SCO - EV1, Licensees, Groklaw, Armed Guards

Camel Pilot writes "It looks like the CEO of EV1Servers underestimated the reaction to giving in to SCO demands and licensing Linux. I know we were looking for a new hosting home, and had EV1 at the top of the list, but now they are not even a consideration..." An anonymous reader writes "InfoWorld has an article with more info on Computer Associates denying being a SCO Linux licensee." Also, Mick Ohrberg writes "Pamela Jones, creator of Groklaw, an independent legal research site, responds to some allegations presented by SCO CEO Darl McBride." Finally, an anonymous reader writes "According to the Deseret News, Darl McBride says he sometimes carries a gun because his enemies are out to kill him. He checks into hotels under assumed names. An armed body guard protected him at Harvard Law School when he gave a speech last month." Update: 03/08 20:17 GMT by S : cdlu writes "Now the SEC is unofficially confirming some interest in the SCO and Microsoft connection, according to Newsforge [part of OSDN, like this site]."

Comments

Nice

[big_groo]

"The contract that we signed with SCO specifically prohibits any party from discussing the economics of the transaction. If you have an agreement that calls for certain aspects to be protected, then you would hope that that would be respected."

Sue the litigious bastards. They'd sue you.

Re:If I were EV1Servers...

[LostCluster]

That's not so easy. EV1 doesn't have root over its customers boxes. They're not a managed hosting service. Therefore, forcing customers who don't want to switch OSes would be a messy process.

Dow Jones / WSJ finally picking up on this

[Animats]

See Clarification - CA Signs Licenses.. This Dow Jones story is very negative on SCO, and it appears on most stock-related sites, although it's not up on Bloomberg yet.

SCOX is down 2% today, reaching a new low for 2004. The stock has been in a screaming dive since December, dropping from 19 to 11.

Re:Already slow with 26 comments, here's a mirror

[PCM2]

McBride has done battle before. He compares his fight with Linux supporters to the time when his family caught thieves stealing cattle from their ranch in Utah.

Really? I'd more compare it to the time he sued his own employers over his personal compensation package.

Speaking of tinfoil hats. . .

[isn't my name]

I'm thinking that 'Ole Darl may have made the final plunge into the Tin Foil Hat club.

Speaking of tinfoil hats, the following from a long, somewhat boring, analysis of SEC docs that SCO has filed:

# Jul 2002 McBride is hired
# Aug 2002 Morgan Keegan is hired
# Aug 2002 Caldera changes name to The SCO Group
# Sep/Nov/? 2002 MS memo discussing using intellectual property as an attack against open source is floating around in Germany and later publically
# Oct - Dec 2002 SCO later admits to beginning to look at its own intellectual properties and first makes noise about UnixWare binary libraries.
# Jan 2003 SCO creates stronger language to indemnify its officers of criminal activity
# Dec? 2002 - Jan? 2003 At some point Boies is brought in, likely via Morgan Keegan, to negotiate license/stock deals with Sun and Microsoft
# Feb 2003 Morgan Keegan clarifies its arrangement with SCO and includes language indicating they are anticipating an IBM buyout, though without naming IBM specifically
# Feb 2003 Boies finalizes his agreement with SCO to sue IBM
# March 2003 IBM lawsuit
# Jul/Aug 2003 Anderer joins
# Oct 2003 Anderer e-mail penned
# Oct 2003 PIPE deal
# Nov 2003 Boies has no one from law firm at key press conference
# Nov 2003 Boies gets 20% of PIPE deal
# Dec 2003 PIPE investors get veto power over Boies payouts
# Nov/Dec/? 2003 16 to 20 million deal discussed by Anderer never happens

In other SCO News...

[Performer Guy]

It hasn't been covered yet although I've submitted the article yesterday and it is still pending but the most significant development in the SCO debacle is here, this broke on Saturday, basically Opinder Bawa, SCO's senior VP in charge of technology and development has been advocating the use of the Unix ABI with Linux and linking to a downloadable module to help SCO's ABI work on Linux, both admitting that Linux is thoroughly incompatible while encouraging what they've been implying is infringing use. This is quite stunning considering that SCO has been implausibly claiming copyright over Linux ABI headers.

And of course groklaw has news today that the SEC may be taking an active interest in the Microsoft SCO relationship on various grounds.