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| What Did Microsoft Know About SCO's Plans and When Did It Know It? |
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Sunday, June 27 2010 @ 02:27 PM EDT
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What did Microsoft know about SCO's plan to attack Linux, and when did it know it? And was it a force behind it? We've long wondered. Certainly there have been indications that it was. Michael Anderer's
leaked memo in 2003 certainly claimed Microsoft had been funneling money to SCO, but SCO said he was mistaken. Was he? He later also said that Microsoft had a patent plan to destroy Linux or force them to pay for licenses, but that's another chapter. Was he wrong about that? And when BayStar funded SCO in 2004, it was reported that Microsoft had asked BayStar in 2003 to do it, which Lawrence Goldfarb later confirmed in a Declaration submitted by IBM in the SCO v. IBM litigation, despite Microsoft's denial. But it was still a little bit he said, she said, although all the available evidence was strong that Microsoft's carefully worded denial was not, shall we say, the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
But now, thanks to a volunteer working on doing the exhibits in the Comes v. Microsoft antitrust litigation as text, we find an email thread in Exhibit 8953 [PDF] where Microsoft employees, including the managing director of Microsoft in India at the time, mention SCO in a discussion about heading off the Linux threat in India. The emails are dated September 11, 2002. Given the date, I believe this opens up the question of Microsoft's involvement once again. At a minimum, it needs clarification. If it doesn't demonstrate Microsoft knowing about SCO's plans before they unfurled, what does it mean? I'd like Microsoft to tell us. Because I have a lot of questions about the email thread.
First, the date. Let's put it in a timeline context, in reverse chronological order, because this email thread is before any public mention of SCOsource and long before SCO sued IBM.
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Microsoft announced it had paid for a SCO license in May of 2003.
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SCO sued IBM in March of 2003.
- SCOsource was
announced in January of 2003.
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David Boies was announced as representing SCO in January of 2003.
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Darl McBride said in August of 2003 that when the company filed its stock sales plan in January of 2003, it was "months before legal action was contemplated" in the context of trying to claim there was no connection between the two. I think we can put that in the hardy har bucket.
- The Microsoft email thread mentioning SCO is dated September of 2002.
- Darl McBride joined SCO as CEO in June of 2002, according to this SEC filing, and he is described as "responsible for the Company's strategic direction and planning".
Does it not strike you as strange, given the timeline, that here in September of 2002, Microsoft seems to have known something was pending that would be helpful to Microsoft in its Linux competition that related to SCO? It does me.
Some Microsoft employees are discussing an EDGI-like education plan for India, and Rajiv Kaul, then managing director of Microsoft in India, says this:Am in Redmond this week. Wanted to catch up with you. You might be aware of the work Bric team is doing on the proactive EDGI like proposal. Given the impact of Education market in India globally for us and the threats from Linux and piracy, I want to make this a big bet plan in India (post Novell - Sco and Trishul).
If you recall,
EDGI was about pushing Microsoft in India so as to head off Linux and StarOffice use there in government and education. This email says Bill Gates thought they should just give away their software in India and wherever necessary to head off the threat, and that is part of what is being discussed, because some disagreed about giving it away for free. But EDGI was not restricted to India; it could be implemented wherever needed. I believe this exhibit may be a smoking gun. At a minimum, it calls for clarification, and if and when SCO v. IBM starts up again, I believe it could provide a basis for limited discovery on this very topic or if Michael Anderer is put on the stand, it opens up a fruitful thread. Regulatory bodies are also completely free to investigate whether it was indeed Microsoft using SCO as an anti-competitive weapon against Linux in violation of antitrust law.
The email mentions Novell, SCO and Trishul, and I thought it might be referring to an inside name for the strategy, since that is the name of a Trident air defense missile ("The Trishul air-defense missile is intended to counter a low level attack with a very quick reaction time and has an all weather capability."), but it is also possible it's referring to a Microsoft employee who heads up the Runtime Analysis & Design research group, so I've written to him asking him which it might be or if he can clarify the email. Meanwhile, take a look. The reference to Novell is more puzzling, but it is certainly possible, given the evidence that SCO thought Novell would join them, that Microsoft back then thought so too.
