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More on Recent SCOings On
An anonymous reader writes "Blake Stowell, SCO's director of communications, acknowledged that the leaked memo is real." However, Stowell went on to say that the memo was misunderstood, and that Microsoft has not been funding SCO, as was previously alleged.
In addition, Computer Associates is now vehemently denying they ever licensed Linux from SCO. AlabamaMike writes "Being employed by Computer Associates myself, I had to admit I was terribly dismayed by the news that the company I work for had licensed SCO's dubious Linux IP. I sent some mail around to those I thought would have some info about what was going on with this very odd move, and the response that came back truly should be posted for the /. community. Basically this is a very creative spin on a settlement CA did with Canopy Group regarding a breach of contract settlement totally unrelated to Linux. Associated with that settlement was a set of UnixWare licenses to which SCO has taken the liberty of attaching these 'Linux IP' licenses."
It's hard to see how they can continue to maintain that they were just "licensing" IP from SCO. As the memo appears to be genuine, it seems to me that Redmond has a lot of explaining to do. Especially to the Justice Department; I mean, if this isn't predatory behavior then I don't know what is.
It'd be nice if CA put out a press release pointing this out..... but somehow I think they won't... oh well :(
LA Times (free crappy reg) story
Here's the highlights (emphasis added):
SCO Confronting Its Creation
Company's CEO is taking precautions as the head of the 'most despised' tech firm
From Bloomberg News
Darl McBride, chief executive of SCO Group Inc., says he sometimes carries a gun because his enemies are out to kill him. He checks into hotels under assumed names. An armed bodyguard protected him when he gave a speech last month at Harvard Law School.
Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux operating system, calls SCO "the most despised company in technology."
McBride and SCO are more hated than Microsoft, the world's largest software maker, and its Chairman Bill Gates, according to some Linux backers. That's because SCO, once a backer of Linux, has turned around and attacked the essence of the system: its free source code.
"SCO are just complete hypocrites," said Jeremy Allison, co-author of Samba, an open source software that runs a file and print service that SCO sells.
"The real reason why people don't like SCO, and Darl McBride in particular, is that he is so dishonest," Torvalds, 34, said in an e-mail.
See, SCO lawyer Mark Heisse in a letter dated February 4 to IBM lawyer David Marriott at Cravath Swain identified CA, Questar and Leggett & Platt as Linux taxpayers.
"Taxpayers", huh? I never knew... Must be so difficult, to pay a tax on a product that COSTS NOTHING..
Where do they get all that money for that damn tax?And where does it go? I bet Darl wants us to believe it's that secret Linux shadow government that causes all the problems in... Woops.. Sorry. Wrong case...
I'm just waiting for the markets to open.
Yesterday the shares had begun to fall after ESR leaked the mail, before all the news sites started up with headlines saying SCO licenses have been bought.
Today is perfect, markets have not opened, CA has not bought a license and it is clear that SCO is a front for M$ from which no profits for shareholders are to be had. Moreover, there is the muzzle on SCO by the court.
I hope thatwe don't get an unnatural price rise due to this being a friday and everyone trying to cover their short positions before the week ends !!
I mean, who could have thought of a worse, more stupid way to piss off the whole tech sector and drive yourself into bankruptcy. The more I think about it, the more this strange idea develops that SCO (Caldera) is actually doing all this rubbish to help the Linux community. OK, it is way out there, but in some perverted way, it makes sense.
First of all, you have a Linux company (Caldera) who, despite their best efforts, has trouble staying afloat. At this time, there is no corporate support for Linux, the big vendors are running away from it, and the "GPL has never been tested in court" is touted as an argument all over the place. Big UNIX vendors only see Linux as a way to get people into their more proprietary solutions.
So, Caldera buys out a UNIX vendor and does the most ridiculous thing imaginable: sues everybody, proclaims that Linux is communist and all that bullshit. Fast forward to the current situation: IBM, HP, Novell and other big players are squarely behind Linux and protecting it. Microsoft is exposed as a greedy monopolist who uses underhand tactics (yet again). GPL gets tested in court and it is under such circumstances that guarantee a strong precedent in GPL's favour. The UNIX heritage is cleared once and for all. Linux wins, in a BSD fashion, and is free from corporate FUD. And who pays the bill? Greedy investors.
