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Leaked Memo Says Microsoft Raised $86 million for SCO
badzilla and numerous others wrote in with this: "Eric S. Raymond's Open Source site has a new Halloween memo. The Halloween X memo, which ESR says he received by email from an anonymous whistleblower inside SCO, appears to confirm Microsoft's alleged funding of SCO's anti-Linux initiative. And the actual dollar amounts are much larger than previously rumored!" The consultant is discussing his fee for bringing in this business, in the first few lines of the email.
Another good reason not to buy Microsoft products... They give your money to try and prevent you from using anything else than Windows.
Short sell SCO and Microsoft !
This should be FUUUUN to watch! Let 'er rip!
Left 4 Dead Gaming Group - http://www.l4dgg.com
Now THIS is a great way to start off my morning; I hop on slashdot, and this is what I see? And a clean slate to boot! Life is good today, the two companies I hate implicated and I see no postings yet...
It's funny how the typos and bad grammar in the email lends credence to it. Looks like something I'd get from an exec at work! Well, minus the shady dealing with Microsoft, anyway. :P
Auto-reply to ACs: "Truly, you have a dizzying intellect."
Can't... type... reply... too... much... outrage... head... exploding...
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
Assuming this is an accurate and actual letter, how is it that a company can continue to do business in this manner? This company is not in the softwrae business anymore - it's in the lawsuit business. After all the happenings with Enron and WorldCom, how is it that this company, which has no real business plan (that's evident even outside the letter) attract customers or money?
We should attach a motor to Adam Smith's grave. I'm guessing we're at about 100K RPM and climbing.
libertarianswag.com
If this turns out to be genuine (and I'm sure ESR would have gone to great lengths to validate the document before going public), I can't think of better grounds for another anti-trust case. It's already on the Register too, and Groklaw can't be far behind. Let's draw attention to this smoking gun, shall we?
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
For $86 million Microsoft has created an enourmous amount of chaos. There is little doubt they will make their $86M back on additional because of the FUD the SCO crap has caused.
That doesn't make it any less sneaky, underhanded and evil though.
Although this does smack of "unfair" business practices it is a look at how *some* business alliances are formed.
Now, if you are going to condemn it in this case you also need to condemn it when one of "the big guys" comes to the rescue of something that *you* like.
Also, if you assume that IBM, etc. had no idea that this was going on then that would be a bad assumption. They might not of known the details, but they *probably* knew something was up.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
Wow, this could be a very easy forgery and it looks to be.
Smoking gun? Well, maybe, if you're looking at a Microsoft violation of their anti-trust agreement, but it really has not bearing on the court cases.
Do I smell another visit to the DoJ?
...is probably Richard Emerson.
I mean how better to fight an anti-competitive war against Linux than to use a non-monopoly-wielding company to do it?
SCO's reputation couldn't be in any worse shape, but if Microsoft really did do this, they lose all kinds of credibility.... again.
They have so much money that no one noticed the cheque for $8.6m was actually for $86m due to a missing decimal place.
The person responsible has been promoted to strategy and vision director.
Beep beep.
It's not like this is the first time one corporation has funded blatantly false muckraking efforts against another. It's just Robber Barons, Part II. They'll all have their little squabbles and the money will pass from hand to hand, and in the end the only people who win aren't the consumers, or even the corporate bigwigs - it's the lawyers. Same as it ever was.
I wonder if this violates any of the antitrust laws??? Can this bring them back to court??? They are paying another company to try and take down tke competition.
Evolution or ID?
BREAKING NEWS!
Republicans raise money for George W. Bush!
EXCLUSIVE!!
Christians give lots of money to their church!
UNBELIEVABLE!!!!
People who have an interest in helping you give you money!!!! OMG I CANT BELIEVE IT WTF!11!!11!!1
Looks like the MSWord spell checker was turned on when composing the mail ;)
Free XBox, PS2
(big bad Microsoft, trying to kill off its competitors using SCO as a weapon)
Now I have that Pat Benetar song in my head all day. Thanks a lot. "Stop using SCO as a weapon. Stop using...."
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Turns out we were off by an order of magnitude -- it was much, much more than that.
86000000/11000000 = 7.818...
Sorry to be picky, but how is this 'an order of magnitude'? In base seven, maybe.
For 86 Million USD, I'd act like a total jackass, too. Not many people wouldn't. I don't know SCO's legal history before this whole thing started. It might be because they never did anything this assinine. 86 million USD would more than justify why they are doing it, esp. if they were on the verge of dying.
Anyone got another 86 Million USD to make them shut up?
They're obviously not spending it too wisely.
I find it amusing that the people one /., the same people who believe that one should be able to go to the source and verify the code on voting machines, seem to believe what ESR is telling them about MS and SCO w/o having access to his source.
Does anyone else see the irony in this?
If the discovery process yields the original email, Microsoft is fucked.
ESR wasn't very smart. He shouldn't have publish this YET. Give them to IBM lawyers so they know what to look for and what they are fairly certain that they have it among their discovery material, THEN publish it.
SCO's going to be shredding and I hear their email server *just* crashed and its hard drives are going to have to be replaced. All of the archive tapes have suddenly gone bad.
This *could* have been the bomb but ESR probably blew it.
Pragmatism as an ideology is not particularly pragmatic in the long term. Keep it in mind when you dismiss Free Software
I don't think these guys are _quite_ dumb enough to admit to this stuff in email. Much less on company email that is all under subpoena in the IBM litigation.
I smell a setup.
When they talk about "fo"ing the IPX code, I'm assuming that it's an acronym for some sort of patent process? What's the deal?
Is there a unit for self respect? If so, SCO has spent 86 million dollars and about three times that in Respectrons and is failing miserably.
My question then, is what happens now? Is it possible to use this as evidence in a lawsuit? Is it possible to get it confirmed by subpoenia-ing (?) the original, and if so how quick?
What exact crime has been committed here, if any, and what are the possible punishments, again if Microsoft are actually doing anything illegal.
M$ must be getting sick of all the leaking. Source code, memos. Whats next? Longhorn coming out in 2007 newsflash?!
Free XBox, PS2
The unethicality of SCO's actions are obvious. What is not valid is that Microsoft did something wrong by funding SCO. I am open to correction on this front.
We all know that Microsoft really welcomes competition from Linux... Unless Microsoft is lying...
Linux/Open Source/Anti Microsoft News
From: Mike Anderer
Sent: Sunday, October 12, 2003
To: csontag@sco.com
CC: Bob Bench
Subject: Conversation Friday
I work inside SCO. Mike Anderer hasn't had anything to do with the company since June 2003. This is a clear and simple forgery. I lend it no credence. I'd suggest ignoring it.
However, Microsoft's efforts could backfire badly:
If people actually start to think (I said "if" okay?) and realize that it's proprietary software that got people into legal trouble:
If any of those firms would have used 100% open source software from the start neither would have been sued.
Isn't the whole SCO-mess the biggest pro-OSS argument imaginable?
If you look at SCO: First you buy software from a seemingly honest Unix-vendor, a couple of years later their management changes and you get sued for it! SCO proves how dangerous proprietary sofware can become.
I thought *I* was having a terrible day! The SCO shill who wrote this must be crapping his pants!
:-(
Damn - I just remembered - I *AM* having a bad day. Back to being corporate whipping boy again
A little planning goes a long way...
The document below was emailed to me by an anonymous whistleblower inside SCO. He tells me the typos and syntax bobbles were in the original.
Wave bye-bye to the nice whistleblower. I bet the 'typos and syntax bobbles' are part of a document tracking system. SCO will know who released this.
One man's -1 Flamebait is another man's +5 Funny.
If the discovery process yields the original email, Microsoft is fucked.
ESR wasn't very smart. He shouldn't have published this YET.
Give IT to IBM lawyers so they know what to look for and when they are fairly certain that they have it among their discovery material, THEN publish it.
SCO's going to be shredding and I hear their email server *just* crashed and its hard drives are going to have to be replaced. All of the archive tapes have suddenly gone bad too.
This *could* have been the bomb but ESR probably blew it by speaking a little too soon.
Mods: Please mod the previous comment down and let this one replace it.
Pragmatism as an ideology is not particularly pragmatic in the long term. Keep it in mind when you dismiss Free Software
I take it Baystar is this bunch of vulture capitalists?
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
There are several things wrong here. First, it was already known that Baystar invested in SCO to the tune of around $55m. The memo says Microsoft brought in $86m INCLUDING baystar, so other monies from Microsoft or Microsoft related referrals would only be $31m. And we know microsoft bought a SCO license, which was a good bit of that.
Darl McBride: What do you want, peon?
Linus Torvalds: Show me the disputed code!
McBride: You must pay me $699 if you want to see the code!
Torvalds: Yeah, right. Wait a second....
*He spots Bill Gates off to the side behind a curtain, controlling the giant flaming head of McBride*
Torvalds: Isn't that... I knew it!
McBride: Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!!!
Torvalds: The game's up, Billy Boy!
--Z
"Well I've thoroughly enjoyed this clandestined discussion. I feel so devious and evil. But for my own records, could you write down everything we've just said (especially all the bad stuff we're doing) and distribute it to all the company employees? Make sure all the new guys get it too, especially the one in cubicle 4-B that doesn't like his job. Oh, and if this gets out it could ruin our public image, so try to keep it a secret, thank you." Microsoft VIP
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
I can believe that Microsoft gave $100 million to SCO. I think both Microsoft and SCO should burn in hell.
But I don't buy the memo. There are just too many "carefully placed" typos. It looks like someone engineered typos to make it LOOK authentic, but something about it's just a bit too intentional and obvious looking.
Think Linux inroads has got Msoft shitting in its pants so this comes as no surprise. If you can't beat it technologically, create FUD around it--In Malaysia and Thailand, our redmond fiend has launched a so-called Windows XP "Lite" for cheap...Y? Cos the govts "threaten" to launch desktops with Linux!
Either the author of the leaked document in question was in extreme haste, or he has lackluster grammar skills. The document is full of errors like: "The will help us a lot", "componients", "shoudl", "wjich", and so on. That isn't exactly the kind of document you send out when you are trying to convince people to do something shady. You'd think the author would at least had the initiative to spell check the thing before sending it out. Perhaps it should be taken with a grain of salt, and by that, I mean deer salt licks.
Join Tor today!
This is getting about as stupid as nightly television.
There's been a whole host of developments in the ongoing SCO saga over the past couple of days. SCO have now filed law suits against Autozone and DaimlerChrysler on the same day as announcing growing operating losses. Despite securing a deal to license their IP with ev1servers, SCOsource only generated an income of $20,000 for the quarter. Today it has been revealed that Computer Associates, Questar Corp. and manufacturer Leggett & Platt Inc have all joined the ranks of SCO source licensees. Over at the Nasdaq the publicity stunts are beginning to wane thin with investors who sent SCO shares plummeting by almost 14% yesterday. In the courtroom, SCO was yesterday given 45 days to identify all specific lines of code they allege IBM put into Linux from AIX or Dynix; identify and provide with specificity all lines of code in Linux that it claims rights to.
There's nothing indicating that this is real. "An anonymous whistleblower"? What does that mean? He got it from whistleblower392@hotmail.com from a public library IP?
I'd like to see the headers of the email. If the email originates from SCO then I believe it's authentic (judging from Received: lines rather than the From: field). If it's from a dial-up or public IP, I'm pretty sure it's fake. Of course, there's another posibility. OSI know who the whistleblower is, but they claim they don't so they can't be forced to reveal his identity in court. After all, they're the good guys.
Underholdning.info
...now that the cat's out of the bag. The FTC should be informed, IBM and Novell should demand memos, etc. Microsoft may end up wishing they'd never done this.
I wonder if anything will be done based on this leaked memo - I mean legally can anything be done?
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
Yes, and if, in fact, this e-mail is real, then it will be real interesting to see what happens to SCO's revenue stream. I'm sure that MS doesn't like to be played the fool, and that about what these guys are saying here. I mean, christ...
...sure makes it seems like they think MS is an easy, endless source of money. Well, let's just wait and see what'll happen.
but there are other ways to get money from them, their partners,investment bank referrals, etc..
and
This Microsoft deal is the Ante to the poker game...We should get this done and go after several $2-3 Million deals from the expense side of their company.
Also, ~$100 mil isn't chump change, shouldn't there be some sort of public record of MS explaining this transaction, or can you "creatively account" for it?
Why, o why must the sky fall when I've learned to fly?
Come on my friends, this letter is a little too convenient and a little too untraceable. Although I am unsure if Microsoft has given money to SCO (makes good business sense) I doubt this letter is legit.
$86E6/$699 = 123032.9041487839771101573676681 Copies of Legally Licensed Linux Distributions.
This makes perfect sense!
If SCO ends up losing the case then I hope there are a large helping of fraud and racketeering charges to go around. SCO has been very reluctant to disclose exactly what has been misappropriated which to me indicates that their case is pretty tenuous. It's a bit like a department store telling the police that a specific person was a shoplifter but not being willing to tell them exactly what was stolen. A claim like that should be met with a great deal of suspicion.
Microsoft's investment in SCO at the time seemed potentially dangerous. In the short term there were probably some companies who could be swayed into deploying on Microsoft products instead of linux. In the longer term Microsoft is jeopardizing their companies reputation. If the suit is actually determined to be fraudulent and it becomes common knowledge that Microsoft helped the suit along then they'll have done damage to their name.
So Microsoft knows that the case should be valid or they were misled (which I would also thing should result in a loss of reputation - a company with as much resources as Microsoft should be difficult to mislead) or a third possibility is that they don't worry about negative outcomes.
How much was spent on professional mouthpieces Laura DiDio, Daniel Lyons and Rob Enderle?
Belief is the currency of delusion.
AIT (assuming it's true) this is an absolutely stupid idea from the goons in Microsoft. They've got the Department of Justice and public opinion to lose and nothing to gain. [Code infringements, if they exist, can easily be re-written]. Microsoft is funding a company that runs around suing exactly the same Fortune 500 group of companies that it hopes to then do business with. How long until IBM, RedHat, Novell, AZ or Daimler find a way to really see what's behind the SCOsource strategy with the help of some good ol' 'discovery' in the courts. This house of cards is headed for a fall.
The question is - where is this money coming from? What department at Microsoft authorized it, and do the shareholders/gov't know?
