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Interview: SCO's Darl McBride and Chris Sontag (CRN)
CRN has posted a
lengthy interview with Darl McBride and Chris Sontag. Reading it is a
trying experience, to say the least, but it gives an insight into
the thought processes of SCO's management. "Our belief is that SCO
has great opportunity in the future to let Linux keep going, not to put it
on its back but for us to get a transaction fee every time it's
sold. That's really our goal. To the extent that we have to take it down
and put it on its back, we're fully prepared and willing to do
that." Or... "The interesting scenario is, do you go after an
HP customer or an IBM customer? That's what David [Boies] is the master
of. That's his final decision.'
(Log in to post comments)
Interview: SCO's Darl McBride and Chris Sontag (CRN) Posted Nov 19, 2003 3:57 UTC (Wed) by ccchips (guest, #3222) [Link] Did you read that bit about Samba?What did SCO contribute to anything, under these jackals?
Interview: SCO's Darl McBride and Chris Sontag (CRN) Posted Nov 19, 2003 4:31 UTC (Wed) by havoc (guest, #2261) [Link] The part I like about this whole thing is that IF SCO can actually pull this off and start getting a fee each time Linux is sold, Linux is instantly dead. The BSD folks may not welcome us, but most of us will shed Linux like a pair of sweaty gym socks and embrace BSD. I'm sure most of Madrake, SUSE, Red Hat and company will make the transition fast enough to not go out of business.For once in my life, I can't lose! ... and it's refreshing to know that SCO can't win.
Interview: SCO's Darl McBride and Chris Sontag (CRN) Posted Nov 19, 2003 5:00 UTC (Wed) by mattdm (subscriber, #18) [Link] Did you see the cute bit in eweek where SCO says they're going to go after BSD too?
Interview: SCO's Darl McBride and Chris Sontag (CRN) Posted Nov 19, 2003 6:35 UTC (Wed) by emkey (guest, #144) [Link] Right. That court case was already fought and lost a decade ago. Not that reality seems to faze these guys any.
Interview: SCO's Darl McBride and Chris Sontag (CRN) Posted Nov 19, 2003 6:40 UTC (Wed) by emkey (guest, #144) [Link] And if SCO can reopen that case then so can Berkeley. And Berkely/UC had AT&T dead to rights. And since SCO is essentially AT&T for the purposes of such a case...
Interview: SCO's Darl McBride and Chris Sontag (CRN) Posted Nov 19, 2003 9:01 UTC (Wed) by rankincj (subscriber, #4865) [Link] Are they though? It sounded to me like they were claiming to have found BSD code in Linux that didn't have the correct BSD headers. Which would be trivial to fix, mind...Would I be correct in thinking that people checked this possibility out months ago?
Switching to BSD Posted Nov 19, 2003 5:01 UTC (Wed) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] I agree that SCO's proposed Linux tax would kill the system outright. But don't forget that SCO has made menacing noises toward BSD before, and the new talk of revisiting the USL/BSDI settlement has brought that issue up again. I don't believe for a second that, should SCO somehow manage to kill Linux, it would leave BSD alone.
Interview: SCO's Darl McBride and Chris Sontag (CRN) Posted Nov 19, 2003 8:40 UTC (Wed) by janpla (guest, #11093) [Link] "IF SCO can actually pull this off and start getting a fee each time Linux is sold, Linux is instantly dead"Hmm, don't be absurd. I can't judge whether it is possible for SCO to win this sort obviously fraudulent case in the absurd and corrupt American court system, but so what? For one thing, most of the important parts of UNIX are not part of whatever SCO try to convince they believe is their property: Samba, X, the filesystems and indeed most of the tools. What they would be left with is a bare bones bits-and pieces-system with no practical use; well I suppose they could try to sell it with the things they actually own in the SCO UNIX. But how about all the third party SW producers like Oracle, IBM, ... SCO have made themselves hugely unpopular with everybody, so is it reasonable to expect that SCO will have an easy time attracting applications to their system? Another thing - will people in the rest of the world not just shrug their shoulders and get on with life? Will China, Brazil, Russia, europe etc etc hang their heads and say: 'Wow, a corrupt American court has rules that SCO own Linux, so now we have to pay huge amounts of money to them'? Who will force them? The only result would be that Linux would continue being developed elsewhere. As for OSS - it doesn't depend on UNIX, really; it runs equally well on a number of other systems.
