A Discussion of SCO's Fate With Groklaw's Pamela Jones 84
An anonymous reader writes "The SCO Group's current fate can be neatly summarized by the title of Pamela Jones' very first article on the case, back in May 2003 — 'SCO Falls Downstairs, Hitting its Head on Every Step.' In the intervening years PJ and Groklaw can be credited with unearthing and exposing many of the flaws in SCO's case, most notably, obtaining and publishing the 1994 settlement in the USL vs BSDi case. An article at the ITPro site interviews PJ about SCO, the impact of Groklaw and future of free software and the law."
PJ vs SCO... (Score:5, Funny)
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Give her credit (Score:5, Interesting)
Interesting also in the article: she mentions she saw what's underneath the corporate media and analysts. Yes, there is a lot of corruption there: you can "buy" favorable reviews with quid pro quo. And no one seems to object, that's just the way business is done. It's not so easy to fight: when you are young, you don't have the power to be different, and if you object, you are out on the street. As you get older (and more senior), you finally can object, except by then you have been doing it for years. So that makes you either an hypocrit, or at a minimum people will be able to come after you for past actions. Any solutions?
So just say thanks to Pamela for what she did.
That's one theory... (Score:5, Insightful)
Mostly, though, I'm surprised to see SCO employees posting on Slashdot- you'd think they'd be too busy looking for new jobs to troll here. Of course, if they are still 'working' for SCO, they might as well be browsing Slashdot during the day...
Re:That's one theory... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Because you can get all the restraining orders in the world and all the video footage of thefts and all the lazy prosecutors and police will say is to move. If you don't want to move or can't afford it, they'd rather have you show up in a bodybag at which point the problem goes away for them.
It's sad that the victims, and not the thugs, are always the ones required to move.
No tinfoil required. (Score:2)
Given that she was sticking pins in a corporation full of lawyers that felt competent to take on IBM and would love to have killed the message by discrediting or ruining the messenger, being obsessive about her privacy seems rational to me. No tinfoil required.
Re:Give her credit (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yes, give her credit ... (Score:3, Insightful)
- actual knowledge of what she is writing about (legal proceedings) and the self-restraint to stay inside her area of expertise (Groklaw is something that professional lawyers read to obtain information. Can you imagine *any* lawyer reading Slashdot for information? I cannot.)
- a willingness to actually do research, read source material instead of press releases, and to piece vari
I can easily imagine. (Score:4, Insightful)
I can. Easily. B-)
Seriously, though. I can also imagine a GOOD lawyer reading Slashdot - for leads, ideas, arguments, legal theories, and inspiration (just for starters). But then he'd CHECK them - with dependable source and reference documents, credible witnesses, traceable, certified experts, etc.
Slashdot is a rumor mill. Sometimes it's mostly mist and mirrors. But often where there's smoke there's fire.
Well ... I still cannot. (Score:3, Insightful)
- Slashdot if far too diffuse: it doesn't focus on any single topic and covers that really well. In the words of Cmdr Taco it tries to present an appealing mix of stories. There you go ... you cannot ever *count* on Slashdot covering anything well. It does however focus on IT-oriented stories.
- Slashdot itself possesses zero editorial expertise. The expertise (if any) is all with the people who post here. Posts vary from garbage to insightful
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Obviously not a regular reader. Every few weeks she goes off on some hairbrained rant, often loaded with conspiracy theories and paranoia.
Groklaw is really good when it sticks to what its good at though.
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I can: Ray Beckerman, aka NewYorkCountryLawyer.
And he has used Slashdot as an information source, e.g. his Ask Slashdot for leads into questions to pose a RIAA expert witness.
I don't think however that Ray takes everything here on first sight. I do imagine he does checking on the leads he gets here. Still, he is an active participant in copyright discussions.
MartI enjoy slamming the SCO but... (Score:3, Interesting)
On the other hand the majority of the interview about Groklaw and Jones' feelings about it was quite interesting, especially the part discussing democracy and the nature of Groklaw.
so... (Score:3, Funny)
Just covering SCO is enough for now. (Score:5, Informative)
The SCO cases could drag on for years, or they could end next month. It's hard to say. Groklaw just covering SCO is enough for now.
As SCO management is discovering, they have far less control in bankruptcy than they could before. They were able to control the pace of the pre-bankruptcy cases because they were the plaintiff in most of them. It's different in bankruptcy. The bankruptcy judge, the U.S. Trustee, and the creditors are in charge. The bankruptcy judge keeps shooting down SCO management's wierd legal ideas.
Yahoo Finance says it all: "SCOX is deficient and bankrupt."
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Haha!
