ip infinging Linux and thank you very much.

Realize this:

[mindstrm]

You are totally correct, of course, but unfortunately that view is WIDELY believed by a great many people who are not already up to date.

I have sat down in person with people, to explain why this is not true, including going over the GPL in detail with them, line by line.. and they still don't buy it.. the FUD machine has them believing you CANNOT write proprietary software for linux.

Of course SCO wants Linux to stay alive

[stox]

What other host could it possibly feed on? They have decided to devolve into the most efficient of life forms, the parasite.

abSCOnding with Linux

[Skapare]

You don't have to be a programmer at all to see copying had occurred.

Nope. You have to have both sets of source code. Now suppose you find identical code. How do you tell which direction the copying was done?

My analogy is [that's] like a bank robber with posse in pursuit swinging back by the bank and throwing the money back in.

The law does go lenient on criminals that turn themselves in. And in most cases it is very lenient when it is an obvious case of a mistake (not that a bank robbery would be, which is where Darl's analogy breaks down). In cases of intellectual property, where it can be shown the infringement was unintentional, courts very often are lenient, letting the "perpetrator" off easy, usually with just actual economic damages and legal costs (these things can vary depending on how well the defendant cooperates).

So let's suppose IBM did contribute SCO intellectual property to Linux, as alleged. The case is against IBM directly, so IBM could be liable for at least the economic losses and legal costs, and maybe more if it can be show there were things like intent.

But what about the rest of the Linux Community? In a normal case, specific infringments would be identified. Linus will most certainly tear that part of the code out and new original development will take place lightning fast, and a new version of the 2.4 kernel (maybe even the 2.2 kernel) will be out in a few weeks. The 2.6 kernel will end up being squeaky clean.

All SCO will get is past infringement losses, possibly limited to not more than would have been earned for that piece of crap they dare call Unix. What they would never get ... will never get ... is revenue for anything in the future. They would make some money, but they would not have solid future revenues which is what actually drives up equity values. It's future earnings (on everyone else's real work) that they are trying to lock in for themselves (which they can't do if Linus tears out any questionable code, which he is sure to do once it becomes known as such).

GPL doesn't give a warranty!?!

[obsid1an]

Clauses 11 and 12 of the GPL say there is no warranty. The quid pro quo of the GPL is that you get it for free, but the end user takes on the liability.

Last I checked that's what the MS end user license agreement says:

DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES. The Limited Warranty referenced below is the only express warranty made to you and is provided in lieu of any other express warranties (if any) created by any documentation or packaging. Except for the Limited Warranty and to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Microsoft and its suppliers provide the Product and support services (if any) AS IS AND WITH ALL FAULTS, and hereby disclaim all other warranties and conditions, either express, implied, or statutory, including, but not limited to, any (if any) implied warranties, duties or conditions of merchantability, of fitness for a particular purpose, of accuracy or completeness of responses, of results, of workmanlike effort, of lack of viruses, and of lack of negligence, all with regard to the Product, and the provision of or failure to provide support services. ALSO, THERE IS NO WARRANTY OR CONDITION OF TITLE, QUIET ENJOYMENT, QUIET POSSESSION, CORRESPONDENCE TO DESCRIPTION OR NON-INFRINGEMENT WITH REGARD TO THE PRODUCT.

What if it's not sold?

[TWX]

I've never purchased a mainstream commercial distribution. Other than dabbling with demonstrative releases of RedHat and SuSE for about a total of six months, I've used Slackware or Debian since I started using Linux back in 1996. I think that once I ordered a Cheapbytes CD of Slackware for 8.0 or something like that, but it was less than the cost of a large coke at a fast food restaurant.

So, Darl, faced with a product that is very often free to hobbyists or companies willing to support themselves internally is going to gain revenue from this how? If I never touch anything to do with Caldera Systems, the only way that they're going to even know that I have my copies of Linux would be to stage a BSA-style raid on my home or business, count the machines, audit the software, and the like.

This does scare me. Not in the sense that I think that Darl and his other brother Darl will win, but that if they were to somehow squeak by with a court victory, establish precedent, and continue winning court victories that somehow gave them rights to that which they shouldn't otherwise, what's to stop them from being even more asinine?

