[Am-info] A hundred million funnelled from Microsoft to SCO...

[Roy Bixler]

On Fri, Mar 05, 2004 at 09:33:15AM -0800, Mitch Stone wrote:
> And BayStar continues to deny that any Microsoft funding went to SCO. 
> Short of a factual refutation of that statement, we're left with little 
> more than circumstantial evidence and contradictions.

Sure, and Microsoft continues to deny it too as does SCO Group.
However, I note that when a reporter asked the Microsoft spokesperson
whether anyone from Microsoft has anything to do with the Baystar
funding, they declined comment.  I was skeptical of the Microsoft
connection myself, but now I am more convinced.  Why does SCO Group's
rhetoric fall so closely in line with what Microsoft has to say about
open source and the GPL?  Why does SCO Group wage such a public FUD
campaign and file so many lawsuits that they don't really have much
hope of winning?  By the way, their publicity campaign has hurt them
in court with the IBM case.  Why did the BayStar funding start just a
few days after the date of the leaked memo, which explictly said that
the BayStar funding was a Microsoft referral?

Of course, it's still possible that Microsoft's involvement may be
strictly limited to buying a Unix licence that they really don't need
so they could help SCO Group's FUD campaign by crowing about their
"respect for intellectual property rights."  I'll continue to watch
this with great interest and I hope the IBM, Red Hat, Novell and
Department of Justice attorneys will do some digging to get the facts
of the matter.

R.

-- 
Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on
people.
                -- W. C. Fields