Won't last years (Score:2)
The reason they tried to push through a super-duper must have it now sale of every asset to that troll company was to avoid having anything left for the creditor's committee to object to. You see, once that committee is established, everyone will have to agree or object to any attempt that SCO tries to keep its plaintiff litigation cases alive (Autozone) alive and take all the guaranteed-liability counterclaims (Novell, IBM) with the S
An educated public (Score:5, Insightful)
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How? The public had about zero effect on the SCO/Novell case.
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How? The public had about zero effect on the SCO/Novell case.
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Re:An educated public (Score:5, Insightful)
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The public had about zero effect on the SCO/Novell case.
Keep in mind that this was more than SCO vs. Novell. It was more than SCO vs. IBM (or Chrysler or Autozone). There was also the court of public opinion. It is very possible that the later was the real target of SCO's actions.
Once in awhile the water cooler talk around my area turns to SCO (among the IT crowd - I've yet to meet any non-IT folks who know about SCO). It's rather interesting that the conversation about SCO's legal wrangling includes a lot of details that never surfaced in any court of law.
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Or perhaps you can make a point with more depth than the campy nonsense "FTL" phrase that's so popular with the twitchy ADD set these days?
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Hmmmph... as the rest of the news networks mimic Fox. Yeah, that's gonna happen. Face it, the same sociopathic greedheads that run the likes of Fox, SCO, Enron, and Microsoft also run and own ALL media outlets. As well as "your" government*, who these same greedheads have bought lock, stock, and barrell.
The only way a rich powerful man in the US goes to prison is if a richer, more powerf
Grass roots (Score:5, Insightful)
Old SCO stuff (Score:2, Funny)
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One battle "won" (Score:2)
Just watch your back!
PJ's status in the Corporate world (Score:5, Interesting)
Although she does deserve a nice bonus from all the companies that were aided by her efforts.
She made a place where people could discuss and analyze the case, thus enabling many different minds to come together and put their different strengths to greater benefit. You give people access to the info and let them think for themselves, and you give them power. You also get people lining up to try and help.
Both her and Ray (for the RIAA cases) deserve a lot of credit for putting together a compendium of info that would be way too time consuming for people to get for themselves. They see what is going on in different cases, and can connect the dots. While we were in a sense helping out corporations, we were also helping out ourselves, and without the place to go to get the info and a safe place to discuss it, it wouldn't have happened.
So Thanks PJ, you helped open the window to what SCO was trying to do, and showed what they were hiding. And this is why people are afraid of the open source and info movements - they don't want people able to see what they are up to (such as borrowing code, not disclosing hard to find info, etc).
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Someone forgot to mention: hero (Score:5, Insightful)
Three Cheers to a friend of the open source community, diligent, tenacious, and gleeful in that determination.
Integrity counts. Pamela Jones is a champion of the OSS community and the values it stands for.
SCO Falls Downstairs, Hits Head on Every Step (Score:2)
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It would make a good ending to the SCO case as you described it.
PJ...does...not...exist (Score:2, Insightful)
every time an occasion comes up when she might HAVE to make an appearance she suddenly "gets sick" and disappears (like when SCO threatened to subpoeana her [forbes.com], and even when she won the Knowledge Master [groklaw.net]
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Even if that is a pseudonym for a real person or not it really doesn't matter because the result is what counts. An important part is that what Groklaw did in this case was to bring out some of the nastier parts in the clear. There was no need for Groklaw to mess things up or go around spreading FUD - SCO did that well enough already so it was just a question of pricking their FUD balloons with a sharp needle now and then.
Alan wrote the test... (Score:2)
Even if that is a pseudonym for a real person or not it really doesn't matter because the result is what counts.
I don't care who or what she is. PJ passes the Turing Test.
(On the internet nobody can tell you're a 'bot. B-) )
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I guess they think she's real.
Someone exists (Score:2)
Honestly, though, if 'Pamela Jones' is really a Pseudonym for Patricia Johnson, a agoraphobic paralegal who used to work for Microsoft, would that really matter? I confess I'm curious, but for the most part it doesn't matter to me who PJ is- I don't read her articles to find out about her
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That's pretty bold worlds coming from someone who calls himself Anonymous Coward, eh Darl? So she wants to remain anonymous, so what? Her information (like court documents) is beyond reproach. And yes SCO threatened to subpoena her, but IBM and the judge quashed that as a diversion that had nothing to do the case. SCO doesn't like her because she publishes damaging information that they d
If so, so what? (Score:2)
OTOH, Rob Enderele has an obvious axe to grind against IBM, (he worked for Rolm during a botched acquisition by IBM), and he has been shown to be full of a stea
Too Gracious? (Score:3, Funny)
"SCOX is deficient and bankrupt." (Score:3, Interesting)
So, what's this [honeypot.net] all about? The SCOX page in Yahoo! Finance is the only Google result for that phrase. Is this a prankster at Yahoo!, or something more entertaining?
