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EV1Servers.Net's CEO Regrets SCO Deal
spafbnerf writes "Everyone Internet's CEO Robert Marsh, when asked his feelings about the SCO deal almost a month ago responds: 'Would I do it again? No. I'll go on the record as saying that,' Marsh said. 'I certainly know a lot more today than I knew a month ago, in a lot of respects.'"
Someone coming out and admitting he made a mistake, but at the time was trying to do the best for his company deserves respect. We need more people like that in the industry!
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
I knew I should not have ordered that second bottle of tequila but I did anyway.
Je t'aime Stéphanie
Robert Marsh is an honorable businessman. He did his deal with SCO, and abided by it thinking that it was in the best interest of his business to pay off SCO to get them to go away.
And, it turns out SCO, in its usual behavior, spun the deal in a way that generated false rumors and is now trying to use EV1 as a model for future deals. The fact that Marsh is now telling the public that he is experiencing buyer's remorse should serve as a warning to all other hosting companies.
now what am I supposed to do with 10 gallons of tar and a sack of feathers?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
generally hindsight is 20-20
but in his case....well you get the drift.
(i have karma to burn)
We're like rats, in some experiment! -- George Costanza
At least he regrets it. The problem is it is encouraging SCO, which is a big problem.
Just let them go to court and lose, don't give anything to them.
Don't piss off geeks and nerds who drive your business.
Post? I sure hope so.
Incidentally, has the CEO actually apologized to his users? And is the purchase "un-do-able?"
+++ATH0
If this were Fark the story would have gotten an Obvious tag.
At the time it might have been a smart decision or just the safe one, but by now SCO's a joke.
"For years, I struggled with reality... but I'm happy to say I finally won out over it." -- Elwood P. Dowd
I wonder if he regrests it because he didn't anticipate the backlash, or because he just now understands that SCO is/was blowing smoke up his ass.
My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle...
IMHO there is no point talking about the past. The good question is what they will do about it.
I personally think that people are too hard on him anyways. Its not like he is trying to perpetuate SCO's attack on the world, he was just trying to protect his company and his customers, thats decent to me.
snowulf.com
If I were an investor, I would be asking why Robert didn't take a week and educate himself before bowing to SCO.
I always save my last mod point to mod up a good troll. You people are too serious.
He says he regrets his decision.. but the bigger question is WHY does he regret it? The public backlash, the lack of evidence from SCO? Is this a PR spin, or something that directly affects his company.... Just a thought...
why he is a CEO in the first place?
Who makes a decision like that only to turn around a month later and say he would have done the exact opposite. If I were a shareholder, that wouldn't inspire confidence in my CEO... sheesh!
-A
"Ha-ha"
Evolution of Language Through The Ages: 6000 BC : ungh, grrf, booga 2000 AD : grep, awk, sed
CEO's can just say sorry after they spend millions the wrong way. When I spend my money the wrong way I'm broke (not that that matters, only 16 for the record). Still I think CEO's need to learn for their mistakes and pay it from their own salary's (or only McBridge has to learn, paying lawsuits from his personal capital)
Some people said they didn't want Marsh using their money to fund SCO. Me, I don't care if he uses it to feed a massive cocaine addiction, AS LONG AS MY BOX AND HIS NETWORK ARE ROCK-SOLID.
The poor guy did the deal thinking he was just buying something akin to fire insurance, and boy did he get burned.
Everybody's a libertarian 'till their neighbour's becomes a crack house.
Yours is to be an example of what not to do, and why not to do it.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
...by the lite FM!
:)
(MST3K Humor - I love it!)
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
ev1servers.net features as one of Microsoft's case studies. It's possible that there's some kind of Microsoft/SCO/EV1Servers connection... so... look at all of this, including the 'announced regret' with a jaded eye.
Let's hope other CEO's without the foresight take note.
However, he still made the decision to purchase the licenses and now he is in a contract with SCO. Now that SCO has him in a contract, they can (and judging by their previous actions, will) sue him if they feel he is in violation of said contract. Keep in mind all of the people they have sued thus far have been people that are or were contract holders.
I hope he is not hosting any linux kernel source code or some such thing on any of his customers' websites, because I am sure that SCO will find a way to sue him for distributing their so-called intellectual property.
Moving forward, this just goes to show why you don't ask advice from any old lawyer on technical law matters. You need a lawyer who understands what is going on out there in the tech world so you can make an informed decision regarding your business and not waste countless amounts of money into a black hole of litigation.
I know of three major customers of EV1 that left two to three days after the announcement ("left" as in they cancled their contracts when they expired and began the migration elsewhere).
The one thing that bugs me about this is that he did what he thought was best for his company. His job is ensuring the company's survival. Period. Ideals have a place and time, but ideals also do not put food on the table, pay the rent or mortgage, and do not ensure continued employment.
Now do I think he made the right choice? No, I think the idea of purchasing licenses from SCO was dead wrong. But I do NOT think this because of some idealistic idea I have about the SCO IP thing. I think it was wrong simply because so far, the legitimacy of SCO's IP claims is seriously questionable. Were I in that postition, I would NOT be paying money based on IP claims that are still in dispute.
That he did, is akin to me paying a license fee to Coca-Cola for use of the Pepsi formula. (assuming that Coke sued Pepsi claiming that Pepsi includes Coke's IP).
As I said, he did what he felt was in the best interests of his company, which is exactly what his is paid to do. I still think it was the wrong decision, BUT to fault him, and berate the company merely on an idealistic viewpoint is also equally wrong.
Its almost like people who refuse to buy a Honda because Honda is a Japanese car. Instead they spend money on a Ford (made with 80% foreign parts). They never stop to think that the Honda is built in Kentucky by American workers.
"Our funds have never taken part in toxic or death spiral convertible financings of any sort" -BayStar's managing partne
let me point out some facts..
TSG is only gettinghtese 'linux brand' license from previous licenseees of TSG Unix products..no doubt ev1.net had one at one point..
The legal threat contained in the letter sent out was far reachign and beyond what TSG was granted by novell via licensing Unix..
When presented with such a situation its always best advised to say simply we have read yourletter and are awaiting judgement from the courts to resolve this issue..
His explanation doesn't wash..
is there a canopy omeny connection behind the scenes?
What do you think?
Don't Tread on OpenSource
DOH!
Then I decided that everybody makes mistakes and this CEO is a remarkably candid and honest person for publicly admitting his mistake.
