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SCO's Ethics In Wonderland
Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 07:41 AM EST

SCO's new ethics policy page:

"We have built our business based on excellence in our products and services: not only quality software product solutions, but quality employees and representatives who adhere to the very highest standards of honesty, ethics and fairness in our dealings with all of our business contacts."

Compliance, they say, is mandatory for all employees. Violations can lead to dismissal.

You have got to admit, this story never gets old. SCO is lacking utterly in self-awareness or irony, which makes covering their antics endlessly entertaining. This document, a PDF, is simply a howler. Stand in front of a mirror or in front of your friends and family and just try to read it out loud, seriously, without falling down laughing by the end. I dare you. Bet you can't make it through the first page. The Fair Dealing section alone will defeat you:

"Directors, officers and employees are required to deal honestly and fairly with our customers, suppliers, competitors and other third parties."

Say, third parties... would that include Fyodor? Why, yes. Yes, it would. How about Linus? Fairness to third parties is mandatory. Whew. What a relief. For a while there, I was in a panic, thinking SCO was going to turn out to be dishonest, mean, greedy and unfair. See that? That was before I found out they have a strict, mandatory ethics policy.


  


SCO's Ethics In Wonderland | 325 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
The distinction between legal and ethics??
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 08:21 AM EST
The very first line gives the impression that legal behaviour and ethical
behaviour are seperate entities??? perhaps my not reading through the entire
document as of yet, I'll find explanation, but first post is first post! wooooo
hooooo!

[ Reply to This | # ]

SCO's Ethics In Wonderland
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 08:23 AM EST
Really belieiving something does not make it true. I think at some stage SCO
really believed that its IP was being infringed and the belief has now become so
deeply held that nothing, perhaps even losing in court, will shake it,

SCO will find nothing inconsistant between its statement of ethics and its case
against IBM and the world in general. In fact it would consider it to be an
extention of the same thing.

[ Reply to This | # ]

SCO's Ethics In Wonderland
Authored by: RSC on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 08:24 AM EST
"SCO New ethics page"

Would that be related to SCOs' new derivitive works interpretation, or perhaps
SCOs' new constitutional interpretation? :)


RSC.



---
----
An Australian who IS interested.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Oxymoron of the day is...
Authored by: SilverWave on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 09:01 AM EST

Oxymoron of the day is … “SCO's Ethics”

LOL!

I dare you to say it and not laugh!!!

---
RE:SCO's House of Cards
"Ooh!… and a Black pirate flag flying from the top ;-)"

[ Reply to This | # ]

SCO's Ethics In Wonderland
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 09:04 AM EST
Does it differ from SCOs old ethics policy page?

[ Reply to This | # ]

SCO's Ethics In Wonderland
Authored by: stan ackroyd on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 09:29 AM EST
Possibly I am paranoid, but the previous articles about IBM seeking the
Caldera-Microsoft documents suggest that IBM may be intending to attempt to
"pierce the corporate veil" and go after Canopy.

Is this ethical policy an attempt to counter that? So that when a SCO executive
is shown to be a crook, Canopy can point to this policy and demonstrate that
they have the highest expectations of ethical behaviour by their employees and
can hardly be held responsible if one goes off the rails and does something
sleazy like attempting to steal Linux.

[ Reply to This | # ]

SCO's Ethics In Wonderland
Authored by: rsmith on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 09:32 AM EST
Heh. What a shame HMTL doesn't have an <irony> tag. :-)

---
Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.

[ Reply to This | # ]

SCO's Ethics In Wonderland
Authored by: legal insanity on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 09:39 AM EST
The problem with lies, after a while, one begins to believe their own lies, and
trips on one which starts the avalanche
which will bury them, as it all comes undone.

---
Insanity Pleadings is the only Sensible Defense

[ Reply to This | # ]

SCO's Ethics In Wonderland
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 09:43 AM EST
Ethics?

First they say there is IP illegally donated by IBM to the Linux community.
Then the community asks, "What code? So we can take it out." Then
SCO says, "No, by extention of IBM's illegal actions, you, the community,
are also in INTENTIONAL violation and thus if we tell you what the code is, it
will somehow reveal tradesecrets that are not obvious to anyone even tho they
have a copy of source code of the Linux kernal." Then they cry and beat
their chests, hire body guards, blame blame blame the Linux community for any
problems it has, even those that are brought on by themselves or others that are
not in the community. Then have the gaul to offer a (for a long time)
non-existant, WAAAY overpriced license for something they havn't proved was is
even theirs, or have have the right to sell in the first place. Mix this with
the constant chatter of lawsuits against end-users and attacks on the freedom of
humanity and the right to distribute your own work the way you want to.

Did that cover the major BS?

Anyways, if you look at it, aside from if there is any substance to IBM having
misconduct or this is a rehash of the DR-DOS gang, if you look at their actions,
it has been mostly to goad the Linux community (or at least the appearance there
of (namely proSCO & MS trolls)) into reacting to SCO's actions, trying to
play the victim while discrediting the Opensource/Free/GNU/Linux movement as
much as possible.

One word... *bleep*

That's their ethics. No piece of paper can state ones ethics.

Your actions do that, and their's speaks plainly.

[ Reply to This | # ]

SCO's Ethics In Wonderland
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 09:44 AM EST
<blockquote>Compliance, they say, is mandatory for all employees.
Violations can lead to dismissal. </blockquote>

On April 20 there will be a shareholder meeting, where eight SCO directors will
be (re)elected, including Darl. Any chance his ethics will lead to his
dismissal?

[ Reply to This | # ]

SCO's Ethics In Wonderland
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 09:58 AM EST
SCO to the judge:

"Well, yes your honor, we ran that red light, but it is our strict company
policy *not* to run red lights and to obey all traffic laws."

RF

[ Reply to This | # ]

&quot;we *aren't* 'Fair and Balanced' around here&quot;
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 10:00 AM EST
This is a PRO-OPEN/FREE/GNU/LINUX site, not proSCO. There is no such thing as
fair and unbiased, only to minimalize the ill effects of such by constantly
hammering at a truth till it's so well forged that it would take an obvious
movement to break it's temper. And when someone moves to break the truth behind
the Free/Open movement, the community sees it and acts to defend a truth that
has been hammered on since very dawn of time when the first human was been
oppressed. There for, only an idiot believes their parents don't have a
favorite kid, if you get what I mean. Don't come crying when someone takes
offense to something that is offensive.

