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Darl McBride, the Man Nobody Bothers to Hate, and His Buddy Mike Anderer Cook Up a Scheme
Wednesday, June 23 2004 @ 03:39 PM EDT

I think you'll want to read this one, an article on SCO in Wired by Newsweek reporter Brad Stone. You will have to pick your way through a lot of the usual warmed up leftover SCOFUD that SCO always feeds reporters, who dutifully report it as if true, starting with the title ("The Linux Killer" ... yeah, right, and how Darl is the most hated man in tech, blah blah -- I don't know anyone who takes him seriously, let alone hates him), but it's worth it, because the reporter managed to dig up some new information about the Mike Anderer connection, which clarifies the motives behind the IBM lawsuit, at least in my eyes. It was a patent-pool hustle, judging from this article, from two guys who have a history together doing just that. Is there any way the decision-makers who hired Darl did not know his history? Might it even have been the reason he was brought on board from day one?

First, he details the friendship between Darl McBride and Mike Anderer, which goes back to the 90s. Seems they've tried the "we have no business but threatening to sue over IP" before, in a "business" they set up together after Darl got fired by Ikon Office Solutions. It looks like the two cooked up the "Let's try suing IBM and maybe they'll pay us to stop" scheme together, with Anderer playing a larger role than was previously publicly known. The two met, according to Stone, when Darl was still with Ikon and he arranged to buy Anderer's company, the Computer Group, a South Carolina company that sold Novell products to businesses. Anderer went with the company to Ikon and he and Darl worked closely together from then on.

Anderer started his own company, Silicon Stemcell, and asked McBride to join him there as a consultant. They began their efforts to turn IP into gold at Silicon Stemcell, which I gather was more a patent pool than a business:

"It was 1999, and they were in the business vanguard, devising a new way to create wealth. Something as intangible as a claim to owning an idea, they realized, could be used to extract money from innovators in related fields. Even if Silicon Stemcell's patents weren't finalized, it might still be cheaper for startups to pay licensing fees to Anderer's group than to fight protracted legal battles. Silicon Stemcell wouldn't even have to create businesses, it could thrive just by collecting these fees."

When Darl joined SCO, he in turn hired Anderer as a consultant, and the rest is history. Anderer:

"He expresses surprise that IBM didn't simply purchase SCO and donate the Unix code to the public domain; it would've been much cheaper than the current legal fracas."

I should mention that some people think patent pools are a great way to make money. In the 90s it was all the rage. I think of it as the ultimate IP fantasy -- a way to ruin everything that matters, for money. It's a form of IP piracy, if you think it through. By everything, I mean innovation, a fair marketplace, etc., all made possible by a broken patent system and OldThink. And greed, wanting to make money by hustling people. That's what patent pools do. They file for patents, build up a portfolio and then pounce on anyone who is successful by announcing they are violating their patents and threatening to sue. Kind of like pirates stopping your ship and demanding you pay them or you can't go on your way in peace.

Most people will pay rather than go through a costly lawsuit, and in fact Silicon Stemcell got some companies to pay up without even having to actually file a lawsuit. It's a mockery of what patents are allegedly for, a parasitism on the body of the patents system, but it's legal. Smarmy but legal, in that it's a working of the system in a calculated way, taking advantage of the system's weaknesses. The advantage is that the patent pool can't be sued back, because they don't care. They don't have any products, no good will, nothing to lose. That's why I think Microsoft will likely use a patent pool company to bring a patent lawsuit someday against GNU/Linux.

The article also indicates that Darl is fibbing when he claims that he decided to sue when IBM announced at LinuxWorld in January of 2003 it had ported AIX code to Linux. In fact, the article points out, it was the day before the speech that SCO hired Boies. Now that we know the rest of the story about the Anderer connection, I have real questions in my mind if the decision to try it wasn't the reason he was brought on board in the first place, which brings up the old question about all those insider stock plans and when folks knew that there would be such a lawsuit.

The article portrays the friendship as being over, with Anderer allegedly thinking about suing SCO for the money it didn't pay him for getting Microsoft to intervene in the BayStar deal.

Goldfarb is quoted again, and every time he opens his mouth, he shows what a sensitive, complex guy he isn't:

"Did I know, after looking at SCO, that of course Microsoft would find the funding of this company to be a good thing for Microsoft? Well, duh," says Goldfarb. "I knew Microsoft's motivation, but if I can make a dollar where I wouldn't otherwise, why should I be concerned?"