THEN, I started reading the article, and came across this quote:
HELLO?!?!?! What kind of comment is that to make in an interview? "Well, we lose a lot of sites every month and this isn't any worse than usual". Hmm, interesting.THEN, I thought he'd redeemend himself with the next paragraph:
OK so that's a lot of churn, but it's still net growth. I can see his point, I guess.Of course, his next sentence was "We churn a lot of sites." What this guy needs is a PR consultant. I don't think going on record saying you have a lot of churn is the right way to "spin" things. Of course, the more important question is, why so much churn? It depends on their total numbers to see what kind of a percentage basis this is, but it seems disturbingly high in absolute number terms. It's something I'd consider before hosting my site there, anyway.
www.clarke.ca
What I don't get is what this guy regrets, giving into SCO, the bad publicity for caving to them, trying to use SCO dealing to get him in the spotlight, wasting investors money, alienating his user base, etc.
I didn't see any news in the article at all. Just looked like more corporate speak designed to obscure any real meaning while trying to get publicity.
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
As a number of posters have noted, EV1 has a CEO that actually admits that, knowing what he knows now, he would do something differently. But one of the motivating factors developing this understanding is the disapproval of the technology community.
I've been wondering if public disapproval, which has been so effective in this case, could work when it comes to moving technology jobs to low wage countries like India and China.
There was a big union movement that came out of the Great Depression. A lot of people would do their best to buy union made goods. Certainly HP must have felt some heat from their CEOs rather ill advised comments (something like "Hey no one said you have any right to a job"). If US corporations felt that their sales were being hurt by a "Buy American" campaign they would change their behavior.
Of course there is an obvious problem with this argument: in the case of EV1 there are many hosting providers to choose from who have not signed up with the evil SCO. But when it comes to "Buying American" it is difficult to find any multinational that is not moving technology jobs overseas. So who are you going to buy from?
Still, I think that public shame might have some effect. John Kerry's remarks about "Benedict Arnold CEOs" who take advantage of what the United States provides while giving little back, for example.
I for one welcome our regretful CEO overlords.
If SCO asks 5000 companies to make a deal, and each has a 1/1000 probability of accepting (because they rush their decisions or don't know much), you still expect a handful to accept.
EV1Servers.net's CEO should have wondered why all the 4999 other companies aren't making a deal. I guess there's a 1/1000 chance this questioning wouldn't occur to them.
If the mafia shows up in your town and everyone else refuses to pay for their "protection", and one business does, they are your enemy. Hindsight doesn't mean anything in this case. EV1 screwed up and choose the wrong side. Anybody who cares about open source needs to make an example of them for their bad judgement and not do any business with EV1. It's a necessity in order to clearly delineate what we feel is right and wrong. Cowards who give aid to the IP Nazis are no better than the IP Nazis themselves.
We cannot condone their actions, no matter how much their people grovel and admit their mistakes. You can bet if the community didn't boycott them, they wouldn't even be waffling like this. Serves 'em right. EV1 is history. Maybe the next provider will think twice about turning their back on the community that helped make them.
Which of the following people used the following argument to justify their actions:
"Gee, I'm sorry, I didn't know any better"
Executive officers of companies take no end of credit for their brilliance when their business does well(despite it being almost entirely out of their hands) but the second something bad happens, will say "shucks, it wasn't me" or "I dunno" or "oops". Folks- he should be fired by their board, or(gasp) take a pay cut, for the damage he's done by ignoring clearly obvious publicity problems the deal would generate.
It's interesting to note that in Japan, if a high-ranking company official makes a major blunder or is incompetent, they resign with a public apology(taking responsibility) or take a voluntary pay cut. American CEOs and execs can demonstrate no end of incompetence and take pay raises, huge stock deals...or get enormous golden parachutes. They commit massive fraud and get away with a fine that is barely 10% of the profits they made, or maybe a few weeks in some state-run all-inclusive country club.
Please help metamoderate.
Dear CEO, have your cake and eat it too:
1. pay SCO (if it't not that much money to you)
2. then tell everybody you regret it
3. profit!
Akin to not give a rat's ass about Nike using child labor as long as their shoes are cool. You must be real proud, bet you are saving for a Hummer, who gives a fuck about polution and stuff
FYI, most things in this world are interconnected
Help fight continental drift.
This is a business man folks. This is business.
1. Pay up. Support the other side. Get the licenses.
2. Say you're sorry for doing so. Your money STILL supports the other side...you STILL have the licenses...but now you can get pity from this side.
Best of both worlds.
No, not gonna happen. Until those licenses are null and void, I'll never send ev1 a penny of my money. SCO claimed this was a million dollar deal. Even if it was only 10,000 you can bet Robert Marsh knew EXACTLY what he was doing. He's just trying to keep his customers after doing EXACTLY what he wanted to do.
If you pity this man after this "confession" then you're the one that deserves the pity. He's making a fool out of you twice.
Once you make a deal with the devil, you can not easily get your soul refunded.
(i'm kidding, ok?)
www.avacal.com -- the home page of pete shaw
It comes from the realization that by paying, you have encouraged the criminal to repeat this sort of behavior.
The best thing everyone can do is to totally ignore SCO's demands for money.
Have no illusions, Marsh is not some warrior fighting for righteousness, he is a business man, plain and simple. With this statement, Marsh was hoping to invoke the exact response that he invoked in you in a large part of the community (I.E. customers and potential customers) that he drove away a month ago.
and you think those have any credibility? sheesh.
sulli
RTFJ.
SCO spun the EV1 story to their own favor. Perhaps it's time for the other side to spin this new twist in their favor:
The big loser in this matter may be SCO, said Dion Cornett, an analyst with Decatur Jones Equity Partners LLC, an equity research firm based in Chicago. Having their first publicly announced customer express second thoughts over the deal so soon after its announcement may make it difficult for SCO to sign up other customers, he said.
I wonder what would happen if the OSS leaders started a big PR campaign based on this. "Look, see, SCO is like a disease to your business, don't get in bed with them and tell your congressman to make this farce stop asap." Hmm...
Disclosure - I spent 4 days in Houston in the Sheraton on Robert's dime, got to go to the Houston bowl and party in his box, tour EV1 and some other goodies. I've met and talked to Robert and personally I like the man so call me biased if you want.
Robert honestly thought he was doing a good thing, he hasn't went into details but basically SCO came knocking and when the dust settled it was cheaper to just pay them and let it be, than to fight them.