This could turn out the be the best thing for the corporate image of Linux ever.
I find this zdnet news article to be velly intellesting.
-- SKYKING, SKYKING, DO NOT ANSWER.
All this posted anonymously because my employer is continually having cash sucked out of it by CA as they suck all useful life out of its products.
So why on earth are the suing Autozone if they have
a license to run the binary form in Linux. Isn't that the meat of their argument.
A little quote from Blake reguarding the CA vapor
license deal.
"UnixWare licences allow SCO customers to run UnixWare and the SCO Intellectual Property Licence allows Linux end users to run our Unix intellectual property in binary form in Linux. Today, CA has a licence in place to run our Unix IP in binary form in Linux without fear that they may be infringing on our intellectual property."
Got Code?
They buy companies and immediately layoff 20%. They ask the managers and rank everyone, and the bottom 20% get chopped off immediately.
Then, they basically mothball all new development in these acquired companies, and after Indians have been trained on how to maintain the software, they fire everyone in North America/Europe.
This is their business strategy. They don't care about their employees and their customers.
Sorry, but I don't give one shit about CA. They could go belly up for all I care, and it would only be good for the software industry.
"By the way, CA doesn't have enough UnixWare licenses to cover all its Linux servers, Greenblatt said."
Shame eh?
Imagine the fun things they'll find!
Most industry analyists knew that Microsoft was concerned about Linux.
But I for one never quite realized that Microsoft was in a panic.
I heard all the rumors - "maybe Microsoft is behind the SCO lawsuit"... but I didn't think Microsoft would actually be funding this entire effort. I mean, isn't Microsoft focusing on the Next Generation Great Thing that will put Linux to bed once and for all? Obviously, the answer we now have is "no".
I read the news yesterday, and it seemed pretty clear that the memo was a fabrication. I mean how could such a blatent memo be true? And with all the grammar and spelling errors? It just didn't add up. Mircosoft is smart, right? They hire smart people, right? They may be a monopoly, and they may make try to lock their customers into their products, but they're doing it to make globs of $. That's smart, right?
Well obviously I was mistaken. Microsoft was more-or-less caught trying to fuck up the entire Linux industry by buying what is looking more and more like secretly misusing the courts. On top of that, Microsoft is looking like it's releasing blatent lies about the Linux industry under the guise of Microsoft fabricated or controlled companies.
Microsoft, it's time to come clean. Don't you think it's time that you admit that you're funding these lawsuits?
Or is Microsoft so scared about Linux and the Law that it'll continue to shelter itself behind a quickly diminishing cloud of deception and covert control of companies like SCO?
SCO seem to want to be bought at the moment, which made me think if everyone on /. had a single share in sco, we could bring forward proposals at their agm and get voting rights on how the company was run.
...
Just a thought
charlie harvey's website
I used to not care about this SCO business but its been going on for long enough for me to at least be interested and might as well get the facts straight, so if anyone can help get me straight on this...
SCO (Formerly called Caldera) owns the rights to UNIX. SCO is now threatening to sue businesses that run Linux because they didn't buy their license, even if they aren't using their UNIX? For example, I could install Red Hat and be sued for copyright infringement because I don't have a license to UNIX? Sounds like racketeering to me...
I blame business too eager to plead guilty and settle, them saving money is costing the rest of us (the Linux-running business community) lots of precedents we'll need to fight later. But if all this is true, SCO is making lots of enemies, at least Microsoft made Windows for people to use to get to the top, SCO just sues to pay the bills.
Seriously, the 15 updates per day about what SCO is doing and what Darl had for breakfast is really enough already. All you're doing is making it look like they might have a valid case since you're so intent on discrediting them all the freaking time...just shut up and let them discredit themselves.
slashdot, news for crazed liberal socialist zealots
In the stead of proclaiming that SCO is run by lying corporate scum bent on world domination,
I believe that discussion should focus on what can be done to destroy SCO.