Charming, no? Why indeed? Er...because it's immoral to try to steal other people's IP? Maybe because you might be funding a ripoff of other people's code in what could turn out to be a fraud? Even folks thinking only of the bottom line might care about that. If you can't get enough of Goldfarb, here's an interview he did about PIPE deals just before he invested in SCO. He says that if you invest in shady management, you can expect bad things to happen. Hmm. From his lips to God's ears.

But here's the part you will like. The article says that what Goldfarb didn't like, causing him to ask for his money back, was that Darl was exchanging fire in the press with "multiple members of the open source intelligentsia and was badly outmatched." His letter to Congress and open letters were "feebly argued" and "the rabid anti-SCO community on the Net eagerly dismembered them".

Why I do believe he means moi. I don't answer to "rabid anti-SCO community" name-calling, but I'm glad to know it is now established that we dismembered them.

Here's the key to Goldfarb's unhappiness: because of all that, the stock price went down. The guy is like an animal after meat. Nothing distracts him from his money. And catch this: he consults with his "good friend" Boies every week and has high hopes for the lawsuits. That's not what I've heard, the friend part, and I don't believe the second part. The Wired reporter doesn't seem to share his professed assessment of the likelihood of a SCO win, and he adds that even if SCO "wins" in court, the community will just rip out any infringing code and move on, so his dream of money from a Linux toll is a hopeless dream. He definitely got that right. The reporter didn't note that so far, SCO has been unable to show any serious infringement of any kind, has not sued any primary copyright infringer anywhere on planet earth, and that so far as anyone can tell, Linux is as pure as the driven snow.

Um... all these SCOfolk talking to this reporter and trotting out the old FUD about guns and the Microsoft connection and how BayStar is now bullish on the lawsuits after all wouldn't have anything to do with that stock price now, would it?

Thomas Getz writes some nonsense about copyrights as a sidebar. He repeats the nonsense about the FSF forcing copyright transfers, for example, which is simply wrong.

You might also want to check out Tim Lambert's Deltoid, which has a list of think tanks that have been attacking Linux, 14 of them, all funded by Microsoft or connected in some other way. Five of them run on Linux, though. Not one of them, he writes, mentioned they were funded by Microsoft when releasing their think tank fluff. FUD only works in the dusk, not in sunshine, of which there is an abundance on the worldwide web. The WWW, brought to you by free and open source.


  


Darl McBride, the Man Nobody Bothers to Hate, and His Buddy Mike Anderer Cook Up a Scheme | 373 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Corrections Here
Authored by: jkondis on Wednesday, June 23 2004 @ 04:32 PM EDT
Knock yerself out

---
Don't steal. Microsoft hates competition.

[ Reply to This | # ]

OT and links here please
Authored by: Jaymz on Wednesday, June 23 2004 @ 04:35 PM EDT
.

---

Jaymz

[ Reply to This | # ]

This is why I've posted before that we're making a difference!
Authored by: ray08 on Wednesday, June 23 2004 @ 04:37 PM EDT
"Why I do believe he means moi. I don't answer to "rabid anti-SCO
community" name-calling, but I'm glad to know it is now established that we
dismembered them."

When the main press picks up on the issues that we groklawyers have investigated
and begins to print at least an even-habded article, we are being heard, and
widely. It's all but over for SCO now, the "fat lady" has walked on
stage and is warming up.

---
Caldera is toast! And Groklaw is the toaster! (with toast level set to BURN)

[ Reply to This | # ]

Baystar's Goldfarb knows about investing in shady management teams...
Authored by: moonbroth on Wednesday, June 23 2004 @ 04:45 PM EDT
I posted this to another story earlier today, but now PJ's laying into Goldfarb, I thought I'd bring it here, too.

After reading the Wired article, I got to hating Goldfarb a bit, so I had a dig around on Baystar's press archive and came across this. Dunno if it's relevant to the SCO PIPE dream... but this interview is dated 1 October 2003, and the PIPE deal was announced on 16 October. Maybe Goldfarb had something preying on his mind...

Interviewer: "There has been a lot of press about PIPE investors that prey on small companies. But in talking with some of the investors that are parties to lawsuits in which these accusations have been leveled, there's often the charge that there's really two sides to this game, that there is a minority of corporate officers out there that see a PIPE investment as a last opportunity to use their stock as currency to line their own pockets before the company hits the wall."

Goldfarb:"Yes, but with all due respect to the investors who are claiming that the lawsuits against them are without merit, maybe they should've not invested in those companies in the first place. Maybe they should have known that the use of proceeds wasn't appropriate.

