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SCO Prides Itself on Inspiring FUD
ronaldb64 writes "According to a recent press release they are "...honored to be named among the many influential companies that comprise the SD Times 100. We pride ourselves in the work we do to create world renowned Unix-based solutions designed by some of the most experienced and outstanding engineers in the industry," said Jeff Hunsaker, senior vice president and general manager, SCO's UNIX Division.
What is the reason for the SD Times nomination? "The company's legal assaults on IBM and Linux users dominated 2003's tech headlines and shook up the open-source community. No other IT topic inspires such fervent debate, fear, uncertainty and doubt.". I guess any press is good press these days for SCO. Congratulations..."
You should all be thankful that SCO is looking out for your precious "linux" OS. They are making sure it is free of proprietary IP so that it can continue to be a free OS. In the meantime, I suggest you all cough up the license fee.
HO
Happy Trails!
Erick
http://www.busyweather.com/
SCO's new restaurant
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
"SCO prides itself on..."
Soon will they say they've invented FUD and hold the IP rights to it?
Oh wait, that was IBM that started that...
do() || do_not();
They're not even bright enough to note what they're being "honored" for....
Reminds me of the bullies in Jr. High that you could insult with big words as long as your vocal inflection made it sound nice.
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
Evil criminal type: "I am honored to be named among the many influential individuals who comprise the Ten Most Wanted list down at the post office. I pride myself on the work I do to create nefarious plots and solutions designed to pry cash from my victims. Some of my schemes are among the most interesting solutions developed in the criminal world."
Like the Oscar.
How 'bout the Elmer?
If you post it, they will read.
Lindon, Utah; you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.
Trolling is a art,
And perhaps we should thank bin Ladin for increasing America's national security. Cause I feel much safer now. And heck, he's made headlines more than SCO.
<insert witty linux comment here>
I think there is a bug in the web page. In Internet Explorer the frames render with bars as separators but in Mozilla Firefox the bars are replaced with balls. This isn't funny until you scroll down the end of the report to find unlike everyone else in the list Darl McBride only has one ball.
Omnis amans amens
Seriously, is SCO actually creating new products right now? (other than the product of lawsuits, $699 profits, FUD, scare, etc). Actual user/consumer/business products?
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
That in the first 3 sentences it states the "SCO the owner of UNIX" but the most interesting fact is at the bottom of the artice -- "Source: The SCO Group"
A bunch of Tech Stuff
Although FUD needs to be constantly and consistently fought in corporations by knowledgable IT employees, FUD is a legitimate marketing technique. It ~works~. Few, if any, businessmen knew who SCO was 2 years ago, but now they have almost universal brand-name recognition.
So, full marks for their marketing and communications strategy. Its distasteful and full of lies, but so far they've been effective at getting their message out, and have avoided any consequences (e.g. perjury; public backlash) to this date.
The real question, though, is whether they will be able to translate this notoreity into $. Can they execute a business plan that will translate into consistent streams of revenue? Given their poor execution so far (e.g. they have not strategy outside of lawyers) I think not. If they get out of this intact, or maybe with a blip of one time profit on their books, they should count themselves lucky!
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
The SD Times is intelligently embracing a controversy in order to attract attention and increase its brand value. Getting a story on Slashdot mean they hit the jackpot.
I doubt anyone at the site actually considers SCO to be a worthy company. Editors really should be more aware of this kind of manipulation.
... is where they spell your name right."
-- old showbiz saying
Welcome to the Turing Tarpit, where everything is possible but nothing interesting is easy.
Reminds me of SCO's spin on a VARBusiness article back in October. Here's SCO's version. Now check out the original article. SCO did indeed rate in the top four. Out of five.
===== Murphy's Law is recursive. =====
with a heavy dose of violence and fear,
and lots of money for projects,
I think I might start believing SCO is here to help!
I wonder how much _pride_ they having been taking in their share price lately?
Free Firefox news reader.
