Rupert Goodwins' Diary

Friday 5/03/2004
Another week gone, another thundering great slab of grade-A entertainment from the boys at SCO -- a week in which they sued two huge American companies over minor contractual details and pretended it was all about Linux; in which a memo leaked that tied them firmly to Microsoft's purse strings but they pretended was all about something else; in which their claims that Computer Associates had bought a licence were firmly denied by Computer Associates; and their claims that Ev1Servers had done a deal 'worth seven figures' was roundly denied by Ev1Servers. And SCO thinks of itself as 'like the RIAA'.

And on, and on.

We also learned that not only does chief executive Darl McBride carry a gun to protect himself from 'enemies', but that he has a unique take on what exactly the company is selling with those Linux licenses of theirs. As reported in the Investor's Business Daily, someone asked whether, should the ongoing lawsuits reveal that SCO doesn't in fact have any claims on Linux IP, SCO would refund the licensing fees.

""McBride jumped in: "You don't call up your auto insurance company and say, 'Hey, I didn't get in a car wreck'.""

Which is an odd attitude: insurance companies don't go around threatening you with the destruction of your car if you don't pay them money. Tony Soprano does that. Packs heat too, if I remember correctly, and has a nice line in money laundering -- you know, that thing you do when you want to get lots of money but want to disguise its origin.

Hm.

"Microsoft also indicated there was a lot more money out there and they would clearly rather use Baystar "like" entities to help us get signifigantly [sic] more money if we want to grow further or do acquisitions" -- consultant Mike Anderer to Chris Sontag, general manager of SCO Source, the IP arm of SCO.

It really is better than anything you get on telly. Can't wait for next week's instalments -- but given that it revolves around SCO's vision of the world, could it really be called reality TV?