SCO Aims For The Feds 492
MoFoQ writes "News.com reports that SCO is now targetting the Feds and their supercomputers (the Beowulf clusters, etc.). Looks like they bit off more than they can chew, even before winning a single case "
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SCO Aims For The Feds
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Get hold of portable property. -- Charles Dickens, "Great Expectations"
SCO vs The Feds?? (Score:5, Funny)
Root for Canopy (Score:5, Informative)
linux networx is a canopy company like SCO/caldera is. see: http://www.linuxnetworx.com/news/pr042800_canopy.
Now in the news article it says:
"SCO sent letters raising the prospect of legal action for using Linux to two Department of Energy facilities, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC)."
But in this press release it says that linux networx is the one that installed the linux clusters at the LLNL. http://www.linuxnetworx.com/news/8.28.2001.49-Law
The new lesson of the day is if you do business with anyone funded by the canopy company you risk being sued by other members of the canopy group.
Re:Root for Canopy (Score:5, Interesting)
ok, i admit i'm clinically paranoid - but i still think SCOX will eventually set up a patsy to lose a case to ensnare gnu/linux. i wonder if the US government would collude in such an operation. MS is a big money vacumm cleaner that sucks cash from other countries into the US - democratizing computing could appear to the technically ignorant realpolitikos as a net loss, nationally.
Re:Root for Canopy (Score:3, Interesting)
I wouldn't worry too much about that... (Score:5, Insightful)
Kjella
Re:I wouldn't worry too much about that... (Score:4, Insightful)
And since most of those reps hopefully realize your point, I'd say, SCO just sent a wake-up call.
In other news, this is just your semi-random FUD stuff that you should expect to continue until November.
Re:Root for Canopy (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems suicidal.
And stopping Microsoft's march is a net loss nationally. That does not mean its not the right thing to do.
Re:Does that include Trolltech? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Does that include Trolltech? (Score:5, Interesting)
Geesh. parent poster was not kidding.
Darl: "several dozen requests a month just to come in and see AIX or HP-UX code base."
Didn't they ask IBM to show them the AIX source in their case against IBM? Then what is this about?
Maybe this was the interview where he had to prove to the rest of the 'gang' that he was capable of lying through his teeth without blinking?
Actually, googling around this article a little, extrapolating the trend: Will he sue the US Courts [bizjournals.com] for migrating to Linux next? (btw wouldn't that be some sort of chicken-and-egg problem (ergo very likely for SCO to do)?)
Darl: "NASDAQ, for example, runs all of the trading machines in their brokerages on OpenServer."
Oh, and the trade 'floor' that lists their stock, NASDAQ [computerworld.com] too? Actually in that article NASDAQ "wants to eliminate the company's Unisys Corp. mainframes and migrate the trading-floor functions that run on those machines" and "Nasdaq currently uses about 300 Unix servers running a mix of HP's Tru64 and HP-UX operating systems as well as Sun's Solaris". I see mentions of Unisys, HP Tru64, HP-UX, and Solaris: Where is the SCO OpenServer that Darl was speaking about? Not mentioned, so not even close to OpenServer on 'all of the trading machines', likely even none at all, given the specific mention of Unisys for trading functions...
Re:Does that include Trolltech? (Score:5, Interesting)
This raises a possibly interesting point. Any lawyer here who understands the US legal system? Could TSCOG then claim that the US court system is not qualified to consider the main case because of conflict of interest? This seems nuts, but less nuts than any other legal argument that we have heard from them. Any chance of an appeal based on it?
The court would, indeed, hear it. (Score:4, Insightful)
For obvious reasons, this is really frowned upon. The Judiciary tends to judge itself much more harshly than it judges others.
For instance, under the Constitution the Federal government is not allowed to reduce the pay of a judge during his/her term of good behavior. Sounds straightforward, right? Up until you consider that Federal judges haven't had a COLA (Cost Of Living Adjustment) in a decade. Due to inflation, Federal judges are getting paid about fourteen percent less today than they were in the '80s.
