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SCO To Counter Groklaw With 'Fair' Coverage
linuxwrangler writes "Tired of being 'flamed, dissected and dismissed' on Groklaw, SCO has decided to fight back. SCO's site, scheduled for launch on November 1, will be called prosco.net. Just yesterday SCO CEO and favorite /. whipping-boy Darl McBride gave a speech comparing the software industry to the 'wild west' and warning companies that they must protect their intellectual property or risk being 'sacked by open source-touting bandits.'"
McBride the sheriff of Naughtingham?
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Unix is very user friendly, it's just picky about who its friends are.
that they'll have a public forum open long enough to get their comments debunked on their own site! :-D
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
But can they get anyone to read them ?
It will be even better if they do comment on what groklaw is convering. The SEC takes a dim view about companies making false statements about their business.
I guess when you can't fight on the side of truth then you can always try and rewrite it after the fact.
See Darl? This is why the old guard from Caldera warned you not to go after the 'open source crowd'. Your page of lies will be dissected by hundreds of others on Groklaw. The best thing is, this time instead of shooting off your mouth, your words will be in some web cache.
Choose your topics wisely Darl. You will be watched...
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
How long before they have to shut off comments or block users en masse because the comments and postings are all negative.
I'm betting that IF they allow user input to be posted it will be heavily censored. It would have to be. SCO has zero friends. That's what happens when you sue your own freakin' customers!
OK, we all knew the SCO guys were lacking a few parts of brain mass that most others posess, but this is really something. What marketing guy said "let's launch a site called ProSCO under the flag of 'fair coverage of the events', everyone will believe us!"?
Instead of saying:
They will say:
As annoying and frustrating as it can be, idiots of this caliber must be allowed to demonstrate why those who know better, know better.
If anyone actually reads this site it's only going to be for the comic relief.
===== Murphy's Law is recursive. =====
Isn't this like MSNBC reporting on Microsoft, or MSN.com having "News" about the great new features of MSN messenger?
) Human Kind Vs Human Creation
) It'd be interesting to see how many humans would survive to serve us.
"The open source movement says that proprietary software shouldn't exist. They say that the operating system should be free, but that's a slippery slope," McBride said. "There's 12 million developers worldwide, are you gonna let their work be free?"
Yes?
You've gotta be kidding me! SCO is going to open up a whole site mouthing off while they're still in the middle of a court case?
Quick! Some one start an egg timer to see how long it takes before the Judge sees something SCO wrote on there and takes their heads off for it.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
He has huge stones, I'll give him that.
McBride saying that the FOSS community are trying to take away his precious IP is ... I just tried to think of an analogue and I couldn't.
What hulking brass ones! How does he walk?
sigs, as if you care.
As long as we're comparing to American western history, let's take a more comparable example: General Custer.
1. Rumor has it the guy was a lunatic by the time he decided to attack the natives. Check.
2. He and his little army set out to battle against an opponent with a larger head-count. Check.
3. The natives didn't have a choice: Custer was pretty much set on attacking them no matter what they did. Check.
4. The natives were fighting for existence. Custer for glory. Check.
5. The end result was the glorifying of Custer and a signature point in the demise of the Native American population. Let's hope squashing SCO doesn't backfire into some sort of us against them attitude with big business.
You are checking your backups, aren't you?
McBride is right about it being the Wild West, but it's more like the railroads vs the farmers and small merchants. The rail roads would come in and pull all kinds of stunts to get what they wanted and at times wipe out entire towns, usually under color of law with the sheriff working to further their interests. I've lost count the number of Kevin Costner-type movies that were made about such subjects, with the good guys coming out as something less than winners.
... sort of thankful.
McBride is merely a sheriff working for his boss (Microsoft, Sun, etc) and looking to bring some good old "law" to The West on their behalf. I have no idea what to call IBM and Novell. They'd kill us tomorrow if it suited their interests, but I guess for the moment they are the gun slinging Clint Eastwood types that have a disdain for the townsfolk, but really, really, really hate the corrupt sheriff, his henchmen and the railroad goons. I guess we should be
So McBride's notion about it being The Wild West is actually pretty accurate, with SCO representing the interests of the railroads and robber barons.
Why do you think when you were getting shafted in the old days the term often used was "This was a railroad job" or "We railroaded those guys off the map" and so on... it was because the railroads had lots of power and generally screwed over the little guy.
Meanwhile so far Darl's public statements have done nothing but hurt him in the actual courtroom. Recent IBM filings have used public statements made by SCO against them. I imagine in the coming months prosco.net postings will show up in legal filings against SCO as well.
