Darl McBride Interview 463
mpsmps writes "vnunet.com has a long interview with SCO CEO Darl McBride devoted entirely to the SCO/IBM suit. McBride radiates confidence, describing SCO's contracts as "bullet-proof." He says he thinks IBM is desperate to buy SCO because "the last thing [IBM wants] to hear is the testimony that is going to come out," but that SCO isn't interested in being acquired. Read the interview for much more on these and other topics." See also part 2 and part 3 of the interview.
SCO: The new 'Military Intelligence' (Score:5, Interesting)
If SCO isn't interested in being acquired, then why are they sure acting like they are? All this posturing is pointing to wanting to be bought out to make them shut up.
Bottom Line (Score:5, Interesting)
IBM is going to string this out as long as possible, and won't settle. Why? Because SCO's continued existence as a company depends upon revenue from this case. It's the same reason they aren't suing other people (Apple, Microsoft, and the BSD's have been mentioned as targets, and one can infer from other comments that SGI is a target too); they don't have the money to carry on this long litigation.
In some respects, going after IBM first is unwise. If, in fact, SGI is a target, there would be a much greater chance of SCO winning, and getting some money. SGI doesn't have much money to give, but you start to establish some precedent.....
How hard is this? (Score:5, Interesting)
One thing I find really annoying about this case is that the Open Source community hasn't been able to point to a bit of code and say, look, there's the problem. Or alternatively, we've looked, and there is no problem. I mean, how hard can that be?
Let's just remind ourselves of the issue here:
SCO's lawsuit claims that IBM broke its contract with SCO by allowing parts of SCO's Unix V source code, licensed to IBM for use in AIX, to be used in the rival Linux operating system kernel.
Ok, I appreciate that SCO's Unix V source code is closed source, and so it is not widely accessible to the OSS community. But someone must have a copy or access to a copy, surely? I'm sure there must be people in the OSS community that actually worked on the original code, isn't there?
At the very least, can't we just highlight the code that IBM has contributed, and then say, if there is a problem, then it must be in there. As far as I am aware, IBMs additions are for "enterprise ready" systems. If that is the case, then I'm sure they could be taken out without affecting the majority of instances of Linux use.
If we had a distribution that was free of the IBM code, then doesn't that mean we have a distribution that is legally untouchable by SCO? I know IBMs contributions are probably very valuable and all, but are they worth risking Linux to vagaries of the increasingly irrational legal system?
Re:How it will all end (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't even think Mr. Smith even needs to exist. I think SCO is painfully aware that they're on their last legs, AND the fact they're in violation of so many patents that it would be completely ridiculous to even go down that path with IBM.
IBM files what, 20,000 patents a year? I'd give it a week before IBM had a list of at least a hundred patents SCO sits in violation of.. The only thing stopping them is the reluctance to come off looking like a bully.
Besides, IBM isn't the boogy-man.. They're actually a fairly friendly company, i'd say. Why would they bother to resort to scare-tactics unless they were legitimately threatened?
Street rumours? (Score:5, Interesting)
A more blatant attempt to plug the share price could not be found. If IBM were to try and buy, the share price would shoot up. Here's our friend Mr. McBride making that even more explicit to his current stockholders (don't sell) and potential buyers (buy us, we're going to go skywards).
Besides, I hear no rumours on the street (what a marvellous phrase, unattributable yet pseudo-meaningful...) that IBM are interested. In fact, everything IBM has done so far has shown a complete lack of interest in that outcome.
Cheers,
Ian
Bullet-proof (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, it sure has IBM's lawyers in a panic.
/me rolls eyes....
You know, at first, I thought that McBride was insane -- totally reckless or totally corrupt. But now, I'm starting to think the man is just stupid. I mean, sometimes I talk to people and I disagree with them, but I feel nervous because they might be smart enough to prove me wrong. I don't feel that way with McBride. I read his comments and I just think he's stupid, and the courts will tell him he's stupid, and he just won't get it.
The last time I felt this way was with the pet-store guy who sued anyone who said anything critical about his terrible service. He was dangerous because he intimidated some people into settling, but mostly he just lost lawsuit after lawsuit. The poor fool probably still thinks he'll somehow turn everything around. McBride is just a reincarnation of that pet store guy.
