The same "accounting decision" method was used by Ford when they were sued over inadequate fuel tank design in the Pinto. Poor design led to fuel tanks exploding in light rear end collisions and Ford decided not to modify based on the cost of paying out damages to burns victims and their families as opposed to recalling the cars and modifying the fuel tanks.
OK so flaming customers is a far worse crime than ripping off the competition but Ford were nailed with punitive damages that went far beyond the cost of a recall and the severity of the punishment proved an adequate deterrent to them and other car companies on poor safety design.
The reason Microsoft have ripped off so many other companies in the past e.g. Spyglass (Internet Explorer) is that whenever they get caught the damages awarded have a similar level of effect on MS's bank account as taking a piss in lake Superior has on it's volume.
You never know, conscience can be a powerful (if rare) thing. I don't hold out much though. Any terminated careers with SCO could always lead to a career at IBM.
They're stuck really. Along with the rest of us they don't have a clue what the hells going on. The best I can come up with at the moment is that
a) The fact they won't let anyone see the code without the NDA leans towards them bluffing as there's no point in hiding the code for IP reasons if it's been in the public domain for years.
b) Gartner have to say something as that's their job but what can they say when they've got no info to go on. If they tell everyone to carry on regardless and SCO did somehow win they'd have to be sure their disclaimer is as tight as a shark's arse at 40 fathoms.
The fact that all this kicked off in parallel with the launch of server 2003 is probably going to cause most suspicion as Microsoft's latest offering seems to have failed to deliver on the pre launch hype but then as that's happened with every version of Windows back to the year dot it doesn't count for much.
At the end of the day IBM are going to have to force them through court ASAP which they can probably do as they are ssssooooooooooooo loaded they must have some sway. That is unless some SCO employee (or disgruntled ex-SCO employee) drops a bombshell that kills SCO's claim off.
Hi folks, I'm seeking a bit of advice on the following regarding the effect SCVO's action is having on Linux techies.
Anyone considering suing SCO UK on the following point needs the answers listed below:
1) SCO refuse to release the details of their claim to the wider world which has led to Linux being pushed into a state of Limbo where analysts i.e. Gartner are recommending a freeze on Linux deployment and the consideration of proprietry UNIX and Windows instead of Linux.
Over a significant period of time many people have spent more hours than is healthy learning Linux and associated software and have spent money on Linux courses etc. the value of which is significantly degraded by SCOs actions. As yet, SCO have not provided any actual evidence of their claims and from my understanding so far the evidence shown under their NDA is far from conclusive.
Any claim would circle around the fact that the carrers of such people and their earning potential is being damaged not by SCOs claim, which is their business, but by their unreasonable behaviour in witholding evidence that if displayed to market analysts and lawyers could dismiss their case as irrelevant before it even reaches court.
As I understand it, under criminal law you cannot be arrested without the details of the accusations against you being revealed. What about Civil law? Is it right and reasonable under UK civil law that SCO (who have a UK office) should be able to damage the careers of Linux techies by witholding the evidence in their court case.
Would SCO UK also be pushed into releasing details of the claims as part of the action as in Germany and if SCO-Germany employees are being paid a retainer by SCO following the closure of the German office does this constitute a SCO presence in Germany and hence still leave them open to legal action?
Then why hold back on telling which bits of code infringe?
The need for an NDA would be removed as the case would be so watertight that there would be no point in witholding code that's already in the public domain via kernel.org
The whole thing stinks of delaying any definite info being released to cause maximum confusion regardless of the facts of the case and if SCO go down I suspect McBride will end up high up in some other litigous software giant at some point as they will be the only ones who've benefited.
Shutting SCO's offices in Germany is probably not that great a loss to them and was a sacrifice to keep the FUD going. SuSE will fill the gap when the case is over.
It is rather striking that SCO sue at the same time that Server 2003 comes out and an MSN article picking holes in Google is placed on/. around the time Microsoft gear up to do an MSN search engine.
If there's any more anti Linux/geek - pro proprietry events that coincide with software releases or announcements from certain corporations posted on this site we are going to discover the meaning of viral martketing.
Name the tame research company and we can all let them know how confused we aren't. Firstly a good slashdotting should show them how "reliable" their 2k servers are and a full inbox of "we ain't scared and we ain't buying no licences from that twat McBride and his piss poor company" should give them a clue for their next article
Did I say I agree with them? No I didn't, you just shifted into braindead rant mode assuming, in your blind, base instinct reaction that I was stating it from personal belief.
Funnily enough, this kind of blind rage inspired lashing out at anyone you perceive to even vageuly disagree with you is exactly the kind of accusation that the Anti American lobby accuse your country of.
Before you go off telling people to fuck off and die i suggest you at least make an attempt to read the meaning and context in which they make a statement.