During this time, Congress has made it a priority to give itself frequent and generous COLAs (when they haven't been giving themselves outright raises). It's outraged a large number of judges, who are--in terms of real buying power--getting their salaries cut by over an eighth despite the Constitution's guarantee that Congress is forbidden from doing that.
So some particularly outraged judges filed a lawsuit against Congress, suing them to compel them to give the Judiciary a proper COLA. The Judiciary heard this lawsuit, because (a) nobody in their right mind could say the judges didn't have a legitimate grievance against the government, and (b) the Judiciary is the only agency authorized to hear these grievances.
In the end, the suit was dismissed before trial. A trial is for the determination of facts, but there were no facts in disagreement. The disagreement was purely one about law, and those disagreements tend to be handled in pre-trial motions. The plaintiffs claimed that Congress' refusal to pass a COLA amounted to an unconstitutional cut in salary, and the respondent (the United States Solicitor-General, I think) claimed that Congress only says their salary shall not be cut, not that they're entitled to COLA increases in salary.
The judge hearing the case decided the Solicitor-General had the correct view of the law. The question of law was resolved in the government's favor, and given that there was no violation of law, the plaintiff's lawsuit quietly vanished.
All of this is if-I-recall-correctly. I may be in error on some details, but I think that I'm right on the major points.
(Also, a sidebar: the next time you hear about how government jobs are cushy and high-ranking spots like judicial appointments are overpaid, consider this: on average, a Federal judge gets paid less than a quarter what they would make in private practice. The Judiciary is facing an exodus of judges into the private sector because the $120,000 salary of a Chief Judge of an Appellate Court simply doesn't compare to the $1-million-or-more they could make in a law firm. Are judges paid well? Yes. Are they paid market rates? Not even close.)
Re:Does that include Trolltech? (Score:3, Informative)
Sadly, while I would chalk it up to a poorly transcribed/edited interview if it was anyone else saying it, McBride might actually believe they own C++...
Re:Does that include Trolltech? (Score:3, Interesting)
I can personally reassure you on behalf of Trolltech that Canopy has no influence in our day to day management.
easy ... root for the feds ... (Score:5, Informative)
I'm definitely rooting for the Feds on this one.
Re:easy ... root for the feds ... (Score:5, Informative)
The DOE national labs do a wide variety of fantastic research, relatively little of it focused on blowing shit up. In fact, I'd argue that their most important role is in biochemistry, due to their synchrotron facilities (used for protein structure determination). Even Livermore, which doesn't have a synchrotron (LBL is right nearby), is doing biology too now.
Re:easy ... root for the feds ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Take away their supercomputers and the government won't stop research, they'll just return to blowing up actual bombs.
Re:SCO vs The Feds?? (Score:5, Interesting)
Darl is off his rocker if he thinks open source software helps our enemies. It helps humanity as a whole. His remarks sound like he's trying to appeal to our current neo-con regiem's inability to comprehend issues that affect anyone except fellow members of Skull & Bones fraternity.
Re:SCO vs The Feds?? (Score:3, Insightful)
I love the way they put that "open source helps our enemies, and our laboratories can't use open source".
Who exactly is helping our enemies?
Re:SCO vs The Feds?? (Score:5, Interesting)
According to the quote attributed to him in the news.com story, the "export" of open-source software could be used by enemies of the U.S. -- he cites a North Korean computer specialist as an example. (Never mind the fact that he is implying that the U.S. is the only nation contributing to the propagation of open-source software, which is ridiculous on its face.)
But by that same logic, the U.S. should immediately cease all exports of, say, wheat -- because terrorists outside the U.S. can use that for sustenance, which means they can grow up to be Big, Strong, Healthy Terrorists as a result of those exports.
OK, so it's a stretch, but then so is pretty much everything McBride has said in the past year.
-Brian
Re:SCO vs The Feds?? (Score:3, Funny)
And our enemies are part of humanity as a whole. In fact, at the moment the net enemies/nonenemies for the US may be greater than one. In that case, you may not want to help humanity as a whole, since you could be hurting yourself...