A more candid interview would have been like... (Score:4, Interesting)
[i]I have nightmares about it. We're talking about the utter destruction of our company. But really, we have no place else to go. This is a balls-to-the-wall strategy. All or nothing. But it isn't like I can't jump ship if things go sour.[/i]
[b]Do you plan to sell Linux ever again?[/b]
[i]Don't be silly. That is a low-return activity. Our job will be to shake people down for money. That's a high-return activity.[/i]
[b]Would you actually like to be bought?[/b]
[i]God, yes! We'd love to be bought out. But it isn't going to happen whatsoever. Given that, it is best that I said that we don't want to be bought out, because it makes our case look that much stronger.[/i]
Novell (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:SCO: The new 'Military Intelligence' (Score:5, Interesting)
If you want to hear some info on how SCO makes money, listen to their conference call here: http://biz.yahoo.com/cc/0/30510.html
They said Caldera Linux was only 3-5% of their revenue, with the rest coming from UNIX licensing.
- P.S. I'm in the legal profession.
Re:Bullet-proof (Score:4, Interesting)
I've pondered SCO's motivation in this, and come up with two possible answers...
First, SCO realizes it will soon die, and in a manner similar to some dying humans, it has gone a tad batty. Started giving houses, boats, and cars to 3rd cousins, while suing its brother over a 25-cent bet made a decade ago. All the while trying to reconcile itself with its creator ("Our Shareholders, Who art on Wall Street, hallowed be Thy Capital") by not actually "dying" but rather getting "bought out". A sort of "saving face" in failing miserably as a corporate entity.
Second, SCO thinks it might win. Since IBM hasn't already bought and dismantled them, we can presume with reasonable confidence that SCO has nothing. So I suspect their "hundred lines of code" will amount to a coincidentally-identical textbook implementation of some common algorithm, and they've bet the farm that they'll get a judge who can't tell the difference. "Why yes, Mr. McBride, it would appear that IBM did release code substantially similar to your... now what did you call it... ''quicksort'' routine. For shame, IBM!".
I just have difficulty considering both McBride and SCO's entire legal department as either stupid or insane. A few of them, sure, but the whole lot of 'em? Not likely. So, they have either decided to save face in death, or bet it all on a spin of the roulette-wheel-o'-US-justice (Hey, if OJ got off, Bush won in 2000, and the xrispies have gotten to "Roe" of "Roe vs Wade", anything can happen). Nothing else makes any sense.
Re:Bottom Line (Score:3, Interesting)
Re-read my post. Chris Sontag said that Microsoft could be a future target; the agreement between MS and SCO is only for a few libraries. SCO's main thrust here is that every modern OS since SysV violates SCO's "intellectual property." If they do the same things that SysV could, they're infringing. In effect, then, any multi-user POSIX-compatible system would be fair game.
Yes, MS's move to license Services for Unix probably was a token to SCO. But SCO seems eager to bite the hand that feeds it.
Re:Not interested in being acquired? (Score:5, Interesting)
- Auditing IBM's customers...I strongly doubt that SCO has a leg to stand on, unless they have a direct contract with them as well.
- Going over IBM with a fine-toothed comb to see what comes up...right. If they are so sure of themselves, they should push for a fast trial, which they obviously don't.
I think IBM is actually very smart in not doing anything at all while letting SCO run up legal bills and make more and more unwise threatening statement. Sooner or later, SCO will be deflated, and then the company actually will be totally bust.What if... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Bottom Line (Score:5, Interesting)
The first rule while decoding statements from SCO should be to match it up with their actions. I agree that SCO indeed claimed that MS could be a future target. But their actions --while sending 1,500 letters to big Corporates about the dangers of using Linux, but omitting Windows, seem to indicate that the MS-target statement was mere eyewash.
"the agreement between MS and SCO is only for a few libraries. "
Then why didn't SCO mention Windows in their infamoust Letters to Corporates?? After all, there are more stupid Windozers than brainy Linuxers out there.
"Yes, MS's move to license Services for Unix probably was a token to SCO. But SCO seems eager to bite the hand that feeds it."
SCO never owns any of the stuff related to Services for Unix - nfs, X-Window environment etc on Windows. Most of these are owned by Sun. There is no clear indicateion from SCO, MS, Slashdot or the press - as to what exactly did MS license or negotiate or deal with SCO. All this is conjecture.
SCO doesn't appear eager to bite the hand that feeds it - it is trying to deceive people into thinking it's a dirty crook that can outwit bigger crooks (such as 800lb gorillas).Reading your post, I get the impression SCO has claimed atleast one victim.
