SCO News Roundup

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