Linux.com

Yeah! He got his act together with his little sabbatical, and is spouting tons, without actually saying anything. I'll vote for him!

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Exactly.. One wonders why he couldn't save his time and say: "I'm under an NDA and can't comment." instead of spouting off such a load of useless BS.

Does he really think people were after his opinion of the entire world situation?

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Can anyone really believe they can be all lawyerlike and suck the life out of those who actually DO the work and come up with the ideas, and post pathetic lawyerspeak, obfuscatory drivel, and expect the software/developer community to read it and be anything other than disgusted and want to take a shower?

A person could also go and get a REAL job somewhere; come up with some new ideas rather the IP "licensing" (read "vampire blooduscking") racket.
Paul Anderson
PhD

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Another lawyer with a US centric view of the world.

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This is not a US-centric view, it is an idiot-centric view.

Please don't automatically assume that everybody in the US thinks the way that this clown does. I personally find that insulting.

Thanks.

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Another Eurotrash US basher generalizing.

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Actually, I'm from the US<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:)

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And obviously not too proud of your country.

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Actually, I'm very proud of my country. It's the best country in the world, but it still has a long way to go before it becomes World centric.

Twenty-seven percent of the worlds population get by on less than $1 a day.

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First of all, thank you, Mike, for coming out. This whole mess will get sorted out much faster this way.

OTOH, your nice speech is what in France, we call 'wooden tong' (langue de bois). You haven't actually brought anything to the table. Surely you can see how your 'ip licensing' has gotten out of hand, and is now little more than a smear campaign.

Mabey it's time to show the high moral standards you claim, and put this fiasco down. Like that we can all get down to doing what we do best, and make tomorrows computing world one of innovation and interoperability, where honest business and the users alike will thrive.

regards

David Mills

d.mills AT tiscali.fr

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What do you really expect from a "strategic consultant" and one-man patent application printing press?

Best argument I've read yet for abolishing the USPTO.

On the other hand, Mr. Anderer could open a debate on something really interesting like "The Role of Narcissism in the Advancement of Technology."

Mr. Milken, please meet Mr. Anderer. You two have so much in common, like the same first name. No big deal there, of course. Your ego is your biggest asset? Doesn't really set you apart, either. People offer you large sums of money for pimping scummy deals? That's a more rarefied club. You've become infamous for pimping scummy deals? You two should have alot to talk about.

RM

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- I am great.
- I am so busy in great stuff.
- I have great patents.
- You all don't understand how great my knowledge is so I demonstrate my great wisdom by spouting irrelevent hot air.
- Wasn't that great?
- You are not a great as I am.
- Someday I'll be able to tell you more about how great I am.
- Go back to your mundane lives while I go do great things.

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Look -- shiny things!

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One, He says that Microsoft have suits pending and two, he appears to be a intelligent person desperately trying to make sense of his support for IP bullies.

He's a SCO apologist. When he says nobody has worked out a model for the current industry he overlooks IBM, whom seem to be doing well at present. He's saying that if a company can't compete technologically it should fall back on legalise and paperwork.

Using his logic Windows wouldn't have existed because of MacOS, and MacOS wouldn't exist because of Xerox-PARC!

Bring back Doug Michels! Someone who at least could compete technologically; the last Unixware could barely compete with Windows 2003. Let alone the horridly 1980s OpenUNIX. He should stop trying to kid himself and move with the times.

He talks about nobody been able to compete with Microsoft. Sounds tragically like people saying nobody could compete with IBM in 1985.

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> He talks about nobody been able to compete with Microsoft. Sounds tragically like people saying nobody could compete with IBM in 1985.



Alas, the conceptualization of competition is vastly different than 20 years ago.



To compete used to mean "attempt to convince someone to buy your product as opposed to the product of another company".



To compete now means "attempt to sue the other companies out of existence so that your's is the only product available".

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it took a week for him to hear about Halloween 10 and respond with, well, with *nothing* really?

Riiiiiiggghhttt...

Mod parent down, -10 : FUD

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Actually, I responded initially on Tuesday, but my original response went to an unmonitored e-mail account. It took a couple days to catch up and to see if my NDA would allow any response. I have spent many days responding in these forums going back to the old Wildcat bulletin board sites (and earlier) and onto the old Compuserve NovA, NovB, and NovC Novell forums. We used to get really interesting converstaions going with people like Brian Valentine (Microsoft LAN Manager days) and Mark Cuban...The difference was most people were not annonymous, so there was less meanness and some really good exchanges of information). The world was less black and white, (maybe it was just blue and red)

-Mike

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but not by much.

Would the editors of Newsforge care to comment on this "interview" ?

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"Since the GPL type license agreements push the liability to the users"

Is this a proven fact? Because all your "thinking" is based on it... and it seems totally absurd to me.

- James

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Since when is the GPL a license agreement? Last time I checked, it was a license.

Which means the user doesn't promise anything, such as to assume any kind of liability; he just gets a limited permission to use a product for something. OF COURSE it's then his responsibility to ensure that this something is within the law. It always was. I don't see MS or SCO coming out to protect you if you use their software for something illegal; quite the opposite in fact, if we are to believe their propaganda.

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They still don't Grok the GPL. The GPL provides no waranty. Waranty != liability. Those are two different beasts. Is there a legal way to transfer liability in a license or contract for a crime comitted.
Can I just sign a contract that says, "Hey I'm selling you this car but If it turns out that I stole it, you have to bear the punishment of the crime on my behalf and I'll go scott free"?

#

You are of course correct in what you are saying, and the answer to those two questions are no.
However, if you turn around and then sell the car (perform one of the exclusive rights granted to copyright holders), then you become liable (remember that for copyright, not knowing that you did something wrong, is not an excuse). Now, since most homeuser are endusers, this is not a problem. But for companies that download once, install many times, this is certainly a problem, since they are also funtioning as distributors.

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I think, generally, due diligence is all that can be expected. I don't know what applies in these cases nor what a court's standards/guidlines are, but you can only be liable up to a point because of someone else's original negligence or crimes.

#

Personal injury lawyers want a law system where the property of liability is conservative and completely transferrable. That way, no matter what stupid thing that you do that got you injured, they can follow the liablity chain until they find pockets with lots of money in them. They aren't interested in finding who was really responsible. Defective products happen, and people get hurt, but more often it is defective people use perfectly good products and get hurt (do you need a label telling you not to pick up a running lawn-mower and use it to trim a hedge?).

There are some legal priciples with unforseen consequences that make these cases difficult, but usually these cases gravitate to caches of money, and stay there.

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- nt

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Since the GPL type license agreements push the liability to the users, who do you go after? I think this is a key problem.

