Novell Sued Microsoft Through Caldera?

cheesedog writes "The intrigue increases: According to this article in the Salt Lake Tribune, the secret terms of the sale of DR-DOS to Caldera included the provision that Caldera would have to sue Microsoft (for Novell by proxy) over the OS and that they would have to do so without revealing Novell's hand in it. Did Novell indirectly create a monster? Caldera's 300 million winnings against Microsoft are now being used to fund lawsuits against Linux (and Novell)."

Comments

headline

[Anonymous Coward]

it has to be said, innocent until proven guilty.

Re:headline

[dourk]

Of course Novell did it. The way I read the article, Novell is suing because they didn't get a big enough of the cut.

How could they sue without admitting to being the masterminds behind the deal?

Re:headline

[EdMcMan]

Also that is only for criminal court (in the US).

Novell sued Microsoft through SCO

[AEton]

And the baby is Caldera's! And Steve Ballmer and Steve Jobs are stuck in the well while their evil twins go about their daily lives!

Find out the exciting conclusion on the next episode of As the Slash Dots!

Re:Novell sued Microsoft through SCO

[AndroidCat]

Did the well come before or after slashdot?

/me bangs head on desk several times.

Umm, before. Quite a bit before. Like ten years before WWW.

Re:Novell sued Microsoft through SCO

[xmorg]

dont blame frankenstien for making the monster. His intentions where to create the perfect human!

Im sure Novells intentions where noble in trying to fight Microsoft.

Re:Novell sued Microsoft through SCO

[toopc]

As noble as ego and cash can be leastways.

Kinda like the U.S.

[Anonymous Coward]

The US funds Saddam Hussein against war with Iran. Saddam and the US later go to war. (Twice.)

The US funds the Afghans against the Russian army. The Afghans later turn all kooky and "kinda" go to war with the US.

I think that this corporate thing just reaches to the roots of the problems in American society -- one person "helping" another by fuelling their hatred against a third party, only to have it backfire on them.

Re:Kinda like the U.S.

[Anonymous Coward]

And don't forget it was the CIA who trained Osama Bin Laden, too.

Re:Kinda like the U.S.

[davidsyes]

AWESOME!

Very well put. Karma can be a "bitch", and a LOT of these stupid-assed corporate and corporate-bought state-level labor code lawyers need to remember the words of Redd Foxx, as Fred Sanford, when the character said, "I don't believe in doing unto others before they do unto me, 'cuzz I might get **done in** DO 'IN IT."

My variation on "live and let live" is "Let Live, then Live". Corporate hegemenony/imperialism, regardless of its nation of spawning, is ultimately going to cast upon itself a molten, heaping slag the might just undue them. But, the question, is "How long will it take?"

Re:Kinda like the U.S.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that this corporate thing just reaches to the roots of the problems in American society

Oh come on. As if the entire concept of expedience was invented by Americans!?!? As if this sort of thing hadn't happened over and over and over again since the dawn of recorded human history? As if it isn't happening right now in the European Union? In the Arab world? All over Africa? At the local PTA?

If you want to indulge in self-flagellation for human flaws, at least have the decency to do it in the name of the human race, instead of blaming it on America.

Re:Kinda like the U.S.

[Anonymous Coward]

You Sir are a genius: you manage to tie a totally offtopic US-Iraq-Al-Qaeda post to an article about Novell and SCO, and get modded "+5, Interesting".

A true Slashdot hero, yessiree...

Re:Kinda like the U.S.

[Alucard454]

I think that this corporate thing just reaches to the roots of the problems in American society -- one person "helping" another by fuelling their hatred against a third party, only to have it backfire on them.
and i think that this post reaches the roots of the problem of widespread anti-american sentiment across pockets of the globe -- one person "projecting" the problems of the administration onto the "society" as a whole. mass generalizations are massively ignorant.

Re:Kinda like the U.S.

[Lord Omlette]

Ah, you beat me to it. The lesson to be learned: offer to mediate the dispute, do your own damn fighting or mind your own goddamned business.

Re:Kinda like the U.S.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the US didn't fuel hatred. There was plenty of hatred against the Soviets by Muslims, and against Shiites by Sunnis before the US got involved. The US took sides to serve its short term interests which backfired in the long run.

Re:Kinda like the U.S.

[Maudib]

I will just add a couple of examples. Lets start with the British East India company in India. They touinely hired Various Indian Princes to attack and eliminate rival princes, again and again. Each time pilfering the target, then attacking the attacker with another proxy and plundering him.

All the major european countries issued letters of mark to independent vessels, licensing them to pirate other nations, while keeping their hands clean.

Lets see, to keep things fair a good non-european example would probably be... shit. Ah got it. Shit, you know the Chinese and Japanese did this sort of shit all the time. Just cant think of any good non-european examples.

DAMN YOU EURO CENTRIC HISTORY EDUCATION!

Re:Kinda like the U.S.

[Anonymous Coward]

"And don't forget it was the CIA who trained Osama Bin Laden, too."

The point being?
Hey America and Britain formed an alliance with the very evil Stalin against a greater threat to mankind at the time, Hitler.
Was the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan evil? You bet.
Was it a good thing that America helped the Afghans and their foregin fighters, fight off Soviet Occupation of their country? Oh yes.
Hey , there was bound to be at least a few crazies amongst the Afghans that America backed to chase out the Soviets.

Re:Kinda like the U.S.

[Talence]

Actually, it also reaches the roots of american sentiment to speak of "pockets of resistance" when in fact, it's masses upon masses of resistance against the U.S. foreign policy, for a relevant part thanks to Bush's "I wanna invade Iraq and if you don't wanna, then I wanna do it even more" attitude. If the U.S. government's actions cannot be projected back onto its society (that showed at least 50-60% approval rating before the abuse pics), then is it fair to claim that the (current) U.S. govenment does not appropriately represent the U.S. citizens and thus the concept of Democracy as handled by the U.S. is not the optimal political system and it is dangerous to implement similar systems in other countries (e.g. Iraq) ?

It is of course true that no single people or country has a patent on manipulation and dirty tactics. Almost all countries have a tainted history.

Re:Kinda like the U.S.

[Maudib]

Wait, just came up with a good Asian example for this. The Chinese have historically used Pakistan as a proxy and counter balance to India, even fanning the flames to cause wars like I think they did in 73. Arming them, etc. I guess they also sort of did the same thing against us for a while with North Korea.

OH WAIT!!!! ANOTHER AWESOME EXAMPLE! hehe. Syria, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia with the Palestinians against Israel. These guys constantly encourage non palestinians to encourage hostilities with Israel. I mean Hamas is just an offshoot of Islamic Jihad which was started by the Egyptians.

Oh of course, I forgot. The Saudis and Iranians (Iran especially) do it with terrorists against U.S. civilians. They have been doing it since the Iranian revolution in the 80s.

So yeah, proxy war aint exactly an american thing or even a european thing. Im pretty sure even the Iroquis Nation had a couple of smaller tribes they used for proxy war against other tribes.

Re:Kinda like the U.S.

[Distinguished Hero]

The US funds Saddam Hussein against war with Iran. Saddam and the US later go to war. (Twice.)

Yeah... sort of how the Allies funded Stalin and the Soviets in the war against Germany. Should have let Hitler have the whole damn continent, eh?

Look, life isn't perfect, but by trying to pretend that it is, you are only making things far worse. I wonder how all the peace mongers would react if Hitler (the original, not some barely literate moron with a Texan accent) was alive today. You'd probably just let him be (unless he was American or Israeli.)

Re:Kinda like the U.S.

[Tiro]

I think your argument could have legs. U.S. foreign policy and economic policy share the same problem--no long-term focus, only short-term bandage fixes.

This is why our industrial output fell behind Germany and Japan in 1970, and this is why we keep making a show of attacking small countries that pose no direct risk [Vietnam, Iraq]. Emmanuel Todd makes a more complete argument of this American failing in After the Empire

[unfortunately he doesn't quite explicate all the social mechanisms completely, but many insightful points].

In terms of the software sector, if these companies would spend more time innovating [like Apple or GNU] rather than forcing out the competition [Microsoft] or litigating [Novell & Caldera] then the long-term outlook for U.S. industry, including software exports would be more robust.

Re:Kinda like the U.S.

[Lord Omlette]

True, but when the Europeans or the Arabs or the Africans are doing it, it's not my tax dollars funding it. The PTA, that's a different story. >_

Re:Kinda like the U.S.

[Alucard454]

er... try re-reading my original statement. it seems you somehow got "pockets of resistance" ...

Actually, it also reaches the roots of american sentiment to speak of "pockets of resistance" when in fact, it's masses upon masses of resistance against the U.S. foreign policy

...from "pockets of the globe" ...

widespread anti-american sentiment across pockets of the globe

come now. it's pretty obvious from my statement that i'm fully aware of the "masses upon masses" of "resistance" to which i was not even referring. never was i talking about positions counter to US policy, and never was i talking about iraq. i'm talking about the anti-american sentiment that has been building up in places around the world, (especially areas of europe who were once the globes premiere imperial powers... these are the aforementioned "pockets of the globe") since around the end of World War I. this type of thing has obviously escalated at various times, and this war with iraq is just another example, and certainly not the best or most significant one... merely the most recent.

Re:Kinda like the U.S.

[William Tanksley]

I wonder how all the peace mongers would react if Hitler (the original, not some barely literate moron with a Texan accent) was alive today. You'd probably just let him be (unless he was American or Israeli.)