Squashing the competition is one thing, doing it in secret is another. This was clearly done this way to avoid more scrutiny by the DOJ. THAT'S what the problem here is.
If Microsoft wants to support SCO, they should just be honest about their intentions. If this memo is true, however, it's going to look fishy to anyone with half a brain at the FTC/DOJ.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
Phew! Thank god we had the people at OpenSource to add all of those pretty green comments because otherwise I would have no idea what the hell he was talking about.
Lons? WTF, considering what a bitch they are to payback usually I fig-red just about everyone new how to spell the freakin' word.
If you think I am being a Spealot (spelling+zealot) then RTFA. It was horrible.
Right up there with the CEO ov EV1[L] hosting.
Course, this time round we don't know if anyone just made this up or not... but it seems like par for the course.
I think the general public might actually be tiring of SCO - my Grandfather (who does not even own a computer) said they remind him of his neighbors "yip" dog.
Yip yip yip all day long, bites you hard if you get too close but its basically just f******g anoying and you avoid it most of the time.
Gramps is usually talking about poisoning it...
Anyway, the whole point of this article "86 million!!!" is not surprising.
In fact... I think I might start a company with the sole intent of bashing on Windows opponents in the media....good revenue stream...
Ahh, but maybe that would be plaugerism.
Report the bastards!!! Talk about a cheap shot... Getting some other company to execute their secret, illegal business agenda against a competing OS.
You would think that people would start using gpg/pgp for their internal emails now. There are other solutions, but this is one case where youj _don't_ want the keys in escrow. You want them changed, regularly.
At least, that's the way I see it from SCOs perspective.
-- Who is the bigger fool? The fool or the fool who follows him? --
It does not 'beg the question'.
It'd be more believable if the individual who made this up would go back and fix the spelling and grammatical errors.
Want $86 million dollars fast? Well, we now know not one, but TWO ways to make it!
1) Make an unjustified attack on Linux
2) Make an unjustified attack on Iraq
--Stephen
Did you ever notice that *nix doesn't even cover Linux?
I'm not so sure you can present evidence in court that was acquired illegally.
Join Tor today!
Read up on Maintenance and Champerty. These are legal torts involving funding lawsuits, especially frivilous lawsuits.
I don't happen to believe that the email is genuine, emails are too easy to forge, but no one should be so sanguine about this being in any way appropriate.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
Of course, you have to turn it ON first.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
My favorite Jesse Venture quote, or one of them: "You can't legislate stupidity".
He was talking about people riding snowmobiles on thin ice, ignoring warnings from the weatherman, and then dying from falling into freezing water.
But in this case, it would have to be the stupidity of the people who involve themselves in these meaningless pursuits of trying to immerse themselves in power.
It seems to me, anyway, that these guys corresponding are fascinated with power, not with anything else. Just power. Probably because they don't think they have enough money in their bank accounts.
Hopefully, they are in a minority - well, at least - this is not the way to be successful, and participating in this type of nonsense will only bring you and your family great misery - in the long run. Despite how successful these folks are in their own minds, their plan is just doomed to fail anyway - leak or no leak. Which means one thing... they are wasting their time, hence they are stupid. If they really cared about power and prestige and wealth, they wouldn't be wasting their time attacking Linux, which is innocent.
When did this begin, and how was it engineered? How far back does it go?
These are the questions a DoJ probe should be asking. Was Darl hand-picked by MS?
Big Daddy, Johnny, Burp, Aunt Zelda, Scott, Slurp, Big Momma
Yes, it is how some business alliances are formed. But not all business alliances are LEGAL. Look up "anti-trust" for help with that.
The issue here is that Microsoft is sending money to SCO through various other agencies in an attempt to "launder" that money. It would be VERY different if Microsoft PUBLICLY sent the money to SCO.
The same as it is different when some company PUBLICLY announces that they will contribute money to the legal defense of anyone sued by SCO.
I'm sure IBM suspected that Microsoft was behind some of the money. But suspecting and evidence are not the same. So what? IBM has to deal with the court case in the courts.
... of MS funding.
The text of the email and [some but not all] of the article above talks about Microsoft helping raise $86m through external sources. It doesn't talk about Microsoft writing a check.
While the line is thin, this sort of thing goes on in business all the time, friends use friends to help with problems.
First off, I'm not addressing the authenticity of this specific e-mail, just the idea that such dealings would be sent by e-mail.
They are.
It's a common communication form, and I've had people where I work now think that by deleting an e-mail from their inbox, they erase if from exitance.
One of the shadiest people I met in my entire life was having problems with his computer, so the (then) network admin emptied the trash on the desktop and in Outlook as part of his cleanup. Said sales jackass was standing over his shoulder demanding an explanation of everything he was doing, and refused to believe that three years of e-mail were still readily available after he hit the "DEL" key.
"I deleted them, they're gone."
After much explanation, including my input, he finally said "It doesn't matter if only geeks can get at them."
Total idiot.
And then there was the day he found out about the backups we were doing of the mail server, and the fact that the "deleted items" were kept in our archives for 30 days.
He was not a happy man.
BTW: This is the same guy who was later fired when one of his business partners called up threatening to show up with a baseball bat and take out kneecaps.
I'm not saying the MS execs are anywhere near that level, I'm just saying that just because YOU and I wouldn't put something that incriminating into a system that could be tracked and recovered, doesn't mean other people would.
Besides, they probably never suspected the document would be leaked.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
if this is a fake or not. Just read SCOX filing with the SEC. They have to provides those details. It's the law.
It's the McBride legal cartel that's FAR more interesting to investigate. This is hardly a new game for good 'ol Darl and his cronies only he's going for bigger fish.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
I have no love for SCO or M$, but this is obviously a forgery. When was the last time that anybody you know wrote a "smoking-gun" memo, that spells out M-I-C-R-O-S-O-F-T in every instance it's used? Everybody shorthands it to MS (or M$), unless your motive is to provide a paper trail.
If anybody wants to request this memo in discovery, they'd better bury it in a stack of other stuff, or much will be made of the fact that it doesn't. If the $86 mil does exist, there has got to be much better proof than this memo.
With over $60mil, they can afford sending all of their management to training on how to use a spell checker, I would think.
... assuming the letter is legitimate.
Doesn't Outlook have built in spellcheck, like MS Word? If it does, that'd be a sign that SCO isn't actually using MS products for mail, or the author in general is a real idiot
[and knowing my luck, I probably made a whole slew of typos in this]
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
I wouldn't be surprised if one of M$'s upcoming strategies is this:
1) Create shell company A that creates Linux code
2) Have a few spies pretend to develop open source applications for Linux, and have them slip in a ton of code from company A, without licensing it.
3) Wait a few years until this code is widely adopted into Linux
4) Sue like SCO is doing
eTrade SUCKS
I see myself as a sceptic, but on the other hand...
>Patenting IPX? give me a break.
Would you categorize this as more or less preposterous compared to the statements "There are millions of literal lines of System V copied into linux" and "We own the UNIX operating system"?
Belief is the currency of delusion.
Why? Because SCO did not use Word to type that email, if they did, they would have the nipped the spelling errors...
...if they find out who did it, they may be able to bring a lawsuit against him/her. However, if they can't directly prove it and start axing any and all who may be responsible, they have another problem to deal with:
MORE MEMOS.
Who knows what else this person has in their possession eh? They is probably far worse than this. More meat, more gristle...
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
that anyone's surprised by this news.... It's something the conspirationlists stated the moment MS officicially "bought" $10M worth of SCO licenses and the lawsuit started 5 days later with a $10M fund. At the very least, everyone was exposed to the idea.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
I'd be ashamed to send an email that was that poorly written to a business associate at any level. And I'd have less regard for anyone who wood. :-)
Research shows that 67% of those who use the term "research shows", are just making shit up.
They've all been through the "email under subpoena" game in the previous lawsuits. I seem to recall one of them even hinged on email found in discovery.
This species of legal edge lowlife knows the discovery process inside and out.
That figure doesn't seem right. Why would you give SCO 86M? Right now their Market cap is only like 170M or so, according to Yahoo Finance. If you had 86M you could just BUY a majority share in them.
Well I'm guessing it's pretty obvious. Windows doesn't want to be seen as an active participant in this lawsuit, but it's fairly apparent that they're trying to influence the court's decision. This is probably legal but highly unethical. Also, whose pocket is this 86M coming out of? The shareholders, probably.
The whole thing stinks, but I'm not completely sure this is correct information. 86M is a lot of money to be giving (and not investing) in a company. Maybe the reason they aren't investing is that they know SCO's lawsuit isn't sound?
SCOsource Business Model:
- Sue Your Customers
- Shill for Microsoft
- Kite Your Stock
- Pray You Stay Out of Jail
I distinctly remember being very surprised by some information I got in my Michigan law class.
The examples were "based on real cases."
A thief broke into a home and found a meth lab, and reported it to the police.
Another thief robbed a home, and later found what turned out to be murder evidence among his stollen goods. He reported it to the police.
In both cases, the evidence obtained by the thief was admitted into the trial.
I know this holds true in Michigan, and at the time the book stated that this was true in "Most US states." No clue about Federal court.
It was even mentioned that sometimes cops will make a deal with a known burglar to break in and retrieve evidence for them. So long as it never becomes known that the thief was asked or told to do this by the cops, then all is well. If it comes out that an officer of the law encouraged the activity, then the evidence will not be admissible. (The law course didn't tell us what would happen to a cop who encouraged such activity)
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
Slashdot beat Groklaw to a SCO headline? The end is nigh!
"Uh... yeah, Brain, but where are we going to find rubber pants our size?" --Pinky
Boom!
"You (other readers) do know that it is the *current* administration that actually lifted a finger to prosicute and jail the folks at Enron and WorldCom, yes?"
OK....I'll bite.
So you mean the same administration that met with Lay, et al. to formulate "energy policy"? What you see as righteous prosecution I see as CYA once the public outcry against corporate banditry got too loud.
The contention that DOJ or the Bush are acting out of altruism is ludicrous. This is an echo of Ambrose's statments about Nixon: he let everyone else take the hit until there was no one else left. Skilling, the WorldCom guy getting jammed this week, they are all sacrificial lambs for the Cons. They were useful allies as long as the smoke and mirrors stock bubble was cruising. Now they are liabilities.
DOJ has ended up looking like doofuses because Elliot Spitzer is doing an Elliot Ness impersonation. Spitzer is burning Wall Streeters in NY while the DOJ is hassling hospitals for abortion records. Ashcroft hasn't exactly pursued a full court press on the MSFT antitrust stuff, either.
Lifting a finger? Balls. They're cutting accomplices loose.
First off:
1) There is no real tangible evidence that it is a real memo, and not just shock press with no backing
BUT
2) If it is true, it would be intresting to see if there is a correlation between those sued companies like crysler if they have recently cut big ties to MS in favour of linux.
My 2 cents
Please!
The site is not slashdotted. The text you copied is annotated with ESRs remarks in green. But the green tags were lost when you copied the text into this reply. So your text is complete gibberish! The original mail and ESRs comments are mixed up.
Please mod down!
)9TSS
Bruce Willis as 'Eric S. Raymond' in ...
"Legal Weapon IV"
rated NC17 for strong language and gore.
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
One thing about Republican adminstrations. They go easy on businesses, BUT, if that business does something wrong they sure come down hard.
The DOJ is doing a wonderful job working its way up the Enron chain, building the case by toppling the dominoes one at a time. Notice how all these scandals popped up after the Bush was in office? Do you think they all originated then? No, what happened is that some people got replaced and their successors didn't look away. Realize the a Republican led DOJ is held to different standards than others, and Ashcroft (love him or hate him) is being held to even higher ones... and not just by the press.
The DOJ case against MS was screwed up from day one. It simply compounded its mistakes as it went on that by the time the Bush DOJ inherited it they saw the stinking cesspool for what it was and did their best to get out of a situation that should never have arisen. Yeah MS should have been investigated, but it should have been done professionally.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Actually, I think that IBM would have a case here to demand memos from SCO. You see, SCO has been playing the 'memo' game from IBM lately (demanding memos from various execs), so this fits in quite nicely.
I wonder what the judge on the IBM case would think of this and in light of it, if IBM were to request memos? I'm certain it would be granted because Microsoft's secretive actions go right to the heart of the case - barratry. Which is all that SCO is really about now.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
Sure, it's only $85 million (i can't believe, i just typed that).
but there's $85M that microsoft will never see again.
"I used to think that life was unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse, if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe." (Marcus on B5)
So, go Microsoft! Your unethical practises are making me feel warm inside.
The owls are not what they seem
And the fact that evidence is turned up from such subpoenas makes it clear that people send all sorts of incriminating things through e-mail.
I know I've seen plenty of evidence for Harassment lawsuits floating around e-mail, including one woman giving a detailed account of who she thought another employee was sleeping with in exchange for promotions and raises.
I'd already explained that such messages could be brought up in court, and she kept sending them.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
How do you know that's not exactly what he did? Along with copies to the FTC and SEC? I don't know either and the article doesn't say. This material is months old and we don't know when ESR received it.
IBM may have known all along MS was working through a lackey and doesn't care. If it wasn't SCO it would've been someone else, maybe someone with a smarter CEO. Maybe IBM just decided to duke it out now and get it over with. I'm just speculating but it's not out of realm of possibility.
Overall this has been a positive for Linux. So it wouldn't surprise me if MS is behind it. They've become very adept at shooting themselves in the foot the last few years.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Life is not like a television show. Chances are excellent this email is bogus.
I should check the spelling mistakes... maybe when you place all wrongly spelled letters together they form a phrase like "Hahaha I fooled you all - Billyboy".
I don't remember the journalist who made it, but an steady battle against Linux based on IP/patents was one of the predictions for Linux during 2003/2004. We have it at full steam... and now it's become clear who's steering the boat. If SCO doesn't sue ESR immediately (asking for death penalty at least!), all we knew he's right.
---
All my submissions to Slashdot rejected... and proud of it!
Assuming the article is true, nobody said it had to be booked to MS. It could be from an individual or a shell company for example. But I actually doubt this article.
C|N>K
Anyone else find it ironic that Microsoft is now paying out millions to enrich their former adversary David Boise (sp??)
I guess they felt he did a really good job prosecuting them in the DoJ case.... why not have him on your side next time around.
