It's not going to happen. Microsoft makes money when they sell you games. They don't want you to play the old games you have lying around. They want you to buy new games. They aren't going to spend time and money making software so you can run your old games on the XBox2. Especially since the new box won't have a hard drive to store the necessary software on.
Keep dreaming, but don't expect to play your existing XBox games on the new console.
The best part is that it only takes a couple of these "solutions" to put Free Software on the short list for any new software rollout. This gives you the ability to cherry pick those situations where Linux and Free Software are a no brainer. The fact of the matter is that after you spend the time setting up your Postfix/procmail server chances are good that it is going to run without problems until Jesus comes, or until the hardware craps out, whichever comes first. So not only do you save the company some money, but you get a reputation for proposing solutions that actually work.
It doesn't matter what business you are in, there is almost certainly some Free Software that would be a perfect fit for your organization. The trick is to find something that is a well-tested. You don't want to roll out version 0.0.1 of anything, no matter how cool, but there are lots of Free Software packages that have quadzillions of users and have been proven in the real world.
The free market beat them to the punch. Why play for Sardonix "street-cred" when you can start your own security company. Most security companies do a fair share of the advertising on the existing security mailing lists.
Besides which, the Linux Kernel Mailing Lists already purport to do the same thing. You think that the Linux kernel hackers don't think that they are already creating secure code? By the time a security bug gets through the LKML's brutal peer review the chances that some outsider gunning for "street cred" is going to find it is essentially nil. Why join Sardonix when you can pile right in to the LKML?
While you are certainly correct that Linux isn't going to achieve "Total World Domination" without more game support it almost certainly is going to make large strides in the near future on the corporate desktop. Linux makes a perfect operating system for specialized or limited-use desktops. This is especially true if you take advantage of X Windows and roll out Linux in a thin client environment. You can realistically hang a couple hundred thin clients off of one beefy Linux server, and thin clients can be had for less than $400 a pop (and that's with a pretty nice monitor). Not only are acquisition costs far lower than with Windows, but maintenance costs go down as well. If something goes wrong with one of the thin clients you get a monkey to throw it in the trash and install another thin client. The best part is that you only have one actual computer to administer instead of 50 to 100.
The trick, of course, is making sure your applications run on Linux, but for those employees that just need an office suite and a web browser Linux is already there. Mix in a bit of Citrix and you can even give these thin clients access to "legacy" Windows applications.
As Linux continues to gain marketshare it will become a more viable target for commercial games. In the meantime there are still plenty of people that are glad that Linux isn't the "total entertainment package" that Windows is.
Re:It's like Netscape v. Microsoft in that...
on
Google v. Microsoft
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· Score: 1
Personally I don't think much of Microsoft's ability to innovate. They tend to borrow ideas instead of creating them (their fight with Google being a case in point). However, never underestimate Microsoft's ability to copy someone else's idea and then pour money into making a copy of the technology that can be integrated into Windows.
Microsoft has the advantage in that they control the software that most of the world actually uses to get things done. Integrating MSN searches into Internet Explorer is only the tip of the iceberg. They will soon integrate their search technology into MS Office (and other Microsoft software) as well.
Microsoft's Theory Group had very little to do with Internet Explorer's domination of Netscape. Heck, they didn't even write IE, they purchased it (yes, they did make substantial improvements, but the Theory Group certainly didn't make the improvements). IE's ascendance can be blamed on Microsoft's tremendous distribution and marketing powers, not their technical acumen.
In short, I agree with you that Google is in trouble in the long run, but not because of Microsoft's egghead scientists. Google is in trouble in the long run because Microsoft controls the desktop, and because they are more than willing to pour the resources into MSN that will make it competitive. MSN doesn't have to be better than Google in the long run, it just has to be "good enough" and built into all of Microsoft's desktop software.
All I can say is that if I were a Chinese dissident I would spend a lot of time compiling my software from source code (and from non-Chinese repositories as well).