The GPL does nothing of the sort. Any liability for IP infringement in products released under the GPL is still on the contributor and relief for IP infringement still involves removing the infringing portion.



The solution to your "key problem", Mr. Anderers, is to establish some sanity in IP legislation and to move away from the 100x return model that some companies seem to apply to what currently passes for IP. The current environment is about companies wanting money for nothing.

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Amen to that.

#

He suffers from the same malady as SCO and MSFT. He assumes that IP is something to be monetized. IP consists of copyright and patents. Once this silly SCO things is dead and gone, which seems all but inevitable, no one will question copyrights again. Now we must focus on the ridiculous software patent system. Once that is gone, then, and only then, will we be free.

The patent fight is going to get very ugly. I am expecting there to be civil disobedience required to get the laws changed. Welcome back to the Equal Rights movement.

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He assumes that IP is something to be monetized.

Good assumption, companies aren't going to put R&D dollars into something they are forced to give away for free. Idealists may think that all new R&D can happen in the local linux hacker's basement....not likely.

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You think the Linux kernel is being done in a basement? What about Apache and MySQL? Bzzzt, try again. I see plenty of R&D happening under the GPL. What great things have come out of Microsoft? Software Assurance is a nice product. Wait, I know, BOB! Oh wait, Clippy!

Bottling an idea is wrong.

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I think you just pointed an important consequence of the use of the GPL. Like the author said, we are in a changing time in the software world.
It was : R/D then sell it. Let others make money by supporting it.
Now it's more like : R/D then give it. And make money by supporting it. The best example is IBM.

But besides the ones doing R/D, who can make money from the new paradigm ? I don't know.

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I think it's the really old fashion way<nobr> <wbr></nobr>... something called evolution. Seemed to word OK for humans.

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The fact is, when you have an easily available public pool
of information the efficiency of your R&D dollars screams upwards.
Open Source software has proven that it can compete
head to head on technical merits in the real world.
The "closed shop" strategy of R&D has proven itself to be
unable to compete in the marketplace because it is too
damn expensive. These are hard bottom-line conclusions...
The idealists are the ones who think they can stick to
an obviously failing strategy and then resort to legal
wrangling when they find themselves losing.

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Do you have any concrete figures that closed shop R&D is "obviously failing"? No? Of course not, because people like you never have any hard evidence to back up your claims. You just assert that whatever you claim is "obvious" and hope that no one calls bullshit on your sorry ass.

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I get it<nobr> <wbr></nobr>... your head's been in the sand<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:)

I work on open source about 10 hours for my company<nobr> <wbr></nobr>... a utility.

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10 hours a day

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Some 95% of software development is not done for resale. Nobody is forcing companies to give code away. They are collarborating on areas where it makes sense and where there is little value to hoarding away code and re-inventing the wheel again, and again, and again. Of course, it's not just businesses that are funding this, academia and folks who just have spare time on their hands are involved too.

      Fortunately, its still a free country and we are still allowed to collaborate in this manner. I imagine you would outlaw this collaboration and force the 95% to pay the 5% over and over again for the same code.

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it seems like he snuck back to offer a reply to himself to reiterate his inanities.

As one person pointed out, he claims that the GPL leaves the end-user holding the bag if stolen code is found within. Actually, the person who stole the code and put it in is the thief, and is the one responsible, not the unwitting recipient.

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"Some 95% of software development is not done for resale."

Exactly right, which means the 5% (commercial software) is the tail that's trying to wag the dog. For the last seven years I have been writing software for internal use in a dept of my State government. I have written over 25 different applications, two of which were massive. None of them will ever be seen in public because they are to narrow in focus -- they have no general utility aside from helping state personnel fullfil their obligations to regulate certain business activities.

We have paid $$Millions for MS licenses and hardware required for the MS upgrade treadmill. The final blow was the XP EULA which required us to allow MS, or any of its assignees, to remotely access our computers and add or remove any software they deem neccessary for "security". A joke which the IRS wouldn't appreciate. Now, we are looking for GUI RAD dev tools that are GPL, sufficient, and cross platform. In place of Oracle, PostgreSQL. In place of VFP or Java, Python and Boa_contructor. Yesterday I loaded one of those massive databases into PostgreSQL and now I will use the smaller of those two massive apps, which I've ported to Python via Boa-Constuctor, to access that data. I see NO show-stoppers in this migration move.

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You are absolutely right. This guy is the other cheek covering the same big *hole (you know who). We have to tear them apart to plug it.

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"In a world where there are $500 million dollar patent infringement lawsuits imposed on OS companies..., how would somebody like Red Hat compete when 6 months ago they only had $80-$90 million in cash?"

In other words, small companies and independent developers aren't viable in the now lawsuit-saddled software industry. Individual coders must become cogs in a big machine that ultimately feeds the lawyer-parasites.

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Yes, you summed it up pretty well. One would think that would be an indicator of some sort to politicians that there's something broken in this business sector and that feeding companies more rights under IP law will only make things worse. But then again, when did a politician ever do something worthwhile for you in a non-election year?

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I, for one, welcome our new parasitic lawyer masters.

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Depressingly, you seem to have missed that this *is* an election year (in the U.S.).

Perhaps that's why it doesn't matter what year it is, politians will still do nothing worthwhile.

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Mr. Anderer,
Nobody has blamed you for anything so you don't need to defend yourself. We never asked about your philosophy on IP economics. The only reason you're now famous is that your email connected Microsoft to Baystar's $50mil investment in SCO. That's the key issue here, and you've evaded it completely.

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[quote]
I think one real issue, that people are skirting, is who will be the ultimate guarantor of IP-related issues in a world that is governed by the GPL and GPL-like licenses. I could easily see IBM, HP, Sun, and many of the other large hardware players solving this problem tomorrow by settling the dispute with SCO and maybe even taking the entire code base and donating it into the public domain
[/quote]

Donating it to the PUBLIC DOMAIN!!! I cant adequately express my anger! GPL has nothing to do with Public Domain. If I wanted my work to be Public Domain I would license it as such. The solution is verrry simple: take the GPL license seriously and honor it as you would any other license. These fools speak of the importance of protecting IP rights while completely failing to even acknowledge the rights of the GPL contributors (and other similiar licenses). GPL IS NOT PUBLIC DOMAIN!!! GPL SOFTWARE IS NOT SOFTWARE THAT NOONE OWNS - IT IS OWNED BY THE AUTHOR OF THE CODE AND IS PROTECTED BY THE SAME COPYRIGHT LAWS YOU LEECHES PRETEND TO RESPECT.

[/end rant]

(and don't get me started on the 'Settling the dispute with SCO' crap).

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Eh...I don't think he's talking about moving the Linux and GPL code to the public domain. I think he means the "legacy UNIX" code; SysV, etc.

