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Caldera Government Operating Systems Software The Courts Unix News

McBride Interview from Utah SCO Protest 207

Posted by CowboyNeal from the daily-dose-of-sco dept.
Andrew McNabb writes "Some of you may remember the protest we had in June in front of the SCO offices in Lindon, UT. Afterwards we had an interview with Darl McBride, where he said some very interesting things. More on the scoop, including a transcript and ogg of the discussion is available at Groklaw."
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McBride Interview from Utah SCO Protest More

McBride Interview from Utah SCO Protest

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  • groklaw = quickly slashdotted (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 11, 2003 @03:18PM (#7190865)
    or at least it was last time [slashdot.org]. mirror of article [myby.co.uk]
    • Its been changed from groklaw.com to groklaw.net and moved over to Ibiblio. I don't think we have much to worry about from now on ...
    • Yesterday (friday) I moved the site to Ibiblio... because the server couldn't cope with the Slashdot attack. (I planned to do it quitetly today.)

      I heard several people ask "what is it like to have your server slashdotted?
      It is NO FUN! You see the workload on your machine rise above 40; top slows to a crawl, and all kind of weird things are happening because your machine is:
      - running out of processes
      - running out of swap space
      - running out of file descriptors
      And it isn't able to perform its usual task

  • Betcha can't guess what I'm thinking.... (Score:3, Funny)

    by BWJones ( 18351 ) on Saturday October 11, 2003 @03:22PM (#7190880) Homepage Journal
    When Darl says "So, if we turned around and opened this code up, like if I showed you the code, I mean, I've got it right here. . ..... I'm not going to show you."

    This just show me that he is one of those guys that as a kid went around saying "Betcha can't guess what I'm thinking". Those kids used to get beat up or totally ignored. Hmmmm maybe that is the problem we are having today.

  • Ogg ? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Aliencow ( 653119 )
    I know Ogg is cool and all, but like most slashdotters, I'm here while wasting time at work..where I'm stuck with NT4 and Media Player 6.5..so an mp3 would be great !
    • not to bitch about ogg. People here don't like when you have a problem with their obscure formats. Screw usability or standards lets use some odd format unless it is Flash of course. People here don't visit the real world too often.
      • the real world can die, thanks.
        • the real world can die, thanks.

          The real world can change.

          "The resonable man adapts himself to the world; the unresonable on persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." --George Bernard Shaw
      • funny, I just started switching to .ogg Not because it is obscure, but because it is open.
        And it's quility, in my tests, is hogher then mp3s.

        Standards are good, I'm a big fan of them, however, once a company can control a standard, it ceases to be open and for the community, and starts to become a revinue stream, which is not good for the community.
        I know that wll get twisted, so let me clarify.
        I don't mind companies making money. In fact, I think its great! but not when it is controling a standard.
        I'm not

    • Re:Ogg ? (Score:2, Informative)

      by JamesP ( 688957 )
      OggDropXP -- it decodes directly to the sound card, no hassle and no need to install (just unzip)

      Now stop crying.

  • Boies fatal error (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Dav3K ( 618318 ) on Saturday October 11, 2003 @03:23PM (#7190883)
    The biggest mistake Boies made was to continue letting McBride et al to continue to speak publicly. So much of what they have said is now coming back to haunt them, especially in the Red Hat case.

    It seems pretty obvious that McBride can stall this through his 4 quarters of profit, but his big payoff comes one year after that - I wonder what tricks he has up his sleeve to hang on that long?
    • My personal conspiracy theory is that there are two companies heavily benefitting from this: Boies' (lawyers always win ...) and Microsoft.

      After all, where did the funds for this campaign come from ? Microsoft, HP & Sun licensing (Sun is seeing its marketshare destroyed by cheap Linux on Intel, but they're dead anyway)

      Microsoft has a lot to gain from SCO spreading FUD for as long as possible. SCO's attempts to slow down the legal process is achieving precisely this. And Microsoft doesn't really care

      • Re:Not quite ... (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Dav3K ( 618318 )
        Sure, Boies is getting paid, but that's hardly a win. Lawyers like to take cases that do more than just pay the bills. They like to win cases, for a variety of reasons. The short of is is that lawyers do not always win - but they usually manage to get paid, which can sometimes be a decent enough consolation prize to endure the loss.

