Alternately, instead of completely cutting off the infected machine, configure the firewall/router to redirect everything to a server which listens on 22, 23, 25 and 80 and all of the non-80 open ports will say "look at http://machine/" and then close the port and have instructions and mirrors on the webserver with the updates and instructions of how to get rid of the virus which the ISP detected they had. This way, the user can (in theory) be back online in minutes or hours, as opposed to waiting a few days for a current CD to be mailed back, while at the same time they're not going to get a bill from their upstream providers.
The first was likely because ESR is a vocal member of the linux community. All of the others are likely because of the first one. That seems a bit like a "duh" observation and am surprised at how many have asked this question.
Of course, it also means that a lot of crack pots will want to send faked memos to him, and thus he gets to have fun sorting.
Not only do they need more money, but they need the money to be free. If they accept additional investment, like PIPE's, Boies' firm would get a contingency payout, and Baystar/RBC has the right to then veto the action as it would dilute the value of their PIPE.
About the only way that SCO can get money, is thru their existing heritage UNIX business, and their joing UNIX and Linux SCO Source venture. While SCO's got 15 million or so total from UNIX SCO Source, that appears to be dried up, and I doubt even MS will buy more of it. SCO seems to not yet have made a single dollar from Linux SCO Source.
I guess in theory, MS could realize that they've got a few linux machines for the purpose of knowing their enemy, and decide to fork over some money for them, but as MS won't admit to over a few hundred (at most!) linux boxen they won't even be able to cover Darl's $250K/year salary.
It looks increasingly like all the real cards have been played, and SCO is left grasping at straws trying to play out this game a bit longer.
I am running a VMWare Workstation 3.x as well. I don't see any reason why it could ever stop being able to run newer kernels.
Kinda like no reason why you can't run VMware 2.0 forever? Kernel internal's changed, and suddenly the vmmon module won't build. fine, I patched that, but with slackware 9.0 (or 9.1, I forget) the C library is different enough that vmware crashes trying to start. I hear there's a fix to that, but the point is that vmware ties closely into the kernel. While in theory the community should be able to patch and get things fixed up, it becomes an issue of just how much crap to have to deal with.
Which is sad, because vmware 2.0 had everything I needed, and ran smoothly on my machine. However, most others seem to have moved on, so there's not a lot of public support to keep vmware 2 running well. Perhaps that might happen with 3 as well eventually.
1) while recently SCO has shown a pro forma profit for 2 (3?) quarters, SCO execs know they've cooked the books. historically they're losing a few million each quarter.
2) Boies' firm was retained, and they are billing hourly (granted, some of their billing is at 2/3 the normal rate, but that's still not cheap). This is in addition to any contingency factors that Boies' firm can also get money on. SCO had maybe $10M in the bank, and if one took about all of their accounting tricks, they're probably spending an additional 2M per quarter in legal fees. Given this burn rate, they wouldn't be able to last if they could get the money in 2004.
3) from the "benefit of the doubt" side, even if SCO was confident that it would win the case, when you take into account appeals, IBM likely wouldn't have to pay until 2007; possibly later.
4) Even given the $50M pipe deal, check out the yahoo financial SCOX message board; someone posted an analysis how unless they get more mystery money from SCO Source lincensing they currently can't survive long enough to make it to trial; much less to the appeals.
They'll need another PIPE (which they won't get), or someone is going to have to pay SCO a lot in licensing (when you do that, your name is out) for SCO to survive to the trial even *with* the $50M deal.
Granted, if you thought that SCO was telling the truth, only examined the recent pro forma quarters, and believed Skiba's stock analysis I can see how you'd wonder why they needed the $50M given that they're over a barrel now. However, when one knows this is just a stock scam, it becomes obvious.
I'm pretty sure the reason that he's making use of this phrase in particular, is because of a wall street journal article about SCO with that title. If not the exact title, then the crux of the article was in the comparison.
And while Yes, some money is being made by share holders right now, realistically how much money will they be making in a year from now? How much do you think that Darl expects them to make? If he's delusional, then he think's they'll be rich, and maybe he'll be the next bill gates. If he's realistic, he knows that a lot of people will be screwed because of him, while some already rich people will be slightly richer and give him a pat on the head, and maybe pay a politician or two to keep him out of jail.
and you get more than a hundred thousand. And some in the first 10 are about switching to linux. I suspect that some "searches" on MSN don't actually return a search, but rather a pre-selected set of results.