The reason I refer to TB as "our beloved prime minister" is that the UK tech market is soooo fucked up at the moment that I and 56,000 other contractors are on the welfare at the moment because dipstick features doesn't understand the world of IT yet seems to think he's doing a great job. I don't like him but not for the reason you think it's just we were promised super-highway britain and got the equivalent of a dirt track..
BTW I think Rittalin or prozac would be a good buy on your next shopping list as to be honest you sound mentally unstable, bordering on dangerous.
Dear SCO I'm not interested in your offer because:
a) You have yet to prove in open court that the code you claim is yours. Until a definite state of ownership is decided it is unreasonable and possibly illegal for you to demand payment with threats for goods that may not even belong to you.
b) You were distributing the Linux kernel on your site up to 3 weeks after you announced you believed the disputed code was included. Had you pulled this code on the day of the announcement I would have probably listened. However, by providing a GPL'd kernel for download after stating your belief that your code was included you accepted the GPL and surrendered all rights to charge for your code.
c) If, and I doubt it, you win the court case, I wil be removing my current Linux installations from my machines and will be replacing them with versions in which the offending code has been removed by the kernel developers. This, like step a), is a reasonable thing to do and in complying immeadiately with the courts decision I do not think you will be owed anything.
d) I do not live in the US and I do not intend visiting the US at any point in the future. If you wish to come to the UK to sue me and more like me I promise you this much: I do not own my house, car, or anything else in my posession. I am unemployed and have a minimal income since losing a finger in an accident leaving me with nothing to lose should I be on the receiving end of a court case. As McDonalds discovered, there is little more dangerous to the reputation of a global corporation than a pissed off "true believer" with a point to prove, financial backing from anti-globalisation organisations and time on his hands. McDonalds spent four years in court, won a limited battle but lost the PR war and came out of it looking like a bunch of burger munching litigation monkeys. I have nothing to lose but will gain a hell of a lot of cred in the open source arena.
e) After the revelations over non-existent WMD in Iraq, the number of people outside of the US who believe that your country is the spreader of freedom and democracy as opposed to a global empire building, cash hungry bully is growing and I'm afraid that the kind of brainless behaviour you are displaying is only going to strengthen anti-American sentiment. Our beloved Prime Minister is on the verge of getting it in the neck and GWB is going to find that people who kiss arse that deeply are a once in a lfetime thing so if you want to help fuck up your countries reputation please continue to so.
I see no no mention on Wininfo that Netcrafts report shows that Colt (the gun makers) Windows 2003 server has been up and down more times than a whore's drawers, a problem they didn't have with Linux.
Microsoft shall not restrict by agreement any OEM licensee from exercising any of the following options or alternatives:
4 Offering users the option of launching other Operating Systems from the Basic Input/Output System or a non-Microsoft boot-loader or similar program that launches prior to the start of the Windows Operating System Product.
If someone at Toshiba tells you "icrosoft told us to do it" We can all play the litigation game again
I have doubts on your 90% figure and suspect as high enough number will exist to be able to tip the vote. Bush ain't looking so good since he and tony the poodle got caught out lying and it may be a damn site easier to scare a candidate into tagging along than you think.
Let's face it, no politicians now are particularly interested in the welfare of their citizens and are generally in it for the power. Play their greed and desperation for high office, that's all the corporate lobbyists are doing. Whatever, you either do something or sit back and let the RIAA shit on you from a great height
I think I'd be happier if we let the kernel developers patch out all contentious SCO code (if there is any) and have done with it. SCO's behaviour has just been sooooooo bad and ill judged that they should just be left to die. Then we won't have to worry about about any repetition leaving Linux and Open Source to get on with destroying the MS monopoly.
For ages I've been telling people they should try Linux because it's got MS worried and must therefore be worth a look and all I've had is the mumblings of market analysts and the odd journalist. Now I've got it from the horses mouth I can tell people they should try it because Microsoft are shitting bricks and giving their own software away 'cos it's doesn't justify the price.
Slashdot Mirror
The same "accounting decision" method was used by Ford when they were sued over inadequate fuel tank design in the Pinto. Poor design led to fuel tanks exploding in light rear end collisions and Ford decided not to modify based on the cost of paying out damages to burns victims and their families as opposed to recalling the cars and modifying the fuel tanks.
OK so flaming customers is a far worse crime than ripping off the competition but Ford were nailed with punitive damages that went far beyond the cost of a recall and the severity of the punishment proved an adequate deterrent to them and other car companies on poor safety design.
The reason Microsoft have ripped off so many other companies in the past e.g. Spyglass (Internet Explorer) is that whenever they get caught the damages awarded have a similar level of effect on MS's bank account as taking a piss in lake Superior has on it's volume.