Update: Here's the link to Microsoft project, or "plan", named Trishul, on a speakers page, where it says this about Microsoft's Arumugam Saravanan:
Contributed to conceiving and developing “Trishul” plan as a core member with Sanjay Mirchandani, Rajiv Kaul and Tarun Gulati
*************************
Plaintiff's
Exhibit
8593
Comes V. Microsoft
From: Vidur Luthra
Sent: Wednesday, September 11, 2002 2:59
PM
To: Vinay Kumar
Subject: FW: Meeting to discuss India Education
plan
Importance: Low
-----Original Message-----
From: Sherri Bealkowski
Sent: Wednesday, September 11, 2002 1:17 PM
To: Rajiv Kaul; David Driftmier
Cc: Karishma Kiri; Vidur Luthra; Anne Pression;
Mallica Sarkar
Subject: RE: Meeting to discuss India Education
plan
Importance: Low
Hi, Rajiv. Actually we are proceeding on another path for
developing countries called a Country
License, which is a concept that has been approved by
Allchin, the board, the BLT etc, for more
thinking and development with India as the first potential
test case. Unfortunately the BRIC Windows
team was in India while we were working this as part of a
greater Linux project and we just were able to
fill in Vidur this week. Our concept is broader than
Windows as well. I don't want to do something cool
for Windows and create a bunch of sockets for Staroffice!
The work that Vidur and team did with you in
India however is extremely valuable as foundation for the
country license concept.
We are aware of Billg's plan to visit India and want to
give him something smart and innovative to
announce as part of a larger global education initiative.
(Bill likes the free idea but he's the only one I
know of who does! :)
Let's catch up, and I will include David Driftmier, who
owns the project on my team. David, can you get
this scheduled please?
Sherri
-----Original Message-----
From: Rajiv Kaul
Sent: Wednesday, September 11, 2002 12:15 PM
To: Sherri Bealkowski
Cc: Karishma Kiri; Vidur Luthra; Anne Pression;
Mallica Sarkar
Subject: Meeting to discuss India Education plan
Hi Sherri,
Am in Redmond this week. Wanted to catch up with you. You
might be aware of the work Bric team is doing on
the proactive EDGI like proposal. Given the impact of
Education market in India globally for us and the threats
from Linux and piracy, I want to make this a big bet plan
in India (post Novell - Sco and Trishul). Have discussed
with MichaelR too on this You must also be aware of
Bill's views on what we should do from a market
perspective
in this space in India. I feel we need a different
startegy and plan, where we dont give s/w away free but
build a
end to end program which offers value to the
segment.
Wanted to sync up on our thinking and get your inputs. We
are working on an announcement with Bills trip to
India in mid Nov.
If we can spent 30- 45 mins tomorrow first half, it would
be great. Else Fri - let me know what time slots work for
you.
Thanks,
Rajiv Kaul
General Manager
Microsoft India
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| Authored by: webster on Sunday, June 27 2010 @ 02:51 PM EDT |
.
Refer to the Pick.
.[ Reply to This | # ]
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- Three Big Problems with GNU/Linux --Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt - Authored by: webster on Sunday, June 27 2010 @ 03:54 PM EDT
- Three Big Problems with GNU/Linux --Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt - Authored by: SpaceLifeForm on Sunday, June 27 2010 @ 04:57 PM EDT
- Three Big Problems with GNU/Linux --Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 27 2010 @ 05:18 PM EDT
- A wonderful summary Webster, thank you. - Authored by: RPN on Sunday, June 27 2010 @ 07:32 PM EDT
- Three Big Problems with GNU/Linux --Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt - Authored by: tknarr on Sunday, June 27 2010 @ 08:55 PM EDT
- Three Big Problems with GNU/Linux --Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt - Authored by: vonbrand on Sunday, June 27 2010 @ 10:54 PM EDT
- Not just age which is the problem. - Authored by: globularity on Monday, June 28 2010 @ 02:38 AM EDT
- The Goldfarb Declaration-Groklaw 10-09-06 - Authored by: wvhillbilly on Monday, June 28 2010 @ 11:42 AM EDT
- Three Big Problems with GNU/Linux --Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt - Authored by: RogerO on Monday, June 28 2010 @ 12:05 PM EDT
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| Authored by: artp on Sunday, June 27 2010 @ 03:00 PM EDT |
Eror -> error in title, please.
