SCO News Roundup

The SCO news drought continues, although tomorrow promises to be a big day in Somewhat Related News.

• First, the finalized GPL v3 will be unveiled tomorrow. GL has a story about the big event. In it, PJ mentions she was part of the GPL v3 process, which I'm not sure I was aware of before. Here's an InternetNews piece about the new license. The author says he was convinced there'd be no new GPL version until the SCO cases were resolved, due to SCO's claim the GPL was unconstitutional.
  
  
• Oh, and the iPhone comes out tomorrow, too. Here's David Pogue's review, if you haven't seen it already. (Interesting side note: The review was for the New York Times, one of those registration-required news sites. But most of the NYT's interesting articles also appear on the International Herald Tribune's site, which is a wholly-owned NYT subsidiary these days, and the IHT's site doesn't ask you to register. Something to file for future reference, or whatever.)
  
  
• Seems people are already lining up to buy an iPhone. Which is more than a little silly, of course. But refresh my memory, does anyone remember people lining up to get a copy of Vista? Or a Zune? Or any SCO product in all of history?
  
  
• Regarding SCO's gigantic Madhya Pradesh announcement a few days ago, MSN Money asserts that it caused the latest wobble in SCO's stock. You could blame that on the obvious M$ connection, but TheStreet drew the same conclusion. This is a great example of the eternal post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy. The stock's been rattling around like this, back and forth, ever since the still-unexplained pump back over a dollar, but now there's news of a sort, so suddenly they play connect the dots. They probably have unpaid interns writing these things or something. At least you'd hope nobody got paid to write that silliness.
  
  
• Over on IV, hashkekan is busy researching the Madhya Pradesh news. The story so far: [Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4].
  
  
• During the talk around the new announcement, SCO's long-promised DT4 Daytimer app has come up repeatedly. BritTim has a good roundup of SCO's DT4 PR here. Funny how that expected ship date just gets later and later all the time...
  
  
• Also on IV, Al P. points us at a great ruling in an unrelated case, in which the parties were involved in endless discovery disputes (sound familiar?) The judge finally got sick of it all and ripped them new ones (sound unfamiliar?)
  
  
• The new Top500 supercomputing list is out, and IBM dominates the list again. Many of the top machines are Linux clusters, so it's kind of fun to read down the list and tally up all the SCOSource revenue SCO isn't getting.
  
  
• Elsewhere in BS&F Land, here's the latest on the AIG / Greenberg case (they're countersuing now), and the Michael Moore / Cuba situation (they're making loud noises trying to ward off the Feds).
  
  They're also involved in the Amaranth Advisors fiasco, although oddly not on behalf of the bad guys for once. And a BS&F guy speaks up about backdated stock options although it looks like he's just speaking in a pundit capacity, not on behalf of a client, at least not yet.
  
  Less interestingly, they're involved in a private equity deal to buy Water Pik.
  
  
• And here's the latest reorg at Baystar / LRG, for whatever it's worth.
  
  
• Here's a piece about the Feds' recent takedown of a few big bot herders. I mention this because the guy from UnSpam is quoted briefly. FWIW.
  
  
• Now here's a bit of fun irony. Brent Hatch recently accepted an award from the Utah branch of the American Heart Association. Ok, technically he accepted on behalf of his parents, Senator & Mrs. Hatch. Still, seeing his name and the word "heart" in the same sentence is good for a brief snicker or two.
  
  
• I don't remember where I saw the link to this first (the boards, probably), and it's not exactly on-topic here, but check out this embroidered plush Nintendo NES. Damn, I wish I had that kind of free time...
  
  
• In a new nightmare for SCO and M$, researchers have discovered fossils of a huge prehistoric penguin. I've said this before elsewhere, but I think "Icadyptes" would be a great name for a new distro. Not that the world needs yet another new distro, but if there has to be one more, this would be a good name for it.
  
  

Labels: linux, open source, sco, tech

As I suspected, nothing major happened in my absence. So at least it'll be fairly simple to get caught up, I suppose.

• Just today, SCO announced what on the surface looks like a huge Me Inc. deal with the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. There's always less than meets the eye with SCO PR, and a few paragraphs into the piece you finally see the key phrase "pilot project".
  
