SCO Protest And Anti-Protest In Provo 865
a.ameri writes "On Friday, June 20, the Provo Linux Users Group decided to head on over to SCO's offices and hold a protest; information on the event, including pictures and press coverage, can be found on
the PLUG page. Among other things, the protesters claim that SCO employes came out and joined the event holding pre-prepared signs saying things like 'I love software piracy' and 'Try communism - use Linux.'" There are some funny shots linked here (thanks to reader lucif latum). Daddio64 points to the press covereage in the Deseret News and Provo Daily Herald.
Re:Lets all join Hands (handles) (Score:2, Interesting)
pro-linux sco employees (Score:5, Interesting)
IBM's Q&A about SCO, for the record (Score:1, Interesting)
actionable? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Image Problems? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Image Problems? (Score:5, Interesting)
Hmm.. well is was Caldera riding on high on the capitalistic Linux
IPO craze of the late 90s that allowed them to purchase SCO thus
any usable IP left in SystemV code base. It was the promise of Linux
who bank rolled the whole thing. I think that anyone who bought
into their IPO because they thought they were investing in a Linux
company should get their money back.
I'm sorry, but this is not enough. (Score:5, Interesting)
Take it from me - I work for a Fortune 500 company (no not microsoft ;-)) that gets protests pretty much *weekly* and the upshot of it is that company email gives logistical directions on where and how to avoid the protests. (ironically, I think that the protesters are *dead on* but believe me, its not going to change the company's practices. Nothing but an act of god is going to do that.)
Anyways, don't get me wrong. I think that SCO is a borderline illegal company, but to *really* hurt them where it counts, we need to organize online. Hurting them where it counts means presenting the SEC with a well-thought out case on why they need to be investigated.
I posted the following proposal to slashdot (it was rejected, probably because it was too controversial) and the gist was that SCO's share price (ticker symbol SCOX) has gone up 1400% on rumors and FUD. Now SCO may have a case, they may not have a case, but the least that should happen is an investigation by the SEC into the facts surrounding this incident.
Here's a SEC link [sec.gov] that lets you enter a complaint. Hell, if SCO gets enough heat from this, they may divulge all. We deserve, as a community, to be able to evaluate their gripe objectively, and that requires full disclosure by SCO of what their gripe is. SCO's failure to do so is *hurting our livelihood* - and at the least it is libelous.
Anyways, below is the text of the original submission. I'm hoping to get it on the head Slashdot page, so if you could submit it as a story, I think it would do us all a favor. (Note to slashdot editors - a 'soapbox' icon would be very nice... something which allows users to post controversial stories like this whilst having a disclaimer so slashdot can keep its nose clean)
original submission:
I just read the vaguely demeaning forbes article [forbes.com] describing the complacency of the linux community, and believe me, this "crunchie" wasn't pleased, at either a) being called a crunchie for having the ethics to be upset about what SCO is doing, or b) for being labeled as ineffective and powerless. The truth is, the open source community isn't powerless. The whole SCO incident has a very bad smell to it, and what they are doing (and the consequent effect on their stock price) is in my opinion highly unethical if not illegal. I am not a lawyer (or SEC official for that matter) but their stock price has jumped from 60 cents to $11 per share, in dubious circumstances... so in my opinion at the very least the SEC should be notified about the unsavory aspects of it and other pieces of background info so they can do an investigation and find out the facts for themselves. So - I think the open source community should take a stand. If you don't like what SCOX is doing, here is the sec complaint form [sec.gov] where you can submit evidence, background facts, personal knowledge, and - if you think so - your opinion about how malfeasant SCOX's actions are and the damages that they are doing. (Any info about how SCOX insiders are capitalizing on the stock price would be especially helpful.. personally, its the element I find most distasteful of all, and if they find manipulation, its information the SEC can directly use.) How many people read slashdot? How would the SEC handle 500,000 complaints? Only time would tell - but I think at the minimum it would warrant an investigation, possibly even a class-action suit. Anyways, if you are going to submit, please be civil about it. The worst thing possible would be for the SEC to get lots of long-winded rants - they want courteous dialog and accurate information they can use, not a vitriolic screed of profan
Re:SCO can't distinguish Communism from nazi Germa (Score:2, Interesting)
On topic: That's not the only thing they've got wrong.. Free Software is all about sharing, but doing so decentralised, and out of free will.. both fascism and communism are forms of state that promote centralised, strong goverment and basically take away people's free will (that is, with marxistic communism.. there's allot of other kinds of socialists out there, o american commie-haters). Both nazi-germany and communist russia can't be compared to Linux, which started out far more anarcho-socialistic, but has now (unfortunatly) ended up mostly libertarian.
