People seem focused on the technical issues and the benefits, but how about that unpleasant, though unavoidable issue of cost?
Let's not be suckers like other interest groups, and let the government run up even more debt (remember that federal surplus of long ago?) by promising us our dreams to get our votes, ignoring the cost side of the equation... are we really going to fall for it?
In fact, given our roles in the technology community, it's up to us to say 'it's not worth it'. Let's make the crazy assumption we must take money from something else in order to go to the moon, or build a space port -- is it worth it? What else should we sacrifice?
Why does distance require any greater technological change?
It's merely a question of rate, like those 8th grade story problems:
'If the first (probe/cptr) starts on Jan 1st 1990, at a rate of 1000 (miles/computations) per minute, and the second (probe/cptr) starts on Jan 1st 2000 at a rate of 2000 (miles/computations) per minute, how long will it take (probe/cptr) #2 to catch #1?'
It's got nothing to do with whether it's distance, computations, or data transmissions, it's just rate.
Thank you for your response and for organizing this very useful project. I'm glad you didn't take my questions negatively; I'm now running a climateprediction.net client on my machine.
I care very much about climate change, but is this particular experiment worthwhile?
Is it well designed? Will the data be useful? Are the experimenters competent to make good use of the data?
More importantly, will this data be publicly available to other scientists, or am I donating to their private endeavor?
No offense to the experimenters -- it sounds like a great idea, but just because someone has a great idea and sets up a website doesn't mean they know what they're doing. I don't know anything about their sponsors, either (though I'm not in that business).
Hopefully this was a one time slip, and not representative of his overall performance:
A very good friend of mine (one of Microsoft's major customers at the time) recommended to Redmond precisely the e-mail safeguards that would have made this week's problem impossible.
Unless I'm mistaken, msblast (or whatever you want to call it) doesn't spread by e-mail. Is he confusing 'e-mail' with 'the Internet', or did he not do his homework.
Slashdot is a great place for it, but I'm not getting into a raving argument over the issue -- I'd love to, but it's more sport than productive discussion and I have no time for it.
I'd be more interested in your experiences -- do you have some direct experience with the class action system?
Hey - if you are someone who lost significant assets due to corporate fraud, you have my sympathy. I hope you take no offense an my debating a few points.
I think we need to agree to disagree on one point: You seem to see shareholders as more innocent bystanders than I do. I'm much more in favor of caveat emptor, short of fraud: The current shareholders own the company. When they buy it, they get the whole package: Valuable assets created created by past shareholders, and costly liabilities also created by past shareholders. I don't see why they should get all the benefits but not the costs. I can see the argument that, while they're theoretically owners, realistically very few have the power, skills, or access to info to act like traditional owners.
Here are some points where I don't agree to disagree...:-)
The loss of those assets can make those share worthless. In many cases, this can mean the loss of the majority of someone's life savings.
First, I'm sure you agree there's nothing wrong with bankruptcy per se -- it's perfectly natural and essential to economic growth (resources get diverted to more productive uses). Are you saying fraud isn't a legitimate cause of bankruptcy? I wouldn't agree. Second, while I wish it never happened, the loss of shareholder investment is inseperable from bankruptcy. If someone invests most of their assets in one company, which may go bankrupt just like any other company, they've chosen a very high risk investment. That they lose the money may be someone's fault; that they lose more than they can afford is their own fault.
Unless management is truly negligent or behaves criminally/unethically, the shareholders should not expect this sort of compensation...
Agreed -- only fraud or criminal behavior, not mistakes, should make the company liable.
and even then that should come out of management's (or the boards) pocket, not the shareholders.
I agree about corporate officers and especially members of the Board of Directors, who should be heavily penalized. As I said, we'll have to agree to disagree about current shareholders' liability.
juries cannot reasonably be expected to know what was reasonable, prudent, or even ethical.
I agree: Juries, lawyers, judges, etc. all suck. But what's a better alternative? No matter what, we're stuck with nothing better than human beings making the decisions. I think Churchill said something like, 'Democracy is the worst possible form of government, until you consider the alternatives'.
the legal system already provides criminal and civil penalties in the cases where management misbehaves to this extent.
Those penalties are rarely enforced (the point of my original posting), and no money reaches the pockets of the injured parties. Fundemental to our democracy is the right to sue someone who injures you and get compensation (unless they're an HMO, the government, or other politically influential parties).