  
• Another of those rare beasts, PR that mentions SCO. Discusses a healthcare company choosing Ericom's web-based terminal emulation software. I suppose this is what you do when you rely on legacy green-screen apps on your SCO box. You can be pretty sure these apps won't ever be updated with a modern UI (if the vendors even still exist), and you almost certainly don't have the source to do the job yourself, either.
  
  
• Mandriva isn't joining the M$ patent parade. This may have something to do with being based outside the US with our goofy patent laws.
  
  
• I saw the headline "U.S. Public Wi-Fi Networks Suffer Political, Technical Setbacks" and figured it might at least mention the CP80 jihad, but no.
  
  
• Linux PCs from Venezuela? It's true. Whatever you think about Mr. Chavez (a topic which would be OT here anyway), this looks like an interesting initiative.
  
  
• Linux in space? Also true, in 2009. Here's NASA's site about the Space Technology 8 mission, if you're interested.
  
  

Labels: linux, open source, sco, tech

I'll be out of Series Of Tubes range for a few days, taking a mini-vacation from all and sundry. I'm very much aware that SCO is an evil that does not sleep, but it's been a while since anything really momentous has happened on the SCO front. Odds are things will be exactly as they are now when I get back. And if not, hey, that's great (probably). Last time I was out of town, I said something to the effect that my inability to cover SCO would somehow make the company implode. Well, no such luck, so I'm not going to make a similar prediction this time. So: Same bad time, same bad station, Friday, or Saturday at the latest, unless it ends up being Sunday. So here's one vote for holding the SCOpocalypse no earlier than next Monday, but as soon as possible after that.

Until I get back, I've got a couple of pics of yesterday's mini-roadtrip here, in the unlikely event that you're interested.

Labels: linux, open source, sco, tech

So here's what's happened in the last few days in the ongoing SCOap opera. What didn't happen, once again, is a ruling on any of the pending PSJ's in the Novell & IBM cases. Non-rulings

• The latest 10-Q is out. At one point SCO asserts they have enough cash on hand to stay in business through Halloween. I wouldn't necessarily bet on them going out of business the next day, but it would be appropriate, somehow.
  
  
• it's official, SCO's on the Russell Microcap deletions list. I've stopped trying to predict how SCO stock responds to news, since it just doesn't follow a logical pattern of any kind. Which is fine with me really; I don't have any money riding on it, and it's more of a fun spectator sport this way.
  
  
• SCO and BS&F have at least temporarily abandoned their get-PJ strategy for now , since the deposition deadline passed with no deposition taken. I don't think the matter's really over, given Darl's unhealthy obsession with PJ, and SCO's, um, relaxed attitude towards other court-imposed deadlines.
  
  
• However that turns out in the end, the fact they tried in the first place will be remembered for a long time. In the last post I mentioned the new book praising internet journalism, written by a guy at BS&F. I haven't read the book, but I gather it argues that it's fabulous when people report on current events on the net. Well, unless they criticize one of your clients, in which case they must be silenced by any means necessary. That struck me as a tad hypocritical, and I'm not alone, if the book's Amazon reviews are any indication.
  
  They can praise the first amendment all they want, but talk is cheap, even at $26.00 $17.16. Have grandmas stopped telling kids that actions speak louder than words, or what?
  
  
• On GL, the Novell hearing transcripts from a couple weeks ago.
  
  
• Linspire jumped on the M$ patent bandwagon. Looks like all the also-ran commercial distros are signing up, probably hoping to achieve what they couldn't in the marketplace.
  
  
• CP80 editing its own Wikipedia article. It's surprising what people think they can get away with sometimes.
  
  
• SCO's one of several firms involved in a weird trademark lawsuit by one Wayne Grey. Sk43999 has more on Mr. Grey's trademark shenanigans here. I wouldn't go so far as to actually root for SCO in this case, but it's kind of funny to see them getting a taste of their own medicine for once.
  
  It's a curious thing about the tech industry. You often see the industry described as a "food chain", and I'm sure I've used that metaphor here on occasion. But it's an unusual food chain in that it has no apparent lowest rung. As soon as you think you've found the bottom, another rung soon appears, even further down in the murk and slime.
  