I wrote this, which is parent thread outside of this thread, but I will restate
it here, as it demonstrates SCO's ethics.

Ethics?

First they say there is IP illegally donated by IBM to the Linux community.
Then the community asks, "What code? So we can take it out." Then
SCO says, "No, by extention of IBM's illegal actions, you, the community,
are also in INTENTIONAL violation and thus if we tell you what the code is, it
will somehow reveal tradesecrets that are not obvious to anyone even tho they
have a copy of source code of the Linux kernal." Then they cry and beat
their chests, hire body guards, blame blame blame the Linux community for any
problems it has, even those that are brought on by themselves or others that
are
not in the community. Then have the gaul to offer a (for a long time)
non-existant, WAAAY overpriced license for something they havn't proved was is
even theirs, or have have the right to sell in the first place. Mix this with
the constant chatter of lawsuits against end-users and attacks on the freedom
of
humanity and the right to distribute your own work the way you want to.

Did that cover the major BS?

Anyways, if you look at it, aside from if there is any substance to IBM having
misconduct or this is a rehash of the DR-DOS gang, if you look at their
actions,
it has been mostly to goad the Linux community (or at least the appearance
there
of (namely proSCO & MS trolls)) into reacting to SCO's actions, trying to
play the victim while discrediting the Opensource/Free/GNU/Linux movement as
much as possible.

That's their ethics. No piece of paper can state ones ethics.

Your actions do that, and their's speaks plainly.

[ Reply to This | # ]

They're trying to kill us now.
Authored by: dmomara on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 10:01 AM EST
Between this and the most deadly joke EULA ever foisted onto an unsuspecting
world they'll have no survivors to collect from.

[ Reply to This | # ]

SCO is no different than the others in this regard
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 10:14 AM EST
Actually, all ethics policies at all medium to large companies are just self
serving window dressing.

None of you actually think that the companies that publish these policies have
any intent of following them, except when it profits them do you. Sure, they get
used for the right reasons some times, to fire people who are trying to enrich
themselves at the companies expense for instance, but they do not apply to
anyone who the board of directors and top management believes are making sure
that the hightest profit is made at the lowest possible cost.

If this were 1850 these same companies would be trying to justify their use of
slavery in the high labor cost manual jobs in the fields, or even closer to our
time, they would be justifying their use of slave labor from Nazi death camps in
Poland to maximize profits for the shareholders. All at the same time
publishing company codes of ethics to show their customers and the public that
we should trust them.

I think that we have to ignore this public statement (their code of ethics) the
same way we would ignore any other self serving statement from a group of
reprobates bent on corporate servival at any cost. Ethics are a one way street
at virtually all companies, and only provided for to fulfil requirements of law
or to provide useful PR for the company in question.

SCO is the norm in this regard, not the exception.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Blake Stowell Speaks Out
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 10:19 AM EST
I know that we all have been going through terrable withdrawals since the SCO boys seems to have stopped thier daily rants and raves. Well, here is something new for you to read and ponder over from Blake Stowell. There are several very interesting points in the interview.

The first is about why we HAVE heard so little from them. This is so remarkable, that I will use Stowells own words.

LinuxInsider: Rather than asking you to disclose evidence or talk about some of the legal implications of the initial filing, can you tell us what was the catalyst for filing the lawsuit? Had SCO been planning the move for a long time?

Stowell: Our lawsuit against IBM is ongoing litigation that I unfortunately can't comment on.

Isn't that amazing! But the second thing is even more so. You see, SCO really. REALLY does love open source.

LinuxInsider: What's your general feeling about the open-source community? Or, to put it differently, what's your philosophy of software?

Stowell: I think that a lot of good has come from the open-source community. The fact that developers around the world can collaborate on projects together to create something for the general good of society is an incredible thing. I've worked with a lot of companies and individuals that have made some great contributions to open source. SCO has both contributed to and benefited from open-source software.

and what they are doing now is for our own good and we will thank them for it in time.

LinuxInsider: Part of your job is to maintain the company's image. Given that SCO has been sharply criticized, how are you planning to transform the company's image among open-source advocates after the lawsuit?

Stowell: Open source will probably be around for a very long time to come, and I'm sure SCO will continue to participate in and benefit from open-source software. One way the company might continue to work with and help open source is in putting some mechanisms in place to assure that proprietary software doesn't make its way into open source. I'm sure this will continue to be a concern among open-source developers going into the future.

[ Reply to This | # ]

SCO's Ethics In Wonderland
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 10:20 AM EST
If this is a new document I think SCO are suffering from what I think
psychologist call congnitive dissonance and are now engaged in post hoc
rationalization.

Dave.



[ Reply to This | # ]

Unfair Criticism
Authored by: phrostie on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 10:31 AM EST
I have an idea!
why don't you and the rest of the annonymous trolls start a community based web
page dedicated to researching facts and supplying reference materials to support
your belief that TSG is an ethical company that has saints for officers and who
will all have 70 virginians waiting for them in heaven. further you can post
regualar updates how the masses of the open source source community are no where
near Lindon Utah or the dead end street called 520west. then you can point out
how TSG did infact show Millions of lines of SysV code to Judge Wells. how the
1985 $eccho does infact prove that AIX and all other forms of Unix belong to an
inbred family from utah. best of all you can do it with out being annonymous!

please send us the link. we look forward to you acctually supporting your
statments.

---
=====
phrostie
Oh I have slipped the surly bonds of DOS
and danced the skies on Linux silvered wings.
http://www.freelists.org/webpage/snafuu

[ Reply to This | # ]

Unfair Criticism
Authored by: legal insanity on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 10:34 AM EST
I was thinking more along the lines of a slug, A little salt would work wonders.