Unfortunately for SCO, most Linux users have enough chutzpah, and a healthy Dirtier-Than-SCO attitude - so all SCO's bluff will lead them nowhere.
Re:Revocation of GPL Rights? (Score:3, Interesting)
We are talking a copyright trial here - not something the politicians are liable to pay a whole lot of attention to in the upcoming election year, when you consider that RIAA has managed to get almost all of their attention for the past year or so.
Again, I think SCO's on shaky legal ground here at best, and at worst, lying like bad rug, but IF they win, how automatic is it? I seriously doubt armed Feds in black helos are going to swarm the SCO hideout and demand the immediate incarceration of Darl McBride and Co. Someone has to show some sack and actually press charges.
This could be the test case for the GPL.
Could IBM sell out Linux? (Score:5, Interesting)
What if IBM is guilty? What if they did misappropriate some proprietary code, on purpose or other wise? Sure the kernel folks will replace it and life will move on, but that will be very damaging to Linux. While we are all throwing stones at SCO maybe we shouldn't completely turn our backs on IBM. Their "support" of Linux may end up doing a lot of harm. Plus they may already be cooking up something they intended to replace AIX and Linux in the next five years or so. Before there was MS there was IBM.
Re:What if... (Score:3, Interesting)
For IBM, standard practice has usually been to shut up until the lawsuit, which is exactly what they're doing now. We should probably be more worried if they were hissing and screaming like SCO.
What worries me is exactly the justice system you guys have running over there. SCO has claimed that it might attempt to get a "friend of the court" brief because Linux is allegedly used by terrorists, as well as the fact that one of their lawyers happens to be the son of Orrin Hatch.
Re:Bottom Line (Score:2, Interesting)
Even if the worst case scenario come true, linux kernel development will continue. Maybe it moves outside the US, maybe more and more OSS projects will move outside the US. I've read some posts on here, where that specific point is made. This is still a long ways off, SCO would first have to win their suit against IBM.
A scarier propostion (than SCO's lawsuit against IBM) is the EU considering software patents (say it ain't so joe) and IBM is backing this. Let's face it large corporations (like IBM, MS, Sun, HP, etc.) are not anyone's friend. They are here to make as much money as possible.
IBM strategy (Score:5, Interesting)
SCO is doing this to try and inflate, and keep inflated, a share price based on an extremely thin balloon. To keep that going, they have to keep shouting. If IBM makes specific replies, then SCO has something to use in the next press release. If they don't, it all has to come from within SCO. The longer it goes on, the greater the chance of SCO coming up with manifest contradictions, allegations that can easily be shown to be untrue in court, actual libel. SCO cannot afford to shut up and cannot afford simply to repeat themselves over and over, as with no new content the press will lose interest.
My personal interest in this is that 20 years ago we were involved with someone whose public utterances were very like those of Mr. McBride. He came up with so many allegations that our attorney started to believe that we were the liars, on the basis that no-one would make so many claims if they weren't true. But then it came to court...the originals of documents were mysteriously not to hand (faked photocopies). Witnesses were mysteriously unavailable. Foreign Chambers of Commerce had never heard of the companies he claimed we were in collusion with, who also seemed never to have occupied the claimed addresses. The guy fired his own lawyers. And suddenly he lost the case, a judge was telling him that he was considering whether there was a possibility of perjury, and he had huge legal bills to pay for both sides. I seriously believe that this man was so out of his tree that even as he faked documents, he actually believed he was reproducing something that "really" existed in the perfect world he lived in. Never underestimate the power of human self-delusion.
Not, of course, that I am suggesting for one moment that Mr. McBride is engaging in any improper activities, deluding himself, or seeking to rig the share price of a junk stock. I am sure that he is a totally ethical businessman and the merits of his case will soon become apparent.
Could it be done? (Score:2, Interesting)
From juridical viewpoint, would it be possible for IBM to hire the all technical (meaning coders and developers) staff from SCO and just simply put SCO out of business, leaving the marketdroids and executive staff soaking in their own... hey hey, kids... in debt?
Just wondering.
So if SCO's case is so thin.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Not interested in being acquired? (Score:5, Interesting)
He's falling for a logical fallacy here. 'Unix on Intel' caught on largely because of Linux and its liberal licensing. No proprietary Unix vendor ever made substantial in roads in this area, and I doubt any would have. When ever asked about the benefits of Unix-on-Intel, the answers people give for it are the general openness of the platform and it being less expensive than a proprietary solution. This is not compatable with a license-fee-extorion scheme.
