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Grokking SCO's Demise
An anonymous reader writes "You have already heard the news that the SCO Group's US$5 billion threat against Linux is effectively finished. It was the Web site Groklaw.net that broke the news and posted the complete 102-page ruling; after that, it was picked up by mainstream media and trade press.
In fact, it's Groklaw that has covered every aspect of SCO's legal fights with Linux vendors IBM , Novell and Red Hat and Linux users Daimler Chrysler and AutoZone ever since paralegal Pamela Jones started the site as a hobby in 2003. This feature does a great job of chronicling Groklaws' hand in the demise of SCO's case."
SCO is dead!? I just bought a new SCO Source license yesterday for $699! Why wasn't I told about this sooner? Thanks a lot, guys.
Anyway, I'm still glad I have the peace of mind of fully licensing all of SCO's Unix intellectual property within my installation of Ubuntu. If you'd like this peace of mind, buy today at:
http://www.caldera.com/scosource/
Now does anyone know where I can purchase a rock that wards off tigers?
I'm a big tall mofo.
Groklaw is the best thing to come out of SCO's mess. Thanks PJ.
The way TFA starts about the August 10th ruling, you could think it was a recent event. The author refers to the summary judgment decision of 8/10/2007.
Since then there was a trial, and currently the bankrupt SCO is waiting for the final judgment to be entered to appeal - mainly that year old decision.
I'm aging rapidly, I bought a new game and had no idea if my machine was good for it.
Some folks are still willing to see SCO as the 'comeback kids' (Found from a Groklaw link from today
And, of course, McBride is still harping about how misguided all the 'naysayers' are. Ah, corporate message control - so consistent, no matter the insanity of what is said.
I guess that's the point of freedom - for every choice that can be used to help build something greater, there is also choice to harm others. It's too bad that so much freedom ends up being used to crush the freedom of others for minimal short-term benefit, like those of SCO (which in turn was at least partly on behalf of Microsoft's FUD campaign).
Ryan Fenton
Ryan Fenton
I don't think that was what this was all about at all. There's enough peculiar connections to Microsoft, plus shades of pump and dump, to make me suspicious that this whole thing was orchestrated as FUD against Linux. Sure SCO must have been upset that it was being relegated to a few legacy POS applications. We'll probably never know the whole truth, but this has all the hallmarks of a deliberate attempt to destroy Linux's legitimacy.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Umm, has anyone else noticed TFA is claiming the judge's ruling from over a year ago was made last week?
From the article:
Did Groklaw really have an impact on those court cases? Naaah.
I love Groklaw as much as the next guy, but this article is truly worthless; it just reads as worthless praise for groklaw without even so much as a particular.
And SCO is a nice pelt to hang on the fence for anyone getting similar ideas. The SCO case was a stereotype of every piece of misinformation MS had ever put out about Linux and they got crushed. It's also a good example for companies thinking about getting in bed with Microsoft, which financed this whole charade. I wonder if Sun will ever live it down that they were part of the clown posse?
IBM showed a lot of foresight and got to dish out a little payback to MS over the OS2 incident. You can't buy that kind of advertising and then using it to tweak Redmond was priceless.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Groklaw was certainly informative, and it is nice to see major media give a nod of thanks to an internet site that had done their research. What I wonder is where is Groklaw to grok next?
I'd vote for Groking RIAA, big time.
Grok IP law and squelch that mess once and for all.
And since it the season, groking certain political parties (or all of them) would be nice.
Pamela has taught us (well, at least myself) quite a few things about tech and the law:
* Legal matters may be messy, disgusting things, but in a perverse way, being a lawyer or judge often requires as much (if not more) logical and mental discipline than programming ever did.
* This crap takes time. Five years... five years! Just to throw out what folks who knew better (read: those of us who lived/worked/breathed Linux) saw instantly as an obvious cock-and-bull scam by a dying dot-bust corporation.