---
Insanity Pleadings is the only Sensible Defense

[ Reply to This | # ]

Unfair Criticism
Authored by: DeepBlue on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 10:41 AM EST
This is unfair criticism
OK go on - how exactly is it unfair to point out the differences between SCO's words and their actions?

---
Even David needed some stones in his sling to topple Goliath ........

[ Reply to This | # ]

Unfair Criticism
Authored by: songfellow1 on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 10:43 AM EST
In my humble opinion, one very unfortunate by-product of SCO management's poor
behavior is that honest, hard-working lower level employees at SCO are also
getting painted with the "poor ethics" brush. The laughter by the OSS
community is in response to SCO's actions and not necessarily the actions of
it's employees. Perhaps SCO should re-work it's ethics position so as to excuse
it's management from compliance?

---
Songfellow

[ Reply to This | # ]

  • Unfair Criticism - Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 07:20 PM EST
Ethics vary by culture
Authored by: freeio on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 10:48 AM EST
While we might not think much about this, the concept of "ethics" is
heavily influenced by the surrounding culture. Some societies/cultures value
certain values more than other societies/cultures. So one could speak of the
ethics of the Spartans, for instance. It would seem that Sparta survived for
hundreds of years with an ethic which said, in essence, whatever you do is OK,
but only if you win and don't get caught.

So in the Spartan ethic, many of today's business practices are ethical, so long
as one wins and never gets caught. So in this sense, TSG is being entirely
ethical.

The moral: claiming to be ethical is meaningless apart from the strict
specification of which ethics one claims.

---
Tux et bona et fortuna est.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Al Franken has a new book
Authored by: jgb on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 10:49 AM EST
It is Lies and the Lying Liars that Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at SCOG. (With apologies to Al Franken. Yes this is a joke.)

What exactly do you mean by objectivity? Don't confuse equivocation with objectivity. They are not the same, and equivocating serves no one's interests but the lazy and noncommital.

Several posters have tried to argue from SCOG's position to highlight what they saw as merit (or something approximating it) in SCOG's arguments. This has always degenerated into an exercise in futility since there's so little to work with.

SCOG is not suing to redress a grievance. They are not trying to right some past wrong. They are trying to get themselves a big fat bundle of cash, either by being bought out by someone with deep pockets, or by the willing suspension of critical thought on an industry wide basis. Lest you start moaning about objectivity, these conclusions arise as a result of careful, thoughtful consideration, with due weight given the information from both sides of the debate. Thus, it is objective to the extent that it can be.

Objectively speaking, Darl et. al. rolled the dice with SCOG's future at stake, and rolled snake eyes. He is now running about trying to convince all and sundry that snake eyes is really a winning roll.

---
-jgb-

Somewhere in Utah, a village is missing its idiot.

[ Reply to This | # ]

SCO's Ethics In Wonderland
Authored by: PeteS on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 10:51 AM EST
Well, perhaps SCOG (and others) could learn from history that what you do, not
what you say, is how anyone (company or individual) is judged.

I personally love this quote:
"According to its root the tree will grow, what and who a person is appears
in his works"
- Santob de Carrion (XIV Century)



---
Today's subliminal thought is:

[ Reply to This | # ]

Troll
Authored by: fishbonez on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 10:53 AM EST
btw, are trolls born or hatched?

Hatched in the darkest depths of Mordor.

[ Reply to This | # ]

whistles and pointedly ignores troll (NT)
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 10:56 AM EST
.

[ Reply to This | # ]

OT: Is SCO violating GPL for (practically) all UNIX/Linux GPLed programs?
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 11:00 AM EST
Most of the commentary on the NMAP issue is about SCO's public and court
statements. This one line of argument is, that SCO has not "accepted"
the GPL, by contending it is illegal, and therefore is distributing all GPL
programs without a license (copyright infringement).



THERE IS ANOTHER ENTIRELY DIFFERENT LINE OF ARGUMENT TOO:

In SCO's December letter about the ABI files, they contend that the headers,
errno.h, signal.h, etc., as contained in Linux - may not be used under the GPL.
They also say the use of these files is restricted to non-GPL usages on UNIX
too. Read their letter case carefully - they say **ANY USE** of these files -
under the GPL is prohibited (not just use internally by Linux kernel, or
copying by Linux distributors).

Any GPL program which uses these headers on Linux or UNIX, would according to
SCO's theory [incidentally one they have essentially restated in sworn court
statements], include material that SCO owns, but is not licensing under the
GPL.

- If you disagree with SCO's claims about these files (e.g. typical Linux
distributor), then you would not be violating the GPL

- However, if you were to agree with SCO's claims about these files (i.e. you
are SCO), then you ARE violating the GPL with respect to ***ALL*** Linux and
UNIX programs which use these headers.

Now eventually, which theory is right, will be determined by the courts... but
in the meantime, I can not see how SCO can simultaneously assert different
positions on these files in separate cases. If SCO says these files infringe in
one court case, they must say that in all court cases.

And hence, SCO is violating the GPL with respect to ***ALL*** UNIX and Linux,
GPLed programs which use errno.h, signal.h, etc.

[ Reply to This | # ]

SCO and the GPL...
Authored by: pooky on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 11:21 AM EST
I think what Fyodor is saying (I am not trying to put words in his mouth mind
you) is that SCO has publicly rejected the terms of the GPL by claiming it’s
invalid and unenforceable. If they don’t accept the license, which is what
grants SCO the rights to re-distribute GPL’d products, then they have to stop
distributing NMAP, because it is a GPL’d product.

What Fyodor points out is something we should all realize. The GPL is the
vehicle that grants rights of use of copyrighted works. To distribute a GPL’d
work means you accept the terms of the license, plain and simple. If you don’t
accept the license, you have no right to copy and re-distribute the work.

SCO is an impossible position to argue from:

If their argument is that the GPL is invalid and unenforceable, then they *must*
stop distributing any GPL’d software, because the GPL is what gives them the
rights to do that. For their own argument to hold up, they have to acknowledge
they now have no license to distribute anything that was GPL’d. That includes
their flavors of Linux that their customers use and pay SCO to support. The
license can’t convey rights if it’s invalid. I’m guessing but I would think that
actually ceasing distribution of any and all GPL’d software would be somewhat
damaging to them, especially with their SCO Linux customers.

