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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.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Summary: the Register saw a flaw in some groklaw articles (about the 'stopgap' claims), wrongly interpreted some other comments (proof that SCO knew about Monterey on Power) in that context, and wrote a very long article about it. PJ's response, unfortunately, only goes into those last claims, not the critique on the stopgap claims, which are justified, IMHO.
Anyway, storm is a glass of water.
Jan
So, thanks for the article, guys. As others have pointed out, P.J. has already put up a response, with her usual discussion forum there.
Being open about things requires getting at the truth. And I think people generally agree that the real truth, presented in Court, will make Linux stronger, not weaker.
I also note this falsehood in the Register article:
"SCO made friendly with Linux as best it could,"
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.
Microport, by the way, was the company which provided Richard Stallman's foks with a complete development system for free, just so that he could put gcc on the 386.
Also, there was a quote from Doug Michaels (head of SCO at the time) stating in an interview that SCO would "steal everything it could" from Linux. Michaels later retracted that statement; but it was clear that his original words were what SCO had on its mind.
So noo, SCO never, ever made friendly with Linux. It was always trying to stab Linux in the back at every opportunity it could. To state otherwise is an outright lie, and is to the Registers' general discredit.
The best way to predict the future is to create it. - Peter Drucker.
If Groklaw seems biassed in the SCO-IBM case, that is because the facts support IBM's view of the case. This is not entirely true. Groklaw is biased in a way, but not to the extent of misreporting facts, rather they do sympathize with IBM. So if a fact is posted that's not in favor of IBM (and this does happen) they're reported as "a problem for IBM's case, how should this be solved?" whereas if a problematic fact arises that hurts SCOX, it's quickly pointed out that this is the latest in a long string of facts exposing their lies and misrepresentations. While the latter is also factually true, the emphasis is on pointing this out. Of course, some of the comments go either way in being totally biased for or against. Of course, groklaw being biased at least in its attitude is not a bad thing in itself. In fact, if it wasn't, it would be a lot less interesting to read. Rather like The Register itself.
Is this not done in the effort to be even righter? Did not Newton himself point out evidence that his theory could not explain and thus that it was incomplete, and have not others made extenstions to the theory that have it very much "righter"? Is not one of the possible advantages of Free Software that it can easily be examined and changed to make it better?
Isn't this how we want things to work?
I don't hang out at Groklaw much, but in the few hours I've spent there I get the impression that PJ is very open to corrections, even soliciting them, and takes them to heart.
This is the side I'm likely to bet on. Nobody ever gets everything right, but the people who cling to their wrongs remain wrong, the people who admit their wrongs correct them and become "righter."
And then get critized for admiting they were wrong and retracting/correcting. On the other hand if you "correct" your view to a wrong one to gain popularity you are often cheered as a hero, and elected President. Is a puzzlement.
Henry Clay said, "I'd rather be right than President." I'll got with that, and PJ, not because she's infallible, but because she clearly, and publicly, knows that she isn't.
KFG
The company that used to be named "SCO" is now doing business under the name "Transmeta."
Caldera (aka: newSCO) bought the IP rights to the work done in Monterey from oldSCO (now Transmeta), and those rights are at the core of the present lawsuit.
So.. by showing that Caldera (now newSCO) knew Monterey was heading to POWER back before the Monterey project ended, PJ has produced evidence which directly contradicts the claims newSCO (then Caldera) has made in its third amended complaint.. namely that newSCO (then Caldera) thought:
Interestingly enough, the company formely known as "Caldera" didn't change its name to "The SCO Group" until after it filed its lawsuit against IBM. Questions like the one you just asked show just how much confusion that bit of misdirection has caused.