The Linux Killer (Wired) [LWN.net]

Wired is running a long article about SCO with an interesting emphasis on the history of the association between Darl McBride and Mike Anderer (who is the person who brokered the Microsoft license payments and BayStar investment). "At Silicon Stemcell, McBride and Anderer polished the strategy they'd repeat at SCO: turning intellectual property into a revenue stream. Anderer, McBride, and four managers who had served with them at Ikon's technology services division pooled their ideas for products, then attempted to patent them. It was 1999, and they were in the business vanguard, devising a new way to create wealth. Something as intangible as a claim to owning an idea, they realized, could be used to extract money from innovators in related fields. Even if Silicon Stemcell's patents weren't finalized, it might still be cheaper for startups to pay licensing fees to Anderer's group than to fight protracted legal battles. Silicon Stemcell wouldn't even have to create businesses, it could thrive just by collecting these fees."

Parasites

Posted Jun 23, 2004 14:36 UTC (Wed) by freeio (guest, #9622) [Link]

What these fine folks are doing is a parasitic action - i.e. it extracts blood (money in this case) and provides no legitimate benefit in return. In effect, they are corporate leeches, who thrive by bleeding legitimate businesses.

It defies any logic that they would actually believe in the rightness of their cause, beyond the perceived rightness of accumulating wealth by any means. If men are judged by their net worth, rather than by their legitimate contibutons to the community as a whole, then this parasitism arises as a short-cut to the top. The same folks who love Bill Gates simply because he is fabulously wealthy will also love these folks if they succeed, regardless of whom they trample on the way up. They exemplify the statement that the ends justify the means.

For those of us who choose to live our lives apart from this type of avarice, the spectacle is ugly indeed. They don't care what we think, and they never will. Whatever their professed beliefs, their actions betray a belief in money as their only true god, and as an accurate measure of their true worth.

How pathetic.

Buying SCO

Posted Jun 23, 2004 15:54 UTC (Wed) by southey (guest, #9466) [Link] (4 responses)

"[Anderer] expresses surprise that IBM didn't simply purchase SCO and donate the Unix code to the public domain; it would've been much cheaper than the current legal fracas."

Gee, does SCO actually own that Unix code? If Novell wins then it is a big no, if SCO wins then they still have to prove that SCO Unix code is in Linux and something that they have yet to do. Just more evidence that this suit was to get SCO brought out by someone.

Buying SCO

Posted Jun 23, 2004 16:25 UTC (Wed) by seyman (subscriber, #1172) [Link] (3 responses)

Actually, I have issues with the quote from the article.
If IBM had brought SCO (which I'm convinced was McBride & co's goal all along), they would have exposed themselves to a whole bunch of lawsuits, all with charges as meaningless as this one.
By fighting it out in court, IBM is making an exemple out of SCO, and they're going to get everything SCO owns with their counter-suits.
As an added bonus, the lawsuit ensures that Darl will never find a job in IT after this is all over, making the world a better place in the process.

Buying SCO

Posted Jun 24, 2004 5:29 UTC (Thu) by simon_kitching (guest, #4874) [Link] (2 responses)

It also seems likely to me that McBride expected IBM to buy SCO. However in the end I think this would indeed have been smarter for IBM than this protracted fight. The thing is that SCO does at least have a case that appears feasabile at first look; there aren't that many companies which can say the same.

I think maybe the reason IBM didn't pay up is that it was aware many open/free software developers are very serious (maybe even rabidly so) about principles and ethics and it didn't want to offend them by giving in.

And in the end, provided SCO go down convincingly (rather than declare bankruptcy and leave the court cases unsettled), the publicity for open source may actually outweigh the damage done during the case..

Buying SCO

Posted Jun 24, 2004 12:00 UTC (Thu) by copsewood (subscriber, #199) [Link] (1 responses)

>And in the end, provided SCO go down convincingly (rather than declare
>bankruptcy and leave the court cases unsettled), the publicity for open
>source may actually outweigh the damage done during the case.

Indeed. But I think the real reason which this last paragraph implies, is that by crushing SCO and bankrupting its directors IBM will greatly discourage expensive nuisance lawsuits like this in future. If you pay danegeld to send parasitic pillagers away, you will end up having to pay more when they come back.

Buying SCO

Posted Jun 24, 2004 22:44 UTC (Thu) by simon_kitching (guest, #4874) [Link]

I still disagree.

The main point of my original comment was that there are *very few* (if any) companies other than SCO who can put forward a copyright claim over significant portions of linux. So it may have been more sensible to just buy them. [personally, I'm happy to see Darl get squished, but I'm not paying IBM's legal fees, nor losing software sales over it]

Your analogy re pillagers doesn't work because there are lots of pillagers, and they can return multiple times. There aren't multiple companies which own copyrights over Unix [just one, though it's not clear who the one might be]. Nor can Darl return multiple times to the trough if SCO is bought.

The first attempt to apply a weak & stupid patent claim over linux, though, should *definitely* be crushed publicly, and with extreme legal violence (seeking legal fees, prosecuting for nuisance lawsuit, etc), because there *is* a large pool of vultures who will arrive for the feast if the first one succeeds.

Hmm..it's all moot anyway. IBM *didn't* buy SCO, and they are unlikely to do so now.

NotWired

Posted Jun 24, 2004 3:31 UTC (Thu) by mbp (subscriber, #2737) [Link]

Is it just me, or has Wired gone a long way downhill over the last five or so years? Back in the 90s it was sometimes interesting; now they seem to just reprint gushy press releases.