  
• Meanwhile, Nintendo's attracted a patent troll.
  
  
• Trademarks aren't always a bad thing. Sometimes trademark law can be a great tool to keep shoddy or unsafe counterfeit goods off the market. Here's a current case where a number of dollar stores in the Eastern US were found to be selling fake Colgate toothpaste from China. Turns out the stuff contains diethylene glycol, a component in antifreeze. Yow.
  
  
• Speaking of China, the 10-Q had a bit about SCO's mysterious Chinese subsidiary.
  
  
• Jonathan Schwartz's open letter to Linus. FWIW.
  
  
• Microsoft's latest idea: beating spammers... with kittens! Ok, sure, it's not an original idea, but that's M$ for ya. Still, kittens!
  

Labels: linux, open source, sco, tech

• The recent bubble in SCO's stock means they're off delisting watch. For all the good that's going to do 'em. Coverage at InternetNews, Earthtimes, TechRockies & RTTNews
  
  
• SCO's still trying the ol' sandbag trick in the Novell case, and Novell's fighting back. You might just consider this gross misconduct born of desperation, but SCO signaled from the very beginning that they were going to try to withhold evidence. Not real smart to cue people in advance that you're going to try a stunt like this.
  
  The fundamental problem here is that there are no serious penalties for gaming the system, nothing sufficient to deter this kind of behavior. If your courts are full of people who are incapable of feeling embarrassed over their own behavior, your only alternative is strict sanctions, rigorously enforced. By rule, and by tradition, the courts just don't do that in this country. At least not yet.
  
  
• A mildly belated piece on SCO's Q2 numbers from IT Jungle
  
  
• A piece on the USDOJ siding with M$ in its current fight with Google.
  
  
• Another ugly example of telco astroturfing.
  
  
• A note of skepticism about the recently announced "WiTricity" thing.
  
  
• A review of Parallels 3.0 on OS X, in case you're interested.
  
  
• A controversy over the patenting of "synthetic life". The patent angle actually worries me more than the "synthetic life" thing. Does that make me a geek?
  
  
• Another piece on the Julie Amero circus, blaming the whole episode on Windows.
  
  
• Slashdot on patenting security patches for other companies' products. a good way to win very few friends indeed in the IT industry.
  
  It's getting harder every day to pick out a single poster child for patent reform. there's just so many volunteers.
  
  
• A new controversy over whether Vista really supports "Turbo Memory" or not. Sony says it doesn't, which is why they aren't shipping
  
  
• A sort of IP issue from space, regarding the use of raw Cassini images of Saturn by "amateurs". A whole community's grown up around looking at raw NASA images as they come in, speculating about them, and sometimes doing a bit of homegrown image processing. Mission scientists are used to having dibs on raw data, and aren't too keen on getting scooped by outsiders, so there's a bit of tension going on right now.
  
  
• Slashdot on the recent RIAA raid here in Oregon. The local TV news coverage showed a number of people going around in gear that looked just like regular SWAT team gear, but the lettering on the back said "RIAA" instead of "FBI" or "DEA". It's like they fancy themselves an arm of the government now. Or more to the point, they fancy that the government is one of their arms now.
  
  

Labels: linux, open source, sco, tech

Sorry about the lack of posts lately. I've been a bit busy this week. Fortunately(?) nothing truly major has happened lately, so I can still at least try to get caught up. Here's what we've seen over the last couple of days:

• Coverage of SCO's numbers, mostly quick blurbs all to the effect that "Q2 loss narrows".
  CBR Online
  Forbes
  SmallCapInvestor.com
  TradingMarkets.com
  RTTNews
  
  
• Another take on the numbers: "SCOSource dries up". Which is true, there was zero SCOSource revenue in Q2. But that was already a tiny number even before now.
  
  
• Stories about SCO's dreams of beeeeelions, from InternetNews & ITNews Australia. Darl's comments about the money owed to SCO being a "ridiculously big number" are getting a lot of play. The guy's remarkably quotable, in an "open mouth, insert additional foot" sort of way.
  
  
• Kieran O'Shaughnessy, SCO's man in Australia, has jumped ship, going to Sage Software. Oh, how we'll miss his colorful antipodean metaphors. I still don't understand that bit about "we have broken our duck".
  