You never know, conscience can be a powerful (if rare) thing. I don't hold out much though. Any terminated careers with SCO could always lead to a career at IBM.
SCO coder reading? Yopu know it makes sense
They're stuck really. Along with the rest of us they don't have a clue what the hells going on. The best I can come up with at the moment is that
a) The fact they won't let anyone see the code without the NDA leans towards them bluffing as there's no point in hiding the code for IP reasons if it's been in the public domain for years.
b) Gartner have to say something as that's their job but what can they say when they've got no info to go on. If they tell everyone to carry on regardless and SCO did somehow win they'd have to be sure their disclaimer is as tight as a shark's arse at 40 fathoms.
The fact that all this kicked off in parallel with the launch of server 2003 is probably going to cause most suspicion as Microsoft's latest offering seems to have failed to deliver on the pre launch hype but then as that's happened with every version of Windows back to the year dot it doesn't count for much.
At the end of the day IBM are going to have to force them through court ASAP which they can probably do as they are ssssooooooooooooo loaded they must have some sway. That is unless some SCO employee (or disgruntled ex-SCO employee) drops a bombshell that kills SCO's claim off.
to say sorry to poor Mr Stallman, all those people who've been taking the piss for his insistance at the GNU (Gnu's Not Unix) Tab before Linux ;)
Maybe they've got shares in the Amiga ;)
Their was a young man called McBride
"Our companies collapsing" he sighed
Maybe we ought To take someone to court
and piss people off far and wide
Hi folks, I'm seeking a bit of advice on the following regarding the effect SCVO's action is having on Linux techies.
Anyone considering suing SCO UK on the following point needs the answers listed below:
1) SCO refuse to release the details of their claim to the wider world which has led to Linux being pushed into a state of Limbo where analysts i.e. Gartner are recommending a freeze on Linux deployment and the consideration of proprietry UNIX and Windows instead of Linux.
Over a significant period of time many people have spent more hours than is healthy learning Linux and associated software and have spent money on Linux courses etc. the value of which is significantly degraded by SCOs actions. As yet, SCO have not provided any actual evidence of their claims and from my understanding so far the evidence shown under their NDA is far from conclusive.
Any claim would circle around the fact that the carrers of such people and their earning potential is being damaged not by SCOs claim, which is their business, but by their unreasonable behaviour in witholding evidence that if displayed to market analysts and lawyers could dismiss their case as irrelevant before it even reaches court.
As I understand it, under criminal law you cannot be arrested without the details of the accusations against you being revealed. What about Civil law? Is it right and reasonable under UK civil law that SCO (who have a UK office) should be able to damage the careers of Linux techies by witholding the evidence in their court case.
Would SCO UK also be pushed into releasing details of the claims as part of the action as in Germany and if SCO-Germany employees are being paid a retainer by SCO following the closure of the German office does this constitute a SCO presence in Germany and hence still leave them open to legal action?
I kept going around in circles in their voicemail. It seemed like hours - the system isn't very smart. I don't understand what happened.
:P
SCO Unix
Then why hold back on telling which bits of code infringe?
The need for an NDA would be removed as the case would be so watertight that there would be no point in witholding code that's already in the public domain via kernel.org
The whole thing stinks of delaying any definite info being released to cause maximum confusion regardless of the facts of the case and if SCO go down I suspect McBride will end up high up in some other litigous software giant at some point as they will be the only ones who've benefited.
Shutting SCO's offices in Germany is probably not that great a loss to them and was a sacrifice to keep the FUD going. SuSE will fill the gap when the case is over.
Does European law have anything along the lines of the law used in Germany? If so we can shut SCO down right across Europe.
It is rather striking that SCO sue at the same time that Server 2003 comes out and an MSN article picking holes in Google is placed on /. around the time Microsoft gear up to do an MSN search engine.
If there's any more anti Linux/geek - pro proprietry events that coincide with software releases or announcements from certain corporations posted on this site we are going to discover the meaning of viral martketing.
Name the tame research company and we can all let them know how confused we aren't. Firstly a good slashdotting should show them how "reliable" their 2k servers are and a full inbox of "we ain't scared and we ain't buying no licences from that twat McBride and his piss poor company" should give them a clue for their next article
I can't see why your are such a hatefull bunch over their in the UK?.
You ain't so friendly yourself
Did I say I agree with them? No I didn't, you just shifted into braindead rant mode assuming, in your blind, base instinct reaction that I was stating it from personal belief.
Funnily enough, this kind of blind rage inspired lashing out at anyone you perceive to even vageuly disagree with you is exactly the kind of accusation that the Anti American lobby accuse your country of.
Before you go off telling people to fuck off and die i suggest you at least make an attempt to read the meaning and context in which they make a statement.