Re:Original LWN discussion (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Darl McBride? (Score:1, Interesting)
What about the PLUG web page? (Score:1, Interesting)
I assume the PLUG people were there too and they didn't seem to think McBride was such a nice guy.
Re:Original LWN discussion (Score:5, Interesting)
They went out and picketed with them. They posed for pictures. They came out and `shared laughs'.
The posters themselves were a little unclassy (but still funny.) But they made up for it in the other things they did.
They made a joke. That's more than they've done up to this part.(And I'll bet the SCO lawyers have a field day with this, and the people who did it get yelled at big time. After all, I doubt those signs were approved by legal (even though they were ready beforehand?)...)
Re:Darl McBride? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:pro-linux sco employees (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I'm sorry, but this is not enough. (Score:4, Interesting)
No way!
The purpose of the protest was to show normal everyday people, through the media, what is really going on in the peaceful town of Lindon. And you know what? We were successful. Two major Utah newspapers covered our protest, and we had a front page article with one of them.
After the "chat" we had with McBride, it was obvious that he didn't care at all about what we thought, but as long as the public is a little more aware of the issues, we feel we were successful.
And besides, we had a lot of fun.
Re:This really is pointless for all parties. (Score:2, Interesting)
If you treat code like prose, which is essentially what the current copyright laws do, you're bound to end up in situations like this at some point. Until the system acquires the wisdom to correctly resolve these new kinds of arguments concerning what property really is, ligitators know that the early birds are going to get the big worms, if there are any to be had.
$5M profit on $25M of revenue is is not as much money as it sounds like and their company name will be in ruin no matter how this turns out. If they win, they're the new bullies, if they lose, they will expose the idiocy underlying their allegations. Either way, stick the proverbial fork in them, they're done.
This is every bit as stupid as the AOL-Time Warner merger. But that doesn't mean some people aren't going to get rich. If the last 10 years have demonstrated anything, it's that there are other ways to derive a fortune from one's association with a tech company than just selling good products and providing excellent customer service.
Re:Read this before bashing SCO (Score:3, Interesting)
If you'll recall, in the past Microsoft has acted this way in reponse to Pro-Linux protestors as well.
Basically it's a not so subtle way of saying, "You're protest is meaningless. It does not matter as it accomplishes nothing more than making you feel better about yourself. Enjoy the discussion on Slashdot, but until then have some milk and cookies on us."
I know that's harsh, but it's the truth of the matter. This protest will not result in any meaningful public outcry, nor will it effect the upcoming legal case in any way. SCO may lose, SCO may win, but this protest won't figure into it, therefore they have nothing to lose by being nice and essentially treating it as a joke.
Linux Users Shut Their Windows [wired.com]
Microsoft officials served refreshments to the demonstrators on the upper deck of their parking lot under an 8 foot banner that read: "Microsoft Welcomes the Linux Community."
Re:The anti-protest was overreported (Score:2, Interesting)
If over-reporting of SCO drones is a problem, strike back by bringing your own camera and shooting your own pictures. Preferably from wide angles, so the folks at home can get a better sense of what is really going on. I don't know about most people, but shots taken by average joe protestor are a lot more interesting than those tight media shots that leave out 90% of the story.
I'm not being a whining prick. Hell, if I could be there, I would be one of the people taking pictures for people who could not. I'm just saying, we have cheap digital media and the internet at our disposal(that is, until the Slashdot effect gets through with us ;). Beat the mainstream media at its own game!
Re:Original LWN discussion (Score:5, Interesting)
it's called 'coopting' and it's right out of Microsoft's manual.
pretty interesting in all. it seems that SCO's got some rather competent handlers... that and the "steal free music" attempted reference in SCO's signs is a rather fascinating insight to how their PR folks are going to shape this battle in the press.
I smell a Hatch...
*scoove*
Yup, Provo LUG were sucked in good and hard (Score:5, Interesting)
Copy of a post to LWN in answer to someone else who applauded the humour:
The Who's down with Other People's Intellectual Property sign [kuwan.net] is major chutzpah. The IP which TSG (not the original SCO, The SCO Group) is laying claim to is code written by IBM which belongs to IBM according to the terms of the AT&T agreement.