If they don’t stop distributing, then they are destroying the so-called moral
ground they claim to be standing on, because they themselves are now
distributing copyrighted works without permission to do so. SCO calls this act
copyright infringement. It’s a little hard to argue that they are defending the
rights of copyright holders everywhere when they are themselves trampling
other’s IP. This avenue is also somewhat damaging to SCO, as no one will take
their claims seriously in this situation.

So by attacking the validity of the GPL, all they have and can accomplish is to
hurt themselves and their own customers. They hurt their pocketbook whether it
be by damaging their customers or by damaging their credibility.

The lesson for SCO here, *think* before you speak.

-pooky

---
Veni, vidi, velcro.
"I came, I saw, I stuck around."

[ Reply to This | # ]

Twas ever thus
Authored by: Scriptwriter on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 11:43 AM EST
When I sally forth to seek my prey
I help myself in a royal way.
I sink a few more ships, it's true
Than a company president ought to do,

But many a high-paid CEO
If we wants to earn his pile of dough
Must somehow manage to get through
More dirty work than I ever I do,

Foooooooooooooooor, I am the pirate king . . .
And it is, it is a glorious thing to be a pirate king!

(Apologies to William Gilbert, but it's just as true as the original was 120
some years ago.)

---
They can have my copy of Linux when they pry it out of my cold, dead flippers.

irc.fdfnet.net #groklaw

[ Reply to This | # ]

SCO's Ethics In Wonderland
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 11:44 AM EST

``Compliance, they say, is mandatory for all employees. Violations can lead to dismissal.''

Oh, come on. That rarely applies to the folks in the executive suites. They get caught with their hands in the cookie jar or some other crime and the rank and file employees are the ones who have to go to semi-annual ethics classes. And while the employees are sitting in the classroom, the execs are planning the next business deal that is, the majority of the time, either underhanded and bound to be found out or ill-conceived and will cost the company money. And the ordinary employees are the ones who take it in the shorts. Every time. (OK, label me jaded regarding corporate ``ethics'' but I've seen these corporate ethics statements way too many times. Lip service pure and simple. ``We published a policy so we're covered.''.)

[ Reply to This | # ]

SCO's Ethics In Wonderland
Authored by: coolmos on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 11:45 AM EST
Well, if these ethics apply to Darl cs., i would only say this:

Put your money where your mouth is.

---
A 699 license ? Is that the US variant of the Nigerian 419 scam ?

[ Reply to This | # ]

The Brothers McBride
Authored by: crs17 on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 11:50 AM EST

SCO's "Code of Ethics" forbids doing company business with family unless it's cleared with the Board of Directors (or in the case of an officer, with the Audit Committee).

What is the chance that Darl cleared the hiring of his brother in that manner? (Unfortunately, I imagine we'll never know)

Quote from the Code:
... no director or officer without the approval of a majority of our Audit Committee members, shall:
....
  • conduct business on behalf of SCO with immediate family members, which include spouses, children, parents, siblings, and persons sharing the same home whether or not legal relatives.
  • [ Reply to This | # ]

    Are you a daytrader? Or someone with real arguements?
    Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 12:01 PM EST
    With truth and...humor. A good sense of humor is greatly needed to keep one's
    own sanity, and temper, when reading all of this SCOG guff.
    math geezer

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    SCO, The Bad and The Ugly
    Authored by: IMANAL on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 12:13 PM EST
    http://www.kdev elop.org/index.html?filename=sponsors.html

    Oooops! :)

    An ethical past, at least.

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    SCO's Ethics In Wonderland
    Authored by: insensitive clod on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 12:15 PM EST
    "Directors, officers, and employees must report any known or suspected violations of laws, governmental regulations or this Code in the manner set forth in the Company’s Policy Regarding Accounting and Auditing Matters."
    Read: Report any violations to Darl. Under no circumstance shall you report violations to the police or any other governmental agency.

    ---
    Lemmings vs Penguins

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    Good thing for Daryl:
    Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 12:17 PM EST
    Officers are not considered "Employees", correct?
    The Execs have a different set of rules concerning ethics,
    and they are not allowed to make up their own rules. That's the whole point of
    a public corporation. Every last employee would be wise to find another gig
    now. It won't be any easier when they're all pounding the pavement at the same
    time.

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    Enron and Worldcom
    Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 12:51 PM EST
    No doubt both Enron and Worldcom had/have simlilar policies.

    lvteacher

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    MS's next Linux defense
    Authored by: tcranbrook on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 01:03 PM EST
    Here is an article about MS's near term plans to fight Linux, Microsoft Hints of Future Programs to Stave Off Linux Overseas.

    During his opening remarks, Taylor repeated his goal to remove the "hype, noise, religion and emotion" from the Microsoft vs. open source debate. He reiterated that Microsoft is planning to expand its campaign beyond its current total-cost-of-ownership (TCO) and interoperability emphases to reliability and security in the coming months.

    Catch that? "reliability and security". This should be creative. There is one interesting thing in the article. Seems even MS recognizes the difference between Linux, the kernel, and a GNU/Linux Distribution. Listen to this.

    "Linux is simply a kernel," Taylor said. "We have an operating system stack" that includes management utilities, security utility, a directory service and other components that are part of Windows, he said. On top of that, Microsoft also has a client that is tightly integrated with this stack, he added.

    Im curious about how far they think they will get with that rediculous little slight of hand. Last time I looked, a full bore GNU/Linux distribution has a OS stack AND an applications stack so high you can hardly see the bottom from the top. I had to put XP on a machine to run a particular game recently, and I can't even burn a CD without going out and buying more commercial software. Not to mention that the drivers woudn't even install on XP. Seems they were Win95/98 drivers.

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    SCO's Ethics In Wonderland
    Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 01:05 PM EST
    I searched for ethics on the SCO web page because I couldn't follow the link and
    this is what the search returned:

    "Sorry, but search returned no results.
    Try to compose less restrictive search query or check spelling."

    :-D

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    SCO's Ethics In Wonderland
    Authored by: eamacnaghten on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 01:15 PM EST
    I am fascinated with the last page of the PDF (page 8).

