McBride Speaks, In Person And In Print

Phil Windley writes "Darl McBride gave the keynote at CDXPO this evening and held a press conference afterwards. I've posted my summary of his talk and the press conference on my weblog. In his talk, Darl seemed to be saying "Don't hate me. I'm only doing what I had to do."" On the other hand, in this interesting interview with CRN, McBride comes one whisker from likening Linux users to drug users, renews threats to sue end users, and says "all the big guys" are out to get SCO.

alternative title...

[borgdows]

McBride Speaks, Listeners laugh!

So who REALLY is behind all this SCO nonsense?

[cscx]

You guessed it... Frank Stallone

Tour

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope McBride comes to columbus ohio - there hasn't been a deent stand up comic here in *years*

Medication?

[Empiric]

Hmm... self-contradiction, baseless claims, conspiracy theories, projection, delusions of grandeur... aren't these primary symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia?

Why does he hate himself?

[ericandrade]

1. Attack everybody you know
2. Claim you're doing what you got to do (voices?)
3. P .. .
3. . .. p p p .rrr. . .

3. .. ..... PRISON!!!!!

What end-products?

[MavEtJu]

David comes on, he's now a shareholder, he's rowing with us, and let's face it, he's added significant value to our company since February. Our stock was around a buck, now it's $14.

And what are the end-products your company makes?

Linux and drugs

[commodoresloat]

At last, a CEO not afraid to break the silence about Linux. I was a linux user, so I know the kinds of pressures that you succumb to. You wind up using crack to check the security of your system. And to detect intrusions, you snort.... It only gets worse from there. Listen to this man, before it's too late.

Re:Why does he hate himself?

[marcushnk]

SLANDER!! Tux is NOT GAY!

Though he might use a rolled up print out of the 2.6 kernel ;-)

Faaaaark

[trouser]

Our belief is that SCO has great opportunity in the future to let Linux keep going, not to put it on its back but for us to get a transaction fee every time it's sold. That's really our goal.

I can see that happening in a hurry. Hell I bet nobody would be interested in reverting to an older kernel and then working back to where we are today with new source. And nobody would look at alternative kernels (eg. the BSDs). And nobody would just throw in the towel and run Windows. No way, we'll just pony up a butt load of money to McBride and Co. to use the kernel they're trying to steal from us. Cock smoking bitches.

remember people:

[Jeff DeMaagd]

You are not paranoid if everybody REALLY is against you!

Darl's translation

[mabu]

His constituents are his shareholders and customers.

Which at this point probably resolves down to his own company, their satellites and the law firm they've retained to fight their last ditch effort.

SCO does not want to destroy open source or Linux. With the appropriate checks and balances, open source has merit.

I think he means, if people pay with the appropriate checks, he'll consider the effort worthy of merit.

End users are not safe in taking a wait and see position. SCO is contacting customers and asking them to take a license of litigate position.

IOW, please pay us now so we can show some revenue long enough for the remaining shareholders to cash out before this whole thing implodes. Otherwise, the FBI will bust in your door and cart you off to Guantanamo.

There's no free lunch or free Linux. The value proposition of Linux is UNIX for free. Free models such as free music, free Internet, free bandwidth, and free love haven't worked.

On the other hand, the free mushrooms the guys in the legal department put in my tea this morning do seem to be working.

This country was built on the notion of property ownership and being about to protect one's property. What's left in this company are concepts and ideas. If you take away the ability to protect that, we're reduced our ability to compete as a country

If you don't support our desire to scare the crap out of the public in order to extort money for intellectual property my company had absolutely no hand in creating, then you're some sort of unpatriotic, filthy commie scum.

By the way there is no truth to the rumors that I am violating any patents previously held by the Rumsfeld-Cheney group. I am operating with a legitimate license from the holder of the scare-the-crap-out-of-america patent.

GPL will not survive. Open source will survive, but the GPL will have to be reworked in a way that is more pro-business.

By pro business I mean pro-big-mega-corporations that deserve to profit from the innovation of others who have the audacity to claim such work that we can exploit be donated to the public domain.

SCO will prevail in its legal battle. SCO is now worth $200 million and has $60 million in the bank. SCO is committed to seeing this through.

Bill's check cleared! Bill's check cleared!

We are also introducing an exciting new product in cooperation with Kool-Aid and the government of Columbia. Look for it soon.

Linux will not be free.

But a woman who is willing to trade "love" may be able to get a discount on the enterprise edition. I.M. my AOL handle, "sexy14yoGRRL" for more details.

"Don't hate me because I'm beautiful"

[sjbe]

We don't. We hate you because you're a conceited bastard.

Re:Medication?

[enthused i swear]

No, you're thinking of a Slashdot discussion...

Godwin's Law

[Treacle Treatment]

Aww shucks! This thread was just getting started and already someone has to mention Hitler!

http://info.astrian.net/jargon/terms/g/Godwin_s_La w.html

Re:Tinfoil time

[Lost Penguin]

"He's right. All the big guys are out to get SCO. What he didn't mention is that all the little and medium-sized guys hate them too."

