The Register vs Groklaw: Who Gets It Right?

microbee writes "Over the past weeks Groklaw has been running a series of articles on new discoveries about SCO and Project Monterey. Surprisingly (to me, as I love both sites), The Register published another article to counter the argument of Groklaw's serials, claiming "it's difficult to envisage Groklaw's conjecture swaying a court case, but it provides SCO with valuable public relations ammunition."" There's also a rebuttal on groklaw as well.

Comments

PJ's Rebuttal

[vmcto]

As others are reporting, postings to daddypants@slashdot.org are ignored...

Why not present both sides fully? PJ has already posted a rebuttal to this on Groklaw.

And for the record: Groklaw gets it right

PJ's Rebuttal

Re:PJ's Rebuttal

[swillden]

PJ seems only concerned, as I read her response, about whether PM was intended to run on the POWER architecture. I'm not sure how much the latter matters as much as the former.

You have the importance backwards. SCO's third amended complaint alleges that IBM's port of UNIX to POWER was not authorized by SCO. IOW, SCO is suing IBM for porting UNIX to POWER. Therefore, it is very important to prove that SCO did know, and approve, of IBM's efforts to port UNIX to POWER.

This is what PJ's spate of Monterey articles have primarily been about.

Corrections go here

[dtfinch]

Every GrokLaw article has a thread under it entitled "Corrections go here: So PJ can find them" or something of that nature.

Re:Groklaw got it right

[k98sven]

The Register article's claims about PJ retracting statements are not backed up by any evidence.

Strange, since PJ concedes that she changed a statement after the article.

Re:Groklaw got it right

[dhall]

Considering PJ's main focus was to point out that both old SCO (now Tarantella) and new SCO (previously Caldera) were fully aware that IBM was using Unix based technology on the POWER architecture, which appears to be in contradiction to new SCO's current claims.

They publish a tariff

[NickFortune]

The reg publishes a tariff. A quick article casting aspersions upon PJ and Groklaw would only cost SCO 15k - cheap compared to the dosh they've blown on lawyers fees lately.

Of course, this being el Reg, I'm never entirely sure whether or not to take said tariff with a pinch of salt. Overall, I think I'm tending toward not.

It doesn't diminish my my affection for the rag, I just don't take them too seriously when they pull sudden a volte-face in favour of someone with deep pockets.

Re:Groklaw got it right

[strider44]

she didn't actually change her point of view, but she just clarified a statement as she thought the Register writer misinterpreted it.

Re:Groklaw got it right

[belmolis]

Sorry but this is not a rebuttal of what I said. I said that the Register article's claims:

are not backed up by any evidence

That remains true: the Register article doesn't specify what statements PJ retracted, with quotes and/or links. So even if the Register's claim were right, it is true that it gave no EVIDENCE for it, which is what I said.

As to the correctness of the Register's claims, what PJ "admits" is that she made a small modification to ONE statement. Contrast that with the Register article's claim that:

some of the phrases we quote have already disappeared

As far as I can tell, NO phrases have "disappeared", and only one statement has been modified, in a rather minor way. This is hardly vindication for the Register article's overblown claims.

Wrong SCO

[RealProgrammer]

Pure, utter bull. SCO was never, ever a nice company. They pulled EVERY dirty trick in the book that they could. This case is, in fact, the SECOND time they have partnered with Microsoft to bring down a UNIX competitor via the Courts. The first time was a legal threat to a small company called Microport, when Microport publically announced Xenix binary compatibility in stock AT&T UNIX.

In 1979, Larry and Doug Michels founded The Santa Cruz Operation ("oldSCO"). Santa Cruz was then partly held by Microsoft. They ported UNIX to the 8086, releasing Xenix-86 in 1983, followed by releases for the '286 and '386 chips. (Both Santa Cruz and Microsoft sold Xenix at various times.)

In 1994, Caldera was founded as a Linux distributor by Ransom Love and Bryan Sparks, financed and guided by Novell founder Ray Noorda.

In 1995, Santa Cruz bought Xenix from Microsoft and UNIX/UnixWare from Novell.

In 1996, Caldera bought DR-DOS from Novell, and promptly sued Microsoft over antitrust.

In 1998, Project Monterey was announced between IBM, Sequent, and Santa Cruz.

In 1999, Microsoft sold off all it's Santa Cruz shares.

In 2000 (January), Microsoft settled the DR DOS case with Caldera for between $60 and $150 million. In March of that year, Caldera Systems reincorporated in Delaware, receiving a $30 million investment from Sun, Santa Cruz, Citrix, Novell and venture capitalists and made an IPO. Ray Noorda then owned 73% of Caldera Systems. In a deal announced in August of 2000 and completed in the Spring of 2001, Caldera bought the server and OS part of oldSCO. OldSCO then changed its name to Tarentella, which (in 2005) sells a nice directory for Unix. At some point after the UNIX purchase, apparently, Ray Noorda stopped giving much guidance to Caldera.

It was widely believed, that Caldera's purchase of Santa Cruz' UNIX group would mean the end of Monterey. Certainly it gave IBM an out, since their Monterey contract specified that a change in control could end the agreement.

In January 2003 IBM made some public statements implying that they were using their AIX knowledge to advance Linux.

In March of 2003, Caldera sued IBM for copyright infringement, I mean trade secret violations, I mean "this has always been a contract case". In July, Caldera changed its name to "The SCO Group".

As far as I know, none of the people calling the shots at The SCO Group (Caldera) have anything to do with The Santa Cruz Operation.