Wednesday, November 15, 2006
11/17 SNR
First off, let me apologize for not posting anything since Tuesday. SNR is a spare-time project for me, and I haven't had much spare time this week. That's one downside to the fact that nobody pays me to do this. On the bright side, well, I can't truthfully argue that being unpaid means I'm objective, because it should be obvious I'm rather biased about the whole SCO situation. But at least I can say all my biases are my own. I guess that counts for something, probably.
Anyway, here's today's crop:
Anyway, here's today's crop:
- The bigwigs at SCO just got a bunch more stock options. Options granted 11/13/06, apparently vesting in full a year from now. Nice deal, if you can get it. Assuming the options aren't deep underwater by then, I mean. Oh, and assuming the company even exists a year from now.
- Also on Edgar, a new 8K. Not only are there new stock option grants, there's a new employee bonus program, in the unlikely event that the company meets its objectives in FY '07. Supposing the company even exists at the end of FY '07, that is. The usual suspects at the top stand to get big bucks, hypothetically speaking.
- Wonder of wonders, here's an actual article about SCO's Me Inc -- although it begins and ends by talking about all the ongoing litigation. The SCO guy sounds a bit defensive as he tries to explain that SCO does do some other stuff in addition to suing its customers, for real, honest.
- A new Bob Mims piece chatting with IBM's VP for Open Source. SCO gets a quick mention.
- Another shoe drops in the MS-Novell tieup: Now Ballmer's spreading IP FUD about Linux.
- A piece at ZDNet titled "SCO Mk. 2" about Ballmer's blathering, quoting him and comparing the words with things Darl said back in 2003. If your're reading this, Mr. Ballmer, I don't think the Darl McBride comparison is intended as a compliment.
- See also this Techworld rant comparing MS with SCO.
- A piece wondering if the MS-Novell deal might be a Good Thing. Although note that this piece was from before Ballmer's latest rant.
- The New York Times just realized that Rob Enderle is a paided shill. And by "realized" I mean "had it pointed out to them by an astute reader". Still, I can't fault the NYT too much for this; it's rare for a single day to pass without him being quoted in the tech trade press. The NYT must've figured he was a respected, objective observer, without taking into account the notoriously lax ethical standards in tech journalism. The trade press has known for years about Enderle's many conflicts of interest, and they just treat it as an open secret and never breathe a word about it.
- A piece with a negative take on Sun GPL'ing Java.
- An interesting piece analyzing a spam botnet connected with, among other things, pump-n-dump stock scams.
- From /., A piece on the ongoing IT disaster at UK's National Health Service. I got to the part about 900,000 Windows boxes and gasped aloud. Yikes.
- Also in the UK, the city of Birmingham recently botched a Linux pilot program. Also see this thread on Y! about it.
- Zune: incompatible with Vista!
- That's ok though. At least half of European businesses have no immediate plans to upgrade to Vista anyway.
- Still, MS wants you to know that "Longhorn", the next server release of Windows, is going to be uber-kewl. And why wouldn't you believe 'em?
- As one example of why technology from MS is so fantabulous, here's an amusing piece about how SOAP works.
- The European wing of the FSF has a new legal unit, the "Freedom Task Force". This may be a good idea, but did they really need to let Tom Clancy name the thing? Sheesh.
- More trouble with the Eclipse 500 jet, if you're paying attention to the Iacobucci/DayJet thing.
- In other SCO BOD member news, J. Kent Millington is now on the board of some sort of group for Utah entrepreneurs. This gets a mention at Diploma Mill News, due to his "degree" from "California Coastal University". I seem to recall we first noticed this tidbit on the Y! board months and months ago. The Diploma Mill News site is fascinating, and more than a little frightening.
- J. Kent gets a mention in this piece about adjusting to life overseas. This experience may come in handy when it's time for Darl, Ralphie, and friends to all flee the country.
- Recently on GL: SCO changes its mind on case scheduling yet again.
- From Ars, via IV, BestBuy's sneaky business abusing the DMCA to cripple online comparison shopping wrt "Black Friday".
By brx0 @ 6:22 PM 