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This only makes sense if you assume by "settlement" he meant IBM buying up SCO and throwing SysV into the public domain. If IBM just payed SCO $5 billion for a settlement, why would SCO put SysV into the public domain?

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Now that you remind me, there WAS talk about IBM buying
SCO when this whole sad affair started out. In a way
Anderer has explained that the ORIGINAL strategy was to
encourage IBM to buy-out SCO which would make sense and
have been a nice little earner for SCO shareholders.
If IBM did buy-out SCO then they would feel pressure
to release the majority of the Sys-V code into the public
domain or else linux advocates would get suspicious of IBM.
As if happens, IBM decided to grind SCO to pulp rather than
attempt a buy-out -- the plan back-fired!

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If IBM's plan was to grind SCO into pulp it doesn't seem to be failing at all. SCO is evidently starting to irritate the presiding judge with its habitual non-compliance with Discovery orders and abundant press releases, while IBM is being quite cooperative with Discovery orders and keeping press releases to a minimum. In case you don't understand these things, irritating the judge is always a bad idea.

It looks like IBM is well on the way to getting SCO enough rope to hang themselves with.

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No, SCO's plan backfired, not IBM's<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:-)

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IBM has been around for a looong time! I don't think a company that has as many years as them are stupid when it comes to IP and protecting themselves. they are very coutious and plan thier stategy very far ahead. A company like SCO could never even stand a chance aginst the likes of them, even with M$ backing them.

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"Since the GPL type license agreements push the liability to the users, who do you go after? I think this is a key problem."

No, the key problem is that the bloodsucking lawyers and greed execs of the world think you MUST go after someone because they MIGHT be infringing.

No one forces ANYONE to use the GPL. No one forces SCO to use it either - which is what really frosts the rest of us. SCO would have it so that they can sue anyone indiscriminately and yet much of their product relies on GPL software.

No sir, this is simply about playing by the rules. There is a reason 99% of the tech world is up in arms about SCO and its activities. I'm not certain any other company will ever want to go through this sort of thing again when its all over either.

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Remember that SCO can only do this because they have nothing to lose... they have never turned a profit in the history of the company, so getting the entire industry off-side is hardly about to hurt their investors. If, say, IBM, HP, Sun etc. had tried this, their bottom line would be in tatters by now.

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That's all you care about Mike.

You social standing.
Pride in your little affluent lifestyle.
How you look.
And feeding your little ego.

That's all you Mormons care about.

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I agree with you right up to your last sentence.

I am a Mormon.

I am embarresed that SCO and friends are too.

So don't lump all Mormons into one basket.

Bad eggs are bad eggs no matter what their religion.

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And because you're a Mormon you'll sit on your complacent A** and let these megalomaniacs get away with this crap all in the name of "Free Agency".

Silence is a form of consent.

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And what are YOU doing, exactly, to prevent these "meglomaniacs" from getting away with this?

What exactly would you suggest? A letter or phone call to his Bishop? Tell me, how effective would it be for someone to call your boss at work, for example, and tell him how dishonest you are? Would you get fired? Would there even be an "investigation" of your activities? Why not? Because good leaders don't respond to 3rd party accusations and inuendo, which is what "speaking out in church" about Darl and his gang would be.

So far, a judge or jury has not declared the Darl Gang to have done anything illegal. Without blatent evidence of wrongdoing or a governement conviction, official church action will not take place. (Although, if he showed up in my congregation, he'd get a critical eye from me!)

Get off your high horse and lose the chip on your shoulder, you intolerant, narrow minded, idiot.

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I feel sorry for a lot of mormons. So many of them appear to be such good people.

Good people who are taken in by an organization founded by some drunk, who made up some bullshit story about the history of the Americas.

Do you guys honestly believe that the Native Americans descend from Israelites? I forget some of the other "stories", but I once read a little bit of Mormon material and found it to be blatently made-up, whacked-out cult bullshit.

I can understand, and respect, if the cult material helps you out and gives you spiritual advice and comfort. But let's not forget that the organization is crooked at some of the highest levels. In some cases, that is even highly documented.

Bad eggs are bad eggs no matter what their religion.

Your bad eggs just happen to be at the top.

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Replace Mormons with Christians and americans story with walking on water, etc..

Dude, unless you're an atheist or an agnostic, you don't have the right to burn someones religion without seeming to be a narrow minded idiot! And even then, you'd get burned!

#

I'm an atheist or an agnostic (depending on your definition). I still don't have the right to burn someone's religion. 'Nuf said.

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Perhaps you should read "Beyond Mormonism" by Jim Spencer. Free book online, google for it.

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Care to troll a bit more? I've known greedy athiests, and generous Mormons. Nothing is said here to imply that this man has a religion at all (or is allowed to say much of anything for fear of something - NDA it sounds like, so he may have been "shown the code" by SCO as part of the process).

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Nothing is said here to imply that this man has a religion at all

Of course he has, it's clear as can be. He

is

his own religion. He bows down to his own glorious Self.

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I think he is actually Catholic.

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The Mormons should sue Mel Gibson for using their IP in the Passion. Of course all involved would have to sign a non-disclosure agreement before looking at the Cross... maybe that's why you won't find a cross on a Mormon church.

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and attempts to divine it tend to be unsuccessful.

I see a fascination with power, not an understanding or appreciation of wealth, intelligence, or progress.

This individual may feel that he is in possession of the proverbial crystal ball, but what he actually sees is more than likely incorrect information. Predicting the future is not that easy, and attempts to divine it tend to be unsuccessful. Individuals who cannot see the truth when it is right under their nose become victims, victims of their own stupidity, victims of their own inability to see and understand the true nature of things.

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Here's a good church:

http://www.subgenius.com

#

Of course you realize, this means war!

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Seriously. It is time for a demonstration if you ask me. I'm not sure what we should demonstrate against: Microsoft, SCO, or patents.

* SCO quite falls off imo. They're just a FUDing pet who have no case at all. It is time to move on to real threat.

* Patents obstruct the software development and freedom of speech.

* Microsoft is one of the few companies which are using patents and pets. But they're using, or trying to use a tool: patents and pets. How about we demonstrate against what this makes these tools possible? I'm not sure about the latter. The former is covered by point 2.

Ofcourse we can also demonstrate against multiple of these but that makes it less strong. Before a cynist says: it makes no sense, wait. The protests against software patents in Europe did make sense!

Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, one word of advise. You better not come near my country, i will personally deliver you a creampie in your face in apprectiation of your anti-capitalist tactics.