Again, what alternative is there? I'd agree that the class-action system could certainly be improved, just like corporate governance, Washington lobbyists, our electoral system, our medical system, etc. Class-actoin securities doesn't stand out to me, but nevertheless, how would you improve it?
It's not like current shareholders transfer their shares to the suing shareholders. Some assets, owned by the current shareholders, are transferred out of the company to the pockets of the injured parties.
If companies deceive their shareholders, as more than a few have done, what's wrong with paying the injured parties (should they just suffer?), bad press, and adverse market reaction? What other resolution do you suggest?
If the company must pay a price, shouldn't the owners (i.e. the shareholders) be the ones who pay? If not them, than who? The shareholders benefit when the company does well and assets increase, why shouldn't they also pay for its mistakes? That defines an equity investment. Those uncomfortable with equity can try bonds or a CD or a million other investments.
Yes, there are some corrupt lawyers and frivilous lawsuits, just as there are some corrupt companies, executives, directors, doctors, politicians, programmers -- no walk of life is safe. Why should the lawyers get the blame and the corporate world get off scott free?
they don't only make good money when they win. They generally make good money when they settle
Certainly -- I didn't mean to be so specific. Nobody ever wins or loses these cases in court, only at the settlement table. Settlements, for any case, are much preferred to trials and encouraged by our courts.
which they seem to do at least 99% of the time
Actually, it would be more accurate to say 99% of suits amount to nothing, and then the attorneys have invested many hours and dollars (for experts, research, etc.) and get zero return... which leads to your next point:
they keep a huge chunk of whatever damages are collected, rather than giving it to the people damaged.
Because the attorneys get nothing from most cases, they need big wins. Note that the people damaged contribute nothing -- many are unware of the money and time the attorneys invest on their behalf -- and they take no risk. If the suit fails, the people damaged lose nothing and the attorneys lose everything.
Penalties should be imposed by and paid to the government, in my opinion, not by and to individuals. If the class action attorneys can make so much money (and some of them have made a *lot* of money) from penalties, why shouldn't the SEC be allowed to enforce laws and extract penalties?
An interesting point. On one hand, I agree: the SEC could theoretically finance itself better. On the other, you are removing from the class members (the people damaged) a fundemental right in a democracy: To sue people who harm you and get justice.
Unfortunately (and I mean that) it takes money to sue, so the only way it's practical to sue someone who has scammed $1,000 each from a million people is for the million people to sue as one big group. a class. They could pool their money and hire a lawyer not on a contingency basis (meaning the injured party pays the legal expenses but, if they win, keeps the winnings), but nobody seems to do it.
It's class action attorneys, and not the SEC, that 'regulate' this behavior. The SEC can't have the resources to regulate every company in the U.S. but class action attorneys, because of the contingency fee structure, do have the resources to sue them.
Why do you think the corporations complain so much about class action lawyers? You don't hear them whining about the SEC.
I only say this because I always hear complaints about class action attorneys (which seems strange to me on Slashdot). They perform an essential, and very valuable public service. And yes, they make good money from it -- but only when they win.
Many people decide how much to eat based on how much they are served, which makes absolutely no sense if you think about it.
If you're no longer hungry, stop eating. The cook at the restaurant has no idea how much you want when he makes your dinner. Neither does Ronald McDonald.
CNN had a story on it recently: http://www.cnn.com/2003/HEALTH/diet.fit ness/07/18/ portions.reut/index.html
At home, even if you can't do it at the office, use an excercise bike instead of a chair for whatever your sedentary hobby is (TV, reading, computer -- my laptop sits on a 5 foot high desk, under which I place my bike -- etc.).
It takes some concentration, at first, to keep your legs moving while you do the other activity, but if you can walk and chew gum, you can do it.
From what I know of Conyers, he's a relatively radical (compared to the rest of Congress) liberal, and an outspoken supporter of civil rights in the face of government intrusions.
This privacy clause, which I hear people complaining about, I think actually protects the average user.
It's trivial for software providers to meet its requirements, but it may make spyware or other such software illegal:
'' 1822. Notice and consent relating to certain soft- ware ''(a) Whoever knowingly offers enabling software for download over the Internet and does not-- ''(1) clearly and conspicuously warn any person downloading that software, before it is downloaded, that it is enabling software and could create a secu- rity and privacy risk for the user's computer; and ''(2) obtain that person's prior consent to the download after that warning; shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 6 months, or both. ''(b) As used in this section, the term 'enabling soft- ware' means software that, when installed on the user's computer, enables 3rd parties to store data on that com- puter, or use that computer to search other computers' contents over the Internet.''.
