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Caldera It's funny. Laugh.

SCO Prides Itself on Inspiring FUD 241

Posted by CmdrTaco from the almost-too-funny-to-laugh-at dept.
ronaldb64 writes "According to a recent press release they are "...honored to be named among the many influential companies that comprise the SD Times 100. We pride ourselves in the work we do to create world renowned Unix-based solutions designed by some of the most experienced and outstanding engineers in the industry," said Jeff Hunsaker, senior vice president and general manager, SCO's UNIX Division. What is the reason for the SD Times nomination? "The company's legal assaults on IBM and Linux users dominated 2003's tech headlines and shook up the open-source community. No other IT topic inspires such fervent debate, fear, uncertainty and doubt.". I guess any press is good press these days for SCO. Congratulations..."
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SCO Prides Itself on Inspiring FUD More

SCO Prides Itself on Inspiring FUD

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  • Picture this... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by erick99 ( 743982 ) *
    Take a look at the picture of Darl McBride in the article or even do a Google search. The guy looks [google.com] the part that he plays in life: thug. I mean, really - he looks like some thug that shows up at your doorstep wearing a nice suit to collect a gambling debt. He is not terribly articulate which makes him appear even more to be the "thug" or "bully" of the I.T. world. Just an observation....

    Happy Trails!

    Erick

    • Re:Picture this... (Score:5, Funny)

      by arakon ( 97351 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @10:44AM (#9183444) Homepage
      better be carefull...

      "he'll make you an offer that you cannot refuse..."

      wtf is that a violin playing?

      • Groklaw [groklaw.net] has a story on the SD Times FUD Award, as well as some comments from Red Hat's new counsel regarding FUD activities as responses to the disruptive technologies of Open Source, and that Red Hat will defend against it in the future.

        Also, IBM has just filed a memorandum opposing SCO's motion to extend the court schedule. It sounds boring, I know, but what it basically says is that there is no reason to extend the court date, because any delays in the schedule have been caused by SCO's own malfeasanc

    • Re:Picture this... (Score:5, Funny)

      by ozbird ( 127571 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @10:51AM (#9183528)
      "You've got a nice operating system here, Mr. Torvalds... We wouldn't want anything to happen to it now, would we?"

      "Dinsdale!"

    • Re:Picture this... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by dnoyeb ( 547705 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @10:52AM (#9183549) Homepage Journal
      Well I have been saying it ever since I lost a couple of Gs on SCOX. They are a temporarily effective marketing firm, nothing more, nothing less.
    • After reading this, I imagine that Darl's press guy might be a Novell insider...this may have been the conversation just prior to the release...

      PR guy: You know Darl, SD Times says you aren't good enough to be called out as the company that brings FUD to us all
      Darl: uh huh huh, damn SD times people, uh huh huh huh...

      PR guy: But Darl, I have some good news for you, I convinced them you were

      Darl: uh huh huh, good news, uh huh huh

      PR guy: Go make a release about how good you are at bringi

    • Re:Picture this... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by ShadowRage ( 678728 )
      I've mentioned that before, he looks like the school yard blly who lies and uses deciet to get his way, and prolly was, he sued his way up in life, (bullying others to succeed where he would prolly fail without the courts) and now he has a great position for himself, pushing around the nerds and geeks he picked on in the industry, except now, it's more of an even match. where the geeks can push back harder, because unlike school, they can now use their intelligence to kick his ass. even if he uses lying dec
    • Take a look at the picture of Darl McBride in the article or even do a Google search

      That's so weird, I thought I had a very clear picture of what Darl McBride looked like, but it turns out I was thinking about this guy [garycole.net]. Huh.

    • Re:Picture this... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by fuzzix ( 700457 )
      He is not terribly articulate which makes him appear even more to be the "thug" or "bully" of the I.T. world. Just an observation....

      * knock knock
      Linus: Who is it?
      Darl & Co: Goons
      Linus: Who?
      Darl & Co: Hired goons
      Linus: Hired Goons?

      Disclaimer: The intent of this post is not to compare Mr Torvalds and Mr Simpson, but to highlight the nature of Mr McBride's business.

