Many don't remember SCO/TSG and their being as patent troll. An example of a non-constructive company that relies on possible legal loopholes.<p>He probably could have contributed something positive but decided against it.<p>Oracle now owns the remainder of it and espouses similar behavior. Perhaps its future is similar as well.<p>They had a product palette with "open" in their product lineup:<p><a href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO_Group" rel="nofollow">https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO_Group</a><p>Strangely reminds me of open AI...
I don't recall anyone talking about him as a person, in association wit "SCO lawsuits". it was always the "SCO group" company that was reviled in the press.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO%E2%80%93Linux_disputes" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO%E2%80%93Linux_disputes</a><p>Remember Microsoft buying into the lawsuit on SCO's side?<p><a href="https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/fact-and-fiction-in-the-microsoft-sco-relationship/" rel="nofollow">https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/fact-and-fiction-in-...</a>
"I have never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure."<p>-- Misattributed to Mark Twain<p>(Apparently a variant of a line by Clarence Darrow: <<a href="https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mark-twain-obituary-pleasure/" rel="nofollow">https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mark-twain-obituary-pleasu...</a>>.)
And nothing of value was lost.<p>That loser (no really, he lost every case) set back the whole industry by several years when he tried to poison the reputation of Linux and Free Software. I shudder to imagine my career arc if he’d succeeded in destroying it.<p>The most delicious part of the whole case was when Novell stepped in and mooted it by showing that they never actually sold their software to SCO, just the licensing rights.<p>Youngsters here, this is also one of the reason so many of us absolutely detest Microsoft. They used SCO to try and destroy open source software legally instead of through offering better products: <a href="https://practical-tech.com/2003/05/21/cyber-cynic-the-microsoft-sco-connection/" rel="nofollow">https://practical-tech.com/2003/05/21/cyber-cynic-the-micros...</a><p>And there there was reporter Dan Lyons who was all-in supporting SCO and telling the world why Linux was going to come out the loser. Oopsie! He later claimed he was just too bad at his job to understand the situation (<a href="https://www.forbes.com/2007/09/19/software-linux-lawsuits-tech-oped-cx_dl_0919lyons.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.forbes.com/2007/09/19/software-linux-lawsuits-te...</a>) To this day I close an article with his byline, assuming it’s also completely wrong.
> Two weeks after the announcement, FOSS writer Maureen O’Gara, evidently working in cahoots with SCO, published an article in Linux Business News that identified PJ as Pamela Jones, and which contained unverified personal information about her, including a photo that was said to be of her home. Also published were the addresses and telephone numbers that purportedly belonged to Jones and her mother.<p>I feel like this behavior would be widely condemned and a black eye today in a way that wasn't yet felt at the time. It's possible that a civil suit could have gained ground today. Personally, I'm glad SCO went to hell. May all patent trolls join them in time.
Weird, I was looking him up online a few months ago, wondering what had happened to him, and the software he got from SCO (SmallFoot I think the name was).<p>He was such a weird character at the time and the whole law suit seemed to be on everyone's mind, even if we didn't think SCO would ever win. Thinking about a person like this, going home in the evening and having dinner with the family always makes me wonder what motivates them. Well money, but surely he also believed that he was in the right?<p>It's a little sad that this two-bit manager was ever placed in charge of SCO. He was pretty much responsible for breaking SCO and ruining the lives of so many of it's employees. I'd like to have had SCO around, it was a fascinating relic of a different era. Not that they would have survived long in any case.<p>Still I'm also a little happy that he went out an did stuff afterwards.
It's strange it went unremarked. I remember the times, and I felt that SCO was all wrong; not evil, but wrong. But, ALS is a bad way to go, whoever you are.