I think you want that link to be
marketing-request@mozilla.org
and NOT
marketing@mozilla.org
The latter sends an e-mail to the whole list, and returns and error saying, Please try to use marketing-request@mozilla.org' the next time when issuing (un)subscribe requests. [sic]
people have been misbeahving since the dawn of time. Sometimes the only thing that works to avoid violence is the threat that you will get beat up more then your opponent.
Sure, and sometimes the only thing that will protect me is to take out a gun and shoot you. But how often is that really true?
Isn't that the last resort? Shouldn't we invest all our forethought and energy into avoiding that situation? Every time we reach that point, we've already failed; we're only making the best of a bad mistake.
FUD is the biggest threat by far... but there's pretty much nothing that can be done about it...
Linus, Red Hat, or someone similarly situated could say, Even if the court finds for SCO, we'd have a patch ready in less than a month or, even better, To eliminate any uncertainty among Linux customers, we're releasing a patch in 60 days that removes all code claimed by SCO. That would eliminate the FUD, and the issue would become a legal curiosity.
Today, Linux customers don't know what the potential is -- replace all their systems? Pay licensing fees? etc. They need someone authoritative (not you or me) to tell them something concrete.
Unfortunately, this is not encouraging. It's exactly the kind of rant I was talking about. I don't mean to pick on this poster; I want to make a point about the whole SCO discussion on Slashdot:
It all sounds too good. Whenever I see an analysis, regarding anything, that says there's no risk or no downside or no costs, I know something is missing.
Only an attorney with specific knowledge of the case could comment with such surity, and any good attorney would be much more hesitant to make predictions. Courts and the law don't mirror common sense as much as we'd like to think, and aren't so predictable. We should face the issues, not dismiss them.
It's funny; I've never seen such an unbalanced Slashdot discussion. Even Microsoft gets a well-reasoned defense pretty frequently. Our inability to face the issues and claims of invulnerability make us look scared and defensive.
Which one of you AC's is really that Iraqi minister of information?
"the issue" consists of multiple "issues," none of which has been adequately defined in either the complaint filed by SCO or by anyone who has engaged in the on-going discussion of this case.
For the court's purposes, the issue is, to an extent, whatever is in SCO's complaint.
I think we'd all agree that the applicable context here is neither a tea party nor a court of law -- it's a public venue.
If by here you mean Slashdot, it's indeed neither a tea party nor a court.
But my point is that the legal issues will affect us most, by far. We can rant all we want re: moral, social, and ethical issues, but our future will be decided by U.S. law. If we want to understand our situation or do anything, we must understand the legal situation.
The extraneous humour doesn't hurt, either. Not that your post contained any.
That falls under the category of ethical issues: Let he who is without sin cast the first stone!
Almost every comment here could be modded down as 'Redundant'. Rants against SCO are a poor substitute for analysis, and absent analysis, we're all in the dark.
Let's look carefully at the issue:
We know well the weaknesses in SCO's claims, but what are the strengths? The issue is legal weaknesses and strengths: The contest isn't in the court of common sense or the FSF; it's being decided in a court of U.S. law.
* Has anyone, besides SCO, looked at the Linux code and tried to determine what might have come from SCO, and what might have come from a common predecessor?
* FUD FUD FUD: Lawsuits can last years and SCO's, whatever its merits, may cause Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt, freezing many Linux customers and Linux contributors (who don't want to waste their time or be sued) for as long as it lasts. How can the FUD be countered?
* If SCO wins, what can be done? What will the consequences be?
* IBM will act in its own interests, of course, and not in the interests of the Linux community; what should we expect from them?
* How time-consuming would it be to replace all SCO code (if it does exist)? Should it be done now, with all the code they claim regardless of merit, to preempt their case?
* Is including controlled technologies in Linux the equivalent of violating US export laws? That could have implications far beyond SCO's suit.
I understand the NDA is required for viewing SCO's *evidence*, but is the source for their Unix distribution available? If so, can someone else compare Linux to it?
Slashdot Mirror
People seem focused on the technical issues and the benefits, but how about that unpleasant, though unavoidable issue of cost?
... are we really going to fall for it?
Let's not be suckers like other interest groups, and let the government run up even more debt (remember that federal surplus of long ago?) by promising us our dreams to get our votes, ignoring the cost side of the equation
In fact, given our roles in the technology community, it's up to us to say 'it's not worth it'. Let's make the crazy assumption we must take money from something else in order to go to the moon, or build a space port -- is it worth it? What else should we sacrifice?