Don't spend too much energy wondering -- just read history to find a confirmation of your suspicions. The overwhelming sentiment in America before Pearl Harbor was antiwar; Americans saw Hitler as just another cruel, powerhungry dictator on a landmass full of cruel, powerhungry dictators. They weren't interested in entering yet another expensive war to help a group of nations that were still engaged in avoiding repayment for WWI debts. Charles Lindbergh wrote in this vein; his work is interesting.

He changed after Pearl Harbor, though. Almost the entire nation did.

-Billy

Re:Kinda like the U.S.

[minkwe]

It's not just America. It is manifested more there but it is THE human problem.

Re:Kinda like the U.S.

[Talence]

Your use of "pockets of the globe" makes it appear as though the "widespread anti-american sentiment" is limited in geographical location. Did you intend to use "areas" instead of "pockets"?

It does make sense to distinguish between a) anti-"american people/society" and b) anti-"american government/policies". What is building up around the world is more about (b) than about (a). In fact, a lot of (b) seems to be building up in the U.S. as well. It is my understanding that even in many traditionally anti-U.S. countries, the hatred falls for a large extent into the (b) category.

Your argument about projecting problems of a government onto the society does interest me philosophically. On the one hand, I must agree with you that it is not fair to project these actions on every single citizen (otherwise I would be negatively affected as well!), but on the other hand: a democratic society does support its government by elections and by paying taxes. If a society as a whole is not responsible for its government, then what is?

Re:Kinda like the U.S.

[iminplaya]

If Hitler were alive today, he would probably have a pretty good chance of becoming president...with an endorsement from FOX. :-)

Re:Kinda like the U.S.

[kunudo]

But it's so much more fun (and true) blaming it on America....

Re:Kinda like the U.S.

[tehdaemon]

' But, the question, is "How long will it take?"'

And how many of us will be oppressed before then, and how many of us will have to die to get our freedoms back afterward.

Re:Kinda like the U.S.

[Anonymous Coward]

The notion of GNU, a self-described clone of UNIX, being innovative is bizarre. UNIX was innovative in some ways (despite being based on Multics), but GNU, like most open source, is imitative (which isn't necessarily bad, if the products being imitated are massively overpriced, as UNIX was).

Apple is a shining example of creativity (despite having copied a lot of its UI concepts from Xerox, et al.), but Microsoft has actually been pretty innovative too. Just look at how many desktop environments copy Microsoft UI, and more broadly, Microsoft applications (e.g. MS Office, which itself was inspired by Apple's Lisa Office System, but is much more than just a copy of it). Similarly, .NET was obviously inspired by Java, but is much more than just a Java clone. (Needless to say, there are open source clones of both Java and .NET, and they're quite different.)

Despite being remarkably innovative, Apple has also done its share to stifle competition. Its look-and-feel lawsuit (which was fiercely opposed by GNU, since it would have banned cloning of user interfaces) was one of the most obvious examples, but it also used legal pressure to drive most of the Apple II cloners out of the market (especially Franklin, which made clones that were generally more poweful than Apples, and a lot cheaper).

Re:Kinda like the U.S.

[Distinguished Hero]

The difference though, between the peace mongers of yore and those of today is that at least the old peace mongers were honest about their motives: apathy and a lack of desire to sacrifice their lives for the cause. The ones nowadays shroud their motives in claims of "enlightenment" and "moral superiority," where at best the whole movement is just designed to make those who support it feel good about themselves.

Re:Kinda like the U.S.

[kbahey]

I think that to blame Americans for inventing this kind of short term tactical alliances is incorrect. The Americans did not invent this kind of world politics.

We can blame the Americans for not learning the lesson from the mistakes of others though.

Let me help you there with other examples from history:

• At the height of Muslim rule in Spain, the Umayyad Caliphs, and then Al Mansour Ibn Abi Aamir (Almanzor), allied with various Christian kingdoms against others (Leon, Castille, Navarra, ... etc). This policy increased resentment from the Christian Spaniards, and eventually contributed to the downfall of the Muslim empire in Spain.
• Then the tide turned and the Muslims were split into weak Taifa kingdoms. The Spanish kings then played the game of "divide and conquer", allying with one to topple the other, then devouring the first when the chance came. Eventually, the policy worked out and the Spanish Christian ousted the Muslims. However, the Inquisition that followed, and the expulsion of the Moriscoes are not something to be proud of as a legacy.

In retrospect, there are differences between these scenarios, and Britian's, and the current American ones.

The current American scenario suffers from "enemy of my enemy is my friend" and from severe short sightedness. At best they are tactical, and they create long term enemies.

Foreign policy has been erratic at best, and extremely short term.

Examples of mistakes in supporting the wrong people abound:

• Bin Laden and the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan. Not only were they supported, but when the USSR left, the country was left to duke it out on its own. The Mujahedeen turned against one another, and a civil war ensued. In Kabul alone, 50,000 people died over 5 years. The emergence of the Taliban was a direct reaction to the frustration that was there at the time (insecurity, killing, ..etc.) These same Mujahedeen are the Northern Allaince who are in control today in Afghanistan.
• The Manuel Noriega example is well known. From ally to foe.
• Saddam's example is well known too. The fact that he oppressed his own people was overlooked.
• The same goes for other regimes in the area (can you say "The spice must flow"?

In some cases, they are long lived, and endure various administrations: examples are the policy towards Cuba (no effect except on people and economy), Iran (more or less the same), and the long standing "Israel can do wrong" attitude.

None of these policies were productive.

As another poster pointed out, the same short term high gain, long term no gain policy is rampant in the corporate world too. Outsourcing internet dot com bubble bursting, and accounting scandals is the direct result of such penny wise dollar foolish policies.

So, will the Americans learn and adjust? Or are they doomed to repeat the mistakes of history?

Re:Kinda like the U.S.

[kbahey]

You think this might have something to do with not having the same ruler for 20 or 30 years, like some countries do? It is kind of hard to keep the same long-term focus when different elected officials come into office every few years.

I think this is a factor for sure. How can you think long term while your time horizon is 4 years, one of which is spend campaigning for a second term?

However, one must weigh the danger of absolute power and dictatorship against this short term thinking. Which is more evil?

I guess humanity has not discovered the perfect system for government yet. Democracy is still an ugly system, but it is the least ugly of them all.

Also, how can one explain that some policies are consistently the same (often controversial, or plain wrong, such as Cuba since the 1960s, and the unwavering support for Israel no matter what), while others are erratic or short term?

I am not sure I have the answer to that, but I guess the answer lies in:

• the influence of special interest groups (e.g. lobbies), and
• the disinterest and detachment of the average American of what happens in their name abroad.

Let us face it, Americans have historically (and either do not know, or do not care to know, what their government foreign policies really do overseas.

There may be other reasons that I am not aware of, but like to hear them.

Re:Kinda like the U.S.

[Spellbinder]

If a society as a whole is not responsible for its government, then what is?

that brings up a interesting question
is Al Quaida not only interpreting the democracy to its fullest
the US attacks dictators it does not like
in a democracy the citizens would be finally responsible for the action of their government

Re:Kinda like the U.S.

[Too Much Noise]

I think you overestimate the peace mongers of the past - vanity was as much a human trait then as it is now. Also, apathy and lack of desire to sacrifice for an unproven cause are as good reasons now as they were then. Actually, the WW2 situation was somehow clearer, as before Pearl Harbour both Europe and Asia were already deep into war and the US was sitting (geographically) in the middle.

Re:Kinda like the U.S.

[iplayfast]

Good point.

Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.
Those who do know history are doomed to watch it repeat....

This statement while funny is actually rather sad if you think about it.

Re:Kinda like the U.S.

[anshil]

However today as Europe we've grown past our imperalistic and mercantilism history, while other countries are still striking for being world supremacy, today not in direct political control, but also like england in it's last phase of neo-imperialismn trying to control other countries through economically ways - Today the US uses the same paradigma as europe in the last centruies - Let's heal and help the world by "endowing" them our way of life!! - And if thou'rt unwilling, then force I'll employ

Re:Kinda like the U.S.

[bruthasj]

It's easy, nearly every Chinese dynasty change-over went along with bloodshed, and treacherous acts. Yong zhen in the Qing dynasty is one example.

I can't remember the name of the dynasty, but there was once a group of brothers that were all potentially destined to be the next Huang Di (emperor). The youngest of the brothers created a cunning plan that brought all of them together in a room where a hired group mercenaries slaughtered them. The youngest subsequently became the emperor.

Let's face it, America is probably one of the longest running nations with power transitions that do not involve bloodshed. People are jealous; like crabs, the other nations will pull hard on the leg of America as it tries to crawl out of the bucket.

Re:Kinda like the U.S.

[talornin]

Yes. Europeans did those things. Centuries ago. We Europeans realised that forcing our way of life on other people is not good while you Americans where still cracking the whip on the backs of the slaves that build your nation for you!

Re:Kinda like the U.S.

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Don't forget that Hamas was in large part funded by Israel to create a strong opponent to the PLO. What an collosal backfire that was!

Re:Kinda like the U.S.

[RogerWilco]

The USA might not be the only one supporting dictators and terrorists,
but they have quite an impressive list, and do not seem to learn from their mistakes.
A few examples:
- Ngo Dinh Diem (South vietnam)
- Marcos (Philipines)
- Mobutu (Zaire/Congo)
- Batista (Cuba)
- Banzer (Bolivia)
- Pinochet (Chili)
- Duvalier (Haiti)
- Somoza, Contra's (Nigueragua)
- Reza Pahlavi (Shah of Persia, now Iran)
- Chang kai chek (Taiwan)
- Ian smith (zimbabwe)
- Franco (Spain)
- Salazar (Portugal)
- Halie Selassie (Ethiopia)
- Papadopoulos (Greece)
- Park Chung Hee, Chun Doo Hwan (South korea)
- Jonas Savimbi (Angola)
- Garcia, Martinez (El Salvador)
- Branco (Brasil)
- Videla (Argentina)
- Noriega (Panama)
- Suharto (Indonesia, East Timor, West Papua)
- Bin Laden (Afganistan)
- Saddam Houssain (Irak)
- King Fahd (Saudi Arabia)

Re:Kinda like the U.S.

