SCO to Unix developers, We want you back

NoGuffCheck writes "CRN is reporting that Darl McBride is looking to get Unix developers back onboard with cash incentives for completing training in SCO's new mobile application kit; EdgeBuilder. It doesn't stop there; there's a 12-cylinder BMW or $100,000 dollars for the development of the best wireless application."

Comments

What a waste

[ThinkingInBinary]

This is such a waste of their time. Do they really think anyone is going to take them seriously? Sure, a few misguided folks might, but, as far as I know, SCO's reputation is now squat in the tech industry. Besides, the incentives SCO offers probably won't be enough to pay off the lawsuits that SCO will file against you before you've finished your app.

Perhaps they should create a contest for "most creative way to destroy SCO" or something like that instead. It'd be much more fun. (Although seeing who actually enters this contest might be interesting.)

Re:What a waste

[tomstdenis]

Dude, most people will do anything for a buck. It's why we have shitty products on the shelves, crap service at every turn, etc, etc. I'm certain SCO could score an entire division of developers within weeks if they simply offer cash money.

that doesn't mean we have to buy what SCO is selling though!

Tom

Re:What a waste

[Em Adespoton]

Also... I hope the people who do take part realize that by doing so, SCO could claim ownership of every piece of code they ever have written, or ever will write. Give them $100,000 with one hand, sue them for $1.5Mil with the other if anything they ever do makes a profit. That appears to me to be SCO's current MO, and I can't see why they'd change it for this one little competition.

Re:What a waste

[SwellJoe]

HiThere is right about taking a job with shifty companies, but there are a lot of other reasons to simply avoid this kind of deal.

I've had occasion to deal with good folks and bad in running my own business, sometimes taking on projects I didn't really believe in (not particularly evil or destructive, just not in a direction that I felt was worth pursuing and thus a waste of my time) in order to pay the bills. These projects often promised far bigger returns than more fun, interesting, and good projects. However, in almost every case, I wound up spending more time and money on the project than anticipated and getting less money in the end. The companies footing the bills reneged on promises, disappeared into insolvency, redirected their efforts midway through the project (while I'd turned down other jobs in anticipation of this one being extremely long-term and high demand), etc. Sure, a strong contract (which is often where the first hints of trouble come up--getting the contract signed before work begins is often like pulling teeth with this kind of company...everything is always upbeat and enthusiastic, but discussions are long and fruitless). This is all very vague sounding, I know, but in seven years of running my first business I learned something very important:

The fact is, if you're doing what you believe in, you're far more likely to make a sustainable living than if you're taking on big money but shifty projects or jobs.

"Shifty" is the vague bit here. Seemingly large and hugely successful dotcom boom companies have often been the ones that wasted the most of my time and effort and made me feel far less satisfied with my work. On the other hand, one of the more pleasant work experiences was for an internet pornography company. They're probably the largest such company in the world now, but it was relatively small back then. I could tell immediately that the guy running the show was technically savvy, understood his needs very well, and had the authority to sign off on the work and pay for it; and I could see that our work could vastly improve the performance of his website, and thus his customer satisfaction, at a good price. The point is that the good projects and jobs are straightforward, clearly defined, technically sound and interesting, and payment is well-defined (and usually fair--not too high, not too low). Contests, commission-based pay, projects that you can see are clearly foolish and won't generate profit for your client, projects to create one-off software that already has a large market leader in the field with thousands of users, etc. are all warning signs of a bad deal for you no matter how good the payment looks. Further, those who are most ready to give you everything you ask for in initial negotiations are also probably the most difficult to deal with (and least likely to pay you enough to cover the time spent on them, and most likely to cause trouble during the actual contract signing).

What I'm trying to get at, is that in the real world, you can probably make a living working for people like The SCO Group. But you probably won't enjoy it, you'll probably get paid less than you deserve for the soul-sucking work, and you'll probably lock yourself into doing jobs for companies just like The SCO Group in the future. Not just because you have The SCO Group on your resume, and good tech companies will look down on you for it (which many will), but because your experiences will be in making oddball poorly designed products for a shifty company--the situation will demand that that's what happens with your project, even if you're a great developer. Working for a good company with a good vision leads to good products and your subsequent job offers will get better over time rather than worse. Go for good companies that do things you can believe in, even if you have to start out making less than the shifty company is offering. Working on something great is far more valuable to your longterm economic success than being paid an exhorbitant wage for working

Ring Tones?