    • Santa Cruz/Tarantella (Score:2, Insightful)

      by mule007 ( 767116 )
      For more than two decades, SCO has provided innovative UNIX solutions valued by customers for its reliability, stability and security.

      I'm so sick of this. New SCO/Caldera != Old SCO/Tarantella/Santa Cruz. Why is it that the current SCO is able to keep giving the impression that they are a different company?

  • New SCO-backed restaurant (Score:5, Funny)

    by swordboy ( 472941 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @10:38AM (#9183369) Journal
    SCO's new restaurant [fuddruckers.com]
    • I hope their speciality isn't hot spam.
    • too many times have I accident mispronounced that as fuckruckers.

      which would also suit sco.

    • speaking of food... (Score:5, Funny)

      by macshune ( 628296 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @11:01AM (#9183650) Journal
      Anyone else ever notice how the heat-grading units for peppers are called Scoville Units? [victoryseeds.com]

      In honor of this, I propose a scale for rating the FUD of companies & other groups/individuals based on SCO Units.

      I can't think of where the scale would top out or even start, but that earlier story [slashdot.org] that got Linus to say he was a frontman for the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus has to be worth something.

      And besides, SCO probably won't be around for much longer once IBM steps on them. They might as well contribute to some great cause before they are just a footnote in that future book, The History of the Greatest Operating System That Ever Lived.
      • hmmm

        If we were to rate McBride in SCO units then we would have to extend the scale beyond what can be obtained thru natural means into the extract hot range [sammcgees.com] to properly characterize his FUD abilities.
      • Well, SCO itself obviously outputs 1.0 SCOs worth of FUD, so that would seem to be the benchmark. Most people would then be rated from 0-1 SCOs, unless, God forbid, they manage to out-FUD SCO and earn >1.0...

        • Re:FUD units (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Samrobb ( 12731 )

          Well, SCO itself obviously outputs 1.0 SCOs worth of FUD, so that would seem to be the benchmark.

          Depends on how you measure it, really. I'd argue that you should measure SCOs by the reaction to FUD...

          • 10 SCOs : FUD causes you to grimace.
          • 20 SCOs : You to call out "Hey, Bahb..." and point it out to a coworker.
          • 30 SCOs : You start muttering to yourself.
          • 40 SCOs : You email a link to your friends, with a "Can you believe these bozos?" note.
          • 50 SCOs : You start muttering to your SO.
          • 60 SCOs : /. creates a

      • See, it's geniuses like you that create uselessly large units of measurement like the Farad. A while back, someone here proposed measuring ego in units of ESRs. Other than approaching parity with "a Shatner", how useful is an ESR or a SCO? I mean, we're going to have to prefix everything with "nano".

        -jdm

    • "SCO's new restaurant"

      Man, once I mispronounced the name of that restaraunt once and earned a fwap from my mom.

  • Oh really? (Score:5, Funny)

    by devphaeton ( 695736 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @10:38AM (#9183374)
    "SCO prides itself on..."

    Soon will they say they've invented FUD and hold the IP rights to it?

    Oh wait, that was IBM that started that...
    • >"SCO prides itself on the work we do to create world renowned Unix-based solutions..."

      What work? Seriously, what have they added -- in, say, the past year -- to the open-source world? I've searched, but can't find any contributions.

      Does SCO even even employ developers these days, or have they all been fired to make room for SCO's new army of attorneys?

      • Re:Serious question (Score:3, Insightful)

        by corbettw ( 214229 )
        Um, "open source" -ne "Unix-based solutions".

      • World Renowned (Score:3, Informative)

        by einhverfr ( 238914 )
        Just because it has a reputation doesn't mean it has a GOOD reputation. Of course the same goes for the FUD award.

        I actually have, in my basement, an old version of SCO Xenix (5.0 I think?) built for the 80486.

        Now I prefer Linux to Solaris, and I prefer Solaris to Windows some of the time. But SCO Xenix was THE WORST operating systm in its class as far as I am concerned. Many of the design decisions makes MS look *really, really good* at software design. And evidently reading the reviews of the more r
    • "SCO prides itself on..."

      Soon will they say they've invented FUD and hold the IP rights to it?