  He's also the guy who once said Linux didn't exist. If he still thinks that, he's going to be in for a shock at his new employer. Yep, at least some of their products run on Linux.
  
  
• GL has eyewitness reports from Monday's SCO v. Novell hearings.
  
  
• Here's a bit about the M$ vs. TestDriven.NET ugliness. It tells you a lot about M$ that their default reaction is to start threatening people, even when the potential "danger" to its revenue stream is absolutely miniscule. Even if there was more money to be made embracing innovation than fighting it, they just won't do it.
  
  
• SJVN & GL comment on the "mixed source" announcement I covered recently.
  i've read over the announcement a couple of times and this is a case where I don't think PJ gets it right. I don't like the phrase "mixed source", and this isn't the first time Novell's used it. but at least in this case it looks like all they really mean by it is closed source apps running on Linux, which is very much allowable under the GPL. Some PHB must've taken a fancy to the term "mixed source", not realizing how inflammatory it sounds to the Linux world.
  
  
• Seems that Scott Gant of bs&f has a new book out, "We are All Journalists Now: The Transformation of the Press and Reshaping of the Law in the Internet Age". I wonder if he mentions Groklaw? I wonder, furthermore, if he mentions BS&F trying to get a gag order on Groklaw?
  
  So are we all journalists, really? Am I? It's a tough call. I like the legal protections traditionally afforded to print journalists. It's far from a settled matter whether such protections are available to mere unpaid bloggers. On the other hand, being a journalist is the next closest thing to being unpaid, you spend much of your time in grubby little bars drowning your sorrows with other journalists, and the odds of acquiring superpowers are far lower than Hollywood summer movies might lead you to believe. It would be a mixed blessing, at best.
  
  
• A judge has ordered a retrial for Julie Amero. She, as you might recall, is the teacher recently convicted of internet porn charges widely considered to be bogus. Apparently the prosecutor & jury didn't know much about the interwebs, and the scourge of pop-up ads. Or at least they were willing to convict someone else of it
  
  
• Someone's done a cute webcomic about the rumored Vista SP1. Enter the Microtrix!
  
  
• IHT: "U.S. cellphone users chafing at carriers". People are getting sick and tired of vendor lock-in with mobile phone handsets, and I think understandably so. From the article:
  
  

  
  Tim Wu, a Columbia University law professor, compares today's wireless world to the U.S. landline industry of the 1950s, when consumers had to lease phones from AT&T. In 1968, the Federal Communications Commission ruled that AT&T could not decide which devices could be attached to the network, opening the phone world to competition and leading to landline innovations people take for granted today, such as cheaper phones, answering and fax machines and modems.
  

  
  
  
• Today's retrotech item: The Apple ][ is 30 years old. No, seriously, it is. 30 years. And we aren't talking Internet years either.
  
  
• And from Shiny Shiny, a piece about the new bling-laden Hello Kitty laptop. Go ahead, try to tell me this is any sillier than Enderle's Ferrari laptop.
  

Labels: linux, open source, sco, tech

So the Q2 numbers were the usual mild ugliness, and there were no significant announcements during the call. So you really have to wonder what today's trading was all about.

Like I usually do, I posted on IV as I was listening to the call. It's a 3-parter this time: Intro, The Darl & Bert Show, and Question Time.

The last one's pretty short, since there weren't any questions this time. Not a single freakin' question. I may have linked to this before, but the Free Sound Project has a large collection of cricket sounds. Even better, the clips are available under a Creative Commons license, one of those dreaded open-source things SCO gets all worked up over. Nice.

So other than the absence of questions, the call was a pretty humdrum affair. Yawn.

While SCO's busy "eagerly awaiting" their September 17th trial date with Novell, BS&F is staying busy. Here's the latest on the AIG/Greenberg and Tyco situations. And now Boies has a new gig working for Michael Moore. About a month ago, BS&F announced the hiring of two top patent & trade secret litigators. Although this should't affect the SCO case, since SCO has no patents or trade secrets. Oh, and they've got a new office in Orlando (FWIW, and I realize this is sort of a Mickey Mouse item.)

And here's some PR about a new Novell partnership, which uses the hair-raising phrase "mixed source".