--Aaron Greenberg
$86 million is the sort of money Microsoft finds when they pull up their couch cushions. I suspect that they don't expect SCO to succeed at all - they just want to give the appearance that open source software is highly vulnerable to attack by random morons. If you are a PHB deciding between Linux (the new kid on the block as far as you are concerned) and Windows (I have that on my laptop! And it's shiny!) this kicks Linux down a notch. Most PHBs don't care about whose IP goes where as long as it doesn't make them vulnerable.
If Windows is found to contain someone else's unlicensed code, the rightful code owners are not going to sue end users, period. MS would either sue them into the ground or settle with them out of court to get them to shut up. The analogous thing can't happen with Linux because no one entity controls it from a legal standpoint. So, score Windows 1, Linux 0.
Like everyone else with at least one functioning neuron, I think SCO will lose. But the damage to Linux credibility has been done. Even when this is resolved, there is always the class of PHBs who will think back to this whole mess and how it could have cost them money. These feelings won't last forever or necessarily outweigh the benefits of Linux, but for Microsoft, it has been well worth the money.
This is the kind of thing we've wanted to hear. This makes me doubt that its real. Lets not fall into a possible trap here! Best wishes, Paul
My web domain.
Microsoft are business partners with SCO. Lots of companies are. There's nothing untoward about that.
Everyone's acting like they met up in a dark alley and handed over a fat envelope stuffed with cash and discussed how best to sabotage Linux. They didn't. It was a perfectly legitimate business deal between two companies.
People here are saying it's anti-Linux. How is that possible? Because they're paying money to SCO? If that were true, everyone who has a SCO license is "anti-Linux". Everyone who even buys a Microsoft license is "anti-Linux". If you think about it for a second, that can't possibly be the case.
It's not like Linux is this great desktop OS that's ripened into something everyone's clamouring to get hold of. Let's face it, it beats the crap out of MS products on the server side, but on the desktop front it's usable, yet not ready for prime-time just yet. There are too many disparate systems for Average Joe to figure out what they do, let alone how to fix them when they go awry/get upgraded.
When Linux is ready for the desktop, people will buy it. Microsoft can't stop that. Nothing can get between the public and good, free stuff. Not even Bill. Until then, instead of attributing Linux's relative obscurity to Microsoft's bad actions, maybe we should start attributing it to the fact end users don't want to edit .conf files to play an MP3, and work on it. After all, step #1 is identifying the problem. As long as we are all barking up the Microsoft tree, we're wasting our energies, and making the Linux community look like a bunch of jealous kids.
Again, I'm a proponent of Linux (the only one at our company :(), and I'd love to see Linux on everyone's desktop. I just think we need to work on the real problems, not the perceived ones.
The server opensource.org is hosted by is owned by Brian Behlendorf (Apache Software Foundation founder, guru, head hancho, etc etc..) The site will not be slashdotted anytimes soon.
I wonder what search criteria XFree86million would return from msn.com? A message indicating i have entered a search term that is likely to return unethical content?
The Windows source code leak has not happened by accident. Windows is using SCO as a test case. If it works (or if they set a reasonable precedent), Microsoft will then start claiming that their code ended up in Linux. Since you're not supposed to have the source code without being tagged a criminal, nobody will be able to come forward and say it is not so without opening themselves to criminal charges... But hey, if Linux "contains" Windows code, it'll be deemed illegal (at least in the US...)
My Karma is so low that even my own postings are beyond my current threshold
This email looks like a fake.
I work with manipulators and backhanded people and everything they don't want to be made public is said in private meetings. They don't write emails to explain what they are up to. They only use email to arrange meetings and give orders to juniors.
Now if it was a leaked powerpoint slideshow I might believe it.
...do we know for certain that this isn't a faked letter? I mean, do we have any form of independent corroboration? Otherwise this is just heresay and speculation.
On the other hand, if we get some other proof (or evidence) then MS is about to get a little pissed at SCO for their antics. Perhaps that's a good thing as a previous poster indicated, without MS's $86M influx SCO would be bankrupt.
Microsoft funds SCO
sco spawns illegitimate law suits like red headed step children
linux adoption is set back
= WORLD DOMINATION
It's called spoliation of the evidence (no, that's not a a typo, that's how it's spelled). If IBM/Novell/etc can show that the evidence was destroyed, then the jury is allowed to consider that the evidence was probably damaging to SCO/MS.
Instead, they'll release enough of the emails to claim that they released them all (kind of like in a certain anti-trust action a few years ago). That way, nobody can prove anything based on the email or that SCO destroyed any email.
I think ESR probably did the right thing, because this is much more useful in the court of public opinion than in a court of law -- even if it could be proved. As the Register article points out, MS could have legitimate (from a business standpoint) reasons for investing in SCO that would be perfectly legal. But they can't do anything about how bad it looks, so they had a reason to hide it even if it were legit. So dragging it out where everyone can see it is the best course of action.
The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer. - Albert Einstein
Being that this document was released explicitly under the Open Source License, v1.1, couldn't slashdot have just inlined this?
That Microsoft is 100% completely evil, this is it.
Anyone who tells themself anything different from now on is just fooling themselves.
Microsoft appears to be able to give Satan lessons.
"There are laws that enslave men, and laws that set them free. " - Sean Connery as King Arthur
The windoze community seems detached from the issue.
Does the non-tech sector take SCO seriously?
Steve
Right before WW II the German ambassador to Mexico (Zimmerman) offered them a share of the U.S. if they'd help Germany partition the country.
This is just as big and we all know how well Mr. Zimmer's efforts ended, don't we.
If I was more awake I'd draw parallels between Munich, appeasement, proxy wars, etc, but I just woke up
I am very easy to get along with, but I don't have time to waste being nice to people who are being stupid. -Theo
Any coincidence between the $86-million and Microsoft's anti XFree86 search practices? that 86 seems like an interesting number.
Wow, my entire stock of tinfoil hats sold out in less than an hour this morning! Anybody know what's going on?
On the other hand, reading the doc without ESR's comments (or with the coments at the end) would have been more enjoyable. Could it be that the "self proclaimed ambassador" is attention-starved?...
Honest to god people, look at it. Have you ever seen such painfully careful mis-spellongs? It reeks. It's a joke gone wrong. SCO will find and sue the crap out the basement dwelling prankster that wrote it, and good luck to them.
You. Have. Been. Trolled.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
It's true. If the mail records are subpoena'd and SCO doesn't produce them - regardless of the reason, they are in trouble. As a publically owned company they are requried to keep track of this sort of thing.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
if you want to drop him a line and let you know what his percentage should be his email is: mike@s2.com.
... people like this make the world !
He also has a small stake in a group called AirClic which has IP around barcodes and looking them up in a database.
this is a clasic move by Mike Anderer and Darl.
Don't work just threaten to sue and sue!
Don't bother building anything just go after those that do.
What a nice place
Microsoft has handed out money in the past, investment or otherwise.
Who bailed out apple when they filed for bankruptcy? Microsoft. How much was it? Like 300 million in non voting stock? Yikes. And why? Because Microsoft had something to gain.
Same deal here I'm sure. Follow the paper trail. SCO wasn't making any money, yet they have the money suddenly to start all these lawsuits? Follow the money. I'll bet it leads back to M$.
Actually, this article puts Microsoft's cash (not assets, just cash!) at $49 Billion as of Summer 2003. So yes, $100 million is chump change to them, as appalling as that may sound.
As for accounting, I don't think you'd have to get too creative. Baystar Capital Partners is an investment firm. If MS gives them money, it just looks like money they're investing. Any strings that might be attached to that money wouldn't have to show up in the balance sheet.
It says:
"I realize the last negotiations are not as much fun, but Microsoft will
have brough in $86 million for us including Baystar."
Having been involved, personally, with the finances of a few startups, I can assure you that there are a myriad of legitimate (as in 'morally acceptable') reasons why that quote could exist in that memo.
Now, of course, M$ may be dirty; however, I prefer that we take the high road and I'd like to hear Microsoft's explanation.
Loading...
. . . threatening to show up with a baseball bat and take out kneecaps.
I'm not saying the MS execs are anywhere near that level. . .
Exactly. They would hire someone to do it for them (with a name like "Baystar," or something).
The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer. - Albert Einstein
Ethics are very important in busyness. Let's talk about Enron etc. In the long run it is a good policy to be honorable. You can be aggresive and honorable. It is not dificult. And, I want to make business I want an honorable partner. Otherwise I won't be able to sleep. Not becouse morals dilemas but becouse he can damage my interest from the simple capitalistic point of view
Remember, we are talking about a man who is sexually intimidated by cement. He's probably been busy with the thousands of other statues that need clothing.
I'm not tense. I'm just terribly, terribly, alert.
Also be advised that SCO's mission as Msft's attack dog has nothing to do with who owns what code - that's just a smokescreen to create confusion and disuade people from using Linux. The last thing they want is to have the issue settled - the more they can create an atmosphere of legal uncertainty surrounding GNU/Linux and force people into the arms of the 'safe haven', Windows.
Remember, it's not "You're using Linux, you owe us money", it's "Some people say Linux is illegal, some people say it's OK. Gee, I don't know who to believe so I'd better play it safe and get Winders."
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Maybe Microsoft is licensing parts of Linux into Windows OS from SCO for $86 million... :-)
So when can the people sue Microsoft/SCO for monopolistic behavior? When does this trickle down to the little guy who's getting screwed?
The grammar and spelling of this e-mail resemble that of a 16-year old with a 'D' average. This Mike Anderer is apparently a highly paid consultant, and one would assume that he has a college, if not at the least, a good secondary education. He should possess good communication skills and be able to write effectively. Those skills would be an essential part of his job.
To temper my above statement, I do not expect quick e-mail notes to have much spit-and-polish, but spell checkers are a standard feature. Just push the little icon and accept the corrections.
Frankly, I find it hard to put a lot into this, but I would like to be proven wrong. If this is authentic, then you can read a lot into why SCO is doing the stupid things they are attempting.
Would you put this guy on your payroll?
The mail does not at all indicate that Microsoft "raised money for SCO's anti-linux campaign". All it shows is that Microsoft has *referred* some *other* companies to SCO, who then bought from SCO on their own.
Microsoft themselves also licensed much of SCO's ip, and have been doing so long before this "anti-linux" campaign started. This letter is typical of large business relationships.
Nothing to see here except more biased opinions from RMS.
I see a lot of people taking this memo as complete and total fact. Be careful with quick assumptions from an anonymous source.
It's quite probable someone did this to FUD SCO and MS. Just saying.. Use a little sense before spouting rhetoric.
The difference is that Apple's cash transfusion came with a press release laying out the terms.
SCO's money is all under the table and through third parties. Why would MS go to this trouble just for PR reasons? No, this is legally gray at the very least.
Found this doing a little Googling.
Wonder if this is "the" Mike Anderer?
"It's hard to find a large corporation interested in it. Anybody with any scars in this business doesn't want to be the first to do anything," commented Mike Anderer (emphasis mine), vice president of systems integration at Ikon Office Solutions, a large international integrator. "Right now it's kind of a manufacturing and standards war. In a year or two it might be a viable product."
Was found in this story:
http://news.com.com/2100-1001_3-200420.html
If it is "the" Mike Anderer from the e-mail, funny that Mike would have been part of Ikon, which I believe is the company Darl McBride worked at, sometime before SCO, which he sued and won some settlement for.
Did I really just see Microsoft open its treasury to IBM, Red Hat, Novell, Autozone, Daimler Chrysler, and god knows who else has been inconvenienced by SCO's antics?
I'm almost quivering with excitement
I am very easy to get along with, but I don't have time to waste being nice to people who are being stupid. -Theo
One way of reading this is as the private scheming of hucksters trying to milk Microsoft rather than a Microsoft driven plan.
Whilst I doubt Microsoft can be unaware of what's happening and I fully believe are willing participants to some extent, they may not be as guilty as everyone assumes.
Remember: SCO are the con-artists here, Microsoft could just be willing victims. That unfortunately would cover their legal arses. Worse its not obvious SCO have done anything actionable either, sleazy != illegal.
Back in my youth, IBM had a permanent law suit going against the Feds on anti-trust charges. This is where the Nazgul learned their chops. IBM is no stranger to perpetual legal cold war. However, I don't think Microsoft is.
If this funding of SCO's (IMO spurious) case is actionable, then IBM is an ideal belligerant. I believe IBM, et al. will not only win the SCO case, but win their counter-suits. Damages could easily bancrupt SCO, and after those funds are expended I'd like to see if Microsoft could chip in the difference. Or be compelled to do so by a court.
If it is not, perhaps the creative juices of the Open Source community could be redirected toward devising a class-action law suit against a Redmond Washington corporation who has knowingly distributed a complex of products which is easily compromised via computer virus. If Big Tobacco could be shaken down a decade ago, why not Microsoft? We don't *have* to wait for the DOJ do we?
especially if its a 'one more time' email, that's when you get sloppy.
Like, "If I gotta explain to these guys how I'm hiding their Microsoft financing one more time..."
+&x
Give Cardinal Richeli---errrr Ashcroft some credit.
I'm thinking of submitting a grant proposal for stem cell research so that the Venus de Milo can get a new head and arms grown for her. Sure, its redimix stem cells, but c'est la vie. I'm sure I can get him to go for this as long as I tell him that with the new arms she'll be able to put her burqha on.
Government consulting ENERGY experts to formulate ENERGY policies? What a ludicrous idea! Perhaps we should bring in experts from the fast-food industry or maybe Walt Disney to help our legislators make more informed energy policy decisions.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Yes, but as Microsoft, you just can't go and say in your accounting statement that you "lost" $100 million. Even if it is only 2% of your on hand cash, you can't not account for 2%.
This had to be mentioned somewhere, maybe through a paper trail of many intermediary companies, but as a public company you can't spend $100 million and not specifically account where it is going. Well, you can do enron-like stuff, but much of that is illegal and my original question was if Microsoft is doing accounting "by the book" why didn't anybody notice this before?
Why, o why must the sky fall when I've learned to fly?