Robert's not afraid to fight if he has to, he recently won a judgement against everyone's (in the hosting industry anyway) least favorite litigious bastards (er bitch?). But I think he simply felt like buying the stupid licenses was cheapest and easiest.
Then I think he made his big mistake (not that buying them wasn't) and SCO basically either said "hey free advertising we'll just mention this in a press release, and people will see your url EVERYWHERE" OR they simply said "part of the agreement is we name names like it or not" I'm not sure which way it went, but allowing SCO to publicly state they bought a license was the big mistake.
No one knows for sure who might have quietly bought licenses so far, but letting SCO publicly display the fact you buy a license is definitely a big bad idea.
--- www.f-theocean.com
Honestly, I could see why a company like this one would be afraid of a law-suit from SCO. I mean, I don't agree with SCO's point of view, but if I were a company whose business was so founded on linux servers as this one appears to be, losing those servers or having the choice between licensing and going with microsoft are realistically the only options they had. While some companies (IBM) have the resources to throw into a law-suit, does this one?
Having a license no one agrees with, or losing the servers and potentially a law-suit may seem like a better option.
I would suggest that the responses he got in relation to his choice is what fuels this statement, but it is good hes making it. It A: Proves he is honest B: It means he has balls.
His PR may need work, but I think hes at least somewhat on the right track. Better to be open and honest and rebuild their reputation through that means than to be underhanded about the whole thing. Openly stating it may just protect some other company from SCO.
-- RJ
Classic craven executive behavior: when the chief exec of EV1Servers faces a puffed-up SCO, he caves. When he faces hate mail for caving, he caves to them. SCO can't revoke his BS license for whining about it, and haters can't do anything at all. This guy is a complete clown - I wouldn't trust him as accountable if anything ever happened to my site he was hosting.
--
make install -not war
1. Insist that his deal remained totally secret.
2. Refuse to deal with the extortionists.
3. Assuming he negotiated a better license agreement, insist that he would be free to publicise the text of that.
Just as businesses clearly have to pay off extortionists some times in order to survive, it may make business sense, but it is in no way "honorable".
Furthermore, it was clearly his intent to attract customers on the basis that he could offer safety from SCO's lawsuits: else why not insist on complete secrecy? Thus he hoped to benefit from SCO's FUD and should therefore be considered complicit. The only possible alternative explanation is that he reduced his own cost by allowing EV1's name to be publicized by SCO: once again, in this scenario, he is knowingly attempting to benefit from SCO's FUD.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
It's not like top executives do nothing all day but scoot around the Internet reading sites like
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
I don't know if he saw that SCO would whore their name out like that. I think at the time he was concerned, probably got one of those "letters", inked the deal because it would be cheaper than a legal battle, and then got a public teabagging from SCO.
Basically SCO has humiliated one of it's new customers in public, which again is telling of the way they do business. And I'm sure that wasn't part of the bargain.
Don't pay, get sued. Pay and get pimped out as a public relations hooker for SCO's legitimacy campaign. Hmm, choices choices!
note: I've had dealings with EV1 through customers. They provide a pretty ok service for the cost I'd say. Just for reference.
-- The unsig...
"I certainly know a lot more today than I knew a month ago, in a lot of respects."
What he really meant to say was this, without the sarcasm...
Cecil: Goodness, I had no idea, for you see I have been on Mars for the last decade, in a cave, with my eyes shut and my fingers in my ears.
4F14 - Brother From Another Series
Can we take advantage of this issue to get some of EV1's competition to come forward and state they will give EV1's customers a better deal and help migrate them over? Along with a pledge they won't pander to SCO's obnoxious extortion?
He's paid off SCO, so no threat of a suit (and the accompanying legal bills) but now gets to trash SCO publicly to his hearts content with no repercussions. If he's smart he'd come out and say he paid off SCO so he could slam then later. This could be the best thing for the anti-SCO folks that could have happened.
"Would you, could you, with a goat?" Dr Seuss
EV1 CEO says that he would not sign the SCO deal today. That is not enough. He should say that if SCO is ready, he is willing to withdraw the contract even for half the money back. This would put a challenge to SCO team. To convince other customers that its case is solid, SCO must accept the EV1 challenge. But SCO will refuse this and that will expose SCO's weakness.
Reminds me of the Python trial skit where a judge reads of the string of horrific murder charges for five minutes and the defendant rises and says "I'm very sorry and I'll never do it again". He then proceeds to compliment the judge, jury and prosecutor and says he never had a chance after which he is acquitted by the jury. This is just damage control by a CEO and not very good damage control at that.
for caving in to a protection racket when the SEC and the govt. isn't even investigating it. How can SCO charge someone for services that they haven't even been legally determined they have a right to provide?
You can legislate morally you can't legislate morality
If I were a rackshack customer, I would still move out. Disregard the higher costs. Now that they have the agreement with SCO, they are quite a bit more elgible for a suit against them and their customers. All suits that SCO has filed has been against past customers, not against unrelated ones.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
LORETTA: Or woman!
Seriously, though, the only people they are suing are those with preexisting contracts. Just throw any correspondence from SCO without confirmed delivery in your shredder. If it does have delivery confirmation, just give it to your lawyer and CC any state or local authorities.
Or just give it all to your lawyer.
Well, that word "absolution" contains another word that's equally important: "solution." What's he doing to try and actually solve this problem?
Mr. Marsh: A very good solution would be to (a) demand your money back for that high-priced toilet paper that SCO calls "IP licenses," and (b) sue them for fraud and/or extortion. If you want some background to show that what SCO is doing to you is indeed fraud and/or extortion, this is a good place to start.
Until then, no amount of whining you do about how you "regret" the deal will convince anyone to grant you absolution. That's not to say that absolution is impossible; you just have to do the right thing first.
Be who you are...and be it in style!
"I made a mistake" and "I regret I did that" are not the same thing as "I was wrong."
"I made a mistake." means that you either didn't have all the facts necessary to make a good decision or you didn't interpret those facts correctly. EV1 knew they were buying a license to nothing--they would have to be complete morons to think otherwise. What they believed they were doing was paying SCO not to sue them. That is factually correct, therefore not a mistake.
"I regret I did that" is the weakest of all possible apologies. It could very well mean "I regret I got caught", and often does.
"I was wrong" actually means that you initentionally did something contrary to what you should have. i.e. wasting your company's money on licenses for non-existent IP. This is the only statement that implies actual responsibility, and actual wrongdoing.
