The Most Hated Company In Tech (Business Week) [LWN.net]

Business Week has a lengthy article on the SCO case. "But who stands to gain the most from an SCO win? Microsoft. Linux is the primary force standing between Microsoft and domination of the computer world. The software giant is happily fanning customers' fears with an anti-Linux campaign while pumping money into SCO." (See also this interview with Linus Torvalds that goes along with the article.)

The Most Hated Company In Tech (Business Week)

Posted Jan 26, 2004 16:56 UTC (Mon) by smoogen (subscriber, #97) [Link] (3 responses)

"One was so unnerving that SCO's security had a sharpshooter in the room when McBride spoke at a tech conference in Las Vegas in December. "

Part of me wonders if he was paid by the board to shoot McBride if he talked ' on the many things we know' that would end up being used against them in court. In all actuallity, McBride strikes me as the type to say 'It would be great press to say we had to have a sharpshooter to guard me against those rapid radicals.'

The Most Hated Company In Tech (Business Week)

Posted Jan 27, 2004 3:07 UTC (Tue) by patriot (guest, #14594) [Link]

The mormons are trying to reverse some of their gun laws to keep guns out of church in Utah... i'm not kidding.

The Most Hated Company In Tech (Business Week)

Posted Jan 27, 2004 10:15 UTC (Tue) by ekj (guest, #1524) [Link] (1 responses)

It's SCO. The only safe assumption to make is that everything they say is unrelated to the real world.

That being said, it's a pretty dumb statement. Which is also nothing new from SCO.

Think about it. How exactly is a "sharp-shooter" going to improve the security of a speaker in a public conference with a large audience ? If someone from the audience fires at Darl, is he going to pull out his sniper-rifle and fire into the panicking crowds, magically hitting the one perpetrator while avoiding all the innocents surrounding him ?

There are situations where attack can provide a good defence. This ain't one of them.

The Most Hated Company In Tech (Business Week)

Posted Jan 27, 2004 19:30 UTC (Tue) by fLameDogg (guest, #11305) [Link]

Well said. Maybe the sharpshooter was just there to pick off any penguins who happened along.

The Most Hated Company In Tech (Business Week)

Posted Jan 26, 2004 18:15 UTC (Mon) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link]

" But who stands to gain the most from an SCO win? Microsoft... The software giant is happily fanning customers' fears with an anti-Linux campaign while pumping money into SCO "

That is why, a strong and high tech move into the Desktop and Human Interface tech space is clearly imperative... (SGI has showned the way:- http://lwn.net/Articles/66937/ )

... or Microsoft will get away with it once more, and there would be no Anti-trust legal action that could stop them from locking everybody Desktops behind key encripted PCs (NGSBC/Paladium), where the only certified OS is their own's,... coincidently!...

the claims

Posted Jan 26, 2004 19:00 UTC (Mon) by stevenj (guest, #421) [Link] (1 responses)

The independent claims (the broadest claims) are as follows. In order to invalidate a claim, you need to find prior art that satisfies every stipulation of that claim. (The "publication date" on the patent is listed as 1/2/2004, but I don't know what the priority date is, i.e. the date prior art has to come before...anyone?)

A computer-readable medium having computer-executable components, comprising:
- a first component for reading a word-processor document stored as a single XML file;
- a second component that utilizes an XSD for interpreting the word-processor document, and
- a third component for performing an action on the word-processor document.
A method for handling a word-processing document, comprising:
- parsing the document, wherein the document is contained within a single XML file and includes all of the instructions necessary to display the document according to how a word-processor would display the document;
- and interpreting the document according to an XSD.
A system for creating, interpreting, and modifying a word-processor document stored as as single WPML file, comprising:
- a WPML file;
- a validation engine configured to validate the WPML file; and
- a word processor configured to read a WPML file created in accordance with a schema.
A computer-readable medium having a schema encoded thereon, for a word-processor markup language, the schema comprising:
- a properties element;
- a styles element;
- a body element, wherein the body element comprises:
  - a paragraph element;
  - a text run element including text that is the text content of a word-processor document and is defined by a single tag; and
  - a table element.

What was the first date OpenOffice.org described its XML usage? Does it satisfy the other elements of the claims, e.g. XSD usage?

the claims

Posted Jan 26, 2004 19:01 UTC (Mon) by stevenj (guest, #421) [Link]

whoops, sorry, posted to wrong article somehow

The Most Hated Company In Tech (Business Week)

Posted Jan 27, 2004 2:13 UTC (Tue) by mormop (guest, #13775) [Link]

Most entertaining comment:

Robert Enderle, principle of industry consultant the Enderle Group, examined about 100
lines of code and says some similarities were "remarkable." He believes SCO's claims
should be taken seriously but cautions: "Whether they can defend ownership of the code
is still to be determined."

And I'm ssssoooooooooo surprised by this

The Most Hated Company In Tech (Business Week)

Posted Jan 27, 2004 20:31 UTC (Tue) by josh_stern (guest, #4868) [Link]

Part of what people hate about SCO of course is that they
have launched a deliberate and successful campaign to deceive
the press and the investing public. The linked article is
a great example of this. I am sure the reporter thought he
did a reasonable job investigating the story, but he still
wound up being completely confused about the fact that
the *only* legal maneuver launched by SCO to date, it's
lawsuit against IBM, does not rest on copyright claims.
So he perpetuates the nonsense by telling his readers that
SCO is suing IBM for umpteen billion because they put
copyrighted SCO code in Linux and that if SCO wins, every
Linux user will be liable for a $699 license. The fact
that he researched the story and got it completely wrong
is good evidence about the magnitude and quality of SCO's
deception.