I have no love for the company whose operating system has the most market share, but at various times, when working for computer companies that sold product, if something were amiss, an actually friendly representative would come in and identify himself as a rep, tell us how the product distribution for the product (usually the OS) worked (like, minimum pricing put into the wholesale distribution), cite our ad if the price were lower than the initial wholesale price, and if something were amiss, he'd inspect the product. A couple of times we had forged copies, which was noticeable on the booklets on further inspection, and he traded us all of the faulty software for good copies, all that he wanted to know was where we got them. No fuss, no muss, no lawyers talking, even for software that would be fairly easy to prove as illegitimate if it came down to it.

Compare this to Caldera in their approach. They're huffing and puffing about $600+ licencing fees for the OS. Everone who bends and pays encourages them to seek out everyone else that has "product", regardless of origin. They'll be querying webservers, looking at NAT and Masquerade data that they find, and making a big pain out of themselves. They'll call the FBI to attempt to root out the "piracy" of what they "own" in BSA-style raids. They'll make a mockery of the criminal justice system the same as they have the civil system.

Yes, I'm being extremely paranoid, but a little paranoia now is better than a terrible situation later, especially if ways to combat this can be found.

Re:What if it's not sold?

[gmack]

You may want to start reading Groklaw if your really worried about this.. I'm getting less worried the more I read.. IBM is being VERY carefull and methodical about all of this while SCO is too busy undermining their own case by making a lot of public noise.

IBM has always been very dangeorous to mess with and while SCO may gain some stock value in the short term anyone who bets on them surviving in the long term is going to lose.

Re:What if it's not sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Groklaw spends a lot of time analyzing every SCO press release down to the tiniest detail, as if they really mattered. It's also populated by a group that makes Slashdot posters look like disinterested observers.

Really, the basic interpretation of IBM's UNIX contract is unclear, which means that SCO still has a real shot at this.

So you tell the guy to consume some "feel good" propaganda and then pat him on the butt and reminding him that IBM is big and has lots of muscles. Have some soma, it will be alright.

Any Linux user that isn't a little paranoid about this thing is delusional or in denial. And that's exactly why there's so many virulent posts on the topic. You should be (at least a little) worried, and adults admit to that.

Re:What if it's not sold?

[Ami Ganguli]

The information available about the IBM contract is pretty clear, unless you accept SCO's redefinition of the word 'derived'. I really don't think they'll get away with this.

The reason regular people don't need to be worried, however, is that even if IBM were to somehow lose, that doesn't effect Linux. It's a contract dispute between IBM and SCO. If there were really copyright issues involved SCO would have produced the evidence by now.

Re:GPL...what?

[rnturn]

``... there are arguments that Merrill would have to provide their proprietary trading application in source form to everyone ...''

And those are what most people would call uninformed arguments. Darl, would you please take a second (OK, a few minutes), read the GPL, see if that argument makes any sense at all, and get back to us.

I suspect that it will take a relatively low-paid law professor to explain this to some very overpaid lawyers.

One of these overpaid lawyers seems to be challenged by the concepts surrounding copyright. So it's understandable that he'd get all tangled up in his underwear trying to comprehend the GPL. Bob Cringely hit it on the head: these guys are not IP lawyers. And a growing number of legal writers appear to agree and are writing to point out the flaws with the SCO case. Personally? I think Boies and McBride are both blinded by all the dollar signs and media attention to see how screwed up their whole case is.

Re:It's a dirty job but someone has to do it...me

[cduffy]

First, consider the allegation. Copyrighted code is part of the Linux kernel. What if it's true? Shouldn't the copyright holder get its day in court?

Sure, the copyright holder should get their day in court. The copyright holder should also try to mitigate damages -- indeed, their ability to get the court's assistance will be severely limited if they don't. As of yet, they refuse to let us know exactly what we can do to reduce their damages (by refusing to identify the infringing code for removal). This is not consistant with behaviour with this allegation being true.

And consider the lawyer...David Boies. In case you've forgotten what what he's done...

