GNU/Linux has several people who may sometimes seem like its friends when obviously they are not. For starters there's Florian Müller and there are others like Bill Beebe, who sometimes act as apologists for SCO and even this week show some disregard for GNU/Linux (Beebe does not use GNU/Linux and neither does Müller by all indications).
“What strikes me is that the price in June was going up until June 10, when Stewart ruled for Novell (look at the activity for *that* day), and then it dropped back to 0.04 the next day, and that was the highest until July 9, when Kevin McBride posted claims about Linux.”
--Pamela Jones, GroklawDarl was of course sacked. Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols (SJVN) made a mistake similar to that of ZDNet and Groklaw corrects him by stressing that "this isn't SCO talking, in that the brothers McBride are no longer associated with SCO, unless SCO's current leadership wishes to take credit for this event."
Separately, Groklaw points out that SCO's stock rose as a result of this McBride action. "I find this mezmerizing," says Pamela Jones, "this chart of SCO's daily share price. What strikes me is that the price in June was going up until June 10, when Stewart ruled for Novell (look at the activity for *that* day), and then it dropped back to 0.04 the next day, and that was the highest until July 9, when Kevin McBride posted claims about Linux. Then you see the price go up to a high today of 0.10. Coincidence?"
Later on Groklaw wrote about the TurboHercules case, noting: "First SCO and now TurboHercules. See a pattern, anyone? I certainly do. Microsoft and its "satellite proxies". Someone needs to investigate that as an antitrust violation, in my view, using litigation and regulatory process to harm a competitor."
The term "satellite proxies" is an exact quote from IBM. Now that there is an antitrust investigation in the EU there is also a lively discussion and here is how IBM responds:
IBM said it is cooperating fully with E.U. regulators and that the allegations are being brought by competitor Microsoft and its “satellite proxies.”
IBM countered in its own statement that the EC's accusations "are being driven by some of IBM's largest competitors -- led by Microsoft -- who want to further cement the dominance of Wintel servers by attempting to mimic aspects of IBM mainframes without making the substantial investments IBM has made."
In a statement, IBM said it “intends to cooperate fully” with the inquires. But it also asserts that the investigations were actually triggered by Microsoft (MSFT). “Let there be no confusion whatsoever: there is no merit to the claims being made by Microsoft and its satellite proxies,” IBM said. “IBM is fully entitled to enforce its intellectual property rights and protect the investments we have made in our technologies. Competition and intellectual property laws are complementary and designed to promote competition and innovation, and IBM fully supports these policies. But IBM will not allow the fruits of its innovation and investment to be pirated by its competition through baseless allegations.”
IBM, based in Armonk, New York, said in a statement that “there is no merit to the claims being made by Microsoft and its satellite proxies.”
“Certain IBM competitors which have been unable to win in the marketplace through investments in fundamental innovations now want regulators to create for them a market position that they have not earned,” IBM said.
Frank Shaw, a spokesman for Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft, said in an e-mail that the company invests in startup companies such as T3 to give customers greater choice. The company isn’t a party to T3’s complaint against IBM, he said.
“We do share T3’s belief that there needs to be greater openness and choice for customers in the mainframe market,” Shaw said. “Customers tell us that they want greater interoperability between the mainframe and other platforms.”
--Larry Goldfarb, BayStar, key investor in SCO approached by Microsoft
Comments
Florian Mueller
2010-07-27 08:41:32
You say I help Microsoft's agenda. However, my agenda is all about competition and innovation in IT, for which I consider FOSS an extremely important factor. Should there happen to be some overlaps between my pro-competitive agenda and Microsoft's interests (although I'd like to see some better proof than PJ's unsubstantiated claims), that's fine and it's statistically inevitable given that they have such a diversity of interests and aren't automatically on the dark side. Even if they tried to always come down on the dark side, they couldn't even get there consistently, I'm sure. I'd only be concerned if someone suspected me of supporting an agenda that is anticompetitive and harms innovation (and in that case it wouldn't even matter whether that's Microsoft' or anyone else's agenda because I simply wouldn't want to be seen as promoting such a bad cause regardless of who's behind it).
Dr. Roy Schestowitz
2010-07-27 08:52:19
Florian Mueller
2010-07-27 09:16:39
Dr. Roy Schestowitz
2010-07-27 09:32:49
Florian Mueller
2010-07-27 10:03:22
Dr. Roy Schestowitz
2010-07-27 10:27:28
Florian Mueller
2010-07-27 16:28:57
Dr. Roy Schestowitz
2010-07-27 16:52:45
Florian Mueller
2010-07-27 17:36:41
Dr. Roy Schestowitz
2010-07-27 18:03:00
Florian Mueller
2010-07-27 08:48:15
On my desktop and my notebook, I use Windows 7, but there's plenty of FOSS for Windows and I use some of it. I saw a list of the top 10 SourceForge application projects and every one of them is available for Windows in some form. I don't believe in dichotomy concerning FOSS and proprietary software. In particular, I don't want software patents to hurt either category. More importantly, I want FOSS to put competitive pressure on everyone because that will ensure that I also get to buy high-quality proprietary software at reasonable prices. I believe in choice.
Dr. Roy Schestowitz
2010-07-27 08:51:18
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2010-07-28 04:31:28