Discuss PJ's errors of opinion elsewhere. [They aren't really errors, you just
don't agree with them.]
---
Userfriendly on WGA server outage:
When you're chained to an oar you don't think you should go down when the galley
sinks ?[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: artp on Sunday, June 27 2010 @ 03:03 PM EDT |
Off topic. Don't stay on track, please.
---
Userfriendly on WGA server outage:
When you're chained to an oar you don't think you should go down when the galley
sinks ?[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: artp on Sunday, June 27 2010 @ 03:06 PM EDT |
See "Comes vs. MS" link above to see what's left.
---
Userfriendly on WGA server outage:
When you're chained to an oar you don't think you should go down when the galley
sinks ?[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 27 2010 @ 03:34 PM EDT |
Regarding "Trishun", it is a project of some kind, according to
http://www.microsoft.com/india/mes2005/speakers.aspx
Arumugam
Saravanan, Managing Director, Global Delivery Center India ... Contributed to
conceiving and developing “Trishul” plan as a core member with Sanjay
Mirchandani, Rajiv Kaul and Tarun Gulati
Regarding the timeline,
Novell reported in their
trial brief that
In late 2002, SCO approached Novell and asked
Novell to be part of a campaign to extract licenses from the Linux community
based on supposed infringement of the SVRX copyrights.
The quote
could be referring to that particular approach.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 27 2010 @ 03:38 PM EDT |
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http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/trishulc/
I
am a senior researcher at Microsoft Research leading the Runtime Analysis &
Design (RAD) research group, which is part of our Research in Software
Engineering (RiSE) organization. My areas of interest are programming languages,
compilers, runtime systems, computer architecture, and parallel and distributed
systems. I am currently focused on improving the performance and
energy-efficiency of web services both from a client and data center
perspective.
Hmm, data center perspective....EV1 comes to
mind...seems like it could tie together somehow.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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- A suggestion - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 27 2010 @ 05:11 PM EDT
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 27 2010 @ 04:03 PM EDT |
BRIC = Brazil Russia India China. The term has been used in recent years to
refer to the four giant countries that are experiencing rapid economic growth. [ Reply to This | # ]
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- BRIC - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, June 28 2010 @ 05:58 AM EDT
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 27 2010 @ 04:31 PM EDT |
The first thing I thought of when reading that was the DR-DOS
lawsuit.
IIRC, the DR-DOS lawsuit was passed from Novell to Caldera,
which also acquired several UNIX properties about the same time, although I
think they were still calling themselves "Caldera" when the DR-DOS case
ended.
After looking on Wikipedia: The timeline doesn't really fit this
explanation--the DR-DOS case supposedly ended in 2000[1] (the article
has a [citation needed] on this) and this email is from 2002. Another tidbit,
also "[citation needed]": While the DR-DOS settlement was originally believed to
be $150M, it was shown to be $280M when the settlement agreement was
released in 2009.[2]
Speculation time: Could Microsoft have
used the DR-DOS settlement as cover to initially fund the SCO "sue Linux"
campaign?
Wikipedia articles mentioned above: (written URLs are to the
current revision; links are to the revision I cite in this post)
- h
ttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO_Group
- h
ttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARD_code
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Laomedon on Sunday, June 27 2010 @ 04:50 PM EDT |
Interesting find!
When I first read the email, my first thought, in
devil's advocate mode and not having been familiar with "Sco" back then, was:
"Sco", who is he referring to? weren't "The SCO Group" known as "Caldera" back
in 2002?