The company's legal assaults on IBM and Linux users dominated 2003's tech headlines and shook up the open-source community. No other IT topic inspires such fervent debate, fear, uncertainty and doubt.
Soccer Goal Plans
the inevitable freefall of their stock prices (about ten minutes after the dismissal of the IBM, Redhat, Novell, Autozone etc. cases) is a day that they can continue to use whatever equity is left in their rapidly falling shares to perpetrate asset shifting schemes on the unwitting.
And what is up with that shirt Marc Fleury is wearing? OK, he's French, but still!
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Microsoft, leading cause of IT-related suicides, announced today that it is, in fact, proud of the accusations of monopolistic practices
Quote from Mr.Gates
"Hell yeah, we've been using our power and influence illegally for quite some time now. I've wanted to admit it for such a long time, but the boys in Legal say its a BAD thing to admit the obvious. But now, thanks to SCO, we can admit to owning BOTH Park Ave. and Boardwalk, all the houses and hotels therein, and yes, we do charge $20 for a snickers from the minibar. Why? Because we can"
When I worked with SCO Open Server Unix, it was absolutely the WORST version of Unix I've ever worked with. Half the X-windows TCL/TK admin tools had major bugs. Most the utilities didn't work and I had to edit straight Unix files. I had to install it several times to get it working. UNIXWARE they bought from Novell, so they deserve no credit for that. An associate used to call SCO Open Server, SCO Open Sore. :)
Is it just be or does Darl look whole lot like that fake Dr. Greg Citamon(spelling?) on those highly annoying Cortislim commercials? You know, Dr. Talbots associate! Maybe Darl has launched his venture into the lucrative fat pill industry since he realized he totally tanked his SCO venture.
...be on drugs?
Or do they only test the worker bees?
SCO's stock price just makes me smile.
the other lists on the article were generally fair. It's good to see eclipse and apache get recognition for all the hard work.
For SCO, any publicity is good publicity. It's basically all they have left, to be a blip on the stock market that shoots up a quarter of a point, to prolong the company (not to mention the suffering of the OSS community) one more hour/ day/ weer/ $TIME. What else to do if your profitable business branch has been run into the ground by McBride types/ free/ better alternatives.
Will wank off Linus Torvalds for fame.
What the fuck is FUD?
Funny how They twist what is really bad press into something that looks good....
I read the press release and didn't even bother to look at SD times. I hope that their stock price dosn't climb as a result of this...heh.
Woohoo! I got to slam SCO, Darl, and invoke Godwin in one post! Ahh, I'm done.
Maybe there should be a prize called 'SCO'.
Like an Oscar for FUD.
And the SCO of 2005 goes to......
Cool. Someone else using the Baghdad Bob playbook on public relations.
>"SCO prides itself on the work we do to create world renowned Unix-based solutions..."
What work? Seriously, what have they added -- in, say, the past year -- to the open-source world? I've searched, but can't find any contributions.
Does SCO even even employ developers these days, or have they all been fired to make room for SCO's new army of attorneys?
Anyone else ever notice how the heat-grading units for peppers are called Scoville Units?
In honor of this, I propose a scale for rating the FUD of companies & other groups/individuals based on SCO Units.
I can't think of where the scale would top out or even start, but that earlier story that got Linus to say he was a frontman for the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus has to be worth something.
And besides, SCO probably won't be around for much longer once IBM steps on them. They might as well contribute to some great cause before they are just a footnote in that future book, The History of the Greatest Operating System That Ever Lived.
Haven't read an SCO press release in the last 2 years, eh? They all start that way. It's sort of like little kids playing "King of the Hill" or something... "I *AM* KING OF THE HILL! FEEL MY WRATH!" Or, maybe they think if they say it enough, people will believe it.
Now maybe IBM can sue SCO for using their business model!
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Although FUD needs to be constantly and consistently fought in corporations by knowledgable IT employees, FUD is a legitimate marketing technique. It ~works~. Few, if any, businessmen knew who SCO was 2 years ago, but now they have almost universal brand-name recognition.
So, full marks for their marketing and communications strategy.