Interview: SCO's Darl McBride and Chris Sontag (CRN) Posted Nov 19, 2003 16:46 UTC (Wed) by mwilck (guest, #1966) [Link] Don't underestimate the threat. However absurd and corrupt you think the American court system is, people in the world respect it because it is dangerous not to do so. Most people want to be able to visit the U.S. without being arrested, for example. Let alone companies - you'll find but a few who will openly violate U.S. court decisions, because most businessmen want to do business with U.S. companies/customers.
This fight is important. Posted Nov 19, 2003 20:07 UTC (Wed) by jre (subscriber, #2807) [Link] It is intellectually lazy to say that SCO may win in the "absurd and corrupt American court system, but so what?"Does it make a difference whether or not SCO has a valid legal argument, and whether or not SCO's case will be tried fairly in the US courts? You bet it does! We rely on the fundamental integrity of the courts for our protection. That is why Richard Stallman created the GPL in the first place, and why the FSF spends so much time defending it. If we just cynically say "Oh, well, the American courts are absurd and corrupt, so it doesn't make any difference what happens there" we throw away any hope of creating something enduring. If the American courts are truly absurd and corrupt, then what are the consequences? a) It does not matter whether SCO is right or wrong. b) Eben Moglen's reasoned defense of the GPL was an empty exercise, and c) The folks at Groklaw are wasting their time. I, for one, do not believe any of the above are true.
Interview: SCO's Darl McBride and Chris Sontag (CRN) Posted Nov 19, 2003 10:43 UTC (Wed) by davidl (guest, #12156) [Link] The BSD v AT & T case is a precedent that will be referred to in any legal action. So far, all SCO has come up with is some very old code that has long since been released under a BSD license, and is perfectly legal to use, and some flimsy claim to stuff like JFS which they never had anything to do with. On this basis there is no chance. Come on, when is the legal action going to start?!
Interview: SCO's Darl McBride and Chris Sontag (CRN) Posted Nov 19, 2003 10:57 UTC (Wed) by djabsolut (guest, #12799) [Link] CRN: [...] It's clear the open source crowd needs no encouragement to tell their side of the story.What amazes is that the "media" are continuing to be so willing to listen to SCO and publish their "views" (read: drivel). The above comment from CRN notwithstanding, the ratio of "open source crowd" to SCO centered news pieces is ridiculously low. It would be nice to see OSDL, OSI or even IBM do a counter-attack in the media space - at the very least this will cause the so called journalists, next time they do a piece of SCO, to ask the necessarily pointed questions that SCO is always shying/worming away from. The more often SCO evades the questions, the more the media folks are going to see that SCO is using them.
Interview: SCO's Darl McBride and Chris Sontag (CRN) Posted Nov 19, 2003 16:30 UTC (Wed) by sandy_pond (guest, #9734) [Link] Simple ... just follow the money
Interview: SCO's Darl McBride and Chris Sontag (CRN) Posted Nov 19, 2003 16:35 UTC (Wed) by sandy_pond (guest, #9734) [Link] Sorry to reply to my own post but remember CRN was a "Gold Sponsor" of "SCO Forum 2003". I no longer read their sites.
Interview: SCO's Darl McBride and Chris Sontag (CRN) Posted Nov 19, 2003 16:38 UTC (Wed) by djabsolut (guest, #12799) [Link] An interesting comment on Groklaw about the current state of journalism
Interview: SCO's Darl McBride and Chris Sontag (CRN) Posted Nov 19, 2003 5:31 UTC (Wed) by error27 (subscriber, #8346) [Link] Darl: "We're sort of fine to let the AIX thing tick, because the longer it goes, when we actually end up in courtroom, we can go back to June 13, 2003, and add damages. We're sort of fine to let that one run."Don't be surprised if IBM uses that quote in court to explain SCO's stalling during discovery. ;)
Interview: SCO's Darl McBride and Chris Sontag (CRN) Posted Nov 19, 2003 5:52 UTC (Wed) by jayorke (guest, #10685) [Link] The chance that SCO will ever get a transaction fee every time Linux is sold is very near zero. Why is SCO wasting their time? Even if SCO wins, which I doubt, they have no chance of collecting transaction fees because either (a) offending code will be removed, (b) Hurd will be rapidly completed, or (c) everyone will do an about face and head back to MS Windows. Possibility "c" really makes you wonder who is really behind this because no company profits from option "a" and "b".