[Alsee]

This may seem like a flip question, but really, what exactly are the Americans (or anyone else) supposed to learn? Exactly how are they supposed to adjust?

The only lesson I see is that when you start with a bad situation the result is usually bad.

In most of the examples you and others have listed there has been "proxy" influence and support on opposite sides by various powers. When the Soviet Union, or China, or whoever else start suppying cash and weapons and whatever else to some particularly distasteful group attempting to seize control of some random country, what response does your "lesson" suggest? Doing nothing and letting a foreign power install a murderous dictator into power in that country?

The options appear to be (1) to do nothing and let dictators be installed by foriegn powers in other foriegn countries. (2) Declare war on the bigger foriegn power attempting to exert that influence. (3) Attempt to create and support a new mini-USA faction within that country. (4) Support an existing opposion faction within that country.

I believe with option (1) we would be in a far worse situation globally, with far more of the world oppressed under far worse dictators/governments. Option (2), well we'd all be dead from a US-USSR or US-China nuclear war. Option (3) would be imperialst, generate far more outrage, and generally a complete failure with no internal support. The final result with be the same as option (1), exept with people even more pissed off.

That leaves option (3). And the problem with option (3) is that we are already looking at a bad situation. You don't get much choice in who to support. There's usually only two or three sides that have any resonable chance of winning against the other foriegn-backed group. o you pick the side that seems least evil and hope for the best.

I really really wish there were a better solution. I really hope you have some better suggestion to offer, but I really don't see what "lesson" you are offering. I don't see what better alternative you are offering.

For example in the Afghanistan situation, should the US simply have done nothing and watched the Soviet Union conqure Afghanistan? Should the US have declared war on the Soviet Union? Should the US have sent money to found a Democracy, one which had no local support and would have been overrun by taks? Do we attempt to install a democracy by landing a 100,000 troops with guns and tanks to install a Democracy by force? Or do you simply aid the only local rebel/freedom-fighter army of any consequence? Hind-sight is 20-20, there was no way to know just how that local government would turn out years later.

You also seem to complain that "the country was left to duke it out on its own". But I thought your point was that the US should NOT meddle in foriegn politics. At the beginning it was the US giving aid to someone to counter funds and force coming from somewhere else. Afterwars, well now there's realy only one side left in the country, and they no longer want US "aid" telling them how to run their own business. Do we turn around an impose a US-style government at gunpoint? Or do we pick some other tiny opposition force within the country and forment a civil war? A civil war that would result in the tiny opposition being immediately crushed, or that would require the landing of a massive US invasion force.

Politics is messy. I really wish there were good and simple solutions. When faced with a bad situation to start with, the result often sucks no matter what you do. Either that or you have to go on a rampage to conqure the world yourself.

-

Re:Kinda like the U.S.

[Maudib]

the discussion wasnt about supporting dictators or terrorism, it was about the use of proxies for warfare. Also Franco was put in power by the Germans, not the U.S.

You of course ommitted many other governments that the u.s. have installed/supported who would otherwise not exist as they do.
S.K.
Japan
Taiwan
W. Germany
France
Italy
Greece
The current democratic Philipines

Most notable about your list is that it is comprised of countries that were just as idiotic, undemocratic and oppressive/poor as they were before the presence of the U.S.

We didnt do a very good job, in some case we were down right evil. But at least recognize the success stories too.

Re:Kinda like the U.S.

[RogerWilco]

>the discussion wasnt about supporting dictators or terrorism, it was >about the use of proxies for warfare.

You're right I'm drifting off topic

-snip-

>We didnt do a very good job, in some case we were down right evil. >But at least recognize the success stories too.

Point taken, during/after WWII the USA did great, both in W.Europe and Japan, we here in Europe are still in dept to you for that.

One last question you do not need to answer: what's the difference between Castro and Hussain that they got treated so differently?
(both before and after the invasion of Kuwait in 1990)

A moot point now that SCO is...

[rokzy]

dying!

Re:A moot point now that SCO is...

[daniel_mcl]

They are very much *not* dying -- if you look at the year's chart, you can see an enormous peak beginning around June, and they're just now settling back into their old stock price; they're still about 20% above where their stock price was this time last year. The sad thing is, being evil pays nowadays.

Re:A moot point now that SCO is...

[loyalsonofrutgers]

Wait a minute, wait a minute. Everyone knows that nothing dies until netcraft confirms it.

Re:A moot point now that SCO is...

[swv3752]

What revenue do they have? After the lawsuits, SCO is over. What we are seeing here is the final twitches of a dying company. Unfortunately, some see death throes as dings of life.

Re:A moot point now that SCO is...

[Too Much Noise]

Being evil always paid well in the short term. The trick seems to lay in recognizing the right moment for stepping back into the shadow. Luckily, that moment passed SCO by quite a while ago.

Re:A moot point now that SCO is...

[Alsee]

Better graph. Yahoo SCOX 3 month large linear line graph.

The 6 month graph is pretty too :)

The bump in early April was a big SCO buy-back to inflate the price. Some investors had a contract allowing them to pull out if the stock price was below a certain threshhold for a certain time period. Buying up the price allowed them to hold onto the inventment cash, but it also pumped cash/value out of the company. The money they used simply evaporated went the price went back down.

So that early April bump actually shows SCO digging themselves deeper into a hole.

-

Re:A moot point now that SCO is...

[daniel_mcl]

Unfortunately, companies don't need any revenue to make their directors very, very rich; observe the Enron scandal. And to an extent, many companies have become a vehicle for the enrichment of the higher-ups at the expense of more ordinary people.

Re:A moot point now that SCO is...

[juhaz]

Stock charts are not supposed to look like a bell curve.

Dropping that fast from top of an "enormous peak" like that pretty much means they very much *ARE* dying.

Sure, the directors may still get out of the sinking ship, and be richer to boot, but the company is going down.

In related news...

[gid13]

Novell sues Caldera for revealing Novell's hand in it.

Cowboy Neal?

[dominick]

What the viewers at home really want to know is... how is CowboyNeal involved in this conspiracy?

It's sad. Laugh.

[AceJohnny]

I would laugh my ass off if this wasn't so sad. Can you believe that justice, through litigation, has become just another corporate weapon? Oh wait, we knew that already.

Nevertheless, the irony would be enough to kill a medium-sized vulcan town.

Re:It's sad. Laugh.

[itsari]

Nevertheless, the irony would be enough to kill a medium-sized vulcan town.

Like this one?

Novell found guilty

[YouHaveSnail]

it has to be said, innocent until proven guilty

It's nice that you want to keep an open mind, but paragraphs 3, 4, and 5 of Judge Jackson's findings, Novell did indeed arrange secretly for Caldera to sue Microsoft, essentially on Novell's behalf. I think that qualifies as "proven guilty."

Re:Novell found guilty

[Squareball]

Open mind, yes, but "innocent until proven guilty" is missing one word in front of it and that word is "presumed". If you kill some one you aren't 'innocent' at all, you are just presumed innocent by the law. This is one of the things that bugs me is that when some one like O.J. is being hounded by the press and people are calling him a killer, people get outraged about it and say "He is innocent until proven guilty!", but really he is presumed innocent by the government and this whole thing ONLY applys to the government. I can presume that some one is guilty all I want.

Re:Novell found guilty

[sp0rk173]

I know this wasn't the intention, but the implications behind what you said is extremely funny..

"It's nice that you want to keep an open mind, but here's why you shouldn't."

Fuck idealism, right? I mean...we're talking about MICROSOFT here! Idealism only belongs in linux.

That being said, microsoft is poopy.

Re:Novell found guilty

[CaptainFrito]

"innocent until proven guilty" is missing one word in front of it and that word is "presumed".

The overwhelming majority are innocent. Thus the presumption is based, not on some act of misplaced kindness that permits wealthy and influential to escape justice, but a simple acknowledgment of the true fact. Such injustice happens by other means. The presumption of innocence allows people to exist without be harrassed in the absence of reasonable evidence to the contrary.

And you are flat wrong about the government, anyway. The government prosecutes as a direct result of their presumption of guilt based on its unproven evidence. The Law, and not the government, presumes innocence. It is always a scary thing when people confuse government with law, even scarier when they equate the two.

But perhaps most frightening of all is when poeple confuse law with morality and uprightness. These are independent concepts, and as with intergalactic comets, only rarely do they meet each other.

Re:Novell found guilty

[yintercept]

I can presume that some one is guilty all I want.

There are some restrictions on published media, which is why the word alleged is awkwardly inserted into media reports.

In some places the word alleged works quite well. For example "the alleged software development firm SCO..."

Re:Novell found guilty

[cyberchondriac]

The overwhelming majority are innocent
I hope that you're talking about the population in general here, and not crime suspects in general. The majority of criminal suspects are not innocent, and they are in fact, suspects, because the evidence indicates such. Usually, where there's smoke, there's fire. Note that I did not say always, but usually. That's majority.

The Law, and not the government, presumes innocence. It is always a scary thing when people confuse government with law, even scarier when they equate the two
True, but in this context, I think you're splitting hairs. Laws are executed and enforced by whatever Government is current at the time, so, for the posters intents and purposes, the same.
It all boils down to common sense. If a strange guy comes running out of an old woman's house with a bloody knife in his hand, blood all over his shirt and face, wads of jewelry and cash hanging out of his back pocket, and hops into a car and takes off leaving behind a stabbed-to-death, burglared woman in the house, chances are pretty good he's guilty. There's always a chance he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and didn't do it, which is why our system presumes innocent until proven guilty, but it doesn't take rocket science or advanced statistical analysis to figure out he's more than likely the murderer.