    It is obviously not supposed to be included, and is a left over from a document
    version comparison routine.

    However - the file name used is..
    "C:ndelocgardiner.samThe SCO Group Code Of Conduct(n).doc" where
    n is a version number.

    The date on this page is November 7 2003, so their "new found ethics
    behaviour" is probably no older than that.

    The ".sam" usually is short for "sample". I think this is a
    small re-hash of a standard Gardiner document and quickly posted as either a PR
    stunt or to proof in one of their court cases that they have a "Code of
    Conduct" procedure. It is difficult for me to believe it is more than
    that.

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    Australian complaint?
    Authored by: jwoolley on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 01:19 PM EST
    I don't suppose this "policy" would be in response to the
    complaint lodged against them in Australia, by any chance?

    Thoughts?

    --Cliff

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    Dean Zimmerman
    Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 01:22 PM EST
    This wonderful document came from the the desk of "deanz", which a quick googling with SCO shows him to be a product manager from way back in the Caldera days. He also helped write that unconstitutionality letter with Kevin McBride.

    This guy is one of the shills. I would have thought that he'd been too embarrassed to write such a hypocritical document, but there you go.

    Doesn't look like Kevin worked on this one.

    I'm a bit surprised that Kevin McBride moved out of state. Maybe his concience is getting to him. Anybody know when it was that he and Eben Moglen had their chat?

    I went to school with Kevin, back in '93. He seemed a nice enough guy. Funny, I remember talking to him one afternoon about this great new peice of software, Linux. Of course back then I pronounced it Lai-nix. He didn't get why it was soooo cool to be able to run Unix on your home PC. He was awfully proud of his brother working for Novell, though. Apparently that lawsuit hadn't happened yet.

    Or, er, maybe it had.

    I wonder if he's had a change of heart, now that things are becoming clearer, and his complicity in the whole matter becomes more distasteful.

    I would hate to be him. You can't really ever come clean and go "Yeah, I lied, I helped file false accusations against a competitor and was party to slurring a good many decent people in order to furthur my career."

    What good is a clean conscience when you spend 23 hours a day in a 7' x 9' cell?

    Makes you wonder, how was SCO ever able to get so many white collar sociopaths on the payroll?

    JasonD

    Long Live the Penguin.

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    SCO's Ethics In Wonderland
    Authored by: sbungay on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 01:24 PM EST
    There I was, readong along and I got to this part.... "quality employees
    and representatives who adhere to the very highest standards of honesty,"
    and then I almost spewed CocaCola all over my keyboard.
    What a laugh.

    ---
    Programmer: A red eyed mumbling mamal that converses with inanimate objects.

    IANAL IAAP

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    Feel free to post a rebuttal
    Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 01:25 PM EST
    If there are any mistakes or misrepresentations in the story, PJ has been more
    than willing to amend the record with subsequently provided information. Perhaps
    you're aware of some detail that is not contained in the story above and for one
    I would be interested in reading about any extenuating circumstances that might
    shed more light on the situation.

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    Ethics -- switching sides
    Authored by: belzecue on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 01:46 PM EST
    Forget the idea of McBride revisiting USL vs. BSDI. I think McBride is reliving Caldera vs Microsoft? His rhetoric during SCO vs. Everybody certainly fits that earlier legal battle: we have the underdog (Caldera) fighting for its IP rights against the Goliath of MS; we have Bill Gates using every dirty trick in the book to preserve MSDOS's dominance over DRDOS.

    The funny thing is, Caldera was undoubtedly occupying the ethical high ground at that time. They got shafted bigtime by MS, the Law confirmed it, and justice was served. Caldera good, Microsoft bad.

    Sure, new-SCO isn't exactly old-Caldera, but isn't it fascinating to watch the change in ethics of the various parties as time passes and circumstances change.

    From their court filing (linked above), here's how Caldera described MS's tactics for killing DRDOS in the marketplace:

    52. All of the foregoing were part of an extended "FUD campaign" by Microsoft in response to release of DR DOS 5.0, DR DOS 6.0, and Novell DOS 7.0. "FUD" is an acronym for a tactic used by Microsoft to create "fear, uncertainty and doubt" in a competitors' software by propagandizing the market with misleading or incomplete statements about competing software. In regard to DR DOS, Microsoft's FUD campaign involved, in addition to the foregoing, efforts to uncover supposed flaws in DR DOS releases which it would then leak to the media as allegedly crippling "bugs." Microsoft's purpose was to freeze the OEM and retail channels with fear, uncertainty and doubt about DR DOS releases, thus squelching sales. Microsoft's FUD campaign regarding DR DOS "bugs" was particularly misleading where Microsoft's own releases of MS-DOS 5.0 and MS-DOS 6.0 had such severe bugs (including data loss) that Microsoft was required to immediately release "patches" to cure them.

    Sound like familiar tactics? Ah-huh. Slight change in ethical position: SCO-nee-Caldera bad, Microsoft bad.

    Despite this toxic relationship baggage, Microsoft and SCO are buddies now, right? All is forgiven. And yet why do I get the feeling that Bill Gates never forgives nor forgets being given a legal wedgie such as the one Caldera performed. Did he fund SCO's life support extension to fight linux, or did he fund SCO to fight linux AND have SCO-nee-Caldera commit suicide in a very public and undignified way?

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    OT - requirements for 3rd party to challenge copyright transfer
    Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 02:42 PM EST
    Apparently a 3rd party can't use the defense of an invalid coyright transfer unless the copyright is in dispute between the tranferring parties. I have a link to a decision invoking this rule, which lists the actual precedents. Does this shed any light on Novell's registration of the copyrights - given their relationship with IBM? link to decision

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    Isn't it libellous...
    Authored by: FrankH on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 03:38 PM EST
    ...to call somebody a liar.

    You could hardly call Darl McBride a liar could you?

    He says he has found millions of lines of his code in Linux. Surely we can wait
    until the cows come home for him to show us which millions of lines he is
    talking about.
    He says he will sue an end user by Feb 18 for copyright infringement. What's a
    few days between friends?

