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May 22, 2003
Suspicious Minds
History Lesson: Once upon a time there was a company (D) that made an operating system called CPM. Another company (M), supposedly partners with D, made compilers for the BASIC language. The two worked together to port the OS and compiler to multiple small processors. Then the M company decided to go it alone and made (some claimed ripped off) an OS for a client (called MS-DOS). Sometime later, company D manufactured a better version of M's operating system (called DR-DOS).
Still with me? DR-DOS ended up with Caldera who took Company M (Microslush) to court in the first (of multiple) case of monopolistic behavior. Ultimately the case was settled by Microslush paying up. Over 900 boxes of evidence were collected and stored by Caldera which clearly documented the wrong doings of company M.
Speed forward to earlier this year. SCO (who owns Caldera, or vice versa) claimed that Linux infringes on their IP rights - a case which is not going to help the Linux community. even if SCO is blowing hot air. Company M announced yesterday that they would purchase a license to use this IP from SCO. Today, the news broke that SCO is destroying the evidence from the Caldera trial because it is too expensive to keep. The documents are being turned into toilet paper.
Obviously the two news items are not in any way related. Even the most cynical person (like myself) couldn't imagine company M buying their way out of trouble. Could you? Seriously. Next you will be suggesting that M is capable of abusing its' position as a virtual monopoly. (Mutter mutter mutter). Oh, sorry they have done that already.
I personally think, the important point to this story is that it confirms the iLoo rumours. All that was holding it up was some toilet paper and company M has just purchased that (along with IP) from SCO :rofl.
More details here and at slashdot (no link provided due to Slashdot stupidity about XML readers).
Posted by Ozguru at May 22, 2003 11:05 PM