Consider the difference in meaning of the following statements: "Invading Iraq was regrettable." "Invading Iraq was a mistake." "Invading Iraq was wrong." "Wrong" is just the only word with any honesty and sincerity behind it.
then buying licenses in hopes of seeing the stock go higher, but only to watch my kid's college fund go down the toilet.
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
I've seen countless people saying 'why didn't he explore the issues' blah blah blah before signing on with SCO. What they neglect to consider is that as a for-profit business, the company's role is not to care about the issues, but decide which is going to cost more, signing the contract (and suffering the resulting backlash) or getting their asses sued so they can make a stand on principals. As they don't have IBM's warchest of cash and IP for cross-licensing deals I think he chose the right course of action.
Instead of a poorly informed CEO making a bad decision and in need of a PR guy, this looks to me like he made the right decision for the bottom line (no more churn than normal after the announcement) to the company and now he's paying lip-service to the user community so he can perhaps lower his already "normal" ratio of sites lost to sites gained.
All in all, looks like a win-win. Covered from the law suits and now looking like he agrees with the anti-SCO crowd.
Looks like he's got his cake and gets to eat it too.
Buyer protection and all. If he didn't get what he paid for, he should dispute the charges. :)
Mod this up, he speaks the truth!
Including parent text to beat the filters
" This is a business man folks. This is business. 1. Pay up. Support the other side. Get the licenses. 2. Say you're sorry for doing so. Your money STILL supports the other side...you STILL have the licenses...but now you can get pity from this side. Best of both worlds. No, not gonna happen. Until those licenses are null and void, I'll never send ev1 a penny of my money. SCO claimed this was a million dollar deal. Even if it was only 10,000 you can bet Robert Marsh knew EXACTLY what he was doing. He's just trying to keep his customers after doing EXACTLY what he wanted to do. If you pity this man after this "confession" then you're the one that deserves the pity. He's making a fool out of you twice."
I am writing to inform you of a potentially serious situation. I represent a company with a very large and well-funded legal department, hereafter referred to as "Your Worst Nightmare." YWN may or may not possess significant amounts of Intellectual Property ("IP"). Said "IP" may contain, but is not limited to, patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets, methods, know-how, information, thoughts, and/or beliefs. It is YWN's strong, steadfast conviction that you personally, your company as a whole, all of your company's customers, and your entire board of directors and their families may or may not have willfully and deliberately committed acts in direct violation of our "IP rights". YWN has a fiduciary responsibility to protect any and all rights that it may or may not possess, and is therefore writing this letter to appraise you of the situation.
Despite the ironclad position based on overwhelming indisputable evidence that may have been presented in this letter, YWN is very reasonable. YWN believes that you represent an honest, American, patriotic company, not a bunch of communist hippies that want to steal YWN's "IP rights", completely contrary to the Constitution of the United States of America. In order to avoid a potentially ugly situation, which may or may not involve multiple lawsuits, damaging press releases, and unpleasant medical exams, LWN proposes the following solution. Please forward us a check for $1,000,000^H^H^H^H^H^H $250,000^H^H^H^H^H^H^H $10,000 as a token of your gull^H^H^H^H sincerity. Please identify yourself on the face of your check with your company name, and any "IP rights" you think you may be violating.
Thank you in advance.
A Faceless Lawyer in a Sea of Litigators
The big loser in this matter may be SCO, said Dion Cornett, an analyst with Decatur Jones Equity Partners LLC, an equity research firm based in Chicago. Having their first publicly announced customer express second thoughts over the deal so soon after its announcement may make it difficult for SCO to sign up other customers, he said.
So what happens when SCO loses? When it shown that Darl is peddling snake oil? Will those who pay sue them for false representation, and demand their money back?
Ruby on Rails Screencast
He's having it both ways, and you're being a sucker.
He paid protection money to SCO, SCO gets the money to further damage Linux.
Then he says "he's sorry".
Big whoop-dee-doo. How does that help OSI?
How about donating an equal amount to the GPL foundation, or EFF or something that helps further the cause of freedom.
Just a "sorry" means bullshit, because guys like this will say anything. His words are meaningless.
The problem with the decision is that, since SCO actively employs contracts as weapons to use against their customers, any protection given by such contracts is illusory. Effectively, contracts with SCO protect their rights and remove yours. Previous experience would have indicated this with not much research. SCO has sued their customers more consistently and with greater effect than non-customers; being their customer is probably a guarantee of a suit, while not being a customer only leaves them with a chance of being sued. Even if not buying the licences were guaranteed to lead to a suit, the risk isn't much worse than the risks of being their customer, and your ability to defend against the suits is greater as a non-customer than a customer. If I have to fight SCO, I'd rather fight with all of my weapons intact than be their "buddy" only to be caught suprised and defenseless when they stab me in the back.
The only legitimate business question is whether choosing to buy SCO's "licences" would subject EV1 to more risk (both from SCO's use of contracts and from angry users) than being sued by SCO (and the consequent loss of users and gain in competitors' FUD) would. I don't know the answer to that.
I'm glad that Mr. Marsh admitted it was a mistake to sign on with SCO, but it would have been better had he (or the company's lawyers and businesspeople) thought this over some more before he did it.
" How do you know he isn't apologising for ethical reasons?"
Maybe, but what good does it do? Saying sorry is for playgrounds.
Its not a person's words, its a person's actions that tell you if they're ethical. Because words are cheap. People will say words to make you believe certain things about them.
I'm calling bullshit on the guy.
If he donates an equal amount to Linux, then that will be an action. As it is now, he's a bullshit artist.
What I haven't seen is anything along these lines:
Sounds like a gamble, but a good way to nail the coffin of SCO if/when they lose; also a great way to send a message to anyone else that might try these SCO tactics.
We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex—but Congress can. – Cullen Hightower
Ok...we're not naive. Whether this deal was for $10,000 or 6 figures as SCO claimed, we realize it wasn't something done hastily and overnight. They thought this one out. However, this is also something I think they thought out:
1. Let SCO use you as their poster child. Any company that is illeducated, wants to use linux, but is afraid of SCO now comes right to your doorstep.
2. This WILL hit slashdot. Face it....you have a product for geeks. SCO is geek enemy #1. This is going to generate LOTS of traffic to your site....LOTS of geeks will be talking about your company.