The reason I refer to TB as "our beloved prime minister" is that the UK tech market is soooo fucked up at the moment that I and 56,000 other contractors are on the welfare at the moment because dipstick features doesn't understand the world of IT yet seems to think he's doing a great job. I don't like him but not for the reason you think it's just we were promised super-highway britain and got the equivalent of a dirt track..
BTW I think Rittalin or prozac would be a good buy on your next shopping list as to be honest you sound mentally unstable, bordering on dangerous.
Here's my 10p's (15c) worth:
Dear SCO I'm not interested in your offer because:
a) You have yet to prove in open court that the code you claim is yours. Until a definite state of ownership is decided it is unreasonable and possibly illegal for you to demand payment with threats for goods that may not even belong to you.
b) You were distributing the Linux kernel on your site up to 3 weeks after you announced you believed the disputed code was included. Had you pulled this code on the day of the announcement I would have probably listened. However, by providing a GPL'd kernel for download after stating your belief that your code was included you accepted the GPL and surrendered all rights to charge for your code.
c) If, and I doubt it, you win the court case, I wil be removing my current Linux installations from my machines and will be replacing them with versions in which the offending code has been removed by the kernel developers. This, like step a), is a reasonable thing to do and in complying immeadiately with the courts decision I do not think you will be owed anything.
d) I do not live in the US and I do not intend visiting the US at any point in the future. If you wish to come to the UK to sue me and more like me I promise you this much: I do not own my house, car, or anything else in my posession. I am unemployed and have a minimal income since losing a finger in an accident leaving me with nothing to lose should I be on the receiving end of a court case. As McDonalds discovered, there is little more dangerous to the reputation of a global corporation than a pissed off "true believer" with a point to prove, financial backing from anti-globalisation organisations and time on his hands. McDonalds spent four years in court, won a limited battle but lost the PR war and came out of it looking like a bunch of burger munching litigation monkeys. I have nothing to lose but will gain a hell of a lot of cred in the open source arena.
e) After the revelations over non-existent WMD in Iraq, the number of people outside of the US who believe that your country is the spreader of freedom and democracy as opposed to a global empire building, cash hungry bully is growing and I'm afraid that the kind of brainless behaviour you are displaying is only going to strengthen anti-American sentiment. Our beloved Prime Minister is on the verge of getting it in the neck and GWB is going to find that people who kiss arse that deeply are a once in a lfetime thing so if you want to help fuck up your countries reputation please continue to so.
Nuff said
Bollocks to the lot of you,
I see no no mention on Wininfo that Netcrafts report shows that Colt (the gun makers) Windows 2003 server has been up and down more times than a whore's drawers, a problem they didn't have with Linux.
Oops sorry, should have been wininformant.com
At last, a site that makes us slashdotters look unbiased ;P
I only ask because:
Microsoft shall not restrict by agreement any OEM licensee from exercising any of the following options or alternatives:
4 Offering users the option of launching other Operating Systems from the Basic Input/Output System or a non-Microsoft boot-loader or similar program that launches prior to the start of the Windows Operating System Product.
If someone at Toshiba tells you "icrosoft told us to do it" We can all play the litigation game again
I have doubts on your 90% figure and suspect as high enough number will exist to be able to tip the vote. Bush ain't looking so good since he and tony the poodle got caught out lying and it may be a damn site easier to scare a candidate into tagging along than you think.
Let's face it, no politicians now are particularly interested in the welfare of their citizens and are generally in it for the power. Play their greed and desperation for high office, that's all the corporate lobbyists are doing.
Whatever, you either do something or sit back and let the RIAA shit on you from a great height
Never let me say I'm to proud to admit my mistakes ;)
Apologies to SuSE, I didn't check hard enough before opening my trap.
Out of interest, has anyone heard any comment from SuSE over the SCO thing?
Given that the kernel contains GPL code and they have admitted to knowing their code is in there (allegedley) then it must be GPL'd.
Planet Earth to McBride... You fucked up bigtime, bend forward, place head between legs and kiss arse goodbye
And SuSE stopped providing free downloads years ago, Is there a link here that no-one's mentioned?
I think I'd be happier if we let the kernel developers patch out all contentious SCO code (if there is any) and have done with it.
SCO's behaviour has just been sooooooo bad and ill judged that they should just be left to die. Then we won't have to worry about about any repetition leaving Linux and Open Source to get on with destroying the MS monopoly.
For ages I've been telling people they should try Linux because it's got MS worried and must therefore be worth a look and all I've had is the mumblings of market analysts and the odd journalist.
Now I've got it from the horses mouth I can tell people they should try it because Microsoft are shitting bricks and giving their own software away 'cos it's doesn't justify the price.