      Oh wait, that was IBM that started that...

      Don't worry, IBM developed code for OS/2, long before they put in AIX, yet SCO managed to sue them over using their own code anyway. I'm sure they'll manage to make FUD a "derivative business process" of SCO by invoking some time warp theory which means that they retroactively hold the rights anyway.

      It is rumored that SCO has recently inven... stolen an Infinite improb

  • That's rich! (Score:5, Funny)

    by carlos_benj ( 140796 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @10:39AM (#9183381) Journal
    They're not even bright enough to note what they're being "honored" for....

    Reminds me of the bullies in Jr. High that you could insult with big words as long as your vocal inflection made it sound nice.

  • America's Most Wanted (Score:5, Funny)

    by FunWithHeadlines ( 644929 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @10:39AM (#9183383) Homepage
    Evil criminal type: "I am honored to be named among the many influential individuals who comprise the Ten Most Wanted list down at the post office. I pride myself on the work I do to create nefarious plots and solutions designed to pry cash from my victims. Some of my schemes are among the most interesting solutions developed in the criminal world."

    • Re:America's Most Wanted (Score:4, Funny)

      by utlemming ( 654269 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @11:08AM (#9183723) Homepage
      You Forgot the most important part: At the bottom of the press release: Evil Criminal Type is a leading provider of mayham and criminal malficense in 60 communities and 4 nations. Wanted in over 20 states, with 120 outstanding warrents, and having escaped Texas' death row, Evil Criminal Type has unique solutions for the criminal world. Evil Criminal Type has developed new methods to assist the average criminal in nefarious plots.

  • It's time for an annual FUD award (Score:5, Funny)

    by jlowery ( 47102 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @10:40AM (#9183389)
    Like the Oscar.

    How 'bout the Elmer?

  • pfff... (Score:4, Funny)

    by grub ( 11606 ) <slashdot@grub.net> on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @10:40AM (#9183391) Homepage Journal

    Lindon, Utah; you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.

  • Riiiiiiight (Score:4, Insightful)

    by elwell642 ( 754833 ) <hallmant@dSTRAWm.org minus berry> on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @10:40AM (#9183399)
    And perhaps we should thank bin Ladin for increasing America's national security. Cause I feel much safer now. And heck, he's made headlines more than SCO.

  • Mozilla Firefox (Score:5, Funny)

    by danormsby ( 529805 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @10:41AM (#9183409) Homepage
    I think there is a bug in the web page. In Internet Explorer the frames render with bars as separators but in Mozilla Firefox the bars are replaced with balls. This isn't funny until you scroll down the end of the report to find unlike everyone else in the list Darl McBride only has one ball.

    • Re:Mozilla Firefox (Score:3, Informative)

      by Bob of Dole ( 453013 )
      Yeah, they are using an odd HTML trick to try and create a vertical horizontal-rule (See the problem with this?)
      Firefox seems to (quite rightly!) think they are insane.

      (It's a <HR> tag with size set to 240 and width set to 2, inside some tables with (col|row)spans. I'm suprised that trick works anywhere)

  • SCO creating something? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by AtariAmarok ( 451306 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @10:41AM (#9183416)
    "...create world renowned Unix-based solutions designed...."

    Seriously, is SCO actually creating new products right now? (other than the product of lawsuits, $699 profits, FUD, scare, etc). Actual user/consumer/business products?

  • It's Interesting.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by StacyWebb ( 780561 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @10:42AM (#9183422) Homepage
    That in the first 3 sentences it states the "SCO the owner of UNIX" but the most interesting fact is at the bottom of the artice -- "Source: The SCO Group"

  • marketing *IS* important (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Ubergrendle ( 531719 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @10:43AM (#9183428) Journal
    Although FUD needs to be constantly and consistently fought in corporations by knowledgable IT employees, FUD is a legitimate marketing technique. It ~works~. Few, if any, businessmen knew who SCO was 2 years ago, but now they have almost universal brand-name recognition.

    So, full marks for their marketing and communications strategy. Its distasteful and full of lies, but so far they've been effective at getting their message out, and have avoided any consequences (e.g. perjury; public backlash) to this date.