3. A month later, after you've gotten your share of customers that are afraid of SCO, announce that you're sorry and that SCO is a bunch of bad people. You KNOW the story will hit slashdot.
Now what happens? The slashdot crowd starts feeling sorry for you....and all that advertising starts to work for your benefit. You've got the licenses and now you've got more geek advertising than any banner ad could provide.
Maybe I'm just a conspiracy theorist, but man...this seems WAYYYYY too convenient.
If you really regret dealing with SCO, than do the right thing, report yourselfe to the DA under tha laws of RICO and try to get a criminal prosecutio going, and SUE SCO for 3 times the amount you paid them plus leagal fees for fraud. ( and id bet SCO will settle out of court)
otherwise shut the fuck up and take your assfuck like a man.
"Though far more valuable would be folks who can spot trouble BEFORE you ink a deal."
Poor guy must've done his SCO searches on MSN.com....
Are very vaguely and cunningly worded, so chances of financial recovery are minimal. All licenses permit you to do is use SCO IP if by any chance there is some in Linux. They don't say that there definitely is some there.
Besides, technically SCO does have IP in Linux; IP covers copyright and like all Linux developers they still hold the copyright to the stuff they wrote. However they have released the stuff on a non-revokable perpetual license (the GPL), so there is nothing stopping free use.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
I had someone I knew that asked me to take a look at his redhat box over at EV1. I told him I would as soon as it is at a different provider. There is not a single EV1 customer getting anything out of me.
All I hear out of this guy is a bunch of hot air. If he was such a good guy he would not be involved in any Microsoft Fun Reports. He also would not have been touring the country with his lips attached to the ass of SCO's CEO .
Got Code?
And does SCO really care what EV1 says? SCO fucked 'em up the ass, got their jollies, left a present on the night stand, and has moved on to other FUD. As far as SCO is concerned, EV1 served their purpose, no suprise, EV1 feels dirty! And, I don't think SCO has ever actually planned to make money on the license business. Lastly, note that SCO stock is up today.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Greg Sizemore(RIP) was the brains behind EV1Servers/Rackshack. Greg passed away last Fall and I'm sure there hasnt been much innovative growth or change on the web-hosting side of EV1.
I'm sure the deal with SCO would have never gone down had Greg still been there. EV1Servers was run by Sizemore with a hands-off, "you know what you're doing" approach from the administration. They trusted Greg and let him steer the web-hosting department's operations from a technically sound position.
After Greg's death, I'm sure Marsh thought he should muttle in EV1Servers affairs and try to be a hero. Too bad he hasn't a clue about the web-hosting business or how Greg managed things.
(emphasis added)
This clearly supports the claims made by parent.
On March 11, 2004, the NASA Records Officer notified Center Records Managers about a lawsuit filed by SCO Group, Inc, asserting the "enterprise" use of Linux (R) operating system violates SCO's intellectual property rights in Unix technology. If court rulings are favorable to the SCO, there may be subsequent claims against Government agencies.
Effective immediately, NASA is to preserve and prevent destruction of all records pertaining to the procurement and use of Linux (R) software per direction from the agency General Counsel and CIO. These records must be preserved until the NASA Headquarters, Office of General Counsel, lifts the destruction freeze.
We are asking each Directorate to review its technical and contract records and identify any that may be relevant to the subject litigation. A record is defined as papers, reports, photographs, or any documentation used to record the work of your office regardless of the physical form. Records can be created by your office and/or document an action, activity, or decision taken by your office. If records are discovered, you are requested to segregate them and immediately notify Ms. Patricia Southerland, the GSFC Records Manager, at extension 6-xxxx, or by email xxxxxx.
Silly!!
---------
No matter how thin you slice it, its still baloney.
But that doesn't mean my stomach is going to forgive me any time soon.
There's a lot of speculation that he regretted it because of lost business or lack of sales due to the agreement, however; as someone who has some knowledge internally, sales were higher than normal this month and there was no massive influx of cancellations, in summary, when he says he regrets it, I believe it to be other reasons non-business related.
This is BS. You cannot kill a person and then walk in his funeral. EV1Servers.Net betrayed the Linux community and telling lies is not going to fix the damage they made.
Businesses go bankrupt. People lose interest in pet projects. If projects had to pay for hosting on sourceforge, how much churn would there be, do you think? Big hosting companies host hundreds of thousands of sites, churning a few thousand a month is no big deal.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/?host=EV1Serve rs.Net
R Y- BLK-11,207.44.128.0,207.44.255.255
'The site ev1servers.net is running Microsoft-IIS/5.0 on Windows 2000.'
That's no surprise.
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/hosted?netname=EV
Count 'em. Many, many more not listed. You want sympathy, Everyone Internet's CEO Robert Marsh, show us what you're doing to support the efforts of the people truly trying to make a difference and providing the resources that power a portion of your business. I hope I'm missing something here, but there needs to be some accountability here. What has he contributed to the open source community? Lot's to Microsoft and SCO.
sig mind freed
Hah, just kidding.
:P
I'll admit though to having watched the whole video as presented by MSN or some other pushy site.
She's trashy, and not very talented... but she is indeed hot in that video
.sigs are for post^Hers.
Fark!
Photoshop this stupid EV1 ripoff of the CHICK-FIL-A cows.
http://ev1servers.net/images/chik_sm2.jpg
you are wrong and start again then you are truly a man.
EV1 isn't publicly traded, and you don't know who their investors may be. You can bet though that Marsh is the major stockholder.
In any case, your suggestion of EV1 jumping on the SCO bandwagon for "marketshare" is really out there.
.sigs are for post^Hers.
For example: why doesn't he release the details of the deal with SCO, if SCO has insinuated some details that are not true? Surely the secrecy clause works both ways!
Additionally, why doesn't Mr. Marsh donate, say, $1MM (the purported value of the deal, as per SCO) to OSDL? Call it a token of appreciation for the OSS community that has helped his business get to where it is today.
Words, by themselves, don't mean much Mr. Marsh when your deeds have done tangible damage. If I break a neighbors window, I will have to replace it; just saying "Gee, sorry!" doesn't help.
Until Mr. Marsh takes tangible steps to balance his mistake from March 1, his words are meaningless. The most likely explanation, IMHO, is that he's trying to douse the protests and just move on, with complete disregard for the ramifications of his deed.
