Gartner Recommends Holding Onto The SCO Money

benploni writes "George Weiss of Gartner has published a paper with some interesting recommendations regarding SCO. They include 1) Keep a low profile and do not divulge details on Linux deployments. 2) Until a judgment in a case would unequivocally warrant it, Linux users should not pay SCO the license fees it has asked for to settle its allegations of infringement of intellectual property rights. 3) Do not permit SCO to audit your premises without legal authorization. 4) For customers of SCO Open Server and UnixWare, an unfavorable judgment could cause SCO to cease operations or sell itself. That could harm future support and maintenance. Just in case, prepare a plan for migrating to another platform within two years. There's more, but are the analysts finally catching on?"

Slow learners

[shystershep]

We believe that these moves compromise SCO's mission as a software company.

No news here if you've been keeping up the story on /., but some good points -- although most are common sense. I knew analysts weren't all that bright or quick on the uptake, but it looks like they eventually do get there sometimes. But what I can't figure out is why they think SCO is a software company . . .

Sorry NASA

[grub]

Keep a low profile and do not divulge details on Linux deployments.

Too bad NASA didn't read that advice. [slashdot.org] :)

Change your TCP/IP fingerprint

[hedley]

If you really want to hide (some who don't want
the hassle do). Then change the fingerprint on
the stack to show up as Win2k or equivalent.

When SCO does its IP addr sweep, you will be passed over.

Harm

[Anonymous Coward]

SCO is obviously causing harm with its threats, and people should request an immediate judgement, requiring SCO to submit enough evidence to be successful or face a ruling to the contrary. Then, the evidence would be as simple to get as requesting them from the court. Then, the infractions could be removed from linux (this assuming there actually were any...) to prevent further violation of sco's copyright.

Don't they realize that will severely ...

[burgburgburg]

hamper Darl and David's attempts to confuse the investing public into thinking that there is some validity to their claims, thus allowing them to continue to unload their massively overvalued shares? How will Canopy continue to use the overinflated valuation of SCOX to play their shell games and shuffle the monies around (eventually with them ending up in their pockets, of course)?

How utterly irresponsible of Gartner! No consulting contracts for them!

Re:Now that's a U-Turn

[Zapman]

I'm with a previous poster. I'd love to work as an analyst for Gartner, GIGA, etc. That'd rock.

Short version of how these companies operate:

1) Listen to geeks to figure out what's popular and new
2) push 'new' ideas as the salvation of computing kind
3) write papers, and sell these opinions for insane ammounts of money
4) proffit!
5) Every year or so, get together with your big $$ clients, and have a huge party in some place cool (according to my co-workers, the party Giga threw in Las Vegas was something to behold)

BSD was in SCO UNIX?

[eddy]

Check this out:

"Next up: Former SCO employee Jack Craig, now an SDK support engineer at another software company.

[...] While it was later excised and replaced with UDI code, I wonder how the world would take the news that SCO/Caldera paid a contract house in San Jose over $150,000 to port the NetBSD USB stack to osr5! They sure don't mind stealing open source when it suites them!" -- article here [newsforge.com]

This should be researched. McBride has been very admant that it doesn't matter if his imagined IP is removed from GNU/Linux, there price must be paid. Surely then his amazing legal understanding must be extended to his own company, in which case SCO could be a veritable GOLDMINE for the BSD Developers.

Re:Change your TCP/IP fingerprint

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Heck, why not make it look like an System/360 or a DEC. If you are going for deception, make it original.

Not all favorable to Linux

[JohnGrahamCumming]

The paper also says:

> Fence off the innocuous Linux deployments (such
> as network-edge solutions) from the
> performance-intensive ones. Where feasible, delay
> deployment of high-performance systems until the
> end of 1Q04 to see what SCO will do.

and

> If high-performance Linux systems are in
> production, develop plans that would enable a
> quick changeover in case SCO wins a favorable
> judgment and requires the Linux kernel code to be
>substantially changed. Unix systems are the best
alternatives.

