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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!
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Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
IMHO there is no point talking about the past. The good question is what they will do about it.
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
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.
If I were an investor, I would be asking why Robert didn't take a week and educate himself before bowing to SCO.
If I were an investor, I would be happy to have found a businessman who will admit to his mistakes.
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
What's been said on Slashdot this whole time != what's been said elsewhere.
Being targetted by SCO would then become a can't-win situation. Either you pay SCO and then get shunned by the Linux world, or you don't pay and SCO sues you to death.
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.
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.
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.
I seem to recall an aphorism about laying down with dogs and contracting fleas. I feel for the guy, don't get me wrong. But it's like feeling sorry for the guy who sunk his retirement account into a Y2k bunker. Or better, actually fell for one of those 409 scammers.
Actually I do feel for those people, they work hard their entire life, and a single indiscretion costs them their entire life's accomplishments. The people who take advantage of such vulnerable individuals are predators, and maybe it was a really stupid thing to do, but it still cost the person everything they had.
Slay a dragon... over lunch!
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.
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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!
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'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.
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.
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
Also, more on topic, I think you're on the right track here. Simply admitting that he made a mistake is not enough. He may not be able to get his money back but if he truly does wish that he hadn't done business with SCO he could at least terminate his license with them. Suing SCO for fraud or extortion might be nice, but probably too expensive. With MS backing them SCO can afford a *lot* more lawyers than a lowly webhost can.
OTOH, if everyone who got one of SCO's "pay us or we sue you" letters sued them for extortion it'd force SCO to hemorage a lot of money on the legal defense. Kind of like a DOS of legal filings. I'm certainly not a lawyer, but doesn't threatening lawsuits on false grounds count as extortion? Since they've sent letters to people outside Utah, can't we get the RICO act in on this?
"Mission Accomplished" -- George W. Bush May 1, 2003
It's simple. He can't get out of the SCO contract. but by public stating that it is a bad deal, he is warning other companies not to make the same mistake. He could have not said anything at all, or simply apologized at a confidential board meeting. By making this public, he instantly made it incredible difficult for SCO to get any further business. I would say that is a solution to the problem we call SCO.
I can't afford a sig!
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.