The fact that Red Flag Linux is based off of Free Software does not mean that the version of Linux pre-installed on the computer has been hacked with a back door. In fact, who exactly is going to enforce the GPL against the Chinese government? Do you honestly think that RMS is going to waltz up to the head of the Chinese state and say, "we believe that you are including backdoors in your binary-only versions of Red Flag Linux, and we want you to turn over the source code to these back doors in accordance with the GPL."
That's ridiculous.
In many ways Linux would be easier to backdoor than Windows. To put backdoors in Windows you essentially need to have Microsoft's help. To backdoor Linux all you need is some knowhow, a compiler, and access to the means of distribution.
Heck, even in America it wouldn't be that hard to backdoor a Linux distribution (with the right connections). How much source came on the last Linux CD that you installed, and what guarantee (besides the developers word) is there really that the binaries you are installing come from the source code that you are looking at?
Exactly. PostgreSQL on an Opteron server, as an example, is a pretty darn good deal. Linux and PostgreSQL are ready today. Unfortunately AMD is wasting their opportunity to really pitch Opteron servers running Linux. They are waiting for a 64 bit Windows to arrive for x86-64, and you can bet that the needed Windows won't arrive until Microsoft and Intel can make a joint announcement.
My guess is that it is politics that is holding up Microsoft, and in my opinion this serves AMD right. AMD had the perfect opportunity to market their Opteron servers running Linux, but instead they have put all of their marketing muscle behind Windows 2003 and now Microsoft is going to bury a dagger in their back. By the time there is a 64 bit version of Windows that will run their software Intel will get all of the limelight.
Yes, Disney, along with the rest of Hollywood, is evil. That doesn't mean that they don't make some good movies. Personally I am glad that Disney is making this flick. I personally think that of all the movie houses Disney has the most class.
Slight differences don't matter enough to get me to try the stuff on. I just purchase a size that I know is going to be big enough and wear a belt (and/or roll the cuff up). This strategy works fine for anything short of a business suit.
Yes, but Debian was already in third place behind Red Hat and Cobalt. It was ahead of SuSE, Mandrake, and Gentoo to begin with. It will almost certainly pass up Cobalt in the next six months (Cobalt has a negative growth rate and Debian is right behind). Of course, Red Hat has more market share than everyone else combined, and they also have a very strong growth rate (17.8%). They actually added more hosts than anyone else, although Debian was fairly close.
Have you tried nano? It's supposed to be an enhanced pico clone (not that enhancing pico would be hard). Heck, Debian even installs a pico link in/usr/bin that does the right thing.
In the U.S. (at least in Idaho), if a kid comes over and jumps on your trampoline, without your permission, and breaks his arm, you are responsible for the medical bills. Never mind that you didn't give the kid permission, and that you would have run the kid off had you known about it.
That's part of the reason why people build fences.
If someone uses your wireless link to upload music (it's distributing music that is dangerous) and you end up on RIAA's list, then you will go to court. This will cost you time and money, even if you are innocent. Moral of the story, lock down your wireless routers.
Be bitter if you want, but competition is making it so that even geeks have to sell themselves. Everyone else has to worry about corporate politics. Why should the geek be immune?
In the future IT is going to be much more about customer service skills than technology. Either learn to deal with that, or find something else to do. With the job market as tough as it is currently there are plenty of folks out of work that are both technically sharp and personable to boot.
Yes, technology will also make it so that they can make cooler games than they do now. However, that pretty much goes without saying. I also believe that in the future people are more likely to use a thin client (like an X terminal) than a full blown computer. In other words, people almost certainly will be using clients that make it impossible to cheat.
That doesn't necessarily mean that video games will be more expensive. Any company that tries to gouge their customers too badly becomes an easy target for competitors who are willing to accept lower profit margins. Heck, that's precisely what is happening with Linux. Linux wouldn't have a ghost of a chance if Microsoft was content with 10% profit margins.
Fah, the need to physically own something is not always going to be a requirement. However, if certain game companies use the all-digital, broadcast-on-demand, nature of these next generation video games to gouge their customers then you can bet someone else will come along and take over the market by offering more for less.