A little digging first confirmed Stockholders approval of the name
change occurred on May 16, 2003:
From SCOXQ.PK's 2003
10-K:
We originally incorporated as Caldera Systems, Inc., a Utah
corporation ("Caldera Systems"), in August 1998, and reincorporated as a
Delaware corporation in March 2000, when we completed an initial public offering
of our common stock. In May 2001, we formed a new holding company in Delaware
under the name of Caldera International, Inc. ("Caldera International") to
acquire substantially all of the assets and operations of the server and
professional services groups of The Santa Cruz Operation, now known as
Tarantella, Inc. In connection with this acquisition, Caldera Systems became a
wholly-owned subsidiary of Caldera International. Former holders of shares and
options to purchase shares of Caldera Systems received an equal number of shares
and options to purchase shares in Caldera International.
On May
16, 2003, our stockholders approved our corporate name change from Caldera
International, Inc. to The SCO Group, Inc. As used herein, the "Company" or
"us," "we," "ours," or similar terms refer to The SCO Group, Inc. and our
operating subsidiaries.
However, apparently Caldera was doing
business as "The SCO Group" at least as far back as August 2002 as evidenced by
this press release from Aug 28 2002:
http://ir.sco.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=97856
The SCO
Group Reports Third Quarter Results; Operating Results Exceed
Expectations
LINDON, Utah, Aug. 28 /PRNewswire/ -- The SCO Group
(SCO), a Caldera company, today reported higher than projected revenue of
$15.4 million for the three months ended July 31, 2002.
The Company
reported a net loss for the three months ended July 31, 2002 of $4.5
million, or $0.35 per common share. Excluding non-cash expenses of $0.7
million and a restructuring charge of $1.2 million, the net loss for the
quarter would have been $2.6 million, or $0.20 per common share. This
compares to a net loss of $6.6 million, or $0.47 per common share, for
the prior quarter ended April 30, 2002, which included non-cash expenses of
$2.2 million, and compares to a net loss of $18.8 million, or $1.35
per common share, for the comparable quarter of the prior fiscal year, which
included non-cash expenses of $9.8 million.
"In our continuing drive
toward profitability, the Company is beginning to see positive financial
improvement from prior periods," said Darl McBride, president and CEO. "Revenue
in the Americas was stronger than the previous quarter for the first time in the
last five quarters and worldwide revenue was level with last quarter. Our
deferred revenue increased by $3.6 million, from the prior quarter,
reflecting continued strength in our bookings and future business," continued
McBride. "On the operations side, our gross margin increased from 65 percent to
74 percent and at the same time we reduced world- wide quarterly operating costs
by an additional 6 percent compared to last quarter." said McBride.
So the referenced "Sco" could very plausibly refer to "The SCO Group".
Perhaps someone familiar with SCO back then could chime in as well.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 27 2010 @ 04:51 PM EDT |
| See Victor Raisys
timeline comment on GL
PJ's 2008 story covering some of the same ground
The timeline
should be updated to note that Raisys has since returned to work an executive
position at Microsoft. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 27 2010 @ 05:03 PM EDT |
mentioned in the same breath in Rajiv Kaul's email 20020911,
ties in with the NewsPick story on FUD (see Webster above)[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 27 2010 @ 05:09 PM EDT |
06.14.10 IBM Alerts IDG About “Microsoft Allegedly Trying to Derail IBM by Using
SCO as a Surrogate.”
http://techrights.org/2010/06/14/microsoft-linux-slander-from-sco/
“[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.”[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: IMANAL_TOO on Sunday, June 27 2010 @ 05:37 PM EDT |
This thread was 'discovered' a year ago at http://techrights.org.
They have an IRC log at
http://techrights.org/2009/01/17/big-bet-post-novell-sco/
They also link to a patent owned by Microsoft but created by Trishul
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-85342158.html
Hope this helps!
---
______
IMANAL
.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: IMANAL_TOO on Sunday, June 27 2010 @ 05:41 PM EDT |
From http://www.few.vu.nl/~srijith/masters/trishul-mobile.php. A snippet:
In this project the student will begin by understanding the design and
implementation of Trishul JVM. He/she will then port the current implementation
of Trishul onto the OpenMoko mobile device.