Man are you out of touch. It would take me too long to explain why just about everything you said is wrong so I'll just say this. Just because the most visible example of corporate greed in the last 50 years is being put to the screws does not mean that overall the DOJ is being effective or getting tough on corporate law breakers. This is tokenism at its finest. There are more skeletons in the current administrations cabinet that won't be investigated then in the last 3 administrations combined. Also your theory about the MS vs DOJ is a crock of shit. Professionally?? If you had actually followed the case you'd know that MS was nailed and caught red handed at every turn. The DOJ did its job getting the proper evidence before the judge. Everything past that only served as an all to real reminder as to why our legal system is a total mess. But whatever, rewrite history any way you want. Those who are trying to hide the truth do it all the time.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
"We should get what we can from them ad then work the other and larger areas of the company and groups where they have real budget and need for our help."
I suppose others saw this, but it never really occurred to me that SCO was receiving money from multiple sources at Microsoft. It changes my view from a large monolithic entity where one or two people call the shots, to a multi-faceted group of mini-bosses give portions of their budgets to "fight the evil communist Linux".
Ruby on Rails Screencast
I've seen worse from CEO's of Fortune 50 companies. And I'm not talking one or two companies.
Also, I think Eric S Raymond knows how to read email headers. If it came from SCOX IP space, I'd have to say that goes a long way to show it's genuine. Of couse, it could be from a rooted boxen. That's happened before. Also, I'd think that Eric would want to see the headers of the original email before he'd trust it. At least, I would insist on it.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
Evidently if Microsoft will somehow manage to destroy open source movement in United States by tweaking your legal system, it would have a very little impact outside an America. Many countries already adopted an open source as a tool for keeping a pace in technology race, and it is a strategic decision for them, not an economic one.
Even in U.S.A, outsourcing of IT industry is not something that is happening deliberately just by CEOs lowering costs for their companies only. It has a deeper background: global corporations wants always to move away from politically destabilized and unpredictable areas and this is exactly what States are now.
There you are, staring at me again.
Since the story broke about SCO suing IBM a year ago, I've said that the hand up Darl's puppet anus belonged to Billy Gates. Now here's the confirmation.
I will never, *ever* knowingly buy another Microsoft product again. I will do all I can to steer my customers away from Microsoft products where I can.
It would be wise if as many people as possible were to join in this boycott. Yes, I know it's difficult getting windows users to port to something unfamiliar. However, I'm going to keep working on my own friends and customers.
Have Eric S Raymond publish for you.
I'd like to believe it, and maybe it is plausible, but the man is a raving lunatic at the best of times. May as well have stuck it in Fortean Times.
... would be to track the person who leaks the information.
... even honest companies don't like it if internal memos are leaked!
I don't know whether there exist automated tools to introduce spelling errors (notice, that even the grammar errors in the document result from nothing more than simple word substitutions) in CC copies or for receiver side auto copies (often emails to senior execs are auto CCd to their secretaries).
I could certainly envision a market for such a tracking tool
I have a very hard time seeing the connection between a whistleblower (not sure if this reaches that level, but it's a handy label) and proprietary voting machine software. Code is not a person.. code cannot be retaliated against. In my opinion, your confusing the person or agent making information known.. and the information that "should" be known. The identity of the person isn't important.. it could be the Pope or Osama Bin Laden.. all that matters is the authenticity of the information. That can generally be determined without knowing who released it.
p
Honest to god people, look at it. Have you ever seen such painfully careful mis-spellongs?
I disagree entirely. I see mis-spellongs like these in numerous emails within my company.
---------------------------------------------
SERENITY NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
...cos if SCO is successful in doing away with Linux with M$'s money, what's to say that M$ won't just turn around and use similar tactics to do away with SCO?
Will this violate any part of he anti-trust agreement between the US and M$? It most assurdly invoke the wrath the of EU, This could get interesting.........
So Long and Thanks for all the Fish.
Motley Fool - an cool investment column - has this to say about the wisdom of SCOs antics. I especially like the part about the return on investment of $20,000 being what an enterprising kid mowing lawns could make in a summer. This for an investment of $3.4 million in the first quarter.
SCOX has been shedding a lot lately too - $6 since January.
According to The Motley Fool, they won't much longer. SCO is fast becoming solely a litigation engine. They have no new products. Their sales of older product lines are dropping off fast. They've alienated a huge number of people. They're bleeding red ink, and the legal bills are mounting.
I'm not saying Kerry is it, but it sure as heck isn't the Bush Jr. administration that's going to hold Microsoft's feet to the fire. Do we HAVE to rely on the EU to do our dirty work?
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
-Hope
"This letter is typical of large business relationships."
It is not.
See? My words mean as much as your; you didn't give one documented example of normal business relationships that are designed to start legal actions via proxy.
You're either a troll or stupid. Your grammer is good enough that I'm guessing you're a troll.
This is most likely a faked memo. Any sort of influx of that amount of funds would need to be reported in their 10Q - which SCO has not done.
So either SCO has committed a major SEC violation, or the memo is a fake. I am betting on the latter.
My disgust for Microsoft and SCO grows more every day... They are completely disappointing. ;-)
I truly wish that more people other than us techies would catch on to the "world" outside of their non-tech universe...
So many don't even know this society exits.
We need some technical politicians! hehe. Linus for President?
Shocking. Positively shocking! To imagine that Microsoft would hire a front company to attack a competitor with FUD and legal tricks.
When did they get so lazy they had to hire out?
SCO are smart cookies in picking Microsoft to bed down with -- because we all know from experience that Microsoft is pretty untouchable in the court room....They have a golden "get outta jail free card" that they never have to turn in.
I mean anybody that followed the anti-trust trial at the national level (like me) has to still have their jaws hanging on the floor over the fact that Microsoft's chief execs are not hanging upside down in the town center.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
..how long it's gonna be till Microsoft gets DOS'd/hacked now. They just pissed off a lot of people [even more than before], myself included.
# fuser -v
#
I don't know how legit this e-mail is actually, but to discount it on the basis of its composition is absurd. How many of these people (that are decrying it on this basis) actually communicate with professionals on a regular basis, let alone consultants, who are salesmen, essentially?
The fact is that simple spelling mistakes and typos are ubiquitous to any and all users of e-mail.
That's all.
Halloween X Memo is probably the stupidest thing it could be called. It's not near halloween at the moment. Spring Memo? The March Memo? There are many better names, less confusing and more timely.
Bad names like this take a good point for Microsoft watchers and make them look like a bunch of flaky hippies.
So you think secret meetings with what turned to be criminals to decide who Bush would pick for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission was a good idea? You think its ok that only one company (consisting of criminals btw)had exclusive access to Cheney when he drafted a new energy policy while others were shut out?
You know what? Your right. There was no conflict of interest and the fact that Enron was Bush's number one supporter and closest ally since he was governor only serves to clear Bush's name. Its obvious the administration was the clean one here and was just collaborating so closely so they could get more evidence on Enron. Yea, that's the ticket. They were going to turn their evidence to the DOJ but we just didn't give them enough time...
I'll never understand how someone can become so brainwashed that they can no longer distinguish right from wrong. I feel sorry for you.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
> big well funded companies like that tend to cover all their bases.
SCO, Microsoft to Linux users: "All your base are belong to us!"
Come on, somebody had to say it.
...they just show incredible ethical and moral flexibility WRT anything that increases the "bottom line".
If not, WHY NOT!
This (if truly is an email and is complete and factual) is PROOF M$ is committing an act of Antitrust. Blatant and boldfaced.
Subpoena the "anonymous" emailer from SCO(?) and get his ass on the witness stand.
Note: The originator of the email does not know how to use a spell check very well does he? I did.
INSERT INTO comment VALUE('Doh!') WHERE user='you';
I'm not a lawyer or anything, but this shit is shady practices and is no different than what Enron pulled. Greedy execs jerking the system for their own gain.
There should be a law or some kind of punishment where a judge just dissolves the company aka the company can no longer legally practice business within this country.
Why don't our government officials realize that nearly everything these corporations do is scandalous and does nothing but was other people's money and tie up the courts just so a few execs can get richer? This is ridiculous.
Is this the way of the future where our system just lets these corporations constantly step over boundaries that shouldn't have been crossed in the first place? If so, let me know so I can get the hell out of this country.
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
Is this surprising to anyone, that Microsoft might be playing dirty pool?
We all realize this is a company that is not above using underhanded tactics to deal with the competition. And anyone with Microsoft stock loves them for it frankly!
This is neither surprising nor is it especially evil in the end, unless you consider the corporate world evil in general anyway, which might be a very fair statement!, but I digress...
Microsoft has a very tough battle to compete with Linux on merit (some would say it's an impossible battle for them, but that's another argument). They're never going to stop the Slashdot community from using Linux, but where they might have something to say is in keeping corporations way from it, and frankly this is where they stand to lose the most anyway.
So, how do you fight what has been correctly stated many times is a community and a philosophy rather than a concrete corporate competitor? You can't. But what you CAN do is try and keep any of the big players in the business world from hitching their wagon to Linux and upping the ante because, let's face it, many corporations will not use Linux if it doesn't come from someone like IBM. The fact that it's free and great for the bottom line won't make them go download the ISOs and install it everywhere because they NEED to have someone like HP to back them up.
So, Microsoft finds a puppet in SCO who can go attack IBM, HP, whoever else they view as the threats in this game, and maybe in the process get big businesses to back off the Linux train because they are worried about the whole SCO mess, whether for good reason or not.
It's a game of perception, nothing more. They aren't going to keep me from using Linux to power my home server, but big deal, I'm not their major source of income. The big businesses are. If propping up SCO helps them keep some of those companies away from Linux, Microsoft wins. And they maintain plausible deniability the whole time by claiming they are paying "licensing fees" to SCO for certain "Unix services licenses". This memo can be interpreted other ways, it's not as clear-cut as it's being made out to be (note that I am NOT diagreeing with the interpretation, just pointing out it's not so clear-cut as to be beyond reporach)
So, people are trying to make a big thing of this memo when it's just par for the course, nothing surprising at all. It doesn't even point to some massive, evil conspiracy really. It points to a company known for low tactics staying with the status quo to fight a formidable enemy to their profit margins. Businesses are SUPPOSED to make money, Microsoft is exceptionally good at it PRECISELY because they take every threat seriously and attack it with Machiavellian fervor.
Hate them for being so good at it if you want, but don't be surprised when the Zebra doesn't change it's stripes.
If a pion (n-) collides with a proton in the woods & noone is there to hear it, does lamdba decay into the source pa
Whoever these people are I'm unware what they're smoking. Theres plenty of posts on this topic about how this is "smart business" and other such related comments. This is far from smart business, this is monopolistic business, and something CEO's go to jail for. I hope sooner or later Microsoft's door gets kicked in, and people who are responsible for these decesions and anyone involved are removed from the company and then maybe Microsoft will be a respectable company.
The Justice department should be all over this, funding a crazy litigation attempt versus your primary rival, wtf someone needs to do there job and stop this crap.
No, this is
Does anyone here actually think that SCO are not receiving funding from Microsoft for the court cases? Whether or not this alleged leaked memo is a fake. I personally am in no doubt as to where they are getting the funding from and it certainly isnt linux IP licences.
...
The only thing this "Alleged Leaked Memo" could possibly be useful, is that, if Microsoft were to declare it as a fake and use it to cover up the fact that they really are helping smudge the open source community by assist SCO. It might well be a double bluff.
Nick
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
If someone wanted to give me $86 million dollars, i'd sue my freaking grandmother if I had to.
If this is real, the M$ anti-trust judge should also get a copy. Remember, they are monitoring what M$ is doing still. If the intent is to eliminate competition, that's illegal.
So what happens next? Where do we go from here?
Banjo - The more I know about Windoze, the more I love *nix
You mean the same John Kerry who "... has raised more money from paid lobbyists than any other senator over the past 15 years, federal records show." Washinton Post
So the "For Sale" sign out front gets a little red "Under Contract" placard added to it, big deal.
the pain of userbase backlash, in the "big bad blue" mentality that formed after years of the IBM FUD machine. So in a complete 180 they're listening to customers (rather than dictating to them).
So we wouldn't expect this out of them, as we hope they always take the high ground. Or it could be 3 strikes, your out.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Automate the whole money making/money management/business workflow procedure so that we are managed by machines rather than people.
Bill already did that.
Well, all but the ethical part...
"lons"? I don't know where it is that some of you work... but this is beyond the pale. This seems to be a good example of stereotypical spelling mistakes injected into fake emails. "fo"? This guy would have to be trying to finish up his email in a burning building to be this rushed.. he flubs marketing, brutal, for, loans, keep but then gets acquisitions, gauntlet (why not guantlet? favorite word?)
In the very least, this is way too suspect just to be spammed onto your website. At least give some indication that you know the "whistleblower" is from inside SCO. I can't see how this Mike Anderer guy could keep work (let alone secure clients) if he's using "kepp" for "keep" in professional interbusinees (oh no! sp!!) dealinks.
p
While the Beast overall might seem complex and baffling in its motives, each cell is pretty straight forward in it's wiring. Two layers of complexity are all which are required for them to play their roles. --Layer One being the Objective, (Greed), and Layer Two being the lies to smooth it over.
You may be right in that the Lawyers at SCO are probably grinning at the big piles of Microsoft cash rolling in to help them, and I wouldn't be surprised at all if a portion of that money were being skimmed. But I doubt such an outcome was their original objective. Greed just wants to take. Greed always prefers the route of least resistance because having to think and plan and work are forms of giving. And, yes, I believe it's that simple.
-FL
How about instead of taking the car, you replicate another just like it. And while you're at it, you let them replicate your yacht as fair trade.
You have to wonder how the "whistleblower" got his/her copy of that message. Maybe different versions with different program-generated typos went out to different potential whistleblowers, so they could internally identify the culprit. Stuff like that has been done before.
-1, What the $#!&?
...why is everyone automatically believing an "anonymous e-mail?"
Eric himself says "I cannot certify its authenticity."
I'm sure everyone believes Microsoft has something to do with SCO (to not believe such would go against the Slashdot mindset), but this doesn't actually prove anything. Everyone's discussing it as if it's automatically true.
This doesn't look like "microsoft paid sco to fund their anti-linux efforts" as ESR would have you believe through his notes. More realisticly, here's what the memo is saying:
1. The lawyer guy, who's sending it is documenting the percent rates he's going to charge for various deals (billed separately, percents of deals as fees).
