SCO News Roundup

• More on GL, in response to SCO's latest stalking attempt: "Where'd they get that?" Part One. SCO claims IBM & PJ are conspiring because PJ allegedly got pre-filing copies of public filings in the case, allegedly from IBM. Which appears to be precisely what SCO's done with its stable of friendly journos, as PJ explains in great depth. Psychiatrists have a term for what Darl & Co. are doing. It's called "projecting", and it's not healthy.
  
  
• The previous piece is the subject of another Slashdot story.
  
  
• Oh, and get a load of the latest GL story: "SCO uses IBM-donated ibiblio servers too!". As PJ notes, this is technically true, but it's misleading and a cheap shot, and she uses it to point out the sheer ridiculousness of the "IBM -> iBiblio -> PJ" claims coming from SCO and its various media shills.
  
  
• sk43999, who discovered up the previous GL item, has also done a great research piece on one of SCO's copyright claims, figuring out exactly where the code came from and who contributed it under the GPL. It doesn't take an MIT rocket scientist to guess who's responsible: Why, yes, it was Caldera itself.
  
  
• A good, thoughtful piece about the SCO vs. PJ situation at BetaNews. Do be sure to go and read this one.
  
  
• SJVN's take on the latest ugliness: "SCO, Pamela Jones, and money".
  
  
• Bruce Perens comments on Dan Lyons' chronic PJ obsession. You can probably skip all the user comments without missing much; he seems to have the misfortune of attracting lots of long-winded, pretentious wannabe-tech-visionary types.
  
  
• Meanwhile, Lyons has been busy over on his blog (see sidebar). More GL bashing, more RMS bashing. The guy has issues. You'd think a senior editor at Forbes would have better things to do with his time than inject himself into the tail end of a frivolous IP lawsuit he barely understands. But he seems to have other ideas. Perhaps I have inflated ideas of what a "senior editor" at Forbes actually does, I dunno. He doesn't exactly strike me as the sort of person who can handle a great deal of responsibility.
  
  
• MOG's got a new piece up, titled "SCO’s Hunt for PJ Enters New Waters" (see G2 News, in the sidebar, if you really must). It's every bit as nasty and meanspirited as you might expect, with MOG fantasizing about a possible arrest if SCO can somehow convince the court that PJ's been "virtually" served already. And she declares PJ's desire for anonymity "pathological". When a stalker calls her (or his) intended victim "pathological" for simply wanting a little anonymity, well, that's just totally creepy.
  
  In an attempt to make this ickiness look like a news story, MOG's spinning it as an opportunity for the courts to crack down on that awful internet anonymity thing once and for all. I think that's what she's trying to get at, anyway.
  
  
• Jonathan_Sizz noticed that in a recent filing in the IBM case, SCO makes some new copyright claims about FreeBSD 6.0. I've begun researching this further, and from what I know so far the claims appear to be completely bogus, as usual. Film at 11.
  
  
• Blog mentions of the SCO vs. PJ controversy at Teleidoscope, Catwalker, ShareMe Technologies, Banana Smoothie, Chris Samuel, and negative.org.ru.
  
  
• Here's what a Shout Postcard message looks like. How it ended up as a blog post is anyone's guess. Maybe he's using Blogger's email-to-blog feature, possibly.
  
  
• A blog post linking to a list of 21 biggest tech flops in history, commenting that s/he is disappointed SCO isn't on the list. My guess is that it's because SCO's a litigation company, not a tech company. When the list of 21 biggest litigation flops in history comes out, I'm guessing SCO might break the top 10, at least.
  
  
• As noted on c.u.s.m., SCO itself hasn't identified any genuine stolen code, but this website has, sort of.
  
  
• Also, it turns out that SCO is having an impact on the hardware side of the industry (well, according to Humorix): "Keyboard Replacements Up 35% Thanks To SCO".
  
  
• xkcd offers yet another candidate for nerdiest cartoon ever
  
  
• Yet another use for iPods: body armor! This is one of those times you absolutely, definitely don't want a Zune, what with that "squirting" feature and all.
  
  Ok, ok, that was probably in poor taste. Sorry.
  
  
• A fun quote from one of the bsd mailing lists:
  

  
  "It is not Unix's job to keep you from shooting yourself in the
  foot. If you should choose to do so, it is Unix's job to deliver
  Mr. Bullet to Mr. Foot in the most efficient way it knows."
  --- Terry Lambert
  

  
  

Labels: linux, open source, sco, tech

By brx0 @ 1:38 PM