Re:SCO vs The Feds?? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:SCO vs The Feds?? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:SCO vs The Feds?? (Score:3, Funny)
They need to do this (Score:5, Insightful)
They need to make as much noise and annoy as many as possible, and they need to do it now. The bigger and more controversial the opponent, the better.
If they don't make noise, Microsoft doesn't get much value for their investment, right? So they need to capitalize every second SCO is still alive.
Re:They need to do this (Score:5, Interesting)
Does anyone here remember that price, or how badly it would hurt SCO?
They're at $8.71, and I want to know what price to root for...
That and I keep wondering what some of the odd numbers mean, just look at this from Yahoo finance (via Google) --
After Hours (RTM/ECN): 8.60 0.11 (1.26%)
Last Trade: 8.71
Trade Time: Mar 19
Change: 0.04 (0.46%)
Prev Close: 8.75
Open: 8.43
Bid: 0.01 x 100
Ask: 9,000.00 x 100
1y Target Est: 25.00
Do I read that right that someone was asking $9,000 for 100 shares of SCO? Sheesh! Talk about being out to lunch... I have to think that some people are screwing around here or something, though... Does any of this stuff influence the share price?
Ironically, somehow I feel like the $0.01 bid is reasonable, though, even though I have to figure that someone is goofing off...
Re:They need to do this (Score:5, Interesting)
Lemme explain how this works. Having experienced the joys of a pump and dump scheme first-hand, there are a few common strategies probably being used by SCOX's capital team:
- keep the public relation newswires busy with misinformation that misdirects strategic setbacks, court losses, and other negative information. This is especially important when you're expecting a major setback. It's a sort of "watch the monkey! keep an eye on the monkey!" misdirection.
- negotiate third party buy deals with market makers. Under the table stock transfers and other mechanisms help load these parties up and allow them to take a partial loss from stock purchases such as these. When this is well coordinated, using a good amount of "buyers" instructed to follow a release like this, it can push a stock like SCOX up $2-$3.
- funnel money in via Reg-S deals: Reg-S, similar to Reg-D private placement deals, allows SCO to sell shares directly to international investors who have a shorter holding period. Watch for a large amount of Reg-S as a clue for pump & dump. These folks are likely buying at a steep discount but are able to beat the market by dumping well ahead of the decline. SCO's 10Ks show a good amount of Reg-S activity.
Incidentally, has anyone found an offshore bank being used by SCOX yet? I've been looking but haven't yet found the usual Bermuda/Turks/etc. channel for funneling money beyond US control.
Re:They need to do this (Score:5, Interesting)
4 Minutes after close a buy went thrugh that was for 8.60, 11 cents under the offical close.
The pattern over the past two weeks looks like someone is attempting to pump the price in the final hour of trading to get a more favorable closing price.
Re:They need to do this (Score:5, Interesting)
That sort of thing has been going on for the past year. It's most likely one insider trading to another to help prop up the share price. SCO is mostly owned by insiders, and most of the publicly traded stock is owned by a few organizations, so the price is easily manipulated. This is in part how the stock maintained its anti-gravity status for most of the past year.
Re:They need to do this (Score:4, Funny)
I just put my tinfoil hat on.... (Score:5, Insightful)
You are mostly right, they need to make noise to pump the stock price again. However, there are some targets which we know they chose not to pursue. Bank of America, for one. Why go after Daimler/Chrysler instead? This is complex, and forgive the tin-foil hat sound of it.
BoA is big. More importntly BoA is VERY influential in the Banking and Investment Banking industry. Think it through. BoA has ties to virtually every financial institution on the planet of somekind and could very easily use its influence to ruin SCO in a heartbeat. A few phone calls from some BoA execs and suddenly SCO's line of credit dries up and loans are called-in. Even better, the Mortgages and auto loans, whatever debts, of SCO execs are called and there are suddenly no other banks anywhere willing to lend them money.