Re:Novell found guilty

[YouHaveSnail]

It's not that one shouldn't keep an open mind. It's just that it's a little late to presume that Novell is "innocent," because a judge found that they did in fact have this secret arrangement with Caldera.

Re:Novell found guilty

[drinkypoo]

The purpose of the law is to uphold morality and, if not uprightness, at least rightness. If that's even a word, anyway. Morality is different and so the law is meant to steer a course that takes it through the average. As a result of our bunglings along these lines, both those who believe in the sanctity of all life and those who believe in none of it are frustrated, but that's life in the big city.

The politicians dream up the laws, the lawyers write them, more politicians decide if we should live by them, and we can gradually swing the system around by firing or hiring the occasional politician. You should be voting for people who share your morality as best you can, or else you're going to end up living by someone else's.

Re:Novell found guilty

[Janek Kozicki]

hey! you shoud say "proven innocent".

Why on earth everyone here talks that suing microsoft is evil?! it's the opposite. Suing microsoft is a Good Thing (tm)

Re:Novell found guilty

[Short Circuit]

Who's morality? Who's "rightness"?

Everyone has their own values, usually more or less derived from their parents and their religion/church. That's one of the important things about Democracy: Majority rule helps uphold the views of as many people as possible.

Certainly, most people will feel themselves limited in one form or another by the law. (Take speed limits, for example.) However, for any given specific matter, under ideal conditions, democracy helps gaurantee that most people will agree with the Law's view.

I won't go so far to say that we live under ideal conditions.

Re:Novell found guilty

[Dausha]

. . . is presumed innocent by the government and this whole thing ONLY applys to the government. I can presume that some one is guilty all I want.

Unless the individual is not a public figure, you tell everybody he is guilty, and he is found innocent. Then, you're guilty of slander and/or libel (if you wrote it down).

Re:Novell found guilty

[TheViewFromTheGround]

The overwhelming majority are innocent. Thus the presumption is based, not on some act of misplaced kindness that permits wealthy and influential to escape justice, but a simple acknowledgment of the true fact. Such injustice happens by other means. The presumption of innocence allows people to exist without be harrassed in the absence of reasonable evidence to the contrary.

Actually, I think there's a better explanation of this than the one you've given and that has been followed by a series of arguments that most accused perps are guilty without citing any data pro or contra. More importantly, this presumption is based on the notion that legal innocence is almost impossible to prove, but legal guilt is, in principle and in fact, provable. Hannah Arendt makes this point quite persuasively in On Revolution.

The rest of your comment doesn't make a lot of sense: it's incoherent and dogmatic Enlightenment liberalism. First, law is a kind of morality in some sense. Several strong philosophical accounts (see Alasdair MacIntyre, for example) see law as a set of precepts governing relationships and actions which are detrimental to a shared project. So, in such schemes (which start, systematically, with Aristotle, and remain with us in a variety of forms), law is a very special subset of morality which defines that which is actionably "bad". One may fail to be a good citizen on account of lying or be incompetent at a given job or be an asshole and that would be bad in a broader moral sense. Or one might break contracts or murder, which has the potential not just to be part of the inherent friction of a society trying to reach and transcend certain goals but to actually break the society in a more fundamental ways, and so is a kind of morality that the society takes it upon itself to be actionable. Note that I'm synthesizing a lot of Locke and Rosseau and social contract theory with the Aristotelian account, but I think that it's a fair characterization. I've taken a few law school classes now in my graduate program with some of the foremost legal scholars and litigators in the country and I can tell you that they certainly proceed in precisely this way, whether they specify a utilitarian purpose to law or a higher, more metaphysical purpose, they have in mind a moral role for law in the limited way I've descibed. I'm not saying this is an absolute truth, but to put in question your assumption that law doesn't operate in a moral way. It most certainly does, and you can demonstrate that historically as well as in contemporary discourse.

I see your point about the law and government, though I really think you might want to think about it as courts and government. Government, in the US, in the form of the Congress, has the power to make law. What I think you meant was that courts and government are not the same thing, which is true, more-or-less, of our system. But, as has happened in several cases, the Congress has bypassed Supreme Court rulings--for example, in the case of pregnancy, when the Supreme Court said it was okay as a source of discrimination in health-care benefits packages by employers, the Congress tightened the Civil Rights Act to say explicitly that it wasn't okay. It was in their power because the court didn't decide on the constitutionality of legislating such a mandate, only on the legality, in the abscence of such a mandate, of differential treatment for pregnant women and everybody else in employment benefits packages. So it's a little more complicated in the US system than you make it out to be.

Re:Novell found guilty

[sp0rk173]

Like i said - i'm sure it wasn't the intention.

Re:Novell found guilty

[Too Much Noise]

The purpose of the law is to uphold morality and, if not uprightness, at least rightness.

I applaud your idealistic perspective, but I must disagree with you.

The purpose of law throughout the history was (and still is) to be an instrument use by those with power to preserve it. You can put pretty faces on it, but in the end that's its purpose. Even the idealistic view about law in a democracy (assuming it working as it should, not as it does in practical cases) is based on this - people's power, people's law. The majority's, to be more precise. And it's quite simple to justify it, actually - you must have power to enforce the law.

Morality is a less clear-cut issue, as too many ingredients got mixed in along the way. Anyway, morality is concerned with good and evil, but in a way 'enforced' through education and coming from traditions that need not be connected to the law. In fact, you can notice that a significant part of it has religious roots, as the Church was for a very long time the sole arbiter in matters of good and evil. As such, morality is a separate instrument of power from the law - witness the frequency of disagreements between the ruling power and the Church throughout history based on (the Church's) morality vs. (the ruler's) law issues (case to the point: the emergence of the Anglican church).

That being said, I tend to agree with the previous AC post saying it's better to vote for someone sharing your belief in law. They will tend to dream up laws that will fit better with your life patterns. This is the power they have. They don't have the power to alter morality - that requires a little more than just laws.

Re:Novell found guilty

[Radon Knight]

The purpose of the law is to uphold morality

The relationship between the law and morality is a complex one. The position you are asserting is an extreme form of natural law theory. According to natural law theory, there is a necessary overlap between law and morality. Your position is an extreme form because the overlap is, effectively, entire: the prohibitions and permissions supported by law are exactly those prohibitions and permissions supported by morality.

Natural law theory has a (very) long tradition, tracing back at least to St. Aquinas.

An alternate position is that of Legal Positivism, which asserts that the law and morality are conceptually distinct. Being that they are conceptually distinct, there need not be, in principle, any overlap between the two. Although, in practice, there will always be significant overlap. However, the existence of this overlap, from the point of view of legal positivism, is not necessary.

Google "philosophy of law" and you'll find a number of sites that you can read for further details. One good site is here.

Re:Novell found guilty

[CaptainFrito]

I did not mean to suggest that all, or even most, of those arrested are innocent. But the law adds the presumption of innocence because society at large is innocent. But it is perhaps more dangerous to assume all those arrested are guilty. Charged phrases like "perps" -- short for "perpetrators" -- imputes guilt before examination of evidence in open court. Those with this attitude, to me, are truly bone-chilling to be around. Many people, even in the US have been railroaded, knowingly falsely prosecuted and even executed.

If the Law were fair, it would hold up people who were involved with wrongly convicting someone -- regardless of the crime and regardless of the intent of those prosecuting -- to the death penalty if found to be wrong. This should extend to their families and should be automatic. Prosecutors, judges, juries, the whole lot of them. That would give them something to think about.

And people that have such a "kill 'em all, let God sort 'em out attitude" are themselves lawless and immoral. They cultivate that attitude because of pure arrogance. Ironically, if there were true justice, then these would be the first to be among the some 7% of innocents that get executed in the US each year. (Stats as reported by the Economist, subject to my flawed memory) As to me being 'dogmatic', get a dictionary. The 'law' has a completely different definition than does 'government', and both differ from 'morality' and 'uprightness'. That's one reason that they are spelled different and sound different. But more to the point, the US Government is immune from prosecution in most cases, which proves that it was always known that the Government and the Law were independent concepts. Otherwise, it would not be necessary to grant such immunity. And as for Law vs. Uprightness/Morality, there have been scads of Laws that have been immoral and crooked. Slavery for one. And many unrighteous laws exist and persist now. The US Government (and all others that I know of) still has the "right" (military might, that is) to enslave people. Look at the military draft for instance.

And, YOUR inability to properly understand what I was writing of does not mean I was incoherent. It means my arguments were simply over your head, regardless of the 'common man' grasp of philoshophies you have. In fact it is just more evidence of your arrogance: you assume that I must be just like a more famous philospher you know better than I do, and presume your knowledge and understanding are deeper than mine, and that I am not capable of your level of 'understanding'. Enlightened Liberalism? I hardly think so. That line of philosphy argues that man can rule man successfully -- as do all the other people you mention -- wheras I do not. History has proven that not one of man's philosophies leads him to happiness or perfection. And we've been recycling those same tired philosophies, over and over, century after century, millenium after millenium, as you unwittingly have pointed out. They are just variations on a totally misguided theme. If I were to identify with one worldly philospher (though some call him an economist) would be Bastiat (although he too thinks that man can successfully rule man, whereas, again, I do not). You missed him in your diatribe. Perhaps you should read more.

As for a perfect morailty and uprightness defined by men in a system of man's laws, well that simply a contradiction in terms, given that most innately realize mankind is imperfect. For me, I look to a completely different kind of government. And you have been brainwashed by Academia (or the Philosophy Channel, not sure which).

