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Snowed By SCO (Forbes)
As SCO fades away, some of the pro-SCO journalists are being asked some hard questions. Here is the closest thing we'll get to an answer from Dan Lyons on Forbes. "This time, I figured I should at least give SCO the benefit of the doubt. I flew to Utah and interviewed their managers. I attended a SCO conference in Las Vegas and did more interviews. They told me all sorts of things, like they'd found a 'smoking gun' that proved IBM was guilty, and that they were preparing to sue big Hollywood companies that use Linux server farms to make movies.
I reported what they said. Turns out I was getting played. They never produced a smoking gun. They never sued any Hollywood company."
(Log in to post comments)
Snowed By SCO (Forbes) Posted Sep 20, 2007 2:57 UTC (Thu) by djabsolut (guest, #12799) [Link] To be fair, his story is more than "the closest thing we'll get to an answer". A few extracts:
Snowed By SCO (Forbes) Posted Sep 20, 2007 4:35 UTC (Thu) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link] > amateur [Groklaw folks]
So, if these amateurs were right in their predictions, what does that make Dan? Worse than an amateur? Kidding... :-)
Seriously, the whole problem with "reporting" here (as Dan puts it) is that instead of doing _research_ he just regurgitated what Darl and Co. told him. Which gives? It doesn't matter if your medium is a blog or a high-powered-super-duper-whatever. It only matters how well you know the subject matter.
Snowed By SCO (Forbes) Posted Sep 20, 2007 4:59 UTC (Thu) by slashdotted (guest, #47248) [Link] "instead of doing _research_ he just regurgitated what Darl and Co. told him."
YES!
Fact-checking takes work and can make enemies.
Our media is so frequently uncritical.
Something I like about LWN is that it is both critical and constructive.
Lyons wasn't just "Wrong", he disregarded (and didn't report) facts that didn't fit his ideology.
Snowed By SCO (Forbes) Posted Sep 20, 2007 10:17 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] Well, he said that he relied on the reputation of the company for winning impossible legal battles (not SCO, Caldera), and overcompensated for mispredicting that sort of thing with Caldera in the past.
The foolishness here, really, was assuming that a company will continue to be as undefeatable when its management has been replaced with frauds and conmen; but it's in the nature of frauds and conmen that they are good at conning people who can't look at the underlying facts.
(So, yes, he should have looked at the facts, too; but I can't see anything wrong with this climbdown. Perhaps he waited too long to do it, is all.)
Snowed By SCO (Forbes) Posted Sep 20, 2007 11:43 UTC (Thu) by interalia (subscriber, #26615) [Link] I think this is an impressive mea culpa. It is very rare that anyone in the tech media ever makes such a relatively humiliating admission of being wrong.
I think that for a non-technical person it was actually reasonable to lean towards SCO's statements rather than the rantings of the OSS "crowd". I suspect Dan wasn't himself technical enough to be able to investigate the arguments himself, and did not have know or ask anyone who was qualified and whose view he trusted. His mistake then was in not recognising his own lack of technical acumen and ability to judge.
Whether he's learned his lesson - well I have doubts, but I still give kudos to him for swallowing his pride and admitting his mistake. There are many many people in the OSS world who would find it difficult to do the same (and I include myself).
Snowed By SCO (Forbes) Posted Sep 20, 2007 14:13 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] I think this is an impressive mea culpa. It is very rare that anyone in the tech media ever makes such a relatively humiliating admission of being wrong.Outside the tech media as well. The best example I can think of was from the Economist, when it predicted a long-term $5-a-barrel oil price, whereupon the oil price shot up to over $50 and stayed there: that New Year they had an article with the title `We Woz Wrong' discussing that blooper and many others. :)
Snowed By SCO (Forbes) Posted Sep 20, 2007 16:22 UTC (Thu) by dune73 (subscriber, #17225) [Link] Inside the technical world, the have Linux Weekly News. They do predictions for every year and they discuss them at the end of the year. Great idea. Good journalism.
Snowed By SCO (Forbes) Posted Sep 20, 2007 19:37 UTC (Thu) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link] It's very unfortunate that accusing someone of "stealing intellectual property" is trusted by default in the non-technical circles. Let's hope that the SCO debacle and this apology will help change some minds.
Snowed By SCO (Forbes) Posted Sep 21, 2007 0:55 UTC (Fri) by interalia (subscriber, #26615) [Link] I think that to a naive observer people don't bring such big (and public!) lawsuits without better basis.
The fact OSS people are often arguing about licenses indicates to outsiders there is not general agreement about what they mean and what is permissible. It makes it plausible that a developer may have done something wrong without understanding the consequences.