    The real question, though, is whether they will be able to translate this notoreity into $. Can they execute a business plan that will translate into consistent streams of revenue? Given their poor execution so far (e.g. they have not strategy outside of lawyers) I think not. If they get out of this intact, or maybe with a blip of one time profit on their books, they should count themselves lucky!

    • Re:marketing *IS* important (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rokzy ( 687636 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @10:50AM (#9183519)
      >Few, if any, businessmen knew who SCO was 2 years ago, but now they have almost universal brand-name recognition.

      just like al-Qaeda !

    • Re:marketing *IS* important (Score:5, Interesting)

      by antiMStroll ( 664213 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @10:57AM (#9183596)
      Kneecapping also ~works~, but few consider it a valid business practice and they're not held in high regard. FUD, as wielded by SCO, is comprised of lies, threats and intimidation. If that's a currently valid business practice then new laws are required.

    • If Libel is legitimate, perhaps murder is too... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by FreeUser ( 11483 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @11:07AM (#9183709)
      Although FUD needs to be constantly and consistently fought in corporations by knowledgable IT employees, FUD is a legitimate marketing technique. It ~works~. Few, if any, businessmen knew who SCO was 2 years ago, but now they have almost universal brand-name recognition.

      So, full marks for their marketing and communications strategy.

      Murder works. Someone competing for the affections of the same girl as you? Someone competing against you in the workplace a little too successfully? A competitor gobbling up too much marketshare that is rightfully yours?

      Off the bastard. Kill 'em dead.

      Murder is by far the most effective way of dealing with unwanted competition and conflict, particularly if you are reasonably clever about it (it is an ugly, dirty little secret of our 'justic' system that most murders go unsolved, and most murderers thus get away with their crime).

      By your logic, murder is a legitimate tool of competition.

      I beg to differ. No amount of success justifies, much less legitimizes, a despicable methodology.

      FUD and disinformation are unethical and despicable in the extreme, and their use is not legitimate, no matter how successful they are.

      The courts would agree. It wasn't so long ago that IBM got seriously slapped down by the courts for exactly that sort of illegitimate, successful behavior.

      SCO, Darl, and their sponsors (Microsoft and Sun Microsystems) should face similiar sanctions for engaging in this illegitimate, and quite possibly illegal, behavior.

      (And lest you think defamation and libel are legal, check again. It may be hard to win convictions, but that doesn't make the act any less illegal, or any less illigetimate, and FUD, by its very definition, is libelous).
      • You'll note that in my original post that I said that FUD in SCO's case so far has not resulted in any charges of perjury or irreperable harm to the company. This may change, and I consider their strategy highly unethical, but so far their execution of this FUD strategy has been deemed to be within the limits of the law.

        Jumping from a press release with dubious claims (at worst perjury or libel) to murder (a federal offence) is a bit of a stretch.
    • So, you are saying, "the ends justify the means?"

      I guess anyone who is rich as a result of predatory practices is to be looked up to?

      What a quaint idea...lets just throw away all our common decency and moral fortitude, and instead embrace stupid and destructive activities at the expense of our neighbors.

      Lucky!!? They should be criminally prosecuted for their evil deeds (isn't the SEC looking into them atm?)

  • Motive (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cosmo7 ( 325616 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @10:43AM (#9183429) Homepage
    The SD Times is intelligently embracing a controversy in order to attract attention and increase its brand value. Getting a story on Slashdot mean they hit the jackpot.

    I doubt anyone at the site actually considers SCO to be a worthy company. Editors really should be more aware of this kind of manipulation.

  • "Good Publicity ... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by StormyMonday ( 163372 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @10:43AM (#9183431) Homepage
    ... is where they spell your name right."

    -- old showbiz saying

  • Typical. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Jaywalk ( 94910 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @10:44AM (#9183443) Homepage
    Reminds me of SCO's spin on a VARBusiness [varbusiness.com] article back in October. Here's SCO's version [sco.com]. Now check out the original article [channelsupersearch.com]. SCO did indeed rate in the top four. Out of five.

    • Re:Typical. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by emtboy9 ( 99534 )
      Isn't it amazing what a little market-droid spin can do so something like this?

