Bela Lubkin <belal@sco.com> wrote:
>Tony Earnshaw wrote:

>> As I've written before, people still posting on this list (I've
>> mentioned names in a previous posting) helped me to learn Unix. When I
>> needed it. Yes, Boyd Linn was amongst them. Bela was my (and many
>> others') SCO god, and the others were up with him. You're all of you
>> still my tops, Bills, Tonys, Boyds, Belas, JPRs, Jeffs, Johns - all of you..
>>
>> I'd like to see this list go parallel. Let's face it, there's nothing
>> left of SCO but an organization out to make a fast buck on the market,
>> with a Microsoft-founded backer. There is not, and will not be, any
>> software worth speaking of emanating from SCO in the future. The present
>> Open Server is dead as a doornail and there is no future for UnixWare.

>This is your opinion. I still work at SCO in a technical capacity, and
>I am still working on things that I find technically interesting and
>relevant to the market. It is a myth, a completely _false_ myth, that
>SCO is "nothing but" a whatever-you-say-it-is. The company has over 300
>employees, approximately 10 of which are involved in the "SCOSource"
>efforts. SCOSource makes a lot of noise in the news, but it's a tiny
>corner of the company. Your dismissal of the rest of us is offensive.

>The "doornail" of which you speak is still selling on the order of 40
>million dollars a year. There are a lot of products that could only
>wish to be "dead" like that.

That's the point that the "dump SCO crowd" just don't understand.
Maybe the present management is nuts and dangerous, but you
can't spit in any major city without hitting a SCO system. Whatever
happens with this lawsuit crap, the people running those systems
are going to want to continue running them. Yeah, Linux can
replace some of them, but many people would rather just stay with
what they have, because it's working, and any change causes problems.

--
tony@aplawrence.com Unix/Linux/Mac OS X resources: http://aplawrence.com
Get paid for writing about tech: http://aplawrence.com/publish.html

FyRE <FyRE@toktik.demon.ku.oc.x> wrote:

>The problem is Bela, you work for the most despised software company
>on Earth (congrats on beating Microsoft to #1, BTW!) I honestly know
>nothing of this "SCOSource", since what noice it makes is drowned out
>by the lies, threats and FUD your scumbag employers are screaming
>every single day to pump the stock price.

>SCO, as a software company *is* dead. I feel sorry for you if you are
>actually an honest software engineer. Hopefully one day you'll find a
>job at a respectable company - it'll be good for your self esteme.


I agree that this lawsuit has all the appearance of what you
say it is. If there is any legitimacy to it at all, SCO has bumbled
the whole thing so much that it will simply be beyond amazing if
it turns out that there actually is anything to it.

I also think that whether they had or have a legitimate claim or
not, this was the worst possible way to handle it; that the damage
they have caused will come back and bite them too, doing no good
for anyone except the sob's at Microsoft.

But in spite of all that, SCO software isn't going to disappear.
There is just too much of it. "most despised software company" ?
Possibly: but the people who USE that software by and large
don't care. A lot of them don't even KNOW about this mess and
wouldn't understand any of it. They have businesses to run and
SCO runs their business. These noisy squabbles are totally
unimportant to them.

--
tony@aplawrence.com Unix/Linux/Mac OS X resources: http://aplawrence.com
Get paid for writing about tech: http://aplawrence.com/publish.html

Joe Dunning <joe@blahblah.invalid> wrote:
>On Tue, 7 Oct 2003 01:36:07 GMT, Bill Campbell <bill@celestial.com> wrote:

>>I've known Bela for the better part of 20 years, and it's obvious that you
>>don't have a clue. I can't speak for him (and I doubt that Bela would
>>stoop to your level to reply). He has been one of the truly dedicated and
>>competent people in Santa Cruz for as long as I can remember (and I missed
>>perhaps two of the SCO Forum meetings while there were held in Santa Cruz).
>>One factor in his staying may well be that he has a family to feed, a
>>mortgage to pay, and a job -- which isn't all that easy to come by in
>>today's economy.
>>

>Well, perhaps my posting was more than a little rude and made suggestions
>that do not apply to Bela. That said, in general:

>1. Many ordinary SCO employees (not just the execs) have been able to sell
>shares in SCO at prices inflated by SCO's FUD. I don't know if Bela is one
>of those.

>2. Jobs are tight. Certainly, I would not advocate that SCO employees
>immediately resign. Nor would I expect any employees to post that they
>would leave if they could.

>3. Bela sought to portray SCO as a company with many employees supporting
>a legitimate product. Again, I don't expect him to post anything
>otherwise, but silence is also an option. If he chooses to publically
>defend SCO as a company, he must expect people to comment on it and
>question his role.