        As for Microsoft, well sure they like the situation and were happy to pay licensing fees, knowing that it would help fuel SCO's fire. No conspiracy here, just taking advantage
      • >(Sun is seeing its marketshare destroyed by cheap Linux on Intel, but they're dead anyway)

        I certainly don't see that. Sun's mad hatter linux [sun.com] is poised to strike against Windows/MS Office. They have nothing to gain by damaging the reputation of linux and/or hurting the GPL. In fact, Sun has a lot to lose if SCO gets its way.
        • Except Sun, particularly their CEO, is too dumb to realize that. Sun spends a hell of a lot of time downplaying Linux. Expect Mad Hatter to fizzle out and get dropped.

          If if this doesn't happen, Sun offers little that isn't already available. They are just rebranding existing Linux solutions. Linux is already very viable on the desktop with OpenOffice, other office suites, Evolution, and so forth. Thats about as inovative as the early days of Mandrake and SuSE... i.e., the s/Red Hat/Mandrake/ distribu

    • It would seem to me that this interview pretty much confirms what everyone's suspected all along -- SCO is doing this because they're losing market position badly. I think Darl all but came out and said it several times. This is a plain ol' sour grapes lawsuit...
  • Why SCO Started All This. No. Really.
    Friday, October 10 2003 @ 10:18 PM EDT

    Back in June, there was a protest by Linux users at SCO headquarters, which received some coverage in the press, including here on Groklaw. I now have a transcript of the conversation between SCO CEO Darl McBride and the protesters. I've also listened to the tape to verify the accuracy of the transcript, and you can do the same if you can play .ogg files, here. There are a couple of places where the sound isn't clear, so I've indica
    • Darl(0:16): So you guys are just convinced that we're Satanic?

      Hm, if that doesn't show his mindset, being from Utah and all...

      Fortunately he didn't mention:

      John(3:16)

      • Fortunately he didn't mention:
        John(3:16)
        For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
        • I suppose what I find most interesting about the parent post is how such a simple and short post could generate so many troll responses. Does the quote in the parent post touch a nerve stronger than, say a quote from Hitler instead, for instance?
      • Darl(0:16): So you guys are just convinced that we're Satanic?

        Since you broght it up Darl. Yes, that is correct, I am convinced.

        But it is irrelevant to the topic at hand: Your stock pump and dump scheme based on unsubstantiated claims of IP infringement in Linux and your extortion attempts to collect $699 per user.
    • The "Wo-hoo, the 'Sir Haxalot is a known troll' troll!" troll is a known troll!

  • Here we go (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 11, 2003 @03:28PM (#7190913)
    Back in June, there was a protest by Linux users at SCO headquarters,which received some coverage in the press, including here on Groklaw. [groklaw.net] Inow have a transcript of the conversation between SCO CEO Darl McBrideand the protesters. I've also listened to the tape to verify theaccuracy of the transcript, and you can do the same if you can play .ogg files, here. [groklaw.net] There are a couple of places where thesound isn't clear, so I've indicated that in the transcript.

    McBride talks about a number of issues, such as SGI, whether SCOintended to sue end users or commercial only, how and when theydiscovered the alleged "infringement", Caldera's contributions to Linux, and whether Debian is a safeversion of GNU/Linux to use because of its noncommercial nature. He also tells them that SCO isn't interested in suing individual users or even small commercial users. Its beef, he says, is with the "Unix vendor community", UNIX-licensing companies switching to Linux and donating code to Linux so they don't have to pay any more royalties to SCO for Unix code, "the vendors that are getting aneconomic incentive to reducing the amount of royalties that they payby virtue of taking our property and putting it into Linux, then turnaround and saying it's a free system." He mentions that they were talking about 64-way systems, not home users.

    He also says they found "hundreds of thousands of lines of code that are infringing against our contracts." Note the plural on contracts. He claims the increase in functionality in Linux is because of "vendors" that SCO has "confidentiality agreements" with. Again, note the plural.