* There's a lot going on behind the curtain. Without Groklaw, Microsoft could have credibly denied being any part of the proceedings, and would've been almost perfectly insulated from the whole SCO mess. Now, they're painted with 98 shades of evil, and the tech community at large** has even more reason to reject them unless absolutely necessary.
* Most folks think that IT/Tech is pretty insulated and isolated from the usual crap that infects most businesses. Groklaw proves otherwise. As much as we'd like to be otherwise, we're just as mired and smothered in politics and legal crap as any other commercial endeavor.
I highly recommend Groklaw as a solid starting point for any CS student, perhaps as a semester or two of curricula... just to get the students to realize just what the hell kind of crazy world they're signing on to.
** I mean real techs who use multiple platforms, not "Em-See-Ess-Aaay's" who happily swallow Redmond's Kool-Aid (among other fluids) on a near daily basis.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Like donating to the site. It's a massive amount of work that PJ has put into the site. So if you got a few bucks, donate. Sorry, but it has to be said and PJ won't say it.
If, after looking at everything carefully, you conclude that the GNU/Linux people were right, how can you call what they say, "partisan crowd noise" ?
Well, it is well known that reality has a GNU/Linux bias.
Because it's perfectly possible to come to the correct conclusion even while being intellectually dishonest.
Not a typewriter
It is kinda like how people say "we won" when their favorite sports teams win.
The masses are the crack whores of religion.
Thing is, I believe that SCO knew it was doomed from the start, but did it anyway.
McBride still made millions of bucks off of the deal, as did most of SCO's principals. Unless/Until there's criminal proceedings for SEC violations, they probably don't care, and are only making noises for long enough to provide plausible deniability. In short - they got their dough, and they probably don't care what happens to SCO from this point on.
SCO lasted five years longer than it probably would have if it had simply died quietly as Yet Another Dot-Bust Carcass.
Finally, most corps know nowadays that getting into bed with MSFT is a sure recipe for disaster. PlaysForSure, HD-DVD, Windows Defender, OS/2, and numerous other smaller examples are proof-positive of just how badly you get burned in any partnership with MSFT... unless of course you're Microsoft. I think only NBC has managed to not get raped in a MSFT partnership (and even then, only because of NBC's vastly different market segments).
As for Sun? I think they simply got caught in the crossfire. They were looking to license SVR permanently so that they could protect (and eventually open-source) Solaris. Otherwise, they were (and are) hating life anyway, as market dynamics dictate that buying pricey Sparc-based servers is kinda stupid for most applications.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
It isn't the "spite-driven, FSF worshiping Zealots" who sound bitter, my anonymous friend.
I don't care why you're posting AC
They have confused reasoned opinion with bias. Our mass media has decided that being unbiased means not favoring one side. This is wrong, of course; if the facts overwhelmingly favor one side, it would be dishonest not to report that fact. Unfortunately, it's easier just to take one press release from each side of a dispute and report both, without making an effort to determine which side is full of liars.
And anyone who does call a liar a liar is called "partisan". It's pathetic.
The real turning point in the case was when IBM decided to fight SCO's claims and put Cravath, Swaine, and Moore LLP on the job. Cravath is very good; they say of themselves "Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP is known as the premier American law firm.", and nobody laughs. They're very organized and thorough. Cravath was the first firm to use litigation support systems (developed by IBM for an IBM case). They can't be snowed with documents; they'll put enough people and hardware on the job to deal with truckloads of materials when necessary. At times, the staff for a single case has filled a sizable office building. This is expensive, but it works.
It works especially well when the other side has voluminous but bogus claims. That's what happened with SCO. All SCO's claims were analyzed by that huge staff, checked, and countered. In the end, SCO had nothing left.
Groklaw reported on all this, but Cravath really did the work.
And there was this little gem:
Did Groklaw really have an impact on those court cases? Naaah.
Boy, does this guy do Groklaw and all its contributors an injustice.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
It does look suspicious. But the situation could certainly have come around without Microsoft directing it. Though - Microsoft definitely played a strong role.