Not only that, but BayStar has all its credit affected also, as well as its execs. Sure all these SCO-scum and BayStar-bitches are probably rich enough to handle it, but it is going to hurt and hurt bad. Most Americans, even Donald Trump, are so heavily "leveraged" that if something like this were to occur it would destroy them. It would most certainly destroy SCO, et al.
SCO's lawyers probably realized this at the last minute and convinced Darl that BoA and any other super-sized Bank was capable of playing hardball at a level SCO can't survive. Otherwise, why change targets instead of just tactics? SCO could have just amended that letter to BoA to sue them just like Daim\Chrysler instead of trying to get the court to seize, effectively, all their computers. Answer: SCO isn't suing BoA because they are scared of what BoA could do to them. If not, why announce the Fed-suit instead of going back after BoA? A company that everyone now knows(thanks to MS-Word fun) was an initial target. Answer: Not even the Feds scare them as bad, as this headline proves.
Re:I just put my tinfoil hat on.... (Score:3, Insightful)
I tend to think that destruction of SCO is inevitable anyway, and SCO knows it. This charade is the exit strategy for the SCO management - they are going to emerge from this as rich men (rich w/ MSFT money), provided that they are not punished for misconduct (and this is something we all hope).
That is, they can afford to anger pretty much everybody. Microsoft can't, however, and one would have expected SCO to tone down their attacks after the MSFT-SCO connectio
Re:I just put my tinfoil hat on.... (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree with your reasoning, right up to this line.
Pissing off the world's banks may make life exceedingly difficult for most of us, but with some care (ie, knowing you'll lose any semblance of credit in the near future), people like Trump (and even Darl, though not even in the same ballpark) can prepare for such an event and weather the storm.
Pissing off the Fed
No sco suits filed (yet) against fed labs (Score:3, Informative)
Keep your tinfoil hat on; there's plenty of other oddities about this thing of SCO's, but you're a little off on this one point.
1.) SCO hasn't sued the fed labs yet and announced nothing yesterday.
2.) The letters were part of one of the threatening spam runs SCO did in December; the revelation now comes because an attorney representing several recipients of the sco scam spam just now has been able to obtain them, after filing a Freedom o
This is just rehashed old news ,not a new event. (Score:5, Informative)
Just more lame press releases by SCO. Nothing out of the ordinary. Move along, please.
Re:This is just rehashed old news ,not a new event (Score:4, Informative)
As far as Slashdot, we all know even the submitters don't read the articles. "now targetting" my ass.
Re:This is just rehashed old news ,not a new event (Score:4, Insightful)
Except that it's misleading and there's not enough clarification:
It's not an idle threat, though many Linux fans dismiss the Lindon, Utah-based company's assertions. SCO's attorneys, Boies Schiller & Flexner, have indeed sued AutoZone for its use of Linux, claiming that the open-source operating system infringes on SCO's Unix copyrights.
Unless author clarifies his point, it's misleading. SCO did not sue AutoZone simply because AutoZone uses Linux. They sued AutoZone because SCO had a licensing agreement with them which SCO felt was violated by AutoZone's use of Linux. Author's point seems to imply that if you are a large company and use Linux, you are at a risk of getting sued. This is not true. What legal principle can SCO use to sue Linux users that have no contract or licensing agreements with them? None, as far as I am aware.
This is a problem with most mainstream press reporting on this issue. They follow SCO's FUD more than do their research and report facts.
Angry Bee Hives (Score:5, Funny)
The 'malfunction' is that they run fast.... (Score:5, Funny)
They hit one, then run to the next, hit that, run some more, hit another one.... currently they have a shitload of bees after them, and their legs are getting tired...
Kjella
C'mon Bush (Score:5, Funny)
Or... cue the shock and awe campaign.
NSA (Score:5, Funny)
Same scene, later that day.
Random SCO employee: "Umm, Mr. McBride, sir, there are a whole lot of people in ill-fitting suits who want to 'talk' with you ...."
Re:NSA (Score:4, Funny)
Re:NSA (Score:4, Funny)
SCHING!!!!
Darl - "...... (ugh...)"
Top half falls off.