    A lot has changed since June, but it's clear that when this began, SCO had in mind a very small pool of targets, UNIX vendors being a small group of companies. What stands out is that I think you'll see how polite the Linux group is,how friendly the conversation was even when strong points were being made by each side, McBride praising them several times and at the end thanking them for their input and calling them "awesome". How different this reality is from the ugly portrait he has tried topaint in the media of users of GNU/Linux software allegedly "attacking" SCO. And when you hear or read it, ask yourself, how accurate were news reports of this event? But judge for yourself and draw your own conclusions.

    Transcriptof informal group chit-chat with Darl McBride

    June20, 2003

    Members of the Provo LinuxUsers Group (PLUG), along with other Linux and Unix group members andconcerned individuals in the area held a protest against SCO on June20, 2003. This protest began in front of SCO headquarters in theafternoon. The officialPLUG protest web site, with pictures and video, can be seen at http://mirror.lug-nut.com/

    After protesting in frontof the SCO corporate offices (on a cul-de-sac), many in the groupmoved to a more visible location, a busy intersection nearby. Alittle while later, Darl McBride stopped by for an informal chit-chatwith the demonstrators on his way home. Here is what was said during the 23-minute conversation.

    TheCast:

    Darl: SCO CEO Darl McBride

    P: Protester (thecollective group, with various individuals asking questions)

    C: Cameraman

    Pleasant Grove PoliceOfficer: Pleasant Grove Police Officer

    Darl: So, how's theday going?

    P: Oh, pretty well. We had more people than we expected. We talked to some of yourengineers outside, and they're really nice people.

    Darl(0:11): So howdid all that go?

    P: Oh, really well . . .

    Darl(0:16): So youguys are just convinced that we're Satanic? Is that it?

    P: No, no, no.

    P: Just greedy,that's all.

    P: We wouldn't usethose words. We would use different ones.

    P:

  • Spanked (Score:4, Interesting)

    by BWJones ( 18351 ) on Saturday October 11, 2003 @03:32PM (#7190934) Homepage Journal
    Is this an unedited version of the transcript? Wow, if so, reading through the transcript, it appears Darl is not a very good spokesman for the company. He completely lost the initiative with the debate, has no real direction with which to respond to questions. On the other hand, not to defend SCO or anything, but the interviewer does things that always piss me off in interviews. Namely interrupting and quickly changing the subject before the interviewed gets a chance to adequately respond.

    • You have to remember that it wasn't a single protester. There were about a dozen of them, and sometimes they cut each other off.

      Best of all was "Angry Protester"--I haven't seen him before or since, but I will never forget his facial expression with the veins bulging with every question.

      But yes, McBride really talks a lot more than he thinks.

      • I am probably the one you are referring to as "Angry Protester". I just couldn't understand why many were standing around passing the time of day, letting Darl spout more nonsense about open source writers being thieves and pirates, as they had during the whole protest, without asking fundamental questions, like what about the GPL, what about your infringements of copyright, etc. SCO has yet to acknowledge this basic issue. At least IBM thinks this is the relevant question -- it is almost scary that IBM

    • Not interviewer. InterviewerS. As in the large group of anti-SCO protesters outside of the SCO building in Lindon. That's why it seems kind of disjointed and subject-changey, and why there's lots of interruptions both on Darl's part and the crowd's.

      Bottom line tho, he doesn't say anything he hasn't already: "We are keeping our heads in the sand until this thing pays off."

    • Re:Spanked (Score:5, Insightful)

      by dimator ( 71399 ) on Saturday October 11, 2003 @04:00PM (#7191058) Homepage Journal
      They asked McBride (more than once) why it wasn't just OK for the linux guys to remove the infringing code. He didn't answer the question at all, and instead danced around it. In fact, I can hardly find any question where he did answer in a straight-forward manner.

      It would be cool if he just answered "Greed." to every question, because that's what we're all thinking anyway.

    • LTTFT. There is no interviewer, P: stands for "Protesters (the collective group, with various individuals asking questions)" therefore there was no moderation.

    • Re:Spanked (Score:3, Funny)

      by Nucleon500 ( 628631 )
      There were many weaselisms here, but the biggest is that every other sentence includes "moving forward." He comes off like Kodos: "Forwards, not backwards, upwards not forewords, and always spinning, spinning towards freedom!" Except that he sounds like Boomhauer.
  • But the story of the interview was posted to slashdot when it happened. Are we all in such a state of SCO withdrawl that we need deliberate dupes.