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All anyone cared about was the PIPE deal, and this narcissistic windbag says zilch about it, then regales us all with tales of glory, buckets of anti-GPL FUD, and a bunch of transparent BS about how he is 'OS agnostic'.
The man is clearly a behind the scenes operator. Why such a tortured trail? It's called 'covering your tracks'. So, MS has more suits up their sleeve? Funny, last time I looked it was SCO launching sui-* OH! DUH!! Thanks for clearing that up Mike! I guess you're not nearly as slick as you thought you were!
- Tim R

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I think you misinterpreted what he said. What he meant was Microsoft had 50+ patent suits against them.

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Yep, I guess the grandparent poster is not as smart as he thought he was either!

Or maybe it was just a typo from his knee jerking and hitting the keyboard so hard.

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I suppose sarcasm tags would've helped. My tinfoil headgear misdirection merely apes Mr. Anderers foggy prose. His motive for writing this bizarre bio/manifesto, when all anyone wanted to know about was the PIPE deal should be considered when wading through his breathless dissertation on his personal greatness and his rapid fire FUD delivery.
To illustrate, let's start here:

'If you consider this licensing an indirect financing of SCO, then everybody (or at least the thousands of licensees) is responsible at some level. The licenses in some cases exceeded $100 million, so these were not even close to the largest ones. The hard part for me was finding somebody who was not already a big licensee.'

Fine. Except for the fact that SCO SEC filings hardly paint such a rosy picture. Notice how Anderer hitches one ambiguous statement to another in a feeble attempt to say MS wasn't bankrolling SCO's war chest cynically when they bought their 'license' just when SCO was choking out?

Here's a good one:

'Ultimately, I do not think any company except a few of the largest companies can offer any reasonable insulation to their customers from these types of judgments.'

Just what does this cloudy statement mean? He talks about 'OS companies' having suits agianst them, then talks about 'insulating their customers'. SCO hasn't sued any users yet either. Why? They can't! His statement is pure FUD.

And then there's:

'In a world where there are $500 million dollar patent infringement lawsuits imposed on OS companies (although this is not completely settled yet), how would somebody like Red Hat compete when 6 months ago they only had $80-$90 million in cash? At that point they could not even afford to settle a fraction of a single judgment without devastating their shareholders.'

After which, he says:

'Since the GPL type license agreements push the liability to the users, who do you go after? I think this is a key problem.You would need a market cap of more than a couple billion to just survive in the OS space.'

So which is it? Since you don't know who to 'go after', and the GPL type license agreements push the liability to the users, then why does Red Hat need 'a market cap of more than a couple billion to just survive in the OS space'?

Not content, he goes on:

'I think the dispute with SCO would have been settled a long time ago if everybody knew this was the last one. The problem is there will probably be hundreds or even thousands of these disputes in the future and the targets will be the companies with the deepest pockets.'

Why would the 'dispute' have been settled if 'everybody knew this was the last one'? Who is everybody? That is the salient question. Is he saying that if IBM merely gave SCO 5 billion, that MS would stop their proxy war on OSS? Another salient point is that here he is talking about THOUSANDS of lawsuits against OSS, not just 50 against MS - I suppose the brainiacs that missed my sarcasm also missed that alarming assertion - perhaps they weren't as smart as they thought either. I notice that my spin job on his words elicited more of a reaction out of them than his fevered fud fest.
Congratulations on your astutely missing my obvious sarcasm, the point behind it, and the opportunity to debunk some especially badly written FUD.

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I would also add that getting people to say. "NO NO NO, he means that Microsoft is looking down the barrel of 50 $500,000,000 lawsuits" a lot is the kind of viral PR misdirection neccessary to survive in the OS space in this world of Anderers and Enderles.

#

"...Since the GPL type license agreements push the liability to the users, who do you go after?...

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Why do you have to go after anybody? Are you saying people using GPL stuff are inherently guilty?

It sounds like more SCO talk to me.

#

Suppose, for the sake of argument, that SCO is right (I hate saying that, even for the sake of argument, but start by imagining SCO never distributed Linux...) and millions of lines of copyrighted, secret UNIX code showed up in the Linux kernel. How does the company maintain it's business, pay it's employees, etc., if there is no way to financially recoup it's loses? Can they file a reverse class action lawsuit and sue millions of Linux users at once? or sue them one at a time? It's hard to believe either of those would work...

#

Every piece of code contribuited to Linux is tracable. Who contributed and when they did so is right there, in the version control records.

You get to the copyright infringer by
1 - Identifying the specific copyrighted code. (This SCO has not yet done.)
2 - Ask Linus, et al to remove the specific code. (This SCO has yet to do.)
3 - Find the contributor, identified in the control logs, as the first step on the trail to the infringer. (Since SCO has not done step 1, they cannot do this step.)
4 - Sue the infringer.

SCO's method is:
1 - Sue someone with money for something other than copyright infringment.
2 - Make lots of noise, but give no facts, that copyright infringement has occurred.
3 - Sue people that don't give in to the noise you are making.

Guess which one is reasonable and ethical?

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Sue the frigging people who put it there. Sue the frigging people that are distributing it without permission. BTW who's MS suing for there code that was put on the web?

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Otherwis it wud reed like his emales

#

rotflol...

#

Indeed, touche to the poster. Very funny, that.

#

There was a problem finding you for while.

When did you sign this NDA? In the last few days?

Roblimo, quick! Before he gets a chance to NDA the date of signing the NDA!

Wouldn't surprise me for a second. Enough time for Fedex to do the legwork.

Aaaaaaaaaaaayyyyy!

#

Mike Anderer conviently ignores the fact that SCO distributed Linux under the GPL for years. Including a couple of years while SCO was the "owner of the UNIX operating system." And he conviently ignores the fact that SCO has never shown any infringment. Yet he is all over indemnification. Why? Because his deals (licensing, patents) depend on the ability to sue, and not just to remove the problem, but to sue the 'deepest pockets' as he puts it. Without indemification, his business model falls apart, as it does for many software companies. But that is not the only model out there. Ask IBM.

#

I keep hearing this argument over and over.

But really: would a court go "You guys accidentally sold your own IP in Linux under the GPL so you obviously gave it away and hence have forfeit all rights to control it"?

Don't ge me wrong, SCO are a bunch of litigous bastards, but we don't need this "they even sold it themselves" crap.

The rest of thier BS speaks for itself without questionable arguments like this.

- Paul

#

Where do you get this from? Certainly not from the facts, but from the SCO FUD. I don't want to get into the facts here but please do a little research before swallowing this shit. Look at some of the Linux changelogs. And that's ignoring the facts when SCO put their blinders on when looking their own knowledge of the Linux and UNIX code bases.