    You know it's libellous to call somebody a liar.

    Unless, of course, it's true. ;-)

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    SCO's Ethics In Wonderland
    Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 03:53 PM EST
    I sent a message to SCO written as follows:

    "I have searched your site for the keyword "Ethics" in search for the document, "THE SCO GROUP, INC. CODE OF BUSINESS CONDUCT AND ETHICS", but the search failed. Apartently SCO has no Ethics!

    Rick Stanley

    It will be interesting to see what their response is.

    It is listed on their site as "SCO Code of Conduct" under the "Company" link.

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    Is That You, Seth?
    Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 03:54 PM EST
    I have a feeling this is Seth. He loves McB and, I believe, he has a picture of
    him on his wall.

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    Too many replies to trolls
    Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 04:16 PM EST
    Over the last few months the number of troll postings has increased, but the
    main problem is that each troll posting gets multiple replies, most with very
    little new or interesting to say (which is exactly the trap the trolls want
    responders to fall into to). For me this is making reading the posts and
    gaining any useful information impossible. Now I prefer to wait for PJ's
    articles and not bother reading posts; if someone finds anything useful then PJ
    will cover it pretty soon anyway. For "live" updates on the case I
    find the Yahoo SCOX board much better with its recommendation system and the
    need for every poster to have an ID so you can filter the trolls out. PJ, how
    about it adding this feature to Groklaw? I'm sure other people are wishing the
    same thing? Or what about adding some guidance on the "Post a
    Comment" page which reminds posters not to respond to trolls (big bold
    letters please)?

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    SCO's Ethics In Wonderland
    Authored by: rand on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 04:33 PM EST
    Q: Why (and when) does any organization publish a guide to ethical behavior?

    Here's a hint: Why (and when) did God give Moses the Commandments? Was He really
    happy with how things were going?

    It's a good thing I'm out of Mountian Dew. I picked up a few new keyboards
    today, just in case -- with SCOG, you just never know when you're gonna do a
    spit-take.

    ---
    carpe ductum -- "Grab the tape" (IANAL and so forth and so on)

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    This webite *IS* balanced and fair!
    Authored by: Scott_Lazar on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 05:53 PM EST
    Well it's a little like closing the barn door after the horse has fled in the
    lateness of this comment, but personally I think that the majority of people who
    frequent this website DO strive to be fair and balanced. Fair in that
    constructive differences of opinions are welcomed. Fair in that mutual respect
    is usually given,expected and received. Fair in that criticism generally is in
    the realm of 'show the facts that support your opinion'. Balanced in that for
    good or for bad, those who choose to 'shout out from the crowd' i.e. purposely
    post annonomyously can do so. Balanced in that that theories, suppositions and
    opinions, when not being given solely as a means to enflame or injure others
    feelings or reputations, are judged and weighed for their merit and either
    pursued to completeness, or cast aside. Simple enough.

    Scott

    ---
    LINUX - Visibly superior!

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    OT: Anyone notice that SCO uses MS Windows?
    Authored by: mobrien_12 on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 06:24 PM EST
    They use PowerPoint for their presentations. All their released PDF's are made
    with MS Word.

    Sad, really, for a company that was the first to bundle StarOffice with their
    Linux Distributions. Caldera's motto used to be "Linux for
    business."

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    SCO's Ethics In Wonderland
    Authored by: javajedi on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 07:14 PM EST
    You know, it just may be possible what with the continuous outages of their web sites and such that perhaps Darl and company have never gotten to see these ethics policy's to read them before. Perhaps now that this has been brought to their attention here Darl and company will read them and realize that their jobs may be in jeopordy for violating these policies and come clean before the world, repenting for their blatant lies.

    Hey, it could happen, couldn't it?

    What's that? Why YES, I DO believe in the Easter Bunny and Santa Clause... why do you ask?

    ---
    The Matrix is real... but i'm only visiting...

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    Rambaldi code
    Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 07:55 PM EST
    PJ, I love the site, and "SCO ethics" is good fodder for us amateur comedians.

    But I must insist that for sheer entertainment value, the SCOX board on Yahoo has you beat hands down. (In short, Yahoo has the sizzle, you have the steak.)

    Latest topic for which you need to take your meds first is the "Rambaldi code". The poster alleges a fractal method in Unix will soon be revealed to prove SCO's case of copyright infringement.

    Rambaldi was a 15th century Italian, I think, who reputedly had some kind of invisible water mark on his paper to attest authenticity. I'm fuzzy on the details, and so, apparently, are a lot of other people. Correct me if I'm wrong.

    Anyway, it's good Saturday night entertainment if you're pinching pennies these days.

    http://messages.yahoo. com/?action=q&board=scox

    [ Reply to This | # ]

      ALL companies' ethics statements
      Authored by: Tomas on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 09:22 PM EST
      All companies' ethics statements I'm familiar with are similar to the one SCO has posted.

      Having worked since 1970 for one Fortune 500 or another, and then starting my own company, I've seen and studied a few.

      IMHO the purpose of a corporate ethics statement is twofold:

      1. To communicate to employees what is expected from them in the day-to-day conduct of business, and
      2. To offer protection to the corporation itself should any employees be caught in unethical acts.
      The first reason is obvious, and really needs no explanation: "Here are the rules." The second is a bit more obscure, but open to easy parsing.

      If an employee does something unethical, for example: Tells lies publicly in the company's name, the company can point to the published ethics policy and claim that the action is solely the responsibility of the individual, not the company, because it is absolutely against company policy.

      They can then spank the employee(s) (or get rid of them) and have the company fully covered.

      If there is no published policy the company may be held accountable for the actions of an employee.

      Considering those two major reasons for a company having a public ethics policy, and the timing of the appearance of the policy being discussed, it appears more that the second reason is predominant: To insulate the company and put the blame on individuals should the wheels fall off their wagon.

      Normal company politics in action ...

      ---
      --
      Tom
      en.gin.eer en-ji-nir n 1: a mechanism for converting caffeine into designs.