That said, once this site goes up someone should start keeping a local mirror of it to make sure that if prosco says something that turns out to be embarrassing later, they can't just remove it.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
At least as far as HE is concerned. If there was ever a man who should be characterized as "all hat, no cattle", that would be Darl.
Didn't they promise an astro-turfing campaign a couple month's ago? I guess this is it.
Perhaps someone will hack the site, and ADD forums for us to display our support for their cause.
Besides, if the site does get slashdotted McBride will just claim it was "hacked" by Linux zealots.
Don't you see, this is SCO's next step in their vexatious litigation strategy. They're going to launch their Pro-SCO site and open up the forums. Then when the masses of FOSS supporters flock to the forums to debunk all of SCO's claims, SCO will be secretly recording their IP addresses, personal information, etc.
Then they'll take their newly acquired information and track you down so they can sue you! Then they'll be rich Rich RICH!
MWAHAHA MWAHAHAHA MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
infested with jello like fishes no melotron wishes
I wonder if he's also waiting for aliens hiding behind a comet to come and rescue his business from all the 'open source bandits' who want to rob real developers everywhere of their work.
Has he not yet realized that open source doesn't mean that developers can't be paid. Does he not realize that there is a commercially viable business model for open source and free software? Doesn't he know that open source doesn't mean free?
Darl, wake up: you are crusading against something that will only end up helping people!
I bet that the '12 million developers worldwide' would prefer to see SCO invest their litigation costs in actual software development.
That kind of money (multibillion dollar lawsuit ) could produce a valuable open source software package. heh. With the right business model, they might even be able to turn a profit without suing the pants off everyone they can point a stick at. more heh.
If "the new gold is IP," why is it costing SCO so much to have enforced? It's alchemy they are after, not mining. Unfortunately for them, lead doesn't become gold without great expense.
"...What are they smoking now?..."
It must be some strong stuff. Look what they said:
"...There are, however, no plans to allow readers to discuss the documents on the Web site. "If we opened it up to that, it would simply become another one of the message boards that our detractors use to try and overwhelm us," Stowell said...."
No public comments. So it will be a one-sided story. And it sounds like they are only going to post their court submissions too! SCO will go to its death bed thinking it has the high moral ground on this case.Nevermind the legalese and who can "win" lawsuits...
I was reading a recent review of SCO's Unixware. The review seemed fair, objective and Unixware didn't come out too badly, BUT it was amply clear that the MAJOR reason that Unixware is still a product that one wouldn't be totally crazy to deploy, the MAJOR reason that Unixware could be viewed as even somewhat competitive is OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE, the OSS packages such as Samba, Apache, Open-SSH, etc that SCO "grabbed" from OSS to make Unixware a credible product.
So here we have SCO borrowing HEAVILY from OSS, not paying a dime for key, strategic software that form the basis for whether Unixware is even slightly competitive on the market, and yet SCO is crying that OSS is 1) bad for the industry, 2) is stealing their oldy-moldy SysV code. I just find that APPALLING. Those guys have no shame, really. They should be GIVING BACK to OSS something for all the software they have taken into their own products, rather than trying to claim IP rights to this SysV, invalid as their claims are. This "all TAKE, no GIVE" approach of theirs to the community is the ultimate in despicable behavior.
SCO could get in trouble with the SEC if they misrepresent their standing in court on their website.
Besides which, the judges are noticing SCO's public statements, and if SCO contracticts what they're telling the judge, or what the judge is telling them, they could annoy the judge.
That's not funny.
MSN can't post links to Groklaw. SCO's anti-Linux FUD that M$ bought is failing. M$ needs a way to spin these latest developments and send up more FUD signals.
First SCO puts up a site to blow smoke up our collective asses. We don't bite, but we're not the target audience.
Next M$ has MSN announce "news" stories along with links to case analysis on SCO new sites. Again, the few of us who actually visit MSN to see the FUD shake our heads and laugh at the unbelievable remarks. Unfortunately the ignorant masses buy into it and repeat it as truthful objective news.
M$ ends up with much more FUD bang for their buck while SCO prepares to spin their bankruptcy in a way that squarely places blame on FOSS. FOSS killed SCO, you're next!
Hey, maybe SCO can charge MSN freelance fees for doing stories for them! That'll help resupply SCO's dwindling war chest!
I'm sure that the IBM lawyers will spend many a happy hour reading whatever appears.
How can it be "fair" if the website address already shows that its leaning to one side?
What a bunch of idiots.
More importantly, is it really a good idea to post rants on a public Web site stating your position in a lawsuit that's still pending? Isn't that the very first thing pretty much any reputable attorney says to clients -- don't go running off your mouth about the case? "Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law" is what the cops tell you in criminal law ... this certainly will apply to SCO as well.
Breakfast served all day!
Amazon's "one-click" patent, for example, is in NO WAY innovative.
