SCO To Counter Groklaw With 'Fair' Coverage 557
linuxwrangler writes "Tired of being 'flamed, dissected and dismissed' on Groklaw, SCO has decided to fight back. SCO's site, scheduled for launch on November 1, will be called prosco.net. Just yesterday SCO CEO and favorite /. whipping-boy Darl McBride gave a speech comparing the software industry to the 'wild west' and warning companies that they must protect their intellectual property or risk being 'sacked by open source-touting bandits.'"
Sounds More Like.... (Score:4, Insightful)
McBride the sheriff of Naughtingham?
I can only hope (Score:5, Insightful)
They can launch as many sites as they want (Score:5, Insightful)
It will be even better if they do comment on what groklaw is convering. The SEC takes a dim view about companies making false statements about their business.
Good 'ol Darl... (Score:5, Insightful)
See Darl? This is why the old guard from Caldera warned you not to go after the 'open source crowd'. Your page of lies will be dissected by hundreds of others on Groklaw. The best thing is, this time instead of shooting off your mouth, your words will be in some web cache.
Choose your topics wisely Darl. You will be watched...
How long before... (Score:3, Insightful)
How long before they have to shut off comments or block users en masse because the comments and postings are all negative.
I'm betting that IF they allow user input to be posted it will be heavily censored. It would have to be. SCO has zero friends. That's what happens when you sue your own freakin' customers!
ProSCO.net? Uuhhh..? (Score:5, Insightful)
Inherently biased (Score:1, Insightful)
Instead of saying:
They will say:
Re:We HAVE to slashdot that site! (Score:5, Insightful)
prosco? (Score:5, Insightful)
If anyone actually reads this site it's only going to be for the comic relief.
Re:They can launch as many sites as they want (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure they do, but they still haven't acted yet on what Daryl has been saying so far, why will it change when they put up a propaganda site?
Similar tactics: (Score:3, Insightful)
Free? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes?
Re:I can only hope (Score:5, Insightful)
The truly amazing part is that Darl actually believes that there are individuals out there who buy his story. I don't think ANYONE believes his story at this point. At the very least, he can stop waiting for that groundswell of vocal support from the pro-SCO grassroots campaign.
Re:Sounds More Like.... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, Robin Hood actually stole from the Sherrif. That would suggest that Linux actually stole code from SCO. I think we're all pretty confident that that hasn't happened.
Yes, Your Honor, that's our site (Score:5, Insightful)
Quick! Some one start an egg timer to see how long it takes before the Judge sees something SCO wrote on there and takes their heads off for it.
Pot, kettle, black. (Score:3, Insightful)
He has huge stones, I'll give him that.
McBride saying that the FOSS community are trying to take away his precious IP is ... I just tried to think of an analogue and I couldn't.
What hulking brass ones! How does he walk?
Custer's last stand... (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Rumor has it the guy was a lunatic by the time he decided to attack the natives. Check.
2. He and his little army set out to battle against an opponent with a larger head-count. Check.
3. The natives didn't have a choice: Custer was pretty much set on attacking them no matter what they did. Check.
4. The natives were fighting for existence. Custer for glory. Check.
5. The end result was the glorifying of Custer and a signature point in the demise of the Native American population. Let's hope squashing SCO doesn't backfire into some sort of us against them attitude with big business.
Good Analogy McBride. I like it. (Score:5, Insightful)
McBride is merely a sheriff working for his boss (Microsoft, Sun, etc) and looking to bring some good old "law" to The West on their behalf. I have no idea what to call IBM and Novell. They'd kill us tomorrow if it suited their interests, but I guess for the moment they are the gun slinging Clint Eastwood types that have a disdain for the townsfolk, but really, really, really hate the corrupt sheriff, his henchmen and the railroad goons. I guess we should be
So McBride's notion about it being The Wild West is actually pretty accurate, with SCO representing the interests of the railroads and robber barons.
Why do you think when you were getting shafted in the old days the term often used was "This was a railroad job" or "We railroaded those guys off the map" and so on... it was because the railroads had lots of power and generally screwed over the little guy.
Indeed (Score:5, Insightful)
That said, once this site goes up someone should start keeping a local mirror of it to make sure that if prosco says something that turns out to be embarrassing later, they can't just remove it.
Darl's right! it IS the wild west! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Oh yes (Score:1, Insightful)
Perhaps someone will hack the site, and ADD forums for us to display our support for their cause.
Re:We HAVE to slashdot that site! (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a Red Herring! (Score:5, Insightful)
Then they'll take their newly acquired information and track you down so they can sue you! Then they'll be rich Rich RICH!
MWAHAHA MWAHAHAHA MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
What kind of mind control is Darl under? (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder if he's also waiting for aliens hiding behind a comet to come and rescue his business from all the 'open source bandits' who want to rob real developers everywhere of their work.
Has he not yet realized that open source doesn't mean that developers can't be paid. Does he not realize that there is a commercially viable business model for open source and free software? Doesn't he know that open source doesn't mean free?
Darl, wake up: you are crusading against something that will only end up helping people!
I bet that the '12 million developers worldwide' would prefer to see SCO invest their litigation costs in actual software development.
