[Sussex] 5 years ago today and SCO

[Paul Tansom]

On Tue, 2005-06-28 at 10:40 +0100, Steve Dobson wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 28, 2005 at 12:47:59AM +0100, Paul Tansom wrote:
> > On Mon, 2005-06-27 at 23:46 +0100, Steve Dobson wrote:
> > > The previous workings of Caldera, oldSCO or whomever is for little
> > > relevance.  The litigation is clearly the brainchild of Darl McBride.
> > > The only thing that makes any sense to me is the McBride thought that
> > > IBM would just buy SCO to make the nuisance go away.
> > 
> > I agree, Darl McBride and the current board are/were the driving force
> > behind the current actions. I was more commending on how things had
> > changed for what once appeared to be a Linux company with some
> > interesting ideas - well, to me back in 1997 they did!. Back then I had
> > a preference for Caldera over Red Hat - that too has changed. After a
> > brief fling with Red Hat I now prefer Debian over Red Hat - OK, some
> > elements haven't changed ;)
> 
> I see your point, but to me nothing much has changed.  One company has
> a change of CEO (and other board members) and then they try to play a
> different game - that's business.  I'm not saying that I like it, or
> that I agree with it, just that that is the way the (western) world works.

Not sure as we're disagreeing, just saying similar things in different
ways :) As you say, that's business. Changes in management and ownership
can completely change the face of a company, and one re-branding to
appear to use the identity of a company it has purchased is almost the
ultimate about face for a brand name! Another example would be Netscape,
once a solid company, all be it proprietary, now simply a brand name
with a product range that bears little relation to the original company
(does Netscape 8 feel anything like a Netscape browser? Is it available
for *nix? Nope).

> > > The problem was McBride miscalculated.  IBM didn't bite.  The only question
> > > left for me is why?  I can remember reading (I think it was written by Eben
> > > Morgan) that a license tested in court is stronger than one that is not.
> > > I think that IBM saw here the perfect opportunity to test the GPL in a
> > > US court using IBM lawyers - now that is probably worth the few million
> > > price tag to them - remember, they are investing billions in their Linux
> > > business each year.
> > 
> > I'm not so sure as they expected to be purchased. It is very difficult
> > to theorise on their reasons, but when they started it seemed as though
> > they were looking to repeat their success with DOS (having settled with
> > Microsoft over the MS-DOS v DR-DOS issue). I would suspect that the
> > combination of 'encouragement' from Microsoft linked parties, coupled
> > with the prospect of settling out of court prompted the action. I'm not
> > entirely sure as they really understood what they were doing though, and
> > didn't really have a clue about the true nature of Linux in terms of the
> > community, legal support (even outside IBM, you've already mentioned
> > Eben Moglen) and the significance of the impact it is having on the
> > computing industry - which is very difficult to quantify, but also very
> > difficult to ignore :)
> 
> Oh, I agree that my theories are speculative at best.  But a settlement
> out of court would have been between SCO & IBM - McBride would not see
> an huge increase in his personal wealth.  But IBM (or anyone else) buying
> SCO would allow McBride to significantly increase his wealth - via his
> SCO stock options.

They would, but it was thought that he did pretty well out of the share
price rise in the early days of the court case - I can't remember
whether he personally sold a chunk of shares or not though. To be honest
I've half lost interest and tend to concentrate more on the hands on
practicalities of things.

> Personally I doubt that M$ is doing much behind the scenes.  If found out
> the damage to M$ would be (IMO) greater than the advantages - and remember
> all the stuff M$ was(is) fighting when SCO filed (like the EU anti-trust).
> Sure, M$ did buy a SCOlicense, but not many have.   One could ask (and I
> do), why haven't more M$ controlled companies bought SCOlicense?

I'm not, heaven forbid, saying that Microsoft have any clear behind the
scenes influence, but high level management discussions can indicate
things that would position a company or person in a good light, and
things can be done without a clearly traceable path to a request or
formally documented agreement. Why not more companies, well 1) you don't
want to be too blatant, and 2) not everyone will act on hints or
suggestions that doing something may stand you in good stead. It's all
speculation of course, and seriously biased by an already dim view of
Microsoft business practises!

> The answer I came up with is that M$ want SCO to fail, to stop trading as
> a results of damages awarded to IBM.  The reason is clear - M$'s FUD machine
> can create merry hell over the first Linux company to destroyed over a
> GPL issue.  In a way you are part of that FUD story with your switch from
> Caldera to RedHat to Debian.

MS are in a win win situation with SCO. If SCO win then Linux suddenly
falls in a bad light because it is risky on the IP front. If they loose
then the GPL has resulted in a big name (well, once!) ceasing to trade -
although I'd say the latter was a pure FUD campaign, but a typical MS
one :)

I'm not entirely sure how my switch is part of the FUD story. I switched
from Caldera to Red Hat way before any of this happened. Caldera were
still a solid Linux company back in 1997 when I switched. I went Caldera
because I'd read some good press and the certification idea looked good
(I was heading into AIX support at the time and Linux on x86 was the
closest I could get to hands on experience at home - I'd been following
Linux for some time already though). Caldera made things easy by
appearing on the shelf in PC World and tempting me with a box I could
pick up and try. The switch to Red Hat was as a result of working
closely with a friend who had gone down the Red Hat route and ended up
purchasing two copies of RH6 - I bought one from him to give it a go and
ended up stick with it for a couple of years. The final (maybe?) step to
Debian was as a result of a combination of Dependency Hell and the RH7
GCC fiasco.

> Paul, please don't think that I am saying that you have done anything
> wrong.  All I am saying is that M$ will put the best spin on the SCO vs IBM
> case they can - and that is just good business.  Just as it is good 
> business for the Linux community to put the best spin it can on the virus
> problem.

I'd not expect anything else from them, after all they can put a good
spin on 'independent' reports they have commissioned themselves or had
software partners write that, surprise surprise, find that Windows is
much cheaper to run that Linux, more reliable, easier to keep patched,
more secure and generally better in every conceivable way. I loved a
headline from the Register a few days back that stated "Microsoft
software partner finds Microsoft software cheaper than Linux". The
article didn't quite match up to the promise of the headline, but there
was a clear underlying sarcasm in there :)

> At the end of the day I think that the SCO vs ??? cases have one simple
> driving force: greed.  The greed of McBride and his friends to increase
> their personal wealth.

No question, but unfortunately for them it was matched with a lack of
understanding of exactly what they were dealing with - well, imho
anyway.


-- 
Paul Tansom | Aptanet Ltd. | http://www.aptanet.com/