Murder works. Someone competing for the affections of the same girl as you? Someone competing against you in the workplace a little too successfully? A competitor gobbling up too much marketshare that is rightfully yours?
Off the bastard. Kill 'em dead.
Murder is by far the most effective way of dealing with unwanted competition and conflict, particularly if you are reasonably clever about it (it is an ugly, dirty little secret of our 'justic' system that most murders go unsolved, and most murderers thus get away with their crime).
By your logic, murder is a legitimate tool of competition.
I beg to differ. No amount of success justifies, much less legitimizes, a despicable methodology.
FUD and disinformation are unethical and despicable in the extreme, and their use is not legitimate, no matter how successful they are.
The courts would agree. It wasn't so long ago that IBM got seriously slapped down by the courts for exactly that sort of illegitimate, successful behavior.
SCO, Darl, and their sponsors (Microsoft and Sun Microsystems) should face similiar sanctions for engaging in this illegitimate, and quite possibly illegal, behavior.
(And lest you think defamation and libel are legal, check again. It may be hard to win convictions, but that doesn't make the act any less illegal, or any less illigetimate, and FUD, by its very definition, is libelous).
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
What corporation/CEO would tell people ' ya we suck, dont buy our products '..
Its all about standard marketing..
Why is this even 'news that matters'?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Why ?
Because it rhymes with pox
"FUD" stood for "f**ked up data".
Simultaneously recognizing the most hated man in IT and the analyst that backs him.
infested with jello like fishes no melotron wishes
Evil I can accept, but not knowing the difference between comprise and compose is unforgivable. They must be stopped!
Clearly, the SD Times 100 is not a serious "Top 100" list. Anyone can create a list, generally they mean nothing. I suspect it is possible to purchase a spot on the "list." Typically, these so-called "trade publications" are only vehicles for advertising, so maybe SCO spends money there. Either that or something to do with blow jobs...
You'll note that in my original post that I said that FUD in SCO's case so far has not resulted in any charges of perjury or irreperable harm to the company. This may change, and I consider their strategy highly unethical, but so far their execution of this FUD strategy has been deemed to be within the limits of the law.
Jumping from a press release with dubious claims (at worst perjury or libel) to murder (a federal offence) is a bit of a stretch.
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
...you say as you submit yet another SCO story to Slashdot.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
...but this just irks me.
"...honored to be named among the many influential companies that comprise the SD Times 100.
"Comprise" is not the word you want. That would be "constitute." See Strunk & White's The Elements of Style.
I have discovered a truly marvelous
and the damn stock went up. :0
Look at their deep abiding philosophy!
When FUD gave them bad press, they made PRESSADE.
Why should I argue rationally with someone being irrational? I'll just mock them instead.
Wow! [Some] Slashdotters really like to stretch analogies to the extreme in order to flame someone.
...SCO is in the real business of technology these days, this is no surprise. Read with me now:
1. There is technology for technology's sake (open source, true innovation)
2. There is "technology" for business sake (lowest common denominator ripoffs, more focus on marketing than R&D, specific focus on profit)
3. Then there is SCO (sue, sue, sue, sue, sue... ad nauseum and "Here is our repackaged version of our crap OS with open source stuff")
Which technologies will still be around 50-100 years from now? Undoubtedly those that originate in group 1.
Un-news
In related news, Osama Bin Laden talks about his growing rivalry with Darl Mcbride for most hated man in America...
That's OK, OptInRealBig will continue to bring great deals to those who want them. It should be a crime for service providers to deny the great offers we make to people who took their busy time to sign up for our lists.
Scott
For more than two decades, SCO has provided innovative UNIX solutions valued by customers for its reliability, stability and security.
I'm so sick of this. New SCO/Caldera != Old SCO/Tarantella/Santa Cruz. Why is it that the current SCO is able to keep giving the impression that they are a different company?
Why was a Caldera icon used here, instead of a SCO icon?
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
"Comprise" is not the word you want. That would be "constitute." See Strunk & White's The Elements of Style.
