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IBM Tells SCO Court It Can't Find AIX-on-Power Code
Ghostx13 writes "A story over at Linuxworld states that IBM has been less than forthcoming with its bits and pieces of source code SCO is demanding. SCO is alleging in its 3rd Amended Complaint that 'IBM put SCO-owned SVR4 code in System 3-based AIX for its proprietary Power chip architecture.' The problem? IBM 'can't find' that source code. Does IBM have something to hide?"
It is buried under the sand in Iraq somewhere.
the same game SCO is just to mock them.
IBM has nothing to hide, they just don't want to give up the code. Or maybe they can't find it because it doesn't exist and SCO is making a false claim.
First post?
Because it never existed in the first place. They are just making things up now, and there is no reason to believe anything they say, especially with all the egg coating on their integrity.
*De gozaru!*
...but that horrid layout makes it tough to tell where the ads end and the article starts.
I think you can safely laugh at this before RTFA.
This is one written by Maureen O'Gara, who has about as much credibility as Laura DiDio.
Straight to the FUD Shill round file.
IBM did agree to disclose the code in question in exchange if SCO published a pic of Darl in a naked fetal position on their homepage.
For a site with linux in it's url, it seems very negative against linux and has taken SCO's side in the past. Is such a story really news worthy coming from LinuxWorld?
Of course I am not even going into all the legal disputes, including the two orders by the judge for sco to comply and point to the lines they claim infringe (which they claim publicly to have, and they should have before bringing a lawsuit if they wish to get anywhere).
... went horribly wrong - aren't these slashdot sco/ibm articles supposed to be in favour of ibm and opensource and whatnot? it didn't even mention linux!
Why should IBM be forthcoming ?
After all, it's SCO they are dealing with and to be honest, I don't know anyone who would want to deal with them, except maybe the guy with the horns and the tail.
I know who I'd rather back in a dispute of this nature, given the track records overall.
A slashdotting - you get the stick first and then the carrot !
Linuxworld should be named "LinuxSuxWorld." It is devoted entirely to advertisers, with occasional snarky anti-Linux "articles" thrown in for show. They shouldn't even bother with the articles, and just shill 100% for advertisers like CNet/ZDNet.
Groklaw's IBM-dazzled observers
I don't know, but your article loses all credibility when it includes this statement in the first paragraph. Most of the Groklaw readers aren't pro-IBM, they are anti-SCO.
This is the second or third journalist to repeat this pseudo-meme, and that doesn't make it any more true. In fact, I think this has become so-called "LinuxWorld"'s party line.
People hate SCO because of what SCO has done, period. There is nothing more to say about it.
This article is a troll, plain and simple. I don't know anything about the disposition of AIX source code re: IBM and SCO's contractual relationships
in the past, but I certainly won't take any source seriously that is so broken in their understanding of the basic underlying facts.
Who is behind LinuxWorld? Why the ridiculous pro-SCO equivocation and anti-IBM attacks? Regardless of how you feel about IBM, how can anybody else associated with the software industry support a company that has made IP-lawsuits its first and only business priority?
Well, maybe, and I hope you're right, but what if IBM actually did do what they've been accused of? Is it that long a bow to draw?
The other thing is, if it were MS, people would be running around in circles and burning effigies of Bill Gates (me too, probably
I've just been fearing that there is some merit to behind all the SCO bluster, and this makes me fear it just a little bit more...
Iran has endorsed
If IBM really had something to hide, don't you think they would have come up with a better excuse then: "Uh... I can't find it"
is so fucked up (excuse my language, but i was pissed of):
SCO and IBM met in federal court in Utah again Tuesday for another go-round over the discovery that IBM hasn't produced in SCO's $5 billion lawsuit against it.
At the hearing, one of SCO's lawyers, another young thing from Boies, Schiller & Flexner whose footwork was smooth enough to impress even Groklaw's IBM-dazzled observers, mentioned the little matter of SCO's days-old Third Amended Complaint, which, alas, is under seal reportedly because it's based on some e-mail that turned up during discovery that IBM now claims is privileged though there's supposedly no hint of attorney-client communication about it.
Anyway, the sealed Third Amended Complaint has to do with SCO's contention that - to compete against Sun - IBM put SCO-owned SVR4 code in System 3-based AIX for its proprietary Power chip architecture - and one of the supposedly compromising IBM e-mails - that SCO just happened to read out loud in court the other day - suggests that IBM was conscious that it had overstepped the bounds of its Project Monterey contract with SCO, which was intended to produce only a version of AIX for Intel's Itanium chip (CSN No 564).