No, I haven't forgotten about Boies losing every high-profile case he's been involved in -- and for good reason. Have you read SCO's legal briefs? They're downright amateurish next to IBM's filings.

Do you think the diligent researchers on Wall Street are confused by McBride's proclamations? No, they do research.

I'll believe that their research is effective when my own starts backing it up.

Sontag admits SCO isn't helping

[Anonymous Coward]

It's kind of hollow words that we are not showing code, because we have shown examples and if we keep showing it, [Linux leaders will] just take that out and say 'no harm no foul.'

Sontag admits that SCO is not releasing the information required to rectify the situation and, if SCO shows which code might be misappropriated, Linux leaders will remove the offending code.

But there are over one million lines of code that we have identified that are derivative works by IBM and Sequent that have been contributed into Linux that we have identified and there's been no effort by Linux leaders to start acting and rectify that situation.

But Sontag also claims Linux leaders aren't trying to rectify the situation... Sigh.

different company, dude!

[Xtifr]

A looong time ago, I used to work for SCO.

Unless it was a pretty short "looong time", you didn't work for the same company. The company you worked for, The Santa Cruz Operation, is now called "Tarantella", and they're out of the OS business. The company that's suing IBM is the company formerly named "Caldera", now The SCO Group (no "Santa Cruz" in the name any more). They purchased some assets (name and SYSV source licenses) from the old SCO, but they're a completely separate company.

Re:different company, dude!

[zhenlin]

Mod parent up, Informative.

Mod grandparent down, Overrated.

(1) SCO Group != Santa Cruz Operation
(2) Santa Cruz Operation - UNIX = Tarantella
(3) Caldera + (Santa Cruz Operation - Tarantella) = Caldera
(4) Caldera - ? = SCO Group
(5) Canopy = SCO Group + ...

Yes, I know that (3) implies UNIX = 0.
The unknown in (4) is probably sanity.

What about Apple?

[Anonymous Coward]

I saw BSD mentioned a number of times in the BLOG. If SCO is also going to be attacking BSD, won't they by extension end up attacking Apple?

Unreal

[starseeker]

"The things we're laying claim to are things you can't pull out very easily....it's very difficult to yank this stuff out."

Rule #1 - if you stand to gain from this claim, it's going to have to be verified by a neutral third party and proper research, because we don't trust you.

"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."

There it is, in black and white. War.

"Basically the GPL is countering U.S. Copyright law. Is IBM on the side of free software while they are one of the largest IP and IT firms in the world trying to protect their own patents and copy rights? It's just the most bizarre juxtaposition... . They're supporting something that's very unfriendly to copyrights."

What??? Has this guy even READ the GPL? The GPL rests entirely on copyright law! It's just doing something that isn't normally done by commercial types. RTFLicense. This guy sounds like he needs to pry apart copyright and profit in his brain.

"Underneath all this is hard-core capitalism."

Welcome to the powerful world of volunteers. Kernal aside, a lot of the end user work in Linux is not by companies. If a company or an industry gets messed up enough, they just might find themselves competing with volunteers. Welcome to your nightmare - night of the undead competition.

"We just said we were going to start investigating IP issues, and IBM said, 'You're just giving Bill Gates an early Christmas present.' Bill Gates? This is about our IP! What are you talking about? This was the immediate reaction at IBM and the open source guys. Unfortunately for them, it's just not reality."

If this guy is this clueless he has no business being a CEO in the software industry. Whatever their intent, the net result is indeed early Christmas in Redmond.

"To the extent that we have to take [Linux] down and put it on its back, we're fully prepared and willing to do that."

Indeed. I don't SCO is ready to face what that would mean - the rise of GNU Hurd. Whatever we may think about Richard Stallman, if SCO somehow puts this through there's going to be a retreat to the hard line FSF position on a lot of fronts, and GNU Hurd in full bloom on L4 might be more than any of the unix guys are ready for. SCO might find itself utterly irrelevant, on Linux IP or SCO Unix. Hardware wasn't ready for microkernels a decade ago, and microkernels weren't ready for prime time. But if we have to start fresh, to avoid any possible "IP" contamination, they're gonna find themselves wishing they had never said anything at all. Most operating system research hasn't been implimented practically over the last few decades. Wanna find out what the future is like, today?

