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McBride Says No More Lawsuits From SCO
thephotoman writes "Well, Darl McBride gave an interview to IDG News Services in which he said that SCO is not going to sue any more customers. They do bring up the issue of the SCOsource Linux licensing, and how much of a failure it has been. Instead, they plan to start marketing their flavor of Unix. However, as he's not dropping the current lawsuits, there's no good reason to believe him on this change in strategy."
He must have lost his funding.
It seems strange that he would give up for any other reason... he's shown himself to be hell-bent on his mission.
Sigs cause cancer.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
This is just confirmation that they have committed corporate suicide. I don't think they would do this unless they'd figured out that they have scared off prospective customers (and partners) and sabotaged their sales efforts. But if things have gotten to that point, McBride telling a magazine they're going to refrain from suing customers in the future has exactly zero chance of restoring enough trust in the company to revive their sales.
who are not SCO customers...
Verbal statement is nothing, SCO could be planning for another lawsuit while everybody's relaxed enough to step into a trappy.
A trappy is like a trap except there's nothing in it, but this doesn't stop people from being frightened by it.
Uselessful technology (Air-Charged
Cloudscape donated to Apache, new Helix, Open-XChange going GPL, now this...
Things are going too well. Look for Microsoft patent lawsuits to be unleashed tomorrow.
Can you imagine what it'd be like if they hadn't decided this?
"Alright! Welcome to this year's Forum! We've got some exciting things to discuss this year. Now... before we start... how many of you are Solutions Providers and Software Engineers? How many hands? That many. Huh. I have no idea why you guys are here. Now... how about the lawyers? How many? Yeah! Hello. And Buisness Strategists from other companies competing against Linux solutions? Hello! Good crowd! We've got some really exciting news for all you guys...!"
Granted - any solution providers who DO show up should still be asking themselves what they're doing there.
As The SCO Group Inc.'s reseller and developer community gathers for its annual SCO Forum convention in Las Vegas this week, one question on many attendees' minds will be whether the company's future will be as a software vendor or as a litigator.
The answer is No, they do not have a future as a software vendor or litigator.
Or ask the Wright brothers. They sunk their company by investing all their time in litigation against competitors instead of development and innovation.
Yes, to date SCO have not sued a non-customer in regard to Linux. Take home lesson: don't deal with SCO.
However, they have subpoenaed various Linux contributors and other parties who didn't have any business relationship to SCO. In some cases this seems to be merely a fishing expedition or harrassment. Not as bad as a suit, but still not something I'd like to see in my mailbox.
SCO have also sent letters to non-SCO-customer Linux users threatening a lawsuit, although they have not actually filed suit against one of them as far as we know. It would be accurate for the original poster to ask that SCO stop *threatening to sue* non-customers.
So people should be precise in what they say about SCO, but SCO still suck. I welcome their new future as a Caldera (literally "crater").
It makes a lot of business sense to migrate away from SCO. Who wants to be stuck with an unsupported operating system when SCO goes belly up?
You are 100% correct in saying that precise language is important. News outlets have implied that because SCO have sued AutoZone (gasp! a Linux shop) and DaimlerChrysler (yikes! another Linux shop) that somehow running Linux puts one at risk. When in fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Exactly ALL of the lawsuits today show that instead, being an SCO customer puts one at risk.
.GIFs on my local machine when Unysis started their patent crusade, nor do I recall being called to testify as to whether Windows 3.1 had the same "look and feel" as Mac OS during that memorable lawsuit.
Agreed that being subpoenaed is no day in the park, but people and companies are subpoenaed for various reasons all the time all day every day regardless of whether they are right, wrong, or merely loosely associated with whatever legal proceeding is at hand.
My problem is with furthering Darl's FUD meme that running Linux is risky. It's so far from credible. OK, let's speculate that contributing to Linux is questionable. Let's further speculate that *distributing* those contributions is questionable. How on God's green Earth is RUNNING a piece of software you acquired in good faith a risky action? Where are examples of any other lawsuits against end users for running software from a reputable vendor, regardless of whether that vendor happened to be embroiled in legal trouble? I don't recall being sued for having
The chicken little act is what Darl WANTS. Aren't we all smarter than that? What sane, intelligent person honestly thinks they'll be sued for *using* Linux?
"Stop throwing the Constitution in my face, it's just a goddamned piece of paper!" - George W. Bush Nov. 2005