07.13.09
More on the Amazing Story Behind SCO (and Possibly Microsoft)
“Microsoft hardly needs an SCO source license. Its license payment to SCO is simply a good-looking way to pass along a bribe…”
Summary: Another (public) take on the latest from SCO
SEVERAL DAYS ago we showed some mind-blowing developments in the SCO case. Groklaw chose to keep them private (for subscribers only), but the word starts percolating through subscription walls and into some other Web sites.
Slated writes: “This story demands greater exposure, since it reveals the full extent of SCO’s (and their partners’) depraved and thuggish mentality, so please quote the full Groklaw article, for the benefit of non-members.”
Here is another new analysis which sadly enough comes from a Web site that is currently down (and has been down for a while, so Sam Johnston hopefully works on it). Here is the text from Google cache for the benefit of those who can’t access the site:
Dodgy dealings happen all the time but it’s not often you get to see it boiling over into the public arena as we have today. I saw in my newsfeed this morning that GrokLaw had picked up on (Darl, Norris, Bryan Cave Named as Defendants in IP Litigation – The Pelican Brief) a Courthouse News article (Ex-Partner Accused of AIP Trade Secret Theft) about a recently filed complaint by Pelican Equity, LLC against Talos Partners, Darl McBride (of SCO Group fame), Robert V. Brazell (of Overstock.com fame), Stephen L. Norris, Rama Ramachandran and lawfirm Bryan Cave LLP.
It claims a conspiracy to “steal AIP’s proprietary stock loan product” (EQUITAP™, [which] helps investors achieve their financial goals by structuring non-recourse loans using the securities in their portfolio as collateral) and ”virtually API’s entire business from API and its founder, Mark Robbins” (Pelican claim to own the relevant rights). It then goes on to explain the whole sorry story of a techie (Robbins) investing four years and apparently all of his money into development of a product, being approached by seasoned businessmen (Brazell & McBride) as potential partners, the subsequent formation of a new business (Talos) and theft of everything from AIP’s products to website to employees (Ramachandran) with the help of AIP’s own lawyers (Bryan Cave LLP) who ultimately blew the whistle with an “astonishing” conflict of interest waiver.
The truly mindblowing part of the whole story though is the Skyline Cowboy site they claim is run by McBride and Brazell: “Finally, in a heinous effort to obliterate AIP’s business and deflect their misdeeds [they] have over approximately the last 60 days littered the Internet with scurrilous postings on www.skylinecowboy.com, a website they used primarily for that purpose, and on Yahoo, Twitter and other message boards.”
If that’s true it’s like coming back to stab the guy in the carpark after you’ve robbed him of everything he owns. Not only have they posted a video of the guy’s wife being served what they claim is a $109,627 check fraud judgment following a $1,000 bounty as well as a $20,000 reward for arrest and $1,000,000 reward for “full restitution” (save that both appear to be impossible – and likely a result of the claimed highway robbery), but now they’ve offered $30,000 for the true identity of GrokLaw’s Pamela Jones (PJ) who they claim is a “Secret IBM Shill Blogger”. Let’s not be too quick to forget the relationship to SCO Group and their apparently Microsoft funded attacks on IBM, Novell and Linux in general.
Anyway you can see the juicy details for yourself in the filings and if you’re a GrokLaw member, the article and associated discussion (the article has since been updated “Now that I’ve read it, I’ve made the article Members Only for now.” and unfortunately ”creation of new accounts has been temporarily disabled”). I have but one question: Who the %!#$ do these cowboys think they are? It’s amazing to think that our society routinely jails people for petty theft while leaving [what appear to be] career conmen free to enrich themselves at others’ expense. Anyway at least Bernie Madoff got his comeuppance… you’ve heard my opinion – what’s yours?
A lot can be learned from this about trust (and antitrust) in Microsoft.
In relation to this, Slated adds: “Microsoft is the criminal organisation that Miguel de Icaza evangelises for. I wonder if, like his gangster heroes in Redmond, he also supports SCO’s agenda? Or is that one of those uncomfortable “black and white” things he doesn’t like to talk about?”
Here is a comment about “Microsoft’s impunity”, posted in reference to our evidence of Microsoft misbehaviour in sub-notebooks:
It amazes me how much Microsoft is able to get away with in terms of anti-trust crimes that go unpunished while others get punished for much less.
I suspect that this is down to Microsoft’s core business strategy. Unlike the others, Microsoft is an abusive monopoly first and foremost – that is the core to its being and the core to its business strategy. The others are business first and monopolies incidentally, and where it occurs, the abuse is not systematic. Hence Microsoft’s abuse of monopoly is effected and sustained in a far more meticulously planned way, with the subversion of DOJ (possibly through Bill Gates’ father’s law firm’s influence within the DOJ), corruption of politicians, bureaucrats, individuals in companies, the media etc. – all part of the core corporate ideology.
Is the legal system potent enough to respond to more massive crimes rather than shoplifting and doping? Or would an effective system be described as “Utopian” at best? █
“…Microsoft wished to promote SCO and its pending lawsuit against IBM and the Linux operating system. But Microsoft did not want to be seen as attacking IBM or Linux.”
–Larry Goldfarb, Baystar, key investor in SCO
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Andrew Macabe said,
July 13, 2009 at 9:28 am
USDOJ has been long castrated by special interest groups (Federal Reserve, IRS, etc.) They’re only function is to protect the elite (Rockefellers, Kennedys, Gates, Lays, etc.). Madoff gets prison; which prison, general pop in a real prison like Levenworth? I don’t think so.
Roy Schestowitz Reply:
July 13th, 2009 at 9:31 am
See what Novell and Apple get away with.
Andrew Macabe Reply:
July 13th, 2009 at 9:52 am
Yes, P.J. passed that post and others awhile back, good outside links to enron type mischief and financial dodge. It’s the American way. Instead of starting the declaration of independence, “We the people of the United States…” they can now use, “Fleece the people of the United States…”
Roy Schestowitz Reply:
July 13th, 2009 at 9:59 am
Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what corporations can do for your country.