For an example of such code, turn to SMP. TSG's own SMP implementation sucks so badly that all of their licencees, past and present, have written and are using their own implementation instead. TSG is claiming ownership of those implementations.
The short story is that the IP in contention does not belong to TSG even if it was originally developed (by IBM) for use with SCO UNIX or UnixWare sources and is not a part of the BSD codebase or otherwise public domain or copyright (e.g. GPL) by others. To put it in the same terms that TSG are applying to IBM and Linux TSG are using barratry to steal the rights to code that they did not write and do not own.
It's worse than that. If you read what Chris Sontag said in the BYTE article [byte.com], you will see that TSG are trying to leverage their barratry to steal ownership of every significant OS in the world.
You know how annoying parking meters are? In asserting that everything else descends at least in principle from their UNIX codebase, TSG are trying to install a meter on every CPU in the world, starting with the USA. They are trying to encumber everybody with a licence agreement, but instead of using Microsoft's attrition method, they're aiming for one fell swoop.
To show you how brazen this is, consider the same scenario in another industry. The Canopy Group buys Ford, then claims that since every production-line car in the world was derived in one way or another from Henry Ford's system. They start with General Motors but have an eye on an unexpectedly thriving kit-car industry. Is the analogy clear, and good enough?
While TSG employees might be fine and friendly to deal with, TSG management is trying to stage one of the biggest ripoffs in software history. If they succeed, it will undermine the livelihood implied in tens of thousands of Linux-related job in the USA and greatly slow Linux deployment worldwide. They even have the gall to hint about taxing the BSDs! If they fail, TSG and these guys' jobs, pensions etc will be a scorched memory.
This (to say nothing of much other lying and prevarication) makes those posters a lot less funny than you hope. Ha, ha, and all, but meanwhile they're trying to throw the IT world over a barrel.
And suddenly Boise' actions make sick sense. In the unlikely event of him winning this one, he'll be first in line for the next one, and the next, and the next... and if TSG's licence works out to something of the order of $100 a CPU a year, their income will easily exceed Microsoft's. Are you reading me, Bill?
The penny evidently hasn't yet dropped for Sun. The $100M they've already paid is a drop in the bucket compared with what TSG will get out of them if they win.
SCO should've taken the high road like Apple. (Score:4, Interesting)
Is it just me or are SCO's actions truly surreal? I mean is someone smoking crack over there?
Re:Don't jump to conclusions about the SCO people. (Score:3, Interesting)
The ranting of a few delusional leaders in the FSF does not represent the opinion of the many professionals who use, develop, or promote Linux. Particularly not IBM or Linus (who is on record as saying that everyone should be able to choose whatever license they please for the software they write). I haven't even heard RMS weigh in on the SCO lawsuit, so why drag his distinctively weird opinions into this?
If Linux does the job for you, that's all it should take, in a free market, to want to adopt it, correct?
Yes. What's your point?
Re:Original LWN discussion (Score:2, Interesting)
It was better than trying to defend myself at the time simply becouse I was to small to do anything.
(7 year old vs 14 year old bully)
The teachers would see it and the bully would be in deep trubble.
SCO people run out being childish saying "Just kidding" we can laugh and let it go making them look bad or we can whine and look bad ourselfs.
After all we should laugh at outselfs once in a while.
The rest of the story gose that when I did fight back the poor kid went to the hospital.
When they think you'll fight back they are ready. when they don't they are easy targets.
Pick your battles
Black Parody (Score:5, Interesting)
The obvious answer to this is to organise a pro-SCO demonstration, lauding all the worst aspects of that company. "Litigation is better than innovation," and so on. Just make it funny for goodness sake. That's the beauty of satire which the SCO posters miss.
letter to author of forbes "crunchies" article... (Score:2, Interesting)
I am baffled by the article by Daniel Lyons which appeared on Forbes.com today (6-18-2003), entitled "What SCO Wants, SCO Gets". I take no issue with the facts presented therein, rather it is the mocking, unprofessional tone the author has chosen to employ which to me seems to belie your organization's reputation for journalistic integrity.
Specifically, I take issue with the author's knee-jerk stereotyping of Linux users as self-righteous religious fanatics. To wit, and I quote the author,
"...like many religious folk, the Linux-loving crunchies in the open-source movement are a) convinced of their own righteousness, and b) sure the whole world, including judges, will agree."