A question for the more legally-knowledgeable among us: The gov't can do this, but is it possible
for a private citizen or public group to initiate proceedings for the revocation of a corporate charter?
A civil case resulting in the dissolution of SCOX would be a landmark in the demonstration of power-of-the-people.
This post encoded with ROT26. If you can read it, you've violated the DMCA. Handcuffs please, sergeant.
That sounds like pretty good ammo for a fraud suit if you ask me. It's not in itself enough, but it certainly shows SCO in a lie that's so obvious and deceitful that it just can't be ignored or chalked up to misunderstanding, and it's not too technical for a *moron(ie. a U.S. judge) to understand.
* no, I don't really think all U.S. judges are morons, but sometimes you gotta wonder...
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
They teach "Propaganda 101" in 'Rhode Island Schools'?
...
The only truly effective propaganda curriculum I've seen (and yes, I've looked for such things) has been available through private institutions, only. I don't think thats going to solve anything
The ability to spot and recognize propagandist activities designed to foment social change, sway the 'group mentality', is something that has to be learned at a very young age. If you have to go to college to learn about how propaganda and mass campaigning work on humanity, its too late.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Interestingly enough, no one was or is jumping on said bandwagon. I have found it very interesting to read some of the ways that AC has been used to distract this discussion away from Microsoft/SCO.
I don't think the question here is CA or IBM (another AC posted on how CA is almost as bad as IBM at FUD, which is interesting when the discussion is really on Microsoft and SCO.) but it is certainly good to spread the mud around to make things less clear. I also saw the statement that this was no different than media saying that linux advocates were behind MYDOOM, and that none of the Halloween papers had every been objectively proven as real, despite the fact that both this latest one and many early ones WERE confirmed by Microsoft (and in this case SCO).
Just a warning to everyone, it seems like there is alot of counterattacks on Slashdot. This particular post might be legitimately from someone who has some grudge against CA and isn't really a press representative sent to sow some discord and confusion into a discussiont hat is already hard enough to follow.
Something like this could actually help SCO. After all what better backing then M$.
The real question is what will happen to M$'s stock.
I hope thatwe don't get an unnatural price rise due to this being a friday and everyone trying to cover their short positions before the week ends !!
You won't. Because you can't short SCO. I order to short a stock there has to be stock out there to short. And companies with few shares out there aren't "shortable," therefore, if the price goes up, it's got nothing to do with people trying to cover their short positions or creating short positions. If you could short, I would've at 17$, or at least told the traders to do so.
"Time is long and life is short, so begin to live while you still can." -EV
I assumed the spelling mistakes were due to OCR scanning of a printed page. If the party who sent it to ESR was rushed, s/he may have quickly printed the email and then scanned it later to send off. ESR would print it exactly how it was received, with OCR errors intact.
If you read the groklaw articles, you'll see that the initial posting of court documents are full of the same types of errors since they're scanned from the official court documents (usually in pdf format). The readers then proof it and PJ corrects them as they're pointed out.
The actual wording is that EV1 didn't pay seven figures cash. My interpretation is that they may have given SCO something else beside cash to add up to seven figures.
Hmm... what might SCO want from a hosting company... hmm, SCO has been recently DDOSed... hmm...
I hadn't known there were so many idiots in the world until I started using the Internet -Stanislaw Lem
The Halloween 3 document ( http://www.opensource.org/halloween/halloween3.php ), first posted by Eric on Nov 5. 1998, contains an interesting quote:
...snip... }
"Unless Linux violates IP rights, it will fail to deliver innovation over the long run."
The comment by Eric is even more interesting:
{ This final remark is worthy of an essay all by itself. It is the least logical -- and at the same time, most damning -- assertion in Ms. van den Berg's entire statement.