[neonprimetime]

"SCO has gone through some rocky times. It's been a real roller coast ride the last few years," McBride said. But SCO is now focused on making mobile business transactions easier to implement. Ring tones for cell phones has become a $1 billion market, McBride noted.

So they go from something meaningful to Ring Tones? That's one crazy roller coaster.

Re:Ring Tones?

[gEvil (beta)]

I think this really shows McBride's level of understanding of the business he runs.

Not worth it.

[moultano]

100,000 dollars would certainly be nice, but I think the potential loss of my immortal soul is the dealbreaker for me.

Re:Not worth it.

[brilliant-mistake]

You'd never see the 100k anyhow. They're a bunch of con artists. They'd take your work and turn around and sue you probably.

It's a trick!

[roman_mir]

Sure sure, use their products to build your applications, and then they will give you your new shiny BMW and 100,000 bucks. And then they'll sue you for all your money and the BMW. This is just a trick, they want customers with money, so they can sue them. How do they actually get customers with money? Give them the money!

I think they need a reality check: perpetual motion is not possible in this universe.

Maybe this is just money laundering, they give you the money, write it off as expense. Then pay their lawyers by letting them to sue the people with the money and the BMWs.
They must be avoiding taxes with this somehow!

Sorry SCO

[Mancat]

It's not 1994 anymore. Nobody uses UnixWare or OpenServer. Those that do, probably want out as fast as possible. Your products are obsolete: Your hardware support sucks. Standards implementation sucks. Didn't you just get USB support in UnixWare a couple of years ago? Nobody is even worrying about whether or not their software will compile on your operating systems these days. You've alienated the entire Unix market systematically.

You're DEAD. Get over it. File chapter 11 and liquidate those assets already.

Re:Sorry SCO

[Anonymous Coward]

McDonald's USA is also working to get their back office system off SCO and ported to Windows.

The marketing-bragging on SCO's web site about McDonald's is laughably out of date; it quotes people who haven't been involved in the US IT group for years.

Roller coast ride?

[10Ghz]

"SCO has gone through some rocky times. It's been a real roller coast ride the last few years"

"Roller coast ride" implies movement both up and down. So I don't think that the term applies to SCO. "Falling like a rock" is the term I had in mind.

Re:Obligatory article nitpicks...

[EvanED]

I think that if they want to be known as something other than the one who sued prominent Linux users they should DROP THEIR CLAIMS AGAINST LINUX! If you want to be known as something other than the company that sued prominent users of Linux, it might be helpful to not sue them. That way they can be known as something other than the company that sued prominent users of Linux.

This is Darl's "Cover my ass" strategy

[denis-The-menace]

Now that the stock price is in free fall, He needs to have something to show that he and his cronies were not out to use SCO stock "Boiler Room" style (http://imdb.com/title/tt0181984/) when the stockholders sue. This way, he'll be able to say: "We tried to make a go at it and nobody wanted to develop for our platform...".

Darl's sadness

[Geno Z Heinlein]

... Darl McBride is looking to get Unix developers back onboard with cash incentives...

Wow. When you have to pay a community reknowned for volunteerism and hacker fascination, that's just profoundly sad.

SCO changing its image

[Anonymous Coward]

From the article:

The SCO Group is trying to become something other than the company that sued prominent users of Linux.

At this point I doubt that will ever happen.

Re:SCO and a comeback

[tokki]

If he's such a good sales person, where are the sales? If he's "speaks the language of business", then were are the revenues? If he's so good an incentives, where are the developers? Where are the quality people?

The toughest job in tech right now must be a SCO sales person. The swear words they must have learned from cold calling...

Re:For $100,000

[WindBourne]

Not even close. You would have to buy out MS's and Sun's share. And I do not think that you can afford that.

Re:It would be wise to take advantage of this . .

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

Whoever bought the rights from the creditors would then retain the rights. In the current environment where you can patent "flat cylindrical device to affect forward and reverse movement" and sue anyone with a wheel, I don't think the purchaser would release to public domain. Of course, at that point, they obviously couldn't use it to wedge up Linux, so not sure what other use it would have. Probably would have a few lawyers just sit on it, looking for ways to sue others.

Re:Ah, but there's a catch...

[Goblez]

Hahaha, this is the truth right here. Who else read this title and thought (In the words of the great Borat) "F*#k To You". Alienate the whole *nix community, and then try to bribe them back. That'll ensure you get the 'right' people on your team.