Only an idiot judge and incompetent defense would allow this nonsense to succeed. This would be like a mechanic claiming he accidentally sold a part of his car when he sold his car so he now wants everyone who drives his car to pay him rent. However, he won't tell anybody what part the part is. When he is finally forced by the judge to reveal that the part is the floor mats he'll be laughed out of court. But you seem to swallow this shit so maybe this whole thing is just PR FUD and it's working

#

brilliant council before making the same argument to the judge. If only they had consulted you, they could have saved themselves the trouble! It is precisely because SCO didn't abide by the GPL that IBM has a copyright case against them (and so do any other kernel contributors, incidentally). Anything else their legal team should know?

#

What the %#&% is this #@$%@#$$ talking about ? Dude i think your little sister spun you a few too many times in the washer and now your like slightly retarded.

                                       

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IP Law is the last growth industry in the US. Everything else is going overseas. These jokers earn a living either stealing ideas (it costs relatively nothing to apply for a patent) or suing people (it costs them nothing to file a lawsuit). They dont actually produce anything except more work for themselves. I think our buddy/humanitarian Mark falls into this category. If GPL is successful, he stands to lose everything....
Perhaps we should modify the laws in the US such that if you file a lawsuit for X dollars and lose,
the person you file it against gets that amount. Perhaps, also, we could make it impossible to get a patent on intangible objects. That would take care of all this crap.....

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Hypothetical. You work for this self-made millionare. Odds and ends, miscellaneous odd jobs, taking care of the pets, running errands, etc. So you have suddenly decided that you are going to really make an impression, and she is going to turn you into a wealthy man. So you go out of your way to wax and polish the car, sweep the back porches, I mean, you just really just go really out of your way to impress her, because you, yourself, have decided that the road to success involves licking the soles of her shoes. You even take up screening her calls and filtering her junk e-mail, and standing guard at her front door "just in case".

But then, much to your surprise, about a week later, she up and moves overseas, never to be seen again. She never notices all the extra sole-licking work that you put in for her, because 1) she never asked you to do it, and 2) she could care less about your attempts to lick the soles of her shoes.

Microsoft would be just fine without any of this nonsense. Or, to put it another way, it's not going to help. However you want to look at it.

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All I can say is that I hope that companies using Mr. Anderer's services check with real lawyers before relying on his advice. I find it a bit disconcerting that Mr. Anderer felt that SCO would be bought out and their products put into the public domain.

Mr. Anderer what about all the copyright holders? Wouldn't they have a course of action against a company doing this? Perhaps you missed the articles where Random Love (former Caldera CEO) stated that they had looked into doing this and found it would be impossible due to the various copyright involved.

For those readers who think Mr. Anderer is just repeating the SCO script, I think he is its author. Look at the phrases 'MIT rocket scientist' and 'GPL type license agreements push the liability to the users.' The only one he missed was 'monetize.'

'I am still hoping people dig up some of the more positive projects I have been involved with.'

Us too, perhaps you could send a list of names, we would be glad to do the research, as you point out there are plenty of people willing to do it.

You are right the economic underpinnings of software are changing. Just as PC hardware has become a commodity, computer software is taking the same path. Which means that some software is becoming infrastructure including the OS and basic applications, for example, word processors, spreadsheets and browsers.

In the future people will buy proprietary software for the specialist knowledge and services included. The days of people paying big bucks for an off the shelf office suite are fading fast. Companies spending their time on protecting their market share, locking in their customers and limiting the interoperability with other vendor's products and software platforms will eventually lose.

We too believe that software development is under going a reniassance after being stiffled by large companies using patents, lawsuits and expensive development toolkits to limit the number of small companies and independent developers that could afford to participate. Open source lowers the barriers to competetion that currently exist in the software industry allowing more companies and developers to compete. More competitors eventually produces innovation, which has been lacking in the software industry over the last 10-15 years as the number of industry players has declined.

We look forward to open standards being used to allow software interoperability, something that many proprietary companies want only if they control the standard and can charge for 'licensing,' 'cross-licensing' or developement toolkits. Open standards that any company large or small can use to produce interoperable products provides choices for customers who can choose the best products for their situation since they aren't locked into a single vendor's offering.

Fortunately, the light is beginning to shine into the dark corners the software patent system. Now that the Eolas patent has been over turned, we may finally see some sanity applied to the software patent process. Hardware patents make sense, but wholesale applying the same process to software just stiffles innovation and causes the lawsuit gridlock that we have now. Making sensible modifications to the system should help all concerned. There is no reason for a:

'...$500 million dollar patent infringement lawsuits imposed on OS companies...'

and as you point out

'...how would somebody like Red Hat compete...'

and

'...I do not think any company except a few of the largest companies can offer any reasonable insulation to their customers from these types of judgments. You would need a market cap of more than a couple billion to just survive in the OS space.'

These are the signs of a badly broken system, fortunately we are now getting the attention of lawmakers and can address these inequities. As economists say small companies are the growth engine of the economy and when they can't compete due to systems like the patent system then it needs to be fixed.

These are the things that will invigorate software development, not using 'IP' rights as a form of protectionism for the status quo. Of course many companies facing increased competition are concerned, they would be best served by determining what knowledge and services they can provide to make their proudcts valuable to their customers. In the long run relying on market share, vendor lock-in and lawsuits is not enough.

#

Bravo,

This is the best reponse to date. As you point out, the issue is about leveling the playing field for all competitors and making the bullies go sulk in the dunces corner. It never fails to appall me to see how low Microsoft Office has sunken now they no longer have credible competition. Nevermind the incredibly insecure bloatware they call an OS

At the end of the day, there is a reason that Linux emerged... folks were/are fed up with the crappy products, skanky marketing, brazen litigiousness, and plain greed emanating from Redmond. I'm mad that as a business I to have to prove to some MS schmuck lawyer that I in fact did buy as many licenses as I'm currently using.

The sooner the industry moves away from closed, properietary systems, the better. That way, relationships between vendors and customers can return to sane conditions.

#

IBM has cash; responsible commentators did suggest that IBM could just buy SCO solely in order to switch it off - and that that was hOw SCO Management expected to serve their own sharehOlders' best interests. That the company's greatest cash value was in what IBM was willing to pay to kill it. It' expensive, but it can be worse<nobr> <wbr></nobr>/not/ to do it, and sit's been done successfully before now, not necessarily with IBM or with SCO. But I think some Microsoft acquisitions were suIng MS at the time?

Whether there were ever negotiations in this particular case - well, I don't recall seeing a report.

IBM evidently decided that their better deal was to fight in court. The same goes for other companies whose businesis threatened by SCO's Linux lawsuits. One factor is that SCO doesn't possess anything which IBM would want to own, except maybe Darl's company car. So the money spent would be burned. And it wouLd reward and encourage similar acts Of IP terrorism.

But the option was there; still is.

Robert Carnegie

#

At a quick reading this sounds like BayStar and RBC wants their money back and SCOX asked Enderer to write this to pacify and stop them from closing the deal. BayStar and RBS are being set up to be the bag holders.