Yes, it might be sad that the companies that come out on top in this new shift aren't the ones that you happen to be attached to now, but anyone that thinks that video games are going to cost more in the future is plain crazy.
Technology is making it easier and easier to create, publish and distribute games, and these factors will far outweigh the fact that technology is also making it easier to do away with the sharing of games. As technology lowers the bar for entry for game companies you can bet that the price of gaming will decrease, not increase. Those that try and buck the trend will simply get run out of business.
Mozilla is cool, and most of the stuff planned for the next version of IE is nothing more than a blatant ripoff of Mozilla's XUL. However, when the next version of IE is released you can bet that developers will start leveraging it's abilities to create rich client applications. These applications will have all sorts of advantages over plain HTML applications, but they will only work with IE. The only way to combat this is for Mozilla to beat IE to the punch. If people start using XUL as a way to build applications then the browser wars could very well heat up again, and if Mozilla becomes a development platform then the chances of Linux making an impact on the desktop go up dramatically.
Mozilla is Free Software, and based on open standards. If it gains traction, then it is good for consumers (and developers) everywhere. Up until now people have generally considered "standards-based" to mean "less featurefull." They believe that they can either create a standards-based web site, or a cool one. With Mozilla they can build applications that are amazing, and still based on cross-platform open standards.
To me, that's exciting. But it takes people adopting Mozilla and leveraging its cool features. Cool features that don't get used aren't good for anyone.
Precisely. Oracle is going to write their applications so that they take advantage of the rich client opportunities that XUL provides. They are going to use Mozilla as a platform in much the same way that the Komodo IDE is based on Mozilla. XUL allows developers to do much more than they could with just HTML.
This is a great opportunity to show what Mozilla is truly capable of. In may ways Mozilla offers today what Microsoft is only planning to release with Longhorn. Not to mention the fact that Mozilla is Free Software and platform independent. It's made to order for developing and releasing rich client applications on a wide variety of platforms.
Actually, McDonald's is precisely the type of place that needs this kind of system. McDonald's generally hires both full and part time employees, and they often have erratic schedules. More importantly, employees often have to clock without any supervision by management.
I have worked in several factory environments where employees were caught clocking in their friends hours before they actually arrived (or hours after they left). Unfortunately this happens. In a business like a McDonald's labor costs are far and away the largest expense. It shouldn't surprise anyone that McDonald's owners would be concerned about fraud.
As long as the government isn't collecting the handprints I don't have a problem with this. Even if it became widespread.
On a tinfoil-beanie note, if the government wants to have you "picked up" they probably have better ways than checking to see if you clocked into a McDonalds.
Yes, but SCO was ordered to do more than specify lines of code. They were ordered to provide a huge pile of information for each and every alleged infraction. We may not have access to SCO's response, but we do have access to the questions that they were supposed to answer. Take a look at interrogatories 12 and 13, for example:
INTERROGATORY NO. 12: Please identify, with specificity (by file and line of code), (a) all source code and other material in Linux (including but not limited to the Linux kernel, any Linux operating sytem and any Linux distribution) to which plaintiff has rights; and (b) the nature of plaintiff's rights, including but not limited to whether and how the code or other material derives from UNIX.
INTERROGATORY NO. 13: For each line of code and other materials identified in response to Interrogatory No. 12, please state whether (a) IBM has infringed plaintiff's rights, and for any rights IBM is alleged to have infringed, describe in detail how IBM is alleged to have infringed plaintiff's rights; and (b) whether plaintiff has ever distributed code or other material or otherwise made it available to the public, as part of a Linux distribution or otherwise, and, if so, the circumstances under which it was distributed or otherwise made available, including but not limited to the product(s) in which it was distributed or made available, and the terms under which is was distributed or made available (such as under the GPL or any other license).
That is a lot of information to provide for "each line of code." I would bet that in many cases 60 pages wouldn't even be enough to correctly document one infraction. And there are 11 other interrogatories that deal with entirely different aspects of the case. Each of these interrogatories likewise required huge amounts of information to correctly answer their demands. Handing over 60 pages is like submitting a Hello World program written in bash when asked to code an ERP program. It's so ridiculous that you almost have to invent a new word to correctly describe it.