"Of course, there are a lot of unfair lawsuits, but there are a lot of fair lawsuits as well, where the investors were not good guys, and they knew what was up, and they were going to make money regardless of whether the stock went up or down. That's not what this business is about. Some of these lawsuits are deservedly so. That doesn't mean that the issuers aren't guilty as hell, but don't think that sometimes investors didn't know about it. If you invest in a shady management team, you should expect that bad things may happen. Sometimes people get what they deserve."

I added the emphasis, because I like that last couple of sentences. Prophetic? Let's hope!

[ Reply to This | # ]

Darl McBride, the Man Nobody Bothers to Hate, and His Buddy Mike Anderer Cook Up a Scheme
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, June 23 2004 @ 04:46 PM EDT
The mere fact that Caldera needed to be renamed SCO soon after McBride was hired
tells us that the plan to attack Linux with Unix IP claims was already forged
then. Caldera was a too much tainted Linux reseller, while oldSCO had been
known as a Unix provider.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Darl McBride, the Man Nobody Bothers to Hate, and His Buddy Mike Anderer Cook Up a Scheme
Authored by: kh on Wednesday, June 23 2004 @ 04:52 PM EDT
From the article:
Last fall, IBM funneled $50 million to Novell to help it buy the German firm SuSe, a Linux distributor. The deal completed Novell's defection from the closed team (as a vendor exclusively selling its own operating system, NetWare) to the open source team.
??? Is that true? IBM did that? Novell needed $50Meg to do that? Sounds like Darl FUD to me.

---
Democracy imposed from without is the severest form of tyranny.
-- Lloyd Biggle, Jr. Analog, Apr 1961

[ Reply to This | # ]

Gin and Juice
Authored by: aaron_tx on Wednesday, June 23 2004 @ 04:59 PM EDT
Who knew Goldfarb was a fan of Snoop Dogg?

"With my mind on my money and my money on my mind"

I bet Nazi profiteers felt the same way.

out

[ Reply to This | # ]

Darl McBride, the Man Nobody Bothers to Hate, and His Buddy Mike Anderer Cook Up a Scheme
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, June 23 2004 @ 05:03 PM EDT
>> [Goldfarb] consults with his "good friend" Boies every week
and has high hopes for the lawsuits.

Ahmm,

Insider trading by Goldfarb who is getting non-public information about a
company he invests in.

Violation of lawyer client confidentiality by Boies who should not be
communicating with someone investing with a company he is working for except
through the company.

[ Reply to This | # ]

How Appropriate!
Authored by: dmscvc123 on Wednesday, June 23 2004 @ 05:05 PM EDT
<<The article portrays the friendship as being over, with Anderer
allegedly thinking about suing SCO for the money it didn't pay him for getting
Microsoft to intervene in the BayStar deal.>>

I hope Anderer does sue SCO. It would be quite fitting with McBride's and
Anderer's histories.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Create Wealth? I think not.
Authored by: ljdursi on Wednesday, June 23 2004 @ 05:11 PM EDT
``devising a new way to create wealth'', indeed.

This sort of intellectual parisitism doesn't create wealth; it doesn't create
anything. It tries to siphon money away from the people who genuinely are
creating new ideas, new technologies, and wealth for themselves and others by
abusing the legal system and IP laws.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Gee, I wonder how ESR got the Halloween memo?
Authored by: ray08 on Wednesday, June 23 2004 @ 05:16 PM EDT
Well, we now know that Darl and Anderer are not "friends" anymore
(remember, thieves have no friends anyway). I had wondered how the memo could
have "leaked" to ESR. Guess that question has been answered.

---
Caldera is toast! And Groklaw is the toaster! (with toast level set to BURN)

[ Reply to This | # ]

Darl McBride, the Man Nobody Bothers to Hate, and His Buddy Mike Anderer Cook Up a Scheme
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, June 23 2004 @ 05:17 PM EDT
Actually, this is one more reason why I don't, and won't, read Wired anymore.

There's nothing that Wired has to offer me.

Period.

Having said that, here's the last thing worth reading that Wired's published:

    Issue 4.12 | Dec 1996

    Mother Earth Mother Board

    "The hacker tourist ventures forth across the wide and wondrous meatspace of three continents, chronicling the laying of the longest wire on Earth."

    By Neal Stephenson

Yeah.. that Neal Stephenson...

A must-read.

t_t_b

---
Release the missing Exhibits!