  Is Enderer=Enderle ?<nobr> <wbr></nobr>;)

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"Since the GPL type license agreements push the liability to the users, who do you go after?"

Let's look at the Microsoft EULA, shall we?

CUSTOMER REMEDIES. Manufacturer's and its suppliers' entire
liability and your exclusive remedy shall be, at Manufacturer's
option, either (a) return of the price paid, or (b) repair or
replacement of the SOFTWARE or hardware that does not meet this
Limited Warranty and which is returned to Manufacturer with a
copy of your receipt. This Limited Warranty is void if failure
of the SOFTWARE or hardware has resulted from accident, abuse, or
misapplication. Any replacement SOFTWARE or hardware will be
warranted for the remainder of the original warranty period or
thirty (30) days, whichever is longer.

NO OTHER WARRANTIES. To the maximum extent permitted by
applicable law, Manufacturer and its suppliers disclaim all other
warranties, either express or implied, including, but not limited
to implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a
particular purpose, with regard to the SOFTWARE, the accompanying
written materials, and any accompanying hardware. This limited
warranty gives you specific legal rights. You may have others
which vary from state/jurisdiction to state/jurisdiction.

NO LIABILITY FOR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES. To
the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, in no event shall
Manufacturer or its suppliers be liable for any damages
whatsoever (including without limitation, special, incidental,
consequential, or indirect damages for personal injury, loss of
business profits, business interruption, loss of business
information, or any other pecuniary loss) arising out of the use
of or inability to use this product, even if Manufacturer has
been advised of the possibility of such damages. In any case,
Manufacturer's and its suppliers' entire liability under any
provision of this agreement shall be limited to the amount
actually paid by you for the SOFTWARE and/or Microsoft hardware.
Because some states/jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion or
limitation of liability for consequential or incidental damages,
the above limitation may not apply to you.

You can get the price of the software back. wheee.

#

You can get the price of the software back. wheee.

Which is *EXACTLY* what you get as a Linux user if you downloaded your software!! At least we're keeping up with the trends!<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:-)

#

MIT rocket scientist

They're baaack!

#

It seemed like 2 pages of text without substance. Anders seem to skirt the most important questions. There are 2 very key facts in this case: 1) There is no Unix IP in Linux and 2) SCO distributed their Unix IP under the GPL. Anders appeared to be reading from a SCO/Microsoft talking points script. I thought the part about suggesting end users hold liability for lawsuits was cute and predictable. Another statement intended to drive customers away from Linux and towards Windows. Remember the time the tobacco company executives testified in front of congress that their products were not addictive? This sounds like the same deal. These characters wouldn't admit to anything if their life depended on it.

#

-----
I believe the software industry is in an incredible renaissance and that means maybe there will be a lot more people out there making things better and a couple fewer people with enough spare time to flame under five separate handles, all registered as underage so they can exploit the better privacy laws we afford to children.
-----

I guess that flaming those of us who believe in protecting our intellectual property (GNU/Linux) is OK, but flaming those paragons of virtue at SCO isn't OK.

Anderer should be a politician, he'd fit right in with Bush and Kerry.

Wayne

#

So this guy is busy running around looking for the next potential conflict between companies in the software industry so he can stir things up and hopefully cash in with a quick settlement.



But it looks like he miscalculated on IBM refusing to buy up SCO for $500 million and he didn't want to wait around on what is starting to look like a failed IP/Patent/Copyright extortion scheme.



So he works up some deal so it wont be a total loss and then moves on.



And in his point of view the entire OSS/FSS/GPL arena is a big turn off because there are no multi billion dollar corporations with law suit pipe lines waiting for him to fill.



I'd say better luck next time Mike, but I'd actually prefer that you fail miserably in your endeavors. You add no value to anything in the industries you infest, you are a parasite.



burnin

#

B-I-N-G-O-! You hit the nail on the head my friend. He's miscalculated BIG time on this one, and he's trying to convince himself that he'd didn't fsck it up.

#

Yes he deserves to be on the "B Ark" with the telephone sanitizers.

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No star-goat around, unfortunately...:-]

#

In between the drivel, this is what lept out at me:

"I could easily see IBM, HP, Sun, and many of the other large hardware players solving this problem tomorrow by settling the dispute with SCO and maybe even taking the entire code base and donating it into the public domain. I know this is what I originally thought would happen, at least the settlement part."

Which kind of confirms our view that SCO originally only brought suit against IBM as an encouragement to buy them out, and hadn't really thought through the entire legal case they're now having to make up as they go along.

John.

#

Rather like saying "Oooo, see that big old tiger! Maybe if I pull on his tail, he'll give me a ride."

<TT>There once was a lady from Niger
     who smiled as she rode on a tiger
They came back from the ride
     with the lady inside
And the smile on the face of the tiger. -- anon.</TT>

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This clown comes on after hiding his phones for a week and babbles about the future of computing and says absolutely nothing about his involvement, SCO's involvement or Microsoft's involvement in the Baystar scam.

Screw him! He and SCO and Microsoft need to be investigated thoroughly by the SEC. And he knows it. In a year or so, he may be doing time in the Federal pen.

You want to hide behind dead phones? Not good enough! Suggest you get on the next plane to Brazil before the SEC finds you.

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Nah. Not Brazil. It is becoming a haven for that evil GPL..<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:)

#

Hey, we don't want him either!!!
Don't sent us your useless baggage...

#

hopefully the Feds start their AntuTrust investigation soon, and raid his ass.

#

I kinda got lost, then went to sleep... what did he say.

#

I managed to pain my way through it and after reading it I want my 10-15 minutes back!

Trust me, you didn't miss a thing. In fact, you got more out of it by sleeping.

Now I know to avoid writings from Mr. Anderer.

#Note to self
#add following line to<nobr> <wbr></nobr>/etc/rc.d/rc.firewall:
iptables -A INPUT -m author --author "Mr. Anderer" -j DROP

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I don't even know where to begin.

I hope Darl is enjoying his little game and his NDA's
these guys are a joke

someday when I grow up I want to be like this guy and Darl - you think they will let me in the club.

I wonder if this guy can actually do anything technical - I bet he is good at holding conference calls and meetings.

I can't stop laughing -
It is scarry there are people like this roaming the earth. I thought the comets got rid of all the dinosaurs.

What does an NDA have anything to do with an explanation of an email. Where was he the last week when everyone was trying to get a hold of him and why are all his numbers to his businesses disconnected.

What a looser - but I guess he thinks he is better than everyone because he has the most money.

They still don't get that the gpl is about IP rights. This guy is nothing but a no talent paper shuffler.