Well . . . maybe right for SCO

Where's the upside?

[CodeMasterPhilzar]

Let me see...

I suppose I could develop an app on either my Red Hat or Suse boxes, then port it over to SCO. But you know, I'll just bet I'd have to pay about $700 for that "privilege."

Then I'd submit it... I'll bet buried in the "contest" rules somewhere is a clause about their getting rights to use or expand on any or all submissions. So my IP would essentially become theirs.

The only even remotely "up" side of this is that I'll bet my app would stand a fair chance of winning just 'cause there'll be so few entries.

On second thought, maybe I'll just go buy $695 worth of lottery tickets and a six pack...

Unix developers to SCO: No thanks

[eldoo77]

I don't believe that this is going to work...

Winning an SCO prize for programming brilliance...

[Anonymous Coward]

is like winning the L. Ron Hubbard "Writers of the Future" prize.

Does a young programmer really want to taint his entire career with the stink of Darl McBride hanging around his neck?

3 E-Z steps to SCO ressurection - serious

[davidwr]

Step 1: drop silly lawsuits
Step 2: apologize
Step 3: Entire executive team and anyone else who supported the lawsuits resign and disgourge yourself from any lawsuit-related profits, such as profits from short-selling.

Do that, and I'll consider helping them out. Until then, they are blackballed.

Anything good about UnixWare or Sco-Me?

[HighOrbit]

Can somebody who has actually used either UnixWare or OpenServer say if they have any redeeming qualities at all? From what I've read, they are actually the least capable of the modern unixes or unix-clones, even on x86(except perhaps for minix - which was just a teaching project anyway). Is there any reason why anybody would choose UnixWare or OpenServer for a new deployment?

It sounds like they think they have is a niffty middle-ware stack for cellphones and they want to use that as a hook for selling their Unix stuff. But if their middle-ware stack is so niffty that it would attract developers, why not port it to other systems to widen the audience and build a new business on that? That was the strategy taken by 'old SCO' aka Tarantella before they unloaded unix on Caldera.

Can anybody comment (intelligently) on their middleware?

Just for the record ...

[Keyslapper]

I hope we see some mention of this illustrious event in a future slashback posting ...

Re:Prisoners dilemma

[FreeUser]

taking a grand from SCO doesn't have to cost you your integrity. there's no commit to do any development is there? just go through the training. sleep through it even! or is there some fine print that i missed?

You have a contractual relationship with a company that is on record for stating that contracts are to be used as weapons against their customers/partners/employees.

Sign a contract with a venemously litigious company like SCO and unless you have a lot of capital to spend on lawyers (one hell of a lot more than the $1000 they're offering), SCO owns your ass (and any code you write might well be considered "tainted").

Re:Ah, but there's a catch...

[TubeSteak]

Unix developers to SCO: Die in a fire.

(We want the insurance money)

Re:Ah, but there's a catch...

[NickFortune]

You may be prepared to find that the supposed hatred is all talk when a recently-laid off developer gets a new car wafted under his nose.

Ooooh... I don't think anyone's prepared to find that. 'course I don't think it's going to happen, so the preparedness probably isn't an issue.

I expect that they'll probably find people to come work for them. Not because of any automobile inspired conversion on the road to Damascus, but just because some people will be desperate enough to work for someone they hate. But they'd have to be desperate. And if they're wise they'll get they're money up front, because SCO probably won't have anything to pay them with by the time development finishes.

Only of course they can't can they? Because it's a "prize", and you don't award prizes until the end. So I guess they'd have to be gullible as well as desperate.

I still don't think anyone's going to stop hating them though.

Re:MySQL is sponsoring this?! WTF?!

[mytec]

...and they've chosen to sponsor this despite that knowledge

One could also say that MySQL is supporting their customers who may not have a choice of platform. If I understand correctly, MySQL was supported on SCO and than it wasn't for a time and now it is. I doubt all administrators of SCO systems drink the Kool-Aid SCO offers and would love to switch platforms but cannot due to money, personel, or software that would need to be ported. Sometimes transitions start in phases and running MySQL on SCO might be the start (or an intermediate step) of proving that the existing system can be moved to another platform. I applaud MySQL AB for sticking by customers who are in a less than appealing situation. Someday those administrators or DBAs may find themselves in different jobs and they will probably be more likely to choose MySQL AB products if those products aren't already in place. Additionally if these people choose MySQL sometime back, having the support from MySQL must have been a relief for a number of reasons.