That kind of money (multibillion dollar lawsuit ) could produce a valuable open source software package. heh. With the right business model, they might even be able to turn a profit without suing the pants off everyone they can point a stick at. more heh.
If "the new gold is IP," why is it costing SCO so much to have enforced? It's alchemy they are after, not mining. Unfortunately for them, lead doesn't become gold without great expense.
Re:WTF?? (Score:2, Insightful)
"...What are they smoking now?..."
It must be some strong stuff. Look what they said:
"...There are, however, no plans to allow readers to discuss the documents on the Web site. "If we opened it up to that, it would simply become another one of the message boards that our detractors use to try and overwhelm us," Stowell said...."
No public comments. So it will be a one-sided story. And it sounds like they are only going to post their court submissions too! SCO will go to its death bed thinking it has the high moral ground on this case.Appalled by the ethics of SCO... (Score:5, Insightful)
Nevermind the legalese and who can "win" lawsuits...
I was reading a recent review of SCO's Unixware. The review seemed fair, objective and Unixware didn't come out too badly, BUT it was amply clear that the MAJOR reason that Unixware is still a product that one wouldn't be totally crazy to deploy, the MAJOR reason that Unixware could be viewed as even somewhat competitive is OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE, the OSS packages such as Samba, Apache, Open-SSH, etc that SCO "grabbed" from OSS to make Unixware a credible product.
So here we have SCO borrowing HEAVILY from OSS, not paying a dime for key, strategic software that form the basis for whether Unixware is even slightly competitive on the market, and yet SCO is crying that OSS is 1) bad for the industry, 2) is stealing their oldy-moldy SysV code. I just find that APPALLING. Those guys have no shame, really. They should be GIVING BACK to OSS something for all the software they have taken into their own products, rather than trying to claim IP rights to this SysV, invalid as their claims are. This "all TAKE, no GIVE" approach of theirs to the community is the ultimate in despicable behavior.
Go ahead, make my day (Score:5, Insightful)
Besides which, the judges are noticing SCO's public statements, and if SCO contracticts what they're telling the judge, or what the judge is telling them, they could annoy the judge.
MSN NEWS REPORTS SCO IS WINNING THEIR IP CASES! (Score:5, Insightful)
MSN can't post links to Groklaw. SCO's anti-Linux FUD that M$ bought is failing. M$ needs a way to spin these latest developments and send up more FUD signals.
First SCO puts up a site to blow smoke up our collective asses. We don't bite, but we're not the target audience.
Next M$ has MSN announce "news" stories along with links to case analysis on SCO new sites. Again, the few of us who actually visit MSN to see the FUD shake our heads and laugh at the unbelievable remarks. Unfortunately the ignorant masses buy into it and repeat it as truthful objective news.
M$ ends up with much more FUD bang for their buck while SCO prepares to spin their bankruptcy in a way that squarely places blame on FOSS. FOSS killed SCO, you're next!
Hey, maybe SCO can charge MSN freelance fees for doing stories for them! That'll help resupply SCO's dwindling war chest!
Re:Don't let them win (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How long before... (Score:3, Insightful)
what does he mean by "try"???
Do or do not, there is no "try"... I personally think Groklaw is doing a pretty comprehensive job of exposing every stupid statement from SCO to the harsh light of day... they can't hide from it, there are several thousand outraged geeks scouring all the nooks and crannies of the internet for evidence of SCO's stupidities.
Re:prosco? (Score:1, Insightful)
But as someone else said, SCO had better be extremely careful. I'd love for some marketoid to end up posting statements that could be considered false statements down the road when the company burns to the ground.
Is anyone getting geared up to thoroughly archive this site? I think Groklaw should, and they should make it publicly available for the amusement of everyone, especially the SEC and IBM's lawyers.
Prosco? Fair? (Score:2, Insightful)
What a bunch of idiots.
Unwise? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:New gold ... is greed (Score:2, Insightful)
"In no way?"
No. It might not be innovative enough to deserve patent protection, but it's certainly "innovative."
Oh dear. (Score:5, Insightful)
And you think that the little bit of money that you throw into that website is going to counter a huge base of dedicated people who work on the website on their own time, for fun, go to the courthouses of their own accord and get every little thing that's filed and publicly available as soon as it's released? That it'll make anybody think twice about whether they've misjudged SCO?
They seriously think that people don't already know what SCO think (we own the world, give us money, why not? Boo Hoo) and that anyone (except Groklaw and the terminally bored or mindless) will actually bother to rifle through their PR rubbish? This can only provide Groklaw with more ammunition to make the whole world laugh at SCO.
It's also far too late. They've been whinging about Groklaw's influence for months and always seem to manage to talk about it in derogatory terms (sponsored by IBM, you know
And what's worse is that the site ain't even up yet. By the time it does get up and get anything useful or vaguely interesting up, it'll all be over.
Do they intend to use this site like an anti-Groklaw, to take IBM's public statements and court transcripts and try to poke holes in them, to find inconsistencies, to watch the superb work of SCO's lawyers ripping the opposition to shreds? That'll be fun to read.