Its no different than saying "We just sold a million foobars for a dollar each. If only we had charged a million dollars each, we'd be gazillion-ares!
Re:How hard is this? (Score:3, Interesting)
A huge chunk of the open source movement realizes this is false; however, since they claim that these are the problems, it dilutes what IBM code could be infringing, if any at all.
Re:SCO: The new 'Military Intelligence' (Score:2, Interesting)
Given the stock price the most that IBM should pay is $150 million, maybe $200 if they are being especially nice. Given the size of the original lawsuit, I suspect SCO wants something more in the neighborhood of $500 million dollars. In fact I can see SCO going to IBM a year ago and saying 'for $500 million I will nor ruin this skit!'
I suspect the situation remains largely the same. The $3 billion number is just the normal escalation as something goes to trial.
This is really something that SCO is doing to recoup the losses, and probably generate profits, for insiders. Most of the stock, almost 70%, is owned by insiders. Almost none of it is own by institutions. I wonder how much of the stock not owned by insiders is controlled by insiders. The theory of pumping up the stock price is probably invalid as the management is probably looking for a buyout based on nuisance, not on price.
Re:Bottom Line (Score:5, Interesting)
Motion to Dismiss forthcoming? (Score:3, Interesting)
"Nineth Defense
Caldera's claims are improperly venued in this district.
Wherefore, defendant IBM demands judegement dismissing plaintiff's complaint and respectfully requests that the Court award IBM reasonable attorneys' fees and expenses and the costs and disbursements of defending this action along with such other and further relief as the Court deems just and proper."
which is why it's annoying and not threatening! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:How hard is this? (Score:2, Interesting)
Are you still saying categorically that there is offending code in the Linux kernel?
Yeah. That one is a no-brainer. When you look in the code base and you see line-by-line copy of our Unix System V code - not just the code itself, but comments to the code, titles that were in the comments and humour elements that were in the comments - you see that everything is taken straight across.
Everything is exactly the same except they have stripped off the copyright notices and pretended it was just Linux code. There could not be a more straightforward case on the Linux side.
And that's actually the Linux kernel, as opposed to other parts?
Correct, the kernel.
Come on, somebody find it....
Strategy of a four-year-old (Score:2, Interesting)
A friend of mine has a three or four year old boy who, whenever he sees me, says, "You can't catch me, Carlo..." (which is an approximation of my name). But the fact of the matter is he knows that I can catch him and once I do I tickle him and throw him in the air and (usually) catch him which is the very thing he wants.
Re:This is new information how? (Score:3, Interesting)
I know of submissions I did, for example, citing new news stories wherein SCO says that it has not gone after Linux distributers because of GPL, and saying a fair amount about GPL as though they had never noticed it before -- that McBride finally seemed to have gotten a clue that it would be extremely difficult to collect Linux royalties because of the GPL. It made for a good discussion of the very real protections of the GPL and the whole GPL angle of the case, choices and outcomes matrix, etc.
Sorry I no longer have the whole text of the article or of my writeup. When I wrote the article, the text of this article was freely visible for about a week, but in the last few days it has become password protected:
http://www.computerwire.info/brnews/6FF330841285 6B4D80256D4E005D45FA
McBride is doing what a CEO is supposed to do (Score:2, Interesting)
You may not like what he is doing, or how he is going about it--I don't like it much myself--but I am forced to admit that, at least on the surface, he appears to be protecting the rights (that is, the intellectual property) of his company. How SCO got those rights, or even whether SCO has the rights it claims, is a separate issue.
I believe that there is a revolution taking place in the software world, and Slashdot is one of its major outlets. Intellectual property as it has been may be becoming obsolete. But it is not yet, and there are still companies such as SCO which cling desperately to the ways of old.
I refuse to demonize SCO simply because they are not in tune with the Open Source movement's way of doing things. SCO claims that code which it has claim to was lifted lock, stock and barrel and placed into the kernel without copyright notices. If that's true, then indeed SCO has been wronged. There is no escaping that. What will determine SCO's merit as a company will be how they enforce their rights when or if it is discovered that this is indeed what has occurred.
