"On the same day that CA blasted SCO, Open Source evangelist Eric Raymond revealed a leaked email from SCO's strategic consultant Mike Anderer to their management. The email details how, surprise surprise, Microsoft has arranged virtually all of SCO's financing, hiding behind intermediaries like Baystar Capital."

--Bruce Perens

"[Microsoft's] Mr. Emerson and I discussed a variety of investment structures wherein Microsoft would 'backstop,' or guarantee in some way, BayStar's investment.... Microsoft assured me that it would in some way guarantee BayStar's investment in SCO."

--Larry Goldfarb, Baystar, key investor in SCO

The Alexis de Tocqueville Institution is not new to us. It is a sort of lobbying vehicle that Microsoft too has been using, sometimes against Linux. We are also very interested Stephen Norris and the Carlyle Group, which is connected to him. In reverse-chronological order, we wrote about the SCO-funding saga in:

• SCO is Having a Yard Sale
• SCO: Always Losing Redundant Court Cases, But Winning Mysterious Funds
• Microsoft's Sleight of Hands
• A Hand That Feeds SCO... Intel
• Who's Bugging Google and Apple? (Updatedx2)
• More Microsoft Patent Trolls, Extortions, and SCO
• How Novell Learned to Stop Worrying About Microsoft FUD and Started Embracing It
• Microsoft Shills Index: Under Construction
• SCO Roundup: Novell Litigation, Money from Me Inc Software
• Is SCO and Its Anti-Linux Agenda Relocated to Microsoft Headquarters?
• Dishonesty Looms Over SCO's New Cash Injection/Infusion/Investment/Whatever
• Stephen Norris: Why SCO? And Why Now?
• Has Microsoft Just Pulled Another Goldfarb (BayStar)? (Updated)

Now that SCO is on the verge of going out of existence, some of the usual suspects make their move. Groklaw has the derails:

Gulf Capital Partners, LLC wants to be heard in the SCO bankruptcy, I gather. There is a pro hac vice Motion to Appear [PDF] filed by Gulf Capital Partners, LLC.

There's more than one entity with that or a similar name, but I suspect that this one may be the Stephen Norris Gulf Capital Partners. Incidentally, or maybe not so incidentally, listed as a senior advisor on the principals page is Robert Kasten, who is also a consultant for the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, which you will recall attacked Linux -- here's the infamous "report" [PDF] -- albeit unsuccessfully. Not that AdTI ever admitted defeat, as you can see on this incredible AdTI page, where they call Open Source software "open sores software" and reference both Maureen O'Gara and Paul Murphy -- small world, isn't it?

The think tank report on Linux was reportedly funded at least indirectly, by Microsoft. Microsoft admits funding AdTI, but not specific projects. And it called the report unhelpful. Of course, there are coincidences in life of the three degrees variety. So, just saying.

Max calls the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution "axis of evil", adding that, based on Wikipedia, they are a "Washington, D.C.–based right-wing think tank that produces reports and policy research. [...] These detail how, after the Environmental Protection Agency moved in 1993 to have second-hand tobacco smoke declared a carcinogen, Philip Morris hired the AdTI to campaign against the move [...] AdTI is a member organization of the Cooler Heads Coalition which asserts that "the science of global warming is uncertain"..." ⬆

"Microsoft hardly needs an SCO source license. Its license payment to SCO is simply a good-looking way to pass along a bribe..."

--Bruce Perens

"...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