...read Slashdot on a regular basis and hasn't committed harakiri yet? English is a foreign language to me (and I do almost as well in German as my 2nd foreign language), and I still do better than most of the Americans...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
See this comment from yesterday under a different story, for financial analyst's view on SCO, and another press release.
...I think it's about time that the "word" FUD dies off. It's used way too often when someone's propagandizing and there's no fear, uncertainty, or doubt involved. Second, what's the practical difference between uncertainty and doubt? We need them because we couldn't use FU or FD? Why can't we just instill fear rather than spreading FUD? It's not butter or anything. Of course, if you're not really making people afraid, you can't instill fear. FUD's good for that, since with the uncertainty and doubt part(s) of it, you don't need to.
It seems to me we have a "word" which is used too often and doesn't really mean anything.
As for SCO, it seems that the list isn't necessarily a good thing to be on. Influential people of the 20th century include everyone from, oh, Mother Teresa to Hitler.
It's sort of like when Time magazine made Newt Gingrich their "Man of the Year". It certainly wasn't highlighting him as a great guy. It was more of a "here's a guy who's used his power and influence to screw things up for everyone!"
They call me the working man. I guess that's what I am.
Well, SCO itself obviously outputs 1.0 SCOs worth of FUD, so that would seem to be the benchmark. Most people would then be rated from 0-1 SCOs, unless, God forbid, they manage to out-FUD SCO and earn >1.0...
READ THIS multi-page tiff: IBM's reply
IBM roasts SCO for the lack of evidence and delay tactics. Practicaly asks the Judge for a contempt of court ruling.
Easy to read pdf version on TuxRocks IBM-148.pdf
Murder is by far the most effective way of dealing with unwanted competition and conflict, particularly if you are reasonably clever about it (it is an ugly, dirty little secret of our 'justic' system that most murders go unsolved, and most murderers thus get away with their crime).
Yeah, but being clever about it also means making sure there isn't any motive.
That's why I always make sure to randomly select my victims.
If anything, history has shown that the marketing of technology to be at lease as important as innovation. There is at least one company I know that has been around for over 25 years that has consistantly riped off others innovations and focused on marketing, only to become a monopolistic power. At the same time, other compaines that focused soly on technology for technologies sake and not enough on buisness aspects have floundered despite their technical superiority.
I'm also not sure why you grouped open source with true innovation. Take a look at successful open source projects/ companies. How many of them are defining their market and how many are just trying to create open source versions of market leading closed source products?
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Memorandum in opposition is now available. PDF here (my conversion).
Goodies.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
?!?!?!
What I want to know is who are they leading?.
Now on http://sco.tuxrocks.com/Docs/IBM/IBM-148.pdf
The guy looks the part that he plays in life: thug. I mean, really...
My how looks can deceive - he comes across as an absolute clown.
Who remains inside of SCO/USL that was any good on the tech side of things? When USL was first created, a number of them elected to remain with Bell/Lucant/Avaya, but USL still had some good techies. Even over the last decade, USL would hire some that were pretty decent. But does any good techies remain? I find it hard to believe that even with this economy.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Take a random sample of 10 medium to large sized business owners/CEO's and you'll see that most of them look or act like thugs. For all I can tell, it takes that type of attitude to succeed in the business world. Of course there are exceptions, but in general that seems to be the way it goes.
Often it's hard to tell from the friendly promotional photos you typically see, but I've met enough in person to know what they're really like...
And I murder murderers... and I'm comming for you!
As stated, the most egregious example of SCO's discovery misconduct is SCO's persistent refusal to identify with specificity the UNIX System V source code that forms the basis of its claims against IBM IBM served interrogatories seeking this basic information from SCO in June 2003. Yet, SCO has resisted providing such information for ten months now - even in the face of motions to compel and two court orders to provide full and detailed responses to IBM's interrogatories. In addition, SCO has repeatedly failed to produce documents responsive to IBM's requests in a timely manner, even after being ordered to do so by the Court.
