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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 !
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
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?
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.
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
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?
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?
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.
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.
We all know that Microsoft really welcomes competition from Linux... Unless Microsoft is lying...
Linux/Open Source/Anti Microsoft News
It's got to be consipiracy theory BS. Patenting IPX? give me a break. Also it says that SCOs main earner will be MS... seems unlikely given their track to date... So far MS seem to be getting very poor value for money, no evidence that the SCO campaign is in any way helping MS or even that it will.
I call BS on the whole article.
"Those who cast the votes decide nothing; those who count the votes decide everything." (attrib. Joseph Stalin)
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
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 $100 million to SCO. I think both Microsoft and SCO should burn in hell.
But I don't buy the memo. There are just too many "carefully placed" typos. It looks like someone engineered typos to make it LOOK authentic, but something about it's just a bit too intentional and obvious looking.
Think Linux inroads has got Msoft shitting in its pants so this comes as no surprise. If you can't beat it technologically, create FUD around it--In Malaysia and Thailand, our redmond fiend has launched a so-called Windows XP "Lite" for cheap...Y? Cos the govts "threaten" to launch desktops with Linux!
Either the author of the leaked document in question was in extreme haste, or he has lackluster grammar skills. The document is full of errors like: "The will help us a lot", "componients", "shoudl", "wjich", and so on. That isn't exactly the kind of document you send out when you are trying to convince people to do something shady. You'd think the author would at least had the initiative to spell check the thing before sending it out. Perhaps it should be taken with a grain of salt, and by that, I mean deer salt licks.
Join Tor today!
" If the discovery process yields the original email, Microsoft is fucked."
Talk about an alibi for loosing an email. They use M$ for the mail server.
Evolution or ID?
This is getting about as stupid as nightly television.
he means, "what do we *do* here" Look at the posision of the D & F keys on the keyboard.... any fat fingered exec could make the same mistake :)
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?
It's an order of magnitude since humanity's natural number base is octal.
No, it's not 10. Look at your hand -- the thumb is there for carry-bits when adding.
(Old PDP10 joke from before my time.)
Karma: Excellent (My Karma? I wish...:-( )
I realize most people are going to disagree, but of all the memos leaked before this does not look real. I could care less about the spelling, but the point of the e-mail is just sad ESPECIALLY if we are considering someone leaked the memo must have been a recipient. That's not exactly a business wide e-mail. No one that high up would go try to shoot themselves in the foot at this point.
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.
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.
They've managed to survive fairly brutal beatings before and will again. It usually ends up something like this:
"Yes I know that Microsoft have been caught doing something wrong. They have been caught though, and punished, so that just proves that the system works. In the end we need PCs and they come with Windows on and we need that to share files with everyone else."
As far as this is concerned it won't damage Microsoft. They are much more vulnerable to increases in Viruses and Worms. These impact people directly and can make them look for alternatives.
You may think me a tired, old, cynic. I'd have to disagree about the tired bit.
If there's nothing wrong with it, why are they using Baystar to hide the money? Microsoft is not funding SCO, they're funding SCO's court attacks on Linux, which may constitute anti-competitive actions in violation of their DOJ settlement. Of course, even if it does, we'd have to wait until January to see some action on this ...
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.
I don't think its illegal to fund another company through a third company. But in the case of Microsoft, their actions of funding SCO's effort to destroy the competition are to further their monopoly, which could be looked upon as illegal in the eyes of the DOJ.
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'.
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?
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
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.
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 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 we are considering someone leaked the memo must have been a recipient.
Not necessarily. I'm not sure that this memo is legit either, but SMTP isn't exactly known for being secure. There are any number of people who could have been capturing packets in case anything interesting showed up... not to mention any sysadmins with direct access to the queue on the mailserver.
- fader
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.
Yes but you're assuming the exec knows how to turn it on. Most of them probably just know enough to send and read email. I've known a few that barely even managed to do that on a regular basis.
Hold up, wait a minute, let me put some pimpin in it
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?
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
"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
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!
$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.
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.
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?
...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.
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
This is one of the things you have mastercard for, just invaluable.
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.
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.
What are you talking about? The DOJ and their attorneys beat Microsoft seven ways from Sunday in court. They even satisfied the most pro-business court in the land that the company was an abusive monopolist. Had Jackson kept his damn mouth shut, all would have been fine, but he didn't, and so the penalty was vacated and a new hearing ordered.
The case was assigned to a new judge, one with virtually zero antitrust experience, and she ordered settlement talks. During that time, the Administration changed over and the DOJ went from hardcore, aggressive demands for breakup to the loving kiss with tongue and extra saliva that Judge KK ultimately accepted.
"Stinking cesspool" ? Bull. The case was a slam-dunk and the new Administration threw in the towel on Microsoft when the ref's count had reached nine and three-quarters.
Learn to spell: nickel, missile, lose, solely, amendment, speech, kernel, probably, ridiculous, deity, hierarchy, versus
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...
I read somewhere about a quote from someone at Microsoft about competition. Something to the effect of just having to wound the competition and apply pressure and wait while they bleed to death.
Micosoft has money to burn. Don't doubt for a minute that they will fund something for years and years without getting a return. Just consider the return from every other business division except windows and word - they all loose money on the order of tens to hundreds of millions of dollars every year.
They can keep pushing into new areas by dint of mass and money. Put up a new product. Prop it up for years and wait for the competition to get tired or make a mistake. They have nothing to loose.
Linux is the number one threat to Microsoft on just about every front - servers, embedded devices, maybe phones with Motorola and others, maybe the desktop in a couple years if Sun can others can get thier sh*t together.