Re:200 million dollars???Huh

[gmack]

" hell at that price why doesn't IBM, HP, or someone else buy SCO and give away there proprietary code just to get rid of this headache what is bad for linux is bad for IBM, HP, and Dell who have business plans based on linux. Hell at $200,000,000 1 million linux users and open source people could fork over $200 and make SCO disappear, it is that simple. If we had known about this months ago I know individual people with enough captial to have bought SCO."

See .. that's what Darl was banking on.. judging by their complete lack of legal preparedness this was never supposed to get this far..

Some battles should be faught on principal.. even if it hurts a bit on the short term.

This is one of them.

what if SCO had been smarter?

[nudicle]

Ok, so SCO is playing a last ditch opportunistic and ridiculous game here. That's a given. But what if they had been smarter. I know they didn't do this, but imagine they (or someone in the future did) ...

SCO sees it's dying but knows it has IP rights in some of its stuff. Because the kernel code is open source, it invests the time and resources of an unscrupulous individual or two to inject infringing code into the kernel. A year later, it announces the travesty of justice it has just discovered, and sues.

Now imagine a company desperate to get rid of Linux and with plenty of time, deep pockets, and a history of low dealing gets a similar idea. We'll call them, for fun, Microsoft.

I know it would be fraudulent and criminal and I'm not suggesting it's about to happen or even that MS would do that, just that the open source model makes it easier for someone to pull a stunt like that.

ps: I know you can't just submit code and magically it's there in the kernel. I'm talking about either deliberate long term malfeasance or a rogue employee who gets a 'bright' idea and hatches a longish term plan.

pps: I know this could easily happen (and has happened) with proprietary source companies as well .. my point is it would be easier w/ open source, that's all.

ppps: I don't think it's a particularly brilliant insight .. just throwing it out there...

Re:No.

[jasontwarnock]

That loser fucked Paris Hilton?

Hmmm... Maybe I should sue Linux...

Re:Why doesn't anyone ask the unanswerable questio

[bakes]

Samba was developed in Australia, where the law specifically allows for reverse engineering to allow compatibility with other products. There is no Microsoft IP in the Samba code.

The original copyright point raised by CoughDropAddict holds. The GPL is a set of rules that the author of a copyrighted work applies to other people who wish to use that work. If SCO doesn't agree to those rules, standard copyright laws apply - meaning SCO can NOT legally sell the product. It's not their IP.

They can sell Samba. They can diss the GPL. They can't do both.

0x01

[roman_mir]

"...You don't have to be a programmer at all to see copying had occurred. It wasn't just ten lines of code, that example was over 80 to 100 lines of code. Later some of the Linux people said that code shouldn't have been there, Bruce Perens said it was development problem and 'we've taken it out.' My analogy is [that's] like a bank robber with posse in pursuit swinging back by the bank and throwing the money back in... - oh, this is just precious. This guy, who presents himself to the media and to other companies as a David fighting Golliath with a copyright stone is still using this specific remark out of context. Shouldn't there be a law that if you obviously lie during a lawsuit that you freaking started, you just automatically lose everything, including the right to procreate?
I would love to see this guy hanged. If I ever see him on the street, he better watch out.

It Doesn't Matter

[DG]

See, here's the thing - it doesn't matter.

The GPL is based on copyright law. It's solid. A lot of very smart people spent a lot of time working on it, and it has been around in the wild for a long time as well. Nothing SCO can do will overturn that.

And even - if we play devil's advocate for a second - if SCO managed to somehow overturn the GPL, then the copyrights revert to the original authors and they STILL cannot steal it. And in the meantime, Stallman and the FSF will go to work on GPL Next Generation that patches whatever hole managed to get punched in it.

The Code Is Out There. It cannot be made to go away, and more importantly, the culture of Free Software/Open Source is established and entrenched. If necessary, Linux could be re-written from scratch and the project would carry on.

It's not going to come to that... but even in the worst possible case for us, SCO cannot stop us. At best, it can only slow things down.

