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Wired on McBride

Posted by michael on from the made-for-tv-movie dept.

leifbk writes "Wired has a very interesting feature article on how Darl McBride and his sidekick Mike Anderer rose to fame. Some particularly juicy parts are about Anderer: 'He's supercompetitive,' said one. 'If he knows you'll faint at the sight of blood, he'll cut himself just to watch you pass out.'" A very thorough retelling of the legend that is SCO.

3 of 221 comments (clear)

  1. Admit to Extortion by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Anderer compares it to "being an archaeologist given the keys to an unexplored Egyptian museum basement." He expresses surprise that IBM didn't simply purchase SCO and donate the Unix code to the public domain; it would've been much cheaper than the current legal fracas.

    As I and others pointed out on groklaw when this was first posted back in an OT line, this quote shows that they admit to pulling this job in the hopes of being bought out. Blepp said the same at his university interview in Germany. Definately illegal trying to extort money this way.

    Happy Trails
  2. why hire somebody like this? by belmolis · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What I find curious is why a company would hire somebody with McBride's background. Suppose you're the board of what is now SCO. You've got a declining proprietary Unix business and need somebody who can turn the company around. Presumably you'd look for somebody with a combination of good management skills and the combination of technical and market knowledge to figure out what direction the company should move in. McBride has none of this. From his record it looks like he wasn't much good as a manager. IKON fired him for his M&A work, which doesn't suggest that he has good market sense. He clearly has no understanding of the technology. It looks like the only thing he did well was when he was Novell's guy in Japan. I don't see why he would be attractive for SCO unless the board planned an IP scam from the outset and wanted somebody with experience in that area. If that's the case, it isnt the case that obtaining value from their IP was McBride's idea and that they discovered the alleged infringement after he came on board.

  3. SCO sold Linux under GPL, how can they resind it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    SCO/Caldera SOLD Linux kernel under GPL, how can they resind it now?

    The very day that McBride took the job as CEO in 2002, the company, then a friendly Linux reseller known as Caldera Systems, ...

    I rememder seeing Caldera Linux in Compusa. (For some reason, I seem to remember reading it was based on Debian, of all distributions. Maybe I'm wrong here, tho'.) Comes in a shrink-wrap box, screenshots on the cover, manuals, cdroms, same as any other distribution. And thus , like any other distribution, has the GPL , and all the sourse code with it (presumably-- I don't have it in my possession)

    What I'm getting at, is the very company in question, SCO, sold the product under those terms. So how can they now go back on it?

    You could imagine a defense lawyer asking McBride in court: Is it not the case that your company sold the product 'Linux' under those very terms, the GPL? And, thus, those customers have the right, under the terms you sold it under, to copy and distribute it, with likewise GPL applying to those copies?

    Am I being redundant?

    THEY sold it (including the kernel and src) under GPL, so GPL has to apply. And if they didn't sell it under GPL, under what license did they sell it? And can't the kernel copyright holder sue Caldera/SCO for changing the kernel license?

    it's all rediculous.