Ransom Love has commented several times that Caldera had been working with a way to leverage their new SCO acquisition to better their Linux business. There had been some talk of using the Unix code to provide a better Linux (possibly including indemnity). But some time after Darl McBride takes the helm, Ransom Love is out (who then cashes out on news of the IBM suit). New leadership - new strategy time.
Around the same time, Microsoft has been talking about Linux and IP issues. It's labled as typical FUD. But what if it wasn't simply FUD but a public suggestion? An offered business strategy from Microsoft's tactical play book.
The SCO Group (formally Caldera) has been keen for a new play. Their old strategies have lost their charm. They were jilted by IBM. Their fortunes were tied to industries that have felt the sting of a sluggish economy. They hear Microsoft's words and something strikes a chord - "indemnity."
Suddenly things are going in very different directions. Microsoft even ponies up for a license. Exactly why is something of a mystery. Maybe it's insurance - Microsoft has toyed with enough Unix and GPL code that there could be easier to buy protection than wonder if something unexpected is coming their way. Maybe Microsoft is really pleased SOMEONE has finally picked up their suggestion and is keen to either support it with cash or lend an air of legitimacy - or both.
I'm pretty sure Microsoft wasn't unhappy about any aspect of this whole case. But I would expect more evidence to support the idea that they outright orchestrated it. Even if I wouldn't be shocked that such evidence is available to be uncovered.
There was an AC who was bitter
That frosty piss belonged to twitter.
For twitter is boring
When he's karma-whoring
Ain't he a loathsome critter?
Ignore this signature. By order.
Darl, is that you doing AC posts to Slashdot again?
There's nothing intellectually dishonest about having a point of view. (Pretending not to, on the other hand...)
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Well actually Microsoft used to be 98 shades of evil. Then they tried to make evil pretty for the MillEnnium. After that they grew to 2000 shades of evil. Eventually they became eXPerienced at being evil. Finally nowadays they've moved to a much broader form of evil. A VISTA if you will.
It's not a bias. Reality is open sourced. Anyone can participate in it, modify it and force the changes in the reality to everyone else. In fact, it is so open source that the act of not participating in the reality modifies the reality. And if you believe in multiverse theories, reality has been forked many times too.
If, after looking at everything carefully, you conclude that the GNU/Linux people were right, how can you call what they say, "partisan crowd noise" ?
Ain't nothing sacred about being right. People become partisan because we believe that there's something 'right' about that partisan attitude. Sometimes we're right. Sometimes we're wrong.
PJ is, in this case, both clearly pro-Linux and clearly right. She claims and I believe) that if things were coming out tha would have been clearly bad for the linux side, she would have documented it just as clearly (unhappily but clearly).
As somebody else intimated, pretending to be unbiased is one of the prime inauthenticities. Journalists (unfortunately) get taught to write like they're dispassionate (no matter how biased they are -- or are told to be -- about what's going on). It really messes up the people who buy that line.
That's part of the reason why I like (pseudo) amateur rags.... they'll actually say things like "We hate so and so. we think you should to, and here's why (no matter how sucky the reasons why may be). That way, you at least know their bias, and can read around it.
PJ is about the best I think we can hope for: She's open about her bias and attempting to produce the most clean record possible inside of that bias. Sge states her bias and her opinions, and then gathers together as much of the documentation a spossible so that you can check her opinions against reality.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
Ah, but we can't see the source or recompile it. Only someone with the username "God" has any access to the CVS repository. And it supposedly takes days to compile modreality.
Then the court system is rotten to the core. :) :)
Luckily it isn't
How do you think a paralegal site should (and could) influence a court case significantly?
The courts must (and i bet they would) have decided the same way without Groklaw.
Of course Groklaw was sorely needed to dispel the fud and to keep concerned people informed.
It balanced SCO quite well, even with its 'partisan noise'
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