Why does everybody think having SCO sue them would be expensive? All they had to do was have their lawyers ask for the case to be postponed until SCO had proven in a related case that they even had grounds for an intellectual property suit. When IBM finishes stomping SCO into oblivion, their case against NV1 will have evaporated.
Is to sue SCO for fraud and extortion. And invalidate his contract for the licenses, then donate the money to FSF and OSDL.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
Or politely ask for lube.
Yeah, yeah. Every car theif who gets popped in the lot, every wall street insider who gets caught making trades, and more often than not, serial killers, regret their mistakes when they're already caught.
This individual didn't regret a goddamned thing until he was confronted with it.
The man made a decision to cave in wrong-headed, over-reaching legal threats, and then found out how unpopular that decision made him.
h tml
The situation reminds me of the agreement made between Smith & Wesson and the Clinton HUD.
See: http://www.thegunzone.com/rkba/jeff_snyder_on_sw.
The S&W deal resulted in a boycott that nearly bankrupted the company, and did force a change of ownership and public "regret" of the decision. Many doubt the sincerity of anything the S&W management has to say, and will to this day work to force either a complete repudiation of the 2000 consent agreement or the destruction of the company.
There is no forgiveness when something dear to you is threatened, at least until the threat is eliminated.
-MattT *** Not speaking for my employer, or any other sentient beings ***
I have rented from ev1 for quite some time. You could go to their website and SEE how many servers they had for rent. Usually, the total number available was 1 here, 4 there, 6 here, 2 there (of the different OS choices). Most of the time, there were ZERO available of at least half of the servers. As clients quit, more come available, etc.
Once the SCO story broke, EVERY type of server was available, and they quit publishing the number of servers available. My guess is they lost a few hundred clients, the "numbers available" became irrelevent and were dropped. It also made them look bad.... 12 servers available today, sign with SCO, 329 available after Slashdot reports on it...
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
First of all, a CEO is an officer of the company. That officer may or may not be the owner in any degree. It's true that there is some personal responsibility, but it's really the shareholder's money and it is their duty, thru the governing board, to hold on to it. The only person he has to apologize to for blowing millions is his stockholders and the board. In this case I think the distinction is academic since he's pretty much his own man.
The corporate shield is a mixed blessing, but it means that everything isn't personal. Sure, CEOs need to learn from their mistakes, but if they had to pay for their mistakes personally would anyone but a power mad lunatic administer agree to run anything bigger than a lemonade stand? I think not. We really can't have it both ways.
And buy the way, you going broke is largely an artifact of your parent's discipline. You may earn a check, but in many cases you don't have the legal ability to contract and the tax man can go after your money to pay your parent's taxes. Yep, it's happened but usually it doesn't fly because of the extremely nasty publicity states get when they try this. I just don't think you and a large publicly traded company making a mistake and going broke are even qualitatively the same.
Making business this personal is a big mistake. Now fraud is another matter. I hope the Enron flunkies and others like them get the very most friendly cell mates.
I'm a microscopically small share holder in a few companies and I have to accept stupidity and mistakes. That's unavoidably human. Dishonesty and theft is too but I guess I still want to feed such people to my dog. Slow. (the feeding, not the dog's name, but it would be apt) It's hard to have a non-hypocritical attitude, you're right.
Why do I have this? I don't smoke.
As others have pointed out already, the SCO license fees are non-refundable. He's stuck.
It's not like you can go out and sue the Mafia for that protection money, either.
He may be locked into a contract and unabled to get out of it. There is one way he could make amends a heck of a lot better than saying "sorry".
Donate an amount at least equal to what he paid SCO to one of the legal defense funds. That would at least counterbalance the extent to which he has enriched SCO.
It would probably be cheaper than the business he is going to lose if he doesn't patch things up with the FOSS community. Even the donation won't change everyone's mind but it would stop the bleeding.
Of course, as this point there is some backlash against EV1, from the supporters or OSS. But the thing with a company like EV1Servers, is they offer a great product, I know first hand from my experience and some of my clients experiences, so even though people dont support him for moral reasons now, when everything blows over and people start forgetting what happened, people will go to ev1 for the simple fact its a great service. I am not worried about the future of EV1.
Posting useless rant since 2003.
I you feel anger toward EV1 you may be misplacing you anger on the victim of a crime (extortion) rather than the likely perpetrator of a crime (SCO/Darl)
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
> If you're not willing to pay this company's legal fees then you
> shouldn't expect them to be willing to pay for the cost of
> defending your principals.
Now you're the one being melodramatic. TSG does not yet have universal standing to bring a suit like this, and even if they did they'd probably want to go slow since, hey, SCO doesn't exactly have the cashflow to spread around to a million suits. This is the same tactic that the RIAA is using (TSG has said as much) where as long as nobody fights back and shows the rest that TSG doesn't have any teeth (since contesting the suit would effectively freeze it) then the settlers get to feel good knowing that they got out easy.
They don't really know because they are paranoid of litigation and as such do not realize that they would not have to litigate this to the end instantly, they pay a couple grand for a stay until the Novell suit is done. TSG talks a big game, but they're a bunch of bullies. Unfortunately the (Microsoft-backed, for EV1) Linux space is the cowering fool on the playground.
When I was a kid, we only had one Darth.
The first thing that sprang to mind when I was reading this was, "so what are you going to do about it?" Nothing but bluster and contrition it seems.
"It's easier to ask forgiveness than permission" and all that.
When I was a kid, we only had one Darth.
I may be a small timer, but I was a loyal customer for over two years. I came on board when they still had Cobalt Raq2 servers. But I switched to Server Matrix and let EV1 know that the reason was because they bought SCO licenses.
I wonder how many other little webmasters did the same?
I'm sorry. If you do a million dollar deal, and a month later 'regret it', it's definitely not a good think if you own stock in the company. At this point, it wouldn't surprise me to see this guy canned. He fucked up big.
And on top of that, he can barely spell (if you read his posts in the forum) and is to lazy to spellcheck.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
The guys were just spammed to death from the Linux community, so they said made up this crap and excuse themselves as doing it. If they really changed their minds, they would undo the deal, or gave the same amount to IBM to defend Linux.
As the old saying goes: Words are cheap!
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
nice troll.
This is rubbish! The parent post is a perfectly valid opinion, and imo is entitled to being part of the discussion; by modding it -1 you are effectivley saying it isn't relevent to the discussion which (once again, imo) is wrong. SModding down stuff that shows the opinion of people on the other side of the argument will lead to unbalanced and biased discussions.