Do they intend to answer all those questions that everyone is just dying to know the answer to, like "Which lines of code?" or "Why can't you tell us which lines of code?" or "Why are you stalling so badly when you've publically claimed such good evidence that you haven't shown anyone yet?". That'll be fun to read.
It's just a ruse. They hope that some middle-manager somewhere, having heard about all of this legal thing that affects their software decisions, will see Groklaw as a collection of amateurs (which can obviously be safely ignored) but will see ProSCO as a glowing advert which closes their doubts because it's got pretty eye candy and some sort of statement which says they are in the right and it's got quotes from SCO's management on it. Maybe then a few of these managers will just ignore their doubts and go SCO.
Can't believe this will help their cause at all and can't wait to see the site when they actually get it working. IP may be gold but a good SCO quote can keep you laughing for the rest of your life.
Re:Free? (Score:5, Insightful)
Snidely Whiplash more like. (Score:3, Insightful)
Mcbride is the almost perfect villian and hollywood writers should take note - for inspiration if nothing else.
He is a consummate blend of hubris, arrogance, ignorance, knavishness casted into a tongue wagging, smirking package with just barely enough intelligence that you don't completely discount him.
Re:New gold ... is greed (Score:4, Insightful)
Unfortunately, I don't really think this is true - it's just that in the computer industry we find out about computer-related patents more.
Lots of industries seem to have similarly absurd patents. Razor companies patent the design of the clip that holds the disposible blade to the handle, and then use the patents to prevent people making compatible disposible blades, for example.
The hot-air hand dryer in our bathroom proudly lists the patent numbers that protect its design of heating up air and blowing it out....
Re:I can only hope (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:New gold ... is greed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:MSN NEWS REPORTS SCO IS WINNING THEIR IP CASES! (Score:5, Insightful)
Most members of the "ignorant masses" probably have a friend or relative that is a Slashdot reader. Not only that, but when it comes to technology issues they'll probably value the slashdotter's opinions, 'cause "you understand this computer stuff."
Perhaps we need to start making a concerted effort to inform the uninformed about technology issues? Next time you're talking to the technologically clueless you might bring up the subject of DRM/SCO/OSS/IP/etc. No, I'm not suggesting that we try to make people understand the issues, because they're obviously not that interested. People are willing to carry around opinions that come from reliable sources, though. Who will your relatives believe - you, or MSN?
Re:We HAVE to slashdot that site! (Score:5, Insightful)
What happened to: "I disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it!"
I think most people are educated/intelligent enough to recognize corporate astroturf for what it is when its as blatiant as a SCO owned and operated website. And if they aren't, that's where our speech comes in, to inform Joe Average and criticize our enemies; but not to silence anyone.
innovative ... ON THE INTERNET (Score:5, Insightful)
The essential concepts behind One-Click (pre-store the customer's credit information, allow them to purchase from you without hassle, then charge them later) have been in common usage worldwide for decades, if not millennia.
Persistent client interactivity, who would have thought that was possible with cookies? Apparently only the brilliant minds at Amazon (and the dim bulbs at the Patent Office).
Re:I can only hope (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Custer's last stand... (Score:3, Insightful)
I guess that's why I made the analogy. Although the natives won the battle, they lost the war because ultimately the rest of the Western world favored doing business with the immigrants and not the natives. Community ownership of property lost out to artificial corporate claims to property.
Businesses like doing business with other businesses who claim to own the rights to something, not free-lance developers who share the rights.
Re:Unwise? (Score:3, Insightful)
Ahh... maybe you're thinking they're actually trying to win in court, as opposed to simply spreading FUD for as long as possible while bleeding the company/investors dry? I suppose anything's possible...
Re:I can only hope (Score:3, Insightful)
Two words:
Rob Enderle
Well, how about 4 more:
Laura Didio
Daniel Lyons
Re:I can only hope (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Free? (Score:4, Insightful)
If they want it to be free, then fine.
If they don't then fine.
However, if you take someone else's work, which they have chosen to make free, claim it's yours, and then threaten people with lawsuits in the hope of shaking them down for money, then that's not fine.
Which, of course, is why Groklaw and its associated community are shining a 10,000 lux light on SCO's every flaw and blemish.
Re:Good 'ol Darl... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I can only hope (Score:3, Insightful)
likely reason, loss of credibility. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll bet it's more like no one in the press is going to print their BS anymore so they have to do it themselves. They might get one or two reporters to look at it, but that will stop when the reporters notice that there's no difference between the site and their nutty press releases. They won't stop reading Groklaw.
It's amazing, you tell lies and people quit listening to you.
Re:What kind of mind control is Darl under? (Score:1, Insightful)
He's crusading against something that hurts the SCO and Canopy executives' stock options and bonuses, and that's what he's all concerned with. He couldn't care less about "helping people" in general, he's not responsible (or responsive) to them at all.
Prosco-inc? (Score:1, Insightful)
SCO: no comments allowed on proSCO.net (Score:3, Insightful)
Yep, that's really going to compete with groklaw.net, which is a true community effort.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:We HAVE to slashdot that site! (Score:2, Insightful)
"I disagree with what you say, but will defend to Darl McBride's death your right to say it."