      SCO: "We are number four in the VARBusiness TOP 5 of ALL ENTERPRISE VENDORS! WE ARE NUMBER 4 of all!!!! WOOOOOT!!! (small print: VARBuisiness only surveyed 5 vendors in this category)"

      VARBusiness ARC: "SCO should apply some of the money it's shelling out in legal fees in its suit against IBM and Linux users to its channel efforts. The company's ARC scores were a train wreck in the enterprise operating systems category. Who car
  • with a heavy dose of violence and fear,
    and lots of money for projects,
    I think I might start believing SCO is here to help!
  • The company's legal assaults on IBM and Linux users dominated 2003's tech headlines and shook up the open-source community. No other IT topic inspires such fervent debate, fear, uncertainty and doubt.
  • the inevitable freefall of their stock prices (about ten minutes after the dismissal of the IBM, Redhat, Novell, Autozone etc. cases) is a day that they can continue to use whatever equity is left in their rapidly falling shares to perpetrate asset shifting schemes on the unwitting.

  • SCO, blah, blah, blah (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Otter ( 3800 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @10:45AM (#9183461) Journal
    Moving beyond this morning's Two Minutes Of Hate -- of more interest is Apple's making the list for both Tools and Deployment Platforms. They've been improving on both fronts and it's interesting to see a corporate-ish IT publication noticing.

    And what is up with that shirt Marc Fleury is wearing? OK, he's French, but still!

  • In other news.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @10:45AM (#9183468)
    *May 18th Press Release 10:45 AM EST*

    Microsoft, leading cause of IT-related suicides, announced today that it is, in fact, proud of the accusations of monopolistic practices

    Quote from Mr.Gates

    "Hell yeah, we've been using our power and influence illegally for quite some time now. I've wanted to admit it for such a long time, but the boys in Legal say its a BAD thing to admit the obvious. But now, thanks to SCO, we can admit to owning BOTH Park Ave. and Boardwalk, all the houses and hotels therein, and yes, we do charge $20 for a snickers from the minibar. Why? Because we can"

  • When I worked with SCO Open Server Unix, it was absolutely the WORST version of Unix I've ever worked with. Half the X-windows TCL/TK admin tools had major bugs. Most the utilities didn't work and I had to edit straight Unix files. I had to install it several times to get it working. UNIXWARE they bought from Novell, so they deserve no credit for that. An associate used to call SCO Open Server, SCO Open Sore. :)

  • Can an entire corporation... (Score:3, Funny)

    by tommasz ( 36259 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @10:49AM (#9183511)
    ...be on drugs?

    Or do they only test the worker bees?

  • Dubious Honor (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @10:56AM (#9183581)
    Seems to me that SD Times putting SCO on the list of top 100 influential companies is a little analogous to Time Magazine naming Hitler as "Man of the Year" in 1938. Like Darl, I'm sure Hitler though it was an honor as well.

    Woohoo! I got to slam SCO, Darl, and invoke Godwin in one post! Ahh, I'm done.

    • Seems to me that SD Times putting SCO on the list of top 100 influential companies is a little analogous to Time Magazine naming Hitler as "Man of the Year" in 1938. Like Darl, I'm sure Hitler though it was an honor as well.

      A lot of historians considered Hitler the most influential man of the 20th century. They caught a lot of flack for it. But "influential" merely means having a lot of influence on events - not necessarily a beneficial influence.

  • FUD prize (Score:4, Funny)

    by coolmos ( 138993 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @10:57AM (#9183594)
    Maybe there should be a prize called 'SCO'.

    Like an Oscar for FUD.

    And the SCO of 2005 goes to......

  • BB Playbook (Score:5, Funny)

    by ericlp ( 749865 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @10:58AM (#9183608)
    Cool. Someone else using the Baghdad Bob playbook on public relations.

  • Spread the most FUD? (Score:4, Funny)

    by lawpoop ( 604919 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @11:06AM (#9183696) Homepage Journal
    Now maybe IBM can sue SCO for using their business model!
  • What corporation/CEO would tell people ' ya we suck, dont buy our products '..

    Its all about standard marketing..

    Why is this even 'news that matters'?