>Many people are very angry with SCO's unsustantiated allegations regarding
>Linux. One can support SCO, oppose them, remain neutral or remain silent.

It's also possible to remain open minded while deploring the situation.

Precious little of that about.


If there really was code misappropriated, SCO has every right to
sue. Right now that's an "if" that looks amazingly unlikely, I
agree. I also think that this was the wrong move regardless: just
because you CAN do something doesn't mean you should.

--
tony@aplawrence.com Unix/Linux/Mac OS X resources: http://aplawrence.com
Get paid for writing about tech: http://aplawrence.com/publish.html

joe@blahblah.invalid (Joe Dunning) wrote in message news:<JGpgb.692501$YN5.558643@sccrnsc01>...
>
> 1. Many ordinary SCO employees (not just the execs) have been able to sell
> shares in SCO at prices inflated by SCO's FUD. I don't know if Bela is one
> of those.

The rise in SCO's stock price is due to the actions of capitalism in the
marketplace. If investors believed that SCO's case was only FUD and without
merit (and they've certainly heard enough opinions to this effect),
the stock wouldn't have stayed up.

And no matter what the reason for the rise, you can't blame SCO employees
for it. Do you blame Linux or people in the Linux world for the fact that
Red Hat and VA Linux once had astronomical prices and valuations?

> 3. Bela sought to portray SCO as a company with many employees supporting
> a legitimate product. Again, I don't expect him to post anything
> otherwise, but silence is also an option. If he chooses to publically
> defend SCO as a company, he must expect people to comment on it and
> question his role.

What Bela said, and what I said earlier on a similar thread, is a
*literal fact*. It's a fact whether or not you believe that SCO is
the worst thing to come down the pike since Attila the Hun.
Most of SCO's employees are indeed working on software
products, both new and existing. New releases of OpenServer and UnixWare
have come out recently and the next releases are currently in the pipeline.
In addition there are some other completely new products such as SCOx that
are in the works.

Jonathan Schilling

On 7 Oct 2003 08:30:14 -0700, J. L. Schilling <jlselsewhere@my-deja.com> wrote:
>joe@blahblah.invalid (Joe Dunning) wrote in message news:<JGpgb.692501$YN5.558643@sccrnsc01>...
>>
>> 1. Many ordinary SCO employees (not just the execs) have been able to sell
>> shares in SCO at prices inflated by SCO's FUD. I don't know if Bela is one
>> of those.
>
>The rise in SCO's stock price is due to the actions of capitalism in the
>marketplace. If investors believed that SCO's case was only FUD and without
>merit (and they've certainly heard enough opinions to this effect),
>the stock wouldn't have stayed up.

If SCO's statements turn out to be without merit then that is likely not
capitalism at work but fraud!

>
>And no matter what the reason for the rise, you can't blame SCO employees
>for it. Do you blame Linux or people in the Linux world for the fact that
>Red Hat and VA Linux once had astronomical prices and valuations?

Their stock price rises are not comparable, because they were not a result of
attacks on other people's intellectual property.

>
>> 3. Bela sought to portray SCO as a company with many employees supporting
>> a legitimate product. Again, I don't expect him to post anything
>> otherwise, but silence is also an option. If he chooses to publically
>> defend SCO as a company, he must expect people to comment on it and
>> question his role.
>
>What Bela said, and what I said earlier on a similar thread, is a
>*literal fact*. It's a fact whether or not you believe that SCO is
>the worst thing to come down the pike since Attila the Hun.
>Most of SCO's employees are indeed working on software
>products, both new and existing. New releases of OpenServer and UnixWare
>have come out recently and the next releases are currently in the pipeline.
>In addition there are some other completely new products such as SCOx that
>are in the works.
>

Frankly, I think it is irrelevent. I believe the only question that remains is
whether Canopy will survive this.

joe@blahblah.invalid (Joe Dunning) wrote in message news:<d%Bgb.57997$%h1.42825@sccrnsc02>...
> On 7 Oct 2003 08:30:14 -0700, J. L. Schilling <jlselsewhere@my-deja.com> wrote:
> >
> >The rise in SCO's stock price is due to the actions of capitalism in the
> >marketplace. If investors believed that SCO's case was only FUD and without
> >merit (and they've certainly heard enough opinions to this effect),
> >the stock wouldn't have stayed up.
>
> If SCO's statements turn out to be without merit then that is likely not
> capitalism at work but fraud!