What you are seeing and hearing are the first of the death throes of the former Big Players. Microsoft's death will likely be even more messy... but it doesn't matter in the end. The horse carriage makers and sailing shipbuilders died hard too.

We really are invincible - that's what has these people so scared. The only question is "when?" and... well, who cares? If you're reaping the benefits of Linux, then YOU have already won. So it takes a little while longer to make it to everone. *shrug* Big deal. When victory is inevitable, don't complain that it doesn't arrive fast enough.

Personally, I'm thanking my lucky stars that the first big opponent in the battle between Big Business Proprietary Software and Free Software - the case that is likely to set all kinds of precidents - is against an opponent so painfully and obviously in the wrong. They're centered around a *stock scam* fer crissakes, and they're abusing the judges. Read Groklaw for a taste of just how poorly this battle is being fought by the "other side" and how well by "our side".

We could have wound up fighting somebody much, much smarter with a better case, purer, and uncontaminated with by market foolishness. Instead, we got SCO. That's cause for celebration in my book.

DG

Re:It Doesn't Matter

[(void*)]

I agree, except that I dispute that your claim that "GPL overridden by copyright law". There is no overriding. He who owns the source dictates what license applies, be it a MS style EULA, or GPL. When the originator of the source is questionable, then the question is not the validity of the licenses, but the applicability of it.

It is evident to me that Darl, in his constant reactionary responses, has no clue about the legal lanscape he is working in. He formed his opinions not by reason, but by greed. It appears that he is finally finding out what he is truly fighting. It may be too late to back out now.

Checking the Sources - Is Chris Sontag lying?

[Ridgelift]

From the Article, Quote by Chris Sontag: (about 4/5th down the page):
Later some of the Linux people said that code shouldn't have been there, Bruce Perens said it was development problem and 'we've taken it out.' My analogy is [that's] like a bank robber with posse in pursuit swinging back by the bank and throwing the money back in...

From Bruce Perens website:
of the two examples, one isn't SCO's property at all, and the other is used in Linux under a valid license. If this is the best SCO has to offer, they will lose.

Where did Bruce Perens say "we've taken it out"? On the contrary, he points out that SCO didn't own one block of code and the other is under a valid license.

So is Chris Sontag lying, or am I in error?

Not just a hypocrite...

[BrokenHalo]

In that interview, he just comes across as a flaming idiot. "it's not our customers. I would say we're suing end users. There are only two industries who use the term 'users,' computers and drugs. Not sure if there's a connection there.

If he reasons like that, then he can't reason at all.

In the same article, he virtually admits in so many words that the company has no value or merit of its own, and that its stock is built on the FUD put out by David Boies. An overt admission that your company is a house of cards isn't what I would call a great business plan.

Two Quotes

[Nucleon500]

[When I came aboard at SCO I looked at this issue of code and asked:] 'Why don't you guys do this?' They said, 'Because the Linux community will get mad at us.'

I tell you what, I'll give you the Linux community getting mad at us vs. shareholder value. That was the trade off. They were absolutely right, the Linux community got mad and we were right, shareholder value went up. The last time I checked the CEO was in charge of shareholder value, not standing around the campfire singing Kumbaya with the Linux world. So far, I'm pleased with where we're going..

This shows a complete lack of any moral value whatsoever. Completely gone. Guess what - if that many people get mad, you're not doing the right thing! It doesn't matter how much money you can make, you still shouldn't do it. (To put it another way, "Last I checked, it wasn't my job to sit around the table carving the roast beef for the Whos down in Whoville.")

And my favorite, hopefully prophetic, quote which McBride attributes to IBM's lawyers:

The skies over Utah will be blackened with attorneys before this is all done.

Avoid SCO articles -- save sanity

[jtheory]

The unpredictable aspects of the legal system are definitely there, though I wouldn't be so paranoid about it as all that.

Either way -- I think I'm going to skip these SCO articles from now on. CRN's interview with McBride was just so frustrating to read -- that guy is such a snake and such a master of spin, it pisses me off to no end, and there's not a thing I can do about it. If this case were going to be resolved anytime soon, I'd stick around to cheer, but as it is, I have no desire to sit around interminably stewing in bile.