I would not seek his services (whatever they might be) for anything especially now that he signed an nda with sco and sco is sueing the companies that had signed contracts with them.

I hope these guys can go home and look their children in the face and feel good about the example they are setting.

#

SCO has IP in UnixWare not in Linux. Mr. Anderer please stop lumping Linux with other Unix variants (which may have IP from their respective company). Its kinda like being Ford and saying we are suing all other car makers because they basically copied the idea of a car from us.

The fact that the steering wheel, brakes, and speedometer is in the same place (like the commands in Unix and Linux behave the same), doesn't mean they are identical, and that as Ford, you deserve a piece of GM and Honda's pie. Can you imagine the look on the face of Bill Ford, if you walked in and suggested that he sue GM because they copied the car from them. And that the new Caddilac STS steers and handles almost identically to the Lincoln LS, so they MUST have stole the entire steering and suspension from Ford's designs. And because their product's name ends in S you advise them to sue other manufacturers who sell other makes of cars who have a two or three letter named vehicle that ends in S (or sounds like an S). But YOU then refer to them as LS/STS/CTS/RX.

And oh, yeah, YOU could have bought an STS and looked at the suspension, and saw that it wasn't anything like the LS, but nooooooo. You advise Mr. Ford, to sue GM first, and claim that they stole their suspension/steering, and you want all of GM's engineering documents because you KNOW they must have stole the designs to build a product that handles as well as Ford's, and that customers can get into and drive with a minimal amount of training. And you advise him to sue any dealership owners that sell both Lincolns and Cadillacs, because they must have colluded with GM to steal those suspension designs.

You would be laughed out of his office. And yes, I'm laughing too.

#

If you capatilize it this way, it's an abbreviation for Linux. (L)inux (I)s (N)ot (U)ni(X).

#

" had several long lost friends contact me. I think they thought I might need some support."

**** Does he really think he has friends ? He is truly diluted with self grandure.

#

He means Darl and Chris Sontag.

"long lost" means he misplaced his address book last week, and had to wait until they called him. I'm sure they were a big support to him.

#

All of those meaningless words and paragraphs... so vague... what a waste of bandwidth.

I think I'll sue him for that....<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:)

#

LOL.

Well. I had a bit the same. This explanation by PJ on Groklaw i found interesting.

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20040312<nobr>1<wbr></nobr> 9075674
(mind the space in the URL)

Ofcourse there are also a lot theories posted at the comments which might be worth looking. I leave that up to you.

The explanation of PJ though, was very refreshing and made me very angry at the at first. Later, i was okay<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:) because of some enlightening comments...

#

What a bunch of hot gas! IP is only but a term that is used to fog the details. Let's talk the copyrights and patents involved here. Be specific and the truth will reveal itself. SCO and you are in the same boat obviously, and it is sinking fast.
Let me see if I get this... if I'm not a $2B company, then I'm wasting my time in the OS arena right? I need at least $2B in revenue to be able to afford to steal, right? OK now I get it. Go get a life and take your buddies at SCO with you. How much did they pay you for your "expert" services anyway???

#

> I also have a lot to say in most situations.

In other words, i'm a big mouth.

#

for wasting my time getting me to read what i thought was an informative article but was actually just an egotistical rant.

#

...our new self-important douchebag overlord-wannabe, Mike Anderer.

#

I've met far too many "talkers" like this guy in my career, and not a single one of them deserved anything better than being smacked vigorously about the face and torso with a large, frozen salmon.

#

Why waste perfectly good salmon?

Use a carp!

Pete

#

"I have also had several long lost friends contact me. I think they thought I might need the support"

They support you. You figure out a way to try to sell them, sue them, screw them.

What happens when your long lost friends find out you are a long lost fiend?

#

Has anyone been threathened by groundless lawsuits by Mike Anderer or the companies he controls?

If so, they should consider getting together to discover if there's enough solid evidence to start a lawsuit.

If a pattern of persistently instigating groundless lawsuits or threathening to file such lawsuits can be proven, a judge and jury needs to hear about this because such behavior is bad for our economy.

Are there any other old emails or letters from Mike Anderer that might interest the authorities or law firms willing to work on contingency?

Are there any startups or small businesses or entrepenuers that got the shaft from Mike Anderer and would like to discover if they're not alone?

Now is the time to unite and speak up!

#

I found it interesting that he said there would be lots more lawsuits from Microsoft to come.... hmmm.....

#

I think it's great that this guy came forward, but frankly I would have thought that someone as involved in copyright and patent licensing as he claims to be would know a bit more about the ins and outs of copyright law, particularly as it pertains to Linux and other GPL-licensed software. Consider this:

I could easily see IBM, HP, Sun, and many of the other large hardware players solving this problem tomorrow by settling the dispute with SCO and maybe even taking the entire code base and donating it into the public domain.

This shows a serious lack of understanding. IBM, Sun and many other large contributors to the kernel have a lot of power in the industry, and they each own copyrights over the parts of the Linux kernel that they contributed. But they don't own Linux as a whole: each of them owns pieces of Linux, but the code surrounding what they contributed is licensed to them. The license is the GPL, which does not allow them to re-use the code under a license other than the GPL. So in theory Sun (or one of the others) could take code they contributed to Linux and put it in the public domain, but they couldn't touch the surrounding code, nor revoke the GPL-granted rights of people who licensed the code as it exists in the kernel.

The idea of Linux going into the public domain is wishful thinking that we've heard a few times from people in the industry. They need to get over it, because it's highly unlikely. They also would benefit from learning a bit more about how these collaborative uses of copyright work. Contrary to Mr. Anderer's comments, the economic model of the GPL has actually been thought out in great depth: there is little room for the licensing models employed in the past by priprietary software vendors, but this is intentional and not in need of fixing.

#

I'm pretty sure he's referring to putting System V into the public domain, not Linux. Only the copyright owner has the authority to put copyrighted material into the public domain. Since there are countless copyright owners of code in the Linux kernel, it would be next to impossible to get even a majority of them to agree.

He's practically begging the big companies to send SCO tons of cash to buy them out and shut them up. This isn't going to happen. IBM is going to destroy them in court. They may also intend to punish Canopy and maybe even Microsoft too.

It would probably be impossible to put all of System V into the public domain anyway. Ransom Love, former Caldera CEO, said in an interview that they wanted to open source all of the Unix code, but found that there were other companies' copyrights in it and Intel, for one, wouldn't allow it

#

This man is just another evil lawyer. Patents should be abolished and software should be free.

No company should be permitted to collect money for software and all software should come with its source code.

These lawyers and companies are sick and this guy is just working for the man.

#

Even Novell has moved to Massachusetts.

This is how bad it is.. in a state with a population of about 2.2 million 200,000 people live below the poverty line and 400,000 people can't afford the average rent on a two bedroom apartment.

