[vox] [fwd] UUG SCO Protest

[Mike Simons]

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On Thu, Jun 19, 2003 at 02:01:24PM -0700, zeruch@damagestudios.com wrote:
> Protests are by their design....generally futile.  A better bet would be=
=20
> to buy a handful of publicly traded shares (sold short probably) and then=
=20
> show up at the next shareholder meeting with a series of fairly probing=
=20
> questions that puts a bit more pressure than a bunch of techno-hippies (a=
s=20
> they will be perceived) bitching about the *bad SCO people*...

  I agree this would be interesting.
 =20
- When is SCO's next shareholder meeting?


> Otherways would be to find out if your workplace has any Unixware licenes=
=20
> and see to it that they dont get renewed. =20

  I also agree.  It would be nice to track down each company that *is*
still using SCO and try to sell them a Linux replacement.  I wonder how
difficult it would be to track down SCO's customers and organize a
community based targeted sales operation to zero SCO's revenue.


On Thu, Jun 19, 2003 at 04:23:00PM -0700, Richard Crawford wrote:
> McBride successfully sued Microsoft, and he successfully sued Ikon for
> several million dollars while he was working for them.  He may be looking
> at the history books and thinking that this may be his biggest challenge
> yet.

  McBride had no part in the lawsuit against Microsoft.  He has only been
CEO there since June of last year.  Other members of the board or
management may be responsible for Microsoft and IBM suits but it is not
McBride.

  The case for DR DOS was settled with Microsoft in about 2000, the terms
of the settlement are closed.  There are reports that Caldera won between
$150 to $400 million.

http://news.com.com/2100-1001-235465.html?legacy=3Dcnet
=3D=3D=3D
January 11, 2000, 4:00 AM PT

In a surprise settlement yesterday, Microsoft ended its nearly four-year
legal battle with Caldera. The private antitrust case was scheduled to
commence a jury trial Feb. 1.
[...]
Terms were not disclosed. Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft, however, said
that it would take a charge of 3 cents per share on earnings during the
first calendar quarter. That comes to around $150 million, according to
one analyst. Others said the settlement could easily be much more,
depending on how Microsoft accounts for it.
[...]
The settlement surprised Lande and other legal experts, who said they
expected Caldera to either fight or hold out for at least a $400 million
settlement.

But Microsoft could easily make the true amount of the settlement
difficult to ascertain, said analysts.=20
=3D=3D=3D


> However it turns out, the damage is already starting to be felt as some IT
> departments are starting to veer away from Linux because of potential IP
> problems.  This is gonna get worse before it gets better.

  I seriously doubt any IT departments that are using Linux have stopped
using it over this.  I agree that IT departments that didn't want to
use Linux in the first place will use this as yet another reason not to.

  If you have any articles that name names of companies that *have*
stopped using Linux and a quote that says it was because of the suit
I would like to see them.  I've seen nothing by Gartner like speculation
on this issue.

--=20
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