Which I read as "do your best to not use Linux for the time-being, and if you are be prepared to switch".

John.

Sign of the times

[bigjnsa500]

I feel things are speeding up because the domain

scoclassaction.com

has been registered.

Good to hear it

[zymano]

Good to hear someone in the media has said it. 'Don't pay that SCO license ! '. Investment analysts are probably looking at the SCO/ip/linux licensing revenues from Fortune 500 companies that have already paid up and they think that there probably is going to be even more revenue. Linux Distribution companies need to raise their voices too so we can stop the SCO licensing so we can put a dent in the evil cycle of SCO bashing Linux which causes corporate companies to pay the license and analysts then giving a "STRONG BUY" on SCOX stock which in turn helps finance all this crap. Let's cut cut their damn oxygen off and stop this fire now .

Re:That's exactly why many call them anal-ysts

[Otter]

My favorite part is when they proclaim that something will occur (probability 0.72). As if they've done extensive Monte Carlo simulations to determine such a precise number instead of pulling decimal places out of their butts.

It's strange...

[Phantasmo]

that anyone would let a private company search their property without law enforcement being involved.

There's this one episode of The Awful Truth where they have two retired police officers (in uniform) walk around NYC and frisk random people.
The frisk-ees sort of look confused for a second, then calmly allow the search.

I don't know why North Americans are so uppity about "freedom" lately. We're obviously not terribly interested if we need someone to tell us, "Don't LET people take your privacy away!"

Standard risk-averse analysis...

[Kjella]

...if SCO turns out to have a case, Gartner warned about it. If they don't, Gartner can go "We couldn't know that in advance, so we suggested companies to have a plan B and not rely solely on Linux."

The important thing is that they're denying SCO their cashflow, both from licencing and from their software business. A lawsuit seems a lot more credible when it comes from a running company than from a tanking company.

Kjella

Software Company? Got jobs?

[geekmetal]

After reading the article I wondered if they had any software job openings posted on their website, take a look at the one Software Engineer [sco.com] job they have open.

Re:Red Herrings Eat Profits

[BRSloth]

Now just imagine what would happen if they find Linux code inside SCO Unix (and I don't think it's all that impossible). What would happen to all companies that have licenced sutff from SCO? Could they have Linux code on their Unix variants too?

Oh boy! All that unix variants, for free!

We Might have just turned the corner

[aws4y]

if you look at there stock performance over the past 5 years (here [google.com]) you will see that over the past month that SCO stock has been loosing its value, and even after the SCO FUD machine kicked into high gear this week and brought on some lawyers the stock is still on a downward slope. So maybe now its time for people to start shorting that stock, at least do it before Dec 8, when the judge may rule on IBMs motion to compel. IANAL but there might even be a declatory judgement at that time due to the poor response from SCO and the fact that there public statements are contradictory to many aspects of their case.

MSFT wants Linux installations to "Keep Quiet"

[Anonymous Coward]

The more people/companies that publically announce GNU/Linux installations the more momentum gained by Linux.

That is why SCO is targeting the 1500 biggest enterprise companies to spread the most FUD among the companies that have the most IT credibility. How much affect would a few less enterprise 1500 companies publically announcing switching to Linux have on other companies thinking of switching to Linux?

The one thing Microsoft fears the most is a snowball/avalanche effect of GNU/Linux adoption. All of their FUD is geared towards preventing the inevitable avalanche.

Why stop at SCO? Go after Boise's law firm too.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is clear that Davis Boise's law firm is an accessory to SCO's shakedown of the industry. If SCO loses its case, Davis Boise's law firm should also be sued for complicity.

Consultants like Gartner Group...

[bs_02_06_02]

All consultants do this. They take money from companies like Microsoft, Sun, Oracle and publish reports allowing a lot of spin for their customer. The companies can then use these reports as PR. Consultants lose crebility because of that behavior.

Consultants crave credibility. They come back with freebies like this one, touting their ability to consolidate a large amount of information. There's nothing earth shattering there, but the rest of the world will suddenly think, "Whew. The cat is out of the bag." SCO is going down the tubes, and this is a desperate act by desperate people."