I don't believe users should have to suffer for someone elses mistakes but the big point here, to me, is that MySQL AB is supporting its users and isn't that what we want from any company or source of our choice of tools?

Are you kidding?

[PhreakinPenguin]

After everything they've done to shit on open source, they have the balls to announce this? Unbelievable. And if anyone here participates in this then you should never speak about open source again. Nor should you ever bitch about anything MS does, because participating in this would be the biggest sellout of all time.

Re:Prisoners dilemma

[NickFortune]

Think of it as a lottery with your integrity against winning a fast car.

I think even as sole contestant, the odds are against anyone winning these prizes. For a start, I don't think the money is going to be there by the time it comes to payout. Although I don't expect Darl would have any qualms about standing up and saying "Sadly none of the entries reached the professional standard we were looking for, so we've decided to withold the prize until we get an entrant the meets the minimum requirements." Where the requirements are the sole decision of the judges, of course, and where Darl is the judge. I mean he hasn't shown any great reluctance thus far when it comes to blatant dishonesty or borderline fraud.

But I expect they'll keep the rights to the code in any event, unless it gets awarded to IBM in lieu of compensation. Hmmm... what do you want to be the IPR from this boondoggle is going to be owned by a separate company to SCO, hmm?

Re:My Bad - Mysql and HP are NOT SCO sponsors!

[Just Some Guy]

I stand corrected: Again, MYSQL and HP are NOT Sponsors of SCO's laughable ploy, and probably have nothing whatsoever (or as little as possible) to do with SCO.

Bullshit. Google for SCO Forum 2006. Click the "sponsors" link. Read that HP is a Platinum Sponsor and MySQL AB is a Gold Sponsor. Now, that may mean $10 and $5 respectively, but you can bet your butt they're letting SCO use their names in the advertising.

Your idea of "as little as possible" covers a whole lot more than mine.

Re:Ah, but there's a catch...

[mknewman]

This has got to be the most schizophrenic company I've ever seen.

Re:Ah, but there's a catch...

[Danse]

I expect that they'll probably find people to come work for them. Not because of any automobile inspired conversion on the road to Damascus, but just because some people will be desperate enough to work for someone they hate. But they'd have to be desperate.

I'm sure that they might get some desperate people, but I also think they'll get some ignorant people, and some people who share their lack of ethics.

Re:Ah, but there's a catch...

[CastrTroy]

I'm sure there's enough computer programmers out there that don't know about the whole SCO fiasco that they would gladly go and work for them. Probably not any programmers with real Unix/Linux experience, but there are a lot of developers out there who don't know about this stuff. Not everybody reads slashdot.

Re:Ah, but there's a catch...

[LWATCDR]

True right until they Google SCO.
How many developers will go to work for a company without typing their name into Google.
How many people with ANY experience with Unix don't know about SCO.
Finally there is a major danger having SCO in our work history. Even if they loose this law suite which I bet they will someone will buy the SCO IP. Would you risk hiring a developer that worked for a company that filed such outlandish IP based law suites? Not everyone has the deep pockets of IBM.
I think that working for SCO might just be too dangerous for just about anyone to risk.

Re:troll?

[Quiet_Desperation]

Sticks and stone may break my bones, but mods will never hurt me. :)

I just don't get the whole BMW/MB thing. They still look like cars my grandfather would drive.

Re:Ah, but there's a catch...

[NickFortune]

I also think they'll get some ignorant people, and some people who share their lack of ethics.

I think they'd still have to be pretty gullible or very foolish. I really don't think anyone's going to get paid for their work here.

Re:Ah, but there's a catch...

[budgenator]

Just think about how good it will look on your resume when you apply for a job as a developer in the Linux shop down the street!

Re:Obligatory article nitpicks...

[confused one]

They can't drop their claims against Linux now. It's gone too far. To drop the claim would be to say they sued everyone for no cause and wasted the court's time (the courts would not look kindly upon that). It would be handing the various companies a guaranteed win on all the counter suits, which aren't likely to go away just because SCO says, "Oops, our mistake. We did not mean to inconvenience you. Please pretend this never happened." They're in for the long haul, and are undoubtedly going to be trounced, torn apart and their management held legally responsible for making fraudulent claims.