Well, during the Third Amended Complaint discussion, SCO's lawyer held up a piece of paper - that was duplicated on a projection screen that only the magistrate judge, Brooke Wells, could see - that listed all of the AIX code that IBM has and hasn't turned over to SCO. And SCO's lawyer pointed out that the only piece of code that IBM hasn't come up with - which was highlighted in red - was the AIX-on-Power code - to which IBM's lawyer replied that IBM "can't find it."
Shades of the Compuware suit. They "can't find it."
Makes one wonders whether IBM looked in that closet in Australia where it said a few weeks ago it just happened to stumble over the source code - the source code it swore - literally swore in court for two years - didn't exist - the code that it was supposed to produce during the court-ordered discovery phase of the suit that Compuware brought against IBM for, well, for stealing its source code.
IBM only managed to find the code after discovery had closed and the trial was about to start, a situation that it got its ears boxed for by the District Court for Eastern Michigan, which called its behavior "gross negligence."
Magistrate Wells has yet to cross that bridge, however.
After listening to what everybody had to say - and all the reasons why IBM shouldn't have to produce all the rest of the stuff that SCO wants - particularly the IBM Configuration Management and Version Control System (CMVC) and Revision Control System (RCS) that SCO thinks is the key to its case - she reserved any final decision so she could go off and have a think about it - and probably confer with her staff and her colleague Judge Dale Kimball, who's hearing IBM's motion for a partial summary judgment - a decision, IBM pointed out, that might make her ruling moot.
However, she did give IBM and SCO 30 days to exchange so-called privilege logs listing all of the discovery that they're not providing each other because it's allegedly privileged.
She also told IBM to get affidavits from IBM management, including CEO Sam Palmisano, the CTO of IBM's Unix/Linux interests Irving Wladawsky-Berger and IBM's board of directors, attesting that nothing more exists in their files regarding IBM's Linux activities.
See, IBM - having produced one single PowerPoint presentation - contends that there are no other e-mails, memos, business plans or presentations about Linux anywhere in the joint, evidently proving that not only can elephants dance, but that they really do have good memories.
The lunatic is in my head
Gods witnessed glaciers forming faster than my downloads...
Thats because God has broadband.
One question about source code for OS's - if a company can't find the source code for a 5 year old release of its software - do I really want to trust their software to handle my data??
A Shadeless room is a brighter room.
but in response to SCO's nonesense,
I'd say: Good on IBM
They probably really can't find the code. I used to work for IBM. I've seen them lose source for their products myself.
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
Then again, it could just be another fluff piece to try and boost the stock price up from yet another 52-week low. On the subject of which, the price of SCOX is now at almost exactly the same level it was right before Linux got dragged kicking and screaming into the court case and things went crazy...
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
I have been working with IBM Content Management products for about 3 years now as a Sys-Admin / Programmer.
On occasion I'm in Awe of IBM. The abilities they have to produce huge enterprise applications in a short amount of time is amazing.
But usually I'm in Awe of IBM in a negative light
There have been several times that IBM couldn't come up with the binaries for some of their fixpack levels of some of their products., let alone the source code. The developers were like . . . uh . . . we don't have that code any more.
Oh yeah? Where did it go?
The fact that they can't come up with the source code for some parts of their AIX OS does seem suspicious but comes as no shock to me.
Conserve Oil, Recycle, Boycott Walmart
IBM has document retention policies specifically to limit liabilities. Or more like document destruction policies. All emails have to be wiped after two years. They probably truly don't have the code anymore.
Recently I had the misfortune of Microsoft trying to find some include files from an Embedded Win CE V3 platform builder (don't ask, it wasn't my decision to use that crap) for me for an older single board computer. They no longer had the source, either. And it would have been very *good* for them if they'd been able to come up with it. They literally didn't have it anymore.
Throwing company materials away as early as possible is the newest predefensive corporate legal maneuver. If tobacco companies had done that, they'd have saved a lot of money. Probably watching the tobacco companies is what gave other companies the idea.
Banky Edwards: Alright, now see this? This is a four-way road, OK? And dead in the center is a crisp, new, hundred dollar bill. Now, at the end of each of these streets are four people, OK? Are you following?