No, fraud in this context would be something like a knowing
misrepresentation of earnings. Filing a lawsuit that later loses
in court would not be fraud -- by definition, any lawsuit has the
distinct possibility of losing. Investors are free to judge for
themselves whether or not the suit has merit.

> >And no matter what the reason for the rise, you can't blame SCO employees
> >for it. Do you blame Linux or people in the Linux world for the fact that
> >Red Hat and VA Linux once had astronomical prices and valuations?
>
> Their stock price rises are not comparable, because they were not a result of
> attacks on other people's intellectual property.

I wasn't saying they were comparable in that sense. I'm just saying that
employees of a company aren't responsible for irrational behavior on the
part of the market (which is not to say that the SCO rise is or isn't
rational :-).

Jonathan Schilling

On Tue, 7 Oct 2003 12:22:44 +0000 (UTC), tony@aplawrence.com wrote:

[...SCO is dead as a software company...]

>But in spite of all that, SCO software isn't going to disappear.

Maybe a gradual slide, but since nobody will be maintaining the code
base after SCO disappear, it's inevitable (and welcomed by a great
many people).

>There is just too much of it. "most despised software company" ?
>Possibly: but the people who USE that software by and large
>don't care. A lot of them don't even KNOW about this mess and
>wouldn't understand any of it. They have businesses to run and
>SCO runs their business. These noisy squabbles are totally
>unimportant to them.

"Totally unimportant"? Sorry, but if my in-house commercial systems
were (for some unimaginable reason) running SCO software, as an IT
manager I'd be extremely worried about their imminent demise. Who will
provide upgrades, fixes, new drivers, security patches and support for
a dead, proprietory operating system? Since it's (extremely) closed
source, no-one else can offer any updates, bugfixes, patches or
drivers for new hardware in the future - indeed anyone who attempts
this is likely to find themselves on the wrong end of a lawsuite from
whichever vultures pick the IP bones of SCO. Nobody will want to touch
their decrepit code with someone elses bargepole!

Any company with any sort of sense would be migrating away as quickly
as possible. If they're not, it shows the utter incompetence of their
IT deparments. Anyone remotely involved in the decisions controlling
software purchasing should be aware of their main supplier's
self-imolation as a few greedy execs make themselves rich through
blatant stock price manipulation.

--
FyRE < "War: The way Americans learn geography" >

On 6 Oct 2003 23:24:51 -0400, Bela Lubkin <belal@sco.com> wrote:

[...]

>whatever functions a company of 300-some employees normally has. Those
>who repeatedly claim that SCO is "nothing but a shell" are just wrong.

Nice .sig material. You should take this comedy act to the stage;
maybe a double act with Bozo McDarl. I realise you have to try to
protect your stocks by denying the obvious but it's being played out
before the world's eyes. SCO is a dead company, so far as software
development is concerned. Not only will they inevitably lose the many
lawsuits they've created and attracted, but IBM have played the patent
cards covering all of "their" technologies - so I'm thinking the
future is grim for the Microsoft funded Utah puppets.

I feel sorry for you Bela; you seem like a decent guy and it's
unfortunate that you've chosen to continue the (one would assume
thankless) task of working for these miserable scumbags...

--
FyRE < "War: The way Americans learn geography" >

On 7 Oct 2003 08:30:14 -0700, jlselsewhere@my-deja.com (J. L.
Schilling) wrote:

>joe@blahblah.invalid (Joe Dunning) wrote in message news:<JGpgb.692501$YN5.558643@sccrnsc01>...
>>
>> 1. Many ordinary SCO employees (not just the execs) have been able to sell
>> shares in SCO at prices inflated by SCO's FUD. I don't know if Bela is one
>> of those.
>
>The rise in SCO's stock price is due to the actions of capitalism in the
>marketplace. If investors believed that SCO's case was only FUD and without
>merit (and they've certainly heard enough opinions to this effect),
>the stock wouldn't have stayed up.

Garbage. Take a look at the major buyers of SCO stock. Notice anything
"strange"? Not only does one of the major shareholders have Bill Gates
WIFE on the board, but there are numerous links to other venture
capital companies with similar links, along with Sun of course. The
sad thing is that taking a look at finance.yahoo.com you'd only see
the "positive" SCO news. It's almost criminal how one-sided the media
press has been here. The stock price has continued to climb even
during the worst farces (demonstration of "evidence of copied code"
being debunked, various other lies exposed almost daily). Any quick
google at Darl McBrides' deplorable "career" will pretty much show the
path this will take. He's nothing but a litigeous asshole who's seen a
quick method to make a few bucks - if and when SCO are killed in the
process, then so be it...