Why does distance require any greater technological change?
It's merely a question of rate, like those 8th grade story problems:
'If the first (probe/cptr) starts on Jan 1st 1990, at a rate of 1000 (miles/computations) per minute, and the second (probe/cptr) starts on Jan 1st 2000 at a rate of 2000 (miles/computations) per minute, how long will it take (probe/cptr) #2 to catch #1?'
It's got nothing to do with whether it's distance, computations, or data transmissions, it's just rate.
And relativity? Where does that fit in?
Dave -
Thank you for your response and for organizing this very useful project. I'm glad you didn't take my questions negatively; I'm now running a climateprediction.net client on my machine.
I care very much about climate change, but is this particular experiment worthwhile?
Is it well designed? Will the data be useful? Are the experimenters competent to make good use of the data?
More importantly, will this data be publicly available to other scientists, or am I donating to their private endeavor?
No offense to the experimenters -- it sounds like a great idea, but just because someone has a great idea and sets up a website doesn't mean they know what they're doing. I don't know anything about their sponsors, either (though I'm not in that business).
Take a look of one of my user's desktop for an example of why.
Use Mozilla.
Hopefully this was a one time slip, and not representative of his overall performance:
A very good friend of mine (one of Microsoft's major customers at the time) recommended to Redmond precisely the e-mail safeguards that would have made this week's problem impossible.
Unless I'm mistaken, msblast (or whatever you want to call it) doesn't spread by e-mail. Is he confusing 'e-mail' with 'the Internet', or did he not do his homework.
Slashdot is a great place for it, but I'm not getting into a raving argument over the issue -- I'd love to, but it's more sport than productive discussion and I have no time for it.
I'd be more interested in your experiences -- do you have some direct experience with the class action system?
Hey - if you are someone who lost significant assets due to corporate fraud, you have my sympathy. I hope you take no offense an my debating a few points.
... :-)
...
I think we need to agree to disagree on one point: You seem to see shareholders as more innocent bystanders than I do. I'm much more in favor of caveat emptor, short of fraud: The current shareholders own the company. When they buy it, they get the whole package: Valuable assets created created by past shareholders, and costly liabilities also created by past shareholders. I don't see why they should get all the benefits but not the costs. I can see the argument that, while they're theoretically owners, realistically very few have the power, skills, or access to info to act like traditional owners.
Here are some points where I don't agree to disagree
The loss of those assets can make those share worthless. In many cases, this can mean the loss of the majority of someone's life savings.
First, I'm sure you agree there's nothing wrong with bankruptcy per se -- it's perfectly natural and essential to economic growth (resources get diverted to more productive uses). Are you saying fraud isn't a legitimate cause of bankruptcy? I wouldn't agree. Second, while I wish it never happened, the loss of shareholder investment is inseperable from bankruptcy. If someone invests most of their assets in one company, which may go bankrupt just like any other company, they've chosen a very high risk investment. That they lose the money may be someone's fault; that they lose more than they can afford is their own fault.
Unless management is truly negligent or behaves criminally/unethically, the shareholders should not expect this sort of compensation
Agreed -- only fraud or criminal behavior, not mistakes, should make the company liable.
and even then that should come out of management's (or the boards) pocket, not the shareholders.
I agree about corporate officers and especially members of the Board of Directors, who should be heavily penalized. As I said, we'll have to agree to disagree about current shareholders' liability.
juries cannot reasonably be expected to know what was reasonable, prudent, or even ethical.
I agree: Juries, lawyers, judges, etc. all suck. But what's a better alternative? No matter what, we're stuck with nothing better than human beings making the decisions. I think Churchill said something like, 'Democracy is the worst possible form of government, until you consider the alternatives'.
the legal system already provides criminal and civil penalties in the cases where management misbehaves to this extent.
Those penalties are rarely enforced (the point of my original posting), and no money reaches the pockets of the injured parties. Fundemental to our democracy is the right to sue someone who injures you and get compensation (unless they're an HMO, the government, or other politically influential parties).
Again, what alternative is there? I'd agree that the class-action system could certainly be improved, just like corporate governance, Washington lobbyists, our electoral system, our medical system, etc. Class-actoin securities doesn't stand out to me, but nevertheless, how would you improve it?
It's not like current shareholders transfer their shares to the suing shareholders. Some assets, owned by the current shareholders, are transferred out of the company to the pockets of the injured parties.