This is why I think it's reasonable for people to have thought early on there was indeed a problem. Greater familiarity with Linux development processes and the history of Unix is what made it unlikely to most of us here.
A bit contradictory Posted Sep 20, 2007 21:03 UTC (Thu) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] I hope you notice the contradiction in your defense. First, Lyons is exonerated for trusting a company instead of "the OSS crowd" (which can be wrong on many issues, but are known to be technically competent). Then he is exonerated for not being technical enough and not having anyone technically competent to assist him.Well, he went to a company presentation and trusted them, fine. But then the whole community went out and debunked the supposed "millions of lines" of stolen code into some 200 lines entered by mistake into the kernel. And in this process many people joined; some were just fanatical, but many were trustworthy businessmen of the kind liked by the press. At this point most other journalists turned skeptical; gullibility alone could not support the corporate fairy tale. A certain measure of stubbornness or malevolence was needed as well to support that strange faith into SCO. In fact a measure of both, I would argue; not in vain all SCO supporters turned into trolls, mythological creatures famous for having plenty of both qualities. Finally, a technical journalist with no technical acumen and no technical friends to ask is a pathetic sight. Recursively I call: to the lions with him!
A bit contradictory Posted Sep 20, 2007 23:49 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] It doesn't exonerate him, but it does explain, a bit. A lot of people*really* dislike saying they were wrong: losing face is hard.
A bit contradictory Posted Sep 21, 2007 1:04 UTC (Fri) by interalia (subscriber, #26615) [Link] I don't think I'm exonerating him. Understanding how or why people make a mistake doesn't mean that it's no longer a mistake, or that the mistake doesn't matter.
In the end, the more interesting news is that he has admitted his mistake. And not in a throwaway line buried in a speech or a blog, but in a public article whose sole purpose is that admission. We might be better than him technically but many OSS people have such pride/ego that I suspect they'd find it difficult to do the same.
Good explanation then Posted Sep 21, 2007 8:49 UTC (Fri) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] As long as technical decisions are involved, the trick is not putting your ego in your decisions, so you can later backtrack. Linus said it better.For other decisions it is harder to do, but I think still feasible. When you put your reputation in line it gets worse. And when you let your testicles interfere with your decisions then you are lost. So, the lesson is: don't do that :D
Snowed By SCO (Forbes) Posted Sep 20, 2007 15:34 UTC (Thu) by branden (subscriber, #7029) [Link] Well, he said that he relied on the reputation of the company for winning impossible legal battles (not SCO, Caldera), and overcompensated for mispredicting that sort of thing with Caldera in the past.The securities business has an aphorism: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. I reckon that disregard of this principle is too common in the financial press to be ironic.
Snowed By SCO (Forbes) Posted Sep 20, 2007 19:23 UTC (Thu) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link] Past performance certainly predicted current results: he was wrong about Caldera, and then he was wrong about tSCOg. This is perfect performance, for a negative oracle: if you want to know what will happen, ask this guy; the opposite is what will happen.
Snowed By SCO (Forbes) Posted Sep 20, 2007 18:00 UTC (Thu) by felixfix (subscriber, #242) [Link] One common problem underlies both Lyons' errors. He was wrong about Caldera suing MS, and SCO suing Linux, because he didn't know the field at all well.
I remember when Caldera sued over DOS. It was common knowledge among "my" crowd that MS had done everything Caldera said. The only real question was whether Caldera would stick with their lawsuit, and we reckoned they would, again because we had been in the industry long enough to know Caldera's background, all the dirty tricks played on them by Microsoft, and how vengeful their heart was after so long.
Ditto for SCO suing Linux. No one who had been following the industry for long could think SCO would prevail. I knew instantly that it would only result in Linux being proven bullet proof and SCO sinking from sight.
For Lyons to mispredict both of these can only mean he simply doesn't know the industry well at all. He may know the big players, he may get lots of gadgets to review, but he doesn't know the industry at all.
Snowed By SCO (Forbes) Posted Sep 20, 2007 10:16 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] Amateur is not a dirty word.
It just means that you're doing stuff for a non-profesional purpose.. In other words: Not Getting Paid For It. People who use it as a insult are either morons, snobs, or both.
It's not unusual at all that amateurs are as good or surpass many of their professional counterparts in many feilds. (for example: software programming) This is not usually the case because professionals have the oportunity to devote a lot more time and effort to their paticular feild, but money isn't everything and motivation matters.