It's really time the community get over itself and start to carve out it's place in mainstream society: another choice among many that customers can come to. Yes, it might be the best choice out there but that doesn't matter a hill of beans if customers are scared away from it by all of the zealotry.
Anthony Papillion
Advanced Data Concepts, Inc.
"Quality Custom Software and IT Services"
I'm sorry but you are very wrong. Have The SCO Group ever sued anyone who had never paid them before? No. At this point EV1Servers.net's CEO (who will never see my money again) doing any business with The SCO Group whatsoever is not only dishonorable but also utterly stupid. I will never do any business again with them---not only because they pay for spreading the lies about free software I use and love, but also becuase they are incompetent businessmen. Period.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
What? We need more CEO's that pay for licenses that they're not sure they need? CEO's that spend thousands, or millions, of dollars of company and shareholder money on pieces of paper that ultimately may be worthless? CEO's that will undoubtedly pass that cost on to their customers?
Yeah, we need more guys like this...like we all need another hole in the head.
This guy just jumped when SCO said "BOO!" and now he's saying he screwed up. His only redeeming quality is he's admitting he's spineless.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
I remembered Intuit's product activation scheme from last tax season (maybe a couple of years ago now). I sent them an angry letter and received a very odd phone call at my place of work from someone who had clearly been hired to make official apologies to everyone who announced their intention to defect to a competitor (in my case, Taxcut). The very odd thing was that the call was placed to my work phone. I didn't provide that number to Intuit.
I consider myself to be a very reasonable person - no point holding a grudge. But if I forgave Intuit and started using its product again after one year would that provide an incentive to Intuit not to engage in invasive licensing? If the company doesn't lose customers as a result of its policies and decisions, how does it learn? Money is the medium of corporate communication.
I would follow a similar chain of reasoning in this case, were I an EV1 customer. I would be one of the ones to defect because otherwise, EV1 has no incentive. There's probably enough competition in the local hosting market so that there is no noticable degradation in quality.
Otherwise I agree with you completely. It's refreshing to hear EV1's CEO make such an admission, but I would still defect. The cynic in me makes me wonder whether this is damage control. If the purpose of his admission is to short circuit the process of penalizing EV1 for its decision, how will it learn that it was the wrong thing to do? All EV1 would learn is to immediately back off and apologize for any unpopular decision. SCO still gets paid.
Slashdot is my Mercer Box.
It occurs to me that all hosting customers should simply require that their hosting company guarantee that they will pay all the legal expenses should their (the hosting company) IP licensing policies and contracts open the customer to litigation.
That is, if I use your (EV1's) hosting service, you (EV1) will guarantee that none of their agreements with third parties (SCO, Microsoft) will be allowed to show-through to me (the customer).
That is, since they (EV1) own the computers you are using, they (EV1) will bear full responsibility if what I (the customer) do would breach their agreement with the third party (SCO, Microsoft).
That is, if my hosting company promises someone else that their machines will or wont be used in particular ways or to particular ends, that shouldn't be my problem in any way.
See it seems that a real SCO strategy here is that most of EV1s customers have probably signed contracts that bind those customers to EV1s outstanding commitments. There are also probably terms that let EV1 modify those terms as they need to meet their ongoing business model. So by extension, all of EV1's customers have essentially been bound to SCO's terms by extension. A couple of months from (say a month for notification of EV1 to its customer base that their effective terms have change, or for those customers to have legally been able to figure that out for themselves) SCO comes in with double-indirect terms to use against EV1's customers.
e.g. suppose SCO says:
1)You have agreed to comply with EV1's terms and conditions.
2)You have agreed to let EV1 change those terms in certain ways.
3)EV1's contract with us requires them to change those terms, they cannot distribute what they admit is our IP using their facility, you should have known this.
4)We (EV1 and SCO) recognize that kernel as SCO IP.
5)You are therefore contractually obligated to cease in the distribution of that kernel using the hosting hardware. Cease and Desist immediately or face legal action.
6)Further, you may not possess our IP without purchasing your own license. If you wish to continue making/keeping backups of your system image on any non EV1 host (e.g. If you wish to keep backups of your site) you will either have to license our IP or sign this here contract stating that you will let us audit your transfers and backups of data from the EV1 host computers.
Yes, the above is legally all but indefensible. But really so is the All your Code belong to Us action against IBM. It would be classic SCO.
I can imagine SCO giving EV1 the licenses for "one dollar and other consideration" to create this "legal relationship" between SCO and ALL OF EV1's CUSTOMERS, just to create the appearance of legitimacy to future actions against those people.
SCO is a legal tar baby (don't assume racism, look it up 8-) and, to mix the metaphor, EV1 is now hosting an infect-everyone all-STD orgy on their equipment. The GPL isn't viral in exactly the way that modify-on-demand service contracts ARE, and SCO agreements are information technology AIDS-equivalents.
IANAL, but EV1 customers should run like hell. Now YOU have contractual bindings to SCO because you are running your business on a site licensed by SCO, and we know those are the target audience to the suit.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
RTFA - lost 1000 sites, gained 3000 sites.
Hell, there are no rules here. We're trying to accomplish something. - Thomas Edison
If Marsh really wants to demonstrate that he realizes that he made a mistake, and that he has switched sides, all he has to do is to publicly announce that he has deployed Linux in a manner not covered by the license.
It's too late now. He's on SCO's hook.
And if he thinks his troubles are just bad PR with his user community he STILL doesn't understand what's going on.
Before he signed up, the only hold SCO had over him was the specter of possible future suits for unauthorized copying.
Now they have his company's signature on a contract, which acknowledges SCO's claims of ownership of the code and its applicability to Linux. Unlike other Linux users, EV1 has now contracted to pay SCO for all its Linux boxes.
If EV1 deploys on boxes beyond those for which it bought a license, SCO gets to bill them, and sue if they don't pay up. Since EV1 already acknowledged SCO's claims by buying the licenses in the first place, they have no leg to stand on in court.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
this is not flaim bait. and whoever modded me as flamebait is a fucking moron. if you think about it i just showed ev1 how they can redeme themselves in the public eye and make money at it. i hope whoever moderated me comes up under meta moderation caus im going to fuck your world up.
From SCO's web site:
"Customers can asses using UnixWare in their environment without making costly application program changes. "
Decide for yourself...