Project in detail
Trishul JVM enhances the security and policy enforcement capability of Java
Virtual Machine by adding the functionality of information flow control through
information tracing and implementation of a pluggable policy engine module.
Currently Trishul is implemented on an Intel 686 architecture. Since Trishul
would find wide usage in a mobile platform, we are very interested in porting
the current implementation to a mobile phone/device platform. The plan is to use
the OpenMoko platform which uses an open source (read hackable) implementation.
More details can be found at OpenMoko.org.
etc
---
______
IMANAL
.[ Reply to This | # ]
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- FUD Poisoning - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 27 2010 @ 06:08 PM EDT
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 27 2010 @ 05:50 PM EDT |
In 2002 Microsoft knew it had big problems with windows and that the system
needed a major re-write and upgrade.
Anyone in the industry would know that would take years. Microsoft felt *very*
threatened by Linux and needed to buy lots of time.
IIRC they acknowledged in either 2001 or 2002, they needed to build major new
versions of Windows.
It has always seemed to me that Microsoft's fear with Linux was that IBM had
made a massive financial commitment to Linux (announced in 2000) when IBM's
Irving Wladasky-Berger
stated that IBM would commit a billion dollars to Linux.
Microsoft then had a serious problem. They needed to rebuild Windows and at the
same time hold back Linux and frustrate IBM.
It is thus my opinion that Microsoft made a surprisingly effective effort using
tSCOg as a proxy and what we all saw was the 7 years pre-paid litigation that
has helped protect Microsoft's desktop empire despite the disaster of Vista, but
despite the apparent success of Longhorn (took a lot longer than they expected)
they didn't really stop Linux securing the role of premier server system across
the globe.
This has been a case of industrial warfare of the highest order and for very
high stakes.
DSM[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: IMANAL_TOO on Sunday, June 27 2010 @ 05:52 PM EDT |
MS interest may originally have begun with Office competitors in India, see
http://techrights.org/2009/01/15/ms-edgi-in-india-vs-staroffice-linux/
.
---
______
IMANAL
.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 27 2010 @ 06:57 PM EDT |
of the court, DoJ, States AJs, and the press.
What is the probability of Microsoft pulling it off with so
many Microsoft employees in the know?
If Microsoft did fund/promote SCOG's attacks, then it
backfired because OSS is stronger and better branded now.
Lets see how Microsoft deals with cloud computing,
virtualization, HTML 5, and 80 core CPUs. IIRC, embrace,
extend, and extinguish. Maybe Microsoft should remain under
court supervision.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 27 2010 @ 07:56 PM EDT |
| http://academic.research.microsoft.com/Paper/5892038.aspx [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 27 2010 @ 08:00 PM EDT |
| Or part of a larger assault on Linux? [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 27 2010 @ 10:24 PM EDT |
| Trishula Trishul, Trisula
and Trisul all seem to be variations of the same word. It refers primarily to an
historical weapon and Hindu and Buddhist religious symbol. Google counts 319,000
hits for Trishula and 209,000 for Trishul, so it's pretty commonly used to name
things. It makes sense for it to be used as a code name for for a project in
India. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: pcrooker on Sunday, June 27 2010 @ 11:35 PM EDT |
From a quick "Comeing" of the transcribed Comes docs, I found the
MichaelR could be Michael Rawding. At the time Mr Rawding was President,
Microsoft Asia Pacific, and Corporate Vice-President, Microsoft Corporation. He
is referred to in: http://www.microsoft.com/singapore/mssg_docs/952.aspx
See transcripts 7117 and 5927 where MichaelR receives emails.