PROTEST IDEA!!!! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:NSA (Score:5, Funny)
All your assets are frozen and or transfered
you have posted child porn to a Jesuit newsgroup
Gay photos of you and Osama bin Ladin are on the cover of Time
Your burth certificate shows you are really the bastard child of Hitler and Stalin.
Photos of you and Jane Fonda at an anti war rally have been mailed to several quasi fringe groups in Texas and Montana.
You haven't actually paid taxes for 14 years.
/me Waves to all my friends out at Ft. Meade - You know who you are.
Am I the only one... (Score:5, Insightful)
Obligatory Princess Bride Quote (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Obligatory Princess Bride Quote (Score:5, Funny)
SCO v USA (Score:5, Insightful)
Groklaw covered this yesterday. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Groklaw covered this yesterday. (Score:5, Informative)
I think this is actually a shrewd move by SCO. (Score:5, Insightful)
No, they haven't bit off more than they can chew. Their business model isn't about winning court cases, it's about squeezing money. The fact they're willing to go after the feds means that they're not afraid of anybody, particularly YOU, Mr. CEO, so pay up now, before we drag you in too.
Meanwhile, MS has been having some problems with governments defecting from the 1 Microsoft Way [hoovers.com]) so this helps them out.
Microsoft has gone out of it's way to point investors at SCO because any crap SCOX throws at Linux only makes them look less awful. It's a classic case of MS saying "Lets you and him fight!"
Of course, if they can get federal agencies (who aren't playing with their own money anyway) to pay them to shut up and go away, so much the better! I'm suprised that they haven't thought of this earlier.
There's even a tiny chance that they'll be able to argue for a change of venue based on the courts using FOSS now, and therefore not being disinterested parties. It won't throw the case out, but it might be a good delaying tactic, and time really is money.
Re:I think this is actually a shrewd move by SCO. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a mischaracterization. Feds tend to be aware that they are playing with tax-payer money. But even more imporantly, they tend to view the tax-payer money alotted to their budgets as THEIR money. And limited money, at that. I've yet to see a Fed agency that didn't have more to do than their IT budget will allow (which isn't to say IT managers don't ever make bad decissions with the funds they have available).
The only variation to this is within the budget structure itself. There are often pools of funds that get ear-marked for certain activities. One may be unable to fund a certain project even though there is a nice fat pool of money available for another kind of activity. Which leads in to my last point...
Folks, the US Government is law. Fed agencies may not always be on the forefront of IT. But they do know law. They have access to legal devices unique to them and lawyers, paid from different pools of money than their IT budgets, who know how to make use of those legal devices to full effect.
So while it may be possible that a Fed agency would throw money at a situation like this... I would suggest its very unlikely. In the civilian sector, throwing money at an issue is the easier tactic. In the Fed sector, pushing the problem off to legal resources (funded through a different budget) is the quick fix.
Re:I think this is actually a shrewd move by SCO. (Score:3, Insightful)
This is probably a bit OT, but...
I wouldn't think that federal agencies would be necessarily ahead or behind the forefront of IT. It depends on what area of IT you're talking about.
The work that LLNL does, for instance, is very different from the business-oriented work that other companies do. However, there are similarities: extremely large networks with real-time demands by a large user base, the needs of integrating multi-platform environments t
Re:I think this is actually a shrewd move by SCO. (Score:3, Insightful)
By going after the federal government, they have made it more difficult for the government to just remove their copyright. If the government were to nullify it, they'd have an excellent case for conflict of interest. In this scenario, if the casee against the government were to actually never make it to the courts it's served it purpose.
As much as it is enjoyable to make fun of SCO and it's lawyers. You must not underestimate them, they are extremely intel
Uhhh... They're Picking on the UC Regents... (Score:5, Insightful)
UC regents already won one lawsuit over this business... SCO may be violating BSD vs USL.
Re:-1 disinformation (Score:5, Informative)
Prime Contract W-7405-ENG-48 (Contract 48 or Prime Contract) is executed between the University of California (UC or University) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), and it is under this contract that LANL and LLNL function. [llnl.gov]
In other words, UC manages the labs under contract from DOE.