  • Comprise... ugh (Score:3, Funny)

    by Erasmus ( 32516 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @11:10AM (#9183756)
    ...companies that comprise the SD Times 100.

    Evil I can accept, but not knowing the difference between comprise and compose is unforgivable. They must be stopped!

  • SCO thanks you for this story, submitter (Score:4, Insightful)

    by goldspider ( 445116 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @11:18AM (#9183829) Homepage
    "I guess any press is good press these days for SCO. Congratulations..."

    ...you say as you submit yet another SCO story to Slashdot.

  • Hate to be pedantic... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by FreemanPatrickHenry ( 317847 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @11:25AM (#9183915)
    ...but this just irks me.

    "...honored to be named among the many influential companies that comprise the SD Times 100.

    "Comprise" is not the word you want. That would be "constitute." See Strunk & White's The Elements of Style.
    • "Comprise" is not the word you want. That would be "constitute." See Strunk & White's The Elements of Style.

      ...read Slashdot on a regular basis and hasn't committed harakiri yet? English is a foreign language to me (and I do almost as well in German as my 2nd foreign language), and I still do better than most of the Americans...

      Kjella
    • Hate to be pedantic...

      No you don't. You love it.
  • Look at their deep abiding philosophy!

    When FUD gave them bad press, they made PRESSADE.

  • Considering how irrelevant... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Trolling4Dollars ( 627073 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @11:31AM (#9183992) Journal
    ...SCO is in the real business of technology these days, this is no surprise. Read with me now:

    1. There is technology for technology's sake (open source, true innovation)

    2. There is "technology" for business sake (lowest common denominator ripoffs, more focus on marketing than R&D, specific focus on profit)

    3. Then there is SCO (sue, sue, sue, sue, sue... ad nauseum and "Here is our repackaged version of our crap OS with open source stuff")

    Which technologies will still be around 50-100 years from now? Undoubtedly those that originate in group 1.
    • If anything, history has shown that the marketing of technology to be at lease as important as innovation. There is at least one company I know that has been around for over 25 years that has consistantly riped off others innovations and focused on marketing, only to become a monopolistic power. At the same time, other compaines that focused soly on technology for technologies sake and not enough on buisness aspects have floundered despite their technical superiority.

      I'm also not sure why you grouped op

      • Re:I dissagree. (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Trolling4Dollars ( 627073 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @01:23PM (#9185554) Journal
        But your definition of success has to do with a company being around after 25 years. This has nothing to do with technology. That's simply business, which does little to further technology in any real sense. The money that the business MAY provide to R&D COULD push technology ahead a little further. But people who purely do research with no profit motive are more likely to get farther in terms of the concepts that will have a lasting impact. Most R&D in the private sector only moves forward once it's deemed profitable.

        My definition of success is that a technology is still in use after 25 , 50 or even hundreds of years after it's original debut. It doesn't matter if it's manufactured by a completely different company than it's originator, or just used by some hobbyists in a basement somewhere. This kind of success is proof that the technology is superior. Money and bottom lines don't figure into it at all. And they shouldn't. But people who think that it should matter are the ones who are behind software patents and so-called "intellectual property".

        Right now, the argument is coming from the neo-capitlist side. However, if this were thirty years ago and the communists wanted to establish that the state had all ownership of software and "intellectual property", you can bet most Americans would have been opposed to it. This points to the fact that software patents and "intellectual property" are wrong and will do nothing but hinder progress. However, acceptance of these concepts by the general public relies entirly on who is making the propositions. At the moment, the general public is blind to the fact that the people who want these kinds of mechanisms in place want to control their rights to access technology. This is because the neo-capitalists are hiding behind what American capitalism used to stand for. Just think very loosely about the movie Dark Crystal and you'll get the picture of what has happened to American business. The real bottom line is that WE have become the evil empire that the Soviet Union was previously considered. Like it or not, it's the truth.

        As far as success, it's obvious that we just have different viewpoints, so there is no need in either of us trying to convert the other. You are more a businessman (possibly with a technological focus), I am a technologist (who cares only about technology and nothing else).

  • Osama vs. Darl (Score:2, Funny)

    by brennz ( 715237 )
    In related news, Osama Bin Laden talks about his growing rivalry with Darl Mcbride for most hated man in America...