2. NOWEHERE in the document does it say "hit microsoft up for money" or anything even VAGUELY similar. The deals are ALL through VC firms, or parts of firms. Microsoft "bringing in" 86 mill through Baystar referrs to the fact that Microsoft referred sco to baystar, not that they money went microsoft -> baystar -> sco. The other deals are with the VC firms, NOT WITH MICROSOFT. The small aquisitions are getting VC funding, the amounts are small to prevent the VC firm's greater scruitiny (and possibly sec filings, but that's a different matter).
If this memo is true, then there would be some serious implicications that would include jail time for both sides -- the impliciations reek of anti-competive behavior, violations of the Microsoft settlement (no suprise here), collusion, rackateering, and extortion. If it was just a licensing fee, then SCO would have to prove that the money was indeed a licensing fee and not just called a licensing fee, otherwise the execs could be facing federal time. Further, the value of the IP would have to be proved to be worth $86 million. If other vendors paid $5 or $10, or whatever, and Microsoft knew about the Linux asualt and then agreed to pay $86 million, that could constitute fraud and collusion. Depending on what M$ knew of the Linux campaign and what the money would be used for, that could mean rackateering and anti-competive practices.
If I were a Microsoft exec, I would adimately deny the charges. But the problem is that both grammer and basic spelling are missing from the memo. In particular parts, I had to wonder whether the writer even speaks English as his first language (words were consistantly mispelled through out the memo, for example, brought was spelled "brough"). But we don't know how the memo was presented and who actually typed up the memo -- was it done in house by Eric or was it actually typed by Mike. If I had come across something like this, then I would have cleaned it up.
Also it may be a complete fabrication. I had a discussion with a friend about fabricating an set of government documents stating that the CIA and the FBI considered the SCO suit a threat to Homeland Defense. We talked about the idea of placing a classification on the paper with "Top Secret" and the like with a note to "deny any allegations of an investigation." Did we do it? No, because we did not care to contract a liability that could land us in jail. But that is not to say that some other guy decided that he would do something like the memo. So it goes with out saying that although we are happy to see the memo, we need to be cautious until it can be deteremined whether the memo is legite or not.
The views expressed are mine own and do not express the views of my employer.
It could go either way at this point. The best attitude to take is 'wait and see'.
====---=====
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
The implication is that the money isn't going straight to SCO, but rather that MS is giving it to people like Baystar to invest to SCO. That's why I said they could just account for it as an investment.
If you're MS, you wouldn't even have to give the VC guys the full amount, just enough to make it an attractive investment for them. A VC firm might look at a $50M investment in SCO and say 'this is too risky', but if MS says to them: 'We'll give you $25M to make that $50M investment', then their
risk/reward calculation changes a great deal.
BTW, We're talking about 0.2% of their cash, not 2%.
The enemy of your enemy is your friend.
This is just a shining example of this concept.
my last sig was too controversial... now, a new and improved useless sig!
your an idiot.
"I realize the last negotiations are not as much fun, but Microsoft will
have brough in $86 million for us including Baystar. The next deal we
should be able to get from $16-20, but it will be brutial as it is for
go to makerket work and some licences. I know we can do this , if
everyone stays on board and still wants to do a deal. I just want to
get this deal and move away from corp dev and out into the marketing
andfield dollars....In this market we can get $3-5 million in
incremental deals and not have to go through the gauntlet which will get
tougher next week with the SR VP's."
and even more:
"We should line up some small acquisitions here to jump start this if we
do it. We shoudl also do this ASAP. Microsoft also indicated there was
a lot more money out there and they would clearly rather use Baystar
"like" entities to help us get signifigantly more money if we want to
grow further or do acquisitions"
Funding to SCO by MS could be made in one of two ways: 1) Through contracts for services; or 2) Capital investment. Either way it appears to me that SCO and perhaps MS would have a problem, if in fact this email is verified
If payment is through services agreements, there is a GAAP (Generally accepted accounting principle) requirement for disclosure that you are reliant on a third party where that third party is supplying a substantive proportion of your revenues. Even if several different parties provided revenues to SCO, if the executives at SCO knew it was solely due to MS and where therefor reliant on MS, disclosure would be required.
If the source of funding was through capital invesment in SCO, there would be a required disclosure in the Company's 10K or 10Q MD&A, since it would appear they are dependant upon this source of funding to carry on with their business. The amount of funding is not insignificant and certainly material.
Furthermore, a hidden MS investment of this signficance, without disclosure, would have manipulated the market price. This would hold MS and SCO open to SEC related lawsuits
If this turns out to be true, lawyers and the SEC are going to have a field day at SCO and MS's expense
Like I said yesterday:
"When I first read this, I wasn't familiar with who Auto Zone are. I assumed they were some low level parts company susceptible to being blackmailed by SCO. When I realised they were a major player/Fortune 500 company, I just shook my head. These guys keep picking on the biggest gorillas they can find, and you think they aren't stupid? Unless of course Billy Boy is funding them, in which case SCO is just acting as a front organization and it doesn't matter how dumb they are since it's M$'s nearly infinite resources at risk here. Someone really does need to do a RICO investigation here."
"Is this Winkhorst a nova criminal?" "No just a technical sergeant wanted for interrogation."
I sure hope those MS shareholders make it clear to the inept management at just how unacceptable this performance is.
If it can be shown that Microsoft was funding SCO's attack on Linux......
But that Microsoft did not just outright BUY the entire company and pursue the case on their own, with their own lawyers.....
Then Linux wins big Big BIG in the marketing department.
There won't be any question on the legality of Linux because even Microsoft didn't have the balls to take on Linux in the courts.
Proficiency in spelling and grammar are by no means prerequisites for using an email program, no matter where you happen to work.
And anyway, this would be a consultant hired by SCO. Nobody involved with that scam can be a highly advanced human, I would think. Greed kills brain cells.
-FL
Like yours?
Sure. This could've come from any director at my company.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens.
As another MBA-to-be, I have to object to the stereotypes. The closed-mindedness of your statements is nothing short of apalling.
Does having an MBA make you evil? Maybe not. Maybe people who are already evil are attracted to the MBA degree and position.
Many of us who either have or are obtaining the MBA do NOT seek power or money as an end. (Granted, some do, and those idiots have tarnished the reputation of the rest of us.) Rather, more than a few of us are interested in growing our careers in other ways than the technical track, and to learn more non-technical skills along the way. (Like, oh, the kind that keep the software engineers in a firm employed.)
Let me tell you about my worst job-fair experience, pal: I interviewed with a hiring manager who was looking for top engineers, and he insisted (after learning my MBA plans, whoops, silly me) that a good engineer needs no business background. In as delicate a manner as possible, I told him he was utterly full of shit: a good engineer does NOT rise on technical skills alone. (Needless to say, I blew that interview, but I'm not crying over it. The attitude tells a lot about the organization, after all; the same company let go of top engineers later anyway.)
Sorry, doesn't happen. At best, s/he gets steady paychecks. I know, I know, that sounds perfectly acceptable to a lot of you, but let's be honest: it's not much of a long-term career aspiration, despite how difficult it is to maintain these days.
Okay, enough ranting...
--- The American Way of Life is not a birthright. Hell, it's not even sustainable.
wow, the guy who wrote this memo to SCO has worse spelling and grammar, and makes more typos, than an Anonymous slashdot troll. Not surprising that SCO does business with people on their level of intelligence.
Stupid people make stupid things profitable.
Not to throw fuel on the fire or anything, but there are actually a large number of successful execs who cannot spell very well. You just need a secretary to proofread and correct memos and email. Memos and email with lots of mistakes can possibly be ones that the writer didn't want anyone else to see, including their secretary. I'm not saying that this happened here, but just mentioning a possibility, since with so few facts possibilities is all we have.
Is it?
TOP DSLR Cameras Reviews of the top DSLRs
With all due respect, there are serious potential implications, and this would not be "typical of large business relationships".
Did the companys MS *referred* get paid by MS? Did they do due diligence? What about their other non-MS investors? Were they "tipped"? IS this a case of secret commissions? Where is the SCO disclosure for SEC filings? Is MS manipulating the market by failing to disclose their significant investment in SCO, whether made directly or indirectly?
It's not particular to MS, it's just that MS is so huge. This argument has been made before.
That's just the nature of this corporate-level of biology that does its own thing with regard to only the checks on it put in place by other corporations on the same scale. Business aims to survive, it's a stable evolutionary configuration.
MBAs, however, who compose large chunks of this corporate biology and help in guiding it, are, of course, "just doing their job"... i.e., serving a system that is only beholden to humans as much as humans have sway over its survival, which is not much. I couldn't care less if I kill cells in my body when I have a glass of wine tonight and smoke a cigarette, but they'd better do what their told (cancer, ahem) or I'm rubbing their tiny asses out.
Um, yeah. Whatever that all means...
Intelligent Design: because MATH is HARD.
Money laundering: channeling money through an intermediary so as to conceal its source.
That's sounds mostly illegal, even if just giving money to SCO isn't.
does anyone knows if we can start an injunction against SCO for threating Linux user because they were part of an antitrust scheme?
Or better, set an injunction at Microsoft to TAKE BACK the money. it sound crazy but with a few million less, SCO is dead for sure. And i am sure M$ could better use the money-- ie: R&D to fix and patch the holes.
Has anyone analysed Microsoft EULAs to determine what legal risks they expose you to if MS ever gets as deparate as SCO is today?
Dude, wrong article.
How many businesses do you have an intimate working knowledge of? SCO maybe? Only ones in the news? You have to realize, this is self selecting - you don't hear about all the companies who do nothing wrong, and treat both their customers and shareholders well, and compete fairly with their competitors.
Does having an MBA make you evil? Maybe not. Maybe people who are already evil are attracted to the MBA degree and position. Who knows.
If you work at a large institution you know who the MBAs are. You know how they talk and act. No assumptions are required.
That's a mindless overgeneralization. How many MBA's do you actually personally know? The fact that this is tolerated and actually modded insightful is stunning. Substitute any other group of people and people would condemn statements like that.
And no, I'm not an MBA.
You clearly work too far down on the "pecking order" to realize that most executives are actually buffoons. At the low levels of corporate structure, the grunts get memos that have been carefully scrutinized by secretaries, legal eagles, etc. The boss may have written it originally, but it's been edited so you don't realize he's an idiot.
OTOH, in a smaller company where you have easier access to the higher echelons of power structure (or, if you happen to have a way of intercepting communications between top-level execs) you quite commonly see grammar and spelling of the sort demonstrated in this memo. These people usually tend to be articulate in person (this is a necessary trait for any negotiator) but they can be absolutely abysmal spellers.
This guy probably hasn't gotten fired for being an idiot because his boss probably makes even more mistakes than he does.
Don't make the extremely wrong assumption that the people at the top are there because they are much more intelligent than you. They are much more devious, better at ass kissing, and have people working for them whose only job is to prevent them from looking like morons.
If you listen to SCO's financial teleconferences, and hear how they themselves pronounce it, the winner is...
Number 1 -- rymes with "snow".
Or rymes with "fiaSCO". Does not ryme with "SCOundrel".
Those who would give up liberty in exchange for security and DRM should switch to Microsoft Palladium!
Do you recommend Debian or Mandrake?
[Please sign here]
Eric's lost enough credibility lately that it might actually fly. Heck, I wouldn't be too surprised if it's just someone trolling him...
... zilch?
Okay, you've lost me. How has Eric lost credibility? What exactly is your beef with him (your allusion "It's really about time")?
And while we're at it, your personal contribution to the Open Source community would be what
It's silly to say "outsourcing is always good". It's maybe most of the time good. But not always- take for example the administration's decree that federal employees have to re-apply for their jobs, competing with 'outsourcing' offers from private companies.
One problem they're having with G.W.B's "outsource all federal jobs" decree is that many of the ( specifically federal parks services ) jobs they're looking to replace are currently staffed by people who work for very little *and* volunteer tons of time, *and* rally others to volunteer.
Effectively, we're currently getting tons of free manhours from people who really are working in their own back yards to improve trails and clean up parks. Since there's no exemption from the one-size-fits-all decree, these folks are likely to lose their jobs ( which they're doing quite well ) because some company is willing to pay less than a living wage to part-time employees. Will these new employees work 80 hour work weeks and organize groups of volunteers? Not bloody likely.
Sure, overall, outsourcing federal jobs might save money in the long run, by creating sub-living-wage jobs in federal buildings across the U.S.A. On the other hand, in many cases, you might get what you pay for, causing damage good programs and diminishing the value citizens get for a taxpayer dollar. A more targeted approach of governing and leadership might pay off a little better. Of course, that'd take thought.
This is so far off topic I hate to even respond, but for some reason you're moded up as informative, when really, you should maybe be modded "misinformative"... or "offtopic" at the very least.
Predictably, this post has received some mysterious "overrated" moderations.
How dare you mod down an opinion you disagree with. You reply and disagree. You don't silence someone.
http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=sco&FORM=SMCR T
Please remember that SCO has been battling the Linux community as well, not just IBM. Has it occured to anyone that SCO could have willfully released this fake through a proxy to get your panties in a wad?
/. crowd spinning about something relatively benign and fuels their paranoia. They MIGHT get another DDOS attack out of it, which Darl will use as a mia culpa in his next speech about how evil the linux community is and how SCO needs to stop it.
What purpose would it serve? Well, for one thing, it might sidetrack IBM's lawyers a bit if they try to suponea it. It might give SCO some leverage in court. The corporate world might view it as a M$ endorsement of the suit, thus keeping SCO's stock afloat for just a few more weeks (remember they just announced a disasterous quarter). Finally, it gets the
Keep this in mind when reading this memo, and it starts to smell more like a fake sent out just to tweak us.
"Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect."- Steven Wright
I hereby propose that we Googlebomb the phrase "Microsoft Shill" to point to www.thescogroup.com.
EOL
I, for one, welcome our new Antichrist overlord.
If I were MS and SCO, I would probably do some cleaning (let's call it housekeeping) as regards e-mail archives. Loosing previously back-up ed Exchange server data is also a good idea for Darl 'n Bill.
MySQL Error 1040: Can't return sig, Too many connections!
then why in hell would SCO's new MS overlords allow them to hire David Boies to do the legal work? I mean, ok, he probably has all kinds of inside information...oh...
Ok, I can answer myself. It was probably his idea in the first place.
Steve -- If you have to call it a system, you don't know what it is.
Yeah, you're right about the citzens != consumers thing. It's alarming how often people forget that.