Micosoft has spent more money on stupider things.
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); }
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.
That doesn't make any sense. Worst case scenario, we'd revert to 2.6.2 or thereabouts, before the Windows source leak.
LOAD "SIG",8,1
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.
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?
If this memo gets the feds/DOJ involved in looking for/at the money trail, that's all it takes. It's pretty hard to move $86 million without leaving a trace.
Of course, I have about as much faith in the DOJ investigating this thoroughly as I have in them punishing Microsoft for any of their other infractions.
Also: remember folks, this could just be a fake memo released by Darl and co. in an effort to make us all look like chumps! I'd hesitate on blowing this up too big until further evidence is turned up.
If this is true, it illustrates the absolutely sick nature of Microsoft's upper management.
"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
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.
"Now if it was a leaked powerpoint slideshow I might believe it."
Especially if it were all in Greek font...
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
> no evidence that the SCO campaign is in any way helping MS or even that it will.
(conspiracy theory)
OK, think about this. People will obviously get sick of being sued by SCO, and not want to be SCO's customers any more. You thing AutoZone will do business with them again?
Now, some of these sick of SCO people may still be nervous about the Linux situation, and not want to get into or stay in that "problem area" until the lawsuits are sorted out and they know for sure who "wins". So people want to avoid SCO, some of them will want to avoid Linux for the time being, and end up buying into Microsoft products.
You don't think this isn't helping MS??
(/conspiracy theory)
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.
-Hope
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.
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?
what precisely is wrong with Microsoft, or any other company funding another company?
Nothing at all. As long as the funding is done for legal reasons.
Funding another company to sue/defame one (or more) of your competitors and/or groups not using your product is illegal. It's racketering, restraint of trade, etc.
The hard part, of course, is proving it. This memo, even if found to be factual and true in SCO's email system, is insufficient evidence. You would have to find correlating memos from Microsoft, both internally and to Baystar, and from Baystar to SCO. I'm willing to bet that, even if this is all true, that those memos never existed. If you're going to pull this kind of stunt, particularly after being found guilty of being an illegal monopoly, then you ensure there's no paper trail by doing things verbally.
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.
the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
...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';
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
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.
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
"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
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.
...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).
And for that email address google turns up this link:r s.pdf
http://spar.research.sc.edu/pdf/USCRF_Board_Membe
Strangely there is only this google link. Well, there will certainly be more now..
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.
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%.
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
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.
Soon after Bush took office the DOJ took splitting MS off the table. After that everything went to hell.
The best way to support the US war effort is to continue buying American products.
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.
Geezus people. Did we all forget that the Anti-trust judges can't do a damn thing unless SCO is shown to be doing something illegal? If SCO even has the slightest case, and it's showed that MS is helping them UPHOLD SCOs IP. Then please oh please tell me how MS will get punished for doing what can be viewed as not the best thing but the "right thing"?
If this was some form of extortion, then sure, send in the law!. But as long as SCO is still able to hold their place in court, MS is can continue to sitting pretty in the shadows.
"There is no real right or wrong, just what the majority accepts at the time."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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 &
The Appellate Court's comments on Jackson were that he knew what he was doing. I thought then and think now that they were hittin' the pipe to say that he did a good job but they were going to vacate his order for relief to avoid the always-trite "appearance of impropriety". Either he did a good job, end of story, or he didn't and they should have punted the whole shootin' match.
I was out of work for much of the trial and had the opportunity to read the hundreds of pages of Jackson's findings. He demonstrated a clear awareness of Microsoft's misdeeds and what would be an appropriate level of sanction to restore competition to the marketplace. Only the most ardent Microsoft cheerleader could claim that the KK-approved settlement has done jack to restore a marketplace twisted out of recognition by the company.
Learn to spell: nickel, missile, lose, solely, amendment, speech, kernel, probably, ridiculous, deity, hierarchy, versus
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
After reading this document, it is apparent that hooked-on-phonics most definitely does NOT work for SCO employees.
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."
"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.
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.
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?
Interestingly, didn't the last big payment that came directly from Microsoft for "licenses" show up in one of their SEC filings listed as "Senior Debt"?
Commentary on Groklaw seemed to say that "Senior Debt" means a debt(!) that gets paid back first ("Senior" as in it has "Seniority") in the event of e.g. a bankruptcy.
If this is true, doesn't that imply that Microsoft's money was given under conditions that it might have to be returned in some circumstances?...making it a sort of 'loan' rather than an actual 'payment'?
I haven't heard anything about this particular aspect lately (and I don't even know for certain if my understanding is correct here) but I found it very interesting...
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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 ;)
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I have to agree. I am a die hard RedHat user. I always compile from source. None of that wimpy rpm stuff. I was completely skeptical of anything easy to use. I then tried Lindows and I was so amazed at how well it worked that like thousands of other users, I ditched Red Hat. I now use Lindows for our entire company of over 150 employees. We saved thousands of dollars switching from Microsoft products. The majority of people in our office had never heard of Lindows until this deal with SCO and how microsoft bankrolled them. Everyone was so outraged that they demanded I find another option. After checking out all of the mainstream linux versions, only one was good enough and easy enough to use for the desktop for the average to advanced user. LindowsOS Rocks! After reading all the reviews on the various Desktop Linux distro's, Lindows cameout on top by a wide margin. Now that Lindows is the fastest growing Linux Desktop, it can only get better. Thanks Microsoft for helping linux to grow on the desktop and thanks Lindows for being number one!!
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