Interview: SCO's Darl McBride and Chris Sontag (CRN) Posted Nov 19, 2003 10:02 UTC (Wed) by hppnq (guest, #14462) [Link] "...Longer term, expect SVR 6, which will be 64-bit Unix on Intel..."SVR 6 of course will be nothing but a Linux rip off.
It's simple stock market fraud played out in slow-motion. Posted Nov 19, 2003 13:25 UTC (Wed) by brugolsky (subscriber, #28) [Link] The analysts and press keep repeating that SCO has some chance of collecting usage royalties for Linux, which is simply not going to happen. Meanwhile, the stock price is elevated, and SCO is pay out to Canopy and others both directly and indirectly. By the time there is any blowback, the vermin will have absconded with all of the assets, and the shell of a corporation will be left to deal with the inevitable shareholder and other lawsuits. SCO will declare bankruptcy, and that will be the end of it. There is no downside for Canopy, Microsoft, and Sun, as long as they didn't commit it to paper.
Interview: SCO's Darl McBride and Chris Sontag (CRN) Posted Nov 19, 2003 13:43 UTC (Wed) by ekj (subscriber, #1524) [Link] The chanse ain't "near zero" it is zero. Really. First, they'll never come within a million miles of winning.Second, even if they did, it'd cost a small fraction of the value of Linux to simple buy their so called "valuable IP". Third, even if they win AND IBM and friends decide to let them liveon independently, there's simply no way anyone would contribute a single line of improvements to a system SCO has any special rigths to. Thus whatever (my bets are on "nothing") IP SCO has any claims to will sink to irrelevance in months with customers scrambling left and rigth to get out. Not into other SCO-offerings mind you.
Interview: SCO's Darl McBride and Chris Sontag (CRN) Posted Nov 19, 2003 14:20 UTC (Wed) by walterbyrd (guest, #11620) [Link] >>The chance that SCO will ever get a transaction fee every time Linux is sold is very near zero. Why is SCO wasting their time? <<Wasting their time? Are you kidding? Scox stock has gone from $1 a share to $14 a share. Scox has already used over-inflated scox shares to "buy" vultus (for the benefit of Canopy). Scox has used over-inflated shares to for an easy $50 million form BayStar PIPE deal. FUD money from sunw and msft has been flooding in since scox started this scam - giving scox their first two profitable quarters ever. Waste of time? This scam has been a *huge* success for success for scox. Scox insiders laughing all the way to the bank. US justice system asleep at the wheel.
This rings some bells Posted Nov 19, 2003 6:09 UTC (Wed) by dkite (guest, #4577) [Link] These folks blather on for pages. Big words, big threats. But when it comes to actually revealingevidence, they say "It's kind of hollow words that we are not showing code, because we have shown examples..." without actually showing anything. Even in court. Other things. Consultants giving full weight to their claims. Attaching well known important people to impress. But never showing any evidence, except under very controlled circumstances. Lots of red flags and contradictions, but same story repeated ad nauseum. No real business, but stock price inflated based on possible riches. This reminds me of another situation. http://www.sbaer.uca.edu/Research/1999/SRIBR/99sri091.htm Check it out. There are quite a few surprising parallels. And if you don't think that the industries are the same, check this out, towards the end: http://www.pearlltd.com/content/0200-national.html Derek (who notes that the criminals in the above story got very rich, and evaded punishment)
Interview: SCO's Darl McBride and Chris Sontag (CRN) Posted Nov 19, 2003 8:39 UTC (Wed) by pointwood (subscriber, #2814) [Link] As I see it, it's really simple - IBM has invested too much in Linux to let SCO kill Linux.As for this interview, I find it amazing how much FUD McBride can come up with. He almost makes Microsofts FUD look Linux friendly :p
Interview: SCO's Darl McBride and Chris Sontag (CRN) Posted Nov 19, 2003 10:51 UTC (Wed) by frankie (subscriber, #13593) [Link] That's true. SCO is FUDding and this is exactly their goal since thestart of the SCO vs IBM operation. FUD can slow down (and possibly stop) the entering of Linux in the enterprise world and the development and porting of software on Linux. This has been also the result in the mid-80s for the BSD/AT&T battle. The two companies simply canceled any chances for Unix to win in the market of OSes. At the end of the story But now we have MS monopoly as result. IMHO SCO and MS have simply the same goals in mind.