Coverage at Groklaw.net (Score:3, Informative)
SCO goal (Score:3, Interesting)
Sounds like Mr. McBride is really looking for any way to show linux is a danger. But does he really believe to make us think his goal is to protect the world from US enemies ?
And who is SCO to tell what the US should do with free software ?
Shock and horror (Score:5, Funny)
Old News (Score:5, Informative)
-Matt
Canopy LinuxNetworx and SCO (Score:3, Informative)
This is the same letter they sent before... (Score:3, Informative)
More meaningless Darl soundbites (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure Darl would sooner they be running SCO software.
Re:More meaningless Darl soundbites (Score:3, Funny)
The country's in danger!! (Score:5, Funny)
> He states a computer expert in North Korea can download Linux
> and create a super-computer. Yet I'm sure the same expert
> can download some ISOs of Windows from somewhere.
Crikey, you're on to something! Imagine a Beowulf cluster running
Windows ME......you can't put anything past those filthy Commies!
With that sort of computing power they could develop any sort of
weapon you can imagine....knives, axes, sticks....anything is possible
Clippy: I see you're trying to develop a WMD, can I help?
If the prospect of that doesn't constitute a clear & present danger
then I don't know what does.
I'm for GWB carrying forward the "War On Terrorism" and
pre-emptively nuking Redmond. Who's with me?
Re:More meaningless Darl soundbites (Score:3, Funny)
You misspelled "works as intended".
Another New Low (Score:4, Insightful)
This is disgusting.
Probably the only thing worse would be if SCO were to send out dunning letters to worthy chartible organization that happen to make use of free and open source software in an effort to save money for helping people.
The sooner that this company's fradulent claims are shot down in flames in the courts and its criminal executive officers charged by the SEC and led in handcuffs to join Ken Lay, the better.
Were it me, I'd send back a letter indicating that my attorneys were in the process of closely examining your claim and will be contacting you shortly. To expedite our process, please submit supporting evidence of your claim to our counsel.
I doubt you'd hear anything more from the litigious bastards [suburbanblight.net].
Must Prove Intent to defraud (Score:4, Insightful)
The SEC must prove there was intent to defraud
Re:Must Prove Intent to defraud (Score:3, Insightful)
The SEC must prove there was intent to defraud...stupidity...isn't a crime.
You're right.
I'm sure that will be the defense, if it ever even comes to that.
And in all likelihood there will only be a husk of a company left after all the legal fees and investor equity has been burned up. Not an attractive target for any private party.
Government action would be predicated on teh government actually caring to go after them and having enough evidence, weighed against the politics of the action, lobbyists, etc
This fits their plan (Score:4, Interesting)
They're not trying to win a single case, they're trying to get back in the press in a positive or semi-positive light and get the stock back above $10/share. Suing the federal government will give them exactly what they want: attention.
Darl and company will likely end up enjoying the last of their days relaxing on a south pacific beach somewhere. Microsoft wants them to do as much damage to FLOSS before they have to flee the country. Winning the lawsuits isn't one of their goals. Understand those facts and the whole thing starts to make some amount of sense.
Would be worried about Politicians (Score:3, Insightful)
"Open-source software--available widely through the Internet--has the potential to provide our nation's enemies or potential enemies with computing capabilities that are restricted by U.S. law," [...] "A computer expert in North Korea who has a number of personal computers can download the latest version of Linux...and in short order build a virtual supercomputer."
The people who read this letter include people who think like this [cbsnews.com].
Serious (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Serious (Score:4, Funny)
What are the chances of Darl knowing that the caps lock key exists. I BET HE JUST HOLDS SHIFT DOWN.
Darl's Dead Now (Score:3, Interesting)
Wow, I didn't know SCO was so concerned about saving the world from terrorists. Could someone give these people a humanitarian award please?
All of this reminds me of something my dad said growing up: Companies can get away with just about anything, until they burn either the government or the military.
Eminent Domain? (Score:5, Interesting)
Those labs are multibillion dollar projects.