Would YOU buy SCO stock? Hardly - there's only one direction it can
move in the long term...

>And no matter what the reason for the rise, you can't blame SCO employees
>for it. Do you blame Linux or people in the Linux world for the fact that
>Red Hat and VA Linux once had astronomical prices and valuations?

As far as I'm aware, Redhat and VA both produced software, instead of
buying up old code and then attempting to leech off of successful
companies by threatening their customers - mafia style. They have
never spent months on end spewing an endless tirade of outright lies,
especially whilst using the work (for FREE) of the people they were
abusing and slandering in public.

>> 3. Bela sought to portray SCO as a company with many employees supporting
>> a legitimate product. Again, I don't expect him to post anything
>> otherwise, but silence is also an option. If he chooses to publically
>> defend SCO as a company, he must expect people to comment on it and
>> question his role.
>
>What Bela said, and what I said earlier on a similar thread, is a
>*literal fact*. It's a fact whether or not you believe that SCO is
>the worst thing to come down the pike since Attila the Hun.

I demand you retract that statement. Attila at least did his own dirty
work and rewarded his followers. McBride and co are out for
themselves. Bela and his small tribe of "techies" will be left
swinging.

>Most of SCO's employees are indeed working on software
>products, both new and existing. New releases of OpenServer and UnixWare
>have come out recently and the next releases are currently in the pipeline.
>In addition there are some other completely new products such as SCOx that
>are in the works.

.... so they say. All I've heard are speeches from SCO claiming they'll
be adding even more GPL'ed code to their ailing product line. There's
no reason at all to buy SCO unless your systems are hopelessly
dependent upon the company, like a crack-addict to a pusher. Since SCO
is just a version of UNIX, migration to a cheaper, faster and better
supported OS should almost always be possible. I strongly doubt any
third party developers will be producing products for SCO alone now -
indeed many I work with are actually DROPPING SCO support if it ever
existed!

But, please keep dreaming if it makes your life easier. I just pity
your customers...

--
FyRE < "War: The way Americans learn geography" >

On 7 Oct 2003 14:53:33 -0700, J. L. Schilling <jlselsewhere@my-deja.com> wrote:
>joe@blahblah.invalid (Joe Dunning) wrote in message news:<d%Bgb.57997$%h1.42825@sccrnsc02>...
>> On 7 Oct 2003 08:30:14 -0700, J. L. Schilling <jlselsewhere@my-deja.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >The rise in SCO's stock price is due to the actions of capitalism in the
>> >marketplace. If investors believed that SCO's case was only FUD and without
>> >merit (and they've certainly heard enough opinions to this effect),
>> >the stock wouldn't have stayed up.
>>
>> If SCO's statements turn out to be without merit then that is likely not
>> capitalism at work but fraud!
>
>No, fraud in this context would be something like a knowing
>misrepresentation of earnings.

That's one example of fraud.

Filing a lawsuit that later loses
>in court would not be fraud -- by definition, any lawsuit has the
>distinct possibility of losing.

Yes, but if the company (in public statements outside the courtroom)
deliberately mis-represents the facts that are the basis of the case, then
that will certainly put the execs and company in legal jeopardy. It may be
fraud, or perhaps other laws that apply (IANAL).

> Investors are free to judge for
>themselves whether or not the suit has merit.

Yes, but if they rely on public statements to make their decisions,
and those statements were untrue, then the company must take some
responsibility for that.

>
>> >And no matter what the reason for the rise, you can't blame SCO employees
>> >for it. Do you blame Linux or people in the Linux world for the fact that
>> >Red Hat and VA Linux once had astronomical prices and valuations?
>>
>> Their stock price rises are not comparable, because they were not a result of
>> attacks on other people's intellectual property.
>
>I wasn't saying they were comparable in that sense. I'm just saying that
>employees of a company aren't responsible for irrational behavior on the
>part of the market (which is not to say that the SCO rise is or isn't
>rational :-).

The behavior is not irrational if it is based on statements that the
investors did not realize were false. One could argue that the rise of
RHAT and other linux companies' stock was irrational, but the rise of
SCO's stock is not irrational, since it is based on SCO's public
statements.

The employees are responsible if the behavior was based
on false information from the employees given in the form of public
statements. That is not to say that all employees are responsible.

Let's discuss another comparison: a gang robs a bank. They drop the money
trying to escape and you pick it up: are you completely clean?
This comparison would be valid if:
1. The company knowingly made false statements that pumped up the stock
and
2. The employee knew those statements were false (or had good reason
to believe the statements were false) and
3. The employee sold stock at the inflated prices.