It is these failures by SCO to respond properly to IBM's discovery requests that led to the discovery stay being imposed. Having resisted discovery since commencing this lawsuit, SCO cannot now properly ask that the scheduling order be extended to, in effect, accommodate its own delinquency.
You match it up with Oscar, and you have ripped off IP!!!! Which is exactly what SCO is all about.
I think it's perfect.
-asoap
Treat me like a marketing stat, and I'll treat your movie like a series of ones and zeros
I've got boderline personality disorder you insensitive clod!
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
haha, they didn't buy the Unix source code, they bought the right to license it to third parties & pay Novell 95% of the royalties.
what's with the giant grey circles that appear in the article when viewed with firefox but not IE
"Open Source Development Labs Inc.
New consortium hired Linus Torvalds, emerged as standard-bearer for Linux."
So OSDL gets a nomination for being the standard bearer for Linux, and SCO for trying to be the pallbearer.
If you can't beat them, embrace and extend them.
if it's accompanied by a good rogering
Saying that FUD is a legitimate marketing tool is like saying that "Nazis are bad!" is a legitimate debate tactic.
According to Godwin's Law, a person that uses Nazis to justify a position in a debate automatically loses the debate. Why not have a similar law against FUD-based marketing tactics?
If a company spreads FUD about their competition, rather than describe the merits of their own products, I am automatically less interested in their product.
Groklaw has a story on the SD Times FUD Award, as well as some comments from Red Hat's new counsel regarding FUD activities as responses to the disruptive technologies of Open Source, and that Red Hat will defend against it in the future.
Also, IBM has just filed a memorandum opposing SCO's motion to extend the court schedule. It sounds boring, I know, but what it basically says is that there is no reason to extend the court date, because any delays in the schedule have been caused by SCO's own malfeasance, and IBM intends to ask for summary judgement on everything anyway.
Here are some of the choicer quotes:
A tiff of the full document can be found at Pacer's public SCO v. IBM page.
The PDF can be found at Frank Sorenson's sco.tuxrocks.com site.
Investor Relations
/PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX/ -- The SCO(R) Group (SCO) (Nasdaq: SCOX), the owner of the UNIX operating system and a leading provider of UNIX-based solutions, today announced the company has been named to the 2004 SD Times 100. SCO was recognized for its influence in software development as owners of the UNIX Operating System.
3 53 27
------------------
SCO Named to the SD Times 100
LINDON, Utah, May 17, 2004
"SCO is honored to be named among the many influential companies that comprise the SD Times 100. We pride ourselves in the work we do to create world renowned Unix-based solutions designed by some of the most experienced and outstanding engineers in the industry," said Jeff Hunsaker, senior vice president and general manager, SCO's UNIX Division.
This year's SD Times 100, published in the magazine's May 15, 2004 issue, includes a new category called "influencers" in which SCO was honored, alongside some of the top companies in the high tech industry today. Other categories include; Modeling, Components & Libraries, Test & Debug, Tools & Environments, Collaboration, Deployment Platforms, Embedded & Mobile, Database & Data Access, Integration & Middleware, Standards Bodies & Consortia.
For more than two decades, SCO has provided innovative UNIX solutions valued by customers for its reliability, stability and security. As a leading influencer in the high tech sector, SCO software has been installed on millions of servers worldwide and has licensed UNIX technology in major corporations throughout the world.
"Each year, the editors of BZ Media's SD Times 100 look for companies and influencers which set the technical and market leadership for the software development industry," said Alan Zeichick, editor-in-chief of SD Times. "When choosing the 2004 SD Times 100, we carefully considered each organization's offerings and reputation with developers, as well as the attention and conversation we've heard around the company and its products and technologies, as a sign of leadership within the industry."
About SCO
The SCO Group (Nasdaq: SCOX) helps millions of customers in more than 82 countries to grow their businesses everyday. Headquartered in Lindon, Utah, SCO has a worldwide network of more than 11,000 resellers and 4,000 developers. SCO Global Services provides reliable localized support and services to partners and customers. For more information on SCO products and services, visit http://www.sco.com.