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Some other classifications are: "deficent and delinquent", "delinquent and bankrupt" and "deficent, delinquent and bankrupt".
See: http://www.nasdaq [nasdaqtrader.com]
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Why does that phrase [google.com] only show up in conjunction with SCOX? I didn't see any news [yahoo.com] that looked like it would have triggered that warning. I admit that I'm glad to see it, but don't have the financial knowledge to really understand what it all means, or who decided that it was so. From your link it appears that someone at NASDAQ said that it's a required message, but what triggers it?
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Something has to be done to fix the system (Score:5, Insightful)
We badly need to fix the system where incompetent shysters like him can't even get into that position, let alone be personally rewarded for catastrophic failure.
I mean, what on earth were the SCO board thinking when they agreed his last performance bonus?
Re:Something has to be done to fix the system (Score:4, Funny)
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Yup. It seems some people will go to any lengths to win a bet.
But man is he ever enjoying that $20.
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What were they thinking?They were thinking that he owns stock in the companies they work at/run, and he can respond in kind.
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Errrmmmm, has no one considered the idea that he did precisely the job he was paid to do? Linux was becoming very hot in IT when SCO launched the lawsuit. Linux-oriented business cooled off for a while, long enough for Microsoft to suspend vendor drift toward Linux (to some extent). They waved the promises of the glories the turd that is Vista, and the uncertainty of the legal standing of GNU/Linux in front of businesses.
Microsoft launched their FUD campaign around that time, pumping 2 million dollars
How has scox failed? (Score:5, Insightful)
Darl is making $34K a month, which is not bad for a small-time Utah scammer.
Msft got 4.5 years of premium Linux FUD, for about $50 million - hardly pocket change for msft.
BSF pocketed, at least, $50 million.
Riamondi sold his shares in the high teens.
None of the guilty have been punished in any way, and they are not likely to ever be punished.
IBM has probably spent about between 50 and 100 million defending itself against the bogus lawsuit.
Msft has sent this stern warning: "if you want to contribute to Linux, you better be ready to spend tens of millions in lawyer fees, and spend the next five years in court." Can you say "chilling effect?"
People like PJ feel that they need to cheerlead. But, if you objectively examine the facts, I think you will find that in most respects, scox has already won.
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People like PJ feel that they need to cheerlead. But, if you objectively examine the facts, I think you will find that in most respects, scox has already won.
Actually, only certain members of SCOX "won", and you could likely count them on one hand with fingers to spare. The rest of SCOX' employee roster lost... hard. At level best they managed to make it through the dot-bust (and I do agree that they would've likely died in 2004 otherwise), but with 'SCO-Under-Darl's-reign' on the resume? It has to be damned tough to get an interview in the tech industry... and Utah isn't exactly a hotbed of tech hiring (unless you're shooting for, say, call-center work). Rem
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The people who won, are the scammers. Yes, just a few people. The entire company is not behind behind the scam, just a few execs, and they are winning.
> SCO, the company, did not.
Scox, in fact, did. As I mentioned, scox was dead anyway. The scam was planned January 2003, or earlier. In that time, scox share went from $1 to $3 before scox actually filed the lawsuit in March 2003. Scox was *never* profitable - not one profitable quarter ever
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And you observation is correct. IMO: I am trying to be the voice of reason here. I have to roll my eyes every time I read what I consider brain-dead cheer-leading: "Yay!! We win!! We *always* win." If you can support that view, fine. But, although you are critical of my point of view, you have not answered my question:
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And now, back to Utah: BK judge lifts stay (Score:3, Interesting)
Remember how that went down:
1. Utah judge agrees with Novell in Summary Judgements that SCOX did not get the copyrights, that they owe Novell money, and are guilty of conversion.
2. Novell tells the judge that SCOX is about to go bankrupt and that he should put the money in constructive trust.
3. SCOX successfully convinces the judge that they are NOT about to go bankrupt, and the judge says there is no need before the trial.
4. On the Friday before the trial was to start Monday, 17 September, 2007, SCOX declares bankruptcy in New Jersey, causing an automatic stay in Utah.
5. Novell asks the BK judge to lift the stay.
6. Today, the BK judge agreed.
7. Now the SCOX v. Novell case in Utah will go before that judge, who may not be happy with the way he was very publicly suckered and made to look foolish by SCOX's bankruptcy ploy.
It will be interesting to watch... on Groklaw.
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