[ Reply to This | # ]

Darl McBride, the Man Nobody Bothers to Hate, and His Buddy Mike Anderer Cook Up a Scheme
Authored by: inode_buddha on Wednesday, June 23 2004 @ 05:19 PM EDT
If i've said it once, I've said it a million times. How is this scenario any different from this? [PanIP]

---
"When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not price." -- Richard M. Stallman

[ Reply to This | # ]

Darl McBride, the Man Nobody Bothers to Hate, and His Buddy Mike Anderer Cook Up a Scheme
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, June 23 2004 @ 05:22 PM EDT
"the rabid anti-SCO community on the Net eagerly dismembered them"

dismembering-I like that. Now I know what we do here at Groklaw.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Accident honesty
Authored by: phypor on Wednesday, June 23 2004 @ 05:38 PM EDT
"I think there's a war going on. The war is around the future of the
operating system, and whether it's going to be free or not."


I doubt that was in the script Microsoft wrote at the beginning of all this.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Let's not forget IBM...
Authored by: martinh on Wednesday, June 23 2004 @ 05:39 PM EDT
While we're slamming these guys for the use to which they put a patent
portfolio, in the interest of fairness, let's also note this from the Wired
article:

"Ironically, IBM pioneered the strategy. Mired in a slump in the early
'90s, it marshaled all its patents and sent out letters demanding licensing
dollars from alleged infringers. Big Blue now reaps almost a billion a year in
licensing revenue. The trend accelerated as entrepreneurs - savvy or amoral
depending on your perspective - slipped their patents into their holsters and
went looking for a fight. Silicon Stemcell was among them."

I'm not saying that IBM isn't being very nice and helpful to the FOSS community
right now, but they do have some skeletons in the closet. At least they used
their own patents, not some that they picked up in a fire sale. When I was
getting out of grad school (back in the Pleistocene), IBM Research was one of
the top places to get hired - they did real research and really made
contributions to the sum of human knowledge.

As I've mentioned in another post, I'm in my seventh decade, and I remember when
IBM was taken to task by the government and forced to unbundle the software that
they insisted had to be purchased along with your shiny new 704 or S/360 or
whatever. Anyone else remember the SSP (Scientific Subroutine Package)?

But while they don't have an unblemished record, I believe in judging people
(and companies) on the basis of behaviour, not history. On this basis we should
support them now.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Sorry, PJ, but this is wrong.
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, June 23 2004 @ 06:13 PM EDT
He repeats the nonsense about the FSF forcing copyright transfers, for example, which is simply wrong.

The article says: Stallman took a different approach with GNU, requiring contributors to sign over their copyrights.

That statement is 100% correct.

The FSF does require you to assign the copyrights to them for all GNU projects. And as the article points out as well, the Linux kernel is not a GNU project, and also makes the observation that Linux may have benifited from this.

(Which is a reasonable idea, given that there certainly exists people who have refrained from contributing to GNU projects because they didn't want to bother with the paper-work.)

[ Reply to This | # ]

Darl McBride, the Man Nobody Bothers to Hate, and His Buddy Mike Anderer Cook Up a Scheme
Authored by: a_dreamer on Wednesday, June 23 2004 @ 06:45 PM EDT
Actually, I read the article and it had several good points:
1. The grammar was more or less adequate.
2. The color scheme of the web page was not
overly glaring.
3. The writing style, reminiscent of "Pravda"
and the New York Times, was too obviously
slanted to do any serious damage to the
Linux movement.
Craig

[ Reply to This | # ]

The scheme was cooked up in June 2002 - before Darl became CEO - sayeth Darl
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, June 23 2004 @ 06:51 PM EDT
Even prior to this article there was considerable evidence that SCO/Caldera planned this long in advance of the supposed trigger (LinuxWorld) in January 2003.

Obviously this casts an interesting light on the stock sales plan was set up in February 2003.

Additionally it casts an interesting light on what actual evidence SCO could have had at such an early date, as according to Darl, the 3 teams of MIT rocket scientists didn't review the code until *after* SCO had filed the initial complaint (March 6th 2003) and was waiting for IBM's response (March to May 2003).

CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE OF THIS

1. Changing Caldera's name to SCO, in Fall 2002, to give the impression that they are Santa Cruz operation

2. Darl's background - remember he was hired in mid 2002.

3. Hiring Morgan Keegan as investment bankers in mid 2002. I recommend that you check out the terms of engagement which clearly anticipated somebody buying out SCO/Caldera or settling with them.

(I might add that Morgan Keegan was the investment banker who arranged a $50m PIPE investment in PointServe - when the CEO of PointServe was, wait for it, Darl McBride. Incidentally this PIPE investment subsequently became subject to litigation when PointServe sued the principal investor, Cox - doesn't this give anybody else a feeling of deja vu?)


AND MORE SIGNIFICANTLY THE EVIDENCE THAT DARL GAVE US...