As propaganda, it has a superficial cleverness. It plants the idea that any MIS manager so foolish as to use Linux will find his operating system yanked out from under him by a future patent lawsuit -- perhaps one initiated by (whisper it) Microsoft itself. It's a perfect FUD tactic.
More clear sighted theory there than anyone would have thought, 5 years ago.
If you follow the Yahoo SCOX forum (there is a lot of noise, but some people there who are REALLY well informed as well), you will note that it's pretty obvious that on low volume days "painting the tape" is going in.
Little blocks of 100 shares keep changing hands at prices above what the last sell off was...
It's an illegal, but hard to prove practice.
But SCOX seems to consistently get "painted" upward daily after a big sell.
Corporatism != Free Market
SCO are totally dishonest and they will repeat the "Linux is ours" routine until someone stops them.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
CA couldn't disassociate itself from the rumors that identified it as that licensee because of an NDA that the Canopy side had insisted on hedging in the $40 million settlement
Wow. Proof that not only is Canopy behind all this, but they're pre-meditating the lies they're feeding to the public.
Isn't this right out of the MS playbook? When MS agreed to settle with the Justice department, part of the original settlement proposed millions of dollars of vouchers for schools redeemable only for MS software. Later when it's competitors complained that this just extended their monopoly, it was changed to any software or hardware.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Look for his quote about repeating a lie too many times.
Tonto.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Microsoft quote to CNet:
"When Microsoft was asked specifically whether it or any of its employees played a role in connecting SCO to BayStar, the company declined to comment."
Microsoft did not fund BayStar. Microsoft funded an employee, who then funded BayStar. They are covering their money trails.
All the time i thought that this was an indication that SCO-stock was massively sold short and that those sellers needed 2.4 million shares (as of Feb. 13) to cover their sales.
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
Any other possible motives for a planned leak?
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." Stephen Hawking
As I understand it (correct me if I'm wrong), C|Net has ties to Microsoft, so its no surprise that they took SCO's side of the story.
Also, did you notice at the bottom of the story the "white papers" claiming savings in running MS servers rather than Linux servers? These same "white papers" have been linked from other SCO stories on C|Net.
So who is pulling the strings on all this???
Boies doesn't work cheap
Events have twisted full circle.
If you go back about 5 years, David Boies was an attorney for the Justice Department, where he did a bang-up job prosecuting Microsoft for anti-trust violations.
Of course, we all know how that turned out, with a settlement that doesn't seem to have visibly shaken Microsoft's business.
Then, about a year ago, the SCO debacle starts up with Boies leading the charge.
"How could Boies betry us?!?" cry the Linux zealots.
Ignore that and consider the implications of these recent revelations. Doesn't this evidence beg for a re-examination of the terms of the settlement or the opening of a new investigation?
"Provided by the management for your protection."
You can borrow stock in pretty much any company out there. The reason you should not borrow SCO stock is that all the borowable stock has been shorted longsince.
This creates a situation called a short interest trap. If the stock kicks up for any reason, or the amount of stock available to borrow suddenly decreases the shorts are forced to buy the stock back at market. This can lead to a stock bubble that is entirely due to the shorts being squeezed.
SCO does have one remaining asset of value, the rights to UNIX. Quite what those rights is will likely be significantly reduced as a result of the case, but the value will not reach zero. Of course in the meantime lawyers fees will probably outweigh the remaining assets.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
I had a class in high school called "Global Issues" ... I hated it. It made me aware of things I didn't want to know about, like female circumcision, Waco, Ruby Ridge, anti-abortion violence and domestic terrorism. And we watched "Arlington Road" (which really disturbed me.)
And the teacher seemed to me to be an obsessive conspiracy theorist.
But when I have kids, I'll make sure they take that class. It opened my eyes to a lot of stuff that I used to change the channel on.
This was at Grandville High School, if anyone cares. Call your local school district and tell them you want them to adopt a class like it.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
Lastly, your sig is a sure sign of your own ignorance. I'm going to walk out on a limb and assume you do not use Linux much, if at all, and are in fact intimidated by the prospect of learning something new, ie. learning about *nix, hence your defensiveness with regards to your own sig. Your sig is a ridiculous blanket statement that bears absolutely no resemblence to the facts, those facts being that many large companies are adopting Linux and are in no way influenced by the more juvenile Linux proponents. The real influence is by companies like RedHat, IBM, HP, etc.