The value of the unix source code is not more than the fair market value of the company (ie $300 million dollars) , so the feds could easily begin eminent domain proceedings against SCO in which the US government would take the Unix source code in exchange for fair market value.
Considering the massive use of Linux in federally funded schools, colleges and universities, settling the IP question once and for all would be worth it.
Then the federal government could treat the unix source code as a public document.
Im sure Microsoft would whine but its good public policy to preserve a competitive market.
PJ at Groklaw (Score:4, Interesting)
Quote from yesterday before this happened "every time their stock goes down, they escalate the circus"
Bring it. (Score:5, Interesting)
On balance, I just can't see them doing this. The government can really spank somebody in a million different ways if you irritate them (SEC, FBI, air strikes...) and SCO's got enough to worry about right now. Then again we're talking about a company that thinks it's a good idea to sue IBM, so who knows?
God, I hope they do it.
Freddy Vs SCO (Score:5, Funny)
AAAHHH!!! there he is again!!!
*stab* *stab* *stab*
ok now he's dead for sure this time... we can go on with our lives
AAAHHH!!! there he is again!!!
*stab* *stab* *stab*
and etc
I stopped worrying and love SCO (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I stopped worrying and love SCO (Score:3, Insightful)
"Open-source software--available widely through the Internet--has the potential to provide our nation's enemies or potential enemies with computing capabilities that are restricted by U.S. law," McBride said. "A computer expert in North Korea who has a number of personal computers can download the latest version of Linux...and in short order build a virtual supercomputer."
I though that when people write crap like this and are dead serious abou
Same letter they sent Lehman Bros. (Score:5, Informative)
None of SCO's desperate attempts to prop up the stock price have worked. Even the announcement of a stock buyback [thestreet.com] propped up the price for only one hour, between 0930 and 1030 last Tuesday. SCOX continues its long slide [yahoo.com]. SCOX closed at 8.71 on Friday. It started the week at 9.5, and the year around 20.
SCO has reached the point where nothing they can say can help them. Only winning some of their lawsuits can help them, and that looks increasingly unlikely. They have to win three separate suits (against Novell, IBM, and Red Hat) to even start collecting from end users.
Are they going to confiscate computers? (Score:3, Funny)
FBI: Sir. We are the FBI.
Missing the point (Score:3, Insightful)
This is actually a perfect oppotunity for SCO to walk in, whine about lost IP value, and have a truly sympathetic ear on the other side of the table. The government shut down several nominally free services provided by the government because private industry concerns complained that they were too successful and taking away business from the private sector.
The Bush administration loves anything that makes a buck, and probably hates things like Open Source software because it sounds too much like Communism.
No news here, move on... (Score:5, Informative)
About the only interesting things here are that we now know they've been sending these letters to (pseudo) government organizations, and they've managed to threaten the Regents of the University of California ( thus re-igniting USL vs BSD).
It's also increasingly unlikely that they did any sort of vetting in terms of who they sent the letters to. Dead Tree SPAM.
SCO has been mailing more BS to congressmen (Score:5, Interesting)
"Open-source software--available widely through the Internet--has the potential to provide our nation's enemies or potential enemies with computing capabilities that are restricted by U.S. law," McBride said. "A computer expert in North Korea who has a number of personal computers can download the latest version of Linux...and in short order build a virtual supercomputer."
Like most of their previous assertions, they don't let logic get in their way on this either.. As if Linux is the threat here.. By this same logic, you would need to outlow Solaris-x86, Windows, *BSD, and anything else running on x86's.. They key to these systems is not the OS, it's the price/performance of these commodity CPU's.
David and Goliath and Goliath's big brother (Score:4, Interesting)
The tables have now turned. Several government agencies have said this is a copyright issue. Now that there is a threat that government agencies will be dragged into the equation, there is now a huge financial incentive to look into possiable criminal conduct. The US government does not take well to extortion attempts. Perhaps SCO is doing this out the "spirit" of capitalism. Who knows. But one lesson that I learned quickly well growing up in the Wash, DC area is that when the government gets pissed off at a company things get rather unconfortable for the company. And forget the congressional support. When things start to hit the fan, you can bet that some General is going to have way more power in swaying a Congressman's opinion than SCO will.