Amateurs in love Posted Sep 20, 2007 20:56 UTC (Thu) by kmself (subscriber, #11565) [Link] "Amateur" comes from amator (French & Latin), originally amare, to love (Latin). 1913 Webster's definition is "A person attached to a particular pursuit, study, or science as to music or painting; esp. one who cultivates any study or art, from taste or attachment, without pursuing it professionally". Persons engaged in a work out of love or interest are less likely to be swayed by any of the numerous usual commercial conflicts which may arise. Though one should also be aware that God is love, love is blind, and therefore Love is Stevie Wonder. Wait, wrong conspiracy. Still: the frequently expressed prejudice that "amateur" efforts are less meritous, worthwhile, or effective than "professional" ones is really an irrelevant straw man.
"Amateur" --- from the Latin: The Demise of Professional Journalism Posted Sep 21, 2007 19:31 UTC (Fri) by AnswerGuy (subscriber, #1256) [Link] Of course the word "amateur" is from the Latin root for "love." Literally it's one who "loves" (exhibits a passion for) some activity or field of endeavor.
It's a bit sad that the common modern connotation is one of denigration; it speaks of a rather narrow and prejudiced cultural bias towards monetary remuneration as the primary, practically the exclusive, measure of value.
Naturally those in the free software movement subscribe to a different value proposition and it's one reason why we are so often compared to "hippies" (a previous generation's counter-culture movement) ... despite the fact that many of our notable proponents are not, in fact, scruffy, long-haired, pony-tailed, bearded, Birkenstock-wearing "freaks."
(Okay, *I* happen to be beared, scruffy and pony-tailed ... but work with me here).
The original poster's quotes pain Dan Lyons as gullible. When it comes to journalism I can think of only one personal flaw that's worse than being gullible; that would be outright dishonesty. Personally I doubt Dan is as gullible as his article would suggest. Is he dishonest? Or was he lazy? (I'd consider dishonestly worse than gullibility; but laziness in checking one's facts from *multiple* sources, and laziness or ineptness in qualifying the credibility of one's sources ... those perhaps are lesser evils. Perhaps they are only tantamount to gullibility).
I can say this: There is no reason to retain a journalist who is gullible, lazy, lacking in professional integrity, nor any combination of these. There are plenty of eager, competant, and emminently qualified candidates for such positions. So, I have no reason to read Dan's writing ... since it clearly cannot be trusted. In additional I have every reason to doubt the quality, integrity, and value of any publication that would continue to retain him.
My personal opinion on the matter is no loss to Dan, nor to Forbes. I don't read his drivel ... and haven't for years. I've also never subscribed to Forbes and this is merely one additional reason for me to avoid them.
However, this and the recent "Fake Steve Jobs" fiasco motivate me to go beyond mere avoidance.
The irony of Dan's defective journalism in this case ... and of Forbes' continued employment of him and publication of his work is all too vivid in light of his ranting against "bloggers."
The simple fact of the matter is that he as demonstrated that the "professionalism" of traditional publications is not a useful indication of its credibility. Forbes has clearly shown us that they are not trustworthy.
Therefore I will actively promote "amateurs" and "bloggers" (and Wikipedia) over traditional "professional" media. Of course I'll do so with the caveat that any one, amateurs, professions, bloggers, and Wikipedians, can be biased, dishonest, lazy, or incompetent. I will always recommend that people who care about real information be willing to do their own research, review the facts, be aware of their own limitations and learn out to vet their sources despite all these challenges.
I just consider it to be a tragedy of our times that most of the people I deal with will have to learn these skills late in life. It's a tragic malfeasance by our governments, at all levels, that these skills are not taught in our schools. Clearly more of us must strive to be "amateurs" in the original sense of the term --- lovers of truth, knowlege and of the freedom which ultimately depends on our ability to understand the implications of each decision we make.
Snowed By SCO (Forbes) Posted Sep 20, 2007 7:07 UTC (Thu) by MortenSickel (guest, #3238) [Link] Turns out those amateur sleuths [Groklaw folks] were rightWell, remember, (from wikipedia) "The word [amateur] comes from French, and can be translated as "lover of", reflecting the amateur's motivation to work as a result of a love or passion for a particular activity." I would say that amateur is an apt description. M.
Odd retraction Posted Sep 20, 2007 10:11 UTC (Thu) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] Someday soon everyone will ignore articles from this gullible dork. I can't wait.
Odd retraction Posted Sep 20, 2007 12:41 UTC (Thu) by smitty_one_each (subscriber, #28989) [Link] Spot him some more rope.If he ties on something useful, then there may be one added to the short list of sensible journalists. If he ties a noose therewith, well, there you have it.