  • What about OptInRealBig? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Scott Richter ( 776062 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @11:36AM (#9184042)
    I personally would like to complain that one of the most influential media companies was not nominated. OptInRealBig touches the lives of millions of consumers every day, a "crime" for which we have been publicly and unjustly vilified.

    That's OK, OptInRealBig will continue to bring great deals to those who want them. It should be a crime for service providers to deny the great offers we make to people who took their busy time to sign up for our lists.

    Scott

  • Why was a Caldera icon used here, instead of a SCO icon?
    • There isn't an SCO icon. Since Caldera bought out the old SCO, then renamed itself SCO (to capitalise on the old name), Slashdot has just gone on using the Caldera icon as the SCO icon.

  • Analyst's view (Score:3, Interesting)

    by rduke15 ( 721841 ) <rduke15@gTWAINmail.com minus author> on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @11:54AM (#9184277)
    See this comment [slashdot.org] from yesterday under a different story, for financial analyst's view on SCO, and another press release.

  • Just like "metrosexual"... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tuxedobob ( 582913 ) * <tuxedobob@mac . c om> on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @11:58AM (#9184315)
    ...I think it's about time that the "word" FUD dies off. It's used way too often when someone's propagandizing and there's no fear, uncertainty, or doubt involved. Second, what's the practical difference between uncertainty and doubt? We need them because we couldn't use FU or FD? Why can't we just instill fear rather than spreading FUD? It's not butter or anything. Of course, if you're not really making people afraid, you can't instill fear. FUD's good for that, since with the uncertainty and doubt part(s) of it, you don't need to.

    It seems to me we have a "word" which is used too often and doesn't really mean anything.

    As for SCO, it seems that the list isn't necessarily a good thing to be on. Influential people of the 20th century include everyone from, oh, Mother Teresa to Hitler.

  • Man of the Year (Score:2, Interesting)

    by McSnickered ( 67307 )
    It's sort of like when Time magazine made Newt Gingrich their "Man of the Year". It certainly wasn't highlighting him as a great guy. It was more of a "here's a guy who's used his power and influence to screw things up for everyone!"

  • IBM tells it like it is ! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by RichMan ( 8097 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @12:04PM (#9184373)
    New filing from IBM in the lawsuit with SCO.

    READ THIS multi-page tiff: IBM's reply [uscourts.gov]

    IBM roasts SCO for the lack of evidence and delay tactics. Practicaly asks the Judge for a contempt of court ruling.

  • IBM's Memorandum in opposition available! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by eddy ( 18759 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @12:34PM (#9184724) Homepage Journal

    Memorandum in opposition [uscourts.gov] is now available. PDF here [gazonk.org] (my conversion).

    In a revealing interview, a SCO VP recently stated that SCO's strategy in this case is not to "put everything on the table at the start, but instead to bring out arguments and evidence piece by piece".

    "SCO should not be allowed, through its own misconduct, to prolong this case merely to serve its own interests in cultivating the fear, uncertainty and doubt SCO has created regarding Linux and IBM's products.

    Goodies.

    • SCO is fry. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      As stated, the most egregious example of SCO's discovery misconduct is SCO's persistent refusal to identify with specificity the UNIX System V source code that forms the basis of its claims against IBM IBM served interrogatories seeking this basic information from SCO in June 2003. Yet, SCO has resisted providing such information for ten months now - even in the face of motions to compel and two court orders to provide full and detailed responses to IBM's interrogatories. In addition, SCO has repeatedly f

  • Just out of curiosity (Score:3, Informative)

    by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @12:49PM (#9184934) Journal
    Who remains inside of SCO/USL that was any good on the tech side of things? When USL was first created, a number of them elected to remain with Bell/Lucant/Avaya, but USL still had some good techies. Even over the last decade, USL would hire some that were pretty decent. But does any good techies remain? I find it hard to believe that even with this economy.

  • DFU (Score:3, Funny)

    by butane_bob2003 ( 632007 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @02:55PM (#9186992) Homepage
    I Doubt anyone will Fear them much longer, their future is Uncertain.

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