While I dread what this situation might do to the Linux world, I must say that I admire Mr. McBride for having the courage to stick to his guns and do what the company believes to be right. It may be a mistake--and likely will be--but in this age of CEOs taking the money and leaving the company to burn, I applaud McBride for trying to keep his struggling company together.
Flame away...
Re:Not interested in being acquired? (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't have much direct experience with SCO, but perhaps a couple of interesting anecdotes at least.
My first brush with it was the same time as my introduction to Linux, early 90sish I don't remember the year right off. A guy I knew, a friend's step-dad, was an old unix guy and after getting sacked from Honeywell where he had worked for decades he was trying to make a business on his own around Unix on Intel. He had a SCO dealership for a couple of months. He was constantly bitching about it, poor performance, crazy to set up, crashing for no reason, damnable intrusive copy protection system built in, and the price was pretty high too. We were experimenting with slackware at the time and showed it to him... a month later he threw SCO out the window and never went back.
Much later, only a couple of years ago, I worked a bit for a place that used SCO to drive a couple hundred dumb terminals. That was just a temp job while I found real work, and I wasn't in on the Admin side of it, but I know that the guys that were started cursing whenever you mentioned SCO. They were working on moving the system to Redhat instead, but of course it was proprietary no-source stuff, and while they had it running it was still freezing and doing odd things occasionally and they hadn't figured out why yet, so it was just in testing still. They were planning to junk SCO as soon as they could get it working stable too, and gritted their teeth and screaming a lot about exactly the same things my friends stepdad had been bitching about nearly 10 years earlier it seemed to me.
Re:McBride is doing what a CEO is supposed to do (Score:2, Interesting)
Second is the issue of the overall corporate ethic that making money for their shareholders, no matter how destructive the methods, no matter how honest the claims, is a good thing. The problem is that we grant corporations a large number of special exemptions and priveleges, and receive nothing in return, since they don't even have a duty to their community or the public at large. The shareholders receive all the benefits, and the public bears many of the burdens. Not a particularly fair deal...
Re:Not interested in being acquired? (Score:2, Interesting)
I've thrown around the name "SCO" as a bad joke for ~15 years (or more.) It really is laughable to see McBride's comments. With 20 years exposure to the computing world, I've seen exactly 2, yes, 2, SCO systems in active deployment (and one in the test lab at NCR -- the backend for the cash registers.) One was a Lucent VoIP gateway and the other is an ACD manager for a Meridian phone switch. (the former never went anywhere and the later has been replaced with a windows box.)
Re:Bottom Line (Score:3, Interesting)
The crux of the matter seems to revolve around three main issues.
Firstly is the widely reported clause in the AT&T System V license, that all derivative works of System V belong to the license grantor, SCO actualy exist in an enforcable form, or is it an urban legend? If the clause is in existance and is enforcable, then IBM will need to prove that the aleged copied code in both System V and Linux, came from a pre-existing source and was copied somewhat verbatim into both, better than SCO can prove that it was copied from System V (AIX) into Linux.
The above to me seems prerequisite to the second issue, that the BSD somehow violated and voided their settlement with AT&T. This would place BSD back under the System V family and "owned by SCO" under the system V license.
The third issue take a real stretch; take clean code that contains no System V "IP" in it and add some System V code to it and it (the whole code) becomes a system V derivative, belonging to SCO and remove the System V code, and replace it with non-System V code, and its still a System V derivative because the remainder became a System V derivative!
Now I absolutly know that Windows95 displayed a BSD license mandated copyright notice, because I've personaly seen it, which strongly indicates that Windows95 had BSD code (I've seen rumors that at least the TCP/IP stack came from BSD) If they "prove" the above issues, then it follows that Microsft's windows 9X series would also belong to SCO and possibly the windows NT family of OSes giving SCO control of the x86 desktop!
Re:McBride is doing what a CEO is supposed to do (Score:5, Interesting)
A cursory glance at the history of PC computing will quite quickly demonstrate the folly of this.
So now they are left antagonizing the entire population of Unix evangelists for the sake of very weak claims of damages.
Furthermore, Linux IMPROVED the value of SVRx if anything. Before Linux and it's hype came along, the entire Unix market looked as if it would be consumed by NT.
Nevermind the fact that all of the big licensing deals possible have ARLREADY BEEN MADE. What money could they possibly make off of SVRx now anyways.
Why not ask some good questions in the interview? (Score:3, Interesting)
Why ask all of these questions where we know we're just going to get pre-manufactured FUD?