As to MS and SCO: You realize you're basing all this off some document that ESR claims is valid? Don't get me wrong--I've got nothing against ESR, and I've got plenty against Microsoft, but one supposedly leaked document is not necessarily conclusive. You know SCO currently has few friends. Isn't it possible that the leak is a fake? Perhaps someone handed it to ESR and only pretended to have gotten it from SCO.
But what I really wanted to know is: Where do you live? 'Cause if the people there understand that citizen != consumer, well then I might like to move there some decade.
Furry cows moo and decompress.
Uh, the source of the leak was already identified long ago. It came from a Linux machine on a certain corporate network. Of course, you never saw that reported here, because this is Slashdot. It would destroy all the hairbrained "M$" conspiracy theories that continue to make the community look bad.
Bill Gates dares claim Windows is better than Linux in some obscure keynote speech, and it gets a front page headline of "Bill Gates Takes Swipe At Linux." Then an article gets posted called "Microsoft Violates Human Rights In China" simply because Windows is sold there--ignoring the fact that KDE removed the Taiwanese flag to be there, and China actually houses its own custom Linux distribution.
Now it's an entire article about an "anonymous e-mail" that ESR even admits he can't certify.
I'm an idiot, your a karma whore. Kinda takes away from the conversation here, doesn't it?
They got 86 million. From Baystar, not microsoft. More likely, he's saying microsft referred them to vc firms, which gave them money, which is the "microsoft brought in". Also, the 3-5 million doesn't say anything about Microsoft. The corp dev, marketing & field dollars are what SCO would spend it on, not the MS areas they're getting it from. they want to get vc firms to back them for the 3-5 million in these fields. I really don't see MS, even with it's size, having millions to throw to SCO through different divisions.
As for your second quote:
They want to do small aquisitions. That means get some small vc funding amounts. The less you get, the less scruitiny from the vc firm. The "Microsoft wants to use Baystar like entities to help us get more money" line doesn't say anywhere that Microsoft's giving money to sco. They're helping SCO, yes. They're helping them get in the door at the VC firms. Saying '"like" entities to get us more money' doesn't say "Microsoft's given money to a bunch of VC firms to funnel it to us so we can stomp out Linux".
Which brings up the important question: Does Microsoft give money to Baystar? If that was shown in the memo, or elsewhere, I'll gladly say, yes, Microsoft's funneling money to SCO. But without that part of the euqation, all this is, is MS helping SCO get VC funding. Microsoft may be using SCO as a front to keep Linux in question, yes, maybe. But, they may also be doing this so they can get access to SCO lisencing, source code, or a million other reasons. But I'm not seeing "Microsoft gave these guys millions, now their giving us millions, quid pro quo."
maybe I'm just skeptical of BOTH sides, but if microsoft wanted to do this, why do all the VC shenanigans? They could drop 100 million on sco without blinking, and without all the middlemen.
p.s. Found it interesting that the lawyer who sent this is in M&A...that usually means auqisitions. As in buying companies. Is sco looking at open source companies with a thought to purchase? It would explain why they suddenly need the vc money...hhmm.
As I've read a lot about MBAs and proxy laywer wars as well as my observations with companies in general, it seems that SCO gave up on the invention/innovation route.
- we-can-no-matter-who-we-kill-in-the-process manuvers, such as scuming to Micro$saft's cash cow to do so.
So in order to keep thier fancy condos and rich life style the execs are resulting to weasel-don't-give-a-darned-get-money-whatever-way
They got the brains to put something like this together, but not the talent to successfulluy market a reputable product. So what do they do.. go after thier competetors. Buy them out, undercut them, defame them, say Ford sues Honda for making an invention called a 'Car' because Ford made them first.
It's essentaily due to lasiness and lack of ingenuity that they can't have free reign on the market... btw, I hope that judge gets a copy of that memo.
The memo talks of provisional patents and converting them to full applications. Provisional patent applications "die" in one year from filing date, so these are applications filed no earlier than Oct 2002 and converted to real applications no earlier than Oct 2003 (because they aren't done as of the date on the memo). Average pendency for software patents is 2-3 years. The patents thus will most likely not be issued until 2006 (if ever). The applications are generally published 18 months after filing, though. (They must be published unless they intend to file them only in the USA.) So, one might expect to see the applications published in Apr/May 2005.
Any IPX patents SCO could own would be subject to prior art from Novell. This means that SCO might be able to patent a new development that relates to IPX but not existing IPX stuff. Too, SCO could not practice their new IPX related invention without permission from Novell (assuming Novell owns patents on IPX in general, which is very likely).
However, it may be that Novell is already practicing the "invention" that SCO intends to patent, in which case, they could try to stop Novell or get money from them. How SCO could have "invented" something that Novell is the one practicing is a mystery, but such mysteries don't seem to be a problem for the patent office.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on Slashdot.
refrence this post
lose != loose
Has anyone ever actually seen a business workflow ?? I've heard of them. I've seen them on presentation slide shows....but, I've never actually seen one in reality.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
well well, ms (microscft) giving money to sco to fight linux; didn't i know that before?! else, where would penurious sco get money to challenge ibm? now that sco wants to see ibm aix code - there will a chance for ms to copy code into "doors" (windows is too small for all the virus that get in - they should rename it to "doors" - seriously). so there should be a court order so that linux people can see ms and sco code, in order to stop them from copying stuff. well then if everyone sees what the other is doing, then all will be open source (sweet). i remember the saying "whatever you try to achieve, you get to unachieve it first". like - you wanna stop people using your house walls as a blackboard (or whatever color it is), you go in and put in the first message "stick no bills". isn't that irony? likewise ms trying to stop oss will end up revealing all they have... great; well done billy.
If this turns out to be true its a pretty backlashing move of Microsoft. Microsoft had almost got rid of the bad taste of the antitrust case and now this. If anything it hordes the open source crowd togheter and opens a unified front, Anything But Microsoft. I presume MS is really involved in some stage cause frankly, what kind of license to unix did they need costing 10 mil? They hadnt any chance of buying a second license since that would have been to obvious. A third party like Baystar funding MS makes perfekt sence.
The halloween docs have all proven themselves on the spot from start and the indices all points towards MS. Why else would this suit have been such a big publicity stunt against linux wich have been a third party in all cases so far that SCO has been starting?
It just reekes of MS "business practices".
HTTP/1.1 400
Two points. Is this real, and is the dollar figure correct?
If it's real, consider the source. The e-mail was not widely distributed so did someone raid an inbox for this? Was it printed out and left on the printer? In either case, the source must be close to the principals. Why hasn't more information been forthcoming from this source? Certainly this source would have been able to pick up things like, oh, what the infringing code was, who SCO is planning on suing...
Let's say the e-mail is authentic. Consider the $86M figure. From the memo:
Microsoft will have brough in $86 million for us including Baystar.
The poster (and many many of those leaving comments) seem to assume MS gave SCO $86M. If you read the memo, clearly that's not the case. It says MS has brought in that money, including Baystar. From the commentary, we know that Baystar provided at least $50M. MS just referred SCO to Baystar.
Take a look at Baystar's site. They invest in many companies, not all tech related. If you read the Baystar news section, you'll see this article that shows Baystar is not letting SCO have free rein and is interested in protecting its investment.
Bottom line: MS is not funnelling money to SCO via Baystar. MS introduced them but Baystar made the decision to fund, based on the best interest of its investors. Of course, the way Raymond spins it is, "If not for Microsoft, SCO would be at least $15 million in debt today." No, if not for Baystar. Sure, MS introduced them but you may as well say, "If not for the mothers of Baystar's founders giving birth to those founders..." A lot of things came together for SCO to secure the funding.
It's a lot less ominous than the excitable posters here seem to think, or certainly Raymond:
There you have it. A hundred million funnelled from Microsoft to SCO
Nonsense.
Please stop once and forever. The question is not on a business helping another firm squash out one of their common competitor. It is onb a convicted monopolist trying to fund a purely litigating company under the table. That makes a BIG difference.
Thanks for the tip. :)
I did some googling and came up with this interesting piece.
-- Confidence is the feeling you have before you understand the situation.
... and furthermore
If all /. readers will send me $20, I think that will be enough to buy enough of SCO to get the FUD stopped or slowed. If it doesn't bring in enough cash, then maybe we can buy a universal license for all Linux users. Then again, if I get the response I expect, I might be able to make a trip to the dollar store.
Haven't these guys heard of encrypted email? :P
You are correct so far as to say Einstein did not beleive in a personal God. He said that many times as you pointed out. The quote you included was in response to those who tried to match Einstein's views with their own. Einstein did, however, on many occasions (found within the same google search) express his sense of spirituality, and that he felt the physical structure of the universe was an expression of God.
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
I note that ZDnet now has an article on this. And Design Technica and ENN have picked up (copied) the Register article.
I think we should be shouting this from rooftops. Microsoft secretly funnelled a whole lot of extra money to SCO, through intermediaries. It's a big deal, especially for a convicted monopolist.
My Greasemonkey scripts for Digg &
Is the actual memo, without ESR's blitherings and typos, available in its original form? That would be valuable.
I have received email from people with PhDs who head up university departments that have just as many typos as that message. I guess that they're in a hurry to get the message out, and don't have anyone around to proofread. The typos in the message in this case are the kind someone doing a fast hunt-and-peck without regard for the consequences might make.
And on a cynical note, I think that high-up, well-to-do people don't think enough of most of their email recipients to bother with accurate typing or grammar. They save the careful typing and sentence structure for the people who are at the same level or higher than them on the food chain. They'll even have their secrectaries proofread and recompose their email before sending it to their own superiors.
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
Does it not seem at least a little bit ironic to any of you that the "halloween" documents always get sent to the same chap? What reason does anyone have to send the documents to ESR, and not someone else, such as slashdot, groklaw or RMS, even?
Could it not be possible that ESR has simply fabricated them, at least part of the time?
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Little bit of FUD analysis here from an amateur. Feel free to discredit me as well but I think this is a sneaky posting that has sneakily been given a higher moderation.
Actually, it's their money. When you pay for gas, "your money" will eventually reach terrorists under that logic.
There is no logic in this response either. By the same mislogic buying American Flags will eventually get into the hands of people who kill babies. Spending money at all means that someone else gets to spend money and so on. The fact that oil->terrorist is a give away that this AC is stuck in some old discussion about the old anti-drug commercials. Probably a conservative shill for hire who has run out of 'gas'(Pun intended)
Anyway, objectively, and using available evidence rather than assumption, none of the "Halloween memos" have ever been confirmed as being real.
I am not sure if this is correct or not, but it is good to just say something like this as it is hard to prove whether something has been proven. This same statement can be used almost verbatim about every piece of journalism that has ever dealt with leaks, or witness accounts.
Given that the idea that MS is backing SCO has been a popular conspiracy theory since Groklaw was born, isn't assuming this is true jumping the gun a bit?
I don't want to dig around but MS has been an investor in SCO for years. There is no conspiracy theory there, it is financial relationships. Drawing Groklaw into this for no apparent reason is a bit of distraction and an attempt to sully as many targets as possible. The reality is that we aren't questioning whether or not MS has the right to give money to SCO but whether SCO has any product besides harassment law suits, and if it does not, should it's shareholders be supporting this continuous legal effort. If the entire rationale of SCO is as a hired bully for MSoft, then they have no future.
When the non-geek media went ahead and assumed that the Mydoom virus was authored by Linux zealots, without objectivity or evidence, merely because the assumption made sense, everyone cried bloody murder.
This is good. Totally off topic. It is always good to try to require individuals to operate based on no bias when you can't win an argument. Objectivity and evidence are not required in discussing any of this. We are not only allowed to use our experience, and perception, but are encouraged to do so, as that is a useful technique towards investigating matters. Until we are in a court of law we can discuss conjecture, and theories quite healthily.
----
well..it's only a matter of time until the second round (aka rematch) of anti-trust trials. Now you can't tell me that paying a rival of your rival money to sue your rival (competition) to kingdom-come isn't monopolistic.
Of course, this also reinforces the idea that M$ is REALLY fearfull of linux; it's natural enemy.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
These percentages are the fees Anderer expects to receive for setting up these deals.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
At first I thought the same, but because of some of the consistency in typos -- for example, he mis-spelled "brought" without the "t" more than once -- and the nature of the email made me think otherwise. What I mean by "nature" of the email is that the email was intended as an outline for a future meeting and so he must have figured that if he was not clear, he'll clarify in person later. Secondly, as an "outline" of discussion topics, it was more a stream-of-consciousness type of synthesis -- off-the-cuff kinda thing -- and the style of the email surely supports this. These people are extremely busy (scheming up ways to make/take/steal/hoard money) that they have little time to proofread.
Linux at home
So, people are trying to make a big thing of this memo when it's just par for the course, nothing surprising at all.
So, should we stop being outraged? Are you suggesting we should just roll over, let them rip out our intestines, simply because that is their nature?
I despise this attitude. "All it takes for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing." Paraphrased from Edmund Burke. We are many; they are few. Sure, they hold more power, and so influence government far beyond their share; but if we do nothing, they will win!
We cannot cease our outrage simply because we are no longer surprised.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
This is how it worked:
Just like in the SCO case, MS was using their Financing arm to do anti-competitive business transactions. Manipulating enemies through innocent-looking cash movements and investments while supplying cash, information and most importantly *connections* to henchmen willing to do the dirty deeds (Vector, Baystar...). IIRC there was indeed a MS connection to BayStar as well. Paul Allen as an investor?
Microsoft won't stop this sort of anti-competitive clandestine operations until authorities have thoroughly investigated what is going on within their shadowy Corporate Development and Strategy (incl. Rich Emerson and Robert Uhlaner) unit and how favors and sensitive business information gets passed around within the infamous Microsoft Old Boys' Alumni network.
Not OT, go see it.
First off this has got to be the stupidest thing I have ever heard of. Secondly did anyone even bother to read the memo before posting this on slashdot?!
I don't know about the way other companies get run, but usually when a Broker/Consultant (Mike Anderer) is writing a summary of issues to the VP(Chris Sontag) of the company he is contracting for, he takes the time to make sure his sentances are READABLE, and will usually run a SPELL CHECKER.
If you read that memo without the green and red blurbs, you'd find that it makes little to no sense whatsoever, and is very ambugious at best.
