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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]."
An SEC staff member told NewsForge that complaints and tips about suspected under-the-table funding, stock-kiting, illegal insider trading, and money-laundering involving Microsoft or Microsoft-connected individuals to the financially struggling SCO Group have been coming into the agency with regularity since last August. Newsforge
Belief is the currency of delusion.
Okay now that I've attracted ire from everyone without a sense of humor; It makes perfect sense for him to say that. SCO's success hinges on making people feel sorry for them. Making people feel sorry for Darl because he "has" to carry a gun is a big step in the right direction (along those lines) and most of the sheeple will fall for it, because they don't know the real story. Bravo, Darl, good work. See you in hell.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Maybe it won't hold up in court, but at least it will burn off some of the cash SCO received and spread their legal team a little thinner.
===== Murphy's Law is recursive. =====
Yes, Center7 via Canopy gave licenses away for PR. I'd guess. The interesting thing is; Does this pierce the corporate veil, if CA Center7 -> Canopy -> SCO where now somehow CA are SCO-customers? That's what I want to know.
That is, if SCO goes under with debt, then Canopy should have to open their coffers for IBM/RedHat/et.al.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
Lets see... one guy pisses off a buncha nerds. He's afraid of firepower?
You obviously know a different set of nerds than I do, FK.
The more zealous the linux geek (in my 10-person sample), the more of a gun nut they are.
While I think you're correct that there has been a lot of 'bad' or 'uninformed' complaints, I know that there have been some informed too, especially concerning Jonathan Cohen.
One thing that indicates that the SEC is doing something (whatever scope) is that SCO has been late with some documents concerning the Bayster/Royce-deal. The contract says that they only to SCO non-damaging way for them to be late with this particular filing is during a SEC investigation. Someone else should post the details since I'm a little fuzzy on those...
Belief is the currency of delusion.
Oops, spoke too quickly. CA actually did know they were getting Linux licenses, but they didn't pay extra for them.
That Marsh, of ev1.net, may have underestimated the backlash, but it doesn't say what kind of exodus there is from ev1.net. As an example, Illiad at User Friendly noted that UF is run on ev1.net servers, but he doesn't think it's worth it to switch. We like to think a lot of people are leaving ev1.net, but I'd love to see real numbers.
That said, I know there's at least one person leaving: Illiad can stick around if he wants, but I'm not letting any more of my money flow to SCO. I'm getting out, and cancelling my ev1 account at the end of the month. I hope I'm not the only one; my hundred bucks a month isn't all that important, but a bunch of us together are.
See y'all over at ServerBeach or one of the other hosting companies.
-JDF
Yes, you should fear geeks with guns. At last years Penguicon, ESR (Eric Raymond, keeper of the Halloween doc) hosted a geeks and guns session at the local gun range. The highlight of the session was that I got to shoot ESR's colt 45 commander which also shot by Linus himself.
So my advice is to take threats from geeks with guns seriously. I saw their targets and their shot groups were tight.
According to the Deseret News article, Linus says: "The real reason why people don't like SCO, and Darl McBride in particular, is that he is so dishonest."
The article also says that Darl McBride "graduated from Brigham Young University after serving as a missionary with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Japan."
Whats up with that!? So this guy is a Latter-day Saint AND a returned missionary?! Latter-day Saints are supposed to be HONEST. This tidbit of information about Darl is particulary upsetting to me because I'm a member of the Mormon church too except I'm a huge linux fan and very anti-SCO. I even served a mission and went to BYU like he did, except I only went for a year before transferring into Cornell.
My point is that not only is Darl is a discrace to the linux community but also to the church. LDS Church members who aren't "honest in all their dealings with their fellow man" are supposed to be forbidden from entering temples. Therefore, this guy should get excommunicated ASAP if he hasn't already because he's tainting the church's image!
USA != world
We live in the kind of world where if the majority of the people in your town don't like your religious beliefs that they feel justified in shooting at you or blowing up your car.
We live in the kind of world where if the country next door decides they don't like your ethnicity, they feel justified in invading your country and killing the lot of you.
We live in the kind of world where if the scientists working for the government feel they aren't paid enough they feel justified in selling nuclear technology to terroritsts.
We live in the kind of world where if the leaders of a country feel they are losing ground at the conference table they feel justified in shooting missles at their neighbor's whose land they covet...
(For those not up on events, the above correlate as follows: 1. Ireland, Israel/Palestine/Lebanon, Iraq, Kashmir, Somolia, Ethiopia 2. Rwanda, the Balkans 3. Pakistan, Russia 4. China)
The newsforge story about the SEC finally beginning to investigate both Microsoft and SCO is, if I see this correctly, going to be one of the biggest shakeouts in recent corporate history.