Re:OK, I am paranoid - BUT (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:OK, I am paranoid - BUT (Score:3, Interesting)
But why are they doing this, then? It does seem suicidal...
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
Reality check time (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Reality check time (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Reality check time (Score:3, Insightful)
"That Hansel, he's so hot right now."
Re:OK, I am paranoid - BUT (Score:5, Informative)
Re:OK, I am paranoid - BUT (Score:4, Informative)
That's a useful effect. But it's not the reason for the rule.
The reason that's in there is so that when the fed tries to exercise its constitutional authority on some OTHER big pockets (i.e. a state), it doesn't get tied up in a bunch of legal crud.
The fed, however, DOES let such suits proceed much of the time.
And after the CIA ripped off a company's database, installed spyware, and marketed it cheap to the world's banks (wrecking the market for the original authors), and the fed refused to be sued, resulting in the database's company folding, Congress got pissed and passed some laws to prevent it happening again. (That's why you see that bit about federal agencies in ELUAs - to set up a suit they can't wiggle out of if an agency tries to pull it again.)
I don't know if this would keep the agencies from ducking the suits, but it might. (IANAL, and haven't even read the darn gobbledegook directly.) Let's see what shows up on groklaw.
Re:OK, I am paranoid - BUT (Score:3, Funny)
But remember, the IRS is only a quick phone call away. Or the president can declare that SCO is an enemy combatant and send SCO off to Cuba.
Re:OK, I am paranoid - BUT (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, I may be misunderstanding something here...
Aren't we talking of USA right now, with that George guy on the rudder?
Re:OK, I am paranoid - BUT (Score:5, Informative)
Then - no offense - your awareness is incomplete.
Microsoft was found to be guilty of anti-competitive practices. The DOJ recommended breaking up Microsoft. This sound familiar?
George W. handed down the proclamation from on high that the Justice department was no longer allowed to pursue a breakup of Microsoft.
This took the wind right out of the sails of the DOJ's case, and Miscrosoft ended up with a slap on the wrist and a request not to do it again.
I'm guessing that GWB's feelings about Microsoft may be *directly* related to the size of some campaign contributions he's received...
Re:OK, I am paranoid - BUT (Score:4, Informative)
Note the important:
Microsoft Corp $160,850
Re:Excellent! (Score:5, Informative)
Basically yes. And now it's changed from a "there's SysV code in Linux" case to a "there's derivative works of code you licensed from us in Linux" case. That's a big difference. They have not been able to identify ANY code, bar similarities in 5 ABI files, that has been ported directly from SysV to Linux. None. And they admitted it in court in the IBM case.
What it's about now with IBM is that, while they admit IBM invented JFS, and IBM own the copyright over JFS, and while JFS may have originally been included in other IBM products (OS/2 perhaps?) that because it's attached to the AIX code, it's a "derivative work" of SysV, and therefore SCO have a say over how IBM can use that code.
How about that. A completely independent IBM invention, used in SysV, and SCO are getting all shitty saying now that IBM cannot now move that code anywhere else after it's been used in IBM's own implementation as AIX.
And they call the GPL viral. Darl's accusations there are that if anything touches SysV code licensed from SCO, then SCO have a right to say what can be done with it. That just doesn't make sense.
In any case, it won't end the case quickly due to these changes, as SCO still want to see exactly what the JFS code looks like, so they can see if it was inserted into Linux, and then they can run around and issue more press releases saying "IBM has revealed 10,000 lines of our code is in Linux. see. they admitted it". I think the worst is yet to come in the press-release war that SCO has been waging.
That is, unless they run out of money first. With their stock price nearly down to a third of what it was just a few months ago and an increasing number of legal fronts being fought, we can only hope that's sooner rather than later.
Re:Be careful ! (Score:3, Funny)
Uh, huhuh huh, he said SCO.
Yah yah, that sucks! Fire fire!