You don't like the SCO stories, fucking piss off then.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Questar [STR] is pretty much a natural gas monopoly here in Utah. A cursory look at Yahoo's information didn't bring up any immediate red flags regarding major investors.
I did notice Dixie Leavitt [wife of former governor-turned-EPA-director Mike Leavitt] is on the board of directors, and I remember there was a small controversy a couple of years ago because Mikey was working on legislation that would impact Questar when his dad stood to benefit from the legislation.
Anyhow, it's got a lot of Utah connections. I wouldn't be surprised if a deeper investigation turned up something more interesting.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
My first Linux system was Caldera 1.3, which I used for about 8 months before changing to Redhat.
One of the main differences between the distributions was that Caldera very rarely issued package updates, even though Redhat and others were updating their respective packages. For those who don't know what that implies, I'll spell it out: insecure and mostly unsupported.
Nice ploy, but it's not working.
Say, McBride, is MS still funneling money to you via third parties, aka Baystar? How does it feel to be Bill Gate's Lawn Jockey?
Whilst logging into a 7 year old SCO UnixWare box:
UnixWare 2.1.3 (Bradley) (pts/2)
login: etr
Password:
UX:in.login: INFO: Your password will expire in 5 days
UnixWare 2.1.3
Bradley
Copyright 1996 The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 1984-1995 Novell, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 1987, 1988 Microsoft Corp. All Rights Reserved.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,349,642
Last login: Fri Mar 5 10:26:10 2004 on pts001
You have mail
Display Desktop (y/n)? n
$
Hmmmm. Copyright 1984-1995 Novell, Inc. All Rights Reserved.??? Whats this???
INSERT INTO comment VALUE('Doh!') WHERE user='you';
I wonder how Sue Unger (CIO of DCX) feels about being sued (by proxy) by Microsoft?
A copy of that letter should be dropped on her desk ASAP....
A more interesting question is this: is announcing that they have license agreements with CA and Leggett at about the same time they're making their financial conference call when they do not in fact have such licenses misleading investors in a way that will get SEC after them?
1) When all is said and done, I don't think that SCO will have really done much damage to Linux (or by extension, the GPL). When all this started, the more far-sighted among us said this would be a great test case for the GPL. As SCO's smoke and mirrors have been pierced and as the various cases have developed, however, this has not been about the GPL. It's all been FUD. Most of us have known this for a while, but now EVERYONE knows it. If anything, Linux has gained strength, if this is the best that it's enemies can do.
2) This potentially hugely damaging to MS. If the allegations are true (I'd put money on it), they're in breach of the settlements. Kollar-Kotelly, the judge of the punishment phase, will certainly want to take another look at the case. The various state Attorney Generals will want to reopen the case. There might also be new criminal charges filed, not to mention civil cases. At the very least, we should see some investigations. And I haven't even mentioned how this might play out internationally.
3) Regardless of how this plays out in the courts, MS is going to lose big in the court of public opinion. The MS defenders will not have a leg to stand on. (I never imagined Enderle with any legs. Instead, I've always imagined him as a giant farting ass, with no other body parts attached.) The FUD campaign has not only fallen apart, it has backfired.
4) Having failed to really slow Linux adoption or development, MS will continue to lose ground. Longhorn is two or more years out, folks are already suspicious about "XP Reloaded" (why name a product after a really bad sequel?), and Linux clearly has huge momentum.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Ashcroft got a little queasy upon hearing about the Halloween X document and what it might mean for the future of his pet anti-trust trial.
Just a thought here, perhaps this would show the kind of positive, forward thinking and dedicated group we really are!
The Matrix is real... but I'm only visiting!