What's the practical approach to this?
What can a regular, IANAL geek do?
Donate to the FSF, since the GPL's getting involved? Somehow I don't think IBM needs my donation to its legal fund. Write letters to editors?

The big guys?

[phorm]

"all the big guys" are out to get SCO"

FYI, Darl, the big guys aren't out to get you anymore than I am out to get a mosquito that keeps buzzing around my head. You keep pissing them off and eventually they will want to swat you

Now the little guys, all of us linux users and many slashdotters alike whom you are pissing off a great deal: we'd definately like to see you suffer a painful and humiliating spiral down the corporate toilet. But the big guys have a bigger flyswatter, so you probably notice it coming a lot sooner...

nothing to worry about

[ajs318]

The GPL is absolutely watertight. It in no way abridges anyone's statutory rights {which would invalidate a contract in most countries, including this one} but, rather, gives you explicit written permission to perform certain acts.

Anyone who disputes this please state which of the following facts you object to:

1. Copyright law grants copyright holders the right to decide, for a limited time, who should and who should not copy their work.
2. Without explicit permission from the copyright holder or their authorised agent, it would be an offence to make and distribute copies - whether verbatim or modidied - of a copyrighted work.
3. Section 1 of the GPL gives users explicit permission to distribute verbatim copies as per (2) above provided that certain conditions are met.
4. Sections 2 and 3 of the GPL give users explicit permission to make and distribute modified copies and derivative works as per (2) above provided that certain conditions are met.

You may already have certain fair dealing rights in relation to software licenced under the GPL, but such rights vary from one jurisdiction to another. Many copyright holders don't give out permission so freely, but the law doesn't stop you letting other people copy your work if you want them to. All that could ever possibly happen from the GPL coming to court would be vindication for the GPL. Contrast that with certain EULAs being tested in court. The MS EULA, for instance, would almost certainly be laughed out of UK or German courts. That would hurt the GPL's credibility, but it wouldn't do Microsoft any favours either.

If IBM, or anyone, has knowingly placed source code in the Linux kernel {and therefore subjected it to the GPL} without having the right to, then they have violated copyright law. This will have to be debated in court, and then the disputed code will have to come to light, otherwise the case will be summarily dismissed. The Kernel Developers - who can show that they have acted in good faith and exercised due diligence at every stage - will then be able to remove any infringing code. In the unlikely event that the kernel developers are ordered to pay damages, they will have the right to sue whoever committed the original infringement. However, such damages are likely to be for a nominal sum {$1?} on account of SCO's refusal to show the code in question sooner.

And if the unthinkable happens - if, and it could only ever happen by some massive brain-fart, the GPL is ruled invalid, the disputed source code is not shown and Linux is declared illegal in all versions - then there is always FreeBSD, already proven not to be SCO's property.

Re:nothing to worry about

[ajs318]

Even if the kernel developers didn't exercise due diligence, then that would not affect the GPL's validity, because of its wording. The GPL does not give you permission to distribute code that is not covered by the GPL, and if you haven't the authority to release code under the GPL then the GPL can't be applied to that code. If one person violates the law on which the licence is built, that doesn't invalidate the licence!

But it's entirely possible for the kernel developers to show due diligence. PGP-signed e-mails, for a start.

Furthermore, the Linux kernel developers are not the only people who would be susceptible to this sort of thing. How does anyone know, for example, that Microsoft have not incorporated some of SCO's proprietary code into Windows? It could easily be there, but protected from SCO's prying eyes by Microsoft's closed-source practices. It's only the unique nature of Open Source Software that has allowed them to complain about code in the Linux kernel - because with Linux, everything is done out in broad daylight. If there is nothing the Linux kernel developers could have done to guard against proprietary code finding its way into the kernel, then it follows that there is nothing anybody else could do to prevent the same thing either.

SCO were in the better position all along, because they could see both their code and Linux, whereas the Linux people did not have access to SCO's code. As soon as they spotted their code entering a release candidate, they should have had a polite word with the kernel team right then and the whole mess would have been sorted. They missed an opportunity to nip it in the bud, and must carry at least some of the blame for what happened after it could have been fixed.