The funniest part of the whole thing is that SCO apparently has paid their lawyers millions of dollars for their supposed "legal advice."
I cannot imagine how any lawyer with the skill to pass the bar could read the interogatories that they were supposed to answer (and upon which rested their entire case), and then submit a 60 page document. The judge made it perfectly clear that for each alleged violation (whether it was copyright infringement, trade secret violation, contract violation, etc.) that SCO was to provide the date, time, precedence, other parties involved, the whole works.
And to top it all off they admit that they didn't answer all of the questions, and that they are short documents from some of their employees because of the holidays. Their firm is involved in a $3 billion dollar lawsuit and key witnesses can't be available because of Christmas? That's insane. I bet at least one of the IBM lawyers spends the next several days in the hospital from laughter induced injuries.
60 pages wouldn't hardly begin to cover a single instance of any of the interogatories. 60 pages wouldn't even begin to cover Interogatory #8 which deals with the contractual agreements drawn up in project Monterey.
The fact of the matter is that there is no way that SCO could formulate an intelligent response to any of the interogatories with only 60 pages. SCO has paid their lawyers millions of dollars and they have essentially entered the "my dog ate my homework" plea.
SCO is asking for all of the source for all of the various incarnations of AIX and Dynix and they propose to do that on the strength of 60 pages of text that can't possible anser even a hundredth part of what was demanded of them. That's insane.
There are going to be a lot of SCO investors feeling awfully stupid when this ridiculous case gets thrown out of court.
No, not at all. A legal defense fund would simply pay the defendents cost of anyone that SCO tries to sue. True indemnification would cover any penalties should the defendant lose the case. More importantly true indemnification would cover the expenses of everyone that was indemnified should SCO win their case. This would put IBM even more at risk should the lose their case against SCO, which, in turn, would raise SCOX stock price in the short term.
A big legal defense fund means that anyone SCO does sue will have the very best legal defense that money can buy. SCO wasn't actually going to sue a customer anyway, because their case against end users is even more ridiculous than their case against IBM. They just want to be able to use the threat of a lawsuit to help keep their stock price up.
The problem is that even a stupid lawsuit can cost a company serious money. Companies that use a lot of Linux were somewhat at risk. With IBM, Intel, and others footing the bill for legal defense the threat against Linux users disappears almost completely.
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It's not going to happen. Microsoft makes money when they sell you games. They don't want you to play the old games you have lying around. They want you to buy new games. They aren't going to spend time and money making software so you can run your old games on the XBox2. Especially since the new box won't have a hard drive to store the necessary software on.
Keep dreaming, but don't expect to play your existing XBox games on the new console.
First a story about screws, now a story about beavers. Apparently the /. crew had a slow weekend.
Beautiful.
The best part is that it only takes a couple of these "solutions" to put Free Software on the short list for any new software rollout. This gives you the ability to cherry pick those situations where Linux and Free Software are a no brainer. The fact of the matter is that after you spend the time setting up your Postfix/procmail server chances are good that it is going to run without problems until Jesus comes, or until the hardware craps out, whichever comes first. So not only do you save the company some money, but you get a reputation for proposing solutions that actually work.
It doesn't matter what business you are in, there is almost certainly some Free Software that would be a perfect fit for your organization. The trick is to find something that is a well-tested. You don't want to roll out version 0.0.1 of anything, no matter how cool, but there are lots of Free Software packages that have quadzillions of users and have been proven in the real world.
The free market beat them to the punch. Why play for Sardonix "street-cred" when you can start your own security company. Most security companies do a fair share of the advertising on the existing security mailing lists.
Besides which, the Linux Kernel Mailing Lists already purport to do the same thing. You think that the Linux kernel hackers don't think that they are already creating secure code? By the time a security bug gets through the LKML's brutal peer review the chances that some outsider gunning for "street cred" is going to find it is essentially nil. Why join Sardonix when you can pile right in to the LKML?