I refer to Bus inessWeek Online 2nd February 2004:

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_05/b3868104_mz063 .htm

In June, 2002, when Darl McBride was getting ready to take over as chief executive at struggling Caldera International Inc. in Lindon, Utah -- later renamed SCO Group Inc. -- he mused that claiming ownership of some of the underlying code in the popular Linux computer operating system could keep the company afloat. Even though Caldera's revenues were declining, it was losing $5 million per quarter, and its stock had slid below the $1 NASDAQ delisting price, the reaction of outgoing CEO Ransom Love was instantaneous. "Don't do it," Love says he told McBride. "You don't want to take on the entire Linux community."

In other words the idea of claiming infringement by Linux, began before Darl joined Caldera, and before the linux code had been examined at all!

[ Reply to This | # ]

Change of article title
Authored by: belzecue on Wednesday, June 23 2004 @ 07:48 PM EDT
'starting with the title ("The Linux Killer"'

When the article hit, the title in my Wired RSS feed viewer was: 'The Linux
Stalker'. I presume the title was altered early in the process.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Pour Darl McBride
Authored by: kawabago on Wednesday, June 23 2004 @ 07:53 PM EDT
It's perfectly clear now that when the US finally fixes it's patent system Darl
will have to go back to holding up convenience stores.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Just depose...IBM is curious
Authored by: webster on Wednesday, June 23 2004 @ 07:54 PM EDT
When did these guys hatch this scheme? On what expert evidence did they base
thier plan? Did they go to MS before they even worked for SCO?

Whom did they show it to at Caldera? At MS? At Sun? at BS and RBC? Did MS say
something to SUN? Did they [MS etc] do due diligence? On what did they base
their conclusion that the claim had merit? that it was worth investing
millions? After denials by knowedgeable sources did they do due diligence? Did
they file suit anyway? What did they tell their attorneys? What commitments
did they have and when and how did they get them?

It appears that more than Baystar is going to have a lot to say about the
monopoly. Shareholders all around are going to be interested in those insider
phone calls. Following the money always leads to deep pockets. Our legal
system helps to spread the wealth. They've only just begun.

---
webster

[ Reply to This | # ]

Hush money
Authored by: m_si_M on Wednesday, June 23 2004 @ 08:13 PM EDT
I wonder what will happen if SCOG doesn't pay Anderer the desired hush money.
Not that I would trust this guy too much, but if he sues, I suppose some ugly
details of the story we otherwise never came to know will turn up in the court
room. And I'm almost sure IBM e.a. will be very interested in the case.

To be honest, I really hope he'll bring suit...

---
C.S.

[ Reply to This | # ]

A good read.
Authored by: mobrien_12 on Wednesday, June 23 2004 @ 08:24 PM EDT
Very interesting article. I find it fascinating that Darl messed up his job at
IKON so badly that they canned him. He then sues them and ends up getting a
million dollars out of it. So the question is, why would anyone ever hire this
guy again?

I guess it's like "Since SCOG only sues it's former customers and business
partners, why would anyone ever do business with SCOG again?"

Also interesting: Anderer, who used to be Darl's good friend "says his
experiences with mental illness in his ex-wife's family give him sympathy for
the misfits of the technology business."

Ok...no comment on that one. Just reflect on it.

"SCO's public response and the denial of his request for a commission
angered Anderer. His personal and professional relationship with McBride ended.
He muses that he has six years under Utah state law to pursue a legal claim
against SCO for what he believes is his rightful compensation."

Yeah, Darl and Anderer, just perfect for each other. There has to be a fable or
a parable or saying or something that fits here.

What I find really disturbing, and what the article and PJ point out so very
well, is that Darl and Anderer represent the new business model wherein you
don't really make a product so much as sue other people over patents or
copyrights. Easy money. Dot-com booms everywhere. Screw up a business and get
more money for your failure than most people ever see in a lifetime.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Page 6
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, June 23 2004 @ 08:27 PM EDT
I liked the article all the way up to page 6. I disagree with page 6 nearly in
it's entirety. The Linux kernel is *extremely* well documented It is trivial to
find the origins of every piece of code in it. This documentation is archived
across thousands of servers which means it is not only easy to find, but it
isn't likely to ever get lost.

There is nothing wrong with contributors keeping the copyright on the code that
they contribute, in fact I can't imagine doing it any other way. If I write it,
I deserve the copyright, even if I want to contribute my code to the Linux
kernel.

Void

[ Reply to This | # ]

Part 1 of Killer article discussed earlier
Authored by: Thomas Frayne on Wednesday, June 23 2004 @ 08:57 PM EDT
The first part of this series was thoroughly discused in the OT thread of the
previous article. My comments were in "Sent response to "Rants to the
editor"", which was a copy of a letter I sent to the editor.