Interview: SCO's Darl McBride and Chris Sontag (CRN) Posted Nov 19, 2003 9:14 UTC (Wed) by climent (subscriber, #7232) [Link] For one thing, if they actually manage to "kill" the GPL, then the code contributed by all the coders around the world belongs to them, so with which right will be the SCO FUDders selling code that does not belong to them?Sound like they will be selling the <put your favourite claimed code by SCO here> alone. The rest of the code can be put together under whichever license they agree and be released as a advance-linux-kernel-1.0-1.i386.deb Mind you...
Interview: SCO's Darl McBride and Chris Sontag (CRN) Posted Nov 19, 2003 11:14 UTC (Wed) by djabsolut (guest, #12799) [Link] In the remote possibility that GPL v2 gets "killed", the most likely outcome is that the "agreement" parts of GPL v2 would be deemed void. This still leaves us with the copyrights of each author who contributed to the Linux kernel: the bits of source code are still the property of their respective owners. With that still in place, SCO will not be able to claim the linux kernel as its own and will not be able to distribute it. Moreover, each copyright owner can always contribute his/her code to Linux-Phoenix, released under GPL v3 or some other SCO-proofed license agreement (possibly involving real paper and signatures).
Interview: SCO's Darl McBride and Chris Sontag (CRN) Posted Nov 19, 2003 18:45 UTC (Wed) by jabster (guest, #16995) [Link] Here's a question for Darryl:You say the GPL is invalid, yet you sell/distribute SAMBA as part of your product. Given that the GPL IS indeed an illegal/invalid license, have you contacted each and every SAMBA developer requesting permission to distribute their source code? If not, will you indemnify your customers if any SAMBA developer (whose code you are selling/using illegally) decides to sue SCO and/or your customers? ----- SCO-Unix without SAMBA? Who do you think is gonna want THAT? --john
Interview: SCO's Darl McBride and Chris Sontag (CRN) Posted Nov 19, 2003 9:32 UTC (Wed) by olleroch (guest, #13670) [Link] You blokes contributed maybe a few lines of code , yet you expect Linux users to cough up big bucks,SCO is nothing but an opportunistic company who try to make money out of nothing , I feel nothing but disgust for Sco . and considering that some of the top bras are highly religious I don know how they can sleep at night. Could anyone imagine a Rotary Club donating something ( SCO =(Caldera Open Linux) for free and than later on extracting a fee for it ? I will never ever nor will my company use any product associated with SCO there are nothing but scum Wally
Interview: SCO's Darl McBride and Chris Sontag (CRN) Posted Nov 19, 2003 10:36 UTC (Wed) by haraldt (guest, #961) [Link] I feel nothing but disgust for Sco . and considering that some of the top bras are highly religious I don know how they can sleep at night. Have to make a correction here. They may claim to be religious, but to others, this holds no more water than the rest of what they're saying.
Interview: SCO's Darl McBride and Chris Sontag (CRN) Posted Nov 19, 2003 10:40 UTC (Wed) by davidl (guest, #12156) [Link] So basically, on behalf of Microsoft, they want to charge license fees to try and stop free distributions of Linux and software in general? Whatever.