While you are certainly correct that Linux isn't going to achieve "Total World Domination" without more game support it almost certainly is going to make large strides in the near future on the corporate desktop. Linux makes a perfect operating system for specialized or limited-use desktops. This is especially true if you take advantage of X Windows and roll out Linux in a thin client environment. You can realistically hang a couple hundred thin clients off of one beefy Linux server, and thin clients can be had for less than $400 a pop (and that's with a pretty nice monitor). Not only are acquisition costs far lower than with Windows, but maintenance costs go down as well. If something goes wrong with one of the thin clients you get a monkey to throw it in the trash and install another thin client. The best part is that you only have one actual computer to administer instead of 50 to 100.
The trick, of course, is making sure your applications run on Linux, but for those employees that just need an office suite and a web browser Linux is already there. Mix in a bit of Citrix and you can even give these thin clients access to "legacy" Windows applications.
As Linux continues to gain marketshare it will become a more viable target for commercial games. In the meantime there are still plenty of people that are glad that Linux isn't the "total entertainment package" that Windows is.
Personally I don't think much of Microsoft's ability to innovate. They tend to borrow ideas instead of creating them (their fight with Google being a case in point). However, never underestimate Microsoft's ability to copy someone else's idea and then pour money into making a copy of the technology that can be integrated into Windows.
Microsoft has the advantage in that they control the software that most of the world actually uses to get things done. Integrating MSN searches into Internet Explorer is only the tip of the iceberg. They will soon integrate their search technology into MS Office (and other Microsoft software) as well.
Microsoft's Theory Group had very little to do with Internet Explorer's domination of Netscape. Heck, they didn't even write IE, they purchased it (yes, they did make substantial improvements, but the Theory Group certainly didn't make the improvements). IE's ascendance can be blamed on Microsoft's tremendous distribution and marketing powers, not their technical acumen.
In short, I agree with you that Google is in trouble in the long run, but not because of Microsoft's egghead scientists. Google is in trouble in the long run because Microsoft controls the desktop, and because they are more than willing to pour the resources into MSN that will make it competitive. MSN doesn't have to be better than Google in the long run, it just has to be "good enough" and built into all of Microsoft's desktop software.
All I can say is that if I were a Chinese dissident I would spend a lot of time compiling my software from source code (and from non-Chinese repositories as well).
The fact that Red Flag Linux is based off of Free Software does not mean that the version of Linux pre-installed on the computer has been hacked with a back door. In fact, who exactly is going to enforce the GPL against the Chinese government? Do you honestly think that RMS is going to waltz up to the head of the Chinese state and say, "we believe that you are including backdoors in your binary-only versions of Red Flag Linux, and we want you to turn over the source code to these back doors in accordance with the GPL."
That's ridiculous.
In many ways Linux would be easier to backdoor than Windows. To put backdoors in Windows you essentially need to have Microsoft's help. To backdoor Linux all you need is some knowhow, a compiler, and access to the means of distribution.
Heck, even in America it wouldn't be that hard to backdoor a Linux distribution (with the right connections). How much source came on the last Linux CD that you installed, and what guarantee (besides the developers word) is there really that the binaries you are installing come from the source code that you are looking at?
Exactly. PostgreSQL on an Opteron server, as an example, is a pretty darn good deal. Linux and PostgreSQL are ready today. Unfortunately AMD is wasting their opportunity to really pitch Opteron servers running Linux. They are waiting for a 64 bit Windows to arrive for x86-64, and you can bet that the needed Windows won't arrive until Microsoft and Intel can make a joint announcement.
My guess is that it is politics that is holding up Microsoft, and in my opinion this serves AMD right. AMD had the perfect opportunity to market their Opteron servers running Linux, but instead they have put all of their marketing muscle behind Windows 2003 and now Microsoft is going to bury a dagger in their back. By the time there is a 64 bit version of Windows that will run their software Intel will get all of the limelight.
Stupid @#$%!!s.