One question, was it just McBride and SCO that approached Novell for assistance
in their nefarious scheme? I wonder if someone from Microsoft spoke to Novell
about their ownership of copyrights, etc? That didn't come up in either
trial....[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, June 28 2010 @ 01:05 AM EDT |
RBC provided $30 million of the $50 million in the Baystar deal. RBC claimed
it was a "hedge" position for client. Ultimately, they sold their
shares to Baystar for pennies on the dollar which enabled Baystar to recover
their $20 million plus a small profit. It's pretty clear that RBC served as
Baystar's "backstop". Who was the client at RBC? Did they have a
relationship with Microsoft? Nobody seems to have pursued this angle.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, June 28 2010 @ 03:06 AM EDT |
I would like to suggest that the conspiracy started even earlier. It is likely
that Darl McBride was handpicked by MS to lead Caldera specifically to attack
Linux. He was chosen for two reasons 1) his demonstrated litigiousness and 2)
his ability to maintain a high public relations profile.
So I am suggesting it is likely that MS had mapped out the campaign even before
McBride's appointment (including the name change to SCO as a public relations
exercise to claim the real SCO's heritage)
Peter[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, June 28 2010 @ 03:47 AM EDT |
| here's the entry from the SCOTUS blog:
www.scotus
blog.com
I Cannot Wait ...
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, June 28 2010 @ 04:11 AM EDT |
(Sorry, couldn't resist)
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, June 28 2010 @ 05:58 AM EDT |
Rajiv Kaul - Sep 11
2002:
"Am in
Redmond this week. Wanted to catch up with you, You
might be aware of the work
Bric team is doing on the
proactive EDGI like proposal. Given the impact of
Education
market in India globally for us and the threats from Linux
and
piracy, I want to make this a big bet plan in India
(post
Novell - Sco and
Trishul)."
Maureen O'Gara -
Jan 10
2003:
Maureen O'Gara of LinuxGram posts a
story that SCO
is planning on suing Linux vendors for using proprietary
Unix
intellectual property ..
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: schestowitz on Monday, June 28 2010 @ 07:04 AM EDT |
| This antitrust exhibit and the relation to SCO was also covered by Techrights
last year. For those who are interested:
Hope
this helps. ---
Roy S. Schestowitz, Ph.D. Medical Biophysics
http://Schestowitz.com | GNU/Linux | PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, June 28 2010 @ 10:08 AM EDT |
I found an link that describes what I would call a trident (three pronged spear)
as a trishul. If trishul is an Indian word for trident, maybe we need to be
looking for a Microsoft project / strategy called Trident....[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: sproggit on Monday, June 28 2010 @ 10:33 AM EDT |
This is, without doubt, a fascinating mail trail and another insight into what
happens at Redmond. But I remain unconvinced that it's any more than that.
There may be those in the audience who do not have experience of working in very
large corporations, so as a result those people may not understand how strange a
place big companies can be.
For example, and naming no companies by name...
It is quite common to see corporations using books such as Sun Tzu's "The
Art of War", or Machiavelli's "The Prince" as course books for
junior managers making their way on the corporate ladder.
At workshops and in training courses, companies don't ask, "How can we be
best in market?" or "How can we beat this competitor to release a
product with features X, Y and Z?" Instead, they ask, "How can we
destroy Competitor X?"
At strategic "brainstorming" sessions, nothing is off limits. If an
idea offered is [to coin the phrase] illegal, immoral or indecent, one hopes
that it gets filtered out by management before being implemented, but for that
to happen the organisation needs a "corporate conscience". Those of
you who followed the HP pretexting scandal saw first-hand what happens when a
corporation loses that conscience.
another expression used in the automotive industry is of a "car designed by
committee" [a poor design]. Large corporations use a term, "Risky
Shift" to describe what happens when a group of people are asked to make a
decision. Classical psychology shows that in most cases, a group of people will
take a higher-risk, more radical strategy if the participants do not feel
personal accountability for the decisions they are asked to make. Companies who
understand this create just such an environment to "push the envelope"
and *encourage* radical, creative, thinking. Which gets me back to the point
about corporate conscience.
Don't get me wrong, the emails that come with the Comes exhibits are a
fascinating portal into the Microsoft world. However, much as I find their
actions towards Free Software to be morally repugnant, I think it's important to
point out that we don't yet seem to have a proper smoking gun.