My conclusion was that Part 1 started badly, but I agreed with the last few
paragraphs.

I heard that part 6 was bad, but I haven't gotten to part 2 yet.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Proof !
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, June 23 2004 @ 10:57 PM EDT
Darl and Mike prove once again......

There is NO honor among thieves.

[ Reply to This | # ]

slightly OT - SCOX the demon
Authored by: Rasyr on Wednesday, June 23 2004 @ 11:51 PM EDT
the Scox demon

[ Reply to This | # ]

Re: The scheme was cooked up in June 2002 - before Darl became CEO - sayeth Darl
Authored by: eddsouza on Thursday, June 24 2004 @ 12:16 AM EDT
Pardon my starting a new thread IRT an old one - but it seems the bottom of the page is the only place a posting gets noticed! :-)

Questions were asked in the sub-thread mentioned in Subject, and possible answers given. I happened to be going through some of TSCOG's filings the day b.yest., and this thread struck me as serendipitous :)

Anyone find any black-helicopterish significance in the statements in FORM 10-Q of CALDERA SYSTEMS, INC. For the quarterly period ended JULY 31, 2000 - pages 29 onward - (Search for "-29-" without the quotes)??

Seems to me that was almost a blueprint from which D(u)MB (hee, hee - that was a nice one) figured out a Plan of Action...

Some highlights:
  • WE COULD BE PREVENTED FROM SELLING OR DEVELOPING OUR PRODUCTS IF THE GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE AND SIMILAR LICENSES UNDER WHICH ARE PRODUCTS ARE DEVELOPED AND LICENSED ARE NOT ENFORCEABLE.
  • WE ARE VULNERABLE TO CLAIMS THAT OUR PRODUCTS INFRINGE THIRD-PARTY INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS, PARTICULARLY BECAUSE OUR PRODUCTS ARE COMPRISED OF MANY DISTINCT SOFTWARE COMPONENTS DEVELOPED BY THOUSANDS OF INDEPENDENT PARTIES.
  • FAILURE TO PROTECT OUR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ADEQUATELY WOULD RESULT IN SIGNIFICANT HARM TO OUR BUSINESS.
  • OUR MANAGEMENT TEAM IS NOT COMPLETE AND HAS ONLY RECENTLY BEGUN WORKING TOGETHER
  • A SINGLE STOCKHOLDER WILL BE ABLE TO EXERT SIGNIFICANT CONTROL OVER CALDERA SYSTEMS, INC.

Sorry I couldn't post mid-page links, the closest anchor I found was before the beginning of all the above kerfuffle.

Eddie.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Nobody making money but...
Authored by: geoff lane on Thursday, June 24 2004 @ 01:37 AM EDT
the lawyers.

Doesn't anybody in TSG realise that Darls actions are making lawyers rich at the
expense of the company and it's shareholders?

All the financial numbers indicate that TSG is still shrinking at about 25% a
year yet the lawyers still get millions every quarter.

We can expect more TSG employees to get fired soon.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Potential Lawsuit Against BayStar
Authored by: Greg on Thursday, June 24 2004 @ 01:55 AM EDT

SCO has $30 Million in the bank.
Maybe they should pay all the
investors that have lost that
amount and more investing in the
stock and riding the wave
down to nothing...

Here is the post I put up several weeks ago.

It seems more interesting here now...
(Sorry if this is a second time for some readers.)

<<<Friday, June 11 2004 @ 01:52 AM EDT>>>
BayStar Lawsuit Potential

If it is true that Baystar invested $20 Million
and then purchased shares it would soon short
to protect it's downside, the following should
be possible.

It should be investigated if this was public
information. If they did it "without" public
notice and SCO did not tell all of the investors
that this was BayStar's strategy. A public
lawsuit would be in order.

Reason?

In short, fraud.

In that if the investment was constructed to
bring in investors, small ones, that did not
have privy information to the Baystar
investment strategy One might have invested
in SCO because of investments by Baystar.

I assume that they invest based on ligitimate
returns, not on a scheme to profit on shorting
the stock to cover their investment + Make Money.

In that case, my purchase of SCO stock on the
assumption that Baystar is investing and taking
the same risk as I am taking, is a reasonable
assumption.

Therefore, if SCO and BayStar has benefited from
the RISE of the SCO stock due to the
anouncement of the BayStar investment and not
due to an increase in sales a ligitimate
stockholder suit would be possible.