Consultants are good at publishing "safe" analysis that won't offend anyone. It's already public, it's not that hard to believe. The public buys it.

Away from the consulting biz, most Wall Street analysts couldn't find water if they fell out of a boat. Analysts follow trends. They're more like sheep than anything else. Look at the analysts that follow Rambus. What a spectacle! Completely predictable too. Rambus produces extremely overpriced IP that marginally beats a much lesser priced product. Yet the analysts tout Rambus repeatedly.
Analysts are like sheep. None of them really wants to leave the flock. If there's a slaughter coming, they'll follow the leader. If you were an analyst, and your butt was on the line every day, how many gambles would you take? Not very many. If you say the same stupid things as the next analyst, you're safe.
99% of the analysts are not very bright. Every once in awhile, you run into an analyst that ventures into uncharted territory, and everyone rips 'em to shreds. It's funny too.

No Need to Hide, is there?

[twitter]

It's not even good advice. Your cheary outlook:

First off, any kind of press is good press. Secondly, the SCO lawsuit forces the media to understand the issues regarding GNU/Linux and free software, so perhaps this will lead to more widespread understanding and support.

is nice, but misses a few things.

The media is being forced to learn about free software because it's dramatic news on it's own. What could be a bigger story than a revolutionary development model that turns everything "experts" ever said about software on it's head and works much better than most people now use? If the only things you learn about free software come from Wintel rags, you are going to have a very warped and negative view. Lies and insults are not good press. Disinformation is bad, it wastes time to learn and even more to unlearn. You are better off not listening to any of it, especially those nuts at SCO.

Worse, the report recomends a "low profile". What PHB is not going to read that as proof that something is wrong with free software? "Do this, but don't tell anyone", what kind of bullshit is that?

Next the dummies will recomend Windoze migration.

Re:Crying in his Jello

[silicon not in the v]

I have a vested interest in this analogy since my company is in one of the Rambus lawsuits. They are going to take a while to play out to the bitter end, but there has been quite a bit of back and forth in them. I think they are currently looking good from their most recent appeal, but there are still cases ongoing with multiple companies. Rambus, at least, unlike SCO are still able to continue with their real business instead of just becoming a litigation factory. They were originally convicted of fraud [theinquirer.net], but that was overturned [yahoo.com] on appeal. The suits continue. I see the same possibility of repeated appeals in the SCO case, so don't look for them to be crushed in the first decision and that be the end of it.

Re:It's strange...

[El]

If they are carrying guns, perhaps your best strategy would be to comply now, get their badge numbers, and sue them later. Look what happened recently when the police raided a high school to look for drugs. A few students laboring under the impression that they had rights refused to get down on the floor as ordered. That resulted in drawn weapons being pointed at them, and probably in their being thrown up against the wall and hog-tied... oh, and by the way, they didn't find any drugs.

Re:Why wait?

[YOU LIKEWISE FAIL IT]

This is funny actually. Back, two or three years ago, I was working for a SCO house, and we switched our systems away from SCO/Terminals to some ancient version of Redhat to make our offering ( Point of sale software ) more price competitive.

At the time people were saying buying SCO was a writeoff - for most of the stuff people were doing with it, it was too expensive and offered too few advantages over the competition. Pretty much the best thing you got was a plaque saying you were a SCO Preferred Supplier. Glad we got out [1] before someone put a pack of rabid hyenas on the SCO business strategy team.

YLFI

[1] Actually, I'd be quite happy to have seen that place be shot into the sun, so maybe I'm not so glad.

Wait and see?

[the_arrow]

As usual here on /. everything not pro-linux is a little skewed, so I would like to point out that while the report tells us to wait and see with SCO deployments and to plan migrating from SCO, it also points out that Linux deplyoments should be halted in case SCO comes out of this victorious. There is even a point in the report that tells us that Linux customers should plan a move away from Linux (preferably to some UNIX variant) in case SCO wins.