Yes, Disney, along with the rest of Hollywood, is evil. That doesn't mean that they don't make some good movies. Personally I am glad that Disney is making this flick. I personally think that of all the movie houses Disney has the most class.
Slight differences don't matter enough to get me to try the stuff on. I just purchase a size that I know is going to be big enough and wear a belt (and/or roll the cuff up). This strategy works fine for anything short of a business suit.
Yes, but Debian was already in third place behind Red Hat and Cobalt. It was ahead of SuSE, Mandrake, and Gentoo to begin with. It will almost certainly pass up Cobalt in the next six months (Cobalt has a negative growth rate and Debian is right behind). Of course, Red Hat has more market share than everyone else combined, and they also have a very strong growth rate (17.8%). They actually added more hosts than anyone else, although Debian was fairly close.
Have you tried nano? It's supposed to be an enhanced pico clone (not that enhancing pico would be hard). Heck, Debian even installs a pico link in /usr/bin that does the right thing.
In the U.S. (at least in Idaho), if a kid comes over and jumps on your trampoline, without your permission, and breaks his arm, you are responsible for the medical bills. Never mind that you didn't give the kid permission, and that you would have run the kid off had you known about it.
That's part of the reason why people build fences.
If someone uses your wireless link to upload music (it's distributing music that is dangerous) and you end up on RIAA's list, then you will go to court. This will cost you time and money, even if you are innocent. Moral of the story, lock down your wireless routers.
Be bitter if you want, but competition is making it so that even geeks have to sell themselves. Everyone else has to worry about corporate politics. Why should the geek be immune?
In the future IT is going to be much more about customer service skills than technology. Either learn to deal with that, or find something else to do. With the job market as tough as it is currently there are plenty of folks out of work that are both technically sharp and personable to boot.
Yes, technology will also make it so that they can make cooler games than they do now. However, that pretty much goes without saying. I also believe that in the future people are more likely to use a thin client (like an X terminal) than a full blown computer. In other words, people almost certainly will be using clients that make it impossible to cheat.
That doesn't necessarily mean that video games will be more expensive. Any company that tries to gouge their customers too badly becomes an easy target for competitors who are willing to accept lower profit margins. Heck, that's precisely what is happening with Linux. Linux wouldn't have a ghost of a chance if Microsoft was content with 10% profit margins.
Fah, the need to physically own something is not always going to be a requirement. However, if certain game companies use the all-digital, broadcast-on-demand, nature of these next generation video games to gouge their customers then you can bet someone else will come along and take over the market by offering more for less.
Yes, it might be sad that the companies that come out on top in this new shift aren't the ones that you happen to be attached to now, but anyone that thinks that video games are going to cost more in the future is plain crazy.
Technology is making it easier and easier to create, publish and distribute games, and these factors will far outweigh the fact that technology is also making it easier to do away with the sharing of games. As technology lowers the bar for entry for game companies you can bet that the price of gaming will decrease, not increase. Those that try and buck the trend will simply get run out of business.
Mozilla is cool, and most of the stuff planned for the next version of IE is nothing more than a blatant ripoff of Mozilla's XUL. However, when the next version of IE is released you can bet that developers will start leveraging it's abilities to create rich client applications. These applications will have all sorts of advantages over plain HTML applications, but they will only work with IE. The only way to combat this is for Mozilla to beat IE to the punch. If people start using XUL as a way to build applications then the browser wars could very well heat up again, and if Mozilla becomes a development platform then the chances of Linux making an impact on the desktop go up dramatically.
Mozilla is Free Software, and based on open standards. If it gains traction, then it is good for consumers (and developers) everywhere. Up until now people have generally considered "standards-based" to mean "less featurefull." They believe that they can either create a standards-based web site, or a cool one. With Mozilla they can build applications that are amazing, and still based on cross-platform open standards.
To me, that's exciting. But it takes people adopting Mozilla and leveraging its cool features. Cool features that don't get used aren't good for anyone.
Precisely. Oracle is going to write their applications so that they take advantage of the rich client opportunities that XUL provides. They are going to use Mozilla as a platform in much the same way that the Komodo IDE is based on Mozilla. XUL allows developers to do much more than they could with just HTML.