Holden: Yeah.
Banky Edwards: Good. Over here, we have a mild-mannered, restrained, God-fearing Darl McBride holding the stolen SVR4 code. Down here, we have an SCO-hating, angry as fuck, full of rage, frenetic IBM lawyer. Over here, we got Santa Claus, and up here the Easter Bunny. Which one is going to get to the hundred dollar bill first?
Holden: What is this supposed to prove?
Banky Edwards: No, I'm serious. This is a serious exercise. It's like an SAT question. Which one is going to get to the hundred dollar bill first? The mild-mannered Darl, the angry IBM lawyer, Santa Claus, or the Easter bunny?
Holden: The angry IBM lawyer.
Banky Edwards: Good. Why?
Holden: I don't know.
Banky Edwards: Because the other three are figments of your fucking imagination!
(1) SCO has all the SV code.
(2) SCO has access to all the code in Linux.
If there is no overlap between these two, then there is no copyright infringement, despite the crack-addled theories proposed. They may have a case against IBM for contract breach from one of their previous dealings, but I really doubt it.
here is the link
I left this as a response to that horribly written, ad and idiocy infested article.
You can't handle the truth.
*waves hands*: This is not the source code you are looking for.
Not that I have any reason to trust IBM but I have all the reasons not to trust SCO: What if a corrupt IBM employee made that code disappear? SCO cannot do that? What about another company who already helped SCO out?
It's SCO's *third* claim, so maybe they devised a better FUD tactic this time? These questions and similar ones I would have dismissed as too unlikely, but in this case I believe IBM is innocent until SCO proves otherwise.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
If IBM wants to align itself with linux, it can't afford to play dirty licensing games with UNIX code. It's that simple. Either the company embraces open-source or else it's just another FUD factory -- even though it's currently a pro-linux FUD factory, it's still unacceptable.
I'm not saying IBM is guilty or innocent, but I am hoping to God it really can't find the code, because they make some good fuckin hardware, and I'd hate to have to hate 'em.
REM Old programmers don't die. They just GOSUB without RETURN.
>one of SCO's lawyers [...] footwork was smooth enough to impress even Groklaw's IBM-dazzled observers
...but only because he managed to stay awake throughout the hearing ;-)
Belief is the currency of delusion.
... doing a Google search?
And if that fails, a www.archive.org search?
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Has been entirely and quickly forthcoming with millions and millions of lines of code that SCO has basically been demanding as part of a fishing expedition.
One single piece of code out of these mountains IBM claims has gone missing.
Possible explanations from this:
1. IBM is telling the truth.
2. This is the one single piece of infringing code in all of Dynix or whatever which is infringing, and so they are hiding it.
Reasons for believing number one to be true: Well, it's extremely plausible. Given how much that IBM has produced the idea one single document among all of this has been legitimately lost within IBM is fairly believable.
Reasons for believing number two to be true: Well, nothing. But it's possible.
We certainly
SCO's strategy, for lack of a case until this point, has been to demand increasingly larger mountains of discovery until they hit something that is unreasonable. Once something proves to be unreasonable, they go to the press yelling "What does IBM have to hide???". SCO's media shills, working in a vacuum as they do, have been able to do this as often as they like despite the fact that generally, the reason IBM has not provided these things is that the judge ruled they did not have to. Meanwhile, it is probably important to keep in mind SCO has consistently refused to comply with even the most basic of discovery demands, even sometimes when ordered by the judge.
Now they appear, within this strategy, to have struck gold. They have located something which IBM is not producing, but yet the judge actually agrees IBM should produce-- and which IBM claims it is unable to produce. However, still, they have produced no evidence that this indicates wrongdoing of, well, any sort. There's no way you could make this appear so much as suspicious except by pointing to, well, the fact IBM's been so entirely forthcoming up until now. Once you do that it is possible to make it appear suspicious, yet, but not possible to actually make anything of it in court; from a court's perspective this detail is quite small. So it appears this is no victory for anyone except SCO's disconnected-from-reality PR shills.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Right in front of my eyes, some of the comments left on that site have disappeared, it went down from 8 to 5 comments in just a second.