And for such an academic, you certainly miss a lot. For example, you say that, "Government, in the US, in the form of the Congress, has the power to make law." Well, that's a little off the mark, but no doubt what the US Educational System, which is unquestionably a branch of the Federal Government, has taught you beacuse it is in the Government's best inte

Re:Novell found guilty

[Alsee]

The purpose of the law is to uphold morality

Only if you use a rather specific and limited definition of morality.

For example you have a right not to be murdered. If you define "morality" only as not violating such rights then everything is fine. If your definition of "morality" goes beyond that then piss-off, the puprose of law is NOT to uphold morality at all. The authors of our constitution did NOT want religion or such "morality" anywhere near the law!

If you think a Satan-worshiping interracial homosexual marriage who do not honor their parents and burn the flag, who insult you and your religion, prideful greeydy envyous angry lustful glottonous slothful people, yada yada yada, yada yada yada, offensive in any number of ways, if ANY of that falls within the realm of morality, if you think anything LIKE that falls within the relam of morality, well thats OK. You can say any or all of that is immoral if you like. But then the answer is no, morality has nothing to do with the law!

If you want to "help people get into heaven" and encourage them to be moral in any number of ways, then go ahead. Help them, teach them, encourage them all you like on your own time as a private citizen. But you have NO BUSINESS hijacking the government and the force of law to stick a gun to people's heads to "help them get into heaven".

-

Re:Novell found guilty

[Alsee]

"the alleged software development firm SCO..."

What's your source?

I haven't heard anyone make that allegation in quite some time.

-

Re:Novell found guilty

[tehcyder]

I can presume that some one is guilty all I want

You're confusing your moral views with the law and then somehow equating them.

In terms of the law "innocent" means "not found guilty". Someone is indeed innocent until a court of law has proved that they are guilty.

The process of law does not (at least in the US/British criminal system) claim to find out the 'truth'. So even if you did somehow 'know' an acquitted person was guilty of an offence, it is irrelevant as far as the law is concerned.

He said she said.

[Alan Hicks]

Linux Weekly News had an article about this several days ago, and it's been talked about on Groklaw. Basically Caldera claims that there was an unwritten, oral contract between Novell and Canopy that said they would sue MS on behalf of Novell, and not reveal Novell's hand in it.

Of course Novell responds in the negative. Canopy is using a rather interesting attack here though. Many of the people working with Canopy now worked for Novell back when this suppossed oral contract took place. They claim no one at Novell knows about it because all those people who once worked for Novell have moved on. This of course puts them in the spot of saying "We know everything because we were there and you people running Novell now have no idea what you're talking about. Our guys worked for Novell back then, and they know what was said."

Novell's defense is simple. Show me a written contract.

Re:He said she said.

[AndroidCat]

*Coffee-Spray*! Whereas Caldera is now SCO Group who is suing people over the Unix that they have no idea what they're talking about.

Re:He said she said.

[Monkelectric]

I really actually like Novell more after this. MS fucked them and they knew it, and they also knew that to retaliate against MS would mean their end. This is not an "Novell is evil" story, this is a "Microsot is so evil that even when we KNOW they are in the wrong we can't do anything because they can destroy us" story. Look how they wiggled out of monoply stuff as strong as ever, and don't seem to be acting any differently.

Re:He said she said.

[cooldev]

Cognitive dissonance.

Re:He said she said.

[Halfbaked Plan]

Actually, it's more of a 'Ray Noorda is a bitter, bitter man, and he doesn't care what kind of a legal precedent his revenge sets, or what kind of machinery it sets in motion' story.

But anyhow, I guess we carry on. It isn't like half the Linux community cheered on a litigious legalistic battle against Microsoft or anything. . . is it?

Re:He said she said.

[Halfbaked Plan]

Actually 18 hours apart. Didn't attend the class where they taught you how to tell time, etc??

The comment was reposted because the first posting was 'zeroed without a reason' which means one of the people who 'run the site' marked it down (censored it), not a regular moderator.

They really should lose their 'common carrier' status and become liable for any and every comment made on this website, if they're going to edit comments directly.

Timothy, was it you?

So I can be sued because.....

[3seas]

..... I'm and Open Source Developer using the GPL and contributing my work to Linux.... ... and teh rationality for being sue-able is because so and so unrelated companies are doing some circus act and majic tricks that have nothing to do with me and my work...

FreeSoftware will only become genuinely free when it becomes easy enough to create that most anyone, regardless of their limited resources (time, knowledge, etc.) can do it for themselves. And this is based upon the primary objective of programming, which is:

Programming is the act of automating complexity so as to make it easy to use and reuse that complexity by the user, regardless of who that user is. This act is a recursive act as shown in programming in any language above machine language, in that such language above machine language is itself an automation of complexity for creating further automations of complexity.

So.... does this mean teh world is going to be sued for reaching the ultimate programming objective and putting those with lessor intents out of business?

Your enemy's enemy...

[actiondan]

Your enemy's enemy is potentially someone who will sneak up behind you when you least expect it and stab you in the back.

Seems quite a few people need to learn that lesson.

Dan.

Live by the sword, die by the sword.

[Anonymous Coward]

Novell is a extremely ironic situation.

They had the rights to AT&T Unix stuff.

BSD Unix was a free OS that was used to create stuff like TCP/IP and other things that directly related to the early commercial success of Unix.

As a show of gratitude companies led by Novell helped sue to stop the free distribution of the BSD operating system. They claimed they just wanted to protect their IP.

Eventually when it turned out that the court case would end up being painfull they settled out of court.

It finally made it so that BSD had to remove every bit of code that was related to Unix. This turned into a near fatal blow to BSD, one that they never recovered from.

Now Novell owns a Linux Distro. A Unix compatable operating system dedicated to being free.

The owners of the Unix IP are suing them to stop the distribution of Linux and pay royalties to a company that they helped create.

A company (Caldera, original SCO change it's name and sold its company off to Caldera) whose early success came directly from using Linux!

Live buy the sword, die by the sword.

Hopefully this will be a lesson to the industry don't bite the hand that feeds you (free software).

Re:Live by the sword, die by the sword.

[cperciva]

As a show of gratitude companies led by Novell helped sue to stop the free distribution of the BSD operating system

No. Novell acquired the AT&T IP after the lawsuite was already in progress.

It finally made it so that BSD had to remove every bit of code that was related to Unix. This turned into a near fatal blow to BSD

Hardly. Most files from AT&T UNIX were licensed under the terms of the BSD license; only a very few files had to be removed, and they were very easily replaced.

Re:Live by the sword, die by the sword.

[Lehk228]

This turned into a near fatal blow to BSD, one that they never recovered from.

The most complex BSD is dying troll ever?

Re:Live by the sword, die by the sword.

[Alan Hicks]

only a very few files had to be removed, and they were very easily replaced

I can't comment on how easy they were to replace (I obviously didn't work on them), but it does seem true that the stir and contraversy over BSD allowed the growth of another free operating system without a lot of open source competition, namely linux. I don't think anyone would argue that *BSD's install base would be much larger had the law suit never taken place and created so much FUD. The various BSD's would likely hold the same niche that many linux boxen now hold.

Re:Live by the sword, die by the sword.

[Anonymous Coward]

AT&T developed UNIX as a typesetting system (which it is still good for), but most of the value was added by BSD. When you think of UNIX, imagine it without BSD sockets, without paged virtual memory, without job control, without even vi. Not a very useful system, eh?

On the other hand, the original BSD was developed through a series of state-funded academic projects, and was not `free software' in the GNU hippie sense. It was developed mostly by graduate students with specific mandates to implement particular features, and not by the mythical bazaar of Linux lore.

Re:Live by the sword, die by the sword.

[Anonymous Coward]

the stir and contraversy over BSD allowed the growth of another free operating system

The growth of Linux is more due to the license than due to any doubts about the legitimacy of BSD. The unfortunate truth about the BSD license is that the majority of changes to BSD code do not return to the community, but are incorporated into propietary applications and operating systems. This is what makes the BSD license "more free" than the GPL, because it does allow for appropriation iof code, but does not ensure continued development of a free version as the GPL does.

Re:Live by the sword, die by the sword.

[x3ro]

It finally made it so that BSD had to remove every bit of code that was related to Unix. This turned into a near fatal blow to BSD, one that they never recovered from.

Eh? I think you'll find *BSD is alive and well. Via Darwin (Mac OS X's open-source kernal, a close sibling to FreeBSD) it's reached a far more significant section of the desktop market than any other Unix flavour, including Liunx.

Hmmm.... And what if:

[Lukano]

We will soon discover that it was truly Microsoft funding Novell in a behind-closed-doors manner to create the deal with Canopy in order to hype up the media attention around unix/linux/bsd all in order to drive SCO/Canopy/Caldera into the ground. Novell's merger with Suse then becomes an easy way for Microsoft and Novell to take a larger chunk of the open source OS market away from the big players (read: Novell then scrapping Suse or giving it away to MS to play with in their sandbox) and become their own litle megalopoly.

Just spewing out semi-humorous consipracy theories, as all the twists and turns in these shenanigans are quite amusing.

Re:Hmmm.... And what if:

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Microsoft funding Novell in a behind-closed-doors manner to create the deal with Canopy in order to hype up the media attention around unix/linux/bsd all in order to drive SCO/Canopy/Caldera into the ground

There's one tiny flaw in your logic: with knobs like Ransome Love and Darl McBride at Caldera's helm, Microsoft didn't need to bother doing anything to run Caldera to the ground. They did that themselves just fine...