Snowed By SCO (Forbes) Posted Sep 20, 2007 4:20 UTC (Thu) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link] "I got it wrong. The [groklaw] nerds got it right."
Isn't that a clear answer? What more are you looking for?
Snowed By SCO (Forbes) Posted Sep 20, 2007 9:10 UTC (Thu) by ewan (subscriber, #5533) [Link] How about - "...and I'm sorry."?
Snowed By SCO (Forbes) Posted Sep 20, 2007 12:50 UTC (Thu) by charlieb (subscriber, #23340) [Link] > How about - "...and I'm sorry."?
It's there - do you know no Latin?
Snowed By SCO (Forbes) Posted Sep 20, 2007 19:26 UTC (Thu) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link] No, the Latin meaning is closer to "it's my fault". That's very different from "I'm sorry."
Snowed By SCO (Forbes) Posted Sep 20, 2007 10:12 UTC (Thu) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] It is not just that he was wrong. He needlessly poked fun at the nerds, defended SCO and in general failed to present a balanced view of the matter. Let alone a clueful, insightful or critical view. Presenting this band of thieves as "David against Goliath" was particularly trollish.A retraction is clearly not enough, I demand an immediate public immolation!
Posted Sep 20, 2007 19:06 UTC (Thu) by Max.Hyre (subscriber, #1054) [Link] Be fair:
:-)
Snowed By SCO (Forbes) Posted Sep 20, 2007 11:53 UTC (Thu) by Stephen_Riley (guest, #43827) [Link] I didn't like the mocking he's previously done but this is a public declaration of regret & admission of his mistake. It will be regurgitated in the future no doubt & may seriously affect his future income so I say we should accept it on face value & move on.
Snowed By SCO (Forbes) Posted Sep 20, 2007 16:40 UTC (Thu) by Thalience (subscriber, #4217) [Link] Being massively wrong about bloody well everything for the past 10 years does not seem to have hurt the job prospects of idiots like David Broder.
If nothing else, this guy's record of printing press releases as if they were revealed truth makes him a perfect fit for the White House Press Corps.
Snowed By SCO (Forbes) Posted Sep 20, 2007 13:10 UTC (Thu) by salvarsan (subscriber, #18257) [Link] It's good to see some vindication from Lyons.
That leaves Rob Enderle, Laura Didio of Yankee Associates,
Is honor so paleolithic a sensibility?
Heh!
-drh
Snowed By SCO (Forbes) Posted Sep 21, 2007 5:34 UTC (Fri) by gdt (subscriber, #6284) [Link] Rob Enderle's attempt is SCO: what difference did it make?. Not quite the same Enderle as the one that presented Free software and the fools who use it at SCO Forum.
Snowed By SCO (Forbes) Posted Sep 21, 2007 16:39 UTC (Fri) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link] From the article: "even BSD was known in the early days to cross over into threats of violence." One can only assume that Rob doesn't actually know what violence is.
That article is amazing. Rob somehow links SCO case with the outpouring support for Kathy Sierra (no mention of Maureen O'Gara of course), and claims that McBride & Co. "forced open source to mature, and that allows us to discuss sensitive issues without fear of personal or physical attack." I kid you not.
Another gem: "Torvalds appears to have called off the war on Microsoft." Thank goodness for the SCO case then! Uh, wait... When did Linus ever declare war on Microsoft?
Anyhow, if you haven't seen enough surreal, fabricated logic yet today, definitely give gdt's link a read. It's great.
Snowed By SCO (Forbes) Posted Sep 21, 2007 17:11 UTC (Fri) by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458) [Link] Anyhow, if you haven't seen enough surreal, fabricated logic yet today, definitely give gdt's link a read. It's great. Right you are. We are informed, inter alia, that now Unix is legally part of Linux, as the copyrights belong to Novell and because of the GPL. Also, if SCOX had just heared and placed "litigation experts" at the helm, they would have won. No, it was not that the whole "the APA says clearly exactly what it is denying in plain language" and "millions of code that has no relation whatsoever with our code must have been (non-literally) copied, because it is doing something vaguely similar to what our code does" sunk them, it was incompetent litigation. And they didn't retain one of the foremost law firms, no siree.
Snowed By SCO (Forbes) Posted Sep 21, 2007 5:49 UTC (Fri) by gdt (subscriber, #6284) [Link] Sam Varghese of the Sydney Morning Herald asks the same questions in Some lessons from the SCO debacle.