Example: your neighbour's dog shits in your garden. You spot it, but don't mention it to the neighbour until it has already turned your lawn yellow, given your kids diseases, and your wife has slipped on it and banged her arse good and proper. Some of the responsibility must be yours, because you could have taken action sooner -- you could have pointed it out to your neighbour and asked what they were going to do about it, but instead you chose to wait until the problem had escalated.

Re:No, it _is_ her fault

[Glock27]

You know what I'd really want to see? I'd want to see a system where these cretins and leeches are actually _fined_ for bringing up such idiotic claims to a court. Not even something as ridiculous as $200,000 or anything. Slap her with a $2000 fine. Just enough to make other morons think twice before thinking, "hey, cool, who can we sue for money today?"

Pal, you are a good example of a waste of air.

This 79 year old woman made a mistake. It seems she realized that, since initially all she did was ask McDonalds to sell the coffee at a cooler temperature. It was McDonald's assinine behavior that cost it the lawsuit and all the bad publicity that came with it.

Now read this next part carefully: The coffee you make at home in your Mr. Coffee is NEVER at 180 degrees F. As has already been pointed out, that is too hot to drink, and hot enough to be considerably more dangerous than "normal" coffee. McDonald's stance on this was inexcusable (and I do recall getting a very rude surprise the first time I sipped a cup of hot coffee from McDonalds myself).

I'd be willing to bet you're under 30 years of age (most likely under 20). Someday you'll grow up - I hope.

(I do agree there are many frivolous lawsuits, and they're bad - this just wasn't one of them. As to your "Einstein" comment, that is called "sarcasm", and is actually a compliment to Einstein. I think most people who were seriously compared to Einstein would be immensely flattered. Here's a suggestion though - rather than sitting around being bitter and complaining, perhaps you should actually do something to improve the world. Apologies if you already are.)

Re:Not just a hypocrite... but outdated too.

[JCCyC]

Drug-based enemy demonizing is so 20th century. Doesn't he know terrorist is the smear du jour?

Re:Oh, spare us

[myom]

Yes, that's F, which is defined like this:

212F is the temperature where water boils
32F where it freezes.
Originally 100F was supposed to be the rectal temperature of a person, but it is closer to 98 and 99.

The system is based on the two highly logical numbers 212 and 32, because 32 was the number of toes that some english king had.

That same king had a feverish aunt, and that aunt gave inspiration to the definition of other measures. 100F was the rectal temperature of that aunt. A yard was the distance two of her paces moved her feet, that coincidentally were a third of the length of those two paces, hence the measure of the foot. When the king's mathematicians noticed a foot was almost exactly twelve times the length of the king's penis, they were certain this was a sign from God - a full circle from the king's penis and his aunt's rectum had been discovered!

They presented the findings, which formed the basis of the scales and measures used in UK and US still. Lately heretics denying the greatness of God have been using other blasphemical measures, a sure sign the terrorists have already won.

SCO hires Body Guards

[WillRobinson]

Looks like Daryl and friends are really afraid of you. http://www.sltrib.com/2003/Nov/11192003/business/1 12207.asp

Experimenting with different scenarios

[myom]

- I decide to boil water and pour it on my lap.
I go to court, suing the maker of the teapot: I would get laughed out of the court.

- You come to my house, boil water and _you_ pour it on my lap, I would sue you and get damages.

- You come to my house, boil water, and _I_ pour it on my lap.
I go to court, suing you for boiling that water: I would get laughed out of court.

Change of scenario...
Instead of me (a man), assume I am an elderly woman.
Instead of my house, assume this takes place in a car.
You (still) work at McDonalds.

You boil water, I pour it on my lap.
???
Profit

Re:Oh, spare us

[myom]

I assume you are from the UK? Well, you measure your weight in stones, and I won't even get into where that comes from... but it is pretty close to the origin of the inch. (:

Re:No, it _is_ her fault

[I8TheWorm]

Coffee is made by boiling ground coffee beans in (surprise!) boiling water.