Interview: SCO's Darl McBride and Chris Sontag (CRN) Posted Nov 19, 2003 15:38 UTC (Wed) by dbhost (guest, #3461) [Link] "IBM is the master of creating an illusion that they're being attacked by this big brutal bully SCO when they're the ones attacking us."Okay for starters, Darl needs to look back at WHO FILED THE FRIGGIN LAWSUIT! "VARBusiness: Are customers changing their Linux purchasing pattern since SCO sent out warning letters? McBride: A research report came out saying 80 percent of users had not slowed down. Our take on that is 20 percent have. So one out of five. We sent out our letter three to four months ago and in that period, one out of five have changed. We think that's significant." And Darl wonders why Red Hat is suing them? Hello, earth to Darl. PUT THE BONG DOWN! "CRN: So, aren't you crazy to take this on? McBride: This is a David and Goliath battle. The might and sheer size of IBM against the legal stone that we have, and it just so happens we have a very good legal stone and we have a guy named David [Boies] carrying the slingshot. So we like our chances. The legal stone is clearly coming from David..." Okay only severely demented. And if you want to point and David Boies as being some sort of Dream Team legal eagle, how's the whole Microsoft prosecution thing going? How was his success there? Legal stone? Seems to me more like a crack rock. This article was a serious diversion into the delerium that is inside the skulls of Darl McBride and Chris Sonntag. And if these guys ARE Mormon, they should be expelled by the church for their very open and very public sin. There is no repentence for their "bearing false witness". I believe these guys are "socially religious" people. Meaning they express a faith they don't really have in order to fit in with their social circles. And I have been working in the I.T. field for quite a while now, for a large number of companies. Just where are those 2 million SCO servers they brag about? Huh, must be an undernumbered amount of Linux boxes they are trying to lay claim to, or they added about four too many zeroes to the number of SCO Unixware installations. IBM's best bet for success in this case is to keep this litigation as far away from California as they can (9th Circuit Court you know...), and try to pack the jury with Unix / I.T. professionals (Jury of your peers right?). The subject matter at hand is far too complex for a leisure understanding, and requires some pre - existing knowledge. Can IBM get a fair shake in a court trial with the general public? I seriously doubt it. But then again, they do have some of the best legal representation on the planet. Of course if SCO does win (very doubtful) the argument, that the GPL violates copyright law (explain that to me please), then SCO is using copywritten works WITHOUT license from a HUGE variety of sources. I only hope developers that have copyrighted material that SCO is using are waiting in the wings to pounce on SCO should they win that argument. The best thing that could happen right now would be a large scale Legal system DDoS attack on SCO. They want to fight IBM, and Red Hat is suing them for restraint of trade, I think Novell should look long and hard at what they can jab SCO with, as should all OpenSource developers etc... Just make sure the claims are unique enough between cases to avoid class action status, and get after it. Keep them busy, and bleed the funding out of them in legal fees and litigation costs. And while they are at it. Where the heck is the FTC in this matter. Hello guys? Can you say stock manipulation and isider trading? You nailed Martha now go after Darl and Chris would ya?
Interview: SCO's Darl McBride and Chris Sontag (CRN) Posted Nov 19, 2003 23:19 UTC (Wed) by jre (subscriber, #2807) [Link] You were right that the interview, although infuriating, is illuminating as to the "thought processes of SCO's management."Again and again, Darl McBride's words reveal a man who deeply believes that business is a game of intimidation, and that the justice system is just a tool to intimidate: "There are only two industries who use the term 'users,' computers and drugs. Not sure if there's a connection there." "when IBM dragged GPL onto the table, our lawyers started sharpening their steak knives. 'Ok, if that's what you want to talk about , we'll talk about it.'" "The third bucket has to do with the IBM settlement. We filed that at $3 billion. Every day they don't resolve this, the AIX meter is still ticking...." To understand Darl McBride, you need to know that this is a guy who has personally profited from litigation, and has learned well that the legal system can make a fine weapon. To understand how a thug like this could find himself at the helm of a formerly respectable high-tech company, you need to know that SCO/Caldera is controlled by people like Ralph Yarro, who were present the last time Caldera made any money. As it happens, Mr. Yarro accomplished this by exploiting a lawsuit's nuisance value to shake a large firm down for a settlement. The lessons of their experience have not been lost on Darl McBride and Ralph Yarro. To them, the concept of making money by creating value for the customer is alien, incomprehensible. They understand only force and the threat of force. For that reason, no settlement with SCO will ever be acceptable. They need to be defeated utterly. Oh, yeah, and the ground strewn with salt. Don't forget the salt.
Interview: SCO's Darl McBride and Chris Sontag (CRN) Posted Dec 9, 2003 23:31 UTC (Tue) by Scorched_Earth_Tactic (guest, #17703) [Link] With you on that jre, excellent observations. His aggression is very much aided by his use of colloquialisms - when I read his comment about the bar room brawl, I really felt that where he'd feel most at home.Another effect: off-the-cuff ridiculing of alternative approaches, as in his equating a more rational discussion (i.e. listening) to singing "Kumbaya" by the campfire with the Linux Community.
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