Sam raises some good points. The Australian's IT supplement ran three front page spreads on SCO's allegations. The court's findings that SCO wasn't even the owner of the copyrights made four inches inside the supplement.
Snowed By SCO (Forbes) Posted Oct 2, 2007 11:19 UTC (Tue) by pr1268 (subscriber, #24648) [Link] Thank you for the link - I enjoy reading other countries' media reports on Linux and open-source topics - the SCO debacle included. What a quirky title for Sam's column. :-)
The Silver Lining..... Posted Sep 20, 2007 14:16 UTC (Thu) by KingKevbo (guest, #10975) [Link] The bright side of this article is that Mr. Lyons has publicly stated (in Forbes magazine) that "SCO is road kill." Lyons' credibility aside, making a statement like this (that has gotten past his editors) will pretty well ensure that SCO will have to tie the proverbial pork chop around their neck to get the dogs (or investors) to play with them. I know he's stating the obvious, but at least he didn't even try to spin it.
Chapter 11 will not save SCO. I guess we can sit back and watch the death spiral...
Snowed By SCO (Forbes) Posted Sep 20, 2007 15:00 UTC (Thu) by stumbles (guest, #8796) [Link] Well I give him +10 points for admitting he was wrong but -1,000,000,000 points for ignoring any information that conflicted with his point of view at the time. Given all the non-sense he wrote it is clear to me he did next to no real research or employed any kind of critical thinking.Now that he has been whacked with a giant clue bat he decides it's time to come clean. In my view it is a whole lot to late for such groveling. Even prior to SCO finally filing for bankruptcy. I still have to ask myself what exactly could he have been basing all his rubbish on? I suspect the desire to get clickies.
Snowed By SCO (Forbes) Posted Sep 20, 2007 16:50 UTC (Thu) by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458) [Link] Even prior to SCO finally filing for bankruptcy. I still have to ask myself what exactly could he have been basing all his rubbish on? I suspect the desire to get clickies. Well, yes, clickies are an important desire for "online people" (whether they say so or not). OTOH, SCOX showed quite a talent for bamboozling people into believing their "millons of our code's lines pilfered" spin, even people who looked into it quite a bit (I'm sure their lawyers looked hard at the evidence before jumping in with both feet, when they later found out it was all hot air they couldn't so easily jump ship; remember the lot of "investors" who put money into this; even MSFT was fooled into supporting this nonsense and now has egg on its face). Sure, nerdy Linux fans knew this was mostly nonsense, but the reasons for knowing that are hard to explain to non-insiders (even to people in the traditional software development field).
Snowed By SCO (Forbes) Posted Sep 20, 2007 17:52 UTC (Thu) by stumbles (guest, #8796) [Link] Well from my point of view. The only people who got bamboozled are the ones I described as not able to employ any critical thinking skills and all they saw were dollars. IMO any investor should lose their shirts in such cases.
In the investment world as in others it is called, due diligence. And it wasn't like there was <b>hard to find information</b> about their claims. Not only was all over the internet a lot of that information contrary to their claims was explained why they were wrong. And I don't necessarily mean it was explained in techie terms. Anyway, I have no sympathy for the SCO shareholders or any one that has and will lose their money on that horse. Serves them right.
Dan Lyons and on and on Posted Sep 20, 2007 18:29 UTC (Thu) by rjamestaylor (guest, #339) [Link] Why the shock about his character? His very name gives it away!
Snowed By SCO (Forbes) Posted Sep 20, 2007 19:15 UTC (Thu) by kmself (subscriber, #11565) [Link] As I just wrote to Mr. Lyons: Mr. Lyons: I've just read your very public apology and reversal regards The SCO Group. I'd like to thank you for owning up to your errors, I think you're setting a great example for others to follow. A certain "Didiot" comes to mind, also small-fry David Politis, and quote-a-matic Rob Enderle (who has written something of a reversal if not an apology/retraction) and I'll have to review my own notes as to who was flogging SCO and its stock over the past four years. Oh: the Internet has a long memory, and those who'll keep it alive. One of the interesting aspects of Unix (and its successor, Linux) is that it is in many ways an oral (and written) cultural tradition. You're now part of that lore (among others). One of the frustrations watching (and participating) in this matter from the geek / GNU/Linux side was watching the frequently erroneous, if not downright fraudulent, reporting in some of the financial and business press. I'm not yet prepared to consider your writing on other matters creditable. You've done yourself a lot of harm by failing to ask the hard questions (or just to do the simple research and due dilligence) in this case. You *have* moved yourself back into the "deserves careful scruitiny". Thanks for showing some fortitude. Good luck hewing closer to the truth in future.
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