"In no way?"
No. It might not be innovative enough to deserve patent protection, but it's certainly "innovative."
I see, so the idea is to employ a few SCO bods to put up a website describing every detail of the court case, transcribing all of the court documents and putting up articles describings SCO'S opinions and related news articles.
:-) ) but only now do they bother to even try and counteract it? I bet nothing that gets put onto their new toy will ever contain ever really important, most of it will probably be paid-for PR by either made-up persons like the MIT deep-divers or by known rubbish-talkers.
And you think that the little bit of money that you throw into that website is going to counter a huge base of dedicated people who work on the website on their own time, for fun, go to the courthouses of their own accord and get every little thing that's filed and publicly available as soon as it's released? That it'll make anybody think twice about whether they've misjudged SCO?
They seriously think that people don't already know what SCO think (we own the world, give us money, why not? Boo Hoo) and that anyone (except Groklaw and the terminally bored or mindless) will actually bother to rifle through their PR rubbish? This can only provide Groklaw with more ammunition to make the whole world laugh at SCO.
It's also far too late. They've been whinging about Groklaw's influence for months and always seem to manage to talk about it in derogatory terms (sponsored by IBM, you know
And what's worse is that the site ain't even up yet. By the time it does get up and get anything useful or vaguely interesting up, it'll all be over.
Do they intend to use this site like an anti-Groklaw, to take IBM's public statements and court transcripts and try to poke holes in them, to find inconsistencies, to watch the superb work of SCO's lawyers ripping the opposition to shreds? That'll be fun to read.
Do they intend to answer all those questions that everyone is just dying to know the answer to, like "Which lines of code?" or "Why can't you tell us which lines of code?" or "Why are you stalling so badly when you've publically claimed such good evidence that you haven't shown anyone yet?". That'll be fun to read.
It's just a ruse. They hope that some middle-manager somewhere, having heard about all of this legal thing that affects their software decisions, will see Groklaw as a collection of amateurs (which can obviously be safely ignored) but will see ProSCO as a glowing advert which closes their doubts because it's got pretty eye candy and some sort of statement which says they are in the right and it's got quotes from SCO's management on it. Maybe then a few of these managers will just ignore their doubts and go SCO.
Can't believe this will help their cause at all and can't wait to see the site when they actually get it working. IP may be gold but a good SCO quote can keep you laughing for the rest of your life.
If we are looking for a literary metaphor McBride is more akin to Snidely Whiplash.
Mcbride is the almost perfect villian and hollywood writers should take note - for inspiration if nothing else.
He is a consummate blend of hubris, arrogance, ignorance, knavishness casted into a tongue wagging, smirking package with just barely enough intelligence that you don't completely discount him.
Unfortunately, I don't really think this is true - it's just that in the computer industry we find out about computer-related patents more.
Lots of industries seem to have similarly absurd patents. Razor companies patent the design of the clip that holds the disposible blade to the handle, and then use the patents to prevent people making compatible disposible blades, for example.
The hot-air hand dryer in our bathroom proudly lists the patent numbers that protect its design of heating up air and blowing it out....
What happened to: "I disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it!"
I think most people are educated/intelligent enough to recognize corporate astroturf for what it is when its as blatiant as a SCO owned and operated website. And if they aren't, that's where our speech comes in, to inform Joe Average and criticize our enemies; but not to silence anyone.
"Mission Accomplished" -- George W. Bush May 1, 2003
One-Click can only be defined as "innovative" if you accept the notion that taking a simple real-world noun and appending the phrase "on the internet" is a valid form of creative enterprise.
The essential concepts behind One-Click (pre-store the customer's credit information, allow them to purchase from you without hassle, then charge them later) have been in common usage worldwide for decades, if not millennia.
Persistent client interactivity, who would have thought that was possible with cookies? Apparently only the brilliant minds at Amazon (and the dim bulbs at the Patent Office).
I'll bet it's more like no one in the press is going to print their BS anymore so they have to do it themselves. They might get one or two reporters to look at it, but that will stop when the reporters notice that there's no difference between the site and their nutty press releases. They won't stop reading Groklaw.
It's amazing, you tell lies and people quit listening to you.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
A quick google search for prosco finds http://www.prosco-inc.com/index.html. I expect they will not be happy to be associated with SCO.
apparently only SCO will be allowed to author content on proSCO.net. There will be no feedback areas, no forums, no bulletin boards, no threaded discussions, no nothing.
Yep, that's really going to compete with groklaw.net, which is a true community effort.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
IANAL, but Voltaire always had a loophole with that one. He never actually specified whose death he was referring to.
"I disagree with what you say, but will defend to Darl McBride's death your right to say it."
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