Here is the alledged memo COPIED AND PASTED without the blurbs added by opesource.org
--- From the mailbox of chris sontag
From: Mike Anderer
Sent: Sunday, October 12, 2003
To: csontag@sco.com
CC: Bob Bench
Subject: Conversation Friday
Chris:
I know you were going totalk to Bob later Friday, but I figured I would
outline the issues.
1) Baystar is easy as they were just a Microsoft referral and would be 2%
2) Any licensing deal would be at 5%
3) Much of the other work would go from 2% to 3% as I have engaged in direct, but this would require according to Bob either Darl or you signing off on the fact that this ane was not a referral.
4) On the patent side for IPX, where foes that fit it. I am working with the lawyers to get these moved from provisional to more complete in the next week. I think it will spawn at least 3 patents. Ed and I are the inventors on these. What do we fo here
5) The RedHat, Acrylis examiniation, there is no upside here is this billable seperatly. I bought a PC and loaded up RedHat and will take that over and work through it with the Lawfirm. What do we do here?
I realize the last negotiations are not as much fun, but Microsoft will have brough in $86 million for us including Baystar. The next deal we should be able to get from $16-20, but it will be brutial as it is for go to makerket work and some licences. I know we can do this , if everyone stays on board and still wants to do a deal. I just want to get this deal and move away from corp dev and out into the marketing andfield dollars....In this market we can get $3-5 million in incremental deals and not have to go through the gauntlet which will get
tougher next week with the SR VP's.
We should line up some small acquisitions here to jump start this if we do it. We shoudl also do this ASAP. Microsoft also indicated there was a lot more money out there and they would clearly rather use Baystar
"like" entities to help us get signifigantly more money if we want to grow further or do acquisitions
This Microsoft deal is the Ante to the poker game...We should get this done and go after several $2-3 Million deals from the expense side of their company.
The will help us a lot and if we execute we could exit and Unix componients we have build potentially back to Microsoft or MCS.
I think they are on track and may not be able to push much more this round, but there are other ways to get money from them, their partners, investment bank referrals, etc..
Do kepp in mind that they have brough us between $82 million and $86 million if this deal is between $4million per quarter where Rich is at, or it turns into %5 million wjich is the lowest number Chris had interest in.
There will be more, lons, partnerships, etc..but we need to just get this one done. It is too high profile, it is also critical, but they are not the people to pitch. We should get what we can from them ad then work the other and larger areas of the company and groups where
they have real budget and need for our help.
Let me know your thoughts.
-Mike
Ave Molech Setting
He's considering an exit by selling Unix components "back to" Microsoft?
I'm a bit skeptical myself, but I wouldn't rule out the authenticity based solely on spelling errors.
This looks like a very 'informal' internal-only email - I'm not sure this counts as "professional interbusiness" communication (it sounded to me like a "when we get around to the formal communication [meetings or whatever] here are the issues I wanted to go over" sort of message). I've met a disturbing number of 'professionals' who can't seem to type or spell very well despite conceivably being quite competent as marketers or salespeople or whatever.
For this sort of 'quick note' I could easily imagine someone sloppily whipping it out and shooting it off without proofreading or spell-checking that would go into a formal document (and proof-reading and spell-checking seems to cover up an awful lot of poor writing skills these days...heck, slashdot alone has a huge collection of apparently-quite-competent IT folks who can't even tell the difference between "lose" and "loose"...)
Besides, have you ever read any of SCO's lawyers' filings or SCO's public statements? Not exactly paragons of perfect grammar and spelling themselves.
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
They're dumb (statistically, business students have the lowest GPAs in any school).
They're amoral (business departments are the only departments in ANY University that don't expel you summarily for cheating).
Seriously -- business people are a cancer. The world could thrive without them, but they insist on insinuating themselves into every financial transaction and leeching away the profits.
The latest issue of the Economist (registration required for some articles, but not this one) has a news item on the SCO lawsuits that calls SCO "a pariah firm in the software industry". I found this interesting, as past coverage by the Economist had been relatively sympathetic to them.
I'm just curious, because I've never heard of any executives going to jail. If I stole millions of dollars from my employer, I'd go to jail for a long, long, time. And yet if I did the same thing after getting an MBA, I would simply be asked to resign with a cushy severance package.
Seriously -- the law ends at the doors of business school.
SCO has been a Microsoft project from the day it first started 15-20 years ago. I knew that 10 years ago. So when I read something like this, it's hardly surprising to me. Is it really surprising to anyone else?
It's a very dark ride.
Yep, we knew SCO wasn't that smart to begin with.
I have a question for the above poster, and business smart people here in general. Why is anyone less than 40 years old, and someone with less than a couple hundred grand of earned savings doing in an MBA track?
I think that an masters degree for technical fields makes sense for those getting started. The depth and complexity of field theory is such that the extra years are really necessary. A person really couldn't function without the theoretical background.
Business is all about people and how to work and work with them. That is so blindingly complex and difficult that book knowledge doesn't get it. That's what I think anyway, the whole thing scares me.
Why would anybody be interested in hiring someone that has two extra years of school, but no proven ability to function in the business world? I really don't get it. Now sending a proven mid-level executive back to school makes good sense to me. I don't see any advantage in an MBA degree to a rookie that an intense accounting & law semester wouldn't provide. This is where you probably should tell me that I'm ignorant and should go away, but this is what I've seen.
Maybe what people are buying when they hire a shiny brand new MBA are some class distinctions, a proven ability to study books, and a little guaranteed avarice. This could be helpful to business, I'd really like to know.
Why do I have this? I don't smoke.
I'm glad adding product activation brought down the prices of my Windows OS and allowed me to design and migrat emore of my companies systems to Microsoft Products.
.
Pfffffft . . .
WPA, is the downfall of Windows market share. If Microsoft wants to keep it's share of the market it's gonna have to rethink the whole activation of all it's products. As soon as a WPA version comes out thats not as easily hacked as the old one you will see people moving to OSS in droves. The simple fact is that once you take the ability to copy and use a piece of software away from the public you will kill your market share. I think MS was better off when people were able to copy W2K CD's and install them at will. I've dealt with companies of 200+ Windows Nodes that haven't moved to XP/2K3 because of this. Maybe MS didn't make 200+ sales of Windows 2K here but 20 is better than nothing.
The problem is that when people work in groups in a corporate setting they adopt new ethical standards to match their group. The ethical standard in corporations is to do whatever you can to make money. Doing things of questionable legality is just a financial risk like anything else. In order to keep corporations from doing things we don't want we have to make either the chance of getting caught or the punishment or both so high as to make it no longer financially wise. We cannot simply rely on them do what we think is ethical because the ethics within coporations are different than the ethics in the general populations.
I've seen worse too, but I've never seen anything so carefully mangled.
Also, you're not ESR. Today's ESR is a meedja whore. He'd rather be in the news than correct.
In a few weeks or months, one of us is going to look pretty stupid. Don't worry, I won't rub it in.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
HAHAAHAHAHAHAHH, J00 R TEH FUNNIE!!!!!!!!
Remind me to taunt the living crap out of you when this is confirmed as an obvious fake. Not that you'll ever believe that.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Well, don't I look like a fool now!
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
If Linux is to take over the desktop, things must change!
Spinoza's God is hardly more than a rhetorical device, or a way of avoiding saying that one is an atheist.
Share and Enjoy: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
GM was among profiteers fined a hefty $5K apiece for dismantling our light urban rail systems in the General Motors Streetcar Conspiracy
After reading this document, it is apparent that hooked-on-phonics most definitely does NOT work for SCO employees.
That's the real question... If they've invested upwards of $80-100 million (that we know about) in them, directly or indirectly, was it all just donations to the Darl McBride Charitable Foundation, or are they holding paper?
Big Daddy, Johnny, Burp, Aunt Zelda, Scott, Slurp, Big Momma
====---====
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
Is it just me, or is anyone else kinda happy that this thread now has more replies than the article below it:
Your Future Car's Hood Will Be Welded Shut
Not trolling, I just think this topic should have generated more responses than that article.
"signing off on the fact that this ane was not a referral."
Most typos are made by leaving out letters, or hitting a letter next to the one you meant to. I assume 'ane' was supposed to be 'one', but 'a' is nowhere near 'o' on the keyboard. The only letter in 'one' that is, is the last one, 'e'...
That is one heck of a typo...
There are others, such as the addition of letters to words, that were not typos, but misspellings, because the keys were nowhere near any of those being pressed. Notice "componients" here:
"The will help us a lot and if we execute we could exit and Unix
componients we have build potentially back to Microsoft or MCS."
The letter 'i' is nowhere near any of the adjacent letters on the standard keyboard, so it appears that it is a misspelling rather than a typo, which is hard to believe his spelling would be that bad.
I'm not saying it that is enough to call it a fake, but it just looks a little suspicious, as if some of the 'typos' were too specifically placed.
Is it just me, or does anyone else picture ESR dressed up as Yosemite Sam, jumping up and down in his backyard firing his pistols into the air after receiving one of these leaked memos?
From the web page: "Post-Postscript: According to Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols of CNET, SCO confirmed today (04 March) that this memo is legitimate."
If this memo is legitimate, it looks like most of SCO's money now is coming from Microsoft. There are probably some other companies that Micrsoft is backing right now as well...all to maintain the Windows monopoly. I hope that Autozone and Daimler-Chrysler read this. Maybe they can find a way to claim a share of that $49 billion pot of money that Micrsoft is hoarding.
If you have 50 billion, that's 50 thousand million, by the way, then 100 million, or 1/500th of that, is indeed chump change. That's how Microsoft can afford to make all of it's products except for Office and Windows "loss leaders" in order to extend it's operating system monopoly, and how it can become a major investor in SCO without breaking a sweat.
"Post-Postscript: According to Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols of CNET, SCO confirmed today (04 March) that this memo is legitimate." reads the end of the article linked. Perhaps...
I haven't posted in so long, my sig is out of date.
Not according to the FAQ;
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
With ten memos over five years the average time between memos is approximately 26 weeks. Hardly 'seemingly weekly installments' - at best you've got 'seemingly quarterly installments'.
Code or be coded.
I imagine he means loans... Is this legal?
- High Tech workers, please say NO to Union Carpenters, their Union sees fit to control our compensation.
#1. Barratry. You cannot keep suing someone just to harrass them.
#2. Microsoft has been ruled to be a monopoly. Funding another company just so that company can sue your competitors is illegal.
#3. Case law. SCO can file all the cases it wants. But all those other cases can reference previous cases. So, when SCO loses the IBM case, that information can be used to end other SCO cases.
#4. The legal defense fund setup to help people and companies that are being sued by SCO.
#5. How will SCO know that you're using Linux? So far, they've filed a case against IBM and they're doing two more against companies that had, in the past, signed contracts with SCO. If you haven't worked with SCO in the past, SCO would have to get a search warrant to see if you even use Linux.
You're right about SCO's motivations. Microsoft is paying SCO in an attempt to slow the migration to Linux. It doesn't seem to be working, though. Linux is still increasing its marketshare.
This was removed by SCO from the final court filing against Daimler:
"(C)ertain of plaintiff's copyrighted software code has been materially or exactly copied by Linus Torvalds and/or others for inclusion into one or more distributions of Linux with the copyright management information intentionally removed." -- news.com.com
CHICKEN!
Belief is the currency of delusion.
While I agree with the general trend of the discussion that nothing is proven, yet, wouldn't these actions on the part of Microsoft - if they were true - be a violation of ANTITRUST LAWS? Remember, MS is a legally defined monopoly, now, its behavior is not judged by the same low standard as a mere auto company or other competitive firm, but by a different set of low standards. This would be a very serious charge against MS.
I have nothing to hide. So, why are you spying on me?
Maybe you should read it again without the assumption that money can bury linux?
:D
That's exactly how I meant it, it "begs the question". Pthththtplplthpl!
--AROS is an Open Source AmigaOS clone, and source compatible with AmigaOS! Try the x86 build at http://www.aros.org
India's economy is growing rapidly, but there are still hundreds of millions of people who are in absolute poverty - as in not getting enough to eat type poverty. Relative prosperity has only reached maybe 10% of the population so far.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
No. "It raises the question -- how much money would it take to bury Linux?" is the only correct way of writing it, even if you meant it in a rhetorical sense (as in, the implied answer is "No amount of money can bury Linux")
To "beg the question" means that you have made an error in reasoning. It has nothing to do with an actual question. It is a circular argument, where you try to prove a point by using that same point as fact. "Cars are bad for the environment because they cause serious environmental damage." -- to which someone might reply, "You are begging the question."
(Grammar nazis, please be gentle -- I may not have perfectly explained the term, but it's a far sight closer than using it as equivalent to "raises the question")
Random and weird software I've written.
Check here for a new McBride image. Pass it around. http://www.bluestardesign.net/darl_mcbride.jpg
nerd
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1542915,00.as p
Blake Stowell, SCO's director of communications, acknowledged that the leaked memo is real. But, Stowell claimed that pundits had mischaracterized the memo's context.
=======
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
News.com has an article saying it was all "a misunderstanding". Just released minutes ago, there you go, now you know! :)
/.: why the hell am I here?
When does something like this fall under RICO?
Or perhaps another round of Sherman Antitrust Act?
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
Mike Anderer
Silicon StemCell
4567 South Matthews Way
Salt Lake City, UT 84124
Phone: 801-274-0040 or 801-244-8501 (cell)
Fax: 801-274-0070
Email: mike@s2.com
Strangely, Silicon Stemcell LLc are also listed as a TV company in Panama - see http://www.b2b-bestof.com/services/cable_and_other _pay_tv_services/pa/ for some rather scanty details.
I don't know why a Salt Lake City venture capital / startup incubator firm would want to be registered in Panama, but I could hazard a guess...
oh brave new world, that has such people in it!
This is ridiculous. It's an unverified anonymous e-mail that is probably faked (look how many times it mentions the millions, which looks silly).
It's not "another reason" to do anything, and not proof of anything. Your post offers absolutely no insight.
"Blake Stowell, SCO's director of communications, acknowledged that the leaked memo is real."
. as p
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1542915,00
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
Proof that Darl reads /.
My bad - my natural cynicism led me to believe what I read on the Internet again - D'oh!
oh brave new world, that has such people in it!