Actually, at most restaurants (McDonald's included) it's made by steam. Water is boiled, the steam is collected and when it condenses it drips through the coffee grounds. By the time it's servable, it can have cooled to quite a lower temperature than the 212 F required to boil the water in the first place.

A simple test was done to compare coffee temperatures, and nobody came within 20 degrees F of the 180 McDonald's kept theirs.

She never asked for $3MM, the jury awarded her that amount because of McDonald's stance on the issue. That large amount was a punishment for McDonald's having received numerous complaints and not doing anything about it.

Re:Okay, "paranoid" post, but worth a thought...

[carlos_benj]

...only thing I can think of is OS2 which is hardly a household name. Im sure they have some software but I would guess most of there money is in hardware.

IBM does sell software, but primarily as a way to leverage their sales of hardware and services. Not that they don't make any money on software, it's more a means to an end for them and they happen to make a little coin along the way....

Where are the brave OSS guys now?

[theolein]

I get so violently irritated every time I read yet another Darl McBride piece that I have the impulsive feeling to go up and smack him him in the face, my fist between his astonished eyes, when I see the slime bag standing in front of an audience in a suit that is two sizes to big for him (canal rats are not used to the daylight it seems). I gather that many other feel the same way as I do or else Darl McFuck would not now have bodyguards to save his arse when he opens that sewage pipe he calls his mouth.

After reading his waffling and calming myself down a bit, I realise some things, which follow:

1.Every time a question is posed about SCO's products he comes out with very obvious marketing speak and hubris about how exited SCO resellers are and about the supposed 2 million servers (do cash registers count as servers?) running SCO warez. This should be blindly obvious. It would be marketing suicide and almost unheard of for any CEO to admit that the SEC filings were in any way truthful about the true state of the company. Why hasn't anyone thought to ask him about the SEC filings his own company made????

2.SCO's case, as far as I can tell from the respective IBM and SCO court filings, is on weak ground at best. SCO has yet to answer IBM's request on a line for line clarification of exactly which files are infringing SysV R4 copyright. They have claimed in their answer to IBM that some 531 files are infringing, with some 30'000 lines. This is not anywhere near the "half a million lines" that he talks about in public. But he hasn't specified any lines directly. Why???????????

3.SCO distributed Linux for a long time after they had started their legal proceedings, and I'm damn sure this is going to have an effect on the case. Why isn't this point raised in press interviews???

4.SCO's public accusations and threats are almost certainly going to be taken into account in the case. One must note that McBride has not once talked specifically about any company that he will threaten with the $699/$1399 charge. This is obviously because once he does that, he faces being sued by that company for extortion. Almost all of SCO's public speech is stock value influencing bluff. And no one thought to ask him about a specific company???

5. McFuck finally mentioned that BSD is in the clear, but in the same sentence mentions that BSD code is in Linux without the copyright information, yet makes no mention about SCO products using the same code. And no one thought to ask????

6. McBrat says that Samba is not infringing anything, so SCO can use it. Nice of him isn't it? It fits in with his strategy of trying to weaken the GPL by appealing to marketing greed that is so fucking rampant on Wall Street. He wants it "friendlier" to business. It should be obvious that he wants to save his arse for distributing stuff under the GPL for so long, and the fact that he faces copyright infringement of his own even if the GPL is invalid.

I realise that many prominent GPL contributors don't want to frighten off businesses by suing SCO for copyright infringement or breach of contract, including Linus. Yet everyone who has been accused publicly of something by SCO has gotten involved whether they wanted it or not. And this irritates me. Why do Linus and Co not defend themselves? Why do they not start legal action against SCO? Why is it that almost no one from the OSS crowd ever tries to speak to standard industry rags and make decent legal points about SCO? I get so fricking mad when Linus does his dumb hippy free love act in the press interviews until he finally gets subpoenaed by SCO's team of legal drug dealers. Why the fuck does no one stand up in public for fuck sake?

Sorry for the rant, but this whole SCO thing is so publicly damaging for the GPL and Linux, and the fact way the media and the stock markets work is that one is automatically guilty when one makes no good comment.