Your ideas intrigue me. I would like to sign up to your new letter.
companies are in the same kind of Street Gang extortion scheme business. Pay us then we won't mug you...
But his network is NOT rock solid. It has a history of hosting spammers, and at least SMTP is block from that address space on many networks, including mine. The day Robert Marsh announces he will terminate all spammer customers, and accept no more spammers, is the day I look at removing that block. So if he can turn about on the SCO issue, maybe there's hope he can turn about on the spam issue. But his actions will speak more than his words.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Maybe some of the churn is from being spam-blocked? EV1 has a history of hosting spammers. My network was attacked by one of his spammers for 5 weeks continuously and they would never do a damned thing about it (and Robert Marsh would not take the phone call, either). So they stay blocked until they fix the problem (of not dealing with spam complaints properly), and Robert Marsh has to fix this personally, now.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
iirc, EV1 was a reference account for Microsoft. They were an example for Microsoft to tout to others, of how great Windows server hosting is. From examples of pricing I've seen in the past, it appears that EV1 received some sort of favorable pricing in their licensing costs, or some hefty co-op payments for advertising and promoting Microsoft in their hosting advertising.
Windows hosting being substantially cheaper than Linux hosting? Without some type of payment, this is not reality. Let's keep in mind that in the past 18 months to 2 years, there have been some very public infomercials on the tug of war going on at netcraft over Windows 2000/XP servers vs. Linux servers, and who is getting the bulk of NT migration, and who is picking up or losing market share due to releases of Windows 2000 and XP working their way in to hosting facilities. We've even had another company try to convince us that the Netcraft count is a fraud, that according to their surveys of the Fortune 500 or Fortune 1000, IIS is really da bomb, and Apache on Linux is an also-ran.
Considering the tug of war over Netcraft stats, and EV1's large presence in the hosting space, and considering that Microsoft has been "recommending" that others "invest" in SCO while being carefully to maintain deniability due to not using their own funds directly, is it really a stretch to assume that EV1, through Microsoft discounts on licensing, was positioned, or designed, or maneuvered, into becoming a reference for SCO to other companies? Whether the owner of EV1 knew about it, or was a part of it, or not, is immaterial. Through licensing discounts, or co-op payments, or whatever other method of funneling money or discounts to EV1, and through what in all probability was a major discount and favorable payment terms, EV1 was given a chance to jump aboard SCO's wagon on the cheap, or continue to face the legal wrath of SCO/Boies. If EV1 had a 50/50 mix of Microsoft and Linux licensing, it is less likely that they would have jumped aboard. But even without Microsoft payments, it simply comes down to SCO reaching the right price point for EV1 to jump. What are the exact details of payment? We won't know for quite a while, perhaps never. What are the licensing discounts received from Microsoft? We won't know for quite a while, perhaps never. What are the co-op payments, if any, for co-branding and co-advertising with Microsoft? We won't know for quite a while, perhaps never.
What we do know, if we have been paying attention, is that SCO was in desperate need of a company to display as a licensing win. And what we do know is that SCO was able to sign a company that has some kind of discount on Microsoft server licensing for their hosting business. How do we know this? Just look at their Microsoft/Linux pricing comparisons, and compare them to the rest of the industry. It can't be more blatent than that.
Made a mistake?
This is like saying that Dell made a mistake. It is widely known, though there exists no proof, that Dell gets favorable pricing from Intel, over other competitors, and in return, Dell has not touched AMD. EV1 has made no mistake. EV1 knows, through their licensing deals or co-op payments, that they are getting a better deal than their competitors. Why? Because they can compete, they can undercut the competition on price on Microsoft hosting, and still make a profit. They are expanding, opening a large new datacenter, while some of their competitors fold and rack up debt. EV1, compared to other competitors, has a better balance sheet. In order to compete, the competitors need to take on debt to expand. EV1 is not taking on debt to expand.
He made no mistake. He knew there would be an uproar, and he knew that there would be defections. Yet, and as he stated, there was a net increase in customers, not a loss. With a new datacenter opening the same week, and favorable pricing deals being made available, and a backlog of customers for hosting, it is no surprise that there has been a ne
And apparently he has the business of hosting spammers, too.
Another best of both worlds scenario. Except that because my network was one of those attacked, I blocked every EV1 address space and those blocks remain until EV1 becomes a clean operating hosting company.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Is this why EV1 hosts spammers? To make money? Oh yeah, there is money to be made in spam. And all you have to do is just ignore the complaints from other networks that lose money because of the abuse and attacks. Spammers eventually do leave because the IP addresses get majorly blocked, then EV1 can announce that a spammer was terminated an looks good because of that. Of course not everyone falls for it, so many networks have EV1 still blocked. I do, at least until Robert Marsh comes clean about spam.
As for his current situation with SCO ... I'm not considering that to be a "agrees with the anti-SCO crowd" until he puts another million into the fund to defend other companies from SCO that now are under greater risk due to his stupid actions.
Robert Marsh has a lot of expensive cleaning up to do.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
"The one thing that bugs me about this is that he did what he thought was best for his company. His job is ensuring the company's survival. Period."
How far does that go? Is it only him that he worried about? How about his employees? His shareholders (if there are any)?
Your viewpoint is a recipe for disaster in that once you say "well, he needs to put food on the table", then you can justify anything up to murder.
"Bill took a pipe and hit bob over the head"
"Its hard to fault him, he was just putting food on the table".
You really haven't considered the potential downside of your thought process.
Just type EV1 and Microsoft in Google.
He does what Microsoft want, supports SCO, supports Microsotf software (see google search results). Get a lot of help from Microsoft to kill his competition, and says "I am sorry". Does it matter more what he does or what he say?
I suspect Groklaw would like to hear about this.
May we never see th
I saw details of one of the licenses, and AFAICC they do not have to pay SCO anything in the future for using Linux if Linux contains no SCO code. However SCO also do not say that Linux does contain any code in the contract.
But, if the parent is true, then EV1 and SCO should lose their rights under the GPL. In which case EV1 are now "pirating" Linux.
Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley
[This post is in the public domain (copyright-free) unless otherwise stated]
I saw details of one of the licenses, and AFAICC they do not have to pay SCO anything in the future for using Linux if Linux contains no SCO code.
But SCO is currently claiming that ALL code working to Unix-related interfaces (including such things as all clients of errno.h) are derived works and thus "SCO code".
But, if the parent is true, then EV1 and SCO should lose their rights under the GPL.
Good point.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way