      [ Reply to This | # ]

      SCO's Ethics In Wonderland
      Authored by: mhoyes on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 10:13 PM EST
      I started reading through this and I have to agree that it is very hard to do so in one sitting without breaking up. The first that really hit me was:
      prohibit our directors, officers and employees from accepting any bribe, kickback or improper payment from anyone;
      Then I got to:
      require clear and precise communication in our contracts, our advertising, our literature, and our other public statements and seek to eliminate misstatement of fact or misleading impressions;
      and it made me wonder about the definition of clear. Then, there was this:
      prohibit our representatives from otherwise taking unfair advantage of our customers or suppliers, or other third parties, through manipulation, concealment, abuse of privileged information or any other unfair-dealing practice.
      and it was almost too much.

      Makes me wonder if we can report to the ethics officer about the problems.

      meh

      [ Reply to This | # ]

      SCO's Code of Ethics based on Alfacell's COE?
      Authored by: belzecue on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 10:26 PM EST
      Looks like SCO and Alfacell have something in common: their code of ethics documents. Sure looks like line-for-line copying to me. Who is the original author? Is there a relationship between the two companies? Did one copy from the other or did they both copy from a third party? Did they work from a standard and freely available template?

      SCO's PDF contains this text:

      Document comparison done by DeltaView on Friday, November 07, 2003 10:03:13 Input: Document 1 C:ndelocgardiner.samThe SCO Group Code of Conduct(5).doc Document 2 C:ndelocgardiner.samThe SCO Group Code of Conduct(2).doc

      Alfacell's page is dated 16 November 2003. Which came first? Does it matter?

      [ Reply to This | # ]

      SCO's Ethics In Wonderland
      Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 10:45 PM EST
      Consequences of a Violation

      Directors, officers and employees that violate any laws, governmental regulations or this Code will face appropriate, case specific disciplinary action, which may include demotion or immediate discharge.
      I can imagine some 'appropriate' actions, and I'd pay good money to watch ... Should be quite an extended show, with plenty of half-time action. I wonder if they could get Janet J. to do the half-time entertainment? Wouldn't that be ironic!

      [ Reply to This | # ]

      This is sad :-(
      Authored by: photocrimes on Sunday, February 29 2004 @ 12:06 AM EST
      I'm not sure what to think here. Just checked out the news on the SCO homepage.
      Remember when they used to gravy pick all of the DiDio type pro SCO news to post
      there?

      Well, either they have given up or just can't tell sarcasm when the see it. Or
      option #3, someone hacked their site and replaced the links.

      Note their top story:

      Feb 23 – SCO selling Linux licenses online, cnet news

      yet the link takes you to none other than the Register:

      http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/53/35757.html

      Actually, a lot of the links look messed with.

      ---
      //A picture is worth a thousand words//

      [ Reply to This | # ]

      SCO's Ethics In Wonderland
      Authored by: blacklight on Sunday, February 29 2004 @ 01:01 AM EST
      SCO Group ethics? It's either an oxymoron or the punch line to a joke. The Open
      Source community's non-profit organizations could probably raise some funds by
      reproducing that code on toilet paper.

      [ Reply to This | # ]

      SCO's Ethics In Wonderland
      Authored by: borneo on Sunday, February 29 2004 @ 01:30 AM EST
      There is a biais that has not been developped on groklaw ( or i have miss
      something ) that i would point. I will take an example. In France there is laws
      to protect someone private life, included the right that nobody publish a
      picture of you without your prior consentement. But there is also the right of
      free news and journalism. So if a picture of you had been taken and publish
      that's is part of a news there is no need for prior consentement ( you are a
      witness, or a victim of a fire and you appears near your home in fire when they
      made the report.). When someone complaint the judge must see if there is not
      conflit beetwen both legislation and then choose the one that must apply.
      In the case of SCOG there is a legislation concerning copyright OK, but seems
      to me that there is a anti trust legislation and some good law concerning
      concurrence and competition.
      So what happens if SCOG wins his case ? The end of any competition on the
      market of the desktop and may be on the server side too.
      Why ? UNIX system are not dedicated toward the desktop: they are text base
      system that programmers enjoys as much as they burden basics customers . They
      need Xwindows, and a lot of utilities that did exists uniquely under the GPL
      (KDE, GNU DESTOP, XIMIAN etc..). On the server side it is the same bug: whitout
      Samba, nmap and others gpl'ed utilities Unix system will definitively don't work
      at all or become far less competitive than Microsoft product.
      Even the APPLE computer will loose a great part of his « sex appeal » without
      some bunch of GPL'ED utilities.
      It appears that there is today only one alternative to Microsoft and this is
      LINUX.
      You can see this by SCOG distributing a CD of GPEL'D (including Linux) and free
      sofwares along his Unixware product. So if SCOG win he is out of the market and
      so are IBM, NOVELL, SUN, HP and others. As a general rule there is actually no
      UNIX sytem working that is not a mixed with GPL'ed and free and open software.
      So why not ask the judge to say : oh i cannot go along You SCOG because this
      will go against general rule concerning competition on the market and antitrust
      law. So SCOG this is an anti trust case and i will made an injonction that
      prohibed you to reclaim on this specific alleged IP in order to preserve
      competition and your own OS as a competitor.

      IS it possible at ALL ?

      Forgive me for my bad english.

      [ Reply to This | # ]

      SCO and Nuance Communications
      Authored by: RedBarchetta on Sunday, February 29 2004 @ 01:35 AM EST
      I recently visited The SCO Group's website, and I couldn't help but notice a "5 REASON TO USE UNIX OVER LINUX" splash graphic.

      Clicking on the graphic led me to a section where they tout many case studies including one about a familiar company, Nuance Communications. For those who don't know, Nuance Communications is an enterprise level speech recognition engine company. One of their customers is Charles Schwab, Inc., amongst many, many others.

      After reading the entire section on SCO's site regarding Nuance, something wasn't quite right... something gave me the impression that I was reading outdated material. The manager they quote speaks of Unixware 7.1 in glowing terms. One seems to get the impression that Nuance is very enthusiastic about using Unixware 7.1 (that in itself set off a few alarms).

      So I decided to visit Nuance's web site to see if they had any information that pertained to SCO, or contained any endorsement of SCO.