Labels: linux, open source, sco, tech

• SCO's Q2 earnings are out now. (Press release here.) Ouch! Ok, so the numbers aren't quite as bad as they used to be, but they're still losing money even after all those layoffs, and first half revenue declined close to 17% compared to first half '06.
  
  At least they'll last until the cases go to trial, if the present burn rate holds. If you're like me, and you'd much rather see SCO lose decisively in court instead of going bankrupt and leaving matters unresolved, these numbers are pretty much ideal.
  
  
• SCO's Q2 conference call is coming up in an hour or so. The audio will be here, for anyone who feels like listening.
  
  
• The stock was wayyyy up again today. I don't get it. I really don't.
  
  
• SJVN: "Why did Microsoft and Sun support SCO?"
  
  
• Forbes: "Microsoft's Protection Racket?"
  
  
• CP80 is making a cameo at the G8 summit, of all places. Seems there's a nice glossy "G8 Magazine" that gets produced every time they hold one of these meetings, and it's distributed free to a select group of elite decision makers. Oh, and members of Congress, too.
  
  So on top of all the other benefits of being among the rich & powerful, you also get all the birdcage lining you'll ever need, absolutely free. It just isn't fair, I tell ya.
  
  
• Someone else might be in the "Clean Internet Port" biz.
  
  
• Scooter Libby just got 30 months in the slammer. This would be completely OT, except that during the trial Boies chimed in to insist Libby shouldn't have been prosecuted. (This appeared on SNR here, back in March.) Apparently the judge didn't see it quite that way.
  
  
• The trolls on Y! have been making "TO TEH MOON" noises all day, but that's hardly ambitious, is it? NASA's MESSENGER probe is flying past Venus later today on its way to Mercury. Cool photos to follow, probably.
  
  
  
  

Labels: linux, open source, sco, tech

• Today was day 2 of the current round of SCO v. Novell hearings. No word yet on the day's excitement, since it looks like nobody from the anti-SCO community was able to attend this time. Here's a GL article about the then-upcoming hearings, with a cute cartoon. If you don't get the "Spartacus" reference, well, Netflix has it, so what's your excuse?
  
  
• In other news, M$ has cut a Novell-ish deal with Xandros. You know, Xandros, one of those second-tier commercial distros. They inherited what used to be Corel's distro, if I'm not mistaken. I don't like the look of this, but as a practical matter, well, when was the last time you used Xandros? For me, the answer's "never", and I don't know anyone else who uses it, either. I rather suspect those numbers aren't going to improve anytime soon, given today's news.
  
  Here's PJ's take on the latest ugliness. As she notes, the terms of the deal are not identical to the Novell deal. PJ thinks it's because of the draft GPLv3, but I don't think M$ is nimble enough to respond to a fast-moving target like that. I suspect it's just that Xandros was in a weaker negotiating position, so M$ could pretty much dictate its terms.
  
  It's a sad reality of the business world that you can never, ever admit you were forced to sign a contract against your will. Customers would hate that, and investors would hate it even more. So no matter how disadvantageous the terms are, you have to put on a brave face and act like the whole thing was your idea from day one, and you're absolutely thrilled about your new "partnership". There aren't a lot of downsides to being an extravagantly compensated C-level PHB, but this has got to be one of them.
  
  
• Still, there may be a way to profit off Microsoft's latest anti-Linux strategy, provided that you're sufficently cynical and avaricious. If that describes you -- and there's no need to be bashful here -- why not try a bit of "reverse patent trolling"?
  
  
• An interesting piece from the NZ Herald: "Forget the iPhone, buy a smartphone". So, ok, the iPhone won't be available in NZ anytime soon, so you could dismiss this as sour grapes. And hey, they already have great scenery, and fascinating wildlife (hobbits included), and wine grapes are quite happy there, and it's pretty much nirvana for sailboats, and the country isn't involved in any wars at the moment, so really you'd think the lack of iPhones wouldn't be that big of a deal, all things considered. But still, it's an interesting article.
  
  
• The RIAA loses a major case. Seems that allegations without any proof don't (always) equal $$$ in the courtroom after all.
  
  
• A nice setback for software patents in the UK.
  