Thus returning all the lost dollars from
those that purchased at $15 a Share and the
directors that have sold shares between the
value of $5 and $15 a share.

The intent of investment is to match
risk with revenue. Taking advantage of
swings in stock price without full disclosure
is a basis for a stockholder suit.

This is why BayStar is VERY pissed and
wanted to back out of the investment.

But it would seem that people have missed
that part of the issue. And they continue
to play the game.

Why is that?

Why are there no lawsuits?

.....

Greg

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Darl McBride, the Man Nobody Bothers to Hate, and His Buddy Mike Anderer Cook Up a Scheme
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, June 24 2004 @ 01:57 AM EDT
I appreciate groklaw's ability to help me stay up on Linux news. I'm a Linux
advocate and the site rocks. But it's pretty gay that they critized for the
WIRED author for getting SCO's perspective even if it's wrong. It's a good
thing if a journalist tries writing a non-bias perspective.

strattonbrazil

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Patent pool
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, June 24 2004 @ 03:04 AM EDT

That's why I think Microsoft will likely use a patent pool company to bring a patent lawsuit someday against GNU/Linux.

As usual, you're 100% correct. It't only a matter of time, IMHO.

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  • Patent pool - Authored by: micheal on Thursday, June 24 2004 @ 12:41 PM EDT
  • Patent pool - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, June 24 2004 @ 04:48 PM EDT
OT : BBC article on Linux in Iraq
Authored by: futureweaver on Thursday, June 24 2004 @ 03:07 AM EDT
BBC Online has just published a very interesting article called Iraqis get a taste for Linux. Some choice quotes :

  • "Every country has a Linux users group except Iraq, so I thought, maybe Iraq deserves to have a Linux users group," said Ashraf Hasson. "We started sending e-mails, and trying to figure out how to help Iraqi people here to know about Linux, educate them, spread the word. And so we did."
  • "There is a shortage in power and water supplies, and sewage systems, so the last thing Iraq needs is spending billions of dollars on very expensive and overpriced products, especially software products"
  • But getting Iraqis to think about Linux is an uphill battle. Most have never touched a computer, let alone thought about what operating system they want to use. Computer software is now more widely available in Iraq, but little of it open-source. "Currently, most software in use in Iraq is illegal copies of proprietary software," explained Don Marti editor of the US-based Linux Journal. Software giants like Microsoft, he said, are happy to hook Iraqis on their software. "Proprietary software companies are using these illegal copies as a free sample program, and a marketing tool, as they have in other countries." "When the crackdown comes, and the people in Iraq start having to comply with the licenses for this software, then they're going to be in trouble." It means Iraqis are going to have to start paying companies like Microsoft, who declined to be interviewed.
  • Ashraf Hasson of the Iraqi Linux User Group said he would actually welcome tech giants like Microsoft coming into the Iraqi market. Iraq has a computerised system at the Iranian border He grudgingly even admitted that the Windows operating system may be OK for "people who want to do basic stuff". But he is pushing small and medium-sized businesses, and the Iraqi government, to consider running open-source software on their servers.

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The Bankrupt Culture
Authored by: dodger on Thursday, June 24 2004 @ 03:32 AM EDT
When a company has lost its ability to make money, a culture emerges to try to
milk its last remaining worth. This 'culture' is ripe with scheisters,
tricksters, and all-purpose crooks. I remember one who showed up with a
certificate of ownership of millions of dollars of timberland in Costa Rica, and
then proceeded to set up office in a failing company with his entourage. They
said that they wanted to evaluate the company and possibly purchase it. What
they did was they had a free office for a year, phones, secretaries, mail, etc.


Part of the scam is to show assets. In Darl's case, his assets are not a
certificate of ownership of timberland worth millions, it is rather that he had
a successful career of IP litigation. To a company going down, this 'asset' is
very attractive.

These people are vultures who feed on the weak and failing. They tend to drive a
company into the ground faster than just letting it die slowly. Darl has
accelerated SCOGs demise in this ALL or NOTHING debacle. And by marketing this
fete as a study in Intellectual-Property, he has hidden for quite a while, the
fact that he is one of these vultures with a scam.

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Darl McBride, the Man Nobody Bothers to Hate, and His Buddy Mike Anderer Cook Up a Scheme
Authored by: muswell100 on Thursday, June 24 2004 @ 04:12 AM EDT
So there we are. Two serial litigators who only need wooden legs and parrots on
their shoulders to indicate to all and sundry just what kind of people they
really are. I live in hope that some time soon, the courst will scuttle the
leaky tub that is SCO and send Capt. McBride to Davey Jones' Locker. Ah-haaaar,
mateys!