If companies deceive their shareholders, as more than a few have done, what's wrong with paying the injured parties (should they just suffer?), bad press, and adverse market reaction? What other resolution do you suggest?
If the company must pay a price, shouldn't the owners (i.e. the shareholders) be the ones who pay? If not them, than who? The shareholders benefit when the company does well and assets increase, why shouldn't they also pay for its mistakes? That defines an equity investment. Those uncomfortable with equity can try bonds or a CD or a million other investments.
Yes, there are some corrupt lawyers and frivilous lawsuits, just as there are some corrupt companies, executives, directors, doctors, politicians, programmers -- no walk of life is safe. Why should the lawyers get the blame and the corporate world get off scott free?
they don't only make good money when they win. They generally make good money when they settle
... which leads to your next point:
Certainly -- I didn't mean to be so specific. Nobody ever wins or loses these cases in court, only at the settlement table. Settlements, for any case, are much preferred to trials and encouraged by our courts.
which they seem to do at least 99% of the time
Actually, it would be more accurate to say 99% of suits amount to nothing, and then the attorneys have invested many hours and dollars (for experts, research, etc.) and get zero return
they keep a huge chunk of whatever damages are collected, rather than giving it to the people damaged.
Because the attorneys get nothing from most cases, they need big wins. Note that the people damaged contribute nothing -- many are unware of the money and time the attorneys invest on their behalf -- and they take no risk. If the suit fails, the people damaged lose nothing and the attorneys lose everything.
Penalties should be imposed by and paid to the government, in my opinion, not by and to individuals. If the class action attorneys can make so much money (and some of them have made a *lot* of money) from penalties, why shouldn't the SEC be allowed to enforce laws and extract penalties?
An interesting point. On one hand, I agree: the SEC could theoretically finance itself better. On the other, you are removing from the class members (the people damaged) a fundemental right in a democracy: To sue people who harm you and get justice.
Unfortunately (and I mean that) it takes money to sue, so the only way it's practical to sue someone who has scammed $1,000 each from a million people is for the million people to sue as one big group. a class. They could pool their money and hire a lawyer not on a contingency basis (meaning the injured party pays the legal expenses but, if they win, keeps the winnings), but nobody seems to do it.
It's class action attorneys, and not the SEC, that 'regulate' this behavior. The SEC can't have the resources to regulate every company in the U.S. but class action attorneys, because of the contingency fee structure, do have the resources to sue them.
Why do you think the corporations complain so much about class action lawyers? You don't hear them whining about the SEC.
I only say this because I always hear complaints about class action attorneys (which seems strange to me on Slashdot). They perform an essential, and very valuable public service. And yes, they make good money from it -- but only when they win.
Many people decide how much to eat based on how much they are served, which makes absolutely no sense if you think about it.
t ness/07/18/ portions.reut/index.html
If you're no longer hungry, stop eating. The cook at the restaurant has no idea how much you want when he makes your dinner. Neither does Ronald McDonald.
CNN had a story on it recently:
http://www.cnn.com/2003/HEALTH/diet.fi
At home, even if you can't do it at the office, use an excercise bike instead of a chair for whatever your sedentary hobby is (TV, reading, computer -- my laptop sits on a 5 foot high desk, under which I place my bike -- etc.).
It takes some concentration, at first, to keep your legs moving while you do the other activity, but if you can walk and chew gum, you can do it.
From what I know of Conyers, he's a relatively radical (compared to the rest of Congress) liberal, and an outspoken supporter of civil rights in the face of government intrusions.
This privacy clause, which I hear people complaining about, I think actually protects the average user.
It's trivial for software providers to meet its requirements, but it may make spyware or other such software illegal:
'' 1822. Notice and consent relating to certain soft-
ware
''(a) Whoever knowingly offers enabling software for
download over the Internet and does not--
''(1) clearly and conspicuously warn any person
downloading that software, before it is downloaded,
that it is enabling software and could create a secu-
rity and privacy risk for the user's computer; and
''(2) obtain that person's prior consent to the
download after that warning;
shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than
6 months, or both.
''(b) As used in this section, the term 'enabling soft-
ware' means software that, when installed on the user's
computer, enables 3rd parties to store data on that com-
puter, or use that computer to search other computers'
contents over the Internet.''.
bartdecrem -- and anyone else using that link:
I think you want that link to be
marketing-request@mozilla.org
and NOT
marketing@mozilla.org
The latter sends an e-mail to the whole list, and returns and error saying,
Please try to use marketing-request@mozilla.org' the next time when issuing (un)subscribe requests.
