SCO News Roundup

• More Me Inc. PR from India, and a trade press mention of same. Seems they'd like to custom-build a Me Inc. "solution" for your small or medium business. While I'd give the SCO India guys some credit for apparently thinking and acting as if they worked for a real company (the poor saps), I question their business model. The only proven way to make money in mobile apps is to get mobile phone carriers to preinstall them, since it's quite rare for users to install 3rd party software on phones or PDAs. SCO doesn't seem to have had any takers for its apps among mobile carriers, though, so I suppose this is their plan B. Just not a very promising plan B.
  
  It's kind of a shame, in a way. The suite of Me Inc. apps might actually be useful for some people. I've never tried 'em, myself, so I don't actually know for sure, but in a spirit of fairness let's suppose that might be the case. It's possible the only reason Me Inc. hasn't seen wider acceptance is due to being chained to the sinking bulk of SCO. I suppose there's no way to know for sure, at least for now. If SCO goes bankrupt, and the BK trustee finds a nice new home for Me Inc., we'll learn whether the technology sinks or swims on its own merits.
  
  
• A thread on linux.samba, in which it appears SCO's losing another customer.
  
  
• Our old buddy Lyons emits some new FUD about Dell, Linux, and the M$-Novell thing. Apparently calling open source users commies and terrorists and such wasn't working, so the pro-SCO camp is kicking the rhetoric up another notch:
  

  
  Recently, Linux supporters swarmed Dell after the company put up a Web site called IdeaStorm asking for suggestions. Like teenage girls voting for Sanjaya on American Idol, thousands of Linux fans wrote to Dell and “voted” for PCs loaded with Linux, making this the No. 1 request on IdeaStorm.
  

  
  
  You know, because accusing someone of being female is a huuuuge insult, apparently. Well, it was back in third grade anyway, and some people just stop maturing at that point. So stop using Linux, or Lyons will put a toad in your hair and make you scream.
  
  
• Speaking of toads, here's a truly fascinating interview [29mb MP3] with the Chief Scientist at Solera.
  
  
• And while we're checking in with the usual suspects, here's the latest from "Paul Murphy", "Fear and loathing in the Internet echo chamber". The echo chamber in question today is the pro-M$ blogosphere, and he attempts to draw an analogy with the political blogosphere. He even takes a stab at a bit of introspection:
  

  
  I find it hard, for example, to read many of the blogs and comments dedicated to Windows because so much of it strikes me as every bit as dishonest, technologically illiterate, and short sightedly partisan as the dailykos.
  
  And what's worse: I'll bet the Windows people have pretty much the same reaction to this blog - in other words, like Chait, I'm contributing to the same phenomenon I'm complaining about.
  
  But there is a difference: I'd like to know how to break out of the trap: how to transcend the echo chamber and get into a real conversation with the other guy - and that's something neither the dailykos nor the NRO have the slightest interest in doing.
  

  
  
  To be fair, it's true that the tech media and tech blogs are quite prone to the echo chamber effect. There's a pro-M$ echo chamber, and a pro-Linux/open source echo chamber, and a pro-Mac echo chamber. There's even a pro-SCO echo chamber, albeit a rather small one, and I've long considered "Murphy" to be part of it. So his carping about the M$ echo chamber is sort of like the crackpot calling the kettle black.
  
  
• Oh, and to round out the cast of characters today, a piece about the Dell+Ubuntu thing, with FUD from Enderle and DiDio. So it's sort of a wingnut twofer, if you're into that sort of thing.
  
  
• Utah's among a short list of states now cracking down on the sale of used CDs. No, really. They seriously are.
  
  
• Slashdot story about the used CD crackdown. One commenter mentions SCO, "Yarro's Law", and CP80, due to the whole Utah connection. In fairness, Utah isn't the only state doing this. Florida, nice, stable, non-nutty, non-dangling-chad Florida, is the other one. So far.
  
  
• Don Flexner, the F in BS&F, has been honored by Inside Counsel Magazine, whoever they are. They call list him among "The best lawyers to call in a worst-case scenario". Worst-case scenarios, eh? This kind of leads me to expect yet another pro hac vice request in the near future, if SCO can afford it.
  
  
• Survey: Only 23% of adults are down with the Web 2.0 thang. If you're reading this, you probably qualify as an "omnivore".
  
  
• NYT on the next must-have geek gadget: The 3d printer! Awesome.
  
  

Labels: linux, open source, sco, tech

By brx0 @ 1:35 PM