For those not familiar

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Novell was to be awarded around 17% of the Microsoft settlement money, but of course, as the money lovers they are, Canopy wanted more and sued Novell over their share of the pie.

Also, while Caldera initiated the suit against Microsoft, Caldera later split in two and the DRDOS operations went to the embedded division, called Caldera Thin Clients, then later Lineo. Lineo never got much of the settlement money, Canopy and Caldera Inc (the original company, who had nothing to do with DOS anymore for years when the suit ended) got most of it. And their lawyers.

Oh, and also, you might be interested to know that Ray Noorda, the man behind the suit against Microsoft, was the former CEO of Novell, and everybody close to the suit knew Caldera was Novell's tool.

Re:For those not familiar

[Halfbaked Plan]

The DR-DOS suit was a personal revenge operation by Noorda. He hates and reviles Microsoft, and through his whole weight and corporate influence against them.

It's Not Like This Wasn't Obvious

[hbo]

At the time, it was clear that the sale of DR-DOS to Caldera/Canopy was to allow the lawsuit to commence without tying Novell to it too closely. The details of the arrangement are interesting nevertheless. It wasn't a case of the Novell board refusing to go along with a vendetta by Ray Noorda against Microsoft. Instead,the arrangement was specifically designed to allow Novell to realize some of the monetary value the (iron-clad, caught-you-in-the-act) antitrust claims contained.

The connection to the SCO/IBM suit is also obvious, if you ignore any good guy/bad guy spin. It's the same business model playing out in the new case, but hopefully with different results.

Re:It's Not Like This Wasn't Obvious

[Rick and Roll]

I expected someone like you to pipe up and say that you'd already thought of this twist and turn in the story. There are a ton of you on /.. If you really thought so, why didn't you say so earlier? You could have a reference to another post where you mentioned it.

Anyway, you guys are karma-whoring jackasses. May you be modded to hell.

Re:It's Not Like This Wasn't Obvious

[hbo]

Ray Noorda left Novell at the same time DR-DOS was sold to Caldera. The lawsuit was filed shortly after. It seemed then as though Novell had objected to Noorda filing the lawsuit, and Ray had left to pursue his well-know vendetta against Microsoft, using the IP from Digital Research, who had been famously aced out of the IBM contract for a PC operating system by Bill Gates, and later crushed out of existence like so many others who tried to stand in Microsoft's way.

That Novell didn't want to be associated with a lawsuit against the notoriously vindictive and ruthless Microsoft was obvious at the time. If it wasn't so to you, (assuming you were out of grammer school in 1996) there's not much I can help you with there.

Re:It's Not Like This Wasn't Obvious

[Rick and Roll]

Good points, I guess for a change someone really knows what they're talking about. Yes I am young, and didn't read much of the news back then. I had no idea it was in 1996. I thought it was in 1998 or 1999.

Anyway, I was making my point mainly against the dozens who posted things to the same effect in other stories. In fact, when I read the article I predicted that someone would say they already knew it and looked for the first one. Oh well, I missed my target I guess.

Re:It's Not Like This Wasn't Obvious

[hbo]

No problem. Thanks for taking it back. That shows courage. Sorry for the counter-zinger.

Carrying on a discussion in a public forum like this is tricky. There are lots of folks looking for a fight, and a lot of nonsense besides. I find it useful to sit on my hands for a little bit before starting any posting here. Then I hit "preview" a bunch of times while composing. I'm vain about my writing, so I read it over, checking for spelling and style. By the time I'm through, I may decide to go back and change stuff I'm not too sure about. It not only saves me embarassment, but often I find that my first thoughts on a subject contain bullshit. Correcting this sometimes helps me change what I think about stuff. All I give up is some time and a shot at the "frist post." 8)

Re:Caldera and Novell are the same company..

[fanatic]

Novell is in no way owned by Canopy. Canopy does involve Ray Noorda, who was (I think) CEO of Novell, but that's not the same thing, especially now.

Re:Caldera and Novell are the same company..

[grendelkhan]

They are both owned by the Canopy Group

No, the Canopy Group and Novell were both founded by Ray Noorda, the Canopy Group being the company he started after being booted out of Novell.

Why would anyone believe anything SCO said?

[AbitNutz]

This falls under the catagory of "who cares". I mean,the SCO group coming out and saying there was an "unwritten agreement"...geez, they make up stuff about the written ones...let alone the unwritten ones.

pop culture

[Doc Ruby]

Suing a company that damages yours, when you have evidence, is good for everyone (except the damager). The SCO monster was created by its executives and directors, who sue without evidence. Of the financial enablers of this monster, greater than those parties to the suit vs. Microsoft are those in the investment community who enable investors to pump money into SCO shareholder hands, while SCO groundlessly sues IBM etc. Those benefitting shareholders are primarily SCO executives and directors, and their lawyers. In light of the conflicts of interest of 1990s tech investment "analysts", I would also not be surprised to find the analysts, their brokerages, and their accountants all with some (literally) vested interest in the SCO lawsuit stock bubble.

No, you're safe

[Donny Smith]

You're safe for now because I believe most people can't figure out what it is that you're saying.

>Programming is the act of automating complexity ... creating further automations of complexity...

You've been fairly successful in encoding the ultimate compexity in your posting, therefore you're King of Complexity and Hero of Open Source!
Check your code for looping bugs, though!

Re:No, you're safe

[3seas]

Good example of an analogy for the arguement against the hindu-arabic decimal system in an effort to keep the roman numeral elite in business.

Like saying "how can nothing have value?" in suppression of the value of "zero".

there is no compound complexity as you suggest.

There is only defining a complexity so as to have an easier to use interface to its use.

Where the recursion is simply that of further creating complexity using the easier to use interfaces to parts you are including in the complexity you are now creating and automating to have its own easier to use interface....

But you know that the recursion of the concept is simple...but how many were fooled into thinking the value of "zero" couldn't be, simple because someone made it out to appear valueless, using abstractions called "words", to mislead?

Still, the point is: The ultimate goal of programming is that of making things easier to use..... but being sued for reaching that goal iss a contridiction to the goal.

For court does not make using automations easier at all but only injects FUD...

Re:No, you're safe

[Paradigm Lost]

Ergo, concordantly, vis-a-vis... you know what? I have no idea what I'm saying. I just thought it would make me sound cool.

Novell and Noorda

[einhverfr]

Novell was at the time headed by Ray Noorda, who was instrumental in the Canopy Group which was funding Caldera. It just that in addition to providing the litigation funding, it seems that they have also provided the litigation-friendly-managers which SCO and Canopy now are using to launch their campaign.

Re:Does it get any better?

[Lukano]

I keep telling people that this would have made one hell of a movie!!! If they had this on the big screen before it happened in real life, I for one would have enjoyed watching it unfold.

Oh wai... I am! :)

How this is different from SCO shilling for M$

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a big difference between Novel and Microsoft's use of SCO. Motives, party deceived and factual basis and merit are all different. Microsoft, of course, is the root of both evils.

Novel sought to hide it's involvement from Microsoft, fearing retaliation. It would be easy enough for Microsoft to have done that, as the DRDOS case itself proved. At the time, Microsoft making your code look bad was deadly. Novel sought to protect itself from Microsoft and recover a little of the damage already done.

Microsoft sought to hide it's involvement with SCO from the public and watching anti-trust regulators. Microsoft learned that their public smear campaign against free software had backfired and sought proxies to say the same things. Microsoft seeks to further injure it's competitors but does not dare level such factually unsubstantiated charges themselves. The rapidly disintegrating SCO case is proving that there was never any merit to the accusations and the whole thing was designed simply to slander a competitor they can't break by any other means.

Both cases show what happens to people who deal with Microsoft.

Re:How this is different from SCO shilling for M$

[Alsee]

More refreshing self-delusion from the people who desperately want to believe Microsoft are the root of all evil.

He did not say Microsoft is the root of all evil. He said Microsoft was the root of BOTH evils.

In the first case, the courts clearly found Microsoft to have been in the wrong. "Evil", if you will.

In this second case, internal information has leaked that seems to pretty solidly pin Microsoft as being behind the SCO case. There is no final court resolution on the SCO case, but the press claims completely conflict with the court claims, the court claims a floping about like a fish on a dock, and a look at the counter-evidence indicates little chance that SCO will prevail on ANY of their claims. So if SCO loses and it really is the frivolous case it seems to be, then yeah, Microsoft will have been instigating an "evil" again. "Evil", at least in the sence if instigating a frivolous lawsuit.

Microsoft certainly has made some good and useful software, but they also routinely abuse their monopoly position and violating the law is pretty much standard operating procedure. Maybe that's not "evil", but it's certainly something.

-

Not a $300 million monster.

[David Hume]

Did Novell indirectly create a monster? Caldera's 300 million winnings against Microsoft are now being used to fund lawsuits against Linux (and Novell).

Actually, no. A portion (and I suspect a very significant portion) of Caldera's $300 million winnings against Microsoft went to Novell. That is the entire point of Novell's current lawsuit against Caldera. From the linked Salt Lake Tribune article, "Novell wins breach-of-contract dispute with Canopy Group":

Novell also was to receive a cut of any lawsuit awards in the form of so-called "royalties."

* * *

When Canopy prevailed against Microsoft and received the settlement, it tried to first deduct its attorney fees, court costs and other expenses, the judges found. Novell, believing its still-undisclosed cut of the award should have come on the gross amount, sued for breach of contract.

As stated in paragraph 5 of the opinion of the Utah Court of Appeals in Novell, Inc. v. The Canopy Group, Inc. (see also here):

To accomplish this, Novell and Canopy executed two separate documents: the first was a contract of sale, obligating Canopy to pay $400,000 for rights to the source code; the second was a temporary license obligating Canopy to pay $600,000 in license fees and "royalties." The royalties included provisions for payment to Novell of a percentage of any recoveries from lawsuits.