Don't forget the gals too.
The whole planet hates him.
Who votes to visit SCO with torches, pitchforks and a rope.
It has been to long since Utah hung criminals.

my fave quotes

[twitter]

CRN: When you talk to your VARs, partners, integrators... what are they saying?

McBride: It's a range. Those who are directly selling SCO Unix products, are cheering us on ...

Stop the presses, someone sold SCO Unix last year?!

McBride: .... Those who have drifted over to the Linux camp are confused.

Indeed, I can't figure out what those idiots at SCO are up to.

McBride: My first reaction was we needed to create a counterbalance [to the vocal open sourcers]. We're on the side of the silent majority...

Eh? Let's see, for ages we've all had to listen to and counter his company's Microsoft funded bullshit, press releases and amazing old media broadsides. He's been saying all sorts of stuff designed to stirr doubt deep in the hearts of PHB and it's been reported by every WinTel rag on earth, but he reagards himself as "silent". Somehow people who have to reassure their bosses not to give in to SCO's extortion of end users is somehow "vocal"? The free software's statements are all reactions to this turkey. If some people get angry, it's because of the volume of ignorant and wrong nonsense this man has been able to generate - you need to buy a $700 license for every Linux box you own because IBM put "secret" SCO code into the kernel that SCO published openly under the GPL but refuses to specify. It's madening and hardly "right".

More McBitch: This is about our IP! ... IBM is the master of creating an illusion that they're being attacked by this big brutal bully SCO when they're the ones attacking us. They're the ones doing all the behind-the-scenes work.

Oh sure, Dayrl, and I'm Steve Barkto. IBM must be running the Free Software Society. Tell me all about it. The whole world of knowledgable computing says you are full of it. What do you produce? Some poor woman who's BA was in French who had to sign a massively restrictive NDA to look at publically published and GPL'd code next to snippets of your ancient Unix? Give me a break. Put up or shut up and quit threatening the world and maybe, just maybe people will think your extortion and stock fraud days are behind you.

We early on looked at GPL-related issues and felt it was an Achilles heel for IBM but we didn't open them up initially. We didn't want to confuse a clear-cut contract issue [with IBM] with the untested GPL and other issues. But when IBM dragged GPL onto the table, our lawyers started sharpening their steak knives. 'Ok, if that's what you want to talk about , we'll talk about it.'

Oh yeah, you were forced to call the GPL a cancer, but you hated it all along. Bzzzt! Your case of trade secret violation got blown out of the water because your company published said traid secrets openly and under the GPL. You can't fall back to copyright violations, because you can't really find any infringing code. So, you are left with this crack house attack on the GPL.

If you take IBM out of the equation, Linux would not be growing up, it would not be SMP-enabled, it would not be multi processing, scaling up to hundreds of servers. It is IBM that is enabling that.

There he goes again, taking credit for stuff that his crappy Unix can't do.

VARBusiness: Are customers changing their Linux purchasing pattern since SCO sent out warning letters?

McBride: A research report came out saying 80 percent of users had not slowed down. Our take on that is 20 percent have. So one out of five.

Thanks Dayrl, that will come in handy when you get sued for the damages all your BS has done. I'd love to see Red Hat pin the end of their retail distro on you and strip off some of those $20,000,000 Microsoft has funded you with.

If you look at the GPL, it couldn't be more clear, they either have to pull [the offending code] or shut down the distribution. The things we're laying claim to are things you can't pull out very easily....it's very difficult to yank this stuff out.

Right. Everyone is begging for the proof and the code they can shut this idiot up by rewriting that supposed code. It's not there.

OK, I hate everything this idiot says -5 flamebait article.

Re:alternative title...

[r00zky]

in my book step 4 is: "Then they die horribly"
and 5 is profit, of course

Even if....

[alexborges]

Well, this is the best FUD SCO has pulled so far. I mean, this guy is articulate and now hes playing the victim angle. He is also cynic enough to explain to us what this is all about.

The worst part, is that he is such a good communicator one can even end believing in him. And im a blindfolded linux junkie (i live of linux and GPL software, thank you very much).

Now, the interesting part of this, is that lets say yeah, linux infringes by court of law and etc. etc. etc.

It will take the community a year to either fork to a clean base or move to a bsd based kernel. Hey this may even force a scenario where BSD copyright holders my want to release BSD GPL just to not see a GNU pure system die. Anyhow, lets say it takes a year or two to get back on track, by then (2007 since trial is late 2004-2005), i dont think it will matter so much really. Brasil (LA major economie), China (Asia major econimie, probably by 2007 will be second to none), europe...etc. Will be swarming with FLOSS, both at the state and at the private enterprises. Darl has gotta stop them NOW (and he aint succeding), not in 2005.