[sic]
Microsoft is also abandoning the current Outlook interface in favor of a "panes" driven interface.
Isn't that straight out of the OS X finder? Though, of course, Apple probably got their idea from Xerox.
So anything less than that is ok? That's a pretty low standard. We can do much better.
people have been misbeahving since the dawn of time. Sometimes the only thing that works to avoid violence is the threat that you will get beat up more then your opponent.
Sure, and sometimes the only thing that will protect me is to take out a gun and shoot you. But how often is that really true?
Isn't that the last resort? Shouldn't we invest all our forethought and energy into avoiding that situation? Every time we reach that point, we've already failed; we're only making the best of a bad mistake.
FUD is the biggest threat by far ... but there's pretty much nothing that can be done about it ...
Linus, Red Hat, or someone similarly situated could say, Even if the court finds for SCO, we'd have a patch ready in less than a month or, even better, To eliminate any uncertainty among Linux customers, we're releasing a patch in 60 days that removes all code claimed by SCO. That would eliminate the FUD, and the issue would become a legal curiosity.
Today, Linux customers don't know what the potential is -- replace all their systems? Pay licensing fees? etc. They need someone authoritative (not you or me) to tell them something concrete.
Interesting ... no offense, but what is your background? Attorney? Oft-sued software developer?
In fairness, I'm a sysadmin / IT Director.
Unfortunately, this is not encouraging. It's exactly the kind of rant I was talking about. I don't mean to pick on this poster; I want to make a point about the whole SCO discussion on Slashdot:
It all sounds too good. Whenever I see an analysis, regarding anything, that says there's no risk or no downside or no costs, I know something is missing.
Only an attorney with specific knowledge of the case could comment with such surity, and any good attorney would be much more hesitant to make predictions. Courts and the law don't mirror common sense as much as we'd like to think, and aren't so predictable. We should face the issues, not dismiss them.
It's funny; I've never seen such an unbalanced Slashdot discussion. Even Microsoft gets a well-reasoned defense pretty frequently. Our inability to face the issues and claims of invulnerability make us look scared and defensive.
Which one of you AC's is really that Iraqi minister of information?
"the issue" consists of multiple "issues," none of which has been adequately defined in either the complaint filed by SCO or by anyone who has engaged in the on-going discussion of this case.
For the court's purposes, the issue is, to an extent, whatever is in SCO's complaint.
I think we'd all agree that the applicable context here is neither a tea party nor a court of law -- it's a public venue.
If by here you mean Slashdot, it's indeed neither a tea party nor a court.
But my point is that the legal issues will affect us most, by far. We can rant all we want re: moral, social, and ethical issues, but our future will be decided by U.S. law. If we want to understand our situation or do anything, we must understand the legal situation.
The extraneous humour doesn't hurt, either. Not that your post contained any.
That falls under the category of ethical issues: Let he who is without sin cast the first stone!
Almost every comment here could be modded down as 'Redundant'. Rants against SCO are a poor substitute for analysis, and absent analysis, we're all in the dark.
Let's look carefully at the issue:
We know well the weaknesses in SCO's claims, but what are the strengths? The issue is legal weaknesses and strengths: The contest isn't in the court of common sense or the FSF; it's being decided in a court of U.S. law.
* Has anyone, besides SCO, looked at the Linux code and tried to determine what might have come from SCO, and what might have come from a common predecessor?
* FUD FUD FUD: Lawsuits can last years and SCO's, whatever its merits, may cause Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt, freezing many Linux customers and Linux contributors (who don't want to waste their time or be sued) for as long as it lasts. How can the FUD be countered?
* If SCO wins, what can be done? What will the consequences be?
* IBM will act in its own interests, of course, and not in the interests of the Linux community; what should we expect from them?
* How time-consuming would it be to replace all SCO code (if it does exist)? Should it be done now, with all the code they claim regardless of merit, to preempt their case?
* Is including controlled technologies in Linux the equivalent of violating US export laws? That could have implications far beyond SCO's suit.
These seem like the critical issues to me.
Such widely-held disdain spells doom for a corporation.
Has a corporation ever been put out of business by public disdain? I can't think of one.
It probably costs them some money, but it's not their doom.
I understand the NDA is required for viewing SCO's *evidence*, but is the source for their Unix distribution available? If so, can someone else compare Linux to it?