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Think tanks: in Belgium?
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, June 24 2004 @ 04:22 AM EDT
In the Metro, a Belgian commuter newspaper with a lot of readers, there was a
short article where they claimed a group of researchers (unnamed) found that
Belgian IT companies do not innovate enough and suggested IT companies 'hooked
up to a foreign software flagship'.

Any Belgian readers noticed this? I don't fully remember the article, but if
someone could find a copy and post that would be wonderful. Because that sounded
really suspicious (*cough* Micro$oft *cough*)

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Why IBM didnt buy SCO
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, June 24 2004 @ 05:51 AM EDT
"[Anderer] expresses surprise that IBM didn't simply purchase SCO and
donate the Unix code to the public domain; it would've been much cheaper than
the current legal fracas."

Maybe because IBM knew about the contract between SCO and Novell and concluded
that SCO actually didn't own anything worth buying?

Anderer obviously isn't up to speed with Judge Kimballs opinions :-)

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For people who wish to pursue a career in Patent Law - "No Law School Training Required"
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, June 24 2004 @ 08:48 AM EDT
FYI. From: http://www.patents.com/opportun.htm#ls-necessary

Is it possible to pursue a career in patent law without having to go to law
school?

Yes. Some people choose to become a "patent agent", which is a person
with a strong technical background who has passed the patent bar exam and has
been admitted to practice before the US Patent Office.

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Interview about SCO and Darl
Authored by: gbl on Thursday, June 24 2004 @ 09:48 AM EDT
This weeks interview in The Linux Show was with Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols. Steven is a print journalist and has actually interviewed Darl and he discusses his impressions.

Steven describes Darl as a driven man who completely believes he is in the right. There is no act, Darl is WYSIWYG.

The discussion about SCO and Darl starts roughly 60 minutes into the show. The show can be found here

---
If you love some code, set it free.

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OT: Sun Seeks Redemption in Software Licensing
Authored by: eamacnaghten on Thursday, June 24 2004 @ 10:36 AM EDT
Intereting article at newsforge.com regarding the JDS license.

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OldThink?
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, June 24 2004 @ 10:44 AM EDT
OldThink? Where did that arrogant expression come from? 1984?

I am rather fond of "old ways of thinking". They are a good defense against the hysteria constantly being churned up by the Next Big Thing. The last time I remember being told that old rules didn't apply was during the dot-com bubble.

I'm guessing, but I believe the author considers the Open Source model as NewThink, and proprietary IP as OldThink. While the Open Source movement is a truly interesting phenomenon, let's keep our feet on the ground and avoid childish labels.

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Darl McBride, the Man Nobody Bothers to Hate, and His Buddy Mike Anderer Cook Up a Scheme
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, June 24 2004 @ 04:34 PM EDT
The most important piece of that article is how Darl wasted shareholder money at
Ikon. Probably it is a good (but lately) warning for future shareholders who
give money to him.

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Grokline for SCO People?
Authored by: odysseus on Thursday, June 24 2004 @ 09:33 PM EDT
Maybe it's time we kept some kind of Grokline showing all
the links between the main players? There's links
mentioned in this article and in the comments that we
really need to organise properly so we don't lose/forget
them.

John.

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See How Criminals Think
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, June 26 2004 @ 12:14 PM EDT
Darl tries to "play" everyone. He is very good at it and does it
instinctively. The Wired interview is a case in point. My sense is that
Brad Stone wrote some things "tongue in cheek" to point out the BS
in TSG's statements rather than to dissect the BS. However, Darl did
have his way with Brad, and Darl carried the interview to TSG's conclusions
overall, with some impression of doubts on the part of Brad Stone.

Darl and friends want the public to believe this is all in serious fun. Darl is
selling his intended destruction of the software community as just a bunch
of good old boys doing what they have been doing for over a decade.

The truth is out there to clearly refute all Darl's points. He is not
trustworthy as can be seen by his attacks on his employers and double
crosses of his friends. Ask Darl's former employers and friends, like
Anderer, and you see that he bullies and abuses them. Even family is
part of the "con": Darl makes sure that articles state he has seven
kids but he was divorced in 1999 and could not procreate seven kids
since his remarriage.

TSG tries to say nothing useful. Please do not allow the criminal mind to
"play" you. TSG intends to destroy FOSS, and Darl's track record
shows he is up to the job. Darl has destroyed everything and harmed
everyone with whom he has shared business (and personal ???) contact.

TSG stinks to high heaven. The rats are drawn out in plain sight. So, are
a certain breed of reporters ... hmmm?

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