    Yes Darl said stupid things thats probably why sco is no longer saying much.
    • When what happened, the protest? You mean the one back in June? Let's see, that was 4 months ago... one could just argue that this is an update (or rehash if you will) of the event.

      Plus, you get to read the good Groklaw comments, where there are no trolls or idiots, and people post good info and links. And they don't whine about "dupes" (granted, there are none).

  • Improvement of Linux (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ultrabot ( 200914 ) on Saturday October 11, 2003 @03:45PM (#7190976)
    Isn't it funny that some time ago, Linux wasn't "good enough" for the enterprise, but nowadays, Linux is "evil" because it is too good and marginalizes the operating system as a revenue provider? I recall that a while ago, some f*wits at the SCO get-together complained that creating a compiler isn't profitable anymore, because of gcc.

    Anyway, it seems like we are winning.
  • simply because one day he says something and another day he says something else, and then he says he didn't mean what he said, and so forth, and so forth ... it's becoming so boring, really, why anyone should care about reading this staff is above and beyound me.
  • where he said some very interesting things

    Like what?

    The right questions weren't even asked... I mean when he's dodging the issue of showing the code by saying that they have to protect the IP of other companies, why not ask him to show just a few samples? I mean out of hundreds of thousands of lines of code, surely a few lines here and there wouldn't hurt anyone? Then at least we would know if their clames are true or (as we've seen with the leaks, probably) not.
    • Actually, I'm sure that any lawyer would probably tell you that, assuming what McBride says about his licenses is true, then showing ANY of the SysV sourcecode would put him in violation of his own licenses, which could land SCO in hot water with it's licensees.

      As an analogy, I had a neighbor who got a big dog. Our lease agreement (contract) at this apartment place states that you can have only 20 pounds of live animal living at your place, and this guy's German Shepherd pretty much tripled that figure.
      • "As much as I'd like to find a way to settle this once and for all, and as sick as I am of the BS that SCO is inflicting on anyone willing to listen, I have to agree that they probably can't release any of their code. IANAL, so I'm also probably wrong =]"

        IANAL either, but if it is indeed true that there are hundreds of thousands of lines of disputed code, then I can't imagine why they couldn't pick a few hundred lines of it and just say "Here is an example, here is another, and here is another." Hencef

      • Actually, I'm sure that any lawyer would probably tell you that, assuming what McBride says about his licenses is true, then showing ANY of the SysV sourcecode would put him in violation of his own licenses, which could land SCO in hot water with it's licensees.

        IANAL either, but I don't get this. Even if they would print every single line of code that doesn't belong in the Linux kernel in a newspaper ad, what damage would be done? The code is already on thousands of hard disks, ready for review by anyone

        • Here's how I'm seeing it: SCO considers it's code to be trade-secret, proprietary information, etc etc. The fact that SCO code is already on thousands of hard disks is irrelevant, particularly if that code is there illegally. Publishing the code, however, would instantly and forever make that code part of the public domain - the very thing SCO claims to be hoping to avoid.

          My guess is that the code, IF it exists at all, will be brought forward in a closed courtroom - trade secrets etc etc just like Micr
      • I don't understand.

        If SCO source code is in Linux, it's not a secret anymore. Why they don't just give a list of the infringing files or part of files?

    • Personally, I found this snippet very interesting:

      P: The same patternwas followed by AT&T, though, with BSD.

      Darl(6:17): Yeah,but during that same period of time, there was still a lot ofeconomic value to the System V code base.

      So according to Darl, the System V code base does not have a lot of economic value anymore. Where does the $3 billion in damages come from then?

    • The right questions weren't even asked...

      I think everyone would agree that there were a lot of weak questions, and even more importantly, there were a lot of questions that he was able to dodge because of the frequent changing of topics.

      We should keep in mind that this was an unplanned and unexpected event. Darl was passing us in his [expensive] car, slowed down, said a few words, and then turned around, parked, and started chatting with us. You really can't expect an unprepared group to ask all of the
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • That Darl... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Jameth ( 664111 ) on Saturday October 11, 2003 @03:56PM (#7191041)

    Is a pretty smooth talker. He managed to almost always sound like he was saying something, even though he wasn't on quite a few occasions. Also, he only repeated himself about ten or twelve times.