So, the truth hurts, and the truth in this case is - everyone who goes to read this article hates what is written there but most likely does not understand the entire issue at hand about the SVR4, leaves a comment of this sort: "This site is ugly and ad-ridden, and Maureen is a SCO shill" and the editor removes the comment. The entire issue is like that SCO was allright with this move by IBM and there is a story to support this at groklaw. The story goes like this: there was a document on the SCO's site for a while that talked about how great it will be that IBM will have SVR4 code in their Power design... But the article was remove from SCO site.
You can't handle the truth.
I am amazed that Slashdot would lend credibility to a story by Maureen O'Gara. She's nothing more than a hack with an obvious anti-Linux bias.
I had been considering subscribing to Slashdot. I have now decided that I'll spend my money where the editors have better sense.
> and any moronic idiot that is given mod points
> that mods an anonymous post should never again
> be given anything.
Surely that depends on whether you think mod points are allocated to assist overcompetitive nerds to rack up their Karma scores, or whether you think the point is to increase the visibility of interesting and insightful articles.
I note that *you* posted as an Anonymous Coward. Perhaps there's some significance in that, but I'm fucked if I can figure out what it might be. Fear of the mods yourself, perhaps?
Well, they have at least a few technical people left. Otherwise, who'd be bundling the new version of Samba and other OSS packages with their crummy UNIX?
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
IBM has provided SCO with the full source code to several versions of AIX that they were ordered to by Judge Brook Wells, within one week of being so ordered. SCO was directed to parse those source code files and identify the files and lines of that source code, that they believed were specifically relevent to the case they are persuing related to IBM.
So far all SCO has done has been to complain that the code (which they specifically requested and which was granted by Judge Wells) was not sufficient for them. Further they have requested copies of all versions, sub-versions, itterative builds, notes, and so forth for AIX, back to the very begining of AIX, as well as e-mail and memos from executive management that might be relevent to the case.
IBM has basically responded, 'you will have to take the results of your code review of the material you have received so far, present them to the Judge, and show what part of those results entitles you to further discovery.' Additionally they have pointed out that what they are asking for will take orders of magnitude more work to provide than what they had requested earlier.
SCO has made the interesting response that IBM's versioning software should make these responses easy to comply with, and 'Hey, just give us direct/remote access to it, and we won't have to bother you about it.'
Umm, yeah, anyone else think that the judge granted them the opportunity to make a brief fishing trip to some streams they have named, and SCO is saying 'Hey the fish have not been biting, let's make it a flight to a deep water fishing expedition.'
I am not a lawyer, much less a judge. Based upon what I have seen published, I would have a very hard time approving further discovery into AIX code, much less AIX-on-Power code, which was not asked for in the first place.
-Rusty
You never know...
It's funny, but the transcript of that court hearing is sealed. Why? SCO read a priviledged email out loud in open court, strangely enough, concerning this very architecture (and that's all we'll know unless SCO & co. leak information, or the court releases a redacted transcript). As you may or may not realize, that's bad. As in the kind of thing that gets the lawyers in trouble.
:]
So that makes it hard to comment on what this all means, but it does make me suspicious here. What better way to spread FUD than to get the court transcript sealed and blather whatever you like to the media in the mean time? Whether by accident or design, that's exactly what SCO has been doing.
And, as for this code, I sincerely doubt it contains anything helpful to SCO. By all accounts, they've filed an utterly baseless lawsuit that has forever been in search of any wrongdoing by IBM, and they haven't exactly come up with a lot.
Every single piece of "evidence" they have ever put forth that we can actually see and analyze has been shown not to support SCO's position. Rather, they pounce on anything the least bit out of place and use innuendo to imply that there "must" be something more to it, because we cannot assume they would be so stupid as to do something like this without some proof...
Given that that's how they've been operating, I conclude that this is nothing more than an unscripted bluff. That's right--they have no master plan, they're just making up crap as they go along, using whatever story is most convenient at the time. That's why the story keeps changing--they're bluffing and they have been the whole time. It was never anything but a shakedown premised on the theory that a company the size of IBM must have something to hide.
So, to anyone who says "there must be something to this, or SCO wouldn't have done that," I say: SCO really is that dumb.
Now, as for the other story, we're getting legal threats, etc. from that fellow who tried to buy Linux for $50,000 over on Groklaw, all due to some old court documents where people called him delusional. He did say something about a secret, personal mission to "save" Linux (or something--I don't claim to have his story straight any more than someone can claim to understand what SCO's current claims are).
I wonder when this will be turned into a geek soap opera? "As the SCO Burns" or something?