/. for years) such as Gartner induces me to think it was probably Microsoft who first approached McBride.
I was one of the people who, last year while no one was taking Microsoft involvement seriously, posted that there was a good chance Microsoft was involved based purely on the case of what the motivation was behind the whole SCO lawsuit. Now that SCO's case has been shown to be a mostly hot air campaign of lies and public FUD, considering that SCO has yet to openly show a single case of obvious infringement in court, I think it might have well gone off along the following lines:
SCO was losing both money and marketshare rapidly up until last year, having failed to persuade IBM to continue on project monterey after Caldera bought the rights from the original SCO, and thereby having no modern product and only an installed base of legacy customers whp were looking for other sources in any case. I think that while the original idea might have come from McBride himself to make a legal case for Linux chaos, I would think that probably, one of the first things he would have done is to approach Microsoft, or else he was approached by Microsoft very early as part of Microsoft's FUD campaign aginst Linux.
The benefits for Microsoft are obvious, as it would bring in, at the very least, doubt into the minds of PHB's who were considering Linux adoption. The fact that the SEC might be investigating Microsoft for funding analysts (something which has been obvious to just about everyone here on
I would think that Microsoft offered SCO and McBride a very Faustian kind of deal: Carry the legal and above all PR campaign against Linux and especially IBM (who has given an enormous amount of credibility to Linux) and Microsoft would save SCO's and McBride's collective asses. The amount of money involved is small change for Microsoft.
The fact that McBride is as stupid as the original Faust character, is easy to spot when one looks at other companies who have trusted or sold their souls to the Microsoft machine. Where are they today?
The reason that I think it might turn into a huge wopper of a case is because, when the threads unravel and Microsoft's tactics are displayed in court, they will not only have been guilty of breaking the antitrust agreements, but also numerous felonies involving the charges mentioned at newsforge. On top of that I can see this one going all the way to the top at Microsoft because I can not see any such huge campaign not being known and sanctioned by Bill and Steve personally.
And when I look at the current legal mood involving Worldcom's Ebbers and Martha Stewart and the punishment handed out, I don't think that there will be the same mercy applied as there was during the anti-trust trials.
I'd be happy to help clarify some of these similarities, while correcting some of your statements in the process.
The Mormon/LDS theology is about Joseph Smith, who was able to translate "golden plates" he found buried in the forest (using a seer stone, similar to a divining rod, mind you) and thus wrote the Book of Mormon. One section in the Book of Mormon is the Book of Abraham, again translated by Joseph Smith from ancient Egyptian Papyrus purchased from a travelling huckster.
Science, namely Egyptologists, have clearly shown that Joseph Smith's translation of these documents (which were shown to be ancient burial scrolls and not an account of the life of Abraham) was not only inaccurate but also fradulent.
Among the things that we Mormons believe is that Adam (from Adam and Eve) is actually God (see the talks by former prophet and seer Brigham Young), that flesh-and-blood people like you and I (not spirits, mind you) inhabit our moon and sun (ibid) and that all other religions are "an abomination upon the face of the Earth" and their practitioners are "whores from Babylon" (History of the Church, Book of Mormon, Gospel Principals).
Mormonism has never paralleled, nor has anything in common with, traditional Christianity. The God of Mormonism is different than the God of Christianity, even though the same nomenclature is used to describe Him. Mormonism believes the Father, Son and Holy Ghost are three distince and separate entities, as opposed to the traditional views of Christianity. Mormonism believes there are three "kingdoms" of heaven which you must qualify for... belief alone is not enough to obtain the ultimate salvation.
Salvation in Christianity is based on faith and belief; works being the result of this. In Mormonism, it is based on works... you must do everything you can, or you will not achieve the ultimate salvation.
In Mormonism, if you are not temple-worthy, you will not be entitled to the highest form of salvation. In the temple, you will learn what amount to secret handshakes as you swear an oath to keep this to yourself. In the past, you had to swear an oath to Blood Atonement (... or let my throat be slit, where I shall bleed to death as punishment) (Biography of Brigham Young)... but now, to be politically correct, the Church changed it to something more people will accept.
In the Church, women are not equal. They cannot hold priesthood office, they are not entitled to the keys to the priesthood, cannot bless their family, and are not treated as equals. It is an interesting culture, accentuated by the individual quirks of different communities and States.
Overall, I've found it a fascinating community of people who otherwise wish to do good, but are kept ignorant of the true history of their Church and of their religion.