      On Nuance's main web page there is a link to an announcement about their latest version. Following this link, there is another link to a data sheet that, among other things, announces the languages they support, as well as the operating systems they support. Lo and behold, here is what I found out about the latest version of Nuance's speech recognition engine:
      Operating System [platforms supported]:

    • Windows 2000
    • Sun SPARC Solaris 2.8
    • Sun x86 Solaris 2.8 (for Intel)
    • IBM AIX

    • Nowhere do they list SCO's Unixware!   But do notice how they support IBM's AIX!! (points at SCO and laughs).

      However, I do remember a time when Nuance Communications supported Unixware... and it was years ago. At the time, they only supported it because it was one of the many 'NIX's that they wanted to support. From what I recall, it wasn't even a popular platform. They had 1 test bench for SCO's Unixware, and it was located in a cold, desolate part of the building (ok, I embellished this). But seriously, it wasn't a popular platform. Windows NT was the dominant platform them, and seems to be now (Win2000).

      How do I know all of this? I not only live minutes away from Nuance Communication, but I used to work for Nuance back in 1998 when they were a fledgling start-up company.

      [ Reply to This | # ]

      Counter to Future Ligation
      Authored by: shareme on Sunday, February 29 2004 @ 06:52 AM EST
      A question since the logic of this document escapes most of us..

      Could thi sdocument be acounter to future ligation that SCO Group sees coming
      from investors/stockholders, FTC, SEC, and etc?

      Even then its admitally very weak.. thoughts?

      ---
      Sharing and thinking is only a crime in those societies where freedom doesn't
      exist.

      [ Reply to This | # ]

      SCO's Ethics In Wonderland
      Authored by: Peter H. Salus on Sunday, February 29 2004 @ 11:40 AM EST
      For a great view of Darl's view of his own "ethics,"
      see The New York Times' Business Section (29 Feb '04).

      I can't decide whether I'm more disgusted by him or
      by the Times for "buying" this guff.

      Peter

      ---
      Peter H. Salus

      [ Reply to This | # ]

      hard to get excited about this
      Authored by: technoCon on Sunday, February 29 2004 @ 05:38 PM EST
      i've never seen anything involving "corporate ethics" that didn't
      sound self-servingly oxymoronic. I think that corporate ethics policies are the
      equivalent of "close cover before striking" on a matchbook. Everyone
      ignores them.

      If I'm a lying, cheating, weasel, some corporate ethics policy will transform me
      into John Paul II? Right. Nobody reading or writing or signing such ethics
      statements believes they're worth anything. The only effect such has is an
      increase in the hypocrasy in the world.

      Political debate often includes phrases like, "you can't legislate
      morality." But you can make it corporate policy? No, a person is good or
      evil and acts accordingly because of who s/he is. That should be the focus,
      within the individual.

      Corporate morality is seen a group's actions, not in its paperwork. When a
      company closes shop for Sabbath (or Sunday) keeping, or in any other way puts
      right & wrong over profits, that means something.

      OK, it's Sunday, and you've heard from a Baptist Sunday School teacher.
      <grin>

      [ Reply to This | # ]

      Companies who paid SCO...
      Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, February 29 2004 @ 10:57 PM EST
      It seems SCO found 3 patsys : I would advise anyone seriously considering their
      insanity to meet with a good attorney and ask them about the purpose of the
      non-disclosure agreement and what remedies it offers any purchasers should the
      SCO Group's claims be laughed out of court. Specifically, I would remind anyone
      thinking of paying of demanding a refund clause in the case wherein their claims
      are found to be non-enforceable. At this point, they may not even hold any
      copyrights. If you pay them, you stand to lose your money, and then you stand to
      have to explain to shareholders why you paid for an unnecessary license if it is
      thrown out of court. You might also have to explain why you paid for a
      non-refundable license under a non-disclosure agreement.

      There are three companies that will have to explain this to shareholders
      already. They were disclosed by the SCO Group attorneys under a letter to IBM
      from Mark J. Heise, of Boies, Schiller and Flexner. Those companies are Questar,
      Computer Associates, and Leggett & Platt. I imagine that if they paid a
      significant amount of money to the SCO Group and they are later found to be
      false claims, they will have to explain to shareholders the reasons for their
      payments of non-refundable monies.

      I'm sure P.T. Barnum smiled.

      [ Reply to This | # ]

      SCO's Ethics In Wonderland
      Authored by: Greebo on Monday, March 01 2004 @ 03:27 AM EST
      Hi,

      I'm very late in the day with the comments here, but for what it's worth....

      I used to work for a small semiconductor company in the UK (Based in Plymouth, and with the same kind of 'Ethics' as SCO I might add. It wouldn't surprise me if Pat, Tony and Darl knew each other!), which also published a 'code of ethics' policy like this. The trouble was that when you read the fine print it basically said that you are responsible for all your actions. Also, if you refused to sign this document (Yes, you had to sign, not just read and understand!) then it affected any future pay awards!

      So what that basically meant is that if i sign my name to a chip that goes into a Pacemaker, and then some guy falls over dead because it had a fault (that could have been for any number of reasons), then I Personally am responsible for that persons death, and can be sued. Not the company. Me!

      My point here is that this might be a similar attempt by SCO, since they seem to hold the same standard of 'Ethics' as this other company. They can now hold up this document, and say to everyone, "But we told our employees to be honest. It's not our fault if a rogue person filed an incorrect SEC filing".

      Seems to me like they're setting the ground for a quick get away and a legal "Get out of Jail for free" at some point.

      Also, Netcraft are reporting that the www.thescogroup.com has been having outages. Anyone know about this, or have i missed the thread?

      Cheers,

      Greebo.

      ---
      --------------------------------------- --
      Recent Linux Convert and Scared Cat Owner

      [ Reply to This | # ]

      Authors
      Authored by: mobrien_12 on Monday, March 01 2004 @ 04:38 AM EST
      Ok that should have been Alfacell not Alcatel. Sorry

      Alfacell Author info: "Donna"

      Possis Author info: "esullivan"

      SCO Author info: "deanz"

      [ Reply to This | # ]

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