SCO, and the associated SCO logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of The SCO Group, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries. UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group.
SOURCE The SCO Group
http://ir.sco.com/ReleaseDetail.cfm?ReleaseID=1
I Doubt anyone will Fear them much longer, their future is Uncertain.
TallGreen CMS hosting
Just because it has a reputation doesn't mean it has a GOOD reputation. Of course the same goes for the FUD award.
I actually have, in my basement, an old version of SCO Xenix (5.0 I think?) built for the 80486.
Now I prefer Linux to Solaris, and I prefer Solaris to Windows some of the time. But SCO Xenix was THE WORST operating systm in its class as far as I am concerned. Many of the design decisions makes MS look *really, really good* at software design. And evidently reading the reviews of the more recent versions, it still seems to be that way...
OTOH, their documentation was really great (the only reason I keep it around). The only documentation I have ever seen that came close was the FreeBSD guide which came with my FreeBSD CD's. And the SCO material covered twice the material in half the pages while assuming that the user knew absolutely nothing.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Another saying...
"The only bad publicity is an obituary"
credited to many people in Hollywood over the years.
the AC
I'm beginning to believe it
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
Oldest trick in the book: stir up controversy by being jerks just to get free publicity.
Professional Wild-Eyed Visionary
McBride obviously took a page out of the
Hollywood star/starlette SOP: good news
or bad, being in the news is still worth
it's weight in gold. Exposure rules.
IANAL, but the marketing techniques employed
by the SCO Group more closely resemble pages
right out of the RICO (organized crime and
racketeering statutes). They share the same
infamy with some other corporations: Enron,
Global Crossing, PSINet, Worldcom, Tyco, etc.
Too bad it isn't likely that the USA would
adopt sharia-style punishments, instead of
the Federal (golf & tennis) "country club"
that most white collar criminals become
members of.
No we can't use F.U. because thats what we say to assholes like S.C.O.
People have fallen into the habit of denouncing anybody who raises questions about anything as spreading "FUD", as if that were a bad thing.
If the Linux kernel actually violated SCO's copyrights, you bet that you should have fear, uncertainty, and doubts. The problem with SCO's FUD is that SCO has no case; all they have is ever more preposterous legal claims. Furthermore, SCO's lawyers and management must know that. SCO is using unjustified fear, uncertainty, and doubt as a tool to manipulate their own stock price.
But don't let the manipulations of companies like SCO turn you off to critical thinking. Fear, uncertainty, and doubt are crucially important. For example, you should genuinely fear getting locked into proprietary architectures, you should be aware of uncertainty where it exists because uncertainty is expensive in the long run, and you should doubt marketing messages and proclamations of openness that some big vendors want you to swallow uncritically.
"The company's legal assaults on IBM and Linux users dominated 2003's tech headlines and shook up the open-source community. No other IT topic inspires such fervent debate, fear, uncertainty and doubt.".
... all the rest except maybe fear are completely out of context.. The way its worded makes you belive that SCO would win.. but on the other hand all the debates were on how long SCO would last before they went bust.. all teh unceryainty and doubt was about SCO's legal proceedings having any success at all :)...
It never shook the open-source comunity at all... They attacked Linux not the Open-Souce community.. This comment is way off... But the rest is just out of context... the Fervent debate, fear(Hmm thats a strong word... Maybe fear doesn't fit in at all), uncertainty and doubt
Who needs WiFi when we can have Packet Over Sheep! http://datacomm.org/PoS-InternetDraft.txt
Mr Bunsucker is pleased to have raked in the cash for harming the community he turns around and pretends to be a contributing part of. This is below contempt. Folks, do not hire anyone ever who is still part of SCO. All that is necessary for evil to win is for good people to do nothing.
offtopic?? Can moderators read?
Professional Wild-Eyed Visionary
And who thought IBM would be the saviour of the free world?
"Only shallow people do not judge by appearances."