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Microsoft And SCO Group: What's So Secret? (TechWeb)

TechWeb calls on Microsoft to explain its dealings with SCO. "The mystery behind Microsoft's arrangement with SCO could be cleared up, and maybe some of the speculation put to rest, if Microsoft would disclose more details about how it plans to use SCO's technology. But it won't. I've asked for that information four times in the past 12 months, but Microsoft will only discuss its plans in the broadest terms, and even then unconvincingly."
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Microsoft And SCO Group: What's So Secret? (TechWeb)

Posted Mar 9, 2004 15:08 UTC (Tue) by clugstj (subscriber, #4020) [Link]

OK, I feel a need to respond to this article, but LWN's instructions are
to be "polite and respectful", that's going to be difficult. Has this guy
actually read the leaked e-mail? Much of it can't be "misinterpreted" (if
you bother to read it.) He is such the Microsoft shill.

Microsoft And SCO Group: What's So Secret? (TechWeb)

Posted Mar 9, 2004 15:57 UTC (Tue) by mossc (guest, #19551) [Link]

Actually reading the article it doesn't appear slanted towards MS.
Looks like good reporting, he notes unanswered questions and lets the reader draw their own conclusions.

Chuck

Microsoft And SCO Group: What's So Secret? (TechWeb)

Posted Mar 9, 2004 18:53 UTC (Tue) by davidw (subscriber, #947) [Link]

Looked like a good article to me too. He's saying that Microsoft ought to clarify what is really going on. What's not to agree with?

Microsoft And SCO Group: What's So Secret? (TechWeb)

Posted Mar 9, 2004 21:53 UTC (Tue) by clugstj (subscriber, #4020) [Link]

Imagine you don't know much about this situation and you read this
article, what would your impression be?

From the article:

"The conspiracy theory gained what seemed like a shred of evidence when
Eric Raymond, the outspoken open-source advocate who sometimes uses satire
to make his points, got his hands on a leaked E-mail message that,
interpreted a certain way, implicates Microsoft in a money-making scheme
for SCO. It seems to imply--and I say "seems" because the E-mail message
in question is anything but clear and comprehensive--that Microsoft had a
role last October in engineering a $50 million investment in SCO that was
led by BayStar Capital. SCO, in fact, acknowledged the authenticity of the
message, but it described the contents as "a misunderstanding" by its
author, an outside consultant. Microsoft, meanwhile, put out a statement
describing Raymond's analysis as "inaccurate" and denying any ties to
BayStar."

1) He takes great pains to discredit the "conspiracy theory". Note the
phrases "gained what seemed like a shred of evidence", "interpreted a
certain way", "the E-mail message in question is anything but clear".

2) He attempts to convince the audience of Eric Raymond's bias.
"Outspoken open-source advocate who sometimes uses satire to make his
points". The e-mail was authenticated by SCO, what does Eric's bias have
to do with an authentic e-mail? The truth of a statement is not
determined by who said it.

3) He never mentions any specifics from the e-mail, just does what he can
to dismiss it.

Microsoft And SCO Group: What's So Secret? (TechWeb)

Posted Mar 9, 2004 16:23 UTC (Tue) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link]

Gee... This SCO + M$ business was always more or less evident (at least to me)... and ITS NOTHING BUT DIVERSION...

When Linux/FOSS get to get in the technological lead with respect to the Desktop, with projects like:

http://tech9.net/rml/talks/rml_fosdem_2004.sxi
http://lwn.net/Articles/66937/

(qtGTK project also cames to mind as the possible start of a commom "meta-tollkit")

...So... with the FSG the promoter of LSB, getting ISO credibility
(http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/f_headline.cgi?bw.012704/240275261), "WE" cant pass without claiming the promotion of Freedesdtop.org stuff to be included to LSB as (the bigining) of a ISO Desktop Standard for Open Source.

...then we all could listen to the strange grunts coming from the sides of redmond... and you know what ?, without caring to call them lies anymore... even less about the (soon to be) late SCOx, or any future one.

Microsoft And SCO Group: What's So Secret? (TechWeb)

Posted Mar 9, 2004 17:56 UTC (Tue) by gomadtroll (guest, #11239) [Link]

MS does have a cd of 'Unix services for Windows' out. I am not sure if anything on it could not be provided by any of the Free BSD's, avoiding the licensing fees of SCO.

greg

Microsoft And SCO Group: What's So Secret? (TechWeb)

Posted Mar 9, 2004 19:04 UTC (Tue) by elanthis (guest, #6227) [Link]

This product has been around a long time before any recent SCO/Microsoft deals. The product was developed by another company originally. It's possible that company licensed SCO (Caldera, Novell, whoever) technology, in which case it may be *more* expensive to replace it with Free components (programmer and QA time vs licensing fees).

Microsoft And SCO Group: What's So Secret? (TechWeb)

Posted Mar 10, 2004 11:33 UTC (Wed) by blane (guest, #16587) [Link]

I've not seen anyone else mention this, but SFU (Services For Unix - Microsoft's Unix tech on Windows) contains a fair number of GNU utilities (including gcc etc). Perhaps the SCO licenses Microsoft have is to replace GNU utilities with SCO-licensed equivalents and thereby avoid having to use and distribute "enemy" code.

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