To paraphrase and borrow from PJ, the "ladder theory" here would be an
email trail that proposes a definitive anti-Linux strategy that we have evidence
was actually implemented. A good example would be, as we saw in the recent SCO
vs. IBM trial, the email about "sending a jab PJs way" that resulted
in a smear by Maureen O'Gara.
Let's keep the train of thought going.
Assume that the evidence is there, it's found, and it makes it to the public
domain. Then what? A Lanham Act case? Brought by whom? An Attorney General
somewhere? Sure. Let's all find an Attorney General who hasn't received
"Campaign Contributions" and has nothing to hide and has a willingness
to go after a corporation that pays an awful lot of Federal Taxes, and probably
just as much in lobbying.
Much as I would like to see this happen, it just don't think it's too realistic.
Seriously, the best I think we can hope for is for something to be found that
totally destroys Microsoft's credibility in the corporate marketplace. They're
like the school-yard bully and at the moment none of the other kids (perhaps IBM
notwithstanding) are willing to go toe-to-toe just yet. That landscape might
change if those companies that depend on the Microsoft "marketing
support" dime finally see the economic landscape change away from Redmond.
After all, isn't the email that PJ shares here a story about Microsoft giving
away software to Indian schools to ensure that Indian students grow up using
Windows and not Linux. Tie that sort of thing together with emails; show that
managers are aware they could be in Lanham Act territory and maybe - just maybe
- this has got some legs.
But it's worth remember that the Microsoft juggernaut makes billions of dollars
every year. That's a big incentive for Microsoft to play fast-and-loose with the
rules, and we have seen that they are not afraid of doing so.
But we don't have a smoking gun yet, even if this is quite close. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, June 28 2010 @ 10:53 AM EDT |
Sco only sued Novell when they realized they didn't have the Unix patents. They
didn't seem to have a pre-established plan to sue Novell. [ Reply to This | # ]
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- Not convincing - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, June 28 2010 @ 11:51 AM EDT
- Patents? - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, June 28 2010 @ 11:57 AM EDT
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, June 28 2010 @ 11:58 AM EDT |
| Microsoft is trying very hard not to "lose to Linux". This is from May 2002:
link
quote:
"... 1. How to best help
developing countries jumpstart the establishment of an
effective educational
infrastructure that can leverage the benefits of
technology
2. How to
effectively win against the no-cost/low-cost competitor in large
government
deals (i.e. “Don’t lose to Linux”).
This proposal is squarely aimed at the
second issue, although there is
considerable overlap between the two. There are
deals (primarily large
government deals in developed countries) that fall
outside of the first issue
but are still included in the second. However, the
majority of instances where
Microsoft finds itself addressing the first issue,
it will be addressing the
second at the same time. Consequently, providing
assistance to developing subs
is a subset of the larger problem of responding to
the large deals.
..."
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, June 28 2010 @ 08:28 PM EDT |
Here's what EDGI is -- to help shed a little light (from
http://techrights.org/2009/01/04/microsoft-edgi-secrets/ )
--Quote begins
From: David Driftmier
Sent: Tuesday, August 06, 2002 2:46 PM
To: Anna Aubry; Candace Grisdale
Cc: Christine Bomstead; Kurt Kolb
Subject: RE: “EDGI” Marketing funds
Importance: High
EDGI is a customer-focused program that is for circumstances (like the one you
reference) where an education and/or government customer is going to purchase
naked PC’S or PC’S w/Linux. IF we do everything possible it still comes down to
price differential between the Windows PC’s and Linux PC’s, then we can invest
some/all of the royalty revenue from the deal back to the customer in the form
of training, services, or even rebates. For more detail see that attached and
let me know if you want to chat before your call. Note: This is not a partner
program and is MS-internal only.
[...]
--Quote ends
There is Q&A on that link that explains the program further (including the
process diagram with FUD and how to Never Lose, Escalate).
Speculation on Trishul: A three pronged attack?
-srr[ Reply to This | # ]
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