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SCO stuffed

By anonimouse (Sat Aug 11, 2007 at 12:59:38 PM EST) (all tags)

Long running fiasco effectively ends.

Novell owning the Copyrights effectively kills SCO v IBM too.

Must find another insanely complex legal case to watch now.

It's nice to see that the American justice system only takes several years to reach the same conclusion everyone else did Back In The Day.

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SCO stuffed | 10 comments (10 topical, 0 hidden) | Trackback

Actually, SCO won by ShadowNode (2.00 / 0) #1 Sat Aug 11, 2007 at 03:34:29 PM EST

The purpose of this whole fiasco wasn't to win out in court. Anyone and everyone could see that wasn't going to happen. The purpose was to hobble, even if just a little, Linux adaptation.

Microsoft got it's moneys worth.

Not sure they did much damage by gpig (4.00 / 1) #2 Sat Aug 11, 2007 at 05:01:00 PM EST

The arguments I saw along these lines were:

Manager: "Hmm, I read that there might be some patent problems with Linux"

Techie: "IBM are on the Linux side, looks like they're committed"

Manager: "Ah, don't worry about it then"
---
(, ,') -- eep
"This option is deprecated, as it is conceptually flawed." -- man psql
[ Parent ]

They did do serious damage for a bit by lm (2.00 / 0) #7 Sun Aug 12, 2007 at 08:56:48 PM EST

I have personal knowledge of at least one Fortune 100 company that stalled porting its flagship products to Linux plans for at least 2 years because of the SCO lawsuit.

But the longer SCO delayed in playing their cards, the more it became apparent that all they had was a busted flush.

There is no more degenerate kind of state than that in which the richest are supposed to be the best.
Cicero, The Republic
[ Parent ]

: I also have knowledge. by Tonatiuh (2.00 / 0) #10 Mon Aug 20, 2007 at 07:46:41 PM EST

We did not care about SCO. But alas, our techies and lawyers are top notch and saw the full thing for what it was. Thousands of Linux deployments since the full fiasco started btw.

[ Parent ]

Not even that by wumpus (2.00 / 0) #3 Sat Aug 11, 2007 at 06:33:43 PM EST

They sold a lot of stock when they had snowed a large portion of Wall Street of the facts. This is just a classic "pump and dump" scheme that uses the media and courts. I don't think there was any way they couldn't get away with that part.

[ Parent ]

Microsoft is bad at this kind of thing by dark nowhere (2.00 / 0) #4 Sat Aug 11, 2007 at 07:42:50 PM EST

When they say "we're going to beat teh google" they don't mean they'll build a better search, or whatever the particular app/market is, they mean they'll beat them for popularity.

Microsoft is in a silly position. It's a huge, rich company that has market dominance on arguably the most important thing in computer tech: the operating system. The problem is that other markets have nothing resembling the same workings with respect to the way they've taken that particular market: one-on-one business.

Apple fans like whatever Apple is doing in terms of OS, Hardware, MP3 player, etc. Microsoft fans just hate Apple's UI more than they hate MS.

To get back to the point, they failed. They caused some "damage" but not enough to leave scar tissue. What they wanted was to change the playing field against Linux in a way that didn't work, and in a way that won't work with this whole Novell scenario. It's because they're very bad at understanding the masses.

I am not your dupe account.
[ Parent ]

So bad at understanding by yicky yacky (4.00 / 1) #5 Sun Aug 12, 2007 at 04:25:50 AM EST

that they've posted record profits for three of the last four years.

I don't think Microsoft has fans, so much as it has millions of people who simply accept its existence as the dominant desktop software architecture. This appears to be the right point for the anecdote about the person who saw KDE running on a PC as a koanic experience — it almost literally froze their mind — Microsoft's OS is surely an integral part of a PC? A Non-Windows desktop doesn't add up, damnit!

Do you see my point? In a world where large swathes of people simply don't ever expect to see a PC without Windows, as such a thing is neither relevant nor possible to their purview, the idea that the product has to be any better than "good enough" is redundant. And, by this point, the OSs are pretty good too; well beyond "good enough"; so people are simply happy with anything that works.

----
Done.
[ Parent ]

: Yes, and I don't disagree by dark nowhere (2.00 / 0) #6 Sun Aug 12, 2007 at 05:00:22 AM EST

but what I mean is they don't make new ground with people very well. The fact that people think computers involve MS inherently is the result of a one-on-one type business deal made way back in the day when Gates was still a college dropout. These people simply aren't making decisions about what software to use, and that is what MS is trying to influence with these legal jokes.
The market they're going after with the attacks against Linux isn't entirely the same market as the one they have a hold on. The people who don't know the difference are generally plain old consumers and not enterprise customers. I'm a Linux fan in many ways, but I think it's foolish to use it on the desktop in any form short of the overhaul BSD got for OS X.
While some of the enterprise customers are traditional and using MS because it's all they care to know, some are not and those are the ones that MS is targeting. The problem with this approach is that just about anyone "brave" enough to use an alternative has an energetic mind capable of seeing the facade for what it is.
Unfortunately the Novell situation hits closer to home: many of these people have bought into Novell for their solutions, while the SCO scenario didn't involve any Linux vendors in a real way. As luck would have it, the Novell situation protects the very people at risk: Novell's customers. The rest will likely receive the support of their vendors, and those without probably know the score anyway: it's all BS, the EFF has proven its capability in court, and Linux developers will jump on the chance to make the whole thing a non-issue by coding around it. Or whatever.

I am not your dupe account.
[ Parent ]
: Microsoft has plenty of fans, even in the IT world by lm (2.00 / 0) #8 Sun Aug 12, 2007 at 09:00:49 PM EST

Of the five companies I've worked for in my ten years of working in the IT industry, one didn't have an IT shop full of MS fanboys.
There is no more degenerate kind of state than that in which the richest are supposed to be the best.
Cicero, The Republic
[ Parent ]

Surprisingly, I find it hard to care by lm (2.00 / 0) #9 Sun Aug 12, 2007 at 09:40:16 PM EST

I followed the case this whole time. Starting a few months ago, I started finding it harder and harder to care anymore.

There is no more degenerate kind of state than that in which the richest are supposed to be the best.
Cicero, The Republic

SCO stuffed | 10 comments (10 topical, 0 hidden) | Trackback


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