This is a great opportunity to show what Mozilla is truly capable of. In may ways Mozilla offers today what Microsoft is only planning to release with Longhorn. Not to mention the fact that Mozilla is Free Software and platform independent. It's made to order for developing and releasing rich client applications on a wide variety of platforms.
Actually, McDonald's is precisely the type of place that needs this kind of system. McDonald's generally hires both full and part time employees, and they often have erratic schedules. More importantly, employees often have to clock without any supervision by management.
I have worked in several factory environments where employees were caught clocking in their friends hours before they actually arrived (or hours after they left). Unfortunately this happens. In a business like a McDonald's labor costs are far and away the largest expense. It shouldn't surprise anyone that McDonald's owners would be concerned about fraud.
As long as the government isn't collecting the handprints I don't have a problem with this. Even if it became widespread.
On a tinfoil-beanie note, if the government wants to have you "picked up" they probably have better ways than checking to see if you clocked into a McDonalds.
Yes, but SCO was ordered to do more than specify lines of code. They were ordered to provide a huge pile of information for each and every alleged infraction. We may not have access to SCO's response, but we do have access to the questions that they were supposed to answer. Take a look at interrogatories 12 and 13, for example:
That is a lot of information to provide for "each line of code." I would bet that in many cases 60 pages wouldn't even be enough to correctly document one infraction. And there are 11 other interrogatories that deal with entirely different aspects of the case. Each of these interrogatories likewise required huge amounts of information to correctly answer their demands. Handing over 60 pages is like submitting a Hello World program written in bash when asked to code an ERP program. It's so ridiculous that you almost have to invent a new word to correctly describe it.
The funniest part of the whole thing is that SCO apparently has paid their lawyers millions of dollars for their supposed "legal advice."
I cannot imagine how any lawyer with the skill to pass the bar could read the interogatories that they were supposed to answer (and upon which rested their entire case), and then submit a 60 page document. The judge made it perfectly clear that for each alleged violation (whether it was copyright infringement, trade secret violation, contract violation, etc.) that SCO was to provide the date, time, precedence, other parties involved, the whole works.
And to top it all off they admit that they didn't answer all of the questions, and that they are short documents from some of their employees because of the holidays. Their firm is involved in a $3 billion dollar lawsuit and key witnesses can't be available because of Christmas? That's insane. I bet at least one of the IBM lawyers spends the next several days in the hospital from laughter induced injuries.
60 pages wouldn't hardly begin to cover a single instance of any of the interogatories. 60 pages wouldn't even begin to cover Interogatory #8 which deals with the contractual agreements drawn up in project Monterey.
The fact of the matter is that there is no way that SCO could formulate an intelligent response to any of the interogatories with only 60 pages. SCO has paid their lawyers millions of dollars and they have essentially entered the "my dog ate my homework" plea.
SCO is asking for all of the source for all of the various incarnations of AIX and Dynix and they propose to do that on the strength of 60 pages of text that can't possible anser even a hundredth part of what was demanded of them. That's insane.
There are going to be a lot of SCO investors feeling awfully stupid when this ridiculous case gets thrown out of court.
No, not at all. A legal defense fund would simply pay the defendents cost of anyone that SCO tries to sue. True indemnification would cover any penalties should the defendant lose the case. More importantly true indemnification would cover the expenses of everyone that was indemnified should SCO win their case. This would put IBM even more at risk should the lose their case against SCO, which, in turn, would raise SCOX stock price in the short term.
A big legal defense fund means that anyone SCO does sue will have the very best legal defense that money can buy. SCO wasn't actually going to sue a customer anyway, because their case against end users is even more ridiculous than their case against IBM. They just want to be able to use the threat of a lawsuit to help keep their stock price up. The problem is that even a stupid lawsuit can cost a company serious money. Companies that use a lot of Linux were somewhat at risk. With IBM, Intel, and others footing the bill for legal defense the threat against Linux users disappears almost completely.