Novell may have created a monster, but not a $300 million monster. Indeed, Novell received some undisclosed portion of Caldera's recovery against Microsoft, which Novell can now use to battle... Caldera.

Actually, this still works well

[ShadowRage]

because even though caldera might have litigation power from all this, all it did was make their credibility get worse, in the end, they're still a fucked company, a pawn for the big guys.

also, this was CALDERA that was funded, not sco.

but in the end, it still doesnt matter.

Re:Actually, this still works well

[AndroidCat]

Caldera became the SCO Group. This soap opera is complicated.

The Lesson Here Is ...

[zangdesign]

Oral contracts are worth the paper they're written on.

Sure, an agreement with someone you've known for years is one thing, if the stakes are relatively low. But, otherwise, get it in writing.

It's hard to believe that people in charge of a corporation would be that stupid, but there it is.

Re:The Lesson Here Is ...

[iminplaya]

But, otherwise, get it in writing.

One of the lessons learned from Watergate is NOT put anything you don't want to come back and bite you on paper(or in that case, on tape). The other lessoned learned of course was to "burn the tapes".

I mean c'mon...

[Rick Zeman]

...why else would anyone by a DOS in 1996 except to use it to sue? I think the world had moved on by that point.

Re:I mean c'mon...

[mst76]

> ...why else would anyone by a DOS in 1996 except to use it to sue? I think the world had moved on by that point.

IBM is still selling PC-DOS for $67.

Re:I mean c'mon...

[drinkypoo]

DOS is still used today in many automation control and assorted embedded systems. You would be amazed and dismayed to learn just how many devices out there have a fully functional PC of some description in them. Remember, if you can write assembly code for the Z-80, you can write code for the 80xx and 80x86 processors and vice versa, and the most expandable and inexpensive examples of the 80xx and x86 lines are PCs, though not so much 80xx any more. However, there are a multitude of tiny 80286 through 80486 systems which are extremely inexpensive and frequently low power. Everything from the control systems in food production facilities, to the control systems of CNC lathes and mills, the operation of the smog check machine, and damn near anything else you can think of has been done using software running on a PC under some kind of DOS. The OS doesn't get in your way in the least unless you make BIOS calls, so if you do direct video writes (either to video memory, or by making video BIOS calls) you have control of the entire machine, letting you write fine-grained timing loops in which you count processor cycles and pick your operations accordingly so that you can track events which occur at very infrequent intervals, even by bit-banging.

It is likely that every day, you receive the benefit of work done by a DOS machine.

Re:I mean c'mon...

[Rick Zeman]

OS is still used today in many automation control and assorted embedded systems.

Wow...I said something incorrect and I got a pair of reasonable replies and no flamage.

Slashdot never ceases to surprise me. :-)

Re:I mean c'mon...

[tepples]

IBM is still selling PC-DOS for $67.

And now you can get DOS for the cost of disks and broadband.

No compasses

[marco0009]

Will the lack of working compasses affect those who fly planes and drive large boats across the ocean?

Jackson not exactly a bastian of impartiality

[Starrider]

It's nice that you want to keep an open mind, but paragraphs 3, 4, and 5 of Judge Jackson's findings, Novell did indeed arrange secretly for Caldera to sue Microsoft, essentially on Novell's behalf. I think that qualifies as "proven guilty."

And we all know how impartial Judge Jackson was. Jackson's improper conduct tainted the anti-trust trial, resulting in a situation that was neither fair to Microsoft or to the consumer. if Jackson had been professional, perhaps tougher punishments would have befallen MS.

Any rational person will take anything Jackson says as suspect. Once a judge shows complete disregard for impartiality, how can he ever be trusted to be impartial again?

Re:Jackson not exactly a bastian of impartiality

[stevesliva]

This is not the same Judge Jackson, not the same court, not the same state, and not the same finding. It is, however, the same nation, so by all means let us distrust judge Norman Jackson because judge Thomas Penfield Jackson talked to the press too much.

Re:Jackson not exactly a bastian of impartiality

[Starrider]

erm I'm an idiot... was definately way wrong here!

But now SCO is suing Linux on Microsoft's behalf!!

[konmaskisin]

...

Since Caldera bought SCO and MS had settled with DR-DOS when Caldera bought them.

More Unix "political disunity" to the advantage of MS and possibly at its behest.

===
NB: political disunity != technical disunity - almost all unix software is emminently portable to other Unix/Unixlike platforms ... win31/95/98/ME/2K/XP are not so lucky

Lets see here, History lesson.

[BCW2]

Thompson and Ritchie wrote Unix to play a game on. To make it portable they wrote C and a compiler. This was done at Bell Labs on their dime. They let Berkley, and some others, have copies to evaluate and improve, thus causing BSD, and other variants. AT&T allows this and causes the forking of Unix. Then through mirad stupidity and laywer speak we end up with todays chinese fire drill. All because AT&T did not think to guard their original IP by copyrighting it. Then allowed several groups to modify it without central control.

At least all Linux kernal mods have to be approved by Linus. It's more control than AT&T ever exerted when it mattered.

Re:Lets see here, History lesson.

[zenyu]

Then through mirad stupidity and laywer speak we end up with todays chinese fire drill. All because AT&T did not think to guard their original IP by copyrighting it. Then allowed several groups to modify it without central control.

AT&T did not think to copyright UNIX for a number of reasons. One was the legality of a copyright on software was still very questionable; remember when you "leased" proprietary software for 99 years? Another, was that AT&T was not allowed to sell hardware or software because of the settlement that had split off the hardware division, creating General Electric. A company that still today is somewhere in the list of the top five largest in the world.

Besides, UNIX would never have been a success if they hadn't decided not keep centralized control. No one uses CP/M or VAX OS today by choice. Even Microsoft works hard to keep developers interested in their platform, they just keep expanding the core too quickly because they are too paranoid for their own good.

Re:Lets see here, History lesson.

[Halfbaked Plan]

AT&T was also, at the time, 'The Phone Company' and a huge monopoly. They were carefully stepping around in the technology world at the time, and didn't need to become the commercial vendor of an Operating System to raise even more issues.

Re:Lets see here, History lesson.

[Igneous]

The original companies which went on to become General Electric and AT&T were both founded in the 1870's. GE is not, and never was, a division of AT&T. GE was one of the original 12 companies in the Dow Jones Industrial Average when it was first published on May 26, 1896. Google for details if you're interested.

Good point...

[acariquara]

From fool.com

Knowledgeable IP litigators have told me they think SCO has less than a 10% chance of prevailing in its cases, and even then, the courts' remedies would likely be a rewrite of the offending Linux code, not a cash windfall for SCO. BayStar Capital can afford to bet against the odds and lose. SCO cannot.

also SCO stock has an analyst rate of 5.0, strong sell. Actually it cannot be bigger than 5.0, so that can be loosely translated as jump ship.

Is it the end though? I doubt...

Re:Good point...

[Xenographic]

Knowledgeable IP litigators have told me they think SCO has less than a 10% chance of prevailing in its cases

I wonder if fool.com is just being nice here, or the lawyers were being cautious (which is reasonable)? An almost 0% chance would certainly be "less than 10%" as well ... :]

Re:Good point...

[Ben Hutchings]

"Chance" and probability only apply to random members of classes of situation, not to specific situations. It is possible to come up with a confidence level for a specific outcome in a specific situation but that depends upon choosing a class of situations that it belongs to for which the probability is known. The value is highly dependent on this subjective choice of class. So that value of 10% is either a crude attempt to quantify a feeling of "not very likely" or represents the percentage of suits in some particular (unspecified) class that are successful. I suspect it's the former.

The court decided "He said"

[Len]

The decision of the Utah Court of Appeals, which was also reported on Groklaw, says that there was a secret agreement that Canopy would sue Microsoft. Novell and Canopy were simply fighting over which of them should pay the cost of Canopy's suit against Microsoft.

Correction...

[argent]

You're wrong in almost every detail.

Thompson, Ritchie, Plauger, Kernighan, Pike, and so on used the PDP-7 and later PDP-11 for a number of purposes. UNIX started as a platform to experiment with file systems, the game (space war) was not related. AT&T Copyrighted and Trademarked UNIX, but as a regulated monopoly were legally constrained from selling UNIX commercially.

At no time were they in a position where they lost control because they were "stupid" or "didn't copyright it".

Re:Correction...

[BCW2]

Thompson and Ritchie wrote unix so they would not have to port space war to the PDP 11 from thr PDP 7 since everything was done in assembly. The original Unix was also written in assembly. They wrote C to make the switch easier for use in latter computers.

You are right however about the restrictions on AT&T being able to sell it. The way they treated Unix the first few years was a harbinger of what open source is now. After some Govt. adjustments to the settlement they tried to reign it in and make $.

I got the story from an instructor who was with AT&T for 25 years and was at Bell labs at the time.

Re:Correction...

[argent]

The role of "Space Travel" (beg pardon, not "Space War") in the development of UNIX has taken on mythic proportions, but it was more of a 'test load' than the reason for its existence and the jump from the PDP-7 to the PDP-11 was to develop a word processing program (what became troff). Basically, they were looking for a general computing facility to replace Multics after AT&T dropped out of the Multics project. They had to scale things way back to fit: even the PDP-11 was far less powerful than the Honeywell hardware: they were originally pushing for a DECSystem 10.

By the way... "Space Travel" was originally running on the Honeywell system, in Fortran. It had to be rewritten for the PDP-7.

I got the story from a talk by Dennis Ritchie at Usenix, and I checked it on his web page.