Slashdot Mirror
Alternately, instead of completely cutting off the infected machine, configure the firewall/router to redirect everything to a server which listens on 22, 23, 25 and 80 and all of the non-80 open ports will say "look at http://machine/" and then close the port and have instructions and mirrors on the webserver with the updates and instructions of how to get rid of the virus which the ISP detected they had. This way, the user can (in theory) be back online in minutes or hours, as opposed to waiting a few days for a current CD to be mailed back, while at the same time they're not going to get a bill from their upstream providers.
Of course, it also means that a lot of crack pots will want to send faked memos to him, and thus he gets to have fun sorting.
It would not only be much harder, but depending where you live, because of the EULA, it could be illegal.
Not only do they need more money, but they need the money to be free. If they accept additional investment, like PIPE's, Boies' firm would get a contingency payout, and Baystar/RBC has the right to then veto the action as it would dilute the value of their PIPE.
About the only way that SCO can get money, is thru their existing heritage UNIX business, and their joing UNIX and Linux SCO Source venture. While SCO's got 15 million or so total from UNIX SCO Source, that appears to be dried up, and I doubt even MS will buy more of it. SCO seems to not yet have made a single dollar from Linux SCO Source.
I guess in theory, MS could realize that they've got a few linux machines for the purpose of knowing their enemy, and decide to fork over some money for them, but as MS won't admit to over a few hundred (at most!) linux boxen they won't even be able to cover Darl's $250K/year salary.
It looks increasingly like all the real cards have been played, and SCO is left grasping at straws trying to play out this game a bit longer.
Kinda like no reason why you can't run VMware 2.0 forever? Kernel internal's changed, and suddenly the vmmon module won't build. fine, I patched that, but with slackware 9.0 (or 9.1, I forget) the C library is different enough that vmware crashes trying to start. I hear there's a fix to that, but the point is that vmware ties closely into the kernel. While in theory the community should be able to patch and get things fixed up, it becomes an issue of just how much crap to have to deal with.
Which is sad, because vmware 2.0 had everything I needed, and ran smoothly on my machine. However, most others seem to have moved on, so there's not a lot of public support to keep vmware 2 running well. Perhaps that might happen with 3 as well eventually.
2) Boies' firm was retained, and they are billing hourly (granted, some of their billing is at 2/3 the normal rate, but that's still not cheap). This is in addition to any contingency factors that Boies' firm can also get money on. SCO had maybe $10M in the bank, and if one took about all of their accounting tricks, they're probably spending an additional 2M per quarter in legal fees. Given this burn rate, they wouldn't be able to last if they could get the money in 2004.
3) from the "benefit of the doubt" side, even if SCO was confident that it would win the case, when you take into account appeals, IBM likely wouldn't have to pay until 2007; possibly later.
4) Even given the $50M pipe deal, check out the yahoo financial SCOX message board; someone posted an analysis how unless they get more mystery money from SCO Source lincensing they currently can't survive long enough to make it to trial; much less to the appeals.
They'll need another PIPE (which they won't get), or someone is going to have to pay SCO a lot in licensing (when you do that, your name is out) for SCO to survive to the trial even *with* the $50M deal.
Granted, if you thought that SCO was telling the truth, only examined the recent pro forma quarters, and believed Skiba's stock analysis I can see how you'd wonder why they needed the $50M given that they're over a barrel now. However, when one knows this is just a stock scam, it becomes obvious.
And while Yes, some money is being made by share holders right now, realistically how much money will they be making in a year from now? How much do you think that Darl expects them to make? If he's delusional, then he think's they'll be rich, and maybe he'll be the next bill gates. If he's realistic, he knows that a lot of people will be screwed because of him, while some already rich people will be slightly richer and give him a pat on the head, and maybe pay a politician or two to keep him out of jail.
linux switch
and you get more than a hundred thousand. And some in the first 10 are about switching to linux. I suspect that some "searches" on MSN don't actually return a search, but rather a pre-selected set of results.