  
• Yet another piece debating the future of Palm. Today the company announced it's selling 25% of itself to a private equity firm, which boosted the stock a bit. But even with that, and the Foleo, and some high-profile new hires, the company's long-term outlook is still anyone's guess.
  
  Personally I hope they stick around. Think of all the poor tech journos who'd be unemployed if the "Whither Palm?" beat ever goes bust. Ok, I might count that as an upside really, but my point stands. They've ventured into making potentially interesting Linux gadgets, and that's a thing to be encouraged.
  
  
• I don't link to E! very often here, but here's a bit about the US 2nd Circuit Court second-guessing the FCC over the new "indecency" guidelines. The court seems to think the occasional F-bomb is not a big deal, or at least not something that merits a stiff fine from the feds. No word from Ralphie and his CP80 chums about this yet, but they've got to see this as a bit of a setback. Broadcast media have always been the most restrictive in terms of what you can and can't legally say, so if you don't have a free hand to censor TV, what can you censor?
  

Labels: linux, open source, sco, tech

• Two more stories on GL, covering some new exhibits in the Novell case. Seems a GL volunteer picked 'em up at the courthouse while attending the hearings on the 31st:
  
  
  • First, we get "Deposition of Darl McBride in Novell: Dreaming of Billions From Linux". PJ covers it first "because I know it's the one you'd read first", which is true, of course. If you want to jump straight to the source material, the doc is here. The fun bit is how SCO could've gotten maybe $50M from HP, and a few tens of millions from Google, if only they hadn't gotten greedy and demanded a much bigger pile of cash. The matter dragged on and on, until the copyright dispute with Novell put an end to the negotiations.
    
    It's really kind of a sad spectacle, and is a great example of SCO's unique flair for gross miscalculation. Every successful swindler, from small-time slip-n-fall scammers up to the most high-profile patent troll, knows that the trick is to demand an appropriate sum of money, such that the target decides it's cheaper to settle up instead of fight. This is especially important when you can't back up your claims in the courtroom. And now... well, it's a bit late to come up with a Plan B, isn't it?
    
    
  • Second, there's "More Novell Exhibits: We Find Out What MS & Sun Paid SCO For". PJ thinks the new docs make Sun look really bad. Perhaps I'm biased (and yes, I do have a Sun box sitting under my desk here), but the new docs just detail what SCO claims it sold to Sun under the deal, and SCO's always insisted it was a SCOSource arrangement... well, except when Novell asked for their 95% cut. In any case, nothing fundamentally new here, I think.
    
    Some of the other exhibits look interesting, like Exhibit 46, a spreadsheet of companies SCO sent demands to, with responses given if the company bothered to respond. I haven't gone down the whole list yet, but I noticed that in the cases of both Intel and Apple, SCO sent their demands to a branch office, not headquarters. SCO says Apple responded anyway, with a letter saying they were in compliance (i.e. not using Linux), and SCO apparently didn't pursue the matter any further. OS X is based on BSD, not Linux, and apparently SCO didn't have a problem with that, despite their occasional anti-BSD FUD. I don't know if that's significant or not, but it's an interesting data point.
    
    
  
  
• From Slashdot, the latest unfortunate development in the M$-Novell partnership. Apparently the F/OSS community is second in line behind M$ when it comes to getting documentation from Novell, according to the terms of the deal. It would be interesting to learn exactly what M$ threatened Novell with to get them to sign on to the deal's terms. It's just been one PR black eye after another ever since the thing was announced. I guess I'm trying to understand what got them on board. I've never seen any cause to assume malice on Novell's part, and while stupidity is possible, I'm not sure anybody's that stupid. So until I learn otherwise, I'm going to assume it was good old fashioned duress that made them sign up.
  
  
• In other news, a piece on the controversial, upcoming RealPlayer 11, which will supposedly let you save streaming video to a local file and burn it to a DVD. I guess you can't blame 'em for trying to differentiate their product, but it's going to take a lot more than that to grab my interest. Over the years, every time I've given in to short-term necessity and installed the then-current RealPlayer release, I've always ended up nuking it in short order. Maybe the new version will be different, and not be a steaming pile of infuriating, gimmicky bloatware. But I'm not holding my breath.
  
  

Labels: linux, open source, sco, tech