    And that's not an insult, not by a long-shot. It's damn hard not to be repetitive in a situation like that, and he held out pretty good.

    Also, if I recall correctly, he distictively said SCO wasn't going after end users and Linux developers, just after IBM:

    P: The thing that we ask is that you just make it clear that you're attacking IBM, not us.

    Darl(22:38): I appreciate what you're saying. OK.
    P:Thanks.

    Of course, it's a little vague, but it's something.

    He managed to dodge all the questions about if running a specific configuration was in any way a violation (On a single proc? On a handheld?). Also, he seemed to imply that Debian was clean.

    Darl(8:55): I can't... Again, when I look at Debian versus what we're talking about with enter... I would really draw the line on enterprise class Linux versus what you're talking about. Right? 'Cause I think that there's a huge difference. I mean, when I hear what you're talking about, the thing that is interesting is, I would argue the point which is that's not where we're trying to go. Okay. Because our real beef is where the thing has been highly commercialized. When you get a 64-way system, and my guess is that the one you're using at home is not a 64-way system, right? That is really where we have a lot of concern.

    Also, the protestors were very level-headed, which was good. They had good questions and pushed hard without being rude.

    • "OK" is not a heartening response. Besides, by attacking users (even if it's just with FUD and not lawsuits) SCO is also attacking IBM, which has made Linux part of its bottom line. Likewise, by attacking IBM, which promotes and enhances linux, SCO is attacking all of us as well. We must all hang together...
  • There's a mirror of the ogg here [groklaw.net], should the original get slashdotted -- it's 17 megs.
  • Caldera [slashdot.org]
    The Courts [slashdot.org]
    UNIX [slashdot.org]
    Software [slashdot.org]
    Businesses [slashdot.org]
    Operating Systems [slashdot.org]
    News [slashdot.org]

    Thank you sir! May I have another?

  • More SCO.... Great... (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by -tji ( 139690 )
    Just what we need, another article pointing out the same thing we already know: SCO is full of shit.

    Keep giving them the coverage they love so much. Keep letting SCO play you.

  • ...or I might just be drunk. I think he makes the point that SCO is in the right to sue IBM if they consider themselves to have proof that IBM has put SCO code in linux. It makes sense to me that SCO does not intend to make this IP infringement known to anyone without signing a NDA. I don't think it would be any damage to SCO if they did, if they say that this is our IP and point it out doesn't mean they can sue the next company putting the same code in any other free or commercial product. Consider that
    • This one should be more easy to read. (there is a bug in slashcode :))

      or I might just be drunk. I think he makes the point that SCO is in the right to sue IBM if they consider themselves to have proof that IBM has put SCO code in linux.

      It makes sense to me that SCO does not intend to make this IP infringement known to anyone without signing a NDA. I don't think it would be any damage to SCO if they did, if they say that this is our IP and point it out doesn't mean they can sue the next company putting the
      • If IBM really stole SCO's code and put it in Linux, and that is damaging SCO's business, then the number one priority of SCO is to get that code out of Linux, so that it can stop damaging their business. They can then go and sue IBM for damages.

        SCO is refusing to do the one step that would be absolutely vital to them if they want to stop this "damage" from any stolen IP. They must identify the exact code so it can be removed and thus mitigate their damages. Not doing so is proof that the stolen code is act

  • FUD follows FUD (Score:5, Informative)

    by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Saturday October 11, 2003 @04:43PM (#7191254) Homepage Journal

    Note how Darl never, ever addresses the GPL issue directly. He never says, "in regards to the allegations of copyright violation in regards to distribution of the Linux kernel, which is protected by the GPL, from our server all this time..." or anything similar. Here's the only time he seems to address the issue of the GPL, though again he does not mention the GPL:

    Darl: We obviously have problems. Now one issue here is a distribution is not the same as a donation, right? Somebody donated code that is protected by us through other agreements in there. When it goes in, it doesn't say "this was SCO protected code." We only found out about this a couple months ago. That's when we said "we've gotta stop this until we get this figured out."

    It seems that the phrase a distribution is not the same as a donation is an allusion to the fact that they are still distributing linux, but they don't seem to think that distributing the code under the GPL is the same as donating it.