This statement is false and implies insult both to people with religious beliefs and to those who like or use Linux. Painting with such a broad brush is simply inaccurate and, frankly, sophomoric ("crunchies"?) and offensive to people for whom these matters are important.
Additionally, almost without exception, nearly every discussion (involving Linux advocates) of this SCO-IBM suit that I have participated in or read about has included genuine interest in the details of SCO's, as of yet, vague claims. This intense interest exists, not only because the veracity of these unexamined details determine the merit of the case, but also because those concerned will be able to identify who is responsible for improperly contributing code to Linux once SCO details just what code has been misappropriated. This is because such changes to Linux are logged and it will be easy to tell who contributed any offending code.
It is thus immediately apparent to anyone who has actually participated in such discussions that Daniel Lyons assertion that Linux users are simply "convinced of their own righteousness" is, again, presumptuous stereotyping.
It is my hope that in the future your writers will be held to a higher standard of accuracy and maturity.
Sincerely,
Linux is related to communism... (Score:2, Interesting)
It is capitalist way of saying that intellectual property is part of a religion of ego-centered and selfish model that ought to predominate always and everywhere. Since Linux is about sharing code and software innovation it is a threat to that insanity. But they will defend it tooth and nail and SCO Groupâ(TM)s lawsuit against IBM is an example of it.
You guys only moderated me to 2 !!! (Score:2, Interesting)
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=64233&cid=595
Re:Original LWN discussion (Score:4, Interesting)
Let's face a simple fact right up front: SCO isn't going to kill a lawsuit because 50+ people picketted behind their building for 2 hours. I hope nobody has any confusion over this.
Protests are done to draw public attention to an opinion, be it for or against a certain issue. Judging by the actions of the protesters in Utah I have to say they understood perfectly well what they were doing. They notified the press before the protest, they picketted in back of SCO's building which just so happens to be the only side that fronts on a public road, and not long before 4:00pm the protesters LEFT THE AREA to go protest near the entrance/exit to I-15. If they were there to piss off SCO's upper management, they probably would have figured out a way to protest in front of the building where all the offices were (the front of the building faces a parking lot and is not visible from any public road. It would have been an intimate, easilly swept under the carpet show placed for a few SCO employees and that's it. Talk about a waste of time).
They made themselves and their opinions very visible in very public areas. In doing this, they made their protest successful. They got print coverage in a few local papers (Deseret News is actually fairly big in Utah), and rumor has it that a TV crew got some shots (I didn't see them arrive or leave, but I wasn't there the whole time).
The lawsuit seems to still be moving forward, but is that really a surprise?
Software Government (Score:4, Interesting)
Linux = Multiparty Democracy to Monarchy at times
Oracle, Sun = Monarchy
Unix = Anarchy with various flavors being multiparty democracies
Windows = Single Party State Authoritarian Regime which occasionally morphs into a Military Junta, and occasionally pretends to be communistic to improve public image
Re:When you think about it... (Score:3, Interesting)
Sorry, but I just don't get it. Which bit do you find hilarious? The amateurishly drawn, not at all funny signs, or the fact that the CEO of the company can direct his under-employed staff to go out and pretend to be participants in a demo against the company?
Perhaps it appeals to something about the American sense of humour that just slips we British by...
It's nice to see some spirit and support... (Score:2, Interesting)
First, SCO doesn't care [forbes.com] what you or I think about them. They want money.
More specifically, they want money for what they bought, as in "We have deep pockets and political connections. Show us the respect that we paid for."
Any protest of that type is unlikely to have the desired impact on SCO, the media or the outcome of the court case.
Second, if you think that there is something illegal happening at SCO, such as insider trading, buying and selling of stock by executives that is in opposition to to the interest of investors, lying on the quarterly and anuall reports, etc., then report that to the SEC [sec.gov]. But be damned sure of your accusations.
Third, write well reasoned, insightful letters to the editor of major (business) news outlets. Be clear in your opinions and support all your claims with logical and ethical arguments. Business readers are not much swayed by pathos.
And be ready for the remote possibility that SCO may win the court case, despite having no valid claims. It's happened in the past, it will happen in the future, and it's just the way it sometimes goes. I know it sucks to be in on the side of right in a losing battle, but there's a lot of that going around right now.
No maybe its not..... (Score:1, Interesting)
Great, another Republican "Father and Son" team.
This is almost funny. On second thought, no maybe its not.
It's odd that SCO would align themselves once removed to the blithering idiot that went on a rant last week about destroying computers remotely. On second thought, no maybe its not.