I think the two most common reasons for this sort of disregard for typos etc in business communications, at ANY level (i.e. from top management down), are: (a) not caring, (b) in a hurry. In the first case, you have some people who just don't really care if they have a few mistakes in their typing. In the second case, and I believe likely here, very busy people (such as top management in virtually any company) are too pressed for time to go around proofreading every one of the dozens (or hundreds) of business communications that they must do EVERY DAY. Really, if you spend up to several hours a day just typing email, you just don't have time anymore to proof every last one.
My mail to him:
Well, Mike -
I bet you feel like a total prat, having your sloppy spelling and indiscreet observations splashed all over the Web all of a sudden.
I sure hope that the impression given by your email won't adversely impact on your obviously worthwhile IP harvesting activities - hell, if I had an idea and needed finance, I'd come beating down your door asking for the help of such a painstakingly accurate and diligent person as yourself.
Don't let Blake Stowell's dismissal of your memo put you off - your obvious merits will shine through, despite the impression given by your memo.
Keep a good head, and always carry a lightbulb,
Brian.
oh brave new world, that has such people in it!
...make the rest look bad.
Eternal vigilance only works if you look in every direction.
The site where the story broke indicates that SCO has verified that the email is genuine. That may of course be an artful ruse, but then, maybe you work at SCO, but in Keith Lamuer's terms, would not be considered a "usually reliable source" (i.e. - the guys at the top and the janitor who has access to the waste baskets.
You might for instance be trying to do real work, and as an honest employee, you would be left out of those meetings where deniability was crucial. I have worked for companies where there was no one between me and the owners and they could still "secretly" do some really stupid things, that I would not hear of until it was too late. It's tough on the ego, but well, perhaps you are too honest to trust worthy.
------ The only greater hazard to your liberty than n politicians is n+1 politicians.
Good questions. And that is just my point. This letter proves nothing. But it sure throws fuel on the Linux community fire.
But, everyone will jump to the immediate conclusion that MS is behind the whole SCO incident. Why can't people just be happy blaming SCO? Because this is slashdot, and MS is the evil satan here. So everything must be MSs fault.
Please see here.
That last sentence intrigued me as well when I first read it. "Exit"? Does that mean take your millions and run and hide somewhere tropical?
No, you dont understand. When the Windows 2000 source code leaked, SCO allegedly found thier IP in it, and the $86 million is SCO licencing fees. Get the facts straight ;)
Visit Phrite's Tech News/Security Tools
The media will print any unsubstantiated claim by SCOX. It'll be interesting to see their take on this. The only thing real so far in the SCO case is the lawsuit itself. How would you as a journalist handle this tidbit?
I couldn't feel more strongly that the media should seriously report on stories like this. CNN, FoxNews, etc. could make this story huge. If this was nationally portrayed as a serious scandal, the negative impact it could have on Microsoft could be huge. Basically, the case is Microsoft vs. the people (Linux-by the people for the people).
(\_/)
(O.o) This is Bunny. (> <)
If Linux truly is blameless, than MS is just wasting it's money, since SCO will lose anyway. On the other hand, if SCO is right, they should get their day in court, and not presecuting for lack of money would make IBM any more innocent.
Vote for Pedro
Ever since SCO took money from Microsoft and decided to use linux users, the purchase of Linux software has skyrocketed. LindowsOS has not become the number one selling Desktop Linux distribution as a result.
Thanks Microsoft.
I doubt their damage control is very credible, as clearly Microsoft is involved:
SCO's blanket dismissal of the leaked memo as the mistaken assumptions of an independent contractor doesn't explain several parts of the letter which seem to indicate knowledge of Microsoft's involvement in SCO's investment search, however.
For example, the memo states that Microsoft apparently wanted to use private investments in public companies to help fund SCO.
My dog ate my sig
It's time to bring a end to SCO's non-sensical lawsuit. It's
amazing that they could even think of bringing such a baseless
lawsuit. Microsoft deserves to be punished for their anti-competitive
behavior. Microsofts actions essentially amounts to a bribe.....I am
suprised that Microsoft did not ask SCO to name their own price for a
license.
Here is the email to complain to to the Plantiff
(Microsoft anti-trust compliance officer):Complaints@TheTC.org
Perhaps this will come as a shock to you but the fact is that gross illiteracy is rampant among the suits. Many people are able to "pass" as functional as long as they don't have to write anything. It is very common in the corporate world to get occasional glimpses of the abysmal stupidity and illiteracy of the executives when circumstances force them to compose an email that ends up being seen by the troops. Invariably the impression it leaves is that the author must have trouble using common bathroom appliances without killing him or herself.
Who didn't know this already??? Duh!
But Officer, I DID read the f**king article!
SCO verifies that letter is real.. as p
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1542915,00
do you know WHY?
because if they don't, and IBM subpoena's the email, and SCO lies about its authenticity, and they re found to have lied - then the SCO folks don't just lose money or face - they lose anal virginity when they go to pound-me-in-the-ass-prison for lying to the judge - its called "obstruction of justice"...
did no one learn ANYTHING from Bill Clinton?
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
In a few weeks or months, one of us is going to look pretty stupid. Don't worry, I won't rub it in.
Well, I guess I won't rub it in then. (grin!)
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
I am not talking only about liability. Busyness need confindende. In the practical world contracts and law is helpfull but much better if you do not need to go to a judge. Also workes feel and work better in an ethical workspace. And all the resources are better used. (like paper which sometimes seems to disapear or free fotocopies)
You need to be both. And if it is illegal it is clearly unethical. You are expected to follow the law. Unless the law is against human rigths.
Net result is that Microsoft can never again use Unix as a weapon against linux.
Europe and Japan have loads of protectionist and laws and they seem to have healthy economies.
Japan's economy has been walking on a razor edge since the early 90s. one small shake up and the dominoes there are going to fall. they're still recovering from 1997 which.
as for europe, do you mean the EU? be more specific, it's a pretty big and diverse place.
in this age of communication i'm just not getting through
But it's ALWAYS been a race to the cheapest resources. This is nothing new. It's a fundamental law of economics!
'Race to the bottom' is something we're alll guilty of, that $499 PC is part of it, just like that $4.99 sweater but you bought it anyway because it was CHEAPER. And more power to you, because that extra money in your wallet from saving so much on the PC/sweater is money you can spend on more stuff or save where before it would not have gone so far.
We can either be protectionist and get creamed in a few decades, or we can participate on the global markets and sustain at least part of what we have now. There's no question in my mind that the American standard of living will decrease as we come into step with the rest of the world, there will be some pains of coming into equilibrium, but all those people in India and China are going to have much better lives for it. If we COULD keep ourselves on top and keep all the jobs and the standard of living I'd be all for it, but we can't and I'd rather do this gracefully than burn bridges through protectionism with our future world peers (the EU, China, India).
And in the meantime, we've got to implement some more wealth distribution (universal baseline health care anyone?) or something because the cost of living is nipping at the heels of the average wages. In the 1960s my Dad managed a McDonalds and paid rent, bills, his car, and some private college on it. I make three times the minimum wage today and can barely afford to pay rent, gas, and eat.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
There is also this: IPX Online. Some mild discussion at groklaw about it midway down the page.
-Hope
Hey, who called MBA's evil? I just said semi-mockingly that they have a secret, or at least get exposed to a taboo: that enhancing shareholder value is the foundation of any ethics at a publicly-held company. Or haven't you got to that stage of synthesizing your studies yet?
/. where quite a few of us make our livings as real systems optimizers. We know better.
That statement is utter and complete horseshit. I don't want to begin to think how many times I've heard smug, ignorant, self-serving executives hide behind that particular bit of jargon. One that has about as much to do with their actions as "fiscal responsibility" has to do with the actions of the Bush administration.
The closest most MBAs and other hollow suits I've dealt with come is maximizing short-term share price by sacrificing long-term growth and company effectiveness to short-term flash and dazzle.
Not that I'm biased or anything, as both a former IT director in Time/Warner during the AOL merger who opposed the several hundred million dollar mistake of switching all internal mail to AOLmail and an acting IT director in another huge company you'ld have heard of as they ignored market demand, cheapened their product, and put a company insider at the top of the firm who was well known to be borderline incompetent.
Take a look at the SAP implementation at Pierson and come back and try again.
MBAs are not acculturated or trained to maximize anything but their own compensation. As is displayed above, those of us who have held operational responsibility know full well who's behind the moves to replace working systems with gimmicky bullshit because it will create the right bits of stagecraft and grease the right palms. We know who has refused to look at real TCO data for years while insisting on Micro$oft trash becoming the "single source solution". We know who used Andersen Consulting to promote the dimwitted and complex over the simple and sane. We know how Booz-Allen is still doing it today.
You can talk all the Fortune Magazine eyewash you want to the great empty-headed sheep out there but don't try peddling it here on
In fact, just to lay my cards on the table, I just had a long, unpleasant dinner last week with an old friend of mine who *has* an MBA from a top school who spent quite a long time expressing his discomfort at how modern business has made it (his words) "impossible to rise to the top except by being amoral". Christ! I dated an MBA from another top school for a while and even when I loved her, which I did, she still appalled me with her combination of bowing to conventional wisdom over independant analysis while speaking the jargon of "hard-headed objectivity".
But, then again, maybe my opinion comes from having another friend who is a lawyer working the Adelphia case who has made me sit through chapter and verse on just what idiots the top people were (all money routed through one set of accounts? Good Gawd!) all the while the mass of MBA types (including MBAs I knew in telecommuncations) were trumpeting them as brilliant. After all, the Wall Street Journal loved them ans the stock price was soaring. It must be true.
Sure, I've know a few exceptions. A certain comptroller of a high profile arts institution comes to mind. But it is probably significant that she worked in and then managed businesses (restauraunts, in fact) years before stepping into her first MBA classroom.
I majored in economics in college. I have been to lectures at Columbia, NYU, and half a dozen other "top" univerities and colleges. I was raised on stock market analysis, had issues of Value Line sitting around when I was a kid, and was reading John Stewart Mill before most people in this discussion were born. And I can say with utter assurance that we do indeed have wonderful training available these days in industrial organization, systems optimization, decisonmaking, and so on (my short list would include Milgram, Thaler, Garson, and Cyert) but those are not the things
Data is the lever, rigor the fulcrum, brains the force that drives it all.
By all means -- get pissed. Tell the anti-capitalists (or however you want to describe them) that you think they're full of it. Ask for proof....Those who think that businesses need heavy regulation and huge taxes don't usually understand how it all works (well, I don't either -- but I still think that those folks are full of it)
Yup. That's a reason-based, fact-based analysis.
Hate to break it to ya, son (no, I don't) But many of us "leftists" have been engaging in hundreds of pages of journal entries and posts positively overflowing with facts for years now. Go for it, look at my post above. Facts. Examples. Analysis.
I mean, if you think you are up for it, I can take down my entire FUCKIN WALL WORTH of textbooks, case studies, adult business magazines (stuff like Institutional Investor, not dumbed-down cheerleading like Inc. or Fortune) and I'll be more then glad to sit down over the next few days and tear you a new one. You have access to my email address. Try me. I'll have a journal entry up good and proper and we can determine who is qualfied to discuss what.
"fail to understand"? Listen, you may not have your facts in order or studied the theories but I and others here have. I've been there, done that, printed the goddamned t-shirt and wrote the fucking manual.
But then, maybe that's why the families of millionaires hire me to help manage their affairs and not you. Just guessing here.
No, turkey, we don't oppose this sort of crap because of some mushy-minded anti-capitalism. In fact, chances are I live a far more purely capitalist life then you ever will. Run my own business, as it happens; have for years.
We oppose this sort of crap because we *have* studied it, we *do* understand it, and, in some cases, precisely because we're good at it, we've spent far too much of our lives cleaning up the damage done by corporate pinheads and are really and truly sick of it.
Following me here? Keeping up okay? I'll make it simple for ya. We oppose corporate shenanigans because we oppose muddle-headed thinking. Because we want our world to make sense.
So the next time you feel like making clueless and scurrilous accusations, how about you turn down Rush or Fox News (sic) or WWF whatever your head-filler of choise is for a minute first and think about just what you're about to say.
Hmmmmm?
Rustin
Data is the lever, rigor the fulcrum, brains the force that drives it all.
Looking at the jobs that are possible to outsource, (excluding say the local librarian) if the labor is cheaper somewhere else, and the costs of moving the job are less than the labor diff., then the jobs will move until either:
A) forigen workers start to demand more money, due to competition or whatever, or B) domestic workers start to demand less.
Companies that refuse to outsource when profitable will eventually go out of business.Assuming that minimum wages are currently set higher than this equilibrium point, you are chosing between lower wages and no job at all. All things being equal*, protectionism hurts all concerned, including you. Fighting market forces is never a good idea.
*just so you understand, due to fiat currencies, centeral banks, corporate/financial law, and various trade laws, in roughly that order, things are most definately not equal. They are fighting market forces, and it will and is ruining a lot of people and economies, including the US (what do you think is causing outsourcing to be so much cheaper in the first place? It is not just the internet!) What we are in today is a 'financial new era' aka market mania boom/bust cycle. the same thing triggered the roaring 20's and the great depression. Outsourcing is just one symptom, and a small one at that.
Laws are horrible moral guides, moral guides make even worse laws.
My semi-old-fartedness [same age] and non-fortune1000-ladder experiences corroborate yours. I even resorted to rooftop garden projects myself, so chill.
But, but, but, I was having so much fun being semi-gratuitiously vitriolic. No fair being reasonable in response!
Sorry. I truly didn't catch that you were kidding. I'm a bit slow about things like that sometimes. Comes of hearing too much like that spoken in sincerity. Well, that and my borderline Asperger's social skills.
Again, sorry. And yes, you touched a very sore nerve (I wasn't kidding about the rather harsh dinner a while back, or any of the rest for that matter) and I guess I was a bit too eager to have a chance to vent.
My apologies. If you're ever in NYC I'll buy you a beer. (Make it two.)
Rustin
Data is the lever, rigor the fulcrum, brains the force that drives it all.
Another misconception is that India is an aid seeker. That used to be the case till about 4-5 years ago , but no more. Today , India seeks investment , but not aid. Foreign aid , as it has been proved , does nothing to improve the situation , and the aid seeking countries are caught in a debt trap. So India does not accept aid anymore , and because of the new resurgence in its economy , has been paying off the old loans much ahead of schedule.
that wrote this piece o shit software I am trying to port to windows.