    Well, in a sense, Darl is correct. It's not donating it; it is making the code available for all to use under the terms of the GNU Public License which states some things quite clearly which demonstrate that SCO itself is releasing this code to us under the terms of the GPL, for such use as we see fit, so long as we accept the license.

    4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance.

    (WHEREIN SCO cannot terminate our right to use their source code which they have themselves distributed under the GPL, within the linux kernel, even if SCO themselves does not follow the terms of the GPL...)

    5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying the Program or works based on it.

    (WHEREIN SCO has agreed to the terms of the GPL, which as per the prior paragraph they cannot revoke, by distributing the code under the GPL...)

    6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein. You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to this License.

    (WHEREIN SCO grants a further license for distribution to anyone and everyone, under the terms of the GPL...)

    7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues), conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent license would not perm

    • One error in your otherwise excellent post.

      The lawyers at SCO weren't doing their job when SCO started distributing Linux.

      Not at all. Remember, the company that calls itself SCO today bought that name very recently - it is NOT the Santa Cruz Operation that put out Unix on Intel for these many years. It's Caldera Systems. The vast majority of their income has been from Linux. Selling Linux is how they came up with the money to buy the name and the so-called 'IP' from SCO in order to start this scam.

      • It's not that SCO (or, at the time as you say, Caldera) should not have sold Linux. It's that the lawyers should have let them know what the repercussions were. Where else was Caldera going to make money, OpenDOS? bwahahahahahaha(insert break here)hahahahahaha! (Laughter truncated to avoid a non-breaking line that would be split up by slashdot more irrespectively of my desires.)

        • It's not that SCO (or, at the time as you say, Caldera) should not have sold Linux. It's that the lawyers should have let them know what the repercussions were.

          That's just the thing though - there's no evidence that they didn't. Caldera had (has? not sure on who they've kicked today) many employees that understand the GPL, and that includes people as high in the organisation as Ransom Love, who was the CEO before McBride. If you read the recent interviews with him, it's clear that he understood it, in a f

  • So here's the part that jumped out at me... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Ironica ( 124657 ) <pixel&boondock,org> on Saturday October 11, 2003 @04:47PM (#7191267) Journal
    Let me paraphrase one section of this exchange:

    "So, show us where Linux is in violation."

    "No, we can't do that, because then we'd be revealing protected code, and then there would be a problem."

    "So there's not a problem?"

    "No, there is a problem, which is that there's SCO protected code in Linux."

    "So if there's a problem, just tell us which code, and we can fix it."

    "No, I can't do that, it would cause a problem."

    This sounds like one of those loops that those AIs get into when talking to each other...

  • Darl: We're talking about commercial users.

    P: What's the difference?

    Darl: We didn't send you a letter, right? We sent it out to commercial users.

    <nimoy>His name is DAR-EL (dar-el) DAR-EL MC-BRIDE, greatest question dodger of them all!</nimoy>

  • ...someone needs to pipe up and ask him point-blank why he and his cronies have been dumping their stock.
  • I have to admit that Darl *sounds* like a nice guy in this tape. Note the emphasis, though.

    A couple of big logical flaws that I haven't seen anyone else point out yet:

    "A few years ago, our annual revenues were hundreds of millions of dollars. Now they're down to around fifty million." This *assumes* that SCO's revenues *would* have held steady, if it weren't for those darn kids and their mangy dog.

    "We're not going after end-users, we're going after the big huge businesses - especially enterprise-class

  • Same FUD, different day (Score:3)

    by BadDoggie ( 145310 ) on Saturday October 11, 2003 @04:59PM (#7191324) Homepage Journal
    The one thing McBride does explain well (most likely after a lot of prompting from his lawyers) is a reason for not presenting the offending lines: by publicly exposing these "trade secret" lines, he removes the secrecy. This is correct. It's also flawed, as explained in the Halloween IX [opensource.org] document, which repeatedly hammers home the point that the code was available for educational review and is thus not a secret.

    McBride probably believes this point though, and he has to, otherwise his case falls apart and he opens the company -- and himself personally -- to all sorts of abuse and contempt charges.