It's a weird kind of fraud. SCO can claim it would be like buying a candybar and discovering a $1 bill in there, it would not make sense to complain to the candy manufacturer that they did not tell you they added a dollar bill to every candy bar.
Of course the reason they did this was so they could make the press release. But you could say that the press release does not harm CA so there is no fraud?
But in a world with choices, this kind of exposure should maybe impact yours, don't you think?
Feb. 22, 1989, the music industry stunned nearly the entire world when they handed Jethro Tull the grammy for best Heavy Metal over Metallica.
Clearly, MTV and the rest of those yahoo's had no clue what the general population listened too. Its easily argueable they still don't, when was the last time you watched MTV? Better, when was the last time you saw a video?
"Noone runs Linux, Microsoft owns 99% of the desktop market!"
Companies scared of SCO's ramblings, figure that there's no harm in a little prospective legal protection... afterall, who's going to complain? "Everyone runs Microsoft Windows."
Are those suitable for board room politics so out
of touch of the consumers' wishes that they honestly have no idea how many desktops are running Linux? Are they so gullible to figure that such an act can go unnoticed? That, as far as public backlash goes, there's no consequences due to the lack of users?
To corporate America, Microsoft and SCO. My GRANDMOTHER is aware of Linux, and not becuase I told her. She asked ME about it! Games are being developed natively for Linux, the pengiun icon is showing up on merchandise ranging from network cards to video cards, from CD-RW drives to packs of diskettes.
Now, some corporations, where their executives have yet to venture to a local computer store, corner store or at the least mingle with the general public, are now realizing that reality is far from what their so-called-educated marketing team tells them in facy presentations and graphs.
EV1, felt the heat, heat great enough for them to post publicly an explanation (excuse rather) for their actions supporting SCO's claim.
No doubt, Computer Associates did infact pay SCO, only to later regret it and "vehemently" try to catch up with public sentiment.
Corporations try so hard to control the market, they don't even realize when they no longer have control. By the time they catch up, it's too late. (I still don't respect Music Award ceremonies becuase of the foul foolishness of 1989).
http://www.ecosyn.us/SCO_v_IBM_copyright_issues.ht ml
SCO v IBM: SELECTED WEBPAGES CITATIONS OF COPYRIGHT LAW HISTORY RELEVENT TO UNIX SYSTEM V COPYRIGHT CLAIMS STATUS
* NO copyrights for computer programs, source code or machine readable binary were copyrightable in the US before 1980.
* Before 1976, mandatory notices were required on all copyrighted materials in standardized mandatory forms -- failure to adhere to the law regarding mandatory notices on published works forfeited what copyright protection was available.
* Before 1976 copyright was not automatically conferred upon creating a fixed tangible form -- copyright was limited to those works which complied with the provisions of the prior law "The Copyright Act of 1909". Unix was developed and distributed for seven years under this law.
* Distributing works, making one or more copies for sale, lease or loan, constituted publication during the first seven years of Unix development.
* Since 1976, mandatory requirements for copyrighted works have required deposit of copies with the Library of Congress within 3 months of first publication. Unless Unix source code is in the Library of Congress it is not copyrighted. Unless Unix System V is in the Library of Congress, it is in violation of the 1976 revisions. Before 1976 "promptly" depositing copies was mandatory, defined in caselaw as within one year of first publication.
* Unix System V is a collection of modules, mostly public domain through copyright forfeiture between 1969 and 1976.
* It is defined as fraud under the 1909 Copyright Act [ 105] "shall insert or impress any notice of copyright required by this title, or words of the same purport, in or upon any uncopyrighted article" to post-fix copyright notices upon works not qualifying for copyright.
* None of the 1976, 1980, or 1989 adjustments to Copyright laws and the Berne Treaty permitted retroactive copyrights to previously forfeiting or public domain works.
* Unix System V is basically public domain in the catagory of a compilation or anthology. Only new material added after 1976, or after 1980 (when computer programs first became copyrightable) could possibly qualify for copyright status, and only those collections which complied with mandatory deposit with the Library of Congress. Everything else is not in compliance with copyright laws and treaties.