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December 24, 2003

Two signs that SCO is desperate

As SCO widens its arguments, the whiff of desperation is becoming a full-fledged stank. So, now the Gnu Public License itself violates copyright law? According to CEO Darl McBride, the GPL removes the profit motive from software development and the profit motive "underpins the constitutionality of the (U.S.) Copyright Act."

Here's Linus' reply:

"I'm a big believer in copyrights," Torvalds wrote in an e-mail interview. "Of all the intellectual property (laws), copyright ... is the only one that is expressly designed so that individual people can (and do) get them without having scads of lawyers on their side."

"If Darl McBride was in charge, he'd probably make marriage unconstitutional too, since clearly it de-emphasizes the commercial nature of normal human interaction, and probably is a major impediment to the commercial growth of prostitution," he wrote.

Another sign of desperation? When the CEO of SCO proudly says that hiring a famous lawyer — David Boies — raised the company's stock price from $1 to $14. Oh yeah, that's the type of sustainable competitive advantage you want to build your company on.

Posted by D. Weinberger at December 24, 2003 11:21 AM

Comments

I especially love when he describes the problem - "The breadth of damage that's been done here, it's like cleaning up the Exxon Valdez" - no exaggeration there at all.

And then he compares us to drug users - "There are only two industries who use the term 'users,' computers and drugs. Not sure if there's a connection there. "

Are these the last gasps of a dying (dead?) company?

Posted by: Larry Borsato | December 24, 2003 07:40 PM

It's characteristic of people stuck in an unsustainable position that they adopt ever more desperate and absurd postures to defend it. Of course, the more desperately they put off the day of reckoning, the more painful is the prospect... and thus the more desperate the arguments in a viscious circle until the whole thing collapses. I'm really looking forward to that point.

Posted by: John Moore | December 30, 2003 08:13 AM

SCO is obtaining and attempting to obtain money by deception. So whats the problem? we should just report SCO to the Law enforcement agencies. FBI seems a reasonable option as they are reasonably apolitical and definitely cannot be bribed or coerced.

Posted by: Std Derek | March 7, 2004 07:05 AM

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