    He spouts the same McDonald's crap as seen in Halloween IX [opensource.org], but strangely enough, no "protestor" mentioned that the only McD use of SCO is in the cash registers, which have less power than my non-hacked, Palm023.1 Palm III handheld, which I use more than my iPAQ. This is OpenServer, which was once Microsoft Xenix. McDonald's is not using SCO in their datacenters, just in their cash registers.

    McBride throws out the "high-scalability" buzzwords and is never correctly challenged by these "protestors", most of whom by their questions and responses appear to be anti-globalisationalists waiting for the next G-8 summit. Great questions from them included:

    "Have you ever read the GNU Public License?"

    [Answer: (13:30) "Sure", followed by change of subject due to cop.]

    "...Do you hope that the Linux kernel is completely free of any violations whatsoever?"
    [Answer: (16:22) "Sure", followed by change of subject due to another "protestor's" question.

    And so on...

    Not much to see here. Move along...
  • Every time I see these stories in Slashdot and elsewhere, absolutely 100% of the replies are along the lines of "SCO is nuts, they have no chance, they just want to pump up their stock and cash out, etc etc". Sometimes I see things like "I'm a lawyer and I think they have no grounds but wierd things can happen in the legal system."

    On the other hand their stock did go up so either the investors are idiots or we're missing something. Any time I'm discussing a topic like this with a group of people all of
    • either the investors are idiots or we're missing something.

      So what would be interesting to know is, what are the investors thinking? When the stock goes up, it must mean some people are willing to pay those prices. Would some of those buyers step forward and tell us why they bought? Do they think SCO possess anything of value, or do they just hope the stock will go a little higher before dropping?
  • Call me crazy here, but I got through about the first 3 minutes of the interview, and it started to sound *very* much like Catch-22. I'm dead serious. The Linux community is Yossarian and Darl is Doc. Anyone else see where I'm coming from here?

  • Comments are the DNA.... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by jmors ( 682994 )
    To me, here is one of the most interesting parts of this interview:

    Darl(21:50): It's reasonable, except when the comment codes are the same, the humor lines in the comment code are the same, and the typos in the comment code are the same, then you start getting beyond... Ya know, it was kind of like, I learned this one day at school ... It becomes more of the... Those, to me, are really the DNA of the code here.

    So, SCO can't show the code because that would be giving away their IP... ok, how about sho

  • Heheh. I haven't listened to the audio transcript yet, but his persona does sound like that of Teacher from South Park!

    'Gather round Linux Children, mmmmkay we're going to talk about court injunctions and the greediness of our school' mmmmkay
  • ...because whatever SCO said in June, I'm sure they've changed their story many times since them. Maybe if the header was "SCO incoherent" but then I'd mark the article -1, Redundant.

    Kjella

  • Police (Score:3, Interesting)

    by suwain_2 ( 260792 ) on Saturday October 11, 2003 @08:06PM (#7192048) Journal
    I'm unclear on what the police were there for. It sounds to me as if they randomly barged in and asked if their assistance was needed. Why exactly were they there?

    That said... I'm frankly not sure I'd have been willing to talk to protesters if I were McBride. He almost seemed as if he was trying to be friendly, although I'm not sure how many questions he actually answered. (It seems that he completely evaded answering most of them?)

    I'm also confused... There are several times when someone asks some sort of question, and he replies with something that makes absolutely no sense, like "Thanks" or "Yes" (to a question that couldn't possibly be construed as yes or no). What was up with that?
  • I really hate interruptive interviewers. They usually just spout off stuff to the choir, which means that it's nothing more than just redundant flaming.

    I don't like McBride any more than the interviewer, but I want to make sure that McBride gets to make his statement. If I understand fully what he is trying to say, than I can formulate a better argument against him, otherwise my arguments are always going to fall short.

  • Follow the money (Score:3)

    by jeffmock ( 188913 ) on Sunday October 12, 2003 @02:08AM (#7193253)
    It just occured to me that the correct open source solution to the SCO problem is for someone to develop an open source replacement for restaurant management.

    That way, McDonalds franchises can enjoy an open source solution intead of purchasing SCO products. This seems to be Darl's favorite customer, he mentions them in nearly everytime he talks.

    Develop open source solutions for SCO's top 3 cusmtomers and their stock price will go back where it belongs...

    jeff

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