Re:Let me be the first to say

[AbitNutz]

Your signature says it all...coward. Don't tell me what I know or don't know. I have been employed by Novell in the past and continue to have close ties to the company. The point of my coment which you missed, prob like most things in your life, is that the truth of what was agreed to is pointless to agrue. You'll never know...again like most things in your life.

Who Created The Monster

[Bruha]

The monster was created by the idiots that let software patents come in the first place. So next time you look in the mirror remind yourself how important it is to make yourself heard to your elected officials.

Now due to software patents were seeing a decrease in innovation and a increase in companies that do nothing but sue over patents without contriubting to jobs or taxes in any appreciable manner and are tieing up our legal system with their money grubbing tactics.

Norda( of Caldera ) was CEO of Novell

[Locutus]

The only thing interesting here is that even when Novell kicked out Norda, he was willing to work with them in going after Microsoft. And even that's not too interesting considering Norda, at the time he was CEO of Novell, was pointing the gun at Microsoft with a Novell based Linux desktop project.

So, is this really THAT interesting and new? Not if you've been in/around the industry for about 10 years. IMO.

There's nothing here. Move along, move along.

LoB

imbecils!

[lseltzer]

Is there someone who *just* figured this out? Obviously this company was founded in order to sue other companies. It was Noorda's company for Crissake!

It is called greed and love of power

[tehdaemon]

The corporate world looks remarkably like the nobility of europe from about 1400 - 1800's.

To say it is THE human problem is not too far off, but you missed ignorance and lazyness. (they are big too)

So its microsofts turn now

[nikkipolya]

Cool... Novell sues microsoft through caldera. Now Microsoft sues Novell through caldera (SCO). Looks like its a win-win situation for caldera/SCO. And its a loose-loose situation for Novell and Microsoft. Goes by the good ol adage: "When two fight, the third wins."

Novell concealed ... not really

[Tsu Dho Nimh]

The contract between Nov ell and Canopy provided that Novell would get a portion of any revenues from lawsuits

Hardly secret, as the Utah courts have already noted. Novell sued them and WON for their share of the proceeds. SCO tried the usual tricks of getting greedy and trying to rewrite the contract unilaterally, trying to bring in oral agreements, then as usual, got shafted by their own evidence.

Groklaw has already covered it.

best quote: The district court perspicuously noted that the Canopy position "requires the court to reach the anomalous conclusion that by taking the attorney fee provision out of the agreement it really was writing the provision into the agreement."

Old saying?

[rice_burners_suck]

Did Novell indirectly create a monster? Caldera's 300 million winnings against Microsoft are now being used to fund lawsuits against Linux (and Novell).

Well, all I have to say is, what goes around, comes around.

four words..

[sucati]

Law of Unintended Consequences

Short SCO

[tepples]

also SCO stock has an analyst rate of 5.0, strong sell

I thought 5 meant short sell.

I might add Egypt and Saudi too

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, I might add this too:

Two of the regimes that the US supported were Egypt and Saudi Arabia, often against the will of the people there.

Both of these regimes were an indirect cause for terrorism today.

These regimes are dictatorial to varying degrees, and they do not tolerate dissent or legitimate political opposition.

By choking the oppostion, using emergency marital law, stripping citizenship, jailing, ...etc. the dissidents become more extreme.

Bin Laden is now #1 in Al Qaeda. He was stripped of citizenship in his native Saudi Arabia when he opposed some actions of the King Fahad (mainly getting US forces on Saudi soil to protect against Saddam). Had there been a peaceful form of political protest, he may have not been transformed from a hero to an outlaw.

Ayman Al Zawahri is now #2 in Al Qaeda. He was jailed in Egypt after the assassination of President Sadat, and during the reign of Mubarak. His ideal was to establish an Islamic state. Since there was no peaceful mean of doing so in the political process, he became an extremist and a militant.

Now both these people are not only a problem in their home country, nor for Arab countries, but an international problem for all of us.

Had their countries been not dictatorial, and had the US not supported the dictatorial rule in these countries, I very much doubt that these people would have existed, nor would have gone as far as they did.

Well, we will never know what may have happened otherwise.

Re:I might add Egypt and Saudi too

[kbahey]

Yeah.

Add to that the recent boasting by Bush and Blair that Libya has abandoned WMD plans and has "reformed" itself.

Qaddafi is now portrayed as a redeemed terrorist supporter, and an example of how Saddam could have avoided war, ..etc.

That is all fine and dandy, but the real question is: Are Libyans more free now? Do they have more democracy now? Is Qaddafi or his Green Book gone?

What is the message here then? If you obey what Bush and Blair say, then all is well, and people go to hell?

Re:I might add Egypt and Saudi too

[Richard_at_work]

I think the question americans should be asking themselves is this: are they themselves any freer now than before 9-11-2001? Mod this as flamebait if you must, but my point is valid. They have the Patriot act, which gives huge swathes of new powers to the government without judicial oversight. They have gulags where prisoners have been kept without legal representation for 3 years now. They have american citizens being held without trial. Its becoming increasingly obvious that the price of "freeing" the citizens of Iraq and Afghanistan may be decreased freedom for americans.

Software rental

[tepples]

remember when you "leased" proprietary software for 99 years?

Apparently, a life-of-the-copyright lease seems to be coming back into vogue so that publishers of computer programs can work around the consumer protections codified in sections 109 and 117 of the U.S. copyright law, which apply only to the owner of a copy rather than to a lessee.

A blow to Darl's plan, too

[Too Much Noise]

What's more, this 'oral agreement' argument seems to have been Darl's plan for the Novell suit as well - the idea being to put forward witnesses that were with Novell when they sold whatever they sold to SCO/Tarantella (he said something on the lines of "the current Novell management was not there when the contracts were drafted - I was") so that he can argue that the intent of the contract was to sell the IP rights, even though its letter does not show it.

Looks like this might prove a blow to the plan, since it sets a nice precedent for Novell (oral agreements are void if not reflected by the written contract).

You'd think

[BCW2]

that some of these companies would figure out that, 'if you throw enough shit' your going to get splattered.

The Canopy shell games....

[Xenographic]

Are you sure it's SCO acting here? SCO used to be Caldera, but later changed its name (the original IBM lawsuit was Caldera vs. IBM, IIRC) and somehow I thought there was another Caldera now. Or maybe I'm thinking of newSCO/oldSCO ...

There are just too damn many Canopy companies which have all continually changed names. Hell! Even the SCO execs don't seem to know which company they are, as some rather schizophrenic web pages and legal filings illustrate (see Groklaw for more info, I know that PJ has spent a loooong time puzzling out which company was which... certainly not an easy task).

New info

[geoswan]

I followed this case.

News articles at the time said that the agreement with Novell allowed Novell to get a cut of the settlement. So this was not completely secret.

News articles at the time said that Caldera paid $400,000 for DR-DOS, not $1,000,000 as this recent article says.

News articles at the time said that Microsoft's settlement was $150,000,000, or, at least $150,000,000. That much was listed in Microsoft's books, for the settlement. But some said this was just the first installment, and that the final amount might have been $600,000,000. This recent article said $250,000,000.

IIRC the original founders of Caldera were former Novell executives, and proteges of Ray Noorda.

One of the articles pointed out that Bill Gates stepped down from being President of Microsoft within days of the settlement. That article speculated that the suit was not really about money. That article suggested it was a grudge match between two billionaires, where the older one wanted to teach the younger one some manners, and that Gates resigning was one of the conditions of the settlement.

I don't like seeing this suit conflated with SCO's legal actions against linux users and firms that use of develop for linux. Caldera had an irrefutable case against Microsoft. Microsoft was guilty as sin.

I'd like to think that if the settlement hadn't suppressed Caldera's evidence against Microsoft that Microsoft would have ended up being taken apart by now.

What about Jim Kendal?

[byronne]

From the general gist of the article it seems like Novell was actually a bit greedy in refusing to pay attorney fees etc - well, that's the price of a lawsuit - too bad. Actually the real victim here is Jim kendal, who was ripped off beyond belief by Senor Bill and I don't detect any remorse for it. The second example of Microsoft's standard operating procedure for running their unimaginative, cuthroat, non-innovative businness that has sadly somehow come to dominate so much of the computing world. It's really too bad that the bully prevails so often.

A few years back, a computer nerd developped a revolutionary OS: PC/M Jim Kendal was the first to think about a BIOS. That little thing woul allow computer makers (IBM at that time) to build new hardware that'd go on already-finished computers. What a great idea. People could hard a hard disk or change floppy disk drives... That guy also developped PC/M, the ancestor of good ol' DOS. Bad Bill bought it for almost nothing (Jim Kendal was into computers, not business, unlike some others...) and, with the help of IBM, made it a standard. At this point, IBM/Microsoft had already won the market. Microsoft improved PC/M to make MS DOS, while some other companies made some other DOS (DOS means Disk Operating System. It has nothing to do with Microsoft) Norton made Norton DOS. 4 DOS, Dr DOS, Novell DOS, and some others were out, rapidely swallowed by monster MS. So MS DOS is the standard. The first part of the Empire built on the corpse of Jim Kendal....

cited from an admitted MS-bashing site, but nonetheless entirely accurate. Thieves.
http://www.chez.com/johnt/antims/antimsu s.htm

CORRECTION, confusing typo!

[Alsee]

The 6th paragraph reads:

That leaves option (3). And the problem with option (3)

That should read option (4).

-

The Golden Rule

[Glonoinha]

The Golden Rule :
He who has the Gold, makes the rules.

The Corollary to the Golden Rule :
He who has the Guns has some say-so in the rule-making process, but generally he who has the Gold also has the Guns.

This is more true than you can possibly imagine.