All this in a state which is number four in the nation for per capita millionaires.

Keep that money coming in Darl.

#

I can't figure out why Mr. Anderer wanted to do this interview, unless he figured that a bit more fame would help his career or was concerned that his character was being smeared without anyone to stop the attacks.

As others have pointed out, his response really does not contain anything particularly meaningful, though it is a nice change from the predictable streams of unfounded accusations coming from Mr. McBride. It is sympathetic, and tries to emphasize the parallels in his own view and those of the OSS community. He may just not want to be caught in the middle of all this, and would rather be seen as a neutral figure than "one of those SCO litigous bastards".

Unfortunately, the Slashdot link to this story implies that there is more substance here. The Slashdot story is quite misleading.

I do find it somewhat interesting that if Mr. Anderer is really being sincere, it seems likely that the business side of the folks involved really do expect a massive change. They (SCO/Microsoft) do not expect open source to fizzle or just go away, and expect to need to adapt.

#

Is it really so hard to understand why this self-promoting gasbag wanted to get his name plastered on this site and Slashdot? It helps him to continue propping up his already overinflated ego.

#

Since the GPL type license agreements push the liability to the users, who do you go after?

This is something straight out of a Microsoft PR person's mouth. Any license, Microsoft's EULAs - anybody - push all of the responsibility to the user. There is no indemnification at all - anywhere.

I advise everybody to ditch what this guy says in the future, because I get the impression that he is a smoke-screen. Keep the focus.

#

Nobody wants to be the ultimate guarantor for software that was free.

Oh..and non-free software is better? What is Microsoft's guarantee?

#

This confirms the latest bull**** term is GRID computing.

#

This article is a waste of time and bandwith. Guy said NOTHING at all.

DG

#

Why did he write that if it's to say *nothing* ???
on s'en f** !

#

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=14707

#

Hmmmm.
The part of Wile E. Coyote will now be played by Mike Anderer. The part of the Bugs Bunny/Road Runner will now be played by Linux. The part of Acme will be played by SCO/MS.

See Wile E. Coyote write response professing his greatness. I will insnare that darn Road Runner!

See the tools SCO/MS supply Wile E with (The legal team of Darl) to catch that Road Runner.

See the Road Runner evade every trap and seemingly defy the laws of physics.

Beep Beep!

#

It generally saddens me to find that there are people who really think the way this person seems to. I would never wish to be part of or participate in any "industry" that only "permits" or allows large companies to produce software and I find that part of what he says absolutely aboherent and disgusting. Certainly I would not wish to be associated with or a part of the same "software industry" he seems to be. Other things he says are either irrelevant or false, especially in regard to the GPL, and I can only speculate why he would choose to say those things.

David Sugar

GNU Bayonne Maintainer

#

David:

You are certainly right that my comments with regards to the GPL were innacurate and sloppy. I do realize there is nothing in the license that forces the liability to the end users. This is a current practice of some software vendors that is unrelated to the GPL.


  As I visited your site again, I did find that clearly someone there sees the same issues with regards to patents and with the legal system that I mentioned. In every case the information is more in depth and better thought through. I will certainly read it. This includes RMS's paper on the constitution and patents which partially clarify my comments in another post about patents. His reading is that they are not required by the constitution, but allowed.
I am just not certain whether the courts are at this point yet.

So while I am apologizing I will also confess I do not understand all the nuances of the various licenses and sometimes even the not so nuanced portions of the licenses. I am working on it and I do not believe I am the only one with this issue. The reason I am working on it, is because I want to make sure I adhere to the spirit and letter of the licenses. I want to know what I am buying and know what I can do with what I buy or use and maybe even which license I should use for some of our projects.

I apologize again for being sloppy. I should have known better and I will be more careful in the future.

I have started several small software companies, so I have no desire to see a world where only the largest companies can compete. I just made an observation that in a world of large patent judgements only the largest will survive unless things change. Clearly your organization is already lobbying for many of these changes.

-Mike

#

I would just like to clarify a point that may kill a whole cottage industry where the speculation was that I meant Microsoft intended 50 lawsuits against other people. This rampant speculation was completely off base.


    I stated that I thought Microsoft might have about 50 of these lawsuits queued up ( I meant patent lawsuits AGAINST Them). This was a statement (and just speculation) that was meant more as a commentary on the messed up way things are, than how they should be. It is the legal system, as it exists today, and it may not change quickly. Patent law is at some level tied to the constitution and to several international treaties (my understanding).


      As for my understanding of patent and copyright law, I think it is like quantam mechanics, (paraphrasing) "anyone who is not totally confused and amazed by patent and copyright law, does not truly understand it"

There were no threats in there, just observations that were my own.

I am not an attorney, I am not LDS (mormon), just because I am from Utah, I was not even a very good Catholic so why would they want me?

If anybody wants to let the people at Groklaw know the whole premise for the article they put out is just a misreading of what I wrote here. The same goes for The Inquirer, and Erik Raymond, maybe it will save a couple trees.The truth is occasionally less interesting.

I apologize for the lack of clarity that caused so much heated writing in response.

-Mike

#

Mike,

            Many people figured out that you were probably talking about patents aimed at Microsoft, however, the statement still came off as somewhat threatening rather than simply an observation.


      I'm heartened that you seem to agree that current legal situation is "messed up". Nonetheless, by most appearances, you appear to be positioning yourself to profit and take advantage of this "messed up" system rather actually attempting to reform it.

#

The reason 500Million in damages is partly (largely) due to MS income. Courts would not accept such a judgement against RedHat but for a company like MS 500Million is a small settlement and approved by the court quickly.

Besides this he spouts off a lot of other ob sense that makes him look like a big player but after reading this I am now pretty well convinced he doesn't even know how to tie his own shoes in the corporate or legal world.

#

This guy is just another venture capitalist weasel. For years these guys got rich sucking the blood of the REAL innovators. They would find some developer with a really good idea, give them several thousand dollars for R&D in exchange for a majority share in the business. Beyond that, they wouldn't lift a finger until most of the work was done. Then they would hype it, facilitate the transition to a public holding and finally make off with millions.

The poor developer would be left with a small, minority share in his hard work and instead of his dream of owning his own business, winds up working for the new CEO.

GPL changed this and lowered the overhead of starting an IT business. The VC weasel don't like that and want the GPL dead. That is one of the reason the VC are dumping money into SCO. This guy has VC written all over himself.

#

The people of the United States of America should be proud of this man. In his third sentence he starts informing us that he is contributing in home-land security and anti-terrorism activities. Could this be the magical words that get him off the hook or at least give him a better change before a jury when his friends deny ever have heard about him?

Ever thought about the implications of having a home-land?

#