- They discovered that the code was missing
- They made up a story as to why it's crucial
- They ask for it, jumping up and down about how deceptive IBM is
Just a thought =)Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Speaking of Maureen, here is what I mean by her being on the short list for SCO press releases.
See what I mean?
... never ascribe to malice, that which can be explained by incompetence.
It's quite likely they cannot really find the code. Anybody that has worked at a big corporation knows that (If you haven't, just read the complete Dilbert strips, and you'll have an idea).
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
I have two things to say.
1) Linuxworld (snicker)
2) Maureen O'Gara (guffaw)
The pinnacle of journalistic integrity. (cough)
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
because they never got it to compile (it was for another architecture, right?) and decided to just delete it instead. This brings up a question: does a software developer have a legal duty to keep copies of all revisions and attempts he makes with his code, even those that don't work or turn out to be useless?
At the hearing, one of SCO's lawyers, another young thing from Boies, Schiller & Flexner whose footwork was smooth enough to impress even Groklaw's IBM-dazzled observers,
Wow, wait, what? Is this meant to be taken as objective?
mentioned the little matter of SCO's days-old Third Amended Complaint, which, alas, is under seal reportedly because it's based on some e-mail that turned up during discovery that IBM now claims is privileged though there's supposedly no hint of attorney-client communication about it.
Notice that SCO's side in this case seems to have absolutely zero respect for the judge and his rulings? The judge rules that IBM doesn't have to produce something; this becomes "IBM won't produce this thing". The judge rules that something SCO did in the courtroom violates confidentiality and orders it sealed; this becomes some kind of who-me where-on-earth-did-this-come-from thing which is somehow implied to be IBM's fault. Don't you think, maybe, the judge so consistently failing to take SCO's side isn't just some kind of head-slapping, inexplicable coincidence, but perhaps indicates some sort of problem on the part of SCO's lawyers?
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
For creating this confusion. What is missing isn't source to any release version, it's a developmental iteration. IBM has already given SCO all of AIX source. What SCO has been asking for is every little change whether it made it into a release or not. Because, dammit, their code has to be in there somewhere!
With O'Gara, it's hard to tell where the sloppy journalism stops and the pro-SCO bias starts. I used to think she was just a crappy writer, not a SCO shill.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Except that slashdot doesn't pretend to be something it isn't. If LinuxWorld really has that kind of "integrity"... then it's right up there with LinuxInsider.
Is LinuxWorld the site affiliated with LinuxWorld the show? The magazine? (I've found the magazine so useless that I've dropped my free subscription, but I never found it violently anti-Linux. Or maybe I just didn't notice because I didn't find it worth reading.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Here is an example of why I maintain that LinuxWorld is dangerous.
They have posted what is obviously a bogus critical secrurity bulletin purportedly from Red Hat, linking to a "patch" located at stanford.edu.
Since when does RH deliver errata via random sites. More likely is that this is an attempt to compromise systems.
And the stars at LinuxWorld exercised no editorial judgement at all, no common sense; they just ran it.
If I were trying to undermine Linux, this is exactly the kind of thing I would do.
He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.
-- J.R.R. Tolkien
If you think that /. posting links to incredibly poorly written articles by half-illiterate SCO shills is *helping* SCO, then you're not seeing the whole picture.
When crayon-drawn spewings (such as the linked article) of "journalists" who are obviously less skilled in writing than the average message board troll are ALL the possitive press that SCO can get, it's a sort of cruel fun to post verbatim what the pro-SCO trolls write.
I mean come on, put up an article by Maureen O'Gara or Laura Didio, or Rob Enderle... and then put a Groklaw article next to it. Who comes off looking like a retard (um, I mean "specially abled journalist"), and who comes off looking like an intelligent human being?
Giving the writings of shills like O'Gara wide exposure simply makes everyone aware of thier illiteracy, and therefore contemptuous.
Heh, might as well give the pro-SCO folks plenty of opportunities to explain their position... it's fun to watch not-too-bright people try to explain the inexplicable.
Scribbler O'Hara misunderstood her SCO input:
... the little matter of SCO's days-old Third Amended ...
>
> Complaint, which, alas, is under seal
There is no Third Amended Complaint. To file a 3rd amendment
SCO needs approval by the Judge and IBM has to be
consulted. Although their chances to be refused are high,
it may happen that SCO ask the Judge for permission to file
such an amendment because they are so desperate to extend
discovery to the end of time and never have to let down
their pants in court.