If he doesnt, darl is gonna have to do much more than this to stop that size of projects (bush would have to invade a couple of pretty large, socialist oriented nuclear, or developing nuclear enabled powers to enforce this).

By 2007, all your OS is belong to us, and maybe you can fuck up redhat and charge them for each sale, but u aint gonna kill debian (a good chunk of it is developed in europe). So there, i aint going nowhere. Gimme my GPL and ip infinging Linux and thank you very much.

Of course SCO wants Linux to stay alive

[stox]

What other host could it possibly feed on? They have decided to devolve into the most efficient of life forms, the parasite.

Re:Armageddon

[roystgnr]

This is THE final, decisive battle between the forces of good and evil.

Wow. And I thought I read too much Slashdot.

Re:Armageddon

[Anonymous Coward]

Put down the light saber and back away, son.

Re:No.

[jasontwarnock]

That loser fucked Paris Hilton?

Hmmm... Maybe I should sue Linux...

Re:Any way to scare SCO off?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

I don't know. I hope something very personal and very scary happens to people like McBride.

Whatchayall need is to get SCO to claim copyright infringement against the Church of Scientology. Somebody tell Darl that the Church's highest level doctrines contain SCO intellectual property. The $cienos will lay his company to waste.

Re:"Users"

[NaugaHunter]

Yeah, but having that 'Users are Losers' sticker sure helped get me through my customer support period.

Re:Always Wondered

[rir]

Darl's twisted world:

We're on the side of the silent majority...but at the end of the day it's around who's right. We're rock solid on our claims... and we're not sitting here day in day out trying to counter the stones being thrown at us. We have a business to run. Our roots in the Unix business are strong and won't be blown over by a little bit of Linux wind.

Reality:

We're on the side of the silent majority

Actually, you are a vocal minority.

but at the end of the day it's around who's right

True

We're rock solid on our claims

Wrong

and we're not sitting here day in day out trying to counter the stones being thrown at us

Wrong again

We have a business to run

Not for long

Our roots in the Unix business are strong

No, they aren't

and won't be blown over by a little bit of Linux wind.

Yes, you will.

Two Quotes

[Nucleon500]

[When I came aboard at SCO I looked at this issue of code and asked:] 'Why don't you guys do this?' They said, 'Because the Linux community will get mad at us.'

I tell you what, I'll give you the Linux community getting mad at us vs. shareholder value. That was the trade off. They were absolutely right, the Linux community got mad and we were right, shareholder value went up. The last time I checked the CEO was in charge of shareholder value, not standing around the campfire singing Kumbaya with the Linux world. So far, I'm pleased with where we're going..

This shows a complete lack of any moral value whatsoever. Completely gone. Guess what - if that many people get mad, you're not doing the right thing! It doesn't matter how much money you can make, you still shouldn't do it. (To put it another way [groklaw.net], "Last I checked, it wasn't my job to sit around the table carving the roast beef for the Whos down in Whoville.")

And my favorite, hopefully prophetic, quote which McBride attributes to IBM's lawyers:

The skies over Utah will be blackened with attorneys before this is all done.

Re:my fave quotes

[quinkin]

"Longer term, expect SVR 6, which will be 64-bit Unix on Intel. That is a few years out."

Oh yeah... SCO once again pushes the envelope...

I guess I had better pull the plug on that 64bit linux server I built, it is in "future breach" of the SCO's groundbreaking 64 bit support... Thank goodness it is not multi-CPU.

Q.

Re:I'm not sure this is so funny

[Anonymous Coward]

She had coffee from McDonald's. How can you say she wasn't an idiot?

Re:Not just a hypocrite... but outdated too.

[JCCyC]

Drug-based enemy demonizing is so 20th century. Doesn't he know terrorist is the smear du jour?

Re:Oh, spare us

[myom]

Yes, that's F, which is defined like this:

212F is the temperature where water boils
32F where it freezes.
Originally 100F was supposed to be the rectal temperature of a person, but it is closer to 98 and 99.

The system is based on the two highly logical numbers 212 and 32, because 32 was the number of toes that some english king had.

That same king had a feverish aunt, and that aunt gave inspiration to the definition of other measures. 100F was the rectal temperature of that aunt. A yard was the distance two of her paces moved her feet, that coincidentally were a third of the length of those two paces, hence the measure of the foot. When the king's mathematicians noticed a foot was almost exactly twelve times the length of the king's penis, they were certain this was a sign from God - a full circle from the king's penis and his aunt's rectum had been discovered!

They presented the findings, which formed the basis of the scales and measures used in UK and US still. Lately heretics denying the greatness of God have been using other blasphemical measures, a sure sign the terrorists have already won.

Re:Oh, spare us

[myom]

I assume you are from the UK? Well, you measure your weight in stones, and I won't even get into where that comes from... but it is pretty close to the origin of the inch. (:

Re:What end-products?

[sharkey]

And what are the end-products your company makes?

The same end-products I plan to produce this afternoon. (Going to Taco Bell for lunch)