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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."
Not suing customers, particularly your own, is usually somewhere high on the list of Winning Business Strategies.
"Smithers, how much did our iron-fisted grab for licensing fees get us?"
"$11,000, last quarter, Sir."
"Ehhxcellent! They must be crowding around like lemmings, eager to hand over their money!"
"Uh, No Sir, it cost us millions to get that much."
"In the parlance of that oafish brute Homer Simpson, D'oh!"
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
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.
Someone gave McBride the wrong quote. He actually meant to quote Hudson, from Aliens:
"Well that's great, that's just fuckin' great man, now what the fuck are we supposed to do? We're in some real pretty shit now man... That's it man, game over man, game over, man! Game over! What the fuck are we gonna do now? What are we gonna do?"
I guess the acid finally wore off. Spend millions to extract THOUSANDS!!!!!! in licensing fees. I am trully in awe of your threeleet business skillz, Darlzor.
====
Crudely Drawn Games
"I think right now we've got the claims in front of the various courts that we need in order to get our complaints heard and to get them argued and to get resolution. With respect to being more vocal or going after new targets at the customer level, we don't see the need for that. We had the need to get the basic issues on the table, but we're fine to argue the merits of what we have out there right now (in) the current litigation setting."
There's something in law called "res judicata," (incorrect definition here) which means if something is decided by one court, it's binding on a court in another jurisdiction. The definition given is incorrect in stating that it applies only to the parties in the original suit. It can be used against a party in the original suit, if it's the same facts/situation, and the original party had ample and adequate opportunity and reason (motivation) to provide a full defense in the first case.
If there is going to be a lot of cases, usually a company will do several, in different forums/jurisdictions, and see if they get a good result. If they do, such as SCO getting a ruling that all Linux violates their copyright/trade secrets/whatever, then they can use that in subsequent cases when suing. The inverse is also true. If a court finds that SCO is a bunch of mindless jerks that will be the first against the wall when the revolution comes (e.g. their claims are totally without merit), then they really cannot go after anyone else without overcoming some really large hurdles.
Not only do I play an attorney on TV, I am an attorney in real life as well.
In other words, now that they have no customers, they will only be sueing ex-customers.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
SCO has a product and engineers to maintain it? When the hell? I thought they were just a group of ninja-attack lawyers based out of a defunct Taco Bell store owned by a Microsoft operative . . . . .
Only in a Slashdot fantasy can a Slackware install turn into several hours of sex . . . . .
Nothing to see here. Just Darl's usual nonsense.
===== Murphy's Law is recursive. =====
With features like:
Risking having to migrate again in a year or two when they're bankrupt?
No 2Gb+ file support
No 64-bit support
Ever-diminishing support from the OSS community, which ironically provides the most useful server apps for the platform?
Risk future lawsuits from SCO if you do migrate?
I mean.. SCO Unix has been uncompetitive for years now, while their management has been throwing all their effort into last-ditch lawsuits.
Naturally.. it's all bullshitness as usual from SCO. But it's always worth the debunking, in case someone actually thought SCO had something of value.
Both customers were sued...
Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale
A tale of a fateful trip
That started from a "Unix Port"
Aboard a sinking ship.
The mate was a mighty selling man
The skipper wasn't sure
Six passengers sat sail back then
For a legal language tour (a legal language tour)
The language started getting rough
The chrysler case was tossed (almost)
If not for the "courage" of the fearless crew
The lawsuits would be lost (the lawsuits would be lost)
The ship held ground on the shore of this
Old Mormon Desert Isle
With Billy Gates
And Ballmer too
Some millionaire
Named McBride
A Courtroom Star
McNealy and Canadians
Here on Darl McBride's Isle
In Damler, the judge threw out most of their case, so they can't argue that the next one is brought in good faith.
Fight Spammers!
In retrospect, I think you're right. It's so surreal, but there was probably no better way to give GNU softare credibility in the business world. Look at how it looks to the corporate world:
Big companies (Daimler/Chysler, etc) use Linux.
Big companies like Linux so much, they'll fight in court to keep using it.
IBM will stand by Linux's IP and defend it legally
HP will stand by Linux's IP if you pay them for indemnification/insurance
The code is so clean, despite being a "unix clone", even the owners of unix can't find any infringing code.
Quote "We think in the future, software developers are going to be more motivated by getting paid for their work rather than contributing and not getting paid."
Um. Ya. I haven't cared about getting paid so far. I'll think about that in the future.
Sheesh.
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.
damn it, every time I post as an AC I get modded up.
Or ask the Wright brothers. They sunk their company by investing all their time in litigation against competitors instead of development and innovation.