Note that the story about AIX using non-licensed
Unixware code is more than one year old and was already
dissected and debunked, see Groklaw as usual:
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=132
contains the millions of lines of code which prove that Linus copied SCO code.
LinuxWorld is certainly not a pro-Linux site, nor is it ZDnet -- it's put out by SysCon media. Well, at least the "con" sounds right! Maureen O'Gara is simply a SCO mouthpiece. I'm perplexed that CowboyNeal ran with it here, giving it credibility that it doesn't deserve. Maybe he's trying to earn those Cowboy Neal jokes.
But what's the lead story on LinuxWorld today?
Fraud in Linuxland? VA Linux Class Action To Go Forward
Yep, it's an attack on Slashdot's owner! If you can't take the message, dig the dirt on the messenger!
Groklaw has a rebuttle here.
Basically the whole story is a lie. The judged sealed the transcripts of the hearing (probably because of the confidential email the SCO lawyers read aloud), so the author couldn't have checked her facts. All the witnesses who attended the hearing and reported back to Groklaw say that IBM never said anything about "losing" code.
Just another Microsoft shill.
There were 2 folks there who reported to Groklaw what happened. They also report that Maureen O'Gara was *not* at the hearing.
See: http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200410231 53851359
"that's not encryption - it's a new perl script that I'm working on..." - from some Matrix parody
For factual information (as usual) see GrokLaw
2 31 53851359
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200410
Sexual harassment involving a female boss is not necessarily far from reality. See this article. (Notice the responses that the man received from supervisors.)
The accounts from Groklaw witnesses at the hearing are informative, especially since they were available long before O'Gara published this piece. Nothing was said remotely like what O'Gara claims. Her report isn't just vaguely confused; it appears to be an outright lie. It COULD be that someone "spun" it to her. However, as PJ notes, O'Gara's articles make it plain that she reads Groklaw. None of these people saw O'Gara there, so her source almost has to be secondary. Given the obvious bias in the story, she could be being lead around by the nose for PR purposes by TSG.
Unfortunately, since the TSG crew decided to read a confidential email outloud in court, the whole hearing transcript has been sealed by the judge. [This could even be why TSG made such a clossal "blunder" in court.] It prevents early and thorough critical review. So, O'Gara would have had no means of "independently" checking the "facts" - given she doesn't like Groklaw's unabashed partisanship, which is opposite hers and quite critical of her as well.
------ The only greater hazard to your liberty than n politicians is n+1 politicians.
According to Groklaw none of the eye-witnesses to the hearing in question SAW or HEARD any suck claim. In particular, the SEALED transcript is not available and the "reporter" in question *WAS* *NOT* *PRESENT* for the hearing.
You are all victims of FUD and you can stop with the uninformed pro-SCO Astroturf and rebuts there-of.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
Some of that is new to me (I missed part of the Groklaw exchange, for one), but yeah, that helps me explain this a lot better.
My view? Well, the Native American religion bit is to use peyote legally (although I think it requires at least some tribal descent? I confess to being unclear about the law surrounding it). However, I do know that they are allowed to posess and use limited quantities of it legally.
Anyhow, I figure him for just a random nut, and I wouldn't take the things he says at face value. I tend to doubt that even SCO would deliberately set this guy up to do anything on their behalf. As for his claims, I would tend to ascribe them to a mixture of psychotic episodes & hallucinogen use (e.g. the peyote). I seem to recall that peyote is not good for schizophrenics (or for anyone who cannot tell reality from fantasy--think about it, it just can't be good for you to deliberately hallucinate when you already have problems with reality).
Now then, to be fair to him, in no way could even a trained doctor diagnose this guy over the internet. I would tend to defer to the judge PJ found as to him being delusional (the delusion of grandeur--"saving" Linux for $50,000--is what makes me think schizophrenic), and if he admits to peyote use (again, to be fair, I haven't seen him say this), I would tend to think that this is just some random person who has issues with reality.
In short, I don't think he's a SCO "agent" of any sort. There are ways to make even a nut useful, but employing one as a messenger or negotiator when they're so unpredictable would be rather stupid even for SCO. On the other hand, SCO has never held conventional wisdom in high esteem, and they've been anything but predictable. Birds of a feather?